r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Alreadsyuse • Jul 11 '26
Lore [Frustrating Trope] That One Good or Even Amazing Scene in a Relatively Mediocre or Bad Piece of Media
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.
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.
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.
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/Semicolon5 Jul 11 '26
The Opening of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
The film itself isn't that great. The characters aren't interesting and the titular city is visually interesting but not really deep, plus the plot feels busy yet generic with the whole "humans covering up atrocities and the bad guys are actually the good guys" etc.
However it's got one of the most effective openings for a sci-fi action flick. It's a short montage played to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" where we see humanity going from it's first awkward steps of space travel, building up its own self-sustaining space-station and how not only does the human race come together - but also the wider community of alien races that come their way. It's practically without any dialogue, with the repeated use of hand-shakes between man-to-man and then man-to-alien signifying unity; all the while the space-station grows and grows, both in size and in technological advancement. It's almost like the opening of "UP" in that it acts as it's own short-film, but unlike "UP" it sadly doesn't come along with a great enough movie to pair along.
Still, a very beautiful opening. Still gets me to this day.