Interesting read on Days of thunder behind the scenes

I loved this movie. Loved top gun too. When he is faking the high side pass at the end and then dives to the inside I remember cheering in the theatre
 
I've always felt that for the money they spent and the effort they went to, it SHOULD have been much better than it was. Some of the decisions made in the story line just defy explanation, like building modern race cars in an old wooden bank barn that likely burnt to the ground the first time somebody started welding, (an old pole barn or converted gas station would have been much more appropriate) or showing the races way out of order for no good reason. The love interest part of the movie could not have fallen more flat in my opinion. It's hard to beleive those two ended up getting married, because they certainly didn't have ANY chemistry on screen. When you watch a racing movie that is actually great like Grand Prix, you realize just how lacking D of T really was. It had potential, but as so often happens in Hollywood, something closer to the truth would have actually been more interesting than the over the top version of events they tend to create. What they ended up is only SLIGHTLY more believable than Stroker Ace, another movie that could have and should have been so much better than it was.
 
^They used a fair amount of poetic license. When one watches a movie you need to suspend disbelief.
 
DanicaFreak said:
^They used a fair amount of poetic license. When one watches a movie you need to suspend disbelief.
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In this case, I don't see where the areas they want you to suspend disbelief added anything to the movie. In fact, I think they caused a large segment of the audience to not take it seriously, which is a shame, because it didn't have to be that way. The basic framework of the movie is not really bad at all, and as I said, they went to a LOT more trouble than they would have had to to do, but they were too hung up on the "Top Gun on wheels" mantra. They should have spent more time on the human side of the story.
 
DanicaFreak said:
I loved this movie. Loved top gun too. When he is faking the high side pass at the end and then dives to the inside I remember cheering in the theatre
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Me too. People are still using the sayings and enjoying the film is the tell tale. The film isn't a documentary, never tried, it was entertainment and fun to watch. I guess there were some that thought it was the real thing? I couldn't see how, but we did see a clip of a girl in the service station that couldn't figure out which side her fuel filler was on so anything's possible.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Days of Thunder is still fun to watch even with its flaws, but Rush and Ford vs. Ferrari are two high quality racing movies. FvF was Oscar nominated and Rush is probably one of the most under appreciated movies of all time.
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loved ford vs ferrari. had me yelling at the screen. I need to see Rush
 
Funny story told By Hendrick

Hendrick: The scene at the start of the movie, when Randy Quaid, the car salesman, asks Robert Duvall, the old retired crew chief, to help him start a NASCAR team, that really happened. It was me and Harry Hyde, and that talk took place right there in that same spot where I introduced Robert Towne to Harry; land that was his is where our race shops are now. Well, Harry, he liked to talk. And Robert, he likes to listen. I left them down there for a couple of days with Harry telling stories, and by the time Harry was done with Robert they had written a movie where the crew chief was the hero and the smartest guy in the movie. They even named him Harry!
 
LOL, I had to answer a lot of silly questions (from non-racing friends) after they watched - and believed - what went on in "Days of Thunder"...
 
aunty dive said:
@Formermoviereviewer apparently unable to distinguish between documentary and light-hearted entertainment.

In the words of the soon to be immortal What’sHisName ... SAD.
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Excuse me for wanting it to be a good movie, not just a good (if you can say that) racing movie. Grand Prix, Winning, Ford VS Ferrari and Rush were all able to entertain without resorting to silliness. I wanted D of T to be the definitive, stand the test of time movie about the sport I love. While the movie certainly has its moments, I personally don't know anybody that was overly impressed with it. I don't think it connected very well with racing people OR non-racing people. If I want a laugh, I'll watch Stroker Ace. It never even TRIED to be taken seriously.
 
I’m surprised they didn’t edit out the scenes with the female cop.

In a real racing movie, those would be replaced with 10 minutes of 2 guys, soaking wet, changing a flat on the box trailer at the side of the freeway. In the dark. In the pouring rain. Reality.
 
