Never Live It Down/Film

Star Wars

• Darth Vader, ever since his fall from grace (thanks to Palpatine's machinations) in Revenge of the Sith, will forever be known as the guy who screamed "NOOOOOOOOO!" On a lesser extent, in the original trilogy, he has the You Have Failed Me trope as his Never Live It Down, despite him only doing it twice in the movies (he would've done it a third time to Admiral Motti, had Tarkin not stopped him).
  • The casual manner in which Darth Vader dispatches his incompetent underlings, as well as taking into account The Law of Conservation of Detail, suggests that this is a common occurrence.
    • There's also how the other officers/troopers react to it. They look uncomfortable, but not really shocked or surprised. Their reactions suggest that this is indeed a common occurrence.
• Between Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd, the acting and much of the writing, The Phantom Menace certainly serves as this to George Lucas and the Star Wars brand as a whole in establishing the reputation of the Prequel Trilogy.
  • Jar Jar is featured prominently in only one theatrical film, yet everybody obsesses about him "ruining the franchise". He's not even as prominent as many believe him to be, and most of the anger is directed at him as a successor of the Ewoks (who had become unpopular in the interim), and for being the first fully CGI character rendered for the big screen, which also angered those who preferred the analog puppetry of the original. As such, Jar-Jar Binks and his actor Ahmed Best are never given the status of pioneering mo-cap and CGI accorded to Gollum and Andy Serkis, even if he came first.
  • Jake Lloyd, who played a young Anakin Skywalker, will never live down his role in the theatrical film; the kid got constant ridicule from fanboys who hated the film, belittled by critics for his unimpressive acting skills, and was constantly bullied at school by other children for his involvement with the movie. The downward spiral caused the actor to destroy all of the Star Wars memorabilia he owned, and he refused to talk about it for some time. However, he's mellowed out since then and he's confirmed that, contrary to popular belief, he doesn't hate Star Wars for all the crap he was put through by the Prequel Trilogy-hating fanboys.
• Anakin's infamous "I don't like sand" monologue in Attack of the Clones has been used by both fans and critics alike to mock how poorly executed the romance was.
• Ki-Adi Mundi is mostly remembered for asking about "the droid attack on the Wookiees".
• Padmé Amidala died from sadness. After spending two theatrical movies and a canonical Interquel surviving many assassination attempts all over the place, she died from sadness after Obi-Wan told her that Anakin had fallen to the Dark Side. Even after the Expanded Universe explained that her throat was crushed by Vader's Force-Choke, fans will never forget that this theatrical film wanted them to believe that Padmé died from sadness.
• Shaak Ti will never live down being the Kenny McCormick of Star Wars, as she's the only Jedi to have died before, during and after Order 66.
• Leia kissed Luke precisely twice, once for luck and once specifically to make a point to Han. There is nothing particularly sexual between them, but some people seem to genuinely believe they were screwing like incestuous bunnies before Return of the Jedi. Wishful thinking? Squick!
  • The other thing that people conveniently forget is that neither Luke nor Leia learned they were brother and sister until Return of the Jedi. And neither did the writers.
• A more unfortunate Star Wars example: it seems no one can mention General Grievous without someone bringing up his... less than dignified ending.
• Boba Fett, for all his badassery and awesome attire, will never live down a partially blinded Han knocking him into the Sarlacc pit with a wooden staff - by accident.
• Conversely, because he didn't immediately jump at the call, Luke is characterized by some fans as being forever whiny.
• In the Expanded Universe, we have Kyp Durron, who will never live down blowing up a star. Tahiri Veila has become sort of the same thing after trying to seduce Ben in Invincible.
• Lando Calrissian is perpetually known for betraying Han and the others at Cloud City... despite the fact that he did so to protect the city from the Empire, orchestrated their escape from the city, hid in Jabba's palace undercover to rescue a frozen Han and piloted the Millenium Falcon into the Death Star II at the Battle of Endor. Lampshaded on an episode of Robot Chicken.
  • Various sources claim that Billy Dee Williams really will defend Lando's actions at length, in the very same way that he does in the Robot Chicken sketch.
    • Lando has never lived down the incident with the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive, either, simply because he was under the impression that his mechanics would fix it rather than the Imperials sabotaging it further. While he did truthfully claim "It's not my fault!" (same as Han did), in later Expanded Universe works, ships he attempted to fly never worked as intended, with him once again spouting his new catchphrase.

Other

• James Bond has become known as the film series where "the main Bond girl works for the villains until she falls in love with James Bond". In fact, this has only happened on one occasion; in Goldfinger. Most of the other times, the Bond girl is either an ally of Bond from the first (e.g. You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service), an innocent drawn into the villain's schemes (e.g. Dr No, A View to A Kill, Goldeneye), working with the villains but unaware of the true nature of their plans (From Russia With Love, Octopussy), a willing accomplice/Big Bad who never changes sides (The World Is Not Enough) or effectively a slave rather than an ally of the villains (Thunderball, Live and Let Die).
  • Complicating matters, several Bond films (such as Thunderball, Goldeneye and Die Another Day) have genuinely evil beautiful henchwomen as well as heroines, and Bond will sleep with said evil henchwoman, in almost every single film. Doesn't help that Bond is also a frequent offender of tropes like Sex Equals Love and It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It.
• In-universe example in Superbad:

Seth: "Hey Greg, why don't you go piss your pants?" Greg the Soccer Player: "That was like 8 years ago, asshole!" Seth: "People don't forget!"

