History Main / TheGreatWall

Do not confuse with Film/TheGreatWall the 2017 epic movie.

* In ''Film/PacificRim'', the government decides to shut down the Jäger program in favor of building a wall to keep the Kaiju at bay and the cities safe. [[EpicFail A lone Kaiju rips the wall open in a matter of hours]].

* Hadrian's Wall and the other ''limes'' walls of AncientRome, built for keeping Celtic and Germanic tribes at bay. In a subversion, GeorgeMacdonaldFraser believes that their real purpose was not to keep raiders from getting out but from getting ''back''. It may not be much trouble for a reasonably strong war party to get through but they have to take all their stolen cattle, and of course if they abandon them there is not much point in going on a raid in the first place.

* UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump has advocated building a wall between the US and Mexico and [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment that's all we'll say on the subject]].

* ''Film/{{Monsters|2010}}'' has a huge wall being built at the Mexican border to prevent giant aliens from entering the US, though it's proving not to be very successful. Those living in the Infected Zone joke that the giant wall erected around them by the US government will eventually be built around the world.

* Shorter security walls were built by the British military authorities in [[TheTroubles northern Ireland]] along the dividing lines between Protestant and Catholic Irish to prevent ethnic hostility.

Do not confuse with Film/TheGreat Wall the 2017 epic movie.

* One issue of 'ComicBook/Exiles'' had the group land in a world where Curt Conners/The Lizard injected his regeneration formula into several people (starting with his wife), thus creating a whole race of lizard people... who reproduced like lizards, as in groups of eggs. The U.S. government decided to simply let the Lizards have the entire state of California, building a giant wall all along the coast, that was watched over by heavily-armed guards.

* In ''The Great Wall'', China's most expensive film to date, Creator/MattDamon aids the ancient Chinese when monsters attack the title Wonder of the World.

May be an AbsurdlyIneffectiveBarricade if it doesn't work. Compare InsurmountableWaistHighFence. InvisibleWall works like that.

May be an AbsurdlyIneffectiveBarricade if it doesn't work. Compare InsurmountableWaisthighFence. InvisibleWall works like that.

It's similar to TheWallAroundTheWorld, except that this is more about separating two realms from each other, whereas TheWallAroundTheWorld is about separating one realm from everything else. The most famous RealLife example is, of course, [[TropeNamer The Great Wall of China]], which may have been the inspiration for many fictional Great Walls, although the Berlin Wall and Hadrian's Wall have also been influential.

** The city walls of Xi'an (also historically known as Chang'an) certainly warrant the name as well, as did most large cities' fortifications from Imperial China. In Xi'an's case, the walls are nearly fifty feet thick in some places and forty feet high. Into the late 19th century, the British, armed with industrial period artillery and high explosive shells considered the walls of Beijing nearly indestructible. Nowadays, people drive small cars and ride the bicycles along the walls of Xi'an, amidst heavy foot traffic.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': The first Dragon Emperor of [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Cathay]] had a massive wall built along it's northern border to protect it from the [[GrimUpNorth Chaos Wastes]], called the Great Bastion. It extends hundreds of miles in length and its great size requires a garrison of tens of thousands to man it.

* In ''Film/{{Doomsday}}'', an unknown killer virus has infected Scotland, turning people into savage animals and killing the host. The UK government cannot quarantine the virus because they have neither cure nor vaccine, and they decide to build a 60-foot containment wall over the border with Scotland, isolating it from the rest of Britain.

* The film {{Film/Doomsday}} has one of these separating England from plague-ravaged Scotland. It used to be manned, but nowadays is guarded by motion-tracking turrets, with the only maintenance required being people to maintain the turrets and reload them. Surprisingly enough, unlike most of the examples on this page, it actually ''works...'' though it doesn't stop the plague from getting into England.

** They are also unable to prevent the forest from spreading and reaching the Wall, concealing the ground in front of it, except in front of their forts, by sending axemen cut the trees regularly.

* In ''Film/PacificRim'', mankind begins building walls as a last-ditch effort to keep the Kaiju out. It's clear from the outset that it won't work.