Line #26 Main/StairsAreFaster


1	->''"#91. In just about any horror situation, use the stairs. Elevators have too many fun buttons and cables for killers and creatures of all shapes and sizes to play with."''
2	--> -- ''[[http://monsterlibrarian.com/horrorsurvive.htm Horror Survival Guide]]''
3
4	Alice is being pursued by some {{Mook}}s through a high-rise building. She pushes the button for the elevator, but it takes its time getting to her floor. With the mooks catching up to her, she takes the stairs, realizing that by the time the elevator arrives, she could already be captured.
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6	It's common in chase scenes, but a chase isn't necessary for this trope to work. This could come into play during any situation where a character, sick of waiting for an elevator, decides to take the stairs instead.
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8	Note that over one or two floors, stairs are typically faster even if the elevator is immediately available, though this changes quickly once you need to climb more flights of stairs than that--elevators don't tire, but people do.
9
10	SuperTrope of ElevatorSnare, when the pursuers take the stairs and the pursued takes the elevator only to be caught.
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12	This trope can also mean that sometimes it is faster to take the stairs than to fall the same distance. See also VariableTerminalVelocity.
13	----
14	!!Examples
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16	[[foldercontrol]]
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18	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
19	* ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu'': In a hurry to get up to Sôsuke's apartment to retrieve her homework, Kaname first goes to the elevator, presses the button, and waits for a few seconds -- then screams in frustration and runs for the stairs.
20	* In an episode of ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Pokémon]]'', Jessie is hastily crawling across a wooden beam suspended between two buildings ("Would you just [[AccidentalPun give me a break]]?"), and falls. James and Meowth race down the stairs and arrive at the bottom ''before'' Jessie does -- they still don't catch her.
21	* ''Manga/{{Spriggan}}''. Rie Yamabishi dives into the elevator JustInTime to escape an American armored soldier, only for the soldier to jump onto the top of the elevator and rip his way inside, forcing her to flee the elevator and take the stairs. This is in contrats to the manga, where the armored soldier tries to force his way through the elevator after killing the ARCAM guards on the top floors of the ARCAM office.
22	[[/folder]]
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24	[[folder:Fan Works]]
25	[[AC:''Film/OmenIVTheAwakening'']]
26	* ''Fanfic/AlwaysVisible'': It is curiously played out in the last chapters of the third act, when employees of the underground university lead Galbraith down the stairs for the reason that if they took the elevator, they would not have time to introduce their guest to the situation.
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29
30	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
31	* ''Film/TheLavenderHillMob''. Holland and Pendlebury realise six of the solid gold paperweights have inadvertently been sold to a party of schoolgirls at the top of the Eiffel Tower. They try to catch the schoolgirls before they get to the lift, but the doors close ahead of them, so they take a set of spiraling emergency stairs down to the ground, by which time they are too dizzy to intercept the schoolgirls' car before it leaves.
32	* ''Film/TheRing''. Rachel is racing to warn Noah that Samara has not been put to rest and is after him. When she arrives at his apartment she tries to use the elevator but gets frustrated by the delay and runs up the stairs instead.
33	* In ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', the brothers take the elevator up to the floor the Assessor's office is on, then disable the one elevator they came up in. The combined might of the Chicago Police, SWAT, National Guard, etc. try to follow up the elevator, but after waiting a few seconds they decide to charge up the stairway instead.
34	* In ''Film/SilkStockings'', in a hotel in Paris, Nina Yashenko, carrying her suitcase, starts walking up several flights of stairs at the same time three of the men she's working with start up in an elevator. She is already waiting there when they arrive.
35	* ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'': Kirk and co. get on the hospital elevator, while the cops chasing them take the stairs. The police are waiting for them when the elevator arrives, only for it to be empty (Kirk and co. beamed to the park).
36	* Nearly happens in ''Film/{{Aliens}}''. Ripley, carrying Newt, races back towards the sub-basement's elevators and frantically hits the buttons for both, with the Alien Queen in hot pursuit. Increasingly desperate, she slings Newt onto her shoulders and starts to climb a nearby ladder, only for the first elevator to finally touch down; they promptly board it instead. [[spoiler:The Queen, naturally, ends up taking the second elevator.]]
37	* ''Film/RatRace'': After Donald Sinclair has told the characters the rules of the race, all of them claim that they're not going to participate, and then each makes an excuse to take the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, hoping to get a head start on the rest.
38	* ''Film/TanghiArgentini'': Andre and Franz are on an elevator together after Franz has rejected Andre's request for tango lessons. Andre gets off on his floor. Franz goes a couple of floors down, only to be very surprised when the doors open again and he sees Andre outside, demanding lessons.
