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List some amusing, unrealistic movie cliches

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The full-palm closing of dead man's eyes, as mentioned in the first post, have always bugged me. I ended up thinking it's some American religious thing, or traditional thing to show some respect to the dead. Is it any of that?
 
When someone is hanging onto a ledge about to fall and right as they fall someone grabs their hand and saves them. If im in that situation either the person is pulling me off the edge with them or they are slipping right out of my hand.
 
KingGondo said:
Jack Bauer/random protagonist is about to be shot, and is completely defenseless. Just as they're about to pull the trigger, *BLAM*, the evil gunman is shot by a rescuer from off-screen, to make us think the bad guy pulled the trigger.
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First one in the thread I legitimately crack up at every time I see it. SO TIRED. Just once I wish we'd hear the gunshot, see the offscreen character in the ensuing silence with their gun pointed, slowly looking shocked, then cut back to show the main character just actually got killed. :lol

I can't think of one for that, but it's fun to think of kinds of exceptions to these tropes.

pringles said:
Everyone except the main villain(s)/hero(es) are bumbling fools who are killed in the most simple ways. Just for once I would like it if one of these random characters exhibited some manner of intelligence and made an impact on the movie, instead of just being cannon fodder.
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For a generic (though awesome) action movie, District B13 had this character K2 who I felt kind of flaunted this idea. I expected him to die idiotically in the halfway-through-the-movie setpiece.

Klyka said:
The guy gets the girl.

Most unrealistic cliché ever.
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Man I love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
 
Apparently Windows and OSX don't exist in movieland. What does exist are the most visually intricate OS's known to mankind with lots of extraneous sound effects.
 
Sol.. said:
lol that happens all the time in Ice Cube movies too if you listen closely. I can't tell ya how many times Mike Epps' character has said "you ice cube lookin' motha fucka"

They even said it in playas ball too and he had a bit part in that movie.
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or Kareem Abdul Jabbar in Airplane!
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Apparently Windows and OSX don't exist in movieland. What does exist are the most visually intricate OS's known to mankind with lots of extraneous sound effects.
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Yeah, anything involving computers in movies is always bullshit.

- I hate how in horror movies when the camera does a close-up of someone's face, and then they get jumped by something from off-camera even though the character should clearly have been able to see it coming.
- Also, the spring-loaded cat that jumps out and scares someone and right after that they let their guard down and immediately get jumped for real by the killer/monster etc..

Borgnine said:
Gunshots, police sirens on the way 5 seconds later.
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The police always arrive 5 seconds after everything is over.
 
I like how people are so easily knocked unconscious. Just give 'em a tap and they're out for a good couple hours.

I like how the hero is a grade-A marksman but the enemy goons couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

I like the cliche ending where the good guy leaves the bad guy behind after beating him and the animals/people that the bad guy was harming come in and finish him off.

I like the "lucky" locket that some characters carry that are pretty much guaranteed to block a bullet at some time. Also, one of the main characters getting shot and appearing to be dead only to reveal that they were wearing a BULLET PROOF VEST.

I could go on all day, fuckin movies are retarded.
 
Always hate it when in a horror movie people always juggle and drop the keys to their car or safe room. And why the hell do they have so many keys, these people aren't janitors.
 
Denise_Richards_2009.jpg

Real-life stupid people playing geniuses.
 
Alright, so I was here when the first couple of posts started trickling in. Someone posts the link to tvtropes, and BAM, now I'm back. You sons of bitches.
 
Background characters die instantly when they are shot with a single bullet. Important characters stay alive long enough to give a speech when they are fatally shot.
 
Speaking of outrunning stuff anyone seen one of the Mummy movies where Brendan Fraser outruns the sun? From Roger Ebert:

"I have written before of the ability of movie characters to outrun fireballs. In "The Mummy Returns," there is a more amazing feat. If the rising sun touches little Alex while he is wearing the magical bracelet, he will die (it is written). But Rick, carrying Alex in his arms, is able to outrace the sunrise; we see the line of sunlight moving on the ground right behind them. It is written by Eratosthenes that the Earth is about 25,000 miles around, and since there are 24 hours in a day, Rick was running approximately 1,041 miles an hour."
 
Snuggler said:
I like how people are so easily knocked unconscious. Just give 'em a tap and they're out for a good couple hours.

I like how the hero is a grade-A marksman but the enemy goons couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

I like the cliche ending where the good guy leaves the bad guy behind after beating him and the animals/people that the bad guy was harming come in and finish him off.

I like the "lucky" locket that some characters carry that are pretty much guaranteed to block a bullet at some time. Also, one of the main characters getting shot and appearing to be dead only to reveal that they were wearing a BULLET PROOF VEST.

