History TooDumbToLive / Film

* At one point in a screening of ''Film/{{Halloween}}'', Laurie Strode's stupidity is too much for one audience member. When she fails to make sure Mike Meyers was dead after he came back from apparent death the first time, the audience member shouts, "You stupid bitch, you deserve to die!"

** This is especially prevalent in Zombie's films when several people insult and even strike Myers. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that Myers in those films is [[BullyingADragon A SEVEN FOOT TALL GIANT!!!]]

** And then of course he totally ignores the diplomatic mission entrusted to him and spends three months having a fun time. The Humans probably assumed he would have at least told Na'Vi that the humans needed them to move before, you know, the very last day.
*** "Having a fun time" was actually helping the diplomacy along a bit. For one, Dr. Augustine was allowed back into the village (she had been presumably banished after the school shootout). Of course, he still massively fucked up by forgetting the original mission. One has to wonder how he was even a former Recon Marine...

* Although this trope is hardly rare in slasher movies, special mention must be given to the FinalGirl from ''Film/FridayThe13th''. She omitted [[OnceIsNotEnough no less than three times]], each time leaving the killer's weapon right there for them when they woke up. There were a bunch of other examples of her stupidity, but that was the outstanding one.
** The worst part is that if the girl HAD finished off Pamela any of those other times, she probably would have lived a long life. The only reason she's killed in the next movie is because Jason witnessed her killing Pamela, which he probably wouldn't have if she had killed Pamela before she finally did. Not only that, but since we never get any evidence that Jason killed anyone before Part 2, this might have even been what drove Jason over the edge.

* The aliens from ''{{Signs}}'' walk around Earth naked, despite being as much vulnerable to water as we are to sulfuric acid.

** Weyland in the first film. He was just spared by a Predator, so he takes it as an insult and attacks it again. You only get mercy once, moron.

* Eddie Kim, BigBad of ''SnakesOnAPlane''. Unleashing the titular [[ExpospeakGag Œdipus-complex-afflicted ophidia on the Œdipus-complex-afflicted high-speed atmospheric vehicle]] earns him the death penalty for multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. And it was all [[HeKnowsTooMuch to silence a witness]] who survives anyway.

* In ''{{Film/The Dark Knight|Saga}}'', a guy is still driving towards the Joker at the end of the epic car chase sequence. Joker shoots up the car and the car crashes (the fate of the driver is not shown on screen). As pointed out on the movie's Podcast/{{Rifftrax}}, "If you're still driving ''towards'' him at this point, you deserved that!"

* The military, law enforcement, and basically the government in general in the 2008 remake of ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill'', though pretty much all of government in all of fiction is guilty of this trope, and it's not an entirely unexpected reaction to aliens being suddenly real. Klaatu comes to Earth and reaches out his hand to the protagonists. Clearly, putting a bullet in him is the appropriate response. Only later do they realize he was able to shut down their defense network on a whim, and so they decide imprisoning and (implicitly) ''torturing'' him is a good idea. Klaatu's decision, after consulting a spy on Earth, is naturally that HumansAreTheRealMonsters and have to go, so the swarm of nanobots beings devouring every man-made object in its path. The military bombs it to hell and back, only to see it grow larger. The Secretary of Defense at least grows a brain at this point, but the president orders even more bombing as if the opinion of his military adviser isn't worth considering.

* [[DrillSergeantNasty Hartman]] from ''FullMetalJacket''. When Pyle is in the middle of a nervous breakdown and holding a rifle, he decides that, rather than call the [=MP=]s, he should insult the poor guy. It doesn't end well for him.

* Everybody in ''{{Screamers}}''. Two sides are fighting a war on a planet. One side deploys the screamers, small burrowing robots. Ok, not so bad. Said screamers are equipped with an adaptive learning AI. Ok, that's risky, but not suicidal. The screamers are also built in an automated factory, and the screamers design and build newer generations of screamers. At this point, the concept moves from "risky" to "out and out suicidal". But the worst part, the thing that make you suspect the designers of the first screamers had a death wish, is the robots programing. The screamers are programed to kill any living thing they encounter, without any Friend or Foe system. Naturally, the screamers kill every single person on the planet. Its the worst case of this trope and Genre Blindness I've ever seen.

