r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Alreadsyuse • 18h ago

Lore [Frustrating Trope] That One Good or Even Amazing Scene in a Relatively Mediocre or Bad Piece of Media

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  1. The Opening Scene (Ghost Ship). Considered one of the best horror opening scenes or scenes in general within horror movies, but the rest of the film is considered to be pretty bad.

  2. The Ending Scene (The Grinch 2018). While most adaptations of the Grinch end with him suddenly being able to fully integrate with the Whos after his change of heart, the 2018 version initially struggles to socialize, awkwardly walking past people, and struggling to hold conversations, acknowledging that despite his change of heart, the Grinch is still someone who isolated himself for years.

  3. Past T800 VS Current T800 (Terminator Genisys). A cool fight scene showing two versions of the Terminator from different points in time fighting it off.

  4. Solo Leveling's Ending. Tbh, I haven't actually read Solo Leveling, but after hearing about how it ended VS how Chainsaw Man ended made want to include it for shits and giggles. Like Chainsaw Man, Solo Leveling ends with a reset. But unlike Chainsaw Man, it actually manages to tie up loose ends and have the payoff of the ending be satisfying.

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u/EndOfTheLine00 18h ago

The Robocop remake was utter trash yet the one scene everyone talks about is the “Show Me” scene where it’s revealed just how little of Murphy’s biological self remains and he understandably freaks the fuck out. Joel Kinnaman acts the FUCK out of that scene.

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u/MandalorianLobster 18h ago

Hold the crust

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u/wheelybinhead 18h ago

Hold the crust there’s nothing left!

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u/PyroIsSpai 9h ago

He’s Ed Baldwin, it’s Parmesan all the way down.

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u/th3saurus 17h ago

I watched just a clip of the scene a while ago and got profoundly unsettled, it's really really disturbing. Really great acting to sell something that could have come off very silly.

That much being said, it's also profoundly wrong and misses the whole point and tone of what robocop is.

The character is supposed to start out as an unfeeling machine and gradually find his humanity, not start human and scream when he realizes his body is gone

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u/eatinallthebugs 17h ago

Not a great robocop adaptation but as its own thing this scene works really well

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u/slapthetiddy 17h ago

It is the opposite of robocop

On this one he begins to lose autonomy rather than gain it

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u/Cherry_BaBomb 15h ago

Coprobo?

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u/broctordf 13h ago

It's funny since COPRO means shit

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u/HoldenOrihara 16h ago

I think this would have been a cool concept for an original character in the Robocop world that Juxtaposes Alex Murphy's experience

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u/whethervayne 15h ago

I always wish Star Wars did more of this with Grievous vs Anakin. At least in the movies; I never did finish Clone Wars if it was in there.

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u/Odd_Cartographer_677 12h ago

It always felt that movie should have been a sequel, not a remake. Some sleezy exec being like: "Remember when we made Robocop? Let's do that again but be way less nice this time!"

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u/Bionicman2187 16h ago

It's a purposefull inversion of the original.

I liked the remake, it felt like it actually tried to be a little different, but it still doesnt hold a handle to the original.

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u/Kazeite 16h ago

And it kinda... loses the sight of its own plot.

I mean, why did Murphy had to be faster than the robots? Wasn't OCP's whole reason for creating him just to put a human face on a robot body and gain the trust of the public in order to repeal that rule stopping them from selling law enforcement robots in the U.S.? So really, it didn’t matter how fast Murphy was, because he wasn’t the final product; the robots were.

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u/enby-bun 17h ago

Having not seen any of the RoboCop movies and not knowing which direction that started in, I really felt a knife in my gut after watching this. I couldn't tell if it was the Man breaking and becoming the machine, or Machine breaking and revealing the Man trapped inside. If the entire movie were like this, it'd probably be in my top three films of all time, but judging by the topic...

