Scenes that transcend the movie.

[sojourner]

Are there any scenes in movies that you enjoy that transcend the rest of the movie?

A couple for me:

The muses coming to life in Xanadu. The movie itself is a bit of a train wreck, but that scene manages to capture the magic of the moment of these magical beings and their joy at coming to life. It just manages to work for some reason despite the rest of the movie.

The "beckoning" to Joan of Arc as she prays in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. While the rest of the movie is a great comedy, this scene with the soaring electric guitar music matching so well with the sense of wonder on Jayne Wiedlin's face as she watches the phone booth materialize in front of her and what must be to her an "agent of god" reaches out to her is just this great little moment.

And yes, I have run on sentence disease.

 

[the G-man]

The opening sequence of "Batman Forever."

 

[Greg Cox]

The Walking Dead (1936, no relation to the zombie tv show) is an old Karloff film about an innocent musician, unjustly executed for a crime he didn't commit, who comes back from the dead to avenge himself on the men who framed him. It's a fairly undistinguished B-movie, to be honest, but there's a scene where Karloff, as the reanimated corpse, sees a piano and memories of his past life stir briefly inside him. Karloff absolutely sells the pathos of the moment . . . .

 

[Data Holmes]

The Taking of Beverly Hills. B level Die Hard knockoff from the early 90's. A fun if mindless action romp based around a rich guy getting all the dirty and underpaid police of southern California to go in on a plot to rob BH blind in order to kill an insurance company so he can take I over. It has one of the best robbery montages I've seen.

 

[davejames]

Tree of Life is full of moments I found moving and powerful as hell... even though the movie as a whole doesn't really work at all. The creation imagery in particular I thought was just astounding-- and works equally well whether from a religious or scientific perspective.

 

[Forbin]

Dragonslayer - the first hour or so is boring, boring, boring. But once Vermathrax shows up, it was SO worth it.

The pre-title sequence of Moonraker was arguably the best one in the whole Bond series, and a hell of an exiting action sequence. The rest of the movie was garbage.

 

[Gaith]

Much of The Golden Compass is grossly sanitized, sped through or otherwise almost entirely bungled, but the intercision scene in Bolvangar is every bit as horrifying as it should be, and the following scene between Lyra and Mrs. Coulter is excellent also.

 

[Hunter X]

The scene in Attack of the Clones where Anakin is racing across the Tatooine desert on the speeder bike, sunset in the background, Duel of the Fates blaring, as he is desperately hoping to rescue his mother in time. It's like a scene from an entirely different movie, where the characters have pathos and human motivations. It's also one of my favourite scenes in the Star Wars saga, in my least favourite movie.

 

[Amaris]

George Bailey's prayer at the bar in Martini's. I love the entire movie (It's A Wonderful Life), but that scene catches me breathless every time.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

The scene in Attack of the Clones where Anakin is racing across the Tatooine desert on the speeder bike, sunset in the background, Duel of the Fates blaring, as he is desperately hoping to rescue his mother in time. It's like a scene from an entirely different movie, where the characters have pathos and human motivations. It's also one of my favorite scenes in the Star Wars saga, in my least favorite movie.

The scene in Revenge of the Sith where anakin and Padme are "looking" at each other from across the city (she's in an apartment or something, and he is in the tower) had a similar affect on me, as it almost feels like a different film. The music is stunning and it almost makes the love story and tragedy work in spite of Lucas' overwriting in other scenes to make the story self-destruct. Here, the emotional pathos is there. Lucas almost ruins it, though, by mixing in a voice-over in the audio of Palpatine's suggestions. He didn't need to do that, to hit the nail on the head. If the material was strong enough, we don't need a lot of exposition or reminders. Still, the scene seems to be from a different movie, one that works.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

I did a blog post about this once. Can't remember exactly what I had...I know one was definitely the rain scene in Daredevil, when we get to see how he sees Elektra and the world. I thought that was beautiful.

