The Scrappy/Film

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Mesa widely hated film character!

Examples of The Scrappy in Film include:

Subpages

Star Wars

  • Jar-Jar Binks from the Star Wars prequel trilogy, so much so that the German version of this wiki named the trope "De/Der Jar Jar". This one is so (in)famous that people who have never seen any of the Star Wars films hate him anyway (including people who have seen the original films but not the more recent ones). Many would argue he's an Ethnic Scrappy as well. None of them found this supposed Plucky Comic Relief character either plucky or comical--and frankly somebody they needed relief from! (Discuss!) It seems George Lucas got the message, giving Jar Jar Binks a smaller role in Episode II and removing him almost entirely from Episode III, and that's not even getting to the Expanded Universe - one reviewer in particular noted that seeing Jar Jar suspended in carbonite was the highlight of The Force Unleashed.
    • There was also the little matter of that dumbass essentially being the vote that doomed the Republic by totally missing the point of Padme's instructions NOT to vote for the Grand Army, thereby dragging it into the Clone Wars.
    • Especially irritating in that Brian Blessed's Boss Nass could have fulfilled the same role, and was genuinely amusing in his few appearances.
    • Interestingly, Jar Jar has found himself somewhat Vindicated by History as time went on. Part of it comes from the prequels themselves being Vindicated by History, with some fans that enjoyed the movies during their childhood or were adults that liked them warts and all going up to bat for the goofy Gungan and admitting to have found him funny, or at the very least inoffensive and no more annoying than C-3PO (who himself was Vindicated by History years later). Another part of it comes from how Clone Wars portrayed him, with it emphasizing his friendly nature and giving him plenty of Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass moments while making sure he was never an active liability to the good guys. But most amusingly, fan speculation that he was once planned to secretly be a conniving Sith Lord (with a surprising amount of evidence backing it up) is probably the biggest saving grace of the character due to the Hidden Depths it would potentially give him (and even if it isn't true, it's still a very fun bit of speculation).
      • With that being said, the fan acceptance is far from universal, and even with it taken into consideration Jar Jar is still, at best, a big Base Breaker.
  • C3PO didn't have a bad response in the original Star Wars, but after The Empire Strikes Back... well, in an interview, George Lucas said some people considered the android "the worst character ever" thanks to being high-strung and obnoxiously yappy. The hatred for the character would end up heavily dying down in the future, however.
  • Jacen Solo from the Expanded Universe isn't thought of very highly, either, especially since his character crossed the line into unforgivable bastardry.
  • Ewoks have a reputation of having plenty of people who regard them as a race of scrappys for the following two reasons:
  • Padmé Amidala, mostly for the Romantic Plot Tumor but also for how in Episode 3, she became a lot weaker than she was in Episodes 1 an 2. On theforce.net, there's even a "Defenders of the A/P Love Story" thread.
  • Anakin Skywalker in the prequels. Pretty disliked in the fandom either for being a whiny, poorly-acted kid in the first prequel, and for being a Wangsty, poorly-directed adult in the second two prequels who just happened to contribute to said Romantic Plot Tumor. Most of his hate, however, comes from allegations of ruining the characterization of his future self Darth Vader, who otherwise seemed like (and might still be) an awesomely stoic and incredibly sinister megalomaniacal Badass.
  • There are two types of Star Wars Expanded Universe fans, those who love Mara Jade and those who absolutely can't stand to read another mention of red-gold hair.
