How to instantly ruin a good action sequence!

[sojourner]

I can't stand it. I was watching the season finally of "Burn Notice" tonight and generally enjoying it when they did something that made me actually cringe. Yep, you guessed it, the "car in a high speed chase that hits something and pops into the air rolling to one side". I mean come on. This was a dated effect before the "A Team" was canceled. Why do effects teams still fall back on this cliched visual? It's so over used that it instantly takes me out of what I am watching.

Anyone else have an effect that ruins a show/movie for you?

Maybe the Wilhelm scream? I think it has move from homage to ubiquitous at this point.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I think cars which explode are worse.

 

[cultcross]

I think cars which explode are worse.

I can't stand vehicles on film which just explode for no discernible reason. It's got it into people's heads that cars do that for real.

Related to this one is 'shooting the fuel tank makes it explode'.

Riiiiiight. If my car had fuel that was that easy to turn into a incendiary bomb, I don't think I'd drive it.

 

[Mr Light]

You don't use napalm to gas your car? It's got great mileage!

 

[Christopher]

I can't stand vehicles on film which just explode for no discernible reason. It's got it into people's heads that cars do that for real.

Which is actually a dangerous misconception, because it leads people to feel that they have to drag injured people away from their cars, which can worsen those people's injuries.

Now, Mythbusters has shown time and again that it's nearly impossible to get a gas tank to explode. I keep hoping that there will be a "Mythbusters effect" on Hollywood filmmakers, forcing them to abandon some of the most blatantly nonsensical conceits that have been busted and come up with more plausible and fresh material. But there's no sign of such an effect yet.

 

[Hermiod]

^Indeed, they were also only able to get a proper Hollywood style explosion from a car falling down a cliff by rigging it with explosives!

The petrol tanks in a cars are deliberately placed so that impacts won't cause them to suddenly explode. Even when they purposefully removed the tank and put it on the front of the car nothing happened.

 

[Nick Ryder]

And while yeah you could get a little flash baked it wouldn't just go WHOOOMP-BOOM! Like so many movie cars. But that is if and only IF you're leaking a lot of gas - which is sort of possible, but still yeah... its a BUSTED myth.

Same with how its nearly impossible without help for a car to go flying through the air without some kind of ramp and propulsion system.

 

[Christopher]

And while yeah you could get a little flash baked it wouldn't just go WHOOOMP-BOOM! Like so many movie cars. But that is if and only IF you're leaking a lot of gas - which is sort of possible, but still yeah... its a BUSTED myth.

Even leaking a lot of gas won't do it. A leaking gas tank will burn, but not explode (at least the Mythbusters weren't able to get an explosion). You need a very precise ratio of gasoline vapor and oxygen -- and the right amount of containment -- to get an explosion. Heck, that's why car engines need carburetors or fuel injection systems in the first place -- because the spark plugs won't set off an explosion unless the mix of fuel and air is proportioned and timed exactly right. If getting gasoline to explode were as easy as it's shown on TV and film, car engines would be far, far simpler devices.

Same with how its nearly impossible without help for a car to go flying through the air without some kind of ramp and propulsion system.

Or for said car to land on four wheels (normally it would land nosefirst because cars are front-heavy) or to be still functional after the landing. When they were producing The Dukes of Hazzard, they irreparably trashed about two General Lees per week. At least until it got so expensive that they had to fall back on stock footage and miniatures.

 

[T'Baio]

Cars flip and explode in TV shows and movies because it's a cheap thrill, both perceptually and financially. It's that simple.

 

[Nardpuncher]

At the start of Die Hard: With a Vengeance the department store blows up in a beautifully realistic way.

I hate in action scenes when a guy says "We got company!"

I hate when the hero jumps from high up and lands in a crouch and then stands up all slow and cool. Ex; when Batman did it on a car in the start of The Dark Knight.

I hate it when someone slowly describes the specifications of the firearm that is pointing at the other guy's head as though that somehow made it more dangerous. Like "You have a 9mm, gas-operated semi-automatic with Fixed (Combat), or optional fully adjustable, or optional illuminated night sights pointed at you....any questions?"

 

[ProwlAlpha]

I hate how they portray police officers are dumb, don't know how to shoot or drive, or don't know how to arrest a subject. It gets tiresome.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I want to see action, not shakycam. A cameraman having a fit does not make an action movie.

 

[Christopher]

Cars flip and explode in TV shows and movies because it's a cheap thrill, both perceptually and financially. It's that simple.

