History IdiotBall / LiveActionFilms

*** And even that is the result of yet another idiot ball on the other side: The victim only died in the first place because the protagonist decided to drive to the hospital rather than remembering that telephones exist. Surely he could have at least bought some time to intervene by calling and saying,"I'm on my way with important evidence; don't let anything drastic be done till I get there."

* In ''Tulip Fever'', the hero as everything squared away for him and the heroine to run off together and only needs to do one last thing--sell a rare tulip bulb to get the money to pay off his debts and fund their passage to The New World. He proceeds to entrust his drunken friend to retrieve the bulb for him. Of course, the man gets wasted and ''eats'' the bulb, leaving the hero in financial ruin and unable to go off to start a new life.

* Most of Jigsaw's victims in the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' movies tend to grab the Idiot Ball in regards to what they do in their death traps. Justified in that people wouldn't mentally be at their best when they're about to die.

* Most of Jigsaw's victims in the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' movies tend to grab the Idiot Ball. One very small point in their defense is that people might not mentally be at their best when they're about to die.

* Most of the trapped characters in the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' movies. One very small point in their defense is that people might not mentally be at their best when they're about to die.

** Ironically, Creator/PeterJackson wanted ''Pippin'' to be the primary ball holder throughout the movie, toning down most of his brighter moments. The fact that ''he'' is the one to lit the bonfire at Weathertop was meant to underscore this point. However, according to the logic of Middle-Earth, Pippin did exactly what he should have done. Frodo, who was ''supposed'' to be the smart one, puts out the fire, because it might draw the wraiths to it. WhatAnIdiot.

* 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 his defense, he's a recently electrocuted preteen child, it's pretty reasonable that it wouldn't occur to him. The adults ''could'' tell him to do it, but having a kid pick up or use a gun is opening up a dangerous can of worms in a family film...

*** Rey grabs it too. She decides, out of the blue, to trust the man who betrayed his own father.

** In ''Film/JurassicWorld'', had Claire or anyone at the Indominus Rex enclosure bothered to check its tracking device ''before'' sending a trio into the pen to investigate, it wouldn't have escaped and none of the bloodshed would have ensued. Even considering that the scientists had no clue it could camouflage as Dr. Wu hadn't told them, and considering the possibility that the tracker may have been ripped out or malfunctioned, checking the location of the tracker and seeing where and if it was moving would have been the first decision of anyone with even a modicum of intelligence, followed by investigating the outside perimeter of the pen for footprints and destroyed foliage, and ''then'' investigating the pen with an entire properly armed team rather than two unarmed men.
--> '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDN5b9L2hrQ The Critical Drinker:]]''' So Owen and a couple of assholes go inside to investigate. Why are you doing this?! [[DidntThinkThisThrough What are you hoping to find?]] If it really has escaped then you're wasting time looking in the place it escaped from! And if it's still there, it's just gonna spring out and fucking eat you!

*** In 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! Palpatine's plan to sway Luke to the Dark Side to begin with was even more idiotic: simply put it "ha ha I've lured your friends into a death trap... so now you're my apprentice I guess! Go Team Dark Side!" At least with Anakin he actually offered the guy a desirable incentive to [[FaceHeelTurn turn bum on the Republic]]. Palpatine's actions are even more nonsensical, factoring in the Rise Of Skywalker; the novelization reveals that Palpatine apparently knew for certain that Vader was beginning to turn to the light side, which makes the fact that he ''turned his back on him whilst torturing his son to death'' even more egregious.
** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'':
*** Luke Skywalker detects dark thoughts in his nephew, whom he's known all his life. He decides... to creep into his bedroom in the night, armed, to spy on him.

** In episodes 1-3, Emperor Palpatine masterfully and discreetly orchestrated events that led to the destruction of the Republic and Jedi Order and the rise of the Empire. In ''Film/TheRiseofSkywalker'', he just blatantly announces his plan of revenge to the galaxy sixteen hours before his fleet was ready to fly.

