Quotes / They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot

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It's September 11, 2011 — ten years to the day of the attacks on America, where Rosita lost her father, who was in one of the World Trade Centre buildings. She was featured in the Children of 9/11 documentary, and garnered TNA more mainstream exposure than at any point in years. It's a real life story that could be used to create the ultimate feel-good moment, by booking her against Mickie James for the title, having her explain her backstory and turning her babyface for the night.

Of course, TNA hate money and happy endings, so that didn't happen.

—Lee Burton, Ringbelles, Mickie Doesn't Learn^note The author would later be informed by Dave Meltzer that TNA didn't know about Rosita's circumstances or the documentary until a day before the pay per view

The Cronenbergian 12A body-horror sequence is the best scene in the movie because it's something genuinely unique to the superhero Sub-Genre but it's only for 5 minutes and none of the characters actually talk about their experiences. Seriously, Reed Richards wakes up with his limbs outstretched and being experimented on by scientists, Sue wakes up phasing in and out of existence, Johnny is permanently on fire and even exploding and Ben wakes up as a living rock. Reed Richards escapes the facility they're being held in and then the movie cuts to one year later and the other three have adjusted to their powers.

The "One Year Later" cut completely guts the movie of any depth and throws away pretty much EVERYTHING that Josh Trank initially said he wanted to accomplish with this film.

If you're going to make a movie that revolves around the human impact of these horrifying powers (at least in this interpretation) it's absolutely vital to get into our characters' heads and find out how they feel about it. How did Johnny feel about his abilities at first? Does Sue want these abilities? Because of the cut to a year later, we get none of that. We lose the human impact and the emotional toll these characters are going through. There's a bit of depth to Ben as he's become weaponized by the government, but he doesn't get enough screentime for us to get under his rock-ladened skin. What we're left with is a movie that's all dressed up for the occasion, but not only does it have nowhere to go, but its clothes are LITERALLY on fire.

—Trilbee, lambasting the mid-film Time Skip in his review of Fantastic Four (2015).

The fact is, there's a potentially great scenario right inside Escape from Tomorrow: a man with a not-terribly-happy marriage and kids he finds kind of annoying finds out that he's been fired right before heading out into a park where everything costs a fucking shit-ton of money, and being cheerful and untroubled is a job requirement of each and every tourist. Boom, there's your movie. A great fucking movie. A movie that, potentially, genuinely investigates the corporatisation of happiness and the presentation of totally artificially physical realities as normal. A movie that doesn't rely on the mildewy, self-consciously controversial sexual perversion that animates so much of Escape from Tomorrow, or the bargain-basement surrealism that aspires to David Lynch and misses out badly... Nothing this potentially dangerous should be this tedious to sit through.

—Alternate Ending's review of Escape from Tomorrow

Here we have an interesting premise regarding Harry merging with Voldemort's soul fragment, gaining his memories and his powers in the process. What, exactly, would absorbing part of the most evil dark wizard of the twentieth century do to a person? Would Harry's newfound knowledge and power come at the cost of his own soul? Would he even be able to hold onto himself enough to still be "Harry" and not "Tom Riddle in a new skin?" Unfortunately, Lionheart isn't remotely interested in answering, or even asking, any of these questions – he's much more interested in an excuse for a cheap power-up.

—Master Ghandalf on Partially Kissed Hero, Das Sporking

And if [the protagonist] is the reincarnation of Oda Nobunaga, I'd expect this show to be a more thrilling and intriguing adaptation of the real Nobunaga's life and endeavors into a modern setting. I didn't think the creators would ignore this more appealing route in favor of making a plot solely concerning the protagonist's selecting from various women who all inexplicably love him.

—Ichigo Hitofuri in Ki no Shirayuki's review of Nobunaga-sensei no Osanazuma, Das Sporking

Director David Raymond’s inability to make sense of his own script is something else - the single interesting aspect of the film, predators targeting underage girls in social media, is dumped very early on in favour of a sub-par serial killer procedural.