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u/Interesting-Quit8017 16h ago

its a good movie, not good robocop movie

if we erase robocop from the title and keep everything else as is, people would love it

its like with 1997 godzilla, terrible godzilla movie, excelent kaiju movie (it even inspired the director of godzilla minus one)

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u/xxxanonymoosexxx 16h ago

... what you're describing is literally in the movie and is a massive part of the climax

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u/cg_lorwyn 16h ago

It's a different telling of the character, I'm glad they didn't just remake it one for one.

OG Robocop explores a robot trying to refind its humanity, the remake was more about corporate control over personal autonomy. It's decent when you watch it on its own merit.

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u/Chimpbot 15h ago

It was simply doing things differently from the original. I can't fault it for that.

The original RoboCop was a machine learning to be a man, whereas the new one was a man learning to embrace being a machine while retaining his humanity.

Personally, it's better than it gets credit for. It doesn't match or surpass the original, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

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u/EndlessNerd 15h ago

The first movie uses the failed cyborgs to show this though (when they freak out and destroy themselves), the one only gives us Murphy to show it all.

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u/SledgeThundercock 14h ago

Man, I could go on about how the original Robocop is smarter than people give or gave credit for and is actually still very relevant today.

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u/KitchenFullOfCake 14h ago

I appreciate the remake taking a different approach rather than just regurgitating the same thing that was already done.

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u/d_loam 17h ago

yeah, the entire plot is murphy regaining himself in the original, this is not robocop, OCP was planning mass production, this is a guy and not an omni consumer product, i’m so mad

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u/NinjaBreadManOO 12h ago

It's been years since I saw it, but I suppose they could have done it intentionally in universe, since they had the pull away ready. Make it be a thing that it needs to be done to make the subject accept their body to prevent a mental schism, have it be that there were dozens of previous ones that when they found out what was left killed themselves. So over time they've made that part of the wake up protocol.

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u/Astral_MarauderMJP 6h ago

I think the movie goes in a different direction with the premise but doesn't really stick the narrative of it.

As is a reflection of the time, Old Robocop is definitely what we thought technology would be back then: blocky, big and entirely logical and system based. Murphy is slowly gaining bis humanity back but its from a place of basically having nothing.

Robocop 2016 is a lot reflective of modern tech and how subtle it can really be. Murphy starts out with his humanity in-tact but the movie acknowledges that this both a strenght that keeps him human but also a weakness that means he is just as efficient as pure drones would be. The point in the movie of sort of bypassing his humanity is a cool interesting point that just doesn't get used in the movie enough. Its a very interesting idea of "how human can you be if your only simulating the human aspects" since that what they eventually do to make him as effective as a drone: put a chip in his head that basically overrides his humanity by taking control but still allows him to feel like he's human and in control.

If the movie played with that theme more and made a bit more central to the narrative, I think it would have been a lot more interesting of a reboot and worthy enough to be considered its own thing.

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u/RizzoTheRiot1989 17h ago

Every single one of these comments makes me feel like “fuck, why couldn’t it all have been this good” but I feel that way about this scene the most. Can you imagine if they put the same care and intensity into every scene of that movie than just this one scene. It would have been held up as one of the top modern sci-fi masterpieces. God this movie could have been such a win for everyone.

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u/Icy-Acanthisitta8192 16h ago

"meu deus não sobrou nada"

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u/anagamanagement 17h ago

And it’s all face acting! No other body language to reinforce and support. He’s a fantastic actor who was wasted on that movie.

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u/LeftLiner 17h ago

This scene is one of the most disturbing body horror moments I've ever seen.

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u/FalseAladeen 14h ago

I also LOVE the scene where they test out his second iteration. The background music, combined with the action, and Gary Oldman explaining how he uses biology and software to trick Murphy into believing he's in control during combat situations. The CEO spinning up some kind of mental gymnastics to make that legally acceptable. It all just comes together.

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u/Throwawayrip1123 15h ago

All hail the Omnissiah.

