History BrokenAesop / LiveActionFilms

** Beth wants Neil to marry her, but he doesn't believe in marriage. Then she dumps him despite 7 happy years and living together. The movie reveals Neil to be more devoted and dependable than most husbands who are shown as either lazy or unfaithful. Beth soon realizes this and asks Neil to take her back. Refreshingly, in a ChickFlick, no less, we have AnAesop that marriage doesn't automatically [[HappilyMarried make a couple happier]] or more committed, and a woman can still find happiness without it. '''[[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle BUT]]''' then Neil breaks it by asking her to marry him anyways. Meaning that no, a woman truly can't be complete without marriage after all and that a man ''will'' always marry a woman if he loves her. This is a [[JustForFun/{{Egregious}} particularly ridiculous]] case, as [[AdaptationDecay the whole point of the source material]] is to ''disavow'' these tropes.

* The new Superman reboot, ''Film/ManOfSteel'', has this when [[DarkActionGirl Faora]] gains the upper hand over Superman, citing the "evolutionary advantage" of their lack of morality, the [[AnAesop aesop]] being [[ScienceIsBad that evolution doesn't always win]]. However, morality is the entire reason [[EvilOverlord Zod]] wants to exterminate humanity to replace them with Kryptonians, and Superman's victory simply proves [[TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin morality is superior]], not that evolution can be resisted.

* ''Film/JurassicPark'' wants to warn us about the consequences of meddling with nature ("Life finds a way"), except that it also has a heavy dose of DoNotDoThisCoolThing, and ultimately misattributes the cause of the problem: extremely shoddy management and security systems that would look poor in a city zoo, brought on by corporate espionage and bad business practice.

* ''Film/DayBreakers'' set in a world of vampires and a dwindling supply of blood is basically one long analogy for out dependance of oil. Which is fine right up until the end where they create a substitute for blood which gives us not, "don't blindly waste resources and deal with the problem before it becomes a problem" but "blindly waste resources and science will stop the collapse of civilization just in the nick of time."

* ''BeverlyHillChihuahua'' had a message about adopting animals from shelters and the sequel even had a celebration promotion about National Spay/Neuter Month. This is despite at the end's with BabiesEverAfter and the sequels involve the puppies.

* ''Film/PacificRim'' has an important message for the audience about accepting people of all colors and beliefs, and learning to work together for the common good. One, all the [[BattleCouple Battle Couples]] in the movie are made up of either immediate relatives, or lovers. Two, the exceptionally awesome protagonist doesn't ''have'' to cooperate in crucial moments, which undermines the whole message. Three, everyone but the bog-standard American hero fails colossally at everything they do, neatly demonstrating which colors are better at the whole cooperation and tolerance shtick. Four, this is a movie about [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar killing alien monsters]].

* ''Film/Pacific Rim'' has an important message for the audience about accepting people of all colors and beliefs, and learning to work together for the common good. One, all the Battle Couples in the movie are made up of either immediate relatives, or lovers. Two, everyone but the bog-standard American hero fails colossally at everything they do. Three,this is a movie about killing alien monsters.

** The novel adds far more tangible complications and prices than the movie. [[spoiler:Villifort's entire extended family, including at least four completely innocent people, are brutally poisoned, one of them a young boy. Not to mention his going mad via finding out Calavacanti is his bastard son with Mme Dagglers. Albert and Mercades' fates are also left up in the air, she manically depressed, and he selling himself into the army.]]
* The moral of ''Film/TheGarbagePailKidsMovie'' has the aesop that being ugly doesn't make you inferior or bad in any way. This is broken by the fact that said Garbage Pail Kids act like complete ''assholes'' throughout half the movie.

* The Creator/IrwinAllen disaster movie ''TheSwarm'' (1978) preaches environmental responsibility: the military wants to use pesticides that would damage the environment, while MichaelCaine keeps suggesting other methods. Unfortunately, the threat of the killer bees is [[GodzillaThreshold so overdone]] (at one stage, they cause the [[FailsafeFailure explosion of a nuclear power plant]]) that this continuing refusal is hard to justify. Especially when his final successful method consists of ''pouring oil on the ocean and setting it on fire.'' Since when are burning oil slicks environmentally friendly?

