Movies that require you suspend belief in the laws of physics
A damned good example of this I discovered whilst watching an episode of Mythbusters. It was a film with Angelina Jolie in it about some guild of assassins. I hadn't seen any of this movie before, but when they showed what they were testing, I nearly pissed myself laughing. Bending bullets? Seriously? Even I know from high school physics that every thing moves in a straight line unless there is some influence upon it, so once a bullet leaves the barrel of a gun, that's it; you can't get it to curve around an object.

What do they take us for? Idiots?

Oh! Hollywood... right!
(An eejit passing by in a purple satin skirt with sparkly bits, Mon 4 Apr 2011, 22:45, 11 replies)

Bullets do not go in straight lines!
Where to start...

In deep space, far from planets, in a vacuum, bullets will go in (approximately) straight lines.

On a non-rotating airless planet, they go in simple curves, pulled down from the straight line by gravity.

On a rotating airless planet, they go in rather more complex curves, with the exact path differing if you're shooting north, or west, for example, as well as with how far north you are.


On the real earth, variations in air pressure change the overall shape of the trajectory, as does humidity and temperature. Wind blows the bullet off course.

There are also experimental manoeuvring bullets, these vary from new and exciting tech, to stuff that was used in WWII(?) where you shoot an artillery shell on a curved path, and then a rocket motor lights up in the front of the shell, and shoots it back towards the gun, where it's recovered, and the pictures the camera has taken are inspected.
(speedevil, Mon 4 Apr 2011, 23:31, closed)

that's why
He said 'unless there is some influence on it'
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 0:43, closed)

You could bend a bullet away from its normal path, if you had a very small portable black hole.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 4 Apr 2011, 23:36, closed)

and almost
Everything from the film 'Armageddon'.

And I get told off for saying 'well that wouldn't happen'
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 0:45, closed)

At this range
You'll have to take into account the coriolis effect.
(MunchMyBalloons, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 3:12, closed)

That film will (probably) be
Wanted, also with Morgan Freeman & James McAvoy
uk.imdb.com/title/tt0493464/
(MartinB9999, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 8:13, closed)

I agree up to a point
I don't care what real life 'rules' are broken in a film as long as they work within that films self defined universe. If you have created a reason why things can happen, then great.

What really irks me are either films set in the real world that suddenly break these rules or films that break their own defined rules. That's just cheating, not storytelling.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 9:00, closed)

you probably won't want to watch Exiled then

(sanguine badger spirits in the room tickle you like a sneaky prawn, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 9:59, closed)

So...
...how do footballers bend a kick then? There's no reason that you couldn't do this with a bullet, although you'd have to revert to old-fashioned round shot and somehow impart lateral spin.

You're absolutely right that you couldn't do it with a standard bullet because the longitudinal spin is designed precisely to make the bullet fly straight. But the idea that any bullet couldn't curve sideways without some obvious external force like a sidewind isn't necessarily true.
(flimflam_machine, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 11:24, closed)

Um
Well yes if you kicked a bullet off-centre with a swinging arc of your leg thus creating spin thus creating drag thus changing the trajectory of the ball. I don't think kicking bullets really works though and would probably just end up annoying the intended target instead of killing them.
(Blunt Logic, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 14:08, closed)

That really is blunt logic
When I said "There's no reason that you couldn't do this with a bullet.." by "this" I didn't mean kick it!

[BA]

Fool!

[/BA]
(flimflam_machine, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 14:11, closed)