History Main / MegaMawManeuver

* ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhost'' episode "Revenge of the Spider Woman". The title villain sends a fish-shaped submarine to capture Jan and Jace. As they are jet skiing on the ocean, the submarine surfaces, opens its bow like a mouth and swallows them.

* In ''Animation/CaptainPronin in Space'', after Pronin's first escape from the [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]]-looking villain, bounty hunters emerge from behind a moon and capture him in this way.
-->'''LetsPlay/{{Cr1tikal}}:''' "Aw shit! Space VideoGame/PacMan!"

While certainly an [[RuleOfCool interesting]] maneuver, it does pose several problems in RealLife. For one, its success hinges upon the maw ship being much larger and much faster than its victims. For another, the very real possibility of the target performing some desperate evasive action trying to get away would pose considerable danger. Sometimes {{Tractor Beam}}s are used to speed up the chase and/or [[JustifiedTrope explain away]] why the target isn't performing any evasive actions.

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* A hilarious variation could be the scene in ''Film/MarsAttacks'' where the US launches nukes, and the Martians deploy a tiny probe that sucks up the nukes into a balloon-like compartment, in which they explode harmlessly, the balloon probe containing everything. Then the Martians smoke the radioactive remains in some kind of space-bong.

Compare: SwallowedWhole, which is this trope but with monsters.
Compare: DrivingIntoATruck, which is the opposite of this trope.

** ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'': [[BigBad Ernst Stavro Blofeld]] has one of these, which he uses in {{False Flag Operation}}s to kidnap US and Soviet space capsules to start WW3 between them.
* The pirate spaceship from ''Film/SpaceTruckers''- again, a huge maw that swallowed smaller ships.

** The opening scene of ''Film/ANewHope'' features the Tantive IV's engines and weapons being disabled by a Star Destroyer, leaving it helpless as Darth Vader's ship tractors the corvette into its massive carrier bay.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'': As Rey and Fin are escaping in the ''Millennium Falcon'' the ship is suddenly overridden and a large transport engulfs the ship. They're certain it's the First Order but it's actually [[spoiler:Han Solo and Chewbacca]].

* ''Literature/LoneWolf'': In ''The Deathlord of Ixia'', Lone Wolf's ship is "swallowed" by a huge sea vessel shaped like a giant fish, and dry-docked inside. Then Drakkarim Zombies board it and slaughter the crew.

* Submarines are often equipped with these in the Litterature/RussalkaChronicles. They allow for a ship to recover equipment, buoys or debris without stopping. It's explicitly mention it's never used to recover people due to the risk of people [[CruelAndUnusualDeath slipping in between the "jaws" and being cut in two when it closes]]. The heroine is naturally saved in this fashion at one point (they didn't think there were any survivors).

* The Series/{{Lexx}}, a giant bioengineered insect/planet-destroyer could literally eat ships, provided they were roughly the size of a space shuttle.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek''
** The "Wisp" spaceship from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' had a huge maw that swallowed Enterprise.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': the Planet Killer, a giant ship that destroyed planets. In an inversion, they deliberately flew a starship into its maw to destroy it from the inside out.
** Happened a couple times in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. One race had a starship so large that they simply beamed ''Voyager'' inside to capture them. This seems to be the primary assimilation tactic of the Borg Sphere, which tries to do it to ''Voyager'' twice (it succeeds in the finale, though it didn't stick).

* A ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'' episode had a large sub pulling this to capture UEO transport subs.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In "Collective", a Borg cube draws one of Voyager's shuttles inside itself with a tractor beam. When the crew wake up, they're inside a vast chamber full of small spacecraft.

* The first episode of ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' has the air pirates harassing a Khan cargo plane. As the plane ducks into a cloud bank to try and hide, they fly right into the ''[[AirborneAircraftCarrier Iron Vulture]]'', the pirates' ship. It even has a mouth for such purposes.

