forum QUESTION: ARE CLICHES/ TROPES AS BAD AS WE MAKE THEM OUT TO BE?
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tune
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people_alt 25 followers

Deleted user

Sure, tropes/ cliches are common, and most people make them out as a bad thing. I've heard plenty of people say "Ugh, this movie was so full of tropes. It was unoriginal." If you think about it, tropes or cliches can be a basis for a great story. They can have multiple variations, and if executed well, can lead to a pretty great show. Take for example, Disney's Wreck-It-Ralph. A good movie, but it does incorporate a lot of cliches. The main difference being that the whole "Be yourself" and "follow your dreams" messages are given variations. It teaches us that we can be ourselves, but not to the point where it starts to hurt others, since the story is about Ralph wanting to be the good guy, putting many people's jobs and possibly lives (pun intended) at risk. A heavy use for cliches/ tropes is NOT necessarily a bad thing. The possible explanation as to why so many people have this distaste towards tropes/cliches is because they are often done poorly. There are more good movies than bad movies, and therefore there's a lot more movies that have executed tropes/ cliches poorly. Some pieces of media are unable to stand out of the crowd because they're too cliche or full of tropes.
Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you agree or disagree with me? Let me know!

also stop saying the force awakens was a ripoff of a new hope like it's a bad thing. Seriously, just because a movie recycles a plot structure and way of storytelling that is similar to other movies does not make it bad in the slightest. As I like to put it: "It's not the idea, it's the execution"

@Paperok

The best way to put it is comparing Wreck-it-Ralph to the Emoji movie, the same tropes but the execution means everything.

@SincereBeastie

You're totally right, sometimes using a cliche is just in the way you use it as well. If well written I think tropes could put the reader's mind at ease(because they already know where the movie is going, like people who are REALLY into romcoms, not saying it's a bad thing), the trope can be tweaked for a pleasant surprise, and personally I think it makes people compare it, making them want to watch more movies. XD

@Monoceros

I agree! I think that we as worldbuilders and writers, or movie producers and directors, use different tropes or clichés to give a simple message out to a greater audience, a message that, even though common, everyone can understand and follow, even if you've seen it many times before. Also, even if the trope is the same, the context is almost always different, it can apply to other scenarios, and it can branch off into different paths.

What do you think? :)