Hands down, the best action sequence of all time.
- Thread starter Sgt. Sacrament
- Start date
"I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty. And if its speed dropped, the bus would explode! I think it was called... 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'."
And the tag line was "Bus stop!"
Thanks man. I was wondering why it was acting weird.
I'll take your French Connection and raise you a Bullitt and a Blues Brothers. I know you think the world begins and ends in New York City, but...
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMc2RdFuOxI[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcv4T9Auy0U[/yt]
I'll take your French Connection and raise you a Bullitt and a Blues Brothers. I know you think the world begins and ends in New York City, but...
C'mon, that's one of the best car chases ever filmed. I'd have posted it but Laser Beam got there first. However, Blues Brothers?
Yeah, it's got a hell of an action sequence. 2 in fact. In the early part of the film, when they drive through Ford City mall-outrageous!
I think it's a great chase, as well, it's just that Mr. Laser Beam knows I like to needle him about his obsession with the Big Apple.C'mon, that's one of the best car chases ever filmed. I'd have posted it but Laser Beam got there first.I'll take your French Connection and raise you a Bullitt and a Blues Brothers. I know you think the world begins and ends in New York City, but...
^That's actually Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, IL; the mall has a rather interesting (and sad) history of its own, of which Blues Brothers is only a small chapter.However, Blues Brothers?
http://www.deadmalls.com/malls/dixie_square_mall.html
^ yeah, that mall is still there - abandoned after all these years. In fact it was abandoned even before the movie was made there, AFAIK. 
Runner-up for best action sequence:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrancN6_yYA[/yt]
Runner-up for best action sequence:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrancN6_yYA[/yt]
anything from Jason Bourne and Transporter trilogies.
I can think of quite a few scenes from various movies and TV shows that have left me in awe but none quite so much as the entirety of the Optimus Prime vs. Decepticons/Megatron battle sequence from Transformers The Movie (1986)- starting from the moment that Prime transforms and begins tearing into the Decepticon ranks and ending with the ignominious Decepticon retreat from Autobot City. Actually, I would say that I was pretty much glued to my seat/the screen during the entire first 30-40 minutes of that movie.
For runner ups, I would say the end battle of Star Trek DS9's "Call to Arms" where Sisko, et. al work to keep the Dominion at bay while the Defiant finishes laying the mines and Kira and Odo's pre-programmed "sabotage" of the station. Also, the final scene of B5's "Z'Ha'Dum where Sheridan crashes the White Star into Z'Ha'Dum gripped me like pretty much no other television programming had before (or since).
For runner ups, I would say the end battle of Star Trek DS9's "Call to Arms" where Sisko, et. al work to keep the Dominion at bay while the Defiant finishes laying the mines and Kira and Odo's pre-programmed "sabotage" of the station. Also, the final scene of B5's "Z'Ha'Dum where Sheridan crashes the White Star into Z'Ha'Dum gripped me like pretty much no other television programming had before (or since).
Tony Jaa in the staircase fight from 'The Protector':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJJtuTxovQA
(embedding is disabled, so you have to watch it on YouTube)
The director calls this "the most dangerous long take scene ever." A 4 minute stedicam shot featuring a variety of martial arts.
The crew spent over 1 month preparing and choreographing before they were able to get a perfect shot. When it came time to shoot, they could only do 2 takes per day because of the set repairing and prop replacement that needed to be done. It took 5 takes to get it right. A foreign cameraman was needed because the stedicam mount was built for american / european operators who are typically much larger than asian operators.
The foreign operator they hired could only do two flights of stairs at a time and simply gave up. They decided to use a Thai stedicam operator who physically prepared for a month for this job.
The reason the shot is 4 minutes is because reels of 35mm film are only about 4 min in length.
They shot the first take which had a number of problems with stuntmen cues, and even a stuntman bumping into the stedicam operator. After choreographing more dynamic action, an increase of extras and improving the set, the next take they did was 17 days after the first take.
The second take was better but when the stuntman was supposed to be thrown from the 3rd story, the safety mattress was not completely in place yet so Tony Jaa stopped the shot and saved the stuntman's life.
