Miss Saigon: Difference between revisions

* [[Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder]]: {{spoiler|Played backwards, in that it's ''Chris'' who moved on and Kim who stayed faithful. Having said that, he thought she was [[I Let Gwen Stacy Die|dead]] -- a reasonable conclusion when, the last he saw of her, she and the other refugees were getting machine-gunned by [[Dirty Communists]]. Subverted in that we see that he never forgot her and that his guilt has left him in bad shape--he had a breakdown that resulted in him mourning her for more than a year, suffers from nightmares, and is unable to confide in his wife about the trauma he went through.}}.

'''Chris:''' ...''It's the prettiest thing I ever heard.'' }}

* [[Anti-Villain]]: The Engineer. Sure, the antagonist role is filled more by Thuy, but he dies during the first act. Nonetheless, the Engineer is a scoundrel, but you can't help but like him. He's clearly an entrepreneur -- someone who would be a ''lot'' more comfortable in America than Vietnam. Furthermore, it appears that he's just as desperate to escape the poverty and violence of Vietnam as the girls he pimps out. His methods may be greedy and self-serving, but given his motives, it's hard to hate him completely. And he even manages to have a few [[Pet the Dog]] moments--in some versions of the ending, he's holding Tam {{spoiler|as the fatal gunshot rings out and instantly dives to protect him, then just as quickly shields him from seeing his mother's body}}.

** This actually happens twice. Once by Kim after she {{spoiler|fatally shoots Thuy}}, and the other by Chris after {{spoiler|Kim fatally shoots herself}}.

* [[Counterpoint Duet]]: "I Still Believe", sung by Kim and Ellen. The main "counterpoint" is the setting--Kim is alone in a hovel in Saigon while Ellen is in a comfortable bedroom in America, {{spoiler|sitting next to the sleeping Chris. Their lyrics are actually quite similar--each woman sings of her love for Chris, Kim of how much she misses him and hopes to be reunited with him, Ellen of wishing that he would confide in her and stop keeping her at arms' length.}}.

* {{spoiler|[[Died in Your Arms Tonight]]: Kim dies in Chris' arms.}}.

* [[Eagle Land]]: The Engineer's song, "The American Dream".

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Present in the majority of the songs in the show, but it's Kim's song {{spoiler|"I'd Give My Life For You"}} that really takes this trope and hits the audience over the head with it, {{spoiler|as it turns out this is exactly what she'd end up doing.}}.

'''John''': ...[[Reaction Shot|The April fuckin' moon??]] }}

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Chris is said to have suffered one lasting a full year after {{spoiler|losing Kim during the Fall of Saigon.}}.

** Kim and Chris to each other during the song "The Last Night Ofof Thethe World". "So stay with me and hold me tight. . ."

* [[Honest John's Dealership]]: The Engineer.

'''Chris:''' ''[[Love At First Sight|Good Jesus John who is she???]]'' }}

* [[Ironic Echo]]: Kim's final line showed up previously when the two were pledging their love. In the song "Sun and Moon,", just as they were falling in love, Chris asks Kim, "How in the light of one night did we come so far?" In the "Finale,", {{spoiler|just before she dies in his arms}}, she asks him "How in one night have we come... so far?"

* [["I Want" Song]]: "The Movie Inin My Mind" and "The American Dream.".

* [[Large Ham]]: Come on, guys. It's a ''musical.''. (As [[Bridget Jones]] puts it, "Strange men standing around with their legs apart bellowing songs straight ahead.")

* [[Last Kiss]]: {{spoiler|Chris and Kim kiss one last time leading to the [[Ironic Echo]] quoted above}}.

* [[Love Dodecahedron]],: orOr perhaps two instances of [[Love Triangle|LoveTriangles]] (since Thuy and Ellen are never involved with the main characters at the same time).

* [[Murder the Hypotenuse]]: Thuy threatens this against Chris. Then ''Kim'' actually ''does it'' to him (granted, he ''was'' declaring his intention to {{spoiler|kill her son at the time, so [[Mama Bear|her response was far from unjustified.). (''Then'' she does it to ''herself''!)]]}}

* [[Pieta Plagiarism]]: ''Twice'': {{spoiler|once after Kim shoots Thuy, and once after she shoots herself.}}.

* [[Race Lift]]: Towards the end of the show's Broadway run, the role of Ellen, typically played by a white actress (specifically, a blonde or redhead) was cast with Margaret Ann Gates, who is Asian. Critics pointed out that this added a very interesting new dynamic to the show, as [[Replacement Goldfish|suddenly, instead of moving on with his life as he insisted that he had, it now seemed as though Chris married Ellen only because she reminded him of Kim]].

* [[Sexy Discretion Shot]]: The lights begin to dim as Kim and Chris undress, then go out completely as they get into bed. {{spoiler|There's similar staging for his love scene with Ellen.}}.

* [[Shoot the Money]]: Theater writer Peter Filichia wrote in the book ''Let's Put on a Musical!: How to Choose the Right Show for Your School'' that the probable reason the story is told out of sequence was so the show's big special effect -- the last helicopter taking off during the fall of Saigon -- could be saved for the second act.

* [[Villain Song]]: Basically anything The Engineer sings. Ironically, [[Anti-Villain|he's not really villainous]], just... <s>avaricious</s> a little too entrepeneurial for his own good (not to mention being involved in the prostitution business.). (Though he's not above employing Kim as one of his pole dancers once they get to Bangkok.)