Why do people think we should just ignore the choreography when debating skill?

OK so a lot of times when I say a character is more skilled than the other people just say its because the choreography is different but the skill level is equal or the character I'm arguing against is more skilled even if his fights are badly choreographed.

Doesn't bad choreography mean the character is fighting like an idiot?

If a character beats someone that fights like an absolute idiot, we cannot just say that just the choreography is bad. Or that character is still more skilled than someone else who has better choreography.

For example -

I say that Diana from the DCEU was nerfed in her fight scenes in JL when compared to BvS. She was not fighting anything like she did before. And there are some other things too which point to that but people just say the fights scenes are choreographed differently. The character is on the same level as before regardless of how she fights now.

Same for MCU Thor. People bring up the agents he fought in his first movie as a showing of his skill however those guys were fighting on the same level as a bunch of high middle school kids fighting.

Now same for a lot of Bourne vs Superhero TV show characters. Now I don't watch the shows so I cannot exactly make a comment on this one but I've heard a lot of times people saying that the choreography in Bourne movies is much better so doesn't that simply mean he's better in skill?

And the BvS Warehouse fight where people argue that Batman was tagged multiple times but the truth is that the fodder was high quality and they were choreographed well.

Normally fodder comes at you in ones but here they were smart.

Imo it's very important how well a fight scene is choreographed when we are discussing skill because fodder is not created equally and the characters sometimes get nerfed so they are worse when fighting.

If a character goes against someone who never displays skill but is stated to be skilled or if the character was displaying more skill in their previous iteration wouldn't that mean they are not very skilled or are nerfed?

I agree most of what you said but I don't agree that warehouse fodders are high quality.

@ccthor: What makes you say so?

They came at him in numbers displayed some skill and used their weapons well.

Batman had to disarm them and that's why he won. If all of them used their guns as competently as some of the guys we saw using guns it'd have been tough for Bats.

Choreography shouldn't be completely ignored. They make or break a skill feat.

Say there are two fight scenes. In both fight scenes, a character fights 10 random thugs. However, in one fight scene, thugs come at him one at a time, while in other, they attack as a group. This is part of fight choreography and this definitely matters.

Take this for example. Here, Bruce is taking on 4 guys at once. That's definitely more impressive than them coming at him one after another and getting stomped. The end result is the same, but fight choreography made a difference here.

However, what doesn't matter is actor's/stunt guy's execution of a move. How well an actor executed an armbar or a flying omoplata doesn't really matter as long as the final result is the same.

Choreography is where its at and you're an idiot if you think otherwise.

You can have one guy fight 5 guys, with it looking like everyone is flailing their arms unskillfully about. It IS NOT the same as one guy fighting 5 guys with well directed blows and blocks to show off offensive and defensive skill. Even if the end result is the same.

That form of comic booking thinking is flawed and ridiculous.

@richubs:

He wears bulletproof armor in the first place.

He can do these feats only because he don’t needs to worry their weapons could done any serious damage on him.

Plus these guys doesn’t look skilled for me,they basically just swing their weapons randomly,and that grenade guy was really stupid.

@ccthor: He would've obviously been more carful and his whole fighting style would change if his gear changes. He isn't gonna fight the same way if you change his durability entirely.

@rbt: Obviously the end result could be same. Both characters might have cleared the fodders but it's also important how efficient they were at it.

Pretty much the opposite of what RBT said.

Choroegraphy shouldn't be ignored. How well a fighting style is been executed, how well they move, the techniques they use etc. are secondary ways to determine skill, but they're important. They're outright the only on-screen way we have to determine someone's skill level.

Now, the cannon fodder's choreography isn't exactly relevant unless they're explicitly meant to be attacking in complete sync with each other, which I can't think many examples of or if they're stuck in a hallway-style sequence and they're explicitly meant to be attacking one by one. Either way, when the fighter is surrounded, it doesn't matter.

I agree

True. How many fodders are attacking at the same time and how many times the character gets tagged is obviously important. But going immensely in the detail about what move the characters are using and how well the actors/stunt people executed that movie is a total waste of time. We are trying to gauge the character's skill, not the actor or stunt men's.

@rbt: Yeah but if 2 characters deal with fodder of the same quality just as efficiently it obviously means their choreography is on par with each other.

Otherwise either the fodder sucks or the hero would lose.

It'd be tough to display good fodder beat up easily without having good choreography.

Because it makes sense.

@helloman: You're saying ignoring the choreography makes sense?

choreography matters, in a way they show the quality of the fight in Nolan's Trilogy most of the times we don't even know what the hell is going on with fights, that's why lots of people say he's not that skilled.

@michaelbn: Well he actually is not.

His choreography is crap. He moves slowly and the fodder he fights is borderline retarded.

They KO themselves at times even.

@richubs: That wasn't my point, you're referring to Nolan's poor CQC directing scenes, I meant most of the times we don't even get to see what is happening in fights, everything is shaking and you can see some punches in air but nothing more.

@michaelbn: Yeah I know what you mean but even then we've seen him fight in a proper fight.

For eg. When he saved Robin and fought Bane.