** And the tabs wern't an IFF system. They said "I'm already dead, don't kill me" not "I'm on your side, don't kill me".

* Ed from ''ShaunOfTheDead'' takes this to new levels and plays it for laughs. The characters need to get past a horde of zombies, and do so by acting like zombies to avoid drawing attention. When they are nearly to apparent safety, Ed's phone goes off... ''and he answers it and starts cheerfully talking on the phone, less than ten feet from dozens of zombies.''

** The worst part is that if the girl HAD finished off Pamela any of those other times, she probably would have lived a long life. The only reason she's killed in the next movie is because Jason witnessed her killing Pamela, which he probably wouldn't have if she had killed Pamela before she finally did. Not only that, but since we never get any evidence that Jason killed anyone before Part 2, might this might have even been what drove Jason over the edge.

* The science fiction spoof ''MomAndDadSaveTheWorld'' has a memorably absurd case of this on a massive scale, played for laughs of course: There's a weapon called the light grenade that disintegrates anyone it comes in contact with once the pin is pulled, but only if the victim is dumb enough to actually pick it up. It has the phrase "PICK ME UP" engraved on it. Because the movie literally takes place on a planet full of idiots, one of these left out in the open takes out an entire platoon of evil troops, each one picking it up immediately after seeing what just happened to the last guy who did that.

* Pretty much ''any'' attempt the JSDF uses to stop/kill {{Godzilla}} falls under this. Most of the time, they only succeed in angering him...[[UnstoppableRage which only makes things worse.]] Conventional weaponry only annoys Godzilla and giant robots and laser cannons only serve as a temporary solution before Godzilla gets back up again and lays waste to them. And, yet they still use them in each film.

* ''KingKong'': Capturing a giant ape who's smitten with a female human and bringing him back to civilization? [[SarcasmMode That's a GREAT idea!]] [[TemptingFate What's the worst that could happen?]] Oh... right...

* Many, many, many characters in the ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' series. Especially in ''JurassicParkIII'', when Amanda is shouting into a megaphone. Towards a forest. On an island she knows is filled with dinosaurs.

* Many of the characters in ''Film/{{Gorgo}}'' qualify. First, our heroes bring a dangerous animal into a major population center, then disregard the possibility of Gorgo being a juvenile, then disregard the effects of its [[MamaBear mother]] [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever coming into said population center]] (confident that [[FiveRoundsRapid modern technology]] can stop it) to the point where the government didn't even bother to evacuate the city! But the jewel in the crown has to go to a trio of teenage gawkers who got up close to the edge of the river Thames to watch the monster. They watched the army fill the river with gasoline and ignite it, then watch the river burn for a full minute before realizing: Hey, maybe it's not such a good idea to be near the water while it holds burning gasoline. They are promptly, gloriously, incinerated.

* The three victims in ''Film/TheStrangers''; Kristen doesn't do anything but scream, trip and cry and actually '''injures herself''', James among other things decides to go get a radio ([[YouSuck because they were too stupid to have their cellphones on them]]) leaving Kristen alone and unprotected ''in the house, where their attackers can breeze in with ease'', and their friend has his windshield broken, sees destruction, mayhem and hears loud music playing (which to a normal person would scream '''DANGER''') and goes blithely in. ''Of course'' they all die.
* Anyone in the not-remake of ''PromNight2008'', especially Claire (Jessica Stroup) who sees the killer coming for her and ''just stands there'' and [[PoliceAreUseless the local police]], whose bumbling and ineptitude cause all the deaths in the movie.

* The military, law enforcement, and basically the government in general in the 2008 remake of ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill'', though pretty much all of government in all of fiction is guilty of this trope, and it's not an entirely unexpected reaction to aliens being suddenly real. Klaatu comes to Earth and reaches out his hand to the protagonists. Clearly, putting a bullet in him is the appropriate response. Only later do they realize he was able to shut down their defense network on a whim, and so they decide imprisoning and (implicitly) ''torturing'' him is a good idea. Klaatu's decision, after consulting a spy on Earth, is naturally that HumansAreBastards and have to go, so the swarm of nanobots beings devouring every man-made object in its path. The military bombs it to hell and back, only to see it grow larger. The Secretary of Defense at least grows a brain at this point, but the president orders even more bombing as if the opinion of his military adviser isn't worth considering.

