Hello readers and friends.
It has been a long time, I figure the last thing you want to hear from someone who hasn’t spoken to you in a while is ‘goodbye’ but here’s the thing, I haven’t had anything to say.
I know crazy right? Someone actually admitting they don’t have anything worthwhile to say so they don’t, and I haven’t. I could tell you the reason why I haven’t said anything in over a year, about how I expect to be let down when I go to the movies, but I won’t. I could tell you about how I fully embraced the memes and discontent with ‘Cape Crap,’ because honestly how many times can you watch the same movie with different characters, but I won’t.
And speaking of, I know you all know about the upcoming Avengers Infinity Wars and then Avengers 4 slated to come out in 2019 where they are rumored to kill off a good deal of the current cast sending flurries of excitement through the ranks of fangirls and boys alike…(groan…sigh).
I will not be one of those people, because I don’t care. These characters are two dimensional at best, their deaths like their arrival will be met with raucous fan fair and tears shed by many, but in a few months will anyone remember? Or care? I don’t think so.
So, in honor of the coming demise of this generation’s …heroes… I take a look back at some famous deaths and goodbyes to some of my favorite characters and heroes. Some you will most certainly remember, others might be a bit more obscure, but these on-screen deaths still resonate with me and you can see their influence in a lot of the movies you watch today and you may see shadows of them in the coming years.
So sit back, grab a box of tissues and get ready to relive some of my favorite deaths and goodbyes of heroes and characters.
Terminator 2 Judgement day: T-800
I mean what can you say? After all these years it still gets me. It has it all, the reconciliation between the machine and the human. Sarah finds a respect for the machine that has haunted her and plagued her nightmares for years. The sacrifice of the hero to ensure a future where there is no war, giving hope to Sarah and John. Even the thumbs up at the end, it has been parodied and laughed at for the cheesiness of it. But here, it’s solemn and genuine. The music is great and the moment has stayed with me for all this time.
For all you Marvel and DC fans out there, this is how you do it. 😉 Feel free to take notes from what was once one of the great movie makers of all time.
Equilibrium: Partridge
This is an archetypal scene where a future hero kills his best friend in the name of honor and duty to an evil State or lord that he’s sworn fealty to. If you haven’t seen Equilibrium, it really is a good movie though some might find it a bit heavy handed on “symbolism”. I say it’s still better than a lot of movies that have covered the same subject matter.
Christian Bale who is using an emotional inhibitor drug called “Prozium” doesn’t feel anything, all he knows is that he is executing an enemy of the state and a criminal “sense offender”. This act will haunt John throughout the film and it is the catalyst for the greater story. A great death scene, one of many for Sean Bean.
Sean Bean really carries this scene. His quotation of Yeats and his attitude and body language. Sean Bean has done a lot of death scenes. I chose this one because of the poem and the solemn nature of the scene itself. It’s no accident that it takes place in a church. “But I being poor, I’ve only my dreams… tread softly for you tread on my dreams.” It’s a friend, asking another to not let the dream of freedom (in the context of the story it also means the freedom to feel and live as feeling human beings as they were meant to) die with him.
In Bruges: Ken
The first time I saw this movie this scene got to me so bad I must have replayed it over and over again at least five or six times. A lot of it had to do with the song “On Raglan Road”, by Luke Kelly. I had never heard it before this film and it just seems to fit so perfectly here.
For those of you who haven’t seen the film, Ken, played by Brendan Gleeson is climbing the bell tower so he can warn his friend Ray (Colin Farrell) that their boss is on his way to kill him. He grabs the gun and climbs the steps so he can beat his boss to Ray. he knows the fall will kill him but its the only way to get to Ray first and warn him.
This is a strange movie with its mood shifts and ups and downs maybe that’s why this scene has stayed with me for as long as it has. Its a strangely triumphant moment of ultimate defiance against death itself, giving one life to save another. Giving us one hell of a heroic death.
