History Headscratchers / Megamind

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[[folder:No Child Protective Services]]

* Character reactions to Megamind, whether as a baby, child, or adult, consist primarily of gaping and staring at him. Few appear to address him directly. (Even the first prisoner to speak on his arrival asks, "Can we keep it?") This seems to indicate indicate that the characters around him don't perceive him as a person and thus outside the realm of child protective services.

[[folder:Roxanne and Bernard]]

How come Roxanne didn't realize "Bernard" was really Megamind? The voice, the posture, the attitude... didn't she find odd that Bernard had changed so dramatically?
* Well, she didn't know Bernard at all. She barely even knew his name - she gets it wrong at first. To her, he was just the guy who worked at the museum - which hadn't even been open that long. Presumably she thought that this was how Bernard was when he was not at work and opened up a bit. A little later, Megamind told her himself about being a lonely child, which would just have cemented this explanation.

[[folder:Breaking and entering]]

So Megamind crashes into a jail and is automatically a prisoner for "breaking and entering", but what kind of KangarooCourt sentences a 6 month old for that?

Was Titan evil or more ChaoticStupid? While he did turn into a Jerkass, one with powers that made him dangerous, he was a victim of circumstances- he got powers by accident, was told he could be a hero and that it would get him the girl once he saves her a few times. He does so (wildly misunderstanding what it means, admittedly); she rejected him and dated a dork instead (from his POV) and his "mentor" turned out to be a villain who mocked him to his face about it- such stuff would drive anyone mad.
* Sadly, Titan ''was'' evil. In a way, this is his StartOfEvil story. Hal was an immature, dishonest, self-entitled, lazy guy who suddenly got super-powers. All he wanted was to be a hero in the limelight and get all the attention. Despite how much he enjoyed the adulation and limelight, Metro Man worked for his status as a hero and showed self-restraint. Recall the scene where they're doing the training with the Megamind training dummy. He melts the dummy's head to goo with a big grin on his face; Hal had none of his restraint or empathy for others. He didn't exactly have the best mentor, either, with Megamind teaching him how to be a comic-book hero and not a responsible hero.

* Such stuff would ''not'' drive anyone mad. When an average person gets dumped, they might feel sad, but they don't try to conquer a city. Likewise if your mentor turns out to be a villain who mocks you. The average person would feel ''upset'' about that, and they might even punch the villain or something, but that's still a far from ''making yourself into a dictator'', messing with ''thousands'' of innocent people who never harmed you in any way. This guy is evil.

[[folder:Dehydration gun and Titan]]

In the aerial shot of the Death Ray firing, the beam quite obviously strikes in the locale of Cadillac, Michigan, implying that this is the location of Metro City. This doesn't make sense for various reasons: the observatory, and Metro City itself, is depicted as being coastal, yet the beam strikes several miles inland; Roxanne's station's call letters are KMCP, and sstations beginning with "K" are used for the western US (Michigan and the East should start with "W"); Metro Man and Megamind landed on earth around Christmastime, yet there was no snow on the ground, which is a rarity in Michigan ''especially'' on the lakeshore.
* Considering there are superheroes and supervillains; people can survive being thrown around by someone with superstrength without even getting injured; it's possible to dehydrate someone to a tiny cube without killing them; and everyone is computer generated, don't you think this story might not take place in the real world? That explains unusual weather and call letters. You still have a point on the coastal thing though.
* WordOfGod says that Metro City was heavily inspired by UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco. Not necessarily based off of it, but heavily inspired by nonetheless. The DVD commentary, on the other hand, calls Metro City something like "The sister city of Toronto; a Great Lakes metropolis", so its Michigan depiction appears to be intentional (unfortunately, when the Death Ray is fired in Button of Doom, it's shown striking north of Saginaw Bay rather than the Lake Michigan coast, so ''where'' in Michigan is still up in the air).

[[folder:Superspeed]]

How did Roxanne manage to arrange all those little bits of paper just like that in her apartment so they lined up the way they did? That's ridiculous for two reasons: 1) She would've had to get every single scrap if paper from Megamind's lair, which she obviously didn't, and 2) Megamind created Titan by accident. "Tighten" as a name was an afterthought, it seemed...
* Roxanne knows Megamind pretty well, so it's not out of the question she knows his mindset well enough to set the paper up the same way. Setting it up like he had would give her a better insight into his plan. And whaddaya know, it did!\\

[[folder:Faking death]]

[[folder:Dotting the i]]

* Megamind surely is familiar with windows. After a lifetime spent in prison or breaking into banks and other secure facilities, however, windows ''without bars'' may be a strange idea for him to wrap his head around. He does compare the window to the monitors in his lair, so he might have simply found its size and the fact that it's installed in a room meant to be an HQ odd.

[[folder:Exit door]]

When Roxanne meets Megamind in his Bernard disguise after infiltrating his lair, he directs her toward a door marked 'Exit.' Later on in the same scene, we learn that this door actually leads to a sheer drop above a pit full of alligators. So why on Earth did he tell her to go there? Did he forget?

* From everything we can gather, while Megamind robbed banks, kidnapped a journalist every so often and apparently killed the city's previous hero, Titan was going to ''destroy the entire city'', something which Megamind had shown no desire or interest in doing. Put simply, the former was definitely being a dick, but the latter was worse by far (''ref.'' the first news-report on Titan, "the city has never seen this level of destruction").
* When Megamind takes over the city, what does he say? He makes a big theatrical display, proclaims his future reign of informed evil, and then tells everyone to "carry on with the dreary, normal things, normal people do." When Titan takes over the city, what does he do? "Oh, I wouldn't say freed. More like under new management." Then he ''flicks'' the mayor across the road. When Megamind is in control, the city carries on with a little bit more paint and some money floating around the downtown corridor; when Titan is in control, the city ''evacuates''; all those people fleeing the city at the end of the film are people who didn't bother to go anywhere when it was just Megamind they had to worry about, because Megamind just makes a show about being evil, whereas Titan actually ''is.''

