Warning: The Following contains Spider-Man: Far From Home SPOILERS!
Modern blockbuster filmmaking is a lot like Mysterio’s illusions in Spider-Man: Far From Home -- some of it is real and some of it is the work of advanced technology tricking your eyes. Like any other blockbuster, Far From Home employs healthy doses of CGI movie magic, but it isn’t all just 0s and 1s and pixels. Director Jon Watts has shared a cool behind-the-scenes video from the making of the film, packed with real explosions. Check it out:
CGI is cool and it allows for things that would never be possible in a film otherwise, but nothing beats the tangible realism of practical effects. Even in a raw form like this, without CGI to gussy everything up, these explosions and seeing the cars flip looks positively awesome. So it is cool that Spider-Man: Far From Home went practical in this situation where it was possible.
Jon Watts captions his Instagram post “This was fun” and it certainly looks like it. Seeing stuff blow up is universally appealing and when you’re the one who gets to call action for the explosions to begin, it must be even better. Such are the fun toys you get to play with as a blockbuster movie director.
Beyond this tracking shot following the explosions simply looking cool, what’s particularly impressive here -- and whenever you see something like this -- is how much undoubtedly went into getting it right. First and foremost there are the safety concerns, making sure that this can be done safely and everyone is out of harm’s way.
Then there is all the work that goes into making sure everything is timed right and happens when it’s supposed to happen. Doing something like this isn’t cheap or easy and you want to get it right the first time. That means things blowing up when they’re supposed to blow up and landing the way they’re supposed to. On top of all that, the camera has to be where it needs to be in order to capture it all.
The upside to all that hard work is that when it’s all said and done, you get to blow stuff up and create an awesome cinematic spectacle. Although Jon Watts doesn’t say it in his Instagram post, this video appears to come from the third act of Far From Home when everyone is in London. Mysterio uses his drones to go after Spidey and his friends on Tower Bridge resulting in these explosions.
Spider-Man: Far From Home gave us as much to think about as any Avengers movie, and from its wild cameo in the mid-credits scene to the intriguing post-credits stinger, we have a lot of questions about what’s next for Spider-Man and the MCU at large. Hopefully we’ll get answers to some of our questions when Marvel Studios returns to Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con next weekend.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is now playing. The MCU might be done for 2019, but there are still plenty of movies to look forward to this year, check them out in our premiere guide.
