Lost in a Crowd: Difference between revisions
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Sometimes, if you have a plan, you can arrange for the crowd of look-alikes to be there ahead of time. Sometimes, though, you just get lucky.
Contrast with [[I Am Spartacus]], wherein different people try to protect you by claiming they are you, but they don't necessarily look like you, and [[Needle in
Not to be confused with [[Alone in
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime]] ==
* In ''[[Code Geass]] R2'', Zero makes a deal with Britannia to let him be exiled to an island off of China instead of killed... and then [[I Am Spartacus|dresses up all his followers as him]] who, because they are all "Zero", all get exiled to that same island, which they were planning to build a base on.
* In one episode of ''[[Lupin III]]'', Lupin successfully convinces an entire crowd of attendees, children included, to dress as himself and his accomplices. While the police are being overwhelmed trying to arrest everyone to sort it out later, the real Lupin and company make off with an entire exhibit of things belonging to the original Arsene Lupin, as well as a model of him. This is done not only under the noses of the (heavily overwhelmed) police, but of his archnemesis Inspector Zenigata, plus a special guest antagonist, the descendant of Inspector Ganimard, who was the only man to ever arrest the original Arsene Lupin.
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* One of the uses of Queen Amidala's [[Impractically Fancy Outfit]] in ''[[Star Wars]] Episode I'' is that if all her handmaidens are dressed the same, it's hard to tell who's the real Queen and who's a [[Body Double|decoy]].
** To take this trick even further, the handmaidens were often chosen for their physical resemblance to the Queen.
* The climactic scene in ''[[¡Three Amigos
* In [[The Film of the Book|the film version]] of ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', V uses this tactic to escape after taking over the television studio by dressing his hostages to look just like him. Later, V distributes replicas of his Guy Fawkes mask across the country, and on the eve of his climactic attack on the government, London is overrun by thousands of people in V costumes.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[The Fugitive (
** Subverted in real life, because the whole crowd apparently recognized both Ford and Jones.
* In [[The Movie|the film version]] of ''[[The Saint]]'', Simon Templar hides in plain sight from the Russian mobsters who are chasing him by putting on a homeless man's coat and hat, swigging from a bottle of vodka, and acting drunk... just like the dozen or so homeless drunks around him.
* The climax of ''[[Sister Act]]'' where Sister Mary Clarence's fellow nuns disperse throughout a Reno casino to confuse Mary Clarence's [[The Family for
** [[Fridge Logic|You'd think they'd spot the only ''black'' nun in the group.]]
** But they're wearing habits. If you spot one from behind, you can't tell whether she is black or white. So that tilts the odds a bit in her favor.
* Variation in ''[[Men in Black (
* The end of ''[[Darkman]]'' has a scene like this, with the titular hero leaving his love interest because [[
* Part of [[Kansas City Shuffle]] that Clive Owen's team implements in ''[[Inside Man]]''. Everyone in the bank is (forcibly) dressed in the same outfit, making a proper SWAT Team siege impossible {{spoiler|and allowing the robbers to escape undetected}}.
* In one scene in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', dozens of hostages are dressed in clown masks, their mouths duct taped shut (so they can't indicate that they're not bad guys) and guns duct taped to their hands. The impending SWAT team doesn't see anything amiss, but fortunately Batman is smarter.
** Also, following the initial bank robbery scene, when {{spoiler|The Joker}} gets away in a school bus and merges into a long column of school buses.
* A funny ''unintentional'' version occurs in the movie ''[[The
* Sonny, the titular character in the film version of ''[[I, Robot (
* In the film version of ''[[Minority Report]]'', Anderton and Agatha (the [[Psychic Powers|Precog]]) get out of the mall as it starts raining, and he simply holds up a black umbrella ([[Chekhov's Gun|which Agatha had]] ''[[Chekhov's Gun|insisted]]'' [[Chekhov's Gun|on grabbing]]) as the cops run out on the roof overhead, and look at the sea of black umbrellas. Ironically, Anderton and Agatha didn't move after putting up the umbrella, so the cops were literally right over them, and never saw them.
