Commentary while watching Fall

I've decided to write commentary while watching Fall.

Already striking gold at 1:10. Climber decides to do an apparently hard-for-him full-body dyno while free soloing?

1:20

But wait, weren't they free soloing? In the zoomed-out view, they are pretty close together with no rope in sight, and the other climber clearly is climbing, not belaying. So perhaps they're simul-climbing?

1:50 If they're simul-climbing, the follower full-body dynoing into her partner's arms while he hangs on one-handed seems ill-advised.

2:10 "Worry about your ropes, bitches." Solid advice.

2:20 Another free solo full-body dyno.

3:14

Leader fall while simulclimbing, and this is the only piece between them. Somehow, follower seems unaffected? Also, leader is now hanging in space, despite that they were obviously climbing slab.

3:17 Free soloist says, "Hold on, I'm coming down". To do what? You literally have a hoodie tied around your waist instead of a harness.

3:23 Fallen leader advises follower... to "unclip", which apparently in this case means somehow easily removing the carabiner from her belay loop. Mysteriously, leader doesn't plummet to his death (yet).

3:50 Cam comes out (predictably). Yet as leader falls, there is no cam attached to the rope, it's just a knotless tail.

5:30 Her dad is Negan.

7:00 Negan is a shit parent.

8:20 "You look..." "Awful." "Really awful." Uh, messing up this pretty girl's hair slightly doesn't make her look like a bottoming-out alcoholic.

8:45 Apparently what they're doing now is flipping through pictures of themselves.

11:25 Okay so Dan was cheating with blonde girl. I guess we're going to have to sit through that annoying drama later.

13:15 Plugging a wall plug into a light socket. If this works, it would make this movie totally worth it. I'll have to look this up later.

15:30 Filming and driving almost gets YouTuber killed. Most believable event in the movie so far.

17:00 Vultures eating alive animals?

19:40 Let's just clip a random, un-knotted bight of this rope to a carabiner and clip it to your belay loop before we continue walking up to the tower.

20:00 "Don't worry, we've got 50 feet of rope between us, we're clipped in, and we're all good."

20:55 "See, it's easy!" It's a goddamn ladder.

21:50 They WERE simul-climbing. But now there's no rope going up from the follower. Invisi-rope, perhaps?

23:00 Nothing is tied to anything.

26:00 "What the hell are we doing?" Good question, lass, what ARE you doing.

27:45 "I've got your weight". Apparently what this means is she's pulling her up hand over hand with the rope. Strong.

29:45 "Grab my hand instead of one of the many stable rails above you".

32:00 "I'll hold your hand." Uh, methinks she's going to need both her hands for this.

32:50 Okay she's actually just holding her friend up with one hand while taking a selfie with the other. How strong IS this girl!!??

34:30 I feel like an untold part of this story is Dan. Like, why did his girlfriend get his ashes? Does he literally have no other family?

36:10 Wait a second, I recognize that rope they're using to simulclimb. That's 8mm static cord.

37:20 Absurdly strong girl continues to be absurdly strong, catching a fall on a static line with lots of slack out, while casually hanging on by one hand. Also, I'm noticing she's wearing chucks--I guess given they were climbing a ladder that's an okay choice of footwear, but now that the ladder's gone, that's gonna be a problem.

38:20 They didn't teach this haul method in my self-rescue class.

42:36 22-seconds of zooming out to drone music, followed by a break for commercial.

44:05 "This is gonna sound stupid."

44:50 Prediction correct. At face value what she said wasn't stupid, but life would be a lot less short if you had ever bothered to learn some basic rope skills.

48:00 The phone idea wasn't a terrible idea, until free solo one-hand campusing until you almost lose your grip made it a terrible idea.

49:00 I'm sure there will be no consequences to going barefoot on a tower which is literally made of jagged tetanus.

51:20 Honestly George W. Bush was better at dodging shoes.

53:00 Seriously, you have no reception but somehow are still managing to watch videos of yourself.

53:20 Wait okay so scared girl was MARRIED to Dan?

54:30 Okay I have to give this movie credit, that's actually pretty funny.

56:00 No way this cut is already getting infected. Their lack of water would be a much bigger issue at this point.

58:30 Crying is only making you more dehydrated.

