I love martial arts. When I was a teenager, I learned Taekwondo and achieved my black belt in it. I've studied many different styles of combat. I've also studied military tactics, famous battles, and so on. I've come to the conclusion that I much prefer story battles to real ones. The reason is simple: real war is messy, gory, and hopeless. In stories, heroes get to be invulnerable, invincible, and mighty. Real life just isn't that way.
But, having learned so much about fighting, it's hard not to notice just how often movies, books, and other stories, get it fantastically wrong. People can't take a 2x4 to the forehead and jump up to fight like nothing happened, or get stomped in the chest without injury. I suppose that a bit of realism doesn't hurt things, and it helps put the hero into actual danger (especially since we all know the heroes are not actually in danger, since without them there's no story).
When it comes down to the final analysis, though, what matters is that the action is entertaining enough for the audience to forget about what's true or not and get involved in the scenes. When the audience gets invested there can be no wrong. Look at Bruce Lee. He was fast, amazingly precise, and everyone points to him as the greatest martial artist ever. Why? Because the guy was a phenomenal presence on screen. Whatever skills he had in combat paled to nothing in comparison to his ability to make people want to see him fight. That's amazing.
- M
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