Film has become such an integral part of our culture. As a result, there are many tropes and clichés in cinema that are mistakenly assumed to be fact. This week, we’re taking a look at the 3 top clichés in film and television.
#3: Things move slowly in space
In most science fiction films, we often see things play out in slow motion when the characters are in a zero-gravity environment. This originated from footage of various NASA missions where astronauts slowly move through their spacecraft. They move slowly on purpose so that they don’t crash into the very expensive equipment that may very well be keeping them alive.
In an environment with no gravity, you would actually move a lot faster, meaning that you’d have an increased chance of careening to your death in the blackness of space if you happened to push off from the side of a space station.
#2: Hand-to-hand fights can last for hours if the fighters are good enough….
This comes from the many martial arts movies and fight scenes throughout cinema, where many flashy techniques are thrown and demonstrated. This is best observed in films such as Star Wars Episode III and any of The Matrix films.
As any martial artist can tell you, fights last no more than a few seconds, even if neither combatant has had any martial arts training. It doesn’t take a lot to knock out someone, or injure them to the point where they can not continue. Just watch a couple episodes of Human Weapon or any mixed-martial-arts fight, and you’ll see that the battles or rounds don’t last any longer than two minutes.
#1: You can stand near an explosion without ANY trouble
This is one of the biggest action movie clichés ever. It always makes its way into any film where either the villains or heroes need to look awesome. Just pop in any, and I mean ANY action film, and there’s bound to be a scene of a character either walking away from, or standing next to a fresh explosion.
Simply put, explosions are loud, and they generate a lot of force. If it’s the classic fireball explosion, you’d either go flying, or be burnt to a crisp in addition to going deaf.
Next Week: The resurgence of reboots, remakes, and recycled movies
