Unnecessary conflict started by a superior against their employee because the employee they did exactly what was required of them.

• The Bone Collector (1999): The protagonist (a beat cop) waves down a train that's about to run over a violent murder scene. Her superior, instead of lauding her for her quick thinking, instead chews her out because it made the train late. (because, apparently, that's the real crime here).
• Johnny English (2003): The villain steals the British crown jewels. Top government agent Johnny English is tasked with investigating the theft. He catches the people responsible almost immediately, while they're in the act, almost getting murdered by them twice. Even though he manages to positively ID them, his superior Pegasus shuts down that line of inquiry because they work for a powerful businessman who's off-limits for the government. When English prods on regardless, he is fired on the spot. Despite the fact that, you know, the guys he ID'd are provably the robbers as well as attempted murderers (with a lengthy international rap sheet at that), irrespective of who their employer is. Oh and they still have the crown jewels in their possession. In any other setting, Pegasus would be part of the criminal conspiracy, but he isn't.

What I mean is when a new design tries to adapt a characters certain look. Only to come up with a new design to compromise that design quirk.

Sonic movies: Sonic in the game is shown with two eyes and one connected eyeball. But in the movies, they put an extra bit of light fur over his nose. To subtly replicate the old design.

Avengers age of ultron: Ultron was depicted with a glowing, unmoving mouth (to my knowledge). But when he was adapted into the MCU. Ultron could speak freely, and only open up his mouth when he's angry.

1. Cars 3’s original plot, which would have been an identity theft plot with a villain named Gerald Carr swapping bodies with McQueen

2. An R-Rated adaptation of Holes by the same director as Donnie Darko (photo by RebelTaxi)

3. Jurassic Park 4 would have featured human-dinosaur hybrids

4.Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World alternate ending, would have revealed Scott to be a serial killer

I don't know if this has a name or was already posted here but i absolutely love it when it gets used.

The Bugle Call: Song of War: The protaganist rides with his love interest on a bike but due to her branch ability using time from the future she got in a long coma and is now a grown women despite being still a child

Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It: The 3 girls are enjoying some tea but due to the circumstances one of them (Ira) is not fully cognitive present and the protaganist imagines how it would be if they were in a café

Almost every character when Dizzy’s Instakill is used on them, they see the huge explosion and surrender on the spot (Guilty Gear XRD)

Vegeta crying after final form Frieza deflects his strongest attack like it was nothing (Dragon Ball Z)

The Punisher realizing he was fighting the Hulk (Spider-Man BND)

“Blank slate protagonists” are heroes who generally have no personality to speak of, and are generally meant to be little more than self-inserts for the audience. This trope is for those protagonists who start with having no personality… and when they finally get one, it’s the most chaotic persona possible.

1) Louie (Pikmin)

Louie is introduced as Olimar’s junior partner and trainee in Pikmin 2, and is designed with as little of a personality as possible. At most, Louie is initially depicted as a slacker employee of Hoctate Express. He is effectively a duplicate of Olimar (down to his name being a sendup to “Luigi”, Nintendo’s first player 2 character”, and much like any Player 2, has little personality to speak of.

However, the game subverts this. Louie not only is left behind in the middle of the game, he thrives on an alien planet by eating the local flora and fauna (down to suggesting cooking methods in his notes). While he’s considered little more than a foolish slacker, the game implies Louie actually likes his new life and is willing to kill others to keep it. The following games double down on this by not only making him something of a malignant recurring presence (being focused on his gluttony), but also make him a sociopath who regularly compromises missions with a pretty flagrant lack of care.

This ends with Louie both a hated and loved character in the franchise, and being rather infamous among Nintendo fans as one of Nintendo’s most unhinged characters

2) Prince Charming (Cinderella)

Disney’s Prince Charming is rather infamously bland, being little more than a perfect love interest for Cinderella to win over. This is mostly a hangup from Cinderella being THE Disney princess movie, and at its time of initial release, didn’t need much thought to round out his character.

Still, Charming has an overall negative reputation for his lack of personality. Cinderella III, a direct-to-video sequel, made an effort to fix this a little bit, and as a result, is largely known today for one particular scene.

That is to say, the scene where Charming throws himself out of an open window as a form of malicious compliance to his father. It’s a completely out-of-left-field characterization for him, but it’s largely preferred by fans, as it gives the prince a completely fun personality that matches Cinderella’s groundedness quite well. Plus, it’s absolutely hilarious watching Charming defenestrate himself.

