Awesome / Dante's Peak

• Ruth's Dying Moment of Awesome.
• The bridge scene: The USGS evacuation group has to cross a bridge that's falling apart beneath as it's bashed by the lahar going down the river. And they actually make it! Except for Paul.
• As well as being Nightmare Fuel, the final eruption of the volcano is this, shooting a massive eruption column into the sky before creating a giant pyroclastic flow that completely obliterates the entire town.
  • Serious props must be given to the miniature effects team and compositors. The wide shot of the eruption was good enough several people (including volcanologists) thought the filmmakers had used Stock Footage of real volcanic eruptions.
• Dr. Dalton's final struggle to reach and activate the beacon as the earthquakes keep squishing him into a smaller and smaller space. It's a claustrophobic's worst nightmare, but he does it and saves them all!
• A nod was certainly earned by the visual effects guys when it came time to shoot the Dam Burst. It took weeks to build the miniature (for the curious, the miniature dam was around 30 feet tall), and almost as long to fill the tank behind it. If they blew the shot, they'd have to go through the entire process over again. They managed to nail it the first time.

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