Movie characters who die needlessly (may contain spoilers!)

OK

Thread about movie characters who did not need to die beacuse of plot bugs. (please post the solution as well).

Here's one that drives me mad (contains spoiler);

Mission To Mars
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell
(Touchstone, 2000)
Scene: Tim Robbins drifts away

Right, Tim overshoots the orbiting capsule and is drifiting away towards the planet surface.

When the others get to the capsule, hs wife wants to go get him but is disuaded on the grounds that even though she has enough fuel to get there, she will not make it back all the way.

She goes out a little way, realises the apparent futility of the situation and much decompression and crying ensues. This need not have happened! Here's the solution;

Wife goes all the way out to hubby and brings him back as far as she can. Then, another astronaut (there are two left) nips out to them and brings them back as far as his fuel allows. That should get them to the capsule but if not, there's yet another astronaut who can nip out the short distance and get them all safely back. QED.

Good movie otherwise.

Peter

 

Good movie? What planet are you from?

Terrible terrible film. The best bit was the bloke being spinned round and his arms flying off!

Told my brother not to get it (got it anyway)- he was peed off as it was a waste of £16

 

Nathan,

I usually respect your opinion but I do not appreciate the tone of this post. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and of course opinions will often conflict.

I enjoyed this movie. Sorry if that does not fit in with your own blinkered world view and I'm even sorrier that you feel the need to jump in and forcefully impose your elequent arguement ("terrible terrible" could just be the epitome of film critiscism).

I'm not going to defend the movie to the nth degree. There are cheesy parts. The whole huiband/wife relationship is a little tedious and the homely oneness of the ending where we all find out we're made from the same stuff could have been executed with a little less saccrin (sp?).

I won't be wathcing the movie every weekend (in fact I don't even own it and won't be purchasing it). However, I enjoyed it the first time and watched it again when it turned up on TV.

You're welcome to disagree, just note that I think you could do it with a tone less caustic and perhaps a modicom of supporting argument.

Anyway, back to the thread - anyone else who needlessly died, irrespective of the quality of the movie?

Peter

 

Back on message- Sean Connery in the magnificantly bad Highlander II, not stepping out of the way of the rotating chopping thing despite it moving at the speed of Dutch Elm disease. Spews forth some tripe about concentrating his life force or something.

 

Have to agree with Nathan, "Mission To Mars" is a disaster...

 

i liked Mission To Mars, the bit right to the end was a little bad, but as a whole i enjoyed the movie

 

Connery isn't killed by the fan, he sort of dissappears after using up all of his energy to reverse its movement (sending it upwards rather than downwards). Had it continued unabated it would eventually have decapitated all of them, because it was spinning fast, despite moving downwards very slowly, there was no way out of the chamber, and the tips of the blades were very close to the walls.

As for the Mission To Mars thing, you're confusing yourself by thinking about it in terrestrial terms - how much fuel do we need to cover a particular distance? In space it doesn't work like that. Instead you need to think about how much fuel you need to achieve a set change in velocity (or, more precisely, a set change in momentum). The guy was moving away past the capsule. To reach him she would have had to have accelerated to a speed that was faster than he was moving, waited to catch him up, and then grabbed him. The two of them would now be moving together at a speed somewhere between the speed he was originally moving and the speed she was moving at to catch him. She would then have had to use enough fuel to cancel out all of their foward velocity and start back in the opposite direction (and this would require at least twice as much fuel as the same change in velocity for the wife alone, because now there's twice as much mass and hence twice as much momentum to overcome).

If, at some point during all this, she had run out of fuel, then she and her husband would have ended up still moving away from the others at significant speed. To catch them, one of the others would have had to accelerate to a significant speed, catch them up over a long distance, and then apply additional thrust - this time needing three times as much fuel because there would be three times the momentum to overcome. Clearly no one astronaut had enough fuel to accelerate towards whoever was moving away, and then accelerate all of them back in the opposite direction enough to actually move them back towards the ship. The problem is that you have to keep adding forward momentum into the equation in order for someone to reach the target in the first place.

 

Yes NicolasB

But it's equally possible that, even though mass were increasing, the target would be getting closer (assuming person one had enough gas to get there and do some of the turning back).

They could have at least discussed the option! Some back of the envelope calculations would have been in order.

Heartless ba****ds! They were only interested in themselves and crash-landing on a near-deserted planet!

Peter

 

NicolasB:

Good point. Perhaps astronauts ought to carry a ball of string with them??

 

This film demostrates 3 things:

1)*$^t happens in space & people die
2) Hollywood is rubbish at explaining technical reasons why *$^t happens, and often don't have the time to explain in 2 hours film time because they are too busy getting emotional
3) Don't take your wife with you - her blubbing when you die will only irritate the punters.

 

Yeah

All that silly stuff that happens in Apollo 13. How ridiculous. That would never happen in real life!

Peter

 

heh heh. Let's beat up Meep for liking a crap film

 

That's a much nicer message, Nathan_Silly.

 

If there were enough gas to do that, then the problem would have been solved - you'd just have to wait till they drifted back to where they needed to be. The fact that there isn't enough gas means that they would still be drifting away at the point that it's all used up.

My nomination for a pointless death: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucas had him killed off because he thought it was quite likely he (Lucas) would never make another Star Wars film, and because if he (Kenobi) wasn't killed off at that point there were a lot of later scenes in the film in which he ended up standing around doing nothing. When Episode V was actually made this required him (Lucas) to introduce Yoda to do all of the teaching of Luke that Obi-Wan was originally supposed to do.

