Sure this applies to pretty much every movie MST3K does but I’m talking about otherwise good movies or TV shows that just suddenly throw something at you that just makes you go “Huh?”
What provoked this is a series I just finished watching called The Lost Symbol. The whole premise of the show is there’s a secret power that’s been hidden by an even more secret order of the Freemasons using a bizarrely elaborate series of codes and symbols and the hero has to decipher the clues before the bad guy does. Silly enough but if you suspend your disbelief to buy the premise it was entertaining. Fair enough.
Then in one episode the hero and his friends are in a sacred room in the FreeMason’s main temple only accessible to 33rd degree Masons to find the missing parts of a coded puzzle. Since one of them happens to be a 33rd degree Mason them getting access isn’t the problem. Right after they find the missing symbols and s decode the clue suddenly a wild security guard appears! The Mason goes off to distract the guard while the others escape.
The question is, if this is a sacred and secret room only accessible to top level Freemasons why the hell do they have security guards roaming around in there? Was the guard ALSO a 33rd degree Freemason or do they trust their greatest secrets only to top Masons and Bob the Security Guard? I greatly annoyed my wife when I started laughing about this since it was supposed to be a dramatic moment.
Are there any other otherwise decent movies or TV shows that just suddenly have a “What the?!?” moment that totally ruins your immersion or your suspension of disbelief?
Honestly… I don’t enjoy a lot of current popular stuff because I find the writing and character motivations to be really hollow and failing to make any sense, similar to what you’ve described.
Sure, “it’s just a ________________” and I “should really just relax” and I do. Fiction is fun and suspending disbelief is fun. No, I don’t waste valuable watchin’ time to figure out how the time travel is practical in time travel movies. But… when something happens that really doesn’t fit at all – a scenario or character’s actions or whatever that just doesn’t align with anything we’ve been presented with up to that point – I’m out. Doubly so if it isn’t even in service of advancing the plot.
In Chapter 14 of the Gospel of Mark, just after Jesus has been arrested, this incident is noted in verses 51-52: “A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.” And almost immediately we’re at the Sanhedrin. Always felt like a WTF moment.
I’d suspect that Jacky B. cutting off someone’s head in the first season of 24 would qualify. I think that whole show is saying that it’s alright to do whatever you want as long as you’re in a hurry.
Pretty much every romantic subplot in every movie. A guy has nothing going for him from the start and is probably also an outright dink. But some young, beautiful woman drops everything else in her life to hang all over him and help him out with… whatever. Just because we’re told he’s the hero and the hero always deserves the best of everything.
I’ve never really understood what “mumblecore” is so we’re even.
“Black Tank Top” movies were identified by the Red Letter Media guys after watching a bunch of bad movies on “Best of the Worst”. There’s a very distinct type of vanity project where a typically older-middle-aged dude decides he could be an action star/James Bond-type and somehow manages to put together a few bucks, a celebrity guest star, and finally, something sorta resembling a movie.
Two chief characteristics of the film is that it will star some ridiculously good-looking woman (typically a centerfold young enough to be the lead’s daughter) who is inexplicably attracted to the lead (complete with at least a topless sex scene)—and the lead will at some point (perhaps throughout the entire film) wear a black tank top that makes you think, “He’s in decent shape for an old dude, I sure hope he doesn’t take that shirt off, though”.
Alas, it’s not 100%. They not too long ago stumbled across a BTT-type movie but the hero had a white tank top, dammit.
I was recently thinking again about The Year Without a Santa Claus.
The story goes Santa isn’t feeling very well, and then decides to tell everyone, “I’m not feeling so well, I need a Holiday.” So that basically means, he’s not going to delivery presents on the one day of the year that he goes out and delivers!
So after a whole stupid story of people running around like crazy, Santa gets his wish…and then this sad little letter from a girl suddenly makes him on Christmas Eve go: “Hey everyone, stop lazing about, we need to get out there and deliver toys!”
So in a sense, there was no year without a Santa Claus, so the title is UTTER BS!!
Maybe somebody can explain to me why in the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbits jump on the back of a big bird and fly to the proximity of Mount Doom, then get off the huge bird and walk the rest of the way?
Why didn’t the bird just fly them over Mount Doom so they could drop the Ring in?
The eagles gave them a ride away agter they destroyed the ring, but as @KHalleron said, they walked the whole way. Or most of the way, they did some on horseback early on.
Trying to decide if Carnival of Souls qualifies as a good movie because I absolutely loved the atmosphere, but the writing just raised further questions, even after the twist reveal.
