What ruins a movie for you?

[gwilks98]

I was watching star wars ep I and was thinking about all the things that were put into movies that detracts from the sum by putting it in.

Jar Jar binks
The Wilhelm Scream
Modifying older cuts of a movie (Star Wars IV, ET) so that they aren't the way you remember them
Lazy writers that use computers as a "catch-all" solution to an obstacle, making them do things they can't otherwise do.
Computers that beep and blink as they number-crunch.
Actors who suck at faking an accent. (ConAir anyone?)


What ruins a movie for you?

[Kevster]

Things that ruin movies for me:

Jar Jar Binks
The Wilhelm Scream
Special effects do not a movie make (Episodes 1-3)
Michael Bey (who relies on special effects and explosions instead of traditional things like a plot)
Hollywood physics and Hollywood BS pseudo-science
Horrible casting selections (e.g. Tara Reid as a scientist :heh: )
Computer screen information that is reflected on actor's faces and the room
"computer image enhancement" that enhances a 480x320 pixel picture to the clarity of a 5400x4200 pixel image in 2 seconds

I can keep going but I need to get to sleep....

[DarkFury]

What ruins a movie for me?


Well... babies crying in the audience. :eek:


Oh.. you meant IN the movie.

Well... I'm pretty picky about the kinds of movies I'll actually go into the theater to see (as most of them, I can wait till they hit the DVD racks or Movie channels and "On Demand".

But for the movies I have seen in the theater... if they go overboard on "special effects" at the sacrifice of the development of the story... as well as make the premise of the movie so outlandish yet try to act like they are serious about it and not making fun of the situation, then that kinda ruins it for me.

Pretty much I call this the "Battlefield Earth" effect.

[Prngr44]

Horrible endings and over CG.

[Markel]

Automatic fireballs any time a vehicle crashes.

[cheapie]

:stupid: that's one of my pet peeves.

also, when the main character dies heroically at the end when he doesn't really need to.

[DarkFury]

:stupid: that's one of my pet peeves.

also, when the main character dies heroically at the end when he doesn't really need to.

The Professional? :eek:

[gwilks98]

Oh, I forgot one. Action sequences where the frame rate is sped up to make the actor look like he's lightning fast.

[eSDee]

Ben Affleck
Ryan Phillipe
Tara Reid

[ShawnLee]

There are a few things that bother me...

Distortion on military themes:
~Wrong rank (misplaced, worn upside down)
~Wrong uniform
~Women in the Rangers
~Sergeants ordering officers around (actually, this might be true) with the officers calling the NCOs "Sir"
~A private being all gung-ho and talking in the third person to everyone he meets.
~"Secret" training and missions and crap like that that gives fake veterans more stories to lie about.
~The entire movie "Basic"
~Basically, for me, when it's evident that the filmmakers didn't even bother calling up a local recruiting office to ask for help, let alone hiring a military consultant for it.

Computers...
~Sounds at every keystroke. We all know how annoying that would be, and if it happened to us, would assume that our friends had played a prnak on us.
~PDAs with superpowers - mainly because the PDA manufacturer sponsored the film somehow.
~Crappy computers that become supercomputers with unlimited bandwidth the moment a nerd touches it.

Superkids...
~With all respect to Wil Wheaton, and while I love ST:TNG... While it felt great watching Wesley Crusher get rejected from Starfleet Academy, it also frustrated me. His rejection meant that Crusher would stay on the show longer, and that single-handedly saving the best ship in Starfleet, repeatedly and despite the incompetence of some of Starfleet's best officers, STILL wasn't enough for him to get into the school.
~Of course, superboy Anakin Skywalker. And how annoyed was I to think that this annoying little kid was supposed to hook up with Natalie Portman? Yeah...


Implausible heroics...
~Luke Skywalker - I don't care how badly designed the Death Star is, or how many midichlorians he had, if you can blow up the galaxy's foremost battleship and your only qualification is hitting womprats - that's retarded.

I could go on for hours actually, so I'll just cut it off here. With one closing thought.
~Retcons. What!?!?!? Midichlorians? Ugh...

[molecularfire]

1. The girl telling me to zip back up my fly
2. The camera jostling around that make me wanna vomit (ex: blair witch project, cloverfield)
3. ... actually, that's it. Otherwise, I'm not very picky about movies.

[zenbooty]

Bad scripts
unnatural, melodramatic dialog
formulaic storylines and predictable plotlines
Romantic era stuff (Merchant Ivory, gothic era literature like Jane Austin.), blech
Overreliance on cgi and effects over real action and cinematography
Current rock bands' songs showing up on the soundtrack. Double that if the band has a video for the song showing clips from the movie.
Anything more than an occasional dash of sophomoric humor.
Unnaturally precocious children with college level vocabularies who behave like little adults.
Any movie aimed at the teen audience released 1990 or later.

