Posted on 04/11/2008 7:25:40 AM PDT by yankeedame
The tunnel scene
People complained that Brian De Palma's update of the classic espionage
series lacked action. Strange that for a film whose climax sees a
helicopter chase a high-speed train through a tunnel before the
exploding in massive fireball.
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9. 'Forrest Gump' (1994)
In the Marines
While 'Forrest Gump' will never be remembered as a classic war film, it
showed us the grim reality of warfare when a handful of fellow soldiers are
obliterated next to Forrest in the jungles of Vietnam.
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8. 'Shooter' (2007)
The house on the hill
It may have been only a mediocre film, but theres a house that blows up
in the film that is worth the price of admission. If you didnt catch this one
in the theatre with full THX sound, you definitely missed out. Why were
they blowing up a house?
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7. 'War of the Worlds' (2005)
The victims of the aliens guns
The second teaming of Stephen Spielberg and Tom Cruise promised more
action after their more cerebral first pairing, Minority Report. The
reworking of HG Wells' classic certainly delivers in the scene when the
alien tripods start vaporising all and sundry.
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6. 'The Rock' (1996)
Alcatraz
Nicolas Cage has to save San Francisco from stolen VX gas, and what
better way than incinerating the entire island of Alcatraz. And thanks to
Michael Bays action scene prowess, we see it go up in a fireball.
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5. 'V for Vendetta' (2005)
Parliament
No surprise really a film featuring an anti hero who hides behind a Guy
Fawkes mask and that begins with the explosion of the Old Bailey features
highly on this list. For its climax the film's protagonist, V, goes one better
than Fawkes and actually raises the Houses of Parliament to the ground
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4. 'Armageddon' (1998)
France
There were rumours that there were several versions of this scene shot
for international audiences, i.e. in the French release London was
destroyed etc. These turned out to be false and instead the whole world
got to watch/enjoy Paris being levelled by a meteor shower.
============================================
3. 'Independence Day' (1996)
Everywhere else in the U.S.
Yet another film where nasty aliens invade Earth and promptly blow up
pretty much everything. The scenes of destruction rained upon the US in
Roland Emmerich's hit still make an impact today more than ten years
later, especially the moment when the White House is obliterated.
==========================================
2. 'Transformers' (2007)
The Qatar Air Force Base
The king of explosions, Michael Bay, has to make do with second place
with the opener to 2007's smash hit. The demolition of the Air Force Base
in Qatar set the tone for the rest of the film loud, brash and entertaining
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1. 'Star Wars' (1977)
The Death Star Destruction
George Lucas's classic tops yet another poll, this time for the scene
where Luke "uses the force" to destroy the Empire's evil planet-destroying
space station. Once again Lucas was well ahead of curve with
his visual effects and if you didn't jump out your seat the
first time you saw it, you obviously have no soul.
Sorry to sound like Red Forman's son, Eric.
And then there's this real big rocket fuel explosion, not made for the movies:
Dr. Strangelove after Major T. J. “King” Kong rode the bomb release like a bronco.
The blast flash without sound was incredibly effective.
"They blowed up real good!"
My favorite is the head going in Scanners. Not big, but jazzy . . . |
“Biggest” would be the destruction of a planet by the Death Star in Star Wars.
“Best” would be the bridge destruction on “The Bridge On The River Kwai” because of the build up to its destruction and the actual explosion (real bridge, real train, real explosives)
The Terminator
"It's over" and then...
Rock and Roll High School
The pyrotechnics on the roof of the school were overloaded and caught a tree fire. Also annoyed the neighborhood as I think they were shooting at 3am.
The Atomic Cafe
This documentary is chock full of atomic bomb test footage and period "atomic" songs.
The Who on The Smothers Brothers
A prank gone wrong, Pete suffered permanent hearing loss.
And aren't there a bunch of films that used demolitions of casinos and other building in the context of a film?
Real explosions are always "better" than CGI effects. That's just a computer cartoon.
Under the Forrest Gump one it says ‘In the Marines’...wasn’t he in the Army?
Yep, stupid is as stupid does.
They blew up Earth in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Dreadful movie.
What the hell does Star Wars have to do with ginger kids???
I think in Terminator 2 they blew up a real suburban office building, about 20 or 30 minutes before the end of the movie.
I don’t know... the explosion at the end of the lobby gunfight scene in The Matrix was also pretty impressive (OK, so that entire scene is probably my all-time favorite movie scene) - actually, lots of things blew up in spectacular ways in those movies, although the last two weren’t good for much except the fight scenes and explosions IMO. I tend to enjoy movies with spectacular explosions, but I honestly can’t think of any off the top of my head (other than other Star Wars movies, and though it’s not a movie there are still lots and lots and lots of explosions in Stargate SG-1) that are stunning on that level. I also seem to remember Cloverfield as having some nice explosions, too...
Anyways, since we’re on the topic of movies with cool explosions, and since my Netflix queue is starting to get low, if anyone’s got any recommendations for good movies - namely, movies with lots of explosions and maybe special effects or spaceships - let me know!
How about Hong Kong Action films?
In Police Story 2, Jackie Chan has to escape an exploding fireworks factory, no?
Stunts in proximity to pyrotechnics always add a degree of danger.
And for gunfight sequences, The Killer and Hard Boiled (both by John Woo) are hard to beat. But I don’t recall many explosions.
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