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Outrun the Fireball: Difference between revisions
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Subverted in the first issue of ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] Unlimited''. Things go boom and the group of X-Men outfly it all...helped by the fact Storm is controlling the wind.
* [[The Flash]], of course, is fast enough to routinely outrun explosions and make it look easy. However, when he evacuates the population of an entire city in the time it takes a nuclear shockwave to destroy it, he breaks [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]].
** Someone did the math, he travelled roughly 2.5 ''Quintillion'' miles per second, or 13 ''trillion'' times the speed of light.
* Subverted in a very funny way in ''[[The Infinity Gauntlet]]''. {{spoiler|[[Magnificent Bastard|Thanos]] finally defeated,}} suggests the heroes to [[Why Am I Ticking?|"put some distance between themselves and his person."]] Thor's reaction ? Swing his hammer [[Home Run Hitter|so hard]] that the fireball sort of outruns the heroes itself.
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== [[Fanfic]] ==
* In ''[[Light and Dark - The Adventures of Dark Yagami|Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami]]'', the titular Dark Yagami is chasing Near in a car chase in Paris, when a nuclear explosion happens. The two have to outrun the fireball, and this is made even more difficult because it is "magic fire" that can turn corners.
* A conflagration chases [[Death Note|Light and Matt]] down a hallway in ''[[Point of Succession]]'' after they discover that [[Big Bad|Beyond Birthday]] had booby-trapped the entrance of his villain lair with explosives.
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* ''[[Forrest Gump]]'' does this in Vietnam, when he rescues the wounded Bubba. The napalm strike that was announced minutes earlier to Lt Dan virtually takes place around him and still he runs away from it. Possibly justified as it's napalm, and is mostly just big balls of fire with minimal shockwaves.
* Subverted in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]''. A car full of [[Mooks]] tries to outrun {{spoiler|a nuclear explosion}} and get smoked hard. {{spoiler|Indy, on the other hand, survives [[Refuge in Audacity|by hiding in a]] [[It Runs on Nonsensoleum|lead-lined refrigerator]].}}
** Maybe Indy had a major case of [[Fridge Logic|Fridge]] [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Logic]]?
* John Cena's character outruns at least a half-dozen such explosions in ''[[The Marine]]''.
* Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Omid Djalili wind up flat on their faces in the snow after an explosion in a uranium mine in ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]''.
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** This one's hard... the nukes in the movie aren't ever really described. In the book, the basically identical nuke rockets are described as using subcritical masses that use a lot of advanced tricks to get it to go off, and consequently, are really weak for a nuke.
** The main characters also outrun a fireball when they're launching an escape pod from their ship.
* Justified in ''[[Star Trek Generations]]'', when the ''Enterprise'' outruns the blast wave of a supernova, by the fact that the ship can [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|travel faster than light]].
** Also in ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'', where the ship manages to outrun the Genesis Device, once they restore their warp drive.
** Used again in ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]] XI'', when the Enterprise {{spoiler|escape the explosion/implosion of Nero's ship}}.
* Happens about thirty-two times in ''[[Three Kings]]''.
* [[James Bond]] faces this at times, the most egregious in ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies]]'', where he flies a jet through the fireball.
** Actually, the example in ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies]]'' is slightly ''more'' plausible than the usual fare - assuming that it was a (relatively cold) kerosene/gasoline fire from the trucks and aircraft that were in front of him, and he was flying fast enough, it is entirely possible that James could fly through with no or few ill-effects. It is the same principle as quickly moving one's hand through a (yellow!) bunsen or candle flame. So long as you do it fast enough, you'll be fine.
* Surprisingly subverted in ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]''. {{spoiler|Sam fails to outrun the explosion and is killed... but gets better.}}
* Subverted (like so many other things) in ''[[Tremors]] 2'', when Earl sets a bomb to detonate the explosives in the back of Burt's truck. The other heroes duck behind cover, only to see Burt continue running right past them, yelling "It's gonna be big!"
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** ''[[Fantasia]] 2000'': The Firebird.
** ''[[Dinosaur]]'': A meteorite.
** ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire]]'': A lava flow and pyroclastic cloud.
** ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'': A blaster overloading because of a carrot stuck in its barrel.
** ''[[Treasure Planet]]'': A supernova.
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* Played with in ''[[NCIS]]'', where Gibbs discovers a bomb in a house the team is investigating and they all dash out and dive for cover behind the car. And nothing happens. After spending 2 hours waiting behind the car, one of them suggests Gibbs might start looking into reading glasses. And the bomb promptly explodes.
