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Overused Movie Plot Devices


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Really busy chick needs to take time out to smell the roses and fall in love.

Training someone to be 'cool'

Running montages where the guy looks to be in the exact same condition at the end, yet can somehow run really fast and for much longer

When the actual bad guy is found out in the presence of the hero, he or she completely changes personality to become some sort of super sinister psycho

Stringing together a bunch of lame toilet humor and nut shots, then calling it "_____ Movie"

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- Fat geeky computer whiz says something like "That's a blurry, pixelated imaged from a grainy b&w video. But I could put it through a spectal facial analyzer and have it spacially transfigure similar pixel colors based on facial characteristics...there are no guarantees, though."

- 10 minutes before the movie ends, the fat geeky computer whiz comes back to the hero with a damn-near crystal clear image of the killer.

Seen 'No Way Out' lately? Though the bad guy is the one getting help from the Pentagon computer geek. lol

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Car chase seen where good guy is chased by a dozen+ bad guys and is always able to make the crazy jump/turn/manuever to get away...that or a truck drives by behind him blocking off the path.

Fight scene between hero and villain where hero is about to die, but has some kind of flashback to the past and motivates him to suddenly kick ass.

Bunch of totally useless henchmen always outsmarted by one or few super smart heroes.

Guy falls in love with a girl who has a douchebag boyfriend/husband.

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-Woman who was told to "Wait in the car" comes inside anyway and saves the hero just when the bad guy is about to get him

-Bad guy is about to kill good guy when he gets shot (Usually in back) and falls over slowly to reveal the person who shot him from behind (Who we thought was dead, a bad guy, or someone who was suppose to "Wait in the car".

-Good guys has a huge team (Swat team, Army, etc...) and goes blasting in against Bad guys large team, only to result in just the good guy and bad guy chasing each other at the end.

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The John Cena Plot:

- Hero in position of authority

- Hero's girl is kidnapped by bad guy

- Hero jumps throught hoops to get bad guy and save girl

Now you don't have to see the Marine or the cop movie Marine rebuff "12 Rounds"

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Romantic Comedies...

Right after the two lovers decide they want to be together, there is a classic misunderstanding that takes up 15 minutes of air time. Due to this misunderstanding, one person (typically the man) has to come up with a grand gesture to win the other person back.

Never, and I mean never, do they just explain the misunderstanding.

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Guy's girlfriend/fiance/wife/family gets murdered by evil gang. Guy is usually beat to within an inch of his life as well. Guy spends months becoming a badass and learning how to shoot a gun and hunts down killers one by one.
I think that one may have been made popular by Steven Seagal in Hard to Kill.
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Old school guy takes over a group of criminals/soldiers/athletes/assorted misfits and proceeds to whip them into shape so they can defy all odds and win.

See:

Dirty Dozen

Hoosiers

Heartbreak Ridge

Longest Yard

Major Pane

etc.

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Guy's girlfriend/fiance/wife/family gets murdered by evil gang. Guy is usually beat to within an inch of his life as well. Guy spends months becoming a badass and learning how to shoot a gun and hunts down killers one by one.

That was great when the flipped the roles and had Jodie Foster hunting down the gang in "The Brave One."

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Forrest Gump - you dropped your book, apple, running and face wipe.

Harry Potter - every scene except the last 9 seconds.

Star Wars - gets in the starfighter in hanger accidentally turns it on and fires...

etc.

independence day drunk just happens to have the last missile and trajectory.

========================

hero accidentally saves the day OVER and Over again, at no point is he doing it out of his brilliance and training.

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one person slowly clapping (who claps like that?) builds to thunderous roar of applause

This irritates me to no end lol :mad:

I agree with you guys.

:applause:

:applause: :applause:

:applause: :applause: :applause:

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

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Columbian drug lords kid nap daughter, makes father kill diplomat as part of the ransom to get the daughter back. Father snaps dude neck, jumps out plane, kills a couple of bad guys, breaks into a gun store, gets arrested, gets free, steals a plane, kills army and drug lord, and gets daughter back...........all while using one liners like "he's dead tired" and "I let him go"!!!!

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Romantic Comedies...

Right after the two lovers decide they want to be together, there is a classic misunderstanding that takes up 15 minutes of air time. Due to this misunderstanding, one person (typically the man) has to come up with a grand gesture to win the other person back.

Never, and I mean never, do they just explain the misunderstanding.

This. I hate when there's a misunderstanding and they can't just explain it. You know in real life if some one thought you did something wrong, you'd interrupt them with a "NO I ****ING DIDN'T" but they never seem to be able to talk.

