Hoosiers starring Gene Hackman is a great movie. But try describing the plot to somebody: “A once-great sports star who’s become an alcoholic has-been looking to redeem himself is put in charge of a high school basketball team full of misfits. With his no-nonsense attitude and worldly hard-luck wisdom, he manages to rally the team together and become a great, popular team and make it to the playoffs.”
It sounds as trite as the “Bad News Bears.” Can we come up with any other great (great writing, acting, directing, production, etc.) that follows the conventional, cliche format of its’ genre?
Galaxy Quest is one of the best sci-fi films of recent years, and the whole point of the movie is that it is adhering to the cliche format of its genre.
To be fair, Hook, I think that the Indiana Jones movies went a long way towards establishing those situations as cliche. Of course, it was based off of the old 1930’s serials, so I suppose you could make the case as you stated. Depends on perspective.
Yeah, I know what you mean. You could call them cliches, because it’s made up of other movies, either directly or by simple reference yet the movies set the standard for what action/adventure flicks would become in the future. Still, I guess it counts.