Post-movie, isn't the whole broken eternal rivalry just going to repeat itself, but in reverse now that Megamind is a superhero but has no supervillain to battle against? There's always bank robbers and such, but no major arch-nemesis that we know of.
* The problem wasn't so much that he didn't have a superhero to fight, but that he didn't have ''anyone'' to challenge him, since everyone other than Roxanne pretty much just folded once Metro Man was out of the picture. As a hero, however, there's always going to be crime to fight, and he could continue cleaning up the city and improving it.

[[folder:Ocean inside a bigger ocean]]

[[folder:Hal and the cell]]

Did Hal really deserve to be put in Megamind's super max prison cell after he was defeated? The guy doesn't even have a life, and he's very much harmless without Metro Man's powers. The least they could have done was give him some community service, right?

* Possibly Megamind dropped it in the fountain to short out its mechanism and render it inoperable, because he'd realized that giving ''anybody'' Metro Man's powers was a bad idea.

[[folder:Prison and technology]]

Why did the prison allow Megamind access to a television and a remote control, given his proven facility with technology?

Megamind was serving multiple life sentences. He's an escaped fugitive. He booted out the duly-elected government of Metro City to impose his own reign. He '''created''' the very Titan problem he eventually had to solve. So why, when the dust settled at the end, were the citizens of Metro City so quick to lionize him as a hero, and let him go unpunished?
* What are them going to do? Megamind has pretty much proven that, except for Metro Man, no one else can do anything against him. Even going to jail is more of a voluntary thing ("I'm going home") than a real punishment (Not to mention he can get out any time he wants). The citizens cheering for him right after Titan is defeated is likely more happiness that, well, Titan is defeated rather than it being for Megamind in particular.

* Minion is, well, a minion. While he does play a large part in Megamind's schemes and accompanies him almost everywhere, in the grand narrative of the conflict between Metro Man and Megamind, he's framed as just being a background character. With the exceptions of those who get a frequent and extensive view behind the scenes of their clashes like Roxanne, most people, including Hal, only see Minion as "generic villain mook" and don't pay much attention to him.

[[folder:Frequent kidnapping card]]

Why did Megamind discontinue the frequent kidnapping card? What would be the reward for filling a card?

* In a promotion like that, accumulating enough points to get the reward is supposed to be a rare and infrequent event that takes some effort to achieve. The fact that Megamind had to discontinue it goes to show how hilariously often he kidnaps her.

[[folder:Spikes]]

* Those spikes are probably made of some soft, lightweight material to avoid injuries like that and to keep the car from being weighed down. Either that, or they're retractable.

Is there any reason why the jail gave Megamind a sentence of several thousand years? It is unlikely that Megamind will even be able to live out the entirety of his prison sentence. Heck, the prison would likely crumble to dust long before the several thousand years were up, along with possibly the civilization and government that handed out the sentence.
* There are real life cases of people getting as many as ''300'' life sentences. The purpose of this is so that if they get their sentence reduced, they'll still spend their entire life in jail. It's just a measurement of how abhorrent society views the crime and to give the victims closure.

* Perhaps the government has kept tabs on the Metro Man / Megamind dynamic and realized that Megamind himself was ineffectual and more focused on the spectacle than the actual crime. If there was any escalation, they probably would step in, but Megamind's plans did not change much and eventually got bored and turned to sprucing up the town instead (Roxie's suggestion, but still).

[[folder:Government, part II]]

Related to the above, since Megamind is obviously bored without any opposition. How about just declare war on someone like the entire America? Hopefully their military response could keep him entertained. It worked for Doctor Doom.

[[folder:Hal's accomplishments]]

The part where Minion says that Hal has no records he remarks, "Apparently, this man hasn't accomplished anything." True, he's a cameraman. But in this day and age even a cameraman for a TV network requires going to college, especially if the network in question is a major TV news broadcast.
* Minion is not speaking entirely literally. Unfortunately, in this day and age going to college is genuinely not an achievement anymore - it's like boasting you completed high school. Given what we know about him, it can be safely assumed that he most likely got below-average to average grades at school and college, isn't ''that'' great at his job and most likely hasn't excelled in any significant way or done anything of any particular note with his life. Generally, landing a decent job and gaining sufficient qualifications to enable you to do so isn't really considered to be exceptional, since that's pretty much the minimum that society expects of a functional member of society. And while a job in the media isn't exactly something to sniff at, who really pays attention to the cameraperson?

[[folder:Different Megaminds]]

Why are there two punch-holes in the invisible-car's door?

[[folder:Scanning Metro Man]]

[[folder:Metro Man's death]]

In the scene where Metro Man dies (well, fakes his death, but details) and Megamind sees his skeleton for the first time, Roxanne is in the background tied to a chair. Later on that night when Megamind is rampaging the city and making his big speech, she is in the audience, completely free. When and how did she get free from Megamind's grasp if no one was there to save her?

What's up with the apology scene towards the end? Megamind's apologizing to who he thinks is the warden for all the bad he's done and that he wants to make it right, and then Minion disables the hologram and goes "apology accepted" as if that apology might as well have been directed at Minion himself. The thing is, Megamind's apology is simply a more extreme version of the position he had before, ''the one that caused Minion to abandon him in the first place''. The entire reason they fought and "broke up" was because Megamind briefly thought he didn't want to be a supervillain anymore, and Minion was utterly devastated. So what on earth caused Minion to decide that, yes, being a good guy was a good idea, and that, somehow, ''it had been his position the entire time''?
* Minion wasn't against the idea of Megamind ceasing to be evil, not entirely; he was just upset because Megamind yelled in the heat of the moment he didn't need him. Note how, at the end, Minion is perfectly content to join the party and bask in not being a bad guy anymore. Megamind's apology wasn't about renouncing his decision to abandon supervillainy, it was about acknowledging that he'd treated Minion like crap in the process and apologizing for that.

[[folder:Copying powers]]

Is it possible to be both a genius and a bumbling idiot? Some scenes Megamind is played off as a buffoon, other times he is shown to be super smart.