* ''Film/Godzilla2014'':

* Trinity gets a big one in ''Film/TheMatrix''. It's right after they've rescued Morpheus and are in the subway waiting for the phone. After Morpheus "wakes up" Trinity decides right then and there, when they both know they're not safe yet, to tell Neo about something important the Oracle told her. The phone just keeps ringing while they both ponder this, conveniently enough time for Smith to catch up with them so he and Neo can have their final fight.
* ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'':
** The partly-disabled Enterprise is threatened by the Genesis Device, which is on a "buildup to detonation." If the Genesis torpedo has to build up energy to detonate, then they could have blown up the ''Reliant'' and cut it short. It's not like they couldn't, either; they proved themselves quite capable of hitting a stationary target even with the nebula interference. Instead, this is never even suggested and the ''Enterprise'' tries to crawl away, necessitating Spock's HeroicSacrifice.
*** This relies on some assumptions that may not be correct. It's stated that once the Genesis countdown is started, a detonation is inevitable (presumably because ingredients are mixed and just need the energy to spark a reaction). It's not explicitly mentioned, but the characters likely believe that hitting the device with a torpedo would trigger the Genesis explosion just as readily as letting the time run out.
** Kirk enabled his ship to be damaged and many of his crew lost when he ignored regulations dictating a defensive posture with shields up when being approached by a non-communicative ship. Even worse, he gets the stupidity of his actions pointed out to him, and he chooses to ignore the reasonable advice and go ahead with blindly trusting the suspicious ship. He at least has the grace to admit he screwed up afterwards when he tells Saavik to feel free to continue quoting regulations to him in the future.
** The whole meeting with Khan. First, how the hell does 1st Officer Chekov, whose duty it is to notify the Captain when they are going into bad situations, completely forget that they are going into that star system where they left that mad tyrant and supergenius Khan Noonein Singh? Given that the man had been a major warlord (at the time in ST canon), had millions slaughtered, and nearly took over and destroyed the Enterprise, you would think that that would be something that he wouldn't forget easily. Second, do the Reliant's sensors not work? Do they not keep star charts or something? The idea that a whole planet could just explode and disappear, causing another planet to somehow take the first planet's identical orbit, and that the two planets were so similar that they fooled 23rd century sensors, and no one thought to question "oh, where's the missing planet that should be in sensor range?" requires a string of [[IdiotBall idiot balls]] that could be an offscreen IdiotPlot in itself.
*** Chekov was not part of the command crew during "Space Seed". (For that matter, he wasn't on the ''show'' during "Space Seed", although it was later retconned in that he was a minor crewmember somewhere on board that Khan remembered the face of because Khan has total recall). It is entirely possible that Chekov didn't know what star system Khan was dropped off in; after all, Khan's location has to be kept at ''some'' level of security classification, or else any one of several groups that wanted to make trouble for the Federation would simply sail there and turn him loose.
*** Also, even if Chekov ''had'' known, and ''had'' remembered well enough to make the connection, he has no reason to think that there's any connection to the present situation. If he knew the destination, he would also know that Kirk had left Khan without any working means of space travel, he'd know it's not the same planet, and he'd have no reason to suspect that that would have any bearing on the current mission.
* In ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' the ''Enterprise''-D was destroyed because four of the seven main characters passed the Idiot Ball around.
** First up: Mr. Worf. Gee, what's the typical way to penetrate shields besides just pouring fire into them? Match frequencies with the shields! How is that halted? Rotate shield frequencies! Even if the Duras Sisters picked it up again, it'd take time and a quick eye to pick it up from Geordi's bugged visor again. Or just tell Data [[ForgottenPhlebotinum to do the exact same thing that he did]] in "The Best of Both Worlds" - change the shield frequencies, constantly at a speed only he can keep up with. The Borg couldn't keep up, how is some Klingon supposed to?
** Commander Riker. He should have told Worf to fire at will. The ''Enterprise'' is one of Starfleet's big sticks, she should have been mercilessly whaling on that Klingon rust bucket. Even without shields, the ''Enterprise'' is covered stem to stern in phaser arrays, and is loaded with torpedoes. Instead, we get one piddly phaser strike before Data's technobabble solution.
** Geordi, after the Duras sisters bite the dust. Gee, that main powerplant channeling immense energy has a chance to explode if it catastrophically malfunctions, it would be a great idea if the ship's designers worked in a means to dump it overboard if it did! Even stranger is the fact that they DO have a core ejection system. It is mentioned in the ''Enterprise''-gets-destroyed-and-stuck-in-a-time-loop episode. The core ejector on Galaxy-class starships ''[[FailsafeFailure never]]'' seems to work (the cited episode, "Cause and Effect," being a good example), and maybe Geordi had figured that out and was just telling it like it is. This punts the idiot ball back to Starfleet's ship designers.
