MovieChat Forums > The Next Karate Kid (1994) Discussion > Some MAJOR things that needed to be answ...

Some MAJOR things that needed to be answered


This alpha elite group....They are all obviously in the mid to late 20's and ultra shredded karate pro's...LoL. So I guess they are supposed to be students, however it appears that they do not attend class while at school, but instead they walk around the school and monitor the halls and try to be enormous jerks. This will prepare them in real life for college or for a real job. I assume they all got all A's as well. Apparently the school board approved this idea, and no one at the school has thought to challenge the idea, or attempt to change it. Okay.

The leader of this group. He threatens to have Julie expelled if she gets in trouble one more time, because she was apparently framed with a pack of smokes. If it was something as serious as a student getting expelled, the principal and staff would definitely conduct an investigation, however in this case he just took the word of Dugan, and agreed to expel her next mistake. Uh okay.

He then literally beats the hell out of his students or alpha elites in the school yard in front of other staff members. This does not happen, and if it did, the coach/teacher would be brought up for criminal offense. Assault, Assault of a minor, harassment, etc. But this keeps going on...uhhh once again, not one person blows the whistle on this? are you serious?

At the Gas station, three guys bring their vicious dog into the store (which is against the law), and sit there and LAUGH as the dog torments and growls and threatens to attack a young 15 year old girl who is trying to pay for gas and has done nothing rude to anyone. They keep laughing at her, wanting her to be maimed by this dog. The clerk or store owner just stands there and frowns, and shrugs and does absolutely NOTHING to help. This does not happen, this entire situation does not happen. ever. Mr. Miyagi comes in to help the poor girl, and somehow the dog is instantly afraid of him, as it should be - He could karate chop that dog down. Then the three guys surround him and start pushing him and fighting him? Are you kidding? People don't surround and assault old men for being kind, I'm sorry but this doesn't happen. No sir. Just really silly.

Then the same character threatens Eric that he will not give him a letter of recommendation if he goes to take an emergency call from his mother? (UHH LOL) and that if he did leave to take the call, he would be washing dishes for the rest of his life at a fast food place...Are you kidding? There are people who don't even graduate high school who are well established millionaires, or even very wealthy people. This was a really dumb line. Incredibly stupid.

Julie breaks into the school to feed her hawk. The alphas apparently live in the school, and don't have parents or family who watch over them. They wait until she breaks in, and then it turns into a horror movie, where she is chased down hallways and will most likely end up dead or raped, or most likely both. She then somehow escapes, and does not tell anyone at all about how they assaulted her, and attempted to rape her. Okay. Also oddly enough, Dugan gets out of the first police car that arrives. How did he get in the police car, and that fast? Is he, in addition to being a military leader, a school teacher, a school karate instructor, and a school coach - does he also have time to be a night time police officer? Obviously not, as he was not in any type of police uniform. So was he hanging out at the police station in the middle of the night, and the police officers decided to bring a civilian along on a call? Very doubtful, which leaves the next hypothesis: Was he at home when the police realized that the alarm went off in the school, so they immediately called Dugan, and drove to his house to pick him up (not the principal of the school mind you, but DUGAN), because they NEED his military expertise in apprehending the possible 15 year old girl who broke into the school. Their advanced training was not in depth enough to be able to take her on their own. So the firetruck and the police cars all go to pick up Dugan first, and then they give him a ride to the school so he can handle the problem. That way if there was any accusations of rape charges, then he would be able to convince the police force that she is a liar, and no one would take the charges seriously? I literally LOL'd when I saw him get out of the police car. Absolutely NO sense.


Eric told us his sob story about how he has to work as security on a train, although hes too young to have a security job like that. Apparently he supports his Mother with that job? His sob story of how his father left and stopped sending money, and they are broke. Well guess what guy, how about selling the ultra expensive car you got there kiddo, get a small fortune for that and there you go? Didn't think about that? Oops.

So at the dance completely out of nowhere these three alpha elites come bungee jumping out of the rafters. HOLY *beep* ITS THE POWER RANGERS I was hoping, but then realized it was these 3 kids. So what the hell were they doing up there, how did no one notice them? They would had to have gone up there like an hour before anyone for the dance even showed up, sat and waited. And what was the point? To scare people? If that happened today, those kids would be arrested by homeland security, and interrogated for connections to terrorist cell's. It made absolutely no sense, and this might be the most random crazy part of the movie that I had the biggest problem with. It wasn't even attempted to be explained. LoL, what the hell?

