MovieChat Forums > Flash Gordon (1936) Discussion > Fight Scenes

Fight Scenes

posted 17 years ago by bull-frog
7 replies | jump to latest

How many of you guys were turned off by the ridiculous fight scenes? I mean, this has got to be the lamest choreagrapher I've ever seen. If the directors knew this stuff was going to be so bad, why didn't they just leave it out?

[–] vodar 17 years ago

You have to remember that everything about this cheesy and outdated by todays standards. The rubber monsters, the plastic spacships with sparklers stuck in them, obvious wires and as you stated, awful fight choreography. Although that's actually more like what a real fight looks like, lots of grabbing, holding, wrestling, streetfighting, although we're even better at streetfighting these days, it just looks godawful on film, especially something this old. The ape beats Flash's face bruised and bloody and the next scene he doesn't have a mark on him. And I would pick Aura over Dale. Aura kills at least 3 men defending Flash in various places, what does Dale do besides scream and faint on cue. Aura fights for her man! Just take this as a guilt pleasure and laugh at how corny and primative it is now. A 10 year old nerd in a basement can cook up better and cooler looking gadhets than Ming had in his lab back then.

[–] Thirdover4 17 years ago

The spaceship models were made of metal. Otherwise the sparklers would melt them.

[–] tjacobs1945 10 years ago

I'm not so sure about the last sentence ("A 10 year old nerd in a basement can cook up better and cooler looking gadgets than Ming had in his lab back then.")
Digital electronics can do amazing things but for overall "coolness" it is hard to beat sparks and other Tesla-looking stuff.

BTW, the "next scene" Flash was in after being, as you correctly stated, bruised and bloodied, was several days later. Granted, most people don't have even that good of recuperative powers but at least, in this case, the problem was not completely ignored.

[–] hbenthow 15 years ago

Actually, that is how a real fight looks.

[–] bradford-1 13 years ago

Sad to say, I was in many fights as a kid and they were much closer to the FLASH fights than any of those John Woo spectaculars. Real fighting is often a bunch of shoving, slapping, running, biting and kicking (not leaping-in-the-air-defying-gravity kicking).

"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

[–] grendelkhan 11 years ago

Republic had the best stunt guys and the best fights; but these had better budgets. However, these are staged rather accurately. Flash in the comics generally resorted to wrestling holds or punches.

"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"

[–] rrandcoyote 10 years ago

Bwah, ha! You think these guys had choreography!?

They most likely got a direction that said "Flash fights off Ming's henchmen and wins". Then the actors and director took a minute to block it out and try to stay in shot. Then it was like "grapple grapple, tussle tussle, rip Flash's shirt..cut..go to lunch".

This pre-dated the martial arts movement and incredible fights we see that take weeks, months and millions in effects to put together today. More like a high school play.

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