History Main / MagicCountdown

* During the climactic arc of ''Anime/MahouShoujoLyricalNanohaStrikers'', it's established that the heroes have two hours to prevent [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the Cradle]] from reaching orbit, or else all of Mid-Childa will be in danger. At the end of Episode 22, the timer stands at one hour, 44 minutes. At the end of Episode 24, forty minutes of screentime later, the timer has advanced by just nine minutes. Possibly justified by the [[FourLinesAllWaiting sheer number of parallel plot threads]] the anime bounces between during those episodes, but it's still kind of jarring.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
** In "The End", the countdown to the eclipse shown makes no sense whatsoever: it starts counting down from 24 hours after recess, indicating the eclipse is at the same time the next day, but the eclipse seems to happen the evening of the same day. Gumball and Darwin get three hours detention between two scenes, but the time shown for both indicate about thirty minutes passing. After dinner Gumball, Darwin, and Richard seemingly rush to get supplies, but the time stamps show it took them ''eight hours'' just to get into the car, and it's somehow still day time.
** In "The Bet", Bobert counts down to ten seconds to detonatation, but each "second" takes more like three to ten seconds.

* The opening credits of ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeTheMovie'' have Cobra attempting to [[MonumentalBattle blow up the Statue of Liberty]]. First, when Cobra Commander starts bringing out the bomb they intend to use, the clock is shown at 5 minutes and then shifts to 3 minutes a few seconds later. Then Duke moves the bomb from the statue to Cobra's airship, taking about 20 seconds longer than the clock should have allowed.

* Happens in ''Film/VanHelsing'': it sure takes that clock a long time to strike twelve.

* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2''. Eggman explicitly instructs that a bomb be set to blow in fifteen minutes. After the five minutes of the Security Hall stage go by, we see that Rouge is in a holding cell with the bomb counting down past 10 minutes. The following stage has the time limit of 10 minutes, so not counting the duration of the boss battles and cutscenes it's accurate… then there's a stage with an eight-minute timer. A more traditional example occurs when Shadow reaches the bomb. The bomb bleeps to indicate when a second passes, even when the camera isn't facing it. There are more bleeps than there are seconds on the clock.
** The 8-minute level is on the hero path, however, while the 10-minute level is on the villain path. It's possible to complete the 10-minute level in under two minutes, followed by a quick boss fight, leaving eight minutes for the hero path to get out of there (and for Shadow to actually reach Rouge in the vault).

* JustifiedTrope in ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'' by having SentientShip Nell suffer battle damage and get confused as to what part of the countdown to self-destruct she's at. She pulls herself together in time to blow up Sador's ship and win the eponymous battle.

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' has a timer that obligingly slows down to let people to hear one character's FamousLastWords and for another to have a brief farewell conversation, while still having time left to [[spoiler: fly a nuclear bomb far enough from the city to leave it untouched.]]

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* The opening credits of ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeTheMovie'' have Cobra attempting to [[MonumentalBattle blow up the Statue of Liberty]]. First, when Cobra Commander starts bringing out the bomb they intend to use, the clock is shown at 5 minutes and then shifts to 3 minutes a few seconds later. Then Duke moves the bomb from the statue to Cobra's airship, taking about 20 seconds longer than the clock should have allowed.
[[/folder]]

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens'' when the countdown ends with nothing happening. The computer starts saying that it must have made a mistake... then the spaceship blows up anyway.

* An entire episode of ''Manga/SlamDunk'' not only takes place during a single shot, from release to entering the basket, but during the last few seconds of a game. While the flashbacks can be attributed to moving at the speed of though, the internal monologue shouldn't.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' (a kids' show!) movie "Our War Game", a virus called Diaboromon has launched a missile somewhere in the world. Diaboromon sends a menacing but childish email to them, asking, "which one has the clock?". They then have ''ten minutes'' to destroy him and the '''million''' copies he's made of himself. Despite not actually showing the clock constantly, it keeps counting with near-perfect accuracy. When the missile crashes in full view of their ''window'', they find that they prevented the detonation of a '''[[NuclearWeaponsTaboo nuclear warhead]]''' by 1/100 of a second. Justified because it took ten minutes for the missile to reach ''Odaiba, Tokyo'' from the US.
** In the Japanese version, the entire countdown took 9 minutes and 51 seconds of screen time, with everything before the last minute being slightly fast. The last half-minute took 45 seconds to elapse. (The half-minute before that took exactly 30 seconds, though.) You could hear the one-second beeps in the background.
** The English version is slightly faster, at 9 minutes and 7 seconds. Mostly it's because they edited lots of stuff out.

