Movie cliches that need to die

@korvus:

Dangit korvus, you and your logic serve no purpose here! lmao!

@jasean79: Fine! I'll leave! *leaves*

*comes back*...forgot to take my logic with me...*leaves again mumbling, dragging his logic behind him*

Whatever that happens in super hero movies !

you're all listing cliches from blockbuster hollywood movies

if you want original movies, you need to dig deeper

If by original movies u mean "Godfather" type ,then man there is no such thing as "Cliche" in original movies !

Good guy successfully disarms the bomb 1 or 2 seconds before detonation.

None of the bad guys notice the funny accent of an undercover agent when he claims to be one of them.

Bad guy always misses main protagonist's head by a few inches during shootout.

Main actors survive the deadliest car, plane or spaceship crashes while everyone around them dies.

Phones and radios always lose signal when an urgent call needs to be made.

Computer hacking involves typing multiple paragraphs.

Black dude was last to die in original "Night of the Living Dead", hope I didn't spoil that one but heh its been out since 1968

@AFBrat77: Oh man...I was halfway through that movie! Thanks for ruining it for me!

Just kidding =P

Most of the movies I have been watching for the past few months are foreign ones so I concur. I watch Hollywood movies only when I'm feeling too tired and in a way dumb to watch something that I actually intend to enjoy and focus with. You know, just to pass time or as a change of pace.

haha

...still worth seeing it in my opinion, despite its age

@AFBrat77: I have. Good movie =D

Gotta say its the best thread created in OT or even in the whole forums in a long time.I read the page back and chuckled at almost every post.

-Airplane runways are 85 miles long, allowing a 15 minute fight scene to take place without ever turning around once or taking off

-Protagonist is a crack shot with anyone weapon...except when he NEEDS to be

-The Rock in any movie he's ever played in

Shaky cams done wrong in Found footage films and in fight scenes.

-People sitting straight up when awaking from a nightmare (never happens)

-The sheets are always at the dude's waist when in bed and directly above and covering the woman's breasts (I'm pretty sure after having wild sex, NAKED, the woman wouldn't be so reserved as to cover herself up from the dude)

-Nobody ever "pays at the pump" with credit cards when getting gas

I hate the fact that almost every movie has to have some stupid pointless love story to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaAkcaVX8zk

not sure if its a cliche or not, but in most recent horror movies, they seem to feel the need to show boobs.

now i like boobs as much as the next straight guy, but they dont need to be all over horror movies.

I loved the boob shot at the beginning of Freddy vs. Jason.

Good Cop/Bad Cop movies.

I agree.

Black people always the comedien

White People always the most fairest and prince charming

Asian always the martial artist

because it works all the time

Movie cliches have been disappearing for awhile now. The more connected we get, the less writers are able to get away with. We're now in a world where every contrived plotline is scrutinized relentlessly. Hollywood's starting to realize these things, and while we'll never get this consistently, it's getting better if you're willing to pay attention to what's really extraordinary.

tvtropes is your friend

Haha, lot of good stuff here, and I would like to thank @korvus for that earlier rant on character "goals" - I am writing a novel at the time, and your post was nicely put.

One thing I hate, especially in tv-series, is OTP... One true pairing.

@_Judas_: Glad I could help. If you'd like to discuss writing feel free to send me a PM and I'll go in depth; I didn't do that here otherwise people would complain XD

Final Destination and Scream movies. Please no more ! Lol ..

This was good input, it's stuff so consistent it even happens in Indie movies. I had to comment.

I have a lot of nightmares and i'm quite possibly one of the most crazy dreamers that walks the face of Earth and I can safely say I've never bolted upright from waking from a nightmare. There was an occasion where I woke screaming, there was a scream in one 'dream' I had where we were trapped in a car that was on fire, having felt the feeling of a 3rd degree burn that scars my hand IRL I have the unfortunate ability to recreate that feeling in my dreams. There was this hideous screaming, high pitch, wailing like a Banshee coming from the car, as I awoke I realised the sound was coming from me. I still didn't bolt upright however, I just lay there.

Yes I heard Cracked.com cover this about the sheets. It's obviously to avoid the 18 certificate. In real life it's hard to say, it depends on how much the couple like that exposed feeling. Sometimes people turn right off after sex and cover up almost defensively as if to say "I've had enough" and try not to trigger their partners sex drive again.

Paying at pump, yeah, totally agree, what the hell is it with this? I can't recall any movie I've ever seen where they pay at the pump. It's like that technology still doesn't exist in movies.

Well even then that's just kind of a variation on "black dude who exists solely to help white people."

