To be honest there are so many things that annoy me in movies that I could go on and on about it, but let's not overstay our welcome here.
- Randomly killing off a meaningful main or side character just to shock the audience into believing that this is where the story gets serious. If the death served some sort of purpose to actually advance the plot, or set a tone that affects the rest of the story, then I can handle it a little bit better, but the death of any major character in a story should be handled with care.
- Romance sub-plots in movies that aren't romantic. It comes off as very contrived to have a man and a woman become a couple and have meaningful romantic character development in the span of a 2 hour or so action movie. We don't see enough of the couple to get a believable feel that they truly belong together, it can be rather jarring for a main character and his love interest to admit they love one another when from the perspective of the audience we rarely see them interact for most of the story. You can try to justify it by saying that the time that progresses in the story is a lot longer than what we actually see in two hours, but I say that if you are going to feature a romance in a movie a good portion of that movie better be dedicated to making their relationship seem meaningful or otherwise they shouldn't bother having it in the story.
- Retcons. More specifically retcons that don't flesh out the story in any meaningful way and seem very out of place as if they are telling a vastly different story than what we have come to expect. A good retcon shouldn't feel like anything in the story has really changed at all, it should feel like you are watching the same story you always loved but from a different perspective.
- A macguffin that comes out of no where and solves all the problems in the story instantly and with no effort. Macguffins should only be applied if the protagonist has to go through a lot of effort to get to them and there is meaningful foreshadowing and build-up to its eventual use. It should also only be an amplifier that gives the hero just enough power to stop the villain but not overwhelming destroy him, all the interesting conflict in the story just becomes boring if that happens.
- Protagonists or villains that are untouchable. It gets boring when the hero or villain are so good at what they do that they effortlessly overcome any obstacle that comes their way, a character has to have some sort of conflict to be interesting, sure they can eventually win but there needs to be conflict leading up to that victory to make it meaningful.
- Stories that are unnecessarily vague and complex to make it look like they told a meaningful or good story. There is nothing wrong with cryptic words and scenes but their purpose should be to serve as foreshadowing or as a framing device that builds up to a meaningful pay off at the end of the story.
- Randomly killing off a meaningful main or side character just to shock the audience into believing that this is where the story gets serious. If the death served some sort of purpose to actually advance the plot, or set a tone that affects the rest of the story, then I can handle it a little bit better, but the death of any major character in a story should be handled with care.
- Romance sub-plots in movies that aren't romantic. It comes off as very contrived to have a man and a woman become a couple and have meaningful romantic character development in the span of a 2 hour or so action movie. We don't see enough of the couple to get a believable feel that they truly belong together, it can be rather jarring for a main character and his love interest to admit they love one another when from the perspective of the audience we rarely see them interact for most of the story. You can try to justify it by saying that the time that progresses in the story is a lot longer than what we actually see in two hours, but I say that if you are going to feature a romance in a movie a good portion of that movie better be dedicated to making their relationship seem meaningful or otherwise they shouldn't bother having it in the story.
- Retcons. More specifically retcons that don't flesh out the story in any meaningful way and seem very out of place as if they are telling a vastly different story than what we have come to expect. A good retcon shouldn't feel like anything in the story has really changed at all, it should feel like you are watching the same story you always loved but from a different perspective.
- A macguffin that comes out of no where and solves all the problems in the story instantly and with no effort. Macguffins should only be applied if the protagonist has to go through a lot of effort to get to them and there is meaningful foreshadowing and build-up to its eventual use. It should also only be an amplifier that gives the hero just enough power to stop the villain but not overwhelming destroy him, all the interesting conflict in the story just becomes boring if that happens.
- Protagonists or villains that are untouchable. It gets boring when the hero or villain are so good at what they do that they effortlessly overcome any obstacle that comes their way, a character has to have some sort of conflict to be interesting, sure they can eventually win but there needs to be conflict leading up to that victory to make it meaningful.
- Stories that are unnecessarily vague and complex to make it look like they told a meaningful or good story. There is nothing wrong with cryptic words and scenes but their purpose should be to serve as foreshadowing or as a framing device that builds up to a meaningful pay off at the end of the story.
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