Flaws you can't unsee in great stories and how to fix them.

[SimonDoom]

1. Fredo was the one who got the would-be assassins past the security of the compound. Remember that Freddie had been their contact person and, when the assassination failed, they ran to Fredo's house, and it was Freddie who killed them when he'd realized that he couldn't let them live to talk.

Where is any of this revealed in the movie? I don't remember any of this being clear. Fredo told Michael, at the end, that he didn't know it was supposed to be a hit. I don't recall anything in the movie to indicate that he was lying, which he obviously was if he let the assassins in the compound.

Fredo killing the assassins is completely inconsistent with everything that we have been shown about Fredo up to that point. He's a weakling and a coward. When his father is hit, he can't shoot back. It doesn't seem plausible that in an encounter with two trained assassins he would be able to kill both.

2. Fredo was shit-faced drunk at the time he made his mistake in not trying to hide his acquaintance with Ola. You'll notice that he's drinking in just about every scene. John Cazale's performance as a drunken Freddy was so understated that many people didn't catch it. It also accounts for his confusion when Michael is trying to get him out of Havana, I think.

That makes sense.

3. It wasn't the Rosato brothers themselves who made the hit. The Rosato brothers told their hitmen that they were acting as a favor for Michael, and to let Pentangeli die with that false assumption. Why they wanted their hitmen to believe that lie wasn't cleared up, although it could be that, if they were made to talk, their confessions would incriminate Michael. The result, of course, was that Pentangeli lived, and became convinced that the Corleone family had turned against him... a lucky break for the Rosatos.

This kind of makes sense, but how is any of this clear from the actual movie? I don't recall any of this being explained.

With creative effort, you can make some sense of the events, but it requires a lot of creative interpretation from the very thin level of explanation that's offered. I thought the movie left too much to speculation.

 

[SimonDoom]

1. Fredo was the one who got the would-be assassins past the security of the compound. Remember that Freddie had been their contact person and, when the assassination failed, they ran to Fredo's house, and it was Freddie who killed them when he'd realized that he couldn't let them live to talk.

Another fundamental flaw of this interpretation is that it undermines Michael's story arc. If Fredo actually knowingly tried to assassinate Michael, then Michael would be justified in killing him. But we are supposed to feel at the end of Godfather 2 that Michael has gone beyond justification. He eliminates anybody who presents even a small threat to the "family," which at that point is just himself. It's important to feel the wrongness of his assassination of his brother.

 

[shelleycat1]

The Movie. Persuasion. My wife and I tried to watch the Netflix version the other night. We stopped after 20 minutes because someone says "Were you an upgrade", the heroine is a spunky girl drinking wine from a bottle (in the 18th/19th C!) and every character was utterly stupidly badly done. The film makers had a voice over from the main character explaining the characters.

The whole point is that the heroine in Persuasion is understated, shy and self-effacing. She made a bad mistake 8 years ago and gets an opportunity (and takes it!) to put it right.

In comparison, we bought and watched the 1995 version on a disk. It was done sensitively, one instance being a character (Captain Bentick) saying something like "Do you know how I feel having such a regret," and the main character, Anne, just saying "Yes," with such an expression on her face. And it managed to express the emotions and views of the characters in such subtle actions as a sideways glance.

We were discussing it and trying to decide why the Netflix writers just didn't bother to read the book, or understand it, or even watch the earlier versions.

(And just preemptively, I think Persuasion is a great story, so this is on the thread topic.)

 

[Bamagan]

If they brought it to Berlin and presented as potential Wunderwaffe to the German chancellor, WWII might not have started at all.

By which I mean that it’s quite possible Indy has saved Hitler’s life; that would be some flaw indeed.

Maybe, but WW2 and the Holocaust required more proximate causes than just one man and his advisors, so I'm not sure melting him after he was already in power would have averted later (or concurrent) events. There would have been a bit of irony about the OTG smiting them proactively though.
Leaving that aside, their rationales for opening the ark before presenting it to der Fuhrer are still relevant: the officers want to make sure they actually have the prize, and Belloq probably wants to be the first person to see and touch the artifacts since they were sealed up. I think their decision would have been about the same, they just may not have felt the need for extreme isolation to attempt it.
As to what effect it might have had on unwitting bystanders, I'm not sure. Maybe it would spare them, or at least part of them, if it was smiting based on some judgment of their characters. It still probably would have resulted in a light show and other effects that would be challenging to explain away if it happened in a populated area.

