I've found that my favorite RPG adventures involve cinematic scenes and I was looking for inspiration from any media source that other people have found to have great cinematic scenes. What are your favorites and why do they stand out to you?
(please, don't criticize other people's choice of favorites, let's just talk about what we like)
The bit in the prologue of The Great Hunt (part two in The Wheel of Time) where our darkfriend point-of-view character for that chapter is given instructions about future evil things to do through a series of visions of a rotating horn (the instrument-kind) and other trippy stuff.
There's a bit towards the end of Kushiel's Dart where the main character's bodyguard leaps off a castle-wall into a large pile of barbaric warriors trying to get through the castle's gatehouse.
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I would love to see a good chase scene, in a tense style like the ones in Skyfall, Thunderball, The Bourne Ultimatum, or The French Connection, appear in a Pathfinder game. They all manage to maintain tension, have nice twists and turns, and they don't have the problem of ending with a single PC action on the first Chase Card.
Upon closer thought, I'd say that something movies can do that RPGs have a hard time doing is draw out a tense conflict, like a chase or a combat. In both, the two sides are doing their best to end the conflict as quickly and as efficiently as possible, a result which just ends up happening in RPGs. In a movie or novel, the writer gets to draw out the conflict for as long as he wishes, but a GM doesn't really get the tools to do that in a Pathfinder. Not without totally breaking believability.
In a movie or novel, there are no dice and there is no opposition to what the writer/author wants to make happen.
-Matt
Well the sword fight between Inigo and Westley in The Princess Bride was a classic. I don't know how easy it would be to capture in an RPG, but somehow getting that level of energy and humour into an in-game duel would be great.
This is a great example of what I just mentioned above. In an RPG like Pathfinder, these two PCs/NPCs would just roll their dice and one of them would fall over when the dice willed it to happen. In the film, the writer was able to draw out the scene for as long as he wished.
There might be a way to make a scene like that duel happen in Pathfinder, though... I'll have to think about it.
-Matt
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The entire last 45 minutes of "The Avengers"
The wall-scaling scene in "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol"
The spinning hotel fight scene in "Inception"
etc. = et cetera (Lat., "and so on").
ect. = short for "ectoplasm"?
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The entire middle half of Sorcerer.
etc. = et cetera (Lat., "and so on").
ect. = short for "ectoplasm"?
Doh! though now that I think about it Slimer from Ghostbusters was pretty memorable, so maybe ectoplasm does apply?
Great stuff everyone, keep it coming!
I would be interested in what other peoples opinions of these scenes are?
That scene from Gallipoli defined tragedy for me as a 10 year old. My grandfather took me to see the movie during a visit and I had tons of questions after that, I can still remember him telling me about the truths of war and how awful it was.
I've only seen the Gallipoli one, and it's one of the best movie-endings I've seen. Even on a small screen it's more gripping than most other movies manages with a cinema-screen and sound.
Sales Imp
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This excerpt from Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash" is one of my favorite actions scenes in a book. When doing action, I always want to have my set pieces and descriptions as compelling as this.
NOTE: While this passage really shows off Stephenson's excellent use of imagery, pacing, and atmosphere, it also shows off some pretty graphic descriptions of violence and some language.
Most memorable cinematic scenes in any media?
Not in any particular order, but:
Gandalf facing the Balrog
Sandworms breaching the shield wall in the midst of the prophesied thunderstorm on Dune.
Captain Ahab cursing Moby Dick with his last breath.
Helm's Deep wall blasted apart by Saruman's sorcery
John McClane blasting away at a skyscraper window while swinging on a firehose.
The first appearance of the alien ships in "Childhood's End."
Slim Whitman straddling the falling atomic bomb in "Dr. Strangelove".
Tyrell Sackett facing down Tom Sunday in "The Daybreakers".
The first appearance of "The Nautilus"
The setting suns in "Nightfall".
I could go on for a long time...
Why I read.
How about the three way showdown in "the good, the bad, and the ugly"?
I almost listed that one, but didn't. That's a pretty awesome scene but it's not even in my top three cinematic scenes from that movie. My favorite scene from TGTBaTU is the bridge battle scene, followed by the bridge blow-up scene.
As far as cinematic final gunfight scenes from movies go, there are several, but if there is one that tops them all, it's Rooster Cogburn with the reigns in his teeth shooting a pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other. "Fill yore hands you sunofab$#++!"
(Edit: Sheesh, now I'm going down the westerns path... So many great cinematic scenes in so many movies. Westerns are so rich in cinematography, especially those done in the golden age of westerns.
