Repo! The Genetic Opera/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Nathan is a possessive father who deprives his daughter of any contact with the outside world out of a selfish fear of losing her, thus giving her no experience outside of his interactions with her. He also poisons his own offspring, which could prove to be the very reason he loses her in the first place. He is an evil captor who has a sympathetic motive.
  • Also, does anyone else find it creepy he's so obsessed with Shilo being like his wife? He also buys her some really short clothing.
• Awesome Music: Many. "Chase the morning" and "Zydrate Anatomy" are two examples.
• Non Sequitur Scene: Seventeen.
• Broken Aesop:
  • If you think the aesop is Screw Destiny, you probably think it's broken on account of Shilo's father leaving her alone, with nothing, unprepared for living on her own in the Crapsack World. If you think the aesop is "megacorporations rule the world" or "always read the fine print," it's not broken.
  • It could also be taken as a line from Graverobber in "21st Century Cure"

"Would you change yourself if you could?"

• • Or it could be a metaphor against too much plastic surgery. You could go many ways with this
• Complete Monster: Played with, with the Largo family and the Repo Men.
  • That said, the film actually doesn't contain any examples of this. Rotti and Nathan are rescued from this label by having a Morality Pet in Shilo and by realizing what bastards they've become and hating themselves for it (this is harder to see with Rotti, but the melancholy tone of "Gold" coupled with the flashbacks to magazines hailing him as a hero certainly implies it), and Rotti's kids, while certainly horrible people, are funny, not revolting.
• Creepy Awesome: Blind Mag, Graverobber & Pavi Largo.
• Critical Dissonance: Most critics were tough on this film. They warned people away, rated it as low as possible, expressed horror at the casting choices, scoffed at the low budget, and generally just sat there being sick into their hats. But to no avail—a large percentage of the people who actually watched the film loved it, and Repo! has gathered together a very strong underground following.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Just about anything to do with the Largo siblings. And the Repo Man playing ventriloquist with a corpse definitely deserves mention too. The last part with the puppet is probably the freakiest moment in the entire film, and it's subtle and small as Hell: he and the puppet are singing at the same time.
• Cult Classic
• Die for Our Ship: Amber for the Shilo/Grave-Robber fans, even though Shilo has no romantic feelings for Grave-Robber and Amber is just one of many women Grave-Robber apparently has a relationship with.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Pretty much all of the male characters, many of them doubling as in-universe examples (save for Luigi, whom no-one in-universe likes.)
• Ear Worm: EVERYTHING.
  • Zydrate comes in a little glass vial.
    • A little glass vial?
    • A LITTLE GLASS VIAL!
  • And the little glass vial goes into the gun like a battery.
    • Ah! Ah!
  • And the Zydrate Gun goes somewhere against your anatomy.
  • And when the gun goes off it sparks, and you're ready for surgery.
    • SURGERY!
  • Didn't know I loved you so much...but I do.
  • REEEEEEEEEEEEEPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
    • REEEEEEEEEEEEEPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
  • CHA-HA-ASE THE MORNING! YIELD FOR NOTHING!
  • Lungs and livers and bladders and hearts!
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Grave-Robber is actually a relatively minor character, but has one of the biggest fan followings. Single Mom has something of a reverse Ensemble Darkhorse going on - even though she only appears for a few moments, the fans hate her.
  • Single Mom's been somewhat Rescued from the Scrappy Heap since the shadowcast performances started, due to the brave shadow actresses who flash the audience live.
  • Don't forget DJ Granny. Does she even get 10 seconds of screen time?
• Evil Is Sexy:
  • Given the fans' opinions on Luigi and Pavi, plus the attention they both get throughout the film...
  • Nathan, for some, as well as Amber.
• Idiot Plot:
  • People go along with plans against them or manipulations they had songs about figuring out or present when they were first explained, do nothing to avoid falling for them, and then act surprised at the reveal.
  • Justified by the fact that it's An Opera and that people singing about what is going on to the audience while being ignored by others on stage is fairly standard.
  • Also justified by the fact that it's a Screw Destiny story.
• Internet Backdraft: Never mention Repo Men or The Agony Booth recap in front of this film's fans.
• Jerkass Woobie: Arguably Rotti and his children, at least Luigi.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Fans of Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, Paul Sorvino, Alexa Vega, Paris Hilton, Bill Mosely, and/or Nivek Ogre went to see Repo! based solely on their favourite actor/singer's appearance therein. Many of them are now devoted fans of the movie.
  • Take a look at the musician list, and see members of Bauhaus, Korn, Rasputina, and Guns N' Roses being credited, then look at the who the music producer is- X Japan's bandleader. And then watch "Seventeen"—see that Joan Jett cameo? That's right- people WILL have found this film because of rock bands.
  • There's also Anne Danielewski who people might remember from the 90's as Poe.
• Les Yay: Marni and Blind Mag. Also Amber Sweet and the Genterns in "Zydrate Anatomy".
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Rotti Largo, Rotti Largo, ROTTI LARGO. Things You See In A Graveyard, Gold, and We Started This Op'ra Shit, and Piece De Resistance showcase this especially well.
  • His daughter Amber Sweet also shows signs of this. Not only did get her face restored to perfection, she also took over the company in spite of her bad reputation and previous public humilation.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Persons claim that this movie is a rip-off of the novel Reposession Mambo... despite the fact that the novel was first published in 2009 whereas the film came out in 2008. This itself ignores that the opera itself was first performed as a stage-show in 2001 and portions of the music were first performed as operettas in the 1990s.
  • One film critic made this claim, until they were called on it.
