I’m watching the season premiere of Leverage. Good ep, but it loses points for the opening scene, where a banker’s sabotaged car turns over, and Ford drags the banker and his daughter out just before it explodes. :rolleyes:
Look, I know it makes for suspense and cool fireball visuals, but please stop insulting our intelligence! Automobiles do not explode after an accident. A car has a tank of gasoline; that does not make it a rolling bomb. We’ve all driven past wrecks as the cops and paramedics are cleaning them up. Have you ever seen a car that appeared to have exploded?! I once drove past a car with the hoop up and a fire raging in its engine. It did not explode.
I respectfully disagree. If I’m going to watch a movie or TV show where cars are likely to explode, I want to see them blow up in glorious, Technicolor fireballs the size of Hiroshima. Furthermore, I think MORE things should explode!
Cop chases bad guy down an alley. Bad guy runs into a fence. There should be an explosion.
Guy in a bar fight smashes chair over another guy. The chair should explode.
Woman steps into shower, ominous music swells. The entire bathroom should explode.
Bambi and his furry woodland friends running away from the forest fire. Would have been much better if they were running away from a big freakin’ fireball.
Those commercials where the car hits the crash barrier and the airbags inflate in slow motion. Slo-mo explo!
No, my friend. The world of entertainment needs more explosions, not less.
I remember watching Jules and Jim with a friend who laughed her ass off when the car went off the bridge.
This is a friend who is definitely more use to the exploding car variety of films and it took some persistent convincing on my part to get her to agree to watch a black and white French film from the 60s.
The only pleasure she got from the 105mins was when she laughed at the car going off the bridge.
To this day, I still can’t watch that scene without thinking it looks totally lame.
I wish the Bond franchise would drop explosions and the really stupid stunts.
When early Bonds would dodge a circular saw being lowered at them or a laser beam slicing their crotch, it was stupid but still realistic.
When the new guy blithsely jumps from one suspended girder to the next, never hesitating, and then diving at and rolling past three exploding trash cans in a row,…well, that’s when I’m sorry I didn’t wait for the rental to fast forward. Kick boxing where people have 10-second hang time up in the air is boring boring boring.
It has indeed become an established action-movie convention that an action hero can do things that would be impossible for an Olympic gymnast . . . but that’s another discussion.
I am so desensitized to it that they don’t even impact me viscerally anymore. A car getting mangled and not exploding is more viscerally impacting to me than a car exploding. Oftentimes a poignant scene is made comical by the car exploding.
I like the Family Guy take on it. The daughter gets into a drag race with an Amish guy, and the horse and buggy both end up going over a cliff and exploding.
Groening et al. seem to really enjoy mocking this trope. My favorite example is in the Futurama episode, “The Sting,” when the Planet Express Ship is being chased by giant space bees. They manage to squeeze through an opening in the hive just before it closes, and the swarm of bees right behind them crash into the wall… and, of course, instantly burst into fireballs.
What I hate even more than cars exploding for no reason, is cars ramping off the back corner of a car in front of it that stopped some reason or another (exloding car in front of them both?).
Watch any sort of behind-scenes type thing on DVD in an action movie and you’ll see these ramps specially set up on the back of a car and now you’ll never be able to not “see” the ramp any time you watch an action movie.
It’s so stupid! Anyone who’s ever been in a fender bender of any speed knows the car in back won’t be ramping dramatically up and off to the side of the car in front of it!
Not sure why but I saw a low speed crash where a SUV did a full 360 flip in the air and landed back on its wheels. The driver looked unhurt when she got out.
I fully agree with your complaint – TV explosions today just aren’t big enough. To have been done right, they should have hitched a ride with an oil tanker – then there would be a big KABOOM! Or they should have crashed into a fireworks factory or a big chemical plant. Or maybe a factory that makes nuclear weapons. In any event, TV directors are playing it too safe. We want – we need – bigger KABOOMS!