BTW, that final chase/crash scene in The Road Warrior was one horrific scene. I remember reading that that scene was one of the most dangerous ever filmed.

I think these guns must come with a lot of empty spaces in their magazines and they have to be pumped now and then for no aparent reason to get rid of them.

Only when threatening someone, or for dramatic reasons just before a gunfight or when anyone says, "Now it's personal."

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The guns can tell. That's why bad guys guns miss all the time. The guns make them miss so they'll have a shot at appearing in the sequal.

I also have a theory that James Bond is actually indestructable and he only occaisonally allows himself to get knocked out to advance the plot.

A role playing game I looked at briefly many years ago had rules for "Cinematic" campaigns. One was Bullet Proof Nudity. The fewer clothes worn by the hero, the higher his armor rating went. Another was the requirement for all villains to be graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksman Academy. This ensured that at no time will any enemy ever hit the hero with the first shot.

A film example of this is Behind Enemy Lines. The enemy sniper has a rifle with an extendable bipod on the front. The Hero is sitting against a light gray concrete dam in his dark green flight suit about 800 yards away. The first shot misses. Cut to the sniper and he's standing, holding the rifle unsupported by anything at all. Then, near the end, the sniper is sneaking through the brush after the hero. When he gets close, he stops, and chambers a round.

I'll add the 3 minute grenade fuse seen in just about any movie (that uses a grenade) except Saving Private Ryan. Die Hard 2 was the worst offender by far on that one.

Oh, and lock picking by wiggling a paper clip in the keyhole for 4 seconds. You need two tools, and the cylinder of the lock still has to turn to open it.

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I'm not gullible because I'm a Leo.--Actually said to me by a co-worker
Never trust anyone with 'The' for a middle name. --Said to me by a guy in Denny's at 4 am.
The difference between planning and pessimism can only be seen in retrospect. -- One of mine
Truth ain't like puppies; a bunch of them running around and you get to pick the one you like best." -- Emerson on Pushing Daisies

In the 1970s and 1980s it was always made clear that the evil helicopter pilots flew choppers in Viet Nam and were therefore by definition space cadets.

The evil airmen who operated fixed wing aircraft were always former Puff The Magic Dragon pilots.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

In 65-66 when my dad was in Vietnam (as a crew chief on a Huey), it was commonly understood that most helicopter pilots were really frustrated F-4 pilots.

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I'm not gullible because I'm a Leo.--Actually said to me by a co-worker
Never trust anyone with 'The' for a middle name. --Said to me by a guy in Denny's at 4 am.
The difference between planning and pessimism can only be seen in retrospect. -- One of mine
Truth ain't like puppies; a bunch of them running around and you get to pick the one you like best." -- Emerson on Pushing Daisies

Yeah, I've seen it actually done on a forklift with two pieces of 18 gauge sheet metal.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

A bad fantasy movie cliche. When dealing with the heroes, the villain/dark lord in his utter contempt will always forgo crushing them outright, but instead will inexplicably choose to deploy his weakest weapons/minions against them first, thus allowing the heroes ample opportunity to build up their strength to the point where they become a bona fide threat.

I've done a few with the toothpick and one of the screwdrivers in a Swiss Army Knife. Someone ran out the fire door at work and we didn't have a key to turn off the alarm. I had pick the alarm box open and pull the wires. We were actually able to re-lock the fire door and reset the alarm. That same toothpick was used to set the gap in the points on VW Bug on several occasions. It didn't run well, but it got me home.

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I'm not gullible because I'm a Leo.--Actually said to me by a co-worker
Never trust anyone with 'The' for a middle name. --Said to me by a guy in Denny's at 4 am.
The difference between planning and pessimism can only be seen in retrospect. -- One of mine
Truth ain't like puppies; a bunch of them running around and you get to pick the one you like best." -- Emerson on Pushing Daisies

Agreed. 10x over. Anymore, when I see the first minutes of a movie, I can tell you the rest of the plot. Who's good, who's bad, who will die in the intervening scenes, precisely what we're supposed to think about each character. It's mind-numbingly boring.

