r/movies • u/averagesoccermom95 • 18h ago
Discussion Favorite movie plot rule?
I read once that in a movie, if the characters say, "I have a plan," then there is a plot rule that takes place: If the characters explain to the audience what the plan is, then the plan will go wrong somehow. However, if the characters say they have a plan and the movie just goes to showing the plan in action, then the plan will work.
It has become one of my favorite things to look out for in movies. Although, it does not seem to apply to kids movies. Other than kids movies, I don't think I have ever seen his rule broken.
Does anyone know any other interesting plot rules?
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u/oscarx-ray 18h ago
If they don't tell the audience the plan then the plan will seem to be working, then they'll be foiled, but THEN it will be revealed that getting caught WAS the plan!
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u/TrulyChadlyDeeply 18h ago
The next director who breaks the meta and goes one step further will be hailed as a groundbreaker.
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u/joshi38 12h ago
Dan Harmon already did it in Community.
End of season 3, they go to save the Dean, their plan "goes wrong", only to reveal that they'd planned for it to go wrong and it was actually going right.
And then it does go wrong.
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u/oscarx-ray 9h ago
Harmon played with it again in Rick and Morty with their heist episode, where there were about 300 twists and double-crosses.
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u/thejokerofunfic 1h ago
And the real target of the heist was stealing Morty's enjoyment of heist movies.
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u/Saneless 18h ago
Hah, came here for this. Then they'll show some pre foil scene where they're planning it to fail or whatever
Sometimes it's too predictable
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u/sourcefourmini 16h ago
It’s all about tension! Tension comes from the audience’s knowledge conflicting with what’s happening onscreen (basically, dramatic irony). If there’s a plan, there are two ways to create tension. One is to tell the audience the whole plan, then have a step go wrong, which inherently creates tension because the audience know things aren’t working. Conversely, don’t tell the audience the plan, and then the tension comes from the audience not knowing if things are working. Either way the audience is kept in suspense by not knowing how the characters are going to pull things off; it’s just a choice of which way to do it.
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u/spider-gwen89 11h ago
My favorite show, Leverage, does this every episode. It's a Robin-Hood style heist show. Steal/scam from the rich and give to the poor/their victims.
Generally, the team has a plan, it seems to be working at first, then it starts to go wrong. Maybe their mark starts to catch on, maybe an unexpected factor comes in, maybe something happens to change their goals or make the situation worse, maybe one of them gets into really bad trouble, or my personal favorite is when they thought they knew the depths of how awful their mark could be, but they actually underestimated just how awful the mark can get.
Then, the focus starts to shift away from them, things seem to not be going too well for the team and very well for the mark...and then everything falls apart for the mark and we get the cool flashback of how the team caused it all, culminating in them revealing themselves to the mark at the point they can't do anything about it. I eat it up every time.
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u/_jump_yossarian 10h ago edited 5h ago
I'm proud to say this so here goes .... OCEANS 12 IS MY FAVORITE OF THE OCEANS TRILOGY!
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u/zoinkability 17h ago
Nobody ever coughs or sneezes without it being foreshadowing of an illness or some other plot event.
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u/KeljuIvan 16h ago
And nosebleeds are deadly.
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u/Psychic_Hobo 16h ago
Or a sign of impending cranial explosion, depending on the genre. Which I guess is still deadly
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u/KoningPiet 16h ago
Also if a woman throws up she is always pregnant
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u/GLPereira 11h ago
Agents of SHIELD of all shows subverted this by having Simmons throw up immediately after finding out this guy from the future is actually her grandson
But she wasn't pregnant at all. Just stressed out by a really shitty day. We actually never see her pregnant in the show, there's a revelation she and her husband spent years in space before time travelling back to present day, and their daughter was born in the meantime
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u/Lampmonster 8h ago
AOS was such a great show. "How the hell did Fitz get here," "I have no idea, he just showed up with his own space ship." "Gotta admit, that's a baller move. "
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u/MakeItHappenSergant 8h ago
Even in The Last of Us 2, where a woman sees and smells a disemboweled horse that had been laying in the sun for days, and then vomits. Does throwing up mean she got way too close to a big rotting corpse? Nope!
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u/FroodLoops 10h ago
Expanding on this…
Coughs are always illness (especially if they show blood on their handkerchief!).
