6. Protagonists Narrowly Escaping
Amblin EntertainmentThis one works in a similar fashion to the previous entry, in the sense that it ensures the lead characters survive while countless others die, but it usually down to luck or an unlikely dose of ingenuity on the part of the protagonist, rather than the stupidity of whatever it is they're facing. Independence Day and War of the Worlds - both, coincidentally, alien invasion movies - give us two prime examples of this convenient phenomenon. In Independence Day, when the aliens have fired their incredibly powerful energy weapon down on Los Angeles, Jasmine Dubrow, her son Dylan and their dog Boomer are in a car trying to escape the city. They find themselves in a traffic jam as the wave of fiery destruction caused by the attack heads towards them. With every single other person either dying the background or simply running in a futile manner to escape the fiery wave, Jasmine conveniently has the wherewithal to spot the door to a maintenance alcove in the tunnel they're in, which she promptly kicks down and gets herself, her son and their dog inside just in time to survive (it also happens later in the film when Will Smith's Steven Hiller and Jeff Goldblum's David Levinson are fleeing the alien mothership - they get through a tiny gap in the ship's doors as they're closing, while the pursuing aliens don't). And then there was War of the Worlds. In the first Tripod attack seen on screen, Tom Cruise's Ray Ferrier happened to be on the scene. As the Tripod emerged from the ground and started vaporising everyone in sight, Ray ran like billy-o, narrowly avoiding the energy blasts and, indeed, running through the dusty residue of people who had been blasted directly in front of him. He avoided, explosions, debris and a whole host of obstacles to come away from the attack relatively unscathed.