Just Eat Gilligan: Difference between revisions

*** Unfortunately, that's [[No Bisexuals|another trope entirely.]]

* ''[[Blood Simple]]'' justifies this with its title; people in those situations aren't in the best of mental states, generally.

** They did discuss that very option at the beginning of the experiment. The one person does make the valid-at-the-time point that it would disrupt the experiment and make the entire time they spent preparing go down the drain; which when faced with two people of unknown talents is logical. They did eventually kick out the idiots after a certain point, but the idiots then went back in to genuinely help. You have to remember that part of the movie.

** They do hammer on the precise amount of days for the sake of stability, but really, it does stress the suspense of disbelief to not worry at least as much about the exact amount of people present.

*** Though there is the point that Voldemort runs a fairly EVIL group, which has mixed loyalties, a near amatuer can take out the best Magician given surprise or some other advantage (Draco vs Dumbledore, Harry vs whoever) means that theoratically any of the Death Eaters could take out Voldemort, and the fact that Voldemort's ace in the hole, immortality, merely means he is reduced to a wandering spirit instead of outright killed... You must realize that Voldemort rules through FEAR and by keeping an image of supremacy and invulnerability. So... no, he CAN'T ask one of his minions to destroy his arch-nemesis for him. One, it makes him look bad. Two, it makes his minion look TOO GOOD...

*** Also, the prophecy in a round about way said that only one could kill the other, so he most likely decided not to waste the manpower doing something he believed to be pointless anyway.

** In the first book, when Harry, Ron and Hermione discovered that Quirrell planned to steal the Philosopher's Stone, rather than trying to stop him themselves, why didn't they tell the school's teachers or staff about Quirrel's plans? Granted, they tried to inform Dumbledore about it and were told he wasn't at the school at that moment. But there were so many other teachers and members of the school's staff who were far more capable than three first-year students and would have handled the situation much better.

*** They did try to tell McGonagall, but she refused to listen and just insisted that the stone was protected well enough. Still, they might have tried harder or tried other teachers.

** In ''[[Goblet of Fire]]'', Voldemort had Barty Crouch Jr. impersonate Moody, arrange so that Harry's name would come out of the Goblet of Fire thus making him one of the participants in the Triwizard Tournament, and help Harry win by rigging the tournament's events and manipulate other characters to to aid him. All of this was done so that Harry would touch the tournament's trophy, which had been turned by Crouch into a portkey that would teleport Harry to Voldemort, who would then use his blood to restore his (Voldemort's) body. Here's the funny thing: Crouch could have turned ''anything'' into the portkey; it didn't have to a object as hard to reach as the trophy. And of course, there's no way Voldermort or Crouch would have been certain that Harry would win the tournament (even with all of their efforts), or that he would be allowed to participate in the first place (what with him being too young and all). Surely there would have been a much less convoluted and more fail-proof way of doing this, like Moody (Crouch) turning a random possession of "his" (like Moody's Sneakoscope) into a portkey, placing it somewhere in his office, calling Harry there to have a talk with him, and then casually saying "Can you pass me that Sneakoscope you see over there?".

**** Don't forget, you can't get off the school grounds with Apparitions and Portkeys (the closest to this is Floo Powder). But the area right around the castle itself, {{spoiler|(since Snape and Malfoy apparate away right as soon as they enter the forest)}} makes me think that Moody had to have Harry get off the school grounds. Since the maze would not be in school grounds, Harry could be taken directly to Voldemort, everyone would think his death was an accident, and Moody would not be suspected at all.

** ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'' falls victim to this until almost the very end, when the two not-so-bright heroes finally realize that, duh, they have a time machine, and proceed to arrange it so that, in some future time, they will go back into the ''past'' and cause certain events to happen in the ''present'' which will allow them to escape from jail and make it to the school in time to deliver their fateful history report. The climax of the sequel features both Bill and Ted ''and'' [[Big Bad]] Nomolos DeNomolos playing this game, each attempting to get the advantage in a [[Mexican Standoff]]... until Ted rightly points out that only one side gets to win, then go back in time and stage everything just right, and they had in fact planted all the items he thought he planted to lull him into a false sense of security. Probably not so much of a concern, because the film is too silly to be taken seriously.

** A similar stand-off occurs between the Doctor and the Master in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' parody film ''The Curse of Fatal Death''. The Doctor wins the fight by arranging for the architects to have built a trap door under where the Master's feet would have been after the race goes extinct.

*** The in-universe explanation for this is that The Doctor and other "time aware" species like the Daleks are aware of fixed points in history that cannot be changed. This is usually indicated by their significance in subsequent history books. It seems that the more an event is ingrained into legend, the less power the Doctor has to alter it. Like the Titanic Sinking, the volcano which destroyed Pompeii, the mysterious destruction of the first Mars colony, etc. Attempts to push against these boundaries seem fruitless as Fate keeps making them happen anyway. It is implied that it *is* possible to beat fate, but only by accepting all the ramifications to the stability of time. Even a Dalek is shown sparing someone's life because it realizes she isn't meant to die yet.

*** Series 6 shows what happens when a "fixed point" is altered; {{spoiler|it breaks history. The entire history of Earth is altered so it all takes place at once, and it's ''always'' the moment when time is broken.}}

*** Except once in ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'', but the result wasn't good, because this monster was specifically designed to hijack the Zords. And in ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'', because the monster was sun-powered, and the Rangers decided the only way to defeat him was ''using the Megazord to '''shadow''' him''.

** The Zords couldn't be sent "all at once" because the "laws of Good" prevent Good from "escalating" the violence. The bad guys, especially in ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' most likely have limits such as the magic taking a heavy toll on the user. In fact Ivan Ooze in ''[[The Movie]]'' needed to hypnotize people to build the technology so that he could use it.

