Laser Hallway: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"There is one neat effect when characters unwisely venture into a corridor and the door slams shut on them. Then a laser beam passes at head level, decapitating one. Another beam whizzes past at waist level, cutting the second in two while the others duck. A third laser pretends to be high but then switches to low, but the third character outsmarts it by jumping at the last minute. Then the fourth laser turns into a grid that dices its victim into pieces the size of a Big Mac. Since the grid is inescapable, what were the earlier lasers about? Does the corridor have a sense of humor?"''|'''[[Roger Ebert]]''', in his review of the first ''[[Resident Evil]]'' movie}}
Whenever there's a security system in place, there's always a highly visible laser sensor grid with man-sized holes in it. The infiltrator must then use cunning acrobatics or clever trickery to navigate around the lasers to reach the target on the other side. Or, if he's [[MacGyver]], he can rig up a cunning system of mirrors to deflect the lasers around himself.
Often, the grid can be disabled briefly without triggering the alarm, usually just long enough for the intrepid heroes to sprint the length of the hall/gallery/vault in question. Unless the plot calls for them to be caught, in which case the grid will re-activate an instant too soon. Sometimes the beams are invisible to the naked eye, requiring some [[Applied Phlebotinum]] to make them visible; this may take the form of an aerosol spray or high-tech goggles. Many times, to spice things up, additional devices like temperature sensors, seismic detectors, or metal detectors are added to the mix.
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{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* It appears an Intel ad for their I5 processor, featuring the ''[[Madagascar]]'' penguins trying to steal said processor.
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== Anime & Manga ==
* Natsuki and Mai prepare to infiltrate a
* ''[[Mnemosyne]]'':
** In episode one, Rin uses cigarette smoke to reveal the lasers in an [[Air Vent Passageway|air vent]]. She then tries to sneak through, but unfortunately {{spoiler|her butt trips the alarm}}. [[Hilarity Ensues]]...immediately followed by Squick.
** In episode five, {{spoiler|Mimi}} now hides out in a Buddhist temple that comes with a "laser cage" consisting of vertical [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser beams]] to trap intruders and leave them open to [[Five Rounds Rapid|fire]] by her army of [[Church Militant|nuns with guns]]. Since it's designed to contain rather than detect, the beams are spaced at a small distance from each other.
* Averted in ''[[New Getter Robo]]'': in the second episode some people pass through laser sensors that weren't visible to them ([[Rule of Perception|only to the audience from an angle where they were practically pointed at the camera]]) and were aimed in five different angles, making it so it'd be all but impossible to get past them even if you could see them.
* In ''[[
* One features in the second episode of ''[[Angel Beats
* Occurred in a ''[[Kochikame]]'' TV special when one of the circus villains acrobat through the laser room which holds the gold head statue.
* [[Double Subversion]] in ''[[
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* In ''[[Executive Decision]]'', the concept of the laser hallway is shrunk and applied to a bomb. There are two metal contacts that, if they touch, close the circuit and detonate the bomb. All around the contacts there are (unmoving) laser beams which, if interrupted, would detonate the bomb as well. One of the good guys dons what look like ordinary night vision goggles that give him the ability to see the beams, so he can hold a plastic straw in between the contacts without interrupting any of them.
* The entire plot of ''[[Entrapment]]'' (1999) appears to have been constructed to provide an excuse for Catherine Zeta-Jones to twist and bend her way through laser beams in a [[Spy Catsuit]].
* The most improbable laser hallway ever, as well as the most improbable method of moving through a laser hallway ever, appeared in ''[[
* In ''[[View Askewniverse|Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back]]'' the jewel thieves make their way through a laser hallway using various different acrobatics (each trying to upstage the last). They're foiled however when the last girl through ([[Heroes (TV series)|Ali Larter by the way]]) lets one rip through her [[Spy Catsuit]] as a result of eating fast food. This sets off the audio detection alarm.
