- 5/18/2025
From creating dinosaurs to trusting robots, sci-fi films are full of face-palm moments! Join us as we count down the most illogical decisions that left audiences screaming at their screens. These aren't just minor slip-ups—they're the catastrophic choices that launched franchises, doomed humanity, and made us wonder if anyone in these movies has common sense!
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00:01Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the Top 20 Stupidest Decisions
00:13or Worst Calls in Sci-Fi Movies.
00:16Take this as your spoiler alert.
00:22John Woo's face-swapping thriller is a wild ride that pits Nicolas Cage and John Travolta
00:36in a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game.
00:39While the film's high-octane energy is undeniable, some moments are just plain ridiculous.
00:43A glaring example, a known terrorist like Castor is left in a coma without heavy security.
00:57He wakes up, realises his face is gone, forces the doctor to change his face, tortures a lab
01:02and just strolls out with his gang.
01:04How does a dangerous criminal, supposedly under the FBI's watch, manage to escape so easily?
01:09The only answer is that Logic had to take a backseat for the face-swapping twist to unfold.
01:14While it makes the story work, it's still one of the film's massive plot holes.
01:29This thought-provoking gem blew our minds, but it also made some questionable choices.
01:34Now, the whole mission boiled down to sending the quantum data to save humanity, right?
01:38Cooper ends up in a dimension where he can somehow communicate with his daughter, Murph,
01:42through time.
01:49With the data within his grasp, all he had to do was send it instantly.
01:52Problem solved.
01:53But no.
01:54Cooper uses Morse code to send it bit by bit through Murph's old watch.
01:59Wasn't there a more efficient method to transmit it all at once?
02:01What if Murph never looked for this watch?
02:03Humanity's fate resting on a forgotten timepiece feels insane.
02:06But hey, a father's love for his daughter transcends all, even logic.
02:15Yonah blowing up a bomb on a train in a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer.
02:28In this post-apocalyptic tale, most of Earth is an icy wasteland.
02:32The only way to survive is to stay on a constantly moving train.
02:35Step outside, and you're toast.
02:37Well, more like a popsicle.
02:38It's wild that Yonah, Nam-Goon Min-Soo's daughter, decides to light a bomb inside the
02:43very thing keeping everyone alive.
02:46But let's rewind a bit.
02:51When a rebellion breaks out, Yonah and her father are all in.
02:54Their brilliant plan to escape Wilford's unfair system?
02:57Blow a hole in the train, and take their chances outside.
03:00So, they'd rather gamble with the frozen death trap that is Earth than deal with Snowpiercer's
03:05harsh reality?
03:06Risking everyone's life for a maybe?
03:08Yeah.
03:09It's just bold, it's borderline stupid.
03:30In Stanley Kubrick's classic sci-fi, Man evolves from using crude tools to building high-tech
03:35AI's.
03:36Fast forward to space exploration, and the big idea is to hand the mission over to an
03:40intelligent, human-like computer named HAL.
03:43I mean, what could go wrong?
03:45HAL isn't just a helpful assistant, he's the brain of the ship, chatting with the crew
03:48like he's one of them.
03:53But here's the kicker, HAL was trusted with classified info that the astronauts weren't
04:01even allowed to know.
04:02Since he was programmed to never lie, but also conceal the mission's true nature, HAL decides
04:07to murder the crew.
04:09This is what scientists trusted completely?
04:11He may have been smart, but he certainly wasn't as wise as humans.
04:30When Indiana Jones runs away from the rolling boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, there's
04:34only one way to run, forward.
04:36Viewers slap their foreheads in unison when archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw and mission director
04:40Meredith Vigors took the same approach to escape the thin disk of a falling alien spacecraft,
04:46running straight ahead in an open area that offers them a pretty simple solution to their
04:50problem.
04:57Just turn left, or right, anything really.
05:00Shaw at least eventually thinks things through, diving sideways and out of the way.
05:04Vigors?
05:05Not so much.
05:06Underestimating the bugs, starship troopers.
05:18In this alien flick, humans aren't the good guys, they're more like the problem.
05:22Driven by a thirst for galactic domination, the United Citizen Federation picks a fight with
05:27a colony of giant arachnids.
05:29Believing these insects are nothing less than mindless beasts, humans grossly underestimate
05:33them.
05:34Big mistake.
05:42Rico and his team are deployed to invade the bugs' home planet, only to painfully discover
05:47that these so-called beasts are way more advanced than anyone thought.
05:51Also, while humans arrogantly assumed they had the upper hand, their error in judgement led
05:56to devastating losses.
05:57What a huge reality check.
05:59This oversight will make more sense when you understand the symbolic meaning behind Paul
06:03Verhoeven's satire.
06:18Christopher Nolan's mind-bending movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dominic Cobb, an extractor
06:23hired to implant an idea into a target's subconscious.
06:26It's essentially a heist movie, which means every aspect of the mission has to be meticulously
06:31planned.
