MovieChat Forums > Total Recall (2012) Discussion > Whose idea is The Fall?

Whose idea is The Fall?

posted 11 years ago by SnoopyStyle
42 replies | jump to latest

Was it in the Philip K Dick story?

And am I the only one who thinks it to be the stupidest idea ever?
There is something called Airplane.
Flying rockets to Australia would be easier and infinitely cheaper.
Why built a tunnel thru the center of the Earth?
And why couldn't they invade Australia anyways after the tunnel was destroyed?
And didn't they built the robots in Australia?
Didn't the workers travel on the Fall to get to work assembling the robots?
Wouldn't the robots be in Australia already?

[–] unitbob 11 years ago

No, it wasn't in the Philip K. Dick story.

Yes, it's stupid.

[–] joel_zombie 11 years ago

Actually its faster than by airplane. By plane it would take like 20 hrs (guessing might be longer) to go from england to Australia. But by tunneling through the earth like that takes minutes. Plus all the harmful radiation thats outside the "safe zone".

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] joel_zombie 10 years ago

Thats why its a movie.

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[–] Flinstone 11 years ago

17 minutes to take thousands of people around the world. That´s a future.

Whole thing should´ve burned in earth´s core in it´s virgin trip.

´´This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time´´

[–] lithotomy 11 years ago

Whatever you do, don't watch The Core.

[–] nickthelick 10 years ago

Ah, The Core! A brilliant movie! =D
Nah, just kidding, it really was an awful piece of *beep*

[–] Kent_Kainer 9 years ago

The Core is an fantastic movie.

When I saw the tunnel in this movie I had to think of The Core too.
Both ideas are stupid but here its ridiculous on top.

Wouldnt it destroy life on earth? Meddling with the iron core, disturbing the magnetic field.

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Lincoln Lee: I lost a partner.
Peter Bishop: I lost a universe!

[–] vortexrider 11 years ago

It is not a stupid idea like some have commented. If hypothetically it were possible to drill a through tunnel and have an elevator like in the movie it would be free energy movement which does jot require fuel.
On one end of the earth a mass that is the elevator falls because of the gravity of the earth which would be somewhere close to the center. Once the huge elevator begins to fall it gains speed and inertia through gravity pull.

Once it passes the gravity center it should have the inertia and speed equal to that which allowed it to fall to the gravity center, so it would essentially slingshot to the other side and stop in the same distance from the point where people were shown to be weightless as the distance from the other side of the planet and the center. It may even be called slingshot effect.

Same principle was observed in space and used in some movies here an asteroid or a spaceship is pulled towards the sun or bug planet and then suddenly circles around the planet and flies into a different direction.p because in space there is very little if any friction it is most easily illustrated there.

In the movie we have to assume there is no friction of the elevator against the walls of the tunnel, but that's why it is sci-if. Most likely there would be friction that would slow down the smooth elevator movement. I imagine it would use something like electric rails use to move hyper fast bullet trains in Japan. They mice so fast because there is almost no friction between the rail and the train.
Technically this could be what they use in the movie.. If their tube is vacuum sealed also the speed would be very fast, and more efficient than any plane. That is my guess.

But real world obstacles probably would not allow anything like it to happen because of the extremely hot and unstable earth core, and there is also tectonic plates movement which would mess up the tunnel quickly.

Of all things I would not criticize this concept in the movie.

[–] SnoopyStyle 11 years ago

While I'm willing to discuss the science or the lack of science in this idea, It is the logic inside the movie that I'm most concerned about.

It would be much better to invade Australia using rockets or aircrafts than the elevator. The elevator comes out at a specific point that can't be changed. In the olden times, charging into a castle thru the front gate is ok. But if that's your only entry point, your enemy will just nuke it. If you use rockets or aircrafts, your robots could stage in many different places.

The worker travel thru the elevator to the other side to assemble the robots. So the robots are ALREADY in Australia. Aren't they?

Even if I'm letting you all the scientific excuses, there's the cost. How much would this thing cost? And could you ever justify it? Even if it cost nothing to operate, the carrying cost of construction would bankrupt the world.