3) Sgt. Cortez (Timesplitters: Future Perfect)

The Timesplitters games had exponentially more plot as the series progressed. The first game had an excuse plot to justify its random historical/genre scenarios. The second game introduced Sgt. Cortez as the protagonist of the “Timesplitter War”, but gave him little characterization beyond that of a generic space marine and action hero.

Timesplitters: Future Perfect completely changes this, and makes Cortez the main protagonist. Not only is he an invested badass, he’s also a dude with more than a few screws loose in every scenario he’s put in: he easily befriends an esoteric archeologist, a groovy 70’s super spy, a final girl in a horror movie, a cutthroat corporate ninja, a robot with a virus, and himself from different time periods. Cortez goes from “generic” action hero to a hero with a “tude”.

More to the point, the game also paints him as a bit of a dork. Cortez keeps practicing lame one-liners, has a corny catchphrase (that literally everybody feels awkward around every time he uses it), and regularly stumbles across the plot by sheer accident.

Still, Cortez’s wacky nature and tongue-in-cheek machismo do a lot to differentiate himself from the self-serious games from the time, and stand out to make Timesplitters a cult classic.

When an attempt to hide, remove, or censor something backfires and ends up drawing much more attention to it.

1. Lawsuit with Barbara Streisand's House — An incident that gave this effect its name. Photographer Kenneth Adelman, as part of the California Coastal Records Project, took aerial photographs of the California coastline for geological study. One of the twelve thousand photographs just happened to capture Barbara Streisand's house, which was not identified in any way and looked like just another house. However, the singer took issue with this and sued Adelman for $50 million for violation of privacy, threatening her security, and seeking to profit from her name and the news spread like wildfire. For comparison, before the public became aware of the lawsuit, the photo had been downloaded only 6 times (two of them by Streisand herself and her attorneys), but after the lawsuit brought the photo to public attention, it was downloaded 400,000 times in the following month. So, if Streisand hadn't filed the lawsuit, the photo would have been viewed by only a few researchers, and they wouldn't even have known that it was her house, but because Streisand took issue with it, everyone now knows that it was her house. She lost the lawsuit and was required to pay the legal fees for both sides, which totaled over $150,000.

2. Basic Instinct — When the movie was being filmed, the script was leaked to LGBT activists, who didn't like how lesbians were depicted in the movie. They tried their best to impede the production and protested against the film before its release (and continued to do so after its release), but this actually helped give the production free media coverage before it was even complete.

3. Ted — In Brazil, a deputy went to watch the movie with his eleven-year-old son (failing to take into account the fact that the movie was rated +16) and was outraged by its content. He demanded that Brazil's Ministry of Justice ban it or raise its rating to +18, which gave the movie free national publicity and resulted in Ted topping the box-office charts the following week and repeating the gross of its debut.

Metal Gear Solid 4: In some scenes, Snake will actually lose psyche for various reasons such as receiving depressing news. This can actually be avoided by skipping these scenes before it happens.

Edit: You can also gain lost psyche if you button mash quick enough, but you can still just skip the scene and loss entirely.

Punch-Out!! (Wii): In your title defense fight against Soda Popinski, the latter will completely recover his health by drinking soda between rounds. You can prevent this by quickly skipping the scene before he begins drinking.

Night Trap (Sega CD): In the opening scene, after the commander gives you instructions for how to play the game, he'll claim you're not up to this mission, break contact (disconnect the controller), and send you back to the main menu if you don't skip the scene and begin the game quickly enough.

MIdousugi (Yowamushi Pedal)

Akira (Devilman Cry Baby)

Oguri Cap (UMa Musume Cinderella Gray)

1. Ghost Rider spirit of Vengence: truly, a bad movie, although him taking control of the construction equipment and turning into into a flaming war engine marked this scene in memory

2. Bloodshot: I don't remember a whole lot about this movie, but I remember this scene when Vin Diesel was blown up with a grenade launcher, and the nanites reconstructed him in real time as he continued his pace.

3. Batman vs Superman: just an all around confusing movie and the characters making questionable decisions, but god dang that warehouse fight was one of the most excellent choreographed fights ive seen with Batman.

