Yes Speed 2 was bad in many ways.
The biggest question is what was already brought up about shutting down the engines manually. With large diesels there are many ways to do this very easily. Also carrying around a device to wirelessly activate doors and other features is not going to happen.
Nor is a passenger just stumbling on the bridge! There is not just one door that leads to the bridge - at least on our ship there is not. All the senior officers' staterooms are accessible by a corridor that's secured by a digital combination lock. The door to the bridge is only accessible through this corridor. To gain access to the bridge you have to be buzzed in by an officer on the bridge after you are verified through a two way video intercom system. This is the post 9/11 requirement for passenger vessels.
Even worse in the movie is the ballast tank scene and bow thrusters. While it's true that ballast tanks are flooded and pumped out they are NOT accessible decks like shown in the movie!
Bow thrusters even on smaller ships - (the vessel in the movie is around 10,000 tons) are HUGE electric motors with hundreds, sometimes 1000s of hp! There's no way in hell the output of a man (never mind holding breath under water!) is going to make a difference in the heading of a ship. (never mind the ship is under way at over 12 knots!) Even standing still there would be no movement. Bow thrusters don't have any way to manually move them either.
One thing I can say that's true was them coming into port at St Maarten - the ragboaters yelling "Hey we have the right of way!". Yes they will do that but you would think common sense would tell them to get the hell out of the way! Would a ship come in that far ashore? It's hard to say as its never happened. It would really depend on a lot of factors. Let's just say Speed 2 was very expensive to make because they actually "rented" the ship from Seabourne for several weeks to make the movie and that costs a LOT of money. They apparently skimped on CG as they could not really run a ship into St Maarten. It's a good thing too because that is one of my favorite ports. :biggrin:
Oh and I definitely DO have pet peeves with the way things are done in movies. I mean come on it's 2010 - EVERYONE has a computer and EVERYONE knows when you do things with computers you don't hear all these stupid noises like they dub in!
Did you know in the movie Titanic the fittings shown in the engine room - specifically the bronze fittings and gauge used just did not exist in 1912? Ditto for the passageway lighting! Soft white, high diffusion coated incandescent bulbs simply did not exist then! Not only was that a dead giveaway but the attack and decay times of the lighting when the power was fading in and out in the latter part of the movie was just not presented accurately. I remember chuckling in this part of the movie and other people were wondering what I was laughing at! That made me chuckle even more! :biggrin:
