I’ll go first. Mine is the instant knockout drug. Like Dexter’s intramuscular injection that causes someone to immediately be unconscious. Or in the movie Split where there’s the aerosol spray in your face that makes you instantly be unconscious. Or pretty much any time someone uses chloroform.
For that matter, when someone gets shot center mass and they collapse like Cypher just pulled them from the matrix
It’s preferable to people getting shot and flying across the room, like in a John Woo film.
I despise it when a character has had a long arch proving their worthy of what they do, and then it turns out late in the game they’re a chosen one or some shit. If you’ve been successfully fighting monsters for 15 books, going from a moderate combatant to a super mega awesome fucking wizard who wipes out an entire fucking species to save someone then you have proved your badass monster fighting chops, and you don’t need to be the chosen one. What made you awesome is that you were a (mostly) normal dude who became amazing through hard work and sacrifice. Now you’re just someone the gods chose or whatever and it completely ruins the entire concept of what the character was.
Two of my absolute favorite series of all time just recently did this, and I am devastated.
Is one of those the Dresden files?
Depends on if what I said would be a spoiler for you or not…
It would not. I’ve read everything that’s come out. Did you?
Yeah, unless there’s a new short story or something. Caught up on all the mainline stuff. Like I said, my least favorite trope. How did you feel about it? Still my number one ongoing series, but that just bugs me really badly
I’m an idiot that can’t get spoiler tags to work for some reason so sent pm
For all the others, read the Dresden files! Or get the audiobooks read by James Masters aka Spike from Buffy. He’s doing a phenomenal job, imo.
I love Marster’s reading of them. He’s freaking incredible
When the driver of a car is looking more at the passenger they’re talking to than the road. Probably a dead giveaway that the scene is shot with green screen or the car being towed on the back of a truck.
I used to hate it when people kept wobbling the steering wheel around when driving in a clearly straight road but then Top Gear had an episode featuring some American cars from the 1980s and constantly correcting the steering was necessary because there was so much loose play in the system!
Leaf spring suspension probably doesn’t help either…
My friend’s mom when I was a kid used to look at us in the back seat for minutes at a time while driving. She said she used the lines behind the car to stay in the lane. It scared the shit out of us, but somehow she never got into an accident. Granted, these were long, straight, country roads, not NYC streets.
What the hell 😳
For realz.
I’m glad there wasn’t any casualties. Right?
Nope. No accidents… somehow.
I mean with the complexity of shooting in a moving car I have to wonder if it’s ever done now.
On any union tv show or movie in the United States, all driving sequences are either in a studio shot with a green screen or a virtual stage, or they are shot with a “process trailer” where somebody else pulls the car.
It is very much illegal to have an actor “act” while driving, though in the low budget indie world you might find productions or cast willing to risk it in some way.
Indie movies and small budget movies, perhaps?
All they need to do to solve the problem is make sure to focus on the road. They don’t need to actually be driving, just act like they are driving by looking at the road more than their passenger.
Well that’s to solve the appearance, but I’m commenting with an actual physical car, on a closed road, being towed or not, etc. Don’t need the bother when you can green screen it.
Filmed in a real setting always looks less distracting than a green screen.
Hearing the exact wrong part of the conversation, and then making a horrific assumption and spinning off into zany misunderstandings instead of, just, “Hey, what did I just hear?”
“Wait! I can explain. Just hear me out!”
“Never!”
*runs out of the room and then actively hides from the character until it’s convenient for the plot that they finally listen
Such stupid writing
Cutting or stabbing through full plate armor with a sword. Why would anyone wear an armor that is easily cut or stabbed through?!
A lot of that sort of armor is more designed to deflect hits off of it. If someone can get a solid hit in, it’s possible to cut through it.
Which leads to another pet peeve of mine, which is armor that’s clearly designed in a way that it wouldn’t be good at deflecting hits. Particularly anything for women that has cups for the breasts.
Chain mail, maybe. Plate armour? Not a chance.
You had to go around the plates.
I don’t think cutting clran through chainmail is realistic - thrusting is very much so though!
An axe could presumably split into chainmail. Although I suppose it’s just as likely to just break whatever is behind it. It’s not a great armour for large blunt impacts.
Oh yeah, axe I can see. I was thinking swords.