* Somewhat averted in ''Film/{{Virtuosity}}'', because Sid's last bomb speeds up the countdown whenever it detects countermeasures... and then breaks down.

* Averted in ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'' by having SapientShip Nell malfunctioning due to battle damage, so she keeps messing up the SelfDestructMechanism's countdown.
* The shrink ray in ''Film/FantasticVoyage'' lasts for 60 minutes, accompanied by a real-time clock in the operating room.
* In the climax of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', [[spoiler: two minutes and thirty seconds of screen time actually pass between the deployment and explosion of the nuke intended for Manhattan.]]
* In ''Film/RurouniKenshinTheLegendEnds'', the BigBad is told that his anhidrosis will kill him if he spends more than fifteen minutes in intense physical activity. The final climax battle lasts about that long, at which point it kills him.
* Averted in ''Film/JudgeDredd''; in order to get back into Mega City 1, Dredd and Fergie need to run through a furnace which activates every 30 seconds (as Dredd explains). Upon running in, Fergie begins counting down until he falls over, leading to Dredd having to create an impromptu exit as the fire reaches them. Counting down from where Fergie left off yourself reveals that it was 30 seconds and they both narrowly avoid being roasted.

---->'''Daniel:''' What difference does it make, I mean it's not like you have an actual ticking clock on the screen.\\

* Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'' with the first Subspace bomb. When the picture cuts away from the bomb, it has 7 seconds to go. Exactly 5 seconds later, the timer is at 2 seconds. On the other hand, there are several situations where, within moments, it will jump from almost 3 minutes to ''less than 5 seconds.''
* Averted in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'': during the final escape scene, the three minutes countdown takes cinematics into account. Skipping said cinematics will NOT give you three full minutes.

* Many sports games will have a clock that starts with the same amount of time as a real life game, but the clock will run at very fast speed ''except'' at the beginning of each play, and for the last minute or so. This results in oddities in some games, such as EA's line of NHL games that, on top of the above examples, also slows down during penalties (so the speed of the penalty clock matches that of the game clock); a game with more penalties will actually last longer.
* Played with in ''Spy Party'', where the spy has a limited amount of time to complete their objectives, and both the spy and the sniper have a timer on top of the screen - however, the spy can check their watch to add time. This will always add time, but both a normal success and a failure have the clock graphically change its time (a failure adds a loud noise as well) causing the sniper to zero in on whoever is checking their watch. A critical success will add time by having the clock seemingly remain unchanged, but ''tick down more slowly''.

* In ''WebAnimation/CharlieTheUnicorn 4'', [[spoiler:the time bomb the other two unicorns set up to blow up the moon stays consistent. Made obvious since there's a beep every time a second ticks down, even when the bomb is offscreen.]]
* In ''WebVideo/BleachSAbridged'', the above-mentioned Ichigo vs. Grimmjow battle is ''not'' subjected to this (with the end of the episode even helpfully showing the time elapsed between Ichigo [[spoiler:putting on his Hollow mask and it breaking]] is exactly 11 seconds), with the fight sped up as Ichigo yells NoTimeToExplain to Grimmjow's repeated questioning of what the hell is going on.

* Averted in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' episode "Mayhem of the Music Meister!" when Batman and Black Canary are in a death trap which includes a time bomb. The timer counts down in real time. It ''better'' be accurate. The timer runs on a metronome!

* A segment of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', named appropriately "Five Minute Warning," has Garfield needing to avoid eating for five minutes to receive a cake. When the countdown starts, a timer appears in the corner of the screen and counts down in real time.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', Rainbow Dash says she can clear out the clouds over Ponyville in "ten seconds flat." It indeed takes exactly ten seconds in real time.

* Invoked in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'', where the self-destruct bomb is disarmed well before it goes off, but the timer continues counting down until it reaches one second. This happened because the alien race that made the bomb was imitating a sci-fi TV show.
* In ''Film/CitizenToxieTheToxicAvengerIV'', a bomb is set off with only four seconds on it. Those four seconds are just long enough for Toxie to go home and impregnate his wife, have a heart to heart with young drug addict, and then get the survivors out before his sidekick [[HeroicSacrifice eats the bomb]].
* ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'':
** There's a scene where two lazy guards standing at a gate see Sir Lancelot running towards them from a distance. The scene shifts between them and him repeatedly, and he's always just emerging into view at about the same distance. Then he's suddenly right upon them.
** It is explained [[OverlyLongGag at length]] that when the HolyHandGrenade is primed one should hold it for a count of absolutely no more than three. King Arhur proceeds to count 1, 2, 5. Then when someone corrects him says three. ''Then'' he throws it. It blows up at the right time anyway.
* ''Film/AustinPowersTheSpyWhoShaggedMe'': Dr. Evil stops Frau from the usual ten second countdown to his rocket blasting off, as he won't be able to get inside in time. He has her start over at thirty, but this leaves quite some time to go after everything's ready. Finally he tells her to just say "Go" when the doors close.

