Things you wish movies would stop doing

[Orcus The Ultimate]

I wish movies would stop having happy endings.

that's such an attitude worthy of the baudelarian's spleen...

(The Spleen is a feeling deep mixing boredom and fatigue of the defined existence)

 

[ntw3001]

The Big No. It must be tongue-in-cheek whenever directors use it, but they seem to be playing it straight. Do they think it's dramatic? They can't possibly. Nobody's that stupid. I mean, I know people say that all the time, but really, if they have the wherewithal to write words and speak to people as a daily pastime, they can't possibly be serious when they use the Big No.

 

[chef-boyR-D]

Crows. Crows aren't evil, they're just birds. Why not use something confusing like little happy yellow birds to convey to the audience that brain eating zombies are going to show up? It could actually help because then the audience would be caught off guard.

Also, stupid people in 'horror' movies. They always do everything they can to get dead.

Car accidents. Most notably from iron man 2 when they ram whiplash into the concrete barrier. The camera did everything it could to make it seem like the car was traveling as fast as the f-1 cars but the guy walked away after!

Cars exploding when they shoot at the cap used to refill the gas.

 

[teebeeohh]

regarding the gun thing:
most handguns designed in the last 50 years work with a DA/SA trigger mechanism, meaning that after you insert a fresh clip the first pull if the trigger also cocks the trigger(the trigger then stays cocked after each shot) so it takes a stronger pull to fire the first shot thus cocking the hammer kinda makes sense(although in movies they frequently do this with single action guns and guns that were just used in a firefight so it still annoys the shit out of me)


reusing names names without the numbers to make us forget the shitty sequels(like Final Destination). of sequels in general. Sometimes we are blessed with good sequels (tesb) but the vast majority is bad and sequels tie up talent and money, because they perform well at the box office, that could otherwise be used to make something new and creative

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Oh, I have two tropes I hate the most:

The Evil CEO: This one pisses me off. All those anti-business lefties in Hollywood use the unscrupulous CEO as their villain, and far too often. A list: Avatar, District 9, Repo Men, Daybreakers, and there's probably a few I've forgotten. Never are there any, you know, decent businessmen (except Tony Stark and Lucius Fox, but those are exceptions). You know, a CEO doesn't try and maximize profit just because he's a greedy bastard, that's good business strategy, and in America it's the law. If you don't do everything in your power to maximize the profit for your investors, they can sue you. Oh, but all those liberals in Hollywood don't understand that or care, no. They go on always portraying every CEO as some kind of cross between George Bush and Darth Vader.
The Penetant Hero: This usually goes hand-in-hand with the above, that is, when our protagonist suddenly realizes that THE SYSTEM he's working for is evil and switches sides over to the resistance (na'vi, prawn, humans, cyborgs, etc.). Not only is it done to death by now, but it's also something I can't relate to. Real men don't do things they're ashamed of later, so neither do I. This is one of the main reasons I loved A Clockwork Orange; Alex may have been a horrible person who did horrible things, but he stuck to his guns the whole time. Refreshing.

EDIT: Oh, here's another one I forgot. CELEBRITY ACTORS. Yeah, I'm tired of seeing the same five to ten white, brown haired guys in my movies, especially Nicolas Cage. Damn, I'm sick of that guy. Confoundit, I am positive that there are more competent actors than them.

I agree with you, however I don't think that District 9 was a good example of the whole "Penetant Hero" thing, the main carecter is a prick for the entire movie, it is probably his defining feature, he has no sympathy for the prawns in the begining, he actually has some of their unborn children set on fire.

He only helps the prawns because he is turning into one of them, at one point he leaves Christopher behind and tries to fix everything himself, which he naturally fucks up, even in the end when he really helps them he only does it because he wants his metamorphosis reversed and the prawns are the only ones who can help him, he doesn't "switch sides" he helps the prawns because he doesn't want to become one of them, if anything, the "Penetant Heroes" are his co-workers that expose the companies illegal expirements.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Sorry double post.

 

[Wintermute_]

ok... here I go...

-Dramatic music. Don't use overly dramatic music for EVERY INSIGNIFICANT SCENE!
-Lack of juxtaposition.
-Horrible character building. Make me give two shits about the character please.
-Endless sequels and repeats. Think some new shit up.
-Gunfights in action movies: You just unloaded about 1200 rounds of bullets, and your telling me you couldn't hit the guy? Lead you fucking shots! If you've play space invaders. you should know this by now.
-Romantic subplots. Yes, been said a thousand times already, but really, just stop it! In some movies its ok, if there is adequate character development, sure, but fuck movies like Avatar that ruined my sci-fi with blue-kitty-space-indian love! On that note...
-Avatar: The herald that has brought on the age of damnable 3-D (fuck 3-D) and the excuse that good CGI is an excuse for unbelievably shitty story telling.
And finally...
-Lack of lightheartedness. This is an odd one, I know, but think of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, or Scott Pilgrim, where even in the middle of intense drama, the was still time for funny quips and actual HUMAN conversation, not like in a lot of actiony movies where every-fucking-one is this coldhearted, shallow-breathing, scared to the point of no emotion kind of stoic in all of there interactions. Its boring, it lessens characterization, and macks everything seem like some shitty hollywood "blockbuster".


