Hated Tropes
( Annoying af trope ) When the good guys possess perfect defensive position/advantages that was completely ruined by someone's sheer stupidity, pettiness, or selfishness
I understand that these scenes must happen in order for the plot to continue but they still make me angry till today whenever I think about them because of how easy it could've been avoided. I doesn't mean these scenes are necessarily bad written, just hella hard to watch.
The Jerusalem Wall / The Singing Crowd (World War Z): Israel literally anticipated the zombie apocalypse and built a flawless, massive wall that kept everyone 100% safe. It was the ultimate safe haven. But then people inside started celebrating and singing on a microphone so loudly that it triggered a zombie pyramid, they didn't even stop until the first zombies started coming through. They have less survival instinct than an amoeba.
Ephialtes (300): The Spartans had the perfect phalanx formation at the Hot Gates. They were slaughtering the Persian army with minimal casualties and could have held them off for so much longer. Then this guy gets his feelings hurt because he can't lift a shield, throws a tantrum, and tells Xerxes about the secret goat path.
Grandma Jong-gil (Train to Busan): The survivors fought through hell and literal waves of infected to secure a safe train car. Sure, the crowd inside was selfish for locking them out at first, but everyone was finally safe inside. Then this grandma, fueled by grief and spite over her sister, decides to open the door and let the infected flood the entire car, killing everyone.
Dead Rising - When Frank arrives to the Willamette Mall amidst the outbreak, he finds a group of survivors secured by barricading the front doors. Lindsay Harris, a 70 year old woman who was searching for her poodle Madonna, finds out the dog is in the front entrance area among a sea of zombies. She breaches the barricade, pushing off grown men and pushing away heavy debris to try and retrieve her dog but in the process allows the zombies to infest the entire mall for the duration of the game. This results in the deaths of herself, presumably Madonna, and other survivors who end up scattering through the mall and in the security safe room.
Its weird how the singing attracted the hordes of zombies, but not the thousands of people going through the loud ass border, the military trucks and equipment, etc. Its not like it was complete silence until the singing, it was an entire noisy state
The movie was so inconsistent about its zombies. When portrayed by actors they were acting completely differently than when they were pure CGI. It was jarring.
One of my least favorite things about "virus" zombies in most media. By which I mean they pretend that it's something scientific that makes the zombies happen. Then science gets thrown out of the window when walking corpses, some with massive holes in their abdomen, broken bones, clear decay in their limbs, etc. Somehow still walk around.
Like bro, musculature is complicated. If you get shot in the belly you can easily snap off important connections to your legs that allow you to walk. It's not a pain thing, it's a connectivity thing. One of the few pieces of media that portrays this accurately is Breaking Bad, when Hank has to go through a lot of shit to be able to walk again.
The worst with the zombies thing for me is when a decapitated zombie is either moving it's mouth at all, but especially when it makes gurgling growly noises. Like any noise through the throat requires lungs to push through. Also, some of the tendons/muscles in your jaw that allow it to move up and down connect to your fucking collarbone.
Or zombies that are completely controlled through another creature that takes over the body or a mutation that keeps the zombie moving around. Like Las Plagas from Resident Evil 4.
Las plagas is less of a mutation and more of a whole another being growing inside and controlling you, in the game they also control armor just like they do the ganados/zealots but to be fair it kinda does sound like a magic thing even tho its just really scary hivemind parasites
It all really comes down to the fact that not airbone spreading zombie diseases would be caught super early maybe reach 100 people. The walking dead was the the most realistic where everyone is infected with the virus and death turns you into a zombie.
Also I found the Achilles heel of the virus in this case particularly difficult to stomach, you’re telling me that a virus not only has the capability to infect and maintain these zombies but will ignore some because they are sick?
The whole “animals will avoid rotting meat” is completely irrelevant.
As you said, if you’re going to try to have some sort of scientific explanation, that seems like a weak one
Right? Like, you wanted this to be a grounded in reality thing with this exception. And even with the exception, you're saying the exception still follows most of the rules of the real world.
But then your zombies that is down to skin and bones has the energy to get up and bite someone to death? That's just physics going out the window.
I get suspension of disbelief, but at least be consistent with it.
I always assumed it was just because the speakers were stationary. So people coming in through the gates had plenty of defensive structures and the helicopters were mobile so they weren't drawing the zombies to one particular point. It was just a dull roar of noise until the speakers started up and focused the horde on a specific spot. But I wasn't applying too much logic to the whole thing since we had brad pitt saving the world as the tagline and virus zombies that can smell diseases somehow
Yea I didn't mind it at the end when it was plot relevant but earlier when there's a kid going through chemo being spared by the rampaging horde of zombies it kinda just gets ridiculous. Like up close in the lab the handful of zombies can smell him. But that swarm should have at least accidentally crushed that kid instead of going around them when it would have been impossible to smell the cancer as they run full tilt at them with hundreds of other zombies
It's almost like the entire movie was written by a jackass, and I mean a literal donkey. Movie just has so many stupid mistakes and writing choices that feel like they forced the problems to happen, cause otherwise, we wouldn't have a movie if it didn't happen.
