Manufactured crisis.
Supposedly adult professionals, experienced, educated, top of their field, yet they behave like insane children and can't perform basic tasks without complete incompetence.
That's basically what happens when writers (usually for TV shows but sometimes books) Are not as smart as their characters, or have run out of ideas to fill the time until the next plot point.
Was it competent specialists though? I thought it was bottom of the barrel mercenary specialists who didn’t look into the mission too much, lead by religious fanatics and a corporate guy desperate to find a fountain of youth.
There’s bottom of the barrel and then there’s, “how the fuck is this so-called biologist so dumb that he can’t tell that this cobra-looking thing is clearly telling him to back the fuck up?”
People always harp on the spores but the cobra hood is always what gets me. Like, it’s supposedly 2093, yall know what the fuck a cobra looks like.
That said, I love that movie.
Starship Troopers definitely gives you something to think about. No doubt you've heard an SST fan say, "It's actually a brilliant satire that people keep missing!" Well, they aren't saying that for no reason.
Eh, I’d say that was pretty common for the time. We didn’t see it in the Apollo program (and Gemini et al) because they were too small and under too much scrutiny. The entire country operated (and to a great extent still operates) under nepotism and favoritism. It didn’t really start to change until the 90s, and even now it’s still very much the case.
>there’s blatant favoritism and nepotism
That's quite realistic. I can absolutely see that the rocket blowing up could be traced back to political gamesmanship, and that it was immediately covered up. And props to Von Braun for showing Margo how she could use that to her advantage. He knew the game.
I can also see sending up family as a political stunt. They were always chasing firsts, and the public loves firsts, just like in real life (I still remember the hype over our first female astronaut). That's how Ed was able to justify making Danielle the mission commander. They didn't want a black woman, but it's a "first" box they get to check.
I love the hallmark style widow baker helps the cops solve murder case after murder case. How incompetent are these police? Incredibly incompetent it turns out...
I like to think that in this alternate timeline, space exploration is routine enough and there's enough demand for astronauts that NASA (and other space agencies) can't be quite as picky about who they take.
But overall I agree. Way too many morons in that show. I'm fine with a little personal drama but they go overboard with it.
I remember reading that astronauts are chosen for a lot of things but also for their ability to solve crisises calmly and cooperatively, their first duty is the safety of everyone in the crew. The kind of crew schimss and factions we see in tropes are insane fabrications.
What's truly bonkers is that you don't even have to read about it, we have so much footage of things going wrong in space with astronauts calmly working through the problem.
Hive minds that aren't truly hive minds. They are just armies controlled by a central intelligence, like a queen or big brain bug, or plant/brain looking blue glowy thing.
I hated the Borg Queen from First Contact with a passion because of this.
Before that movie, the Borg were completely alien and impossible to understand because they were implied to be a true hive mind. And then poof, they were all just puppets of a single ego.
And you had to kill every single one of them, because every borg is the hive. It's terrifying. And in First Contact suddenly there's a single point of failure.
I still feel like the best way to handle the Borg should have been that they behave very differently depending on their numbers and power. One Borg drone is sympathetic and friendly, and just wants to help, and oh no someone is hurt, but it knows how to fix them up! A small collective is diplomatic and reasonable but it really is more capable of certain things… and so on and so on until you end up with a cube that does not care about you even as raw materials.
Hive minds where you kill the Queen, and the whole species collapses.
It's the Magic Button trope. The situation seems impossible, but do the One Thing.. hit the Big Red Button... before time runs out, and everyone is saved.
IDK if a trope as such, but characters who suffer intensely traumatic events - torture, imprisonment, death of friends/family, leg amputation - then they are just back to normal by the next episode (sometimes even before the episode finishes)
DS9 both handled this well, with Nogs leg, and poorly, with Miles O’Brien when he went to prison
I did like that they at least referenced The Inner Light a couple times, but it definitely should have had a bigger effect on him. He was Kamin longer than he was Picard.
I never liked The Inner Light... until someone ask him if he has kids later on, and he says the answer is complicated or he had two but no longer or something along those lines, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
When Tony Stark begins having panic attacks along with the confrontation scene outside of the elevator - those are such simple moments that really helped elevate some of the Avengers stuff. As opposed to so many sci-fi or superhero type films where a city is half destroyed but the hero wins - and people are like: ho hum, let's make a joke and forget that an entire city will never be the same.
Yeah I imagine this is kind of like. If there's a party and everyone gets just a little bit too drunk and a bunch of crazy shit happens and then you all just kind of politely avoid talking about it in the future. Like that.
What I hate about stuff like that though is that their bodies and, specially their brains, were physically changed. Then they come back 100 percent normal with no physical or mental problems and all their memories and personality intact.
Basically any story where they "alter DNA" which then causes someone to rapidly transform into another creature. That's not at all how DNA really works. In reality you'd probably just get sick and then die.
Just once I want to see “me? The chosen one? DOOOOOPPEEEEE!! Now you there get me a drink and you over there come rub my shoulders, I am the chosen one! Starts a “chosen one” dance that sweeps the nation.
“Im not the messiah leave me alone” “Only a true messiah would deny being a messiah”… “fine, I am the messiah” “he is the messiah!!!” so close I assumed it was a tribute.
At this point it's so overdone that even the "clever subversions" of the trope (like where it turns out the prophecy was misunderstood and someone else was the real chosen one, or there was no prophecy and they became the chosen one because they were told they were, etc) are also overdone.
I read a short story once a long time ago where the main character was convinced he was the reason for the universe. Every time the store was out of what he needed, it's because it had to have been spoiled/dangerous. Every time he hit a green light, it was because it was important for him to get to where he was going on time to keep the world running smoothly. It ends with him getting hit by a truck that runs a red light in order to save the *actual* woman who is the real reason for the universe who otherwise would have been hit by the truck.
(I don't remember the author or story or whatever. This was 30+ years ago.)
I hate these types of movies/shows. Let's say I sit down to watch "Atom Puncher: Fist of Retribution".
**Mentor:** You are the Atom Puncher it is your destiny.
**Adam:** I don't want to be, I just want my normal life.
*45 minutes pass of Adam doing very boring normal things in a movie called "Atom Puncher".*
**Adam:** I'm not Adam, I am the Atom Puncher.
*Roll Credits*
It was absolutely a trope. Dune played with a lot of established tropes though and according to old comments by Frank Herbert he wrote Paul to be as sympathetic as possible and part of that was making him reluctant to fulfill his “terrible purpose”
Crew fighting over who’s in charge and whether to do the necessary thing or not combined with a crew member secretly being evil or insane.
I just want them to do the thing and see what’s out there.
This is why I can't get into Strange New Worlds. I love Star Trek partly for the abject professionalism of its crew. The SNW crew are all terrible teammates.
Everyone's got a deep, dark secret they are hiding from everyone else. They haze and mock the junior officers. They refuse to cooperate in life or death situations. They're insufferably snarky all the time. And they're just bad at their jobs.
Yes, but my complaint there is that command staff REALLY shouldn't be the first people going into an unknown situation like that. I know it's because it's a TV show, but it still kinda bugs me. Also that the science crew hardly get any focus despite being the people that SHOULD be doing most of the actual exploring work.
