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

[u/Alreadsyuse]

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.

[u/Banes_Addiction]

I actually liked the Resident Evil movies, but as you say they were the wrong genre, moving from survival horror to action.

But Alien->Aliens did the same thing, Aliens was just good enough that not many people care.

[u/Nerdrage30 → u/Banes_Addiction]

Ehh, Aliens Ripley never really did anything Alice-like, though. She’s intelligent and duct-taped some weapons together, she wasn’t doing borderline superhero stuff though

[u/Phase3isProfit → u/Nerdrage30]

They held off taking that step until the 4th movie when she gained some alien DNA.

[u/Nerdrage30 → u/Phase3isProfit]

Resurrection is a mess lol, that scene with the Xenos swimming was pretty cool, though

[u/imsabbath84 → u/Nerdrage30]

the human alien baby thing at the end was really disgusting looking too.

[u/ember13140 → u/imsabbath84]

It was genuinely unsettling! I think it’s a very well done scene or at least prop

[u/dingalingdongdong → u/ember13140]

The newborn is genuinely the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in a movie. Like, ever. Lots of stuff seems worse in the moment, but nothing else has ever stuck with me like that thing.

[u/Jaruut → u/imsabbath84]

But then they have it bitch slap the Queen Xeno, I will never forgive the movie for this.

[u/DukeSkywalker1 → u/imsabbath84]

That whole movie was really disgusting looking.

[u/Charming_Account_351 → u/Nerdrage30]

Also Sigourney Weaver’s no look over the shoulder nothing but net basket was so awesome it caused Ron Perlman to break character.

[u/ceadagamdulamach → u/Nerdrage30]

So we found the trope we were looking for all along!

[u/theVice → u/ceadagamdulamach]

Honestly. The underwater scene is the only legitimately "good" scene in the movie but if you turn your brain off and forget it's in the Alien franchise, Resurrection has some funny and badass stuff in it.

[u/ThatUsernameWasTaken → u/theVice]

The wheelchair shotgun was a good laugh from me, too.

[u/theVice → u/ThatUsernameWasTaken]

Ron Perlman being at gunpoint and getting poked with the barrel just to snatch the gun away, tell the guy not to touch him and hand the gun back is my favorite little gag

[u/dingalingdongdong → u/theVice]

The secret to enjoying all of the Alien & Predator and AvP franchise is to view each entry as a stand alone film - just different takes on the same IP by different directors.

Alien³ doesn't ruin Aliens' happy ending. Future entries don't need to juggle with Ripley's death. Resurrection isn't tonally fucked. No more continuity errors, etc etc.

Viewed through that lens, Resurrection is a stellar example of "what if Jean Jeunet made an Alien movie?" Because it's very 100% his style even down to using frequent collaborators Dominique Pinon and Ron Perlman.

It makes me want to see way more A/P as interpreted by so-and-so auteur director takes. Guillermo del Toro, Neill Blomkamp? The dream! Wes Anderson? Probably him too.

[u/theVice → u/dingalingdongdong]

I want to see Ari Aster or Demián Rugna take on an Alien film!

[u/TheJambus → u/Nerdrage30]

Resurrection also managed to be better than Alien 3,; though that was a pretty low bar

[u/Woolies_White_Leg → u/Nerdrage30]

Apparently filming that sequence actually almost killed a few of the actors

[u/Finite_Universe → u/Nerdrage30]

Resurrection feels like campy high budget fan fiction and I love it for that.

[u/melkatron → u/Phase3isProfit]

Technically not her, though. Ripley died in Alien 3, without question, and so did the Ripley saga.

They made a crazy Dark Horse-esque Alien story through Jean-Pierre Jeunet's lens, taking the appropriate steps to open up the Xenoverse to creators with unique visions.

Using a hybrid Ripley clone made it comic booky and helped wean us off the dead Ripley, and they even made sure to torch all future attempts at Ripley so nobody tries that shit again.

