Another trope that usually annoys me in some science-fiction works, and to a lesser extent other forms of fiction:
All humans have to be shorter than other alien races with enhanced physicality. For example, they did cast the Big Show and Dwayne Johnson as other alien races to dwarf the human main cast, but not once did they ever pull a gigantic human that is just a plain and ordinary human vs your typical stronger-than-your-average-human alien like a Klingon. Not once have I ever seen a very human Big Show vs something like a Reptilian Xindi...to show that just plain ordinary humans can play on an even field with other alien races when it comes to physicality.
Andromeda kinda had that. Hulking human Dylan Hunt seemed routinely able to go toe-to-toe with massive Nietzscheans like Tyr & Rhade. I also liked that bit in
Thor where he fights that big SHIELD soldier and the SHIELD guy put up a pretty good fight. "You're big. I've fought bigger."
But good people are good looking and bad people are ugly, that is why I know I am a good person.
And if you don't believe me, a wise Watcher said so in ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''
"Liar."
The last Jurassic World movie, one of the good guys is a velociraptor. Extremely smart! She (it's a female) even anticipated an explosion... I had no idea she had a degree in chemistry!!!
No, just a degree in action movie cliches. We probably skipped all of the videos of Blue & Owen curled up on the couch watching Schwarzenegger flicks.
Speaking of
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom-- The bad guy conveniently forgot to lock his computer workstation, so the cute kid can easily stumble on the video outlining part of their evil plan.
OOoo, I remember another one, it's not specific to SFF, but it's one of my biggest. Characters keeping unnecessary secrets from each other just to manufacture drama.
Connected to this, characters spending lots of time & effort trying to conceal an unavoidable truth from a child. SEE Buffy hiding Joyce's illness from Dawn in Season 5 or EVERY SINGLE FREAKING SCENE WITH DAKOTA FANNING in
War of the Worlds!!!
One thing I've noticed in particular as I've been watching Buffy.
Selectively merciful monsters, who murder everybody they see without hesitation or remorse, but somehow know to leave the main characters unconscious or take them hostage.
Like, how many times do vampires massacre the group, take their hostages, then when Buffy gets back Xander is just waking up from being conked on the head, arteries intact.
Reminds me of the scene from "Redefinition" after Darla & Drusilla have massacred all of the Wolfram & Hart lawyers except Lindsey and he's convinced that he was spared because Darla really loves him, but then he found out that they also didn't kill Lilah for some reason.
Do they get paid more to be in make up? Do make up artists get paid more than wardrobe and hair? Does a silicon face piece cost more than a costume?
Firstly, while actors probably don't get paid more to be in make-up, it is time that they're being paid for when they're not in front of the cameras, so that's an expense that they generally want to minimize. Second, I don't know if the make-up artists get paid more than hair & wardrobe but their jobs are certainly more time consuming & labor intensive. Third, make-up prosthetics often can't be used more than once, making them often more expensive than costumes that can be reused & amortized.
It'd be interesting where they went with that premise. Where I'd go is that it made it into a game of telling the best technical truths about yourself and the worst technical truths about the other person. People creatively finding ways to create misinterpretation of things that are technically true using psychology. Like everything you say is planned like a commercial.
You just described 21st century political journalism in a nutshell.
Another trope I hate are characters that are "holier than thou" This isn't scifi but I've seen it in non SF shows and I find it annoying.
Watching Blue Bloods they have "holier than thou" characters and that is pretty much the whole Reagan family besides Linda.
I have watched the show from season 1 to 8 and my impression of the Reagans is that they are more then sometimes holier than thou and are always right and have the right answers, and are pompous asses. Yet I find myself strangely liking the show I don't know why.
Blue Bloods is the only modern TV series that my grandfather watches. Everything else is
Gunsmoke or something of that era. I suspect that the holier-than-thou attitudes are the main reason why he likes it so much. (That and the fact that they're all devout Catholics.)
All over the place. SG1 did it a number of times. I guess their main example would be the end of Season 8 or Continuum. In Moebius it wasn't quite some stranger telling them so much as a video of themselves, but they traveled to ancient Egypt, changed the timeline by mistake and then left a video telling themselves to put it right, flash-forward 4000 years and they go and do it. Why? Their history is their history, just because someone tells them it was different before doesn't mean they should automatically want to change it.
That's the examples I was thinking of. At least "Continuum" has General Landry calling them out on the arrogance of it before they then have to alter the timeline anyway because the alternate Earth gets invaded by Ba'al.
I get this, but then we also see men beating up people they really shouldn't be able to.
I was in a movie like that once. It was called
The Last Class and there's one scene where I use a chain to garrotte a 7ft tall black dude. The scene made no sense considering I was a scrawny pipsqueak and had to get on a step-stool just to be in the same frame with the guy. You can buy it on Amazon if you like.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GRTR5Q/ref=ox_sc_mini_detail?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A6C6GXSFQO6EN
