Chekhovs Skill / Animated Films

• One quick gag early in Aladdin establishes that Iago can imitate voices. Later in the movie he lures Aladdin away from the lamp by pretending to be Jasmine.
• In The Book of Life, Manolo's bullfighting skills came in VERY handy when fighting El Chakal. His guitar playing also was useful in order to defeat El Toro in the Land of the Remembered.
• Astro Kid: Early in the movie, Willy can be seen playing a holodeck-video game where he rides a Hover Board dodging obstacles, and shoots enemies with a holographic bow and arrow. Both skills come in great use for him after he gets stranded on an alien planet, where he makes an improvised skateboard and his own bow and arrow.
• In Brave, Merida uses some of her hated lessons (public speaking and history) to calm the three lords when they were seconds away from declaring war on each other. She also uses her not-so-hated skills of archery to help Bear!Elinor survive in the forest.
• In Cars, Lightning McQueen learns about backwards driving and opposite-lock drifting in Radiator Springs. Both skills prove crucial at the final Piston Cup race.
• Cars 3 plays with this. Rather than Lightning using the skills he learned throughout the film, it's Cruz Ramirez who learned alongside them who uses Doc Hudson's acrobatic roll in the finale to win the race, and before that, almost everything else they learned in Thomasville.
• Coco: Héctor's ability to dress up as Frida Kahlo ends up being helpful a couple of times later.
• Despicable Me has the Minions' ability to form human chains rapidly.
• In The Emperor's New Groove, Pacha and Kuzco's back-to-back climbing technique returns in the climax.
• In Fun and Fancy Free, Bongo, being a circus bear, puts his circus acrobatics to the test to help defeat Lumpjaw.
• During their vacation in A Goofy Movie, Goofy teaches his son Max how to perform "The Perfect Cast," an elaborate fishing technique to ensure a perfect catch. This winds up saving Goofy's life later when Max uses it to catch his dad from falling down a waterfall. Comes up again when Goofy ends up on-stage of the titular concert. Max tells dad to perform it, resulting in Goofy using "The Perfect Cast" as a rather cool-looking dance.
• In Home (2015), Oh reflects light off a mirror to distract Tip early on. This comes in handy later when Tip uses it to distract the Gorg driving the Mothership, using the mirror that was supposed to be her mom's Christmas present.
• The Incredibles:
  • Violet Parr is only able to do tiny force fields, even failing to save her family members from an exploding plane, before finally getting the hang of it midway through and saving everyone every time she uses it.
  • Dash already knew how to run, but he didn't know what superspeed could really do. He learns a great deal about his power during a chase sequence on the island, running from Syndrome's mooks, such as his ability to run on water. This is called back during the fight against the Omnidroid mk. 10.
  • Helen's parachute ability is used to protect Violet and Dash from the jet explosion and to safely land on the water. It shows up at the end when she rescues Jack-Jack from falling after he breaks free from Syndrome.
• Incredibles 2:
  • Jack-Jack shows he has the ability of telekinesis when he puts the lid back on the garbage can and starts fighting the raccoon who was going through the trash. He later uses this ability to remove the hypno-goggles from his mother, freeing her from Evelyn's control and ultimately leading to her defeat.
  • Jack-Jack's ability to fire Eye Beams in pulses when held. Violet uses him as an Equippable Ally to fire at a hypnotized Screech who had abducted Dash.
• About halfway through The Iron Giant, the title robot is blown up in an accident, but immediately starts putting himself back together. At the end of the film, the Giant explodes again and is supposedly killed after being blown up by an incoming missile, and moments later, he immediately starts putting himself back together again meaning that he actually survived.
• Kung Fu Panda:
  • In the first film, Po uses all the skills he learned in his training, like the chopstick fight, in his final battle with Tai Lung.
  • In the sequel, Po has some difficulty mastering Shifu's "inner peace" form. When he finally attains inner peace and gets the move right, he is able to use it to defeat Shen's battery of cannons.
  • In the third film, Po and his biological father learn that the ancient pandas knew the secret to transferring chi to another person. Po's father eventually admits that the secret has been forgotten. At the end, though, after Po's Heroic Sacrifice (sending himself to the spirit realm in order to return Kai there), first Po's father, and then the other pandas (plus Tigress and Po's adopted father) manage to replicate the secret and give Po an abundance of chi, allowing him to truly become the Dragon Warrior and defeat Kai once and for all.
• The Lion King (1994):
  • Early on, Simba wrestles with Nala as a cub, and he never beats her (he finally does as an adult). Later he uses these skills to defeat Scar in the end.
  • The fact that Nala always pins Simba is one of these in and of itself; it's how they wind up identifying each other as adults.
• Monsters University:
  • Squishy's ability to sneak up on people and perform an Offscreen Teleportation is used to great effect in the library round and in the final round of the Scare Games.
  • In the beginning of the film, little Mike sees a Scarer building up the fear in a child by scratching his claws over the child's bedpost. In the final round of the Scare Games and when they are scaring the adults to power the door, Mike and Sulley use the same technique to heighten their fear.
