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Rule of Cool: Difference between revisions
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You will need to refer to [[The Utterly and Completely Definitive Guide To Cool]].
A [[Sub
Compare [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]]. Compare [[Cool of Rule]], [[Rule of Funny]], [[Rule of Fun]], [[Rule of Scary]], [[Rule of Drama]], [[Rule of Romantic]], [[Rule of Cute]], [[Masculinity Tropes]].
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* [[Flaming Sword]]
* [[Floating Water]]
* [[Free
* [[Freaky Is Cool]]
* [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]
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* [[Improbable Use of a Weapon]]
* [[Incendiary Exponent]]
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons]]
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha]]
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja]]
* [[Instant Plunder, Just Add Pirates]]
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* [[Serial Escalation]]
* [[Sharpened to A Single Atom]]
* [[Shoulder
* [[Schizo
* [[Sky Pirate]]
* [[She Fu]]
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and<br />
'''Kotomi:''' He just ignores the laws of magic. }}
** The entire Negi vs. Rakan fight. The ridiculous lengths that it goes to ({{spoiler|Negi reveals that [[I Am Not Left
** Really, a good chunk of the series is covered by either [[Rule of Cool]] or [[Rule of Funny]].
*** With whatever gaps remaining between the two being largely filled in with [[Rule of Sexy]].
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* Oh hey ''[[Zombieland (Film)|Zombieland]]'', hey. Why would you go to an amusement park and turn all the lights on, turning your location into a gigantic target? Why would you jump ''out'' of the car and let it sink into the river, instead of just hitting the brakes suddenly? Why would you try to con the first signs of life instead of going with them, then why would you leave? Why would you take a motorcycle or a shovel to fight zombies? Why? Why? ''Because it's awesome.''
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g54Ee07wOI&feature=player_embedded This song] from the film ''Sivaji: The Boss''. As [http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/07/zen-and-the-art-of-napping-on-motorcycles/ this blog post] puts it, "the waycool approach is to ride up, while napping, on a motorcycle that you drive with your feet, dismount by means of wheelie on the front tire, and shoot the bad guys with a machinegun hidden in your guitar. Then the stunningly attractive Bollywood actress will sing and dance with you."
* [http://pics.livejournal.com/mkthudsons/pic/00029x75 This promo poster] from ''[[Watchmen (Film)|Watchmen]]''. True, he could be lighting the cigar purely from the [[Convection, Schmonvection]] of heat, or off the barrel of the flamethrower, but you do NOT want to taste a cigar that's been lit off a kerosene flame. Just trust me on this one.
* Why do all of Ramona's evil exes meet some requirement of video game boss style, explode into coins when defeated, and that everyone naturally is just that good at martial arts? So that when [[Scott Pilgrim]] wins the girl its really cool.
* The entire movie ''[[Alpha and Omega]]'' especially the wolf characters. Unlike most people who believe this as a case of [[Did Not Do the Research]]. A majority of the wolves have [[Anime Hair]] and a few have eye colors discommon to actual wolves. This also includes wolf society portrayed on this movie.
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* ''[[Top Gear]]'' follows this. Why race a Bugatti Veyron against an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon? Why attempt to turn a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle? Why do any of the things they do? Because they're cool, dammit!
** What about the Cool Wall? Nothing else matters, not how fast it is, how safe, or how functional. All that matter is how ''cool'' it is.
* Nothing in ''[[
{{quote| Mook: "What you gonna do, sucker me to death?" <br />
Dalek: ''[[Nightmare Fuel|*Promptly suckers him to death*]]'' }}
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** Or how about this one: in the climax of "Tooth and Claw", the Tenth Doctor uses {{spoiler|a telescope and diamond to fire a beam capable of lifting a werewolf, easily weighing 3-400 lbs, into the air, using only moonlight.}}
** Victory of the Daleks. [[Cool Plane|Spitfires]] [[In Space]]!
** [[Doctor Who
** A [[Lizard Folk|Silurian lady]] [[They Fight Crime|fighting crime]] in Victorian England with her human maid/lesbian lover? [[Katanas Are Just Better|WITH A KATANA??]]
** [[Doctor Who
* ''[[Chuck]]'' lives by this rule. The whole premise of a computer being downloaded into a guy's mind makes no sense whatsoever, and when that computer gets upgraded to make him magically learn kung fu, all plausibility goes flying right out the window. But Chuck can kick people in face, so who really cares?
** Sarah's knife-throwing [[Improbable Aiming Skills|exploits]] fall firmly into this trope.
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* The ''[[The Future Is Wild]]'' BBC miniseries, a followup to the popular ''Walking with ___'' series, focuses on what life might be like millions of years in the future. It's got elements of evolutionary biology, but most of it is rule of cool all over.
* You could fill a hundred encyclopedias with all the technical and narrative inaccuracies in ''[[Star Trek]]''; two dimensional space, clear contradictions in the standard operating procedures of Starfleet, glaringly inefficient ship designs, questionable character development, unrealistic scale of space, unrealistic equipment, convoluted timeline of events, the list is infinite. But....when ''Trek'' fires on all <s> cylinders</s> warp nacelles, NOBODY gives a damn.
