Nice Job Breaking It Hero / Animated Films

• Bee Movie: Layton: "This is an unholy perversion of the balance of nature, Benson! You'll regret this." Needless to say, the defense attorney was absolutely right, as Benson's victory did upset the balance of nature. Fortunately, Benson did fix it before it became irreversible.
• Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens: Gwen's magic spell used on Upgrade in the beginning of the movie is the source of everything bad that happens in the movie. This gets lampshaded later on, as both Ben and herself say that it's Gwen's fault.
• In The Black Cauldron, after Taran and his friends first escape the Horned King, they seek out the Black Cauldron and eventually find it in the home of the three witches—which plays right into the Horned King's hands, as he simply has his minions trail the heroes and take the Cauldron.
• Brave: Twice by the same person. Merida brings the kingdom to the brink of war by competing for (and winning) her own hand in marriage. And she makes a wish that turns her mother into a bear, almost leading to her mother's death.
• The Brave Little Toaster: After learning that the abandoned house they were left in is now for sale, five appliances head out to reunite with their "master" and go through numerous perils trying to find him. However, their now-grown up "master" is heading to college, and he returns back to his old home to pick up some of the leftover stuff to use at his dorm (namely, them) roughly about two days after they left. They could have avoided all the trouble they went through if they had just listened to Kirby the vacuum cleaner earlier and stayed at the house.
• In Brother Bear, the central point of the story is that Kenai pursues and kills a bear he blames for his brother's death. Later on, he realizes to his horror that was Koda's mother.
• A Bug's Life: Flik confusing the circus bugs as heroes and selling them as such to his people before discovering the truth. And before that destroying the offering by accident. And before that when we first see him and his invention causes the stalks of grain to land on Atta.
• The Incredibles:
  • Bob saves Oliver Sansweet as well as several train passengers, only for them to sue over their collective injuries, opening the floodgates to a bunch of lawsuits that drive superheroes out of business.
  • Played With regarding Syndrome. He's no hero, but he did ruin his chance of becoming one when he used to call himself Buddy. When attempting to get the police, Bomb Voyage slyly puts a bomb on his cape, forcing Mr. Incredible to abandon Bomb Voyage and save him. This not only causes Bomb Voyage to escape, but for innocent civilians to get seriously injured while riding a train (the bomb destroyed the train tracks). This then leads to several events and lawsuits against the supers and the Supers Registration Act. After all this, Syndrome had the gall to play the victim.
  • Helen activating the homing device installed on the new super-suits, alerting Syndrome's forces to Mr. Incredible's exact location and enabling them to capture him.
• Incredibles 2: Bob informs Rick Dicker about Tony Rydinger after Violet expresses her anxiety over having accidentally revealed her alter ego to him, asking him to erase Tony's memories of the incident. Rick does so, which leaves Tony forgetting about Violet entirely and thus unknowingly blowing off their date. Violet spirals into depression as a result, and lashes out at her father when she realizes what he did.
• Justice League: Throne of Atlantis: Batman is on a car chase with some of Scarecrow's goons when Green Lantern shows up and catches them. Batman reprimands him because he was following them to Scarecrow's lair.
• Kung Fu Panda:
  • Kung Fu Panda: Shifu's paranoia led him to send Zeng to double-check Tai Lung's imprisonment which ended up providing Tai Lung the feather he used to escape after Commander Vachir knocked it out. As Oogway cautioned Shifu...
  Oogway: One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
  • Kung Fu Panda 2: If Po had not entered Lord Shen's weapon foundry against the advice of Tigress, then the Furious Five's plan to blow up Lord Shen's cannons would have succeeded without a hitch. Instead, they had to get rid of their explosives or Po would be blown up along with Shen and the Mooks. Not only that but Shen managed to shoot Po with his largest cannon, and he would have died if the Soothsayer hadn't found him unconscious in the river.
