I’m going to be teaching some fourth-graders about electromagnetism, and I’d like to start off by showing them a short video clip of an electromagnetic crane. I think there’s one in Pulp Fiction, one in Repo Man, and one in Con Air. And if I show any of these movies to fourth-graders, my teaching career will suffer an ignominious end. Does anyone know of a movie I can show kids that has both an electromagnetic crane and a complete lack of "motherfucker"s? It can be pretty much anything that’s not animated: I’ll be showing only 15-30 seconds of it, so it shouldn’t be a copyright concern, but it should be something impressive.
In You Only Live Twice there’s a scene where a helicopter uses a giant magnet to pick up the bad guys and drop them into the sea.
There’s also a scene in Goldfinger where a car is picked up and dropped into a crusher at a junk yard, but I can’t remember if it’s magnetic or if it’s a claw.
Either one might not be deemed appropriate for fourth-graders, though.
I’d be surprised if there isn’t some footage from **Modern Marvels ** or some such History Channel offering.
Superman 3 seems like the best bet so far, as long as there’s footage of the crane that doesn’t involve Superman in the frame. Anything with someone being squished by the crane won’t work, unfortunately, even though it’d lead beautifully into my next activity: write a patent application for an invention using an electromagnet.
Disney’s “The Brave Little Toaster” (one of my all-time faves) has a scene where the gang is being chased through a junkyard by a electromagnetic crane. Can’t get more G-rated than that.
Is it animated? I’d like to show them the crane in a fairly neutral setting, just doing what a crane does. The sort of thing that a director might use as an establishing shot, saying, “Our next scene will take place in a junkyard.” If there’s too much narrative going on around it, students will get distracted with the cartoon they saw last night, the time their little brother dressed up as Superman for Hallowe’en and threw up on his cape, the incredibly disturbing episode of Monk they saw involving a dead gangster, etc.
The History Channel idea is great, too; I’m just not sure where I’d get the tape (I don’t get any television channels at all, unfortunately).
I guess Bob the Builder is too young for 4th graders. There used to be a series my school had that was basically construction machines and videos of them. I don’t remember who narrated it, but it was lots of dump trucks and normal cranes - I’m sure there has to be some “modern” equivalent. (Being only 22, I feel it necessary to quote the modern.)
You did ask to exclude animated pictures, didn’t you, Daniel? The Brave Little Toaster would definitely not fit for realism, even if animation were to be allowed (the Electromagnet in that is anthropomorphized as a predator). Iron Giant would have a more realistic sequence, if animation were to be allowed (and if it actually has such a sequence; I can’t remember specifically, but one of the main characters lives in a wrecking yard).
I believe <i>Stormbreaker</i>, the relatively recent kiddy-Bond picture, included an EM crane in its second action sequence. (Set, naturally, in a wrecking yard). The shot that I definitely remember will fail on your narrative test, in that Our Hero is inside the car and struggling to get out. I am about 50% confident that there is a second shot of the crane earlier, used to set up the fact that this transports cars to be crushed.
