History Main / StealTheSurroundings

See also {{Safecracking}}, OpenSaysMe, CuttingTheKnot, DungeonBypass, MyopicArchitecture and TakeAThirdOption. Can extend to MonumentalTheft when a character's theft involve small buildings dragged by even smaller cars.

* The ''WebAnimation/{{Gobelins}}'' (no, not {{Goblins}}) comic has a bodybuilder goblin try to pull the Sword in the Stone out. At first it look like he succeeded, hoisting the sword above his head, but then it's shown he ripped the entire rock it was attached to out of the ground, which then crushes him.

* ''Film/FastFive'': The crew takes this up a notch, stealing a massive vault by towing it with their cars, starting a lengthy ChaseScene where they drag it throughout the city.

* Authorities in the film ''Film/DangerDiabolik'' try to prevent Diabolik from stealing 20 tons of gold from a train by melting it into a single ingot and sealing it into a thick welded steel container. Diabolik blows up a bridge that sends the train into the water, where the super villain steals the entire container with the aid of balloons and a mini sub. Once back at his lair Diabolik drills a hole at the top of the steel container to insert a super heated rod to melt the gold inside. He then attaches a hose to a hole drilled at the bottom of the container in order to pour the melted gold into molds so that it can be converted to regular sized gold bars.

* Fiona is given the task of stealing a safe in an episode of Series/BurnNotice. She accomplises it through this trope and [[StuffBlowingUp lots of explosives.]]

* In ''WarCraft3'', one mission involves rescuing the captured Illidan from Maiev Shadowsong, who's locked him up in a magical cage and is dragging him away to her base at the very moment you discover her. Even when you defeat the guard and secure the cage, however, there's still a battle raging on. Rather than try to undo the lock and free Illidan in the midst of a war, why not just drag the entire cage back to safety and figure out how to unlock it later?

* The "steal the safe" variant happens in the original ''Series/AliasSmithAndJones'' series.

* [[TransformersPrime Megatron]]'s solution to the Excalibur {{Expy}} that is the Star Saber being impossible to pull out and is in a cliff face? Cut a chunk of the cliff face off and take the whole thing with him using his warship.

* Doesn't happen onscreen, but Graham Spector's first reaction to hearing that some other gang of thieves might beat his own to looting Millionaire Row is to order his gang to start dismantling ''entire houses'' to find the safes and [[TalkativeLoon carry them back to their lair]].

* In ''CrashNitroKart'', when Velo wants Crash's and Cortex's groups to race for his amusement, he steals their entire homes with {{tractor beam}}s and dumps them in his racing arena.

* Series/SquareOneTV Mathnet'': In the first story arc, "The Problem of the Missing Baseball", a woman's house is stolen in order to find some gold bricks which had been hidden in the house.

* In ''Series/Warehouse13'', Leena's entire bed and breakfast had to be moved into the warehouse and rebuilt outside because of an artifact painting that couldn't be removed from the house. The bedrooms of dead agents are also put into storage in case their personal belongings are needed again.

* In the ''Film/OceansEleven'' sequels, this is done once straight and once as a variant. In ''Thirteen'', a secure case full of diamond necklaces is hauled out of a casino's roof via helicopter. In ''Twelve'', the team need line-of-sight to a specific window for a heist at a house built on pylons; the window's too low, so they ''raise the house'' until it lines up. (Granted, they only ''moved'' the surroundings, they didn't ''keep'' them, but it's certainly related.)

* In the 1974 movie ''Bank Shot'', a bank has its office in a temporary mobile home, so the crooks decide to steal the whole building.
* A subplot in ''[[Film/{{Barbershop}} Barbershop]]'' involves an pair of inept crooks who stole an entire ATM and spent the whole movie trying to break it open in their hideout. Unbeknownst to them, the ATM hadn't had any money put into it yet.

