MovieChat Forums > Chernobyl Diaries (2012) Discussion > If you can't walk 13 miles in one day...

If you can't walk 13 miles in one day...


then you deserve to die. How this group isn't able to wake up when the sun comes up and walk 13 miles to the checkpoint is beyond me. Yes the one guy is injured and can't walk at all, then leave another person there with him for company and safe keeping and START WALKING. Even if you go in intervals of walking 2 miles and jogging 1 mile, you're going to get to the checkpoint before night falls.

Personally I didn't like this movie. I didn't care for the characters at all, and when they died I didn't feel any remorse for it either. If anything I was rooting for them getting killed just so it would end and I could leave.

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It would have been wise to just make a sled type thing for Chris and go. I mean seriously. 13 miles is nothing to save your effing life. They all could probably walk a mile in 18-22 minutes.

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Exactly! Let's walk 13 miles and yeah we'll be extremely tired after we're done walking, but we'll be safe and alive. Or let's stay here and have our energy but be killed or captured at any given moment. I'm gonna go with option A. I was telling my friends they should take the seat out that Chris was on and carry it with him on it and just keep moving.

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Agree. I was more frustrated by the fact that they have completely forgotten that they are in Chernobyl, for God's sake! There is radiation. If I were in their shoes, I would probably freak out and start running to the checkpoint, only because of that fact.

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True... They should have gone straight for the checkpoint as soon as the sun went up - and no later than that... Could have been a totally different movie had they done that.

I'm gonna eat your brains to gain your knowledge!!!

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this movie did suffer from, among other things, a serious case of "it's broad daylight....and now it's pitch black dark" syndrome.

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I think the radiation would not have reached lethal levels until they had been there far longer. However, like you, it would be something I would be concerned about.

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To be fair, Yuri had warned them about the animals in the woods, and they
actually did wind up getting chased by some wild dogs.

It's not like this was a nice hike in a nature reserve.




"Tide's up. Time to stay alive...."

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even more reason to haul major ass - i award you no points for your argument.

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You must award him points for his argument. The dogs killed Yuri, so they had good reason to fear them.

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Doges would be the least of the worries. Chernobyl has a substantial wolf population.

Still. Staying means death. They did try to walk out, but got side tracked, and then things went to heck.

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and getting out meant death by mauling.
its a no win situation for them.

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Exactly. The more the movie went on, the more we knew they were all fu**ed.
What are people smoking? I'd love to see how those criticize the character's actions would have managed to survive.

🐺 Boycott movies that involve real animal violence (& their directors) 🐾

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Well, they did start walking. With Chris left behind with someone just as you said. Did you not see this? They ended up finding a match of cables for the van and mistakenly decided to go back so they could drive out with Chris and his girlfriend instead of hiking the rest of the way. I don't remember anyone ever saying something like, "No we can't walk 13 miles, that's too far."

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Agree with what Geo said.

They made every horror movie cliche mistake you can make throughout the flick.

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They walked for like 10 minutes, found the cables 10 minutes later, and then it was dark.

What did they do with the first half of the day?

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The problem with that sled thing is the guy is they wouldn't be able to run if the dogs came after him,and they tried walking but the dogs were in front of where they were going to be walking.


See The Avengers It is the Best Super Hero Movie

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Hell i think four people carrying one small guy would still be able to run.

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u missed the whole point of the movie! This isn't about being realistic! How many horror movies have u seen where people are either smart about getting out of a location or about doing the right thing. It was a movie, a horror one at that. If they did walk out it would have been a documentary and not a freaking horror. I do understand that most horror movies have to have something happen to keep people in a location but really if u dont like this movie than u cant like all horror movies. I am sorry but if u dont like the same old same old than why watch this in the first place. U pretty much know what u are getting into. I loved this movie and I like that they didnt do what they should have done cause then it would never have happened. Hello do u know what horror movies are! Entertainment, enjoy yourselves........if u dont like this than wach dramas or comedies. I am sure they will be more realistic for you! But dont hate on horror than complain when horror does its thing. Dont watch it if u dont like it! Just SAYIN! COME ON!

