6 Magical Movie Items They Wasted on Bullshit
What would you do if you found a magical object that could instantly create anything you asked for? Or a clock that could stop time?
This is the type of thing that comes up in movies all the time. And for the most part, what the characters choose to do makes no freaking sense. Just look at how they used...
Tesla's Anything Copier (The Prestige)
The Item:
In the surprisingly awesome non-Batman Nolan movie, The Prestige, David Bowie invents a teleportation machine for Wolverine because he thinks Batman killed his wife. In a shocking twist, it turns out the Teslaporter works sort of like a fax machine: It doesn't send the user from one place to another, but rather makes copies of him. The bonus here is that you have no way of telling who the original is.
Gollum, Bowie and Wolverine demonstrate what a good idea looks like visually.
The Usage:
Jackman's idea was quite simple. Use the machine to perform a magic trick, and sell tickets to make a nice living. Of course the Jackman copies had to be killed by rigging a water tank under the receiving end of the machine so that a clone would appear into the world, presumably with all of the original's memories, and immediately die a horrifying, drowning death.
His plan was to repeat this existential nightmare a couple dozen times in hopes of luring Christian Bale backstage, frame him for murder and possibly molest his daughter in the future.
"Hocus pocus? More like Hocus poke-her! And by her I mean Christian Bale's daughter. And by poke, I mean euphemist-"
"Just shut up."
"Yeah."
What It Should Have Been Used For:
Hey, how about putting a slab of gold in that machine and becoming an instant billionaire? Yes, it can clone inanimate objects--the first thing we see it copy is hats. Then he could bribe the right people and wham, Bale will be having his bat-anus stretched in prison before dinner.
Good lord, this is the early 1900s we're talking about. In those days, magicians were below dung collecting pedophiles in the social hierarchy. There just had to be better uses for the teleporter besides (possibly) committing clone homo/suicide on stage every night and leaving huge vats of floating evidence behind.
Due to that, Jackman actually plans to destroy the "ungodly" teleporter. No, Hugh, it's a machine that can instantly manufacture anything, using nothing but electricity. It's only "ungodly" when you use it in the most retarded and sadistic way possible, you psychopath.
Use it to multiply food supplies, end the social disparity of 20th century England, fuel the industrial revolution and save the lives of millions of children. If you're not the altruistic type, create a 10-million man army to take over the world. Create your own harem made up of a single woman who loves you thiiiiiiiis much and is very open about 12-somes.
Come on, man, just exhibit SOME thought process beyond that of a boiled carrot.
The Tablet of Akmenrah (Night at the Museum)
The Item:
Used by Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum, the Tablet of Akmenrah is an ancient Egyptian artifact at the Museum of Natural History which grants life to all of the exhibits during the night, with the added bonus of turning them into dust if they venture outside when the Sun comes up. So, basically it's an artifact that turns statues into vampires. Awesome.
The Usage:
With the power of resurrection in his hands, Stiller harnesses the magic of the Vampire Tablet to... hang around and talk to the exhibits? Granted, Teddy Roosevelt was among them and we would all sacrifice our left ball to be in farting distance of the man but... why did they have Robin Williams play him?
You ruined the best president ever, you monster!
What It Should Have Been Used For:
Well, seeing as the Tablet also endows the resurrected exhibits with the personality and memories of the person depicted, it could solve pretty much all of the mysteries of history. Oh, and there's the minor point of being able to resurrect all of the planet's greatest geniuses and putting them to work on today's problems ("Global warming?" asked Roosevelt. "Have you tried ripping its heart out with your bare hands?")
One is left to wonder, what are the limitations here? What about a statue of Jesus? Would it be able to tell us if there's a God? Could we make a new statue, like a hot chick and label it "Hot skank for Internet comedy writers"? Maybe if Stiller stopped playing fetch with the skeleton of a T-Rex we could find out.
We are all about bringing this statue to life.
Stiller's misuse shines even brighter when you consider that the Tablet apparently lets you "walk into" any painting you want, also making it a Time Machine/Teleporter. The possibilities with such a set up are literally endless...
The Item:
Making an appearance in the Nickelodeon movie, Clockstoppers, the hypertime watch is a device which speeds up the molecules of your body to the point where the world around you seems to be standing still. We're pretty sure that would cause you to burst into flames, but, it's a Nickelodeon movie.
The Usage:
Terminator's Kyle Reese plans to use it to usurp the U.S. government. For some reason, Jesse Bradford and that chick from Harold & Kumar think that's a bad thing and try to stop him. Not by using the watch. No, that's reserved for important things, like helping a friend win a DJ competition:
What It Should Have Been Used For:
If you want to take over the U.S., you don't need the hypertime watch to barge into the Oval Office and repaint it with the president's brain matter. Simply pimp it out for commercial gain.
Do anything that isn't this.
