Quoting Movies in Real Life

Movies are an integral part of many people’s entertainment intake.  People watch the movies, remember the movies, and quote the movies.  This creates issues.  A lot of the time it bugs me when people quote movies.  Most of the time, the trouble is caused through poor context or overuse.

Now, I’m a guy who likes his movies and his movie quotes.  In high school I would add movie quotes to my essays to spice them up a little bit.  I made sure the quotes fit the context of what I was writing about and reviewed the insertion in order to ensure myself that it was not out of place.  It was just my style of writing essays.  It kept me interested in what I was studying and somehow kept me from dragging on and on about any specific point of interest.

When I came to university, I was lucky enough to get into one of the geekiest around.  Almost everyone I know now is into television, movies, and video games.  The problem is that they always quote stuff whenever they are inclined to do so.  Sometimes they land it properly and do an Arnold “I’ll be back” as they head to the washroom.  But other times, they play video games and say an Arnold “Get down” every time they shoot someone in Call of Duty.  This was all good once or twice, but when the same line is repeated every time someone in the video game is shot, it gets annoying.  Overuse of a quote from a movie.

There are also the times where someone just starts quoting one part of a movie or tv show for no reason.  This is a hypocritical peeve of mine because I do that as well.  “Oh, I really wanted that pointy hat!”  “It’s a crown!”  If you don’t know, that’s Role Models.  We quote that movie a lot for no reason at all.  There are other films and tv shows that we do the same for.  No reason at all for it.  But it can get very annoying.

The worst is the people that correct other people when they quote something, yet their correction is wrong.  That is the worst of all things that you can do when movies and tv are being quoted.  Say you were doing some Apocalypse Now and you said, “I like the smell of Napalm in the morning.  It smells like...victory.”  They correct you to “I love the hell of Napalm in the morning.  It’s feels like...victory.”  Neither of those attempts were right.  Why try to correct someone if you yourself do not know the line or scene, or if you haven’t even seen the movie/tv show/scene?  It hurts me inside every time.

I know why this bugs me.  I know why it bugs me as much as it does.  I don’t know why I am so hypocritical and break my own rules.  It’s something I have to work on, and something I wish other people would work on.  Stop quoting or reciting movies and scenes if you can’t do it in context or you can’t get the words right.  Just don’t even try.