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The thing that bothered me was that from a movie standpoint, this was such an easy fix. Just make all the events happened on the same night. I couldn't believe it when they all woke up unscathed the next morning. Giving them a whole day to just screw around really is a major plot hole, especially since only about 15 minutes of the movie took place on the second day during daytime, and nothing that any of the characters did during that time even remotely added anything to the plot.

They could have easily had the dogs or mutants break through the glass on the first night, forcing the group to flee the van and leading to all of the events that took place on the second night, and the movie would have been much more realistic and just as entertaining.

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I have actually done this. 2 heavy shirts over 2 tree branches to form a 'stretcher' (the sleeves are pulled inside the shirts to secure the branches) and a patient on the 'stretcher'.

We did about 2+ miles in 38C deg heat at a steady jog. It soon became agonising. Not a clue how long it took as the only timer we had was the 8 pints of blood in the patient which he was losing. He survived. Im guessing 30mins or so ...

Even at a slow walking pace you would be able to do 13 miles in a 24 hour period as long as any extreme weather wasnt against you and you took rests when necessary ...

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And weren't being chased by wild dogs and mutants, and not scared or anxious, and not cold as hell... The movie conditions don't match your mock rescue. I don't mean that to be a slight against you, I'm just saying.

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Oh please, you act like this is some sort of super-human feat. Plenty of people run around 5-10 miles regularly. They are not super human athletes. Being anxious would make you walk/run even faster. They were all healthy young adults in the film and there were no extreme weather conditions. No reason that they can't walk 3-5 miles per hour. People need to get out more and stop being such couch potatoes if they think walking 13 miles is an incredible feat.

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Fair point, though you are neglecting to mention the most glaring obstacles this group faced: being chased by wild dogs and deliberately pursued by mutants ;)

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55

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Well, I only mentioned that they did start walking and planned to, and even left behind the injured one with someone to stay with him - the OP sounds as if they completely refused the idea of walking, and did not leave the injured one behind as suggested. I didn't say they started walking at sunrise, which they clearly did not.

I am confused about the lapse of time in this event, however. It seemed to be morning still when the others started walking - late morning, maybe, but this is what it looked like to me. I am not sure how far they actually got from the site, but it was still daytime when they found the cables and were running back - but it was full-on dark before they even reached the van again. This suggests that they were walking much longer than just "10 minutes" each way, but what confuses me is that the parking lot full of cars just seems to be another area of the city, which I don't believe should take hours to get to.

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IP did u even watch the movie bro? They tried to walk a few times actually but were forced to return because of the irradiated hounds from hell

Kill them all, Let God sort em out

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Okay yes, there were the dogs on the road, but would that really force you to turn around? Imagine yourself in their situation, if I were them and I saw the dogs in the road I would simply get off the road and walk a big half circle around where the dogs were. My point is, if I'm stuck in a place that is contaminated with radiation, I am going to get out of there as soon as possible. When Chris said "they took him" my first thought would have been "ok, as soon as morning comes (which we'll be awake for obviously because of what's happened tonight) we are walking or running the 13 miles as fast as we can so we don't expose ourselves to more radiation than we have to."

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That IS what they did. But then later, those dogs attacked them. That's when they had to cross the bridge and I assume hang out there for a few hours.

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Those dogs attacked them when they were in the car lot finding the part for the van. And the whole time lapse like Geo said didn't make sense, how is it bright as day when they decide to go back to the van but then suddenly it's pitch black out before they even return. The only plausible explanation for this is that they were many kilometers away from the van and couldn't get back in time before the sun had set. But if they are so many kilometers away, why turn back?! KEEP ON GOING

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Imperial measurement is idiotic, anyway, 13 miles translates to roughly 21 KM.


