Megamind/Headscratchers

• I know this movie lives on Rule of Funny (a child grows up in a cell?), but really; how come Roxanne didn't realize "Bernard" was really Megamind?. The voice, the posture, the attitude... didn't she find odd that Bernard had changed so dramatically?
  • Well she didn't know the real Bernard at all, so she just thought she was seeing a new side to him. Alternatively, Metro Man's death really affected her, and seeing someone else react similarly was familliar to her. It didn't seem strange that he was so emotional about it because she was so emotional about it.
  • I got the feeling that on some level she knew, or at least suspected, but wouldn't allow herself to consciously realize that she was falling for Megamind. Otherwise you'd think she'd have more of a reaction to "Bernard" pretty blatantly asking how she'd feel if he were Megamind.
  • Also, remember that Roxanne didn't know Megamind on a personal, friendly level either - just as the villain who was always kidnapping her. Somebody kidnapping you doesn't give you a great opportunity to get to know them.
• Am I the only one that thought Roxanne not wanting Megamind as he was, but once he had a Heel Face Turn, a tad annoying? "Remember kids, if the person you like isn't how you like them, with enough effort, you can change them!" What.
  • I dunno dude(tte), Megamind seemed to enjoy his job and I really just got a vibe that he only changed because of her. Besides, the fight with Titan was just a "clean up the mess I made" sort of fight. It really just reminded this troper of comic book villains getting rid of an unwanted result. YMMV I guess.
  • I think the reason was the shock at finding out her new boyfriend was the very villain that had always kidnapped her. Not to mention her pointed list about his content form her point of view: Killing Metro Man even though he really didn't, taking over the city, and tricking her into caring for him. Her look back as she left and her expression at his comments about not getting the girl I think proved she did like the real Megamind beneath the whole hammy villain act. All the Heel Face Turn did was allow them to be together without the watch.
  • His training of Hal showed that Megamind totally loves the superhero/supervillain dynamic, and just wants to be a part of it, regardless of which side he's on. Being a good guy just lets him win, and he's Genre Savvy enough to realize this. Like a dedicated pro wrestler, he just loves the business, regardless of if he's playing a face or a heel. This is highlighted when he says that Hal isn't even a supervillain, just a regular villain that happens to have superpowers. It's all part of the game for him. In this way, he's almost like a caped version of Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight. It's also why he's indigant that Hal isn't acting like either a proper superhero (acting only selfishly) or a proper supervillain (because a proper supervillain is more concerned with the style and image than actual evil deeds).
  • Regarding her not wanting him as he was, if you watch carefully, she actually starts to forgive him well before he completes his Heel Face Turn. She lets him into her apartment, even though the last time they spoke was when she broke up with him, and some of the looks she gives him when they go to find Metro Man imply that she's slowly cooling off from her initial, completely reasonable anger over his deception.
  • Also don't forget that the movie makes the point to show that Megamind didn't become a villain because he's a bad person, it's because every earnest attempt to be liked backfired so much that he decided to be 'bad with style'. Roxanne even says things would have been different if they went to the same school, and it most likely would have been; if he had just one person like him for who he was then, then he wouldn't be a villain now. In a sense, Megamind turning good really is him being himself, instead of taking the role that everyone expected of him.
  • What? You're seriously mad at her for not wanting to be with him while he was a supervillain, terrorizing the city, after killing except not really Metro Man, after he lied to her? This isn't the same as not liking someone because of the way they dress, or they've got an annoying habit- he's a villain! Him changing (or, if you prefer, being the person he really is) shows that he really does care about people and that he's not evil. And that him caring for her wasn't an act, which she seemed to think it was.
  • The thing about Be Yourself as a trope, the problem with it that people don't tend to get at times is, well, to be blunt there might be problems with 'yourself' that need to be addressed and improved. 'Yourself' might not actually be very good at all. You at times actually may need to improve and change 'yourself' to get what you want. There's no point in saying 'love me for who I am' if 'who I am' is a complete asshole -- and, let's face it, for all that he had a good core underneath, Megamind very clearly was an asshole, at least to some degree. He was still a supervillain who terrorized the city and kidnapped and lied to Roxanne, so it's not unreasonable that Roxanne might view that as a bit of a stumbling block to starting a relationship with him, and that he might need to change that aspect of himself if he was to get anywhere with her..
• This is directed at some fans/viewers rather than the movie, but... it bothers me how people beat on Roxanne for getting upset over realizing Megamind had been Bernard and chewing him out for it.]] Activating Extreme Sarcasm Mode: [[spoiler: Yes, imagine getting upset over learning that you'd been deceived and tricked into falling for the city's murderous dictator that you'd been trying to stop, and under the guise of the sweet guy supposedly on your side of the fight against said dictator - the guy who you'd put your faith and trust in and trusted with your secrets. How frivolous!