@richubs: Fair enough.

I completely agree, I've always used choreography as part of an evaluation on a character's skill level.

Perfect example is those three guys Black Widow beats up while she’s tied to a chair. In CV that’s considered a good feat but in reality those guys are terrible fighters.

Because most choreography in mainstream movies isn't that great, really.

@totallynotjucas: That isn't the point. This is not a thread to discuss whether or not movies nowadays have good choreography or not this is a thread questioning why no one takes into account choreography when discussing skill.

And I'd have to disagree fight scenes in movies are still good but those movies don't make a lot of money.

Try to count the times fodder runs at the heroes while holding rifles, instead of just shooting them.

@totallynotjucas: Yeah BvS warehouse scene had smart fodder but in the nightmare scene they literally ran at Bats with their guns.

It’s totally okay to use when measuring a specific department of of skill, however, some users assess it as the end all, be all, of skill.

I have this conversation with my brother all the time and he ignores the choreography because of the budget mostly. Like when we compare TV Buffy to movie Blade, the Blade scenes are obviously going to look better because the movie budget is bigger than the show budget so they can do more with what they have. At least that's the short way of how he explains it, anyway hope I helped

Edit: he thinks Buffy is just as skilled just that her show doesn't have the budget to showcase her skill the way blade does.

Oh god, this gives me flashbacks to the countless debates over Nolan Batman around here

I’m of the opinion that choreography doesn’t matter, because there’s no such thing as more skilled choreography versus less skilled. It is all fake fighting. The only intention by the people in charge is to make it look cool. If we judged skill based on choreography, we would have to admit that there’s actually nobody who can fight well. Even DCEU Batman and MCU Captain America are not ACTUALLY good fighters in reality.

Choreography matters in so far that it shows how a fight went down. As someone before said, beating ten guys one at a time while the rest watch isn't as impressive as beating ten guys that are attacking in unison.

However choreography is irrelevant to how skilled characters are as far as showcasing their martial arts because choreography is divorced from the actual story. The writer likely has little to no say in how the choreography is done. That is all on the director and the hired choreographer, and their job isn't to make the fights look realistic. It is to make the fights look entertaining. Choreography will almost never line up with what the intent behind the scene was because it is pure eye candy.

Realistically almost no fictional characters are good fighters. They all do unnecessary jumps and flips. Weird twirls in the air. Wonder Woman is a garbage fighter because she keeps exposing her back to her enemies every other swing and moves her shield out of the way when she goes for a cut, leaving her exposed to a counter attack.

But that isn't the intent. The story isn't using choreography to inform you that Diana is an idiot when it comes to fighting. The intent is the exact opposite. Those flashy moves are supposed to make her seem more competent, and the vast majority of movie watchers will not get the impression she is a bad fighter from watching it because they don't know what good fighting looks like. Directors know this. They know what the general audience wants and what they expect, so they give it to them.

The most important thing when determining skill level are accolades because those are the only accurate way to gauge how the story is trying to present the fighters. If a believable source tells us that these fodder are the best in the galaxy then we have to assume they are, no matter how absolutely dreadful the choreography is or how they sometimes completely miss a non-moving target and hit their ally in the face (I'm looking at you, Snoke's bodyguards from Last Jedi).

Choreography speaks to the abilities or limitations of the special effects or director.

Take Star Wars, for example. We know that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are some of the best duelists. But if you went purely by choreography, even the weakest Jedi in the prequels looks more impressive than Luke or Vader purely based on the difference and speed in choreography. But that wasn't the intent. The intent was that Vader was an amazing duelist.

What's important is creator's intent.

Budget is a horrible excuse for bad choreography. Every major film or TV show can afford a decent choreographers and/or stuntman.

Because they debate for Nolan Batman

Because it’s dumb

Choreography matters, but it's very hard to explain to someone who doesn't train why a certain character is better than another. Most of the time, it's because people don't know what they're looking at. It's very easy to be tricked by flashy jumping moves, and spins, or by movements that just look complicated. John Wick has some of the best technical grappling in live action, and I've met people that think he's just brawling. At the same time, Ip Man is seen as some sort of martial arts god despite the fact that he's essentially "punching like a girl" (or arm punching, if you want to be politically correct) in a pigeon-toed stance. If I asked who has the most impressive skill feats in the MCU, some people would say Widow or Hawkeye. Some might even say Cap, and Cap's choreography is better than Widow's or Clint's. But I submit to you that Batroc has the best skill feats in the MCU. The series of kicks that GSP threw showed more technical merit than pretty much anything. Hemsworth has good kickboxing physique that translates over to his movements, even though Thor's choreography is deliberately trying to portray him as a brawler. Stephen Amell can make anything look good due to his athleticism, but the choreography of Arrow has gone downhill from the god tier action of S1 to the brainless jumping jacks of S6 and 7. The list goes on.

So at the end of the day, I give up and just accept the argument that if a character shows good feats against a superhuman alien that no real world MMA fighter can possibly beat then they scale off that.

That's not the problem with the Nolan-verse choreography. The problem with the Nolan-verse choreography is the martial art they picked for it is this.