Annoying action movies cliches

[RogueIce]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this - but also guns running out of ammo for coup-de-graces. Mr. Action Hero fires hundreds of rounds out of an ordinary pistol without reloading, reaches Mr. Bad Guy, then when he pulls the trigger, click! Oops, now we get to throw in a big fake martial-arts scene! Most directors don't realize a self-loading pistol will lock open when it's empty.

I mentioned it in the very first reply of this thread.

Incidently, I love how when the protagonist is a cop, he can rack up a damned impressive bodycount and the department won't even blink an eye.

Unless it's a plot point that he be suspended. In which case he'll still take the law into his own hands and then kill the Main Bad Guy and probably a bunch of henchmen, while suspended...and All Shall Be Forgiven.

[Zixinus]

On that note, how often are cops portrayed realistically? Most often they are only shown to be either "sheriff's in town"/"texas ranger" style wolves or people highly tied with bureaucracy.

[Pulp Hero]

Or fat lazy southern cops who basically sit on their asses and do nothing to help people in real danger.

[chitoryu12]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this - but also guns running out of ammo for coup-de-graces. Mr. Action Hero fires hundreds of rounds out of an ordinary pistol without reloading, reaches Mr. Bad Guy, then when he pulls the trigger, click! Oops, now we get to throw in a big fake martial-arts scene! Most directors don't realize a self-loading pistol will lock open when it's empty.

I mentioned it in the very first reply of this thread.

Incidently, I love how when the protagonist is a cop, he can rack up a damned impressive bodycount and the department won't even blink an eye.

Unless it's a plot point that he be suspended. In which case he'll still take the law into his own hands and then kill the Main Bad Guy and probably a bunch of henchmen, while suspended...and All Shall Be Forgiven.

On that note, I wish they had left in the original ending for Die Hard with a Vengence. McClane gets fired while Simon either offs or dumps his henchmen and smuggles out the gold as models of the Empire State Building. McClane seeks him out and forces him at gunpoint to answer some riddles. When he fails, he is forced to fire a Chinese rocket launcher with the sights removed so he can't tell which end is the front, and he ends up getting impaled by the rocket.

[Davey]

I mentioned it in the very first reply of this thread.

Oops,sorry about that. I guess the list is so long I keep forgetting which ones have been mentioned and which ones haven't!

Though on that note, sometimes I wonder if the movie directors have either gotten lazy or just have their own personal formula sheets for these movies. It's funny enough how often I see them. Sometimes they aren't as glaringly obvious as the others but they're still there nonetheless.

[Darth Wong]

Though on that note, sometimes I wonder if the movie directors have either gotten lazy or just have their own personal formula sheets for these movies. It's funny enough how often I see them. Sometimes they aren't as glaringly obvious as the others but they're still there nonetheless.

I don't think it's that they consciously follow a formula, but that when they visualize the movie in their minds during the creative process, they unconsciously incorporate visual cues from every other movie they've seen. This is how action movie cliches become self-reinforcing.

This is something I've pointed out to Trekkies before, about how visuals matter. They claim the story and the visuals can be almost completely divorced from each other, but the fact is that writers can't help but visualize events in their minds when they're writing, and when they visualize they can't help but incorporate visual cues from the past TV episodes and movies. So, like it or not, the visuals become part of the creative process even if you think writing is pre-eminent over visuals.

[Faqa]

The idea that concealment = cover. I mean, dude, come on. Bullets penetrate people. They should be able to penetrate the flimsy drywall corner Mr. Protagonist is hiding behind, but oops, he comes out just fine. I always laugh when I see people take cover behind ordinary cars, it's just that pathetic; two flimsy layers of sheet metal and upholstry won't stop bullets.

Subverted beautifully in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, BTW.

There IS a scene where one of the protaganists ducks behind a flimsy chair to avoid pistol fire.

Later, when cops examine the area of the shootout, they discover layers of Kevlar in said chair.....

This was my first clue that the series was not generic cash-in crap.

As for my annoying cliche? It's the 'random keyboard typing at the password prompt will always guess the password in minutes'.

Now, far as I know, the ONLY thing you could stick in a password field that would be even remotely useful(aside from the password) is a block of data mainly designed as a buffer overflow. Which requires intimate knowledge of the system. In Action Land, as we all know, every Tom, Dick and Harry has a shiny custom OS with large green letters.

So yeah. Pet peeve.

[Big Orange]

The moon always seems much bigger than it actually is.

Not an action movie cliche' per se, but a broader fictional cliche'.

[Darth Wong]

In complete seriousness, password guessing doesn't annoy me too much because so many user's passwords actually are easy to guess.

