I’m not sure whether these kids’ reactions are real or not, but it’s perfect anyway, as they watch The Empire Strikes Back and see for the first time the Big Reveal:
The 4-year-old boy’s face is priceless. “He’s Luke’s WHAT?!?” And awwwww. All right, whether it’s staged or pure, it doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about your biggest movie surprises. Daddy Darth? The Crying Game? Deuce Bigalow, Male… no, not that. But you’ve had your jaw-dropping moment watching movies (or TV, for that matter). Share ’em in the comments.
HT: Becca Gleason
I wonder if he was thinking that Darth Vader was a robot. I was under the misconception that Vader was a robot when I saw “Episode IV” for the first time in ’77. He was probably thinking how cool it was for Luke to have a robot dad, but how it sucked that his robot dad cut his hand off.
to me the most shocking movies were Planet of the Apes(original) and Reservoir Dogs, because even though i will love star wars until the end of time; i kind of saw that moment coming.
High Tension. Great twist.
Usual Suspects immediately came to mind for this post. A couple people definitely stole my thunder, but I think it was a very affective movie for our demographic as a teenager. Fight club was another good suggestion. Vanilla Sky also stayed with me long after seeing it in the theater.
looks fake to me
Well… when Animaniacs was first airing, I was home with a crippling flu, but dragged my woozy ass out of bed to catch the show. In that episode, Brain’s shrinking ray has a major iunexpected side-effect of turning people into clog-dancing yodelers. I SERIOUSLY thought I was hallucinating.
Then there was “Shutter Island,” when I felt totally sure they were gonna do something different and he’d turn out NOT to be crazy. Boy was I surprised.
I spend weeks avoiding anything about The Crying Game other than knowing there was a big twist. I figured it out mere seconds before the big reveal.
The Sixth Sense probably doesn’t get brough up as often anymore because almost everyone knows the secret. I can still get people with Fight Club & The Usual Suspects. I am still surprised how many people haven’t seen either one.
What was the surprise twist about L.A. Confidential?
I just regained some faith in humanity. Partly because of the kid and more for the parents who are apparently force feeding their children classic movies.
Se7en had a pretty shocking ending for me. When I finally understood that John Doe had the whole thing planned from the beginning my brain went numb. It’s one of the only movies that truly left me speechless.
“What’s in the box?”
I can’t believe no one has mentioned The Sixth Sense yet. Totally mind blowing!
I had almost as much fun watching Fight Club the second time after I knew what was going on. The scenes with the Helena Bonham Carter took on a completely different context. She went from a total beeotch to a pretty sympathetic character.
Fight Club, and The Secret Window. I didn’t figure them out early and I wasn’t confused at the big reveal (that happens sometimes and then I miss the magic moment). I “got it” at precisely the right moment in both of those. Priceless.
The Village – I figured out way too early that something was amiss and it almost ruined it for me, but it’s still a great movie.
A Few Good Men – I never liked that movie because the first time I saw it I figured something out way too early — as soon as they found all those clothes in the guy’s closet I said, “But he was supposed to be moving the next day!”
Not mine, but my son’s, big shocker was when he was 4 and we went to see the Lion King. When Mufasa dies, he jumped up, yelled ‘He DIES! You didn’t tell me his dad was gonna die!’ and ran out of the theater. I had to go running after him with two other children (5 and 2) in tow. He ran clear out to the car and I had to talk him into coming in to see the rest of the movie. It’s a family story that still lives 15+ years later.
My nieces recently got into Star Wars and this was very similar to their reactions (they are six/five and three).
The four year old literally spent a day going, “But he’s lying right? Cause he’s the badguy. So he is lying. Right?”
The only time a movie totally blew my mind with a big reveal like that was at the end of Usual Suspects when you see Keyser Soze. That was like, WTF!!?!?!!?!?
I kinda lost my mind at the end of Usual Suspects and The Spanish Prisoner.
I have a memory of seeing Terminator 2 in theaters when I was a kid.
Remember that scene when Arnold shoots the T100 in the face and it reforms?
I uttered my first public curse word, at.. what? Eight years old? Maybe nine? I stood up in my seat and screamed out “Holy S%$t! Why won’t you die!” and the entire theater turned and laughed at me.
The… daughter? is smirking. She either knows it’s a gag, or only she knew beforehand.