39	[[/folder]]
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41	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
42	* ''Series/TheBoys2019''. The superhero version occurs in "Get Some" when Queen Maeve has to take the elevator while [[FlyingBrick Homelander]] just flies up to the floor, [[SuperWindowJump smashes through the window]] and waits for her, [[ConversationCut continuing the conversation they were having]] when she arrives.
43	* Averted in ''Series/TheDefenders2017''. When Matt Murdock [[SuperHearing hears a gunshot]] on the executive floor of Midland Circle, he steals Jessica Jones' scarf for a [[CheapCostume makeshift mask]] and {{Le Parkour}}s his way up the stairwell. Jessica just takes the elevator and makes it there at the same time as he does.
44	* ''Series/HumanTarget'': Played Straight. Ames takes the stairs when she realizes Winston is on to her. It doesn't work out for her, though.
45	* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Jack Bauer proves this trope when he outruns Coffel's elevator, beating him to his limo.
46	* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': In an effort to delay Sterling, who's taking the elevator, Nate runs up the stairs and pushes all the elevator call buttons, causing Sterling's elevator to stop at every floor. He's more and more winded at each floor, beating the elevator by narrower and narrower margins, until on the very last floor he's totally out of energy and has to just slump against the wall just out of eye-line as the elevator doors open
47	* Happens a few times on ''Series/{{Alias}}''. Sometimes the stairs aren't necessarily ''faster'', but are stealthier than an elevator.
48	* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. In "Dead Reckoning", John Reese (wearing a bomb vest that's counting down to zero) is trapped on a MissingFloor only accessible via a code-locked elevator. Detective Carter and Fusco take the fire exit up to him. It's on the 21st floor, which doesn't make Fusco happy.
49	* ''Series/TheMole'': In the Belgian version, season 6 had one challenge where a contestant rode an elevator all the way to the top of a building while the other contestants tried to outrace the elevator on the stairs for an exemption. One of the racing contestants ''just'' managed to beat the contestant in the elevator -- though it must be noted that: 1) she was the most athletic contestant in the cast, 2) she was allowed to ride another elevator partway up the building and thus only had to take the stairs for part of the trip, and 3) all other contestants on the stairs became far too exhausted to catch the elevator.
50	* ''Series/AlteredCarbon''. Takeshi Kovacs realises too late that his LoveInterest and the prisoner she was escorting are in an elevator with a hitman who is ImpersonatingAnOfficer. He races up and down the stairs while a bloody ElevatorActionSequence ensues, but only arrives after everything is over and the villains have escaped.
51	* Parodied in ''Series/MrBean'' ''in Room 426''. Another guest makes it into the elevator to head to the top floor, and the doors close just before Mr Bean gets there. He races up the stairs to the next floor and presses the button there so that the elevator stops; he does this on every floor.
52	* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] on ''Series/RedDwarf'', when the elevator's AI deliberately lies to Rimmer about how long it'll take for a lift to arrive. When pressed for the truth, it explains that it ''has'' to make its services sound speedier than they are, for fear of losing business to its chief competitor: the stairs.
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55	[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
56	* ''Series/SesameStreet'': In a sketch involving Count Von Count, the Count gets a job as an elevator operator so he can count the numbers for each floor he goes to, and Kermit is his first customer. Kermit wants to go to the seventh floor, but the Count doesn't stop when he gets to the seventh floor, as he wants to keep counting until he reaches the tenth. When Kermit tells the Count that they missed the seventh floor, the Count takes him back down, but once again does not stop at the seventh floor, as he wants to count all the way back to the first. Kermit even tries to take control of the elevator, but the Count prevents him from doing so. In the end, the Count tells Kermit to take the stairs, that way he (Kermit) can get to the seventh floor, and he (the Count) can keep counting each floor without stopping.
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59	[[folder:Western Animation]]
60	* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': The Monarch and Henchman 21 take the chute down to the Monarchmobile while Henchman 24 takes the more sensible stairs. He gets there first and closes the sunroof just as they would fall into the car.
61	* An extreme example in ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'': events in the episode had left Captain Hero a quadriplegic. At one point he has to ascend a ludicrously long flight of stairs in his wheelchair. Just a moment after he finally reaches the top, his housemates arrive by elevator.
62	* Parodied in the ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' episode "Less than Hero", in which Leela descends a set of stairs faster than Fry can ''fall'' the same distance. (Since she and Fry, in this episode, can run at super-speed, but not fly, this might even be justified.)
63	* Hilariously played with on ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'': Gadget's chasing Brain. Brain desperately calls for the elevator while his pursuer comes barrelling in on Gadget Skates. Brain makes it just in time; Gadget realizes he needs to take the stairs. Upon seeing the [[StairwellChase seemingly endless flight of stairs]] above, the inspector [[TakeAThirdOption deploys his Copter Hat.]] All goes well until Gadget gets entangled in a chandelier. [[FallingChandelierOfDoom Flying Inspector of Doom, anyone?]]
