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If the characters are rafting, swimming, or just floating down a river, then they will either go over a waterfall or narrowly avoid going over a waterfall. Always. No exceptions. You could take it to the bank.
Despite the suspense or drama they may invoke, plunges over a waterfall will not result in significant physical injury to the characters. This is true regardless of the height of the fall, or the shallowness/rockiness of the bottom.
May have a Cave Behind the Falls.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The world of the Pokémon anime is filled with these waterfalls. And just as it is inevitable that Ash will save the Pokémon of the week from going over at the last minute, Team Rocket always end up going down it at the end of the episode.
- Akazukin Cha Cha: A school ice-skating race - naturally the river is frozen making the waterfall much more of an issue. Luckily Chacha's skirt turns into an impromptu parachute (though she's not too happy, especially with her two male friends hanging onto her ankles).
- The Slayers
- Midway through Ranma ½, Female-Ranma and Pantyhose Taro went over a waterfall while fighting on a drifting log. The thing is, nobody (not even the onlookers) even realized there was a waterfall there until the combatants went over the edge.
- In Dinosaur King, The Alpha Gang has a tendency to fall over these, preceded by a "this feels familiar". In the Niagara Falls episode, it occured twice!
- In Naruto, Team 7 has a mission cleaning up a river. During the entire episode, Naruto tries to prove that he's better than Sasuke. So, naturally, he gets too close to the giant waterfall, loses his footing, falls into the water, and goes screaming over the waterfall, only to be caught by an annoyed Sasuke.
- In Arashi no Yoru ni, Mei and Gabu tumble over a series of several waterfalls (culminating in one big one) when they attempt to escape from their clans' attempts to have them betray one another.
- The heroes of Monster Farm/Monster Rancher build a raft to float downstream but are diverted to a waterfall by the Baddies. This is a catalyst to get Suezo to learn his Teleportation technique.
Comic Books
Film
- Ice Age 3 with a lavafall.
- Without a Paddle. Also in the sequel.
- Bushwhacked
- George of the Jungle
- The Wrong Guys
- Last of the Mohicans
- Disney Films:
- Aladdin II: The Return of Jafar
- The Emperor's New Groove, with Lampshade Hanging as outlined in the above quote. They go over, and Kuzco screams "BOOYAHAHA!!" on the way down.
- The Rescuers Down Under: Notable because it was actually how the Big Bad met his end.
- Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
- In the first Mulan film, the main characters are carried over an Inevitable Cliff by an avalanche. It's essentially identical to an Inevitable Waterfall scene.
- Mulan II has a straight version, resulting in the most obvious Disney Death of all time.
- A Goofy Movie
- Some Disney shorts, where a huge waterfall is just downstream of where a whole bunch of people are skating on a frozen river.
- The Mr. Magoo movie.
- Star Wars:
- The Phantom Menace. Originally, there was going to be a scene involving one, but it was deleted. You can still see it on the DVD. Removed with good reason, as Darths & Droids points out.
- Revenge of the Sith has a fall of lava, though both Obi-Wan and Anakin manage to escape the piece of wreckage they're on before it goes over.
- The Lord of the Rings, with Boromir, though he was kind of already dead.
- Indiana Jones:
- Averted in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, probably because they'd already fallen off a mountain while in their raft moments before landing in the river.
- The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull actually has three of them, one right after another. Verges into an Overly-Long Gag.
- Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Ace is tied, along with his capuchin monkey Spike, to a log-raft that Ace deduces is going over said waterfall. The monkey escapes from the ropes and is about to free Ace, then changes his mind and jumps to shore while he still can, leaving Ace to go over the edge.
- In the first Homeward Bound, Sassy goes over the Inevitable Waterfall.
- Jaws falls afoul of one in The Amazon in Moonraker.
- The Odyssey.
- Used tragically in The Mission. With the Distant Reaction Shot of the denouement providing the art for the Film Poster and the cover art for the Ennio Morricone soundtrack album.
- Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, where the boat somehow manages to go over a waterfall while heading up the river.
- Predator
- Give My Regards to Broad Street, during the "Eleanor's Dream" sequence.
- Cat City
- Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality.
- Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol.
- Evan Almighty. A real trick, considering it involves an ark and a flood.
- Probably justified in Apocalypto, as Jaguar Paw knew it was there and could well have headed there intentionally.
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
- Milo And Otis is about a kitten who gets too curious for his own good and climbs in a box floating down the river, only to be washed away down into a waterfall and the rest is history.
- The ending of Pure Luck.
- In The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible gets thrown over a waterfall.
Literature
- Discworld
- Witches Abroad: the witches end up heading for a waterfall. ("The dwarfs didn't say anything about a waterfall." "I expect they thought we'd find out for ourselves.") Magrat tries to use her Fairy Godmother wand to save them and, just as they're about to go over, manages to turn the boat into a pumpkin. This doesn't help.
- The Fifth Elephant: Vimes goes over one while he's on the run from the werewolf pack. Prior to going over he sees Death because he is having a near-death experience and thus Death must be having a near-Vimes experience (because of Quantum).
- The Colour of Magic: The crowning champ for scale: Rincewind goes off the edge of the world, over the Rimfall.
- In William King's Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novel Wolfblade, when Ragnor and Haegr escape a Cult by swimming in an underground river, they go over a waterfall.
- The Niagara Falls themselves show up in Jules Verne's novel Master Of The World. Two torpedo ships chase a mysterious vehicle, called the Terror, across Lake Erie, until they corner it before the falls. Instead of either letting the ships catch or sink the Terror, or perishing by being dragged down the falls, the vehicle's inventor and captain takes a third option: The Terror spreads its wings and flies away.
- In The Beyonders, Jason's first encounter in the world of Lyrian is with a band who are floating down a raft toward a waterfall... by their own choice. He attempts to save them anyway. Things go downhill--in the most literal fashion--soon after.
- In Jurassic Park, with a friggin' T-rex at the bottom.
- In Patrimony by Alan Dean Foster, Flinx has to deal with one of these things.
- In The Hour Of The Gate, also by Foster, Jon-Tom's party only survive the Inevitable Waterfall because the wizard Clothahump levitates their boat over the Helldrink. This was even more harrowing than most examples, as they were on a subterranean river with no way to change course or land, and were being pursued by an Eldritch Abomination at the time.
- In Snakehead, seventh installment in Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series, Alex steals a float and oar from a seaplane, and uses them to form a kayak. He then navigates through treacherous rapids and tries to avoid a marksman aiming at him from a helicopter, and only after getting through this does he tumble down the 50-yard high Bora Falls...and, being the protagonist, survives. This is not the first time that it is made blindingly obvious that the kid is Born Lucky, nor is it the last.
Live Action TV
Newspaper Comics
- Pooch Cafe: "We live in a flat, urban environment. Where did that waterfall come from?"
Theatre
Video Games
- Gears of War 2 - While underground and headed towards Nexus, Marcus and Dom are riding a commandeered Locus Gunboat. Of course, there's a waterfall, which prompts Marcus to shout "You've got to be kidding me!"
- In Final Fantasy VI, Sabin and Cyan jump down a waterfall in order to reach their destination. Cyan will hesitate and Shadow will calmly leave your party if he's still with you at that point, but there's still very little pause given before jumping off a waterfall so large you've got time for a few random encounters and a minor boss battle on the way down.
- Ōkami has an interactive challenge involving one of these on a log rushing towards a waterfall
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has one at the finale, when you are chasing Gen Shepherd's helicopter in a Zodiac raft. Made doubly badass because you could have escaped going over, but you and Price deliberately stayed in order to take the killer shots.
- Exile: Warns you shortly before a long series of them. The final set is multiple in a row. You are pre-warned, but, by then, you've long since crossed the Point of No Return.
Web Animation
Webcomics
Western Animation
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