[Michael F.]

I would love to see a movie historically based with actual historical fencing and real fencing masters. No offense to Bob anderson, the "swordmaster" that was done just about every sword-fighting movie. I just can't connect with people swinging around rapiers like baseball bats and acting as though they are nothing but props.

This reminds me of the movie "Robin Hood, prince of thieves". At the end there is a big fight between robin and the sheriff in which they have horrendous flashy styles and way too much edge blocking. There is a part where robin cuts off a piece of the sheriffs hair, and picks it up on the blade of his sword in a closeup. I noticed even the extremely blunt edge was very nicked and battered!

Lord of the rings is one of my favorite stories and films, but when watching the fight scenes I get sick and can't watch!

[Jean Thibodeau]

Since this topic is at least about movie fighting and what real fighting would look like on film if done right I wonder about what a real battle melee would look like ?

In a real one on one fight or duel what we wouldn't see from experienced fighters are large sweeping random moves that would just be openings for a good fighter to take advantage of.

Now, in a battle one can expect more confusion than on a one on one fight and one might strike at enemies occupied fighting someone else as targets of opportunity. But we wouldn't see the complete uncontrolled clash of two lines of warrior just blindingly swinging.

The lines might get close to each other and as in a one on one fight there would be pauses looking or trying to create openings in the opposite line with technique not being totally abandoned in favour of continuous random swinging.

The goal of the two opposite lines is to damage the enemy not create " Action " for the sake of it like in a movie where pauses would be seen by an audience as just that " pauses " and seem static.

A duel is like a chess game with pointy things between two people.
A battle line is like a number of overlapping chess games happening at the same time: Both one on one but also getting in each others way creating more opportunities to kill or get killed by plan or by mischance.