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| 6 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
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| 13 | [[quoteright:350:[[Website/{{Cracked}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bomb_relativity.png]]]] |
| 14 | [[caption-width-right:350:[-[[https://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.]]-]]] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | ->''"If I ever MUST put a digital timer on my doomsday device, I will buy one free from quantum mechanical anomalies. So many brands on the market keep perfectly good time while you're looking at them, but whenever you turn away for a couple minutes then turn back, you find that the countdown has progressed by only a few seconds."'' |
| 17 | -->-- '''Rule #216 of The EvilOverlordList''' |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Any kind of stated time limit or countdown in fiction seems to know when it's BeingWatched, and will cheat accordingly for [[RuleOfDrama maximum drama]]. This phenomenon tends to occur especially as a countdown starts approaching zero. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | For instance, the large digital readout on a TimeBomb may show 30 seconds to detonation, but after cutting to and from a climactic two-minute fight between TheHero and the BigBad, the clock somehow has 10 seconds left for TheHero to defuse it before it goes off. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | This can be done subtly, to stretch things out a bit without the audience really noticing, but in most cases it's pretty obvious — there have been times, in fact, when literally no time passes ''at all'' while the countdown's out of shot. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Sometimes the reverse effect takes place — the character has a good 40 seconds to stop or get out of the way of the destruction, then six seconds later the timer starts counting down from ten, which is a fairly cheap way of ratcheting up the suspense. This version, at least, can ''occasionally'' be explained by the LawOfConservationOfDetail — the action we saw isn't necessarily all the action that took place. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | This doesn't have to involve an actually displayed timer. Sometimes a character will just yell that "There's only 10 seconds left!" and the heroes will prevent the calamity 25 seconds later. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | A variation is a fuse or PowderTrail which burns slower or faster when the camera's not on it. Another common visual equivalent is the falling object or descending gate which is accelerating down at something. The shot cuts just before it hits to people trying to stop it or get out the way. When the camera goes back, the thing will mysteriously have farther to fall than it did before the cut, just enough to allow the characters to make a narrow escape. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | This can be {{handwave}}d by arguing that part of the fight scene (since rarely are there splitscreens showing the fight ''and'' the timer) started when or before the last shot of the timer was shown, thus, the fight and the countdown are happening at the same time chronologically but are shown separately to build tension and suspense (an editing technique known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-cutting "cross-cutting"]]). |
| 32 | |
| 33 | When applied to a TimedMission in VideoGames, it becomes AlwaysClose (and when applied to non-timed missions in video games, TakeYourTime). See also ExactTimeToFailure, which may give us the countdown in the first place, and InstantCooldown or MagicAntidote for the miraculous events that occur when it is stopped. May be also applied to a DescendingCeiling or when TheWallsAreClosingIn --the crusher keeps conveniently moving back between shots. Compare ClockDiscrepancy. It sometimes involves WeaponRunningTime, when a projectile's time to hit its target is long enough for things to happen. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | In instances where it's not a timer that's out of proportion, but rather the speed at which off-screen travel is conducted, see TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | Often occurs because TalkingIsAFreeAction. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | Contrast RealTime. Compare OnThree. |
| 40 | |
| 41 | ---- |
| 42 | !!Examples: |
| 43 | |
| 44 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 45 | |
| 46 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 47 | * ''Manga/BakiTheGrappler'': In ''Baki Dou'', Sukune boasts that his most powerful attack can defeat Baki within 10 seconds, and their subsequent fight in Chapter 147 is accordingly accompanied by an on-page timer counting the passing seconds. However, the depiction of the passing time seems symbolic at best: between the panel where Sukune swings at Baki, and the panel where his blow lands, the timer goes from 4 seconds to 6 seconds -- that would be an absurdly slow attack. |
| 48 | * 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. |
| 49 | * Factoring in all ecstatic collapses, dramatic slow-motion door-opening, and lengthy yet vital inner expository monologues, the 40 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". |
| 50 | * ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': |
| 51 | ** During the final fight between Goku and Freeza during the Namek saga, the planet Namek was minutes away from collapse for ''10 episodes'' or ''9 chapters''. Ridiculously, one episode actually says "two minutes" at the beginning and "one minute" at the end. Lampshaded later by the fact that Frieza flat-out admits he screwed up the whole "destroying Namek" thing, and it was supposed to explode '''instantly'''...[[IMeantToDoThat he just made up the "five minutes left" thing to not look like an idiot]]. |
| 52 | ** A lot of this sort of thing on the show is implicitly explained as the fight being slowed down so that the audience can actually follow it. The implication is that every major fight beyond a certain point would be [[SuperSpeed too fast for the human eye.]] Some fans have taken this explanation and ran with it, creating [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dpq4WYv240 videos]] which show how the SSJ-Goku vs Frieza fight might look like in "real time." In truth, it largely has to do with all of the posing, grunting, powering up, and voice over that is added to pad about 10 pages of comic into a 30 minute episode, since the show was decided to have one episode per chapter of manga made, even when there isn't enough content to fill up the time. |
| 53 | ** In ''Anime/DragonBallZKai'', Frieza was stated to have messed up because he held back too much for fear of killing himself in the blast right after he did it, and the "five minutes" clearly is just him making up a number. This also nicely explains why the flashback showing his destruction of planet Vegeta has it instantly exploding despite being a planet of similar size and density to Namek: Frieza normally destroys planets from the safety of orbit, not when he's standing on the surface. |
| 54 | ** There's even a few people who argue that he might have been referring to five ''Namekian'' minutes (or even possibly five minutes on Frieza's home planet), not five ''Earth'' minutes. Since they were on another planet, time simply could have been measured differently, like how a Namekian year is only 130 Earth days. |
| 55 | ** In a later episode, they even comment on this when Goku needs time to regather his energy and asks Vegeta to stall Kid Buu for one minute. Vegeta comments that this is a really long time for a fight against Buu and the minute does last at least an episode. |
| 56 | ** The trope is still around in ''Super'': when Vegeta's power is stolen by Commeson, he is told that Commeson's victims will disappear three to five minutes after being attacked. Vegeta sticks around for two entire episodes before finally beginning to disappear. |
| 57 | ** In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', the Tournament of Power is stated by the Grand Priest to last 48 minutes. One to two minutes pass by every episode and it took 14 episodes for the 24 minute mark to pass the tournament. |
| 58 | ** This also occurs in the original ''Manga/DragonBall'' when Commander Blue plants a bomb at Kame House that will kill the tied-up Dragon Ball Gang in 5 minutes; the bomb explodes 3 minutes and 46 seconds later, although there are spots where time could have been jumped over, such as Launch looking for a knife. |
| 59 | *** The internal time fluctuations get especially silly. At 2:50 to go the clock has an extra 20 seconds on it, with 2:33 left the clock has hit 3 minutes, at 2:14 Turtle says there's only 2 minutes left (although the shot of the clock after is off by only 7 seconds), and at 25 seconds left the clock shows 55 seconds to go. The end gets much closer however: at 15 seconds Krillin says there's only 10 seconds, and at the action 10 second mark the clock is shown at 5 seconds left. However, this only 14 seconds after the clock was shown to have 55 seconds left! 50 seconds passed in the space of 20! |
| 60 | * 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. |
| 61 | * 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. |
| 62 | * 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. |
| 63 | * During the climactic arc of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'', 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, 40 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. |
| 64 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 65 | ** In the 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. |
| 66 | ** 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. |
| 67 | ** At the end of their battle, Pain notes he still has four seconds left until he can use his Shinra Tensei ability again, thinks on Naruto's strategy for a bit, then notes he has three seconds left. The entire sequence takes 12 seconds. While the whole five second cooldown taking over a minute could be handwaved as multiple things happening at once and the characters moving superhumanly fast, that moment was nothing but Pain thinking on how much time he has left. |
