02 March 2009

Action Movie Sequences We Need to See

We need something more than the traditional car chases. Maybe we could have a scene in which the villain and the hero chase each other in fighter jets. And then ride lawn mowers. And then one is in a fighter jet while the other is on a riding lawn mower.

During this prolonged car / jet / riding lawn mower chase scene, the two run out of gas and have to fill up. The whole time they are filling their vehicles they are shouting obscenities across the gas station at each other.

In a variation on the classic Indiana Jones scene in which Jones pulls a gun on the threatening swordsman, just as our hero is about to meet his untimely end he shouts, "Cut!" stopping action. As the director comes out from behind the camera to protest this usurpation of power, the hero listens to him rant for a short while and then matter of factly punches him in the jaw, knocking him out, before striding off to his trailer to refresh his make up.

The money scene - the one that creates the most tension and anticipatory excitement is one that features a bold take on the hero who, seemingly immune to pain sews himself up. In this action movie, the hero realizes that his only chance of winning the coming martial arts showdown with the arch villain is to quickly sever his right arm and sew it back on backwards. This would give him two left hands - a tactic against which even the master martial artist would be unable to defend himself and would make our southpaw hero suddenly endowed with TWO dominant hands. At this point, the suspense would not center around the fight. Once the arm is properly on, the hero is sure to win and the audience merely sits back and watches the dismay, confusion, and, ultimately, helplessness of the arch-villain. The only suspense is whether our hero can perform the procedure on himself before losing consciousness and whether he do it before the villain arrives. I have to believe that this scene would become a classic.

Our hero has had a series of harrowing, high-stress, near-miss events ... attacks on his body, his psyche, and his emotional stability ... persevered in spite of the emotional toll of alienation ... taken bullets .... been in high-speed car chases ... absorbed and delivered blows .... and now, in this sequel, he is so exhausted that he merely sits and stares at the camera for the full 100 minutes. The sequel name would be "Dead Tired."

3 comments:

Allen said...

Most interesting blog for a Tuesday morning, Ron, which leads me to ask the following question: did you by chance receive and eat some of those mushrooms I sent that I collected while on a hike last weekend through the Tillamook National Forest just west of Portland, OR? If yes, I'm thinking maybe I might have picked the, ahem, wrong shrooms. How's about sending them back, big fellah?

Anonymous said...

I think that every chase scene in every action movie- especially the James Bond movies- should be accompanied by "Yakety Sax."

It made "Benny Hill" better, so logically it will make everything better.

Anonymous said...

Well, it's not a jet fighter and a riding lawn mower, but a similar idea:
http://www.flixxy.com/bugatti-veyron-vs-eurofighter.htm

Enjoy!