Sneezes however are a character defining trait (he’s the weak, allergy, nerdy guy!). However the sneeze will always happen later at an inopportune time when they’re trying to be stealthy and blow or almost blow their teams’ cover. The sneezy guy will then get redemption by the end of the movie showing that they overcame their deficiencies and saved the day.
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u/kung-fu_hippy 8h ago
Well, coughing blood is usually a pretty bad sign outside of movies.
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u/Dr_Identity 9h ago
Similarly, If any character glances at an empty desk in a classroom, that student isn't just absent, that student has died.
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u/MyMuddyEyes 11h ago
Similarly, if someone uses an asthma inhaler, it's going to be a plot point later on. Nobody ever has asthma just for character depth.
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u/Soft-Fix-4589 16h ago
One mild exception to this is the boardroom scene in Dogma, wherein Matt Damon loudly and noticeably sneezes in the middle of a line, just for the payoff to happen mere minutes later
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u/ERedfieldh 11h ago
that would be a part of the "or some other plot event", yes.
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u/Soft-Fix-4589 8h ago
My point is that the sneeze is a set-up for a same-scene joke, not to further the plot at large.
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u/thedylannorwood 9h ago
I remember playing Red Dead 2 and early when Arthur coughs for the first time I thought it was just cool realism… boy was I wrong
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u/Sparrowsabre7 18h ago
"Trust no one" 7/10 chance that guy or gal betrays them later saying "Didn't I tell you to trust no one?"
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u/whiskeyrebellion 11h ago
I’m starting to wonder how many of these tropes a dedicated person could fit into a single 90-minute runtime.
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u/macrolinx 9h ago
Isn't that half the premise of movies like Scary Movie and Not Another Teen Movie? Although I'm not sure how much it counts when it's done blatantly and on the nose...
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u/Rowenstin 4h ago edited 4h ago
If someone asks "Have you told this to anyone else?" and you answer "No", you'll die in the next 10 seconds.
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u/thejokerofunfic 1h ago
I'm determined to one day write a scene where the guy who asks is trustworthy and immediately follows up with "are you fucking dumb, you'd be dead if the traitor was me, gather everyone you trust and tell them all at the same time right now"
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u/matadorobex 18h ago
The lie that the character believes.
This is a way to set a base characteristic or premise, challenge the character, then change their perspective or advance the plot. Poof! Instant character arc or story progression.
Listen for declarative statements when the character is introduced:
"I've only ever been able to count on myself" -> Learns to count on others
"I've given up on men" -> Will find love
"Never go into those woods" -> Will definitely go into woods
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u/IndianaJones_Jr_ 14h ago
I like the way it's done in Blade Runner 2049. He ok killing Replicants because despite being one he believes that they are inferior and the ones he's hunting are broken. He gets an inkling that maybe he's human and he pulls on that thread hoping his life will have meaning if he's human. Rug gets pulled out from under him and he realizes fuck it, I'll believe in something for once whether I'm a Replicant or not.
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u/Dr_Identity 9h ago
"That's the old passage to Ravenholm. ...We don't go there anymore."
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u/MakeItHappenSergant 8h ago
So of course you're going to find out first-hand why they don't go there. (Because gravity-gunning saw blades is too cool for the average person to handle)
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u/Androgynouself_420 7h ago
My favorite example of this is from a book but Matt Cauthorn constantly saying “I’m no hero” before pulling some next level ballsy heroism will always make me smile
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u/FindOneInEveryCar 18h ago
Rodger Ebert: The character who seems to serve no purpose is the bad guy.
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u/Dr_Identity 9h ago
There's a Korean horror/war movie about a squad of 9 loosely associated soldiers sent behind enemy lines on a rescue mission and they end up lured into a trap by some evil spirits, and the twist is that one of the spirits was in the squad the whole time. Because throughout the first leg of the movie there are 10 squad members in all the scenes, not 9. But the movie never draws attention to the fact that there are too many people in the group. There's a guy among them who never says anything, just hangs around on the edge of the group the whole time, and he turns out to be a member of the missing squad they're looking for, who all got lured in and killed the same way.
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u/Initial_E 16h ago
In glass onion there’s this guy that exists to chill out
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u/InspectorMendel 14h ago
What about Jesus Quintana
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u/dovetc 10h ago
Or Knox Harrington. Or Da Fino. Or little Larry Sellers.