| 68 | * ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' lives by this trope. Whenever an Eva gets disconnected from its umbilical cable, huge digital timers show up to indicate how much internal power is left. The amount varies with the activity: at full-blown battle, it only lasts one minute -- in theory. In practice, battles always last longer than one minute -- especially if the Eva goes berserk. For example, in episode 19 Shinji topped the minute with a good 14 seconds and he was fighting like a madman. Once he ran out of power, the Eva had gone berserk, curbstomped [[spoiler:and ate]] the Angel in another three minutes. |
| 69 | ** Partially justified -- Berserk is stated multiple times to allow an EVA to act on its own without any power supply. Don't ask how does that work, we're talking about pilotable giant cyborg alien clones here, that's not the weirdest thing [=EVAs=] can do. |
| 70 | ** [[WildMassGuessing A theory]] is that the power is what's stopping the armor from locking down the Eva. However, when an Eva goes berserk no amount of restraints are going to hinder it. |
| 71 | * Invoked in an episode of ''Manga/{{Nichijou}}'' where a teacher counts down the last 10 seconds for students to complete a test. Seeing that a few students are racing to finish up, she slows down her counting and holds off on reaching zero until the last student is done. |
| 72 | * In ''Manga/OnePiece'', during the Alabasta arc, there's a bomb. Not just any bomb, but one to destroy the entire town and everyone inside of it. The countdown reads 5 minutes... for two episodes. |
| 73 | * Arc BigBad Shishio of ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' is only capable of fighting for 15 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. |
| 74 | * 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 thought, the internal monologue shouldn't. |
| 75 | * ''Anime/SonicX'' has the timer on Eggman's detonator during his second attack on Prison Island. We see it count down to 10 seconds, then nine... then we cut to Chris pleading with Shadow to go back and rescue Sonic... about 30 seconds later, the timer ticks down to zero. |
| 76 | * ''Anime/YuGiOh'': |
| 77 | ** Also occurs in the original ''Anime/YuGiOh'' series, during Yugi and Jounouchi's (Joey) duel, while Malik (Marik) has Jounouchi brainwashed. The duel is set to take no more than 40 minutes or both would be [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim dragged to the bottom of the ocean by the anchor to which they are tied]], but it actually takes 3-4 episodes of non-stop [[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries children's card games]], which totals 60-80 minutes. |
| 78 | ** There's a smaller-scale example at the end of this; the anchor is supposed to drop 30 seconds after one of them loses the duel. It's actually more like two minutes, [[TalkingIsAFreeAction most of which is monologuing]]. |
| 79 | * 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. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 83 | * ''ComicBook/DCChallenge #2'' (1985). The bomb, which is far away, is about to detonate in 8 seconds. Franchise/{{Batman}} is confronting the villain at a power plant. The following exchange takes place [[TalkingIsAFreeAction in the time it takes the bomb to count down from 0:08 to 0:05]]: |
| 84 | -->'''Villain:''' Now do you believe me, Batman? You can't radio for help because I'm jamming all the channels -- and all the phones are dead as well, so you cannot contact your butler!\ |
| 85 | '''Batman:''' You lousy little maniac!! You're going to tell me how to stop that bomb, or I swear I'll--!\ |
| 86 | '''Villain:''' Really, Batman -- wasting what precious little time you have left on empty threats? Frankly, I had thought you above such childish displays!\ |
| 87 | '''Batman:''' ''(thoughts)'' He's right... can't afford to lose control now... have to focus... have to think... there has to be some way to disarm that device...'' |
| 88 | [[/folder]] |
| 89 | |
| 90 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 91 | * ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': One of the Titan battles begins in the late evening, and ends a few minutes before dawn breaks, all in the same chapter. Possibly {{justified}}/{{averted}}, as the InUniverse date is early summer and the battle's location is far enough north of the equator that it would probably see very short nights at that time of year. |
| 92 | * Lampshaded in ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'', where a malfunctioning transmitter chip is successfully extracted with 10 seconds to go before it explodes, leading to Calvin remarking: |
| 93 | -->'''Calvin:''' [[MediumAwareness We sure get some dramatic writers for this show.]] |
| 94 | * ''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. |
| 95 | [[/folder]] |
| 96 | |
| 97 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 98 | * The clock in ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'' takes a very long time to strike midnight, giving Cinderella plenty of time to get well clear of the castle. Obviously, no clock would take that long striking midnight. |
| 99 | * 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. |
| 100 | * ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'': If Johnny can't get [[MacGuffin the 320 gigs of data]] out of his head in 24 hours, he will die and the data will be lost forever. However, Johnny ''always'' seems to have the maximum 24 hours available to him to complete his quest. After Johnny travels halfway around the world from Beijing to Newark (which should take up a chunk of time one way or another), the EverythingSensor at customs in Newark still estimates that Johnny has a full 24 hours to seek medical attention. Then, later, halfway through the movie and after Johnny has survived three further attempts by the yakuza to capture him and/or cut off his head and takes a nap in a subway tunnel, Takahashi still gives the Street Preacher a 24-hour deadline to bring him Johnny's head when, at this point in the movie, it would be much more plausible if there are only 12 or 13 hours left (at best) before the data is lost. |
| 101 | * Lampshaded but not explained, except just as being magic, in ''WesternAnimation/ThePolarExpress''. |
| 102 | * ''WesternAnimation/ShrekForeverAfter'': Rumpelstiltskin's sand timer, that measures the 'day' Shrek has before he'll vanish away forever if he doesn't get love's true kiss. When it first appears, only a tiny bit of sand has fallen, even though Shrek must have spent a good part of the day scaring villagers, getting captured, and being carried to Far Far Away. |
| 103 | * The bakery mini-game in ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' is supposed to take precisely "one minute to win it", yet it lasts about 13 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. |
| 104 | [[/folder]] |
| 105 | |
| 106 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 107 | * Inverted in ''Film/Apollo13''. The loss of communications during re-entry is said to last 4-1/2 minutes, but actually takes about 3 minutes of the movie. Given how tense that scene is watching the movie, [[ForegoneConclusion knowing how it comes out]], one can imagine how tense it was in real life, being 50% longer. PlayedStraight when the 14 second manual course correction burn of the LM engine was changed to 39 seconds, which still took 63 seconds of screen time in the movie. |
| 108 | * The "one minute" it takes for the [=DeLorean=] in ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' to reappear is actually about one minute and 20 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. |
| 109 | * JustifiedTrope in ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'' by having [[SapientShip 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. |
| 110 | * ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' has a timer that obligingly slows down to let people hear one character's last words 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.]] |
| 111 | * ''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. |
| 112 | * ''Film/FlashGordon1980'': 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. |
| 113 | * 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.) |
| 114 | * ''Film/FutureWar'' is probably the only example where the countdown goes faster than reality ''on screen''. |
| 115 | * 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"]]. |
| 116 | * ''Film/Godzilla2014'': 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. The nuke was earlier stated to have made the 15-ton Castle Bravo, which produced a 7.2-kilometer fireball within one second, look like "a firecracker". Assuming a one-second fireball size of about 10 kilometers for the ''Godzilla'' nuke, and an end fireball size of, perhaps, twice that, the boat would have had to be moving at '''240 kilometers per hour''' (almost 150 miles per hour) to reach minimum safe distance in time -- and that's not even accounting for the ''shockwave''! Talk about [[OutrunTheFireball Outrunning the Fireball]]. |
| 117 | * 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. |
| 118 | * ''Film/IndependenceDay'': When Hiller and Levinson set up the bomb to destroy the enemy aliens' mothership, the latter asks the former "Can you get us out of here in 30 seconds?" In practice, it's more like 1 minute and 30 seconds. Yet cut back to the bomb, which still has five seconds on it. |
| 119 | * ''Franchise/IndianaJones'': |
| 120 | ** 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. |
| 121 | ** 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. |
| 122 | * ''Film/JamesBond'' |
| 123 | ** ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'': During the countdown to the detonation of the nuclear bomb in Fort Knox. It manages to get stopped at 007, too. Imagine that. |
| 124 | ** ''Film/{{Octopussy}}'' uses it on a detonator instead of an entire bomb (and since ScienceMarchesOn, the counter is digital). Bond disarms it ''right'' as the timer reaches zero. |
| 125 | ** ''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.... Now!" Both Bond and Blofeld jump out of the building scheduled to blow up, with Bond only just making it out a good eight seconds after the countdown is supposed to be over, and only then does the explosion actually happen. |
