5 ms·

I’ve always assumed it’s cheaper to have an editor quick-cut footage into fake combat than to have a choreographer create realistic combat. Also, combat in gen

by jl6 5y ago

I’ve always assumed it’s cheaper to have an editor quick-cut footage into fake combat than to have a choreographer create realistic combat. Also, combat in general is incredibly boring in modern films. Punch, punch, grunt, grimace - without any consequence. Maybe someone has a cut lip which is gone in the next scene. Superhero movies are the worst for this, where characters routinely throw each other through walls and none of it matters because they are as good as invincible.

monkeynotes 5y ago
Wider shots would require so much more CGI work. Many movies these days are simply a formula that as a middle aged person I've seen so many times I just can't watch action or superhero movies, I have zero interest. I am not the target audience though. Even movies aimed at my demographic are laden with tropes, little interesting or creative storyline. Long form TV is generally much more creative story based and does not reboot old TV so much (Bell Air is more of an exception than a rule).
- nottorp 5y ago
  > Long form TV is generally much more creative story based Agree with the rest, but I'm afraid that i find 99.95% of the current TV series as boring as superhero movies. At least a movie finishes in (up to) 3 hours...
- pjc50 5y ago
  Early in the pandemic my wife and I started a small virtual film club with a remit of "old, bad, B, or unheard-of films". It's been hugely entertaining, far more so than the modern repetitiveness of superhero movies. And a lot of them make great use of colour, such as the Hammer/Amicus horror movies. Those tend to do fun things with red/green lighting, side or underlighting, or splashes of light across the eyes of an otherwise in darkness character. Re: Bel Air reboot, "dark reboot of light comedy series" is such a ridiculous cliche that I can't believe they've actually done it. Very 2020s.
  - smnscu 5y ago
    Enjoy :) https://www.redlettermedia.com/best-of-the-worst https://www.redlettermedia.com/best-of-the-worst
  - Khaine 5y ago
    Do you have any film recommendations?
    - pjc50 5y ago
      My wife has an entire blog of them: https://lockdowntransmissions.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-covideo-awards-2021/ https://lockdowntransmissions.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-c... ; my faves of that list are The Silencers (Dean Martin does a Bond spoof), and Robo-Vampire (low budget knockoff Robocop fights Chinese vampires, incredible nonsense ensues) I'd add Theater of Blood (Vincent Price thespian camp horror with a large number of cameos from British character actors of the 1970s), Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea (Soviet time-travel twin-swap comedy), and White Sun Of The Desert, which is traditionally watched by astronauts in their last night of pre-launch quarantine at Baikonur. https://24htech.asia/i-was-bored-so-i-watched-the-movie-that-astronauts-must-view-before-launch-s425563.html https://24htech.asia/i-was-bored-so-i-watched-the-movie-that... ; that has some legitimately great shots in it. To the original question, if you like technicolor you owe it to yourself to see Singin' In The Rain, not just for the title dance sequence but several other big numbers.
cipher_system 5y ago
Yes, why can't all fight scenes be brutal and brilliant like the prison scene in the Punisher? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MHJHkA6LMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MHJHkA6LMk
- lupire 5y ago
  That's a perfect example of the extreme orange+blue color grading.
extesy 5y ago
Watch Gangs of London and The Punisher. Fighting scenes are much better choreographed and are more realistic and brutal.
- robohoe 5y ago
  Heck, even Daredevil had some fantastic scenes too. Particularly the staircase scene.
oneoff786 5y ago
I think marvel has actually gotten fairly good at fights and making them interesting to watch as a function of why the hero is unique tbh. Throwing huge punches is bad. Firing arbitrary laser blasts is even worse. Especially when the consequences of being hit seem so trivial. But it can be done well. I think Thor Ragnarok is a good example of this. This is the first movie in which both Thor and Hulk were actually shown as extremely strong with little more than just physical blows. What’s noteworthy is that most of the fights they’re in are very easy for them, and frankly it’s much more fun to watch them stylishly stomp 100 goons and look strong rather than incomprehensibly struggle to fend off 10 nobodies. Filmmakers tend to be afraid of having a fight scene without tension. Avengers infinity war fight v. Thanos also comes to mind as a quick little highlight reel of each of a dozen characters special contributions. It comes across as competent and unique. Off the top of my head, black panther, iron man 1,2,3, guardians of the galaxy 1,2, Shang chi, wandavision, earlier avengers, all felt particularly bad at this.
- programd 5y ago
  While I respect your opinion I urge you to watch any early Jackie Chan movie to see how magnificent cinematic fighting can be. The Marvel fights are amateur hour! Please exit my lawn, stage right.