That's true when it's your garden-variety office drone. But when people guess passwords in the movies, they're not hacking into some garden-variety office drone's computer. They're usually trying to hack into some highly sensitive installation in which security is taken very seriously.

[Ender]

Ugh. Reminds me of Independence Day. Of course, they have to follow the rule that the family pet never dies. So just as the family runs into a maintenence passage in a tunnel as a huge fireball comes roaring down, their Golden Retriever comes bounding in just two feet from the flames, and they're all perfectly all right.

And of course the flame front never expands laterally into the space where our family - and pet - are hiding...

Um, duh- that's becuase fire only sees movement, so if you stay perfectly still you'll be fine.

Plasma fireballs (like the kind a really high powered electrical fire will spit out) will chase you actually. When you are moving you create a low pressure "wake" behind you that it goes toward.

I always wondered why it didn't suck all the O2 out of the room.

# The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

That whole safety-deposit box thing didn't turn out too well for Voldemort.



Personally, I'm gonna go with the incredibly ornate and complex operating systems that emphasize how far out computers are. eg.g Jurassic Park, Hackers, etc.

[Adrian Laguna]

Plasma fireballs (like the kind a really high powered electrical fire will spit out) will chase you actually. When you are moving you create a low pressure "wake" behind you that it goes toward.

If you are close enough for that to be a problem, aren't you also close enough that not moving means you're also screwed?

[Rye]

I don't think it's that they consciously follow a formula, but that when they visualize the movie in their minds during the creative process, they unconsciously incorporate visual cues from every other movie they've seen. This is how action movie cliches become self-reinforcing.

This is something I've pointed out to Trekkies before, about how visuals matter. They claim the story and the visuals can be almost completely divorced from each other, but the fact is that writers can't help but visualize events in their minds when they're writing, and when they visualize they can't help but incorporate visual cues from the past TV episodes and movies. So, like it or not, the visuals become part of the creative process even if you think writing is pre-eminent over visuals.

That's definitely true. When you're writing a script, you have to write in a very visual manner, after all, TV and film are visual media, so you've got to write about what you see, and then the director will depict that as he reads the text (or what he wants to have anyway). A writer will write with visuals in mind, and the director will direct with visuals in mind (they'll probably be the same if the writer and director are both good), and the best source of visuals are other people's films.

[Dahak]

When you're downloading high-security files from a computer in the Evil Base (TM) and some bad guy comes along and shoots into the monitor, the whole computer will obviously be destroyed and the copy process will not be completed...

When you are driving a state-of-the-art car in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, any ancient Pick-up with Bad Guys will be able to keep up with you on a perfectly straight road and push/shove you off the road...

The infamous "when I am chased by Bad Guys, I will choose to run UPwards to the roof instead downwards".

[The Spartan]

New one: Mercenaries who invariably seem to have top-of-the-line, often cutting edge, equipment that is well maintained.

[Darth Wong]

My biggest pet peeve is brilliant criminal masterminds. In real-life, brilliant criminals do not use thugs with guns. They're smart enough to do the risk/reward math, so they steal money from you the white-collar way: with the lawyer, the lobbyist, and the corrupt accountant. And when they feel the noose closing in, they take off to Switzerland or the Cayman Islands, living happily ever after with their stolen money.

In real-life, people are surprised when a violent criminal is anything other than a complete idiot. Even the most rudimentary planning makes a typical violent criminal look like a genius compared to his peers. But in action movies, the violent criminals are always smarter than the cops.

[chitoryu12]

How about how helicopters can fly low to the ground and chop up everything in front of them with their rotors, and yet they move extremely slowly, as opposed to zooming forward.

Grenades are all-powerful when relevant to the plot. If a group of baddies has to die, then tossing a genade their way will cause a massive fireball, regardless of how much explosive material is surrounding them. Also available is a column of dust and smoke that tosses them into the air. Conversely, any good guy can outrun a grenade with enough force to completely decimate the average living room and set everything on fire. The simple act of leaping behind a couch can make you invincible.

Speaking of grenades, the fuses all apply to whatever is most necessary. A thrown grenade in a battle can explode less than a second after hitting the ground, while the protagonist can be given up to 15 seconds to escape (I'm looking at you, Die Hard 2).

[starslayer]

How about how helicopters can fly low to the ground and chop up everything in front of them with their rotors, and yet they move extremely slowly, as opposed to zooming forward.

Helicopters can do this... sort of. Those rotor blades are spinning mighty fast even when they are simply hovering a few feet above the ground, and helicopters can move forward extremely slowly if they want to (just don't tilt the swashplate all that much). However, as I understand it, most helicopters' rotor blades aren't exactly the most durable things around, and when they swipe the ground, or hefty solid metal/concrete objects, they tend to break badly.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you here, and you're talking about helos flying with their bodies perpendicular to the ground, or nearly so. That is utterly stupid.