John Wick: Daisy
OK, we ALL know the story of the death of John Wick’s dog. One of the last things his dead wife was able to give him after she died from her illness. That’s why this messed John up so badly, not that it was just a dog, but because it was a piece of his dead wife, a lasting reminder of how much she loved him. This is a theme through out the movie and ultimately making this one of the saddest animal deaths in film (yes, even over Old Yeller for those of you who remember that movie).
The thing that makes it so sad is that Daisy does not have a quick death. We hear her get hit, but after the fade to black we see a blood trail on the floor leading to Daisy as she died in front of John. She suffered before she died. Old Yeller just got shot once and he died off screen, Daisy’s death is front and center for the audience.
Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan: Spock
One of the greatest friendships in the science fiction realm, Kirk, and Mr. Spock. It has been parodied, copied, and homaged. This is one of the great deaths in cinema history.
Spock has just sacrificed himself, exposing himself to lethal doses of radiation to save the Enterprise from the Genesis torpedo self-destruct detonation. What makes this scene so powerful is that Spock is one of the big three, the trinity of Star Trek, without Spock Star Trek doesn’t work. And audiences had to watch and live through him dying.
Fun fact, Paramount wasn’t planning on making another Star Trek, this was going to be the end of the franchise. Imagine if your favorite franchise ended on such a huge downer of a note. There would be internet rage the likes of which well..honestly I don’t know, but I can imagine it would be pretty bad. Like when Mass Effect 3 was first released with the crap ending, something like that only much bigger.
This was averted at the very end as the audience is treated to the famous opening lines from the Star Trek TV show, “Space, the final frontier…” voiced by Leonard Nimoy.
This is scene is so iconic that the hack job that calls itself a movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, shamelessly copied this scene almost verbatim in order to tap into those nostalgic and powerful memories among the fans. Afterward, you can watch Family Guy’s parody of Spock’s funeral, with Stewie sending Ruppert off in the torpedo tube, to wash the taste out of your mouth. It’s funny and tastefully done, at least as tastefully as a parody can be done.
Flight of Dragons: Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe
Here is an animated death scene that belongs up there with the great hero sacrifices of all time.
The knight, Sir Orrin looks around him and see’s his fallen comrades. He is alone at last, looking up at a powerful dragon that has been magically augmented by his owner Ommadon. Sir Orrin knows he’s going to die but in the face of hopelessness he takes his sword and swears an oath to his sword that they will kill one last time before he dies. He faces a blast of dragon fire and sends his sword into Bryagh’s heart and the evil dragon is consumed by his own dragon’s fire and dies.
This is courage. Knowing that you are going to die before you even start but doing what must be done anyway. Also a very archetypal death, the heroe’s sacrifice. And that’s why it still strikes achordd with me, also his oath just sounds so bad ass, “Blade with whom I have lived, blade with whom I now die…” Who doesn’t feel a surge of emotion hearing something like that. Especially since he meant every word and fulfills his promise.
Star Wars: Obi Wan
Maybe a bit overdone perhaps, but this death started it all for a lot of children of the 70’s and 80’s. Obi Wan sacrificing himself because he knows he can’t defeat Vader. So he lets Vader kill him in cold blood and he becomes one with the force so he can continue to mentor Luke.
In the EU and I use that term carefully, this would be the book universe before The New Jedi Order. The last book written in this particular epoch would have been the two book series by Timothy Zahn, “Specter of the Past”, and “Visions of the Future”. In one book called, “The New Rebellion” Luke faces a similar situation as Obi Wan. He is facing a former student who has turned to the dark side.
During the fight, Luke feels all the guilt, the sorrow, and fear that millions of people have died because he failed his student. Because of this, during the fight, Luke grows weaker, and his dark side infused former student grows stronger. Luke was on the verge of sacrificing himself in a similar vein to Obi Wan, but was saved and his former student was defeated.
