I always thought a good demonstration of the difficulty of a shuttle landing is the footage of the Columbia disaster. It starts just about over the Hawaiian islands and they fully expected to land safely in Florida about 4,500 miles away in well less than an hour after their deorbit burn. They went from flying over 17,000 mph to touchdown at about 230 mph at a precise spot many thousands of miles away while under no power. This video is tragic but it does show the difficulty and speed at which things happen. I am still amazed that they were ever able to pull it off at all successfully at all let alone consistently.
Mission control video:
This one is the footage from inside the orbiter and not for the faint of heart: