10 Giant Lies Told By Movies That Will Definitely Kill You

2. Tie A Rope Around Your Waist To Save You From Falling

The Main Offenders: The Dark Knight Rises & Die Hard When scaling great heights, make sure you take every precaution to preserve your health by tying a rope or fire hose around your waist, in case you slip (or in the case of Die Hard, in order to help propel you through a sky-scraper window (which would definitely be single-glazed, even at the very top, because who cares.) This will probably hurt slightly, especially if your back was recently broken, but at the end of the day, you'll probably be totally fine when you fall from a great height. Just ask Gwen Stacy.

The Reality Remember how people used to be hung, in order to execute them? Same principle. That wasn't about choking the criminals to death, which even in the Darker Ages might have been considered too inhumane, especially for public executions - it was all about letting gravity do its work on the surprisingly flimsy human spine. Trap-door opens, rope pulls tight, and neck breaks - simple. So, for all those heroes who think tying something around their waist and jumping from a great height is a good idea, there's likely to be a similar result.

Bruce Wayne already had a broken back - or at least a few protruding vertebrae (which were magically punched back in, of course) - and despite Nolan giving him regenerative abilities similar to Wolverine, those old injuries would have some impact, especially without intense physical therapy. But then, falling from the height that Wayne does in the pit would have killed him anyway, or at least snapped him in half like a twig, whether his back was strong or not. Which goes for John McClane too, who scores double idiot points for combining his jump with a window smash that would almost certainly lacerate the very life out of him.