Web Video / Movie Fights

"This is like the Lincoln-Douglas debates with absolutely none of the importance."

— Dan Murrell

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Screen Junkies' Movie Fights, where real nerds have real fights over fake movies.

Conceived as a response to fans' request for the channel to host a longer series, Movie Fights is a feature-length debate podcast/show which debuted in September 2014. It typically involves three "gladiators" discussing about various movie topics, such as trailers, casting decisions, etc., and having them fight for their opinions about it. The show's host would evaluate their arguments and creativity to pick a winning choice, and the contestant who has the most points by the end of the episode wins the game. A fact checker, introduced in episode 5 ("Does Interstellar Suck?") , would, as their role implies, research the details of the arguments to make sure they are factually accurate and that the contestants are not making things up as they go.

Due to the firing of the show's host, Andy Signore, after being accused on multiple accounts of sexual misconduct, Movie Fights was on hiatus until it's return on December 14th, 2017, with a format retooling and new set. As of the latest episode that streamed live on February 10th, 2020, the series has officially gone on indefinite hiatus, possibly as a result of Dan Murrell's departure from Screen Junkies, but also as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic not allowing the contestants to appear in the studio.

Has two spinoffs, TV Fights (which focuses on TV series), currently posted on Screen Junkies News, and Gamer Fights (which focuses on video games), produced in collaboration with Smosh Games that ran briefly on Screen Junkies Plus.

---

The series contains examples of the following tropes

• Accentuate the Negative: The "fighters" tend to exaggerate their points when arguing, but probably the best example of this is Spencer tearing apart The Hunger Games series when asked "Do The Hunger Games film series suck?" To clarify, he doesn't actually think the movies suck, but since everyone else on the panel agree, he decided to play the Devil's Advocate so that they can get a debate going on. Borrowing some of the lines from the Honest Trailers they've made, he argued about what a terrible role model Katniss is, and how The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 was pretty much just her pining after Peeta.
• Achilles' Heel: Spencer is quite good in the normal debate rounds, and would usually proceed to the Speed Round with at least a point in the lead. However, his Speed Round performance tend to be not as good, and he lost most of his Movie Fights because of them.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Whenever the subject of how there has never been a good Fantastic Four movie comes out, someone (usually Andy) would point out that we do have a good F4 movie in the form of The Incredibles.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Humorously discussed in the "Most Traumatizing Kid's Movie?" episode that took place on Father's Day. Andy brought his dad, Steve Signore, to the studio, and during his introduction, Steve expresses how he hopes to embarrass Andy (he was even wearing a shirt that says "Embarrassing my children: just one more service I offer"). Despite this, he ends up agreeing with most of Andy's decisions.
• Armor-Piercing Question: From Roger to Nick in Better Franchise: Mission Impossible or Fast & Furious?:
  Roger: The Rock absolutely dwarfs Tom Cruise, and he can't do the stunts himself?
  Nick: A-duh-duh-
  Roger: A-duh-duh, exactly.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In his idea of fixing The Fantastic Four, Kristian thinks they should be Villain Protagonists who never change. He says that Invisible Woman should rob banks, Mr. Fantastic should pickpocket, The Human Torch should be a pyromaniac and The Thing should play for the NFL. Even better, this blatant Springtime for Hitler idea won him the round.
• Author Appeal:
  • Whoever chooses the questions seem to be big fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel Movies in general, seeing how questions about one or more Marvel movies appear in the vast majority of episodes.
  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, along with puppets and animatronics in general for Mike Carlson. The former led to the origin of #botanicus, referring to E.T.'s teacher from the E.T. ride at Universal Studios, while the latter manifested themselves in his dream Star Wars film and ride.
  • For Nick, it's action films, especially if they're from The '80s or they star Dwayne Johnson.
  • Marc Andreyko is apparently attracted to Tom Hardy and had cast him in a lot of questions. Lately, he has been switching to Henry Cavill.
  • For Alicia Malone, it's Jake Gyllenhaal, which became significant for her appearance in the second Drunk Movie Fight.
  • Amy Nicholson revealed that she really likes the German Expressionism genre, hosting an entire podcast about the genre.
  • Roth Cornet loves Kurt Russell and even at one point declare him to be the winner of Comic Con for his appearance in the Marvel panel due to his role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
• Author Tract: When asked to pitch the "Next Arnold Schwarzenegger movie", Nick went for Last Action Hero 2, which is really just a transparent attempt to get Arnold to retire. Better yet, when Andy and Dan shot down his idea before shooting, he simply repackaged it as Last Action Hero 2. His answer was immediately disqualified by Andy.
  Andy: Is that really a movie or is that just your opinion that he shouldn't make a movie?
• Award Snub: invoked One of the fight topics in the 2015 title bout: Who got the worst snubs in 2015? Jason picked Jake Gyllenhaal for "Best Actor", Mark pitched ''The LEGO Movie" for "Best Animated Feature", while Dan thinks Ava DuVernay should have won "Best Director".
• Awesome Aussie: Alicia Malone, who hails from Australia, and is one of the most fearsome fighters in the show, and is the only other regular fighter besides Dan who has a Red Baron nickname.
• Badass Decay: The crew's In-Universe opinion on Dan after his first movie fight loss against Mike Carlson, which was quickly followed by two consecutive losses, once against Amy in episode 37, and against Chris Stuckmann in the San Diego Comic Con, although the latter isn't counted in the official track record statistics. They describe him as having a "cold streak" and during the pre-match talk before the third Championship round, no one on the discussion panel expected him to win (Jason didn't even think he'd make it into the Speed Round). Ultimately defied when, against all odds, Dan managed to pull a well-earned victory, thus retaining his title as the Movie Fights champion.
