Poor Communication Kills / Live-Action Films

• 28 Days Later
  • The movie opens with a group of environmentalists attempting to break open cages of seemingly abused monkeys. A scientist tries to stop them and is given a chance to explain why they shouldn't torture him like he (seemingly) has done to the monkeys. His answer? " [They have] Rage." He doesn't try to explain that the Rage he is talking about is not just an emotion, even though there's a large enough of a pause to do so. Instead, he, for some reason, expects these people who have not worked in his lab, nor understand that the monkeys are sick, to comprehend a word that apparently now has two meanings.
  • The environmentalists are also equally guilty. After seeing the scientist go into a panic at the idea of releasing the chimps, they never think to clarify what he's talking about, ask why he's panicking or even do enough research to know if the chimps are infected with any dangerous diseases. They also quite clearly hear him say "it's contagious; one bite is all it takes", which really should have made them hesitate at least long enough for a proper explanation. Granted a crazy, animal torturing scientist going on about how you need to kill your best friend within the next 10 seconds or they'll become a zombie isn't likely to convince a person either way, but the equally true statement of "if you let it out the infection will kill all of us in seconds" would probably make someone halt in their tracks.
• In 7 Zwerge - Der Wald ist nicht genug, the entire plot of the movie is based on the dwarves trying to find out Rumpelstiltskin's name. However, one them already knew it the whole time but got interrupted whenever he was about to mention it. It doesn't help that he's the Cloudcuckoolander.
• Ajnabee: When Raj beats up Vicky over his "wife swapping" suggestion, he refuses to tell Priya the reason for the fight, thinking is "too scandalous" to repeat. This bites him in the ass later, since without knowing his reason for getting violent with Vicky, it makes it harder for her to believe he's being framed for Vicky's wife's death. When he eventually tells her the reason, she admonishes him for how stupid it was of him to keep it a secret.
• Happens in Aliens several times. Lieutenant Gorman orders the marines not to use their firearms or explosives when going after the captives, but never explains why. As a result, some use their firearms anyway, which later ruptures the cooling system and sets the station on a course towards nuclear meltdown. Later, Ripley finds out that Burke was responsible for the whole alien menace to begin with, but doesn't tell anyone. She just threatens him with arrest after they return back home and then lies down and takes a nap.....
• In Andhadhun, Akash calls Sophie after Simi has blinded him, attempting to explain the situation. Sophie refuses to listen, having found out that he was faking his blindness and mistakenly believing that he was sleeping with Simi. This leaves Akash completely isolated with no one to trust or turn to.
• Arrival: The crux of the film is the difficulty of communication with an alien species that has recently landed on Earth, and mankind collectively going crazy wondering if this is a hostile invasion or not. The world's militaries manage to keep a tight enough lid on things to prevent anyone from actually attacking the aliens... for the most part. When humanity finally manages to pose the question "What is your purpose?" to the aliens, their response complicates things. The message they send back is interpreted as "Use weapon". This very nearly causes several militaries to attack the aliens, and in one case a small group of soldiers goes rogue and bomb an alien vessel as a pre-emptive strike, which winds up killing one of the aliens. Later it's learned that what the aliens actually said was "Offer gift". Fortunately, the aliens seem to understand that the bombing was carried out by a rogue group and was not representative of all humans, and do not take the attack as a declaration of war.
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Superman puts a token effort at the start of the fight into telling Batman that Lex Luthor has kidnapped his mother and is blackmailing him into fighting Bats, but is quickly interrupted. After that he doesn't bother trying again until the two have fought for about ten minutes and Batman is about to stab him with a Kryptonite spear. Even when he temporarily overcomes the Kryptonite and has Batman at his mercy, he goes off on a tangent about how he could kill Batman if he wanted to instead of just saying "Dude, Lex Luthor has my Mom." Batman, meanwhile, is just so convinced that killing Supes is the right thing to do he never even considers trying to talk things out.
• Blastfighter: Honestly, Connie! Was it really necessary to wait a day and a half before telling Tiger that he was your father? Did you not think that bombshell was something you might have opened with?
• ”BodiesBodiesBodies”: Pretty much the entire plot of this film involves people dying due to poor communication.
