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"Oh right, what Daring Do adventure would be complete without the precarious rope bridge?"

Any foot-based Chase Scene in the outdoors inevitably comes to a broad, deep, rocky chasm spanned only by a rickety rope-and-plank bridge. The bridge is old and poorly maintained, with planks missing or rotten from age. Naturally, the ropes on one end must be cut (or break due to being old) when the hero(es) are halfway across, so that they must hold on for dear life as the bridge swings down and slams into the side of a cliff. Never mind the predictable results of slamming into the cliff that fast.

Then, they have to climb back up... but the rocky chasm is only one of the problems. The pursing enemies may be firing arrows or bullets at them. Even if you hit the water and live, there may be hungry crocodiles.

A related trope is when the heroes make it across safely, but have to cut the ropes themselves to prevent their pursuers from following them. If a hero wants to keep the enemies from crossing and reaching his home village, the hero may cut the bridge while they're still on it to kill all the attackers, making it a Heroic Sacrifice and a Last Stand.

In other cases, the rope bridge is an obstacle in itself. Many a band of brave adventurers find themselves walking one by one across the rickety bridge. Often a single plank will fall out from under the hero (or a Red Shirt) leaving them either hanging from the ropes or plummeting to their doom. The heroes are usually safe from falling through due to their Plot Armor.

It's interesting in the field of Bamboo Technology that they can build elaborate death traps in tombs that work reliably for a thousand years, but can't build a rope bridge that will last for ten. Who knows, maybe it's the damp climate or the sea air. Often goes hand-in-hand with Don't Look Down if the bridge is especially precarious.

Despite the name, this trope also covers any aged, creaky bridge, even if it's made of crumbling concrete or rusted iron. The key element is the sense of danger in using it.

In ice-bound regions, a snow or ice bridge works on the same principle. Expect cracking and creaking noises to ratchet up the tension. In mountainous regions or caves, a precarious rock bridge may be used. In sci-fi, it may occur indoors, if the hero has to use an old metal bridge or catwalk between platforms in a huge space station or spaceship hangar (these rickety catwalks often have No OSHA Compliance, so little or no railings).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Animation 
  • In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Mighty Little Defenders episode 11, the goats chase after the wolves, who are running away with Mr. Slowy and Grany Dao Yang. The goats come across a rope bridge, which is cut by the wolves who have already made it to the other side. Thankfully, Tibbie uses her bow and arrow to create a big vine to catch everyone before they fall too far down the cliff below.
  • The first episode of Stitch & Ai is a somewhat unique example of a situation on a rope bridge. The title characters find themselves trapped in the middle of one, with platypus-like aliens the Woolagongs (who were initially disguised as a human tour group walking across the bridge, save for the unaware and shocked actual human guide) on one side and reptilian-styled aliens the Jaboodies (who were chasing the titular characters beginning from a shrine) on the other. Faced with being captured by one of the two alien factions, Stitch breaks the planks underneath himself and Ai, causing both of them to fall through to escape. They both land safely on a ledge below.

