Derek's Death in Teen Wolf Was as Dumb as Jack's in Titanic; Here's Proof

Jack not climbing on a piece of debris with Rose in Titanic is often brought up as a platinum example of a stupid death for the sake of drama.

However, that example is undermined by the fact that anyone's chances of surviving for hours on a floating door in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean are pretty slim — acceptable cinematic breaks from reality and all that — and besides, that door was arguably too small to reliably keep both lovers above the icy water.

But there are no such logical excuses for Derek Hale's death in the finale of Teen Wolf: The Movie.

Derek throwing Scott away from the Nogitsune and then joining the immolation was supposed to be his grand moment of heroic self-sacrifice… Except that there was a major problem with the scene.

At that moment, neither Scott nor Derek were actually contributing anything to keeping the Nogitsune restrained.

The scene's cinematography doesn't establish why Parrish's own strength was not sufficient to prevent the monster from getting away until he's properly roasted by Parrish's hellfire. In fact, the scene actually shows that it was, which makes Derek's sacrifice completely unnecessary.

This moment ended up particularly problematic because Derek's death was a cherry on the top of the cake of stupidity. For starters, there were, like, 10 capable people around, most of them with serious personal stakes in the situation. Then why did only four of them try to fight?

For some characters, like Malia, it is difficult to even imagine them sitting out a fight against a villain who threatens more or less everyone they care about.

It is quite possible that Derek had to die simply because the actor playing him, Tyler Hoechlin, wasn't keen on appearing in the franchise any further. So killing off the character, who was a magnet for misfortune and misery throughout the series, in the revival movie wasn't in fact the result of the scriptwriters being extra mean-spirited.

But couldn't his death have been arranged better? Judging by how things actually went in the movie, not only did it look stupid, it also made Scott and Scott's pack appear weak and useless.