MovieChat Forums > Mulholland Falls (1996) Discussion > The Nuclear Bomb Crater

The Nuclear Bomb Crater

posted 15 years ago by layton59
9 replies | jump to latest

QUOTE:

At one point the movie shows an atomic bomb crater. There never was such a crater. Not even at Hiroshima or Nagasaki are there craters. Nuclear weapons are designed to be exploded at sufficient altitude to destroy everything on the ground but not create craters. If a crater the size that was shown in the movie really occured the debris would have formed a radioactive cloud that would have wiped out a large part of the U.S. While there were undergroud tests, there never was a crater.

The above is from the USER COMMENTS section.

In the movie one of the hat detectives asks where all the dirt went and he is told by another hat that it vaporized. That had me scratching my head.

When they walked up to the crater, it reminded me of the crater in the remake of the movie THE THING where they looked at the spaceship crater at the beginning of the movie.

Melanie Griffith got a 1997 Razzie for her role, not quite sure why?

I did not hate Mulholland Falls, although some parts of it had me frustrated.

*************************************************
Ye Olde Sig Line:

Liberals kill with ABORTION.
Conservatives kill with the DEATH PENALTY.
I kill with THOSE and WORDS.

[–] vosges1945 15 years ago

I guess we stopped counting the Sedan Crater. It's only 300+ feet deep, 1300 feet across, and listed in the National Registry as the largest man made crater. Google it sometime. Nevada is actually quite proud of it...

[–] layton59 14 years ago

Here is a link to that Sedan Crater:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_crater

Chillingly this explosion's fallout contaminated more Americans than any other nuclear test. 13 million citizens were exposed.

This makes the movie somewhat more credible.

***********************************************
Ye Olde Sig Line:

Liberals kill with ABORTION.
Conservatives kill with the DEATH PENALTY.
I kill with THOSE and WORDS.

[–] shoobe01-1 14 years ago

A better link is to the test:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_(nuclear_test)

And try this nice summary of Plowshares:
"The Plowshare project developed the Sedan test in order to determine the feasibility of using nuclear detonations to quickly and economically excavate large amounts of dirt and rock. Proposed applications included the creation of harbors, canals, open pit mines, railroad and highway cuts through mountainous terrain and the construction of dams."

The bomb was specifically placed underground, in order to make a big crater. That was it's job.

The part where it's explained that this is what nukes do at ground level, and the dirt vaporized is what a 1950s cop might have picked up, but is wrong. Not a problem, not even worth being intentional goof. Just what it is.

Incidentally, the radioactivity is why you don't drive through a pass built by nuclear bombs on the way to work each day. It's a Bad Idea.

[–] Pope_Bucky 13 years ago

For anyone interested, copy and paste 37.17694 N 116.04667 W into Google Earth to see Sedan Crater. Not too far south from there, the desert is pock-marked with craters from weapons testing.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

[–] Kieselguhr 12 years ago

don't forget Project Rulison.
Never forget Rulison.

[–] isundling 11 years ago

I remember reading a while back about the number of cancer deaths...actors, directors and on and on....filming in that part of the desert area during the 1950's and 1960's...

[–] crazydave682000 9 years ago

I took a tour of the Nevada Test Site a few years back and one of the stops is at the Sedan Crater. It is very impressive. The tour was great but no pictures were allowed the Test Site is now a Homeland security training facility.

Dave

[–] Cten05 8 years ago

On another note...

The green glass crusting the desert floor around the crater looks a lot like published photos of the fusion crust at the Trinity site. It would not, of course, have formed there in an underground test like Sedan.

When I was a kid, a Pasadena rock/mineral and lapidary company called Grieger's sold little pieces of Trinitite mail-order for about a dollar. Possibly not the safest thing to have around the house, but wonderfully historic. Still available on eBay, but probably mostly fake or from other test sites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitite

[–] Ironman54 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tumbler%E2%80%93Snapper