• Berserk Button:
  • Hal is very adamant about his hatred for movie prequels in general, and the way he reacts to the word "prequel", one would think it means something offensive. He particularly detests The Hobbit trilogy, claiming it to be even worse the oft maligned Star Wars prequels and had gotten into heated debates about it against Jeremy & Kris and Tiffany Smith.
  • For Roger, it's The Fast and the Furious series, which he considers a bane to Action movies, and is the root of his conflict with Nick Mundy. He also threatened to punch Spencer when the latter deliberately said that Tokyo Drift is the "best 3rd movie in a film series" to rile him up.
• Black Comedy: During "Which Kids' Franchise Needs a Gritty Reboot?", guest Marc Andreyko cracks incredibly dark jokes.
  Steve Zaragoza: "I have an alt, which was from, uh, Naked Gun 33 1/3, which is...
  Marc: "O.J. did it?"
• Breakout Character:
  • Alicia Malone is the most appeared female fighter on Movie Fights after extremely positive fan reaction in the episodes she appeared in, to the point that she was picked to join the crew at San Diego Comic Con 2015 episode, the Last Fighter Standing round and hosted in place of Andy four time for total of more than a dozen fights and 4 host episodes. Not to mention that she was among the people (including Dan, Ken and Spencer) that was jokingly asked by Andy to help him found Screen Junkies channel in the New Year Eve 1999 episode.
  • Joe Starr, Honest Trailer writer and frequent fact-checker, was added to the fighting roster in episode 88 due to popular fan demand.
  • Roth Cornet was added to the Screen Junkies crew after positive reaction to her appearance in Movie Fights and TV Fights.
• Broken Base: invoked
  • No one in the Screen Junkies crew seem to like Interstellar, but Roger Barr is a very passionate fan of the movie. The differing opinions between the panels were exemplified even further when Roger mentioned how he liked everything about the movie except for the robot, while Spencer pointed out that the robot is the only good part of the film.
  • Jurassic World. Andy enjoyed the movie very much, but Dan hated it, and the two spent quite some time arguing about it in the Jurassic World - Fun or Failure? episode. When it was briefly recapped in the following episode, Steve (Andy's dad) sided with Andy's point, while Jon Rocha, a panelist featured in the episode, agrees with Dan. Andy conceded that, as far as he was concerned, there was very few middle ground in the people's opinion of the movies.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak: Dan's 8-in-a-row winning streak finally comes to an end in episode 35. He's still the champion, since the round wasn't a Title bout, but he's no longer the undefeated champion.
• Call-Back: The first Speed Round question in episode 43 asks: "Which movie should we watch: Superman: The Movie or Jackass: The Movie?" — a reference to one of the fights in episode 17, which pitted the two against each other in the question, "Best movie with the word "Movie" in its title". This is lampshaded by Spencer when he won his argument.
  Spencer: Second time Jackass beats Superman!
• The Cameo: Roger's in the audience for the Justice League vs. Avengers episode, as pointed out by Andy when he notices the former's psychotically gleeful laughter in reaction to Nick losing in the first round.
• Catchphrase:
  • At the end of almost every round, Andy would say, "This is tough," regarding his difficulty in picking a winner because everyone gave good arguments. He then jokingly says it's becoming his new catch phrase, and tries to avoid it whenever possible.
  • Whenever he's gushing over how great a particular movie is, Scott Mantz would often label it as the "Citizen Kane of the X genre". Alicia later banned it from the vocabulary when she was hosting one of Scott's episode.
• Chekhov's Gag: In Episode 40, after expressing their reservations about the Deadpool movie, Marc Andreyko and Jason Inman made a bet that if the film turned out to be good, they'd appear on the show dressed as Deadpool and Colossus, respectively. Fast forward 30+ episodes, well after the Deadpool movie is released, the two did show up in Deadpool and Colossus shirts.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Nick Mundy, Roger Barr, Mike Carlson and Andre Meadows are always coming up with outlandish/very unexpected picks when answering questions, often to their own detriment (but to everyone else's amusement). Dan suggests they should try to bring them all at once and to produce the "weirdest Movie Fights episode ever".
  • When Andy pitched the idea of The Dumps, expies of The Klumps all played by Will Smith, everyone at the table went into hysterics. No one was surprised when Andy mentioned that Nick helped him come up with the idea.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: Defied by Nick, who refuses to fulfill his fans' request to "fix" the 2015 Fant4stic movie because then he'll have to actually watch it. Instead, he asked Kristian Harloff, Scott Mantz and Hal Rudnick to do it for him in the first "Mundy Fights" round.
• Consummate Liar: Dan is extremely good at making arguments for movies he's never even watched, and no one else on the show can actually prove that he hasn't. Alicia and Hal tried this on their appearance in the second drunk movie fight, but Andy saw through it.
• Critical Dissonance: invoked Discussed in "What Franchise Should Die Forever?!", a question is asked about what movie critics got "wrong". The three chosen were Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Psycho and Wet Hot American Summer.
• Crossover: While the Movie Fights frequently brings in guest panelists from other websites, they occasionally have the Screen Junkies crew to team up and have an ultimate movie showdown against other channels.
  • The first crossover fight has Nick, Hal and Dan come in the Schmoes Know set and battle against their Tag Team crews. Andy Signore remains as host.
  • Per audience request, they also battled against Chris and Jeremy from CinemaSins, with Andy and Dan representing the Screen Junkies. Kristian Harloff from Schmoes takes Andy's place as host.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Jason Inman's first Movie Fight has him win a landslide victory, with a final scoreboard of 5-2-2.
  • Dan once fought against a pair of newbies in episode 9, New Star Wars Lightsaber - Awesome or Useless? and completely obliterated his two opponents, polling a final score of 5-3-2.
  • Dan (in episode 13) was tied with Spencer 4-4 after the first Speed Round question but got the last 3 points, beating Spencer and Mike Carlson 7-4-2.
