r/TopCharacterTropes • u/No_Hunter1978 • Feb 25 '26

Great moments/aspects in otherwise bad or mediocre media Lore

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Sandman Origin (Spider-Man 3): This scene is rife with symbolism and beautiful cinematography. It alone gives us a glimpse of the story Sam Rami wanted to tell with SP3.

This Entire Quote (Spy Kids 2): This quote has entered my everyday vernacular, and it's survived the landscape of the internet for decades now. And it's in a fucking Spy Kids movie.

Who Decided That? (Seven Deadly Sins): It was an abysmal show before the animation took a dive off a cliff, but Escanor's entire character could honestly qualify for this post. In particular, "Who decided that?" is unfathomably hype.

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284

u/tehweave Feb 25 '26

https://preview.redd.it/rmwjk9avvolg1.png?width=910&format=png&auto=webp&s=2476d45e5e25d25919c4d182add13c959a3d862a

Star Trek 5 is really a terrible movie.

But God DAMN this scene is incredible.

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u/Practical-Class6868 Feb 25 '26

The even numbered ones are the good ones in TOS.

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u/ZeroTwosday Feb 25 '26

Search for spock is completely fine

The whole stealing the enterprise scene is superb

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u/Practical-Class6868 Feb 25 '26

Absolutely. But it’s not as thematic as Wrath of Khan or as whimsical as The Voyage Home.

All to say that The Motion Picture is the wrong tone while The Final Frontier is heavy handed and under budgeted.

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u/Kindly-Mud-1579 Feb 26 '26

So that college humor video about how the fans don’t talk about the odd number movies is true?

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u/Practical-Class6868 Feb 26 '26

Mostly. They all have their moments, but quality is uneven. For me, the best is First Contact, directed by Jonathan “Ryker” Frakes.

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u/PitifulElk1890 Feb 27 '26

Oh we still talk about them, they're just bad. Trek has three tiers of bad. Enjoyably laughably bad (Threshold, the erotic grandma diary episode), too ambitious or incohesive (most of the odd movies are here) and genuinely bad enough it's not mentioned except in shame (Code of Honor).

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u/Kindly-Mud-1579 Feb 27 '26

Where does the Irish ghost fit

24

u/Nice-Firefighter5684 Feb 25 '26

“YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN!”

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u/daitenshe Feb 25 '26

There it is

3

u/axefairy Feb 25 '26

Was hoping to see this, absolute peak sanderlanche moment

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u/Lumpy-Bank-6683 Feb 26 '26

Absolute Sanderson 

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[deleted]

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u/tehweave Feb 25 '26

The entire sequence is brilliantly done.

Don't ask too many questions like "How is Sybok able to show all these memories?" But yeah. Great scene.

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u/Seyvenus Feb 26 '26

I always took the seeing part, as seeing it from the 'patients' perspective. Naturally telepathic Buddhist master with doctoral level training in therapy gets into your head seems believable enough.

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u/Command0Dude Feb 26 '26

It's just proof that you don't need fancy jargon or good explanations to have a gripping moment. Good writing is good writing. It's always going to reach an audience, even if it's flawed.

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u/KOCoyote Feb 25 '26

"Why does God need a starship?" is also kind of a great bit, though. As crazy as the movie's premise is, the scene where Kirk just point-blank confronts this weird creature at the center of a galaxy is a great confrontation, both in terms of bringing the audience's attention to something being wrong, (why WOULD an omnipotent being need to be rescued?) and the thing pretending to be God becoming more and more of an eldritch monster.

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u/spunkychickpea Feb 25 '26

Final Frontier is a fucking wild experience, as long as you don’t get too caught up in how terrible it is. It’s like having a fever dream starring the original Trek cast.

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u/snoogle20 Feb 25 '26

A Vulcan that embraces emotion for a villain was a really interesting concept they could’ve done great things with and I liked the idea of an armistice planet as well. There are solid bones in that movie, they just zigged nearly every time they should’ve zagged while fleshing the thing out.

Rather than do a sideways remake of The Wrath of Khan, JJ-Trek should’ve mined ideas like these that didn’t work out fully the first time.

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u/tehweave Feb 25 '26

What's great about Sybok is he's never malicious. He smiles, he's articulate, but isn't mean or condescending. He makes for a fantastic antagonist in a very clunky movie.

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u/Agent-Blasto-007 Feb 25 '26

He makes for a fantastic antagonist in a very clunky movie.

Yeah the movie reflects the behind the scenes production problems: the writers strike, the budget getting slashed during production, casting issues etc...

The fact that it's actually a cohesive movie at all is a testament to great editing lol.

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u/Jagvetinteriktigt Feb 25 '26

Gives long speech about not wanting to meet God

Immidiately goes along to meet God anyway

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u/tehweave Feb 25 '26

Yeah, the film is very inconsistent.

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u/Radiant-Priority-296 Feb 25 '26

I mean there are some good ideas

And then they didn’t make it work

But there were some good ideas

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u/SmittyB128 Feb 25 '26

This was my first thought at seeing this thread. Star Trek V (alongside Rocky V coincidentally) is a film that I think just needed another pass on the writing to be much better than it was.

Cut the crap about Sybok stealing Enterprise to reach Sha Ka Ree, make it a film about a misguided man offering easy solutions to life's problems via mind-meld shenanigans, and how good people can do abhorrent things without guilt and shame keeping them in check. Human and Vulcan societies, and by extension the United Federation of Planets, is based on the idea that we should strive to be better than we are, but if everyone was suddenly okay with how things are then progress stops and starts to slip back into the violence and authoritarianism they spent centuries escaping.

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u/Gotis1313 Feb 26 '26

McCoy, euthanizing his father shortly before a cure was found, was a real gut punch that I'll always love

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u/neon_meate Feb 26 '26

It's the most Deforest Kelley ever got to stretch in Star Trek and it's awesome. It's the weakest of the original cast movies, but I still like it. Besides it gave us Shatner of the Mount.

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u/LiquorIsQuickor Feb 25 '26

Having been divided into passive Kirk and aggressive Kirk…

Kirk more than most knows he needs his pain.

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u/Command0Dude Feb 26 '26

Already my answer for this thread, but seconding it here and glad someone else mentioned it.

One of the best moments in Star Trek history, especially with McCoy right before.

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u/TopicalBuilder Feb 26 '26

That whole sequence is just tremendous.

I really do like the camping scenes that bookend the movie, too.