History Film / FreeWilly

* JumpScare: At the start of the film when Jesse vandalizes the observation area, a flash of lightning greets him face to face with Willy's jaws.

* AwardBaitSong: Variant, as Music/MichaelJackson's "Will You Be There" had been released on ''Music/{{Dangerous}}'' two years before, but otherwise checks all the usual boxes of such songs (and even got the MTV Movie Award for Best Song From a Movie).

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''

** Played straight with the few adults who were chaperoning the kids in Willy's underwater viewing area and doing absolutely nothing to stop them from beating on the glass.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSite: Two guys walking by the car wash in the middle of the night barely raise an eyebrow at the sight of a whale on a trailer. All they say is "Nice whale." and continue on their way.

!!Tropes used by the film:

* AnimatedAdaptation: As stated before, this one was ''very'' strange even by the standards of 90's animated adaptations. Let's see, Jesse turns out to be a "[[SpeaksFluentAnimal Truth]][[MagicalNativeAmerican -Talker]]", there's a LostWorld-style island where (supposedly) recently extinct Arctic animals (ie. Wooly Mammoths) thrive in secret, and, well... there's an antagonistic character called "The Machine". He is a cyborg who lives in a big techno-submarine underwater and wants to wreck the environment, but has a huge grudge against Willy; in his CorruptCorporateExecutive identity of Rockland Stone, Willy had interfered with his first submarine and hurled him into a propeller, [[EmergencyTransformation forcing the cyborg implants onto him to keep him alive]]. No, this was real; you can see him at around the 18 second mark in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFMXKb9OAVE the opening credits]]. Because why not replace the "let's keep Willy away from humans who want to mistreat him" conflict from the films with "there's an underwater ''Franchise/GIJoe''-reject villain who hates Willy and wants to destroy him, Jesse, the environment and the [[LastOfHisKind last enclave]] of Ice Age megafauna"?

* ChekhovsGun / ChekhovsSkill: [[spoiler:Elvis was telling the truth about [[IKnowKarate learning karate]].]]
* CluelessAesop: The whole notion of freeing an animal who was forcefully taken out of his environment and separated from his family to live a life in captivity doesn't exactly work out too well when one remembers that this film was made possible by using an animal who actually ''was'' forcefully taken out of his environment and forced to live a life in captivity (although animatronics were used for scenes where Willy was actually in danger). Producers likely realised this as animatronic whales were used for the sequels.
** Also, releasing a captive animal to the wild is potentially dangerous because they haven't learned the necessary survival skills, and indeed, Willy's actor Keiko died several years after being released, never fully being free of human contact and assistance. While he could feed himself he always sought out humans and didn't join any nearby pods. The film does handwave this a bit early in the film when Rae says Willy was captured at "too old" of an age to be trained, implying he knows how to survive in the wild.
* CommonalityConnection: Willy misses his orca family in the wild, just like Jesse misses his mom.
* CoolCar: Glen's Chevy pickup truck from the first film; Dial also drives a corvette.

** And The Machine's alter-ego, Rockland Stone.
* DarkerAndEdgier: The third movie. Willy actually nearly kills one of the whalers that was hunting his mate.
* DeathGlare: Dial's default expression; after all, this IS Michael Ironside we're talking about.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Jesse, who suffers from abandonment issues, is initially cold and indifferent towards both his foster parents and his employers at the water park. He eventually comes around though, especially with Willy's help and starts adapting more comfortably into his new life.

** The Machine and the humans who do his dirty work for him in the cartoon.

* IKnowKungFu: Elvis tells Jesse he knows karate. Jesse assumes it's another lie, but it's revealed to be true when Elvis karate kicks one of the whalers in the butt.

* InNameOnly: The Bindi Irwin movie.

* PapaWolf:
** [[spoiler:Glen, at the end of the first movie.]]
** Willy in the second and third movie as well.
* ParentService: Rae's sexuality and attractive appearance aren't emphasized, but she wears a sports bra while working at the Aquarium in a few scenes and the outlines of her nipples are briefly visible through her tank top in another.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The kids who were with Jesse disappeared without the audience knowing what happened to them. Though they briefly met up with Jesse in the middle of the film.

!!Tropes in the third film:

[[caption-width-right:300:A 12-year-old street kid. A 3-ton killer whale. A friendship you could never imagine. An adventure you'll never forget.]]

* ShownTheirWork: Especially for a movie in the 90's, the depiction of Orcas and how they are effected by captivity is pretty accurate. This was also the first bit of media that accurately explained how Willy's collapsed fin is ''not'' normal in the wild, which Sea World and other theme parks denied, but is a result of being kept in a small pool. The way Willy reacts to the kids banging on the glass is also very true with orcas and other cetaceans like dolphins; the soundwaves that result from this, combined with how they're amplified by the water, can cause dangerous degrees of stress in whales.

* DarkerAndEdgier: The third movie. Willy actually nearly kill one of the whalers that was hunting his mate.

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Not to mention the poster, the music video, the damn title...seriously, if you're watching this movie for the first time and have any doubt that Willy gets freed, you're as obtuse as hell.

