Your Entertainment Pet Peeves

[ThatNickGuy]

So, I'm curious about what people's pet peeves are in various mediums. Here's a few of mine, in each category that I can think of. Feel free to add your own.

TV
-The sappy ballad while all the actors look whistfully out windows, or walking aimlessly, etc. It's stupidly overdone and one of the reasons I stopped watching Flash Forward.

-A show that sets up a teaser for the next season, only to get cancelled. Except with Heroes, because no one was watching that anymore, anyway.

-Ridiculously overpriced TV box sets. I look at the Angel and Buffy sets for $20 a piece, then the Star Trek sets for triple or higher. Same amount of episodes and usually about the same amount of special features.

Movies
(some of this could apply to TV, as well)

-Action sequences that seem like they're filmed on the back of a rabid dog having a seizure. You go to all these lengths to do these great, mind-blowing action sequences or fight scenes, but then the camera work is all over the place that we can't even SEE what's going on. The majority of action movies are like this these days.

-Opening credits, especially long, drawn-out opening credits where it's just names flying at the screen. It's a waste of time and adds nothing to the plot. Plus, it's redundant, since we see all those names a second time at the end of the movie.

-"Oh, my God" is probably the most overused line in all of creation. Why not mix it up? "Great Googily Moogily" or "Sweet Merciful Jesus" or "Great Ceasar's Ghost"; they all work just fine.

-Double-dipped DVD's with less special features than the previous version. This especially falls into the cateogry of Blu-Rays.

-Remakes. Just...remakes. How about saving yourself millions of dollars, clean up the original movie and re-release that, instead? It worked for Star Wars.

-Bad wire work. I swear, when someone leaps twenty feet into the air, the actor doesn't look like they're even trying to look like they're leaping. No bending at the knees or anything.

Comics
-When a trade does not have the covers for each collected issue splitting each said issue. Those cliffhanger endings work better when you have to stop to flip the page or something, to get past the covers.

-Needless splash pages, especially two-page spreads. Geoff Johns is a really bad writer in this particular instance.

-Crossovers that force you to buy a billion other comics just to understand what's going on.

-Those ridiculous 6 or less issue hardcovers. There's so little for so high a price. Ain't worth it, which means I have to wait even LONGER for a softcover.

-Meaningless events, like deaths, costume changes, returns, etc.

Music

-Death metal. It's just noise. I can't even sing along to it because all I hear is "BLARGHDEY BLAAAAARGH!" I'm not even sure the people singing it know what they're saying.

 

[Kitty Sinatra]

It's not at all entertaining when my pet pees on the floor.

 

[Philosopher B.]

It's much more entertaining when Dave pees on a pet - OH WAIT. THAT WAS ALL AN ELABORATE DREAM-CRUSHING FABRICATION.



:'(

:waah:

 

[checkeredhat]

Releasing special features on Blu Ray only, leaving those of us left with DVD players in a Behind-The Scenesless wasteland of home entertainment!

And, I was just talking about this with my roommate earlier: People constantly cocking the hammer back on modern pistols, or pumping fully loaded, unfired shotguns. They do it to make the cool noise and for no other reason.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Releasing special features on Blu Ray only, leaving those of us left with DVD players in a Behind-The Scenesless wasteland of home entertainment!

And, I was just talking about this with my roommate earlier: People constantly cocking the hammer back on modern pistols, or pumping fully loaded, unfired shotguns. They do it to make the cool noise and for no other reason.

But the noise is so cool!

*chk-chhkk*

 

[AshburnerX]

And, I was just talking about this with my roommate earlier: People constantly cocking the hammer back on modern pistols, or pumping fully loaded, unfired shotguns. They do it to make the cool noise and for no other reason.

Uh... no. Cocking the hammer on a modern double action does make the trigger squeeze much easier for the next shot. You do it if you want a bit of extra accuracy on your next shot, as your not moving the gun quite so much when you pull the trigger. It's not necessary, but it can help. Also, it's about the psychological edge: Many police officers have reported that criminals have given up entirely upon hearing them cock a shotgun.

I second the Box set thing though.

 

[Hailey Knight]

-"Oh, my God" is probably the most overused line in all of creation. Why not mix it up? "Great Googily Moogily" or "Sweet Merciful Jesus" or "Great Ceasar's Ghost"; they all work just fine.

They really don't.


One of mine is when a scene happens in the movie solely because it was one of the original ideas for the story, even if the overall plot, character development, setting, etc have across drafts drifted away that idea, and so now it sticks out or is part of a subplot that goes nowhere.

 

[Steve]

Laugh tracks. I won't watch a comedy if it has a laugh track. Completely ruins the show for me. It's like the producers know the show is so unfunny they have to trick your mind into thinking it's funny. CBS is the worst offender of this.

 

[Hailey Knight]

The worst thing about that is, I've seen people who seem to get conditioned to the laugh track, so they won't really laugh at a show unless prompted. It's fucking disturbing.

 

[Ravenpoe]

The worst thing about that is, I've seen people who seem to get conditioned to the laugh track, so they won't really laugh at a show unless prompted. It's fucking disturbing.

Pavlovian comedy?

