Introduction
Many people watch a movie and don't really care about things making sense in a story/plot, for example, one time I was talking about the BBC TV Series Merlin with somebody, I was saying there was so much irrationality going on in there and I used one episode to give an example of the irrationality. In that episode a witch wanted to kill the King and his son, the witch could teleport and all but instead of teleporting to their backs and stabbing them she rather teleported to the back of a singer, stabbed her, changed her form to look exactly like the singer and went to the palace to sing.
In the palace, she sang a song that made everyone including the king and prince fall asleep. When they all fell asleep she now brought out her knife to stab them. What rubbish? The person laughed and told me I was thinking too much, and that I should just enjoy the movie. And in my time I've met many people who are like this person too, a logical plot is not so important to them.
But for me it is and I'm sure there are a lot of people like me too and others who enjoy fishing out plot flaws and talking about them. So here we go!
By the way:
I've just written a novella called Professor Otagburuagu, It promises to be thoroughly entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Written by myself and illustrated by Scandinavian artist @katharsisdrill. You can get it from me for just 4 HBD. I'm counting on your patronage, thank you!
Beast
Beast, starring Idris Elba was a good movie. I just watched it yesterday. The graphics and visuals were great. The acting, the storyline was good, too. The soundtrack wasn't really impressive but not poor in any way either. In general, I enjoyed the movie (even though it's just an above-average movie) but as usual when I talk about plot flaws there's something the logical part of me could not just stomach.
It was just one thing, though, in the entire movie, and being such an expert at fishing out plot flaws the fact that I found only one is a great feat for this movie.
Although, I'll prefer zero flaws, thank you 🤗.
So, the flaw was this part of the movie:
After Uncle Martin was attacked by the rogue lion, couldn't leave the forest, and the lion went on to attack Idris Elba and the girls who were in the car. After the girl took the wheel and drove them almost off a small cliff. While the car hung at the edge of the cliff Elba got on top with a tranquillizer gun and was trying to find the lion. As soon as he located a landmark that could give pointers as to where the lion might come from, his older daughter came out from the car and said she was going to go find Uncle Martin and rescue him.
That right there is the flaw. The action of coming out to go find uncle Martin was not logical in any way. Hear me out, I know people in real life do not always do logical things and that people can be surprisingly stupid/stubborn sometimes but when you bring that to a movie it has to be in such a way that it doesn't look/feel off. It has to be believable. It has to be in a way that doesn't seem like the writer just brought it up to keep the story going.
In this case, there is a lion on the loose, the girls are in the quasi-safety of the car, the dad is on top of the car trying to find the lion with a tranquillizer gun, he needed a clue as to where the lion would come from but as soon as he found the clue the girl decides to head to that clue herself? Sounds too unbelievable to be tolerated, and only comes off as a clumsy attempt by the writer to further the plot.
Because as soon as she went out, she distracted her dad, the lion came from a different direction and ruined the plans of shooting the lion with the tranquillizer, therefore leaving the lion on the loose to continue being the conflict in the movie. Keeping this conflict was the goal and the writer should have gone about it in a more believable way.
A young girl, all of a sudden heading out to the exact place the threat is supposed to come from at a time when her dad was doing something about it and seemingly had the situation under control, at a time when everyone was scared/tensed, at a time when going out to get Uncle Martin was not a pressing need but a need that would be fulfilled soon after the lion is shot. And this fulfilment would clearly be ruined if she steps out 🤦♂️. So why?
I think you get it by now.
The girl was quite stubborn and erratic but nothing on this scale. If you want to make a character do something so stupid and unbelievable, the way to do it is to establish that this is an irrational character that can go from 0 to 100 in no time. The writers failed to do that or rationalise this in any way and this is the flaw.
Finally, this was the only flaw that matters. Apart from this I have nothing against the movie, maybe you've watched it and you saw something else? What do you have to say about what I've said myself?
The End
Hi there, my novella Professor Otagburuagu just got published this month. It promises to be thoroughly entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Written by myself and illustrated by Scandinavian artist @katharsisdrill. You can get it from me for just 4 HBD. I'm counting on your patronage, thank you!