Cliches in books/movies/videogames that you're tired of

Recommended Videos

otakon17

New member
Jun 21, 2010
1,338
0
0
A videogame one I hate is the second or third even sometimes fourth form of a final boss. It can be ridiculous. One I will never tire of however is the strength of will characters that continue to fight despite being horribly injured and such.
 

NotSoLoneWanderer

New member
Jul 5, 2011
765
0
0
I want the good guy to lose for once and I hate love interests. This isn't a cliche I suppose but when a movie is made about a book for errr people below the age of 20 and because it isn't as big as harry potter or twilight they ruin the movie namely Alex Rider and Percy Jackson. Could have been good but they just made it cartoonish.
 

Asmundr

New member
Mar 17, 2010
222
0
0
I'm tired of the protagonist in manga and anime being absolutely clueless about pretty much anything. I've never really understood it and their is no real excuse for it either.
 

CombiBlood

New member
Nov 18, 2009
158
0
0
Walking in slow motion I don't mind fighting to show off something impressive. The walking in slow motion drags on and is stupid it only works in Reservoir Dogs.
 

trouble_gum

Senior Member
May 8, 2011
130
0
21
Kekkles said:
Yet so many people LOVE Oblivion.

OT: I can't stand several things in stories/film/games... For Instance;

-Tolkien's races when it's NOT WRITTEN BY TOLKIEN!
-Or the older teenage angst child of the story who just HAS to say something all the bloody time.
-THE UNSTOPPABLE EVIL!
-YOU ARE OUR LAST BASTION OF HOPE MAIN PROTAGONIST! Though we have enough man power and firepower to take down the foe but ONLY THE MAIN PROTAGONIST CAN DO THIS! Yeah, no.
-Gravel voiced assholes that head the entire story when they have no more personality than a rock.

I've got a tonne of these.
The gravel voiced asshole protagonist is getting pretty weary in gaming. I feel for all those poor new voice actors, gargling with salt water, smoking 5 packs a day just to get in with a chance.

Eh. Oblivion - well, at least you weren't the hidden heir. That was Sean Bean. I think the bigger surprise here was that there was only ONE Imperial bastard.

I take far less issue with "Help me main protagonist, you're my only hope!" in games and films than I do with books 'cause well...you're not playing the game to be "Faceless Private #446578943" tasked with polishing the heroes boots whilst they do all the world saving or what not. But also because I don't generally expect games to impress me with their literary pretensions and brilliantly original storylines.

It's a plus when they're not bad, but it's not quite as annoying as the dearth of originality Concealed Heir du jour retaking his/her rightful place against massive odds versus Oppressive Tyrant #68946543 is in a fantasy novel represents.
 

DarkRyter

New member
Dec 15, 2008
3,077
0
0
Lilani said:
DarkRyter said:
Well of course shoehorning is bad and unacceptable, but I think you missed my point. Pooping isn't an emotional desire or conflict a person has to deal with. It just happens. Sure it may be more "important" on an objective level, but if there is one thing people are not it's objective.

My point is if you're going to have a well-rounded and complex character, you need to in some way address their feelings on, well, feelings. Even if they are uninterested or "asexual," that needs to be established somehow. It's downright neglectful to just up and ignore that side of humanity.
And believable human characters should poop at some point or another.

What a character needs is conflict, or any kind. A zombie apocalypse. Racial Discrimination. Dead Parents. A terminal illness. A dear friend's betrayal. A mortal enemy with a death ray. Anything.

It's just that these romantic subplots are so hackneyed and awkward. Characters thrown in just to be love interests. "Will they or won't they" threads never being resolved. Like, we get it Batman. Rachel wants to date some other guy. Who cares?
 

Xeraxis

New member
Aug 7, 2011
178
0
0
TheDarkEricDraven said:
Pretty much every romantic cliche ever. Meeting each others parents? Uh oh! What kind of hi jinks will that result in? Gah! Oh, oh, or the one about the female lead getting to be a ***** because she is a girl, but when the guy has her eact failings, he is a dick who must learn the error of his ways.
This.

Also, good guys always win. Seriously, I would like to see a movie of which, at the end, will show what happens if the protagonist failed to stop the antagonist. Just once.
 

The Thinker

New member
Jan 22, 2011
653
0
0
Kwaku Avoke said:
I want the good guy to lose for once and I hate love interests. This isn't a cliche I suppose but when a movie is made about a book for errr people below the age of 20 and because it isn't as big as harry potter or twilight they ruin the movie namely Alex Rider and Percy Jackson. Could have been good but they just made it cartoonish.
Moreover, they could have made successful sequels off of those, but they blew the first movie, so they can't. You know what should happen? They should take the book that the bad movie was made off of, then make a better movie, then advertise it as "The Lightning Thief [for example], for real this time."
 

SarahSyna

New member
Jul 8, 2009
86
0
0
I actually don't mind the 'Prophecy of the Chosen One' thing at times, if there's a twist. I've used it myself, with the catch being that the prophecy was incredibly vague, because there was no actual Chosen One. The Chosen One in the story was just a person who fulfilled the prophecy not because of destiny but because they figured they were the best person for the job. It could have been anyone, just happened to be them sort of thing.

When it's actually played straight though... Ugh. HATE.

