Some plot twists can elevate a story into a masterpiece, whereas others utterly destroys everything that came before it.
In this humorous episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper compete to come up with the WORST five plot twists ever created.
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Read the full transcript below.
(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).
You're listening to The Am writing Fantasy Podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.
This is episode 149 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And this is the first episode of the month. And we all know what that means. Don't we Autumn?
This one's a challenge where we compete with each other to come up with the worst of something. So these are always kind of fun.
These are my favorite ones and today's top 10 list is the WORST Plot Twists EVER.
Oh gosh. At least I'm not going to give you a plot twist and say what? That's not what I prepared for. So I'm ready. Like I just mentioned to you, I actually was, I thought we were recording this two days ago, so I've been ready for two days. So I've got a good list. I think it'll be fine. It was actually really fun. This one was feeling kind of, I don't know what to come up with. And so I did a little bit of reading and research and started thinking and I'm like, oh yeah, there's some fun ones in this slide. Yeah, I think so too. All mine movies, although I only have two movies, so ha I, I actually tried to stick with books as much as possible, but yeah, two movies snuck in there.
Okay. I know I picked movies on purpose because then I could play some audio clips and I liked those. Lets you do one of these days. I want you to plan ahead and send you some movie, some clips and tell you not to listen to them until you play them. But that's going to be kind of hard cause you have to test them somehow. No, no, that'll be fine. That's fine. I can just click and listen half a second just to see if it plays and then stop it. Okay. One of these days, one of these days I'll really be prepared. It'll be a miracle, but everybody's mind just like my God. Yes, it will be and prepare us.
That'd be fantastic. Just imagine. Anyway, how are things going for you?
I'm pretty busy these days. I just finished up the first draft of book two in our new Sherry's over this last week. So that was good. That's exciting. Yeah, but I'm taking a short break from writing now because I have so much preparation to do for my attempt to become a referee instructor. So that's basically, Yeah, it's taking up so much time. So yeah, just taking a bit of a break between book two and book three in our series a so that will probably be okay. But
I think that is fine since you were so much further ahead of me on the Writing department. I don't mind if you take a little writing break and let me catch up a bit.
No, no, indeed. That's fair enough. And yeah. And, and, and speaking about referee, actually, sometimes it's nice to have a referee at hand because yesterday my youngest son, he was playing a match and then we arrived there and then the coach came over and he said like, well, the referee who was supposed to be here has not shown up. So can you just refereed this match for me? I was like, oh my God. I mean, I don't have any of the clothes on, I don't have whistle. I don't, I didn't have anything because I was not going, I was just going to be spectator.
Right. But, but then of course, I mean, they, they don't have a referee and I was just standing there. So I said, okay, fine. But I don't have any of my things with me. So I'll have to shout instead of blowing the whistle and so on, because that's what you're going to get then. And, and we did then, but that why I'm mentioning it because I was really surprised because these are a 13 year old kits. Yeah. Right. And I'm a bit surprised about how their behavior, you know, that, that they can talk the way they do to adults.
Yeah. Because I don't get, I mean, they, the away team there, they were the players that their 13 year old kids. Right. But they were complaining a lot, like all the time, like, well they've, they felt like the free kick was the wrong way or to the wrong team, or it shouldn't have been a free kick and, or the throw in wasn't in the other direction, in their point of view. And it was just all kinds of things. They complained all the time. And then the one point, like during the second half, I, I started getting a bit annoyed by it. Right. So I, one of the guys, one of the kids then complained again. And I just said to him, like, be quiet and concentrate on playing soccer instead.
And then another teammate of his who was also walking by, he then said, well, we can't concentrate with your round. It took me a bit back. What did these are 13 year old kids talking like that to adults. What's going on? That
That's crazy. That's quite a backtalk man. Yeah.
But I didn't do that when I was 13 years old, no, to an adult? I mean, what's going on?
I don't know. I didn't raise kids so I can not even imagine.
No. But do you remember when were 13 year old? You wouldn't speak like that to an adult, you didn't even know, would you?
No, I usually didn't speak. I had my nose in a book and I was just like, I prefer a silence. I am mute. So no, I would never have spoken to a, an adult with a bit of a snap, not till I was at least 16 or 18 and being snarky.
Yeah, indeed. Yeah. I don't know. I think there's something going, because, and we talked about with some of the parents as well, not, not specifically to refereeing as such, but just in general. How, how the younger generations nowadays, they, they are very like egocentric, you know, they just focus on themselves and their life and they are the ones who are important. And I don't know. It's it's, I I'm, I D I don't like that kind of attitude, I must say. No,
No, I, I respect any parent trying to raise a kid these days. It's, it's, it's a challenge with internet and so many issues. And I just Instagram for kids that they won the launch. I mean, let's just see this hideous. Absolutely. He is.
Yeah, indeed. So, yeah. But how about you? You've been busy as well. I know
I've been working on a portfolio website and, but it was also my husband's birthday. So we went for a hike it's high it's like peak fall colors. The trees are like yellow, and they're just dropping these gentle golden leaves in the sunlight. If it's sunny, this is all for artificial lighting today. It's a kind of a gray day, but other days it's been sunny. It's just, just, you know, in the seventies. So maybe a flannel weather and just absolutely stunningly gorgeous. So I cannot complain. It's, it's always a shame to have to do to computer work on such lovely days, but at least I have a nice view of the forest.
As someone pointed out, I've got a nice view behind me. So, you know, I'm not suffering too badly that way, but yeah, it definitely seems to be a very busy fall, but it was wonderful to take a day off, to go hiking. And we're actually hoping for a bit of a float trip cause he worked as a whitewater raft guide for the summer. So we're hoping to go back and do the same trip together without paying customers just to have fun. And that'll be really kind of nice to get out. So yeah, I think so.
Very cool. And you're also busy editing. I know.
