Favorite Action Movie Cliches

[WillMunny]

When a bad guy gets impaled, he has to be badass enough to pull himself forward along the blade until he's nose-to-nose with the good guy when he dies (Fellowship/Rings & Star Trek: Nemesis being two of many examples).

When a person gets shot with a rocket launcher, the minor explosion 100% vaporizes the person's body so there's not a single drop of blood or speck of bone left. Pedowood obviously confused the effects of a grenade with a Star Trek phaser (numerous '80s movies).

Massive, long machine gun fights in an enclosed room actually never do any hearing damage and no good guy ever gets hit with the countless ricochets (too many to list).

Silencers actually work on revolvers, even though the bullet's noisy gasses bleed out around the cylinder. Also, I know a silenced automatic makes a light popping sound, NOT the high-pitched tiny squeaks they make in movies. Also, a silencer reduces a bullet's lethality by greatly reducing its speed, so people DON'T instantly die of a silenced gunshot like they do in movies (numerous '80s movies).

When two cars have the mildest crash, both INSTANTLY explode into a boiling, armageddon-fireball the size of a gas station explosion. Even though everyone knows that only the tiniest percentage of non-Ford-Pinto car wrecks result in any fire (numerous '80s movies).

Apparently, a massively, continuously-used machine gun never runs out of bullets, jams or gets too hot to touch (the Schwarzenegger movie of your choice).

When the hero of the movie is musclebound, the camera spends a homoerotic amount of time with close-up lingering over every bulge, ripple and blood vessel on the hero's body, complete with menacing Wagnerian music, to the point it actually gets gross (numerous '80s movies, especially Stallone & Schwarzenegger).

When a car goes off a cliff, it sometimes explodes in mid-air before it hits anything (movie Goldfinger and countless '80s TV shows). But then again in movies, cars turn into incendiary explosive devices if you look at them wrong.

Speaking of car explosions, if the car being "uncreated" is a Mercedes, you can bet there will be a brief shot of the hood ornament twirling through the air (Dirty Harry, The Dead Pool).


So, any cliches I'm forgetting? Please go nuts with the subject, I want this thread to be a little goofy (like me, of course).

 

[Moonglow]

 

[BULLDOG]

When a bad guy gets impaled, he has to be badass enough to pull himself forward along the blade until he's nose-to-nose with the good guy when he dies (Fellowship/Rings & Star Trek: Nemesis being two of many examples).

When a person gets shot with a rocket launcher, the minor explosion 100% vaporizes the person's body so there's not a single drop of blood or speck of bone left. Pedowood obviously confused the effects of a grenade with a Star Trek phaser (numerous '80s movies).

Massive, long machine gun fights in an enclosed room actually never do any hearing damage and no good guy ever gets hit with the countless ricochets (too many to list).

Silencers actually work on revolvers, even though the bullet's noisy gasses bleed out around the cylinder. Also, I know a silenced automatic makes a light popping sound, NOT the high-pitched tiny squeaks they make in movies. Also, a silencer reduces a bullet's lethality by greatly reducing its speed, so people DON'T instantly die of a silenced gunshot like they do in movies (numerous '80s movies).

When two cars have the mildest crash, both INSTANTLY explode into a boiling, armageddon-fireball the size of a gas station explosion. Even though everyone knows that only the tiniest percentage of non-Ford-Pinto car wrecks result in any fire (numerous '80s movies).

Apparently, a massively, continuously-used machine gun never runs out of bullets, jams or gets too hot to touch (the Schwarzenegger movie of your choice).

When the hero of the movie is musclebound, the camera spends a homoerotic amount of time with close-up lingering over every bulge, ripple and blood vessel on the hero's body, complete with menacing Wagnerian music, to the point it actually gets gross (numerous '80s movies, especially Stallone & Schwarzenegger).

When a car goes off a cliff, it sometimes explodes in mid-air before it hits anything (movie Goldfinger and countless '80s TV shows). But then again in movies, cars turn into incendiary explosive devices if you look at them wrong.

Speaking of car explosions, if the car being "uncreated" is a Mercedes, you can bet there will be a brief shot of the hood ornament twirling through the air (Dirty Harry, The Dead Pool).


So, any cliches I'm forgetting? Please go nuts with the subject, I want this thread to be a little goofy (like me, of course).

Most cowboys had a six-shooter. John Wayne had an 87-shooter.

 

[WillMunny]

But that's a Simpson's cliche and has nothing to do with the action genre. Come on, we both know you can come up with something wittier than this.

