The 5 Most Baffling Explosions in Movie History
In Hollywood, anything can blow up. Thanks to this rule, we've all had to experience our fair share of explosions that, well, strain credibility a little. And then there are the ones that are just completely retarded.
#5.
Van Helsing's Exploding Wagon
Here we have Van Helsing, a film that took one of the defining novels of the 19th century, tore it to pieces like a ravenous hound, buried it somewhere and produced a vehicle for Hugh Jackman. In the novel, Van Helsing is a 60-year-old Dutch man who embodies everything about 19th century sexual repression, in this movie, he carries an automatic crossbow and leaps from a burning carriage to fire two pistols in slow motion.
You can argue whether or not those are improvements, but there's no arguing about this:
Why It's Ridiculous:
That's right, a wooden horse-drawn carriage ran off a cliff, then exploded like it was crafted entirely from sticks of TNT stuck together with C4.
Not only is the concept laughable on paper, but the film actually shows you there's nothing particularly explosive inside (just a bunch of stakes, as the superbly-acted Vampiress so kindly points out).
They do gain points, however, for using it as a device to introduce the world's first Holy Nail Bomb.
If It Really Worked That Way:
If horse-drawn carriages could explode like this, well, for one thing Oregon Trail would've looked a whole lot more like Grand Theft Auto.
For another, action movies would never have been invented at all, because kick-ass historical documentaries would have pretty much dominated the box office from the beginning.
#4.
Jaws: The Revenge (of the Exploding Shark)
OK, a real nitpicker could point out that the oxygen tank explosion in the first Jaws wasn't exactly realistic (ask the MythBusters guys), but we'll let that one go. That's the sort of thing that seems like it would work, and by Hollywood standards, that's more than good enough.
But by the time the fourth Jaws movie rolled around, things had gotten silly enough that we were surprised the shark didn't fly. To cap the whole thing off, this happens:
Why It's Ridiculous:
Yes, this clip can only be described as a travesty to God and man alike. It laughs in the face of the laws of nature by having a roaring shark (a roaring shark?) that, contrary to everything mankind knows about physics and biology, explodes after it gets pierced with a piece of wood.
Continuing its orgy of disregard for everything that is good in the world, the film goes on to cut to grainy sepia "flashbacks" to the original Jaws, as if to say "Hey, remember this? We weren't always this bad! You know what, I'm gonna load up the trunk, and we're gonna go out and have a picnic--just like when we were first going out. How about that, honey? How about that?"
Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect, with Spielberg's defining work making this movie look that much more retarded by contrast. An attempt at a tasteful homage ends up having the same effect as Brett Ratner sticking clips of Citizen Kane in the middle of Rush Hour 2.
If It Really Worked That Way:
For one, the roaring shark thing might actually be beneficial, we'd be able to hear them coming and they may be less likely to eat humans who had already crapped their pants at the sound (that is, all of them).
As for the exploding shark phenomenon, you'd have to think that would ensure they'd never go extinct, but on the other hand, we may be wrong considering the number of accidental detonations that would surely happen during mating season.
#3.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 Prompts a Vehicle Recall
This of course if the film that produced the legendary: Garbage Day clip. But not as many of us have experienced the incident that occurs just moments later, and earns the film a spot in the Stupid Explosion Hall of Fame:
Why It's Ridiculous:
Remember the Ford Pinto? The most dangerous car ever to enter mass-production due to its easily-ruptured gas tank? Imagine one of those, multiply it by murder and you have a car approaching the one seen in this clip.
First our bad guy shoots the radiator, which apparently causes the driver to steer toward the conveniently positioned ramp. This causes the car to go sailing to within an inch of the bad guy (we're guessing much to the surprise of both the actor and the stunt coordinator). It then rolls onto its roof, somehow managing to land on its wheels again.
There is a brief moment when the driver no doubt felt the rush of relief, having survived both the shooting and the crash, vowing to live life to its fullest after having cheated death. At this point the car erupts like a fucking volcano.
If It Really Worked That Way:
For one, if cars exploded as the result of the minor force with which this one hits the ground, you'd be shitting yourself every time you brushed a curb.
Even worse, the impact somehow causes passenger compartment to detonate.
So what little chance you already had of surviving even a short trip in this death trap is reduced to zero.
Unless of course this means the driver was wearing a bomb belt, which would then mean that Garbage Day Guy foiled a fucking suicide bombing, saving countless lives.
Silent Night Deadly Night 2: A film that requires multiple viewings due to its rich tapestry of moral complexity.
I would like someone to explain to me why the Death Stars had two distinctly different explosions. The first Death Star, upon the nuclear reactor being hit by photon torpedos, just completely blew apart. The second Death Star, upon the nuclear reactor being hit by photon torpedos, just turned into a giant fireball that was just slow enough to enable Wedge and Lando to get out. And THEN the Death Star exploded. Presumably the nuclear reactor exploded lightly, then magically regenerated itself (The Force did it), then exploded like it was supposed to on the second try. And thankfully wreaked havoc on the moon of Endor.
ReplyIndependence Day. Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum release the nuclear weapon and it explodes, destroying several square miles inside the alien mother ship. Oh wait, it actually destroyed the mother ship, which was 1/4 our moon's size, in it's entirety. The nuclear explosion created a chain reaction of other explosions that eventually broke the mother ship apart. Oh wait, no it didn't, the mother ship just went boom. Okay, got it.
ReplyMan this made me wet.
ReplyAnd that ain't weird.
Exploding sharks may not be TOO far fetched but not in the same vein as the movie. I remember years back hearing about a dead and decomposing whale that exploded in the middle of a town while being transported to a lab.
