Mythbusters: Movie Myths

I make no secret about my love for Mythbusters. It's one of my favorite shows on TV right now. Last night they had a two hour long special about movie myths. It made me stay up past my bedtime, but it was absolutely worth it.

Like all episodes of Mythbusters, there was plenty of destruction and the results defy the simple categories of Confirmed, Plausible and Busted that they are lumped into at the end. Let's run through the myths and what happened.

Awning Fall (Plausible): Remember the scene in Temple of Doom where Indy and Kate Capshaw run behind a rolling gong to hide from bullets then jump out a window, ripping through three awnings, and bouncing off a fourth. The team set up three awnings for Buster to fall through, while shock stickers were added to various parts of his body to test the forces he would be subject to in the fall. Buster fell straight through the first awning and became wedged in the second. They went ahead and cut him out, allowing him to fall to the third and then to the ground. When his shock stickers were examined, they found that he had not suffered any forces that would be lethal, making the myth that using awnings to break your fall plausible. The word plausible fails to mention that if Buster had hit at different angles, he might have still been dead and that his injuries would have been such that even landing in Short Round's car wouldn't have been enough to give him a quick getaway. I don't know about you, but the sight of Buster's limbs detached from his body was enough to make me think I wouldn't want to do it.

Ejector Seat (Plausible): This was probably one of the more straightforward results. Adam and Jamie built an ejector seat into an old Toyota. Using air pressure, they were able to make the seat eject, taking a test dummy with it. It may not be like the ejector seats in spy movies, but the principle is the same, and it worked.

Sword cutting a sword (Busted): Since every movie with a swordfight seems to have a scene where someone cuts an opponent's sword in two, Grant, Tory and Kari tested whether a sword could really slice another one. Since none of them were expert swordsmen (and it wouldn't be too safe either) Grant built a sword swinging machine. Personally, I was hoping for something a little more Battlebots like, but hey, a decapitation machine is a decapitation machine. First, they tested using a high quality sword against a weaker display only katana and found that the real thing sliced straight through the weaker sword. However, they could never get the same results using two swords of the correct quality. It didn't seem to matter if they used a katana, rapier, claymore or Viking sword. The myth was busted. The problem with simply saying it was busted was that yes, the sword didn't slice the other, but on at least 3 if not 4 occasions the target sword still broke. It was not a cut, but are we ever sure that it is a slice in the movies? Swords can definitely break each other, but won't cut through each other unless one of the swordsmen grabs a stainless steel display sword on his way to the duel.

Shooting Out Locks (Busted/Plausible): Lots of locks. Lots of guns. Lots of destruction. The team tried shooting out a bunch of deadbolts and padlocks with 2 handguns and 2 rifles. The padlocks and deadbolts both gave the same results. A 9 mm and .357 made the locks look pretty ugly, but they still worked. (For the padlocks, had none of these people seen the Master Lock ad where they shoot it with a handgun?) Once Grant moved up to the shotgun and the M1, the locks really didn't stand a chance. You can absolutely shoot out a lock with a high powered rifle from short range, as long as you don't mind getting showered with dangerous and potentially lethal shrapnel. I'll stick with a key, thanks.

Bullet Breakthrough (Busted): In Underworld, Kate Beckinsale shoots the ground around her feet to make a hole that falls through, allowing her to quickly get to the next floor down. I think Tom and Jerry used to do similar things, only with a saw. Tory set up a rig that would allow him to safely blast away the floor with a submachine gun. Once the floor was riddled with bullets, the sandbags on the target should fall safely to the next floor. Unfortunately, after 360 bullets from his machine gun and a few helpful rounds from Grant with the shotgun, the floor was still there. Damaged, but still there.

The Dukes of Hazzard Jump (Busted): The big myth for the night was jumping a car off a mound of dirt and having it land on all four wheels so that you can drive away. Jamie rigged a remote control up to a car which would run the course he and Adam had prepared. From the film, it appeared that the car was going 75 mph and traveled about 175 feet. They had the dirt ramp set up and the car up to 75. When it hit the ramp, it went airborne and flew, just like in the movies. It even went about 172 feet before taking a nose dive and demolishing the front end of the car. In case that was not enough to bust the myth, they showed the long jump champion for cars. He traveled over 200 feet, and the car landed on four wheels in drivable condition. Unfortunately, he spent the next 6 weeks in a hospital. The bottom line: Don't try this at home. You, the car or both are not going to make it.

I hope more of you out there watched it, because this episode was great. I just wish that while they were on the subject of Temple of Doom, they could have tested the whole pulling a beating heart out of someone's chest thing.