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Plot-Driven Breakdown: Difference between revisions

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Plot-Driven Breakdown (view source)

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** It's actually VERY reasonable once you realize that in about a year of nearly non-stop fighting, he only runs out of bullets about 3 times (including the movie), and each time usually after a period of intense fighting.
* Inversion: In ''[[Naruto]]'', when Naruto is fighting Gaara he tries to summon toads early on in battle, he gets Gamakichi and Gamatatsu (who are small, although better than the tadpoles he was summoning earlier) while trying to get Gamabunta ([[Kaiju|who's a 100 meters tall]]), but succeeds in summoning Gamabunta once it becomes absolutely necessary (despite the last time requiring him to use his [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]).
* This is usually the reason that [[Teen Genius]] Susumu's experiments fail on ''[[Wandaba Style]]''. The very first and the third are for the "no discernible reason" variety, but the others are generally due to outside interference (a fight between his pilots damages the ship, a character falls from [[A Twinkle in Thethe Sky]] onto the electric grid, etc.). The last part of the episode is spent trying to find a way to fix the problem and not die in the process.
 
== Comic Books ==
 
* Possibly the [[Trope Maker]] is [[Spider -Man]]'s Web Shooters, which can be guaranteed to run out of fluid whenever it's vitally needed to catch the villain (or run away, depending on the situation), forcing Spidey either improvise or (as was the case with the Green Goblin a lot) let the bad guy get away. Even when he finally wised up and started keeping spare fluid packs in his suit, that didn't stop the fluid from running out (and having to be changed) at the worst possible time. It's [[Lampshade|lampshaded]]. A lot.
** As a side note, the recent movies and the several alternate continuities avert this by having the webbing be organic...except in the second movie, where a crisis of confidence shorts out his powers.
* In the case of ''[[Empowered (Comic Book)|Empowered]]'''s super suit, it is easier to list the times when the [[Clothes Make the Superman|Hypermembrane]] ''does'' work correctly. A justified example. Emp has a theory that the suit's reliability is tied into her self-confidence. The times the suit works are usually when she's pissed off or determined.
* In the original (pre-movie) version of ''[[The Rocketeer (Comic Bookcomics)|The Rocketeer]]'', Hughes asks Peevy if anyone has thought of checking the fuel level on the rocket pack. Minutes later, Cliff runs out of fuel in mid-flight. There is exactly enough time for Hughes to get into a plane, catch up with him and grab him before he hits the ground.
 
== Film ==
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** Note to the Empire: Do NOT repair your prisoners' ship until they are safely off-planet. In fact, if you don't need the ship, scrap it or hurl it into a star.
*** But the Empire didn't repair it, Lando's people did. The Empire merely sabotaged it so that the Rebels couldn't escape after rescuing Luke. Vader presumably had a premonition that Luke might escape and realized that a contingency plan would be useful.
* In the 2007 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Filmfilm)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' film, Leonardo suffers one of these in his rooftop fight with Raphael. Being the Turtle with the most ''technical'' skill, one would think he'd know better than to leave his katana locked in Raphael's sai - a weapon designed to ''trap'' and ''break'' swords. And upon the inevitable break, one would expect him to have a better reaction than to stare numbly at the snapped-off handles until Raph kicks him to the ground. This is probably because the key problem of the film (unity among the Turtles) would have been made ''worse'' if Leonardo had won the fight. Raphael is not the sort to be [[Defeat Means Friendship|humbled]] by defeat and may have estranged himself.
* This happens all the time to any source of light in [[Darkness Falls]].
* In the ''[[How to Train Your Dragon]]'' movie, {{spoiler|Toothless' prosthetic tail fin is burnt off by a fireball he and Hiccup are flying away from near the film's end, setting up the crash landing and [[Disney Death]].}}
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* In the reimagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' episode ''Act of Contrition'', a recon drone kills 13 pilots when its restraints come off seemingly on their own. It's some tragic [[Truth in Television]], as this exact same incident had happened in reality with missiles being shuffled to their aircraft on aircraft carriers falling to the deck and going kablooie. A character in the episode even says "I know it's hard to hear, but we were lucky. If that had been a ''missile...''"
** Said equipment used to store the drone was also ''40+ years old.''
* ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' uses this trope regularly and unashamedly, seeing as the show relies more on character interaction than plot development.
* In ''[[Smallville]]'', if Clark is being snuck up on and is about to be attacked in such a way as to expose his invulnerability to a regular character that doesn't know his secret, you can count on a coincidental chunk of Kryptonite popping up to make him vulnerable, or he didn't have his powers anyway. This could be more easily averted if the writers understood how Clark's super-hearing actually works and had him playing possum to protect his secret.
* Who can forget the Transporter from ''[[Star Trek]]''? Whenever they need to make a hasty retreat or get stuff to the surface immediately, there's always "too much atmospheric interference".
** [[It Got Worse|It gets worse:]] Remember the Enterprise's [[Family-Unfriendly Death|"transporter malfunction"]] in ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''? They even used it as a way to conveniently [[Dropped a Bridge Onon Him|"remove"]] the new Vulcan science officer who was supposed to replace Spock. Granted, everyone was naturally wanting to see Spock on the bridge again, and [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|any other Vulcan]] would most likely have been [[Replacement Scrappy|unacceptable.]] But ''come on!'' Couldn't they have just [[Put Onon a Bus|reassigned]] the poor guy?
** [[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]] was particularly bad at this, one episode (workforce part 2) had transporters and warp drive fail within minutes of each other, despite the sheer size of each system a single weapon hit is all that is required to take them offline.
* The [[Stargate]] breaking down was, of course, the basis for some of [[Stargate SG-1 (TV)|SG1]] and [[Stargate Atlantis|Atlantis's]] most memorable episodes.
* DeMilo's whorehouse-on-wheels breaks down just as the heroes get to their destination in ''[[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]].''
* This trope occurs in the pilot episode for ''[[Porridge]]'', after Fletcher pees into the petroltank of a prison van.
 
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== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'', one breakdown of the [[Transformation Ray]] Gun caused a [[Noodle Incident]] and two other breakdowns triggered an arc leading to a new main character being created.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
 
* ''[[Captain N: theThe Game Master|Captain N]]''. It doesn't matter if he just left the palace and walked through the main gates, or if he's traveled to fourteen different worlds and then fought through 7 stages of deadly, monster-infested secret passages, his zapper/pad WILL run out of power the moment he has to fight Mother Brain.
** Actually that didn't happen that much, but it was an easy out for the writers to force the heroes to retreat and fight another day.
* ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' is a walking example of this trope. He might define it better than Spider-Man does. Most of his Gadgets don't work well anyway. Although sometimes using the wrong gadget saves the day.
* There's at least one scene (and probably two or more) in the Ruby-Spears production of the American ''[[Mega Man (Animationanimation)|Mega Man]]'' cartoon, where Mega Man runs low on power in a critical situation.
* This trope is the reason [[Scooby Doo|Scooby]] and the gang ever got anything done.
** The Mystery Machine is prone to this, it's usually the reason the gang is stuck having to solve a mystery in some out of the way locations.
* [[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben Tennyson's]] Omnitrix [[Ben 10: Alien Force (Animation)|never works right]]. [[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien|Even when it's upgraded]].
 
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