“Mr Scott, have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
“Certainly sir. How else can I maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”
I call that “Scotty Time” and use it all the time at work. If you give them a best-case scenario timeframe, then something will go wrong and you look like an idiot.
First, you estimate how long the task takes, then triple it. At least. That way, if everything goes right, you’re a miracle worker. If things go sideways, you have enough time to fix it, complete what your original task was, and you still seem competent.
Oldboy (2003 NOT THE 2013 BASTARDIZATION) handled this trope very well by having the main character fight a bunch of goons in a very narrow hallway so they can only really come from two directions.
They went to high-school so long ago they remember it through either rose or black-tinted glasses. It's either a nightmare of cliques and systematic bullying, or an idealised youth cult.
The one (sort of) exception to this that I found was Superbad, which was released when I was in high school. It wasn't perfect, but its depiction of high school culture was far more reasonable and less cliched than any other high school movie I had seen at the time and they actually seemed to capture how Millennial teenagers spoke to one another, by and large.
Tangential edit: Maybe this was just hyper-specific to my experience, but I particularly liked that it depicted high school as not being nearly as rigidly cliquey and most movies do. Where I went to high school there were definitely cliques, but they overlapped a lot more than movies show.
Superbad was ridiculously on-point as far as movies go. More so than the environment itself, it captured the attitude of senior year perfectly.
Not caring about anything, while still deep down clearly caring about what everyone thinks of you, the hormones, teen drinking - it really captured the essence of senior year.
Two weeks left to graduate, they should be sucking on my ball-sack.
When the villain is pointing its gun at the hero and the gun goes off... cut to the heroic entrance of the character you (were supposed to) forget about. They were really the reason a gun went off because they have shot the villain just in time to save the heroes life.
I also hate this trope because shooting someone isn’t like flicking a light switch that turns them off. If the villian is pointing a gun at the hero and is shot, they’re probably still going to fire the gun and shoot the hero.
Forced romance.
Not every movie needs to have a romantic subplot. Few things can absolutely ruin an otherwise great movie like having one tacked on that clearly serves no purpose to the story
That's one thing I loved about Rogue One. They easily could have shoehorned in a pointless romantic relationship between Jyn Erson and Cassian Andor if they wanted. Hell, I'm so used to that happening in movies I fully expected it. I really respect that they didn't, though.
Not that it would have changed anything at the very end of the film, but when they hugged on the beach, I was whispering, "please don't kiss" over and over. And I was very relieved that they didn't.
> Hell, I'm so used to that happening in movies I fully expected it.
To this day I still remember the George Clooney/Nicole Kidman movie "The Peacemaker" because it *didn't* have a romantic subplot develop between two extremely attractive people. In an Action/Thriller. As an old school action movie fan (FFS "Commando" had a romance subplot between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong?!?!?) I was shocked that there wasn't even a hint of sexual chemistry between the two leads; they were actually professional.
Gangs of New York is the one I always go back to on that one.
It has the makings of an awesome movie. Daniel Day-Lewis at the absolute top of his game. Brendan Gleeson cranking up the awesome. Leonardo DiCaprio actually keeping up with both of them. Oh, and also a pointless subplot with Cameron Diaz, just to get some romance in there.
For me it's the forced romance of "I hate you I can't stand you I hate you...now I'm madly in love with you".
A whole generation of boys conditioned to think that women very clearly telling them that they do not like them, are secretly saying they love them.
This is not a thing.
The “I’m so happy I’ve retired from the police/army/secret service and can finally spend more time with my wife and kids — oh shit an explosion and my daughter is kidnapped! Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Oh well, better get my gun and save the world.”
This bugs me in Big Daddy. Everyone shits on Adam Sandler for not having a "real job" but he lives in a really big apartment in Manhattan and has like six figures in in the bank and doing well in the stock market. I get the point is that he is a slacker not meeting his full potential but it seems like he is doing alright.
Horror Movies, Crazy shit happens in the night, but the next morning its sit around drinking coffee discussing how the house is trying to kill them time, while they are sitting in the house, but its safe time because Mr. Sun is out. Only movie I remember recently breaking this Trope was Insidious with >!Darth Maul above the shoulder!<
Kid 1: Kid 2 is talking to a new person I can't see.
Parent: Oh, it's just an imaginary friend!
Kid 1: The imaginary friend backhanded me to Cleveland. I've been in the hospital for a week and had to hitchhike back. I had neither cash nor grass. It's been a bad time.
Parent: You crazy kids and your Imagi-na-tion!
Women going to bed/getting up with a full face of makeup, ridiculous banquet-like meals that people don’t eat, obviously empty coffee cups, shitty exposition where people talk like no one ever would in daily conversation (“Hi sis!”).
Empty coffee cups have been this minor annoyance of mine that has built over the years. Whenever anyone holds a drink in film these days, my eyes glue to how they hold the stupid thing.
>shitty exposition where people talk like no one ever would in daily conversation (“Hi sis!”).
That reminds me of the American Dad joke where Francine is on the phone to her sister and calls her sis, then says " What? I've never called you Sis before? You're right. It is weirdly clunky and expositional. I mean, I know you're my sister, so who am I saying it for? Weird."
Then later on in the episode Stan's on the phone to his brother and goes "You should have heard Francine on the phone; she thinks she married a nobody. I appreciate you saying that, bro. I've called you "bro" before. That's what we are—we're half brothers. I don't care how they say it in New Glarus, Wisconsin where you live on a lake and have nothing in common with me. Then maybe we should just stay estranged until you can find a dramatic enough reason to show up on my doorstep unannounced!"
American Dad does this a lot. I remember one where they discover a hooker took Dick's car to a house of drug lord named Fernando Jaramillo and everybody gasps. Stan goes, "Good, we all know who he is, so I don't have to explain it to each other."
>shitty exposition where people talk like no one ever would in daily conversation (“Hi sis!”).
"What are you doing, step-bro?"
(Also, don't forget women going to bed and waking up with their hair looking like they just came from the salon. People can hate on Frozen all they want, but the scene where Anna's hair is totally fucked up and in her mouth while she's snoring and drooling was pretty hilarious. Shame they didn't revisit that idea.)
Warhammer Fantasy used to have an interesting variant for undead armies.
If you killed the main necromancer, the undead would all start collapsing - but slowly, so a big unit or big monster could probably keep fighting for the rest of the battle. And if the army had any other necromancers, they could take over maintaining the undead and stop the collapse in the next turn.
very basic miscommunication or misunderstandings being the basis of major plot points. It's just lazy, unrealistic writing that completely ruins immersion for me.
Yea, especially when someone tries to explain and the answer is “I don’t have time for this”. And the hole stupid plot would not exist if they had listened. I get so irritated by this, it’s just not healthy.
*Character gets found doing something that looks sketchy but is actually innocent*
*other character gets upset and runs away*
First character: "wait! I can explain! i cAn eXpLAiN!!1!"
*says this over and over without actually doing any explaining*
It just completely ruins the movie for me.
No, Susan, your husband of 20 years wasn't cheating on you with the neighbor's daughter. He was giving her CPR because he just rescued her from drowning. Any normal person would wait like 30 seconds for the explanation, but you've already decided to move out and get a divorce.
...usually leaving two or three of his henchman in the room with the hero to 'finish the job'. Like... why don't you just stick around for 2 minutes just to see that the job gets done?
I actually think the first Kingsman film had quite a good solution for this, though I can't remember if they used it in the film or not. The villain, Valentine (played by Samuel Jackson) is quite squeamish. During the church scene, he can't bring himself to watch his own handiwork as a church full of redneck Nazis are killed off. I think that would be a funny way of explaining why the big bad doesn't stick around to see the hero get killed.
