I Am Number Four

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John Smith is Number Four.

Number Four is an alien from the planet Lorien, which was destroyed by another evil race, the Mogadorians, whose sole purpose is planetary extinction. Number Four wasn't the sole survivor, as there were eight others, along with their guardians, who escaped the planet's destruction. These nine remnants are destined to use their inner powers to defeat these evil intergalactic terrors, but they must survive long enough to master them. The aliens seek out the survivors, one by one, in order of their number. Numbers one through three have been killed.

Number Four is next.

I Am Number Four is a Young Adult sci-fi novel written by Pittacus Lore, the Pen Name of James Frey (of A Million Little Pieces infamy) and Jobie Hughes. Published in 2010, it had the film rights picked up by DreamWorks over a year before it was even released. The Film of the Book was released in February 2011, starring Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron, Teresa Palmer and Timothy Olyphant. Both the book and the film proved to be decent hits; the book spent six weeks on the children's chapter of the New York Times Bestseller List, while the film has already made back its $50 million budget.

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The film and novel contain the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Number Six
• Adaptational Badass: Number Six trades in invisibility from the book for teleportation in the movie.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Mogadorians exterminate all life on a planet (including all members of the species from that planet that escape), then find another planet to wipe clean.
• Badass Normal: Sam, who "plays a lot of X-box".
• Betty and Veronica: Played with. Certainly Sarah, whose defining character trait is that she takes pictures, feels mildly threatened when Number 6 appears in the film. She should because as she's busy cowering in fear due to her powerlessness, Number 6 is wrecking people left and right. But considering how John's race mates for life with one other person, Sarah really has nothing to worry about.
• Boring Invincible Hero: Four has so many superpowers that he's basically undefeatable, at least for the Jerkass jocks at his school. literally with Six, thanks to magic.
• Big Damn Heroes: Number Six.
• Bloodless Carnage: Instead of gore, the alien characters that die turn to dust and explode in a shower of ash. Averted by the Gory Discretion Shot of the janitor, where you see the automatic mop sweeping his blood off the floor.
• Chekhov's Skill: Those Deflector Shields ain't just for lookin' cool.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Sam bringing along guns.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The good guys use blue bullets/power/sword. The bad guys use red bullets.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: The Mogadorians.
• Dawson Casting: Played straight as 24-year-old Dianna Agron, 22-year-old Jake Abel and 20-year-old Alex Pettyfer play high school students. However, it's averted with Callan McAuliffe who was 15 at the time of filming.
• Deflector Shields: Number Six.
• Disney Death: The supposed tragic death of the dog turned out to be this.
  • This shouldn't have surprised anyone; when we last see the dog during the climax, it's wounded, but it doesn't turn to dust like all other aliens that die in the movie. Therefore, it's obvious even before it pops up again in the last scene that it survived.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Sam. In fact, the distraction works to break him out of a panic attack.
• The Dog Is an Alien: John/Number Four's dog Bernie Kosar shapeshifts into a more monstrous, distinctly more extraterrestrial creature (that still resembles a dog) known as a Chimera to pull a Big Damn Heroes, engaging another alien monster in combat and eventually killing it.
• Dye or Die: Number Four has to dye his brown hair blonde when he moves to Paradise, Ohio.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Alex Pettyfer dyed his blond hair brown for the beginning of the film. Jake Abel dyed his blonde hair brown for the duration of the film. Callan McAuliffe had his hair dyed darker for the film, but claims to have lost track of its original color because he's dyed it other colors for roles before.
• Everything Fades: All aliens (conveniently) leave no corpses. This is probably a substitute for Henri's funeral pyre from the novel.
• Everything Is Online: Actually played fairly realistically; one of the things that keep Number Four from staying in one place is that whenever something big happens to him that exposes the fact that he's an alien is because people record his powers and upload them to YouTube.
• Evil Is Hammy: Kevin Durand had some fun playing the Mog leader.
• Expy: Every Mogadorian looks like a gill-nosed Lord Voldemort.
• Faux Affably Evil / Laughably Evil: The leader of the Mogs delivers some of the funniest lines in the film.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero: John Smith/ Number 4
  • The Lancer: Sam
  • The Big Guy/ Team Pet: Number 4's dog Bernie.
  • The Mentor: Henri
  • The Smart Guy: Sam once again for playing X-Box.
  • The Chick: Sarah
  • The Sixth Ranger: Number 6
• Follow the Leader: A very pretty boy moves into a small town and starts a relationship with a girl, except he has superpowers, which complicates things. And his mouthy, socially ostracized friend is called Sam, who believes in ancient astronauts. Number Four even ends the movie narrating that Earth is his home now, and though they are worlds apart, there's more to them than meets the eye so he has to protect it.
• For the Evulz: The Mog leader scares the crap out of a little boy in an adjacent car for no other reason than this.
• Four Is Death
• Flash Step: Number Six, again.
• Giant Flyer: They're more like giant gliders, but the Mogadorians' secret monsters are still this.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The deaths of the "They Walk Among Us" guys and the janitor all happen off-screen as well as the death of Number Three's guardian, who's yanked through the door of their hut by one of the lizard glider creatures.
• Human Aliens: The Lorien.
• Humanoid Alien
• I Just Want to Be Normal
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Sam.
• Ironic Echo:

John: "You have... no idea... what I'm capable of."