• Painful Rhyme: The Movie! It tends to be most obvious in the songs that are less plot-important.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Repo fans who ship Shilo/Grave-Robber often refer to that couple as "Grilo."
  • Luigi/Pavi fans worship at the altar of "Pavigi".
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • To an extent, Paris Hilton. Many Repo! fans went in to see the film unhappy about her having a role, but after seeing her performance, came out with at least a grudging respect for her. A fair number have actually grown quite fond of her, defending her where they would once have joined in with the mocking.
  • Of course the fact that she gets mangled in surgery then has her face skinned off probably helped some of her haters work out their frustration.
• Selective Squick: Rotti is fine with having debtors brutally disembowelled in front of him, but reacts badly to Amber's disfigurement. Granted, it comes as a shock, and it's his own daughter.
• Squick:
  • Pretty much every time Shilo is on screen with an adult character, Amber Sweet's surgery montage, Mark It Up, Grave-Robber getting up close and personal with his corpses, Blame Not My Cheeks, Blind Mag's final song. Also, you might be squicked if you think too much about the meaning behind Rotti putting his arm around Mag and saying "technically you belong to GeneCo."
  • How about the fact that the large intestine is apparently the consistency of bread dough?
• Tear Jerker:
  • Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much again.
  • The image of Nathan being dragged away from dead Marni's bedside.
• Too Dumb to Live: Nathan walking right past Luigi with no more than a sideways glance on his way to confront Rotti. He's met the guy, there's no excuse.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Neither Nathan nor Shiloh ever find out that Rotti was the one who had Marni killed. Nathan's Roaring Rampage of Revenge would have been epic.
  • It's implied that Nathan realises that Rotti poisoned Marni when Rotti tells Shilo "Your dad deserved whatever happened to him, he needed me and so do you!" and Nathan says in a very menacing tone "I remember". At this point however, his love for Shilo and desire to protect her from Rotti surpasses his urge for vengeance. At the time he's been left crippled in a wheelchair by the Genterns so he's not in any fit state to fight anyway.
  • Also the fact that Rotti actually did take Marnie's murder to his death makes it all the more disturbing as often in real life, monsters such as Josef Stalin die before being seen for all that they really are.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Not only is Rotti Largo terminally ill, he's had to deal with Luigi, Amber, and Pavi. They could make anyone turn into a bastard.
  • Luigi, Amber, and Pavi also qualify though. Luigi has a sad moment after Rotti's death, during the press conference. After his spontaneous temper tantrum, he starts crying, and the last thing we hear him say is, *Sob.* "Dad!" in a pathetic voice. Also, when Rotti disowns his children onstage and calls them useless, Pavi lets out such a pathetic little wail that some viewers expressed the desire to reach into the screen and hug him. As for Amber, the face humiliation is bad enough, but the sad look she has when her father disowns her publically also gets her some sympathy points.
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: A lot of people take their young children to see this movie, because hey, it has the girl from Spy Kids in it! And it's a musical! Never mind that it was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, or that the other stars include two horror film veterans and a violent gangster film veteran, or that the tamest of the trailers still contains a shot of someone being disemboweled...
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Nathan Wallace/Repo Man.
• What the Hell, Casting Agency?:
  • One of the best examples ever. You would never, ever, ever expect to find this group of people in the same movie, and some, like Sarah Brightman, you'd never think to find in that kind of movie.
  • A behind-the-scenes example: The director vehemently refused to even consider Paris Hilton. Eventually they made him audition her, and she rocked out so hard that he hired her on the spot.
  • Kinda funny that they'd object to letting a spoiled heiress play a spoiled heiress.
• You Fail Biology Forever:
  • A powerful "quick, clean, and pure" drug can be extracted from a corpse's brain by sticking a syringe up the corpse's nose...wait, what? Or the idea that any part of the nervous system can be replaced...
  • According to early interviews, Zydrate was discovered when doctors searched for a chemical reason for near-death experiences, then made a synthetic version of the compound they discovered for use in surgery.
• You Fail Economics Forever:
  • So defaulting on your organ loan for 90 days gets the Repo Man sent after you, who will fatally retreive GeneCo's property. So it never occurred to the genuises at GeneCo's finance department that hitting the customer with massive penalty fees and interest rate hikes would be a more cut-throat response to consumer delinquency, leveraging an asset on the books into one two or three times the value. Dead customers don't pay, after all, and they're out the cost of the surgery and repossession costs every time they kill a customer.
  • The people we see being killed by the Repo Men have already been taken for every penny they have and have nothing to offer the company but their bodies. Gene Co's business plan saves the company a fortune in litigation costs going after deadbeats in court and insures maximum profit potential by allowing their accountants to bleed the customers dry before sending in the Repo Men to bleed their customers dry.
  • Every life has a value. That's not a wishy-washy way of saying that human life is sacred or crap like that; in economics, every living person has what is known as their life economic value, which can calculate with varying degrees of precision the future income and net worth of a person after a given time period. By killing their customers, Gene Co miss the opportunity to take their share of the person's life economic value, which may as well be the whole thing by the time a sufficiently mercenary financing department gets through with them. But by killing the customer, Gene Co still doesn't recoup the cost of the loan, surgery, and organ fee charged to the customer, plus the cost to pay the Repo Man for his services.
  • Unless either the customer's organ value being resold dips below the life economic value or the value in scaring the customers to pay up. After all a single Repoman working can only do so many Repo's, but the mere threat would be very effective against the rest. Especially if Organ loans are like nearly all other loans and discharagable in bankruptcy. (Of course the only non-dischargable loan is student loans which the government can jail you if you refuse to pay).