Yes. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Thank you for jogging my memory. I'm so close. I wanted October one. I wanted to be done, but between that fantasy colony, I went to and a birthday celebrations and fueled their little life hip cups. I'm so close. But then I also remember we are, one of our characters is a dwarf and we created this whole speech pattern for how they speak and was like, oh, bugger that I had tried to do it a little bit, but now I've got to go back and double check. So it's like, I have like two, three chapters from the end and also have to go back and do a quick sweep of everywhere the door speaks.
And so it'll probably be at least another week. Yeah, probably another week, but I'm living with it because it's so nice to be like seeing Scribner and you like, you're this, this long we're hitting definitely over 40 chapters, by the way, to see this huge list of Barbados so close. So that does feel very, very good knowing this is the last one, but it's still like, I feel like this is the one that every time I think. All right. I'm oh shoot. I forgot about doing that. It is the never ending story. We're so close though.
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.
So after launching our new critical reading initiative, two weeks back, you can go back and listen to episode 1 47 if you missed it. But we also had to pick the next book to read and their voting already took place on Patrion and also in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group. So if you want to join in, you know where to go, if you want to vote in the future. And we don't know if we're going to keep this upright, I mean, this is was a new initiative we are doing and we will see how much people enjoy it or how much they, they jump on board and participate. And of course, if they don't and we will probably stop it again, at least now we, yeah, at least now we are on the second month.
So at least the second attempt, we'll, we'll just try a bit more. And the voting this time was between the sudden appearance of hope by Claire, north Jade, JTD by finale, or which marked by cl Polk. And we had a pretty clear winner.
Yes we did. I, there was no getting rid of wiggle room in this winter. So we had to go with it. I have to say.
Yeah. So it was a Jade City by Fonda Lee that we, we picked up this time around. So, and of course we already started, you know, the, it was the voting took place like a week ago or maybe over the last two weeks from the time that this episode airs. But of course we still would love you to read along. And this episode where we will analyze JTD will air on the 22nd of November. So by the time you listen to this, if you listen, when this podcast episode releases, you still have a bit of time if you haven't started reading yet. And if we need to give you a bit of incentive, we can say to Jade city is the winner of the world Fantasy award.
It was shortlisted for a Nebula awards, the Lotus award, the Aurora awards, the sunburst awards, and became best book of the month on Amazon. So you might want to check it out.
You might, and if you need more incentive, I've already started reading. I picked it up instead of reading the news, which is horrible. Anyway. So I've been reading a Jade city for my breakfast and lunch breaks and I already 30% in. And I think I only started a couple of days ago. I like it. I really kind of got sucked in. I see a few things. I'm like, well, I don't like how, you know, funded this few point of view things that I'm like, eh, but the story, I don't know, it's totally sucked me in all the characters have pulled me in. And so I'm like, okay, now I've gone from, oh, I've got to read a book.
Where am I going to find the time to, okay, I need more time to read this book. I read this. I even put aside some of my design work last night, cause I needed a mental break from it. Anyway, when you fall asleep too many nights in a row, thinking about the next thing you need to work on, I was like, okay. I took a, an evening off. I read instead and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So I have a feeling I'm going to finish this one probably before the end of the weekend.
Wow. Okay. Yeah. I, I, of course I do audio books because I don't have time to read and I read too slow to read an entire book unless I, well, I could read it in a month, but then I really have to dedicate time to it and I don't have that time. So I do the audio book. I also did that last month, but I, I started listening to it as well. I think I have listened to seven chapters by now. I think I quite like it to so far, I must say, compared to last month book as well, this one is much easier to follow. Yes. You know, there's like the storylines, it's pretty clear. I last the, the one we had last month, it was like listening to the audio books.
Sometimes I had to like rewind or whatever you would call it on the, you know, go back 30 seconds here and there to just listen to it again, because it was, it was a bit complicated. It felt like that at least in the audio book. And sometimes if I wasn't concentrating, I would, I would sort of lose the plot a bit. But, but this one is much, much easier to follow along. I think this one has,
Yeah, I really like it. I think it has a ton of characters at least named characters, but once you kind of absorb them and see which ones are the really important ones, you're like, okay, I'm good. The plots this plot straight forward, even though the point of view change. And yeah, it's just a really fun story. So I'm, I, I do like this one. I can not wait to see what other leaders like think of it as well.
Yeah, exactly. And I'm looking forward to discuss sort of the, all the, all the stuff that was done really well and what we didn't like until I did notice though, in the first seven chapters that there are, she's doing the right thing in terms of sharing world building in the sense that it's characters talking about it. But when I was listening to one of the chapters today, it did sort of rub me the wrong way to like, you know, th th the kind of conversation they were having, it was like a conversation nobody would ever have. Right. They're basically telling each other things that they all, both of them already know, but it was clearly dialogue just to get the billing across to the reader.
And that, that was not too elegant. That, that part. But otherwise, I would say so far, I really like it. Excellent.
So here we go on another competitive list. Oh, no, I hit that one again. Yes, he did. I did that last week as well. You did.
I'm not editing this one out.
No. Now I have to live with it. There is this for listening to, is this like a loop thing you can accidentally hit when you do a sound clip? And last week I hit it and I made Autumn edit it out. But I guess this time I have to live with the fact that it played twice, But okay. Another competitive list where we will try to outdo each other with the best worst list, and you are still competitive in the body. And
That's why this is your favorite. It's not that it's a fun thing to find the worst of something. It's just, you're super competitive. And so you're like, yeah, that's amazing. And I'm like, oh, geez.
I can pick. I do at least a little bit. I am not quite as competitive as you, but I enjoy coming up with the worst ones I can find. So this one was quite fun. And if I remember correctly, I think I went first, last time. So guess who started his,
Ah, didn't you say that again? Last time as well?
Oh, no, I I'm pretty sure. I wouldn't. First listeners will have to tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I went first, unless you want to flip. I was fighting. Do you want me to go? I'm ready? My list is awesome. So if you want me to put the best foot forward, I can decimate you.
