Tropes you hate

[Hobbes]

Thinking about Rebel Moon's thread, what are tropes you hate that immediately take you out of whatever medium you are engaged in?  This isn't to say that these tropes can't be well done, but more often than not they are just stupid.

1.  The guy behind the guy behind the guy.   Asimov's Foundation trilogy is one of the best trilogies ever.  But later books (written like 40 years later) keep showing someone you never heard of manipulated the foundation and later someone you never heard of was manipulating that.  Which brings me to a second point....

2.  The bad guy was someone you never heard of/ subverting expectations/ going against the narrative and journey you have took your audience on.   The last Foundation books undid Hari Seldon's work, the ST took away Vader's arc, etc. 

3.  In sci fi random people that love 18th century poetry and classical music.  The book Hyperion is one of my favorites books of all time, but I am sorry, no one hundreds of years from now is going to start a city based off the works of John Keats. 

4.  Again, in sci fi, the use of animals in battle or riding or execute Jedi or whatever when a robot will do just fine without telling us why you can't just ride a speeder. 

[captainbleh]

One trope I rarely like any more is chosen ones and prophecies

 

[Tank]

I was just texting a friend that Rebel Moon is ALL THE TROPES EVER.

The ones you guys have said are all on my list for sure. I'm so tired of Dr. Who visiting Victorian England. There has to be at least 8 of hims running around there. 

1. I'm totally over any type of hero's journey. It's been played out to death-- specifically the Campbellian call to action/mentor/hero realizing who they are thing.

2. Villains whose only goal is to rule/dominate all. This isn't a real motivation anymore and rings hollow.

3. Plots that hinge on prophecies tied to a chosen one or savior.

4. Villains being caught on purpose as part of their grand plan

5. Characters that are obviously placed in a story just to die to get the villain over

6. Kinda horror specific, but I am tired of the many tropes the Scream franchise has shone a light on still being used in other films that don't make an effort to update or spin said tropes. things like final girls being innocent, masked killer switchers, the best friend or angry parent figure being a killer, etc.

And these aren't tropes as much as they are short cuts or cliches-- and we've done a thread on this, but I will turn off any show or movie if somebody finds the keys to a car that isn't theirs in the visor, OR, if there's a order scene and the detective shows up and says to the beat cop on the scene "What've we got?"

Also, if you guys are interested, I have a great collected list of these things I posted on twitter that come from readers and development people, things they see as a red flags when reading spec scripts.

[Darth Krawlie]

I’ve said this one before, most recently in a Star Wars thread about Yoda: the mentor who knows everything the hero needs to know, refuses to tell them the most key and helpful details, berates the hero for not knowing what he couldn’t possibly know without being told, and then expects an apology and endless praise once the hero wins. Fuck Yoda.

[Zathras]

Pretty much everything said before this post, plus:

1. Time travel (done to DEATH!)

2. Alternate reality/parallel universe (usually our heroes trapped there)

3. Evil twins (or clones, alternate reality dopplgangers, evil prototypes, etc)

4.  Spunky, sarcastic quippy teenager character who knows all that exists in the story just to make the adult characters look like idiots or dicks. 

5. A movie with a plot device where a character explains it by referring to another movie with a similar plot device (IE Office Space referencing Superman III), usually in a quippy or whimsical way.

6. Diminutive or petite female characters who regularly toss around linebacker sized male characters with no explanation for defying the laws of physics.

7. Remakes that suck

[Tank]

3 hours ago, Zathras said:

5. A movie with a plot device where a character explains it by referring to another movie with a similar plot device (IE Office Space referencing Superman III), usually in a quippy or whimsical way.

Marvel really red-lined this one by mentioning Star Wars in Civil War, and every major time travel movie ever in Endgame.

[Zathras]

Yeah lines like that pull me right out of the movie.  

[Hobbes]

18 hours ago, Tank said:

Marvel really red-lined this one by mentioning Star Wars in Civil War, and every major time travel movie ever in Endgame.