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Brave10, Kamanosuke, Disguised in Drag in attempt to execute a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, lures Saizo and Isanami onto a rope bridge, intending to attack them there as he would have the advantage. It doesn't go exactly as planned as Kakei was too frightened to cross and is able to use his gun at a distance from Kamanosuke's wind powers, but ultimately the bridge still gets severed with Kamanosuke holding Isanami hostage while Saizo falls down into the ravine.
  • Case Closed:
  • This occurred in Dragon Ball GT: A Hero's Legacy when Goku Jr. and Puck attempt to cross it.
  • Subverted in Fairy Tail. Confronted with a rope bridge, the group lets a clueless Natsu go across first. To their surprise, the bridge is perfectly safe. Only when they comment on this does Natsu realize what they did.
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure, episode 6, offers a subversion: The bad guy chases the girls onto the bridge, but he is too heavy for it; his first step snaps the ropes and breaks the planks, plunging him into the river below just as the girls reach the other end.
  • Inuyasha: Jaken and Rin are confronted by a villain in the middle of a rope bridge. In a subversion, the bridge breaks because Jaken's attempt to defend himself and Rin relies on fire which burns the ropes and breaks the bridge causing all three of them to plunge into the gorge below.
  • In episode 6 of Jewelpet Twinkle☆, one of Headmaster Moldavite's "Stop-Hiccup-kun" magic items sends everyone onto a rope bridge in the middle of nowhere. Ruby and Tour have fun bouncing on it, leading to them breaking the bridge and making everyone fall.
  • Lupin III: In Shin Lupin III, the only way into the hidden and isolated kingdom of Kima-sankoku is via a rope bridge, which Samurai Goemon is forced to sever with his sword to keep the persistent Inspector Zenigata from following them. Zenigata manages to hold on as it falls back and slams into the cliffside. He eventually makes his way back up to safety, but Lupin and his gang are long gone.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • The first example occurred in the episode, "Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village", the protagonists attempt to cross a rope bridge, but the wind rips the bridge apart. Brock loses his grip and falls into the river while Ash manage to keep his grip and pulls himself to safety with Misty and Pikachu clinging on him. Team Rocket try crossing later but break to an edge and fall.
    • Later episodes feature rope bridges and none or very few of them end without the bridge being destroyed.
    • Magical Pokémon Journey has a non-breaking rope bridge... that some Hoppips manage to fall off anyway (being so light that wind blows them around, they all wind up back on the bridge at the next breeze).
  • In one episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Nanami and her girl posse are in India trying to track down another sample of the magic curry powder they think is responsible for Utena and Anthy's "Freaky Friday" Flip. At one point they have to cross a narrow rope bridge across a gorge, and suddenly find themselves attacked by a herd of stampeding elephants.
  • Variant in Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin purposely destroys the wooden bridge he and Misao are trapped on in order to avoid a fight and make the quickest getaway.
  • Subverted in Sailor Moon, episode 171. Sailor Venus and Pluto are being chased by Mooks across a Rope Bridge, which (predictably) fails before they reach the other end, causing the mooks to plummet down. Sailor Venus conjures a magical chain to support the two of them, and it seems that all they have to do is to climb up... but a Reveal Shot follows, showing that the other end of the chain is being held by the Big Bad, who happily releases it, causing the heroes to fall to certain doom. (They ironically survive because of the Big Bad's unwillingness to just let them die like that.)

    Comic Books 
  • In The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #3, Indy rescues a young man from a lynch mob. Their escape route leads them across a narrow rope bridge over a ravine, which is where the angry mob catches up with them. The mob tries to kill them by cutting the bridge out from under them.

