The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at the Trope Launch Pad.
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Unstopable martial arts techniques. Do we have this one? I'm thinking of any move, whether in swordplay, martial arts or whatever, that is meant to be an ultimate, unblockable, unstopable technique. Someone who masters is becomes the perfect warrior, basically. Naturally, this is impossible in real life, but I've seen it referred to a few times in fiction.
- Hero (2002 film): The nameless Hero is supposed to have an unstopable technique that can strike with great speed and accuracy. - Highlander: Engame: Duncan is taught a supposedly unstopable fencing techique that there is no way to counter, but it actually doesn't work when he uses it on Kell, the Big Bad.
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I'm looking for a trope where an actor is used obviously as a substitute for another actor. In particular, I'm thinking of Josh Duhamel in When in Rome, who not only sounds a lot like Tom Hanks, but plays the same sort of character that I'm used to seeing Hanks play.
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So a major character dies, off-screen, in an accident, others are informed post factum. Natural disbelief ensues - but no, the dead guy has really been Killed Off for Real, they will have Finally Found the Body soon after. With Really Dead Montage properly convincing the viewers that the character is dead dead, this one leaves a weird "uh buh what?? that was a major character!" feeling. Do We Have This One?
Edited by SinusPiopenNo Title Film
At the very end of a film, various titles tell us what happened to each of the characters, eg, "Sarah lost the lawsuit, married Joe, and became a folk singer." The popularizer would be Animal House. It's almost mandatory in any Bio Pic whose subject is still alive.
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When protagonist is just about to solve the riddle or mystery but a small coincidence makes them not success. For example on Twin Peaks when agent Cooper wants to see Leland's golf sticks he doesn't know the body of Maddy Ferguson is lying next to the sticks and he never realises it because of sudden call from police radio. It's very upsetting trope I think;) But how is it called?
Edited by 77.115.128.241openNo Title Film
Recently I've been fleshing out the page for The Manhattan Project film with John Lithgow. I used the trope Blatant Lies, possibly incorrectly. I guess I'm looking for a trope which might be named "Government Half Truth" or something. A case where someone is lying, but puts just enough truth into it so that someone won't look deeply enough to find the lie.
Maybe like Embarrassing Cover-Up, but without the embarrassing part?
Case in point: In the film, a lab is purifying plutonium for use in weapons. While this specific work is top secret, the name of the lab "Medatomics" and the tour that a scientist gives inside the lab shows that they're not hiding the fact that they're working with nuclear material.
It would be as if the people in the lab would be willing to say, "Yes, we do nuclear research, and yes we have some pretty nasty stuff in there, but no, we are not enriching plutonium for atomic bombs."
Now, if they went ahead and openly denied it without anyone asking, then I understand it might fall under Suspiciously Specific Denial, but that's not what happens here. More like, "What's that green stuff?"
The truthful answer would be "extremely enriched weapons-grade plutonium."
The actual answer given is "That's Americium-241, just one of the things we make around here." Americium-241 is a common isotope in many types of nuclear waste.
A comparable example might be the old conspiracy theory of the US Air Force reverse-engineering alien spacecraft and testing them out in the Nevada desert. "Yes, we do test top-secret highly experimental aircraft out there, and some of their designs are rather unorthodox to say the least. But crashed alien spacecraft? That's just crazy."
Would this even be considered a trope at all outside of Blatant Lies?
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A character is giving a Rousing Speech. A large version of their national flag, usually American, appears behind them, making the background behind them nothing but stars and stripes. It adds to the general heroicness and sincerity of the speech. I've seen a few examples ,but I know there's more. It happened in Toy Story 2, with Buzz and in the Phineas and Ferb episode "The Lizard Whisperer" with Ferb.
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Is there a Trope:
- Where a particular actor becomes ludicrously famous in one role, and they're in EVERY major movie that comes out for the next few years? Generally in a starring role, but even if the actor has no business being in that role? I'm Thinking it overlaps with WTH, Casting Agency?, but isn't exclusive to it.
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Is there a trope for a situation when a villain (or an anti-hero) comments on someone else's quality item, only to be shown using it later, the violent acquisition having happened off-screen? For example, T-1000 says, "Say... That's a nice bike..." Or "Slash" from Six-String Samurai: "You've failed me for the last... oh, nice shoes."
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A character demonstrates his/her knowledge of another character by spouting out a long list of completely irrelevant facts.
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Kaffee: You don't even know me. Ordinarily it takes someone hours to discover I'm not fit to handle a defense.
Galloway: I do know you. Daniel Alli Stair Kaffee, born June 8th, 1964 at Boston Mercy Hospital. Your father's Lionel Kaffee, former Navy Judge Advocate and Attorney General, of the United States, died 1985. You went to Harvard Law on a Navy scholarship, probably because that's what your father wanted you to do, and now you're just treading water for the three years you've gotta serve in the JAG Corps, just kinda layin' low til you can get out and get a real job.
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Is there a trope for those times when the Hero and the Villain are in a Duel to the Death, with the Hero in the lead. But instead of the Villain meeting his well-deserved end (he spent the first 90 minutes Kicking the Dog with ice-climbing boots and laughing), the Hero wins and the Villain... survives? Both combatants have been using perfectly lethal weaponry, with every intent to use them lethally. In fact, if the Hero hadn't made a very suspenseful comeback, he would have died. But somehow the Hero wins definitively, yet the Villain is allowed to crawl back from whence he came. The film ties up the conflict neatly, but does not have to address the moral implications of killing the Villain and tarnishing the Hero. The audience is left to uneasily examine how they would have failed to show the same mercy.
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A film (or book or whatever) is successful enough to warrant a sequel — but all the loose ends have been tied up and the main gimmick of the original is now gone (the lovers got married, etc), making any attempt to extend the story feel very artificial. I'm not finding it on the list on Sequel or other linked pages…
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Early in a film (or TV series), one of the main characters attempts to seduce/has sex with an attractive member of the opposite sex. Then a scene or two later, it turns out that this person is (shockingly) the character's boss, or new coworker, or something like that. It's in Top Gun, Anchorman, Grey's Anatomy, etc. I know there's gotta be a trope out there for this, just can't find it.
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Is there a name for the trope where a normal person who gets injured like everyone else becomes somewhat bulletproof when they become a bad guy? An example is during the scene in The Dark Knight where Harvey Dent, after becoming Two Face, is in the car with that mob guy and then shoots the driver resulting in the car flipping over. I assume the mob guy died but it looks like Harvey walked away fine where as earlier in the movie he probably would have been sent to the hospital.

It seems that all foot chases inside of a building always wind up passing through the kitchen. Chefs will be bustling about, only to be thrown aside with a startled "hey!" There will often be a flaming pan on the stove.
Is there a trope for this?