Was That a Ninco slot car track in Rush (film)?

[pgtr]

Surprised this was't posted already... At one point in the film, the James Hunt character is shown in a despondent mood and for a few brief seconds playing with a 1/32 slot car set - a fairly obvious allegory is being made but I'll spare you the details if you haven't seen it or can't guess.

Anyway it looked to be a modern Ninco set (never mind the anachronism - it works as a plot device) - did anyone else notice? Confirm?

It's a great movie by the way. Somewhere between a 4 and 5 star movie for me. Purely as a plot driven movie - I could probably give it a 5. It has solid acting, particularly the Lauda character, good paced script and typical high production value of a Ron Howard flick. Even if I could somehow dismiss having a basic knowledge of the events - it's probably still fairly predictable - but sometimes that's alright.

However as a 'racing film' I would have to drop it to 4 stars. My gold standards are of course Frankenheimer's Grand Prix and McQueen's Le Mans. Where this movie fails and those succeeded is in the the purity of the racing footage. Where GP and LM have loooong sweeping panaromic shots that allow the viewer to absorb the panoramic action on a sustained basis (sometimes in slow motion), Howard's Rush succumbs to the modern penchant for quick quick chop chop jerk jerk the shots and edit edit edit... tragic really. In addition to the McClaren and Ferrari of our 2 protagonists we get the occasional shot of Andretti's JPS Lotus or the novel 6-wheeler. Yes you do get a sense of the mid 1970s F1 environment - but only a sense - it's not quite immersive enough. I bet there are almost no shots of racing action that last longer the the number of seconds you can count on one hand. And most are quite a bit quicker. Worse - is the deliberate shaking of the camera shots at times - an attempt to create sense of a car going over a rough (think Baja 500) surface perhaps? More likely a common tactic to hide some of the CG effects. Directors often use rainy weather, darkness and shake camera effects to hide the more obvious CG in films and Rush is no exception. Garner has stated they'll never make a racing film as good as they did in the days of GP and LM due to constraints of the modern Hollywood era - I'd have to agree. Sound effects are top notch. While I'm not an expert it did seem to have a lot of technical accuracy and faith to the 76 F1 cars and so on.

I highly recommend it - go see, enjoy! (And let me know if you spot the Ninco layout too!?)

[Reslotted]

I'm going to see it this week. :banana-rock: :banana-rock: I'll keep an eye out for the slot car scene and get back to you.

[Ember]

Not seen it yet. But you've got to remember that people have a short attention span these days. That's probably part of the reason for the quick cuts about action.

[dreinecke]

It looked like an original Scalextric Classic set to me.

I agree with Ember on the attention span thing. I could watch cars all day, but probably most people can't.

[sixtiesracer]

:teasing-neener: :teasing-neener:

[Ember]

Scaley classic would make sense. I do hope the cinema here will have it. I so want to see this film.

[MoparGreg]

[dr fabio]

They actually had Niki as the technical advisor on the movie, so hopefully its a realistic portrayal of the events that happened. I actually met James Hunt (and Murray Walker and Jackie Stewart) way back in 1985 at the first Adelaide GP. Very nice guys and easy to get on with. The Channel 9 (local TV station) director that was broadcasting the race...err he was another story all together. James had that smoooooth voice and his ladies man reputation was not exaggerated. Back at the hotel bar James was averaging a new lady every hour. The man was a machine....but I digress. :o

cheers
dr fabio

[dreinecke]

Greg - I've watched a total of 5 minutes of the F&F series...bloody rubbish. Driven was even worse, if that is possible.

Dr Fabio - I've seen several interviews with Lauda talking about the movie and his work with it. He is very happy with how Howard treated the movie and praised it for being un-Hollywood like.

Absolutely freaky how good the actor is playing him.

[Reslotted]

Now Dave,
I found "Driven" to be a highly accurate, well researched and very believable representation of the sport I love. The fact that Stallone didn't get an Oscar for it was an absolute Travesty and a massive injustice. :liar: :liar: :liar:

[HomeRacingWorld]

Ditto. If they would have just had Tony Danza in it instead.

[Reslotted]

And the 3 stooges working the pit.

[pgtr]

You realize it's not very probable the producers would have thought to put a 'period correct' slot car in the film right? I didn't really catch the cars as they blurred by. But I do think I saw some lane change crossover tracks. I recall seeing a rather rough textured surface and red/white crash barriers was all thus I was thinking Ninco.

Too funny - I too thought of that film 'Driven' when I saw the previews to Rush. I'd all but forgotten about Driven - saw it once on cable was all (probably made a quick exit from the theatres to cable?) a very long time ago. A pretty darn forgettable film for a lot of reasons. It could have been a good film - more money, better script, better setting (should have been F1), etc. Basically it was underdeveloped IMHO.

[dreinecke]

Dunno...but it looks like Scalextric to me - the grandstand, track, and all.

Sorry so small, it is the only pic I could find on the web.

[Reslotted]

Yep that's classic Scalextric Alright, See the big round 70's Scaley Transformer just to the left of the Grandstand. I've seen them in Blue Red and Yellow, they hum like a bee.
Looks like the back end of a white Scalextric Shadow sitting there too, had to blow it up a bit to see that and it was pretty grainy. They are definitely Classic Scaley fences with the Stickers and flags.
Well spotted Dave.