Ignored Epiphany in in Films and Animated Films.
Films — Animated
- In Cars 2, the villainous group of Lemons (cars that don't ever work right) are trying to become rich and powerful by discrediting alternative fuels during a high-stakes World Grand Prix, then selling oil they've begun drilling off the coast, so they can get revenge on the cars who had mocked them their entire lives. Mater, who had gone through an epiphany of his own upon realizing the world was mocking him just as much, gives a speech to the entire Lemon army about how he had been mocked his whole life, and that their schemes wouldn't make them feel better. The Lemons seem touched by this sentiment and appear on the verge of tears, but they decide it's worth a shot to keep going with their plan anyway.
- In Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Well-Intentioned Extremist General Hein has a couple of epiphanies where he realizes what he has done as a result of his zeal for destroying the Phantoms but goes ahead with his firing of the Zeus cannon anyway, even though it kills him and many others on board the space station with him, and proves to be utterly unsuccessful.
- Frozen: Prince Hans has two big moments where he is briefly reluctant about his plans to seize control of Arendelle, but these self-doubts are quickly ignored.
- In A Frozen Heart, a novelization of the movie from his POV, Hans felt slightly hesitant about quickly agreeing to a Fourth-Date Marriage with Anna, wondering if he's going way too fast and how his family would react to this — his father would call him an idiot, while Lars would say that it was done too hastily. But then, these doubts are quashed by his goal to seize control of Arendelle.
- He gets another when he tells Elsa that Anna is dead because of her and causes the snowstorm to stop, and briefly notices how badly Elsa is taking it. He's genuinely surprised at the grief she has for her beloved sister, and for a moment, he starts to realize he might have gone too far, but he brushes it off, believing there's no point now that he has a big chance to end the winter and be free from the Southern Isles forever.
- In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frollo seems to have one of some sort in the song Hellfire when he sings "God have mercy on her/God have mercy on me". True to the trope, immediately follows it up with "But she will be mine, or she will burn!" For someone who's an Egocentrically Religious Churchgoing Villain, Judge Frollo himself doesn't realize the Bible's true message on compassion and pride. Others repeatedly try to knock some sense into him and call him out on his hypocrisy, but to his dying words, he never realizes he could be wrong. For all the Holier Than Thou harping and Bible-thumping he does throughout the movie, he's just a paranoid loon who blames others, including God, for his issues. His bloated ego prevents him from realizing that pride is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins, and it ultimately leads to his eternal damnation in Hell.
- There's actually a moment during the "Hellfire" song when a guard opens a door behind him and informs him that Esmerelda has escaped the cathedral, just after Frollo asks God to answer his prayers. The guard is framed in the doorway standing in a soft and peaceful light. Perhaps this is God offering Frollo one last chance to turn away from sin and let Esmerelda escape? Naturally, being Frollo, he yells "Get out, you idiot!" and turns back to the fireplace to finish the song, even vowing with his next line to find Esmerelda even if he has to burn down all the entire city. Inevitably sealing his fate.
- Kung Fu Panda:
- At the end of the first film, when Shifu apologizes for his mistakes in raising Tai Lung, Tai Lung appears genuinely moved for a moment or two... but then decides that he doesn't want Shifu's apology and continues his assault.
- Lord Shen spends most of Kung Fu Panda 2 thinking that his parents banished him from his homeland because they hated him. When he tells this to the Soothsayer, she reveals that they actually loved him to such an extent that having to banish him literally killed them. Shen seems genuinely moved by this for a few seconds before promptly brushing it off.
- He gets another after Po destroys his cannon fleet, where he accepts Po is right about not letting the past define who you choose to be now. He chooses to continue attacking Po, leading to his death.
- The Once-ler has this twice in The Lorax (1972). The first time happens when the Bar-ba-Loots leave and the Once-ler is scolded for his actions by his conscious. The Once-ler argues that if he wasn't destroying the forest for his product, somebody else would be and continues. The second time happens after the Swomee Swans and Humming Fish leave. It looks like the Once-ler realises how bad things have gotten and is about to change, but a message from his secretary that Thneeds stocks rising triggers his greed and he rants about his intentions to continue biggering to the Lorax before the last Truffla tree is cut down.
- O'Hare in the The Lorax (2012) provides a comical example during his portion of "Let it Grow".The things you say just might be true
It could be time to start anew
And maybe change my point of view...
Nah! I say let it die! - At the climax of Penguins of Madagascar, after Big Bad Dave has turned all of the penguins into disgusting monsters, he states that he feels empty as if there is a hole in him now. He comes to the conclusion that the best way to fix that is to plan MORE revenge and starts preparing to uglify every other cute animal species.