  • While I believe Roxanne was really harsh in that scene and I feel very deeply for Megamind, I completely agree with you. Roxanne's reaction not only was justified, it was perfectly normal; he was the villain he'd killed the hero and taken over the city, plus she hadn't learn what kind of person he really was behind the whole "villain" act. Having said that I have to say that the look in Megamind's face when Roxanne dumped him was absolutely heart-breaking.
  • It seems that many of these fans are also missing the point; from being an example of a failing or shallowness of Roxanne's character, it's actually a symbol of character strength that she's able to gradually forgive him for pulling such a stunt.
• Does Megamind's hologram projector watch cause changes to the subject's voice or not? When he tricks the Warden into wearing the watch, it gives him Megamind's voice as well (not likely that he used the voice on purpose). Later, he has to do the voice of Bernard (and can even drop the voice at times). That goes against how it originally worked.
  • Maybe when Megamind was scanning Bernard, he forgot to record his voice? Perhaps the reason as to why he had the Warden's voice down because it had recorded what he was saying.
  • When the Warden takes the watch, Megamind asks him for the time -- obliquely asking him to hold the watch up to his face and speak - and a little 'rec.' light flashes on the watch face. He doesn't have the time to do the same to Bernard.
• So Megamind crashes into a jail and is automatically a prisoner for "breaking and entering", but what kind of Kangaroo Court sentences a 6 month old for that!!?!!
  • One who is unsure of how to deal with an alien baby?
    • The way he can remember things from the time that he was eight days old would imply that Megamind was pretty coherent for a baby. If he could talk, they probably didn't realize how young he was until they'd already sentenced him (could have thought that his species just looked sort of baby-ish). Still doesn't explain everything, but, that's probably the goofiest part of the whole film.
    • At least one of the reasons for his incarceration was probably because, even as a baby, he was able to build a death-tricycle out of numberplates and lead a prison breakout.
  • Rule of Funny, period
  • The prisoners wanted to keep him, obviously!
    • Like the above. An alien crashed into the prison. The prisoners rather liked it, and nobody was quite sure what else to do with a baby alien besides keeping him locked up somewhere.
• It bothers me that people accuse Titan of being evil. He was more like Chaotic Stupid; While he did turn into a Jerkass, one with powers that made him dangerous, he was a victim of circumstances- he got the powers by accident, was told he could be a hero and that it would get him the girl, then she rejected him and dated a dork instead (from his POV) and his "mentor" turned out to be a villain, who mocked him to his face about it- such stuff would drive anyone mad. Sure he decided to be a villain intentionally, but even then the destruction he caused was more out of his lack of concern for people than acts of true, sadistic evil.
  • I think this was actually part of the central point of the movie. Titan was evil. In fact, he was the only truly evil character in the whole film. The movie contrasted Megamind - who was the traditional cartoon villain, but actually good deep down -- with Titan, who was a bit of a jerk right from the start (his creepy stalker tendencies, dishonesty, obviously self-absorbed nature...) and became a full villain when given half a chance by Megamind. The movie was telling its audience -- "if you want to see a villain when you leave this theatre, don't look for someone weird or 'different' (like young Megamind) -- look for a normal, everyday jerk, and imagine what they'd do if they had super-powers..." It's telling that one of the Titan's first villainous acts was using his super-powers to steal random things he wanted. That's where villainy comes from in real life -- selfishness, greed, and a willingness to abuse power to get what you want without caring about how this affects anyone else... I think this was one of the film's main Aesops, and I think it was actually quite well done.
  • Hal seemed like a jerk before his powers. Self-centered, self-entitled, childish and not too bright. In fact, he's the kind of guy who would be a bully but for the detail that he's lazy and unmotivated. Then he gets amazing powers. If you give an asshole powers, it just makes them even more of an asshole. Hal was invincible, he got a measure of heroic training from Megamind, but he was still too lazy to stop playing his games and help people. And when Megamind tried to get a response by telling him everything, it shows us what he does when angry - he throws a tantrum.
  • Also, he stole those things BEFORE the point where he was presented with some ugly truths. While there's never any guarrantee that somebody will use new superpowers for evil, it's a pretty risky business and a huge responsibility which Roxanne knew Hal wasn't smart enough or good enough to handle.
• With as much exposure Megamind's dehydration gun got throughout the movie, to the point that he called his use of it an "old habit", why did he never even consider using it on Titan? He's still made of water, isn't he?
