Small things that really annoy you in media

[SITHRAK!]

I’m currently having a hate affair with bad foley work.

Watched a low-budget thriller the other day (Gray Lady, with Eric Dane) where a Glock pistol was being wielded, and every time the shooter swung it around or aimed at someone, the classic ‘revolver hammer cocking’ sound was laid over the top.
Firstly, weapons don’t randomly cock themselves (unless you’re Alec Baldwin, hardy har har) and secondly, it’s a striker-fired pistol that doesn’t make that noise, ever.

I also started watching Vikings: Valhalla out of pure boredom and got annoyed at the stupid ‘fwinnnng’ sound effect they lay over arrows and crossbow bolts. No normal arrow or bolt makes that stupid sound. You also hear it used for spears. It’s the Wilhelm Scream of ancient weapons.

Apart from the foley work on Valhalla, there was a moment where Jarl Haakon (a white man IRL but of course played by a black woman), while walking through a Viking market in AD1016 Scandinavia, gave a nice little speech explaining why it looks like a San Francisco flea market. The market is of course full of African and Asian traders and towards the end of diatribe she drops the line “all things are possible if our minds are open.”

No explanation of how, or indeed why, such traders would make such a perilous journey when their wares would be more quickly and economically sold closer to home. No, this was the scriptwriter speaking directly to the audience through a character to culture shame them if they didn’t like the historically unfounded propaganda that Sweden at the end of the Dark Ages was a multicultural paradise. That shit needs to stop. You want to be an ahistorical retard, go for it, but don’t use your bullshit blackwashed and genderflipped characters as sock puppets for your dumbassery.

When they have a token gay couple thats interracial, it’s always white female and black male. Always.

Fixed that for you. Weird how they almost never show the most common IR pairing, white male and Asian female.

 

[naaaaiiiiillllll!!!]

Not sure this is a small thing, but when a piece of media takes place in a very specific location and you can tell the writer’s never set foot there. For audience members also ignorant of the location, it’s not noticed, but if you happen to be even mildly familiar with the setting, immersion is killed and you’re almost insulted.

 

[Steve Martin Short]

Not sure this is a small thing, but when a piece of media takes place in a very specific location and you can tell the writer’s never set foot there. For audience members also ignorant of the location, it’s not noticed, but if you happen to be even mildly familiar with the setting, immersion is killed and you’re almost insulted.

On TV, it's a matter of the show being filmed in one place while being set in another, and it's just some small feature, like the shape of the street signs or public transit that's the wrong color. Maybe not as insulting as a lack of research, but the locals get their willing suspension of disbelief yanked out from under them.

 

[el bandito loco]

characters telling other characters what they're doing that we the audience can clearly see and don't need.

"what are you doing in here?"
"reading the book mentioned earlier"
"so you're telling me you're actually reading that plot device we set up an hour ago?"
"Yes I'm reading that specific plot device and it's giving me clues to inform what me and you will do next"

fuck, just show the character reading the book, then get up and tell the other they know where to go next or whatever.

It applies to anything though not just plot devices, I can fuckin see that's why I am WATCHING something on television, if a guy is eating a hot dog, I don't need him to tell another guy what he's doing so the other guy can verbally confirm yes you are eating a hot dog.

 

[Hinttitroniikka]

One reason I really don't mind "diverse" casting even to whatever extreme is that I have terrible trouble remembering what character is which in media where the costuming is largely the same. Anything where they're in military uniform and haircuts, I'll lose the first third of it because I can't keep the characters straight by name and face alone. Why is he going in there, I thought he was in some different building altogether - wait it's different guys - oh but is this a new guy or the one from the first scene...I have to read summaries after I watch stuff like that. If I want realism, I'll read a history, but it's just actors pretending, make them stand out a bit pls.

 

[el bandito loco]

my big one besides treating me like I'm retarded and can't see what a character is doing wasting time and a whole scene reiterating what they're doing is probably sarcastic characters and quips but really at this point it's not even a minor issue in media it's THE major issue.

I've been complaining about this stuff since like 2011 but it seriously feels like at best every movie or TV show made has at least one character who only speaks in reddit comments, and at worst every character does this at least a bit.

I can't take anything seriously when everyone is clowning on every thing happening in a movie. I understand the need for levity, and having a character who points shit out, but it's the fact it's all the same snarky self aware bullshit is the problem.

It makes everything in every genre feel like the same guy is writing it and his biggest goal is not to entertain you but think he's clever. It's sort of similar to all the Tarantino and Kevin Smith style dialogue people tried to do in the 90s and early 00s where characters constantly had retarded and pointless conversations about totally unrelated shit. but much more annoying. at least that at best succeeded in it's goal of making the characters feel like normal people no matter what story they were in just talking about bullshit like people do, and at worst was shallow imitation of better dialogue.

This shit is like the movie stops to kick you in the nuts then tries to impress you. It's never once made me think wow this writer is clever! It makes me think, wow this writer has got to be insufferable to speak to. probably can't make it a whole sentence without trying to say or point out something 'ironic'. It sounds completely inorganic but the worst part is there is a bunch of people who literally talk like that.

