Date: Early 2011
Reason Never Published: There really is no reason apart from forgetting to publish it.

1) The Mentor Dies: In a movie, it isn't uncommon for a movie to have a mentor, a character with a lot of experience who guides our main character. However many movies introduce the mentor, just for them to get killed off, often by the main villain. The hero has a motive to go after the villain and the villain (by killing the mentor) has become a powerful foe. This plot has become so common in movies that it has become a cliche itself, one that I really hate for several reasons. The first is often that the mentor is the coolest character in the movie. The second reason is that this gives the main character an unrealistic chance of defeating the villain. Granted some movies pull it off great, while others rather downgrade the villain so they could get defeated or get defeated by the main character by mere luck or cheaply.

2) The Love Interest: A lot of people love this cliche but it is overused way too much. The plot pretty much involves the main character meeting a female, the female is involved in the plot somehow and on their journey, they fall for each other. This is assuming the main character is male, it can and has gone the other way with the female being the lead character. It isn't a bad cliche, but it is overused to that point that when a female character is introduced to the story, you immediately expect her to hook up with the main character, if not then at least one of the characters. Sometimes the female already has a past with the main character which pretty much skips over how they bond over the progress of the movie. Granted there are movies with female characters that avoid the use of including a love relationship and I reckon it is fresh breath of air. Also really, the female shouldn't be obliged to have a relationship with the main character?

3) References: This really pisses me off in a comedy movie. This usually happens in a cheap comedy, when the whole premise of the joke is when a character references rather another movie, a celebrity or anything that is popular at the time. Just to give you an example of a generic reference joke:

Character 1: *insert motivational speech*
Character 2: Wow, I was really touched by that speech
Character 1: Thanks, I stole it from *insert popular movie at the time*

Really, it isn't funny and if the movie repeats referenced jokes similar to that, it starts to get painful.

//Also by reference, I don't mean parody of the actual movie a pop culture. I mean when the whole premise of the joke is merely the fact that characters in a movie are talking about another movie. Also this may not exactly be a trend since it isn't as common as the other trends on the list, but I have encountered it in a few of the lower cIass, cheaper comedies.

4) The Movie Starts Off in the Middle of the Movie: There is probably a name for this technique but as confusing as it sounds, that is the best way I could have possibly described it. Pretty much, the movie starts off right in a very intense or interesting scene. More than often, the scene is cut short before the situation is resolved and the movie cuts back into the timeline prior to the event that the viewer just witnessed. This isn't a bad technique and honestly, I kind of liked how it was played in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. It is more of a personal taste thing, but I personally don't like it. I haven't seen it done much in movies, in fact if anything it is mostly done in TV series, but it has been done enough to warrant it a cliche on its own. The reason I don't like it is because I consider it a spoiler to the plot and usually you can sometimes guess what is going to happen just by watching the very first scene of the movie. Sometimes the plot tricks you and throughout the movie you discover the first scene actually turned out to be something different than it appeared, but to me that comes off more annoying than clever.

5) Filler: Sub-plots that are there just to only fill the movie run time and nothing else. I don't necessarily hate this as most, if not, all movies will have some kind of filler one way or another. When I say filler, I mean just simple sub-plots that have no impact on the main story whatsoever and really don't benefit the movie in anyway. These are scenes in the movie that could have been easily taken out and no one would have noticed. If you don't know what I am talking about, have you ever been watching a movie and all you are thinking about is "when is the movie going to end?" More than often it is because you have been sitting through boring filler the entire movie. In a good movie, you won't notice it as sub-plots can be interesting when done right, so interesting that you forget about the main plot for an instance. Sometimes the sub-plot actually does benefit the movie, maybe offering more character development giving the viewer an idea on what the characters will have to overcome to resolve the situation. Other times, it doesn't and it is just pointless scene after pointless scene after pointless scene. What completes a terrible movie is when the conclusion is put together half-assed and so painfully rushed that you feel that you could have been doing something better with your time.