# OMG, that was so contrived! (Open Spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485 "2012-02-02T02:03:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [February 3, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/61 "2012-02-03T23:58:35Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Wow. Did not see that coming. ::shrug:: An entire form of comedy is built around it. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/62 "2012-02-04T03:35:24Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Except he’s perfectly willing to obliterate the evidence; he makes clear that he genuinely does not give a crap whether she returns it to him or destroys it. > > Yes, but, as I’d said, I’d have had no problem if – without even mentioning his reasons – he’d paid her to get the stuff back. But since he’s paying her a great deal of money to destroy the stuff, it’s by definition not that sort of a keepsake; he’s perfectly willing to part with it right from the word _“go.”_ I just rewatched that scene, and he certainly does care about it. He says very clearly that he doesn’t want anyone to even open his safety deposit box and that it’s contents are of a great value to him. But if it comes down to him being exposed or the evidence being destroyed, then he wants it destroyed. ETA: He never actually says to destroy it. Jodie Foster’s character says either the box stays closed or it “disappears.” ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/63 "2012-02-04T04:49:25Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > Your solution is to have Ryan Reynolds just there naked..without explanation? I believe this would be an excellent solution to most problems, actually. > [@Superdude](#): > > Oh, and one other example: > > I used to deliver pizzas, and NEVER had a hot chick answer the door in a nightie, invite me in, and engage in carnal relations with me. I was a shift manager at a pizza place and we once had a driver call in and quit in the middle of his shift. Later when he brought back the bag and car topper he explained he had been invited in for a threesome with a couple of chicks and it was worth quitting his job over it. He might have been making that up but it was an amusing enough story that no one questioned him about it. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/64 "2012-02-04T04:56:47Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > I’m currently watching a DVD of _Giligan’s Island_. Where do you want me to start? What’s contrived about it? > **[Gilligan's Island](http://www.skypoint.com/members/camilian/humor/Gilligan.shtml)** > > The real plot line for Gilligan's Island. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/65 "2012-02-04T14:41:20Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I just rewatched that scene, and he certainly does care about it. He says very clearly that he doesn’t want anyone to even open his safety deposit box and that it’s contents are of a great value to him. But if it comes down to him being exposed or the evidence being destroyed, then he wants it destroyed. But that’s kinda my point. Leave out the part about _“then he wants it destroyed”_ and, okay, he certainly does care about the contents, so of course I’d believe the sentimental fool kept that evidence for all these decades; he’s so foolish and sentimental that he still wants it back _ **now!** _ Maybe we’re almost at the point where his head would override his heart; maybe it’s a long way off; maybe there is no such point; I wouldn’t know, and wouldn’t need to know; I’d simply go with it. I’d likewise be fine with the story of a man who destroyed evidence back when: maybe he was just barely sensible enough to do it, maybe he’s capable of making that easy call in harder circumstances; maybe he always goes for the practical solution? I wouldn’t know, and wouldn’t need to know. But for _ **this** _ story, we need a sensible guy who coolly implements _“then he wants it destroyed”_ reasoning – right after decade after decade after decade after decade after decade after decade of sentimental folly. He needs to be smack dab in the goldilocks zone. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/66 "2012-02-04T15:50:50Z")
> [@](#): > > And no comedy works with the audience knowing what’s going to happen, > [@](#): > > As a comedy writer…I respectfully disagree. > [@](#): > > Wow. Did not see that coming. > [@](#): > > I did, and I loved watching it unfold like a nun about to fall down stairs in slow motion… > [@](#): > > I didn’t, but good comedy might just work both ways. > [@](#): > > I did not see that nun coming. I both saw it and didn’t. _[“Honey, can you check on the cat? It’s in a box, and it looked half-dead to me.”]_ ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/67 "2012-02-04T20:48:30Z")
My fanwank of _Gilligan’s Island_ and indeed all of the “wacky hijinks” comedies of the 1960s is that they take place in the same universe as _My Favorite Martian, Bewitched_ and _I Dream of Jeannie_, where the constant use of magic has weakened the fabric of reality. Essentially there are a lot of half-dissipated spells floating around that occasionally latch on to random targets. ---
**Author:** ![merciless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbce88/32.png) [@merciless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merciless)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/68 "2012-02-14T15:13:14Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I forget it’s title but there’s some story about a spaceship that is only given exactly enough fuel to just make it to its destination with no accounting for error such that the extra weight of a single girl stowaway is enough to doom everyone on board if she isn’t spaced. > > Then there’s also the ending of The Pirate Movie but that was done for laughs. I think I read this short story many, many years ago in a sci-fi anthology. If I am not mistaken, it was called “The Cold Equations”. Some girl snuck aboard a supply ship to try to visit her brother(?), but her added mass required that she be ditched. Like I said, I might be wrong about this, but it sure sounds like the same story. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/69 "2012-02-14T16:21:15Z")
I’m rewatching _Mission:Impossible_ (the TV series and not the movies). So much of it depends on people doing exactly what Jim Phelps think they will do. Spoiler alert: the latest one was to convince a young King Greg Brady that the guy he thinks is his protector is actually trying to kill him. They have the King run away when Spock errr… Paris yells to Run! and he gets knocked out (although the way the story was going, it would have been more realistic if Paris had caught a bullet with the back of his head). So Chamo (the protector[?]) is chasing them through a warehouse and the King breaks free and runs to Chamo. Chamo shoots the King! Oh wait, Barney had put up bulletproof glass and the King is saved and knows Chamo wants him dead. It a good thing Jim knew a) Chamo would pick that aisle to wait for the King b) Chamo wanted to kill the King immediately and not kidnap him and do it somewhere else c) The exact range that Chamo wanted to shoot the King at. Another 2 feet and the King would have ran full-speed into the the bulletproof glass. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/70 "2012-02-14T19:37:33Z")
Which might be why Mad Magazine parodied it as “Mission: Ridiculous”. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/71 "2012-02-14T21:17:43Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I had similar issues with Seven and The Game. I came in here to mention _Seven_. Raymond Chandler called this kind of fiction “having God go to sleep on your lap”. Everything in the plot depends on everything going exactly right for the villain, and having the hero do stuff no one in his right mind would do. Roger Ebert mentions something related in his review of one of the _Rambo_ movies. Rambo is hiding in a forest. The Evil Sheriff’s Deputy is looking for him. TESD stops to rest under a tree - Rambo drops onto him from above and kills him. Of all the trees in the forest, how did Rambo know the ESD was going to stop under that tree? I know, nitpicking a movie like Rambo for realism is kind of missing the point, but still… I have never figured out why some of these contrivances drop me out of the story with a clank, and some pass unremarked. It doesn’t bother me that there just happens to be a lactating female ape when Tarzan’s parents are killed, but it does bother me that Mrs. Howell on _Gilligan’s Island_ has a wide variety of outfits, even though she was only supposed to be on a three hour tour. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/72 "2012-02-14T22:09:32Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I came in here to mention _Seven_. Raymond Chandler called this kind of fiction “having God go to sleep on your lap”. Everything in the plot depends on everything going exactly right for the villain, and having the hero do stuff no one in his right mind would do. I think we must have seen two radically different version of the film. Can you give examples? Far from anticipating the hero’s every move, the villain’s lair is discovered much earlier than he expected, and he’s forced to improvise his last three “sins”. ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/73 "2012-02-17T05:16:50Z")
_Down With Love_, but it was aware of its contrivance. “All I had to do was write a bestseller and get every woman in the world to treat Ewan MacGregor as a pariah so that I could lure him in for myself and get my revenge.” The actual explanation was much more long-winded. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/74 "2012-02-17T06:03:24Z")
> [@Renifer](#): > > _Down With Love_, but it was aware of its contrivance. > > “All I had to do was write a bestseller and get every woman in the world to treat Ewan MacGregor as a pariah so that I could lure him in for myself and get my revenge.” > > The actual explanation was much more long-winded. I know, what didn’t I think of that!?! _All_ I had to do was write a bestseller! :smack: It’s like I was watching part of a Greys Anatomy and the alternate “little Grey” was in there and somebody asked her "_why don’t you go to medical school, you’re smart"_. jesszusfuckingcristonapogostick. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485.md?page=3)