Stuff Blowing Up: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''"Whenever there seems to be a dull, quiet or otherwise non-car-filled moment, [the Director of this film] likes to believe that filming a bunch of cars exploding will distract the audience long enough to forget that these movies are objectively terrible.

 

First rule of Hollywood: ''Everything'' explodes.

 

A [[Super-Trope]] involving:

* [[Angst Nuke]]

* [[Baby Boomers]]

* [[Splash Damage]]

* [[Spontaneous Human Combustion]]

* [[Xylophone Gag]]

* [[You Can See the Explosion from Orbit]]

* [[Your Head Asplode]]

 

If only some characters in a work use it, can lead to [[Follow the Chaos]]. Compare [[Kill It with Fire]].

 

{{examples}}

* There was [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td4VEGiIQmk a TV commercial] featuring a trailer for the non-existent summer blockbuster ''Blow'd Up'', which was [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|exactly what it sounds like]] (it was an ad for a stock trading company; after the end of the trailer, the commercial cut to a guy selling all his stock in that movie studio).

* [[Segata Sanshiro]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V65dtKOk2Y is so awesome that when he needs to advertise] [[Bomberman]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V65dtKOk2Y he just judo flips this guy so hard that he explodes.] ''Twice.''

* [[Michael Bay|Awesome Barbeque.]] '''*BOOM*''' Awesome pool. '''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2z3pqFDzIA *BOOM*]'''

 

* Three key phrases can be used to succinctly sum up ''[[Blame]]''!: [[Walking the Earth]], [[Bizarrchitecture|Amazing Architecture]] and '''Stuff Blowing Up'''.

* The final episode of ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'' features Nabeshin espousing the philosophy that "Explosions fix ''everything''!", then giving a graphic demonstration: a [[Biological Mashup|fused]] Excel and Hyatt are returned to their original bodies when he dynamites the room they're standing in.

** Not to mention Roy Mustang. Things go boom when he snaps his fingers. Literally. He enjoys it less than Kimblee though.

* One Contractor in ''[[Darker than Black]]'' was a little boy who could blow up anything he'd left handprints on. This was impressive enough when the results were seen from a distance or when he was just using gravel as cherry bombs, but when he marked ''everything in the room'' with handprints? [[Impressive Pyrotechnics|Yeesh.]]

* [[Dragon Ball]] Z is made of this trope by the end of the Frieza saga. Planets get blown up left and right.

* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'': This is how [[Dark Magical Girl|Homura]] planned on defeating [[Eldritch Abomination|Walpurgis Night]]. Using her [[Hammerspace]], [[Crazy Prepared|or stuff she just put there ahead of time]], she attacks with hundreds of rocket launchers, mortars, mobile artilleries, and a building covered wall-to-wall with explosives. {{spoiler|Too bad none of it helped.}}

** Also note that this was her original shtick {{spoiler|in previous timelines}}, she relied exclusively on homemade explosives until one of her teammates complained about stuff blowing up in front of them. {{spoiler|So she started [[Kleptomaniac Hero|stealing guns]] from the local [[Yakuza]].}}

* [[Dirty Pair]]: Pretty much the entire point of the series.

 

* This is pretty much the job description of the ''[[Nextwave]]'' squad, and they love it.

{{quote|'''Elsa Bloodstone''':"They ''explode!'' My life has taken on new meaning!"}}

{{quote|'''Deadpool:''' '''Aww, c'mon!''' Was it explosion discount week in Hollywood?}}

 

* In ''[[Dreaming of Sunshine]]'' it's a running gag that Shikako is extreamly fond of explosives.

{{quote|I nodded to myself and finished the tag I was drawing. Then stared at the huge pile that had materialised while I had been thinking.

* In ''[[Point of Succession]]'' when [[Death Note|Light and Matt]] invade [[Big Bad|Beyond Birthday's]] villain lair-as expected it's booby-trapped... with explosives. A ''lot'' of explosives.

 

* What happens in every action movie ever made to the point where it's a genre defining characteristic.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' and the Death Stars, baby (in this case, the stations themselves, not [[Earthshattering Kaboom|their targets]]). You'd think a reactor would have fail-safes so that if containment was breached or the reaction controls were destroyed it would automatically shut down, rendering the station lifeless, but no, it goes kablooie. And it is ''[[Rule of Cool|sweet]]''.

