Cool guys don't look at explosions They blow things up and then walk away Who's got time to watch an explosion? There's cool guy errands that they have to walk to
When just blowing something up isn't enough, proof of one's apparent badass bombing technique can be seen when the bomber leaves himself barely enough time to escape the blast radius, usually just enough so that as he's walking away, he's silhouetted by the explosion itself.
While explosions are the most common thing to walk away from without looking or reacting to, any sufficiently spectacular or violent event (such as a battle, a vehicle crash, a building collapsing, etc.) can also count, as long as the one walking away was connected to the event and the event is usually something that would be expected to draw attention, or at least attempts to take cover.
Can be combined with a Power Walk for extra badassitude. When the character was inthe fireball, and still pulls this off, that's usually a sign that they're an Implacable Man or The Juggernaut.
Compare Outrun the Fireball (when this is done running), Strolling Through The Chaos.
An old advert for John Smith's "Extra Smooth" featured comedian Jack Dee walking around monologuing to camera while collapsing scenery, speeding cars etc missed him by inches. Subverted when the fact that it's all green-screen is acknowledged at the end, and they put a more dramatic background in than he thought they were going to.
Anime & Manga
Neon Genesis Evangelion, During the second episode after Unit 01 goes Berserk, nearly kills the Third Angel and it self destructs, Unit 01 can then be seen casually walking away from the epicenter of the explosion that leveled a city block yet there is no visible damage on Unit 01 that resulted from the explosion. The same shot is used in the first Rebuild Of Evangelion film
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, when Jotaro finally encounters Dio on the streets of Cairo, in the face of seeing the effects of Dio's stand, he simply ignores the advice to run for his life and walks unwaveringly toward Dio for the final showdown.
Pip, The Good Captain from Hellsing does this in the OVA, casually lighting up a cigarette as the communications tent (and the Millenium dupes inside) go up in a fireball.
Vash and Wolfwood walk unflinchingly through a hail of bullets in the Trigun anime episode Goodbye for Now.
Cinque of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS calmly walks away as a raging inferno starts behind her after she blows up one of the Ground Forces HQ's shield generators.
Lelouch gets one in Code Geass R2 episode 20 when, after all the horrible things that have happened to him and his loved ones, he finally starts acting like the demon everyone seems to think he is and turns what most people would consider Wangst into a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Vincent does one of these after setting off a biological weapon near the start of the Cowboy Bebop movie. It makes for a rather effective introduction.
Of note because it's unexpected for the character, Eva does this after setting her own mansion ablaze in a rage.
Dekoppa here from Majin Devildoes one with a bundle of pipes while striding towards an ancient devil who produces soundwaves that reduces concrete down to its very atoms.He is also a Badass Bookworm.
While arguably conflicting with manga Canon, Kenshin Himura in the Rurouni Kenshin OVA Tsuiokuhen has him walking away from the blazing hut that was once his home where he left the corpse of his wife Tomoe Yukishiro whom he accidentally killed in his final showdown with the Big Bad
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura is a total badass and fond of explosives. This happens semi-frequently, with the fight against Roberta in episode 10 being the best example.
ShineGreymon from Digimon Savers gets an absolutely EPIC one after assuming Burst Mode and shrugging off an attack from Kurata's One-Winged Angel form like it was nothing, in the process surrounding himself and Kurata in huge flames. He proceeds to walk slowly towards Kurata without paying attention to the several story high flames he'd just created. This combined with the absolutely hate filled Death Glare he's shooting Kurata while doing it makes it rather clear the reason he's not looking at the flames because the only thing on his mind is giving Kurata exactly what he has coming to him.
Comic Books
In the Transformers fandom, there is an infamous picture of Pat Lee and the other Dreamwave founders doing this while walking away from an explosion. Dreamwave imploded after not paying its employees. On many sites, the mere mention of Pat Lee or Dreamwave will cause the picture to be posted.
In a Twisted Toyfare Theater strip about Sam Worthington (star of Avatar) infiltrating the Manly Men of Action at James Cameron's behest, this is part of his training. "Ow! Mr. Willis, the explosion singed off my back hair!" "That's good! Manly men don't have body hair. Now keep walking all slow!"
Minnie May from Gunsmith Cats lives and breathes this meme.