I don't mind either way, but I, I will say though that it was actually quite interesting to build this list of plot twists, because I don't know. I really feel like these plot twists when, when I was sort of building the list and looking through this stuff, it's like, if you get the plus plot twist, right, you can really elevate the story into almost a masterpiece. I was about to say, but it can also like orderly destroy everything that came before it, if it's not handled well. And I think that was quite interesting.
And I thought, I thought it was interesting. I don't know if we'll need to define it if we want to define it now, but I noticed how many bad plot twists involved the deuce ex Machina, which is the term for the God in the machine, or when something completely never before seen in the entire novel shows up to save the day. And instead of being the hero and it's like almost all the ones I was finding where that was, what was happening in the readers were like, or the Watchers viewers were like, no, you just ruined the character. Went through all of this effort, everything suffered, nearly died, lost their loved ones. And then something comes out of left field and saves the day And they hate it.
So I think that's going to be my take home. Yeah. That we'll have to see if there's another take-home, but that was definitely the take home I got of this was like, do not do this in your applaud.
Yeah. I think it Dave's ex McKenna, isn't it?
Yeah. I did not take Latin. I took French, So I, that's not how it'd be pronounced in French.
Okay. Fair enough. I didn't take friends, so, and I did not take Latin. So what do I know?
You're just making it up very well. There you
Go. Calm. I'm waking up as I go.
All right. So who's starting, You decide. All right. Well then I'm going to go ahead and start fine. I'll just, I'm just going for it. We got to decide. So are you ready? My number five, which I, I, as you know, I ordered this right before we started recording. Cause I had not done that part. So this is the only one. It is a movie. It's not my only movie, but it's one of two, but it's the only one I have not read or watched. So this is out of the dark, out of the dark by David Weber. And I chose this one to include because I thought it just sounded so crazy. So this is a science fiction novel in which humans are fighting an alien invader on a human colony world that Vader's are too powerful and all seems lost when out of the blow, one of the humans turned out to be wait for it Dracula.
And he single-handedly destroyed the alien invading force by using his vampire powers.
Wait, wait a second. So, so Dracula was part of the story all along and nobody knows. And then all of a sudden he is there, or yes, he just came on on screen. All of a sudden when you needed him,
It turns out he was a character all along. And a lot of people have pointed out that it was very obvious because his name was I'll loop cut because I can't pronounce it. It's Dracula's spell backward is, was his, his name. People are like, oh, it's so obvious. You know, there's these Roman S Scholtz Scholtz soldiers. And there's this, you know, guy who is Dracula spelled backward. Obviously he was there all along, but everyone else said there was absolutely no hint that the guy, this character was a vampire. And it was just so surprising that most readers absolutely found it crazy, just totally out of left field and never saw it coming.
And it ruined the entire story up to that point. They just felt like an entirely different ending than the novel should have had it.
Right. But, and the other thing I don't understand is that he would have known all the time that he has that he's powers and you can just defeat them if he wants to. So has he just been walking around letting them take over like, well, I don't care. I'll deal with it later.
I don't either. I haven't read this one. So I, I can't speak to that, but I was sort of wondering the same thing saying, oh, he was there the whole time. Why was it ever a problem? It'd be like super bad. Like, oh, I can't use my powers. I can't use my, oh fuck.
You can't be bothered humans. You can die. I don't, I can't be bothered today. I'm too tired.
Okay. So I probably will not read this one to find out what really happened, but there you go. That was my number five that I, it just sounded so crazy. I S I always joke. It's one of the examples of like John Rose, smashing you can write anything you want as an Indian indie author. You could have vampires in space. Well, someone has vampires in space. I had to pick this one for the list.
So that, that is so weird. I don't, I'm not familiar with that book, so I don't know, but it sounds really weird. And I'm just wondering how, how the entire characterization of Dracula throughout the book, how that even works, because unless he he's like a very minor character and you almost don't see him, and then all of a sudden he walks onto the scene when you need him in the end. I mean, that even that is annoying too, but if he's part of the story throughout, then it makes even less sense to me,
Just from the little bit I read, I think he was one of the main characters. He was very important, so
But there you go. Bad plot twists your turn.
Yeah. That's a, that's a pretty bad, bad product choice for sure. Dracula. Okay. Well, my online five examples on my list are movies, as I said, and I have audio clips for all of them, of course, just because I think it's fun. Not because I think you can guess all of them, but I'm going to make you try anyway, just because of like, I like tormenting, you like that.
You too. All right, let's go for it. Get the torture going.
Okay. So my number five is an example of what I earlier about the ending, destroying everything that came before it. Yes, because I actually quite liked the premise of this movie. And I also remember watching it, that it had me hooked as well. Okay. That was until the end of course. And I have a short audio clip here. So it might reveal which movie it is. This was, this is one of the ones that you might be able to guess if you at least are familiar with the movie, otherwise you can probably not get it, but maybe the listeners can, but let me play the audio clip and then you can see if you can guess it.
Okay. You ready? Yep. Let's go.
I've never watched this movie. I'm guessing it was called 23, but I have no idea.
Yeah. It's called the number 23. That's correct.
At least I guessed right. So, what's this about?
So this is a thriller with a Jim Carey where he's character gets a book called. The book is called the number 23. He gets it as a person from his wife. You could hear that in the audio clip, which she says that I'm going to get this for you. So that's a book she buys to him for him. And he starts completely obsessing about this number 23. Like he sees it everywhere and he can constantly see things that makes connections to becoming 23, adding things together becomes 23. It's just all the time, everything. And in this book that he, his wife bought him, the chapter 23 is missing as well.
So everything sounds pretty interesting so far, right? There's something going on. That's kind of fun. All right. Yeah. And it also had me pretty entertained. I actually quite liked it, but then it turns out the plot twist comes onto the stage now. And the mission chapter 23 explains that a girl was murdered and Jim character character, the main character was actually the one who did the killing. And then you learn that he wrote the book himself, but he has no memory of it because he gave himself a head injury. So he would forget the murder.
