# Movie WTF moments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954 "2006-03-19T02:04:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/141 "2006-03-23T16:52:23Z")
This is not the kind of WTF moment that everyone is talking about, but it’s what leapt immediately to mind: my sister and her boyfriend happened across _Grizzly Man_ on television a month ago, and watched the whole thing with the assumption that it was a fake documentary along the lines of _Best in Show_. She got into a conversation with a co-worker about it the next day that went something like this: Sister: I thought it was really funny. Co-worker: Funny? The guy was eaten by a bear! Sister [put out]: It’s not like it was real or anything. Co-worker: It _was_ real! Sister: It couldn’t be real! There’s no _Gulliver’s Travels_ theme restaurant! She didn’t believe her co-worker until she read a few articles about the movie on-line. Seriously. I should mention that my sister and her boyfriend are both adults, well educated, and not particularly known for spending their evenings hitting the cough syrup. Since I saw the film already knowing the story, I can’t really speak to how clueless the two of them were being. I would have thought the Discovery Channel doesn’t show fake documentaries, but Treadwell was pretty over-the-top, I guess. Anyway, she certainly had a WTF moment. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/142 "2006-03-23T17:14:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, On Earth, there is no more night – one sun or the other is always in the sky. This is supposed to be a good thing, a gift to humanity. WTF?! It’s just going to screw up our ecosystem! What about all the organisms adapted for nocturnal living?! Actually, thinking this through: There WOULD still be times where we had night, jupiter would be far enough around the solar system that it would appear in the sky during sunlit-daylight hours, right? I’m not an astrophysicist, so I could easily be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/143 "2006-03-23T17:31:30Z")
> [@Ichbin Dubist](#): > > This is not the kind of WTF moment that everyone is talking about, but it’s what leapt immediately to mind: my sister and her boyfriend happened across _Grizzly Man_ on television a month ago, and watched the whole thing with the assumption that it was a fake documentary along the lines of _Best in Show_. She got into a conversation with a co-worker about it the next day that went something like this: > > Sister: I thought it was really funny. > Co-worker: Funny? The guy was eaten by a bear! > Sister [put out]: It’s not like it was real or anything. > Co-worker: It _was_ real! > Sister: It couldn’t be real! There’s no _Gulliver’s Travels_ theme restaurant! > > She didn’t believe her co-worker until she read a few articles about the movie on-line. Seriously. I should mention that my sister and her boyfriend are both adults, well educated, and not particularly known for spending their evenings hitting the cough syrup. Since I saw the film already knowing the story, I can’t really speak to how clueless the two of them were being. I would have thought the Discovery Channel doesn’t show fake documentaries, but Treadwell was pretty over-the-top, I guess. Anyway, she certainly had a WTF moment. Having seen Grizzly Man, the Discovery Channel cut, which is probably what your sister and her man saw, I can say I have no idea how they could think that. None of it is played for laughs. Some of it is funny but the same way some things are always funny in documentaries regardless of the subject. Weird human interactions and the dude was just so crazy as to be funny sometimes… But to think it’s Chris Guest style mockumentary… Wow you have to be pretty out of touch. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/144 "2006-03-23T18:29:48Z")
With respect to _2010: Odyssey Two_ (I did see the movie but am more familiar with the book): [spoiler]I think the aliens were just trying to preserve the unique brand of life that had evolved on Europa, not necessarily individual species that happened to be there at that particular time. The book made it quite clear that without their intervention there would be no life on Europa within (I think) a matter of millennia. The books and movies also had already made it quite clear the aliens think and plan on much longer time scales than that. Similarly the aliens wouldn’t care if SOME Earth species died out, as long as most or even some Earth species, and especially humans, could continue. Anyway isn’t the inscrutable alien intelligence a hallmark of Arthur C. Clarke’s fiction? [/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/145 "2006-03-23T18:32:46Z")
> [@Kaboodle](#): > > My WTF moment comes from Pirates of the Caribbean. I loved the movie. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment but, then again, I didn’t realize it until long after I had seen the movie. > > [spoiler]In the scene towards the end of the movie where the pirates have walked under water to try and take over the British Man-o-War. There’s a huge swordfight all over the ship. The pirates, as skeletons, are fighting the British troops. At this point, the pirates are still ‘undead’ and _might_ be hurt but can’t be killed. > > When people swordfight, the clang and clash of blades is to prevent your opponents blade from striking you. Why didn’t any of the pirates just let themselves be ‘stabbed’? It _might_ hurt but it won’t kill. While your opponents blade is in you, kill him and go on to the next. > > When the curse is lifted and the pirates realize then can be hurt or killed, they stop fighting and surrender. The penalty for piracy is hanging. Now that the curse is lifted, surrendering is certain death. If they keep fighting they just might have a slim chance.[/spoiler] > > Can anyone offer an explanation for that? Pirates aren’t very smart. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/146 "2016-07-22T09:46:10Z")
Let’s go back to the Fifth Element. I find it particularly amazing that the Supreme Being was aimed directly at the evil fireball at exactly the right moment. We have to just be glad that the Egyptians built the pyramids in the right place… ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/147 "2016-07-22T13:29:01Z")
