I finally got around to seeing this, and I don't think that it was a bad movie. There were some good moments, but it's just so frustrating when someone makes a movie about something they don't know about. Either that or they just don't care about reality.
shareApparently 47 Meters Down was inspired by real life events. I would presume that the film makers did some research so they probably have some idea of what happened to the sisters. Regarding reality it is a movie and that sometimes does require a suspension of belief. The film makers probably also used some creative license in some of the scenes.
shareI don't know what the real event was. But I can tell you that at 47 metres down, in that situation they would have maybe had 15 minutes of air tops. There was just so much that didn't make sense. Usually I can put aside reality when it seems like a movie tries, but this movie didn't try. It's a shame because I really wanted to like it.
shareMy understanding was that the cable snapping sending the sisters plunging to the bottom was something that actually happened. I agree that there were some errors when it came to the scuba tanks. The tanks were compressed air and breathing pure oxygen like what would hurt them. I'm not 100% sure about the nitrogen narcosis with the second tank though. The one sister was killed by the shark so I think the second sister was hallucinating reaching the boat.
shareThe air was only compressed because of the depth they were at, and it's not pure oxygen. Also nitrogen narcosis is more like being drunk, so the big hallucination was a stretch, but I could overlook that if I didn't have to overlook so many other things. Nitrogen narcosis wouldn't have come from switching air tanks, which was super impressive that she could do it at that depth, not being certified. It comes from being too deep, too long.
I understand that had they done what they should have done, there wouldn't have been a movie. But sharks, or no sharks, they were dead because they ran out of air soon after hitting the bottom.
You have some valid points and I do suspect that the filmmakers did use a lot of artistic license. I think at one point one of the masks was the open circulated kind but I can't swear to it. I was also not sure about the com system. I would imagine it would have been darn near impossible to hear because of the water. I began to wonder if the second cable was even real or a hallucination considering the twist at the end.
shareI don't really think that they would have been able to hear, not just because of the com system but because they didn't equalize pressure on the way down and they probably would have ruptured their ear drums. :) But that was something that I could overlook. I have thought that perhaps the movie was supposed to be them in purgatory. That would make more sense to me.
That is a good point about equalizing the pressure. The com system seemed wonky but then again most of the equipment on the boat was old and in poor condition. They even made it a big deal about the poorly constructed cage by showing a big crack in one of the bars after a shark bit it. I think that both of them died in the end. Kate was of course attacked when she went to get the second new tank and I think Lisa let herself drown as she was being escorted to the surface by the coast guard.
shareThe phrase is suspension of DISbelief.
shareTaylor: “I haven’t sent more [compressed air] tanks down until now, because the longer you’re down there, the greater your risk of nitrogen narcosis.” A paraphrase, but close enough. Whomever wrote this knows NOTHING about SCUBA diving! The risk of nitrogen narcosis, the “rapture of the deep,” increases with depth, not with length of immersion. Every 30 feet of depth (one atmosphere of pressure) equals another Martini in your bloodstream. Period.
What DOES increase with time of immersion is risk of oxygen embolism, colloquially called “the bends,” a life-threatening condition. I became SCUBA certified in 1962, and this movie insults my intelligence. You don’t know the difference between nitrogen narcosis and oxygen embolism, and you purport to know how to write the script for a SCUBA movie . . . ?! You incompetent asshole! Who did you blow to get this gig? How did he taste?
A speargun is useless against a Great White of the size shown in this film. The spear would glance off the fish’s scales. A powerhead or bangstick (a hand-thrust spear with a shotgun shell delivered into the Great White’s minuscule brain) is, on the other hand, very effective.
And then there is the issue of Mandy Moore’s character, with ZERO SCUBA training, knowing how to swap out a regulator (the hose thing between the compressed air tank and her full-face mask) under panic conditions. I can suspend a lot of disbelief, but I also know that 95 percent of all SCUBA diver fatalities are the result of diver panic.
And then Mandy Moore’s character starts talking about her buoyancy compensator (“My BCD!”)! How the FUCK does her character know about the very sophisticated floatation device, let alone its abbreviation, air-filled from her air tank, that keeps her body at a neutral bouyancy level, regardless of the depth she is at, regardless of how much her cells, and her wetsuit’s cells, have been compressed, and how the FUCK does she know how to work it? A chat between sisters before jumping into the ocean can’t do that!
The nonsense about the protocols of decompressing, which IS immersion/depth time-based, is beneath contempt. More ignorance. More pandering to the fans of Frozen and The Vampire Diaries. Excuse me while I puke.
And what happened to the Coast Guard, allegedly “on the way, within an hour, equipped for a deep-sea [150 feet is not
“deep sea,” but 500 feet is] rescue?” THEY don’t have a recompression/decompression chamber with them?! Many divers have made emergency assents and been saved by these chambers.
HOWEVER, after all these slams, there is one thing that I will vouchsafe: Mandy Moore’s character gouging the rolled-back eyes of the Great White that was going to make a meal of her. That is a terrifying technique, among the uninitiated. It also works—on all species.
PS What is this “posts are limited to 2,000 characters” message I’m getting? Has Jimbo run out of money? This is not a collaborative post. I’m only one character!
But I am quite a character.