* ''[[North
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (
* One of the ''[[Where's Waldo]]'' books (''The Great Waldo Search'') features, on the last two-page spread, Waldo standing among members of "The Waldo Fan Club"... [[Needle in
* In ''[[The Darksword Trilogy]]'', Simkin helps Mosiah escape from the [[Secret Police]] by casting a mass illusion spell that makes an entire crowd of people look like him. The crowd doesn't even suspect Simkin of anything underhanded, since his [[Cloudcuckoolander]] credentials are already firmly established; they just think he's attempting to start a new fashion trend.
* Done with overlap with [[Needle in
== [[Live
* In one episode of ''[[
* In the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "Insiders", all the Ba'al clones present claim to be the real Ba'al (thus also creating an [[I Am Spartacus]] moment. (Colonel Mitchell even refers to them collectively as "Spartacus" during a [[Hurricane of Puns]] prompted by the name "Ba'al" and the word "ball").
* [[Voyager]]'s holographic Doctor has an episode where he's coerced to act against the ship (actually a few, but stay with me here). Eventually he's found out and on the run, and ducks into the holodeck. In a couple seconds, he conjures up an entire room full of... himself. A bunch of copies of his appearance. While the crew figures out how to determine which one's the real one, he's already escaped into a jeffries tube.
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== [[Music]] ==
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p87G6fSQzpc Australia version] of [[Linkin Park]]'s "What I've Done" music video involves this; a scientist at a corrupt pharmaceutical company does a [[Heel Face Turn]] and steals a sample of [[The Virus]] the company is developing to control the populace, handing it to a member of what's presumably a resistance fighter in a black hoodie with the band's logo on it. When the company's agents give chase, they're cockblocked by several ''other'' people in black hoodies with the band's logo on it. In a subversion, however, the purpose of this wasn't just to delay the goons long enough to get the sample to the appropriate authorities; they ''goaded'' the goons into following them, in order to expose to the company [[I Am Spartacus|just how large]] the resistance against them is and intimidating them into backing down from their schemes.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* Embroidered jeans and overly large white tee-shirts aren't a cause of urban crime, but when half the people on any given block are wearing basically the same thing...▼
* [http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_100108WAB_monroe_robber_floating_escape_TP.ce3930c1.html This case] involves a guy who robbed an armored truck, then escaped into a crowd of people dressed exactly like him (that he had set up using Craigslist). ▼
* The Swedish police was put under heat when a murderer out on a day long permission (under surveillance) managed to flee by waiting until the Christmas Crowd was especially dense and then... started to run like hell.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Being
** In ''[[
*** This can become even more ridiculous if you're using the unlockable [[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots|Raiden]] outfit, [[Sarcasm Mode|because nothing says 'inconspicuous' like a cyborg ninja in 16th century Rome.]]
** The multiplayer mode in ''Brotherhood'' runs on this; the entire world is populated with [[Only Six Faces|only a handful of distinct character models]], and success is often a matter of finding a group of identical NPCs and trying not to act human.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In [https://web.archive.org/web/20100206073316/http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20011019.html this] ''[[Adventurers
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In the ''[[
* This happened to the Joker twice in ''[[Batman:
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Embroidered jeans and overly large white tee-shirts aren't a cause of urban crime, but when half the people on any given block are wearing basically the same thing...
▲* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090826055034/http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_100108WAB_monroe_robber_floating_escape_TP.ce3930c1.html This case] involves a guy who robbed an armored truck, then escaped into a crowd of people dressed exactly like him (that he had set up using Craigslist).
▲* The Swedish police was put under heat when a murderer out on a day long permission (under surveillance) managed to flee by waiting until the Christmas Crowd was especially dense and then... started to run like hell.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Escape Tropes]]
[[Category:Chase Scene]]
[[Category:Example
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