MYTHBUSTERS 2015 Season Thread
- Thread starter Christopher
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Yeah. I miss the Jr. team, but I can easily get adjusted to this format. Or, rather, re-adjusted, since this is how the show began. The tone I think needs a bit of smoothing out as it sort-of still felt a tad off. And I just hope that they're not sticking to tie-in episodes and will do stuff not related to a property.
Anyone know if tie-in eps get money in from the other property to help offset production costs or what happens?
For example I could see some extra money coming when they did the Green Hornet ep but for ones like the Simpsons they might have to pay for rights.
I know there's often a provision where clips of short duration can be used without licence for commentary but I'm not sure Mythbusters would fit into that category.
For those of you who may be interested in what happens behind the scenes, here's a 35 minute chat with Adam Savage on making this season of Mythbusters. Its a little more focused on cameras, cameramen, quadcopters, camermen with quadcopters and how they framed shots on Mythbusters, but there's also little bits of teasers of what's coming in the next few episodes.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WntEGiTNaY[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WntEGiTNaY[/yt]
Same here. Especially if all they're going to do are stuff like "Simpsons myths" and "Transformers myths".
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jm6B31HKBw[/yt]
That's what I deem "the bidet from h3ll!" I honestly thought we'd see something little more than a sluggish upwelling of water, but mercy! The kinetic force was strong enough to launch the toilets, a reaction even more amazing than the gag from the episode!
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
Same here. I miss the B-Team, but the additional coverage of the preparatory work was cool. I found the construction of the Homer dummy and especially how Jaime made the extra-large wrecking ball to be fascinating.
So, I'm still watching my DVR'ings of the marathon that was on at the end of last year and I'm now watching the episode where they did the Mission: Impossible disguises. In the episode Jamie and Adam use reusable, pull-on, rubber masks to present the appearance of the other. High-quality, great-looking, masks for sure but also very, very odd looking. At the end of the episode, and I think I recall this from the After Show of the episode, they seemed to suggest a revisit using more intricate Hollywood prosthetics and make-up techniques. They've never gone back and did it.
I wonder why, or if they might still do it sometime in the near future. I'd be really interested in seeing it.
I wonder why, or if they might still do it sometime in the near future. I'd be really interested in seeing it.
I remember that one. The masks triggered the Uncanny Valley effect pretty hard, as I recall, because I remember being vaguely unsettled by it as well.
Were they just going to "replicate the results" so to speak with multiple glued on prostheses, instead of worrying about staying true to the myth by having it be a single piece mask that you could quickly slip on and off? Because I don't think there's any way to make the latter completely convincing, even with the best Hollywood makeup artists working on it. It just doesn't look or move like a normal face.
Were they just going to "replicate the results" so to speak with multiple glued on prostheses, instead of worrying about staying true to the myth by having it be a single piece mask that you could quickly slip on and off? Because I don't think there's any way to make the latter completely convincing, even with the best Hollywood makeup artists working on it. It just doesn't look or move like a normal face.
^Well, I gather that if that sort of thing were to be done for real, you'd start by finding an impersonator who was already a close match for the subject and thus wouldn't need much alteration to pass off as them. That's actually what they did in the Mission: Impossible pilot, when Martin Landau was still just a guest star -- they cast him to play the person Rollin Hand was impersonating as well as Rollin himself. (And on several different occasions, they cast the very similar-looking Paul Stevens as the person Rollin had to impersonate.)
So if they did try it again, rather than having Adam play Jamie, they'd find someone who already looked and sounded a lot like Jamie and make subtle alterations to pass them off.
So if they did try it again, rather than having Adam play Jamie, they'd find someone who already looked and sounded a lot like Jamie and make subtle alterations to pass them off.
But that kind of breaks the spirit of the show. It's not as fun to see people we don't no participate in the tests it's fun to see Jamie and Adam do it.
Not true. They've often brought in other people to do things when doing it themselves was inadequate. For instance, when testing whether a sprinter could beat an Indy race car over 30 feet, they initially tried it themselves, but ultimately brought in a professional runner and driver to do the final test (and it was the same runner they'd previously brought in to try running on water). And then there was that so-called "actual ninja" they brought in to catch an arrow and do the one-inch punch and so on, and the professional musician they brought in to break a wine glass, and so on and so on and so on.
Besides, the spirit of the show is to see what it would actually take to replicate the intended result once doing it the mythical way doesn't work. Until they do that, the M:I mask myth is only half-done.
They did that in the first Mission Impossible movie too. Tom Cruise was put in makeup to play the person he would later be impersonating.
^Yeah, but I try not to think about that movie much...
Decent enough episode and the "myths" tested in it weren't quite as silly as the ones tested last week centered around "The Simpsons" but, again, an episode centered around busting "myths" centered around the Indiana Jones franchise.
Tested:
Whether Indy's bullwhip could have been used to disarm a foe.
