The Best (Or Worst?) Death Scenes in a Movie or TV Show (Spoilers AHOY)

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Inspired by the Whedon poll over at Forumopolis.  Here's a few that stick out:

Spock - The Wrath of Khan
They Killed Spock?!?  He was the epitome of what Star Trek meant to most people, not to mention, it was one of the saddest deaths ever.

Wesley Wyndam Price - Angel
He grew up from one of the most annoying characters ever in a TV show to one of the most awesome characters in any genre.  His final scene was touching and beautiful, all the more so because of who he shared it with.

Lester Burnham - American Beauty
Some people find it hard to sympathize with a man who found his redemption by working out, smoking pot, and lusting after a 17-year old.  I thought it was quite memorable.

Angel - Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
The last episode of season two; Buffy had to kill her lover after he finally gained his soul back.  Made all the worse because she knew she was sending him to untold hells.

More to come...

[Lmns Crn]

I would post something, but it would be from a book rather than from a movie or a TV show, and it would be massive Song of Ice and Fire spoilers.

But yeah. A year after reading it, and I still start shaking with shock and rage when I think about it.

Edit: I know the title of the thread says "Spoilers AHOY!", but this is on a different order of magnitude.

[SA]

Television

The only truly memorable death I can recall in any series is when buffy gave her life for the "Key" or whatever (I don't watch the series, so I wouldn't really know).  I thought it was a truly valiant act...

But then she had to spoil it by coming back to life.  Where's the poignancy of sacrifice when the sacrificed won't stay that way?

Also, if that ASS from King of Queens one day bit the bullet, I'd call it the greatest death in television history.

Movies

The Departed:
[spoiler=SPOILER!!!]Cortigan's[/spoiler] death in the elevator.  I knew it was coming, but even so...

Kill Bill vol. 2: Bill's last steps were pretty darn dramatic, and his death was far more memorable than it would have been had she cut his head off or something.  The fact that he wilfully walked into death also says a lot about his character.

Twelve Monkeys: Bruce Willis!  Nooooo!

Pulp Fiction: John travolta's dispassionate and anticlimactic end really captured the triviality of life in Tarantino's movies.  It was also pretty comical; he only died because of the toaster.

Videogames (I know this isn't the subject of the thread, but...)

If you're a fan of Final Fantasy, I hardly need mention this, but... Aeris.  'Nuff said.

Shadow of the Colossus: when Argo fell off that bridge I was like "OMFG!" and had serious trouble facing the final boss, I was in so much shock.  He didn't die, but I didn't know that at the time!

[Lmns Crn]

If you're a fan of Final Fantasy, I hardly need mention this, but... Aeris.  'Nuff said.

I laughed when Aeris died.

Such a huge production, such a string of obvious emotional cheap shots, all over a character I honestly didn't care about one tiny bit. I played all the way through the end of Disc 2 of that game before I finally decided I'd had enough, and I never did figure out what attracted people to that story. I just found it sort of... well, trite.

[SA]

Haha.  You aren't the only one to think that, and I can perfectly see why.  I don't think I ever even played through that portion of the game...

Nevertheless, many people did go OMFG when it happened.  I wasn't one of them, but I was somewhat shocked, though, as I am one who generally gets very absorbed in a plot.

[Lmns Crn]

What can I say? I am a horrible, cantankerous old cuss.

Now, FF6 on the other hand, there was a game with some quality death scenes.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Final Fantasy VII was the beginning of a bad downward spiral for the series.  Aeris' death was pretty silly... I mean, if a Phoenix Down can bring anyone back, way didn't they just use one, or cast "Life" on her or something?

I'm trying my damndest, but I can think of no deaths in video games that are super memorable to me.  Maybe Shadow's implied death if you fail to rescue him on the floating continent, but there's no particular scene, so it doesn't really count.

[brainface]

Movies
Twelve Monkeys ditto. that scene is helplessness distilled.
Final Destination The last death. because it means the chain will just continue again and again and again until everyone dies.