  • There's also the Midi-chlorians, the sentient microbes that are used to measure one's capability to channel The Force, which are widely seen as a pointless "explanation" for how the Force works, a subject that would probably have been better left mysterious. While later materials would elaborate that the Midi-chlorians themselves are not the sole deciding factor of Force sensitivity so much as they are a single piece of the puzzle, it doesn't stop prequel haters (or even a fair share of their defenders) from singling them out as a point of contention.
  • Rey, the main character of Disney's sequel trilogy was more of a Base Breaker at first, but definitely fell into this status as time marched on. While she isn't annoying or aggressively unlikable, she's criticized for being ridiculously boring instead. Unlike her predecessors Luke and Anakin, who went through their fair share of hardships and Character Development, Rey's a fairly static character from start to finish, and her tendency to brute force her way out of many bad situations with Ass Pull power ups that she didn't put in the work for tends to suck the tension out of all but a handful of conflicts. Not helping her case is the very aggressive Character Shilling on Disney's part, which contributes to the labels of Mary Sue and God Mode Sue that her hatedom tends to throw her way.
  • Supreme Leader Snoke, the initial Big Bad of the sequels had promise at first, but decisively fell into this territory in The Last Jedi. Whether it's his silly golden bathrobe, unfortunate resemblance to Hugh Hefner, or tendency to clutch the Idiot Ball with an iron-clad death grip, Snoke lost all of the mystery and intrigue that made him a compelling enigma during his debut, with even the movie's staunchest defenders finding him to be an uninteresting, Narmy Palpatine knock-off who died a stupid and avoidable death. And then once Palpatine himself came back into the fold, he felt even more pointless than before.
  • Luke Skywalker's portrayal in the sequels did not gel with fans, to say the least. Going from an optimistic, compassionate young man to a whiny old grump who would waste his twilight years sulking in a remote corner of the galaxy gave a lot of people whiplash, and the justification for it just made things worse. The near-murder of his nephew over a nightmare where he turned to the Dark Side is held up as a glaring example of character assassination that flies in the face of his portrayal in the original trilogy, where he was willing to put his life on the line to redeem his father, who he adamantly believed wasn't a lost cause in spite of the atrocities he had committed.
  • Rose Tico caught a lot of flack in The Last Jedi for being a character that was useless at best and insufferable at worst, with some of her harshest critics calling her the Jar-Jar Binks of the sequel trilogy. Being tied to what many of the film's critics and defenders consider to be a pointless Filler Arc was bad enough, but what set this status in stone for her is the moment where she ruins what could have been a great bit of character development for Finn and a big win for the Resistance by preventing his Heroic Sacrifice for reasons that are often criticized as selfish and possessive.
    • Interestingly enough, when The Rise of Skywalker heavily cut her screentime seemingly in response to these criticisms, it actually caused a lot of backlash among fans and detractors alike. What was meant to be viewed as an Author's Saving Throw was instead met with cries of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character from fans who thought that Rose had potential to be an interesting addition to the cast, and felt that her actress, Kelly Marie Tran, wasn't given a fair shake and deserved better than what she got.
  • Admiral Holdo gets this for being a belligerent General Failure whose awful treatment of Poe and refusal to do even the bare minimum to establish a good rapport with the Resistance and keep them in the loop regarding her plans caused a lot more problems than they solved.

