Status Quo Ante Bellum: by the end of the film, despite any and all conflict and plot, NOTHING changes at all.
Redshirts: if you have people around who's only purpose is to die then spend your money on dummies rather than actors who would rather have a less shite role
Instant effect drugs: i'm no biology professor, but i can tell you that any drug will have at least a short delay before it takes effect (depending on the injection point)
the good guys lose: i understand if you want to establish your villain and his army as a threat. that's fine, but having an otherwise respectable army against him being utter morons is not. (looking at you, ME3). to extract from the ME3 example, the whole of C-SEC basically are like "what is gun? how do i bullets?" while getting roflstomped by Cerberus, despite being established beforehand as a well equipped and organised force.
shut up and shoot: the amount of problems that could be solved if either side were to shut up and just shoot their adversary rather than provide a tiresome exposition dump is uncanny.
Regarding the C-SEC situation, I'm pretty sure there were in-game documents that supported my assumption that the most competent personnel had been conscripted into the war against the Reapers, that resources were stretched thin and that the highly trained, well-equipped and mindlessly fanatica Cerberus troopers had launched a surprise attack on the Citadel with inside help from the awesomely voiced human turn-coat counsellor.
Shoehorned romance. Don't get me wrong, I really dig a good romance that adds something to the plot, but it some movies in just seems like the male and female leads have to get together at a suspiciously inconvenient point in the plot because...?
I agree with you. I'm so sick of everyone having to screw each other Just Because. It's like using sex to sell something - it's unimaginative, serves little purpose and is actually quite boring.
Sherlock series from BBC is one of the worst offenders in recent memory. No, Sherlock, commanders of military bases do not have a name of a person as their password. Proper passwords are undeductable string of randomly picked letters, symbols and numbers.
You've never dealt with actual people using computers, have you? Most passwords are exactly as long/complicated as they are required to be, and tend to settle around semi-common words or names. You hope people will come up with passwords like "awefi36sjnsmkl" or at least "correcthorsebatterystaple", but in reality you end up with things like "spot2008" (name of pet and year they got it), "12345password67890", or if there aren't minimum complexity requirements "LR90", or "1958".
You've never dealt with actual people using computers, have you? Most passwords are exactly as long/complicated as they are required to be, and tend to settle around semi-common words or names. You hope people will come up with passwords like "awefi36sjnsmkl" or at least "correcthorsebatterystaple", but in reality you end up with things like "spot2008" (name of pet and year they got it), "12345password67890", or if there aren't minimum complexity requirements "LR90", or "1958".
-Whenever a character starts off a bit of exposition with some variation of "as you know..." Okay, if this person already knows this information, then why the fuck are you telling them again?
Yeah, that's lousy exposition for you. I mean, the writer could at least have the decency to give the listener some temporary amnesia, as much of an ass-pull as it would be, still better than this.
infallible main protagonists jack reacher for example no one can beat him in a fight no one can outsmart him and lets not forget that every woman he meets is enthralled by his pheromones i suppose since no one ever talks to him unless they are part of the plot.
-Whenever a character starts off a bit of exposition with some variation of "as you know..." Okay, if this person already knows this information, then why the fuck are you telling them again?
Yeah, that's lousy exposition for you. I mean, the writer could at least have the decency to give the listener some temporary amnesia, as much of an ass-pull as it would be, still better than this.
Or, better yet, have the listener be an audience surrogate; a newcomer to whatever situation is being explained, who logically wouldn't know all this information. Even if it means creating an entirely new character who will ultimately serve no other purpose to the story, at least it would make some amount of sense, and avoid most of the utterly absurd scenarios that arise whenever a character gives an "as you know..." speech.
When the main characters have no parents and lost them at a young age, as some sort of shallow attempt at characterisation and to make them appear stronger or something. Lazy, lazy.
The other is the tough fighter chick character that for some reason has long flowing hair that she leaves out as she twirls and clips through action scenes. For Christ sake, tie your bloody hair up! You can't fight with your hair whipping about in your face! I know it's a choice to make her appear sexier, but it really pisses me off.
And when there's two characters of opposite sex that are not related, they will by the end of the film always end up together, no matter how much they didn't get along in the first place.
The women always getting captured near the end, causing the main male character to go and save her. I just went to see Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit and prayed it didn't do that.
My prayers were sadly not answered; they were ignored.
Actually, what I hate is people who complain about cliches and tropes in the movie or show that originated them. There are people in this world who complain about Casablanca being too cliche. It started them. You're not allowed to comment on that. That's like calling Beethoven's symphonies 'derivative'.
For me it would probably be the overuse of the "chosen one" character type, the one person who is destined to defeat whatever evil is currently plaguing the story. I can understand why it's useful to explain why a given character is involved or why they're achieving success where everyone else has failed; however when nearly every is some form of the chosen one it can seem like heroism becomes an inherited trait rather than something anyone can display.
Star Wars can be pretty big offender on this count, particularly in the prequels and especially in the Expanded Universe. The stories become so focused on the conflict between Jedi and Sith that any non-Force characters are pretty regulated to being the backdrop. If they're lucky they can maybe help out in the final battle but do not presume to try to do any of the really important stuff for the battle, that's reserved for the special people.