    Films — Animated 
  • A rope bridge over a river of lava serves as the entrance to Atlantis in Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. It gets blown up by an explosives charge in the climax. Earlier, a rock bridge collapses as the expedition tries to escape an attack on their camp, sending everyone to the bottom, though unharmed and with their equipment intact and putting them much closer to Atlantis.
  • In The Emperor's New Groove, Kuzco only truly begins to become a better person after he and Pacha have to work together to survive the collapse of a rope bridge. (Something of a subversion in that they actually do fall off the bridge into the chasm, and are just lucky enough to get stuck in a choke-point before hitting the crocodile-infested river.)
  • In the film version of Horton Hears a Who!, Horton has to cross a bridge to Mt. Nool with the entire Who planet dangling on a speck of dust on his trunk!
    Horton: Well, no need to worry. Obviously, when they build a bridge like this, they take into account that elephants will be crossing here.
  • Kung Fu Panda: A truly epic fight takes place on a rope bridge between Tai Lung and the Furious Five. The bridge is perfectly safe until the combatants start damaging it....
  • In The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire, in order to cross a canyon, the little dinosaurs walk across a bunch of vines. Unfortunately, Spike spots a flower on the vines and eats it, cutting the vines and sending the dinosaurs swinging into a cave.
    Cera: [to Spike] Don't ever. do that. AGAIN!
  • The climax of the first short of Saludos Amigos takes place on a collapsing rope bridge.
  • Subverted in Shrek. It does collapse, but only after being set on fire by a dragon (never mind that it was suspended over a lava pit). Previously it held up just fine despite a several-hundred pound ogre rocking back and forth on it to prove a point to a scared-witless donkey.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In the film Bushwhacked, Daniel Stern and a group of kids have to cross a long rope bridge. Aside from one plank falling, the group make it across pretty quick — although one has to have a bit more encouragement from Daniel when he stops in the middle of the bridge. After the kids are across, Stern cuts the bridge to stop Jon Polito and Brad Sullivan from pursuing him.
  • The Colony has a bridge made of concrete and steel girders, but falling apart after years of harsh weather and neglect. The expedition leader does a Heroic Sacrifice blowing up the bridge to stop the cannibal tribe following them. However the remaining cannibals take the long way, and follow the Sole Survivor back to his colony.
  • In The Deserter, Jackson constructs a rope bridge from the mesa to the mountain range to allow the squad to cross over undetected.
  • George of the Jungle: African Jungle Guides N'Dugo, Kip, and Baleto walk across a bridge with their boss Mr. Kwame and Lyle around. They're warned by Kwame to be very careful because the bridge is not safe; Lyle accidentally rocks it and makes N'Dugo fall off the bridge into the water below, severely injured. This starts their hatred for him.
  • In the 1992 film Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth, three characters exploring an island have to cross a rope bridge, which begins to break while they're on it. Instead of holding onto it, the characters jump off (or rather one character pushes the other two off before jumping) into the river below — which is much closer to the bridge than usual.
  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom provides the current page image. While running from the Thuggees, Indy, Willie, and Short Round find themselves trapped on a long rickety rope bridge. Indy warns Short Round in Chinese, then cuts the bridge himself, with the intent of dropping the bad guys into the crocodile-infested river below. Needless to say, Willie and Short Round are not impressed by this plan.
    Willie: Oh my God oh my God oh my God, is he nuts?
    Short Round: He no nuts, he's crazy!
  • In Just Before Dawn, one character encounters the killer at the end of one, who cuts his hand with his machete, and then the ropes holding the bridge. In the original draft of the film, the reveal of the killer having a twin brother was also supposed to happen in this scene.
  • In the Wuxia movie The Lady Hermit, Chin Tsui-peng (Szu Shih) is trying to get across a rope bridge, with minions of the crime boss Black Demon to either side of her. On one side, the men decide to cut the bridge, but she manages to hang on, defeat the criminals who also held on, and reach the other side.
  • Lampshaded in The Librarian. While crossing a large wooden bridge, he expresses surprise that it would hold the weight, and bounces on the board. He falls through, and is rescued. Cue the bridge collapsing.
  • In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, during their escape from Moria, the Fellowship must descend several half-ruined staircases made of stone that span a bottomless abyss. Then the stairs start collapsing underneath them as a result of the Balrog's rampage.
  • In the 2022 thriller Lou, the villain is hauling his kidnapped daughter in a baby carriage but has to abandon it and carry her across a damaged bridge. We don't see this part but his pursuers having to do the same. Unlike other versions of this trope the bridge is suspended by strong steel cables, but the part holding the treads has become twisted by the storm, forcing them to climb across the cables above a raging torrent.
  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Bridge of Death is guarded by a keeper who will grant passage to whoever answers three questions. Miss any and the answerer is cast into a gorge.
  • Bully cuts down one while being chased by the natives in Nate and Hayes.
  • Pandorum has a sci-fi take on this trope, with the old and damaged platform leading to the reactor. But instead of a Star Wars-type abyss the platform passes low over a horde of sleeping carnivorous mutants.
  • The Phantom:
    • In the 1943 The Phantom film serial, there's a rope bridge over a deep gorge that a gang of gun-runners need to transport their cargo across. The Phantom attempts to stop them by cutting the support ropes, but is caught in the act; a fight ensues that spills out onto the bridge, with bad guys tackling the Phantom left and right while the support ropes creak ominously and begin to part...
    • The 1993 The Phantom movie has a rope bridge the bad guys have to drive a truck over. Unsure if it will support the truck's weight, they force a native child to drive it over for them. It collapses while the bad guys are fleeing, allowing them to escape as the Phantom is forced to save the boy.
  • Romancing the Stone: The scary bridge is a trestle bridge. It was a hazard to users.
  • In Summer Camp Nightmare, the broken rope bridge that connects between Camp North Pines and Camp South Pines, which Mr. Warren tells the children not to use because it is dangerous, appears a few times used by the teenagers. The first time it was used, Franklin Reilly used it as a daring test to prove his theory about overcoming fear. The other two times it was used, it was used as punishment for both John Mason (for raping Debbie Stewart) and Donald Poultry (for attempting to call for help through the telephone lines).