** Also averted in the season 3 finale, where Abby and McGee are computer-modeling an explosion that Gibbs was almost killed in. Their conclusion is that the bomb was not actually placed where everybody assumed it had been, as there is no way Gibbs could have survived the blast even remotely intact unless he were able to outrun flying shrapnel in mid-air. Armed with this knowledge, they work out where the bomb had ''actually'' been placed and solve the mystery.
** Played straight in the season 2 finale, in which Tony, Kate and McGee must outrun a car bomb McGee tripped.
* [[The BBC]] trailer for the first series of the new ''[[Doctor Who]]'' featured Christopher Eccleston outrunning a fireball. The clip was shot specially for the trailer and [[Never Trust a Trailer|did not appear in the series proper]]. There's also a very similar publicity photo for the third season involving the Doctor and Martha.
** In the 2007 [[Christmas Episode]] the Doctor {{spoiler|out ''flies'' a fireball}}.
** The fourth-season episode "[[Doctor Who
{{quote|{{spoiler|'''The Doctor''': Oh, is that it?}}}}
** In ''[[Doctor Who
* On Day 5 of [[24]], Jack blows up a facility and runs from the flames, in one of the coolest looking moments on the show.
* [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]] on ''[[Chuck]]'', almost exactly as stated above: The title character spots an active NSA incinerator in the car, and he and Casey run wildly to a safe distance away. (No diving, though.) Beat, embarrassed looks, then explosion.
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* Totally subverted on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', when even [[Fragile Speedster]] Daphne can't outrun a nuclear blast without damage to her back.
** But later played straight when Claire and HRG outrun {{spoiler|[[Playing with Fire|Meredith]]'s [[Superpower Meltdown]]}}.
* In ''Terminator: [[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'', Terminator Catherine Weaver does the [[Unflinching Walk]] from an exploding building, but doesn't even bother to out-pace the explosion, as immolation is hardly even an inconvenience for her.
* The first season finale of ''[[Burn Notice]]'' climaxes with Michael and Sam escaping from an exploding boat. Michael [[Unflinching Walk|doesn't flinch]], while Sam (a retired Navy SEAL) is freaking the hell out - mainly because he'd just been tortured for a few days and ''didn't know'' the boat was going to blow.
** The mid-second season finale ends with one of these as well.
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* In the ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'' episode "War Zone", Walker and Trivette must outrun a bomb explosion set off in a house by a dead body.
* [[Robin Hood (TV series)|Guy of Gisborne]] outruns a fireball in the episode ''A Thing Or Two About Loyalty.''
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' parodied / subverted this in the episode ''Point of No Return''. Our heroes find themselves in an abandoned building along with an amnesiac (but friendly) alien, and a strange beeping device. The alien tells them that the device is ''counting down to something'', and so they all assume the worst and promptly run out of the building, screaming for everyone nearby to take cover, and dramatically leaping towards the camera at the last second just as... ''absolutely nothing happens''. It turns out {{spoiler|the device ''was'' counting down to an explosion, but it was the self-destruct mechanism of an alien ship, which was hidden in a completely different location.}}
* The penultimate [[Dollhouse]] episode has Echo outrunning the fireball after {{spoiler|blowing up Rossum's main computer in her unsuccessful attempt to prevent the thoughtpocalypse.}}
* ''[[Leverage]]'' has the group try to do this in "The Nigerian Job." They wake up in a hospital. Nate fares slightly better in the season 2 opener. Parker does a sliding variant in the Hot Potato Job, in this case it is slightly justifed in that the explosive was said to be thermite which actually is more of a burning effect than a more conventional explosion.
* In the episode of [[Deadliest Warrior]] "Jesse James vs. Al Capone", when showcasing the Pineapple Bomb, Al Capone calmly lights a cigarette while a Pineapple Bomb thrown by one of his gangsters explodes in the background.
* From ''[[Community]]'' episode "[[Community/Recap/S1
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* Again in ''[[Star Wars]]: [[X Wing]] Alliance'', the final mission has you flying the Millenium Falcon, into and subsequently out of the Death Star. Which is exploding after you're done with it. ''Rogue Leader'' on Gamecube depicts the same battle from the movie and also features [[Outrun the Fireball]].