* ''FastFive'': The crew takes this up a notch, stealing a massive vault by towing it with their cars, starting a lengthy ChaseScene where they drag it throughout the city.
* ''TheItalianJob'' does this twice: once with a standard safe and once with an entire armored truck.
* In ''TheLosers'', the eponymous group steal an entire armoured car to obtain the hard drive it was carrying.
* ''NationalTreasure'': Ben does this with the frigging Declaration of Independence! After breaking into the National Archives Building (during a gala), he becomes pressed for time, due to the bolts securing the display case taking longer than he anticipated. When Riley loses his video feed, Ben forgoes the original plan and takes the whole damn thing, the bulletproof glass briefly becoming quite useful when shootings starts. At least as far as the elevator, where he finally removes the Declaration from its display case.

* {{Zoolander}} - Hansel (He's So Hot Right Now) is tasked to get a vital piece of information out of a computer. Unfortunately, he can't figure out how to do so, so he just takes the entire hard drive...and smashes it to pieces thinking that the data is literally IN the computer. (Fortunately for our heroes, the original owner of the computer has a backup.)

* Donald E. Westlake's novel ''Bank Shot'' does this one better. In it, a gang steals an entire '''bank''' in order to crack the safe! The bank had temporarily relocated to a trailer while the bank building was being renovated.

* In an episode of ''Series/TheFirm'', Ray has to steal data off a security system by "[[HollywoodHacking Going to the C drive and getting root access]]". He can't do it and just grabs the whole computer.

* ''{{Series/Psych}}'': Subverted. A group of safecrackers stole a safe, but it wasn't to steal what was in it, but so the lead cracker could figure out how to open that kind of safe.

* In the first story arc of ''[[Series/SquareOneTV Mathnet]]'', "The Problem of the Missing Baseball", a woman's house is stolen in order to find some gold bricks which had been hidden in the house.
* The ''WhiteCollar'' episode "Neighbourhood Watch" involved the crooks stealing a vault from a hotel.
* In ''{{Warehouse13}}'', Leena's entire bed and breakfast had to be moved into the warehouse and rebuilt outside because of an artifact painting that couldn't be removed from the house. The bedrooms of dead agents are also put into storage in case their personal belongings are needed again.

* On ''TheLostRoom'', Joe needs an Object stored in a safe. He sticks the safe in the Room and resets it, causing the safe to vanish and leaving the Object inside behind.

* The "steal the safe" variant happens in the original ''Alias Smith and Jones'' series.

* ''CBS Radio Mystery Theater'' did almost the same thing with ''King Bankrobber''. In that one, the bank was relocated to the top floor of the robber's mansion.

* The ''{{Gobelins}}'' (no, not {{Goblins}}) comic has a bodybuilder goblin try to pull the Sword in the Stone out. At first it look like he succeeded, hoisting the sword above his head, but then it's shown he ripped the entire rock it was attached to out of the ground, which then crushes him.

* Doesn't happen onscreen, but in ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'', Graham Spector's first reaction to hearing that some other gang of thieves might beat his own to looting Millionaire Row is to order his gang to start dismantling ''entire houses'' to find the safes and [[TalkativeLoon carry them back to their lair]].

* ''{{Mouse}}'' has the main character steal an entire museum to obtain the golden skull it contains.

* The ''Gobelins'' (no, not {{Goblins}}) comic has a bodybuilder goblin try to pull the Sword in the Stone out. At first it look like he succeeded, hoisting the sword above his head, but then it's shown he ripped the entire rock it was attached to out of the ground, which then crushes him.

See also {{Safecracking}}, OpenSaysMe, CuttingTheKnot, DungeonBypass, MyopicArchitecture and TakeAThirdOption

* If Lupin III of ''LupinIII'' can't get the treasure itself, his elaborate scheme frequently becomes stealing what contains the treasure instead. In some variations, he will pretend to steal the container, and when the distracted target goes after him to get it back, it gives him time to double-back and break into the real thing.

* German comedy ''BangBoomBang'': The crooks wreck a wall to get a safe out. HilarityEnsues.

* In the game ''EvilGenius'', a lot of the evil plans you can do involve this, up to and including stealing the Sword in the Stone by just grabbing the stone and stealing the Eiffel Tower by shrinking it.