| 126 | * 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 has 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. |
| 127 | * ''Film/TheMask'': the countdown to the detonation of the conventional explosives in the club. |
| 128 | * During the climax of ''Film/TheMatrix'' the sentinels start cutting into the interior of the Nebuchadnezzar and it looks like only seconds are left for the crew. But then Trinity starts giving her ThePowerOfLove speech to Neo during which the sentinels don't progress because TalkingIsAFreeAction. Then Neo has his HeroicSecondWind and overpowers Agent Smith in the Matrix, all while the sentinels still don't seem to make any progress on the Nebuchadnezzar. Only by the time Neo is finally able to get out of the Matrix, do the sentinels charge the crew, but the EMP disables them JustInTime. |
| 129 | * 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. |
| 130 | ** Not so much in the second with the countdown to Sirleena's ship with Laura in it being launched; J's fight with Jarra takes a bit longer than the allotted time and ends with J awkwardly on a pile of flimsy tubing that he has to fight out of...and the countdown actually goes ''quicker''. He stops it with 1 second left, naturally. |
| 131 | * 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.]] |
| 132 | * ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' has one of these when a bomb is planted on Luther's van. |
| 133 | * ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'': |
| 134 | ** In ''Film/SawI'', the clock in the Bathroom passes through significantly more than a half-hour throughout the sequence where Lawrence and Adam focus on the mirror, which only lasts a few minutes. |
| 135 | ** In ''Film/SawII'', after John explains his motivation to Eric for four minutes, the timer for everyone in the Nerve Gas House to die drops by 23 minutes from the last time it was seen (which was just before). |
| 136 | ** In ''Film/Saw3D'', the 36 seconds that Bobby has to save Suzanne take about a minute and a half. |
| 137 | * ''Film/ScaryMovie4'' parodies the ''Saw'' example above, when Dr. Phil and Shaq in the opening needs to sever their feet. Dr. Phil claims there's "one minute left"; the subsequent scenes with Shaq's remaining attempts to score a basket to release a pair of handsaws, him stopping to momentarily argue with Dr. Phil, Phil having a breakdown that Shaq needs to talk him out off, the two of them struggling to cut their chains before Phil decides to cut his leg instead, all that takes around a minute and 30 seconds. |
| 138 | * 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? |
| 139 | * ''Film/SpaceJam'': The final ten seconds of the Ultimate Game take more than ten seconds, closer to forty. The Monstars have possession, and begin an inbound pass. JokeCharacter Daffy Duck causes Pound to lose his grip on the ball, which ends up in TeamWannabe Bill Murray's hands. Three dribbles and five passes later, Jordan gets the ball just short of the half-court circle. Pound tries to tackle him, but Jordan goes high on him, launching himself at the unguarded hoop with five seconds left on the clock. All that passing and dribbling take just five seconds of game time, while 35 seconds of reel time elapse. Jordan goes for the longest dunk in history ''in slow motion'' which burns up the last five seconds. Justified, in that the game is played in ToonTown, where game clocks are as loopy and nonsensical as any of the characters. |
| 140 | * ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' (the original one). When O'Neil sets the timer on the nuke, it also beeps constantly in all the scenes. In most scenes, counting the beeps is pretty accurate between timer shots, but the time between beeps varies widely between shots. In one scene, it counts down normally, in another it's almost rapid fire. And the last 45 seconds on the timer? Takes about 4 minutes. Not due to dramatic cross-cutting either, it's played straight. |
| 141 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': |
| 142 | ** ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'' features the title character counting down 60 seconds to the ''Enterprise'' crew before he does something ''really'' nasty. Naturally, this takes a good deal longer than 60 seconds, giving the heroes enough time to come up with a bluff. Possibly invoked: Khan was counting down similar to a parent counting down for a child on a time limit they KNOW is too short -- "I'm going to count to three and it better be done -- one, two, two and a half, ''pause'' -- task finishes -- good you just made it." Khan is basically saying, "You have until I feel like blowing you up to get me what I want" -- since he really wanted the Genesis data so he could use it as a weapon, as long as they (so he thought) were giving him what he wanted, Khan was willing to stretch his countdown. |
| 143 | ** In ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'', Kirk et al. activate the Enterprise's 60-second auto-destruct sequence and then go down to the transporter room where they beam off the ship. The Klingons then beam onto the ship and cautiously make their way to the bridge, where they find the countdown nearly complete and promptly get blown up real good. But of course, roughly 100 seconds of film have elapsed between the beginning and the end of the 60-second countdown, and even at that, the trips to and from the transporter room have obviously been compressed. |
| 144 | * In the first ''Franchise/StarWars'' movie (''Film/ANewHope''), Death Star's going around the planet to be able to target the moon with the rebel base is represented onboard by an odd graphic that, when shown, most certainly isn't moving slowly enough for the time it takes, either on-screen or in-universe. In fact, every time it's shown, it picks off right where it was the last time it was shown. |
| 145 | * ''Film/SupermanII''. The H-bomb is supposed to have a 1-minute timer. It takes at least 1 minute 24 seconds to detonate after the timer starts. |
| 146 | * 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. |
| 147 | * Demonstrated brilliantly in the [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST]] rendition of ''Film/TimeChasers'': |
| 148 | -->''[Nick activates the Time Transport countdown]''\ |
| 149 | '''Servo:''' Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven...\ |
| 150 | ''[Cut away to Nick and J.K. fighting over a gun]''\ |
| 151 | '''Servo:''' S-''Seven''... Six... Five... Four...\ |
| 152 | ''[Computer warns of low altitude]''\ |
| 153 | '''Servo:''' Three... Two... One... ''Zero... F-Four...'' Three... Two... One... Th-''Three...'' Two... One... ''Two...''\ |
| 154 | ''[Plane crashes]''\ |
| 155 | '''Servo:''' ''One.'' |
| 156 | ** Related, in the episode ''Film/{{Soultaker}}'', they mock the movie for continuing to show the clock ''after'' the midnight deadline has passed: |
| 157 | --->'''Mike:''' Stop showing the clock! You spent that nickel! |
| 158 | * In ''Film/{{Timecop}}'', there's a bomb in the protagonist's house with a mere 10 seconds left on the clock. Even though the scene is going in slow motion, he somehow manages to make it from the second story to the outside of the house while carrying his wife in both arms. He isn't even running down the steps, either. |
| 159 | * The 30 seconds that Grandpa Seth freezes time for in ''Film/Troll2'' must be some of the slowest seconds in the history of the world. |
| 160 | * Happens in ''Film/VanHelsing'': it sure takes that clock a long time to strike 12 (specifically, it takes at least three minutes). |
| 161 | [[/folder]] |
| 162 | |
| 163 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 164 | * A ''literal'' example in the climax of ''Literature/ArtemisFowl: the Lost Colony''. Due to the decaying of a spell that kept an island of demons out of time in Limbo, the timer on a bomb in a suitcase moves forward at differing speeds for different periods of time and at one point goes ''backwards'' a short time, all on a constant loop. [[spoiler:Artemis is able use this indicator to save Holly's life by firing a bullet into the past and preventing her death from happening in the first place.]] |
| 165 | [[/folder]] |
| 166 | |
| 167 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 168 | * Funnily enough, ''Series/TwentyFour'' has some examples of this: sometimes an episode ends with something important (like an explosion) and the next episode begins with the timer exactly following, but the events ahead -- the emergency units have already arrived, etc. The title screen, PreviouslyOn segments, and "The following takes place..." take about 2 minutes. Only once in Season 1 (1:00am-2:00am aka episode 2) does it show the clock immediately after "The following takes place...". So there's a ''small'' amount of unseen time between episodes. Also the credits for the previous episode as well, which take about 30 seconds. |
| 169 | * ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': In "[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS3E10Maveth 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. |
| 170 | * ''Series/Batman1966'': In "While Gotham City Burns", Batman and Chief O'Hara have only a minute to drive to a church and save Robin from being killed in the Bookworm's DeathTrap. The minute is shown on a clock dial on the screen, with a series of scenes showing their progress. There's no way that they could have done it within a minute. Batman even takes time out to explain something unimportant to Chief O'Hara. |
| 171 | * On the children's TV show ''Series/TheBigComfyCouch'', one of the usual devices employed in every episode was that Loonette would look around for items inside the couch while making a mess, and then at the end of the episode she would clean the mess up in a "ten-second tidy". Usually these would last over a minute. Very likely this was done under the assumption that children can't count. |
| 172 | * ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E13TheZeppo The Zeppo]]", Xander is having a CirclingMonologue with the bad guy as a nearby bomb timer is counting down. It switches between them and the bomb, and the timer seems to jump around at random, gaining and losing time, until it is of course stopped at 1 second left. |