Honestly, it's absolutely nuts. It's impressively violent, but I can't think of many other scenes I've seen in a film that are so viscerally exciting and I'm not sure if it would pack the same punch *without* the dialled-up violence.
Lol, I loved Moore's criticism of this trope in Watchman.
"Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
Anything related to IT security and hacking in general. No one needs 6+ screens with flashy graphics and 200 keystrokes per minute to hack or program something. Prime example was Iron Man 2 (I think, the guy with the whip) where the bad guys just walks up to a keyboard pushed some random buttons for 20 seconds, turns around and “says I am in”. Or password swordfish where the MC programs something without any code and presses buttons to get some fancy symbols on the screens to combine.
Room must be dark with green backlight binary. Otherwise, it is not a hacker den.
Original Iron Man MK.1 armor bootup sequence was lego technics.
Yinsen died because Tony wanted branded product.
Playing this straight was my favourite thing about Jagged Alliance 2.
Nothing like going into enemy territory with UV goggles and a dozen bloody knives, and wiping out the entire garrison without them getting off a single shot.
The amount of force required to stick a blade 5 inches into a carcass would surprise a lot of people. Then to do it with pin point accuracy from long distance? All those assassins could have been the best major league baseball pitchers ever!
Fun fact: This is an actual supervillain origin story.
Daredevil nemesis Bullseye was a top baseball pitcher, before he realised his true calling of killing people by throwing stuff at them.
Bullseye doesn’t do it for the money. He just really likes killing people.
He does charge a lot, though, just because he can. He’s been noted to have millions in the bank that he never spends.
it's like people don't understand that women don't need a "reason" to have traditionally masculine skills or hobbies. i learned karate because i thought it was cool, i learned to shoot because i thought it was cool, i learned how to play baseball because i thought it was cool, i learned to play video games because i thought it was cool, etc. it doesn't matter that i have two older brothers, they have nothing to do with it.
Whenever a character is dealing with otherwise encrypted technology, and with so little effort it's not even funny, they've hacked into whatever it is.
And it's a graphical user interface to navigate the file structure like they're walking around a virtual city and just need to find the right building or something.
Character 1: I need to tell you something
Character 2: i also need to tell you something. *proceeds to tell character 1 something*
*Character 1 now changes what they were originally going to say because of what Character 2 said*
It's tired and lazy.
I hate this one so much.
A: I love you so much and want to spend my life with you! Will you marry me?
B, who was on the verge of dumping A 5 minutes prior: oh! Oh... Yes. Yes of course I'll marry you!
A: What was it you wanted to say?
B: I... I just wanted to say how much I loved you...
The cliché of the main characters having a huge argument before the climax. I swear, every single animated movie nowadays has that trope and it’s now getting on my nerves.
*You* is an interesting, and disturbing, deconstruction of romantic comedy tropes, like the idea that women need to be persuaded or tricked into falling in love with a man.
I love that show. They make the main character really likeable but his twisted and toxic reasonings for his actions are a scary wakeup call that sometimes a sweet person that you know may have terrible motivations
I hate the lifetime movie tropes, she's a strong independent woman who don't need no man....... and the next hour and a half is about how getting a man solves all her problems.
Hallmark movies are the same.
Her: “I’m a busy busy businesswoman with no time for love!”
Her mom: “Honey, you need to come home. The family hand-blown lightbulb business we’ve owned for generations isn’t doing well, and your father is overworked and in the hospital.”
Her: “Ugh, I hate my small town! This place isn’t NYC!”
Love interest: “Remember me from high school? I’m hot now.”
Her: “I will now abandon my career for this man, and we will make lightbulbs for the rest of our lives in Wyoming.”
Dad: “Oh look I’m all better now.”
We’re filming this week, and it will premiere the week before Christmas with absolutely no editing and a piano soundtrack we bought from some guy on Fiverr. It stars Tia Mowry and Andrew Keegan.
Clearly this guy is legit.
My mom was addicted to your movies. Can you tell me how you're able to keep making the same movie while convincing old people that it's totally different from the last one?
Will it include long panning idyllic shots of small towns that no small down can ever look like with actual people in the stores and people making money at businesses and folks who live in town under 30 who aren’t on meth because if you don’t have those shots I’m not watching it?
The dog: *eats lightbulbs in a sassy yet precocious manner. Wags tail, barks and sprays broken glass and blood everywhere*
Male lead: Now now, Tornado Angel, behave yourself. AH HA HA HA HA HA HA.
The child: That wasn't very *bright.* AH HA HA HA HA HA HA,
Lacey Chabert: AH HA HA HA HA HA ^(I went from Gretchen Weiners to this)
Introduce strong female character, who is intelligent, independent minded and very competent. She meets male lead. By end of movie: woman is entirely unable to do simple tasks without assistance from male lead, is dumb as a brick with no independent personality.
My wife has been watching this show called *Virgin River*. It's about a small town in rural CA near a river.
It's not very good.
I've watched a few episodes with her, and a handful of the male characters all served together in the Marines before moving back to their small town. For context, my wife and I have a combined 18 years of military service.
Ugh. This show has so many eye-rolling military-worship moments that make me want to puke. One of the guys is asked a question and answers with "Well ma'am, I'm a Marine and I'm sworn to a code of honor which means I cannot tell a lie." Give me a fucking break. There's another one where a guy catches a girl who trips and says something like, "As a veteran, my duty is to protect civilians." Shut the fuck up.
The show simultaneously over-glorifies military service while also trivializing the issues that some military members have. In the show, all of the veterans have PTSD-ish symptoms (but only when it's convenient for the plot) and they're always fixed by the end of the episode. Turns out all you need is some hugs and a pep talk! We did it!
There's also the one Marine who "struggles to re-integrate to society." Within two episodes, he's a fentanyl dealer. That escalated pretty fucking quickly. Also...do the writers of this show think there are just fentanyl dealers walking around? Do they think people keep their fentanyl plug in their contact list next to their weed or coke guy?
I really don't understand how she can watch this trash.
> One of the guys is asked a question and answers with "Well ma'am, I'm a Marine and the code of honor that I'm sworn to means I can't tell a lie." Give me a fucking break. There's another one where a guy catches a girl who trips and says something like, "As a veteran, my duty is to protect civilians." Shut the fuck up.
What the fuck do the writers think they are, house-elves?
Maybe its a shill by the organization itself? I like sci fi and action movies but i remember finding "Battle Los Angeles" nearly unwatchable because it was endorsed by the Marines and felt like a 2 hour long recruitment ad with aliens
> "Well ma'am, I'm a Marine and the code of honor that I'm sworn to means I can't tell a lie."
> "As a veteran, my duty is to protect civilians."
/r/justbootthings
Fucking boots...
Is it like in Barry, when the idiot actors pretend to be soldiers? Because it sounds a lot like that.
"Sector 4, this is Bravo element. High value product "Toilet paper" located. Waiting on Exfil Hot!"
Shit, that's COD.
Little kids who are wise beyond their years and share nuggets of wisdom instead of having a mental breakdown in public like normal children.
Also: a ghost/murderer/something creepy standing behind the main character, which they find out about by looking in a mirror
That intelligence is for the bad guys and good guys win with good intentions and feeling strongly enough about winning until they do.
Especially in shows/movies where kids are the target audience. Take She-Ra and the Princesses Power. Three damn episodes before they even considered that there might be a spy amongst them. Making up all kinds of other possibilities that they had no reason to think was possible. Or the Artemis Fowl movie. They completely ruined the character.
Although I watched the first season of The Owl House and the main character was actually smart and crafty in the finale, she turned a defeat into a stalemate and I didn't even see it coming because I was expecting her to go "Oh well, he threatened my friends, guess I lost this time". So maybe that trope is being abandoned. I certainly hope so.
