# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/21 "2001-08-01T08:13:34Z")
The one that really got me was Mission Impossible 2. Two scenes in particular stand out: the “Highspeed Courtship,” wherein Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton discover they’re soul mates while driving irresponsibly. Particularly the climax, where they get their passenger doors locked together and do donuts on a cliff edge while gazing passionately at each other’s expensive sports car. Probably the most pointlessly absurd and unlikely stunt I’ve ever seen in a film. Similarly insulting, in its way, was the bit where Tom and the villain drive motorcycles at each other at breakneck speed, leap from their seats at each other(wha?), colliding chest-first in mid-air, then land on their feet and continue the fight. Yeeaah… Sure. I also thought the scene in Speed where the bus jumped the gap in the freeway was completely unbeleivable, but I don’t have the energy for a good Keanu Reeves rant right now. ---
**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:** [August 1, 2001, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/22 "2001-08-01T09:38:56Z")
It’s probably worth mentioning the hopeless movie cliché\* of ‘hero under machine gun fire’ - the good guy dives to the side, and the BadGuys™ _can’t turn their guns fast enough to track him_. Sheesh, I **know** it would spoil the whole film if the hero gets wasted in the first half hour, but the suspension of disbelief required to accept that the BadGuys™ are just so poor at handling weapons is too much. \*[sup]See any film with Arnie in it[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![OneChance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/74df32/32.png) [@OneChance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneChance)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/23 "2001-08-01T12:07:21Z")
The beginning of **Darkman** where the lab blows up and Liam’s character gets thrown out of the building, still alive and in one piece! No missing limbs. Charred limbs maybe, but nothing missing. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/24 "2001-08-01T12:46:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ross \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*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.\*\* The car-in-half in AVTAK is a Renault 11. The standard verion has the tank in the back. Cool info about the Trabant, BTW. I didn’t know they had the tank in the engine compartment. Sheer insanity. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/25 "2001-08-01T14:54:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\* > 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] \*\* If it did run on the surface there would have been crew members up there watching for planes and such and probable would have spotted a guy lounging on the deck. MI:2 Lots of stuff in this movie but the part where Tom and the Bad Guy leap off their speeding motorcycles and smack chests in mid-air was pretty wrong. For one both of them actully leap foward off their speeding bikes. I think if you stand up on the seat of a bike going 60 mph you pretty much will look like you are going backward relative to the bike when you jump off. Then there is the fact that niether of them so much as say ‘ouch’ after smacking into each other and rolling down some rocks. But I guess they are just way more manly then that. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/26 "2001-08-01T16:53:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\* > 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. \*\* That’s exactly what they would’ve done - run on the surface the whole way. Those subs could only stay submerged for a few hours at a time (up to a day if they conserved their batteries). Normal procedure was to run on the surface all the time, only diving if threatened or after maneuvering into a firing position (a sub would normally outflank it’s prey on the surface and dive when they get in front of it’s path). But as **Zebra** said, there would be guys on deck who would’ve spotted him. There isn’t anything to hide behind on a sub deck. So it’s still implausible, but in a different way. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/27 "2001-08-01T17:09:30Z")
I HATE HATE HATE Anytime in any movie where a charcter out runs (even briefly)Rushing water. The Mummy Returns and Die Hard 3 have used this nonsense where the characters hear the water, look in horror as it comes rushing towards them, then turn and run with the water close on their heals. Sure it eventually catches them but they should never have had the time to run in the first place. I’ll bet many a case of people dying stupidly during a natural disaster is their lack of knowledge about how things really work in the world. “Look Pa that waters is comin’, lets run ahead of it to the bank over yonder!” ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/28 "2001-08-01T19:39:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by drewbert \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*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! \*\* I think you’re thinking of the opening stunt in Moonraker. Bond chases a man off a plane and steals his 'chute. Jaws then catches up Bond and fights him for a few seconds until Bond opens his parachute and Jaws crahses into a circus tent, which, of course, allows him to survive the fal with no apparent injury. I did a physics project on why that scene was impossible once. Besides the reason cited, Jaws would’ve died, the plane would have had to been travelling improbably high, and all three would have passed out from lack of oxygen on such an extended jump. The incredibly slow tsunami in Deep Impact (avoidable by motorcycling to the nearest hill) nearly ruined an other wise enjoyable movie. It made the deaths of all of the characters who did die seem so incredibly pointless. Well, that, and the consequenches of the young marriage (with child) seemed more intriguing than most of the actual plot of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/29 "2001-08-01T23:05:56Z")