Formerjackman said:
Excuse me for wanting it to be a good movie, not just a good (if you can say that) racing movie. Grand Prix, Winning, Ford VS Ferrari and Rush were all able to entertain without resorting to silliness. I wanted D of T to be the definitive, stand the test of time movie about the sport I love. While the movie certainly has its moments, I personally don't know anybody that was overly impressed with it. I don't think it connected very well with racing people OR non-racing people. If I want a laugh, I'll watch Stroker Ace. It never even TRIED to be taken seriously.
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Your excused.
 
aunty dive said:
I’m surprised they didn’t edit out the scenes with the female cop.
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I could have actually bought that part, except that riding in the transporter was just silly.

aunty dive said:
In a real racing movie, those would be replaced with 10 minutes of 2 guys, soaking wet, changing a flat on the box trailer at the side of the freeway. In the dark. In the pouring rain. Reality.
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Not in the Cup Series in 1990.......
 
Bobw said:
Talladega Nights, a true cinema classic,,,
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In my opinion, that movie was one of the worst things that ever happened to the sport. It just highlighted what so much of the population already thinks about NASCAR. Most other sports could weather a movie like that and nobody would take it for any more than it was. When you are fighting for legitimacy and your place alongside more traditional sports, and you are already perceived by many as little more than redneck entertainment , you don't need that kind of attention.
 
Formerjackman said:
In my opinion, that movie was one of the worst things that ever happened to the sport. It just highlighted what so much of the population already thinks about NASCAR. Most other sports could weather a movie like that and nobody would take it for any more than it was. When you are fighting for legitimacy and your place alongside more traditional sports, and you are already perceived by many as little more than redneck entertainment , you don't need that kind of attention.
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It helps if a person has a sense of humor. Many of us do, some of us don't sadly.
 
my favorite racing movie ever behind Rush. I read the article this morning, so awesome. I could watch Days of Thunder once a week.
 
StandOnIt said:
It helps if a person has a sense of humor. Many of us do, some of us don't sadly.
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Whether the movie was funny or not was not the point of my comment. If someone already has a negative stereotypical opinion of what NASCAR is all about, Talladega Nights just reinforces it.
 
That's a cool oral history, thanks for posting.

No Simpson / Bruckheimer production directed by Tony Scott was going to be anything other than the loud, bombastic, heightened cartoon that Days of Thunder was. It was intended to be a blockbuster and quasi-sequel to Top Gun. It did pretty well given its mission. The movie has some chops underneath the cheese. I'd forgotten it was a Robert Towne script.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Days of Thunder is still fun to watch even with its flaws, but Rush and Ford vs. Ferrari are two high quality racing movies. FvF was Oscar nominated and Rush is probably one of the most under appreciated movies of all time.
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Rush was amazing and, like you said, criminally underrated. How amazing would it be to have a seriously good movie like Rush but based on the 1992 Winston Cup Championship fight between Elliott, Kulwicki, and Allison?
 
You have to be a bit naive to think the so called "serious movies" aren't romanticized versions of what really happened
 
StandOnIt said:
You have to be a bit naive to think the so called "serious movies" aren't romanticized versions of what really happened
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This is true as well. It's relative, and some "based on a true story" movies capture the truth more honestly than others. However, history or realistic experiences can't be condensed into two-hour, three-act plays that will hold the interest of an audience that doesn't know the subject matter.
 
gnomesayin said:
That's a cool oral history, thanks for posting.

No Simpson / Bruckheimer production directed by Tony Scott was going to be anything other than the loud, bombastic, heightened cartoon that Days of Thunder was. It was intended to be a blockbuster and quasi-sequel to Top Gun. It did pretty well given its mission. The movie has some chops underneath the cheese. I'd forgotten it was a Robert Towne script.
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What you say is true, and the reason that my expectations for it were pretty low, and it pretty much met those expectations. Truthfully, other than the horribly executed love interest part of the movie, 75% of my complaints about the movie could be fixed without materially changing the movie in any way. Just a little bit of quality and reality control would have made this movie substantially better than it was.
 
