- Subverted in The Absent-Minded Professor: Brainard immediately tried to sell flubber to the government after he realized its potential, but the Obstructive Bureaucrats he got on the phone weren't interested.
- The Amazing Spider-Man 1 averts the age-old complaint about why Peter Parker doesn't market his web formula. In this movie, he doesn't invent it; OsCorp owns the patent and manufactures the stuff, selling it, among other things, for use as light-weight emergency cabling. Peter does invent his web-shooters using off-the-shelf technology, but there aren't as many applications of that without the webbing. We do learn that the webbing itself was made by Peter's father back when we worked at OsCorp, which was why Peter was able to recreate it.
- Lampshaded in Back to the Beach, in which Bob Denver — clearly playing Gilligan — is working as a bartender, and complains to a customer about being stranded on a deserted island with a guy so smart he could make a nuclear reactor out of a couple of coconuts... but who couldn't fix a two-foot hole in a boat.
- Back to the Future: That 1.21-gigawatt nuclear reactor in the back of the car is an astonishing creation on all levels. To get that kind of energy output with current technology requires a huge reactor structure that costs hundreds of millions to build, while Doc Brown's reactor is about one cubic meter in size, and he built it in his garage with the kind of resources a single well-to-do private citizen can muster. If this technology was allowed to spread, it would completely change the face of the global energy market. Even if you Hand Wave it by saying the reactor isn't suited for continuous energy production but it expends the whole fuel rod to give about ten seconds of electricity, that is remarkable for other reasons, such as being able to contain the rod without it melting its way through the bottom. Doc Brown does however eventually realize the time machine has done more harm than good, so presumably he thinks the same of the nuclear reactor. Alternatively, he observes that within the next thirty years someone will invent Mr. Fusion, an even more compact reactor running on garbage materials and putting out a comparable amount of energy, and decides that a compact fission reactor won't be needed after all.
- The premise for Batman: The Movie and the Batman TV Series is that that incarnation of Batman only fights supervillains (and nothing more). At the end of the movie, Batman quickly refuses Robin's idea to better the world by making a "Freaky Friday" Flip with the United World Organization security council, arguing that they shouldn't try to tamper with the laws of mother nature. Then happens exactly that, (but arguably, the Status Quo Is God still applies) and Batman takes responsibility just before going out inconspicuously through the window.Batman: Who knows, Robin? This strange mixing of minds may be the greatest single service ever performed for humanity! Let's go, but, inconspicuously, through the window. We'll use our Batropes. Our job is finished.
- In Bruce Almighty, not only is Bruce incredibly stupid but he seems to have no desire to use God's power to make this a better world. His only attempt at this really involved more of "how can I get people to quit bothering me" and that was handled so stupidly it defies belief. However, the whole point of the movie is that Bruce is essentially not cut out to be God in the first place. A deleted scene would have justified this somewhat, with God showing Bruce the results of his reckless "grant everyone's prayers" policy. Some of the people Bruce "helped" would have been better off without it. For example, he made one kid who was bullied grow bigger, but had he remained small he would have grown up and used his experiences to become a poet whose work would inspire millions.
- In Casper, it is revealed that Casper's father created a serum that can bring back the dead, but, unfortunately for the characters, there is only one. It is used to bring Kat's father back after his accidental death. Not once does it occur to anyone that they should perhaps give it to a scientist so that the formula could be duplicated.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Willy Wonka can make a meal come out of gum, an ice cream that stays cold and doesn't melt in the sun, build a chocolate palace without a metal framework, teleport things into TV screens, and has anti-gravity technology—yet he only applies his know-how to candy. Lampshaded by Mike Teavee in the 2005 movie: "Don't you realize what you've invented? It's a teleporter! It's the most important invention in the history of the world! And all you think about is chocolate!" That movie at least has the justification that Willy Wonka hated adults and seeing as teleporters would belong in the hands of adults, he wouldn't have wanted to share. Given what happens to Mike after he tries to prove he's right (he shrinks), you can't really blame Wonka for not using it to teleport people. In the book the "meal from gum" candy actually was intended to end hunger, but Wonka says he hasn't perfected it yet. Given that it turns anyone who eats it into a blueberry, he's right not to market it yet. This works since the entire premise is that Wonka has become a recluse and refuses to allow others to see how his factory works as rival companies sent in spies to steal his recipes. He created the Golden Ticket tour to find a worthy heir, who can presumably change the company for the better as he finally allowed people to see his factory.
