Things you wish movies would stop doing

[Rofl Harris]

Here's some of mine, firstly a sheer lack of realism:
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Suitcases which are empty for the actors to carry. Never seen anyone at an airport carrying a large suitcase without struggling.

Scenes inside the car where someone is driving, and their hands are on the wheel moving it from side to side like children do when they're pretending to drive.

Immaculately white teeth. Soldiers in war zones who are covered from head to toe in shit and blood, but have still had time between rations to have laser teeth whitening.

Explosions in space should not make a sound. The lack of air molecules make it impossible for sound to travel.

When someone fires a gun at a baddie, and when said baddie gets hit, he gets blown off his feet and thrown ten feet out of a window/plane etc. Surely Newton's third law means that the force impacting the target is the same as the force pushing the shooter from the gun?

When someone's shot at close range and the shooter leaves without so much as a blood stain on him.

Fight scenes where people are hit in the face with all sorts of stuff, then continue with a minor scratch on their face. (Michael Corleone gets punched once in the Godfather and sports a lump the size of a tennis ball on his face for the next year).

Nuclear reactors "going critical", meaning they're about to explode. It's kinda what they're designed for?

Radioactive material glowing green.


And secondly, just some cliched shit that annoys me:
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When people throw away their gun because it's out of bullets. That's quite irritating.

When the guy in seniority to the protagonist is a complete arsehole (see Die Hard's FBI men for a prime example).

The ridiculous coolness of the main character that goes on in films since The Matrix (was a novelty then and the plot accomodated it).

 

[quiet_samurai]

For once I'd like to see the slutty cheerleader and the dick head jock be the ones to survive in a horror movie, possibly even the lovable fat character. Also, pretty much all bad action movie cliches, the running from the explosion in slow-mo especially. Or when the good guy is unarmed, surrounded by bad gus who are armed, and they choose to fist fight him instead of shoot him... or wound him... or order him to lie on the foor before or they'll shoot or wound him. Or... bad guy or supporting character gets shot in the arm = loss of limb and death.... good guy or main character gets shot inarm = flesh wound.

So many more I could think of.

 

[Okysho]

I don't expect movies to be completely realistic. I like suspending my disbelief for the sake of something looking cool but there are some things that just make no sense. Furthermore, you find that, on top of being completely stupid, these tropes are in every single movie.

The three major ones for me:


Cocking a gun to intimidate someone

So the bad guy has his gun to someone's head, trying to get him to talk. Dude won't talk, so the bad guy cocks his gun. Oooh, dramatic

But think about it. It either means that:

1) The gun wasn't ready to fire before, thus the earlier threats had no real weight behind them, or

2) The gun was ready to fire before, thus the action is completely redundant (it's even sillier when they "pump" a shotgun to show that "shit is going to go down" because that just ejects the shell..a perfectly good shell)

So what's the point? I get that there's the intimidation factor, but come on, if the dude isn't already intimidated with a gun in his face, cocking it isn't gonna do much.

Worse than when it's being used to intimidate is when the person had every intention of firing and only waited to cock the gun at the last moment to look cool.

But even if you want to ignore how stupid it is, it's still completely played out. It seems like every movie or TV show that involves guns does it at some point. It may have been dramatic once, but its done to death.


Knocking people unconscious with a hit to the head

Do you know what happens when people get blunt force trauma to the head? The cerebral cortex can become bruised - contused, axonal injury due to stretching can occure, or in the worse case, they can die.

Oh, but not in movie world. Get hit on the head and you just take a nice little nap. Every time, because nobody ever swings hard enough to kill or soft enough to do nothing. And after you wake up, the only lingering health problem is a bit of a headache.

And again, this is something that happens all the time. Often several times in one movie.


Shooting things makes them explode

Mythbusters ruined this one for me.

It doesn't matter if you have a barrel full of gasoline. Shooting it isn't going to make it ignite. A bullet is a small piece of metal going really fast. There is no fire involved past the firing process. It won't ignite anything. Maybe, maybe, there's a slim chance that it could spark and that spark will cause ignition, but that's unlikely at best. You can't shoot something combustible and reliably expect it to explode.