It also really irks me in movies when people are shooting guns and for some reason they just can't hit the target right in front of them....you've got like 50 guys shooting machine guns and none of them can hit the dude running away? REALLY?

And Cinderella stories are so annoying...poor/ugly/homeless/unpopular/loser kid some how turns into the rich/beautiful/popular/amazing person and now everyone thinks he/she is super cool....it's been done. A thousand times.

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The Spoiler: Team sucks all year, but has 1 inspirational game against a great team and spoils their winning season (was brought up on American Dad last night, lol).

Chick flicks are the absolute worst:

1) Girl and guy fall in love. One of them finds something out about the other, but doesn't get the whole story, they break up instead of just clarifying the situation, only to have the one that "messed up" do something zany at the end to win back the heart of the other.

2) Guy really likes girl. Girl doesn't like guy ("just friends" BS). Later on, girl likes guy but he's with other girl. Girl spends whole movie trying to get guy, and in the end she does because conveniently other girl didn't really love guy. (works with guy-girl reversal too).

3) Matthew McCauneghy can't get his life together.

4) Guy works real hard so he and struggling family can have a good life. He finally has success and the family and he are doing well. But because of the success it takes up more of his time and the family thinks he's a jerk because he's obligated to his work. Then the family leaves and father has to do something zany to get his family back, typically by leaving in the middle of his work presentation upon his convenient "epiphany." The family goes back to the way they were, but they are all happier. Eventhough the whole family wanted to change and live better, it's the fathers fault throughout the whole movie. I can't stand this specific plotline. The family didn't understand the consequences of their desires, but somehow the father is the jerk.

5) Girl lives her life. She runs into cute boy. Girl messes up her life and cute boy doesn't like her. Girl does something zany and her life is magically all better again and cute boy is back.

BTW, interpret zany as stupid and unrealistic.

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A few big ones:

1. Scared girl or effeminate guy who has never handled a gun before needs to use a gun to save or help out the hero, and kills every bad guy in the area by accident, usually by closing his/her eyes and firing, or dropping the gun which magically fires on it's own and kills everyone else in the room.

2. Magic computer program that isn't Windows based that some super genius hacker uses that accepts ingenious commands such as "upload virus" or "shut down power" or "transfer funds". Also, these machines don't have mice, hackers only ever use keyboards and don't type in code or computer languages they simply write out everything they want the computer to do in English and often slang English.

3. The one big gigantic piece of the plot's puzzle is some stupid trinket or object like a necklace that one of the characters has unknowingly carried around for years because they thought it looked cool, never realizing it's true meaning which is always to perform some extraordinary task.

4. Guns have infinite ammunition. Nobody ever needs to reload, or only reloads every 500000 shots.

5. Whenever you go to shoot somebody, even when you're trying to be stealthy, you need to **** the pistol you're holding or even worse, chamber a round. Nobody has double action pistols (a full trigger pull ****s and fires, or you can **** it on your own ahead of time), nobody is afraid of your loaded gun until you pull back the hammer to threaten information out of them, and for some reason in spite of the fact that the gun has already been fired without being re-loaded, after the main character says something cool they pull back the slide to chamber a round in spite of the fact that on a real gun a round has already been chambered and they are just expelling a perfectly good live round.

6. In the wake of a horrible virus outbreak that turns humans into zombies, a beloved best friend/significant other on the team of apocalyptic survivors is clearly infected and spends days getting sick and looking dead, none of which is in the least bit alarming to the members of said survivor team, the dying person's best friend or significant other knows they have been bitten but keeps the secret out of love until suddenly one of the leaders of the survivor group realizes "Joe" over there who has been feeling and looking a bit under the weather is found to be hiding a bad bite mark shortly before his eyes change color or something and he attacks everybody, usually killing at least 1 or 2 people, one of which is the person who kept his secret of being infected.

7. At the end of a long and suspenseful tale, the end of the film which the plot seemed to be heading towards is 100% abandoned and some ridiculous event happens that renders the last 2 hours fairly useless. All possible messages or lessons other than "wow what the hell was the point" or "that was ****ed up" are erased ala the ending to the departed which could have just been labeled "everybody dies".

8. M. Night Shyamalan flims that have twist endings. The village is a stupid amish-esque town and the monster is made up to scare people away from leaving. The aliens are water soluble, and god wants Mel Gibson to tell Joaquin Phoenix to swing a baseball bat. Bruce Willis is actually dead. Plant spores are causing people to kill themselves, etc.

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