Why do corny one liners only sound cool when heroes in movies/tv shows/ etc say them?

[Penpilot]

It's all about context. One-liners, are like punchlines to a joke. A lot of them only work when placed in the right context.

For example, "I'll be back." That works because of Arnold, his charisma, and his accent. I believe originally OJ Simpson was up for the Terminator part. Imagine him saying that line. I don't think it has the same oomph to it. Now imagine all the other regular schmucks trying to say it? It just doesn't work.

"Do you feel lucky, punk," if I remember right, is part of the culmination of a chase scene. The context is Dirty Harry getting the criminal down, pointing his gun at them, and asking them if they want to take a gamble on Harry having shot off all the rounds in his gun during the chase or is there one round left? The criminal gave up, and Harry puts the cherry on top of the scene by pulling the trigger over and over showing the criminal the gun was empty.

Like I said, this is like the punch line to a joke. You can't just shout the punchline and expect people to laugh.

Eddie Murphy did a quick bit about this. It's a bit dated, but it makes the point. NSFW, some raunchy language.

Spoiler: NSFW -Eddie Murphy

 

[Karlin]

It's all about context. One-liners, are like punchlines to a joke. A lot of them only work when placed in the right context.

For example, "I'll be back." That works because of Arnold, his charisma, and his accent. I believe originally OJ Simpson was up for the Terminator part. Imagine him saying that line. I don't think it has the same oomph to it. Now imagine all the other regular schmucks trying to say it? It just doesn't work.

"Do you feel lucky, punk," if I remember right, is part of the culmination of a chase scene. The context is Dirty Harry getting the criminal down, pointing his gun at them, and asking them if they want to take a gamble on Harry having shot off all the rounds in his gun during the chase or is there one round left? The criminal gave up, and Harry puts the cherry on top of the scene by pulling the trigger over and over showing the criminal the gun was empty.

Like I said, this is like the punch line to a joke. You can't just shout the punchline and expect people to laugh.

Eddie Murphy did a quick bit about this. It's a bit dated, but it makes the point. NSFW, some raunchy language.

Spoiler: NSFW -Eddie Murphy

We should start a thread of punchlines only, without the joke. Like:
The Panda eats, shoots, and leaves

 

[Jackarandajam]

I think the most important thing about a great one-liner is knowing the character intimately.

1. they're so cool toward the end of a story because the best ones encapsulate what the character's been going through and are a concentrated punch of the culmination of their arc, or at least the culmination of the story, more of less. (Yippee Kay Yay, Mother F----r)

2. With some characters, particularly zero-arc ones (like Arnold Schwarzenegger in all his movies), they're a personality short hand. Little concentrated pockets of who the character is. Hence basically everything Heath Ledger's Joker said becoming so quotable. He was a very realized, very consistent character who knew how he felt about everything. if the audience likes the character then they like these little encapsulating, concentrated nuggets that easily resurrect the character in their mind and the minds of those around them. Jack Sparrow is another great example.

I like "using" one-liners in my writing, although trying to write them in is kind of like saying "I like making my YouTube videos viral." The reason they're so cool is because society has already ignored all the less-interesting ones for you.

So trying to get good one-liners is basically a game of presenting a very well realized character and watching their dialogue like a hawk for consistency.

EDIT: Also, people just really, really like well-executed charisma in a character, and a great way to showcase charisma is having the character say the right thing at the right time. It lets the audience know that the character is comfortable enough in the situation to be thinking quickly.

 

[skip.knox]

Also, the one-line doesn't need to be anything humorous. It can simply be characteristic, a verbal tic that is both unique to the character and in some way meaningful. That can be drawn from circumstance. For example, the reason why Willis says what he does in the first Die Hard is because the villain keeps mocking him as a cowboy. Without the context of that, the line itself would just be silly.

Or, the line can be illustrative of the character. A particular way of speaking. I do this in most of my books; not with every character, and not even always with the main character, but where it feels appropriate and helpful. For example, I have an ogre whose chuckle is distinctive. I wrote it just as a stray bit of description, that it sounded like a cart bouncing over ruts. "Huh. Huh." For some reason, I liked that and have used it ever since. Once I had deployed it two or three times in a novel, I could then have other characters react to it or comment upon it.

There's another usage that comes to mind, from one of my favorite re-watch any time movies, Escape from New York. Right at the start Carpenter has his MC make a point about his name. Call me Snake. That gets re-used multiple times (along with "I heard you were dead"). At the end of the movie, though, his nemesis calls him Snake and he replies with "My name is Plissken". And, of course, Carpenter was careful through the movie to have people speak the full name, Snake Plissken, multiple times, so that that final scene lands.

Long story short, one-liners can take many forms and serve many purposes.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Pretty much what everyone else is saying. It works because of that combination of confidence, timing, and resonance - sometimes achieved through repetition, sometimes through careful signposting, always crucial in some way to getting the character or the story's themes or a combination. Is it easy to do purposefully? Little green apples, no, not even a little bit! It's purely a kiss of zeitgeist. It's plugging into the Collective Unconscious and coming out the other side. It's hitting a natural 20 on your cool roll.

In other words, it's awesome and when you find it, make sure to tell us how.

 

[The Dark One]

Some of the greatest zingers ever, in my view.

Especially the one about likely to affect my aim.

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