Traveling At the Speed of Plot: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"According to the computer, it should take us exactly one episode to reach our destination."''
|'''Mokuba''', ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series]]''}}
The heroes need to get from point A to point B; occasionally, these things have a specific distance, and other times the distances involved are left fuzzy. Sometimes '''Traveling At the Speed of Plot''' is a function of intentionally vague traveling speeds, sometimes of distance.
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See also [[Conversation Cut]], and [[Transformation At the Speed of Plot]].
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▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Happens in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''. No matter how many distractions the characters encounter, they'll always manage to collect all their Badges/Ribbons just in time for the annual competition at the end of the saga.
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== Film ==
* The 2008 ''[[Knight Rider]]'' movie had an [[Egregious]] example of this. The bad guys chase the super-car, who leaves them snarled up in a traffic accident. The car then travels
* The Disney animated version of ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]'' falls prey to this one. Prince Philip returns from the woods where he has met the girl of his dreams. When his father shows disinterest, Philip spurs his horse around and leaves at a gallop. Between that moment and his arrival at the cottage, the good fairies inform the girl that she is a princess and escort her back to the castle on foot, night falls, and the evil sorceress arrives at the cottage to set a trap for him.
** Notice also that Philip makes it back to the castle in less time than it takes Aurora to get back to the cottage from her errand, unless we are to assume these events are purposely presented out of order.
* ''[[Star Trek]]'':
**
*** The first part of the battle (when the Enterprise was at the Romulan neutral zone) was at the Typhon sector and the Enterprise arrived in time to intercept the cube as it reached Earth. We don't know how far from Earth the Typhon sector is though.
**** If the Typhon sector is where the Typhon Expanse is located, then it must be fairly distant, since that expanse was uncharted as of TNG: "Cause and Effect." According to the book ''Star Trek Star Charts'', the Typhon Expanse is a little bit ''beyond'' Romulan space relative to the Federation—so at the time the battle began, the ''Enterprise'' might actually have been ''closer'' to Earth than the Borg were. That must have been one very long running battle.
** In ''[[Star Trek: Nemesis|Nemesis]]'', Shinzon's ship is going to be able to travel from Romulus (presumably deep in the Beta Quadrant) in roughly two days—still an amount of time that is bizarrely short when compared to travel times mentioned in the TNG TV series—which means that either the Enterprise E travels at the speed of plot or the Romulan Empire is so large that traveling from its capital to its edge requires at least 40 more hours than getting from the Neutral Zone to Earth.
** Used in J.J. Abrams' ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', when the U.S.S. Enterprise - which is over [[Bigger Is Better|three times bigger]] than the original - seemingly takes only 3 minutes to go from {{spoiler|Earth to Vulcan}}. However, the sequence actually takes significantly longer than it appears to, since Kirk wakes up from being knocked out by a sedative after mere moments of screen time, in which McCoy has had time to change his uniform. [[Word of God]] is that the editing deliberately glossed over the passage of time to create the illusion of a real-time immersive experience.
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]:[[The Curse of the Black Pearl]]'': The Black Pearl is the fastest ship in the Caribbean, and the ghost pirates are suffering from a horrible curse. So after they abduct Elizabeth Swan, mistaking her for the one they need to break the curse, they would presumably head straight back to Isla de Muerta to do just that. Meanwhile, Will Turner wakes up the next day and, after an unsuccessful conversation with Norrington, breaks Jack Sparrow out of prison. The two steal a ship and sail for Tortuga where they recruit a crew. Then they proceed to Isla de Muerta. Will and Jacks' path is much longer than the ghost pirates, yet they arrive before the ceremony to lift the curse begins. Perhaps the ghost pirates aren't in quite the hurry we would expect.
** Happens again after Jack and Elizabeth are marooned. With Will in custody, the pirates now have the real person they need. Yet Jack and Elizabeth spend the night on the island before being rescued by the Royal Navy. With Jack's navigation they reach Isla de Muerta, and again it's before the ceremony has started.
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* Combined with a [[Travel Montage]] in ''[[The Muppets (film)|The Muppets]]''' "Travel by Map" sequence.
* ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' (1981). While Perseus is returning to Joppa on Pegasus, he's shown passing over mountain ranges a long way from the sea. Even though he's clearly not traveling fast enough to get to the seashore in time, he does so anyway.
