by John A. Whitehead, Quora.com
As a building maintenance guy since the early 1970s, most of mine are building related.
When one fire sprinkler head has heat applied to it the heads in the entire building turn on. I literally saw this one just last night on an episode of NCIS: New Orleans. Sébastien and Gregorio are stuck in a room hiding from a swarm of killer drones. They light a fire under the sprinkler head in their little store room, wait a few minutes, the amble out into the warehouse where all the killer drones have been knocked out by getting soaked by the sprinklers. Not only that, somehow the sprinklers have magically turned off!
Falling elevators. While this seems pretty routine in movies, in real life there are so many safety features that are so routinely inspected by professionals this is extremely unlikely. You would have a far better chance of being killed by an airplane falling out of the sky on your way home from picking up your lottery winnings. If you look at the list of elevator deaths List of elevator accidents - Wikipedia
you'll see that the majority are in construction or mining elevators, not an office building.
Lights that go on/off in sequence. The actor throws a big switch in the parking garage and the florescents come on in sequence all the way down the row. No. Unless these fixtures are on separate switches, they will all go on and off at the same time. Electricity moves at approximately the same speed as light.
People who climb around in heating ducts. For one thing, very few ducts are big enough. For another thing, they would not support the weight of anyone larger than a medium size child.
People climbing around in drop ceilings. The metal grid and the wire fastening the grid to the joists will not support very much weight. The tiles themselves are only slightly stronger than rye toast.
Picking locks. Apparently in Hollywood you can do this with a bent paperclip by simply sticking it in the keyhole and wiggling it around. You don't even have to rotate the cylinder, and it can be done in a few seconds! The most basic locks require at bare minimum at least two tools, a “rake” and a “tensioner.” Plus the cylinder has to be rotated in exactly the same fashion as it does with a key. In real life I've seen a professional locksmith with decades of experience and all the right tools take 15+ minutes to open a lock.
Breaking in a door with a foot or a shoulder. A properly installed door is going to have a latch or deadbolt that goes all the way or most of the way through the door jamb. Even the cheapest door is not going to pop open with one kick like you see in the movies. That's why police and military use a tactical entry tool or battering ram.
I've actually been in a position to try this. When I was in high school my dad had a tenant move out without leaving the apartment keys. Somehow my dad had misplaced the spare set and we had to get in the apartment. I figured, “no problem, I see this on the movies all the time.” First with the foot, then with the shoulder, then the foot again. Multiple times. My dad tried it too. With bruised shoulder and aching foot we went and got the drill out of the truck and drilled out the lock (like we should have done in the first place).
8. Gas explosions in a house. In Hollywood you only have to turn a couple stove burners on without lighting them, then run out of the house. A couple minutes later when the bad guy comes in and flips the light switch on, the whole house explodes. In real life the ratio of gas to air needs to be around 15%. More than 17% and there is not enough air for it to explode. Without doing the math, at less than 2psi of residential gas supply, it would take quite awhile for there to be sufficient gas for an explosion. Not to mention it would require an open flame or a spark to set it off. Flipping a light switch wouldn't do it.
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