Dr. Stephen Strange (Bryce Johnson), a neurosurgeon falls victim to a car crash that injures his hands, making him incapable of performing complex surgery. Looking for a cure, he instead finds a higher calling as the new Sorcerer Supreme, the top master of the mystical arts.
The Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme movie provides examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Mordo's signature weapon is a magic sword.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Like in the comics, his sister played an important role in turning Strange into a surgeon and her death is what made him lose his idealism. However, in this version he became a surgeon in order to treat April himself after many expensive doctors refused to do it themselves and she died on the operating table, leaving him wracked with guilt which led to him becoming cynical and greedy.
- Adaptational Badass: Strange has the unique ability to absorb any forms of magical energy which he uses to kill Dormammu.
- Adaptation Name Change: Donna Strange is renamed April.
- Age Lift: Wong is significantly older than Mordo and Strange in this adaptation.
- A God Am I: Dormammu boasts "You are but frightened children, fighting a god". Justified as he's a Physical God.
- Anyone Can Die: At the end, every single named Sorcerer other than Strange and Wong are dead.
- Battle Aura: Miro, one of the Ancient One's disciples, uses a magical one of these in combat. However, he still ends up brutally killed later on.
- Become Their Own Antithesis: In this iteration, Stephen became a surgeon specifically to try and save his sister's life after many skilled but expensive doctors refused to treat her. By the present day however, he has ended up exactly like those doctors as he doesn't care about saving people, mainly since he feels guilty over his failure to save April.
- Big Bad: Dormammu.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The Ancient One's disciples are routinely killed in bloody ways as they fight Dormammu's army of monsters.
- Blood Knight: Mordo is a bit more fight-happy in this adaptation but doesn't show much in the way of magical skills.
- Body Horror: Many of the Ancient One's students die in more and more graphic ways as the film progresses.
- Broken Bird: Stephen is a male example after his accident. Without his hands, he's a husk of a man who tries to commit suicide before Wong saves him and offers to take him to the Ancient One. It turns out his original frosty front was a result of him being this before his accident, as he's been living with the guilt of failing to save his sister.
- Butt-Monkey: Mordo, even more than usual. He considers himself the leader of his team, but they seem to regard him with little more than mocking contempt, he thinks that the Ancient One intends for him to be Sorcerer Supreme but when he tells him the Ancient One just laughs in disbelief, saying that he never even considered him for the role. Instead, he puts him to work training Strange in the art of magic and combat and despite his hands being wounded, Strange is able to use magic to effortlessly defeat him. Humiliated, Mordo turns to Dormammu and helps him escape into the world but when Mordo and Strange fight again, Strange again curbstomps him at which point Dormammu gets bored and announces "You Have Failed Me" before putting Mordo out of his misery by eating him as Wong watches with a Slasher Smile. Honestly Dormammu probably felt embarrassed for the guy and Mordo was probably relieved at this point.
- Canon Foreigner:
- Dr. Gina Atwater was created specifically for the film.
- And the Ancient One's other disciples.
- Captain Ersatz: At the start of the story, Stephen Strange is basically a more sociopathic version of Dr. House.
- Chekhov's Skill: Strange uses his rare ability to absorb magic to absorb Dormammu himself when they meet in battle.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Poor April Strange died in Stephen's youth, as Stephen's first patient no less. She's basically the reason why Stephen is... well, the way he is in the present.
- Deadly Sparring: Strange and Mordo face off in a training session, during which Strange is able to knock Mordo back. Mordo responds by conjuring two axes and trying to kill Strange, forcing Wong to intervene.
- Death by Adaptation: Dormammu, one of the biggest villains in the Marvel universe and a reoccurring foe in the comics, is killed by Strange.
- Deep Sleep: Hundreds of children are being placed in a coma like state by an inter-dimensional demon.
- Despair Event Horizon: Strange goes through this, when he loses the use of his hands. He had already gone over it once after the death of his sister due to a brain aneurysm.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the comics, Stephen's sister Donna died while swimming and having a cramp caused her to drown. In the film, his sister April suffered from a tumor and died during surgery while Strange was her doctor.
- The Dragon: Mordo to Dormammu, after he betrays his fellow sorcerers.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: The Ancient One confronts Mordo about the disciples that were killed while under his command. Mordo simply points out that he regrets nothing because they ended up defending the Sanctum. His callousness towards his comrades’ sacrifice all but convinces the Ancient One that he isn’t the best choice as a successor.
- Driven to Suicide: Stephen, when all hope for repairing his hands seems lost. He attempts jumping off a bridge. Thankfully, Wong uses his magic to stop him.
- Eldritch Abomination: Dormammu is portrayed as this, a demonic entity made of pure magic appearing as a giant demonic skull or half-skeleton in a cloud of fire. Taking over the minds of mortals to prepare for his return, and controlling various eldritch beasts.
