Episode 178 - 23 Convoluted Movie Schemes That Need A Second Look

[JulyDiaz 2797]

The term 'movie magic' typically refers to the technical brilliance of bringing dinosaurs to life onscreen or how Denzel Washington can make an entire theatre of men and women pregnant with a single knowing glance. But there's a second type of movie magic that often goes overlooked: when movies are so good, we don't notice when their characters' plans' make absolutely no sense.

 

All the great ones do this. In 'Return of the Jedi', all of the main characters get captured attempting to break Han Solo out of Jabba's palace, but it's all good because that was seemingly their plan all along? Why wait to get captured when you can just drop in, lightsabers blazing, bust your dude out of the carbonite and smoke fools in an epic prison breakout? Seems like Luke wanted to fight the Rancor all along.

 

There's a whole category of these where bad guys try to weaponize monsters. From the 'Alien' series to 'Jurassic World', it's just a bad idea.

 

Christopher Nolan is a real magician when it comes to bad movie plans. 'The Dark Knight', 'The Dark Knight Rises', and 'The Prestige' all have glaring examples of movie schemes that don't hold up under an ounce of scrutiny.

 

So, join Jack O'Brien, Michael Swaim, and David Christopher Bell as they discuss the failing of Nolan's villains, why 'Westworld' makes no sense, and how the dudes in 'Jaws' had a bigger boat the whole damn time.

 

And make sure to get tickets to our next LIVE Cracked Podcast, coming up on Saturday, May 13th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked's Carmen Angelica, Alex Schmidt and Michael Swaim, and comedian Blake Wexler to combine the podcast's two favorite topics: great moments in history and binge drinking.

 

They'll discuss the drafting of the US Constitution, the Russian Revolution and other famous moments in history where everyone was completely sh*tfaced. Tickets are only $7 and available here: https://goo.gl/PWmm2y

 

Footnotes:

 

Video: Cracked: 3 Ridiculous Movie Schemes That Make No Sense: https://goo.gl/BGkAFW

 

Article: Cracked: 6 Terrible Plans in Movies That Just Sort of Work Out: https://goo.gl/DA0Hk

 

Article: Cracked: The 6 Most Pointlessly Elaborate Movie Murder Plots: https://goo.gl/nuKW4V

 

Article: Cracked: 6 Famous Movie Villains Whose Evil Schemes Make Zero Sense: https://goo.gl/zkR1RT

 

Article: Cracked: 6 Huge Movie Plot Twists That Caused Even Bigger Plot Holes: https://goo.gl/L3957

[Drew Mancini 2]

On the topic of the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy. I agree with most of your points, especially Dark Knight Rises (that movie is so horrible on so many levels), but the Joker stuff, I've come to accept them as the Joker is just winging it. I've rewatched it recently, and if you can imagine that if he always keeps a bomb or a kidnapping in his back pocket, then he doesn't really care how things play out, and the narrative just appears to be Machiavellian.

The Joker's "job" is to eliminate the Batman. Is Dent Batman? Probably not, but he's going to kill Dent because that's his job, and if he isn't, then Batman's going to show up. The Joker also knows that Rachel is important to Batman from an earlier scene. So the entire scene plays out, and the Joker gets caught and taken to jail.

Let's pretend there's a missing scene, and all the Joker has at this point is a bad cop on his payroll, so he tells the bad cop while in custody, "hey, get on the wire, kidnap Rachel, she'll already be with Dent, and tie them up with bombs. If they both blow up, whatever... Also, get that fat guy with a bomb stuffed in him over here."

And maybe Batman saves them both, maybe they both die, maybe just Rachel gets killed and Dent gets half of his face burned off. He doesn't care. The Joker got caught and he needs a distraction and a bomb or three. That's it. Even if Batman doesn't show up, the Joker still kills Rachel and Dent. He even tells Dent immediately after that he's not the kind of guy to have plans. He is, however, smart enough to have some back pocket tricks to get him out of a situation. People keep saying his plan the whole time was to get captured, I don't think he once even implies it.

Later, when things play out the way they do, he realizes Dent has survived and his face is burned off, so he decides to see if he can convince Dent to go on a killing spree. He basically plays russian roulette with Dent. He is a harbinger of chaos, just like he is set up to be. All he needed for that is to plant a bomb in the hospital and cause a panic. That's it. Maybe he kills Dent, maybe Dent goes on a killing spree, maybe Dent shoots him dead from his hospital bed, maybe Dent cries in his hospital bed and he gets blown up with the hospital.

Then he's like "okay, now I got this great idea to plant bombs on boats. Gasoline and bullets are cheap. And after that plays out, he's like "hey Batman, you're a lot of fun, guess what's going on. I think Dent has gone on a killing spree." It's just a lot of manic, reckless, insane energy. He starts off that he wants to kill Batman, but then when he realizes the theatrics of the Batman up close and he doesn't want it to end.

Also, Batman is immune to the Scarecrow's neurotoxin after Lucious Fox synthesizes the cure. They just can't manufacture enough for the whole city before the plan plays out. That's a big reason why Rachel and Batman are running around the city unaffected while the chaos is breaking out.

Does anybody else feel the same way about The Dark Knight? Did I miss anything?