Monday, March 29, 2010

Problems with movie sword fights

as the direct result of being a fencer i pay particularly close attention to sword fight scenes from movies and let me tell you that is a double edged sword.

on the plus side i see amazing moves to which i can aspire to use on the strip

on the down side all of those little flaws which most people would not pick up on are blatantly obvious to me. right now i would limit myself to just three movies however anyone who is fanatical about any of the following should take this opportunity to stop reading. Star Wars, the Princess Bride, Star Trek(the new one)

all of these movies are favorites of mine but the mistakes are killing me.

First the light SABRE has no guard at all and considering the nature of the weapon anyone could slide along their opponents blade and destroy there opponents weapon and our hand also sabres are a one handed weapon not a choice between a one and two handed weapon.

then in the fight seen between Wesley and Inigo there rapiers bend about 15, 20 degrees up and down. a real rapier would not have much, if any bend to it they are stiff blades. the only blades that bend that much are fencing foils which granted also can bend more than that but they are not for fighting they are purely for sport and most often can not penetrate deeper than skin because they bend that much.

that was my only problem with the sword fighting in this movie everything else was good as far as i could see

in the new star trek movie one of those guys who does a space jump down to that platform says his combat training was fencing, but what he fights with is a katana. that is an entirely different sport altogether. not only that but he does a front flip over one of the bad guys swords. turning your back and exposing the back of your head are both major no, no's in fencing. and more importantly you never take your feet off the ground for any longer than is necessary.

if or rather when i catch more of these flaws i will tell you.

5 comments:

  1. Mind you, it's also a hinged sword that fits in his pocket and swivels out...

    ReplyDelete
  2. please tell me that i wasn't the one who prompted this with my star wars and princess bride references?

    ReplyDelete
  3. EGE, i withweld that statement for the saik of SYFY however i am awaire of how ludecris the idea is

    Laura, no i noticed all that stuff forever ago i just finally took the time to type it up

    ReplyDelete
  4. well, i have been talking about star wars and the princess bride recently...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Laura i was going to write this post at some point everytime i watch a movie with sword fighting this is what goes through my head. don't worry about it =^)

    ReplyDelete