* Anne Hathaway's Agent 99 navigated a laser web in the 2008 ''[[Get Smart (
* I remember seeing one British war movie (forget the name) which had an agent breaking the German naval codes out of a safe guarded by invisible beams (he put on infra-red goggles). Rather ironic when you realise the codes were actually obtained by the less glamorous but methodical method of Ultra cryptography (still classified at the time the movie was made).
* Appears in the 2008 ''[[St Trinian's]]'' movie, which gives us just about every heist movie trope in the space of thirty minutes.
* The... er, heroes... of ''Ali G Indahouse'' have to cross a room criss-crossed with lasers. Naturally they can't see the beams, so "Dave, we has to use your special powers." {{spoiler|Dave lights up his bong, takes a good strong hit, and blows the smoke out into the room}}. Once the lasers are visible, they can be
* Jack Black navigates his way through a laser hallway in order to reach the Pick of Destiny in ''[[Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny]].'' The lasers themselves are fairly standard; however, this is probably the only example on this page that involves [[Chekhov's Skill|deactivating them with the genitals]].
* A strange example in ''[[Star Wars]] Episode I: [[The Phantom Menace]]''. Not actually laser, rather forcefields that turn on and off at intervals, but achieving the same purpose. They were strong enough to stop a lightsaber, so they'd probably disintegrate anyone stupid enough to step into one, but the characters were all smarter than that.
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* In a tech-free variant, the bungalow shootout in ''[[Near Dark]]'' turns the vampires' hideout ''into'' a Sunlight Hallway, as bullet holes in the walls allow beams of skin-searing light to penetrate and crisscross the room.
== Literature ==
* ''[[The God Machine]]'' by [[Martin Caidin]] used a slice-and-dice Laser Hallway to kill several men trying to sneak in and shut the computer down. Proving that the AI was sadistic, it left their leader alive and, only '''after''' killing his troops, announced that this was a warning.
== Live
* In a particularly [[Egregious]] abuse of this trope, an episode of ''[[America's Next Top Model]]'' Cycle 8 had the girls "posing" through a series of (non-harmful) lasers to compete for the chance to win a diamond necklace. [[Sarcasm Mode|Which has
* An episode of ''[[Space Precinct]] 2040'' had a laser trap inside a bomb. The laser was shown by firing a fire extinguisher not-directly-at the bomb in question.
* The ''[[
* Done rather well and "realistic" in a two-part episode of ''[[The Saint]]'', "The Fiction Makers", which first aired in December 1968 and was later released as a theatrical film. Instead of a hallway, it was a corridor between two fences.
* In the third season ''[[CSI: NY|CSI: New York]]'' episode "Snow Day", the lab is infiltrated by drug dealers. After capturing one of them, Mac rigs up a makeshift claymore mine to keep him in place, using a web of laser beams to bar the hallway. {{spoiler|At the end of the episode, the leader of the drug leaders dives for the machine gun that slid under the web. Mac takes cover, but the criminals ([[Trash the Set|and a sizable portion of the lab]]) go up in a massive fireball.}}
* Appears in an episode of ''[[
* A laser hallway was used as a security measure in one episode of the new ''[[
* In ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'', the characters build such a system just for fun: they play a game, where the players have to avoid the lasers, to make a move in a chess match. Or ''[[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|eat a slice of pizza]]''.
* In ''[[The Crystal Maze]]'', there was one game in the Future Zone (inspired from the original in ''[[Fort Boyard]]'') which operated on a similar
* An ITV kids' game show, ''[http://www.ukgameshows.com/page/index.php?title=Swap_Team Swap Team]'', featured a similar game.
* Done in the third series ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]''. {{spoiler|Protecting a fake crown. With ''strings'' tripping arrows}}.
* Lex's secret lab in the ''[[Smallville]]'' episode "Mortal" is guarded by the deadly version. Since Clark has been [[Brought Down to Normal]], this is more of a problem than usual. A laser-guarded room full of priceless artifacts also makes an appearance in the season 6 episode "Arrow" - Green Arrow circumvents the (green) lasers with a crystal-tipped arrow.
