16. mysterious/stoic badass who initially doesn't seem to acknowledge/trust/respect the protagonist
"hey... not bad, kid"
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:40 (eleven years ago) link
17. Barely explained violations of the laws of physics
― soma dude (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:41 (eleven years ago) link
18. Sexy alien
― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:42 (eleven years ago) link
19. Future civilisations 100 percent heterosexual
― soma dude (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:44 (eleven years ago) link
20. Black crew member dies first
― Yo Leon, what's this all about? (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:50 (eleven years ago) link
21. cocky young marine/astronaut who's revealed to be a coward as things gradually get worse
prone to lines like "Monsters? Just give ME a minute with 'em!", sexist wisecracks, and letting loose with a "WHOOOOHOOOOOO" during takeoff (towards a doomed mission)
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:52 (eleven years ago) link
22. Torrential rain
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:53 (eleven years ago) link
23. corporate weasel
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:55 (eleven years ago) link
24. Cars/motorbikes hover off the ground instead of using wheels.
― fun loving and xtremely tolrant (Billy Dods), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:57 (eleven years ago) link
25. White walls.
― fun loving and xtremely tolrant (Billy Dods), Sunday, 6 January 2013 10:58 (eleven years ago) link
26. visual references to either the Wild West or Film Noir
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:00 (eleven years ago) link
27. Chinese merchants
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:02 (eleven years ago) link
28. Neon signs in Japanese, even though the film is set in a predominantly English speaking country.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:03 (eleven years ago) link
flamethrowers as standard-issue gear
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:03 (eleven years ago) link
30. a diner
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:04 (eleven years ago) link
31. complete absence of institutional racism
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:05 (eleven years ago) link
32. Computers are controlled using some massively impractical interface involving hand gestures.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:05 (eleven years ago) link
33. curved corridors
― mookieproof, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:06 (eleven years ago) link
34. funny hair-dos
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:06 (eleven years ago) link
35. simple devices replaced with more complicated, energy-hungry devices
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:07 (eleven years ago) link
36. Shiny chrome android that can't pick anything up or do any kind of physical work, so it might as well have been a grey box on wheels.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:07 (eleven years ago) link
37. Surveillance cameras everywhere.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:08 (eleven years ago) link
38. escape pods
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:09 (eleven years ago) link
39. sleeping cubicles
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:10 (eleven years ago) link
38. All pop music a kitsch rehash of some genre from the 1950s thru 80s
― Manhattan Transfer Window (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:10 (eleven years ago) link
41. Electronics surplus store owned by a shop keeper who seems to be actively trying to put people off from buying anything by being rude and unpleasant.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:11 (eleven years ago) link
42. Robot that communicates with bleeps and bloops when it could just as easily have a proper voice.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:12 (eleven years ago) link
43. Alien race that all dress like Earth Wind & Fire in the 70's.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:13 (eleven years ago) link
^^^ wd watch a movie about an alien race that was Earth Wind & Fire tbh
― Manhattan Transfer Window (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:15 (eleven years ago) link
44. Supposedly violent and dangerous street gang who look like a bunch of stage school kids going on a trip to the funfair.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:16 (eleven years ago) link
45. aliens kill people in a rape-y way for some reason DO U SEE?
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:17 (eleven years ago) link
46. Bizarre future sport that's a cross between BMX, basketball, and paintballing.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:17 (eleven years ago) link
47. Public videophone booths.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:20 (eleven years ago) link
48. contract killer/drug smuggler with a heart of gold
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:20 (eleven years ago) link
49. The alien sidekick character has some bizarre allergy to water/orange juice/hummous, that turns out to be important at some critical point in the movie.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:21 (eleven years ago) link
50. Small child who is a computer genius.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:22 (eleven years ago) link
51. Audio surveillance bug that has a huge flashing light on it.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:23 (eleven years ago) link
52. Bomb has bright red numbers counting down to detonation, and beeps every second.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:24 (eleven years ago) link
53. Alien character corrects well known human scientist on some aspect of quantum physics.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:26 (eleven years ago) link
54. this guy:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pvnRmfPyLCk/T6_oucuOS-I/AAAAAAAAHHk/-JpPCC7WepU/s320/That-Guy-Michael-Ironside-Free-Willy.jpg
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:26 (eleven years ago) link
55. Character named after sci-fi author most of the audience aren't familiar with.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:28 (eleven years ago) link
Sentient onboard ship's computer with variegated moral compass
― besides Sunny Real Estate (dog latin), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:29 (eleven years ago) link
57. Thin weedy looking evil dude turns out to be super strong and easily beats the shit out of the hero and his muscular partner.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:29 (eleven years ago) link
58. Stripperific female character turns out to be highly dangerous killdroid.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:30 (eleven years ago) link
59. Tiny gun that can blow massive holes through concrete walls, demolish city blocks, etc..
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:32 (eleven years ago) link
^"NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' 'BOUT!"