* The new Superman reboot, Film/ManOfSteel, has this when [[DarkActionGirl Faora]] gains the upper hand over Superman, citing the "evolutionary advantage" of their lack of morality, the [[AnAesop aesop]] being [[ScienceIsBad that evolution doesn't always win]]. However, morality is the entire reason [[EvilOverlord Zod]] wants to exterminate humanity to replace them with Kryptonians, and Superman's victory simply proves [[TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin morality is superior]], not that evolution can be resisted.

** This is also an issue with Gigi and Justin Long's character. Basically, the entire movie lays out the premise that women need to accept men as straightforward - if they say they're not interested, women need to accept this. But every single man who says this then changes his mind, proving that the women who were supposedly deluding themselves were in actually fact accurate - Gigi was the exception to Alex's rule, Beth was correct in thinking a man will marry you if he loves you, etc.

* ''Woman Obsessed'' A woman's new husband is built up for the first 3/4 of the movie to be abusive towards her and her son. At one point, while what happens next is open for interpretation, he appears to rape her after closing the door (she even mentions that her child with him was conceived out of "fear and hatred," so make of that what you will). She then loses the baby and the husband takes her to the doctor, which is very far away and carried her the last six miles. The last 1/4 of the movie contains the doctor chastising her for wanting to leave her, you know, abusive husband and everybody forgiving him. While the problem isn't that he was redeemed, it was that the first 3/4 of the movie was building how horrible and abusive he was and how much we should hate him, but the last 1/4 quickly snapped into expecting everybody to forgive him for doing something good. The worst part is that not only does everybody forgive him and he ends up being the hero, it actually ends with her begging his forgiveness for wanting to leave him. The aesop turns out to be "If your husband beats you, stick around if he helps you anyway because his FreudianExcuse makes it OK."

* ''{{Penelope}}'' has essentially the same problem as ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' - once she learns to accept her own appearance as an ugly person with a pig nose, she transforms into an attractive Christina Ricci.

** ''Cyber Seduced: His Secret Life'' attempts to preach AnAesop about how looking at internet porn will ruin your life. The 14-year-old protagonist starts out as a champion swimmer and ends the film as a suicidal mess. Except because it's Lifetime TV, the most they can actually show is just Justin looking at women in skimpy costumes and the film's Aesop gets undermined when all the problems that happen for Justin don't actually come from looking at porn in general. He gets addicted to energy drinks simply because he drinks them when he looks at porn, he gets into trouble with people in town because the woman whose porn he was watching accuses him of raping her because he won't sleep with her. Half the kid's problems seem to stem from having a mother who feels such a habit warrants therapy and interventions. And yet [[DesignatedHero the mother is meant to be the heroine of the story]].

* ''Film/SwimmingWithSharks'' has a Buddy Ackerman, being tortured by Guy whom he had mistreated, unleash a speech about how one has to suffer to earn good things and be willing to work for Them and how he endured it too. It would be nice except that Buddy was not simply a demanding or strict boss but a complete and utter sadist who took extreme pleasure in mistreating everyone he could and even blatantly stole a brilliant idea Guy had. The film spends so long showing Buddy as a monster and Guy as a dogged employee that the sudden shift to make Guy the bad one for committing these acts just feels like a last minute apology. If Buddy's speech is the intended aesop, the moral of the story is "If you endure suffering, you have every right in the world to make others go through the same and anyone who says otherwise is a naive spoiled brat".