| 173 | * An odd inversion: The Japanese GameShow ''Series/DasshutsuGameDERO'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''TORE!'' both have rounds where a team of contestants are given a series of puzzles to solve via LinkedListClueMethodology within a total time limit. Whenever a stumped team spent a long time making no progress, the footage is edited out, but the show often briefly cuts away to something else to make the edit less obvious. This leads to situations where the show cuts away for about 15 seconds, but over a minute ticks away on the countdown while it's not onscreen. |
| 174 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 175 | ** "[[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. |
| 176 | ** "[[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. |
| 177 | ** Despite being averted in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E742 42]]" (see below), this was played straight in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords Last of the Time Lords]]", which is ironic, as the countdown was critical to [[spoiler:the Doctor]]'s plan. |
| 178 | ** "[[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. |
| 179 | * In one Season 4 episode of ''Series/Formula1DriveToSurvive'', Lewis Hamilton is shown coming into the pits to serve a ten-second time penalty. Thanks to a constant barrage of camera cuts, this ten-second penalty is stretched out to ''32 seconds''. |
| 180 | * The time limit for the entire game on ''Series/FortBoyard'' doesn't really exist, and is only there so the editors can add some drama to the show. One example on the UK version where the team had about 2:00 left on the clock when a woman attempted a challenge at some height. After about 4 minutes of faffing about, she gave up, and only about 1:00 had gone off the clock. |
| 181 | * In ''Series/{{Friends}}'' when Joey makes a GameShowAppearance on ''Series/{{Pyramid}}''. During the game, the team is given 20 seconds per round to give a set of clues. But here when Joey plays, the clock only displays when there's only 5 seconds left and you clearly know the round went longer than 20 seconds. Opposite is true in the bonus round when the countdown ended sooner than the intended 60 seconds. |
| 182 | * The Makai Knights in ''Series/{{GARO}}'' can only remain in armour for 99.9 seconds. This is enforced in most episodes, but once in a while, it is blatantly broken with no explanation. |
| 183 | * ''Series/H2OJustAddWater'': It's established in the first episode that in the event that the girls don't want to transform, they have 10 seconds in between [[WaterTriggeredChange getting splashed]] and forcibly turning into mermaids. The actual time varies, with the most egregious instance being Rikki getting splashed by Nate, followed by 40 seconds of her freezing up, getting reassurance from Zane that he'll cover for her, and running across the pier to transform off-screen. |
| 184 | * ''Series/KnightRider'' (2008) "Knight Fever": Trying to abort the destruction of a recently nanovirus-infected command center, Carrie and Alex find that the security device has malfunctioned and won't read their handprints. It repairs itself just in time to stop when the countdown reaches 1 second. |
| 185 | * ''Series/LazyTown'' has one of the more extreme versions of this trope in "The Laziest Town". 15 in-universe seconds take about 2 minutes of runtime and there's about 30 seconds between the clock ''almost'' hitting zero and when it actually hits zero. |
| 186 | * ''Series/{{Lost}}'': |
| 187 | ** In the 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." |
| 188 | ** The timer in the Hatch tends to do this a lot. "Henry Gale" gets from the armory to the computer in under 10 seconds (although we can't see the timer, another alarm starts to sound when the counter reaches 10 seconds.) |
| 189 | * In the Season 16 premiere of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', a countdown jumps from 15 seconds to 6 in about two seconds, then the final five take about 10 seconds. |
| 190 | * In the ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'' episode "Dismissal", an 11-minute countdown clock is displayed in the corner throughout the episode to represent the time everyone has to get on the bus before it departs. While it does count down in real time at some points, the clock "cheats" by slightly speeding up and slowing down throughout the rest of the episode, especially near the end when it's very slow, likely for dramatic effect. |
| 191 | * ''Franchise/PowerRangers'': |
| 192 | ** In the first episode of ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'', Dark Specter has captured Zordon in a jar, which gradually fills up with a lava-like substance. When it is full, Dark Specter will have drained all of Zordon's power. At the rate that jar is filling up, Zordon ought to be history before that episode was up, yet somehow he held out until the end of the season. ''In the last episode,'' Zordon's tube goes from half-full at the beginning to ''empty'' at the end. That was a plot point, [[spoiler:Dark Specter had been killed by [[TheStarscream Darkonda]] and it apparently reversed the energy drain.]] |
| 193 | ** In ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', the Rangers have a more agile alternate mode for their HumongousMecha which can only be maintained for 60 seconds. The first time it's used, it stays transformed for precisely 60 seconds in the end, though Cam's countdown is often wildly off. Almost every use ''after'' that, though, had battles carry on for much longer than one minute. |
| 194 | ** In ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', one MonsterOfTheWeek throws bombs as his whole schtick. The bombs have no visible timer but beep faster and faster leading up to kaboom. At one point, when the monster throws a bomb, the beeping accelerates... and then ''stops'' when a Ranger catches the bomb. It ''starts over'' when the Ranger [[HoistByHisOwnPetard throws it back]]. |
| 195 | * ''Series/TheProfessionals'': A lunatic holds a nurse hostage via a grenade with the pin removed shoved down her blouse, and Bodie says it has a ten-second fuse. It takes the grenade ''25'' seconds to explode. You ''could'' {{handwave}} this as the grenade's safety lever being caught inside her blouse and not springing free until Bodie cut it loose. |
| 196 | * In ''Series/PushingDaisies'', Ned can bring the dead back to life by touching them and make them go back to being dead with a second touch, but failing to touch them again within a minute results in someone else in proximity dying. This minute doesn't always equal a real-life minute. |
| 197 | * [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi Channel]] once ran a marathon of ''Series/RoboCopTheSeries'' with humorous running commentary. One episode had a bomb set for five minutes. The running commentary points out that it takes 7:04 for the bomb to eventually be shut off. |
| 198 | * In the ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' episode "My 15 Seconds", the timer which displays during the "15-second visits" with Nicole Sullivan sometimes visibly slows to half speed. |
| 199 | * Occurs during the autodestruct sequence in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E1411001001 11001001]]". |
| 200 | * In episode 5 of ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'', the Zangyack's timer to set off missiles is down to one minute when Marvelous arrives. It takes him around a minute and six seconds to prevent the missile launch. |
| 201 | [[/folder]] |
| 202 | |
| 203 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 204 | * In the Met performance of ''Doctor Atomic'', about Dr. Oppenheimer and the Trinity nuclear test, a voice announces five minutes to the test firing. Eight minutes later, the two-minute buzzer sounds. Eight minutes later, the bomb goes off. |
| 205 | [[/folder]] |
| 206 | |
| 207 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 208 | * In the first mission of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', the bomb timer is set at 10 minutes. Now, the timer keeps perfect time through battles, menus, and passages from one area to the next. The magic countdown effect becomes present right as your party reaches the exit. [[AlwaysClose No matter how much time is left on the timer when it's last displayed, the bomb explodes right as your party leaves the reactor]]. It ''is'' possible that the timer was simply a failsafe, and Avalanche had a trigger switch they set off as they escape. That's just FanWank, though... |
| 209 | * 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. |
| 210 | * ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'': One of the attacks used by the second boss is attaching a bomb to Hat Kid, who will then need to get it defused before the bomb explodes. The countdown on the bomb starts going much slower once it reaches 10. This might be {{Justified}} though, as all of the boss's attacks are repurposed movie props, so this might be a timer specifically meant to [[InvokedTrope Invoke]] this trope in-universe that just happened to be put on an actual bomb. |
| 211 | * The 5th and 6th levels of ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead 4'' have the AMS agents racing to reach Goldman's computer to deactivate his nuclear missiles before they launch. At three points, they note how much time is left, none of the three figures even remotely corresponding to how much time has passed in-game. |
| 212 | * 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. |
| 213 | * ''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 30 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. |
| 214 | * Justified in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' with the DSM file transfer, just like in real-life file transfer the countdown fluctuates wildly, though having enemies shooting the DSM merely pauses the transfer instead of canceling or outright destroying the device. |
| 215 | * 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.]] |
| 216 | * 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. |
| 217 | * Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2''. Eggman explicitly instructs that a bomb be set to blow in 15 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 a 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). |
