Annoying Movie Cliches/Problems

[archeryguy1701]

I've got a new one after watching Cloverfield last night. There's a car wreck, plane wreck, helicopter wreck, explosion, massacre, mass murder, poison gas, flood, major storm, or something else that kills everyone in an area, room or building. Except the heros. Every last person will die, but the heros will pull themselves out of the debris and wreckage with a few cuts and the usual broken leg.

 

[Trekker4747]

I've got a new one after watching Cloverfield last night. There's a car wreck, plane wreck, helicopter wreck, explosion, massacre, mass murder, poison gas, flood, major storm, or something else that kills everyone in an area, room or building. Except the heros. Every last person will die, but the heros will pull themselves out of the debris and wreckage with a few cuts and the usual broken leg.

To quote Kevin Murphy in the Cloverfield Rifftrax regarding the pilot of the helicopter, "Man. The guy might as well have been wearing a red shirt."

 

[Gojirob]

Here's one : A confused character turning to the person all common sense and logic and their own knowledge says not to turn to, in asking about an important decision.

"Tonight I leave my abusive husband--but I better ask him whether I should, first."

 

[Unicron]

AFAIK, there is a law against impersonation of military personnel, that's why there's always something wrong with uniforms/medals and such in war movies ..

But surely acting isn't quite the same as impersonating a military soldier in a literal sense, which can be potentially harmful if the person's a good imposter. It's probably a minor thing to make such delibarate mistakes, but is it really worth the effort? That's kind of like making sure all cop uniforms are wrong, just so nobody will mistake an actor for a "real" cop.

I'd assume it only applies to modern military personnel anyway, since nobody would clearly try to infiltrate a French base posing as Napoleon.

 

[Trekker4747]

AFAIK, there is a law against impersonation of military personnel, that's why there's always something wrong with uniforms/medals and such in war movies ..

But surely acting isn't quite the same as impersonating a military soldier in a literal sense, which can be potentially harmful if the person's a good imposter. It's probably a minor thing to make such delibarate mistakes, but is it really worth the effort? That's kind of like making sure all cop uniforms are wrong, just so nobody will mistake an actor for a "real" cop.

I'd assume it only applies to modern military personnel anyway, since nobody would clearly try to infiltrate a French base posing as Napoleon.

Whatever the logic to it, it's the reason. An actor can not wear a genuine, accurate, military uniform for legal reasons.

 

[Daedalus12]

The Matrix cliche in general killed me (no pun intended). EG. if you unplug a person from the network, they'll die because "the brain can't live without the mind" or somesuch. This is like assuming that unplugging a network cable will cause your computer to self-destruct.

I can accept pulling the plug killing people... maybe it's the shock or something to their brain to have a sudden disconnect that actually kills them. It's the dying in the Matrix kills you in real life that I don't like, with the whole "the mind makes it so". So the mind is causing organ damage and internal bleeding just because it thinks that it's injured? Glad my mind doesn't do that!

That came from Morpheus's mouth which is unlikely to be very technical. The more accurate explanation might be there is a subroutine in the Matrix program that initiates the violent muscle spasm and triggers the release of certain body chemicals which cause the person to have a massive autoimmune response. Death can be easily caused by the manipulation of the heart muscle. Going way too fast or stopping it should do the trick.

My single biggest problem with The Matrix was that the machines are harnessing human body power in conjunction with a form of fusion.

 

[Kemaiku]

The combined thermal and electrical output of 6.5 Billion Humans would be in the range of 1.15 Terawatts alone, using that electrical energy at 70% efficiency (0.75 TW) to charge and maintain the magnetic components of fusion reactors would be a godsend, able to keep a large number of reactors going all most permanently.

In "Matriculated" we see a menagerie of other machines near the shore of an ocean near a downed Hovercraft, obviously battles had taken place there, the only reason I could see for Zion to risk ships to prevent the machines taking a body of water is the Deuterium needed for their fusion processes.

Zero Two when we see it in Revolutions stretches beyond the horizon and has a lot of glowing objects, the machines themsevles would need to be charged in order to fly the same as the Hovercraft, that all needs energy. Who in their right mind throws away that much. (Thats another thing that bugs me. Zero One was located in the Middle East and nuked to ashes in 2059, Zero Two is located near the remains of New York and constructed post-2079 ~100-150Km's west and 4Km's up from Zion). People should not be calling the city in Revolutions Zero One, its Zero Two. Even though Zero One is only ever named in the Animatrix and if people saw it then they knew it was destroyed and that the film one is the new one *shrugs*

As the Zion Interface states in Second Renaissance, we are an "Ever multiplying, infinitely renewable energy source." and represent "...all the energy they would ever need.". (Someone really needs to transcript the episodes, but I can get the DVD down if need be.)

