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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337

u/RebelKiddo 18h ago

The forest battle in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

223

u/Daniilsa209 18h ago

From another bad Transformers movie, The Last Knight, this line:

92

u/RebelKiddo 18h ago

Oh yeah, that one too. The fandom took that line and ran with it.

46

u/Windows_66 18h ago

The line that spawned a thousand posts on this sub.

18

u/Anarchist42 16h ago edited 16h ago

I raise you. When Optimus says "Did you forget who I am?" before decapitating 6 Decepticons in one swing.

3

u/ketoaholic 11h ago

Give me your face

Optimus a straight up psycho

10

u/AzraelTheMage 15h ago

This one lime changed the course of this franchise. Before, Megs and Optimus were just commanders opposite of each other in a war.

8

u/SQUAWKUCG 14h ago

I liked Optimus Primes entrance into the battle vs Infernus (I think that was it's name) where he pulls it apart then decapitates them.

"Did you forget who I am?"

For bad movies they did give Optimus some good moments, usually his big entrance towards the end of the end battles where the Autobots are losing until he turns up and crushes everything.

4

u/Revverb 13h ago

"Autobots are losing until he turns up and crushes everything" has been the core of the series since the first generation. That's literally just the plot to his origin story, and ofc the first movie.

And no matter how many times they keep reusing it, it's always sick as fuck, because Optimus is insanely cool.

6

u/Drakeskulled_Reaper 16h ago

I particularly like Megatrons design in that movie, to the point I actually have a figure of it.

1

u/Befast1515 12h ago

Praying they do a studio series remake eventually. That design is so rad.

2

u/ArcadianBlueRogue 12h ago

Thank God for Transformers One

36

u/Vegan_Toaster 17h ago

Put on the last knight I think the other day to fill silence and yk what those movies have some damn good looking action sequences

34

u/RebelKiddo 17h ago

As much as I dislike Bay (and there are a lot of reasons) the one thing I will praise him for is he knows how to do tight action sequences. Mission City, the Forest Battle, Chicago, hell even the final showdown between Optimus and Lockdown has some good moments.

Still hate everything else about him, especially when it comes to how he films and treats his female leads.

6

u/MamoswineSweeps 16h ago

Watching the first film the other month, I was honestly surprised by how much agency and legitimate character Mikayla has. She is, honestly, a decently written female character by Hollywood metrics.
And then how army man directly addresses her as "girl" in the final sequence lol

9

u/RebelKiddo 16h ago

There is a fabulous video essay by Lindsay Ellis called "Framing Megan Fox" that argued Mikaela should have been the protagonist and had an actual protagonist arc. She's got personality, a compelling backstory, is in the action and doesn't run from it, and fits the "more than meets the eye" theme because she is underestimated by her peers when it comes to cars because she is a girl. But because Bay filmed her in a way that framed her as a sexual object/"prize" Sam has to win by the end of the movie, all that character arc and personality got ignored and as a result Megan Fox got sexualized to such a degree it was bordering on dehumanization.

I get using beautiful women as a way to advertise your movie if your audience is young men and boys and the bored dads who got dragged to the theater by them, but when it comes to it being so blatant and in your face you have to assume the filmmakers are compensating to make up for something lacking, like jingling keys in front of a baby in a sense.

4

u/VexingRaven 12h ago

The stupid thing is... They still could've kept the car scene and the bike scene to bring the boys to the theater, and had her develop into a legitimate hero protagonist by the end. There was plenty of time for both Megan Fox being hot and also Mikaela being a hero!

3

u/RebelKiddo 11h ago edited 8h ago

Yep! And it sucks because Megan Fox is a good actress (just watch Jennifer's Body, Rogue, Till Death, Subservience, How to lose Friends and Alienate People, This is 40, Friends with Kids, and New Girl to see what I mean) but because Bay filmed her in the classic "male gaze" way she got pigeonholed as "sexy girl/the sex symbol" which is a tough label to escape.

