I thought the whole sequence where they were chased by the Remote Control Car was about as dumb as any in the five movies.
shareI find it interesting that nobody has mentioned that the rc car chase was a parody of the chase in Bullitt with Steve McQueen. Sorry I didn't see all the posts that mentioned the parody bit.
shareIt was terrible and took me right out of the movie. I know films like this are not meant to be "real" but that RC car bit was frigging ridiculous. This movie is easily the weakest of the Dirty Harry series.
shareI saw the RC chase and laughed several times, in a good way. You could tell the camera operators and cinematographer looked at the script and thought "oh yeah, we are going to have fun shooting this". The angles, the slow-motion jumps all featuring an RC car, it was great. Come on everyone, atleast the filmmakers have a sense of humor and aren't afraid to have a bit of fun.
shareIf it was an homage to Bullitt, I guess I can go with that. I don't think there would have been a "Dirty Harry" without Bullitt. I think McQueen was offered Dirty Harry before Eastwood. Clint did a great job with the character but "The Dead Pool" is my least favorite DH movie. He could have turned "The Gauntlet" into a DH movie pretty easily.
shareI'm watching the movie now and just saw the chase. It was compeletely ridiculous and unbelievable but I was thoroughly entertained by it.
i love my cats!
Funny to watch, but some of the stupidest stuff I've ever seen. Took the realism right out of the movie and made it a farce.
shareOh, it was definitely stupid for a lot of reasons - the RC car being able to keep up with a real one at high speeds and the guy managing to drive both cars at once, etc. - but, it's one of those things where you just shrug off the stupidity of it and enjoy it for what it is. I didn't mind suspending my disbelief any more than the filmmakers minded suspending the laws of physics...
shareHere is a quote from the Trivia page.
"Despite being equipped with an eight-cell 8.4v NiCd battery, not the race regulation 6-cell 7.2v, the bomb driver, Jay Halsey, was unsure if the "bomb" could keep up with the Oldsmobile. During filming, the "bomb" outpaced the Oldsmobile on numerous occasions, forcing the scene to be re-shot several times; therefore, the "bomb" was not driven at its full pace until the part when it was about to be detonated."
Quote source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094963/trivia?item=tr2747690
Everyone is talking about Bullitt car chase! I haven't even seen the movie...
By the way my physics maybe bit rusty but even if the toy car was engineered in some way, wouldn't it have to run many times faster than the big wheels just to keep up... I would also like to know what kind of power source the toy car had, it could solve all our power problems today
Dead Pool is actually quite a decent sequel, close to, maybe even a 7.. but I feel this particular scene pulls down the film's ratings.
This was one of the points where the movie "jumped the shark". Jim Carrey didn't help either. What I find is silly is Axl Rose, WAS a rock star. All he had to do was lip-sync his own song. Then he had a few lines, about doing a few lines. That's it. How much acting did you need?
Axl would have been more realistic.
I would have changed the scene this way.
Have the Killer plant c4 to kill someone in the dead pool. Harry and his partner are close, and see the Killer jump into a dark green 1987-88 Mustang. A chase ensues around SF. (Homage to Bullitt) Then the killer sets a bomb to leave in the passengers seat. Lets Harry get close. The Killer slams on the breaks...and Harry rams the Mustang. While Harry and his partner are disoriented the Killer runs off but leaves the bomb in the Mustang.
Harry gets out of the car, shout's halt! Draws his revolver, and in an homage to Magnum Force. The Mustang explodes.
Killer gets away but leaves a clue for Harry and his partner to follow.
Same result. More realistic.
But this was Jim Carrey, man!
I am not a scientist...but have some energy conservation and thermodynamics knowledge.
for that little car to have been able to chase DH's Olds for over 5 MILES or so, at speeds of OVER 50MPH...It would have required the wheels to turn at likely 3-5000RPM. To spin that fast under street load constantly for maybe 5-8 minutes would have required over 200 watts for the motors...maybe a LOT more. SO, say a battery to power this would have to have been at least 10 AH. IN 1987-1988...Lioh rechargeable batteries were NOT the norm, so it would have to have been Lead-acid or Ni-cd, both of which are heavy compared to LI-oh. Probably at least a 24 volt, 10AH battery, about 10 pounds. All in all...NOT really possible, but maybe with Li-Oh...it WOULD be. Now--it WOULD have been possible for the car to carry lithium disposable batteries, since it was a 'one way" mission. These did exist then.
Also--the drive motor is going to produce a LOT of heat running this fast-(probably 10k rpm or more, into the gears,) so, it would need to be cooled. A big heatsink around it would work for a short time..but likely NOT long enough to chase a full size car around at speed for 5 miles or so. Once overheated enough...the motor shorts, looses power and dies.
As for the explosive...the ONLY conceivable way to put enough of a charge to blow up a car like it did...was to form the BODY with the explosive. THEN, maybe it could have carried enough, and still have been able to have room for the battery, servos, drive motor and gearing, and R/C unit. This is something I realized a long time ago about this scene.
SO all in all...a VERY far-fetched scene..and as some have said....with a LOT of "holes" in it...but I STILL LIKE it.
I think you are being optimistic.
50 mph = 73.3 feet per second = 880 inches per second. If I guess two inches in diameter for the wheels of the RC model, we get pie x 2 = 6.3 inches and 880 inches per second = 140 revolutions per second x 60 seconds / minute = 8400 rpm.
The rest of your numbers I cannot evaluate. I do not know what assumptions you make about the mass of the wheels and axels on the R/C car. I will point out that wattage is a power term, that is it is a measure of energy per unit of time. You are conflating two different energy measurements that are intrinsically related, but still separate, the energy required to spin the wheels at a specific rate and how much energy is needed to propel the car at a given rate. You have not provided enough information to explain your calculations.
Given all of that, I like your approach to the problem and you certainly propose the correct questions.
The remote control car chase is of "comic book" level of science and technology, is not necessary to advance the plot, and is a complete copy of the R/C (robot) car chase in "Runaway" that was released three years earlier with Tom Selleck in a movie that was written by Michael Crichton. In that movie the multiple R/C cars were autonomous robots were integral to the basic plot of the film.
RIPOFF executed poorly.
But I loved the movie anyway.
It was extremely stupid.
shareI recognized the remote control car occurs in the same neighbourhood, if not the same streets, as a car chase in Magnum Force but this time it's played for laughs. This reminds me of Terminator 3 playing up how Arnold Schwarzennegger geets his leather jacket and sunglasses at night for laughs as a nod to the more serious way he does it in Terminator 1 and 2. The unfortunate result is that it immediately removes the suspension of disbelief that the viewer may have had just prior to the scene, reminding them they are watching merely a sequel of an earlier movie rather than being immersed in a new experience.
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