Whether Indy's bullwhip could have carried Indy across a chasm.
Whether Indy's bullwhip breaks the sound barrier when cracked.
Whether Indy could have ran fast enough to beat the poisoned darts when fleeing with the idol.
All not too bad, though the one with the poisoned darts in of itself takes a bit of disbelief suspension in accepting that such a contraption could exist, could have been built centuries ago and survived, ready to go off, after centuries of time passing.
The stuff with the whip was really the more interesting stuff for me.
Again as is the new format this season we see a lot more going into the build process and them setting up the tests which does carry some interest and fun to it but, again, the whole tone and feel of the show just feels too "off" now without the Jr. team. The different music, pop-up info, the bumpers to/from commercial, the "don't try this at home" segment, the establishing shots of locations just really makes the show feel very, very, "off" for me. It's a lot of change to adjust to.
But it is neat to see more of the building of the experiments.
I just really, really, hope the episodes eventually stop centering around some property, movie, TV show, or whatever and they get back to busting/testing much broader myths.
Tested:
Whether Indy's bullwhip could have been used to disarm a foe.
Whether Indy's bullwhip could have carried Indy across a chasm.
Whether Indy's bullwhip breaks the sound barrier when cracked.
Whether Indy could have ran fast enough to beat the poisoned darts when fleeing with the idol.
All not too bad, though the one with the poisoned darts in of itself takes a bit of disbelief suspension in accepting that such a contraption could exist, could have been built centuries ago and survived, ready to go off, after centuries of time passing.
The stuff with the whip was really the more interesting stuff for me.
Again as is the new format this season we see a lot more going into the build process and them setting up the tests which does carry some interest and fun to it but, again, the whole tone and feel of the show just feels too "off" now without the Jr. team. The different music, pop-up info, the bumpers to/from commercial, the "don't try this at home" segment, the establishing shots of locations just really makes the show feel very, very, "off" for me. It's a lot of change to adjust to.
But it is neat to see more of the building of the experiments.
I just really, really, hope the episodes eventually stop centering around some property, movie, TV show, or whatever and they get back to busting/testing much broader myths.
I don't mind the superficial changes in theme music, graphics, and such. Long-running things need to update themselves from time to time. And the "new" format works okay for me, because it's pretty much the original format come back again (minus Heather Joseph-Witham talking about folklore). My one problem is that the new main title sequence is more about building stuff than busting myths. If not for the title, a newcomer watching that opening sequence would have no idea what the show was really about.
On the myths, the whip-making sequence was kind of interesting, and the tests of what whips could do were fun as well. Of note was the appearance of Anthony De Longis, an actor, stuntman, and weapons expert who's probably best known to folks on this board as Maje Culluh of the Kazon in Star Trek: Voyager -- and who actually gave Harrison Ford whip training on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (as well as doing the same for Michelle Pfeiffer on Batman Returns, according to Wikipedia). As for the results, it's interesting that both the disarming thing and the chasm swing turned out to be plausible. I actually let out a bit of a cheer when Adam finally made it across the chasm.
The elaborate build on the dart-run sequence was fun, but the myth itself gave kind of a predictable result -- with a second's delay, it was obviously easy to stay ahead of the darts. Although I doubt the film's intent was that the delay would be a full second every time. The slow descent of the trigger pad when pressed on by the torch was when there were only a few pounds of weight pressing on it; I assume that when a full-sized man stepped on one, it would descend a lot faster and fire far sooner. But Adam only sustaining one hit on the instantaneous-firing run makes it plausible that Indy could've survived a very short firing delay if he were lucky -- and maybe if his leather jacket kept the odd dart from penetrating.
What surprised me is that Adam needed to estimate the set's proportions by studying the film footage. He used to work at ILM! Couldn't he have just called them up and gotten a look at the set blueprints?
Also, I wanted them to test whether it's really possible to fool a weight-sensitive trigger by quickly swapping out the item on it for something of equal weight -- and whether it's possible to reliably estimate something's weight by eye. Of course, Indy failed at that endeavour, but it'd be nice to see if he ever had a chance of success at all.
On the myths, the whip-making sequence was kind of interesting, and the tests of what whips could do were fun as well. Of note was the appearance of Anthony De Longis, an actor, stuntman, and weapons expert who's probably best known to folks on this board as Maje Culluh of the Kazon in Star Trek: Voyager -- and who actually gave Harrison Ford whip training on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (as well as doing the same for Michelle Pfeiffer on Batman Returns, according to Wikipedia). As for the results, it's interesting that both the disarming thing and the chasm swing turned out to be plausible. I actually let out a bit of a cheer when Adam finally made it across the chasm.