So the kids from the gang come up - well the leader of the gang I should say, comes up and breaks his windows in his car. Are you kidding? And he did not call the police? Instead he goes to meet the much more superior trained combat effective Ned to fight. I don't think anyone would do this, not even then 30 year old ripped Eric actor - to - play - high school - student - heart throb - teen.

So apparently Dugan decided to blow up the kids car. So as if breaking the windows wasn't enough he blew up the car. How did he ever expect to come out of that one? Theres jail time and a felony on his record which would result in losing his job, or jobs as we saw earlier. Did he plan on saying Eric was in an accident, at one point I think? That does not work, a parked car does not just blow up, and I bet investigating police officers would find traces of gasoline among other forensic evidence that links him and his goons to the crime. There is no way, absolutely NO way this would work. Ever. Even if he planned to kill Eric, forensic specialists would solve the case no problem, and with witnesses like Julie and Mr Miyagi and the monks he doesn't stand a chance.

The final fight scene between Miyagi and Dugan was of utmost retardation. All he did was stand still and attempt to throw the same type of right handed punch over and over again, each time being fully dodged and countered by karate master Mr Miyagi. Dugan was supposed to be a highly trained hand to hand combat specialist, and all he did was stand there and keep attempting to throw the same punch. It was so awful. And then the movie ended almost too abruptly to make any sense with the hawk flying off. Good God this was awful.

I am very curious to read your all thoughts, and any more additional information I forgot to include in this post. Let me know what you all think, maybe im missing something, but these are some serious questions and plot holes that need to be answered and addressed. Thank you all so much for your time, and I look forward to hearing some responses!!!

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I was confused, too. At one point Eric says that they're "like a football team", which made me think they were some kind of school karate team or something, but they seemed to act more as demented hall monitors. Bungee jumping indoors, beating people up, blowing up a car---how did they think they were going to get away with it? Overall this was a pretty crappy movie. I re-watched it recently because it was the only one of the original Miyagi movies that I couldn't remember at all. I knew I'd seen it, but I remembered pretty much nothing. Now I know why--my brain was doing all that it could to wipe itself free of this mess of a movie.


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I don't know dude, it all made perfect sense to me, it rang almost to true to my past in High school. Dugan was king of the town, he could do whatever he wanted. Why should he have permission to be at the school of all hours, control the principal and all the students, and to blow up a car. You don't give permission to Dugan, you GET permission FROM Dugan.

Let's get real here, that town was as dangerous as Chicago during a black out in summer with Same Burkowitz on the loose, you NEEDED those alpha males to rule over everything. Otherwise, WHO KNOW'S what would have happened. Kid's would have prolly ended up smoking and walking the halls without passes! You can't have that kind of chaos in a civilized society.

What you didn't realize, not sure how you missed this, but Dugan was actually a serial sperm donor. All the Alpha kids were his own children. So yes, legally, he COULD beat them and lay the smack down on all of them without anyone intervening. This was made clear when Eric told his sob story, Eric's mother was just a lonely liar, Dugan was the father, and she didn't want her son Eric to know she was desperate enough to have had a tube baby, so she made up that story. Dugan was upset at Eric for leaving because he saw that as his son walking out on his. I thought that was pretty obvious.

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Don't forget the jerk at the bowling alley that told the monk not to touch his bowl, and then told him to keep his mouth shut after he apologized. The movie is just rife with a-hole American males bullying and threatening complete strangers for no reason at every turn. It's so over the top it's almost parody.

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THANK YOU for taking the time to spotlight the many absurdities of this movie. I wanted to do it but i felt that i would be too "wordy" and people would lose interest. This movie was SO illogical.
I just recently purchased the compilation of the 4 movies in one collection. I had never seen the 4th one. The notion of having one without Daniel-san seemed very strange.
When we left the last movie, Mr Miyagi and Daniel-san were partners in a bonsai shop. I understand that Daniel was interested in pursuing college but I would doubt that he would sever the relationship that he had with Mr Miyagi not to mention the business relationship. Money he earned would come in handy to pay for his education.
In any event, he was totally absent. Mr Miyagi sent Julies Grandmother back to presumably look after the plants (trees). Again this story line made no real sense.
Neither did the overage bully kids that seemed to be "running" the school.
Anyway, thanks for raising logical questions to an otherwise illogical movie.

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tl:dr

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They are all plot holes but nonetheless, this is still my favorite movie from the Karate Kid saga and also one of my all time favorites overall

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