He had an injury. I mean, talk about a skilled head injury. I
Want to forget this bang.
Yeah. That, that in itself is pretty lame. But the fact is also that once that reveals come, once you get that reveal, the movie spends like half an hour trying to, you know, come up with the explanation for everything that you've seen and how it all fits together. It just keeps explaining all kinds of it's like, they're trying to justify how everything makes perfect sense. And it's just like the last half an hour. It's just a nightmare up until that point. It's actually pretty interesting. And then it gets destroyed completely.
Yeah. It sounds that way. I mean, they could have make it significant, make it someone else who did, I don't know, make it a mystery, not explain it and then have to explain everything. And just as I say, beat a dead horse, I mean, it just sounds like, okay, moving on. I don't really need to know that
It was, and it was a real shame because I, I liked the movie. And then when it gets destroyed in the end, it's a bit like, dammit,
Why couldn't they actually plot? This sounds. Yeah, you're right. Because up until that point, it's like, everything's adding up. It's like, you know, the number 42 is the meaning of life. You know, there's something important going on here with 23 and yeah, it's actually, he's a homicidal maniac that gave himself a head injury.
Yeah. And also why, I mean, I, yeah, it makes no sense.
I, is that your way of feeling regret to like bash yourself in the head? Why, why would you have written a book and then you should have brought the book and then hit yourself in the head and then there'd be no evidence you would have forgotten.
And why would you walk into a store and find your own book? And your wife accidentally buys it to you for you? It's like, okay. Yeah. That's a coincidence. Yeah. I
And name. Yeah. There you go. Oh, well,
Yeah. Okay. All right. But that's my number five. It was not Dracula, but I still feel like it was pretty shitty,
So, so pretty bad. I will not strike that one from my watch list. All right. So my number four and I was, I think I mentioned said my number five out of the dark was a movie. I was wrong. Sorry. That one was actually a book, but my number four is a movie. I don't know if you've seen this one, but it's a superhero movie. So you'll probably have it. It's not superhero. Movies are not your favorite, but as Hancock. And that actually starts will Smith. Yeah. So, yeah. So if it's the one
Where he, he can fly or something, right?
Yes, yes. And it sort of starts out the same way he wakes up in the hospital. He has no memory of who he was, but he's has these amazing powers. So he becomes a superhero, but this woman that, you know, he's interested in, but it's like, whenever they're together, she's the villain. She is the arch villain in the story. But then, you know, it starts like, you know, it sounds like this beginning of a superhero story, like this is the B the Genesis of a superhero and there's this evil villain. It's perfect. But that's the twist. The twist is with like no setup, nothing. It's just suddenly revealed that they're both gods and the previous it's just there.
And she's not really a villain. She's more like his kryptonite. And if they're at the same place at the same time, bad stuff happens. But truly they love each other. And there used to be two other gods and they basically annihilated each other because of the same thing. They loved each other, but they can't be together because if they're together, they destroy things, things just blow up around them. And as most people who watched the movie have said that, it just feels like you're watching a superhero movie. And then there's this switch. Like someone else wrote the completely different movie ending. And now they're instead of superheroes they're gods and he's got his memory back and they're basically trying to come up with some resolution where they both get halves of the planet. So they don't cross paths.
I'm not explaining it as well as it's confusing as it is, but it goes from superhero movie to God movie, God, and God.
Yeah. You lost me a bit there halfway. I think it was complicated enough that even the explanation confused me
And that's just, it, it feels like it could have been you to stick to the superhero, just stick to superheroes. You wouldn't need to suddenly say that the superheroes are really gone well. Yeah. That's, that's fine. You know, whatever all the way through I have. And at the time I didn't really notice it. I'm like, okay, that's just a weird twist. And now it doesn't surprise me that, you know, will Smith tends to get movies where it's, it doesn't surprise me where the villain is actually not a villain. It's just a misunderstood character. That's very will Smith. So that doesn't surprise me so much, but it was kind of like will Smith on my list. Oh, that's too funny. I wonder if it's, there was a one I almost selected that I would call a rum runner up for this list.
So I'll have to see if it's the one you chose be interesting. But yeah, I, it was one of those ones where it was a perfectly good superhero, fun movie. Why, why, what happened to him that he lost his memory? Who is this other character? Who's sort of not even a huge character for awhile, but as the villain ish one and what what's going on. And then to find out, you know, boom is just like drop reveal. Oh, you're both gods. Oh, this is what's really going on. Oh, here's your memory back? Oh, there's these friends that you've lost a long time ago and boom. It's just like, well, we're at a totally different movie now.
Right. Because it's the same, same thing with, with the number 23. Like it's pretty good. And then all of a sudden it a detour and it's just like what happened happened. Yeah. You're just, you feel like you got, they lost the essence of what they were, the whole plot was up until that point. And you're like, I don't, it wasn't a twist so much as a different story. Yeah. Okay. That's a, it's a completely different story than my number five, but I feel like the, the conclusion of it is exactly the same, you know, it's, it's, it's about a good story. That just goes bad. Yes. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. All right. So what's your number four. Okay. I have a number four now and I'm actually not so sure you can guess which movie this is from the audio clip the fans out there of this stuff.
They will probably know instantly, but I think I would not be able to guess it. I think so. I'll help you at least by saying that it's a Christopher Nolan movie. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I already for the audio clip. Yeah. Let me go get my phone so I can Google it, then I'll go ahead. Okay. Here it comes.
So don't worry about what they're saying, but the voices might give it away what it is, you know, the way that he speaks.
I would say based on the way he speaks, Batman, but I also say that is almost the exact level of decibels that I am deaf in for my left my right ear. So I was like, I don't hear you, but I'm guessing that the deep gravelly voice that is spoken slowly.
Okay. Yes. That's pretty good. That's two out of two now.