** Played straight with the adults who were chaperoning the kids in Willy's underwater viewing area and doing absolutely nothing to stop them from beating on the glass.

* EvilPoacher: The antagonists are fishermen who are illegally killing protected whales and selling them to Japan as sushi. They get a slightly more sympathetic portrayal than usual, as John is a loving FamilyMan, his crewmen are mostly nice to TagAlongKid Max, they never try to kill any of the human protagonists, and they eventually get a HeelRealization. Nonetheless, they are brutally killing intelligent mammals in violation of the law and John even acknowledges there's no real purpose to it beyond the money, while his ancestors could at least say and believe that they were lighting up the world by harvesting whale oil for lamps.

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:Elvis was telling the truth about [[IKnowKarate learning karate]].]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: A justified example. Jesse, Randolph and Rae ''can't'' stop to properly form a plan to free Willy as his tank is too badly damaged (and actually breaks completely as they are removing him). As a result, they run into many obstacles, such as not having a proper vehicle to tow Willy (resulting in them stealing Glen's truck) and blocked roads. Due to the above, they also aren't afforded the luxury of stealth, resulting in Dial being alerted of their actions with enough time to have his men ready for them at every turn and very nearly recapturing Willy.

* EurekaMoment: Jesse spots Willy's family in the distance from atop the water park, and it's this revelation that prompts him to abandon his grudge against Willy and to set him free when he realizes Dial intends to have him killed.

* HumansAreBastards: Subverted. The only human who's really a jerk is Dial. Oh, and the whalers who captured Willy in the first place and, to a lesser degree, the kids who beat on the walls of Willy's tank.

* HappilyAdopted: It's not quite official, since Jesse is technically still a foster kid rather than legally adopted, but by the end of the first movie, he's come to accept Glen and Annie as parental figures and Glen who was reluctant to adopt him calls him "my boy"; in the second movie, it's shown that Glen keeps a family photo in his wallet that includes Jesse. The end of the second film also suggests that Glen and Annie are prepared to take in Elvis long-term as well so that he and Jesse can stay together, but the third film (in which Glen and Annie don't appear) doesn't give any indication of what happened with that -- in fact, Elvis is never mentioned.

** On the other hand, when Jesse sees that [[spoiler: Willy's tank has been sabotaged]], he immediately runs to Randolph for help, knowing he can't deal with this alone, and both Randolph and the trainer Rae do a good job of handling the situation.

** On the other hand, when Jesse sees that [[spoiler: Willy's tank has been sabotaged]], he immediately runs to Randolph for help, knowing he can't deal with this alone.
*** Trainer Rae acquits herself well during the climax, too.

* AwardBaitSong: By Music/MichaelJackson! ''Will You Be There'' was one of his most significant hits in the 1990's.

* Also, releasing a captive animal to the wild is potentially dangerous because they haven't learned the necessary survival skills, and indeed, Willy's actor Keiko died several years after being released, never fully being free of human contact and assistance. While he could feed himself he always sought out humans and didn't join any nearby pods. The film does handwave this a bit early in the film when Rae says Willy was captured at "too old" of an age to be trained, implying he knows how to survive in the wild.

* CluelessAesop: The whole notion of freeing an animal who was forcefully taken out of his environment and separated from his family to live a life in captivity doesn't exactly work out too well when one remembers that this film was made possible by using an animal who actually ''was'' forcefully taken out of his environment and forced to live a life in captivity (although animatronics were used for scenes where Willy was actually in danger). Producers likely realised this as animatronic whales were used for the sequels. Also, releasing a captive animal to the wild is potentially dangerous because they haven't learned the necessary survival skills, and indeed, Willy's actor Keiko died several years after being released, never fully being free of human contact and assistance. While he could feed himself he always sought out humans and didn't join any nearby pods. The film does handwave this a bit early in the film when Rae says Willy was captured at "too old" of an age to be trained, implying he knows how to survive in the wild.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: A justified example. Jesse, Randolph and Rae ''can't'' stop to properly form a plan to free Willy as his tank is too badly damaged (and actually breaks completely as they are removing him). As a result, they run into many obstacles, such as not having a proper vehicle to tow Willy (resulting in them stealing Glen's truck) and blocked roads.

* ChangingTheMinority:

** Jesse initially sees his foster parents and caseworker as this, but they're actually an aversion, as they care about him and want what's best for him; Jesse is just an angry kid and (somewhat understandably) has trouble trusting adult authority figures.

Even so, the film managed to spawn three sequels: ''Film/FreeWilly2TheAdventureHome'' (1995), ''Free Willy 3: The Rescue'' (1997) and a non-canon reboot, ''Free Willy: [[WereStillRelevantDammit Escape from Pirate's Cove]]'' (2010) with Bindi Irwin in the leading role. There was also, believe it or not, an animated adaptation of the series produced by Creator/{{Nelvana}} that ran on Creator/{{ABC}} in the 1995-96 season, and a ''really'' weird one at that.