Story Premises that Just Don't Make Much Sense if You Think About it.

[Olas]

So obviously a lot of stories in movies/books/video games have premises that are a bit far fetched, the science fiction and fantasy genres especially. However, they often use plot devices such as magic, supernatural/paranormal forces, or future scientific/technological breakthroughs to suspend our disbelief and make us accept it. There's nothing wrong with this as long as it isn't abused or turned into a deus ex machina.

However, some stories have premises that just don't make scientific or logical sense even according to their own rules and assumptions. Keep in mind I'm not just talking about minor plot inconsistencies, but problems with a central story element.

I'm bringing this up because I was watching The Matrix a few days ago and I was reminded of a something that's always bugged me about those movies.

Spoiler: Warning: Incoming Nerd Rant

So in case you've somehow never seen or heard of it, the whole premise of The Matrix is that humans are being kept in small pods by the machines to use as living batteries. Here's Morpheus explaining it.
They use the body heat and neural-electric energy that we give off as their main source of power and use the matrix to keep us content.

DAFUQ!?!? There are so many problems with this explanation that I don't even know where to begin.

First just the thermodynamics:
He mentions that the machines have a form of fusion power. That's great, why not just use that? That's a far more convenient and practical source of energy than humans.

And even if you insist on getting your electricity from humans, how are they being fed? Morpheus mentions that they liquify the dead and feed them to the living; that's great and all but that alone couldn't possibly sustain us. The only way they could get enough food is by growing some of their own, and if they can grow plants why not just get the energy strait from them?

But okay, let's just assume for some reason they HAVE to get their energy from bodies; why use humans? Why not go with something like elephants or whales that are larger and less intelligent? Why choose the one creature in existence smart enough to possibly realize what you're doing and actually resist you? Perhaps if they were using us as slave labor or something it would make sense. But no, despite all our immense capability and intelligence, they're just using us, bodies, brains, muscles and all, for body heat. Good god, what a waste!

And then there's how they actually keep us "under control":

If they're not going to use our intelligence for anything why not just lobotomize us to keep us in a vegetative state? Remove all but our brain stem so we have nothing but our basic vital functions still operating. It would be easy, effective, and we'd still be just as good at generating energy. Alternatively they could just inject us with a chemical that damages our brain or paralyses our body. While they're at it they might as well remove our limbs just in case since they're completely unnecessary. Or, if that seems too cruel(because I'm sure the machines really care), just keep us heavily sedated all the time. It seems like there are many easy simple ways to keep us docile.

Instead they found the most pointlessly complicated solution imaginable. They created an entire virtual world for us to live in. Impressive, but completely unnecessary considering all the easy alternatives.

Honestly, it's almost hard to imagine of a more difficult and inefficient way of getting energy if you tried. Which is especially weird when you consider that machines are generally known for ruthless efficiency.

So, can you guys think of any movies/books/or video games whose stories don't hold up well to close scrutiny?

Edit: Obviously some stories aren't meant to be taken seriously in the first place, like psychonauts for instance, so I'd give them a free pass.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Ah, there's a a good reason for that Matrix thing.

As I understand it, the writers were originally going to have the machine use the human brains linked together as part of their super-computer thingy.

Only, they assumed that their audience would be incapable of understanding that, and would more readily accept the battery rubbish. I'm not sure they were, on the whole, wrong in that assumption.

 

[Eddie the head]

I never understood in Mass Effect 1 why you needed to go from point A to point A? You go half way across the Galaxy to move maybe 10 feet. I know the reason why, but it's sill dumb. Also the Thorian in ME1 was a complete plot device that makes no sense what so ever. Plants can't move, and they don't have neurons. Also why dose it have green parts? It lives underground. This shit is never explained. And I am just suppose to accept it because it's an alien? Umm, no. There are a few other things that bother me but those two the most.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Any story where a child is the one who has to overcome insurmountable odds. I'm letting Harry Potter slide because magic but how about something like Jason Todd's stint as Robin. Dick Grayson is a star athlete with years of experience as a gymnast and, Tim Drake is a downright genius who discovered Batman's identity. Todd was a punk kid who tried stealing the wheels from the Bat Mobile (I don't know as much about Todd admittedly...)

