Over-used movie clichés that make you cringe.

[Hurray Forums]

The romantic subplot that serves no purpose. A love story that has some sort of point or enhances the impact of the film, great. However, one that's just crowbarred in haphazardly for no particular reason is BAD!!! I swear, half the film love stories in existence seem like the creators remembered on the last day of filming they were contractually obligated to inflict some terrible romance on us for the amusement of their evil overlords.

 

[-Samurai-]

The bad guy has finally captured the good guy, and now has to explain his evil plans, past, present, and future, to his about to escape nemesis. And/or has a way-to-elaborate death machine to kill the good guy.

Seriously. Just shut up, and kill him. Even if he escapes, at least you didn't tell him what you're planning. So, he might not be able to stop you anyway.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I'm writer. I don't know if anybody feels the same way I do, but I feel that at this point in history it feels like everything is a cliche. I feel that if I want to make it as a writer I have to figure out what cliche is popular and in at the moment.

Also I feel that one person's cliche is another person's original. It makes me think of the whole NBC, "If I haven't seen it, it's new to me."

Just this last college semester, I took a 400 level class called The Writer At Work. The only grade was a portfolio of our work. For the whole class we just read what everybody was working on at the moment and made pointless comments. I despised my professor, mainly because he threw the word cliche around like it actually meant something and as writers we could fix it. Of course then he would point something as being original when it wasn't, but I'm not the type of person to speak up in class and nobody else was either.
I had to go way out there to actually get my professor to like something. I have been writing a medieval type fantasy story and I have been making up my own old language for it. That he liked, he said that I apparently, "Spoke my created language fluently and clearly," and that it, "Sounded like Gaelic." That made me laugh, because I have never read or studied Gaelic. I'm half Irish, so maybe each time I work on creating new words for my language, I am channeling a past life or something.

 

[Frybird]

"I don't want you to get hurt."
This is so cliche' it's painful. I understand it, but couldn't they phrase it differantly?

I agree, but it was used to surprisingly great effect in The Incredibles.

- Romantic "Comedies" in General, but especially the thing where the guy screws up majorly at the start of the third act and everything seems lost for thier love but then blah blah.

- "Let's split up". Yeah, because that makes sense if you are hunted by monsters without any idea where you are and possibly how you are supposed to regroup...
Often preceded by:

- "It's (/It was supposed to be) and easy task". Yeah, and then you die

- Wisecracking Kids. Ever noticed how kids in movies rarely talk like real kids?

- Tripping over stuff when persued by a killer. Because victims cannot run straight for 50 meters...

 

[smudgey]

When a generic action B-Movie hero walks away from an explosion.

Didn't ya know? Cool guys don't look at explosions.
[link]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo[/link]
Also, when someone dies in a movie and the person with them looks up at the sky and yells. Iron Man 2 was guilty of both these crimes.

 

[Elonas]

When the protagonist looks into a river/the ocean/a lake, seeing their reflection, then it starts to rain and the image blurs. Cliché to the max.

 

[StrangerMouse]

"How do I know if I can trust you?"

"You don't."

Notice how 99% of the time the protagonist CAN trust them.

 

[iLikeHippos]

I dislike the typical line when the marine#1 tries to hold on to marine#2 saying "DON'T LET ME GO!" And than marine #2 says "I WON'T LET YOU GO!"

Than marine#1 changes his fucking mind after 10 seconds of holding on, screaming "YOU HAVE TO LET ME GO!"
Marine#2 refuses until marine#1 lets go.

Than marine#1 lets go of the grip and falls down into a fire/a grassy field/a bunch of trees.

Sad I can't put my finger on what movie I got that cliché from...

 

[Sonic Doctor]

"How do I know if I can trust you?"

"You don't."

Notice how 99% of the time the protagonist CAN trust them.

Then you have the television show The X-Files. Mulder is told to trust no one, then he ends up trusting people over and over again and basically gets stabbed in the back each time.

 

[tbbrownah]

"You'll never get away with this!"
"Pick on someone your own size."
"It's over." "It is NEVER over!/It's only started!"
"I got a bad feeling about this..."
"Mmm HMM!" *Accompanied by head shake*

Girl sees something suspicious - goes to investigate - suspense builds up - sees it's nothing - sighs in relief and turns around - something jumps out and kills her

Oh, and that one dance move where you circle your arms around each other. They oughtta ban that.

 

[Custard_Angel]

At the moment I have an INTENSE hatred of the feisty latina chick.

There was one in Lost, there's one in Dexter and there was one in Scrubs...

