History Main / FightUnscene

There are two ways to handle this: pour most of your budget into the fight scenes or use lots and lots of tricks. These tricks include tight first-person perspectives, eliminating backgrounds, and making sure there's as little actual contact as possible. There may also be a censorship aspect to it, if the fight [[CouldHaveBeenMessy would otherwise look brutal]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' the epic battle between Heaven and Hell is described in real time by an angel who notes it is ten times bigger than the final battle in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings.''

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' upon finally opening up the Door Lord's door via the power of music, Finn, Jake, Marceline and Princess Bubblegum discover the Aesop he was trying to teach them about ThePowerOfFriendship. The Door Lord rejoices and we cut to the next scene in which he is tied up and badly beaten making it a BrokenAesop.

* In ''ComicBook/MarvelVersusDC'', the results of seven key matches were determined by [[PopularityPower fan vote]]. Franchise/{{Wolverine}} out-polled Lobo, but the writers couldn't think of any way to believably make it happen, so the last blow occurs off-screen as the two (fighting in an alien bar) fall behind the bar. After a couple of {{Beat Panel}}s, Wolverine is the one who stands up. For the record, back in his home series after the event, Lobo says that "[[ComicBook/ProfessorX some bald guy]]" bribed him to throw the fight.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* In the ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' adventure game, there's a sequence where Onua gets into a duel with a possessed Lewa. However, at the time, Lego had the staunch viewpoint that the Toa used ''tools'', not weapons, which served to channel their elemental powers rather than the expected purpose of hitting people with them. To get around this, the cutscene depicts most of the fight happening in deep shadow, with the only visible things being the motion lines of their attacks. A similar thing happens later on, where Kopaka turns invisible for his fight with the Muaka seemingly to avoid showing him actually hitting the thing.

* A handful of fight scenes from ''VideoGame/{{Bionicle}}'''s ''Mata Nui On-Line Game'', but in contrast to many other examples, these used the trope to great effect:

Making a [[CoconutSuperpowers virtue of necessity]], characters may "move too fast to be seen!" as one of their in-world powers. Ideally, they move between static poses in a split second and dramatically hold those poses for many frames, with the melee replaced by a HitFlash.

* ''LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}}'' [[TropesAreTools deliberately uses this as a stylistic choice]] when Araragi faces down the rainy demon. Most of the sequence focuses on his face, brief glimpses of a blow or another, and cuts to [[UsefulNotes/{{Fonts}} typography designs]]. It's a highly stylized series as it is to begin with.

* The ''Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries'' is, sadly, loaded with these. There is one episode in particular in which Dante gets purposely sent to jail in order to rescue a man under the request of his sister. Inside, Dante finds out said jail is run by demons in disguise who periodically release all the inmates in order to [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame hunt them down]]. Once the "game" starts, a [[GoodOldFisticuffs disarmed]] Dante calmly gets out of his cell, stands before a bunch of demons and adopts a [[AssKickingPose fighting stance]]. Cue the fade to black and when we're back Dante is calmly walking away from a bunch of beaten up demons...

* ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'': the whole 2nd half of Episode 6 is full of it. Cue Gainax blowing the whole budget on the fighting while the rest looks...well… The "too fast to see" varient is played for laugh in the BeachEpisode, as it [[MundaneMadeAwesome happening with a volleyball match]] makes it rather hard for the ref to do his job.

* In the DC vs. Marvel mini-series, the results of seven key matches were determined by [[PopularityPower fan vote]]. Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} out-polled Lobo, but the writers couldn't think of any way to believably make it happen, so the last blow occurs off-screen as the two (fighting in an alien bar) fall behind the bar. After a couple of {{Beat Panel}}s, Wolverine is the one who stands up. For the record, back in his home series after the event, Lobo says that "[[ComicBook/XMen some bald guy]]" bribed him to throw the fight.

* ''Smallville'' In the episode "Society" (also known as "Absolute Justice, Part I"), Chloe Sullivan meets a former superhero named Sylvester Pemberton. When he's suddenly attacked by an ice-wielding villain, Pemberton throws Chloe into a dumpster to protect her. We see the fight from her perspective: mostly the dumpster being rocked back and forth as bright light and battle sounds come through the grate, and the metal is pierced by huge icicles. [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/smallville/images/1/1d/911Smallville0052.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100207204914]] It's really cool.

