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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 punche

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.
rand49an 5y ago
I couldn't disagree with that more. The 'MCU' Marvel films seem to be filled with massive fights between two effectively invincible forces with no consequences. Added to that all the characters in many of the scenes are completely CGI so they don't carry any visual weight to them. Compared to Sam Raimi's Spiderman films, which has a lot of less CGI and smaller set pieces in general but the fight scenes look more impactful because of it.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  "Ghost in a Shell" is 100% CGI / Anime, but the fights absolutely had consequences and weight. I actually hate Attack on Titan as a show, but damn the action scenes actually have weight and logic to them, far superior to the Marvel stuff despite being 100% cartoon. --------- That being said: Marvel seems to be going with more of a "Dragonball Z" or "RWBY" approach to combat. Which is fine as long as the writing is good enough. Its a different style for sure... Except ya know. Dragonball Z / RWBY largely does it better. ------- Its less about action shots and more about demonstrating superpowers. Everyone knows Goku will try to end the fight with a Kamehameha wave. At some point, Goku will go Super Saiyan or beyond, etc. etc. Similarly: Capt. America will throw his shield, Iron Man shoots some lasers, Hulk will grab, punch, and grapple something.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  I think it varies tremendously by film and director. I guess I wouldn’t say the median marvel film is good at this. I also happen to think that the best Spider-Man fight scenes were by far the Andrew Garfield ones. Those scenes were incredibly juicy, especially the second, for all its terrible writing and worldbuilding.
dragontamer 5y ago
> Shang chi Shang Chi had some good long-shot Wuxia-style scenes. It wasn't as good as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" but unlike the rest of the Marvel films, Shang Chi actually had proper fight scenes in them. But you're right in that most Marvel scenes make no damn sense from an action perspective. I'm constantly annoyed by their cuts personally. I'm just surprised that you threw Shang Chi into the same boat, because Shang Chi had more proper action shots than I can remember. I'm not talking about the CGI-dragon fight at the end (which went back into the Marvel mold of CGI + jump cuts). I'm talking about like, the first scene between Ying Li and Weng Wu (Shang-Chi's mother and father). Or the Bus-fight, which was pretty good IMO. At least, good by Marvel standards (which are pretty bad). It doesn't hold a candle compared to a good Jackie Chan scene, but at least they kept the camera still _SOMETIMES_ in Shang-Chi, rather than never keeping the damn camera still. ------- That being said, I enjoy Marvel films. I just wish they shot the action better.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  I thought Shang chi was very disappointing as a martial arts film. The choreography seemed weak. The bus fight was decent. Jackie Chan portrays himself as an incredible fighter but always very human. Shang chi, in my opinion, portrayed himself as a… pretty good fighter but weirdly powerful. Marvel’s best raw martial arts fights were probably on the likes of Daredevil (Netflix), Winter Soldier, and the Falcon Series. But I don’t feel they’ve gotten Kung fu or traditional Chinese stuff down well ever.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    I bring up "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" because its also on the same fantasy scale as Shang Chi and other Marvel films. The feats are fully superhuman, and super-physical. Physics just don't work like that. > Marvel’s best raw martial arts fights were probably on the likes of Daredevil (Netflix), Winter Soldier, and the Falcon Series. That's called "Street Level" superheroes. There are superpowers, but they're much toned down. Its a different genre.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > It wasn't as good as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" I saw it, it was all people swinging around on wires with the wires painted out. By the arc of their movement, I knew where the wires were, anyway. The whole thing just looked silly.

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.

rand49an 5y ago

I couldn't disagree with that more. The 'MCU' Marvel films seem to be filled with massive fights between two effectively invincible forces with no consequences. Added to that all the characters in many of the scenes are completely CGI so they don't carry any visual weight to them. Compared to Sam Raimi's Spiderman films, which has a lot of less CGI and smaller set pieces in general but the fight scenes look more impactful because of it.

dragontamer 5y ago
"Ghost in a Shell" is 100% CGI / Anime, but the fights absolutely had consequences and weight. I actually hate Attack on Titan as a show, but damn the action scenes actually have weight and logic to them, far superior to the Marvel stuff despite being 100% cartoon. --------- That being said: Marvel seems to be going with more of a "Dragonball Z" or "RWBY" approach to combat. Which is fine as long as the writing is good enough. Its a different style for sure... Except ya know. Dragonball Z / RWBY largely does it better. ------- Its less about action shots and more about demonstrating superpowers. Everyone knows Goku will try to end the fight with a Kamehameha wave. At some point, Goku will go Super Saiyan or beyond, etc. etc. Similarly: Capt. America will throw his shield, Iron Man shoots some lasers, Hulk will grab, punch, and grapple something.
oneoff786 5y ago
I think it varies tremendously by film and director. I guess I wouldn’t say the median marvel film is good at this. I also happen to think that the best Spider-Man fight scenes were by far the Andrew Garfield ones. Those scenes were incredibly juicy, especially the second, for all its terrible writing and worldbuilding.

dragontamer 5y ago

> Shang chi Shang Chi had some good long-shot Wuxia-style scenes. It wasn't as good as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" but unlike the rest of the Marvel films, Shang Chi actually had proper fight scenes in them. But you're right in that most Marvel scenes make no damn sense from an action perspective. I'm constantly annoyed by their cuts personally. I'm just surprised that you threw Shang Chi into the same boat, because Shang Chi had more proper action shots than I can remember. I'm not talking about the CGI-dragon fight at the end (which went back into the Marvel mold of CGI + jump cuts). I'm talking about like, the first scene between Ying Li and Weng Wu (Shang-Chi's mother and father). Or the Bus-fight, which was pretty good IMO. At least, good by Marvel standards (which are pretty bad). It doesn't hold a candle compared to a good Jackie Chan scene, but at least they kept the camera still _SOMETIMES_ in Shang-Chi, rather than never keeping the damn camera still. ------- That being said, I enjoy Marvel films. I just wish they shot the action better.

oneoff786 5y ago
I thought Shang chi was very disappointing as a martial arts film. The choreography seemed weak. The bus fight was decent. Jackie Chan portrays himself as an incredible fighter but always very human. Shang chi, in my opinion, portrayed himself as a… pretty good fighter but weirdly powerful. Marvel’s best raw martial arts fights were probably on the likes of Daredevil (Netflix), Winter Soldier, and the Falcon Series. But I don’t feel they’ve gotten Kung fu or traditional Chinese stuff down well ever.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  I bring up "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" because its also on the same fantasy scale as Shang Chi and other Marvel films. The feats are fully superhuman, and super-physical. Physics just don't work like that. > Marvel’s best raw martial arts fights were probably on the likes of Daredevil (Netflix), Winter Soldier, and the Falcon Series. That's called "Street Level" superheroes. There are superpowers, but they're much toned down. Its a different genre.
WalterBright 5y ago
> It wasn't as good as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" I saw it, it was all people swinging around on wires with the wires painted out. By the arc of their movement, I knew where the wires were, anyway. The whole thing just looked silly.