Power Walk - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Power Walk is a wide shot of the main cast, shoulder to shoulder, suited up for battle and looking cool/determined/fierce, as they walk towards the camera, often in slow motion. Typically shot from a slightly lower than normal angle to add stature to the characters in the shot. Extra power can be gained from a dramatic backdrop, especially flames. The walk often continues until the characters are out of frame, and is often followed by an Act Break.

Sometimes (especially when used in the opening credits) called a Hero Shot (although there can be other types of hero shots — e.g. a shot from a low angle to make a character look larger than life)

Can be combined with an Unflinching Walk (as in the Smallville picture) for extra badassitude.

See also The Strut from Saturday Night Fever.

Examples:

Famous cinematic Power Walks:
- The Wild Bunch (1969) "Let's go!" Sam Peckinpah virtually invents the Power Walk, as his aging outlaws decide to rescue their comrade, walking through a Mexican village they will shortly massacre.
- The Magnificent Seven (1960)
- The Right Stuff (1983); this is probably the single most-parodied (or ripped off) Power Walk ever.
  - A "Right Stuff Walk" is almost obligatory in anything involving astronauts or space flight:
  - Armageddon (1998)
  - Slightly subverted as someone in the background complains, "Talk about the 'wrong' stuff", during the thuggish heroes' power walk. Also, at the end of the mission, it's contrasted by the heroic lineup being about 60% thinner than at the beginning.
  - Earthstorm (Made for TV, 2007)
  - Parodied in The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer". When Homer gets close up during his Power Walk and sees the shuttle, he gets cold feet and runs all the way back down the hall to call his wife.
  - Also parodied in Futurama, wherein, during their Power Walk, Fry and Leela hold their space helmets while Bender holds his own head.
  - Monsters, Inc., as the monsters enter the power company, and then again in its blooper reel as the monsters stumble and bowl each other over in slow motion.
- Reservoir Dogs (1992)
- 300 (2007). As with everything else in 300, beaten into the ground and kicked a few times for good measure.
  - And then stabbed with a spear.
- Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). Once Elvis and Jack decide to challenge the titular soul-sucking monster, they do a Power Walk of sorts (Elvis walks, Jack rides a powered wheelchair) through the corridor of their rest home.
- The title character and his Cowboy Cop partner from John Woo's The Killer get one of these at the end of the church shootout before the action is taken outside the church.
Many series use a Power Walk in their opening credits, including:
- Law And Order
- Angel
- Torchwood
- The Practice
- Queer Eye For The Straight Guy
- History Detectives (a PBS non-fiction show)
Spooks has also done this in its closing shot.
This visual idiom is also put to repeated use on Joss Whedon's Mutant Enemy shows, including at least two parodies:
- In one episode of Angel, "Smile Time," the doors to Angel's office open and Wesley, Gunn, and Fred walk out in slow-mo... and then the camera pans downward, revealing Angel as a puppet walking in front of them.
- In another, "Dad," the cast Powerwalk out of a hospital with a baby carriage.
- In yet another, "Disharmony," Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn Powerwalk with deadly seriousness on their way to confront a vampire cult leader. The camera starts with a group shot, then focuses on each of their intent expressions in turn, suddenly revealing Cordelia's ditzy friend-cum-vampire Harmony skipping along beside them.
- Done straight in the Buffy episode "Fool for Love." After Spike kills the Chinese slayer, we get several shots of him, Angel, Drusilla and Darla walking, tall and hard, with lots of fire in the background. Spike even skips over a random piece of debris, adding a sadistic child-like glee to his triumph.
- Lampshade hung with an entire song in Once More, With Feeling, during 'Walk Through the Fire.'
- Buffy, Angel, and Xander do a powerwalk to the school in the season one finale, "Prophecy Girl". Unusual in that the accompanying music is fast-paced, and that Buffy is wearing a beautiful evening gown.
The episode of Mythbusters broadcast on 2 March 2005 shows Jamie, Adam and the Build Team doing a Powerwalk down an abandoned runway.
1999's Mystery Men also parodies the Power Walk, with one character (Mr. Furious) suddenly turning around and trying to flee only to be grabbed by his fellows on either side and forced to continue to walk with them. Their facial expressions never change.
An episode of the BBC's Coupling parodied the Power Walk, with the leading men strutting slowly down the sidewalk in dark suits, narrow ties, and sunglasses, to be brought to a screeching halt by their girlfriends saying, "Stop playing Reservoir Dogs!"