- Chronicle ends with Matt, the only surviving character with superpowers, realizing that he needs to use his powers to help the world as he and his friends were just using it for fun and personal gain before. He also vows to find out how they got their powers in the first place to help other people with that knowledge.
- Alfred is constantly harping on this trope to Bruce throughout The Dark Knight Rises, pointing out that if he shared his innovations he could do as much or even more good in Gotham as he tries to as a masked vigilante. Subverted when a great deal of those innovations are stolen by Bane, including a fusion energy source Bruce had shelved for exactly the reasons it becomes used for. Additionally, the whole reason Bruce was able to get his hands on the tech is because a lot of it was in the "dead end" department, usually things deemed impractical or too costly for mass production. For example, the Tumbler's purpose was to jump rivers and build temporary bridges. They were able to get the jumping to work but not the bridge-building, so the project was scrapped. The advanced bodysuit was deemed too costly for equipping every single soldier with it. On the other hand, Bruce also has no right to take that stuff, as it belongs to his company and investors rather than him personally (although he does own, at least, a controlling interest in the company and it was started by his father). If it ever comes to light, then he'll be up on embezzlement charges note .
- In the Darkman film trilogy, the titular character has developed synthetic skin which can mimic the appearance of anyone's face for 90 minutes (after then, the skin then dissolves). The titular character is not satisfied with the invention until the synthetic skin is permanent and therefore has not released the technology to the public.
- In The Dungeonmaster, the main character has invented a pair of glasses that can control numerous electronic devices such as traffic lights, and ATM machines. He doesn't bother to market the invention (to be fair marketing a tool whose primary purpose is casually breaking laws would be a bit problematic, but then if he's capable of making something like that...), and remains stuck as a low-paid IT assistant.
- In Ex Machina, Nathan — working by himself — makes real, working sex and house-servant robots. His robots also walk on two legs like a human, something 2015 robots have a devil of a time with. The rest of the world evidently doesn't have any of this, or Caleb wouldn't have needed it explained to him. Instead of making more money in dumb robot tech, he keeps it to himself and plays with putting AI in the bodies.
- In Flubber, the Robin Williams remake of The Absent-Minded Professor, Professor Braniard (Williams) has to come up with some sort of scientific breakthrough to secure enough funding to keep his college solvent. If only he had some sort of supertech available to show potential investors... like a flying, self-aware Robot Buddy. Oh, wait... This is later justified when he explains that Weebo was a "happy accident"; he actually has no idea why she's intelligent. To figure that out would probably involve dismantling her... i.e., "killing" her. Weebo herself managed to figure it out, though, and leaves behind a set of blueprints that will allow Braniard to re-create the process. It's also explained that his previous successful inventions have been stolen by a rival.
- Parodied in the Get Smart movie The Nude Bomb. Among other Shoe Phone gadgets, Maxwell Smart is shown a desk that can be driven, which runs on ink as fuel. He exclaims that this is the solution to the energy crisis, only to be told that the ink has to be specially made in Saudi Arabia.
- The Ghostbusters movies (and the 2009 video game) play with this. While they do use the technology they've created for personal profit, the game has them as licensed contractors for New York, and they ignore the potential profit they could make from developing that tech for other uses. One of the upgrades for one of the weapon modes in the video game sort of lampshaded the use of the tech by saying that while it can punch small holes in the fabric of reality, the holes can't even be used to dump away trash.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Zig-zagged. Technology in this universe is more advanced than the real-life standard, with reverse engineering of alien technology immediately approved for study. Sure, anything too dangerous is locked away in a lab for further study, but Captain America: Civil War has Tony unveiling new hologram-based technology designed for therapeutic purposes. He admits it's not really practical, which is why he's financing MIT's student projects. All of them. Yet all the advanced tech made by the superheroes and agencies are still not shared with the population at large, as the world is virtually indistinguishable from the contemporary one.