1. The Simpsons. This happens with many characters, but especially Doctor Hibbert.
2. Friends. In a flashback to their college years, Ross and Chandler have particularly weird 80s haircuts, and Ross has a mustache.
3. Brookly-99. Captain Holt in the present day is clean-shaven and bald. In flashbacks he has an afro and a mustache.
4. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. In the present day, Winston Payne is bald. In a flashback case, he has a pompadour, and we actually see him lose his hair due to the trauma of losing this case to a rookie.
5. The Big Bang Theory. All of the characters had different wacky haircuts in a flashback to 2002, except Sheldon who looked exactly the same.
6. Bojack Horseman. In the present day Princess Carolyn is just an anthropomorphic cat without a "human" hairstyle. In a flashback to the 90s, she has the "Rachel" haircut.

After seeing a post with me posting a comment about the goated trilogy of ID Software. That got me to realize, "wow they're all human! And they're doing badass shit”. Thus this post was born, the trope is pretty straightforward. Pure humans beating entire armies by themselves and being absolute units without aid from magical blessings or even augmentations.

B.J Blazkowickz (Wolfenstein) - Just a guy running through a castle plowing through nazis, robots, cyborgs, hell even demons like Cyberdemon himself way before the augmentations (referring to Wolfenstein RPG). His official art just makes him vastly different compared to his compadres, you can feel the indomitable human spirit within him as he towers a dying nazi blasting his gatling gun like Rambo. What's better? This guy massacred killed more than fifty nazis, ON A WHEELCHAIR.

Ranger (Q U A K E) - During an operation to capture/kill a target, Ranger's entire team was killed from an ambush of medieval bullshit. His response? Finish the mission himself and making he doesn't stop. You got knights, Ogres with grenade launchers, then a giant eldritch cuthulhu monster, he just kept going at it. He's not augmented nor changed, dude will hack anything with an axe and will do anything to kill the unkillable if his weapons won't work.

Doomguy (DooM 1/2/64) - Not to be confused with DoomSlayer and yes both of them are the same but there was a significant change no longer making Doomguy human. Even so, this guy was an absolute unit who hated demons so much that he stayed in hell just to spawn camp them. Weapons? Has a bunch of them and his fists are one of them. This guy fought through hordes of demons/zombies trying to get the BFG (referring to the comic) and got back out in one piece. This guy was originally human, but in the eyes of the ordinary? He's literally beyond them.

Samuel Herbert Stone (Serious Sam) - Ever felt like clearing out an entire arena of skeletons throwing shackles at you with just a revolver? He's your answer. Whatever bullshit comes in his way, his response is ditching out explosives that'll fuck up entire squads of monsters. Funnily enough, like QUAKE, the bosses have backup despite their enormous size. A monster with the size of a thousand feet needs help against a (notso)ordinary guy.

Harry Potter - Dudley and Harry parting ways scene: One of the biggest issue with the Harry Potter movies is the fact that most relationships didn't get to be developed properly because of the limited time a movie has to offer, and that is even more critical to the bonds involving characters associated to the character's backgrounds (like the family members of the trio besides the most proeminent Wesley's) and were central to explain their conflicts and arcs. The first Deathly Hallows was meant to have a scene directly adapted from the books where Dudley, who was an absolute asshole during the entirety of the saga, would actually reveal he cared about Harry in his own twisted way, revealing that, once all the trauma was over and Harry was mature enough to see it, all his development and infernal childhood could be seen by a different angle. Unfortunately, it got cut.

Thor Love and Thunder - Zeus helps and mentors Thor before the Gorr fight: This one is really outraging for me and i hope Taika Waititi never gets his hands in any of Marvel projects again. In the first script, Zeus was meant to be a more wise and humble figure that would gladly help Thor in his fight against Thor because he, as the mightiest of the gods, understood the danger that Gorr represented, but also as the wisest, knew he hadn't the hero heart needed to do the deed. In the final cut, this entire arc was substituted by a mockery where every god is actually stupid and coward and hidding in a perfect world where they are safe, not really worried at all about what Gorr could do to the universe's balance. Also Zeus here is an arrogant buffoon and is "killed" with his own weapon, of course, not without making Thor naked in front of everyone. Apparently that was the more fun choice in the editor's room.

I Am Legend - the alternate ending: Not exactly an issue because the original is not bad, but after you discover that, instead of going out with a blow and giving humanity the hope for a cure, the ending would actually be Robert Neville discovering that the mindless monsters he's been fighting all this time are not so mindless as he thought, and even though he thought he was the last human standing and was wronf about it, he realizes he was also wrong to think that he was the last intelligent and civilizated being standing too. Not an issue per se, but a more thoughtful ending was just substituted by a more heroic and actionesc one.

