What The Film?! is a new weekly column exclusive to Under The Gun Review that brings to light the plot holes Hollywood hoped you’d never notice. Written by comedy writer Dane Sager, this column shows no mercy to films that try and pull the proverbial wool over our eyes.
If you know a film with major plot holes that you feel needs to be exposed, tell us! Email utgjames@gmail.com with the subject “What The Film” and we’ll try to get your suggestion featured on the site.
This Week’s Movie: 1994′s Miracle On 34th Street
It took me a long time to find a Christmas movie with a notable flaw to write about. Die Hard was too awesome, my roommate tells me that Elf only had the flaw of “Zooey Deschannel not being married to me”, and Santa Goes To Russia was too ИЯД ЮФЖ! After watching many Christmas movies, I found one that fits the bill: Miracle on 34th Street. No, hush, not the original that is one of the highest rating Christmas movies of all time on Rotten Tomato, but the 1994 remake that was penned by John Hughes. Wait, what? How on Earth can John Hughes make something bad?
Maid In Manhattan: the movie where Selena falls in love with Voldemort.
The movie begins with a Thanksgiving Parade, but problems are afoot when it’s revealed that Cole’s (the department store funding the parade) Santa is drunk and unruly. Dorey, the Director Of Special Events at Cole’s, rectifies this problem by instantly hiring a man that happens to be in the area that looks like Santa. Thankfully for Cole’s, he is not a crazy hobo, a murderer, or a pedophile. He does such an exceptional job at the parade that they hire him to be their Mall Santa. Dorey is shocked to find Kris Kringle is the name on his checks.
Because picking a stranger to be Santa has always paid off so well.
As Mall Santa, Kris (or K-Squared as we call him in Atlanta) ends up bringing in a lot of business by his unusual methods. Despite being hired to bring in parents to purchase toys at Cole’s, he tells the parents where the cheapest prices on the toys are. This loose cannon wild idea makes lifetime shoppers out of the visitors, being dedicated to Cole’s because they unintentionally put their customer’s first. He’s so successful that a rival department store tries to swoop in and buy him out.
At the same time as this is going on, Dorey’s daughter Susan is adamant about Santa not existing because of her mom being a total bitch and insisting on destroying her childhood. Dorey’s kind of suitor/only male in this movie that doesn’t look like a pedophile/boyfriend, Bryan is trying to make her believe to the annoyance of Dorey (due to her being a total bitch and insisting on destroying her daughter’s childhood).
This Santa also cloned Dinosaurs, he is truly a God among men.
Dorey and Bryan go out on a romantic date one night and decide to leave Susan in the company of Kris Kringle. Dorey only knows Kris from work and believes him to be a mentally unstable old man with delusions of being Santa. Despite this, Dorey decides that he is a safe man to put in charge of the one piece of family she has, proving her great talent at making terrible decisions. It wouldn’t take many changes to make this a horror movie.
After much success, the rival department store hires the drunk Santa to provoke Kris into violence, turning all the good publicity for Cole’s into bad publicity. After calling Kris a fat phony pedophile, Kris lets go of his saintly image and decides that the best course of action is take his cane and strike his aggressor’s face. Bryan decides to defend Kris in court, knowing that in order to prove his innocence they must “prove there is a Santa Claus and [Kris] is him”. Cole’s decide to stand behind Kris, putting out commercials asking the public to believe that Kris truly is Santa.
Surprisingly not the craziest Santa related incident.
The first thing Kris does in court is asking the Judge about his grandson that he met back in November, because when you’re on trial trying to prove that you’re not a crazy violent pedophile, mentioning that you met and remember the Judge’s grandson is the smartest opening remark you can have. Totally not threatening at all. During the trial, Bryan brings in many surprise witnesses to the frustration to the prosecutor, the man who has a list of every witness to be called into court.
Ultimately, the Judge eventually decides that because the government endorses God publicly on Money, then it can accept Santa as a reality. Kris is free to go because an assault charge can be dropped over things like this apparently! Do you remember a few years ago when New York’s Courts legally declared that a crazy vagabond really was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and since there was legal documents backing that, he sued every single religion for royalties for using his image? You don’t? Because the courts would never do that. If there was someone legally declared Santa Claus, he could legally sue any company that has used his image (e.g. every company that has ever sold a product). Coca-Cola would go bankrupt. Unless this Judge was secretly the Joker and knew this would cause chaos, no Judge would ever give one man this much power. This is not how the legal world works.
From all of us at Under The Gun, I’d like to wish all of you a Merry Nicolas Cagemas and a happy Reindeer!
He's just upset because he wanted a Tickle-Me-Elmo
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Dane legitimately can’t wait to become an old man with a Santa beard. You can follow him on Twitter or Tumblr.