** Troi. Wouldn't it make sense to fly ''away'' from the planet with its looming gravity pull as well as the other half of the ship counting down to explode? The only plausible explanation is that the saucer section didn't have enough power to escape the gravity well or that it was damaged in the main hull's explosion. This one in particular is a hilarious Idiot Ball hand-off because Troi's incompetence doesn't even BEGIN with her... it begins with Riker (again!) shouting, "DEANNA! TAKE THE HELM!" What? Riker, who has been stated to be one of the best pilots ''in Starfleet'', is commanding the Ship's ''Counselor'' to fly the goddamned ship? The therapist? Who failed her officer's exams ''how many times?'' Her? Piloting the Federation flagship in the middle of a freaking crisis situation? ''Really?!''
** Captain Picard. While his crew was playing Idiot Ball Hot Potato, his plan to prevent a genocidal maniac from blowing up a star... was to beam down to the villain's base alone and try to talk him out of it. He didn't even go down with a weapon. To be fair, he didn't know that Soren was packing a force field. When that fails, Picard changes strategies by ''sitting on a rock and waiting'' until he conveniently spots a hole in the force field. After he gets sucked into the [[MacGuffin Nexus]], he learns from Guinan's ghost that he can leave the Nexus and go ''anywhere, anytime.'' Given this supreme tactical advantage, he plans to go right back to the planet's surface where Soren was kicking his ass and was moments away from winning, rather than, say, back on the ''Enterprise'' before Soren blew up the first star and he could get his hands on a phaser to make a public arrest. Even better, he asks Guinan, who has no fighting skills at all, to come back and help him (since she's only a ghost, she instead refers him to Kirk, who is actually alive and kicks more ass in the film than Picard does).
*** And this ignores the fact that Picard can go back and save his relatives from ''dying in a fire''. He could literally save his brother's life and family AND take out Soren, but he does neither. Hell, bring Kirk alone. He's strong and smart and could HELP!
*** It ''is'' implied that he could only go back into the past once; meaning, if he saved his brother and nephew, he would be stranded on Earth hundreds of light-years from the Enterprise, which had (maybe) another Picard in command, resulting in a lot of wasted time trying to contact them, get to them, explain what exactly was going on and how he (or they) got there, that he was the 'same' Picard, etcetera. In essence, Picard performed a HeroicSacrifice of his own by NOT doing that--he gave up the chance to help his family to save an entire planet full of strangers. Admittedly, they didn't mention this at all, despite how much of a great character moment it would have been, and true to Picard's nature.
*** See ''VoodooShark'' for why your saving throw leads to a worse plot hole. OK, so Picard can only go back once? And going back on Earth would lead to the possibility that the proper information won't get where it needs to go? Go back two weeks before ''on the Enterprise'', inform the Picard who is already there of a series of improbable events that he knows will happen, tell him that he should send a priority 1 message to whoever is listening to go check the wiring in his brother's house, buy him a smoke alarm, and be watching him on XYZ date. Then both Picards can go leisurely take care of Soren and have a week to spare. So long as the information gets to Picard in the past, it doesn't really matter how far back he goes. He can pull a Marty [=McFly=], and give Picard a letter to be opened on the date of "Encounter at Farpoint": so long as the information makes it back to the past, it doesn't matter when in the past it gets to (at least in Star Trek physics).
* In ''Film/JohnCarter'', Dejah gets to hold one when the main villain gets on his knees, gives her his sword, and tells her to just kill him if she doesn't want to marry him. She has been very vocal about how staunchly against it she is the whole movie, she's a fully capable swordswoman, and she puts the sword to his neck... Her next scene has her in a wedding gown. She might have been wary on account of the fact that his soldiers would probably raze Helium if she did it, but it's not made clear.
* In ''Film/SilentRunning'', Lowell has spent eight years as the sole botanist taking care of one of the last living forests, preserved in a space station. He's implied to be the only person to still care about preserving nature and is the best man qualified to oversee the return of nature to Earth. Despite all this, towards the end of the film he suffers a crisis because he simply can't figure out why his forest is dying. In the climax, he suddenly remembers that [[spoiler: plants need ''sunlight''!]] Why did it take him that long to figure that out???
** Most likely it's a sign that his guilt over killing his fellow crewmembers and his isolation from human contact is making him lose his reason. In fact, the former is one of the reasons he later [[spoiler: kills himself.]]
* Granted, the film ''Film/Rampage2018'' starts with the villains- Claire and Brett Wyden of Energyne- making a 'weapon' that turns animals into enranged giants, so they were already operating on an area of questionable intelligence, but they then compound their mistakes by trying to summon the now-giant-and-enraged animals to them by turning on a massive transmitter ''in the middle of Chicago'' that enrages the animals and draws them towards it; Claire states as she turns the transmitter on that they allegedly had 'thousands' of such transmitters, so surely they could have used another one in a less populated area that wouldn't have risked the subsequent collateral damage?
** In their defence, at the time Claire activated it, she assumed they'd only have to deal with ''one'' giant animal (they assumed George would die in a plane crash when the signal provoked him and they didn't know about the giant crocodile), but a giant wolf can still do a lot of damage.

