Yes, even in the age of computer effects and entire sequences shot in front of a green screen with tennis balls, there is still no substitute for gross neglect of human safety.
Since society has had several thousand years of practice at recognizing con artists, you'd think we'd get pretty good at spotting them. But you'd be wrong. For a scam to succeed, it doesn't take any kind of special genius. Or even average genius.
We tend to romanticize the age of exploration, like it was all grand exotic frontiers and tiny people tying sailors down with ropes. What we don't hear about so often is the scurvy and the starvation and the months of endless walking through landscapes full of awfulness. And that's too bad, because it actually makes their stories that much more bad
Often the weirdest partnerships are the ones the movies don't seem to think are wacky at all. These are the cohorts and conspirators that, in real life, would have no reason to trust each other with a lunch order, let alone their lives.
Some people are, let's just say, a little more casual around nuclear material than the rest of us. And by people we mean governments, corporations and just random, everyday dumbasses.
Suprisingly, Stanley Kubrick was probably closest when he imagined the nuclear era as a game of poker between cocky, absent-minded lunatics. Only he probably didn't go far enough.
Sometimes it's bad luck, or shady business dealings, or the fact that the world just plain isn't ready. But one way or another, we've lost world-changing innovations for, in hindsight, ridiculous reasons.
When the checks were being written and not a single ticket had been sold, a lot of the biggest hits in Hollywood history sounded absolutely ridiculous in concept.
The guys on this list aren't your run-of-the-mill bums who've decided to take up an instrument to help with their panhandling. These are the guys with acts superior to what you're likely to see on a stage.