* The alternate ending of ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''.

 

* In ''[[Havemercy]]'', Royston's Talent is making things explode. He manages to state this in the wordiest way possible.

** Later in the same book, during a space battle an enemy cruiser rolls a series of natural 20s on its saving throws and actually survives several hits from nuclear antiship missiles. Frustrated beyond endurance, the hero's gunner smacks it with a ''planetbuster bomb''. The resulting explosion lit up the sky for an entire hemisphere of the planet they were orbiting at the time.

** Blowing anything (especially themselves) up is very much a staple of the Ankh-Morpork Alchemists' Guild. Well, that and turning <s>lead into gold</s> gold into less gold.

{{quote|Sten's hand was poised over the emergency power cutoff breaker when the ship's computer decided that it might be dying but preferred something less Wagnerian than what would happen, and beat Sten to it.}}

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'': "Then there was a crash and a flash of flame and smoke. The waters of the Deeping-stream poured out hissing and foaming: they were choked no longer, a gaping hole was blasted in the wall."

* In the finale of [[Darkness Visible]] we get Marsh throwing {{spoiler|a bottle of pyroglycerine from the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, with predictably messy results for the crowd of bad guys below.}}

* Each of the Draconian races from ''[[Dragonlance]]'' die in... inconvenient ways, including one breed that explodes on death.

 

* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' blew lots of things up just for the fun of it. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP8Kah6vXsQ "The Exploding Version of the 'Blue Danube'"] [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|speaks for itself]]. No less explosive is the ever-popular "[http://youtube.com/watch?v=zekiZYSVdeQ How Not To Be Seen]" sketch, which ends in an orgy of [[Stock Footage]] explosions. Episode 16 has a [[Running Gag]] of random exploding animals, including [[That Poor Cat]] (offscreen). Other exploding things in the series include a penguin on a television set and Mrs. Niggerbaiter, whose friend's son says after she spontaneously explodes, "Don't be so sentimental. Things explode every day."

* The ''[[MythBusters]]'' usually go out of their way to make sure something gets blown up, set on fire, or otherwise destroyed at least once an episode. Routinely [[lampshade]]d to the point where, for one season, host Jamie Hyneman's introductory credit clip was of him declaring "Jamie want big boom!"

** ''Reconstruction'' plays this fairly straight. One particular sequence of note is where Agent Washington disposes of {{spoiler|Agent South}}'s body by piling a bunch of exploding crates next to it and shooting at them.

 

* [[Fatboy Slim]] "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NfPIs9Zlc8 Gangster Tripping]"

** In fact, the final version of the script is a single line: "Blow stuff up."

* The end of Junior Senior's "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trCwPP8ZW9Y Move Your Feet]"

 

* ''[[Little Nemo]] in Slumberland'' always had fireworks being set off in some way on the Fourth of July.

 

* ''[[The Goon Show]]'': "You rotten swine, you! You have deaded me again with the dreaded dynamite!"

** Not to mention the exploding taxis...

*** Or Major Bloodnok, who was pretty much a walking, talking series of explosive sound effects.

 

* If something doesn't go kaboom at some point in ''[[Feng Shui]]'', you're doing things wrong. The Jammers even have it as their battle cry: "BLOW THINGS UP! BLOW THINGS UP!"

* Similarly, the Death Leopard society in ''[[Paranoia]]'' has "blow shit up and have fun" as its entire policy. Also tends to happen when: the Troubleshooters use grenades, the Troubleshooters have grenades used on them, something overloads, something that's intentionally explosive explodes, someone [[Logic Bomb]]s Friend Computer and causes a reactor overload, a T-Shooter [[Too Dumb to Live|pyrokineticly sets off a grenade in someone else's bag while both are in a small room]],<ref>true story</ref> someone fires too many shots before changing laser barrels, or the GM is getting bored and wants to get the session over with.

* ''[[Bionicle]]'' has [[Exploding Fishtanks]], [[Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables|Exploding Fruit]], an (apparently) [[Noodle Incident|Exploding Rahi]], and, most recently, an exploding {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination]]}}.

 

* [[Act of War]] counts with a graphic engine capable to bring some impressive explosion effects, with everything so carefully designed to be as realistic as possible the game's stuff blowing up looks awesome, even after all these years it can go toe to toe with some other [[Real Time Strategy]] games.

