Model Planning - TV Tropes

Young Gray was fiddling about with a couple of Dinky Toys and a model of a street intersection. One of the buildings had a little flag and the whole thing looked terribly like a long-range elimination set-up for telescopic sights and I didn't interrupt except to remind him to lock the door as soon as I'd gone.

• In G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel), Destro has been known to use little models to plan out his strategies—he does it in the famous "Silent Interlude" issue.

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami's attack on Dreadfog Isle is mapped with a glass model, used to plot out paths to where the troops need to go.

• In Meet the Robinsons, Wilbur shows Carl his plan for getting Lewis to repair the time machine and the memory scanner in order to put the space-time continuum back on track. He uses mini figures for himself and Lewis, but uses an acorn to represent the time machine. When Carl questions this, Wilbur says exasperatedly that he didn't have time to sculpt everything.
• Mulan: When the general describes the planned advance to his son, he illustrates his example with a map and figures to represent his units and those of the enemy.

• Accident When planning how to murder the pawnbroker and make it look like an accident, the gang constructs a detailed model of the block where his shop is located, using props including dice, cigarette packets, masking tape, etc.
• A Running Gag in the Back to the Future trilogy: Doc Brown builds elaborate models of city blocks or canyons to demonstrate his plans to Marty, then apologizes for "the crudity of the model". It also catches on fire, repeatedly.
• Cyrus Grissom does a hasty model to set up an ambush on the DEA/National Guard force in Con Air.

  Cyrus Grissom: Considering my audience, I'm going to make this very quick and very simple.
  [points to objects in the sand]
  Cyrus Grissom: This is the boneyard, this is the hangar, this is our plane.
  Viking: [points] What's that?
  Cyrus Grissom: That's a rock.
  [knocks it out of the way]
  Viking: Okay.

• The plan in The Dirty Dozen is largely with a model (and a Donald Duck figure).
• In Entrapment, the protagonists plan a heist using yarn to practice navigating a Laser Hallway.
• "Goldfinger'' had a very impressive scale model of Fort Knox and its surroundings.
• In The Italian Job (2003) the thieves build a replica practice course in a warehouse to practice driving their escape route, and also have a CGI animation on their computer of the car as if it were traversing the actual route in real time for no apparent reason.
• The Reveal in The Kennel Murder Case involves this, as Philo Vance uses a model of the Coe residence and the apartment building next door to demonstrate how the murder went down.
• The French commandos in The Longest Day use a detailed model of the town they are to assault on D-Day for their Mission Briefing.
• In Money Movers, Eric, Brian and Ed construct a scale model of the counting house out of cardboard, complete with plastic figures and toy trucks, to plan out the robbery.
• The Ocean's Eleven remake has the thieves building an exact, full-size replica of the vault they're planning to rob for practice.
• In Raid On Entebbe, Israeli commandos use a mockup of the Entebbe terminal to practice their assault plan.
• Star Trek Beyond. Kirk and his officers plan their attack on Krall's base and the rescue of their crew using parts from the spaceship they're trying to repair.
• The Death Star attack plans in the Star Wars films A New Hope and Return of the Jedi are done with CGI models.
• Superman Returns has a train set used this way. Lex Luthor throws part of a Kryptonian crystal in the model lake to show its effect. Made extra creepy when the camera zooms on little plastic people and you hear screams.
• In Top Secret!, what begins as Planning with Props segues into this. The protagonists sketch their plan to infiltrate an East German fortress by drawing a crude map in the dirt. As the description progresses, the props get increasingly elaborate until they end up with a highly-detailed scale model of the installation complete with working train set.

• Jack Ryan:
  • In Without Remorse, the model used for going over John Kelly's part of the Great Escape from the Song Tay Prisoner of War camp is mentioned in passing, with a note of the marker used to represent Kelly being a rubber band cut open, with two dots on one end for eyes, after Kelly's callsign of "Snake".
  • A model found in an Afghanistan cave during a US Army raid becomes a plot point in Dead or Alive.

• Andor. In "Aldhani", the rebels explain The Caper to Cassian using an elaborate model they've constructed. When they have to remove a section to show what's inside the Imperial base, the man who built it insists on doing it himself because the glue is fragile.
• The Avengers (1960s). In "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station" the villain handcuffs Steed to a pipe so he can explain his Evil Plan with the help of a model train set.

  Villain: I had you brought here to witness the final phase.
  Steed: That's very decent of you.
  Villain: It's for me really, verging on megalomania you might say. But a coup is not a coup without someone to see.
  Steed: (indicating cuffs) Excuse me if I don't applaud.

• Mentioned a couple of times in the first two episodes of Band of Brothers. In the first episode, the soldiers are instructed to study various pieces of intelligence, including sand table models of their objectives. In the second episode, when one trooper asks another how he is so sure of their location, the trooper replies, "Cuz I studied the sand tables, genius!"
• Models are used to plan attacks in Battlestar Galactica. At one point, the camera view of the models inverts just before a scene cut to show that a group of fighters depicted is concealing themselves by attaching their landing gear to the bottom of a freighter.
• The POWs in Colditz use models of the castle made from Red Cross Parcel boxes to demonstrate their escape plans, including how to launch a glider from the roof.
• Come Back Mrs. Noah. A large model of the Britannia Seven (presumably the prop used to portray the real thing) is used for planning how the title character will be rescued. In the final episode, Carstairs is using an Action Man wearing a tiny Helicopter Pack to demonstrate a Rocketless Reentry; he pulls a string to turn the rotor blades and yanks down its trousers instead. Mrs. Noah is not impressed with the idea that she'll be flashing the entire planet.
• Fireball XL5. In "Plant Man From Space", the evil plant alien knocks over a model of World Space Headquarters while Evil Gloating about his Evil Plan to destroy Space City. As its Supermarionation it may well have been the actual World Space Headquarters he knocked over.
• The Flash (2014) has Cisco creating a model of Iris’ upcoming death out of LEGO bricks to make a point. Barry is more concerned over the choice of minifigure to represent him.

