>>The most awesome opening scene in a movie:
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>>The Matrix Reloaded - where Carrie-Anne Moss rides the bike off the roof and drops it into the guard room. 10/10 ...
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>Can't quite remember if it's exactly the opening scene, but for the most harrowing, awesomely realistic, throw-you-right-in-there ... was ... Private Ryan - the beachhead assault. I flinched and ducked and squirmed and writhed and really felt the horror of it. You heard the whizz of bullets going past your head, heard them hit the water near you - everything was so realistic.


I wasn't there at Normandy myself so don't know but it really did have the feeling of veracity. IIRC the opening scene goes on for close to half an hour. Steven Spielberg said his entire intent in making the movie was to pay homage to the real soldiers who were there -- the way it really was, not some bogus Hollywood homage -- and I think he succeeded. He captured the fear -- soldiers throwing up in their helmets as their boats approached the beach -- the violence -- limbs blown off, men suddenly dead -- and the sense that they were putting their lives at risk for a just cause. SS said at the time that he wouldn't let his own children watch it because it was too violent. An absolutely terrific scene, excellent choice.

I also liked the adjacent scene (which I think was technically the opening scene), the one with the old man visiting the military cemetary in Normandy, row upon row of markers for the soldiers who died there. When the movie came out there were some in the movie chat groups who mocked it as sentimental, but I disagreed with them then and still do. The old man was clearly intended to be Private Ryan later in life, and you sensed somehow that he had heeded Capt. Miller's (Tom Hanks) last words: "Earn this."