For a long time I have been willing to suspend my disbelief far enough to allow for the big fiery movie explosions over realistic explosions because they're cooler to watch, but the time has come now. I cannot idly watch as commonsense takes a back seat with Hollywood action movies. If it has to be an unrealistic explosion, at least come up with better ways to deliver it.


Yes, I know it makes me a total nerd to be faffing about with trivial things like these, but I don't care. Any time I see any of these three things, it makes my left eye twitch. Oh and don't even get me started with turning every production into 3-fecking-D. Life is already in 3D, if you can't be arsed to put some realism into your explosions then don't add "realism" via 3D and have me fork out more money and spend 120mins wearing goggles that nap on the bridge of my nose.

Are/is there any similar things that you experience in movies that you have gotten irked about?

Someone paid a visit to cracked.com didn't they?

OT: I daresay sequels... and sub-par ones at that.

Some sequels are ok. They started doing movies with 1 sequel it was cool, they did some movies where everything tried to pull a "star wars" and do a trilogy. but now that we're getting into series that are running 7 movies or more long... This isn't tv! If you're going to do something eposidically, at least broadcast it on TV and don't waste our time with your 2 hour crap!

ok a bit of a rant, but if your story does nothing for an hour and a half while trying to make the extra half-hour awesome and story packed, AND it's a sequel, why not just make it into a TV series?

 

[The Night Shade]

Love interest that don't make any sense also 3D that doesn't fit in the movie

 

[Karma168]

less blair witch project style shooting. weve seen the 'documentary film' to death now do something else and buy a decent fecking camera!

and no more paramormal activity!! that film was downright awful, gave away every scary bit by playing music before it happened (another ruiner for me). why people think its scary i have no idea, so why is there a sequel??

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

STOP GIVING SHILA BUFF WORK!

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Yes, you'll be harder to hit - but a gun has more than one bullet.

You don't say.

While it is true that a door has poor stopping power, I was already kind of ahead of you there. That's why I mentioned a sheet would have similar effect. Oddly enough, this is what you're trained to do in a firefight. Hide behind something. Break up your form. The stopping power is less an issue because you're already being shot at.

It's even a commonality in nature. Break up your form, you're harder to spot, harder to hunt. Very basic concept, and that's my point in the first place.

I don't doubt the vast health benefits gained by crouching or lowering your form during combat..for obvious reasons. The only issue I have is why anyone would want to do so, behind a car door If it's behind a wall, sandbag, engine block of a car or conveniently placed rock outcropping then, yes - that makes sense. You are harder to hit and also less likely to be injured if fired upon.

Crouching behind a car door however....

 

[emeraldrafael]

Its not really something I'd like to see Stopped persay. Mainly its just something I'd like to see happen.


I'd like to see the love movies that Always get to be Box office hits because they have one big name actor/actress (sometimes two) and is the same garbage tripe all the time that makes women believe they can hold out for "Mr. Perfect" and then use it to judge all men later to that standard (things like Eat, Pray, Love come to mind for recent) where the main character gets to that climatic I'm going to pronounce my love for you moment, and then the guy just rejects her. Like flat out just looks at her, laugh, walk off with the air headed supermodel and leaves the main character broken and depressed.

I know, thats horrible, but still.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Ehhhhh... A better title would be "Things you want American action movies to stop doing".

Anyway, why the FUCK does every goddamn trailer have to end at a "funny" moment? I mean, Inception's trailer's idea of that was the line "Don't be afraid to dream up a bigger gun" (or something like that) and then the trailer ends. The Green Lantern trailer had it as well. And many others.

Please, for the mercy of Lord, stop doing it.