64	* Zig-zag: In the WesternAnimation/PorkyPig cartoon "Porky's Hotel" (Clampett, 1939), Porky carts a guest's luggage to an elevator. He presses the "up" button, and when the doors open, it displays a flight of stairs.
65	* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries,'' the Clock King pulls a heist using a device that accelerates time for him to the point of the rest of the world effectively being at a complete standstill. As the goods he's after are on an upper floor, he hits the elevator button...then remembers that it's just as temporally frozen to him as everything else and opts for the stairs.
66	* Played Straight for [[RuleOfFunny comedy]] in an episode ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog''. Courage pulls off an elaborate scene to escape from Dr. Zalost only for the doctor to immediately catch him once he reaches the top floor of the tower. To make the scene even more hilarious, Zalost somehow found the time to get some ice cream on the way!
67	--> '''Dr. Zalost:''' Why didn't you take the stairs? It's much faster.
68	* In the pilot of ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'', Inspector Chase Deveraux pursues Carmen in a museum's painfully slow elevator.
69	-->'''Chase:''' Why must the elevator date back two centuries?! Was no one ever in a hurry back then?!
70	* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'':
71	** The first episode has this in spades. None too happy that his friend Captain Augustus Black knocked him out, Jackie steps out of his work van and enters a phone booth to call a taxi, not knowing its the secret entrance to Section 13. When he comes out, he sees Black reached his area first; Jackie questions this and Black replies "the stairs". Less than two minutes later, Jade rips through the area with a motor scooter. Two agents capture her and asks her how she got in, and she gives Black the same answer he gave Jackie. When Jackie gets a call from Tohru telling him Uncle is hostage and demands a trade for an antique Jackie acquired from his recent expedition. He returns to Uncle's shop and asks Black to watch Jade. Black is about to only to see Jade disappeared. When Jackie gets home, he startled by Jade's sudden appearance, with Jade giving the same answer. Jackie then demands Jade take extra stairs to her room. Then it gets inverted around in a different building where Jade and Uncle take the stairs to get away from Tohru--who simply takes the elevator down and exits it just as the now-exhausted Jade and Uncle reach the bottom.
72	** Inverted in a Season Five episode where the group must recover moss from the top of an enormous statue to break a curse. Jackie rappels up the statue and, after a lot of effort, reaches the top, exhausted...only to see Jade already standing there. She points out a nearby--and much faster--tourist tram that she rode instead: "I'm ''stubborn.'' Not ''stupid.''"
73	* Normally, WesternAnimation/DangerMouse and Penfold take a sofa lift down to the Mk. III car and then back up when the mission is completed. There were two instances where they wind up taking the stairs instead. "Mechanised Mayhem" had them taking the stairs after a mechanical revolution pre-empts the sofa lift function, while in "Viva Danger Mouse," they consign themselves to the stairs after they find cactus needles in the sofa cushions.
74	* [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] on ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' when Francine, in a hurry, impatiently presses the button for the elevator several times in quick succession, then after a couple seconds gives up and heads up the stairs ... just as the elevator doors open.
75	* ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'': In "[[Recap/TheLooneyTunesShowS2E7CustomerService Customer Service]]", Cecil Turtle is an employee at the Trans-Visitron cable company and cuts off Bugs Bunny's cable just to mess with him. This prompts Bugs to get back at Cecil. At one point, Cecil arrives at Trans-Visitron headquarters two minutes before his break is about to end. When he tries to take the elevator to the 22nd floor, Bugs appears as the elevator operator, treating him in a way similar to how Cecil treated him earlier by telling him about the various packages he has that could take him to the 22nd floor. Cecil decides to take the stairs instead.
76	[[/folder]]
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78	[[folder:RealLife]]
79	* In most cases, this is true so long as it's only three or four floors at the most; the elevator is meant for people carrying packages, for people who may be unable to take stairs due to injury or infirmity, or for people ascending or descending so far that it would make the stairs difficult or impossible. Usually taking the stairs is faster than waiting for the elevator's arrival, boarding the elevator, waiting for the doors to close, waiting for the ascent or descent to the proper floor, potentially being interrupted as new passengers board or exit on the intervening floors, waiting for the doors to open, and disembarking. It's also easier to go downstairs than it is to go upstairs.
80	** However, it seems most people will use the elevator if one exists, whether or not it makes sense.
81	* At the Ohana West Hotel in Waikiki, Hawaii, the stairs ''are'' faster, as the lobby only has one or two elevators, one of which is either already in use or out of order.
82	* Averted in some buildings where, for reasons of security, the doors from the stairwell to the upper floors are one-way locked -- the stairs can be used to exit the building, but not to travel between floors.
83	[[/folder]]

Context Main / StairsAreFaster