At the end of Innocence Lost, X-23 casually strolls out of the Facility's base seconds ahead of it exploding from the charges she planted, and walks away as it blows up behind her. Made even more awesome because she's thirteen. Funnily enough, Laura actually would not have even needed to make a dramatic exit, but rather than killing Zander Rice quickly she spent ten minutesbeating the shit out of him as payback for essentially torturing her for thirteen years first.
Fan Works
Dungeon Keeper Ami: The Avatar Restored goes on one after regaining his true shape. Previous to this event, he was a trasformed female troll, and had undergone fiteen years of desperate survival against a continent of undead. This, in turn, was following his witness of the slaughter of his entire family, and all the survivors of the war; men, women, and children alike. Not to mention his possible rape, transformed, remember? He was the 'troll' at the end of Dungeon Keeper... Haveing regained his old form and power, he is understandably eager to vent his frustrations on Ami, as she is a keeper- in his anger he dosen't particularly care that she's essentialy a heroine acting in an ambiguiously villainous manner so that her minions don't rebel. Ami is understandably reluctant to attack him, but resorts to more and more desperate measures. Eventually blasting him with every spell she knows, sending waves of golems at him, channleing the might of Mettalia to turn the floor into a mass of living hands to encumber him, dropping the ceiling on him, and glamoring more powerful minions into weaker ones to mount surprise attacks. The Avatar weathers them all, until... she attempts an indirect assault, and sticks him to the wall with a gigantic electro-magnet.
Faren Brosca in Dragon Age The Crown Of Thorns calmly walks away from the center of the proving arena and towards the exit after beating Seweryn and the twins, respectively. Both were curbstomp battles made particularly awesome by the fact that he was undercover, wearing his Dark Wolf attire. Said attire consists of a dark leather armor suit, a black cloak, which is more of an All Encompassing Mantle, a black scarf (covered his nose and lower face) whose ends flowed through the air behind him and an equally black headband that doubled as a mask (covered his upper face but had eye holes), also with the bands tying it in place billowing behind him in a dramatic breeze. All the while, the crown was either staring in awe or cheering... and he's not even the protagonist.
Light and Matt in Point Of Succession when they stoically make their way through Beyond Birthday's villain lair that has been booby-trapped with all kinds of explosives.
At the end of The Mask of Zorro, Zorro and Elena and many refugees walk away from the collapsing scaffolding of the mine that Don Montero was going to blow up, leaving the enslaved Indian slaves inside.
A classic example of this would be Connor MacLeod's regeneration at the beginning of Highlander II The Quickening.
Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher, did this twice in the live action movie of the same name. The first time is when he leaves a tripwire mine with the wire stretched tight in the hand of a mafia boss's son, with the implication that eventually he'll drop the heavy explosive, and sure enough it happens just in time to frame Frank's exit. The second time is even more over the top as Frank kills the mafia boss responsible for the death of his family by detonating car fuel tanks in a pre-programmed sequence, all of which light up behind him as he walks away. As if this weren't enough, the burning wrecks trace out his trademark skull logo when viewed from the air.
Parodied in Windstruck. As the heroine drags a criminal from an overturned car, her partner just happens to drop his lit cigarette into the leaking gasoline. Cue explosion as she poses on the criminal Captain Morgan style.
Hot Fuzz: the poster and DVD cover featured Danny and Nick calmly walking away from an explosion (which didn't happen). The movie itself adverts it: they do run away from what they think will explode and leap through the air dramatically, only to discover it doesn't go off. But it does later.
The pre-credits sequence of the James Bond film Goldfinger, where Bond is the only one at the bar not to react to the huge explosion he planted earlier.
The Golden Eye 1997 video game has this after the Streets level.
The trailer forSkyfall ramps it up by substituting 'explosion' with 'train car getting ripped open by heavy equipment while he's inside it.'
Anton Chigurh does this after blowing up a car in No Country for Old Men. He blows it up as a distraction, so everyone else reacts while he casually steals some drugs.
Also subverted in The Dark Knight: The Joker does something like an unflinching walk out of the hospital, then stops as the explosion peters out. He then stands there fiddling with the detonator until the rest of the bombs go off, visibly startling him, and he hightails it out of there (all of which, it should be noted, were adlibbed by Ledger after a special effects failure).
In the trailers to the film Iron Man 1 (retained in the film itself). Iron Man dodges a tank shell and then fires a tiny, wrist-mounted rocket at the tank. He doesn't even wait for the rocket to explode before turning around to begin his Unflinching Walk. Combine that imagery with the opening riff of the Black Sabbath song of the same name and you have the ultimate in superhero badassery. The same trailer also shows an "Unflinching Stand" when Stark casually addresses a crowd with his back to the oncoming shockwave of a cluster bomb explosion.
