Explosion Walkaways

Plus: Every Tom Cruise run, Jurassic Park horror movie, and Yale's movie picks.

Author

Brock Swinson
May 21, 2025

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Read time: 3 minutes | 756 words

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FEATURE

🧠 The First-Ever Slow Motion Explosion Walk-Away?

In the realm of action cinema, few visual sequences have been more imitated than the cool, composed walk away from an explosion. What's now recognized as an essential action movie trope actually has a specific origin point: Robert Rodriguez's 1995 film "Desperado."

What many don't know is that this now-famous cinematic technique was actually a happy accident. In a recent interview on Lex Fridman's podcast, Rodriguez explained that "those explosions when somebody walks away in slow motion from an explosion... started with Desperado. That's the meme because it was an accident."

The scene in question features Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek coolly striding away from an explosion after El Mariachi tosses grenades over a building to dispatch some enemies. But Rodriguez's original vision was far more modest.

"In 'Desperado', in the script, it says he [Banderas] throws some grenades over the side of this building to blow up the bad guys and him and Salma walk away, it was just supposed to see some body parts fly, it was just a grenade," Rodriguez explained.

Rodriguez gave specific instructions to his actors that inadvertently created cinema history.

"We shoot slow motion, I tell the actors just keep walking, don't turn around because it's supposed to be pretty big and it might be really high...when I shoot it in slow motion, it'll look like you're just walking normal speed and it'll slow down the explosion."

What happened next was movie magic. The explosion was far more impressive than Rodriguez had planned, and when combined with the slow-motion effect and the cool, unflinching demeanor of the actors, it created a visual that would be replicated countless times over the next three decades (including his own work, like Planet Terror).

What made the scene even more impressive was that it wasn't just movie magic - the actors were genuinely at risk. According to Banderas:

"The heat behind us was so intense that it burned a little bit of my hair."

The explosion was performed for real, not added in post-production, giving it an authenticity that helped cement its iconic status.

The sequence made such an impact that Rodriguez deliberately repeated the technique six months later in "From Dusk Till Dawn," featuring George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino walking away from an exploding gas station. This time, Rodriguez took it a step further, having the characters "just keep talking like it's not happening."

Today, the "unflinching walk" has become such a staple of action cinema that it's recognized as its own trope. From superhero movies to spy thrillers, the slow-motion explosion walk has been replicated in countless films, TV shows, and even commercials. Joe Rogan noted that the technique "was copied in so many movies and TV shows, including 'Fear Factor'" which he hosted.

When legendary filmmaker James Cameron first saw the sequence before "Desperado" was released, "his hand went up. He'd never seen that before." Even the master of action and special effects himself recognized its innovation.

This creative accident perfectly encapsulates Rodriguez's filmmaking philosophy. Known for his "Mariachi-style" approach where "creativity, not money, is used to solve problems," Rodriguez has repeatedly demonstrated how innovation and resourcefulness can create lasting cinematic moments.

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