Portals in fiction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Portal (fiction))
Jump to: navigation, search

The word "portal" in science fiction and fantasy generally refers to a technological or magical doorway that connects two distant locations separated by spacetime. It usually consists of two or more gateways, with an object entering one gateway leaving via the other instantaneously.






Film and television[edit]


Other examples of portals include:

  • Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series): Portals appeared in the series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979–1981), where interstellar travel was facilitated by a network of portals.
  • Cowboy Bebop: In the anime Cowboy Bebop, hyperspace gates allow for faster—though not instantaneous—travel between the planets and colonies of our solar system.
  • Donnie Darko: In the movie Donnie Darko a portal appears on a cinema screen.[1] A fictional book within the film (Philosophy of Time Travel) serves as the basis for fan theories about time travel, parallel universes and portals.[2]
  • The Final Countdown (film): In the movie The Final Countdown, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is transported via a portal to 1941, where its Captain must decide whether to intervene in the Pearl Harbor attack.
  • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: In the cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra: Princess of Power the characters are able to travel through time and space by using magic space portals and time corridors. They can be used by characters with magic abilities, and are usually of a yellow colour. Sometimes they can have a pink or purple appearance. In some instances a portal allows travel from one place to another in just a few moments. In other cases (the She-Ra-Episode "Darksmoke and Fire"), the user travels through a separate dimension and can change his destination en route.
  • Gargoyles: Two types of portal existed in Disney's mid-1990s Gargoyles animated fantasy adventure series; one was usable from any body of water while in a boat of any size, and took the traveler(s) to the series' depiction of the enchanted island of Avalon through the reciting of the Latin-language "Avalon spell",[3] while the other was through the use of the fictional, enchanted "Phoenix Gate" artifact, which took the traveler(s) to any time and place that the person that held the device was thinking of when they recited a different Latin-language spell to activate the artifact's occult powers.[4]
  • Jackie Chan Adventures: In the cartoon series Jackie Chan Adventures, eight demons were sealed away using portals to trap each of them in a different realm. The portals could be opened again. The demons were released but later recaptured and returned in the netherworld. A spell was used on each portal to seal it forever, ensuring that the demons could never escape again.
  • Jak and Daxter: "Warp gates" in Jak and Daxter are rings enclosing a rippling blue substance used for transportation.
  • Lost in Space (film): The 1998 film Lost in Space featured a space-bound hypergate system. The premise of the film is that the Robinson family will pilot a spaceship to Alpha Centauri to construct a receiving hypergate, allowing instantaneous travel between Earth and Alpha Centauri.
  • Monsters, Inc.: The animated film Monsters, Inc. involved portals that open into children's closets. This enabled the inhabitants of the monster world to enter children's bedrooms and cause them to scream. Children's screams are the power source of the monster world, and are siphoned through the portals into containers for refinement. Each portal is an exact replica of a child's wooden closet door in a metal frame, allowing a monster to enter that child's room. Some portals have metal doors and open to counterparts in remote locations in the human world. The finale features a wild chase through a massive gallery of closet door portals, causing jumps between places such as Paris, Japan and Tahiti.
  • ReBoot: A portal in ReBoot, created by the villainous character Megabyte, displays a rippling event horizon.
  • Starcraft (series): The StarCraft series features warp gates that are similar in style and function.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Star Trek depicted devices called "Iconian gateways" with angular frames and ripple effects such as the one in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Contagion".
  • Star Trek: Voyager: In Star Trek: Voyager and the game Star Trek: Armada II, the Borg have a technology known as the transwarp conduit. The aperture of the conduit at the transwarp hub resembles the event horizon of a stargate crossed with the wormhole effect created by the stargate.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 TV series): The 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, where the dimensional portals allow fast transportation between distant locations, and some portals are even used to travel in time. The portals are connected to machines and often look like a pulsating light in different colors.
  • Treasure Planet: In Treasure Planet, the portal (also referred to as "a 'big door' opening and closing") is an enormous energy doorway that allows practical, rapid travel between two distant locations anywhere in the universe. The spherical map (holographic projector) that led to Treasure Planet also worked as the portal's control panel once plugged into a keyhole and would project an orbital list of locations. One touch on one of the projected destinations and the portal would instantly open a doorway to that destination, large enough for a ship to pass through. It is possible that the portal was built by the ancient alien race that created the map and the planet itself (which is actually a large, spherical mechanism composed of incredibly advanced technology).
  • Gravity Falls: In Gravity Falls, Dipper and Mabel's Great Uncle Stan constructed a portal underneath the Mystery Shack. It was used to bring his twin brother back from an unknown location.
  • The Legend of Korra: In The Legend of Korra, the two spirit portals, located in the north and south poles, connect the physical world and the spirit world, allowing passage to the spirit world without meditation. However, a new portal was created in the center of Downtown Republic City after Kuvira's sprit energy weapon overloaded.





