A Poseidon Adventure Rant
So I’m staring at my computer with terminal writer’s block today; I can’t put down a single word for either story I’m working on. So I figured I’d come here and bitch about something that I’m coming up against in one of them, the ‘Poseidon Adventure’ AU I’m working on for SPBB13..
There was a fair bit of discussion about one part of the movie among fans of The Poseidon Adventure (even before the internet was discovered…heh): When the ship capsized, instead of climbing up deck after deck, facing all sorts of perils, with the dubious goal of reaching the hull of the ship, which is solid steel one inch thick…why didn’t they just go to the outside of the ship, break a window, and get out that way?
I think the only real answer to this is, because if they had, the movie would have only been 35 minutes long, and no one would have gone to see it :o) As it is, The Poseidon Adventure was the number one box office hit for 1973, and was something like the sixth highest grossing movie of all time for several years. That question never came up in the movie at all; at least in my story I can make mention that there’s too much wreckage in the way to get to the outside or something.
The second thing, and this is more of a personal issue, is the way the ship capsized in the first place. Before the tidal wave hit, the captain ordered “Hard Left!” (which really should have been “Hard to Port!” to keep it nautically accurate; then again the line was delivered by Leslie Nielson and I haven’t been able to take him seriously since he uttered the immortal words: “Have you ever seen a grown man naked?” in ‘Airplane’, so I guess he can be forgiven. But I digress :o) )
So anyway, the ship is now turning to PORT, trying to turn so the bow of the ship meets the tidal wave, rather than being broadsided by it. Since it’s making a left turn, the ship should be leaning to the left, but on both interior and exterior shots, it is shown leaning to the right (or “starboard”)…which is not correct, darn it. The way it’s shown in the movie, the ship is already leaning to the right because of the left turn it’s making (?!?), and then the tidal wave hits it, rolling it over completely.
If that scene didn’t ignore some fundamental laws of gravity, what should have happened is that the ship would have begun leaning to the left as it turned, and then as the tidal wave hit it, it would have straightened back up again, and then capsized in the other direction as the wave rolled over it. Admittedly, it looks a lot cooler and more dramatic the way it was done in the movie, so after some consideration, I’ve decided to raise a toast to Sir Isaac Newton when I write that scene and do it the same way.
Now let’s see if I can get some real writing done.
There was a fair bit of discussion about one part of the movie among fans of The Poseidon Adventure (even before the internet was discovered…heh): When the ship capsized, instead of climbing up deck after deck, facing all sorts of perils, with the dubious goal of reaching the hull of the ship, which is solid steel one inch thick…why didn’t they just go to the outside of the ship, break a window, and get out that way?
I think the only real answer to this is, because if they had, the movie would have only been 35 minutes long, and no one would have gone to see it :o) As it is, The Poseidon Adventure was the number one box office hit for 1973, and was something like the sixth highest grossing movie of all time for several years. That question never came up in the movie at all; at least in my story I can make mention that there’s too much wreckage in the way to get to the outside or something.
The second thing, and this is more of a personal issue, is the way the ship capsized in the first place. Before the tidal wave hit, the captain ordered “Hard Left!” (which really should have been “Hard to Port!” to keep it nautically accurate; then again the line was delivered by Leslie Nielson and I haven’t been able to take him seriously since he uttered the immortal words: “Have you ever seen a grown man naked?” in ‘Airplane’, so I guess he can be forgiven. But I digress :o) )
So anyway, the ship is now turning to PORT, trying to turn so the bow of the ship meets the tidal wave, rather than being broadsided by it. Since it’s making a left turn, the ship should be leaning to the left, but on both interior and exterior shots, it is shown leaning to the right (or “starboard”)…which is not correct, darn it. The way it’s shown in the movie, the ship is already leaning to the right because of the left turn it’s making (?!?), and then the tidal wave hits it, rolling it over completely.
If that scene didn’t ignore some fundamental laws of gravity, what should have happened is that the ship would have begun leaning to the left as it turned, and then as the tidal wave hit it, it would have straightened back up again, and then capsized in the other direction as the wave rolled over it. Admittedly, it looks a lot cooler and more dramatic the way it was done in the movie, so after some consideration, I’ve decided to raise a toast to Sir Isaac Newton when I write that scene and do it the same way.
Now let’s see if I can get some real writing done.
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