Rio Bravo, The Sons of Katie Elder, High Plains Drifter, The Unforgiven, Quigly Down Under (riding that horse down the side of a mountain... awesome), High Noon.... the list is endless.)
I've only seen the Gallipoli one, and it's one of the best movie-endings I've seen. Even on a small screen it's more gripping than most other movies manages with a cinema-screen and sound.
Breaker Morant is about insurgency and war crimes, about who gets away with them and who pays. It's based on a true story and while the men involved were guilty, the superior officers that gave the orders got away with it.
The court case was such a travesty of justice the Australian military banned the death penalty. It is an excellent antiwar film.
The man from Snowy River is based on a poem of the same name by AB (Banjo) Patterson. The Poem is brilliant, the movie is mediocre, the actor did all of his own riding and he had never ridden a horse before the movie.
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight.
There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up -
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.
And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony - three parts thoroughbred at least -
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry - just the sort that won't say die -
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long a tiring gallop - lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited sad and wistful - only Clancy stood his friend -
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.
"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."
So he went - they found the horses by the big mimosa clump -
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."
So Clancy rode to wheel them - he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.
Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side."
When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.
He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat -
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.
He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.
And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.
And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around The Overflow the reed beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.
Ah, yes, the scene I remembered was from "The Man from Snowy River" not "Quigly Down Under."
Helicopters. Ride of the Valkyries.
T rex vs velociraptors.
Intro of Indiana Jones.
Helicopter. Hotel lobby. Gatling.
Jabba's palace.
Neo vs Smith in the back yard.
That's enough for now.
When I was working on my book, I tried to figure out what made a scene in a book "cinematic" and memorable enough to sear an image in my head that I could visualize years later.
I went through a lot of books with the specific goal of finding those fleeting instances of visceral imagery that seemed to leap out of the book and grab me by the lapels and say "This is awesome!"
Of course the reason I did so was because I wanted to write scenes like that myself. So I searched for some common technique that I could replicate.
But it was hard to find many similarities between the scenes that I investigated. Some were heroic actions against impossible odds (e.g. Gandalf and the Balrog) some were jaw-dropping descriptions of grandeur and majesty (e.g. the sandworms breaching the shield wall), and some were simply quiet but profound moments of dialog or even introspection (e.g. Huck Finn and Jim watching the stars and wondering if they "was made, or just happened").
In the end I decided that what made those moments so memorable was not the event itself, but all the buildup and character development that led to that moment. Gandalf facing the Balrog was seared into my brain because I CARED about Gandalf, and I FEARED the Balrog. It took chapter after chapter of immersion into a waterless world for a simple thunderstorm to become an epic event all by itself. And to make me care about a quiet conversation between a couple of homeless people on the edge of the Mississippi took a depth of character development and social commentary that even today just totally amazes me.
So I think the answer to the OPs question about how to make a scene cinematic and memorable is to have the story be something that involves characters the players care deeply about and the challenges something that truly engage and immerse the players.
Ah, yes, the scene I remembered was from "The Man from Snowy River" not "Quigly Down Under."
Quigly was a shit movie it made me want to punch Tom Selleck in the face and any movie that makes me hate Magnum PI is a travesty.
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A couple of scenes that comes to mind:
- The replicants dying words in Blade Runner
- The discovery of the space jockey in Alien
- The flood in Metropolis
- The landing of the Prometheus
- The finale of Apocalypse now (Sacrifice and death of Kurtz)
- The bzrning crow outline in The Crow
- The finale of Se7en (as heart and mind shattering as it is when watching it the first time)
- The inro of Watchmen that inroduces the alternate timeline
MOVIES
The chase/fight scene at the end of Last of the Mohicans.
The viking prayer scene at the end of The 13th Warrior.
Rorschach's death scene in Watchmen.
The end of V for Vendetta.
TV
The Red Wedding from GoT.
The Crazy Ivan scene from ep 1 of Firefly.
*There's a million of them but these are the ones that are forefront in my mind at 3:30am:)
The end(s) of V for Vendetta is deeply overshadowed, both movie and book, by another scene: "Then you may as well take me out behind the shed and shoot me." I am also partial to the scene where V confronts the female doctor: "Are you going to kill me now?" "I already have."
The beginning brawl of Gangs of New York.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, comic book 2, with Mr Hyde facing down the tripod. He is a complete monster, utterly unrepentant, and yet you root for him.
Braveheart's final scene (yes, I know it has a wobbly axe) is magnificent. "They fought like warrior poets, and won their freedom forever."
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Quigly was a s@*+ movie it made me want to punch Tom Selleck in the face and any movie that makes me hate Magnum PI is a travesty.
