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Quicksearch: Your search for "A Scene From" returned 16 results:

A Scene from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Monday, September 11. 2023

The World Trade Center as seen in the movie Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Today, Transformers is seen as one of Hasbro's flagship brands. But back in the early 1990s, the line was struggling for relevance. Generation 1 had wrapped up, Generation 2 had failed to reinvigorate the series, and in 1995 Hasbro dumped the property onto its recently acquired Kenner offices and told them to figure something out. The result was Beast Wars, and a popularity boost that has remained ever since.

That mid-era malaise was woven into Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Having been stranded on Earth with limited resources, Optimus Prime and his crew were sitting around - sometimes literally collecting dust - when the call came that a new generation had arrived and they needed to get back into action. Being set in 1994 worked to have the film fit with the Bumblebee continuity (and avoid having to deal with whether or not this is part of the 2007 Transformers movie), but it also highlighted this critical juncture in Transformers history.

Scenes in New York City are nothing new for Transformers. From G1 comics and cartoon episodes to Revenge of the Fallen having Megatron reveal their existence to the world by broadcasting from the antenna atop the Empire State Building, it has been a frequent stop for the Cybertronians. The establishing shot above made sure that we knew both the where and when we were going to go for the latest outing in the series.
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A Scene from Vanilla Sky

Sunday, September 11. 2022

The World Trade Center as seen in the movie Vanilla Sky

Much like Spider-Man, Vanilla Sky arrived in theaters shortly after the events of 9/11. It was one of those movies so strongly set in New York that the city became a character itself. The movie starts off with arguably its most famous scene, where Tom Cruise runs through a deserted Times Square as part of a dream sequence, and it concluded with the above scene, where he and the rest of the cast meet for the final time in another dream. Invoking the almost surrealistic tones of Monet, they are standing in the clouds atop an impossibly tall building with a view of several NYC landmarks including the Twin Towers. While several people felt the towers should not have been included in the final cut of the film, director Cameron Crowe had a different take:

“That’s what we filmed. It was filmed about a year before the tragic incident that removed them. And I didn’t want to remove them again.”
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A Scene from Three Days of the Condor

Saturday, September 11. 2021

The World Trade Center as seen in the movie Three Days of the Condor

The early to mid-1970s were a period of malaise for much of the United States. The end of the Vietnam War, a recession, the energy crisis, rising crime rates, and Watergate were all on everyone's mind. New York City was a particularly rough town at the time, and movies reflected the grittier sentiment with titles like Serpico, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and Dog Day Afternoon.

Among these was the spy thriller Three Days of the Condor, based on the book Six Days of the Condor by James Grady. Aside from the number of days, the movie also changed the location of much of the action, moving the characters from Washington, D.C. to New York. The location change took advantage of New York's particular attitude, but also allowed for much of the action to take place in and around the recently-completed towers of the World Trade Center. These included street-level views, some rare shots inside the offices with their distinct narrow windows, and the above shot of the lobby of the North Tower (seen at about two-thirds of the way through the movie).
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A Scene from Moonstruck

Thursday, September 10. 2020

The World Trade Center as seen in the movie Moonstruck

New York City has always had a bit of a rough reputation. Britannica refers to it as "foreign and fearsome, a place where turmoil, arrogance, incivility, and cruelty tested the stamina of everyone who entered it;" in her column "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" (a.k.a. "Wear Sunscreen"), Mary Schmich gives the advice to "Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard." Movies have generally followed suit, using the city itself as shorthand for the antagonists - whether it's the negative energy manifesting in a river of liquified evil in Ghostbusters 2 or the more mundane but just as frightening power wielded in Wall Street.

But New York is also home to over eight million people, living lives on a much smaller scale than the city itself. Moonstruck was such a story, focusing on two families and their intertwined lives. Not as gang members or part of some syndicate, just as people. It was still a uniquely New York tale - the city was arguably as much a cast member as Cher or Nicolas Cage - but it was not the malevolent force so often seen in films. Among the scenes showing this softer side of New York were several shots of the full moon over Manhattan, with the Trade Center standing tall among the other buildings.
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A Scene from Trading Places

Wednesday, September 11. 2019

The World Trade Center as seen in the movie Trading Places

Most of the time, when the World Trade Center was used in movies, it was simply part of the skyline - either incidental to the story taking place in New York City or as an easily identifiable landmark to set the scene. But the "Trade" part of the name was more than just a catchy moniker: 4WTC was home to five commodities exchanges and had one of the largest trading floors in the world.

