# What movies or books do you take the "wrong" thing away from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 11, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402 "2010-09-11T14:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/101 "2011-06-14T18:39:15Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > **Jurassic Park** - A dinosaur theme park would be cool. Hell, even Disneyworld had its teething troubles. yeah but when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/102 "2011-06-14T18:43:36Z")
I thought Ferris was a little too lucky and cocky, but the butt of the jokes (Ed Rooney) was goofy enough that watching him suffer misfortune was still entertaining. I was also entertained with Ferris’ elaborate setup with the dummy and message machine (to make people think he was still at home). Ferris is supposed to voice the message of the movie at the end (live life before it passes you by), but for me it is kinda overwhelmed by the absurd level of luck Ferris gets throughout the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/103 "2011-06-14T19:04:49Z")
> [@Johnny\_Q](#): > > Wasn’t Young Master Bruce only saved because the Bad Guy’s gun jammed or he ran out of bullets and didn’t have time to reload? I seem to remember that from some iteration of the story. Joe Chill was about to kill young Bruce Wayne, but Pity stayed his hand. “It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets,” he thought. I also started plotting \*Rent II: Bennie’s Story \*after seeing _Rent_. This is the story of an ambitious young real-estate developer being held back by a bunch of no-account slackers. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/104 "2011-06-14T19:12:12Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > the only thing that irritated me was the drawing of Elastigirl. Why on earth would they draw her with such an out of proportion body? Narrow waist, but hips that would have put her in a circus side show. Narrow her hips, and her body isn’t even an issue. But I’m stuck looking at her fat ass and hips for 2 hours. Why did they do that to us!? GAH! and for God’s sake, she’s _Elastigirl_. Surely any of us with her powers would rearrange things a bit. The one movie I really took the wrong way was Pitch Black. At the beginning of the movie some of the marooned space castaways think they should execute the convicted psycho-murderer prisoner in their midst, given that resources are limited and he is a thousand times more bad-ass than any of them and they are worried he might kill them for fun. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t judge people just because they have viciously murdered innocents. The bad guy saves the castaways (though I don’t remember how). The castaways remaining after the evolutionarily improbably ravening birdy beasties eat most of them, that is. But I couldn’t stop thinking after the movie, “you know I never thought about the possibility before, but if I do ever get marooned with a small group that includes a known psychotic killer, I’m definitely in the “execute him/her” party.” ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/105 "2011-06-14T20:09:33Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > yeah but when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists That you know of. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/106 "2011-06-14T20:18:19Z")
All this talk about Full Metal Jacket and Vietnam novels and nobody mentions that the movie was based on a Vietnam novel? [The Short-timers by Gustav Hasford](http://www.amazon.com/Short-timers-Gustav-Hasford/dp/0712608354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308081964&sr=1-1), which came out originally in 1979. It’s a terrific book. It’s also impressionist, in that every line is feeling rather description. Like many wonderful novels that cast a spell on the page, it’s not filmable as is and so had to be translated for the screen. Hasford participated in writing the screenplay, but everyone involved has a different story about what he did. He died back in 1993, so it’s no use asking him. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/107 "2011-06-14T20:21:40Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > yeah but when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists Surprisingly enough, quite a few people have died at Disneyworld. > **[List of incidents at Walt Disney World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_at_Walt_Disney_World_Resort)** > > This is a summary of notable incidents that have taken place at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The term "incidents" refers to major injuries, deaths, loss (or injury), or significant crimes related to the attractions themselves, or personal altercations and incidents between the theme park guests and employees. Attraction-related incidents usually fall into one of the following categories: > According to a 1985 Time magazine article, nearly 100 lawsuits are annually filed against Disney... For some reason I have a bizarre fear of embarrassing deaths. Can you imagine how humiliating it must be to be killed by a Beuaty and the Beast parade float? If that happened to me and I wasn’t already dead I’d think I’d die of embarrassment. At least there’s a little dignity in being killed by a T-rex. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/108 "2011-06-15T01:55:58Z")
I saw **The Devil Wears Prada** and I don’t remember Meryl Streep’s character as terminally ill. Did I miss something? In **Sweet Home Alabama** I wanted the two guys to dump the lying, spoiled bitch (Reese Witherspoon) and end up with each other. In **Far and Away** , the audience cheered when Nicole Kidman’s character’s parents cheated at the land race and took a section of land from deserving homesteaders who needed it, while they had an estate in Ireland and could easily have bought any land they wanted. I thought they deserved to be shot like the other cheaters. StG ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/109 "2011-06-15T02:52:49Z")
I agree that Mark and Roger should just suck it up and take jobs from corporate clients - you can still have fun, that’s what spare time is for - and that there’s not really anything that beautiful and romantic about being ‘bohemian’ (aka being a middle class person who is poor on purpose) - but I disagree about Benny. I think he’s a jerk. The three of them were thick as thieves when they were younger, and now that Benny has “made it”, he lords it over his former best friends by talking down to them and trying to control their lives (he shouldn’t have offered to not charge them rent, but doing it in exchange for them lying to Maureen and telling her to cancel the protest is pretty low). One of the movies that I still persist in taking the “wrong” thing away from is _The Social Network_. At the end, the intern tells Mark “you’re not an asshole, you’re just trying to be one”. I think that’s supposed to be the point - that he’s trying to be cool, in a frat-boy, assholish way, throughout the whole movie, and that’s what drives his interactions with people. But I felt like Jesse Eisenberg just played Mark as the quintessential geek - he’s completely socially unaware, and doesn’t understand how his actions emotionally affect others. When he does things that hurt his friends, he isn’t trying to show them he has mettle, he’s just making decisions based on a pure, logical, cost/benefit analysis. And many of the really jerkish things that Facebook does in the movie were actually Sean conducting slimy business behind Mark’s back. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/110 "2011-06-15T03:49:59Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > Joe Chill was about to kill young Bruce Wayne, but Pity stayed his hand. > > “It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets,” he thought. _slight hijack_ That was definitely one of the more memorable lines in “Bored of the Rings”. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/111 "2011-06-15T04:11:55Z")
