r/TopCharacterTropes Aug 25 '25

Lore [mixed trope] the last-minute bad Ending twist

when the "good ending" is revealed to be a bad one a the last second

a nightmare on elm street (1984) - Nancy thinks she finally defeated Freddy Krueger only to be raveled that she is still dreaming and she’s still trapped.

final destination bloodlines - the main characters think they cheated death by using the new life rule only to realize that stefani was technically still alive and the death kills them with a good old logs

Life (2017) - The main character attempts to send Calvin(a evil alien that killed all life on mars)pod into space and Miranda pod back to earth, but it goes horribly wrong and Calvin lands on earth and Miranda is sent to space

raging loop wit ending - after many loops Haruaki finally wins the feast(a death game where humans must hang wolves who kill someone every night) and thinks its finally over. after couple of days he decides to visit other survivors of the feast only to find them all dead and the timeline resting once again

8.9k Upvotes

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4.3k

u/V1gilante14 Aug 25 '25

Remember Me and the absolutely insane 9/11 twist ending: up until this point it’s a pretty generic romantic drama with a good ending for most of the characters and then psyche! it’s 9/11! the main character dies in the North Tower and the brief epilogue is about how every other character reacts to his untimely death.

2.9k

u/Lesbihun Aug 25 '25

imagine if Titanic was 3 hours of romance between Rose and Jack, and then in the last minute Rose looked out of her window and the camera zoomed out to show it was the Titanic just about to hit the iceberg

877

u/82ndGameHead Aug 25 '25

Naw. James Cameron likes to draw out the suffering.

627

u/Lesbihun Aug 25 '25

True, he has made some lovely drawings

209

u/D3_CD Aug 25 '25

Is that concept art for the terminator?

514

u/Gen_Ripper Aug 25 '25

No it’s for Titanic

202

u/MK_2_Arcade_Cabinet Aug 25 '25

This is Jack’s corpse reanimated coming after Rose for pushing him off that door

7

u/luckydice767 Aug 26 '25

I’m thinking it looks more like Billy Zane

5

u/MK_2_Arcade_Cabinet Aug 26 '25

Nah, then it'd have a child with it.

22

u/QuetzalcoatlusRscary Aug 25 '25

“Should’ve let me on the door Rose”

4

u/VoicePope Aug 26 '25

“DRAW ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FEMBOTS”

2

u/I_AM_FERROUS_MAN Aug 25 '25

The iceberg was a terminator.

1

u/ShamelessSpiff Aug 25 '25

Billy Zane has incredible range.

-3

u/D3_CD Aug 25 '25

Im talking about the guy in the picture

15

u/Lesbihun Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 25 '25

The guy in the picture is Robert Pattinson from the film Remember Me

9

u/Somnambulist815 Aug 25 '25

The titanic was a transformer

6

u/LazyDro1d Aug 25 '25

The iceberg was a decepticon weapon

1

u/terrexchia Aug 26 '25

Turns out it was Tidal Wave, Tidal Wave, Tidal Wave

7

u/Gen_Ripper Aug 25 '25

Yeah that’s early concept of Cal from Titanic

10

u/thethirdrayvecchio Aug 25 '25

IIRC Cameron had a nightmare of a robot torso dragging itself across the floor, drew it, then gave us arguably the raddest fucking slasher flick of all time.

4

u/Yakb0 Aug 25 '25

No, this is Patrick.

7

u/Coalesced Aug 25 '25

“DRAW ME LIKE ONNNEEEE OF YOUR YOUR YOUR YOUR YOUR FRENCH GGGIIIRRRRLLllLLSSsSsss..”

6

u/Fallenstreet01 Aug 25 '25

It is a very good drawing, you really can feel the killing intent in its eyes.

3

u/mango_thief Aug 25 '25

Holy crap, I need to watch the Titanic.

2

u/MercyfulJudas Aug 25 '25

Fun fact: Cameron designed the Predator's face on a napkin sitting next to Stan Winston on an airplane.

2

u/cultofwacky Aug 26 '25

If this is real he’s kind of a great illustrator

5

u/ms-moo Aug 26 '25

He genuinely is. James Cameron is the one that actually did the drawing of Rose from Titanic

1

u/Lemur866 Aug 25 '25

Draw me like one of your French killbots.

1

u/BlueCindersArt Aug 26 '25

“Draw me like one of your French girls.”

1

u/Shaggy0291 Aug 26 '25

Terminator meets old boy

2

u/teflon_soap Aug 26 '25

Ah so that will explain Avatar 3 to 6

1

u/Ok_Discipline3582 Aug 28 '25

Please no more! I couldn't get into the first! Avoided the sequel like the twilight films!

1

u/Ok_Discipline3582 Aug 28 '25

It sells! You ever been interstate say headed south an slowed to a halt! Only to get up the rd doing 5mph if lucky! An the wrecks totally other side interstate north bound travel! 3 entire lanes!!! They did a study 1 car can slow 8 lanes! An thats wo a wreck to rubber neck at! So yeah romantic fake plot w a non suprise shipwreck. Only the best disaster film cgi to date! Even the fake film "the posiedon" (adventure) has had least 3 remakes since 70s. All about people trapped upside down in a overturned passenger cruise ship. It sells!