There’s always Independance Day, wherein outrunning fireballs is a way of life. The worst of it is when they duck into a closet off the tunnel and their dog leaps in neatly at the last picosecond, thus avoiding getting fried. The audience cheers, blissfully unware of the amount of frontal pressure such a fireball is going to have, unable to explain why the fireball doesn’t come in the closet. And let’s not mention what happens when the fireball passes and there’s a nice vacuum to fill. Consider yourself filler. My least favorite stunt are the movies where grenades have 30 hours fuses, such as in Die Hard 2 or Steel. You can strap yourself into an ejector seat, or have a long conversation about jump shots while the grenade sits fusing away in your hand. Sheesh. Never by army surplus when your a bad guy I guess. I’m not fond of micro-thermonuclear grenades either, they shoot fragments folks, not balls of flame. OK, I’ll stop now or I’ll accidently hijack this thread. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/30 "2001-08-01T23:27:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Menocchio \* > The incredibly slow tsunami in Deep Impact (avoidable by motorcycling to the nearest hill) nearly ruined an other wise enjoyable movie. You found _Deep mpact_ **enjoyable?** Now **THAT’S** an impossible stunt! 😃 And to contribute to the thread, I’ll nominate the “ride up on the front wheel of the motorcycle so you can slap a bad guy with the rear one”, used in both _Mission Impossible: 2_ and _Tomb Raider._ ---
**Author:** ![barton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@barton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/31 "2001-08-01T23:37:25Z")
I suppose it’s possible that Indy hung off the side of the U-boat’s railings when lookouts were posted. But I doubt that would have been comfortable, and he doesn’t even seem wet when he sneaks off the boat later. I think the explanation is the even MORE unbelieveable, but evidenced - the U-boat is shown sealing its hatches and leaving the deck unmanned while the steamer’s crew cheers Indy on. What kind of boat is the captain running? You’d always have at least two lookouts on the tower with a diesel sub on the surface. Chalk it up to crummy research. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/32 "2001-08-01T23:54:20Z")
from the Internet Movie Database: > [@](#): > > Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Indiana seems to have clung to a submarine which was diving (we hear the klaxon and the order “Dive! Dive!” in German) for a trip of several hundred miles. However, it is possible that the dive was only to periscope depth, and the sub may have surfaced once offshore. Footage was actually shot, but cut before release, showing Indy lashed to the periscope with his whip, and he might similarly have hidden near the waterline during surface running ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/33 "2001-08-02T00:06:27Z")
When they have an underwater scene & the person can see where sometime is under water. Thats impossible, who can see underwater with their naked eyes? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/34 "2001-08-02T01:35:39Z")
**Handy** : I’m no optometrist, but my guess would be “the bulk of the human race.” ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/35 "2001-08-02T04:30:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Menocchio \* > \*\* > > I think you’re thinking of the opening stunt in Moonraker. Bond chases a man off a plane and steals his 'chute. Jaws then catches up Bond and fights him for a few seconds until Bond opens his parachute and Jaws crahses into a circus tent, which, of course, allows him to survive the fal with no apparent injury. I did a physics project on why that scene was impossible once. Besides the reason cited, Jaws would’ve died, the plane would have had to been travelling improbably high, and all three would have passed out from lack of oxygen on such an extended jump. > > \*\* Menocchio, Jaws survived a massive electric shock, getting thrown off a train, and out-wrestled a shark in _The Spy Who Loved Me_. It was already estalished that Jaws cannot die. ---
**Author:** ![Pessor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pessor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pessor)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/36 "2001-08-02T05:31:58Z")
At the end of “Being There”, Peter Sellers walked on water. I don’t know. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/37 "2001-08-02T05:44:54Z")
I always rather enjoy the films (usually B movies or telefilms) where a running soldier will step on a landmine (whereupon the film will invariably resort to slow motion), be lifted into the air (instead of being shredded), and proceed to do two and one half flips with a gainer before coming back to earth. I keep my scorecards handy during these films – 9.7! Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/38 "2001-08-02T06:20:19Z")
Every time five or six guys have a full automatic shoot-out in a 12 x 12 room, and no one gets hit, I feel like leaving the theater. Tommyguns rattling like rolling thunder for a six-minute scene, and not a single casualty! Where the hell did these guys learn to shoot? Why aren’t they dead from the last fight they were in? I am a lousy shot, but even I can hit a silhouette target at twenty feet with a sub machine gun! Let’s not even talk about the crap people hide behind in movies. The couch? He’s taken cover behind the fuckin’ couch? You can’t take cover from an assault rifle behind an interior wall! We don’t even want to mention dodgers and bullet slappers. ## Tris “You unpatriotic, rotten, doctor, commie rat.” Bob Dylan ---
**Author:** ![barton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@barton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/39 "2001-08-02T16:55:44Z")
Ah hah. Still, there’s a problem with the whip explanation - Indy clearly didn’t have it with him when he swam over. Probably why they cut it. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328/40 "2001-08-02T20:59:26Z")
Even at Periscope depth the periscope is no where near the surface. Remember, they have to ‘raise the periscope’ in order to look out. Indy’s whip would not be long enough to tie to the periscope and then have him be dragged by the sub. He would still be pulled underwater. Plus what kind of effect do you think salt water would have on the thin end of the whip? This is a film flub. I don’t care what the IMDB says. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-stunts-that-seem-impossible-actually-are/74328.md?page=3)