[[folder:Hal a bad guy]]

Was Hal really a bad guy before gaining super powers? Before he became Titan, he seemed to be a bumbling idiot who just wanted a girl's affections. A lot of guys who try way too hard to impress girls, but they aren't psychopaths or nutcases. Sure they unintentionally come off creepy just like Hal, but they are still nice guys, they're just lousy at picking up women. Also, why doesn't Roxanne take blame for him turning evil? Sure she doesn't love him, but it was stated she treated him like a nobody. Heck, she gave the real Bernard, the one who was summarily dehydrated, more attention. She doesn't feel guilty at all?
* He wasn't a bad guy in the sense of being an evil psychopath, but this is the whole point. The problem with so-called "nice guys" like Hal is that, while they're hardly evil, they're too often not actually as nice as they like to think they are. Scratch the surface, Hal is pretty clearly a little bit of a jerk at least. His attentions towards Roxanne clearly make her uncomfortable, he is frequently inappropriate (exhibit A: the "private party" he invites her to, complete with wedding photographer), and doesn't take 'no' for an answer when she tries to refuse him ("Soft yes on Thursday?"). He is very quick to get jealous when 'Bernard' appears on the scene and treats Roxanne in a very condescending fashion ("She doesn't know what she's saying, she's been through a traumatic experience..."). Yes, some of this can be put down to bumbling social ineptitude, but that's not actually much of an excuse -- if you're not good at navigating social situations, then it is at least partially your responsibility to learn how to do so, it's not necessarily everyone's job to bend themselves around you. And no, none of this makes Hal evil, at least initially, but it's his reactions later in the movie which cross the line.
* As for why Roxanne has little-to-no responsibility for Hal's FaceHeelTurn, that's because Hal is a grown man and is responsible for his own actions. He's not the first man to be rejected by the woman he has feelings for, but it's his decision to go on what is basically the superpowered equivalent of a temper tantrum because of it. Furthermore, "she treated him like a nobody" is a hugely unfair distortion of Roxanne's actions (note how the only person who actually claims this is Hal himself, who is far from unbiased or reliable in this particular matter). Watch how she treats him throughout the movie. Despite the fact that she's clearly discomforted by him at times, she nevertheless clearly makes an effort to be polite and kind to him, and to let him down gently. And even if she didn't -- even if she did treat the original Bernard with more interest -- well, frankly, that's her choice. Roxanne has the right to choose whomever she's dating, regardless of whether that particular someone is nice to her or not.

* In scenes that include Hal, following Metro Man's assumed destruction, the audience is shown more aspects of Hal's personality (in addition to his predominant NoMeansYes interactions with Roxanne)--through subtle behaviors that don't compliment his character. To answer the question, "''was Hal really a bad guy before gaining super powers?''", here are some examples:
** During Megamind's Q&A session in front of City Hall, Hal openly chews gum - occasionally revealing a large (though likely unintentional) smile - while he's filming live, whether it's Roxanne or Megamind who he points the camera at. Hal's characteristics on display here are primarily carelessness, and in second place irreverence.
** In the same scene, Hal is shown to have changed out of his "Error 404 Request Not Found" shirt (worn earlier the same day) into his "Game Over" shirt--which was a deliberate choice, even if it happened off-screen, because it contrasts Roxanne's appearance entirely (she went immediately from her role as a hostage into her role as a news reporter without so much as wiping off the Death Ray explosion's ash from her face). Hal's action conveys his previously indicated passive-aggressive contempt for Metro Man, or perhaps mocks the reaction of the people around him (as he, by contrast, appears ambivalent).

* Hal was ''always'' a bad guy, it's just that getting his new powers brought his already bad traits up to eleven. Rewatching his earlier scenes, there's never really a point where Hal extends genuine sympathy or kindness to anyone, [[SmallNameBigEgo he has a huge ego despite being entirely regular and quite dumb,]] and even his moments with Roxanne are clearly ploys to get into her pants with no concern for her feelings beyond his goals of dating her. When he suffers from rejection, [[NeverMyFault he always attributes it to something shallow rather than his own pushiness,]] as, even when he breaks a finger punching the newsvan in frustration, his first instinct is to ''blame the van.'' The only time Hal is sympathetic to someone else is when he thinks Megamind lied to "Space-Stepmom", which is more of an example of his stupidity than anything else.

[[folder:Metro Man's dream]]

How was Metro Man planning to pursue his dream if he is believed to be dead? Does he have a Clark Kent identity in this universe? What makes Metro Man think Megamind wouldn't conquer the entire planet if he was planning to move to another state to become a musician? It would be kinda difficult to do this if your planet is under control of an evil genius.
* He's going to create a new identity for himself; in essence, he's going to create a Clark Kent-style identity for himself. And the reason he assumes Megamind won't conquer the entire planet or anything like that is because ''he knows Megamind''. The two have essentially been each other's closest frenemy since childhood. Metro Man knows that there's no major risk on the "potential planetary destruction or domination" front from Megamind because by this point he's familiar with Megamind and knows that ultimately Megamind's not really interested in that. It's quite arguable that not only did he know that Megamind wasn't going to take over the world, but that he foresaw Megamind becoming the new Good to fill the vacuum he left, therefore fulfilling ''both'' of their dreams (Metro Man is now free from his social burden, and Megamind gets the opportunity to be a good guy that was denied to him as a child).

[[folder:Megamind the murderer]]

Regarding Megamind, yes, he's a sympathetic VillainProtagonist, but isn't there a bit of ProtagonistCenteredMorality along wiht it? He is treated throughout the entire movie as a misunderstood loner who isn't capable of doing genuinely evil things, except that, he ''murders a guy (Metro Man) and cheers about it'', only regretting it afterwards because he felt bored and unfulfilled, not because he felt actual remorse. Then consider that you don't get ''88 life sentences'' for nothing; you gotta have done some pretty heinous shit to get that much.

[[folder:Prison inmates]]

Just how did Megamind's HeelFaceTurn affect his foster family? By becoming a superhero, he basically betrayed them in favor of getting the affection of the people who ostracized him and made him want to be a villain in the first place. As a child, the inmates were the only people who genuinely cared for him and accepted him for who he was, and now he's making a living out of pursuing bad guys like them? One'd imagine Megamind's next few visits to Metro City Prison to be incredibly awkward.

