10 Most Out Of Place Scenes In Sci-Fi Movie History

Australian Cinephile

Star Wars, Avengers, The Matrix - why did they have to go and include THAT?

Transcript

00:00From superheroes to deep space sagas, there are few places in the universe that science fiction

00:05cinema hasn't taken us. But sometimes even our favourite films take us places we didn't

00:10necessarily want to go. We can be watching along, happy as Larry Fishman, before a sudden shift in

00:17tone, plot, quality or character takes us out of things completely. I'm Jess from WhatCulture and

00:22here are the 10 most out of place scenes in sci-fi movie history.

00:2710. America Gets Torn Into

00:30Chappie Longtime Blomkamp collaborator Charlto Copley voices

00:35the titular character, a decommissioned enforcement robot and the first true AI, who falls in love

00:42with Di Antwoord of all people, reluctantly turning to a life of crime on the streets of Johannesburg.

00:49On this journey, America, one of Chappie's teachers and co-conspirators, teaches the young robot

00:54to wear bling, walk with an attitude and put people to sleep. At least until the third act

01:00that is, when Hugh Grant's villainous engineer, Vincent Moore, stomps him using his remote-controlled

01:06moose robot. In a sequence better suited to a Saw movie than this edgy yet frequently happy-go-lucky

01:13Genesis story, the moose grips America with a robot claw and tears him in half before splattering

01:20his torso on the building behind. Little in the film up until this point prepares you for such a grim

01:26and sudden death of a supporting character. Tonally, it doesn't match any of the action, emotion or visuals

01:32surrounding it and it leaves the audience reeling. The end of Chappie may bring the wholesomeness around

01:37again, but there's no denying how out of place this moment is.

01:419. Techno Diva Dance – The Fifth Element

01:4523rd century NYC cabbie Corbin Dallas teams up with Leeloo, the embodiment of the sacred

01:52fifth element to keep an ancient planet-eating cosmic force from destroying the world. Calamity ensues.

01:59While the film features many wild and wacky digressions, none are stranger than the space

02:04opera sequence. Corbin and Leeloo follow a quest for some sacred stones – just go with it – to a

02:10blue diva called Plava Laguna. But before they can reclaim it, they – and we – are forced to sit

02:16through an excruciating few minutes of space opera. Techno music kicks in, the diva throws some shapes,

02:23and the audience cringe from behind their fingers. The scene is awkward, uncomfortable and seriously out

02:29of place, which is saying a lot for a film with Chris Tucker's loud, flamboyant,

02:33intergalactic talk show host, going down on an air hostess during takeoff.

02:388. Tri-breasted Prostitute – Total Recall 1990

02:43Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Douglas Quaid, a construction worker whose memory implant

02:48fantasy of being a secret agent on a mission to Mars seems to be coming true, blurring the lines

02:54between fiction and reality. Along the way, he encounters many wonders of a technologically

02:59advanced yet persistently unequal society, but perhaps none more striking than a triple-breasted

03:05mutant prostitute. Played by Lycia Naff, the futuristic lady of the night is offered up to

03:11Arnie by her pimp, and she opens her blouse to show him the goods, laughing like Janice from Friends.

03:18Now far be it for us to poo-poo a bit of space nudity, but this scene feels shoehorned into the film.

03:23Unless there's a deeper, more artistic element at play that we're missing.

03:29...a bit of a bit of a weird, ostracized freaks or both.

03:38Naff came to regret taking the part as it left her feeling overexposed and deeply unsexy.

03:44And it isn't difficult to see why.

03:477. Elvis Shrine – Robocop 2

03:50Peter Weller returns to the streets of a dystopian Detroit as Alex Murphy,

03:55the eponymous robocop taking on crime boss kane and his designer drug-pushing nuke cult

04:02while also attempting to prevent psychologist dr juliet fax from creating another robocop

04:07using a death row inmate while pursuing kane robocop tracks his gang to a warehouse where

04:13he uncovers the skeleton of one elvis a presley in a glass case that's right the nuke cult have

04:21the remains of the king of rock and roll in their lair alongside pictures of mother teresa and

04:27deleted scenes reveal that they worship him as some kind of a god amusing though this is the scene

04:32doesn't make any sense how did they get him and why elvis we may never know number six jazz dancing

04:40emo peter spider-man 3 sam raimi may be back in the superhero fold with multiverse of madness but let's

04:47not forget the film that got him kicked out in the first place spider-man 3. despite the film's

04:53inability to control its characters and narrative flow it manages its tone fairly well at least until

04:59peter parker gets infected by the venom symbiote and things go a little odd he's so bad in fact he's

05:06going to dance in the street like your dad at a wedding buying a black suit and dancing on the

05:11pavement taking his girlfriend to a jazz club and dancing on the tables and generally dancing his way

05:17into our worst spidey related nightmares peter goes full cringe in a sequence that is unforgettable for

05:23all the wrong reasons sure this is raimi's humor down to a t but god damn it sam there's a time and

