Friday, April 19, 2013

True Fiction


     As you watch a film, your awareness is being abducted by the scenes that you think exist in the real world. The filmmakers make us believe that the impossible could happen, thus, we are not mindful that a certain scene is implausible. Believe it or not, movies have fooled you several times without you knowing it.

Sword Slash
        Battle between two knights using swords has been a Hollywood cliché. Gladiator, Lord of the Rings and The Last Samurai practically revolved their fight scenes using swords. As the two swords clash, you can almost see the hint of lightning spark in between and the most famous cutting-the-villain’s-sword-into-half scene. The actual battle ready swords cannot be cut into half because swords are made up of pure steel, or carbonized iron, which enables a metal blade to have a sharper edge and to withstand much greater stress without breaking or staying bent. Hence, there’s no way a sword can cut through another sword regardless if you’re a sword expert/samurai or not.

Locks Myth
            The breaking-in scene will never get old in action films. If the man with the black leather jacket can’t break the door by kicking it with all the force he has, he would most probably break the lock by shooting it with a handgun and the lock would automatically disengage on its own, as it is shown in one of the scenes in Big Trouble in Little China. But, can it be done in the real world? As tested by the experts, a 9mm (Sig Sauer P239) shot a padlock and a deadbolt three times and still worked out fine. So as for .357 magnum, the lock is battered but still left unopened. So if you’re trying to trespass using that strategy, you might want to think of another way, otherwise, the pieces and parts of the deadbolt will be etched on your face.

Not with a fizzle, but with a crash…
            In almost every car chase scene, there will always be a ramp that a car will have to go through. By the time the car is drifting through the air, the motion of the scene will ease off as the car gradually land and keep on running. The World’s Longest Car Jump was 272th by Ray Brownman, he gained his title but spent six weeks in the hospital with broken vertebrae. It has been proved that a car can jump and run through a ramp, but it is impossible that you can still drive away without having your car crashed.

Bullet Breakout
            No way out? Kate Beckinsale’s character in Underworld showed us how you can escape from a place that’s completely locked out,  by spinning in circles while shooting two 9mm pistols to cause the tile floor to fall away.The experts tested if that way of escape is plausible or not. It turns out that tile floor cannot easily be broken with a 9mm pistol even with a 12-gauge shotgun for a reason that the floor holds too much support to be broken in an instant.   

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