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Impossible Movie Stunts?

Posted by Cliff on from the someone-better-mention-that-bike-scene-from-MI2 dept.

ThousandStars asks: "After watching Spider-Man, I noticed some miraculous physics like Spider-Man falling faster than a girl to save her and the girl catching the cable car at the end. It reminded me of a list of 12 problems with the plot and science of Independence Day, which brings me to my question: What are the most implausible, impossible and sheerly rediculous science-related things you have seen in movies?"

4 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Defending The Wall Crawler by Alexius · · Score: 3, Informative

    He falls faster than MJ because she's laying flat, and he's in a diving posture, causing less air resistance. Also, if neither had hit terminal velocity, and when he jumped he did something to push himself downwards, he could be able to move downwards faster than her, initially, until they both reached terminal velocity and stopped accellerating. Like if I were to drop a call and fire a gun into the ground. The bullet would reach first, because it started moving downwards faster.

    At least that's how I want to think of it, I liked the movie.

    --
    `Lex - Find Me Here: Text Appeal
  2. Oh, how could I forget Speed? by GregWebb · · Score: 3, Informative

    The bus jumping over the gap in the freeway? Bucking up like that from a flat piece of road?

    Last time I watched that film (good fun, bad science) I did some quick mental maths. Memory says that, assuming no air resistance and no invisible ramp to make it kick up like that ;-) it would have dropped 7-8m in that gap.

    --

    Greg

    (Inside a nuclear plant)
    Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!

  3. Official Bad Astronomy Site by Domini · · Score: 5, Informative

    This site is dedicaterd to the topic of infamously bad science in movies.

    Look no further for humorous reading.

    Me.

  4. Being able to out run an explosion by Tall_Rob · · Score: 2, Informative

    An annoying and ever-present piece of bad science is seeing a person out-run a large explosion. Jerry Pournelle pointed this out in one of his columns not long ago, but spend some time reading a DOD explosives manual and you'll see that explosions travel VERY fast, and you can't out-run them or drive faster than them.