Not really a movie, but I could only make it through the first episode of _The Walking Dead_. I thought that someone waking up in a hospital after 6 weeks and being in a spotlessly white hospital gown was totally impossible. I thought, “I really hate **zombies**!” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/148 "2016-07-22T14:41:18Z")
There are plenty of WTF moments in films. Some result from the director liking a shot because it looks gorgeous, or it has some sort of mythic resonance, even if it makes no logical sense.\* One of my peeves is the film _Alien_, which annoys me for several reasons and on several levels, and all the fanwanking in the universe won’t save it for me. I’m particularly annoyed when Ripley goes into the “pod” to talk with the ship computer “Mother”, and suddenly there’s Ash behind her. They fight, and Ash tries to gag her with a rolled-up magazine (a spoon not being handy, I guess). In the tussle, _his head comes off_. Where to begin? 1.) How the hell does Ash get into the Mother pod in the first place? We’;re sorta given the impression it’s a one-person-at-a-time deal. 2.) How does he get in without Ripley noticing? It’s not like it’s a big place, and she wasn’t that intent on Mother. 3.) Why the hell does Ash try to kill her at that point? 4.) Why try to do it _with a rolled-up-magazine_? Is there some symbolism I’m missing there? And, you gotta wonder, _a magazine?_ It’s hard enough to get them nowadays, and they’re on a ship long outta port. You’d think they’d be read to rags if they were print versions. But you’d really think they’d be reading on tablets or something, a la Star Trek over a decade earlier. 5.) Ash’s head coming off and revealing white pus-like stuff is the biggest WTF moment of the movie. In context, you expect this to be some Alien thing, like the Alien has taken him over, or something. The fact that they have robots in the future hasn’t e4ven been established. This is a clear anti-Chekov’s Gun situation. If you want us to buy the idea of future humaniform robots that are indistinguishable from people, you oughtta at least mention it at some point. It’s not hard to slip it into the dialogue somewhere. Scott obviously wanted his Moment of Surprise, and shortchanged his audience. 6.) part of me, raised on the EDmond Hamilton classification of artificial people forms, is still kinda miffed that Ash is called a Robot instead of an Android. This was the beginning of the blurring of the lines of the EH distinctions. \*(As in _Forbidden Planet_, when Altaira’s tiger attacks her after her romantic interlude with Commander J. J. Adams. Makes not a lick of sense in the context of the story, but it’s a great “loss-of-innocence” image, and I guess they couldn’t resist. Oddly, the scene _does_ make sense in the context of the situation as set up in the rarely-read novelization. But the novel ain’t canon) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/149 "2016-07-22T14:48:15Z")
> [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](#): > > Sha Na Na at Woodstock. > > I know they got in the movie because the film crew was getting ready for Hendrix, but what was Sha Na Na doing there in the first place? I felt that way about Kenny Rogers in the _We Are the World_ recording – “who did he blow to get in the room?” ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/150 "2016-07-22T15:51:24Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > There are plenty of WTF moments in films. Some result from the director liking a shot because it looks gorgeous, or it has some sort of mythic resonance, even if it makes no logical sense.\* > > One of my peeves is the film _Alien_, which annoys me for several reasons and on several levels, and all the fanwanking in the universe won’t save it for me. I’m particularly annoyed when Ripley goes into the “pod” to talk with the ship computer “Mother”, and suddenly there’s Ash behind her. They fight, and Ash tries to gag her with a rolled-up magazine (a spoon not being handy, I guess). In the tussle, _his head comes off_. > > Where to begin? > 1.) How the hell does Ash get into the Mother pod in the first place? We’;re sorta given the impression it’s a one-person-at-a-time deal. > > 2.) How does he get in without Ripley noticing? It’s not like it’s a big place, and she wasn’t that intent on Mother. > > 3.) Why the hell does Ash try to kill her at that point? > > 4.) Why try to do it _with a rolled-up-magazine_? Is there some symbolism I’m missing there? And, you gotta wonder, _a magazine?_ It’s hard enough to get them nowadays, and they’re on a ship long outta port. You’d think they’d be read to rags if they were print versions. But you’d really think they’d be reading on tablets or something, a la Star Trek over a decade earlier. > > 5.) Ash’s head coming off and revealing white pus-like stuff is the biggest WTF moment of the movie. In context, you expect this to be some Alien thing, like the Alien has taken him over, or something. The fact that they have robots in the future hasn’t e4ven been established. This is a clear anti-Chekov’s Gun situation. If you want us to buy the idea of future humaniform robots that are indistinguishable from people, you oughtta at least mention it at some point. It’s not hard to slip it into the dialogue somewhere. Scott obviously wanted his Moment of Surprise, and shortchanged his audience. > > 6.) part of me, raised on the EDmond Hamilton classification of artificial people forms, is still kinda miffed that Ash is called a Robot instead of an Android. This was the beginning of the blurring of the lines of the EH distinctions. > > \*(As in _Forbidden Planet_, when Altaira’s tiger attacks her after her romantic interlude with Commander J. J. Adams. Makes not a lick of sense in the context of the story, but it’s a great “loss-of-innocence” image, and I guess they couldn’t resist. Oddly, the scene _does_ make sense in the context of the situation as set up in the rarely-read novelization. But the novel ain’t canon) The whole Ash scene was a very blatant sexual metaphor dude. VERY blatant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954.md?page=7)