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Tintin in America: Miracle working boomerang?

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tuhatkauno
Member
#1 · Posted: 4 Jan 2012 17:53
I'm no boomerang expert but that boomerang guy on pg. 3 in America is amazing. He knocks out the taxi driver and gets his boomerang back. What a spin! Hats off to him! I have always had a suspicion that the "boomerang thing" is cheating. Or I am all wrong as usual.
Tintinrulz
Member
#2 · Posted: 5 Jan 2012 01:39
No, boomerangs are real and they're not cheating. There are different sorts. Some that return and others that can kill kangaroos etc. but are embedded in the roo or fall to the ground. I imagine the one in Tintin in America is a more powerful boomerang that can strike a glancing blow and then return.
MisterRastapopoulos
Member
#3 · Posted: 6 Jan 2012 00:25
Yes, I noticed that too! Looks like he's a real ace with the boomerang. But to be able to hit the taxi driver and knock him over is difficult with a normal boomerang nowadays.
tuhatkauno
Member
#4 · Posted: 6 Jan 2012 08:43
How can the boomerang maintain its speed? To me it seems that the boomerang hits the taxi driver and doesn't merely brush him. Though I know nothing about boomerangs I know someting about physics. That boomerang is not from this world.
Balthazar
Moderator
#5 · Posted: 6 Jan 2012 12:19
tuhatkauno:
How can the boomerang maintain its speed? To me it seems that the boomerang hits the taxi driver and doesn't merely brush him. Though I know nothing about boomerangs I know someting about physics. That boomerang is not from this world.

Yeah, I agree that the way it's shown hitting the driver full on makes it hard to believe it would then have enough energy to turn round and continue its flight back to its owner!

I guess it's something of a fantasy boomerang, an impossible silent-movie-type stunt typical of early Tintin books like America. I think it behaves in the way that people outside Australia at the time often imagined boomerangs to behave - as an amazing weapon that would kill your kangaroo (or whatever) then fly back to you. The more accurate knowledge that Tintinrulz has provided - ie: that hunting boomerangs tend to stay with whatever they've hit and that returning boomerangs tend to be thrown for sport and not aimed to hit anything - has possibly only started filtering into public consciousness outside Australia more recently.

It's a good baddie weapon though, and it's a bit of a shame that Hergé didn't have the mysterious boomerang assailant make more appearances.
MisterRastapopoulos
Member
#6 · Posted: 7 Jan 2012 01:34
Well, the book wouldn't have as much of an exciting storyline if the boomerang were to lose it's steam after hitting the taxi driver and not make it's way back to the assailant. Most authors and movie makers don't focus on the plausibility of things, which is fine with me.
Tintinrulz
Member
#7 · Posted: 7 Jan 2012 01:41
Balthazar, is correct. If the boomerang hit him a glancing blow then it MAY be able to return. But as is, it's likely a fantastic take on what a real boomerang really is capable of.
AngelofLight
Member
#8 · Posted: 16 Jan 2012 05:57
Boomerangs are really dangerous. Throw one if you don't know how to catch it, and it can kill you. I'm quite surprised that the taxi driver was only "knocked out".

Maybe it's just a MAGIC boomerang.
jock123
Moderator
#9 · Posted: 16 Jan 2012 10:09
AngelofLight:
Boomerangs are really dangerous. Throw one if you don't know how to catch it, and it can kill you.

This appears to be largely anecdotal, or only found in fiction. I've not been able to find a single documented case of a person being killed; that's not to say it hasn't happened, or couldn't happen, it just suggests that it is such a rare occurrence that it can be considered not that much of a threat.

A returning boomerang isn't that massive, and is losing energy from the moment you throw it; it seems to me you'd be more at risk thumping yourself on the head with it while preparing to throw it, rather than being smacked by it on it's return.

A non-returning boomerang is really a sort of club, so might do you a bit of damage, but someone else would have had to throw it (unless you threw it straight up, and stood below it), but then again you shouldn't be trying to catch it.
Tintinrulz
Member
#10 · Posted: 16 Jan 2012 11:28
People have been killed by boomerangs but it was rare.

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