 

[33RPMVinylPants]

At the very least, Indy absent from the story means that Marion gets killed in the bar when they come for the amulet

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Nope, the harder look you take at that movie, the more it fails. Last fail now being RDJ coming back in some way to Be Doom and shitting all over his sacrifice. I'll call that movie ass right now. Nothing but member berries and desperation.

This is why I pretty much have no time for these superhero movies. It's just a bunch of over-the-top spectacle and superpowers with weak-ass scripts. When you create a world with incredible super powers (whether that's superheroes, high fantasy wizards or super tech sci-fi) you create all kinds of motive plot holes to step in all over the place and you have to super extra careful to maintain any plausibility whatsoever. Even the most diligent plotting can still have an oops here and there, yet most of these movies don't even have that diligence because at the producers' table the spectacle always wins out over plot.

So what we're left with is 'splosions and soapy melodrama. Yea, I'm bored ... to death.

Not to say that a superhero movie CAN'T be done well, but it's just not worth the effort to pick through the pile to find one.

 

[SerenaSteeleMonroe]

My argument is that there are a very limited number of things that could conceivably kill the T-1000 - gigawatts of electricity perhaps, a vat of acid, a nuclear explosion.

T-1000 - gigawatts, what was I thinking!

 

[SerenaSteeleMonroe]

Sorry, wrong movie, I thought you were talking about Back to the Future.

 

[Voboy]

I don't know if I'd call it a "great story," but I remember really enjoying Star Trek IV as a kid... except that part where Kirk is somehow able to hold his damn breath for about ten minutes while he dives into the ocean and frees those fucking humpbacks.

Seriously. He's a professional spacefarer, not a pearl diver. No way would his lungs and limbs be in practice for that shit. I was only about 12 years old, and even at that age it took me right out of what was supposed to be an awesome climax.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't know if I'd call it a "great story," but I remember really enjoying Star Trek IV as a kid... except that part where Kirk is somehow able to hold his damn breath for about ten minutes while he dives into the ocean and frees those fucking humpbacks.

Seriously. He's a professional spacefarer, not a pearl diver. No way would his lungs and limbs be in practice for that shit.

To be fair, extended breath-holding seems like a career-relevant skill to a spacefarer just as much as a pearl diver. But still the kind of thing that needs a bit of setup before the story leans on it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Remember, if you've not seen it for a while, this is all one long scene following them blowing up the Skynet project at the labs. Which is another slight issue if you're thinking you can slow things down and give the heroes a chance to plan out their nitrogen/molten schemes. One thing with the Terminator movies is that once you get far enough away from the Terminator, you're essentially home free - especially as Sarah has spent years planning escape routes.

Something that would've been far less of an issue if they were made today - disappearing gets much harder if the T-1000 can tap into CCTV systems boosted by recognition tech.

I don't think that that's what enables it to travel through time, if that's what you mean.

Reese explicitly says in the first movie that flesh is necessary for time travel:

"You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go."

(May not exactly match the line used in the final cut; I think the script I'm looking at might be an earlier version. But there was something to the same effect in the film.)

This is why Reese and the T-800s all show up naked and have to acquire clothes and weapons.

They both mimicked humans, that was their purpose: They're both infiltrator bots. That's why living flesh, and that's why liquid metal. I guess Skynet saw the T1000 as an upgrade, maybe a whole new model.

That does seem to be the original reason for the T-800 having living flesh, but it's also relevant to time travel.

 

[Voboy]

To be fair, extended breath-holding seems like a career-relevant skill to a spacefarer just as much as a pearl diver.

Possibly, but not while swimming through a resistant medium.

I remember my dad taped that movie off Cinemax. I used to watch that part over and over, timing myself to see if I could hold my breath like Kirk. I think I could, but barely. And I remember thinking I'd never be able to if I was swimming strenuously around in what would have been a pitch-dark Bird Of Prey.

Just something that stuck with me.