I could go on all day, fuckin movies are retarded.
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Yeah, it's a sure thing that if the character shows something that would appear insignificant (Lucky charm, locket, necklace, or think Jurassic Park 3 - The lucky backpack) then it's gonna save their life at some point.
 
-htownplaya- said:
Always hate it when in a horror movie people always juggle and drop the keys to their car or safe room. And why the hell do they have so many keys, these people aren't janitors.
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I also love it's usually horror films where they almost always have car keys, whereas most if not all people in other movies nowadays have little remotes to unlock the door.
 
The cliche I am almost always amused at is when in any crime or action movie, someone needs an image about the size of our avatars "enhanced." Whereas resizing a 90 x 90 image to 800 x 600 would be blurry and pixelated as all hell, in the realm of fiction, making an image larger and then using the magic "enchancing" command will get you your perp, license number, serial number, important date, etc. instantly.

Oh, and for whatever reason I get annoyed when anyone uses a computer in a movie and every key tap or executed command makes the computer beep.
 
It hate it when the wildlife only has one instinct: kill the protagonists!

Most offending would be Peter Jackson's King Kong. When the girl runs from King Kong she encounters a dinosaur, that immediately tries to kill her. She hides in a log, the dinosaur tries to get her but a T-rex appears, kills the dinosaur and starts to eat it. The girl runs away and the T-rex notices her. But does it do? It basically ditches the bigger dinosaur corpse and tries to get the girl. That doesn't make any sense. Eventually two T-rexes are fighting against King Kong and dying for what? One tiny human?

Also later in the movie, the group of humans falls into a small canyon. When they awake, they are surrounded by all kinds of creatures: big insects and some kind of mollusks. And they all attack the humans, they dont even notice the other creatures.
There's also a scene where a kid shoots off cat sized insects of a heavily twitching person with a fucking Thompson SMG! :lol
 
One that's always bugged me is when characters wake up from dreams/nightmares, they sit up straight in bed at lightening speed.

Has anyone ever actually awakened that way? I'm not even sure it's scientifically possible...
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Apparently Windows and OSX don't exist in movieland. What does exist are the most visually intricate OS's known to mankind with lots of extraneous sound effects.
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Well you can bet that any Disney or Pixar movie that features a computer now will be using OS X (like in the Toy Story 3 trailer).
 
When the cops or FBI agents start an automatic search through their magical database, the software has to display all the pictures of the faces or fingerprints that it analyzes, when a single loading bar would be more realistic. And of course it has to make a "prrrrrrrrrrr" noise while searching...

Oh, and kids never die.
 
Sealda said:
How every dialogue and every line is just like in a movie, while the movie is supposed to depict reality.
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Well I want to hear them talk clearly about what's going on and not just overlapping, and mumbling.
 
Phobophile said:
The actors aren't dead. If someone touched my eyelid with their finger, I'd fucking pop them in the jaw.
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If you were an actor and a scene had someone touch your eye, you'd punch them? Slow down, internet tough guy, it's your (pretend) job to let someone do that.

Also, I know quite a few people that say "It's me" or don't introduce themselves at all on the phone, but I can always tell who it is, different people have distinct voices, I don't need to say my name or hear their name to know who it is.

Going to have to second the "massive ball of keys" that everyone in movies have. I have 2 different house keys, 2 different car keys, and a mail key, and that's 2-3 more keys than most people I know. Where are these people going that they need seventeen distinct keys to get into?
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Apparently Windows and OSX don't exist in movieland. What does exist are the most visually intricate OS's known to mankind with lots of extraneous sound effects.
Click to expand...
That always pisses me off. It's an insult to my intelligence.

Apparently there are people in Hollywood paid to come up with these mythical computer user interfaces for the sole purpose of "dumbing it down" and making it "cinematic'. I was listening to an episode of NPR a few weeks ago and they interviewed one of these guys. I mean, if it's supposed to be some super high-tech system no average user would use, I guess it's okay. But when grandma turns on her beige non-descript computer and the words "New E-mail!" fills the entire screen and flashes... ugh.
 
ckohler said:
That always pisses me off. It's an insult to my intelligence.

Apparently there are people in Hollywood paid to come up with these mythical computer user interfaces for the sole purpose of "dumbing it down" and making it "cinematic'. I was listening to an episode of NPR a few weeks ago and they interviewed one of these guys. I mean, if it's supposed to be some super high-tech system no average user would use, I guess it's okay. But when grandma turns on her beige non-descript computer and the words "New E-mail!" fills the entire screen and flashes... ugh.
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On a similar note video games always make beep-boop sounds regardless of the console.
 
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