Bondathon 2012: Our Top Ten Stunts!!!

Comments

• TheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'

  September 2012 Posts: 9,117

  Oh dear. As I’m on night shift and with very little to amuse me I’m afraid I cant tolerate this list at all.
  
  Much as I support your cause your list is hopelessly flawed. Firstly you seem unable to differentiate between the meaning of ‘stunt’ and ‘action sequence’.
  A ‘stunt’ is a single event which can be edited together with other stunts to form an ‘action sequence’.
  
  Thus in your list we have the TWINE boat chase, the AVTAK taxi chase, and the CR parkour chase all of which are big action sequences comprising of many stunts (the AVTAK scene for example – which stunt are you talking about here: the parachute jump, the jump onto the lift, the car driving down the stairs, the jump onto the bus, the roof getting cut off, getting cut in half?)
  
  But this aside your list is still far from brilliant.
  
  The TND bike jump is not as impressive as it looks as the helicopter blades were added in later so that reduces the danger significantly.
  
  Cant believe the TLD cello case stunt makes the cut. It has no right being in there as the two lead actors are doing it! If a stunt isn’t dangerous enough to need a stuntman to perform it then it just cannot be on the list.
  
  Even the best stunt in the CR parkour chase – the jump between cranes – has to lose marks because of safety wires in place that just weren’t possible to delete with CGI back in the day.
  
  The LTK wheelie is possibly the least impressive stunt in that sequence seeing as it is not possible and was only made so by special modifications to the rig.
  
  And you have missed some epic work off altogether.
  
  Heres a revised list which improves on yours in terms of being done for real, skill, courage and actual risk to life and limb which is what makes an impressive stunt to me.
  
  1.TSWLM – Ski jump. Spectacular location and the added variable of skiing off the edge into an already big base jump, plus its iconic Union Jack parachute mean this is the daddy. (AVTAKs base jump and GE’s bungy both miss out because they just repeated the same trick of location plus jump but not as well or as dangerously as this).
  
  2.TLD – Fight on a cargo net which is hanging out of the back of a Hercules. BJ Worth narrowly avoided having his skull crushed as the net began to thrash around.
  3.TMWTGG – Astro spiral car jump. Anything goes wrong and you are upside down at the bottom of a murky Thai canal.
  
  4.OP – The late, great Martin Grace hanging off the side of the train and letting his feet drag along the ground. Done completely for real and very dangerous – as later proven when the crew made a mistake and Grace barely avoided death winding up in hospital for months with a shattered leg.
  
  5.TWINE boat barrel roll. Bascially the same stunt as TMWTGG except any mistake and you get a face full of Thames water at speed which would be very nasty.
  
  6.LALD boat jump. The longest boat jump ever attempted at that point.
  
  7. OHMSS Bobsleigh. The stuntman being blown off the bobsleigh by a mistimed effects charge or the moment when he falls off the side and is then dragged behind it. Neither scripted but both looked so amazing they had to stay in.
  
  8.OP plane – OK both men were wearing parachutes but the clambering around outside the plane is really exceptional work.
  
  9. LALD croc jump – Quite low tech in terms of some of the other entries on here but when you throw the unpredictability of such dangerous wild animals into the mix this is a very risky stunt – as shown in the outtakes when Ross Kananga could easily have lost a foot.
  
  10. TB hydrofoil – George Leech (I think I’m right in saying) climbs up the side of a hydrofoils er foil? Or is it skid? Anyway the bit that elevates it out of the water. No safety measures and at high speed. Falling would not have been fun.
  
  I’m not sure this list is perfect by any means as I’ve just banged it out off the top of my head but it is certainly better than yours.
  
  I wish you all the best with your charity but just because you are supporting a good cause is not enough to melt the stony heart of the Wizard from pointing out when you are wrong I’m afraid. Sorry.
  
• WatchersFilmSho

  September 2012 Posts: 7

  BRAVO!!! A hearty debate and all valuled arguments, especially OP and the stuntman nearly loosing his leg!!
  
  As we say it's our top ten favourites and in no way definitive! Lol we would never dare to be so bold (or egotistical!!)
  
  I feel a top twenty would maybe just get them all in.
  
  We did decide that our list was best stunt & stunt seqs combined, should of made that clearly- for this I apologise!!
  
  As you say all in a good cause and about raising awareness of what were upto - while at the same time engaging film debate(s)!
  
  Thanks for support for the charity challenge, your reply made me smile as one fanatic to another :)