Discussion Main / ExcusePlot

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Excuse Plot, started by Cider on May 21st 2011 at 4:15:09 AM

Isn't this a video game only trope? As such, shouldn't all the non video game examples be removed?

Okay, so this was removed from the Hay Wire page because it's a videogame trope; so what would this trope in a movie be?

There's a lot of pages where it was put on YMMV tabs. I fixed some of it, but I may not be able to do it on my own...

Merged the multiple examples for Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.

Mag Bas: Removed:

• Half Life. You're a scientist, experiment Goes Horribly Wrong, kill anything that isn't a scientist. Though this gets averted in The Sequel, in which virtually every generic character model becomes a true character.
  • Hell, you can kill anything including scientists if you really feel like it.
  • At the time of its release, however, Half Life was almost a revolutionary step forward story-wise. Why? Because practically every FPS preceding it had a story even more paper-thin and irrelevant to gameplay.
  • But in Half-Life's defense, the core of the gameplay could probably be summarized as 80% "kill everything that isn't a scientist" and 20% "press a button because a scientist told you so".
  • Actually, the plot was deeper than certain people think. It's just not spelled out with cutscenes and mandatory dialog (though a lot of it is revealed through non-mandatory dialog).

The last answer counters this entry. Brawl had one specific mode (The Subspace Emissary) with an actual storyline, but it still doesn't explain why the characters were beating up on each other before Tabuu started to mess with the world.

• I always figured it was for entertainment, what with the first battle in the stadium.

As you noted, said mode have an actual storyline.

Removed:

• Shoot 'Em Up: Shoot everything. Oh, and make sure that baby comes out alive.
• Bruce Almighty. Even Christians who believe in a benevolent God find it unlikely that Jehovah would reward rather than punish Bruce for being such a whiney asshole. But, hey, we needed an excuse to make Jennifer Aniston's boobs even bigger.
  • It's not a reward. That's the point of the film. It's why Bruce ends up losing everything he loves and breaking down and "dying" towards the end. It's a lesson, not a reward.

Shoot Em Up actually has a fairly convoluted plot behind why the baby is the McGuffin, and it's all in order to ironically lampoon gun-obsession while glorifying guns at the same time. The Bruce Almighty entry is countered by the response.