[–] imcfadyen 10 years ago

Even though Australia and Britain are not directly opposite each other, a tunnel going through the Earth from one to the other would pass very close to the centre. The temperature of the Earth's core is around 5700 degrees, the same as the surface of the Sun. At this temperature every substance that we know would not only melt but vaporise. Even if some magical compound could be invented to line the tunnel, how the hell would you dig the tunnel in the first place, and what would be the effect on people passing through that temperature on the way? They would be roast chicken before they a quarter of the way there. In addition, while the free fall towards the centre would not have too many adverse effects other than nausea (people would be weightless for the duration of the fall) the ascent to the surface would involve such massive G forces as to probably disembowel them. All in all this is one of the dumbest science fiction movies ever made.

[–] SnoopyStyle 10 years ago

I think we're going to have to assume magic for it all. Like I wrote elsewhere, I don't know how much the Big Dig in Boston costed. This is a million times the effort assuming magical materials are used.

[–] TerraFirma69 10 years ago

the ascent to the surface would involve such massive G forces as to probably disembowel them

Not so, they'd be in freefall for the descent and the ascent. Like one of those bungee balls two people sit in. When it's rising through inertia (after the bungee contracts), the occupants are weightless inside it.

...then whoa, differences...

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[–] TerraFirma69 10 years ago

Yeah of course the speed is ridiculous, they would have to be travelling an average of some 45,000 kmh in order to do it in 17 minutes.

But imcfadyen's assertion was that even if it was a freefall system, then the g forces during the rise on the other side would be huge for some reason, just pointing out that that's not the case. The deceleration after the core would match the acceleration before it and the occupants would be in freefall the entire time, all things being ideal. It does appear the tunnel is filled with somehow sea level atmospheric pressure(??) so that puts the kybosh on the unassisted freefall model anyway.

Working on the 17 minute model, not sure what the g's would be (quite high one would think), accelerating to whatever top speed over the first 6500km then decelerating to zero over the second 6500 would have to be equal to keep them to a minimum tho.

Edit: Haven't included Coriolis, that's a factor that may hurt my puny brain.

All in all you're right of course, the idea is the height of stupid.

...then whoa, differences...

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] hoochiemoochie 11 years ago

The problem with the whole thing in general is that the UK is not an antipode to Australia so they couldn't drill an almost straight tunnel from one end to the other. The antipode of Australia would put them out in the middle of the Atlantic between the west coast of Africa and Central America. The antipode of the UK would put you in the Southern Ocean close to Antarctica.

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"Live every week like it's Shark Week."

[–] vortexrider 11 years ago

You're right. The whole concept is shaky. You're also correct if the movie clearly showed that it was a perfectly straight shaft. But I think it shows it is slightly curved. If this curvature occurs over such long distance and since it doesn't literally go through the center of the core but near it then it could have been curved where they want. In any case, personally I think this detail is not really a big deal in the whole film since in the original movie they don't really explain how exactly people get to Mars efficiently or whether it would be possible to create a Mars atmosphere in mere minutes.

[–] Kunovega 10 years ago

the mars atmosphere created in minutes was at least done through ancient alien technology, we can suspend belief and pretend the aliens are smarter than us and solved that problem

the issue with the fall is that humans made it and the logic involved in its workings should be comprehensible to other humans and the costs involved should be believable in the face of overwhelmingly cheaper alternatives

[–] henrimaine 11 years ago

I think The Fall was the best idea in this movie. Overall, the movie was inferior to the 1990 version, but The Fall with its gravity reversal was a great concept.

[–] SnoopyStyle 11 years ago

I can give you that it's visually interesting like a new take on Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling.

[–] teppo-2 11 years ago

The Fall certainly has its problems as a concept. I was willing to overlook those, but I gotta say it got a bit ridiculous when they climbed to the EXTERIOR of an elevator that's moving on average 45 000 kph during it's trip from one end to the other. Even if the tunnel somehow had a breathable atmosphere, at those speeds that atmosphere alone would pretty much instantly disintegrate a human moving through it at those speeds. Why not have people frolick naked on the exterior of a space ship making atmospheric re-entry while at it? Heck, it wouldn't even be going at such a speed.