[Dormant, please move to !television@lemm.ee] Movies and TV Shows

Concussions. People get knocked out by a blow to the head or neck? They stay knocked out for an hour or so? They wake up okay?

I slipped on ice and cracked the side of my skull into the corner of a dumpster. I was out for...? It was the dead of winter. In Canada. -30. I couldn't have been out more than a minute or two.

I was all kinds of messed up for months. I couldn't control my arms right. My emotions went haywire. I had blinding headaches for weeks.

I still have nasty chronic headaches and memory loss. It happened more than ten years ago!

Knocked out for long enough to wake up tied up in a warehouse? Nah, you died. Buffy? Dead. James Bond? Dead. Sorry.

The worst is explaining that X can't be done because Y, then doing X anyway. Solo does this by sending Qi'ra on the mission despite just saying the whole point was not to use recognizable gangsters

Catering to the general population to make money instead of art.

Syringes getting stabbed into the necks of unwilling people is my niche pet peeve.

I'm a critical care nurse lol. There's no anatomy in a neck to receive an injection. There's not enough muscle mass, and you're not hitting a jugular vein without a person's full cooperation and a helluva lot of skill with IV injections. There's a nontrivial chance that you're just going to inject the medication into a person's trachea or esophagus, or worst case scenario directly into their spine.

Arms, people. Arms are where we inject people who don't want to be injected. Right through the clothes, if need be.

Peripherally related: Why are all needles used in movies like 2-3 inches long? No one uses needles that large for anything in the real world.

I think this one is pretty common, but whenever there’s a disagreement, argument or debate that could be resolved in less than 10 seconds by one of the characters explaining themself in a single sentence, but instead they say nothing and or get interrupted right when they’re getting to the important bit. I know I know, it keeps the tension going, but the tension is so artificial and convoluted that I can’t help but scream at the TV “just fucking say it!!!”

When people who clearly have never cooked a meal for themselves prepare one on film. The whole process.

We recently watched a movie where a woman was preparing dinner but she’s chopping whatever the hell she was chopping like it was the first time in her life that she had ever held a knife. Sometimes they even use the completely wrong knife for whatever the task is that they’re trying to do. Other times, they’re constantly stirring something like boiling noodles or sauces that don’t need to be stirred. All kinds of dumb things that are obviously done just to give the actor something to do with the props around them but that make the character look incompetent instead.

Even worse is when whatever they’re doing doesn’t even make sense within the context presented in the film, e.g. dicing a lime for drinks instead of cutting slices or wedges, using a pepper grinder on fruit, making another character taste something that would be scalding hot, etc.

Close runner-up is when characters go to a bar and order “a beer” or some other generic version of something. Just make up a god damn brand name, fer chrissakes.

Drinking from empty cups. The way you hold, drink and move with a cup with hot liquid in it is very different from an empty cup. Whenever I see it it is all I can think about.

I hate when production companies dupe people into doing work on a movie "on spec". For those who don't know, on spec means that the work is done at a reduced upfront cost with the expectation of a share of profits after release. What the poor schmucks who fall for this don't know is that no movie has made a profit for production companies in over 50 years. At least not as far as paper is concerned. After a movie is made, production companies have to get it out there. The companies who do this are known as distributors, and they charge the production company to do the distribution. Now for the movie magic, the same company that owns the production company also owns the distributor, so they are essentially charging themselves more money than the movie can ever make to do the job. The legal loophole that they fuck people with is that, even though they are owned by the same company, they are separate legal entities, so contracts with one do not bind the other. The on spec contract is with the production company, but the distributor is the one who collects the money from the theaters, which it then funnels into the parent company. The production company shows a loss on the books, so the on spec clauses never trigger. Look into Life of Pi and Rhythm and Hues if you can find the right articles about what happened.

Oh, and remember how I said that theaters pay the distributors? Those contracts are almost as straightforward as the on spec ones. The standard layout is that the theater pays some percentage of the box office to the distributor for opening week, then each week after it reduces by some fixed percent until reaching 0. The initial percentages vary, as do the reduction, but standard is 80/10 from what I understand. The most abusive I have ever specifically learned the details for was a Disney production, I belive it was the first of the new Star Wars movies, but it was a 99% opening week, decreasing by 1% per week for 4 weeks, then 5% thereafter. Oh, and they also tried to strongarm the theaters into having to fork over 50% of concessions as well, which was the first time I had ever heard of that. Luckily the concessions thing was fought and won by the theaters, but it is atrocious that they even tried. Anyway, that is why concessions are so expensive, because theaters make virtually 0 money off box office sales since the bulk of a movie's gross revenue comes from opening week box office. Do your local theater a favor if you genuinely enjoy them existing, buy a fountain drink or a popcorn. Those are the highest profit margin items on the menu and they do actually need the money.

Generic Hollywood bad guy actors everywhere hurting the heroes and almost killing them only to be killed themselves (or at least punished) by the heroes instead whatever and however so.

Cute and funny protagonists everywhere.

Forced humor into every film or show.

Teases and sequel hooks ala Marvel Studios.

Plot-twist elements being spammed by a film.

Recycling plot points from other movies or writing by the seats of their pants in movies.

Wasting source material in adapted works, especially in supposedly comic book movies.

Copying from Marvel Studios in general.

Taking shots at other original works in general.

Wasting potential materials of any kind.

Altering the work itself to sell more tickets.

Constant bait-and-switch gags everywhere.

Villainous side-characters ala Illumination, even if they especially get away with their own actions.

Juvenile or depraved humor in any work.

Characters overanalyzing their own mediums while spamming all of the above that I described.

Plot points that are constantly switching.

Controversial and immoral topics in any work.

Covering up all of the above with cute humor.

Overwhelming sensory abuse as an autistic.

Characters too evil to belong in a particular work.

Trying to get away with anything and everything in a work, particularly in a children’s work.

I've got to reply to myslef just in case it doesn't get mentioned, but when somebody getting shot at hides behind a wooden door or a piece of furniture and the bullet doesn't go through the sofa or wooden door.

Oh cool! You flipped over the coffee table?

You should be totally fine while machine guns rain down ammunition on you.

Mine is kind of petty too, but it just seems to pop up so much. I hate when superheroes have to deal with a villain that uses the same source of power. Hulk fighting another Hulk, Ant-man fighting another shrinking guy, Iron Man fighting another dude in an Iron Man suit, Superman fighting other kryptonians, Captain America fighting another super soldier, Black Panther fighting another Black Panther dude.. Once you notice that you realize it sort of the default for this genre

I'll admit this is petty, but you asked lol

It really kills my suspension of disbelief when tech just folds up / unfolds from practically nowhere. Typically in sci-fi, and it's most often seen with helmets. I get from a production standpoint, it can all be done in CGI and the actor doesn't have to wear or carry around the prop for the whole scene, but it just gets annoying.

It just makes the tech seem egregiously implausible even if it is handwaved away.

Spoiling the fucking movie with the trailers...

This current woke trend in movies and television.