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

hooo, where to begin...

first off, every japanese sword is NOT a katana, and they can't cut through anything and everything, including other swords, also european swords aren't cumbersome heavy things, and teach the actors how to use the damn things properly, enough with them clashing edge to edge it just blunt's and chip's the blade

secondly, enough with the A-team firing already, single shots, double tap if you must, and USE the sights already, they aren't just there for decoration, and stop using hollywood tactics, also, no guns akimbo, or dual weilding any weapon, it just looks silly

if you really have to make a car explode at least make it a proper explosion (as in massive thud, smoke and dust everywhere, smoking crater where car used to be)

no more obligatory romance subplots

have the female lead dress in something practical that doesn't show off lots of cleavage

 

[thublihnk]

So many of these are dramatic conventions that exist for reasons that have been explained away by someone on Cracked or TVtropes and let me tell you guys something: 90 percent of these, if done away with completely, would make for movies so fucking shitty you wouldn't even believe it. I'm talking about a world where Transformers: ROTF would get an Oscar.

And people who whine about reboots? You're wrong. You're so very wrong. Reboots can be fantastic things when done correctly and if you paid attention you'd know that. There's nothing wrong with a cover song, and that's all a 'reboot' is. It's a cover song.

 

[greyghost81]

I'm going to say 3-D. I think we can do without it.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Someone paid a visit to cracked.com didn't they?

I have ready their various articles, yes. Alas however, I was inspired to write this after a binge movie session that involved all the Die Hard movies and that expendable movie..called Expendables.

Four bottles of Bundaberg Rum later...

 

[ajemas]

You have 10 seconds to name a film without any romantic sub-plot or love interest! Hard, isn't it? Why does every movie have to have a tacked on romance in it. We could spend a lot more time focusing on the story and characters, or even just explosions, if all of the love scenes were cut out. I'm not saying that love stories can't have them, but just make sure that they belong.

 

[forsinain42]

'STOP PLAYING AROUND, THIS IS REAL LIFE.'
No it isn't, it's a movie and you have just killed the immersion. Ta.

Also, when ANYONE plays a game in a movie its always manically with lots of controller waving. Really annoying.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

You have 10 seconds to name a film without any romantic sub-plot or love interest! Hard, isn't it? Why does every movie have to have a tacked on romance in it. We could spend a lot more time focusing on the story and characters, or even just explosions, if all of the love scenes were cut out. I'm not saying that love stories can't have them, but just make sure that they belong.

Pan's Labyrinth..that took a disturbingly long time.

 

[thublihnk]

'STOP PLAYING AROUND, THIS IS REAL LIFE.'
No it isn't, it's a movie and you have just killed the immersion. Ta.

Also, when ANYONE plays a game in a movie its always manically with lots of controller waving. Really annoying.

I gotta admit, that first one always gets me. Always makes me laugh.

Also, didn't you know? All movies with video games take place in a world where the Wii is the only console.

 

[Roxor]

Let's just ban Hollywood from using anything which has been complained about in this thread for the next five, maybe ten, years. Maybe they'll actually get creative for once.

 

[Dags90]

Immaculately white teeth. Soldiers in war zones who are covered from head to toe in shit and blood, but have still had time between rations to have laser teeth whitening.

This is an ongoing pet peeve of mine, especially on TV. The worst are homeless people and drug addicts who look like they've got a car's worth of dental work in their mouth. In general I hate the whole capped, bleached, porcelain obsession.

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

OBLIGATORY LOVE INTEREST.

Anyone remember the Hitman movie? That shit was awful, mostly because of the FUCKING LOVE INTEREST. Agent 47 + love = does not compute.

This has got to be the first thing i agree with on these forums. WHY does everything have to have a slap up love interest thrown in? Its come to the point where i think that i may be having problems with love in general, because eveytime i see something like this, i turn it off or mute it.

Most recent of which has to be assassins creed brotherhood. Desmond and Lucy. It was so cliche: They dont like each other, they make make "witty" remarks about each other, they make friends, they therefore MUST end up in some sort of relationship... which is why i applaud ubisoft from stearing WELL clear of it. It was a nice little move, akin to swiping a £5 note out from the hand of someone saying "GOTCHA!", but this time they replace the £5 with a £50.

Well done ubisoft.