Rant over, you may move on now.

 

[KapnKerfuffle]

I hate how they portray computers in movies. The interface is this nice GUI menu system with all of these slick fade in and fade out transition and yet the hero is clacking furiously to "hack" into it without using the mouse once. And the super-hackers (think Die Hard with a Vengence) wouldn't have those slick interfaces. They would have the boring, no-bullshit ones to have the optimum processing speed.

 

[KapnKerfuffle]

I hate how they portray computers in movies. The interface is this nice GUI menu system with all of these slick fade in and fade out transition and yet the hero is clacking furiously to "hack" into it without using the mouse once. And the super-hackers (think Die Hard with a Vengence) wouldn't have those slick interfaces. They would have the boring, no-bullshit ones to have the optimum processing speed.

 

[SnipErlite]

How all clothes that people steal/borrow always fit perfectly...

Hence why Indiana Jones trying to steal a Nazi's uniform and failing because it didn't fit was an awesome moment...(Y)

OT: Unnecessary romantic subplots...not every lead guy and girl need to get together, but they almost always fucking do.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

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?

you got this from cracked

OT: I just want movies to actually have a story, since there are only a handful of actually good movies coming out.

 

[Nico III]

The shocking revelation that the humans are the bad guys. Yawn.

 

[BlastedTheWorm]

I hate how they portray computers in movies. The interface is this nice GUI menu system with all of these slick fade in and fade out transition and yet the hero is clacking furiously to "hack" into it without using the mouse once. And the super-hackers (think Die Hard with a Vengence) wouldn't have those slick interfaces. They would have the boring, no-bullshit ones to have the optimum processing speed.

Wasn't it Die Hard 4 that had to do with the hackers?

But I agree. I fucking hate how hackers are in the movies. In fact, computers in general. It's all complete bullshit.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

I think it have been mostly said here but hey!
Mostly a tv tropes for this post heh
1) 3D Gimmick, 90% of the film don't deserve it and don't need it, stop this gimmick to make more money out of a slight change on a regular film

2) Super well trained "vilains" minions never seem to know how to aim a gun

3) Remake, sequel. I don't mind a trilogy but when a film is about to make is 8th movie in less than 5 years, somethings is wrong, I'm looking at you "SAW"!

4) Never dieing hero, alway happy ending and all kind of this thing

Just my thought

 

[Mr. Omega]

Shakey cam. F*** you, Blair Witch Project for making it popular! It adds false tension, making the camera shake more at the action scenes so they don't have to actually film it.

3D. F*** you, Avatar for bringing back this fad! 95% of movies that use it just shoehorn it in to increase ticket ptices. Case in point: Clash of the Titans. An ok movie with shoehorned 3D.

Romantic Comedies. The entire genre. There is one Romantic Comedy movie. How, you ask, when there are all the new films out? Simple. THEY MAKE THE SAME MOVIE OVER AND OVER AGAIN! And it's not even a GOOD movie! Hell, most of the time they don't even hire different actors!

Spoof movie. Meet the Spartans. That's all I've got to say on that.

Everyone in the movie is this dreamy, luscious model of a human being in tip-top shape. I want a movie where the chubby, glasses wearing guy saves the day without some BS excuse to make him into the ubermench.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Teal and Orange [http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html]

Dude WTF! i think that article just ruined the entire film industry for me. now i'll be more conscious of that... like a dead pixel. thanks!
OT: Game movies. why? Marky mark.

 

[Okysho]

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...

Oh dear... you poor soul... I feel your pain

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Realism.

Seriously. Movies try too hard these days to be realistic. Remember when the entertainment industry was about entertainment and not arty-fartsy stuff with a message?

 

[EeveeElectro]

According to Hollywood, it's okay to cheat on your partner.
Just because you like someone else whilst in a relationship you can kiss them.
Nooooooooooooooo! I hate it, it's in so many movies. Break up with your partner if you're not happy!

 

[Geekosaurus]

That weird clicking noise a gun makes when somebody points a gun. They're not cocking it, so unless the slide is rattly it shouldn't be making a noise!