The Raid actors joining Star Wars 7
- Thread starter MrHelios
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- Feb 7, 2011
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That sounds radical. I might actually watch the new Star Wars in theaters now if those guys are going to be doing stunts and choreography.
Hmm... while it sounds initially positive, there's also the chance that real capable action stars may just end up making the non trained actors look terrible or could end up with totally unbelievable "there's no way that character should ever be able to beat that character in a fight" scenarios.
So what you are telling me is that they are combining the Raid and Star Wars
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_gzxZZuQEc[/VIDEO]
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_gzxZZuQEc[/VIDEO]
This is the first piece of news I've read to make me genuinely excited for the new Star Wars. Freakin' love The Raid.
Totally agree - initially positive, since The Raid films are the dog's bollocks, but.. tempered with suspicion/anxiety/cynicism.StriderShinryu said:
I'd guess on it being slightly different to what you suggest though - my bet would be on the rest of the film/cast making these Indonesian duders look terrible by association. You hang around with people smeared in shit, passers-by will judge you just as much as they judge Ploppy son of Ploppy.
He was also the Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow and Raiden's stunt double in Mortal Kombat. The man has done a lot of flipping and flopping.MrHelios said:
Mmmmh, on the one hand, it's the ACTORS FROM RAID 2!!!!
On the other hand...Mark Hamill, Sir Alec Guiness and David Prowse were not stuntmen, or action superstars, or even all that limber. Their battles were short because of that, and also (if I remember this Making Of I saw awhile back) because they were based off old Samurai battles, composed of circling, measuring up the adversary, mentally gaining the edge- and then you can expect one pass, two passes, three tops and then someone is either dead or minus a limb. But there was tension! And because there were so few steps, every one of them was important and said something about the character - Luke's mad flurry of blows when he cracks, Kenobi's milder, more passive style vs. Vader's higher-held sword...I remember sitting through the prequel's fight with Darth Maul and actually thinking "Boy, this is lasting a bit long...This doesn't actually feel like Liam Neeson fighting, he's a heavier guy, he should have more WEIGHT, more brutal strenght- god, IT'S STILL GOING ON! How many minutes has this been?"
The battles from the prequels AND all the fight scenes from JJ Abram's Trek series felt artificial. All form and no substance. They were very occasionally some cool things that happened, and their choreography and stunts were good, but they felt detached from the rest of the movies. It felt like the actors were going: "Acting...Acting...Emoting...Oh, now some areobic exercises! One two three, one two three-" then ten minutes - ten loooooong minutes later - back to acting again.
So no, on the balance of things, I'd rather see those actors work on Raid 3, and have fewer, shorter, more significant fights in Star Wars 7, interspersed with more character building, world building and humorous moments, like the first two Star Wars.
But it's JJ Abrams. That probably won't be happening. Sad now...
On the other hand...Mark Hamill, Sir Alec Guiness and David Prowse were not stuntmen, or action superstars, or even all that limber. Their battles were short because of that, and also (if I remember this Making Of I saw awhile back) because they were based off old Samurai battles, composed of circling, measuring up the adversary, mentally gaining the edge- and then you can expect one pass, two passes, three tops and then someone is either dead or minus a limb. But there was tension! And because there were so few steps, every one of them was important and said something about the character - Luke's mad flurry of blows when he cracks, Kenobi's milder, more passive style vs. Vader's higher-held sword...I remember sitting through the prequel's fight with Darth Maul and actually thinking "Boy, this is lasting a bit long...This doesn't actually feel like Liam Neeson fighting, he's a heavier guy, he should have more WEIGHT, more brutal strenght- god, IT'S STILL GOING ON! How many minutes has this been?"
The battles from the prequels AND all the fight scenes from JJ Abram's Trek series felt artificial. All form and no substance. They were very occasionally some cool things that happened, and their choreography and stunts were good, but they felt detached from the rest of the movies. It felt like the actors were going: "Acting...Acting...Emoting...Oh, now some areobic exercises! One two three, one two three-" then ten minutes - ten loooooong minutes later - back to acting again.
