Ironic Echo / Animated Films

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• Aladdin: "PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER! ...itty-bitty living space."
  • And in the Direct to Video sequel Aladdin: The Return of Jafar: "Genies can't kill anyone... But you'd be surprised what you can live through..."
• Antz has the unprecedented use of Ironic Echo between a few seconds in regard to Z and General Mandible. As such, both are to be posted:
  General Mandible: [Z has broken through to the surface where Mandible and his soldiers wait for them to be drowned] Let go! Don't you understand? It's for the good of the colony!
  Z: What are you saying? We are the colony!
  [Mandible is about to strike Z when Cutter knocks him aside]
  General Mandible: Cutter, what are you doing?
  Colonel Cutter: Something I should have done a long time ago.
  [extends his hand to the worker ants]
  Colonel Cutter: This is for the good of the colony, General.
  General Mandible: You useless, ungrateful maggot! I am the colony!
• During his Villain Song in Anastasia, Rasputin says, "Dasvidaniya, Anya, your Grace, farewell!" as he plans to complete his revenge by killing Anastasia. Just before Anastasia smashes his Soul Jar and kills him, she says, "Dasvidaniya!"
• Barnyard: When a kid tips a cow, he mockingly shouts, "That's called cow tipping! Haw, haw, haw!" Otis and friends, wanting revenge, follow him to his house. They sneak inside the window and into the boy’s bedroom, where they then knock him off of his bed. Otis shouts, "That's called boy tipping! Haw, haw, haw!"
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm: Mob boss Buzz Bronski visited the gravestone of his recently murdered associate Chuckie Sol, snidely remarking "You always were a loser". Shortly afterwards, the Phantasm — the one who killed Chuckie in the first place — repeats these words to Buzz right before he's crushed by a falling statue.
• Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: After finding out that the original Batman is a millionaire playboy, Joker mockingly calls Bruce "a little boy in a playsuit crying for mommy and daddy." During the climax, Terry McGinnis/Batman II insultingly mocks the Joker by calling his jokes lame and that he's nothing but a stupid, overgrown manchild compared to the supervillain he thinks he is. Joker spent his career trying to get the original Batman to laugh with him, but the new Batman defeats him by laughing at him. After all, a comedian's Arch-Enemy and worst nightmare is The Heckler. In a more direct Ironic Echo, both the Joker and Terry call their adversary "pathetic" before laughing at them:
  Joker: [to Bruce/Batman] It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. [Beat] Eh, what the heck, I'll laugh anyway. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
  Batman II: [to the Joker] You make me laugh... but only because I think you're kinda pathetic. Hahahahahahaha!
• BoBoiBoy Movie 2: "You are not worthy of (using) this power!" Retak'ka says this first to BoBoiBoy, thinking him as too weak to have the Elemental Powers before he seizes some of them from him. As the hero finally absorbs them back via Ochobot, BoBoiBoy repeats the proclamation to the villain.
• In Bolt, we're introduced to Mittens the cat when we see her extorting food from some pigeons in exchange for not eating them. When one of the pigeons, Louie, is unable to bring anything but an orange seed, Mittens demands that Louie bring her all his food next time, or else. Louie protests "We had a deal!", to which Mittens replies "The deal's just expired." A few scenes later Bolt, believing Mittens to be an agent of "the man with the green eye" (the villain of the Show Within a Show on which he works), threatens her into telling him where Penny is. She convinces Bolt to head to Hollywood, California, but ends up getting dragged along by Bolt. When she protests "We had a deal!", Bolt replies "The deal's just expired." This is lampshaded when Louie, watching in amusement with his fellow pigeons, remarks "That's what she said to me earlier."
• The Boxtrolls:
  • When Winnie tries to get her dad's white hat, she is met by Archibald, who asks how the hat got all the way out on the street. Later, as Winnie tries to distract Archibald while the Boxtrolls dismantle his machine, she asks him the same question.
  • "You bit me, with your mouth" is first said by Winnie to Eggs, then by Archibald to Winnie.
