Virtical Limit (telly last night)
Discussion
Anyone watch this last night?
The plot is that 3 people get stranded up K2 above 26000 feet. I always thought that in reality, if you get into trouble at that altitude as a mountaineer your as good as dead as the effort required to simply stay alive is so great that attempting anything else (even tying shoelaces) is extremely difficult.
Not so in hollywood by the looks of it. 6 people go up to rescue the original 3. Of those 6, 4 of them die plus a further 2 from the original 3 that were stranded making a total loss of 6 deaths for a net saving of 3 lives out of nine.
Why didn't they just leave the buggers up there to die like they would have in real life? Short film I suppose.
The plot is that 3 people get stranded up K2 above 26000 feet. I always thought that in reality, if you get into trouble at that altitude as a mountaineer your as good as dead as the effort required to simply stay alive is so great that attempting anything else (even tying shoelaces) is extremely difficult.
Not so in hollywood by the looks of it. 6 people go up to rescue the original 3. Of those 6, 4 of them die plus a further 2 from the original 3 that were stranded making a total loss of 6 deaths for a net saving of 3 lives out of nine.
Why didn't they just leave the buggers up there to die like they would have in real life? Short film I suppose.
mechsympathy said:
As a climber, that is crap film I have seen !!
I think you left out a few expletives.
Utter hollywood shite. Not just suspend belief and enjoy shite, but unmitigated, stop wasting my time, burn every copy in existence and shoot the production team shite.
For a proper climbing film what you want to see is Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction. Top quality footage in that one.
P.S. Anyone here seen K2? Strangely similar plot to Vertical Limit...
Dave D said:
tuscan_v8 said:
As a climber, that is crap film I have seen !!
Utter hollywood shite. Not just suspend belief and enjoy shite, but unmitigated, stop wasting my time, burn every copy in existence and shoot the production team shite.
For a proper climbing film what you want to see is Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction. Top quality footage in that one.
P.S. Anyone here seen K2? Strangely similar plot to Vertical Limit...
Well said .. The Eiger Sanction is true climbing film with Clint do all the stunt.
That bit at the end is quite heavy, where Clint is dangling outside the railway window, on his last legs, and they're trying to pull him in... one of the first attempts to climb the North Face ended in tragedy, with one of the guys managing to make it that far, to that same spot, then dying of exhaustion and exposure while they were trying to pull him in. I guess the film makers knew that; it certainly adds something to that scene.
Pigeon said:
That bit at the end is quite heavy, where Clint is dangling outside the railway window, on his last legs, and they're trying to pull him in... one of the first attempts to climb the North Face ended in tragedy, with one of the guys managing to make it that far, to that same spot, then dying of exhaustion and exposure while they were trying to pull him in. I guess the film makers knew that; it certainly adds something to that scene.
Yes, they never resolved the story there either about whether he rigged the pegs on the ice sheet so they all take a flyer. Most annoying!
jimothy said:
For a proper climbing film what you want to see is Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction.
Touching the void. Best climber film out. Cos its true.
Agreed, as a modest Alpine climber myself, Touching the Void was chair arm snapping scary at times. Really brought home the sickening loneliness of being injured in an out of the way place. The noisy breathing, the pointless swearing etc... all because Joe Simpson's story and his honest account of it are so compelling. Beautifully shot as well.
That tosh last night...I didn't last 5 minutes... opted for the 'reality' of the Brits instead.
Eiger sanction a bit of a period piece now but good in its day
I went up to Everest base camp and felt pretty fine (18K feeet 5600 M) but thought that the film details were crap.
No one just pure assends.. you would die of adeda very quickly.
They go up.. down.
Then up some more .. down.
All the while your body gets worse .. not one person had the dreaded cough .. due to the dry air. Hardly any one was on O2.
They should read the Everest disaster book .. think it's called out of thin air or something like that.
Once you read the book - you realise that all climbers face a huge moral dilema.
For instance you are one you final push up - you see someone in real trouble - do you : continue or try to help (and rish your life too) and you don't even know them !
It all gets more real when you realise helicopters cannot fly about about 22,000 feet due to the air being too thin.
The only ones that can are the big Russian ones (with everything stripped out) but of course then are just not sitting around Nepal/Tibet waiting to rescue the next idiot climber who decides to risk all in the death zone (> 26,000 feet) !
No one just pure assends.. you would die of adeda very quickly.
They go up.. down.
Then up some more .. down.
All the while your body gets worse .. not one person had the dreaded cough .. due to the dry air. Hardly any one was on O2.
They should read the Everest disaster book .. think it's called out of thin air or something like that.
Once you read the book - you realise that all climbers face a huge moral dilema.
For instance you are one you final push up - you see someone in real trouble - do you : continue or try to help (and rish your life too) and you don't even know them !
It all gets more real when you realise helicopters cannot fly about about 22,000 feet due to the air being too thin.
The only ones that can are the big Russian ones (with everything stripped out) but of course then are just not sitting around Nepal/Tibet waiting to rescue the next idiot climber who decides to risk all in the death zone (> 26,000 feet) !
rev-erend said:
It all gets more real when you realise helicopters cannot fly about about 22,000 feet due to the air being too thin.
The only ones that can are the big Russian ones (with everything stripped out)
Just came across some news that a French pilot did land a helicopter on Everest !!
www.mounteverest.net/story/FrenchEverestMysteryChoppersUtopiasummit-VIDEOMay272005.shtml
Click on the above to see the video
Top marks to the pilot and team for 'landing' the copter on top. Mountains and wind gusts are tricky for helicopter pilots, especialy considering they were 26,000 ft up. Apparently, they tried the helicopter at 10,000meters up (33,500ft) beforehand.
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