* Balian (OrlandoBloom) in ''KingdomOfHeaven''. It makes more sense in context and is more like a case of lazy writing, but Balian's inaction is the prime reason behind the Big Battle of the film. His refusal, on many occasions, to kill a blatantly evil and dangerous character (a French Templar named Guy de Lusignan, played by Marton Czokas), is the prime reason behind the siege and the Big Battle of the film. Guy and his conspirators are the ones that provoke the war between Muslims and Christians, and their intentions are made clear (in-story, i.e. to other characters and not just to the audience) from the outset, and yet Balian doesn't make a move, and he refuses to do anything when his advisors/friends repeatedly express their concern. He doesn't come off as noble, more like an idiot and a passive character. Many characters die as a result of his course of action (or, rather, inaction), but he survives the film. In the film's epilogue with King Richard I he should probably say: "I'm the blacksmith, and the main reason you have to retake Jerusalem from Saladin, I'm the one that should be thrown in a dungeon full of Twilight merchandise." This film is not worth watching for this very story element, it's a classic case of a story where if the main hero acted within common sense, there wouldn't be much of a story to be told.

* In ''{{Waterworld}}'', there is a character named Enola who doesn't know how to swim, when 99% of the planet is covered in water. It's made very clear that she ''can'' be taught to swim and that no one ever thought that a child growing up on a planet covered by water should know how to swim.

* In ''LethalWeapon 2'', the bad guy who is responsible for killing Riggs's girlfriend and a bunch of their cop buddies is involved in a major shootout. He's a South African diplomat, so when they have him dead to rights, he pulls out his passport and intones, smugly, "Diplomatic immunity!" He gets shot in the head for his trouble by Roger Murtagh, who delivers the immortal line, "It's just been revoked."

* Sure, it's a disaster film (and a pretty silly one at that), but ''TheDayAfterTomorrow'' had this in spades. Hundreds of people are sheltering in the public library, and decide that rather than listening to the son of the smartest climatologist in the country (who just had an extended conversation with his father), they're going to go and do the exact opposite. Of course, they all freeze to death. Had they bothered listening, they would've been uncomfortable, but they would've survived.

* The aliens from ''Film/{{Signs}}'' walk around Earth naked, despite being as much vulnerable to water as we are to sulfuric acid.

* Vincent Vega of ''Film/PulpFiction''. A veteran hitman who really should have showed a little more respect for his weapons, he ended up causing the TropeNamer for IJustShotMarvinInTheFace due to recklessly pointing his weapon in the wrong damned direction, and when he was sent to whack Butch Coolidge for turning around and winning the fight he was paid to throw, he left his MAC-10 submachine gun on the counter while he went to the bathroom, not taking heed to the fact that his intended target might come across it while he was doing his business, leading to Vincent getting blown away.

* A variation (arguably) in ''TheVanishing''--Rex Hofman isn't too ''dumb'' to live, per se, as much as he is too ''obsessed'' to live. After spending years trying to discover the truth behind his girlfriend's mysterious disappearance in a crowded public place, he finally tracks down Raymond Lemorne, the man behind it. But if he kills Lemorne, he'll never find out what happened; his girlfriend may even still be alive, for all Rex knows. And he can't involve the police because there's no evidence against him. The only way he can ever find out what happened to his girlfriend, the all-consuming question he's been trying to answer for years, is to take a drug-laced cup of coffee that Lemorne offers him. He does. And wakes up [[FateWorseThanDeath in a coffin]], [[BuriedAlive the sound of dirt thudding on the lid above him.]]

* In ''StarWars'': ''ANewHope'', you'd think Admiral Motti would have known that dissing the faith of the big scary Sith Lord and personal hatchetman of the Emperor, Darth Vader, in his face is a ''very'', ''very'', '''''very''''' bad idea.

* Josh Dalton from ''{{Insidious}}'' definitely qualifies. Not only does he spend most of the movie as the AgentScully, arguing with his GenreSavvy wife, when he finally does accept the weirdness and go into the Further to save his son, he breaks every rule he was told to follow, culminating in him stopping ''ten feet'' from his body to yell at a ghost that's been stalking him since childhood ''to possess him specifically''. The ghost, of course, possesses his body, resulting in the deaths of his family and every other character in the film. And Josh is likely stuck with a FateWorseThanDeath. NiceJobBreakingItHero.