And the same goes for Destined Couples That Always Break Up And Get Back Together Repeatedly. Most annoying 'romantic' cliché ever.
 

the.gill123

New member
Jun 12, 2011
203
0
0
I hate it in films, it's usualy at the end of the second act, where two people have a big falling out over a misunderstanding, so in the third act, they have to make up. It happens in Ratatouille, Music and Lyrics, How to Train Your Dragon, Bridget Jones' Diary: The Edge of Reason, and so many more, I hate it. You don't need this drama in every film, it's old, surely there are other things to do in a film, than this old cliche.
 

Veylon

New member
Aug 15, 2008
1,626
0
0
Magic/Destiny/Technobabble being the solution.

It's not that I don't think these things have their place, but they shouldn't solve any problems. It takes away the characters' responsibility to try and make things right themselves. It's especially grating in the fantasy novels where the villain knows about the prophecy/magic that will kill him, but does next to nothing to prepare for it.

Tolkien did this right: Sauron may well have known that dropping the Ring in Sammath Naur would destroy it, but never considered that anyone who got their hands on the most powerful artifact in the world would want to do so. His concern was that it would be used against him and he did everything with that in mind. In addition, he assumed that Aragorn, Lost King of Gondor, wielder of the Flame of the West, heir to Isildur, He Whose Hands Heal, and all-around master warrior and speechgiver had the ring. He was wrong.
 

Beryl77

New member
Mar 26, 2010
1,599
0
0
There is an incredibly strong monster/machine/whatever else and eveyone says that it's nearly impossible to destroy/kill it but with great effort the good guys manage to do that. Then later they start defeating them like those super strong beings are just some henchman and it's nothing spectacular anymore.

Or, when it turns out that the protagonist is actually the son of a king, so he's actually a prince and not just a peasant.
 

McMullen

New member
Mar 9, 2010
1,334
0
0
Lilani said:
McMullen said:
Lilani said:
McMullen said:
the scientists who invented the atomic bomb to beat the Germans to it or to end the war with Japan
I'm pretty sure those scientists knew exactly what they were doing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer#Manhattan_Project] Though admittedly, Einstein brought it to Roosevelt's attention first. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#World_War_II_and_the_Manhattan_Project]
What do you mean, knew exactly what they were doing? Did they not build the bomb for the purposes I stated? Also, did they not oppose the idea of nuclear war afterwards?
You were using them as an example of scientists "just doing their job and having their work corrupted for evil purposes." The Manhattan project was a project for building a nuclear bomb. Their work on the project wasn't "corrupted," it was specifically FOR that purpose, and they were aware of it. How the hell is it considered corruption if they were BUILDING A BOMB. I'm sure if they had qualms with the idea of it being used, they would not have helped build it. Why else would the government contract you to do research on a bomb?

Now, had they been told they were going to be inventing a way to cure the common cold and then the cure was stolen and turned into a deadly unstoppable virus (or they made the deadly virus by accident and then the government weaponized it), THAT would have been a better example.
The corruption I speak of is the wartime plan of using two or three being replaced by the cold-war ambition of bringing about the nuclear genocide of the entire soviet union, never mind what that would do to the rest of the world.

Yes, the original plan was about as moral as the Genophage (and almost certainly is where that plot came from) but at the time it was held by many to be the only way. Some people still regard it as such, though that has been called into question in recent decades. With all the people pointing to the recent tsunami and going "serves you right" while sharing this view, I imagine the "we had to" opinion will soon be unacceptable in polite society anyway. Still, next to the way people wanted to use nuclear weapons during the cold war, the purpose of the Manhattan Project doesn't look so sinister.
 

Robert Ewing

New member
Mar 2, 2011
1,977
0
0
Anything taking place in New York. That city has seen more human peril than all of humanities wars, squared. Sick of seeing that city.
 

BlumiereBleck

New member
Dec 11, 2008
5,402
0
0
The religious person always being treated as a villain, enough! Or whites making the Civil Rights movement...now the only white who helped the Movement were in the Eisenhower Administration!
 

Zaverexus

New member
Jul 5, 2010
934
0
0
When a piece of fiction throws in a random romantic interest where one is not needed.
Romance is great in its place; but when an action movie throws in a random kiss and suddenly everyone is in love it just sucks. It's cheap: either give us the whole story or leave it out, don't just fill a check box.
 

Scarim Coral

Jumped the ship
Legacy
Oct 29, 2010
18,157
2
3
Country
UK
Two things-
1. The whole no one had ever head the concept of the undead in that universe mainly the zombie film universe.

2. When someone start to clap which lead the rest of the people to clap aswell for no real good reasons. Example at one of the Harry Potter movie when Dumbledore announce that Hagrid had return and everyone claps. Ok sure it great to see him back but did every single pupils like him?
 

FFHAuthor

New member
Aug 1, 2010
687
0
0
A few that didn't grate on me until the showed up in Mass Effect;

The 'space babe' cliche that seems to be played in every Sci-fi movie with an alien species. The Asari in Mass Effect drive me nuts. Seriously, an entire species made up of female styled beings who spend the first century or so of their lives as adults getting jobs as strippers and exotic dancers, then they only 'mate' with members of other species, not their own.

The 'pure evil' cliche, that the Batarians are, according to the writers in Bioware just about every single one you meet is an amoral mercenary, slave trader, drug dealer or pirate who's trying to kill you 9 times out of 10. They're such a lazy villian character that it's sickening.

Weak cliches that are pretty nauseating when they come from Bioware.