The elaborate build on the dart-run sequence was fun, but the myth itself gave kind of a predictable result -- with a second's delay, it was obviously easy to stay ahead of the darts. Although I doubt the film's intent was that the delay would be a full second every time. The slow descent of the trigger pad when pressed on by the torch was when there were only a few pounds of weight pressing on it; I assume that when a full-sized man stepped on one, it would descend a lot faster and fire far sooner. But Adam only sustaining one hit on the instantaneous-firing run makes it plausible that Indy could've survived a very short firing delay if he were lucky -- and maybe if his leather jacket kept the odd dart from penetrating.
What surprised me is that Adam needed to estimate the set's proportions by studying the film footage. He used to work at ILM! Couldn't he have just called them up and gotten a look at the set blueprints?
Also, I wanted them to test whether it's really possible to fool a weight-sensitive trigger by quickly swapping out the item on it for something of equal weight -- and whether it's possible to reliably estimate something's weight by eye. Of course, Indy failed at that endeavour, but it'd be nice to see if he ever had a chance of success at all.
Yeah, seemed to me they were being "forgiving" on the dart's delay time. That's like testing whether or not a bomb with 5-seconds left on the timer would really take three minutes to go off. Movies always play fairly fast and loose when it comes to things like this, the idea always seemed to me that the dart fired instantly when the stone was stepped on. The movie is just edited with a "time overlap."
But even with the instant-fire it seems very likely Indy could have done it. Without looking it up, I'm assuming Harrison Ford when filming Indian Jones was younger than Adam is now, and if we translate Ford's age to Indy then already Indy has a bit of an edge on Adam when it comes to physical fitness. Indy also was a "professional" adventurer so he likely was faster, more athletic and just all around better physically and mentally to run than Adam is. So it's entirely possible Indy could have made an instant-fire run without getting hit considering Adam was only hit once. We may also be able to make the argument that a fired bow travels slower than a fired paint pellet. Then again, for all I know they may travel faster.
"Knowing" Adam? I suspect he just really likes taking out his measuring tools, calculator, pad and pen and crunching numbers to figure stuff out. Probably a lot more fun and satisfying over just making a call. On a similar note, I wonder why such number crunching wasn't done to calculate the width of the chasm in the movie as opposed to the test Adam went with?
I'm pretty sure they tested the "weight sensitive trigger" idea in one of the "Crimes and Mythdemeanors" episodes. I watched one of them during the marathon at the end of the year and at least one test involved holding down a pressure switch with a knife/gum in order to open a case. I suspect that they tested the weight-switch at some-point too, or would have been covered by another "C&M" test.
In it all, I really found them doing the calculations and testing for the speed of the whip to be the most interesting. I actually smiled and clapped when the calculations showed the whip moved faster than sound. It was a pretty impressive test, impressive calculations and just impressive that that is what is happening!
They couldn't have tested this myth as it required knowledge about how sensitive the mechanism was to changes in weight as well as the amount of time required to detect changes.
I suppose they could get a gold smith in to test how good they are at judging the weight of a solid gold statue. I suspect they'll be quite accurate. Accurate enough to fool the trigger mechanism? Again, this part is untestable.
Well, sure, the initial one was done slowly enough to establish the mechanism for the audience. But it does make perfect sense that a mechanical lever subject to friction would descend more slowly under a few pounds of carefully applied pressure than it would under a man's full weight slamming into it at a dead run.
He was about nine years younger, yes.
Maybe. A paintball is lighter and less aerodynamic than a dart, so it'd be more easily slowed by air resistance. But over the short distance from the wall to the target, I don't think it'd make much difference in proportion to the other factors involved.
The needs were different. In the dart-run test, the proportions only needed to be roughly approximated, but in the chasm-jump test, it had to be based on the actual physics of a man jumping. Spielberg might've cheated the dimensions in the chasm jump using editing tricks, so the actual proportions of the set might not have corresponded to what a real person would be physically capable of. Also, as you say, Adam might be a slower runner than Ford was at the time and might not have been able to jump as far, so maybe it was necessary to calibrate the width of the chasm to fit his capabilities.
Yeah, but that's not quite the same thing. That's about keeping a depressed trigger from rising up, so any amount of pressure would work so long as it was at least equal to the original pressure. This is evidently more of a lever setup with a very delicate balance; the podium actually went down after the swap, suggesting that the bag weighed more than the idol. So apparently it required an exact substitution. Of course, it's hard to see how such a thing could be rigged in the first place, or why centuries of dust accumulation didn't trigger it already. (Or why the idol was so clean and polished, while we're at it.) But it could've been an interesting challenge to design and test such a rig.
It was an okay bit of science demonstration, but I'm not sure they needed visual evidence to prove it moved faster than sound; the whip crack itself is the evidence, because it's a miniature sonic boom. This wasn't testing a myth so much as demonstrating an established fact. Also, it would've been a better educational segment if they'd explained the sonic-boom idea and the physics of how the end of the whip gets accelerated past the speed of sound, rather than devoting all their attention to capturing a visual record of it.
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