Another one was the cave scene in The Incredible Hulk, when Betty is frightened by everything that's been going on and there's a storm howling all around them. Hulk notices her fear and stands at the edge of the cave, bellowing at the storm, willing to take on nature itself to protect her.

From TSFS, the Enterprise destruction scene. I just love the exchange between Kirk and Bones.

KIRK: My God Bones, what have I done?

BONES: You did what you had to do, what you've always done. Turn death into a fighting chance to live.

Oh and a silly one - the shark throw scene in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Pretty bad movie, but that scene was so unexpected and crazy it made me laugh a lot.

 

[Gaith]

I hated (Pretentious) Days of Summer, but the Expectations vs. Reality scene was indubitably brilliant.

Pirates AWE was a fiasco, but the Jack-in-the-Locker sequence was wonderfully surreal.

- Insurrection: the rather interesting banality of the diplomacy sequence

- Nemesis: I actually found Picard and Shinzon's talk about first seeing one's home planet from space fairly moving.


But, if we want to talk scenes that really stand head and shoulders above the rest of their movies, there can surely be no better example than the closing credits list of sound technicians, the animal-harm disclaimer, and Kodak film credit in Kung Pow: Enter the First, very possibly the worst movie ever made.

 

[Orac Zen]

The pre-credit sequence and low-speed 2CV car chase in For Your Eyes Only. The rest of the movie (along with all Moore Bond movies, IMO) is complete and utter shit, but those scenes are priceless in their very different ways.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Here are a couple:

The "ghost in the machine" rumination near the end of I, Robot, when Spooner finds the old robots.

The economics of dating scene in A Beautiful Mind, which serves as inspiration for the bargaining theory.

Same film, the decoding scene at the pentagon.

I don't know, but I love the Scorponok scene in Transformers,mthe whole thing, from his discovery, to the collect call, to sending the predator, to the Pentagon's reaction, to sending warplanes and the buildup as they figure out a plan. It's quite awesome.

Also arrival at Vulcan all the way to its destruction and Spock's log made for quite a ride, and the momentum was amazing.

The first scene of Strange Days. Not just the tape viewing, but the montage os images as Lenny rides down LA martial law. The editing is fantastic.

 

[Deckerd]

The end of Farewell my Concubine, when Douzi and Shitou perform their duet one more time, after a lifetime of grief. The look on Douzi's face before he kills himself is just the most moving thing. The film was a bit of a drag but it was worth it.

 

[Forbin]

The pre-credit sequence and low-speed 2CV car chase in For Your Eyes Only. The rest of the movie (along with all Moore Bond movies, IMO) is complete and utter shit, but those scenes are priceless in their very different ways.

My favorite Moore Bond film! Mainly because it's entirely a series of relatively normal action scenes without any of the usual Moore campiness and silliness.

 

[Christopher]

I rather like the sequence in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier where Sybok tries to win over Kirk, Spock, and McCoy by "removing their pain." There are some good character insights and discussions there, a nice bit of drama in the middle of an otherwise deeply flawed film.

 

[the G-man]

George Bailey's prayer at the bar in Martini's. I love the entire movie (It's A Wonderful Life), but that scene catches me breathless every time.

If you love the entire movie it isn't really a scene that transcends the film, at least as defined by the OP.

 

[Bob Karo]

As many problems as I have with Superman Returns...

That scene with the earthquake and Superman zipping all across Metropolis (in some cases literally) putting out fires and then the globe on top of The Daily Planet begins to topple with the cistern busting open. Perry White looks up at the falling water just in time to see Superman catch the globe. "Great Ceasar's Ghost..."

 

[Gaith]

It's pretty difficult to mistake Weird Science for a great movie, but I dare most people not to be at least a little moved by Lisa's goodbye to the boys. The trio may have only known each other for less than two days, but they show real, selfless love for each other, and LeBrock especially is fantastic. A really lovely scene that entirely redeems any prurience in the movie's core plot (screw you, Whedon).