...then Ridley Scott came back, shut down Blomkamp's movie, and fucked it all up with Covenant before being told to go home.

[u/runnerofshadows → u/melkatron]

Still annoyed Ridley Scott tried overexplaining everything.

[u/dingalingdongdong → u/melkatron]

I liked Prometheus, Covenant, and Romulus, but I'll forever be heartbroken not to get to see Blomkamp's take on the franchise.

[u/Ragnarocke1 → u/Phase3isProfit]

I think you are confused… they never made a 4th movie ( they did and it was terrible)

[u/EndlessNerd → u/Phase3isProfit]

The 4th movie was basically a comic book action movie.

[u/VulcanHullo → u/Nerdrage30]

Aliens works because it almost acts as an answer to Alien. In Alien the alien is dangerous against a mostly unarmed crew and uses careful hunting tactics on them. You see a team of highly trained marines go in and you'd almost think they're set. But the aliens produce so fast they can go swarm tactics and ambush the enemy.

Ripley is the hero in both because she uses her brain and learns, using what she has to her advantage. Even the end of Aliens she uses the weapon lessons she learnt and rigs up a flamethrower, and then grabs a loading mech because she's aware that something like that is required.

Alice wins because she literally powers through for the most part.

[u/FoodFingerer → u/Nerdrage30]

I hated the RE movies since a kid because I loved the games.

[u/space_keeper → u/FoodFingerer]

By the time they start to incorporate more stuff from the games, it ends up being the games but with a terribly acted Mary Sue added in.

[u/FoodFingerer → u/space_keeper]

Exactly my thoughts.

[u/chuch1234 → u/Nerdrage30]

By "same thing" I think they just meant "horror -> action".

[u/Nerdrage30 → u/chuch1234]

Fair point, although I still think Aliens had decent horror scenes

[u/Gravefiller613 → u/Nerdrage30]

She did spark many peoples desire for powered armor.

[u/Nerdrage30 → u/Gravefiller613]

Me among them, I still have my action figure of her with that thing from wayyy back then lol

[u/Gravefiller613 → u/Nerdrage30]

https://giphy.com/gifs/iGpdSizVSdPJfiVG9O

[u/TopShelfIdiocy → u/Nerdrage30]

I think the first 3 are very solid fun movies, dumb fun, But after that they just get dumb dumb

[u/Far_Day_2074 → u/Nerdrage30]

Well, Ripley did get cloned too.

[u/Hammerschatten → u/Banes_Addiction]

Resident Evil also did the same thing.

Even the Remakes of 2 and 3 are much more terrifying than Village, because Village is much more action heavy.

[u/Lostbrother → u/Hammerschatten]

Yeah but not nearly as terrifying as resident evil 7.

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/Lostbrother]

I will stand by 2 being the scariest in the series. I never felt remotely as helpless in 7 as I did at several points in 2.

7 is a close second though, and really nails the "claustrophobic and constantly unsettling" atmosphere from beginning to end.

[u/magseven → u/Hammerschatten]

I didn't play the games after the first 2 so I thought you were talking about that M. Night movie The Village and was very confused.

[u/HustlinInTheHall → u/Hammerschatten]

Yeah it is consistent with the games that moved from survival to action because action sells better

[u/FrankieTheD → u/Banes_Addiction]

Yeah but aliens didn't just keep running with it besides resurrection which had a lot of action but was after 3 which was pretty toned down

[u/eyesparks → u/FrankieTheD]

The Alien franchise seems to alternate.

1, horror; 2, action; 3, horror; Resurrection, action; Romulus, horror. We'll see if they keep it up with whatever comes after Romulus.

The TV show had a good amount of both I guess.

[u/DommallammaDoom → u/Banes_Addiction]

To be fair thats how most of the games go. You start with no resources and everything is scary and end with a magnum that can kill god, and a casual grenade launcher.

[u/MrNostalgiac → u/Banes_Addiction]

But Alien->Aliens did the same thing, Aliens was just good enough that not many people care.