  • Presumably his powers made him immune to its effects. Otherwise Megamind would have dehydrated Metro Man, too, at some point in their rivalry.
  • Or one could presume that dehydrating Metro Man would simply turn him into the strongest blue cube in the universe, kinda like Vegito in Dragon Ball.
• In the aerial shot of the Death Ray firing, the beam quite obviously strikes in the locale of Cadillac, Michigan, implying that this is the location of Metro City. This is problematic for several reasons:
  • The observatory, and Metro City itself, is depicted as being coastal, yet the beam strikes several miles inland.
  • Roxanne's station's call letters are KMCP, a designation not possible in Michigan as all eastern US stations have call letters beginning with "W". "K" implies western US.
  • Metro Man and Megamind landed on earth around Christmastime, yet there was no snow on the ground. A rarity in Michigan, especially on the lakeshore.
    • This is just a guess, but considering there are superheroes and supervillains; people can survive being thrown around by someone with superstrength without even getting injured; it's possible to dehydrate someone to a tiny cube without killing them; and everyone is computer generated, don't you think this story might not take place in the real world? That explains unusual weather and call letters. You still have a point on the coastal thing though.
  • Word of God says that Metro City was heavily inspired by San Francisco. Not necessarily based off of it, but heavily inspied by nonetheless.
    • The DVD commentary, on the other hand, calls Metro City something like "The sister city of Toronto; a Great Lakes metropolis", so its Michigan depiction appears to be intentional (unfortunately, when the Death Ray is fired in Button of Doom, it's shown striking north of Saginaw Bay rather than the Lake Michigan coast, so where in Michigan is still up in the air).
• This troper is glad he didn't see any of the trailers before seeing the movie because, holy crap did it spoil a lot. I've seen some trailers that reveal too much, but I swear if I would have seen any of the theatrical trailers before seeing the movie, I would have felt ripped off. Probably revealed the biggest spoiler since Clerks 2's, IMO. And yes. that bugs me.
  • There was a lot about the end that I could not have predicted from the trailer. Did Metro Man die, and if so, how did he do it? Did Metro Man save the day at the end of the movie? Who would be Megamind's new nemesis if not Metro Man? Why was Megamind bad? Why did Megamind become good? What were Megamind's powers? Please provide a link to a trailer that answered any of the above questions.
    • Now you're just nitpicking. I said a lot, not the whole movie. The trailers spoiled: Metro Man being alive, Megamind's Face Heel Turn, Megamind and Roxanne hooking up, etc. Do you really need to know every little detail to tell me I can't be irritated at bad trailer makings?
• What bugs me is, now that they've made this movie, what can the sequel be for Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog?
  • Something else entirely unrelated to this? The characters aren't even that similar- Dr Horrible is a mostly harmless villain with good intentions who turns really evil; Megamind is a hammy villain who turns good, Penny is a sweet, normal girl; Roxanne is a reporter who isn't phased in the least by being kidnapped by the resident villain, Captain Hammer is a total Jerkass who craves attention; Metro Man's a friendly, mostly selfless hero who wants to be normal. I guess you could compare Moist to Minion if you really wanted to, but...not really.
• Roxanne Ritchi? Roxanne Richter? Hello?
• Why didn't Metro Man use his superspeed to avoid being seen by Roxanne and Megamind? Did he suddenly forgot about it?
  • His expression was one of pure shock, so he was probably too startled to think to use it.
  • He looked like he could barely think of trying to sneak away.
  • Since the whole point of him faking his death and going under the radar was because he was sick of being a superhero, it's possible he's made a conscious decision not to use his powers.
• Really inconsequential, but at the end, right after the credits gag of Bernard getting re-hydrated, the credits start rolling again, and you can see the characters and who voiced them - someone spelled Titan as Tighten. Usually something like that wouldn't bug me, but Titan's name was spelled out several times throughout the movie; why didn't anyone notice? Does that mean his name is really Tighten, or Titan?
  • Originally, his name was Titan (as he was named by Megamind,) but because he had never seen it spelled, and he's not really all that bright, he personally spelled it "Tighten", which can be seen when he carves "Tightenville" into the ground. So, really, he can be referred to either way.
  • Well Space Dad did say it was the only name he could trademark, and the name "Titan" has been trademarked before. My guess is the name that the actual creators of the movie use, (and the character himself at one point) is the correct one.
  • Okay, so Hal's a moron, but why did the credits list him as Tighten? It even shows up in a number of the DVD extras that way...
    • I don't know, as a joke?
    • To make his spelling mistake a Meaningful Rename, I presume.
