Analogies backfiring in live-action movies.
- In Alexander, Alexander the Great feels his boyfriend Hephaistion is being less than optimistic over his plans.Alexander: Did Patroclus stare at Achilles when they stood side by side at the siege of Troy?
Hephaistion: Patroclus died first. - In Avatar:Neytiri: You have a strong heart, no fear, but stupid! Ignorant like a child!
Sully: Well, if I'm like a child, then maybe you should teach me. - During one of the team's arguments in The Avengers, Steve Rogers gets fed up with Tony Stark's flippant attitude and his dependence on his suit and asks him if he thinks he's the sort of man that would lie on a barbed wire fence to allow men to go over him. Tony replies that he'd just cut the wire, completely derailing Steve's original insult attempt (Steve still sneers back about Tony "always having an angle", re-railing it).
- Baby Mama has a scene where Amy Poehler says, "We're partners like Tom and Jerry" and Tina Fey replies, "Tom and Jerry hate each other."
- From Circus:Bruno: How could you, Leo? I was like a father to you!
Leo: You're right. He was a right bastard, too. - From Clue: When discussing searching for the killer and the possibility that the killer might kill whoever finds him:Col. Mustard: This is war, Peacock! Casualties are inevitable. You cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs; every cook will tell you that!
Mrs. Peacock: But look what happened to the cook! (The cook was the second murder victim.) - In Contact, when the National Security Adviser, Kitz, asks the protagonist, Ellie, why she adamantly believes that the aliens are good-intentioned:Ellie: We pose no threat to them. (Them being hostile) would be like us wanting to exterminate some microbes on an anthill.
Drumlin: Interesting analogy. And how guilty would we feel after obliterating some microbes? - From The Dark Knight, talking about Batman's necessity:Harvey: When their enemies were at the gates, the Romans would suspend democracy and appoint one man to protect the city. It wasn't considered an honor, it was considered a public service.
Rachel: Harvey, the last man that they appointed to protect the republic was named Caesar, and he never gave up his power.- Rachel leaves an even nastier retort on the table; the name for that office was dictator.
- This is a bit of artistic license on Rachel's behalf - in Real Life Caesar invaded Italy with his army and forced the Senate to appoint him dictator for life. Besides, as you might recall, it did not end well for him.
- Another example is when Bruce Wayne states that Harvey Dent is the face of Gotham at the party, which was meant to be an analogy of the improvement of Gotham by eliminating crime and corruption. Unfortunately, after the Joker's machinations, as well as Dent's physical and mental/emotional injuries, the analogy ends up being twisted to mean making crime worse.
- Rachel leaves an even nastier retort on the table; the name for that office was dictator.
- In Don Jon, Barbara remarks that the difference between movies and porn is that movies get awards. Jon responds that porn movies get awards too.
- In Ender's Game, a conversation between Ender, Colonel Graff, and Major Anderson:Colonel Graff: I told them you were the best, we need a Julius Caesar, a Napoleon.
Major Gwen Anderson: We were hoping that would be you.
Ender Wiggin: Caesar was assassinated by the people he trusted.
Major Gwen Anderson: And Napoleon lost in the end. - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer copies the Ultimate Galactus line mentioned above but the film version of Reed manages to make it a bit more awesome by adding that being a nerd has allowed him to date one of the hottest women on Earth (Sue), he's one of the brightest minds of the century and he makes it an "ask us for help" to Hagar rather than "ask me for help"... did we forgot to mention that the film is comparatively Lighter and Softer to the Ultimate comics?
- The Fisher King:Jack: Where would King Arthur be without Guinevere?
Parry: Happily married, probably.
Jack: Well, that's a bad... that's a bad example. - Gettysburg
- A group of Confederate generals are trying to convince British observer Fremantle that they aren't fighting for slavery, but for the nebulous and more legitimate-sounding cause of states' rights (as the British had already abolished the system of chattel slavery that the South still maintained). Pickett compares the situation to gentlemen who are trying to resign from a private club because the other members are interfering in their private lives.
Kemper: I gotta hand it to you George, you sure do have a talent for trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious.- Fremantle himself sees a lot of parallels between the South and England due to their names, their manners, and their courtly estates. Longstreet points out that his family is Dutch and then points out that the Americans beat England twice.note
- Ghostbusters (1984): After the three are booted off the campus payroll, Venkman tries to console Ray by pointing out they don't need cushy university jobs; after all, "Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk."Ray: Do you know how much a patent clerk earns!?
Venkman: No!- It's actually a recursive example; in Einstein's time and place patent clerks actually made pretty good money (it was a lot more involved than the clerical rubber stamp of the modern US version).
- Happy Gilmore:
- The titular golfer says he's going to beat his opponent.Shooter McGavin: Yeah, and Grizzly Adams had a beard.
