Time Bomb: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Airplane! (Film)|Airplane!]] 2: The Sequel''. Sonny Bono buys a timebomb at the airport convenience store.

* The ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' films have used this. ''[[Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan (Film)|The Wrath of Khan]]'' (the Genesis device activating), ''[[Star Trek III the Search For Spock (Film)|The Search for Spock]]'' (the Enterprise [[Self-Destruct Mechanism|self-destruct mechanism]]) and ''[[Star Trek Nemesis (Film)|Nemesis]]'' (the Scimitar activating its primary weapon) all feature variants of this trope. This extends to the television series as well.

* ''[[Beverly Hills Ninja]]'', ''[[Cloak and Dagger]]'', and ''[[Speed (Film)|Speed]]'' are all movies where the bomb goes off without hurting anyone, although the last wasn't a ''time'' bomb per se.

* ''[[Galaxy Quest (Film)|Galaxy Quest]]'' subverts this beautifully when the characters defuse an overloading reactor with about 20 seconds to spare...but to their consternation the countdown keeps going till it reaches 1 and stops. They then comment, relieved, that "it always did that on the show" the real ship was based on.

* Subverted in ''[[The Naked Gun (Film)|The Naked Gun]] 2 1/2'': an attempt to stop the bomb actually increases the rate of countdown. When all is lost, the fleeing hero trips over the ''power cord'', deactivating the bomb.

* The nuclear bomb in the [[James Bond (Film)|James Bond]] movie ''[[Goldfinger (Film)|Goldfinger]]'', which stops with 0:07 seconds left.

** Subverted (somewhat) in ''[[You Only Live Twice (Film)|You Only Live Twice]]'', when Bond detonates the enemy spacecraft with five seconds left on the timer.

** And more appropriately, subverted again in ''[[The Living Daylights (Film)|The Living Daylights]]''.

** In ''[[Diamonds Are Forever (Film)|Diamonds Are Forever]]'' Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd used timed bombs (without visual counters) twice - first to destroy the diamond-smuggling helicopter, and at the end in an attempt to kill Bond and Tiffany Case.

* The bundle of explosives in ''[[The Mask (Film)|The Mask]]'', which The Mask disposes of by swallowing it.

* ''[[Stargate (Film)|Stargate]]'': One of the most egregious [[Magic Countdown]] examples, as O'Neil says they have five minutes to activate the Stargate and leave. However, once he cues up the Digital Readout, it counts down at a rate of about two seconds per actual second.

* [[John Woo]]'s ''[[Broken Arrow 1996 (Film)|Broken Arrow]]''. Hale jumps off the train pressing the cancel button on the remote trigger exactly at two seconds.

* In ''[[Armageddon (Film)|Armageddon]]'', this happens not once, but twice in a row. The first time, the timer on nuclear bomb is remotely canceled from Earth, only to be restarted after a direct order from the President. Back on board the asteroid, the bomb is stopped again manually, the timer freezing at 2.46 seconds.

* In [[Team America World Police]], Kim Jong Il invokes the ticking [[Japanese Ranguage|crock]].

* The ''Nostromo'''s [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]] in ''[[Alien (Film)|Alien]]'' counts, since it gives Ripley only ten minutes to leave the ship before it explodes. {{spoiler|She makes it out just in time, including stopping to pick up the cat.}}

* [[Bruce Coville (Creator)|Bruce Coville]]'s [[Rod Albright]] series includes a different sort of time bomb. {{spoiler|It's a bomb that blows up time.}}

* A throwaway bit in [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein's]] ''[[Starship Troopers (Literature)|Starship Troopers]]'' involves a ''talking'' time bomb. Rico jumps into a building full of Skinnies, throws something at them, and jumps back out. It begins yelling at them in their language: "I'm a thirty second bomb! I'm a thirty second bomb! Twenty-nine... twenty-eight..." The explosion is not described.

* In ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'', the [[Time Bomb]] actually went off and did some fairly major damage to CTU.

* ''[[Alias (TV)|Alias]]'', too many times to count

* The second season opening episode of ''[[War of the Worlds|War Of The Worlds]]'', in which the base of the Blackwood Project was blown sky-high.

* An episode of ''[[Robo Cop]]: The Series'' involved the title character having to dispose a nuclear bomb in the OCP building, having to align two triangle-shaped switches into an hourglass. This is accomplished with (you guessed it) one second to spare.

* Subverted in ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'', where a military bomb disposal officer confidently proclaims that he has several minutes to defuse a bomb, which promptly blows up in his face in a cloud of dust ''a la'' [[Unwinnable Training Simulation]]. His training officer then explains that one should never assume the timer on a bomb is accurate and smugly comments that "the bad guys watch movies too."