That's pretty good. You're on a roll now. I think, first of all, I have to say that in general, I really like Christopher Nolan's movies and it's not that this one is bad either, to be honest, this is the dark Knight rises. Okay. And it's, it's actually okay. And you know, I don't, I don't generally like super hero movies, like you said, but this one is not too bad, actually. Okay. But why I have it on my list anyway, is because of the actual scene where this audio clip is from. So in the dark, not the dark Knight rises. Jesus. That was difficult to say, Batman is fighting bane.
You know, that's the guy with that mask on and it looks pretty cool. Yeah. And they are fighting each other for like two hours when we get to this scene. Wow. And yeah. And all the way through, up until this point, Bina, he's like a really formidable villain. No, he he's like really good at what he does of being a villain. And he really challenged us Batman. And then they put in this twist in this scene. So just by the end of the audio clip, you could hurt, you could hear a woman talking. Yeah. And that was a Miranda tape as she used to, like Batman's love interest. And then in this scene, it is revealed all of a sudden, you know, like Batman has final defeated pain.
He has him like on the ground. I got you finally, like after two hours right off movie, you finally got the upper hand. And then behind him is this, he's a love interest, Miranda, Tate. And then she stops him with a knife. She stops Batman. And you're like, what? And then it turns out, well, she's actually the true villain. And she was the one all along who wanted to destroy Gotham city with a nuclear bomb. It was not Bain at all. And the Bain is basically sort of reduced to this like, well, simple puppy who was just like carrying out the orders of his master, because he's so much in love with her as well.
I mean, it's, it's just, it's such a shame because I really feel like just the mask that Bain wears, right. That the way he speaks you, you, well, you couldn't hear it, but at least I could hear his voice, but he's really cool. Dean is really cool. And he's a really, really good villain. And then because of this scene, you reduce him to dislike petty criminal. Who's just following somebody else who, a mastermind who wants him to do this and that. And, and then this lady, she kills pain, like really, really easily in the scene. And then this just it, and then Bain is done. And it's like, why do I want two hours of Batman fighting this guy? Like the best villain that he's ever fought.
And then he's just like this Hensman basically,
It'd be one thing. If, I mean, at least he should have some charisma of his own, you know, be a good, he could still be an amazing, massive villain and she could be in on it, but she doesn't have to be the one pulling his strings that does seem to reduce who this character from. Totally awesome to. Well, that was,
Yeah, it's doing such a disservice to the character and all the characterization you've been building so far, because I really think that Bain is very iconic. He's a really cool villain until this point, if this stuff had happened happened, he would have been amazing. It's just like, ah, it feels like just because we need a plot twist, we need something exciting. Okay. Let's make a, this woman that Batman thought he was a loving that she was a love interest of his let's. Let's let, let's make her the villain and Tara, all of a sudden there's a new will. And in the end of the movie, it's just like, oh my God, I know. I really hated.
I don't, especially a two hour, it'd be one thing. If it was like, you know, 45 minutes, the end of a TV episode, you're like sucked. But two hours in a theater to get to like that kind of a twist, I would have been throwing popcorn at the screen and walking out thinking I just wasted two hours of my life. I could've been like kayaking or something. Exactly. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, I agree that once I I'm glad I never watched dark Knight rises. I never got around to it. I don't think I will anymore. No. Next time. Yeah. Next time I break my leg and I'm tied up in hospital for like months at an and or something.
I'll consider it until then. Yeah. No, I'm good. No. All right. All right. Good. You're number three then number three. So this one is my last movie and it was one when I watched it, I was like, oh, this is just horrible. So the producer shouldn't surprise you because he has he, after his first couple of movies, he made some flops. So the director is M night Shyamalan. I have him on Melissa as well. Well, you have to see which one he's got a couple of bad ones. I selected signs. Is that the one you picked or do you got a different one?
It might be. Yes. So this is the alien one where it was a good premise. You know, there's this, there was some good scenes, cornfields, everyone. I grew up in the countryside. My neighbors were Amish. I grew up in cornfields. So I do not find them frightening at all at dark. But for some reason, most of the human population thinks massive cornfields are terrifying at night. They think the woods are terrifying at night. I live in the woods too. So I'm just weird. But I, so there's these things happening. It's a, he's a widower. He's got his daughter and there's this threatening music and weird things happening. And you realize this is this alien invasion and it's sort of tense and terrifying.
And you're wondering how it's going to go actually pretty good up until that point until you find out, until you find out what defeats the aliens is, water, what is what 90% of this planet is made out of. If you're an alien species that can design faster than light ships, which you attack an alien world, that 90% of it is toxic to you. And then don't even bother throwing in the premonition of the little girl, leaving water glasses all over the house because she just subconsciously knows that her dad will need them to fight the aliens. And then they tie in his wife's dying words that are somehow our premonitions also for what was going to happen.
I'm just, I'm not, I just couldn't buy it. I mean, really, if you're an intelligent alien raised, you're not going to go. You would at least come in a stupid, a suit that could protect you from the thing that's going to kill you. You can design spaceships. Oh, it was just horrible. I just water. You're allergic to water. Yeah. Great.
I fully agree. It was number two on my list because I just hated so much.
So I took all your number two.
You know what I mean? Exactly. Because of what you say, you know, if you, if you know the water is going to kill you and you're like an highly intelligent alien race, number one, either, like you say, you would wear some protection on number two. Why don't you just pick another planet? Some something that wouldn't kill you. There's kind of, I mean, it makes no sense
Why do you even want it? Why do you even want invade a planet that kills you? It makes no sense.
I mean, yeah. I, I, we're only trying to go to Mars, which would kill us. I mean, we're not allergic to anything there, but it has no atmosphere, but we're trying to go there because it's like the only other place we have to go, we don't have spaceships. That'll take us across the, you know, solar system. But yeah, I'm pretty sure there's other places we'd go. It's like, we wouldn't choose, oh, look, there's this planet. 90% of it is composed compost of acidic acid. That's going to totally boil our skin. Let's go there. Yeah. That's a great vacation.