—Jorge Castillo on Night Hunter (2019)

There’s an important but oft-ignored rule in pop-culture criticism: review the thing that actually exists, not the thing you wanted it to be instead. It’s very difficult to keep that commandment, though, when you’re reviewing something that continually teases you with what might have been, and when what might have been is so conspicuously better than what is. When I first heard that a RoboCop remake was in the works, I figured it was being developed within the context of the current vogue for huge-budget superhero movies, and from a business point of view, I’m still sure that’s more or less true. Jose Padilha frequently nudges RoboCop in that direction, too, but what Joshua Zetumer wrote was a legit science fiction story. That’s the upside. The downside is that the sci-fi story in question is a fairly trite celebration of humanity in triumph over computerized adversity that keeps dangling just out of our reach a satire of 21st-century American society every bit as biting as Paul Verhoeven’s hatchet-job on the 80’s. The argument over the proper scope of use for unmanned military hardware— both the remote-control variety currently in service and the artificially intelligent versions that will surely be developed sooner or later— is one that we very much need to be having, and it’s one that science fiction is uniquely well placed to facilitate by running high-profile thought experiments on some of the possible scenarios. RoboCop promises to weigh in on the subject with that brilliant, troubling scene in Iran, but then reneges in favor of yet another exploration of the boundaries of humanness. That too almost yields a film of disturbing relevance, because Murphy’s transformation comes about through an act of corporate malfeasance that exposes the corruptibility of institutions ranging from law enforcement to medicine to journalism. But Zetumer can’t seem to settle on a clear vision of just how corruptible those institutions are, and Padilha is ever ready to chuck everything overboard for the sake of another big-ass shootout.

—Scott "El Santo" Ashlin, 1000 Misspent Hours, on Robocop 2014

The most promising element of this movie is Sir Lachlan's shabbily dishonest attitude toward his people’s pagan traditions, but Hardy can’t really engage with that unless he’s prepared to offer a straight answer to the question of sequel or retread. If Sir Lachlan really is the fourth Lord Summerisle, then he isn’t just a murderous, conniving asshole— he’d also be the evil antithesis of his great-grandfather, who espoused a religion he never believed in for the sake of downtrodden people whose lives he sought to improve. There’s genuine resonance to that, but Hardy doesn’t seem interested in pursuing it. Nor does he seem interested in the equally important question of how the people of Tressock came to be pagans. The picture painted by the film changes rather drastically depending on whether Tressock represents a long-forgotten survival of pre-Christian culture, or the result of an eccentric modern experiment in social engineering. To tell a story is to create a world. If you can’t commit to that world, then you can’t commit to the story either.
And that brings me to the really galling thing about The Wicker Tree, that it trips over and then ignores a quite serviceable premise for a Wicker Man sequel before proceeding to screw every pooch in the Scottish Lowlands. Remember that The Wicker Man finally resolves itself into a clash of sincerely held faiths. The Wicker Tree, however, depicts a clash of grifts in which the sincerely faithful are merely pawns. It shows Christianity and paganism alike hollowed out by power and greed, and thrown into an opposition that the leadership on neither side actually cares about, except insofar as they can turn a personal profit on it. Beth Boothby has zero qualifications for missionary work (and the techniques she’s been taught are tailor-made for failure anyway), but she gets the gig nonetheless because her pastor knows how good it’ll make him look in the eyes of those who write donation checks to his church. Sir Lachlan doesn’t believe for a second that the American kids’ sacrifice will restore Tressock’s fertility (Steve’s untainted gonads are another matter, of course), but the longer he can fob off the problem as the ire of the gods, the longer he can keep his tenants from having the groundwater tested for radioactive contamination. The Robin Hardy of 1973 could have turned that premise into something clever and powerful and engagingly sad. The Robin Hardy of 2011 seems not to have even understood what he had in his hands.

—El Santo, 1000 Misspent Hours, on The Wicker Tree

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From Ubisoft comes the game about sneaky assassins throughout history... that's still not set in Feudal Japan, for some reason.

—Honest Game Trailers riffing on Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Nothing is sadder than wasted potential.

—The Mysterious Mr. Enter, Shorty McShort's Shorts. Specifically, on Too Many Robots and Flip-Flopped.

Here's one of the best original premises for a suspense thriller in years — an annual holiday where, for one night, everyone is allowed to do any evil, sick, depraved, degenerate, perverted, vile thing they want, without fear of being arrested or even prevented — unforgivably wasted by a weak, witless movie that takes this great idea... and then does nothing with it!

