Padding: Difference between revisions

|'''Joel and the Bots'''|''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''}}

 

 

Most works have to employ some level of this to get to the desired length/running time, but are usually either subtle about it or manage to make the padding itself enjoyable. In other cases, these scenes distract from the plot advancement.

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' was infamous for all the padding used to prevent it from [[Overtook the Manga|overtaking the manga]], up to and including ''flashbacks to earlier in the episode''. For further details see [[Inaction Sequence]], a technique the show perfected. In the Freeza arc, Freeza launched an attack at the planet Namek. It didn't destroy it, but it was ''extremely close'' to imploding, about 5 minutes away. 5 minutes which lasted several episodes.

* In the same regard, the modsouls from the [[Filler|Bount Arc]] of ''[[Bleach]]'' have been kept in the anime purely to slow it down. Their scenes have been tacked on in the hopes that the anime won't [[Overtook the Manga|overtake the manga]] ''again''. The [["Previously On..."|recap that starts nearly every episode]]. It wouldn't be padding if they bothered to change it. The recap of the Hueco Mundo arc in Episode 190 takes ''over half the episode'', and is mostly composed of clips from Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra and Ichigo vs. Grimmjow. Then there's Komamura's fight with Poww. After releasing his Bankai, Komamura immediately finishes the fight with one attack. In the anime, it takes ''three minutes'' of Poww attacking it to no effect before he goes in for the kill.

* Other [[Magical Girl]] series, such as [[Ojamajo Doremi]], often abbreviate the [[Transformation Sequence|transformation sequences]], run several in parallel, or even do them off-screen to ''save'' time. This is usually a sign the creators actually care about the story they're telling.

* ''[[Pretty Cure]]'' goes both ways depending on how long this week's plot takes. It's not uncommon that one episode of ''[[Yes! Pretty Cure 5|Yes! Pretty Cure 5GoGo]]'' will make you sit through several minutes of [[Stock Footage]] of the girls transforming, and then the next episode will have the girls all shout [[By the Power of Greyskull|"Metamorphose!"]] in unison, followed immediately by a few representative half-second clips and no mention at all of [[In the Name of the Moon|the power of hope or the light of the future]].

* The public information film, ''[[The Finishing Line]]'' has this during the final task which all children cross the railroad tunnel. The camera films ''all'' the children walking into the tunnel passing by the camera and even leave it running filming nothing for a good number of seconds after last child passed by. This padded scene lasted about a minute.

* Most of the first half of ''[[Silent Night, Deadly Night]] Part 2'' is scenes from the ''first movie''.

** Probably the most [[Egregious]] bit is the scene where [[Leave the Camera Running|the camera just sits still for several minutes]] watching an elevator ''slooooooowly'' move downward. There's quite a few similar scenes of spacecraft moving with agonizing sluggishness for minutes at a time.

* [[Judd Apatow]] has made a career out of this. Many of his movies (produced or directed) run over two hours (rare for the comedy genre) and as a result will feature many things that could have easily been cut. A prime offender is ''[[Funny People]]'', which pads its near 150 minute run time with many celebrity cameos and an additional thirty-minute subplot after the main revelation {{spoiler|that Adam Sandler's cancer has gone into remission}}. Supposedly, the film's extended versions are even worse. It's not even the storyline mentioned above that's the most annoying part, that actually makes some sense, it's several useless storylines -namely the entire subplot involving Seth Rogen's love interest as well as his roommate's sitcom career- and scenes -the celebrity cameo festival in the middle film would have been a deleted scene in almost ANY other movie because of how little it has to do with the plot and how long it drags on- that should have ended up on the cutting room floor. Hell, one wonders if there even was a cutting room floor.

** The Shuttle is particularly funny, because the countdown has "built-in holds". For missions to the ISS, the launch window is only five minutes long; if you don't hit it, there's a scrub. So they have a clock saying it's X amount of time before the launch, but it's really more than that, and they stop the clock now and then for a predetermined amount of time, so that by the time the final hold is over, the displayed time to launch is equal to the actual time to launch. This probably doesn't make a whole lot more or less sense than Daylight Savings Time if you really think about it...

** I imagine this is so that if there's a last minute error in one of their systems they have time to fix it built into the countdown rather than having to rush the repair to remain on schedule.

 

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