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    hell yeah, you will see sequences that boil down to "Jackie found this weird prop and spent two days figuring out interesting ways to use it to beat the shit out of people" and they will be amazing.
  - Fricken 5y ago
    This episode of "Every Frame a Painting" does an excellent job of explaining why Jackie Chan's way of doing action is awesome and why contemporary Hollywood (generally) sucks: https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ
  - oneoff786 5y ago
    Jackie is a genius, no doubt. There’s a big difference in movies though. Jackie is basically always a human fighting humans. He is always either fighting an extremely competent opponent and it will be fairly serious martial arts; or it will be him comedically fighting a ton of goons which you know are way weaker than him but he’s got some sort of hilarious disadvantage. But it’s always somewhat grounded. Superhero movies tend to have weird matchups where the balance is already heavily skewed. Shitty movies do this dance where the bad guy is slightly stronger and does irrelevant damage to the protagonist before being one shotted by a dumb trick, which is probably a call back to something earlier in the film. Better films actually have this implication that in a fight, if an opponent does their thing, you’re going to die. Marvel is starting to do more of the latter. It’s just much more rewarding when protagonists win by virtue of competence and their own abilities. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFwvr6l2mM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFwvr6l2mM This fight contains no particularly good martial arts, has a lot of cuts, and has a lot of big blasty attacks but they’re all very juicy and you do believe the threat is real. It’s especially good because everything both characters are doing are somewhat novel to them. It’s on the fly improv and physical character development. Very different from Jackie’s stuff but I think very good.
usrusr 5y ago
It's a double win, because it's not only cheaper, it's also more "like being there". Because unless the battle happens to be commanded by an AI embodied as a flock of observation drones, nobody would have that generous wide shot view, not even the highest ranking commanders. I agree with the boring nature of most "superhuman" fight scenes (of both "declared" kind, superheeoes, and the "undeclared" kind, regular mortals who just happen to be over the top for cheap awe effects). But there have also been some recent examples (ca this century) that I found quite impressive, usually characterized by a short violent burst of crazyness and then everybody is dead, heavily inured or routing, and maybe slowly beginning to consider that perhaps they haven't actually lost.
- 5560675260 5y ago
  Wouldn't "being there" also include observers not directly involved in a fight? Like all the people supplying us with mobile phone footage of real life happenings. Usually real life shots are shakey and not that generous, but the kind would feel natural to moviegoers.
- anthk 5y ago
  With Dragon Ball you saw actual brushes and injuries. Nowdays, with Dragon Ball Super... At least the manga it's still respecting the original artwork.
- alickz 5y ago
  >But there have also been some recent examples (ca this century) that I found quite impressive, usually characterized by a short violent burst of crazyness and then everybody is dead, heavily inured or routing, and maybe slowly beginning to consider that perhaps they haven't actually lost. I enjoyed the fighting scenes in the animated show _Invincible_ much more than any fight scenes I've seen in a Marvel film for this reason. Explosive and (usually) consequential.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > because it's not only cheaper, it's also more "like being there". "Being there" is an excuse Hollywood has used for ages for not training actors properly, not doing any fight choreography etc. Marvel now spends millions of dollars on boring CGI fights because they couldn't be bothered to spend the same (or actually less) money on filming actual fights. Just look at what John Wick did with a 54-57-year old actor and Nobody did with a 57-year old actor for the fraction of the price of most modern action movies.
KineticLensman 5y ago
> Maybe someone has a cut lip which is gone in the next scene Agree in general. Atomic Blonde is one of the rare films that doesn't fall into this trap. The lead character gets cuts and bruises that persist between scenes and even changes her hair style at one point to hide a black eye picked up in a fight.
spookthesunset 5y ago
> combat in general is incredibly boring in modern films. Punch, punch, grunt, grimace - without any consequence I mean this kind of stuff has been around forever. The A-Team pioneered “punch punch grimace, get up and walk away” to the point where it was comical.
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  > to the point where it was comical So much so that I was actually shocked to see characters actually dying in the most recent film.

