Gimmicks a break!

We've all seen it;

A bomb with a digital display counting backward.

Weapons of the future shooting out beams of light.

Cars filled with Nitris that, with a push of a button, can zoom through, under, or over traffic.

Fight scenes where a character freezes in mid-kick while the camera "pans" around him/her.

Super heroes with a "unique" super-power/weakness.

Plot devices have become so un-original. "Star Wars" was the last film I think to spawn anything worth imitating.
OK, maybe "Matrix".

I'm not saying a movie can't be good if it has any one of the above. I'm just asking if there's any truth to the saying "Everything's been done before."

Are there any gimmicks you're tired of?

Have you seen any original gimmick(s) in a movie lately?

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r66

Another nice thread... I'm thinking on this one... back soon...

Telling a story backwards; Memento. A huge gimmick, which as Ebert pointed out, wasn't actually required, as it wasn't the way Leonard experienced life. Not to say it wasn't a cool gimmick.

Chronological tampering; Pulp Fiction. Although it had been done before [The Killing springs to mind], Pulp introduced the concept [as did Reservoir Dogs, I guess] to the masses, and has spawned more unchronological films in the past decade than is unimaginable. Tarantino dialogue has also become a gmiick in the films of students and the like -- that being said, he uses it perfectly and Tarantino is 100% worth copying by the way; the man is a gem.

Fading the colour out to black and white continuously for the course of the film; oh, sorry, that one is going to be done. Oblivion. See it 2003.

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www.esotericrabbit.com

Ok...one thing that bugs me is funky camera angles and stop motion in the hands of anyone but Oliver Stone. Stone can make all of this seem part of the story... the rest just botch it so bad it looks contrived. I thought Natural Born Killers was wicked... the shots the whole acid trip effect to illustrate that the minds of these people are so unlike the norm etc. I saw a wave of copycats after thta and still see it occasionally. I always get that "Steve Austin using his bionics" slow motion noise in my head when I see other directors attempting the effect.

No more Matrix slo mo shots, no more wire fighting ala CTHD, I don't ever want to see another cop movie where the cop's wife tries to force him to choose between their marriage and being a cop, the old, "You have 30 minutes before the bomb goes off" routine, arrrrrghhh there's just too many cliches....

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

LMAO, I was going to say that one. I hate that.

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Mr M Rides Again

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