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.

[Iapetus7342]

The cliche i hate the most are those "power of friendship" abilities in kids media. Like, ok, i do understand your kids film needs a happy ending, but you need to be creative. If you're gonna pull that trick i'm dipping.

[DDE]

6 hours ago, Iapetus7342 said:

The cliche i hate the most are those "power of friendship" abilities in kids media. Like, ok, i do understand your kids film needs a happy ending, but you need to be creative. If you're gonna pull that trick i'm dipping.

That reminds me: someone (often another villain) disposing of the main villain so that they're dead but the protagonist doesn't need to sully their hands.

[Miniature Legends]

Movie clichés that need to die: the "enhance" trope in tech scenes, villains monologuing their plans, love interests tripping and falling into the protagonist's arms, and the "one last job" storyline. These tired tropes often make films predictable and less engaging. Fresh, original storytelling can make a movie much more captivating and enjoyable.

[Nuke]

ships in orbit that you can both see from the ground and which are dead still. everyone does it now. the creator did it, nu-dune did it with its heighliner. i can at least tolerate that because dune has anti-gravity tech. its all over star wars, in fact i think star wars is what started it (star wars is technically not wrong, as it also has antigrav, but it gets hate points until i find an earlier movie that did it). its stupid. everyone knows its wrong, even the normies know its wrong. stop encouraging stupidity! space is big, that walk to the chemist is peanuts to space! PEANUTS! normal people can understand that! so when a football field sized ship is in "orbit" and is twice the size of the moon from the ground, is not moving and is not burning up, you did it WRONG!

sorry im in one of those moods again. see negative thread.

Edited July 2 by Nuke

[DDE]

On 6/30/2024 at 6:31 PM, Miniature Legends said:

the "one last job" storyline

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

star wars is technically not wrong, as it also has antigrav

That's a retcon.

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

i think star wars is what started it

I had thought of that a lot some six years ago or so, and I think the "starships as zeppelins" trope is way, way older and is coming from the golden age of literary space opera. Hamilton's 1947 Star Kings seems to include oh so many soon-to-be classic tropes. Importantly, when I first read it, the more extreme version of this trope - starships hovering in an atmosphere willy-nilly - wasn't nearly as pervasive, at least in my opinion. It was before or around Attack of the Clones released, and for me, the anology really sank in due to Halo 3. Yet, perhaps due to the Russian translation, I understood these ships to be cigar-shaped belly-landers in the "modern" style.

Let me skim a few quotes. Note also the surfeit of naval analogies that too were not yet universally accepted by that time.

Quote

Abruptly, Gordon seemed to be in another place. He knew he was still in the tower laboratory, but a seeing, hearing image of himself now stood on a stereo-receiver on a terrace high in a great city.
   “This is Nyar, largest city of Earth,” said Vel Quen. “Of course, it cannot compare with the metropoli of the great star-worlds.”
   Gordon gasped. He was looking out over a mammoth city of terraced white pyramids.
   Far out beyond it he could glimpse a spaceport, with rows of sunken docks and long, fishlike star-ships in them. There were also a few massive, grim looking warships with the Empire's comet emblem on them.
   But it was the great city itself that held his stunned gaze. Its terraces were flowering green gardens with [redacted] awnings and crowds of pleasure-seeking people.
   Vel Quen switched them to other stereo-receivers in Nyar. He had glimpses of the interior of the city, of halls and corridors, of apartments and workshops, of giant underground atomic power plants.
   The scene suddenly vanished from John Gordon's fascinated eyes as Vel Quen snapped off the telestereo and darted toward a window.
   “There is a ship coming!” he said. “I can't understand it. No ship ever lands here.”
   Gordon heard a droning in the air and glimpsed a long, slim, shining craft dropping out of the sky toward the lonely tower.
   Vel Quen looked alarmed. “It's a warship, a phantom-cruiser, but has no emblem on it. There's something wrong about this!”
   The shining ship landed with a rush on the plateau a quarter-mile from the tower. A door in its side instantly slid open.
   From it poured a score of gray uniformed, helmeted men who carried weapons like long, slim-barreled pistols, and who advanced in a run toward the tower.

Quote

Held by four big League soldiers, Gordon was dragged down the stairs and out of the tower into the biting, frosty air.
   They were halfway to the shining ship when he saw the grim black gun muzzles that projected from its side swinging suddenly to point skyward. Volleys of small shells burst upward from them.
   The pallid officer yelled as he looked upward. John Gordon glimpsed three massive, fish-shaped warships diving straight down toward them.
   There was an immense explosion. It hit Gordon and his captors like a giant hand and hurled them from their feet.
   Half stunned, Gordon heard the deafening drone of great ships swooping toward the ground. By the time he stumbled to his feet, it was all over.
   The League ship was a wreck of fused metal. The three cruisers that had destroyed it were landing. Even as they touched the ground, their small guns flicked deadly explosive pellets that picked off the dazed League soldiers who still sought to fight.