Yeah, but it keeps escalating. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, when cars crash, they just crash, maybe burn a little, but no kaboom. But there's a later Bond film, one of the Brosnan ones, I think, with a snowmobile chase where every vehicle instantly explodes when it so much as runs into a bush, which is incredibly stupid. Over time, Hollywood just gets more and more immersed in its exaggerations and more and more detached from anything resembling reality.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

^^

This is also parodied in "Last Action Hero".

When Schwarzenegger's movie character enters the "real" world, he's stunned that our cars are "bullet-proof" (= they don't explode when shot at).

 

[Hermiod]

The Simpsons used to take the piss out of this all the time - remember the goalposts that inexplicably exploded just because Homer drove past them in his car?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I watched an automobile collide with another vehicle and burst into flames, once - about ten years ago. It worked like this:

I was walking to the 7-11 and this car came zipping through an intersection between a two-lane street and a street-level divided highway (three lanes each direction), running a red light and clipping another car in the intersection. I couldn't tell you the speed, but it certainly wasn't more than thirty miles an hour. The cars just crashed and slid together for a few feet. Nobody airborne, no roll-overs.

The offending vehicle was being pursued by two police cars. The driver immediately got out and ran from the intersection, right past me and into a dense stand of trees between the road and an apartment complex.

Two things: I didn't notice the driver of the other vehicle get out, nor did the car seem badly damaged. Nor did I see police officers pursue the fleeing motorist (who I recall as having a big smile and seeming surprisingly pleased with himself). This all happened in a few seconds, and I was pretty alarmed by the guy as he ran toward (and then past) me.

Anyway, what I remember is that the hood of the responsible vehicle popped open on impact, and a fire started on the engine. Over a period of five or ten seconds it spread and finally consumed the engine compartment.

The fire was essentially noiseless, and nothing exploded. There were quite a few onlookers (Sunday afternoon) and people were surprisingly calm. And I never found anything on the news or in the papers about the incident.

 

[scotpens]

The petrol tanks in a cars are deliberately placed so that impacts won't cause them to suddenly explode.

You mean they don't make Ford Pintos anymore?

I want to see action, not shakycam. A cameraman having a fit does not make an action movie.

Neither does constant speed-ramping, or overuse of the “dolly zoom” -- a simultaneous dolly in and zoom out, or vice versa, creating a disorienting shift in perspective. Sometimes it can be used effectively (Jimmy Stewart's POV shot of the tower stairwell in Vertigo) but it's become something of a cliché.

. . . Anyway, what I remember is that the hood of the responsible vehicle popped open on impact, and a fire started on the engine. Over a period of five or ten seconds it spread and finally consumed the engine compartment..

It must have been an older vehicle. Modern cars have a g-force-activated switch that automatically shuts off the fuel supply to the engine in the event of a collision. Just about the only way to start an engine compartment fire in today's cars is to douse the engine with gasoline and toss a match on it.

 

[John Picard]

I can't stand vehicles on film which just explode for no discernible reason. It's got it into people's heads that cars do that for real.

Which is actually a dangerous misconception, because it leads people to feel that they have to drag injured people away from their cars, which can worsen those people's injuries.

Now, Mythbusters has shown time and again that it's nearly impossible to get a gas tank to explode. I keep hoping that there will be a "Mythbusters effect" on Hollywood filmmakers, forcing them to abandon some of the most blatantly nonsensical conceits that have been busted and come up with more plausible and fresh material. But there's no sign of such an effect yet.

^Indeed, they were also only able to get a proper Hollywood style explosion from a car falling down a cliff by rigging it with explosives!

The petrol tanks in a cars are deliberately placed so that impacts won't cause them to suddenly explode. Even when they purposefully removed the tank and put it on the front of the car nothing happened.

I argued that with people back when fuel tanks were made of steel -- all to no avail. Just about every car produced since 2000 has a plastic fuel cell. 'splain to me how shooting a vehicle would make it explode now

 

[Brikar99]

I argued that with people back when fuel tanks were made of steel -- all to no avail. Just about every car produced since 2000 has a plastic fuel cell. 'splain to me how shooting a vehicle would make it explode now

It all depends on how AWESOME the person is that's doing the shooting.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I argued that with people back when fuel tanks were made of steel -- all to no avail. Just about every car produced since 2000 has a plastic fuel cell. 'splain to me how shooting a vehicle would make it explode now

It all depends on how AWESOME the person is that's doing the shooting.

Which is why Chuck Norris can make a car explode by just looking at it.