When a (usually ancient but not always) prophecy is foretold, everyone takes it as fact, for better or for worse…

But then, either someone is able to find a loophole for the prophecy or a different interpretation of it causes it to come true.

Macbeth: Perhaps the originator of this trope, Macbeth is told by The Weird Sisters (a trio of prophecy giving witches) that he will become king and “none of woman born” will harm him, making him king indefinitely.

But, naturally, Macduff, the man who kills him and is destined to become king, was delivered via C-Section, meaning he was not technically “born.”

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Perhaps the most Reddit famous of this trope, an old prophecy foretold that “no man can kill” the Witch-King.

During the Battle of Pelennor Fields, no man does kill him… and the final blow is instead given by Éowyn, who is famously “no man.” The story goes JRR Tolkien was actually so annoyed by Shakespeare’s prophecy twist in Macbeth, as he expected Macbeth’s death to be caused by a woman, and it led to him writing this famous scene we all know and love.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Show): In season 2, the heavily built up villain The Judge has an origin and prophecy that “no weapon forged can kill him.” When he last appeared in the 14th century, this magic protection meant an army had to chop him into pieces and scatter him across the globe to defeat him.

In Season 2, episode 14 “Innocence,” those pieces are brought back together and The Judge is reassembled, and it seems like all will be lost. Until the Scooby gang realises that prophecy was written back when the strongest weapon was a pointy stick. Which leads to the now iconic scene:

The Judge: No weapon forged can stop me.
Buffy: That was then (Pulls out rocket launcher). This is now.
The Judge: What’s that do?

… and she proceeds to blow him to pieces (again).

Thor: Ragnarok: The Ragnarok prophecy foretells the destruction of Asgard, and Thor and team spend much of the movie trying to find a way to stop it.

But during the battle, they realise… there is no stopping it. And in fact, Ragnarok was meant to be used to defeat Hela, the goddess of death, by releasing the fire giant Surtur and allowing them to destroy Asgard as its people escape. Because after all, “Asgard is not a place, but a people.” And we don’t have to think too hard about what happens to a lot of them after they escape!

We hate when a story ruins a character just to force a crossover. Seeing an eco warrior like Poison Ivy suddenly ally with a greedy capitalist like Lex Luthor just to fight Batman is completely ridiculous. The much better trope is when a bad guy actually sticks to their guns. They refuse to team up with other villains because it goes against the exact principles that motivate them in the first place. Let's call this trope The Enemy of My Enemy is Not My Friend.

I. Larfleeze (Green Lantern)

This guy is powered by the Orange Light of Avarice and takes greed to the absolute limit. He basically runs an entire Lantern Corps by himself because working with anyone else means he has to share. He is never going to split his power, his territory, or his loot with another villain. Forming an alliance means giving something up, which completely breaks his rule that everything belongs to him.

1. Gorr the God Butcher (Marvel comics)

   His whole violent crusade started because he watched his family and innocent people die while the gods did absolutely nothing to help. His drive is pure revenge against higher beings for failing the innocent, so he would absolutely hate a villain who uses their power to actively hurt those same people. Someone like the Mad Titan is exactly the kind of abusive threat Gorr wants to wipe out.

   1. Hero Killer Stain (MHA)

   Stain follows a strict moral code where he violently hunts down fake heroes who only care about fame and money. When the League of Villains tried to recruit him, he completely rejected them. He saw that they were just acting out of petty revenge and lacked any real conviction. To Stain, villains who just want to cause mindless chaos are part of the exact same broken system as the fake heroes, so he would never work with them.

When I say all promotional material I mean everything. Trailers, interviews, merch, posters, all showing the whole group together. But in the actual story, only one of them gets actual centre focus, and the rest are basically glorified side characters.

Descendants: I remember all of these trailers and interviews going on about the 4 kids of Disney’s most famous villains going after the Fairy Godmother’s wand, so they led us to believe that it was about all of them. And while the other 3 got screen time and advanced the plot in some way, Mal was the one with the most screen time and the most plot relevance. They then made 2 more fucking movies about this group, and all of them put basically the entire focus on Mal and her prince (whatever his name was)!