X-Men Movies: Power is very, very bad for women. Jean: driven mad and then became evil because her powers were too much for her Rogue: gave up her powers (so she could get a man) Mystique: betrayed and killed; I can’t remember what annoyed me so much now The only woman who survived with her powers was Storm. I think that was a kind of racism, as if she didn’t really matter because she wasn’t white, so they didn’t have to destroy her. Mysogynistic tripe. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/112 "2011-06-15T04:41:14Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > My turn: **The Giving Tree**. I swear to gods, when I was five, I thought the moral of the story was: People are bastards and will fuck you over. Don’t get taken in. You know the older I get the more I think this is a useful lesson to teach little children. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/113 "2011-06-15T04:50:33Z")
Into the Wild: Don’t be a prick to people that care about you and don’t get in over your head with things you know nothing about that will get you killed. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/114 "2011-06-15T06:49:21Z")
> [@j66](#): > > X-Men Movies: Power is very, very bad for women. > > Jean: driven mad and then became evil because her powers were too much for her > > Rogue: gave up her powers (so she could get a man) > > Mystique: betrayed and killed; I can’t remember what annoyed me so much now > > The only woman who survived with her powers was Storm. I think that was a kind of racism, as if she didn’t really matter because she wasn’t white, so they didn’t have to destroy her. :eek: What in the world made you look at the X-Men movies this way? And even then, the only one you’ve got accurate is Jean. Rogue gave up her powers because whenever she touched someone they dropped into a coma. It wasn’t just some man, it was the fact that she hadn’t touched another human being in years. And Mystique wasn’t killed, she just lost her powers. _Which she used to cause mayhem and murder for decades._ I don’t even know what you mean by saying it was “racism” that Storm lived through the trilogy. And I guess Professor X and Cyclops and all the male characters who died had it coming huh? > [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > One of the movies that I still persist in taking the “wrong” thing away from is _The Social Network_. At the end, the intern tells Mark “you’re not an asshole, you’re just trying to be one”. I think that’s supposed to be the point - that he’s trying to be cool, in a frat-boy, assholish way, throughout the whole movie, and that’s what drives his interactions with people. But I felt like Jesse Eisenberg just played Mark as the quintessential geek - he’s completely socially unaware, and doesn’t understand how his actions emotionally affect others. I loved the movie, but it honestly irritates how far the “real” Mark Zuckerberg is from the movie Mark. Nobody can know for sure what he was thinking, but even in the book that was written just to trash him, Zuckerberg comes out looking like an angel. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/115 "2011-06-15T13:25:37Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > Into the Wild: Don’t be a prick to people that care about you and don’t get in over your head with things you know nothing about that will get you killed. [That is precisely the lesson that Alaska’s park rangers would like you to take from this film.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless#Cultural_legacy_and_criticism) ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/116 "2011-06-15T14:25:17Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > Into the Wild: Don’t be a prick to people that care about you and don’t get in over your head with things you know nothing about that will get you killed. If you think this is the “wrong” message to take from the story, what on Earth do you think the “right” one is? ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/117 "2011-06-15T15:29:06Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > If you think this is the “wrong” message to take from the story, what on Earth do you think the “right” one is? A lot of people thought this story was inspiring. Maybe I got the right message and they were the ones that were wrong. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/118 "2011-06-15T23:17:57Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > :eek: What in the world made you look at the X-Men movies this way? And even then, the only one you’ve got accurate is Jean. > > … > > And I guess Professor X and Cyclops and all the male characters who died had it coming huh? It has been a while since I saw the movies, and I will never watch them again, so I will accept your corrections of fact. (If you want a well reasoned and accurate treatise on a series of movies and role of women in society, as me about the Aliens.) However, I remember that most of the males survived with their powers intact, and those that didn’t died being all brave or noble or something. Not like the major female characters. As for Mystique, she didn’t murder and torture for decades in the movies. (And Rogue’s character could have been a great way to reach kids about safer sex.) I would never recommend that movie to girls. It’s just terrible. How about _Silence of the Lambs_? The only men who took Clarise seriously professionally were one serial killer & cannibal and two entomologist geeks (I loved those characters). Lesson: Normal men do not take women seriously professionally. Get used to it, the best you can hope for is for one of them to get eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/119 "2011-06-15T23:54:18Z")
> [@j66](#): > > How about _Silence of the Lambs_? The only men who took Clarise seriously professionally were one serial killer & cannibal and two entomologist geeks (I loved those characters). > Lesson: Normal men do not take women seriously professionally. Get used to it, the best you can hope for is for one of them to get eaten. Yes, that was confirmed when Clarise was killed and flayed at the end, wasn’t it? Why, if she had prevailed and her FBI boss had congratulated her at the end for a job well done, shaking hands with her nearly as if she were a _man_ . . . why, that would almost be carrying some kind of _message_, now woudn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/120 "2011-06-16T00:27:15Z")
A few people have mentioned Breakfast Club and their angst that the nerd was the only one who didn’t get a love interest. Well, IRL, the nerd (Brian) and the popular girl (Claire) hooked up after the filming of that movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402.md?page=7)