If you've watched The Fast and the Furious, you'll agree with me that some of the stunts you saw were more than impressive. Can you believe that some of those stunts were done in real life? Yeah, some of those stunts were risky to the point where they look as if they were given some additional CGI effects. Actually, that's not always the case. A movie such as The Fast and the Furious has so many real stunts. Of course, some special men who are highly trained aided in filming this movie, which broke some records. Nonetheless, these men didn't appear in the movie because the audience had their favorite characters. From time to time, the audience gets attached to characters. Thus, the faces of the actors who played Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Conner were placed over those of the stuntmen. Still, the stunts remained all real.
Well, those two, Toretto and O'Conner, are the characters who appeared often on the stunts. You have to admit that the stuntmen who did their stunts have guts! They must be used to adrenaline, especially feeling a thrill which is combined with fear. It's unimaginable to drive a car from a flying plane. Can you imagine what that could feel like? Still, somebody had to man up and do that stunt. Actually, skydiving cars from thousands of miles above the ground is just the tip of the iceberg. There's more to that that will leave you shocked. You'll either open your mouth very wide or feel the thrill as if you were in that stunt.
8
THROWING CARS DOWNHILL WITH TERRAIN FULL OF TREES
Insanity is what this scene demonstrated. How could The Fast and the Furious team throw out four cars at the same time to meet their demise? This is just like buying a dream car and smashing it into little pieces. Cars in that scene seemed as if they had turned into glaciers melting down a mountain. If they had the ability to scream, they would've called for help very loudly. The Fast and the Furious team even admitted shooting this scene was challenging. Going up to an altitude of 14,000 ft brought about some oxygen deficiency to the production team, but they had to put up with those conditions.
Most of the producers felt light-headed at that altitude, and maybe this is what the cars felt as well, so they decided to give up by going over the cliff. Moreover, this scene was shot in Azerbaijan, where the forest was very dense and thick. Of course, the cars were put through a disastrous experience because some large rocks were put in their way. The rocks became bigger obstacles to boost the impact that the cars were to take in. Everything in this scene happened as it appeared on the movie screen.
7
RAMSEY BUS RESCUE SCENE
This scene was full of action, and you could see it by the way Ramsey was arguing with Brian O'Conner about jumping off the bus. Even in the movie, she was scared as hell to jump to the car, which was being driven by Toretto. Yeah, she jumped to the car in real life; that wasn't a CGI effect. Of course, she wasn't doing it in freestyle mode because she had some kind of protection that was supposed to take care of her in case things went south. Moreover, having that grip to hold on to the bonnet of the car was a piece of work that Ramsey managed to pull off. If her hands had slid in the slightest way, the shooting of the scene could've happened again and again.
How did she manage to hang there for a minute? It must've been tough for her. However, the driver of the car (Toretto) managed to pull her from that life-threatening situation. Ramsey was given a push, thanks to Toretto's driving skills. I hope you had your eyes open in that scene even though it was very intense.
6
HAVANA RACE
If you can precisely recall the extreme race at the beginning of Fast and Furious 8, there was a fire that broke out in one of the cars. Astonishingly, the fire was real. It wasn't a joke. The stuntman must've finished the race smelling like barbequed meat. Initially, the fire could be contained and retained, but when the car started moving at a demonic speed, the fire started spreading insanely. It got to the interior of the car and even touching the steering wheel became very hard. Actually, the steering wheel had turned into untouchable and red-hot coal. On the other hand, the car looked like an asteroid entering Earth's atmosphere at a super speed.
The stuntman couldn't withstand the fire, and it had to be toned down a little bit for the sake of the stuntman's life. In the end, a bigger fire was ignited to make the scene complete as written and described in the script. The two clips were combined to come up with that breathtaking scene, which was very effective because of the race and the fire that made it even hotter. That racing car must've experienced a whole day in hell.
5
TOKYO DRIFT GARAGE SCENE
The stuntmen made drifting in this scene look very easy. It's as if they were playing with toys. If they were taken to these big racing championships, the world would've been surprised to see those moves. CGI cannot manipulate such super moves, which are practically done. This scene was more about practical moves than computer effects. Cars were fixed with cameras in almost every direction to the point that they lost their shape. During the filming, these cars looked like trucks made of cameras because every moment had to be captured precisely.
