How many times have you seen or heard this movie/TV cliche?
Action Sidekick: It’s quiet in here.
Action Hero: Yeah. Too quiet.
I hate it. :smack:
When there’s something going on like aliens or zombies, someone will try to alert the police or some adults or something. The adults or police will laugh and not believe a word of it, and will be portrayed as faithless villains for not believing that there are zombies and vampires in their city.
Priests spend all their time wandering around darkened churches (which are always always open) and call everyone “my son.” They’re also always either superior human beings who can heal people just by having faith and admonish the heroes for their lack thereof, or they’re child molestors and criminals.
A girl wearing lots of eyeliner is either troubled or hispanic. She doesn’t need therapy or, really, love. She just needs to wash her face and then she’ll quit being troubled.
I don’t know if this counts, but it bugs me like crazy- on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, when Eames arrests someone (or when the magic background cops appear and arrest someone) she says, “you’re under arrest… FOR MURDER” whereas on every other cop-related thing I’ve ever seen, it was “you’re under arrest for the murders of Jane Doe and Whitney Houston. You have the right to remain silent…” I’m not entirely sure how it’s supposed to go in real life, but I have a feeling it’s closer to the latter.
Hero and villian finally face off and the hero has a chance to kill the bad guy, but refuses to do it because he’s such a good guy. Then when the hero turns away from his enemy in disgust, the bad guy springs up with a knife/sword/gun to kill him–so the hero can now kill in self defence or let the baddie go over a cliff, or die in some other way that absolves the hero from all moral culpability for the bad guy’s death.
Kill the bad guy or be nice and let him go, and live with the consequences of that choice; this cliche wants to have it both ways and I am sick of it.
I find that getting hit with a sledgehammer is never enjoyable, even if it’s a surprise.
You may appreciate Terence Chua’s filksong Here’s to the heroes:
You just haven’t experienced it done right.
Or how about when the bad guy suddenly springs up with the knife/sword/gun to kill the unsuspecting/defenseless hero, and the hero’s dying sidekick (mortally wounded earlier in the battle, possibly believed already dead) appears and kills the bad guy just in time. Blah.
Our hero dashes through the badguy’s place or scene of the crime, killing henchmen one by one. The dead henchmen are all better armed than him, but he never grabs any of their guns. Then when he gets to the chief badguy, he runs out of ammunition for his own gun.
A man is a retired ass-kicker. He’s through with that part of his life. Then somebody shoots 100,000 bullets into his house, killing his wife and dog/kid. He comes home, and he knows right away who did it, and where to find him.
If there is a chain in the room, some villain will get killed by it.
Umm…can’t speak for teenage girls, but what teenage boy COULD resist blowing up stuff?
Character X announces they’re going to a job interview/audition. They’re really really excited about the opportunity, but they invite Character Y along for moral support, since they’re nervous.
Character Y is skeptical about the whole thing and goes reluctantly. For some reason, he or she is present during the interview/audition. Character X does terribly and Character Y steps in to help. The interviewer/auditioner decides that Character Y is perfect for the job and hires them. Character X cries foul and accuses Y of stealing their part.
By the end of the show, Character Y shows themselves to be inept at the job and they quit. Their friendship with X is renewed, and no one ever mentions the job ever again.
If there isn’t a dying sidekick, there’s always the cute little kid or the beautiful woman who was being saved in the first place.
Trailer cliches:
“In a world…(introduce setting)”
“Only one man…(can achieve specified goal)”
“But can he…(achieve said goal)”
“Before…(insert bad thing here)”
cue nostalgic guitar chord strumming
cue montage
cue Ghanima barfing
A gun will keep firing far beyond the capacity of its magazine, except when it’s crucial that it runs out of bullets.
This is related to Chekhov’s maxim that if you show a gun in act 1 then somebody gets shot in act 3. His point was that if nobody gets shot in act 3, then why are you wasting time in act 1 on a gun that has no relevance to your story?
In other words, I agree with Push You Down.
’but this is ridiculous’
Case 1:
<A group of explorers stumble upon an ancient civilization. They learn that it is custom to sacrifice weaker men.>
Explorer: I’ve heard of survival of the fittest, but this is ridiculous!
Case 2:
<The staff at an aquarium are playing cards, when their prize shark goes wild and slams through the glass and lands on their card table.>
Staff Member: I’ve heard of a card shark, but this is ridiculous!
You basically find something happening in your scene, find a common phrase that could also refer to it and tag ‘but this is ridiculous’ on the end. It happens in so many movies/shows it’s not funny. Literally.
’That Was Meant For Me’
Dude 1: Hey dude, I need to sit next to Cindy, and I couldn’t help noticing that you have the seat next to her - the one with the anvil suspended above it. Mind if we switch?
Dude 2: Oh sure dude.
<They switch tickets, sit down, Dude 1 flirts with Cindy, etc. THEN - the anvil falls and he is crushed to death.>
Dude 2 <gasps>: That… was meant for me!
Whenever anybody switches places/seats/shifts/packed lunches on a screen, it means that one of the people (generally the more minor of the characters) is about to die.
The Comic Misunderstanding
Sorry, this is the one cliché that actually makes me laugh. That’s the scene where somebody is talking about something completely innocent, but another character (for whatever reason) thinks they are talking about something obscene. Full of double entendres, and guaranteed to please pun lovers like myself.
This method must be presented in the first lecture of Comedy Writing 101, because it happens so much.
In many Computer Role Playing Games
You cause a hell of a lot of trouble for the bad guy, killing minions left antd right
Through some scripted lucky punch one of The Evil Mastermind’s lieutentant’s knocks you unconsious
You get your sword of asskicking+5, your Amour of Invunrability and your Rings of Nifty Power taken from you and are dumped in prison, despite the fact that The Evil Mastermind has been trying to arrange your death for the last 10 chapters.
You’ve shown that you’re the most potent threat The Evil Mastermind faces, so instead of getting his legion of dragons to guard you whilst you have no equipment he chooses the weakest bozos he can find. You break out, kill these guys with your bare hands, and find the complete set of items taken from you lying around in the 3rd or 4th room, just in time for some oprper enemies to show up again.
Also in Movies where it becomes apparant that all the Hero’s moves throughout the movie have in fact been part of the Villain’s intricate plan. The only thing the villain hadn’t counted on is the simple trick that the Hero uses to escape his bonds and kill the Villain in the last 10 minutes.
My biggest gripe about mid-presuck Stargate SG1: “Jack O’Neill, you are more advanced than humanity, having evolved past them.” O-kaaaayyy then.
That describes the first 10 minutes of Hordes Of the Underdark.
Preach it. One of the few things (Okay, the only thing) I liked about the Miami Vice movie was that in the big fire fight at the end, both sides showed fire discipline. Fire about three rounds, duck and move to a different spot, fire a few more, and repeat. The only exception was a bad guy who got pissed off after he was nicked, stood up, and emptied his magazine in one glorious burst – then was plugged by the cops for his trouble.
The Hollywood Physics (?) site calculated the ammunition weight that would need to have been carried in the Navy Seals movie at about three hundred pounds each.
I loved the antithesis of this as play out in “Sleeping With The Enemy”. She has a gun trained on her psycho husband who has tracked her down. He tells her that she won’t kill him. She calls 911, and says, “Come quickly. I’ve just shot an intruder,” hangs up, and shoots hubby-dearest.