- Justified with all of Arnim Zola's laser weapons that were invented during World War II but never seemed to enter circulation or change technology as we know it in any meaningful way. While they were years ahead of even our time, let alone the 1940s, they also are powered by batteries which are charged by drawing power from the Tesseract. Without access to that your shiny laser gun becomes a useless movie prop as soon as it runs out of juice. It's later revealed in The Avengers (2012) that the folks who had the Tesseract did keep the weapons and put them to use, albeit strictly in an experimental capacity as they still didn't wholly understand what the artifact was truly capable of yet.
- Those who found the Tesseract, S.H.I.E.L.D., managed to create some incredible things, such as advanced aircraft (Quinjets) and a flying aircraft carrier (Helicarrier), yet remain keeping that tech for themselves. They also decided that to research the cube, they could use the help of actual government agencies, namely NASA and the Air Force — and as Captain Marvel (2019) reveals, by the 1980s, this resulted in an experimental faster-than-light engine, though once the prototype exploded (or rather, was shot down by aliens — the same species that the lead scientist of the project had defected from) they never attempted to go this path again, no matter the potential.
- Discussed in Iron Man 1. Tony Stark's power cell is stated as being able to generate 3 gigajoules per second of energy — which is 3 gigawatts of power generation. This is about as much power as produced by the largest man-made nuclear reactor and about 15 times the power of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Tony is adamant that the technology stays in his hands and his alone so that it doesn't fall into "the wrong hands", and part of Iron Man 2's plot revolves around Tony's attempts to prevent his technology being forcibly acquired by the US government or other outside parties; it's also shown that whilst various other nations (as well as his business rival Justin Hammer) have attempted to duplicate the Iron Man tech for themselves, none have so far succeeded... until Ivan Vanko shows up.
- Justified with Bruce Banner's blood in The Incredible Hulk (2008). It's revealed that scientist Samuel Sterns has manufactured vast quantities of Banner's irradiated blood to supplement the samples Banner had sent to use in his experiments searching for a cure, since the samples Banner sent him were too small and limited to get reliable results from; Sterns did this in a noble (if dangerously naive) attempt to "unlock thousands of new cures" and make humans impervious to disease, upon learning of the regenerative nature of Banner's DNA, which has been exposed to both a version of the Super Soldier Serum and gamma radiation. However, on discovering this, Banner insists that the blood samples be destroyed, since the government forces and General Ross don't care about using the blood as a cure, only as a weapon, and it's too dangerous to fall into anyone else's hands — he's proven right when Emil Blonsky, already exposed to the Serum, coerces Sterns into giving him a transfusion of Banner's blood, turning him into the Abomination.
- In The Avengers (2012), Tony announces that Stark Tower is now "a beacon of self-sustaining, clean energy" powered by the Arc Reactor. He seems content to leave Stark Tower as nothing more than a beacon however, as there's still no indication he plans to actually share this revolutionary technology with anyone apart from himself and his own company. It's a bit odd to want to inspire others to develop clean and safe energy when he already has the answer, just refuses to share it with anyone because he only trusts himself to use it. Best case scenario is somebody else develops the same or similar technology independently, in which case he'll have no control over it.
- It is at least in keeping with the rest of his character at this point in the story. He shuts down Stark Industries' weapons division because "selling arms is wrong," but doesn't actually stop making weapons — just keeps them all to himself, including one of the most powerful weaponry technologies in the world: the Iron Man suit. Moreover he refuses any oversight of that technology or even his own actions. (His attitude notably changes in later films. Still doesn't give free, clean energy to humanity though.)
- In fact, he takes a world-changing power source that was formerly used to keep himself alive and throws it in the ocean for catharsis (assuming he didn't remove the actual vital parts first and throw away the case). That's leaving aside that every single technology that goes into his armor is a world-changing technology, from its potential for advanced prosthetics to his insanely advanced AI butler. And that's not even mentioning the casual, almost throw-away introduction of Nanomachines in Avengers: Infinity War.
- His father Howard also has this problem. Leaving aside the arc reactor, he also, as shown in Captain America: The First Avenger, invented an anti-gravity device in 1942. Sure, he hadn't worked all the kinks out, but he had a freaking anti-gravity device three years before the invention of the A-bomb. Though Agent Coulson gets to make use of it. One theory is that the anti-grav device was actually the prototype of Stark Industries' repulsor tech.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron gives us a subversion in that Tony's desire not to be Useless leads him to mess with things he doesn't fully understand, resulting in the creation of a genocidal AI. note
- Spider-Man again is a teen who discovered a superstrong adhesive to use as his webbing. Though this time another person at least manages to duplicate it, given Spider-Man: Homecoming shows that Tony Stark created special Spidey suits that generate the web and can even shoot it in different ways.