- In Sausage Party, Sammy Bagel Jr. reveals that he’s friends with Hamas, whom Kareem Abdul Lavash is also friends with. But when Lavash is about to say that any friend of Hummus is a friend of his, he takes one good look at Sammy and tells him to get the fuck away from him. Subverted later on, when Lavash and Sammy become Friends with Benefits.
- Shark Tale gives a rather humorous example from Don Lino upon seeing his son Lenny in a dolphin disguise.Lino: What did I ever do to you?! You took Frankie away, and you turned Lenny into a dolphin! [his sadness quickly turns to fury] I'M GONNA GET YOU!
- Sheila Brokflovski from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut looked like she finally came to her senses after her son Kyle tries to reason with her. She then gunned down Terrence and Phillip.
- Plankton in The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water. After defeating Burger Beard in the climax, Plankton lets Mr. Krabs keep the secret formula in an act of selflessness. When SpongeBob takes the gang back to Bikini Bottom, he tries disguising himself in a Gary robot to steal the Krabby Patty formula yet again. After being caught by SpongeBob, he says it himself:SpongeBob: Up to your old tricks again already, eh?
Plankton: Hey, I'm just putting things back the way they were.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Bad and the Beautiful, we first meet Jonathan Shields at the funeral for his father, a former Hollywood big shot who died penniless after his studio went bust. Despite the fact that literally everyone at the funeral except himself was paid to be there and pretend to be mourning, Jonathan takes nothing away from the fate of the man he calls "the king of the heels," except that he'll have to work extra hard to ram the Shields name down the throats of everyone who didn't pay him in the proper respect. He then spends the rest of the movie being a bigger bastard than his dad ever was.
- In Being John Malkovich, Craig has a moment where he seems to become horrified at how he locked up his wife Lotte in a monkey cage to keep her away from Maxine, the woman they both want, and he frees Lotte and allows her to call Maxine. Then the very next scene shows that he locked her up again and has gone off to meet Maxine in her place. It's left ambiguous if Craig's moment of remorse was a sincere one that he chose to ignore, or if he was faking the ignored epiphany to get Lotte to set up a meeting with Maxine that he could take advantage of.
- During the song "Special Kind Of White Guy" in Bo Burnham: Inside:American white guys
We've had the floor for 400 years
So maybe I should just shut the fuck up
(Beat)
I'm bored
I don't wanna do that - In John Woo's Broken Arrow, Deakins kills a man by crushing his throat, then remarks, "I just realized something. I never actually killed anyone before. I mean, I dropped bombs on Baghdad, but, uh... never face to face." [Beat] "I don't know what the big deal is, I really don't."
- Played for Laughs at the end of Christmas with the Kranks when, after everything that happened as a result of them deciding to skip Christmas and go on a cruise, we get this:Luthor: What a dumb idea. Skipping Christmas.
Nora: Maybe next year. - In Death to Smoochy, Rainbow Randolph decides that it is time to end his vendetta against Smoochy. He talks of "gracefully marching forward" and "admitting that the rhino has won." That is until he picks up a photo of Sheldon with his ex-girlfriend. Angelo's panicked reminder of his resolution falls on deaf ears as Randolf screams and curses that he's going to end Smoochy once and for all.
- Towards the end of Hong Kong wuxia film Duel to the Death, Ching Wan tries to convince an embittered Chinese lord against the plan that he made with the Shogun of Japan to betray China. It makes the lord think, but just a minute later he tries to backstab the hero, only to hit and kill his own daughter instead.
- Forrest Warrior: Corrupt logger Travis Thorne has a brief moment of softness, recalling how he used to play in the old treehouse as a kid and showing surprise at his spies report that it’s still there with a smile. Barely a second later, he orders his men to blow it up to give the kids less reason to hang around there and give him trouble.
- In The Godfather Part II, when Michael returns from Cuba to be told that his wife had a miscarriage while he was gone, he starts to think about what's happened to his immediate family since he became don and talks to his mother about it, asking whether it's possible to be so focused on the idea of protecting your family that in the meantime, you lose them — basically spelling out the entire main theme of the three films. But his mother tells him that "you can never lose your family," and he's reassured that he's doing the right thing. Later in his confrontation with Kay, he tells her he knows they've been growing apart and that she blames him for the miscarriage, but they'll get past it: "I've learned that I have the strength to change." She tells him how blind he is; that it wasn't a miscarriage but an abortion, because she wouldn't bring another child of his into the world, which enrages him so much he forgets any idea of repairing the damage he's done.
