Best and worst at the same time? Tom Cruise at the end of Far and Away. He’s basically dead, his spirit is floating above his body, and only Nicole Kidman’s loving exhortations bring him back. Worst because of how cheesy it is, best because it fulfills the romance novel formula that movie followed.
Appleseed immediately came to mind, though I’m not sure how well this fits into the confines on this thread. Main issue was the death scene itself was horrid. Horrid horrid horrid. Back acting, bad animation, it just sucks balls. I’d like to erase that scene from my memory (I don’t even think the movie is all that good, but this is way worse than the rest of it). The ‘oh he’ll be fine’ portion of it is kinda cheesy too. I wish the director would’ve just made that section into something less dramatic, the entire thing is wrong.
That reminds me of a good “worst” one: Neo, in The Matrix. He dies in the real world, and gets brought back to life by True Love? Uh uh, sorry, that’s too much Deus Ex for my Machina.
Juliet is one of the worst–Romeo couldn’t tell she was breathing?
The Last Starfighter - Centauri rips his mask off so triumphantly! I love that scene.
I don’t think he was brought back to life by “true love”. He survived his death in the matrix because he was “the one”. Trinity’s speech about being in love with him was incidental.
Couldn’t her family or at least, the undertaker, tell she was alive?
“Juliet, it’s time to get up and get dressed for your wedding. Juliet? Juliet? Madame! Madame, come quickly!”
“What is it?”
“Juliet is just lying there, and won’t wake up!”
They both look down at the breathing, warm and non-rigored form. “Well, fuck. Looks like she’s dead. Somebody call the cemetary, and, oh, let the groom know we’re changing from a one o’clock wedding to a two o’clock funeral.”
I still don’t like to think about that one. I watched the movie by myself in the dark and I swear my skin jumped an inch off the rest of me. That’s only happened twice to me - evidently I was also the only person in the whole wide world who didn’t know about the surprise at the end of Carrie.
Totally agree. Not just because it’s not that well done, but because it’s so unnecessary and silly. Jackson knew probably at least 50% of his audience knew the story and wouldn’t be the least bit surprised so it makes the logic behind it all the more dumbfounding.
God I fucking hate that scene. Jackson would be well served to divorce himself from those hacks he writes with.
Best: River Tam in Serenity. I thought it was a given that she would lose her life fighting the Reavers, but when that door opens up and there she is… it gives me shivers every time.
I hadn’t ever read the books, but I immediately thought, “He’ll be back.”
Raises a question of who opened the door, though. None of the Serenity crew did, and if it was River, that means she hit the button and then hustled into that dramatic backlit pose.
As with many things science-fictiony, though, the reasoning is simple: because it looks cool.
The worst ‘not-really-death’ scene of all time is, hands down, the end of The Faculty.
Kill the queen Alien and all the teachers are back to normal?? Even the one that got her head chopped off?? WTF???
That reminds me of Soapdish: We need to bring your character back. --But I was beheaded! The audience saw my head leave my body… /vague memory of the dialogue
However, it did lead to the great shot of a restored Jon Stewart waving to a student, and still missing several fingers that got hacked off earlier.
That movie still gets bonus stupid points for the character who explains that she’s not really a lesbian, she just pretended to be one because “it was easier.” Because being gay in high school is such a fuckin’ cakewalk. :rolleyes:
I’m willing to believe it had something to do with the Alliance soldiers arriving at the base. Maybe they hit some kind of master door override switch when they got there. But yeah, it looked so cool, who cares. 
I’ll nominate any of the several apparent deaths in The Big Hit. Hint: in this universe, explosions are almost never lethal.
But we expected that, it was never “seeming death.”
It is possible to make that work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Nemo
Well, as far as dying and coming back on a consistant basis, nobody beats Casey and Andy .