When a female character is portrayed as competent and skilled during the first two acts of the movie but during the final act becomes a damsel in distress. It's basically saying that no matter how competent a woman is, she still is incapable without a man when things get serious.
If You Kill Him, You Will be Just Like him- The notion that a hero doesn't want to be as bad as the villains they fight, which is understandable... though I think it would save them a lot of trouble in the future.
This, I hate this with a passion. No, you will not be just like him. If Batman just killed the damn Joker, he couldn't be killing so many people. We know that a jail cell holds nothing over him, so sending him there is like sending him in the damn corner, except now he gets the chance to kill a few more people on his way out. It's a necessary evil for the ultimate greater good. Hell, even Harry Potter, the 17 year old, who refused to kill anyone for the most part, killed Voldemort because he knew he was too dangerous to stay alive. The fucking children's book has the balls to follow through but these other people won't. Bullshit.
I also hate the James Bond villain "I'm not going to kill you yet, I'll let you die slowly from this unnamed guard # B." Just kill them. Quit jacking off to pictures of yourself, kill them. Shoot them in the head.
When a female character is portrayed as competent and skilled during the first two acts of the movie but during the final act becomes a damsel in distress. It's basically saying that no matter how competent a woman is, she still is incapable without a man when things get serious.
The most recent time I saw it was Despicable Me 2 which was a 2013 film. The Nostalgia Critic has also talked about it in some of his videos. It's prevalent enough and it annoys the heck out of me each time.
The Badass Female Warrior. She never has any weakness, even though a male character in a similar role would have more development and traits or flaws. And also usually is a small pixie, skimpily or otherwise inadequately dressed or armed, but super strong, blessed with 'waif-fu' or some other physically impossible skill set. I find this stereotype to be nauseating and tiresome.
Putting Kids And/Or Pregnant Women In Danger. I guess the idea is kids and unborn babies are more vulnerable, so we're supposed to care more. Whatever nurturing instinct this is supposed to activate is one I don't have. It just pisses me off.
Magic Pregnancy. This is done over and over again: woman goes to sleep with an aerobicized starving-actress tummy, wakes up nine months pregnant with some grotesque life-threatening alien inside. I guess it's meant to be an extra level of violation, like the womb is somehow sacred. Yeah, right. Ever see childbirth? It's blood, snot, sweat, phlegm, shit, urine, and screaming. Oh, and the placenta looks like it was designed by HR Giger. Don't wave the sacred flag at me. Also find it annoying that every female character on every show has to eventually be pregnant For The Dramazz.
Instant Skills. Often combined with Ass Pull and/or Training Montage. The writer needs a certain character to be an expert swordsman. We get one of these responses: 1) "Oh, I studied with Tibetan monks for ten years before I met you guys, despite the fact that I never used a sword or talked about it before;" 2) "Watch me master the blade in a twenty-second montage, gaining ten years of skill right in the middle of an episode!" Just cheap.
Can't Outrun The Plodding Monster. I've seen movies where the monster was literally rooted to the ground, yet somehow no one could escape it. The classic example is Jason Voorhees, the guy moves like slime mold but always catches the running kids.
Scratch Damage. Basically when one character obviously has "more hit points." The nameless NPCs get blown across the street and killed instantly by the bomb; the hero, who was just as close and in fact not even wearing tac armor like the NPCs were, is merely knocked down and given a couple cosmetic cuts. Explosions do not care that you are the protagonist, they still shatter your bones inside you.
Bad Computer Password. Why does every computer user have a password that can be guessed in less than ten seconds? I'm just some random schmoe and my passwords are all keyboard smashes, impossible to crack. Maybe I should take up criminal mastermindery.
Hacking/Computer Use Always Looks Like A Video Game. No, it really doesn't. At all. Even more offensive is the notion that hacking "plays" like a video game. I saw a show where the characters accessed an enemy system by literally playing a video game.
Bikini Mail. Blatant attempts to appeal to thoughtless young males. Offensive to everyone else. Listening, entertainment industry?
I'll Harass You Until You Like Me. Dude. She said no. Back off. This behavior is demeaning to the entire male gender and disrespectful to the entire female gender. Fucking be a real man and get on with your life.
Evil For Evil's Sake. I remember a throwaway character in Angel saying, "I'm not just here for the paycheck. I believe in evil." What the fuck? Nobody believes in evil. Villains don't believe in evil, they believe in good. It's just that good is relative. To the villain, good is whatever is good for him: tyranny/greed/genocide/mimes/et cetera.
The Badass Female Warrior. She never has any weakness, even though a male character in a similar role would have more development and traits or flaws. And also usually is a small pixie, skimpily or otherwise inadequately dressed or armed, but super strong, blessed with 'waif-fu' or some other physically impossible skill set. I find this stereotype to be nauseating and tiresome.
Ah, no, I didn't mean to slight real, strong women, Johnny! This girl, she looks great, and has clearly worked out for a long time - but, this woman is a real person, with hopes, faults, depth and frames of reference all her own... and thus not a part of the discussion, as I was talking about a trope, really. Mind you, heavy or overtly defined muscles on a woman aren't my cup of tea, but in a story, if the character is supposed to kick ass, she better have the equipment.
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