Things that bug you about your favorite movies...

What's that one character, scene, line, etc. that mars an otherwise perfect film? Here are some examples to demonstrate:

Field of Dreams - that saccharine, cloying little girl annoys the hell out of me.

Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino. Stay behind the camera, QT.

The Game - the last five minutes destroy the entire film for me.

Saving Private Ryan - the beginning and ending scenes. The acting reminds me of an Ensure commercial.

The Shawshank Redemption - Tommy Williams. He doesn't really hurt the movie, he just bogs it down for a while.

Dominick & Eugene - the whole David Straithairn subplot belongs in another movie.

Forrest Gump - the running scene doesn't fit with the rest of the movie, and it goes on too long.

Antwone Fisher - Denzel Washington's marriage subplot.

Monster's Ball - the sex/birdcage scene was out of sync with the movie, and pretty tacky.

We Were Soldiers - the laundromat/racism discussion.

Anybody have any other suggestions?

SPIDERMAN Organic webshooters
FIGHT CLUB
Warning Spoiler! Click to show
Star Wars: Episode 4: A NEW HOPE The stormtrooper banging his head on the doorway.
THE MATRIX The protagonists are trying to save their friend, and without prior knowlodge that a helicopter is on the roof of the government building, THEY BLOW UP THE FIRST FLOOR.
Minority report The whole movie is a paradox.
Back To The Future PART II If the future isnt written, how can marty and his girlfriend go into the future and meet themselves? Because they disapeared in their current timeline, they wouldnt exsist in the future!

The Fellowship of the Ring: The dumbed-down Council of Elrond. Legolas comes across as Elrond's ranting lapdog, Merry and Pippin as childish buffoons, and the assembling of the Fellowship comes across as a D&D parody: "You have my sword" "And you have my bow" "And MY axe!". I kept thinking Gandalf would offer up his kewl +1 staff...

The Two Towers: The changing of Théoden and Faramir's characters.

The Phantom Menace: THE DARK LORD OF THE SITH SHOULD NEVER, EVER, SAY "YIPEE"

Attack of the Clones: Natalie Portman's wooden performance. She could be replaced by a CGI character, and no one would notice. Also, dialogue like "that creep's gonna end up deep-fried".

Any movie dealing with time travel. IE: Terminator... why don't they just send another "Ah-nold" back a little earlier or a whole bunch of "ah-nolds" at once?

Breaking Away

"Would you like to roll some balls?"

There's some oddball humor in the film, but this one-line character and especially the delivery of that line is just completely unnecessary to the scene. It's like a different, crappy movie cut in for a second.

Hoosiers

Two things (and thanks to ESPNs The Sports Guy for putting these things in my head):

1. When the hell did Buddy rejoin the team?

and

2. Hickory rebounds and then gets three consecutive turnovers to set up the winning shot? Give me a freakin' break. There's no justifiable reason for South Bend to be passing the ball. Just dribble and burn the clock, you idiots! They don't even call a time out! That game was fixed!

Blade Runner

"Six replicants escaped, three male and three female." Let's see - Roy, Pris, Leon, Zhora, one who already got fried, and... uhhhhh.

I know why it happened, but it still pulls me out of the scene every damn time.

Brad

there is nothing wrong with my favorite films, thats why they are my favorite films....BTW, i really liked Q.T's apperance in Pulp Fiction.

Although I like "Empire..." the most out of the bunch, I absolutely cannot stand the extended song and dance number placed into the special edition of "Return of the Jedi". I have absolutely no idea why Lucas chose to insert that scene into the film- absolutely horrible!

Belching. I can so do without it. The dinner scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom comes to mind. Not a favorite, but we're treated to Klingon belching in Star Trek V. Tacky.

Hmmm...interesting thread!

Terminator 2 - there are several scenes I could live without. All the cheesy so-called comedy bits just wrecked it. Especially the big "thumbs-up" at the very end. Groan!

Gangs of New York - ditch Cameron Diaz. Total waste of screen time. Added nothing to the story.

Braveheart - the staggering oversight during the major battle scene where Mel Gibsons' weapon changes several times during the edits (it goes from his claymore, to an axe, back to a claymore, then to a salad spoon etc). Comical, but really takes me out of the emotion of the scene.

