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The Adrenaline Makeover is a particular form of Character Development for action genre entertainment that disguises itself as a Love Trope. It's what happens to a Shrinking Violet, or a Girl Next Door who finds herself embroiled in an adventure situation. It is most common in movies, but has been known to turn up in other media.
The Adrenaline Makeover candidate is almost always either Hollywood Homely or was Beautiful All Along. But at the beginning of the story, our heroine is mousy, shy, wearing the bad glasses, the frumpy clothes, etc.
Sometimes she's secretly, unknowingly, the Hot Librarian, or a case of late blooming gorgeous. Sometimes they're gorgeous but shy, or otherwise mild-mannered because they have to work twice as hard to be thought of as half as good in a male-dominated field; and being sexy equals not being taken seriously; and being aggressive is considered a negative trait for a female — at least, in this part of the story. Less frequently, she's a teenager going through this, which results in I Cant Believe A Guy Like You Would Notice Me at some point during the transformation.
The usual progression of the trope has the character starting out blinded to the world by their academic pursuits. She's in trouble that she needs assistance to get them out of, resulting in a hero showing up and helping her through an epic adventure. The adventure distracts her from maintaining her frumpiness; the hero is there to rescue her, to help her de-frump, and to fall in love with her, making her realize that if she'd just shaken out the hair and dumped the glasses before, she might have gotten a hot hero guy that much sooner.
By the end of the movie, she's come out of her shell, cast off her shyness, and come into her own in her own field. Occasionally, she takes a level in badass, amps all the way up to Action Girl, and joins the guy in his field, and they become a Battle Couple.
This often happens to make The Chick more palatable to men (and sometimes, "more exigent" females), and to add that romantic element so that action movies can also be date movies. The recipient of the Adrenaline Makeover is almost Always Female, though a Non Action Guy can occasionally also get a Makeover.
Basically Fan Service Pack as Character Development. The opposite of Chickification.
Subtrope of Took A Level In Badass.
Examples
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- After she saves Athrun's life and ends up having to defect from ZAFT as a consequence, Meyrin Hawke from Gundam SEED Destiny switches from a rather modest cadet uniform and Girlish Pigtails to a tighter jacket/pants combination and wearing her long hair loose.
- Youko Nakajima from The Twelve Kingdoms is a more subdued version. She starts shy and mousy in her dark grey school uniform, becomes a Dark Skinned Redhead Action Girl in Chinese clothing after being Trapped In Another World, later is seen in regal clothing when crowned as the Queen of the Kei Kingdom (but switching to her traveler outfits whenever she leaves the palace).
- In UFO Robo Grendizer, when the Yamato Nadeshiko Hikaru Makiba decides to toughen up and become an Action Girl, her wardrobe changes from flowing dresses to miniskirts and boots.
- Subverted in Tantei Gakuen Q. Kuniko Tooya drastically changed her looks between a very traumatic incident and her arrival to Class A, but takes her much more than that to fully blossom. It doesn't hurt that in the process we discover she'd been a case of Beware The Nice Ones from the start...
- Blade of The Immortal has Rin Asano, who starts out so weak that she hired Manji in order to protect her life while she tracks down the man who ordered the murder of her father and rape of her mother. Cut to about 20 volumes later, when Manji has vanished without a trace. Rin starts kicking ass and taking names all the way into Edo Castle and doesn't stop until she's in Manji's cell. When he finally sees her again, he actually doesn't recognize her right away.
- Shirin Bakhtiar from Gundam 00. Always been more assertive and outspoken than her companion, Marina Ismail, and after wearing flowing dresses in the first season she switches to baggy pants and tighter T-shirts.
- Mousy lawyer Jennifer Walters becomes the 6'6" green supermodel superhero She Hulk, though it's not adrenaline that does it so much as deadly radiation. It's played with in more recent stories, where she starts taking her normal meek persona more seriously and comes out of shell as Jen as well, without letting her hair down or taking off the glasses.
- Chris in Adventures In Babysitting is played from a slightly different angle. She finds out during a night of running from gangbangers and criminals that her boyfriend is cheating on her because she won't put out. She gets everybody safely home, parents none the wiser, and gets a nicer, new, upgraded boyfriend when all is said and done — all without changing her look.
- Then again, she doesn't really need to change her look — a running gag/subplot of the film is the Identical Stranger who is the current Playmate of the Month, for whom she is repeatedly mistaken.
- Fantastic Four: Sue Storm, AKA the Invisible Woman. She was acknowledged as extremely beautiful from the very beginning but she was the "hair in a bun, glasses on the face" science girl. Starting from the moment they get back to earth, she starts wearing the hair down and ditches the glasses. The movie progresses through her reconciling with Reed, and by the end of the movie they're an Adventure Couple plus two. By The Sequel, she's way more skilled with her powers and takes no crap, even from Reed.