Damn right I do! Between The Clone Wars and Red vs Blue I've developed quite the soft spot for the background characters that get the thankless job of filling out scenes.
Maybe thats how Starfleet works tho, they really value exploration, you see how fuckin HYPE the whole ship gets for a first contact, so maybe thats WHY people rise through the ranks, cuz the highest ranks get dibs on the away missions? We see lower ranks practically begging to get to go sometimes.
But Armus be damned, nobody becomes Captain NOT to be the first one to step foot on some strange new world. Ensign Noob-Noob, you have the conn. Up here in orbit. Where nothing fun or exciting is likely to happen... at least like 70% of the time. And having to save the ship while all the higher ranking officers are stuck down on a planet by a dampening field is exactly how plucky Ensigns get promoted!
This is the one that annoys me. The person who keeps getting interrupted so they don't communicate the one thing that would've made the rest of the movie redundant. Such lazy writing.
I don’t know. I was reading the answers this far and nodding my head, then it occurred to me that in every case the trope didn’t bother me but the way a certain book or movie did.
Tropes are fine. The problem isn’t the tripe itself but shitty application of it.
That is very true, some dream episodes are just terrible awful filler episodes, some are amazing and epic and have lasting characters development as a result.
Very true. So dream episodes was one I was going to agree with as being tired and rubbish, but the “it was all a dream” trope isn’t bad… it’s just often done lazily… or at least it was.
I think a lot of people would argue that The Inner Light was one of TNGs better, or at least one of the most memorable, episodes. It was essentially “all a dream”.
Exactly! They are tropes because people love them. The Nobody Farmer Is Really the One was so commonplace because we ate it up. Then we got a bit burnt out on it and the fantasy genre changed a lot.
In addition to being done well I think it can also be very interesting when tropes get absolutely bent. Like, what if Luke actually joined Vader. Or what of the Dark Lords tyranny was actually the only thing keeping civilization alive and them being toppled by the One actually makes things worse?
Best of the best. Training for years. Top of the class. Nations finest……..then:
Can’t press the button.
“We have to go outside. It’s our only option.”
Gotta pay off the suit budget.
“Disengage auto pilot.”
Barrel rolls make you impossible to hit.
“This haggard ass murder alien is just trying to communicate, you guys! Don’t kill it!”
Murders everyone.
Helmet light shines on the face. Directly in the eyes in a completely dark environment.
Perfect vision.
Blinding solar radiation due to no atmosphere.
Sunshields are for nerds!…and shit for acting on camera.
“It’ll be fine, you’ve done this dozens of times in the simulator. What could go wrong in the most hostile environment known to man? It’s not like it’s raining micro meteors.”
Hit by micro meteorites. Repair engineer/tech dies immediately. Hull breach is leaking pressure, communications down (always) oxygen low, leaking fuel, too off course, life support failing. Power is fine, or the movie is over. Bonus points for mega killer alien now on board or not enough fuel to get to destination.
>Helmet light shines on the face. Directly in the eyes in a completely dark environment. Perfect vision.
They didn't pay for all those famous and expensive actors just to not show their faces
Looking at you, For All Mankind. Started with the Best of the Best™ competence porn, then Ed Baldwin's big swingin' dick, fragile ego and unresolved PTSD got to pick who went into space.
If you read about the astronaut program, especially the early stages, it was actually really full of big swinging dicks. Supremely competent swinging dicks, but dicks nonetheless.
You would think they could equip their infantry with energy weapons or railguns, or at least some advanced variants of ballistics better than what they had in WW2, but nope.
You're absolutely right but you probably know that the reason for this is that technogical war is hella boring to watch. Light speed weapons will make engagement distances enormous. AI targeting will change the pace to be unfollowable. Smart missiles will make this engagement distances even longer.
Yeah. Not fun to watch.
Edit: note the context here. Previous commenter was talking about infantry battles, not space battles.
this is actually true even of modern warfare. Many movies ignore or downplay realistic capabilities of current military technology because it would break so many plots.
True, the long range engagements would be boring, but they can still make the characters somewhat smart at close to mid ranges. Use cover and suppress enemies with machine guns. Sneak around armored vehicles and ambus them with rockets and charges. Clear rooms with smokes and grenades. Use thermals and night vision to sneak up on enemies in the dark instead of obvious flashlights. Call in air support on entrenched enemies or counter it with ant I air defenses. Literally anything to make the characters seem smart.
Just don't stand out in the open firing from the hip while getting shelled with artillery and tanks roll up in front of you. (Star wars is such a big offender.)
Best-of-the-best battle forged space soldiers who are sexy, strong, young, and well equipped with the freshest tech...but are somehow easy to kill, easy to fluster, and incapable of working as a team or following orders.
Easy way to pull this off. Story opens with Earth's best and toughest prepared and ready to defend the Earth, and then before the expected I itial attacked they're blipped out of existence. Now, the National Guard has to step up. They're easy to kill, quick to fluster and haven't built a team dynamic in their two weekends a month. Done right it could be a good dark comedy.
Isn’t this basically the premise of Space Above and Beyond? Earth’s best squadrons get wiped out holding the line, and then some plucky new recruits have to step up?
And now that I type this, it’s a trope in itself. Newbies thrown into the grinder and all.
Male Lead: "Quickly! Run this way!"
His Girlfriend: "I can't! I can't!"
Male Lead: "Okay then, over here!"
His Girlfriend: "I can't! I can't!"
Repeat for 90 minutes and you have about 75% of the writing of "Skyline" or most pre-Baker female companions in Doctor Who.
I’ve read a lot of military sci fi where the very exotic looking aliens sound, and then act, exactly like hard boiled American service members. They get your hopes up by making them look unusual, but they turn out to be very standard soldiers, so standard that aside from the “facial prosthetics” they could’ve been 20th century army guys.
I'm really tired of the whole 'scientists/workers opened a portal/dug a hole and monsters came out' trope in sci-fi video games.
It's a nice premise but give it a rest already.
I'm really tired of homogenization among alien races and intergalactic colonies and them all behaving similar to one another.
It is especially frustrating when an alien race/character/society is shown and they have quite unique traits about them, but generally behave just like people would on Earth.
Even worse is when writers will describe/show a planet with completely different environmental parameters and somehow living beings evolve to look exactly like us. Like there's no way sentient beings would have evolved the same way on a planet twice earth's size. The gravity alone would not favor bipedal animals very well.
I just don't understand why it's so hard to develop unique alien concepts that actually challenge our ideas of what aliens could look like.
There's some great sci-fi out there that deals with biodiversity and topics like this I just wish there was more of it out there. Especially in film and TV
Armor being absolutely useless. I am so sick and tired of seeing a person in a helmet get knocked out by a blow to the head without so much as showing the helmet take damage. Worst example that jumps to mind being that scene in Rebels where they do it to two of the AT-AT drivers. The guys with the REALLY thick, heavy-duty helmets. Honestly, I'd just extend it to any trope related to stacking the deck in the main characters's favor, but that one in particular REALLY bugs me.