    • Hal was supposed to be the hero Titan but became the villain instead, so we could say his name was corrupted like he was by his powers.
    • Brick Joke!
    • Subtitles actually have him named "Tighten" as well. Presumably, this was what the creators originally intended, hence the trademark quip.
• What really bugs me is the beginning, particularly the part where young Megamind tries to make the popp-ed corn. It's like, show and tell or something, right? So he shows them his awesome robot and tries to make popcorn so they'll like him, only it explodes. Metroman puts out the fire, flies Magamind over to the corner and flies back to the desk for a gold star. He didn't ask the teacher about any of this. Sure, putting out the fire, you need to do that. But then, it's like if you were painting a picture and spilled paint on the floor. Would you get a time-out and the person who sent you there get a gold star? I think not. You'd get told to clean up your mess and that's about it. And the look on his face when he's doing to too! It like 'I'm getting a gold star now! Aren't I?' Then he winks at the teacher. It makes me want to punch him in the face. Plus, that whole school seems to consist of people (including the teacher) sitting around and watching Metroman show off. AND, you notice how Megamind says he's always picked last for everything? Who is doing the picking? Metroman. AGAIN. So really Metroman brought it upon himself. By being an asshole.
  • Metro Lad was a spoiled brat that got everything on a silver platter. He was the (adopted) son of a very wealthy or well-to-do man and the teacher (and the class as a whole) was obviously favoring the special golden boy over the weird bizarre kid from prison. It didn't help matters that Metro Lad looked perfectly human while Kid Mind was so obviously alien. It was a case of "Us versus Them" with the leader of "Us" being a child Adonis. But yeah, it really bugged me how all through the movie, Metro Man (as a baby, child, and an adult) would wink and preen and posture.
    • There's also the fact Megamind may also be an unreliable narrator. since all of the movie except the very end is a flashback.
      • The images in flashbacks are generally thought to be true especially if the narration barely matches up. Given, Megamind might have a scewed memory, he might not have seem everything, but this is at least how he remembers his childhood, or how his childhood actually happened. Actually its the images not his words which accuse Metroman and the teacher of anything wrong.
  • Also, if you think about it, this is essentially a clear childhood parallel to what a grown-up superhero does; after all, no one asks the superhero to stop a disaster and bring the perpetrator to jail, but they do so anyway; similarly, the teacher didn't ask Metro Boy to put out the fire - which, let's be fair, is a bit different to spilling paint - and send Kid Megamind to 'quiet time' (the obvious childhood parallel to jail), but like any superhero Metro Boy took the initiative.
  • Metro Man was learning The Itzy Bitzy Spyder at this point. He's to young to know better without being told. The teacher was as bad as him or anyone else in the class, so he wasn't told. He grew up at least by the end of the movie.
• Would Metro Man's issues have been avoided if he'd been Clark Kenting from the beginning, rather than permanently after faking his death?
  • Quite probably; it's been clearly established in the comics that at least one of the reasons Superman isn't Superman 24/7 is to essentially keep himself sane and give him some downtime from solving all the world's problems. It looks like Metro Man, however, never really had that option - unlike Clark Kent, who arrived in a fairly isolated location and was adopted by a fairly low-key couple, both of which enabled him to develop an identity outside of the public eye, Metro Man landed pretty much on the doorstep of a very wealthy and presumably very publicly exposed couple and seems to have revealed his powers early on; he's probably been well-known for having superpowers all his life.
• Does Megamind believe in God? When he's trying to get Titan to fight him, he says something like 'Oh God, you don't know how much I've missed this'. idk, I was just wondering. Does his planet have religions like Earth or what?
  • He's been on Earth almost all his life and learned Earth concepts, including religion and/or the terms "Oh my God", etc.
  • The uttering of phrases like "Oh my God" is simply a cultural convention in the west, one that's used by both the religious and the non-religious alike. Really, from the film we have no way of knowing if Megamind is religious.
    • You're right that we don't know whether Megamind is religious or not, but uttering "oh, God" is not just a cultural convention. It can actually be used seriously.
    • Even heavy atheists use "Oh God" as an exclamation occasionally; thus Megamind using it does not indicate anything about him being religious or not.
    • Does he ever say that? I thought the line was simply "Oh, how I've missed this!". I don't think he says God at all throughout the movie.
• Why didn't Megamind use what he thought was Metro Man's skeleton for DNA extraction? It should have been a more obvious choice instead of dandruff. It seems like the only reason was because Megamind would have immediately figured out Metro Man wasn't dead thus ruining the plot.
