Movie/TV Tropes that never happen in real life

[TruBluCatFan]

I’m bored, hence today’s topic. What is something we see over and over in movies and tv shows that you find annoying or laughable.

One of mine is uniformed bank security guards. Whenever a scene is in a bank you always see an armed uniform guard. I’ve never in my life gone into a bank and seen an armed uniform security guard. And you know as soon as you see him some shit is about to go down and he’s getting shot.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

people getting shot and shrugging it off like it was a fly that landed on them

 

[Col. Angus]

Men kissing men. I see it in everything. I never see that in real life. Why is there all the goddamn time?

and ya always see the mens’ asses in TV-MA shows. Never a woman’s ass. Why is that?

I think it’s sexist.

 

[MegaBlue05]

TV trope: It takes longer than 2 commercial breaks to get DNA evidence back from a crime lab.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

TV trope: It takes longer than 2 commercial breaks to get DNA evidence back from a crime lab.

A crime is committed and the trial is done with a week later

 

[TruBluCatFan]

A crime is committed and the trial is done with a week later.

TV justice moves at speed of light, real justice like a sloth.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

Super Stacie's hook up with a nice normie that was there all along. Yeah, forget that one boys.

 

[TruBluCatFan]

TV doctors who do everything. They take X-rays, put in IVs, do their own MRI. And specialties be damned. A dermatologist doing a brain surgery. LOL.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

TV doctors who do everything. They take X-rays, put in IVs, do their own MRI. And specialties be damned. A dermatologist doing a brain surgery. LOL.

House is notorious for this.

 

[Tskware]

TV justice moves at speed of light, real justice like a sloth.

Sir, you insult sloths. They move way faster than civil litigation.

 

[thabigbluenation]

Women super heroes. Nope

 

[DreadLox]

Someone gets the snuff beaten out of them. Including concussion.

 

[DreadLox]

Women super heroes. Nope

Funny stuff. I remember a similar gag. Someone exclaimed, "That isn't what unicorns look like!"

 

[BigBlueDave]

TV trope: It takes longer than 2 commercial breaks to get DNA evidence back from a crime lab.

Officer Michaels:
You know, this job though isn't how shows like CSI make it out to be. When I first joined the force, I was under the impression that everything was covered in a fine layer of semen. And that the police had at their disposal a semen database with every bad guy's semen on it. Not true!

Officer Slater:
Yup.

Officer Michaels:
If only there was semen on everything, it would make our jobs easier.

Officer Slater:
Hell yeah!

Officer Michaels:
I often go to sleep and dream of waking up in a world where everything is covered in semen.

Officer Slater:
I mean, who doesn't? It's like your wish that you could walk out of a room and just know where the semen was. You just know like Sherlock Holmes, if he was in his day, Sherlock Holomes, in his day... And this is a proven historical fact. Sherlock Holmes, when he was alive, knew where semen was.

 

[Glenn's take]

I delivered pizza for a friend for a while and the hot chicks all had money to pay and never needed an alternative payment method.

 

[TruBluCatFan]

Sir, you insult sloths. They move way faster than civil litigation.

I try not to think about it anymore than I have to since I quit practicing. I see things haven’t changed any.

 

[CaptainBoogerBuns]

The “popping” sound a punch to the face made.

 

[thabigbluenation]

Scenes with heavy gunfire on the inside of concrete buildings, caves, anywhere that generates a hard echo or percussion.

In walking dead when they were in the prison and had a shootout. That would be near deafening, brain fog, near concussion level ear drum busting crazy.

Shows and movies have got better about considering ammunition capacity when filming these scenes now. From the 80s you had unlimited bullet supply without ever changing clips or reloading of any sort

 

[Nightwish84]

One of mine is a character using food or drink as a prop. It's there in front of them or they're holding a utensil, but because they're doing a scene with back and forth dialogue, they either don't eat or tease taking a bite. Same with a character going to someone's house. The homeowner makes them a drink, the character holds the drink during this one to two minute scene, the drink is placed on a table, and the character leaves without taking a single drink. That's just wasteful.

 

[HymanKaplan]

Car tires squealing on gravel or dirt roads. (along with even the crappiest of cars, sounding like they have V8 engines with glass-pack mufflers)

Doing a line of cocaine and feeling it immediately, with some over the top reaction. (anyone who knows, "KNOWS" that isn't how it works)


In sports movies - The PA announcer doing play by play of the game.


The big wall that every Detective movie/series has, where every photo, clipping, etc. is plastered randomly on it, and then there is a ridiculous string art web all over the place (which wouldn't help at all, but in fact, make the task of recognizing connections even MORE difficult. But, in spite of that, one of the investigators, who is just about to give up on the case, and is heading home, stops, looks at that nonsensical mess, and notices something. (then they usually make a vague phone call to someone, without letting the audience in on what they've noticed)


WWII fighter planes that can carry more than the gross weight of the airframe in machine gun ammo. (most, if not all, would run through their belts after about 21 to 30 seconds of sustained firing)

Wearing a red shirt in Star Trek...

