- Life comes at you fast. It runs through your body and tries to escape and be expressed in any way possible. It's a lot like lightning.Once upon a time, there was a boy.Once upon a time, there was a boy who wanted to fly.Once upon a time, there was a boy who flew.
Struck by Lighting is an 2012 film written by Chris Colfer. It is a Coming of Age Story centered on small-town resident Carson Phillips, a teenager using blackmail on various students to make a newspaper to submit to a college.
Tropes used in this movie (or at least the promo) include:
- Abusive Parents: Carson's mom, Sheryl put anti-depressants in his food so it would improve his mood and keep him from leaving home to go to college.
- Alcoholic Parent: Sheryl, Carson's mom.
- Alpha Bitch: "Contraception" Claire Matthews.
- Blackmail: Carson blackmails the entire school to make them write for his literary magazine.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: It's actually a reward.
- Camp Gay: Scott Thomas.
- Deadpan Snarker: Carson.
- Downer Ending: It's no secret that Carson dies in the end, but he also doesn't get into the university of his dreams (and the only one he applied to), the entire school hates him, his literary magazine failed miserably, and he never got to make it out of Clover. At least he is much less impulsive and cynical after he died.Carson: "I never graduated. I never went to Northwestern. I never wrote for The New Yorker. I never won the Nobel Peace Prize. I never changed the world. I never got out of Clover. These were just delusions that occupied my time."
- Stated in the movie but used as a Cruel Twist Ending in the book.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in Spanish/Latin Lover: One of the students pretends to be a spanish exchange student in order to seduce girls.
- Fat Best Friend: Malerie is Carson's best friend.
- Film of the Book: Came out the same time as the movie, also written by Chris Colfer.
- The book pretends to be Carson's diary, and only reveals he dies at the end.
- Freudian Excuse: The reason behind Claire's bitchy behavior is because she always wanted to be a ballerina. In the second grade, everyone, with the exception of Carson, laughed at her dreams of becoming a ballerina and suddenly just gave up on her dreams.
- Carson's bitterness and Jerkass attitude towards his classmates is due to his parents' horrible divorce and his jerk of a father leaving his mother for a younger woman.
- Goth: Vicki Jordan.
- Hated Hometown: One that hates back.
- Heel Realization: Carson gives a monologue in the book before heading to the parking lot, about how he want to be never pressed by other people, to the point that he would willingly blackmail and manipulate.
- Insistent Terminology: Carson seems to exclusively refer to sex as "fornication".
- Jerkass: Carson's father.
- Carson also is this due to his bitterness and sarcasm towards his peers after his parents' divorce, which could count as a Freudian Excuse.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Carson.
- Life Isn't Fair: Carson's mother claims that this is why she kept him from getting into university because he needs to learn that dreams don't come true.
- Morality Pet: Malerie is the only person that Carson is never sarcastic to.
- Future Farmers of America.
- Most Writers Are Writers
- Parental Abandonment: Carson's father abandoned his wife and son early into Carson's life and doesn't contact him until his teens. And the only reason he does that is to look good in front of his new wife.
- Posthumous Narration: Only in the movie, to counteract the realistically hopeless atmosphere of the book.
- Scandal Gate: Clovergate.
- "Nixon is so crooked, he have to screw his boots on!"
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The entire plot of the movie is this, at least for Carson - he finally manages to write a story of his own and complete his literary magazine, but he dies before anyone can read it. It differs from a Shoot the Shaggy Dog because it is implied in the movie that his death is a good thing for everyone especially himself.
- Straight Gay: Nicholas Forbes.
- Straw Nihilist: Carson's mother. She goes as far as saboutaging his projects merely because she thinks life is hopeless.
- Time-Shifted Actor: Chris uses Adam Kolkin to play himself as a child; the same was done on one episode of Glee.
- Trailers Always Lie: They leave out the fact that Carson is struck by lightning and dies in the opening scene of the movie.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Malerie.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: One of the most common complaints critics had against the movie was that they found Carson to be extremely arrogant and didn't manage to unlikable. Although some people found it to make his character even better so it isn't that bad.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To the myth of Icarus.