How about the following few: The guy who owns a business, especially if it's industrial in nature, is always a ruthless type-A psychopath.

"More evolved". "More highly evolved." "The next stage of evolution". I don't know how many times I keep hearing this gaggy peice of pseudo-science cliche. Especially with all the near-uniformly assumed characteristics of this imaginary state. ESP, telekinesis, obnoxious PC attitudes, arrogant judgementalism towards the rest of mankind for percieved "failings", ect.

Similar portrayals of alien contact - they're either evil cardboard invaders, or they're supposedly benevolent demigods who are nevertheless given implied permission to destroy mankind for it's percieved "failings" (a violent nature, ironically, being among them), or at least issue absurd judgements from on high.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

The noble savage is another waay over-done cliche. The "noble savages" are never more than 1-dimensional props in a morality play, juxtapositions for the perceived failings of civilization. They never seem to have individuality, or motives of their own, or failings, or any difficulty from the brutally hard circumstances that inevitably accompany a lack of civilization.

I suppose an earlier era in moviemaking had it's inverse cliche- the evil barbarian, with similar conditions applying.

That's one thing I sort of liked about Mark Twain's "Indian Joe". He may have been a villian, but he was a <i>human</i> villian, not a morality play villian. He had an actual background, actual motives, ect. It seems a lot more real to me.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

Two people don't like each other, but then one of them gets cancer.

<<BTW, that final chase/crash scene in The Road Warrior was one horrific scene. I remember reading that that scene was one of the most dangerous ever filmed.>>

Yes...but what a result!

Road Warrior is still, IMO, by far the best of the three movies. Thunderdome only aspired to be like its predecessor.

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"He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River."

--Anonymous

Except in "Morons from Outer Space". - Where the aliens suggest on their planet they do not have to haul around clumsy things like typwriters because they have invented this thing called a pen.


Why has become so fashionable for both heroes and villains to fight by throwing each other against walls or through windows - it you want finish someone off and you have not got a gun/sword/knife/etc then find something to hit them with - walls and windows make lousy weapons compared to rocks/iron bars/heavy chunks of wood and so on. Hitting someone with an improvised club is bound to deliver higher kinetic energy than you can obtain by trying to throw a person against a wall.

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Note 1. All requests for planetary demolition must now be submitted in quadruplicate on form UX-565/B4 and be counter-signed by the assistant administrative officer for interstellar traffic calming - department QG-7. Subject to approval by the chief planning officer and the infrastructure development coordination sub-committee.

Another one relating to guns: When loading a revolver, why is it always necessary to spin the cylinder? And why does the cylinder always make a "zzzzzz" sound when it's spun? I've never heard a cylinder make a sound on a real revolver when it's spun.

Here's one I hate with computers: The "boop boop BEEP" sound effects that they always have when someone is typing on a computer keyboard. Movies could probably get away with this in the very early eighties before most people used computers, but today it's just stupid. Closely related to this is the "zoom in" sound effect that always accompanies image processing software sequences. I use image manipulation software all the time, and when I zoom in on something or crop an area, Photoshop stays dead silent. Maybe I need to upgrade to Photoshop CSI or something. Closely related to this is the ability to enhance low quality security camera footage to the point where someone can zoom in on a reflection on a doorknob on the opposite side of a large room to see the face of someone standing out of view of the camera. Sorry, but pixels just ain't that flexible in real life.

Another cliche that bothers me to no end is when people are running from a badguy/monster/evil government agency/whatever, and they run into a building and run UPSTAIRS. Just where the heck do they think they're going to go? Once they run out of more "up," that's it. It's just dumb.

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All right. We'll call it a draw!

#80 on Peter's Evil Overlord List

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Getting up high seems to be a reflex defensive thing.

How about knives or swords that make a metallic 'Kchang' sound when the light catches them?

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

Or car tyres that squeal on a dirt road

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'