10 Annoying Movie Tropes You Can't Un-See
8. The Techno Babble Joke
We all know the setup:
Smart character tells protagonist a long, un-punctuated, jargon-heavy sequence of information, only for the charismatic and non-tech/science savvy lead to tell them to say it again, "In English, please!"
It seems the viewer is not the only one who's up to their waist and out of their depth in techno babble.
This trope is so pervasive that it knows no genre, style or substance boundaries; there are no filmic depths or heights that lie out of its reach.
Seriously, it seems as though no director or film is above using this one. It is, after all, the golden gateway to much-needed exposition; a spot of quick, cheap comedy; and some shorthand characterisation thrown in for good measure, letting the audience know who is the tough guy and who is the nerd.
1997's Event Horizon actually has this trope lead into the famous paper folding wormhole trope: Captain Miller demands layman's terms from Dr Weir's complex description of singularities and wormholes, and Cooper, the technician, follows up by saying, "F**k layman's terms. Do you speak English?"