• A double-layered one in Brick. Dode sees Brenden hide Emily's body in a tunnel and jumps to the obvious (but wrong) conclusion that Brenden killed her, fleeing before Brenden can explain the truth (he's trying to solve her murder and only hid her as part of a larger plan to bring the guilty party to justice). Dode proceeds to meet with the Pin and Tugg to sell this information to them... not knowing that Tugg is the one who really killed Emily and that by smugly offering to name Emily's murderer, he's basically threatening said murderer straight to his face. Cue Tugg losing his shit and shooting Dode to death in a panicked rage, kickstarting a gang war that ends with just about everyone on both sides dead or in jail.
• In Caught Up, one of the film's villains, Billy is the victim of a double dose of this. After another villain threatens him to find the protagonist's location, he has a brief laugh before telling his captor that the protagonist is hiding in his closet (he is, actually). The other villain had just gotten through a motive monologue, so he believes Billy is mocking him and his story; so he decides the best thing to do is to torture Billy with acid. Unfortunately for him, his mook administering the acid misheard him saying "a proper drop" as "a couple drops", so he ends up burning a hole right through Billy's skull, killing him.
• Coroner Creek: If Chris had told Leach that he suspected Miles planning to start a fire at the box canyon, rather than just telling him to 'keep watch', they could have avoided the Animal Stampede that killed most of Della's herd.
• In the 2023 horror film Cobweb, Peter's parents' attempts to take him out of school and punish him by locking him in the basement for a couple of nights leave him willing to accept the idea that they have kept his older sister in captivity for years and intend to kill them both. If his parents had actually told Peter that he had a sister who they kept locked away because she was dangerous, at the very least Peter might have been willing to find out more rather than give in to his sister's encouragement and actually poison his parents in the belief he was saving a fellow victim of their abuse.
• In Curse of the Undead, all of the plot (and countless deaths) could have been avoided if the priest had bothered to tell Drago's father that only a wooden stake driven through the heart of a vampire will kill it.
• As The Self-Made Critic points out, this could have cleared up a lot of confusion in the movie Daredevil:
  Electra: You killed my father!
  Daredevil: No I didn't. That guy did. Over there. The Bad Guy.
  Electra: Oh. I didn't see him. OK. My bad. Let's go get him.
  Daredevil: Aces!
• Two cases in Dark Star:
  • The space ship's computer notifies the crew about the malfunction while they are sleeping. No one registers this important information and disaster takes its course.
  • Also, Talby tries to inform Doolittle about the laser malfunction but the latter dismisses this as unimportant and cuts the communication line.
• Presumably Played for Laughs in Deadpool. In order to find Ajax, the one responsible for his disfigurement, Wade Wilson hunts down the latter’s henchmen in order to find him. However, the issue comes from Wade constantly addressing Ajax by his legal name Francis. It’s likely that the people he’s interrogating don’t know Ajax’s real name (and considering how Ajax reacts to Wade immediately after he finds out, it’s reasonable to believe he goes to great lengths to make sure it’s secret). Wade probably would’ve made more progress if he had just said “where’s Ajax” instead of “where’s Francis”, but that would’ve shortened the movie. Not to mention that this is a Black Comedy movie where the victims aren’t exactly good people, and viewers wouldn't get a chance to see a man getting killed by a zamboni (well, in the process of getting killed).
• A major and recurring theme of Dr. Strangelove. Mandrake has problems reaching the president to recall the bombers, he finds a payphone but has not enough pocket change and a brief issue with British vs American terms. Finally one of the bombers cannot be recalled via the Override Command because its communication system has been destroyed. Armageddon ensues. And of course the Soviets didn't tell the world about their Doomsday Device because their premier "loves surprises." It's even enforced by Big Bad General Ripper, whose first action in launching his nuclear attack on Russia is ordering his staff to destroy all their radios (so they won't know he's lying and that the Russians aren't actually attacking).
• A recurring theme in Frances Ha, reflective of the protagonist's chaotic life in general
  • Frances breaks up with her boyfriend Dan (among other reasons) because she is unwilling to move out from her and her best friend Sophie's place, yet Sophie moves out anyway.
  • Frances travels to Paris for the weekend on a whim, hoping to meet a friend of hers there (and getting into massive credit card debt in the process). When she gets there, she fails to reach her friend, then finds out that Sophie is holding a farewell party that very evening (in New York) before moving to Japan. When on her way to the airport to fly to back to the US, her friend finally calls her back, asking if she's free that night.