 This reminds me of two other tropes I hate--and I am looking at you MCU.

1.  I hate how all the characters in the MCU try to outsnark each other--stupid jokes--even in the middle of combat.

2.  Having a big battle and not one hero dies--I am looking at you Endgame (okay Iron Man dies but you know what I mean). 

[Darth Krawlie]

As a big MCU fan, I really really agree with the first one. I'm super tired of snark.

I can let the second one go more often than not, but I get it. Eli and I started watching LOTR yesterday and I'm excited by the fact that he seems really into it this time--but thinking about it, the only significant characters who die are Boromir and Theoden, and yet they're constantly talking about how there's no hope, evil will win, they'll all die, etc. I understand that's a major theme of the whole series, but for that to really hit home, more than two major characters should bite it (okay Gandalf dies too, but he also comes back so that doesn't count).

[The Choc]

I love the LOTR books but its an issue there too. Its like "hey the good guys won at Helms Deep" ok well thats just a minor battle compared to whats coming at Pelennor Fields. Well the good guys win that. Well still wait till ya get to the Black Gate, thats when it gets hard. The bad guys keep losing but its constantly just like "oh well the real hard battle is next."

[Odine]

I don't know if it's a trope or just shitty writing.. but I hate series where they add twist after twist after twist. It happens a lot in edgy netflix crime dramas.. but wait here's another twist, and anoyher twist, and before you know it all logic and plot is tied up in knots 

[R.CAllen]

There’s lots of things in art I dislike. I’m just not sure they necessarily count as tropes. Shoddy craftsmanship, failed attempts at profundity, the apparently unthinking regurgitation of idées reçues, unfunny humour, unsexy titillation, unthrilling action, the elevation of structure above style and substance, when I have a longstanding grudge against whomever made the art because reasons, I could go on.

 

But, I have a confession to make. I don’t know what a trope is. What’s a trope? What isn’t a trope? When it comes to art — when it comes to a lot of things! — I like it when things are good and don’t like it when things are bad. If the thing is good I don’t care what the thing is. I don’t care if I’ve seen it before. I don’t care if I’ll see it again. I’m not going to complain that I’m getting too much of a good thing.

 

It can be the hoariest cliché but if it’s well executed I’m going to clap, I’m going to hoot, I’m going to holler. Oh, an anvil fell on your head and three bumps have grown atop your scalp and you go cross-eyed and stumble about in a daze as little baby blue birds fly in elegant pirouettes around you as they chirp and tweet? Hell yeah! Oh, you’ve disabled the bomb when it was just moments away from exploding? Hell yeah! Oh, you’ve just this very day turned eighteen and you’ve ordered pizza from the pizza parlour but have no cash on hand to tip the delivery driver? Hell yeah!

 

I come to this stuff with an open heart. My eyes aren’t closed. My ears are clear. Show me what you can do with what there is! They say that it’s a poor carpenter what blames his tools but as far as I’m concerned I’m a customer and what kind of, uh, tool would exchange the pleasure of sitting at a well wrought table for the meagre joys of pointing at various tools in a toolbox and excitedly declaiming “That’s a bad tool. I have seen this tool before.” Not me! There are only so many tools!

 

Look. I don’t want to go all the way with this and decry the malign influence of Television Tropes Dot Organization on the world or whatever. It’s a nice wiki. I’ve had fun looking at its pages. Sure! I just don’t think there’s much of anything fun for me — the world’s most important person, as we all well know, the man whose opinions REALLY MATTER! — in cataloguing all the ways art can be familiar.

 

Please don’t mistake this stance as some kind of dumb dumb ‘never yuck a yum’ ‘let people enjoy things’ ‘Josh Radnor from How I Met Your Mother (‘05-’14) took some of his sitcom money and paid an Olsen Triplet to mouth his dumb words’ sort of deal. I am all about yucking other people’s yums! If I could stop other people from enjoying things — I can’t! — you know I would. I dislike Josh Radnor!!!1!! What’s my point? My point is I’m describing the way I feel about things. If other people feel differently, sure, go ahead and talk about the tropes you can’t stand. Do you need my permission? If so, you have it. If not, fly free!

