Badmovies.org Forum

Cars often launch themselves into the air at dramatically appropriate moments.
99% of the time, cars explode in a collision, no matter how minor.
1% of the time, cars do not explode.  They flip over and THEN explode.
The explosion will come from the passenger compartment or under the hood of the car.  Explosions never come from the area of the car containing the gas tank.
If a bad guy is in the car, it will explode immediately.  If a good guy is in the car, it will not explode until he has crawled out and run a short distance away.
If a car jumps over a ramp or other such obstacle, flies through the air, and makes a very hard landing, it will still run just fine.  In fact, you can do this several times with no damage to the car.
Most cars produce extremely loud, V8 exhaust notes regardless of whatever engine they actually have.
Car tires will squeal on dirt, gravel, snow, or sheet ice.
Driving on a perfectly straight road requires constant, large movements of the steering wheel.
No matter how fast you are already going, hard acceleration requires slamming it down at least two gears.

Great Post!!! hehehehe! You are correct! :thumbup:

Great post. definite karma..

Also have you ever noticed that when a car launches itself off of a parking building, bridge, cliff, ect.. that if you catch a glimpse of the underneath of the car, it magically becomes just a shell with tires.. no guts in the belly so to speak...

You forgot one:  If a car is parked in a remote area and there's a killer on the loose, the battery will automatically go dead.   :smile:

There is always at least one parked car that is unlocked and ready to drive, whether or not you can do this depends on your position in the film, if you're a minor supporting character you'll get in the car, have no way to start it and get killed/eaten by the creature/maniac, also if the killer gets in the car with you none of the other doors will open. If on the other hand you're the star or main character of the film you will know that in addition to leaving the car unlocked the owner keeps a spare set of keys behind the driver's side sun visor, find them immediately, start the car and drive away.

If the hero drives the car, it automatically becomes bulletproof

         Also... All cars are easy to hot wire , since you only need to touch two wires together and both wires are lose , already striped and hanging out from under the dashboard.

They also tend to explode the moment they drive off a cliff.  Either that or some maniac has traveled around the world, planting anti-vehicle mines on the sides of steep cliffs, just in case a car goes over the edge.

Really speedy cars don't actually need ramps to jump. For example, the '69 Dodge Charger can jump over practically any obstacle from a perfectly flat road.

This has sort of been touched upon, but cars demonstrate unexpected resiliance if used in chases, though cars being chased are much more invulnerable than the cars doing the chasing --
Heck, you can smash them through market stalls, crates of heavy vegetables, fountains, other vehicles, doorways -- As long as you're being chased, this will result in at most some dust on the body and perhaps a few cosmetic dents.
peter johnson/denny crane

Further to that, cars involved in a chase are far less likely to collide with other cars, or sustain damage from such a collision, while running red lights or emerging suddenly from alleys. This is balanced by the large number of collisions between the cars around them.

More neat facts...

In a high speed car chase/gun battle, no bullets will ever hit a needed component of the car which will cause it to slow down and stop.

EXCEPTION: If you're a good guy on foot, shooting at bad guys who are racing towards you, you'll miraculously ALWAYS hit something (or someone) that'll cause the car to veer off at the last moment (or explode outright). 

Plus, more often than not, bullet holes will magically appear/disappear over time.

Also, jumping out of a moving car does very little damage to you, so long as you "tuck and roll".

And shooting the driver of a car racing toward you will always cause it to miss you. It will never just continue on its course.

And in rare cases where a bullet does hit some vital component of a hero's car, we see that it is capable of running much longer than a normal car after losing all of its oil, coolant or fuel. What's more, anything but total destruction can usually be repaired in a few hours with what's at hand. Something like a cracked block might take a day or two.

If there is a monster or killer nearby, the engine will not catch.  It will have the strongest freshest battery possible, for some odd reason, but it just won't catch.

Exception:  The car in Evil Dead 2.   :bouncegiggle:

If a car is chasing a guy on a skateboard and the guy makes a sharp turn the car will invariably end up crashing into the back of a massive manure truck, showering the occupants with tonnes of cow waste. especially if the film stars michael j fox and is called "Back To The Future"

I've learned that if you get to the car, you will try the door but it's locked and you forgot the car keys, and by the time you go back in the house and back to the car with them, you will try the door and this time it will be open... and the inside of the car will be steamy...

I've learned that when the killer is about to get to the driver's door, the occupant will always fumble at least 3 times getting the key into the ignition...

I've learned the killer gets to the car first anyway and is always hiding in the backseat...

I've learned that driving off the edge of the Grand Canyon can't be good...

I've learned that if you stomp on the brake at high enough speed, and pull upwards on the wheel, you can make an ordinary Buick become airborne, and do amazing stunts like jump a semitrailer... 

I have also noticed that from scene to scene the rear view mirror can become invisible and then rear appear instantly. The same can happen with cracks in the windshield.

LOL, that's one of my favorites.  Apparently the wires are hooked up to the starter, but once the car starts, the two wires are twisted together.  But, um, wouldn't than mean the starter would be running the whole time the car is?  You sort of want those things to turn off once the car starts.  And how about the actual ignition system of the car that sends electricity to the spark plugs?  That's apparently somehow magically run through that same wire.  Maybe it's just the on/off wire for the car.