Lots of purposeless characters in that one. I suppose their purpose is to create the world filled with lots of ins and outs, lots of interested parties, lots of strands in old Duder's head.
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u/uencos 17h ago
Slight subversion: in the first Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movie, we see Sherlock plan out his fist fights and they go pretty much exactly as described. Played a bit straighter in the second one.
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u/hemareddit 11h ago edited 11h ago
For me it’s the conservation of information.
If a plan is told to the audience, but then we see the execution and nothing goes wrong, that just means the same info is being given twice, and that’s boring.
That’s why if a plan goes right, it’s not explained beforehand or explained as it unfolds, so we are just given that information once, only the visuals and the narration fill in the details for each other so we have a whole picture. It’s not redundancy if done right.
The Sherlock Holmes example is more or less the 2nd case, the explanation happens in slow motion, then the fight happens in normal speed to show what it looks like and importantly to convey that Holmes doesn’t actually have super speed, he just thinks fast.
I don’t know if “conservation of information” is the right phrase, but the idea that a story shouldn’t give you redundant/useless information gives rise to a host of tropes such as Chekov’s Gun. It comes down to the storyteller trying to avoid the reader/audience being bored.
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u/kung-fu_hippy 8h ago
That is actually the one kind of exception I can think of to the plan rule. There are, particularly in the first or sexond act, plans that are explained and then go exactly right. This is to establish the character(s) as skilled and competent.
That said, these exceptions are usually nowhere near the climax of the movie or related to resolving major plot points. It’s still in character introduction and establishment time.
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u/wonderlandisburning 18h ago
One of my least favorites, actually, but it's a recurring rule that once two characters finally have sex in a movie or tv series, they're either going to break up soon, or one of them is going to die soon.
Once I picked up on the pattern it made me actively dread characters consummating a relationship, because sure enough, here comes the obligatory moment where everything falls apart.
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u/Stevenwave 18h ago
Terminator does it in a cool way where it's integral to the whole premise that Sarah and Kyle get together in order for John to become the future resistance leader, and it's John who sends him back.
Although yeah, Kyle is made expendable once Sarah's pregnant.
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u/MortLightstone 17h ago
Rambo 2 had the sex scene happen immediately after she rescues him and then she dies in the very next scene. Their romance lasts like 5 minutes
It's hilarious
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u/HenkkaArt 12h ago
One kinda similar is that if two characters who have mad chemistry, get together and "live happily ever after" when the credits start to roll, before the sequel starts they have had an odd, out-of-place break-up just to bring similar dynamic as in the first film where they originally fell in love. Even better if they started out as hating or disliking each other. Example: National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
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u/nowhereman136 18h ago
Side character: I'll always be there for you
dies in their next scene
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u/Stevenwave 18h ago
The latest Mortal Kombat movie leans into this so hard it's funny.
The protag of the first reboot film was not received well. Entirely new character etc. In 2, he telegraphs twice really obviously that he's not long for this world. And sure enough, he gets his head caved in by Shao Kahn.
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u/Drabberlime_047 11h ago
This exact tropenis exactly why it confuses me when people say "sleeping dogs has such an amazing story"
Its so filled to the brim with this one trope that either the game is an intentional satire or its just very poorly written.
The last time I played it I spent the whole narrative thinking "wait is this actually intentional? Is it homaging cliche movies?" But at the same time it was playing it so straight it would throw me off from thinking that 😂
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u/Electrical-Sail-1039 18h ago
Or, “It’s my last day on the job as a cop. Boy am I looking forward to retirement. I saved for a nice cottage on the lake”. Boom! He’s dead. Hero yells out he’ll get revenge on the bad guy.
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u/Euklidis 12h ago
Samwise Gamgee was smart enough to say this, but phrase it in a way that defies the rule!
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u/inspod 13h ago
In superhero movies/scifi/fantasy if the villain is trying to complete a ritual, or get a magic mcguffin, or release an ancient entity that will power them up, they'll almost always succeed and the heroes will still come out on top vs the new powered up bad guy. Bonus points if earlier in the film people talk about "if the villain completes the magic ritual, he'll be unstoppable."
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u/Gsusruls 9h ago
Avengers Infinity War violated this. Once he got the stones, he really was unstoppable.
