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Worst action movie clichés


Starlord

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7 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

You guys and gals DO realize we play tabletop games, right :nya:? What are tabletop gaming sessions if not action movies with infinite budgets?

I had a saying in the nineties -- "Anything that appears in a roleplaying game is, by definition, a cliche."

 

Since then originality in RPGs has improved somewhat, although usually these are the more esoteric titles you see as a result of the PDF revolution. The example that leaps to mind is the Japanese game (translated into English) Golden Sky Stories, which uses a completely different paradigm in terms of setting and story design (The supplements are great too -- I highly recommend Fantasy Friends.) But the point stands the closer you get to the D&D/Pathfinder/GURPS mainstream. Everyone wants to play in something they can readily identify. In the case of Hero System, that usually means superheroes, who by definition can survive, thrive, and conquer in circumstances that utterly destroy normals.

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1 hour ago, death tribble said:

Which, thank you Badger, reminds me.

 

If you get shot or stabbed a lack of blood. Granted this was part of the Hays code amongst other things but still. 

Related to that is the need everyone perceives to pull out bullets or arrows, especially by themselves with nothing approaching suitable gear. This is a textbook example of what people whose professions make it likely they will go into combat (soldiers in particular, and to a lesser extent police) are trained not to do. If you try it, you're more than likely to bleed out and die. Instead, you leave it in and do everything you can (with the resources you have available) to staunch the already substantial bleeding and keep the wound clean until you can get to a hospital or other source of trained medical professionals. The bullet or arrow itself is not going to hurt you more than you've already been hurt. It can wait.

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You can whack someone upside the head with a baseball bat/pipe wrench/other heavy blunt object, and you only temporarily KO them at most.

 

A car can flip 15 times, skid upside down, and crash into a tree and the passengers will only be dazed for a few moments and have a few superficial injuries.

 

No matter how far you fall, so long as you land in water, you're fine.

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Yeah the "cop who breaks all the rules and is thrown off the force but solves the case anyway by killing all the suspects and destroying all the evidence in a cataclysmic series of explosions and fires" is my least favorite cliche.  Even in otherwise really well done cop movies, that tends to be the end, ruining the entire film.  I blame Die Hard, not so much for the film but because stupid writers and directors took all the wrong lessons from the movie.

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1 hour ago, Netzilla said:

 

To be honest, though, this doesn't bother me much as movies are a visual medium and a lot of real explosions wouldn't look like much on camera.

 

None of these cliches bother me any more than a Phillips head screwdriver bothers me or an awl bothers me. Everything has its place.

 

As for explosions? I've noticed that filmmakers are opting to accentuate simulated explosions with CGI shockwaves. This practice is fine by me ?.

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27 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

Heroes getting away with causing a lot of collateral damage that destroy people's homes, businesses, and special events. Bond is especially guilty of this one.

Isn't that the reason superheroes were outlawed in the Incredibles universe -- too much collateral damage caused by heroic actions that may "save the day" but lead to a lot of other problems, like people having to go to the hospital, major transportation arteries having to be rebuilt, and a horrible mess to be cleaned up?

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Hammer cocking noises every time someone raises a striker fired (i.e., hammerless . . .) pistol to threaten someone.

 

Threatening someone with a 1911 without the hammer being cocked.

 

Both of those in the same movie.

 

Racking a round into the chamber of a pistol every freaking time it's picked up or drawn. Often two or three times in a row. Thank goodness for infinite ammo.

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