Moral Event Horizon/Film: Difference between revisions
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* Hard to decide when [[
* 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 just insane but Tarkin [[Punch Clock Villain|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.]]
** The [[Expanded Universe]] has an even clearer [[Moral Event Horizon]] for Tarkin in his earlier days. He's captaining a ship sent to collect taxes from a planet. Some of the natives, protesting unjust taxation practices, stage a demonstration on the landing pad to prevent the ship from landing. Tarkin lands the ship anyway. On the landing pad. With the protesters still on the pad. According the expanded universe backstory, that's when the Rebel Alliance realize that they have to depose the Empire by force if they were willing to do crimes like that.
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* It's obvious from his first appearance that Captain Vidal of ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]'' is a very unpleasant man. At first, it almost seems a little ''too'' [[Kick the Dog|obvious]]. But there might have been a softer side lurking there somewhere. But after he crushed the skull of an innocent boy with a bottle and shot both him and his father with a mixture of boredom and vague pleasure, it was made clear how evil he was. Note, this is just when he ''crossed'' the horizon. He kept right on going. He's a moral Magellan, really.
** 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
* Clu from ''[[Tron: Legacy]]'' has his at varying parts in the movie, his first coming when he ordered {{spoiler|the genocide of the ISO population.}} They just keep on getting more extreme until the final showdown on the bridge. {{spoiler|Kevin Flynn, [[Despair Event Horizon|who suffered from being trapped in the Grid for an equivalent of]] '''[[Despair Event Horizon|1,000 years]],''' finally faces his own program. [[Evil Gloating|While Clu gloats about how he created the perfect system,]] Flynn reveals that Clu's purpose was a mistake; in other words, perfection is impossible to achieve. Unable to accept this, Clu approaches his creator ''and kicks him to the ground.'' And then he turns his attention to Quorra and Sam with the intent of killing them both IN FRONT OF HIS OWN CREATOR.}} If Clu didn't cross the line by that point, he surely did after that.
* [* [[John Wayne]], in ''[[The Searchers]]'' ("Stand aside, Martin.") Words fail me...
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** 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.
* At first, Professor Moriarty from [[Sherlock Holmes (film)|''Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'']] comes across as an [[Affably Evil]] [[Worthy Opponent]] to Holmes, but any possible claim to playing fair is utterly destroyed when he announces his intent to make Watson collateral damage for no other reason than to hurt Holmes, and in the same breath reveals that he has already {{spoiler|poisoned Irene Adler because she outlived her usefulness}}. And that's just the beginning; he speeds joyfully deeper into
* 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'''''
** 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 ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2'', Harry Osborn/The Green Goblin crosses this whenever {{spoiler|he steals his dad's achievement (In the comics) of murdering Gwen Stacy. It's especially this due to the fact that it was done purely out of pettiness towards Spider-Man: he was pissed since Spider-Man (rightfully) denied him a blood transfusion that Harry thought could save his life, and once he realizes Peter Parker is Spider-Man, he decides to kill the person he loves most in order to take away his hope like Peter did to him.}}
** Donald Menken from the same film also had one of these moments: he not only framed Harry for Max Dillon's accident, but {{spoiler|got him fired from Oscorp, leaving him to die a penniless wreck while taunting him about his approaching death from Norman's inheritable disease like the slimy asshole he is.}}
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