Original Desmond

Think back through your movie watching history, from a technical "wow damm skippy" stand point, which movie scenes blew your mind at the time ? (even if they might seem lame now)

Try to think of some early ones

for me

The T-1000 first doing it's thing in T2

Transformers 1, when the decepticon in the desert transformed at the beginning of the movie

The James bond film which had the car which turned into a submarine, it was lotus esprite i think

X2 when colossus transformed

Mondo Kane

I'm a sucker for cameras doing the unusual:

Raimi-cam in Evil Dead
Elevator crane in Intolerance
Twister-cam in Opera
Leapfrog-cam in Time and Tide
Whatever-was-used in Soy Cuba

Crocker Jarmen

Watching young Jodi Foster run from downstairs to upstairs in a mirror's reflection in Cosmos.

The walk-thru of the studio in Magnolia, it's a goldmine of activity and timing, and I love how they threw in things that would come back later like the singers who deliver one of the game show questions practicing.

Sub-Zero

tommyp007

Contact. Yeah, that's pretty impressive.

Johnny Boy

Zelda from Pet Semetary. To me it seemed that was not an actor, but a real deformed and frightening creature with spinal meningitis who they cautiously did scenes with and kept in a cage between takes. Traumatized me as a child and I do believe she still affects me to this day.

Jurassic Park. This one is common. Like most people who saw it in the theaters I could not believe what I was seeing on the screen.

The T1000 and just the action in general did it for me in Terminator 2.

The realistic looking violence in Schindler's List. They actually looked like they were really getting shot, and I had never seen something like that in a movie.

The opening battle scene in Saving Private Ryan.

When the giant elephants came out at the end of LOTR: Return of the King. This is one that doesn't really impress me as much today as when I first saw it.

Reagan in The Exorcist. Her evilness radiated out of her face and voice and off the screen. Like Pet Semetary's Zelda, Reagan also traumatized me when I first saw it as a child.

The Crazy 88 fight scene in Kill Bill Volume I. That's how you do over the top violence.

There's countless others but I'll stop there.

Why So Blu?

T2
The Matrix
Opening of Gravity
Opening of Saving Private Ryan
Children of Men running through the projects in one take

Rockmjd23

2001 - practically the entire movie but specifically the jogging and anti-gravity scenes

Matrix Reloaded - chase scene on the highway. It doesn't hold up as well now but it was the only sequence of the movie that didn't suck and I was genuinely wowed by it. Compare it to the laughable Neo vs hundreds of Agent Smiths scene.

Goodfellas - the long take going into the club. I know it's been done many times before and since but it's still my favorite scene of its type.

The Thing (1982) - "Clear!"

Jason and the Argonauts (1960) - Skeletons. Not much more to say that hasn't been said, it just blows my mind how painstaking a process it must have been.

musick

Wizard Of Oz - B&W to color
2001 - jogging scene and others
Children Of Men - car attack
Irreversible - fire extinguisher scene
Enter The Void - money shot scene
Gravity - mostly all of it
A New Hope - opening shot post crawl
X2 - Nightcrawler White House scene and rescue of falling Rogue
Paths Of Glory - bunker tracking shot
The Fountain - Tree Of Life sprouting scene

sauce07

The infinite zooms in Limitless
Opening shot of Snake Eyes
Night vision chase in Rollerball (kidding)

Nick Danger

The big battle scene in Wings. Thousands of extras amid large explosions. Holy crap!
Aerial dogfights in Wings, shot by the pilots using hand-cranked cameras.
Free fall scenes in Apollo 13. They must have had a whole crew in the Vomit Comet, filming those sequences a few seconds at a time.

And, of course, the jogging scene in 2001.

sherm42

The effects in the Pirates of the Carribean movies. The effects look so good, even in scenes with bright daylight.

GoldenJCJ

Inception - Zero gravity fight. I'm in awe whenever I watch it.

Jurassic Park - T-Rex attack. The go-to answer but it amazed me when I first saw it in the theater and then learning the behind the scenes aspects of it made me appreciate it all the more.

Independence Day - The shadows of the spaceships and the model work. Not so impressive now but as a young teen seeing it in the theater it blew my mind.

Heat - Gunfight in the city streets. It's one of the most realistic gunfights I've ever seen in a film. The fantastic sound effects of the shots echoing through the streets just adds to the realism.

Hazel Motes

The final scene in Boogie Nights.

musick

the question wasn't what things in movie scenes do you want to blow

dugan

Gunshot wounds in Robocop (87). It was the first time I'd seen squib effects, and I asked my parents how they were done.

More recently:

CG with shakycam and perfect compositing in Cloverfield

San Francisco Bay crash in Star Trek: Into Darkness

I never understood why this scene is so widely praised. All I saw was a lot of animatronic dummies with squibs in them. The guy who takes off his helmet and then get a bullet in the head moves mechanically and has a face that looks like it was made out of paper mache.

davidh777

Original Desmond

yeah Jurassic Park for sure ! and i guess i have to say first use of bullet time in the Matrix

Draven

The "Feed Me, Seymour" section of Little Shop of Horrors. To date, I think Audrey II is one of the most impressive puppets ever put on screen. It 100% looks like a real living thing. Then I found out they did things like recorded at half speed to get the movement right, so Rick Moranis is singing and acting at half speed and it's even more impressive.

Michael Corvin

Lots of cool stuff mentioned but the three that just made my jaw drop were Jurassic Park, the Matrix and the first 15 minutes of Gravity.

inri222

The penultimate shot in Antonioni's The Passenger.

cleaver

T2 and all things Gollum.

The Infidel

The movies I think of blowing my mind are ones I saw as a kid, and I think the very first one that really made my jaw drop and my eyes open their widest was the opening scene of Star Wars with the Imperial cruiser. Oh. My. God.

dan30oly

When little boy and ET fly bike with the moon in teh background.

Awesome.

Noonan

The Matrix - Lobby Shooting Spree