• The Lorax (2012): The Once-ler starts off with good intentions when he makes the Thneeds, like not polluting the water, not clear-cutting everything, not consuming all the food, and not terraforming the forest into a wasteland. Now......
  • Made even more significant when he didn't have to chop all the trees down in the first place. All the harvesting was at the top meaning the wood wasn't needed at all, unless it was the material to build the industry.
• Migration: Uncle Dan and Delroy succeed in knocking the Chef out by flinging a squash at him. Unfortunately, the Chef promptly falls onto the switch that opens his aircraft's hatch, causing the still-caged Mack and Pam to fall.
• Monsters, Inc.: Sulley reports Randall's crimes to Mr. Waternoose, who promises to set things right for them by sending Boo back home. However, Mr. Waternoose sends in the wrong door. Mike points this out to him and he replies that he knows. Just then, Randall appears and opens the door as Mr. Waternoose proclaims it is for Sulley and Mike and pushes them through the door out into the Himalayas. Randall and Mr. Waternoose were secretly working together the entire time.
• Mulan
  • Mulan's grandmother gives her a cricket to give her luck in order to help her with the matchmaker. While Mulan wasn't performing well to start with, it's obvious that the cricket ends up being a main direct cause for her failing the matchmaking.
  • In the snow mountains, Mushu accidentally fires a rocket in the sky, revealing the heroes' locations to the Huns, which gives them some advantage in their fight. Good thing Mulan found a way to turn the tides to their favor...
  • After he learns the truth about Mulan, Shang disregards her warnings that the Huns are still alive. Though he credits her words enough to be cautiously glancing around the courtyard where he meets the emperor, the lack of a more proactive response allows the Huns to seize the emperor.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks:
  • Star Swirl the Bearded sent the Sirens to Earth in an attempt to De-power them, thus allowing the Dazzlings to cause the havoc they did.
  • Twilight and the now reformed Sunset's actions at the climax of the first film are what gave the Dazzlings the clue that the power they needed exist in the human world, and thus the motivation to become the antagonists of this film.
  • Sunset tells the Dazzlings about the band event, and even suggests that they visit Principal Celestia. (Although they might have already known, and precisely chose this day to enroll for this reason; their expressions at this moment are ambiguous.)
  • Sunset stopping Rainbow from transforming and possibly revealing their plan to the bad guys almost gets the Rainbooms kicked out of the competition, and the girls' bickering gets so bad that they start getting affected by the Dazzlings' spell and end up providing them with enough Equestrian magic to almost succeed.
• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017):
  • Pinkie Pie, for her lack of subtlety, nearly gets the entire group in trouble when she makes a scene in Klugetown, the last place on whatever planet Equestria is on to attract attention.
  • Rainbow Dash's inability to resist showing off her awesomeness: her Sonic Rainboom turns into a big, shiny beacon that alerts Tempest to the Mane Six's location after she'd been led on a wild goose chase by Capper.
  • When Queen Novo refuses to hand over the Pearl of Transformation to the Mane Six, and with her friends' poor track record of making sensible decisions, Twilight decides in desperation that her best course of action is to steal it right under everyone's noses. Unfortunately, this happens right as her friends actually manage to persuade Novo into letting them have it.
  • After the Seaquestria incident, Twilight Sparkle fiercely denounces her friends in her frustration. Twilight's hurtful comment disgusts them and they walk away to cool their anger. Twilight herself even lampshades how she basically ruined the last chance to save Equestria.
  • After her friends (aside from Spike) leave her alone, Twilight is caught by surprise and quickly captured by Tempest. The rest of the Mane Six, already prepared to try to patch things up, realize they messed up when Spike tells them what happened.
• In 9, the title character's newfound friends take out the mechanical beast who had been threatening them, only for 9 to realize that the MacGuffin he'd woken up with fit perfectly inside a larger machine nearby. Said machine proceeds to kill 2 immediately, followed by 8, 5, 6, and 1 before it's all done.