  • Frances spends only two days in Paris (not really doing anything), because she has a meeting with her dance teacher the following Monday. When she has her meeting, her teacher points out that Frances could always have postponed it, and that she almost did so herself on account of a sniffle.
• Gettysburg:
  • On the first day of battle, Robert E. Lee tells General Ewell to take a Hill "if practicable" so that the Union can't mount a defense on it. "If practicable" was simply a courtesy, which Lee's other generals understood as "do it." Ewell, who was implied to have become a Shell-Shocked Veteran after the loss of his leg, interpreted it literally and, over the protests of his subordinates, decided it was not practicable. Trimble predicts bitterly that many of his men will die trying to take the hill tomorrow. (Although the film implies that it was Little Round Top, it was actually Culp's Hill on the other flank—and the general in charge had been a civil engineer before the war. The breastworks he had his men construct proved to be nigh impregnable.)
  • The difficulties of physical communication in an era before instant long-distance transmissions crop up several times, but most prominently with J.E.B. Stuart and his cavalry. For the first half of the film, the Confederates are left to rely on an actor that Longstreet has retained as a spy to know where the Union is because Stuart, whose cavalry is supposed to keep Lee informed of such things, is gone who-knows-where in Pennsylvania. When Stuart finally does arrive, having done the comparatively unimportant job of capturing some supply wagons, Lee reprimands him in a bout of Tranquil Fury.
• Glass Onion: Helen and Whiskey have a friendly discussion during the day which ends with Helen advising Whiskey that Duke is a shithead and she should dump him. Later that night, Whiskey stumbles across Helen ransacking Duke's room and tearfully says she "left" Duke. Helen comforts her, saying that this is better for Whiskey and Duke got what he deserved. Unfortunately, Whiskey meant she "left" in a blind panic after Duke died and thinks Helen is gloating about killing him. This ends with Whiskey grabbing a speargun and nearly killing Helen.
• Godzilla vs. Kong:
  • What caused Godzilla to go on a rampage is him detecting that Ghidorah is still on the planet somewhere. The trouble is, every time he gets a clear reading of Ghidorah's presence, it happens to be at a populated area, leading humanity to believe he has turned on them.
  • Godzilla and Kong's species have a blood feud dating eons ago. Godzilla is old enough to be alive during that time, thus sees Kong as a threat. Kong however was born in modern times and doesn't have a clue why Godzilla is so intent on attacking him.
  • Kong has no interest in any Alpha fight for dominance and just wants to find a new place to call home. But he doesn't realize he was being used to find an energy source for Mechagodzilla. But when he does, this provokes Godzilla to attack the Hollow Earth and consequently destroy Kong's ancestral home, sending Kong into a rage and giving him a personal reason to fight Godzilla. By doing this, this significantly delays Godzilla long enough for Ghidorah to hijack Mechagodzilla and the fight itself tires Godzilla enough for Mechagodzilla to have an easy victory.
  • In general, Godzilla's entire rampage is to stop Ghidorah/Mechagodzilla but because he sent all the other Titans, including longtime ally Mothra, underground, there is no one to help clarify his actions.
• In The Guilty, Michael has plenty of opportunities to set the record straight about what has happened and where he's taking Iben, but he chooses not to. As a result, he becomes the subject of a completely unnecessary manhunt, and Iben runs off with Asger's help.
• The cheesy, melodramatic 80s kung fu-romance flick, Journey Of The Doomed, has a Third-Act Misunderstanding that happens between the protagonist Lin and his lover Shui-erh, because Shui-erh mistakens Lin having an affair with their common friend, a mute girl, when in actuality Lin was trying to help the mute girl after she was bitten by a poisonous snake. Never mind that they have a lengthy Falling-in-Love Montage several scenes ago, and that they've proclaimed their love one scene before the misunderstanding: somehow it never occurs to Lin to explain, their mutual friend was injured and he's only trying to help. It gets really egregious when the mute girl attempts to communicate between the two arguing lovers to no avail (because she's... mute?) while the two lovers only knows how to scowl and raise voices at each other for no apparent reason.