In Iron Man 2, Whiplash does the unflinching walk twice.
Used and averted in Con Air. After setting up an explosion by lighting a pool of gasoline leading back to a gas station, Cyrus and his buddies walk off. Once the explosion happens, all of them are framed by the blast, but the only one who doesn't react is Cyrus.
Accidentally subverted during the big mansion shootout from the finale of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow 2. Chow Yun Fat's character, Ken Gor, tosses a grenade into the mansion and turns to nonchalantly stand in front of the ensuing explosion. But Chow was standing a few inches too close to the pyrotechnics when they went off, and he flinched away as his hair was singed. Seen here at the 1:20 mark.
Slightly subverted in From Dusk Till Dawn. Seth and Richie Gecko are bickering with each other while walking out of the exploding store. Richie had been shot in the hand, and Seth is annoyed that Richie is unable to keep a "low profile." Neither plays attention to the store they just blew up.
The villain The Tall Man does this in one of the Phantasm movies.
Used in Black Hawk Down; every time McKnight's convoy stops, he gets out of his truck and strolls around, apparently oblivious to the bullets/RPGs flying all around him, to find out what's going on.
Shown in some of the print ads for the DVD of Hancock, with the title character looking all badass with his love interest beside him, whose super powers are supposed to be part of The Reveal. Good going Wal* Mart/Red Box.
In Desperado El Mariachi and Carolina toss a couple of grenades into the bookstore, then stride away. An impressive calm for an unremarkable bookstore owner.
In Law Abiding Citizen, Jamie Foxx doesn't even glance at the huge explosion he helps set up.
Tony Anthony's character does this in the 1970s barely-a-western Get Mean. Clip of the scene.
In John Carpenters Vampires James Woods gets one of these after the Big Bad attacks and slaughters his vampire hunting team at a post vamp-kill party. More badass points for this since the reason he is blowing up the motel is NOT to avenge his friends and kill anybody, but rather because he feels that it's the best way to hide any evidence.
Accidentally subverted in Blue Thunder: Murphy flinches when the helicopter blows up behind him. (Director John Badham says he "didn't think [Roy Scheider] expected the explosion to be as loud and as big as it was.")
Reality TV show Next Action Star concluded with a 2-hour film. In one scene, the villain did such a walk in the middle of the gunfight, knowing that he would not be attacked (neither by his lackies, nor the hero). He was about to enter the hero's car, only for it to speed off when he reached for the handle.
Even The Lord of the Rings has one instance, performed by - of all things - an Ent. After one of the Ents busts up Isengard's dam, he casually walks away as the torrential water eruption breaks through and floods the basin. "Don't be hasty" indeed.
Subverted and satirized in The Other Guys. "How they walk away in movies without flinching when it explodes behind them!!? There's no way!! The movie industry is completely irresponsible for the way they portray explosions!!"
Used in The New Guy when Dizzy/Gil walks away from the girls who invited him to a party. He looks back and gets an Oh Crap expression on his face because he just set the school statue on fire.
Used in Kung Pow! after Master Pain set the Chosen One's house on fire.
Surprisingly, subverted in the 2010 A-Team movie - when the container with the plates explodes, the blastwave knocks the entire team off their feet.
Warren Beatty pulls off one of these in the Dick Tracy movie, although he's not walking but wearing a deadpan expression while firing a Tommy gun as a car explodes behind him.
Nam-Joo from The Hostshoots the creature in the eye, then turns around and walks away without even bothering to watch as the creature bursts into flames.
In The Fifth Element, Zorg casually takes a drag from a cigarette as an explosion bursts behind him. Made a bit more cool by the fact that the explosion was the result of Schmuck Bait, so he couldn't even be sure it would happen.
In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T1000 does one of these after being INSIDE the truck that exploded. It walks, in silvery form, calmly and casually out of the fireball, and just as calmly recomposes its camouflage form and walks on.
I Am Number Four as shown above. Bonus points for the fact that the flames actually consume her, but she has a shield that protects her from it leading to an Out of the Inferno moment.
Angela Bassett's character in Waiting To Exhale, of all movies. She piles her cheating husband's belongings into his car, sets them all on fire, unflinchingly walks away as the inferno burns... and then the scene turns into a painful subversion as she has a nervous breakdown.