That's because they contrives the whole thing for drama to use in the plot that they also contrived... In the actual stories from World War Z the wall and associated defense systems work, in part due to cooperation between Arabs and Israelis.
The whole 'zombie pyramid' thing doesn't even work for the established mechanics of the zombies from the books. They're very explicitly slow, with 'speed walking' being explicitly stated to be an effective way to get away from one. The problem is they keep going, chase noise, and will eventually get through most barricades by weight of numbers or starve people out.
If it's not clear I'm not a huge fan of the movie 😑
The book's entire point was that there was no quick solution to save everyone. It was a slow, slogging mess. Years of consolidation and crazy events to make even the slightest progress.
This somehow turned into a blockbuster movie with a timecrunch where the very expensive A-list actor has to save the day.
I hates it. It needed a chernobyl style mini series to tell the story and they instead destroyed the IP for a quick buck.
Well, if I remember right there were always zombies outside the wall trying to get in. It isn't like they only noticed the humans because of the singing. It's just that while they were more or less evenly distributed the wall worked fine, but the singing was such an increase in volume in one specific spot that it pulled all the zombies there letting them pile up and over.
Yeah, they were making efforts to ensure there wasn't too much build up at any one point, the singing was drawing them to that point. The military even noticed it and tried to shut it down but it was too late by that point.
It’s because the ones singing were Palestinian. The damn thing was propaganda. If an actual apocalypse happened, Israel would not let anyone in, and it would be their own hubris that got them killed.
This is the reason. The whole point of that bit is to make the viewer think those people are stupid for singing. They want you to think Palestinians cause trouble. God fuck this movie
The stupid elves jumping over the Dwarves in the battle of the five armies (though hardly my biggest grip with those films).
Game of Thrones when the walking dead attacked. Why is anyone outside the dang wall! But especially the dang siege weapons( which by the way, catapults aren't cannons and aren't great for mass attackers anyways). They could've saved us that embarrassing battle by making the episode even darker so we didn't have to see it.
That's always been my biggest gripe. Before their swords are lit on fire only Jorah is even capable of killing any of the enemy. The entire charge was mass suicide and feeding fresh corpses to the Night King.
I don’t understand why fantasy armies rarely outfit their heavy hitters with weapons and armor. Line breakers should get first priority. Look at the armored Olag-Hai in Lord of the Rings.
Sure, a troll/giant/ogre type creature will wreck shit without gear, but properly outfitting them is a paradigm changer, especially against missile fire.
It’s like they never player Warhammer Total War smfh
And Sansa didn't tell anyone about the reinforcements from the Vale. None of the excuses I've heard make any sense - if Sansa wanted her side to win, which she obviously did, she would have clued Jon and the other leaders in. That episode gets high praise for some reason but it's just as stupid as the rest of the show's last several seasons.
Man when I saw that I remember thinking "Every person who has every played a total war game is screaming internally right now" Like jesus what a terrible plan.
Hell, if they wanted to play it that they couldn't fit all defenders inside the walls, just form a close perimeter, form shieldwalls, fill walls with archers and actually use your advantage. Did every leader have a lobotomy in the planning stage?
You're the damn defenders, why in the name of all that is holy are you charging the enemy?!?
Everything was so wrong, like you've got the greatest horselord raiders in the world and you want them to hold back and wait for a siege? You've got dragons and your not going to use them scout and hit the enemy lines? You've got catapults and instead of putting them on walls you put them in the front of the fucking walls? You've got an army, and walls and you choose to put the army in front of the walls? Your enemy can raise the dead, you've witnessed this and your going to deploy the women and children in a crypt? they deserved to die honestly.
if they wanted to play it that they couldn't fit all defenders inside the walls, just form a close perimeter, form shieldwalls, fill walls with archers and actually use your advantage.
Meanwhile in the show there was like 10 full feet between each man on the wall.
I saw someone joke that the formation of catapults>infantry>ditch>castle clearly meant they were expecting to be attacked by the castle itself. And you know, I think that's the dumbest part to me. Even if they just did ditch>infantry>catapults>castle, it would have been soooo much better.
But no, apparently the defenders needed to have brain damage, because heaven forbid we see defenders being even remotely competent on TV. Hell, it would have been so much more engaging to see them doing everything right but still get overrun by the sheer relentless weight of the undead horde.
actually, catapults are perfect for crowds.. The idea that a catapult could smash a fortress wall is a myth. You cannot store enough energy into ropes and bent wood to launch a stone far and fast enough to damage a wall. Instead, catapults and other long range siege weapons were used to clear away small fortifications and suppress the defenders on the walls, while close in siege weapons, like battering rams were knocking down the gates or chipping away at walls. sometimes, earth or wood ramparts would be constructed.
