WHAT A MAROONED!

So here's a promise: no Lord of the Flies gags, and definitely none about Gilligan's Island.

Saturday night saw me marooned - I didn't promise there wouldn't be any stupid jokes; I've got a reputation to live down to - in a house without Foxtel, watching Lost on Channel Seven.

I'd never previously heard of this affair, but apparently it's quite the thing. It's about a plane crash which strands a bunch of travellers on a remote island. That's fine, I can handle that. Nor did it bother me they crashed on Jurassic Park. I can handle that, too; I like science fiction. In fact, I liked Jurassic Park, and even though the sequels weren't up to much, they weren't totally dire. Not totally.

Nor did I mind the cast: as standard a cross-section of punters as ever graced our screens. Blacks, Asians, a fat guy, a dweeb, a geek, a clever kid, a coolster and a pregnant lady. Pregnant chicks have taken over from chicks with sprained ankles. There was also the stock quota of cheesecake. No doubt a couple of sleazoids will appear, maybe even a sabatour. No, all that was fine by me. Movie makers have their ways and a formula cast isn't something that's ever gotten up my nose.

Although when the fat guy spelt out "b  o  d  y  s" I implored the TV "please don't let the clever kid spell it right, aahhhhh, there he goes!"

Never. The. Less. Lost wasn't a total bust and I managed to watch the whole thing.

However, there was one thing that bugged me, I mean really bugged me. You see, I'm not just a very bad teacher; I'm also an engineer. A fully fledged man-of-things-that-work. Trained and stuff, with paperwork to prove it, a plastic pocket protector and even a slide rule. Well, the slide rule belonged to dad. But it works, and what's more, I know how to make it work.

I can take all sorts of convoluted and contrived plot-lines and bizarro science-faction, but as a person-of-gadgets, it aggravates me enormously when ordinary gadgets do extraordinary things. Lifts, for instance. Lifts do not plummet down - or up, for that matter - lift shafts. They have a million (I never exaggerate) safety devices. Brakes, overloads, spring catches, monitors and cut-outs that will prevent a lift full of punters from tumbling to a lifty death.

Lost, though, contained the bull-moose, master AND commander, Knight's Cross with oak leaves, swords and 150 mm howitzer of Gadgets Gone Extraordinary.

If you saw the show there is absolutely no doubt you already know what I'm on about. That's right, of course I'm taking about the jet engine whirring away on the beach.

Jet engines are finely tuned. They are amazingly robust within their operating parameters, but they are still finely tuned. Although it applied originally to radio-electronics, the term "fine-tuned" sits mighty comfortably as a description of the operational status of jet engines; they are about as fine-tuned as any mechanical device can be. Little things have a disconcerting habit of making them un-fine-tuned. There are even documented cases of tiny particles causing catastrophic structural failure of jet engines. Watch the Discovery Channel if you don't believe me - The Crash Files.

A plane crashing is neither a standard operating parameter, nor is it a tiny particle. It may surprise you to know that a plane crashing contains more than it's fair share of destructive tiny particles and is, in fact, the mother of all "catastrophic structural failures". When's the last time you saw a crash site where all the plane pieces were sat neatly across the ground? And there's the hanger where investigators try to piece together what went wrong. Looks like a giant jigsaw puzzle that's been chewed by a dog, doesn't it. A jet engine attached to a plane which has come into more that usually uncompromising aquaintance with the ground, as did the engine in Lost, would NOT have sat on the beach spinning away as if it were being tested in a NASA wind-tunnel.

The instant the rapid forward momentum of the crashing plane was halted, the momentum would have sent the engine crashing into the ground like the rest of the scattered wreckage.

You will also note I haven't even started on the fuel-filled wing which scraped along the sandy beach separate from the fusilage, all the while spraying fuel over the crash-site - AND NOT IGNITING. Fuel which, coincidentally, would have been needed to run the jet engine. These things don't run on complimentary bottles of alcohol.

And did anyone involved in the making of this film even bother to ask "Well, if the engine sucks in the fat guy, how come it doesn't suck in the sand? Or a pebble? Or a piece of paper; a stray lolly wrapper, for instance?" There were, in fact, a thousand things on the beach significantly lighter than the fat, dumb shlub who strolled across the front of the engine intake.

Because, believe you me, a spinning jet engine sitting on a beach and capable of sucking in a fat tourist would undoubtedly first suck in enough sand to fill a thousand pairs of speedos which would in turn cause it to either come to a grinding, juddering halt, or more likely, blow up.

Next Week: Movie plots that would fail catastrophically if a tap on the head didn't knock out a sentry.

Comments

[PB]

My thoughts exactly- also, where was the electrical current coming from to keep ignition going? What a load of bollocks. Also, if it went into the hard from 30,000 ft, how were there any survivors? Humans don't tend to walk away too often from a 4-500 knot impact.

[Big Ramifications]

Cool video of an idiot being sucked into a jet engine can be downloaded here. (The "Why do people get sucked into Jet Engines?" link.)

I've seen better versions but can't be bothered doing a huge search.

[Rob de Santos]

I suppose we are to apply a "willing suspension of disbelief" as my Lit instructor told me way back when but I saw the promos for this stuff here in the states and didn't even bother to watch.