The ending of Sorority Row - the three final girls all walk away from the burning sorority house with confidence written across their faces, in time with each other and (to top it all off) in slow motion.
During Scream 2, Sidney shakes off the reporters and confidently walks through the college campus as the film ends.
In Paths of Glory (1957) by Stanley Kubrick, there is a scene where, prior to a deadly battle, colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) walks through the trenches, while bombs land on the surrounding terrain. The soldiers all flinch; but Dax does not react at all. If the film were made today, the sequence would have been in slow motion with muted sound, and with a slow sad song playing in the background.
When Forrest Gump carries a wounded Bubba during the ambush in Vietnam, a large explosion is seen behind him. Forrest's only reaction is a slight increase in walking speed towards the end of the scene.
Queen Elinor in Brave does this in the middle of a massive fight in the throne room between the four clans and single-handedly stops the fight without raising her voice. She does this again when Merida interrupts the archery contest, though she is less calm.
In the B-MovieSpiders, a space shuttle which had been carrying a secret military experiment makes a crash landing somewhere in the Nevada desert. The military shows up not long afterwards, and to cover it up, the Big Bad plants the explosives himself, and walks away. When the shuttle explodes a few moments later, the Big Bad walks away unflinching, while his fretful second-in-command, walking right beside him, cowers and covers his head. Bonus points for the Big Bad doing this while in a suit.
In The Hobbit Thorin does this, in slow motion, fire all around, to face his enemy Azog. The warg-riding orc proceeds to completely trounce him.
Inverted in Django Unchained. Django turns back, puts his shades on and takes a good stare to the explosion.
Earth Girls Are Easy - Geena Davis has one as she sings a breakup song while trashing her ex's stuff, here with his prize football in a microwave.
Occurs at the end of Shooter, when Bob Lee Swagger kills the Big Bads as well as their men in their own private house then blows up the house along with them.
In Man on Fire, Creasy does one of these after he blows up the police chief.
Subverted in God Bless America, where the main character lights a fuse on a car and walks away taking a drag of a cigarette as badass music swells... only to realize that the fuse has blown away. He awkwardly tries to snatch up the burning fuse but just singes his hand before giving up.
In "Takers" after the first heist, the gang walks away from the helicopter they stole which blows up, Everybody except AJ(Hayden Christensen) flinches.
Live Action TV
In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Princess Moon throws around fireballs, igniting the scenery, with nothing but a cold glare on her face and a cool walk towards her enemy.
Ronald Sandoval from Earth: Final Conflict was fond of this trope, with much evidence regarding his undercover dirty work for the Taelons vanishing in appropriately timed fireballs. He even liked it so much he did it AFTER leaving their employ.
Smallville, in the aptly-titled episode Justice, the proto-Justice League did this. This is both an example of the Power Walk subset and a Shout Out to the Justice League series's original opening.
A villainous version when Warp blows up a anti-vigilante office to frame the good guys.
(Though it's worth noting that Sylvester McCoy didn't actually get quite far enough and was slightly caught in the heat blast.) Fortunately, his earliest stage days had involved a lot of "don't try this at home" high-jinks with pyrotechnics.
In fact, he was told not to expect a massive explosion, and that most of it would be put in with special effects afterwards. When the whole tent set exploded behind him, he had to end up doing the Unflinching Walk for real, because he knew they couldn't afford a second take.
The Tenth Doctor in "Voyage of the Damned".
And again in "The Poison Sky." Desperate boy points gun at him? He just wrenches it out of his hands, tosses it aside, and grumbles, all without slowing his stride.
Rose Tyler in "The Stolen Earth".
In "The End of Time", when the Doctor is finally able to speak to the Master. The Master is able to fire lightning from his hands. He misses twice, and not only does the Doctor not stop or even slow down, he doesn't even change his facial expression. Promptly subverted, though, when said lightning-flinger actually manages to hit him, and he's reduced to writhing on the floor in pain.
Companion Rory Williams caps his ascension from Butt Monkey to Bad Ass in the opening of "A Good Man Goes To War." An entire Cyber-fleet is blowing up behind him, and he merely stares at the Cybermen in front of him, and says, "Would you like me to repeat the question?" (Alas, no walk, but it definitely falls under the "not looking at the explosion" heading.)
In the Stargate Atlantis episode "Sateda", Ronon Dex is forced to fight several enemies. In one case he casually turns away from a foe who is down but not out, as well as a Wraith tracking drone. He then tosses a grenade over his shoulder without breaking stride.