* [[Psych|Shawn and Gus]] encountered one of these. The more limber Gus wove his way through the
* ''[[Chuck]]''
** in the second episode of the third season.
** They encounter another one later in the season, when Team Bartowski is sent to test a CIA security system. After Chuck demonstrates how ineffective it is, the technician replaces it with an invisible wall.
* ''[[Leverage]]''
** There was an episode where Parker was trapped by a laser grid akin to the one in ''[[Oceans Twelve|Ocean's 12]]''. She navigated it by doing ''cartwheels''. It is unknown if she tripped any of them, as they meant to trigger the alarm anyway.
** In a flashback in one episode, a teenage Parker is shown doing something similar to get to an ice cream sundae as part of her training. Her mentor then holds up a spoon, and she presumably does the entire thing backwards without spilling the ice cream, although it cuts back to the present before we can see her try. The same spoon shows up earlier in the episode, in a shot of her apartment / supply cache, so she did.
** Parker has also overcome a roomful of lasers before using tinfoil, ice and chewing gum.
* In the ''[[It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie]]'', Fozzie Bear, while trying to deliver a bag of money to the bank, is nearly prevented by doing so by the evil owner of the bank by one of these. Instead of actually triggering an alarm, these lasers are military-esque grade weaponry, which '''burn''' anything they come into contact with. In one of the most [[Crowning Moments Of Awesome]] in any Muppet film, Fozzie Bear ''runs through the burning lasers'', just to realize he forgot the bag. [[Dead Baby Comedy|Painful]] [[Hilarity Ensues]], as he manages to run through them again and back.
* Phoebe and Piper of ''[[
* ''[[Fight Science]]'' employed a non-moving visible
* The ''[[Bionic Woman]]'' remake had them visible despite the fact that Jaime's bionic eye [[Justified Trope|could have given her a plausible way]] of seeing infra-red beams. Subverted when instead of trying to slip through the beams, her partner deliberately steps into them so they can get captured as a [[Trojan Prisoner]].
* One episode of ''[[The Six Million Dollar Man]]'' had presumably-deadly lasers that switched on only as a barrier to hold the victim in place while an apparently sonic weapon activated and killed him.
== [[Music Videos]] ==
* In the music video for [[Britney Spears]]'s "Toxic", stealing the vial of Mysterious Green Stuff sets off one final trap to get through: a hallway of rotating laser beams that she must dance through.
* In the video for "I'm That Type of Guy", one of the obstacles [[LL Cool J]] (portraying a [[Phantom Thief]]) must get past as he infiltrates a building.
== Tabletop Games ==
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Beyond Good
* In the ''[[Crusader:
* Appears in ''[[
** In the original, red beams trigger alarms (which in turn activate any turrets in the area) while blue beams trigger something else...sometimes trivial sometimes instantly lethal. EMP devices are temporarily effective.
** In the sequel, blue is replaced with white (and only shows up once) while green shows up to trigger gas traps and gold beams are weapons themselves.
** A "Resident Evil room" (The developers call it that and a poster for it appears a room or so back) appears in ''[[The Nameless Mod]]'' as part of the labyrinth created by the insane Shadowcode. Interstingly enough, the lasers are triggered ''only'' by your body. You don't even need a mirror - just take a box and block the beam creating a safe passway. Huh.
** A large room full of lasers is in ''Human Revolution''.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' has laser hallways rigged to explosives. They actually are invisible unless you use the IR goggles or plain old cigarette smoke. Only one can be crawled through. The rest require you to find and shoot their control systems.
* Lasers also appear in the original ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' and the gameboy version as well. They trigger an alert when broken (or in one case in MGS, flood the area with poison gas).
* ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[Quake
* In ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', Leon has to dodge through a
** Another one in ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' incorporates a [[Light and Mirrors Puzzle]].
* [[Persona 2]]: If you mention the Laser Trap in {{spoiler|Xibalba}} first, that's what you'll encounter. You will encounter it later anyway even if you didn't choose it.
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* ''[[Oni]]'' is chock full of moving laser bars. Two end bosses are massive cybernetic brains who use a rotating pattern of laser beams against the player. The bosses are inert until the beams are crossed, then they unleash some impressive firepower at the player (who they don't seem to otherwise even ''see''). At several places, there are large obstacles behind which the player can hide to avoid being intercepted by the lasers... and which also hold the terminals to disable the boss. They are situated ''inside the boss chamber''.