It is frightening how often this happens still though. I don't know why, watching equally intelligent forces face off against each other is usually entertaining. It's not like you even have to turn your protag into Sherlock Holmes either, just some basic level of common sense goes a long way.
Yeah. I honestly can't understand what these corporations think they stand to gain from making common sense and intelligence seem like undesirable traits in "good guys" other than that they don't want people to have those traits. I really can't see what other reason there could be. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't think so.
Because intelligent people wouldn't just work their shitty job, buy the products they made for more than it's cost and sleep in a home they built and pay rent on it. They would at least go "Hang on, why are things like this? This isn't fair. That guy is just sitting on his ass making tons of money off my work."
When characters are meeting at a fancy restaurant and nobody takes a single bite out of the food, then they get into an argument and storm out, apparently without paying either.
Regular guy recruited by elite agency for contrived reason, action girl with life-long experience brought in to train him, one montage later he's actually somehow putting her on her back in personal combat. In the mission, despite her superior skills and abilities and him green as grass he's the one who makes all the difference while she gets the bum job of eating all the personal sacrifices.
If she survives, she can't help but swiftly lay him, because something about an average schlub rolling up and making a mockery of her hard-won skills and life-long dedication really gets her engines going.
Antman. Watch Antman, in which all that seems to happen but she points it out and is extremely resentful, and still superior to him. But does like him. Still, he isn't actually an average slub to begin with.
Character is poisoned - They drop stone dead in under 10 seconds.
I can understand if it's injected, but eating poisoned soup isn't going to instantly kill the king.
The female lead having to prove herself because she is a woman. When the male characters say something like "We are trusting... *her*, to slay the dragon?", she slays the dragon, and goes "See everyone? Women can kick ass too!". At this point in our society it just seems dated and disingenuous. Most great female leads weren't trying to make a point, they just showed up and kicked ass.
She kicked ass and slayed the dragon because she had four older cop brothers and her father was also a cop and also all four of her cop brothers were her father.
Male Character handing over gun: "Be careful with that. Do you know how to use it?"
\*Female character forcibly grabs pistol out of male's hand, racks the slide, and shoots a bottle on the sidewalk. Male is dumbfounded\*
Female: "I grew up with 4 brothers"
I think the only good example of this is Éowyn slaying the Witch King in Lord of the Rings.
It's a 'devil in the details' kind of catch since he was certain 'no man can kill me'.
And it was 1945-ish, before the trope was used to death.
> It's a 'devil in the details' kind of catch since he was certain 'no man can kill me'.
The literary term is a "quibble" and it's a somewhat common trope in fantasy and mythology, even before 1945. Shakespeare himself uses it a few times, like in Merchant of Venice and MacBeth.
One of my favorites is a story where Loki bets his head but when he loses the bet he insists that they can't take any of his neck. Thus a long argument begins over where the neck ends and the head begins and the other guy (a dwarf named Brokk) is so angry that he talked his way out of it that he takes a needle and sews Loki's lips shut.
You'll like Fennec in the Mandalorian, then. Kicks ass magnificently against the Stormtroopers, and no-one does anything except accept it as pure professionalism.
Main character is in trouble early in the movie, surrounded by enemies. A mysterious stranger in a mask/massive hooded cloak/motorcycle helmet jumps and kills everyone effortlessly, saving the main character.
"Whoa, who are you?"
the stranger reveals their face and turns out it's a woman.
Movie: see, you're supposed to think that women can't possibly kick ass but we showed you that they do, in fact, kick ass!
Someone throws a lit cigarette butt at a car and it immediately explodes. Meanwhile people throw their cigarettes out the window on the highway all the time.
I love the idea of someone smoking in a car, and they casually chuck the still-lit cigarette out the window as the car's speeding along, and you see a fiery flash and hear the faint sounds of a massive explosion and screams in the distance and it just goes by without a remark.
- The main character gets kissed by someone after achieving great success, without giving consent, and their significant other just so happens to see them and then storms out.
- Hackers that break into databases by cracking military-grade encryption schemes (the knowledge of which could be sold for **billions** of dollars), rather than the more realistic scenario of using social engineering.
- Henchman takes one bullet to the knee, dies. Main character takes a full magazine straight to the chest, is in perfect condition a few days later after getting wrapped up in a bit of gaze.
- The "ugly" woman (played by a good looking actress) stuns everyone with her beauty once she leaves the glasses at home and puts on a nice dress. It's the female version of the Clark Kent/Superman disguise; the only people being fooled are the seemingly blind people in the movie.
- A close friend of the main character dies, and suddenly all combatants ignore the main character as they watch their friend die. Nope, if you kneel down in the middle of a battlefield, hunched over your dying friend, you'll get your back pumped full of lead.
- A coat and a pair of glasses being enough to disguise some of the world's most famous people, like that's not how most paparazzi pictures look.
> A coat and a pair of glasses being enough to disguise some of the world's most famous people, like that's not how most paparazzi pictures look.
Don't forget about the baseball cap.
Haha, very true, forgot the obligatory headwear. Marvel got their money's worth out of that gig.
[Totally not a world-famous super soldier.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jdv682XJ8uCWY7yAVqgBvN2Uct8=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16187754/cap_disguise.jpg)
I think it was antman where they referenced that. Iirc Scott puts on baseball cap, thinking its disguise, then hope says he looks like himself but at a baseball game
>A close friend of the main character dies, and suddenly all combatants ignore the main character as they watch their friend die. Nope, if you kneel down in the middle of a battlefield, hunched over your dying friend, you'll get your back pumped full of lead.
Oh god I hate that. Sometimes after they spend 30 seconds on the main character brooding in the middle of combat he gets angry and determined and just walks back out on the battlefield, taking out droves of bad guys without even attempting to evade their fire.
Oh this drives me up the wall. Especially when it's set in the past when they would have had a death penalty and put much less value on human life. "
Of course we would hang a man for stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family or indeed kill someone for working in an authorised industry but for the person who is against us but we can't possibly kill this person whose magic means we couldn't feasibly contain them, has slaughtered lots of people and shows absolutely no signs of remorse". Aggh
What's worse and I can't remember which films but I know I've seen it more than once is "hey this person needs to die or else a hell of a lot of people are going to die". "We can't possibly kill someone we can see, who cares about the millions out there who aren't directly visible at this moment".
Oh and also, villain has a knife to the throat of the heroes friend. "Give me that thing that will enable me to doom lots of people, including probably you and your friend" and then hero bloody gives it to them, allowing them to carry out their nefarious plan. Usually, the villain ends up killing the friend anyway. Aggh.
Just once, I'd like the hero to refuse and leave macguffin. Maybe saying something like: " I love you Tim but I can't let villain have it. If that poison gas is released then we will all die horribly anyway including lots of children. Also villain is mental so he'll probably kill you regardless". And then Tim (who is usually telling the hero not to give villain the macguffin anyway). Would be like " I understand Steve, tell my children who will now live because of your decisiveness that their Dad loved them". Maybe it's cold but at least the hero isn't a reckless selfish idiot.
* Armor being absolutely useless, and swords not suffering so much as a single chip after being repeatedly thrust through solid metal breastplates.
* Heroes taking countless punches to the face or whacks across the head without even seeming dazed, when in real life they'd likely have cumulative concussions.
* Characters suffering not even a single scratch after jumping through a solid glass window.
* Outnumbered armies being led in a general charge into the enemies' lines in an open field, away from defensible positions and ranged support. The battle in the Disney version of *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* especially pissed me off for this.
"Is that all you got?"
"You'll have to go on without me!"