[[folder:Metro Man's adoptive parents and his plan]]

* This assumes that they're alive to begin with; they could have passed away well before the events of the story, making the issue academic.
* Based on the little we get to see about them, the folks who raised Metro Man/Music Man appear to be quite hands-off parents. They regarded the super-baby who dropped into their lives like something more akin to a somewhat amazing pet than an orphan who needs to be sheltered and nurtured. It may be that Metro Man understood deep down inside that while the news of his demise will be received by them with conventional tears and weeds, it will not be long before they will eventually resume their normal richly fulfilling and busy social lives at some pleasant retirement community.
* Who's to say he didn't tell them he's alive, then swear them to secrecy? Hands-off parents or not, it's unlikely that they'd want their adoptive son to be miserable, and force him to continue in a superhero's life he'd long since gotten sick and tired of leading.

[[folder:The morality of Megamind's species]]

Why didn't Megamind just copy Metro Man's powers again and use it on himself? He could have just made another one in the lab.

[[folder:Rivalry pt. 2]]

So as kids, Megamind and Metro Man clearly did not get along. As Adults, they might not have hated each other, but they were clearly antagonistic towards each other. Why then, does Metro Man call Megamind "Little Buddy" when he and Roxanne find him in his secluded enclave after having faked his death? Nothing about their relationship has ever hinted that Megamind and Metro Man were ever pals.
* For all the villainy and battles and plots, ultimately they were ''were'' pals, even if they never fully realised it. They shared a similar background, being aliens whose home planets were destroyed; their sparring is more akin to two wrestlers on opposite sides of the Heel-Face divide. Even more than Metro Man being a pivotal figure in Megamind's life, Megamind seems to be the '''only''' figure in Metro Man's. The latter didn't consider Roxanne as anything more than a recurring rescuee-slash-TV interviewer, the regular citizens were just groupies he'd gotten tired of babysitting, and even his foster-parents were distant at best. Who ''else'' did he have a lasting relationship with, if not the little blue geek from his old school? Metro Man's never been scared of Megamind or felt the need to take his "evil-doing" seriously; it's always been like a game to him, with no anger in it. Why ''wouldn't'' he think of Megamind as more like a buddy - albeit one whose butt he loves kicking at their mutual favorite sport - than an enemy?

[[folder:Roxanne getting off the tower]]

[[folder:Superspeed, part II]]

* How would that help? Even ignoring the sci-fi aspects of the world this film takes place in, there are such things as trains, planes, cars, buses and various other forms of transport enabling him to get back. It doesn't solve the problem, it just temporarily inconveniences him.

[[folder:Hal's superhero name]]
So is Hal's superhero name supposed to be "Titan" or "Tighten"? Why would Megamind give his new rival an incredibly stupid name? He claims "It was the only name I could trademark", which seems to befit it actually supposed to be the latter?
* Megamind intended it to be Titan, and is written as such when Roxanne is trying to put together Megamind's plans. Hal is an idiot who doesn't know what a titan is, and mistakes it for the homophone. Since that's what he calls himself, that's what we call him.

* When the Warden takes the watch, Megamind asks him for the time -- obliquely asking him to hold the watch up to his face and speak - and a little 'rec.' light flashes on the watch face. He doesn't have the time to do the same to Bernard.

* Sadly, Titan ''was'' evil. In a way, this is his StartOfEvil story. Hal was an immature, dishonest, self-entitled, lazy guy who suddenly got super-powers. All he wanted was to be a hero in the limelight and get all the attention. Despite how much he enjoyed the adulation and limelight, Metro Man worked for his status as a hero and showed self-restraint. Recall the scene where they're doing the training with the wax Megamind. He melts the figure's head away with a big grin on his face; Hal had none of his restraint or empathy for others. He didn't exactly have the best mentor, either, with Megamind teaching him how to be a comic-book hero and not a responsible hero.

* It might also be for Hal's own protection. After all, he very publicly called out Megamind, did his level best to kill him, failed, and got locked up in prison. The same prison Megamind was raised in. Where he's considered family by the inmates. And now Hal's stuck there. Alone. ''With no powers.''

[[folder:Infusion/defusion gun]]

Where did the infusion/defusion gun go after Megamind used it to remove Titan's powers? Megamind holds it in his right hand immediately after using it. His hands are not visible while talking to Minion, but then he uses both hands to flip Minion into the pool. There is a wide shot after that, and the gun is neither strapped to Megamind nor anywhere he could have put it down nearby (the depowered Hal is also oddly not there).

* What are them going to do? Megamind has pretty much proven that, except for Metro Man, no one else can do anything against him. Even going to jail is more of a voluntary thing ("I'm going home") than a real punishment (Not to mention he can get out any time he wants). The citizens cheering for him right after Tighten is defeated is likely more happiness that, well, Titan is defeated rather than it being for Megamind in particular.

* Minion probably freed her. Minion was about to release her when they thought Metro Man was going to escape, so probably did after Metro Man was blown up. There's also a good chance that Megamind himself dropped her off; he didn't really have any plans for her beyond using her to lure Metro Man into another trap/battle.

* During the opening montage, where Megamind in infancy zaps down a prison wall (using his binkey on the homemade tricycle), background animations, voices, and sounds showed that Megamind's fellow prisoners escaped for themselves. It's hard to know if any inmates from Megamind's arrival stayed on through his adulthood, but we do see that none of his inmates tried to bring him out of prison with them. So it seems that all his inmate brethren saw him as just a pet of some sort (see the headscratcher on the lack of child protective services).

[[folder:Metro Man's adopted parents and his plan]]

Were Metro Man's adopted parents aware of his fake death? It seems pretty cruel not to let them know he is alive and well.

Why didn't Megamind just copy Metro Man's power again and use it on himself? He could have just made another one in the lab.

Tighten is pretty dumb, but shouldn't he have recognized his Space-Stepmom? Hal had to know who/what Minion was - after all Minion marched on up to City Hall and fumbled with a boombox in front of everyone as Megamind took over the city. Hal was on hand filming this. It seems to me that a wig and an apron wouldn't be enough to hide a fish driving a robotic gorilla suit - even from Hal.