--> This is a movie about a kid whose love for music is transformed into something "evil" by his paranoid parents until he is turned into a raving, bigoted fanatic who loses his friends, his personality and any sense of independence. You can make your point without writing off an entire genre of music as a tool of devil-worshipping, drug-abusing homosexuals. That makes you sound fucking crazy, especially when your examples are debunked.
* ''Film/{{Limitless}}'' has a drug which whilst you are on it makes you superhumanly intelligent. The protagonist discovers to his horror that other people who have taken it have had fatal experiences with withdrawal (the only survivor of withdrawal he finds is a complete burn-out). His girlfriend points out that whilst he's on the drug he's a different person. Plus when he is off the drug he finds himself completely unable to cope and so desperately seeks to continue his supply, there are even escalating side-effects of headaches and missing time when he's on the drug. Seems like a fairly clear Aesop about not relying on artificial crutches to succeed and a metaphor for steroid hormones. However in the end [[spoiler:he uses the drug to solve all of his problems (although it's ambiguous if he's actually off the drug at the end or just used the drug to concoct a beautiful lie) and becomes a US Senator, who is clearly destined for the Whitehouse.]] Implying that drugs are in fact good as long as you use them wisely.

* [[Film/VForVendetta The film version]] of ''Comicbook/VForVendetta'' goes for a pretty unambiguous Aesop about the importance of standing up for freedom and thinking for yourself, but the "freedom fighter" hero's crusade against England's fascist government still relies on [[spoiler:kidnapping and torturing an innocent girl to make her more sympathetic to his cause]], and it ends with him [[spoiler:being hailed as a martyr by a mob of his devoted supporters, who proceed to show their devotion by [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything donning identical black outfits and marching in lockstep towards the nation's capital]].]] You know... for freedom. [[note]] It's worth noting that Creator/AlanMoore's original graphic novel was far more ambiguous about this, since V was explicitly said to be an ''anarchist'' rather than a freedom fighter, and it was strongly hinted that his efforts would ultimately spell disaster for Britain (unlike the film, the graphic novel took place in the aftermath of a nuclear war, in a world where anarchy was the last thing that anyone needed).[[/note]]
* A particularly egregious example in ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve''- Dr. Adrian gives a rousing speech onboard one of the doomsday-evading-Arks on the importance of humanity looking out for one another and convinces the captain to open the gates, allowing more people in. While well-intentioned, this decision indirectly results in the DiabolusExMachina offings of Gordon and Tamara via the ship flooding.

* ''Atlas Shrugged: Part I'' has John Galt describe himself as "Someone who knows what its like to work for himself and not have others feed off the profits of his energy". Which makes zero sense as industrialists by their very job description feed off of other's energy: Their employees, engineers, experts, etc. A major business cannot function without the work of others.

* The comedy film, ''Fear of a Black Hat'', parodies the broken aesop of gangster films like ''{{Film/Scarface}}'' and ''Film/NewJackCity'' in a music video called "A Gangsta's Life is Not Fun". Meaning, the point of the films are to show how being a ruthless criminal and selling drugs is wrong, [[spoiler:and yes the villains do pay the price for their actions in the end.]] However, ninety percent of the films shows them being CrazyAwesome before hand. Which results in them [[DracoInLeatherPants having a lot of fans]] and the message of the films being missed, entirely.
-->'''Ice Cold''': I'm the G.A.N.G.S.T.E.R like Scarface bitch I'm a superstar. Revered by all, though I am the villain, gain more juice by the others I'm killing. Profiling and styling, drive a fly ride and hoes just pile in. I make gangsta money, cause I'm gangsta bold. Fuck gangsta bitches, wearing gangsta clothes. And I kill with will of steel for thrills, another way to pay the bills. I'm the boy wonder, god of thunder, wrong move and I'll put you under. I'm notorious, I live glorious, I'm the fly gangsta the remains victorious. Stay in the top-self clothes, stay fucking the top-self hoes. Because I'm the gangsta they call number one... but don't try this at home kids, a Gangsta's life's not fun.
* WordOfGod states that an intended message of ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' is a refutation of [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity moral absolutism]] - in the actual film, the [[MoralEventHorizon moral line in the sand]] is pretty clearly marked:

-->'''The Operative:''' I do.

