1. Reggie

    Reggie I Like 'Em hot "N Spicy Contributor

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    Movie Clichés

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Reggie, Apr 4, 2011.

    I am sure that most of you all saw the same movie ideas before, and some can be annoying, whille some can be fun to watch. And I'm sure that some watch movies that involving "gilrl meets boy," where the girl dumbs the boy and the boy tries to win her heart back." There are many movies with the same ideas. Here are some movie ideas I find overused, and ideas that loses originality.

    1. In action movies, the hero has to diffuse a bomb before it goes off. He has about 24 hours or so to stop it. At the end, he manages to stop the bomb, regardless of the obstacles he had to go through to stop the bomb.

    2. The hero wins in the movie.

    3. The antagonist wins in the movie. I’ve seen very few moves where both the protagonist and antagonist both come to an agreement and both win or lose the plot together.

    4. The protagonist manages to find the criminal.

    5. The protagonist has to go through a series of bad conflicts to get what he wants. For instance, if he or she loses his/her boyfriend/girlfriend, he will eventually get it back after he/she finally obtains the main goal. I don’t often see movies where the conflict involves a person wining a million dollars, and then his uncle gives him a million more dollars until he/she can no longer stand to get all that money and feels guilty for being greedy over money. Then, the greed is basically the only conflict, rather than having him/her to go through many bad conflicts to reach the conclusion of the movie.

    6. The move begins with “Voice over’s.”

    7. The hero disobeys his/her parents to get what he/she wants.


    What movies you find has the same ideas over and over? I find this thread usful for those wanting to write a movie. This can be for books and novels too.
     
  2. Gigi_GNR

    Gigi_GNR Guys, come on. WAFFLE-O. Contributor

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    Big-town guy/girl moves (usually unwillingly) to small town and falls in love with small-town girl/guy, conflict ensues, they end up together. The only movie I can think of that's good with that storyline is Cars.
     
  3. art

    art Contributor Contributor

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    Watched Unstoppable the other day. Denzel Washington trying to stop a runaway train. I chose to watch it knowing it would be, in every aspect, cliched. And oh it was, and oh it was good. If presented with polish and aplomb cliches are (predictably) effective.

    The cliche at the core of Unstoppable was: the wisdom of the common man, born of experience and unflashy, earthy intelligence trumps everything. Always.
     
  4. Porcupine

    Porcupine Member

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    I liked Brewster's millions for exactly that conflict over money.

    Oh yes. I am going to explode if I ever see another movie with this storyline again. There are so many movies that are exactly like this over and over and over again.
     
  5. Gigi_GNR

    Gigi_GNR Guys, come on. WAFFLE-O. Contributor

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    It's not really a plot, but I really dislike the Adam Sandler type of movie, which seems to be the same immature humor over and over again with the same cast and marginally different storylines. :rolleyes:
     
  6. Reggie

    Reggie I Like 'Em hot "N Spicy Contributor

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    I think that Liar, Liar is overly funny (that it isn't funny anymore). I mean, I find it unbelievable to see a character constantly acting all wild throughout the entire move. I still find the movie good though. They could just have made it better though.
     
  7. JTheGreat

    JTheGreat New Member

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    I've constantly seen a storyline where a "blithe spirit" (a character which is incredibly different than all the other ones) arrives in the story, and everyone loves him/her, and then there's a misunderstanding and all the characters feel betrayed by them, and then finally re-earning respect and learning a lesson. I'm not saying it's a bad storyline. It seems as though Disney Channel uses this method for almost every film, though XD.
     
  8. art

    art Contributor Contributor

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    Very common that one...and commonly delightful too. Seen to good effect in the recent TV movie (oh yes!) Mrs Miracle.:cool:
     
  9. jack744

    jack744 New Member

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    I love the action movie staple, whereby thousands of bad-guy bullets can fill the air and the worst the hero sustains is a flesh wound to the upper arm. Then, despite said injury, he uses his last few remaining rounds of ammunition to plug each and every one of them between the eyes with surgical accuracy. Die Hard and Lethal Weapon visited this buffet several times over!
     
  10. Ellipse

    Ellipse Contributor Contributor

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    Cars in the movies are so well made that they can survive a ten foot fall, crashing through giant mall windows, and smashing into numerous cars and still keep going without so much as a flat tire.

    Why can my car not do this? :mad:

    Also, you are watching a movie when a car crashes into a building or some other vehicle and it explodes in a giant fireball. I'm waiting for Hollywood to devolved to the point where it's like Family Guy. They show a bycicle crashing into the bushes and exploding into flames for no reason.
     
