Moral Event Horizon/Film: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."''|'''Obi-Wan Kenobi''', ''[[Star Wars]]: [[A New Hope]]''}}

 

* Hard to decide when [[Magnificent Bastard|Rotti]] [[Retired Monster|Largo]] crosses the line in [[Repo! The Genetic Opera|Repo]]! [[Repo! The Genetic Opera|The Genetic Opera]], but between {{spoiler|Poisoning Marni and convincing Nathan it was his own ineptitude, turning Nathan himself into a [[Tragic Villain]], pressing Mag into white slavery and then murdering her when she shows defiance, grooming Shilo as the next head of [[Cloudcuckooland|Geneco]]}}. and sponsoring laws that ''legalize murder'' it must have happened somewhere along the way. Even compared to [[Crapsack World|the every day evils of the population]] he is beyond redemption, especially when you realize the odds that [[The Plague]] that caused mass organ failure [[Fridge Logic|was probably something]] [[Wild Mass Guessing|he cooked up, too]]. If that is the case, I'd call ''that'' the line.

* One of the most famous crossings of the Horizon: [[Earthshattering Kaboom|the destruction of Alderaan]] (a planet implied to have millions of innocent civilians living there) by the Death Star in ''[[Star Wars]]: [[A New Hope]]''. [[The Dragon|Vader]] is considered [[Evil Is Cool|darkly awesome]], but not as many people feel that way about [[Complete Monster|Grand Moff Tarkin]], the one who ordered the whole thing, and doesn't seem to have a second thought about it. In case Leia's reaction didn't convince you that there were millions of people on that planet, Obi Wan's reaction confirmed it. The [[Expanded Universe]] tries to humanize Tarkin occasionally. It generally fails - even when he's having an affair with his [[Evil Redhead]] protege (who is, incidentally, the only person who can make him laugh...yes, Tarkin has a sense of humor), he still comes across as a [[Complete Monster]] with no redeeming qualities. This was a chilling example of the "Banality of Evil." Vader and Palpatine are Sith lords, but Tarkin is an ordinary guy, no different from you or me, who is just doing his job. His job happens to be killing billions of innocent people. Which he ''likes'' to do.

** To expand on the above, Vidal was interrogating a pair of civilians caught near his home, who claim to be simply out hunting rabbits. Vidal does not believe them, and suspects them of being rebels. He then kills them both, as described above. When he opens their bag and discovers that they ''were'' innocent rabbit hunters, he simply tells his men to search suspects better before wasting his time. [[Even Evil Has Standards|Even though he's the most evil character in the film, he still doesn't like finding out he had killed innocent civilians and is upset with his own men because he didn't believe the suspects before killing them.]] But then he takes advantage of his discovery and steals the quarry his victims had bagged for dinner.

* ''[[Mystery Men]]'' subverts this trope by having the protagonists accidentally commit the act that would solidify Casanova Frankenstein's status as a [[Complete Monster]] by frying Captain Amazing with the psychofrakulator. Casanova still indirectly crosses the horizon when you understand that he plans to unleash the terrible device on the entire city.

* [[John Wayne]], in ''[[The Searchers]]'' ("Stand aside, Martin.") Words fail me...

** Even though Ethan Edwards is a general bastard, he never crosses the horizon even though he has every right to, seeing as the Comanches utterly massacred his brother and sister-in-law, scalped them, RAPED HIS OLDEST NIECE TO DEATH, and then press-ganged his youngest niece into their tribe. But when it comes to the point where he's about to {{spoiler|put a bullet between his niece's eyes}}, he doesn't, showing that he wasn't wholly irredeemable.

* Alex Forrest of ''[[Fatal Attraction (film)|Fatal Attraction]]'' loses all sympathy when she takes Dan's daughter's pet rabbit and boils it alive in the family's pressure cooker in a scene of pure [[Nightmare Fuel]] that coined the term "bunny boiler" for [[Yandere]] types in the West, and has since become a staple usage of bunnies in horror lit (for example, R.L. Stine's books).

** This is parodied in the film ''[[Fatal Instinct]]'' when Ned comes home to find his pet skunk missing and a stock pot of boiling water on the stove. After the obligatory "NOOOO!", Lola Cain (the Alex Forrest character) informs him that YES!, it IS linguine pomodoro (with basil!)

* Warden Norton in ''[[The Shawshank Redemption]]'' is cold and corrupt, but not generally unreasonable. He even becomes somewhat chummy with hero Andy Dufresne after he begins doing financial work for the prison. But when he orders the death of Tommy to ensure that Andy will never have his name cleared, he crosses the point of no return. Then, just to be extra nasty, he throws Andy in the solitary confinement cell for two months just to break his spirit, which just makes it supremely awesome when Andy proves that his spirit is unbreakable.