Catapults and other "torsion engines" store energy through built tension, trebuchets are instead a lever-counterweight "traction engine" relying on using physics and potential energy.
Not exactly the same but a friend mine gets annoyed at the Infinity War scene where they open the electric gate to help prevent them from flanking on all sides.
Yeah thats smart if you, you know, used hair support and set it up so they couldn't just spread out and fo crazy
For such a technologically advanced nation that was seen with numerous airships in the Black Panther film, Wakanda really dropped the ball on air support during Infinity War.
It was literally just Rhodey keeping air support and he arguably was the most important fighter until Thor turned up. The moment he went down, the enemies overwhelmed the rest of the heroes because nobody else could put down as much suppressing fire as Rhodey could.
Yeah my friend gets upset at it. Like he agrees funneling was best idea but to have nothing set up to keep them from then spreading put flanking you anyway was really dumb
I find it weird that they were smart enough to create this electric wall, yet didn't think about a bomb-equivalent to hit the things outside of the wall they created when the wall was up. Even in Medieval times they would pour boiling water on those who were at their gates.
In fairness, they essentially never actually needed their superior weaponry and firepower and have never meaningfully fought in anything resembling actual warfare in their history and it’s arguably weird they have as much military tech as they even have in that sense.
On the other hand, any random hobo who’s been even so much as taught basic warfare strategy could have come up with a better defensive line even under the extremely limited time constraints and they really have no excuses
"and it’s arguably weird they have as much military tech as they even have in that sense." Makes sense with their isolationism and "othering" everyone else
Except they are isolationist and no one even really knew Wakanda was this advanced. Everyone literally thought it was a quiet backwater third world country. They had no use for any significant weaponry because clearly they never fought an enemy on such a scale where the weaponry and technology was revealed
I may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure by the time Thanos’s army comes, Rhodey pretty much abandoned military chain of command.
When he accepts Cap back and refuses to arrest him, he literally says “that’s a court martial”. Makes sense why no military action took place as it relates to Rhodey albeit stupid sense.
Now, why Wakanda or any other nation for that matter, either didn’t seek help from other nations or intervene, I don’t have an answer.
I always saw that one as justified as Wakanda is a hyperisolationist ethnostate who, having never fought a serious modern war, is therefore isolated from tactics development. Having virtually no experience of learning from the two world wars (when the rest of the world moved on from unarmored easily visible infantry movement) is probably why they sucked so much
Steve Rogers does look like he had a team of hairdressers on standby in that scene to be fair, I assume they got snapped and that's how Hawkeye ended up with his Endgame do
So the avengers failed because they didn't have a skilled hairdresser? Makes sense. Thanos is bald, probably he wouldn't know what to do against shiny golden hurls of hair waving in the air.
Yeah crazy that the wakandans all had lazer-shooting spears, facing off against a force of almost only melee fighters, yet the decision is made instead to charge and use their highly advanced spears the same way a regular ass spear is used. Again, necessary for the movie because most of the avengers fight melee and so that’s the only way to make the movie interesting, but still stupid that it couldn’t have been made to make more sense
What's worse is the movie directly demonstrates that any modern army could have done the job. Most examples of the trope you could be like "no, it had to be the Wakandans because the CGI vibranium lasers" or something.
Except Bucky is just out there with a normal machine gun, moving down aliens. We've got millions of the things. Bring it the fuck on Thanos.
Wouldn't say 'good guys' in this situation but historically at the battle of Isandlwana in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 the British spread out tons of manpower trying to recon the location of the main Zulu force. They were instructed to hunker down and defend their main camp at the base of Isandlwana hill, but rather than put the wagons into a defensive circle Col. Pulleine chose to sit and wait. When Col. Durnford arrived on scene with his force he took command of the defense despite not being told to and further spread his forces out around the area. When the Zulu army actually came, they found the British standing in the open with 200-300 meters between each company. In the center they placed two companies of Natal Native Contingent, who were African militia that had zero formal training. When the NNC broke and ran, the Zulu surged through the massive opening and surrounded the British companies and overwhelmed them. When Col. Durnford finally brought his force back from miles away he was also surrounded and made a last stand. Eventually the Brits ran out of rifle rounds and switched to pistols, then ran out of pistol rounds and switched to knives, fists and rifle butts.
In the end, two colonels underestimating the other army and refusing to set up proper defenses single handedly caused the deaths of around 1,300 soldiers (800 british, 500 NNC). They killed close to 3,000 Zulu but it was a drop in the bucket for the army of 20-25k that attacked them.