  11. NateSean

    NateSean Senior Member

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    Children and pets miraculously survive all live threatening obstacles that kill adults who are remarkably in the same situation moments earlier. Roland Emmerich and the Jurassic Park movies are big offenders in this regard. (Although to be fare, the T-Rex does eat the dog in Lost World)

    While I'm on the subject of Jurassic Park, a twenty-five foot dinosaur will chase five scrawny human beings that would be about as nourishing as if I were to spend a week eating gummy bears.

    Lets see, the "real" villain is usually the first guy you met in the beginning of the film. This happens in Pandorum, Whiteout, and pretty much any movie where Sean Bean plays a major role.

    Oh and Sean Bean always the bad guy.
     
  12. sadiemaddie

    sadiemaddie New Member

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    I think the vampire movies are over done. I just watched "Let me In" "Daywalkers" and "Twilight" and they all have the same plot, find the girl, find a watcher for the vampire, all mighty protector of the vampire, human or not and lets go ahead and add in this little tid bit "lets find a cure to being un-dead" way over kill
     
  13. Uhtred

    Uhtred New Member

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    The ones which seem to be the most annoying are the ones in which the hero, who in all aspects doesn't stand a chance, and is often already beaten, once seeing (or having flashbacks) his loved ones and somehow coming back to absolutely wipe the bad guy out...for example; Never Back Down, Rocky, Blade...
     
  14. NateSean

    NateSean Senior Member

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    I think you mean Daybreakers.

    And in it's defense, Daybreakers was actually the most original of the group. I thought it was a nice bit of reversal, having vampires statistically out numbering the humans and basically breeding themselves into a food shortage.

    I also loved the bits like the Ethan Hawke, the vampire, turning around and being surprised as the human apparently disappeared. When I saw that, I was in MST3K-mode and said, "Wow, I know I'm the vampire, but that actually surprised me."
     
  15. Gnarls

    Gnarls New Member

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    It's all the one liners like:

    'I'll be back,' meaning that really I'm facing impending death or

    'I should have killed you when I had the chance!' Most movies would last less than a few minutes if the hero/heroine actually picked up the knife and stabbed their attacker.
     
  16. aimi_aiko

    aimi_aiko New Member

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    Most used one in my opinion:

    Any movie that is supposed to be modern day based and realistic has plots and ideas that are much rather impossible to do or be done in real life.

    Remember the saying "stop living in a fantasy world, and start living reality"? Well, movies now-a-days are just our "fantasy world" escape plan as well as writing books and reading them as well.

    Though I am not complaining about such, I'm quite glad we have movies that provide impossible actions that many people aren't able to do in real life.

    Though I do find this a problem: these over-used plot ideas are so over-used that movie makers are running out of inspiring ideas. Is this why many movie makers are now taking real life experiences and novels as their idea base?
     
  17. NateSean

    NateSean Senior Member

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    Actually, what you have to remember is that most people in the movie industry are trying to make money. So if a movie based on the life of Jane Austin sells big, then it's reasonable to believe a movie about Peter Barre will too.

    If a movie with Tim Burton starring Johnny Depp as the lead (which about describes every Tim Burton movie that is not Beetlejuice) then another movie will be released shortly thereafter.

    Fans of the Lord of the Rings movies will undoubtedly follow suit with the Chronicles movies, etc.

    What I'm basically getting at is that if you want originality in the movie industry, you really have to look to the indie film market. These are the movies that were basically made on sweat, blood and hope and wouldn't be on the shelves if they didn't survive the film festivals.

    Clerks is one such movie.
     
  18. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    I'm sick of films that are just capitalizing on the success of a previous film. Mostly, sequels are like this, but films like Run Fatboy Run or Hot Fuzz are in this vain too. I don't think either of them are worth watching.
     
  19. Ellipse

    Ellipse Contributor Contributor

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    I'm sick of movies that rely on special effects to keep the audience interested. The live action Transformers movies, and Sucker Punch.

    I mean, in Transformers nobody cares about the parts with humans in it. Sucker Punch has interesting fight scenes, but that's it. If I just want to see pretty CG, I'll go play a video game.
     
    1 person likes this.
  20. aimi_aiko

    aimi_aiko New Member

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    You do have a point.
     
  21. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Yeah.

    Whenever I hear the character say something like "I'll be back", "I'll catch up", or anything like that, I know he/she is gonna die.
     

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