Recently, I’ve been mindful of how long fights are in movies.
Sword fight? Fanning at each other, crossing and smacking swords. Maybe even walking around each other. I don’t think that’s how a real sword fight would look.
Fights where it’s mostly talking. Talking and talking. Nobody would fight like that.
Fist fights without a smack and dead. It’s fancy movement - only because of the shaky camera and cuts of course. Give me back Jackie Chan or smack them once and they fall over.
I also dislike noticing the wire-guided movements. Fast acceleration and you can see them balancing in the air lifted by wires. Wires removed after-the-fact, but it’s such unnatural movement.
And of course, the classic gunfight where nobody hits anything.
Or any monster chase or fight. If a giant monster chases you it’s faster and instant-kills you. But not in movies.
Sword fight? Fanning at each other, crossing and smacking swords. Maybe even walking around each other. I don’t think that’s how a real sword fight would look.
I think the movie was called The Duelist it had some of the best sword fighting in a movie. Both fighters where super cautious care with each move so that half the scene was them waiting and measuring followed by a quick exchange and then back to caution and circling.
I kinda disagree. If you watch the duellist, which in my opinion is the vest description of a realistic sword fight, you van see that they are super nervous. No one wats to really die, so they drag it out. It’s not a video game where you respawn so you just try to get a good hit and hope for the best.
Sword fight? Fanning at each other, crossing and smacking swords. Maybe even walking around each other. I don’t think that’s how a real sword fight would look.
In real life most sword fights would be over in seconds with no more than three moves. BUT obviously that’s not very visually appealing so we get insane sword clashes with lots of unnecessary movement and the infamous “sword lock” where the swordsmen needlessly press into each other for that dramatic tension despite that being something that is never, ever done.
Interestingly enough, one of the BEST sword fights in cinema is in The Princess Bride. It manages to be dynamic and engaging and lengthy without giving into a lot of bad swordfighting tropes. This is a great rundown of the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0rkUbrPo3k
Sword fight? Fanning at each other, crossing and smacking swords.
Just watch Olympic fencing; you get a very fast exchange that you can’t follow, and then someone has a point. In a real sword fight, without armor, that’s about what would happen. OTOH, when everyone is wearing armor, it gets a lot messier.
And of course, the classic gunfight where nobody hits anything.
That is surprisingly common. Most people are really bad shots when they’re stressed out. It’s physiological; when your body dumps adrenaline into your bloodstream, you lose fine motor control. So unless you’ve trained extensively under stressful conditions, you’re gonna have a hard time doing shit.
It is, honestly, not nearly as bad as you’d think. The weight should be pretty well distributed, armor doesn’t have to be all that heavy to stop a sword, and the gambeson is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for piercing weapons. Blunt weapons, well, those are going to be unpleasant pretty much no matter what. You get really hot though; there’s a reason that the Saracens did such a number on the crusaders when they were able to get them outside of cities.
Wearing a plate carrier is, IMO, worse than wearing a gambeson and chain maille.
Recently, I’ve been mindful of how long fights are in movies.
Sword fight? Fanning at each other, crossing and smacking swords. Maybe even walking around each other. I don’t think that’s how a real sword fight would look.
Fights where it’s mostly talking. Talking and talking. Nobody would fight like that.
Fist fights without a smack and dead. It’s fancy movement - only because of the shaky camera and cuts of course. Give me back Jackie Chan or smack them once and they fall over.
I also dislike noticing the wire-guided movements. Fast acceleration and you can see them balancing in the air lifted by wires. Wires removed after-the-fact, but it’s such unnatural movement.
And of course, the classic gunfight where nobody hits anything.
Or any monster chase or fight. If a giant monster chases you it’s faster and instant-kills you. But not in movies.
It’s certainly prevalent.
“Or any monster chase or fight. If a giant monster chases you it’s faster and instant-kills you. But not in movies.”
Monster: struggles to catch a running humans
Monster in next scene: catching up with a car pretty easily
Speed always kills me in things.
Akira fucking Kurosawa, on the other hand…
that pressure tho
This one?
HOW DID I KNOW 😂
I think the movie was called The Duelist it had some of the best sword fighting in a movie. Both fighters where super cautious care with each move so that half the scene was them waiting and measuring followed by a quick exchange and then back to caution and circling.
I kinda disagree. If you watch the duellist, which in my opinion is the vest description of a realistic sword fight, you van see that they are super nervous. No one wats to really die, so they drag it out. It’s not a video game where you respawn so you just try to get a good hit and hope for the best.
A passive, careful engagement is very different from crossing swords with heavy hits and swords sliding along each other or blocking.
In real life most sword fights would be over in seconds with no more than three moves. BUT obviously that’s not very visually appealing so we get insane sword clashes with lots of unnecessary movement and the infamous “sword lock” where the swordsmen needlessly press into each other for that dramatic tension despite that being something that is never, ever done.
Interestingly enough, one of the BEST sword fights in cinema is in The Princess Bride. It manages to be dynamic and engaging and lengthy without giving into a lot of bad swordfighting tropes. This is a great rundown of the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0rkUbrPo3k
Just watch Olympic fencing; you get a very fast exchange that you can’t follow, and then someone has a point. In a real sword fight, without armor, that’s about what would happen. OTOH, when everyone is wearing armor, it gets a lot messier.
That is surprisingly common. Most people are really bad shots when they’re stressed out. It’s physiological; when your body dumps adrenaline into your bloodstream, you lose fine motor control. So unless you’ve trained extensively under stressful conditions, you’re gonna have a hard time doing shit.
When I see armor fights I always think of how exhausting it would be very fast. I’d love to see exhausted people gasping for air. :P
Still, blunt weapons can still be 1-hit KOs or heavy hitters. But you don’t see that either.
It is, honestly, not nearly as bad as you’d think. The weight should be pretty well distributed, armor doesn’t have to be all that heavy to stop a sword, and the gambeson is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for piercing weapons. Blunt weapons, well, those are going to be unpleasant pretty much no matter what. You get really hot though; there’s a reason that the Saracens did such a number on the crusaders when they were able to get them outside of cities.
Wearing a plate carrier is, IMO, worse than wearing a gambeson and chain maille.
I read an interesting article about historical armor fights. Basically some researchers got special forces members to wear replica historical armor and simulate battle as described in various surviving epics and identified the armor to be surprisingly effective