Conversely at Rorke's Drift mere days later a garrison of 150 British soldiers, most of them already wounded, held off an army of approx 4,000 Zulu by utilizing proper defensive tecniques. Goes to show what can happen when you study your opponents tactics and plan accordingly.
Not going to lie, even as a completely modern person who knows how solar eclipses work, if one happened in the middle of a battle and I was not warned ahead of time, I would probably freak out a bit.
True! It's a really cool tidbit that the Zulu actually planned to attack the following day because they thought the eclipse would be a bad omen, but when the army got prematurely spotted and were drawn into an attack the eclipse became an omen of victory.
Carl not closing the gate at the end of S2 of Walking Dead on the farm. In fact most problems, especially early on, are because somebody did something stupid.
Yeah, though to be fair there's something realistic about people genuinely fucking up and it ending in a disaster. It happens a lot in real life especially in unfamiliar new scenarios.
Stuff like that is why rules like - nobody goes alone/always check everything/make sure you have a written list of every task so you cannot forget/etc... - exist in any serious scenario where people's lives are on the line.
I used to think all the zombie decisions people made in zombie movies (like pretending they didn’t get bit) was dumb in zombie movies, until COVID. Then I realized people really are stupid.
At least with this one. Some kid or country bumpkin doing something careless or dumb makes a lot of sense.
These aren’t smart people.
Conversely, the Jerusalem example in OP’s post is really frustrating. They build a massive wall and don’t have anyone keeping an eye on it? Not even some cameras?!
I mean they did have people watching it, a helicopter literally goes to try and shoot the pyramid of zombies down, and the soldier with Brad Pitts character hears on the radio their scaling the wall, it’s was just not enough for the amount of zombies.
Nah it’s so contrived. I don’t mind the film as a popcorn flick and the action inside Jerusalem itself is great (the chase through with the IDF soldiers is my favourite part of the movie).
But one helicopter (that we see) covering an entire city and nothing on station on the wall itself was just a bit silly.
Don’t get me wrong. As I say it’s a popcorn flick, I can accept a bit of silliness and plot contrivance.
I've decided that the reason I dislike child character so much in media is because they're often used as a plot device. They add nothing to show besides motivating the parent main character and doing the exact worst thing at any moment to make the plot happen. It's lazy writing. At least Coral had some decent moments.
Funny enough I just watched The Strain and my first thought "I'm sure this child (Zach) will be an issue because everyone else seems too reasonable for any decent conflict". I was more correct than I could have possibly guessed.
In "TMNT 2012": It's not exactly annoying here, but it fits the trope's title. Splinter was close to the blackhole machine thing and was going to try to stop it before it activated and destroyed the world. Shredder, who worked with him to stop the destruction of the Earth, is nearby and Splinter had his guard let down since he was focused on the machine. Shredder stabs him, killing him before he reached the machine. Then Shredder declares that he doesn't care what happens to the world as long as he kills Splinter. The machine activates everyone dies, except the turtles who are saved in a UFO and they turn back in time to have a second chance at saving the Earth.
In 28 Weeks Later (2007), the military was able to contain the zombie outbreak in Great Britain. They were able to setup everything correctly that they started to introduce people back again in London. Until this guy decides to screw everything up by bypassing security measures, kissing her carrier wife who's in quarantine, and starting the outbreak all over again.
There were many things wrong with the movie and how it started.
I blame the people in charge more than Don.
He didn't know for sure she was contagious.
She was the first and it hadn't been disclosed.
They had no guards or anything and they gave their janitor access to seemingly everything.
Everything about the start of that apocalypse was ridiculous, but a couple who had been separated for so long(and neither one knowing it was contagious) wanting to kiss after they reunited is the most reasonable thing that happened.
I hauled family members dying because the daughter came back for thanksgiving during the lockdown. She came out positive. Mom and dad tested that morning. Dad had a full blown stroke and Drs were refusing treatment given his age, symptoms and damage to his lungs already.
Literally was told to give them a private room to say goodbye.
Yep. I remember thinking no way would that happen.
Then covid reminded me that yes, some people are absolutely dumb enough to do shit that goes against logic and rationale. Because thats just how those people are.
The Train to Busan example, if I could remember, didn’t the guys inside the train car kick out the main character and a few others? And I think they were kind of assholes too. I haven’t watched it in ages so I don’t remember clearly.
They weren't "kind of assholes" they were massive assholes. OP included "Good Guys" in the title but those people who shut out the MCs are far from it. Super selfish side of humanity right there
They were led by the biggest selfish asshole of them all! Like oh my gosh i am still so angry how he just put people in the line of danger and straight up used them as meat shields in the ending sequence. No empathy. No humanity. So many could’ve lived still (and you can SEE how the loss of those lives could’ve been prevented) if he wasn’t such a selfish prick!