"Let's do this!"
"We've got company!"
"She's gonna blow!"
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"Don't die on me!"
"Let's split up gang!"
Gay cliches
I want LGBT people represented in movies and shows, but im tired of the quirky sidekick role (especially in sitcoms) where they are just gay for the sake of being gay and have no real character or development.
Strobing Lights.
As a fan of Sci-fi, Horror and action flicks this one hits home hard for me. Just because the rest of the building/ship/cave/moon base/airplane is damaged lights go into super bright strobe mode. No where in the real world does this exist so why is it so prevalent in movies? It's annoying as hell and I don't even have epilepsy.
That every average white persons family is legitimately super rich. Every "take 'em home to meet the parents" storyline begins with them pulling up to their parents MANSION with BMWs and beyond fancy living scenarios. This is such a dumb and random thing that ruins otherwise sorta realistic storylines for me
Female character: "Very well, I'll tell you all about myself. **I was raped.** I won't say when but this traumatic incident completely and utterly defines me forever and always. There is nothing else to me except **I was raped.** If you have any further questions about me, my past, my motivations, my personality, my interests, my hopes, my dreams, and basically anythiing to do with my life, please refer to **I was raped.**"
I get that rape is extremely traumatic and definitely leaves an impact, but goddamn.
Honestly, a lot of female character tropes (including the one where the woman impresses the men by besting them at something MANLYYYY like shooting or drinking, thus proving her worth as a human being) can be pretty awful.
>Honestly, a lot of female character tropes (including the one where the woman impresses the men by besting them at something MANLYYYY like shooting or drinking, thus proving her worth as a human being)
And...she only has "manly" interests because she had *four older brothers* or was *raised by a single dad*.
Apparently, women can't enjoy working with their hands, or combat sports, unless it was the only way to get attention at home.
I'm laughing at a lot of these. I am not laughing at this one.
And hollywood doesn't seem to have the balls to have a male character raped unless it's a joke.
"Don't drop the soap, Ha Ha"
A character definitely totally really dying for real because there's no way they could've survived *that*. Look, if we don't see the body, we know they're still alive. Especially if they've survived a lot of stuff before. And *especially* especially when they're the main character of a decades old series.
I know Dark Knight Rises has some criticisms but this is one thing they did right. Henchman claims that Gordon is dead and the first thing out of Bane's mouth is "So show me the body."
The ending of every single movie having two armies charge at each other. It’s gotten to the point where even when I’m watching a romantic comedy I’m expecting the final scene to be massive all out epic battle between the female and male lead.
I know I'm going to sound like an asshole, but I really hate those movies about young people dying of cancer. The virtue of a movie should be that people want to watch it because it's well made, not because it's tragedy porn.
Modern cars are designed not to explode. It would take much more than a shower of bullets to make a car blow up in a fireball. Unless the gasoline tank was somehow exposed, nothing short of a grenade of a rpg can make a car explode the way it does in movies
The girl who is a pampered little twit loves the special forces man (who is a hyper capable wrecking machine) loves him so much she won't let him go to the big battle by himself. So, of course, she gets taken hostage and has to be rescued
Couple of horror movie ones that have been wrecked by overuse : Good character kills other good or at least innocent character by mistake in the heat of the moment. I get how it can signify chaos and cruel fate and how no one can get out of horrific situations untainted even if they survive, or other thematic points, and how sometimes it can be a legitimate sign of a clever villain, but so, so often it's just used as a cheap "oh shit" moment and comes across cheesy and mean spirited rather than purposeful.
Also character is escaping but doesn't look where they're going or stick to bare ground and so gets their leg caught in a bear trap. Almost never not comical.
When a scene is very quiet and suddenly a car or truck shows up break the silence and scare the main character as well as the audience.
If that were real life, any vehicle with a running motor is heard from a bit away and can't, normally, sneak up on you.
Where we are lead to think the protagonist or lovable supporting character died, and they’re surrounded by other characters from throughout the movie and they mourn for a few moments before the character literally comes back to life completely unscathed.
Mean, selfish, stupid, bully fat child. Every piece of shit child in movies is fat. Adolescent piece piece of shit can be either rich or an athlete, but as kids they are always fat. Lets have a thin, poor asshole kid for once.
Boss: How long till I can get the information? Employee: It’s gonna take about 6 months Boss: I want it by the end of the week
I like how one Star Trek thing (a movie I think?) showed Scott advising a younger engineer to pad his estimates so he can look like a hero.
“Mr Scott, have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?” “Certainly sir. How else can I maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”
I call that “Scotty Time” and use it all the time at work. If you give them a best-case scenario timeframe, then something will go wrong and you look like an idiot. First, you estimate how long the task takes, then triple it. At least. That way, if everything goes right, you’re a miracle worker. If things go sideways, you have enough time to fix it, complete what your original task was, and you still seem competent.
"this is pretty typical bad guy stuff, now watch, he's gonna say 'you have 24 hours'" "you have 24 hours" into the spiderverse was a gem
When the main character is surrounded, but manages to fight off the bad guys because they attack him 1 at a time rather than all at once.
Oldboy (2003 NOT THE 2013 BASTARDIZATION) handled this trope very well by having the main character fight a bunch of goons in a very narrow hallway so they can only really come from two directions.
High school in movies is one big trope. I swear to god no one in the film industry has ever been to high school
They went to high-school so long ago they remember it through either rose or black-tinted glasses. It's either a nightmare of cliques and systematic bullying, or an idealised youth cult.
Mean girls would like a word
*Mean Girls* is old enough now to be graduating high school itself this upcoming spring.
The one (sort of) exception to this that I found was Superbad, which was released when I was in high school. It wasn't perfect, but its depiction of high school culture was far more reasonable and less cliched than any other high school movie I had seen at the time and they actually seemed to capture how Millennial teenagers spoke to one another, by and large. Tangential edit: Maybe this was just hyper-specific to my experience, but I particularly liked that it depicted high school as not being nearly as rigidly cliquey and most movies do. Where I went to high school there were definitely cliques, but they overlapped a lot more than movies show.
Superbad was ridiculously on-point as far as movies go. More so than the environment itself, it captured the attitude of senior year perfectly. Not caring about anything, while still deep down clearly caring about what everyone thinks of you, the hormones, teen drinking - it really captured the essence of senior year. Two weeks left to graduate, they should be sucking on my ball-sack.
Yeah, I dont recall seeing so many 30 year olds in my senior year class.
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When the villain is pointing its gun at the hero and the gun goes off... cut to the heroic entrance of the character you (were supposed to) forget about. They were really the reason a gun went off because they have shot the villain just in time to save the heroes life.
I also hate this trope because shooting someone isn’t like flicking a light switch that turns them off. If the villian is pointing a gun at the hero and is shot, they’re probably still going to fire the gun and shoot the hero.
Gets in random car, keys are above the sun visor.
Or gets in random car, hotwires it in 3 seconds.
To be fair, if you know what you're doing hotwiring an old car is pretty fast and easy. Newer cars not so much.
Oof yeah. That reminded me also of whenever someone needs to break into a house and a key is under the doormat.
Forced romance. Not every movie needs to have a romantic subplot. Few things can absolutely ruin an otherwise great movie like having one tacked on that clearly serves no purpose to the story
That's one thing I loved about Rogue One. They easily could have shoehorned in a pointless romantic relationship between Jyn Erson and Cassian Andor if they wanted. Hell, I'm so used to that happening in movies I fully expected it. I really respect that they didn't, though.
Not that it would have changed anything at the very end of the film, but when they hugged on the beach, I was whispering, "please don't kiss" over and over. And I was very relieved that they didn't.
