The Dog Shot First: Difference between revisions

[[File:lincolnshotfirst.png|frame|[http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=SSC-LINCOLN&Category_Code=010 It was self-defense.]]]

 

 

 

Here's how it might play out:

 

Not to be confused with [[The Dog Bites Back]].

{{examples}}

* Inverted in ''[[Mazinkaiser]]'', a reimagination of ''[[Mazinger Z]]''. In the OVA, Dr. Hell {{spoiler|dies because his base exploded while he was trying to escape.}} When Go Nagai penned the ''Mazinkaiser'' manga, {{spoiler|Kouji shoots him}} in an abrupt, albeit iconic and stylized, sequence.

* The 2011 [[Hunter X Hunter]] anime [[But Not Too Evil|does this with a villain]]. In the manga, Hisoka kills several Hunter Exam competitors, mostly [[For the Lulz]] ("playing examiner"). In this version, they ambush him because they deem him too evil to become a Hunter. He still mostly kills them [[For the Lulz]], though; they couldn't have actually harmed him much, given how powerful he is.

 

* Cable [[Genre Savvy|is well aware of this trope]] when dealing with the Six-Pack (with added [[Deadpool]]).

* In the original comic book, Spider-man accidentally killed Gwen Stacy when she was falling by failing to consider the speed difference between them, snapping her neck. Marvel constantly switches between the positions that either Spider-man couldn't have saved her no matter what he did (as she would have died from the fall anyway) or that she was already dead when her body was thrown off of a bridge.

* In ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'', Batman is holding a gun to the head of the [[Big Bad]] who has caused destruction and murder on a cosmic scale though Wonder Woman convinces him [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him]]. In the original release of the issue, one panel has a "CHAK" sound effect to indicate Batman chambering a round. Several fans assumes the effect indicated Batman was pulling the trigger and the villain only survived because of an empty gun, causing a small uproar. For the trade, DC opted to remove the "CHAK" entirely to avoid the confusion.

 

* ''[[Star Wars]]:'' The originator of the title comes from one of the changes made from the movie's original cut to the Special Edition. In the original, Han shoots Greedo when Greedo holds him at gunpoint, tries to take his money, and implies that eh, he might wind up dying anyway. In the special edition, Greedo shoots, [[Epic Fail|misses at point-blank range]], and gets shot in self-defense. The scene was later re-re-edited to make Han dodge the shot and fire at almost the same time as Greedo.

** In [[All There in the Manual|one of the original scripts]] (dated January 15, 1976), Han indeed shot first.

*** Which makes it even more [[Viewers are Morons|insulting]] when George Lucas made a statement, in 2012, claiming that Greedo has always shot first: "The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."

** Interestingly, there is a [http://www.geekologie.com/2008/05/29/han-shot-first.jpg picture here], of [[Ascended Meme|George Lucas wearing a "Han Shot First" shirt]] while [[Harrison Ford]] looks on, taken while shooting ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]''.

** Apparently the whole ordeal was due to changes demanded by the MPAA. The PG-13 rating was created after the original film, and when Lucas submitted the special edition cut to the MPAA he had to change the scene to avoid a PG-13 by not having Han shoot first. So at least one thing is not Lucas' fault, and this may explain the shirt. On the other hand, if this is the case, it means Lucas shouldn't be able to play the "new editions are my original vision" card, which he does constantly.

* It's even older than ''Star Wars,'' as it also features in the first ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]'' film, ''[[Dr. No]]''. In it, Bond confronts Professor Dent. The original script called for Dent to get shot right off the bat, but execs chewed them out ("Oh, sure he has a license to kill. Just [[Take Our Word for It]]!") and the scene was changed so that Dent actually fires a gun's worth of missed bullets into a decoy before Bond interrogates him and picks him off. Further still is that after this, according to some publications, Bond was originally scripted to fire the same amount of bullets into Dent that Dent had wasted on the decoy, judging by the [[Pre-Mortem One-Liner|line]] "You've had your six". Such action was toned down to Bond shooting Dent twice instead. Though Bond was never in danger, he still killed an unarmed man

** They seem to be sending a message with more recent movies, that "Ha Ha. We don't have to do that anymore" but occasionally seeming to go over the top. The deaths of Carver and Elektra seem pretty brutal given Bond's usual personality. Elektra actually bothers to point out that Bond, as the ultimate [[Chivalrous Pervert]], wouldn't dare shoot an unarmed woman:

'''Bond''': [[Bond One-Liner|I never miss.]] }}

** In Elektra's case; she is both {{spoiler|arguably the [[Big Bad]], with an [[Evil Plan]] to cause a nuclear explosion that would destroy Istanbul just so she could make more money}} for ''[[The World Is Not Enough]]'', as well as she just had fun {{spoiler|torturing Bond}}. Elektra could easily be considered an [[Asshole Victim]] for that.

