"What Goes Up..."

I wish I could solve this again so the experience could be relived!

Fantastic meta, Rick. And right you are on both counts. Wonderful construction!

Wonderful Memorial Day mental exercise, thanks Cap.

Nice! Thank you

Once I finally figured out that in this movie the STAR was not the HERO, everything fell into place. Or do I mean everything rose into place?

Very fun, thanks. Had the method halfway through, though I did share Bird Lives's HERO/ICON quandary. But of course trivial to sort it out when looking at the rest.

Wonderful meta, Rick! Took me a while to see what was going on, and had a bobble with TRAP, but ultimately it all became clear. Thanks for the puzzle!

Had to backsolve once I realized what the answer(s) had to be since I had STAR matched with HERO ("Protagonist") instead of ICON. But this puzzle definitely fulfilled both of its goals!

I have been in a meta slump lately, but this puzzle has given me back some of my confidence. Maybe I haven't lost my meta mojo, afterall. This was a delight to solve. Great construction. Thanks!

Just what I thought the mechanism would be as soon as I saw the title.

Like others I was stuck with hero = star.

Because of that I didn't see the order and assumed I had to do "trick" order and got... veirled???

YES IT DID! and NO IT IS NOT! thanks.

Well done, sir

One of your best... an that is saying a lot!

Mission accomplished.

Very nice!

Loved it!

I filled a page with possibilities that didn't make sense until, like others, substituted icon for hero. That was cleverly done, thanks!

In Ireland, so kind of de-livered this week as well. Thanks Cap’n Rick, great job as always!

Fun one, caught the meta early...but engineer not english major got tripped up on words. Thanks Cap'n

Most ingenious. I gave the meta one last STAB before looking at the nudges, and I ESPYed the first step. Took quite a while, though to figure out which other down entries were the alternates, but the grid finally DELIVERed the answer. Then it took a moment of "what next" before I saw I had the second answer under my nose. Quite a feat to accomplish all this with the vertical grid entries alone.

Great puzzle cap’n!

Fantastic meta, as always, Rick! So much fun to solve (and without the hints). Thank you!

nice construction! such a satisfying solve... i like how in most of your puzzles, you have us look all over the grid