I loved QDU! And I tried re-watching some old Magnum episodes on Netflix recently -- they seem to have aged poorly. I really, really like Selleck in the "Jesse Stone" TV movies, though.
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Wow, lots of good scenes here. And a couple movies I think I need to see.
I'm kinda sad to say it, probably my favorite cinematic scene is from Short Circuit 2, when Johnny 5 finds out Oscar locked up his friends, but tried to smash him, then goes nuts about it. It's the first thing I thought of when I read this thread title anyway.
Quigly was a s@*+ movie it made me want to punch Tom Selleck in the face and any movie that makes me hate Magnum PI is a travesty.I loved QDU!
Same. It's one of my favorite westerns bar none.
Well the sword fight between Inigo and Westley in The Princess Bride was a classic. I don't know how easy it would be to capture in an RPG, but somehow getting that level of energy and humour into an in-game duel would be great.This is a great example of what I just mentioned above. In an RPG like Pathfinder, these two PCs/NPCs would just roll their dice and one of them would fall over when the dice willed it to happen. In the film, the writer was able to draw out the scene for as long as he wished.
There might be a way to make a scene like that duel happen in Pathfinder, though... I'll have to think about it.
-Matt
The problem is cinematic scenes like this are completely counter to concepts of realism and probability. As cool as they are, real combat doesnt work that way. Even hand to hand combat, after two landed blows from a trained combatant it doesnt really matter how touch you are you go down. Including weapons makes it even quicker. It doesnt take several sword cuts to put someone down, and no one gets cut 'incidentally' in the shoulder. They get stabed when they make a mistake. And that wound makes it much much easier to stab them a second time. The duel is over in seconds.
A roleplaying game, even when it isnt realistic, includes probabilty, and almost always includes concepts of injury. Dice, (or whatever mechanism is used to ensure random events) make dramatic moments very very difficult. As a dm you want to touch on the big dramatic moment, but if you lean to hard in that direction, the dice can easily take the battle the other way. And ofcourse your players often dont oblidge you by cooperating with whatever would have made the most dramtic moment.
In an rpg, the dm simply does not have the control over events and circumstances to make that happen.
In an rpg, the dm simply does not have the control over events and circumstances to make that happen.
Or perhaps more accurately, the GM cnanot make combat automatically cinematic or dramatic. The GM certainly does have the control over story, NPC interactions, plot revelations, and the like to have plenty of drama and climax in those arenas.
Within the context of the game, rather than a book or movie, that's where such things should probably be focused - that and doing what you can to reduce the chance of the event being reduced to anticlimax by the battles to follow. But that's less controllable than the former, as Kolo said.
"Lean Times in Lankhmar" and "In the Witch's Tent" and pretty much every Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story by Fritz Leiber.
The opening shot in Touch of Evil.
The walk, "We want Angel!" and blood-drenched finale of The Wild Bunch.
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Well the sword fight between Inigo and Westley in The Princess Bride was a classic. I don't know how easy it would be to capture in an RPG, but somehow getting that level of energy and humour into an in-game duel would be great.This is a great example of what I just mentioned above. In an RPG like Pathfinder, these two PCs/NPCs would just roll their dice and one of them would fall over when the dice willed it to happen. In the film, the writer was able to draw out the scene for as long as he wished.
There might be a way to make a scene like that duel happen in Pathfinder, though... I'll have to think about it.
-Matt
The problem is cinematic scenes like this are completely counter to concepts of realism and probability. As cool as they are, real combat doesnt work that way. Even hand to hand combat, after two landed blows from a trained combatant it doesnt really matter how touch you are you go down. Including weapons makes it even quicker. It doesnt take several sword cuts to put someone down, and no one gets cut 'incidentally' in the shoulder. They get stabed when they make a mistake. And that wound makes it much much easier to stab them a second time. The duel is over in seconds.
A roleplaying game, even when it isnt realistic, includes probabilty, and almost always includes concepts of injury. Dice, (or whatever mechanism is used to ensure random events) make dramatic moments very very difficult. As a dm you want to touch on the big dramatic moment, but if you lean to hard in that direction, the dice can easily take the battle the other way. And ofcourse your players often dont oblidge you by cooperating with whatever would have made the most dramtic moment.
In an rpg, the dm simply does not have the control over events and circumstances to make that happen.
So boxing, MMA and other types of fight matches should never last more than one round? A trained fighter knows how to take a blow as well as give one. And yes some people are tough enough to take grueling damage and still continue fighting. Jim Bowie is famous for knife dueling. in one fight called the Sand Bar fight, Bowie was shot in the hip, stabbed in the chest with a sword (he killed that guy with his knife), bashed over the head with the butt of a pistol, was shot (he cut off that guys arm) and stabbed again. This is the kind of thing that separates adventures from wimpy people like us.
