Let's Retire These Movie/TV Plots!

[Feng_Li]

Anything adapted from a video game.

 

[Charlie Noodles]

Anything adapted from a video game.

To be fair, they rarely have anything to do with the game's plot.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

I'd bring them all back from retirement!

And make them meta.

And then double the meta.

You'll all hate me when I'm a famous director/producer.

 

[Paisley]

...there was a english horror movie that watched a long time ago, it was about a young accountant, sent to the moors, to settle an estate, there was a ghost haunting the hall, a little boy spirit and a wicked woman spirit trapped there, there was scene where he gets out of the house and back to the local inn, and he hears a little boy and he tries to talk to him , and this black dressed figure of the evil woman comes at him,

They still do that, just a little differently: a stacked, 24-year-old lawyer goes to a Beverly Hills house to settle a multi-million dollar divorce and finds dead bodies. Then there's a scene where she talks to an equally stacked law enforcement officer and bland middle aged man she's crazy about. That's when you flip over your La-Z-Boy to look for the remote.

 

[Feng_Li]

Father is a pathetic, incompetent doofus.

 

[ShoreRoadLady]

Playboy jerk son of billionare industrialist learns to become serious guy taking care of business after family tradgety.

or reverse

Super serious industrialist is taught how to lighten up by Jennifer Lopez maid or hooker type.

That reminds me of my other pet plot peeve:

Wealthy, proper, but rebellious girl meets carefree boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Boy teaches girl how to be less prissy and proper and encourages her to run away with him. (Titanic, Romeo & Juliet) They almost always have to kill off these characters because everyone knows that in real life, the guy's probably a lazy jerk who can't hold a job...

 

[ShoreRoadLady]

Ha! I love it! Did you draw this comic, or did you get it someplace? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Paisley]

That reminds me of my other pet plot peeve:

Wealthy, proper, but rebellious girl meets carefree boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Boy teaches girl how to be less prissy and proper and encourages her to run away with him. (Titanic, Romeo & Juliet) They almost always have to kill off these characters because everyone knows that in real life, the guy's probably a lazy jerk who can't hold a job...

Sounds like the movie Picnic. A nice, attractive girl runs off with a hobo she's known for, oh, three hours.

But I did read a book kind of like that: The Lost Diary of Don Juan. However, he was quite energetic and skilled in his previous career as a burglar and in his, uh, extracurricular pursuits. I don't care for womanizers or burglars, but I actually found the character sympathetic.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That reminds me of my other pet plot peeve:

Wealthy, proper, but rebellious girl meets carefree boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Boy teaches girl how to be less prissy and proper and encourages her to run away with him. (Titanic, Romeo & Juliet) They almost always have to kill off these characters because everyone knows that in real life, the guy's probably a lazy jerk who can't hold a job...

They never show the rest of the story: girl ends up pregnant, abandoned, and struggling to survive after her parents disown her. Meanwhile, boy gets bored and runs off with the first cheap floozy that comes along. Girl catches him, brains him with an iron skillet, and gets the chair. Child is taken to an orphanage, where she is adopted by a wealthy family which pampers and cossets her and when she grows up she meets some swaggering punk from the wrong side of town who encourages her to run away with him...

Hmm. No wonder this plot turns up so often.

 

[Paisley]

Let's retire the plot where some kid is smarter than all the adults around her. A realistic plot would be a tear-jerker where the kids are smarter than their dumb/drug addicted/alcohlic/absent parents.

 

[Cricket]

Aside from the same old plots, what is really depressing is rewatching a movie that you placed so high on the scale when you were younger. And, yes, they usually follow those plots were are talking about. My husband and I started renting movies we watched as children or teenagers that we thought were destined for Oscars. Only we saw them in a new light and realized they sucked. Maybe we should have not rented them. Then we would have considered them still "good." :eusa_doh:

 

[Dr Doran]

Maybe this was said before - I don't want to reread this thread now, and it's been months since the last time I read it. So if this has already been said, please view this as a "more on this topic" post rather than a "new topic for this thread" post.

Loser wild and crazy guy makes uptight guy "looser" and "freer." What About Bob or Where's Bob or whatever that frightening "comedy" with Bill Murray and, I believe, Richard Dreyfuss was.

Similar to the recent post about bad boy from wrong side of tracks plus wealthy girl. But a buddy movie instead of a comedy.

My wife calls this "that 60s vs 50s thing." She is referring of course to broad generalizations about decades. The wild and crazy late 60s versus the "square" 50s.

This plot is ubiquitous and needs retirement. It continually recurs. Its grotesque result is the denigration of thrift, hard work, and rationality in favor of excess, irrationality, and irresponsibility. I'm quite sick of it.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

Loser wild and crazy guy makes uptight guy "looser" and "freer." What About Bob or Where's Bob or whatever that frightening "comedy" with Bill Murray and, I believe, Richard Dreyfuss was.

I agree, but I also kind of like the premise in small doses within other main storylines. For instance, while Box of Moonlight was a decent movie, the plot was too worn for it to be a great movie, but Sideways was a great movie, I thought, because the plot included much more. Some cliche devices and plots are present simply because they naturally occur in life all the time.

 

[Diamondback]

Ha! I love it! Did you draw this comic, or did you get it someplace? Inquiring minds want to know.

He found it--here's the cartoonist's site: http://xkcd.com/

Inquiring mind now knows...

 

[ShoreRoadLady]

Alas, you're all too right, LizzieMaine.

My wife calls this "that 60s vs 50s thing." She is referring of course to broad generalizations about decades. The wild and crazy late 60s versus the "square" 50s.

That's a good way of putting it. To be honest, that's one reason I appreciate movies like Spider-Man - advocating responsibility & maturity seems to be rare these days.

Diamondback, thanks for the link.

 

[BigSleep]

And now a word from our sponsor!

Cue 1950's rock song.
Ready... and... substitute name of product for chorus lyric.

Terrific R.J., and so original too. We'll sell a million!

And now back to our show.

 

[Lady Day]

Movies based on comic books/super heroes.

Just a 5 year hiatus is all Im asking for. :eusa_doh:

LD

 

[Lucky Strike]

If I ever reach the point in my career where I am a villain with mini-submarines, shark pool and a crew of beautiful henchwomen, I'll expect some hero, heroine or both to surface.

When I have the hero or heroine types bound up and ready for execution, I will not hold a speech about how clever I am, explain my master plan for world domination, and tell them where I've cleverly hidden the secret codes.

I'll just put bullets in their heads and retire with a few selected henchwomen.

 

[John in Covina]

When I have the hero or heroine types bound up and ready for execution, I will not hold a speech about how clever I am, explain my master plan for world domination, and tell them where I've cleverly hidden the secret codes.

*****************

In the ani-movie 'The Increadibles' this is called Monologing.

 

[jake_fink]

Moody orphan dresses in rubber bat suit and dukes it out with maniacal, cackling nutbar.

*ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*