The Money Shot

The term "money shot" is often associated with the adult movie industry, but it exists in mainstream movies too, the difference is in what the pay off is. Mainstream movies are made to make money, which means they must satisfy the audience. Movies have been rewritten after test screenings where the original ending didn't go down well.

How many times have you seen the bad guys have the upper hand until right at the end, when they make an error which is totally out of character to let the hero kill them? Often there's some slow motion audio visual climax moment to go with it. This is an example of the money shot. It exists for the audience to cheer. The problem with this is that it undermines the set up.

Let's look at a few examples. For this I've chosen to use clips from the three Star Wars prequels that others have uploaded to YouTube.

Sith Lord Darth Maul - Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Darth Maul is the earliest (on the timeline we see in the movies) of the Sith Lords. He is a skilled hunter and assassin. The Jedi have to be multi skilled in everything from combat to starship piloting, negotiation and peace making. He has trained all his life in the combat arts alone. He relishes the opportunity to duel not one Jedi but two at once, one of whom is a Master. Darth Maul has two fight sequences in this movie, the first is an ambush on Qui-Gon Jinn on Tatooine in which Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan "he is very well trained in the Jedi arts, he is strong and fast". Qui-Gon knew he barely escaped with his life while Darth Maul didn't break sweat.

In the second fight sequence he fights both Jedi at once, toying with them, splitting them up to frustrate them. He is now revealed to wield a double bladed lightsaber and is perfectly at home with it. When Obi-Wan manages to cut it in half, Darth Maul proves perfectly adept with a single blade too. At this point the action goes into hyperspeed, with both Obi-Wan and Darth Maul matching each other blow for blow. So why is it that after Force shoving Obi-Wan over the edge and gloating above him, that he suddenly turns into an idiot?

The description Star Wars Expanded Universe authors have given to Force users doing what they do, is that they see things in very slow motion, so they have plenty of time detect the exact timing and angle where a blaster bolt or lightsaber stroke will hit, and have plenty of time not only to move their blade to intercept but to get the correct angle to deflect it to hit a specific point like a door switch. This is all real time to non-Force sensitive observers. This is in addition to reading the hostile intent of an enemy before and during the attack. When Force users are fighting each other they can read each others intentions, as well as have to block themselves from being read, so they can gain a surprise attack. All of this means there's not only a full speed lightsaber duel going on, there's a whole mental duel going on at the same time, with both combatants tapping into the Force.

So given that both Obi-Wan and Darth Maul have just been through an energetic dual, both have adrenaline pulsing through them, why does Darth Maul react so slow when Obi-Wan first looks at Qui-Gon's lightsaber, therefore telegraphing what he's thinking, then looks at Darth Maul, then looks again at the lightsaber just to make sure Darth Maul knows what he's planning. Can't Darth Maul read his intent? Perhaps he's blocking Darth Maul through the Force, but Darth Maul is watching Obi-Wan with hunters eyes, alert to every nuance, and Force users have a kinda danger sense which would flare up even if it wasn't specific as to what the danger is. Apparently Darth Maul's danger sense was tired at this point. He didnt even react when the lightsaber started to move through control of the Force. He watched Obi-Wan spring from well below him up and over his head to grasp the lightsaber and land. All he did was watch like a muppet, and turn to face his death.

As Obi-Wan tells Darth Vader on Mustafar "I have the high ground", where a simple flick of the blade from the warrior on the high ground ends the fight. Obi-Wan had to flip passed Darth Maul's blade to get over his head, even a nervous twitch by Darth Maul would have sliced Obi-Wan in two. Given that Darth Maul is a combat specialist, are we to believe that he never learned how to take advantage of the high ground? Given all the setup about how good he is as a fighter and hunter, how fast he can react, how agile he is, how attuned his combat sense are, to be killed the way he did totally undermined all of the rest of the set up to his character. His money shot ruined his character. 

