Stupidity: How on earth did those helicopter gunship pilots survive a tour of duty in Vietnam? They are too stupid to tie their own shoelaces. They have encountered a thirty metre tall ape which is intent on killing the lot of them by grabbing their helicopters and smashing them to the ground, so they have two clear choices - a) use their heavy, mounted machine guns or the grenade launchers fitted to the assault rifles carried by the troops on board to shoot the thirty metre tall ape to ribbons from a couple of hundred metres away, well out of its reach or b) fly straight up to it and present an easy target, allowing it to kill the lot of them by grabbing their helicopters and smashing them to the ground. Every single one of them ticks box b). Idiots.
Stupidity: When Flint Marko is escaping from the police, he climbs a chain link fence into a test facility. Besides having a chain link fence, there should have also been security cameras around the area as well as guards to prevent anyone from trying to get in. Plus, when the scientist notice on their computers that there's an increase in mass, one of them simply assumes it's a bird and then they continue their experiment. Instead of making assumptions, they should have halted their experiment and have someone take a look to see what caused the increase of mass.
Stupidity: The Death Star comes equipped with a powerful tractor beam capable of capturing a ship the size and agility of the Millennium Falcon. Why don't they use it against the rebel fighters attacking them at the end of the film? Okay, Obi-Wan Kenobi turned it off earlier but I find it hard to believe that someone who has never before visited the largest, most complex space station in the Universe and who was previously unaware of its very existence can disable a fundamental security system but the people who designed, built and run the whole thing can't work out how to switch it back on. They should have no problems with this, considering the fact that Obi-Wan didn't damage it.
Suggested correction: Obi Wan disrupted the battle at a critical time causing much confusion. We could chalk this oversight up to "Fog of War" - that in the heat of battle it's normal for commanders to overlook obvious things and seem to act stupidly. It would also be reasonable to assume that the fighters were too close for the tractor beam emitter to target them.
This scenario would require every single person on the Death Star who was involved in the maintenance of vital defence systems not noticing that one of them had been switched off! Not ONE person noticed? Obi Wan did not disable the tractor beam during "the heat of battle." There was a considerable time lapse between his switching off the tractor beam and the climactic final battle, during which time it would have been switched back on. When the Millenium Falcon leavs the Death Star Han Solo remarks that he hopes that "old man" succeeded in disabling the tractor beam, implying that those on the Death Star would be trying to use it. Even then, they didn't notice it had been switched off? Not sabotaged, not disabled, switched off.
Good point. This was definitely stupidity on the part of the Death Star crew, but not stupid as a plot point. It does happen in combat regularly. In 1987 the USS Stark was hit by 2 Iraqi Exocet missiles after challenging a single fighter. The ships' Close-in Weapons System should have easily shot the missiles down, but the investigation showed that no-one had noticed that the system had not been turned on.
They didn't use the tractor beam when the gang was escaping in the Falcon because they WANTED them to get away. The Empire placed a tracking beacon onboard so as to be able to find the hidden Rebel Base. As to how the Falcon was snagged originally: yes, they had just exited hyperspace, but they were not relatively fast; they were preoccupied with the TIE fighter (incapable of light speed) and the small moon right up to the point they were trapped in the tractor beam (and realizing "that's no moon!"
Suggested correction: The Falcon was travelling towards the Death Star when it was caught in the tractor beam. The tractor beam was properly turned back on by the time it travelled to Yavin. The rebel fighters are too small and quick to be held in a tractor beam and there are so many of them so it would be near impossible to trap enough to make a difference.
As I have already pointed out, assigning technical limitations to a wholly fictional piece of technology is absurd. As to "flying towards the Death Star" - the X and Y wing fighters are shown doing just that. As for being too quick, the Millenium Falcon is decelerating from superluminal speeds when it is captured in the tractor beam. That's pretty bloody fast in anyone's books.
The key phrase here is "fictional piece of technology", there is no way to understand how it works. Any explanations is pure conjecture.
It's flat out stated by General Dodonna in the battle briefing that the Death Star's defenses are based around repelling attacks by capital ships, not fighters. The targeting may not be exact enough.
Actually, claiming a fictional piece of equipment can't behave the way you think it should is somewhat silly. The previous explanation that the tractor beam's limitations were the reason for not using it during the battle makes perfect sense.
Stupidity: Steve Trevor is the leader of a group of Allied spies, and they are traveling with a gorgeous woman who has shown to have amazing fighting skills and super powers, but they allow a group photo to be taken with Diana in her armor. They don't know who is taking the photograph nor what they intend to do with it. Their photograph circulating through a news publication or passed on to an enemy's intelligence service could compromise himself and the rest of his team, and they would absolutely know that. Undercover agents do not pose for photographs.
Suggested correction: The photographer is not a reporter, he is one of the villagers. The photo was not taken to be circulated through print media, it was taken by the villagers to commemorate the day they were liberated. There only appears to be one copy of the photograph (which Bruce Wayne finds and sends to Diana), so the likelihood of it falling into the German's hands is incredibly slim.
It does not matter who took the photograph or why, or what he chooses to do with it. Undercover agents do not pose for photographs.
