Best Death Scenes (Spoilers)

[Durandal]

Ryan Chapelle in 24 Season 3. Jack has to execute him in a trainyard to stop a terrorist from releasing a bio-weapon across major American cities. Very well done scene.

Aw damn, how could I forget Chapelle's death? He's there, he tries to kill himself, he can't pull through. He was always a weak asshole, and where a normal plot would have him redeeming himself through suicide, he fails, and it actually endears you more to the character. Especially after he got in the helicopter and didn't tell anyone. I felt so sorry for him when he was being a dick to people in CTU and he couldn't tell any of them why he was really leaving. He's still a hero in my eyes for that.

What really made it was the revelation that Chapelle was what everyone had always suspected: a man with no life outside of work. His family ties were weak; he had no wife, no kids ... it was pitiful. There was no one to call before he died. He was a threat to a dangerous terrorist, and that represented the person he really meant the most to.

George Mason died a more clichéd but nevertheless heroic death in season 2, too.

I've always liked Mason's character. He always struck me as a realist. Although why wasn't he in Washington in Season 2? Didn't Palmer promise to promote him when he got the presidency as a condition for negotiating for Jack's life?

I was also fucking glad when Sheri Palmer got shot. Bitch. She was always a bad idea, but David would never listen to me!

I stood up and cheered when that bitch's greed finally caught up with her.

[Lusankya]

Wash's death was good too. I'm a fan of sudden, instant deaths. I figure that that's what violent death should be about; none of this hanging around and having your last words to your closest friend crap. I like it when they're dead before the sword that killed them has gone *click* in the sheath.

So it's realistic. Why's that good? While I agree that every character lasting long enough to spout off dramatic last words can be grating, what's so utterly terrific about just having him fall down? In a war movie, sure, it's part of the idea. But typically? There's gotta be a real REASON behind the death and treating it the way Wash's was treated just plain annoyed me. And I haven't even seen Firefly. You can't just kill the guy and move on. Lacks drama.

Well, for one thing unrealistic deaths do have a tendency to somewhat ruin SOD for me, and one thing that's too often missing in movies is main characters who die not by some brave sacrifice or to bring some kind of deep and insightful meaning to the story, but rather by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes that's all that happens, but we never get to see it in movies, possibly because too many people have your view that having a main character die in that fashion lacks drama.

For another, sudden deaths really highlight how fragile life is. When someone dies suddenly, and without warning, you suddenly have to reevaluate the situation, because suddenly you realise that even though the characters are all your heroes, they're not indestructible, which makes their triumph a greater achievement. It's all very well for a superhero to die a stupid, unrealistic death, but in general I like the main characters in movies to be limited by the constraints of human frailty, because that way it can be viewed as a tribute to human achievement rather than a tribute to indestructable uberman achievement.

In any case, they didn't even move on from it so much as set aside their grieving until they, you know, didn't have people shooting at them or trying to flay their skin off and things like that.


ROAR!!!!! says GOJIRA!!!!!

[RedImperator]

Wash's death was good too. I'm a fan of sudden, instant deaths. I figure that that's what violent death should be about; none of this hanging around and having your last words to your closest friend crap. I like it when they're dead before the sword that killed them has gone *click* in the sheath.

So it's realistic. Why's that good? While I agree that every character lasting long enough to spout off dramatic last words can be grating, what's so utterly terrific about just having him fall down? In a war movie, sure, it's part of the idea. But typically? There's gotta be a real REASON behind the death and treating it the way Wash's was treated just plain annoyed me. And I haven't even seen Firefly. You can't just kill the guy and move on. Lacks drama.

The point of the death was to dramatically raise the stakes for the surviving characters in the last battle. Wash's death wasn't foreshadowed at all. All the usual rules in sci-fi ensembles were thrown out the door. The "seven main guys" won't survive the last battle by virtue of being the seven main guys. There are no character shields. Everybody is in actual mortal danger.

Contrast this to Star Trek, where everybody knew the main characters were in no real danger (and the minor characters so poorly developed that nobody cared if they died and "redshirt" became shorthand for cannon fodder). And then remember "Best of Both Worlds Part I", where something bad and seemingly permanant did happen to an invulnerable main character, or Spock's death in TWOK, and how effective they were.

[Dalton]

That's a good point, Red, and it reminds me of Chuck Sonnenburg's fanfics, where even the strongest character shield is no match for him. Doing what Joss did, killing off two main characters, was jolting and unexpected - well, Book was kind of a given because he was essentially useless, but Wash? Almost universally beloved, I'd say. That's why it's good - the sheer impact slaps you in the face.

