Movies with blatantly stupid premises

[brendon_small]

@Tapioca Dextrin

How about a film where a bus exlodes if it goes slower than 50mph? Could a film get any dumber?

(Homer)
“I think it was called - 'The Bus that Couldn’t Slow Down…”
(/Homer)

heheh

Brendon

[DrDeth]

@Exapno Mapcase

You can’t talk about stupid premises and not give first prize to The Matrix.

Winnah!

[Steve_MB]

@Exapno Mapcase

You can’t talk about stupid premises and not give first prize to The Matrix.

I dunno – the premise of invading a planet that’s two-thirds covered with a substance that will kill you on contact is pretty close.

[DrDeth]

Waterworld.

[Mops]

@iamthewalrus(:3=

In this post, Colophon posts a link to the imdb page of Open Water 2, which is a movie thriller about some friends who are out on a sailboat and all jump in for a swim without remembering to put the ladder down. Then they all go crazy and turn on each other until they drown, or something.

From the imdb summary and watching the trailers, this strikes me as so totally stupid, I can only begin to list the reasons why.

[ul][li]It’s a sailboat, which means that, with no one in the boat, it’s got to be anchored, right, or it’d drift away. So they could climb the anchor line.[/li][li]There are like six of them, all athletic, and the preview shows that the deck of the boat is only maybe 5 or 6 feet above the water line. It even shows them making desperate grabs and coming up a foot or two short. C’mon, people. Just get the 4 buff guys to boost one of the 110 lb women up to the deck.[/li][li]They all have swimsuits on. Even with the whispy things that the women are wearing, they could tie them together, throw the line across the bow, and climb up that.[/ul] [/li]
Now, I haven’t actually seen the movie, so it’s possible it’s not quite as dumb as it sounds. But I’m sure (without thinking of them off the top of my head) that there are many others that are. Please share.

As far as I know the “Open Water 2” premise is based on an actual accident (which happened some time in the 1970s, in the Adriatic). I read of it in this book IIRRC. The book said a sailboat was found drifting, and the naked bodies of the crew in its vicinity; the eventual verdict being that it happened that way (all gone for a swim, ladder not put down, attempt to make rope out of bathing trunks failed), and that the insurance company, inclined to disbelieve that did a reconstruction with water polo players who could not make it on to the boat either.

Sounds credible to me, especially assuming the swimmers only think about going back on board when they started to get uncomfortable from loss of heat. That happened to me once when I swam between sailboats in a nice anchorage in the Aegean - the water was fine for the half hour that I swam there and back, but then it turned out that I had misjudged and was already so feeble with heat loss that I could not get up a side ladder - I might have drowned had there not been people on board to haul me up bodily.

[mr.jp]

The matrix? Why?

Another vote for Speed. I mean, a woman who is a good driver. How far out is that?

[DrDeth]

@mr. jp

The matrix? Why?

Energy source??? :eek: :rolleyes: :dubious: I think it violates all three laws of Thermodynamics.

[Terrifel]

@Exapno Mapcase

You can’t talk about stupid premises and not give first prize to The Matrix.

Four words: * “This time, it’s personal.”*

In terms of adjusted dumbness, where d[sub]a[/sub] = dumbness[sub]total[/sub]/(critical acclaim + financial success), I would concede that **The Matrix ** probably scores higher. However, that movie’s exceedingly stupid central premise is more in the nature of a Macguffin; I suggest that ultimately the specifics of *why or how * the computer has enslaved humans don’t really matter to the plot. For all the difference it would make, the Matrix might require humans for some exotic quantum processing mechanism only generated by large numbers of organic brains, or it might just have gone crazy in classic **Star Trek ** fashion and decided to create the universe’s largest potato battery for no good reason.

On the other hand, **Jaws: The Revenge ** demands that the viewer accept unconditionally the premise that great white sharks have the intelligence and ability to enact a ruthless vendetta of bloody retribution on a specific Long Island family across several generations. I therefore submit that **J:TR ** exhibits a higher level of absolute dumbness.

[mr.jp]

@DrDeth

Waterworld.

omg, that’s a good one. After a few generations on water there are many people with gills?!

[Mangetout]

@Steve MB

I dunno – the premise of invading a planet that’s two-thirds covered with a substance that will kill you on contact is pretty close.

I agree. And we’re talking about Signs, aren’t we?

Cue overdefensive arguments about how it was all a metaphor for redemption, or love, or faithfulness, or some such.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@tschild

As far as I know the “Open Water 2” premise is based on an actual accident (which happened some time in the 1970s, in the Adriatic). I read of it in this book IIRRC. The book said a sailboat was found drifting, and the naked bodies of the crew in its vicinity; the eventual verdict being that it happened that way (all gone for a swim, ladder not put down, attempt to make rope out of bathing trunks failed), and that the insurance company, inclined to disbelieve that did a reconstruction with water polo players who could not make it on to the boat either.

Any chance that book was translated into English? That sounds intriguingly creepy, and I’m not sure how to search for it.