Thats a lot of power, in the eyes of life forms that live entirely off that form of power, how could they turn it down?

 

[TheArsenal]

AFAIK, there is a law against impersonation of military personnel, that's why there's always something wrong with uniforms/medals and such in war movies ..

But surely acting isn't quite the same as impersonating a military soldier in a literal sense, which can be potentially harmful if the person's a good imposter. It's probably a minor thing to make such delibarate mistakes, but is it really worth the effort? That's kind of like making sure all cop uniforms are wrong, just so nobody will mistake an actor for a "real" cop.

I'd assume it only applies to modern military personnel anyway, since nobody would clearly try to infiltrate a French base posing as Napoleon.

Whatever the logic to it, it's the reason. An actor can not wear a genuine, accurate, military uniform for legal reasons.

Mostly true. It is not a blanket prohibition. The legal concept hinges on whether the portrayal by the person in uniform brings "discredit" to the branch of the service being depicted.

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/10C45.txt

(f) While portraying a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or
Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or motion-picture production
may wear the uniform of that armed force if the portrayal does not
tend to discredit that armed force.

amended text as follows:

In subsection (f), the words "while portraying a member of the
Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or
motion-picture production" are substituted for the words "any
person from wearing the uniform of the United States Army, Navy, or
Marine Corps, in any playhouse or theater or in moving-picture
films while actually engaged in representing therein a military or
naval character".

Reading the code it isn't clear to me whether the application is only for the current military uniform, or all versions of the uniform (WWII, etc.).

 

[TedShatner10]

Bad guys always go about in black limos.

American and Hong Kong cops in plain clothes are unkillable champions worth seventy to a hundred Green Berets.

British people are either super spies, butlers, comic relief or Snidely Whiplashish style villains.

Blacks are obnoxious loud mouths that crack awkward racial jokes.

Jewish/S. Asian/Arabian/Greek/Italian Americans are mildly neurotic but sharp witted urbanites.

Bad guys cannot aim. Ever.

In action thrillers the first out two girlfriends in a row often dies.

 

[Unicron]

Ah, okay. That makes a lot more sense. While we're on the subject of clothes:

If a male and a female character are in a dangerous environment (or for that matter, many environments) the female character will invariably have fewer clothes. And you can be an expert in any given scientific field at the age of twenty!

 

[ITL]

The brainy but shy woman who's hotness is revealed when she removes her glasses and shakes out her hair. Then she has a few drinks, loosens up, and turns into the Slut Queen of Slutdonia. Until she sobers up, when the glasses go back on and she resumes being brainy but shy.

And variations thereof.

 

[TedShatner10]

If a male and a female character are in a dangerous environment (or for that matter, many environments) the female character will invariably have fewer clothes. And you can be an expert in any given scientific field at the age of twenty!

.....

 

[Bishbot]

Computers boot in 2 seconds.

My MacBook Pro boots nearly that quickly. (I think it actually takes about four seconds.)
[/quote]

How about cell phones? I was watching The Wire the other day and a character hung up his phone, telling the person he'd call them back, removed the battery, replaced the SIM and then the battery, as soon as he'd pushed the on button he dialled the number. Now I realise they were making a point as to the criminals' methods with that scene and that watching him wait two minutes for his phone to remember where it was and what numbers he'd stored on it would have been pretty bad television, but I still noticed that I've never known a mobile to work that quickly.

 

[Daedalus12]

The combined thermal and electrical output of 6.5 Billion Humans would be in the range of 1.15 Terawatts alone, using that electrical energy at 70% efficiency (0.75 TW) to charge and maintain the magnetic components of fusion reactors would be a godsend, able to keep a large number of reactors going all most permanently.

Thats a lot of power, in the eyes of life forms that live entirely off that form of power, how could they turn it down?

Energy density of hydrogen undergoing fusion is orders of magnitude bigger than ATP undergoing electron transport. If machines need a battery mechanism to maintain the fusion system then they would go with a Li-On solution which discharage and charge at 90+%. The human power source in the Matrix is pure rubbish. It's as simple as that.

 

[Kemaiku]

But there seems to be another method the machines and Zion fleet uses to store the charge, when the Zion ships and machines are "broken open" in Reloaded and Revolutions we see a luminous and highly charged blue gas/fluid spill out of them and rapidly expand, discharging violently against any metal surface.