Now for me, I can run 1km in under 4 minutes, but that is race speed and I can't maintain that. However if we're going by jogging speed, maybe 7-8 minutes a KM with little rest required.

That averages to about 7 KM an hour.

So, if healthy, you should be able to make that 21KM checkpoint in 3-4 hours.

Walking, probably 8.

Even still with injury, you should be able to make it within a 14-16 hour timeline, so waking up at 8a.m. and walking slowly, you should get there by 10p.m. probably.



Those foolish enough to move from canada to america increase the average I.Q. of both countries

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Maximus- I did a charity walk which was 10 miles, both up and down hill, in 3 hours. I do not exercise, don't run, my fitness is pretty bad to be honest (I am 26) but i still managed to do it in good time..to be fair I was pretty much a pile of jelly at the end of the 10th mile, but if my life was at stake then I could have done 3 more miles in around an hour.

Even on uneven terrain, they still could have made it in a lot less than 8 hours.

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13 Miles is easily walked in around 3 - 4 hours at a steady pace, if you were in a rush to get to a check point and being chased by dogs and or mutants, even taking into account detours to avoid said dogs/mutants it would be more than possible to do it in under 5 hours tops.
I'd be disgusted with myself if it took me anywhere near 14 hours to walk 13 miles.

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Those dogs were wild so if the guy could shoot one of them the other dogs would eat the injured one immediately and leave the people...
Another thing:On the vans windows they had some blinds,they didnt use them to hide themselves but they used a torch wich is a bit silly.They got attacked in the car because of the injured guy was bleeding on the way back he led any kind of creatures to the car.

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No sure about irradiated hounds from hell, but I know an elderly man who walks through areas that have packs of wild dogs all the time. He takes a big walking stick and frightens them off if they come near. I was surprised nobody thought to pick up a big stick when they noticed the dogs.

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Maybe it was wintertime when you have less than 10 hours of daylight. But then again, I didn't see any snow on the ground and it didn't seem like freezing cold weather was a problem.

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This is what I think on the time lapse: the walk to the parking lot was a lot further than they show the viewers; but to avoid showing them walking with nothing happening for so long, they cut to continuity to not bore the viewers. What seemed like a short walk might have been an hour or so from their van. They didn't leave immediately after it became light out. They may or may not have slept, but it still probably took them time to get "comfortable" enough to actually leave the van after last night's events.

When the dogs started chasing them, they ran even further away from the van. Now, they're on the other side of a contaminated river. They need to a) double back around the dogs, and b) find another safe place to cross the river again. This makes the trip back at least twice as long as the trip there, maybe even longer.

I'm not entirely sure what the weather/daylight is like in that area around fall time (they had light jackets on), it would get dark earlier than normal after the daylight savings switch.

It's still a bit of a stretch, but not so much that it bugged me that much.

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They walked for like 10 minutes, found the cables 10 minutes later, and then it was dark.

What did they do with the first half of the day?

YES! That bothered me too....I was like how in the hell is it night already???

Would you like some hot coffee - in your face?!!! - Bert Macklin, FBI

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This. And they had a gun, why didn't they shoot the dogs. One shot would have scared them off easily.

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I know right!
seriously flawed movie, except for the first half which seemed like it was maybe shot in the place or a good set it was horrible. not only did it take them for ever but not using the radio every few to check in on them, they get there and the van is flipped LOL what a terrible movie.

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I agree that this movie had a bad story line but you have to remember it is a movie and they aren't going to show them walking around aimlessly. At one point in the movie they said they didn't know where to go. So it definetly could have taken them a very long time to find the broken down cars and then to get back. It would have taken even longer since they got chased by the dogs and then had to cross the river which means they would eventually have to find another safe way to cross it to get back to the van. All in all it easily could have taken them several hours to get the cables and get back.

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It wasn't ten minutesi n the movie, dumbass. It cut to them finding the parking lot a couple hours later, then cut to them in the dark, after they wandered around lost for quite a while.