• In Knight and Day, June calls Roy out on this. Early on in the film, a case of mistaken identities leads to June getting put on a certain plane in an assassination attempt, and Roy's attempt to tell June to not get on is merely, "Sometimes things happen for a reason." Later on, when Roy claims that he warned her, June says, "That's like a needlepoint expression or a bumper sticker! Next time, try, 'June, if you get on this plane, you will fucking die.'"
• Kung Fu Killer: the hero lets the police know all eight of the serial killer's intended targets, but they don't know exactly which order the serial killer will go after them. Rather than notify all of the men and put them under police protection, the team spends a good portion of the film one step behind the killer trying to anticipate which one will be next. Consequently, several men on the list get killed.
• In Lantana, Nik picks up Valerie in his car and agrees to give her a lift home, but he doesn't think to tell her that he's taking her down a back road shortcut. She panics, jumps from the car and runs into the bush, eventually falling down a ravine to her death.
• In The Last Witch Hunter, Axe and Cross never bothers to mention to Kaulder that they've had Witch Queen's heart for centuries, and now it's been stolen. Bad thing, because it can be used to bring her back to life. It literally kills them and almost leads to the end of the world.
• In A League of Their Own, conflict arises between Dottie and Kit; the latter feels that the former has overshadowed her all her life, and it's especially painful during the Rockford Peaches' baseball games. Dottie, who loves baseball but doesn't care if she's a big success, goes to the team's owner and explains that she wants to quit, as the situation with Kit is becoming too much to handle. He promises to handle it...but Dottie doesn't ask (and he doesn't say) exactly what he's going to do to solve the problem. Kit ends up transferred to another team, which makes both sisters furious. To compound the issue, Kit refuses to listen to Dottie when she tries to explain the situation.
• In Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, this trope is literally employed with Hatchet Harry, Barry the Baptist, and the two Scousers. The Scousers are a pair of Stupid Crooks who are hired by Harry through his Dragon, Barry, to steal a gun collection, because Harry wants two antique guns. Barry gives the two limited information, not telling them the identity of their employer nor indicating that the purpose of the job was to procure those two guns. This results in a situation in which the Scousers attack Harry to get the guns back to their employer (unbeknownst to them, Harry himself) and don't realize their mistake/see Barry in the room until everyone has been fatally wounded.
• Lone Survivor: We all know the movie wouldn't have this title if the SEAL Team 10 was able to communicate its base in the start of the film.
• In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Faramir is benevolent enough to offer Frodo the chance to talk Gollum out of the Forbidden Pool before Faramir's troops shoot Gollum for violating the law, but instead of carefully explaining to Gollum that there are soldiers waiting above and that Gollum can either risk capture or be killed on the spot, Frodo doesn't bother to explain the situation beyond "you must come with Master." When Gollum obeys and is captured by Faramir's men, he confuses the "come with me" offer for a betrayal and shortly begins plotting his revenge.
• Mamma Mia!
  • The entire chain of misunderstandings running throughout the film is set up by Sophie inviting her three potential Dads to the wedding without telling anyone else, and insisting that they not tell anyone else that she invited them.
  • The movie's background is set up by young Sam leaving to return to his fiancee without telling Donna that he was only returning to call off the wedding and turn right around and come back to her. If he'd told her that before he left, presumably she'd have waited for him instead of shacking up with two other men on the rebound.
• Subverted in Mars Attacks!. At first it appears that poor communication is the cause of the Martians' attacks on the humans. Later it's made clear that the Martians intended to invade and destroy humanity anyway. Apparently, they just really hate (or are afraid of) birds.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • This is a common problem of the royal family of Asgard:
    • In Thor, Loki accidentally finds out after over a millennium that he is adopted and actually a Jotun, a species who is one of Asgard's enemies. As his adoptive father Odin tells him this, he reveals that the main reason why he adopted Loki was that he wanted to use him as a political tool to bring peace between the two realms, saying that "these plans no longer matter". Odin also never made a point to teach his sons that the Jotuns are not monsters (such as him not reacting when Thor said as a child that he will slay all Jotuns once he is king). This all combined leads to Loki having a mental breakdown out of Internalized Categorism and becoming the Big Bad of the movie and the following The Avengers.
