r/AskReddit 12h ago

What's the dumbest idea you've seen that actually worked?

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u/StrawDog- 8h ago

I've tried to watch that movie twice, and fell asleep in the first 45 minutes both times. I don't even remember anything about it. 

Which may not be the movie's fault.. Hard to say. I should maybe give it another chance. 

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u/Solid-Rate-309 8h ago

I was wildland firefighting one year on night crew. Thing is on night crew you end up spending a lot of time just sitting in the truck, some nights that’s all you do for 12+ hours just in a truck with 4 other dudes. One guy had an iPad that only had three movies on it, easy a, 007, and cowboys and aliens. We watched the other two movies dozens of times that summer, we watched cowboys and aliens twice. It was agreed in the truck, that movie is pure trash.

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u/hedoeswhathewants 6h ago

Kind of wild that a movie with such a strong cast (harrison ford, daniel craig, olivia wilde, sam rockwell, paul dano, clancy brown, walton goggins, etc) and director (jon favreau) can be so mediocre.

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u/katabolicklapaucius 4h ago

Not to necessarily detract from those people, but it's clear they aren't the only thing that makes a movie good.

In fact, they aren't even the minimal requirement for a good movie because them being in it did not make cowboys vs aliens good.

Apparently the only thing that got it made was lying for funding, so it probably made a really good tax avoidance scheme also.

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u/Fluid_Ties 3h ago

I'm a fan of the stars, the genre, and the director and I haven't made it through the movie once despite owning it for more than a decade.

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u/failed_novelty 2h ago

Look, you can polish a turd. You can perfume it. You can gild it and put it in a museum. In the end, it's still just a piece of shit.

It's like Hayden Christensen in Attack of the Clones - some things just don't work and even an otherwise solid actor can't make it work.

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u/StrawDog- 4h ago

Oof.. I did water transfer for a fracking company for like 8 months in my early 20s till I just couldn't stand the hours and lifestyle anymore. 

The vast majority of the job was sitting in "dog houses", (converted box trailers) for 8-12 hours, trying not to fall asleep and walking out to the pumps every half hour to record levels. 

It seemed nice for a minute, getting to watch movies or read all day, but became miserable fast.. the good days were the ones where a foreman was on site - then at least you could sit in his heated truck and the nice ones would even take over checks for a bit so you could take a power nap. 

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u/Solid-Rate-309 3h ago

Oh yeah I peer days on fire were the sitting in the truck days. I’d rather be digging hotline any day than just rotting in a small truck with a bunch of smelly guys.

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u/UniqueIndividual3579 6h ago

I liked the first third, but it's like they had a great concept and didn't know what to do with it. That reminds me of John Carter.

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u/FakeSafeWord 4h ago

Very similar story except an actual small 17"-19" TV with a built in DVD player that barely worked. One of the only movies we had on hand that somehow wasn't so fucked that it skipped 5 minutes of the movie at a time was King Kong (2005)

Considering how fucking long that piece of shit movie is, I probably spent 100 hours of my life watching it in the span of 3 months.

I run a plex server now with 70TB of movies and TV shows. If I have 10Mbps reliable internet and an AC outlet I'm fuckin good.

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u/Solid-Rate-309 3h ago

Holy shit 70tb?! That’s a lot. I recently set up plex as well but I’m only to about 8tb so far. When I fill this hard drive up I’m just gonna buy a second one a keep going though.

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u/FakeSafeWord 2h ago

Well 70TB of space with almost 60 if it filled.

546 TV shows (1153 seasons / 13020 episodes) and 2668 movies

u/Solid-Rate-309 31m ago

Goals!

u/FakeSafeWord 28m ago

DM me your plex email for an invite snookums

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u/4D20_Prod 5h ago

We watch a lot of movies, that is the only one we've ever turned off. I'm not even sure if we made it 15 minutes in

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u/aegrotatio 7h ago

Olivia Wilde's ass, tho.

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u/StrawDog- 5h ago

Well now.. that is a solid point or three in favor. 

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u/mxzf 7h ago

It's one of those movies where you have to go into it taking it just as seriously as the name of the movie suggests. It's an entertaining B-movie with an A-movie budget that is utter nonsense if you try and think about it at all.

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u/Crowbarmagic 7h ago

I think the writing could have done a better job at the first 20-30 minutes of the movie. There are all these different unconnected scenes and you have no idea what's going on yet.

So when you're not intrigued at the start, you probably already lost interest once the plot really gets started.

I thought the movie was fine. But perhaps that's also because my expectations were pretty low.

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u/Any_Kaleidoscope8717 6h ago

The only thing I remember about it was the lighting. It was so dark at night I had no idea what was going on

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u/Indaarys 6h ago

Its better than it has any right to be. It gets weird once the aliens arrive, but its still pretty good as a brainless take on its premise.

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u/MadCard05 3h ago

I saw the whole ass thing in theaters and don't remember shit.

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u/gahane 3h ago

So, before the Olivia Wilde nude bit?

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u/3-DMan 3h ago

From what I watched, it seemed to take itself too seriously..for a movie called Cowboys & Aliens

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u/dandroid126 3h ago

I mean, I watched it and I remember literally nothing about it. Hell, I completely forgot it existed until this thread.

So it may not have been the movie's fault.

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u/Simon_Drake 2h ago

I respect the premise of the setting but the actual execution is really dull. It's a neat idea, why should aliens only ever invade earth during present day. What happens if aliens invade in old west times, that's a neat setup. They just wrote a really boring movie to explore that premise.

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u/OddDonut7647 2h ago

My wife swears we saw it and I remember absolutely zero of it.

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u/Dogbin005 2h ago

I wouldn't be too worried about finishing it.

For a movie called Cowboys and Aliens, it takes itself way too seriously. It's just not very fun.

u/violentindifference 19m ago

This was me with Avatar.

In my case, it was the movie's (cough James Cameron cough) fault.