Ah... Movies. We all watch em, we all love em, and some of us (me) are also quite obsessed with them.
But if you've watched as many movies as I have, you start to notice something...
Repetition.
This recurrence of details can be referred to as cliches and tropes.
Tropes can be a screenwriter's best friend or worst enemy depending on how they are used.
Apart from the lack of creativity, tropes are generally not bad things to include in your movies.
In fact, some of them are legitimate and work quite well.
We all view tropes in different ways. There are some we love, some we hate, some we love to hate, and some we hate to love.
But the tropes we are here to talk about are the ones that do not have any medals in the truth department.
Before I list them, I would like to inform you all that I will be judging each of these tropes on whether or not they should live or die.
Some tropes are excusable,but some just need to be burnt in a dumpster fire and launched into the ocean.
So without further ado, here are four fallacious movie tropes and my verdicts on them.
COOL LOOKING SWORD FIGHTS
We all love a good ol sword fight, I mean what's not to love about people poking sharp, deadly metals at one another.
A well-choreographed sword fight is usually a beauty to behold.
But there's just one thing;
Sword fights in real life and not nearly as exciting as movies make them out to be. They are far from cool.
All that clanging and slashing and being so fast that your opponent feels your strike 10 seconds after your attack... Yea, that's all balderdash.
Real life sword experts and swordsmen have disproved movie sword fights time and time again.
According to them, swords are just not made to withstand excessive force multiple times. They would simply snap.
The whole point of sword fights (pun intended) is to finish up the enemy as quickly as you can. That means no clanging, very little pairing and definitely no talking about your lost honour.
Real life sword fights usually consist of a lot of dodging and evading and looking for open spaces to stab, and it is almost always over in seconds as opposed to the epic long-lasting symphony of metal and skill we see in movies.
When I first found out about the reality of sword fights, it killed my hopes of ever becoming a cool samurai.
But I learnt to accept that reality is not as grand as movies and a real life person will never be able to strike down a hundred men with just one slash of his sword(disappointing right, I know).
VERDICT: LIVE
No one wants to see boring ass realistic sword fight. The whole point of movie sword fights is to be epic... Well that and killing people.
So not only should this trope live, it should thrive.
NOT EATING BREAKFAST:
I'll just say it right out the bat
My verdict is for this trope to die a horrible death.
Let it get snapped to dust by thanos
It's definitely up there in the list of my most hated tropes.
Some of you can already guess what I'm talking about, but let me expatiate.
You know those scenes where a kid is going to school, and the parent has prepared a gourmet type meal with every breakfast food combo you can think of and then the kids just grabs an apple and leaves with some bogus excuse like "I'm running late" or "I'm not really hungry"...
Yea those scenes need to go ASAP.
I'm not even joking right now,
Like what the heck. That's literally three square meals on the table and the freaking kid just grabs an apple?!
Not only does it have ridiculous implications, it is incredibly unrealistic.
What actual kid will take an apple over toast, sausages, eggs, mashed potatoes... Dang it! I'm already drooling.
If I ever see a kid pull that stunt in real life, I may honestly kick said kid in the teeth.
Let's see how he's gonna eat the freaking apple then.
JUMPING THROUGH GLASS AND STILL REMAINING FRESH
We've all seen at least one film where a character jumps through glass — maybe in a chase or escape attempt e.t.c —and they just stand up and brush themselves off and continue on their merry way.
First off... No.
There is just no way you can jump through glass and not get severely injured.
Let me elaborate:
You see, windows (which are typically the choice of exit that most action heroes jump through) are made of regular glass.
And regular glass requires a lot of pressure to shatter, so if a human provides that pressure, it can cause severe injuries as the body is pressed to the glass as it breaks.
Let us run a simulation:
So we have our hero, he is being chased and decides to jump through a glass window.
When the glass breaks, it's split into shards, the force that our hero exerts pushes him through those shards, and that leads to multiple cuts and tears on his skin. And what about the glass that remains on the window frame,
Ah yes those also did a splendid job of carving up our hero.
And now our hero is in the intensive care unit with multiple cuts to his skin and some cuts to his arteries.
Now you might ask;
"But what about stuntmen, they jump through glass all the time."
Yes, they do,
But the glass they use is called sugar glass, which is the special type of glass used in stunt scenes.
It is significantly less dangerous than real glass but it still has potential for injuries and that is why only trained stuntmen and actors are allowed to jump through it.
VERDICT: DIE
Now when I say die, I don't necessarily mean that movies should stop showing characters breaking through glass(it looks freaking cool).
I mean stop showing characters breaking through glass and coming out unscathed.
Most kids and teenagers are dumb and impressionable, so it's no surprise that some of them would try this stunt after seeing their favorite actor do it in a movie and come out fine.
A good example of this was when a schoolmate of mine tried to punch through glass. He did do it successfully, but he tore an artery and lost a lot of blood, he had to be rushed to the hospital... And that was just his hand! Imagine if it was his whole body.
So Hollywood, next time you show Ryan Reynolds jump through a window, give him a few cuts.
EPIC SPACE EXPLOSIONS:
Scene from The Last Jedi
Source
There are two things that make explosions epic: fire and sound.
But unfortunately these elements are not present in space.
Contrary to what to what star wars would like you to believe. they literally cannot exist in space.
Allow me to explain...
You see, space is a vacuum which means there is no air and air is something that is very important to explosions.
Without air, there is no oxygen which is a vital element that is essential for fire to burn.
Without air, there is nothing to carry sound waves.
With this explanation the question arises;
So can explosions happen in space?
The answer is yes they can.
But they would be far far far less dramatic that what we see in movies.
No air means no kaboom and no fire (sounds boring right I know).
While most space movies are guilty of fake space explosions, some movies like interstellar used the realistic approach and it worked quite well. But interstellar is a one in a million movie.
The reason interstellar worked so well was because the drama elements and realistic portrayals wear weaves together seamlessly and tied neatly by an amazing soundtrack.
A fast-paced sci-fi action franchise like Star wars wouldn't dare risk being realistic unless they want to bore their audience to death.
Be honest with yourself if you went to see an action sci-fi space movie and there are no Kabooms of explosions or pew pew of lasers, wouldn't you demand a refund?
I would.
VERDICT: LIVE
Kabooms and pew-pews , that's all I have to say.
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There are a lot more tropes to address but I'll stop here for today.
As I mentioned in the beginning of the post tropes are not necessarily bad. A lot of them actually make movies much more fun.
What trope do you love and what trope would you like to see die in a fiery explosion?
Let me know below.
Thank you for reading.
Stay buzzing,
Maximus✍🏾