Quote

   The big cruiser sank toward a huge spaceport just north of the fairy city. In its sunken docks and quays brooded scores, hundreds, of the Empire's star roving warships. Massive, thousand-foot long battleships, heavy cruisers, fast destroyers and slim phantom-cruisers and ponderous, tub-shaped monitors with huge guns-all these craft wore the shining comet-emblem of the Mid-Galactic Empire.
   Gordon stepped out of the Caris with Hull Burrel and the respectful officers, into sunlight so weirdly white and beautiful that not even the urgency of his situation prevented him looking about in increased wonder.
   The brooding bulks of the great battleships loomed up in the docks all around him, their batteries of grim atom-guns silhouetted against the sky. In the distance rose the incredible, shimmering domes and spires of the city.

 

[AlamoVampire]

Star Wars… enough with the special family bs. Ok for IV, V and VI. And sure ok seeing the origin (origin stories too but give me a moment) of Vader was ok. But uh VII-IX no. Just NO! Was ok until whats her face was suddenly a palpatine? No. Then we get the hot unwatchable garbage that is the acolyte…

ok origin stories? Do we really need to see peter become spiderman EVERY new actor iteration? Or  batman iteration? If we MUST have it then we really dont need 2/3 of the movie for it… we wanna see spiderman websling or batman beat up gotham thugs not watch either of them be awkward for half or more of that actors first swing at it. Yup pun intended! Sheesh

061807022024

[DDE]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

whats her face was suddenly a palpatine?

Spoiler

Previously unreleased photograph of Daisy Ridley after the first script reading (the other posters of said 2023 Sundance bait film are even funnier in this context, but wouldn't embed)

Initially, what you're complaining about was a writing crutch. It helps tie things together and having audience invested without doing any of the legwork of building a character someone wants to go on an adventure with.

Spoiler

Even if the reasons are rather superficial. Tsk-tsk, Rian, baiting everyone with Hermione Corfield as an A-wing pilot before just killing her off as a redshirt

Did you know Poe wasn't even supposed to survive the TIE Fighter crash in TFA?

However, then it gets worse. First, it becomes a source of a quick plot twist. Plot twists are another cheap writing method, but they were extremely in vogue for some time, hence JJ Abrams and his "mystery boxes".

And second, if the Disney bashing circuit have it right, there's a growing belief that actors playing a given character are entirely fungible because the audience comes for the character.

Like, are media creators now even human, or are the guys rambling about reptilians right all along?

[Nuke]

8 hours ago, DDE said:

That's a retcon.

then explain the sand speeder in a new hope.

[kerbiloid]

10 hours ago, Nuke said:

when a football field sized ship is in "orbit" and is twice the size of the moon from the ground, is not moving and is not burning up, you did it WRONG!

Don't you want to say, that all this people lie, and they had never seen this Moon?
 

Spoiler

It's a special lunar fizzix. Works with huge spaceships as well.

[Nuke]

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Don't you want to say, that all this people lie, and they had never seen this Moon?
 

  Reveal hidden contents

It's a special lunar fizzix. Works with huge spaceships as well.

the sun gets huge whenever there is a forest fire. big and red. its actually kind of cool. ive seen it twice.

[kerbiloid]

15 minutes ago, Nuke said:

the sun gets huge whenever there is a forest fire. big and red. its actually kind of cool. ive seen it twice.

There is also a strange psychological effect when you concentrate your attention at an impressively looking distant object and see it in details, like there is nothing more around except it.

Who knows, maybe not exactly psychological. Maybe it's a joke of the Matrix.

Maybe the snipers are actually cheaters of reality.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

then explain the sand speeder in a new hope.

It didn't need full-on contragravity to work like it did. "Future hovercraft" was a sufficient explanation and did not require a technology that could extend so much in altitude and scale 

[Superfluous J]

17 hours ago, Nuke said:

nu-dune did it with its heighliner. i can at least tolerate that because dune has anti-gravity tech

I got the impression that - yeah - those ships really are that big.

And there is no indication that they were in orbit, just at orbital altitude.

Though with The Creator it was way worse than that. I was positive until the end of the movie that it was an aircraft.

16 hours ago, DDE said:

[Star Wars having antigrav is] a retcon.

One of the first vehicles we see hovers.

15 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Do we really need to see peter become spiderman EVERY new actor iteration?

Not in the MCU. He came fully spidered up.

Edited July 3 by Superfluous J

[AlamoVampire]

@Superfluous J had Toby and Andrew not appeared in the most recent Tom Holland iteration you would be correct, but now Toby’s and Andrew’s versions are MCU cannon making my point stand. Even then you have multiple animated iterations doing the same bs.

213407022024

[AstroWolfie]

On 6/27/2024 at 4:00 PM, Iapetus7342 said:

The cliche i hate the most are those "power of friendship" abilities in kids media. Like, ok, i do understand your kids film needs a happy ending, but you need to be creative. If you're gonna pull that trick i'm dipping.

It's so overused nowadays. There are so many better ways to write a happy/good ending. Spider-Verse is a personal favorite example about good endings. The first one has a happier one, but still sets up the second one with a final scene and then a funny, Marvel post-credits scene. The second one is a darker ending, on a cliffhanger, but still gears up for the final film. 

 

Heck, even Splatoon 3 has a happy/good ending (for both the story mode and DLC), but isn't as cliche. Mostly due to the darker themes of the lore, but the story writing for those games aren't as good since it's not the main focus.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

One of the first vehicles we see hovers.

 

Spoiler

 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

 

  Hide contents

 

I am not sure the purpose of this pic?