[J Ryan]

How about how helicopters can fly low to the ground and chop up everything in front of them with their rotors, and yet they move extremely slowly, as opposed to zooming forward.

Helicopters can do this... sort of. Those rotor blades are spinning mighty fast even when they are simply hovering a few feet above the ground, and helicopters can move forward extremely slowly if they want to (just don't tilt the swashplate all that much). However, as I understand it, most helicopters' rotor blades aren't exactly the most durable things around, and when they swipe the ground, or hefty solid metal/concrete objects, they tend to break badly.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you here, and you're talking about helos flying with their bodies perpendicular to the ground, or nearly so. That is utterly stupid.

I think he means something like this.

Ignore the silly music.

[chitoryu12]

How about how helicopters can fly low to the ground and chop up everything in front of them with their rotors, and yet they move extremely slowly, as opposed to zooming forward.

Helicopters can do this... sort of. Those rotor blades are spinning mighty fast even when they are simply hovering a few feet above the ground, and helicopters can move forward extremely slowly if they want to (just don't tilt the swashplate all that much). However, as I understand it, most helicopters' rotor blades aren't exactly the most durable things around, and when they swipe the ground, or hefty solid metal/concrete objects, they tend to break badly.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you here, and you're talking about helos flying with their bodies perpendicular to the ground, or nearly so. That is utterly stupid.

I think he means something like this.

Ignore the silly music.

A better example would be in Tomorrow Never Dies. I can't find a clip of the scene, but in the latter third of the movie there's a bike chase in which Bond and his latest fuck buddy are on the motorcycle facing down the helicopter. The heli has its rotors even farther down than the one in that video, and is moving even slower.

[Raptor]

Exploding electrical equipment hit by gunfire. If I shot a TV, computer would it explode in a shower of fire and sparks or I don't know, just go off? I once spilled a cup of water down the back of a TV. No explosion, or sparks, it just went blank. Also, when in the enemy base (or in Face Off an offshore prison) a computer that has setting for 'Overload' or just turn a few knobs and levers, and the entire electrical system explodes, rather than just shuts down. I want to know if my local powerstation has an overload option.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I think if you shot a TV while it was on, there's a good chance it would spark off. Kinda depends on what the bullet hits.

[Big Orange]

New one: Mercenaries who invariably seem to have top-of-the-line, often cutting edge, equipment that is well maintained.

Like Blackwater.

And yes, chitoryu12, Tomorrow Never Dies has the best example of a far fetched helicopter maneuver.

More movie clichés and stereotypes:

* Bad guys go around in black limousines.

* Shotgun blast knock people several feet back like ragdolls.

* Maximum security buildings have their whole ventilation shaft networks be wide enough for a grown man to crawl through.

* No contingent of armed men cares how many fatalities they take in one go in combat (one of the worst examples was in Face/Off where a fifty strong FBI tactical unit kept blindly piling into a terrorist stronghold untl they all died).

* Nobody except the key characters gets wounded.

* Bond lairs defy many real life logistical, construction and secrecy problems.

[The Spartan]

New one: Mercenaries who invariably seem to have top-of-the-line, often cutting edge, equipment that is well maintained.

Like Blackwater.

Yes well, my understanding is that they're more of an exception than the rule.

Besides, funded as they are, they may as well be another branch of the American military. Hardly your garden variety merc.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Exploding electrical equipment hit by gunfire. If I shot a TV, computer would it explode in a shower of fire and sparks or I don't know, just go off? I once spilled a cup of water down the back of a TV. No explosion, or sparks, it just went blank. Also, when in the enemy base (or in Face Off an offshore prison) a computer that has setting for 'Overload' or just turn a few knobs and levers, and the entire electrical system explodes, rather than just shuts down. I want to know if my local powerstation has an overload option.

It is possible, just unlikely. Keep in mind that a typical television holds a very strong charge, and that it also contains combustible materials. So if gets hit right, I could see electric discharge giving a nice little display.

[SAMAS]

Ugh. Reminds me of Independence Day. Of course, they have to follow the rule that the family pet never dies. So just as the family runs into a maintenence passage in a tunnel as a huge fireball comes roaring down, their Golden Retriever comes bounding in just two feet from the flames, and they're all perfectly all right.

And of course the flame front never expands laterally into the space where our family - and pet - are hiding...

That scene left me wondering why, if not incinerated, they didn't suffocate from either smoke or lack of oxygen thanks to the wall o' fire.

The novel actually tries to justify it, having them hanging onto a grating, and the constant flow of air being sucked through it by the explosion keeping them from getting suffocated or roasted.