  • Dan later beat Alicia and newcomer Amirose Eisenbach 6-3-1.
  • In episode 7, Spencer managed to scores points in 6 out of 8 questions (and for one of the other 2 questions, nobody received a point), finishing with a score of 6-4-2 over Mark and Roger.
  • Roger managed to wipe out Jason and Erin in Star Wars Spinoffs - Good Idea or Bad Idea? with a score of 4-2-1, then took out Jason in record time in the speed round with a final score of 6-3-1.
  • Alicia's fight against Chloe and Trisha has her monopolize more than half the points to be won in the 6 main rounds, ending with a scoreboard of 4-1-1.
  • JTE beat Doug Benson and John Rocha 6-3-0.
  • Hal, who once had a poor record, beat Roger Barr and Nick 5-2-1.
  • In a team battle, a tag-team from Screen Junkies (consisting of one fighter at a time) defeated Jeremy Jahns and Kristian Harloff (both fighting at the same time) 7-4.
  • In another team battle, Marc Andreyko and John Campea beat Dan and newcomer Harley Morenstein 6-3.
  • The first 4 rounds of the Wizard Con episode feature Dan Murrell, Doug Walker, John Flickinger and Chris Stuckmann battle against 4 fan-challenger. With the exception of Chris's battle against Joe Simpson, all the votes were overwhelmingly in favour of the "veteran" fighters.
  • Seth Rogen beat Spencer and Joe Starr 5-2-0.
  • Greg Alba made a clean sweep winning all three rounds and the first speed round, beating Yael Tygiel and Josh Macuga with a score of 4-0-0.
    • Trisha Hershberger accomplished the same thing, beating Janet Varney and Hector Navarro 4-0-0.
  • Some fighters have swept the Speed Round, leading to large-margin victories.
    • In episode 26 (the third title fight), Dan went in with a 3-2-2 lead and won 6-2-2 against Spencer (who missed each Speed Round point) and Nick.
    • In episode 43, Spencer went in behind Brett 3-2, but wound up winning 6-3-2, becoming the second fighter (after Alicia) to both sweep a Speed Round and be swept in one)
    • In episode 47, Spencer went in with a 3-2-1 lead, but wound up losing to Max Landis 6-3 becoming the first fighter to be swept in two different Speed Rounds.
    • In episode 58 (the fifth title fight), Spencer went in tied with Dan 2-2-2 (Chris Stuckman was eliminated in a tie-breaker), but wound up losing to Dan 5-2 and becoming the first fighter to be swept in three different Speed Rounds (while still the only one to even be swept in two).
    • In episode 18 (the second title fight), Dan was tied with Alicia 3-3 going into the Speed Round and wound up winning 6-3-2.
    • In episode 23, Alicia was tied with Kristian 3-3 going into the Speed Round and wound up winning 6-3-2, becoming the first fighter to both sweep a Speed Round and be swept in one.
    • In episode 34, Davis went in behind Hal 3-2, but wound up winning 6-3-1.
    • In episode 53, Mike Carlson went in behind Adam Hlavac 3-2, but wound up winning 6-3-1.
    • In episode 57, Doug Benson went in with a 3-2-1 lead and won 6-2-1 against Chloe Dykstra (who missed each Speed Round point) and Scott Mantz.
    • In episode 80, Amy Nicholson (prior record 2-1) went into the Speed Round tied with newcomer Kara Warner 2-2 and wound up winning 5-2-1.
    • In episode 81, Hector Navarro went into the Speed Round tied with newcomer Jeff Cannata 2-2 and wound up winning 5-2-1.
    • In episode 87, Roth Cornet went into the Speed Round tied with newcomer Matt Stagmer 2-2 and wound up winning 5-2-1.
    • In episode 91, Coy Jandreau (who started the game behind 1-1-0) went into the Speed Round tied with Jon Schnepp 2-2 and wound up winning 5-2-1, heavily because he was able to spout out much more information in the allowed time.
    • In episodes 93 and 94, surprisingly, Dan was swept in the Speed Round for both his first and second times on the same day (July 22, 2016) respectively by Hal and Brannon Braga at San Diego Comic Con. He went in respectively winning 3-1 and tied 2-2 and lost 4-3 and 4-2, losing a total of five Speed Round questions. After the first sweep, he became the only fighter to both sweep two Speed Rounds (actually three of them) and be swept in one (and the third overall (after Alicia and Spencer) to sweep at least one and be swept in one).
    • In episode 98, Alicia Malone was beating Coy Jandreau and Brett Erlich 3-1-1 going into the Speed Round and won 5-1-1, becoming the second fighter (after Dan) to sweep two Speed Rounds (and the second to sweep two and be swept in one). Simultaneously, Coy became the fourth (after Alicia, Spencer, and Dan) to both sweep a Speed Round and be swept in one.
    • In episode 99, Tony Revolori was tied with Hector 2-2 going into the Speed Round and wound up winning 5-2-1.
    • Dan Murrell, Maude Garrett, Matt Lieberman, and Mark Ellis have also done this on TV Fights, respectively finishing with scores of 6-2-1, 5-1-1, 5-2-1, and 5-2-1.
  • Subverted in TV Fights episode 17: Roth Cornet was beating Spencer going into the Speed Round 4-1 and wound up losing to him 6-5. And if Roxy had not overturned votes for Spencer by Ken Napzok and David Griffin, Roth would have been swept in the Speed Round, losing 6-4.
• The Cutie: Both Hal and Spencer refer to Mark Ellis from Schmoes as "the cute one".
• Damned by Faint Praise:.
  • Dan once argued for the Fantastic Four (2015) movie trailer, saying that he liked the casting and the characters' chemistry in the trailer, and that he was turned from "not wanting to watch the movie at all" to "considering it". He delivers his arguments in such a deadpan manner, that Andy and Roger called out his lack of excitement for the movie. Nick (who was hosting that round) then used that fact as a reason to disqualify him for that round.
