History Main / GiantRobotHandsSaveLives

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

[[caption-width-right:237:[[NoConservationOfEnergy Good of Jetfire to notice]].]]

* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''{{Anime/Shinkon Gattai Godannar}}'', where the super robot has an inflatable airbag that comes out of the palm of its hand.

** It was later lampshaded in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Zeta Gundam]]'' when [[TheCaptain Quattro]] comments on how skilled [[AcePilot Amuro]] is to catch an antique plane with his suit's hands without killing the pilot.

* Inverted and played with at the beginning of the {{TabletopGame/BattleTech}} novel ''The Highlander Gambit''. A team of Death Commandos (Elite soldiers of the Capellan Confederation) are going through an exercise that was, in essence, a hostage rescue. The protagonist was carrying the dummy that represented the hostage, and to evacuate it while being pursued by enemy 'Mechs, threw it across a lake, landing near the rescue team that was to take the 'hostage' away. During the debriefing, the CO commented that a real human would have been severely injured, but the protagonist stated that there were medics in the Evac team and better severely injured than dead or in enemy hands and able to give up sensitive information.

** An interesting variant is in ''Film/TurboAPowerRangersMovie'', where the characters are already on the ground. The Turbo Megazord lowers its hand to allow the civilian Ranger assistants [[AndZoidberg plus Bulk and Skull]] to climb up...and then promptly locks its hand into a tight fist, presumably crushing the occupants to death. Obviously, they were fine later, but it was a bit jarring. "Oh, yeah, come on up guys, let me give you a [[IncrediblyLamePun hand]]...CRUNCH."

** There's a variation in this in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration Gaiden'': Kyosuke saves Lamia from the Bartolls by plugging her directly out of the cockpit, which only worked out because Lamia is an [[ArtificialHuman android]]... but then {{Deconstructed}} because just because someone is in a robot's hand doesn't mean the person is completely safe, as she ends up getting shot down and thought to be killed only to come back later BrainwashedAndCrazy. And then it's Axel's turn to repeat the same to restore her for real, and he has better luck because there's no one hiding in the shadow trying to shoot his hand down when he's not expecting.

[[caption-width-right:237:[[NoConservationOfEnergy Good of Jetfire to notice.]]]]

In general, the hand of a HumongousMecha would not really be safe for a human being to fall on, what with them being made of metal and all.

* In ''[[Franchise/TransformersFilmSeries Transformers]]'' Optimus Prime catches Sam when he falls from a building. In this case, at least, he seems to be lowering his hand as he catches him to slow him down.
** Although, in the same movie Bumblebee snatches both Sam and Mikaela out of midair while moving at high-speed.
*** Right before that, the two of them had fallen from Optimus Prime's shoulder, who tried to catch them with his foot - which ''could'' have slowed them down to the point that Bumblebee could safely snatch them from the air...except the sound they make when they hit it is ''horrible'', and suggests they cracked their ribs. Of course, they were fine.
** Done slightly more realistically in the third one. Bumblebee flips through the air and grabs Sam and Lennox, and then continues to flip through the air until he lands. Only then does he let them go.

* ''{{Manga/MAR}}'': In an example that crosses over between this and SoftWater, Snow saves herself from a fall which the watching characters clearly expect her to go ''splat'' from, by calling on her giant snowman and landing safely in it's hand.

** An interesting variant is in the ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'' movie, where the characters are already on the ground. The Turbo Megazord lowers its hand to allow the civilian Ranger assistants [[AndZoidberg plus Bulk and Skull]] to climb up...and then promptly locks its hand into a tight fist, presumably crushing the occupants to death. Obviously, they were fine later, but it was a bit jarring. "Oh, yeah, come on up guys, let me give you a [[IncrediblyLamePun hand]]...CRUNCH."

* Subverted by the giant robot on the album cover of Music/NewsOfTheWorld by Music/{{Queen}}, who accidentally killed the band members.
** The cover was done by artist FrankKellyFreas, based on one he did for ''AstoundingScienceFiction''.

** The Gaia Colossus does one of these after the final battle in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', but [[JustifiedTrope it is justified]] in that Sonic's fall is decelerated before impact.

