Every medium has action portions where one person must engage in fisticuffs with another person. Whether you’re reading a comic book or watching a movie, lots of narratives have action sequences. Sometimes in discussions you hear people talk about how this was a shitty fight, or that this show doesn’t have good fight scenes and then I began to wonder. WHAT makes a fight scene good?
In any form of medium, there will come a point where a character fights another character, one character fights multiples foes or even squad battles. Does the number of combatants dictate whether or not a fight is good? Is it the weapons? Maybe it’s the cinematography or how well it’s choreographed? Is the most important thing the speed, fluidity and animation? Or is the most important thing the buildup and reasoning behind the fight itself?
I’ve always felt a little excluded when it came to fight scenes. A lot of fights the people I hang around or interact with seem to like different fights than I do. Or at least like the same fight for different reasons. It seems a lot of my peers enjoy action that has high speed and massive destruction. Don’t get me wrong, I love your galaxy chucking slugfest as much as the next guy but I’ve always saw fights as two separate things. The history, build up, stakes, circumstances of the fight and then the actual fight itself (simply put the reason and the actual battle).
The reason why the characters are fighting each other is extremely important to me. If you show a fight scene from a movie I don’t watch, I might think it’s cool, but since I have no attachment to the characters or have any context, it won’t excite me. Superman vs Zod is a great fight contextually, because Superman HAS to stop Zod or it’s the end of humanity. He has a reason to fight this person he doesn’t know well. To protect his home and the people in it; even though Zod is one of the last Kyptonians alongside himself.
The history and interpersonal relationship behind the characters that are engaging in battle is also really important. When two really good friends fight, is it something kind of lame like, they like the same girl, or maybe a difference in ideals? Did the two characters that were close start to disconnect somewhere and then forced into combat with one another? For example, Naruto vs Sasuke happened because Sasuke needed to go down a dark path to attain the power he needed to avenge his clan. Naruto having been a talentless ninja had caught up and even temporarily surpassed Sasuke (a respected prodigy) through hard work and they began to clash. This would eventually lead Naruto and Sasuke to a fight to the “death” in Final Valley.
Another really good example of this is Anakin and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was Anakin’s master, brother and even a father figure. They had been through many dangers and got out them together. But Anakin was power hungry, in love, and afraid to lose the people he cared about (again) by being too weak. Which would eventually lead them down different paths and end up with their EPIC battle in Revenge of the Sith.
How about the stakes of a fight? What it means for either party to win or lose? What makes Rob Lucci vs Monkey D. Luffy one of the most compelling fights I’ve ever seen is what’s at stake if Luffy lost. After declaring war against the World Government, traveling through a natural disaster and finally getting Robin to value her life enough to cry and beg for it, losing was not an option. In order to continue their adventure, in order to protect his friends Luffy summoned every last bit of willpower he had from within and unleashed a devastating flurry of punches and won the battle, but barely.
Now for the fights themselves, the actual combat. What I look for is a variety of things and some are exclusive to the type of story I’m experiencing. I’m not expecting Kamehamehas in a realistic anime. Good and clear artwork/animation is one of the most important things. I don’t need it to be fast, just clear and fluid. I enjoy seeing characters use cool and even sometimes real techniques in battle or seeing them apply something basic creatively. High speed battles can be cool but even slow, realistic fights are excellent.
Mindless fights are the worst sometimes. Where both characters are just flexing their stuff trying to overpower the other character with speed and raw strength. It works sometimes if that is the type of character the combatant is but I typically need more substance. Battles that use wits, tactics and strategies are some of my favorites, hell it doesn’t even have to be a physical fight. It could be a battle of intellectuals’ ala Light vs L (Death Note). Dragon Ball Z fights are boring to me because they just repeat the same frames and spam the same nonsense, absolutely boring.
Now with that being said, I admit to occasionally being a fan of the more simply minded, super-fast super destructive battle. Sometimes they are just too damn hype. The first manga and anime that comes to mind when saying this is none other than Toriko. That story is all about eating good food and throwing hands.
Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra have some of my favorite action segments because of Bending. The fights incorporate real martial arts with elements and the fights are like beautiful dances. It’s artistic, it’s stylish, it’s distinctive and fluid. It’s not super-fast paced as let’s say One Punch Man, but there’s beauty in the battle between benders. The cinematography (use of panning and camera angles) is also phenomenal. I feel like that’s also extremely vital when creating a fight.
RWBY has some of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen to date due to the style of animation and advanced creative weaponry. I’m talking relatively fast paced with cool weapons, good camera work and it’s choreographed well. In the Yellow trailer, Yang fights Melanie and Miltiades who both use kicks to combat Yang’s primarily fist oriented fighting style. The use of jukes, feints and footsies made for a really cool action sequence.
I took to Twitter and Facebook and asked people what makes a good fight scene to them and I got a variety of answers. Ranging from good power scaling, unique abilities, good music, speed blitzing, artwork, fights with lots of emotion, content of the fight, gore, destruction and more. I saw one comment that said he can only enjoy a fight until the end because if the way the protagonist or antagonist won the fight isn’t believable, it ruins the entire fight to him, no matter how “good”, it was. The example he used was Neo vs Mr. Smith from Matrix Revolutions.
Ultimately, there are a lot of elements to a fight and everyone is different. We all look for different things in action sequences. Some people love guns, some like magic some people prefer hand to hand combat. But if I could describe what makes a fight good, I would use this quote I got from Ernest (@Nwanu) on Twitter: “if I'm excited, it's a good fight. I believe that's what every fight sets out to accomplish; my excitement.” So as long as the battle excites you before, during and/or after the fight, then in all honestly, it was probably good.
