# What Movie Stunts That Seem Impossible Actually Are? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 31, 2001, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328 "2001-07-31T13:47:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/1 "2001-07-31T13:47:53Z")
Like for example in “Charlies Angels” when Drew jumps out of the airplane with the dude with the bomb strapped on him. First when she opened the door it would have sucked some other people out. I thought no way on this at first but then after thinking if she didn’t get him out, the whole plane would have exploded that’s worth the few stewardess and people not wearing their seat belts. The part that I thought was just totally fake was the explosion in the air. It was so close to all of them wouldn’t it have killed them all? Anyway this is just an example for the thread. Is there any other far out stunts that look impossible but actually could be possible. I’m sure there is going to be a bunch of Bond examples on this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/2 "2001-07-31T13:57:03Z")
Hmmm . . . I dunno if this is on-subject or a hijack, but silent film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Harold Lloyd, both of whom were “well-known” for doing their own stunts, actually used stuntmen, some of whom were interviewed in Kevin Brownlow’s wonderful “Hollywood” series. The only performer known to never use doubles was Buster Keaton, an acrobat who actually did stunts for others sometimes. The famous “Harold Loyd climbing a building and dangling from a clock” scene was actually cleverly faked with doubles and camera angles. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/3 "2001-07-31T14:15:53Z")
Some Bond movie (fairly recent) Gaaah, can’t remember which one, but he’s on a motorbike(handcuffed to a woman with whom he will later have sex) and being pursued by BadGuys[sup]TM[/sup] in a helicopter; they end up in a marketplace and the helicopter tips forward, then flies forward slowly with the rotor blades ripping everything up. Apart from the fact that inclining the rotors at such an angle would cause the macine to accelerate forward very rapidly, no pilot would be stupid enough to try slicing things up with the rotors (the helicopter would just tear itself to pieces). ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/4 "2001-07-31T15:15:54Z")
Another recent Bond movie: Bad Guy™ jumps out of airplane with a parachute. Bond jumps out of airplane seconds later, without parachute. Apparently through sheer force of will, and in spite of everything Galileo taught us about falling objects, Bond deliberately falls faster than Bad Guy, catches up with him, and steals his parachute. ---
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/5 "2001-07-31T15:30:02Z")
drewbert, Now that could happen couldn’t it because Bond was diving and the other guy was flat(so he had more wind resistance) ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/6 "2001-07-31T16:01:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wildest Bill \* > \*\*Like for example in “Charlies Angels” when Drew jumps out of the airplane with the dude with the bomb strapped on him. First when she opened the door it would have sucked some other people out. I thought no way on this at first but then after thinking if she didn’t get him out, the whole plane would have exploded that’s worth the few stewardess and people not wearing their seat belts. > > The part that I thought was just totally fake was the explosion in the air. It was so close to all of them wouldn’t it have killed them all? > > \*\* I just…can’t…resist urge to hijack… There was NO part of the opening scene of Charlie’s Angels that made any sense whatsoever. a. Why was Drew Barrymore disguised as giant African guy in a muu-muu? Why not disguise herself as cute female? Pregnant female if she needed to hide the parachute. b. How could they know things would work out like they did with such precision timing? Jets fly at 600 mph. Ten miles every minute. One minute off in the timing and there would be no speedboat to pick them up, no Lucy Liu with spare parachute. c. You can’t open airplane doors at altitude. They’re designed with failsafes. d. Drew offered the guy what looked like diamonds for the bomb. If the guy was motivated by profit, WHY WAS THE BOMB SET TO GO OFF? Why did the guy show her the bomb with the obligatory red LED countdown timer? e. Why all the insanely complicated and dangerous skydiving stunts? Why not just throw the guy out of the plane? (Or, in a kinder gentler world, disable him and just throw the bomb out.) f. If they knew someone on the plane had a bomb (and they obviously had detailed information for their hare-brained plan to work), then why let the plane take off in the first place? How stupidly irresponsible. OK, I’m done now. Now as for the OP, any movie stunt that involves someone plummeting from a height and then arresting themselves by grabbing a rock, branch, ledge, or rope (usually by one hand) is complete nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/7 "2001-07-31T17:16:52Z")