* In the adventure game ''Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge'', one puzzle involves navigating three laser-beamed hallways. Each one has a distinct pattern (a clue at the entrance of each reveals it). The [[Fridge Logic]] nature of this setup is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it's on board a space station in an alternate universe, and that the station is owned by a child genius who might have just been going with the [[Rule of Cool]] rather than the best possible security system.
* ''[[Unreal II:
* ''[[Robotrek]]'' has lasers in an enemy base which activate/deactivate in a pattern. They're invisible unless you're wearing a pair of special goggles. Tripping a beam activates an alarm that brings enemy troops running into the room.
* ''[[
* ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'' has a room that pays homage to the ''Mega Man'' level.
* Ring Man's level in ''[[
* [[Sonic The Hegehog]]:
** ''[[
** ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' had some also, though these were usually just beams and could be defeated by pulling a block out of the wall with the vacuum gun to block the laser. In one case, you have to pull two blocks out, one on each side of the passage you're trying to get through.
** Also appears in a number of levels in ''[[
* Amusingly subverted in ''[[Fallout]] 3''. The Enclave fortress doesn't have the traditional laser beam corridors, but it does have anti-vermin laser traps under the various passageways. If the player crosses them, a weak flamethrower is ignited. They are utterly ineffective against the player at that point, and not only can they be avoided by simply going
* ''[[Winback]]'' for the N64 has all sorts of horrible death lasers set up everywhere...including among the a.c. vents on the top of the main building. Not really explained how or why they were put there...but funny when the enemy freaks out and runs straight into one. Thankfully they move slowly enough Jean-Luc (yes, really) can somersault past. The blue variants don't kill immediately, but alert enemies or activate other traps.
* ''[[Gears of War]] 2'' has a laser hallway with instant-kill flamethrowers. One person must turn them off in sequence (only one can be off at a time) to allow the other to run the gauntlet.
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** Floor Turrets: Traps that you're forced to trigger so you can roll grenades inside.
* Also several places in ''[[Half Life]] 1'', both as red lasers that activate turrets on the floor, and as blue-green trip mines. Sometimes in the same hallway.
* There is actually a
* ''[[Space Quest]] IV'' has one of these; you have to use cigarette smoke to see the lasers so you can adjust them to let you pass safely.
* Lampshaded in ''[[The Sims]] 2'', if the Sim works in the criminal career and steals a diamond protected by a laser field with convenient gaps. The Sim in question is even said to wonder aloud why no one simply uses a solid laser wall.
* The inexplicably [[Made of Explodium|explosive]] lasers in ''[[
* ''[[The Art of Theft]]'' makes a gameplay mechanic of these lasers.
* Permutations of this pop up in the ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' series.
** By ''Tools of Destruction'', the titular duo starts mocking their inclusion.
** In ''Secret Agent Clank'', the first [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] to [[Rhythm Game]] is in a particularly mean
* The alarm type appears in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' at the end of one level. The visibility can be justified by the player being a vampire with super senses, the fact that they are arranged so that they can be crouched under or jumped over can't.
* ''[[
* Some hallways in ''[[Second Sight]]'' are blocked by a laser grid. In order to get past it, you have to use the astral projection power, as your "ghost" can move through these barriers but not through physical objects.
* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' had a laser hallway in an early level that could only be circumvented by waiting for a maintenance robot to pass though and temporarily deactivate it. A later level has a huge laser grid surrounding Air Force One that required you to find a way around it.
* In [[Telltale Games]]' "Hector: Badge of Carnage" you break into the backroom of a sex shop only to find one of those in your path. You get through it by {{spoiler|flipping the switch located right by the entrance to turn off the lasers}}. Hector is way too fat to squeeze through the gaps in the laser grid.
* ''[[Mission: Impossible]] 64'' has you descend through a laser grid to reach a computer terminal, just like in the first movie.
