I got about three sentences into the OP and realized there was an excellent chance there’d be a Guardians of the Galaxy spoiler somewhere along the way, so I’ll leave the thread until after I’ve seen the movie, at least.
This is a good example for your argument, as it was a kind of false McGuffin intentionally kept mysterious. A subversion of the trope, if you will.
I don’t buy these, however. There is an opportunity to have the villains do interesting things. In both cases (Loki and Ronan), the villains are themselves interesting characters who end up doing some pretty generic villain stuff. The McGuffins in both cases are their boring weapons. Missed opportunity.
The Orb in GotG was functioning as an interesting object and plot driver until we actually find out what it is, which turns out to be a boringly all-powerful object.
. Pulp Fiction, yes, the other two, no. In the other two, there is plenty of dumb sci-fi detail pasted on.
Oooh, some do, you betcha. I can see Roosha from my cervix!
There’s a new TV show called The Strain. Don’t watch it.
She is not a good example of anything.
“The Human/Alien hybrid with magical powers” who always chooses the human race. Why is it that if you screw(or get screwed by) another species, the offspring always has magical powers neither parent species has? Exception: Lizard baby from V. He got the short end of the stick, and died of the magic mutant virus.
In Ben 10: Alien Force they actually tried to explain this. It was silly. Basically, all species have some “superpower” that makes them unique.
Humanity’s superpower is that we’re genetically malleable enough to crossbreed with any alien race and have our offspring get their superpowers. The lamest of all superpowers.
Along those lines, there’s what I’ll call the “when you take something from another medium and turn it into a movie, why must you escalate the stakes to the heavens?” disease.
One example: the made-for-TV movie of A Wrinkle in Time. Meg Murry can’t just rescue her kid brother, she’s got to save the whole damned planet of Camazotz.
Another: Serenity. Mal & Co. save the 'verse from whatever it is that caused the Reavers to be Reavers.
And it’s not just a recent thing. Howard the Duck suffered from the same disease, although it would have taken a lot more than avoiding that particular misstep to save that godawful movie.
With the Chosen One and the whole quest-style ‘fetch artifact X and put in slot Y to thwart evil plan’ storytelling, this thread has already covered two of my three biggest pet peeves, with the third being the ‘off switch’. Generic plot: villain has amassed some unstoppable army/machine of destruction/irresistible power, which will obliterate everything in its path, except—there’s a one in a million shot (itself as a trope a lesser offender), often taken by a conveniently placed Chosen One, that disables the whole scheme instantly.
The two examples that spring to mind most readily are the death star (of course), and the droid army from the prequels that shuts down entirely once you take out the command ship. In both cases, there is absolutely no reason for such a weakness to be built in, and it’s a transparent device for the hero to overcome insurmountable odds—even though they don’t actually overcome, but more like sidestep them. It always seems like a cheap exit from a corner the writer’s gotten themselves into—you’ve raised the opposition so far beyond any reasonable measure in order to keep increasing the tension that there’s just no real way for the hero to persevere, so you just put a big red button onto the bad guy’s desk with a convenient label ‘to foil plan, press here’.
They did a nice take on this in Elektra. She was built up throughout the movie to be the Chosen One, and it was actually this kid instead. Who had already completed her quest to find her McGuffin and was mostly just waiting for the bad guys to catch up to her so she could kill them all, which was kinda funny.
Well, she needs to be banned…
I nominate the Unstoppable Bad Guy. Guardians of the Galaxy, Bloodsport, most Van Damme/Sagal movies… movies where the bad guy is just off-the-wall tough, and nothing can touch him, until he fights Our Hero… and loses.
Well they don’t do that any more … now it’s “get the flash memory stick.” So there!
I want to ban all Unresolved Sexual Tension. It’s been overused. Do it or forget it.
Or cops/FBI men investigating crimes involving their families or loved ones.