- A Kitten For Hitler has Hitler being given a kitten for Christmas by a boy, which almost causes him to have a change of heart. This ends when he discovers the boy is Jewish, making him decide to continue his atrocities.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In The Avengers, when the Chitauri are attacking New York, Thor tries for a last time to approach his brother, trying to make him aware of the destruction caused by the Chitauri and the fact that they are getting out of Loki's control. For a short moment, Loki seems genuinely shocked, telling Thor that "it's too late to stop it." But just when Thor responds that they can do it together, Loki stabs him and flees.
- Later in Thor: Ragnarok, Thor explicitly calls Loki out on this. As he points out, despite he fact that all his evil plans and tricks continually blow up in his face and have effectively ruined his life, Loki continues to act like an selfish, manipulative asshole who constantly betrays the trust of others. Thor makes clear that he's given up on trying to redeem Loki, saying that he'll never change and will just continue to be a pathetic jerk for the rest of his life. Ultimately subverted, as this "The Reason You Suck" Speech ends up being what finally makes Loki realize that he really has been blaming everyone else for his flaws. He proceeds to back Thor and his allies up during their battle with Hela and by the end of the movie he is on his way to some degree of redemption.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Ego recounts his existential loneliness in a universe where all other beings were so much less than him. The only time he felt relief from that loneliness was with Meredith, Peter's mother. He truly fell in love with her, proving that he could find meaning in others after all. Ego was scared he'd be unable to continue with his plan if he stayed with Meredith, so he killed the only being he had ever loved.
- In Avengers: Endgame, when the Thanos of 2014 sees that his future self succeeded in his Depopulation Bomb of the entire universe, but everyone's still recovering and people haven't gotten over the sudden deaths of half of all living things even five years after the event to the point that the Avengers are trying to undo it. Instead of realizing his solution to overpopulation was wrong, he decides everyone else is simply ungrateful and that he needs to be even more extreme, killing off the entire universe this time and replacing it with one that will never know of the horrible atrocities he committed and will see him as their hero.
- Schindler's List:
- Schindler tells Amon Goeth in one scene that real power isn't in killing people, but in forgiveness. Goeth seems genuinely moved by this, and a couple scenes later, when a Jewish boy fails to clean the stains from his tub, he pardons the boy just to see how it feels... and then shoots him almost immediately after.
- Later, while alone with his Jewish maid whom he lusts after, Goeth begins to think that maybe the problem isn't with his feelings for her, but with the Nazi ideology telling him he should hate her. He quickly abandons the thought, blaming it on her evil Jewish powers, before beating her and smashing a shelf full of wine on top of her.
- In Spider-Man 2, J. Jonah Jameson is just about to admit that Spider-Man was a hero until he notices that Spider-Man has stolen his suit back from the Bugle, at which point he reneges his speech at the last second and returns to his original disdain of him.Jameson: Yes. Spider-Man was a hero. I just couldn't see it. He was a- [notices that the Spider-Man suit is missing] A THIEF! A CRIMINAL! He stole my suit! He's a menace to the entire city! I want that wall-crawling arachnid prosecuted! I want him strung up by his web! I WANT SPIDER-MAN!!!!
- Star Wars:
- Vader has at least one such moment before doing his Redemption Equals Death Heel–Face Turn. When Luke turns himself in to the Imperials during Return of the Jedi, the two have a talk together where Luke tries to turn him away from The Dark Side. At the end Vader simply says "It is too late for me, son", hinting that he knows he's on the wrong side but he believes that after everything he's done, he is beyond redemption. Then, he takes Luke up to face the Emperor, knowing the Emperor's plans to corrupt Luke's soul. At least he comes to his senses later.
- In Revenge of the Sith Anakin does a My God, What Have I Done? right after he helps Palpatine kill Windu. Right after that, he goes on with his Face–Heel Turn to become Darth Vader.
- Violent Night: During the Final Battle, Mr. Scrooge finally accepts that Santa Claus is real when he sees his name on the naughty list with all the bad things he's done in his life. Rather than take this as a reason to be better, he decides to kill Santa to end Christmas for everyone.
- In Young Adult, Mavis Gary has to deal with the fact her high school boyfriend's actually happy with his wife and newborn daughter, and she herself has been behaving in an increasingly immature fashion; but just as Mavis says "I need to change", she learns a very minor character still considers her a winner, and her narcissism is once again fed.