Having changed the ignition switch on a car, I can truthfully say that the wires are not that easy to get at, much less identify in a hurry.

Cars with some personality usually have silly names (Herbie, Christine, KITT,...)

Having shot a number of badmovies, especially ones involving car chases (Robochic, Kill Line, et.al.), I can say that the reason mirrors are always disappearing is that they are so difficult to shoot around, especially those big honking jobs in the middle of windscreens.
 
Yep, if you're observant enough, you'll notice in most TV shows AND movies, the central windshield mounted mirror tends to come and go quite a bit, depending on the shot.
You want your audience to focus on faces, and those mirrors tend to block the shot.

Also, notice how often the passenger windows are rolled down on car-interior shots, or how even sometimes the glass is just missing altogether from windscreen or side windows.  The reason is that those pesky glass surfaces tend to reflect crews & cameras very well indeed . . .
peter johnson/denny who's that behind her with that boom mike??

When the hero needs to get away and he needs a car, no matter how expensive it is, it's never fitted with a car alarm.

When beginning a chase, both drivers are obligated to hold down the brake and spin the tires for several seconds. Also, when heading for a wall, the driver of the bad car may not bail out or hit the brakes but must instead lock their arms against the wheel, lean back and scream.

Whenever someone, hero or villain, needs a car in a hurry, drivers will readily give theirs up with little more than a baffled look and maybe a "Hey!" if they're especially assertive.

Whenever the people inside the car need to evade the police or the bad guys, who still haven't noticed them, instead of leaving the scene quietly, the driver will step on it, leaving the place in the middle of smoke, screeching tires and nearly hitting all nearby cars.

Also, a few years ago I had a car accident. I accidentally hit the ditch on my right while doing 60 and my car lost control. It invaded the opposite lane of the road (thanks God nobody was coming from that direction) then slipped back to my own lane, before stopping. I later learned the first hit had destroyed the steering. I had no idea steering could be that fragile, and now whenever I see a car in a movie that suffers a lot of damage (like when they fly through the air and then land noisily without stopping, or they jump on sidewalks at high speed) I can't help but thinking steering should be damaged.

Cars in Scottish A-bomb shelters will always start on the first try after 30 years.   :lookingup:

Cars in some junkyards are equally reliable, and often have fuel and keys in them.

I learned that you can drive an Aston Martin through a bus and receive no damage to the car or yourself.


Also the strength of windshields varies greatly depending upon who is in the car.

The strength of a hero's windshield also varies, depending on whether he needs it for protection or needs to smash it out from inside with a gunbarrel to get a clear shot.

There was en episode of Star Trek Voyager where they found an old pickup truck floating in space.  Out in the absolute zero, vacuum of space.  They beamed it aboard and, need I say it?  It started right up.  That is just wrong on soooooo many levels  :question:

If an American made car flies 40 feet in the air, and flips during that process it will explode when it hits the ground. 

If you roll a car over and then roll it back so you can drive away in it, any damage done to the car during the roll over will automatically be fixed and look good as new. 

With all its flaws, "The peacemaker" had this right, Clooney had to shoot at the windshield a few times before he made a hole big enough to shove the barrel of his gun throgh it. It was supposed to be a bulletproof windshield, though.

I remember that :bouncegiggle:

Tying the two wires together closes the ignition circuit.  Touching a third wire to them activates the starter solenoid.  Once started, you leave the ignition wires together and let the solenoid wire hang loose.

On old cars that only have three or four wires on the ignition switch, you probably wouldn't get it right the first try.  And on a newer car that has about 6.022*10^23 wires on the switch AND all sorts of anti-theft features, forget it unless you know what you're doing.

What I'd really like to see in a movie is some guy hotwiring a newer car, touching two wires together and setting off the airbag  :bouncegiggle:

The Jag XKE is a boy scout magnet. Wait! That didn't come out right.

ALL cars have positraction.

The smug school bully has the nicest car, but if he's part of the main plot, he will lose it somehow (wreck, stolen)

Even a worn-out 72 pinto can lay 80 feet of rubber if you slam the accelerator down hard enough.

Superchargers, even roots-type, can be turned on and off with the flick of a switch.

Cars that are going 180+ MPH stop dead in their tracks when they explode.

Nitrous Oxide doubles the speed of your car, and is only used when already at top speed.

If you see a Lamborghini crash and burn, its aluminum will burn remarkably like fiberglass. Same with Ferraris.

Tough anti-heros are often scared of the only real car around (Eyes Vin Diesel).

When cars travel at speeds upwards of 100mph, everything around them starts to move faster as well.

Obviously they "beamed" a full battery charge and a tank of fuel into it before beaming it aboard, oh, and the teleporter replaced any corrosion with it's native, uncorroded material.  :bouncegiggle:

I must have missed that episode. Sounds like the plot of a battery commercial. Beam the truck aboard, put a bunny under the hood...you know the rest.

Lol, WHEN they try it, you can point out this site and collect some royalties maybe.