I'd like to know, what's a movie trope you hate? No repeat answers. Otherwise, go wild.
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The makeover scene where the "ugly" girl gets a "glow-up". The most glaring example is "The Princess Diaries", but it's basically a staple in any media that have an alternative and/or nerdy girl.
Most of the time it's SUCH a downgrade and the girl in question loses everything that was interesting about her. And it also sends a message that you have to bury your individuality and conform to beauty standards if you want to be loved and accepted.
yeah especially where the only/main thing that changes is them taking off their glasses. i think glasses are pretty cool actually. also that trope makes all us glasses wearers feel ugly.
the funny fat girl. You can be plus size and completely serious, Hollywood.
Writing any fat characters who are clearly there only as a laughing stock should be a punishable offense.
When the villain casually begins an evil monologue and gives the hero the chance to kill them back at the end. Dude just finish the job, you can laugh at said hero when said hero is ded too.
I would love to see the stereotypical monologue where the villain explains every detail of how they trapped the hero in this way and then at the end the camera pans to a clearly already dead hero. Hilarious.
The 'adorkable' personality that all modern Disney princesses all seem to have.
Sex.
Whenever they have nothing to fill the script with there is always sex. Even if the scene serve absolutly no point to the story.
What about that weird L-shaped sheets that seem to cover men's waist but also women's breasts?
Dumb side characters, or movies where ONLY the main character has any sense of what's happening. Bonus points if the female lead/love interest is completely inept. It's so annoying.
Sexy Lamp Test: if you can replace a female character in your story with a lamp dressed in sexy lingerie and your plot doesn't change, then you've written a horrible female character.
A simple misunderstanding that could be solved by asking one simple question somehow evolves into the entire damned plot.
Movie people never communicate! Most sitcoms are based on this lack of communication.
I can't stand 99% of hallmark shows or movies because they are so predictable. The rich guy/ poor girl or other way around tries to get each other's attention but "they weren't made for each other!" Like, what? Or when the lead goes through this "depressive episode" and they have to learn to trust people again in order to fall in love with someone that literally goes and breaks their heart again, but this time they're "stronger." *cue dramatic lighting and music as the lead walks away and starts a new life*
Cue Twelfth Night by Shakespeare. Difficult love has been a theme for centuries XD
When a character picks up or puts on or takes control of a musical instrument/action sports gear/complex machine that takes YEARS of practice to master, let alone make function, and just...DOES it. Guitar? No, my finger movements don't actually match the chords! Snowboard? I've never used one before, but I will "accidentally" ride down this mountainside doing incredible tricks! This helicopter? Never flown in my life, but I will "manage" to pilot it expertly to save our character's lives! These actually cause me to feel embarrassed for the the actors.
The requisite "sassy black guy/gal" who loosens up the tight-a*s white folk and teaches what it's all about using street smarts, dance moves and lame philosophies. Insulting to everyone involved.
The manic pixie dream girl, especially if she has to "fix" the guy
One hour of careful plan arranging and complex characters, then *whisper whisper* GUNFIRE; MUSIC *whisper* GUNFIRE *whis* MUSIC. 50 minute battle and then the credits roll.
I hate when the antagonist throws the hero across the room at the end battle, instead of finishing the fight immediately.
And how our protagonist cop/agent/spy ALWAYS has a kid and/or wife at home that he makes promises to that he has to break.
I've been thinking about the 1st one just a few days ago when I was watching The Mummy 😁
Cop shows. The all stand there discussing the situation all taking turns to talk with absolutely no break in conversation.
The current Disney trope of all the women in their films being Mary Sue's or every teenage girl in a marvel movie is a super genius. I have no problem with smart women in films or strong female lead characters. But them being able to easily steamroll any challenge in their way is boring.
I don't really know. It does annoy me in scary movies at the end when they do that thing where an eye just flips open. It's so irritating and predictable :/ So that and the "dumb blonde" trope. I have a blonde friend holy mother of hotdogs she's SO. DAMN. SMART, you guys. I admire her :)
Conventionally good looking people are capable of being bad. People with facial disfigurements are capable of being good people. It's weird that this is rarely dipicted in movies. Oh...and the debonair guy with an English accent who appears good at the start, is ALWAYS a bad guy. It's not a surprise to the audience. The clue is the accent.