* In ''[[The Proposition]]'', it's bad enough that Arthur murdered the Hopkins family (although deleted scenes show that Patrick survived), but when we learn that he raped a pregnant woman to death, we accept that yes, he's got to die, [[Affably Evil]] or not:

* In ''[[Cube]]'' Quentin grows steadily more hostile over the course of the film, but he doesn't make the full transition into becoming a genuine threat to the group until he {{spoiler|kills Holloway by letting her fall to her death}}.

* If he hadn't crossed it already, Paul Giamatti's character in ''[[Shoot'Em Up]]'' cements his status as a [[Complete Monster]] when he runs over what he believes to be the baby that Smith (Clive Owen) is protecting.

* Carlo Rizzi in ''[[The Godfather]]'' crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]] when he {{spoiler|cheats on Connie Corleone, only to physically and verbally abuse her when she calls him out on it, knowing that it will send Sonny into a furious rage and get him killed on orders from Barzini, who Carlo is secretly working for}}. ''[[The Godfather|The Godfather Part II]]'', meanwhile, was built around {{spoiler|Michael Corleone's}} descent past the Horizon. He bottoms out when he {{spoiler|has his brother Fredo killed}}. Interestingly, Tom Hagen averts this - he {{spoiler|pretty much tells Frankie Pentageli to kill himself}}, but ensures him that his family will be protected.

** Michael at least makes an ultra-serious effort to redeem himself in ''The Godfather Part III'', but his past soon comes back to haunt him in the form of [[Andy Garcia]]...

* General Chase crosses this mere minutes into ''[[Plunkett and Macleane]]''. Likely to remove all sympathy for a man hunting outlaws, he proceeds to torture a dying man. Complete with [[Eye Scream]].

* Mr. Potter from ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'' does this by threatening to have George Bailey arrested for committing bank fraud, being short eight thousand dollars. This comes right after Mr. Potter accidentally comes into possession of this money, so he knows darn well what he's doing. Then, minutes later, George Bailey contemplates jumping [[Despair Event Horizon|off a bridge]]... If you think Mr. Potter has ''any'' chance of redemption after this, you've got some issues.

** "Why George... You're worth more dead than alive."

** And from ''[[The Dark Knight Rises]]'', we have Bane and {{spoiler|Talia Al-Ghul's}} ''entire'' plan of cutting off Gotham City from contact with the outside world, turning it into a chaotic hellhole while uplifting convicted criminals, the poor, and other people who are at the bottom of society {{spoiler|while planning on obliterating it all in a nuclear explosion.}}

* In ''[[The Phantom (film)|The Phantom]]'' [[The Movie]], the [[Big Bad]] Xander Drax seems to be [[Affably Evil]] at first (being played by Treat Williams helps), but slides into [[Faux Affably Evil]] territory in the scene where he punishes a librarian who unwittingly leaked the research he was doing for Drax to a reporter. Drax has the hapless man examine something under a microscope...which has [[Eye Scream|retractable blades hidden in the eyepieces]]. As the victim screams piteously in agony, Drax ''laughs'', snaps his glasses in half, and says, "Well, won't be needing ''these'' anymore!"

** The sequel ramps it up with Colonel Stuart, {{spoiler|1=who guides a plane full of innocent passengers into crashing into the runway. All because McClane had the ''audacity'' to kill the men they had stationed at the annex skywalk.}}

** And then subverted in the third film. {{spoiler|The bomb planted in an elementary school turns out to be a dud.}}

* In ''[[Missing in Action]] 2: The Beginning'', Colonel Yin loses all respect when he reveals with a headshot to one prisoner that he only used empty guns in previous "executions" to bluff the others into thinking he's bluffing when he tells a prisoner he'll kill him for crimes against Vietnam. The worst part about it is, by the time that poor guy's head gets blown off, ''all'' the prisoners were completely fooled. He loses what little respect he has left some time later when he betrays Braddock's trust by convincing him to confess his guilt against Vietnam so he can administer some medicine to Franklin only to poison him, and when Frankiln's all ''but'' dead Yin burns him alive on a funeral pyre as Braddock watches and yells for him to stop it.

