Bridge Logic



"Milo: Will you look at the size of this? It's gotta be half a mile high, at least. It must have taken hundred -- no, thousands of years to carve this thing.

(Vinny blows it up so it falls down over a chasm)

Vinny: Hey, look, I made a bridge. It only took me, like, what? Ten seconds? Eleven, tops."

- Atlantis: The Lost Empire

A tall object, such as a pillar or a tree, is destroyed to make a bridge over a river or chasm.

Nobody ever wonders how remarkable it is that said tree just happened to be about the same height as the chasm's width or placed right next to it.

Not to be confused with Fridge Logic. See also Improvised Platform.

Anime and Manga

 * In the second episode of Koihime Musou, Chouhi cuts down a tree that ends up crossing a chasm in order to save some villagers from a group of bandits.
 * In the manhwa Dorothy of Oz, Mara attempts to blast a tree to cross a river. She overdoes it and the tree turns to dust. She is bemoaning her lack of control when Abee points out that they can skip over the wreckage she created from destroying most of the surrounding landscape.

Films

 * Atlantis: The Lost Empire, as quoted above.
 * In Surviving The Game, Mason bridges a ravine with a tree by cutting it with a shotgun.
 * In Shrek, Shrek doesn't cut the tree down, but he bends it over a stream so Fiona can cross. Then, while Donkey is trying to cross, Shrek lets go of the tree, with predictable results.
 * Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow features an enormous tree serving as a bridge over a ravine on Totenkopf's island.

Gamebooks

 * Early on in Castle Death, Lone Wolf has the option of using his telekinesis to do this (assuming he's picked up Nexus by then, anyway).

Literature

 * In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow has the Tin Woodman do this by chopping down a tree... and then has him chop it down again, with the pursuing Kalidahs still on it. The book being published in 1900, makes this one Older Than Television.
 * Used by the explorers in The Lost World to reach the mysterious plateau.

Live Action TV

 * The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Indy's superior blows a tree with a grenade during the Battle of the Somme to make a cover long enough to reach a group of isolated Belgian soldiers that have gotten too much near the German machine guns.