    • In The Avengers, Thor is hurt and angry when he meets Loki again for the first time after the events of Thor. So when he actually starts to show affection to Loki (such as saying that he mourned him, reminding him that they are brothers after all) or asks him where he got the Chitauri army from, Loki rebuffs and never reveals Thanos and what happened to him after his fall. It is implied that he also never got a real trial in Thor: The Dark World and is instead directly thrown into prison by Odin, and he remains silent about Thanos to his mother who is the only one who visits him. This leads to everyone being unprepared when Thanos eventually attacks in Avengers: Infinity War.
    • In Thor: Ragnarok, Odin reveals to Thor and Loki a minute before he dies that they have a murderous older sister that no one in Asgard knew about or remembered. They and all of Asgard are completely unprepared for her return and the only way to stop her ends up being to destroy all of Asgard. Adding to all the above, Thor and Loki themselves have a tendency to avoid talking their problems out and instead quickly start to argue. Loki even lampshades this when Thor says that they should talk:
      Loki: I disagree. Open communication has never been our family's forte.
  • Also a problem for Tony Stark. Open communication is not his forte, mixed with a large supply of issues relating to his dad and upbringing. Case in point, Iron Man 2 has him dying of palladium poisoning, courtesy of the arc reactor in his chest, and he starts acting even stranger than usual. He just doesn't bother telling anyone, so his closest friends think he's just gone on a massive ego trip.
  • Captain America: Civil War: If you think about it, the vast majority of the big problems in this movie (i.e., the second half) could've been avoided if Steve had just opened his mouth:
    • Steve, Sharon, and Sam quickly work out that Bucky's being framed for the UN bombing, but they don't bother to tell anyone else. Justified as they believe nobody will believe them.
    • When Steve finds Bucky in Bucharest, Bucky tells him that he wasn't responsible for the bombing, and it seems he might be willing to turn himself in. However, Steve makes no attempt to communicate this to the police outside, and they both just stand there until the police break in and attack.
    • When Bucky is being held at the terrorism center, nobody brings up the fact that he was brainwashed by Hydra and might not have been in control of his actions. At the very least, Black Panther wasn't told this, since he continues to believe that Bucky killed his father deliberately.
    • The entire airport fight and all the associated injuries and property damage could have been avoided if Steve had just called Tony and let him know about the other Winter Soldiers. Notably, Tony gives up on chasing them and goes to help once he finds out. To be fair to Steve, he did try to talk to Tony about right before the fight, but Tony cut him off, thanks to the stresses of Ross' and his ultimatums.
    • And, of course, the climactic final fight arguably could have been avoided if Steve had told Tony that Bucky had killed Tony's parents while under brainwashing. Granted, he was a bit fuzzy on the details until he, Bucky, and Tony were shown what went down, but the fact is that Cap knew for 2 years how it happened and he kept his mouth shut. Cap even apologizes (by letter) in the denouement.
    • All of this being said, a lot of the above could've been avoided had Tony himself been more communicative during one specific instance: Wanda. Steve was about to sign the Accords until he learned that Wanda had been unknowingly put under house arrest by Tony and Vision; while Tony's reasons for doing so are justified, not telling her or the rest of the team about it was a complete mistake and made it seem as if she was a prisoner in her own home rather being kept there for her own safety. This upset Steve enough to forgo signing the Accords. Had Tony bothered to take a moment to inform the team about this decision before the action started, and his reasons for it, then most of the conflict wouldn't have happened. This instance also convinced Steve that Tony would refuse to believe him about the other Winter Soldiers, which was incidentally proven true at the beginning of the airport fight.
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home: The entire movie could have been averted had Dr Strange just taken five minutes to fully explain to Peter what the memory-erasing spell was going to do before he started casting it. Had he done that and established exactly why Peter wanted the spell cast, he could have either cast it differently (for example, making the world forget that Mysterio had revealed Peter's identity and accused him of being the one who killed him) or simply told him that you're allowed to appeal being rejected by a college.
• In My Cousin Vinny, When Vinny's cousin and his friend are first arrested, they end up digging themselves deeper as they answer the police's questions while simply assuming they were being arrested for shoplifting, and the police never even mention to the two why they were arrested until well into the process. Incidentally, this shows how poor communication can put innocent people in prison if they talk to police without legal counsel or knowing their rights.