No such luck for Obi Wan though as he is cut down by Vader, only to live on through the force and make appearances in the next two films in the original and really only Star Wars Trilogy worth mentioning.
Superman: Lois Lane
Let’s face it, there have been a lot of deaths in the DC and Marvel comics universes over the years, Barry Allen, Bruce Wayne, hell, even Superman himself gets taken out by Doomsday, an event that sent shock waves through the comic fandom for months. Of course, DC couldn’t keep Superman dead for long but when “The Death of Superman” came out it disturbed a lot of people.
But here a decade and a half before Superman’s comic book death, we got the immortal Richard Donner film. And we see here another example of “all those things I can do, all those powers, and I couldn’t even save him”.
You see how hurt Superman is, the pain and anguish but that all turns to rage and a bone chilling roar before he flies off.
There have been a number of times a hero has to bury a loved one, there have been very good performances, and some pretty bad ones. But this one doesn’t feel like I’m watching a performance. Lois Lane is dead and this is Superman really reacting to that loss, its not acting, this is a reality. And that’s why this scene stands head and shoulder’s above a lot of similar scenes in other movies.
The Thing: MacReady
I have only included this particular death scene out of a number of horror movies. MacReady has just blown up the Thing with a stick of Dynamite and now their Antarctica Camp site has been blown to hell as well. There’s no shelter from the oncoming cold.
MacReady simply sits down and see’s that he’s not the only survivor. Childs (Keith David) walks up and tells him that they’re pretty much screwed because there’s no shelter and the fire from the various explosions wont last. He assures MacReady that he hasn’t been changed by the Thing. MacReady just smiles and says, “Why don’t we just sit here awhile…see what happens.”
This is another one of those hero moments. He knows he doesn’t have anything left. If Childs is part of the Thing he can’t do anything about it, but he’s done everything he can, he’s got nothing left. I choose to believe that the Thing was killed even though both MacReady and Childs dies, at least they saved the planet from an alien takeover/ infection.
Of course if you were a fan of Spoony (Noah Antwiler) then you know they made a video game that I suppose is canon and (Spoiler Alert) when you beat the game MacReady fly’s you out of Antarctica in his helicopter. I choose not to buy that crap though. MacReady died a hero’s death defeating the evil that had to be killed, even though in doing so he created the circumstances for his own death.
Top Gun: Goose
This is a popular motif in a lot of movies. We see a similar thing in Days of Thunder except then the friend doesn’t die he’s just sick and can’t race anymore.
But here we see the tragic death of a friend in what is essentially a training accident. The military is hard, and accidents happen. The fact that Top Gun is willing to add that to its story and make this a defining moment for Maverick must have struck a deep chord with a lot of military people.
Top Gun is a seminal film and I believe that this death and the scene that shows it is a big reason for it’s success and longevity.
Braveheart: Father
I could have shown a hundred different scenes of parental character’s deaths. I mean Bambi’s mom is practically a internet meme, the mention of her is synonymous with dying. Who didn’t shed a tear a two when Littlefoot’s mom died after her battle with Sharptooth, in The Land Before Time? Johnathan Kent from Superman was a very poignant death as I explained above.
But here its not just the death, it the final goodbye from his kinsmen and fellow Scotsmen. “Playing outlawed tunes, on outlawed pipes”. He died in a fight for Scottish freedom from the tyrannical control of England. This is such a powerful moment. That even in death he has inspired his countrymen to defy the law and hold to their values and traditions.
This is something not a whole lot of people are willing to do, a sign of courage in itself. That and the music itself is so powerful and moving on its own.
So, I know some heavy stuff. Death isn’t something that most people like to think about. It reminds us of our own frailty and mortality, the only guarantee in life is death. It’s something we all must face in the end. I do believe that when you die it reflects upon you as a person of how you have lived. I don’t intend to die alone and when it’s my time, I hope that I can show as much courage as some of these characters were able to convey in their final moments.
Till next time
Scherrer Madness 