• A variation occurs in A Bug's Life. Hopper tells Princess Atta "how things are supposed to work: The sun grows the food, the ants pick the food, the grasshoppers eat the food..." At the end, just before the entire ant colony charges the grasshoppers, Atta says this: "You see, Hopper, Nature has a certain order: The ants pick the food; the ants KEEP the food... And the grasshoppers LEAVE."
• Cats Don't Dance: Darla's advice to Danny is to make his act "big and loud"; at the end of the movie, thanks to Darla's jealous meddling, his act along with the other animals indeed ends up big and loud.
  • The line "How does the kitty cat go?" is first spoken menacingly by Max to Danny, then reversed on him when Danny sends Max flying on a punctured Darla balloon float.
• Early in The Film of the Book of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the mayor of Swallow Falls comments that he wants the townspeople to look at him and say "That is one big mayor," as in someone important. Later in the film, during the reopening of Chewandswallow, an audience member says the exact same words, but referring to the mayor's very evident obesity.
• Coco: Ernesto De La Cruz's catchphrase, "Seize your moment!". Since Ernesto is his hero, Miguel uses it all the time, especially to gather the courage to do risky things like following his dream to become a musician. Repeated in a fiendishly sinister tone by Ernesto himself to justify his actions after confessing to having murdered Héctor and stolen his songs to Miguel.
• Corpse Bride has the phrase "New arrival", which is first used when Victor and later Mayhew arrive in the Land of the Dead. It's given a sinister tone after Lord Barkis accidentally kills himself by drinking the poison meant for Victor in an ironic toast to Emily. This makes him fair game to the dead, who descend in an angry mob to carry out a Fate Worse than Death.
• In The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, there is an actual mute Ironic Echo. Gromit wants to leave his truck to help Wallace, but Phillip shakes his head "no", keeping him in. A minute after, when Wallace transforms, Phillip wants to shelter in the truck, but Gromit shakes his head in the same fashion and keeps the doors closed.
• The Emperor's New Groove has a scene near the beginning where Kuzco fires Yzma for trying to run the country behind his back, and rattles off a Hurricane of Euphemisms for being fired ("'You're being let go.' 'Your department's being downsized.' 'You're part of an outplacement.' 'We're going in a different direction.' 'We're not picking up your option.' Take your pick. I got more.") Near the end of the film, Yzma has Kuzco cornered and rattles off a similar Hurricane of Euphemisms for death.
  Yzma: Just think of it as... you're being let go. That your life's going in a different direction. That your body is part of a permanent outplacement!
  Kronk: Hey, that's kinda like what he said to you when you got fired.
  Yzma: I know. It's called a cruel irony like my dependence on you.
  • As well as "nobody's that heartless."
    Pacha: Deep down, I think you'll realize that you're forcing an entire village out of their homes just for you.
    Kuzco: And that's...bad?
    Pacha: Well, yeah. Nobody's that heartless.
    (Later...)
    Pacha: (after Kuzco saves him from a collapsing cliff) You coulda just let me fall.
    Kuzco: What's the big deal? Nobody's that heartless! (sucks in his lips realizing what he just said)
• Epic (2013): "Ozzy! No kisses."
• Near the beginning of Fritz the Cat, Fritz makes a speech falsely claiming his worldliness as part of seducing dumb, naive hippie girls with pseudo-philosophical garbage. At the end, he starts into the same speech, which is now actually accurate after the events of the film but it's still just to seduce the exact same naive hippie girls.
• In Happy Heroes: The Stones, the line Happy S. tells a kid who is pretending to be him, "Next time, leave the dangerous stuff to me, okay?", comes back to him when a policeman captures a robber Happy S. tries to deal with, with the policeman repeating this line. Happy S. had lost his powers but is still willing to help chase after bad guys.
• Hoodwinked!: During Red's story, she calls Granny at a roadside payphone, and this exchange:
  Granny Puckett: A trip up the mountain is too dangerous for a little girl.
