Beware the bottomless pit!

Summer Blockbuster Edition Part One – things common in movies but never observed in real life

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In the opening scene of the two-part Tom Cruise blockbuster Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, audiences are told a super-advanced sentient AI is aboard a Russian submarine. The sentient AI is able to render the entire submarine invisible solely by using mental prowess!

This being possible seems hard to believe, but then, we do not have super-advanced LLM compilers, including “five-dimensional data storage.” (Actual line in the flick.)

To access the sentient AI, one must possess a pair of medieval cruciform keys. Why the most sophisticated tech ever to exist relies on centuries-old metal parts is never clear, though, this plot device creates a MacGuffin for the first film (find half the key) and a MacGuffin for the second (find the other half).

When the keys are combined and we see the super-advanced sentient AI – it is suspended at the center of a bottomless pit.

How could there be a bottomless pit aboard a submarine? Get some popcorn and stop asking questions!

In a Star Wars flick, the evil emperor falls down a bottomless pit located in -- his office! Image courtesy Lucasfilm.

Bottomless pits are among the staples of Hollywood sci-fi, fantasy and action flicks, though have never been observed in reality.