Magic Countdown: Difference between revisions

Sometimes the reverse effect takes place -- the character has a good forty seconds to stop or get out of the way of the destruction, then six seconds later the timer starts counting down from ten, which is a fairly cheap way of ratcheting up the suspense. This version, at least, can ''occasionally'' be [[Justified Trope|justified]] by the [[Law of Conservation of Detail]] - the action we saw isn't necessarily all the action that took place.

 

 

A variation is the fuse or a trail of gasoline which burns slower or faster when the camera's not on it. Another common visual equivalent is the falling object or descending gate which is accelerating down at something. Then the shot cuts just before it hits to people trying to stop it or get out the way. When the camera goes back, the thing will mysteriously have farther to fall than it did before the cut, just enough to allow the characters to make a narrow escape.

** Lampshaded later by the fact that Freiza flat-out admits he screwed up the whole "destroying Namek" thing, and it was supposed to explode '''instantly'''... [[I Meant to Do That|he just made up the "five minutes left" thing to not look like an idiot]].

*** In ''[[Re Cut|Kai]]'', he was stated to have messed up because he held back too much for fear of killing himself in the blast right after he did it, and the "five minutes" clearly is just him making up a number.

** In a later episode, they even comment on this when Goku needs time to regather his energy and asks Vegeta to stall Kid-Buu for one minute. Vegeta comments that this is a really long time for a fight against Buu and the minute does last at least an episode.

* In episode 139 of ''[[Bleach]]'' (which was titled "Ichigo vs Grimmjow, the 11 Second Battle"), Ichigo can {{spoiler|remain a Hollow}} for 11 seconds. Just the scenes with Ichigo {{spoiler|as a Hollow}} already take up about a minute, so even assuming everything's simultaneous doesn't explain it. The concept of events happening at extremely high speed is rather stretched.

* ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'' features the title character counting down 60 seconds to the ''Enterprise'' crew before he does something ''really'' nasty. Naturally, this takes a good deal longer than 60 seconds, giving our heroes enough time to come up with a bluff.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': From "The Rebel base will be in range in thirty minutes" (not seconds as visibly ''seen''), through the power-up of the Death Star's superlaser, to the destruction of the Death Star at least ''feels'' like it takes five minutes -- when before, the Death Star could power up and blow the shit out of Alderaan in less than a minute.

** [[Retcon]]: As of the ''[[Death Star]]'' novel, the [[The Atoner|gunner]] was [[Heroic Sacrifice|stalling with "stand by... stand by... stand by..." hoping someone would destroy the Death Star before he was forced to destroy Yavin 4]].

* The opening credits of the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' animated movie have Cobra attempting to [[Monumental Battle|blow up the Statue of Liberty]]. Duke moves the bomb from the statue to their airship, taking about 20 seconds longer than the clock should have allowed.

** The title screen, [["Previously On..."]] segments, and "The following takes place..." take about 2 minutes. Only once in Season 1 (1:00am-2:00am aka episode 2) does it show the clock immediately after "The following takes place...".

** Also don't forget the credits for the previous episode as well, which take about 30 seconds

** ''In the last episode,'' Zordon's tube goes from half-full at the beginning to ''empty'' at the end.

** That was a plot point, {{spoiler|Dark Specter had been killed by [[The Starscream|Darkonda]] and it apparently reversed the energy drain.}}

** In ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]],'' the rangers have a more agile alternate mode for their [[Humongous Mecha]] which can only be maintained for sixty seconds. The first time it's used, it stays transformed for precisely sixty seconds in the end, though Cam's countdown is often wildly off. Almost every use ''after'' that, though, had battles carry on for much longer than one minute.

** In ''[[Power Rangers RPM]],'' one [[Monster of the Week]] throws bombs as his whole schtick. The bombs have no visible timer but beep faster and faster leading up to kaboom. At one point, when the monster throws a bomb, the beeping accelerates... and then ''stops'' when a Ranger catches the bomb. It ''starts over'' when the Ranger [[Hoist by His Own Petard|throws it back]].

* In the ''[[Lost]]'' episode "The Other Woman", Daniel is attempting to neutralize poison gas. "Forty seconds to contamination," the computer says. Forty seconds later, it says, "Twenty seconds to contamination."

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'', episode "Destiny of the Daleks". The countdown runs at normal speed when demoed, but too slowly when Romana is actually in peril from the bomb.

** Also parodied by [http://xkcd.com/612/ this] [[Xkcd]] strip.

** The same principle applies to file downloading, especially a torrent, since the estimate for time remaining assumes that the current speeds will remain constant, which is almost never true.

*** Similarly, the "less than a minute" at the very end of the installation usually takes a couple of minutes.

** While Windows is pretty much a poster-child case, almost any OS can be guilty of this because predicting a transfer time is, for the most part, nondeterministic. The initial guess the OS gives you may just be how fast the files are transferring now with how big the total transfer is. However, file transfer times are not based on how fast the hard drive can actually work, but how many files it has to write. It's actually '''much''' faster to transfer a 4GB file than 10,000 files that equal 4GB. Coupled with the fact that the hard drive you're using is probably the only one and it's constantly in use because of things like swap file and caching etc., it's basically a good idea to never trust any file transfer timer regardless of the OS, file system, etc.

** The timer counts down starting from 30 milliseconds, though.

** Seems to be averted again in the Ramiel fight in [[The Movie|Rebuild]], if the subtitles I've seen are accurate: they say there's 20 seconds remaining until the [[BFG]] is ready to fire again, and Shinji pulls the trigger almost exactly 21 seconds later.

 

 

* Parodied in ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'' when the countdown ends with nothing happening. The computer starts saying that it must have made a mistake... then the spaceship blows up anyway.

* In ''Citizen Toxie: [[Toxic Avenger]] IV'', a bomb is set off with only four seconds on it. Those four seconds are just long enough for Toxie to go home and impregnate his wife, have a heart to heart with young drug addict, and then get the survivors out before his sidekick [[Heroic Sacrifice|eats the bomb]].

* The second ''[[Austin Powers]]'' film has Dr. Evil stopping Frau from the usual ten second countdown to his rocket blasting off, as he won't be able to get inside in time. He has her start over at thirty, but this leaves quite some time to go after everything's ready. Finally he tells her to just say "Go" when the doors close.

 

* Each installment of the ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch ''MacGruber'', a parody of ''[[MacGyver]]'', involves a countdown (usually of twenty seconds) before a bomb goes off. The twenty seconds tend to last about a minute.

* In the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Bodyswap", the self-destruct is accidentally set off. Kryten's plan to stop the countdown fails, and everyone braces themselves for the explosion...which never comes. Turns out Holly threw out the bomb months ago.