* The main villain in ''Film/{{Gamer}}''
** He's a tech genius and pretty media savvy, but makes two mistakes so laughable... First, the end reveals that [[spoiler: he has the ability to take control of the Hero at any time, he neglects to do this any time during the film when it would be most advantageous to do so... like taking control for a split-second while the hero is playing ''Slayers'', something he could easily do and make it look like a normal death in the game. Instead, he just hires a goon to kill him in game. Then he waits to usurp control of the hero until he is in the same room with him, and the hero has a weapon! Idiot ball indeed.]] Secondly, for someone so tech and media savvy to fall for the oldest trick in the book, having his villainous monologue broadcast to the world, is so pathetic that it doesn't bear a second thought.
** Worse still, [[spoiler:he reveals in that same scene his mind-controlling nanomachines could be dispersed in the atmosphere. Why isn't the world already under his control? Why even bother with the hero, at all?]]
* James Cameron's ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': Although RDA was actually winning the final battle [[spoiler:(until a literal DeusExMachina struck)]], the commanding officer of whole operation, Quaritch, is master holder of the IdiotBall (and the HollywoodTactics Ball, while we're at it). His military strategies were so dumb that someone competent could blow up the Tree without losing any men and with less technologically sophisticated means. Let's take a look, shall we?
** The whole idea of taking fleet of choppers in the "asteroid field" that is known to be jamming electronics to point that pilots have to operate primary by their sight. Alternatives?
*** RDA controls space. They don't have any orbital bombardment weapons, true, but they've could just used some [[ColonyDrop old satellite or piece of space debris]] to make a precise strike on the Tree. They're literally flying a space shuttle as a bomber.
*** RDA SecOps is absolutely illogically missing any kind of artillery. Well, they are security, sure, but they have a stereo lithography device in the base. In other words, a 3D printer that can print FIREARMS en masse. It can't be much problematic to simply print some big gun when needed. They've could just hit the Tree from afar.
*** Same with some kind of long range missiles. RDA is using missiles extensively, so why don't have some long range models? Yes, the flux vortex of Hallelujah mountains is trolling the sensors, but who needs them? Just point it at the target! Nazi V2 rockets were able to hit London without computers and homing. And that was in WWII.
*** Instead of taking the shuttle/bomber through the mountains, they could fly it to the space and then descend on the tree and then drop the payload.
** Good Guys aren't immune to it, either. Trudy is a trained combat pilot, flying a gunship that is faster and much more maneuverable than the RDA shuttle leading the assault during the final battle, which has ''heavy'' forward firepower. Rather than using this speed and maneuverability to attack the thing from the rear and flanks where it has fewer defensive weapons, she spends the entire fight sitting ''right smack dab in the middle of its forward firing arc''. [[spoiler: It ends as predictably as it sounds.]]
* In ''Film/{{Dreamscape}}'', Creator/MaxVonSydow figures out Creator/ChristopherPlummer's evil plan and tells him so, right to his face. The response? "HaveYouToldAnyoneElse"?
* Ethan Glance in ''Film/SpaceCowboys''. He decides to, without telling anyone, take an unauthorized spacewalk on the secret orders of Bob Gerson, and with everyone shouting at him not to connect the PAM rockets on the IKON satellite, decides to do it anyway, thinking that doing so will allow him to singlehandedly move the satellite into a stable orbit (which has dozens of problems even if he was successful). But when he connects it, the satellite activates, swings around, crashes into the docked space shuttle damaging it, and the satellite starts jettisoning its outer casing. One of the panels hits Ethan, somehow [[TapOnTheHead just knocking him out]] though it doesn't damage his helmet enough for it to leak air, and leaving him unconscious tethered to an activated Soviet orbital platform. The movie ends without touching on what happened to Ethan when he got back to Earth, but if he survived, he likely faces:
** An expulsion from NASA, considering his actions lead to the destruction of expensive NASA equipment.
** Jail time considering he endangering NASA astronauts, damaged Russian equipment, and jeopardized the lives of thousands or even millions, because even if the missile warheads didn't detonate in the atmosphere (nuclear weapons aren't like gunpowder, and they require everything working perfectly to create critical mass), they would still shower weapons-grade nuclear material on the ground or water below, creating an environmental catastrophe.
** Life imprisonment, court martial, or even capital punishment for collaborating with Bob Gerson, knowingly withholding critical mission information, and following secret orders which could have caused nuclear catastrophe.
** And the film makers for concocting the idiotic scenario in the first place (along with a dose of research failure). It takes HOURS of preparation to spacewalk from a shuttle (largely due to needing to breath a special gas mixture to purge nitrogen from the blood, since the suits operate at 3 PSI of pure oxygen and shuttles run at 15 psi of air, and not doing this risks the bends), it's time consuming to get into a suit, you can't put a suit on in the first place without assistance, there needs to be a suit assembled for you, prepped, and loaded on the ship, and you cannot operate the airlock without additional assistance anyway.
* ''Film/MomAndDadSaveTheWorld'' involves a literal Idiot Ball. One of the weapons used on the Planet Spengo is called a Light Grenade. If you pick it up, you disappear in a flash of light, leaving the grenade behind. The clever part is that the grenade says "Pick Me Up" on the side. That works because the people of Spengo are really, really stupid. A squad of attackers encounters a Grenade, and several cutscenes later, we see the squad has been reduced to two or three, surrounded by empty uniforms and scattered helmets, staring intently at the grenade. One says, "We're gonna need reinforcements."
** The entire planet is an Idiot Ball. Says so within minutes of the film starting.
* In the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' movie, while Grant and Ellie are holding back a velociraptor, a gun that was knocked out of Grant's hands and is just barely out of their reach. Lex is meanwhile hacking into the security system, and Tim, not doing anything else, decides to just stand off to the side cheering her on instead of picking up Grant's gun. Granted the gun was jammed but Tim wasn't likely to know that, and even ''then'' grabbing the gun would have been more useful than pounding on Lex's back while she tries to focus on operating the computer.
** In his defense, he's a recently electrocuted preteen child, it's pretty reasonable that it wouldn't occur to him. The adults ''could'' tell him to do it, but having a kid pick up or use a gun is opening up a dangerous can of worms in a family film...
* 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...
** Also from the second film is Sarah, a scientist who disregards every piece of common sense in existence in regards to interacting with wildlife, and Nick, who sabotages the hunting party's every step regardless of the cost in lives. Both are responsible for every death on the island.
* In ''Film/JurassicWorld'', had Claire or anyone at the Indominus Rex enclosure bothered to check its tracking device ''before'' sending a trio into the pen to investigate, it wouldn't have escaped and none of the bloodshed would have ensued. Even considering that the scientists had no clue it could camouflage as Dr. Wu hadn't told them, and considering the possibility that the tracker may have been ripped out or malfunctioned, checking the location of the tracker and seeing where and if it was moving would have been the first decision of anyone with even a modicum of intelligence, followed by investigating the outside perimeter of the pen for footprints and destroyed foliage, and ''then'' investigating the pen with an entire properly armed team rather than two unarmed men.
--> '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDN5b9L2hrQ The Critical Drinker:]]''' So Owen and a couple of assholes go inside to investigate. Why are you doing this?! [[DidntThinkThisThrough What are you hoping to find?]] If it really has escaped then you're wasting time looking in the place it escaped from! And if it's still there, it's just gonna spring out and fucking eat you!

