Non-Indicative Name/Film

Examples of Non-Indicative Names in Film include:

The film version of Watchmen does include a superhero team called "the Watchmen" (unlike the graphic novel), but they aren't the protagonists of the film—they were a proposed team that was never actually formed. All of the main characters are independent vigilantes with no allegiance to any team.
Batman Forever has the Nygma Tech Box. It looks like a blender with fins, and it's not boxlike at all.
In the Iron Man film, Stark's first suit seemed to be mostly scrap iron, but his final is more advanced. He lampshades the trope when he first sees the media nickname:

Tony Stark: Iron Man? That's kinda catchy. Not technically accurate, since it's a gold-titanium alloy, but...

The weapon in Krull is identified as "The Glaive". It isn't a curved-blade polearm, but rather a starfish-shaped switchblade. Even if you take the older meaning of "glaive" as "sword", it doesn't fit. Due to the film's popularity, a number of other works have named similar weapons "glaives", such as Warcraft and Blade the Series.
A Series of Unfortunate Events features the Incredibly Deadly Viper--not so incredibly deadly. Justified because it was intentional by Uncle Monty in order to scare the rest of his colleagues as revenge for all their mocking of his name.
In Doctor Dolittle, Rodney the guinea pig ponders how he came to that name, since he's not a pig, not from Africa, and not an Italian "guinea".
Troll 2 is about goblins, not trolls, and is not a sequel to Troll. There are also two different films that go by the title Troll 3; neither of them are about trolls, and neither of them are sequels to either of the aforementioned films.
The word "Gojira" is a portmanteau of "kujira" (whale) and gorilla. Early on in the production, they hadn't decided what the monster was going to look like, and the pretty cool name for one scrapped design was eventually combined with a different, really cool design... of a reptile.
Toho's Latitude Zero features a monster named Black Moth. Take a wild guess what the monster is. Go on... Give up? It's a flying lion/eagle hybrid.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End:
- The Nine Pieces of Eight are not coins, but random pieces of junk. This is lampshaded and justified in-universe; they used random pieces of junk because the founding pirates were flat broke, and called them "Pieces of Eight" because they thought it sounded more pirate-y than "Pieces of Whatever We Happened to Have in our Pockets At The Time".
- The Flying Dutchman, unlike in the original legend, does not move through the air and is not Dutch. Its captain is a Welshman with a Scots accent. It does "fly" in the sense that it's quite fast.
Mystery Men:
- The Blue Raja's costume consisted of almost every color except blue, and he had a British accent rather than an Indian one. The latter makes sense if you know the history of India and the British occupation, granted.
- Then there's also The Spleen, who named himself after a body part that has nothing to do with his Fartillery superpower. It may be a play on the saying "vent your spleen", where you generally let loose with a rather noxious rant - and The Spleen does vent something quite noxious with his powers.
Star Wars:
- The Battle of Endor took place on the forest moon of Endor (which is a gas giant). The Battle of Yavin takes place near Yavin IV, which is actually only a moon of the gas giant Yavin.
- Many weapons use terminology that is not specifically correct. For example, lightsabers aren't specifically shaped like sabers. There are also blaster rifles, which don't have any rifling, nor do turbolasers do not fire true lasers. Ignoring the inherent pseudoscience of the futuristic weaponry, new weapons often sport names that are based on older technology, such as "howitzer" being based after the Czech word for sling.
- Star Destroyers can neither destroy stars nor qualify as equivalents of naval destroyers, given their sheer size and firepower compared to Rebel ships - they're more akin to battleships or aircraft carriers. Super Star Destroyers are much larger, but still can't destroy stars.
- The Death Star was not a star. It was a space station. It also didn't bring death to any stars; it was "only" capable of destroying planets. Calling it a "space station" (or "battle station") is itself Non-Indicative, since "station" indicates that it stays in one place, or at least moves in one orbit.
In the movie Revolver, none of the guns are revolvers and nothing rotates.
In Kill Bill 2, Bill comments that there weren't 88 members of the Crazy 88; they just called themselves that "because it sounded cool".
This exchange in True Lies:

Faisil: They call him the "Sand Spider".
Trilby: Why?
Faisil: Probably because it sounds scary.