* ''[[Stargate SG 1|Stargate SG-1]]'', "Resurrection"; the bomb is [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]]. Also "Avatar", where the SGC's built-in [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]] is used in this way by invaders in the virtual reality game.

* In the ''[[Star Trek the Original Series]]'' episodes "Obsession", "The Immunity Syndrome" and "The Doomsday Machine", the bomb was used by the ''Enterprise'' crew to destroy a [[Monster of the Week]]. In each case crew members or the ''Enterprise'' had to get out of the blast radius before the bomb detonated.

* Played straight more than once in ''[[Chuck]]'' ("Chuck Versus the Intersect", "Chuck Versus the Sandworm") but also subverted, as Chuck and Sarah {{spoiler|encounter a large device with a countdown timer that they believe to be a bomb. After an unsuccessful attempt to defuse the bomb, as the timer nears zero, they share a [[Now or Never Kiss|Now Or Never Kiss]], but the device turns out not to be a bomb}}. All three of those in the first nine episodes of the series. Also played straight in "Chuck Versus the Third Dimension"{{spoiler|, in which the device has to be taken away from the crowd.}}

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' had a time bomb in "The Zeppo" built by undead school sociopath Jack O'Toole - {{spoiler|in a game of chicken, Xander convinces Jack to disarm it, pointing out being undead wouldn't be as much fun in little pieces.}}

** And then ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' had an ep actually named 'Time Bomb', where the team had to drain some of Illyria's power before she blew the whole world sky high.

* ''[[Danger UXB (TV)|Danger UXB]]'', being about a [[Bomb Disposal]] unit during [[World War Two]], is a more realistic portrayal of this trope. The Germans keep dropping bombs with timed detonators because they know they'll cause more disruption and panic. Naturally no-one knows when the bomb will go off. An exception is in "Seventeen Seconds to Glory" when a naval mine is being defused. Once the timer starts they explode in seventeen seconds regardless. The naval officer drops the tiny device used to deactivate the timer -- and at that point the timer starts whirring. While the man with him runs like hell, the officer scrabbles desperately in the rubble for the device. He's able to find it at the last moment.

* The [[Nickelodeon]] [[Game Show]] ''[[Think Fast (TV)|Think Fast]]'' featured one in the first version of its "Locker Room" [[Bonus Round]]. While being given 30 seconds to match items or characters behind lockers, the first contestant had to open the locker containing the Time Bomb in 20 seconds; otherwise, the second contestant would only be given 20 seconds (instead of 30) to find the remaining matches.

* [[Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door (Video Game)|Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]] has Lord Crump whip one out to escape, but turns it off when he faces [[Never Mess With Granny|the Puni Elder]] blocking his way.

* In ''[[The Godfather (Video Game)|The Godfather]]: The Game'' game, you can carry a number of these. They are mainly used for building demolition.

* The characters who participate in the Nonary Game in ''[[Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors]]'' have a small explosive inside their digestive tract. The detonator starts counting down from 81 seconds after going through a numbered door, and the people who walked through the door must deactivate it within the time limit, else the bomb explodes. The Ninth Man learned it the hard way by going through the numbered door solitarily.

* The Flash games ''Four Second Fury'', ''Four Second Frenzy'', and ''Four Second Firestorm'' are all a bunch of microgames in which you have [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|four seconds]] to perform some task. One of the microgames is a time bomb with an averted [[Wire Dilemma]] - you are told which wire to cut. Still, four seconds on the timer.

* [[SF Debris]] noted that a time bomb used by Janeway would've neatly solved the final moral conflict<ref>Blow up the space station so the Kazon can't use it on the Ocampa, or use it to get home and leave the Ocampa to their fate?</ref> of ''[[Star Trek Voyager]]'s'' series premiere. Of course if Janeway had thought of it, they wouldn't have had a series.

* A ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|Batman the Animated Series]]'' episode involved the Clock King using a portable device to slow down time so he could sneak in and plant a bomb. Batman winds up grabbing the bomb, slowing time down and driving it out of town. There's a nice shot of Batman holding the bomb as it detonates in super-slow motion.

* Played for laughs in an episode of ''[[Tale Spin (Animation)|Tale Spin]]'':

* Used several times in ''[[The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (Animation)|The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'', notably in "Escape from Questworld," and "Future Rage," in both of which cases Dr. Quest manages to stop the countdown with one second left.

* The [[Mega Man (TV)|Mega Man]] cartoon had this a couple times, with Mega escaping or removing the bomb rather than defusing it.