What is that one small and completely avoidable incident that became the cause for the entire plot of your favourite movie?

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Bilbo finding a random ass ring in the pitch black labyrinth of an underground cave.
- He didn’t just randomly find it. It’s a magic ring that wants to be found and get back to its master.
- A random-ass ring, or a random ass-ring?
  
  A ring for a random ass sounds weird. I mean, those random people gotta object or at least be surprised, no?
  Mama said that a random ass-ring is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.
- That escalated pretty hard, didn't it?

A young woman decides to go visit a friend out of town for the weekend and neglects to tell her husband.
-The Big Lebowski

Huh. Never realized it before but one of the reasons I like Starship Troopers is it doesn't really have any glaring examples of these kinds of plot idiocies.
None of the conflicts in that film could have been solved any better with reasonable, adult communication, for instance. The mistakes were all just kinda normal, understandable, human mistakes. Despite these people all clearly being half insane in a fascist sci fi world.
It really grounds the film in its plot, where it would otherwise be too over-the-top everywhere. Verhoeven was good...
- You are going to love this.
  
  That was pretty good. Though I do feel comfortable busting down the theory that she was able to alter its course enough to strike Earth. With the amount of momentum we're dealing with, taking a chunk out of a starship is pretty small potatoes. If altering the course of potential impactors were that simple, we wouldn't need to concern ourselves about it very much.
  I have a couple other pieces of ammo too, but that's probably my strongest.
- When I first saw it, I never realised the comedic side. This just seemed to be the end result of 'if it bleeds, it leads.'
  It's still such an enjoyable movie.
  
  Same. When I first saw the movie it was just space action flick with blood and tits to me. I mean it definitely is that but also so much more...
- Verhoeven didn't write that story, Robert Heinlein (one of the most famous Sci Fi authors of all time) did.
  
  The Heinlein book and the Verhoeven film are as different as night and day, tbf.

If only they had shot down that escape pod with no lifeforms aboard (Star Wars ANH)
- Seriously. To what, save one laser bolt? Damn beancounters.
  
  It's a galaxy filled with droids, too. It's not like they're a new concept.
  My theory is that Vader sensed that R2 was on board and his old friendship got the better of him in that moment. He never had the hard feelings against R2 that he had against Obi-Wan, for example.

Russian sub captain could have been content, not wanting to go fishing in USA.
- You mean a shubmarine captain, right?
  
  Yesh.

Walter could have looked inside the wallet that Sean O'Connell had gifted him to find the missing negative #25 photo he needed in order to keep his job, but he didn't.

Dante could have said no to covering the shift. (Clerks)

Bud seeing Otto walking down the street and calling out to him - Repo Man.

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