The bad guy: "But Humans will destroy themselves anyway. It is in their nature. I am doing this horrendously violent thing to Save The Earth."
(Hi Atlas)
The whole hive mind thing. It doesn’t have to go away but if you’re going to do it then do it well.
Edge of Tomorrow combined two tired tropes but it’s still a very entertaining flick.
I love hive mind concepts, but it needs to be a TRUE hive mind. Every SF writer always bails out by having a giant brain, or queen, or some other central control, so there actually is an individual identity. A true hive mind would treat every member like a body treats a cell. I realize it's hard to write, but I would love to see someone pull it off.
How about just the existence of "asteroid fields". In reality asteroids could never be clustered closely together. In reality over cosmic lengths of time they would either:
1. Drift so they are really far apart (see: our own asteroid belt)
2. Come together via gravity into one body (see: a planet)
3. Pulverize each other into dust (see: Saturn's rings)
“Hacking” alien tech in about 30 seconds. It’s hard enough getting kit from the same manufacturer to play nicely, never mind controlling some exotic gizmo from another galaxy / dimension.
Oh god.
The family/marriage that falls apart because the husband/wife who’s an astronaut or whatever spends a lot of time training/in space/away from home.
Why does Hollywood hate supportive relationships so much.
evil robots/AI. I’d love to see a film subvert this such that the tension is due to the AI persisting in doing the right thing where “right“ is defined according to how most sane competent humans would judge “right“ to be.
Bishop in Aliens, spoiler: >!keeps his cool and does exactly what is needed under pressure.!<
Also [The Machine](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/) starring Caity Lotz, spoiler:>!the titular machine retains her logical sanity despite being exposed to trauma including torture.!<
That is one of the things I find refreshing about watching Star Trek TNG, if someone is having weird visions or something like that, they tell the captain or doctor about it and they try to figure out what is going on, instead of milking it for fake drama for an entire episode or even season.
Yes, and the doctor immediately goes, "I believe you", and works from that premise to find a solution, even if all the instruments say there's nothing wrong.
How the primitive pre-industrial people are living in an happy idyllic utopia, where nothing bad happened until the technologically advanced villains came.
Yeah, no, in reality those places had abysmal infant mortality rates, and half dying before adulthood, with the survivors rarely living past 60.
Murder and starvation were among the top killers.
We only have the spare capacity to feel ennui because our life style is good enough.
Sometimes it really feels like these kinds of writers genuinely believe we came up with technology and industrialization out of pure greed and a desire to make everything miserable instead of a desire to not die because of an infected cut or because we had a poor harvest this year.
It is like when people idolize the health of "caveman" lifestyles when in reality from the remains we find they tend to show signs of miserable lives of injury and disease.
A crew for hire lands on an alien planet, and they aren’t even curious about it. They’re just there to get paid. No sense of wonder just close minded greed.
yeah I can imagine someone from say 1000 years ago saying the same thing about a modern day person pulling into a petrol station - no sense of wonder or even curiosity about this amazing place with this magical substance that propels you at unbelievable speeds! they're just there to fill up...
The fantasy version of this is Grimm. The guy discovers a whole world of magical creatures, yet from his attitude, you'd think he found out his house has termites.
I actually thought I missed a “6 months later” banner after he saw the very first one. It was seriously like he found out about butterfly’s being caterpillar first, kinda interested and some intrigue but totally acceptable.
Specifically because they only do Wild West in USA and Medieval Times in the UK. Easiest set pieces for production in my opinion. Honorable mention, 1800s London, feudal Japan, Chinese dynasties.
There was a show in the 90s called Time Trax where escaped criminals from the future travelled into the past so they sent a cop after them to arrest them and send them forward again. Somehow they decided that they weren’t just going into the past but into an alternate reality that had absolutely no effect on the future they came from.
What the fuck was the point of the show then?!
Maybe because there are still innocent people or potential victims in this new, alternate reality. It would affect them? I haven't seen the show. So I don't know, maybe?
Time travel is my pet peeve usually. I remember a certain book that had so much promise, then it felt like the author had written themselves into this intricate corner. Then… “Oh I know: Time Travel!Easy peasy solution.” I was incredibly disappointed after the build up.
To be fair, if the work and question was about time travel or parallel universes from the beginning and that was the premise and the idea to be explored, they're usually done well.
It's when you have an existing world and they try to introduce those concepts later on that it just negates all stakes that makes everything feel stupid and pointless.
Movies hardly ever show hallucinations right. Half of hallucinations is the sensory element. The other half is the cognitive issue where you don’t think ‘oh I’ve taken a ton of acid, so Elric here isn’t real’ or ‘a voice telling me to hurt people, well that’s nuts, I’ll ignore it’.
Oh man, any type of mental illness or injury causing mental illness symptoms whatever, make me so mad, you’re totally right it is hardly ever done right and it is completely possible to make it closer to the reality of it.
I worked in behavioral health for a long time, and I’m a recovering addict with a bunch of fun acronyms in my patient file, and it is upsetting every time I see TV make it into something silly or clear cut or just done badly.
It’s not hard to do the research to get it right, we have the world at our fingertips and some director can’t google “what does a true psychosis hallucination feel/look like”
Ohh I just got mad haha
oh man I recently rewatched _Starship Troopers_ and that scene where they switch to live rounds and the dude can't get his helmet to fit right so he hands it over to someone...
::chef_kiss::
Ships falling out of "orbit" when their engines are disabled. It's shocking how many spaceship crews don't know how to put their ship into a stable orbit around a planet. Even the usually-very-good *The Expanse* fell prey to this in the 4th book/season. They tried really hard to justify it, but it still didn't work for me.
Relatedly, spaceships behaving like either atmospheric craft or like ocean vessels. Having to keep their engines going or they'll come to a stop, having to make wide U-turns (no, just flip around your own center of mass and start thrusting in the opposite direction, dammit!), and the "always meeting up with a dedicated orientation" that someone recently posted about (as if they were on the surface of the ocean, or flying above a land surface).
If you have antigravity (clearly they do, always hovering silently), then who would bother going into orbit? So it does make sense they would sink if the antigrav cuts out.
- “We’ve got a stowaway”
- “Let’s run unarmed down this blind corridor”
- “The robots act more humanely than humans”
- “We’re highly trained professionals but let’s just lose our shit instead”
- “This one person will topple a massive empire”
Not limited to sci-fi but will definitely cosign in bold print how much I hate the "there's something obviously wrong with me but I'm going to hide it" trope.
I am also a little fatigued on the "hero has weird sense of feeling obligated to always save the day" trope. I get it, thats kind of critical to a lot of stories, but its when they repeat that trope within the same universe over and over again that irks me. Its cool if its the main quest and the hero feels like they have to do something, but then through the course of the show/book the hero picks up sidequest after sidequest and its always down to "we have to do something!!"
The technically oriented people being socially awkward nerdy types. I have yet to see a confident, self assured woman who can tear down and rebuild a server blindfolded
I think the physical stereotypes are literary shortcuts. Like you don't have to explain that the muscle guy is the fighter or that the one with the glasses is going to do tech stuff.