K-pop Demon Hunters: Once again, all of the promotional material was about the 3 girls together. Everything had all of them together. And yet I swear to God Rumi has more screen time with Jinu than she does with Mira and Zoey. The entire movie focused solely on her half demon problem, to the point where Mira and Zoey’s insecurities that Gwi-Ma exploits are almost never addressed until that moment! I’m just holding onto hope that either Mira or Zoey will be the centre focus in the next movie.

The Balrog's wings - The Fellowship of the Ring

In the original book, Tolkien describes the Balrog as projecting a great shadow that quote "reached out like two vast wings", however, the Peter Jackson film adaptation gave the Balrog actual wings. I think this is a case of the trope working as the wings add a level of physical presence to the Balrog and help round out the design (though it does make it confusing why the Balrog doesn't use its wings to escape the pit of Khazad-dûm, but that's beside the point).

Rising Candles - The Phantom of the Opera

In the stage version of Phantom of the Opera, candles rise out of the misty floor to transition us from one set to another. It's a neat little transition that adds some visual spectacle. However, the 2004 film apparently didn't understand this, and so now these candles are literally rising from the literal lake. Now, not only does this make no sense, it's also not supported by the filmmaking, which is otherwise not conveying a surrealist or dreamlike tone, so this dreamlike imagery feels incredibly out-of-place, and makes the film's already crowded frame look even more cluttered and awkward.

1. Stannis Baratheon (ASOIAF): stern, strict and not a kiss ass. From a young age he was described as unsmiling and serious. His first notable action was holding Storm’s End against a massive Tyrell host for a year, supplies dwindled yet Stannis maintained strict rations and harshly punished those among the garrison who disobeyed. Whatever post in peace or war assigned to him by his brother Robert, Stannis performed ably even if his incorruptibility and disdain for many prominent noble families endeared him little popularity. When civil war breaks out after Robert’s death Stannis has few allies, and more lords support his younger brother Renly’s bid for kingship despite Renly being younger, Stannis being that unpopular. Magical shenanigans soon take Renly out of the picture and many lords side with Stannis. His skill as a military commander at land and sea is shown during the battle of the Blackwater, if not for Tyrions preparations and unexpected enemy reinforcements, Stannis would have won. Down but not out Stannis with a few thousand men travels North to stop Wildlings from invading South. Disciplined units tear through the much larger wildling encampment emerging victorious. Stannis despite lacking numbers is proving himself to be a thorn to the Boltons.

2. Tiberius (I Claudius): depressive, wrathful, sexually depraved, yet excellent in military matters and governance. Step son to the emperor Augustus who would rather have a biological heir to the empire, Tiberius proves for years to be an excellent military general in numerous campaigns and a skilled administrator, although his reputation as a disciplinarian leaves him feared not loved. When he becomes emperor well in his middle years he is jaded and cold blooded. Despite his paranoid mass killings of rivals, attempted coup by Sejanus, and his horrific sexual proclivities the empire remained largely stable under his reign with a massive surplus in the treasury. He was terror to those he drew his ire, especially family, but the average Roman had little to fear.

3. Radovid V (The Witcher 3): scheming, prejudiced, and tyrannical. However Radovid if left to his own devices in potential walkthroughs is among the few commanders capable of fighting the Nilfgaardian army to a standstill and preventing a complete takeover of the Northern kingdoms.

In megas Xlr a tv station named "pop tv" with a sign similar to MTV is constantly getting satellites and ads destroyed, a dig at MTV for canceling their other show "downtown"

Futurama bender's big score

In the first revival movie this exchange takes place in the opening scene:

Farnsworth: Good news, everyone! Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence.

Staff: Woohoo!

Zoidberg: Yahoo!

Farnsworth: And not just fired, but beaten up, too. And pretty badly.

Staff: Woo!

Farnsworth: In fact, most of them died from their injuries.

Staff: Woo? [Bender laughs]

Farnsworth: And then they were ground up into a fine pink powder.

Fry: Why?

Farnsworth: Oh, it's got a million and one uses.

Hishi Amazon's design was changed twice: the first version featured her wearing only the outer outfit without undergarments; the second added undergarments; and the design was subsequently altered again to better fit the game's sports-oriented context rather than a school setting (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

Wal (Mevius Final Fantasy)

1. Nibbler (Futurama): Has the personality of a baby but is actually 3000 years old
2. Grogu (Star Wars): Is basically a baby in every way even though he's 50
3. Trump (IRL): Brain of an infant, body of an ancient moldy bog ham