Uh, what? I'm pretty sure that in any given year, most of the biggest grossing movies are NOT the ones that were best reviewed by critics. A shitload of people continue to watch the Transformers movies, but it's not as if Michael Bay is a favorite among the critics. Meanwhile someone like Spike Jonze has consistently turned out movies that critics loved, yet he's not exactly setting box office records.

See, now that makes me feel like you're just trying to think that regardless of what's happening. So if a white guy sacrifices himself to save others he's a hero, if a black guy does it, he's an extra?

Let's face it, other than the romantic sub-plot most hero stories are about sacrifice; they don't all die but some do; whether the hero was black or not shouldn't matter, only if the story was well written.

Perfect example of this: The movie 'Glory'. Well written, historically based military movie, and white general dies right along side black soldiers. Hands down, one of the best movies of the 80's.

I'm not saying that. But the "(often magical) black guy who exists solely to help white people" actually is it's own cliche. I'm not saying that EVERY instance of a black guy sacrificing himself falls under this category. But the mere fact that he sacrificed himself for the greater good rather doesn't mean it's NOT one of the black guy cliches.

It just depends on how the character is handled overall. If the black guy is uninteresting and hasn't done a single important thing, and then they have him sacrifice himself to save the crew, then how else am I supposed to take it? Cool sacrifice or not, that's literally the only interesting thing he did. Which makes his entire purpose to die for the other (usually white) guys. That's literally the only reason he's in the movie.

Similarly, sometimes you'll get a character sacrificing himself and then you'll realize that there was literally no reason for him to do that. An example of this is Alien Resurrection. Remember the scene where the black guy sacrificed himself to save the crippled dude? Well, he didn't NEED to sacrifice himself. The Alien was hanging onto his foot with one freaking finger, he could have easily just shaken it off. The writers didn't have him sacrifice himself in order to save someone else, because they didn't write a situation in which anyone REALLY needed to be saved. In reality, they just needed the black guy to die off, and then they half-assedly created a hollow fake sacrifice in order to give him a little dignity. But it was still just a case of "time for the black dude to die."

@MrGeezer: My point was, if it had been a white dude in those situations you wouldn't even blink. I think we just need more black actors in general (or giving them more parts), then the occasional "black dude sacrifice" wouldn't matter as much =)

Well, yeah, that's sort of because there aren't nearly as many movies (not counting foreign movies) that only have one or two white guys.

Again, I'm speaking mostly of Hollywood/American movies here, but it's hard for white guys to be the token racial cliche when most movies tend to mostly have white actors. By contrast, most movies don't have more than one or two black guys in them, so it's a lot harder to tell if they actually serve a purpose or if they're just the token black guy who is there solely to die.

Like I said, it obviously has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but this cliche DOES still exist.

Anyway, I have nothing against more black guys being cast in movies, but I think getting rid of black guy cliches is a pretty silly reason to do so. Ultimately I don't think these cliches matter all that much, even when they do happen in this day and age. I recall seeing such cliches as recently as X-Men First Class, and I still liked the movie. People are aware of the cliches, whether or not they can look past it just depends on how good the movie is. If a movie is shit, then people won't hesitate to call it out on such cliches.

• Five seconds in a movie is a half hour of real time (Perfect example - Johnny Depp flick "Nick of Time". 90 seconds in the movie was about an hour of my life that I'll never get back)

@MrGeezer: No, I think there should be more black actors being cast for the sake of more black actors being cast; it had nothing to do with the cliché =)

Although I'm also against the whole "We're doing a movie/show/whatever so we need a black dude, a jew, a guy and a woman" thing that seems to be going on lately. You should choose the best people for the job and create the characters that contribute to the story. Having placeholders for "minorities" is just annoying.

College movies. Every single one of them. They are all the same and I hate them all.

Movie cliches don't really annoy me anymore but I know some trailer cliches that i wish would die.

I think that's sort of the funny thing about this. As you mentioned in response to black people sacrificing themselves being just an extension of the "magical negro" cliche, why should that be criticized for fitting into a cliche if it works well in the movie? The fact is, some movies are just about nothing but white people and that's just fine. But criticize the "no black people" cliche enough, and Hollywood responds by adding a black guy or two. Then everyone else does it, and it becomes a cliche. The attempt to fight the cliche becomes its own cliche. There was probably a time when having even one important black character was considered progressive, but when enough people do it for long enough it becomes sort of insulting too.

That's why it's sort of hard to ask for more black people to be cast in movies. There's no one to direct that request towards because "filmmakers" is not a singular entity. Even if there's a lack of minority representation in movies, that's not to say that MY new movie needs even one single minority. Don't criticize me for the failing of the entire medium when I don't represent the entire medium. And when you start asking for something to become prevalent throughout an entire medium and ignore the individuals who have a direct hand in the creation of the art, you're basically asking them to turn it into an insulting cliche.