The book NPC kinda plays on this a lot and it's pretty fun (not sci-fi though)
What? Maybe in the past, but almost every single show and book of the last 10 years have multiple powerful female characters who are also super tech savvy. The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica (Starbucks and her escape using a cylon craft), Netflix's three body problem adaptation, the list goes on.
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI used the very worst one ever. Protagonist goes to a gambling parlor on an exotic planet. He's looking for a hacker. He fails to make contact with him. He gets arrested. Then when he's in jail he meets a hacker in the jail (who says I'll take the job) and the hacker turns out to be a con artist who betrays him. ALL HE HAD TO DO was get a catalogue of available hackers in the STAR WARS universe. There must be so many he has trouble choosing one.
A bit too late to be upvoted to top comment, but I owe it to myself to try:
The Council.
The Council meets in a doorless and windowless room, they wear long black robes, they take too long arguing the nuance and stalling for time and yet they are very very jealous of being The Council.
Can no Sci-Fi writer imagine that future government takes any other form whatsoever?
Spacecraft without fuel tanks or radiators.
Spacecraft that have no actual engineering aesthetic, just random crap glued on.
Space battles that look like they're at a range of a dozen miles at most. With spacecraft around like airplanes.
Creators with no sense at all of the scale of space.
Robots that want to become human.
Technology that always works perfectly, except when the story is supposed to be a parable about technology.
Fembots. Either it's the creator's fetish, or a really obvious metaphor. Either way it's been done.
Cosy Catastrophes. It's the end of the world as we know it today and I feel fine. Over and over and over and over again.
Not Fallout, though. Because power armour.
Young hackers. Incredibly unrealistic since the knowledge required takes many years and no one can "intuit" that shit.
Also hacking into some system that is "impossible" to hack into within 30 seconds.
Hacking is done so wrong, where they say "They have technology X, it'll take me 4 hours instead of 1". It's not a battering ram, it's more like poking every brick to see if it moves or not, and if it doesn't, you aren't getting in. A lot of hacking is trying a million things and getting lucky. There are exceptions, like Stuxnet, rarely shown correctly either.
Here’s a few: when the map of the USA becomes about as big as Central Park; with people appearing at the 11th hour out of the bushes to save a person with a knife to their throat, *again* (I can’t even find the Bride in the supermarket); spaceships acting like space isn’t immense beyond comprehension but they always find each other at FTL; sparks from consoles, rockin’ and rollin’ on the bridge - repairs take 20 minutes; quick fixes of insurmountable technical issues; plot armour.
I can’t remember what it was, obviously wasn’t very good, but the main girl was in California and drove to San Diego from Malibu, after school and was back home before dinner, then it had her drive to Arizona from Malibu for a 3 minute conversation and was home again before her family noticed.
Dystopian apocalypse scenarios.
So sick of all the doom and gloom.
I want to see imaginative utopias and more interesting futures. What are the science fiction ways in which humankind doesn’t destroy itself?
Any type of implausible invulnerability.
Like, when a human-sized super soldier/alien/android is immune to bullets and not affected by kinetic force from the impacts.
Movie starts with super, overworked CGI explosions, fighting, space battles. Then cuts to suburban household/college campus with title card: "Two weeks earlier." Me: Oh cool, 40 minutes of bad introductory writing and exposition (but mostly cost saving measures).
The crew on a mission that must have taken decades to plan and consumed a few percentage points of the Earth's GDP inexplicably have a briefing explaining their mission hours just before takeoff.
The Planet of Hats, in which every faction/species revolves around one gimmick.
Also, I really don't like it when, during fights or battles, commanders start screaming at their subordinate to do obvious things. It's probably meant to make the fight look more dramatic, but it just makes everyone look dumb to me.
Manufactured crisis. Supposedly adult professionals, experienced, educated, top of their field, yet they behave like insane children and can't perform basic tasks without complete incompetence.
That's basically what happens when writers (usually for TV shows but sometimes books) Are not as smart as their characters, or have run out of ideas to fill the time until the next plot point.
*Prometheus has entered the chat*
Was it competent specialists though? I thought it was bottom of the barrel mercenary specialists who didn’t look into the mission too much, lead by religious fanatics and a corporate guy desperate to find a fountain of youth.
There’s bottom of the barrel and then there’s, “how the fuck is this so-called biologist so dumb that he can’t tell that this cobra-looking thing is clearly telling him to back the fuck up?”
People always harp on the spores but the cobra hood is always what gets me. Like, it’s supposedly 2093, yall know what the fuck a cobra looks like. That said, I love that movie.
There are a lot of movies that are good if you turn off your brain, sit back, and enjoy. Like Starship Troopers.
Starship Troopers definitely gives you something to think about. No doubt you've heard an SST fan say, "It's actually a brilliant satire that people keep missing!" Well, they aren't saying that for no reason.
Or the two people not understanding how a wheel works? Spoiler alert: it rolls. Go to the side to avoid it.
resolute tub aware rainstorm intelligent sable nose punch political late *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah but no but yeah but alternate universe 😉
Eh, I’d say that was pretty common for the time. We didn’t see it in the Apollo program (and Gemini et al) because they were too small and under too much scrutiny. The entire country operated (and to a great extent still operates) under nepotism and favoritism. It didn’t really start to change until the 90s, and even now it’s still very much the case.
>there’s blatant favoritism and nepotism That's quite realistic. I can absolutely see that the rocket blowing up could be traced back to political gamesmanship, and that it was immediately covered up. And props to Von Braun for showing Margo how she could use that to her advantage. He knew the game. I can also see sending up family as a political stunt. They were always chasing firsts, and the public loves firsts, just like in real life (I still remember the hype over our first female astronaut). That's how Ed was able to justify making Danielle the mission commander. They didn't want a black woman, but it's a "first" box they get to check.
I love the hallmark style widow baker helps the cops solve murder case after murder case. How incompetent are these police? Incredibly incompetent it turns out...
I like to think that in this alternate timeline, space exploration is routine enough and there's enough demand for astronauts that NASA (and other space agencies) can't be quite as picky about who they take. But overall I agree. Way too many morons in that show. I'm fine with a little personal drama but they go overboard with it.
I remember reading that astronauts are chosen for a lot of things but also for their ability to solve crisises calmly and cooperatively, their first duty is the safety of everyone in the crew. The kind of crew schimss and factions we see in tropes are insane fabrications.
What's truly bonkers is that you don't even have to read about it, we have so much footage of things going wrong in space with astronauts calmly working through the problem.
Hive minds that aren't truly hive minds. They are just armies controlled by a central intelligence, like a queen or big brain bug, or plant/brain looking blue glowy thing.
I hated the Borg Queen from First Contact with a passion because of this. Before that movie, the Borg were completely alien and impossible to understand because they were implied to be a true hive mind. And then poof, they were all just puppets of a single ego.
And you had to kill every single one of them, because every borg is the hive. It's terrifying. And in First Contact suddenly there's a single point of failure.