• No Name on the Bullet: Earl Stricker gets paranoid after seeing the infamous gunman John Gant having a drink at the bar while one of his mining partners, Ben Chaffee, is there. This leaves Stricker and his other partner, Pierce, convinced that Chaffee hired Gant to kill them. They then into the bar hoping to pay Gant into leaving (unsuccessfully). While they're sitting down with him, one of Chaffee's miners walks in, gets the wrong impression, and hurries out to tell Chaffee that Stricker and Pierce are acting all chummy with Gant and have probably hired Cant to kill him.
• Nurse Betty: Wesley scalps Del-and promptly freaks out over it-because he mistakes a story that Charlie recounts about how a man can survive being scalped to frighten Dale and rub in how insensitive Dale is toward Native Americans. Wesley interprets this as an order to scalp Dale and does so, leaving both hitmen horrified and forcing them to shoot Dale when he breaks loose due to the adrenaline.
• Once Upon a Time (2017): Most of the plot, especially Bai Qian's misery as Su Su, would never have happened if she and Ye Hua had just talked to each other and if Ye Hua had explained he was acting coldly towards her because he was trying to protect her.
• In The One, the protagonist routinely tells other police officers about his sociopathic alternate-universe duplicate with the words "He is me," instead of "He looks exactly like me." While it's possible that the police might not have believed him, he never seems to make any effort to tell the mundane cops about his doppelganger, so he has to fend them off as well.
• Discussed in The Perfect Score between Desmond and Roy. Roy points out that Desmond should just talk to his mom.
• In Pixels, rather than explaining that they want peace, humans send a bunch of arcade games videos to the aliens and the aliens misinterpret this as a declaration of war.
• The Princess (2022): The fat merc being too tired/lazy to give an appropriate sitrep when he finally reaches the Princess' chambers at the top of the tower, giving her some time to get further downstairs. This trope can also be taken literally, since this also allows her to chop up plenty of Julius' troops on the way.
• Reap the Wild Wind: Steve successfully argues for Jack to be made the captain of the Southern Cross, but Commodore Devereaux orders him not to tell Jack about this decision until his guilt or innocence in the wreck of the Jubilee is established. When Jack finds out, he accuses Steve of deliberately stopping his promotion and Steve goes along with the deception (presumably to avoid turning Jack against his boss, Captain Devereaux). As a result of this misunderstanding, when Devereaux dies, Jack thinks that Steve will fire him and makes a Heel–Face Turn.
• In The Ruins, poor communication literally kills, as the Mayan-speaking locals are unable to effectively warn the main characters away from the titular ruins. Truth in Television, as it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish, much less English.
• The entirety of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty could have been avoided if Sean O'Connell had been clearer in telling Walter that negative asset #25, which Walter searched throughout three countries for, was in his wallet all along. If Sean had been more straightforward about it, Walter might've kept his job at LIFE Magazine.
• Several problems in Short Cuts are exacerbated by poor communication.
  • Ann Finnigan orders an expensive custom birthday cake from Andy Bitkower's bakery for her son Casey's birthday. When Casey is hit by a car and goes into a coma, Ann stays with him at the hospital while her husband Howard makes a quick trip back home to retrieve some of their belongings. While he is there, Bitkower calls to iron out some details in Ann's design; Howard, who wasn't present when the cake was ordered and can't answer Bitkower's questions anyway, hangs up to keep the line free for possible news from Ann about Casey. Bitkower immediately calls back to say he doesn't appreciate being hung up on; Howard hangs up again. Bitkower calls back a third time, and Howard swears at him before hanging up again. Knowing nothing about what has happened to Casey, Bitkower simply interprets this as unnecessary rudeness and fights back by leaving abusive messages on their answering machine, worsening the Finnigans' grief when Casey dies from his injuries.
  • In a lesser example, when Stuart and Claire Kane join Ralph and Marian Wyman for dinner, Stuart brings a trout he caught on his fishing weekend as the main dish and tells Ralph it needs to be grilled for ten minutes per inch. Unfortunately, he means inch of thickness, but Ralph thinks he means inch of length, and he leaves the trout on the grill for so long that it is burned to ashes.