* Viktor in ''[[Underworld Rise of the Lycans]]'' crosses it when, with {{spoiler|''his own daughter's life''}} at stake, {{spoiler|he votes "aye", thus sealing her unanimous death sentence--and does so without pity despite Lucian calling him on it}}. And while the fact that he did regret ''that'' in the long run would normally disqualify it as a MEH, he then accuses Lucian of murdering {{spoiler|her}} ''even though he was present and chained up to the point where he couldn't even TOUCH {{spoiler|her}}''. Is it any wonder that you'd be polarized concerning the vampires and Lycans if you saw this installment in addition to one of the first two installments?

* Johns has two in ''[[Pitch Black]]''. The first is when he steals the morfine from the crashed spaceship, so Fry's friend has to die in screaming agony. The second is when he suggests he and Riddick kill Jack and use her as bait for the creatures.

* [[Limitless]]: NTZ is a drug that gives you [[Super Intelligence]]. Another secondary effect of NZT is to let the user ignore the [[Moral Event Horizon]]:

** Any other user hooked on NZT is willingly enough to torture or kill for another dosis.

* ''[[Kickboxer]]'''s Tong Po, no matter how much of a [[Badass]] he may be, definitively crosses this line with his physical and sexual brutalization of Mylee, Kurt Sloane's [[Love Interest]], his way of reminding the viewers how much of a bastard he is and why one should root for Kurt to win the upcoming match with him.

* The bullies (especially the male ones, particulary their leader Anders, Paul, and few others) and, by extension, almost ''the entire class'' from the Estonian film ''Klass'', cross this line. Their treatment towards Joseph and Kasparr is very cruel and despicable, even for bullies. In the beginning of movie, they bully and belittle Joseph in a basketball game, then fully undress him and push him into the girl's changing room. This was so bad that it made Kaspar, one of the bullies, [[Heel Face Turn|have a change of heart]] and become Joseph's friend after realizing what he has been doing. Then the bullies begin targeting both Joseph and Kaspar and their bullying gets worse: stealing Joseph's notebook and not giving him it back, later forcing Joseph to apologise for telling the teacher about their bullying, cutting and stealing his shoes, assaulting him both at school and out of it, calling Joseph and Kaspar homosexuals because they are friends, sending them insulting notes, framing Kaspar for Joseph's bullying. Later, they begin beating Joseph and Anders kicks him in the stomach several times. After that, they still want to force Joseph to apologise for telling about their bullying. The girls of the class also join the bullying by laughing at Joseph's suffering, insulting him, and supporting the bullies. After Joseph consequently tells his parents about their bullying and they inform the school about the class bullying Joseph, the class choose to blame Joseph for everything, despite the fact that they were the ones who started bullying Joseph. Wanting revenge, they call both Kaspar and Joseph into going to beach by writing emails to them showing each other as the fake sender. If you don't think they have crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]] a while ago, you most likely see this point as crossing that crucial line for the remotest of antagonist sympathy. They {{spoiler|force Kaspar to fellate Joseph at knife point and photograph the sexual act without showing the knife}}, emotionally breaking both Kaspar and Joseph by doing this, and they simply laugh at their suffering. Even worse, before doing this, Paul, one of the bullies, thinks that '''''this is not evil enough'''''. This finally pushes Joseph and Kaspar over the edge and thus leads them to {{spoiler|stealing the guns from Joseph's father, going into the school, and killing the bullies to avenge themselves}}. While the ending is terrifying, {{spoiler|the class brought it on themselves, and those who escaped the shooting will have to deal with the fact that the people they cruelly bullied almost killed them}}. The only people from Joseph's class who escape this territory are Joseph and Kaspar, Kaspar's ex-girlfriend Thea (although she's no saint herself as she broke up with Kaspar because he was protecting Joseph and participated in their bullying herself), who was disgusted with the aforementioned {{spoiler|fellating}}, and Kerli, the goth girl of the class and the only one who did not participate in the class bullying of Joseph and Kaspar and was disgusted with the class' treatment of the two boys (a few scenes indicating that the class teased her too due to this). Joseph and Kaspar {{spoiler|allow her to leave the cafeteria, before they begin to shoot the bullies}}. Made worse by the fact that the film was based on [[Real Life]] events.

** Joseph and Kaspar themselves arguably crossed it with their {{spoiler|school shooting}}, though it's not ''at all'' hard to see how and why they came to it.

* From Sam Raimi's ''[[Spider-Man]]'' films, we had the Green Goblin/Norman Osborn cross it in the first movie when he forced Spider-Man to choose between saving Mary-Jane or a lift full of ''children'' from falling to their deaths. He had other moments that could qualify such as setting a building on fire to lure Spider-Man to him or hospitalizing Aunt May, a ''harmless old woman'' to get to Peter, but it was this [[Sadistic Choice]] that showed how low the Goblin could sink when it comes to hurting Spider-Man.