So no, on the balance of things, I'd rather see those actors work on Raid 3, and have fewer, shorter, more significant fights in Star Wars 7, interspersed with more character building, world building and humorous moments, like the first two Star Wars.
But it's JJ Abrams. That probably won't be happening. Sad now...
Are you telling me it wasn't awesome when Spock threw down in Star Trek Into Darkness?JennAnge said:
OT: This is a good idea. Let's hope we see some awesome stunt work.
Have you even seen the movies? They're not shakycam at all. Watch the Bourne movies and then tell me The Raid is overusing shakycam.lechat said:
OT: Some good stuntwork is probably going to come out of this if nothing else.
I think I saw a 'making of' video somewhere where one of the chaps who had a hand in the prequels reasoned that "we've seen old men, cyborgs and green farmboys fight, we wanted to show a Jedi at the height of his power." While I take your point that the older battles had more gravitas to them, you can still tell a story and get some emotion across with the faster paced stuff...JennAnge said:
[youtube = GT0TBWg3C3k]
EDIT: Blast these embedded codes, I'll just link the video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT0TBWg3C3k
Hah! Thanks for brightening my dayMrHelios said:
You can definitely have action-packed sequences that express emotion and/or character. Neo vs Morpheus comes to mind. Even sparsing out the acting moments they throw in, you can guess who's the more experienced fighter and who's the more aggressive one. Another good example: the final fight against Smith in the subway. Neo fights like a human martial artist; dodges and uses his whole body. Smith fights only with brute force, mainly fists and does not dodge.
By comparison, the 2-to-1 fight against Darth Maul in the prequel...I imagine if you set someone who'd never seen it in front of that fight and asked him who was the oldest, more experienced jedi of the two, for example, or which one was the heaviest, or the calmest, I doubt they'd be able to say with any reliability if you stripped out the bits between those whatevertheywere forcefields parts. Though the two jedi received the same training, the movie showed them to have different characters, and this should ideally influence combat style. Otherwise it's just fancy footwork set up by choreographers who didn't look at the character sheets. I'm probably being picky, but I find that so very empty and booooooring.
I didn't like Into Darkness for a host of reasons, but at least in that final fight with Khan, Spock fights like, well, presumably like a Vulcan (do they actually fight?), trying to subdue with grips, pinches etc, while Khan fights like someone who's been taught deadly hand to hand combat but who is mainly just trying to get away. And the sequence is relatively short, and is ended by a third party, which was agreeably unexpected (too bad I was still reeling from tribble induced anaphylactic shock to fully enjoy it). But then there was that gawdawful fight scene in the first Trek reboot, the one on the platform where I actually found myself looking out the window partway through, trying to figure out what the weather was going to be for next day....Well, here's to hoping JJ Abrams makes fight scenes relevant to the characters and plot, not just empty set pieces. Then he can fully utilize his actors to their capacity.
It's what I doJennAnge said:
I'll go on record to say I hated Into Darkness. Benedict Cumberbatch (or any of the actors, for that matter) are not convincing fighters, something 'dramatic' happened every five minutes and the overall plot made no god damn sense. Provoke a war by...framing the Enterprise? One of your own ships? I expect another member was using the family brain cell that day.
I see what you mean about the fighting in Episode I; I'd like to think they got better as the prequels went on, but looking back you could switch the characters and not see much difference. Although the worst fight is Dooku vs Yoda - little green man with a walking stick suddenly whips out all these acrobatics. You know what that says to me? Benefit fraud.
Hopefully we're in good hands with The Raid chaps - each of the major fights from those films have different themes going on. Sergeant Jaka shocked into action by the ferocity of Mad Dog, Assassin having a jolly good time until he starts to appreciate he might actually lose... You get the idea.
