(no subject)

[theweaselking]

The original version of River's fight scene from Serenity, as done by the stunt company

Click Stunt Reels, then Sample Fight Scene.

Note, for reference, how much actors *suck* at fight scenes in comparison to stuntmen.

Comments

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

Holy shit. Somehow, it looks so much more impressive in the rehersal. I mean, you expect the movie fights to look good, but these guys are all in gym shorts and crap, it looks like a real fight.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I liked it, but I actualy prefer the movie version. Part of the spookyness of River is the slighly unnatural way she moves when fighting.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

I can see it coming across that way, but it didn't for me; I just found River's fight scenes looked awkward. Her body language is spooky elsetimes, but in the fight scenes I find she just comes across as slow.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Really? Odd that you'd see a trained dancer as looking awkward.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Dancing isn't fighting. Very different technique and form. We can always well when we get a student who was a dancer. Unlike a complete novice, we have to break habits that will get them hurt.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Yup. I studied ballet for 11 years and when I took up martial arts I needed to consciously retrain how I moved. Although, one benefit I retained is an excellent sense of balance.

I find the fight scenes in Serenity very pretty, but you can tell that Summer Glau isn't a fighter. I guessed she had a background as a dancer before I read about it somewhere. (You can tell that Zhang Ziyi has dance experience, too, but she also had the advantage of having Yuen Wo-Ping as a fight choreographer in Crouching Tiger.)

[torrain.livejournal.com]

As I said, I just found River's fight scenes looked awkward.

*She* doesn't look awkward--she does not lack co-ordination or grace. But she looks like a *terrible* fighter. The action seemed to go very slowly, looked incredibly choreographed, and generally left me with the impression that if one person had improvised in the slightest she would have gotten badly hurt.

Given that this generally brings to my attention the fact that "hey, you're not actually watching a fight, you know this is all a movie, and this was all set up in advance, and there's no tension whatsoever to the question of the outcome", I call the fight scenes awkward.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

The action seemed to go very slowly, looked incredibly choreographed, and generally left me with the impression that if one person had improvised in the slightest she would have gotten badly hurt.


But she's psychic. She knew exactly where they were going to be, so in a sense they couldn't have improvised.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If her being psychic was why they were moving so slowly and predictably, and why they were all, even Jayne, really bad fighters, that might explain things.

You know, she's interfering with their brain waves and making them dumb, or something.

But if she's just predicting them? That doesn't explain why they're so slow, and why they're being beaten so badly by her pointedly lame counters.

(I really didn't like the fight scenes in Serenity. I thought they were TV-quality *at best*, meaning nowhere near the type I'd expect to see in something with the budget of a feature film.)

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Well, the slowness is a conceit to let the audience see what's happening. As to being a bad fighter, how so?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

> Well, the slowness is a conceit to let the audience see what's happening.

Someone actually *said* that? "We'll film a fight scene that's really slow instead of letting some parts of it be in slow motion or something, because the audience can't possibly follow it otherwise and it's really important that they see all the moves"?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

But they're thugs and presumably used to fighting people, so if they see her beginning a slow counter they could damn well move to do something else.

She she might then *also* move to counter the new move, which would be a lot better--but as it stands you have a bunch of people being beaten up by a slow-moving kid and *letting it happen*.

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

holy chiwawa. (s)he kicked the gorram shisa out of them, and this was just practice! Summer did an amazing job with them, but, WOW!

[jirel.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I know just the people to show this to and they are going to be at my house tonight. They will LOVE it!

[johan-g.livejournal.com]

I'm in love.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

Note, for reference, how much actors *suck* at fight scenes in comparison to stuntmen.

Noted. Note, for reference, how much stuntmen *suck* at dramatic scenes in comparison to actors. Note, for reference, how much doctors *suck* at filing tax returns in comparison to accountants. Note, for reference, how much football players *suck* at root canals in comparison to dentists.

What was your point with that line anyway?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That they should use stuntmen rather than actors for fight scenes whenever possible. Through the twin miracles of makeup and cutting film, it should be possible to replace the actors almost entirely and let the good people do the stuff they're good at while leaving the impression that the actors are really doing the fighting.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

Well that's a far cry from "amateurs are worse at a job than professionals are." And really, what's the difference in that scene? One person? I don't think the final scene suffered enough to warrant placing someone else in it.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, two people. Summer Glau and Adam Baldwin. I'm not including Nate Fillion because the only thing that actor and stuntman did was point a gun.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I don't think the final scene was bad--I liked watching it--but FWIW I did find that River's fight scenes throughout the movie rang hollow for me.

It's still a perfectly serviceable bar fight scene, which is why I hesitate to use the word "suffered", but I think it would've been a hell of a lot better if they could have used a stuntwoman for more of Rover's action.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

I like the way River did the fight scene though. She wasn't fighting so much as dancing her way through and leaving carnage in her wake.

[mrbankies.livejournal.com]

Which is an apt analogy, as IIRC Summer Glau an accomplished dancer

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

It shows! There is no way to learn that sort of flexibility and grace just for a movie.

[drjamez.livejournal.com]

Very cool sequence, thanks for posting the link. Too bad the studio went to the Fifth Element soundtrack for the music (I think).

(Note: I liked Fifth Element, for the record.)

- James -

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

That was the Fifth Element. It was the scene when they were cutting back and forth between Plava Laguna's concert and (go figure) a girl kung fu'ing the crap out of people.

[drjamez.livejournal.com]

Very true on the music for trailers, but this wasn't a trailer. I suspect it got posted to the web well after Serenity was out of the theaters, giving the team more options for music. ;-)

Still, it was cool.

- James -