Needs Help: Cardboard Boxes

This trope is about how cardboard boxes are used in action scenes as obstacles, but the name makes it sound like it's supposed to be "cardboard boxes exist". Assuming it's still tropeworthy with that first definition, it probably needs a new name to make it not sound like it's People Sit On Chairs.

Current Inbound Count is 26 and Wick Count is 37.

edited 12th Jan '16 1:00:25 AM by Karxrida

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Boxes exist is not a trope. Any potential trope is better off going through YKTTW fresh. My option is cut.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

This trope should not be cut on the grounds of People Sit on Chairs; it's about chase scenes in which a car drives through cardboard boxes. My motion would be to rename to something like, say, "Cardboard Box Obstacle".

edited 13th Jan '16 9:10:10 AM by Josef5678

Seems like a viable name.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

And is that a trope?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Why is it important that the obstacle is a cardboard box and not a crate or a discarded sofa or a barrel?

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

No, is related to a trope, but itself is just "happens in a work", Not A Trope.

A solid obstacle would stop a car in a chase, or damage it severely enough that it has trouble continuing. A superficial obstacle, on the other hand, like a clothesline, cardboard box, or sometimes lemonade stands, deals superficial damage to the car (at most!) and creates visual obstacles more than driving obstacles. It provides lots of showy crashes without ending the car chase early.

That is a trope, but the page is too narrow, and too broad (hiding behind boxes). Going through YKTTW should provide a decent article, once the original is cut.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I would support a cut, then.

(Annoyed grunt)

I think that's the perfect angle for a YKTTW, but I still think this page needs to be cut.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Good point. The description describes several possibilities as for why the car would drive through cardboard boxes, as well as variations for a foot chase, but all of the examples are simply cars crashing through boxes. It even states outright at the end of the description that almost none of the examples use any variations anyway:

"Judging by the ratio of parodies to straight examples on this page, this appears to be a Dead Unicorn Trope."

This trope needs to go through YKTTW for a complete overhaul.

Cardboard boxes are convenient obstacles, since they're big and good at obstructing the path, but at the same time soft and weigh almost nothing (because they're never full of anything heavy or dense), so there's no harm done, and they're cheap. They're basically a spectacle that's easy to use for chases, since it looks more exciting, even if they don't really do anything other than obstruct the vision somewhat.

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^ This is true, but there are other things besides cardboard boxes that are used for the same principle. It's something to take to YKTTW.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I think it just needs an expansion. I don't think an example would be shoehorned if it's about an object similar to a cardboard box. I saw one example about a trashcan while skimming the page, which I think is okay.

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It needs a new name, a new definition, new examples, and new wicks. Cut and send back to YKTTW makes the most sense since we aren't really keeping what's here.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Mythbusters tested the 'Convenient Cardboard Boxes' myths

• where a guy jumps in a dumpster and it's filled with just empty cardboard boxes and how unlikely that is in real life and what they normally are filled with is damn painful and/or lethal.
• when a car is going to run into something and it ends up just being cardboard boxes and it doesn't damage the car.

edited 13th Jan '16 4:41:28 PM by Memers

I agree with about half of that. First half, specifically.

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Agreeing with the notion to cut.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Smash the boxes!

It seems to have originated - or at least work best - as a subtrope of Chase Scene.

I looked for the Mythbusters reference and while boxes are often used in falls, the myths were a ctually

A person can hold onto the [roof of a car, with the windows up or the hood of a car] while the car crashes through a wall of cardboard boxes.

(Reference: http://mythbustersresults.com/myth-evolution )

Also referenced in:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/27lq3m/what_are_some_elements_of_a_good_chase_scene/

Recommend shaving down and retitling to avoid too many mundanities.

The redditor provides a decent namer:

"Huge empty cardboard box wall SMASH"

or shorter "Wall of empty boxes"

either which would allow the related activity in a few game shows - kids or Japanese: https://youtu.be/8qh4VNuW_1w

"No Chicken, No Check in" -Phil Keoghan

Pretty sure it is about use of cardboard boxes because they are readily available to studios, are instantly recognizable to the audience, make a lot of noise when they are knocked over and are good at protecting stunt men from getting hurt.

Reads like a keeper to me.

That's why he wants you to have the money. Not so you can buy 14 Cadillacs but so you can help build up the wastes

The noise thing is dubbed over, because of The Coconut Effect.

The page ignores clotheslines, buckets of paint, and orange cones, all of which fit your analysis. Because the page isn't about the trope you've described; it is about cardboard boxes in a chase scene.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Clotheslines I'm not sure I've even seen.

Buckets of paint would probably fit better in Fruit Cart. They're not safe to crash into.

Orange cones are about the same, though.

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Clothes lines show up all the time, though mostly in cartoons, and pieces set in earlier times these days.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Clothes lines ended up being more like today's billboards and such, they take people out who are on the roof of the car and such. Falling through one ended up giving a cartoon character an outfit.

Boxes however are comparable to the flimsy Fruit Cart.

Gravity Is a Harsh Seamstress is its own trope.

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