* Parodied in the book and game ''VideoGame/StarshipTitanic'', wherein a nuclear bomb (voiced by Creator/JohnCleese) can be made to forget its place during the countdown, at which point it starts counting down from one thousand again. [[spoiler:It will explode however, if you finish the game before defusing it.]]
* Subverted in the ''VideoGame/{{Freehold}}'' novel. A trainee is trying to disarm a bomb with a timer. He takes a moment of respite, as there's plenty of time left... then the (fake) bomb goes off. AnAesop on how bad guys in the ''Freehold'' future have read the EvilOverlordList.
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheLostFleet''. While nobody actually sets one off, ''everybody'' on both sides firmly believes that the timers on humpnums (Human Portable Nuclear Munitions) are fake and that the bomb will go off almost immediately after starting the clock to prevent anyone on the other side from disarming it.

* In the timed bonus levels of ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'' (the original), the narrator's voice (you know, the WizardNeedsFoodBadly guy) would count down the last ten seconds before you failed to clear the level and get the bonus. Sometimes he'd [[UnreliableNarrator mix up the numbers]] as a joke.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': In one episode, [[spoiler:Della]] ends up trapped in a room with a DescendingCeiling while Dewey is in the other room with a video counting down to crushing. The video takes a comedically long time to count down from ten, to the point where entire seconds pass between counting ''fractions'' of seconds.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer King Size Homer]]", Homer is charged with manually venting the gas on a reactor [[NoOSHACompliance (the switch placed on top of the reactor in question)]]. The plant's workers are currently occupied doing Mr. Burns's exercise routine, and their current and final stretch is set for ten reps. These reps are then treated as a substitute countdown timer despite no causal link between the exercise and the reactor.
---> "Five-hy-ya-ya!"
** In the beginning of "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E20TheTroubleWithTrillions The Trouble with Trillions]]", the new year's ball malfunctions when it gets to 8. Chief Wiggum shoots the ball and it falls down immediately, causing everybody counting down to say "sevensixfivefourthreetwoone!"
* Averted in one ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode, when Dr. Drakken [[TaughtByExperience wises up enough to dispense with a countdown because of this trope]].
-->'''Drakken:''' During the time it takes the computer voice to count backwards from ten, you always manage to defeat me. Not anymore!
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an episode of the ''Film/AttackOfTheKillerTomatoes'' cartoon (much like every trope used in the cartoon--it was that kind of show) when the heroes have to escape an exploding enemy base before a bomb's timer runs out.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'': In "Scary Oddparents", Crash Nebula arrives in the nick of time to stop the evil Pumpkinator: "I can stop you in LESS than ten seconds!" Unfortunately, the Pumpkinator reacts by cheating and speeding up the timer. (Cue Big Kaboom followed by BigNo.)

* The opening credits of ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeTheMovie'' have Cobra attempting to [[MonumentalBattle blow up the Statue of Liberty]]. Duke moves the bomb from the statue to their airship, taking about 20 seconds longer than the clock should have allowed.

* Averted in one ''[[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar Hokuto no Ken]]'' episode, in which Kenshiro used the Zan Kai Ken on the KingMook [[MonsterOfTheWeek of the Week]]. After explaining the Mook he would die seven seconds after being released (3 in the manga), he removes his thumbs from the mook's temples. A counter appears on the bottom on the screen, and the mook suffers a painful and gruesome death at the near-exact moment the counter reaches zero. Badass indeed.

* In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' during the final battle, Liquid starts a 3 minute countdown and proceeds to explain how it works for 30 seconds, giving you only 2 1/2 minutes for the actual battle. Should you die and continue, however, the game skips the exposition and goes straight to the battle where you have a full 3 minutes instead.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' has a truly bizarre example. All the gameplay countdowns do this, but during one of them, there's a codec conversation in which [[spoiler:a bomb is announced to have less than thirty seconds left on the clock. Twenty-odd seconds later, it blows up, averting the trope]] while the other countdown is frozen until you reach the next area.

