Movie pet peeves

zegh8578

zegh8578

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I'm not expecting this to become the messiah of epic threads, but let's see if we have some of these in common

One irksome thing is how movies will emphasize the relevance of one person in a too revealing manner, for example - that one journalist who works night and day to solve a riddle, contrary to all his lazy coworkers who're just fine sitting at home jerking off

The movie is letting us know how diligent this one particular person must be, preparing us for the relevance he will have for later on.

Similar to this, but much more of a cliche, is the protagonist who will never ever take a damn day off, even when his boss orders him to (particularily police dramas). People who adhere to weekends are obviously not to be trusted with important matters :V
It's obviously a narrative short-cut to portray someone who takes his job seriously, as opposed to every last other one of his useless collegues, who actually go home to sleep.

Another example of our-protagonists-are-better-people is in disaster scenarios, in particular the sad, defeated ending. You see this in some movies, such as "Deep Impact", where - every other whoever will run in circles, screaming, panicking, wasting their pitiful last seconds doing pitiful nonsense, screaming garbage, wetting their pants - IN STARK CONTRAST to our protagonists, who stand tall, hold hands, maybe silently embrace, eyes closed, meditative almost. They know their end is coming, and they are accepting it with dignity. DIGNITY! Our protagonists!
I'd like to see it reversed. All other bystanders being all dignified in their end, eyes closed, meaningful embrace with family, while protagonists are curled up in a corner, eyes bleeding, screaming non stop, yellow puddle growing around them

I get that these effects are there to make the protagonist stand out, but it's very recognizable.

Unrelated to this, a serious pet peeve is when a movie features any kind of loud alarm, to the point of my tv simply reproducing that alarm. I immediately worry for my neighbors, I rush to turn the volume down... The worst example of this is the fire alarm scene in Mulholland Drive. For humorous effect, the scene is also very drawn out, with the fire-alarm being both loud and long lasting

Anyway, there's plenty more, in particular minor things, but I'll let you guys beat me to them :V
 
In movies about a discovery or invention of some kind, I always hate how they portray the act of developmen and inention as a singular big moment instead of a long process. I get they need an Eureka moment in a movie, but this kinda shit is always so sappy and stupid, and when a "biopic" employs it it always removes all authticity. It also tends to have the effect of making truly intelligent and inspiring historical figures just seem like doofuses who lucked out and the thing invented itself.
 
Walpknut said:
In movies about a discovery or invention of some kind, I always hate how they portray the act of developmen and inention as a singular big moment instead of a long process. I get they need an Eureka moment in a movie, but this kinda shit is always so sappy and stupid, and when a "biopic" employs it it always removes all authticity. It also tends to have the effect of making truly intelligent and inspiring historical figures just seem like doofuses who lucked out and the thing invented itself.
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Oh yeah, and that reminds me of the casual explanation scene, for example, cops going "wait a moment, DNA? What is that!?" or cosmonauts needing a moment to have someone explain space travel to them, preferably WHILE they're space-travelling

This kind of exposition is tricky either way, I guess they could cram in some complete random doofus, like the floor mopper interrupting their meeting "whaaa!? Bend space!? That sounds crazy!", but then I'd complain how all these movies have floor moppers barging in on important meetings.
I guess the best course is to simply avoid much of this forced exposition, and let the audience assume that space travel is amazing - as well as to continue assuming cosmonauts know what they're supposed to be doing
 
Guns in movies/TV have got to be my biggest. My wife says she can see me cringe during certain things.

Oh what's that the 2 biker gangs are unloading on each other with a bunch of full-auto AK's in the US, yep the bullshit flows. Completely silent silencers, magic magazines that never end, Captain America calling a bunch of M4's AR-15's even though they are clearly full-auto. Pretty much everything involved with guns in movies/TV is wrong but makes for better "entertainment" I guess.
 
GonZo_626 said:
Guns in movies/TV have got to be my biggest. My wife says she can see me cringe during certain things.

Oh what's that the 2 biker gangs are unloading on each other with a bunch of full-auto AK's in the US, yep the bullshit flows. Completely silent silencers, magic magazines that never end, Captain America calling a bunch of M4's AR-15's even though they are clearly full-auto. Pretty much everything involved with guns in movies/TV is wrong but makes for better "entertainment" I guess.
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Oh yeah, the guns are too much to even list. Watched all of "Narcos", everyone recommended. I just sat there twitching to all the 90s and even newer model guns appearing in the supposed 70s

I am also a bit... "sensitive" to any overblown event in action movies - that try to appear realistic. For realism, you always gotta base it in reality. Afaik, the "north hollywood bank heist" is one of the most spectacular public shootouts in modern US history, but if we were to believe movies, that kind of calibre shit happens every other day - SO - when I see something that calibre in a movie, I'm allready sighing a bit, even if it kind of is unavoidable in action genres.