Just like there were many forms of armour (plate was very expensive), there were many forms of hand weapons. And although the novels (3ven of the time) tended to romanticise the sword, it was mostly a secondary weapon, much like a handgun nowadays.
In real life it’s more like going after a man sized can of tuna, with the bastard child of an axe, a hammer, and a crowbar.
Whooshing rocket noise in space, people outrunning explosions, “hero”'s every shot a kill while “baddies” hit nothing.
I think monster should have rules. Zombies aren’t fast, there’s just so many they over take you. Dracula dies from a stake through the heart, and the Wolfman dies from a silver bullet
I’m okay with fast zombies as long as they are short-lived.
Like they should tear their own bodies apart and consume their own internal resources to be fast zombies until the point where they physically shut down and cannot operate anymore.
I have seen that in 28 Weeks later?
Funny, I just responded a similar response with 28 Days Later as an example and didn’t notice yours.
Interesting that you like the tropes. I like the fact that there’s some variation depending on your preference.
I like zombies that are infected and not reanimated. They’re fast but die from normal damage. 28 Days Later is one of my favorites and it’s a major point of emphasis.
The Walking Dead on the other hand is hard to take seriously sometimes because of the contrivances from slow moving zombies, and the fact that 10 year old zombies are still around bothers me. Although the idea of having a normal running society, but the dead reanimate is a very interesting concept that I would love to see explored.
Although the idea of having a normal running society, but the dead reanimate is a very interesting concept that I would love to see explored.
Not a show, but check out the Newsflesh trilogy by Mira Grant, that’s the exact concept the series is based on. Awesome read.
Zombies in the George Romero tradition are basically just animated through magic. Otherwise it would be a World War Z (book) situation where the zombies would eventually just decompose entirely.
I can get behind fast zombies that are infected, I’m with you there. But I can’t suspend disbelief if a rotting corpse out of the ground can run like Usain bolt. Side note I would like to see monster stories that follow traditional folklore that isn’t well known. Werewolves can revert to human through their true love and vampires can’t be seen in mirrors only because silver was used to make mirrors but not anymore so we should be able to see vampire reflections in some mirrors. I think that would be cool if made plot relevant
Van Helsing did the mirror thing which was cool. I think Dracula Dead and Loving It did too.
Side thought. I loved in From Dusk Til Dawn when they’re trying to think of all the folklore that they could remember. Like whether silver was supposed to hurt vampires too or just werewolves.
Another side thought, I love when they know about the monsters like in Shaun of the Dead. It always bothers me when it’s an alternate universe that’s never heard of Zombies before.
The Walking Dead (tv series at least) is a great example of inconsistency undermining the overall rules for their world. Instead of the danger of the dead overrunning everything from outside, the danger of the recently deceased causing an outbreak in any sizeable community was a far more interesting threat in that setting. But they only did that for a little bit and went back to the overwhelming masses of dead and ‘people are the real monsters’ over and over.
The expert who somehow knows all things science and engineering, like they’re all just basically the same. Just once I’d like to hear, “I’m an astrophysicist, not a cybersecurity expert. I don’t have the first clue where to begin hacking any computer, let alone an alien one that I’ve never seen before.”
Bonus points if the characters have to look for a different solution due to their lack of on-hand expertise in a particular area.
I’m a doctor not an astrophysicist!
My friend’s dad somehow seems to know everything about everything. He’s wicked smart though, and basically spends all of his time learning and doing stuff.
I just saw that in WandaVision. Darcy is an Astrophysicist but was also hacking through various firewalls to get at some secret data.
when they try to make you sympathize with an unredeemably evil character. like the mirror universe giorgieu in startrek discovery, who was literally “worse than hitler” but they decided they wanted upstanding dogooder characters to love her for some reason
Idiot balling. If your plot hinges on everyone suddenly being incompetent af, having the emotional maturity of a hamster or leaving out key details without reason, you fucking suck at writing
It doesn’t bother me so much when a character in a show has to take a turn with the idiot ball, but when a video game wants me to hold the idiot ball it really makes me want to stop playing. Recently I was checking out Fallen Leaf and the very first level ends with a character politely but firmly indicating that I can’t go further in this random cave I’m exploring, because there’s something dangerous stored there… while standing under a stalactite that the game clearly wants you to drop on them. No, god damn it, I am not going to commit murder just to unleash the ancient evil that I would clearly spend the rest of the game stopping. I can just quit here and not be a murderer and the world can stay safe.
