Explosions

POSTED BY: SerenityValley
UPDATED: Friday, May 23, 2003 17:59
VIEWED: 4362
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SERENITYVALLEY

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 4:04 PM

You notice how there's an explosion in Buffy recently and all the main characters and reaccuring characters don't die even though they were standing like right next to the bomb? When I saw the commerial, I thought only like two or three potentials would live. Not saying I don't like them, but I found it disappointingly unrealistic that they all survived.

Simularily, in the Dead or Alive script for Firefly, there is also an explosion at the beginning and all our main characters come out practically unhurt. Now, obviously I don't want them to die or anything but if you have like random nine people and put them in an explosion where a lot of people died or got seriously injured, wouldn't you expect at least one of them to be bleeding or something?

Just a little thought to start conversation. Don't attack me or anything.

--J

"Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?" -Wash
"I told him to sit down," -Simon

SLOWSMURF

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 4:28 PM

Well faith was the main one that was REALLY close, and even being a slayer she got knocked out pretty bad...

ZEKE023

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 6:19 PM

This is kind of strange. Some humans are just resiliant to death - did you ever hear about the guy who fell out of the airplane at several thousand feet and walked away with a single broken arm? I had a college aquaintence who died while drunk - he slipped and hit his head on a porcelain urinal. These are two extremes.

I don't think it's unrealistic to survive an explosion depending on the circumstances (and being supernatural is a pretty good way to survive anything)...

But despite any unrealism - at least it's not like 24. At least a car didn't slide down a thirty foot embakment only to explode in a huge ball of flame, throwing it's passenger to a safe distance at the last minute, all while the only observer slips into unconciousness and gets amnesia over the ordeal.

All being said in done - I'll side with Joss.

-Zeke

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 6:27 PM

I'm just happy that Faith didn't die, she is one of the most interesting characters there.

You're right though, some people are resilient to death. I little kid went over Niagara Falls (the Canadian falls) in only his life jacket and wasn't hurt a bit. Yet other people went over in barrels specially designed to go over which had padding and everything and were built for the sole purpose of letting someone go over the falls and live- and they died.

SERENITYVALLEY

Wednesday, May 21, 2003 3:58 PM

I'm not saying it's unrealistic that people can survive things like that. I get that. I'm just saying the fact that all the main characters just HAPPENED to be those people who are resiliant to death in explosions. That's all.

"Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?" -Wash
"I told him to sit down," -Simon

CHRISTHECYNIC

Wednesday, May 21, 2003 6:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SerenityValley:
I'm not saying it's unrealistic that people can survive things like that. I get that. I'm just saying the fact that all the main characters just HAPPENED to be those people who are resiliant to death in explosions. That's all.

"Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?" -Wash
"I told him to sit down," -Simon

This doesn't work for this case, but if you see something and the main characters refuse to die, it's a good idea to remeber that people don't often write stories, for film or reading, about the people who die. In any well done work there should be the capability to follow someone elses story, but it it's boom they're dead before the main part of the plot is resolved then thats no fun.

LERXST

Thursday, May 22, 2003 3:08 AM

I'm wondering about the jet wash, too. Serenity landing that close to folk would just send 'em flyin' like leaves in the wind.

_________________________________________________
Raspberry! Only one man would dare give me the raspberry...LONESTAR!!

LOSTANGEL

Thursday, May 22, 2003 8:39 PM

Hey, the stuffed turtle got hit pretty bad in Dead or Alive. Made Jayne all sad too! If that's not a casualty, I don't know what is.

______________________
Lost Angel

WASH: Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.
ZOE: We live in a space ship, dear.
WASH: So?

SERENITYVALLEY

Friday, May 23, 2003 2:58 PM

Quote:
Hey, the stuffed turtle got hit pretty bad in Dead or Alive. Made Jayne all sad too! If that's not a casualty, I don't know what is.

Good point.

(Besides, that part had me laughing to tears. My mom was in the next room. I bet she thought I was pretty weird laughing at the computer so hard.)

"Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?" -Wash
"I told him to sit down," -Simon

THEGN

Friday, May 23, 2003 4:48 PM

SerenityValley has a point, but it’s not a new point. In almost every show and every movie and every story ever told the heroes and heroines always seem to escape death. That is simply the way the stories are told. It might seem a little unrealistic and it is, but that’s why they call it a story and not real life. The fact is that if our heroes or heroines were exposed to reality driven circumstances one of two things might have to be true, either they would all be dead within a couple of episodes or the stories would be hella boring. As someone once said about war, “war is hours and hours of boredom punctuated by a few terrifying moments.[paraphrase]” Reality just doesn’t always make for good tv.

On the other hand, too much unbelievable violence can lead to a loss of plausibility which can also render a story boring and listless. Much of this is on the producers to put effort into creating realistic story timelines, but much of this is also on the viewer. If you’re not prepared to suspend reality a little, don’t waste your time watching tv at all.

With that in mind, consider this: the reality that we believe is true is not always the reality either. For instance, someone gave the example of a person falling out of airplane and surviving. To most people, this would see almost as an act of make-believe. In fact the explanation for this is given as some philosophically rendered axiom that “some people are simply resilient to death.” In reality we all know that with the exception of fictitious “superheros,” there are no people who are simply resilient to death, yet when we hear about someone surviving a fall from a plane, it does seem that way, doesn’t it? This is likely the historical foundation for the mythical hero. However, the real explanation is a bit less romantic, then the superhero notion. The fact is that a body falling through the atmosphere reaches what is called terminal velocity very quickly. Terminal velocity is the speed that a falling body reaches when the force pushing up, due to air density is equal to the force pushing down due to gravity, and thus the acceleration is cancelled out. Without acceleration the body continues to fall at the same rate from then on. The terminal velocity for human body is actually pretty high, little less then 200 miles per hour (varying with many factors). This is fast enough to kill you, if you fall onto a flat hard surface, but it is not necessarily fast enough to kill you if fall on a slanted or soft surface. And more importantly, a falling body reaches this velocity at less then 1000 feet. So it doesn’t matter whether you falling from a plane 3000 feet up or 35000 feet up, you’ll still hit the ground at the save velocity, and if that ground is snow covered and slanted, or if trees can break your fall, you might very well survive.

I’ll give you one example of what I’m saying. I once spoke with a person about some movie (I can’t remember the movie) in which that person insisted that the story was not believable because a character in the movie who had been shot with a large caliber handgun did not fly backwards. This is a perfect example, because in reality, a person never flies backward when hit by a bullet. There just simply is not enough moment in a bullet to push a person back like that. So the fictitious story-line reality of the movie was actually more real then the impression of reality of this person.

The point of this is that are many factors that most people don’t know much about, but these factors are important in reality, real reality, not just what we think reality should be. So when we watch a tv show, we judge that story-line reality based on our limited understanding reality, but we can’t forget that the real reality might be something completely different from both.

How does this apply to Buffy? I don’t know. I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong. I’m just saying, TV shows should be enjoyed not criticized for their realism, because how do you really know what is real or not? Have you ever been blown up

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