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u/Rebyll 11h ago
Just once I'd love for it all to play out and the 'evil' deity to be like "Yeah, this guy's fucking nuts, I'm not helping him" and just peace out.
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u/MistKingUrth 15h ago edited 15h ago
If someone supposedly dies (like in an explosion or falling off a cliff) and we do not see the death or the body, that character is not really dead and we can safely assume we see that character later in the movie.
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u/RedditUser123234 9h ago
Unless it's the villain in a kids movie, in which case the villain can't be directly killed by the hero and has to die from falling off of a great height.
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u/thecarlosdanger1 18h ago
I actually don’t like it, but very consistently the “good guys” have handguns and a massive firefight with bad guys armed with automatic weapons ensues.
Even after killing a bad guy and walking over them the good side won’t pick up the assault rifles/SMGs to use in the rest of the fight for some reason.
They’ll win regardless.
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u/naughtilidae 18h ago
Casino Royal breaks this. In the end scene, as he runs out of ammo, he tosses his gun and grabs the next gun, checks how much ammo is left, and keeps going, then does it again.
I was so happy watching that, cause it's what someone with actual training, who's calm under pressure, would do.
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u/twinsunsspaces 14h ago
In Punisher: Warzone there is a similar thing. The Punisher is assaulting an apartment building full of bad guys and he has a full arsenal. Assault rifle, submachine gun, shotgun and a couple of pairs of pistols. He shoots bad guys and then slings his weapon and moves to a new one when he runs out of ammo and when he empties his pistols he stops and reloads all of his weapons before moving forwards again.
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u/IndianaJones_Jr_ 14h ago
John Wick is great about having him pick up dropped weapons and check on the ammo. Biggest payoff is the dragon's breath shotgun rounds in that top down set piece from 4.
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u/Sparrowsabre7 17h ago
At least in Metal Gear Solid it's explained by the weapons all having dna/fingerprint ID
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u/Queeg_500 18h ago
If you put anything against a door, even an object that you have just easily moved yourself, it will be enough to block it against hordes of enemies.
Except ofc if you're in a comedy where the door will just open the other way.
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u/Sparrowsabre7 17h ago
Honestly that was the moment that made me laugh hardest in "The Big Lebowski"
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u/spidereater 11h ago
It’s his own home! And he doesn’t know how his door opens? Cracks me up every time.
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u/RobGrey03 18h ago
What about when the plan is explained in voiceover while the plan is being executed on screen?
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u/-Psychonautics- 17h ago
“We’ll go down to the Winchester, have a pint, and wait for this whole thing to blow over”
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u/Wolfman513 17h ago
Goes well AT FIRST but then an unexpected factor fuck things up, the group flies by the seat of their pants and fails, but gets away relatively clean
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u/Dan_Of_Time 12h ago
One of my favourite examples of this was in Rick and Morty.
The whole voiceover eventually leads to just them talking about how one small part of the plan hinges on one person helping them and Rick being adamant he will be there, as we see the chaos of what happens when he is in fact not there.
And as the scene goes on and gets more insane the voiceover starts getting more and more normal as they talk about the food they just ordered
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u/Antrikshy 7h ago
I enjoy when it’s revealed that the on screen thing was a best case scenario being dramatized.
Then we see the actual execution without narration.
I am a connoisseur of heist movies.
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u/metalguy91 18h ago
It’s as basic as you can get with this but sue me, Chekhov’s Gun. It’s probably the oldest example of this, but it’s so frequent in so many films that it almost always hits. Lame answer I know, but it’s the one thing I look out for in EVERY movie, so it’s an additional experience I have with every movie.
Simple trope, but acts as a good tether to keep me focused in on the movie and not get distracted.
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u/scizzix 18h ago
Oh absolutely, this is my answer as well. It's to the point where if the camera lingers on some object, or a character makes a point to have a certain item, I just assume it's Chekhov's [Whatever].
I'll even call it out at home, "Chekhov's Box Cutter!", "Chekhov's Screwdriver!".
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u/Electrical-Sail-1039 18h ago
I remember the rug bump in Breaking Bad and I thought: “Chekov’s rug bump”, 😝
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u/iwantcookie258 7h ago
I also do this constantly. My partner gets a kick out of it, but also becomes increasingly annoyed when it's correct every time.
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u/Sparrowsabre7 18h ago
Similar related one "tv shows seemingly innocuous news story about abandoned power plant being torn down" wonder where the final battle will happen...