* In ''XMenOriginsWolverine'' the military needs to stop Wolverine, who they've made immune to almost all weapons. To stop him they have at their disposal: An incredibly skilled marksman, and adamantium bullets capable of penetrating the adamantium shell around his skull and incapacitating him. Somehow the idea that they should combine these two things doesn't seem to occur to them.
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* The level of intelligence exhibited by the human race in ''{{Idiocracy}}'' can be boiled down to two phrases: [[GroinAttack "Ow, my balls!"]] and "[[CreepyMonotone Welcome to Costco. I love you]]."

** And to lay the icing on the TooDumbToLive cake, just before saying this line, the bad guy in question had just gunned Riggs down, which anyone watching a buddy cop picture knows is going to get you killed no matter which half of the [[ByTheBookCop law-abiding]]/[[CowboyCop loose-cannon]] partnership it's done to.

** To be fair Hartman was obviously attempting to utilize the same intimidation that had worked on Pyle before, and on every other recruit during his career as a drill Sergeant. And this is HIS latrine. More crazy then just stupid.

** I have to disagree. Hartman was obviously utilizing the same intimidation that had worked on Pyle before, and on every other recruit during his career as a drill Sergeant. And this is HIS latrine. More crazy then just stupid.

* In ''{{Film/Skyline}}'', with LA full of alien monsters eating everything that moves, our heroes decide to try and escape in cars with big, growly engines and in broad daylight. Granted, their chances weren't all that good whatever they tried, but at least on foot and at night they had some small hope of evading detection. And let's not even think about the fact that their entire daylight plan was to escape by boat. From flying aliens. Yeah, that will work!

* [[DrillSergeantNasty Hartman]] from ''FullMetalJacket''. When Pyle is in the middle of a nervous breakdown and holding a rifle, he decides that, rather than call the [=MP=]s, he should insult the poor guy. It doesn't end well for him.

* Everybody in ''{{Screamers}}''. Two sides are fighting a war on a planet. One side deploys the screamers, small burrowing robots. Ok, not so bad. Said screamers are equipped with an adaptive learning AI. Ok, that's risky, but not suicidal. The screamers are also built in an automated factory, and the screamers design and build newer generations of screamers. At this point, the concept moves from "risky" to "out and out suicidal". But the worst part, the thing that make you suspect the designers of the first screamers had a death wish, is the robots programing. The screamers are programed to kill any living thing they encounter, without any Friend or Foe system. Naturally, the screamers kill every single person on the planet. Its the worst case of this trope and Genre Blindness I've ever seen.
** To be fair, the film implies that the Screamers were only set up and let loose by the Alliance after the planet's population had already mostly been killed off with bio-weapons and nuclear strikes by the NEB, and the Alliance was literally at the point of losing the war if they didn't do something crazy and desperate to change the balance of power. It's also pointed out by the surviving Alliance commander that this was a crazy act of desperation, and that there were all sorts of potential unintended consequences. So not quite Genre Blind so much as simply an attempt at Refuge in Audacity that didn't work out so great. Also, the Alliance troops did have an Identification Friend or Foe system they could wear, called a "tab," that was supposed to protect them from screamers.

* Hud from ''{{Film/Cloverfield}}'' may qualify. Whether his friends are being attacked by parasitic creatures or a gigantic monster is hovering over him with a hungry look in its (many) eyes, it never occurs to him to just ''put the damn camera down and '''do''' something!'' Naturally, another character loses her life to save him from the parasites while his hands are full, and the hungry monster ends up eating him. On the Podcast/{{Rifftrax}}, Kevin Murphy describes Hud as "straddling a fine line between ''dumbass'' and ''inanimate object.''" There's a reason one of the [[FanNickname/{{Film}} Fan Nicknames]] for the monster is "Darwin".

* AlfredHitchcock's ''Film/TheBirds'' has Melanie going up to a room she knows is filled with birds. The result is that she is nearly killed by dozens of attacking birds. When the actress asked, "Hitch, why would I do this?", he replied, "Because I tell you to."