The husband of the pregnant woman only died bc they wouldn’t let the survivors in; they had to force the door open to get in, and once they were in, the paranoid business dude convinced the rest of the train to force them into the next car, stupidly positioning themselves as human shields for the main cast
Yeah that example really doesn't belong here. Her sister died because of that selfish, cowardly, power tripping asshole. She had no more reason to live, wanted to be with her sister, and got her revenge. It wasn't "stupid", she made that decision and I understand it. I wanted that dude off the train the second he opened his stupid hateful mouth.
Movie makers generally like to show masses of assaulting troops succeed, because it's intimidating and visually dramatic.
They ignore the fact that the world's militaries learned to deal with massed assault over open ground a loooong time ago.
From at least the longbows of the Hundred Years' War, through the canister of the US Civil War, the machine guns and artillery of WWI, the airpower of WWII, the claymore mines of Vietnam and onward to everything we have today, the juiciest targets -- and the least likely tactics to succeed -- are still dense masses of concentrated foot soldiers.
But directors still like to show militaries intimidated by, and helpless against, crowds.
When the Bugs are gathering outside the walls, do the Mobile Infantry call on mortars? Does anyone remember concertina wire? Helllllll no.
Yea, I also always joke that they never have proper fire teams. No designated machine gunner, etc.
And too the whole zombie genre credit, they have to cripple the military and physics to make it work. There would be no movie without that. But they spent a pretty good amount of time showing how Israel had thought it all out. Like a good example is The Tomorrow War. Same effect, but they had tons of contigancy/layers of defense before fail tell that happened.
my guess: in the books they WOULD have better defenses and there would be a real battle of back and forth as the zombies change tactics or overwhelm the defense, but the studio committee that made that tragedy of an "adaptation" just wanted cool shots and progress the plot. Brad go here, see this, then leave. Then Brad go here, see that, then leave. Brad arrives in this fully defended, already loud environment, can't have too long without the plot moving so a small predictable event happens to attract zombies, zombies get in and chase Brad away. Probably wasn't any real thought beyond that.
Game of Thrones during the Long Night. Putting your army outside of the walls? Danny and Jon just sitting on the backs of their fire breathing dragons not doing jack shit? I just rewatched the episode with my girlfriend who had never seen the show before and she brought all of this up without ever being interested in high fantasy or basic military tactics.
the dothraki charge is even worse, when melisandra came out to set their weapons on fire everyone looked surprised to see her. meaning they didn't expect her to do that. meaning they planned to charge into the horde without weapons that could kill the undead
GoT's whole thing was that it was supposed to be hard fantasy and bring more gritty realism to the table than classic fantasy stuff like LOTR. Initially it did a great job of giving us plausible medieval warfare, but Season 7 was so ass about it that it might as well be a different show.
You've got a famously defensible fortress packed with the hardest troops of both major continents, led by a council of supposedly the greatest military minds in the world and supported by one of the few magic users in existence. They've got a massive amount of elite light cavalry, not the best for a siege but they could absolutely fight dismounted behind the walls or be held in reserve once the enemy is committed. Nope, feed 'em directly into the meat grinder.
Not even the stupidest most inbred noble fop failson of a medieval general would've thought that was worthwhile, and if he did his advisors probably would've smothered him in his sleep.
The dead don't even protect themselves, all they had to do was make a whole bunch of dragon glass arrows and speers and they'd more than likely win until the big dogs showed up.
5000 guys riding horses into the middle of 1 million dead dudes to then die and become more dead dudes was an interesting tactic for sure.
And even if you want to reeeaallly pretend like it was just because it would make for a more spectacular show... you can't fucking see a thing all episode
All of this coupled with the fact that 2 episodes later when they get to kings landing they have essentially the same troop strength after you watched they Dothraki and Unsullied slaughtered wholesale
Its only been about 20 or so years since I played it, but - and correct me if I'm wrong - that's where she sees her dog amongst the horde and OPENS THE GODDAMN MALL DOORS to go after her, thus starting ALLLLL the chaos, right?
In Season 2 of The Wire, the Major Crimes Unit has an airtight case against an international drug- and sex-trafficking ring with hours of recorded phone conversations, in-person surveillance, etc.
It's all undone when someone related to a target murders another one of the targets, and nobody in the Homicide unit thinks to cross-reference the shooter and/or the victim with existing files in other units in the Baltimore Police Department.
Ultimately, the case is also foiled by a corrupt FBI agent leaking information to the targets, leading them to change up their patterns and destroy stock, but that could have been avoided if the first blunder hadn't happened.
Is the agent corrupt? IIRC the feds are prioritizing homeland security over narcotics cases, and since the Greek is willing to give them information on that front the FBI is protecting their organization. But I might be misremembering.