SIDNEY (playing along) :Because they're all the same. It's always some stupid killer stalking some big ------- girl-who can't act-who always runs up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. They're ridiculous.
the horror tropes get old
All those movie shootout in public. Good and bad guys hit walls, vases, windows and cars, but no innocent bystander is ever shot in the movies.
That only good looking people (particularly if young looking) can be the lead characters. Anyone less perfect is secondary, a sidekick, token disposable character, non role playing or humorous light relief character. Often, though not always, the same goes for non-white ethnicities, non-straight males, non American - not worthy of lead roles. Thank you, Jason Momoa and the Rock for breaking this trope a bit.
yep. You can tell who the villain is by how attractive they are. Handsome = hero. Ugly = villain. Only exception is the femme fatale trope, e.g. in Bond movies, where one of the two girls is a villain.
To become a nerd, put on glasses. Makes it even worse when they take off the glasses and it turns out they "didn't need them after all", LIKE DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE GLASSES ARE?!
“Oh no, unknown thing! Luckily, we have an autistic character that knows literally everything!”
Sir, that’s not a character you have there. That’s a search engine with legs.
I am ok with this as an ASD person. Always happy to help dumb people understand obscure technical stuff. In fact people have sometimes said I am basically a human google.
The “Working parent who has no time for their kids”. I know the trope is in a few good movies, but its been used too much.
On a related note, you can tell the "genius scientist/financier/researcher who is a terrible parent" by making the character neglect his or her house plants...
Rom com's. they make me feel good watching them but I think they distort expectations.
The inner beauty of an unattractive woman is NOT seen and appreciated by the hunk in real life. I speak from much experience.
Trite sound effects for everything.
Brights lights that turn on to whooshing sounds. Anyone who flies shouting “woooo-HOO!” Every bird of prey that screeches like a red-tailed hawk the moment it’s on screen. Predators that growl and roar with every movement. Merely passing by anything large and to a low bass rumble or swooshing sound. Computer displays that beep and chirp with every input. And every insect or spider making nonstop hissing and chittering noises!
Not everything makes a dramatic sound!
Male lead's motivation for revenge/action/etc. being violence against the women in his life like a wife, girlfriend or daughter (especially when it's sexual violence).
Female lead's motivation being to get revenge for her own sexual assault.
Scenes explicitly showing the assault.
Treating sexual assault against men as comedy.
Basically whenever some lazy writer wants to "motivate" an action hero, they shoehorn in some woman getting sexually assaulted, or for a cheap, sick joke they'll have a man be sexually assaulted.
When there is some sort of word-shattering apocalypse because of Zombie / alien / what ever. But everyone still looks perfectly styled with hair, make-up and everything - all the freaking time.
Look like everyone just came straight out from the shower too. The only thing that might have happend is a little bit of beard on some of the male actors.
Love triangles. I hate them so much, the main character is stuck with someone who LITERALLY NOBODY wants them to go with because their personality is as plain as cardboard, and the other is hated by the MC, yet they still love the MC anyway??? Then one of them ends up being the villain and the other tries to save the MC from getting harmed. Most of the time, the best friend of the MC has the most people shipping them since they actually look like they would be something more because the are besties and are supposed to like each other. It's super annoying and Everytime I see it, I vomit a little on the inside because it's that freaking predictable.
the solution to love triangles that would 100% make a funnier, better movie: polyamory.
When people go down to the basement in horror movies when they are perfectly aware of the ghost or killer or whoever is in the house with them, only to be terrified when the ghost jumps onto them lol. oh and this is not a trope, but in action/horror movies when the characters are speaking to others about something serious they always whisper- you have to increase the volume so much, and then 2 seconds later when the action happens IT IS SO LOUD AND YOU HAVE TO DECREASE THE VOLUME AGAIN TO AVOID TERRIFYING THE NEIGHBOURS.
About the going into the basement trope, I have a true story (and yes, I am a white suburban woman) I was folding laundry in the living room when the door to my basement opened and then slammed shut. I was home alone as far as I knew. So I, an avid horror fan, went downstairs to investigate. I did have a knife and I didn't find anything. But...I'm sorry. I am that trope.