Stupidity: When Anna, Velkan and the villagers successfully trap the gray werewolf in a huge cage, the villagers start firing on it. Anna says they need to use Velkan's gun because it has silver bullets in it. Since everybody knew they were fighting a werewolf, all of them should have had silver bullets for their guns.
Stupidity: Dr. Jekyll must take an injection to keep himself from turning into the murderous Mr. Hyde. Hyde obviously doesn't want Jekyll to take the injections because he wants to remain in control of the body. The time between when he begins to feel himself turn into Hyde and when he has fully transformed is ridiculously brief. Why then does he keep the syringe locked in a box in his desk rather than on his person at all times?
Stupidity: During the execution scene when Carina is on the gallows with a noose around her neck, the plot depends on Henry being able to get to her before she is dropped through the trap door. However, there is so much slack in the hanging rope that during the chaotic fighting, when Carina is left unattended, she could easily have stepped off the small trap door and onto the solid flooring that is inches away. Instead, she continues standing there, waiting to be rescued.
Stupidity: Ultimately, it did wind up working. However when they shoved the antidote vial into Claire's purse and got George's attention so he would eat her, this was an insanely stupid move. 1. They had no way of knowing if he would actually choose to eat her if he even grabbed her in the first place. Before then he'd been crushing people and even threw the helicopter pilot miles off the building while they watched that happen. 2. The antidote was in a plastic polymer like tube designed to hold the substance inside it while submerged in liquid nitrogen containment. Even if the gorilla's stomach acid could eat through the vial to get to the antidote, it would take hours for it to get through a material like that. 3. Gorillas are herbivores, so it wouldn't have tried to eat a person in the first place. (01:17:55)
Stupidity: When they first arrive on Planet Zero, Victor runs his hand through the mysterious green liquid on the planet surface. No scientist in their right mind would ever willingly attempt to touch a body part to an unknown substance. He had no way of knowing if the substance was toxic, corrosive, incendiary, hypothermic, etc. Moreover, none of his companions try to warn him against doing so.
Stupidity: The Engineer and Fireman of the Polar Express train crew should have known better than to not bend back the the metallic prongs of the cotter pin, which would have prevented the cotter pin from coming loose and causing all those problems in the driving of the train.
Suggested correction: As you yourself stated, the whole thing is likely a dream, where "normal" reality doesn't apply. In the "real world", the train would never be able to do any of the things that it does in the film.
Dream or not, it is still a stupidity of the train crew to not secure a pin that could work itself free of the controls of the locomotive.
Dreams are often unrealistic. There is no mistake.
The entry doesn't say anything about the entire trip to the North Pole being a dream.
Stupidity: After the team break Solomon Lane out of custody, they drive around Paris with him in the front seat of their car. Lane is still wearing a straightjacket, bound in chains and has a black bag over his head. The IMF team drive him through crowded streets, past multiple police cars in full view of everyone just minutes after an armoured convoy transporting a dangerous prisoner (who everyone is now looking for) has been attacked. None of the Parisian police seem to notice this and none of the IMF team questions the tactical soundness of this approach.
Suggested correction: What's stupid about this approach? The IMF team is trusting that with their skills and experience they can easily evade any police that spot them. Which of course they do. Placing Lane in the trunk would have kept him out of sight but that doesn't really matter because they weren't planning on sneaking him out, they were planning on a quick escape.
Stupidity: It's stated that Imhotep will fear cats until he has fully regenerated and two different scenes show him fleeing in terror at the sight of a cat. Despite this, none of the characters that Imhotep is trying to kill that are fully aware of his weakness even think to have a cat with them at all times.
Stupidity: Beck wants to kill Peter's friends because they know his secret. Instead of using Edith to attack them directly with a drone strike, or using his illusion technology to lead them into the path of a train like he did with Spider-Man, he instead has a henchman drive them onto a bridge and leave them in the path of his next Elemental attack. Because absolutely nothing is forcing them to stay on the bridge, they all casually walk off the bus and out of immediate danger. It is unfathomable that a man as intelligent and resourceful as Beck would take such an idiotic approach, especially considering all he had at his disposal and how desperate he was.
Suggested correction: He wanted it to seem like they were killed in the Elemental attack because it was cleaner. If they were killed by a drone it would be much more suspicious than being killed in the disaster. Once the plan goes wrong, he does simply send an Edith drone after them. If it wasn't for Spider-Man's timing, he would have been successful as well.
But that is the major problem, and why I think it was an egregious mistake in the movie. The plan "goes wrong" because it was idiotic. So idiotic that it is unrealistic that Beck, a highly intelligent person, would have made such a glaring oversight. Leaving the kids on the bridge but not trapping them at all allowed them to make an easy escape.
I think the point is that Beck thinks he is the smartest person in the room and that this plan is going to work. Should he take into account MJ and co's free will, yes, but he is so maniacal (and not thinking rationally) that it does not cross his mind. This is proven by the fact that as his plan is failing around him that he still wants his suit pressed and ready to meet the Queen because it will work out in the end in his mind. Also, to your point, having them walk in front of a train or walk off the bridge, would not make him a hero. He needed real casualties and Peter's friends were the place to start. Finally, in the sequence showing Beck and his team preparing for the attack, he was focused on the theatrics of the attack and, again, thought the size of it alone would work (he wanted it bigger, scarier, more forceful).