One that really bugs me: at the beginning of another Bond movie, **Goldeneye** , right before the credits roll, Bond (on a motorcycle) chases a plane that’s speeding down a runway without a pilot. He doesn’t catch the plane before both he and the plane go over a cliff. Now, the plane’s engine is running, which I take to mean that it’s propelling itself forward, which would mean it’s moving faster than mere falling as it’s pointed toward the ground. Yet, Bond catches up with the plane in mid-air, boards it, and saves the day. I don’t care how generous a parabolic arc you give to that plane before it dives, that just ain’t gonna happen without a rocket strapped to Bond’s ass. ---
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/8 "2001-07-31T17:23:41Z")
Hey finagle, You get no argument from me the whole scene was just stupid. I was just stating the one comment about it would make sense to lose a few people out the door to save the plane. I don’t even remember the original series being that stupid and unrealistic. Max, Yea that scene was just about as bogus as they come. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/9 "2001-07-31T20:42:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wildest Bill \* > \*\*drewbert, > > Now that could happen couldn’t it because Bond was diving and the other guy was flat(so he had more wind resistance) \*\* **Max Torque** remembered the scene much more clearly than I did. Bond really did look like he’d have to have a jet pack to pull of that stunt. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/10 "2001-07-31T20:52:41Z")
Nearly every action sequence in Die Hard 2! ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/11 "2001-07-31T21:42:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by drewbert \* > \*\*Another recent Bond movie: Bad Guy™ jumps out of airplane with a parachute. Bond jumps out of airplane seconds later, without parachute. Apparently through sheer force of will, and in spite of everything Galileo taught us about falling objects, Bond deliberately falls faster than Bad Guy, catches up with him, and steals his parachute. \*\* Isn’t that reasonable? After all, that’s the whole purpose of a parachute: to slow your descent through air resistance. I thought objects only fell at the same speed if they encountered the same air resistance (or if they were in a vacuum). ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/12 "2001-07-31T22:40:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by drewbert \* > > \*\*Another recent Bond movie: Bad Guy™ jumps out of airplane with a parachute. Bond jumps out of airplane seconds later, without parachute. Apparently through sheer force of will, and in spite of everything Galileo taught us about falling objects, Bond deliberately falls faster than Bad Guy, catches up with him, and steals his parachute. \*\* > > Isn’t that reasonable? After all, that’s the whole purpose of a parachute: to slow your descent through air resistance. I thought objects only fell at the same speed if they encountered the same air resistance (or if they were in a vacuum). \*\* Well, in my (admittedly very faulty) memory of the scene, the bad guy hadn’t opened the parachute yet. Bond could indeed change his speed a little bit by changing his aerodynamic profile, but I don’t think he could change it **that** much. Even moreso considering the thing it turned out he was chasing was actually a freakin’ airplane! ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/13 "2001-07-31T22:53:25Z")
A View To A Kill. Bond loses half of his car in a car chase – the back half. Gets cut off by another vehicle or something. He keeps on driving. Which, I guess would be possible since he still has the front wheels, steering wheel and engine, but when he lost the rest he lost his gas tank. Not so much a stunt per se, but still kind of odd. This is the same movie where the bad guy (Christopher Walken in this case) manages to kidnap the Bond Girl by sneaking up behind her . . . in a blimp. It’s such a great movie 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/14 "2001-07-31T23:25:41Z")
There’s just so many. My favorite one out of **Blade** was in the city park, in broad daylight, and our grim faced stalwart half-vampire vampire killer fires, blamblamblam!, at Bad Guy (who you can tell is evil because his face is more mobile). Scene goes to that beautifully silly “bullet time” sequence, of three bullets rifling through the air as Bad Guy leans casually out of the way–they’ve got a spacing between them of about a foot. Admittedly, this isn’t the sort of thing that leaps out at anyone who doesn’t think about muzzle velocities and such. The precise moment of my disbelief utterly snapping in **Armageddon** was when they decided to put Mir into a spin for gravity. It made the rest of the movie much more enjoyable once that was out of the way. Another highlight was during one of the shuttles crashing, and the pilots getting thrown through the windshield. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/15 "2001-07-31T23:41:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daniel \* > **A View To A Kill. Bond loses half of his car in a car chase… keeps on driving… but when he lost the rest he lost his gas tank.** There are cars with the gas-tank up in the front next to the engine. Notably the (totally cool) East German _Trabant_, which was also built partly of hardboard (I think). The gas tank was a bottle next to the engine. Dangerous? Heck yeah… I have no idea what the car in the movie was. If it was a Trabant then someone in research and continuity was really working hard. I’ll be very surprised if they were, considering the sneaky blimp. Anyway I’ve always felt the freeze-frame martial arts in _The Matrix_ were a little unconvincing. Which is fine, of course, as they were manipulating the virtual wossname by virtue of their enlightened thingumajigs, but the scene has been repeated in a number of other flicks where it _really_ doesn’t make sense. It was in _Deuce Bigalow_, and I seem to remember it showing up in _Shrek_ or some such fare… not that either movie paid much homage to logic, either, but since you asked… ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/16 "2001-07-31T23:43:55Z")