59:00 "Freaking"

1:01:40 "Are you serious?" Are YOU serious? It took you this long to consider USING THE ROPE TO GET TO GET DOWN? And... your goal is to get your bag, not to get one of you down?

1:01:50 What kind of knot is that? And why are you leaving the carabiner behind? Literally you could use that to rappel down and avoid everything that I'm sure is about to happen.

1:02:00 "Maybe you'll get lucky and I'll fall." Dude, why are YOU angry. YOU'RE the one who did your friend dirty.

1:02:50

Just casually hand-over-hand down an 8mm line. This girl is seriously stronger than Alex Megos.

1:03:20 "I can't quite reach it". First off, you're like 10 feet away, surely you didn't need to stretch over to know that your arms weren't that long. And second, maybe if you hadn't used like 30 feet of rope tying that knot at 1:01:50, you'd be able to reach it.

1:03:45 Okay while you continue to impress with feats of immense strength, surely we didn't need to do this to see that adding another arm length still doesn't cross the 10 foot gap.

1:05:10 Twinkle twinkle little star. Or the ABCs. Or the eentsy weentsy spider. Or try Rhianna FFS. ou have to literally TRY to come up with a song that references falling. I guess we'll get around to Jack and Jill after this...

1:06:00 You wouldn't be so off-balance if you put on the backpack and just used the selfie stick to hook the rope, instead of bizarrely swinging around the backpack on the end of the selfie stick.

1:09:00 I guess afraid girl also has absurd strength.

1:09:20 "I'm not going anywhere." True, but not by choice, and it would be a good idea for you to go somewhere if you could.

1:11:40 Wait why save the drone? Just send it as far as you can before the battery dies?

1:11:50 Oh god they're going to plug it in to the light at the top of the tower like the light at the diner. But they didn't think of that yet, so again... why save the drone?

1:15:10 "It's a standard bulb fitting". What? How is that a thing.

1:16:20 Finally a song that doesn't involve falling.

1:18:45 Wait, the plan is for her to literally just hold on for like two hours while the drone battery charges? I guess scared girl is now endurance girl.

1:18:55

If you've gotta hang by your hands for two hours, it's best to do it in mid-pull-up position.

1:21:00 You've been on this tower for like two days at this point, looking at pictures of yourself on your phone so you can discover your friend's dark secrets, and somehow your phone still has 75% battery?

1:21:10 Lurking Negan.

1:23:10 Why is endurance girl piloting the drone? It's strong girl's drone and she's the YouTuber who has clearly flown the drone before.

1:27:00 I guess that's why endurance girl was piloting the drone. Ugh.

1:27:25 "You didn't really think your scrawny ass could pull me up, did you?" No, I did not.

1:29:00 Who has videos of themselves as a baby downloaded onto their phone?

1:31:00 Okay this was kind of metal even if it makes no sense. But now endurance girl has tetanus AND rabies.

1:37:45 Movie writers, no matter how good you think a line is, it's not good enough to quote again later in the movie. Not only was this not an exception, it was a quintessential example.

Where can I watch this without paying $20   

Nice commentary. I saw it on a long flight.

It’s good they didn’t show what happens to a human body after dropping 2000 feet.

Also, did you know that once you show any symptoms of rabies it’s too late? You WILL die. (Source - Radiolab)

Is this the movie where they climb a cell tower with a ladder? 

Doug Chism wrote:

Is this the movie where they climb a cell tower with a ladder? 

Yes. And when they have an emergency they can’t get cell service. 

Doug Chism wrote:

Is this the movie where they climb a cell tower with a ladder? 

Greg D wrote:

Yes. And when they have an emergency they can’t get cell service. 

Not a cell tower.

From the Wikipedia entry:

Hunter invites her to climb the decommissioned 2,000 foot (610 m) B67 TV tower in the desert.

Too bad the tower couldn’t finish the job

This really belongs in the Not Awesome Trad Videos thread. I laughed through the whole thing. Pretty sure it's not suppose to be a comedy.

Thanks for the play by play, that was hilarious

Made me laugh out loud- THX

Outstanding commentary! LOL

I’ve clicked into this thread 3 times now, each time expecting someone to be criticizing someone else’s choice of death yell as they plummet from 22 pitches up a wall. 

While watching I was trying to come up with a way off the tower with the gear they had (50 ft of rope, 2 carabiners, and 2 harnesses). I came up with two ideas, both depend on some variables that were not defined in the movie.

