Hacker Cinema
Cliffhanger
1993 · Film · 113 min
Directed by Renny Harlin
A year after losing his friend in a tragic 4,000-foot fall, former ranger Gabe Walker and his partner, Hal, are called to return to the same peak to rescue a group of stranded climbers, only to learn the climbers are actually thieving hijackers who are looking for boxes full of money.
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6 comments on Hacker News
I'm more cynical here. I suspect these are films (or many of them at least) are ones "they" don't want you to see... ever. It's censorship, so no remastering.
"due to our content licensing agreements" .. this is just Sony placating to someone else's demands. The question is who are "they" and why these films? Maybe these films end up being revised with alternate endings or tweaked characters.
If you see these films, what sort of person will you become? Is that someone who is undesirable?
Terminator 2, Rambo 1, Cliffhanger and Total Recall. We can't have that!
It's just a theory.
Are PlayStation users younger than average? That's important to note too.
Also interesting: recently YT removed the ability to see Likes in one's uploaded video list, only views and comment counts. The message could be: "be well-known, but don't be popular" Why?
Yet I think "Sort by Likes" would be a boon for YT creators and that never even existed, with the Likes column even removed a week or two after I suggested it.
When I visited the Tre Cime di Lavaredo with my family, two days ago another German family went down to death on a backside climb. It still didn't look dangerous to me.
On the other hand the Via Ferrata Monte Cristallo climb nearby is not recommended for families. This is the famous ladder in the movie Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone. Was always dangerous.
An article on rock slides and every photo is stunningly gorgeous. That's the Dolomites.
Fun tidbit: The formation mentioned, the Five Towers, is right across the valley from where most of the movie "Cliffhanger" was filmed (the Tofane Group around Cortina d'Ampezzo).
When creating an entertainment product, be it a movie or game, your user’s expectations are the canvas you paint on. In some places you deliberately violate them, in others you accommodate them at the expense of “realism.”
An amusing example: In the Sly Stallone rock climbing action movie “Cliffhanger,” they shot a scene where he ice climbs without an axe. To get past a certain section, he dips his gloved hand in cold water and freezes it to the ice, using that for traction.
This is an actual technique alpinists have used. But test audiences (who are not alpine climbers) rejected it as preposterous. So it’s on the DVD as a “deleted scene,” but wasn’t in the cut they released to theatres.
The movie also features a “bolt gun” he carries that can sink a bolt into rock, which can then be used as a hold or to attach a carabiner. No such thing is possible with current technology, but audiences accepted it as possible, so it plays a prominent role in the plot.
The movie’s producers were catering to their audience’s expectation as they actually were, not as we may wish they were.
John Long wrote a great story about this, which got optioned and eventually became the movie Cliffhanger.
I haven't checked your link, but John Long told the story in one of his many autobiographical books. He also was credited with the story idea that became the Sylvester Stallone climbing action movie "Cliffhanger," and that is loosely based on the incident.