Movie magic is something we take for granted these days. In an age where entire worlds and characters can be created by an artist at a computer, we start to assume that everything we see is enhanced by CGI.
But it’s not, and you might not even know it. For every CGI animal is a real one, and for every CGI enhanced character is a practical slight of hand. Let’s check at some of the wildest ones you had no clue weren’t CGI.
The Spinning hallway in “Inception”
Remember the iconic hallway fight from Inception, where Joseph Gordon-Levitt defied the laws of gravity to take out his opponent in a dream? All of that was real.
The hallway was mounted on a giant cylinder and rotated while the actors constantly reoriented themselves inside of it.
The swinging polecats in “Mad Max”
During a race across the post-apocalyptic desert, the polecats in Mad Max: Fury Road swing back and forth while attached to speeding vehicles. And yes, all of that really happened.
Stunt people were trained in an 8-week course to be able to pull that trick off.
The exploding Death Star in “Star Wars: A New Hope”
CGI wasn’t really an option in 1977, so things had to be done the old-fashioned way.
Large-scale recreations of the surface of the Death Star were made by effects artist Bruce Logan, then quite literally set on fire in order to get the shot of Luke nailing his final shot.
“Interstellar’s” TARS
Much like R2-D2 in the original Star Wars series, TARS, the robotic companion in Interstellar, was real.
Director Christopher Nolan opted out of using a CGI creation and instead had a puppeteer control a real build of the robot.
Spider-Mans tray catch
Remember when there was only one Spider-Man movie? Those were the days.
In the original film, Peter catches Mary Jane in one arm and an entire tray of food with the other.
And all of that? Was something Tobey Macguire actually did. It took him 156 takes.
“Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol’s” skyscraper climb
Have you ever gotten it into your head to just…climb a skyscraper and swing around a little?
Tom Cruise did, and he did it for multiple takes.
Cruise rigged himself up for Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol and quite literally flung himself off of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
“Jurassic Park’s” dinosaurs
The most amazing thing about Jurassic Park, is, without a doubt, the CGI dinosaurs.
CGI was brand new at the time of the film’s 1993 release, and audiences had never seen CGI on that scale.
But the key to the terror and realism wasn’t all up to computers — some dinosaurs, including the T-Rex were animatronics built to scale.
Yup, that roaring dino is real.
“Inception’s” Parisian street explosion
Remember when Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page first entered a dream?
They sat chatting on a city street, and then bam: everything around them exploded.
Guess what? Those explosions were partially real, and accomplished via debris and air cannons.
“Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation’s” plane take-off
Tom Cruise, back at it again with the insane stunts.
For Rogue Nation, his character, Ethan Hunt, holds tight to an Airbus as it takes off.
So naturally…Tom Cruise literally held tight to an Airbus while it took off. Trust me, you have to see it to believe it.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens'” rising bread
No one said this was necessary, but boy is it cool.
Rey’s rising break from Star Wars: The Force Awakens was entirely practical, and took the effects team three months to figure out.
Yum.
“Fast Five’s” bank vault
Fast Five is one of the best of the franchise for a reason: it’s unbelievably cool.
Cooler still? The biggest action sequence in the film, in which Dom and his crew drag a bank vault through a city with their cars, was actually done practically using multiple mock vaults.
“The Matrix’s” gunfight
The bullets were CGI, but the stunts and destruction weren’t.
Carrie-Ann Moss really did cartwheel off of a wall, the columns really did crumble and explode, and there really was debris flying.
Now that’s what I’d call a hot set. (Thank you, I’ll be here all week.)
“Mad Max’s” flame guitar
Have you ever wanted to play the guitar, but also have it be on fire?
No?
Have you ever wanted to see that?
Well, then Mad Max: Fury Road has you covered, because it not only features that, but it was done completely practically.
“Edge of Tomorrow’s” exo-suits
For a film so full of action, Edge of Tomorrow uses a pretty small amount of CGI.
That includes the armored fighting suits Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt wore, which were built to allow the actors full mobility to run, jump, and dive in them.
They reportedly took months to build.
“Harry Potter’s” self-washing dishes
Think Mrs. Weasley’s self-washing dishes were an act of CGI magic?
Think again.
Those dishes washed themselves using practical effects that are now on display at the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London.
“Iron Man’s” arc reactor
There was only one solution to the issue of needing Pepper Potts to reach inside Tony Stark’s chest: build a fake Tony body.
Robert Downey Jr. sat on a stool with his head poking through a chair, and then a prosthetic body was attached to him from the shoulders down.
Wicked.
“Apollo 13’s” weightlessness
If you ever want to experience pure weightlessness, take a ride on the vomit comit — a plane that rises and falls so sharply that pure weightlessness is momentarily achieved on board.
That’s how the lack of gravity was done in Apollo 13, with Tom Hanks floating in 25-second intervals.
“Independence Day’s” fire in New York
The aliens are here, and they’re not friendly.
For Independence Day’s reign of destruction over New York, the production team built a model of New York City, turned it on its side, and then lit that [sucker up.]
“127 Hours'” arm
No, James Franco didn’t eat off his own arm.
But he did bite through a prosthetic one, since director Danny Boyle wanted the scene where he finally escapes to look as real as possible.
Hm. Gross.
“Iron Man 3’s” skydive
Classic Tony Stark to have to rescue an entire chain of falling people from Air Force One.
To achieve the rescue, the Iron Man 3 crew actually contacted Red Bull’s skydiving team and performed the entire fall for real.
“Jurassic World’s” dinosaurs
By the time Jurassic World came around, CGI had advanced far beyond anything that was imagined in 1993.
But that didn’t mean that the filmmakers behind the original trilogy’s sequel forgot how to make things as realistic as possible, and that meant still using one animatronic dinosaur.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark’s” melting face
Ew. Ewww. Ew.
Anyway, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way: ew!
Okay, now I’m done.
The iconic moment in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark where the big bad has his face melted off was achieved using gelatine and space heaters.
“The Dark Knight’s” semi-flip
Why use a CGI truck when you could literally buy a semi, install hydraulics in it, and flip it completely upside-down for the fun of it?
That’s exactly what The Dark Knight’s production team did, anyway.
“The Dark Knight Rises'” plane escape
What’s a director to do when the script calls for a plane-to-plane transfer stunt, complete with dropping a fuselage out of mid-air while two principal actors hang on for dear life?
Well, do it all practically, of course.
No Tom Hardys were injured in the making of this scene, but one plane fuselage and a spot of Scottish countryside definitely were.