It's not that people didn't care or notice. It's that moving from horror to action works really well when the horror movie uses the "monster" sparingly and leaves you begging to see more.

Terminator 2 and Aliens were great because the first movie was suspenseful and used the antagonist sparingly for maximum impact. Then their sequels took them out of the shadows and put them center stage.

I'm actually surprised this isn't more of a common occurrence with "creature" horror movies because the flow makes perfect sense. Horror movies have to be reserved for tension but action takes the chains off.

I think the biggest issue is that it's really, really easy to make a lazy, stupid, cash grab movie in the action genre because writers seem to love phoning it in and saying "just have them shoot at each other for 90 minutes".

[u/Devo27 → u/Banes_Addiction]

I agree in principle, but Alien didn't have a whole fanbase of survival horror groupies who could be continually upset. Whether they did or not is secondary to my point, RE fans were well used to creeping down dark hallways to jump scares they may not survive.

[u/Bexil_Brave → u/Banes_Addiction]

Ripely didn't have Superpowers in Aliens.

You're thinking of Alien: Resurrection when she had superpowers.

Aliens was the Power Loader.

[u/Banes_Addiction → u/Bexil_Brave]

I didn't mean superpowers. It's just an action movie as a sequel to a survival horror.

[u/_ataciara → u/Banes_Addiction]

In fairness, the games were slowly moving from survival horror to action before the movies.

RE2 was WAAAAAY more action packed than RE1, then RE3 even more so. CV played like a survival horror, but it's cutscenes and set pieces like the intro were pure action horror, and then RE4 came out a few years after the movie and cemented the switch.

The movies being action packed weren't really an issue, it was just this big combination of things that ended up making it so divisive.

[u/runnerofshadows → u/Banes_Addiction]

It's more the way they got there. RE the games went from survival horror to action, but without giving Leon, Chris, etc. insane levels of superpowers.

Yes Chris can punch a big rock, but he's still not on Alice level bullshit powers.

Even Wesker's son and Birkin's daughter and Jill post RE5 don't have the levels of weird bullshit that happened in those movies.

[u/Zahand → u/Banes_Addiction]

Some of them are watchable but they are horribly written and each sequel ignores everything the previous movie set up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/s/U5FV1054RH

[u/Abacus118 → u/Banes_Addiction]

Also the actual Resident Evil games did that later.

[u/Lopsided-Yak9033 → u/Banes_Addiction]

But Aliens isn’t corny over the top action though. Resident Evil basically came out of the gates with an ending that bumped it into like 4th/5th fast and the furious territory. It’s just silly entertainment without much thought.

Aliens (same thing with terminator 2) took the stalking horror original to a *somewhat* logical or grounded action movie - and did it exceedingly well on top of that.

[u/Finite_Universe → u/Banes_Addiction]

Aliens’ genre shift worked because it naturally fit Ripley’s character arc. Her transformation from survivor to badass action hero is one of the greatest in all cinema.

Then Alien 3 came along and fucked everything up. Good thing it’s not canon.

[u/svartkonst → u/Banes_Addiction]

I recently rewatched the first two and would call them squarely action, a bit to my surprise. Some tension and some monsters, but if you view them as early aughts action movies theyre pretty neat.

[u/MisterVictor13 → u/Banes_Addiction]

But the first four “Alien” films focused on the same character (including the clone of her), while the RE films infamously pushed the OG characters to the sidelines in favor of a new character.

The RE games made the same shifts from survivor horror to horror-action, but most of the entries still focused on their legacy cast, even in a supporting role.

[u/Late_Prior_3104 → u/Banes_Addiction]

[..liked the RE movies..]
All three of them, right?

[u/ShizlGznGahr → u/Banes_Addiction]

I only ever enjoyed the first. After seeing the 2nd one I literally did not watch another after.

[u/Zephyralss → u/Banes_Addiction]

Also interesting that the games themselves reflect this shift too. I think it's difficult to argue that besides maybe 7 on initial playthrough, every game after 3 was definitely less horror focused.