* Lampshaded on Website/StarDestroyerDotNet. There is a section there dealing with how certain Franchise/StarTrek vs Franchise/StarWars scenarios will turn out - Trek fans vs the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] show writers vs realistic scenario. So, in a scenario of retaking a planet with land forces, the show writers' scenario is that the battle doesn't happen at all - due to this trope, it will become the ''Defiant'' battling an orbital defense platform in order to clear the way for Klingon troop transports.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' upon finally opening up the Door Lord's door via the power of music, Finn, Jake, Marceline and Princess Bubblegum discover the Aesop he was trying to teach them about ThePowerOfFriendship. The Door Lord rejoices and we cut to the next scene in which he is tied up and badly beaten making it a BrokenAesop.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' the titular character tries relentlessly to get his sister to tell him a secret she knows. He pokes her repeatedly in the head until warned "You do that one more time...." . The warning goes unheeded and the next scene depicts him with several scratches all over his face.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In the "Clay Day" segment of "Little Gift Shop of Hororrs", some [[ArtShift claymation monsters]] fight, while the main characters watch the fight in such a way that the audience can only see the monsters' shadows on the wall. Someone [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall comments on how expensive claymation is]], and Soos adds "This is an impressive fight, though. Sure am glad I'm facing towards it."

* The RelaxOVision episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' played with this as well, with Freakazoid commenting that the preceding (censored) fight scene must have blown a good chunk of the studio's animation budget.

* In one part of a ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode where [[ArtShift claymation monsters]] fight, the main characters watch the fight in such a way that the audience can only see the monsters' shadows on the wall. Someone comments on how expensive claymation is, and Soos adds "This is an impressive fight, though. Sure am glad I'm facing towards it."

* Lampshaded on Website/StarDestroyerDotNet. There is a section there dealing with how certain StarTrek vs StarWars scenarios will turn out - Trek fans vs the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] show writers vs realistic scenario. So, in a scenario of retaking a planet with land forces, the show writers' scenario is that the battle doesn't happen at all - due to this trope, it will become the ''Defiant'' battling an orbital defense platform in order to clear the way for Klingon troop transports.

* The ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'' crossover between [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] and [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment The Spoony One]] had Black Lantern Spoony grabbing Linkara, only to be interrupted by a title card and return to Linkara freed. Less an effects limitation and more that they just couldn't figure out a good way to stage Louis escaping the hold.

Compare BattleDiscretionShot, RelaxOVision, OffscreenMomentOfAwesome, CoconutSuperpowers, and HitFlash. See also BolivianArmyEnding, ChargeIntoCombatCut, FightSceneFailure and TakeOurWordForIt. When a scene is skipped entirely and only described afterwards, it is SecondHandStorytelling instead.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* During the intermission in ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryII'', the hero's caravan is attacked by brigands. Just when you think the game is going to make you fight them, cut to the hero standing AtopAMountainOfCorpses.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx4DB3_n3zACViLWfLYlXGg Not many fight scenes occur on the low-budget Totalegit Productions but if there is one you can expect this trope]]
* https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx4DB3_n3zACViLWfLYlXGg

* The RelaxOVision episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' played with this as well, with Freakazoid commenting that the preceding (censored)fight scene must have blown a good chunk of the studio's animation budget.

[[IThoughtItMeant Do not confuse with]] a [[GreatOffscreenWar fight unseen.]]

* In ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' most of the firefight between Revy and the Cuban ex-assassin Roberta, arguably the deadliest opponent Revy faced in single combat during the series, was mainly observed from the other side of a stack of shipping crates. Presumably the battle was just too amazing to animate.

-->'''Earthworm Jim''': ''(runs headlong into the danger all guns blazing)'' [[CatahPhrase Eat dirt]], gigantic undefeatable army! Ah-hahahahahaha!\\

* Explicitly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'': Suddenly, [[DiabolusExNihilo for no reason whatsoever]], Jim is surrounded by a bunch of HighlyVisibleNinja. Cut to a news anchor explaining that because action sequences are expensive, studios have been forced to resort to cheap tricks, such as...
-->'''Earthworm Jim''': (standing on top of a pile of unconscious ninjas) What a great action sequence!

* Parodied in an episode of ''Droopy, Master Detective''. A fight between Droopy and [=McWolf=] consist of the two bowing, and [=McWolf=] flying out the window. When demanding an explanation, Droopy's son shows a recording of the fight in "super slow motion" which is basically the two bowing, Droopy turning into a blur around [=McWolf=], then stopping, then [=McWolf=] flying out the window.