—Moviebob on The Purge, Moviebob's Worst of 2013

There's the germ of an interesting idea dying from lack of oxygen within this shitstorm, i.e. so much of our popular culture being grounded in the mythologising of warfare, competition, and the arbitrary win or loser binary; why wouldn't someone mistake it for a declaration of war? But that might have been interesting and insightful, and Pixels is clearly aiming more for an advanced scrotal cancer kind of vibe.

—Moviebob during his review of Pixels

No. You can't do that. They were doing such a good job and they turned him into a punchline? This is Iron Man's arch-fucking nemesis! This isn't just ignoring the comics, this is dropping their pants and wiping their butt with them!

—Honest Trailers on The Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3

Screenwriter: We're gonna have this flashback to medieval times when the gates of Hell are opening up, and a bunch of knights storm in, and they have to close it up with the blood of Jesus Christ.
Producer: Wow, that actually sounds like a really good movie!
Screenwriter: I know, right?
Producer: Sounds like you should have written a movie about that instead of this story!

—The Nun Pitch Meeting

I just wish they had realized more of the potential that I see within this framework, because I feel like this story has a lot of really good bones, but unfortunately, no skeletons.

—Jenny Nicholson on Frozen II

Watch as Wolverine's centuries of war are glossed over in one montage to instead make time for things no one wants to see Wolverine do. Go on dates! Chop wood! Get stuck in traffic! And fumble around in the bathroom!

—Honest Trailers on X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It doesn't seem like anyone invested anything into this, or had much of an idea for why it should exist other than it'd be funny to have a song called "Baby" by Lil Baby and Da Baby. If that's what you're gonna do, go all out. Sample "Baby"! Rap about being babies! I don't know, make a rap theme song for The Boss Baby! Just something!

—Todd in the Shadows on "Baby" in "The Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2019 (Pt. 1)"

To me, this isn't really a bad concept in some ways; there's some things I actually really like about it. What I like especially is how the murder was an accident, the person who died was loved and respected by everyone around him, and for once in the franchise, we could actually see the way someone's death affects those close to them. We could see the way these fun characters react, how they would cope; how their family dynamic would deviate more towards distrust in one another...
...but that's not what we got.

—Wambu on "Turnabout Big Top," in "Top 5 Least Favorite Ace Attorney Cases"

Buried somewhere in the concept of piloting a telekinetic ghost with a grudge against furniture, there may be a nice little idea for a game, but in the hands of Quantic Dream it is like an arthritic horse trying to hold a china teapot.

—Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw in his Zero Punctuation review of Beyond: Two Souls.

Alright, so the backstory of how a young girl wound up being in charge of a group of pirates; automatically more interesting than the plot of 90% of the other Zelda games, and we never learn a single thing about it. WHAT?

—Joshua MacDougall, 64 Things Wrong With Wind Waker: Part 1

Red: All right, get ready to fork over that Gym badge!
Lt. Surge: Hah! You won't live long in combat, that's for sure! I tell ya, kid, electric Pokémon saved me durin' the war!
(beat)
Red: Wait, there was a war?
Lt. Surge: Yep!
Red: Li-like with with guns, and Pokémon, and—!?
Lt. Surge: Yep!
Red: Oh my god, that's insane! But wh-what happened?
Lt. Surge: I'm not tellin'!
Red: What? Why!? I mean, that's just inherently interesting! Y-you can't even just give an idea of wh—
Lt. Surge: This will never be brought up again!

— "Basically Pokémon Red and Blue" by Solid jj

"There is so much wrong there that it's just excruciating to watch. The idea of an alternative history where the Soviets with Alexei Leonov were the first to land on the moon. I really think it's a clever possibility for plots, but it… very soon, just a few episodes in, everything became sort-of cartoonish. It sounds like a bunch of actors sitting around a table pretending to be soldiers; "Take point!" and "Sound off!" How come nobody on the American team, not one, speaks a word of Russian? They knew there were gonna be Russians there. I used to be a combat fighter pilot with an armed F-18 intercepting Soviet bombers in the Cold War. These are ostensibly trained astronauts and marines. That's not how anybody's gonna behave, especially when the stakes are that high! They recognize the incredible seriousness of shooting a Soviet, a Russian. You're gonna have to be absolutely sure that there was a threat."

— Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield on For All Mankind

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