  • This is addressed in the commentary of the DVD. They made a shot where the skeleton turns to dust, but they scrapped it after they saw it because it wasn't necessary.
    • Except for the fact that it obviously was necessary, given that this troper had the exact same question. Her annoyance at this is in fact further compounded by the fact that the commentators specifically said that 'Nobody was asking that question!'
• How the hell did Roxanne manage to place all those little bits of paper just like that in her apartment so they lined up the way they did? That's ridiculous for two reasons: 1) She would've had to get every single scrap if paper from Megamind's lair, which she obviously didn't, and 2) Megamind created Titan by accident, beyond the whole, "Here, I have a gun to create a new super hero..." Hal was an accident, and there was no guarantee he would turn out the way he did. "Titan" as a name was an afterthought, it seemed...
  • 1. I personally just assumed that she was recreating Megamind's rather idiosyncratic method of mind-mapping writ-small - note that when she's infilitrated his lair she takes a few photos of the set up he's got going. She gets a general idea of the set up and positioning of the various papers from there and replicates it as best she can with what she's got. 2. Megamind gave the powers to Hal by accident, but it was always his plan to create a new superhero; presumably he came up with the 'Titan' identity before he decided who he was going to give the powers to, and came up with a rough impression of what the end result would look like beforehand. He probably trademarked the identity in advance. Could also be that his scheme was based on one of the 'battles we'll never get to have' that he alluded to when he was tearfully taking to the Metro Man statue, which he adapted to new circumstances.
  • I personally thought Hal rearranged the papers like that himself, as a way of providing a 'sign' to Roxie... look, date this guy! Even fate says so! Plus it's exactly the sort of creepy thing he'd do.
    • I figured she did it because she knew Megamind was a mad genius, so she thought setting it up like he had would give her a better insight into his plan. And whaddaya know, it did!
• Regarding Metro Man faking his death: since he basically made it look like Megamind killed him, wouldn't he be guilty of framing Megamind for murder? Granted, Megamind is a super-villain with a mile-long rap sheet and nobody would realistically take his side, but you really can't prosecute him for something he didn't really do.
  • Well the people of Metro City never really got the chance to prosecute Megamind for the murder of Metro Man prior to the end of the film, did they? Someone else described Megamind's situation at the end of the film as being a lifetime of community service for his past transgressions, and even without the murder of Metro Man, Megamind is still "condemned" to be a hero for the rest of his life by the 88 life sentences he already had, thus the question of prosecuting him for the murder of Metro Man is rather a moot point, something the people of Metro City probably realised and thus didn't bother with either.
  • I always assumed that Roxanne made it clear that Metro Man wasn't really dead, but for old time's sake held off from revealing where he really was or what he was really doing. Plus, everyone worshipped the ground the guy flew over and (in some cases literally) kissed his feet when he was juggling babies in mid-air; one suspects that Metro Man would have to do a lot worse to get the people of Metro City to have him arrested and jailed.
• When flying above the city and writing his name with his laser vision, Titan/Tighten takes special care to dot the second 'i' in 'Tightenville'--but the first 'i' remains undotted.
  • Hal isn't exactly the smartest or most careful of men; chances are he doesn't really care. Although he might have been about to do the first one when Roxanne distracted him.
• Why does Megamind not know what a window is? This troper can understand his mispronunciation of various words and acknowledges that neither his prison nor the evil lair have windows, but surely Megamind has been exposed to other things that have windows, like his old schoolhouse and the invisible car. The animators just took it a little too far with this one.
  • Dunno about the car, but he spend most of his time at school in the corner or being bullied by the other kids, so probably didn't have time to learn about windows. I got the feeling that he was only there for a few days tops.
  • It's a weak explanation, but when in the car, the scenery is obviously always changing, so Megamind might not think it as any different from his monitors.
  • Actually, his evil lair does have windows, apparently! (Pic) Weak explanation again, but maybe he just never had time for them.
    • This is ridiculous. A window is such a universal CONCEPT, there is no way a person in a city with access to media will not know what it is.
  • Another explanation: Perhaps Megamind has a room much like that with a desk and a big chair, but with monitors behind him instead of windows. (And I know plenty of villains have such rooms, like Blofeld from James Bond.) When he enters the room, he immediately thinks of that room that the thought those panels aren't monitors never occurs to him. If this is true, then Minion says they're windows sarcastically. Megamind simply reacts with wonder and amazement, neither confirming nor denying he knows what a window is.
  • Megamind's entire personality is theatrical, and I considered this scene just an extension of that. Just like Minion makes a big show of being 'dead', Megamind is making a big show of not knowing what a window is in order to contrast his prison upbringing from Metroman's mansion; he's basically going "What is this thing, this thing that you call freedom?" in an overly melodramatic fashion.
