Spoiler alert before you grab your umbrella and stand out in a thunderstorm—no, you won’t get superpowers from a lightning strike...probably. I don’t actually know how electricity works. But apparently, neither does Hollywood. There are a ton of artistic liberties taken by the movie makers of America when it comes to the everyday occurrences of electricity and wiring. I mean, there are lots of films where an electrocuted person emits a spiky, blue aura and that isn’t real (don’t test that at home). Or bomb squads trying to diffuse a time-bomb by cutting the red wire. Or was it the blue one? 

Maybe it’s movie magic or maybe it’s misinformation. Let’s look at a few notable films from the last few decades and see how many artistic liberties were stretched beyond reality. 

Criminal Minds: Won't Get Fooled Again 

In fiction-land, disarming just about any bomb is a matter of cutting the right wires in the right order— The implication is generally that if the wrong wire is cut, the bomb will explode instantly, killing the person disarming it and everyone else in the blast radius.  

While not a movie, in the third episode of Criminal Minds, “Won't Get Fooled Again” the FBI encounters a killer who creates bombs using the plans of another serial bomber, Adrian Bale, that one of the agents had imprisoned, though only after Bale tricked him and killed six FBI agents. In prison, Bale agrees to help on the condition that he gets released.  

The bomb they need to diffuse has two wires—a blue and a red one. With the usual trope of only having seconds left, Bale tells the tech to cut the red wire. Just as the tech is about to cut the red wire, the FBI agent tells him to cut the other one, basing the decision on the fact Bale had earlier admitted he could never pass up an opportunity to trick the agent again. 

At no point is there a plausible explanation as to why a homemade bomb should conform to any color-code standard or manual at all, especially since the designer obviously never intended for it to be disarmed in the first place - in fact, having multiple colored wires in the first place is puzzling since you'd expect the wires to come from the same spool, with the same color. Maybe they want to make sure they’re assembling it correctly? 

Either way, the wiring of bombs doesn’t really exist in the way that Hollywood likes to describe. The use of electricity in a detonator that is so particular about its wire colors is mostly just a plot device to make the audience feel on edge. 

Jaws 2 

The resort town of Amity just couldn’t catch a break in the 1970s. Four years after the original super-sized great white shark chomped its way through the city’s coastal waters, another man-eating monster bent on revenge terrorizes the community. That is until quick-thinking Chief Brody tricks the vindictive beast into taste-testing an underwater power line, whereby the shark is electrocuted, charred, and sinks to the bottom of the ocean — all in less than two minutes.  

While it is theoretically possible for an electric shock to occur if a live power cable is bitten, the distribution of electricity in water would likely dissipate the current over a large area, reducing its lethality. The water's conductivity would spread the electrical charge, making it less concentrated and less likely to cause immediate harm to a large creature like a shark. 

Frankenstein 

The original Frankenstein film is an undeniable classic. The film, which is an adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, has greatly inspired both horror and science fiction for nearly a century. However, the actual science involved isn't all that sound. After all, the film literally centers around a reanimated corpse.  

The idea of reanimating a corpse using electricity is not scientifically feasible with our current understanding of biology and electricity. While the concept was inspired by real scientific experiments of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as those conducted by Luigi Galvani and his nephew Giovanni Aldini, these experiments only demonstrated that electrical currents could cause muscle contractions in dead animals and humans, not true reanimation. 

The act of reanimation involves an unrealistic amount of electricity. In the film, Dr. Frankenstein raises a dead body into the sky. Eventually, lightning strikes a pole and begins the process of defying death. While this is certainly fun in principle, it should never be repeated outside of a film studio. Being outside in a lightning storm is already dangerous, not to mention the fact that Frankenstein is trying to harness electricity. He's practically asking to be electrocuted. So, if you find yourself in the business of reanimating corpses, try to avoid this methodology. 

The Prestige 

Set in the late 19th century, this movie centers around two magicians who become bitter rivals due to a magic trick gone awry. One of the magicians travels to Colorado to convince Nikola Tesla to build a machine that will allow him to perform the same trick as his rival—cloning himself and thus upstaging the other magician. I have to admit the scenes with Tesla and his electricity-producing inventions are pretty cool. But you know what's even cooler? Tesla is played by legendary singer/actor David Bowie. 