* Although this trope is hardly rare in slasher movies, special mention must be given to the FinalGirl from ''Film/{{Friday the 13th}}''. She omitted [[OnceIsNotEnough no less than three times]], each time leaving the killer's weapon right there for them when they woke up. There were a bunch of other examples of her stupidity, but that was the outstanding one.

** Of course that isn't Tod's only TDTL moment. To penetrate the castle and save his wife, Richard Nelson aka Dad in the title, leads the idiot rebels (whose favorite weapons that their leader innovated are large smooth and round rocks which they hurl like shot puts) to build a giant hollow wooden statue of Todd and put it outside the castle. Todd is called to see it, and cheerfully rushes to look, then chides his soldiers on how it looks nothing like him, but instead of having them destroy it, he shouts to open the gates and bring it in to show everyone how much it looks nothing like him... though the rebels did nail the trapdoor securely shut.

* Davis in the 2004 remake of ''{{The Flight of the Phoenix}}''; the plane has just crashed in the middle of the desert and it's stormy outside. He goes out, in the middle of the night, to take a leak. Not only does he walk ''unnecessarily'' far away from the plane (It's the middle of the night! No one will see you, jeez), he somehow trips and falls down, then rolls ten meters away from where he was -- ''and gets '''lost'''''. He fails to find his way back to the plane, and dies out there.

* In ''{{Film/The Dark Knight|Saga}}'', a guy is still driving towards the Joker at the end of the epic car chase sequence. Joker shoots up the car and the car crashes (the fate of the driver is not shown on screen). As pointed out on the movie's {{Podcast/Rifftrax}}, "If you're still driving ''towards'' him at this point, you deserved that!"

* In ''{{Film/Orphan}}'', the two kids never reveal that they've seen Esther committing violence, even though A) the mother clearly believes that she is and needs support and B) Esther keeps trying to kill '''them.'''

** The mark getting cold feet was never a necessity of the scam. The ploy was that they had no weapons to do the deed themselves. All Wichita had to do was request to do it herself regardless, with Tallahassee's gun.

* The two dumb kids in ''{{Film/Jaws}}'', who decided that, while the town is on high alert for ANY potential shark fins, would do a prank involving a fake shark fin on a piece of wood, and tow it from underwater. Fortunately for the kids, they didn't get shot. Unfortunately, thanks to their distraction, at least one person was eaten and another kid was injured by the real shark, and managed to get away as a result.

** ''[[{{Film/Jaws}} Jaws: The Revenge]]''. The widow Brody is convinced that Jaws is still alive and going after her, so where does she go? Nebraska? Oklahoma? Some other place that's far away from the ocean? Nope: ''THE BAHAMAS.''

* Rose in ''{{Film/Titanic}}''. From pretty much the moment the ship hits the iceberg, she has the IdiotBall superglued to her hand. Though Winslet's performance is a little vague, Jack's later dialogue ("When did you realize I didn't steal the necklace?") seems to indicate she DOES believe Cal's frame job, however briefly. We're then given the impression she knows, from what Andrews told her for no discernible reason other than to set this up, that the lifeboats are totally inadequate and it's imperative to get off the ship before they're all gone. She then spends the rest of the sinking running around the boat, trying to save Jack, who convinces her to just GET IN THE GODDAMN BOAT ALREADY, jumps back out, runs DOWN in a sinking ship, and generally slows Jack down. Admittedly he and Cal play hackey-sack with a mini-IdiotBall throughout this (to the point you wonder what Cal has on him that the valet doesn't just say "Screw both of you" and get on the lifeboat offered) but Jack pretty much sums up Rose when he tells her "You're so stupid!"

** Not the captain's fault either: it just had to be the day when icebergs decided to go further south. Using navigational charts, scientists have found out that the captain had traveled this route many times, and there were usually no icebergs. What was still surprising was that he actually ''disregarded iceberg warnings from a nearby ship''.

** Then there was the scene meant to be a {{crowning moment of heartwarming}} in which Frank is dangling from a glass roof. The glass starts to crack and Frank decides to make a {{heroic sacrifice}} because there is no way the glass can support Jason and his weight. FridgeLogic sets in when you realize Jason is holding onto two steel support beams that could have easily held the weight of the sled, the entire party, and probably an elephant.