  Red Puckett: I'm not so little anymore!
  • In the next scene, when Red is in the treehouse:
    Woodpecker: Are you going somewhere far away?
    Red Puckett: No, the world is too dangerous for me! (throws her magazine over the side, which lands on a car and causes the driver to run into a tree)
  • Also, there's the Wolf's "Never trust a bunny" line. The first time, during his story, he's saying this to Twitchy after they make the mistake of trusting the ditzy Boingo for directions to Granny's house, causing them to end up in a cave inhabited by bats. Here, the line is used in the context of navigation (well, he DOES tell them the route involves going over the woods and through the river). When Flippers makes The Reveal that Boingo was the Big Bad, the Wolf repeats this line but this time referring to Boingo's deceptive appearance.
• In How to Train Your Dragon, there are a multitude of great examples.
  • The line "I did this" was said first by Hiccup upon realizing he couldn't bring himself to kill Toothless and again by Stoick when he thinks Hiccup is dead. Bonus points for having Toothless in both scenes and in the same position.
  • "You just gestured to all of me..."
  • "Thank you, for summing that up."
  • "That's for ______. And that's for everything else" Spoken by Astrid, when she hit Hiccup twice for keeping secrets, again when Hiccup drops her off after taking her to fly, only this time she kisses him the second time, instead of hitting him, and one last time at the end when she kisses him again.
  • "We're Vikings. It's an occupational hazard."
  • "Night Fury! Get down!" Spoken first when the Night Fury is attacking, and later when Toothless jumps on the villagers, playfully.
  • "We have dragons." Counts as a Book Ends.
• In the first act of The Incredibles:
  Helen: Everybody's special, Dash.
  Dash: Which is another way of saying no one is.
  • This same sentiment is voiced by Syndrome in the third act.
    Syndrome: And when everyone's Super... no one will be.
  • Then, of course, there is this line.
    Syndrome: After all... I am your biggest fan.
  • "I work alone."
  • In a visual echo, the first time we see the family using their powers together, they are fighting with each other until interrupted by Frozone. The next time, they are fighting with Syndrome's goons until interrupted by Syndrome.
  • It's claimed that Omnidroid v8 "got smart enough that it wondered why it had to take orders". This probably wasn't true for Omnidroid v9, but it was most certainly true for v10.
  • Incredibles 2: Winston tells Frozone, Elastigirl, and Mr. Incredible that the reason the world doesn't like superheroes is because of "perspective" (people see destruction, they see superheroes, they blame superheroes). Later, Evelyn (Winston's cynical sister and true villain of the film) points out that her brother has a "childish perspective" — "Superheroes go away, mommy and daddy go away."
  • Pixar seems to enjoy this one. Both Toy Story 2 and Cars used this with key lines of dialogue.
• A couple of examples in The Iron Giant:
  • Kent Mansley appends "and all that that implies" to several of his sentences for added emphasis. Towards the end of the film, when Hogarth thinks he's gotten rid of the nosy government agent for good, he smugly says to himself, "Bye, Kent, and all that that implies."
  • "You stay. I go. No following." In the first act, it's Hogarth urging the Giant to stay in the woods and not follow him home, knowing it would upset the townspeople otherwise. In the third act, the Giant says this to Hogarth just before rocketing into the upper atmosphere to intercept a nuclear missile that had been launched at the town.
• From the Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama:
  Shego: You know what I really hate?
  Kim: People who kidnap your boyfriend?
  Shego: People who don't know when to give up!
  (Later)
  Kim: Do you know what I really hate?
  Shego: That your date melted?
  Kim: Nah... you.
• The LEGO Movie:
  • The song "Everything Is Awesome" is originally played for irony due to President Business creating a Crapsaccharine World. By the end of the movie, however, the irony is lost and everything is awesome.
  • President Business plan for using the Kragle is to "make things exactly the way they're supposed to be. Permanently". The line gets repeated later by the Man Upstairs, fully cluing viewers in that the movie's story is based off his child's imagination.
