History Main / UnnecessarilyLargeInterior

* The vault where the doors are stored in ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', which is larger than the rest of the factory put together ([[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7T9xWTmNPhI/S7zEv4j3ZMI/AAAAAAAAC6I/9Mat2UMjFRs/s1600/vlcsnap-147842.png See here]]). Sure, there's a lot of doors, but there's also a lot of empty space. The whole structure could be at least half the size if doors were stored in the middle and not just along the walls.

* The interior of most Imperial vessels in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' resemble cathedrals. Really, really big cathedrals, with GothicPunk skulls and eagles everywhere.
** Just the fancy parts where all the important people like captains and navigators work. The rest of the crew is stuck with tiny dirty cabins under the engine room, if they're lucky, or sharing a room like that with 20 other people.
*** So not unlike a modern-day warship or submarine then. Only, y'know, we in the modern-day navies don't have to deal with Hrud monsters under the floorboards.

* The dwarven city of Khazad-dûm in Jackson's ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing'' seems to consist of huge empty spaces with free-standing stairs on the edges and straight across. The book has mostly corridors and normal-sized rooms, with a few great halls.

** Taken to an even greater extreme with Erebor in ''Film/TheHobbit'', where the interior seems to consist largely of bridges and platforms supported by stone colossi, presumably because there was a whole extra dimension going to waste otherwise. It really benefits Smaug, who can fly inside the dwarf hold despite being twice the size of a Boeing 747.

** The cavernous core of Cloud City in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. Note that if you wanted to have an actual "Cloud City" in a gas giant's (or rather Venus-like) atmosphere, this would be the way to go -- basically, you would have the whole city as one huge airship floating far above the surface with little work needed to maintain it (and without explosive decompression/implosive? compression if you get a rupture in the hull, not to mention not having to use such strong materials in the first place). Obviously though, Cloud City from ''SW'' wasn't built like this (open views and active propulsion to maintain altitude) ...

** In ''Film/RogueOne'', [[spoiler:Darth Vader]]'s fortress on [[spoiler:Mustafar]] has a huge, all-black chamber with a central platform suspended over a {{Bottomless Pit|s}}... where a single guest is entertained for a two-minute conversation.
*** Justified, considering its Darth Vader. See the Real Life folder. Men with power and wealth build very big things

Most video games with a FreeRotatingCamera will have even supposedly humble cottages and claustrophobic caves that are actually huge [[CameraScrew so as to avoid the camera hitting things all the time]]. This is less prevalent in first-person views, much more so in third-person.

* You see this kind of thing ''everywhere'' in ''VideoGame/SecondLife'', in part because realistically-scaled rooms and corridors [[CameraScrew wreak havoc on camera position]].

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

** A justified example is the monster holding facility in [[{{Area51}} Area 52]]. It was meant to house thousands of monsters of various sizes. The "unnecessarily" part comes from the fact that it never seems to house more than a handful at any given time. It would be necessary for any time they wanted or needed to move Insectasaurus.

** Starfleet ships in the reboot ''[[Film/StarTrek2009 Star Trek]]'' movies. The use of real world locations like the National Ignition Facility as filming sets results in the impression that the ship interiors are mostly empty space. Jefferies Tubes have been replaced by catwalks. The ''Enterprise'' even has a huge multi-story atrium that serves no apparent purpose other than RuleOfCool (and a place for people to be tossed around when the ship goes out of control).

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': Strictly, this is an unnecessarily large ''exterior'', but the garden of Hakugyokurou in the Netherworld is well over 1000 kilometers long. Luckily, the gardener is capable of superhuman speed. The Scarlet Devil Mansion's library is also known to be quite large (and BiggerOnTheInside), but whether it actually qualifies as this trope is unclear.

* The [[UsefulNotes/AncientRome Roman Empire]] positively adored this trope. As the first hardcore users of the monumental arch, the dome, concrete and other innovations that allowed for construction of mega-structures, they loved to show off their power by building structures with massively spacious interiors. Buildings like the Baths of Caracalla, the Pantheon and Hagia Sophia were designed specifically to awe people with vast, open, interior spaces. The Gothic Cathedral architecture mentioned above was itself inspired by Roman architecture.

** Gallaxhar's ship is, for no readily apparent reason, sized to fit a [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever nearly 50 foot tall woman]]. The hanger bays have giant robots that need the room but the rest of the ship has a ridiculously spacious interior despite the fact that the corridors leading to it cannot fit the robots and it's doubtful "rampage by giant woman" was taken into account when the ship was built.

* Niander Wallace's headquarters in ''Film/BladeRunner2049'' is not only a building that dwarfs the nearby former HQ of the Tyrell Corporation that he bought out but is filled with mostly empty rooms with only a few staff members ever seen. In a place as crowded as future Los Angeles he shows his wealth and power by being able to afford to waste so much space.

** In ''Film/RogueOne'', [[spoiler:Darth Vader]]'s fortress on [[spoiler:Mustafar]] has a huge, all-black chamber with a central platform suspended over a BottomlessPit... where a single guest is entertained for a two-minute conversation.