 

[checkeredhat]

And, I was just talking about this with my roommate earlier: People constantly cocking the hammer back on modern pistols, or pumping fully loaded, unfired shotguns. They do it to make the cool noise and for no other reason.

Uh... no. Cocking the hammer on a modern double action does make the trigger squeeze much easier for the next shot. You do it if you want a bit of extra accuracy on your next shot, as your not moving the gun quite so much when you pull the trigger. It's not necessary, but it can help. Also, it's about the psychological edge: Many police officers have reported that criminals have given up entirely upon hearing them cock a shotgun.

I second the Box set thing though.[/QUOTE]


I get that (I don't imagine I would respond well to somebody pumping a shotgun in my face either), but those are not the type of instances that are my pet peeve. Allow me to elaborate on what I mean.

The hammer cock back in movies is always, ALWAYS done when the gun is being held point blank though, so I can't see how accuracy is the reason.

And the shotgun pump is usually done before the good guys even get TO the bad guys, usually after they utter something that solidifies them as being bad ass. So its again not for the interrogation. It's the equivalent of Horatio taking off his sunglasses to punctuate his pun

Both are also often done just for the sound it makes when the heroes are just grabbing their weapons and loading them up to head out.

It was the DotD remake that brought on our conversation, so for examples of what I'm talking about, just watch that.

---------- Post added at 03:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 AM ----------

Another one is CPR solving apparently just about ANY medical condition, up to and including death.

 

[bhamv3]

-Action sequences that seem like they're filmed on the back of a rabid dog having a seizure. You go to all these lengths to do these great, mind-blowing action sequences or fight scenes, but then the camera work is all over the place that we can't even SEE what's going on. The majority of action movies are like this these days.

Agreed on this one. I guess they do it to give a sense of realism or immersion or something, but I don't really care about those things when I watch a movie fight scene, I just want to see the damn fight.

I don't like inspirational speeches that aren't inspirational at all. Sort of like,

*crowd hates person, jeering and booing him*
*person says something bland to crowd*
*crowd suddenly starts cheering*

And I'm going, wow, easy crowd there.

 

[Adam]

-Opening credits, especially long, drawn-out opening credits where it's just names flying at the screen. It's a waste of time and adds nothing to the plot. Plus, it's redundant, since we see all those names a second time at the end of the movie.

Blasphemer!

 

[Hailey Knight]

If it's a good opening sequence, I like a good credits, but in a lot of cases, it's sometimes better just to roll the opening credits while the beginning of the movie happens.

Although John Carpenter sometimes makes it work even if it's just white letters on black title cards for four straight minutes solely by music setting up the atmosphere.

The Superman opening credits are fucking epic though.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

There ARE some exceptions to the rule.

 

[Espy]

Man I LOVE a good credits sequence. Hellboy and the original Dead Zone rush to mind.

 

[David]

The "useless time travel episode" that every single scifi TV show ever has at least one of. Much Drama is had, people get shot and killed... then somebody screws with a temporal anomaly, mulliganing the whole damn episode. Nobody remembers what happened. The story didn't move forward. The characters didn't develop. The entire episode was just rendered pointless.

 

[HCGLNS]

I don't like those suspiciously vague commercials that grab your attention, but don't explain what the product is right away, and you put down your sandwich for just a second to pay closer attention; then WHAM! nagging yeast infection medicine!

 

[David]

To be fair, I'm not sure there's a great way to get people to keep paying attention by OPENING with nagging yeast infections.

 

[checkeredhat]

The "useless time travel episode" that every single scifi TV show ever has at least one of. Much Drama is had, people get shot and killed... then somebody screws with a temporal anomaly, mulliganing the whole damn episode. Nobody remembers what happened. The story didn't move forward. The characters didn't develop. The entire episode was just rendered pointless.

Firefly didn't.
And I'd argue that the ones in Futurama were done to further the overall plot and moved the story forward. Except for arguably the Bender's Big Score movie.

I'm sure I could think of more, if I watched Sci Fi TV, but most of it is just too cheesy for me.

 

[MindDetective]

The "useless time travel episode" that every single scifi TV show ever has at least one of. Much Drama is had, people get shot and killed... then somebody screws with a temporal anomaly, mulliganing the whole damn episode. Nobody remembers what happened. The story didn't move forward. The characters didn't develop. The entire episode was just rendered pointless.

Firefly didn't.
And I'd argue that the ones in Futurama were done to further the overall plot and moved the story forward. Except for arguably the Bender's Big Score movie.

I'm sure I could think of more, if I watched Sci Fi TV, but most of it is just too cheesy for me.[/QUOTE]

I was going to say Futurama too, but the forward time traveling episode of the newest season might qualify.

 

[checkeredhat]

I'd argue that it was used to further Fry and Leela's relationship. But I wouldn't be able to argue against you if you said that it didn't actually change any aspect of their relationship, and simply pointing out that they ARE IN a relationship isn't really advancing anything anymore.
I really hadn't even considered the newest season.

 

[MindDetective]

Hey, at least that episode was written differently than other time traveling episodes. The people that may or may not have been injured or killed during the episode stayed that way!

 

[checkeredhat]

Oh, I loved the episode. You don't need to convince me.
Original topic: Zombies sold out.
Honestly, I LOVE Zombies. I've got a veritable zombie library that's ever growing, and really its thanks to Max Brooks that I even read anything other than graphic novels anymore. But that being said, the oversaturation of zombies in media now is getting on my nerves. It used to be kind of a niche, and now its done pretty much everywhere, and its losing the Romero political message, and even the horror and camp value. There's more great zombie stuff being produced now, yes. Like I said, my library is growing (And I'm really looking forward to the Walking Dead TV show too). But there's also a lot of "we'd sell more copies if we threw zombies in" for no reason at all.
I'm talking about you, Red Dead Redemption's strange new zombie add-on. They couldn't have made a more anachronistic add-on if they added spaceships.

 

[HCGLNS]

Just thought of another one; I really dislike Heidi incidents. Oooh I hates them!

 

[checkeredhat]

Just thought of another one; I really dislike Heidi incidents. Oooh I hates them!

Stupid question:
What's that?

 

[HCGLNS]

A Heidi incident is the interruption of live broadcasts (normally sports) before their conclusion. In their place something pre-programmed is offered. As you are Canadian, you could describe the firing of Dave Hodge as such an incident. Where instead of going to overtime, HNIC cut to regional news.

 

[Cheesy1]

Cheesy, laying some education on y'all! (Origin story of the term):
Heidi Game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[checkeredhat]

Wow. That must have sucked.

---------- Post added at 05:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 PM ----------

Didn't NBC do that this year with the Olympics' closing ceremony as well? Cutting to the wedding referee or Marriage ref or whatever that show's called?

 

[phil]

I hate the pointless deaths of background characters. Sci-fi shows do this a lot, and I'm mostly thinking of Stargate. Many an SG team have been taken out just to show that death could happen out there in space!

 

[Silver Jelly]

I'm talking about you, Red Dead Redemption's strange new zombie add-on. They couldn't have made a more anachronistic add-on if they added spaceships.

Well, there was a mith of some kind of zombie summoning cerimony in the old west, even if I don't remember exactly how the things were called or the ritual exactly went. I think it involved putting some alcohol or tobacco on the summoned corpse's tombstone as an offer?

I don't know, I read about it too many years ago.

 

[Null]

Back to the hammer-click on guns, they do the sound effect even when the pistol in question doesn't have a hammer to cock and use the shotgun pump-sound for side-by-side break-action (not pump-action) shotguns. In addition, racking the slide. Now, sometimes that's forgivable - when we see the character slide a magazine into the pistol and the rack the slide, they're making sure there's one in the chamber. Other times, it may be that they're checking to see there's a round in the chamber - pulling it back halfway, though most pistols have a loaded chamber indicator so you don't have to do that and risk a misfeed. But very often, we'll see a character rack the slide as a way of looking badass - I think in one movie you even seen a cartridge go flying out.

 

[fade]

There's not enough e-paper for my pet peeve list. I think pretty much every post I make is a pet peeve I have re: something. Which irritates people like Crone to no end.

The gun cock scene that really stands out in my memory was the original Stargate. The motion picture, not the show(s). When the soldiers are "stealthily" walking through the dark pyramid after coming through the gate, they much cock their guns every second.

 

[AshburnerX]

I'm talking about you, Red Dead Redemption's strange new zombie add-on. They couldn't have made a more anachronistic add-on if they added spaceships.

Well, there was a mith of some kind of zombie summoning cerimony in the old west, even if I don't remember exactly how the things were called or the ritual exactly went. I think it involved putting some alcohol or tobacco on the summoned corpse's tombstone as an offer?

I don't know, I read about it too many years ago.[/QUOTE]

There were often tales of things like Ghouls (fleshing eatting monsters) and Wendigos (Monsters made by men consuming the flesh of others) flying around in some areas of the west, not to mention talk of the vengeful spirits of the dead who would sometimes haunt those who killed them unjustly. That's not even including stuff like Voodoo along the Mississippi river. Really, the supernatural and the Wild West go hand in hand, especially if Indians are involved. Just look at Deadlands or Jonah Hex if you want some more examples.

 

[Silver Jelly]

I'm talking about you, Red Dead Redemption's strange new zombie add-on. They couldn't have made a more anachronistic add-on if they added spaceships.

Well, there was a mith of some kind of zombie summoning cerimony in the old west, even if I don't remember exactly how the things were called or the ritual exactly went. I think it involved putting some alcohol or tobacco on the summoned corpse's tombstone as an offer?

I don't know, I read about it too many years ago.[/QUOTE]

There were often tales of things like Ghouls (fleshing eatting monsters) and Wendigos (Monsters made by men consuming the flesh of others) flying around in some areas of the west, not to mention talk of the vengeful spirits of the dead who would sometimes haunt those who killed them unjustly. That's not even including stuff like Voodoo along the Mississippi river. Really, the supernatural and the Wild West go hand in hand, especially if Indians are involved. Just look at Deadlands or Jonah Hex if you want some more examples.[/QUOTE]

That's very interesting. I'll investigate some more soon. thanks!