• Sleepers: Michael and Carol's relationship ended because he wouldn't let Carol close beyond a certain point. During the trial when Carol found out about the sexual abuse Michael endured as a juvie boy, she says maybe things could've been different if he told her. Given she's a social worker and almost certainly would've seen similar behavior from others who'd been abused in her job, it's perhaps a slight case of Idiot Ball that she didn't appear to consider even the possibility. Or not, since there is a reason social workers are not allowed to work on the cases of people close to them — the emotional bond understandably makes them prone to bias.
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022):
  • Knuckles reveals that the Echidnas forged the Master Emerald out of the seven Chaos Emeralds in order to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, and the war between them and the Owls started after the Owls attacked them on the grounds that No Man Should Have This Power. In the end the two tribes ended up wiping each other out even though both sides wanted the exact same thing: to protect the Chaos Emeralds.
  • While hunting for the Master Emerald in Siberia, Tails' Universal Translator mistakenly insults the waitress, causing an angry mob of pissed-off Russians attempting to throw them into the fireplace before he manages to talk them down.
  • Later on, while Sonic is attempting to bond with Knuckles Tails attacks him and makes him think it was all a trick, delaying his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Almost immediately after that, at Tom's sister-in-law's wedding Tom manages to mix up the portal ring Sonic gave him with the wedding ring, and when Sonic calls him in the middle of the ceremony desperate for help he interrupts the ceremony again demanding the ring like a crazy person without even attempting to explain there was a mix-up and exchanging them, leading to him punching the groom and opening the portal into an avalanche.
• For some reason, Peter never managed to explain to Harry Osborn in Spider-Man Trilogy that Harry's father was killed by his own glider, and in the end of the trilogy it was revealed that Harry's butler had known this since Norman's death and never said a word about it. Word of God says that Harry was actually hallucinating his butler being there in order to figure it out for himself.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Although Spock's death was extremely moving, it would've helped if Spock said something like "Jim, I've placed my katra, or soul, in Dr. McCoy's mind. Please take him to Mount Seleya on Vulcan to have it returned..." before dying.
• In the novelization of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, we get the likely answer for why Spock didn't tell Kirk about the katra being in Dr. McCoy's mind before dying: according to Sarek, Dr. McCoy suffered some kind of allergic reaction to Spock's katra being in his mind and thus didn't know that he had to go to Mount Seleya on Vulcan to have it returned. Had McCoy not had the allergic reaction, he would have probably told Kirk about the katra and the need to go to Mount Seleya.
• Star Wars:
  • In Attack of the Clones, Mace Windu and Yoda fail to tell the Council of the increase in the powers of the dark side. This has telling consequences for the future.
  • In Revenge of the Sith, Master Yoda helps get the entire Jedi Order put to the sword because he couldn't get across to Anakin how important it was to be clear-headed when he tries to change what his visions show him. He just told Anakin what to do, expecting either that Anakin would simply do what he was told or that he would respect Yoda's wisdom. Yoda does this rather than take the time to explain that if he was so terrified of losing someone, he would be willing to do anything to save them, no matter how far-fetched, dangerous, or self-destructive. And that this is a bad mental state to make any kind of decision in.
    • Anakin doesn’t help by being extremely vague about what happened his visions. You can’t properly help someone if you have very little idea of what the problem is. He didn’t even need to give much more detail simply say it was a fixable medical problem to which Yoda would either offer the Jedi Temple’s med centre or if not that recommend a good doctor.
  • When Anakin tells Windu of the fact that Sidious is a Sith Lord, Windu fails to tell anybody outside of the four who leave with him (the novelisation states that Yoda is informed, too, not that it makes things better though). So when it goes tits up, it really does look like the Jedi attempted a coup to everyone.
  • Continues in the sequel trilogy, where if Admiral Holdo had told Poe the plan or even that they had a plan in The Last Jedi, there wouldn't have been a mutiny. Though Poe, Finn, and Rose share some of the blame for not telling Holdo about the tracker the First Order was using to follow them, instead implementing a dangerous plan behind her back to sneak aboard Snoke's ship and deactivate it. Finn and Rose wouldn't have tried the Hail Mary quest of finding a codebreaker to even have a smidgen of a chance of escaping. Without trying to find the code-breaker, the Empire would never find out from DJ the code-breaker that the Resistance is planning on leaving on cloaked transport ships.