 

[80 Proof]

Phone conversations have no parting phrases, they just hang up.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

The big wall that every Detective movie/series has, where every photo, clipping, etc. is plastered randomly on it, and then there is a ridiculous string art web all over the place (which wouldn't help at all, but in fact, make the task of recognizing connections even MORE difficult. But, in spite of that, one of the investigators, who is just about to give up on the case, and is heading home, stops, looks at that nonsensical mess, and notices something. (then they usually make a vague phone call to someone, without letting the audience in on what they've noticed)

 

[WildcatfaninOhio]

It kills me when I see a shoot out, and the person that was shot flies backwards 10 feet. For those of us that took 6th grade science we know that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". If the shootEE flies 10 feet, then the shootER should also fly back 10 feet from the recoil of the weapon.

Also...in movies, the best way to get from one part of a building to another without being detected is to crawl through 3ft x 3ft stainless steel HVAC ducts. These ducts easily accessible, are immaculately clean and very well-lit. Occasionally a rat is seen crawling through too, just to make it a tad more scary. But we never see any other evidence of rats, like their droppings. It makes me laugh. I'd imagine that folks that actually work on commercial HVAC wind up on the floor holding their sides with laughter.

And, not necessarily a trope, but one that annoys me, and takes me out of the story briefly. The empty coffee cup. One character hands another a go cup of coffee. "Here, I brought this for you". At the hand off it is always very obvious that the cup is empty. And the person that receives the coffee usually "takes a drink" by tipping it back as if it were nearly empty, and they take a long draw off it as if it were lukewarm. Never see them swallow. I understand if they don't want actors handling hot coffee. But fill the thing with water so at least when they handle it they treat it as if it's full of liquid, and they can take a normal drink.

 

[Tskware]

I try not to think about it anymore than I have to since I quit practicing. I see things haven’t changed any.

Retired as well, but I used a phrase a lot - "Death by Discovery". The never ending request for production of documents, interrogatories, depositions of any and all witnesses for hours and days on end.

Had one case late in my career where my co-counsel (who represented a party on the same side as mine) had received over 100,000 pages of documents, and still told the judge with a straight face that he did not have enough information to prepare to depose the defendants (tbh, I was sort of embarrassed to be the co-counsel by then, the discovery process had gotten so far out of hand). By this time the case had gone on for two or three years, and we STILL had not even deposed the main defendants. It was ridiculous.

 

[HeismaNole]

The house parties they show in movies. None of the ones I’ve ever been to looked anything like the movies make it out to be.

The majority of the world doesn’t have a diverse group of friends. No one has a friend group of a Korean guy, a black guy, a Latino woman, and a white woman all hanging out.

Any movie that has a scene where they’re in class and the teacher just starts the topic as the bell rings. That does not happen.

Journalists with nice apartments

Women beating up men

Fights where it’s one guy taking on a bunch of people but they don’t all attack at once, they wait their turn. That does not happen.

No one gives you a big monologue as they prepare to do something bad to you.

No one ever finishes a meal. Mom apparently makes a huge breakfast and the son doesn’t eat anything and takes orange juice to go.

 

[HymanKaplan]

Also...in movies, the best way to get from one part of a building to another without being detected is to crawl through 3ft x 3ft stainless steel HVAC ducts. These ducts easily accessible, are immaculately clean and very well-lit. Occasionally a rat is seen crawling through too, just to make it a tad more scary. But we never see any other evidence of rats, like their droppings. It makes me laugh. I'd imagine that folks that actually work on commercial HVAC wind up on the floor holding their sides with laughter.

This. And can you imagine how much ****ing noise that a fully grown adult man would make, crawling through sheet metal ducts would produce? I mean, it would sound like a construction project was going on. LOL

 

[HymanKaplan]

The milquetoast suburbanite teacher, that, because of various circumstances, ends up at a HS on MLK Blvd. and then somehow reaches the kids by wearing a "do rag" or teaching them math by equating it to a dice game or a drug deal.

(or describing the Montagues and the Capulets as Bloods and Crips)

 

[CaptainBoogerBuns]

Bad guys have the bad aim, yet the cops always are a dead-eye shot

 

[gobigbluebell]

I delivered pizza for a friend for a while and the hot chicks all had money to pay and never needed an alternative payment method.

My stepmom never got stuck in the sofa, dryer, or under a coffee table.

 

[FearThe Blue]

Cops dipping the pinky into an unidentified powder to taste test it.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

Cops dipping the pinky into an unidentified powder to taste test it.

 

[BC_Wader]

Bad guys have the bad aim, yet the cops always are a dead-eye shot

Loved the first Reacher season but it got looney the last episode when our hero was hiding behind CARDBOARD BOXES to escape the hail of bullets lol!