  • Not only that, but what he did was exactly what said mechanical beastie was trying to do not five minutes before. Too Dumb to Live.
  • Also, the Stitchpunks blowing up the factory. Beforehand the Fabrication Machine had been Sealed Evil in a Can, being confined to said factory. However, instead of being destroyed in the explosion, the Fabrication Machine was essentially freed and proceeded to chase after the Stitchpunks itself, leading to the deaths of 5, 6, and 1.
• Patlabor: The Movie: With the team outnumbered by rampaging Labors during the assault on the Ark, Kanuka installs a clean Labor Operating System on the Type Zero Patlabor prototype and takes it out of dock to try to improve their odds. Unfortunately, the HOS virus hung on in hidden memory and quickly reinfects the Type Zero, which then overpowers Ohta's Unit 2.
• The Powerpuff Girls Movie: Mojo Jojo wouldn't have been able to set his plan in motion without help from the girls. Heck the fact that he even has his volcano lair is because of them.
• Wreck-It Ralph: The Nicelanders' behavior towards Ralph makes him leave the game to try to prove that he could be a good guy, which almost gets their game shut down.
  • Ralph's own game-hopping almost gets Sugar Rush devoured by a horde of Cy-bugs, and turns Big Bad Turbo into a One-Winged Angel capable of taking down the whole arcade. The latter even calls him out, gloatingly thanking him for it. He fixes both these mistakes by atomising them in a Mentos-Diet Soda eruption.
• In Justice League: Doom, Batman's Crazy-Prepared status finally gets them into trouble when a team of villains decide to steal a bunch of data from his computer, specifically, the weaknesses of the Justice League.
  Batman: Alfred, get the Batwing ready! The Justice League is under attack!
  Alfred: By whom?
  Batman: By me!
• Aladdin tricking Jafar into becoming a genie saved the day in Aladdin. But when he gets loose in Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, Aladdin's created a foe with all of the Genie's powers and none of the morals. Although at the same time, some of the threat is gone because genies can't kill, but you'd be surprised at what you can live through.
• In Hercules, Hercules frees two boys but unwittingly releases the Hydra. But after trying to defeat it by after cutting head off, three more heads grow in its place. This creates a problem after cutting so many times where there's a swarm of heads.
• The Little Mermaid: The entire plot of the movie lies at the tiny skittery feet of Sebastian the Crab. To wit:
  • After Ariel bails on his “Under the Sea” song, he follows and discovers her grotto filled with human trinkets and the newly-added statue of Prince Eric. Ariel gets him to not tell her father, King Triton.
  • However, not only does Sebastian reveals it, but also convinces Triton to take a much more firmer hand in controlling her. Thus, when Ariel blurts out she’s in love with Eric, it sets Triton off and he destroys her grotto. This sets Ariel off to run off and finding herself confronting Ursula.
  • After Ariel’s deal fails (in part due to Ursula’s interference), the sea witch holds Ariel hostage and forces King Triton to turn over his kingdom and power to her, thankfully not lasting too long in part to Ariel and Eric’s actions.
• The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea: Ariel refusing to tell Melody about her merfolk heritage and her reason of not allowing her to explore the sea is what sets the plot in motion.
  • Melody, for not handing over the trident to Ariel and giving it to Morgana.
• Frozen:
  • After Elsa accidentally struck Anna with her powers, their parents kept them apart and isolated her in her room; however, being isolated and fearing her powers is the reason Elsa can't control them.
  • Anna, after she informs Elsa of the Endless Winter she's created. The "breaking it" part is that she will not stop talking (how she's trying to help), which further drives Elsa into having a panic attack, culminating in her unleashing a burst of magic which freezes Anna's heart.
  • Grand Pabbie altering Anna's memory so that she forgets about Elsa's ice powers is what leaves her none the wiser to why she's upset and keeps running away from her. He doesn't do it for any major reason, he only does it "to be safe".
