My most and least favorite cliches.

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I know that cliches often have a very bad reputation in movies and I’m not saying that I don’t see why, but, at the same time, there actually have been a few cool cliches that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. For that reason, I’ve decided to start this forum stating some of my most and least favorite cliches.

My Favorite Cliches:

The Dramatic Choir. This is quite easily one of my favorite cliches of all time because of how epic it makes a scene feel. The choir might sing in Latin like in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Elvish like in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, or even just in straight up gibberish like In the Star Wars prequels. One of my favorite examples of the Dramatic Choir has to be from the movie Ghost Rider when Johnny Blaze is first transforming. Every time I hear that choir playing in the background as Johnny’s cries of anguish give way to maniacal cackling just sends a rush of pleasure through me. I’ve enjoyed this cliche thus far and I don’t think that my love for it will be stopping anytime soon.

The Evil Laugh. This might seem almost like something that’s rather unnecessary as it very seldom applies to real life, but this is still one of the greats when it comes to cliches. I think that the first movie to incorporate this cliche was Snow White And The Seven Dwarves with the Evil Queen/Hag and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Many great Disney villains have had their own evil laughs that still ring clear in our memory. One other example that I feel deserves mention is the many iterations of The Joker in movies and TV Shows. Whether it be Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Heath Ledger, or even Jared Leto, every variation was absolutely perfect. An excellent cliche for when you want to make your villains seem even more threatening.

The simple shouting of “NOOO!! !” Much like the Evil Laugh, this almost seems unnecessary as it doesn’t apply much to real life, but it’s still a great cliche as it’s commonly used to create drama, therefore capturing people’s attention easily. Without a doubt, the most famous example of this cliche is when Luke Skywalker finds out that Darth Vader is his father from The Empire Strikes Back. If drama could be summed up in just one word, this would definitely be it.

My Least Favorite Cliches:

The Liar Revealed. This is a cliche that I’ve noticed is very prevalent in kids movies like A Bug’s Life, Chicken Run, and Rango just to name a few. It’s when a character lies about who they are only for the truth to come out later and everyone shuns this character who they now can’t trust anymore. This then causes the film to drag before this character realizes that they may not be this thing but they’re something different and goes back to save the day. I particularly hate this cliche because you’re spending your whole time waiting for the inevitable to happen and, when it does, the film just grinds to a halt. So yeah. Definitely not a fan of this one.

Shaky Cam. Again, I’m really annoyed by this cliche because of how frustrating it is. Movies that incorporate the shaky cam just make me feel nauseous. One movie that comes to mind is the very first Hunger Games movie and not just during the games themselves but even in moments that were supposed to be calmer the camera wouldn’t stand still. I remembered thinking to myself “Did this cameraman just get off a Tilt-A-Whirl before shooting?” Shaky cam is just an obnoxious pain in the ass for me to deal with.

The Disney Death. Oh god do I hate this cliche. This is like the worst possible cliche you could put in a movie. The Disney Death is where the main character (or even a side character) is badly injured and they make it look like the character has died only for them to miraculously come through. To me, it’s just about the most pretentious way to toy around with people’s emotions when they think this character that they’ve come to care about isn’t going to make it out alive. It’s even worse if it’s done in a prequel movie where you already know that this character is going to show up in the later movies. Thankfully, Disney has been shying away from this somewhat as of recently. Ray the firefly from The Princess And The Frog got killed off and stayed dead (a pretty gutsy move killing off the comic relief) and, in Tangled, Flynn Rider AKA Eugene Fitzherbert really did die before being resurrected by Rapunzel’s magic tear. Those moments I was perfectly fine with, but any other movie that uses this cliche just gets ruined for me whenever it shows up. All I know is that, as a writer, if one of my characters in my stories dies off, they’re staying dead.

So those were some of my favorite and least favorite cliches and I’d like to know which cliches you like/dislike. Feel free to leave your own comments below.

My most favorite cliches (they're awesome if done right) are the evil laugh, the dramatic choir, and the big NO!, although Darth Vader nearly ruined it, and I also like:

Cry Cute, where a cute character cries and it's so sad and yet so adorable

Sleep Cute, when two characters are asleep (or unconscious), but in a non-sexual way and they look adorable together, especially kids or baby animals, even if they were completely evil when they were awake just a few minutes ago.

The Happy Ending - no not that kind of "happy" ending, you pervs! I don't care if you think it's not realistic. It's not real to begin with and there are too many unhappy endings in real life as it is.

Dark is not Evil: Where the main characters are monsters, witches, ghosts, vampires, etc. etc, but they're actually nice creatures who are just misunderstood.

My least favorite cliches include:

Adults are Useless, but when I make a story where it focuses mainly on young characters it's hard to avoid this. It's not that adults are useless so much as they usually are very boring to draw and describe while teens and children characters are much more fun with their high energy, mischievous behavior, and unconventional clothing.

Commercials are the worst examples of adults being useless. They show kids who are supposed to be cute or funny when they want adults to buy them that junk in the ad but they're really being nasty and evil and their parents are clueless and just plain stupid, especially the dad, which brings up another badly used/overused cliche. The parents are the ones who go to work, make money, and buy you things, so until you're old enough
to do such things yourself you'd better not be a brat or you'll be lucky the food you do get hasn't been soaked in cod liver oil first.

The protagonist has amnesia. You see this in so many video games. In fact a lot of video games have too many cliches - the damsel in distress, the protagonist being able to survive anything but plain, ordinary water, the enemies being zombies, aliens or Nazis. I guess you don't have to feel guilty about killing zombies though, since technically they're already dead.

The Dreamworks face - You see it on nearly every movie poster of Dreamworks animation - the main character or groups of characters has that smirk with one eyebrow raised to show they have "attitude", and that this isn't our typical animated fairy tale. It was fine with Shrek and all, but now even Disney has started doing it, especially since they went to CGI. And other movies the were really terrible, like The Great North or Food Fight -well I'm not sure about Food Fight since the characters had no expression at all most of the time.

The people who always fall down when being chased by something or someone, especially if they're female. And even more especially if they hurt their ankle, UGH! Although we can blame it on the fact her footwear was made by a male.

The bad guy spilling his guts to the hero just before he kills him, revealing all his plans for world domination before leaving the room for whatever reason, which gives the hero a chance to escape, or be saved at the last second by his friends or allies, and thwart his plans. Of course, it can be played for comedy purposes, but in a real action drama it's lame.

Explosions. What is it with action movies and explosions?

The bad guys all take out their guns and fire at the hero, who isn't even grazed by their bullets. Unless he's really Clark Kent there's no way that can happen. Also, he takes out his gun and shoots every single one of the bad guys without missing any of them. Apparently his bullets are metal and they have really strong magnets in their pockets for some reason.

That shiny, flashy car at the start of a movie that ends up being totaled by the end of the movie.

The man and woman who cannot stand each other end up falling madly in love. Apparently I don't understand this only because I'm a robot. (starts to cry, head explodes and melts)

The bed that sheets always seem to be shaped like a capital letter L - they're long enough to cover a woman's chest but only cover a guy up to his waist.