I have decided to begin posting the greatest WTF‘s in movie history. Not all at once, mind you, just as I come across them on the screen or in my memory.
So what constitutes a WTF moment? Well first off, as I see it, there are two varieties:
- Instances where the audience reacts with a WTF to something happening on screen.
- Scenes where the characters in the movie themselves are caught off guard and react with a classic WTF response.
For these posts, I would like to focus on the #2 category, as those are less subjective.
Basically, a second-variety WTF is a brief moment in a scene where typically a lone character, in response to some completely unexpected action(s) or event(s), is so utterly mindboggled that the character is lost in a stupor. Sometimes the character is silent and doesn’t move. Other times, the character will fall into a recursive behavior, such as mumbling something repetitively, or fiddling with themselves or an object of some fashion.
You can find a numero two-oh WTF in pretty much any genre of film. It can be found in comedies, dramas, thrillers, etc. WTF’s in comedies are the easiest to spot, as WTF’s are inherently funny. But I also think they’re the best, as pulling off a WTF reaction for the explicit purpose of humor is one of the toughest for an actor to accomplish well.
If you want to find a WTF in a more somber film or particular scene, though, it becomes more difficult to locate. One has to remove themselves from the emotions the film is trying to evoke in order to find the all-so-funny WTF. These can be really good too, as they are juxtaposed with the seriousness of the acting surrounding them.
And so now that you know what a WTF in film is, I shall give you not one, but two of the greatest WTF’s in all of film!
The first example is in the movie Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Mel Brooks chocked this thing full of WTF’s, but the one (or rather more than one) that always sticks out in my mind, is when the Sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Rees) meets Robin of Locksley (Cary Elwes) for the first time. Specifically, it’s the part in this scene where the Sheriff draws his sword. Well done, Roger!
The second is in The Empire Strikes Back. This is one of those that require you to remove yourself emotionally from the story. There are a couple WTF’s here, but the big one (probably not the one you’re thinking off) happens at the very end of Luke and Vader’s encounter. You can almost hear Vader’s mind screaming, “What tha-!” from behind his helmet. Or maybe that’s the force?
So anyway, that’s it for the moment. Enjoy!