Zombi 2 (known in America as Zombie, known in some other places as Zombie Flesh Eaters) is not the second "Zombi" film, but the first in its series. Romero's Dawn of the Dead was released in Europe under the title Zombi, and Italian director Lucio Fulci decided to capitalize on its success by falsely claiming that his film was actually a sequel or prequel.
Zombie Holocaust was released in some places under the title Zombi3, trying to do to Fulci what Fulci did to Romero. In other places, including America, it was released under the title Dr. Butcher M.D., Medical Deviate. There isn't a character named Dr. Butcher in the film, and the evil Doctor character only shows up in the finale of the film. Even the titles Zombi 3 D and Zombie Holocaust are rather inaccurate: the film is predominantly about living cannibals, while zombies only show up for small portions of the tale.
Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror only took place over the course of one night.
In Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Abbott and Costello go ... to Venus, even though they were supposed to go to Mars. This is an entirely normal sort of event for them (although they normally are Exactly What It Says on the Tin).
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Apparently Chick Young and Wilbur Gray Meet Dracula, The Wolfman, and Frankenstein's Monster just wasn't a catchy enough title.
Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory. The werewolf never actually gets into the dormitory, and mostly just wanders around the grounds.
Krakatoa, East of Java. Krakatoa is, in fact, West of Java, but they wanted a more exotic-sounding title.
There are three unrelated films called Madhouse, only one of which is actually set in a mental institution. The 1990 John Larroquette and Kirstie Alley film is about a house being overrun by uninvited guests that could figuratively be called a "madhouse". In the 1974 Vincent Price film, it's a plot point that Price's character was once in a mental institution, but no scenes actually take place there.^[context?]
- The Vincent Price one was originally going to be called The Revenge Of Dr. Death or The Return of Dr. Death, both of which would have been more descriptive of the plot, but the producers thought it would be mistaken for a sequel; It didn't help that there had been a recent film called Dr. Death, Seeker of Souls either.
Flash Gordon does not, in fact, conquer the universe in the serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.
Frankenstein does not conquer the world in Frankenstein Conquers the World.
Teenage Zombies doesn't feature any zombies, and has a cast of "teenagers" that look to be days away from a midlife crisis.
The Man With Two Heads only has one head. It's an adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Legend of the Dinosaurs doesn't technically feature any dinosaurs - only a plesiosaur and a pterosaur.
The Losers Club from It. While victory clearly didn't come without cost, Pennywise - not them - was the story's overall loser.
The classic Frank Capra romantic comedy It Happened One Night takes place over several nights, and no one of them is more significant to the plot than any other.
Fargo has one scene set in Fargo, North Dakota. The rest of it takes place in Minnesota.
In Chinatown, only the very last scene takes place in that neighborhood of Los Angeles. However, Gittes does use Chinatown as a metaphor a few times.
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Eddie Valiant initially assumes (logically enough) that Jessica Rabbit, married to the eponymous hero, is in fact a rabbit. Then he sees her, and discovers that she certainly isn't.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets actually centers on finding a lost city of gold. The Book of Secrets is only a single road sign on the way to it. To put things in perspective, this is like giving the first movie the subtitle of "Ben Franklin's Letters".
Bobby Fischer never appears in Searching for Bobby Fischer. In fact, nobody really searches for him in the film - rather, they search for another chess prodigy like Bobby Fischer.
Haunted Honeymoon: The characters are not on their honeymoon. They're not even married yet.
The Dead Are Alive does not feature any undead, despite all the film's advertising trying to convince viewers otherwise. The film actually is a proto-Giallo with characters being offed by a very human killer. In fact, the main character specifically dismisses the possibility of the dead being alive within the first 15 minutes of the movie.
Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Is he a cable guy or a health inspector?
In Love and Death, Old Nehampkin is younger than Young Nehampkin. Woody Allen's character lampshades it while delirious later in the movie.
Frankenstein's Bloody Terror is about... werewolves. Fighting vampires. This is actually Hand Waved in the prologue, which explains that the family of werewolves that in the film is actually descended from the Frankenstein family. The reasons behind the title change are more interesting than the actual film: The US distributor promised theaters a Frankenstein picture, but ran out of money midway through production. In desperation, they acquired the rights to an unrelated Spanish picture called Mark of the Wolf Man, added the aforementioned prologue, and released it hoping that no one would notice.
Guess what doesn't happen in Toga Party.
Meatcleaver Massacre has nary a meat cleaver in sight.