  • Also, if Luke had just talked with Ben Solo, maybe they could have talked it out, instead of Luke assuming the worst of a boy who literally had done nothing wrong. The same Luke that risked everything to redeem his child-murdering father. In Luke's version of events he got control of his panic and was planning to do that very thing... but Ben had already seen him there with blade drawn and came to the obvious conclusion.
• Early in The Strangers, the protagonist calls for his friend to give him a ride back home from his isolated cabin in the woods, right about the time that three masked lunatics decide to sabotage his only car and try to kill him. Later, when the friend arrives to find that someone's broken into the cabin (and a few minutes after someone throws a rock through his car's window), his first instinct is to silently tiptoe into the cabin...without thinking to phone the police or call out to the protagonist to let him know that he's arrived. The protagonist, who's barricaded himself inside with a shotgun, thinks he's one of the masked assailants, and shoots him dead.
• The Finnish film Tali-Ihantala 1944 has a scene that shows the tragic results of a language barrier between the Finnish troops and Swedish volunteers. One of the Finnish veterans is instructing the volunteer troops on using a panzerfaust, stressing the fact that the weapon releases a lethal tail flame upon firing. However, he tells this in Finnish, which the Swedish troops do not understand. Later, during an ambush against Soviet tanks, one of the volunteers gets killed by the tail flame. One of the Finnish soldiers tries to warn him not to hold the weapon against his shoulder while firing, but since the warning is again in Finnish, he does not understand it and fires anyway.
• In The Terror, the loyal Stefan confronts the old woman living in the cabin on the Baron's lands. He knows she's a witch, has some sort of plan against the Baron, and threatens to burn her out if she doesn't leave. She tells him she's avenging Eric. What Stefan doesn't ask is who Eric is to her, thus setting up the rest of the movie.
• In Texas Chainsaw 3D a lawyer gives the main character a letter and tells her to read it as soon as possible. Despite acting quite reasonably and intelligently up to this point in the movie, and having several hours where nothing much happens afterwards, she never gets around to it until the very end of the movie, where it turns out the letter explains pretty much the entire movie. Had she actually read the letter, they could have easily avoided the deaths of several people which follow, including her friends and boyfriend.
• In John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), the movie begins with a man chasing after a dog with explosives and a rifle, trying to warn the others that the dog is a monster in disguise and must be destroyed. The man's warning is unheeded and he is shot and killed because he was speaking Norwegian while the main characters were American and couldn't understand. As mentioned in the 28 Days Later entry, it's hard to imagine the main characters reacting any different no matter what language the guy had been speaking, especially when the Norwegian accidentally grazes one of the station workers with a bullet before getting shot.
• In the film Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, the college kids' inherent belief that Tucker and Dale are murderous backwards hillbillies leads them to believe that they kidnapped Allison, rather than helping her out of the lake after she'd fallen and hit her head. Repeated later, as this mindset causes them to all start dying from their own stupidity. One of them took a risk and tried to simply talk to Tucker about their friend... only to run in fear from a chainsaw-wielding Tucker (who had accidentally struck a beehive and was running for his life). The poor sensible kid ended up running straight into a branch and impaling himself on it, leading the rest of the college kids' to believe Tucker did it and reinforcing their misconceptions. That being said, Tucker was guilty of it himself on at least that occasion, considering he runs in the same direction as the kid while waving the chainsaw around, which is an unbelievably stupid thing to do no matter the situation. Even as he looks over at the scared kid running away from him he doesn't put two and two together. He and Dale instead conclude (after an ill-fated attempt by the college kids to get Allison back) that they're all members of a Suicide Pact who want to make sure Allison does so too.
• The gas station attendant during the Cold Open of Urban Legend notices a killer hiding in the backseat of her car, and like a reasonably decent person tries to warn her and protect her from it by locking the store's front door. However when he tries to confront her about it he does it in such a creepy kidnapy lock-her-in-his-girl-dungeony way (not helped by him grabbing her and his apparent stuttering problem) that she maces him and escapes. In her car.
• In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this is what leads to the fight between Gambit and Wolverine, who Gambit thinks is trying to take him back to Stryker's prison on Three Mile Island. After learning that he wants to stop Stryker, Gambit is more than happy to help.

---