When there are more villains/rebels/bandits/raiders in a world than regular people. World of Warcraft does this most egregiously, with 100 Defias bandits (might be homeless people post-Cataclysm?) for every farmer in Elwynn Forest, for example. How could they possible survive, let alone make a profit? Why does nobody else realize that 99% of the world's population being "evil" seems a lot less likely than the 1% who live indoors just being selfish dicks? This phenomenon can be seen in almost every game I've ever played, unfortunately. I'd much prefer a larger world with more NPCs, even if much of it was randomly generated and non-interactable--at least the interesting stuff would be properly spaced out.
Also, Elves being superior to humans in almost any fantasy world. They're always so pretentious and self-satisfied about their long lives, magic, veganism, pacifism, eyesight, etc, yet they almost inevitably fuck things up when they get any responsibility. To be fair, Skyrim has really brought out the elf-racism in me recently
Almost every fucking movie has one. ALWAYS. and it is always a thinly masked and banal relationship, unless its the focus of the movie, and even then it can be questionable.
not every movie/videogame/ story in general needs a damn love interest for the main characters! Its like the kiss scene most every movie has. It adds nothing to the plot or the characters and is inconsequential for the most part and I despise it when some vapid romantic subplot which had no firm position in the characters motivations or the general plot somehow dictates the actions of the main characters. It just doesn't need to be there!
Is there no better character motivation for writers to come up with other than "he/she loves her/him so thats why they are doing thus and such"?
Absolutely agree. An example that really bothered me was Lie to Me. I thought "Hey, for once we could have a protagonist whose defining relationship is with his daughter, and their characters are perfectly suited for doing so!" Nope. Apparently that wasn't enough. I have nothing against romance when it helps the story and it's usually one of the best character development/unveiling techniques, but if you don't have a good reason, don't put it in (pun vaguely intended).
Ughhh, this thing right here. All the time I get comments about how tall I am. First time meeting someone? Yup. From second family that know full well that I am? Yup. Even my own freaking family that I live with? Yup. And hell, basketball happens to be one of my least favorite sports, even if I wasn't so tall. I wish I could lose a few inches, but that isn't possible at all, so I'm stuck being 6'3, which is pretty much taller than everyone else in my grade and everyone that I know. Being tall is overrated. Fuck being tall.
The fact that there's got to be something mundane that it turns out magically destroys your aliens/zombies/monsters/demons. Yes, it worked for War of the Worlds and Dracula. No, it doesn't make your film/book/game clever if you do it too, we're now not even in the century next to the century when they were written. What's wrong some good old fashioned metal of the fast, sharp, heavy or hot variety?
I hate how in almost every horror movie the only one to survive is a woman. Sometimes it works because the woman is strong-willed and smarter than other characters but I've seen quite a few where the stupidest character in the entire movie, the ditzy female, is the only one to survive even though they are typically the second one to die, right after the black character, which is another cliche I hate.
The church being evil. The priest is a gay pedo, and it's always a man. Christians being racist, sexist, narrow-minded people that will kill you on the spot. Same goes for Muslims being terrorist. British guy is usually the bad guy. Atheists are smarter then everyone. Black people being Gs, white people are the uncool evil losers. Big strong dude gets the sexy girl.
Well. There is the issue of them not being able to see anything. Barring a macguffin of somesort (like Daredevil's superpower) they probably wouldn't be any good in a fight. :/
Rich white girl falls in love with poor(often ethnic minority)guy.Her family/friends disapprove and try to split them up but their love prevails
Clichéd characters in horror movies also piss me off e.g
Slut - probably gonna die(in fact anyone who has sex usually snuffs it)
Jock - probably gonna die(especially if he's a douche)
Cheerleader - probably gonna die(especially if she's a *****)
Stoner - probably gonna die(this can often be expanded to anyone who drinks/takes any form of drugs)
Ethnic minority - probably gonna die
I really hate the "trials and tribulations of the main plot contritely brings back divorced couple". It's just so insincere and forced. I think I responded with "Gayngels" in the last version of this thread.
I do normally agree with the divorce thing. However, I think it worked in season 3 of Doctor who, with Martha's parents.