At no point during Help Me, I'm Possessed is anyone possessed.
When American International Pictures picked up Jess Franco's Witch Hunt opus The Bloody Judge for American distribution, they re-titled it as Night of the Blood Monster and printed up posters featuring a suitably horrific "Blood Monster" that naturally never appears in the movie itself.
Future War. Take a wild guess as to whether or not it takes place in the future. Now take another wild guess as to whether or not it's about a war.
There are no mentions of any prophecies in Prophecy.
Blue Monkey was originally titled Green Monkey]', even though there's no monkey of either color in the film.
In both House of the Dead movies, the first one has a house that's actually a small shack, while the second has an entire college campus.
Clash of the Titans does not in fact involve any Titans, clashing or otherwise. Their existence is acknowledged in the backstory, but by the time the plot starts they've all been defeated - though it incorrectly refers to a Gorgon's head being used to fight a sea monster as "a titan against another titan".
In How to Train Your Dragon, the dragon Toothless has teeth - being retractable, they're mostly hidden, and show up when he eats or attacks. Hiccup meanwhile doesn't actually suffer from the hiccups, and his father Stoick is not The Stoic.
The doctor in The Blood Waters of Dr. Z does not have a Z anywhere in his last name.
There are no zombies in Zombie Island Massacre.
At the end of The Night The World Exploded, the Earth remains intact and unexploded.
There are no dinosaurs (or any other prehistoric beasts, for that matter) in Massacre In Dinosaur Valley.
In the Friday the 13th franchise, Jason is not shown at any point to be in Hell.
The Pink Panther movies are not about a feline, but the "Pink Panther" diamond that plays a major role in some (but not all) of the films. The cartoon panther that originally appeared in the first film's credits, also called The Pink Panther, took on a life of its own as a TV cartoon and advertising mascot.
Assault on Precinct 13 actually takes place in "Precinct 9, Division 13." The title was chosen by the film's distributor, who thought "Precinct 13" sounded cool and ominous.
Naked Lunch. "I can think of at least two things wrong with that title".
The Barbarian Invasions is not a Conan the Barbarian-ripoff, but a story about French Canadian intellectuals talking about sex, aging and politics. Its predecessor The Decline Of The American Empire is more of the same.
The Swedish movie November 30 actually takes place around June 6, the National Day of Sweden. The title comes from the fact that its theme is neo-Nazism and November 30 is a date when Swedish neo-Nazis often march to commemorate the death of king Charles XII.
Witchfinder General was also released as The Conqueror Worm, despite having little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe poem, although a portion of it is recited toward the movie's end. Vincent Price was in it, so presumably it was titled that way to attract fans of all the Roger Corman-directed Poe adaptations he'd starred in.
Mr. Green in Clue. All of the other guests have Meaningful Names that reflect their appearance or attire, but Mr. Green does not wear green or have green eyes or hair. In some versions of the film, he's under an assumed identity, and therefore a "plant" - plants are often green.
The sequel to The Blair Witch Project was called Book of Shadows, even though there was no such mention of any Book of Shadows in the film.
Musa, called The Warrior in English, is not about one specific warrior. It has an ensemble cast, with three characters that more or less share the main spotlight.
The Terry Gilliam movie Brazil does not have a single scene set in Brazil, nor is the country relevant to the plot in any way or even mentioned once. An old song titled "Brazil" is played throughout, perhaps because its romantic imagery provides a thematic counterpoint to the bureaucratic police state in which the story takes place.
In Airheads, Chazz's rock band has three members and is called The Lone Rangers. Ian the DJ points out that they would more accurately be called The Three Rangers.
Furry Vengeance has nothing to do with the Furry Fandom, and it doesn't even feature anthropomorphic characters.
The Room is not about a room. It does have a great many scenes taking place in Johnny's apartment, but it is not the focus of the film at all. If you take director/writer/star Tommy Wiseau's word for it, it's about Johnny's Happy Place, but even that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Street Fighter has plenty of fights and fighters, but no street fights.
Laura Hasn't Slept; the Cruel Twist Ending of this horror movie is that not only has Laura slept, she's been asleep through the entire movie, the whole story occurs in a nightmare she is having.
Zigzagged with The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Animal lovers will be glad to know that no deer were harmed in this critically acclaimed psychological horror film; the title is an analogy for the Greek myth where Artemis curses Agamemnon for killing a deer that her followers hold sacred - those who are familiar with the myth will see the point when watching the movie.
The Femme Five, an all-woman superhero team from The Specials, of which there are eight members. ("Traditional counting is an oppressive patriarchal tool.")

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