Movie Cliches that NEED to Die!

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I saw the Thread for Game Cliches that have lived long beyond the expiration date and decided to search for an appropriately similar thread for movies. I did not find it, or it was far enough down that it was missed.

There is one primary cliche in movies that drives me absolutely INSANE. It also raises its ugly head across a wide variety of genres whenever the building of tension is required and those responsible for its creation lack the requisite set of narrative / literary devices to achieve the proper timber of suspense.

THE COUNTDOWN

I want to look away whenever I see a countdown. It is like a car wreck or those indie skateboarder videos from the 90s where you look on in dread hoping to see / not see a compound fracture. What happened to appropriately timed segue with a well done track or score? Each and every time I see a bomb (on screen) with a timer ticking away to that fateful moment, I begin taking bets in my head on when the timer will finally stop.
Based on the tone of the movie / show up to that point, the perceived subtlety of those writing and the quality of the music to try and anticipate where the time will stop.

Will it be 00:00:01 when the day is saved? Well, 99% of the time this is the case... but on the rare Occasion the bomb will stops somewhere between 1 and 9 seconds.
Some of those will start the count down a second time.
Oh yeah, added suspense, right?

Does anyone remember the old movie "Blown Away" ... best bomb scene ever. Remember what it stopped on? 
BOOOOM
All that suspense and mounting tension resolved in a way I did not see coming (at the time i was like 9) 

I sincerely wish bomb scenes / countdowns in general would get a facelift

Edited May 12 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Shpaget]

The worst example of the countdown I've seen must be in the Absolute Zero movie (both name and rating). It's counting down to Earth's magnetic pole flip, which will lead to global temperatures plummeting to, as the name would imply, 0 K.

[kerbiloid]

It's funny, when the countdown lasts for seconds, but the action during it takes minutes.

Edited May 13 by kerbiloid

[Fizzlebop Smith]

10 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It's funny, when the countdown lasts for seconds, but the action during it takes minutes.

This may be the single greatest contributor with my inability to suspend disbelief for such scenes. 

The timer started with a 5 minute countdown almost 20 minutes ago.. 

[Superfluous J]

My annoyance with countdowns is when at some point in the movie the scientist guy says "We only have X hours to Y!" X is generally 12, 24, or some other conveniently even number, while Y is generally saving whatever the subject of the movie is (The Earth, the Princess, whatever).

So then the good guy sets his watch timer to 24:00:00 or whatever.

Then, in the finale of the movie, the timer counts down, 00:00:10... OMG 10 seconds before the Earth is destroyed!

WAIT A MINUTE.

So the scientist guy, when he said the Earth had 48 hours left... meant that literally!? He knew 2 days in advance that the Earth would be destroyed in exactly 48 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds?

[kerbiloid]

As gentlemen we believe their words.

P.S.
Especially when they say "as large as Texas" about dimensions.

P.P.S.
In case of Armageddon it was pure ballistics.

[AstroWolfie]

Too much/little plot armor, one-off  characters, and things taking a complex path when there's an easier solution. For example, watch this Minecraft escape room debunking video.

Edited May 20 by AstroWolfie

[Fizzlebop Smith]

50 minutes ago, AstroWolfie said:

Too much/little plot armor, one-off  characters, and things taking a complex path when there's an easier solution. For example, watch this Minecraft escape room debunking video.

That lead down an interesting rabbit hole... I enjoyed the ride.