  • While the Screen Junkies crew was gushing over the Suicide Squad (2016) trailer, they expressed amazement that Jai Courtney did not look terrible during his short scene in the clip.
  • In the Critical Dissonance invoked question in episode 43, Spencer challenged his two opponents to defend Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — which, despite being "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, has such an infamous reputation among the general audience as being so horrendously bad that many refuse to acknowledge its existence at all. Tiffany's and Brett's defense of the movie were lacklustre and unconvincing, making Spencer the clear winner of that round.
• Dark Horse Victory: Nick had won some of his rounds on the basis that his arguments are so insane that no one else on the table bothered to counter it.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The "Classic Film Fights" movie is done is black and white.
• Devil's Advocate: The "Devil's Advocate" card ^note  Or more accurately, a double feature copy of the film The Devil's Advocate with Insomnia. is a feature where, if all three panelists have the same opinion, one of them is given the option to fight for the opposing viewpoint for the chance to win double points.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Contestants frequently undermine their own arguments when trying to prove their point.
  • In the "What's the Best Year in Movies?" question, Spencer tried to win Andy over by asking which of the select movies the panel have picked he'd rather watch, and Andy answered the 1999 choice — which was Dan's pick. He then tried to ask Andy which is the most memorable year for him, and the answer is again 1999, ultimately giving Dan the win for that round.
  • In the "What is the Best Movie in 2015 (So Far)?" question, Andy asked each of the 3 contestants to close their arguments by explaining why the other two movies are inferior to their pick. Nick (who picked Mad Max: Fury Road) tried to argue against Mark Ellis's Inside Out by saying that it has a lot of substance, but not much of a plot. While trying to explain his statement further, he proceeded to list why Inside Out is an excellent movie, but ultimately failed to answer when Andy asked him to describe the plot of his own pick. Unsurprisingly, Mark ended up winning the round.
  Nick: If I'm screwing myself, I don't care.
• Disneyfication: In one of the fight rounds, the gladiators were asked to pitch a dream Star Wars Spin-Off, and Mike Carlson pitched for a puppet movie revolving around Yoda's species, and the movie would involve a lot of songs, dances and musicals. Hal said that he is pitching the worst nightmare for Star Wars fans: the full Disneyfication of Star Wars.
• Draco in Leather Pants: invoked When asked "What is the most emotional animated Disney or Pixar death ever?", Max Landis answers with the death of Nuka, a secondary antagonist in Lion King 2. In doing so, he portrays Nuka as a good guy (practically a saint!) who is only trying, and failing, to win his mother's love, while completely ignoring the fact that he's also a sadistic bully who died while trying to kill Simba. This blatant whitewashing of Nuka's character did not go unnoticed by Dan, who used this fact as his counter-argument against Max's pick.
• The Eeyore:
  • Invoked by Marc Andreyko, whose usual shtick in the show involves moping and whining about how Andy is against him whenever he loses a round. Or even when he wins it.
  • Ken Napzok, likewise, is full of self-pity, to the point that it becomes a Drinking Game rule in the Drunk Episode — i.e. all the contestants (plus Andy) have to take a shot whenever Ken gets mopey.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Scott Mantz is able to rattle off almost every little facts one can know about films (from their directors to their exact release dates) that most people won't even bother to find out, much less memorize. In his first appearance, he demonstrated such an excellent display of movie knowledge that Dan wonders if he's even needed to fact check the episode. Indeed, he would return in a title bout to fact check in the place of Dan.
• Even Better Sequel: invoked Discussed in one of the Fan Fights battle. Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Aliens and The Raid 2 were picked in response to a question asking for this.
• Even Nerds Have Standards: In a show whose entire premise is to have movie nerds arguing about nerdy movie topics, some fight rounds get even nerdier than usual, especially if Comic Books get involved.
  • The first fight question to break the nerd limit was the question, "Which Superhero Would Win in The Hunger Games?", which was quickly followed by a chaotic debate about the Games' rules, the Superheroes' powers and so on. To be able to pick a winner, Andy had to propose a hypothetical situation about how the battle would play out to base his final decision in, which he then concede could go in any direction, given the inconsistencies of Comic Book continuities, especially with regards to a character's power/abilities.
  • The nerdiness level of this battle was later topped up by the "Wonderwoman vs. Superman vs. Batman" battle, especially when Jason Inman and Marc Andreyko started arguing about very obscure comic book references and facts that was pretty much impossible to follow, even with the help of the internet.
    Dan: The computer had just given up on this argument.
• Everyone Has Standards: Nick is very well-known for being the wackier personalities on the show. However, Kristian Harloff managed to out-crazy him at one point, when he outright made up a movie to argue about in one of the Speed Rounds.
  Nick: That's worse than anything I've ever done!
• Face Palm: Dan's reaction to one of the Speed Rounds in Episode 48, when he was too slow to call out the answer he wanted to pick and was forced to argue for Jurassic World (which he infamously hates).
• Fandom Rivalry: invoked Which Franchise is best: Star Wars or Star Trek? This debate has been fought twice over the course of the show, once in the appropriately named "Star Wars vs. Star Trek" episode (which featured Jason Inman's Movie Fight debut), and another time in the Comic Con.
• Fan Vid: There exists a fanmade Honest Trailers of this feature-length series. [1]
• Fiery Redhead: Subverted with Alicia Malone. Despite being nicknamed "Red Fury" for her red hair and fearsome track record, she's one of the less aggressive members among the regular cast.
• Five-Token Band: Hal's proposed Predator movie would see Arnold training Jason Mitchell, Daisy Ridley, Michael Pena and a white guy.
• Freudian Slip: When he's not mispronouncing movie titles and celebrity names, Andy frequently makes Accidental Innuendos with his flubbed lines.