So boxing, MMA and other types of fight matches should never last more than one round?
They last a lot longer because they're exhibition sports, not real combat -- they have a lot of rules that keep the participants from quickly or even instantly crippling/killing one another.
Bruce Lee famously remaked that, without rules, he could beat anyone alive in 15 seconds or less.
So boxing, MMA and other types of fight matches should never last more than one round?They last a lot longer because they're exhibition sports, not real combat -- they have a lot of rules that keep the participants from quickly or even instantly crippling/killing one another.
Bruce Lee famously remaked that, without rules, he could beat anyone alive in 15 seconds or less.
1)That's what Bruce Lee SAID.
2)If someone like Mike Tyson is hitting you as hard as he can up side your head, you'd be whistling a different tune. There's a reason that certain people's hands and feet are classified as deadly weapons. If he hit me like he did people in the ring I would probably be dead. No rule is going to protect me. A guy like Evander Hollyfield on the other hand has trained his entire life to shrug off blows or just dodge them period. So if they took it out on the street where there were no rules, I can imagine two such trained fighters going at it for a bit before a clear winner emerged. And yes, I acknowledge that one could get a lucky swing in and finish the fight in one blow, but that would be the unlikely scenario.
So boxing, MMA and other types of fight matches should never last more than one round? A trained fighter knows how to take a blow as well as give one. And yes some people are tough enough to take grueling damage and still continue fighting. Jim Bowie is famous for knife dueling. in one fight called the Sand Bar fight, Bowie was shot in the hip, stabbed in the chest with a sword (he killed that guy with his knife), bashed over the head with the butt of a pistol, was shot (he cut off that guys arm) and stabbed again. This is the kind of thing that separates adventures from wimpy people like us.
If boxing, mma or other fighting sports resembled actual fighting, then yes they would last no more then a round.
All those sports have specific rules, and often equipment (even mma has gloves) that prevent crippling and disabling blows. It also is a set situation with an even start in which both opponents are both aware, warmed up and ready in every possible way.
Actual fights happen almost exclusively in moments of surprise when someone decides confrontation has changed to violence, or in actual ambush.
And obviously some people have taken blows or serious injuries and kept fighting, but they are by far the exception not the rule. And honestly given the nature of his legend, I would be skeptical of any acount of someone like Bowie. Even so, assuming its true, I dont know if you notices, but what you described was still likely over in seconds. There might have been some time between things, but the actual time it takes to get shot, stab soemone, get hit in the head, and then stab someone else is not very long at all.
Are there people who can take hits and keep coming? Ofcourse, but the majority of trained fighters in deadly combat dont hit in places you can take them. The make immediate disabling strikes followed by lethal ones. Think the guy from Taken more then Jason Bourne.
If someone like Mike Tyson is hitting you as hard as he can up side your head, you'd be whistling a different tune. There's a reason that certain people's hands and feet are classified as deadly weapons. If he hit me like he did people in the ring I would probably be dead.
That's the point -- if skilled people fight with the intent to kill each other, it's over very, very quickly. There are rapid movements, someone miscalculates slightly, and it's over. When they get in the ring together and agree to an encyclopedia full of rules designed specifically to prevent this from happening, then their sparring can last long enough to be used as an exhibition. Amateurs flail at each other for minutes on end because they aren't good enough to put each other down.
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That reminds me of when Muhammad Ali psyched out an opponent of his that he knew he couldn't beat conventionally (forgot his name, a big (VERY big) tough dude), so that the guy wailed on him with everything he had. Muhammad Ali eventually won but he looked like he nearly died by the end of it.
You're probably thinking of the 1974 "The Rumble in the Jungle" between Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa. (Not to be confused with "The Thrilla in Manilla" between Ali and Joe Frazier.)
Check out the excellent documentary When We Were Kings about the bout and the simultaneous music-festival.
The replicants dying words in Blade Runner
That is one of my favorite movie moments from one of my favorite movies, and there are bunches of great cinematic scenes in Bladerunner. What makes that scene so powerful is what AD mentioned earlier about all the buildup and character development that led to that moment. It didn't need special effects or tons of action, it was great because it was the culmination of a great story (Phillip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?).
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The last road battle/escape in the Road Warrior.
One of the best scenes in that part of the movie was when the Mechanic and Warrior Woman were both killed on the rig (the WW's body hanging on the side) and one of the Gayboy Berserkers tries to pull her body into their car but they lose it to the road. Max then leans out and kills the driver and then steamrolls the passenger.