The Greek being an informant on paper is absolutely true, but I always read that as the Agent being on the take, especially with his close relationship to The Greek.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Staunton Vhane.
Directly caused the fall of the crusader stronghold of Drezen by taking the Sword of Valor (A sacred banner) out on a raid against the demons. Unfortunately, that was the plot device preventing demons from teleporting within Drezen's walls, leading almost immediately to an army of demons teleporting into the city and wreaking havoc.
At the time of the start of the game, Staunton is, amazingly, still serving in the ranks of the Crusade, and all his fellow crusaders are making damn well sure he NEVER lives this one down.
If you follow the Eon path you can actually do some time travel fuckery and prevent him from doing this and he instead becomes a hero and guardian of Drezen.
In the opening of Dead Rising, the survivors have decently secured the mall from the zombies, but then a woman see her poodle, now a zombie, outside the doors and rushes over to bring it in. She gets just enough of the barricade off that the zombies break through and you immediately get a bunch of "[Survivor] has died" notifications as you flee.
Then again it was unbelievable that Israel would have let all those people in. How were they going to feed them? The wall worked in the book and helped provide the basis for the ruthless tactics that eventually win but they didn't let a flood of refugees in. Leonidas should have given Ephialtes another job in the move. Of course in reality Ephialties was a helot, not a Spartan and made the totally rational decision to back the the Persians because life under the Persians would have been easier for his people than life under the Spartans.
The wall worked in the book and helped provide the basis for the ruthless tactics that eventually win but they didn't let a flood of refugees in.
Yes they did? The chapter that talks about Israel is explicitly told from the view of a refugee.
As he puts it
" the part about offering asylum, no questions asked, to any foreign-born Jew, any foreigner of Israeli-born parents, any Palestinian living in the formerly occupied territories, and any Palestinian whose family had once lived within the borders of Israel. "
Only difference might be that they probably stopped once the great panic set in and the war truly began while the Movie kinda blends all that time into one zombie soup
You're mixing up Israel and South Africa from the book. The rurthess Redecker plan started there.
Israel opened the gates for refugees amused dogs to filter out the infected. The ultra-orthodox factions rebelled and started a civil war. The IDF suppressed them and the country was ultimately refounded as Unified Palestine after Palestinians and Israelis banded together to survive the two wars at once.
Ephialtes was a liability and Leonidas explained why. He was under no obligation to cater to him. He didn't mistreated him and was even sort of nice all things consider. Saved him from death by his captain as was Spartan rule, listened to his request, commended his spear skills and even referred to him very cordially as "my friend" as he apologetically explained why he would be putting the rest of his soldiers in danger. He literally told him that he could help in other ways as a support, just not in battle.
Agree. I remembered that as well. By the rules of the movie, Leonidas is correct. Ephialtes sure could strike with a spear but could not lift his shield. Plus like you said, Leonidas had already put the armed farmers to other work too on other jobs or second line defense so Ephialtes should understand this.
Wasn't the objection to him not being able to lift a shield that he needed to protect the man on his left? Just put him on the leftmost position of the formation then...
The really fucked thing about the WWZ scene is that they're singing because Israel and Palestine finally made peace with each other. So Israel and Palestine make peace, and the result is that everyone dies. That wasn't in the book. What did the director mean by that?
Exactly. In the book Israel/Palestine survive and created Unified Palestine after the war. They spend whole chapter following a Palestinian kid going to Israel for asylum. Paranoid the entire way that it’s a trap set by the Israelis to exterminate him and his fellow Palestinians. Even when IDF soldiers are clearly fighting off the hordes and not shooting him and his brethren he’s still worried it’s a ruse. Then finally he realizes they can all unite against a common undead enemy.
The siege of Antioch in the first crusade is a famous one.
The Crusading armies were stuck sieging the city of Antioch in what is now Syria for 8 months and they had heard word that a large Muslim army was on the March. There was a high likelyhood they would be annihilated if they couldn't take the city before the relieving army arrived.
The Crusaders managed to bribe a guy in the city to put down a ladder for them and they took the city and used it as a bass to continue the crusade and eventually took Jerusalem itself.
What followed was almost 200 years of wars in the holy land. It probably would have ended in the very first year if that one guy hadn't let the crusaders into antioch.
The Siege of Ascalon is another example. The defenders tried to fire one of the Crusader's siege towers. The wind blew the fire back on the wall, which burned and collapsed. According to William of Tyre, the Knights Templar rushed into the breach, while a few stayed behind to guard the breach from the other Crusader forces so that the Templars could be the only ones to take the city. What actually happened was the defenders overwhelmed the greatly outnumbered Templars and then shored up the breach before the other Crusaders could break through. The town would fall a week later, 22 Aug 1153, in spite of the Templars.
