Worn out scenes

[KnowTheToe]

My personal pet peeve is the "I've just hit the villain in the genitals, and I've got him rolling on the ground in pain, so NOW I'm going to run away from him." That one ticks me off, because if someone's stalking me, and I've just sucker-punched him, I'm going to press the advantage and keep stabbing / eye-gouging / strangling the until he's DEAD! It's not called "FIGHT or flight" for nothing!

Running is exactly what you should do in these instances. If you have ever fought an adult male who is significantly larger than you, or watched an episode of cops or the like, then you have witnessed how much abuse the human body can take and keep going. Sure getting kicked in the nads hurts, but with all the adrenaline surging through the body you can ignore much of it and keep on trucking. Best bet is to run like hell screaming after you get any advantage. I witnessed a drunk man in such a rush to meet a guy in the parking lot for a fight, run right through a plate glass door. It hardly slowed hime down.

It is also more emotionally difficult to inflict pain on someone that you may think. We all like to think we have it in us but, when push comes to shove many people would struggle over being able to kill or maime someone. Subconsciously you may start pulling your punches and then you could be in trouble again.


What annoys me is that they always fall, trip, car does not start or on the other hand if there is a parade that they can get lost in.

 

[WizarDru]

What annoys me is that they always fall, trip, car does not start or on the other hand if there is a parade that they can get lost in.

Oh man, that's two I forgot.

1) The car that never starts properly. Any time there's any sort of desperate escape necessary, the car always has to badly malfunction and refuse to turn over. YAWN. It's irritating, just like the time bomb always being stopped at the last few seconds. I know it's meant to build tension, but it FAILS. It's lazy shorthand, usually.

2) Explodium, the cheap substitute for metal used in most motor vehicles in movies. Gas tanks explode...we get it. But in many movies, it just seems ridiculous how many cars, trucks, helicopters, boats and what have you manage to turn into roaring fonts of explosive fire. I mean, I love a good explosion as much as the next guy, but if you overuse it, it loses the effect, guys.

 

[Mad Mac]

I can't believe no one has mentioned this one--hanging from the ledge, but someone catches them at the last moment, and for some reason, there's some conflict about whether or not the person will be pulled up. Am I supposed to believe that people are always falling off ledges, except someone who is morally conflicted about them is always nearby and is going to catch them in the split second they have to react?

A less used cliche, but funny, is "Hacker" scenes, where some purported uber-hacker hacks into a well protected system in 15 seconds by launching their "Super Hack 9000" program with the click of the button. Usually, this program is represented by cute, cartoony graphical effects that show what progress they are making, and the Hacker occassionally mutters gibberish to sound like they're doing something when they are obviously just sitting there staring at the screen like everyone else.

 

[mojo1701]

there is a parade that they can get lost in.

Especially if it's a St. Patrick's day parade during the autumn (in the northern hemisphere).

 

[Rackhir]

Oh man, that's two I forgot.

1) The car that never starts properly. Any time there's any sort of desperate escape necessary, the car always has to badly malfunction and refuse to turn over. YAWN. It's irritating, just like the time bomb always being stopped at the last few seconds. I know it's meant to build tension, but it FAILS. It's lazy shorthand, usually.

This is actually the third law of Hollywood and it covers far more than just cars. It applies to anything that is needed to start IMMEDIATELY, spaceship, warpdrive, atomic powerplant etc...

 

[Thotas]

Here's mine: the Obligatory Captive Escape Attempt. It seems that if you have anyone detained by anyone else (other than sometimes the police or such), and there is some hero-type coming to rescue them, it is not permissable to have that person sit tight with help on the way. Either the captive will escape, and just as they're about to leave the site of their captivity find the hero and become co-hero, or they will be foiled by bad luck at the last moment ... but the scene is still required. Because either of these scenes prevents the captive from being a victim, you see, and in Political Correctness Land we have to make sure that every one is always shown to be empowered. Because if one individual is shown as being unable to escape when shackled, sedated and kept behind titanium bars, it would indicate that everyone who fits any demographic category that person belongs to is lesser than those who don't fit the demographic. The requirement of this scene is predictable, boring, and adds 10 minutes to a movie that was probably too long already.

 

[Chaldfont]

LOL that is one of mine as well. I also hate how fake and overly-graphical the operating systems are in most movies. I understand they don't feel like shelling out to show their movie characters using Win 2k, but at least make them look a little more authentic than a colorful background with 4 animated, 3-d icons.

Hehehe, me too. I call these "movie GUI's". Its like, "Ok, we have 90 days to get this software project working. Ed, You've got 80 days to work on the GUI and a team of 20 graphical artists. Jeff, you get the last 10 days to make the thing actually work."

My votes:

The cat that jumps out and scares the daylights out of everyone during a suspenseful, usually monster-tracking moment.

The town drunk that watches the car chase go buy and then looks at his bottle of liquor as if he's thinking, "I really oughta quit drinking!". How many Blake Edwards and James Bond movies does this happen in?

Action movies where the good guy and bad guy are blazing away at each other when their guns run out of ammo at exactly the same time. Ok, wait. I actually kind of like that one.

Vorpal, wounding swords/axes in all movies featuring midieval battles. I hold Braveheart responsible for this one.

The classic date movie cliche: one person discovers that he/she has been decieved the whole time by the other who has just now realized how much she/he loves the decieved and she/he's really sorry and they break up for about five minutes of screen time until True Love Conquers All.

Any action movie where one of the heroes is due to retire but has to do one last case/mission/score/whatever.

Hot, extremely competent and athletic action heroines. Actually I REALLY like this one.

I really think that somewhere in LA, there is a circa 1990's PC running a simple program that just juxtaposes all the cliches in this thread and vomits up the next megaplex fodder.

 

[kolvar]

Actually, there is a nother dog, that dies: Hootch in Scot and Hootch, but there is still a happy end, sniff (which is anoying).

My peeves:
- Clever Riddles, that can only be solved if you know the answer (this movie about the Templar Treasure. Wish, I could do a suspensefull adventure like that with players, but I have never played with such a group ... and the preparations would take for ever).
- missed shooting practise, i.e. of everyone but the hero and the main-villain.
- Charakters destined to die: the nice ones, the hero relies on. It just takes out the suspense. One look and: Oh, he/she is going to die, lets bet when.
- Movie-GUIs are dreadful (especially in movies, that pretend to be about computers or hackers).
- on the same line: giving historical explanations in the movie (and to the audience) and getting them realy wrong.

 

[Mercule]

Just once, I'd like someone to say: "Well, I can export those to some SQL databases and try and find a match, but I'll need to write a custom query application and then test it...that'll take about eight hours, sir."

This one used to really bother me. Then I realized that no one wants to watch some hacker spend eight hours working on something while the rest of the cast twiddles their thumbs. So long as it's used as time-compression, and not as the timely solution to a suspenseful scene, I'm okay with it.

Depending on exactly what they do with a fake GUI -- like GUI up something that'd be all text, normally -- I might be fine with that, too. That's something that's rarely executed well, though.

 

[Hypersmurf]

LOL that is one of mine as well. I also hate how fake and overly-graphical the operating systems are in most movies. I understand they don't feel like shelling out to show their movie characters using Win 2k, but at least make them look a little more authentic than a colorful background with 4 animated, 3-d icons.

It's all part of the beauty of HOS.

-Hyp.