Thats 3 vastly different shows with vastly different tones, yet they all have the same character. A tough latina chick whose acidic personality gets in the way of people seeing the real person on the inside. But you can't call her a ***** because she had a tough up bringing.

God damn... I hate that chick...

 

[DkLnBr]

One thing I notice all the time is the Wilhelm Scream, but it doesn't bug me(though that annoying children's laugh does). but who can blame me? its been in more movies than most actors.

and thats not even all of them....

 

[Invader_Protos]

-"I know you think [insert summarized rational of protagonist's motive of pending dangerous action], but what you're doing is *suicide*!"
-The use of the "please put your seatbacks and tray tables in their upright and locked postion" speech in ANY context (girl being cutesy in front of friends, someone talking tough, anybody trying to be amusing)
-Children cursing
-Grandmothers rapping
-Sound of gun being cocked whenever it is pointed, especially after having been cocked within the last 30 seconds
-The use of ancient sound effects in films made at least 50 years after the sound's creation, eg. "vehicle engine breaking down", "children playing", "man screaming when shot or pushed off of high ledge" (including the "Wilhelm Scream"), "bullet ricocheting", and "electrical device sparking/short circuiting".

 

[Nealran]

Being something of a black heart, any romance you can see coming from the opening credits tends to piss me off to no small end. However, the one truly unforgiveable cliche is anything featuring "The Chosen One." It was one of the many factors that ruined Star Wars, and quite simply needs to go play in traffic until Hollywood can't recognize it and moves on to something else.

 

[Vrex360]

Whenever a relationship breaks up it is always, absolutely always, the man's fault. This really pisses me off, like the man cheats on his girlfriend or the man is neglectful, whatever it is always the man's fault and it annoys me like crazy.
Same with how in a movie if a man is depicted as cheating on his wife, usually he is also a sexist pig who is obviously an asshole, but if we have a woman do it, like even if she openly admits that there is nothing wrong with the man she's married to, she's considered some kind of hero and we almost always find a justification for why she does it.

Also, I really hate those:
"We just killed the demon from the netherworld, yay!!! Now we can go back and starting living our lives and- OH MY FUCKIGN GOD THE MONSTER IT HATH RETURNED AND NOW WE ARE GOING TO DIE!!"
Seriously if that was how it was going to end, with the demon/monster/killer/ winning what was the point of the entire third act of the heroes usually finding some kind of spell or magical X factor that can defeat the monster only for it to then not work.

It annoys me because we all know it only exists so they can make a sequel.

 

[ENKC]

See every chick flick out there right now.

Seriously, if I have to see another commercial for one I will go insane.

If you include 'romantic comedies' in that list, I'm joining the club

Yeah, those are included.

I thought a 'chick flick' essentially meant 'romantic comedy' anyway (Shaun of the Dead notwithstanding).

I'm sure nearly everything in a Hollywood movie is a cliche by now, so I can't think of any specific one which concerns me at present.

 

[Soxafloppin]

When the Movies Hero has the movies villian dangling of ledge, and he could just like let him fall and let the credits roll. but He gives him a hand up. (The villian then pushing the hero so that he now dangles of the edge is also optional).

Also when the Protagonists Love interest has absolutely no reason to even like the protagonist even slightly but still falls in love.

 

[Trevor L. Cooper]

"I've got a bad feeling about this..."

And

Bullet-Time, I am so sick of Bullet-Time in both movies and games!

"Bullet-Time is the new Auto-Tune" -Me

 

[Ldude893]

-Big Red Text.
-Villain always dies.
-Stormtrooper effect where numerous minions/soldiers are useless against the main character.
-Any movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Or the "manly" movie version:

Opening of fight scene with protagonist kicking ass. Gradual filling in with weak plot. More fight scenes and pointless explosions (one liners optional). A woman takes off her clothes. Protagonist suffers large defeat (possibly involving a betrayal and/or a father figure getting killed). Protagonist gets angry and defeats all enemies.


Very little in terms of cinema or television entertains me in even the slightest way anymore.

Doesn't the woman usually take her cloths off after the heroes big defeat/betrayal/loss of father figure? You know, she tries to console him over it, he's initially hostile, but later they end up humping like bunnies on steroids.

Heh a fair point, but I can see it either way. One common method is that the protagonist is off having sex with said woman and thus is not present to save the father figure. Hell in some cases the sex scene could actually BE the betrayal.

If the worst that can be done is argue about the particulars of the chronology of the required stereotyped events, it's still not saying much about the movie as a whole

True enough. In any case, it's overdone and overused.