As a side note, the survivability rate of airplane accidents is actually something around 85%. You'd be surprised how many people walk away from crashes where plans make bad landings at 200 knots. However if you plow into an island at 400 knots at a sharp angle from altitude that goes down by oh, 2 orders of magnitude...

[SB]

All this linear thinking will make you crazy. It's fiction because it isn't true. That's the point. A retarded capacity to suspend disbelief is nothing to be proud of. And by the way the pilot is only an actor, you know.

[e staines]

So you prefer the highly realistic scientific methods employed in Jurassic Park, eh, Tony?

That Mr. DNA was highly convincing, I have to admit.

[Tony.T]

Like I say, I have no trouble suspending belief for sci-fi, medi-fi and general fantasy, but stupid gadgetry is just a personal Betty Noir.

That bloody great engine sitting there taunting me; it got me upset.

Bastard!

[Nabakov]

Well, I'd suspend disbelief for while in order to see what a fat bloke would look like going through a spooled up Pratt & Whitney PW4168A.

It's entertainment not history, Tony. Next you'll be complaining that Hellboy violates several well tested laws of thermodynamics.

[e staines]

I think Tony should make at least one post a week deconstructing engineering badness as demonstrated in the world of TV and film.

According to the IMDB, Withnail & I has some terrible errors as well... Barcodes! It makes my blood boil.

[Dirk Thruster]

My pet hate is...
what happens to all the bullets that miss?
I saw a guy in front of a glass wall as he was gertting shot at by an m-16 and none of the windows broke.

[Toria]

LOL, you sound like me watching a movie. Myself, being an engineering technician and a factual person, despises Hollywood crap! Air Force One as I recall was the worst piece of shit for that. So many things in that movie just sucked. I was told by my husband "Just shut up and watch it and suspend belief, okay" but man, it was hard! And another movie Six Days, Seven Nights with Anne Heche and Harrison Ford. :P Stupid suspension of all belief necessary as I recall.

[PB]

Bit of a toss-up as to the most idiotic airborne scene in a feature film- I'm torn between Arnie and some Gyppo having a punch-on around the nose of a Hawker Sea Harrier in hover mode with neither being turned into pink mist after being slurped into the intakes, let alone the thing crashing in a ball of burning kero due to no-one flying the fucking thing (True Lies) and a scene where terrorists enter a C5 Galaxy through the refueling tube from a KC135 and take over said transport in order to swipe two F117s, despite the fact that they would have to be about 10 cm wide to fit through the tube, would have been chopped up by pump inpellers and sliced up by baffles them drowned in a sealed tankful of avtur (The Interceptor). Tough ask.

[Tony.T]

Now c'mon. You people.

I don't have a problem with obvious fantasy and stuff like that. It's the stuff where suspension of belief isn't an issue, but where ignorance is. The average shnook doesn't know how things work, and Hollywood plays on that.

The British, on the other hand, are more subtle.

Withnail: "The fucking kettle's on fire!

[Bruce]

I noticed exactly the same thing mate. It turned out to be a deal breaker for me. As soon as the guy got sucked up into the engine I headed for the PC to play Rome:Total War.

The engine intact and upside down was the killer. The things are supposed to fall off in an impact, yet this one had miraculously stayed connected and fuelled.

I will try again as it came highly recommended by friends in the States, but the opening sequence was utterly contrived and crap. And not good crap.

[Tony.T]

Agreed, Bruce. The thrust is good; plane crashees marooned on island getting eaten by monsters. I like that in a movie. But the dodgy engine stuff? No, no, that just goes too far; totally unbelievable.

[e staines]

Tony, do you think they left the scene where they repair the Jaguar out of the final cut of Withnail because it did not pay enough attention to accurate mechanical detail? Bruce Robinson's big on that kind of shit.

[Tony.T]

A wise choice on Bruce's part, Ed. The way these things work, budget-wise, there's every chance they would have replaced the jag engine with a lawn mower motor.

I might have noticed that.

[CB]

Well, you are gonna shoot coke out your nose when you find out the reason the emergency beacon can't be heard is because they crashed BACK IN TIME!
And there's a fucking Polar Bear too, allegedly. I too got frustrated with the contrived plot and went straight for the US episode guides.

[Tony.T]

Saw the Polar Bear Thursday night, CB.

One the whole though, you've landed smack bang on my point. I love time travel movies, Polar Bears in the tropics and all sorts of fantasy craziness. They are all sensible in a suspension-of-belief way. But I simply refuse to compromise on dodgy gadgetry and machinery run amok. That's taking it all too far.

[Nabakov]

Finally saw it the other night and talk about suspension of disbelief. Especially the dialogue. The show has a good initial premise but they just recycled every line you've ever heard anyone say in a TV miniseries.

And the polar bear looked pretty fake. Obviously James Caan in a white rug is cheaper than CGI these days.

[Tony.T]

Time travel works for me nearly every time, Nab. At least to start with.

The set-up's fine, even if the details are bogus. So far, so good.

I'm told it wasn't Caan, he was in Vegas.

[Far Queues Saul]

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1501921

[Tony.T]

What am I looking for, Far-Q? The Tremors picture? Good fillums, those. Most chuckle-worthy. Who'd ever think Michael Gross would do good work?

[Reality]

so how dumb do you feel now?

[Tony.T]

Reality bites.