Moments of Pure Awe

[kalysto]

An Australian movie from the 80s, The Man From Snowy River, the whole instrumental section with the brumby chase through the mountains, unbelievably breathtaking.

Every second of In The Mood For Love.

The opening scene of The Lion King, where Simba is lifted to the sky, chokes me up every time!

The final scene in Vanishing Point (original, not the remake) blew my freaking mind! Even though I knew what was coming, it was still wow!

The bathhouse fight in Eastern Promises, the pun is not really intended, but Viggo had some balls to do it, it was amazing.

The prequels are not really my thing at all, but when Obi Wan screamed at Anakin "You were the chosen one!", I don't know, it gets to me. More that I think about how much better the movies could of been, but it was a perfect moment for the two characters and it genuinely saddened me.

 

[Barbados Slim]

The first fight between Ziyi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Sam Neill sees a dinosaur for the first time in Jurassic Park
The spaceship flies away at the end of Close Encounters
The pod race in The Phantom Menace
Trinity stops time and kicks a cop in The Matrix
Zoe Bell on the hood of a car for a looong time in Grindhouse/Deathproof

The most awe-inducing thing for me in all of filmdom?


Deckard and Gaff flying to the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner:

 

[Starbreaker]

The lighting of the fire towers in LOTR: Return of the King. The beauty and majesty of those mountains were made even better with the awesome cinematography. It made me cry.

Joy

Absolutely outstanding choice here. The music is top notch as well.

 

[Borjis]

The opening act of "He That Believeth In Me", BSG. I know it was only on the other day, but I described it to my friend as an overdose of awesomeness, because it just built and built and built all within the first 5 minutes of the actual show, it was just so goddamn intense.

intense is almost not adequate to describe that look on Tigh's face when he realizes what he did.

 

[Manticore]

"The Dwarf City of Dwarrowdelf" from FOTR was spectacular. "There's an eye opener and no mistake."

 

[FPAlpha]

The entirety of "To Wong Foo.. Thanks for everything"

You have to see Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snips playing Drag Queens. Those guys usually ooze machismo and for them to be slipping into high heels is just plain awesome.

Go see the movie.. it is hilarious.

 

[Quo Vadimus]

The scene in FOTR where Frodo is standing on the beach, all alone, as if the Ring had paralyzed him. Gandalf speaks, the music swells, Frodo puts the ring back in his pocket and strides forth into the unknown. That scene absolutely floored me the first time I saw it.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Magneto escaping his plastic prison in X2. It was bloody genius!

 

[firehawk12]

The last one I had was during the end of Act 1 of Call of Duty 4. I honestly didn't know what was going on and it just blew my mind.

That was fucking great. I couldn't believe it. I was honestly thinking in my head, "Noooo, they're not about to... Are they? Holy shit, they did!" And the fact that you get to play through that moment, as though you can actually change anything, is especially great.

Yup, for me that was maybe the first true example of a game doing something that no other medium could do... something as profound as any anti-war book/movie/tv show/play/whatever.

 

[Mistral]

The entirety of "To Wong Foo.. Thanks for everything"

You have to see Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snips playing Drag Queens. Those guys usually ooze machismo and for them to be slipping into high heels is just plain awesome.

Go see the movie.. it is hilarious.

Good for you! Totally sick of hitting this thread and reading "The Lord of the Rings this, and that, and the other thing..." You are right-and Swayze was particularly amazing in this flick. Snipes was a little over the top, IOM but Swayze-just amazing.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

One of the many which come to mind is the scene in the pilot of Jericho where the boy is standing motionless on the roof of his house and the camera rises to reveal what he is looking at: a mushroom cloud in the far distance. That image gets me every time.

 

[Orintho]

A few of mine include:

Star Wars - A New Hope: well, about all of it really. Honestly for you guys who were not there in 1977 when it hit the theaters, it was like a religious revelation. The opening segment, the twin setting suns of Tatooine, Mos Eisley and the Millenium Falcon blasting off, the chess game, the light sabers, the Death Star, I could go on.

Empire Strikes Back - Battle of Hoth.

Star Trek The Search for Spock - that battered Klingon ship landing on Vulcan on a glorious golden afternoon.

Dances with Wolves - when Dunbar first comes across the Souix village on the plains.

Gettysberg - Chamberlain's 'swinging door' charge down Little Roundtop.

Jurassic Park - the T Rex of course.

Jurassic Park II - two T-Rexs.

Dark City - The William Hurt character finding out the hard way where that city truly was.

Lord of the Rings:

FOTR: the prologue battle with the last alliance of men and elves when Sauron himself took to the field. Seeing the Shire, Rivendell, Mordor, Isengard, Moria, Lorien, and so many other notable spots realized on film and realized WELL. Early in the film when Gandalf goes to Minas Tirith for the first time. The balrog. Boromir's touching death scene.

TTT: The black gates, the battle for Helm's Deep, especially when Aragorn rouses Theoden for that one last charge. The ents attacking Isengard.

ROTK: Battle for Pellanor Fields, especially when the mumaks make their appearance. All of Gondor bowing in thanks to the hobbits.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The opening sequence of Voyager-say what you will about the series the credits sequence was jaw-dropping.

Agreed. The music especially captures the grandeur of romanticized space exploration. That music was the first thing that popped into my head in my college astronomy class when the professor showed me a photo of 2 spiral galaxies colliding with each other.