Bounty Hunter Jango Fett - Episode II - Attack Of The Clones

Jango Fett is the host chosen to be the template for the Grand Army Of The Republic, because he is the best. He is a bounty hunter skilled in all manor of weapons and tactics. He is a survivor who uses his surroundings to his advantage. He picks his moments to strike where it'll give him the best advantage. Fett is built up as a warrior who can match a Jedi, despite not being Force sensitive. On Kamino he battles to escape being taken in for questioning by Obi-Wan Kenobi. This sets him up as an impressive warrior and a seemingly good choice as a template for an army of elites.

Then we get to Geonosis where he is in the role of a bodyguard to Count Dooku and the other Separatist leaders. At this point we only know Count Dooku is a former Jedi because Ki Adi Mundi tells Senator Amidala in Palpatine's office. As we find out a little later on, he's more than capable of defending himself. As a bodyguard he wisely opts to stay out of the battle in the arena to be ready to help protect his charges if anyone gets close as one Jedi does. So he spots his moment to take out Mace Windu and joins in the fight with that sole intention only to leave his instincts behind.

After showing all that cunning against Obi-Wan on Kamino, he now walks towards Mace Windu firing a blaster, completely oblivious that Mace Windu is deflecting each one, getting closer and closer, to decapitate him. Where was the skill? Where was the instincts to use the environment? Instead he died like a brainless droid. Another money shot which ruined the set up.

Jedi Master Kit Fisto - Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith

In many ways this was the worst of the three examples. This is the first time we see Darth Sidious in combat, his assailants are four Jedi, three of whom are Jedi Masters, one of those Kit Fisto is one of the best swords-beings in the Jedi Order. Mace Windu is the highest ranking Jedi Master on the Jedi Council on Coruscant at the time. A Sith Master versus FOUR Jedi. This is a mouth watering prospect for the fans, yet what do we see?

The four Jedi enter the chamber with their lightsabers already lit. They know they'll have to fight, and who they'll have to fight. Yet somehow Darth Sidious can get from sitting behind his desk to in front of them, pulling back to hold a pose before stabbing the first Jedi, a quick slash at the second taking TWO supposed Masters down in the first seconds unopposed. These people are supposed to be trained in combat. They are supposed to have lightning quick reactions. Yet the first two stand like muppets to be killed. Kit Fisto at least manages a couple of parries before he is killed, leaving a one on one with Mace Windu and Darth Sidious. This is a HUGE cop out.

Something explained in the novel as background to this fight, is that when the Jedi Council were close to identifying Darth Sidious, Mace Windu intentionally stayed on Coruscant BECAUSE he felt it would come and he wanted to deal with it personally. He had senior Masters he could trust stay with him. It was no coincidence that the four who walked into Palpatine's office were who they were. These were the best of the best available at the time. Yet with all of that, two of them stood almost like statues to die despite KNOWING they were about to fight and just what that fight meant for the future of both the Jedi Order and the Republic. It leaves the fans filling in excuses like "the sound Sidious made when he flew across the room was very animalistic, so it was maybe some Sith technique to paralyse prey".

Like anything else, all of these are the result of timing. Directors want a sequence to fill X minutes and be high octane, seat of the pants stuff, but they need to kill it and move to the next part of the story. They also have to be concious of the overall running time of the movie, including all the other scenes. Any movie running over 2 hours 30 minutes will struggle to be approved as a cinema release, which is where they make the first chunk of their investment back, not to mention grab momentum for the successive DVD / Bluray release. The money shot is the blunt and unnatural way to do it. The problem with the money shot is that it undermines all the set up work that's gone beforehand. It does give the audience something to cheer, and leave audiences happy that the good guys won. The choice of which scenes to include or exclude as well as where to cut them can also be down to budget, where the cost of post production effects add up. Movies, like any other mainstream creative industry is not about the creation itself, it's about the money.

I've chosen examples from Star Wars movies, but these are very commonplace in all sorts of mainstream movies. It's not just about fight sequences either, I just chose those as examples. When you look for that out of character ending, you'll find it. When you start to see them, you'll continue to see them. This does not mean that these endings shouldn't happen at all, what it means is that a good storyteller will find a way to achieve the goal (moving the story along) by keeping the trigger events in character for all involved. In other words "don't short change the audience", they pay your wages.