[zenbooty]

Computers...
~Sounds at every keystroke. We all know how annoying that would be, and if it happened to us, would assume that our friends had played a prnak on us.
Have you experienced some of those 80's IBM PC keyboards? Sturdy things, weighed about 3 pounds, The keys were tall, like a cubic centimeter or more, pressed down nearly half and inch with a loud, satisfying <*CLICK*!>

~PDAs with superpowers - mainly because the PDA manufacturer sponsored the film somehow.
~Crappy computers that become supercomputers with unlimited bandwidth the moment a nerd touches it.
Ooojh yeah I hate this. "I'll upload a virus with my thinkpad into the alien motherships alien computer system that we've never even seen before. From this little fighter ship. In outer space, where there is no medium to transport any signal we send.

Or, "Hey, I like to get into mischief and can hack other computer systems using my 1200 baud modem. I think I'll start a nuclear war after breaking into NORAD's military defense control system with said modem, confusing it for some burned out old scientist's AI game machine!"


Implausible heroics...
~Luke Skywalker - I don't care how badly designed the Death Star is, or how many midichlorians he had, if you can blow up the galaxy's foremost battleship and your only qualification is hitting womprats - that's retarded.
Remember, the Force was with him. Ben Kenobi invested a lot of Karma points earlier for that shot.

[ray]

Kirsten Dunst.

[oblongmelon]

I hate scenes where you can tell the movie was cut/reshot/...you know..a part in the hair in a different place, someone's hat on wrong, that kind of stuff..
Also..when it's supposed to be a NIGHT scene and it is very clearly DAYTIME in the background. I have a habit of looking for bloopers..it makes me crazy. Then I have to see the movie again to see what I actually missed by all the time I spent looking for them!

[Leon]

When a pistol magically runs out of ammo even though the slide was not locked back.

[cadetevon]

Continuity issues are HUGE ruiners for me. Coffee mug in the left hand then cut/snip, it's in the right hand.

Gratuitous foul language. I curse like a sailor (not around my child though), but once in a while I'd like to see a good movie with my 12 year-old without having to worry about language.

[Markel]

Ooojh yeah I hate this. "I'll upload a virus with my thinkpad into the alien motherships alien computer system that we've never even seen before. From this little fighter ship. In outer space, where there is no medium to transport any signal we send.
But of course, Microsoft had already achieved universal dominion, so the aliens were running Windows.

[eSDee]

There are a few things that bother me...

Distortion on military themes:
~Wrong rank (misplaced, worn upside down)
~Wrong uniform
~Women in the Rangers
~Sergeants ordering officers around (actually, this might be true) with the officers calling the NCOs "Sir"
~A private being all gung-ho and talking in the third person to everyone he meets.
~"Secret" training and missions and crap like that that gives fake veterans more stories to lie about.
~The entire movie "Basic"
~Basically, for me, when it's evident that the filmmakers didn't even bother calling up a local recruiting office to ask for help, let alone hiring a military consultant for it.


I agree with most of what you said Shawnlee. But the military stuff I quoted also drives me nuts. I'd be a free consultant if Hollywood ever wanted me. Here are a couple I can't stand.

~ High ranking officers wearing their headgear inside a building
~ Rank not visible on the soldiers uniform - none at all, even incorrectly placed
~ Shiny metal rank pins on desert BDU's - that doesn't happen

I could go on, but you get the picture. These are easy mistakes for someone who has served at one time.

[ShawnLee]

Have you experienced some of those 80's IBM PC keyboards? Sturdy things, weighed about 3 pounds, The keys were tall, like a cubic centimeter or more, pressed down nearly half and inch with a loud, satisfying <*CLICK*!>
This I'll give you - but that's a mechanical sound that was inherent to the situation. In other words, it was real.

The idea of an extra "bloop" or "bleep" noise that comes from system resources just to sound "techie" doesn't cut it.

Shoot, I'm still a fan of keys that make some sort of audible click - it lets me know that I've hit the key when I'm free-writing and I'm not looking at either the keyboard or the monitor.

When a pistol magically runs out of ammo even though the slide was not locked back.
Oh my gosh... I've never thought about this before but think you've just helped to create a new pet peeve in me.

That reminds me.

Unsafe handling of guns by "professionals" in movies is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. Steven Seagal checking if a round is chambered by pushing the slide back from the business end of 1911. Freakin' asking to lose a digit.
Why? Cause it looks cooler than safely and efficiently pulling the slide back from behind and above.