* The final battle in ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis 2'' pits you against the fanatical Ernesto Diaz and the prototype of his nuclear satellite, with the real one just seconds from being launched into space. How many there are supposed to be is unclear, because no matter how long this battle takes, Diaz ''always'' goes down just as the rocket is about to launch, whereupon the ruined prototype smashes a hole in the rocket, causing it and the entire launch pad to dramatically get blown up real good. Presumably the Namco staff wanted to maintain a semblance of the [[ArtifactTitle every-second-counts tension of the first game]] but didn't feel like making three endings.

* Occurs in the FinalBoss fight of ''VideoGame/Portal2''. At the beginning, a timer shows you have five minutes before you succumb to the neurotoxin the final boss is pumping into the room. After you finish the first stage (which knocks out the neurotoxin emitters...somehow), the second stage gives you four minutes before the entire Enrichment Center explodes in an atomic fireball due to a reactor meltdown. You can beat that stage with as little as one second left, but the third stage starts over at precisely two minutes, and even after you finish that, the conclusion is a TakeYourTime. You could go eat lunch and the place will still be about to explode. There is a subtle LampshadeHanging of this when the automated announcer declares after the second stage that the reactor explosion timer has been destroyed. Not the explosion itself, mind you, the ''timer'' for the explosion. Of course, this being Aperture, the third timer[[note]]activated by the "reactor explosion uncertainty emergency preemption protocol"[[/note]] is a self-destruction timer to prevent the uncertainty that would result if they didn't know exactly ''when'' they were going to die.
* The timer until the ship's engines explode in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' seems precise… but when it disappears for a scripted event, the timer actually pauses and doesn't restart until it appears on screen again. This is probably to let the player watch the scripted event without feeling the need to just drive straight past it (since driving past the event triggers the timer to restart earlier), but it's still a case of this trope.
* The boat you are trapped on in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' is supposed to [[RaceAgainstTheClock sink in nine hours]], but you can [[TakeYourTime take as much time as you want]] solving the puzzles needed for your escape, and characters often engage in [[TalkingIsAFreeAction lengthy conversations]] that definitely should make them go over their nine hour time limit if you added them all up. [[spoiler:Part of this can be justified by the fact that you aren't actually on a sinking ship in the first place, and the players are meant to survive, so there really could be an artificial countdown that starts and stops when it's necessary. However, it's still played unambiguously straight in the final puzzle, in which you explicitly have six minutes to save young Akane, but the game lets you take as much time as you want like normal, instead of making it a TimedMission.]]

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' has the contestants being given the task of escaping a building set to blow up in 30 seconds. After 1 minute and 13 seconds, the timer is at 15 seconds. When the countdown ends, a total of 2 minutes and 10 seconds has passed. Some possible FridgeBrilliance : since that season's challenges were based on movies, of course it would follow this.
* PlayedForLaughs in a ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' [[ThreeShorts short]], "One Minute Till Three", which has a ten minute running time. There's one minute left in the school day, and Granny is asking all the students impossible questions and assigning increasingly large amounts of homework as punishment for wrong answers. The focus is on Plucky Duck, as he desperately hopes that the clock will reach 3:00 before Granny calls on him. Highlights include Plucky saying "This must be the longest sixty seconds in the history of Acme Acres" and the clock (which has no second hand) moving ''backwards'' while Plucky watches.
* In the "Our Neighborhood Festival" episode of ''WesternAnimation/BluesClues'', Periwinkle states that there's five seconds till the fireworks start. Joe and guest star Marlee Matlin then step forward so that Joe can address the viewers and he suggests that everyone count down together from five. Only after the countdown (which itself takes a fair bit longer than five seconds) is complete do the fireworks actually start.
* In the opening of ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'', the timer Sally sets actually counts down ''faster'' when it's not on-screen. Potentially justified in that a few seconds could have been skipped between some of the camera changes (though that would be odd).
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E24Homerpalooza Homerpalooza]]", when [[ItMakesSenseInContext Homer is waiting to deliberately take a cannonball to the stomach that he knows will kill him]], the fuse on the cannon is shown burning most of the way from beginning to end several times between shots of something else.

* In the ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' OVA ''Battle at Hidden Falls. I Am the Hero!'', Shibuki is told he has 10 seconds to reveal his location before Suien kills a villager. Naruto's short speech about bravery takes considerably longer. During her fight with Sasori in ''Manga/{{Naruto}} Shippuden'', Sakura counts down the time left before her antidote wears off. Apparently one entire episode is just under two minutes.