Option 1: one girl does a single strand rap on a munter to the point the dish is mounted. Girl left up top detaches the rope and drops it down. Then the girl on the dish does another single strand rap down to the ladder and goes to get help. This depends on the distance from the dish to the ladder.

Option 2: Assuming there are no brackets on the tower and it is a smooth cylinder (probably wouldn’t be because there would be mounting points where the ladder was bolted on. But I’m more curious if the strategy would work otherwise) I am wondering if you could tie the rope in a prusik around the tower would it grab. Obviously super sketch, but could it be done? You would have to somehow bear hug the tower and slide the prusik down. Even if the prusik held I am not sure if you could progress downward. Possibly cut the rope in half and set up two prusiks, but I don’t think they had enough rope. It it was a 3ft diameter tower they could do a single prusik with two wraps using their 50 ft of rope.

Another edit: On a rusty 3ft diameter cylinder a single wrap might hold body weight. That would allow for two prusiks, so you could walk them down and even pass brackets. 

Anyone have other ideas on how to descend? They could also cannibalize the leg loops from their harnesses.

Edit: there is a series of brackets with bolt holes all the way down the tower where the ladder was mounted (most likely spaced closer than 25 ft apart). You could do a series of raps all the way down. Simple if the rope fits through the holes. If it doesn’t you could use leg loop material, some core strands of a piece cut from the end of the rope, backpack straps, wire pulled from the dish, etc to make anchors. Talk about relying on tat!!! 

Michael Abend wrote:

Option 1: one girl does a single strand rap on a munter to the point the dish is mounted. Girl left up top detaches the rope and drops it down. Then the girl on the dish does another single strand rap down to the ladder and goes to get help. This depends on the distance from the dish to the ladder.

This is basically what I was thinking for the entire second half of the movie.

Option 2: Assuming there are no brackets on the tower and it is a smooth cylinder (probably wouldn’t be because there would be mounting points where the ladder was bolted on. But I’m more curious if the strategy would work otherwise) I am wondering if you could tie the rope in a prusik around the tower would it grab. Obviously super sketch, but could it be done? You would have to somehow bear hug the tower and slide the prusik down. Even if the prusik held I am not sure if you could progress downward. Possibly cut the rope in half and set up two prusiks, but I don’t think they had enough rope. It it was a 3ft diameter tower they could do a single prusik with two wraps using their 50 ft of rope.

I don't think you even need a Prusik: just a loop with tension against your body would work, like this (EDIT: Climbing starts at 2:15, thanks Padawan Yoda):

They have backups in that video and it would certainly be sketchy, but it's far less sketchy than a wide variety of things they actually did in the movie.

The best solution, of course, would have been to tell someone in advance where to send rescue if they weren't back by, say, 10pm. Calling help when someone doesn't return by a specified time fails sometimes because the person can't be found, but in this case, there's a giant blinking tower guiding rescuers.

Michael and David, it's really funny how the climber mind works. I was thinking these exact same things: (1) wrap the rope around the tower; (2) tell someone where you're going. Although, I can see why you wouldn't think climbing a ladder warrants notice to friends and family. Using the rope to "down climb" the tower would have been the only sensical use of the rope in the entire movie.

Edit: In David K's video, climbing starts at 2:15.

All this beta will be very useful for my next multipitch ladder climb!

David K I have no idea what this movie is but your commentary was hysterically funny. Thank you so much!

phylp phylp wrote:

David K I have no idea what this movie is...

Here's the trailer: 

Easily the best post on mp in the past years! 

Congrats, sir! I'm buying you a virtual beer!

Looking for a partner to climb this tower. Will provide a 99 cent bag of peanuts, one Red Bull, two non-lockers and 10 ft of webbing to make swami belts. Partner with a fully charged drone, sat phone, and rescue insurance a plus

I'll be wearing an old pair of Croc's

My friend sent a massive group text inviting all of us to watch a "climbing comedy in theatre" I did not even look at the movie and just went. Boy was I confused for the first couple minutes... After that we were roaring with laughter. 

Also fun fact, most of the conversation on the tower was done with deep fake tech because they were told to ab lib most of it and it had a ton of f bombs in it. to keep the rating PG 13 they had to cut down on the swearing and the easiest thing to do was just deepfake it. Pretty crazy.