Also done in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Talion", as Teal'c, who is in full Roaring Rampage of Revenge mode, walks away from a Jaffa traitor, who he's tied to a car and wired to a bomb, Man On Fire style.
Traitor: Where are you going? Teal'c: I am leaving. You are about to explode.
In Human Target, Guerrero gets a great one of these, blowing up the CIA agent who threatened his kid.
Guerrero:He's my world. You understand? That's my kid.
While they don't exactly walk away, Super Sentai and Power Rangers often wrap up roll calls with an explosion of flame and/or colored smoke going off behind the team while they strike an Ass Kicking Pose or Super Sentai Stance. These scenes are known in some fan communities as the "Exploding Fart Shot". They and their Humongous Mecha would also often turn away from their enemies just having dealt the killing blow, which would result in an explosion behind them.
In one memorable instance, the heroes of Power Rangers Dino Thunder turn around for the Victory Pose... but the monster was Not Quite Dead, and blasts them while their backs are turned. Later on during Power Rangers Samurai, defeated monsters would discuss how they find the Rangers turning their backs like that insulting.
One better: The Turbo Megazord/RV Robo actually had a special pose - on the left knee, sword pointed towards the camera, BOOM in the background. Actually not so surprising, given that the attack in question involves a lot of spinning. (It got old fast, though, because this part was Stock Footage; for a good chunk of PRT, you never got to see the monster actually blow up. Feels less real when the monster's destruction is the same stock shot.)
In the 10th Anniversary Reunion Show, "Forever Red," the Red Turbo Ranger finishes off one of the villains with a spinning attack with his sword, and lands in the very same pose as the Turbo Megazord as the enemy goes 'boom' in the background.
Subverted in one episode of Boukenger where the Red Ranger was afflicted with bad luck, so wore various lucky charms into battle. The Exploding Fart set the charms on fire, and the other Rangers had to take a minute to put Red out while the villains laughed their asses off. (Pity the scene wasn't carried over into Operation Overdrive; the villains had to make do with laughing their asses off at the ridiculous charms.)
But Power Rangers RPM makes up for it. Not only does one episode lampshade such explosions, but the Blue Ranger's attempt at fixing a glitch in his morpher runs the risk of cranking the blast Up to Eleven... so he aims the Exploding Fart at The Dragon and her Mooks and fires away. Needless to say, the bad guys aren't so unflinching.
When a Megazord does walk through an enemy's attack, monster ass is about to get kicked.
This is lampshaded by a Nighlok who is relating how he was defeated by the Power Rangers in the "Party Monsters" episode of Power Rangers Samurai.
Rhinosnorus: It was so humiliating. And then they did that thing they do when they turn around and let us explode behind them.
This was parodied in a great scene on the Kamen Rider Decade special features, where various Kamen Riders hold a footrace to see who has the fastest landspeed. Most of the other Riders make a show of it, but Black just does an Unflinching Walk around the track, slow-mo and all. The other Kamen Riders proceed to reset the finishing line tape for him and declare him the winner when he finally gets to the end.
Used on Burn Notice in the Season 1 finale, when Michael and Sam were running off a boat, After Mike rescues Sam, they cross the gangplank Mike rigged with a bomb, and kept on running as the gangplank exploded. Michael had the unflinching...er...run, but Sam, having not been told about the bomb, was freaking out in glorious slow motion. And they put it in the opening sequence.
Also played with in an earlier episode, when Michael demonstrates the C4 that he is trying to sell (of course, the rest of it is fake). He walks slowly away, waits until after he is outside the blast radius, stops, and then detonates it. He never flinches; just says "Are we in business?"
In one episode of CSI: Miami, badass CSI agent Horatio Caine finds a bomb in a car they have impounded. Realizing he has only minutes until it detonates, he jumps in, drives the car out of the garage, through the streets of Miami (with appropriate roaring engine noises, weaving in and out of traffic, etc.) and races to a deserted stretch of beach. He then calmly takes his sunglasses off, gets out of the car, puts his sunglasses back on and executes an Unflinching Walk, complete with badass black clothes and sunglasses.
Mr. White pulls one of these in Breaking Bad when he loses his patience with a rude, obnoxious businessman and puts a squeegee on his car battery, shorting it out. At first the viewer is amazed at how much White's morals have slipped as he walks away, AND THEN THE CAR EXPLODES. Mr. White, of course, does not flinch.
