Not convinced
At the bottom of MSN Messenger, there's a looping advert for Fast and Furious 5. It has, rather unimaginatively, opted for the advertising slogan of '5 times faster/5 times more furious'. It struck me as being incredibly unlikely.
Let's say in the prior movies, they've gone at least 80mph for chase scenes etc. That means they've got to have speeds of around 400mph for this movie. Having a quick look around the internet, here are some speeds relative to that:
122mph terminal velocity factoring in some type of wind resistance. Clearly not five times faster by falling anywhere.
180mph take-off speed for a heavy plane.
The land-speed world record is 415.896mph (powered by two 450+ cu. in. supercharged alcohol-fueled Donovan engines! I note that particularly because my surname is also 'Donovan')
But! 547-578mph is the average cruising speed of the average passenger plane.
So Fast and Furious 5 might manage 5 times faster, if compared to the first movie. But I've got a funny feeling that they might've used this kind of tagline for installments 2-4 as well - so working on 80mph as basis, 2 Fast 2 Furious must've had 160mph (still not in a plane), but Fast and Furious 3 would have had to be 3 times faster than that - 480mph. Fast and Furious 4 would've had to go a staggering 1920mph, leaving Fast and Furious 5 to reach 9600mph.
The world speed record is held by a rocket sled, at Mach 8.5, which comes out at 6,416mph. Fast and Furious 5 would have to beat the world speed record by around a further 50%. No offense to the film-makers, but I doubt that happened. Unless!
Escape velocity from Earth's atmosphere comes in at 24-25,000mph or Mach 32 (depending on location: nearer the equator is slightly easier, but the movie is set in Rio de Janeiro, which isn't all that close). It's a bit beyond the scope necessary for the film's premise, which is 5 times faster, consecutively, than previous installments, but if the film has a twist ending where they go into space, I'll forgive them the 5 times faster.
Chances are, though, they'll be saving that for Fast and Furious 6, which'd have to go 57,600mph to keep up, which is significantly less (~10,000mph) than the speed which the Earth orbits the sun. I reckon they'll take off at the end of this movie, and the next movie is about an ex-con and an ex-cop floating in space and realising that there's actually not that much difference between them after all, as they watch the Earth drift off into the distance and contemplate the mistakes they made in their lives to get to this point. And then aliens attack!
But then we get to the other part of the advertising slogan, which states that it's '5 times more furious'. What does that even mean?! 'Anger' isn't scientifically and quantifiably measurable! How would they even justify stating that it's 'five times angier, consecutively, than each of the previous films in this franchise'? Unless the characters by this point have no lines at all and are just spitting with rage at each other constantly throughout the movie - and I'm not sure if we go by either the Incredible Hulk or 28 Days Later as a standard of measurement for 'really incredibly angry' whether they'd be in any fit state to pilot a space shuttle by the end of the movie.
I feel like I need to watch the first movie now, to see if I can get some kind of measurement on precisely how 'furious' it is, to be able to estimate how much of this fifth movie will be spent with Vin Diesel going 'AAARRRGGHHH!!' and punching Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson uncontrollably in the face to be able to determine whether seeing the movie would be worth my time...
Let's say in the prior movies, they've gone at least 80mph for chase scenes etc. That means they've got to have speeds of around 400mph for this movie. Having a quick look around the internet, here are some speeds relative to that:
122mph terminal velocity factoring in some type of wind resistance. Clearly not five times faster by falling anywhere.
180mph take-off speed for a heavy plane.
The land-speed world record is 415.896mph (powered by two 450+ cu. in. supercharged alcohol-fueled Donovan engines! I note that particularly because my surname is also 'Donovan')
But! 547-578mph is the average cruising speed of the average passenger plane.
So Fast and Furious 5 might manage 5 times faster, if compared to the first movie. But I've got a funny feeling that they might've used this kind of tagline for installments 2-4 as well - so working on 80mph as basis, 2 Fast 2 Furious must've had 160mph (still not in a plane), but Fast and Furious 3 would have had to be 3 times faster than that - 480mph. Fast and Furious 4 would've had to go a staggering 1920mph, leaving Fast and Furious 5 to reach 9600mph.
The world speed record is held by a rocket sled, at Mach 8.5, which comes out at 6,416mph. Fast and Furious 5 would have to beat the world speed record by around a further 50%. No offense to the film-makers, but I doubt that happened. Unless!
Escape velocity from Earth's atmosphere comes in at 24-25,000mph or Mach 32 (depending on location: nearer the equator is slightly easier, but the movie is set in Rio de Janeiro, which isn't all that close). It's a bit beyond the scope necessary for the film's premise, which is 5 times faster, consecutively, than previous installments, but if the film has a twist ending where they go into space, I'll forgive them the 5 times faster.
Chances are, though, they'll be saving that for Fast and Furious 6, which'd have to go 57,600mph to keep up, which is significantly less (~10,000mph) than the speed which the Earth orbits the sun. I reckon they'll take off at the end of this movie, and the next movie is about an ex-con and an ex-cop floating in space and realising that there's actually not that much difference between them after all, as they watch the Earth drift off into the distance and contemplate the mistakes they made in their lives to get to this point. And then aliens attack!
But then we get to the other part of the advertising slogan, which states that it's '5 times more furious'. What does that even mean?! 'Anger' isn't scientifically and quantifiably measurable! How would they even justify stating that it's 'five times angier, consecutively, than each of the previous films in this franchise'? Unless the characters by this point have no lines at all and are just spitting with rage at each other constantly throughout the movie - and I'm not sure if we go by either the Incredible Hulk or 28 Days Later as a standard of measurement for 'really incredibly angry' whether they'd be in any fit state to pilot a space shuttle by the end of the movie.
I feel like I need to watch the first movie now, to see if I can get some kind of measurement on precisely how 'furious' it is, to be able to estimate how much of this fifth movie will be spent with Vin Diesel going 'AAARRRGGHHH!!' and punching Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson uncontrollably in the face to be able to determine whether seeing the movie would be worth my time...