In any form of medium, there will come a point where a character fights another character, one character fights multiples foes or even squad battles. Does the number of combatants dictate whether or not a fight is good? Is it the weapons? Maybe it’s the cinematography or how well it’s choreographed? Is the most important thing the speed, fluidity and animation? Or is the most important thing the buildup and reasoning behind the fight itself?
I’ve always felt a little excluded when it came to fight scenes. A lot of fights the people I hang around or interact with seem to like different fights than I do. Or at least like the same fight for different reasons. It seems a lot of my peers enjoy action that has high speed and massive destruction. Don’t get me wrong, I love your galaxy chucking slugfest as much as the next guy but I’ve always saw fights as two separate things. The history, build up, stakes, circumstances of the fight and then the actual fight itself (simply put the reason and the actual battle).
The reason why the characters are fighting each other is extremely important to me. If you show a fight scene from a movie I don’t watch, I might think it’s cool, but since I have no attachment to the characters or have any context, it won’t excite me. Superman vs Zod is a great fight contextually, because Superman HAS to stop Zod or it’s the end of humanity. He has a reason to fight this person he doesn’t know well. To protect his home and the people in it; even though Zod is one of the last Kyptonians alongside himself.
The history and interpersonal relationship behind the characters that are engaging in battle is also really important. When two really good friends fight, is it something kind of lame like, they like the same girl, or maybe a difference in ideals? Did the two characters that were close start to disconnect somewhere and then forced into combat with one another? For example, Naruto vs Sasuke happened because Sasuke needed to go down a dark path to attain the power he needed to avenge his clan. Naruto having been a talentless ninja had caught up and even temporarily surpassed Sasuke (a respected prodigy) through hard work and they began to clash. This would eventually lead Naruto and Sasuke to a fight to the “death” in Final Valley.
Another really good example of this is Anakin and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was Anakin’s master, brother and even a father figure. They had been through many dangers and got out them together. But Anakin was power hungry, in love, and afraid to lose the people he cared about (again) by being too weak. Which would eventually lead them down different paths and end up with their EPIC battle in Revenge of the Sith.
How about the stakes of a fight? What it means for either party to win or lose? What makes Rob Lucci vs Monkey D. Luffy one of the most compelling fights I’ve ever seen is what’s at stake if Luffy lost. After declaring war against the World Government, traveling through a natural disaster and finally getting Robin to value her life enough to cry and beg for it, losing was not an option. In order to continue their adventure, in order to protect his friends Luffy summoned every last bit of willpower he had from within and unleashed a devastating flurry of punches and won the battle, but barely.
Now for the fights themselves, the actual combat. What I look for is a variety of things and some are exclusive to the type of story I’m experiencing. I’m not expecting Kamehamehas in a realistic anime. Good and clear artwork/animation is one of the most important things. I don’t need it to be fast, just clear and fluid. I enjoy seeing characters use cool and even sometimes real techniques in battle or seeing them apply something basic creatively. High speed battles can be cool but even slow, realistic fights are excellent.
Mindless fights are the worst sometimes. Where both characters are just flexing their stuff trying to overpower the other character with speed and raw strength. It works sometimes if that is the type of character the combatant is but I typically need more substance. Battles that use wits, tactics and strategies are some of my favorites, hell it doesn’t even have to be a physical fight. It could be a battle of intellectuals’ ala Light vs L (Death Note). Dragon Ball Z fights are boring to me because they just repeat the same frames and spam the same nonsense, absolutely boring.
Now with that being said, I admit to occasionally being a fan of the more simply minded, super-fast super destructive battle. Sometimes they are just too damn hype. The first manga and anime that comes to mind when saying this is none other than Toriko. That story is all about eating good food and throwing hands.
Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra have some of my favorite action segments because of Bending. The fights incorporate real martial arts with elements and the fights are like beautiful dances. It’s artistic, it’s stylish, it’s distinctive and fluid. It’s not super-fast paced as let’s say One Punch Man, but there’s beauty in the battle between benders. The cinematography (use of panning and camera angles) is also phenomenal. I feel like that’s also extremely vital when creating a fight.
RWBY has some of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen to date due to the style of animation and advanced creative weaponry. I’m talking relatively fast paced with cool weapons, good camera work and it’s choreographed well. In the Yellow trailer, Yang fights Melanie and Miltiades who both use kicks to combat Yang’s primarily fist oriented fighting style. The use of jukes, feints and footsies made for a really cool action sequence.
I took to Twitter and Facebook and asked people what makes a good fight scene to them and I got a variety of answers. Ranging from good power scaling, unique abilities, good music, speed blitzing, artwork, fights with lots of emotion, content of the fight, gore, destruction and more. I saw one comment that said he can only enjoy a fight until the end because if the way the protagonist or antagonist won the fight isn’t believable, it ruins the entire fight to him, no matter how “good”, it was. The example he used was Neo vs Mr. Smith from Matrix Revolutions.
Ultimately, there are a lot of elements to a fight and everyone is different. We all look for different things in action sequences. Some people love guns, some like magic some people prefer hand to hand combat. But if I could describe what makes a fight good, I would use this quote I got from Ernest (@Nwanu) on Twitter: “if I'm excited, it's a good fight. I believe that's what every fight sets out to accomplish; my excitement.” So as long as the battle excites you before, during and/or after the fight, then in all honestly, it was probably good.
By: Nya Hemmingz