• Lilo & Stitch
  Lilo: "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten."
• The Lion King (1994) has young Simba going into an elephant graveyard, proclaiming, "Danger? Hah! I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger. Ha ha ha ha!" After the Time Skip and adult Simba's return to his kingdom, Nala taunts him by repeating "I laugh in the face of danger", complete with laughter.
  • Scar tells young Simba at his father's death to "Run away, and never return." Later, when adult Simba gets the upper paw over Scar, he repeats those words back to him.
    • Given that Scar's earlier use of those words also had him dispatching the Hyenas to kill Simba shortly thereafter, and Scar probably concluding that Simba would probably do something similar to Scar if he left, that might explain why Scar chose to attack Simba instead of heeding his advice to flee.
    • Not that that did him much good; Scar had foolishly betrayed the Hyenas in trying to absolve himself of any blame ("It is the Hyenas who are the real enemy!"), when unbeknownst to him, they were getting into position to help him before angrily backing off, which meant he was forced to fight Simba alone. When Simba throws him off of Pride Rock, he is left to face the Hyenas, who are now as vengeful as they are starving.
      Scar: Oh, my friends!
      Shenzi: Friends? (to Banzai) I thought he said we were the enemy.
      Banzai: Yeah, that's what I heard.
      Shenzi and Banzai: (to Ed) Ed?
      Ed: (laughs crazily)
      (They and the other hyenas advance on Scar...)
    • And on that topic, this scene also has a visual variant of the trope. When Scar realizes his henchmen have turned on him after overhearing his betrayal, the former gives an Oh, Crap! expression, which is the exact same expression his brother Mufasa made right before Scar threw him off the cliff to his death. Laser-Guided Karma, indeed!
  • The Lion King (2019) The 2019 remake does something similar. In "Be Prepared", Scar informs the hyenas, "When I am king, the mighty will be free to take whatever they want, because a hyena's belly is never full." Later on, Shenzi, says "A hyena's belly is never full" as she and the other hyenas corner and eat Scar alive due to the latter's betrayal.
  • "Slimy, yet satisfying". Pumbaa's incentive to eating insects, and Simba's same response a few moments later after reluctantly trying one himself.
  • When young Simba says "When I'm King, I can do whatever I want," it's clearly a humorous sign of his immaturity. When Scar says a variation much later, we know exactly why the Pride Lands went to hell under his rule.
  • When Timon and Pumbaa are first trying to persuade Simba that eating bugs is a good thing, Pumbaa declares, "You'll learn to love 'em!" Later, after adult Simba meets adult Nala and has to chase Timon and Pumbaa off so as to have alone time with her, he says, "Timon and Pumbaa—you learn to love 'em!"
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride
  • When Kovu initially pretends to defect from the Outlanders and join Simba's pride, he pleads to Simba, "Judge me now for who I am". Later, when Simba exiles Kovu for allegedly planning an ambush on him, he tells him "When you first came here, you asked for judgement, and I pass it now."
  • At the end of the "We Are One" song, Simba tells a young Kiara, he tells her "You'll understand someday". During the climax, when Kiara tries to get the Pridelanders and Outlanders to stop fighting, she says "A wise king once told me we are one. I didn't understand him then, but I do now."
  • A cross-entries example: In the first movie, Timon told Simba "You gotta put your past behind ya" in the first movie. In the sequel, after coming back to his senses, Simba tells Zira: "Let it go, Zira. It's time to put the past behind us".
• In The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit explains his plan to un-bounce Tigger by getting him lost in the woods and finding him the next day...
  Rabbit: And mark my words, he'll be a humble Tigger. A small and sad Tigger. An "Oh, Rabbit, am I glad to see you" Tigger.
  • And later when Rabbit's plan backfires, he gets lost in the woods himself and Tigger rescues him, claiming that "Tiggers never get lost.
