Are kids annoying in movies? YES!! *roll credits*

[Parasondox]

Happy New Year!!

Kids. They are the future and they ruin plots of movies and TV shows too damn often. Okay to be fair not all movies. Some script writers are just bad.

So what are movies and TV shows you have seen or love to watch, that had children ruin everything or just messed up the plot.

Examples? 28 Weeks Later - Screw those two kids who can't stay in the damn safe zone and screw them for fucking everything up. Their father is an arse (not area autocorrect) too.

The Purge - You had to open the door didn't you? DIDNT YOU?!?!

More to come.

 

[Kolby Jack]

Well, kids are stupid, but they're kids. Can't expect 'em to be fully-functioning adults in tiny bodies.

 

[Parasondox]

Well, kids are stupid, but they're kids. Can't expect 'em to be fully-functioning adults in tiny bodies.

So stupid that they put few to hundreds of people in danger while they still survive? How the stupid survive I don't know.

 

[OneCatch]

Examples? 28 Weeks Later - Screw those two kids who can't stay in the damn safe zone and screw them for fucking everything up. Their father is an area too.

Well, to be fair they only really put themselves in danger by running off. And they found in a potential cure - it was everyone else that fucked it up. The kids were pretty blameless really.

The new outbreak started because the quarantine procedures of the military were laughable:
First they brought the infected woman inside all their defences instead of setting up a field team or something.
Second they don't bother to actually tell husband what's actually going on and that his wife is contageous.
Third they don't revoke his (and everyone else's) access to the ward she's on.
Fourth they don't post a few armed guards on the ward itself.
Fifth, when things inevitably do go wrong instead of locking everyone in their rooms and sweeping floor by floor they lock everyone in a darkened basement, leading to a massive herd of infected.
Sixth, instead of killing all of the basement lot once it's all gone to shit, they let a bunch of infected out to start nomming on soldiers, then decide that it's time to kill them mercilessly, and also everyone else for good measure.

Also credit to husband who decides to start snogging his clearly ill, bloody, and restrained wife.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I read that being a stupid kid makes someone less likely to understand the danger they are in, and thus less likely to panic...not sure if this really helps.

But yeah, obnoxious kids in movies...why?

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well I watched Jurrasic Pack again during last Christmas.

Ok so you got a grandfather who know shit load of dinosaur and trying to make a themepark filled with clones dinosaur and yet you know jackshit on them let alone any common sense toward a dangerous animal.

I'm referring to that stupid ass girl who turned the flashlight on the TYRANNOSAURUS REX! Also she feel the need to scream loudly soon afterward as if she is beggining to be eaten too!

 

[Parasondox]

Examples? 28 Weeks Later - Screw those two kids who can't stay in the damn safe zone and screw them for fucking everything up. Their father is an area too.

Well, to be fair they only really put themselves in danger by running off. And they found in a potential cure - it was everyone else that fucked it up. The kids were pretty blameless really.

The new outbreak started because the quarantine procedures of the military were laughable:
First they brought the infected woman inside all their defences instead of setting up a field team or something.
Second they don't bother to actually tell husband what's actually going on and that his wife is contageous.
Third they don't revoke his (and everyone else's) access to the ward she's on.
Fourth they don't post a few armed guards on the ward itself.
Fifth, when things inevitably do go wrong instead of locking everyone in their rooms and sweeping floor by floor they lock everyone in a darkened basement, leading to a massive herd of infected.
Sixth, instead of killing all of the basement lot once it's all gone to shit, they let a bunch of infected out to start nomming on soldiers, then decide that it's time to kill them mercilessly, and also everyone else for good measure.

Also credit to husband who decides to start snogging his clearly ill, bloody, and restrained wife.

.

Great points made and damn that movie was so flawed and stupid beyond belief. Janitor gets an all access card, Why? Then had to give his wife a great deadly make out session and when he was turned, he turned into a super feral zombie that can track his son everywhere. EVERYWHERE!!

 

[Parasondox]

Well I watched Jurrasic Pack again during last Christmas.

Ok so you got a grandfather who know shit load of dinosaur and trying to make a themepark filled with clones dinosaur and yet you know jackshit on them let alone any common sense toward a dangerous animal.

I'm referring to that stupid ass girl who turned the flashlight on the TYRANNOSAURUS REX! Also she feel the need to scream loudly soon afterward as if she is beggining to be eaten too!

Yep, ITV last week right? I have seen the movie a million times before but for some reason, I can see the chain of events and why shit kept hitting the fan.

