Fight Scene Failure: Difference between revisions

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[[Captain Obvious|All fighting you see on TV is fake]]. Producers just can't have their actors ''actually'' hitting each other, as most do not wish to be held liable for broken bones, stitches, etc. So, fight scenes in movies have to be cleverly staged to make it ''appear'' as though they are real, but in such a way so that nobody ''really'' gets hurt.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Dolemite]]'': Scenes are shot from the wrong angle, so it's obvious that punches miss.

* The [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_kick "force kick"] from ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''. Basically, a mook reacts to being kicked despite Luke's foot hitting nothing but air, so fans devised the "explanation" that he was actually using the Force.

** In ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' the scene where Windu confronts Darth Sidious is undercut by him apparently bringing two of the ''worst Jedi ever'' to back him up. Sidious activates his lightsaber, jumps at them twirling through the air, and lands directly in front of them. They raise their swords slightly. Sidious makes an extremely telegraphed thrust at one of them, and he responds by... looking at him, since for some inexplicable reason he was gazing off to the side. While he's getting stabbed through the chest his compatriot responds by raising his sword a bit higher, as though he thinks you need to put a lot of strength into a blow while using a weapon that cuts though anything. It's probably supposed to be happening too fast for them to react, but it's a pretty slow scene at that point, and only speeds up after the first two are dead.

* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxkr4wS7XqY "best fight scene of all time"] in ''[[Undefeatable]]''.

* Parodied at the end of ''[[Bowfinger]]'', showing a [[Fight Scene]] from the kung-fu movie "Fake Purse Ninjas."

** An episode of [[Clerks the Animated Series]] that replicates the fight included the missed punch.

* ''[[The Man Who Saves the World]]'' (aka "Turkish [[Star Wars]]") as a whole. Especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx7PYAAOwxE the climatic battle].

* ''La Venganza De La Momia'' (The Vengeance of the Mummy), a short fight scene between [[El Santo]] and a jaguar. A three-month old kitten could have given Santo a better fight.

* While not a fight scene per se, the interrogation scene between Batman and the Joker in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' is a notable aversion. As the trope description says, directors and producers can't actually tell the actors to hit each other. In this instance however, actor Heath Ledger allegedly instructed co-star Christian Bale to ''actually hit him'' in order to avoid a [[Fight Scene Failure]].

* [[Spy Kids|Carmen]] tries to punch a robotic simulacrum of her brother (played by her brother's actor in a different costume) in the face, with a loud ''CLANK'' sound. It's quite obvious her hand wasn't anywhere near it; it looks more like the robot has a force field that blocks punches.

* In a fantasy sequence at the beginning of ''[[Sidekicks]]'', the main character and [[Chuck Norris]] manage a simultaneous kick into the face of a [[Mook]] who...freezes for a second, then falls down.

* The makers of ''Satan Claus'' decided to show a beating completely from the victim's POV. This looks horrible.

* The infamous scene in ''[[Las Vegas Bloodbath]]'' where a man takes a swing at Sam with a bat, and hits a just barely offscreen mat.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** "Arena": [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eFdUSnaQM "Worst Fight Scene Ever"]; the guy in the Gorn suit moves slow, apparently in an attempt to make the Gorn look big and ponderous... but it makes the fight seem ridiculous. As one critic said about the Gorn's attempt to swipe at Kirk, "[[Stephen Hawking]] could have dodged that one."

*** Not to mention that he apparently has the strength to hurl a huge boulder, but Kirk can hold his own against him in grappling. And those teeth seem to be completely useless, you'd think it would occur to him to ''bite'' Kirk.

** Those scenes were of course not helped by [[Chewing the Scenery|Kirk]] taking time rolling over and over and over to make his plight look worse, leaving the [[Monster of the Week]] standing around waiting for Kirk to get back up for the next spectacular throw and fall.

*** Likely deliberate, as the man who wrote the episode (Theodore Sturgeon) was infamous for putting gay subtext into his works ... and using asphyxiation as a metaphor for sex.

** Many, many, many fight scenes in later series have shots where it is obvious that one actor just held still and let the other fake-punch them. Fans have jokingly dubbed it "Kirk-fu".

** Honestly, any time physical combat is shown on any Star Trek show, expect this trope to be in effect.

* Parodied on ''[[The Fast Show]]''. They showed a clip from a 'new British gangster movie'. The title was a parody of ''[[The Long Good Friday]]'', ''The Long Big Punch Up''. It was basically two blokes on a bit of wasteland, just doing one really slow, telegraphed, obviously wide of the mark punch after another. [[Overly Long Gag|Over and over again]].

* Many fights on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' are made of this trope. Also, any time swords are brought on to either ''Buffy'' or ''Angel''.

** Overlaps with Obvious [[Stunt Double]] when Buffy and Angel swordfight in the season 2 finale. As soon as the camera pulls back, Buffy grows several inches, and Angel has a drastically receding hairline.

** [[Lampshaded]] by Joss in his DVD commentary for ''Hush:'' "Look! Buffy's strapped on her fighting boobs!"

* ''[[Chuck]]'' had this in its Season 2 final. Chuck has an [[I Know Karate]] moment, and his actor had clearly very little stage fighting experience. They must have worked on it in the off-season break, as he's much much better in season 3.

** And used as a plot-point in Season 3. Shaw fakes a rescue of Chuck and Sarah which includes shooting 3 enemy agents, and having a fight with 2 more. There is some horrible stage fighting, with punches and kicks being missed all over the place. It turns out that he's a double agent and the fight was staged intentionally.

*** It's also telling that the only person who figured out that Shaw was faking was Morgan, thanks to many-many hours of watching bad [[Fuxia|kung-fu movies]]. All the CIA/NSA experts watching the footage took it at face value.

* ''[[Knight Rider]]'' is infamous for this, too: The proper way to knock someone out is to swing one's fist past their stunt double (who'd look nothing like the real deal if they weren't wearing roughly the same clothes) at a distance of 2 ft.

* ''[[Monster Warriors]]'' has this in spades. For example, one girl is hit by a giant snake, but she falls down before the CGI snake actually hits her. Whether this trope was deliberately invoked (given the B-movie inspiration for the series) is debatable (given how seriously the show takes itself).

* During the [[Dork Age|Bruce Kalish era]], ''[[Power Rangers]] ''fights were basically "everything you see elsewhere on this page, but in slow-mo to make ''sure'' you see how terrible it is, and with explosions happening in the background at random points for no discernible reason." Disney's censors may be partially to blame, though, with the limits of how and where a person could be hit becoming increasingly restrictive - when this was at its worst, blows tended to miss by a light-year or be blocked so far away from the body that if the person hadn't moved, it would ''still'' have done them no harm. Yeesh.

* ''[[Home and Away]]''. Dear god, that show had the lamest fight scenes. Simply involved both participants rolling in the sand and somehow getting massive black eyes and other cuts and bruises.

** However, there was a storyline where Ric was hospitalized after an illegal street fight. That fight actually did involve some reasonable-looking punches.

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]'': In some scenes the fights are just too slow to look realistic. Episode 10 is a big one.

** It's arguable that they're doing it [[Stylistic Suck|on purpose]] for the [[Rule of Funny]]. The cartoonish sound effects don't help matters.

** In his commentary over the N. Bison/Dr. Insano fight in [[Kickassia]], Film Brain reminds people disappointed in the fight that they were in another person's house and had to be careful not to mess it up, so what we got really was the best thing possible, especially considering the time and money issues.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

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