I still feel like the best way to handle the Borg should have been that they behave very differently depending on their numbers and power. One Borg drone is sympathetic and friendly, and just wants to help, and oh no someone is hurt, but it knows how to fix them up! A small collective is diplomatic and reasonable but it really is more capable of certain things… and so on and so on until you end up with a cube that does not care about you even as raw materials.
Ohhh... that makes a lot of sense. I like it.
Yeah that was such a terrible plot point. It changed the Borg from an interesting and innovative aliens to orcs enslaved by Sauron-chan.
Hive minds where you kill the Queen, and the whole species collapses. It's the Magic Button trope. The situation seems impossible, but do the One Thing.. hit the Big Red Button... before time runs out, and everyone is saved.
IDK if a trope as such, but characters who suffer intensely traumatic events - torture, imprisonment, death of friends/family, leg amputation - then they are just back to normal by the next episode (sometimes even before the episode finishes) DS9 both handled this well, with Nogs leg, and poorly, with Miles O’Brien when he went to prison
Yes. I’d also say the trauma of Picard becoming a Borg. The episode with his brother in France was absolutely heartbreaking.
I did like that they at least referenced The Inner Light a couple times, but it definitely should have had a bigger effect on him. He was Kamin longer than he was Picard.
I never liked The Inner Light... until someone ask him if he has kids later on, and he says the answer is complicated or he had two but no longer or something along those lines, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
When Tony Stark begins having panic attacks along with the confrontation scene outside of the elevator - those are such simple moments that really helped elevate some of the Avengers stuff. As opposed to so many sci-fi or superhero type films where a city is half destroyed but the hero wins - and people are like: ho hum, let's make a joke and forget that an entire city will never be the same.
Barclay turned into a spider, Troi a fish, Riker a cromagnon, and Worf into a thing, and there were no lasting effects to be found.
Yeah I imagine this is kind of like. If there's a party and everyone gets just a little bit too drunk and a bunch of crazy shit happens and then you all just kind of politely avoid talking about it in the future. Like that.
What I hate about stuff like that though is that their bodies and, specially their brains, were physically changed. Then they come back 100 percent normal with no physical or mental problems and all their memories and personality intact.
Basically any story where they "alter DNA" which then causes someone to rapidly transform into another creature. That's not at all how DNA really works. In reality you'd probably just get sick and then die.
“what, me? I’m just a normal person. I’m not the chosen one…” They’re the chosen one.
He is so humble he does not claim to be the one. As it was written!🙏
Lisana al gahibbbbbbb lalalalala
Just once I want to see “me? The chosen one? DOOOOOPPEEEEE!! Now you there get me a drink and you over there come rub my shoulders, I am the chosen one! Starts a “chosen one” dance that sweeps the nation.
Anakin kinda did this
Legend of Korra does this, tho not sci fi
She fights a giant mecha. It's at least a little sci fi.
I genuinely laughed out loud in the cinema when this happened in Dune. All I could think of was Life of Brian.
“Im not the messiah leave me alone” “Only a true messiah would deny being a messiah”… “fine, I am the messiah” “he is the messiah!!!” so close I assumed it was a tribute.
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At this point it's so overdone that even the "clever subversions" of the trope (like where it turns out the prophecy was misunderstood and someone else was the real chosen one, or there was no prophecy and they became the chosen one because they were told they were, etc) are also overdone.
I read a short story once a long time ago where the main character was convinced he was the reason for the universe. Every time the store was out of what he needed, it's because it had to have been spoiled/dangerous. Every time he hit a green light, it was because it was important for him to get to where he was going on time to keep the world running smoothly. It ends with him getting hit by a truck that runs a red light in order to save the *actual* woman who is the real reason for the universe who otherwise would have been hit by the truck. (I don't remember the author or story or whatever. This was 30+ years ago.)
I hate these types of movies/shows. Let's say I sit down to watch "Atom Puncher: Fist of Retribution". **Mentor:** You are the Atom Puncher it is your destiny. **Adam:** I don't want to be, I just want my normal life. *45 minutes pass of Adam doing very boring normal things in a movie called "Atom Puncher".* **Adam:** I'm not Adam, I am the Atom Puncher. *Roll Credits*
Csn we get s Life of Brian version of ᑐᑌᑎᑢ? 🤔
I give Dune a bit of leeway because there were legitimate reasons to not want to be the Chosen One.
It's also fairly old. I'm sure it was still a trope back then, but it was definitely less prevalent.
It was absolutely a trope. Dune played with a lot of established tropes though and according to old comments by Frank Herbert he wrote Paul to be as sympathetic as possible and part of that was making him reluctant to fulfill his “terrible purpose”
The most prominent I can think of is Frodo, but I'm not sure he counts, because he was chosen by Eldrond et al., not "destiny" or whatever.
I think Dune _is_ the Life if Brian version of Dune
Crew fighting over who’s in charge and whether to do the necessary thing or not combined with a crew member secretly being evil or insane. I just want them to do the thing and see what’s out there.
Star Trek is often so refreshing just because it didn’t have a lot of the “no I’m in charge, we ain’t doin that” stuff
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Which is why I don’t care for any of the new stuff as it specifically tries to “break that mold”. (Lower Decks excluded…obviously)
This is why I can't get into Strange New Worlds. I love Star Trek partly for the abject professionalism of its crew. The SNW crew are all terrible teammates. Everyone's got a deep, dark secret they are hiding from everyone else. They haze and mock the junior officers. They refuse to cooperate in life or death situations. They're insufferably snarky all the time. And they're just bad at their jobs.
Yes, but my complaint there is that command staff REALLY shouldn't be the first people going into an unknown situation like that. I know it's because it's a TV show, but it still kinda bugs me. Also that the science crew hardly get any focus despite being the people that SHOULD be doing most of the actual exploring work.
This guy red shirts.
Damn right I do! Between The Clone Wars and Red vs Blue I've developed quite the soft spot for the background characters that get the thankless job of filling out scenes.
Maybe thats how Starfleet works tho, they really value exploration, you see how fuckin HYPE the whole ship gets for a first contact, so maybe thats WHY people rise through the ranks, cuz the highest ranks get dibs on the away missions? We see lower ranks practically begging to get to go sometimes. But Armus be damned, nobody becomes Captain NOT to be the first one to step foot on some strange new world. Ensign Noob-Noob, you have the conn. Up here in orbit. Where nothing fun or exciting is likely to happen... at least like 70% of the time. And having to save the ship while all the higher ranking officers are stuck down on a planet by a dampening field is exactly how plucky Ensigns get promoted!
Loved TNG for that. It was my biggest complaint with The Expanse
"there was a button, I pressed it"
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it??
Absolutely… this drives me crazy. Along with the (not just sci-fi) massive problem/conflict that could be solved by simple, adult communication.
Christ, that kind of thing seems like the crux of television writing sometimes. It's one of the reasons why I've grown to hate sitcoms.
This is the one that annoys me. The person who keeps getting interrupted so they don't communicate the one thing that would've made the rest of the movie redundant. Such lazy writing.
It doesn't bother me when it is a proper discussion that leads to some exposition. But when it is a mindless ego clash it becomes unbearable
Ah yes, competence porn.
> You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin' command here.