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:33 (eleven years ago) link
60. Global mega corporations with names in the format '<Japanese name> <Hispanic name>'.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:34 (eleven years ago) link
61. "...but then, what IS... reality? Is it for US to tell them what it really is?..."
― Chris S, Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:39 (eleven years ago) link
62. biologist so impressed by alien capabilities that she urges her shell-shocked crewmates not to kill it
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:45 (eleven years ago) link
63. Prominently displayed logo of company that has since gone out of business.
― scattered to the nine vectors (snoball), Sunday, 6 January 2013 11:45 (eleven years ago) link
Plot: after thousands of years of travel, the surviving 1% of the ships crew (not killed in stasis from high-speed collisions with particles, radiation, equipment malfunction; etc) finally land on the destination planet and collapse upon disembarking due to poor health and high gravity. They are unable to move. They slowly starve to death.
― REBEL YELL FOR HUGS (Austerity Ponies), Thursday, 10 January 2013 17:28 (eleven years ago) link
215. Ships' artificial gravity works at right angles to the direction of thrust rather than with it, as would make far more sense.
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Thursday, 10 January 2013 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
if i'm getting what you mean i think that's a corollary of 216. despite there being no ground by which they need to orient themselves, large spaceships manoeuvre through space pretty much like boats, small spaceships like planes.
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 10 January 2013 18:32 (eleven years ago) link
217. museums of the 20th century w CRT TVs, parts from automobiles, and copies of Playboy
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 10 January 2013 18:36 (eleven years ago) link
217a. Characters watching grainy early C20th classic movies.
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Thursday, 10 January 2013 19:04 (eleven years ago) link
218. Holograms always kinda suck -- blue or green tint and sorta bendy and static-y.
― Øystein, Thursday, 10 January 2013 19:08 (eleven years ago) link
219. impractical hats
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 10 January 2013 19:09 (eleven years ago) link
220. Some hippies trippin in the desert riding a bike or a wind-powered vehicle designed to look like the spaceship
― REBEL YELL FOR HUGS (Austerity Ponies), Thursday, 10 January 2013 19:38 (eleven years ago) link
221. Completely implausible alien design that wouldn't fit into its own planets ecosystem at all. ie aliens with tentacles coming out of their face for no ecological reason whatsoever
― These are my every day balloons (Ste), Thursday, 10 January 2013 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
222. Someone is having a game of chess (possibly with a future/space twist).
― DavidM, Thursday, 10 January 2013 21:29 (eleven years ago) link
223. "Oh, my true form would be too strange for your human eyes. What you see now is mere illusion... I can take any form. Perhaps you might prefer ~this~ one. Or maybe ~this~... is more to your liking...?"
― Chris S, Friday, 11 January 2013 00:17 (eleven years ago) link
loved when South Park parodied that one in their Walmart episode, with that man they had embodying 'the Heart of Walmart' simply changing hats
― Chris S, Friday, 11 January 2013 00:25 (eleven years ago) link
BEMBTE
― Retreat from the Sunship (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 14:08 (ten years ago) link
85. city of the future resembles 20th century community college campus designed in the brutalist style
― slugbuggy, Sunday, January 6, 2013 1:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
love love love this one, keep idly kicking it around as a pretense for a dissertation after watching "Warrior of the Lost World," shot largely in Rome's suburban Corviale housing complex which was still under construction at the time. (Plus some scattered office buildings and stuff.) Would love to know more of the story behind that. When they got permission, were the authorities like, "sure, we'd love to see our bright new social-democratic mega-project represented as a dystopian nightmare-scape occupied by faceless uniformed techno-fascists! And Donald Pleasance!"
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 21:32 (ten years ago) link
Wasn't "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes"- the fourth one, I think- shot in a section of Century City, LA that looked like that?