* Once again in ''[[Shadows of the Empire]]'', which had you trying to escape the Skyhook... Except subverted, in that you, unless you are extremely good or just plain cheat, won't be able to make it out, and the ending goes by normally. {{spoiler|In reality, Dash actually survives thanks to a very precise hyper-space jump, as the medium mode reveals.}}
* The 3rd installment of ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' had this for one of the Area 51 levels. Lara has to launch a missile in order to move it out of the way so she can proceed, but by doing so, the flames from the missile's exhaust starts to fill the hallway she is in. You're forced to sprint awkwardly '''towards''' the camera to the very end of the hall so the flames don't touch you. Getting burnt here results in instant death compared to being on fire in the other parts of the game where you live only for a few seconds.
** The FMV scene at the end of 2nd Tomb Raider.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', Cid blows up the Al Bhed stronghold Home, and the resulting fireball actually ''catches'' his fleeing airship for a few seconds. [[Convection, Schmonvection|No harm done, though]]. Not even the airship's "skirt" hanging from the aft is singed.
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* The final mission in ''[[Free Space]] 2'' starts out as the second half of an [[Escort Mission]]. Then [[Mission Control]] lets you know that the Shivans have made the local sun go supernova, and you only have a few minutes to get to the [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|jump point]] where you can escape the explosion. Good luck.
* Jackson's squad does this with a nuke in ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'', saving the pilot of a downed helicopter while they are at it. {{spoiler|But the shockwave was faster.}}
** There's also the bit where you have to abseil out of the abandoned hotel before the attack helicopter blows up your sniper nest.
* The first Russian mission in ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War'' has you escape an explosion TWICE. The first time the player jumps out a window as an armored car and flamethrowers attack your building, and while you make it out in time, your comrade is blown out the window by a massive explosion. At the end of the mission, the two of you are escaping a tank, and this time your positions are reversed where YOU narrowly avoid getting blown up by a tank by jumping out the window into the river.
* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' has this as one of the endings. The last you see of JC Denton is him running away after he blew up {{spoiler|Area 51's bunker}} while still deep inside.
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** In ''[[Mass Effect]] 3'', the final cutscene has {{spoiler|the Normandy trying to outrun the space magic wave, complete with the equipment in the cockpit beginning to [[Explosive Instrumentation|overheat and explode]]}}
* The Demoman does this in his Meet the Cast trailer for ''[[Team Fortress 2]]''.
* In the end of the Axis Chemicals level in ''[[Batman Doom]]'', you press the switch that causes a HUGE wall of explosions to chase you down a street all the way to the Batmobile while you're trying to avoid pesky landmines on the way.
* The "Final Run" level in ''[[Medal of Honor]]: Allied Assault''. You have to run from the encroaching fire and explosions behind you, while quickly taking down constant waves of [[Mooks]] in front of you.
* [[Metal Gear Solid]] 3 has most of the bosses exploding after being defeated, making Snake duck and cover, but The Fury's post-boss cinema gets a special mention for this trope: Being a specialist in using a flamethrower, his explosion manifests into a 'giant fiery face' that Snake literally has to outrun. The look on Snake's face is 'priceless'.
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* ''[[Starcraft II|Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty]]'' has a mission where you must outrun a fire wave caused by a supernova, while building up your army to fight through the enemy and retrieve an artifact.
* In F-22 Lightning 3, you can equip your [[Cool Plane]] with tactical nukes, that, when fired, can take down your airplane if you don't outrun fast enough the shockwave/EMP Pulse.
* During a cutscene in the last mission of [[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas]], CJ does this to escape an explosion in {{spoiler|[[Face Heel Turn|Big Smoke]]'s "Crack Palace"}}, complete with [[Slow Motion]].
* ''[[Super Star Wars]]: Return of the Jedi'' follows the movie counterpart in the final level. After destroying the Death Star's main reactor, you have to pilot your ship through a labyrinth of tunnels without crashing into too many walls or the fireball will catch up and quickly drain your shields.
* Played straight in a cutscene of the ''[[Sid Meier's Pirates!]]'' remake during the siege of a city. After the player beats the guard captain, the cutscene shows the captain being pushed into a tower full of gunpowder barrels. The player character throws a lit torch into the tower, and both then try to outrun the explosion. The player character is seen diving off the fort wall just before the fireball reaches him.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Parodied in an episode of ''[[Futurama]]'', when a movie the main characters were watching featured a fight in a special effects warehouse, causing one of the characters to say, "Hurry, Calculon, before a fireball chases someone down a hallway!"