This became the setting for the final act of Trading Places, where Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy get their revenge on the tycoons who set them up in the beginning of the movie. As they cross the plaza and walk past the Ideogram sculpture, we get this rare street-level view of Tower 2 with its distinct facade and 3WTC visible in the background.
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A Scene from Cruel Summer

Tuesday, September 11. 2018

The World Trade Center as seen in the Bananarama music video for Cruel Summer

Formed in 1981 by friends Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey and Keren Woodward, Bananarama was one of the acts associated with the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the early/mid 1980s. Their first single was "Cruel Summer," with an accompanying music video shot in New York City during the summer of '83.

According to Fahey, the video was an "excuse to get [them] to the fabled city of New York for the first time," and so much of the video was spent making the most of their time there. Several shots of the Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, and other landmarks are shown throughout the video, including bookends of the overall skyline showing the towers centered behind the group.
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A Scene from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Monday, September 11. 2017

The World Trade Center as seen in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The one constant in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, from the comics to the cartoon to the live action movies, has been that the Heroes in a Half Shell have always called the Big Apple their home. As an extension of that, the World Trade Center frequently appeared in establishing shots and was even used some plots. One of the most overt uses of the WTC was in the original cartoon's third season episode "The Big Blow Out." In it, Krang and Shredder have mobilized the Technodrome and attached it to one of the towers, using the tallest building in the city as an antenna to open a portal to Dimension X. While the art in TMNT isn't quite as accurate as in some other shows, the profile is unmistakable and Donatello even called it by name as the Turtles approached the scene.
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A Scene from The Kentucky Fried Movie

Sunday, September 11. 2016

The World Trade Center as seen in The Kentucky Fried Movie

Last year, I mentioned how Rumble in the Bronx used an establishing shot of New York City to set the scene despite the movie actually filming in Vancouver, British Columbia. The use of these establishing shots is an old trope, one played for laughs in A Fistful of Yen, a sketch in John Landis' The Kentucky Fried Movie.

The longest single sketch within TKFM, A Fistful of Yen parodied several cinematic classics including the James Bond movies, The Wizard of Oz, and most notably Enter the Dragon. When martial arts master Loo is hired by the UK government to stop the nefarious Dr. Klahn, he travels to "Hong Kong" as noted in the above shot featuring lower Manhattan - complete with the Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty.
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A Scene from Rumble in the Bronx

Friday, September 11. 2015

The World Trade Center as seen in Rumble in the Bronx

Twenty years ago, Jackie Chan was introduced to mainstream American audiences with Rumble in the Bronx. Already famous for his incredible stunts around the world (particularly in his native Hong Kong), New Line Cinema was the first to give one of his films wide theatrical release in the United States. As much as audiences enjoyed the movie's stunts, however, many noticed the beautiful but distinctly non-Bronx mountains visible in the background of many shots—a byproduct of the movie's true filming location of Vancouver, British Columbia. To help sell the movie's location as New York City, several establishing shots were added throughout the movie, including this one that included not just the Trade Center, but the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty as well for maximum landmark visibility.
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A Scene from The French Connection

Thursday, September 11. 2014

The World Trade Center as seen in The French Connection

The French Connection is considered by many to involve one of the greatest car chase sequences in movie history. But somewhat earlier in the movie, it has one other notable scene: just after Henri Devereaux's Lincoln Continental is offloaded from the boat used to transport it to the United States (the car used in the smuggling operation), it is observed by smuggler Alain Charnier and his henchman Pierre Nicoli. In the background of the shot of Charnier and Nicoli, the two towers of the World Trade Center are shown under construction. During the time of filming, 1 WTC had reached its full height but 2 WTC was still incomplete. It was the first Hollywood production to show the towers, during a time when they were still a highly controversial addition to the Manhattan skyline.
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A Scene from Watchmen

Wednesday, September 11. 2013

The World Trade Center as seen in Watchmen

Considered "un-filmable" for years, Watchmen finally came to the big screen with Zack Snyder's adaptation in 2009. While the changes to the story have been frequently debated, most people agree that the film is visually stunning. One of the most impressive shots was also one of the first we saw: Owlman's ship, Archie, rising from the water and speeding off into the sky was placed early in the first Watchmen trailer.