WOW so many. Let me think of the ones I hate the most. (a) Car chase. (b) Deus ex machina when the hero is trapped. (c). Monologuing villain when he could just shoot the hero. (d). Token tokenism - when the black person is put in a hero role but is STILL overshadowed by the white hero. Think e.g. of Iron Man series. (e). Mother makes huge breakfast, everyone runs before eating it. (f) Aliens only attack USA. (f) Romcoms in general: boy meets girl, they do not like each other, they accidentally meet again, they shag, they have a romance montage, they fight, they break up, boy buys flowers and runs after girl through the rain to fetch her, etc. (g) American army saves the day. (h) Crooked cops. (i) Competent cops. (j). White male saviour. (k) Handsome/beautiful lead characters. .... I can go on for hours. I'll stop there.
On the one about US army saves the day, my worst scene of this type was Jurassic Park III when everyone has survived and they are on the shore waiting for a helicopter and ONLY THEN does the army arrive en masse complete with the stereotyped flute/whistle tune of the US army. SOOOO lame. Clearly State Department paid the Producers to put that lame scene in.
When the female lead is a bada$$ tough girl fighter...until she meets the male lead. Then she exist only to be rescued. This is a common trope in C- and K-Dramas, but it happens in Western media as well.
When the hero has some super cool ability that they can use to just one shot their opponent and they don't use this all the time. Ultraseven has this one attack where he uses his head-slicey-boomerang thing and then powers it up with his telekinesis and it usually one-shots monsters. Unlike Ultraman, who has a finite amount of energy and cannot necessarily use one-shot attacks like the Ultra Attack Beam or Ultra Psychokinesis all the time because if it doesn't kill them then he could run out of energy, which would allow the monster to run free until he recovers, but Ultraseven can do this all the time since he has protectors over his color timer. Anyways thats just one example of this.
When aliens from outer space fly around in vehicles that have no ergonomic relationship to the creatures that are flying them. These space invaders could look like a spider or even a blob but their ships have steering wheels and chairs.
except Arrival 2016, where it's a bunch of squids in the mist that write like with inkblots.
The hero’s dead! No wait, he’s back? Or is that a different version of him? OH NO HE’S DEAD AGAIN. Wait nevermind.
It's hard to put it into words, but let me try: That new trope where the protagonist starts out as seemingly flawed and with problems with the entire social enviroment. But then it's basically solved by saying "She/He's perfect, it's everyone else around her/him that needed a (perception / attitude / whatever) change to accomodate her. Basically Mary Sues with any plot reduced to token-struggles, because the real struggle is getting EVERYONE to accept her as just perfect the way she/he was from the beginning. Character developement willingly thrown out as a concept for THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE, it seems. The new Mulan was like that and She-Hulk too in the end. There are probably other, but I can't remember right now.
And you haven't seen that Rings of Power series where Galadriel is so self confident, entitled and 'perfect' she sincerely appears as a villain. Would have been great and interesting if it was intended, but the show clearly wants you to admire her (some nice characters meeting her are in total admiration and tell us so directly).
All depressed people cut/self harm. That is such a lie!!
Zombie movie twofer;
1: That one infected idiot/jerk in the group that doesn't reveal that they got bit or scratched, endangering everyone else in the group with their stupidity when the suddenly pass away and reanimate.
2: Zombie movies survivor groups that don't check for bites/scratches after meeting a new group, or just narrowly escaping a horde of zombies/being ambushed by zombies.
The hero that succeeds by breaking all the rules and defying authority.
Any predictable character growth. But the main thing that will annoy me is no world building. The movie might be about specific people, but the world isn't
Horror movie tropes. Why is it that when you're running from something, you always trip and fall at least twice. Or when you're running from the killer, and they catch up to you even when they're just walking. Wtf is this??
Or Zombie movies - The military with all the fancy equipment, training and infrastructure gets wiped on day one, but Susan and her annyoing kids somehow survived and can wander across the whole country
Once upon a time , they lived happily ever after.
thank you. Reality: fighting about who left the loo seat up, fighting about whose turn to wash dishes, fighting about who came home late from work and are you having an affair, yadda. That's the real deal right there.
