A Vergence, You Say?

Entertainment Weekly doesn’t know from bad movie dialogue.

Right now EW has up their contenders for the 15 worst lines in movie history.  They include Tom Cruise’s line from Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.”  Clearly, they aren’t trying.

Here is some actual horrible dialogue from film.

First, to demonstrate how easy this is, I went to a website with the complete script to Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.  I scrolled down and stopped at random.  At random, mind you.

YODA: Master Qui-Gon more to say have you?

QUI-GON: With your permission, my Master. I have encountered a vergence in the Force.

YODA: A vergence, you say?

MACE WINDU: Located around a person?

QUI-GON: A boy… his cells have the highest concentration of midi-chlorians I have seen in a life form. It is possible he was conceived by the midi-chlorians.

MACE WINDU: You’re referring to the prophesy of the one who will bring balance to the Force…you believe it’s this boy?

QUI-GON: I don’t pressume…

YODA: But you do! Revealed your opinion is.

QUI-GON: I request the boy be tested.

Oof.  

That’s some bad dialogue, there.

Amazingly enough, that “A vergence, you say?” from Yoda would have been slightly less ear-bleedingly bad if Lucas had kept with his habit of making Yoda talk backwards (that’s how Lucas develops character, you see; he makes people talk backwards.  It’s a character trait.)  “A vergence, say you?” would have been less unintentionally hilarious.  Slightly.  What can I say?  Lucas is a machine.  He unfailingly finds the worst possible way to express a thought, and then he writes it down.

Next, anything written by Joe Eszterhas.  I went to the imdb movie site and found the listing of movies written by Eszterhas.  Again, totally at random, I picked one.  A movie I’ve never even seen; something called “Betrayed.”  Remember, this is the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood.

Gary Simmons: [about Jack Carpenter] You hitched your wagon to him? What did you do that for Bobby? Why man, why?

Bobby Flynn: Gary what did I keep telling you in ‘Nam? I said you were the best point man I ever saw but stick to that. Don’t do anything else. Leave the formation to me.

Gary Simmons: But look at him Bobby. There’s nothing inside. And what are you going to do when the shit hits the fan? When he’s caught stealing money or dicking some jailbait?

Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Eszterhas.

Battlefield Earth:

Terl: While you were still learning how to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer galaxies!

Ah yes, the “conquering galaxies” course at U Penn.  The first thing they teach you is to avoid the rookie mistake of trying to conquer the super-massive black hole in the middle.  

Over the Top.  I have to do this one from memory.

Lincoln Hawk:  When I turn my baseball cap around I feel like a truck, like a machine.

Fabulous!

Showgirls:

Tony Moss: You got something wrong with your nipples?

Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Eszterhas.