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 control

01:05of the movie.

01:06And in a frequently happy-go-lucky Genesis story, the moose grips America with a robot claw and tears

01:17him in half before splattering his torso on the building behind. Little in the film up until this

01:24point prepares you for such a grim and sudden death of a supporting character. Tonally, it doesn't match

01:29any of the action, emotion or visuals surrounding it and it leaves the audience reeling. The end of

01:35Chappie may bring the wholesomeness around again, 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 fifth element,

01:53to 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 opera

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

02:10diva 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

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

02:34talk show host going down on an air hostess during takeoff.

02:378. Tri-Breasted Prostitute – Total Recall 1990

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

02:49of being a secret agent on a mission to Mars seems to be coming true, blurring the lines between fiction

02:55and reality. Along the way, he encounters many wonders of a technologically advanced, yet persistently

03:01unequal society. But perhaps none more striking than a triple-breasted mutant prostitute.

03:07Played by Lycia Naff, the futuristic lady of the night is offered up to Arnie by her pimp,

03:13and 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 somehow? Unfortunately,

03:29no, I don't think so. This film establishes a pattern for the film where most female characters

03:34are presented as sexualized objects, ostracized freaks, or both. Naff came to regret taking the part,

03:40as it left her feeling overexposed and deeply unsexy. And it isn't difficult to see why.

03:47Number 7. Elvis Shrine – Robocop 2

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

03:57taking on crime boss Kane and his designer, drug-pushing nuke cult, while also attempting to

04:03prevent psychologist Dr. Juliet Fax from creating another Robocop using a death row inmate.

04:10While pursuing Kane, Robocop tracks his gang to a warehouse where he uncovers the skeleton

04:15of one Elvis A. Presley in a glass case. That's right, the nuke cult have the remains

04:22of the King of Rock and Roll in their lair, alongside pictures of Mother Teresa,

04:26and deleted scenes reveal that they worship him as some kind of a god. Amusing though this is,

04:32the scene doesn't make any sense. How did they get him? And why Elvis? We may never know.

04:37Number 6. Jazz dancing emo Peter – Spider-Man 3

04:42Sam Raimi may be back in the superhero fold with Multiverse of Madness, but let's not forget the

04:48film that got him kicked out in the first place, Spider-Man 3. Despite the film's inability to

04:53control its characters and narrative flow, it manages its tone fairly well. At least until Peter

04:59Parker gets infected by the Venom symbiote and things go… a little odd. He's so bad,

05:05in fact, he's going to dance in the street like your dad at a wedding. Buying a black suit and

05:10dancing on the pavement, taking his girlfriend to a jazz club and dancing on the tables, and generally

05:16dancing his way into our worst Spidey-related nightmares. Peter goes full cringe in a sequence

05:21that is unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. Sure, this is Raimi's humour down to a T, but

05:27god damn it Sam, there's a time and a place. Did this scene sound the death knell for the series?

05:33That's not for us to say, but what we can say is that Raimi was planning on making a fourth film and,

05:39well, that was 15 years and two additional Spider-Men ago.

05:42Number 5. Macaroni Cheese Cheddar Goblin – Mandy

05:46Cage plays Red Miller, a lumber worker whose girlfriend Mandy is kidnapped and killed by a

05:52religious cult, and who therefore must enact a campaign of brutal vengeance. It's the 80s,

05:58the world has an ominous neon glow, and pretty much anything goes, whether that be chainsaw jewels,

06:04coke-snorting demon bikers, or a green goblin that projectile vomits macaroni cheese. Trust me,

06:09this movie's really good though. The creepy little green guy appears on television during a tense and

06:14crucial point in Red's emotional journey, treating two children to some macaroni chanda.

06:21The scene is undeniably brilliant, but it comes at a strange time, right after Red has watched his

06:27beloved burn to death in front of him, and bears little resemblance to the rest of the film. But

06:32no matter how out of place he is, Cheddar Goblin will always have a seat at our table.

06:36Number 4. Shoehorned Joker – The Batman

06:40Taking us back to Batman's early days, Robert Pattinson plays an unrefined junior bat who has

06:46lots of unresolved parent-based angst, and only half a utility belt to help deal with it.

06:51As his opposite, Paul Dano is the Riddler, a genius in cell with a chaotic plan to raise Gotham.

06:58Needless 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

07:09wonky-toothed yokel Joker. The deleted scene of Batman meeting Joker goes a long way to explaining

07:16why the Riddler-Joker scene exists in the first place, but the very fact that they didn't include

07:21the former 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

07:33sequel bait. Worse than that, though, it actually robs the Riddler of some of his mystique,

07:37and has him playing subservient second fiddle to a character who isn't even in the film.

07:43Number 3. Girl Power – Avengers Endgame

07:46Avengers 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,

08:09there are plenty more well-developed female heroes to fill her shoes, and nowhere is this more apparent

08:14than in the film's final battle against Thanos. Unfortunately, the best and brightest at Disney and

08:20Marvel got together and decided the only way to showcase this was to have all the major female

08:25characters to assemble in a row in the midst of battle, trading lines to a swell of inspirational

08:31music. Host note here, I actually love this scene, but let's keep going. What's intended to be a badass

08:38female-affirming scene comes off as the cheesiest, hammiest, most manufactured moment the MCU films have

08:44ever brought us. And that's saying a lot, considering some of them rely almost solely on cheese,

08:49gloss and soap opera drama to pad their runtime. 2. Zion Orgy Rave – The Matrix Reloaded

08:56The re-emergence of The Matrix has of late sent many of us down memory lane, revisiting 1999's

09:03stone-cold sci-fi classic and its sequels. After some initial wallrunning and gunslinging to

09:08state fans' thirst for shiny leather action, the free people of Zion gather in an underground cavern so

09:15MC Morpheus can kick off the biggest rave the world has ever seen. Probably. Thus ensues a mass of

09:22bodies bumping and grinding to some dirty beats, intercut with Neo and Trinity getting jiggy with it.

09:28The scene might better belong to train-spotting or human traffic, feeling at odds with the tone and

09:33broader content of The Matrix films. What possessed the Wachowskis to include this goes beyond rational

09:39understanding? Perhaps one too many red pills. 1. Flying Space Leia – Star Wars The Last Jedi

09:46Star Wars The Last Jedi, or Episode VIII, depending on what neck of the woods you hail from,

09:52enraged some longtime fans upon release and pleased plenty of others, with director Rian Johnson and

09:58actor Kelly Marie Tran unfairly catching most of the flack. After Sith apprentice Kylo Ren launches an

10:04attack on his mother Leia Organa's ship, Leia is blown out into space in a fireball of debris.

10:10So, she's a goner, right? Wrong. After surviving for a good minute or so in the vacuum of space,

10:17her 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,

10:29neither the lore, the canon, nor even the fundamental laws of chemistry, biology, or physics.

10:34We discovered in The Rise of Skywalker that Leia trained as a Jedi under Luke,

10:38and even has her own lightsaber, but this doesn't help land the whole space flying thing any better.

10:44If they could just zoom around the freezing cold void like Superman,

10:48why didn't Luke or Obi-Wan just zoom up to the Death Star's exhaust port with a thermal detonator

10:53suppository? That's the end of our list, but let me know down in that comment box what you think are the

10:58most out of place scenes in sci-fi movie history.

11:02As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture. Thank you so much for hanging out with me.

11:06If you like it, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter account where I'm at Jess McDonnell,

11:11but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great lists.

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