The heroes and the villains are engaged in mortal combat. One of the good guys has one of the bad guys at his mercy, unarmed. He points at his gun at the mook and...the protagonist suddenly leaps between his gun and the mook, and goes on that age-old tirade about "being better than them". Which would work if it wasn't for the fact that the villains are almost always xenophobic, genocidal complete monsters when this happens. It's attempting to make the hero look like they have upstanding morality, but instead it just makes the protagonist look incredibly naive and deluded. If the protagonist was merely trying to keep them alive because they'd be more useful to the heroes alive as prisoners, that'd at least make sense. Another one that really grinds my gears is the "failed treasure hunt" story; a group of friends go look for a lost treasure or something, they find the treasure and...at the end of the movie, lose it some manner; the stupider the manner, the worse. I'm willing to cut stories like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade some slack in that regard since it was less about acquiring the Holy Grail and more about preventing the nazis from getting it, but when they just lose it for no other reason than to return to status quo and show how the characters have changed over the course of the story? Feels more like a slap in the face. I've been watching Talespin and it's actually downright painful to watch because there's a lot of stories like this; at least at one episode, I just fast forwarded to the end because it spent about five whole minutes just to rub the complete failure of the characters in the viewer's face. I'm sure there's a few more clichés I hate, but at least those two actually make me scream profanities at the TV screen.
When characters come up with a plan, do it, and it fails because of some weird coincidence but don't try it again. The girl power episode where all the males suddenly become idiots to showcase how great the girl is. And yeah, I hate the "don't kill the villain, or you'll be just as bad as he is!" shtick.
What does that mean in movie plot terms? Because that means something likely very different to the ancient Greeks. I generally hate when directors feel the need to kill off everyone else in a story to emphasize who the main character is. Everyone dies, so only one person can live and be victorious. It's old, and it's overused to death in action and horror movies.
amen. the ending is the most important part. anime usually ends up screwing this up these days. and so do movies. they just end up making them really poor endings.
I am so annoyed by movies that have characters fake their own death. As much as I love Nolan's Batman movies, it annoyed me in them because I feel that the movies are above cliche plot points like that.
Don't watch Farewell Space Battleship Yamato. It manages to pull this off with numerous fake endings too!
It used to happen a lot with comic based movies. Sets and designs are weird as crap because director wanted to 'make it feel like a comic'. Pre-Nolan Batman movies are the chief offenders of this. I was reading Batman comics during that time & none of the comics looked like the movies. Comics were more realistic. With anime, how it tends to turn into the writers proving they are failed philosphers. Characters go on and on about why people fight. Just fight dammit & stop yappin.
I wouldn't say that I hate this, but it can annoy when not done right. The villain falling to his death. 89 Batman- No matter how much I love the movie, Joker falling to his death always felt like a rushed and easy ending because Jack was never going to reprise the role. Conan remake- the villain falling to his death felt right because the way Conan did it harkened back to the beginning of the movie with his father teaching Conan how to be complete warrior.
I completely agree with this. (However, I rarely say it because saying something like this on TFW usually gets you branded as "oh, so you're okay with the hero gunning down everything and everyone in sight and how the hero has to kill the bad guy ugh what is wrong with people's morals today?!?!1?"). I understand that they want the hero to be the 'better man' in that situation, but as you said, it usually ends up backfiring on them. "What's that? I have the opportunity to stop once and for all this villain who has killed countless times and has had every waking moment from his creation to not kill but has chosen to kill anyway? I'll give him an eighth chance at redemption. Maybe sparing him this time will actually work out for the better! I certainly hope he doesn't deceive me and make me regret this!" :v How often has sparing the villain/giving them another chance to redeem themselves actually worked out for good? Not every often. It happens, but it's rare.
I agree with the "moral high-ground" cliche. While it has been done to the death, Transformers Prime is a good example for this, Optimus had the chance to blow Megatrons head off, but that would be the "easy way". The fact that Optimus would let a person, who has almost made their race extinct, destroyed their planet, and their creator, and is a war criminal, live irks me. It's not even like it's a terrible idea altogether, Batman, The Doctor, and Animated Optimus take the moral high ground, so it can be done right. I'd just really like it, if Prime and Megatrons final battle ends with Optimus shrugging his shoulders, and shooting Megatron, over and over, then chopping off his head, as violent as that sounds.
You're talking about a children's program though, you'll never ever see that happen. And about the "moral high ground" factor, it really only apply to serialized storytelling where the villains are just as important as the heroes. They, the villains, are brand names themselves. Even the Punisher comics, you never saw Punisher outright killing villains like Jigsaw or The Kingpin. Ultimately, the "moral high ground" is a necessary part of the genre.
I hate it when the hero is just about to win and the bad guy suddenly goes 'I have your wife/friend/child/dog/plushie so you'd better surrender' and the hero backs off. Usually followed by the wife/friend/child/dog/plushie stamping on a bad guy's foot or elbowing them in the ribs or whatever and distracting everyone long enough for the hero to take their shot and win. Or the hero has had the foresight to do something to the thing the bad guy wanted so it won't work even if he gets it, or that it's a useless duplicate, or that it'll then blow up and kill the bad guy when the good guy has escaped.
I was quite pleased with an anime I was watching, I can't remember which one, but it had the kid sidekick in mortal danger and this situation came up - but then one of the protagonists pointed out that if they just give up, the kid and a lot of other people will die anyway so they'd better keep fighting for the chance of saving him. And you know, this is horribly abused in "real" cop shows and movies too - in reality, if a hostage situation like this comes up, procedure specifically tells the officer to not drop their weapon.