** During Megamind's Q&A session in front of City Hall, Hal openly chews gum- occasionally revealing a large (though likely unintentional) smile- while he's filming live, whether it's Roxanne or Megamind who he points the camera at. Hal's characteristics on display here are primarily carelessness, and in second place irreverence.

Regarding Megamind, yes he's a sympathetic VillainProtagonist, but isn't there a bit of ProtagonistCenteredMorality along wiht it? He is treated throughout the entire movie as a misunderstood loner who isn't capable of doing genuinely evil things, except that, he ''murders a guy (Metro Man) and cheers about it'', only regretting it afterwards because he felt bored and unfulfilled, not because he felt actual remorse. Then consider that you don't get ''88 life sentences'' for nothing; you gotta have done some pretty heinous shit to get that much.

** Megamind likewise seems to approach the relationship the same way. He also loves the banter, the games, etc involved in their relationship. And if anything, both of them are powerful enough to have stopped each other numerous times - they just fell into a predictable routine that was comforting but not challenging. For Megamind's side, he says it himself as well; he never really had a reason to win because, as he's implying, he always saw his role as The Loser.

* There actually ''is'' a ladder; it can be seen in front of Roxanne when Titan first puts her on the tower. It's a bit blink-and-you-miss-it and can't be seen in subsequent shots due to character movement and camera angles, but it's there.

* When Megamind takes over the city, what does he say? He makes a big theatrical display, proclaims his future reign of informed evil, and then tells everyone to "carry on with the dreary, normal things, normal people do." When Titan takes over the city, what does he do? "Oh, I wouldn't say freed. More like under new management." Then he ''flicks'' the mayor across the road. When Megamind is in control, the city carries on with a little bit more paint and some money floating around the downtown corridor; when Tighten is in control, the city ''evacuates''; all those people fleeing the city at the end of the film are people who didn't bother to go anywhere when it was just Megamind they had to worry about, because Megamind just makes a show about being evil, whereas Titan actually is.

** While filming in front of Megamind's Secret Hideout, even though Hal has the camera pointed at Roxanne the entire time, he doesn't see her disappear through a wall--and doesn't notice her absence immediately, either. (There is enough time, before Hal notices: for Megamind and Minion's witty banter, for Minion with DNA Gun in hand to be hidden in a tall metal cabinet, for Megamind to close a long curtain in front of his create-a-hero plans and to answer Roxanne's confusion over the phone.) In this way, Hal shows that he isn't looking (paying attention) even when he is looking--no exceptions for Roxanne.

* Hal was ''always'' a bad guy, it's just that getting his new powers brought his already bad traits up to eleven. Rewatching his earlier scenes, there's never really a point where Hal extends genuine sympathy or kindness to anyone, [[SmallNameBigEgo he has a huge ego despite being entirely regular and quite dumb,]] and even his moments with Roxanne are clearly ploys to get into her pants with no concern for her feelings beyond his goals of dating her. When he suffers from rejection, [[NeverMyFault he always attributes it to something shallow rather than his own pushiness,]] as, even when he punches a car in frustration, his first instinct is to ''blame the car.'' The only time Hal is sympathetic to someone else is when he thinks Megamind lied to his "space stepmom", which is more of an example of his stupidity than anything else.

* He's going to create a new identity for himself; in essence, he's going to create a Clark Kent-style identity for himself. And the reason he assumes Megamind won't conquer the entire planet or anything like that is because ''he knows Megamind''. The two have essentially been each other's closest frenemy since childhood. Metro Man knows that there's no major risk on the "potential planetary destruction or domination" front from Megamind because by this point he's familiar with Megamind and knows that ultimately Megamind's not really interested in that. It's quite arguable that not only did he know that Megamind wasn't going to take over the world, but that he forsaw Megamind becoming the new Good to fill the vacuum he left, therefore fulfilling ''both'' of their dreams (Metro Man is now free from his social burden, and Megamind gets the opportunity to be a good guy that was denied to him as a child).

* During the opening montage, where Megamind in infancy zaps down a prison wall (using his binkey on the homemade tricycle), background animations, voices, and sounds showed that Megamind's fellow prisoners escaped for themselves. It's hard to know if any inmates from Megamind's arrival stayed on through his adulthood, but we do see that none of his inmates tried to bring him out of prison with them. So it seems that all his inmate breathren saw him as just a pet of some sort (see the headscratcher on the lack of child protective services).

[[folder:Defeating Tighten]]

* Hal had the right to be unhappy that Roxanne rejected him, but he clearly [[NotGoodWithRejection refused to accept it and respect that she didn't like him that way,]] and his immediate response to her rejecting him was to drop any pretense of being a good guy at all and offer to team up with the villain who'd taken over the city (it's telling that one of the Titan's first villainous acts was using his super-powers to steal random things he wanted, and this was ''before'' he was taunted by Megamind).

* He knew she was on the hunt for some kind of "scheme" and hoped that the stuff behind the Exit door would lead her off the track of what he was really doing?

Why in the world would the city want Megamind to defeat Titan? Sure, Tighten's evil, but they haven't seen Megamind's FaceHeelTurn; there is absolutely nothing to cheer about when Megamind defeats Titan. All they know is they're just back under the thumb of a far more intelligent tyrant.

* What are them going to do? Megamind has pretty much proven that, except for Metro Man, no one else can do anything against him. Even going to jail is more of a voluntary thing ("I'm going home") than a real punishment (Not to mention he can get out any time he wants). The citizens cheering for him right after Tighten is defeated is likely more happiness that, well, Tighten is defeated rather than it being for Megamind in particular.

[[folder:Space-stepmom]]

The part where Minion says that Hal has no records he includes the line, "Apparently, this man hasn't accomplished anything." True, he's a cameraman. But in this day and age even a cameraman for a TV network requires going to college, especially if the network in question is a major TV news broadcast.

* Because it can't copy powers. Just appearance. When Megamind impersonated Metro Man, he was using a jetpack and a bunch of gadgets to imitate his powers.

