History Main / TractorBeam

* The animated show ''GalaxyHigh'' once showed this with a VisualPun: a beam with a farm tractor at the end.

* Spoofed in just about every alien abduction episode of ''TheSimpsons''. In one, the tractor beam isn't strong enough to lift Homer and they end up having to use two. In another, Marge is hit with what looks like a tractor beam... and then a lasso drops down instead and yanks her into the flying saucer.

** Interestingly, tractor beams are programmed to be incapable of locking onto non-player-owned objects. This is mainly to prevent the obvious exploit where the player drags enemy vessels into stationary objects like asteroids.

* ''BeyondGoodAndEvil's'' gravity lift's function as a voluntary tractor beam, allowing you to move up or down.

* One of the gadgets in RatchetAndClank: [[RatchetandClankGoingCommando Going Commando.]] It only works on objects with a special marking.

* The {{Fallout 3}} add on ''mothership zeta'' has the player abducted using a energy beam.
* BeyondGoodAndEvil's gravity lift's function as a voluntary tractor beam, allowing you to move up or down.

* One of the functions of gravitic technology in ''SchlockMercenary'' is to act like this, usually referred to putting a ship in a "tractor-bubble" or "tractor-lock".

* David Weber's {{Honorverse}} uses gravity-based tractor beams for tugboats, search and rescue operations, and towing [[MacrossMissileMassacre missile pods]]. Apparently, with the limiters turned off, they can shred a ship at short range. Powered up even further, [[spoiler:they form the basis for a stealth drive that pulls itself by poking hole into hyperspace and grabbing it]].

* ''{{Farscape}}'': The Flax, a tractor net designed to capture ships for destruction and salvage by pirates.

* The final Bowser level of ''SuperMarioGalaxy'' has tractor beams that pull you from one planet to the next, but a Launch Star is actually used to get from the second-to-last planet to the one you fight Bowser himself on.
** In ''SuperMarioGalaxy2'' however, tractor beams are now produced by large doors (which can only be opened by smashing meteorites into it) leading to the planet you fight Bowser on at the end of all three Bowser levels.

* ''DoctorWho'': the TARDIS has one, first (certainly in the new series, anyway) used in "The Satan Pit", probably because a phone box pulling a massive spaceship looks very weird. Later used on a planet, which was weirder. In the original series it had one in ''The Creature from the Pit'', but that story was the only time it was ever mentioned.

[[quoteright:281:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TractorBeam.jpg]]

** In ''SuperMarioGalaxy2'' however, tractor beams are now produced my large doors leading to the planet you fight Bowser on at the end of all three Bowser levels.

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* RudyardKipling, in the [[OlderThanTelevision 1912]] short story ''As Easy as ABC'', featured an effect referred to as a "flying loop." When a woman tried to commit suicide to make a political point, the "loop" yanked the knife out of her hand:

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** And the Kinesis module in ''{{Dead Space}}''.

* In ''Starscape'' your fighter ships have a tractor beam used to suck in minerals from recently exploded asteroids.

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* TractorBeam abduction is spoofed to heck and back in the Pixar short film ''Lifted.''

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Examples:

* Featured regularly, along with their opposite, Pressor Beams, in E. E. 'Doc' Smith's ''[[SkylarkSeries Skylark]]'' and ''{{Lensman}}'' novel series, which may well have [[TropeMaker originated the term]].

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* ''{{Freelancer}}'' has a tractor beam that pulls any nearby item.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TractorBeam.jpg
[[caption-width:281:[[http://www.freethunk.net/nickkim/nickkim.php Good thing]] it's not a [[DeathRay Hearse then.]]]]

* Used as a large scale, multipurpose tool in the ''StarTrek'' series.
** Except on ''[[StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'', when the TractorBeam presumably hadn't been invented yet, so it used grappling-cables instead.
*** It had been invented, but the Vulcans didn't feel like sharing.
* The [[DoctorWho TARDIS]] has one, first (certainly in the new series, anyway) used in "The Satan Pit", probably because a phone box pulling a massive spaceship looks very weird. Later used on a planet, which was weirder.
** In the original series it had one in ''The Creature from the Pit'', but that story was the only time it was ever mentioned.
* Moya had one in ''{{Farscape}}'', with the appropriately awesome moniker docking web. The trope was first parodied, however, when Crichton shouted, "Pilot, get a tractor beam on that shuttle!" and Pilot said, "Tractor beam? What's that?"
** It's unclear whether the docking web is a tractor beam or a physical object at times. However, there are explicit tractor beams used elsewhere, including the Flax, a tractor net designed to capture ships for destruction and salvage by pirates.

* It's what pulls the Millennium Falcon into the Death Star in ''[[StarWars A New Hope]]''. [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tractor_beam Tractor beams]] and ways to get out of them appear regularly in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse.

* One of the functions of effectors in Iain M. Banks' ''Culture'' novels.
* RudyardKipling, in the [[OlderThanTelevision 1912]] short story "As Easy as ABC," featured an effect referred to as a "flying loop." When a woman tried to commit suicide to make a political point, the "loop" yanked the knife out of her hand:

* Used as a weapon in the McCade series by William C Deitz, where the main character is struck by one while in space. Then some sneaky git kicks it into reverse and turns him into 'one big bruise'.

* Lois McMaster Bujold's VorkosiganSaga features tractor beams at military scale, including on starships, but also in civilian use at smaller scale - 'hand tractors' are used for cargo manipulation, and 'medical hand tractors' are used for delicate surgical work - ideal for battlefield medicine as they're fundamentally sterile, never physically touching the patient.

*[[TheyMightBeGiants The Bee of the Bird of the Moth]]:

* {{Monsterpocalypse}} features a Martian faction, who use some relatively small FlyingSaucers equipped with these, as well as one {{Kaiju}}-size one.

* The gravity gun from ''HalfLife'' 2 qualifies.
** If so, then the gun thingy from Elebits would probably count too.
** Also, the grabber in ''{{Doom}} 3: Resurrection of Evil''.