    Literature 
  • In The Lord of the Rings parody Bored of the Rings, Goodgulf the wizard performs his You Shall Not Pass! scene on a rope bridge which the Fellowship chop down with him on it.
  • Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) tells the story of a group of people who die when an Incan rope bridge in Peru collapses. The novel follows a priest, who had witnessed the accident, who goes around learning about the people who died and why the were on the bridge.
  • Subverted in Carpe Jugulum, when the rickety old rope bridge over a bottomless chasm is on a piece of magical ground, and to Perdita (who lacks any self-doubt) is simply a large stone across a ditch. There's also a description of the bridge (as the other witches see it) as having a "negative quality", in that it looks less safe than jumping off the edge and hoping a gust of wind will carry you.
  • Come Tumbling Down: The temple of the Drowned Gods is reached by a rickety bridge over a storm-tossed ocean, allowing the Gods to engineer "accidents" when they want to claim someone. Kade slips on the bridge, then deliberately falls into the ocean rather than endanger the others. Luckily for them, the Drowned Gods return him later.
  • The Courts of the Morning includes a chase through the South American jungle that ends when the heroes get across a rope bridge and cut it behind them, sending their pursuers plummeting.
  • Gods and Warriors: As Hylas and Pirra flee from Taka Zimi in the third book, they're forced to cross a bridge that's just one rope to stand on and two other ropes to hold on to. Though Hylas has never trusted such bridges, they've nearly made it across when the Crows catch up to bombard them with arrows. The two heroes then cut the ropes, and though Telamon attempts to cross the bridge himself, he gives up when he understands he can't make it fast enough.
  • Ketrin: The entire (non-erotic) second half of Part Seven involves Ketrin's friend Sherinel having to cross a bridge with four lupinoid companions to get to the side of the river where he thinks Ketrin is. Subverted to the extent that it's not a rope bridge but a huge decaying wooden structure, but that just means that a) it takes a lot longer to get across, and b) it's slowly falling to bits while they're crossing it. And yes, it's hundreds of feet above a raging river.
  • In Kushiel's Chosen, island prison La Dolorosa is connected to the mainland only by a rope bridge, which has two guards on the island side armed with axes, who can cut the bridge long before anybody gets across. Joscelin's solution? Climb along the underside of the bridge.
  • There used to a rope bridge spanning the great gorge in the Redwall series, but Slagar the Cruel burns it once he's finished crossing. The heroes then cross the gorge with a makeshift zipline, and later in the series a gigantic tree trunk is used as the bridge.
  • Played with in The Silver Chair. When the travellers are confronted with a fast-flowing river in a very deep chasm, they spot an ancient stone bridge. Jill and Eustace believe that it was built by giants, but Puddleglum believes it may be enchanted, and might disappear when they are on the middle of it. He reluctantly crosses with the children, and nothing eventful happens. The BBC adaptation adds a scene where Eustace almost falls through a gap where stones have dropped out, and has to be hauled back up.
  • The Commissar by Sven Hassel. The Squad have to winch their tanks across an icy platform-suspension bridge. A couple of ropes snap and the platform is left hanging on an angle, but no-one gets killed.
  • One of the first signs that something's up in Temple is the existing, already cut rope bridge. Several characters note that it's new, but Incan rope bridges rarely lasted more than three years. Not only is there a native tribe in the area, but they want to keep something on the tower of rock the temple is on.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who:
    • A rope bridge shows up in the serial "The Keys of Marinus" in the very first season and is used to trap the protagonists on the wrong side of a chasm inside a spacious ice-cave. They put it back together with the help of stalactites (or were they stalagmites?) even though they clearly could have just jumped over the chasm.
    • In "Voyage of the Damned", they have to cross a sort of rickety-bridge. It's not made of rope, but one of the people shocks us by falling off before he gets on the bridge, and one jumps off voluntarily, taking the host with her, so it seems to fit the trope, or at least subverting it.
  • The Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode "Hero's Heart" starts with Iolaus having a crisis of confidence after failing to save a woman from falling from one of these.
  • Lost features a rope bridge that doesn't collapse when (very large) Hurley crosses it, but does when the much smaller Charlie follows him. It is possible that Hurley strained the bridge enough to weaken it so that it could break when Charlie tries to cross it.
  • Midsomer Murders: In "Dead Man's Eleven", a rope bridge across a mere is sabotaged to dump a group of walkers in the lake (although without murderous intent for once).
  • MythBusters:
    • They demonstrated that you can build a 100 ft rope bridge, using nothing but duct tape. (It only took 196 rolls.)
    • In a 2012 episode, they took on the Cliffhanger rope bridge cut (well, severed with explosives) by the bad guys. Sorry, Stallone, but it's busted — you can't jump off a falling rope bridge. They also tested the common movie "solution" of hanging on to the bridge as it's falling, then trying to climb; they found that while it's surprisingly difficult (perhaps too difficult for most people, as Jamie failed to climb a relatively short distance), in many situations it's still a person's best chance of survival.
  • Star Trek: Voyager. In the climactic scene of the pilot episode, Tom Paris goes back to save Chakotay who's trapped with a broken leg on a fire escape-style staircase on the verge of collapsing into a deep shaft.
  • Xena: Warrior Princess: Like its parent show above, the rickety rope bridge battle occurs in more than one episode. Apparently ancient Greece was lousy with 'em.

