Ominous Multiple Screens: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Apparently, multiplying the number of TV screens multiplies the oppressive factor of whatever scene they're in.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]],'' Ken's fortress had a dozen or so screens posed at different angles in front of his chair. Often, they were all showing the same thing from different angles.

* Played with in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''. Inside of Thymilph's Ganmen, he has multiple monitors. One of them is [[Male Gaze|a close-up of Yoko's breasts]].

* ''[[Death Note]]''. You don't get much more ominous than every screen in the [[Hacker Cave]] informing you that your systems have been completely wiped.

 

* ''[[Watchmen]]''. We get the ominous sense of Ozymandias' superhuman intelligence: he ''can'' pay attention to all those screens at once. Ozymandias claims to see oncoming war from the vibes he picks up from the images—so the pictures take on a second dark significance.

* ''[[Dark Angel]]'' a character watched many screens, and combined this with some form of ESP-type ability he referred to as heuristics to predict the future.

** In the comic he also employs professional (and henpecked and cuckolded) voyeur Conrad Heyer to watch screens of just about everything, including all party members' bedrooms, ''even his own''.

* Eejee's chamber in the ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' comics.

 

* Any NASA movie :

** ''[[Apollo 13]]''

* ''[[Babylon A.D.]]''. In the apartment in New York there was a setting that showed what was likely hundreds of channels at once. Though that seemed to simply be a menu setting, as it was possible to single one out.

* ''[[Hot Fuzz]]''. The head of the Neighbourhood Watch Association has an office (in the police station) with multiple monitors from CCTV cameras all over the village.

* ''[[Jesus Christ Superstar]]'' (2000): There is this in Caiaphas' room. Well, the room and the priests themselves are ominous enough even without the screens.

* ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'': Thomas Jerome Newton, being an [[Alien Among Us]], can tell what is going on in the wider scheme of things by watching many televisions. In fact, these screens only become ominous as they distract him from paying attention to those around him, and the many streams of information overwhelm him at least once.

 

 

* ''[[Dollhouse]]'' either plays this straight or [[Mind Screw|shows us a mind in a weird way]] when {{spoiler|Victor joins Mindlink}}.

* A non-ominous example: the Muppet control room on ''[[The Jim Henson Hour]]'' consisted of hundreds and hundreds of TV screens. This made sense, as the idea was that Kermit the Frog assembled the show by tuning into every television feed in the universe and picking the best stuff. This being the Muppets, characters could also get flung out of screens and into the control room itself.

* ''[[V-2009|V]]'' (2009): Maggie gets past the Visitors' lower-tech for-show surveillance room and into their real one. Lotsa screens.

* In the second season of the horror anthology ''[[The Hunger]]'', narrator Julian Priest, a [[Mad Artist]] who inhabits an old prison, can monitor the comings and goings of others in his domain via the security system with its many television monitors. Some of the opening and closing sequences feature him using the screens to illustrate his points. It's worth nothing that Julian is played by [[David Bowie]], whose first major dramatic role was as Thomas Jerome Newton in ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'' (see Film above), so this might be an [[Actor Allusion]].

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. In "The I in Team" a scene of Buffy and Riley making love moves to one of Professor Walsh [[Sinister Surveillance|watching them on a bank of screens]]. Becomes a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] at the end of the episode when Buffy uses those same screens to threaten Walsh after The [[Uriah Gambit]] fails to kill her.

 

* The [[Peace and Love Incorporated|Feel Good Inc]] in the [[Gorillaz]] eponymous video is filled with gigantic, constantly flashing screens.

 

 

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'': The Dark City has one landmark that stands out: a tall building topped with a cluster of warped television screens of various sizes. Strangely, nothing is actually displayed on the screens at any time, and the building itself is only important because some important scenes just happen to occur around it.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'': The Mother Brain boss fights with three screens that heal her every round. You can actually target them and take them out, but it makes her go berserk and nearly impossible to defeat. The trick is to leave one screen alone and kill the other two, which reduces the healing but leaves her beatable.

* Players in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' can purchase [http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Image:Tech_Control_Aux-Monitor-Bank-1.jpg monitor banks] and [http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Image:Tech_Control_Aux-Mega-Monitor-1.jpg mega monitors] for their hero/villain lairs.

* In the opening cinematic of the PS port of ''[[Deus Ex]]'' the [[Big Bad]] and his [[The Dragon|Dragon]] is shown looking at a bank of monitors.

** During Red's quest, you fight a boss in front of a bank of screens displaying an [[Idol Singer]] (who is actually {{spoiler|a Black X operative}}). The screens change what they display each round, and the party is hit with different effects depending what's on the screens.

* ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'': During the first phase of the Vol Opt (or its Ultimate mode evolution, Vol opt ver.2) Boss battle, the supercomputer's visage is displayed on, and moves between, the multiple monitors encircling the chamber while he throws various electrical attacks at the player characters. While his face is visible on screen, attacks against the monitors break them and deal damage to him. By the end of the phase, all the screens are broken, either through damage or the explosions that occur after defeating him.

* ''[[No More Heroes]]'': ''Desperate Struggle'' has Travis smash his way into Jasper Batt Jr.'s office at the end. If you look, you will see ''many'' screens on some of the walls, and close inspection of some of them show that Jasper has been keeping an eye on you, Henry and just about everyone else!

 

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': Hereti-Corp holds its shadow-faced meetings in one, often lampshaded, e.g. "Why is this room so dark and ominous when there are so many bright glowing screens?"

 

* In an episode of the ''[[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]]'' animated series, Mojo comes to take the heroes to his dimension by appearing in multiple TV screens while Scott and Jean are at the mall. Eventually, his assistant Spiral would go from the same image on all screens to one life-sized image spread across them... and step out into reality.

* Averted in ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' - although Doctor Claw is the kind of villain to sit in his lair and say sinister things while watching his minions by video, making him perfect for this trope, he pointedly has just one screen.

* ''[[Robot Chicken]]'': Parodied in the end of the title sequence. The titular chicken is strapped down in front of a wall of TVs showing various sketches from the show. One of the TVs is snowed out; it gets zoomed into and displays the last couple credits. It's implied you see the point of view of the chicken, and all the random crap during the show is the chicken looking from screen to screen.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Narrative Devices]]

[[Category:Spectacle]]