- Justified and discussed in Black Panther (2018). Justified when it is stated that Wakanda doesn't send its tech to the world as they think it will cause war. This is proven right when Killmonger gets control and starts sending weapons to war dogs in other countries. However, many characters think that Wakanda would be able to provide aid and technology on an unprecedented scale, which is what it starts doing at the end of the film. Though by the sequel, they're still rather reserved with their vibranium and derived tech fearing to be exploited by other nations (though losing their king between movies didn't help).
- Possibly the ultimate throw-away version is presented in Avengers: Endgame when one of the failed attempts at the time machine turns out to age people up to geezers or down to babies. It's treated as a wacky failure rather than the key to immortality, since the heroes only have so much Pym Particles to use, and there's no indication they can do it precisely, on command.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has Scott mentioning Hope is trying to avert this, using the Sizeshifter nature of Pym Particles to help those in need (specifically mentioning hunger given they can enlarge food, and housing for allowing to reduce locations).
- The Men in Black possess enormous amounts of confiscated advanced technology. While they do release some of the technology to the public, holding the patents on numerous alien technologies sold to the public — velcro, microwave ovens and CDs, to name a few — they are doing a great deal of constant memory erasing to hide alien existence to avoid possible panic. This is further shown in the animated version, in which the MIB puts a waiting period on each piece of confiscated tech, which runs into centuries in some cases.
- In Moonraker, Sir Hugo Drax has built a fleet of space shuttles and a large functioning space station years before the International Space Station, and all the heroes do is blow them up rather than taking them over and using them. However, one should keep in mind that this installment of the James Bond franchise (which constantly runs all over the Sliding Scale of Continuity) does not even appear to be set in the real world of The '80s. Rather, it is apparently set in some Alternate Universe or 20 Minutes into the Future, or at least takes HUGE artistic liberties (or possibly combines all three concepts), since the governments' armed forces in this world also display advanced space technologies and weapons equal to those of Drax — so it appears that these technologies have already been developed and used by other people (just have used to start The End of the World as We Know It).
- In The Prestige, Nikola Tesla makes magician Robert Angier a machine which was intended to be a teleporter but turns out to be a matter replicator. It could be used to make unlimited quantities of food, clothing, machine parts, construction materials... It could put an end to hunger and material poverty for all time. But Angier can think of no better use for it than a stage-magic act. Discussed in that Tesla himself is aware of the duplicator's full potential and feels The World Is Not Ready for such a revolutionary invention. He only gives it to Angier because Angier will waste its potential on magic tricks. Besides, his rival Thomas Edison sends men to destroy Tesla's work so this doesn't happen.
- The protagonist of The Projected Man has invented a matter transporter capable of transmitting matter instantly across great distances, but everyone involved considers it a failure because it doesn't work with living creatures. It never occurs to anyone that they could become filthy rich in the parcel shipping business.
- In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Will develops a drug that completely reverses the effects of his father's Alzheimer's for eight years, although followed by rapid regression. This drug is a potential pharmaceutical goldmine, but he throws it away and starts over from scratch because it didn't give a permanent effect. Justified in that his father's death likely messed with his judgement.
- Played with in Secret Headquarters. On the one hand, the only person with access to the Source is the Guard. All that infinite energy and ability to fabricate fantastical gadgets are only available to one person. This is somewhat Justified by the fact that the Source seems to predict widespread war, famine, and even extinction if the wider world gets access to it. On the other hand, the Guard has been a massive force for peace worldwide. By the time of the movie, defense firms are starting to worry he'll single-handedly render them obsolete.
- In Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, NASA has a satellite that can apparently shoot lasers capable of dismantling a wall of sharknadoes. If this technology could take down massive storms like these and prevent the loss of human life, why couldn't they have people stationed up for regular hurricanes?