The whole thing would have had a far more pleasing symmetry if Obi-Wan had survived, because then all six films would ultimately be about the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker....

 

I havent seen Highlander 2, but didnt the Sean Connery character get killed in the first film?

 

Yes nobby, he did. But like Bobby Ewing in dallas, he made a daft return

 

Thank God! Yoda is fun and interesting, Obi-wan is just naggy and boring, regardless which one of the two actors we see. "No, my young Padawan", "Control yourself Luke/Aniken", "Know your place Young One!", etc, etc.

I know which one I'd rather have as a teacher.

 

Every death in Friday 13th series.....

Every single one pointless, but highly amusing nonetheless!!!!

Jason is the ultimate pointlesss killer

 

Everyone who dies in Deep Blue Sea

Samuel L Jackson barely had time to reel off his plan before the uber-sharks got him!

What a pointless film which ripped off practically every action / disaster movie ever made

 

Steven Seagal in Executive Decision.
"Hmm, the Stealth Plane is falling apart, I could climb up this foot long ladder. Alternatively I could shut the hatch on myself and plummet 35,000ft to my death."
Of course Seagal dead is better than him pouting around but nonetheless his death IS pointless.

 

I liked that bit : I laughed my ass off!

Newt and Hicks in Alien3. Just felt totally cheated after worrying about them so much through Aliens!

I would rather have a root canal than sit through Missin to Marge again.

 

Yes.

And also in the sequel. However, this fact alone does not even begin to give you an idea of the awfulness of Highlander 2.

 

Yeah I disliked that part too, but when Hicks and Newt dies it made you feel for Ripley all the more and made you hate the aliens even more so in that way it adds to the plot somewhat Still a good film in comparison to Alien Resurrection.

Is it true there is yet another Alien film in the pipeline and the oft talked about Alien vs Predator?
I didn't like Predator 2 at all and P1 was only good for the dodgy acting of potential "Govenor" A. Swarzenegger

 

I agree that P2 was pretty bad overall but P1 was great fun. As for the Alien franchise, Alien v. Predator is in pre-production and filming begins next month. I would love to see another strictly Alien film - but so far only rumours abound. This is from blogcritics.org:

"According to Dark Horizons, Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron advised the BBC that he may indeed helm a potential Alien 5 (a separate project from the upcoming Alien vs. Predator film). "We're looking at doing another one," reveals Cameron, who also helmed the 1986 smash Aliens. "Something similiar to what we did with Aliens. A bunch of great characters, and of course Sigourney [Weaver]. I've even discussed the possibility of putting him [Arnold Schwarzenegger] into the Alien movie." [...] By the way, Cameron "couldn't stand Alien 3 – how they could just go in there and kill off all these great characters we introduced in Aliens, and the correlation between mother and daughter. It stunk, but hopefully I'll get a chance to rectify all that [with Alien 5]."

I don't agree with Cameron, but then he's bound to have an axe to grind.

 

I can see it now:

[Scene 1 INT, NIGHT]
Ripley is sleeping and suddenly wakes from a nightmare with qa gasp and grabs the knife she keeps under her pillow.

Hicks steps out of the shower.

Ripley grabs him from her hiding place behind the bathroom door and holds the knife to his throat.
Ripley is all confused and angry

Ripley: "You were supposed to be dead!"

Hicks: "Dead?! You must have had one of your bad dreams. Put the knife down, Ellen."

[Newt skips in from playing in the the ventilation system during this conversation]

Newt: "You mostly have bad dreams at night, Mummy. Mostly."

Lt. A Swarzenegger who works for Company security calls in on the Videocom:

Arnie "Iz everysing alright? You're pursonal alarm was aktivated."

Hicks: "Everything is fine lieutenant. Ripley had another bad dream. Just another bad dream...."

Arnie "Very well. Good night."

Cameron will have no problem cobbling a storyline together which rights all the past wrongs

 

If only that would happen, or alternatively we could just get rid of ripley, she is dead after all. But that wouldn't happen considering she will probably be one of the producers, I hear she had a big influence on the overall production of "Alien Resurrection" which does explain how **** that film is (Its about Aliens not "Cool" dudes with gangster rap attitude)

 

Actors of Weaver's stature nromally have a bigger say in the way the movie goes. I'm pretty sure she is exec producer on the last two alien films: its pretty much her franchise.

She would either need to be teamed with a director of suitable clout to not have to put up with her dicking around or get rid of any involvement she might have.

Given the choice Fox would rather do an alien film with weaver than without.

The AvP might be a way to get out from underneath the baggage the alien series has built up but form what I can gather it could be a case of baby out with bathwater. Although I didn't think Resident Evil was half as bad as I was expecting!

 

Mmm good points, I can't see Weaver agreeing to simply act in another Aliens film with the control she's had on previous projects. And film audiences will surely drop if the Ripley character is dropped altogether.

 

Pointless deaths - all those guys at the end of Last of the Mohicans. Did that girl really have to jump off the cliff, couldn't she have just waited 5 minutes to be rescued?

The Poseidon Adventure - Gene Hackman's character. Couldn't he have tried to swing back and grab a ledge or something. Nope, con't be bothered, I think I'll just fall to my death.

Oh yeah, and that Bond girl that takes the cyanide pill in Thunderball. Another case of not being patient enough to wait for someone to rescue her.

One more - The Untouchables. What were they thinking letting an accountant protect their star witness?