* ''Film/PacificRim'':
** The world council. So the Jaegers are starting to lose. Okay, that's a problem. But if the {{Kaiju}} are getting stronger, why do they think ''a wall'' is going to be immune to that problem? Sure enough, the Kaiju get through one of those walls and a Jaeger saves the day.
** The wall makes no sense at all. It can't fight back and it's not like the kaiju is going to get bored and walk away. Even if it takes a day or so it will break through eventually because nothing will be killing it. You can't even nuke it if it's that close to the city. The wall's inadequacy is painfully obvious when you notice that the kaiju that broke through is BIGGER than the wall itself. Finally, when the last kaiju shows up it's literally twice the size of the next largest kaiju (though to be fair the wall's designers couldn't really have foreseen that). The wall of life would literally be a Waist High Wall to it.
** To top it all off, [[spoiler: the kaiju Otachi appears and reveals it can '''fly'''. Wall: Completely moot.]]
* ''Film/X2XMenUnited'':
** The entire broken dam scene. Iceman and Storm could have conceivably saved the day without needing a HeroicSacrifice, since both are capable of manipulating the temperature of water. [[spoiler: Likewise, Jean's actions could have easily been done from the safety of the plane.]] The characters come to the conclusion that [[spoiler: Jean]] did it deliberately, rather than a mere lack of forethought.
** Rogue attempting to fly the Jet, without any training in its operation, simply because she was getting impatient. It predictably crashes only a few seconds after take-off and ends up being damaged, forcing Jean to sacrifice herself.
** Earlier, Xavier has a minor but understandable one. He notices that Deathstryke is starting to regain control. He's smart enough not to say anything, but the fact that he keeps glancing over to her alerts Strkyer, allowing him to give her another dose of serum to keep her obedient.
** The fight at Bobby's house is one for the cops. There have to be half a dozen of them, and despite the fact that they have their weapons in hand and trained at the mutants, ''none of them open fire on Pyro'' once he starts slinging fire around. This when they had already demonstrated willingness to use deadly force (on Wolverine, so it doesn't count, but they didn't know that).
* ''Film/XMenFirstClass'':
** Really Charles? You really thought the JustFollowingOrders excuse would go over well with a a holocaust survivor like Erik?
*** To be fair, Charles was just inside the head of a man as he died slowly and painfully, and now his best friend is wearing a telepathy-blocking helmet. It's not unrealistic for someone to say something rock-stupid after experiencing death and then being confronted with what seems to them to be the ''walking corpse'' of a loved one.
* In ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2014'', April picks this up when she goes to her editor with a bizarre account of mutant turtles and absolutely no evidence to back it up. She actually did have evidence, but was too sleep-deprived and probably jacked on caffeine to remember that she had the photo on her phone.
* The cheesy sci-fi movie ''Film/{{ROTOR}}'' has a KillerRobot with a laughably obvious WeaksauceWeakness ([[spoiler:loud car horns]]). In spite of this, none of the characters bother to use this to incapacitate it and stop its rampage.
* ''Film/ExMachina'':
** Nathan's house doubles as a state-of-the-art research facility and features [[spoiler:independent room access, cameras backed by facial recognition software, and even a lockdown protocol in case of power failure. And yet access is controlled only by plastic cards without passwords or biometrics -- which is to say, crappier than last year's iPhone]].
** Nathan spends a great deal of his time drunk while having over a house guest [[spoiler: who he is deliberately trying to set up to betray him]]. To be fair, [[spoiler: his behavior was probably a deliberate ploy to make Caleb more sympathetic to Ava]]. But when coupled with the above idiot ball...
* In ''Film/ProjectAlmanac'', the whole group, filming themselves breaking into their own high school and stealing boxes full of bottled hydrogen.
