Pointless Sex Scenes and Romances in Movies/TV/Games/Books

Parasondox

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"You know, we're in the middle of a gun battle where we might be killed so how bout we do the do and you receive my purple heart?"

*Sigh* I wonder is it just Hollywood or just me but pointless romances and sex scenes pop up out of nowhere like a person in the YouTube comment section trying to get attention. You are watching or reading something, the theme and story is going a certain way and BAM!! Time to knock boots. What? Where did that come from. None of the characters showed any signs of that and the chemistry is so forced. *cough* [insert any IP here]*coughcough*.

Here's the thing, I don't mind a sex scene or romance here or there IF IT ACTUALLY FITS INTO THE STORY OR OF THE CHARACTERS NATURE, but just putting it out there for the sake of keeping the audience "interested" is low and lazy from a writing point of view. If you can't keep your target audience engaged, then write a better story. If it's a story about a characters coming of age, discovery of their sexual nature or even the portrayal of the ups and downs of love and sex as a main theme, then fine, that's pretty much normal and what is expected. Maybe it's just I notice it more now as I focus on what I watch and take in the very details of what I am watching or reading. I love a good story.

Now lets hand this over to you, shall we. What do you think about pointless, unneeded and unwarranted romances and sex scenes in movies, tv, games, comics/novels etc? And give us examples cause I know there are too many to choose that aren't even from RomComs.
 

Casual Shinji

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Random Argument Man said:
Every time Zack Snyder does a sex scene, it feels awkward. It's most awkward in Watchmen.
Well, that first one was fine. I don't know if you can really call it a sex scene, but sex did occur and it gives you a bit of insight to Night Owl's character. It's that second one that's very weird, where we just get a crude shot of two people humping, and it's played off as this intense, ecstactic moment. I mean, the way it starts up with Leonard Cohen in the background, while suits are getting unzipped, already gives it this giant parody quality.
 

Teoes

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I don't know that I'm generally all that bothered by them, perhaps I'm just not thinking about them hard (heheh, "hard") enough.

Curious though OP, you say there's so many examples and want posters to name some, but you don't mention any yourself. Could you name a few examples that you feel perfectly illustrate your point?
 

sanquin

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I think I'd prefer a lot of the sex scenes and romances to be cut out of a lot of movies. For instance the 300 ones apart from the rape. (the rape, while jarring, did fit in the story imo) The almost nude dancing girl on top of the mountain could just as well have been more clothed. The sex scene between lionidas and his wife was...pointless. I think it's just because with movies they don't have enough time for a build-up, with books they don't know how to convey a realistic relationship through words. Games are kind of the same as books. Writers for game plot just don't know how to convey a good story through the medium. (not that I do.)
 

Parasondox

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Teoes said:
I don't know that I'm generally all that bothered by them, perhaps I'm just not thinking about them hard (heheh, "hard") enough.

Curious though OP, you say there's so many examples and want posters to name some, but you don't mention any yourself. Could you name a few examples that you feel perfectly illustrate your point?
Mass Effect: Yes you don't have to do a romance but when you do, it just feels rushed and really not needed. But hey, if you need the Trophy or Achievement then go for it.

John Carter: That felt unneeded from the beginning. She just met an earth being and all of a sudden, she fell for him. Okay, maybe that was meant to happen but the actors sure didn't convince me of that.

Star Wars Prequel: They were destined to be together... really? You sure? George Lucus can not do romance... or direction.

Game of Thrones: We get it, the world that they are in is unpredictable, unstable and danger but when the "love making" happens, it gets boring. I remember last season they had to have an arse in each episode. Also, why did viewers get upset when Emilia Clarke refuses to take her clothes off anymore? Isn't her character meant to be a teenage or something in the books. Correct me if I am wrong with that.

Ride to Hell: "You were about to be brutally assulted and maybe even raped by these bad men. LETS HAVE SEX!!!" - Shall I carry on more about the game?

Tranformers 4: "Romeo & Juilet Law".

The 100: "I have a girlfriend back on the ship but I am in love with you instead" - Here we go again for the millionth time in story telling. The said girlfriend sleeps with the leader as some sort of revenge tactic. Humans.

Those were from the top of my head and I will list more when it comes up.
 