* One of the most useful Brush powers in ''[[Okami]]'' involves drawing Cherrybombs to blow up an enemy [[Mook|Imp]] or two, gain access to secret caves, & fluster the natives. You get this power from [[Physical God|Bakugami]], a boar god.

* The recurring Explosion spell in the ''[[Tales (series)]]''.

 

* Nearly every scene in the aptly named Flash cartoon ''The Demented Cartoon Movie'' ends with Stuff Blowing Up. The [[Earthshattering Kaboom|planet Earth]] gets blown up a total of ten times, and over 40 "nuclear explosions" happen, many of them thanks to the words "Zeeky Boogy Doog." '''* BOOM* '''

* You CAN'T sing in the ''Charlie the Unicorn'' toons. Kinda lampshaded in the second video.

* The Strong Bad Email "hremail3184" from ''[[Homestar Runner]]''. During the email, Strong Bad talks about all different kinds of explosions, such as [[Planar Shockwave|"those ones with the blast-wavy Saturn-rings that are so popular lately."]] The email ends with {{spoiler|Strong Bad blowing up his own computer.}}

 

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', Mad Scientist Riff is convinced that explosives can solve anything.

* Likewise Vaarsuvius from Order of the Stick: "as the size of the explosion increases, the number of situations it is incapable of solving reaches zero"

* Surprisingly averted in Spontaneous Combustion

 

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VeB_-gWSdA&feature=related Try to repeat after me: * BOOM* Brass section, go: * BOOM* Now the winds: * BOOM* Now the drums: * BOOM* ]

* [[Yogscast Minecraft Series]], being set in ''[[Minecraft]]'' and all (see above), has this happen a lot, for various reasons:

* ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s Photoplasty contest "[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_1156_21-incredibly-satisfying-scenes-stuff-getting-destroyed/?view=article 21 Incredibly Satisfying Scenes of Stuff Getting Destroyed]" celebrates the fun of watch something explode, with examples including demolition of bridges, dynamite mining, and more. "Feel free to touch yourselves."

 

* The vast majority of episodes set within the [[DCAU]] end with the villain's [[Collapsing Lair|hideout exploding]], for reasons ranging from self-destruct devices to joy buzzers falling into loose wiring. On one of the ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' commentaries, the creators admitted that whenever they couldn't figure out how to end an episode, they'd just have a building blow up.

** One noteable example took place nearing the end of Bruce's reunion with Ra's al Ghul, who at this point should have racked up quite a bit of [[Genre Savvy]] and was smart enough to install automated fire extingishers into his lair. Unfortunately, once the fires are put out, Ra makes the critical mistake of pronouncing, "[[Tempting Fate|It's safe]]." Sure enough, one loose electrical wire strikes the Lazarus pit, resulting in... well, you know.

** In the episode "Cartoon Wars" Kyle's big wheel goes flying off a cliff after a chase with Cartman. The toy bike breaks like a toy bike should until it hits the ground, when it promptly explodes for no reason.

* ''[[Raw Toonage]]'' parodied in one of the trailers [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjuvfMSmmBc here].

* In the world of [[SpongeBob SquarePants]], falling off a cliff not only merits you an explosion, but a ''[[The Deadliest Mushroom|mushroom cloud]]''. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqM1RqpHi_w Just ask Squidward].

** And when they [[Show Within a Show|try to make a movie]], Sandy gets a bit excessive with the fake explosions. 'Did somebody say boom?'

* After having his apartment/lair explodes, ''again'', Doofensmirtz of [[Phineas and Ferb]] wonders [[Lampshade Hanging|"why does everything blow up so easily?"]]

 

* Above-ground nuclear weapons tests were mostly this, especially later on. After a point, they weren't testing to see if it worked, or what it could do, they were just blowing stuff up for the sake of blowing stuff up. The higher-ups usually justified it as intimidating the filthy communists/capitalist pigs.

** [[wikipedia:Tsar Bomba|Tsar Bomba]] being a [[Big Bulky Bomb|50 megaton atomic bomb]] that the Russians let off during the [[Cold War]]... Could have been 100 megatons, but the Russians were concerned about fallout. They only made and detonated the one... Not practical to put on a plane I guess...

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Narrative Devices]]

[[Category:Rule of Cool]]

[[Category:Everything's Better with Indexes]]

[[Category:Pandering to the Base]]