Among the concerns faced when filming Watchmen, was that it was written during the Cold War and any attempts to update it to a modern setting ruined the feel of the story. To prevent this, screenwriter Alex Tse simply retained the story's time frame and set the movie in an alternate timeline. The props and sets were all built to reflect this, including a mid-1980s New York City. Although few (if any) audience members would have noticed a generic skyline being used for the above nighttime scene, Snyder and his crew took the extra step to include a proper NYC skyline that included the Trade Center. It's a nice touch, and indicative of the care used when setting up shots for this movie.
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A Scene From The Toxic Avenger

Tuesday, September 11. 2012

The World Trade Center as seen in The Toxic Avenger

Troma Entertainment was founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974, an independent producer/distributor located in New York. Their movies are generally low-budget throwbacks to horror films of the '50s, though with an intentional shock factor thrown in. In 1984 they ended up with a surprise hit in The Toxic Avenger - a movie that spawned three sequels, a cartoon series, a comic series, a novelization, and an Off-Broadway musical. The titular character (nicknamed "Toxie") has been a staple of pop culture for over 25 years, and is currently the official mascot of Troma Entertainment. It's a silly movie that knows what it is and lets us have fun right along with it.

But when it was filmed, The Toxic Avenger was just another low-budget movie. So when filming scenes in the fictional "Tromaville, NJ," the production crew simply used nearby locations, including a few shots from New Jersey showing the Manhattan skyline. The film ends up being bookended by two shots of the Trade Center, the closing one also including Toxie after becoming the hero of Tromaville. It's a fitting scene that - like everything else in the movie - doesn't take itself too seriously.
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A Scene from Spider-Man

Sunday, September 11. 2011
The World Trade Center as seen in Spider-Man


Spider-Man had the unfortunate timing to be the first major movie set in New York City after September 11, 2001. The iconic towers had been used as a large part of the early marketing for the movie, and were featured heavily in both the first teaser and the early poster, but these were quickly changed to honor the sensitivity of the issue. The towers were similarly removed from the movie itself, with a few exceptions. They do still appear in a couple of quick "flyby" backgrounds, as well as the above image from around the midpoint of the movie.

At this point in the story, Peter Parker has accepted his role as Spider-Man and is shown swinging among buildings, saving lives, stopping criminals, and so on while intercut scenes of news and "on the ground" reactions play out. Among the shots of Spidey is this view of him with the Trade Center reflected in his eye. He turns his head slightly in that direction, and leaps off-camera to finish the montage.

It had first appeared in a somewhat different context in the above-mentioned teaser, likely making it one of the first views of Spider-Man to be completed. It's an extremely brief shot, but the way that it's handled in the finished film - no dialogue, the glance (and subsequent travel) in that direction, and the overall composition of the shot - make it one of the best tributes I've seen in a film. Keeping it exactly as it appeared in the teaser with the slightly different framing let the filmmakers acknowledge what happened while staying classy.
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A Scene from The Simpsons

Saturday, September 11. 2010
The World Trade Center as seen in The Simpsons


The season 9 premiere episode of The Simpsons was the "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," in which Homer's car is illegally parked and booted in the plaza between the Towers. The DVD commentary track for this episode is unique in that there is an emotional resonance as well as the standard "behind-the-scenes" type material. Executive producer Bill Oakley provides most of the narration, and tells us how he had sent Dave Silverman to New York to take reference photos of the buildings and surrounding areas to make the scenes in NYC as realistic ("though Simpson-ized") as possible. Lance Wilder and the design department then used those photos to depict as startlingly accurate depiction of the Towers, down to the appropriate guest signs in the lobby and observation deck. It was the first time The Simpsons worked with a more realistic setting like this, and many of the new techniques used here would later become mainstays of animated programming (such as the use of computer rendering for the bridge in the episode's closing sequence).
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A Scene from Men In Black

Friday, September 11. 2009
The World Trade Center as seen in Men In Black


I consider Men In Black to be one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all time. It combines a well-thought plot with incredible performances, great effects, a solid score, and even manages to use realistic science to balance the more fantastic elements of the movie. We also get two shots of the Manhattan skyline, giving a view of the Towers and surrounding buildings in both daylight and at night. The shots frame the scene where Will Smith learns about the MIB and makes his decision to join, providing a nice transition from the action-oriented scenes on either side to this relatively quiet scene.
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