 

[OneCatch]

Great points made and damn that movie was so flawed and stupid beyond belief. Janitor gets an all access card, Why? Then had to give his wife a great deadly make out session and when he was turned, he turned into a super feral zombie that can track his son everywhere. EVERYWHERE!!

Ha, I'd forgotten the improbable number of times that he showed up again!
God that film was disappointing - 28 Days Later is probably my favourite film (certainly my favourite horror film), and the sequel was just a conventionally mediocre, idiocy-driven, zombie plot.

Anyway, on topic with stupid kids.... the War of the Worlds remake, otherwise known as 'A Child Screams. For Fucking Hours'. Seriously, between useless screamy daughter and surly angsty 'imma run straight at evil-death-walker-monster-thing' son it's a wonder Tom Cruise didn't give just up and leave.

 

[Parasondox]

Anyway, on topic with stupid kids.... the War of the Worlds remake, otherwise known as 'A Child Screams. For Fucking Hours'. Seriously, between useless screamy daughter and surly angsty 'imma run straight at evil-death-walker-monster-thing' son it's a wonder Tom Cruise didn't give just up and leave.

"Well I'm the son with teenage daddy issues and when aliens come to earth and become OP, I must tell my dad to fuck off and run towards the fire and explosion and meeeeh. Being a teen is so hard"

and

*high pitch scream* "That was light"
*high pitch scream* "Those were just people walking"
*high pitch scream* "That's just rain"
*high pitch scream* "That's an 80's children TV star. You have a right to scream"
*high pitch scream* "You are emitting too much carbon dioxide so SHUT UP!!

But don't worry, the OP aliens died a very stupid way *cough and sneeze*.

 

[Xan Krieger]

One thing I will never understand in movies is why in dangerous situations people will risk their lives (sometimes even dying) to save a kid. When horrible things happen kids become a liability, I say let them die and we'll all make babies when the world is safe again. Happens often in zombie movies and TV shows.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Ehh, I don't really like kids in real life, so I certainly don't want to put up with them in my fictional entertainment. They tend to fall into one of three archetypes. The really annoying, obnoxious kind which is, by far, the most common. The attempted comic relief kind, where a kid does/says silly shit to try and bring humour into the work, which I think fails. Or the unrealistically intelligent put-adults-in-their-place kind such as Clementine from The Walking Dead.

None of the above interest me at all. Actually, about the only kid-character I like off the top of my head is Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That's really the only one I can think of.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Well, I recently re-watched Wrek-It Ralph a couple weeks ago, and that has Vanellope, which is one of my favorite characters ever. As a result, I'm not really in the mood to go bashing on children in entertainment right now.

 

[RedDeadFred]

We watch The Polar Express every Christmas Eve. Every time I see this movie, I hate the main character a little bit more. He's such an incredible dick.
"Are you sure?"
"Those are the rules."
I realize that to anyone who hasn't seen the movie, those seem fairly harmless. But it's the smug, fuckface way that he says them that makes me really think that Santa made the wrong choice by giving him the first gift of Christmas.

The kid from The Babadook was great though. He starts off worse than almost any movie child you could ever imagine. However, throughout the movie, you start sympathizing with him, and by the end, I was rooting for the poor guy. It helps that the kid who played him did some fantastic acting.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

A few things on why kids might be considered "stupid". Life experience teaches us about the world being more than just our own little sphere. The less of it we have, the more selfish we are. Some folks never really learn those lessons and become absolutely horrible selfish ass adults who's worldview does not extend beyond that sphere.
However back to kids... they do dumb things because they've not enough experience to back that up. You can teach kids about your own experiences as a parent but they're still gonna do some dumb ass shit. In movies, things are somewhat grandiose, amplified to heighten suspense and such.

However, when speaking of outrageous situations such as Jurassic Park, how would you honestly react in that situation? I'd hedge a bet that a good number of you who're talking down about stupid kids probably have never gone through something that extremely stressful. I myself wouldn't know exactly what would happen if I found myself in a dinosaur theme park/zoo that suddenly turns into a fucking feeding ground with me on the menu... How many life threatening situations have any of you been through? How much have you trained, beyond a console or PC game, to react without thinking in moments where you're probably going to die if you fuck up? No reset buttons, no save scumming, no plot armor to save you... Its easy to armchair quarterback this stuff and say "duh stupid kids" when in reality both kids adults in real life are just as stupid and panicky in life/death situations and very few folks can keep cool heads when faced with fucked up shit happening in a high tension, high stress environment without military training. And even after training some people will still crack under pressure.