This is what I had in mind originally though and, it's Home Alone. Any competent home invaders would have either gone to a house that is completely empty or, subdued the kid in some way, shape or form. Meanwhile, Kevin (a kid) would have likely hurt, maimed, killed, etc himself on one of his many, many traps. Maybe not Kevin since his traps were more to slow the intruders down (for the most part...in HA1) but the kid from Home Alone 3 was shooting to kill (figuratively speaking) and would have easily killed himself with one of his traps.

 

[Soviet Steve]

I remember Blade Runner making no sense on account of the non-viable nature of the androids. Just make non-sentient machines instead, they don't wanna flee, they're cheaper too >_>

 

[Thaluikhain]

Any story where a child is the one who has to overcome insurmountable odds. I'm letting Harry Potter slide because magic but how about something like Jason Todd's stint as Robin. Dick Grayson is a star athlete with years of experience as a gymnast and, Tim Drake is a downright genius who discovered Batman's identity. Todd was a punk kid who tried stealing the wheels from the Bat Mobile (I don't know as much about Todd admittedly...)

Todd was something of a failure which people tended to hate, mind.

Now, some of the female kid sidekicks, though, whose character traits consisted of being nothing more than "adorably" incompetent...blech.

 

[Muspelheim]

Cthulhu; a being of unimaginable power and part of an incomprehensible cosmic plot, a being that could eradicate mankind without even realizing it. Unless you ram him with a boat, and he'll play nice and go back to bed. He's just a bone idle old sod who wants his sleepies at heart.

 

[Scow2]

I remember Blade Runner making no sense on account of the non-viable nature of the androids. Just make non-sentient machines instead, they don't wanna flee, they're cheaper too >_>

But they can't think, troubleshoot, or solve problems on their own. A lack of people in manufacturing HAS lead to people trying to create human-like androids capable of doing human labor. Of course, if I were making Human-like androids, I'd go for a humanoid figure that isn't actually human. Probably model it off an animal instead.

 

[Bobic]

The thing you've got to remember about the matrix is, we created the machines, we are their lifegivers. Sure we abused them and they rebelled, but that doesn't mean they want to actually make us extinct. But they also knew there could never be peace between our kind after the great war, so they came up with the only solution possible. The humans get to continue their existence in a world perfectly constructed for their existence, and the robots get the world to themselves. That battery crap is just Morpheus' propaganda because he wants to continue a fight better off left forgotten.

My own example: Avatar.

As in, why were the actual avatars necessary. Apparently, before the events of the film they'd been using them to research and to teach the Navi English. Why couldn't that be done in those facemasks? Surely that would've been cheaper, easier and less likely to piss off the natives than some kind of weird cloning/brain meld thing. And it wasn't to blend in, because Sigourney Weaver went rocking out there in a Stanford university shirt if I remember correctly.

I'm pretty sure that if you appeared in the form of a primitive tribesman to the tribe claiming to be an alien from a faraway star they'd see you as some kind of evil bodysnatcher, I don't think they'd be very co-operative.

 

[IrenIvy]

I never understood the setting of the first "Doom"
So science can open portals to Hell? So, metaphorical dimension for some out of many earthly religions is an actual place, like Disneyland?
I believe science can open portals, and that Hell might exist at some level, but mixing those two always baffled me.
Greatly enjoy the game nevertheless

Superhero universes in general, both DC and Marvel, with their continuous retcons, "what-if", time-travels, going from scale of galaxies and witchery to fighting street gangs with techno stuff, and such. And yet, I don't think anybody in there can eliminate cancer.

 

[Suicidejim]

This is part rant and part inquiry to see if anyone can help me figure out what I thought was a pretty significant inconsistency in 'Looper':

Spoiler

So, by the end of the film, we are aware that a mysterious figure in the future called 'The Rainmaker' has effectively become a tyrant, and is closing all the loops. Bruce Willis has decided to see if he can take him out as a child, but after finding him, the younger version of himself realizes that his attempt to kill the child is what will cause him to become The Rainmaker in the first place (hence his desire to close all loops, so that he can prevent those events from occurring). Younger version kills himself, thus erasing older version, and the child is spared. Okay, that's reasonable.

But where did Bruce Willis' version of The Rainmaker come from? In his timeline, he closed his loop. None of the events that supposedly lead up to the boy being shot and his mother being killed actually happen in that timeline. Yet this tyrant appears anyway and still goes and messes everything up. Was there some other alternate chain of events in which another Looper-related incident killed his mother and destroyed his jaw? That seems oddly specific, unless there's some sort of force actively keeping timelines consistent, at which point it's not unreasonable to assume that some other event will have to come into being to force the child into becoming the Rainmaker. Perhaps I'm just over thinking things.