    Narrator: Rabbit was now a humiliated Rabbit. A lost and found Rabbit. A "Why, oh why do these things happen to me" Rabbit.
• Monsters University: "They're always hiring in the mail room." First time is a mocking insult. Second time, it's brought in a hopeful, optimistic light.
• Mulan: A reprise of "Make A Man Out Of You" plays with unabashed glee while Mulan's friends are getting tarted up in full concubine drag to infiltrate the palace. Later, all four of them actually use the combat moves they were shown learning during that musical number against the Huns... still dressed as women.
• My Life as a Zucchini: Camille's aunt tells her "You dug your own grave, silly girl". After Camille secretly tapes her aunt's rant and turns it into an Engineered Public Confession, the tape ends with that line, as if Camille is saying it back to her aunt.
• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks, the Dazzlings' Villain Song is the antithesis of the first film's title song. "Equestria Girls (Helping Twilight Win the Crown)" encouraged the students to unite and support Twilight in winning the Fall Formal, while "Battle of the Bands" induces a hate plague and a dog-eat-dog competitive attitude, generating negative energy by which the Dazzlings gain power.
• From Pocahontas: Upon seeing Wiggins, his manservant, not realizing what a "proper English greeting" was ("Ooh! gift baskets!"), Radcliffe sighs, "And he came so highly recommended." Cut to the end, where Radcliffe is arrested for attempted murder and being carted back to England in chains. Wiggins dabs at his eyes with a handkerchief and sighs, "And he came so highly recommended." Bonus points for Wiggins and Radcliffe having the same voice actor.
  • In the sequel, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World the movie starts in England, with John Smith fleeing from the royal guards, falsely charged with treason. He's left hanging on a rooftop when Radcliffe arrives.
    Radcliffe: The king believed my story. Pity. I so would have preferred to see you hanged. (steps on his hand, forcing him to fall)
  • And at the film's climax, after a very much alive John Smith manages to defeat Radcliffe, leaving him hanging from the ship's mast...
    John: (with an exaggerated accent) Pity. I so would have preferred to see you hang.
• The Prince of Egypt has the line "Ask the man that you call Father!" repeated two times. Miriam says it to Moses when he asks her who was he trying to be saved from when he was a baby. After he hears that line, he gets offended and doesn't want to hear anymore about the truth of his heritage. However, Moses learns the truth about his foster father and after accidentally killing an Egyptian guard who was abusing a Hebrew slave, he decides to run away from Egypt, but Ramses tries to stop him from leaving. Moses tells him that everything he has known to be true is a lie and he is not who Ramses thinks he is. Ramses doesn't understand, so Moses tells him to "go ask the man I once called Father".
• In The Princess and the Frog, the key change of Dr. Facilier's epic Villain Song, Friends on the Other Side, contains a very powerful rhythm accompanying the phrase "Are you ready? Are you ready?" right before Prince Naveen becomes a frog. Later in the film, during Dr. Facilier's absolutely terrifying death, the shadows again start up the rhythm and sing "Are you ready?", to which he cries no, he's not, he needs more time... and keeps screaming this as he's dragged to his death.
  • Also, toward the end of the film, Dr. Facilier attempts to tempt Tiana with the restaurant of her dreams, repeating a line from Tiana's "I Want" Song.
    "Come on, Tiana. You're almost there."
  • Followed by a third:
    "It's not SLIME, it's MUCUS!"
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish:
  • After the Wolf makes a thinly veiled threat at Puss, the latter retorts "Puss in Boots laughs in the face of death!". Much later, after ensuring that Puss is absolutely terrified of him, the Wolf throws his line back at him: "Puss in Boots laughs in the face of death, right? But you're not laughing now." Becomes even more ironic with The Reveal that the Wolf is Death with a capital "D", and Puss frivolously wasting his lives and arrogantly believing himself to be above all consequences is precisely why Death decided to hunt him down; the line being a direct insult just makes things more personal.