Not my own big shock, but my eight year old nephew has just gotten OBSESSED with Doctor Who (along with the rest of my family. You’re welcome, nerdom.) We were just finishing the end of Nine’s run, and at the part where he dies my nephew was on his feet yelling at the TV, almost ready to cry. I had to pause it and calm him down and explain that it wasn’t the end, and to watch the next part. Nine transformed into Ten, and the look on my nephews face was PRICELESS. He’s a huge Tennant fan now.
“WHAT?!?! HE is Valen?!?!?! AHHHHHH, why didn’t I see this before!?”
Yeah, my most recent freak out from a TV show.
My favorite was the ending of Usual Suspects. Totally did not see that coming. I was completely floored, and it instantly became one of my favorite movies.
Try watching ESB in the theater when it came out. (yeah I am that old). I had to wait years for the answer. I mean there where full articles in teen magazines that wanted to know the answer. Now you just put in the next DVD to find out, unless you are an idiot and started with Phantom Nuisance ( Oops! I mean Menace)
My jaw dropping moment was the reveal of River Song’s true identity, I had an inkling towards the middle of the episode but I wasn’t sure until she said it. The best part was that my daughter, niece and nephew ( all turned on to Dr. Who by your’s truly) had the same reaction. They were literally screaming and jumping up and down on the couch. It was great.
Maybe I’m crazy or only seeing it because I want to… but does that kid kind of resemble Mark Hamill?
When I was a kid, we had a dictionary that had a back cover page with a list of common words in various languages. One day long after seeing Star Wars but before Empire came out, I saw that “vader” is Dutch for “father”. For months I ran around telling anyone who listened that Darth Vader just HAD to be somebody’s father. But whose??? I never guessed he was Luke’s. At 13, I didn’t quite have a handle on the concept of irony yet.
The end of Raiders of the Lost Ark was the biggest jaw dropper for me. My brain did somersaults when I thought about what could be in those other storage crates.
L.A. Confidential and Fight Club were big shockers, too. I did not see those twists coming. Unfortunately, Gene Siskel has spoiled Crying Game for me, and I learned the secret of Chinatown long before I saw the movie.
I hate spoilers.
Awesome. That’s why my kids are watching the movies in the CORRECT order. I just have to protect them from all the Clone Wars tie-in stuff that might give the secret away. I hate when Clone Wars is the McDonald’s Happy Meal toy and I have to make up stories about who various characters are.
Fox lawyers have sent a C&D letter to the dad for posting footage from ‘Empire….
Nah not really. That was cute. I remember I was totally surprised but it was a blur because I was so upset about what happened to Han,, lol. (And I had to wait 3 years to find out they’d rescue him! Ahhh, those were the days…..)
@Magnoliafan
Snap! I did the same.
Then I got out of my seat and saw all my friends at a close friends birthday party outing that I hadn’t been invited to.
I was so traumatised I forgot the Vader revelation and ‘the other hope’ until years later just before Jedi.
I was such a stupid kid all I remember thinking when I saw Empire in the movie theater was, “what a crappy ending.”
I saw it in theaters in 1980 I as 5 or 6, and was convinced Vader as lying, I mean he was a bad guy, of course he was lying..Right?
I have a very distinct memory of when I saw Empire for the first time when I was a kid. My parents got me the box set one year for Christmas, so for 3 nights in a row, we watched one movie a night. So the second night, we put on ESB and when it got to the fateful ‘No, I am your father’ line, I FLIPPED OUT. I was screaming at the TV and at my parents that it couldn’t possibly happen. My Dad had to pause the movie. He was so amused and very proud that I was so into it. Then I was devestated that we couldn’t watch ‘Return of the Jedi’ that night and I needed to wait a whole day until we could watch it.
Meanwhile, my little sister had no interest in Star Wars at all and ran around our house in circles with her Barbies and her Elmo doll.
I really wanted that reaction with my son, but he figured it out before that scene. Pissed me off
I loved the girls face. It was a “yeah that JUST happened, bitch” face. I am pretty confidant that it’s real. Maybe because, even at 20 years old, I have a very similar face when my mind gets blown.
I love how mid shooting he remembers he has a daughter and focuses on her, but she doesn’t seem to give a shit for more than 1 second and decides to pan the camera back to his awesome son.