Can you think of a movie where the good guys make create a big plan, a lot of screen time is put towards it, and...poof..it ends up not working so great? Spock's goof in TREK XI might rank up there. Can you think of others? Rob
TNG BoBW pt 2: "Mr. Worf... fire." We spent the whole summer trying to figure out how Locutus was going to survive the Enterprise's attack without ever considering that it just might not work... ...
I'm going to, in part, mention the final battle plan in ID4. Their plan: Take these 15-mile wide spaceships and disable their defenses. It's a miracle that could even work considering at that time Windows would shit itself if you tried to get hook-up a new printer to it. But, somehow, -even with a Mac- Goldblum's character is able to hack into a completely alien computer system that scientists have only had access to for a couple days and disable it's defenses. Fine, though, that part ended up working. The next part, miracle of miracles, ends up working as the psionic aliens don't gleam this plan, but they're able to comunicate this plan and organize it within hours by using morse code! But, fine, that worked. So the fighters around Area 51 take off -led by the POTUS, like he would even be alowed to go up no matter what he thinls- and they fire off all of their missiles on their fighter jets, while also fighting off the alien fighters. Now, the alien ship is huge so they likely outnumber the earth fighters by 1000:1. But, fine, the earth-fighters are able to fight off the shit-loads of alien fighters. So they attack they huge mothership with their missiles, end up firing all of them and do nothing to the mothership. Gee! Go figure! The president misses his last shot at the alien ship core. They're screwed. If only their was a drunken crop-duster pilot to save them! Sure, it wasn't a big blunder as it miracuously ended up working -they communicated another world-wide morse code message how to take down the huge alien ship with one friggin missile from an earth fighter-crafy. But it very nearly was.
Well, going by the movie trailer, the heist in Armored doesn't go as planned, and not only that, the trailer gives away all the major plot points!
In The Boondock Saints, absolutely none of their plans go as planned, except for the toilet toss which was a very hasty plan. Aliens: We'll just barricade ourselves in this secure room here and let our automatic guns do all the work. Oops, guns ran out of ammo. Oops, aliens don't need to come in through the door. Alien Vs. Predator: We'll make a fortune off of this temple in Antarc- (slaughter slaughter slaughter) Aliens Vs. Predator 2: Let's wait in the town square for the government to pick us up! (NUKE)
I loved that aspect of Mystery Men - our band of misfit heroes come up with a plan to rescue 'captain amazing' - but then end up killing him by accident as soon as they find him.
Good one...and what about Executive Decision? Steven Segal dies before even getting on the plane. Rob
But the plan works in the Great Escape. A large number of escapees get out of the camp, its just that when most are eventually recaptured, a large number are executed.
Oh, I'll throw in Fargo. Had no idea what the movie was about going into it, and I distinctly remember the moment when my understanding of the film completely changed gears.
I was refering to the fact that only 70 some men escaped, when the idea was for a few hundred to escape. I wouldn't call it a failure, but it wasn't quite what they wanted.
...but, it was a great film. But yeah, woefully short of their goal. Maybe the whole GENESIS EXPERIMENT can be chalked up as a great failure. Rob