Go watch Die Hard, The Day Of The Jackal, Rope, Seven Samurai, The Martian. It is possible to write a movie that isn’t moved forward by passing around the idiot ball. Characters can take reasonable actions, and still have stuff go wrong and have to take new reasonable actions to adjust.
If the hero just minded his own business and did nothing, no one dies and his wife is never in danger but millions of dollars worth of bonds are stolen. It’s a fair trade off, and might have even saved their marriage.
The Day Of The Jackal
Based on a book with no actual heroes. Just a cold-blooded assassination attempt. This isn’t the type of movie I’m referring to, though I should have said “almost every single movie…” or “hero movies”.
Rope
Uh…yeah…
In the play, two homosexual college students become fascinated by their philosophy professor’s ideas about the “innate superiority” of some people over others. Convinced they have found a victim who is inferior to them, they murder him, conceal his body in an unlocked trunk in their apartment, and then throw a dinner party with the trunk as the brazen centerpiece of the living room.
That’s just a whole lot of fucked up. No heroes there, except maybe someone not realizing they are friends with psychopaths that have a dead body in their living room.
Seven Samurai
The heroes lose 4 of their own. I’ll give you this one, this is the most realistic depiction of a hero movie.
The Martian
Poor mission planning. They can monitor, predict, and plan for dust storms on Mars today. But in the future, all that goes out the window when humans are involved? This entire scenario depends on someone not doing their job properly.
Seriously? Only one hero literally has multiple superpowers including clairvoyance and precognition, but he can’t sense what the villain with no superpowers is doing right in front of him because of something that hasn’t happened yet? That one has always bothered me…
Yep, it’s the perfect metaphore for human cognition. Doesn’t matter how smart you are, nobody can know everything, and there will always be circumstances outside of your control no matter how powerful you become.
The true weakness of the gods is the hubris of men.
Go watch Die Hard, The Day Of The Jackal, Rope, Seven Samurai, The Martian. It is possible to write a movie that isn’t moved forward by passing around the idiot ball. Characters can take reasonable actions, and still have stuff go wrong and have to take new reasonable actions to adjust.
If the hero just minded his own business and did nothing, no one dies and his wife is never in danger but millions of dollars worth of bonds are stolen. It’s a fair trade off, and might have even saved their marriage.
Based on a book with no actual heroes. Just a cold-blooded assassination attempt. This isn’t the type of movie I’m referring to, though I should have said “almost every single movie…” or “hero movies”.
Uh…yeah…
That’s just a whole lot of fucked up. No heroes there, except maybe someone not realizing they are friends with psychopaths that have a dead body in their living room.
The heroes lose 4 of their own. I’ll give you this one, this is the most realistic depiction of a hero movie.
Poor mission planning. They can monitor, predict, and plan for dust storms on Mars today. But in the future, all that goes out the window when humans are involved? This entire scenario depends on someone not doing their job properly.
This is why I prefer The Watchmen.
Seriously? Only one hero literally has multiple superpowers including clairvoyance and precognition, but he can’t sense what the villain with no superpowers is doing right in front of him because of something that hasn’t happened yet? That one has always bothered me…
Yep, it’s the perfect metaphore for human cognition. Doesn’t matter how smart you are, nobody can know everything, and there will always be circumstances outside of your control no matter how powerful you become.
The true weakness of the gods is the hubris of men.
Doesn’t blue boy’s speech at the end really dig at this concept? He basically admits it was right under his nose the whole time, iirc.
Or maybe I’m imagining it. It’s been quite a while. Might be embelishing on the lines about how he ultimately agrees with the plan.
That was the gist of it from my memory, but I’m in the same situation as you.