* Whoever tries to domesticate [[{{Film/Alien}} xenomorphs]].

*** The rather logical explanation that Vincent is a moron because he is high on heroin for a good portion of his waking life has been forwarded.

* In ''{{Film/Zoolander}}'', Derek Zoolander lost his friends in a tragic gasoline-fight accident. The only reason he survived is that he spotted his image on the front of a newspaper and went over to look at it.

** The behaviour of Kim and Amanda is not that far fetched, as anyone who has been around privileged teenaged girls who have spent their sheltered life in a gated community in suburbia can tell you.

* Arguably, the central character Annie in the 2010 film ''Trust''. At the age of 14, she starts chatting online with someone called Charlie whose admitted age over the course of the chats goes up from 16 to 20, then to 25, and when she meets him in person at a mall we see he has to be in his late thirties at least. And what does she do? Instead of walking away, she gets into a car with him. And then goes to a motel room with him. And models in red underwear for him, before he rapes her. Admittedly she is 14, but in this day and age if a 14 year old girl does not even think to let a friend or family member know she is going to meet up with a stranger on the internet, and then ignores the cardinal rule of not getting into a car with a stranger (which hopefully most six year olds know by now) then she is clearly headed for a nasty shock.

* In ''StarWars'': ''ANewHope'', you'd think Admiral Motti would have known that dissing the faith of the big scary Sith Lord and personal hatchetman of the Emperor, Darth Vader, in his face is a ''very'', ''very'', '''''very''''' bad idea.

** Then there's Greedo, a bounty hunter so amateurishly stupid that he doesn't get the most basic line you need to say when you are covering your quarry, "Keep your hands where I can see them."

* ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'': Considering the '''numerous''' mistakes they make throughout the film, Brad/Asshole and Janet/Slut certainly apply.

* The aliens from ''{{Signs}}'' walk around Earth naked, despite being as much vulnerable to water as we are to sulfuric acid.

--> '''[[TheCinemaSnob Brad Jones]]:''' ''"They might as well have titled this movie "Dude, don't touch that!"."''

* This could be explained by Esther's constant intimidation of the kids, since young children do tend to clam up and hide the truth from adults, even when telling it seems like the most logical course of action (such as in case with bullying).

* ''Revolver'', a forgettable 2005 GuyRitchie movie, has one scene where a somewhat quirky and unstable hitman is clearly uncomfortable about TheDragon's [[KickTheDog interrogation techniques]]. When he complains, the bad guy threatens him with [[TemptingFate "Question me again, Sorter, and we will have a falling out."]]. They do indeed have a falling out.

* Will Stanton in the film ''Dark Is Rising''. At the end of the movie, he and the other Old Ones are forced to retreat into the Great Hall, where their enemy the Rider cannot enter unless invited. Will then proceeds to throw open the doors when he hears his parents and sister calling him only to learn that it was just the Rider who -- oops -- is now able to enter. Evidently Will thought his completely ordinary family was able to somehow get to a mysterious place which seems to be in an alternate time/dimension.

* Many, many, many characters in the ''JurassicPark'' series. Especially in ''Jurassic Park III'', when Amanda is shouting into a megaphone. Towards a forest. On an island she knows is filled with dinosaurs.

** ''JurassicPark II'', with the supposed ''biologist'' Sarah Harding being one of the worst. She goes alone on an island filled with dinosaurs, and complains that Ian doesn't need to rescue her, then stumbles from one moment of rampaging stupidity to the next like a female MrBean. To make matters worse, she lectures everyone with her about what you should or shouldn't do in a situation before '''immediately''' going out and doing what she said NOT to do. And unfortunately, this is a situation where her being Too Dumb to Live results in not her death, but the deaths of nearly EVERYONE she encounters on the island.

* Raymond Cocteau in ''DemolitionMan'' frees a dangerous psychopath in order to get rid of an enemy, but he has it implanted in his brain that he can't ever harm him. However, he also allows him to bring other criminals inside his home who don't have the don't-harm-Cocteau rule implanted. It doesn't end well for him.

* Many people have described ''{{Prometheus}}'' as only existing because everyone is running around with the IdiotBall.