History Main / CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot

* In ''Film/TheSandlot'', [[spoiler:after half a movie and substantial destruction, the boys manage to retrieve an autographed baseball from The Beast. The dog's owner points out he would have given them the ball back if they'd just asked.]] [[SupportingProtagonist Scotty]] ''had'' suggested that at the outset, but the others insisted it wouldn't work. Similarly happens in the sequel, but it's less defensible since the main character is the younger brother of Scotty and knew about the previous encounter and so should know better.

* In ''Film/TheSandlot'', [[spoiler:after half a movie and substantial destruction, the boys manage to retrieve an autographed baseball from The Beast. The dog's owner points out he would have given them the ball back if they'd just asked.]] [[SupportingProtagonist Scotty]] ''had'' suggested that at the outset, but the others insisted it wouldn't work.

[[folder:Films — Animated]]

* In the DVDCommentary of ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBear'', Rutt and Tuke note most of the plot wouldn't have happened if Kenai had made a proper knot to keep the fish basket hanging out of a bear's reach.

* The FramingDevice of ''Film/ForrestGump'' fits. The story is him telling his life story while waiting at a bus stop to several other folks waiting, the listeners rotating as passengers board the bus and others come to wait for theirs. Eventually, he gets to the here and now and tells the current listener that he's waiting for a bus to Jenny's new house, having gotten a letter from her. The woman currently listening tells him the place he wants is only a few blocks away, and he doesn't need the bus; he quickly excuses himself and starts walking there, leading to the finale.

* In the Russian fairy tale, "Literature/TsarevitchIvanTheFireBirdAndTheGrayWolf", Ivan has to retrieve first a firebird, then a magic horse. In both cases, he breaks into the palace of the Tsar that owns the object and is caught. Afterwards, both Tsars tell him that if he'd simply come to court and ''asked'' like a prince, rather than sneaking in like a thief, they would have given him what he needed as a gesture of friendship.

* ''Film/BodiesBodiesBodies'' ends with TheReveal that the culprit in David's murder, the inciting incident for the plot and all the death that followed, was [[spoiler:David himself. It wasn't actually a murder, but an AccidentalSuicide caused by AlcoholInducedIdiocy.]] Had everybody in the house simply remained calm instead of [[EveryoneIsASuspect pointing fingers and letting paranoia consume them]], it's likely that nobody else would have died.

* ''The D Train'': The entire FawltyTowersPlot that serves as the main conflict of the movie could've been solved if Dan had just told his boss why he was really going to Los Angeles instead of coming up with a convoluted plan that causes the company he works for to nearly go bankrupt, all because he didn't want to tell his wife the real reason he went. As Dan's boss notes when he finds out the truth, he would've understood and given Dan a few days off of work, and he could've just claimed to his wife that he was going on a business trip.
* All of the mayhem in ''Film/FirstBlood'' wouldn't have gone on had a small-town sheriff allowed a Vietnam War veteran to eat at a restaurant within town limits, instead of arresting him on trumped-up charges of "vagrancy" (i.e. being homeless) among others and letting his deputies rough him up. The veteran's former commander has to show up to lend his aid in getting him to surrender, and the first time they talk, the veteran explains himself with this trope. However, said commander answers that Rambo did some "pushing" back (referencing the fact that Rambo could have walked away from the town but instead came back, which prompted the arrest) and near the end of the film insinuates that he ''wanted'' this "war" on some level due to his PTSD.

* ''Film/KnivesOut'': As Detective Blanc points out near the end of the film, Harlan's death could have been avoided if [[spoiler: he had simply listened to Marta and let her call an ambulance, in which case they would have discovered that Marta did ''not'' accidentally overdose him with morphine and thus there was no reason for him to commit suicide to protect her. But no, he had to be ''dramatic''.]]

** ''Film/Godzilla2014'': Ford questions why Monarch, who had access to the male MUTO's cocoon for fifteen years while studying it, didn't just kill it while they had the chance before it hatched (which if successful, would've probably also stopped [[spoiler:the female's awakening without the male calling out to its formerly-dormant egg]]). Graham states that they didn't know what the cocoon was doing with all the radiation it absorbed and they feared killing it could've had Chernobyl-level global consequences. Nevertheless, the look on Serizawa's face suggests it was partly JustThinkOfThePotential and that he now regrets it. However, later films reveal another possible motive: that Monarch didn’t want to kill the MUTO without knowing its place in the Titan ecosystem or the effects its extermination would have, given the Monstervers kaijus’ FisherKing effects, FertileFeet, and other ClimateChangeAllegory-related abilities.