| 218 | * 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. |
| 219 | * ''VideoGame/SCPSecretLaboratory'': C.A.S.S.I.E. states that the Decontamination Process (which renders the Light Containment Zone inaccessible and kills all players inside) is set to begin in 15 minutes at the start of the round, and the displays the Light Containment show a 15-minute timer. In actuality, Decontamination begins in 11 minutes and 45 seconds, and the timers are slightly sped up to account for this (slowing down at the 10-minute, 5-minute, 1-minute, and 30-second marks). |
| 220 | [[/folder]] |
| 221 | |
| 222 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 223 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': |
| 224 | ** 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 30 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 daytime. |
| 225 | ** In "The Bet", Bobert counts down to 10 seconds to detonation, but each "second" takes more like three to 10 seconds. |
| 226 | * ''{{WesternAnimation/Amphibia}}'': In “Olm Town Road”, a massive robotic drill announces that it will dig through the earth and reach the underground city of Proteus in 10 seconds. It counts down from 10 to 6, then we don’t hear the timer at all as Anne and friends try to stop it. After 14 seconds of them futilely mashing the controls, the countdown is heard again, going from 5 to 2. This is followed by a full 25 seconds in which Lysil and Angwin jam the drill, seemingly all in the timer’s last second. All in all, 10 seconds on the timer lasts up to a minute. |
| 227 | * A variant of the fast-burning fuse is seen in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''. In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE28DreamsInDarkness Dreams in Darkness]]", the Scarecrow has a huge machine mixing fear-inducing chemicals to dump in Gotham's water supply. Batman shuts it off, stopping the big clock at 01:45. Scarecrow starts it up with the backup controls and the clock begins counting down again, from 20 seconds. And furthermore, the timer beeped with every passing second, even when it was offscreen, but the beeps didn't correspond to how much time had passed. At the 20-second mark, it plainly beeped more times than there were seconds remaining. |
| 228 | * In the episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', "Invasion of the Secret Santas!", where, after noticing a doll is a bomb with a 10-second timer, Batman exclaims, "It's a Bomb!" for 5 seconds, before cutting to a commercial break. |
| 229 | * 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. |
| 230 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' |
| 231 | ** Happens in an episode where roaches have taken over and are going to destroy the world. Cosmo and Timmy plead with Wanda to help save them as the clock ticks down 10 seconds, which takes more like 30. |
| 232 | ** Happens again in another episode while Mark contemplates whether or not to destroy the Earth with a Time Bomb. He's clearly taking more than a few seconds to do this, while the timer counts down about 5 seconds. Of course, being ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' and all, the timer in question might have actually been magic. |
| 233 | * Nearly every episode of ''WesternAnimation/FetchWithRuffRuffman'' has a "Half-Time Quiz Show" where any Fetchers not doing a challenge are asked questions involving the challenges in the first half of the show. They are given 10 questions and have to answer as many as possible within a time limit (90 seconds in Seasons 1-2, 60 seconds in Seasons 3-5). In many episodes, Ruff announces "Time's up" either before or after the 60/90 seconds have elapsed. |
| 234 | * This happens all the time in ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' Season 2 and 3 with the countdown before hitting the key to avoid the reconfiguration of Sector 5. It is supposed to be 3 minutes, but it jumps forward, and sometimes backward, quite haphazardly. And in the episode "The Secret", where a detonator for a series of charges set to destroy the Factory has a digital clock. Once, it advanced only 15 seconds while almost 2 minutes went by. Afterward, it seemed to have hurried back and caught up exactly with the lapsed time... but then it jumped forward 45 seconds ''while William and Ulrich were speaking'', that is with no jump-scene in-between, only a change of focus. |
| 235 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'' episode where Simon is marrying Mother Brain, ''VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}'' and ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'' have 30 seconds to shoot Simon with an antidote arrow before the spell becomes permanent. It takes them one minute and 17 seconds to hit him. In [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1266644/1/If_Samus_Was_Around_03_Mr_and_Mrs_Mother_Brain this fanfiction parody of the episode]], Samus Aran (who wasn't in the series) {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this by telling Mega Man that he needs to get his chronometer fixed. |
| 236 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': |
| 237 | ** In the first episode, a SealedEvilInACan is due to be released WhenThePlanetsAlign -- specifically, the stars are supposed to aid in her escape from the moon that very night. As Twilight Sparkle reflects on this, she looks at the moon, and four nearby stars can clearly be seen approaching it at a visible rate. Then the viewpoint shifts, the scene switches to another place, and the events there go on for a moment. And then Twilight looks at the sky again, and the stars continue practically from where they were when last seen and merge with the moon. |
| 238 | ** In "Stare Master", [[BadassAdorable Fluttershy]] is [[StaringDownCthulhu staring down a cockatrice]] even while its gaze is turning her to stone, the petrification starting from the tail and advancing towards her head. As the perspective shifts during the scene, the layer of stone never gets past midway over her body but is shown reaching the middle point more than once, as if it receded when the camera was not looking. |
| 239 | * 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. |
| 240 | * 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). |
| 241 | * On ''WesternAnimation/SpecialAgentOso'' the third special step of the Three Special Steps for whatever task is being completed will have a countdown in seconds to be completed, generally about ten, such as the time until a particular grownup's return, or when the kid has to leave for school, etc. This will be presented with an on-screen timer by Paw Pilot, but the actual time is almost always rather longer than this. |
| 242 | * 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 60 seconds in the history of Acme Acres" and the clock (which has no second hand) moving ''backwards'' while Plucky watches. |
| 243 | * 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. |
| 244 | [[/folder]] |
| 245 | |
| 246 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 247 | * Temporal perception and memory formation in the brain are regulated by stress hormones; the more intensely we feel a sense of impending doom (i.e. the amount the adrenaline in our systems) the more events around us which are perceived by our senses get marked for remembering. This causes us to remember 'time slowing down' during stressful events. On the opposite end, rote behavior is never marked for memory, so habitual things become completely forgotten, like driving home from work every day, or walking up the stairs (you suddenly find yourself where you intended to be with no recollection of the journey). |
| 248 | * The more of your attention you focus on any process the more of it gets marked for analysis and memory, causing your brain to perceive it as taking more time to accomplish; ignoring something will cause it not to get marked. Thus a watched pot seems to take longer to boil than an unwatched pot. In other words, the LawOfConservationOfDetail and TravellingAtTheSpeedOfPlot are both neurological imperatives. |
| 249 | * Attempt any file transfer in any version of Windows and watch the time remaining jump about like a nervous salmon in a particularly fast river. |
| 250 | ** ''Manga/LuckyStar'' poked at this. |
| 251 | ** Also parodied by [[http://xkcd.com/612/ this]] Webcomic/{{xkcd}} strip. |
| 252 | ** The same principle applies to file downloading, especially a torrent since the estimate for time remaining assumes that the current speeds will remain constant, which is almost never true. |
| 253 | ** And the windows install which seems to take a very long time between 39 and 38 minutes left for no good reason. The "less than a minute" at the very end of the installation usually takes a couple of minutes. |
| 254 | ** It seems to take longer to go from 99% to 100% than it took to get to 99% in the first place. |
| 255 | ** While Windows is pretty much a poster-child case, almost any OS can be guilty of this because predicting a transfer time is, for the most part, nondeterministic. The initial guess the OS gives you may just be how fast the files are transferring now with how big the total transfer is. However, file transfer times are not based on how fast the hard drive can actually work, but how many files it has to write. It's actually '''much''' faster to transfer a 4GB file than 10,000 files that equal 4GB. Coupled with the fact that the hard drive you're using is probably the only one and it's constantly in use because of things like swap file and caching etc., it's basically a good idea to never trust any file transfer timer regardless of the OS, file system, etc. |
| 256 | * While not ''technically'' possible in real life, that last hour of work before punch out time can feel like this. Even UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein pointed it out. |
| 257 | * The time remaining clock in an American football game. The closer it gets to zero, the more the losing team will call time-outs in order to plan out strategy. The final two minutes of the game can take half an hour to play. |
| 258 | * Basketball games often see something similar, especially if the game is close, as the team that is behind will commit fouls to prevent the team ahead from wasting time. |