Teoes

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Paradox SuXcess said:
Mass Effect: Yes you don't have to do a romance but when you do, it just feels rushed and really not needed. But hey, if you need the Trophy or Achievement then go for it.
I've never played Mass Effect. I've done Dragon Age 1 & 2 though so I imagine things are fairly similar there. Rather like the rest of my responses I can see how people might think the sex is pointless or extraneous, but it just doesn't bother me. It doesn't excite me, I don't think it's necessary to show the climax of the characters' relationship to that point, but equally it doesn't particularly draw me out of the game or whatever.

The biggest gripe I'm likely to have here is that it tends to highlight flaws in the animation; it looks unrealistic (or at best uncanny) to have, as I saw someone around here say recently, effectively two robots rubbing their faces - and other parts - against each other. Generally while still wearing clothes. It's not the act itself that's getting to me though and I suspect the only reason I'm noticing these flaws at these times, or am more likely to notice these flaws at these times, is because the focus is so heavily on the character models. I'm less likely to notice imperfect graphics/animation during normal gameplay because the camera is likely more zoomed out, moving around and splitting its focus on other things as well. That's drifting off-topic.

Paradox SuXcess said:
Game of Thrones: We get it, the world that they are in is unpredictable, unstable and danger but when the "love making" happens, it gets boring. I remember last season they had to have an arse in each episode. Also, why did viewers get upset when Emilia Clarke refuses to take her clothes off anymore? Isn't her character meant to be a teenage or something in the books. Correct me if I am wrong with that.
Well I may have missed something somewhere, but last I remember hearing it wasn't confirmed who had refused to do any more nude/sex scenes; I thought people just assumed it was Emilia Clarke. Yes Daenerys is a teenager in the books (she starts at 13 I think and is about 15 or so by the time we get to Meereen for series 4 / book 3).

I was thinking about GoT actually when I read your OP. It's a funny one, but again it has never really bothered me. In my opinion sex is played up more in the show than in the books; in the books there's plenty of prostitutes but generally little or less lascivious detail of things; someone might be naked or getting busy but there's not much attention called to it; whereas the show lingers on nudity a lot more - the whole sexposition thing.

Being honest, the whole blood and boobs thing is what finally got me watching GoT after I was fed up of people (most latterly my missus) telling me it was a ripping good yarn. Of course now I'm well absorbed by the characters, connections/interactions, the world and goings-on. Sure there could probably be less instances of folks dropping clothing to the floor in order to discuss plot points at hand, but personally I've just accepted it that that?s the way of their society, culture, world.

Paradox SuXcess said:
Ride to Hell: "You were about to be brutally assulted and maybe even raped by these bad men. LETS HAVE SEX!!!" - Shall I carry on more about the game?
From what I've seen on Youtube, that game is just hilarious from start to finish and even then, the sex scenes are stand-out. Absolutely fair enough!
 

Erttheking

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Can I just point game of Thrones and say 90% of the sex scenes in that? Seriously, it gets really annoying that the show keeps shoving boobs into my face while also expecting me to take it seriously.
 

Dragonlayer

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While they do typically serve to advance the plot without making my eyeballs roll right out of their sockets, the romances in just about every Bernard Cornwell novel takes the concept of "love at first sight" and then jams it down your throat until you violently expunge your stomach contents. Doesn't matter what brutal war is going on, or how important the character's current mission is, a woman will be spotted whose beauty is supposedly so awe-inspiring, so divinely perfect that *all* the male characters will drop whatever they're doing and hound said woman for the rest of the book. Quite pathetic really: "I am the greatest warrior in Medieval France, an undefeated jouster and a Christian warrior so fundamentalist I believe my amazing skill at arms comes from the Virgin Mother Herself making me promise never to succumb to the temptations of the flesh! Now I shall do my patriotic duty and slau-WOAH ENGLISH TITS! Welp, time to betray everything I ever stood for!"
 

Asita

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Hobbit movies, anyone? I can understand the creation of Tauriel considering how the Hobbit as originally written has no prominent female characters. Legolas being added as her would-be suitor I'm more leerly of, but by the Valar why the hell have they been working the romance angle with her and Kili? It adds nothing to the story and they've been twisting the tale into a knot just to try and make it work. And it still feels contrived!
 

