'Mission: Impossible 7' faces backlash on plans to blow up old Polish bridge

"Mission: Impossible 7" filmmakers plan to blow up the 111-year-old Pilchowicki Bridge in Poland much to the shock of locals who consider it a historical monument.

Those working on the Tom Cruise movie hoped to detonate part of the bridge for an explosive scene. The bridge located in the Polish village of Pilchowice has been there since 1909. It is a suspension bridge built over Lake Pilchowice and some locals consider it as a national monument.

Thus, they pleaded with filmmakers to reconsider when they heard that "Mission: Impossible 7" wants to blow it up. Some proposed the use of CGI or green screen instead of actually detonating the bridge.

"How sky high does your ego have to be to think that your film is more important than a historical monument that can't be replaced? Just use CGI to replicate, like literally every other film does when they need an explosive set piece at a historical location," one netizen tweeted.

Another urged director Christopher McQuarrie to "PLEASE don't do it" and use green screen instead.

"You have enough amazing editors and money and whatever to not do it but rebuild it or use greenscreen or anything," the user wrote on McQuarrie's most recent upload adding, "This bridge is 100 years old and means a lot to the locals. It was built in 1909 to service connections between Wleń and Jelenia Góra. I support realistic filmmaking but not this far. It hurts people and is unnecessary and just not worth it for a stunt."

Despite the backlash, Deputy Culture Minister Pawel Lewandowski told locals that the Pilchowicki Bridge is hardly considered a historical monument. It was decommissioned from public use in 2016 and "stands in ruins and has no value." He said that "not all old things are monuments" and that "Mission: Impossible 7" will bring global attention to Poland with its use of the bridge.

"The law clearly states that a monument is only that which has social, artistic or scientific value. In art and culture, that value only emerges when there is a relation between the cultural object and people. So if an object is unused, unavailable, it has no such value. Therefore it is not a monument," Lewandowski said as quoted by The Independent.

"Mission: Impossible 7" initially planned to shoot the bridge explosion in Switzerland but the government refused. Filmmakers instead settled for the Pilchowicki Bridge.