News culture James Cameron did not use special effects to create this scene: everything is true in this action film with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Culture news James Cameron did not use special effects to create this scene: everything is true in this action film with Arnold Schwarzenegger

True Lies is considered one of the best action comedies ever made, starring James Cameron.. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Harry Tasker, a secret agent who must find four nuclear warheads with his associate Gib. By hiding his job from his wife (played by Jamie Lee Curtis), he realizes that his marriage is failing. The film celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, but remains impressive in terms of special effects, particularly in a scene produced without CGI.

An explosive scene

After becoming embroiled in her husband’s spying activities, Helen Tasker finds herself trapped in a speeding limousine. Harry decides to blow up the bridge using a missile in order to block them. The destruction is carried out without special effects and it is a miniature bridge specially created for the occasion. The head of mechanical effects on the project, Leslie Ekker, told the web magazine Befores and Afters that “it was a big, big model, measuring about fifty and a half meters wide and three and a half meters long at its end”. She also explains that managing the pyrotechnics is very important because everything had to be captured in one take and the cameras could catch all the debris in mid-air. To do this, you must not charge the explosion too much to have an almost slow detonation. In the final render, the missile strike and explosion blend seamlessly with other parts of the scene.

Scenes produced without special effects

James Cameron isn’t the only director who wanted an impressive action scene without CGI. Christopher Nolan for his film Tenet wanted to crash a real Boeing 747. A desire on the part of the Anglo-American to make the shot more memorable and impressive than with a mixture of models and special effects. We also remember that in Batman: The Dark Knight, he simply destroyed an entire building. One of the longest scenes in history to shoot is the chase in Matrix Reloaded, for which a three-lane highway was specially constructed. How not to quote Stanley Kubrick and his 2001 A Space Odyssey. To show his characters walking upside down in the ship, the director used a rotating corridor. A revolutionary technique used by Nolan in Inception. We can’t wait to see what impressive scenes will be created without special effects in the future.