- Doubly parodied, really, because the characters are actually walking in slow motion
Averted (at least in part) in the film Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension. The end credits roll features Team Banzai gathering together (even the member who died during the film) and marching in unison to the peppy "Team Banzai March". Not a true Power Walk in that the team walks across the screen from right to left, there is not a dramatic shot of the team walking towards the camera, much of the sequence focuses in on individual members of Team Banzai, and the tempo of the entire sequence is a bit too peppy to be as dramatic as a Power Walk should be.
The anime One Piece has used several Power Walks during its long run, the most recently-notable being those during the dramatic reunion of the nakama with Robin in the Enies Lobby arc.
The Professional Wrestling programs produced by WWE typically show the participants in the next match Power Walking to the entrance stage before they go to commercial. This has led several internet wrestling columnists to mock the practice in their recaps of the shows:
CRZ: It's Triple H, and he's WALKING~!!
- Vince Mc Mahon's Powerwalk is his trademark.
Video game example: Solid Snake, Raiden, and Otacon have a Power Walk scene near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2.
- The beginning of Act 5 of MGS 4 has Snake, Meryl, Johnny Sasaki, and Otacon doing one before they attempt to board Outer Haven.
Parodied in Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth: while the main characters dramatically Power Walk, background extras move through the frame at a normal pace.
Parodied in the live-action movie of Cromartie High School. The pre-finale Power Walk is intercut with trucking shots of the actors simply walking in place.
Taking to a ridiculous level in the opening of the anime, which has two groups of students walking right through, among other things, a tank.
The intro for Justice League plays this completely straight. But then, how can you NOT, when you've got Superman walking in the middle?
Seen in the Smallville episode "Justice" (and at the top of this page) where the proto-Justice League of Clark Kent, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Cyborg and Bart Allen do the Power Walk away from one of Lex Luthor's secret bases. Complete with the slo-mo, the explosions in the background, dramatic music and the close-up.
Given new meaning in Baywatch.
- They parodied this in The Fairly Oddparents: "They're slow, but they look good!"
Aaron Sorkin (and later John Wells) abused it a bit in The West Wing. Sorkin's iconic shot of President Bartlet's Redemption In The Rain in "Two Cathedrals" is immediately followed by the Senior Staff power-walking to the motorcade, and then into the State Department, set to the Dire Straits song "Brothers in Arms".
Actually comes up in the new Transformers movie. Strictly speaking, it's a bunch of cars driving in a straight line, but the way Michael Bay directs it...
SG-1 frequently enters the Stargate (and exits the other side) in this manner. In fact, the times they don't Power Walk usually indicate that something is wrong.
Often used in RPGs to show off all the awesome loot your party is wearing at the end of the game.
Sent up in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: There is a Power Walk right in the second season opening credits... performed by the characters in the series with the least impact on the plot.
Parodied in Jackass: The Movie. After the credits there was a fake trailer for a sequel sixty years from now called Son of Jackass, with all of the star are incredibly old. What happens is... you know, it's best just to watch it for yourself
Parodied in an episode of Penn And Teller Bullshit, where Penn and Teller deliberately give a group of ghost hunters a power walk to show that they're not trying to make them look silly.
Norris Packard in Mobile Suit Gundam: the 08th MS Team does a power walk with his Humongous Mecha power walking beside him.
Parodied in, of all things, Power Rangers Dino Thunder where the Three Amigos Power Walk as they head out to rescue Tommy from the Big Bad's lair. Haley wishes them luck while inexplicitly telling them they most likely won't survive. They stop and turn around in slow motion.
The second episode of Hustle featured the main cast doing a power walk combined with an Orbital Shot at the end just before the credits.
Ace, Sparx and Random Virus get one of thesein the last episode of Ace Lightning.
The S-Team pulled it off in the first episode of Sonic X.
In an episode of the show Dharma And Greg, we see two of these, first a straight one of the male characters (who have gotten fairly drunk and decided the manly thing to do is go bobsledding), and then one of the females... who have decided to go to a bar full of Navy men pretending to be bimbos. Identical shot and music... but rather different effect.

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