* In episode 139 of ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' (which was titled "Ichigo vs Grimmjow, the 11 Second Battle"), Ichigo can [[spoiler:use his Hollow mask and the subsequent power up]] for 11 seconds. Just the scenes with Ichigo [[spoiler:using the mask]] already take up about a minute, so even assuming everything's simultaneous doesn't explain it. The concept of events happening at extremely high speed is rather stretched.
* Factoring in all ecstatic collapses, dramatic slow-motion door-opening, and lengthy yet vital inner expository monologues, the forty seconds in the ''Manga/DeathNote'' finale are inflated by approximately 850%. In the anime at least the inner expository of Light is justified, as every other movement is shown to stop. So his thoughts actually happen "instantly".

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' episode 3, Yusei is trying to escape through the maintenance shaft before trash from Neo Domino City comes rushing into Satellite like a tsunami. On the way, he duels Ushio, which in itself takes roughly 15 minutes. Yusei only has three minutes from entering the tunnel 'till the maintenance hatch closes. 10 minutes of the duel are spent in said tunnel. Furthermore, at one point, the timer says 1:40. 2 minutes later, it says 1:30.

* An entire episode of ''Manga/SlamDunk'' not only takes place during a single shot, from release to entering the basket, but during the last few seconds of a game. While the flashbacks can be attributed to moving at the speed of though, the internal monologue shouldn't.
* In the last episodes of Season 1 of ''Manga/FairyTail'', The Thunder Castle spell is said to have 1:30 til it goes off. After 5 minutes of telepathic discussion, there is still time to stop the spell from destroying everything.
* Used painfully straight and with reckless abandon in ''Manga/KurokosBasketball'', where characters can [[TalkingIsAFreeAction engage in a full minute's worth of conversation]] when there are only four seconds left on the clock.
* Arc BigBad Shishio of ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' is only capable of fighting for fifteen minutes at a stretch before he is in danger of his pre-existing health condition killing him. The duel between him and Kenshin (with other members of the cast joining in) lasts five half-hour episodes before said health condition kicks in.
* In the ''Stardust Crusaders'' portion of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', DIO has the power to [[TimeStandsStill completely stop time]] for a few seconds. There are a few scenes where [[TalkingIsAFreeAction he monologues to himself during stopped time]], and each passing second during then is really close to about eight in real time. The same thing happens with [[spoiler:Jotaro]] after his stand develops the same power, both in ''Stardust Crusaders'' and his appearances in later parts.

* Lampshaded but not explained, except just as being magic, in ''WesternAnimation/ThePolarExpress''.

* ''Film/IndependenceDay'': "Can you get us out of here in 30 seconds?" More like 1 minute and 30 seconds. Yet cut back to the bomb, which still has five seconds on it.

* The opening credits of ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeTheMovie'' have Cobra attempting to [[MonumentalBattle blow up the Statue of Liberty]]. Duke moves the bomb from the statue to their airship, taking about 20 seconds longer than the clock should have allowed.
* Happens in ''Film/VanHelsing'': it sure takes that clock a long time to strike twelve.
* ''Film/TheMask'': the countdown to the detonation of the conventional explosives in the club.
* The 30 seconds that Grandpa Seth freezes time for in ''Film/{{Troll 2}}'' must be some of the slowest seconds in the history of the world.
* The "one minute" it takes for the [=DeLorean=] in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' to reappear is actually about one minute and twenty seconds. Also, in the third movie time runs very slowly after the engine and time machine crash through the sign marking the last half mile of track. Covering the remaining distance at 88 mph should not take more than 20 seconds, but the engine takes the plunge much later. A possible in-universe example towards the end of the first part: The Doc sets a timer to indicate the precise moment Marty should begin his run at the cable so he'll hit it at the same time as the lightning strike. Although the Delorean cuts out causing Marty to leave late, he hits the cable at the right time anyway.
* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'':
** In ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', during the opening scene in the dungeon when the stone door is about to close down in front of Indy, time seems to stand still until Indy manages to sneak through under the door.
** Played both ways in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'': when the nuclear bomb is about to go off, an announcement says "one minute to zero time." The first 45 seconds take 30 seconds, and then the last 15 seconds take another 30 seconds.
* ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'' (1980). The countdown timer to the destruction of the Earth that Flash sets in War Rocket Ajax. Flash originally set the clock for 3 minutes 20 seconds. It finally counts down to zero more than 7 minutes of screen time later. It's blatantly clear at the very end. Just before Flash jumps out of the ship it shows 19 seconds left. After Ming is destroyed (?) it shows 2 seconds left, but it took 52 seconds of screen time for Flash to kill Ming.
* In ''Film/TheManhattanProject'', a nuclear bomb's timer is damaged by radiation, causing it to start the timer... With 999 hours until detonation. It seems the army have more than a month to deal with it, until they discover that [[spoiler: the timer counts down exponentially, to the point that it eventually counts down several hours per second]]. Might be a [[JustifiedTrope justification]] or outright parody.
* ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' has one of these when a bomb is planted on Luther's van.
* ''Film/FutureWar'' is probably the only example where the countdown goes faster than reality ''on screen''.

