5 Heroes That Should've Just Done Nothing

5 Heroes That Should've Just Done Nothing
By Darrin Jones / February 19

What?! Surely, the title must be a mistake. Everyone knows that heroes are the ones that get stuff done. Why, without our charismatic protagonists fighting their way through waves of baddies the world would be doomed! Right? Well, while that’s true most times, there are the few occasions when the most heroic thing to do would’ve been...doing absolutely nothing at all.

1. Dylan Dog in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
For most of you probably not familiar with Dylan Dog, he’s a comicbook detective that solves paranormal cases but with unique twists. Kind of a more Italian version of Hellboy minus the ridiculously awesome.

So turning this high-profile European graphic novel into a film adaptation would take nothing short of masterful writers, a fantastic director, and spot-on casting. Or you could just throw in the guy who played Superman from Superman Returns.

Here he comes to wreck the day!

So we have the titular, Dylan Dog, being dragged out of retirement (in the middle of the day as opposed to the actual ‘dead of night.’) He gets caught up in a case regarding a young woman named Elizabeth who seems be in the middle of a war between werewolves, vampires, and even zombies. The reason for this being that she is somehow related to the movie’s magic maguffin, ‘The Heart of Belial.’ A powerful relic that can turn whatever monster you stick with it into a powerful demon that’s supposed to obey its master’s every command.

Spoilers: It doesn’t actually follow orders.

But super twist, Elizabeth is actually a monster hunter that’s been after the item the whole time so she can use the creature to wipe out other monsters. A sound plan save for one gaping and easily exploitable flaw; the Belial monster and it’s master are linked, meaning if the master dies, the monster goes away. And just about everyone knows this. So in the end, the local werewolf pack -- not Dylan Dog -- end up tearing Elizabeth to bits thereby ending the monster and saving the world.

Never send a dog to do a wolf’s job.

And to pour a little salt on the wound, the wolves take the relic for safe keeping as they know Dylan won’t be much good at protecting it. But hey, at least we got to spend some time with Dylan Dog and his Shia Labeouf-esque whacky sidekick.

This is why cloning is illegal.

2. Harry Potter in Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix
I freaking loved the Harry Potter books as a kid. And I liked the movies well enough. But it does become a bit of a running gag that Harry doesn’t make the best decisions. A bad habit that reaches its peak in Order of the Phoenix. In this installment, Harry Potter’s connection with the villainous Lord Voldemort becomes strong enough that they can periodically see what the other sees.

Things are about to get really awkward.

So, while Harry thinks that he can use this ability to spy on Voldemort, EVERY ADULT HE’S EVER KNOWN tells him not to. But Harry does such a piss-poor job of protecting his mind that Voldemort shows him a false vision of Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, being tortured. Now, Potter does make a good choice when he tries to alert the titled ‘Order of the Phoenix’ about this. Unfortunately, he's intercepted by the bureaucratic nightmare that is, Dolores Umbridge.

You may now commence your “booing.”

But once Harry and the gang manage to ditch her, they run straight to the place in Harry’s vision to be promptly ambushed by Death Eaters. Oh, and they also destroy, like, an entire room full of important prophecies. And the whole thing ends up getting Sirius killed; which is kind of the opposite of what Harry was trying to accomplish.

“Thanks, Har-bama.”

So what could Harry have done to avoid the whole thing? Gone back to freaking warn the ‘Order of the Phoenix!’ Once Umbridge was out of the picture, he should’ve ran back to her fireplace, stuck is head in the flames and started calling for the other members again.

Just realized that last sentence might sound really strange out of context.

Any of the Order members could’ve told Harry where Sirius Black was or at least that he sure as shit wasn’t at the Prophecy Wing of the Ministry of Magic. Oh, and I would like to note that this is another particular incident that totally could have been resolved with a little known muggle device called a ‘cellphone.’

3. Tarzan in Tarzan & the Lost City
Oh man, now this is a weird one. Tarzan & the Lost City is about, you guessed it, Tarzan and a Lost City. But it’s actually a sort of squeal to Tarzan’s origins. See, Tarzan is living happily in civilized England with Jane, his soon to be wife. But when he gets a vision of a shaman’s head in his fireplace...he knows he has to return to Africa?

