There’s a fairly common scene in movies where something is happening near a precipice and then something appears.
Examples would be the dropship scene near the end of Aliens, Arnie in the Harrier in True Lies and the Serenity appearing near the start of one episode of Firefly. But it’s not always a rescue scene: it could be a monster or other enemy appearing. There’s usually clear foreshadowing, so it’s not a Deus Ex Machina.
Which trope is this?
I don’t know if it has a name (although it ALMOST surely does). “Chekhov’s game-changer?”
Upon reflection, I feel that my submission is flawed, as it doesn’t require any opportunities for potentially lethal falls.
Another example is when Marty is arguing with Biff and decides to jump off the building (killing himself), only to rise back up because the DeLorean was right there behind him. I tried searching the BttF pages and couldn’t find it and went to the True Lies page and found one called “Surprise Vehicle”. Clicking on it and going to that TVTropes page, what do I see…Marty standing on the DeLorean.
ETA, Serenity, True Lies and Alien are all mentioned in this trope.
The problem there is that to us, the audience, it’s not a surprise. We know Bishop is getting the dropship. We see Arnie commandeer the Harrier. We see Serenity rile the Reaver fleet. We see the muster of Rohan.
I think you are thinking of the wrong Firefly reference, Quartz - not from the movie Serenity, from the episode* The Train Job*: the “Every man there go back inside, or we will blow a new crater in this little moon” scene. Which was a surprise.
Don’t forget about the scene at the very beginning of* Star Trek: Into Darkness*, where the Enterprise just pops up out of the water in front of the cliff. We didn’t know that one was coming.
Umm… no; it was deliberate. I used the movie reference in my second post and the Train Job one in my first.
OK, fair enough.