The third take was just about perfect but just before Tony Jaa was supposed to bust through the last doorway, the film ran out. The director finally decided that instead of simply cutting there, they would try again for perfection.
They thought the fourth take was perfect but after review there were some parts that weren't as good as the pervious takes. They decided on one more try.
On the fifth try, it was almost perfect. But there were 2 miscues. On the 2nd floor, Tony Jaa slams a door into the head of a stuntman and the small glass window on the door was supposed to break. It failed to do so, so they used CGI to fix this. The 2nd issue was the fight just before the sink gets thrown. The timing was off as planned but the end result looked natural so they decided this was the take to use in the final film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJJtuTxovQA
(embedding is disabled, so you have to watch it on YouTube)
The director calls this "the most dangerous long take scene ever." A 4 minute stedicam shot featuring a variety of martial arts.
The crew spent over 1 month preparing and choreographing before they were able to get a perfect shot. When it came time to shoot, they could only do 2 takes per day because of the set repairing and prop replacement that needed to be done. It took 5 takes to get it right. A foreign cameraman was needed because the stedicam mount was built for american / european operators who are typically much larger than asian operators.
The foreign operator they hired could only do two flights of stairs at a time and simply gave up. They decided to use a Thai stedicam operator who physically prepared for a month for this job.
The reason the shot is 4 minutes is because reels of 35mm film are only about 4 min in length.
They shot the first take which had a number of problems with stuntmen cues, and even a stuntman bumping into the stedicam operator. After choreographing more dynamic action, an increase of extras and improving the set, the next take they did was 17 days after the first take.
The second take was better but when the stuntman was supposed to be thrown from the 3rd story, the safety mattress was not completely in place yet so Tony Jaa stopped the shot and saved the stuntman's life.
The third take was just about perfect but just before Tony Jaa was supposed to bust through the last doorway, the film ran out. The director finally decided that instead of simply cutting there, they would try again for perfection.
They thought the fourth take was perfect but after review there were some parts that weren't as good as the pervious takes. They decided on one more try.
On the fifth try, it was almost perfect. But there were 2 miscues. On the 2nd floor, Tony Jaa slams a door into the head of a stuntman and the small glass window on the door was supposed to break. It failed to do so, so they used CGI to fix this. The 2nd issue was the fight just before the sink gets thrown. The timing was off as planned but the end result looked natural so they decided this was the take to use in the final film.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPWoz7WTmjU[/yt]
my actual favorite chase scene is the end train chase in the film The Wrong Trousers. Seriously
my actual favorite chase scene is the end train chase in the film The Wrong Trousers. Seriously
Well, I think we have a winner.
Best of all time is the entire escape from LA sequence in 2012
Ouch, poor horses.
In most Western movies horses are trained to fall such that they don't generally do much damage. In this clip however, most of the horses are clearly face planting. I imagine there was some damage done.
Tony's a great talent, but apart from the fact that he just doesn't have Jackie's charm and charisma, his fight scence (while slicker and generally more visceral) just aren't as imaginative, unpredicatble or energetic as Jackie's best. I'd take a lot of the fight scenes from Police Story (and the Mall fight of course), Operation Condor, Armor of God or the Legend of the Drunken Master over most of Tony's fights.
That said, Tony's hopefully got a long career ahead of him, I just don't get the feeling he's got the charisma to inherit the throne Jackie inherited from Bruce Lee.
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That first is so freaking hilariously bad awesome and cheesy I don't know what to say really
As for my favorites, the aforementioned car chase in "Bullitt" is my all time favorite car chase, the ones in "Ronin" are fantastic as well. Also got to give a shout out to the downtown L.A. shootout in "Heat". Just the fact that it's one of the few gunfights that use the original production sound since they couldn't recreate the awesome power of the sound bouncing between the skyscrapers, is awesome.
As for my favorites, the aforementioned car chase in "Bullitt" is my all time favorite car chase, the ones in "Ronin" are fantastic as well. Also got to give a shout out to the downtown L.A. shootout in "Heat". Just the fact that it's one of the few gunfights that use the original production sound since they couldn't recreate the awesome power of the sound bouncing between the skyscrapers, is awesome.
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