• When Roxanne meets Megamind in his Bernard disguise after infiltrating his lair, he directs her toward a door marked 'Exit.' Later on in the same scene, we learn that this door actually leads to a sheer drop above a pit full of alligators. So why on Earth did he tell her to go there? Did he forget? Was he planning to kidnap her again or something?
  • He probably just wanted to scare her out of his lair. When she did go in there later, he pulled her back out, so he obviously wasn't planning to kill her or anything.
  • Possibly because he knew she was on the hunt for some kind of "scheme" and hoped that the stuff behind the Exit door would lead her off the track of what he was really doing?
  • The chance of impressing her with a death-trap she'd never seen before, of course! Remember that she'd been completely unimpressed with everything else the last time they met.
• Why in the world would the city want Megamind to defeat Titan? Sure, Titan's evil, but no more so than Megamind. Especially from the viewpoint of a civilian who knew nothing of the story and Megamind's Face Heel Turn (some might call it Villain Decay), there is absolutely nothing to cheer about when Megamind defeats Titan. All they know is they're under the thumb of a far more intelligent tyrant.
  • Because Titan was more evil than Megamind; from everything we can gather, while Megamind robbed banks, kidnapped a journalist every so often and apparently killed the city's previous hero, Titan was going to destroy the entire city, something which Megamind had shown no desire or interest in doing. Put simply, the former was definitely being a dick, but the latter was worse by far.
  • According to the first news-report on Titan, "the city has never seen this level of destruction", and the things we are shown do back this up to a degree - after all, Megamind marks his name in the city by painting it with blue paint all over the place, Titan marks it by burning it into the ground with giant letters". Megamind played darts with cars, Titan flew around the city burning everything he looked at... the far more intelligent tyrant would seem to be the safer bet.
  • When Megamind takes over the city, what does he say? He makes a big theatrical display, proclaims his future reign of informed evil, and then tells eveyone to "carry on with the dreary, normal things, normal people do." When Titan takes over the city, what does he do? "Oh, I wouldn't say freed. More like under new management." Then he flicks the nearest guy accross the road. When Megamind is control, the city carries on with a little bit more paint and some money floating around the downtown corridor; when Titan is in control, the city evacuates; all those people fleeing the city at the end of the film are people who didn't bother to go anywhere when it was just Megamind they had to worry about, because Megamind just makes a show about being evil, whereas Titan actually is.
  • Better the devil you know? Society as a whole has a short memory, and the way Megamind wasn't actually doing much particuarly evil helped.
• An honest Just Bugs Me? This movie was trying to reinvent how you thought of "villains" and "heroes", i.e. the real villain in flaming white tights, and the real hero in spiky black leather. But the real villain, Titan, had an overweight face, crazy hair, and a permanent sneer, while the hero Megamind had huge shiny eyes and... long eyelashes? The point of the movie was to make you see past the book cover, but you can still tell who the good/bad guy is here. If titan was handsome, it would have been amazing.
  • I honestly didn't know the movie was trying to reinvent the way you thought of villains and heroes. But I think most people in fandom find Titan pretty good looking. Hal doesn't look that bad, really, and Megamind is... well... an alien from outer space, you know.
  • Megamind also has blue skin and a giant over-sized cranium. Let's face it; from a human perspective, he's... unconventionally handsome, shall we say.
  • This Troper found them both gorgeous.
• People keep spelling Titan "Tighten." Yes, they are homophones, but really...
  • He called himself that. As did closing credits.
  • As did the subtitles.
    • To be fair the subtitles don't call him "Tighten" until after he writes "Tightenville" on the city. In addition it's a sign of his Face Heel Turn. Titan was what he was going to be called as a Hero, Tighten is what he calls himself now that he's a villain.
• I know it's supposed to be an Affectionate Parody of the whole superhero genre, so being kidnapped repeatedly is necessary, but it still bugs be that Roxanne never gets to do anything to affect the plot beyond declare her affections for one character instead of another. The moral of the story seems to be that if you're a guy, you can change the world and you'll get the girl. If you're a girl, you're going to end up with the good guy. I realize they tried to make it seem like she was an empowered character, but honestly? She's only able to face kidnapping calmly because her entire life, that's all she's been useful for.
  • Especially when she was seen holding an uprooted street sign. I wanted her to pull a Shizuo.
  • It wasn't so much the male aspect as the super-powered one that made the difference, I think. Every non super-powered male got much less done than Roxanne did.