** ''Film/GodzillaVSKong'': As it turns out, the reason Godzilla seemingly turns feral is actually that [[spoiler:Apex Cybernetics was trying to create Mechagodzilla to replace him as the new Alpha. Worse, they use one of the heads of Godzilla's archnemesis King Ghidorah to do it. [[LampshadeHanging Madison even calls Walter Simmons out on this]] later in the movie, saying that Godzilla was on neutral terms with humanity until Apex tried to give him a challenger. The entire conflict, and indeed even Godzilla's feud with Kong, could have been avoided if Mechagodzilla was never created]].

* ''Film/{{Superbad}}'': The main plot is that Seth and Evan want to have sex with their crushes, Jules and Becca, at Jules' party, but know the girls will never be into it if they're sober. So they agree to bring the alcohol to the party, while planning to get at least as drunk as the girls so they're not taking advantage. [[spoiler:Becca is clearly ''very'' willing to have sex with Evan, but is so drunk that [[AboveTheInfluence he decides against it]], while Jules is stone-cold sober and tells Seth that she's not going to do anything with him while he's too drunk to remember it.]] Everything would have gone much more smoothly for the boys if they had just attended the party normally. Not to mention that one of the sideplots is that Evan needs to get Becca's favorite rare alcohol... but by the time he finds her, she's so drunk she doesn't care.

* PlayedForDrama in ''Film/{{Us}}''. Red tells Adelaide this in their final confrontation, during TheReveal that [[spoiler:Adelaide is the real Red who switched places with her.]] However, the idea itself is very dramatically central to the plot, as it's really about how there must always be [[spoiler:a "Tethered" who lives a miserable life underground]] so that Adelaide can have her happy above-ground life.

** "Make a bridge over the river using only items on this table" gave them some pretty improper items, like playing cards, chewing gum, toy animals, and spaghetti, and tasked them to make the highest free-standing bridge that could support a potato. Numerous things on the table, like the boat named "Debajo de la mesa" and various tiny notes like one on Alex's clipboard, all hinted they look under the table where they would have found wood and tape attached under, but still ''on'', that table. None of the contestants picked up on this and soldiered through with what was on the table instead.

* In the Russian fairy tale, "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf", Ivan has to retrieve first a firebird, then a magic horse. In both cases, he breaks into the palace of the Tsar that owns the object and is caught. Afterwards, both Tsars tell him that if he'd simply come to court and ''asked'' like a prince, rather than sneaking in like a thief, they would have given him what he needed as a gesture of friendship.

** Episode 11 reveals that Kayaba locked the players in ''SAO'' to cover up a ''glitch'' that accidentally killed people, in order to make it look [[IMeantToDoThat nefarious but at least intentional]]. ''That'' part was justified by ExhaustionInducedIdiocy, as he had been awake for several weeks due to the launch-crunch. And the last two years since the launch of the game: Kayaba kept the player base trapped inside using them as hostages to keep the cops off his back long enough to figure a way out of the mess he found himself in. However, Asuna immediately [[StatingTheSimpleSolution States The Simple Solution.]]

** When contestants were tasked with "getting goosebumps", they all took the task literally and tried to trigger goosebumps on their bodies. During the on-stage segment, Alex noted that several ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books were in the caravan, and that simply going and getting one of those books would have sufficed.

* ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}'', either owing to [[RulesLawyer specific wording of tasks]] or Greg being a {{Troll}}, often has contestants put a ''ridiculous'' amount of effort into a task only to learn that there was a ''very'' easy way they could have solved it had they given it a bit of thought. When this happens, Greg and Alex take ''great'' pleasure pointing this out to them during the on-stage segment.
** "Make a bridge over the river using only items on this table" gave them some pretty improper items, like playing cards, chewing gum, toy animals, and spaghetti, and tasked them to make the highest free-standing bridge that could support a potato. Numerous things on the table, like the boat named "Debajo de la mesa" and various tiny notes like one on Alex's clipboard, all hinted they look under the table where they would have found wood and tape. None of the contestants picked up on this and soldiered through with what was on the table instead.

* ''Film/MiracleMile'': The core of the movie is centered on Harry's efforts to get him and his girlfriend to a helipad so they can survive an impending nuclear attack. He spends over an hour running around Los Angeles getting into various misadventures, all of which could have been avoided [[spoiler:had he simply [[BottleEpisode walked to her apartment and then to the helipad]] instead]].

* ''Film/MiracleMile'': The core of the movie is centered on Harry's efforts to get him and his girlfriend to a helipad so they can survive an impending nuclear attack. He spends over an hour running around Los Angeles getting into various misadventures, all of which could have been avoided had he simply [[BottleEpisode walked to her apartment and then to the helipad]] instead.