How about strapping the watch to the fastest rocket we can come up with and achieve faster than light travel? It'd work, right? The molecules of the ship and astronauts are accelerated while people back home feel time pass normally. You make a 10-year round trip and they think you've only been gone five minutes. Wait, do you age faster under the influence of the watch? Fine, apply it to crops, grow them to harvest in seconds, end world hunger.
The hypertime watch would be to scientists what a fully functioning Batsuit would be to us: Our wildest wet dream dipped in chocolate cocaine. And they use it at the end of the movie to lose a patrol car...
Universal Remote Control (Click)
The Item:
A magical controller given to Adam Sandler in Click by the Angel of Death himself, Christopher Walken (playing Christopher Walken), the Universal Remote grants you power over the very fabric of the universe. The user is free to manipulate matter and time via typical remote options, like fast forwarding, muting or presumably anything a typical remote can do. Including putting bouncing titties in slow motion:
The Usage:
Sandler uses the remote to fast-forward his life when he gets bored. He forwards his life a couple of months until he gets a promotion, missing out on literally thousands of hours he could have spent boning Kate Beckinsale in a cowboy hat. Though he does pause David Hasselhoff and then farts in his mouth, so it sort of balances out.
What It Should Have Been Used For:
You know what? Screw the remote. We want to use it as an excuse to strike up a chat with Angel Walken. Once again the main character has a link to the afterlife and he uses it for what? To get his life back on track? You self-centered ass. You couldn't spare one minute to talk to Death himself and get answers to questions that have plagued humanity for centuries?
As for the remote itself, hell the language switching feature enough seems to act as a universal translator. That alone would be pretty damned useful.
And whatever combination of pause, and move people around he used for farting in mouths could have made him billions on the stock market with the least bit of imagination. Again, something that could have come in handy seeing as the entire plot of this film was Sandler trying to succeed in his job as an architect. Adam, you can manipulate the universe like it's one big tangle of puppetry. When you are a billionaire, people let you build just about anything you want.
Like a Dildo Tower.
The Item:
Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves equivalent to Google, the Queen's magic mirror was a powerful artifact which housed a spirit who could answer any question, locate any person and, if we understood its nature properly, narrate any erotic novel it was asked about. Holy hell, it really was Google.
The Usage:
Throughout the movie the only question the Queen offers the all-knowing mirror is whether she is pretty, reducing the powerful demon to the medieval equivalent of Hot or Not?
What It Should Have Been Used For:
We're not historical scholars, but back in the Dung Ages didn't you usually have dozens of small time royals crowning themselves kings, reigning over small portions of land and utterly slaughtering the ever loving fuck out of each other whenever a dustbowl caused them to resort to cannibalism?
With a mirror that can see across lands--and especially into other people's houses and toilets--any kingdom which possesses the artifact can more or less take over the world. You ask it where the nearest gold mines are and you mine the shit out of them. You equip your army, double check each decision with the mirror and you march on your enemies. With the spirit calculating weather patterns, strategies and alliances, you quickly find yourself as the unquestionable ruler of an entire continent in no time, free to slaughter any girl who dares to be born with symmetrical features.
Shit, we'd be speaking that kingdom's language today.
And who knows where the boundaries of the mirror end. Does it possess technological knowledge? What if we asked it about the recipe for the cure for cancer, time travel or an immortality pill? Thanks to the Queen's egocentrism we will never know.
The Computer (The Item:
A PC used by characters Wyatt and Gary in Weird Science, backed up with the magic of "the government's mainframe" which the boys totally hacked into with a machine that had less processing power than a modern electric dildo.
They use it to bring to life an all powerful genie by scanning pictures of hot girls and putting bras on their heads.
The Usage:
Out from their computer emerges Lisa, the smoking hot genie with the powers of God, who is used as a plot device to get the boys in a series of typical 80s-movie shenanigans. Ultimately, this results in them dealing with their bullies, getting the girls and developing some self-confidence. All of which could have been easily accomplished if she simply got them a gun.
And the movie kept going after that...?
What It Should Have Been Used For:
It is true that Lisa was not a very compliant all-powerful genie; but that's solely because Gary and Wyatt "fed her the data" of David Lee Roth--a move which, like David's choice of clothing, probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
So forget Lisa. Go hack the shit out of the Pentagon's floppy disc... drive... library processor or something again, and create an all new, sexy genie. Only this time, be sure to pump into her the personality of some docile 50s sitcom housewife. After that, the sky's the limit. You've got a damned all-powerful goddess at your side.
With your walking, giant "Fuck You!" to the Laws of Physics, the power of creation is in the palm of your hand. You can chose to make the world a place free of sickness, poverty and crime, or take over the galaxy and rule it with an iron fist from your Dong Tower on Uranus.... anything besides trying to impress a cheap high school floozy.
It doesn't take more than a mix tape of Julio Iglesias and a bottle of cheap wine to do that.
You can read more from Cezary at DrownYourself.com.
For more terrible movie decisions, check out 6 'Brilliant' Movie Scientists (Who Suck At Their Job) and 7 Classic Star Wars Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball.
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