Much moreso for my own country, Norway. Action movie? Having high speed chases, ramp-jumps, shooting and explosions - in Norway? Hah!
Then again, obviously - what are Norwegians to do? NEVER make action movies?
 
main characters are good-looking. always.

it bothers me even more in novels. if there's a female character, the narrator always, and i say always must tell us she's pretty. even if it's absolutely insignificant
 
mef said:
main characters are good-looking. always.

it bothers me even more in novels. if there's a female character, the narrator always, and i say always must tell us she's pretty. even if it's absolutely insignificant
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While I agree with movies for the most part, I have to argue the books just due to A song of Ice and fire. Brienne of Tarth was described in the books as being too tall and not all that good looking. This is the first that pops into my head but I am sure of others out there.
 
Casting is often too obvious, yes, where evil people look evil and so on

Some directors tend to be deliberate about avoiding this though, take Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, in which both feature protagonists with odd and particular faces. This is for believability and immersion, you much more believe those lads to be troops, than you'd believe in a bunch of Johnny Depps, but apart from just believability, I simply appreciate seeing "non hotties" in these kind of protagonist parts.
 
zegh8578 said:
Casting is often too obvious, yes, where evil people look evil and so on

Some directors tend to be deliberate about avoiding this though, take Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, in which both feature protagonists with odd and particular faces. This is for believability and immersion, you much more believe those lads to be troops, than you'd believe in a bunch of Johnny Depps, but apart from just believability, I simply appreciate seeing "non hotties" in these kind of protagonist parts.
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Matt Damon IMHO does have a pretty typical 'Hollywood-handsome' face though, and those perfect perly white teeth. Lot's of close ups of his face in the movie too. Back in the 30's and 40's I'm not sure if people in general had such perfect teeth. Less sugar in the diet, maybe but also less super dentists around.
 
MutantScalper said:
Matt Damon IMHO does have a pretty typical 'Hollywood-handsome' face though, and those perfect perly white teeth. Lot's of close ups of his face in the movie too. Back in the 30's and 40's I'm not sure if people in general had such perfect teeth. Less sugar in the diet, maybe but also less super dentists around.
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Idunno, I didn't really see that, other than - for realism - a cast can't look all dumb either, there has to be SOME "lookers" in the mix.
Also, I've heard - from chicks - that Matt Damon has that "mildly retarded in a hot way"-look (the hell does that even mean)

Oh, back to topic - I just thought of how SOME movies will ruin details in other movies, by being deliberately realistic - and pointing it out for you: In the Norwegian true-story heist movie "Nokas", the robbers are complaining about movies like "Heat" how they'll fill money bags and run off with them, exclaiming "what kinds of bills are those then? You fill a gym bag with money, you'll struggle to even lift it!"

The movie shows these robbers deliberately quarter-filling gym bags with money, in order to prevent the bags from becoming too heavy to lift quickly. Outside the bank, they have a designated "thrower", whos entire job during the heist is to grab money bags, swing them around himself for momentum, and fling them up above a wall

Ever since, I notice whenever movie-crooks run around with big, fat bags of anything. Shit, in some movies they casually run around with gold bars in bags!
 
Compressed timelines in Prequels. The original movies imply a character's colorful past of adventure by telling us of some of their coolest achievements, they don't outright say it but you assume those were just the highlights of their adventures and that they had a lot of other big achievements. Then the prequel comes, all those stories they told in the original? They all happened at the same time, in the same context, in one adventure that usually also happens to be their FIRST adventure, you are then left to assume they spent the rest of their careers doing jack shit because they only talk about their first adventure.
 
I would say unbelievable behaviour and circumstances.

It's a bit difficult to describe it really and sometimes it's rather small and sometimes a big issue. Like when characters act in absolutely idiotic ways, not because they are idiots, but because the plot demants it. For example, scientists acting like morons ignoring everything they've tought or should know, like taking your helmet off in unknown and potentially hostile environments, like in Prometheus. This really almost killed the movie for me, because this kind of behaviour is displayed constantly by the crew. Or when someone simply has to enter a completely dark room for some reason, alone, in a creepy situation, even though there is no real reason for it. It is also not only limited to behaviour. For example, I think movies are in general way to bright. Darkness never feels like actuall darkness. I know, they want to make the actors visible, to let the audience know what's happening and so on. But sometimes it actually is doing the opposite, and throwing me out of the movie. One of the reasons why I really liked the X-Files and most of the old episodes was because it felt believable. I mean not always of course, but the Universe the TV series was set in was for the most part consistent - The Movie was absolute shit though.
 
Crni Vuk said:
I would say unbelievable behaviour and circumstances.

