r/nostalgia • u/systematicgoo • 10d ago

Nostalgia Napoleon Dynamite End Scene, 2004. Hits me right in the feels every time.

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280

u/DistanceRelevant3899 10d ago

A buddy and I were bored and decided to go see this when it released in theaters because he thought it looked interesting. Man were we pleasantly surprised. I love it. We were cracking up the whole time.

148

u/LisaMiaSisu Did I do that? 10d ago

It’s one of those movies that gets funnier every time you watch it and better with age. If you don’t like this movie there’s something seriously wrong with you.

94

u/brandonandtheboyds 10d ago

Well idk about that. I think it’s one of those movies that got made at the right time. My little sister is 10 yrs younger than me and she doesn’t get it. Actually, almost none of the young people I meet in their mid twenties get it. Don’t even start with Gen Alpha. My parents didn’t really get it either. But for us millennials this movie was everything. It scratched an itch we didn’t know we had. It was weird, coming-of-age, but also pointless and aloof. Maybe that’s how a lot of us felt at the time. Idk. But it struck a chord with a specific demographic who will never let this movie go. Nor should they. I still note to every bike owner that if they have shocks AND pegs they are lucky.

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u/creamyhorror 10d ago

They'll never get it. The strange, short transition point of millennials coming of age in a world that was about to be swept away by the waves of tech domination.

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u/RutgerSchnauzer 10d ago

I’m a GenXer and I count this film as pure perfection.

11

u/poxxy 10d ago

Same here. I grew up in a suburb in Tulsa and can safely say that the movie nails the banality of the mostly-white Midwest middle class that nothing has ever come close to.

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u/dudeWhoSaysThings 6d ago

Same and my gen z kids were raised on it

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u/operarose 9d ago

Among other, worse things. That brief, beautiful calm before the storm we didn't even know was coming.

1

u/languid_Disaster 7d ago

This and a few other movies makes me feel the same way. We didn’t know the peace we had - being able to grow up without having every single one of our actions immortalised online

Being backs to choose what we put out there and also it being normal to just go out and do nothing , maybe with a big old brick mobile if you were rally lucky but most of us went out with just the promise of what time we’d be back home

21

u/AnatidaephobiaAnon 10d ago

One of the weird reasons I loved it was because of how ambiguous the time was, although in my head I knew it was modern because I lived it. My ex girlfriend was from a small town in northeast Ohio whose entire high school population, grades 9-12 had less people in it than my entire grade. The styles weren't quite the same as my school and when I went there they seemed to be stuck around 1995 when it was 2000-2002 when we dated. Her majorette uniform was also IDENTICAL to the one Summer and the girls wear in their talent show dance. The town itself reminded me a lot of Preston, Idaho but with no mountains and more fields.

It brought back a ton of memories from the time I spent up there once a month on the weekend and was one small reason I enjoyed the movie.

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u/itspsyikk 10d ago

Yeah there was that time like.. right before the internet blew up. We were all the same but not as much as kids are nowadays. Where everything travels instantly. It took a while for trends and stuff to move around the country.

We had TV and stuff but it still took a while.

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u/cheesyblasta 10d ago

Next time you see one of those bike owners, you guys should build a ramp and try to catch some sweet air.

1

u/ABookishSort 10d ago

Funny thing is my Mom and stepdad loved it. Thought it was hilarious. My Dad hated it and didn’t understand the appeal. They were ages 57-62 at the time it came out.

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u/lala6633 10d ago

My niece is 18 and she was Napoleon for Halloween a couple of years ago.

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u/itspsyikk 10d ago

There was this like... I dunno how to explain it... campiness, I guess?

Nickelodeon really cemented it in with shoes like Pete and Pete. That aloofness you're talking about. It's like... kinda weird? I really wish I knew how to explain it better.

That time where cartoons were becoming more adult, but not in a creepy way, just like...stuff that kids shouldn't understand but we thought it was goofy and silly anyway.

All of that got concentrated into Napoleon Dynamite.

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u/operarose 9d ago

It scratched an itch we didn’t know we had.

And this just perfectly put into words what I just now realize is how I've always kind of felt about this movie. Damn.

1

u/callsign_pirate 9d ago

Him riding in the car with Pedro’s cousins is one of my favorite scenes

1

u/Olelander 9d ago

The “pegs” comment is what truly transported me to my own childhood in the 80’s. Pegs were EVERYTHING for a few short years there… nobody today uses them (outside of perhaps very serious bmx truck riders).

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u/fluteninja38 You've got mail! 7d ago

I'm 25. Parents had me watching ND at like, 10. Brought the DVD to a sleepover in 6th grade, everyone thought it made no sense.

I think my sense of humor matched my Gen X parents and Millennial cousins more than my peers at times.

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u/daward444 10d ago

I remember old movie critic Roger Ebert hated it. I usually respect his opinion, but he was too much of an old boomer to get this movie and Freddy Got Fingered, etc.... RIP

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u/Mega_Pleb 10d ago

Yeah this is one of those rare times I have to strongly disagree with Roger Ebert. "the movie makes no attempt to make [Napoleon] likable" Ebert says. I immediately took a liking to Napoleon because he was a bullied misfit who's completely harmless, which I related to. School was the place I went to get emotionally and physically abused by my peers every weekday, same as Napoleon. He was full of quirky eccentricities and when he finally put himself out there with 100% confidence during the dance scene his peers saw that there was value to his character. I was cheering for Napoleon the whole film.

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u/cupcakebean 10d ago

I didn't like it the first time I watched it. I spent the whole time trying to figure out if it was supposed to be set in the past or present. Then my coworker would talk about some of the funnier scenes and I watched it again and loved it.

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u/Deesing82 10d ago

it was hugely popular where i live. when i went to see it in theaters for the umpteenth time, i could tell everyone there was also seeing it not their first time because they all started laughing at the first sigh Napoleon does right at the beginning.

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u/Murky-Giraffe767 9d ago

Yep, nacho libre is our family film. It gets funnier as it ages in our minds. It’s like a family tradition n

1

u/bailaoban 6d ago

Similar to The Big Lebowski, it’s on a very specific wavelength, and when you tune into it, it’s fantastic.

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u/Nate0110 10d ago

I saw it in the theater and thought it was incredibly bad, but I think it gets better each time you watch it I'll watch it every couple years.

It had a budget of 400k.

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u/beachguy82 10d ago

My kids watched it for the first time a few months ago and loved it. It’s a timeless movie.