Jerk. Might as well look down the barrel while you're at it. Gonna cause some wannabe "tacti-cool" Counter-Strike player to kill himself at the shooting range.
I agree with most of what you said Shawnlee. But the military stuff I quoted also drives me nuts. I'd be a free consultant if Hollywood ever wanted me. Here are a couple I can't stand.

~ High ranking officers wearing their headgear inside a building
~ Rank not visible on the soldiers uniform - none at all, even incorrectly placed
~ Shiny metal rank pins on desert BDU's - that doesn't happen

I could go on, but you get the picture. These are easy mistakes for someone who has served at one time.
Exactly!!!!!!

All they need to do is ask ANYONE. A National Guard unit, a Reservist, a retiree, shoot - a freakin' ROTC cadet could probably do it. Buy me lunch and I'll do it! Man...

[Kevster]

ok here's another BIG weapons pet peeve:

Why do actors/morons ALWAYS have to chamber a round in a pump-action shotgun?! Whenever they do that, I'm screaming, "so what, it wasn't even loaded?!"

[Kevster]

The Professional? :eek:

Actually Leon didn't die needlessly. He thought he was getting away when Stansfeld came up behind him and shot him. The fact that he had a jacket full of explosive grenades and gave Stansfeld the pin was Leon's ultimate parting shot.

[DarkFury]

Actually Leon didn't die needlessly. He thought he was getting away when Stansfeld came up behind him and shot him. The fact that he had a jacket full of explosive grenades and gave Stansfeld the pin was Leon's ultimate parting shot.
He could've just planted the grenades and snuck away alive...


WE WANT HIM ALIVE!!!!!! :2far:


(BTW... I wondered how long it would take you to respond. A little longer than originally expected I suppose.)

[cheapie]

speaking of grenades, why didn't will smith's character just chuck the grenade out the whole the zombie/vampire was making in his plexiglass door? coulda stay alive that way instead of taking himself out with the bad guys!

[gwilks98]

speaking of grenades, why didn't will smith's character just chuck the grenade out the whole the zombie/vampire was making in his plexiglass door? coulda stay alive that way instead of taking himself out with the bad guys!


Thanks, I was wanting to skip legend and just watch the ending. :)

I guess that's one more thing that ruins a movie for me.

[ShawnLee]

:stupid:

Thanks Cheapie... Hahahaha...

[cheapie]

sorry. :disa:

[DarkFury]

Dum dum Dummmmmmmmmm!!!!

[DaFunkyUnit]

unnecessary musical/dance scenes.

Spiderman 3, i'm looking at you.

[mcs328]

Nicholas Cage. Keanu Reeves.

[DarkFury]

Nicholas Cage. Keanu Reeves.
Hey now... "The Matrix" is still a classic in my book.


You can keep Cage though. :D

[gwilks98]

I'm not sure what element ruined Nacho Libre, but it could have been a collective effort. That thing was so bad, I was using x1.4 fast play to get through the boring scenes. (I think I shaved off like 20 minutes.)

[Jeffbx]

Someone pointed this out to me one time & now it's all I think about during movies with automatic weapons...

The amount of ammo they go through in a 2 minute firefight would weigh about 200Lbs, yet everyone seems to have an unlimited supply tucked in that extra clip in their pocket.

[DarkFury]

Someone pointed this out to me one time & now it's all I think about during movies with automatic weapons...

The amount of ammo they go through in a 2 minute firefight would weigh about 200Lbs, yet everyone seems to have an unlimited supply tucked in that extra clip in their pocket.
When you are "high on adrenaline".. you naturally can carry more. :heh:


Unlimited ammo and Unlimited health and hit points FTW!!! :D

[mcs328]

Hey now... "The Matrix" is still a classic in my book.


You can keep Cage though. :D

Ok I'll relent on the first Matrix but none of the sequels.

[Full Monty]

I'll tell you one thing that's GUARANTEED to ruin a movie for me:

Seeing a schlong.

[cheapie]

eastern promises?

[Jeffbx]

I'll tell you one thing that's GUARANTEED to ruin a movie for me:

Seeing a schlong.


That's pretty ironic, given your username.

[DarkFury]

Guess he just sticks to soft core pRon (Skinemax) and R ratings and below. :D

[Paniolo]

Spoilers :bigmouth: :throw:

[ShawnLee]

I'll tell you one thing that's GUARANTEED to ruin a movie for me:

Seeing a schlong.Didn't like "Walk Hard" much, did you?

That's pretty ironic, given your username.
Or that Full Monty is from Beaverton, OR?

Hehe, Beaver... ton.

[Maarchk]

Stupid cheesy moments in an action movie. Like 45 minutes worth of transformers. such a waste of time.
Movies that try to be all genre's when they aren't.