Video Games

 * Both the first (two trees to make two separate ones) and the last level (a pillar) of Jedi Academy have objects destroyed to make bridges, the first two by cutting them with a lightsaber, the second by useing force push. Interestingly, the pillar doesn't just fall down; your push is so powerful the BASE of the pillar is the end of the bridge (and the tip rests at the original base).
 * As seen here starting at 6:52.
 * In the GBA Fire Emblem games, old trees can be destroyed to make bridges over water.
 * In Star Wars: Republic Commando, the commandos bomb a pillar to reach the unconnected opposite side of a gap.
 * In Quest for Glory IV the player knocks down a statue of an Eldritch Abomination to cross a swamp.
 * In the third game, the Fighter and the Paladin have to defeat a gargoyle (who then turns back to stone), then use that to cross the chasm.
 * Featured in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time's Shadow Temple to reach the room before the temple boss. The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess does this as well. You have to use Trick Arrows both times to reach the base on the other side. The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword lets you use good old-fashioned bombs to knock over sentry towers and cross chasms.
 * In Blue Dragon, the player has to to push over a tree to make a bridge to reach a chest in the Lot Wilderness, and the Elder of Pachess Town uses the Green Device to destroy the base of a rock pillar to make a bridge over a fissure in the Giant Ice Fields.
 * The Howling Halls in Fable II have pillars that are conveniently the right height to bridge the spike filled pit blocking the players escape.
 * Many Sorcerer's Ring-related gimmicks in Tales of Hearts revolve around knocking down a pillar or tree over a chasm.
 * Tales of the Abyss does similar things with Mieu Fire.
 * It pops up a couple times in Tales of Vesperia as well.
 * Way back in the first one, Tales of Phantasia, you use the sorceror's ring in a similar manner. Except you down pillars and walk across their widths, not lengths.
 * Ghost Hunter:
 * Guild Wars: In the Nightfall campaign, there is an area in the Desolation where you have to at a monolith to knock it down, making a bridge so you can progress. In Prophecies, there's an ancient statue that will topple when you get close, forming a bridge for you.
 * Hermes, a sort-of-antagonist in The Suffering, launches a bus down a ravine that blocks your progress. It's uncertain whether he's deliberately creating a bridge for you, or trying to run you over.
 * Overlord does this a couple of times.
 * To be more precise, you kick down sections of wall from ruined houses. They always have exactly the needed length and never break anywhere except at foot level...
 * Even more surprising, they're exactly the right size to fit flush into the gap, so you walk across them like level ground.
 * During Metroid Prime: Hunters's story mode, the scan visor actually suggests blasting a piece of ruined architecture, calculating it will make a bridge.
 * Happens with a tree trunk that Susano is rafting down the river with in Okami. Amusingly, this is the only such instance -- with her reality-altering paintbrush, Amaterasu can 'fill' any other Broken Bridge in.
 * Played straight, however, in the sequel Okamiden, where cutting down stalagmites to make bridges is a gameplay mechanic in two areas.
 * The second Legend of Kyrandia game has a similar situation: if Zanthia tries walking across the Quicksand Bog, she'll get sucked in and die. However, there's a tree nearby that's just the right height ...
 * Justified in Superhero League of Hoboken, where you have to use a size-amplifying superpower to make a tree grow to the right size before knocking it down and making a dam. (Later you have to return the tree to its original size to undo the dam.)
 * One of the standard Doodads (objects that are neither terrain nor player units, like... trees and bridges) in Warcraft III was one of these -- a tree that became a bridge if you attacked it. This troper can't recall it ever being used, but there it was...
 * Happened once or twice in Rayman Revolution.
 * One of the things Daxter can do in Jak 3.
 * Space Quest II, pictured above. Slightly subverted, the part of the tree that breaks off would not be long enough to cover the chasm, on a modern display's aspect ratio.
 * Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is an odd example: the tree is long enough, but, to make it a bridge, Indy has to stand on top of the tree. It bends under his weight'', working like a Tree Buchet (minus the launching him somewhere else), without the tree breaking.
 * And then you discover that there was a shortcut.
 * First level of Ristar - you have to headbutt a tree so it falls over.
 * In Drakan: Order of the Flame, after getting Arokh's Soul Crystal from Heron's crypt and returning outside, there's an old rotting tree that protagonist Rynn can push to make a makeshift bridge across a gap (and as a bonus, kill an unfortunate orc who's patrolling the other side).
 * In Dark Cloud 2, Max and Monica traverse the sections of Rainbow Butterfly Forest by gathering Fairy Saws (the signature keys for that dungeon) to fell large trees (the "gates") so that they form bridges across the streams and rivers.
 * Subverted in Gears of War 2. You DO use a tall, hollow thing to make a bridge, but it gives out half-way.
 * In Dark Sector to escape a sinking cruise ship the protagonist at one point has to blow up some crates that float and form a bride over the water.
 * Chris Redfield manages to do this using a boulder. Also counts as Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire has an unusual example of this. While shooting your way through an Imperial base, you come to a chasm with a destroyed bridge and are forced to improvise a way across... by shooting the supports of another bridge above you. This bridge falls perfectly into place, killing a couple stormtroopers in the process.
 * In Epic Mickey, one of the ways you can get into Gremlin Village's Colosseum is by knocking over the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower to make a bridge.
 * Golden Sun plays with this. There's no instances of actually making a bridge, but there is one tree you knock over to make a platform.
 * Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood. While not necessarily bridges, architecture always fall off to make steps when in areas like the Romulus lairs to act as a checkpoint and Ezio ALWAYS reminds you how convenient it is to climb back up whenever he falls.
 * Throughout the series, the jumping action itself serves as Bridge Logic, because buildings and other objects are arranged precisely to match the assassin's maximum jumping distance. Although there are plenty of locations where a jump seems almost doable but really isn't, gameplay absolutely depends on you being able to easily find those routes where it's possible to continuously jump across from one place to the next during those long chases - often without slowing down at all.
 * Slightly subverted in Legend of Dragoon, where the characters actively notice that a tree is an appropriate height, and embark on a miniquest to chop it down and get it to the river.
 * World of Warcraft has a variation in the Ulduar raid. One of the bosses, Kologarn, is a stone giant standing in the middle of a chasm that comes up to his waist. Killing him has his torso break off and form a convenient bridge to the other side.
 * In Wrath of the Gods you have to knock down a tree to cross a chasm.
 * The Legend Entertainment adaption of Frederik Pohl's Gateway has a puzzle that can be solved in this manner, if you don't want the good ending (you're trying to impress an environmentalist, so he'll return with you. Chopping down a tree is the opposite of that, even if it is exactly the right length for crossing the chasm you're trying to cross.)
 * Warcraft 3: An unused tree can be found in the editor that turns into a bridge when killed. It also splits down the middle when doing so, for some reason.

Western Animation

 * In Rocky and Bullwinkle, Boris Badenov tries to finish off the titular characters by chopping a tree down over a gorge that Rocky and Bullwinkle are traveling under in a makeshift boat. The tree is too long, and it hits the other side of the gorge.
 * Joked about on Invader Zim. Rather than using the conveniently-placed tree (even after it was pointed out), he decided to make a bridge out of his own teammates to cross the chasm.
 * Re Boot has Megabyte do this while in a Military/Dinosaur game when running away from a Tankasauourous Rex. (Makes Sense in Context). It doesn't help him escape.