Lee Travino: Grizzly Adams DID have a beard. - Also:Shooter: I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!
Happy: You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
Shooter: I... No!
- The titular golfer says he's going to beat his opponent.
- From The History Boys:Gym teacher: God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus say, 'Can I be excused the Crucifixion?' No!
Scripps Actually, sir, I think he did. note - From the Will Smith Romantic Comedy Hitch, when Hitch tries to convince his friend's girlfriend to take that friend back:Hitch: That man would have sold his soul to make you happy.
Allegra: So what does that make you? The Devil? - In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005):Arthur: We can talk about normality till the cows come home...
Ford: What is normal...?
Trillian: What is home...?
Zaphod: (beat) What are cows? - Hot Tub Time Machine:Adam: By the way, where does it say in the fucking Friendship Handbook that you are the only one who's allowed any fucking problems?
Lou: I forgot that it says in the Asshole Handbook that you can just fuck over your friends whenever you want!
Adam: Actually, it would say that in the Asshole Handbook if it was, like, guidelines for being an asshole, that's what it would say. - In I, Robot, Detective Spooner and Dr. Calvin argue over the Three Laws of Robotics, with Spooner believing that robots can be capable of defying them, while Calvin defends their flawlessness, leading to this analogy:Dr. Calvin: They're hard-wired into every robot. A robot can no more break these laws than a human can Walk on Water!
Spooner: Well, there was this one guy a long time ago... - Discussed in Inglourious Basterds when Hans Landa is talking to Perrier in the opening, and mentions how the Nazis refer to the Jews as "rats" in order to insult them. He sees it as a sympathetic label that praises them as rats are largely harmless to humans, treated with unfair animosity, are Misblamed for carrying diseases that any rodent could carry. However, being a Nazi, his conclusion is that it doesn't matter whether it's fair or not, he finds Jews just as disgusting as rats, and so will exterminate them.
- Jurassic Park (1993):
- Dr. Hammond tries to compare the park's problems to other openings.Dr. Hammond: All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
Dr. Malcolm: But, John. If Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists. - Dr. Hammond compares his bringing back dinosaurs to reviving an extinct species of bird. Dr. Malcolm points out that the bird species went extinct through human meddling, but dinosaurs died out naturally and thus their being brought back was throwing out the natural order of things.Dr. Hammond: I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery and not act?
Dr. Malcolm: Oh, what's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it observes. What you call discovery... I call the rape of the natural world.- In Jurassic World Dominion, Dodgson scoffs off Malcolm's scorn of him by comparing himself and his achievements to Prometheus.
Dr. Malcolm: Prometheus got gored, and so will you, you rapacious rat bastard.- Sure enough, Dodgson ends up meeting a gruesome end at the hands of his creations before the film ends.
- Dr. Hammond tries to compare the park's problems to other openings.
- Last Night in Soho: When Jocasta is talking about the prestige of becoming a One Name Only celebrity, she makes the comparison of Kylie. Eloise guesses Minogue, but she meant Jenner, and awkwardly concedes that was a bad example.
- Life of Pi features this gem, when Pi's father Santosh announces that they are leaving India for Canada.Santosh: We will sail like Columbus.
Pi: But Columbus was sailing for India! - In Max (2002), Max suffers one while trying to reassure Hitler:Max: It's easy to fight the bull from the barrera.
Hitler: Bullfighting is completely immoral! It's vile and disgusting!
Max: No, no. It means it's easier to be a critic than an artist. - The Money Pit: Walter defends buying a dubiously low-priced mansion (which proves to be the mother of all fixer-upper projects) by calling it an overlooked bargain and likening it to that short line at the DMV that hardly anyone gets into. Anna notes that she actually did get into that line once, and discovered it was for farm vehicles only.
- In The Muppet Christmas Carol, while observing Scrooge' past, Headmaster Sam tells Young Scrooge that if he works hard, his life will one day be as solid as the school building...just as a shelf Gonzo, Rizzo, and the school busts were on tips over and they fall off.Sam: Hmm. I've been meaning to fix that shelf.
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017): An Establishing Character Moment for two characters: the German Professor (and implied nazi) Professor Hardman goes on a rant about "the mixing of races", something that Ms. Debenham objects to. Hardman quickly points out that he thinks this out of respect for either races and uses the two glasses with red and white wine in front of her as an example; how both are magnificent in their own right, but mixing the two would be a travesty. In response, Debenham pours one into the other and drinks it right up, without so much as grimacing.Debenham: I always liked a good rosé.
- The original script for Mystery Men has one, in which two wanna-be superheroes are arguing about why they aren't more successful:Mr. Furious: What does Superman have that we don't have?