| 259 | * The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect quantum Zeno effect]]. If a particle is continuously observed, it will never decay. |
| 260 | * An old saying: "a watched pot never boils". Go ahead and try it; while it will boil ''eventually'', it will seemingly happen much faster if you focus on something else. |
| 261 | [[/folder]] |
| 262 | |
| 263 | !!Exceptions |
| 264 | |
| 265 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 266 | * 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 10 minutes for the missile to reach ''Odaiba, Tokyo'' from the US. |
| 267 | ** 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. |
| 268 | ** The English version is slightly faster, at 9 minutes and 7 seconds. Mostly it's because they edited lots of stuff out. |
| 269 | * Averted in one ''[[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar Hokuto no Ken]]'' episode, in which Kenshiro used the Hokuto Zankai Ken on Spade, the KingMook [[MonsterOfTheWeek of the Week]]. After explaining to Spade that he would die 7 seconds after being released (or 3 in the manga), he removes his thumbs from Spade's temples. A counter appears on the bottom of the screen, and Spade dies painfully and gruesomely at the near-exact moment the counter reaches zero. Badass indeed. |
| 270 | ** In the episode after that, he goes up against another minion belonging to the same group named Club. He hits a point that causes Club to contort in such a way that he will break his back in 30 seconds. While it’s debatable about how long it takes for the first 20, when Ken leaves and we hit the final 10 seconds, a counter appears just like before, and Club dies once it hits zero. |
| 271 | * On ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', in the episode "Both of You, Dance Like You Want To Win!", the timer that counts down until the EVA units run out of power is actually shown on screen as the action sequence is played out. |
| 272 | ** The timer counts down starting from 30 milliseconds, though. |
| 273 | ** Averted again in the Ramiel fight in [[TheMovie Rebuild]]: they say there's 20 seconds remaining until the {{BFG}} is ready to fire again, and Shinji pulls the trigger almost exactly 21 seconds later. |
| 274 | [[/folder]] |
| 275 | |
| 276 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 277 | * Near the middle of ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', 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]]. |
| 278 | [[/folder]] |
| 279 | |
| 280 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 281 | * Any film that takes place in "real time", that is the length of the film is how much time passes InUniverse, such as ''Film/NickOfTime'' or ''Film/{{Timecode}}''. |
| 282 | * Notably averted in ''Film/{{Aliens}}''. When the computer announces how much time there is until the place goes up, that's ''exactly'' how much in-movie time it takes for the place to blow up. |
| 283 | * In the climax of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', [[spoiler:two minutes and 30 seconds of screen time actually pass between the deployment and explosion of the nuke intended for Manhattan.]] |
| 284 | * Averted in ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'' by having SapientShip Nell malfunctioning due to battle damage, so she keeps messing up the SelfDestructMechanism's countdown. |
| 285 | * The shrink ray in ''Film/FantasticVoyage'' lasts for 60 minutes, accompanied by a real-time clock in the operating room. |
| 286 | * It's averted in ''Film/FightClub'' although it does not seem to be at first. In the final sequence waiting for the bombs to go off Tyler states "Two minutes" but [[spoiler:it's two minutes later that he shoots himself (non-fatally) in the head]]. |
| 287 | * Averted in ''Film/JudgeDredd''; in order to get back into Mega City 1, Dredd and Fergie need to run through a furnace that 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. |
| 288 | * In ''Film/KickAss'', D'Amico's goons are torturing someone with a large microwave and sets it on for five minutes. 30 seconds later, his head explodes at 4 minutes 30 seconds. |
| 289 | * In ''Film/RurouniKenshinTheLegendEnds'', the BigBad is told that his anhidrosis will kill him if he spends more than 15 minutes in intense physical activity. The final climax battle lasts about that long, at which point it kills him. |
| 290 | * In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' Picard sets the auto destruct for a 15-minute silent countdown. It is deactivated by Data after about 11 minutes. |
| 291 | * Somewhat averted in ''Film/{{Virtuosity}}'', because Sid's last bomb speeds up the countdown whenever it detects countermeasures... and then breaks down. |
| 292 | [[/folder]] |
| 293 | |
| 294 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 295 | * In the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E11Survivors Survivors]]", the climactic 30-second countdown lasts 29 seconds, ending with 1 second to spare. |
| 296 | * Averted in the ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' episode "[[Recap/ChuckS2E12ChuckVsTheThirdDimension Chuck vs the Third Dimension]]", which keeps a digital timer in the corner of the screen throughout the (hilarious) disposal sequence. |
| 297 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 298 | ** ''Mostly'' averted in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E742 42]]". After the initial setup scenes, the counter and the depicted events happen in real time, give or take some wobble in the times shown in the middle of the countdown. |
| 299 | ** Averted in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Forest of the Dead]]": [[spoiler:River Song takes the Doctor's place when he intends to use his brain for storage to restore the "saved" humans in the Library's memory core. During a 2-minute countdown (that actually takes 2 minutes) she says a tearful farewell to him.]] Great scene... and exactly on time. |
| 300 | ** Averted in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E8MummyOnTheOrientExpress Mummy on the Orient Express]]". In all cases, the Foretold kills its victim in exactly 66 seconds, complete with the on-screen countdown. There's some flexibility in when the timer ''starts'', however. |
| 301 | * ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'': |
| 302 | ** Played with in the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E16AMatterOfTime A Matter of Time]]", in which the bomb does this because of a TimeDilation field. |
| 303 | ** Also mentioned in the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S10E6200 200]]", in which a movie writer proposes a scene in which SG-1 has to escape a situation in 10 seconds and debates on how long the time should be. |
| 304 | --->'''Daniel:''' What difference does it make, I mean it's not like you have an actual ticking clock on the screen.\ |
| 305 | '''Marty:''' That's brilliant!\ |
| 306 | '''Daniel:''' That's ridiculous... |
| 307 | ** Also averted in the ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS01E04ThirtyEightMinutes Thirty-Eight Minutes]]". It really is 38 minutes from the Gate opening to it closing, and the countdown towards the resolution is accurate. |
| 308 | ** The whole "38 minutes to Gate shutdown" thing is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in "200" as well, where they go on to discuss how the countdown timer can be set to something completely arbitrary. |
| 309 | * In ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'' episode "Risk it All", the twins appear on a game show involving stunts. During these stunts, an onscreen timer is used that counts down in actual seconds, and even though it occasionally disappears during cutaways to the game show's audience cheering them on, the timer remains consistent. |
| 310 | [[/folder]] |
| 311 | |
| 312 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 313 | * Mark Owen's [[note]]of Music/TakeThatBand fame[[/note]] song "Four Minute Warning" is about the last four minutes in the lives of various people who are about to be killed by a nuclear strike, and with each chorus he counts down the remaining minutes. While he's admittedly ''slightly'' off, the line "one minute left to go" is delivered with ''exactly'' that much left of the song, and the entire song lasts pretty much bang on four minutes. |
| 314 | [[/folder]] |
| 315 | |
| 316 | [[folder:Puppet Shows]] |
| 317 | * Nicely averted in the ''Series/{{Thunderbirds}}'' episode "The Perils of Penelope". Near the end, it is said that 3 minutes are left until Penelope is hit by the monorail. It takes exactly 3 minutes for the train to come (they save her at the last second). |
| 318 | [[/folder]] |
| 319 | |
| 320 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 321 | * Very subtly averted in Music/StephenSondheim's ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods''. If you check the complete vocal score, you'll discover that there are actually 12 chimes that lead up to each midnight, and that they're timed and written into the underscore. |
| 322 | [[/folder]] |
| 323 | |
| 324 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 325 | * 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. |
| 326 | * Averted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater''. After Snake [[spoiler:plants the C3 to blow up the Shagohod]], a timer starts which can be checked in the following cut-scene by looking at a hidden countdown. It's promptly played straight, though for the mid- and post-[[spoiler:Volgin]] battle cutscenes. |
| 327 | * Mostly averted in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor''. After [[spoiler:Crump sets the timer to destroy the tree]], it's possible for the timer to expire during a dialogue scene. |
| 328 | * 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. |
| 329 | * Alpha Warhead countdown in ''VideoGame/SCPSecretLaboratory'' not only is precise but actually is extended from whatever length it was set to/was paused at so that it matches precisely with what the announcement says it is. This is sometimes used to allow whoever is still inside the warhead room to get some extra seconds to escape. |
| 330 | * Played with in ''VideoGame/SpyParty'', 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. The Spy can extend the timer by checking their watch, which will graphically change the clock on a normal success or a failure (a failure plays a loud noise as well, tipping off the Sniper). A critical success will slow down the clock instead, making it harder for the Sniper to notice. |