Just because you're too stupid to understand it, doesn't mean it's a plot hole

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[deleted]

Yeah, that didnt make any sense. They walked a really short distance and then bam! Suddenly they had miles and miles to get back to the car and oh look its dark. Also the lack of flashlights/equipment left behind bothered me. Its not like those radiation effected people were using them. Find a bloody flashlight, a gun, a shovel, a knife, find something to defend yourself with.

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What's really funny about that is that the field of cars they found abandoned is real. They are the vehicles that the clean up crew took to clean up the reactor site; they had to be abandoned because of radioactive contamination. The cars are parked just outside of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

...11 miles away.

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First of all you think SOME ONE would I dunno think to look for an abandoned car as soon as light hit to get something to replace the cables!

They made this HUGE POINT of how the place was abandoned in like 5 minutes and everything was still there but no one thought "GEE LETS GO LOOK FOR OTHER CARS"

Further more, they had an effing GUN so even if the dogs did start to chase them they would just have to fire a shot in the air the dogs would run away, and bears do not tend to just randomly attack people unless they are STARVING or feel threatened, and that bear in the apartment building did not look starved.

And why the HELL didn't they decide to start walking when the sun came up....I mean just ONE of them. And the two toursits they didn't know why the HELL did they hold loyalty to the other people. I am sorry but I so would have been like EFF THIS and left, I would send help when I got some but everyone was an IDIOT in this movie.

I really do think they all deserved to die. Even more, we never saw a close up of a mutant or whatever was there attacking them and it would take WAY LONG than 26 years for people to adapt to the radiation.

Further more, the dude spoke FLUENT RUSSIAN IT WAS SHOWN, you think he'd try to yell at the mutants in Russian or at very LEAST at the end he wouldn't have gotten shot when they were telling him to FREEZE in Russsian. The human instinct is to survive he would have started yelling in Russian when he realized English wasn't working.

More than that it seemed like NO ONE HAD SURVIVAL INSTINCT! When you run to get away from someone you would be far better running into an open area not down into a strange buiilding into a basement where you have nnever been risking being cornered to be eaten or whatever. This movie answered NO questions only gave them.

Then like does OREN PELI know ANYTHING about radiation poisoning? Not once did anyone vomit, start shaking, mention having a head ache or feeling nauseous, tired, or anything. The most we got was chemical burns and blurred vision and that was only when the idiots actually went into Chernobyl.

This whole movie was a MAJOR FAIL. Oren Peli is a one trick pony and even then his PA franchise is becoming mega stupid as well. The only genius thing about PA was the marketing campaign And in the middle of this movie I told my sister I was annoyed and they better make up for it with a good twist WHICH NEVER CAME!

If I could give this movie a negative rating I would but the best I can do is one star. How this movie rates above Saw V (at last check) is far BEYOND ME! I would rather see Apollo 18 three more times and pay to do so than ever see this movie again, it sucked! It was a waste of time and money and if I ever meet Oren Peli I am going to punch him in the dick cause he is an ass. He needs to quit while he's ahead.

~Monica

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.....

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Chris couldn't walk though that's the thing. They were going to walk up the 13 miles to get help but they ended up finding cars so they could get wires instead.

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Well, every time they said, "We've got to go get help." They ended up investigating creepy noises coming out of a basement or something.

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While I agree these moronic people didn't deserve too much rooting interest, I don't think the mileage was why they weren't walking 13 miles. Of course, for us, the movie would have been even shorter. LOL

Think about it. There are voracious animals in the woods - plus whatever the mutants or people were. They are disoriented and already exposed to radiation and let's be honest, not the sharpest tools in the shed to begin with. Plus, there is the possibility of getting lost; they didn't exactly watch where they were going in the van. They were so stupid. I generally take stock of where I am going when someone is driving me somewhere. Mental notes of an area, markers, things that stand out.If it were me, even with all of my medical problems, I am a pretty nifty walker. I would have at least tried. I think I would have risked it rather than sit around in a van waiting to be attacked. Yuri heard something, early on, but if it were me, I wouldn't have ventured out to check it out. Gun or not. I wouldn't have bothered with that sh*t. It couldn't have been a good thing. What exactly was he going to do? It was stupid. I would have taken a few moments to think about the best course of action and then do it. If they were there illegally, it is not like someone is coming to save them.