== Literature ==
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** The show has an interesting variation of the trope in that the time to travel between any two points seems to decrease each time. The first time they travel somewhere, it takes an episode or more; afterward, it takes less and less time until the trip is reduced to taking place offscreen. This can be explained by the simple fact that they don't know the route the first time, and will have some kind of beaten trail or markers to follow on subsequent journeys so they won't need to keep stopping to get their bearings.
* An example from ''[[The A-Team]]'': The [[Monster of the Week|villains]] capture the A-Team and ship them off to be executed while they leave for a cemetery to kill a judge. The A-Team is driven to a car junkyard, where they escape, knock out their captors, and manage to repair, jury-rig, and ''clean and polish'' a hearse with a fold-out coffin with an armed gunman inside it. They then leave for the graveyard at what appears to be a reasonable speed and arrive ''one second'' '''before''' ''the villains''.
*
** The trope was played agonizingly straight in [[Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)|the original ''Galactica'']], where the fleet explicitly
* In ''[[Smallville]]'' the name-giving town and the city of Metropolis seem sometimes directly adjacent and sometimes it's a three-hour ride with the car.
* Another insane example comes from Season 3 of ''[[Lois and Clark]]''. In episode 2, Superman is seen flying from Metropolis to places around the world like Japan and Switzerland to get stuff for Lois, arriving back with the goods in less time than it takes to tell—less than 5 seconds per return trip at the most; a few episodes later, he has ''15'' seconds to get to Eastern Europe to intercept a nuclear missile, but somehow he can't get there in time. Instead, he ''tunnels directly through the Earth'' because it's quicker...? Made for a good scene when he saves the day, but forget about it making sense.
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* Among many other less than plausible things in ''[[The Event]]'' was the protagonists' ability to drive across the USA in a few minutes (or fly from the USA to France). Basically, the time it took to travel between any two locations was generally "about one ad break".
* The RevolGarry from ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]'' seems to move exactly as fast as it needs to in order to instantly cover ''any'' distance between the Narumi Detective Agency and wherever Double happens to be.
* In contrast to [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s obsessive detail on logistics, long distance travel in Amazon's ''[[The Rings of Power]]'' just happens with characters casually warping hundreds of miles between screen cuts <ref>Edward the Third's September of 1336 journey with a small group on fast horses averaged about 55 miles in a day.</ref>.
== Tabletop Games ==
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' Roleplaying Game released by West End Games in the late Eighties had detailed rules for what can make hyperspace travel
* In the ''[[Shadowrun]]'' novel ''The Lucifer Deck'', a snooping character is trapped behind an office desk by an Awakened guard dog, and calls a friend for help. In a Speed-of-Plot demo that exceeds even the [[A-Team]] example (above), the friend calls a shaman he barely knows, persuades her to help, drives ''across town to meet her'', and sets up an experimental ritual, allowing the shaman to send a spirit to assist the cornered snoop ... all in the time it takes a hellhound to muscle its way past a desk. Worst of all, the book even gushes about the spirit's ''incredible speed of travel'' when it flies to the rescue, never mind how long took to get the summons underway!
* Role-Playing Games in general follow this rule, at least in practice.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' uses this ''literally'' when you enter [[Reality Is Out to Lunch|the Wyld]]; as it's the domain of [[The Fair Folk]], progress between points is not measured in hours or miles, but rather by where you are in a particular story.
* The ''[[Pathfinder]]'' Adventure Path ''Jade Regent'' has the players travel by caravan for most of the plot since {{spoiler|the players are escorting an artifact that blocks teleportation}}. There are rules for the players upgrading (or bad luck lowering) the speed of the caravan, but the actual adventure literally gives travel times and states such changes to speed don't matter! The one point speed matters is a short term race. The caravan rules are generally considered poorly conceived and can be cut entirely with minimal issues.
* Averted by the ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' module ''Red Hand of Doom''. The titular army's march is given an explicit laid out timetable and the party can delay it by destroying bridges or creating other impairments. The module isn't a direct race (the players are a small, likely mounted, group and the Hand is large and primarily made up of heavy infantry so it moves far slower) but a challenge to destroy as much of their support as possible before they arrive at their destination.
== Video Games ==
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[[Category:Traveling At the Speed of Plot]]
[[Category:Velocity Index]]
[[Category:Tropes on a Trip]]
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