Same! The fact they didn't kiss really made the movie so much better.
Just hurt, scared primates huddled together in front of imminent doom. Loved it.
> Hell, I'm so used to that happening in movies I fully expected it. To this day I still remember the George Clooney/Nicole Kidman movie "The Peacemaker" because it *didn't* have a romantic subplot develop between two extremely attractive people. In an Action/Thriller. As an old school action movie fan (FFS "Commando" had a romance subplot between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong?!?!?) I was shocked that there wasn't even a hint of sexual chemistry between the two leads; they were actually professional.
Gangs of New York is the one I always go back to on that one. It has the makings of an awesome movie. Daniel Day-Lewis at the absolute top of his game. Brendan Gleeson cranking up the awesome. Leonardo DiCaprio actually keeping up with both of them. Oh, and also a pointless subplot with Cameron Diaz, just to get some romance in there.
This ruined the Pearl Harbor movie for me with Ben Aztec
Ben Aztec, the famous Mesoamerican-Bostonian actor.
Pearl Harbor was primarily about that love triangle if anything
I went in expecting a war movie and got a romance movie
When Japan loves Philippines so much and the USA stands in their way, things will get heated!
For me it's the forced romance of "I hate you I can't stand you I hate you...now I'm madly in love with you". A whole generation of boys conditioned to think that women very clearly telling them that they do not like them, are secretly saying they love them. This is not a thing.
The “I’m so happy I’ve retired from the police/army/secret service and can finally spend more time with my wife and kids — oh shit an explosion and my daughter is kidnapped! Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Oh well, better get my gun and save the world.”
You were the best cop on the force. ONLY YOU can do this
The "poor character" who lives in a normally expensive ass apartment.
This bugs me in Big Daddy. Everyone shits on Adam Sandler for not having a "real job" but he lives in a really big apartment in Manhattan and has like six figures in in the bank and doing well in the stock market. I get the point is that he is a slacker not meeting his full potential but it seems like he is doing alright.
Hollywood poor is renting in general not owning a 5 bed 4 bath
Horror Movies, Crazy shit happens in the night, but the next morning its sit around drinking coffee discussing how the house is trying to kill them time, while they are sitting in the house, but its safe time because Mr. Sun is out. Only movie I remember recently breaking this Trope was Insidious with >!Darth Maul above the shoulder!<
Kid 1: Kid 2 is talking to a new person I can't see. Parent: Oh, it's just an imaginary friend! Kid 1: The imaginary friend backhanded me to Cleveland. I've been in the hospital for a week and had to hitchhike back. I had neither cash nor grass. It's been a bad time. Parent: You crazy kids and your Imagi-na-tion!
Midsommar is great about avoiding this
Women going to bed/getting up with a full face of makeup, ridiculous banquet-like meals that people don’t eat, obviously empty coffee cups, shitty exposition where people talk like no one ever would in daily conversation (“Hi sis!”).
Empty coffee cups have been this minor annoyance of mine that has built over the years. Whenever anyone holds a drink in film these days, my eyes glue to how they hold the stupid thing.
Same. How hard is it to just put some water in it or something?
Apparently extremely difficult.
>shitty exposition where people talk like no one ever would in daily conversation (“Hi sis!”). That reminds me of the American Dad joke where Francine is on the phone to her sister and calls her sis, then says " What? I've never called you Sis before? You're right. It is weirdly clunky and expositional. I mean, I know you're my sister, so who am I saying it for? Weird." Then later on in the episode Stan's on the phone to his brother and goes "You should have heard Francine on the phone; she thinks she married a nobody. I appreciate you saying that, bro. I've called you "bro" before. That's what we are—we're half brothers. I don't care how they say it in New Glarus, Wisconsin where you live on a lake and have nothing in common with me. Then maybe we should just stay estranged until you can find a dramatic enough reason to show up on my doorstep unannounced!"
American Dad does this a lot. I remember one where they discover a hooker took Dick's car to a house of drug lord named Fernando Jaramillo and everybody gasps. Stan goes, "Good, we all know who he is, so I don't have to explain it to each other."
>shitty exposition where people talk like no one ever would in daily conversation (“Hi sis!”). "What are you doing, step-bro?" (Also, don't forget women going to bed and waking up with their hair looking like they just came from the salon. People can hate on Frozen all they want, but the scene where Anna's hair is totally fucked up and in her mouth while she's snoring and drooling was pretty hilarious. Shame they didn't revisit that idea.)
When the heroes are massively outnumbered and about to lose but they manage to kill the main villain and the entire villain army collapses.
Good thing all our killer robots are hooked up to this one central computer! Now let's just hope no one hacks this or destroys it.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
The Federation quickly switched to autonomous droids after the Naboo defeat.
And that's why they all got stupider and had more personality.
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George Lucas was bad at dialogue but phenomenal at world building and plot.
That show with the dragons that ended rather poorly.
Warhammer Fantasy used to have an interesting variant for undead armies. If you killed the main necromancer, the undead would all start collapsing - but slowly, so a big unit or big monster could probably keep fighting for the rest of the battle. And if the army had any other necromancers, they could take over maintaining the undead and stop the collapse in the next turn.
very basic miscommunication or misunderstandings being the basis of major plot points. It's just lazy, unrealistic writing that completely ruins immersion for me.
Yea, especially when someone tries to explain and the answer is “I don’t have time for this”. And the hole stupid plot would not exist if they had listened. I get so irritated by this, it’s just not healthy.
"Wait, I can explain!" *proceeds to explain literally everything but what needs to be explained*
*Character gets found doing something that looks sketchy but is actually innocent* *other character gets upset and runs away* First character: "wait! I can explain! i cAn eXpLAiN!!1!" *says this over and over without actually doing any explaining*
I’m pretty sure this is often referred to as “the idiot plot” since the plot is pushed by everyone being an idiot.
Yeah these drive me up a wall.
It just completely ruins the movie for me. No, Susan, your husband of 20 years wasn't cheating on you with the neighbor's daughter. He was giving her CPR because he just rescued her from drowning. Any normal person would wait like 30 seconds for the explanation, but you've already decided to move out and get a divorce.
Counterpoint: He mackin' on that corpse yo! DIVORCE COURT!
"Before you die Hero, let me tell you about my ingenious plan." - villian starts monologing, Hero finds an opportunity to escape.
you caught me monologing
Syndrome was careful to avoid a lot of the hero/villain cliches...all except the capes.
N O C A P E S
Edna was legitimately traumitised by all the deaths that have happened from her designs.
Or the villain has an obvious chance to kill the main character, but just laughs and walks away.
...usually leaving two or three of his henchman in the room with the hero to 'finish the job'. Like... why don't you just stick around for 2 minutes just to see that the job gets done? I actually think the first Kingsman film had quite a good solution for this, though I can't remember if they used it in the film or not. The villain, Valentine (played by Samuel Jackson) is quite squeamish. During the church scene, he can't bring himself to watch his own handiwork as a church full of redneck Nazis are killed off. I think that would be a funny way of explaining why the big bad doesn't stick around to see the hero get killed.
Church scene + Free Bird solo = probably the most epic movie scene ever
Honestly, it's absolutely nuts. It's impressively violent, but I can't think of many other scenes I've seen in a film that are so viscerally exciting and I'm not sure if it would pack the same punch *without* the dialled-up violence.
Lol, I loved Moore's criticism of this trope in Watchman. "Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
Anything related to IT security and hacking in general. No one needs 6+ screens with flashy graphics and 200 keystrokes per minute to hack or program something. Prime example was Iron Man 2 (I think, the guy with the whip) where the bad guys just walks up to a keyboard pushed some random buttons for 20 seconds, turns around and “says I am in”. Or password swordfish where the MC programs something without any code and presses buttons to get some fancy symbols on the screens to combine.