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But put yourself in their position, what would you do? You're stuck in the middle of nowhere in a contaminated zone and you know for a fact that there is something out there that can kill you (the something took Yuri and he even had a gun.) Do you wait around for someone to come to your rescue (which is wishful thinking) or do you take action and decide for yourself, "I'm getting the heck out of here as soon as the sun comes up. I don't care which way I go, because I know that where I am right now is not safe at all." I keep saying it but I'll say it again in case somebody hasn't read my previous posts, I'm following the road out of here as soon as the sun comes up and there's no looking back. If I saw all the car lot I still wouldn't stop and look for the part, because that would mean I would turn around if I were able to find the replacement part.

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I am not really disagreeing with you at all. Again, I said if it were me, my tush would have been out of there, at least trying to find the checkpoint (as much as I could if I didn't know the way - as I also said, when someone is driving me somewhere that I don't know, I try to look for markers and remembrances so I can find it again; just habit in case of getting lost). Also, I wouldn't have done this whole thing in the first place. I have done some stupid stuff in my day, but this is perhaps more boneheaded than anything I can even imagine (extreme tourism to a radiation zone).

I guess my ghost hunting days weren't the brightest times - I mean, any loon could be hiding in a cemetery, let alone the slight possibility of the actual existence of the supernatural!). Maybe that was just as stupid as they were, I don't know. I don't think I risked my genetics doing that or my long-term health (unless you believe that a ghost or demon attached itself to me in those situations and followed me home, should you believe in that sort of thing)...

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when someone is driving me somewhere that I don't know, I try to look for markers and remembrances so I can find it again

The vast majority of people don't do this, especially when they are on vacation and supposed to be relaxing and having fun.

Horrible film, though.

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Eh, i do think the group in the film DID follow, more or less, your
idea of how to handle the situation. The added caveat was the injured
brother, who it appeared was completely unable to put weight on his leg.

If they tried to walk out with him i am sure the smell of the blood would
have attracted the starving dogs (and other animals?) lickity split.

The group DID head out to try to find help, leaving him behind to be picked
up later.

They then discovered the component for the truck, and the one guy seemed
QUITE confident that he could repair it...

What do you do at that point? Continue on wandering hoping to find help, or
do you head back and attempt to fix the truck and get out?

It's a tough call, to be sure, but i don't think it's unreasonable to do
what they did.

"Tide's up. Time to stay alive...."

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I wouldn't be so worried about the non exsistent effects of the lack of radiation in Chernobyl atm any way..

If people watched documentries on the subject, there are infact scientists etc living in and around the city conducting studies. They appear rather healthy.

Funny enough the animals and wild life in the area are aswell.

So that aside..

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I agree. It really came down to continue wandering off the beaten path since the dogs were on the main road OR head back to the van with the parts to fix it so they could drive off.

That guy said he could fix it and if the van hadn't been attacked with their friends missing, then they would have fixed the van and drove off.

~
You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created- Adama

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Not sure if anyone brought this up but it wouldnt have mattered if they walked the 13 miles because the military wasnt going to let them leave anyways so this whole debate is pointless....there was never going to be an escape or help

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They also ran down the battery in the van so it still would not have started with the new cables. But who cares, it was still a fun movie to watch.

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[deleted]

No kidding, 13m is rough but in life or death that's nothing, especially if you've read King's The Long Walk, now that's scary.

To him mercy is passion With me it is good manners.You may judge which motive is more reliable

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