• Shrek 4D: Fiona tosses a grappling hook at a rock in an attempt to stop the raft she's on from going over a waterfall, but when Shrek and Donkey show up to save her, they jump on the raft. The added weight causes the grappling hook to snap.
• Sleeping Beauty:
  • The Good Fairies manage to seal up every door, window, nook and cranny so no one can find them; however, they had forgotten to seal up the chimney, as their dueling wand fight blasts right through it allowing Maleficent's raven to notice and pinpoint the location of Aurora.
  • After Aurora is returned to the castle and she's crying over the fact she might not get to see her true love again (unaware he was Prince Philip, the man she's engaged to), the Good Fairies leave her be to have some time alone to think it out. This causes her to be vulnerable to Maleficent, who draws her away from the fairies so she can prick her finger on a spindle and fulfil her curse.
• In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, when SpongeBob and Plankton watch the cosmos for Bubbles, Jupiter ends up crashing into Saturn. This causes Bubbles to get fired and become aggressive toward the duo. However, it's subverted later, when Bubbles reveals that he hated his job; he rewards the heroes by granting them the ability to breathe above water.
• Basil and Dawson are in Ratigan's Death Trap in The Great Mouse Detective. The Death Trap has fortunately been foiled by the broken record. Dawson bellows out his "Pull Yourself Together!", and causes the record needle to jump past the broken spot, thereby starting the Death Trap up again — ironically "breaking it" by fixing it. Further ironically, this has been cited as a Moment of Awesome for Dawson.
• Moana: Maui stealing the heart of Te Fiti results in her becoming her Superpowered Evil Side.
• Beauty and the Beast:
  • Maurice is caught by the enraged Beast who is on the verge of throwing Maurice out, not caring about the fact that wolves would've eaten Maurice. But when Maurice claims he needs a place to stay [for a night], he unintentionally prompts the Beast to irrevocably imprison him in retaliation when ''he's'' the one who didn't want Maurice or any trespassers in the castle in the first place.
  • When Gaston is about to have Maurice sent to an insane asylum because of his story about the Beast, Belle uses the magic mirror she brought from the castle to show the Beast to all the villagers, as proof of her father's sanity. But the Beast's fearsome appearance terrifies the villagers, and even Belle's attempt to assure them of his kindness makes things worse, as Gaston realizes her romantic feelings for him, and out of jealousy he leads the crowd in storming the castle to kill the "dangerous" Beast.
• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree, Rarity tries to reason with the Big Bad (who's dead-set on keeping everyone at the camp forever) by mentioning how she'd miss her weekly trips to the spa. Sadly, this turns out to be the Big Bad's Berserk Button. Whoops.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington's well-meaning but misguided attempt to take over Christmas end up almost ruining Christmas and getting Santa Claus in trouble thanks to him not understanding the context and traditions behind said holiday.
• 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure: Patch appearing as the lucky dog in the front page headliner photo at the Thunderbolt audition unfortunately ends up biting him, as reading the Ratcliffe's new address on his collar from the photo allows Cruella De Vil to know where Anita and Roger moved to and steal the puppies once again. She even sadistically thanks him when he appears at her warehouse to rescue the other puppies.
  Cruella: Well, well, well. What do we have here? Oh, it's you! (chuckles) I owe you a debt of gratitude, my photogenic little friend. If it wasn't for you, I'd have never found your brothers and sisters! And now I have you all! (cackles evilly)
• The Jetlag Productions version of Sleeping Beauty adds this twist to the story. After princess Felicity pricks her finger and falls under the evil fairy Odelia's curse, Odelia actually thanks Primrose, the fairy who altered her death curse, for setting it up. Odelia explains that she just wanted to kill Felicity, but Primrose has made it so that Felicity will remain unchanged for a hundred years, and when she wakes up, everyone she ever knew and loved will have been long dead. Conversely, Felicity's parents are left to moan that they're going to die knowing their daughter will be all alone when she wakes up, as they grow older she won't age a day.