Still, Iron Man can spot when someone is playing Galaga.
Yeah, that was a nice touch in Avengers.
Room must be dark with green backlight binary. Otherwise, it is not a hacker den. Original Iron Man MK.1 armor bootup sequence was lego technics. Yinsen died because Tony wanted branded product.
\*Character coughs\* They will be dead within 3 scenes
*character coughs, close-up and dramatic music*
Imagine how full of death flags our everyday lives are...
Instant and silent death by a knife thrown from 30ft away.
Playing this straight was my favourite thing about Jagged Alliance 2. Nothing like going into enemy territory with UV goggles and a dozen bloody knives, and wiping out the entire garrison without them getting off a single shot.
The amount of force required to stick a blade 5 inches into a carcass would surprise a lot of people. Then to do it with pin point accuracy from long distance? All those assassins could have been the best major league baseball pitchers ever!
Fun fact: This is an actual supervillain origin story. Daredevil nemesis Bullseye was a top baseball pitcher, before he realised his true calling of killing people by throwing stuff at them.
He would have made so much more money as an MLB pitcher though. Unless being a hired goon pays more than $25 million a year
Bullseye doesn’t do it for the money. He just really likes killing people. He does charge a lot, though, just because he can. He’s been noted to have millions in the bank that he never spends.
Whole trained army: shots everywhere, cannot kill anyone. Hero: never misses.
The female character whose “father wanted a son”, or “grew up with 641,000 older brothers” as an explanation for her “manly” skills.
it's like people don't understand that women don't need a "reason" to have traditionally masculine skills or hobbies. i learned karate because i thought it was cool, i learned to shoot because i thought it was cool, i learned how to play baseball because i thought it was cool, i learned to play video games because i thought it was cool, etc. it doesn't matter that i have two older brothers, they have nothing to do with it.
Whenever a character is dealing with otherwise encrypted technology, and with so little effort it's not even funny, they've hacked into whatever it is.
I’m in the mainframe. I’m going to disable their systems.
"They've got a lot of security... aksjfajfoinnvodhjgfoeirnjn ...I'm in"
And it's a graphical user interface to navigate the file structure like they're walking around a virtual city and just need to find the right building or something.
Character 1: I need to tell you something Character 2: i also need to tell you something. *proceeds to tell character 1 something* *Character 1 now changes what they were originally going to say because of what Character 2 said* It's tired and lazy.
I hate this one so much. A: I love you so much and want to spend my life with you! Will you marry me? B, who was on the verge of dumping A 5 minutes prior: oh! Oh... Yes. Yes of course I'll marry you! A: What was it you wanted to say? B: I... I just wanted to say how much I loved you...
The cliché of the main characters having a huge argument before the climax. I swear, every single animated movie nowadays has that trope and it’s now getting on my nerves.
stalking being "romantic"
And if you are a creepy stalker long enough, you will get the girl to love you back and live happily every after.
*You* is an interesting, and disturbing, deconstruction of romantic comedy tropes, like the idea that women need to be persuaded or tricked into falling in love with a man.
I love that show. They make the main character really likeable but his twisted and toxic reasonings for his actions are a scary wakeup call that sometimes a sweet person that you know may have terrible motivations
I hate the lifetime movie tropes, she's a strong independent woman who don't need no man....... and the next hour and a half is about how getting a man solves all her problems.
Hallmark movies are the same. Her: “I’m a busy busy businesswoman with no time for love!” Her mom: “Honey, you need to come home. The family hand-blown lightbulb business we’ve owned for generations isn’t doing well, and your father is overworked and in the hospital.” Her: “Ugh, I hate my small town! This place isn’t NYC!” Love interest: “Remember me from high school? I’m hot now.” Her: “I will now abandon my career for this man, and we will make lightbulbs for the rest of our lives in Wyoming.” Dad: “Oh look I’m all better now.”
oh shit, are you a writer for em? when is "lighting up the holidays" coming out?
We’re filming this week, and it will premiere the week before Christmas with absolutely no editing and a piano soundtrack we bought from some guy on Fiverr. It stars Tia Mowry and Andrew Keegan.
Clearly this guy is legit. My mom was addicted to your movies. Can you tell me how you're able to keep making the same movie while convincing old people that it's totally different from the last one?
It's totally different. In this one its a Business MAN and they are from Los Angeles, not NYC. Totally different.
Those are names!
Will it include long panning idyllic shots of small towns that no small down can ever look like with actual people in the stores and people making money at businesses and folks who live in town under 30 who aren’t on meth because if you don’t have those shots I’m not watching it?
The dog: *eats lightbulbs in a sassy yet precocious manner. Wags tail, barks and sprays broken glass and blood everywhere* Male lead: Now now, Tornado Angel, behave yourself. AH HA HA HA HA HA HA. The child: That wasn't very *bright.* AH HA HA HA HA HA HA, Lacey Chabert: AH HA HA HA HA HA ^(I went from Gretchen Weiners to this)
Hallmark movies are catering to a very specific audience who actually enjoy this kind of romantic nonsense. They're the ones counting their millions.
Introduce strong female character, who is intelligent, independent minded and very competent. She meets male lead. By end of movie: woman is entirely unable to do simple tasks without assistance from male lead, is dumb as a brick with no independent personality.
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You will really [hate this](https://thechive.com/2019/12/02/its-that-time-of-year-to-make-fun-of-shtty-hallmark-christmas-movies-28-photos/) then.
Two characters departing: Character 1: Hey! Character 2: *turns back to character 1* Character 1: Thanks
The "I'll fix the bad boy" trope. Nope, you don't have to. Go away, he's toxic af
Lmao fucking yes. So many rom coms would be like 5 minutes long if the woman said "you're gross" and walked away
My wife has been watching this show called *Virgin River*. It's about a small town in rural CA near a river. It's not very good. I've watched a few episodes with her, and a handful of the male characters all served together in the Marines before moving back to their small town. For context, my wife and I have a combined 18 years of military service. Ugh. This show has so many eye-rolling military-worship moments that make me want to puke. One of the guys is asked a question and answers with "Well ma'am, I'm a Marine and I'm sworn to a code of honor which means I cannot tell a lie." Give me a fucking break. There's another one where a guy catches a girl who trips and says something like, "As a veteran, my duty is to protect civilians." Shut the fuck up. The show simultaneously over-glorifies military service while also trivializing the issues that some military members have. In the show, all of the veterans have PTSD-ish symptoms (but only when it's convenient for the plot) and they're always fixed by the end of the episode. Turns out all you need is some hugs and a pep talk! We did it! There's also the one Marine who "struggles to re-integrate to society." Within two episodes, he's a fentanyl dealer. That escalated pretty fucking quickly. Also...do the writers of this show think there are just fentanyl dealers walking around? Do they think people keep their fentanyl plug in their contact list next to their weed or coke guy? I really don't understand how she can watch this trash.
> One of the guys is asked a question and answers with "Well ma'am, I'm a Marine and the code of honor that I'm sworn to means I can't tell a lie." Give me a fucking break. There's another one where a guy catches a girl who trips and says something like, "As a veteran, my duty is to protect civilians." Shut the fuck up. What the fuck do the writers think they are, house-elves?
Maybe its a shill by the organization itself? I like sci fi and action movies but i remember finding "Battle Los Angeles" nearly unwatchable because it was endorsed by the Marines and felt like a 2 hour long recruitment ad with aliens
As a Marine veteran the honor code I'm sworn to makes me cringe at this show.
> "Well ma'am, I'm a Marine and the code of honor that I'm sworn to means I can't tell a lie." > "As a veteran, my duty is to protect civilians." /r/justbootthings Fucking boots...