  • When discussing the cast of Entourage, which they have just made an Honest Trailer for:
  Andy: Don't you wish they're on you all the time?
  Dan: What?
  Andy: Around you! I mean around!
  • And he made this remark while talking about the intense rivalry between Scott Mantz and John Rocha.
  Andy: You guys were really exciting last time [...] You were eating each other out...
  Rocha: No!
  Scott: That's absolutely not true!
  (Commotion ensues)
• Game Show Host: Movie Fights is not exactly a game show, but it does have a similar format. And Andy, the host, who would open the show by advertising their sponsors, introducing gladiators, present Movie Fight questions and make judgement on the debates. Others may replace him whenever he is unavailable, or is participating in the fight, however.
• Genre Savvy: Brought up in the Speed Round of Man of Steel 2 Pitches, where Spencer and Max Landis are asked about the better movie location to visit: Hogwarts or The Jedi Temple. After Spencer argues for Hogwarts, Max points out that as a Muggle, Spencer would not be allowed in, as well as potentially dying or having his memory wiped, due to the Fantastic Racism in the wizarding world, thereby making a trip to Hogwarts "the least fun, shortest experience you'll never remember ever", something that's not a factor with the Jedi Temple. Indeed, Dan brings up the quote from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that confirms this, saying that if a Muggle gets too close to Hogwarts, all they see is a smoldering ruin with a danger sign. This kind of answer impresses Dan and Alicia, leading to Max taking the win for the episode.
• The Ghost:
  • JTE, the show's engineer, who is in charge of the most of the sound effects. The on-screen crew (usually the host) occasionally talks to him, but he mostly remain invisible. He briefly made an appearance as a gladiator in the Tag Team for the Schmoes in the Schmoes Know vs. Screen Junkies crossover, though.
  • To a lesser extent, Jason. Being one of the show's producers, he's usually around the set, but doesn't get seen unless he participates in as a gladiator or fact-checker. In What Should Wolverine's Last Movie Be About? episode, Andy actually asked him to help with one of the Speed Rounds, but he never showed up in that particular scene.
• Guilty Pleasures: Discussed in one of the questions, which asked the fighters to pick a movie which they love, but was reviled by others. The picks were G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Hal), Hudson Hawk (Brett) and The Fast and the Furious (Adam).
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: It doesn't happen all the time, but fights involving either Nick, Hal or Andy often gets heated very fast.
  • Most of the fight rounds in the Schmoes Knows vs. Screen Junkies episode would, at some point, degenerate into a chaotic yell fest between Nick, Hal and Kristian. It becomes so messy that even Kristian himself lost track on what he was arguing about in the rounds.
  Kristian: What was I debating again?
  Alicia: I just remembered a lot of shouting.
  • The screaming match that ensued between Nick & Roger after the latter insulted The Fast and the Furious and even declared how the series should be retroactively erased from existence got so bad that Spencer had to take his headphones off.
  • During the battle against Cinema Sins, Andy and Jeremy would frequently interrupt each other by loudly screaming to the mic.
• Hammy Herald: Invoked in the Championship tournaments, where Andy would start the episode's introduction with only two of the gladiators with him, while the champion (currently Dan Murrell) would only arrive on the set after an epic speech and soundtrack.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite being a Large Ham with a tendency to go overboard with crazy suggestions, Nick is surprisingly good at being the judge. He can also be a good sport, especially in Speed Rounds, when he requested Andy to scrap one question because his opponent can't come up with an answer on time, and he doesn't want to "win on technicality". He also asked Andy to give Kris a pass when he misnamed an actor during his defense for American Beauty.
  Roger: You wanna know something? The Fantastic Four (2015) trailer might not turn me around, but you just turned me around about you hosting.
  • Kristian Harloff has received some mixed opinions on YouTube, but he received a lot of acclaim when he hosted the Screen Junkies vs. CinemaSins for his very impartial judging style, with Andy commending his work.
• Hostile Show Takeover: "How To Fix The Fantastic Four", which is hosted by Nick as Andy and Dan were at Wizard World Chicago. The "Movie" in "Movie Fights" is even crossed out and replaced with "Mundy Fights", while the displayed posters are replaced with his wedding photos.
• Honor Before Reason: Numerous times the fighters admit to remember some movies in the Speed Round but didn't name it because it was too bad/good for the question, like when Dan Murrell refuses to name Man of Steel to be the best movie with "Man" in the title.
• Humiliation Conga: During the "Most Disappointing Summer Blockbuster" fight, Nick mentions either spending time finishing an important English project that he was struggling with or waiting in line for three days to see his movie. He had to endure Texas summer heat, a tropical storm, Star Wars fans and "Save Tonight" by Eagle Eye Cherry on repeat just to see The Phantom Menace.
  Nick: "And then I saw Star Wars, and then I realized; 'My life is stupid.' "
• Hypocritical Humour: When Mike Carlson was called to play his turn in the second Last Fighter Standing episode, he remarks that the questions thus far had been really wacky, and wonders if it's his cup of tea. This is coming from the resident Cloud Cuckoolander who had played in Weird Movie Fights in a cockroach costume, and once tried to fight his rounds via Skype while Dan serves as his mouth piece. Andy even made a reference to the latter event to lampshade this.
• I Knew It!: Played In-Universe. Episode 70 was supposed to have Kristian Harloff and Mark Ellis fight against Spencer Gilbert. Spencer decided that he's not really in the mood for the game and, in a surprising twist, pulled off the show's first ever Sneak Attack to bring in another person to fight in his place. Kristian immediately knew that it's going to be JTE, which it was.
• Identical Stranger: Downplayed, as they don't look exactly alike, but Scott Mantz is said to be an older version of Hal Rudnick. This fact is constantly lampshaded when the two appeared together for the Mundy Fights.