God, is there ever a serial killer who’s NOT targeting one of the BAU’s relatives on Criminal Minds? There’s no way an FBI agent whose sister or cousin or girlfriend had been kidnapped or murdered would be allowed to investigate that case or interrogate a suspect… but it happens practically every week on Criminal Minds, and in dozens of movies.
Morgan’s sister is being held hostage by a serial killer.
Morgan: Hotch, I have to interrogate this guy. Let me go in there.
Hotchner: No way. You’re too close.
Morgan: But I know this guy, I know how he thinks. I can help.
Hotchner: Okay. But if I see you acting too emotionally, I’ll have to replace you.*
This meme always reminds me of one of football coach/commentator John Madden’s best stories.
After the stressful 1979 season (during which Darrell Stingley was paralyzed during a collision with the Raiders’ Jack Tatum), Madden was feeling burned out in football, and started thinking how wonderful it would be to spend a lot more time with his wife and family, who probably missed himn terribly. After all, he was always on the road or watching game film or running practices during football season. Surely, it was time for some family togetherness!
So, he retired. And in short order, he came to realize… his family was USED to him being gone for months at a time. They weren’t sitting around at home weeping for Dad. Mrs. Madden had a job, and was gone all day. Madsen’s kids were at school all day, and after school, they wanted to hang out with THEIR friends, not with their Dad!
In short, Madden found that his family never particularly missed him, and he was alone watching TV all day for a few months. So, when CBS called and asked if he’d be interested in doing some TV commentary, he said, “YESS!!! PLEASE!!! ANYTHING to get me out of here!!!”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure many kids DO wish their parents were around more. But many more just adjust, and don’t think Dad’s absences are all that unusual.
I’m mostly on your side with this, but I’m open to the possibility that such a MacGuffin could work because it stands in, in an allegorical or symbolic way, for something non-physical that real people might have to chase after.
Indeed. I’d broaden the ban to include all sorts of prophecy (and TVTropes lists a whole shitload of these). As the OP said, the reason this is a lame plot device is that it has nothing to do with real life. Prophecies play no part in the real world as I’ve experienced it; when a writer uses them, they’re just a lazy way to create … I don’t know—tension, foreshadowing, or whatever.
Third act misunderstanding. When one friend storms off and then we waste precious time getting them back together. Especially when there was never any reason!
You can say what you like about Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure but they never used this plot.
I hate the “universe-threatening” plot device because it’s over used. The first Thor film felt very mythic, epic, and the story was excellent. And yet, the hero was fighting, mostly, to stop his brother from destroying the world of a race that’s bent on killing others anyways. The second film, the big bad threatens all of existence, but it comes off as boring and ho-hum.
I also disliked Indiana Jones trying to find an ancient artifact that, in the wrong hands, would threaten the free world. It was cool in the first film because it was the first time it was used, and Brody even makes the comment that the Arc of the Covenant isn’t like all the other treasure Indy goes after, so it makes it unique. Temple of Doom was fun and the threat was to a single village, not the world. But after that film the series was about stopping America’s enemies from getting ancient artifact to become all-powerful.
I thought “The One” worked very well in the first Matrix film, only because of the way they made audiences believe that Neo wasn’t The One. When I first saw it I remember thinking how realistic it felt that the hero or main character didn’t just have faith and take the jump. He went back inside and let himself get arrested. The rest of the film you really do believe (or at least I did) that he wasn’t the chose one. I think it was a trope that was done well. I didn’t see the sequels though, and don’t plan on it, since I though the first film told the story it wanted to tell.
As for Anakin, had already been established in the OT as being a great Jedi, and as Vader, talented enough to hunt down the remaining Jedi order. Having him ALSO be prophesied as a Christ-like figure was too much. The same tragedy could have been told just as well, if not better, without resorting to that.
It would have rocked if the letter of the prophecy had been such that everyone THOUGHT it referred to Anakin but really referred to his son Luke.
I’m tired of movies where the villains are trying to destroy the Earth.
" Oh, I’m going to blow it up; it obstructs my view of Venus. "-Martin The Martian