* In ''Film/MinorityReport'', an officer says they have 51 minutes and 28 seconds to stop Creator/TomCruise from [[spoiler:committing a murder. Since the murder occurs much sooner in the movie]], this appears to be a reversal of this trope, until one realizes that the time period mentioned was [[FridgeBrilliance the exact amount of running time left in the movie.]]
* Inverted in ''Film/SpaceCamp''. The accidentally launched shuttle is low on air, so the cadets fly to the partially assembled space station, where there is a cache of oxygen tanks. Ignoring the fact that the movie compresses the transit time to a few minutes, if you take the estimated amount of air left when they start the trip, and subtract the estimated transit time, the answer is considerably larger than the estimated amount of air left in the shuttle when they arrive. What were they doing to use up all that extra air?

** Related, in the episode Soultaker, they mock the movie for continuing to show the clock ''after'' the midnight deadline has passed:

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' has a timer that obligingly slows down to let people to hear one character's FamousLastWords and for another to have a brief farewell conversation, while still having time left to [[spoiler: fly a nuclear bomb far enough from the city to leave it untouched.]]
* ''Film/FightClub'': It takes about five minutes from the point where Tyler says "60 seconds"[[spoiler:, before the bombs actually go off]]. No countdown is shown or mentioned during that time, though.
* In ''Film/{{Gravity}}'', the time it takes for Stone's oxygen supply to drop from 5% to 1% is roughly the same time it takes it to drop from 1% to 0%. It's at least noted that Stone has a backup in the form of the air inside her suit itself (instead of the air tank), but that too lasts a surprisingly long time.
* Justified in ''Film/EaglesGathered'', since time (like everything else) seems to be nonlinear in the underworld. (The count even moves ''up'' a couple of times.)
* ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}'': A soldier sets a nuke's timer to about an hour and a half in what appears to be midday. The active bomb gets stolen and has to be taken out of the city before it detonates. The soldiers assigned to retrieve it enter the city at sunset and find the nuke with 30 minutes left on the clock. By the time it reads five minutes (and it's nighttime), the nuke manages to be put on a boat and driven out of range from the city. A one megaton bomb is capable of a blast 7 miles wide. Meaning that boat must have been traveling '''140 miles per hour''' ''at least''.
* The first ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie averts this in the climax- the countdown at [=MIB=] headquarters until the Arquillians destroy the Earth is at 8 minutes right before K and J shoot down the first ship the Bug attempts to escape in. About 7 minutes later, K has retrieved the Galaxy and calls Zed to tell him to tell the Arquillians they have their Galaxy back.
* Subverted for comedic effect in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'', where the crew have to cancel the ship's self-destruct. They press the big red button with 20 seconds to spare, but it continues to count down. As they panic, the countdown reaches 1 second and then [[spoiler:stops all by itself - because "it always stops at 1 on the show"]].
* In ''Film/TheTerrorOfTinyTown'', Nita lights the fuse on a bundle of dynamite and plants it under the floor of Haines' cabin. She flees and then Haines enters the cabin, followed by Buck. The two men get into a fight, but every time the camera cuts back to the dynamite, the fuse is still burning at the same point it was when Nita planted it. It eventually explodes just after Buck leaves the cabin in response to Nancy's yell.
* In the climax of ''Film/TheFly1986'', the countdown to [[spoiler: Romantic Fusion between Brundlefly and Veronica]] is set for two minutes, but the actual elapsed time to zero is about two minutes and 45 seconds. Beyond it not being ''that'' much longer, it could be justified as cross-cutting between the timer, Seth/Brundlefly's final OneWingedAngel transformation, and [[spoiler: Stathis managing to come to, get his gun, and shoot out the cables to Veronica's telepod]]. (Interestingly ''averts'' TransformationIsAFreeAction; the OneWingedAngel moment unfolds in less than 40 seconds of screentime and no one stops what they're doing during it ''because'' of that countdown.)

** ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' features a detonator set for 5 minutes. Then the camera cuts to other characters talking for 10 seconds. When we cut back to the detonator, only 10 seconds have passed. Cut to a fight scene for 10 more seconds. OK, now 2 minutes have passed on the detonator. Cut to another 10 second scene. Now the detonator has 10 seconds left before detonating. Cut to a character counting down 5,4,3,2,1. Cut to both Bond and Blofeld jumping out of the building scheduled to blow up. Only a good 20 seconds after the countdown is supposed to be over does the explosion actually happen.

* Used painfully straight and with reckless abandon in ''Manga/KurokoNoBasuke'', where characters can [[TalkingIsAFreeAction engage in a full minute's worth of conversation]] when there are only four seconds left on the clock.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

--> [[MediumAwareness "We sure get some dramatic writers for this show."]]
* Fanfic/LightAndDarkTheAdventuresOfDarkYagami employs this during the finale. Cyber Takeda fires a rocket hacking rocket to hack every single nuclear weapon in the world. At every army [[RougeAnglesOfSatin bass]] in the world, there are 10 seconds until the nukes fire. During the first second, there is a good portion of dialogue between the soldiers and the general, then when the timer hits 9 seconds, the general shouts "STOP HER!", during this short exclamation, the countdown hits 1 second, prompting the general to let out a BigNo as every nuke fires at once.

[[folder:Films — Animated]]

* ''Franchise/StarTrek''

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': In "Maveth", Simmons states the portal to the alien world will only stay open for 61 seconds. This is long enough for [[spoiler: Coulson and Ward to have an extensive fight sequence while Fitz is simultaneously trying to stop "It" from reaching the portal, Coulson to stop and waste precious time executing Ward after he's been neutralized, Coulson and Fitz to run to the portal, "It" to crawl out of Will's body, cross a considerable distance to Ward's, possess him, and go through the portal itself]]. In real time, it's roughly 5 minutes, and we didn't even see the entire escape onscreen. However, it's possible that Daisy was using her powers to extend that time artificially, which she had been shown to be capable of doing earlier in the season.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks "The Daleks"]]: A Dalek suddenly stops counting down when it became clear to the director that the action sequence would take much longer than the countdown.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E1DestinyOfTheDaleks "Destiny of the Daleks"]]: The countdown runs at normal speed when demoed, but too slowly when Romana is actually in peril from the bomb.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]]: The Doctor calculates that it will take the Atraxi 20 minutes to be ready to incinerate the Earth, so that's how much time he has to locate Prisoner Zero. The DVD commentary lampshades that more time than that (humourously exaggerated to ''45'' minutes in the commentary) passes onscreen before the Doctor says that he's got three minutes left.

* In the ''Series/{{Lost}}'' episode "The Other Woman", Daniel is attempting to neutralize poison gas. "Forty seconds to contamination," the computer says. Forty seconds later, it says, "Twenty seconds to contamination."

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers''

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Films — Animated]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Spoofed in ''Manga/BoboboboBobobo'': Denbo-chan can only stay for… two hours. Played straight, however, with Mr. Bo-Jiggler and Patchbobo.

[[folder:Films — Animated]]
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens'' when the countdown ends with nothing happening. The computer starts saying that it must have made a mistake... then the spaceship blows up anyway.

-->"Ten! Nine! Ei-"
-->''A FEW SECONDS LATER''
-->"-wo! One!"

'''Biobliterator CPU:''' Bye-bye! ''(explodes)''

* Considering how infamous it is in the fandom, ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' naturally parodied the entire exploding Namek sequence, with Goku [[IdiotHero of all people]] calling out Freeza's way off estimates.
--> '''Freeza:''' You're scared, aren't you? Afraid knowing this planet has one minute left before it explodes!\\
'''Goku:''' Question.\\
'''Freeza:''' Huh?\\
'''Goku:''' Do you have a watch?\\
'''Freeza:''' No, why?\\
'''Goku:''' Do you know what a minute is?\\
'''Freeza:''' What? Of course I do!\\
'''Goku:''' I don't think you do... \\
'''Freeza:''' Bu—I—uh—
** The same sequence is parodied in different way in the [[FunWithSubtitles English (Canada) subtitles]]. After Freeza makes his proclamation, they start a timer counting down in real time, only to exasperatedly re-set it whenever Freeza gives another (incorrect) estimate of how much time is left. They even get to negative numbers at one point before Goku calls Freeza out and they just give the whole thing up.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''

---->'''Professor Farnsworth:''' Five, four, three, two, three, four, five, six...
---->'''Leela:''' Just fire the damn thing.