OT: For me
gummibear76 said:
The Redshirt army.
I hate it how (usually in terrible action movies) the hero is being escorted somewhere by a highly trained team of soldiers/SWAT teams who all die insanely fast once the bullets start to fly, thus leaving the protagonist to go on by himself.
Oh god, this! The most unforgivable case of this was in Star Wars: Episode 3. Mace Windu takes his jedi elite team to go and fuck Palpatine's shit up. Focus on the words "Jedi Elite Team". What they were widely recognized as, and these were some damn symbolic jedi if you followed the extended universe pertaining to the prequels. So why THE HELL did he cut all of them bar Mace Windu in fifteen seconds? Mace himself does fine on his own, and while it's arguable he could be, to a degree, better than the others with him, they should at least hold their own.
The US vs. Russia conflict.
- So annoying. I understand that they're one of the only nations that could pose a significant threat to us, but seriously, we're friends now. The Cold War ended a while ago. Let it go.
America being the center of the universe
- Enough said.
Nuclear Weapons
- Yep, nukes are bad. We get it. But they're overdone. Use chemical weapons, EMP's, or something else instead.
Stopping a bomb at the last .11234 of a second
- Just overdone.
Rail sequence where you're driving away from a helicopter, who is shooting a bajillion rockets at you but somehow missing them all.
- Boring and stupid. That helicopter would have blown you to shit within the first 3 seconds it saw you. Fancy driving can't outperform heat-seeking missiles.
Vehicles, ESPECIALLY jets, with infinite ammo/rockets/missiles.
Infinite spawn of henchman on motorcycles/snowmobiles/trucks chasing along side you, stopping right next to you to shoot at you instead of mowing you down from behind your vehicle (which is usually a dirt bike).
"This is terrible because one child died! Nevermind the 40 adults who died. Think of the children!"
- Uggh. I hate this so much. Yeah children are innocent, but they're going to grow up to be adults; you know, adults who can be violent and evil just like everyone else.
I have no regret for killing hundreds of anonymous henchman just doing their jobs, but i'll feel bad if I kill the bad guy.
- Lame.
Dropship dropping off enemies, but not sticking around to provide air support.
In Games:
Bandit 1 "You see that guy dressed in black spikey armour, with a glowing sword?"
Bandit 2 "You mean the one kills dragons for fun? The one who changed his name to Invincible McDeathpunch?
Bandit 1 "Yeah, lets fuck his shit up!"
In General:
Super smart baddie with almost unlimited resources gets beaten easily by the thick as bricks lone hero/rag tag bunch.
"I have just killed many many guards who were just doing their job and just wanted to get home to their families, and didn't realise what their boss does. However I will spare the life of the guy who killed my family, was going to kill millions of people and enslave the rest of world, and is currently kicking puppies and eating kittens. I am such a emotionally fucked-up assholish manboy godamn hero!"
In Life:
"It's always darkest just before the dawn"
Because 1) It isn't and 2)It implies that everything is going to get swiftly better. Improvement is usually a long hard uphill struggle.
The one that annoys me the most would be this:
And I'm not even talking about the obvious computer illiteracy, oh no, I'm talking about the constant stream of BEEP BLEEP BEEPBEEPBOOP BEEPYBLEEP. It's goddamn everywhere in films and in TV shows. I'd go absolutely mad if my computer would beep at damned everything.
sparkyk24 said:
"This guy is big, thus, he is INCREDIBLY stupid." It's okay if someone outsmarts a bigger opponent. But just because someone is stronger than you doesn't mean that you'll make them run head first into a tree while saying "duuuhhh..." Stop it.
Congratulations, even though the evil you fought against is all-powerful and you had seen that its influence and corruption had spread throughout the entire world, you still managed to defeat it, save the world and prevented anything bad from happening anywhere in the world. Ever. All is well. Here, have some sunshine, rainbows and unicorns.
A sequel or prequel uses a well known line just so fans can go "aahh awesome! a shout out to the series, coooolzzz." It has really started bugging me ever since I saw Rise of The Planet of The Apes.