* ''Film/TheGreatGatsby'' has been savaged by critics for this very reason. One of the major points of the original novel was that in spite of his wealth and power, Gatsby was still a lonely and desperately unhappy man, which the critics feel was undercut immensely by just how ''fucking awesome'' [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing the director made all of his parties look]].
* The ending of the ''Film/{{Banlieue 13}}'' sequel contains one of the most broken aesops ever seen: [[spoiler:After having foiled the villain's plan to blow up Banlieue 13 in order to have it replaced by a rich suburb, and exposed his orchestration of the civil violence leading to that decision, the leaders of all five stereotypical ethnic gangs (Black rastafarians who look like rejects from the Lord's Resistance Army, robe-clad bearded arabs, TriggerHappy portuguese used car salesmen, tattoed asian martial artists and ''white neo-nazi skinheads'') give the French President an "inspirational" speech on how they're like a ''family that protects, unites and brings people together !'' Keeping in mind that they all ''voluntarily'' racially segregate themselves into different blocks and have only united to fight a common enemy, this reaches previously unexplored levels of Wallbanger territory]] But wait, it gets worse: [[spoiler:they then decide that it would be better to rebuild Banlieue 13 from scratch and proceed to ''go along with the villain's plan and blow it up anyway !'']]
** Well, to be fair, early on it was mentioned that [[spoiler:if the Big Bad had gotten his way, D13 would've been replaced by middle-upper class housing, displacing all the poor into the other districts. What Leito's posse were probably getting at was replacing it with new low-income housing and better urban planning... assuming 5 walking stereotypes, a kung fu cop, and a free-runner were able to get that point across.]]

* ''DiaryOfAWimpyKid: Dog Days'' has AnAesop about owning up to mistakes when you make them. Greg's father Frank lectures him on this, and Greg's confession to him in the climax of the film is what finally fixes the trust issues the two have been dealing with for most of the movie. Problem is, Frank is a BumblingDad who doesn't follow his own advice -Earlier in the film, he and Greg inadvertently ruin a pot roast his wife had been preparing for supper, and rather than telling her this, he allows her to serve it anyway while avoiding eating any of it himself.

* The ''XMen'' films claim to send an anti-prejudice message... but there isn't [[TokenMinority more than one non-white protagonist per film]], no female characters who aren't beautiful, and no romances that aren't heterosexual. As a matter of fact, the entire franchise seems to cater specifically to straight white males.

** Plus, Spock's death forces Kirk to accept that there are things he can't do anything about...and then the entire next film is devoted to the crew bringing Spock back to life. Though in their defense, at the time ''Khan'' was made the plan was indeed to have him stay dead. ([[Spoiler:And even though they did get Spock back Kirk still had to suffer for it - he lost his son, David Marcus, who was killed trying to protect Saavik from the Klingons.]])

** Plus, Spock's death forces Kirk to accept that there are things he can't do anything about...and then the entire next film is devoted to the crew bringing Spock back to life. Though in their defense, at the time ''Khan'' was made the plan was indeed to have him stay dead.

** A male cross-dresser that appears to Hal as a beautiful woman, although inner beauty and gender are two entirely different things.

** {{YMMV}}: Some people don’t find Ricci that attractive AT ALL, and frequently compare her to the Star Child from ''TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.

* ''{{Penelope}}'' has essentially the same problem as "Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast" - once she learns to accept her own appearance as an ugly person with a pig nose, she transforms into an attractive Christina Ricci.

* The 2011 film ''Film/MeanGirls'' 2: The moral of the story seems to be "don't be a follower," but in the end, Abby decides to attend Carnegie-Melon instead of her original goal of NYU just to stick with Jo, who in turn based her college decision solely on it being the school her dead mother went to.

* The anvilicious aesop of ''Film/MazesAndMonsters'' that role playing makes you insane is broken by the fact the protagonists have their own family problems and the role playing actually brings them together and occupies them.

* The new "Franchise/Superman" reboot, "Film/ManOfSteel", has this when [[DarkActionGirl Faora]] gains the upper hand over Superman, citing the "evolutionary advantage" of their lack of morality, the [[AnAesop aesop]] being [[ScienceIsBad that evolution doesn't always win]]. However, morality is the entire reason [[EvilOverlord Zod]] wants to exterminate humanity to replace them with Kryptonians, and Superman's victory simply proves [[TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin morality is superior]], not that evolution can be resisted.

** Also, doesn't even a truly one-man business need, like, clients? There's got to be some sort of benefit to them, too.