Why not just destroy the damned thing??

i couldn't agree more... so far. i got half way through this film last night, and although i wasn't tired, i opted to go to bed early rather than watch this entire piece of dross in one sitting.
re: the scroll not being destroyed... it promises heaven or hell on earth, depending on who reads it i think. if the monk guarding it is so bloody holy, why doesn't he read it? ooh, maybe that comes at the end! can't wait to switch on the tape again!
i can't believe my first post is writing about bulletproof monk, who incidentally is more concerned about avoiding bullets than anything else. the acting is atrocious, the script weak, the story average. i have an antidote for picking up crap like this. i always hire a classic when i hire something new. do i watch the rest of bulletproof monk, or drunken master?
and i must disagree, vniksic, with the stiffmeister... i really wanted "Monk!" to stop following this guy and let him walk out of the film.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but the scroll can't be destroyed. It's seared into the skin of the monk who guards it. And thanks to the power of the scroll that monk cannot be killed.

Honestly I can think of many movies where I've said "well if they'd only done *this* then it could have solved the whole damned problem in the first place", but as you've already pointed out, then we wouldn't have a story.

One of the first examples to pop into mind was in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. In the flashback where Elrond is whingeing about the weakness of men and how he'd gone with Isildur to the fire of Mount Doom, but Isildur became possessed and walked out with the ring: my first thought was, "you know Elrond, one good shot to the guy's back could have sent him over the edge, the Ring would be gone, end of story." But again, that's the point - it would have been the end of the story before the epic could really get going. As a viewer, I accept that and am willing to run with it. But there's always that cynical part of me that says "man, that was DUMB!" :)

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Why not just destroy the damned thing??

Yeah, the film was a massive let down, but right at the start the master tells him that the scroll can be used for great good or great evil, and the human race wasn't ready for it yet. So I suppose thats why it couldn't be destroyed.

Cheers

[deleted]

He did say why at the end- "I have been hoping for 60 years you would change..."
just before the Nazi falls

At least one professional critic mentioned this, too, and I know it's answered below, but it bears repeating--one could only think that destroying the scroll instead was an option if one wasn't really paying attention to the situation set up by the film. The scroll could be used for good, too, and the overarching point was to use it to eventually bring about a utopia, but it's stated that mankind wasn't ready for it yet. However, in the interim, we see that the monk was using the powers for good. If the scroll had been destroyed instead, that wouldn't be possible.

So it was up to the monks to protect the scroll and use it in limited ways until the right time arrived. If they were to destroy it, they'd be doing something bad themselves, especially given that the source of the scroll and its power is obviously supernatural, so presumably the monks were simply entrusted with it until the right time would arrive.

It's also basically a metaphor for free will. Free will can be used for good or bad. If we could just destroy it instead, should we do that just because some will use it for bad?

Thinking that it's a "plot hole" as one professional critic called it that the scroll isn't simply destroyed instead is evidence rather that that critic either wasn't quite paying attention to the film, the film was a bit over his head, or possibly both.


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