    Pinballs 

    Roleplay 
  • Survival of the Fittest version three has a rope bridge over a ravine, but subverts the collapsing part by having it be about as durable as you'd expect from a bridge on a military base. Gabe McCallum lampshades this while crossing it and wondering if it'll fall, reminding himself that the military wouldn't risk men and equipment by making a bridge that wasn't sturdy.

    Video Games 
  • Blockland: This is true of virtually every rope bridge. Ever. It actually got to the point where a rope bridge was built and advertised simply because it didn't collapse.
  • Original Adventure (Colossal Cave Adventure) from the 1970s has you crossing a bridge where there is an angry bear on the other side which is guarding a valuable chain. You calm the bear down by feeding it, and then you have to make sure the bear isn't following you, because if you and the bear cross the bridge, it will collapse and you're killed.
  • The final stage of Commando 2 have one such moment when you're crossing a rope bridge over a ravine. After taking out legions of Japanese and German troops coming from left, right and above, a Japanese colonel suddenly shows up on one side of the bridge and cuts it via katana (no, you can't just run to the other side, being a arcade-style scrolling game the screen doesn't allow you to) making you fall down a gorge. You somehow survive without a scratch, but then needs to fight your way through a valley occupied by headhunters.
  • Dark Souls:
    • Dark Souls II: The Dragon Aerie has numerous rope bridges, though most of them are safe and sturdy. The final, very long rope bridge, however, can be broken by the drakes flying around the area, and they will do so while you're on it if you broke any of their eggs on the way through.
    • Dark Souls III has a couple of rope bridges. Though they creak as you cross them, they won't actually break unless someone cuts the rope with a weapon (which turns one end of the bridge into a makeshift ladder to a hidden area). Players simply love trolling enemies or other players in PvP by luring them onto the bridge and then collapsing it.
  • The cast of Eternal Sonata make quite a scene about going across a fairly sturdy bridge that comes to nothing until a boss a little later in the game destroys it in a final blow.
  • Far Cry 3: The last obstacle Jason faces during his escape from the prisoner camp in the game's intro ends with him traversing across a worn down rope bridge. Moments before he could even reach the other side, a helicopter shoots the bridge down, causing Jason to first hit the rock wall, the wood panel he was holding onto breaking and ends with him plummeting into the river below.
  • Final Fantasy VII has a rope bridge incident in Cloud's past; however, it isn't part of a chase scene; some adventurous kids just fall afoul of a rickety old bridge.
  • Heart of Darkness: During the attack on the Amigos' village by the Master's winged minions, Andy has to cross one of these, and, unsurprisingly, it comes crashing down thanks to a stray fireball.
  • King's Quest II: Romancing The Throne has a notorious rope bridge you can only cross seven times before it breaks. Just traveling it once when you don't need to and then saving results in an Unwinnable situation. The fan remake has a stronger bridge — only the plot can break it.
  • There's a rope bridge near the start of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Surprisingly, it remains intact. But a traitor does throw Snake off it.note  It's also possible to cut the rope bridge yourself, but enemies will have no problem running across it even if it is tilted at an angle.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has two rope bridges spanning Death Mountain's halves. The upper bridge is surprisingly sturdy and safe, while the lower one is impassably broken. It is possible to jump off the last plank of the broken bridge, but doing so only sends the player plummeting into a bottomless dark chasm.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening has a series of rope bridges connecting the various peaks of Tal Tal Mountain Range. Most of them are in good condition, but two of them are missing planks and require either the Roc's Feather or Hookshot to cross them.
  • MARVEL SNAP has the Rickety Bridge location, which destroys all characters on it if there's more than one on it (counting both players' sides). Hilariously, this affects all characters regardless of canon power if they lack the indestructible trait, which means cosmically-powerful characters like Galactus, Thanos with all Infinity Stones, or The Living Tribunal are vulnerable to falling off the bridge and dying.
  • Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and The Flame had a fight with an invincible skeleton on a rope bridge. The ropes hold, but the planks don't.
  • In Rocket Knight Adventures, the mini-boss of Stage 1, the Pig Tank takes place on a rope bridge. Although the bridge is capable of supporting the Pig Tank's weight, it collapses after Sparkster clears the Pig Tank's first phase, after which the second phase takes place in the waterfall below.
  • In Sonic Adventure, these kinds of bridges are present in both Windy Valley and Red Mountain. In the former stage, Sonic's section has one leading to an extra life that gets destroyed by a giant tornado, while E-102 Gamma's section has Rhinotank enemies sitting in the middle of these. Destroying them causes the bridges to collapse, though Gamma can still cross the gaps using his Jet Booster.
  • Early in Super Catboy during the first stage, you cross a bridge filled with canine mooks coming at you from both sides, only for a dagger-wielding Labrador to automatically cut the bridge's edge, sending you falling into the stage's underground portion.
  • The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang has a rope bridge on Fighter Island that automatically breaks when Spike reaches its middle, plunging him into a brief Roaring Rapids sequence.
  • Used for dramatic effect in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in the very-first level. The bridge is pretty rickety in the first place, missing a long line of boards in the middle, and after you jump across there (killing half a dozen mooks in the process), other enemies cut the ropes behind you... of course, Wolverine is far too awesome to just fall down, so instead, he sticks his claws into the planks, and crawls up the bridge as it hangs vertical along the cliffside... killing half a dozen mooks along the way.