So I think that tactic is sort of wrong. Sure, cliches exist, but there's nothing inherently wrong with doing something that is cliched. Many things that are cliched are actually really good. If that's what the creators want to do, then I say, "**** whether or not it's a cliche, do what you want." Meanwhile, I can't ask for more of x because that's asking creators to cater to public demand while compromising what they want to say. And that's how you end up with cliches. No...rather than criticizing artists for following insulting trends, I think the better course of action is to simply keep an eye out for those artists who VOLUNTARILY choose to work outside of the box, and then support the hell out of them.

I really hate the group arguing and somebody comes in the middle and yells "STOP", and then proceeds to give a cheesy speech about how they should work together.

the villain who hasn't been revealed yet being predictable because of typecasting... hell, typecasting in general needs to die, it's called acting for a reason for a reason, I like to see dramatic range in actors and see them step outside their comfort zone to take on new types of roles

People tripping for whatever reason. When was the last time you randomly tripped?

The eventual "death" of someone just because the movie wants you to feel sad. (the guardian anyone?)

Movie wants to avoid cliche so its becomes a cliche in itself--trying to be different just for the sake of being different--when a regualar cliched happy ending would have been better.

Interesting, you're right in some regards, though I don't fully agree with this. I feel the "true" Anti-hero is lauded over for the fact that he reflects our imperfect, hedonistic society. Whereas the average hero like Indiana Jones is liked for the pure envy of who he is and what he does.

If you ask people whose shoes would they rather be in, Travis Bickles or Indiana Jones'? They'd pick Indiana Jones 90% of the time. But if asked who is more human, they choose Travis Bickle, for he is a lonely, pill-popping, unfeeling hedonist, who only makes the hero cut for failing an assassination. To put it differently, you don't relate to who he is per se, you relate to the fact that he has problems - like us all. And in a nutshell that's all a "true"Anti-hero is. He's a hero with significant faults.

My kind of protagonist. This is why I'm somewhat apathetic when it comes to superhero films with the exception of Spider Man and Batman.

Speaking of this, clumsiness is the cliched way to present a female character with "relatable flaws". Particularly in romantic comedies, Hollywood would almost never show an overweight or ugly (or even plain looking) female lead, so one of the few flaws they can possibly show is clumsiness. I read about that on some Cracked article a while ago.

-Horror villains NEVER DIE!

-Most horror movies rely on the same few jump scares to get get the audience. Tis why I love The Conjuring. That movie actually bothered to put ATMOSPHERE in it and avoid just trying to jump scare you constantly. You KNOW shit is going to go down and it builds tension making you dread what is going to happen.

-Hollywood horror movies are generally afraid to go to really dark places which I feel holds them back. Asian horror movies get into some fucked up territory but it helps make you uneasy. I was pleasantly surprised by how dark Sinister's story was because of this issue.

-There is that whole set of character archtypes for slasher films. If you don't know what I mean, go watch Cabin in the Woods.

-Really, go watch Cabin in the Woods. The movie is awesome and it completely dissects the horror genre. You will leave that movie knowing every single horror cliche there is.

-You can't show a woman getting shot in the head, but you can show a man get shot in the head. One of those weird movie things that is just ridiculous.

-Also, you can never show children being killed.

-Shaky cam needs to die in a fire.

-It seems like no one does anything to shake up the classic "heroes tale" anymore. You just get a billion movies following the same fucking outline just with a different setting...

-There need to be more villains who have a real driving force other than "lol I am a dick". Even if it is just having them be utterly insane ALA Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender, it is still an improvement over the bad guy being bad just to be bad.

-As already mentioned, monologuing villains need to also die in a fire.

-Hollywood needs to go have a talk with Gareth Evans so they can learn how to shoot a good fight scene again. Literally the only movie type doing good action scenes in Hollywood these days is the Superhero films. Shaky cam is a part of this problem.

-The whole "end the world" supervillain plot is old and stupid as hell. They never give any real motivation for these plots.

-The "bad guy becomes good" plot is rarely done well. An example of one that is quite good is Tsuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender. I like that they actually SHOW him develop and grow as the series goes on and for once the change of sides actually has some logic and meaning behind it.

-The surprise "lol JK I am bad!" plot development. The Dark Knight Rises is the biggest offender in the area...

-Kind of specific, but in The Walking Dead show and game, no one is dead unless you see them actually die. There is literally one time so far where someone we were unsure was still alive or dead was actually....dead.

I guess some of those are less cliches and just general issues I have with movies, but whatevs!

• Flashbacks are always grainy, black and white, and have reverb. (I'm thinking back right now to when I was a kid and none of these effects exist in my thoughts)