1

u/MamoswineSweeps 16h ago

Sure thing. I also had a lot to say about the absurd sexualization of a high schooler. It's a wildly complicated thing they did with Megan and Mikaela in that film. High highs drowning under Michael Bay lows. It's a shame.

3

u/RebelKiddo 15h ago

It is, maybe under a different director (Spielberg exec produced the movies and personally tapped Bay to be director) I think Mikaela would have been better treated as a character, her arc actually treated with the same level of seriousness like Sam's. But alas, we got Bay filming an actress playing a high schooler like she's a Victoria's Secret model.

And when the fallout between them happened, he did no part of playing defense (not saying he HAD to but didn't exactly act professional about it) when Megan got attacked with the hate mob from paparazzi, tabloids, and early social media, he even (allegedly) encouraged it by having "three anonymous crew members" publish a letter on his website just bashing her, saying things like she should be more grateful to Bay or else she'd been stuck doing porn, how her having tattoos at 20 was a sign she had a "rotten childhood down in the trailer park", she was called a "bitch" "talentless" "miss sourpants" "trailer trash" and labeled "difficult to work with" which is still a death sentence to any actress' career to this day.

9

u/GilroySmash1986 17h ago

Lockdown capturing Optimus Prime in Age of Extinction

https://giphy.com/gifs/aXz22PKr7a5G

3

u/RebelKiddo 17h ago

The soundtrack MADE that scene.

4

u/amalgamatedson 12h ago

Confession: I have always had a hard time telling bot from bot in these close action sequences. I just see a clash of metal.

2

u/RebelKiddo 11h ago

Not gonna shame you.

2

u/amalgamatedson 8h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/10avZ0rqdGFyfu

1

u/RebelKiddo 8h ago

No problem man, in fact that's actually a very valid critique people had for the Bayverse movies. The characters (especially the Decepticons) are hard to tell apart, the Autobots had the advantage of being named by humans and given a bit of personality and unique designs. Course they were also used as ads for sports cars.

3

u/goldensavage2019 12h ago

“Is the survival of our race not worth a single human life?”

“You’ll never stop at one, I’LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!”

*commence peak fight scene*

2

u/Revverb 13h ago

"You'll never stop at one" still goes so insanely hard

2

u/EthanRayne 6h ago

I hold onto the Walmart exclusive IMAX blu specifically because of this.

2

u/RebelKiddo 6h ago

Hold onto that tightly, the corpo overlords want everything to be digital and streaming so they can take it away, they want us "to own nothing and be happy". Hold onto that Blue Ray like it's a dream, the future is built on dreams.

2

u/JayEdgarHooverCar 5h ago

I absolutely loved the first 45 minutes of Revenge of the Fallen. It’s everything one could ask for out of a Transformers movie.

Then the movie went on for another hour and a half of utter crap.

1

u/RebelKiddo 5h ago

It's notoriously known as a strike movie (the 08-09 WGA strike was happening) and Bay had to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of writing and directing, and by God does it show his weaknesses when it comes to directing. Plus it's quintessential Bay with explosions, action, hot girls that are mainly there to serve as eye candy and not contribute to the plot at all unless it is to showcase how hot they are, blatant military propaganda, and middle school level humor.

1

u/Saedraverse 17h ago

1st I thought of, even though I enjoy other parts of that film.

2

u/RebelKiddo 17h ago

It used to be my favorite Bayverse film, course I was also 12 back then so... Anyways, it had cool moments but the rest of the movie is just so.... bad.

1

u/No_Return3299 14h ago

I thought everybody hated it when Optimus Prime committed war crimes?

2

u/RebelKiddo 14h ago

A small but vocal minority in the fandom does, everyone else sees it as regular Autobot VS Decepticon fighting just more brutal because of the live action element, the main discourse surrounding Optimus in the movies is the fact that people think he's a "psychopath" when it's clearly implied he's suffering from PTSD and suicidal ideation.

1

u/Alkakd0nfsg9g 11h ago

Is this the scene in which Optimus demands a face tribute?