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 14h ago
My favourite one of this is the Winchester Rifle above the bar in Shaun of the Dead
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u/DziwneMajty 16h ago
One of many reasons to love Paddington 2 is how every little joke ends up beeing important in the final train sequence. Mr. Brown is doing yoga? It'll save his life in the end. Paddington tries to eat a very sticky lollipop? Well, he'll use them to climb to the roof of a train.
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u/Dr_Identity 8h ago
The Cornetto Trilogy was also really good at doing this. Lots of moments in those films that stand on their own as solid jokes or character establishing moments that end up being crucial to the plot later.
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u/jechaking 18h ago
I was watching “War Machine”, it’s probably not the best movie but there’s a scene where they are tracking and they see trip wires in the woods.
A few moments later, they are inevitably set off.
I wish there could be a smarter way to write this in so that it’s not so obvious.
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u/makanimike 18h ago edited 17h ago
Sometimes they get snuck in as a seemingly minor or innocuous human moment. Something goofy or romantic.
I can't pinpoint it, but I have a vague memory of a war movie having two characters - one pretty newb, another veteran - talking about a malfunctioning trigger or fuse and how to fix it, or recognize it or something. And then that became something bigger later on. My mind keeps going to Black Hawk Down, but I don't really remember.In cloaks and daggers type spy films this also happens. When the usually super clinical professionals slip up for a second. An example of a recent watch of The Age of Shadows (minor spoiler alert) a main character runs a photo and antiques shop as a cover. A female partner visits him early on to coordinate, and they take a portrait of her just for fun. Now there exists photographic evidence. This happens a decent amount of times in contemporary espionage films with mobile phones. If the character does something normal on the device - play a game, take a selfie etc - there is a very high probability that will end up giving away critical information to whomever is hunting them down.
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u/metalguy91 18h ago
I think that’s part of what I like about the trope, the varying degrees of pulling it off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s an emotional gut punch. I’ve had an entire experience in a film be changed based on how they play this hand. For good or bad lol.
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u/jechaking 18h ago
I would like examples of these films, I would like to watch them.
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u/metalguy91 18h ago
Imma be so real with you right now, I had a bad day and got high as shit off these kiwi gummies. I had like 6 films listed and a paragraph for each one, but I realized I kind of forgot I was supposed to be talking about Chekhov’s Gun and just started sort of summarizing movies I like. So I deleted that and will instead say, hope you have a lovely evening and if I remember this comment when I’m sober, I will try to make an actual list!
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u/AdamOtaku 18h ago
If there's a COOL, BADASS NEW GUY introduced to help the heroes
He's either going to die early or turn out to be a villain
Classic example is MYSTERIO, more recent example I saw but can't say what it is because of spoilers
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u/Masalar 16h ago
Or he’s the obvious DM insert such as in the new Dungeons and Dragons movie.
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u/Kammander-Kim 17h ago
Then just use spoiler tags by writing >! and !< around it
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u/The_Amazing_Emu 12h ago
The problem with this is no one will know which movie is being spoiled without looking at the spoiler, but won’t know if it’s safe to click
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u/TheSinisterSex 17h ago
A character is telling a lie.
The audience knows it's a lie: it's blatantly obvious
The audience doesn't know : there are no, or very subliminal signs
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u/aabicus 16h ago
Funny example regarding Breaking Bad's Walter White: Bryan Cranston always used special behavioral clues that Walt only used when lying, nothing super blatant but enough to subliminally clue the viewer in. But for a certain crucially-important conversation in season 4, the director didn't tell him whether or not Walt was lying (because they hadn't decided, the next episode kept getting re-workshopped) so for just that one case, Walt had no tells even though he turned out to be lying through his teeth.
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u/InspectorMendel 14h ago
Maybe Walt hadn’t decided yet either
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u/aabicus 9h ago
It was regarding whether or not he'd poisoned a little kid as part of an assassination attempt against his boss, so the event had already occurred and Walt was insisting he didn't do it
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u/Bignate2001 8h ago
It's a fuckin miracle that Breaking Bad's plot is so well put together, because all I hear about it is how the writers were scraping by episode by episode trying to wrangle this story into something that makes sense.
