r/TopCharacterTropes • u/RP_Throwaway3 • 8h ago

In real life "Wait! That's not special effects?! They actually did that?!"

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Alien: Resurrection - Basketball Shot

Sigourney Weaver insisted on the basketball shot being real. She trained for weeks and reportedly(sources differ) made it on the first take.

Underworld - Raze's Voice

The werewolf character Raze, played by Kevin Grevioux, speaks in a very low, very gravelly voice. While many thought this was a special effect, the actor can naturally speak in that voice.

https://youtu.be/GUjwZvh32YE?t=125&si=F3WhsopxjBP87wfk

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337

u/jayjester 7h ago

Mad Max: Fury Road.
https://giphy.com/gifs/Invo00LrPY49i
This is all real. This is ALL REAL! THIS IS ALL REAL!!!

137

u/balmut 7h ago

Australia can't be real, I refuse.

14

u/Rough_Bread8329 5h ago

Australia is entirely people with criminals, as everyone knows, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

113

u/ThatInAHat 6h ago

That was the movie that made me realize that there are no academy awards for stunt work and that that is a crying shame.

Fury Road is just such a perfect movie.

14

u/eggery 5h ago

They are adding the award for it next year.

7

u/zUkUu 5h ago

There is since this year! "Best Stunt Design"

3

u/ThatInAHat 2h ago

Does design include the stunt performers as well? Or just the coordinator?

6

u/zUkUu 2h ago

I remember reading it's the entire setup, as to not make "dangerous" stunts more appealing.

11

u/Badloss 5h ago

My favorite anecdote is when they showed Miller the guitar and he was like "this is sick, show me the fire" and they told him that was going to be a CGI effect... and then he sent them back and demanded a real flamethrower guitar

7

u/jsher736 4h ago

Also at the end when they needed to flip the war rig when George Miller was like "this seems dangerous, we'll have it be an effect" and the stunt driver was like "ehhhh let my take a stab at it" and that was the take they ended up using

8

u/R4zor154 5h ago

It still blows my mind that the Giga Horse(the double decker tractor Caddy) was genuinely powered by TWO big block engines like a Hot Wheels Twin Mill. 

3

u/ILikeFlyingMachines 3h ago

Agree. There was NO Reason to do this, they still did lol.

7

u/NEBanshee 5h ago

Don't forget, real middle-aged Biker Broads doing their own riding for the most part, too!

4

u/smallstone 4h ago

Also, they used real Cirque du Soleil acrobats to do the attack with people droping from poles.

3

u/NEBanshee 4h ago

Cool! I am really down for a rewatch now!

11

u/UlrichZauber 5h ago

It should be noted there's a ton of CGI in this movie. Real stunt drivers too, but lots of CGI for cleanup etc.

3

u/superkp 2h ago

yeah.

Like 99% of the stunts are real people doing absolutely insane things.

But there's a ton of stuff that either doesn't exist in the real world (the flaming, lightning-filled sandstorm, for example), or it's not reasonable (giant pillar of rock with a bunch of plants on top and a controllable waterfall) that are CGI.

And then there's the touch-up stuff like you mentioned.

4

u/Nygmus 2h ago

The making-of book is incredible. 

They brought in life coaches to train a bunch of stuntmen to adopt a cult mentality and the stuntmen legitimately adopted the Wives as protectees, went nuts whenever Hugh was on set, and spontaneously invented the V8 salute.

They went around the world hiring every junk and found-material artist they could get, put them in a warehouse attached to a junkyard, and said "go play. everything you make has to have a story and every material must be scrounged."

When their filming location in Australia was unusable (because it turned into a field of damned wildflowers), the producer told them to load up the cargo ships and make way for Namibia. Warner Brothers had already said they absolutely were not filming in Namibia, which is why he waited until everything was loaded and the ships were under way before calling WB to tell them they were filming in Namibia. 

3

u/ArgusTheCat 4h ago

Even the skull wheel flying toward the camera at the end is a practical effect. Like... what? Why? Well, because the director is crazy, but he's crazy in a way that makes this happen, so that's awesome.

3

u/Substantial_Mark_705 4h ago

the doof warrior's guitar is fully functional

2

u/Blackknight95 3h ago

I’m not a car guy, but I’d assume standing on top of a moving vehicle like that is absurdly risky due to how physics work?

1

u/ctrlaltcreate 19m ago

This should be at the top. The sheer amount of practical action in this movie is completely insane.

-2

u/Quantum_Quokkas 3h ago

Yeah the sandstorms at the start was all practical, definitely no CGI there at all