- In The Incredibles, there's no Love Interest involved, but it's fighting for her life and her family that causes Reluctant Hero Violet Parr to come out of her shell, learn a new power, and quit hiding behind her hair.
- In the same movie, getting back in the hero game inspires her bored father Bob to slim down (and bulk up) and have more fun with his family.
- The Indiana Jones movies avert this trope. All the women in Indy's life are spitfires. Yes, they still fall in love with him, but they don't go from frump to bombshell in the process.
- Willie goes from bombshell to frump and back, but remains thoroughly useless the entire time.
- The Mummy: Evy is a dressed down Hot Librarian as the movie begins. She's prim, easily offended, and rather stiff, but brainy. But because she's the object of desire for the Card Carrying Villain, of course she has to be dressed up properly to be a Virgin Sacrifice (or the closest thing to it). Along comes Rick, and along the way they fall in love. By the end of the movie, she's completely calm about all the insanity she's encountered, and madly in love with her rescuer. By The Sequel, she's leveled up, and she and Rick are an Adventure Couple, which carries over into the Animated Series. Not only that, but she is a Mama Bear as well.
- Romancing The Stone: Joan Wilder is a mousy, reclusive romance novelist. But when she gets in over her head in Colombia, Jack T. Colton is there to help her out — for a price. Along the way, after he chops the heels off her shoes and tosses her suitcase full of sensible business suits into the jungle, they ride a mudslide, swing on vines, and do the sort of things she writes about in her novels. By the midpoint of the movie, her hair is down and she's dip-dancing in Jack's arms. By the end of the movie, she's no longer mousy or reclusive. By The Sequel, Joan's backslid a little and goes through the transformation a second time.
- The Saint: Emma is a shy, nervous nuclear physicist who is brilliant enough to have invented Cold Fusion. She meets Simon in one of his aliases, and it's Love At First Sight. Once she gets over being astonished that a man like him would notice her, she's so worked up she has to take her heart medication before they go to bed. But he betrays her. Incensed, Emma throws off the meek mouse persona and tracks him down. Along the way, they're pursued by the Russian Mafia, and by the end of the movie, she can do a 100 yard dash, and doesn't need her pills anymore.
- In the original ending, she was going to die of heart problems, but test audiences didn't like it.
- The Terminator: Sarah Connor is a simple young woman who has a waitress job at a family restaurant. By her own admission, she can't even balance her own checkbook. She's meek, and mild-mannered, but smart enough to know bad things are happening when people with her name start dying. Then Kyle shows up. Once she's done being scared to death of him, they fall in love, and by the time the movie ends, she's got the first few experience points toward taking her level in badass. By the time of The Sequel she's a full-fledged Mama Bear you don't want to mess with.
- Helen Tasker in True Lies. The meek housewife ditches the glasses, the hairdo, and the frumpy clothes that concealed her incredible physique. By the final scene, she and hubby are apparently an Adventure Couple.
- Arguably, Tristan in Stardust is a male example, as he gets a makeover in the mundane sense from the Camp Gay Captain Shakespeare at the same time he becomes a more competent and heroic character.
- Tank Girl has a Les Yay example. Jet Girl is meek and mousy, and lets the Water and Power mook push her around until she makes friends with Tank Girl. By the end of the movie, Jet has quit stuttering, is telling off people on the radio, and cowing the Reavers when they cross her.
- Lucy in The Frighteners starts out as a beleaguered widow, a little frumpy, and a doctor who's not taken seriously by the patients of the male doctor she occasionally replaces. After the events of the movie, she ends up with Frank, the hero, in more ways than one.
- Ellie Sawyer of My Science Project starts out as a dowdy, glasses-adorned nerd, eventually losing her hairpins and glasses in the midst of the action. In the end, though, she's still a nerd — just a more attractive one.
- Over the course of the three films, Elizabeth Swann of Pirates Of The Caribbean loses the corset, lets her hair down, and gets the upgrade from Distressed Damsel to Action Girl (Captain Swann!), which debatably results in better outfits in the process.
- The "letting her hair down" bit amuses this editor - you'd think that if you're slinging a sword around, you'd want your hair up and out of the way.
- Out of the way and up are not the same thing, and experience has proven that out of the way is vastly more important.
- Annie from The Invisible starts out brutal, violent, and dressed in guys' clothes, the leader of the school bullies. As she realizes the consequences of her violent life, her bad choices, and the fact that Nick was more like her than she gave him credit for, she feminizes — beginning to wear her hair down, and her clothing less gender neutral.