| 331 | * 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.'' |
| 332 | [[/folder]] |
| 333 | |
| 334 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 335 | * 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. |
| 336 | * 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.]] |
| 337 | * The ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' short "79 Seconds Left", which indeed takes almost exactly 79 seconds from start to finish. |
| 338 | * ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': [[PosthumousCharacter Tock's]] Semblance renders her indestructible for one minute at the cost of using up all of her Aura at once and uses a clock to help her keep track of how much tie she has left. The one time she is shown using her power, it lasts for exactly 60 seconds, complete with a ticking sound in the background. |
| 339 | [[/folder]] |
| 340 | |
| 341 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 342 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', in the famous "[S] Cascade" flash, [[TimeBomb The Tumor]] displays a countdown to its detonation as the flash goes on. This countdown is fully accurate and even remains on screen for some events that are happening elsewhere. |
| 343 | [[/folder]] |
| 344 | |
| 345 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 346 | * At one point on ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'', Kreiger has to stop a missile being launched at an unknown country with the fairly lengthy time span of three hours. |
| 347 | * Averted in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' episode "Mayhem of the Music Meister!" when Batman and Black Canary are in a death trap that includes a time bomb. The timer counts down in real time. It ''better'' be accurate. The timer runs on a metronome! |
| 348 | * 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. |
| 349 | * Played with heavily in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E21And22WildCards Wild Cards]]". The Joker has 25 bombs hidden throughout Las Vegas and he's televising the Justice League's attempts to stop it. He even has the timer in the lower right corner that stays consistent throughout the episode. Subverted when Batman disables the first bomb. The timer stops, then drops to 3 seconds, and starts again (it was a fake bomb). |
| 350 | ** It was also a Zigzag in that the Joker introduces the Clock, it's either been counting down for some or was set to a really arbitrary number, but Joker is aware of the time and lampshades it by pointing out that people really shouldn't have expected a round number from him. The actual start time is the run time of a typical episode... halfway through the current episode. Given that almost all stories were [[{{Cliffhanger}} Cliffhangers]], it was hardly a spoiler that the episode was going to be a cliffhanger at this point. Turns out that the final bomb was disabled before the final second... but it didn't matter as Joker only wanted the clock to keep the audience hooked on watching the TV... his real plan was to use a metahuman's powers to make the viewing public hallucinate. [[XanatosGambit If the Justice League failed to stop the bombs, he destroys a large part of Vegas and induced mass hysteria... if the Justice League did stop them, he's still got the mass hysteria.]] |
| 351 | * In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', Rainbow Dash says she can clear out the clouds over Ponyville in "ten seconds flat." It indeed takes exactly 10 seconds in real time. |
| 352 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Waiting For Edward", Moltar pulls a lever to initiate the destruction of the planet, mostly because he just feels like it (and he's holding a sale!). The timer appears on his viewscreen and is visible any time the action cuts back to him. This being Space Ghost, it's all but forgotten until the end of the episode when the planet blows up exactly when the timer said it would, in real time. |
| 353 | [[/folder]] |
| 354 | |
| 355 | !!Parodies |
| 356 | |
| 357 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 358 | * Spoofed in ''Manga/BoboboboBobobo'': Denbo-chan can only stay for...two hours. Played straight, however, with Mr. Bo-Jiggler and Patchbobo. |
| 359 | * Spoofed in ''Manga/SgtFrog'' episode 23. Kururu shows a countdown that shows Keroro has 72 minutes until [[MesACrowd he and all the clones he made of himself]] [[PhlebotinumBreakdown fade out from the Kero Ball overloading]]... then, after Angol Moa makes a relatively brief phone call to her father in an attempt to find a solution, Kururu announces 70 minutes have passed. |
| 360 | [[/folder]] |
| 361 | |
| 362 | [[folder:Comedy]] |
| 363 | * Done in two different ways in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg-TLE8N_js François Pérusse's skit "Cricket sauve le monde"]]. First, the nuclear bomb mentioned at the beginning is said to explode in 10 seconds, yet only counts down when Cricket reaches it at the end. Second, when Cricket actually reaches the bomb, the countdown goes down to three then "A bit less than three", "not quite two yet", "well, let's say two", "back to three", "two and a half" and then only "one". |
| 364 | [[/folder]] |
| 365 | |
| 366 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 367 | * ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'': |
| 368 | ** Considering how infamous it is in the fandom, the abridged series naturally parodied the entire exploding Namek sequence, with Goku [[IdiotHero of all people]] calling out Freeza's way off estimates. |
| 369 | --->'''Freeza:''' You're scared, aren't you? Afraid knowing this planet has one minute left before it explodes!\ |
| 370 | '''Goku:''' Question.\ |
| 371 | '''Freeza:''' Huh?\ |
| 372 | '''Goku:''' Do you have a watch?\ |
| 373 | '''Freeza:''' No, why?\ |
| 374 | '''Goku:''' Do you know what a minute is?\ |
| 375 | '''Freeza:''' What? Of course I do!\ |
| 376 | '''Goku:''' I don't think you do... \ |
| 377 | '''Freeza:''' Bu-- I-- Uh-- |
| 378 | ** 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. |
| 379 | [[/folder]] |
| 380 | |
| 381 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 382 | * 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 mid-sentence. |
| 383 | [[/folder]] |
| 384 | |
| 385 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 386 | * In ''Film/AustinPowers: The Spy Who Shagged Me'', 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 30, but this leaves quite some time to go after everything's ready. Finally, he tells her to just say "Go" when the doors close. |
| 387 | * In ''[[Film/TheToxicAvenger Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV]]'', 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 a young drug addict, and then get the survivors out before his sidekick [[HeroicSacrifice eats the bomb]]. |
| 388 | * 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, and it always stopped at One. |
| 389 | * ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': |
| 390 | ** 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. |
| 391 | ** 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 Arthur 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. |
| 392 | * Spoofed in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'', with the countdown on Mega-Maid's SelfDestructMechanism: |
| 393 | -->'''Computer:''' Ten... nine... eight... six...\ |
| 394 | '''President Skroob:''' Six? What happened to seven?!\ |
| 395 | '''Computer:''' [[JustJokingJustification Just kidding!]] |
| 396 | ** Also averted, since the actual three-minute self-destruct countdown only runs 10 seconds too long, even with the argument over "seven" ''and'' an additional "Have a nice day" tacked on to the end. |
| 397 | [[/folder]] |
| 398 | |
| 399 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 400 | * In one of ''Literature/TheDestroyer'' novels, since there's no time to get anyone remotely qualified, Chiun ends up making an attempt to disarm a nuclear bomb and the timer just keeps on ticking down to zero (causing everyone else to become rightly worried) and then nothing happens... |
| 401 | -->'''Chiun:''' ''Of course'' it's still ticking. I destroyed the ''bomb'', not the clock. |
| 402 | * 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. |
| 403 | * 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. |
| 404 | * 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.]] |
| 405 | [[/folder]] |
| 406 | |
| 407 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 408 | * Parodied (like everything else) in the ''Series/AngieTribeca'' episode "The One With the Bomb" -- Angie has to solve a WireDilemma to free her partner from a bomb vest that's about to explode in five seconds. He abruptly grabs her face in his hands and gives her a long, passionate kiss... that's ''much'' longer than five seconds. He then pulls away and tells her they have four seconds left. |
| 409 | * Parodied on ''Series/TheBenStillerShow'', where [[UnfortunateNames Andy Dick]] seems to find plenty to do while [[http://www.ifc.com/videos/the-ben-stiller-show-bomb-squad.php trying to defuse a bomb]]. |
| 410 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven Death in Heaven]]", Missy announces that she intends to kill Osgood ForTheEvulz, and even starts to count down the seconds from ten... nine... eight... three... |
| 411 | -->'''Osgood:''' Three?\ |
| 412 | '''Missy:''' I'm accelerating for dramatic effect. |
| 413 | * In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIIBodyswap Bodyswap]]", the self-destruct is accidentally set off. Kryten's plan to stop the countdown fails, and everyone braces themselves for the explosion...which never comes. Turns out Holly threw out the bomb months ago. |
| 414 | * ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': |
| 415 | ** Each installment of the ''[=MacGruber=]'' sketch, a parody of ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'', involves a countdown (usually of 20 seconds) before a bomb goes off. The 20 seconds tend to last about a minute. |
| 416 | ** A parody of the Nickelodeon Awards Show red carpet had a countdown clock, and the hosts kept saying "The show begins right now!" only to find that the clock is still counting down. At various points the clock stops, moves backwards, and flashes 12:00. |