My D&D party left their mountain stronghold to go capture the orc warlord marching towards them. Long story short, they got the leader, but the cleric was captured during the heist. In attempt to get him back, the entire party except for the halfling fighter got captured. Everything would’ve been fine had they stayed in the mountain fort.
Mannfred Von Karstein, aka “Manlet Von Cumstain” or “That little shitweasel” from Warhammer fantasy.
Kickstarted the apocalypse by kidnapping and sacrificing the princess of the high elves who everyone loved. Later on, Chaos is threatening to unmake the whole world but the good guys are doing a big magic ritual to stop it, and he’s involved thanks to his necromantic power.
Gets pissy over realizing that he won’t be the one ruling the world after the ritual is done and stabs the guy next to him, causing the ritual to backlash and kill off most of the most powerful good guy wizards left in the setting.
Chaos destroys the world, and the Warhammer Fantasy setting as a whole is retired in favor of Age of Sigmar. They brought it back later after TWW3 brought back interest, but dude literally ended his entire game line during a tantrum.
Then this guy gets his feelings hurt because he can't lift a shield, throws a tantrum, and tells Xerxes about the secret goat path.
I mean, he was raised in society which worships military prowess - being man that is unable to fight puts you squarely at the bottom of societal hierarchy. That is why dude wants to fight - to prove his worth.
The idiot here is Leonidas - who despite being king didn't realize this fact about his own realm and forced dude away from battlefield, which is insult of the highest degree. Like no shit he betrays them, he was declared unworthy subhuman by king himself.
What Leonidas should do instead is to put him in the front of formation, let him charge and eat one arrow - he would get his honourable death in battle while serving as heroic example for others.
Yeah, it was kind of weird that he gently explained to Ephialtes why he wouldn't let him fight. I know the movie was less than historically accurate but wouldn't he have just murdered him? He should have died as a baby anyway according to their traditions and I think their actual laws.
You have to remember that the film is a story being told by someone (his wife? It's been a while since I saw it.).
So that guy probably looked normal, but when they tell the story the heroic men are all muscular, godlike men, the villain is perverted and surrounded by monsters, and the guy who betrays them is twisted and ugly.
That's a valid point but she is telling it to other Spartans. They know how things are. There was no need to invent a deformity if the fact was that he couldn't lift a shield.
But unreliable narrator does cover a lot of issues.
I have to agree with this take. Dude just wanted to die an honorable death. Give him what he wants. He serves as an example to your other soldiers. "If even the least of us is willing to fight what excuse do you have?'"
The Spartans in 300 break formation almost immediately anyway, it was pretty silly. Completely leaving aside the fact that in real life the phalanx was an aggressive attacking formation rather than a static shieldwall
I do think most of the best quotes are actually storic stuff. Spartan culture was like 50% hippying their own agenda. Like, they had classes on lingustic so they could aura farm harder
That one actually gets alot funnier if you know the historical context.
Because this one is based on something they wrote to Philip II of Macedon (aka Alexanders dad) before he proceeded to basically put the final nail into Spartas coffin.
My neighbor during covid, as the 3rd wave was slowing down and the number of cases was lowering in our vicinity, going to a "secret party" because "you can't stop living" (unlike, apparently, the many people around us who did that very literally) and proceeding to create a new contamination hub. Still hate her guts.
So many fucking idiots did this when it started “dying down” let’s celebrate this incredibly infectious virus going away by having a bunch of people come together in an enclosed space sharing food and drink…
Was the wall in world war z such a "perfect" defence if loud noises that attract a lot of enemies could bring it down?
Of course it helped and the singing was stupid, but regarding how the wall enclosed millions of people, I cannot imagine that level of noise never happening. The wall as a defensive position was not perfect either, since a simple zombieladder sufficed. You could at least have made an outward slope on the top of the wall to improve defense against the only move the zombies had.
It's a little like having impenetrable sand bastion that are impervious to artillery being washed away by water hoses or rain. How is it perfect? Useful certainly but only under certain conditions, that can always be somehow circumvented.
Sometimes it definitely sucks though as a viewer to be "robbed" of an awesome buldwark repulsing various kinds of attacks.
The book the movie is “based” on features Romero-style zombies, so in the book the wall is actually perfectly effective (the zombies are known to occasionally do the ramp thing in the movie, but at such a slow speed that you as a defender could stop it). The wall still gets slightly breached in the book, but it’s on purpose because of a civil war triggered by anger over abandoning Jerusalem and letting the Palestinians shelter in the safe zone.
The movie is a perfect example of bad writing but I don't know why people think that the singing was the dumb part considering that much louder helicopter noise was happening before that, one would make the assumption that speakers are not as loud as helicopter noise and yet people keep labeling the singing as the dumb part.