• • And then there's McLovin.
• Indirectly in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back's depiction of Jason Biggs, eternally remembered as "the pie fucker".

"I'm haunted by it!"

• • Clerks II both plays it straight and subverts it with Dante and Randall's former classmate Lance "Pickle Fucker" Dowds, who had earned the nickname in an incident of high school hazing. After Randall recounts the incident where Dowds earned the nickname, Dowds replies that nobody but the aimless Randall Graves would remember the incident at all. Cue Jay walking in and referring to saying "Hurry up, Pickle Fucker! I wanna get my cow tipper on!". As Jay is leaving, he yells off-screen "Hey, Silent Bob, some pickle fucker just gave us free eats!" revealing that Jay occasionally just randomly calls people "pickle fucker".
• The Parody Disaster Movie The Big Bus contains the immortal line "Jeez! You eat one foot and they call you a cannibal!".
• Invoked in David Cronenberg's The Brood when Robert Silverman's character intends to sue the psychiatric clinic (run by Oliver Reed) that he believes to be responsible for his lymph cancer. He knows he's going to lose the case, but he also knows that in a few years, people won't even remember the verdict.

"All they'll remember is the slogan: 'Psychoplasmics Gives You Cancer.' Catchy, huh?"

• In For Your Consideration, Harry Shearer's character, Victor Allen Miller, a dramatic actor who has been a veteran of stage for 40 years, yet all most people seem to remember of him is being a hotdog pitchman on TV when he was younger.
• Joel Schumacher is seen by many as the director that killed the Batman film franchise with Batman and Robin. A prolific director with interesting films under his belt, yet for the fan(boy)dom, he's branded as the director of Batman & Robin.
• The Other Guys: Cowboy Cop wannabe Terry Hoitz became a pariah within the NYPD and the city as a whole when he shot a man in a Yankee Stadium corridor during the World Series, not knowing it was Derek Jeter. Although he's been on desk duty ever since then, his coworkers STILL don't let him forget.
• Look at all the Labyrinth fanfics that include Jareth saying "precious" or "precious thing". He only said that phrase ONCE in the whole movie.
  • Also, David Bowie's rather tight pants that draw the eye, no matter how much you try to resist.
• One wonders if Chyler Leigh has a rule about doing interviews; that they never bring up Kickboxing Academy. If you're a regular visitor of Cracked.com, you know why...
• Joe Dirt: After being abducted by "Buffalo Bob", everyone asks Joe if he was harmed in certain ways, even though nothing terrible really happened.
• Despite the fact that the inexperienced Superman had no real way of preventing all the destruction Zod and his team of ultra-powerful Kryptonian warriors caused while having to simultaneously take out a destructive terraforming machine, Man of Steel will forever be remembered as the movie where a heartless Superman completely destroyed Metropolis without giving a damn about the civilians in the eyes of the film's detractors.
• Barring Bruce Banner, all of the original Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have done something that soured their reputation forevermore in the eyes of one fan group:
  • Even after the Infinity Saga, it is clear that some fans will never forgive Captain America hiding the fact that Bucky killed Howard and Maria Stark from Tony. Some Pepper/Tony shippers also drag his name down for creating a greater need for the Avengers that put a strain on Pepper and Tony's relationship, to say nothing of the S.H.I.E.L.D. data dump dropping helicarriers atop the innocents of Washignton D.C. His running back to the past in Avengers: Endgame is also rather unpopular, painting him in a much more selfish light to some.
    • In a more comical example, his infamous "language!" moment in Avengers: Age of Ultron remains ripe material for painting Cap as a prude.
  • Tony Stark's tendency to Create Your Own Villain, literally in Ultron's case, and Spider-Man absorbing some of sins, has lost him some sympathy points, particularly from the hardcore Captain America fans.
  • The Loki fangirls will never forget Thor's Innocently Insensitive attitude towards Loki's issues as the two were growing up. So much so that they'll happily invoke Fanon Discontinuity on Thor: Ragnarok, the film where Thor and Loki make amends.
  • Natasha Romanov is a very divisive character with every act being liable to be this to someone. Some of the more notable include: Allowing Tony to keep dying in Iron Man 2, exposing all of SHIELD's secrets alongside Hydra's, endangering god knows how many innocent SHIELD agents and their families, pushing Bruce into the pit in Age of Ultron, betraying Tony in Civil War and starting the chain of events that led to Rhodey being crippled (or siding with Tony in the first place). And to some fans, she's just deadweight.
  • Clint Barton's reputation has been forever tarnished by the MCU as he's now the poster child for Memetic Loser. Not helped by the fact that an Iron Man armor can do everything he can, or that he was brainwashed for most of The Avengers, but that he also sat out some of the more grounded instalments that focused on Badass Normals. Hardly a surprise that many a fan considers him useless.
• Tucker and Dale vs. Evil presents the kerfuffle happing due to this trope in-universe. Chad knows that his mother has been raped by hillbillies and believes that his father was killed by them. As a result, he views all hillbillies as Always Chaotic Evil, even if they can be good.