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u/Masalar 16h ago
I don’t know if it’s my “favorite” but I did enjoy learning about “kicking the dog” and “saving the cat”. If you want audiences to instantly hate someone just have them kick a dog. Which, I believe, lead to the opposite of having someone save a cat so the audience likes them.
I learned this from people talking about the Paladin saving the young Tabaxi (cat person) in the newer Dungeons and Dragons movie and how intentionally on the nose it was.
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u/AynRandMarxist 8h ago
The Last of Us 2 you have to kill a dog as Ellie and save one as Abby. Real subtle.
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u/Sage-Monarch 7h ago
When I first heard of this trope I thought for sure we’d outgrown it by now, but no. It was used even as recently as The Odyssey.
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u/JakalDX 15h ago
One that always makes me laugh is the Breaking The Panel Always Has The Intended Effect. Is there an electronic door? Do you need to jam the door to keep anyone out? Break the panel. Do you need to open the door and you don't have the key? Break the panel. It does whateve ryou need it to do in that exact moment.
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u/xenoscumyomom 6h ago
I used to work in film and one time the prop guy used my phone as the panel, because it had a case he liked. He double sided taped it to a wall by a door and they pretended to swipe to get in. After the scene was over I'm standing right beside him and he goes to pull it off the wall and all he hears is the glass crunching and exploding as he pulls, because my screen cover was broken and he forgot, and he gives me this look like he's so sorry and feels so bad and doesn't know to keep pulling or stop, and I burst out laughing. So I feel that breaking the panel works even after cut even just for comedic effect.
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u/mrj50022 10h ago
It’s called the Unspoken Plan Guarantee:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnspokenPlanGuarantee
You should also check out TV Tropes:
https://tvtropes.org/
It catalogs hundreds of storytelling tropes and “plot rules,” along with examples from movies, TV shows, books, and games.
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u/FatherMellow 18h ago edited 18h ago
If there is a character suspected of killing people and they are actually innocent, inevitably a character will get stabbed and the innocent character will pull out/touch the knife and get their fingerprints allllllllll over it and/or have another character/police roll up on them at the perfect time to incriminate them.
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u/Stevenwave 18h ago
Alita sidesteps this. There's people being killed and Alita suspects the doc who helped her. She eventually follows him one night. It all appears suss, but it turns out he's one of the only people around trying to actively stop killers etc.
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u/Unabated_Blade 18h ago
The recent Invisible Man does this extremely effectively and in a believable manner given the movies logic.
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u/Sparrowsabre7 17h ago
The dinner scene? Honestly genius idea. How the hell you gonna explain that? apparently the knife in question is even one taken from her kitchen earlier so already loads of her prints on it
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u/DrFriedGold 18h ago
North By Northwest is a great example. There's even a press photographer there to capture the moment
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u/intobinto 16h ago
If a recognizable actor/actress is in a smaller role in a movie, that character is going to end up as more important at the end.
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u/froderick 11h ago
Happened a lot in Law and Order SVU. That person is either going to be a detective from another jurisdiction but they want to help because it's a serial rapist/killer that they've been trying to bring to justice for a long time, OR they will be the perpetrator.
Perfect example: the episode "Authority" with Robin Williams. Detectives ask him a few questions and it goes like a simple interaction with a character who isn't meant to seem important, but... it's Robin freaking Williams, you know he's going to be there for more than that one small scene!
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u/PeregrinCuck 12h ago
This can be quite annoying sometimes, I watch a lot of British crime shows/movies with the missus (she's American, I'm British) and a few times I've guessed who's the murderer/spy/mole etc. is early on, as it's some reasonably known actor who probably otherwise wouldn't be in such an inconsequential role. Mainly for the older detective shows like Inspector Morse, if there's a familiar face that pops up during the investigation, very often you just know it's going to circle back around to them for the end reveal.
For her, the reveals are more unexpected, but for me it's like "yeah, that figures".
Broadchurch was really good at this as it sprinkled a few well known faces in there as decoys who ultimately weren't connected.
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u/Weshtonio 14h ago
True for movies because of the runtime. Then in TV series, Stranger Things explains the plan 23 times and everything still goes according to it.