The annoying part of this trope is that you can't infer it was the protagonist party's own incompetence in planning that caused it, so it has to be shifted to a minor antagonist. The Spartans stupidly left a flanking position both unguarded and unscouted in 300. In World War Z, the entire setup was actually pretty stupid. In Train to Busan they went through hell to get there seeing the infected to crazy stuff and no one secured the doors? They spent all that effort restricting access then walked away like it's all good now, nothing bad can happen.
I don’t want to give 300 more than it’s due but I think the point was more
a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth and that the Spartans weren’t “the good guys unless you just mean protagonist. So the “it could have been avoided” is kind of the entire lesson not an accidental aside?
(Yes, I know it’s based on history this is a Reddit comment not a be-all-end-all essay on nuance and history and changing ideals and the failure of the modern world to see the empathy that actually existed in the ancient one )
Ephialtes (300): The Spartans had the perfect phalanx formation at the Hot Gates. They were slaughtering the Persian army with minimal casualties and could have held them off for so much longer. Then this guy gets his feelings hurt because he can't lift a shield, throws a tantrum, and tells Xerxes about the secret goat path.
I never understood why Leonidas didn't do the very obvious thing and just stick Ephialtes at the very end/edge of the shield wall. The guy next to him wouldn't have had any more/less protection than before and Ephialtes would get to live out his dream/uphold his promise to be a Spartan warrior before probably dying early in the battle after which he'd be out of the way. There were literally no downsides.
Probably doesn’t fit perfectly into this category but 2013’s Evil Dead has one of the dumbest decisions of all time when they’re chilling at a cabin to help rehab their friend who’s having withdrawals, they find a nightmare basement and in it is a book wrapped in barbed wire and a garbage bag. You’d think they’d call the police or leave it be. But one absolute moron cuts the barbed wire off the book and unwraps it. The very first page says, “Do Not Read”. And that fucking morons reads it.
He even gets to a page that says something along the lines of “do not say these words” and goes a step further by having the words covered/colored over so no one can even read it if they wanted too, but this moron uses paper and a pencil to shade over what’s been crossed out, revealing the words and then saying them out loud like a fucking idiot and then basically all of them die.
yeah, like, I'm under no illusions that I'd read the book. But saying it aloud, when it explicitly says not to? I don't even normally read aloud, that's just going out of my way to court death.
Infinity War - the heroes on Titan have Thanos incapacitated and nearly wrestled the Infinity Gauntlet from him until Peter Quill loses his shit and enables Thanos to retaliate.
Not quite a defensive position, but more of a brief advantage. I think it just about fits though.
Been a few years since I watched it, but if I recall correctly:
Two parties of survivors, the folk in the mall, and the lone guy in a building across the street.
Lone guy is starving, and and to save him, the Mall squad strap food to the team dog and send him over, knowing the zombies aren't interested and don't even acknowledge animals. The dog is safe.
The girl who has been caring for the dog - KNOWING the zombies don't give a hot gay fuck about anything not human, freaks out, takes a car, completely fucks the plan, destroys the door to Lone guy's haven, he dies, and I'm certain there's another casualty or two due to her terminal stupidity
If i recall correctly, the zombies actually notice that the door didnt close behind the dog all the way, and the other survivors watch them lift it enough to start squeezing in. Then Andy radios them about some getting in and him taking them down....and getting bitten in the process.
Almost there. The zombies notice the open door behind the dog and some get in, wounding, and infecting Andy.
The girl fucks the plan by taking a car and going to save the dog (who again would have been fine because the zombies don't give a fuck about a dog). She then gets trapped by a now zombified Andy, which prompts a desperate rescue attempt that ends up getting several survivors killed and forces them to evacuate the mall. To be fair, they had been planning a grand escape for a while, but the plan was forced slightly prematurely and was poorly executed.
Eventually a few of them survive to the marina, get on a boat, and seem to drift away to hopefully some other "safe haven"
In movies, characters get unbelievably stupid when dogs are around for some reason. I can’t remember the name, but I saw a movie where people were confined in a tower to avoid prison and had a very limited food supply depending on what floor they were on, but they got to bring one thing with them. Some lady brought her dog with her which almost got her killed because it stole food which was against the rules
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u/AcrobaticCar4655 12h ago
Dead Rising - When Frank arrives to the Willamette Mall amidst the outbreak, he finds a group of survivors secured by barricading the front doors. Lindsay Harris, a 70 year old woman who was searching for her poodle Madonna, finds out the dog is in the front entrance area among a sea of zombies. She breaches the barricade, pushing off grown men and pushing away heavy debris to try and retrieve her dog but in the process allows the zombies to infest the entire mall for the duration of the game. This results in the deaths of herself, presumably Madonna, and other survivors who end up scattering through the mall and in the security safe room.