- David/Bud in Pleasantville starts the film as a shy, downtrodden loner who gets beamed into his favorite wholesome 50s Sitcom. Halfway into the story, he's forced to help the town firemen put out a fire (all they did previously was rescue cats from trees), subsequently gets a date with a cheerleader, and rescues his mother from a gang of thugs. From that point on, he becomes a strong, competent leader whose insights and bravery eventually bring color and life to the previously sterile black-and-white world he's (temporarily) living in.
- MST3K alumnus Alien from L.A. is built on this trope, as applied to the Hollywood Homely Kathy "Dull Surprise" Ireland's adventures Beneath The Earth in search of her Disappeared Dad.
- Wesley in Wanted is a quiet nebbish who hates his life and apologizes for everything, even things that aren't his fault out of reflex. He knows his best friend is sleeping with his girlfriend, and just takes it. The morning after he meets Fox about 25 minutes into the film, he goes back to the life he hates. His boss Janice gives him crap, and he realizes he could take Fox up on her offer. He walks out showing the first inkling of being a Bad Ass, and the transformation continues into the movie.
- In the comics he changes his haircut from some blond dreadlocks into an Eminem-style crewcut, in order to emphasize his ascension to a Complete Monster Villain Protagonist.
- Wesley's complete change by the end of the movie is personified by the ending sequence: after killing most of the Brotherhood, we're suddenly back in his old office, as he describes his boring life, and for a moment, we're tricked into thinking he's gone back to the life he so hated after finding out the assassin life was even worse. Then the actual villain shows up behind him, turns him around, and as Wesley's narrative states: "This is not me." Suddenly the villain gets his brains blown out, and we trace the bullet's flight back to Wesley in his sniper position miles away, ending in the final line, "This is me taking control of my life. What the fuck have you done lately?"
- Another male example, Morgan Sullivan of the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Cypher begins as an awkward and insecure mid-level suit who takes a job in industrial espionage. In the process of inventing and adopting personality and character quirks for his cover, confidence noticeably grows in his posture and speech patterns, he begins smoking and knocking back scotch casually, then loses the glasses and tie while dressing and hairstyling more fashionably.
- Arguably, Mulan is a somewhat reverse example of this, as in order to become a kickbutt swordswoman she has to hide her beauty, but that doesn't stop her from looking fantastic in the final battle with Shan-Yu.
- Averted with Stationery Voyagers. Since Neone is a highlighter marker; with her cap on, it's impossible to tell if she gets more or less sexy underneath as a Voyager than as a prostitute.
- On Xena Warrior Princess, Gabrielle goes from a mousy wannabe bard to a sai wielding Action Girl over the course of the series.
- Arguably Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Starts out as a wimpy, Hollywood Homely nerd, and becomes one of the most powerful characters in the series by the end of the show. Although she has a few romances along the way, her transformation isn't a direct result of any one of them.
- Scaramouche gets one in We Will Rock You when her and Galileo make it to the Bohemians. However she started out as a Deadpan Snarker and became a stripperific deadpan snarker after the makeover.
- In Final Fantasy IX, Princess Garnet starts off very shy, awkward around commoners, and unsure of her future status as Queen. She's still beautiful and useful in combat (especially after she gains her summons), but has this whole Disney Princess thing about her. But about 3/4 through the game, she decides to be more daring and uses Zidane's dagger to cut her hair short, and her personality becomes more forward. Even her profile pic changes to a front-facing smile instead of the previous distant stare.
- In Odin Sphere we have Mercedes. She starts her chapter as a manipulatable, spoiled princess who just can't stand frogs who are so gross! At the end of it she is a Queen that defeated the Demon Lord Odin and is widely respected by her kingdom even though she's just a teenager.
- Tenchu: As seen in Tenchu 2 (a prequel), Ayame never took ninja training seriously, and thought of it all more of a game than anything. But then the guy she loved got amnesia, killed the whole village where she was trained in, killed his master (which was also her foster father), fell in love for another woman; and Ayame was forced to kill him. Some years later she became a Deadpan Snarker Action Girl, naturally.
- Keira was stuck in the same crop-top and capris ensemble for the first five games. When she finally goes on an adventure with Jak and Daxter in Jak And Daxter: The Lost Frontier, she gets a new shirt, new jacket, new pants, new boots, and two pistols. The only part of her original outfit are her goggles.
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Pictured above: Katara begins the series as the Team Mom, dressed practically (she is from the South Pole), but as the series progresses and the seasons/latitude/climates change, she literally lets down her hair, and we get occasional shots of her in underwear or midriff-baring outfits. It should be noted her regular Water Tribe outfits (the clothes she wears most often) are still very practical.
- Completely Zig-Zagged with Ciem: The Human Centipede: Candi undergoes so many transformations that are either straight adrenaline makeovers or attempts at hiding, that it gets downright confusing. When she dyes her hair red and cuts it, she could arguably be said to look less attractive.
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