The Shoveller: Superman has the fact that he's Superman! Bullets bounce off him! - In No Name on the Bullet, Luke tells his father that Gant's continued presence just makes things worse for everyone, likening it to a cold turning into pneumonia. Asa points out that you can cure pneumonia sometimes but you can't cure a cold.
- From The Other Guys:Terry: If we were in the wild, I would attack you. Even if you weren't in my food chain, I would go out of my way to attack you. If I were a lion and you were a tuna, I would swim out in the middle of the ocean and freakin' eat you! And then I'd bang your tuna girlfriend.
Allen: Okay, first off: a lion? Swimming in the ocean? Lions don't like water. If you'd placed it near a river or some sort of fresh water source, that'd make sense. But you find yourself in the ocean, twenty foot waves, I'm assuming it's off the coast of South Africa, coming up against a full-grown, 800 pound tuna with his twenty or thirty friends? You lose that battle. You lose that battle nine times out of ten. - In The Pentagon Wars, the Major General defends the weapons of the military before Congress.Major General Partridge: I'm not going to sit here and tell you the Paveway never missed.
Madame Chairwoman: It missed by a mean distance of five miles, and nearly fifty percent of the time.
Major General Partridge: You know, in baseball, a guy that hits .400 is considered pretty damned great.
Congressman #1: In baseball, the losing team isn't killed by their opponents. - In Serenity, the Operative tells Mal that River is a living bad luck charm, and that keeping her would inevitably doom him and his crew. He calls River an albatross, after the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which an albatross doomed the mariner to being lost at sea for years. Mal immediately responds with this awesome line.Mal: The way I remember it, the albatross was good luck until some idiot killed it!
[Looks over at Inara]
Mal: Yes, I read a poem. Try not to faint. - Solo: When the Millennium Falcon is under TIE Fighter pursuit, Beckett makes a few analogies that are lost on Han. A nice little Take That, Me from a franchise that loves to make up weird versions of common analogies.Han: Beckett, you see them? They still on us? Beckett, do you hear me? Are they on us?
Beckett: Like rashnolds on a kalak.
Han: I-I don't know what that means.
Beckett: Like a gingleson's pelt.
Han: Wha— are they or aren't they?!
Beckett: Yes, they're still on us! - In Spectre, Spectre's base is built in the impact crater of a meteorite with the meteorite on display. Oberhauser boasts that Spectre is like a meteorite: it waits in the darkness until one day, it comes down as an unstoppable force that changes the face of the planet. James Bond retorts that meteorites are not unstoppable; they stop when they hit the ground. Oberhauser gets taken off guard and needs a minute to think of a new quip.
- Star Trek:
- In Star Trek (2009), Spock and McCoy argue about leaving Kirk behind on a planet:McCoy: You know, back home we have a saying: "If you wanna ride in the Kentucky Derby, you don't leave your prized stallion in the stable."
Spock: A curious metaphor, Doctor, as a stallion must first be broken before it can reach its potential. - In Star Trek Into Darkness, when Kirk prepares to ally himself with John Harrison, aka Khan, to take down renegade Admiral Marcus's warship:Kirk: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Spock: An Arabic proverb attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects.
Kirk: Well, it's still a hell of a quote.
- In Star Trek (2009), Spock and McCoy argue about leaving Kirk behind on a planet:
- In To Be or Not to Be, the actor Bronski, cast as Hitler in a play, is told by the play's director that he cannot play a convincing Hitler. To prove it, he points to a portrait of Hitler on the set, only to be corrected by Bronski pointing out that the portrait is actually himself dressed as Hitler. At that point, the director responds "well, then the portrait's wrong too."
- To Catch a Killer (2023): Mayor Capleton compares the New Year's Eve shooting to the Las Vegas shooting
as a reason why he expects the city to be up and running the next day. As Lammark points out, the shooter in that incident was killed in the attack, they are dealing with an unidentified, fugitive suspect who may strike again. - Tremors 4: The Legend Begins: Subverted:Juan: This will be our Alamo!
Hiram: We lost the Alamo, Juan.
Juan: Speak for yourself, gringo. - From The Trip, where Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon review various restaurants:Rob: *describing a drink* Tastes of a childhood garden.
Steve: Well, it's got a bit of alcohol in it, so it tastes — Was there a lot of alcohol in your garden as child? I'm sorry, Rob. - In The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan optimistically tells his first group of employees that their firm is "chasing Moby Dicks" and compares them to Captain Ahab, a man who never learned to know the right time to quit. (As a result, he died, his ship was destroyed, and he didn't catch Moby).
- From Wonder Boys:Crabtree: It's not a total loss! What about when Hemingway lost all those stories?
Grady: He was never able to reproduce them!