 

[WillMunny]

When a bad guy gets impaled, he has to be badass enough to pull himself forward along the blade until he's nose-to-nose with the good guy when he dies (Fellowship/Rings & Star Trek: Nemesis being two of many examples).

When a person gets shot with a rocket launcher, the minor explosion 100% vaporizes the person's body so there's not a single drop of blood or speck of bone left. Pedowood obviously confused the effects of a grenade with a Star Trek phaser (numerous '80s movies).

Massive, long machine gun fights in an enclosed room actually never do any hearing damage and no good guy ever gets hit with the countless ricochets (too many to list).

Silencers actually work on revolvers, even though the bullet's noisy gasses bleed out around the cylinder. Also, I know a silenced automatic makes a light popping sound, NOT the high-pitched tiny squeaks they make in movies. Also, a silencer reduces a bullet's lethality by greatly reducing its speed, so people DON'T instantly die of a silenced gunshot like they do in movies (numerous '80s movies).

When two cars have the mildest crash, both INSTANTLY explode into a boiling, armageddon-fireball the size of a gas station explosion. Even though everyone knows that only the tiniest percentage of non-Ford-Pinto car wrecks result in any fire (numerous '80s movies).

Apparently, a massively, continuously-used machine gun never runs out of bullets, jams or gets too hot to touch (the Schwarzenegger movie of your choice).

When the hero of the movie is musclebound, the camera spends a homoerotic amount of time with close-up lingering over every bulge, ripple and blood vessel on the hero's body, complete with menacing Wagnerian music, to the point it actually gets gross (numerous '80s movies, especially Stallone & Schwarzenegger).

When a car goes off a cliff, it sometimes explodes in mid-air before it hits anything (movie Goldfinger and countless '80s TV shows). But then again in movies, cars turn into incendiary explosive devices if you look at them wrong.

Speaking of car explosions, if the car being "uncreated" is a Mercedes, you can bet there will be a brief shot of the hood ornament twirling through the air (Dirty Harry, The Dead Pool).


So, any cliches I'm forgetting? Please go nuts with the subject, I want this thread to be a little goofy (like me, of course).

Most cowboys had a six-shooter. John Wayne had an 87-shooter.

AT LEAST 87 shots, I could swear I counted even more.

 

[fncceo]

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts,
You should repeat to yourself, 'it's just a show', I should really just relax.

-- Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Theme Song

 

[WillMunny]

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts,
You should repeat to yourself, 'it's just a show', I should really just relax.

-- Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Theme Song

In that case, let me rephrase the same saying back to you: repeat to yourself "it's just a deliberately silly humor thread, I should really just relax." It's about poking fun, not being annoyed.

 

[aaronleland]

Science fiction movies where even the aliens speak English. I can't get an English speaking customer service rep on the phone. Apparently they all live on a planet a million light years away.

 

[fncceo]

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts,
You should repeat to yourself, 'it's just a show', I should really just relax.

-- Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Theme Song

In that case, let me rephrase the same saying back to you: repeat to yourself "it's just a deliberately silly humor thread, I should really just relax." It's about poking fun, not being annoyed.

Every type of entertainment has some element of 'suspension of disbelief'. Forgetting about the inaccuracies and focusing on the drama (or comedy) is part of the fun.

That being said ... some of my favourite (or most annoying) silly tropes are:

1. Getting the bullet out immediately saves the life of any gunshot victim despite the fact that taking the bullet out is literally the worst thing you can do to a gunshot victim.

2. Getting shot, stabbed, or impaled in the shoulder is a flesh wound. Despite the fact the upper torso contains multiple major arteries.

3. Cops tasting drugs to determine their identity (super dangerous).

 

[Moonglow]

But that's a Simpson's cliche and has nothing to do with the action genre. Come on, we both know you can come up with something wittier than this.

The Simpson's movie was an action movie...

 

[WillMunny]

Science fiction movies where even the aliens speak English. I can't get an English speaking customer service rep on the phone. Apparently they all live on a planet a million light years away.

Star Trek, being the biggest example, has sort of an iron-clad deus-ex-machina explanation for aliens' perfect English: all Starfleet officers' ears are implanted with universal translators which read the alien's brain patterns and extrapolate their language from that. And also somehow magically causes aliens to hear human English as their own language. What the hell, I can't come up with a better explanation for the Milky Way galaxy's ubiquitous English.

What's funny in Star Wars is that two different species perfectly communicate in two different languages and understand each other perfectly. Like the way Han Solo perfectly understands the alien croakings of Chewie or Jabba the Hutt, responds to them in English, and they understand him just as well (I'll never forgive SW:TFA for killing Han).

