Stupid Stunts! part 1

Jumping through glass
As simple as this stunt may sound, it really pisses me off. In about every possible action movie we see people jump through a window. That's ok, sometimes it's necessary to get out of the building as soon as possible. It's how Hollywood does the stunt that I find annoying.

In the golden days of the moving pictures, every stunt was made for real and without much attention paid for safety of things. Take Harold Lloyd for instance. He was really hanging from that clock as though it wasn't really as high as it seems in the movie.

This really was dangerous

In those days when there was a scene where the character had to jump through the window, you did it for real. If you did it at all (the glass was quite expensive).

Then came sugar glass. It is made of sugar, water and corn syryp. As it hardens it looks just like real glass and it breaks easily. And the best thing about it: it's edible! Sugar glass is what you see in most of the older action movies. I like it when they use sugar glass.

But. Nowdays they rig the glass to "explode" into little peaces. This is how it's done: some electrical thingys are wired to the glass and when a stuntman jumps the charges break the glass. Of course timing is crusial and sometimes you see the glass break before the guy hits it. And that is one stupid stunt!

Unless you are Chuck Norris when it's understandable that you can break glass just by staring at it.

Chuck is the man!