Best movie stupidity of 2019

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Child's Play picture

Stupidity: The climax takes place during the launch of the "Buddi 2," a hotly anticipated tech gadget. The entire film has been leading up this point, and it's a big deal that it's being launched. And yet, there are no more than maybe 20 people waiting. Not a mistake per se, but totally unrealistic compared to the huge crowds these sort-of launches typically bring in.

TedStixon

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Suggested correction: Bear in mind, this is just a cheap retail store in downtown Chicago; presumably, every major department and toy store across the country is having a similar event, so this opening would logically only draw people in the neighborhood with children the right age and willing to pay the opening-day price. Plus, we hear a voice on a radio warning of upcoming rain. The report is proven wrong since there's no rain for the rest of the scene, but even a warning of rain would ward some off.

Anson Gordon-Creed

I'll agree to disagree. I live in a relatively small, quiet town in upstate, New York, and events like new tech-launches (new iPhones, video games, etc.), movie premieres, anticipated book releases, etc. still regularly bring in pretty huge crowds at virtually every participating store. (Ex. Lines going out the doors and wrapping around the building.) Heck, I know someone who tried to get the last "Harry Potter" book opening night and couldn't because every local book store was packed completely full. So I have a hard time believing the crowd would be so small. The fact this movie also takes place in a pretty major city like Chicago is another strike against it.

TedStixon

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Terminator: Dark Fate picture

Stupidity: Sarah sends Dani out of the hotel room alone to get food so she can question Grace - they have already been identified and attacked by a terminator and it's still out there.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home picture

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.

BaconIsMyBFF

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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.

BaconIsMyBFF

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.

BaconIsMyBFF

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.

wizard_of_gore

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.

Jon Sandys

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.

Quantom X

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.

BaconIsMyBFF

Suggested correction: He was an insane person and wasn't thinking fully rationally.

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker picture

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).

Sammo

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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.

BaconIsMyBFF

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!

Sammo

Why would they be more likely to notice dead guards than no guards?

BaconIsMyBFF

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.

Jon Sandys

Perhaps, but then it's made irrelevant 1 minute later as Finn and Poe run down a hallway blasting about a dozen stormtroopers.

BaconIsMyBFF

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).

Sammo

More Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stupidity
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark picture

Stupidity: When Ruth catches Chuck fishing for turds in their toilet, he yells at her and asks for privacy and then slams the bathroom door shut. He should have closed the bathroom door in the first place if he didn't want anybody to see what he was doing. It's not like anybody would think he was weird for going into the bathroom and immediately closing the door.

Phaneron

More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark stupidity
Godzilla: King of the Monsters picture

Stupidity: The eco-terrorists leave the Orca completely unattended allowing Madison to take it without anyone realizing until she is long gone. In addition, they don't post any guards at the exit of the bunker and Madison simply walks away without anyone noticing her at all.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Suggested correction: They leave the Orca in their empty command room within a bunker filled with loyal men. There is no way anyone could have broken in and stolen it. Madison had the advantage of already being in the bunker and even then had to navigate through the air ducts in order to steal the Orca and escape. They wouldn't have armed men visible immediately outside because they didn't want anyone to notice that they were there.

Either one of these issues by themselves wouldn't be particularly stupid but the combination of them both would indeed allow someone to just walk in and take the Orca. You don't need to post a visible guard at the exit, but nobody is watching the exit at all.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Knives Out picture

Stupidity: Marta is shown to barf whenever she lies, and Blanc knows this. He should've asked her who did it right away. The entire plot of this movie is rendered unnecessary.

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Suggested correction: That would only work if Blanc knew that Marta had knowledge of who killed Harland and if he came to the conclusion that Harland actually killed himself. Blanc doesn't know that Harland killed himself to protect Marta until Marta confesses. Also, this wouldn't have solved the "who done it" anyway, since Marta had no idea that Ransom switched the vials.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Alita: Battle Angel picture

Stupidity: In 300 years, in an empoverished world full of people hungry for techs, nobody ever tried to remove the ship from a small pond barely 15 feet deep, and everything inside seems intact. It is mentioned that few tried because the technology is hard to sell being unknown (which is laughable), but surely some would try to strip the ship for alloys, and certainly the lights and monitors wouldn't stay untouched in a world based on scavenging. For 300 years and so close to the city, even.

Sammo

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Random Acts of Violence picture

Stupidity: Adam, Hannah, and Megan [sitting in SUV with flat tire] saw the Man flashing his headlights, getting out, kicking his own SUV and ranting while holding a machete. Instead of fleeing, they got out of their SUV and saw the Man was wearing a welder's mask. When they returned to their SUV, they didn't lock the doors. The Man ran over, pounded on the front passenger's window and then opened the door. He stabbed Adam 36? times while the two girls just sat there screaming and one said, "Please stop."

KeyZOid

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Men in Black: International picture

Stupidity: The train which takes M from New York to London arrives looking like an old tube train, then when she's on board converts into a high-tech train, to her amazement, and whisks her across the Atlantic. Except...why did it ever look like a regular train? She's in a MIB station, it's only used by agents and aliens, it goes to another MIB station, and when it arrives and people get off / on before it continues its journey, it stays in its high-tech form anyway.