* Subverted in an early episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants,'' as Squidward counts down to what he thinks is an explosion that will kill Spongebob.
-->'''Spongebob:''' Five! You do the rest, buddy!
-->'''Sqidward:''' Four... Three... Two... ONE!
-->{{beat}}
-->'''Spongebob:''' I guess we started too early. Let's go again!
-->'''Squidward:''' 5... 4... 3...
-->* kaboom!*
-->'''Squidward:''' [[CrossesTheLineTwice Twooooooo]]!

** In ''Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer'', Homer is charged with manually venting the gas on a reactor [[NoOSHACompliance (the switch placed on top of the reactor in question)]]. The plant's workers are currently occupied doing Mr. Burns's exercise routine, and their current and final stretch is set for ten reps. These reps are then treated as a substitute countdown timer despite no causal link between the exercise and the reactor.

* ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddparents'': In "Scary Oddparents", Crash Nebula arrives in the nick of time to stop the evil Pumpkinator: "I can stop you in LESS than ten seconds!" Unfortunately, the Pumpkinator reacts by cheating and speeding up the timer. (Cue Big Kaboom followed by BigNo.)

** There's even a few people who argue that he might have been referring to five ''Namekian'' minutes, not five ''Earth'' minutes. Since they were on another planet, time simply could have been measured differently.

* Occurs in the FinalBoss fight of ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}''. The first stage timer is the amount of time before you succumb to the neurotoxin the final boss is pumping into the room. After you finish the first stage (which knocks out the neurotoxin emitters...somehow), the second stage gives you four minutes before the entire Enrichment Center explodes in an atomic fireball due to a reactor meltdown. You can beat that stage with as little as one second left, but the third stage starts over at precisely two minutes, and even after you finish that, the conclusion is a TakeYourTime. You could go eat lunch and the place will still be about to explode. There is a subtle LampshadeHanging of this when the automated announcer declares after the second stage that the reactor explosion timer has been destroyed. Not the explosion itself, mind you, the ''timer'' for the explosion. Of course, this being Aperture, the third timer[[note]]Activated by the 'Reactor explosion uncertainty emergency preemption protocol'[[/note]] is a self-destruction timer to prevent the uncertainty that would result if they didn't know exactly ''when'' they were going to die.

* In the opening of ''WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM'', the timer Sally sets actually counts down ''faster'' when it's not on-screen. Potentially justified in that a few seconds could have been skipped between some of the camera changes (though that would be odd).

* The bakery mini-game in ''Disney/WreckItRalph'' is supposed to take precisely "one minute to win it", yet it lasts about thirteen seconds longer. Most of the extra time comes from the Mixing stage, where the clock starts to count down about half as fast as it should to hide that it takes a majority of the time. Toward the end of the Baking stage, the timer jumps down so that it's at 0:15 by the time Vanellope announces "Fifteen seconds!", but then it actually stops for a few seconds during the Decorating stage to leave enough time for the kart to finish.

* Near the middle of ''{{Disney/Frozen}}'', Anna asks Kristoff and Olaf to give her "a minute" alone to talk to Elsa. When Anna enters the ice palace, Kristoff and Olaf count the seconds, and then they go in after Anna [[ExactWords exactly one minute of screen-time later.]]

-->'''Professor Farnsworth:''' Five, four, three, two, three, four, five, six...
-->'''Leela:''' Just fire the damn thing.

--> "Five-hy-ya-ya!"

[[quoteright:350:[[Website/{{Cracked}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e1957a8d55ab59f7b3220dc61f031de1.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_82_if-hollywood-taught-science-class Such a nuisance that we've decided to start researching how we might prevent it.]]-]]]

* Spoofed in ''Manga/BoboboBoBoBobo'': Denbo-Chan can only stay for… two hours. Played straight, however, with Mr. Bo-Jiggler and Patchbobo.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' with the first Subspace bomb. When the picture cuts away from the bomb, it has 7 seconds to go. Exactly 5 seconds later, the timer is at 2 seconds. On the other hand, there are several situations where, within moments, it will jump from almost 3 minutes to ''less than 5 seconds.''