History IdiotBall / Film

** To be fair, he apparently DOES have a means of returning, since he has the Prize (at least, this seems to be implied by the love interest's attempt to confirm that she understood his explanation of the new backstory that completely contradicts the first film). But he clearly has absolutely no interest in doing so. Holding on to an immense IdiotBall seems to be a theme for villains played by MichaelIronside.

* Every ''StepUp'' movie needs some sort of conflict in order to form something resembling a plot. Unfortunately only ''Revolution's'' conflict is caused by a massive case of idiot ball. Eddie finds a video which reveals that his best friend's girlfriend, Emily, is secretly the daughter of the man who wants to destroy his neighborhood to build a new hotel. The problem here is that the video, as well as Emily's actions since he met her, also prove that she's on his side and has being doing everything to help stop her father. None of this matters to Eddie who launches a nasty, vindictive plot that effectively destroys his relationship with his best friend, Emily's relationships with her father, his best friend's relationship with Emily, the dance crew's chances at winning $1 million, AND the neighborhood's chance at saving their community. All in one single fell swoop. And all because his best friend kept Emily's identity a secret. Really?! The idiot ball gets passed around to the dance crew who, for some reason, went along with his selfish plans in the first place and then later quickly forgive him despite all the immense damage he's caused. What's worse? His best friend forgives Eddie after he delivers one of the worst half-assed apologies ever.

* In ''Open Graves'', the hero wishes to reverse time to a week ago, without wishing for his memories to remain, and thus damns himself to a horrific time-loop. What makes it especially idiotic is, even the villain granting the wish takes pity on him, warns him that it is a stupid wish, and gives him a chance to try a different wish. He does it anyway.

* In ''Film/DieHard'' one must wonder why Tony takes the detonators, one of the ''crucial'' elements to the terrorist's plans, along with him when he goes in alone to hunt [=McClane=]. Why he didn't leave them with Hans, or why the otherwise DangerouslyGenreSavvy Hans didn't ''demand he leave them behind'', is a mystery, and of course [=McClane=] gets his hands on them and almost foils their entire scheme because of it.

* ''Film/ClashOfTheTitans'' : The vain Queen Cassiopeia had the nerve to proclaim that her daughter, Andromeda, was more beautiful than the city's patron goddess, Thetis ... and she did this inside of ''Thetis's own temple,'' no less. In typical form for the Greek gods, Thetis does not take kindly to the insult, and as punishment, she demands that Andromeda be sacrificed to the Kraken, or else the entire city would be destroyed.
** Also, at the beginning of the film, the arrogant and vengeful King Acrisius of Argos condemns his own daughter, Danae, and her infant child, Perseus - ''who happens to be the son of Zeus, the leader of the gods'' - to the sea. It never seems to occur to Acrisius that Zeus just ''might'' be a little P.O.'ed by this. (Zeus commanded Poseidon to unleash the Kraken on Argos, destroying the entire kingdom. Acrisius may not have noticed, however, since he was busy being crushed to death by Zeus's hand.)
* PlayedForLaughs in ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean''. A crew finds Elizabeth's dress on board after she sneaks on board, prompting a mad rush to find the stowaway naked lady. None of them even stop to think said lady would be wearing men's clothes?
* Toward the end of ''{{Twilight}}'', Bella's mother visits her in the hospital after Bella was assaulted by a vampire before being saved by Edward. The vampire crushed her leg, threw her into a mirror where a shard cut into her femoral artery, and bit her wrist. Humans can't know about this. So Carlisle explained to Bella's mother what happened: Bella [[AmusingInjuries fell down TWO flights of stairs and THEN INTO A WINDOW!!]] That is WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes-level comedic hijinks. Did she hit a trampoline at the bottom? The idiot ball is being held by Bella's mother, father, and the hospital staff for believing such a ludicrous story!

* Almost all the villains in the IndianaJones series get a dose of this trope. In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'':

* Almost all the villains in the IndianaJones series get a dose of this trope. In ''IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'':

* ''SupermanII''

** This is actually an aversion — the only person given those rules doesn't believe in ghosts. The house apparently doesn't even require people to enter it.
* In ''[[Film/{{WolfGirl}} Wolf Girl]]'' Beau is shown to have [[{{ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy}} really bad aiming]] skills; he plans to murder Kara with a pistol. An angry mob forms to kill Kara who is responsible for murder. The plan is off to a sound start until Krystal seems to forget that they are looking for a 'girl' with 'long brown hair' and decides that it is as good a time as ever to flirt with a girl who looks exactly like Kara but without the hair on her face. Hilariously enough, Krystal even remarks that Kara looks familiar.

