Gurgi in Disney’s animated The Black Cauldron.
It teaches us something very important: if you’re going to “tragically” kill a character, it’s best not to use a character that the audience would like to see die. Like 84.9% of all animated comic relief characters.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to make a moving, sympathetic, “jeez, now I feel like a heel for wanting him dead” death for an unsympathetic character…but by god, you have to do a lot better than The Black Cauldron did.
Kurt Russell chewing up the scenery on the medevac helicopter in Backdraft–“You’re my brother, man! You’re my brother!” (No, actually he’s Alec Baldwin’s brother. ‘Cause’ he didn’t once get into character during the entire movie.)
And this next one might actually belong in the “best” thread, but I’m not sure. In the typical fashion of the Director-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, it’s horrible and ridiculous and wonderful all at the same time. I’m speaking of the demise of poor Emile in Robocop. Crash! Into a barrel of toxic waste that just happens to be sitting there clearly labeled. Woosh! The bright green toxic waste floods the van. Aaaaugh! He’s melting! He’s melting! Limping around like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. “Help me, Clarence! Help me!” Splat! Hit by the car and explodes.
I’m all about the “extend the joke past the point of funniness to make it even more funnier” bit but his death scene didn’t come close. It was long and drawn out and pointless and its long drawn our pointlessness didn’t make it funny, There’s comedy death scene and then there’s “bring the movie to a grinding halt so you can show off” and Pee-Wee’s Big Stake-thriugh-the-heart definitely was the latter.
Nobody is going to make me believe there’s a more ridiculous death scene than Elvis in his first movie Love Me Tender which must be seen and endured for its idiocy. It’s like the costume people sewed scorpions in his pants or had the ground where he was lying covered in fire ants.
That one scene convinced me I didn’t need to see any more Elvis movies.
You, too? I’m amazed the same death is being hailed as great in the other thread. It was so ridiculously dragged out I was rooting from him to die, already.
If the orcs were this inefficient at killing just one guy, I couldn’t view them as a serious threat on any level.
There’s a hilarious death in Halloween II. It’s still Halloween night, and a guy is wandering around the neighborhood in a mask very similar to Michael Myers’, but is not himself Michael Myers. I can’t remember all the details, but he gets hit by a car and sandwiched between said car and a van. Then the van explodes, burning him to death. He just flops over onto the car hood like a puppet and the timing of these events is cut for comedy rather than action/horror. Psychiatrist Donald Pleasance and a local policeman (maybe the sheriff) see this happen, and run over to verify that Myers is dead. They realize it isn’t Myers at all, so they…get back in their police car and drive off, leaving a dead masked teenager and the driver of the car there with the raging inferno. That’s some great policework there.
This is one of the only good scenes in that movie, and is featured on the cover of the DVD. 
WAG: Sure. Don’t forget that the Renaissance natives (especially among the royal elite) had poisoning down to an exact science, and–most importantly–she was sweating profusely in the dress. Joe Fiennes had her up against the wall before she died, the dress would’ve stuck to her skin, she could’ve easily absorbed several ‘hits’ of poison.
But Boromir was not just some random guy. He was the heir to the stewardship of Gondor and had been killing orcs since he was old enough to hold a sword. He was also descended from the last remenants of the Numenoreans, a race of supermen that the gods of Middle Earth had largely exterminated thousands of years before when they had the temerity to try to conquer heaven. He and Aragorn are probably the two most lethal human beings on the planet at this point. Plus he knows that if the orcs get their hands on The Ring, his kingdom, his family, and everything he loves and holds dear will be utterly destroyed. Under the circumstances the amount of damage that it takes to bring him down is totally believeable.
Boromir’s death is one of the best deaths in movie history. His final words to Aragorn where he acknowledges that Aragorn is the rightful heir to the throne that Boromir has always considered to be his own … powerful stuff.
Now Jon Voigt’s death in *Anaconda * … that was a sucky movie death. He gets swallowed, regurgitated, and mugs for the camera before finally croaking.
I don’t remember, did Will Ferrell’s Character in Austin Powers ever actually die – that is the funniest bit in the whole series (that and Rob Lowe’s impression of Robert Wagner). “I think I may be all right, yes, I’m fine. Can someone let me out. Aiiiiieeeeee!”
or something like that. Hilarious.
Book details that didn’t get into the movie don’t count. If such external detail is needed to explain a weakness in the movie; the movie failed on this point.
I’m not quite a card-carrying Tolkien geek, but I have looked over the membership packet more than once. Boromir’s death wasn’t supposed to make the orcs look inefficient, but rather to show that Boromir was one seriously tough SOB. A great deal of the apparent supernatural aspect of this toughness as orc arrow pincushion came from the power of redemption from being tested by the ring, nearly failing, and then realizing his mistake and working to amend it.
Peter Jackson was unable to capture this nuance on film being more interested in other aspects of the story, so I can see that if the movies are your only window into Tolkien’s world, then yep - - die already, dammit.
And now that I’ve finally hit submit after having to do some work and not checking preview for other comments: what Pochacco said.
I can’t believe Glenn Close’s death in Fatal Attraction wasn’t the first cited.
The ridiculous B-slasher shock value of the crazed evil bitch, rising as if from the dead from her apparent strangulation in a bathtub full of water, brandishing an enormous knife, of course, has got to be the cheeziest thing ever foisted upon audiences as art in the history of cinema.
I’m voting for Padme.
As a L&D RN, I’ve NEVER seen a mom die after she knew her twins were born alive, naming them and then losing the will to live. Not from DIC, not from respiratory distress, not from the fact that she delivered twins that looked 12 pounds EACH. For NO medical reason. Her color loked great for a dying mom.
Jennifer Lopez in Jersey Girl dying in childbirth looked great, too. Radiant skin.
Cyn, OB/GYN RN, who knows women trying to die in childbirth look like sh!t.
The docs and I do not allow them to die for no medical reason.
Yep. IANADress Poisoner, but I’d rub the inside with datura leaves and stems. A datura overdose will kill you quite dramatically and it’s absorbable through the skin (but it’d take longer than that scene, and wouldn’t leave all that blood.) There’s lots of tales of “poisoned dresses”, many of them with shards of glass or bits of sharp metal sewn into the seams to work their way out and scratch the skin, letting the poisons into the blood.
But was that girl poisoned by that dress? No. There were people in her court whose job it was to examine gloves, handkerchiefs and articles of clothing given to her as gifts for poison, but none were ever found during her reign.
(Then again, Elizabeth was AT Robert Dudley’s wedding, so that bit about her not knowing he was married was pure fabrication, as were many of the things in that movie. Great movie, bad history.)
Whoa. :eek: They killed off Gurgi in the film version? That so didn’t happen in the book.
Mind you, he was irritating in the book as well.
Good one!
Let me show you my card…
I think Boromir is legitimately in both categories. His “best death ever” votes come largely from his dying words, but I can see how the pincushion / gasp, dang…that stings / ok, let’s whack another orc / scene can put off some viewers.
I always laugh at that blonde chick who dies early on. “Not like this. Not like this” then faint-dies. Gets me every time.
If you want ridiculous death scenes you gotta go with The Cheap Detective . Ridiculous does not necessarily mean bad. I love that stupid movie.
Also, any death in Gymkata, if anyone’s seen that. My absolute favorite B…make that D…movie. People get shot with arrows and you can see them just wedged under their armpit. Effing genius.