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Are you sure you aren’t just remembering fondly movies you saw when you were younger? Both those scenes are huge tropes/clichés.

User23 5y ago
Tropes are not bad[1]. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools?from=Administrivia.TropesAreNotBad https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesA...
ballenf 5y ago
There was a lot of trope in those movies, but I think we'll look back at today's bad movies as 99% trope. It's just we don't see the tropes so clearly right now without a little distance.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  The 99% trope thing has an associated concept of its own: fan service. Once you go past a certain level of tropey-ness (tropiness?) you're unavoidably telegraphing a message to genre fans because everyone else rejects your work as derivative. But giving it a name -- fan service -- is kind of a new version where all parties are aware of it and actively engaged with it. And it gives rise to a new way for directors to have all the fun of breaking the fourth wall without breaking the fourth wall -- to have the characters also aware of the tropes of the circumstances in which they find themselves. There's so much of this in TV in particular and a lot of it is because of the influence of Joss Whedon, but Rocke S. O'Bannon did some of this in Farscape (and then much more explicitly as I understand it in Cult, which I haven't seen yet). You could argue that a certain strand of films of the late 80s and early 90s really kicked it off, not least the original, quite underrated Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is all about trope awareness.
partomniscient 5y ago
The first time you see a huge trope or cliche, its not actually a huge trope or cliche because to you its new and you get the full impact of whatever it is. Its only over time that you get the "I know this situation", "I've been here before" possibly reaching the point of not wanting it again because you're oversaturated with said trope/cliche and now recognise them as such. But the first ones stick with you and you remember them differently to the others.
bmelton 5y ago
The thing with tropes is that they weren't always tropes. This reminds me of the Seinfeld effect. Seinfeld was arguably brilliant, but even if you disagree with its brilliance, enough people thought it was brilliant that practically every bit in its entire run has been ripped off so many times that they've all become boring clichés. So pervasive has the ripoff been, that watching Nickelodeon episodes of Hannah Montana and Sweet Life of Zack and Cody have ripped off (and watered down) Seinfeld plots to the extent that trying to watch Seinfeld now is burdensome. Despite the bits in Seinfeld having been mostly original and novel at the time they were made, they have become tropey enough that it feels unoriginal through the slow attrition of time. People trying to get into the show at this point would likely see it as tropey, and those who still adore it as doing so more through fond remembrance than appreciation of its originality.
- aikinai 5y ago
  It’s like people complaining the Lord of the Rings is just all the fantasy tropes. Well they weren’t tropes yet when Tolkien invented them.
  - bsder 5y ago
    Worse, they were counterculture. "Bored of the Rings" came out in 1969. People also forget that fantasy tropes were "evil and satanic" up through about the 1980s.
- RobertMiller 5y ago
  The Matrix fell hard to this. Slow motion bullet time? So passé!
barrkel 5y ago
Yeah, Casablanca is just a bunch of quotes strung together.
- mellavora 5y ago
  I think you mean "Hamlet" or was it "Macbeth". One of the two.
  - barrkel 5y ago
    No, I didn't. That would be a slightly different joke.
Shugarl 5y ago
But that's completely besides the point. Tropes are nothing more than patterns we can observe in multiple stories. Clichés are tropes used extremely frequently. There's nothing inherently wrong about either of those things, it's only the way they're being used, the execution, that can be good or bad. The James Bond one manages to add a touch of comedy, gives more information to the viewer about the characters who the characters are and how well they know each other, and makes the viewer remain attentive in what would otherwise be a fairly boring exposition scene. It has become used over and over again in various precisely because of how effective it is.

User23 5y ago

Tropes are not bad[1]. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools?from=Administrivia.TropesAreNotBad https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesA...

ballenf 5y ago

There was a lot of trope in those movies, but I think we'll look back at today's bad movies as 99% trope. It's just we don't see the tropes so clearly right now without a little distance.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
The 99% trope thing has an associated concept of its own: fan service. Once you go past a certain level of tropey-ness (tropiness?) you're unavoidably telegraphing a message to genre fans because everyone else rejects your work as derivative. But giving it a name -- fan service -- is kind of a new version where all parties are aware of it and actively engaged with it. And it gives rise to a new way for directors to have all the fun of breaking the fourth wall without breaking the fourth wall -- to have the characters also aware of the tropes of the circumstances in which they find themselves. There's so much of this in TV in particular and a lot of it is because of the influence of Joss Whedon, but Rocke S. O'Bannon did some of this in Farscape (and then much more explicitly as I understand it in Cult, which I haven't seen yet). You could argue that a certain strand of films of the late 80s and early 90s really kicked it off, not least the original, quite underrated Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is all about trope awareness.

partomniscient 5y ago

The first time you see a huge trope or cliche, its not actually a huge trope or cliche because to you its new and you get the full impact of whatever it is. Its only over time that you get the "I know this situation", "I've been here before" possibly reaching the point of not wanting it again because you're oversaturated with said trope/cliche and now recognise them as such. But the first ones stick with you and you remember them differently to the others.

bmelton 5y ago

The thing with tropes is that they weren't always tropes. This reminds me of the Seinfeld effect. Seinfeld was arguably brilliant, but even if you disagree with its brilliance, enough people thought it was brilliant that practically every bit in its entire run has been ripped off so many times that they've all become boring clichés. So pervasive has the ripoff been, that watching Nickelodeon episodes of Hannah Montana and Sweet Life of Zack and Cody have ripped off (and watered down) Seinfeld plots to the extent that trying to watch Seinfeld now is burdensome. Despite the bits in Seinfeld having been mostly original and novel at the time they were made, they have become tropey enough that it feels unoriginal through the slow attrition of time. People trying to get into the show at this point would likely see it as tropey, and those who still adore it as doing so more through fond remembrance than appreciation of its originality.

aikinai 5y ago
It’s like people complaining the Lord of the Rings is just all the fantasy tropes. Well they weren’t tropes yet when Tolkien invented them.
- bsder 5y ago
  Worse, they were counterculture. "Bored of the Rings" came out in 1969. People also forget that fantasy tropes were "evil and satanic" up through about the 1980s.
RobertMiller 5y ago
The Matrix fell hard to this. Slow motion bullet time? So passé!

barrkel 5y ago

Yeah, Casablanca is just a bunch of quotes strung together.

mellavora 5y ago
I think you mean "Hamlet" or was it "Macbeth". One of the two.
- barrkel 5y ago
  No, I didn't. That would be a slightly different joke.

Shugarl 5y ago

But that's completely besides the point. Tropes are nothing more than patterns we can observe in multiple stories. Clichés are tropes used extremely frequently. There's nothing inherently wrong about either of those things, it's only the way they're being used, the execution, that can be good or bad. The James Bond one manages to add a touch of comedy, gives more information to the viewer about the characters who the characters are and how well they know each other, and makes the viewer remain attentive in what would otherwise be a fairly boring exposition scene. It has become used over and over again in various precisely because of how effective it is.