Yeah. And then we will be like, oh look, there are some people living dead. Let's invade. Then we need to conquer this planet. That will kill us. That's an excellent idea. Oh my God. Yeah. I really hated. Yeah.
Ah, wonderful. I think that was the first one I watched where I was like, I don't like a nighttime alone anymore. I like the village. I like sixth sense. There was the one with the, yeah. The one with the brittle bones disease that he ended up making into a trilogy. That one wasn't bad. Now I can't even think of the name of it, but
That would, I kind, that was not bad. But by the time I got to signs and like, oh, this is horrible.
I actually had a, an audio clip for it. Do you want to hear, Okay, here you go.
Yeah. So that was also on my list. I absolutely agree. I hate that Twists that they put in there. That's ridiculous. And also because they just very easily defeat stadiums, then Indiana not like, oh, okay. They can't take water then boom, boom, boom. Then they are defeated. It's like
Why do we spend all this time building up to it? Then if you can just kill them off that easily, it makes no sense. Right? Waste of time,
The brain will kill them. As I think one of the commenters, it was one of the famous founders. Like, you know, this guy, the lead character is a former priests. There's all this kind of premonitions and godliness. Well, you know what? God could have just made it rain and no problem. So yeah, it was a bad Plot, such a bad flood. Okay. You're a number three.
You can, you can, yeah, you can get my number three here. And I think you might be able to get, guess what this one is because the dialogue in this audio clip is sort of pretty iconic, but I can give you another hint that this is the one that I mentioned. I had one on my list with will Smith. And this is, this is the one you ready.
You know what that is, right?
Oh yeah, that is, I am legend. And that was my runner up for the list. So that is awesome.
Cool. It's funny that we have the same thing that annoyed us. That's pretty cool.
I guess I like this. I love this movie up until.
Yeah. So in summary, I think most people probably know it, but just summary, 90% of the people's population is killed by a man-made virus designed to cure cancer and then it sort of mutates and then it starts killing everybody. And as a result, you get these, Somby kind of like creatures, which they are quite terrifying. And, and, and it's actually a pretty cool the first half of the movie that that's pretty cool, very dramatic and will Smith character. He is, he's like this brilliant scientist, who's working on finding a cure or vaccine or whatever you want to call it. And he's alone in New York city and is basically just sort of surviving and working. That's all he does.
And up until this point of the movie, the movie is pretty cool. I really, really liked it. And then he comes across to humans who are actually immune to the virus. So, and this, of course for him as a scientist, this is good news because then maybe he found the holy grail and now he can cure the disease. And it just so happens that when he then brings these people back to his house, this also leads to those kinds of some, be creatures to find his house, which he has like worked for years and years and years to make sure that they would never find him. And now they do and how she's under attack and all that is also fine. But then the twist comes now.
So because of these two people who are immune, he actually manages to find a cure, but then the houses overrun by these some B kind of creatures. And then he decides to help these two people escape down a cold shoot while he himself decides to stay behind and pull the pin of a grenade and blow himself up, taking all the Sunbury creatures with him. And then you might be wondering, well, why is that so bad? That's pretty heroic. Yeah. But not if I tell you that he could easily just jump down to shoot himself. There was absolutely no reason for him to blow himself up. And the other part is that
Jumped down the coal chute. Yeah.
He could. And the other thing is that if you just find a cure and he gives it to these two people who are like, they're not scientists, they have no idea. And then he just sends them off. Like, how does he even know if he wants to cure mankind? How does he even know that they know what to do with that cure? Or will they even be able to find people who know what to do with it? He doesn't know. So it's just like the whole thing. It's like what? So years and years and years to find the cue and then he just blows himself up because of two random people.
But he wasn't, even though no, I remember saying that at the end, when they're approaching, like they find a as another little town, that's like got a wooden fence. And I'm like, yeah, that looks like it has a top secret, you know, lab Labrador, the moratory where they're going to know what to do to create, you know, spread this cure to other people. And so that's part of the reason it almost made into my list. But then what I didn't know is that the book, this is based on has a different ending it's and the movie completely changes the whole meaning of the book where the book, the, the vampire zombie, like creatures actually have found their own cure.
And they're not evil. They're basically a better race that it's going to just like we transplanted the new young Neanderthals. They were going to take over the human and humans are a legend. We're becoming something archaic from the past. And we're just fighting for our own last survival. But really, we just need to give up the ghost because we've created something that's better and stronger and more intelligent. And I mean, they have a whole culture, but so that's, doesn't show up in the movie. And I was like, no, they took the book and they completely changed the Authors meeting. Wow. So, yeah, there's a fair.
And what you just mentioned about the book, that's what makes it cool because then it's, there is an irony in the fact as well that he's been working years and years and years to find a cure for something that isn't about being cured. It's not about being cured, but he doesn't understand that. I know that that's what makes it pretty cool to me. I think the book ending that's cool. But yeah, I D I don't know what the heck they were doing when they made this movie. It's just like, it's so stupid to screw it up like that. Yeah.
I, they completely changed the character of the will plays. They changed the meaning of the story. They obviously did not understand how difficult sciences, other than it took him years to come up with this cure. And then he doesn't even know if they're going to be able to hand it over to someone who's surviving, who knows how to replicate it.
It's not like you just put it in like some chicken soup and you're good. Oh, that movie. Yeah. It that's why it was all I was trying to divide between Hancock and that one. And I'm just so glad you came up with iron legends. So I got to have both of them on the list. Oh, cool. Okay. Well, you already took my number too, so I guess you need to do two in a row. Now. I only have my one number one,
Right? Well, maybe I can grab one of your other ones. So my number two were, well, all of the rest of mine are books. So I know they're not going to be the same as yours. So this is actually mocking Jay from the final book in the hunger games series. And that is because, so this is the end where, you know, the whole story, three books, three movies lead up to the moment where Katniss is sent to, you know, take out snow and everything that's going on. And what happens. She actually gets knocked out towards the end of the movie and wakes up to find out the war is over. So it basically invalidates the entire book where she is.
