- yesterday
These guys all found victory in defeat.
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00:00In the space of no more than a couple of hours, a good movie can not only present you with
00:05a strong character, but almost force you to make a connection with them.
00:09To genuinely care about the people on the screen is part of the magic of cinema.
00:14These protagonists will face adversity and challenges throughout the story, and the majority
00:19of the time will ultimately win the day.
00:22But that isn't always the case, and sometimes it doesn't even matter.
00:27I'm Ewan, this is War Culture, and here are 10 movies where it didn't matter that the
00:31hero lost.
00:3310.
00:34A Great Old Joke – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
00:38Saying goes that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
00:42Essentially, you take the bad that is thrown at you in life, and you do your best to turn
00:45it into something positive.
00:47Sometimes a situation is only as good or as bad as you make it.
00:52The ending to the 1948 John Huston classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a perfect
01:00example of the aforementioned.
01:01For those who haven't watched it, and please do go watch it if you haven't already because
01:06it is just amazing stuff.
01:08The story follows three men during the Roaring Twenties who come together to go gold prospecting
01:14in Mexico, but the whole thing becomes a bit of an ordeal to put it lightly.
01:19The pull of the potential riches is too much for Fred Dobbs, played by Humphrey Bogart in
01:25his greatest ever performance, as he tries to kill Bob Curtin, Tim Holt, and steal everything.
01:31Ultimately, it's Dobbs who is killed, and the gold dust that Curtin and fellow prospector
01:37Howard, played by Walter Houston in one of the greatest performances ever put to screen,
01:42had found ends up blowing away in the wind.
01:45They went through everything, they literally sold their souls as the tagline goes, just
01:50to be no better off than when they started their journey in the first place.
01:55The other way to look at their situation though, as Curtin does, was instead that they were
02:01no worse off.
02:02When he considered that Dobbs ended up losing his life, the fact that he was down only about
02:06$100 wasn't really too bad in the grand scheme of things.
02:10It didn't matter to Curtin and Howard that they lost all the gold simply because they
02:15didn't let it matter to them.
02:16Instead, they took it as a great joke played by God, and to do something different with
02:21their lives instead.
02:22I could listen to that Walter Houston laugh on repeat.
02:27What a joyful performance.
02:289.
02:29Dewey Finn, School of Rock
02:31Just how likeable is Jack Black?
02:33Well, as Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was able to pose as a school teacher and essentially
02:39hijack an entire semester's worth of work to dedicate towards playing a rock show with
02:44the children, and the audience still rooted for him despite all that bad deception.
02:49The band Dewey created at school, School of Rock, ultimately made it to the Battle of
02:53the Band's competition, and everyone wanted them to win.
02:57The audience watching the movie, the audience watching the show in the movie, everyone except
03:03the judging panel.
03:05God damn the bunch of just stupid idiots.
03:09Dewey's old band, No Vacancy, took the title.
03:12Even though Black's character was down about it at first, his students reminded him that
03:16it didn't matter.
03:18Rock music isn't about getting an A, and even just before they went on stage, Dewey
03:22himself said they were there to put on a great rock show.
03:26Not to win.
03:27Based on the reaction of the audience, and the fact that it was they who got the encore
03:30rather than the winners, they did what they went to do.
03:34This great show didn't necessarily change the world, but did change the lives of everyone
03:39involved in the band.
03:408.
03:41Tenacious D, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny
03:45School of Rock isn't the only band JB led to ultimate defeat at the end of a movie.
03:50Three years after playing Dewey Finn, the actor played himself in the spoof biopic based
03:55around his and Kyle Gass' band, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny.
04:00The MacGuffin of the story is the titular Pick of Destiny.
04:04The guitar pick made from one of the devil's teeth that held some of the greats throughout
04:07rock history.
04:08Tenacious D managed to get their hands on it, but ended up breaking it.
04:13This led to a confrontation with the devil himself, played by the inimitably talented
04:18Dave Grohl, and the challenge of a rock off.
04:20If Tenacious D won, the devil went back to hell, and would have to pay the band's rent.
04:25But if the devil won, he would take KG back with him.
04:30To be his little… well you know the rest of the lyrics.
04:33The song Beelzeboss tells of the epic battle that would come, but in the end, it was the
04:37devil that was victorious.
04:39Before he could strike KG with lightning, however, Black dove in front of the blast, sending a
04:45ricochet back to sever one of the beast's horns.
04:47Thus, he was made incomplete, and was sent back to hell alone.
04:52So even though the band lost the rock off, the devil returned from whence he came, and
04:56the band turned his horn into the Bong of Destiny.
05:01With global domination on his mind, Sauron would never have been able to achieve his
05:13goals in the Lord of the Rings without help, and so he managed to persuade Saruman the White,
05:18played by Christopher Lee, the greatest wizard of them all, onto his side.