Stupid douche bag kid is about to get his shit wrecked by Caesar. He just has to say "get off me you damn dirty ape!" I'm like "wtf..." it sounded so forced I nearly got up and left the movie theater. Good thing everything else about the movie was awesome. There is no way that fucking kid would say damn dirty ape, it would be more like get off me dammit!!! or something else. That line just... it doesn't sound like he would of said it.
You DID realise, or check before posting, that that was a shout-out/reference to the 2nd most well-known line from the original Planet of the Apes?
They would probably have tried to tribute the most well-known line, except that it wouldn't really work given that the characters aren't arguing amongst each other whether they've arrived back on Earth or not, and (unlike the original) don't end the film by raging in despair when they realise that they simply landed back on Earth a while into the future (when Charlton Heston's character recognises the ruins of the statue of liberty).
[yes, I konw, SPOILERS, but the film was released in 1968, so I think most folks who are interested have seen it by now]
Great line, that one- Heston [shouting at the long-deceased politicians and generals who allowed WW3 to happen]: 'You maniacs!!! You blew it up!! Damn you! God Damn You ALL to hell!!! [incomprehensible cry of rage and grief, as the realisation of what must have occurred in their absence is too great for him to put into words]. It kind of needs context - the movie starts with one of the first manned missions into interstellar space, except something goes wrong and they land on an unrecognisable desert of a planet. One of the main character reasons that the autopilot would have taken them home automatically, and that something terrible must have happened to Earth, but Heston's character refuses to believe it.
Then they meet two groups of primates: a civilisation of talking, intelligent Apes (some of whom want to conduct horrible tests on them, the same way we do to chimps, some of whom want to kill them and some who believe that these humans are intelligent beings and should be treated with respect and kindness) and a 'tribe' of creatures that look like humans but who have devolved to the point where they no longer even have language, and are simply dumb animals.
Heston and most of the ship's crew believe that they must have landed on a far-away planet where evolution occurred slightly differently, and that chimps, gorillas and orangatangs developed higher intelligence, whilst humans didn't (i.e. he still thinks that these are all aliens and he is on another planet).
This leads to some more awesome quotes as the ship's crew tries to convince the head chimpanzee scientist, Dr Zaius, that they are capable of intelligence and kindness. E.g. Dr Zaius (revealing to the scientist who, unlike Heston, realises that they are actually on Earth): "[taking from the secret database on the pre-ape human civilisation]: Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death."
Hence Heston's realisation that he was wrong on both issues - that he IS on Earth, and that humanity IS (or was) the planet-wrecking monstrosity that the ape scientists claim. Awesome, awesome ending. The ending of the new film wasn't bad...but it was nothing compared to the ending of the original, made during the height of the Cold War and shortly following near-nuclear disaster with the Cuban missile crisis,
Almost every fucking movie has one. ALWAYS. and it is always a thinly masked and banal relationship, unless its the focus of the movie, and even then it can be questionable.
not every movie/videogame/ story in general needs a damn love interest for the main characters! Its like the kiss scene most every movie has. It adds nothing to the plot or the characters and is inconsequential for the most part and I despise it when some vapid romantic subplot which had no firm position in the characters motivations or the general plot somehow dictates the actions of the main characters. It just doesn't need to be there!
Is there no better character motivation for writers to come up with other than "he/she loves her/him so thats why they are doing thus and such"?
I hate this so much. If it fits with the story then fine, but not every movie needs a romantic subplot.
Also I hate the romantic comedy where the main character is in a horrible relationship, he/she meets a great person, and within a few days the main character leaves their spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, that they've been with for years, to be with the new person.
edit:
I also hate contrived conflicts that if anybody in the movie would actually use their brains they would figure out that the conflict is stupid. This includes things like a character accidentally starts a series of events, out of their control, that does something wrong, sometimes its not even their fault, an they get blamed for it.
These movies are supposed to be romantic, but they just shows that no matter how long you're with someone, if they find someone else they will immediately leave you, even if you're married.
This. It is like people don't want their standard of living improved. Curing diseases? More efficient technology? Where do you think this comes from? The art community?
I think its more that people take modern conveniences for granted.
"All this new-fangled hibber gibber just makes things complicated. The people in the middle ages survived. Why can't we do that?"
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