So yeah, kids are stupid. So are adults. In movies, in reality it really doesn't matter and its fairly realistic to see people of all ages do retarded shit... *shrug*

Personal notes: I've been shot at, actually shot, scared as fuck I was going to die at any moment, seen some messed up training accidents in boot camp, pulled bodies out of the water after a horrible boating accident... Over 34 years of life, I've been through some messed up things, high stress situations and I still don't know exactly what would happen if I was put there again. You never honestly know how you will react to anything until you've actually faced it yourself, and even then you never know what instinct will kick in... Will you run? Will you snap and lose it? Will you do something stupid? You can only pray you've armored yourself mentally well enough to make a smart choice in a split second, but even then you may still break down and do the dumbest shit possible probably knowing it was the wrong thing to do.

 

[Thaluikhain]

OTOH, in the first three X-Men movies, I thought the most interesting characters were the kids, especially the little girls.

For example, the first movie has lots of painfully stupid love triangle stuff going on from the adults, and Anna Paquin is upset because no-one likes her and people are trying to kill her, and her powers are fairly useless against them.

 

[RavingSturm]

Panic Room - The writers give the protagonist's kid asthma just so there's an excuse to give away their position.
Harry Potter - The main character himself is crappy. He gets everything for nothing. Its blatant wish fulfillment(yes the target audience are children).

 

[Evonisia]

The kid from The Babadook was great though. He starts off worse than almost any movie child you could ever imagine. However, throughout the movie, you start sympathizing with him, and by the end, I was rooting for the poor guy. It helps that the kid who played him did some fantastic acting.

I think I would be on the same page about that child if he wasn't so profoundly fucked over by the horrible inconsistent writing of the thing. The dog gives off a signal that he wants the run down so what does this all-knowing child do? Nothing but say "don't do that". That leaves aside the fact that the dog doesn't have any reason to run down stairs.

Then there's the sub-plot about him supposedly having mental issues which just gets completely dropped even though the film ends on an anti-climax. He basically acts like he did half way through the film between the shit-fits with his little repeated quips.

It wasn't him that ruined The Babadook for me (though he was part of it), but he certainly didn't help salvage anything.

OT: Lenny from the film version of Of Mice and Men. Too edgy? Too edgy.

Well there's most of the child cast of the Harry Potter films. I probably couldn't count the amount of times the whole school just seems to turn on Harry for fuck know's what over something that isn't even a misconception or a bad thing. And no, I don't think having the school just act as if Harry's got the plague every three scenes is an accurate depiction of popularity in real life school.

 

[JoJo]

One thing I will never understand in movies is why in dangerous situations people will risk their lives (sometimes even dying) to save a kid. When horrible things happen kids become a liability, I say let them die and we'll all make babies when the world is safe again. Happens often in zombie movies and TV shows.

That's parenting instinct, a good proportion of the adult population will go to great lengths to protect children whether or not they are the actual parent in question, logic doesn't even come into it. I'd like to hope the majority of people would find that instinct in them if the worst was to happen, no way to know for sure though until one is put in that situation.

OT: Generally I don't see it, kids in movies are more likely to be lacking in proper characterisation than truly annoying. Sometimes I feel people have too high expectations of children in media, the classic example everyone loves is Clementine from the Walking Dead but she was pretty much your ideal child with no real flaws, they do exist but it's rare to meet an under ten as consistently reasonable and mature as she was. Duck was more realistic, if somewhat less endearing.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Well, kids are stupid, but they're kids. Can't expect 'em to be fully-functioning adults in tiny bodies.

So stupid that they put few to hundreds of people in danger while they still survive? How the stupid survive I don't know.

Personally I find this is usually a crutch for bad writers. Instead of coming up with an interesting set of circumstances that lead to conflict, just insert a child to do stupid shit that endangers the entire cast.

One thing I will never understand in movies is why in dangerous situations people will risk their lives (sometimes even dying) to save a kid. When horrible things happen kids become a liability, I say let them die and we'll all make babies when the world is safe again. Happens often in zombie movies and TV shows.

This is also something that pisses me off. When people lead their entire group into ruin just to accumulate a liability. Maybe this reflects badly on me as a person, but whenever there's a movie about survival like a horror film or a zombie story, I always find myself wish they would just leave all the children, pregnant women, disabled people and old people behind. Then again, I do openly identify as a selfish arsehole.
But you know how most people are with children, you can create a film with people being brutally raped or tortured, but if a child so much as receives a single paper-cut during the entire run time then watch in amazement as your inbox fills with death threats.