Besides, the Power Plant only absorbs the energy from the Humans and sends that energy through three massive superconductors into Zero Two. Where presumably the electrical energy is used in various ways. Instead of coal, oil, gas or nuclear energy used to generate power, its simply 6-7 billion Humans with a gel to capture all heat, and wires connected to all nerve clusters to capture bioelectric current. Combined and using a large scale transformer mechanism in the base of the towers to transmit it to the city.

1.15 TW of electrical power coupled with a way of almost eternally punishing Humanity? not logical but then we see them experiencing emotions too. Hostility and pettyness were evident in most of their "programs" as much as it was in any living person.

The Architect did say that without Humans as a power source they were other levels of survival they would be willing to accept, which could refer to turning their efforts back towards other power sources and accepting the loss in energy from the Power Plant in the mean time.

 

[TedShatner10]

^It would make more sense if the imprisoned humans were used as computer processing banks for the AIs. I'm also puzzled why people freed from the Matrix are flushed into a water cavern where Zion ships can get to undetected instead of being flushed into a furnace...

 

[Kemaiku]

Only the dead and those how die as a consequence of "accidents" in the Matrix are liquefied and drained before being fed to the living.

Those who "wake up" are what caused such a problem with the Matrix V1.0 and V2.0 within the first ten years of both (Matrix Online) so now they are simply dumped into the heavily polluted moat like collection of water at the base of the Plant.

Without help, most of them just drown, then again only those specifically freed by Zion infiltrators in the Matrix seem to wake up all that often. In "World Record" and "Kid's Story", we're told only the most exceptional of all Humans have that small chance of waking up entirely on their own, most don't and like the man from "World Record" the pod can clamp them down, shock them and return them to sleep if it acts fast enough or theres still a strong connection to the Matrix.

Plus, in Revolutions we meet the program responsible for Recycling, he doesn't seem...well not overly bright.

 

[Daedalus12]

But there seems to be another method the machines and Zion fleet uses to store the charge, when the Zion ships and machines are "broken open" in Reloaded and Revolutions we see a luminous and highly charged blue gas/fluid spill out of them and rapidly expand, discharging violently against any metal surface.

Besides, the Power Plant only absorbs the energy from the Humans and sends that energy through three massive superconductors into Zero Two. Where presumably the electrical energy is used in various ways. Instead of coal, oil, gas or nuclear energy used to generate power, its simply 6-7 billion Humans with a gel to capture all heat, and wires connected to all nerve clusters to capture bioelectric current. Combined and using a large scale transformer mechanism in the base of the towers to transmit it to the city.

1.15 TW of electrical power coupled with a way of almost eternally punishing Humanity? not logical but then we see them experiencing emotions too. Hostility and pettyness were evident in most of their "programs" as much as it was in any living person.

The Architect did say that without Humans as a power source they were other levels of survival they would be willing to accept, which could refer to turning their efforts back towards other power sources and accepting the loss in energy from the Power Plant in the mean time.

I'll give you a better way of punishing humanity. Make the specie extinct so there is no need to waste resources in constructing essentially elaborate wombs. While there aren't that many analysis done of the thermodynamic efficiency of human body as a power system I would be very surprised if it's above 20% which is very poor compared to the 60% thermal efficiency of large scale brayton/Rankine cycle systems. The machines would only pick to maintain 6 billion humans as a power system if and only if (a) they are fucktards (b) it's not a power system at all.

 

[payndz201]

Maybe not...ever seen Time Chasers? A time machine is built out of a Commodore 64.

And the secrets/program to time-travel is stored on 7 5 1/4" floppies!

"He's declared war on his surge protector!"

One cliche which definitely deserves to die is the Carrie ending - the last-moment shocker that someone is still alive! just before the credits roll. It's so over-used now that it's more of a surprise when the villain doesn't burst out of their grave or whatever at the end.

 

[Trekker4747]

Maybe not...ever seen Time Chasers? A time machine is built out of a Commodore 64.

And the secrets/program to time-travel is stored on 7 5 1/4" floppies!

"He's declared war on his surge protector!"

One cliche which definitely deserves to die is the Carrie ending - the last-moment shocker that someone is still alive! just before the credits roll. It's so over-used now that it's more of a surprise when the villain doesn't burst out of their grave or whatever at the end.

Calling back to MST3K.

"Ok, Calgon's alive and sitting there, blah blah blah. And his eyes open... They open!"

"Boo! Boo! A retarded jelly fish could come up with a better ending than this." "A box turtle, with a very busy schedule, you give him a couple hours he'll give you a better script than this."