  • Kristian exploits this when he proposed a movie idea that has Hal as one of the stars and has Scott play the role of Hal's future self.
  • When Scott beats Hal to win the episode, Kristian comments "Bruce Willis beat Joseph Gordon-Levitt".
  • After Hal becomes the show's primary host, he would frequently refer to Mantz as his biological father whenever the latter is featured in the panel.
• In-Series Nickname: The role of the fact-checker is usually referred to as #DanCam from Dan Murrell, the regular fact-checker. It's also called #FanCam if someone not from the channel takes up the mantle.
• Insistent Terminology: Cucumber is not a "puppet". He's a felted friend.
• Life Lines: In the Fan fights episode, the three "newbies" are coached by veteran fighters Spencer, Dan and Nick before they are sent to the arena. In the battle, they are allowed to call on their "coach" to fight one round for them, although only one of them actually used the feature.
• Little "No": For the final question of the 1 Year Anniversary episode, Hal and Spencer were asked to choose which powers they'd rather have: Jim Carrey's The Mask or Robin Williams's genie powers. Both picked the Genie, and Andy gave the choice to Spencer. Almost immediately, Spencer requested to change his answer, and Andy allowed Hal to decide whether or not he accepts. Hal responded with a defiant "no".
• Mêlée à Trois: With a few exceptions, the debate always feature a three-way fight between the "gladiators". Even when topic in question only have two answers (which means that two of the three fighters would inevitably share similar views), the responses are judged separately, unless the contenders explicitly forms a team up.
• Mistaken for Racist: Jokingly invoked by Andy Signore, Marc Andreyko and Hal during the second Drunk Movie Fight when Alicia Malone mistook Forest Whitaker for Laurence Fishburne.
• Motor Mouth: Coy Jandreau can speak extremely fast, and this plays to his advantage during Speed Rounds because he's able to present more argument than his opponent.
• Never Gets Drunk: Alicia Malone is type 1 - who was so much of The Stoic (or just plain has better alcohol tolerance than her fellow competitor) during the Drunk Movie Fight that many viewers though she didn't get drunk despite clearly being shown to be drinking throughout the show.
• No Indoor Voice: Nick can get loud when he's really passionate about certain topics, but Roger has been known to out-scream him if Fast & Furious is involved.
  • Max Landis is probably the loudest combatant to date.
• Not So Above It All: Sometimes, one of the more composed regular members of Screen Junkies (like Dan Murrell, Spencer Gilbert and Alicia Malone) would lose their temper / backed into a corner / drunk enough that they began to fight like the more loony, temperate and loud fighters. For example: Dan completely fought in anger in the Last Fighter Standing episode when Scott Mantz suggests that Rocky would be a better movie when Arnold Schwarzenegger replaces Sylvester Stallone or when Alicia, who is usually more serious and good-nature in her fights, start to crack jokes that are mean-spirited by her standard in the second Drunk Movie Fight like mocking Hal's attraction to Zoe Saldana.
• Older Than They Look:
  • As discussed by Roger, Jesse Eisenberg looks like a teenager despite being 31, hence why he wouldn't make a suitable Lex Luthor.
  • Ironically enough, the 39-year old Roger is this trope, considering he could pass for someone in his 20s.
  • The fact that Andrew Garfield is in his thirties but can pull off the teenage Peter Parker has also been discussed.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Hal once blundered badly in a tie-breaker Speed Round (calling the same answer Tiffany had clearly called out first, after a considerably long pause, immediately disqualifying him). For the next few movie fights, Andy would jokingly warn the panelists to not "pull a Hal Rudnick" before starting the Speed Rounds, at least until they changed the rules.
• The Power of Hate: Invoked for laughs by Max Landis in the 2016 Comic-Con Episode. He couldn't come up with an answer quickly enough and demanded that the crowd boo him, saying that he could only think when he's the brunt of hate. When the crowd obliged, he was immediately able to present a very good argument for his pick.
• Precision F-Strike: During the second Championship round, Nick went a little too far in making fun of Dan's argument and interrupting him. Dan loses it and tells him to "Shut the f—." He actually managed to stop himself before actually saying the word, but it still surprised the others.
• Promoted Fanboy: invoked
  • The Fan Fights episode, where three fans of the show is handpicked and mentored by the Movie Fights crew and sent to participate in the debate in place of the regular panel.
  • The Wizard World episode featured four fans randomly chosen to try and challenge four "veteran" combatants: Dan Murrell, Doug Walker, John Flickinger and Chris Stuckmann.
• Real Trailer, Fake Movie: The 2 movie posters displayed on the set are totally fake movies. One is the infamous Nightfalls, another is the crazy buddy-cop movie that Kris Harloff pitched, starring Nick Mundy, Hal Rudnick and Scott Mants battling against B-movies.
• Red Baron: Dan "the Mad Man" Murrell and Alicia "the Red Fury". They're not actually used as frequently as the common examples, though.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In the Screen Junkies battle against Cinema Sins, the Hot-Blooded Andy Signore was paired with Dan Murrell, who is the less combative of the two and did not speak as much throughout the debate, as a result. Their opponents from Cinema Sins, Jeremy Scott and Chris Atkinson share a similar dynamic.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • During a speed round, when asked what the best movie with the word "Night" in the title was, Kris Harloff couldn't think of one, so he proceeded to make one up, arguing for a movie called Nightfalls, which he claimed featured one the best performances from Robert De Niro as well as a shocking cameo form Al Pacino. While he lost the round, partly because no one else had seen the movie (obviously), it wasn't until he admitted to making it up that they realized the movie didn't exist. Andy was considerably impressed by his boldness at attempting that.
  • In episode 47, Spencer tries another Nightfalls with a film named Girls Nite Out, starring Melissa McCarthy and featuring a legendary scene featuring a ham sandwich. Unfortunately for him, Max actually knew about a different movie called Girls Nite Out, and Dan immediately stopped the round.