Twintix

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Asita said:
Hobbit movies, anyone? I can understand the creation of Tauriel considering how the Hobbit as originally written has no prominent female characters. Legolas being added as her would-be suitor I'm more leerly of, but by the Valar why the hell have they been working the romance angle with her and Kili? It adds nothing to the story and they've been twisting the tale into a knot just to try and make it work. And it still feels contrived!
Took the words right out of my mouth! I was just about to post that!

Just thinking about it makes me irrationally irritated. Yes, three movies on a short book need to be a bit padded out, and yes, the book was pretty much a sausage fest. But I hate it when characters are shoe-horned into a story with no other purpose than "Hey, let's shove some unneccessary but mandatory love subplots into this movie". Look, the book was fine as it was, you really didn't have to create a bland, generic character just to force a bullshit romance that absolutely nobody asked for.

How much do you wanna bet that Smaug catches her at one point in the third movie, making her having to be rescued by Kili? Or the other way around, which is just as bad.

Authors, movie makers, potential game writers: Please don't force romance in a story just for the sake of having romance in a story.
 

mojopin87

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Asita said:
Hobbit movies, anyone? I can understand the creation of Tauriel considering how the Hobbit as originally written has no prominent female characters. Legolas being added as her would-be suitor I'm more leerly of, but by the Valar why the hell have they been working the romance angle with her and Kili? It adds nothing to the story and they've been twisting the tale into a knot just to try and make it work. And it still feels contrived!
This x100000000. I absolutely cannot stand that asinine romance sub-plot.

Elves and dwarves actually getting along at all is supposed to be super rare and is the reason why Legolas and Gimli gradually becoming best friends is such a big deal in the books. The idea that a dwarf and an elf would have any romantic interest in one another is a huge contradiction to the established lore between the races, adds nothing to the movies except to drag out a short story even longer.

It just makes people who actually give a damn about the books/story/lore/characters/common sense angry enough that it takes them out of the movie every time the focus is on the characters/subplot in question.
 

MagmaMan

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Metro: Last Light comes to mind. You know what isn't a great idea? Forcing a romance that includes a sex scene with your character from a first person perspective. Wait that isn't weird enough? Let's make your character mute, that will really sell the romantic chemistry!
 

PainInTheAssInternet

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The 1980's TV movie The Bourne Identity. The romance does nothing for the plot at all and comes straight out of nowhere. This version of Bourne is a much bigger asshole than Damon's version. He straight-up abuses her repeatedly, threaten her with death on numerous occasions after kidnapping her. Then he saves her from being raped then BAM! Instant love. If you didn't consider this out of place you'd likely consider it a case of Stockholm Syndrome, when the movie and book obviously wanted it to be a straightforward love subplot. At least in the Damon trilogy he's much more sympathetic. He genuinely cares about Marie and she actually flips out when she learns what he is, going along because she was forced to by the agency hunting them.
 

Henkie36

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Enemy at the Gates, anyone? That whole romance is shoehorned in, and the sex scene makes it all the more awkward.

mojopin87 said:
Asita said:
Hobbit movies, anyone? I can understand the creation of Tauriel considering how the Hobbit as originally written has no prominent female characters. Legolas being added as her would-be suitor I'm more leerly of, but by the Valar why the hell have they been working the romance angle with her and Kili? It adds nothing to the story and they've been twisting the tale into a knot just to try and make it work. And it still feels contrived!
This x100000000. I absolutely cannot stand that asinine romance sub-plot.
Thank you. I typically hate love traingles and this one is no exception. And what makes it all the worse, is that the movie clocks in over two and a half hours, and it's wasted on this bullshit.
 

Nickolai77

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Dragonlayer said:
While they do typically serve to advance the plot without making my eyeballs roll right out of their sockets, the romances in just about every Bernard Cornwell novel takes the concept of "love at first sight" and then jams it down your throat until you violently expunge your stomach contents. Doesn't matter what brutal war is going on, or how important the character's current mission is, a woman will be spotted whose beauty is supposedly so awe-inspiring, so divinely perfect that *all* the male characters will drop whatever they're doing and hound said woman for the rest of the book. Quite pathetic really: "I am the greatest warrior in Medieval France, an undefeated jouster and a Christian warrior so fundamentalist I believe my amazing skill at arms comes from the Virgin Mother Herself making me promise never to succumb to the temptations of the flesh! Now I shall do my patriotic duty and slau-WOAH ENGLISH TITS! Welp, time to betray everything I ever stood for!"
I guess you're referring to his books set during the 100 years war?