 

[Altorin]

The thing you've got to remember about the matrix is, we created the machines, we are their lifegivers. Sure we abused them and they rebelled, but that doesn't mean they want to actually make us extinct. But they also knew there could never be peace between our kind after the great war, so they came up with the only solution possible. The humans get to continue their existence in a world perfectly constructed for their existence, and the robots get the world to themselves. That battery crap is just Morpheus' propaganda because he wants to continue a fight better off left forgotten.

yeah, seriously how does Morpheus know all that stuff anyway? I mean, in the matrix he's a bit of an elusive knowledgable figure, but in the real world, the world he's claiming this vast knowledge about the robot's ideas and plans, is based on.. being a ship captain?

A ship that basically just floats through the sewers trying not to get blown up or ripped to pieces by angry robots? Doesn't seem like a position to have and real knowledge of the situation.

 

[Theminimanx]

A few weeks ago, I was playing Tomoyo After, and although I really enjoyed it, the final part just doesn't make any sense.

Spoiler

It's revealed that Tomoya got hit by I car, and because of that, and every 10 days, his memory resets back to his middle school days. Tomoyo stayed with him to help him, hoping that his memories would return, and Tomoya could tell her he loved her. It's a real tear jerker, but it's also completely impossible for one simple reason: Tomoyo spent 3 YEARS trying to get Tomoya's memories back. And since she spends all her time on that, she doesn't have a job. So how the hell has she not been kicked out of the apartment yet. She must've run out of money ages ago.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

JAWS 4: THE REVENGE

In which the Shark from the first movie comes back for revenge.... You know, the shark THEY BLEW UP!

Why doesn't it make much sense? Michael Caine is in it.

 

[redisforever]

I never understood the setting of the first "Doom"
So science can open portals to Hell? So, metaphorical dimension for some out of many earthly religions is an actual place, like Disneyland?
I believe science can open portals, and that Hell might exist at some level, but mixing those two always baffled me.
Greatly enjoy the game nevertheless

In the book (no, really! I own it!), it was explained it something like this. Scientists opened a reason to some planet, and the "demons" were actually aliens, and using a brain control thing that would make us think they were demons, people got more scared. The aliens figured that humanity would be more scared of Hell. Suddenly, Hell has broken loose. At least, that's what it looks like to us. I may be wrong in some of the details, as I last read the book about 4 years ago.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

I think any alien invasion stories set in modern times have been ruined for me. A species advanced enough to travel the stars is also going to be smart enough to know everything they need to know to wipe us out quickly and efficiently with barely (if any) damage taken to themselves.

 

[Fappy]

Skyrim, I love the game, but once you are out of the starting cave, why should my character feel the need to do anything? He was almost killed by a dragon and he is persuaded to fight one early in the story, I think your character would be all too happy to gtfo if he got news that a dragon was nearby.

The start is plausible, you go with your newfound friend to Riverwood and you are asked by the worried citizens to get word to Balgruuf, makes sense, but after that, why would your character has ANY reason to look for the dragon stone for the court wizard? I know it is up to the player to know how their character acts, but it always bugged me.

As a divine avatar of a god the PC of Skyrim is kind of drawn to adventure and hero-type stuff. Plus... prophesy and all that.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Most stories that involve Time Travel, esp. if the rules of how the time travel works aren't clearly defined.

 

[soren7550]

I never understood in Mass Effect 1 why you needed to go from point A to point A? You go half way across the Galaxy to move maybe 10 feet. I know the reason why, but it's sill dumb.

Ok, I have no idea what you mean here. Are you complaining about the size of the Galaxy Map?

Also the Thorian in ME1 was a complete plot device that makes no sense what so ever. Plants can't move, and they don't have neurons. Also why dose it have green parts? It lives underground. This shit is never explained. And I am just suppose to accept it because it's an alien? Umm, no. There are a few other things that bother me but those two the most.

- The Thorian was stationary, although plants can move (venus flytraps anyone?)
- They never said the Thorian had neurons.
- It's not green. [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090305020426/masseffect/images/thumb/8/8f/Feros_Thorian_Full_Shot.png/1000px-Feros_Thorian_Full_Shot.png] The clones of Shiala were, and if you let her live, she later turns green herself.

I take it you didn't pay much attention to the game.