* ''[[
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* Cyborg girl Monty (an OC fanfic character of the ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' manga) [http://wraith11.deviantart.com/art/JM-Issue05-05-244267815 dodges the security system in a French casino robbery].
* Geist from ''[[Heist]]'' does one of these in the first issue. He happens to be an [[Invisibility|invisible]] [[Intangible Man|phase-shifter]] so it was a lot easier for him than most characters.
* ''[[Intragalactic]]'' [http://intragalacticcomic.com/2010/01/27/131-the-laser-hall/ here] (the previous page had [[Camera Spoofing]] revealed).
== Web Original ==
* The [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad Email]] ''[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail178.html Bike Thief]'' features a
* Appeared in a ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* In the ''[[
* In the first episode of the '90s ''[[X-Men (
* In ''[[X-Men: Evolution
* These show up all the time in ''[[
** Drakken even has a laser snow field around one of his lairs.
** The best one is from "A Sitch In Time", where the entire room is filled with deadly laser beams, and Kim gets her first job: using her cheerleading and gymnastics moves to dive through all the beams and turn it off. She was looking for jobs like babysitting.
* The early Kids' WB toon ''[[
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series
** In her first appearance, Catwoman uses a clever way of getting past such a hallway (actually, a room) to steal a diamond necklace; she uses her housecat Isis - who can ''see'' the infrared beams and, thus, can steer around them with her sleek body - to get the jewelry for her.
** Harley Quinn simply jumps around the beams when she goes to steal a diamond. Works fine, but then Ivy activates the alarm during her own robbery from another wing of the facility.
* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider
* In the ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]'' short ''The Wrong Trousers'', Feather McGraw's plan for bypassing the lasers protecting a diamond is by having a sleeping Wallace, strapped to remote-controlled Techno-Trousers, walk on the ''ceiling'', then using a retractable arm on Wallace's helmet to snatch the gem. It almost works, until the arm swings over and the diamond hits one of the lasers, activating the alarm.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* Parodied in a ''[[
* Used and mocked in ''[[
* Used in the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003
* This has been seen at least twice on ''[[
* Doctor Doofenschmirtz installs an "anti-platypus security" system in one episode of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' that includes a
* Trevor Goodchild uses one on ''[[
* Robin and Red X both overcome a tangle of lasers that are protecting a Xenothium vault when Robin goes after whoever was in the Red X suit in ''[[Teen Titans (
* The episode "Double Date" from [[Justice League Unlimited]] sees Huntress use an aerosol spray to reveal lasers in Mandragora's home. She simply vaults and flips through them.
* In ''[[Harley Quinn (TV series)|Harley Quinn]]'s'' own series, the protagonist and her gang are trying to rob a vault, quickly discovering that it has a laser-grid trap that turns their [[It Makes Sense In Context| mouse-commando-accomplice]] into [[Ludicrous Gibs]]. Before Harley - reluctantly and nervously - tries to pilfer the goods herself, she uses some [[Gallows Humor]] to tell the others, “Okay guys, you know, if my body gets diced up by lasers here, I dunno, do something fun with it, like mail my ear to a random family and say, ‘We have your daughter!’ you know, something like that.” (The lady has been judged criminally insane for a reason.) Fortunately, she manages to avoid the trap and survive.
== Real Life ==
* There's a "laser maze" game at the Excaliber casino's arcade in [[Viva Las Vegas|Las Vegas]].
** Since then, laser maze games have become easy enough to implement that they are commonly found at entertainment venues like boardwalks or carnivals.
* The British Museum uses a "beam system" to protect some of its exhibits. However, given that they're not protected in any other way, nobody bats an eyelid when someone sets off the alarm (since it can be easily done innocently by someone who's leaning in to get a closer look), and the "beam system" gets a sign to itself... [[Rule of Cool|it's probably not there because it's effective]].
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[[Category:Rule of Perception]]
[[Category:Insecurity System]]
[[Category:Tropes Examined By the Mythbusters]]▼
[[Category:This Index Is in The Way]]
[[Category:Laser Hallway]]
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