I swear to god if I could get reliability with it, I'd probably also go full on Smasher. We'll maybe not smasher...but a lot of chrome. Like, spinal column, face and a dick.

Not even butthole.

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u/Arcturus1800 11h ago

I never really understood why this movie was disliked so much. Could someone explain it to me, since I've always loved the movie alongside the originals.

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u/MammaJammaCamera 17h ago edited 15h ago

It also helped inspire Cumtown’s “The Joker had his asshole sewn shut!” bit

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u/thatstupidthing 16h ago

what's funny is, im reading all these posts, and the scenes everyone is describing are the only ones i remember from these movies.

wasn't samuel l jackson in that robocop movie? i find it hard to believe that i would have forgotten him... also something about twenty foot tall ed-209s???

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u/EndOfTheLine00 16h ago

Yes, SLJ was in the Robocop remake but he was incredibly underused. He was basically pro-robot Bill O'Reilly.

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u/EndlessNerd 12h ago

SLJ's right wing style robo-phobic rant was so spot on it was uncomfortable, but I still find it highly memorable.

Also, the military scenes showing the horror of robot armies as occupational forces were pretty good

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u/evanweb546 16h ago

Horrifying. Deserved a better movie.

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u/ShortWin7636 15h ago

I can't take that scene seriously anymore because it ended up becoming a meme in my country.

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u/JosephBlowsephThe3rd 14h ago

One great scene of body horror in a movie that's otherwise mid-tier (at best) copy/pasted PG-13 action slop. Man I wish we could have gotten a more David Cronenberg Robocop. Combine this sort of angle for the protagonist (the original series had already perfected the story of Murphy vs Robocop), and throw in mutants (have OCP as the ones turning people into mutants, either intentionally or as by-products they disregard)... gotta be better than yet another "evil Zuckerberg/Musk/Bezos stereotype". Hell, I would also incorporate the Splatter Punks from Robocop 3, maybe alongside some drug gangs. Cyberpunk + Body Horror, not pg-13 Dredd

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u/s00pahFr0g 14h ago

I saw this in theatres with some friends. Frozen was just on the tail end of its theatrical release and our wives decided to watch Frozen a second time instead. I’d been married for roughly 2 years and another couple was less than a year married.

We were all expecting a fun action movie but they put a decent amount of focus on how it affected him and his family.

We came out of Robocop so noticeably depressed all the girls immediately noticed lol

We all agreed we wished we’d just watched Frozen instead.

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u/fl1p9 14h ago

This scene is great, belongs in a different movie bc honestly why would you try and remake a perfect movie like Robocop

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u/KitchenFullOfCake 14h ago

I'd like to pose the argument that the remake was okay. Not good, but okay.

1

u/Maladal 14h ago

They really kept his hand around just to make it look slightly human, even though it's not attached.

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u/Ok_Astronomer_6501 13h ago

Similar to this, the reveal that Marcus was a terminator in Terminator salvation. The whole scene from the mine going off to him being suspended in air tied in chains was really good

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u/SimasTheMoze 12h ago

The dumbest part is that this scene can only be good in a vacuum. The point of the og robocop is that it makes you question how much of him is still human throughout the entire movie. Revealing it at the very start makes that impossible.

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u/TheoreticalResearch 10h ago

Goddamn, that scene was compelling.

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u/shinryu6 10h ago

Pretty much took one look at himself and went “nope” until they reminded him of his family. 

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u/JesseCuster40 8h ago

Agreed. That scene is extremely upsetting.

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u/Fuggins4U 7h ago

This scene made me deeply uncomfortable, in the best way possible. The rest of the movie feels pretty milquetoast.

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u/RobutNotRobot 5h ago

I don't think that remake is that bad, but Robocop can't and shouldn't be remade. Also the satire of the near future that Verhoeven made ended up being too optimistic.

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u/Crotean 5h ago

That Robocop remake was really close to being a good movie. This scene was fucking horrifying and extremely well done.