Hey, that’s Harry Potter’s shtick.

It turns out an evil treasurer hunter is pillaging the native villages in search of the lost city of Opar; which is supposedly the cradle of civilization and full of riches. So Tarzan has to save his motherland from these greedy white-men using his impressive physique and animal companions.

Oh yeah! Shit's 'bout to go down.

Well, not quite. Jane also shows up to ‘help’ her ape-man fiancee, which basically turns the flick into a romantic comedy where Tarzan has to repeatedly save his woman. All the while, tons of villages are plundered and burnt to the ground.

I guess he’s technically doing nothing.

When Tarzan finally gets his act together to try and stop the invading explorers, he mostly gets his ass-handed to him. So much so that the mystical shaman that brought him to the island in the first place ends up doing far more in terms of protecting the Lost City.

The guy even summons undead warriors for Pete’s sake!

In the end, Tarzan fails to stop anyone and the main bad guy even makes it all the way to the temple’s fancy thrown room. Unfortunately, he overlooks the ‘do not sit here’ sign and gets a lightening bolt to the head for his troubles.

This leaves Tarzan and Jane free to return to England to finish getting married having accomplished nothing and helped no one. But, hey, I guess they were getting a jump start on that whole ‘honeymoon’ thing. 

4. Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark
We all know Indiana Jones; the hard-fighting adventurous archaeologist who’s always telling the bad guys that whatever they’re after belongs in a museum...even though he usually ends up destroying it or giving it away himself.

He doesn’t have a great track record is all I’m saying.

When our college professor/action-hero catches wind of a Nazi plot to recover the infamous Ark of the Covenant, Indie embarks on an international adventure unearthing lost tombs, fighting off Nazis, and rekindling a romance with an old flame.

And the best part is she's not even remotely upset about it!

It all comes to a head with Indiana Jones finding the Ark first before it’s ultimately stolen from him and opened by the Nazis. Which leads to...

...them all dying horribly. Yeah, turns out the Ark of the Covenant is only good for melting faces of anyone hoping to peek inside. And Indiana Jones seems to know this would happen as he warns Marion Ravenwood not to look at it. 

Although, he did say the same thing about the Green Lantern movie.

So, the Nazis couldn’t find the Ark without Dr. Jones finding it first. They took it because Indie wasn’t willing to blow the thing up when he had the chance. And in the end, all the bad guys wipe themselves out by opening it. Really, Indiana Jones didn’t contribute too much to this equation. Well, except for just being awesome.

You don’t bring a sword to an Indiana fight.

Oddly enough, this isn’t the only time this scenario happens. Seriously, break down Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and it’s pretty much the same thing.

Foreign Bad Guys. Marion Ravenwood. Head Exploding.

And he didn't do ah th'ang.

5. Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 
Not only was Star Wars a groundbreaking series that astonished and fascinated, even to this day, but it had a great protagonist with Luke Skywalker. Here we have an average Tatooinian farm-boy from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away that just so happened to become one of the last and greatest Jedi in the universe. 

And just look at that futuristic hairdo.

But between blowing up the Death Star and toppling the Empire, we have The Empire Strikes Back. I’ll be brief with this one as any nerd, geek, or movie buff worth their weight in womp rats knows the story by heart.

Or at least are familiar one of the numerous parodies.

So to sum up, Luke’s posse from the first movie are ambushed by Lord Vader in the Cloud City and Han Solo is frozen in carbonite ready to be shipped out with some bounty hunter guy, I forget his name.

I mean it’s not like he’s got a rap song about him or anything.

Meanwhile, Luke who’s been training with Yoda while this was happening, senses his friends in danger and flies off to save them. AGAINST YODA’S WARNING! Yoda is pretty much the wisest person in the known universe but Luke's been running around a swamp lifting rocks with his mind all day. He's totally ready for this, right!

But as it turns out, while Skywalker was strolling into the obvious trap, Princess Leia and friends freed themselves and nearly recovered Han Solo before jetting off. Their paths don’t even cross while Luke is sneaking in. The whole thing actually ends with everyone coming back to save Luke Skywalker. Which probably cost the group time they could’ve spent chasing after Han. Although, this all does lead to one of the most memorable scenes in cinematic history. 

“Luke, I am your twist ending.”