I have not read them, but i've read his Warlord series and the King Arthur one. There isn't really any significant wishy washy romance in the former, but in the Arthur series there's a lot so you may want to avoid it. However, there are a lot of disclaimers I should emphasise here.

1: The flowery romance in Cornwell's Arthur series works well because of the nature of the topic he's writing about.

2: Cornwell doesn't have a soppy view to romance were " true love conquers all". He uses love and romance really to advance the plot by creating division and conflict.

If you want a totally romance free novel by Cornwell I suggest you read The Fort.


OT: Romance, love and sex to me is pointless when it is used as a side-plot aside from the main storyline. Hollywood actions films are bit culprits of this offence. Really, romance and sex should be integrated as part of the overall story- central to the character's personality and motivations, and one that advances the plot forward. What i hate is when it's put into a plot of a book or film as if it were some sort of food condiment.
 

Hochmeister

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Forced romances annoy the hell out of me. Heck, even not forced romances in movies annoy me half the time since they're usually just excuses for fanservice cough*Transformers*cough.

Mass Effect 1's (and most of the other Bioware titles) romances were some of the worst I can recall from games. I was trying to play a straitlaced Shepherd who wouldn't go around bumping uglies with his crewmembers. Too late I find out the only way to do this is to kill off Ashley, which wasn't a good option since she's literally the only pure tank you've got in that game. Not to mention that all the romances felt rushed, out of left field, and annoying.

Asita said:
Hobbit movies, anyone? I can understand the creation of Tauriel considering how the Hobbit as originally written has no prominent female characters. Legolas being added as her would-be suitor I'm more leerly of, but by the Valar why the hell have they been working the romance angle with her and Kili? It adds nothing to the story and they've been twisting the tale into a knot just to try and make it work. And it still feels contrived!
This so very much. I despised how they made up a character for an obligatory romance sub-plot. Hell, even in the Lord of the Rings I was annoyed by all the angst over the Aragorn/Arwen plot.
 

hermes

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The "love triangle" in the hunger games is pretty pointless. It is far less prominent in the books so, I think, at some point during the adaptation, they took notice of the twilight comparison, and decided to take inspiration from those movies (of all things)...

Of course, this is not worst than the aforementioned Hobbit love story, but then again, few things are...
 

EMWISE94

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Legend of Korra... like seriously it tries too hard to push romance. I mean the romance in the ATLA made sense, from the immediate get-go we knew Aang had a thing for a Katara and the entire series was pretty much building up to the point where they share some embraces here and there and final embrace with a sunset backdrop hooray. I'd like to say Sokka's romances felt a bit rushed but it was forgiveable because... well, they weren't realy cringe worthy.

Legend of Korra on the other hand, dear fucking christ I wish the show would just STOP with the romance subplots or undertones, I mean holy shit, did we not learn from the unholy atrocity that was Book 2? Book 1's was bad enough cause that was the teenage equivalent of a vegas style hitching, I mean Korra and Mako showed no previous signs of even liking each other (or did they, i can't remember, it was a while back since I watched Book 1). Then Book 2 happened... and thats all we'll mention of that abysmal scene. Book 3 kinda got away from it but not really as they were done beating Korra, Mako and Asami with the romance stick it was time for Bolin to get his whacking. Book 4 so far kinda keeping it classy but I still see those undertones... that shit better stop!

This is seriously one of my biggest gripes with media at times, I'm not against romance, one of my favourite IP's, the Scott Pilgrim franchise, is centred around romance (sure its filtered through some serious hipster lenses, but its still romance... sorta) and I at times enjoy some mushy scenes, but the big problem I've seen is that Hollywood can't seem to have two characters of opposite genders be around each other for an extended period of time without proclaiming their feelings for each.
 

ProtoChimp

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All of David Cage's works. There must be no less than 4 but not more than 7 sex scenes. And Beyond Two Souls replaces sex scenes with near rape scenes, because he is a fucking freak.