Eye Take

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Occurs in a Reaction Shot. The character reacting to the outrageous whatever says nothing, but their eyes widen in a "these people are crazy" kind of way.

Compare Aside Glance when directed at the fourth wall, Fascinating Eyebrow when directed at the characters in question and Eye Pop for surprised cartoon character's eyes. May make use of Eyedscreen. Sometimes related to Oh Crap.

Examples of Eye Take include:

Anime and Manga

Film

  • The Lord of the Rings: Elijah Wood seems to have made a career out of this.
  • Withnail and I: has a positively heart-wrenching Eye Take, showing the precise moment where Withnail and Marwood's friendship breaks down forever:

"Congratulations..."

Live-Action TV

Ben: Hello Hugo.
Hugo: AAAHHH! [hurls hot pocket at him]
Ben's eyes: ...did that just happen?

  • Bones: Cam Saroyan does this a lot. It's all a part of being the Only Sane Employee...
  • Yes Minister: Sir Humphrey Appleby would do this when Jim Hacker introduced something that threatened his interests.
  • In Babylon 5, Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari announces in council that under his people's new laws for the recently conquered Narn, the penalty for the murder of any Centauri by any Narn will be the execution of 500 Narns. The pak'ma'ra Ambassador features in an Eye Take, managing to pull off the look of shock despite the pak'ma'ra being Cthulhumanoid.

Newspaper Comics

  • This is the third-greatest standby of political cartoons, next to illuminating the topic with convenient newspapers and labeling every available surface whether it needs it or not. Strawman Political will give a proposal while an average Joe, or a member of the affected group (e.g. a child for school policy) looks on in goggle-eyed horror.

Web Comics

Web Original

  • Kids React: Morgan, 7 years old, does this during the "le Internet Medley" video. She was laughing at the Nyan Cat, and suddenly went "O_O wtf ?!" when the ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US part barges in.
  • Doug Walker is very talented at this, putting it to great use for The Nostalgia Critic, Ask That Guy With The Glasses and even with Chester.
  • In DM of the Rings, "Gimli" reacts this way at the very end of the campaign when it's revealed that the fate of the entire (game) world hangs on a single roll of a d20 -- made by an NPC.

Western Animation

  • Transformers Animated: Done memorably in the premiere, when Optimus Prime learns where little organics come from.
  • Total Drama Island:
    • Characters tend to this in response to Chris mentioning something particularly dangerous about a challenge.
    • During the Aftermath segments of Total Drama Action after a particularly odd or unexpected moment (Eg- when a clip shows Trent sobbing hysterically and singing depressing heartbreak songs backstage) the camera would pan over to Noah and Cody either exchanging, '...Did we just see that?' glances or doing Eye Takes.

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