* Spoofed in ''[[Family Guy]]'' in the episode "Peter's Daughter": Stewie and Brian jump out of the way from the blast of a [[Stuff Blowing Up|house blowing up]]. Stewie and Brian, as well as the house exploding, are flashed on the screen [[Overly Long Gag|numerous times]] at several different angles.
* Parodied in the ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "Walk For Your Lives", where the entire episode is focused on a bomb that explodes and creates an explosion that is incredibly slow. As the episode title suggests, civilians could literally ''outwalk'' the aforementioned explosion.
* Parodied in an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' when Homer is running away from an angry mob at a candy convention he kicks a soda kiosk, catches an ejected soda can, grabs a bag of pop rocks out of his pocket, opens them with his teeth as if they were a grenade, [[Urban Legends|combines them]], shakes them, and after yelling [[Pre-Mortem One-Liner|"See you in hell, candy boys!"]] throws it at the angry mob. He leaps towards the camera as the convention center explodes in a huge fireball behind him.
** The producers claimed that scene was based on "every [[Bruce Willis]] movie ever made".
** Similarly, another episode features Homer hiring the mafia to protect Marge's pretzel business from competitors. They blow up the competitors' falafel wagon. Maude is talking to Chief Wiggum who guides her through the process for throwing herself on the floor in front of the fireball.
** Spoofed in other episode, in which just after Monty Burn's Casino is demolished Homer and his family get into his car to try to escape of the dust cloud caused by the demolition. However, Homer's car enters in reverse into the dust cloud.
* An episode of ''[[Xavier: Renegade Angel]]'' spoofed this in its usual manner; it featured a sentient explosion which actively chased the protagonist as he asked everyone where the lake was, so that he could drown it. It was one of the more believable scenes of the series.
* [[Justice League]] and [[Batman: The Animated Series]] had inversions of this trope. Batman and the Flash each had scenarios where he grabbed a bomb and ran it out of town ''as it detonated, in his hands'' in super-slow motion. The fireball outran the civilians.
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** Life on earth will be drastically affected long before this. One billion years in the future, still long before the red giant phase, the sun will be 10% more luminous, increasing the average earth temperature to over 45 degrees C, causing a runaway greenhouse effect with the evaporation of the oceans.
** Out of all of this, remember that the sun is only a [[Always a Bigger Fish|medium-sized]] star. Plenty of larger stars have gone [[Earthshattering Kaboom|boom]] since the start of time, giving other astronomical bodies plenty of chances to outrun the fire.
* 9/11: When the Twin Towers collapsed, they created a giant dust cloud that flowed through Manhattan. As these clouds roiled down streets, many people misinterpreted them as expanding explosions. There were many home movies of people ducking into buildings to avoid the advancing dust cloud, thinking they had outrun an explosion.
** Given the respiratory problems people who breathed in the dust have been suffering that was probably a good thing.
** However, at Ground Zero itself many people were forced to flee for their lives to escape the collapsing buildings. Shown most horribly in the documentary ''9/11''
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* A photograph exists of a pyroclastic cloud tumbling down Mount Unzen in Japan. On the road in front of the cloud is a fire engine, in front of THAT is a single man running for his life.
** National Geographic has the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPRoTQYXwuY the video here].
*** The pyroclastic cloud never actually reaches the place where the man was. However, it unfortunately kills a group of people who film volcanoes who were in the valley itself where the cloud was being channelled down.
* A small but amusing example, but there have been some rather off phenomena with storms - not hurricanes, mind you, but small rain showers and blizzards. They actually seemed to travel up a street, or even up ''and'' down a street, literally going back and forth! Thus some people have tried (For fun) to try to outrun the storm, but at least it's better than trying to outrun a pyroclastic flow.
* This seems an appropriate place to mention that the South Korean Army, frustrated by the minefields in the Korean DMZ, developed a combat boot that could protect a soldier's foot from a land mine. When tested, the boots actually protected the feet inside them. It would be impolite to ask about the rest of the soldier; let's just say that the boots were found fifty meters apart. But the feet were protected.
* According to tales told by some USGS employees, a team of vulcanologists actually did outrun the blast at Mt. Saint Helens in a car; they were miles away, but their starting position was inside the (eventual) radius of the pyroclastic cloud.
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