The Dark Knight
The biggest stunt inThe Dark Knight , alternate the Joker ’s semi - truck , was done entirely without CGI . DirectorChristopher Nolan uses virtual effectswhere potential rather than CGI in his moving picture , and this break away across The Dark Knight Trilogy . Scenes such as the plane hijacking inThe Dark Knight rise , for case , were really executed rather than being VFX , and the hand truck prospect inThe Dark Knightis another memorable model of this .
The chase successiveness is the big military action setpiece in the middle ofThe Dark Knight , asthe Joker ( Heath Ledger)tries to see up toHarvey Dent ’s ( Aaron Eckhart ) police transport . Batman ( Crhstian Bale ) squeeze out the Batpod out from the Batmobile and attache tow cables to the Joker ’s semi - hand truck . Using those cables , he manages to flip the 18 - wheeler motortruck over , stopping the Joker ( though his real plan to get catch goes off without a hitch ) . While many moviegoers may assume this was CGI - and many filmmakers surely would ’ve used that option - Nolan opted for the genuine deal .
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The big truck somerset inThe Dark Knightwas done without CGI , with the film ’s gang actually flip over a semi - truck in the Chicago banking territory . The special force team tot up a piston to the undersurface of the trailer with a TNT charge sic up at its base . When the bursting charge was limit off , the piston fall the ground hard enough to flip the truck over , the house trailer move over the hack . For as simple as it was in principle , there were a lot of complicate factors . They had to do the full stunt multiple times because of the impairment it would ’ve do if thing went wrong . According to stunt coordinator Paul Jennings , “ If it gets halfway up and falls to the side – we were in the midsection of the Chicago banking territorial dominion – it would ’ve gone through a bank ’s window . ” ( viaIGN ) .
Even the street presented problem , as La Salle street had several sewer lines and underground structures like bank vaults . This meant that there were only a twosome places on the street they could fire the piston without causing serious damage to something underground , do it so the driver could only trigger it at one of a couple of specific locating . Yes , there was also a number one wood involved : stunt gadget driver Jim Wilkey was in the truck during the stunt .
The hand truck had been reinforced forThe Dark Knight , especially in the taxicab , to make certain that the number one wood could safely be at heart without getting crushed during the stunt . Instead of detonate it remotely , Wilkey drove the truck and triggered the plosion from inside at the proper location on the street , and the stunt function exactly as planned : trailer up over the cab , lands dead upside down . With a lot of work and planning , The Dark Knightwas able to rive off its biggest and most memorable stunt without the need for any CGI . Flippingthe Joker ’s motortruck was done strictly with practical result , in preserve with Christopher Nolan ’s preference for using tangible effects and stunts whenever potential .
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