137. A character cites three historical examples, two of which are from real history, followed by a made-up one from our hypothetical future.― abanana, Monday, 7 January 2013 03:49 (5 hours ago) Permalink^good one!Classic example is the original Star Trek ep "Court Martial" where Kirk is on trial. His lawyer's closing statement goes on about human laws and rights throughout the ages: the Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta, the US constitution, the Martian declaration of independence and the "Statutes of Alpha 3"
― abanana, Monday, 7 January 2013 03:49 (5 hours ago) Permalink
^good one!
Classic example is the original Star Trek ep "Court Martial" where Kirk is on trial. His lawyer's closing statement goes on about human laws and rights throughout the ages: the Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta, the US constitution, the Martian declaration of independence and the "Statutes of Alpha 3"
― Retreat from the Sunship (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:11 (ten years ago) link
"The Savage Curtain. " It was Colonel Green, and Kahless the Klingon, not Attila.
― Retreat from the Sunship (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:13 (ten years ago) link
First episode of TOS I ever remember seeing.
― Camp Macaroni Style (snoball), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:48 (ten years ago) link
Oh, good find on Conquest of the Planet of the Apes! UC Irvine campus, apparently.
http://ucisca.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/s01585_007.jpg
― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, 8 May 2013 15:17 (ten years ago) link
And didn't Logan's Run use the Dallas city hall as the above-ground world?
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/texas/dallas/cityhall/angledistant.jpg
― nickn, Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:40 (ten years ago) link
224. Atmospheric report deems planet's air conveniently Earth-like, breathable.
― Doctor Casino, Friday, 11 October 2013 12:36 (ten years ago) link
137. A character cites three historical examples, two of which are from real history, followed by a made-up one from our hypothetical future.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FamousFamousFictional
― Tuomas, Friday, 11 October 2013 12:44 (ten years ago) link
225. Helmets and the taking off of them
― I like to tackle hard and am crazy (Noodle Vague), Friday, 11 October 2013 12:57 (ten years ago) link
Thought this thread revival was for this twitter:https://twitter.com/HardSciFiMovies
(the SF film equivalent of Make a Song Title More Reasonable )
― the supreme personality of Godhead : a summary study (a passing spacecadet), Friday, 11 October 2013 14:51 (ten years ago) link
― Gallucci Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 11 October 2013 16:18 (ten years ago) link
Watching wing commander, came here to post "unguided hyperspace jumps" and it's the first post in the thread! What a terrible movie.
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 29 October 2013 15:03 (ten years ago) link
* heroes sentenced to work in hellish outer-space mines* planet-overthrowing rebellion consists, as far as we can see, of eight (8) people in random mad-max getup living in one (1) cave* life-sucking/parasitic/zombie creature that scientists gradually realize is composed of pure energy
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 01:34 (four years ago) link
A+
― TS The Students vs. The Regents (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 01:44 (four years ago) link
lolMaybe also the triumph of humans vs said protean energy entity (HAL?) vis a vis man’s “humanity,” emotion, instincts, perseverance
― calstars, Wednesday, 12 June 2019 01:52 (four years ago) link
Right. AlsoStrategic location of and destruction of alien power supply unveils these pretentious, often toga-wearing interstellar intellectuals to be in fact some kind of puny, looked-down-upon life form, some sort of street pigeons of space.
― TS The Students vs. The Regents (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 01:57 (four years ago) link
Earlier tonight overheard my girlfriend, an addictive consumer of junk sci fi, angrily exclaim from the next room:“Come ON! Why is it always a HIVE mind??”
― One Eye Open, Wednesday, 12 June 2019 02:04 (four years ago) link
You want maybe a Hadoop Mind?
― TS The Students vs. The Regents (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 02:11 (four years ago) link
226 alien looking exactly like a human except with e.g. blue or orange skin
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 03:11 (four years ago) link
227 puzzle, code, language or devastating situation barely solvable using current Earth technology within 1-24 hours
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 03:13 (four years ago) link
232. As plot is stalling out, supporting scientist character pops in to report that they've finished running some tests on the creature, comatose survivor, mysterious signal, or strange energy pulse they picked up from the spaceship earlier. They don't quite know what to make of it, but the heroes had better come take a look.232a. The comatose survivor has finally woken up and is acting very strangely...
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 03:35 (four years ago) link
233. Breathless back-of-envelope calculations of how quickly a creature that multiplies at this rate could spread to cover the planet.
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 03:36 (four years ago) link
234 Female 'other' (alien, robot, whatever) turns out to be evil.
― adam the (abanana), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 06:40 (four years ago) link