# The one scene that sullies an otherwise good film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 19, 2018, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599 "2018-09-19T20:35:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/21 "2018-09-21T14:15:20Z")
The title character’s [60’s-style ‘Charly Baby’ revolt](https://youtu.be/HWZG--3BIzc?t=3906)with motorbikes, women, and psychedelic shenanigans in _Charly_. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/22 "2018-09-21T15:03:41Z")
Here are the last two paragraphs of Roger Eberts’ [review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/thelma-and-louise-1991)of Thelma and Louise. He downgrades the movie from four stars to three and a half based entirely on the last seconds of the film: > [@Roger Ebert](#): > > I would have rated the movie at four stars, instead of three and a half, except for one shot, the last shot before the titles begin. This is the catharsis shot, the payoff, the moment when Thelma and Louise arrive at the truth that their whole journey has been pointed toward, and Scott and his editor, Thom Noble, botch it. It’s a freeze frame that fades to white, which is fine, except it does so with unseemly haste, followed immediately by a vulgar carnival of distractions: flashbacks to the jolly faces of the two women, the roll of the end credits, an upbeat country song. > > It’s unsettling to get involved in a movie that takes 128 minutes to bring you to a payoff that the filmmakers seem to fear. If Scott and Mount had let the last shot run an additional seven to ten seconds, and then held the fade to white for a decent interval, they would have gotten the payoff they deserved. Can one shot make that big of a difference? This one does. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/23 "2018-09-21T15:06:49Z")
The other one I always cite is in _Smokey and the Bandit_, where Jerry Reed’s character gets beaten up by bikers in a roadhouse, staggers out to his truck, grins evilly, and drives right over about ten parked bikes. Works great - except that he, a dead-broke good old boy trucker, flashes a full set of Hollywood-perfect teeth. Takes me out of the moment every time. (Although it was pointed out to me that he might well have a full set of dentures rather than immaculately maintained natural teeth.) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/24 "2018-09-21T15:07:55Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > It’s not a whole scene, but there’s one camera shot that always bothers me at the end of **The Princess Bride**. Westley has killed Rugen and reunited with Inigo. When Buttercup jumps out the window into the waiting arms of Fezzik, there’s a shot of her jumping that’s just gorgeous; white dress billowing against the midnight dark sky. And then it cuts to a shot of Robin Wright’s face and it’s just painfully obvious that it was done on a soundstage with her pretending to fall and a fan blowing her hair. In a movie with so many great action pieces, that one clumsy shot just jumps out at me every time. I always took that as one more silly wink-and-nod thing that pointed out that this was basically what a boy was imagining when his grandfather told him the story. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/25 "2018-09-21T15:15:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I always took that as one more silly wink-and-nod thing that pointed out that this was basically what a boy was imagining when his grandfather told him the story. That is an interesting thought. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/26 "2018-09-21T15:25:32Z")
[Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Space_Force:_The_Wings_of_Honn%C3%AAamise) is a fantastic anime movie, but it’s ruined by a scene where the main character attempts to rape a young woman, and the woman forgives him. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/27 "2018-09-21T15:53:29Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Even when watching _Pulp Fiction_ the first time while in the theater, I wanted… needed… to fast-forward through the taxi cab scene with Bruce Willis and the cab driver. Worth it to hear the cab driver speak. Her accent is hot. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/28 "2018-09-21T16:18:12Z")
I’ve mentioned this in other threads, but I’ve always hated the final scene in _The Last Emperor_ with the tourist throngs swarming the Forbidden City and a tour guide’s two sentence summary of Pu Yi’s life. They really should have ended the movie with the previous scene, where Pu Yi give the little boy his old cricket cage, a cricket magically emerges from the cage, and the boy looks around to see that Pu Yi has disappeared. They could have replaced the tourist scene with a fade to black and a note telling us when Pu Yi died. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/29 "2018-09-21T17:00:01Z")
> [@Sloe\_Moe](#): > > Jaws - death of Quint. Really can a shark eat you with half its body out of the water? Agree–the fakeness of that scene broke the whole tension of the movie for me. A shark that size would have just bitten him in half, not munched on him like he was going over an ear of corn. And the mechanical shark was just not that convincing. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/30 "2018-09-21T17:32:06Z")
The scene in Predator where Mac (the black guy with a shaved head) takes the chaingun and fires into the jungle. Another scene involves Dutch plunging into a lake. Both of those scenes have a rough look to them, like they’re a documentary shot on 16mm. I’m not sure why they look that way or why they were kept given how much their shoddiness contrasts with the rest of the extraordinary movie. Both Predator and The Thing have a short scene at the beginning where we see a spaceship approaching earth. It would be much better if the makers (likely the producers) had trusted the audience a little. Keeping ambiguity at the beginning as to whether the villain is an alien or demonic would have made those movies better. A missed opportunity in Terminator 2 would have been to make the T-800 kill people until he meets John Connor. There’s no reason for the T-800 not to act exactly as it did in T1. Since the T-800 has a character arc involving being humanized by JC, starting him off less humane would have created more contrast between the start and end of his character arc and reinforced his journey. Seeing the T-800 kill people while not seeing the T-1000 kill people until they meet would have also strengthened the twist about the T-800 being good this time. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/31 "2018-09-21T17:47:17Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Worth it to hear the cab driver speak. Her accent is hot. Yeah I don’t love the scene, I think I was sufficiently distracted by that too. The anal rape scene is one I could have done without. I guess it’s important though to get Butch on somewhat balanced terms with Marcellus. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/32 "2018-09-21T18:25:05Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > Any scene with Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” I think there are only two or three but they are painfully cringeworthy and they ruin the entire film. Just what I came in to post. Gahhh. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/33 "2018-09-21T19:16:09Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > A missed opportunity in Terminator 2 would have been to make the T-800 kill people until he meets John Connor. There’s no reason for the T-800 not to act exactly as it did in T1. Since the T-800 has a character arc involving being humanized by JC, starting him off less humane would have created more contrast between the start and end of his character arc and reinforced his journey. Seeing the T-800 kill people while not seeing the T-1000 kill people until they meet would have also strengthened the twist about the T-800 being good this time. I agree with this. It always annoyed me that he didn’t kill everyone in the bar to get his clothes. He killed the dudes in the first movie to get clothes, why not this one? Did it have to do with the different ratings each film got? ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/34 "2018-09-21T20:53:13Z")
I enjoyed **Watchmen** more than most people on the Internet, but that sex scene to “Hallelujah” - yikes. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/35 "2018-09-21T21:23:06Z")
_The Great Escape_ could have done without the scenes of the Americans making moonshine. > [@Slash1972](#): > > Worth it to hear the cab driver speak. Her accent is hot. Everything about her was hot! ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/36 "2018-09-21T21:39:11Z")
Speaking of Pulp Fiction, for me it was when Quentin Tarrentino was onscreen. He wasn’t a believable character in that universe. And using the N-word is not edgy, it’s just sad coming from him. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/37 "2018-09-21T21:51:28Z")
> [@campp](#): > > Speaking of Pulp Fiction, for me it was when Quentin Tarrentino was onscreen. > > He wasn’t a believable character in that universe. And using the N-word is not edgy, it’s just sad coming from him. It’s ruined because it should have been Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi could have sold that dialog, Tarentino can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reindeer_flotilla/32/3024_2.png) [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reindeer_Flotilla)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/38 "2018-09-21T22:55:14Z")
I’ll nominate the Liam Neeson remorse scene near the end of _Schindler’s List_. I get that people may like the scene and/or feel it was a necessary release of Schindler’s angst building through the film, but to me it stops the movie in its tracks at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. It’s completely against Schindler’s character as portrayed throughout the story and it’s unnecessarily maudlin when so much effort had been put into the story to communicate the horror at a more personal level. The movie had just spent 2 brilliant hours appealing to the audience’s intelligence to show the Holocaust’s impact in a visceral way I’ve never before experienced, and suddenly everything stops so we can have something explained to us that we had just learned in case we didn’t get it. I found it jarring and it pulled me out of the story right at its culmination. IMHO, of course. Admittedly it doesn’t help that the movie set a high enough bar that any scene less than perfect is going to stand out! ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/39 "2018-09-21T23:14:16Z")
> [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](#): > > I’ll nominate the Liam Neeson remorse scene near the end of _Schindler’s List_. I get that people may like the scene and/or feel it was a necessary release of Schindler’s angst building through the film, but to me it stops the movie in its tracks at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. > > It’s completely against Schindler’s character as portrayed throughout the story and it’s unnecessarily maudlin when so much effort had been put into the story to communicate the horror at a more personal level. The movie had just spent 2 brilliant hours appealing to the audience’s intelligence to show the Holocaust’s impact in a visceral way I’ve never before experienced, and suddenly everything stops so we can have something explained to us that we had just learned in case we didn’t get it. I found it jarring and it pulled me out of the story right at its culmination. > > IMHO, of course. Admittedly it doesn’t help that the movie set a high enough bar that any scene less than perfect is going to stand out! Having the little girl (and the lighting of the candle near the end) be colorized really pissed me off. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2018, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599/40 "2018-09-22T05:59:22Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I agree with this. It always annoyed me that he didn’t kill everyone in the bar to get his clothes. He killed the dudes in the first movie to get clothes, why not this one? Did it have to do with the different ratings each film got? I always figured he - I mean **It!** **It** - was programmed in the future by John Connor himself. Probably directed to kill only when absolutely necessary. Or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-scene-that-sullies-an-otherwise-good-film/821599.md?page=3)