• It's Personal: Number Four points to the red-eyed Mogadorian and tells Number Six: "He killed Henri, I want him."
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Number Three. And Henri. Four also narrowly avoids this.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sarah's ex went a little crazy after she left, but he gets better.
• Kayfabe: The very first page of the book is a "disclaimer" stating the events depicted in the book are real. Also the author bio states the "Pitticus Lore" is the ruling elder of Lorien currently in hiding.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Realistically averted: a shotgun is more likely to knock the Made of Iron bad guys on their ass, and flinging large heavy items at them will probably slow them down, but it takes turning their own overpowered BFGs on them to actually take them out.
• Kink Meme: There's a new one here, for both the movie and the book, as far as they overlap.
• Logging Onto the Fourth Wall: Sadly averted; They-Walk-Among-Us.com only redirects to the film's website.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Actually more of Deflector Shields, until Number Six uses it along with her own body in the climax to protect Number Four and herself.
• Made of Iron:
  • The only things that seem to be able to kill a Mog is a Mogadorian blade or one of their weapons.
    • Somewhat justified. The Lorien weapons we see amount to a slightly over-sized dagger, and a slightly over-sized energy pistol. The Mog weapons we see are a nastily serrated 3-foot sword and various high-energy rifles that either pump out ridiculous amounts of machine-gun-style rounds or single massive bursts. About what you'd expect from an entire race dedicated to wiping out other races for no apparent reason other than being sadistic.
  • Sarah's ex has some elements of this as well. He's launched into a second floor window hard enough to crack the glass with his face, then falls back to the ground, and yet he's completely uninjured at the conclusion of the movie.
    • He is a Winchester after-all
• Missing Mom: Number Four's parents are both dead, but he mentions to Sarah's family that his parents are just separated. Also, Sam has lived with his dad and stepdad but no mom is ever mentioned.
  • Sam lives with his mom in the book, and he has no stepfather.
• Money, Dear Boy: The author made no secret that he wrote the book to cash in on the popularity of the Twilight series and try to create a new hit franchise in its stead.
• Mundane Utility: Number Four's glowing hands. Aside from using them to recharge Six's powers, he uses them mainly as flashlights.
• Le Parkour: Number Four is fond of this trope.
• The Obi-Wan: Henri.
• Oblivious Janitor Cut
• Oh Crap: Number Six gets two of these: one when an energy grenade gets thrown at her, and the second is when she realizes Four is about to give the leader Mog a Pineapple Surprise (in slow motion, no less). Sam also has one when he sees the lizard creatures jumping out of the truck, followed immediately by another one when Bernie Kosar shape-shifts.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Sam (portrayed by Australian actor Callan McAuliffe) is a repeat offender of this trope, but most notably in the garage scene. British actor Alex Pettyfer slips up as well.
  • In the DVD bonus feature about Number 6, Australian Teresa Palmer claims that one of the things she liked about the role was being able to use her own dialect.
  • At least with the latter, it can be assumed that he either has a somewhat odd combination accent due to extensive travel or that he's faking an accent to fit in better with the Americans.
• Out of the Inferno: Number Six after blowing up Number Four's old house. Justified in that Number Six can shield herself from fire.
• Pet Monstrosity: The Mogadorians' pets. Also, Bernie Kosar. He manages to take down one giant flying monster, and only gets a hurt paw out of it. Number Six takes out the second one with some help from Four.
• Pineapple Surprise: Number Four kills the Mogadorian leader by using his powers to set off all of the leader's bullets while they're still strapped to his chest.
• Power Glows
• Proud Warrior Race: Implied with the Mogadorians. The Mog leader mentions “where I'm from, men work,” (not to mention his hunting trophies).
• Rescue Introduction: Number 6.
• Sequel Hook: The movie end with Number Four and Six searching for Numbers 5-7-8-9 and Sam's dad. We also never saw what's in that box.
  • The book explains what is in the box in both the middle and the end
• Shapeshifting: Apparently, the Chimera can change form.
• Superpower Lottery: Number 4
• Surprisingly-Sudden Death: In the beginning of the film.
• Team Pet: Bernie Kosar, prior to his upgrade into a Pet Monstrosity.
• Took a Level In Badass: Sam near the end of the film, when he takes up a Mogadorian blaster rifle to protect himself and Sarah. He "plays a lot of X-Box."
  • Bernie when he transforms into the chimera.
  • Not to mention Number Four himself when his powers emerge.
• The Quisling - The guys from the "They Walk Among Us" website.
• Unflinching Walk - Number Six after setting fire to Number Four's old house to such a degree she walks in the explosion.
• Unwilling Suspension: Henri.
• Villains Out Shopping: The Mogs keep their secret weapons sated with supermarket turkeys.
• You Are Number Six: Played with. It's averted in that the numbers are not actually used for names, but as target designations. However, it's deliberately invoked in Number Six's case, who identifies herself as "Number Six" (except one snarky comment to Sam that her name is "Jane Doe") and refers to John only by his number.
  • Played straight enough in the books where they appear to have no proper names in their own language and he actually refers to himself as 'Four.'
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The two conspiracy theorists, one of whom is forced to swallow what looked like a miniature version of a Sentinel Sphere from Phantasm.