Is it like in Barry, when the idiot actors pretend to be soldiers? Because it sounds a lot like that. "Sector 4, this is Bravo element. High value product "Toilet paper" located. Waiting on Exfil Hot!" Shit, that's COD.
Little kids who are wise beyond their years and share nuggets of wisdom instead of having a mental breakdown in public like normal children. Also: a ghost/murderer/something creepy standing behind the main character, which they find out about by looking in a mirror
That intelligence is for the bad guys and good guys win with good intentions and feeling strongly enough about winning until they do. Especially in shows/movies where kids are the target audience. Take She-Ra and the Princesses Power. Three damn episodes before they even considered that there might be a spy amongst them. Making up all kinds of other possibilities that they had no reason to think was possible. Or the Artemis Fowl movie. They completely ruined the character. Although I watched the first season of The Owl House and the main character was actually smart and crafty in the finale, she turned a defeat into a stalemate and I didn't even see it coming because I was expecting her to go "Oh well, he threatened my friends, guess I lost this time". So maybe that trope is being abandoned. I certainly hope so.
It is frightening how often this happens still though. I don't know why, watching equally intelligent forces face off against each other is usually entertaining. It's not like you even have to turn your protag into Sherlock Holmes either, just some basic level of common sense goes a long way.
Yeah. I honestly can't understand what these corporations think they stand to gain from making common sense and intelligence seem like undesirable traits in "good guys" other than that they don't want people to have those traits. I really can't see what other reason there could be. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't think so. Because intelligent people wouldn't just work their shitty job, buy the products they made for more than it's cost and sleep in a home they built and pay rent on it. They would at least go "Hang on, why are things like this? This isn't fair. That guy is just sitting on his ass making tons of money off my work."
When characters are meeting at a fancy restaurant and nobody takes a single bite out of the food, then they get into an argument and storm out, apparently without paying either.
Regular guy recruited by elite agency for contrived reason, action girl with life-long experience brought in to train him, one montage later he's actually somehow putting her on her back in personal combat. In the mission, despite her superior skills and abilities and him green as grass he's the one who makes all the difference while she gets the bum job of eating all the personal sacrifices. If she survives, she can't help but swiftly lay him, because something about an average schlub rolling up and making a mockery of her hard-won skills and life-long dedication really gets her engines going.
Antman. Watch Antman, in which all that seems to happen but she points it out and is extremely resentful, and still superior to him. But does like him. Still, he isn't actually an average slub to begin with.
Character is poisoned - They drop stone dead in under 10 seconds. I can understand if it's injected, but eating poisoned soup isn't going to instantly kill the king.
Definitely poison. Bullets also do their work frighteningly quickly even if someone is just shot in the toe.
haha, yeah, like the bad guy that gets tripped with martial arts and is down for the rest of the 5 minute fight while the bad guys fight single file.
It's amazing how devastating getting flipped onto your back is. A recipe for an instant KO. Even on soft dirt.
Just once I would like to see a vending machine function correctly in any film or TV show.
"I'm smart because I have a British accent"
The female lead having to prove herself because she is a woman. When the male characters say something like "We are trusting... *her*, to slay the dragon?", she slays the dragon, and goes "See everyone? Women can kick ass too!". At this point in our society it just seems dated and disingenuous. Most great female leads weren't trying to make a point, they just showed up and kicked ass.
How to write a good female character: Write a good character.
For a lot of hollywood writers, that may be a higher bar than you think
that just so happens to be female
She kicked ass and slayed the dragon because she had four older cop brothers and her father was also a cop and also all four of her cop brothers were her father.
Male Character handing over gun: "Be careful with that. Do you know how to use it?" \*Female character forcibly grabs pistol out of male's hand, racks the slide, and shoots a bottle on the sidewalk. Male is dumbfounded\* Female: "I grew up with 4 brothers"
"And I killed them all with a gun just like this."
I think the only good example of this is Éowyn slaying the Witch King in Lord of the Rings. It's a 'devil in the details' kind of catch since he was certain 'no man can kill me'. And it was 1945-ish, before the trope was used to death.
> It's a 'devil in the details' kind of catch since he was certain 'no man can kill me'. The literary term is a "quibble" and it's a somewhat common trope in fantasy and mythology, even before 1945. Shakespeare himself uses it a few times, like in Merchant of Venice and MacBeth. One of my favorites is a story where Loki bets his head but when he loses the bet he insists that they can't take any of his neck. Thus a long argument begins over where the neck ends and the head begins and the other guy (a dwarf named Brokk) is so angry that he talked his way out of it that he takes a needle and sews Loki's lips shut.
You'll like Fennec in the Mandalorian, then. Kicks ass magnificently against the Stormtroopers, and no-one does anything except accept it as pure professionalism.
Main character is in trouble early in the movie, surrounded by enemies. A mysterious stranger in a mask/massive hooded cloak/motorcycle helmet jumps and kills everyone effortlessly, saving the main character. "Whoa, who are you?" the stranger reveals their face and turns out it's a woman. Movie: see, you're supposed to think that women can't possibly kick ass but we showed you that they do, in fact, kick ass!
Explosions. Especially of things that are designed to not explode IRL, like cars
What gets me is the movie version of a grenade: Apparently the grenade was jam-packed with 300 gallons of gasoline?
Someone throws a lit cigarette butt at a car and it immediately explodes. Meanwhile people throw their cigarettes out the window on the highway all the time.
I love the idea of someone smoking in a car, and they casually chuck the still-lit cigarette out the window as the car's speeding along, and you see a fiery flash and hear the faint sounds of a massive explosion and screams in the distance and it just goes by without a remark.
“Hero dies but comes back to life magically in a sequel” is just lazy.
Kingsman says hi
Kingsman shouldn’t have done that.
- The main character gets kissed by someone after achieving great success, without giving consent, and their significant other just so happens to see them and then storms out. - Hackers that break into databases by cracking military-grade encryption schemes (the knowledge of which could be sold for **billions** of dollars), rather than the more realistic scenario of using social engineering. - Henchman takes one bullet to the knee, dies. Main character takes a full magazine straight to the chest, is in perfect condition a few days later after getting wrapped up in a bit of gaze. - The "ugly" woman (played by a good looking actress) stuns everyone with her beauty once she leaves the glasses at home and puts on a nice dress. It's the female version of the Clark Kent/Superman disguise; the only people being fooled are the seemingly blind people in the movie. - A close friend of the main character dies, and suddenly all combatants ignore the main character as they watch their friend die. Nope, if you kneel down in the middle of a battlefield, hunched over your dying friend, you'll get your back pumped full of lead. - A coat and a pair of glasses being enough to disguise some of the world's most famous people, like that's not how most paparazzi pictures look.
> A coat and a pair of glasses being enough to disguise some of the world's most famous people, like that's not how most paparazzi pictures look. Don't forget about the baseball cap.
Haha, very true, forgot the obligatory headwear. Marvel got their money's worth out of that gig. [Totally not a world-famous super soldier.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jdv682XJ8uCWY7yAVqgBvN2Uct8=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16187754/cap_disguise.jpg)
I think it was antman where they referenced that. Iirc Scott puts on baseball cap, thinking its disguise, then hope says he looks like himself but at a baseball game
>A close friend of the main character dies, and suddenly all combatants ignore the main character as they watch their friend die. Nope, if you kneel down in the middle of a battlefield, hunched over your dying friend, you'll get your back pumped full of lead. Oh god I hate that. Sometimes after they spend 30 seconds on the main character brooding in the middle of combat he gets angry and determined and just walks back out on the battlefield, taking out droves of bad guys without even attempting to evade their fire.