This happens again in the third season premiere when the two mysterious bald Mexican gangsters murder everyone in the truck they are using to cross the border into Texas, after which they set fire to the aforementioned vehicle.
This had to be done in one take, and Bryan Cranston, who directed the episode, basically threatened the actors into not flinching, and also suggested a casual cigarette-drag as they walked away. It worked.
Mr. White tries an unflinching walk again after totaling his car, then leaving a flaming newspaper in the gas tank as a fuse. But the fuse is too long, so after he reaches a comfortable distance he takes a seat on the asphalt and waits for it to explode.
Subverted in Spooks. In the first episode of the seventh series lead character Adam is speeding through the streets of London in car set to explode. Just as he finds a sufficiently empty spot and gets out of the car for what you expect to be an awesome unflinching walk away, the bomb goes off taking him with it.
Spooks averts a lot of tropes with its rule that literally any character can be killed at any time. And, yes, that includes the top-billed leads.
In the pilot episode of The Visitor, The hero Adam McArthur does that after self-destructing his crashed stolen spaceship.
In the pilot episode of Smith, although the protagonists are doing an Unflinching Walk away from their exploding getaway boat, the scene is rendered decidedly more depressing than Bad Ass by the choice of background music (Imogen Heap 's "Hide and Seek") and the fact that the boat contained the corpse of a colleague who didn't survive the heist.
Heroes: After a corrupt cop kills another evolved human, Magneto-esque Volume 5 Big Bad Samuel gets his revenge by using his earth controlling powers to destroy the police station. As the station crumbles to the ground (complete with mushroom cloud-like plume of smoke), Samuel walks away with arguably one of the most badass faces ever seen.
Stationary variant: On Monster Garage, Jesse James stays completely still and unflinching in the foreground as the show's first failed creation, a carcrushing hearse, is itself fed into a car crusher, then blown up spectacularly due to a jug of propane planted in it by the crew.
Performed by the protagonists of Human Wrecking Balls in the first episode as the car they smashed up explodes in the background.
In the Spanish series Acusados there's a scene where the main antagonist is warned by the main protagonist of a bomb in his car. Calmly, he hands his car's keys to his backstabbing lawyer / friend who he had to get rid of to advance his political goals, tells him to borrow his car and return it later when he can, and unflinchly walks off as his friend proceeds to fry himself. In a subterranean garage. You just have to see it. It's too cool.
In one of the earlier seasons, he calmly puts his shades into his coat as a trailer explodes in a field behind him. Tony and Kate both crouch and cover.
Gibbs: "You might want to-"
Trailer explodes, Tony and Kate duck.
Gibbs, smiling: "Cover your ears."
This was eventually put into the opening sequence.
Professor Brian Cox, in keeping with his extremely cool image, walks nonchalantly away from a collapsing prison in Wonders of the Universe. For added awesome, the destruction represents the collapse of a giant star - metaphorically, he's walking away from one of the biggest explosions in the universe.
The finale of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica had Cavil doing this, followed by a horde of Centurions as he walked through Galactica's hallways while a battle was going on around him.
Not really a "walk", but when MythBusters was replicating the results of the Dynamite Dog myth (dynamite sinking a car on the ice), Jamie had his back to the explosion and didn't look at it as he himself said the countdown and set it off. Adam, on the other hand, watched the whole thing.
Castiel's first appearance on Supernatural, in which the entire building shakes, the door bursts open (it was barred), and he walks in amid showers of sparks from bursting lightbulbs, completely ignoring said sparks, the many protective symbols covering the walls, four shotgun blasts, and a frickin' magic knife to the chest. Well, OK, he doesn't ignore the knife. He glances at it, pulls it out, and casually drops it.
The A-Team has a truly epic one in the season two episode 'Deadly Maneuvers', where the explosion is timed to the flick of Hannibal placidly lighting his cigar.
The X-Files, episode "731": Mr X. outwalked the fireball carrying Mulder.
Music
In the beginning of Gangnam Style, PSY and two women walk while an excessive amount of wind blows debris and unknown sticky white particles. The women wind up covering their faces but PSY just keeps on singing.
This is the subject of The Lonely Island's song "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions".
In the music video for this it is subverted in the end when the characters attempted to do this.
Deconstructed in Lemon Demon's song "Action Movie Hero Boy". There's a reason they use pyrotechnic experts with remote switches instead of just measuring tape and grenades.