06:32Along the way, Cobb makes a poor decision.
06:34He fails to inform his team that dying in a dream while under Yusuf's sedative sends
06:38you into a limbo.
06:48The limbo isn't a place anyone wants to be, because you lose all sense of reality.
06:52So why wait until they're already in Fisher's dream and Sato's been shot to drop that bombshell?
06:57I don't know.
06:58Whether it's a strategic or careless choice, it paints Cobb as less of a genius and more
07:02of a reckless gambler.
07:26Anakin Skywalker started as a talented child slave, dreaming of freedom and helping others.
07:30But he would go on to become Darth Vader, the terrifying enforcer who hunted Jedi and
07:35butchered younglings.
07:36But hey, who knew this was bound to happen?
07:39Well, Qui-Gon Jinn and the Jedi Council.
07:49While Qui-Gon thought Anakin was the chosen one, the Council sensed the darkness in him,
07:52and rejected the idea of training him as a Jedi.
07:55Qui-Gon, ever the rebel, went ahead anyway.
07:58We all know how that not-so-very-smart decision changed everything for the worse.
08:02Of course, many factors fueled Anakin's dissent, but maybe, just maybe, if Qui-Gon had listened
08:07to the Council, things wouldn't have gone so epically wrong.
08:22For the sake of sequels and more sequels, many questionable decisions have made it to the
08:27big screen.
08:28Anyone who's seen the 2018 installment of Jurassic Park already knows where this is going.
08:32The film's packed with some ridiculous concepts, like dinosaurs being weaponized by hostile
08:37nations.
08:38But the moment that takes the cake is Maisie releasing the caged dinosaurs to spare them
08:42from a gas leak.
08:49I mean, it's just nuts.
08:50Choosing to prevent a dino genocide so that more humans can die?
08:53Talk about screwing the entire ecosystem for a noble cause.
08:57It's more than just Maisie's bleeding heart at play here.
09:00With the dinosaurs roaming wild, one thing's bound to happen.
09:03A sequel nobody asked for.
09:22This Tom Cruise-led action movie begins like your typical alien invasion flick, with soldiers
09:27battling creepy extraterrestrials.
09:29Except, this time, a time loop comes into play and changes everything.
09:33Now, this is where the film's dumbest mistake also lies.
09:36Cage gets the ability to relive the same day like the Mimics, which should have been an
09:40advantage for humans.
09:44Sure, he learned something new with each reset, but he was forgetting one thing.
09:57Documenting them.
09:58Without some sort of map or detailed plan, he was relying purely on his memory.
10:03A simple record could have led to an early victory.
10:06Gamers totally get this.
10:07It's like playing a game with no save points.
10:09One mistake, and it's back to square one.
10:26When an asteroid the size of Texas hurtles toward Earth, who does NASA send into space
10:30to blow it up?
10:32Astronauts or deep-sea drill operators?
10:34Well, to be fair, one of the drillers is Bruce Willis.
10:37While it would have been way easier to teach astronauts to drill than teach drillers to
10:41navigate space, this premise does allow for a pretty entertaining training montage, which
10:45includes a Michael Clarke Duncan dance and strip scene.
10:52Nonetheless, even Ben Affleck questioned the film's logic.
10:57Michael Bay's answer?
10:58Shut up.
10:59But how about this?
11:00Why does the grumpy Colonel character bring a gun on board?
11:03On the pluff side, NASA actually screens the movie in their management training program,
11:07because it contains 168 errors about space.
11:15Let's be honest, Emma Russell is easily one of the most annoying characters in the Godzilla
11:32franchise.
11:33The film begins with her and her daughter getting kidnapped by an eco-terrorist to unleash the
11:37titans.
11:38At this point, you might think she's doing what she must to survive, until you learn she's
11:42secretly working with the terrorist.
11:55Her motivation for this?
11:56Completely bonkers.
11:57According to Emma's ideology, humans are the infection, and her brilliant solution is
12:01to unleash giant monsters that will wipe us out.
12:04To heal the world, she's going to bring an even bigger plague?
12:07It's baffling, especially since she lost her son in a titan attack.
12:11For such a smart scientist, Emma's logic is painfully flawed.
12:17Robots fascinate, enchant, and… seduce?
12:32In Alex Garland's debut indie hit, computer programmer Caleb Smith wins a competition to
12:37evaluate a humanoid artificial intelligence who happens to look pretty good in Mesh.
12:53Ava isn't the first sexy robot to hit the screen.
12:56Remember Zora from Blade Runner, or Gigolo Joe from AI?
12:59However, Ava might be the most dangerous.
13:02When Caleb falls for her, he finds himself in a battle of wits with her creator.
13:05But who's really testing whom?
13:07And how smart is it to fall in love with a super-intelligent machine that can predict
13:11your every move?
13:13Not very.
13:16When it comes to dangerous experiments in movies, that warning light or slip-up probably
13:32means something pretty bad.