 

[WillMunny]

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts,
You should repeat to yourself, 'it's just a show', I should really just relax.

-- Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Theme Song

In that case, let me rephrase the same saying back to you: repeat to yourself "it's just a deliberately silly humor thread, I should really just relax." It's about poking fun, not being annoyed.

Every type of entertainment has some element of 'suspension of disbelief'. Forgetting about the inaccuracies and focusing on the drama (or comedy) is part of the fun.

That being said ... some of my favourite (or most annoying) silly tropes are:

1. Getting the bullet out immediately saves the life of any gunshot victim despite the fact that taking the bullet out is literally the worst thing you can do to a gunshot victim.

2. Getting shot, stabbed, or impaled in the shoulder is a flesh wound. Despite the fact the upper torso contains multiple major arteries.

3. Cops tasting drugs to determine their identity (super dangerous).

I know about #3, in real life cops have a little drug-testing chemical kit to determine what an unknown white powder is, not tasting. I've seen that in plenty of episodes of COPS alone.

 

[BULLDOG]

Science fiction movies where even the aliens speak English. I can't get an English speaking customer service rep on the phone. Apparently they all live on a planet a million light years away.

Star Trek, being the biggest example, has sort of an iron-clad deus-ex-machina explanation for aliens' perfect English: all Starfleet officers' ears are implanted with universal translators which read the alien's brain patterns and extrapolate their language from that. And also somehow magically causes aliens to hear human English as their own language. What the hell, I can't come up with a better explanation for the Milky Way galaxy's ubiquitous English.

What's funny in Star Wars is that two different species perfectly communicate in two different languages and understand each other perfectly. Like the way Han Solo perfectly understands the alien croakings of Chewie or Jabba the Hutt, responds to them in English, and they understand him just as well (I'll never forgive SW:TFA for killing Han).

The Tardis always did the translating for Dr Who.

 

[aaronleland]

When the bad guy gets hit from behind and is instantly knocked out. In real life he'd turn around like, "Dude! What the fuck?"

 

[WillMunny]

When the bad guy gets hit from behind and is instantly knocked out. In real life he'd turn around like, "Dude! What the fuck?"

I've noticed that in some James Bond movies and original Star Treks, it's physically possible to knock a person out cold from a light karate chop to the shoulder.

 

[WillMunny]

Here's an action movie item that should have been some sort of meme/cliche: in the movie Predator one of the characters (surprisingly not Schwarzenegger) is physically carrying one of those nearly car-sized, helicopter-mounted, .85-caliber Gattling guns. You know, with that motorized, spinning barrel that fires about a gazillion rounds a minute.

The funniest thing is that when that character was turning the entire jungle into an explosion of sawdust-pulp, that Gattling gun was making this surprisingly soothing, humming noise. How comfy!

 

[WillMunny]

Have you ever noticed that in horror/slasher movies, the scream-queen female protagonist will be sprinting away from the bogeyman as fast as she can.....while the bogeyman is walking at a relaxed, casual pace and STILL catches up with her? Doesn't this defy some law of Newtonian physics?

 

[WillMunny]

Here's a space-movie action cliche (the Alien series is notorious for this): when a spaceship's hull gets decompressed, there's a very strong wind for awhile and once the hull is sealed up again, there's still plenty of air to breathe. In reality the entire atmosphere would explode out into space in a split second (in pressure-violence that would instantly, mortally tear us apart internally) and everyone on board would be instantly frozen solid from the absolute zero temperature of space.

 

[petro]

Here's a space-movie action cliche (the Alien series is notorious for this): when a spaceship's hull gets decompressed, there's a very strong wind for awhile and once the hull is sealed up again, there's still plenty of air to breathe. In reality the entire atmosphere would explode out into space in a split second (in pressure-violence that would instantly, mortally tear us apart internally) and everyone on board would be instantly frozen solid from the absolute zero temperature of space.

Don't forget the loud explosions in the vacuum of space, and the sound of a large ship whooshing past.
Worst was in Armegedon when they were flying the spaceshuttle like a freaking airplane in no atmosphere.
Honorable mention is that all ships in space meet in some agreed upon notion of upright.

 

[fncceo]

When the bad guy gets hit from behind and is instantly knocked out. In real life he'd turn around like, "Dude! What the fuck?"

The corollary to that, no one in the real world dies instantly from a gun shot unless it's in the heart or head. Most of the time, unless sufficient blood is lost instantly, the person wouldn't even pass out. Mostly, they writhe and scream in pain, which is very distracting and makes it hard to hear what the actors are saying to each other.