• Ron the Death Eater: What Mike Carlson's in-universe opinion of DCEU's Justice League seems to be. During the Justice League vs. The Avengers debate, he painted the JL as violent, blood-thirsty monsters who would probably eat each other before they can be trusted to do any kind of world-saving.
• Running Gag:
  • Ever since Mark Ellis pitched for a Swamp Thing reboot, the character has been mentioned for three episodes in a row. In fact, in the first round of Episode 72, some fans expresses disappointment that no one mentioned Swamp Thing. Jason finally did so in one of the later rounds.
  • At the end of almost every round in the Cage Match episode, guest star "Nicholas Cage" would constantly complain about how the contestants fail to mention "his" voice-acting role as Grug in The Croods.
  • Joe Starr frequently gets called to fill-in for a sick contestant, that Dan expresses surprise when he (Joe), for once, participated in a round on his own accord.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: invoked
  • In the Pitch your next Arnold Schwarzenegger movie round, Mark offered an original concept featuring Arnold as a retired agent who was forced out of his retirement when assassins tried to kill him and his family. Kristian pointed out that his pitch was basically the plot of Commando, which Andy agreed with.
  • When asked to pitch What Should Wolverine's Last Movie Be About?, one of the gladiators, Chloe Dykstra, essentially gave the plot of Les Misérables (2012) with the names changed. Obviously, she didn't win that round.
• Serious Business: Just how much the combatants treat the material like this varies depending on the line-up, but some debates can get very heated over subjects as inane as the ideal line-up of a band made of movie characters or which superhero would win in a Hunger Games.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The first Movie Fights ended up with a three-way-draw (even though this was due to a scoring error; Hal should have been at least declared the loser even if a two-way tie remainder), which makes the whole thing pretty much pointless (later, despite losing based on actual score, Hal would retroactively be named the winner of the first episode). Andy said, in the next episode, that he got a lot of flak for not picking a winner. Throughout the early series, there's also some "useless rounds" where everyone gets a point, and this does absolutely nothing to the score standing.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Jeremy Jahns, in his appearance for the Comic Con edition of the Movie Fight, wore a suit and a tie, a very sharp contrast to everyone else on the panel, who were wearing T-shirt and jeans.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot:
  • Among the regular gladiators, we have Nick, whose arguments are frequently littered with Cluster F Bombs, whereas other panelists mostly have reservations to even directly quote swear words from a source material.
  • Guest panelists Alison Haislip, and later Max Landis, takes this up to eleven. Almost every sentence they say contain at least one f-word.
• Sitcom Archnemesis:
  • Roger and Nick are always on each others throats, and during the "Best Ian McKellen Movie" episode, they were already brawling before the show even begins.
  • John Rocha and Scott Mantz became bitter enemies since their first appearance together in Episode 49. Their animosity gets carried over to Collider's Movie Trivia Schmoedown series, and escalated so badly that they were featured in a special 1 vs. 1 movie fight match in the second Star Wars vs. Star Trek episode.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: In episode 74, after watching a clip of the infamous Ham-to-Ham Combat between long-time rivals Roger Barr and Nick Mundy, Hal wonders when the two will just bang already. The two immediately responded to this prompt by kissing each other. Yes, on the lips, much to the amusement of Hal, Andy, and Dan. A fan created a wedding graphic with a screenshot of the kiss based on The Rock Wedding by the second fight of the live broadcast (i.e. in less than a half hour).
• Special Guest: The show frequently brings in various internet reviewers that fans have requested, such as Jeremy Jahns, Chris Stuckmann, and Doug Walker. They're even getting more celebrity fans, such as Max Landis, Elijah Wood, Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen.
• Speed Round: A feature introduced since episode 11, the show always ends with a Speed Round, where the two leading fighters are given 5 questions, which they must answer quickly. If the two contestants give the same answer, the one who answers first wins. If their answers are different, they are given a few seconds to defend their option, and the one who gives the best argument wins. After the second championship round, the rules were slightly revised: having both contestants answer the same choice would not result in an immediate win for the faster caller; instead, the one who answers last must choose a different answer, which both must subsequently defend.
• So Bad, It's Good: invoked
  • Discussed in the second Speed Round of Episode 47, where Max argued for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and said that it's so bad, it's actually amazing and that something as amusingly incoherent like it would be a more worthwhile watch than the So Okay, It's Average Jurassic Park 3.
  • Likewise, when Hector Navarro had to argue for Jupiter Ascending over RoboCop (2014), he ran with the argument about how much he's going to have a good time the movie precisely for its ridiculous badness. His argument was picked over Jeff's defense for the RoboCop remake, which he'd only begrudgingly watch because he knows it's not that good (though not that terrible either).
• The Stoner: Doug Benson gives off this vibe. Fitting then that his fight had a question about the best stoner movie (and even more fitting that he won that question and the episode).
• Strange Minds Think Alike:
  • In Episode 48, a lot of Elijah's arguments were very similar to Dan's, giving Andy a lot more difficulty in picking a clear winner between the two. At the end of the debate, Dan mentions that he felt like fighting against himself.
  • When Scott was brought back in Episode 49, after appearing in (and winning) the Mundy Fights, Andy told him that while he disagreed with a lot of Nick's ruling, his final tally was about the same, meaning that the end result wouldn't have changed much had Andy hosted that episode.
• Tag Team: A one-sided tag team has been featured on the show a couple of times, which usually leads to an endless seam of chaos.
  • The Screen Junkies vs. Schmoes Know battle has the Schmoes crew switch members from question to question because they have less experience, and would send in someone who is more knowledgeable with the fight topic when it comes up.
  • In the episode featuring Jeremy Jahns, 6 panels were brought on board, including 4 Screen Junkies crew and Kristian Harloff. Jeremy teams up with Kristian, while the remaining 4 takes turn to debate against them.