• In the Direct To DVD film Tinker Bell, Tink's reckless actions ruin all of the fairies' preparations for spring, threatening to cause a chain reaction that disrupts all the seasons, which would result in an ecological catastrophe. Only her brilliant inventions get the fairies back on schedule.
• A lot of the plot for Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans is caused by Gentleman Ghost hopping into 2013 Raven's mind and breaking her mental gem holding her demon side.
• In The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour, both heroes were infamous for this in their respective shows and managed to endanger each other's universes; Idiot Hero Timmy Turner manages to turn Jimmy Neutron's Robot Dog into a city-stomping kaiju, while as a result of Poor Communication Kills Jimmy accidentally gives Timmy's Arch-Enemy Mr. Crocker the means to Take Over the World. Cosmo lampshades this, telling Jimmy "Way to go, genius."
• As in the comic it's based on, the altered timeline in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox is the result of The Flash messing with time to keep his mother from dying. Oh, and as Justice League Dark: Apokolips War shows, it kept getting worse as it's revealed there that Darkseid's interest in Earth, first shown in Justice League: War was caused by Barry's actions — and the majority of Apokolips War takes place in a Bad Future where a lot of Earth's heroes are either dead or converted into The New 52: Futures End-style cyborgs, Earth has suffered irreparable damage, and the Pyrrhic Victory was to such a degree that Barry has to go back again to try to fix things.
• In Coco, by banning music from her household and erasing Hector from their family photo, Imelda inavertedly allowed Ernesto to go unpunished for not only murdering Hector but also stealing his music ensuring that Ernesto will never be exposed as murderer and fraud. Mitigated in that she thought Hector had abandoned her for the stage -but she never tried to find out what happened, even as Ernesto became more and more famous.
• The Magic Roundabout (2005):
  • Dougal accidentally crashing the sugar cart into the titular Magic Roundabout which causes Zeebad to escape from his prison who freezes the roundabout, trapping Florence, Mr. Rusty, Basil and Coral what sets the plot in motion.
  • Dougal unwittingly spilling the beans to Zeebad about the map which allows him to not only steal the map from the gang, but to take the two diamonds that the gang were looking for to re imprison Zeebad.
  • Brian also causes Zeebad to go ahead of the gang further by accidentally letting slip of the location of the third diamond which falls onto Zeebad's ears, where he openly gloats on where he'll get the third diamond from. When Brian reveals his mistake to everyone, they were none too pleased.
• The Rugrats Movie: After the babies go on a wild ride around town on the Reptar wagon thanks to Angelica kicking the wagon, finally ending up in a mattress factory and then a delivery truck, Stu realizes the kids have gone missing and rushes out to find them. While driving Stu berates Grandpa for falling asleep while he was supposed to be watching the kids. Then due to his impatience, Stu cuts off the mattress truck the kids just happen to be on causing it to swerve off the road and go down a mountain hill, thus setting up the second part of the movie.
• Turning Red:
  • Ming's inability to control her helicopter parenting causes her to spy on Mei at her school, with her classmates around her, embarrassing Mei so much that she transforms into the red panda, forcing her to run out of the school in a panic.
  • Much later, when Mei tries to escape the temple, she unwittingly causes her mother's talisman to become damaged.
  • When Mei escapes during her ritual, no one except Jin thinks it might be a good idea to comfort Ming, whose panda is Kaiju-sized and extremely aggressive. In fact, someone explicitly asks Ming how she could let her daughter get so out of control, upsetting her further. The result? Ming transforms and destroys much of Toronto and the SkyDome.
  • As Mei is trying to keep Ming's Kaiju panda form busy, she gets fed up and headbutts her mother unconscious. Unfortunately, Ming collapses outside of the ritual circle, and her massive form is far too heavy for Mei alone to drag her back. Fortunately, Wu and her aunts unleash their own panda spirits to provide the necessary muscle.

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