[Quetzalcoatl]

When the entire story is magically erased at the end.  We’re made to believe the stakes are high, but ultimately nothing you saw mattered because it all got undone.  They show us something and really play it up, and then yell psych.  A good example is the Prince of Persia movie that came out around a decade ago.  The characters were after some magical artifact that could turn back time.  At the end it was used to reset everything.  So nothing you saw for the past two hours mattered because it all got erased.  Sitcoms used to do this a lot too when you find out a character was dreaming the whole time.  Always bugged the hell out of me.

[Rogue 3]

Urrgh yes - the big reset button. With you there pal - hate it!

[RUAJedi2]

The single overweight person in a movie is always dumb, comic relief, or both.

Outrunning explosions. Or,my personal favorite, in The Mummy Returns, characters outrace the rising sun.

And have you just experienced the most godawful, heart wrenching loss? Viewers can tell because you shed one single, perfect tear.

[Gamevet]

On 12/29/2023 at 10:31 AM, Quetzalcoatl said:

When the entire story is magically erased at the end.  We’re made to believe the stakes are high, but ultimately nothing you saw mattered because it all got undone.  They show us something and really play it up, and then yell psych.  A good example is the Prince of Persia movie that came out around a decade ago.  The characters were after some magical artifact that could turn back time.  At the end it was used to reset everything.  So nothing you saw for the past two hours mattered because it all got erased.  Sitcoms used to do this a lot too when you find out a character was dreaming the whole time.  Always bugged the hell out of me.

This is exactly what I'd thought when I watched the ending of Identity. I argued that the ending was horrible, because none of the event actually happened. A friend thought that it was a great ending.

[Hobbes]

One warrior killing dozens of enemies in a sword fight, especially when it is a movie set in antiquity.

Missiles doing nothing against Hulk or Iron Man or whatever. 

Technology that is completely out of the realm of human capability and is against fundamental laws on the universe.  I understand Iron Man has this super power source, but where is all the heat going?  And in Infinity Wars the suit is self-assembling nano robots??

Unlimited ammo 

[CoLA]

A couple that bother me:

 

The smart person wears glasses! What is up with this? I personally know plenty of very dumb people who wear glasses LOL. Bad Batch and the new TMNT were both guilty of this. There are ways of showing a character is the smart one without some lenses on their face.

 

Also, a tense moment in a horror movie where you expect a killer or some such to pop out only for it to be a cat.

[Darth Krawlie]

I never understood how poor eyesight = smart ever started anyway

[Jacen123]

Well, no shit.  That’s because you don’t have glasses, man.

[Darth Krawlie]

ACTUALLY I DO NOW I've gotten old

[Tank]

10 hours ago, CoLA said:

Also, a tense moment in a horror movie where you expect a killer or some such to pop out only for it to be a cat.

Watch it!

[Jacen123]

2 hours ago, Darth Krawlie said:

ACTUALLY I DO NOW I've gotten old

So now you’ve just forgotten why.

[Zathras]

Here's a few more I thought of:

1.  The girl, much of the time blind, who doesn't know she is hot.

2.  Getting shot in one scene, usually the arm or shoulder, and the next scene our hero is kicking ass like nothing happened.

3. Someone has a dream that foreshadows the rest of the movie.

4. Girls who suffer some trauma and then cut all their hair off to signify...Change?

5.  Someone yelling "I've got your six,"  "I've got a bad feeling about this,"  "There's no time to explain"  or "We have company!"

6.  Computer hacking, usually  a snarky teen who is quippy.

7. Geniuses who seem to know everything about everything. 

 

[Darth Krawlie]

Oh god, dreams are the worst. Bad in movies/shows, but absolutely awful in books.