* In ''Film/MinorityReport'', John gets pegged for a future murder. Since the date and time of the murder are known, instead of going through a lengthy ClearMyName plot, he could have just skipped town for a couple of days, then after the date the murder was supposed to have occurred he could calmly come back and figure out who set him up without having to dodge his former collegues.
* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'':
** In ''Film/GodzillaVSMechagodzillaII'' a group of scientists deduce that a giant, extremely dangerous flying Kaiju birthed from an egg. Right beside the empty egg is a yet unhatched egg. Godzilla shows up and fights the flying Kaiju, making the scientists realize that both monsters are interested in the egg or one monster is interested in the egg and the other wants to kill any other monster they can find. So the scientists bring the egg to Tokyo which allows the film to happen. As a result their city is destroyed and everyone they know and love is either homeless or dead. It is a profound and frustrating burst of idiocy held by every human character in the movie.
** The UFO alien in ''Film/Godzilla2000'', which otherwise displayed exceptional intelligence, with a intricate plan and highly advanced technology to conquer and terraform the Earth, and using Godzilla's DNA to achieve practical immortality. However, after successfully absorbing his DNA, he uncontrollably mutates into a monstrous beast known as Orga. In the end, Orga abandons all strategy and tries to swallow Godzilla whole in order to completely absorb him. [[TooDumbToLive Bad idea]]. That said, it's implied that mutating into Orga caused the aliens' intelligence to diminish considerably.
** Admiral William Stenz has a couple moments in the Film/MonsterVerse. In ''Film/Godzilla2014'', he starts off the hunt for the MUTO by demanding all search options be immediately brought to the table and furthermore relying on algorithmic Navy software to plot all of the kaiju's possible paths to landfall. But when he, his colleagues and Monarch realize the [=MUTOs=] threaten to become {{Explosive Breeder}}s, the only plan brought to the table is the NukeEm plan and Stenz settles on it almost immediately with no reasonable alternative plans having apparently been considered. In [[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 the sequel]], it's ultimately somewhat down to Alternative Character Interpretation just how involved Stenz was in the Oxygen Destroyer's launch, but he had to be either very stupid or very desperate to think launching such a dangerous weapon (an ''untested prototype'' no less) at a pair of Titans a few miles away from a populated island would just bring an end to the nightmare without backfiring.

* ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488120/ Fracture]]'' (2007) - The fact that there'll be a 'fracture' in the villain's otherwise great plan is well foreshadowed not only with the title, but also with a rather complicated prop. Will it be the planting of a gun? Or an unexpected friend to the DA judge? Maybe the DA will take justice in his own hands...? Well... [[spoiler:he just admits everything upfront in a BBG monologue, not suspecting that the man of law might be wearing a wire. Can't blame him though - the cash was on some kind of digital sound recorder, maybe like the one built into his cell phone.]]

** Heinrich had the detonators, and the C4. When Sgt. Powell arrives and circles around in front of the building, McClane tries to get his attention, another terrorist sees this and warns the rest on the radio. Heinrich and Marco leave the roof they were rigging to blow up to catch McClane. Why Heinrich took the bag with the detonators and C4 with him is the mystery. McClane calls Hans after "convincing" Al to call for backup to taunt that he's killed two more of Hans's group (he only caught one name, so said Marco and his friend). After signing off, Hans orders Karl to confirm who's been killed, and Karl reports the Marco and Heinrich were killed, and Heinrich's bag is missing. Hans then reveals Heinrich had the detonators.