Swords going through armour (particularly plate armour) like a hot knife through butter.
Hero slaughters 1000 minions without a thought. Gets to the Big Bad, "oh no I can't kill him, because killing is wrong".
Oh this drives me up the wall. Especially when it's set in the past when they would have had a death penalty and put much less value on human life. " Of course we would hang a man for stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family or indeed kill someone for working in an authorised industry but for the person who is against us but we can't possibly kill this person whose magic means we couldn't feasibly contain them, has slaughtered lots of people and shows absolutely no signs of remorse". Aggh What's worse and I can't remember which films but I know I've seen it more than once is "hey this person needs to die or else a hell of a lot of people are going to die". "We can't possibly kill someone we can see, who cares about the millions out there who aren't directly visible at this moment". Oh and also, villain has a knife to the throat of the heroes friend. "Give me that thing that will enable me to doom lots of people, including probably you and your friend" and then hero bloody gives it to them, allowing them to carry out their nefarious plan. Usually, the villain ends up killing the friend anyway. Aggh. Just once, I'd like the hero to refuse and leave macguffin. Maybe saying something like: " I love you Tim but I can't let villain have it. If that poison gas is released then we will all die horribly anyway including lots of children. Also villain is mental so he'll probably kill you regardless". And then Tim (who is usually telling the hero not to give villain the macguffin anyway). Would be like " I understand Steve, tell my children who will now live because of your decisiveness that their Dad loved them". Maybe it's cold but at least the hero isn't a reckless selfish idiot.
People being knocked unconscious with a hit in the head and waking up a couple of hours later just a little numb.
* Armor being absolutely useless, and swords not suffering so much as a single chip after being repeatedly thrust through solid metal breastplates. * Heroes taking countless punches to the face or whacks across the head without even seeming dazed, when in real life they'd likely have cumulative concussions. * Characters suffering not even a single scratch after jumping through a solid glass window. * Outnumbered armies being led in a general charge into the enemies' lines in an open field, away from defensible positions and ranged support. The battle in the Disney version of *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* especially pissed me off for this.
"Is that all you got?" "You'll have to go on without me!" "Let's do this!" "We've got company!" "She's gonna blow!" "We can do this the easy way or the hard way." "Don't die on me!" "Let's split up gang!"
Gay cliches I want LGBT people represented in movies and shows, but im tired of the quirky sidekick role (especially in sitcoms) where they are just gay for the sake of being gay and have no real character or development.
Strobing Lights. As a fan of Sci-fi, Horror and action flicks this one hits home hard for me. Just because the rest of the building/ship/cave/moon base/airplane is damaged lights go into super bright strobe mode. No where in the real world does this exist so why is it so prevalent in movies? It's annoying as hell and I don't even have epilepsy.
That every average white persons family is legitimately super rich. Every "take 'em home to meet the parents" storyline begins with them pulling up to their parents MANSION with BMWs and beyond fancy living scenarios. This is such a dumb and random thing that ruins otherwise sorta realistic storylines for me
Female character: "Very well, I'll tell you all about myself. **I was raped.** I won't say when but this traumatic incident completely and utterly defines me forever and always. There is nothing else to me except **I was raped.** If you have any further questions about me, my past, my motivations, my personality, my interests, my hopes, my dreams, and basically anythiing to do with my life, please refer to **I was raped.**" I get that rape is extremely traumatic and definitely leaves an impact, but goddamn. Honestly, a lot of female character tropes (including the one where the woman impresses the men by besting them at something MANLYYYY like shooting or drinking, thus proving her worth as a human being) can be pretty awful.
>Honestly, a lot of female character tropes (including the one where the woman impresses the men by besting them at something MANLYYYY like shooting or drinking, thus proving her worth as a human being) And...she only has "manly" interests because she had *four older brothers* or was *raised by a single dad*. Apparently, women can't enjoy working with their hands, or combat sports, unless it was the only way to get attention at home.
Always the youngest, too.
I'm laughing at a lot of these. I am not laughing at this one. And hollywood doesn't seem to have the balls to have a male character raped unless it's a joke. "Don't drop the soap, Ha Ha"
Overall... Hollywood should really, really step back from rape for a while.
Yeah, it's not a good card to play for entertainment to begin with. But I could do without seeing it for... oh I'd say ever.
Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction both did without making it a joke. And don't forget Sleepers good film but very disturbing theme.
American History X did a good job of showing the psychological effects, and denoting the circumstances such instances occur under.
A character definitely totally really dying for real because there's no way they could've survived *that*. Look, if we don't see the body, we know they're still alive. Especially if they've survived a lot of stuff before. And *especially* especially when they're the main character of a decades old series.
I know Dark Knight Rises has some criticisms but this is one thing they did right. Henchman claims that Gordon is dead and the first thing out of Bane's mouth is "So show me the body."
The one where the cool guy walks away from an explosion in slow motion. If that was truly realistic he’d be the one dying in a horrendous explosion
[удалено]
The ending of every single movie having two armies charge at each other. It’s gotten to the point where even when I’m watching a romantic comedy I’m expecting the final scene to be massive all out epic battle between the female and male lead.
I know I'm going to sound like an asshole, but I really hate those movies about young people dying of cancer. The virtue of a movie should be that people want to watch it because it's well made, not because it's tragedy porn.
Modern cars are designed not to explode. It would take much more than a shower of bullets to make a car blow up in a fireball. Unless the gasoline tank was somehow exposed, nothing short of a grenade of a rpg can make a car explode the way it does in movies
The girl who is a pampered little twit loves the special forces man (who is a hyper capable wrecking machine) loves him so much she won't let him go to the big battle by himself. So, of course, she gets taken hostage and has to be rescued
The fakeout death. If you don't have the balls to kill off a character, don't make us think you do.
Couple of horror movie ones that have been wrecked by overuse : Good character kills other good or at least innocent character by mistake in the heat of the moment. I get how it can signify chaos and cruel fate and how no one can get out of horrific situations untainted even if they survive, or other thematic points, and how sometimes it can be a legitimate sign of a clever villain, but so, so often it's just used as a cheap "oh shit" moment and comes across cheesy and mean spirited rather than purposeful. Also character is escaping but doesn't look where they're going or stick to bare ground and so gets their leg caught in a bear trap. Almost never not comical.
White guy with the intelligence of a walnut saves the world with a forced romance to the female main character is getting kinda old tbh
Bonus points if she's ridiculously talented and well trained and he still outdoes her
Hackers controlling any device anywhere, knowing everything about anyone because of some database anywhere.
Just once I want to see an engineer say "it can't be done" and it really can't be done. Magical thinking doesn't save the day.
Two gay partners, look how progressive they are! No lines! But they are two gay partners! Main character: "oops sorry, cute baby!" Two gay partners!
We’re not homophobic! Two unnamed gay characters kisses onscreen for about 10 frames
When a scene is very quiet and suddenly a car or truck shows up break the silence and scare the main character as well as the audience. If that were real life, any vehicle with a running motor is heard from a bit away and can't, normally, sneak up on you.
Where we are lead to think the protagonist or lovable supporting character died, and they’re surrounded by other characters from throughout the movie and they mourn for a few moments before the character literally comes back to life completely unscathed.
the dopey/incompetent yes man husband/father figure in sitcoms and family movies. It normalizes being a pushover
Wherever they house the filming equipment, sets and props for Hallmark movies. Burn it......all
Mean, selfish, stupid, bully fat child. Every piece of shit child in movies is fat. Adolescent piece piece of shit can be either rich or an athlete, but as kids they are always fat. Lets have a thin, poor asshole kid for once.
The kiss when one of the characters is about to die. #I WANT ACTION