It's a bit difficult to describe it really and sometimes it's rather small and sometimes a big issue. Like when characters act in absolutely idiotic ways, not because they are idiots, but because the plot demants it. For example, scientists acting like morons ignoring everything they've tought or should know, like taking your helmet off in unknown and potentially hostile environments, like in Prometheus. This really almost killed the movie for me, because this kind of behaviour is displayed constantly by the crew. Or when someone simply has to enter a completely dark room for some reason, alone, in a creepy situation, even though there is no real reason for it. It is also not only limited to behaviour. For example, I think movies are in general way to bright. Darkness never feels like actuall darkness. I know, they want to make the actors visible, to let the audience know what's happening and so on. But sometimes it actually is doing the opposite, and throwing me out of the movie. One of the reasons why I really liked the X-Files and most of the old episodes was because it felt believable. I mean not always of course, but the Universe the TV series was set in was for the most part consistent - The Movie was absolute shit though.
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A lot of that comes from poor research on the part of writers and directors and such
Rare times you hear of actors sometimes insisting on changing scenes or behaviors to make it more realistic
Other times, yes, it's to do with plot

A VERY common thing is lack of proper protocol, such as - cops never doing their paperwork (remedied in "Hot Fuzz") or crime scene investigators (cough, CSI... ) never wearing protective gear, such as plastic slippers and face masks (humorously remedied again in "Hot Fuzz")

There are other minor elements that are like... if you were to make it realistic, the audience would consider it unrealistic, so to please the viewers, you have to cater to their expectations. Good example here us gunshot wounds, people get these tidy little match-with-expectation blood-smear on their shirt - as opposed to the absolutely excessive river of blood that would be much more realistic. In crime scene descriptions, I've read about whole livingroom floors covered corner to corner in blood. THAT much blood - in a movie shootout scene - would appear completely exaggerated, despite being way more realistic than just some scattered droplets.
 
My pet peeves in movies:
1) When someone is framed and on the run from the shady government, and the obvious solution is to document your case, contact a good lawyer, send video to a trusted reporter (or several), and turn yourself in - instead of fighting cops as you flee across the country leaving a wake of destruction. [Obviously this assumes that there is some amount of the rule of law at play in your country, which is not always the case - but is probably true in all but 40 or so countries].

2) Motivations not being established before decisions are made on screen. This especially ties in with fight scenes (I want to know what the protagonist and the antagonist are each fighting for before I care about how good they are at fighting). This also applies to double-crosses, acts of cruelty, acts of kindness, and people deciding to throw caution to the wind.
 
iridium_ionizer said:
My pet peeves in movies:
1) When someone is framed and on the run from the shady government, and the obvious solution is to document your case, contact a good lawyer, send video to a trusted reporter (or several), and turn yourself in - instead of fighting cops as you flee across the country leaving a wake of destruction. [Obviously this assumes that there is some amount of the rule of law at play in your country, which is not always the case - but is probably true in all but 40 or so countries].
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This reminds me of the unecesary-lie scenario. Someone might be confronted with something, and their response is to stutter and insist to know nothing, when coming clean might resolve everything there and then (albeit get them into a slight bit of trouble)

The rational option would pretty much end the movie, while the annoying option allows the conflict to develop and the movie to continue, but you now got a whole movie built on the irrational stupidity of the protagonist. Nrgh.

Similar also to the almighty "misunderstaaanding!" where _one, short conversation_ will make everybody happy, but they will NOT have that conversation, instead they will continue acting on the initial misunderstanding and continue a completely baseless conflict

In your scenario, the protagonist turning himself in would just end the movie. Instead the protagonist flees across valleys and over the hills, and you got a whole movie about it... :D
 
zegh8578 said:
The rational option would pretty much end the movie...
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If the rational option would end the movie, then the writers should have made the initial scenario more compelling, made the protagonist irrational (which usually doesn't work), or made some surprising complications.
zegh8578 said:
In your scenario, the protagonist turning himself in would just end the movie. Instead the protagonist flees across valleys and over the hills, and you got a whole movie about it... :D
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To me its okay when they are being chased by a shadowy organization that is not afraid to break the rules (see Haywire or the Bourne Identity), but is a bit ridiculous if its a bunch straight arrow cops / FBI. An interesting twist was 16 Blocks, where the witness just has to get to the courthouse alive (note that this plays over a few hours not days).
 
Aurelius Of Phoenix said:
(Smart bro gives Over exagerated explanation.)
Average Joe: "In English Please."
EVERY FUCKING TIME!
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"Mmmmister sciiiientist!"

Also whenever cops go "D. N. A.? What - pray tell - is this strange concept you speak of?" followed by some generic "blueprint"-exlanation
as well as astronauts - *while on a mission* - needing their "science guy" (if he is, wtf are they!? Oh yes, oil platform workers... ) to explain what they're doing, while they're doing it
 
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