UKC

I have the movie Vertical Limit on the TV now as youngsters are watching it. It is disgraceful! It insults climbing and climbers. Luckily the kids watching are only 8, so there is time for them understand climbing better.

In reply to mockerkin:

get a grip - great movie
anyway what are you doing in the house - the suns out?

In reply to mockerkin:


It's not gonna be just snow ...I mean....it's...it's got ice and rock

In reply to Blue Straggler:

http://blue-straggler.net/miTunes/Ice-and-rock.mp3

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I had to use that line at least three times last winter, its a classic

In reply to John Kelly:

>> Don't remind me. Family stuff isn't it.

In reply to mockerkin:

with you on that one - being a dad is a balancing act supported by a single cam in sandstone - don't touch that rope!!!

In reply to mockerkin: The thing is though if they made a movie that was accurate it would be worse than watching paint dry. It's entertainment NOT a documentary.

In reply to GridNorth:

Thats a fair point!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

>> I heard that bit. He also went on to say that they would need "special equipment" because of the ice and rock. So what fancy equipment do they need? If they are good enough to do that climb then they should know what gear they need. e.g. is an ice axe special on K2?
The bit at the start where several climbers were hanging off one rope. They were screaming with fright and kicking there legs around in panic. If you are good enough to climb that US Brit type route then you are good enough to know not to panic.

In reply to mockerkin:

The explosives. Have you even seen the whole film?

In reply to GridNorth: Have you seen North Face (Nordwand)? Proof that one does not need special effects to make a griping mainstream film about climbing.

In reply to PMG:


I thought some of the sets had a bit of a "Crossroads" feel to them though...

In reply to PMG: I quite enjoyed it until the point where the girlfriend spends the night out on the face in a dress and overcoat as TK dies which I thought was stretching things a little too far. If you look at the pictures in some of the historical books about those events it looks like they filmed it in exactly the same spot.

In reply to GridNorth: If you watch the Extras with the DVD, tho, the whole thing was filmed in a studio! Amazingly clever - I really thought it was filmed on the Nordwand too. I thought it was not a great film, but certainly worth a watch.....

In reply to GridNorth:

I agree. The final sequence is pointless. It somehow diminishes the tragedy of TK: left alone, surviving the night and finally not making it. It also detracts form realism of the earlier mountaineering scenes. And it is this realism which makes the film work.

Paradoxically, special effects and superhuman heroes do not result in a really gripping drama. They are simply unconvincing, also at the subconscious, emotional level.

In reply to mockerkin:

Having been to k2 id say its quite unrealistic. Skullduggery and volatile personalities are far more dramatic in real life than the movie portrays.

In reply to ice.solo:

The screenwriters were amateurs, then?

http://blue-straggler.net/miTunes/Amateurs.mp3

Don't movies like this bolster the reputation, among those who don't know any better, that climbers are fearless creatures facing oblivion every moment they clip into those two bolt anchors, which apparently are quite flimsy. Add in Touching the Void and it may be easy for the mainstream audiences to think that cutting the rope your buddy is hanging on, condemning him to death, or at least crawling out of a crevace as you burn his belongings, is actually quite common.

Yip, you'd be mad to take up climbing.

In reply to needvert: I reckon joe simpson had been snoring like a bastard the whole trip and simon yates was just waiting for his chance

Climbers always get worked up about this film! Very few things are portrayed accurately in TV or films for entertainment value. It's a movie. Just enjoy it for what it is - I do.

In reply to Milesy:

Let them be miserable, predictable and repetitive!

I am sure Doctors, Surgeons, Lawers, Police officers all laugh at inconsistencies in movies. On another forum I use an american cop remarked that he has never drawn his weapon (in NYC of all places) in his entire career, and most of his colleagues are the same but yet every movie and TV cop show show cops drawing weapons when someone steals a box of cereal and runs away....

I work in IT and very rarely do any films which involve technology and IT ring true, especially where hacking and stuff are involved. They all have these magical laptops that can bring down the world with a fancy program - very little basis in real life. I watch and enjoy tons of films which involve very dramatised computer and IT action but don't get bent out of shape whether it is actually possible or not.

In real life back in the 90s Jack Bauer wouldn't be able to just plug his pen drive into someone random person's computer and then log into the CIT mainframe. He would need to install drivers, he would need the Windows 98 installation CD.

CSI can manage to search a database of the entire world complete with their photos flashing up on screen in about 5 minutes where as I run some simple database queries on moderate amounts of data on some fast databases here and it can take hours to run...

Its TV.....

In reply to Milesy:

Hopefully they would all also agree that a realistic depiction of their profession/pastime would be a bit unentertaining

Of course. As would mine.

Evil Genius - Ok.. We need a piece of software to crack into the CIA database....

Programmer... Ok, let me talk to the business analyst who will gather up your requirements, and a technical architect who will come up with a technical design and, the project manager who will come up with project plan including some GANTT charts. We will then need to contract in a DBA, and some Quality Assurance Testers to help. Looking at the scale of the development at about 2000 man hours of development here at a time scale of about 6 months...

Evil Genius -- But.... We need to do this now! My evil plan goes ahead tomorrow!

In reply to mockerkin:

What? You mean that the jump with the Ice Axes thing wan't real!!

Thank god that the climbing sequence in the Star Trek film with Spock and his jet boots was true to life.

In reply to mockerkin:

Is Vertical Llimit the one set on Wales?

da dum, tish!