ReplyFirst off, the shark was freaking ROARING, and second, the whale was DEAD and DECOMPOSING. So, the only logical explanation is that it was a zombie shark with vocal cords!
Recuse Kagan? Is that a name? Or does "recuse" mean something... like... reuse a recluse? Stick THAT in your pipe and sleep in it.
ReplyRecuse: challenge as unqualified to perform legal duties b/c of a possible conflict of interest
You're on the Internet. Use it. You might actually learn something.
I wish jet skis would explode like that. It would at least give me something to laugh at when the bastards are ruining my fishing.
ReplyMichael Bay. That is all.
ReplyBeing pedantic I know, but mushroom clouds are not a sign of a nuclear explosion: they happen as the result of a firestorm, so can result from non-nuclear explosions and events; there was a mushroom cloud after the Tunguska impact, for example.
ReplyThat said, two jetskies colliding would not cause a firestorm, so the cloud is still misplaced
It seems to have eaten my comment... Damn internet.
ReplyGoing to call OOPS on the welding one. I am a welder... Acetylene is so f*****g explosive they dissolve it in NAIL POLISH REMOVER to make it less prone to detonating. And they mix it with OXYGEN so it will BURN HOTTER.
Sadly a company I worked at was destroyed utterly when someone came in over the weekend and decided to do some light welding... The resulting explosion took out a building the size of half a city block, and of course reduced the guy to meat-bits.
s**t ain't no joke. This is why ELECTRIC ARC WELDING (TIG/MIG) is so much better. ;)
Jaws, the original is an amazing movie,(saw it when i was 5, because my parents couldn't remember what exactly happened) and one of my favorites. I laughed my ass off when I saw the 4th one. Pure Comic Gold.... that's sarcasm.
ReplyApparently the Cracked staff have never heard of the Ford Pinto. Fart on the rear end with too much force and it will explode.
ReplyOr apparently you just aren't a mechanic. I worked on plenty of Ford Pintos, they were no more dangerous than Chevy Pick-Ups and their side-saddle gas tanks. Or the first-gen Mustang with its trunk-mounted tank. And yet, no one ever hears about them exploding. Probably because they exploded about as much as the Pinto did: Not much.
Unfortunately, people rarely let the truth get in the way of a good story, and so people like you will endlessly repeat the story, while falsely assuming it to be fact.
@DennisMichaelBean...apparently you did not read the entry about Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 where the article clearly says this:
"Remember the Ford Pinto? The most dangerous car ever to enter mass-production due to its easily-ruptured gas tank? Imagine one of those, multiply it by murder and you have a car approaching the one seen in this clip.
That explosion at the end of Jaws I when Roy Scheider shoots the air tank is pretty ridiculous in its own right. But what I don't get is - that gun he's using is an M1 Garand right? Thats a pretty powerful gun. You could kill an elephant with it. Why didn't he just shoot the stupid shark in the head?
Replyit's powerful, but i wouldn't say it's that powerful.
Yeah, but if you listen to the commentary Spielberg says "In the book the shark drowns because he can't hold the barrels up any longer. I thought that was a boring way to end the book. I told Peter (the author of Jaws) that and suggested blowing the shark up. He said 'Steven, you can't do that. The shark will not explode like an oil lamp.' And I said "I don't care, I've got the audience in my hands, I want them rounding out of their seats, applauding and saying "YES! YES! This is what should happen to this animal."
^^^ That's actually from the movie commentary, so maybe that explains why he did it, though it's not possible.
Can I point out that C4 is nearly impossible to detonate and TNT is fairly stable?
ReplyHow about the exploding death discs in 'Wild Wild West'?
ReplyAlso, most explosions consisting of, say, TNT or nitroglycerin, which includes virtually all military explosives, produce huge fireballs in movies. When you see that stuff explode in real life, it makes a debris cloud with no actual fireball. True, most people seeing the movies aren't aware of the distinction, but if there's one thing Cracked is about, it's picking apart the details of popular movies, damn it!
ReplyI thought the Van Helsing wagon WAS loaded with explosives. The thing was intended to be a trap that shot out holy nails or something as stupid. The alternate ending to Jaws IV shows the shark getting run through by the bowsprit and coughing up blood and NO explosion and it's much better, of course that's not saying much. It's on YouTube.
ReplyYes, the Van Helsing wagon was indeed loaded with explosives. They even did some foreshadowing about how his sidekick liked to experiment with explosives.
The marine should have been on the list
ReplyMushroom clouds dont require nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs dont create mushroom clouds. Ridiculously large explosions create mushroom clouds, conventional or otherwise. This is among the many reasons terminator 3 was stupid.
ReplyThey've made many a mushroom cloud on Mythbusters and none of them were with nukes.
The MOAB (the largest conventional bomb in the US arsenal) creates a mushroom cloud. In fact, one of the reasons that the MOAB was built was to scare people into thinking we were nuking them when we were just bombing them with the greatest 4th of July firework ever.
Weren't there bottles in with the spikes? Could that have been the nitro glycerin?
ReplyHere's a helpful tip: Do not pick up an oxyacetylene tank after it has been in a structure fire, even after it has been cooled enough to touch. That s**t will EXPLODE!
Replyyea... putting the bond explosion on this list is BS, Oxyacetylene tanks are not designed to be dropped 3 stories on its regulator without leaking... this just shows a woeful inadequacy of safety consciousness, that s**t is dangerous. I don't usually call out cracked authors because its crap, but this one is bullshit.