05:29a place did this scene sound the death knell for the series that's not for us to say but what we can

05:35say is that raimi was planning on making a fourth film and well that was 15 years and two additional

05:41spider-man ago number five macaroni cheese cheddar goblin mandy cage plays red miller a lumber worker

05:49whose girlfriend mandy is kidnapped and killed by a religious cult and who therefore must enact a

05:55campaign of brutal vengeance it's the 80s the world has an ominous neon glow and pretty much anything goes

06:02whether that be chainsaw jewels coke snorting demon bikers or a green goblin that projectile vomits

06:07macaroni cheese trust me this movie's really good though the creepy little green guy appears on

06:13television during a tense and crucial point in red's emotional journey treating two children to

06:19some macaroni chanda the scene is undeniably brilliant but it comes at a strange time right

06:25after red has watched his beloved burn to death in front of him and bears little resemblance to the

06:30rest of the film but no matter how out of place he is cheddar goblin will always have a seat at our table

06:36number four shoehorned joker the batman taking us back to batman's early days robert pattinson plays

06:44an unrefined junior bat who has lots of unresolved parent-based angst and only half a utility belt to

06:50help deal with it as his opposite paul dano is the riddler a genius in cell with a chaotic plan to raise

06:57gotham needless to say batman puts him in arkham and throws away the key but in one of the film's most

07:03jarring sequences riddler plays whispers with the inmate in the cell next door barry kogan's wonky

07:10toothed yokel joker the deleted scene of batman meeting joker goes a long way to explaining why

07:16the riddler joker scene exists in the first place but the very fact that they didn't include the

07:21former should have seen the impetus needed to nix the clown prince of crime's inclusion altogether

07:27as it stands the scene feels shoehorned in serving no purpose other than to tease lucrative sequel bait

07:34worse than that though it actually robs the riddler of some of his mystique and has him playing

07:38subservient second fiddle to a character who isn't even in the film number three girl power avengers

07:45endgame avengers endgame brought the infinity saga to a definitive close in 2019 bringing the entire

07:52roster of mc heroes back to our screens to defeat thanos while the earth's mightiest heroes triumphed

07:58the film also delivered with many characters we'd spent the previous decade growing to love

08:03including the original female avenger black widow thankfully unlike a decade ago there are plenty more

08:10well-developed female heroes to fill her shoes and nowhere is this more apparent than in the film's

08:15final battle against thanos unfortunately the best and brightest at disney and marvel got together and

08:21decided the only way to showcase this was to have all the major female characters to assemble in a

08:26row in the midst of battle trading lines to a swell of inspirational music host note here i actually

08:33love this scene but let's keep going what's intended to be a badass female affirming scene comes off as

08:40the cheesiest hammiest most manufactured moment the mcu films have ever brought us and that's saying a lot

08:46considering some of them rely almost solely on cheese gloss and soap opera drama to pad

08:51their runtime number two zion orgy rave the matrix reloaded the re-emergence of the matrix has of

08:58late sent many of us down memory lane revisiting 1999 stone-cold sci-fi classic and its sequels after

09:06some initial wall running and gunslinging to state fans is thirst for shiny leather action the free people

09:12of zion gather in an underground cavern so mc morpheus can kick off the biggest rave the world has ever seen

09:19probably thus ensues a mass of bodies bumping and grinding to some dirty beats intercut with neo

09:26and trinity getting jiggy with it the scene might better belong to train spotting or human traffic

09:32feeling at odds with the tone and broader content of the matrix films what possessed the wachowskis to

09:37include this goes beyond rational understanding perhaps one too many red pills number one flying space

09:44leia star wars the last jedi star wars the last jedi or episode 8 depending on what neck of the

09:50woods you hail from enraged some longtime fans upon release and pleased plenty of others with director

09:57ryan johnson and actor kelly marie tran unfairly catching most of the flack after sith apprentice

10:03kylo ren launches an attack on his mother leia organa's ship leia is blown out into space in a

10:09fireball of debris so she's a goner right wrong after surviving for a good minute or so in the

10:15vacuum of space her hand twitches her eyes flick open and she um force flies herself to safety

10:24the power the action and the scene don't jive with anything in the star wars universe neither

10:29the law the canon nor even the fundamental laws of chemistry biology or physics we discovered in

10:34the rise of skywalker that leia trained as a jedi under luke and even has her own lightsaber but

10:40this doesn't help land the whole space flying thing any better if they could just zoom around

10:45the freezing cold void like superman why didn't luke or obi-wan just zoom up to the death star's

10:51exhaust port with a thermal detonator suppository that's the end of our list but let me know down

10:56in that comment box what you think are the most out of place scenes in sci-fi movie history as always

11:02i've been jess from what culture thank you so much for hanging out with me if you like you can come

11:07say hi to me on my twitter account where i'm at jess mcdonald but make sure you stay tuned to us here

11:12for plenty more great lists

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