In the His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman has characters use the 'subtle knife' to carve a doorway from one world to another. CJ Cherryh's Morgaine series see the main characters travelling via 'gates' from world to world, closing them as they go.



See also: Warp (gaming)
The basic concept of the portal as a link to another point in space, within the same universe. Going through the blue portal from a height induces momentum when exiting the orange portal.

Stargate-like devices, referred to as warp zones, are abundant in video games, as they can be used to split a game neatly into levels. The video games Primal and Turok the Dinosaur Hunter feature gateways allowing instantaneous travel between locations to this effect. In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, a number of ring-shaped dimensional portals allow the main character to travel between Light and Dark versions of the planet Aether. In the game EVE Online, a large object called a "stargate" lets the player travel between solar systems, and in Homeworld 2, Hyperspace Gates serve as the centerpiece of one of the game's final missions, in which massive rings create wormholes capable of transporting matter great distances. In Super Mario 64 and its follow up, Super Mario Sunshine, various paintings and warp pipes lead to levels, all connected by a bigger level that houses these portals. Portals are used frequently throughout the Spyro (series), with each individual level, or world, separated by portals, allowing for loading screens which do not damage the games immersion.

In "Bioshock Infinite", Elizabeth is able to open up portals ("Tears") from another period of time either future or past, in an alternate dimension of their world.



Portals are common in MMORPGs. In RuneScape, portals can be used domestically. Players can install portal chambers in their houses that link to different cities in the world, allowing free transport to these places for both them and any visitors to their houses.[8] In World of Warcraft, mages can summon portals that can teleport the mages and their group members to various cities.

In the augmented reality game Ingress portals are placed at sculptures, statues, and other public art, unique businesses, and historically and architecturally significant buildings and the like, but serve as nodes in the game mechanics (see graph theory) without any transportation function.


In the game Minecraft created by Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten, it is possible to build a portal to an alternate hell-like dimension called "The Nether".[9][10] It is assessed by making a frame of obsidian blocks, with a 3×2 rectangle in the centre, then setting it on fire using any object that can make fire. When lit, the frame will be filled with blocks resembling whirlpools. If a player stands in the portal for long enough, he or she will be transported to "The Nether," an alternate in-game universe consisting of mainly caves, lava, Nether Fortresses, mushrooms, neutral zombie pigmen, Magma-slime creatures, tall black "wither skeletons", and fire shooting "Ghasts" and "Blazes". Another kind of portal in "Minecraft" is the End Portal, which is rare portal found only 3 times throughout the world. The players use "Eyes of Ender" to find the End Portal, and places one Eye of Ender in each frame block (if not already there). When completed; and then jumped into, the Player will go the "The End", filled with mobs called "Enderman". The only way out of The End is to either get killed or kill the Ender Dragon, which will open a portal back to The Overworld.


See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Donnie Darko: Script From Donnie Darko". donniedarko.org.uk. 
  2. ^ "Donnie Darko: Movie Explanation - A Detailed Explanation of What Happens in Donnie Darko". donniedarko.org.uk. 
  3. ^ Station 8's Gargoyles Site - Ask Greg Archives about the "Magus"
  4. ^ Station 8's Gargoyles Site - Ask Greg Archives about the "Phoenix Gate"
  5. ^ "Stargate". stargate-sg1-solutions.com. 
  10. ^ Francis, Tom. "A clearer look at Minecraft's new hell dimension". PC Gamer. Retrieved 30 April 2013.