Notes From The Commentary - Mission Impossible 5

Ephraim Belnap 

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation 

Commentary

- Tom Cruise, star and producer. 

- Christopher McQuarrie, writer, director, and producer 

McQuarrie has written or directed Tom's films for the last decade, including Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow, Valkyrie, and the last few Missions Impossible. Tom Cruise just digs his vibe, and they get along well. McQuarrie also has a brother who's a Navy SEAL, so he has a foot in the technical, modern warfare espionage-type world. Per McQuarrie himself, they were working one day on Edge of Tomorrow, and Tom leaned across the table and asked him if he'd like to direct the next Mission Impossible, and he said yes. And the rest is history. 

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A little clarification on what it means to be a producer. A producer can be many things, often a financial supplier or an organizer. But central producers on a film project are basically directors but not. They have the same skillset and are deeply involved in crafting the story like the director, they just aren't at the very top of the food chain this time around. That being true, a good producer can be instrumental in crafting huge chunks of the film, working with the rest of the core team to determine what the film will actually be. Tom Cruise being the lead, and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and with plenty of time to learn the filmmaking craft, his influence on the product is pretty strong. And while there's always the voice in the back of our heads wondering whether Tom Cruise is a religious nutcake, the truth is the Mission Impossible films are pretty good, and Tom Cruise has at least a pretty good reputation as a co-worker, that's made some pretty critically acclaimed and wildly enjoyable films, so you shouldn't feel bad about enjoying them.

So, let's dive in. 

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The Plane Hang 

The Plane Hang was WILD. For what it's worth, Cruise had a harness on. He was never free-soloing it, because that would be crazy. But in ways it was even more dangerous than it looks. He had to wear massive eye-covering contact lenses to protect his eyes from debris and wind while hanging. He also had to wear a thermal suit under his clothes, because it was gonna be real cold up there, and if his body temperature got too low, it was gonna be harder for him to hold on. Finally, it was actually important that he hold on. Although he was attached to the plane, if he lost his grip he was gonna get batted against the side repeatedly. It was gonna hurt. And it might screw up production or really injure him if that happened. So he had to keep a firm grip. And he said on every trip (they did it five or eight times), there was a moment during the ascension where he could feel his legs falling out from under him, where he went from standing on the wing to being pinned against the body, where he was most likely to lose his grip. But he didn't. It all worked out. And we got that fantastic stunt. 

Opening Hook 

Sean Harris - the villain Solomon Lane - is a respected UK stage actor. He was reluctant to do the project, but they reassured him that it was a Mission Impossible movie, so of course the villain was going to die at the end. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way, but at the time they said it, they thought that was going to happen. 

On that note, they had strong versions of the script and definitely had all the stunts lined out, but they liked to play a little loose with these productions so they can be flexible. They try to shoot the big dialogue scenes on small, indoor, easily replicable sets so they can go back and reshoot without too much difficulty. They have strong visions of the story, but not always so clear visions of the individual characters, and so reshooting and being able to write new stuff on set - this is where McQuarrie's writing comes in handy - helps them tweak the product to what they feel will be maximum satisfaction. To have that creative ability on hand is something a lot of productions would like to do, but can't always. 

The Opera 

This scene really introduces us to our female lead, played by Rebecca Ferguson. She's - by their own admission - a kind of female Ethan Hunt. Tenacious, skilled, intelligent, operating alone. They have a strong kinship because of this, even if they don't know if they're enemies or not. 

This whole sequence was a fun creative endeavor. They workshopped the action with the stuntmen a few times, and during it, Rebecca Ferguson came up with her sniping pose, where she props her gun-holding elbow on her upraised knee, creating a dangerous but also sexy pose. Ferguson was just wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt when she did in workshop, but when they saw it, Tom Cruise thought it was great. During shooting some people thought about changing it, but Tom Cruise put his foot down and was like, "No, the knee pose is iconic!" And he's right, it is. It's on all the posters. 

