In this age of CGI, it's easy for filmmakers to use digital effects instead of actual stunts.
And while the end result might look cool, it doesn't quite pack the same punch.
However, some of the most incredible movie scenes involve practical stunts that are so
unbelievable you’d never guess they were totally real.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
When it comes to pushing the envelope in special effects, James Cameron is without a doubt
the king of the world.
But this VFX revolutionary still believes in using practical effects whenever possible.
After all, we’re talking about the guy who built an 800-foot Titanic replica and then
sank it in a 5 million-gallon water tank.
However, in Terminator 2, Cameron took his love for real-life stunts to death-defying
levels.
Near the end of the film, the 3-time Oscar winner used an actual aircraft during a thrilling
chase where a SWAT van attempts to outrun a helicopter.
In one stunt, the chopper flies beneath an overpass at nearly 70 miles per hour.
But with just five feet of room above the helicopter, the camera crew refused to film
it.
So Cameron shot the sequence himself, pulling off what's got to be one of the riskiest aircraft
stunts in cinema history.
Speed
Before he was Neo or John Wick, Keanu Reeves was Jack Traven, a policeman who finds himself
aboard a bus that's rigged to explode if it drops below 50 miles per hour.
Things get even worse when the bus races up an elevated freeway, straight toward a 50-foot
gap in the road.
Sandra Bullock’s character, Annie, is forced to drive the bus straight into the air to
clear the gap, landing safely on the other side.
The filmmakers digitally removed that missing chunk of the highway, but director Jan de
Bont actually got the bus to fly.
Using a vehicle that was stripped down to bare bones, their stunt driver got the bus
up to 61 miles per hour before soaring off a ramp built on an LA freeway.
"Thank you, thank you very much."
Mission: Impossible II
When it comes to performing his own stunts, Tom Cruise is miles above nearly every other
actor on the planet.
For proof, look no further than Mission: Impossible 2.
In the opening sequence, Cruise dangles off the side of a cliff without a safety net.
So when he flings himself from one rock to another, the only thing keeping him alive
is a thin cable.
Later on, during an insane fight sequence, Cruise had a steel cable attached to a knife
and positioned himself so it would stop about a quarter of an inch away from his eye.
It's that kind of dedication that proves Tom Cruise is worth every cent he makes…and
also that he's totally nuts.
The Bourne Ultimatum
In the third installment of the Bourne series, secret agent Jason Bourne throws down with
an assassin in what may be the best fight of the franchise.
But first, Bourne has to leap across an alleyway and crash through a window.
Rest assured, there's no CGI here, just old-fashioned practical effects.
Matt Damon’s body double leapt from one building to another, smashing through a false
window, while another stunt man, attached to a wire rig, followed with a handheld camera.
Skyfall
The 007 franchise is jam-packed with amazing stunts, from the parkour sequence in Casino
Royale to the parachute jump in The Spy Who Loved Me.
But it's pretty hard to beat the motorcycle chase from Skyfall.
Instead of using a green screen, director Sam Mendes decided to put actual motorbikes
on actual rooftops in the Middle East.
The stunt drivers maneuvered their bikes down concrete strips that were about a meter wide.
Bond stunt double Robbie Maddison explained,
"A lot of the rooftops have old air conditioning units with metal stakes coming up.
Things that can stab you if you were to fall on them.
It definitely was not a place you'd want to ride with no helmet."
Iron Man 3
We can all agree that one of the best action sequences in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
is Iron Man 3's "Barrel of Monkeys" scene, when everyone aboard Air Force One is sucked
out of the plane.
The freefalling crewmembers form a human chain, allowing Iron Man to safely deposit them into
the ocean.
Marvel's executives gave their movie wings — by hiring the Red Bull stunt team for
this sequence.
In total, these diehard adrenaline junkies made approximately 600 jumps over the course
of eight days, with each dive lasting about a minute.
While the VFX crew had to take care of adding certain aspects — like Air Force One, the
"Excellent.
Good team effort, all around.
Go us."
The Fast and The Furious 7 & 8
If you're new to the Fast and the Furious franchise, you might be surprised to learn
that a lot of the stunts you see on screen are legit.
Like that scene in Furious 7 where Vin Diesel and the gang parachute from a plane 12,000
feet in the air — in their cars.
The filmmakers rigged up four vehicles with parachutes and dropped them from the sky.
Each car was equipped with three cameras, and three skydivers with helmet cameras also
went along for the jump.
In The Fate of the Furious, the gang zooms into Berlin, and ends up smashing bad guys
into oblivion with the help of a 14.5-ton wrecking ball.
For the scene, the stunt drivers doubling for the good guys had to get out of the way,
but the other driver-less vehicles were towed at 40 miles per hour, straight into the equally
fast ball of death.
Baby Driver
Director Edgar Wright basically mashed up Heat, The Driver, and Singin' in the Rain
into one glorious movie.
This 2017 heist flick follows a music-loving getaway driver who tries to leave his life
of crime after falling head-over-heels for a charming waitress.
And as it turns out, almost every stunt Baby pulls off is the real deal.
That includes the jaw-dropping "180 in, 180 out" gag from the movie's opening scene.
Our hero throws his Subaru into a forward 180, spinning around one truck, before throwing
the car into a reverse 180, successfully dodging another vehicle.
The Baby Driver stunt doubles wanted to capture that realistic feel, even if it meant putting
their lives on the line.
"Questions?"
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