Training Montage: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''The hour's approaching, to give it your best

''And show us a passage of time

''We're going to need a montage (montage!)

 

A variant of the [[Hard Work Montage]] in which a character builds themselves up over time in preparation for a battle. Usually accompanied by uplifting music (if "Gonna Fly Now" from ''[[Rocky (film)|Rocky]]'' can't be used, then [[Music/Joe Esposito|Joe Esposito]]'s "You're the Best" or [[Survivor (band)|Survivor]]'s immortal "Eye Of The Tiger" makes for a good substitute).

Closely related to the [[Lock and Load Montage]].

 

{{examples}}

== Advertising ==

"Then we must teach you... to wait." }}

 

* Episode 2 of ''[[Kaleido Star]]'' uses this when Sora preps herself to duplicate the "Golden Phoenix", a favorite trick of Layla Hamilton, one of her idols. She comes oh-so-close to pulling it off, perfecting the spin technique but missing the opposite trapeze bar by ''thatmuch''. Layla, who normally [[Suffers Newbies Poorly]], is impressed enough to allow Sora to stay with the Kaleido Stage crew.

* Chapter 239 of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has one, complete with [[Exploding Calendar]].

* ''[[The Idolmaster (anime)|THE iDOLM@STER]]'' - Several throughout the showing, the first one being along the ending sequence on the first episode.

 

* ''[[Rocky (film)|Rocky]]'', obviously, although it's a bit different in every movie:

** In the first, it's ''Gonna Fly Now''

** In the second, it's a remixed ''Gonna Fly Now'', only with kids added in to show how much everybody loves Rocky.

** In the third, ''Eye of the Tiger'' comes into play.

** In the fourth, we have both a regular training music montage and ''Hearts on Fire''.

** The final movie saw a rousing return of ''Gonna Fly Now''.

* Any given John G. Avildsen film, really. Aside from ''Rocky'', you have ''[[The Karate Kid]]'' and ''[[Lean On Me]]''.

* Spoofed in Adam Carolla's ''[[The Hammer]]''. Jerry shuts off his alarm at 6:00 AM to the opening strains of Survivor's ''Eye of the Tiger.'' And again at 6:09. And again at 6:18, and again and again until he finally gets up around 11:00 to actually start training.

* ''[[The Blind Side]]'': SJ training Michael for football. (This film also has a [[Hard Work Montage]], with Miss Sue tutoring Michael in academics.)

* In Disney's ''[[Mulan]]'', the Training Montage depicts the entire platoon of trainees progressing from pathetic failures to a capable team, to the strains of the (intentionally) [[Sweet Polly Oliver|ironically-entitled tune, "I'll Make A Man Out Of You".]]

** ''[[Rocky Horror Picture Show|In just seven days...]]''

* Played relatively straight in ''[[Bring It On]]'' with the cheerleader training montage after the Toros bought routine is disqualified.

* [[Troperiffic|Inevitably used]] in ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]''. A great many of Po's training exercises became deliberately hilarious due to either his weight or the way in which Shifu used food to motivate him. Thankfully, and perhaps surprisingly due to Master Crane being in the film, there is no [[Homage Shot]] of the Crane Stance from ''The Karate Kid.'' Even though it's to be expected, like so many other cliches and predictable elements in this movie, Po's training still works, managing to be uplifting and awesome, probably due to Hans Zimmer's<ref>[[Aren't You Forgetting Someone?|and John Powell's]]</ref> excellent music. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Of course it gets trumped by the dumpling fight a few minutes later]]...

* ''No Retreat, No Surrender''

* ''Chuck E Cheese In The Galaxy 5000'' has this when Chuckie crashes into a Hermit's house (who may or may not be Pasqualli). This moment is probably the only decent musical number in the film.

* Soul Surfer. "I don't need easy...I just need possible."

 

* The ''[[Buffy]]'' episode "Once More, With Feeling" parodied the trope by [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshading it]] then shoving it aside to make way for "Standing in the Way".

** Though ''[[Angel]]'' played it perfectly straight when Angel gets ready to hunt down Darla and Drusilla.

* Spoofed in an episode of ''[[Little Mosque on the Prairie]]''. Babar is walking down the street reading a book of Curling rules and regulations. He proceeds to walk past people playing various other sports and up a flight of stairs, then turns around and holds the book in the air. Oh yea, and an oddly played version of ''Gonna Fly Now'' is indeed playing.

* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' featured a spooferific training montage in the first episode of the revamped web-animated cartoon ''Tek Jansen''. The background music was clearly a parody of "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito.

* [[The Daily Show]] had their version - During their coverage of the 2010 World Cup, British correspondent John Oliver trained to Gonna Fly Now, drinking Heineken and running up the steps - in order to be a more obnoxious soccer fan.

* Previews for ''[[The Tonight Show]] with Conan O'Brien'' showed Conan [[Beach Episode|running down the beach]] in [[Fan Disservice|a suit jacket and tie]] to the tune of ''Eye of The Tiger'' to indicate him loosening up for the move to [[Hollywood California|LA]].

* ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' had a double montage of Dee and Charlie both training for their fights and taking copious amounts of steroids.

* ''[[LazyTown]] '' had one of these. Sportacus was training Ziggy to be a hero like him. The music even vaguely sounded like the Rocky music.

* Parodied in ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' when Sheldon and Raj intently study a whiteboard...complete with fast cuts and "Eye of the Tiger" playing in the background. ''Twice.''

 

 

* Parodied in ''[[Adventures in Odyssey]]'''s "Fifteen Minutes", where Alex trains to perfect his mini-golf skills under the ex-champion, Bart Rathbone. Somehow, despite the appropriate music (and a spot where he waxes Bart's car for no discernible purpose), this causes him to do much worse the second time around.

 

* In ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]] 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals'', Larry attempts to get in shape on a series of exercise machines while a pastiche of "Gonna Fly Now" plays in the background.

* ''Mike Tyson's [[Punch-Out!!]]!!'' features a memorable training sequence between circuits where Little Mac dons a pink tracksuit and runs behind Doc Louis riding a bike. This is expanded upon in the Wii version to create a full-on training montage.

* [[Dragon Fable|Drakonan]], a [[Whatevermancy|Pyromancer]] gets this, it consists of [[Rule of Funny|Bench pressing and runnning up a hill, neither of which really helps someone chuck fireballs at you]]

 

* ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]'' has a montage in the year before ''[[Dragon Ball]]'''s fight with Vegeta and Nappa set and parodied to a ''[[Mulan]]'' song...

* In ''[[Homestar Runner]]'', Strong Bad is asked to "creat a montage" in sbemail 117. He creates not one, but ''three'' montages, all involving a Wagon Fulla Pancakes:

* ''[[Bowser's Kingdom]]'' Episode 7 had one of these, but it was cut out because of lazy animators. Hal and Jeff have an [[Oh Crap]] reaction when they find out and come to the conclusion that they didn't train at all.

 

* ''[[Collar 6]]'' used this for a time skip to the spanking contest.

{{quote|'''Aerith:''' So you've got a week to train for this. Montage?

'''Axel:''' Montage. }}

{{quote|'''Riku:''' Oh thank God, that song lasted all week.

'''Namine:''' Yeah, sorry about that, I downloaded the 'Super Montage' edition. }}

* Gently [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in [http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20110107/ this] [[Ctrl+Alt+Del]] strip.

* Subverted in [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/080324 this] [[Sluggy Freelance]] strip

 

* ''[[Street Fighter the Later Years]]'' has one in episode 5, where the fighters are training their powers before the tournament.

* The ''[[Wiiviewer]]'' likes to do these with some of his favorite [[The Eighties|80s songs]].

* [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]] was determined to finally beat ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]'' after [[Nintendo Hard|twenty years of trying]]. After seeking the help of a real ninja and going through a training montage, he ended up {{spoiler|getting close, but still failing.}}

 

* Spoofed in ''[[Drawn Together]]'' in the episode "Spelling Applebee's", when Foxxy was training for a [[Spelling Bee]]. After asking if they could use the "Rocky song", the reply she received was "only... if we can afford it." The scene then cut to Foxxy punching a punching bag to the beat of a [[The Jimmy Hart Version|barely-audible, poorly-rendered version]] of "Gonna Fly Now". The training sequence was then abandoned altogether as "it doesn't work without the real song."

* Parodied, steps and all, in ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'' in the episode "Old Iron Man", where Arnold's grandpa competes against an old rival in a senior athletic competition.

You'll stand on a post with your arms out!

....these flowers are way out of season!

And move things with your miiiinnndd!'' }}

 

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[[Category:Sports Story Tropes]]

[[Category:Montages]]