Videogames
The systematic killing of all your henchmen in Torment.
Really, every scripted death in torment.

Worst videogame death: final fantasy 2 (4? 6? i don't care.)
Characters keep dying one after another but they won't stay dead and hey they were saved by fairies and they weren't really turned to stone!. after the fourth time i started laughing whenever someone died.

[CYMRO]

Robotech. The death of Roy Fokker (also well written in the books).  The death of Gloval and the Bridge Bunnies.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Yeah, FFIV has a lot of fakers...I especially like the one where Cid jumped out of an airship thousands of feet in the air, set off a bomb that was attached to him to seal a hole so the rest of the good guys couldn't be chased... and then later, the party finds him sleeping soundly down in the dwarven city.

[SA]

Metal Gear Solid: The series is full of awesome deaths.  That old sniper guy turning to wood is my favourite one, by far.  Damned outlandish.

And on the subject of Final Fantasy deaths: don't forget that 99% of battles in the franchise require a great deal of suspenson of disbelief anyway.  I mean, how many "random encounters" can you seriously have roaming the wilderness?  And how is it that they just pop out of nowhere.? Basically, combat occurs outside of the continuity of the game; only when you're out-of-combat do events have any real significance (notice that the important bosses virtually always die in a cutscene after the battle is finished).  Besides, I've always assumed Phoenix Down reversed "knockouts", not outright killings.  Thankfully, no playable character has technically died from FFVIII onwards (can't speak for XII, however), as, no matter how hard one tries to rationalise it, deaths in the series are pretty gay...

Oh yeah, also that dude who got slicd up into itty bitty pieces in Resident Evil.  Did you notice that he's the same dude who gets sliced up by the razor net in AVP?  What's the deal there?  Has he been typecast as the "guy who gets chopped the fuck up", all of a sudden?

[Captain Obvious]

I would post something, but it would be from a book rather than from a movie or a TV show, and it would be massive Song of Ice and Fire spoilers.

But yeah. A year after reading it, and I still start shaking with shock and rage when I think about it.

Edit: I know the title of the thread says "Spoilers AHOY!", but this is on a different order of magnitude.

I totally agree, but there have been so many that i'm not even sure which you are talking about. PM your list to me.

[Seraph]

I'm a fan of the Death scene in Cyrano de Bergerac.  Yes it's a novel and a play in about 8 different adaptations, but I am specifically referring to the movie starring Gerard Depardieu.  He had loved Roxane for over 15 years and never told her.  She had thought she loved Christian, but what she had really loved was the letters that Cyrano wrote for him.  The just as she learns the truth, he dies.  He dies fighting his old enemies of falsehood, compromise, and vanity, succumbing to death, but never letting go of his one defining gloryious symbol, his panache.

[SDragon]

Television

The only truly memorable death I can recall in any series is when buffy gave her life for the "Key" or whatever (I don't watch the series, so I wouldn't really know).  I thought it was a truly valiant act...

But then she had to spoil it by coming back to life.  Where's the poignancy of sacrifice when the sacrificed won't stay that way?

Movies


Pulp Fiction: John travolta's dispassionate and anticlimactic end really captured the triviality of life in Tarantino's movies.  It was also pretty comical; he only died because of the toaster.
[/quote]

the whole movie, when examined, really emphesized the triviality of pretty much everything in modern society. why else were there so many blatent pop-culture references (le grande royale, batusi, 'kung fu', etc)?

[SA]

Damn... well, if Buffy's death was a clever trick, then the one piece of drama I actually enjoyed in the series was largely insubstantial!

Speaking of Buffy...

Dracula met the most shameful end on that series.  When she kicked his ass so easily, I cried. 'Course, in the context of the show it made sense; Buffy never seemed to take the occult elements very seriously, and more power to 'em, 'cos I have Charmed to satisfy that craving.[/sarcasm]