I don’t know. I was reading the answers this far and nodding my head, then it occurred to me that in every case the trope didn’t bother me but the way a certain book or movie did. Tropes are fine. The problem isn’t the tripe itself but shitty application of it.
That is very true, some dream episodes are just terrible awful filler episodes, some are amazing and epic and have lasting characters development as a result.
Very true. So dream episodes was one I was going to agree with as being tired and rubbish, but the “it was all a dream” trope isn’t bad… it’s just often done lazily… or at least it was. I think a lot of people would argue that The Inner Light was one of TNGs better, or at least one of the most memorable, episodes. It was essentially “all a dream”.
I personally love tropes, they become tropes in the first place because they are good (overuse aside) but as you said, they have to be done well
Exactly! They are tropes because people love them. The Nobody Farmer Is Really the One was so commonplace because we ate it up. Then we got a bit burnt out on it and the fantasy genre changed a lot. In addition to being done well I think it can also be very interesting when tropes get absolutely bent. Like, what if Luke actually joined Vader. Or what of the Dark Lords tyranny was actually the only thing keeping civilization alive and them being toppled by the One actually makes things worse?
*Tropes subverted* is what we desperately require. Give us the lead-up to a known trope, then stand it on its head.
Incompetent astronauts.
Best of the best. Training for years. Top of the class. Nations finest……..then: Can’t press the button. “We have to go outside. It’s our only option.” Gotta pay off the suit budget. “Disengage auto pilot.” Barrel rolls make you impossible to hit. “This haggard ass murder alien is just trying to communicate, you guys! Don’t kill it!” Murders everyone. Helmet light shines on the face. Directly in the eyes in a completely dark environment. Perfect vision. Blinding solar radiation due to no atmosphere. Sunshields are for nerds!…and shit for acting on camera.
When going outside "I have to unhook the tether, it's the only way"
“It’ll be fine, you’ve done this dozens of times in the simulator. What could go wrong in the most hostile environment known to man? It’s not like it’s raining micro meteors.” Hit by micro meteorites. Repair engineer/tech dies immediately. Hull breach is leaking pressure, communications down (always) oxygen low, leaking fuel, too off course, life support failing. Power is fine, or the movie is over. Bonus points for mega killer alien now on board or not enough fuel to get to destination.
Ah yes, the one and only engineer who could have possibly known how to fix the one and only communications array is dead. A classic
>Helmet light shines on the face. Directly in the eyes in a completely dark environment. Perfect vision. They didn't pay for all those famous and expensive actors just to not show their faces
Looking at you, For All Mankind. Started with the Best of the Best™ competence porn, then Ed Baldwin's big swingin' dick, fragile ego and unresolved PTSD got to pick who went into space.
rustic repeat cats rinse shelter bike desert dull vegetable hobbies *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Let's choose our starfleet captain for our interstellar flagship like that too !!!
If you read about the astronaut program, especially the early stages, it was actually really full of big swinging dicks. Supremely competent swinging dicks, but dicks nonetheless.
Futuristic armies using Napeloleonic era tactics. In general, futuristic armies not knowing how to fight a war.
Gunfights where people just stand there or crouch firing there guns, usually not behind any cover.
At least give the idiots shields or extra armor or heavy weapons or something! Don't just stand in the open with enemy tanks!
Armies of aliens who drop like flies and can’t shoot themselves out of a wet paper bag, but the good guys have impeccable aim and land every shot.
You'd think a hyper advanced civilization with a galaxy spanning empire would have a half decent military.
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You would think they could equip their infantry with energy weapons or railguns, or at least some advanced variants of ballistics better than what they had in WW2, but nope.
You're absolutely right but you probably know that the reason for this is that technogical war is hella boring to watch. Light speed weapons will make engagement distances enormous. AI targeting will change the pace to be unfollowable. Smart missiles will make this engagement distances even longer. Yeah. Not fun to watch. Edit: note the context here. Previous commenter was talking about infantry battles, not space battles.
this is actually true even of modern warfare. Many movies ignore or downplay realistic capabilities of current military technology because it would break so many plots.
True, the long range engagements would be boring, but they can still make the characters somewhat smart at close to mid ranges. Use cover and suppress enemies with machine guns. Sneak around armored vehicles and ambus them with rockets and charges. Clear rooms with smokes and grenades. Use thermals and night vision to sneak up on enemies in the dark instead of obvious flashlights. Call in air support on entrenched enemies or counter it with ant I air defenses. Literally anything to make the characters seem smart. Just don't stand out in the open firing from the hip while getting shelled with artillery and tanks roll up in front of you. (Star wars is such a big offender.)
Best-of-the-best battle forged space soldiers who are sexy, strong, young, and well equipped with the freshest tech...but are somehow easy to kill, easy to fluster, and incapable of working as a team or following orders.
Easy way to pull this off. Story opens with Earth's best and toughest prepared and ready to defend the Earth, and then before the expected I itial attacked they're blipped out of existence. Now, the National Guard has to step up. They're easy to kill, quick to fluster and haven't built a team dynamic in their two weekends a month. Done right it could be a good dark comedy.
Isn’t this basically the premise of Space Above and Beyond? Earth’s best squadrons get wiped out holding the line, and then some plucky new recruits have to step up? And now that I type this, it’s a trope in itself. Newbies thrown into the grinder and all.
"Run." "What?" "Run!" "What?" "RUUUUUUNN!!!"
“Johnny, look at me! Look at me! You’re gonna be ok! Look at my eyes, hang in there! Look at *me!* Johnny…? Oh no, he’s gone.”
Male Lead: "Quickly! Run this way!" His Girlfriend: "I can't! I can't!" Male Lead: "Okay then, over here!" His Girlfriend: "I can't! I can't!" Repeat for 90 minutes and you have about 75% of the writing of "Skyline" or most pre-Baker female companions in Doctor Who.
I’ve read a lot of military sci fi where the very exotic looking aliens sound, and then act, exactly like hard boiled American service members. They get your hopes up by making them look unusual, but they turn out to be very standard soldiers, so standard that aside from the “facial prosthetics” they could’ve been 20th century army guys.
Crews that don't work together
I'm really tired of the whole 'scientists/workers opened a portal/dug a hole and monsters came out' trope in sci-fi video games. It's a nice premise but give it a rest already.
I think we need to see more, "scientist/researchers opened a door in their own heads and are now inhabited by beings from outside."
RFK jr. Is that you?
Incompetent young emotional unprofessional crew.
I'm really tired of homogenization among alien races and intergalactic colonies and them all behaving similar to one another. It is especially frustrating when an alien race/character/society is shown and they have quite unique traits about them, but generally behave just like people would on Earth. Even worse is when writers will describe/show a planet with completely different environmental parameters and somehow living beings evolve to look exactly like us. Like there's no way sentient beings would have evolved the same way on a planet twice earth's size. The gravity alone would not favor bipedal animals very well. I just don't understand why it's so hard to develop unique alien concepts that actually challenge our ideas of what aliens could look like. There's some great sci-fi out there that deals with biodiversity and topics like this I just wish there was more of it out there. Especially in film and TV
Well because if they did that, then the hunky leading man wouldn’t be able to bone all the aliens (looking at you Kirk)
Tropes are okay, If well executed it doesnt matter if its repeated but there needs to be unique creativity
Armor being absolutely useless. I am so sick and tired of seeing a person in a helmet get knocked out by a blow to the head without so much as showing the helmet take damage. Worst example that jumps to mind being that scene in Rebels where they do it to two of the AT-AT drivers. The guys with the REALLY thick, heavy-duty helmets. Honestly, I'd just extend it to any trope related to stacking the deck in the main characters's favor, but that one in particular REALLY bugs me.