• Tantrum Throwing: When Andy gave a slight edge to Dan's argument over Elijah's in the "Best performance by a kid in a movie?" question, the latter responded by throwing his pen at Andy.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Archenemies Nick Mundy and Roger Barr made the impossible decision to team up against Alicia Malone in the question of whether or not Jesse Eisenberg would make a good Lex Luthor.
  Roger: It feels so WRONG!
  Nick: I hate this.
• This Is Going to Be Huge: The whole of "New Years Eve 1999".
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Hal finally winning his first movie fight against Jason and Trisha after a very long string of losses. Even Andy could not believe the result at first. His Movie Fights performance had been improving since.
• Toilet Seat Divorce: Invoked in the second Drunk Movie Fight question that require the fighter to imagine their crush in the room and reacting if that person loves a movie they think is awful. Marc Andreyko would break up with Henry Cavill over loving Jurassic World (although he would still hate-fuck without any speaking), Alicia would willingly kick out Jake Gyllenhaal for liking Disaster Movie and Hal would spiral into drug if Zoe Saldaña (after changing from his current girlfriend Ashlyn because the other two picked celebrities) likes Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (although no one believe him for being way over the top even more than usual about it).
• Took a Level in Badass: Contestants has differed between getting better with their arguments or worse, however, the most notable case of this is Hal. He went from a guy who was basically a joke to winning at least once every two appearances.
• Tough Act to Follow: invoked Discussed. In the "Who should be the next Wolverine?" fight, one panelist, Brian, answered that there should not be any Wolverine featured in the future X-Men films because Hugh Jackman is so iconic for the role that Wolverine should either be him or none at all. Despite it being called "the cheaty answer" by Andy, his argument was considered the best of all, and he won the point.
• Trailers Always Spoil: One of the questions asked in the "Iron Man VS Darth Vader" episode was: "What movie trailer revealed too much of the movie?" — Kristian picked The Avengers for showing The Hulk rescuing Iron Man from his Heroic Sacrifice, Scott picked Cast Away for showing Tom Hanks's character getting off the island and Alicia picked Children of Men for revealing Kee's pregnancy and ruining the first act of the movie.
• Trash the Set: In Episode 47, Max Landis, frustrated at losing the "Best Movie Toy" question, threw a tantrum and swept nearly half of set's action figures off of the table with a baseball bat.
• Verbal Backpedaling:
  • When Andy asked Brett and Hal to pick the best movie with the word "Versus" in the title in one of the Speed Rounds, Brett picked Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, while Hal picked AVP: Alien vs. Predator. The two then proceeded to argue why their movies were worse, until Andy clarified that they were supposed to argue why theirs are the best. They are forced to disregard all their previous arguments and somehow argue for the opposite point in just 5 seconds.
  • Brett did this twice. After spending a whole round arguing why Hudson Hawk is a good movie despite its poor reception, he then attempted to argue that it's the worst movie starring Bruce Willis. He didn't win the second argument, obviously.
  • Enforced in the Trick Question gimmick, where Andy asked each contestant to pick a worst movie, and then changes the question which forces the fighters to defend those picks as the best movie.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Most of the gladiators are buddies, but given that the show is about Movie Fights, and not Movie Friends, they won't mind verbally attacking each other to win the point.
  Andy: We're all abusing each other here. This is a mutual abuse fest.
• Walking Out on the Show: In the 1 Year Anniversary episode, Chris Stuckmann asked, "Which director do you want to see quit?" Nick picked Christopher Nolan (who, as you may know, is one of the best working directors today), and the other two contestants immediately left the set in protest to his pitch. They returned for the actual fight though, preventing Nick from winning by default.
• Wham Line:
  • This following exchange in the "Does The Hobbit Suck?" episode, which was considered the game-changer by the other panelists:
  Kristian: You know what? For today, Jeremy, let's put a little bit a of truce here, and just like the old school wrestling: "Let's make the Mega Power, brother!

  In proper context, the episode was supposed to have Jeremy fight by himself, while Kristian and the other 4 Screen Junkies would take turns to battle him, two rounds per person. It wasn't supposed to be a team battle, and judging by how chaotic the show ended up becoming, it probably shouldn't.

  • Episode 70 was supposed to have Spencer fight against the two Schmoes, but since he wasn't really feeling up to it, he pulled a "Sneak Attack", and brought in JTE to fight in his place — something that has never happened in Movie Fights before. Particularly baffling since the video description still lists Spencer as the episode's fighter.
  • The 1-on-1 battle between Max and Dan was suddenly turned into a title match, even though Andy had wanted to make the official championship round a larger bracket. Dan was the one who insisted that he wager his belt, and went on with this despite Andy's protests.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the Screen Junkies' battle against the Schmoes, Hal kept on interrupting their opponents to the point that Dan had to reprimand him to let the other team finish speaking.
• Women Are Wiser: This probably isn't intentional, but the women fighters appeared on the show are usually the one that doesn't lose her temper or usually focus on more classical movies as opposes to the other male fighters on popular media. This is blatant with episodes that have mix gender fights and feature Amy Nicholson, Alicia Malone, Erin Robinson, Miri Jedeikin, Amirose Eisenberg, Kara Warner and Jen Yamato but averts with Trisha Hershberger, ComicBookGirl19, Tiffany Smith, Chloe Dykstra, Roxy Striar, Clarke Wolfe, Maude Garrett, Danielle Radford (who are just as focus on popular media as the men), Alison Haislip, Kim Horcher, Sasha Perl-Raver (who have attitudes similar to the male fighter), Drunk!Alicia and Roth Cornet (who have both traits). Tropes Are Not Bad though, as Alicia and Amy are the most popular female fighters on the show while Kim and Allison are received poorly by the fans.