* Happened at least twice during ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', the first time to a girl, the second time to Bulk and Skull who were in a bus. Interestingly, there are actually two "Megazord hands" used in the series. Normally it's metal, but it was a black glove in the scenes when someone needed to not smack into solid steel after falling a few hundred feet. Apparently, the viewer was expected to not notice. Even as kids, everyone did.

* The Franchise/{{Gundam}} franchise has a few examples of this:

* Suzaku in ''Anime/CodeGeass'', as seen [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vlcsnap-561040.jpg here]].

* The third issue of the ''{{Franchise/Bionicle}}'' comics had Onua save Tahu from a fall this way. Possibly justified by the fact that ''both'' participants are MechanicalLifeforms.

*** ''Anime/MacrossDoYouRememberLove'' version of this scene also has Hikaru catching a falling Minmei with the hands of his Valkyrie after matching velocity, and great care is put into the animation of how the Valkyrie's hand closes around her ''very very gently'' before starting to slow down. But because he didn't have ''that'' much room to slow down, and was forced to waste a lot of it matching speeds in the first place, Hikaru then proceeds to crash at terminal velocity into an abandoned portion of the ''Macross''.

* Super Dimensional Fortress ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' and ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' which its based from both have a version of this, with a giant VF-1 Valkyrie hand taking hold of a girl to 'catch' her while the pilot tried to match her fall. The hand gets blown off and he has to get her into the cockpit from it as well.
** The ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' novelizations make a point of describing just how insane the maneuver was and the difficulty of matching her velocity and maneuvering in relation to her in free-fall.

** ''Anime/MacrossDoYouRememberLove'' when Hikaru catches a falling Minmei with the hands of his Valkyrie after matching velocity, and great care is put into the animation of how the Valkyrie's hand closes around her ''very very gently'' before starting to slow down. But because he didn't have ''that'' much room to slow down, and he wasted a lot of it matching speeds in the first place, Hikaru then proceeds to crash at terminal velocity into an abandoned portion of the Macross.

** While show tends to play mech tropes straight, this trope is averted when the protagonist actually gets out of his mech to catch the girl in his arms.

* Worth mentioning that this is averted in ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', which is strange because it tends to play mech tropes straight. The protagonist actually gets out of his mech to catch the girl in his arms.
** They use a HumongousMecha hand to catch a... [[HumongousMecha slightly more reasonable sized mecha]]. Does that count?
** There actually is an instance. Yoko falls out of the Gurren's cockpit while it's flying, and Simon pilots the thing to catch her. Then it gets knocked into the AirborneAircraftCarrier...but it's still averted in that he flies down to catch her and matches speeds. She's also shown to be injured slightly from the impact afterwards.

* Worth mentioning that this is averted in ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', which is strange because it tends to play mech tropes straight. The protagonist actually gets out of his mech to catch the girl in his arms. This troper also swears that there has to be at least one instance in the show where it's actually done.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory''. The Dee-Dee bot evacuates island natives when a volcano erupts but she dumps them in shark infested waters.

->''Don't worry, Optimus was using his soft legs to try and catch Sam and Mikayla.''

* Happened at least twice during ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', the first time to a girl, the second time to Bulk and Skull who were in a bus. Interestingly, there are actually two "Megazord hands" used in the series. Normally it's metal, but it was a black glove in the scenes when someone needed to not smack into solid steel after falling a few hundred feet. Apparently, the viewer [[ViewersAreMorons was expected to not notice]]. Even as kids, everyone did.

* ''Film/HellboyII''. Okay, he's not a robot, but the principle is still the same; Hellboy throws a baby in the air and catches it with his hand. You know, the one that's made of solid rock. And not just a few feet, either, we're talking a good three to five meters, enough to wind up the firing mechanism on his custom {{BFG}}. [[LampshadeHanging The public calls him out for being reckless with the baby once he's dispatched the monster.]]

* Though not a robot, the Hulk does this in ''Film/TheAvengers'' for [[spoiler: Iron Man. This one is actually justified as he has survived some high impact collisions in that suit. If a jet hitting it didn't kill him being caught by The Hulk wouldn't either]].