Jon Sandys

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Ad Astra picture

Stupidity: When Roy finally gets to the Lima project in the shuttle but can't dock, he just lets it drift away - he could have at least tethered it to the station to use it for his return trip.

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Suggested correction: There is no way to know the reason why he did this. It's plausible, or even likely, that the pod was out of fuel. Not only that, but it could not dock with Lima because it was damaged, so it's likely that the damage played into the decision as well.

wizard_of_gore

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Joker picture

Stupidity: After one of the policemen decides to jump over the railing and right into the angry mob (!), Arthur just easily sneaks by ducking under it and takes a nice stroll that will lead him through an unlocked door. Nobody in the mob he is part of decides to do the same, and you can also see that one of the policemen is turned towards him, but does not even yell at him or move. And of course, with the theater packed with the Gotham elite basically under siege by a mob and guarded by the police, the door is unlocked and unchecked. Why not. (01:02:55)

Sammo

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Suggested correction: The point is they were all too distracted by the tussle to notice Arthur ducking behind the barrier. No cop sees him. The angry mob is controlled by the barrier and not all that large so they haven't taken extra precautions to keep the mob at bay, yet. The door Arthur gets in is probably a fire escape and can't be locked for safety reasons.

lionhead

I think that with an angry mob worth putting barriers and a big police dispatch, they'd tend to lock the door that is like a 20 feet of walk in a straight line. I mean, they have barriers in front of the stairs, but at the base of the stairs there's an unguarded, unprotected, unlocked door. It's just funny. Not even something in the back or around the corner, no; literally one step to the right of the blockade.

Sammo

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Avengers: Endgame picture

Stupidity: They make a big deal about how they've got the bare minimum of Pym particles left as Hank has been snapped away, but it never occurs to them to use their supply to jump back to a very safe time when Hank was around with a vast supply of them. They could bring them to their time and then have no end of attempts to get the stones without being on such a knife-edge.

Jon Sandys

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Suggested correction: The problem is that they need to steal particles, and if they fail doing that, everything fails. They never thought of doing it that way because of that. Only when they failed in the past did they have to risk that, with again the possibility of failing. They couldn't take the risk to have their only chance of reversing what Thanos did fail because they want to be leisurely about it, ironically. They could do it in one go, that was the best bet and lowest in risk.

lionhead

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Doom: Annihilation picture

Stupidity: When the marines get the reactor working, Dr Betruger stabs Veronica and kills her so that she will not be able to reveal his secrets to them. However, he stabs her in the lower back, so it would still give her ample time to tell the marines what he is trying to hide whilst she bleeds out. Surely it would have been easier to stab her in the neck or slit her throat.

Casual Person

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Charlie's Angels picture

Stupidity: The bad guy who spies on Bosley is visible from the very beginning of the scene, when Elena is not even inside the cafe yet. The cafe does not have many customers and the bad guy is using a loud vintage typewriter with a big mirror mounted on top (!). The Angels are portrayed as being super smart and their setup is so careful, but somehow they managed to miss something amazingly obvious. Conversely, nobody would have ever paid attention to a laptop or any silent, modern-age device perhaps with a camera or something similar, so the bad guy chose the most blatantly conspicuous accoutrement for his spying job. Try showing up to a cafe punching the keys of a big clunky typewriter and literally everyone will be looking at you. (00:18:25)

Sammo

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Girl on the Third Floor picture

Stupidity: Don was renovating an old mansion that was filthy, but he didn't dress for the task at hand. At one point, he was working in his bare feet... and tramped on a tack. (00:10:24)

KeyZOid

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Gemini Man picture

Stupidity: Despite the fact that the villains know exactly where Brogan is for the better part of the movie thanks to a tracer, and that they display constantly that they are able and willing to hit with bold military operations even to the point of hitting an urban area overruling law enforcement (apparently Clay has authority to do that too), Brogan is able to get undisturbed back in the US through his friend's plane. Considering he was officially marked as a rogue agent and killed 8 DIA operatives, it's hard to see how Baron's plane could ever land on American soil after a long intercontinental flight.

Sammo

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Kidnapping Stella picture

Stupidity: The kidnappers steal a silver Citroen van and take it to a junkyard to switch the plates. They steal plates off an older green color Asian type sedan and place them on the van. If the cops run the plates as they normally do random checks as they drive, those plates will not match that vehicle. They should have found the same make and color of Citroen van they stole and swapped plates for plates, the chances of the owner noticing are small. Now if the plates get run they match that vehicle. (00:00:38 - 00:01:18)

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Synchronic picture

Stupidity: Steve wanted all the packets of "Synchronic" destroyed. He bought all that was available in the local store, but he merely placed the intact packets into his small garbage can (instead of flushing or destroying the contents).

KeyZOid

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Batman: Hush picture

Stupidity: After making love, Selina notices Batman's scars. She surely was caught in the moment, but, it's something she really was bound to notice sooner. (00:53:10)

Sammo

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Suggested correction: She notices the scars on his back first, which are the worst of those on his body, this may well be the first time she sees his back.

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