Escape from New York/YMMV

• Crowning Moment of Awesome: The ring fight between Snake and the Giant Mook. After being tossed around for a while, Snake finally sees his chance and manages to defeat the guy by driving a spiked club through the back of his skull. Followed by the crowd going berserk and chanting Snake's name ecstatically.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: The opening theme, also an Ear Worm and (typically for Carpenter) a Do-It-Yourself Theme Tune.
  • In addition, "The Duke Arrives / Barricade". Some fans joke about hearing this tune in their heads when their in-laws show up.
  • Another piece, "Snake Shake", ended up being cut from the ending, but it's still catchy as hell.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Snake handing his revolver to Maggie for her Heroic Sacrifice after Brain is killed by a mine. The look on his face implies that in spite of their past history, Brain's death got to him.
• Fridge Logic: If they turned Manhattan into a prison, why didn't they just blow up the bridges instead of mine them?
• Funny Aneurysm Moment / Harsher in Hindsight: Snake lands his glider on one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
  • Well, it was will be is(?) still there in 1997.
  • The plot features terrorists hijacking a jet airliner and then suicidally crashing it into a New York skyscraper in order to protest U.S. foreign policies. Ouch.
• Memetic Badass: Snake Plissken.
  • Upon further review, it is worth pointing out that in the original Snake was more of an opportunistic Anti-Hero with hints of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold; dangerous and resourceful, but not so ridiculously Badass as the sequel made him.
  • That said, everybody inside New York has heard of him and heard rumours of his death. Considering that nobody ever comes out of there and that the only news updates that anybody would get is from new prisoners, Snake must have been involved in something major (possibly the Noodle Incident in Kansas City where Brain abandoned him) to have people know who he is.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The visual effects hold up, even though it's a 1981 film. It's hard not to get chills when a dark, nearly lightless Manhattan is revealed.
  • Which makes Escape From L.A.'s numerous Special Effects Failures even more jarring.
• The Woobie: Snake. Not so apparent in the movie, but I dare you to read through the Novelization and not see him as one.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Even in the movie, Snake is not really someone who you would call a Knight in Sour Armor. But let's take a look to his background: he gets betrayed by the same goverments he believed in during the "Leningrad Ruse" (where he lost the use of his left eye) and then all his country is turned into a totalitarian police state, with his parents being murdered by the police in the process. Wouldn't you be a bit sociopathic after that? He does, however, hold a loose code of honor and humanity and he can also occasionally step in the Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory.
• What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Pretty much everyone's reaction when Kurt Russell was cast as Snake, due to his prior work with Disney. Fortunately, Russell managed to prove them all wrong...