Suggested correction: Fury is well aware of the drone system (he berates Peter for misusing it earlier). If Beck simply utilised EDITH to kill the students, it would give away that Beck was using the drones for his own gain. Once Fury was dead, he could have used EDITH had the original plan failed, but he certainly couldn't do it until after Fury (and potentially other SHIELD agents) had been taken out. He was going to attack London no matter what, so he took the opportunity to take out Ned, MJ and Betty at the same time.
This doesn't stop him from using a targeted drone strike to kill the kids, he was planning on using it to kill Fury anyway. The fact that he fails in his strike against Fury is irrelevant to the fact that he needed those kids dead and decided to take a round-about way of accomplishing this goal. Again, he doesn't have to use a drone strike, he is perfectly capable of using the illusion technology to force the bus off a cliff or into some other immediate danger. Having a henchman drive the bus to a bridge and hope the kids are dumb enough not to escape danger when literally nothing is forcing them to just stand there and be killed is ridiculously idiotic.
Suggested correction: Characters, even intelligent ones, are allowed to make bad tactical decisions. Real-life history is replete with examples. Just because it seems unlikely doesn't make it a plot hole.
True - this was originally submitted as "stupidity", which is slightly different, but this seemed like such a massive oversight that it qualified as a plot hole.
Suggested correction: Beck's intentions were to make it look like the kids were killed in the attack by the monster. Had he just killed them with a drone out right, it would have obviously looked like murder and foul play bringing in more investigations and potential problems for him.
But again, he doesn't need to use a drone strike he can use the illusion technology to trick them into an accident. Even what he chooses to do (just leaving them on the bridge) would have also been fine had he trapped them there at all. Just leaving them there without trapping them is so stupid it is unbelievable. It's like leaving someone on train tracks but not tying them up.
Suggested correction: He was an insane person and wasn't thinking fully rationally.
Stupidity: The commando mission to save Chewbacca starts gunning down a few Stormtroopers in the hangar. The heroes then go on leaving the troopers lying down on the floor in front of the ship, in plain view. They don't hide them nor ask the droids (who have enough strength and tools to pull them in) to, in fact they tell them to stay put. No wonder they are found out later (after a ridiculously long amount of time).
Suggested correction: Hiding the bodies would have been a waste of time, anyone who came to the hangar would immediately notice that the guards stationed there were missing and there was now a strange ship parked there.
The droids have all the time in the world, and people just passing by are "more immediately" bound to notice corpses in the middle of a hangar rather than possibly maybe question the fact that you don't see guards in that part of the hangar or investigate the ship - which could approach without anyone taking exception by appearance alone. At least remove the bodies directly in front of the damn ship!
Why would they be more likely to notice dead guards than no guards?
Anyone passing by might well thing the patrols were just out of sync, or a shift change. Sure they might investigate further, but they might not bother. Whereas a couple of dead bodies? Immediate red alert. Worth taking 30 seconds to hide them, surely.
Perhaps, but then it's made irrelevant 1 minute later as Finn and Poe run down a hallway blasting about a dozen stormtroopers.
For that matter, 1 SECOND later they kill stormtroopers in the far part of the hangar. They are killing people all over the ship during their mission and it's not like they hide every single one of them, but they leave two bodies *exactly* in front of their ship (and telling the droids to stay put). You can even see later that there is a stormtrooper with his weapon pointed exactly where those two corpses are, with the 'smart' commanding officer asking "whose ship is this?" at the sight of that. Maybe I am spoiled by a trope here, but it's the first time that I see someone in an action movie leaving corpses right in front of their only escape route/vehicle, that's so counterintuitive. (Did they even have an escape plan, actually? I don't like hypotheticals, but gee, if only she did the Jedi mind trick thing to those 2 guards who came over to inspect the ship instead of doing it later. But I digress).
Stupidity: When the Keymaker is closing the door to the room that leads to the Source, he stands in the doorway resulting in the multiple Agent Smiths gunning him down. He could have easily closed the door without standing in the doorway and consequently would have lived.
Suggested correction: Who says the door was bullet proof and the Keymaker couldn't have been shot through the door?
Having just viewed the scene on YouTube to verify, the door is definitely bulletproof, as the bullets only produce dents in the door and there are no visible holes from the other side of the door when it is closed.
The point of the stupidity is that he shouldn't have been in the doorway at all, even if the door wasn't bulletproof, there was no need for him to even stand behind the closed door. He could have pushed the door closed from the side.
It seems to be a heavy door, he simply couldn't close it with just his arm, thus he had to move his body forwards in order to close it. In that brief moment he got shot before the door closed. He could have for example kicked the door shut but he simply didn't think of that at that moment, also not knowing the Smiths were about to fire a volley of bullets at them.
Stupidity: When Colonel Hardy is about to crash the ship he's flying into a building, Faora sees it and she has more then enough time to leave the ship and get to safety, but she does nothing and just stands there.