S is for Soft Landings

Fictionland has some weird physics. Most notably, glass and water in Fictionland behave nothing like these substances do in the real world.

Fictional water has an amazing ability to break falls. Characters plunging headlong off bridges or being pushed out of helicopters are regularly saved by splashing into water and emerging sodden, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Similarly, fictional glass windows and sliding doors shatter on impact, allowing characters to burst through with only a couple of scratches at most.

Water is actually quite dense, and as anyone who's bellyflopped off a diving board can tell you, slamming into water at speed hurts. Multiply that by the height of the villain's airplane, and you've got a recipe for broken bones and ruptured organs. That said, trained divers and stuntpeople can move their bodies in order to enter the water in a way which minimises impact, and make spectacular leaps into water from a great height.

Window glass is similarly hardy. Movie glass is actually made of sugar so that actors can crash through large sheets of it with ease. It is not recommended to try jumping through glass to make a dramatic exit or escape. And for the sake of realism, maybe keep your characters from doing it as well.