by jl6 5y ago

monkeynotes 5y ago

Wider shots would require so much more CGI work. Many movies these days are simply a formula that as a middle aged person I've seen so many times I just can't watch action or superhero movies, I have zero interest. I am not the target audience though. Even movies aimed at my demographic are laden with tropes, little interesting or creative storyline. Long form TV is generally much more creative story based and does not reboot old TV so much (Bell Air is more of an exception than a rule).

nottorp 5y ago
> Long form TV is generally much more creative story based Agree with the rest, but I'm afraid that i find 99.95% of the current TV series as boring as superhero movies. At least a movie finishes in (up to) 3 hours...
pjc50 5y ago
Early in the pandemic my wife and I started a small virtual film club with a remit of "old, bad, B, or unheard-of films". It's been hugely entertaining, far more so than the modern repetitiveness of superhero movies. And a lot of them make great use of colour, such as the Hammer/Amicus horror movies. Those tend to do fun things with red/green lighting, side or underlighting, or splashes of light across the eyes of an otherwise in darkness character. Re: Bel Air reboot, "dark reboot of light comedy series" is such a ridiculous cliche that I can't believe they've actually done it. Very 2020s.
- smnscu 5y ago
  Enjoy :) https://www.redlettermedia.com/best-of-the-worst https://www.redlettermedia.com/best-of-the-worst
- Khaine 5y ago
  Do you have any film recommendations?
  - pjc50 5y ago
    My wife has an entire blog of them: https://lockdowntransmissions.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-covideo-awards-2021/ https://lockdowntransmissions.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-c... ; my faves of that list are The Silencers (Dean Martin does a Bond spoof), and Robo-Vampire (low budget knockoff Robocop fights Chinese vampires, incredible nonsense ensues) I'd add Theater of Blood (Vincent Price thespian camp horror with a large number of cameos from British character actors of the 1970s), Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea (Soviet time-travel twin-swap comedy), and White Sun Of The Desert, which is traditionally watched by astronauts in their last night of pre-launch quarantine at Baikonur. https://24htech.asia/i-was-bored-so-i-watched-the-movie-that-astronauts-must-view-before-launch-s425563.html https://24htech.asia/i-was-bored-so-i-watched-the-movie-that... ; that has some legitimately great shots in it. To the original question, if you like technicolor you owe it to yourself to see Singin' In The Rain, not just for the title dance sequence but several other big numbers.

cipher_system 5y ago

Yes, why can't all fight scenes be brutal and brilliant like the prison scene in the Punisher? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MHJHkA6LMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MHJHkA6LMk

lupire 5y ago
That's a perfect example of the extreme orange+blue color grading.

extesy 5y ago

Watch Gangs of London and The Punisher. Fighting scenes are much better choreographed and are more realistic and brutal.

robohoe 5y ago
Heck, even Daredevil had some fantastic scenes too. Particularly the staircase scene.

oneoff786 5y ago

I think marvel has actually gotten fairly good at fights and making them interesting to watch as a function of why the hero is unique tbh. Throwing huge punches is bad. Firing arbitrary laser blasts is even worse. Especially when the consequences of being hit seem so trivial. But it can be done well. I think Thor Ragnarok is a good example of this. This is the first movie in which both Thor and Hulk were actually shown as extremely strong with little more than just physical blows. What’s noteworthy is that most of the fights they’re in are very easy for them, and frankly it’s much more fun to watch them stylishly stomp 100 goons and look strong rather than incomprehensibly struggle to fend off 10 nobodies. Filmmakers tend to be afraid of having a fight scene without tension. Avengers infinity war fight v. Thanos also comes to mind as a quick little highlight reel of each of a dozen characters special contributions. It comes across as competent and unique. Off the top of my head, black panther, iron man 1,2,3, guardians of the galaxy 1,2, Shang chi, wandavision, earlier avengers, all felt particularly bad at this.

