Hmmmm. In Footfall, the humans manage to nuke the invader’s Earth beachhead in Kansas, getting through their defenses with a coordinated strike by both the US and the USSR (and yes, the USSR’s leaders were just a tad surprised to be asked to nuke Kansas).
At the end of the Stargate movie, the heroes teleport a nuke up to Ra’s ship and destroy it.
A nuke even worked in the appallingly bad Independence Day, once they slipped it inside the shield.
Vicious backstabbing families and friends, using low blow after low blow.
I HATE IT!
Hero and an army of cops surround villain and henchmen. Thousands of bullets are fired, half the neighborhood explodes, and somehow only the villain makes it out, along with the one thing that the good guys need to recover/defuse/rescue. This of course leads to the mano a mano final confrontation between the hero and the villain.
Surprised no one’s mentioned it yet – the shooters can all shoot a fly out of the air unless they’re aiming at the hero or villain. Also, drywall protects hero and villain from all caliber weapons.
Final fight leaves the villain apparently dead, yet as the hero begins to relax, the villain grabs a weapons forcing the hero to shoot him six more times, making the villain apparently dead, …
Final impalement of the villain. Something large, and not particularly sharp, has to be pushed entirely through the chest of the villain to insure death. This is often but not always the result of a fall from great height.
Hero can always take time out from engaging the villain to save the life, or reputation, or pet, of any family member.
Can’t believe no one’s mentioned the cop who’s going to retire at the end of the day or week, and just isn’t going to make it that far. THIS is one the the most reliable predictors of who’s going to be the first person killed whose name we’re supposed to know.
Cranky cop who hates working with partners because they always die, and no one seems to consider maybe the cranky cop is at least partly responsible for the deaths.
Also, all furniture is bulletproof.
IIRC this was lampshaded in The Sarah Connor Chronicles where it is revealed that they had the furniture reinforced in case of an indoor gunfight, and gloriously parodied in I’m Gonna Get You Sucka where the hero takes cover behind a **chain-link fence **at one point.
Parodied at the end of Hot Fuzz. “Owwwwwwww…”
I suspect this is why so many martial arts films play up, or at least imply some sort of mystical component to the kung fu. It explains why the hero can dodge attacks he couldn’t possibly have seen coming, or accurately hit somebody without looking.
This is most commonly used when the protagonist is “not allowed” to kill someone - they’re a pacifist, they’ve been through the hell of Vietnam, they had a childhood trauma, something is preventing them from putting a bullet into the guy who has tormented and killed the protagonists family/friends/dogs. The “Fall and Impale” sequence allows even Jesus H. Christ to tag-team with Buddha, killing with moral impunity. 
Good list, by the way.
Man-boy white loser guys getting into hijinks that usually involves explosions, lots of screaming in panic, or some kind of exotic animal showing up unexpectedly. Double points if they are positioned to be heros and, in spite of it all, end up saving the day.
Every time I go to the movies, I see at least one or two trailers for films of this genre.
Shoehorned romance pisses me off a great deal. I loved the bourne identity movies, but the girl was SO useless. And crazy to boot. She wouldn’t have stuck by him, she would have ditched him. I liked Nikki so much better.
On the other hand, when you spend time building up a romance and charisma between a couple and then they don’t make love, I feel cheated. Now I am thinking of Replacement Killers, which was an awesome movie, but there was such a deep and strong connection between the leads and they never did anything. Not even one kiss. (I know why this is, but that is a subject for another thread and not one I want to get into here.)
“Science” and “scientists” are evil, heartless, “soulless” automata who are big corporate types, and the hero is the little guy with the intuition and plucky willpower. Twister, I’m talking to you.
A. Lee Martinez wrote this book - Monster. It’s a fantasy comedy with monsters and demons and such in a modern world. The two protagonists don’t get along and don’t fall in love and end up together. Of course, it’s hard to enjoy the book because the guy is such a jerk.
Ewww, I’m not fucking no zombies. Especially the rotting, half decayed ones.
Aka, the magic Reset button. Sure, it allows you to have all sorts of harrowing and disastrous events, including real danger to the main characters (who presumably are under contract to return next episode), at the cost that the reset button erases the consequences completely, and thus negates the existence of the episode.
But then there turn out to be hundreds or thousands of these hidden mysterious creatures in a town with a population of an urban high school. What percentage of the population could be secret monsters and keep it a secret? 10%, 20%? Grimm is starting to feel like this. Recently, there was a meeting of all the beavers in the Portland area, they filled a room. Must have been a couple hundred people. That’s just one subpopulation.
That was how I felt when watching the show.
Mary Sues described as plain, mousy, and utterly ordinary. Yet every single man they encounter is completely in love/obsessed with them (Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, etc.)
The rest is redundant.
I just saw Liam Neeson in Taken & realized I hate that plot where our hero is such a supreme badass he can take out 3 or 4 baddies all by himself (even when starting out handcuffed). someone up thread mentioned this & I had to second it. just plain dumb.
One of the things I liked about the Bourne movies is when Jason Bourne is showing off his great fighting skills he was usually just one-on-one with an antagonist. and Bourne looked winded and injured after. Hate it when guys go through grueling fights and then go on to the next scene as if nothing happened to their bodies. Adrenalin will only carry you so far.
Where the protagonist’s job consists of “giving a big presentation to a big client”. That’s how it works in show business–you pitch your script, or audition for the part, and your success depends on the pitch. But 99% of regular jobs aren’t like this.
This is the origin of the story element mentioned by Blackzilla, where Kevin Bacon gets a great job despite being totally unqualified. Because that’s how it works in show business.
A member of a group of characters who is or becomes more powerful, intelligent , important than all of them put together. This “super character” diminishes the talents and experience of the others.
For example:
Willow in Buffy, super power witch more capable than Buffy by far.
Dr Bashir in DS9, holy shit! he is a genetically superior being, slumming for the first five seasons.
River Tam, smartest, toughest best of them all.
I hate that guy. Low down dirty bastard killed Luther Sloane, the Federation hero who won the Dominion War and maneuvered a Federation spy into the most powerful position in the Romulan government.
Variation on the theme - the disfigured villain. You know, because being unsightly makes you pathological. The Joker comes to mind in the modern version. Richard III is a fine example from the early days of what you and I can read of English without a PhD.
Young kids just starting out/disheveled detectives/other non-glam people “toughing it out” in what appears to be an 1800-square-foot apartment in downtown Manhattan.
Oh but it’s okay – they have a roommate! You know, because it’s tough in Manhattan! Also, hijinks ensue.
Just once I’d like to see the sitcoms and cop shows show a guy with the toilet fixture inside the shower. Prison cells on TV are bigger than apartments in some real life cities.
New Boyfriend has to take part in the family’s annual backyard football game to be accepted by the family.
For a lot of policing/crime/ detective series, but in particular for L&O:SVU: the complete and utter failures of professionals to emotionally detach themselves from cases they are involved in. Every bloody episode, some of these detectives need to be reminded of due process, the need to get warrants, etc. And every time they run up against the limits of what the prosecution and the police can do, they’re all huffy and uppity and frustrated. Seriously, you get your panties all in a bunch each time you need a warrant to search the apartment of some guy ‘you know is the perp’? And then the judge throws out your case because there’s no evidence that is admissible, and you have to go on a three-day bender to deal with it? Geez!