Was Hal really a bad guy before gaining super powers? Before he became Tighten, he seemed to be a bumbling idiot who just wanted a girl's affections. A lot of guys who try way too hard to impress girls, but they aren't psychopaths or nutcases. Sure they unintentionally come off creepy just like Hal, but they are still nice guys, they're just lousy at picking up women. Also, why doesn't Roxanne take blame for him turning evil? Sure she doesn't love him, but it was stated she treated him like a nobody. Heck, she gave the real Bernard, the one who was summarily dehydrated, more attention. She doesn't feel guilty at all?

* Sadly, Titan ''was'' evil. In a way, this is his StartOfEvil story. Hal was an immature, dishonest, self-entitled, lazy guy who suddenly got super-powers. All he wanted was to be a hero in the limelight and get all the attention. Despite how much he enjoyed the adulation and limelight, Metro Man worked for his status as a hero and showed self-restraint. Recall the scene where they're doing the training with the wax Megamind. He melts the figure's head away with a big grin on his face; Hal had none of his restraint or empathy for others. He didn't exactly have the best mentor, either, with Megamind teaching him how to be a comic-book hero and not a responsible hero.\\
* Hal had the right to be unhappy that Roxanne rejected him, but he clearly [[NotGoodWithRejection refused to accept it and respect that she didn't like him that way,]] and his immediate response to her rejecting him was to drop any pretense of being a good guy at all and offer to team up with the villain who'd taken over the city (it's telling that one of the Titan's first villainous acts was using his super-powers to steal random things he wanted, and this was ''before'' he was taunted by Megamind).\\

* Hal had the right to be unhappy that Roxanne rejected him, but he clearly [[NotGoodWithRejection refused to accept it and respect that she didn't like him that way,]] and his immediate response to her rejecting him was to drop any pretense of being a good guy at all and offer to team up with the villain who'd taken over the city (it's telling that one of the Titan's first villainous acts was using his super-powers to steal random things he wanted, and this was before he was taunted by Megamind).

[[folder:Defeating Tighten]]

* When Megamind takes over the city, what does he say? He makes a big theatrical display, proclaims his future reign of informed evil, and then tells everyone to "carry on with the dreary, normal things, normal people do." When Titan takes over the city, what does he do? "Oh, I wouldn't say freed. More like under new management." Then he ''flicks'' the nearest guy across the road. When Megamind is in control, the city carries on with a little bit more paint and some money floating around the downtown corridor; when Tighten is in control, the city ''evacuates''; all those people fleeing the city at the end of the film are people who didn't bother to go anywhere when it was just Megamind they had to worry about, because Megamind just makes a show about being evil, whereas Titan actually is.

* Well she didn't know Bernard at all. She barely even knew his name - she gets it wrong at first. To her, he was just the guy who worked at the museum - which hadn't even been open that long. Presumably she thought that this was how Bernard was when he was not at work and opened up a bit. A little later, Megamind told her himself about being a lonely child, which would just have cemented this explanation.

[[folder:Evil Tighten]]

Was Tighten evil or more ChaoticStupid? While he did turn into a Jerkass, one with powers that made him dangerous, he was a victim of circumstances- he got powers by accident, was told he could be a hero and that it would get him the girl once he saves her a few times. He does so (wildly misunderstanding what it means, admittedly); she rejected him and dated a dork instead (from his POV) and his "mentor" turned out to be a villain who mocked him to his face about it- such stuff would drive anyone mad.
* Sadly, Tighten ''was'' evil. In a way, this is his StartOfEvil story. Hal was an immature, dishonest, self-entitled, lazy guy who suddenly got super-powers. All he wanted was to be a hero in the limelight and get all the attention. Despite how much he enjoyed the adulation and limelight, Metro Man worked for his status as a hero and showed self-restraint. Recall the scene where they're doing the training with the wax Megamind. He melts the figure's head away with a big grin on his face; Hal had none of his restraint or empathy for others. He didn't exactly have the best mentor, either, with Megamind teaching him how to be a comic-book hero and not a responsible hero.\\
Hal had the right to be unhappy that Roxanne rejected him, but he clearly [[NotGoodWithRejection refused to accept it and respect that she didn't like him that way,]] and his immediate response to her rejecting him was to drop any pretense of being a good guy at all and offer to team up with the villain who'd taken over the city (it's telling that one of the Tighten's first villainous acts was using his super-powers to steal random things he wanted, and this was before he was taunted by Megamind).

[[folder:Dehydration gun and Tighten]]

With as much exposure Megamind's dehydration gun got throughout the movie, to the point that he called his use of it an "old habit", why did he never even consider using it on Tighten? He's still made of water, isn't he?
* It's highly likely -- almost certain, in fact -- that Megamind has tried the Dehydration Gun on Metro Man at some point in the past and for whatever reason (perhaps mentioned above, perhaps different) it didn't work. And if it didn't work on Metro Man then, it's not gonna work on Tighten now.

Does Megamind believe in God? When he's trying to get Tighten to fight him, he says something like 'Oh God, you don't know how much I've missed this'. Does his planet have religions like Earth or what?
* He's been on Earth almost all his life and learned Earth concepts, including religion and/or the terms "Oh my God", etc. But regarding his utterance, plenty of atheists in RealLife also say "Oh my God". It's basically become an idiomatic expression. Still, there is a moment in which Minion assures Megamind that his parents are smiling from "evil heaven", so perhaps?

How did Roxanne manage to arrange all those little bits of paper just like that in her apartment so they lined up the way they did? That's ridiculous for two reasons: 1) She would've had to get every single scrap if paper from Megamind's lair, which she obviously didn't, and 2) Megamind created Tighten by accident. "Tighten" as a name was an afterthought, it seemed...

As for the "accidentally creating Tighten" part, Megamind might have given the powers to ''Hal'' by accident, but it was always his plan to create a new superhero; he came up with the 'Tighten' identity before he decided who he was going to give the powers to.

* Well the people of Metro City never really got the chance to prosecute Megamind for the supposed murder of Metro Man in the first place, did they? Megamind is still "condemned" to be a hero for the rest of his life by the 88 life sentences he already had, thus the question of prosecuting him for the murder of Metro Man is rather a moot point, something the people of Metro City probably realized and thus didn't bother with either.