* Inverted in the film of ''The Long Goodbye'' as compared to Chandler's original novel {{spoiler|in the book, Terry Lennox gets a [[Karma Houdini]] with his only punishment being his own guilt; in the film, Marlowe kills him}}.

* In ''[[Enough]]'', the heroine, after being chased and threatened by her abusive husband, breaks into his house, removes anything he can use as a weapon to defend himself, plants evidence to make it look like he tricked her into coming and attacked her, all so she can beat him to death with her bare hands. After they fight, she has him at her mercy and can't actually go through with it, at which point this trope kicks in, he lunges at her again, and ends up getting knocked out the window to his death.

* The last [[Harry Potter]] movie does this. In the book, {{spoiler|Griphook asks for the Sword of Gryffindor in exchange for breaking the Trio into Gringotts. They agree to it, but double-cross him by claiming that they would give it to him later and that he never specified when he would get it. In the movie, Griphook is the one who double-crosses them using [[Exact Words]], by claiming "I promised to get you in; I said nothing about getting you out.}}

** {{spoiler|They ''decided'' to double-cross him in the book, but never got the chance. He grabbed the sword and ran before they could do anything about it.}}

* In the original ending of ''[[A Perfect Murder]]'' Emily shoots Stephen before he even begins his attempts to kill her and fakes a struggle to ensure her freedom, thus creating the "perfect murder". Test audiences didn't take to the ambiguity of the character so the final version has Stephen attack her (even giving him a [[Not Quite Dead]] sequence), Emily's struggle now genuine and her murder of Stephen now spontaneous and in visible terror for her life.

 

* ''[[Layer Cake]]'' has this between the book and film in the protagonist's assassination of his treacherous boss. In the book, he first messily [[Kick the Dog|kills the guy's guard dogs]] and then shoots him in the head a few times for the fun of it. In the movie, the dogs live and the assassination is a single neat and bloodless shot to the head. Admittedly, the latter is [[Rule of Cool|presented in a pretty cool way]].

* [[Agatha Christie]] did something like this in adapting her novel <s>''Ten Little Niggers''</s> <s>''Ten Little Indians''</s> ''[[And Then There Were None]]'' into a play. The newer version has a happier ending and in doing so, changes the crimes of the surviving characters such that they are much less culpable. Or at least tried to- one of Lombard's crimes is abandoning a number of tribesmen who were his guides to die in the wilderness, which he explains as perfectly OK as that's how things work in Africa. He does this both in his Heroic Sociopath version in the novel and as a [[Gentleman Adventurer]] in the play (though in the latter, he does later mention that he left all the food, water, and weapons with his guides afters they got hopelessly lost, and was just incredibly lucky to be found once he set out on his own). In the 1945 movie version, it goes even further and changes Lombard to an impersonating friend of Lombard (who himself has committed suicide) who goes to the island looking for information on what drove his friend to it.

** In a flashback, Calhoun decides to execute a man because the man ordered the deaths of his Captain's brother and daughter. He knows he'll be court-martialed, but commits to the act in order to spare his CO's sanity. As he's pressing the trigger, the victim pulls a phaser he'd lifted from a security guard. Everyone present assumes Calhoun saw the weapon, reacted in self-defense, and just happens to have lightning-fast reflexes.

* In first novel of ''[[The Dark Tower]]'', ''The Gunslinger'', Allie is held as a shield and hostage by Sheb as the residents of Tull attack Roland. Originally, Roland kills her out of pure instinct. His trained hands react quicker than his mind. She screams at him not to shoot, but it's too late, and the guilt of her death sits on Roland throughout the rest of the story. In the revised edition, there is a convoluted subplot in which after Walter resurrects a dead man, he tells Allie that if she says "nineteen", he will tell her what he saw on the other side. Knowing will drive her crazy, [[Shmuck Bait|but so will not]]. Later, during the shootout, she begs Roland to kill her because she has spoken nineteen to Sheb and can't bear the horrors that he whispered back to her. As she dies King says that "the last expression on her face might have been gratitude."

 

* In the original play of ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'', Seymour {{spoiler|though unable to shoot the dentist, purposefully stands back and lets the dentist suffocate in his laugh Gas Mask, even singing about how he can kill him without lifting a finger}}. However, in the movie remake, {{spoiler|Seymour is clearly reluctant to shoot/kill the dentist, and the song from the play is cut out}}. This was probably done to make the protagonist a little more sympathetic.