  • Also, she went to go talk down Hal when he was smashing up the city, despite the fact she could have been killed. That has to count for affecting the plot.
    • Roxanne doesn't actively affect the plot, but she is the catalyst for every major event. She was the one who inspired Megamind out of his funk. She was the one who later caused him to give a damn about other people. It was because of her both Megamind and Titan later went on a rampage. She was the one who again inspired Megamind to take on the hero role. She may not have changed anything herself, but if it wasn't for her, nothing would have changed.
    • Okay, you're going up against people with ultra-superpowers. They're like gods. Tick them off and they'll snap you like a twig, no matter how much you maximize your natural physical strength--and you haven't done so, because you're not an athlete, you're a news anchor. All you have is your ability to persuade. So what do you do?
• Post-movie, isn't the whole broken eternal rivalry just going to repeat itself, but in reverse now that Megamind is a superhero but has no supervillain to battle against? There's always bank robbers and such, but no major archnemesis that we know of, and I can't see him deciding to create his own villain after what happened with Titan.
  • I could see him going the Vetinari route and putting all of his effort into making the city work.
  • I think the problem wasn't so much that he didn't have a superhero to fight, but that he didn't have anyone to challenge him, since everyone other than Roxanne pretty much just folded once Metro Man was out of the picture (the cops and city government all surrendered and no one else was willing to take a stand against him). As a superhero, however, there's always going to be crime to fight, even if it's not quite super-villainy (and there's always a good chance that some super-villains might show up to challenge the city's new hero independently of Megamind's interference). At very least, he's not going to get bored.
• So what does Roxanne mean by "his heart is an ocean inside a bigger ocean" in her Metro Man speech anyway?
  • It's one of those cheesy metaphors, you know. Just like the ones Metroman and Megamind traded back and forth without making much sense.
• Did Hal really deserve to be put in Megamind's special prison cell after he was defeated? I mean, the guy doesn't even have a life, and he's very much harmless without Metro Man's powers. The least they could have done was give him some community service, right?
  • According to the news-reports, he caused more destruction during his rampage through the city than Megamind had ever done - and that was before he burned "Tightenville" into the city. They're probably not going to give him community service for a while.
  • They live in a comic book universe and seem at least dimly aware of this, when did a de-powered Super-Villain ever not get re-powered at some point. Super-powers are kinda like cancer, you might beat it into remission for a while, but it always comes back.
• Several things really bug me. 1) Why did Megamind (while disguised as Bernard) offer Roxanne to check the exit in his hideout, even if there was an actual death trap there? Did he forget about it? 2) Why go for dandruff to make a clone while you had -in theory- a perfectly good skeleton. And 3) How come no one, absolutely no one noticed that the skeleton is fake?
  • 1 - Probably to conceal his own identity. A "normal" person would have taken an exit sign at face value. Or as mentioned above, to freak her out a little and make her leave his lair.
  • 1 - I just took it to be another of his mispronounced words. When Roxanne tells him that the door is just an exit he says "Which is short for exciting right?" or something like that. Couldn't this just be another of his language quirks? Megamind wants to distract Roxanne from his Titan project, so he goes to show her something else 'exciting'.
  • 2 - He didn't go for a clone, he replicated the powers. And the skeleton was probably not in a condition to replicate considering it had just gone through a fiery explosion. Besdies, Rule of Funny for the dandruff.
  • 3 - Shock over Metro Man's death, clearly.
    • 3a - We aren't told the skeleton is fake. It could be a real skeleton used for anatomy lessons.
    • An early draft of the script has Metro Man (or the character who became Metro Man at least, I forget the details) explicitly note that he swiped a skeleton from a medical school using his super-speed as a stand-in.
    • The same line is in the film. He's pretty clear that he stole it from a medical school.
• Where did the infusion/defusion gun go after Megamind used it to remove Titan's powers? Megamind holds it in his right hand immediately after using it. His hands are not visible while talking to Minion, but then he uses both hands to flip Minion into the pool. There is a wide shot after that, and the gun is neither strapped to Megamind nor anywhere he could have put it down nearby (the depowered Hal is also oddly not there). If Megamind had simply dropped the gun into the fountain it might not be visible in the wide shot. But that would be careless (to say the least), given that the gun, in its charged state, could be used to give Metro Man's powers to someone else, potentially creating another problem like the one Megamind and Roxanne just spent a third of the movie solving.
  • Where it went, I have no idea. But I was under the impression that the gun could only give powers when it was loaded with that, for lack of a real term, glowing yellow bolt thing. He did say he'd only have one shot at it, so presumably now that the powers had already been given he'd have to make another bolt before the gun could give powers to anyone else.