When flying above the city and writing his name with his laser vision, Tighten/Tighten takes special care to dot the second 'i' in 'Tightenville'--but the first 'i' remains undotted.
* Hal isn't exactly the smartest or most careful of men; chances are he doesn't really care. He's not even smart enough to spell Tighten correctly. Although he might have been about to do the first one when Roxanne distracted him.

Why in the world would the city want Megamind to defeat Tighten? Sure, Tighten's evil, but they haven't seen Megamind's FaceHeelTurn; there is absolutely nothing to cheer about when Megamind defeats Tighten. All they know is they're just back under the thumb of a far more intelligent tyrant.
* From everything we can gather, while Megamind robbed banks, kidnapped a journalist every so often and apparently killed the city's previous hero, Tighten was ''going to destroy the entire city'', something which Megamind had shown no desire or interest in doing. Put simply, the former was definitely being a dick, but the latter was worse by far (''ref.'' the first news-report on Tighten, "the city has never seen this level of destruction").
* When Megamind takes over the city, what does he say? He makes a big theatrical display, proclaims his future reign of informed evil, and then tells everyone to "carry on with the dreary, normal things, normal people do." When Tighten takes over the city, what does he do? "Oh, I wouldn't say freed. More like under new management." Then he ''flicks'' the nearest guy across the road. When Megamind is in control, the city carries on with a little bit more paint and some money floating around the downtown corridor; when Tighten is in control, the city ''evacuates''; all those people fleeing the city at the end of the film are people who didn't bother to go anywhere when it was just Megamind they had to worry about, because Megamind just makes a show about being evil, whereas Tighten actually is.

Where did the infusion/defusion gun go after Megamind used it to remove Tighten's powers? Megamind holds it in his right hand immediately after using it. His hands are not visible while talking to Minion, but then he uses both hands to flip Minion into the pool. There is a wide shot after that, and the gun is neither strapped to Megamind nor anywhere he could have put it down nearby (the depowered Hal is also oddly not there).

Megamind was serving multiple life sentences. He's an escaped fugitive. He booted out the duly-elected government of Metro City to impose his own reign. He '''created''' the very Tighten problem he eventually had to solve. So why, when the dust settled at the end, were the citizens of Metro City so quick to lionize him as a hero, and let him go unpunished?

* Consider also, Megamind had ''expected to die'' when he confronted Tighten and was willing to do so. For all Metro Man's popularity, ''he'' was never actually in danger when performing his past feats of heroism; realizing that the guy who'd made a career out of getting his butt kicked was ''still'' willing to stand up to a genuinely-lethal opponent may have made a lot of folks reassess their opinion of him.

So if the Megamind on the hoverbike was Minion, how did the dehydrator gun (used to free Roxy) get back to Megamind (used to save himself from his fall)? It's made from his binky, so it seems doubtful he has a second one.
* He has more than one dehydrator, specifically during the scene where he and minion are "cleaning up the streets", Megamind has a walker-mounted dehydrator. So if he built another one for that machine, he probably does have a backup dehydrator gun that Minion used.

* Tighten used both hands while ripping off the door.

In the scene where Metro Man dies (well, fakes dying, but details) and Megamind sees his skeleton for the first time, Roxanne is in the background tied to a chair. Later on that night when Megamind is rampaging the city and making his big speech, she is in the audience, completely free. When and how did she get free from Megamind's grasp if no one was there to save her?

So, why did Hal suddenly gain an extremely curly afro when souped up on Metro Man DNA?

Why didn't Megamind just copy Metroman's power again and use it on himself? He could have just made another one in the lab.
* Doing that backfired ''spectacularly'' the first time. And Tighten is still invincible. At best you'd have a stalemate.
* When first making Tighten, Megamind says "We only have one shot at this". So apparently he'd already used up all the DNA he had available (or he ran out of some other resource).

How does Roxanne get off the tower that Tighten abandons her on? It doesn't seem to have a ladder or any means for a human to climb down.
* There actually ''is'' a ladder; it can be seen in front of Roxanne when Tighten first puts her on the tower. It's a bit blink-and-you-miss-it and can't be seen in subsequent shots due to character movement and camera angles, but it's there.

* Megamind intended it to be Titan, and is written as such when Roxxy is trying to put together Megamind's plans. Hal is an idiot who doesn't know what a titan is, and mistakes it for the homophone. Since that's what he calls himself, that's what we call him.

* Hal was ''always'' a bad guy, it's just that getting his new powers brought his already bad traits UpToEleven. Rewatching his earlier scenes, there's never really a point where Hal extends genuine sympathy or kindness to anyone, [[SmallNameBigEgo he has a huge ego despite being entirely regular and quite dumb,]] and even his moments with Roxanne are clearly ploys to get into her pants with no concern for her feelings beyond his goals of dating her. When he suffers from rejection, [[NeverMyFault he always attributes it to something shallow rather than his own pushiness,]] as, even when he punches a car in frustration, his first instinct is to ''blame the car.'' The only time Hal is sympathetic to someone else is when he thinks Megamind lied to his "space stepmom", which is more of an example of his stupidity than anything else.

[[folder:The name "Tighten"]]
Am I the only person who interpreted the guy's name as "Titan"? You know, like the Titans from Greek mythology? It would make sense as a reference to his godlike strength. And then later when he spells out "Tightenville" with his laser eyes, I laughed. I thought the joke was that he's an idiot and he heard the word "Titan" as "Tighten", which obviously makes no sense as a hero name. But here I find that everyone is typing out the name as "Tighten". Which raises another question: Why would Megamind give his new rival an incredibly stupid name? I mean yeah, he claims "It was the only name I could trademark", but still...really? I took that line to mean "Yeah, you're not literally a greek god, but it's the best I could do", but apparently it was meant as "Everything ''remotely'' interesting has already been trademarked, so I named you after a completely random verb that has nothing to do with anything."