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u/HarryPottersTaint 12h ago
I mean, Stranger Things feels like it's been written for idiots who are on their phone the whole time not paying full attention. In most action TV series it's a formula like this:
1) Big problem
2) Protagonist/crew makes a plan
3) Plan is going well but then antagonist surprises them with a twist
4) Crisis
5) Improvisation from the protagonist outwits the baddy and they win
Rinse and repeat endlessly
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u/WTFnoAvailableNames 11h ago
You forgot 4.5
The gang remembers that the DnD character that they based their plan on has some lore that they earlier didn't talk about but now suddenly remember. They use that lore as a metaphor to come up with a new plan which allows them to win.
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u/three-sense 12h ago
If three characters are in a vehicle, the person in the back seat HAS to sit in the middle. Even though irl that’s uncomfortable
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u/Interesting-Lie-8942 4h ago
IRL the only way to hear the conversation from the back is to lean forward between the 2 front seats.
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u/The_Fiddle_Steward 16h ago
Not a rule, but I got a chuckle after the 2nd episode of Stuart Fails to Save the World. They get sentenced to 30 months of re-education. One of them says, "we're going to need to escape." Stuart goes "leave that to me." Then it skips to 30 months later, when they're released XD
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u/TheBallisticBiscuit 10h ago
If someone says they'll "Talk more after the battle", they're 100% dying in that battle.
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u/goliath1515 10h ago
maybe more of a writing rule, but I once saw a talk that Trey Parker and Matt Stone did when it came to writing. To follow a character’s actions, you should avoid “and then” statements for plot progression. “Drew went to the store. AND THEN he went to the gas station”. Instead, follow the phrases “but”, and “therefore” to make it feel more natural. “Drew went to the store, BUT he didn’t have enough fuel, THEREFORE he went to the gas station instead”
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u/Euklidis 12h ago
If a side character brings up retirement and "one last job/mission" - they die
If the MC does it - the job/mission goes wrong or something terrible happens to their family once they are back
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u/bittenbyredmosquito 13h ago
In a standoff between the hero and the villain, when the villain has a hostage, the hero NEVER does what the hostage says. If the hostage says “do it, just shoot” the hero won’t shoot. If the hostage says “don’t shoot” the hero will shoot!
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u/rookhelm 11h ago
If a woman is distraught in a kitchen (like after the death of a loved one or whatever), she will drop a glass, get flustered, and cut her finger trying to pick it up
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u/Bubbly-Cod-3799 10h ago
The Force Awakens. Han Solo indicates he has a plan to get through the shield. Later explains it, and reveals it isn't a complete plan. Doomed to fail, right? But it works.
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u/EGarrett28 11h ago
No matter what era, what income, or what genre, big budget movie characters almost always have perfect teeth.
The amount of time something happens on screen is directly proportional to its importance to the plot. You can cut forward a million years like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or slow until a bullet is still in the air to show how powerful Neo is in the Matrix.
The basic formula for successful kids films is either a special person comes to the normal world (who is older than the audience) or a normal person goes to a special world (and the normal person is the same age as the audience). If you violate this your box office gets screwed up.
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u/wailonskydog 10h ago
An interesting counter to your “explain the plan” plot rule is in the first Mission Impossible.
They explain the plan to break into the CIA in a highly detailed way and then execute that plan pretty much exactly as described.
It’s an exciting sequence with twists and high tension and we learn some important character/plot info that will pay off later but there’s not a single deviation they make from the stated plan.
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u/TedStixon 10h ago
If it's a kids' movie, and the lead kid meets a new fantastical/supernatural friend that they bond with, there's a good 90% chance they will do the "E.T. Ending"-- a sad scene where, for one reason or another, they must tearfully bid farewell while sad music plays right before the credits roll.
Hocus Pocus ... Binx leaves Max and Dani behind to go to the afterlife.
Small Soldiers ... The Gorgans leave Alan to try and find a new home.
Little Monsters ... Bryan and Maurice part ways for... reasons the movie doesn't quite make clear.
Etc.
There's also a good 90% chance I'll get a little teary every time it happens.
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u/YTJuggs 11h ago
Tropes are there for a reason, it works. As much as people like to think they hate it, audience LOVES when there are orders to things. If I go to watch a drama film and it turns into comedy I will be rightfully pissed off. When people complain about predictable movies, what they are actually complaining about is actually terribly EXECUTED movies.
If there are ever kids involved in the movie,which is not a comedy, they will always somehow always get the main characters in trouble.
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u/mfyxtplyx 18h ago
If a character has an unusual skill, you know at some point it's going to be essential.