8 Superhero Movie Tropes That Need To Die

1. MacGuffins Which Have No Conceptual Importance And Only Really Exist To Briefly Endanger The Entire Universe

As seen in: The Entire Marvel Cinematic Universe A MacGuffin is a bit of narrative jiggery-pokery first given the name by Alfred Hitchcock: it€™s anything which motivates the protagonist and/or the antagonist(s) and makes all of the action in the film necessary. It might be a briefcase full of important weapons designs, or a ring someone chucked into the ocean, or a crystal skull: it doesn€™t matter, really. As long as it gets the protagonist off the sofa, either to find it for themselves or to prevent the forces of darkness from using it, it€™ll do. It€™s a plot device made solid, essentially. The thing is, it can lead to some pretty lazy writing. If you€™ve got a threat to existence without any philosophical depth to it, then it limits the film€™s scope for saying anything interesting about the non-fantastical world we live in. Look at X-Men, for instance: it€™s a clash of ideologies about multiculturalism and race as much as it€™s a clash between two old friends. I realise that people would kick off massively if some beloved McGuffin from a comic series didn€™t make the transition from page to screen but if you€™re not going to bother drawing out some themes from it which connect to contemporary anxieties. George Lucas was certainly of the opinion that the audience has to really care about the McGuffin, showing that he did, once, actually understand filmmaking. Or, you know, they could bother writing more complex relationships between characters, or spending more time knocking around ideas rather than just going €œRight, got an idea: there€™s this thing which is going to destroy the entire world and the bad guys want it€ and then knocking off early to go to the pub. Someone should have a word with whatever science lads are developing these things and tell them to chill out a bit. We€™ve already got climate change to contend with, we don€™t need a glowy blue box with the power to munch galaxies knocking about too. Which other superhero movie tropes are you sick of? Share any more we missed down in the comments.