Predator - the scene where Arnie is covered in mud for the first time and the Predator walks past him. Arnolds' line "He couldn't see me..." just kills me. No kidding! Thanks for explaining that to me!

Die Hard - the cheesy ending where the cop save the day by shooting the previously dead terrorist. It was just so setup, silly and unnecessary.

Many others, but I am sure you are all bored or have skipped to the next post by now.

Mark Hamill in the Star Wars movies. I've developed a liking for him because of his animation voice work but when I was a kid he was always incredibly disappointing to me as Luke Skywalker. In the first movie, he was just a whiny punk kid. In Empire he was alright but still quite overshadowed by the sheer coolness of the other characters (I admit that I still get a sadistic pleasure out of seeing Vader beat the crap out of him). In Jedi, he never overcame that earlier dislike I had for him since I never felt that he really pulled off being a Jedi master, especially since Luke's idea of being a Jedi master apparently came down to brooding a whole lot, and that wasn't very interesting to see

In The Big Lebowski, when Walter is showing what happens when you copulate with a stranger, the ADR work on the unfortunate car owner is so very bad that it gets distracting. The only part of the film I don't absolutely love.

Let me also offer up the post-Blue Fairy ending for A.I.. I don't care who was responsible for thinking it up, but it has prevented me from ever being overly positive about the film because the ending is so terrible to me. Everything from the silly science, the transparent manipulation, and the stomach-churning voice over are enough to keep me from ever owning the film. In a similar fashion, I think Minority Report could stand with a trimming of its final ending.

In the 25TH HOUR...

Sometimes, Spike Lee doesn't know when to quit and leave well enough alone.

His decision to add the daydream sequence to the end of the film, during which the Ed Norton character escapes west rather then appear for his jail sentence, is simply rediculous.

Instead, Lee should've kept a harder edge on by showing us Norton's busted drug dealer getting just what he deserves. The man sold drugs - ruined lives and deserves whatever happens to him when he gets to prison. We should be left having no pity for the bastard. Instead of seeing this rediculous fantasy daydream, lets see him as he gets taken deeper and deeper into the prison and dumped like an animal into his cell. Why put an icing coated close on the film?

BB

Caddyshack - The synchronized swimming scene at the Bushwood pool, I love every other scene but I don't find that one funny at all.

...but that scene is offset by any scene with Bill Murray in it! (agree with you, BTW)

I need to come back to this thread...there is MUCH to discuss here!

-Dennis

Ricardo C: Re: Fellowship: EXACTLY!!!

-Dennis

I'll say the Council of Elrond in Fellowship of the Ring as well. Erks me that the only people talking at the council are the lead characters. Who are all the other people there? They seem like important kings and leaders, why don't they chime in with their opinions?

........................... BANG!

(My head just exploded!!).

I thought the same thing, but Doc explained it with the "multi-branching space-time non-linear dimentional whatever". SO when he went into the future, he created 2 seperate realities?

Well, this is why I hate all time-travel movies. The second you start to pay attention, you notice it doesnt make any sense.

nick

I found that to be one of the best parts of the movie. It shows what the character was thinking, and his thoughts were actually quite human. I could see someone in his situation REALLY thinking those thoughts, and the way it was done didn't make me sympathize for him, but rather show that he realized what he had lost by doing what he did.

About Back to the Future 2, I always thought that since Marty and his girlfriend eventually did return to their original timeline, they would end up growing up into what they became in the future. The only thing is, shouldn't they then have remembered that this stuff was going to happen when it finally did?

*Head explodes*

ET - I love this movie up until the ending. It gets too sappy and emotional, especially when the rest of the movie was so cute and realistic. It's one thing for the kid to love ET, and possibly even his mom and siblings, but otherwise, the ending was very unrealistic and just didn't seem like it fit with the rest of the movie well enough.

How much time do you have to spare? Maybe in the miniseries version.

Well, the 17 flyovers of the Great River for one

--
Holadem

That was probably my favorite scene(s) from the film. I absolutley love the way that was done.

As far as Back to the Future II, the filmakers knew about the impossibility of the plot, but chose a "when you travel into the future, you see it as if you never left" approach.

