( Annoying af trope ) When the good guys possess perfect defensive position/advantages that was completely ruined by someone's sheer stupidity, pettiness, or selfishness

[u/Routine_Phase_8980]

I understand that these scenes must happen in order for the plot to continue but they still make me angry till today whenever I think about them because of how easy it could've been avoided. I doesn't mean these scenes are necessarily bad written, just hella hard to watch.

The Jerusalem Wall / The Singing Crowd (World War Z): Israel literally anticipated the zombie apocalypse and built a flawless, massive wall that kept everyone 100% safe. It was the ultimate safe haven. But then people inside started celebrating and singing on a microphone so loudly that it triggered a zombie pyramid, they didn't even stop until the first zombies started coming through. They have less survival instinct than an amoeba.

Ephialtes (300): The Spartans had the perfect phalanx formation at the Hot Gates. They were slaughtering the Persian army with minimal casualties and could have held them off for so much longer. Then this guy gets his feelings hurt because he can't lift a shield, throws a tantrum, and tells Xerxes about the secret goat path.

Grandma Jong-gil (Train to Busan): The survivors fought through hell and literal waves of infected to secure a safe train car. Sure, the crowd inside was selfish for locking them out at first, but everyone was finally safe inside. Then this grandma, fueled by grief and spite over her sister, decides to open the door and let the infected flood the entire car, killing everyone.

[u/Wanallo221]

At least with this one. Some kid or country bumpkin doing something careless or dumb makes a lot of sense.

These aren’t smart people.

Conversely, the Jerusalem example in OP’s post is really frustrating. They build a massive wall and don’t have anyone keeping an eye on it? Not even some cameras?!

Like surely you’d have people watching.

[u/commander-thorn → u/Wanallo221]

I mean they did have people watching it, a helicopter literally goes to try and shoot the pyramid of zombies down, and the soldier with Brad Pitts character hears on the radio their scaling the wall, it’s was just not enough for the amount of zombies.

[u/Wanallo221 → u/commander-thorn]

Nah it’s so contrived. I don’t mind the film as a popcorn flick and the action inside Jerusalem itself is great (the chase through with the IDF soldiers is my favourite part of the movie).

But one helicopter (that we see) covering an entire city and nothing on station on the wall itself was just a bit silly.

Don’t get me wrong. As I say it’s a popcorn flick, I can accept a bit of silliness and plot contrivance.

[u/Cantor_Set_Tripping → u/Wanallo221]

Just to be nit-picky, we do see two helicopters in frame at one point. And presumably others at the other like entry points of the wall. If we really want to stretch it, they probably didn’t think a zombie pyramid was possible.

[u/Dave13Flame → u/Wanallo221]

In retrospect that's kinda crazy coming from the country that is making Palantir...

[u/Forsworn91 → u/Wanallo221]

in the book they specifically describe it as unbeatable, from memory (its been a while) that was implied they knew it was coming and it never falls