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* The opening scene of ''Film/ANewHope'' features the Tantive IV's engines and weapons being disabled by a Star Destroyer, leaving it helpless as Darth Vader's ship tractors the corvette into its massive carrier bay.

* ''Film/TheForceAwakens'': As Rey and Fin are escaping in the ''Millennium Falcon'' the ship is suddenly overridden and a large transport engulfs the ship. They're certain it's the First Order but it's actually [[spoiler:Han Solo and Chewbacca]].

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* ''[[TheStainlessSteelRat The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You]]''. The Special Corps investigates the mysterious disappearance of a navy space station whose last message was: "THE TEETH!" He uses time travel to go back to the event and sees it swallowed by a planetoid sent by alien invaders, who carry the station back to their homeworld.

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** ''{{Series/Crusade}}'' presented an inversion, combining this with ComingInHot to rescue a disabled fighter [[LoopholeAbuse while under orders not to stop for anything]]. The ''Excalibur'' simply swallowed the fighter with the hangar bay and brought the fighter to a relative stop with the emergency arresting gear. The pilot was not told of this plan beforehand, [[OhCrap and didn't seem confident it would work.]]

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* One level of ''[[CrimsonSkies Crimson Skies: Highroad to Revenge]]'' has a giant zeppelin designed to eat other zeppelins.
* Happens in the intro of ''VideoGame/BattleToads'' when the small spaceship of one of the Battle Toads gets captured by the large starship of their foe.
* In ''VideoGame/FullThrottle'', the biker gang The Vultures drive a Jumbo Cargo Transport, a heavily modified cargo plane converted into a kind of truck capable of driving on highway-sized roads. While main character Ben battles the villain Ripburger on a semi, The Vultures assist by pulling up behind and swallowing the truck with their transport.
* Occurs at least once in the ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' series. In level nine of ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld 2}}'', Captain Soban's frigate is swallowed up into the hanger bay of a Vaygr carrier.

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* Occurs at least once in the ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' series. In level nine of Homeworld2, Captain Soban's frigate is swallowed up into the hanger bay of a Vaygr carrier.

* A ''SeaQuestDSV'' episode had a large sub pulling this to capture UEO transport subs.

* In the ''MortalEngines'' quadrilogy, most towns and cities (except those in Anti-Tractionist territories) have been converted into enormous tracked vehicles. In accordance with the philosophy of 'Municipal Darwinism', these settlements are fitted with 'jaws' that allow them to catch and dismantle other settlements and claim their resources; cities prey on towns, towns prey on suburbs, and "statics", non-mobile settlements, are the bottom rung of the food-chain and fair game for everyone else.

* The {{Lexx}}, a giant bioengineered insect/planet-destroyer could literally eat ships, provided they were roughly the size of a space shuttle.

In other words, if there was any real potential to this tactic, [[HollywoodTactics it probably would have been tried by now]].

* The Gemini Augmented Target Docking Adapter, also known as the [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Gemini_9_-_Augmented_Target_Docking_Adapter_%28The_angry_alligator%29.jpg "Angry Alligator"]] ''looks'' like this trope, but in fact the presence of the aerodynamic shroud that was normally jettisoned after launch ''prevented'' Gemini 9 from physically docking with it after the rendezvous.

* The Gemini Augmented Target Docking Adapter, also known as the [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Gemini_9_-_Augmented_Target_Docking_Adapter_%28The_angry_alligator%29.jpg "Angry Alligator"]] ''looks'' like this trope, but in fact the presence of the normally-jettisoned ''prevented'' Gemini 9 from physically docking with it after the rendezvous.

* The Gemini Augmented Target Docking Adapter, also known as the [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Gemini_9_-_Augmented_Target_Docking_Adapter_%28The_angry_alligator%29.jpg "Angry Alligator"]]

** ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'': [[BigBad Ernst Stavro Blofeld]] has one of these, which he uses to kidnap US and Soviet space capsules to start WW3 between them.