The machine in The Prestige is a fictional creation that aligns with the film's themes of illusion and the overall cost of ambition, but this isn’t a blog about film reviews, so that’s about as much juxtaposition you’ll get from me.  

While the visual effects and Tesla's character give the movie a sense of authenticity and historical grounding, the machine's cloning ability is purely science fiction and not based on any real scientific principles or Tesla's actual work. Cloning itself isn’t impossible by any means, as proven in the past by Dolly the sheep, but humans have yet to be cloned (that we know of. Looking at you, Illuminati).  

Dolly was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned. She was formed by taking a cell from the udder of her biological mother. Dolly's embryo was created by taking the cell and inserting it into a sheep ovum. It took 435 attempts before an embryo was successful. The embryo was then placed inside a female sheep that went through a normal pregnancy. She lived for 6 years, from 1996 to 2003. 

DC Comics—The Flash 

The Flash is one of the more popular DC superheroes making waves on television and in movies. While there isn’t one particular film that showcases the origins of Barry Allen’s superpowers, his official backstory tells that he was struck by lightning while working as a forensic scientist. He was also covered in some weird chemicals though so don’t go thinking you’ll end up with super speed if you get struck by lightning.  

The Flash can also throw lightning bolts, which he supposedly generates by running at super speeds. Grounded in reality, running fast wouldn't allow someone to generate or control electricity in this way, as it defies the principles of physics. Actually, building up enough static electricity to even potentially create tangible lightning bolts would theoretically make him a walking magnet, attracting metal objects and causing chaos. Yes, I know, it’s a comic book. I’m not a fun-killer I promise, but this is a reality-based blog after all.  

Back to the Future  

This epic time travel classic involves a teenager, Marty McFly, attempting to get...well, back to the future (which never made sense to me. He’s going back...but forward in time?).  

Since Marty doesn't have enough energy available in the past, he and the Doc are forced to use lightning. The two plan to utilize the energy from a lightning strike and pass it through a current. That current will end up at the car, thus propelling it through time. Theoretically, this method could be effective in providing power to something less advanced than a car—perhaps a Sunco bulb. 

However, even if we set the concept of time travel aside, both Doc and Marty aren't likely to have survived the ordeal. It might be cool to look at from a safe distance, but lightning kills more than 20 people each year in the United States and injures hundreds more—with some survivors suffering lifelong neurological damage. 

The concept alone is enough to make anyone fear accidental shockwave therapy. So, unless you're 100% certain that your time-traveling car works, don't try this at home. Fun fact though, the original Back to the Future script featured a time-traveling fridge, not a car, so who’s to say that wouldn’t work better? 

The Princess Bride 

The Princess Bride is one of the classics that I’ve seen multiple times. In the film, there is a device plainly called, “The Machine” and it is employed by Count Rugen (a bad dude) to extract the life force from the Westley (a good dude).  

The Machine is described as a device that "sucks the life force" out of its victims. It is portrayed as having suction tubes and other mechanical components, but its operation is largely attributed to mysterious and unexplained electrical processes, which is a long way of saying that no one knows how the heck it works. You could consider it a convoluted version of the electric chair, mixed with medieval stretching racks. 

For execution by the electric chair, the person is usually shaved and strapped to a chair with belts that cross his chest, groin, legs, and arms. A metal skullcap-shaped electrode is attached to the scalp and forehead over a sponge moistened with saline. A jolt of between 500 and 2000 volts, which lasts for about 30 seconds, is given. The current surges and is then turned off, at which time the body is seen to relax. The doctors wait a few seconds for the body to cool down and then check to see if the prisoner’s heart is still beating. If it is, another jolt is applied. This process continues until the prisoner is dead. It’s gruesome so I can see someone like Rugen (again...a bad due) being on board with using electricity  

Regardless, even though electricity can certainly cause the human body harm, I’d bet anything that The Machine isn’t up to the standards of the National Electrical Code.

I Promise I’m Not a Buzzkill 

Yes, I know that most of these examples are cheesy and over the top on purpose. Or maybe the older films were made in a time when we were blissfully ignorant about electricity and Hollywood just wanted to make it a spectacle. I don’t want to effectively snuff out your belief in movie magic, so I’ll leave you with this... 

Grandiose displays of electricity can be fun, entertaining, and sometimes a little campy. Just don’t go separating fact from fiction and try to get struck by lightning in the hopes of gaining superpowers. You’ll just end up disappointed and crispy.