The video for "Prayer" by Disturbed has the singer continue walking slowly and speaking with God while explosions and car accidents happen all around him.
The last ten seconds of Rammstein's video for Du Hast has the band doing a Power Walk across a field with a massive bomb explosion behind them. It's awesome.
In 'I'M ON CRACK' by The Left-Rights, the Josh Harraway launches Mike Diva's car into space, where it comes back down. As Josh walks away, the car crashes into the ground behind him and creates a huge explosion, and all Josh does is pull out a pair of sunglasses and put them on.
Hilariously enough, Ke$ha, of all people, does this right at the beginning of her We R Who We R video. There's a huge fireball/explosion behind her and her girl posse...and after ignoring it and walking away, they start to party.
The cover art of English big-beat duo Propellerheads's first (and only) album Decksanddrumsandrockandroll depicts the members of the group silhouetted and walking away from a fiery blast.
In the animated video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "CNR", Charles Nelson Reilly is seen doing it as he blows up the secret of cold fusion which he just discovered.
Video Games
Michael Thorton walks away from the exploding Roman Ruins in Alpha Protocol.
One of these happens after every major boss in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: Samus casually strolls away while the Phazon Core she just gave a Phlebotinum Overload comes crashing down behind her and starts exploding. Made extra badass because each of these events also increases her corruption level, and yet she continues like nothing happened.
Another occurs on Elysia, where you can drop a bridge out from under a crowd of Tinbots by grappling out the support gates. As the bridge collapses, the camera focuses on Samus' back as she calmly walks away. The whole sequence earns you a "Stylish Kill" token voucher.
Also happens in the first Metroid Prime after defeating Thardus (the rock monster). All of the rocks explode outward and Samus just casually strolls away. One of the smaller rocks actually dings off her helmet, but she just looks annoyed that it messed up her Unflinching Walk.
The PC does this in two endings of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Your PC calmly strides away from the ruins of LaCroix's building as bits of flaming debris come hurling into the ground next to him.
Subverted in the first Metal Gear Solid, when Snake starts to do this after blowing up a helicopter he was fighting, but then turns around and runs to the railing to watch the explosion. He then walks away once the explosion is over, followed up with "That takes care of the cremation".
Played straight in Twin Snakes: Snake looks off the building as the helicopter falls, says "See you in hell, Liquid", then walks away as the helicopter blows up.
Mega Man does this as Wily's fortress explodes (again) at the end of 7.
Of all people, Princess Peach does this in the Subspace Emissary mode (one-player story mode) of Super Smash Bros Brawl. Fox is up on his Arwing, blowing up the deck of the Halberd (on which Peach and Sheik are standing) and the glorious explosions blooming behind her seem to affect her as much as a warm breeze.
DK and Diddy Kong get one in their introduction. The last Bullet Bill goes off with the two of them standing between it and the camera striking an Ass Kicking Pose.
In Red Faction: Guerilla, this can be done to ludicrous extremes combined with actual cool building destruction.
In Call of Duty 4, during the mission "One Shot, One Kill" Captain MacMillian and then-Lieutenant Price take down a Hind helicopter with their sniper rifles. The Captain then turns away from the crashing helicopter, quips "Good night, ya bastard," and does an Unflinching Walk away from it as it crashes. On top of him. Price has to carry the Captain all the way to the extraction point. But the Bad Ass-ness of that scene was so worth it.
In Modern Warfare 3, Price and Yuri perform this towards Makarov's safehouse in the final level, machine gunning Makarov's troops without hesitation while wearing full Juggernaut suits, rendering them almost impervious to the incoming gunfire. The sheer levels of Badass in that level are astounding.
Happens in Jak X: Combat Racing, after Jak causes his opponent's car to crash. They exchange a short chat, then Jak just walks away as the car is reduced to smoking wreckage, with the guy still inside.
Every game in the Hitman series allows the player to do this, and it is unimaginably satisfying.
Even The Battle For Middle Earth has one instance, performed by - of all people - Treebeard. After he busts up Isengard's dam, he casually walks away as the torrential water eruption breaks through and floods the basin. "Don't be hasty" indeed. (Based on a similar scene in the film, above.)
Thanks to the sheer amount of highly explosive nuclear powered cars, trucks and motorcycles scattered around The Capital Wasteland and The D.C. Ruins in Fallout 3, you can do this to your little heart's content.