The Dive 

Tom Cruise really went all in for this. News media will say he learned to hold his breath for six minutes for this, even though his character is only supposed to hold it for three. The media is telling the truth. On the special features you can see a time-lapsed video of him holding his breath in the tank for five minutes and fifty-eight seconds! He's holding still the whole time, so it's different from an instance where he's exerting himself, but that's still stupendous! 

He drowns in the tank and is rescued, and has a few-minute sequence where he's woozy and doesn't remember things after being resuscitated. They came up with this humor beat during shooting. McQuarrie's brother who was in the SEALs had a story about how SEALs get drowned and then resuscitated during training, and after you wake back up you'll be woozy and may experience some short-term memory loss. So, Cruise came up with these beats of being like, "what are you talking about?" and so on. 

During this sequence, when they're betrayed and have to initiate a car chase, Cruise slides across the hood of the car and ... faceplants on the ground, emblematic of how he's woozy. Cruise came up with the idea the day of, but didn't tell anyone before he did it, because no one wants to see the movie's star just throwing himself to the ground without set-up. So he just did it, and everyone flinched for a second, but it looked great and they kept it and moved on. 

Some technical details - during this car chase the heroes (in a car) and the villains (on motorbikes) go down a big flight of stairs, just sliding down those bad boys. They did actually do that, but they put rubber treads on the stairs to actually make them more like ramps and them CGI'd them out, so there would be less damage to the vehicles. But you can't tell by looking! 

The Bike Chase 

After crashing the car, Cruise continues chasing the villain on a bike. This was actually kind of dangerous. They're driving at high speed for miles, but his character at this point in the movie isn't wearing a helmet or riding gear. Just sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt. There was no way to cheat any head padding in there, so they were really playing it dangerously. If he crashes, he's in trouble. 

In contrast, there's a decent section where he's weaving through traffic at high speed. But those cars weren't actually there. They had a car holding the camera crane, but most of the vehicles in that sequence were added digitally after the fact, so that they didn't have to actually weave their star or their camera at 80 miles per hour or more between moving vehicles. Plenty of risk all by itself. 

When Cruise's character DOES crash his bike at the end of the chase, the footage is a mix of him and a stunt double, and they're really at reduced speed so he's NOT really crashing like that. Cruise still bruised a leg a little, though. 

The Last Leg 

At this point, the plot got a little confused. Cruise and McQuarrie weren't sure where the third act was going to go. They wanted a way to keep the stakes high and consistent, so they kept the MacGuffin of the secret flash drive going and then asked, "what's something the hero can't live without?" And the answer is, his sidekick Benji. So they have the villain kidnap him and say, "give me the flash drive if you want your friend to live." 

The whole final act takes place on the streets of London at night. They actually shot in London itself. They have a funny story. While out scouting for London locations early in production, they came across this office that had some nice windows onto the street. In classic action movie fashion, they thought, "those are some good windows for someone to get thrown through." 

They went into the office and chatted with the supervisor and owner, pitching to get to use the building. And when they mentioned the windows, the supervisor said, "Y'know, I've often had that fantasy myself." 

They did end up using those windows, and people get thrown through them twice. 

The Climax

And here we have the ending. Now, remember what I said about Sean Harris? He said he only wanted to do one of these if he got to die at the end, because he didn't want to do more than one of these, and at the time they said he would die. But then, as they shot this near the end of shooting, they thought about how they would eliminate the villain. They were pretty sure he was going to die. But then Tom Cruise said, "Unless ... the opening of the next Mission Impossible was about this villain breaking out of prison so he could attack the hero again!" And suddenly that seemed exciting to them, and so at the last minute they came up with an ending where he gets imprisoned and carted off so they had the option. And sure enough, they were able to get him for the sequel! I suppose if Sean Harris really didn't want to do it they could have done something else, but he came around! 

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And that's it for Rogue Nation. I'll get to Fallout soon. These really are fantastic productions.