Jumping a chasm in a mine-cart

[jack]

In Speed, there was a notably unrealistic scene where a city bus jumped over a large gap in an unfinished freeway bridge, despite the lip being, you know, flat. Ironically, they filmed this scene by driving an ACTUAL city bus over an ACTUAL bridge with a gap in it (iirc), but then digitally editing the ramp out later to make it look deliberately impossible.

OK, having workmen leaving a convenient ramp at the edge of the lip might be a little unrealistic, but nowhere near as unrealistic as having the bus magically leap upwards against gravity. Alternatively, you could choose a bridge which has a slope on each side, which under good circumstances could be actually realistic.

In Van Helsing, Van Helsing jumps a COACH AND FOUR across a chasm in a similar manoeuvre. Now, horses can in fact jump. But I doubt they could lift a coach by the harness.

Now, I think I've seen an EVEN MORE implausible attempt. In Journey to the Centre of the Earth, the guy from The Mummy jumps a MINE CART over a chasm. Now, ok, there may be a ramp. And it may get across safely. But what are the chances of it landing perfectly on the rails?

Comments

[onyxlynx]

And you know, that throws me out of the flow every time, even if I'm suspending the disbelief by the neck until dead.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm more outraged that they stole the mine-cart-jumps-chasm-and-lands-on-rails idea from Indiana Jones.

[jack]

Yeah. On the one hand, that's a cool scene, and I wouldn't want Indiana Jones to prevent any other similar films. On the other hand, they didn't even bother doing anything else with it, they just filmed it in 3d and called it a day.

At least in Indiana Jones the secret cult might have had SOME reason for building dangerous swoopy tracks across lava pits. But the mine in Journey to the Centre of the Earth was apparently built by Icelanders, who I would have thought would have gone for a traditional flat, just-wide-enough tunnel. In fact, there wasn't really any reason for the mine to be there, they just found some random mine carts.

[andrewducker]

I think you might be overthinking it. A sure sign of not having watched enough A-Team as a child...

[simont]

Off topic: why does that userpic flicker? If it were a still image, that would make sense; if it were animating some sort of motion, that would too, but is there a reason why it 'animates' between multiple differently drawn images displaying the same person in the same pose?

[jack]

Oh, um, I don't know, it just looked cool. I think it's copied from a computer game which uses a similar style (though I'm not sure), alternatively it was just badly made.