When leaving the Raven Rock complex, after setting President Eden to self destruct, you will quite possibly have to do an unflinching walk, since all the soldiers therein carry so much valuable loot (we're talking really high-end stuff) you will probably have amassed ten or fifteen times your maximum run weight limit before you even leave. Of course, you can always do it intentionally anyway.
With the addition of C4 plastic explosive in Fallout New Vegas (which can be remotely detonated), you can walk away from massive explosions anytime, anywhere. It's also demonstrated at the end of the teaser trailer.
Mass Effect 2: "Fry, you son of a bitch," courtesy of your friendly neighborhood gun for hire, Zaeed.
A less explosion-related example, Renegade!Shepard's calm stroll out of Cathka's workshop as the Batarian writhes on the floor in pain from the severe electrical shock Shepard just dealt him.
Rico can do this in Just Cause, but if you're too close to it, it can still damage you.
Assassins Creed Brotherhood has Unflinching Leaps of Faith: After setting up the explosives to destroy a Borgia Tower, Ezio calmly throws a torch to set them off, then strolls onto a protrusion and executes a Leap of Faith without any apparent concern for the Stuff Blowing Up.
This is without a doubt the most fun way to use the remote plastic explosive in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, and with the Free Rotating Camera you can make sure you've got the best possible viewpoint.
Noticeably averted in Gears Of War 3, when Dom sacrifices himself, Marcus runs behind cover and crawls into a ball, and everyone else jumps behind cover, too.
WET: after a wild car chase Rubi manages to crash Simmons' car. He yells at that he can't feel his legs, begs for her to help him and calls her a bitch when she doesn't. Rubi tells him he should have stopped at "I can't feel my legs", throws a lighter into the leaked gasoline and calmly walks away as the car explodes.
In Monday Night Combat and its sequel, every class has a taunt which is exactly this, with a few variations: Captain Spark uses his Jet Pack to fly forward, Megabeth does a sick jump, and the Sniper gets caught in the blast, trips and drops his rifle.
Invoked in Borderlands 2. The Slab King sends you on a mission to steal some explosives, and in the process you need to lure a bandit leader out by blowing up his favorite Buzzard aircraft. You're given an optional objective to not look at the explosion and just walk away, and if you do, the bandit leader comes in over the radio babbling about how terrifyingly badass you are.
"That Slab just blew up my buzzard without even looking at the explosion! But I...I aint scared..."
Done by Sephiroth in the first Kingdom Hearts game to terrifying effect.
Time Crisis 3 ends with Alan and Wesley walking out of the destruction of the Zagorian base after killing GiorgioZott and stopping the missiles in the process.
Viole from Tower Of God, who took a Shinsoo Bomb head on and didn't even blink - as far as we can tell, anyway. Subverted in his less than cool reaction too the much weaker normal bombs Ja was using - taking an actual explosion instead of a Shinsoo Blast actually made him bleed a little, since he didn't have an innate immunity against fire, shrapnels and shockwaves, unlike with Shinsoo.
Played straight on this page of Project 0. The creators even invoke The Lonely Island in their description.
Played with in thisHousepets! strip, in the story arc "The Great Water Balloon War".
Web Original
Lampshaded in The Angry Joe Show review of Just Cause 2 when Rico jumps out of a building that explodes behind him. "Cool guys don't look at explosions!" comes up in the subtitles.
Parodied on Home Movies when Melissa sets fire to the "Little Fairy Princesses" building so she could escape.
Futurama has an example of this in the episode "Lethal Inspection", with Hermes limbo-ing out of a demolished building and then walking away as it explodes. Lampshaded by Bender.
"He did it! And he's not looking back at that cool explosion, he's a hero!"
Korra blowing a giant fireball into Big Bad Amon's airship in The Legend Of Korra barely makes him break his stride. His minions, meanwhile, are blown away. This is especially impressive if his backstory, in which his parents were murdered and his face burned away by a firebender, is true. It is not.
Ludmilla Tourischeva, galactically successful Soviet gymnast in the early-mid '70s, executing her uneven bars routine for the World Cup in 1975. As she is wrapping it up and just about to dismount, the bars suddenly start collapsing. She flies off the apparatus and hits her dismount as the bars collapse completely. Tourischeva salutes the judges and strolls away without batting an eyelid or looking behind her. And then goes on to sweep the All-Around and all four event finals.
During an attack by pro-fascist snipers following the liberation of Paris, witnesses recalled seeing General Charles DeGaulle striding unflinchingly through a hail of bullets "as if he led a charmed life."