    Visual Novels 

    Web Original 
  • Freeman's Mind: Gordon stumbles upon one of these on the cliffs outside the facility, and is not pleased about having to cross it.
    Gordon: Is this seriously the bridge to the other side? I'd expect better than this from a Peruvian burro trail! Jesus Christ, why not just put up a sign that says "Die"?
  • In Running with Rats, one of the Dream Lands the protagonists infiltrate involves Floating Platforms connected with these.

    Western Animation 
  • In the episode "Zuko Alone" of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko encounters one of these, a plank falling out from under his ostrich-horse. He and his animal make it.
  • In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Tyger, Tyger", Batman fights Tygrus, a giant half-human cat man, on a decaying rope bridge. The bridge snaps with Tygrus deflects one of Batman's batarangs, cutting the rope.
  • On Beavis and Butt-Head, an angel comes to Butt-Head on a stormy night and tries to kill him by goading him into walking over one of these. In an inversion of the Stock Parody of "It's a Wonderful Life." he shows Butt-Head how much better the world would be without him, which bores Butt-Head so much he ignores the bridge and goes home.
  • An episode of Captain N: The Game Master had a scene with a deteriorating rope bridge. Fortunately there was a stalactite hanging just above the unstable post on the far end, which, when blasted loose by Kevin, impaled the rope and pinned it safely to the cliff.
  • Rope bridges appear at least twice in Care Bears.
    • In "Caring for Spring", Beastly uses a Paper-Thin Disguise to lure Hugs and Tugs to the wrong side of a bridge. They cross, and Beastly starts cutting the rope. They cross just before the bridge collapses, but now they are stuck on the wrong side.
    • In "The Fountain of Youth", the characters want to cross a bridge. Chief Brave Heart wants to proceed with caution, but Champ Bear rushes forward and falls through a loose plank. Brave Heart rescues Champ. Also, Beastly and Shreeky want to cut the rope but don't do so in time.
  • For no apparent reason, one episode of Dungeons & Dragons starts with the kids crossing one of these in a thunderstorm; naturally it fulfills the trope by collapsing halfway through. (Heaven only knows how they got Eric onto the thing in the first place.)
  • Futurama: In "Godfellas", Fry and Leela hike to a monastery atop a remote mountain that can only be accessed by a rickety-looking rope bridge. They decide to test it by sending their pack mule to cross first. Turns out the bridge is actually a high-tech moving walkway that just looks like an about to collapse rope bridge.
  • George of the Jungle has cross one of these but Ape doesn't think it's sturdy enough to hold Shep, George's pet elephant who he thinks is a dog — so George carries Shep over instead.
  • An episode of Gummi Bears centered around replacing an old rope bridge. The replacement is too durable, and leaves the Gummis open to an invasion.
  • Jonny Quest TOS episode "The Devil's Tower". While making their escape from the title place, our heroes have to cross a rope bridge while an insane World War I German war criminal is throwing grenades at them from a biplane. One of the grenades hits the bridge and breaks it while Dr. Quest is crossing it, requiring him to be pulled to safety.
  • My Little Pony: Shows up in the pilot. Part of the first route the focal ponies and their human ally Megan attempt to take to Midnight Castle involves a rope bridge that collapses with Megan and Applejack on it, dropping them into the river mouth below. They are rescued (and treated to a Busby Berkeley Number) by the Sea Ponies.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In homage to the above, in the second part of the pilot to Generation 4, the Mane Six must cross a rope bridge to reach the castle where the Elements of Harmony lay. Twilight Sparkle goes first but the ropes are severed as she starts to cross. The others pull her up and Rainbow Dash retrieves the bridge, allowing them to retie the ropes and continue on their way.