Any time someone is trying to get away from the monster or bad guy, they head up! Up the stairs, up the Ironworks on a bridge, anywhere up, when they should know it's a dead end. Into the woods, down the spooky alleyway!
"Let's hide behind those chainsaws" !
There’s too many films that highlight racism and not enough that just have diverse characters without discrimination. Yes, it is crucial to raise awareness around racism and the real issues real people face. But sometimes it can backfire, it can end up just becoming people of different races = racism and kinda… not show them as their own character just someone who is discriminated against if that makes sense.
Loool. In my country 90% of the movies that feature people of my ethnicity are using this trope of the "Afro-descendant 'thug looking' but misunderstood youngster, who actually is the nice hero and has a secret hidden talent, but the mean white folks blatantly bully and abuse him in public daylight like 'Ewww people of YOUR KIND suck, you'll never be a ballerina'. It's so commonly used it's actually hilarious.
The "Strong and Independent Woman" trope
From personal experience I find it quite unbelievable that a 60kg woman can beat several muscle packed security guards in hand to hand combat without getting a single injury.
Another trope to make a female character look good is to lobotomise every male character around her so she looks smart and clever while using the most basic logic every human is capable of (Agent Carter). Bonus points for displaying every single man as sexist a*****e.
Being a Mary Sue right from the start without any development or real struggle falls into that category too, nowadays often paired with "Toxic Masculinity" as only character trait to appear strong.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against female leads in entertainment (Judy Hopps, Roberta Warren, Lara Croft, Ellen Ripley - to name a few), but it takes good writting to make them work as characters.
The whole evil genie thing where the protagonist wishes that the events of a movie never happened.
Opening scene: “Well I just can’t wait to retire at the end of the week! Got a cruise for a trip of a lifetime planned with the misses! See you later buddy, I’ll just finish my shift all alone and vulnerable after hearing those worrisome news reports!!”
Yeah - you aren’t making it to the next scene. Snore!!!!
well he might make it to the next scene but camera will zoom to his face as the volcano nearby throws a huge boulder of lava at him.
I forgot to say this before. But the biggest one is stupid showcases of Plot Armor. It's not like I want every main character to die immediately (Looking at you, GOT), but if you're a human, you can't survive a direct hit from an artillery shell or something.
Everytime they have a character that mentions they are atheist, you know somewhere before the end of it there's going to be a religious character harpin on it. Then there's going to be some 'maybe there is a god moment'. It is like none of the people involved in the movie production have never met a single person who just doesn't believe in a deity. Very angry making.
Gun battles in populated areas, where only the bad guys get hit. No stray bullets, no bullets going through people, no mass injuries and deaths of innocents.
I am not sure if this counts but inconsistent time travel rules, other inconsistencies too but mostly time travel.
🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨
For example: In Avengers Endgame, Captain America time travels to return the infinity stones and then he appears sitting down nearby, they already established that changes to the past don't carry over to the future, I don't remember an explanation but feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Where the zombie (etc.) is never allowed to be with human (etc.) they find that they are both different then their 'kind, and both don't fit in...And then suddenly they are in love and are ready to take on the world together. LIKE WHAT THE HECKKK??!!!
I cannot stand 'pair of spares' where a couple background characters get smooshed together because everyone else haaaad to be in a romance. Mostly, though, I HATE all the dark dark dark dark dark and brown movies. Like someone said once when asked why LotR's night battles were so well lit compared to Game of Thrones and how unrealistic that was: The light comes from the same place the music does.
Asteroid fields in sf flicks with asteroids crammed together like folks on a new york sidewalk.
omg this is so true like they're not inches apart omg
Load More Replies... Also , why are cats always bad and dogs always good in american movies!?!
I cannot stand 'pair of spares' where a couple background characters get smooshed together because everyone else haaaad to be in a romance. Mostly, though, I HATE all the dark dark dark dark dark and brown movies. Like someone said once when asked why LotR's night battles were so well lit compared to Game of Thrones and how unrealistic that was: The light comes from the same place the music does.
Asteroid fields in sf flicks with asteroids crammed together like folks on a new york sidewalk.
omg this is so true like they're not inches apart omg
Load More Replies... Also , why are cats always bad and dogs always good in american movies!?!
