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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
We never left the Matrix... Keanu, what have you done?
I do find that MCU action scenes are generally the best time to get up and wander off to the kitchen to get food. Sure, they're visually impressive, but they're cut so much and do so little for the characters or overall plot that you could replace them with an intertitle reading "Boom! Pow! The bad guys get beaten!" and nothing would really be lost. Winter Soldier being the exception, of course.
So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my TumblrAction scenes should not be padding, they should be an art form. They should progress and advance the story. Individual moves and techniques should reflect the character and progress the narrative.
Some of the best examples of this are actually in shounen manga. Since one writer and illustrator is handling the dialogue, story, and action scenes, they can all blend seamlessly into each other and each can progress another. Important conversations can be held during an action scene that informs and progresses the narrative of the fight, and individual attacks can have story meaning.
Shonen battle manga is a pretty exemplar case of since in some instances, it’s pretty much fight scenes for the most part.
So there has to be a story within the battle to get the audience emotionally invested.
Record of Ragnarok is just a tournament arc and nothing else. The one on one multi-chapter fights between the warriors are it’s blood and flesh.
Edited by slimcoder on Jul 9th 2021 at 11:10:30 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Fight scenes in anime and manga are stylised to heck and all, with Talking Is a Free Action. Not so easy to do these kinds of stuff in a live action medium though.
Edited by Nightwire on Jul 9th 2021 at 11:12:21 AM
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Shonen manga also draw A LOT of the tradition of "speak though battle" were chararter know each other by fighting(I think Gaon explain this in another thread, surely he can do so again), which is why there is so many flashback, taking in middle of battle and emotional devoping while chararter are hitting each other.
Goku hitting someone: "What's feelings? Is it something you eat?"
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon
In part because it was manipulated by someone else, and that person was manipulated by someone else and that.....you get the idea.
"Nolan's fight scenes are... not very good."
They are terrible, I never make exactly what the hell happen and I always feel bale(or whatever stunt double) just wait is arms, it was bad.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"The truth of the matter is that action design in western cinema is really a thankless job. They're not paid particularly well, don't get much (if any) recognition or respect, have their work thrown through a production woodchipper (as I mentioned, there's about 4-5 unrelated functions that cross signals to make an action scene in most productions), and most importantly: their primary job involves putting their life and limb at literal risk. It's kind of a hard work, little reward profession. This is why there has been a movement (more famously backed by the aforementioned Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves
) to get the Academy Awards to recognize stunt work (as indeed a fair few of film awards over the world recognize) to see if better artistic conditions can be leveraged to the position.
PS: I'll give you one guess where Mad Max Fury Road's stunt coordinator (Keir Beck) earned his stripes.
Yes, it's the goddamn Matrix again.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."The idea of not wanting your action scenes to progress the characters or the story or the themes feels like absolute madness to me.
I wonder if this might also explain, at least partly, why villains in the MCU can feel so bland or underdeveloped sometimes. Often, most of their focus comes in the form of fight scenes, which aren't given the time and care they deserve.
The Winter Soldier is awesome even before the Bucky drama starts entirely on the strength of his action scenes (and his rad as fuck theme song)
Edited by GNinja on Jul 9th 2021 at 6:53:33 PM
Kaze ni Nare!
That is mostly because bucky is NOT the main villian of the movie, hydra is and hydra is divide in many chararters, is pierce the main moral antagonist, Bucky is a personal villian but mostly a sort of terminator, while crossbone is more to annoyed the chararter.
In many cases some villian just fail for lack of a conexion with the heroes, just look the two most memorable antagonist: Killmonger and Loki but have conection with the chararter and the setting, meanwhile yellowjacket is just a thug for scott since he is shoehorn into the setting.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Mentioned it in a different thread but it helps that one of Sebastian Stan's particular strengths as an actor lay not in his line delivery (though he's perfectly fine at that too) and more at his ability to convey a lot with the unspoken parts of his acting, like his body language and facial expressions. Which he leverages to good effect in those action scenes, even with a mask on his face, mostly because the action scenes in TWS were designed to let actors like him, well, act.
Edited by AlleyOop on Jul 10th 2021 at 3:24:10 PM
Y'all've got me thinking what the best action or fight scenes in the MCU are and you've got me struggling a bit.
I want to say... Iorn Man 2 Race track fight, the conclusion of Ant Man, the Hulk Buster Fight, the conclusion of Spiderman Far From Home.
Hmm that's a short list. There's other fight scenes I like that are fun, like the fights in Civil War or the one in Captain Marvel where Carol finally takes off her power limiter but has no idea how her powers work.
It never occurred to me how the fight scenes aren't the MCU's strong point before.

Edited by slimcoder on Jul 9th 2021 at 11:02:41 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."