** This is not completely true, as the Star Trek writers sometimes write in extra, unnecessary [[Techno Babble]] explanations for unrealistic technology, most likely due to fan complaints. One example is that the ''[[Star Trek]]'' transporter technology, which violates [
** In the season four premiere of ''[[Star Trek Enterprise]]'', the Enterprise's targeting sensors are disabled, requiring the ship to get close enough to the target to eyeball it. This serves no plot purpose, but the target happened to be a facility in Nazi-occupied New York. The result was the Enterprise flying over New York City, fighting [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Stukas with plasma cannons]].
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** All these are in a game with surprisingly little [[Cutscene Power to The Max]]. A normal situation in multiplayer involves a [[Donkey Kong|giant gorilla with a tie]] headbutting [[Metal Gear|Solid Snake]] into the surface of a moving craft then launching him offscreen with a haymaker. Then, Snake grabs the Smash Ball and his player goes through an [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] and starts firing grenades from the foreground, causing a [[Total Party Kill]]. IN SPACE!
* Pretty much everything in ''[[Command and Conquer|Red Alert 2]]''. And ''[[Red Alert]] 3,'' too. Armored paratrooper bears, anyone?
* ''[[Bio Shock]]''. No, they didn't have automated turrets or flying unmanned machinegun robots in the 60s, and the technology to build an entire city on the bottom of the ocean wasn't even feasible in the late 1940s. But that's terribly irrelevant when one considers that you also have a [[Bee
** For ''[[Bio Shock Infinite (Video Game)|Bio Shock Infinite]]'' you get the magic to sic a murder of crows on people. Even so, how does the flying city of Columbia carry enough fuel to stay airborne, or to lift all those stone buildings, marble statues, cobbled streets and parks at all? Though ''awesomeness''.
* Absolutely everything in ''[[God Hand]]''. Just to give you an idea, a [[Memetic Mutation]] about the game goes from "These levels look bland" to "HOLY SHIT THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME I'M THE MOTHERFUCKING [[Fist of the North Star]] JESUS CHRIST" in three panels. And it doesn't even mention the Luchadore Gorilla.
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* ''[[Majoras Mask|Majora's Mask]]'' featured a moon falling to the planet over the course of three days. If it isn't stopped it'll destroy just about everything, even at a speed of five mph, once you beat the game it becomes a rainbow, apparently. Neither of these conclusions are great for the tides and oceans. Looks pretty good though.
* ''[[Rocket Knight Adventures]]'' lives and breathes this trope. It stars a heavily armored anthropomorphic opossum who flies around with a rocket pack and wields a sword that can generate [[Razor Wind]], it's utterly saturated with [[Steampunk]] [[Humongous Mecha]], [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier|Airborne Aircraft Carriers]], and [[Military Mashup Machine|Military Mashup Machines]], and your enemies do things like deliberately blowing a hole in the side of their own spaceship to try and kill you or following you down through re-entry into the planet's atmosphere.
** Then there's your first fight with [[Evil Counterpart|Axel Gear]]. The first half of the fight is [[Advancing Boss of Doom|you fleeing from Axel piloting a giant robot]], and the second half is [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha|you coming across a heretofore-unexplained giant robot]] and [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|engaging Axel's robot in a giant robot fistfight]]. No written language on Earth has the punctuation mark necessary to end the previous sentence in a way that does it justice.
* ''[[Prince of Persia]]'' went from possible, though infeasible (largely due to human stamina limits) acrobatics in Jordan Mechner's original games, to [[Ubisoft]]'s complete and utter disregard for the laws of physics relative to human motion. Could a man jumping twelve feet out into space at a sheer stone wall grab an eight-inch, ninety-degree angle stone ledge with anything resembling enough grip to keep himself from falling? Oh, man... roll the dice. One man in a hundred, maybe, could pull that off ''once'', and he probably wouldn't feel his fingers for a week afterward. Try doing it ten times within a minute's span, with your life on the line each time. This is not to mention running along or up walls for anything more than three steps at most. Why does it all work? ''Because it's cool as hell.''
* ''[[Dantes Inferno (Video Game)|Dantes Inferno]]''. You start off by killing the grim reaper, stealing his scythe, descending into hell and eventually killing the lord of hell himself. Also along the way you also fight a giant naked woman throwing babies out of her boobs. Everything this game does is to be cool and to slightly follow the original poem.
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* ''[[Alan Wake]]'' has a scene where you have to defend yourself on a rock stage (in the middle of a farm field) while a [[Crowning Music of Awesome|kickass metal song]] plays and pyrotechnics explode around you. Why? Because '''''fuck yeah'''''.
* Two words, ''[[Asura's Wrath]]''.