[pinkfreud]

Did anybody but me see The Core, in which a group of people pilot a device that drills down to the center of the earth so that nuclear blasts can be set off in order to avert a catastrophe? This one made Armageddon look respectable.

[scotandrsn]

Triumph of the Will, which posits the notion that Hitler is a great guy and we’d all be lucky if he led our country.

[Marley23]

Excellent post, Terrifel. I wish I’d thought of most of what you say. That said, does The Matrix really violate all three laws of thermodynamics? It’s not the stupidest movie ever, but that does deserve some kind of prize.

I haven’t seen the movie CalMeacham mentioned, but Robot Monster is pretty damn stupid. It’s not just the premise, of course.

[Ghanima]

@DrDeth

Energy source??? :eek: :rolleyes: :dubious: I think it violates all three laws of Thermodynamics.

Yeah, well. It’s also real dumb considering that nuclear power would be waaaayyy more efficient and they wouldn’t even have to worry about the radioactive waste.
But I think Waterworld wins the thread. That one stank deep, wide and long.

[Billdo]

@tschild

As far as I know the “Open Water 2” premise is based on an actual accident (which happened some time in the 1970s, in the Adriatic). . . .
Sounds credible to me, especially assuming the swimmers only think about going back on board when they started to get uncomfortable from loss of heat. That happened to me once when I swam between sailboats in a nice anchorage in the Aegean - the water was fine for the half hour that I swam there and back, but then it turned out that I had misjudged and was already so feeble with heat loss that I could not get up a side ladder - I might have drowned had there not been people on board to haul me up bodily.

I could believe it as well. Remember sailboat hulls are designed to be hydrodynamic, without interruptions or projections. Even if the sailboat had just a few feet of freeboard, it would be very difficult to propel yourself (or even fellow swinners) up to the gunwale without a ladder or something to climb on. I’ve tried it after diving off of small sailboats, and had great difficulty. Also, it is not uncommon to just let the boat drift when swimming in calm water away from other traffic.

[Blalron]

@iamthewalrus(:3=

That said, a creature with such a bizarre and destructive life cycle is a pretty stupid thing to exist.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it doesn’t seem so implausible.

[Leaper]

@Marley23

Double Jeopardy, with Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones. A woman is framed for her husband’s murder, and upon her release from jail, she sets out to find him and kill him. She’s told she can do this with impunity because she cannot be convicted of kiling her husband twice. :rolleyes:

Granted, she’s told this by a fellow prisoner (if I remember the ads correctly), who obviously wouldn’t be the most reliable source of legal information, and given her emotional state, I can see her believing it. But, again if I remember correctly, I read that Tommy Lee Jones’s character, the cop, takes this little legal misunderstanding seriously, as if it were true. THAT is the dumb part.

[vivalostwages]

@Marley23

The weird thing about this movie was how much critics loved it. I seem to remember Ebert in particular falling over himself to praise Swinton for playing a regular person in over her head with the whole blackmail thing. I was surprised by how stupid it was.

Count me in on this one. I could not believe how anyone could be such an idiot.
And, not that I’m an expert on hiding corpses, but who the hell would dump a dead body in frikkin’ SHALLOW WATER? Swinton’s character–that’s who. And then she has to go out to it again in a boat to retrieve some keys, and…Oh, never mind. It just gets worse and worse.

I know I’ll be pounded for this, but…House of Sand and Fog, oh dear. Gal doesn’t read her mail, gal loses her house, cop risks wife and family to help gal who’s now living in car, he threatens the family that moved into her house, teen boy gets shot, husband kills wife and then self, and then gal feels bad. Don’t even get me started on the unbelievable scenario of a teenage boy having a heart-to-heart with his dad while taking a dump–because they’re stuck in the bathroom, locked in there by the cop, blah blah blah.
They all took way too long to die.

[Malienation]

@Terrifel

In terms of adjusted dumbness, where d[sub]a[/sub] = dumbness[sub]total[/sub]/(critical acclaim + financial success), I would concede that **The Matrix ** probably scores higher. However, that movie’s exceedingly stupid central premise is more in the nature of a Macguffin; I suggest that ultimately the specifics of *why or how * the computer has enslaved humans don’t really matter to the plot. For all the difference it would make, the Matrix might require humans for some exotic quantum processing mechanism only generated by large numbers of organic brains, or it might just have gone crazy in classic **Star Trek ** fashion and decided to create the universe’s largest potato battery for no good reason.

On the other hand, **Jaws: The Revenge ** demands that the viewer accept unconditionally the premise that great white sharks have the intelligence and ability to enact a ruthless vendetta of bloody retribution on a specific Long Island family across several generations. I therefore submit that **J:TR ** exhibits a higher level of absolute dumbness.

Hmmm, good post… but, in terms of adjusted dumbness, have you considered Terminator II for it’s painful disregard for what science fiction freaks sometimes refer to as the grandfather paradox? Haven’t seen J:TR, so I can’t comment on it’s absolute dumbness…