05:22E. McKellen's Gandalf merely went to Saruman for advice on what to do about the ring turning
05:27up in the Shire, but instead found himself in a full-on fight with the leader of his
05:31order.
05:32Despite how powerful Gandalf was, he was no match of Saruman, and he quickly lost.
05:37With the Grey Wizard defeated and imprisoned atop Saruman's tower in Isengard, it must
05:42have seemed to the villains as though the battle was already won.
05:46Imagine how easily they would have overthrown Middle-earth without Gandalf there to forge
05:50the Fellowship, help unite the men of Rohan and Gondor, and play pivotal roles in both the
05:55Battle of Helm's Deep and the Siege of Minas Tirith.
05:59However, Gandalf's defeat at the hands of his master made no matter in the grand scheme
06:04of things, as he was able to summon help from the Eagles.
06:07They rescued him from his prison on Orthanc and brought him back right into the war that
06:12likely would have been lost without his assistance.
06:156.
06:16Oakland Athletics Moneyball
06:18Moneyball painted the 2002 Oakland Athletics as a classic underdog.
06:24After a strong season, the team had three of their best players poached from them by bigger
06:29baseball teams, and had very little money to try and replace them.
06:33This led to the team's general manager, Billy Bean, played by Brad Pitt, to try something
06:38drastic.
06:39Namely, the Moneyball theory, in which they looked at nothing but statistics to play the
06:44game of baseball.
06:45The season started pretty terribly, and there was no one but Bean and his assistant, Peter
06:50Brand, played by Jonah Hill, that gave the experiment a chance, but still, they persisted.
06:55Eventually, things began to turn around, and the Athletics set a new record for most Major
07:00League Baseball wins in a row.
07:02However, this wasn't enough for Billy.
07:04He wouldn't be happy until they won the World Series.
07:08Only then would he have considered them a success.
07:10Despite their strong season and the Pudets coming their way, the A's lost before they could
07:15even get the World Series in the first place.
07:17However, Peter Brand sat his boss down and explained that, even in spite of the loss,
07:22they were successful, and they had changed the game of baseball forever.
07:26Even if they didn't have a trophy to show for it yet, they were on the right path.
07:29So much so that the Boston Red Sox tried to hire Bean himself.
07:33After he rejected them, the biggest team in baseball still followed his and Brand's
07:37model, and the rest was history.
07:405.
07:41The Richmond Oilers Coach Carter
07:43Though the entirety of every high school teacher's favorite movie, Coach Carter, was
07:49based around Samuel Jackson's eponymous coach taking a bad basketball team and making
07:54them good, the point was never to win games.
07:57It was a nice benefit, sure, but the titular coach saw past a sports trophy and looked at
08:02the future of the boys on the team.
08:05An astonishing amount of young men in the area were getting locked up, and he was determined
08:09to avoid that fate for them.
08:11Instead, he wanted to give them a chance to go to college.
08:14This was more important than what happened on the court, and is why he had no problem
08:18shutting the team down when all their grades improved as they had promised.
08:22Yes, they were a very good basketball team, and ultimately were invited to the state championship
08:27tournament where they met St. Francis, the highest ranked school in the state.
08:32It was a close game, but Richmond lost.
08:34However, this was never the point.
08:37The point was that in knuckling down and working hard in school, again, you can see why this
08:41is every high school teacher's favorite movie, to earn the privilege to be able to play basketball
08:46in the first place, they gave themselves a chance of a better future.
08:51Between them, five players earned scholarships, and six went on to college, utterly eclipsing
08:56the expectations that was set for the school.
08:594.
09:00Kong
09:01Godzilla vs Kong
09:02Whenever there is a clash between two cinematic titans, whether that be the Aliens vs the
09:08Predators, or Daffy Duck vs Donald Duck in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, potential audiences
09:13usually only care about one thing.
09:16Who will win?
09:17It happened when Freddy fought Jason, with Team Cat vs Team Iron Man, and most recently
09:24with Godzilla vs Kong.
09:26When the latter two reignited an ancient war in the aptly titled Godzilla vs Kong, there
09:32was one clear winner.
09:34Though both were at the top of their respective food chains, Kong was absolutely no match for
09:39Godzilla, and only survived their clash because the King of the Monsters allowed him to.
09:44Big old flex right there Kong, sorry boy, it happens to the best of us.
09:48However, in spite of suffering such a heavy and comprehensive defeat, it ultimately didn't
09:54matter.
09:55Being in the face of the movie's title, it wasn't about Godzilla and Kong fighting each
09:59other at all, but rather the beginning of a mutual respect between them.
10:03For the big finale of the piece, the two titular beasts were forced to team up to take on Mechagodzilla.
10:10Working together, they defeated the mechanical monster and earned each other's respect before
10:13heading back to their own domains.
10:16Godzilla went back under the sea, Kong to Hollow Earth, living in harmony as though they'd
10:22never fall in the first place.
10:243.
