History Main / OminousMultipleScreens

** In ''Film/TheMatrix'', multiple screens show Neo in the interrogation room before the camera zooms in on one screen, which becomes the actual scene itself as the Agents walk in. This effect is used and reversed multiple times in the Neo/Architect sequence below.

* The GagSeries ''Anime/NegimaSecondSeason'' uses this often.

* [[PlayfulHacker Ryuunosuke]] in ''Literature/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'' has at least 3 screens attached to the computer in his room.

* The second book in the ''{{Alosha}}'' series, ''Shaktra'', is a fantasy example of this, with [[spoiler:[[IAmLegion a group of hive-minded alien races]] attempting to recruit the Earth races via the Internet.]] Eerily glowing screens ensue, used to intense atmospheric effect.

* In the second season of ''{{Series/Continuum}}'', Escher has one of these walls full of screens. He uses it to keep an eye on everything via the city's many surveillance cameras.

* A non-ominous example: the Muppet control room on ''Series/TheJimHensonHour'' consisted of hundreds and hundreds of TV screens. This made sense, as the idea was that Kermit the Frog assembled the show by tuning into every television feed in the universe and picking the best stuff. This being the Muppets, characters could also get flung out of screens and into the control room itself.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'': When you finally find ''SelfDemonstrating/GLaDOS'' at the endgame, her mainframe is surrounded by a cluster of monitors showing a sped-up slideshow of dozens of random images. Some of the monitors change to a [[TimedMission timer]] [[spoiler: when she starts filling the room with neurotoxin.]]

* ''VideoGame/TotalDistortion'': Two hallways in the Distortion Dimension are covered wall-to-wall in monitors that show a video that negatively affects your health if you walk through them. You have to upload a better video to the hall's control panel to get by safely.
* ''VideoGame/ArmedAndDelirious'': The Great Rabbit's surveillance monitors in his office, which he uses to keep tabs on Granny's movements. Some puzzles have to be solved by sabotaging his security cameras as well.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Downplayed, if not subverted, in ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'' when the protagonist and his classmates are searching through Dennis’s apartment. While Dennis’s multiple-screen setup is weird, none of them seem to be put off in the least by it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* A comedic version occurs in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII''. In the 2015 segment, Marty's son comes home from school and watches a half dozen TV channels at one time. Then it turns serious when they all begin flashing messages that announce that Marty was fired.

* Gendo Ikari in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' uses a lot of screens that mostly show the same picture (note especially the first episode). Actually, NERV in general seems to be outfitted with these redundant displays all over the place. Heck, they aren't even the ''villains''; they just like feeling oppressive.
* [[PlayfulHacker Ryuunosuke]] in ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'' has at least 3 screens attached to the computer in his room.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': The Mother Brain boss fights with three screens that heal her every round. You can actually target them and take them out, but it makes her go berserk and nearly impossible to defeat. The trick is either to leave one screen alone and kill the other two, which reduces the healing but leaves her beatable, or to bring along the [[TierInducedScrappy otherwise worthless Lucca]] who's [[UselessUsefulSpell almost worthless Hypnowave]] attack [[NotCompletelyUseless is 100% effective against the screens]].

* Spike never confronts the bounty in the ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' episode "Brain Scratch" directly. Instead, he only manages to find a trap room full of [=TVs=], and succumbs to some kind of ultrasound attack after a face on those [=TVs=] monologues at him for a bit. Luckily, Jet and Ed have already discovered where the villain was broadcasting from, and manage to stop him before he can finish Spike off.

* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys''.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Dark Angel|MarvelComics}}'', a character watched many screens, and combined this with some form of ESP-type ability he referred to as heuristics to predict the future.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Eejee's chamber in the ''ComicBook/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' comics.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': In a goody-two-shoes version of this trope, Supe has been shown to have a room that resembles an empty missile silo filled from top to bottom with screens showing every news report from around the world at once. Justified since Supes actually has the ability to watch all the screens at the same time, so he can go out and help when necessary.
* In ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'', the head honcho (Adam Susan in the comics, Adam Sutler in the film) of [[strike:the British Nazi Party]] Norsefire has a very [[CargoShip errr... interesting relationship]] with his OminousMultipleScreens.
** In the comic he also employs professional (and henpecked and cuckolded) voyeur Conrad Heyer to watch screens of just about everything, including all party members' bedrooms, ''even his own''.
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''. We get the ominous sense of Ozymandias' superhuman intelligence: he ''can'' pay attention to all those screens at once. Ozymandias claims to see oncoming war from the vibes he picks up from the images -- so the pictures take on a second dark significance.
* ''ComicBook/UltimateGalactusTrilogy'': SHIELD has several screens, but when the Heather Douglas clones show up, they all go into "Red Alert" mode.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': [[ComicBook/{{Cheetah}} Sebastian Ballesteros]]' hideout is filled with monitors through which he and his minions keep track of their targets and how Vanessa is reacting to their meddling with her mind, so that they can use her like a weapon and recall her to the facility if she show signs of resisting.

-->'''Dilbert:''' My pay is below market. Can I have a 20% raise?
-->'''PointyHairedBoss:''' No, but I'll let you use two flat screen monitors in your cubicle so it feels like you're an evil genius in a secret lair.
--> *later* '''Dilbert:''' [[EvilLaugh BU-WA-HAHA!]]
-->'''Wally:''' Who got a second monitor?

* ''Film/BabylonAD''. In the apartment in New York there was a setting that showed what was likely hundreds of channels at once. Though that seemed to simply be a menu setting, as it was possible to single one out.

* There's one set up at the Nuclear Disarmament Summit from ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation''
* ''Film/HotFuzz''. The head of the Neighbourhood Watch Association has an office (in the police station) with multiple monitors from CCTV cameras all over the village.
* ''Film/JesusChristSuperstar'' (2000): There is this in Caiaphas' room. Well, the room and the priests themselves are ominous enough even without the screens.

* ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'': The Architect's chamber is filled wall-to-wall with screens, showing Neo. The implication is they are all the different choices Neo could be making at this particular moment, [[spoiler:choice being the one fundamental flaw in the programming of the Matrix that allows The One to keep popping up, despite the machines' best efforts to prevent it]]. It was also used for surveillance so he could see anywhere in the Matrix at any given time, be it past or near future, which actually made sense. Often the screens would work together to form a bigger image.
** This is [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] in [[Film/TheMatrix the first film]] in the scene where the Agents interrogate Neo; the view shows multiple screens showing Neo in the interrogation room, then zooms in on one screen which becomes the actual scene itself as the Agents walk in. This effect is used and reversed multiple times in the Neo/Architect sequence.
* ''Film/ScaryMovie4'': The Architect is parodied by George Carlin -- He has cameras in Cindy's house - including her bathroom - on the wall of screens in his lighthouse.
* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'': Mr. Universe's control room. Although the number of screens is toned down and really just to show how random Mr. Universe is.

* Elliot Carver in ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'' has a room like this -- fitting for a villain who's a media baron.

* The villain Ozymandias in ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'' is shown in his lair viewing a wall filled floor to ceiling with television screens, each showing a different image, in order to demonstrate his ability to pay attention to each one simultaneously.
* Toward the end of the short film ''Rings'' (which bridges between the first and second american [[Film/TheRing Ring]] films), when Jake Pierce reaches his seventh day after watching the cursed video tape, he panics and tries to play the tape across a bank of [=TVs=] in an electronics store, only to get caught and thrown out by a security guard who happens to be in the same Ring group as Jake.

* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys''.
** In the futuristic dystopia, James Cole is questioned and briefed by the panel of scientists while strapped to a ShackleSeatTrap as a sinister globe holding a confusing array of cameras, microphones and video screens is held in front of his face.
-->'''Creator/TerryGilliam:''' You try to see the faces on the screens in front of you, but the real faces and voices are down there and you have these tiny voices in your ear. To me that's the world we live in, the way we communicate these days, through technical devices that pretend to be about communication but may not be.
** When Cole and Dr. Railly see a news program identifying them as wanted fugitives, they have an OhCrap moment on realising a camera in a nearby video equipment store is [[SoMuchForStealth projecting their faces on a huge multiple screen.]]
* Not present in the main movie, but concept art for ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' shows Zemo seated in the middle of a room full of screens showing (many identical) images of the Winter Soldier.
* Farley Flavors spends most of ''Film/ShockTreatment'' in his office, watching these.
* Non-ominous example: In ''Slackers,'' one slacker has a room with the walls lined with shelves full of televisions, showing ordinary TV footage. One of them has the words on it, "TV IS," and below a TV has the words "WE ARE," and below, "IMAGINE YOUR SELF."

* In an episode of the ''WesternAnimation/XMen'' animated series, Mojo comes to take the heroes to his dimension by appearing in multiple TV screens while Scott and Jean are at the mall. Eventually, his assistant Spiral would go from the same image on all screens to one life-sized image spread across them... and step out into reality.

* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'' has Travis smash his way into Jasper Batt Jr.'s office at the end. If you look, you will see ''many'' screens on some of the walls, and close inspection of some of them show that Jasper has been keeping an eye on you, Henry and just about everyone else!

* ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'': Genocide Heart, [[spoiler:the last boss of [=T260G's=] quest]], is a supercomputer who fights in a room full of display screens. These screens act as its LifeMeter: as it is damaged, more screens fizzle out and show static.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'': Quite common for the Combine, whose basic monitors start out as [[https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Combine_interface irregularly-shaped multi-display monstrosities]] and only get more baroque from there. Unfortunately, since the engine can only render from one camera at a time, they always end up showing the same thing. They all show the same thing, but by God are they determined to show whatever the hell it is. Of course, once you hit The Citadel, they [[UpToEleven crank it up to 11]].

[[caption-width-right:333:[-Yep. We're boned.-] ]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. In "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E13TheIInTeam}} The I In Team]]", a scene of Buffy and Riley making love moves to one of Professor Walsh [[SinisterSurveillance watching them on a bank of screens]]. At the end of the episode, Buffy uses those same screens to threaten Walsh after The UriahGambit fails to kill her.

* ''Series/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': In both the book and the TV series, when the Vogon Constructor Fleet arrives to announce to the people of Earth that their planet is, regrettably, scheduled for demolition, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz hijacks every TV set, radio, telephone, computer screen, et c, to relay the message.

* In Season 3 Episode 3, of ''{{Series/Warehouse 13}}'', [[spoiler:Love Sick]] an ex-worker for computer store "Tiger Electronics" broke through the system and communicated with the workers and customers, [[spoiler:unknowingly infecting them with the computer virus he used to gain access to unknowing user's webcams, via [[http://warehouse13.wikia.com/wiki/Judah_Loew_ben_Belazel%27s_Amulet Judah Loew ben Belazel's Amulet.]]]]

* ''ComicBook/DarkAngel'' a character watched many screens, and combined this with some form of ESP-type ability he referred to as heuristics to predict the future.

Compare DoNotAdjustYourSet where the villain uses everyone else's screens. Also compare TheBigBoard, which is just one gigundous screen. See also OminousTelevision when it's just one TV.

Compare DoNotAdjustYourSet where the villain uses everyone else's screens. Also compare TheBigBoard, which is just one gigundous screen.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'': Quite common for the Combine. Unfortunately, since the engine can only render from one camera at a time, they always end up showing the same thing. They all show the same thing, but by God are they determined to show whatever the hell it is. The standard monitor is made up of three screens! And then there's the consoles themselves to consider... Of course, once you hit The Citadel, they [[UpToEleven crank it up to 11]].

* The [[ElaborateUndergroundBase Obsidian Shrine]] in ''Anime/MaiHime'' has a bunch of monitors attached to a central console.

[[folder:Web Comics]]