  Barry: Why am I an astronaut?

• Inverted in The Gil Mayo Mysteries, where the team debates possible solutions to the weeks murder(s) by playing with models. The same eclectic set of models is used each week, so they bear no real resemblance who they are meant to represent. Except for that one time when the Reverend Beaver was represented by, of course, a beaver.
• The Goodies. A BBC news broadcast discusses what will happen when the Goodies' moon rocket returns to Earth. James Burke demonstrates by dropping a model Apollo landing module on a map of Britain so it smashes to pieces.
• In the Hogan's Heroes episode "The Gasoline War" Hogan's plan to blow up a convoy involves one of theses. He explains to his men how, as each convoy truck approaches the fuel pump at Stalag 13, they will quickly run over from across the road and attach dynamite charges to the undercarriage. When they point out the searchlight in the nearby guard tower will reveal them, Hogan uses the model to show that the light's beam is blocked by the truck leaving them in darkness.
• Inspector Koo: In episode 7 the gang uses a model of the upcoming robotics showcase to ponder how Yi-kyung plans to kill Ko Dam at the robotics showcase, and how they can stop her. They even have a little toy robot with Ko Dam's picture on it.
• In an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Frank unveils a model of his vision for ski resort. Charlie starts eating the plastic miniatures under the impression that the model is candy, and Dennis agrees that if Frank's going to make a model, it should have been candy.
• Similar to the Mayo example above, Jonathan Creek tries this in an early episode, but discards his results as it was all made up to fit the little information to hand, and nothing he came up with appeared in the eventually-revealed plot.
• Marple: Tried in "The Secret of the Chimneys" by two characters, with disappointing results.
• "The Architect Sketch" on Monty Python's Flying Circus has an architect who represents his plans for an apartment building with a model that gradually collapses as he gives his presentation, and then spontaneously catches fire. He gets the contract anyway, because he's a Freemason. Or possibly because his competitor's plan involved corridors of rotating knives.
• Before CGI effects were widespread, BBC News, and later Channel Four News, would use sandbox models and model tanks to explain British involvement in assorted wars and peace-keeping operations (The Gulf War, The Yugoslav Wars, the second war in the Gulf), in the manner of moving forces around The Big Board. These were presented by newsreader and historian Peter Snow with an enthusiasm that was easy to parody but fondly remembered.

• Antonio in Assassin's Creed II has a model of the Venice rooftops in his office in the Thieves' Guild.
• In Final Fantasy VIII the La Résistance group Forest Owls used train models to explain the hijacking the railcar of an enemy president.
• One of these is used to plan a casino heist in Saints Row 2. Then your gang decides to ignore the carefully-crafted plan and just "shoot the motherfuckers that are between [them] and the money", a Take That! to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, where a long series of quests are taken to plan and prepare a casino heist.
• One of the pre-rendered cutscenes in Stuntman has the protagonist demonstrating how toy cars and miniatures are used by the stunt team to meticulously plan everything out. Of course, the player doesn't learn more than one or two key stunts before having to memorize the sequence on the job....
• Inverted/Accelerated in WarCraft III in the final cinematic of the Undead campaign, when a newly-summoned Archimonde the Destroyer raises a model of Dalaran from sand. Then he swipes at the sand building... and the building it corresponds to crumbles.

• The Last Days of FOXHOUND planned their fight with Solid Snake with clue pieces.
• The Order of the Stick has one with miniatures before the battle for Azure City.

• An episode of Batman: The Animated Series opens with the apparent explosion of a Gotham neighborhood, only for it to be revealed as a model, with the Big Bad of the episode detailing his plans to make it really happen.
• Futurama: In "The One Amigo", while planning a museum heist, The Professor 3D prints an exact scale model of an art museum, which includes tiny (and expensive) copies of all the art pieces, a fully working cafeteria and a security system. This is actually Justified because The Professor's plan involves switching the feed of the Museum's security cameras with the ones in the model.
• The Owl House: The Covens Against the Throne use models to plot out how they'll stop the Draining Spell.
• Phineas and Ferb
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz does this sometimes. One episode shows a flashback to him working all weekend to make the model and hoping that Perry the Platypus appreciates it. He doesn't.
  • In "Night of the Living Pharmacists," Phineas explains the plan to end the zombie apocalypse using a scale model. With the zombies breaking in as he speaks, Candace asks whether it was really worth the time to make the model. He says it was.
• Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: In the Cold Open of “The ABCs Of Music”, Billie has a model of the “Billie School Of Music” which is made of can’t-call-em-LEGOs.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part 1", Burns uses a model Springfield to show Smithers his plan to block out the Sun in order to make everyone more reliant on the power plant. After Smithers quits due to Burns' descent into "cartoonish super-villainy", Monty begins stomping on the model for fun:
  • In season six's "Bart's Comet," they used a model to show the different ways they can blow up the comet — all ending with Moe's tavern being destroyed in flames.
• In The Venture Brothers Christmas special, the Monarch displays a scale model of the Venture compound as he gleefully outlines his plan to destroy Dr. Venture on Christmas Eve. Dr. Girlfriend is visibly ticked off.

  Monarch: ...What??
  Dr. Girlfriend: That model was supposed to be a surprise!
  Monarch: [sheepishly] ...I peeked?

• Still in common use by the United States Army, where the setup is referred to as a "sand table" and is used to familiarize soldiers with a tactical objective before their mission.