She accomplishes nothing. And so she spends all of mocking Jay on her super secret mission to reach the Capitol and kill snow. And ultimately, and all these people die to help her get there. And ultimately she contributes nothing. The problem solved totally without her. And she made as well as stayed home. And what's pissed me off almost more than that, because I had already given up on her as a character. She never really resonated with me. She was too wishy washy, but her sister, a little sister prim, who just wanted to do something important. She trained as a nurse basically to go and help the soldiers who were fighting the battle. And she ends up getting killed.
And what ends up being a faked attack by the Capitol? It was actually the other side making it look like it was the Capitol. She dies as basically friendly fire, sort of, they kill out a whole bunch of people. It was so unnecessary and pointless. I was just frothing at the mouth. I was so furious. So that's why I made it to number two. It was just her Katniss herself. I've always said she, she has a flat character arc the entire trilogy. She never changes. She never does anything. She never grows into her role or takes control of her own life all the way down to getting knocked unconscious and everything happening without her.
And she's just the most pointless character. And you're really hope that, you know, book three, the third movie, that something exciting would have happened. And it doesn't, I still don't like her. I
Yeah. It was just not worth it, not worth it. So I will stop beating it there. But yeah, it just was a pointless, it has such potential. It was so interesting. And I really was hoping that by the end of the book, she would be like, I'm, bad-ass, I'm going to go and stomp somebody. And it really just never resonated. It never grew into that. She never becomes really a hero in, she sort of stays as a propped up figure. And it's just whatever.
Yeah, because in the movies, I don't, I don't think that that's the case. I mean, in the movie she takes initiatives and she drives the plot forward. And so on. I don't, at least I don't recall it being such an issue in the movies.
I feel every once in a while she would pop up with something good, but she was always, it was never an upper word arc. She was always never fulfilling her true potential. She never reached it and it's just disappointing. It was very disappointing. All right. And so we're going to skip right ahead since we did your number two to my number one of WORST Plot Twists. And I think this one, it'll be interesting to see, cause this was a movie, but I always look at it from the book side, but it's actually Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets.
I would have to say, now I have not read any Harry Potter books and I'm not what's any Harry Potter movies. So I don't really know.
Okay, so this is not yours. So this is the one where Harry is at the end of book one. So he enters the legendary chamber of secrets and Harry finds them face to face with Tom riddle, the younger version of the evil wizard, Voldemort and Ray riddle sends in a ballot. Basilisk I can't pronounce that, which is an enormous Fang snake after him. And it's chasing after Harry and things seem, yeah, snake giant snake. This is not a snake. Well, that's what it is in the movie. We're not going to question what JK Rowling's uses for her creatures.
So, okay. So let me, sorry.
So things are looking really bad for Harry. He's very young. Yestermorrow this is the first year he's at Hogwarts and then suddenly a magical Phoenix flies into the chamber dropping the sorting hat in front of Harry, which happens to hold the sort of Griffin door. So he uses that to kill the basle Lisk. And the Fenix is tears even heal Harry's wounds. And professor Dumbledore later reveals that Harry's loyalty caused the Phoenix to fly to him. But really, I mean, up until this point, there's no mention of a Phoenix it's just and brings the sorting hat.
It brings the sword that Harry couldn't rim thing to bring himself. It's just comes out of nowhere. If that hadn't happened, Harry would have died. Book one, there goes the rest of the series.
There's Deus Ex Machina. Again,
It's such to me, it's one of the worst examples. It's like the whole book wasn't plotted and JK Rowling's realized she wrote written herself into a really bad spot instead of fixing what came earlier. She just thrown a Phoenix with a who brought the sorting hat that was holding the sword. Why would the sorting happy holding the sword?
Why is, I mean, considering how popular Harry Potter is, why is more people not complaining about this? Or maybe they are just noticed it
Maybe. And I just, even the fact is Harry Potter know how to use a sword. He can see, you know, how to use one. I just it's so ridiculous that, you know, it would've been better with the Phoenix had caused the bass list to blow up in flames. At least I could have said, well, that made no sense, but at least a Phoenix knows how to you know, like night something. So,
I mean, short fighting is not something you just do. Right? I mean, you have to train pretty well to do that, especially fighting a monster.
Oh exactly. I'm fighting something that's already, you know, poisoned you in a cut you in you're already in bad shape, but just because you got a magic sword, you're good to go.
Oh, okay. That's convenient. Isn't
Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I feel like I can, because this one is not Dave's X McKenna. This is just like screwing with your audience completely OTs. And it's, it's really bad in my view, but I have to admit that I really struggled with finding number one, my one number one entry, because I had to find something that was worse than everything else. And I had to do sort of, I did a lot of research on the internet just to see if I could, if it would jog my memory on something. And then I did find, find something that I actually had completely forgotten about. Oh, but this show that I'm gonna talk about. It's not a movie, it's a TV show, but it is one of my all time childhood favorites.
I absolutely loved this TV show and I'll play the theme song song in just a second. And I promise you, you will know exactly what it is. Oh, that'll be exciting. But the, the show took the world by storm and anyone growing up in the nineties, they will know what this is. Okay. So I ready for your son clip.
So the X-Files it's going to be the first Twilight zone. I'm like, no, no. That's a different theme song. So yes,
I guess all of your clips. I think, I feel like I wait, that's a bit, that's a bit of cheating because you didn't even have some place that I could guess. So I just lose automatically because you guessed. Right. And I didn't even have a chance to compete. Well, there
You go. Ah, I like this rule. I like this game. I
Think that's a crappy rule.
This is like playing dune. Every player has their own strategy to win. I know what my showed is. You have to figure out yours.
Oh my God. Okay. Well, first of all, I want to say again that I love the show, however, and this is why it made it to number one on my list, because do you know like that feeling of your favorite show? Just being ruined completely. Maybe not completely, but they, they throw in some, some span into the wheel that just like what the heck is going on here. And it felt like it was just because the show creators, they had to do something to try to, I guess, spice things up a bit or something. But I had forgotten about this. Probably suppressed it to be honest, but what I found in doing my internet research, it came back to me.