** Also applies to a later scene, where {{spoiler|Seymour tricks Mushnik into looking inside the plant}}. The movie changes this to {{spoiler|Mushnik looking inside the plant against Seymour's objections}}. Both of these scenes led to the original ending, where {{spoiler|Audrey II eats Seymour, then goes on to conquer America}}, testing poorly.

 

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' lets us know that the bandit kingpin VanCleef was originally the leader of a guild of stonemasons who turned to thieves when the nobles of Stormwind refused to pay them for rebuilding the capital. Even though it was made clear enough that the [[Aristocrats Are Evil|corrupt nobility]] was to blame, this apperantly made the Alliance look too cruel, so an RPG book of additional information changed the event into VanCleef demanding insane amounts of gold for the work and flipping out when the king refused to pay him extra. Then, the whole thing was changed again into a plot by Onyxia, who was manipulating everyone involved with magic - the Stonemasons into asking for more than the agreed-upon price and the nobles into trying to pay them less.

** According to all the information found within WoW and the official site, the Stormpike dwarves went into Alterac Valley, disregarded pleas to go away and started digging the local orcs' graveyards for archeological treasures, which spawns a small war in the area. Once again, the RPG books try to make the Alliance seem less grey-moraled by saying the Stormpikes have lived practically three miles away for hundreds of years or something like that and the Frostwolf clan (who are typically portrayed by Blizzard as quite peaceful) invaded for [[For the Evulz|no apparent reason]]. Thankfully this is [[Canon Discontinuity|ignored]] in [[World of Warcraft]].

** The original story of Anduin Lothar's death is that Doomhammer ambushed him while the later was on its way for negotiations. This is later [[retcon]]ned into Doomhammer challenging him to honorable combat and winning. Blizzard in general is fairly liberal in changing their lore as they see fit.

*** Well slaughtering a bunch of sick citizens wouldn't make for a very challenging dungeon.

 

* A strip in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]] ''takes this trope to [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/674.html its logical extreme]. Later also [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1994.html re-made] the infamous scene to [[Take a Third Option]]: Han shot first... but [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face|he didn't want to]].

* ''[[Spacetrawler]]'': [http://spacetrawler.com/2011/12/18/spacetrawler4sdgr/ This page.]

{{quote|'''Tuuk:''' I blew up a ship of thirty-seven... In my defense, they shot at me first.

'''Rameth:''' I killed my parents... In my defense, they abused me as a child.

'''Gulroth:''' I set fire to an orphanage... In my defense, um... I... uh... well, you know how it is. }}

 

* Parodied by ''[[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]'' when talking about his old reviews he mentioned that he shot [[Friday the 13th (film)|Jason Voorhees']] head off in his review of ''[[Friday the 13th (video game)|Friday the 13 th]]''. In his re-done version, Jason shoots first before The Nerd blows his head off.

** In his ''Star Wars'' games review, he offers a solution to the [[Trope Maker|original]] issue. Have Luke run Greedo over with a landspeeder.

'''Han Solo''': Yeah. Why wouldn't I?

'''Darth Vader''': I, eh... I don't know the answer on that. }}

 

** It's been said this is the recurring method the DCAU writers used to avoid censorship from Standards and Practices. "If you order us to change something, we will follow your orders [[Literal Genie|to the letter]] while making it [[Nightmare Fuel|substantially]] [[Hoist by His Own Petard|more horrific".]]

** Though the edited scene also removes {{spoiler|some of the [[Karmic Death]] feel and what is probably the [[DCAU]]'s best [[Famous Last Words]] ever}}.

* The 1944 [[Looney Tunes]] cartoon ''Hare Ribbin''' has two different endings, both too violent to be shown on kids/family TV but one being slightly more messed up. The ending that was originally shown in theaters at the time had Bugs Bunny handing the dog a gun so he could shoot himself in the head and commit suicide. The "director's cut" ending (which is currently only available on the fifth volume of the ''Looney Tunes Golden Collection'' DVDs) had Bugs pulling out a gun and shooting him in the mouth. That's probably as messed up as Bugs can get in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

 

* Mark Bowden's book, ''Killing Pablo'', mentions that Colombian policemen would summarily execute drug dealers and say they died "during a shootout with police."

* Similarly, some police officers have been known to carry "throw down" guns, unregistered weapons (often confiscated from another criminal) that can be planted if they shoot someone who turns out not to be armed. In New Orleans they're called "[[Unusual Euphemism|ham sandwiches]]".

[[Category:Tropey the Wonder Dog]]

[[Category:The Dog Shot First]]