** Then again, it's probably a giant waste of energy to send the robot to squish the not-yet-big monster. Zord fuel can't be cheap.

** "Why don't villains just blow up the Rangers' houses at night?" has also been dealt with, once again, by Ninja Storm. [[The Dragon]] suggests attacking them at the sports shop they work at, but Lothor says that a Ranger's power can only truly be destroyed while the Ranger is morphed. (Mind you, we've seen that prove untrue more than once in the past, but hey, they tried.)

* Almost invariably in the early seasons, the [[Monster of the Week]] would be trashing the Power Rangers, and Rita would declare, "If you think you're having it rough now, wait until you see this!" before making the monster [[Make My Monster Grow|grow to a preposterous size]]. At this point the ''Power Rangers'' would use their cool toys and destroy the monster, every single time. If only Rita had left the monster at its original size, she could have won easily. For that matter, why didn't the Power Rangers just use their giant mechas on the "human-sized" monster? Another thing: every villain in ''Power Rangers'' ever has had the ability to teleport at will, anywhere, through walls, and even bring along passengers or cargo. Picture the cataclysmic implications if they were to use this power intelligently.

** In the Alien Rangers arc of MMPR, Goldar and Rito did ''just that,'' only with a bomb of the usual villains' making.

* In the third, fourth, and fifth seasons of ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'', more than half of the plots could have been resolved in ten seconds if the characters had chosen to just eat Jay Hogart. What did his victims do when they finally realized he was manipulating them? They glared at him really angrily, and sometimes even spoke harsh words. Some of these kids have beaten each other up because of his tricks, but when they find out the brawl was his fault, they don't even throw a punch at him. However, he does become a semi-helpful member of the cast in the sixth and seventh seasons.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''. If the crew had simply tossed the [[Lawful Stupid]] Captain Janeway out the airlock after her silly Starfleet rules prevented them from getting home the first time, they'd have gotten home by the next week.

* In the obscure children's TV show ''The Legend of Tim Tyler'', the title "hero" sold his laugh to an evil baron for the ability to win any bet. It took until the end of the 13 part series for Tim Tyler to discover the one way to screw the baron over... to make a bet that he could laugh.

** In the German book ''Thimm Thalers Lächeln'', which seems to be the source, this is both lampshaded by Thimm and made plausible because he couldn't make this bet with just anyone - he was not allowed to tell anybody about the deal, so he had to find someone who figured it out by himself as a partner to his bet.

* ''[[Lost]]'' thrives on this, which is not surprising considering the connections to ''Gilligan's Island''. All the survivors of 815 had to do was to ''hold a big meeting and compare notes about this VERY odd island'' to keep their cool and work more as a cohesive group, but noooo.....

** This is what the survivors tried to do initially. Except there were people trying to act in the best interests of the group, such as Sayid and co. keeping the French transmission a secret. And then people acting in their own interests, like Kate trying to keep her past a secret or Sawyer making everyone hate him because he's a [[Jerkass Woobie]]. And then there's Locke, who... is Locke. Arguably, part of the show's point is that when left to their own devices, people are prone to conflict and self-destruction.

** A ''[[Looney Tunes (comics)|Looney Tunes]]'' comic book does actually establish that Wile E. gets his food via mail order, and that catching Roadrunner is just his hobby. [[Word of God]], people.

** This is hilariously lampshaded in a short in which Wile E. [[Team Rocket Wins|is successful in his attempts to capture the Roadrunner.]] Of course, he's now a comically puny size thanks to [[Rule of Funny]] so the Roadrunner is much...'''much''' bigger than him. Wile E. then [[No Fourth Wall|points out to the audience]] that he's [[So What Do We Do Now?|absolutely clueless as to what to do next.]]

*** The heights of Wile E.'s obsession is underscored by the large number of his plans that, had they succeeded, would have ''destroyed'' the Road Runner, or at least rendered its carcass inedible.

*** Really one of his main problems is that he keeps buying shoddy products from Acme. Which one episode reveals as being ''owned and operated'' by the Road Runner!

** If that's the one I'm thinking of, Bluto didn't so much "eat" the spinach as have it forced down his throat by Popeye. At a guess, Bluto hates spinach even more than he hates Popeye.

*** This is underscored by one cartoon where Bluto invents a powerful herbicide to destroy all of the world's spinach to incapacitate Popeye. {{spoiler|Popeye pleads to the audience, and some kid with a grocery bag throws it into the screen. Popeye beats Bluto, and cures all the spinach.}}

* Entire episodes of ''[[Tale Spin]]'' are often driven by Baloo's incompetence, laziness or [[Refuge in Audacity|audacity]], or Rebecca's hardheadedness, blind ambition or naivete. What could be solved simply with some logical thinking often [[Disaster Dominoes|snowballs]] into a very big problem. Sometimes Kit or Molly's recklessness or need for adventure complicates matters, too, though not as often as Baloo and Rebecca's character flaws do.

** Played with in one episode, where Rebecca wins a contest and needs to get her winning entry to a radio station on time to get a large sum, but she's too busy to get it mailed herself. She knows that Baloo is lazy except when something doesn't matter, so she tries to use [[Reverse Psychology]], telling him that she'd appreciate it if he could take care of mailing it out for her, but that it wasn't important. Unfortunately for her, Baloo, already experienced with how much trouble arises from her hardheadedness and blind ambition, figures that her ''laissez-faire'' attitude means it really isn't important, so he spends the fare for the letter on himself (after Rebecca said he could keep the change) and sends it via the cheapest possible postage. Cue scramble when both parties realize what they had done.