Monday, November 24, 2008

Movie Science 101

I'm a man so of course I love a good action flick! Nothing is better than gun slinging, ass kicking, gratuitous sex scene fun that only the likes of a Vin Diesel, Daniel Craig, or pre-Gubernatorial Schwarzenegger can pull off. With the likes of actors that are as skilled as Jackie Chan or Jet Li its hard to believe that action scenes get so over embellished. I can deal with a car blowing up after being shot at with a sling shot by Chuck Norris...because let's face it, Chuck can do anything! But, hasn't any producer ever heard of Newton's 3rd Law?

We've all seen the movies where someone gets shot and flies back 10 feet through a window or a wall or something. A good example is Lethal Weapon when Riggs get thrown through a shop window while getting blown away by a drive by shooting. Luckily he was wearing a vest!

Newton's 3rd Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So as you sit in your chair reading this blog you have the force of gravity pushing your butt into the chair. Well, guess what...your chair is pushing up on your butt with the equal force of gravity. If it didn't you would break the chair and fall through it. A great example of this is to drop a basketball with it spinning. When it hits the ground it bounces back up and spins in the opposite direction because the ground pushes back in an opposite direction to the spin and the direction of fall.

Anyway, all this means that any gun that would propel the victim through a window would do the same for the person doing the shooting it because of the opposite force! Anyone who has ever shot a gun knows that you don't normally get thrown back when shooting it. Even a 12 gauge shotgun will only hurt your shoulder, it doesn't knock you on your ass. Now couple that with the fact that a riffle or pistol bullet will go through the body like a hot knife through butter meaning that it won't impart hardly any force on the person. So with all due respect to John Woo your movies aren't very realistic, but they're fun to watch!

6 comments:

Turkish said...

Very true, but not much fun to watch. If I ever get shot I'm going to throw myself through a window just to make it interesting. Gotta go out in style.

PlancksPost said...

I'm going to pull the end off a bullet, put the gun powder in the wound, light it to cauterize said wound and then proceed to kill as many people as I can while blurting out barely discernable sounds that some might mistake for language.
Name that movie!

Unknown said...

was it Rambo? or was it Finding Nemo. i get those two mixed up all the time.

PlancksPost said...

I'm pretty sure it was Snow White II when the 7 Dwarfs went to the Black Gate to help distract the all seeing eye while Snow White went to a volcano to look for the ring Prince Charming gave her but she lost when was on the scenic chopper ride over Mordor.

Turkish said...

Wasn't that the guy that shot Bambi's mom?

ReformingGeek said...

Ah, please don't ruin the magic for me. I thought everything on TV or in the movies was true and scientifically accurate!

;-)