10:25It Was All Just Fiction
10:27In the Mouth of Madness
10:29Though not enjoying the same popularity levels as the likes of The Thing or Halloween, In the
10:34Mouth of Madness may be one of John Carpenter's most underrated efforts.
10:40Starring Sam Neill in the lead, the movie tackles heavy and intense themes of religion and reality,
10:45and has a devastatingly good Lovecraftian ending that will stay in the audience's head for
10:51a long while later.
10:52While looking into the disappearance of horror author Sutter Cain, played by Jurgen Prochnow,
10:58insurance investigator John Trent, Neil himself, discovered that what Cain wrote became reality.
11:04It was said that the author's writing could have an effect on certain people, but the
11:09initially skeptical Trent found himself at the center of Cain's next piece.
11:14Knowing what was to come, Sam Neill's character did everything he could to try and prevent the
11:19new book, In the Mouth of Madness, from being published.
11:22Cain was essentially an eldritch god, and everything he put on that page happened in reality, including
11:34both the book and a movie adaptation being released, leading to mass hysteria, a genocidal
11:40epidemic and basically the end of the world.
11:43The final scene is a brilliantly cathartic and haunting image of Trent wandering into a
11:49cinema to watch the film adaptation, only to find himself as the main character.
11:55The final scene is a brilliantly cathartic and haunting image of Trent wandering into
12:01a cinema to watch the film adaptation, only to find himself as the main character, following
12:06his journey investigating Cain's writing.
12:10He lost and the world fell apart, but there was nothing he ever could have done.
12:15Upon the realization that he was merely a fictional character, all he could do was embrace his
12:20defeat, sit back and laugh.
12:23The ultimate capper to Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy.
12:262.
12:27James Bond – On Her Majesty's Secret Service
12:30Okay, so obviously in the context of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it very much does
12:37matter that Bond loses at the end.
12:39It's one of the series' most heartbreaking moments.
12:43Bond loses his one true love Tracy and doesn't get a chance at revenge, at least not until
12:49the next movie.
12:50Well, that's how it should have been, but of course, anyone who has watched the follow-up
12:56to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, will know that the death of Bond's
13:01wife Tracy is never addressed.
13:04George Lazenby was thrown out as 007, Sean Connery came back, and they were left with
13:09one of the weakest entries in the franchise, with Bond gallivanting around the USA to stop
13:14an evil Diamond-related conspiracy masterminded by Blofeld.
13:18The only real connection between the two is that Diamonds starts off with Bond killing
13:24a Blofeld lookalike, but for all intents and purposes, you'd never know that he was
13:29mourning the loss of his wife.
13:30All of this is very deliberate of course, Diamonds was a response to the mixed reaction
13:35to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which while today is revealed as one of the great
13:40Bond films, suffered criticism back then for Lazenby's casting.
13:44The initial plan, had Lazenby stayed on, would have been for a more direct continuation where
13:49the emotional baggage of Tracy's death was placed front and center, but when Lazenby quit
13:54the role, director Peter R. Hunt followed, eventually leading to the attempted crowd-pleaser that
14:00was the released version of Diamonds Are Forever.
14:03Bond movies never really used to follow a strict continuity, so in the grand scheme of things,
14:08the death of Bond's wife didn't really matter in the slightest, even if, in retrospect,
14:13it's a huge disappointment that it was never given further exploration.
14:171. Rocky Balboa Rocky!
14:20It's possible that Sly Stallone's Rocky Balboa is the ultimate movie underdog, and that he
14:26was only given his fight against Apollo Creed, Carl Weathers, rest in peace, you absolute
14:31legend, specifically because Rocky was a nobody.
14:34When Creed's original challenger got injured and couldn't face him, the champ himself suggested
14:38a nobody to turn his fight into something of a feel-good story.
14:42This was to be the fight of Rocky's life, and he trained like never before.
14:47However, in studying the film and analyzing his opponent, he accepted long before ever
14:52entering the ring that he couldn't win.
14:55Instead, all he wanted to do was last all 15 rounds against the champ, like no one had
15:00ever done before.
15:01To start the fight, Creed toyed with Balboa until the Italian Stallion caught him with a
15:06haymaker, knocking him down for the first time ever in one of the greatest fist-pumping
15:10moments in movie history.
15:13Even if Rocky would have lost immediately after this, he'd have proved that he wasn't
15:16a nobody like he wanted to, and could have walked out with his head held high.
15:21Instead, for 15 long rounds, he gave as good as he got, and if he got knocked down, he got
15:27straight back up, even when his own coach told him not to.
15:31Whether Rocky won or lost against Apollo was so insignificant that the announcement of his
15:36beat by split decision was only vague background noise behind Rock and Adrian, Talia Shire,
15:42coming together and embracing after the fight.
15:45It just didn't matter.
15:47Until the sequels.
15:47Until the sequels.
15:48Until the sequels.
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