Transformers films by Michael Bay

  • In the series, you have Sam Witwicky. Mainly because he's, well, played by Shia LaBeouf, and because he and the other humans are a Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
  • Both the lead females - Mikaela and Carly - have their fair share of detractors, mainly because they're rather poor actresses casted solely because they fit the common idea of "sexy".
  • Sam's mom is widely hated for how annoying she was in the second movie, which despite promises to focus more on the robots, focused even more on Sam and company than the first movie.
  • Agent Simmons was hated in the first movie. However, in Revenge of the Fallen he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap by virtue of sheer Crazy Awesomeness.
  • Leo is yet another awful character from Revenge of the Fallen. Intended to be Sam's funny college roommate, he mostly succeeded at being annoying.
  • Just like his G1 namesake, Wheelie was widely loathed for being an obnoxious Jerkass who contributed to one of the many crass jokes of ROTF by humping Megan Fox's leg. He may have redeemed himself in Dark of the Moon, though, because of how he and newcomer Brains managed to be Actually Pretty Funny.
  • The biggest examples, though, are the twins, Skids and Mudflap. In addition to being accused of being ethnic stereotypes, they have absolutely hideous looking designs. To make matters worse, these two piles of Scrappy metal had more screentime in ROTF than Optimus Prime, and were rather poor attempts at being Kid-Appeal Characters when the former Trope Namer, Bumblebee, is still around, making them redundant and unnecessary. They were so despised, in fact, they were cut from DOTM - in which they would have died absolutely terrifying deaths.
  • The Fallen is not a popular villain. He's as one-dimensionally evil as it gets without any traits that make him awesome or fun to root against, his powers don't have any real thought or logic to them and are very poorly explained, and despite getting hyped up as the big boss of Megatron and the Decepticon equivalent to Satan, his death comes quickly and unceremoniously. While Tony Todd does deliver an excellent performance as always, not even that can prop up this shallow cardboard cut-out of a character.
  • Shane from Age of Extinction is supposed to be a lovable roguish bad boy, but instead comes off as a creepy would-be sex offender. His romance with Cade's seventeen year old daughter is loaded with Squick, with his minutes-long tirade about age of consent laws and the monogrammed card he carries that legally justifies his relationship with her being the worst of it.