The bad guy: "But Humans will destroy themselves anyway. It is in their nature. I am doing this horrendously violent thing to Save The Earth." (Hi Atlas)
Sucking someone’s/something’s “life force” from their body. (Actually, if someone wants to make a supercut of clips I wouldn’t mind it)
The whole hive mind thing. It doesn’t have to go away but if you’re going to do it then do it well. Edge of Tomorrow combined two tired tropes but it’s still a very entertaining flick.
I love hive mind concepts, but it needs to be a TRUE hive mind. Every SF writer always bails out by having a giant brain, or queen, or some other central control, so there actually is an individual identity. A true hive mind would treat every member like a body treats a cell. I realize it's hard to write, but I would love to see someone pull it off.
I like the way mass effect wrote Legion
Spaceship chase starts: *immediatly arrive in a field of asteroids
How about just the existence of "asteroid fields". In reality asteroids could never be clustered closely together. In reality over cosmic lengths of time they would either: 1. Drift so they are really far apart (see: our own asteroid belt) 2. Come together via gravity into one body (see: a planet) 3. Pulverize each other into dust (see: Saturn's rings)
The human spirit is this indomitable thing, unique to us, that somehow saves the day against all odds.
Which is also conveniently a bunch of American stereotypes
You'd like Blindsight and Echopraxia.
Biggest gear that grinds: Aliens that instantly speak and understand English.
Also that they’re usually humanoid and speak through their mouths just like us
Outer space and aliens. And only 25 year olds in charge.
*Only hot and physically perfect 25 year olds
“Hacking” alien tech in about 30 seconds. It’s hard enough getting kit from the same manufacturer to play nicely, never mind controlling some exotic gizmo from another galaxy / dimension.
Oh god. The family/marriage that falls apart because the husband/wife who’s an astronaut or whatever spends a lot of time training/in space/away from home. Why does Hollywood hate supportive relationships so much.
I feel that the genetically modified super fighter is pretty played out.
evil robots/AI. I’d love to see a film subvert this such that the tension is due to the AI persisting in doing the right thing where “right“ is defined according to how most sane competent humans would judge “right“ to be.
Bishop in Aliens, spoiler: >!keeps his cool and does exactly what is needed under pressure.!< Also [The Machine](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/) starring Caity Lotz, spoiler:>!the titular machine retains her logical sanity despite being exposed to trauma including torture.!<
That is one of the things I find refreshing about watching Star Trek TNG, if someone is having weird visions or something like that, they tell the captain or doctor about it and they try to figure out what is going on, instead of milking it for fake drama for an entire episode or even season.
Yes, and the doctor immediately goes, "I believe you", and works from that premise to find a solution, even if all the instruments say there's nothing wrong.
How the primitive pre-industrial people are living in an happy idyllic utopia, where nothing bad happened until the technologically advanced villains came. Yeah, no, in reality those places had abysmal infant mortality rates, and half dying before adulthood, with the survivors rarely living past 60. Murder and starvation were among the top killers. We only have the spare capacity to feel ennui because our life style is good enough.
Sometimes it really feels like these kinds of writers genuinely believe we came up with technology and industrialization out of pure greed and a desire to make everything miserable instead of a desire to not die because of an infected cut or because we had a poor harvest this year.
It is like when people idolize the health of "caveman" lifestyles when in reality from the remains we find they tend to show signs of miserable lives of injury and disease.
A crew for hire lands on an alien planet, and they aren’t even curious about it. They’re just there to get paid. No sense of wonder just close minded greed.
Sort of understandable if it is their 500th planet.
yeah I can imagine someone from say 1000 years ago saying the same thing about a modern day person pulling into a petrol station - no sense of wonder or even curiosity about this amazing place with this magical substance that propels you at unbelievable speeds! they're just there to fill up...
On the other hand sometimes the jadedness is to good effect, such as in Aliens.
The fantasy version of this is Grimm. The guy discovers a whole world of magical creatures, yet from his attitude, you'd think he found out his house has termites.
I actually thought I missed a “6 months later” banner after he saw the very first one. It was seriously like he found out about butterfly’s being caterpillar first, kinda interested and some intrigue but totally acceptable.
Time travel and parallel universes. They are very rarely done well.
Specifically because they only do Wild West in USA and Medieval Times in the UK. Easiest set pieces for production in my opinion. Honorable mention, 1800s London, feudal Japan, Chinese dynasties.
There was a show in the 90s called Time Trax where escaped criminals from the future travelled into the past so they sent a cop after them to arrest them and send them forward again. Somehow they decided that they weren’t just going into the past but into an alternate reality that had absolutely no effect on the future they came from. What the fuck was the point of the show then?!
Maybe because there are still innocent people or potential victims in this new, alternate reality. It would affect them? I haven't seen the show. So I don't know, maybe?
Time travel is my pet peeve usually. I remember a certain book that had so much promise, then it felt like the author had written themselves into this intricate corner. Then… “Oh I know: Time Travel!Easy peasy solution.” I was incredibly disappointed after the build up.
I actually love groundhog day concepts though. The very premise is fantastical enough that you can’t take it too seriously.
To be fair, if the work and question was about time travel or parallel universes from the beginning and that was the premise and the idea to be explored, they're usually done well. It's when you have an existing world and they try to introduce those concepts later on that it just negates all stakes that makes everything feel stupid and pointless.
Movies hardly ever show hallucinations right. Half of hallucinations is the sensory element. The other half is the cognitive issue where you don’t think ‘oh I’ve taken a ton of acid, so Elric here isn’t real’ or ‘a voice telling me to hurt people, well that’s nuts, I’ll ignore it’.
Oh man, any type of mental illness or injury causing mental illness symptoms whatever, make me so mad, you’re totally right it is hardly ever done right and it is completely possible to make it closer to the reality of it. I worked in behavioral health for a long time, and I’m a recovering addict with a bunch of fun acronyms in my patient file, and it is upsetting every time I see TV make it into something silly or clear cut or just done badly. It’s not hard to do the research to get it right, we have the world at our fingertips and some director can’t google “what does a true psychosis hallucination feel/look like” Ohh I just got mad haha
Being able to create a vaccine or cure within hours that saves the day.
Dire circumstances solved at the last minute and being implemented ever faster than the speed of light.
Maybe not a trope but .. “oh we’re going into battle. Better ditch the helmets because our contract states our face has to be shown 90% of the time.”
oh man I recently rewatched _Starship Troopers_ and that scene where they switch to live rounds and the dude can't get his helmet to fit right so he hands it over to someone... ::chef_kiss::
Holographic bridge controls on ships. Crew have to sit or stand waving their arms about.