• Why did the prison allow Megamind access to a television and a remote control, given his proven facility with technology?
  • Because a bored Megamind is probably worse than one lulled into complacency by channel surfing?
• Just confused over the Throw It In lines. Megamind's mispronunciation of words is what gives him away as the fake!Metro Man, so what was their excuse for the climax if Will Ferrel didn't think of it, I wonder...
  • Probably something along the lines of the disguise watch getting damaged or accidentally shut off
  • "Metrocity" was in the script, Will Ferrel made the decision to mispronounce all the other words.
• For being socially awkward, Megamind sure is a good kisser. Is it because of his species? Or did he learn on his own? I would expect more awkwardness from him, but that may have lessened the impact of the Tear Jerker to come.
  • As one who had a youth filled with social awkwardness himself, I can tell you from personal experience: He practiced on his pillow.
• Megamind was serving multiple life sentences. He's an escaped fugitive. He booted out the duly-elected government of Metro City to impose his own reign. He created the very Titan problem he eventually had to solve. So why, when the dust settled at the end, were the citizens of Metro City so quick to lionize him as a hero, and let him go unpunished?
  • What are them going to do? Megamind has pretty much proven that, except for Metroman, no one else can do anything against him. Even going to jail is more of a voluntary thing ("I'm going home") than a real punishment(Not to mention he can get out any time he wants). The heat of the moment made the citizens cheer for him, and is probably that they later realized that it's better to have Megamind inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
  • It's also worth noting that we don't know how much time has passed between Megamind saving the day and his museum opening at the end; it could have been long enough for him to prove himself more than he had just at the end.
• I realize Tighten is pretty dumb, but shouldn't he have recognized his Space-Stepmom? Hal had to know who/what Minion was - after all Minion marched on up to City Hall and fumbled with a boom-box in front of everyone as Megamind took over the city. Hal was on hand filming this. It seems to me that a wig and an apron wouldn't be enough to hide a fish driving a robotic gorilla suit - even from Hal.
  • Rule of Funny. Hal's just that stupid and inobservant.
  • Maybe he assumed that Minion's species was common throughout the universe, as Human Aliens seem to be.
• Why did Megamind discontinue the frequent kidnapping card? What was the reward for filling a card?
  • One kidnapping ABSOLUTELY FREE!
  • Presumably there wouldn't be many businesses willing to align with a supervillain to provide discounted goods for the subject of his kidnappings -- particularly if, as was apparently, the case, it was just one victim.
• Why was Hal uninjured when he fell over the spikes on the invisible car? You can see the spikes on the hood in the beginning when Megamind first arrives at his lair, yet later Hal rolls directly where these spikes are shown to be when the car is visible.
  • Those spikes are probably made of some soft, lightweight material to avoid injuries like that and to keep the car from being weighed down.
• Is there any reason why the jail gave Megamind a sentence of several thousand years? First of all it is unlikely that Megamind will even be able to live out the entirety of his prison sentence (unless somehow his alien species has a life-span that long). Secondly the prison would corrode long before the several thousand years were up. Lastly how was there anyway that the prison system knows for a fact that their society will even still exist that long into the future? Was that prison sentence meant to be taken seriously or is it just Rule of Funny?
  • Of course it's a joke.
  • The sentence was serious, they didn't know how long he'd live and wanted to make sure. If the prison did degrade he would be transferred to another prison. It's doubtful that they would let the expected term of existence of their society play into it.
• Anybody else get the feeling that Megamind would have gotten the Super Hero he'd wanted, if he'd been a little more equal-opportunity and gone for a Super-Heroine in Roxanne? The first time I watched the movie, I thought for sure he'd pick her for the job. And she would have been AWESOME.
  • Well, yes. But there's no real headscratcher in it: yes, she would have been awesome, but it would have been a drastically different story (no need for Megamind to turn good if his attempt to create a proper superhero to oppose him works perfectly).
    • I'm not so sure that having Roxanne with powers would really be what Megamind wanted. Sure she'd have all the prerequisites but would super!Roxanne be willing to play the game like Metro Man did? Also how would he start the rounds since his hostage would now be nigh invulnerable and kicking his ass. No, Roxanne as the next hero of Metro City would have been the worst possible thing ever for Megamind
    • Hey, a hero doesn't need to be great friends with somebody to rescue them if they're kidnapped by a nemesis. Megamind might have had to find a new person to be his hostage. Like Hal. But it's pretty obvious that Megamind doesn't handle change all that well. Maybe that's why he overlooked Roxanne. Plus, she would have looked really HOT in a female version of the Titan suit.