  • During the library round, the Oozma Kappa use misdirection to distract the librarian from getting Sulley. Don Carlton use this skill again to distract Dean Hardscrabble and the security guards so that Sulley could enter the door to the human world to get Mike.
• Moana:
  • Maui comically demonstrates his whale belly-flop technique during his retraining montage. He uses it dramatically in the climactic fight with Te Ka.
  • Moana witnesses a vision of her ancestor using a furled sail with slipknot to quickly increase the size of the sail. She uses it against Te Ka for a burst of speed.
• Mulan:
  • Learning how to dress and act like a proper lady pays off when Mulan needs to pretend to be a concubine.
  • The wrap-the-ropes-around-the-pole-to-climb-it trick that Mulan figured out during the "I'll Make a Man Out of You" musical number, which she and her comrades used to infiltrate the Emperor's palace.
  • The skill of aiming and shooting rockets that the soldiers learn in the Training Montage comes particularly handy, as Mulan first uses it to defeat Shan Yu's army, then to kill Shan Yu himself.
  • Ling uses the brick-breaking headbutt he learned in training to take out one of the Huns.
  • Shoe throwing, of all things. Mulan uses it to catch Shan Yu's attention, stopping him just short of chopping Shang's head off. When we saw her do the same to Khan earlier, who knew it'd come in handy?
  • There's also Mushu's firebreathing. Attempted when trying to impress the ancestors, later used to light the avalanche-triggering cannon, roast the feathers off Shan-Yu's pet falcon, and light the fireworks rocket that sends Shan-Yu to his death.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas, when Doctor Finklestein is holding Sally's detached arm, she (or specifically her arm that he's holding) bops him repeatedly on the head while the rest of her escapes. This ability comes in handy when she uses her detached leg to distract Oogie Boogie while she is rescuing Santa Claus.
• In Quest for Camelot, Kayley defeats Big Bad Ruber by dodging out of the way of his strike at the last moment, causing him to put Excalibur back in the stone, a technique she learned from Garrett earlier in the movie.
• A three-second segment of a montage in Ratatouille shows that Linguini's a good rollerskater. This skill proves vital in the climax.
• In The Simpsons Movie, Homer manages to earn the runaway Simpson family some money by winning a motorcycle game inside a dome. In the climax, he puts those skills to even better use when he and Bart drive a motorcycle up the dome the town of Springfield was quarantined under, allowing them to throw the nuke out before it blows up.
• In The Swan Princess, early on while doing survival training Derek's friend Bromley is instructed to shoot an arrow at Derek's heart and in turn shoot the apple off his head he succeeds, later he uses this skill to kill Rothbart.
• In Tarzan, the titular character at one point intimates the sound of Clayton's gun. This leads to a Moment of Awesome in the climax.
• In The Tigger Movie, Roo uses the Whoopty-Dooper-Loopty-Looper-Alley-Ooper bounce that Tigger invented earlier in the movie in order to save Tigger from an avalanche (that Tigger himself caused, ironically enough).
• About halfway through the first Toy Story film, Woody and Buzz Lightyear actually both get into an argument and fly out of the car they were in. During the said argument, Buzz actually slaps Woody in the face, causing it to spin 360 degrees. Woody then spins his head 360 degrees later in the film in order to scare Sid and save Buzz Lightyear.
• Jim Hawkin's solar surfing which got him into trouble at the beginning of Treasure Planet proves to be vital and amazing in the climax when the Planet is self-destructing. He then uses a makeshift surfer using a sheet of metal and a severed cannon to fly back to a portal and change the destination to Montressor Spaceport. His resourcefulness, quick thinking, and Chekhov's Skill save the RLS Legacy and those on board from a very unpleasant demise. Small wonder why Jim is jailbait and Mr. Fanservice at the same time.
• In Turning Red, Mei's friends are shown beatboxing to cheer Mei up. In the climax, they beatbox to help synchronize 4*Town's singing with Mei's aunties chanting.
• Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph's strength and ham-fisted figure are what defeat the Turbo/King Candy/Cybug combination with the use of the cy-bugs' moth-like attraction to light. He falls out of Turbo's grasp from the sky while reciting the Bad Guy Affirmation, punches the entire collection of Mentos down into the cola and creates a beacon, permanently killing Turbo and every cy-bug that infested Sugar Rush.
• Zootopia:
  • Nick's not exaggerating when he boasts about knowing everyone in Zootopia; his knowledge proves critical several times in the movie.
  • Judy's acting from her play in the prologue. She's had experience faking death before.
• Used throughout the climax of Bambi II, when a pack of hunting dogs close in on a trapped doe, Bambi uses multiple experiences from earlier to lure them away and take them out one by one:
  • He uses his attempted "brave roar" from earlier (in fact a pathetic bleat) to divert them away from the doe and lead them away.
  • Flower uses his own unintimidating "brave roar" on one dog, which causes him to let out his skunk spray like last time and scare it away.
  • When two dogs close in on Bambi in the tall grass, he hears their vibrations under the ground to track them (a lesson the Great Prince had taught him earlier) and perform some Deadly Dodging.

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