- Eldritch Location: The Dark Dimension.
- Evil Is Bigger: Mordo is rather tall in this incarnation, Dormammu is easily twenty times taller than any of the heroes.
- Face–Heel Turn: Mordo. Not a surprise if you have read the comics.
- For the Evulz: Dormammu is given little motivation (and almost zero backstory) for his invasion of Earth. All that's stated is that he eats people. So he invades dimensions because he's evil...and that's about it.
- Friend to All Children: Strange, despite his initial aloofness at the idea of being called in to treat children suffering from unexplained coma's. He later uses his powers to rescue children from Dormammu to the point of exhaustion.
- General Ripper: Mordo. His Blood Knight tendencies and "kill first, ask questions never" approach leads to many of his allies and bystanders getting killed. His solution to kill sleeping children before they could be used as a gateway to the real world for instance when it's mentioned he could easily just wake them up.
- God of Evil: Par for the course for Dormammu.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: What ultimately stops Dormammu is the fact that he's a being made entirely of magic. Which Stephen Strange just happens to have the ability to absorb. Weirdly, this doesn't make Strange into a Physical God.
- Instant Runes: True to the comics, this is how a lot of the magic is shown.
- Jerkass: Mordo even before he fully defects to Dormammu's side is an arrogant jerk who would rather kill anything that inconveniences him. To a lesser degree, Stephen Strange himself at the beginning of the film is just as arrogant and only interested in furthering his own career.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Mordo, despite being a Leeroy Jenkins General Ripper jerk supreme, makes a lot of solid points about being proactive in fighting in light of Dormammu sending more of his monsters into the world in preparation of his arrival while the Ancient One and his other disciples are content to try and tank whatever monsters come as they go. He's also correct in that Dormammu's increase in activity is a result of the Ancient One's failing health. Even the Ancient One grudgingly sees his point.Ancient One: You have lost sight of our purpose, Mordo. You focus only on the battle. But we are protectors! Not warriors!
Mordo: Yet, we fight a war! - Kung-Fu Wizard: The Ancient One and his disciples all incorporate Easter Martial Arts with Instant Runes to facilitate magic and sorcery. Mordo and Wong are particularly blatant examples.
- Made of Evil: Overlapping with Pure Magic Being in the case of Dormammu, who is the embodiment of dark magic.
- Magic Knight: The film's sorcerers often fight with conjured weapons.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Mordo betrays his master and allies after being treated like a despised mad dog for much of the film and being rejected as a candidate for being the next Ancient One despite years of training and loyalty.
- My Greatest Failure: Strange was unable to save his sister.
- Mythology Gag:
- A Dr. Donald Blake works at the same hospital as Strange.
- At the end, Wong tells Strange about a new student named Clea. And the way the movie ends with the door closing at Strange could signify their eventual romance.
- Not So Stoic: Wong's fairly stoic, but he breaks down when he sees the Ancient One lying dead.
- Old Master: Don't let the Ancient One's old age and apparent frailness fool you, he's not Sorcerer Supreme for nothing. It was he who sealed off Dormammu in the first place.
- Pure Magic Being: Dormammu. Strange exploits this in the final battle by using his ability to absorb magic to destroy him.
- Redshirt Army: The Ancient One's disciples. None of them have any namesnote and only appear for one purpose, to die horrible deaths to drive the point of how dangerous the situation is.
- The Resenter: Mordo's primary motivation seems to stem from his resentment over the fact that he believes he was passed over for the position of Sorcerer Supreme when the Ancient One found Stephen.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Adena stayed by the Ancient One's side to protect him. But she was overwhelmed by the Wing Mark who devour her alive, and the Ancient One used all his power to destroy them, leaving him too weak to prevent his own demise by his former pupil Mordo.
- The Swarm: The Wing Mark. A swarm of green creatures with rows of teeth led by Dormammu that can strip whatever living thing they come across to the bone in seconds. They cause the most amount of on-screen death in the movie by eating bystanders and all of the Ancient One's disciples save for Wong, Mordo, and Dr. Strange.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Dormammu is sealed within the Dark Dimension, but seeks to break free.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: A spell commonly used by the film's sorcerers.
- Stupid Evil: Mordo's reasons for siding with Dormammu over the Ancient One are not only petty, but rather impractical. Frankly it's amazing Dormammu actually took him up on his offer of an allegiance in the first place. Since other than killing the Ancient One, Mordo really couldn't offer the demon any real advantage over Strange anyway. Essentially, the only "good" use Dormammu got out of Mordo was the latter making it plain as day that Stephen was actively waking the former's coma victims.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dormammu puts hundreds (if not thousands) of children into coma's in order to use them as a means of creating a portal to Earth.
- Mordo has no problem killing the children, partly because of practicality and partly because he's insane.
- You Have Failed Me: Dormammu kills Mordo for his failure to kill Strange.
