About 4 or 5 years ago I took a short story writing class given by the author of Quigley down under (John Hill - look it up - he teaches at UNLV in Las Vegas - semi retired). He kind of dismissively mentioned in response to questions about Quigley down under, that he "has the rights to all the sequels; Quigley goes to China, Quigley in Europe, Quigley in Alaska" stuff like that. I got the feeling that he didn't feel it was his best work, considering he wrote 25 screen plays in 25 years and only had about 5 or 6 purchased, and of those about 3 or 4 were made into actual movies. I didn't feel bad for him. He also said of the writers-guild-strikes something like, "90% of Writers Union members are waiters and janitors trying to break into the field. Why would an employed screen writer, making a quarter million dollars a year writing for sit-coms want to go on strike for more wages? It means they cannot work, or get paid, for 6 months or a year." I didn't feel bad for him.
Anyway I came across this because I was researching the sound-delay of the rifle to the bullet.... Anyone care? I thought the movie was wrong.
A sharps bullet travels 442 m/s. Sound at Sea level travels at 345 m/s. Assuming Quigley was 690 meters away... Roughly 2100 feet or about a third of a mile. the sound delay would be half a second after the bullet impact at sea level. The guy who got away said it was five seconds between the bullet and the impact (if I remember right.) At sea level that means that quigley had to be 690(at.5 seconds) times 10 (5 seconds divided by half a second=10) or roughly 3.8 miles away. Sorry the math doesn't add up. Sharpes bullets don't travel that far - probably not even if you launch it like a mortor. Did I make a mistake somewhere? Above sea level the sound travels slower? The guy-who-got-away was wrong on this time number? Anyway...