Dr_B_UNC said:
Rush was amazing and, like you said, criminally underrated.
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I wouldn't say underrated. Rush got very, very good reviews, was even in the discussion for Academy Award nominations, and got a nomination at the Golden Globes. I'd say underappreciated because it bombed at the box office. In no way does anyone who knows anything about cinema and has watched Rush consider it anything short of a great movie though.

I was actually surprised Ford vs. Ferrari got an Oscar nomination though. It's a very good movie, and was included with some great movies (Parasite, Joker, 1917, OUAT in Hollywood) as Best Picture nomination. I almost feel like "Rush" being snubbed had some small factor in that, the same way I think Wonder Woman being snubbed played a role into Black Panther's Best Picture nomination.
 
Formerjackman said:
Whether the movie was funny or not was not the point of my comment. If someone already has a negative stereotypical opinion of what NASCAR is all about, Talladega Nights just reinforces it.
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I thought Talladega Nights was funny when I first saw it, but now when I rewatch I realize it’s really pretty dumb. It hasn’t aged well IMO.

One NASCAR movie I enjoyed that I haven’t seen mentioned here is Logan Lucky, although it was really more of a heist movie with a NASCAR backdrop than an actual racing movie. It was fun seeing the cameos by Keselowski, Logano, Blaney, Carl Edwards, and Kyle Busch in that movie as well.
 
gnomesayin said:
This is true as well. It's relative, and some "based on a true story" movies capture the truth more honestly than others. However, history or realistic experiences can't be condensed into two-hour, three-act plays that will hold the interest of an audience that doesn't know the subject matter.
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I think with enough effort it CAN, be and I think the issue is really more with people who DO know the subject matter and spot all of the flaws that wouldn't need to be there. Even as great as Ford VS Ferrari was, they played awfully fast and loose with timelines, sequences of events, and left out a LOT of key facts in their non-stop drive to make the movie Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles VS Ferrari, instead of the more factual GT40 VS Ferrari. Shelby's role in the ultimate success of the GT40 was somewhat overstated, and they completely ignored the contributions of John Weyer and Holman Moody.
 
When Days of Thunder came out I didn't like it because of the amount of bad driving. A little later I realized everything I didn't like really happened in races I watched, I just wasn't used to seeing a couple decades of incidents in 90 minutes. I think DW said "Now I know how fighter pilots see Top Gun". I like the movie now (one of my favorite scenes was the Chevy vs. Ford rental cars). Now when I see a racing movie I remind myself it is not a documentary.

I thought Ford vs. Ferrari was pretty good but I don't like the ending because I knew how Ken Miles was screwed out of his win. Rush was pretty good too. Both had excellent stories. Grand Prix is my favorite racing movie because the sound is the best and I saw in a special theater when it was released because it was filmed with non traditional super wide format .
 
Grand Prix is the Citizen Kane of racing movies. All substance, no fluff. A truly REALISTIC look at life on the Formula One circuit in the late 1960's. I think one of my major complaints about Days of Thunder is that they tried to shove what REALISTICALLY would have been 2-3 years or more in the life of a driver and compress it all into one season. From nobody to upstart to winner to star to injured to washed up and out of a ride and back to redemption and victory driving for the guy that practically tried to kill you on the track a few months before in less than one calendar year.
 
I’ve never made it to halfway in any racecar movie. Maybe I’m watching the wrong movies.
IMO, why watch a movie when there’s documentaries of actual racing...
 
I still remember going to see "Days of Thunder" right when it came out at the theater with my parents; I was 7. My parents had been around racing since they were kids and even at my age I had enough knowledge of the sport to know what I was seeing. We all enjoyed the movie from an entertainment aspect but some of the stuff was clearly over the top. The racing scenes were at best interesting and far too often comical.

The biggest thing that still gets me to this day is allowing the movie cars in real races. That's just crazy even by 1990 standards when the sport was very much big time. Had one of those cars compromised a contenders race (oil, debris, etc) I can't fathom what would have happened.

Does anyone have the matchbox/hot wheels/etc cars from the movie? I'm pretty sure burger king or mcdonalds did a promotion with the cars too. I definitely want to find mine now.

I watched Ford vs Ferrari the day it was released online (night before the Daytona 500). I thought it was awesome!!
 
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