How about in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_, when the Nazi U-boat intercepts the freighter and they steal the Ark of the Covenant and kidnap the girl–the freighter crew is watching the U-boat sail off, then they see Indy, who’s swum out to the sub, climbing on to the sub’s conning tower, and they all cheer wildly. We cut to the next scene, the U-boat has arrived at the Nazis’ secret base, and Indy is skulking around, looking for a Nazi soldier with the right measurements to steal a uniform from. So, uh…what did he do? Hold his breath for a couple of days? Climb down the periscope? Grow gills (shades of _Waterworld_)? [sub]Okay, I guess it wasn’t actually war time, and those early subs were more torpedo boats which _could_ submerge if they had to than true submarines…maybe they just ran on the surface the whole way.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/17 "2001-08-01T00:28:42Z")
I never saw that movie a year or so back that took place on Everest - I think - it was some big action thriller piece of crap. I specifically avoided it because of the scene in the commercial where a guy jumps off a cliff with an ice pick in each hand, planning to use them to catch himself on the opposite cliff after falling 30 feet or so. Even assuming that he managed to hang on to the ice picks and jam them tight enough into the rack, and even assuming that the ice picks didn’t fall apart, his arms would have ripped off at the shoulder. No freaking way. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/18 "2001-08-01T00:53:26Z")
The movie was _Vertical Limit_, it was supposed to be K2 and not Everest, and the movie totally sucked. Halfway through it I started screaming "DIE! DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE FREEZE YOUR WORTHLESS 2-DIMENSIONAL ASSES AND **DIE!!!** \* Which is about when my husband told me to sit down and be quiet so the neighbors wouldn’t call 911. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/19 "2001-08-01T00:54:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by drewbert \* > \*\*Well, in my (admittedly very faulty) memory of the scene, the bad guy hadn’t opened the parachute yet. Bond could indeed change his speed a little bit by changing his aerodynamic profile, but I don’t think he could change it **that** much. Even moreso considering the thing it turned out he was chasing was actually a freakin’ airplane! \*\* I think the reason everyone had trouble was that the scene you described actually _did_ happen in another Bond movie ( **Moonraker** , if I recall correctly). That scene didn’t require nearly as great a suspension of disbelief as the one from **Goldeneye**. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/20 "2001-08-01T01:03:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Max Torque \* > One that really bugs me: at the beginning of another Bond movie, **Goldeneye** , right before the credits roll, Bond (on a motorcycle) chases a plane that’s speeding down a runway without a pilot. He doesn’t catch the plane before both he and the plane go over a cliff. > > Now, the plane’s engine is running, which I take to mean that it’s propelling itself forward, which would mean it’s moving faster than mere falling as it’s pointed toward the ground. Yet, Bond catches up with the plane in mid-air, boards it, and saves the day. I don’t care how generous a parabolic arc you give to that plane before it dives, that just ain’t gonna happen without a rocket strapped to Bond’s ass. Big problem - human body has a terminal velocity in the neighborhood of 120 mph. An airplane like that cruises in that neighborhood, in level flight. Even with _no power_ being applied, in that sort of nose-down attitude you’ll experience rapid accelleration, in some configurations as high as 400 feet/second. With the prop spining, you’ll acellerate faster. Well, somewhere between 180 and 200 mph you’ll hit “never exceed” speed, which they really do _not_ want you to exceed, and somewhere around 270-300 mph you’ll most likely start shedding parts of the plane, if not entire wings… You’ll need to start from several miles up if you’re going to have enough time to play “catch up” without the plane beating you to the ground. Of course, this is _totally[_ ignoring the fact that, when empty, such a plane as that will be tail heavy and will tend to nose-up. Such planes, when they do “run away” (and it does happen, once in awhile) may, in fact, fly quite nicely with no one at the controls until they run out of gas. Rare, but much more plausible than Mr. Bond careening through the sky at 250+ mph. Totally bogus, but I wonder how they filmed the stunt. Must have been fun. Sometimes I think the mechanics of making the stunt happen on film is more interesting than the filmed stunt. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328.md?page=2)