13:34Seeking to cure his father's Alzheimer's, scientist Will Rodman discovers a viral drug
13:39that inadvertently increases the intelligence of chimpanzees.
13:42When Will adopts orphaned chimp Caesar as his own, everything is hunky-dory, until Caesar begins
13:47to realize how humans treat animals.
13:50But the real mistake here isn't boosting Caesar's intelligence.
13:56It's when the team doesn't make a big enough deal of the fact that Franklin's mask
14:00was knocked off during the ALZ-113 experiment, leading to an infection that ultimately destroys
14:05human civilization, and paves the way for Caesar's takeover.
14:17Time travel's tricky.
14:27Change one little thing and the whole future could unravel.
14:30Marty McFly learns that lesson the hard way when he's almost erased from existence in the
14:34original movie.
14:35Yet, when he and Doc Brown travel to the distant future of 2015, Marty recklessly purchase a
14:41sports almanac to get rich quick upon his return to 1985.
14:54Of course, the time travelers fail to notice Marty's arch-nemesis Biff Tannen listening in,
14:59and then fail to notice him following them, then fail to close the damn doors on the DeLorean,
15:04giving old Biff the chance to give the almanac to his younger self.
15:07The result is alternate 1985 Hell Valley, where Biff is not only powerful, but also married
15:12to Marty's mother.
15:14The first thing that I'm going to do when I get back is to get some decent food.
15:29Ridley Scott has earned his reputation as a legendary director, but he receives a second
15:33mention here for his horror masterpiece, Alien.
15:36The crew of the Nostromo makes a fatal mistake when crew member Kane returns from exploring
15:41a mysterious planetoid with an alien organism attached to his face.
15:52Warrant officer and general badass Ellen Ripley refuses to let him inside, citing quarantine
15:57laws.
15:58She is overruled, however, and then apparently forgets her concerns when the organism falls
16:03off of its own accord, leading to one of the most famous meal times in movie history.
16:23Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, and sometimes it involves an apocalyptic rage virus that will
16:27end human life as we know it.
16:29In Zombie's attack, Don Harris, a survivor of the original outbreak seen in 28 Days
16:34Later, abandoned his wife and runs for the hills.
16:37Hey, it's until death do us part.
16:39Not un-death.
16:40Still, his betrayal is pretty crappy, and in order to ease his guilt, he sneaks into his
16:44now-infected wife's isolation cell to beg for forgiveness.
16:53They seal their love with a kiss.
16:55I mean, couldn't they have just, I dunno, shaken hands?
16:59This gives Don the worst STI ever.
17:02And now a rage-filled zombie, he goes on a murderous rampage through the former safe zone
17:06of District 1.
17:23If science fiction has taught us anything, it's not to trust super-intelligent computers.
17:27In addition to HAL, remember the master control program in Tron?
17:30And then there was Skynet, of course.
17:32The primary antagonist of the Terminator franchise, Skynet is an artificial intelligence developed
17:37by the US military, and it's given control of military defense systems, including nuclear
17:42weapons.
17:43But, surprise surprise, sometime in the future, Skynet becomes too smart, and in order to
17:56preserve itself and the world, decides to wipe out humanity.
18:01Then a bunch of stuff happens and Arnold Schwarzenegger arrives naked at a biker bar.
18:05Let's take our word for it, trusting the robots was a bad plan.
18:28The Death Star is a megastructure of death and destruction, the size of a small moon,
18:32with one fatal flaw.
18:34The Empire rules millions of civilized planets, has unlimited resources, and access to the
18:39greatest minds in the galaxy.
18:41Drawing on these assets, the Emperor decides to construct the most powerful weapon of mass
18:45destruction the universe has ever known.
18:47There's just one problem.
18:57This massive armoured space station has a little hole on its surface that leads straight down
19:02to a reactor core, shoot a torpedo in there, and boom.
19:05So how could a methodical organisation make such a dumb decision?
19:09This was such a big boo-boo that they basically devoted an entire movie to explaining why it
19:14happened.
19:15But hey, at least we got Rogue One out of it.
19:21Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
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19:35This 90's blockbuster delivers a memorable, gripping adventure.
19:55But let's be real, none of it would have worked if dinosaurs weren't in the mix.
19:59John Hammond builds a theme park full of them.
20:01Things go awry when the disgruntled Nedry steals embryos.
20:05Shutting down security in a park full of such dangerous creatures, that's reckless beyond
20:09belief.
20:10But the whole idea of cloning dinosaurs was doomed from the start.
20:16Hammond, too busy playing God, chose not to notice how huge a risk it was.
20:24It pretty much opened the floodgates for other dumb decisions in this franchise.
20:28I mean, they never learn.
20:30Even in the 1997 sequel, they actually bring rampaging dinos from a remote island.
20:34So, what's the dumbest decision you've ever come across in a science fiction movie?
20:46Let us know in the comments section.
20:47Well, I don't think there is any question about it.
20:51It can only be attributable to human error.
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