  • Similarly, during the Wolf's initial Curb-Stomp Battle, he knocks Puss's sword away and mockingly tells the terrified cat to "pick it up", making it clear that Puss has no chance of winning. When they square off again, Puss manages to disarm Death of his scythes and tells him to "pick it up", as he's accepted that he can't win, but won't stop fighting regardless.
• Rango: "Thirsty, brother?" First used by Rattlesnake Jake to mock Rango after the latter claimed he's immune to the former's venom. It's later used by Rango himself when he turns the tables on Jake after returning to Dirt to save the day.
• In Robin Hood (1973), a character had once joked that if Robin marries Lady Marian, King Richard would have an outlaw as an inlaw. At the end of the movie, King Richard says the exact phrase during Robin and Marian's wedding.
• Sherlock Gnomes: During their first big fight, Juliet tells Gnomeo "The garden can't wait! You can!". Later, she gets angry at Sherlock for not showing more concern over what has happened to Watson and Sherlock replies "The case cannot wait. Watson can".
• Inverted in The Simpsons Movie: Homer tells Marge that "in every marriage, you get one chance to say 'I need you to do this with me'" in order to convince her to join him in Alaska. Later, Marge says the same thing to Homer to get him to join her in saving Springfield. Homer's response: "That was the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
• In Song of the Sea, Granny calls Ben a "stubborn boy" when he's loudly refusing to leave the lighthouse. Macha calls Ben the same exact thing when he's not letting her get to the room she trapped Saoirse in.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: During the fight between Mario and Donkey Kong, the latter beats the absolute crap out of Mario, and mockingly asks him "Had enough yet?", and the latter dazedly but defiantly responds "Not...even...close," prompting DK to Megaton Punch him into the air. Mario actually does manage to recover from this and get the Cat Suit Power-Up soon after. Once he changes the tide of the battle and has knocked DK silly, they swap these lines, although in DK's case, he really is done, and only Mario grabbing him by the tie stops him from falling into the water below, at which point Mario is officially declared the winner.
• Superman vs. the Elite: As the Elite savagely beat down on Superman on live television for the world to see, Manchester Black caps off his New Era Speech with "The dream is over: Viva Reality" to emphazise how This Is Reality and the new world he envisions will not be one of ideals, but one where Might Makes Right. Superman turns things around a few minutes later by deciding to take off the boyscout gloves, before brutally obliterating the Elite and turning Manchester's own words against him to make him understand he is not exempt from his own brand of justice.
  Superman: How does it feel, Black? How does it feel to be deconstructed? To be the victim?! To watch your dreams die?!
• In The Swan Princess, when they first meet as children, Odette says in a resigned voice, "So happy to be here", to Derek, clearly not meaning it. When they became adults and are reunited, she says it again with sincerity during her Love Epiphany.
• Toy Story: Rather more triumphantly than the usual example. "That wasn't flying, that was falling with style!". First begrudingly said by Woody regarding Buzz's makeshift flying around Andy's room. When him and Buzz end up gliding in the air at the climax, Buzz uses this phrase when Woody cheerfully exclaims that they're actually flying.
• Trolls: Branch, growing tired of Poppy's relentless optimism, says at one point that he can't wait to see the look on her face when she realizes the world isn't all cupcakes and rainbows. She later concedes that Branch was right… and loses her color (as does the other Trolls like Branch did in his youth). Branch can't even look satisfied at this and ends up having to lift her spirits up himself.
• Up: There are certain scenes during the early Carl/Ellie montage, such as the hill and the hospital.
• Zootopia: When Judy first meets Nick and is tricked into helping him with one of his cons, he brushes her off with "It's called a hustle, sweetheart." Later, after revealing she's recorded him talking about how much money he's made illicitly, and threatens him with charges of tax evasion, she smugly throws the line back in his face. At the movie's climax, she says it again after revealing to the Big Bad that she's just had an Engineered Public Confession via the same method. The latter two examples are also accompanied by this exchange:
  "It's my word against yours."
  "Actually, it's your word against yours."

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