I did not even humor it by hitting the stalactite to see what happens, I just pressed alt-F4 and went to play something else.
Honestly this is far more believable ever since Donald Trump became a viable politician. It sure does seem like there is no bottom to the well of human stupidity these days
I’m a lot more understanding of the dumb characters in zombie movies since covid
Having idiotic characters is one thing. Having otherwise-competent characters suddenly become idiotic because the plot doesn’t work otherwise is what’s bad.
Not quite a pet peeve, but close. The whole “We’re not in a (movie/show/game/whatever)!” type of dialogue.
That, or cliffhangers that will never be resolved due to the show/movie either being cancelled, discontinued, whatever. Looking at you, Sliders season 5 ending!
I see Sliders mentioned, I cry.
Star Trek is awful for this, but this conversation:
Subject Matter Expert: Oh no, the defences are down
Captain: How long do you need to fix them?
SME: Two hours
Captain: You have one
No, motherfucker, the person that you fucking PAY for their expertise on this very subject said it would take two hours!
Management is full of these cunts that think they can just dictate a timeline and have people that actually know their shit dance to their tune.
Hate to be that guy, but the federation exists in a post-money society. No one gets paid, they do what they do for prestige, pride, adventure, and the good of humanity. Maybe the management believe they can inspire their minions to do better, or maybe the SME’s are so used to that shit that they under promise and over deliver.
SME: “oh no, our defences are down” Captain: “How long do you need to fix them?” SME: (hmm, captain will cut the time in half, it takes about 15 minutes…fuck it…) “Two hours” Captain: “You have one” SME: (Like candy from a baby)
Software devs already do this IRL
Scotty literally talks about under promising intentionally so he comes across as a miracle worker.
“Okay so the installer says it’s got nine minutes left, so this step should take about three or four minutes”
Cue Scotty, Mr “miracle worker”, quadrupling his estimates:
And later, Torres explicitely not doing that.
Honestly this happens a lot. Generally people give estimates reflecting other responsibilities when cutting time is possible
But also if you know anything about engineering, it’s double your expected timeline just in case Shit Happens™️. I can fairly safely predict delivery in two hours. I might be able to deliver in one. Under-promise and over-deliver, or risk vice versa.
I always 7x. Especially if I’m dependent on others
Whenever the plot entirely revolves on avoidable misunderstandings from character that nothing in the story prevents from having a clarifying chat. It’s weak storytelling.
Also whenever the characters don’t react to enormous thing A because advancing the story requires them to immediately ask about thing B.
Lastly whenever you end up screaming at the tv “you have enough clues to call for backup” or “enough reason to worry to call 911” yet they proceed alone. Bad writing.
I feel like there’s a lot of script writers that want the emotional wrenchingness of “this character’s personality and history means that they will never see the simple solution” but have no idea how to actually pull it off.
Breaking Bad pulls this off wonderfully multiple times, where the “right” decision is right there but for the character to be able to do it, they couldn’t be who we’ve learned them to be so far.
But most directors amd scriptwriters are nowhere near that level.
avoidable misunderstandings
You didn’t watch a lot of Three’s Company, did you? :-D
“We don’t have time (to explain why were doing this)”
Proceeds to have time to do dozens of other useless things
The worst is when a show or movie establishes that X can’t be done, because Y. Then in a later scene X is done without addressing anything about Y. It’s actually pretty common, especially when run time needs to be padded with a side quest.
When there is a computer problem and they call some guy who presses like two keys and fixes it. Or when they type really fast and click a lot of things and then it fixes it.
Because of Hollywood way too many people believe that’s how you actually fix a computer or technology, and then when your boss sees you not clicking or typing that fast, your boss thinks you’re an idiot and don’t know what you’re doing. Thank you, Hollywood for brainwashing people.
Often we do press 2 keys and fix it. That’s what they see when tech support drops by so they thinks it’s magic and all fixes work like that.
Yup. That’s when I get the “what do we pay you for if it was that easy to fix?” … it was that easy to fix because I know what I’m doing!
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/
For reference, £10 in 1908 would be worth roughly $1000 today and there were 20s in a pound, so 10s would be worth about $50 today.
what do we pay you for if it was that easy to fix
The years of studying and ten years of experience required to know that those two keys would solve the problem.
