I think the title pretty much speaks for itself. But just for the sake of clarity, I’m looking for heroic, save-the-day appearance, not oh-shit-we’re-about-to-be-eaten-by-this-velociraptor entrances. The hero has to be appearing to save someone ELSE; come-from-behind rallies ina fight with the villain, like Neo realizing his destiny in The Matrix, are also disqualified. Also, please explain why the scene works for you, if you feel like it.
I’ll start with a few,. The odd ones are from from movies I love; the even are from movies I generally despise but like bits and pieces of:
Superman II. Because, after all, arriving in the nick of time is Superman’s whole schtick. Specifically I refer to the second-act scene when the Phantom Zone villains, hunting for our favorite Kryptonian at the Daily Planet, decide to take Lois Lane as a hostage and kill everyone, including the traitorous Lex Luthor. While Lex sputters for his life, the camera switches to the street outside, where are newboy is stacking papers with the headline, “World Conquered, Where the fuck is superman?” (Okay, they were only thinking that latter clause.) And then the music swells. The papers start blowing wildly the local demigod streaks through the sky towards the Daily Planet. Perching himself on a convenient oxygen molecule, Superman crosses his arm and says “General–would you care to step outside.”
Yeah, I was twelve the first time I saw it.
Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Yes, it’s a bad movie. Yes, Costner’s accent as Robin of Locksley wasn’t so much bad as it was non-existent. But when Little John’s son and the rest of the merry men are about to be hanged, and young Wolf is literally hanging by his neck, and Robin shoots one arrow–and misses–the audience I was in was on the edges of their seats. When Robin took what was apparently his last arrow, kissed the fletching in an obvious prayer, took aim and shot, the audience was praying with him. And why the arrow severed the noose and saved Wolf, they cheered.
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. No, I don’t mean Gandalf staring down the Balrog. I don’t even mean Aragorn chasing away the Nazgul at Weathertop. I don’t even mean Boromir appearing to rescue Merry & Pippin from the Orcs. But when Boromir, whom the audience has every reason to utterly despise before that moment, seeks to redeem himself (if not actually do any good for the hobbit lads) by fighting approximately twelve bazillion orcs, the audience forgives him his moment of weakness. When the lead Orc, looking down at the helpless Boromir while he does his St. Sebastian impression, decides to shoot him in the face, the audience muttered, “Please somebody cut that bastard’s head off.” And when Aragorn appeared a moment later to do just that–with no little difficulty–we cheered.
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Okay, so I hate this movie with the heat of a thousand novas. But it boasts not one but two kick-ass nick-of-time entrances. The first is Samwise confronting Shelob as she is preparing her hobbit shikabob with nothing but love, an elvish sword, and the words, “Let him go, you filth. You will not touch him again.” The second is Eowyn standing up to the Witch-King armed only with love, a rohirric sword, and the words, “Begone, foul dwimmerlaik!”
(Yes, I know she said something else entirely in the movie. But I can only get through ROTK by completely rewriting the dialogue in my head and pretending that the Mouth of Sauron scene was a drunken hallucination of Gimli’s.)
I enjoyed Neo swooping in the save the day in the second Matrix movie. It capped off an awesome 15 minute chase sequence and you gotta love Tank’s (I think it was Tank) reaction.
A quick literary one: in Njal’s Saga one of our protagonists (I didn’t pay too much attention to the story) is in a battle at sea. Suddenly a bad-ass warrior accompanied by six ships full of men sails onto the scene. Bad-ass warrior says something cool like “Looks like you could use some help” and proceeds to beat back the bad guys.
Not exactly. I watched the extended edition because I was hoping desperately it would be better than the theatrical. Woe was I when I discovered that it was even worse and had to claw my own eyes out to get relief.
I thought that one too. It’s the best argument I know of for avoiding spoilers; I had no idea he was going to show up, and so was utterly blown away.
Back in the Angel-verse (and semi-hijacking my own thread), there’s the Angel episode in which he shows up at Holland Manners’ house just as Darla and Drusilla are about to chow down. The W&H lawyers look up and think, “Oh my god, I’m actually glad that Angel’s hear.”
Then when he closes the door and locks it, there’s a very abbreviated, “oh, crap!”
Han Solo’s appearance (in the Millenium Falcon) at the Battle Of Yavin has to be the gold standard against which all other nick-of-time entrances must be measured.
A distant second–but still good–is the appearance of
Angel in Season 7’s End of Days. Just as Buffy’s about to get her booty cleaved in two by Caleb, his pet rage and that shiny scythe, Angel pops in to say, “Hey.” And then clocks Caleb a good’un.
The surprise was only ruined by the endlessly-run previews for that episode. Giles was better because you simply had no idea.
Mmm, YEAH. I’m not usually very vocal when watching the teevee, unless I’m laughing, but I watched that episode for the first time with my family, and all four of us started hollering “YEAH! WOO-HOO! GO GILES! RIP 'EM!” when he showed up.
The scene in** Resevior Dogs** where Mr. Orange fills Mr. Blonde full of lead right as he’s about to burn the cop to death. Particulary since Mr. Orange was passed out on the floor the last time you saw him.
The scene in **Saving Private Ryan ** when the reinforcements arrive at the bridge, just it appears everyone is going to be overrun.
The scene in the Season 2 Finale of 24 where
Jack is down because of a heart condition, out of ammo and about to be killed. Then the long-awaited SWAT team arrives and kills the bad guy
Except that I expected that to happen. IMHO, the best 24 nick-of-timer was this past season:Jack and Audrey are pinned down by the enemy gunman, when suddenly Tony appears out of nowhere and shoots the bad guy dead.I did not see that one coming!
My money’s on the Angel ep “Provider” which has no less that three nick of time entrances in the final fight sequence. Lorne’s tied up and Fred is about to be decapitated. First Cordy shows, carrying a baby, to tray and talk down the sitch, that doesn’t work and it looks like the four of them will die, Wes and Gunn show up, save Fred and Kill the baddie lead, and are about to be overwhelmed by the minions, so the six of them are about to die, when Angel crashes through a skylight and saves the day.
Oh and thanks for spoiling “Two to go”. There’s about nine Buffy episodes I haven’t seen…
Aliens. Small but feisty child in imminent peril from giant slavering alien. Where is our heroine when we need her most? Door slides open to reveal Ripley wearing a fucking great fork-lift truck: “Get away from her, you bitch!” I saw that in the cinema when it first came out, and I have never heard an audience cheer so loudly.
A close second in that movie is Ash’s seat-of-the-pants arrival by spaceship as the factory collapses and the alien in the elevator is almost at the top. No! He’s run out on them - the cad! Wait- what’s this? Can it be? Hurrah for the gallant android! Now that was nick of time.
Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels, but one of my all time favorite moments from them (or rather, one of the few moments that are actually enjoyable), is when Yoda appears after Dooku has taken care of Obi-Wan and double light-sabred Anakin. The audience I saw it with made the moment for me, with cheers breaking out as soon as the familiar cane tapping and wheezing was heard.
If we’re going with RotK, I nominate the scene with the Corsairs of Umbar at the mouth of the river: Aragorn, flanked only by Legolas and Gimli, tells the captain to bog off quick smart or he’ll regret it, to much pirate mirth and the inevitable riposte “Oh, yeah? You and whose army?” Then the Army of the Dead swarm out of the hill and onboard in all their decayed green glory. Totally uncanonical, but a fantastic piece of cinema.
When Orange shoots Blonde it’s so completely out of the blue. When Blonde gets shot your jaw drops and when the camera shot cuts to Orange on the floor still pulling the trigger even though his clip is empty, you cheer.