 

[Gaddafi]

I know most of the replies are about TV/movies but one thing I notice in a lot of East Asian gachaslop games is overcomplicated designs. There's a line between impressive and intricate attention to detail (I think old niche vocaloids/UTAUloids are good examples of this personally) and too much, with the aforementioned games doing an Olympic high jump over the line.

 

[skykiii]

This is a small thing and maybe a little weird (what isn't with me?) but sometimes I get bothered when I watch a show or movie and the bad guy isn't just defeated but the show has to totally destroy them. Like not only do they lose the battle but at the last minute they get told their plan failed, their followers all abandoned ship, their kids hate them and their cat destroyed their favorite curtains. I dunno, in some cases it goes overboard to the point of being dickish.

At least when Captain Kirk kicked that klingon off the cliff in Star Trek III, it was only after offering the Klingon a hand and being backstabbed.

..... Also, arbitary downer endings, especially if they come out of nowhere and feel like they only happened for the sake of a subversion. This is one reason I never liked the original X-Files, because every episode would end with some bullshit downer that said everything Mulder and Scully did was basically pointless.

I know most of the replies are about TV/movies but one thing I notice in a lot of East Asian gachaslop games is overcomplicated designs. There's a line between impressive and intricate attention to detail (I think old niche vocaloids/UTAUloids are good examples of this personally) and too much, with the aforementioned games doing an Olympic high jump over the line.

Are you talking about character design?

I completely agree. Modern anime art in general is fucking atrocious. Characters just look way too "designed." For me I've always found it instructive to look at the design of Ys hero Adol Christian thru the years:

He's still kind of okay looking in 2009 but by 2019 he just looks like a dork.

 

[Mouthwash Enema]

Slop music used in anything from movies, tv, ads, etc. that involves rhythmic clapping. It really sets off my tism I guess.

 

[The Secret Sauce]

-skits before or after a song (save it for the music video)
-anything plot-related happening while credits roll at the beginning or end of a movie
-"I sure hope the police don't find out what happened here" immediately followed by "Chapter 6- The Police find out what happened there"
-Games with an autosave feature that make you click past an explanation for what an "autosave" is every fucking time you boot it up
-Strategy games where you have no ability to check what the game settings were for the current save file
-The persistent myth that playing a cheerful song while something disgusting/horrifying happens on-screen is funny

 

[Greedy Fly]

Characters all speaking with the same "voice." They don't all need to have unique funny accents, but the 16 year old upper class girl should not have the same tics, patterns, or vocabulary as the 60 year old working class man.

Characters who are ostensibly friends but never do friend-things, like hang out or laugh at each other's jokes. Especially grating if you find one of them unlikeable and are left wondering why they have any friends at all.

I get completely distracted whenever there's a driving scene and the driver is not watching the road.

 

[Señora Airi]

Whenever a royal or high-ranking person is simply strolling through a busy market or busy part of town without any sort of protection or bodyguards.

 

[melty]

Millenialisms like "I did a thing" and "this is fine, everything is fine"

 

[sadbird]

The motherfucking stock bird sounds. The Red Tailed Hawk screech is the wilhelm scream for birds.

 

[The greater a'tuin]

Villains that do not have a true physical form. They are depicted through a proxy, such as possessing someone else's body, or just not shown in person at all. And if they do get one it's a shapeless blob that appears for three seconds because they were too cheap/lazy to make an actual design.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The motherfucking stock bird sounds. The Red Tailed Hawk screech is the wilhelm scream for birds.

I'm pleased that I guessed the exact sound.

 

[The Foxtrot]

- When characters in a movie/TV show use an AR pattern rifle and have no (rear) sight for it, yet still shoulder and "aim" it.

- "Russians" in modern times always using 1960s-era AKMs with stamped steel mags and wood furniture despite the current service rifle of the RUAF being the AK-74M with polymer mags and furniture with a folding stock.

- Bullets (especially rifle rounds) somehow never penetrate materials that, realistically, wouldn't even slow them down.

 

[Town Drunk]

I'm no historian, but I know enough to call BS, especially in anything set in Europe. Everything was not dirty, and gray. People used paint on everything and loved color as much as we did. Nice road you have where the grass has been worn away by the wagon wheels, however the horse walks down the middle, so that wouldn't have grass either, unlike a car driven road. Why do you have a stairway, or high wall with no barrier to stop people from falling off? I'm looking at you LOTR.

And helmets. The poorest, ill equipped soldier would have two pieces of armor. A shield and a helmet. I know you don't want to cover up the face of the actor you paid millions for, but nothing is sillier than seeing a guy in full plate armor ride into battle with the most vulnerable/important part of his body exposed.

 

[Señora Airi]

Millenialisms like "I did a thing" and "this is fine, everything is fine"

That or the on and off again cussing. Either go all in on the cursing, or go all in on the more clean language. You can't just do "I blew that shit up with my freakin' mind" and not have it come off as terrible writing.

 

[Jhonson the Two]

When different races/species meet each others for the first time and ate the same food or don't fall sick.
I can accept it in fun and non-serious stories, but in this day and age of ultra-realism it annoy me greatly.