programd 5y ago
While I respect your opinion I urge you to watch any early Jackie Chan movie to see how magnificent cinematic fighting can be. The Marvel fights are amateur hour! Please exit my lawn, stage right.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  hell yeah, you will see sequences that boil down to "Jackie found this weird prop and spent two days figuring out interesting ways to use it to beat the shit out of people" and they will be amazing.
- Fricken 5y ago
  This episode of "Every Frame a Painting" does an excellent job of explaining why Jackie Chan's way of doing action is awesome and why contemporary Hollywood (generally) sucks: https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Jackie is a genius, no doubt. There’s a big difference in movies though. Jackie is basically always a human fighting humans. He is always either fighting an extremely competent opponent and it will be fairly serious martial arts; or it will be him comedically fighting a ton of goons which you know are way weaker than him but he’s got some sort of hilarious disadvantage. But it’s always somewhat grounded. Superhero movies tend to have weird matchups where the balance is already heavily skewed. Shitty movies do this dance where the bad guy is slightly stronger and does irrelevant damage to the protagonist before being one shotted by a dumb trick, which is probably a call back to something earlier in the film. Better films actually have this implication that in a fight, if an opponent does their thing, you’re going to die. Marvel is starting to do more of the latter. It’s just much more rewarding when protagonists win by virtue of competence and their own abilities. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFwvr6l2mM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFwvr6l2mM This fight contains no particularly good martial arts, has a lot of cuts, and has a lot of big blasty attacks but they’re all very juicy and you do believe the threat is real. It’s especially good because everything both characters are doing are somewhat novel to them. It’s on the fly improv and physical character development. Very different from Jackie’s stuff but I think very good.

usrusr 5y ago

It's a double win, because it's not only cheaper, it's also more "like being there". Because unless the battle happens to be commanded by an AI embodied as a flock of observation drones, nobody would have that generous wide shot view, not even the highest ranking commanders. I agree with the boring nature of most "superhuman" fight scenes (of both "declared" kind, superheeoes, and the "undeclared" kind, regular mortals who just happen to be over the top for cheap awe effects). But there have also been some recent examples (ca this century) that I found quite impressive, usually characterized by a short violent burst of crazyness and then everybody is dead, heavily inured or routing, and maybe slowly beginning to consider that perhaps they haven't actually lost.

5560675260 5y ago
Wouldn't "being there" also include observers not directly involved in a fight? Like all the people supplying us with mobile phone footage of real life happenings. Usually real life shots are shakey and not that generous, but the kind would feel natural to moviegoers.
anthk 5y ago
With Dragon Ball you saw actual brushes and injuries. Nowdays, with Dragon Ball Super... At least the manga it's still respecting the original artwork.
alickz 5y ago
>But there have also been some recent examples (ca this century) that I found quite impressive, usually characterized by a short violent burst of crazyness and then everybody is dead, heavily inured or routing, and maybe slowly beginning to consider that perhaps they haven't actually lost. I enjoyed the fighting scenes in the animated show _Invincible_ much more than any fight scenes I've seen in a Marvel film for this reason. Explosive and (usually) consequential.
dmitriid 5y ago
> because it's not only cheaper, it's also more "like being there". "Being there" is an excuse Hollywood has used for ages for not training actors properly, not doing any fight choreography etc. Marvel now spends millions of dollars on boring CGI fights because they couldn't be bothered to spend the same (or actually less) money on filming actual fights. Just look at what John Wick did with a 54-57-year old actor and Nobody did with a 57-year old actor for the fraction of the price of most modern action movies.

KineticLensman 5y ago

> Maybe someone has a cut lip which is gone in the next scene Agree in general. Atomic Blonde is one of the rare films that doesn't fall into this trap. The lead character gets cuts and bruises that persist between scenes and even changes her hair style at one point to hide a black eye picked up in a fight.

spookthesunset 5y ago

> combat in general is incredibly boring in modern films. Punch, punch, grunt, grimace - without any consequence I mean this kind of stuff has been around forever. The A-Team pioneered “punch punch grimace, get up and walk away” to the point where it was comical.

stronglikedan 5y ago
> to the point where it was comical So much so that I was actually shocked to see characters actually dying in the most recent film.