    • Lampshaded in "Stranger Than Fan Fiction". At the sight of one, Quibble Pants asks "Oh right, what Daring Do adventure would be complete without the precarious rope bridge?" and sees it as further proof that he's in a LARP. When the bridge crumples under his hooves, he concludes... that it is a LARP of dubious safety.
  • Samurai Jack: On one of his journeys, Jack encounters massive rope bindings and wooden posts the size of buildings in no small amount, all leading up this trope. It quickly becomes clear that all the support was justified when it's shown that the bridge is literally several days long.
  • The Simpsons:
    • Parodied and subverted in the episode "Mr. Plow," where Homer has to drive over one of these in a truck — at least, so it seems until he gets halfway across, whereupon he looks over only to see a perfectly sturdy-looking iron suspension bridge just a few hundred metres down the road that he could have used instead.
      Homer: D'oh!
    • In the episode "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", Bart crosses then tears down a rope bridge while playing hooky, in a futile attempt to evade Principal Skinner.
    • Played around in "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" when the Simpsons went on a Japanese game show to win plane tickets back to Springfield. After humiliating and painful tasks, they family must grab the tickets off a rope bridge suspended over a volcano. The bridge snapped and the family fell into the lava, which turns out to be orange juice loaded with wasabi.
  • South Park: Chef is killed by falling off a collapsing rope bridge, into a chasm, where he is impaled on jagged rocks. He is then attacked and pulled apart by pumas and grizzly bears. After all that, he is revived (and turned into Darth Vader) by the "Super Adventurers Club."
  • Superman: In The New Adventures of Superman, episode "The Halyah of the Himalayas", Superman defeats the Halyah by luring it on to a rope bridge, then cutting the ropes to dump the monster into a deep chasm where he can cover it in snow and put it back to sleep.
  • Taz-Mania: In "Tasmanian Lullaby", Francis X. Bushlad manages to calm Taz down by playing his accordion, and when he discovers this ability, he decides to use it to take Taz back to his tribe so he can successfully pass his manhood ritual. All that stands between the jungle and the village is a rope bridge, and when he tries to cross it, one of the planks breaks, causing him to lose his accordion and him and Taz to fall into the water below.
  • In Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun, no sooner does the narrator tell us that an expedition "faced every possible danger imaginable" that they are shown crossing this rickety trope.
  • Downplayed in Watership Down (2018) when General Woundwort intimidates one of his followers by forcing him back onto a loose plank laid across a pit in a derelict house.
  • Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner: At least one instance has Wile E. trying to lure the Road Runner into a rope bridge, and then proceeds to cut off the ropes holding it. Then it's the ground where Wile E. is standing on that falls along with him, while the bridge remains floating in the air.

 
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"I'm Looking Down!"

When Shrek and Donkey have to cross a rickety rope bridge over a moat of lava to reach the Dragon's Keep, Shrek advises the nervous Donkey not to look down. When that doesn't work, he uses more "persuasive" methods.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (9 votes)

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Main / RopeBridge

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