- Shin Kamen Rider (2023) uses this as the reason why the titular Kamen Rider's creator decided to rebel against SHOCKER. He created Bio-Augmentation technology which allows an ordinary human to gain superhuman powers and be freed of most bodily needs, all fueled by the prana generated by other humans and absorbed from the air. When he realized the fatal flaw in this concept, that the system needs most people to not be super so they can generate the prana that the handful of supers use, it drove him to abandon the technology.
- Justified in SpaceCamp, in which NASA has an Artificial Intelligence which is capable of expressing emotions and bypassing failsafes to launch a shuttle, but NASA itself is still counting on the shuttle and mindless computers. The robot is too vulnerable to background radiation to be used in outer space or hazardous environments, and despite their best efforts, NASA was unable to fix the design flaws. They keep the prototype around because they've already paid for it, but it's too delicate and temperamental to actually have any practical use as far as they're concerned.
- Star Trek:
- In Star Trek (2009), Scotty (with a little help from the future) quickly modifies a transporter so it can send people across vast interstellar distances. This is used to get Scotty and Kirk onto the Enterprise (which has been travelling away from their starting point for hours at high warp speeds). So the transporter modification is used to resolve a dramatic point in the plot, but no one seems to realize it could also be used for routine travel between star systems. The transport doesn't have the necessary accuracy yet; it nearly got Scotty killed when they used it. Addressed in Star Trek Into Darkness; Scotty mentions that his transwarp beaming equation was confiscated by security, allowing John Harrison to beam from Earth to Qo'noS.
- By the end of Star Trek Into Darkness, Bones manages to synthesize a formula that can effectively resurrect the dead, though only if very recently deceased, as Bones' has Kirk put into cryo to preserve brain activity, meaning it's a narrow window of opportunity, but still useful. No mention is made of future use of it. Likely because, as the novelization mentions, the entire basis for the serum is Khan's blood. And only Khan's blood. Bones has no idea if any of Khan's crew are similarly capable of regeneration the way Khan himself is, and ethically speaking harvesting a single genetically modified human's blood like cattle is extremely taboo even by modern 21st century standards, let alone 23rd century morality.
- In Superman (1978) and sequels, our hero has a Fortress of Solitude filled with "the accumulated scientific knowledge of dozens of different worlds". Rather than flying around stopping one-off accidents and robberies, wouldn't he make a far greater contribution to humanity if he just used that technology to, say, cure cancer? Looks like Luthor was right about him: "Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind." (Not that Lex has any room to talk, as he squanders all manner of advanced technology on attempts to kill Superman.) Jor-El orders him to not interfere in human history, giving reasons like over-reliance from humanity and making a target out of his loved ones. And the one time he tried a direct approach was in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the lesson here apparently that trying to force humanity forward will result in people trying to capitalize on your attempts.
- In her review of Teen Witch, The Nostalgia Chick points out Louise could use her magic powers to fix the world but instead uses it on petty gain.
- In Time Chasers, the hero needs funding to continue to develop his working Time Machine, so he signs away his rights to a cacklingly-evil venture capitalist, even after someone points out to him that he could get rich by going back in time and starting a savings account.
- In defense of the Transformers Film Series, Optimus Prime says explicitly that humanity is not ready for the Autobots' advanced weaponry. The same is not said about the Autobots' other significant technologies, such as (apparently) FTL travel, mindblowingly advanced computer miniaturisation, robotics, and fabrication. This is particularly egregious since in the first film Simmonds expressly says that much of humanity's best 20th century technologies — from the CD player to the microwave to the internal combustion engine — derives from what they learned studying a trapped and unconscious Transformer. Imagine how far they could have pushed if they had a consenting friendly one around to fill in the gaps. In the fourth film, one tech company manages to get their hands on "Transformium", the stuff Transformers are made of. Except their version is the raw stuff, giving it far more shapeshifting capability. We see it taking shapes like children's toys and handguns and their own Transformers which they lose control of in short order — wait, maybe Optimus was more right than we thought. To be fair, though, the only reason they lose control of Galvatron is because Megatron downloaded himself into the new body.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit gives us Marvin Acme is Useless. Some of the things Eddie encounters in the warehouse could be incredibly useful, especially the Portable Hole. Marvin just sells them as jokes.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ReedRichardsIsUseless/LiveActionFilms
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