| 417 | [[/folder]] |
| 418 | |
| 419 | [[folder:Puppet Shows]] |
| 420 | * ''Series/SesameStreet'''s parody of ''Series/TwentyFour'' was supposedly a program that took place in 24 seconds per episode, but the counter which appeared on-screen throughout clearly counted down at a rather slower rate than one per second. |
| 421 | * ''Series/WonderShowzen'' parodied this when everyone was counting down for a rocket launch: |
| 422 | -->"Ten! Nine! Ei--"\ |
| 423 | ''[A FEW SECONDS LATER]''\ |
| 424 | "-wo! One!" |
| 425 | [[/folder]] |
| 426 | |
| 427 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 428 | * Lampshaded in ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1978'' when Eddie the Shipboard Computer is counting down to an inevitable fiery explosive doom at the hands of the Vogons. Zaphod Beeblebrox has decided this is a really good time to all hold hands and conduct a seance, and has summoned the spirit of his great-grandfather, Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth, for help. Ford Prefect expresses bafflement that they've managed to fit all this into their last 10 seconds of existence and asks why the count has stopped. [[note]] Zaphod's deceased ancestor explains that he needs longer than that to berate his great-grandson for being such a waste of space, so he's stopped time for just long enough[[/note]] |
| 429 | [[/folder]] |
| 430 | |
| 431 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 432 | * At the beginning of Act 1, part 4 of ''Theatre/{{Starship}}'' the computer announces three minutes to drop down. 30 seconds later, the computer correctly announces two minutes, 30 seconds. About three minutes later, the drop down is in two minutes, and two more minutes progress to get to one minute left. Two more minutes later, there are five seconds on the clock, then to one second (30 seconds later), before jumping to ''twenty seconds''. It takes about 10 more minutes for them to land. |
| 433 | [[/folder]] |
| 434 | |
| 435 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 436 | * ''VideoGame/TheDarksideDetective'': At the climax of the section of ''A Fumble in the Dark'' set in Castle Dooley, [=McQueen=] and Dooley have to fix a problem before a mechanical countdown reaches zero. The game doesn't have real-time progression, so the countdown is implemented in a way where each time they move to a new location the countdown voice announces the next number, no matter how long they actually spend in that location. The geography of the castle is set up so that the number of locations between where they are when the problem is discovered (in a basement) and where they need to be to fix it (up on the roof) uses up the whole ten-second countdown, with the countdown voice announcing "One" as they arrive on the roof, so if the player does the obvious thing and heads directly for the roof as quickly as possible the countdown will play out in a fairly natural manner. Except that then they will almost certainly discover that they're missing at least one of the objects required to actually solve the problem and will have to climb back down off the roof and go fetch it. No matter how long that takes, when they return to the roof the countdown voice will announce that there is, "inexplicably", still one second remaining. |
| 437 | * In the timed bonus levels of ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'' (the original), the narrator's voice (you know, the WizardNeedsFoodBadly guy) would count down the last 10 seconds before you failed to clear the level and get the bonus. Sometimes he'd [[UnreliableNarrator mix up the numbers]] as a joke. |
| 438 | * Spoofed in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal'': |
| 439 | -->'''Biobliterator CPU:''' Warning, reactor detonation in 60 seconds.\ |
| 440 | '''Dr. Nefarious:''' Lawrence, engage the teleporter.\ |
| 441 | '''Lawrence:''' Would you care to specify a destination, sir?\ |
| 442 | '''Dr. Nefarious:''' Who cares? Just get us out of here!\ |
| 443 | '''Biobliterator CPU:''' Time's up!\ |
| 444 | '''Dr. Nefarious:''' What? That wasn't even ''close'' to 60 seconds!\ |
| 445 | '''Biobliterator CPU:''' Bye-bye! ''[explodes]'' |
| 446 | * ''VideoGame/StarshipTitanic'' had a bomb that, once armed, would audibly count down, get distracted, and have to start over repeatedly. The player could also distract it, annoy it, and even make it break down in tears. [[spoiler:It did have to be defused before the game was over.]] |
| 447 | * Subtly parodied in ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''. Mettaton gives you two minutes to defuse six bombs, and the countdown is visible on-screen at all times, but the later seconds stretch out much longer than they ought to, and if you actually do run out of time, Mettaton baldfacedly claims you had three minutes all along. [[spoiler:Much like everything else involving Mettaton, this is a hint that all his apparent threat is a ploy by Alphys to have an excuse to save you.]] |
| 448 | [[/folder]] |
| 449 | |
| 450 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 451 | * ''WebAnimation/MinilifeTV'': In "Starsaber Duel", Chris and Ian pay for a 30-minute duel at the Starsaber place, but it ends much sooner than they expect. When they go to complain to the cashier, he tells them that the duels run on Hollywood time, meaning their promised 30-minute duel is equal to 2 minutes in actual time. Chris and Ian feel like they've been ripped off. |
| 452 | [[/folder]] |
| 453 | |
| 454 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 455 | * The EvilOverlordList parodies this multiple times, including entry Rule #216 (see the page quote) and Rule #15 ("I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 1:17 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.") |
| 456 | [[/folder]] |
| 457 | |
| 458 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 459 | * {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an episode of the ''WesternAnimation/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. |
| 460 | * ''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 10 to the point where entire seconds pass between counting ''fractions'' of seconds. |
| 461 | * ''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 10 seconds!" Unfortunately, the Pumpkinator reacts by cheating and speeding up the timer. (Cue Big Kaboom followed by BigNo.) |
| 462 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': |
| 463 | ** Spoofed in "[[Recap/FuturamaS3E3ATaleOfTwoSantas A Tale of Two Santas]]". Bender is arrested for being Robot Santa Claus and sentenced to death by electromagnets. Instead of a countdown timer, they use a random number generator to turn the magnets on. And the generator also [[NonNaturalNumberGag gives negative numbers]], and repeats numbers, leading to the possibility that they could wait a ridiculous length of time before ever getting to zero. Ironically, this is a reference to how [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_feedback_shift_register#Uses_as_counters LFSR]], a common random number generator, makes a better counter than normal counting. |
| 464 | ** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E8ABigPieceOfGarbage A Big Piece of Garbage]]": |
| 465 | *** The crew is sent to destroy a giant ball of garbage heading directly towards the Earth along with an explosive set to detonate after 25 minutes. Once they activate it, the digital timer counts down "25:00...15:00...05:00...6h:00" to the crew's surprise. The reason? The timer was ''upside down'' and thus set to ''52 seconds''. Way to go, Farnsworth. |
| 466 | *** The same episode featured a countdown for a rocket launch: |
| 467 | ---->'''Professor Farnsworth:''' Five, four, three, two, three, four, five, six...\ |
| 468 | '''Leela:''' Just fire the damn thing. |
| 469 | ** Spoofed yet again in "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E4LovesLaborsLostInSpace Love's Labors Lost in Space]]". Leela tells the team they have to hurry because the planet they're on will implode "in approximately two hours ago." |
| 470 | ** The last episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS7E26Meanwhile Meanwhile]]" involves a button that rewinds the Universe by exactly 10 seconds, but takes exactly 10 seconds to recharge, resulting in a scene with the same ten seconds taking place over and over. The writers clearly don't care about the accuracy of "10 seconds", which varies wildly during the episode. |
| 471 | * Averted in one ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode, when Dr. Drakken [[TaughtByExperience wises up enough to dispense with a countdown because of this trope]]. |
| 472 | -->'''Drakken:''' During the time it takes the computer voice to count backwards from ten, you always manage to defeat me. Not anymore! |
| 473 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 474 | ** 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 10 reps. These reps are then treated as a substitute countdown timer despite no causal link between the exercise and the reactor. |
| 475 | ---> "Five-hy-ya-ya!" |
| 476 | ** 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!" |
| 477 | * Parodied on ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' in the episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS11E4TheSnuke The Snuke]]": In a parody of ''Series/TwentyFour'', a bomb is set to go off when a digital clock with the requisite seven-segment display reaches 1:00. With just minutes to go, the authorities cut the power... and when it comes back, the digital clock controlling the detonator is flashing 12:00. |
| 478 | * Subverted in an early episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants,'' as Squidward counts down to what he thinks is an explosion that will kill [=SpongeBob=]. |
| 479 | -->'''[=SpongeBob=]:''' Five! You do the rest, buddy!\ |
| 480 | '''Sqidward:''' Four... Three... Two... ONE!\ |
| 481 | ''[{{beat}}]''\ |
| 482 | '''[=SpongeBob=]:''' I guess we started too early. Let's go again!\ |
| 483 | '''Squidward:''' 5... 4... 3...\ |
| 484 | ''[kaboom!]''\ |
| 485 | '''Squidward:''' [[CrossesTheLineTwice Twooooooo]]! |
| 486 | [[/folder]] |
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