* This is addressed in the [[AllThereInTheManual commentary of the DVD]]. They made a shot where the skeleton turns to dust, but they scrapped it after they saw it because they thought wasn't necessary. But regardless, you actually ''can't'' get DNA from bones -- they're made of calcium, which has no DNA.
** Actually you can get DNA from bones. "Bone is one of the best sources of DNA from decomposed human remains. Even after the flesh is decomposed, DNA can often be obtained from demineralized bone. DNA from bone has been used to identify the repatrioted bones from Vietnam era servicemen, and the remains of the White Russian Romanov family who were executed during the Bolsheviek revolution." And Bone is only about 70% mineralized. It also includes Osteocyctes, Osteoblasts, colligens, hematopoietic cells, stromal cells and adipose tissue...all of which contain DNA.

* Was Hal really a bad guy before gaining super powers? Before he became Tighten, he seemed to be a bumbling idiot who just wanted a girl's affections. A lot of guys who try way too hard to impress girls, but they aren't psychopaths or nutcases. Sure they unintentionally come off creepy just like Hal, but they are still nice guys, they're just lousy at picking up women. Also, why doesn't Roxanne take blame for him turning evil? Sure she doesn't love him, but it was stated she treated him like a nobody. Heck, she gave the real Bernard, the one who was summarily dehydrated, more attention. She doesn't feel guilty at all?
He wasn't a bad guy in the sense of being an evil psychopath, but this is the whole point. The problem with so-called "nice guys" like Hal is that, while they're hardly evil, they're too often not actually as nice as they like to think they are. Scratch the surface, Hal is pretty clearly a little bit of a jerk at least. His attentions towards Roxanne clearly make her uncomfortable, he is frequently inappropriate (exhibit A: the "private party" he invites her to, complete with wedding photographer), and doesn't take 'no' for an answer when she tries to refuse him ("Soft yes on Thursday?"). He is very quick to get jealous when 'Bernard' appears on the scene and treats Roxanne in a very condescending fashion ("She doesn't know what she's saying, she's been through a traumatic experience..."). Yes, some of this can be put down to bumbling social ineptitude, but that's not actually much of an excuse -- if you're not good at navigating social situations, then it is at least partially your responsibility to learn how to do so, it's not necessarily everyone's job to bend themselves around you. And no, none of this makes Hal evil, at least initially, but it's his reactions later in the movie which cross the line.

Was Hal really a bad guy before gaining super powers? Before he became Tighten, he seemed to be a bumbling idiot who just wanted a girl's affections. A lot of guys who try way too hard to impress girls, but they aren't psychopaths or nutcases. Sure they unintentionally come off creepy just like Hal, but they are still nice guys, they're just lousy at picking up women. Also, why doesn't Roxanne take blame for him turning evil? Sure she doesn't love him, but it was stated she treated him like a nobody. Heck, she gave the real Bernard, the one who was summarily dehydrated, more attention. She doesn't feel guilty at all?
* He wasn't a bad guy in the sense of being an evil psychopath, but this is the whole point. The problem with so-called "nice guys" like Hal is that, while they're hardly evil, they're too often not actually as nice as they like to think they are. Scratch the surface, Hal is pretty clearly a little bit of a jerk at least. His attentions towards Roxanne clearly make her uncomfortable, he is frequently inappropriate (exhibit A: the "private party" he invites her to, complete with wedding photographer), and doesn't take 'no' for an answer when she tries to refuse him ("Soft yes on Thursday?"). He is very quick to get jealous when 'Bernard' appears on the scene and treats Roxanne in a very condescending fashion ("She doesn't know what she's saying, she's been through a traumatic experience..."). Yes, some of this can be put down to bumbling social ineptitude, but that's not actually much of an excuse -- if you're not good at navigating social situations, then it is at least partially your responsibility to learn how to do so, it's not necessarily everyone's job to bend themselves around you. And no, none of this makes Hal evil, at least initially, but it's his reactions later in the movie which cross the line.\\
As for why Roxanne has little-to-no responsibility for Hal's FaceHeelTurn, that's because Hal is a grown man and is responsible for his own actions. He's not the first man to be rejected by the woman he has feelings for, but it's his decision to go on what is basically the superpowered equivalent of a temper tantrum because of it. Furthermore, "she treated him like a nobody" is a hugely unfair distortion of Roxanne's actions (note how the only person who actually claims this is Hal himself, who is far from unbiased or reliable in this particular matter). Watch how she treats him throughout the movie. Despite the fact that she's clearly discomforted by him at times, she nevertheless clearly makes an effort to be polite and kind to him, and to let him down gently. And even if she didn't -- even if she did treat the original Bernard with more interest -- well, frankly, that's her choice. Roxanne has the right to choose whomever she's dating, regardless of whether that particular someone is nice to her or not.\\
Hal might not have been an out-and-out psychopath (though he's definitely psychopath''ic''), but he was basically a selfish brat who pretended to be a nicer person than he was, which is why when he gets superpowers the first thing he does is start robbing stuff. Like [[WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles Syndrome]], his idea of what a hero is revolves around having amazing powers and getting to do whatever you want, and he thinks that they only save people because [[EvilCannotComprehendGood they love the adulation that comes with it]]; unlike Syndrome, Hal doesn't give a damn about the adulation (except [[StalkerWithACrush from Roxanne]]), so he has even ''less'' reason to pretend to be a hero.

* Such stuff would ''not'' drive anyone mad. When an average person gets dumped, they might feel sad, but they don't try to conquer a city. Likewise if your mentor turns out to be a villain who mocks you. The average person would feel ''upset'' about that, and they might even punch the villain or something, but that's still a far from ''making yourself into a dictator'', messing with ''thousands'' of innocent people who never harmed you in anyway. This guy is evil.

* Unfortunately, in this day and age going to college is genuinely not an achievement anymore - it's like boasting you completed high school. Given what we know about him, it can be safely assumed that he most likely got below-average to average grades at school and college, isn't ''that'' great at his job and most likely hasn't excelled in any significant way or done anything of any particular note with his life. Generally, landing a decent job and gaining sufficient qualifications to enable you to do so isn't really considered to be exceptional, since that's pretty much the minimum that society expects of a functional member of society. And while a job in the media isn't exactly something to sniff at, who really pays attention to the cameraperson?

The part where Minion says that Hal has no records he includes the line, "He has accomplished nothing." True, he's a cameraman. But in this day and age even a cameraman for a TV network requires going to college, especially if the network in question is a major TV news broadcast.