** This is actually an aversion - the only person givwn those rules doesn't believe in ghosts. If nothing else, the house apparently doesn't require people to enter to begin with.

** This is actually an aversion - the only person given those rules doesn't believein ghosts. Additional, some victims didn't even go into the house at all, so these rules may just be superstitions.

** And when we get to the Original Trilogy, in the light of events of the Prequel Trilogy, Palpatine's response to Luke's refusal to be turned to the Dark Side is truly idiotic: He proceeds to try to torture Luke to death, in front of his father, while Luke begs his father for help, despite the fact that ''offering Anakin the power to preserve the lives of his family was the key to getting him to turn to the Dark Side''. He may have hoped [[ThatManIsDead Anakin was dead]], but he didn't even think of the possibility!

* PlayedForLaughs in 'Film/AnchormanTheLegendOfRonBurgundy''. Ron Burgundy jumps into a pit full of hostile bears to "save" his girlfriend, ''then'' realizes [[WhatAnIdiot he has no plan and immediately regrets the decision.]]

* In ''Film/{{Hellboy}} II: The Golden Army''

* In ''Film/LethalWeapon 2'', Riggs does the "idiot ball" thing with his girlfriend ''du jour'', Rika. Paraphrased here:

** The the sequel ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark''. "Not into the long grass! Long grass!" Sage advice, the only problem being he was running into the long grass to tell them...

** The idea of building Jaegers in the first place could also be one. There is a static hole at the bottom of the Pacific that occasionally sends giant monsters to ravage coastal cities. Why not put naval mines all over the area, so the monsters are ripped to shreds before they even get close to any city? Sure, the mines would need to be periodically replaced, but that's cheaper and safer than spending billions on giant robots. Yes, it's later revealed that the frequency of the kaiju appearances is increasing, but no one knew that at the time.

*** Supposedly, the city they entered was like Mos Eisley. A wretched hive of scum and villainy except maybe smaller. Maybe they couldn't do what Obi Wan did in 4. Maybe having a queen on-board instead a farmer and an old man would make them more likely to be back-stabbed. Of course, you don't have to tell your smuggler about ''all'' the passengers he's carrying until it's time to take off, and if he objects or backstabs at that point the two fully-trained Jedi (one a senior Jedi Master, no less) can easily subdue him and fly the ship themselves.

** The opening crawl says that the Trade Federation blockaded Naboo as a protest against taxation. But when Amidala announces the blockade and invasion to the Senate, the Trade Federation representative denies it and calls for an investigation. The whole ''point'' of a protest is to get attention, so why deny what they're doing?
*** The demand for an investigation is for the allegation of the invasion (which is extremely illegal), not the allegation of the blockade (which is completely legal). The Senate knows that the Trade Federation is blockading Naboo and why, but Darth Sidious has been making sure they don't do anything about it.

*** It is implied that they WAS no way of knowing and they may have had an investigation which came up with nothing. After all, they didn't have force ghosts around until Qui-Gon died and the army was ordered before the army was ordered which was almost 2 decades before. The trial was cold at that time.
*** While it might be asked 'How did the Jedi or the Old Republic government not notice that they allegedly ''paid'' for this clone army ten years ago? Do they never read their own bank account statements?', remember that the most logical person to be in charge of the audit trying to discover who was responsible for this apparent financial irregularity involving the Jedi Order and/or the previous Chancellor's office would be the current Chancellor -- who is of course the Sith Lord actually responsible for the whole mess in the first place.

** Soran deserves a mention for thinking that the only way to return to the Nexus was to turn into an OmnicidalManiac. Why not take a ship to a point near where the energy ribbon's going to be, put on a spacesuit, beam out into space ahead of the ribbon, and wait for it to pick him up? No stars would've needed to be destroyed, so Starfleet wouldn't have had any reason to interfere, and nobody would've been killed.