Other Examples

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has two of them: Ethnic Scrappy Tagalong Kid Short Round and largely useless Damsel Scrappy Willie Scott. Of course, there are also plenty of fans who actually love Shorty, especially for his funny interactions with Indy, not to mention being a brave young warrior with foul mouth but a kind heart..
  • Mutt from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull achieves this status for being Indy's son and at least partly for being played by Shia LaBeouf.
    • Really, almost any character introduced in Crystal Skull is likely to be hated for no other reason than appearing in Crystal Skull.
  • Heathcliff, the dismally unfunny comic relief in The Wild World of Batwoman. He's a major reason why the movie is painful to watch, even with Mike, Tom and Crow.
  • Minya, a.k.a. the "Son Of Godzilla" is often panned by Godzilla fans of all ages due to his goofy nature, odd resemblance to a young Gary Coleman, and the fact that he starred in Godzilla's Revenge which is considered the worst of the Japanese Godzilla films.
  • Abigail Whistler from Blade: Trinity. Even if she's easy on the eyes.
  • Many fans of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire strongly dislike Harriet Hoctor in Shall We Dance.
  • Zeppo Marx quickly became audiences' least favorite member of The Marx Brothers, due to his failure to adopt a strongly identifiable screen personality like Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. This eventually caused him to go behind the scenes and manage the other three, though they continued having straight romantic hero parts in their films that Zeppo clearly would have played if they'd still been together. Ironically, several of their contemporaries stated that in real life Zeppo was the funniest of the brothers.
    • This includes the Marx Brothers themselves, as not only was he a capable straight man, he could subtly suggest further improvisations without breaking character or drawing undue attention. In contrast, most of the non-sibling cast had difficulty dealing with the brothers without laughing or storming off angrily.
    • Played with by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when they named Xander "The Zeppo".
  • A lot of folks (fans and movie critics alike) who have watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen really dislike Skids and Mudflap, mainly because their Jive Turkey mannerisms can easily be perceived as racist. Though there are some who just consider them intensely annoying rather than offensive. It's probably a bad sign when they appear way, way more often than Optimus Prime. Being unfunny comic relief in a movie already brimming with unfunny comic relief makes things even worse. Their designs look like racist caricatures than mockeries of racism, which hints more towards the former.
  • Ripcord from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is generally hated because of his Gary Stu tendencies coupled with the fact that he seems to have a completely inappropriate relationship with Scarlett, an established character who already has a relationship with fan-favorite Snake-Eyes in canon.
    • Or Duke, depending on which canon you subscribe to.
  • Attack of the The Eye Creatures. Culver, the the Covert Pervert, was labeled by Tom Servo as one of the the most instantly unlikeable characters in film history.
  • Anna Valerious of Van Helsing. She even has a fanlisting for people that hate her character.
  • Snails, the thief from the first |Dungeons and Dragons movie was hated for being an incredibly aggravating Ethnic Scrappy, so much so that Ridley's Big No following his death at the hands of evil head minion Damodar was considered the height of Narm.
  • Rachel from the recently made War of the Worlds movie is hated for being The Load who does absolutely nothing but scream and, even though she's 10, get carried around for the entire movie.
    • It might have something to do with her being played by Dakota Fanning, who is known for being (and playing characters who are) Wise Beyond Their Years. And then they cast her in a generic "helpless child" role which could have been played by any child actress. Arguably, it was a monumental waste of her talent.
    • Her brother Robbie gets a bit of it too for his Hair-Trigger Temper and his surviving a gigantic explosion with no explanation.
  • The kids from Jurassic Park, specifically Lex. The Spinosaurus in the third film has status as the Replacement Scrappy.
  • An adaptation of The Dunwich Horror from The Seventies gives Wilbur Whateley a love interest. Most Lovecraft fans consider her everything wrong with Hollywood.
  • The World Is Not Enough somehow managed to create both the least popular Bond woman and least popular Bond henchman! The former, Dr. Christmas Jones, is hated for being a terrible actress (Denise Richards), having an improbable job (nuclear physicist), an incredibly disgusting pun made when she and Bond consummate their relationship, and generally existing only so that Bond has a backup girl when the infinitely-more-interesting primary love interest, Elektra King, turns out to be evil. The latter, Mr. Bullion, is hated for being an obnoxious "gangsta" stereotype and a Dirty Coward; thankfully, he gets gunned down by Valentin Zukovsky.
    • Another, older Bond example: Sheriff J.W. Culpepper, the obnoxious redneck sheriff comic relief from Live and Let Die. They also managed to shoehorn him in to The Man with the Golden Gun by having him touring Bangkok AND he's around for the infamous scene where the awesome car jump is ruined by a slide-whistle sound effect and him rolling around in the back of the car yelling. How irritating is Sheriff Culpepper? On Topless Robot's countdown of obnoxious comedic sidekicks he beat out Jar-Jar.
    • And then there are two Bonds themselves. Roger Moore's Bond is hated by a good portion of the fans for being the Bond that saw the series get campier and more comedic, as well as starring in some of the worst Bond films of the series. Timothy Dalton's Bond meanwhile has a bit of a Broken Base between fans who see his Darker and Edgier Bond as a breath of fresh air from Moore's camp antics and those who see his Bond as being way too serious and brutal.
  • The Legend of Zorro dumped the young Joaquin into the mix, adding a needless (and quite annoying) child element when all people were wanting was to see Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones kick any asses they might have missed from the first movie.
  • Ruby Rhod from The Fifth Element. He's supposed to be the comic relief, but the only thing he does is dress like Lady Gaga's aerobics instructor, scream like a little girl and complain about everything in a grating, high-pitched voice. Not only that, he is completely useless and does nothing to help the plot or the other characters.
  • Malak from Conan the Destroyer, who is whiny, cowardly and, except for one scene, The Load.
  • From Night of the Hunter, we have Icey Spoon, an old woman who is, without a doubt, the personification of The Nag. She's constantly belittling her husband to the point that he's completely ineffectual in helping anyone (she even admits to a crowd that she thinks about canning when she's having sex), she pushes Willa Harper into getting remarried to Harry Powell, and is utterly won over by his charms. Half the problems in the movie John and Pearl have to deal with are because of Icey's "helping hand". When Powell is finally arrested, Icey appears at his trial, drunk out of her mind and leading a lynch mob to hang Powell.
  • April, Wren's best friend, from Fun Size. She's a very mean-spirited Alpha Bitch who does a ton of inappropriate stuff.
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