Planar Shockwave: Difference between revisions
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Huge explosions in space turn into fireballs surrounded by unexplained rings of fire/plasma that expand usually on the relative horizontal or vertical plane, often racing just past the camera. Used to make big [[Stuff Blowing Up|kabooms]] appear more powerful, and when spheroid shockwaves just won't do.
Perhaps this is done because the expected near-spherical explosion don't feel as big, or because a two-dimensional shockwave resembles that of powerful explosions on earth. In theory, it ''could'' be [[Hand Wave
Very commonly used in space-based video games, as it is a relatively "cheap" and easily produced effect.
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* ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country]]'', when the Klingon moon of Praxis explodes in a double shockwave ring. The effect is occasionally called a Praxis Shockwave after this prominent example. The shockwave actually gains plot significance here when it hits the starship Excelsior, since it makes the Federation aware of what happened. Most other examples feature the rings mostly for eye candy.
* The Special Editions of the original ''[[Star Wars]]'' trilogy does this three times: once for each Death Star (vertical and horizontal rings, respectively) and once when Alderaan is destroyed. They weren't in the original versions.
** Partially justified with the Death Stars. The trench dividing the two hemispheres is weaker than the rest of the shell, which would cause a (if somewhat smaller)
*** ''Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'' takes it one step further, with the shock bombs dropped from Jango Fett's ship: The resulting explosion is focused into a thin disk shape that seems to simply cut through the surrounding asteroids. Which given that space is three-dimensional makes them extremely ineffective weapons that only work because Obi-Wan seems not to be aware of that fact.
*** A planar shockwave has advantages: the 'blast' effect of a spherical explosion goes down with the square or the radius (4 Pi r^2). If focused into a planar one, 'blast' goes down with the radius (2Pi r). So if you can aim the shockwave, the mine has a much larger effective range.
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*** Actually, a better explanation would be the fact that it was sitting on a platform, surrounded by a ring of the as-yet-unnamed material the Stargates were made of, something that was explicitly stated would enhance the blast.
* ''[[Independence Day]]'' features something similar as the Alien Mothership explodes: The explosion spreads horizontally on the screen, eventually engulfing the camera. Might have looked like a Praxis Shockwave from another angle.
* Used [[
** Also, during the ship-to-ship battle between the ''Tiger's Claw'' and the Kilrathi ships, an enemy capital ship is hit with two torpedoes and explodes, emitting a planar shockwave that proceeds to destroy another Kilrathi ship. Apparently, traveling close together, leaving no room to maneuver, is standard operating procedure for the kitties. No wonder a single human ship was able to deal so much damage to the more advanced Kilrathi.
* ''[[Armageddon]]'' has one when the nuclear ordnance exploded inside the asteroid.
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** ''[[Star Fox Adventures]]'' plays this straight however as most spaceship's in the game blow up like this. This is especially apparent when {{spoiler|Andross head}} explodes at the end of the game exactly like the Death Star did in Star Wars, complete with ship's outrunning the fireball.
* The Scrin mothership in ''[[Command & Conquer]] 3: Tiberium Wars'' does this, with an [[Independence Day]] beam that creates an expanding shockwave, and anything that gets caught in it also explodes, creating their own miniature shockwaves. This can rapidly spread out of control, destroying an entire base in one blow. That is, if the mothership ''lives''...
* In ''[[Serious Sam]]'', rockets, grenades, cannonballs and ''laser beams'' send
* ''
* The Stinkowing in ''[[Stinkoman 20 X 6]]'' causes a few when it explodes.
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