* Most games in [[The Legend of Zelda]] poke at the [[Rule of Cool]], but none goes quite as far as [[The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]. Epona gets an upgrade from the "X" in [[A Boy and His X|a boy and his horse]] into a bona fide [[Cool Car|war]] [[Horseback Heroism|horse]] in this game, complete with a few [[Rearing Horse]] moments. [[Everything's Better With Spinning]] applies to the Spinner and the trusty spin attack. You can do some cool [[Spider Man]] moves with the Double Clawshot, walk on walls because of the [[Schizo
* [[Viewtiful Joe]] is built almost entirely around this trope. Upon entering Movie World, Joe becomes a martial arts expert, is capable of taking tank shells to the face, and [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|can kill enemies just by striking a pose.]] Not only that, but the game just keeps trying to top itself. After you defeat Fire Leo by burning at temperatures over 1000000 degrees, you end up in a planet-dwarfing mech-battle. ''And that's only the first game.''
* ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' is built on this trope. Where else can you play as a daring female archeologist that is packing heat as she fends off enemies from [[Everything Trying to Kill You|wolves, to henchmen, and even a freaking Tyrannosaurs Rex]] while performing crazy acrobatics to either evade enemy attacks or to get from one place to another. Things get even crazier once Lara Croft gets on a vehicle and can run enemies over or make insane jumps over a chasm. Even the traps are taken to the extreme, such as poison darts, rolling boulders, spikes, fire traps, and many more as the series progressed, yet they still remained awesome.
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* In one episode ''[[Kim Possible (Animation)|Kim Possible]]'' jumped off a plane, without a parachute. Even while she was falling towards her doom, she didn't panic once, and just by sheer luck was she saved by a blimp. While asked why Kim would do such a deadly stunt, the director answered that it was cool.
* Near the end of the third season of ''[[Re Boot]]'', with the system crashing, "User" characters from every game seen prior to the episode suddenly begin appearing in Mainframe. This is [[Hand Wave|explained]] by the instability of the system releasing "undeleted RAM" -- but it seems more like a thinly-veiled excuse for a battle royale between the cast and every User at once. Nobody complained.
** A better example would be the episode with Enzo's birthday party. During the festivities, [[Big Bad]] Megabyte crashes the party, and brings out... a guitar? With a [[This Is Spinal Tap|dial turned to 11?]] Megabyte begins jamming, almost painful because of how loud it is. Then Bob steps up to face him, seeming angry at him for crashing the party. Then he commands his [[Green Lantern Ring|keytool]] to turn into a guitar and thus begins a rocking '''guitar duel''', between [[Go
* ''[[Batman the Brave And The Bold (Animation)|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'' ''lives'' on Rule of Cool. As well it should, being inspired by the glorious lunacy of [[Silver Age]] [[DC Comics]].
* [[Megas XLR|MEGAS. FREAKING. X. L. R.]] A [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNu6_dxWbNo badass opening theme song], a badass robot that can turn into a car and is piloted with a video game system, the fact that Coop can pull off amazing and special moves because he played video games all his life, an episode where Coop fantasizes about [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjab76TJ3c destroying the DMV], awesomely designed villains (some with their own [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] music), and some of the most high-octane giant robot fights to rival any Giant Robot Show Japan has made. In fact, it was so awesome, [[Cartoon Network]] couldn't take it, and [[Too Good to Last|canceled it]].
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{{quote| '''Coop''': Man, there's some tough competition this year.<br />
'''Jamie''': Competition? Dude, you have a ''giant robot from the future'', with a '''car for a head.''' }}
*** [[Shout
* Tried, but failed, in the ''[[Mister T (Animation)|Mister T]]'' animated series. (If it managed to fail at the [[Rule of Cool]] despite having [[Mr. T]] as the main character, you know it failed big-time). While a few moments (most notably ''[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Mister_T/Mystery_of_the_Golden_Medallion.aspx spinning an alligator over his head]'') managed it, the [[Anvilicious|punctuating thuds of anvils landing]] got in the way.
* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', Sokka has a ''space sword.'' A '''sword''' made from '''meterorite.'''
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* The simple act of taking Luke Skywalker's prop lightsaber up on the space shuttle.
** Or, indeed, [[Gene Roddenberry]]'s ashes.
* The only reason for the existence of the [
* Parkour and Freerunning, when performed by professionals.
** This applies to Freerunning especially, since Parkour is usually more concerned with efficiency.
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* Less optimistically, quite a lot of science (especially medical science) worked this way for most of history, regardless of what reality had to say on the subject. Mercury was reckoned to be a cure-all for centuries just because ''oh my God look at that that is so fucking awesome''.
* Quartz watches are not just a lot cheaper than mechanical; they're also a lot more accurate. Why do people buy mechanical at all? A combination of conspicuous consumption and [[Rule of Cool]].
** The [
* There are quite a few instruments and objects used as instruments which may or may not have practical advantages, but are undeniably Cool, such as:
** [
** The [[Theremin]], a box that generates a magnetic field, which the user interrupts to create sound.
** The [http://youtu.be/yCM-WBqDZ-Q Haken Continuum], a three-dimensional continuous keyboard.
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[[Category:Index Index]]
[[Category:index]]
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