Portal Slam: Difference between revisions

Whichever reason, the [['''Portal Slam]]''' is normally a sign that the fantasy world the portal gave access to is irrevocably inaccessible. This is a common method employed at the end of a fantasy/science fiction series to [[Status Quo Is God|bring things back down to normal]]. If the character manages to get back to the world by alternate means, he'll usually discover that the world has drastically changed for the worse with black magic brewing.

Less commonly, the [['''Portal Slam]]''' is used near the ''beginning'' of the story, as the protagonists figure out how to work the portal by trial and error.

* The child Boo in ''[[Monsters, Inc.]].'' finds only an ordinary closet instead of a portal to Monstropolis after Sully and Mike are obligated to let the closet door be destroyed. Earlier, the same thing happens when Sully and Mike are banished, finding a big metal door in the middle of nothing.

* In the film version of ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy]]'', Arthur is afraid to go into the portal at Magrathea after the others. By the time he gets up the nerve and runs at it full speed, the portal is inactive and he ends up sliding through it.

* In the original ''[[Stargate (Filmfilm)|Stargate]]'' movie, Jack O'Neil, Daniel Jackson, and their team go through the gate to Abydos with the expectation they'll be able to go back to Earth right away. Only problem is, Daniel was expecting the gate address for Earth to be written down somewhere in the same room as the gate.

* Harry and Ron rebound painfully from the sealed gateway to Platform 9-and-Three-Quarters in ''[[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Franchisenovel)/|Harry Potter and Thethe Chamber of Secrets|Harry Potter]]''.

* In ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]],'' Milo finds the morning after that the tollbooth has vanished, with a note in its place that explains that the tollbooth will find its way to the next needed child that needs it.

* The doorway in the wardrobe into ''[[Narnia]]'' vanishes when Lucy tries to show it to her siblings the first time. A portal to Narnia only seems to appear when you're not looking for it, according to Professor Kirke -- andKirke—and indeed, in [[CS LewisC. (Creator)|CSS. Lewis]]'s other Narnia books, every portal only works once, as opposed to the three times the wardrobe does.

* The TV series ''[[Goodnight Sweetheart]]'' ended with Gary's [[Portal to Thethe Past]] closing forever - leaving him in Post War Britain.

* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' episode "Father's Day", disruptions in time caused the interior of the TARDIS (which is, of course, bigger on the inside than on the outside) to vanish, leaving only the police box shell. No, don't ask how this makes sense. At least it makes more sense than the original idea; it was supposed to FALL APART.

* Though not quite the same, the title portal of ''[[Stargate SG -1]]'' has an item known as an "iris" that can be closed over the portal, which prevents most physical matter from fully manifesting itself on Earth's side of the wormhole if the bad guys decide to use it in an invasion attempt. Coming through the Stargate after the iris has been closed results in what is known as "bugs on a windshield death". Presumably they have technicians just to wipe the back side of the iris after this happens.

* Vortices disappearing when people try to jump through them happens an awful lot in ''[[Sliders]]''. If it's a good guy, they'll always find another vortex. If it's a bad guy, they're usually trapped until the good guys can deal with them. Rickman, the [[Big Bad]] of season three, meets his end this way when a portal is just over a cliff. When it shuts down just as he's leaping for it, the [[Portal Slam]] is soon followed by [[Killed Off for Real|a standard slam]].

* A Portal Splat was used to remove Mr. Marshall from ''[[Land of the Lost (TV series)|Land of the Lost]]'' when the actor playing him wouldn't come back for the third season. Fiddling with the controls of a pylon, he opened a portal and slipped through, but a tremor knocked the control-pedestal over, causing the portal to vanish before Will and Holly could follow him.

* The brilliant cartoon episode of ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' has quite a few of these, with painted-on wormholes. Used purely for comedy, without any of the dramatic implications.

* In the ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'' ''[[Planescape]]'' setting, this is a frequently mentioned hazard of plane-walking. Many portals sometimes work only under extremely specific circumstances ("Thou must be accompanied by a flame-haired tiefling whilst holding a lily and only on the third day of the second week of the month on a year with a solar eclipse on Aber-Toril"), and portals can be destroyed or closed by various beings, so it's recommended players provide their own means of transportation.

** In Riven, The Fissure was {{spoiler|the instability in the world that eventually destroyed it}}. However, in and of itself it was a Portal, as the linking book that initiated the Myst franchise falls into the player's hands {{spoiler|when Atrus jumps into The Fissure and uses the book to link back to Myst, allowing the book to fall into the fissure so Gehn would not be able to get it, trapping him in Riven.}} The book then falls through the fissure and onto the surface of {{spoiler|D'ni, "New Start", or as we call it, Earth,}} where the player found it. Later, in Myst: Uru, you also find the telescope that fell into the fissure, also on the surface. So the player comes into the story due to {{spoiler|Atrus}} pulling a [[Portal Slam]] on {{spoiler|his father, Gehn}}.

*** More conventionally, {{spoiler|destroying a Descriptive Book will seal off access to an Age permanently. Certain drastic changes to a Descriptive Book will also change which Age it links to, as opposed to effecting changes in the Age itself - not a [[Portal Slam]] in the traditional sense, but the original link is still severed all the same}}.

* Invoked in ''[[Wing Commander (Videovideo Gamegame)|Wing Commander]]'', where the Kilrathi find a way to obscure an intergalactic jump point, leaving the Terrans stranded and in an ambush.

* Will almost certainly happen at least once during a play through of [[Portal (Video Gameseries)|Portal]], since you're going to screw up and place a blue portal when you meant to place a yellow one, or vice versa. Happens even more often during co-op play in [[Portal 2 (Video Game)|the sequel]] once you realize that it's almost as much [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|fun to torture]] [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|your teammate]] as it is to solve the puzzles.

{{quote| "Well, I guess I spend the rest of my life pretending that didn't happen or knowing that everyone I love suspects I'm crazy. This'll be a fun 70 years."}}

* Hsi Wu, the Sky Demon, in ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures (Animation)|Jackie Chan Adventures]]'' attempted to exit the Demon Netherworld using Shendu's portal after Jade goes through it, disregarding the rule that only one person can use a portal when it opens. Sure enough, the portal closes and Hsi Wu slams into a floating rock formation that happened to be behind the location where the portal manifested.

* In one episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and& Mandy]]'', Billy's kiddie pool becomes a portal to another dimension. Whenever [[The Bully|Sperg]] tries to use it, he just hits the bottom of the pool.

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