 

[Voboy]

Surely the worst (cf Big Bang Theory) is Indiana Jones, the first one, where the outcome of the movie would have been exactly the same had Indy never existed.

I'm not sure it's guaranteed that Toht and his henchmen get the headpiece from Marion in Nepal. I can think of several ways they'd get it, and I can also think of several ways they wouldn't.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Worse than improbable coincidences: characters who somehow knew those coincidences were going to occur and built a plan around them.

IIRC, in The Bone Collector (book, IDK whether the film has the same flaw), Lincoln Rhyme gets roped in to investigate a series of murders, and near the end it's revealed that the killer was setting a trap for Rhyme all along. But this all depends on Rhyme getting involved in the case, and there's no obvious reason why the killer should have expected that to happen, or made it happen.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I'm not sure it's guaranteed that Toht and his henchmen get the headpiece from Marion in Nepal. I can think of several ways they'd get it, and I can also think of several ways they wouldn't.

If Indy had left well enough alone after saving Marion in Nepal the Nazis would have dug in the wrong place until they gave up.


As for the Superhero movies... another complaint is how the world doesn't change because of what's happened.
The whole world saw aliens attack NYC. Why would people be surprised by darn near anything after that.

The kids at the end of Black Panther are a great example. Why would they be surprised by the tech he has with everything that the world has seen at that point?

 

[Voboy]

If Indy had left well enough alone after saving Marion in Nepal the Nazis would have dug in the wrong place until they gave up.

Without question.

But to say that the outcome is the same if Indy never exists? That means he never gets to go see Marion in Nepal, and thus she never knows he (or anyone else) is looking for the headpiece. Until Toht shows up offering to buy it.

Maybe she sells. I'll even say she probably does. But only after she puts Toht off for a day or two while she decides. After all, in a world without Indy, Toht is in no particular rush.

Anyway. I'm hijacking the thread. I'll shut up now.

 

[Britva415]

Something that would've been far less of an issue if they were made today - disappearing gets much harder if the T-1000 can tap into CCTV systems boosted by recognition tech.



Reese explicitly says in the first movie that flesh is necessary for time travel:

"You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go."

(May not exactly match the line used in the final cut; I think the script I'm looking at might be an earlier version. But there was something to the same effect in the film.)

This is why Reese and the T-800s all show up naked and have to acquire clothes and weapons.



That does seem to be the original reason for the T-800 having living flesh, but it's also relevant to time travel.

Maybe I'm forgetting something about Terminator 2.

How did T1000 do it? (the time travel)

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Maybe I'm forgetting something about Terminator 2.

How did T1000 do it? (the time travel)

If I recall they just hand waved that away. So many plot holes...

 

[Britva415]

If I recall they just hand waved that away. So many plot holes...

Touché!

 

[Voboy]

If I recall they just hand waved that away. So many plot holes...

The most significant hole being...



Can't unsee it, either.

 

[Lathanar1]

I don't think that that's what enables it to travel through time, if that's what you mean.

They were clear on the rules in the original movies, stating only things incased in organic materials can pass through the time machine. He explained that's why he arrived naked and without weapons. Later they made it worse when Reese said only living things could pass.

 

[Lathanar1]

If Lara Croft didn't want the bad guys to get Pandora's Box in Cradle of Life, all she had to do was stay home.

 

[onehitwanda]

The best live-action stunt I've ever seen in any movie ever was the T800 going over the top of the sideways-rolling cab of the truck while it jackknifed and overturned.

Behold the glory:


https://i.imgur.com/Bz1ERPv.gif

 

[onehitwanda]

Describe everything wrong with Rings of Power and try to fix that.

Everything wrong: It was made in the first place.

How to fix it: Tequila

 

[SimonDoom]

Describe everything wrong with Rings of Power and try to fix that.

That's a hopeless task. Not the description part, but the fixing part.

The thread is about "great stories" with flaws, and ROP just sucks ass from beginning to end. I'm a Tolkien fanboy and I've tried to will myself to like it, but I can't.

The story telling is just awful. I remember throughout the first season constantly wondering, "Who are these people and what are they doing? Why don't I care? And why can't I remember anybody's names?"