So let me just explain. So in season 11, in the very first episode, we learned that you remember the wrist is a mysterious secret smoking man, who is part of the series. He's really weird and you don't really know what he's, what's going on with him. But then in season 11, we all of a sudden learn. In the very first episode, we learned that he actually impregnated Scali using some sort of alien science with the aim to create like the first superhuman child. And we get a flashback to season seven where Scully accused the cigarette smoking man of dragging her.
And it then becomes apparent that Scalia's son is in fact not molded after all then. So, you know, doing something like this, like four seasons later, it is just such a betrayal to the audience. You know, you for four seasons, you have believed that these two characters has have, they have a son together. They finally got together after all that time, you know where, or there was all this tension between them like romantic tension and so on and so on, they get a child and then four season later you'd just drop a bomb to say, well, actually it's not his child. Anyway. I mean, I liked plot twists. Don't get me wrong. And I can probably even stomach more plot twists than most people, because it does take quite a lot bef before I, it stops annoying me, but this one, it was just like, I really felt like a completely destroyed everything.
I thought about these characters. And it came also completely out of the blue, like, like the created just that, what can we do to spice things up? Oh, let's throw this stuff in here just to create some drama for the sake of drama.
Yeah. It's I don't know if they changed writers or what was going on, but I agree. I mean, they betrayed everything that the core essence of what you thought was sort of between these two characters and then it was just like, Nope, Nope, Nope. They're not a happy family. Sorry. Yeah, he don't do that.
Not okay. It's it's such a betrayal
And it's funny. Cause you, you were mentioning that reminded me of probably one that would have made my list and it might've even been number one. And that is the ending, the Firefly, the movie that pissed me off so much because they, again, not, not a twist so much as what they did to the characters, they killed off the pilot. They make it through this amazing crash landing and this happens and that happens and he gets spirited like by a piece of debris or something, right at the laughter everything is safe. And I'm like, no, it was such, it was done just to yank at the viewer's heartstrings, especially cause he was married to the, yeah, it was just, ah, there was a lot about the movie.
I wish I had never watched the movie. Anyone who's a Firefly fan. If you have not watched the movie, don't watch the movie. It ruins everything. I wish it's an exist.
Yeah. I love the series though. The
Series is awesome. The movie sounds good. And I can't remember all the characters well to enunciate all the ways that it sucks, but it sucks in very, very, it's cruel to several of the characters in ways that it just didn't need to be the series. That was awesome.
Okay. Well you said before that the it's like playing risk and you have to make up your own rules for how to win. So I actually just brought another one here because that's my way of winning. So if I can't beat you with five bad things on the list, I'll put six on the list.
I guess we're both winners this week.
So just an honorable mention here because some people will have this movie on their list of the worst of the worst. And let me just play you the short audio clip and then I will explain.
I actually, I only watched it like probably a month ago or something like that. But this movie is called mother and it is staring a starring Jennifer Lawrence. And I included this one as an honorable mention because I'm really, really conflicted about this movie. You know, when I first watched the movie, I was like, what's going on? You know, the, the Mo the longer you get into the movie, the more crazy everything just becomes. And it's like, everything goes into chaos and it's like, it doesn't make any sense. It's like, where's what I, I can't even explain it. It's like, you have no idea what's going on.
And it just makes no sense. There's all these kinds of people who does terrible things, all of a sudden in, in her house. And it's just like, what the heck is going on. And you're completely confused all the way through the first half of the movie is just like normal mystery kind of thing. Pretty, pretty good, actually. And then the second half is just complete chaos with nothing makes sense anymore. And I won't spoil it here and say two months, because, because people might not have watched it yet. And it was not that long ago since it came on Netflix. So I don't want to spoil it. Like some of the other movies that I've mentioned today, they were all very old movies. So I want, I want, don't want to spoil it, but I just have to say, because after I watched the movie, I was like, when it ended, I was like, I have no idea what went on here.
So I actually went on the internet and I then didn't start searching for some explanations about what is the meaning of this movie. And then I found the answers. And then when I read those, I must admit that then all of a sudden, I say, ah, okay, I see, you know, and maybe it's just me being thick and not seeing it, but I understood it when I read. And it was explained to me what the point was and everything that happens in that movie, even though it seems completely insane, it actually has a purpose and an explanation to it. Oh. And I'm still conflicted about it because on one end, it's, it's, it's crappy because you, you don't understand what's going on and it just feels like complete chaos. But on the other hand, once you actually read the explanation for it, then it's like, okay, I, at least I can re I can respect what they were trying to do at least.
So, yeah. I mean, it's good that it had a meeting, but it does sound like it was bad. Something filming, plotting something where they, you need to go and read it on YouTube. They're going to hand out a flyer on your way to the movie theater so that you can understand what you're about to watch.
Yeah. I don't know be because once you, once you read the explanations, you want to also understand why it has to be shown as very chaotic. It's completely on purpose, but yeah. People can watch the movie if you want. I just want you it's. It's crazy. And then, and then go read about what I would definitely say. Don't read about what the movie is about first, because then it'll spoil everything. What's the movie just what's it. And then read about it afterwards and then make up your own mind whether you think it's just either this, either this movie complete stroke of genius oil, it's complete madness. I don't know.
It's one of the two, that's a good note to end on. That sounds like a fun twist. Yes. I think our plot twists, we both declare ourselves winners, so, Hmm. I don't know if it was the counselors winners, but also because we actually had a few that we actually agreed on. So it's true. Yeah. That's pretty. Okay. We both win. We're good. I'll say I won and then we can close it with that. Yes. You won as well as I did. That's not what I said. That's what I understood.
That doesn't count. No. Alright. Well, next Monday, we have an episode with writing a vice for you. We'll discuss how to create chapters that will read us. So see you then.
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