[Raw Shark]

Drama: I'll 'me too' everybody who quoted Roy Batty, and the one guy in Saving Private Ryan who gets stabbed through the chest slowly by the German who whispers soothingly to him.

Comedy: The way the sound of the gunshot closes the rhyme prematurely on the Singing Telegram Girl's one line in Clue always cracks me up no matter how many times I see it.

[LordShaithis]

Don Rickles had the best "vampire burning up in the sunlight" death ever in Innocent Blood. He had been bitten and woke up in the hospital not knowing what the hell had happened to him. The nurse came in, said a cheery hello, and threw the blinds open.

Rickles then proceeded to burn up in a fashion resembling the combustion of a cigar at super-speed, while the medical staff crowded around his thrashing crumbling body in a panic, with no fucking clue what was going on.

[Patrick Degan]

The last moments of Dirty Harry: Magnum Force —Harry Callaghan's just survived an assassination attempt by a secret death squad in his own police department, who planted a bomb in his mailbox earlier in the movie. He's confronted by their leader, his own boss (Hal Holbrook), who doesn't know that Harry's switched the bomb back on in the back seat of his car:

"Uphold the law". You've just killed three police officers, Harry. And the only reason I'm not going to kill you...is because I'm going to prosecute you with your own system. It'll be my word against yours. And who's going to believe you?

(Holbrook gets into car, still aiming his service .38 at Clint Eastwood)

You're a killer, Harry. A maniac.

(car pulls away slowly as Harry watches, then scene cuts to shot of car exploding)

A man's got to know his limitations.

[wautd]

Alex Murphy in Robocop. Brutal, shocking and very powerful. If you didn't have sympathy for Murphy after that, you are not human

[Darth Wong]

So it's realistic. Why's that good? While I agree that every character lasting long enough to spout off dramatic last words can be grating, what's so utterly terrific about just having him fall down? In a war movie, sure, it's part of the idea. But typically? There's gotta be a real REASON behind the death and treating it the way Wash's was treated just plain annoyed me. And I haven't even seen Firefly. You can't just kill the guy and move on. Lacks drama.

The point of the death was to dramatically raise the stakes for the surviving characters in the last battle. Wash's death wasn't foreshadowed at all. All the usual rules in sci-fi ensembles were thrown out the door. The "seven main guys" won't survive the last battle by virtue of being the seven main guys. There are no character shields. Everybody is in actual mortal danger.

It worked. For me, as a viewer of the movie who had never watched the Firefly show (and who had no trouble following the plot despite this fact, so I don't know what some of the people who complain about the confusing plot are talking about), Wash's death totally changed my expectations while watching it. Before he died, I thought it was one of those action adventures where the plucky crew goes through mortal dangers but always survives. After his death, I began to suspect that it was one of those countdown movies like Aliens or Predator, where character after character dies until you have only one hero left standing at the end.

[Ghost Rider]

So it's realistic. Why's that good? While I agree that every character lasting long enough to spout off dramatic last words can be grating, what's so utterly terrific about just having him fall down? In a war movie, sure, it's part of the idea. But typically? There's gotta be a real REASON behind the death and treating it the way Wash's was treated just plain annoyed me. And I haven't even seen Firefly. You can't just kill the guy and move on. Lacks drama.

The point of the death was to dramatically raise the stakes for the surviving characters in the last battle. Wash's death wasn't foreshadowed at all. All the usual rules in sci-fi ensembles were thrown out the door. The "seven main guys" won't survive the last battle by virtue of being the seven main guys. There are no character shields. Everybody is in actual mortal danger.

It worked. For me, as a viewer of the movie who had never watched the Firefly show (and who had no trouble following the plot despite this fact, so I don't know what some of the people who complain about the confusing plot are talking about), Wash's death totally changed my expectations while watching it. Before he died, I thought it was one of those action adventures where the plucky crew goes through mortal dangers but always survives. After his death, I began to suspect that it was one of those countdown movies like Aliens or Predator, where character after character dies until you have only one hero left standing at the end.

Very much so. Especially when you see his death out of the blue, and then in that final battle people are looking to get knocked off left and right, I was wondering if Wheedon was just going "Y'know...I don't have a series after this...fuck it!"

Also I will give thanks to Degan for pointing out Dirty Harry: Magnum Force . I wanted to put it up on this list but had forgotten the exact lines.

[Julhelm]

Commando, when Bennett gets impaled by a steampipe:

"Let off some steam Bennett"