The kind of drifting that took place there was enough to make you smell the burning tires just from the screen. All that took proper planning and commitment straight from the producers to the actors even though they didn't perform some stunts. Their faces appearing on those stunts was effort enough to bring the movie into action. Everybody had a role to play to make those car moves seem as lively as possible. However, those moves are only to be done by stuntmen, and I hope you didn't destroy your car pulling such a move.
4
DESTROYING PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE WITH A TANKER
It's utterly shocking to realize that The Fast and the Furious team had the kind of determination that won them the permission to film this scene on a public highway. The Canary Island government gave The Fast and the Furious the green light to shoot that scene in their highway. In this scene, this tanker left a wreck on the highway. Even driving the tanker through the highway was enough to make a mess of the road. Not only did the heavyweight tanker ruin the road, but it also destroyed the partition between the roads. This government must've been really into The Fast and the Furious franchise to sacrifice all that.
I'm pretty sure you're familiar with what this tanker did to one of the bridges in the Canary Islands. It brought down a section of a bridge, which took civil engineers and architects to design. You can imagine the kind of frustration they would've felt passing through that place and seeing their work in pieces. It must've been really hard to see such a thing. However, everything was repaired back to normal after that scene was filmed.
3
DRIVING A FAST CAR INTO A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE
This is a part of the Abu Dhabi scene in Fast and Furious 7 where a car jumped from one building to another. Well, before that happened, there was a party. People were enjoying themselves, and they were surprised by seeing a car in the building joining the party. However, the car joined the party in a low and chaotic mood. Actually, that car was the party crasher, and when it was driven in, everybody lost their minds. The good part is, the scene was as real as it looks.
There were approximately 150 people in the room when the car was driven in unceremoniously.
So, the car came in and wrecked everything up, especially the bar, which was supposed to leave people in a rather happy mood. Everybody panicked and left the room in a confused manner. Of course, that was all part of the script, and those attendees were extras paid to react accordingly in that specific scene. Anyway, the producers made this scene epic without hurting anyone during filming. Safety comes first. On screen, that was different because even Jason Statham joined the party in beast mode with a machine gun. He started shooting around.
2
DOMINIC TORETTO AND BRIAN O'CONNER JUMPING OFF A HIGH-SPEED MOVING CAR IN ABU DHABI
This stunt was done in real life but with stuntmen. After that, CGI was applied to "clones" and the actors' faces were put into the movie. Toretto and O'Conner were caught unaware in Fast and Furious 7 when they realized that the car's brakes had jammed before they completed the mission, so they had to jump. Still, the car was spinning, and this happened in reality. Stuntmen were in a car that had no doors, and they had to calculate exactly when they were to jump out. If they had made a mistake and jumped out at the wrong time, then the spinning car would've hurt them.
Luckily, they were able to pull off that stunt perfectly to the point where Toretto looked as if he was about to fall off a building. To make it real as possible, the car which the stuntmen were driving was destroyed. Just like in the film where the car took the fall for Toretto and O'Conner, that happened in reality. The car was lifted 60 ft above the ground, and then, it was released to take a very hard impact similar to that you saw in the movie. Some editing was done to enhance that reality and make it more interesting than it looked.
1
SHAW ESCAPE SCENE
‘'There's no way that scene could've been real.'' I'm pretty sure that's what you're thinking right now. But believe me. I too was shocked the same way upon realizing that the scene was done on a highway. Shaw was driving a car that was literally tackling and flipping opponent cars on the highway. This scene could've made you feel as if you were watching a rugby match because cars were flying in the air after being tackled by this beast called the ‘flip car.' Surprisingly, that car was designed and built from scratch as a four-wheeler. However, beforehand, some tests were done on other cars.
After the tests, it was time to hit the road. The product of the car speeding and colliding with opponent cars was just breathtaking, and it drew the attention of everybody, including the producers who were very shocked.