Top 10 Worst Cliches in Documentaries
Top Ten? If I could do Top Trillion, I would still go beyond that! There are so many of these dumb things about documentaries.
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Acting like something small is big
They do normal things and act as if nobody's done it before. And I'm telling you, saying "I caught a plane traveling 5,000 miles into the heart of the USA!" is as captivating and unique as "I walked around the block, came through the automatic doors at the local Morrison's, and set foot in the busy and alive vegetable aisle!"
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Not knowing what they're talking about
Some of these people just stare blankly at the camera for hours, and they edit it out, I'm sure. And some of them are just studio donut boys. I'm also certain about that.
This is the beautiful red-knee tarantula located in, um, er, the, uh, desert. Er, did I screw up, guys? Please don't cut that out of the, uh, documentary thing here.
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Treating the audience like they're stupid
I saw an advert for a documentary on Africa, and it made me facepalm. It went like, "Get ready, because you are about to see Africa in a way you've NEVER seen before!" And of course, it was in the wild, filming the animals that live there. Never seen that in a documentary or anywhere for that matter before.
Mercury is closer to the Sun than Earth?! Really?! And who watching can find where Venus is? Oh, kid yourselves. They're like this more often than people think.
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Repeating the same information
How often must they tell us the general idea over and over again?
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Making dumb mistakes
Ones that make their own explanations fall to pieces.
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Giving explanations that make no sense
Not such that you have to be a genius to understand, but those that don't seem to be going anywhere.
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Traveling all over the world for little reason
It does add something when they talk about an event that happened actually where it happened. But when they're on the other side of the world just to talk about something irrelevant to where they are, it's pointless. Saves them a lot of cash and time, and frankly, I probably wouldn't do great with all the jet lag.
Oh, you should hear my father effing and blinding about this: "We pay our TV license just so some jumped-up little bimbo can have a free holiday to tell us what a marvelous time she's having looking at turtles!" He could spout for England about this. I just close my eyes and ears and think about... something else...
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Forgetting the most important thing
Yeah, they can really be this stupid.
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Giving a big explanation to state the obvious
"1+1=2 because 1 and 1 are the same number. They've been added together, so it has to be one place up on the number line. So if we move right a bit on the diagram, by just one place, we get 2!"
It's just like that.
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Boasting about how what they're covering is better than other topics
They're like 5-year-old siblings yakking on about how their subject is the best and not actually going anywhere.
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Using a narrator with a British accent
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Having David Attenborough narrate
Excuse me? David Attenborough made nature documentaries good! Nobody compares when it comes to those.