Okay, sorry, but I'm bringing this one back from the dead:

The scene in Old School where the kids are trying to get Will Ferrell's character to drink, and he tells them that he has a "nice little Saturday planned" for the next day. Well, the next day we see Mitch (Luke Wilson's character) in his office talking to the Elisha Cuthbert's dad, so it is obviously Friday. It's very minor, but it bugs me nonetheless.

Also, as much as I love the movie Fight Club, whenever the Project Mayhem stuff starts I kind of just lose interest. I'm not really sure why, but I have a hard time staying interested in the movie from that point on.

Things in movies best left undone:

The Matrix Reloaded: The bowling "strike" sound effect during the burly brawl.

Jurassic Park; The Lost World: A pack of velociraptors manage to eat an entire command team armed with weapons only to be beaten-up by a 10 year old girl armed with the awesome power of gymnastics and an amazingly handy set of uneven bars.

LadyHawke: The Music.

As for the Fight Club
Warning Spoiler! Click to show

Attack of the Clones:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Talk about character desecration.

The Two Towers:
Warning Spoiler! Click to show

Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club. The scene where he gets stoned runs around the library screams and breaks the window. TBC is my all time favorite movie, but I have always HATED that scene.

Empire Strikes Back--pilot's briefing at the beginning of the Hoth battle: "Two fighters against a Star Destroyer?" The delivery of that line is just horrible. Also, the "spontaneous" cheer when the first transport gets away.

Amen. I remember thinking about that sequence as a whole, and how it really pulled me out of the film. This includes the million flyovers, the awkward fade ins to Uruk-Hai feet, fade back in to fly-over, fade out and back in to Uruk Hai in slow motion looking menacing, fade back to boats, then to Legolas 'looking suspicious' at the sound of birds in the trees. Just a really strange, awkwardly paced moment that probably couldn't have been handled any other way, but still...

Then I listened to Peter Jackson's commentary. He specifically cites that sequence, including the aforementioned Legolas reaction shot, as one of his favorites Hm...

~j

That's a good one.

Return to Oz: Dorothy refers to her tin friend as "Tin Woodsman" (note the 'S'). In the MGM film, he was always referred to as Tin Man. However, Return to Oz is not meant to correlate with the MGM film, but with the book series. In the book series, it's Tin Woodman (without an 'S'). Another one from this movie is the shoes. They are ruby slippers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that this movie is not modelled after the MGM film, so why did they use the ruby slippers, which were a creation of the MGM film's screenwriters? To play off the book, it should have been silver shoes.

Lord of the Rings - The annoying too closeup shots during the fight scenes. Two Towers was worse, hopefully they'll have the camera pulled back just a little bit and let me see whats going on.

Fellowship Specific - In the EE at the end Boromir does the same move several times. Its the hitting the Orcs sheild back and forth. He does this same thing at least 3 times...

Highlander - The swordplay is pretty bad. In the end fight the same routine is used several times.

Matrix - Fight scenes are to slow. It didnt look like a fight to me, too much like dancing. Reloaded does a little better, but things looks a little rehearsed in some places. I attribute some of this to being that its in a computer world so all their moves would be near perfect.

Star Wars - Lightsabers have weightless blades, yet they are used like they are regular swords. The blade speed should be very very fast. The worst of this so far has been Mace Windu. The best saber scene is still the Maul fight.

Any movie that uses a bullet to start a fire. Lead doesnt spark!

We Were Soldiers - As mentioned the washing machine discussion makes me cringe at how PC it looks.

Conan - Some of the obivious misses in the action are too easy to spot.

Indy 3 - Marcus Brody was not an idiot in Raiders.

Blade 2 - It was established that Blade does age like a Human in Blade 1. Also Whistler shot himself with Blades gun that should have been loaded with Silver bullets. They could have fixed both of these with 2 lines. One saying that the bullet must have passed completely through Whistler before he turned, and saying that Blades aging has greatly slowed with maturity. I guess the age thing concerns me due to rumors that Blade 3 is going to take place in the future...

Halloween: When Micheal Myers stops the car when one of the girl shouts "Speed kills jerk". He's way too far to hear anything.
Halloween: When Micheal Myers follows the 2 girls in the car, he's right behind them for a while, they have seen the car previously but they don't notice him.