Plot Twists (SPOILER ALERT)

Plot twists can be sometimes the most interesting part of the story or the most disappointing part of the story. I'm going to talk about the most interesting below, but a good example of a disappointing plot twist is the whole flash-sideways in Lost being revealed to be a sort of purgatory. Not only did this not make sense, but it was definitely a disappointment. Another note about this article is that there are a lot of plot twists that are so well known that I knew about them before I've seen the movie (Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes), these are the ones that surprised me.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I thought that the plot twist in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series was one of the best in television. Throughout the first season, the turtles faced off against the Shredder several times. Their first encounter ended in Splinter making a water tower fall on Shredder. For all intents and purposes, Shredder should be dead, but his hand rises from the rubble. This could have been explained by cartoon physics, but the second time after a climatic battle, Leonardo managed to slice off the Shredder's head. At the end of season one, Shredder's body rises out of the flames and picks up his head and walks off screen. Now this second occurrence cannot be explained by cartoon physics. While the plot twist isn't revealed yet, we do know that the Shredder is clearly not human -or at least not a normal one. After the turtles return from their adventure with the Fugitoid, the Utroms explain their history using a virtual reality machine. In the machine, they are introduced to an evil Utrom named Ch'rell. Now for people who have watched a lot of television or maybe were playing close enough attention probably made the connection by now. But it was not till the end of the epic trilogy with the Utroms that we see that Oraku Saki is in fact an evil alien Utrom within a robot body. This revelation made the Shredder an incredibly awesome character. He was not merely the archenemy of the ninja turtles, but he was seen as a much greater threat to the world and the galaxy.

Knights of the Old Republic was a video game that I played on the Xbox. It takes place about a thousand years before the first Star Wars movie, and boy does it have a doozy of a plot twist. Throughout the game you play a simple Republic soldier who later shows affinity for the Force. Everything seems pretty straightforward, you go around and seek out the Star Forge and the main antagonist Darth Malak is trying to stop you. You also team up with a Jedi named Bastilla, and Darth Malak tries to capture her for her special force ability. While playing the game a second time, it is clear that the game does indeed hint at this, but it is very subtle at revealing the huge plot twist. Towards the end of the Leviathan mission, it is revealed that your character in the game is in fact Darth Revan who is Darth Malak's master and the true lord of the Sith. Apparently, Darth Revan did not die, but was in fact captured by the Jedi and had his mind wiped. The game was fun, but this brilliant plot twist made KOTOR game of the year.

Now everyone knows the plot twist in the Empire Strikes Back, so I was not too surprised to learn that Darth Vader was in fact Luke's father. What was surprising occurred in Return of the Jedi. It was in the third movie that we learned that Luke and Leia are in fact siblings. Now this has led to a lot of incest jokes at Star Wars' expense due to the multiple times that Leia kisses Luke, but it did end the supposed love triangle between Luke, Leia, and Han Solo. This wasn't near as dark as the revelation in Empire, but it did make the duel between Luke and Vader in the second Death Star much more important and emotional.

Until Batman Begins, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was my favorite Batman movie. This movie introduces a new origin for Batman. This origin mostly revolves around a girl who Bruce falls in love with. He almost gives up his vigilante life, but when his love unexpectedly rejects his marriage proposal, he then becomes Batman. In the current timeline, Batman is mistaken for another vigilante who - as opposed to Batman - kills criminals. This vigilante known as the Phantasm is supposedly Bruce's love's father. At the beginning of a climatic battle with the Joker, it is revealed that the Phantasm is actually Bruce's love. She became the Phantasm in order to avenge her father by killing the men responsible for his death. The Joker was the last one on her list. This is was probably the first plot twist I was ever introduced to.

The greatest plot twist in movies has to belong to Fight Club. I literally was yelling at the screen in utter shock when it was revealed that Edward Norton's character is in fact a split personality of Brad Pitt's character, Tyler Durden. The cool thing is that there are subliminal hints throughout the beginning of the movie, but you can't really notice them unless someone points it out to you. The other cool thing is that the second time you watch the movie knowing about the twist ending, the movie is completely different.

Not quite as great as Fight Club's twist, but the first Saw movie had a twist that made me yell at the screen as well. The movie takes place in a bathroom with a dead body in it. Throughout the film, the film teases you with the identity of the serial killer Jigsaw. You're led to believe that Zepp is in fact Jigsaw, but at the very end it is revealed that he was just another pawn. The real Jigsaw was a cancer patient of Doctor Gordon's who happened to be the dead guy in the bathroom. When Jigsaw rose to his feet, I couldn't close my jaw for an hour.

With respect to The Prestige, the twist that Christian Bale's character was using his twin brother for his teleportation magic act wasn't as great as the fact that his twin brother was in fact his engineer Bernard Fallon. It makes perfect sense after the revelation scene, but it was still surprising and tragic.

Now a running joke but during the first season of 24, the revelation that Nina was a mole in CTU was very surprising. Every season it seems that there is always a mole, but they first made you think that they got all of the moles in CTU when Jaime supposedly killed herself. Then towards the end, it is revealed that Nina was in fact a mole all along which was hinted at the very beginning of the season. This was very emotional for it also led to the death of Jack Bauer's wife.

Just to prove that I also do read books once in a while, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations had a twist that was certainly a shock to me even though I was reading it. For most of the book, Pip believes that Miss Havisham was his mysterious benefactor. When it was revealed that it was instead the convict that he had shown kindness to at the beginning of the book, I thought it was a charming twist that I will always remember as my favorite twist ending from a novel.

What are your favorite twist endings? And what was your reaction?

Mini Reviews for Toy Story 3 and The Last Airbender

Toy Story 3

I personally think that this movie has the potential to be the best of the year. There are some similarities with the story compared to the previous movie, but this movie actually deals with the issue of growing up as opposed to the eventuality of growing up which I think makes this a better movie. The really cool thing with this movie was that it seemed to be made for those who grew up watching the original Toy Story. I don't know if I could necessarily recommend this movie to the youngest audiences because this movie does deal with issues like death which are probably not appropriate for a very young audience. For those slightly more mature and older, you will definitely love this movie if you liked any of the others. I nearly cried at the end of this movie. While I am confident that Batman 3 might surpass this as best movie of the decade, Toy Story 3 has certainly raised the bar very high. I give this movie my highest recommendation.

The Last Airbender

This movie was a disappointment. I have never seen the TV show, so I think this gives me a fairly unique perspective. For those who have never seen the show like I have and heard how good it was, I would definitely recommend a one time showing of this movie. Throughout the movie I was very intrigued in learning the story, and this movie delivered that. However, upon further reflection that was the only thing that kept me motivated in watching this movie. Except for the Prince and General characters, I thought they did a poor job with the other characters. They did practically nothing with the two main characters that we are introduced to and they really didn't do much with the Avatar character except show him training to control water. The Avatar didn't want to be the Avatar because it would mean sacrificing what he wants which I thought would've made an awesome movie, but they only introduced the concept and forgot about it. The special effects are pretty good (note that I didn't see this in 3-D which I heard is much worse), but the action sequences were disappointingly dull. As I think about it more, if it wasn't for my pure interest of learning the story behind The Last Airbender, I probably would've been bored.

**Update**
After watching just one episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I completely understand why fans of the show hated this movie. The television show has way better characters. Now I truly understand why my brother (who was a fan) was bored throughout the movie.