Obscure Inq

HP

“Oh hey guys, I’m alive.” I cannot stand it when a movie has the gall to kill off a major character (or a major characters loved one) only to puss out and bring the character back. I’m fine if it’s a decent twist and it feels like it was intended the whole time, but it’s insulting when that return feels tacked on just to give us that “good” feeling. My example? War of the Worlds. Tom Cruises son dies. He explodes. Boom. Tom Cruise gets home and, lookie here, his son is there waiting for him. Not only did he live through an explosion, but he got home first. Go Tom Jr. Go suck it.

You assumed he died. Kids are made of rubber donchaknow? -Travis

Travis

“I’m invincible!” Main characters that don’t die at all ever. These sort of “hero” characters are mostly found in American movies and boy do they get me upset. You were stabbed twice, shot four times, and had a building land on you but you made it out alive. Oddly though, your equally tough looking sidekick stubbed his toe and keeled over. Ok, I know this qualifies you for your BA in Badassery (link to Will’s post), but I still really wish some minor character would pop you in the head. Come back from THAT chump.

Travis, tell that to 50 Cent. In “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” our friend’s face was filled with an entire clip’s worth of bullets, from point-blank range, and he got up and started rapping. So there. -Tom

Tom

“You guys go ahead, I’ll hold them off by dying.” This is sort of the opposite end of the spectrum to Travis’s complaint, and it pisses me off just as damn much. The only reason they kill off most of these somewhat main characters is because they ran out of things to do, and want to make it look like people are sacrificing shit. But it’s all just bull…drop a grenade, and run on. Some movies do it fine (The Matrix, Armaggedon), but most don’t. At all. I think the worst offender is I Am Legend, where all he had to do was give the vampire its damn girlfriend back. But does he? No. No, he pulls a pin on a grenade and jumps at the vampire, instead, killing himself and the vampires for no damned reason. Fuckheads.

Tristan

“It’s ok, the bullet hit my vest/badge/Bible/zipper!” This one was good the first time. It took everyone by surprise, and we were all giddy about how outsmarted we had been. Since then, it has almost become a staple of movies. I believe the first time I saw it was in Back to the Future III, and I enjoyed it then. But five hundred movies later, any time you see a protagonist get shot or stabbed you immediately think “Hmmm, I wonder what’s under his shirt”.

Here’s another one Tristan… In the The 3 Musketeers movie with Keifer Sutherland, one of em gets shot and is presumed dead… nevermind it just hit and put a dent the crucifix hanging around his neck. Que line: “Well whatdya know… there is a God” -Will

Will

“Ok for the female lead we’re going to need a bright, attractive, funny young actress… on second thought let’s just use Drew Barrymore” If you couldn’t guess, I am not her biggest fan. As much as the action sequences of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle seemed to make fun of my intelligence (ie. Girls lifted upward via counterweight pulley system, girls then kick through ceiling, girls fly through air in slo-mo, each girl proceeds to grab a shard of wood in mid air, girls use said shards as makeshift skateboards and grind down a draping chain to safety), what insulted me most was that the filmmakers tried to convince me that Ms. Barrymore (crooked mouth and all) was sexually desirable. Quite frankly, I would appreciate a little Drew Barryless.

I’m sure Drew Barrymore is a nice person in real life, but I can’t get over the side-of-the-mouth talking. -Travis

Tucker

The biggest movie cop-out of all time is easy. Because you’ve seen it so so so many times you might not even realize it. It’s the goddamn happy endings. No, I’m not talking about the extra 50 bucks you spend at the Asian massage table every weekend. I’m talking about how every single flipping movie ending where everything just seems to “work out”. Try for a second to count every movie you’ve ever seen that ends on a positive note, you can not. Try to count every movie where the shit hits the fan and stays that way. You can easily do it on one hand. Personally, I blame William Shakespeare for his god damn “people will kill themselves if you don’t leave them on a happy note” bullshit. Well Bill, who are you to stop natural selection from doing its job? My name is Tucker and I support this massage.

Travis, Tucker, (and Tom to some extent) you are expressing different complaints that stem off the same problem – the public. The public wants to see invulnerable heroes because it makes them feel good. It allows them to feel bad ass by proxy. Honestly, I don’t want to watch an action movie about a guy like me who would probably get in a fist fight, hurt his back, and then get beaten until he was admitted into the ICU.

And the public likes happy endings. Rare is it that you get a movie that has the balls to pull that comfort away from you. I’m going to plug The Dark Knight here, because nothing about that movie is really happy. And Tom, in I Am Legends case, they had a much better, more peaceful ending planned, but the test audiences wanted more boom and more dead ghouls. -HP

Will’s fits that category too. The public has a problem with Drew Barrymore. -Tristan

Jake

This might be a cop-out, it may be stereotyping. Either way, it pisses me off. With the exception of one movie I can think of, every action hero/drama protagonist/mentally “strong” character has been 500 pounds of solid muscle. Seriously, I’ve seen a big guy try to sneak up on someone. Trust me, it isn’t quiet if he has to shuffle around that much weight. The only movie I can think of that had a “strong” male protagonist without steroid problems was El Wray from Planet Terror (remember the quick little guy with the knives?) Seriously, sometimes you don’t need a “Ah’m gonnah pump – YOU UP!” poster boy. Also, throw this argument to the other side when some jackass director feels that the heroine shoots more accurately somehow lugging around D cups.

There are a huge number of exceptions to yours. Keanu Reeves, Jet Li, Antonio Banderas and Toby Maguire have all been “The Hero” in movies I’m sure you’ve seen, and while they’re in good shape they’re not bouncer material by any means. I’ll agree that there’s an abundance of Dwayne Johnsons and Vin Diesels, but there’s also a ton of small agile gymnastics-types out there. If your complaint is a lack of fat people playing the hero role then that’s a different story. I mean, if I wanted to see fat people in spandex I’d just go to the beach. -Tristan