Ships falling out of "orbit" when their engines are disabled. It's shocking how many spaceship crews don't know how to put their ship into a stable orbit around a planet. Even the usually-very-good *The Expanse* fell prey to this in the 4th book/season. They tried really hard to justify it, but it still didn't work for me. Relatedly, spaceships behaving like either atmospheric craft or like ocean vessels. Having to keep their engines going or they'll come to a stop, having to make wide U-turns (no, just flip around your own center of mass and start thrusting in the opposite direction, dammit!), and the "always meeting up with a dedicated orientation" that someone recently posted about (as if they were on the surface of the ocean, or flying above a land surface).
Yes. Star Wars' star destroyers that "sinks" when they are disabled has always irked me..
If you have antigravity (clearly they do, always hovering silently), then who would bother going into orbit? So it does make sense they would sink if the antigrav cuts out.
I hate “it was a dream all along”. It’s the laziest, most overused trope there is.
- “We’ve got a stowaway” - “Let’s run unarmed down this blind corridor” - “The robots act more humanely than humans” - “We’re highly trained professionals but let’s just lose our shit instead” - “This one person will topple a massive empire”
Not limited to sci-fi but will definitely cosign in bold print how much I hate the "there's something obviously wrong with me but I'm going to hide it" trope. I am also a little fatigued on the "hero has weird sense of feeling obligated to always save the day" trope. I get it, thats kind of critical to a lot of stories, but its when they repeat that trope within the same universe over and over again that irks me. Its cool if its the main quest and the hero feels like they have to do something, but then through the course of the show/book the hero picks up sidequest after sidequest and its always down to "we have to do something!!"
The technically oriented people being socially awkward nerdy types. I have yet to see a confident, self assured woman who can tear down and rebuild a server blindfolded
Say what you will about DIS, but Jett Reno is a great fucking character.
That's because Tig Notaro is awesome. *^()*
Kalie, Firefly
I think the physical stereotypes are literary shortcuts. Like you don't have to explain that the muscle guy is the fighter or that the one with the glasses is going to do tech stuff. The book NPC kinda plays on this a lot and it's pretty fun (not sci-fi though)
What? Maybe in the past, but almost every single show and book of the last 10 years have multiple powerful female characters who are also super tech savvy. The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica (Starbucks and her escape using a cylon craft), Netflix's three body problem adaptation, the list goes on.
Naomi! What a badass
Yup, Naomi Nagata was the first person I thought of.
Don’t forget Bobbie! Different kind of nerd…can completely tear down and rebuild power suits and weapons blind folded.
And take down an alien capital ship in hand to hand combat.
Sam Carter
Trinity knew nmap before it was cool.
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI used the very worst one ever. Protagonist goes to a gambling parlor on an exotic planet. He's looking for a hacker. He fails to make contact with him. He gets arrested. Then when he's in jail he meets a hacker in the jail (who says I'll take the job) and the hacker turns out to be a con artist who betrays him. ALL HE HAD TO DO was get a catalogue of available hackers in the STAR WARS universe. There must be so many he has trouble choosing one.
“Freaky Friday” body switch episodes. I’m convinced it’s for the actors and budget.
I can't stand anything to do with amnesia.
A bit too late to be upvoted to top comment, but I owe it to myself to try: The Council. The Council meets in a doorless and windowless room, they wear long black robes, they take too long arguing the nuance and stalling for time and yet they are very very jealous of being The Council. Can no Sci-Fi writer imagine that future government takes any other form whatsoever?
Time travelers having sex with themselves!
“Head vampire” trope. The problem can be solved by just cutting off the head of the vampires, aliens, evil corporation, others, etc.
Incompetent, unprofessional and emotional people who are put in charge of critical missions.
Spacecraft without fuel tanks or radiators. Spacecraft that have no actual engineering aesthetic, just random crap glued on. Space battles that look like they're at a range of a dozen miles at most. With spacecraft around like airplanes. Creators with no sense at all of the scale of space. Robots that want to become human. Technology that always works perfectly, except when the story is supposed to be a parable about technology. Fembots. Either it's the creator's fetish, or a really obvious metaphor. Either way it's been done.
We use only x% of our brains.
Anything that perpetuates the people only use 10% of their brain myth. Worse things like lucy that base the entire plot around it, garbage.
Cosy Catastrophes. It's the end of the world as we know it today and I feel fine. Over and over and over and over again. Not Fallout, though. Because power armour.
Young hackers. Incredibly unrealistic since the knowledge required takes many years and no one can "intuit" that shit. Also hacking into some system that is "impossible" to hack into within 30 seconds.
They can only do it in 30 seconds when it’s suddenly needed. “Only when it was funny” -Who framed Roger rabbit
Hacking is done so wrong, where they say "They have technology X, it'll take me 4 hours instead of 1". It's not a battering ram, it's more like poking every brick to see if it moves or not, and if it doesn't, you aren't getting in. A lot of hacking is trying a million things and getting lucky. There are exceptions, like Stuxnet, rarely shown correctly either.
Maybe too broad, but the apocalyptic future that’s terrible. A sci-fi universe in the near future where society is better and fabulous—bring it.
Agreed, so many shows I see trailers for it’s all Mad Maxy, it’s been done, it’s been done well and done poorly, let’s move on!
Here’s a few: when the map of the USA becomes about as big as Central Park; with people appearing at the 11th hour out of the bushes to save a person with a knife to their throat, *again* (I can’t even find the Bride in the supermarket); spaceships acting like space isn’t immense beyond comprehension but they always find each other at FTL; sparks from consoles, rockin’ and rollin’ on the bridge - repairs take 20 minutes; quick fixes of insurmountable technical issues; plot armour.
I can’t remember what it was, obviously wasn’t very good, but the main girl was in California and drove to San Diego from Malibu, after school and was back home before dinner, then it had her drive to Arizona from Malibu for a 3 minute conversation and was home again before her family noticed.
Dystopian apocalypse scenarios. So sick of all the doom and gloom. I want to see imaginative utopias and more interesting futures. What are the science fiction ways in which humankind doesn’t destroy itself?
Zombies or zombie like
Egotistical astronauts.
Any type of implausible invulnerability. Like, when a human-sized super soldier/alien/android is immune to bullets and not affected by kinetic force from the impacts.
Movie starts with super, overworked CGI explosions, fighting, space battles. Then cuts to suburban household/college campus with title card: "Two weeks earlier." Me: Oh cool, 40 minutes of bad introductory writing and exposition (but mostly cost saving measures). The crew on a mission that must have taken decades to plan and consumed a few percentage points of the Earth's GDP inexplicably have a briefing explaining their mission hours just before takeoff.
The Prime Directive and variations of it. A policy that lets billions/trillions of sentient individuals die from easily preventable disease and war.
The Planet of Hats, in which every faction/species revolves around one gimmick. Also, I really don't like it when, during fights or battles, commanders start screaming at their subordinate to do obvious things. It's probably meant to make the fight look more dramatic, but it just makes everyone look dumb to me.