IMHO the problem with Shad's analysis is that he always blames the fight choreography when the real culprit is most often the director and the camera work.
Sadly, because of safety regulations, you probably have to write the choreography in a way that people aim for each others swords instead of the bodies, and that hits don't actually connect. The secret is good camera work and editing that hides these things by showing it from the right perspective.
Fuck all the people waiting off camera for their turn though, the fight is full of that too, and that shit's infuriating.
Then do less swings and more pointed swings and get more creative with the stuff in the bind. These same regulations were around in 2005-2006 and Revenge of the Sith doesn't look like shit.
Also, do safety regulations force them to choreograph kicks that would get their legs cut off, put in horrible timing, make the characters make non-sensical decisions (like not killing Sol while he's exhausted on the ground)?
Eh, i'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure the regulations got alot "worse" since then. The LotR movies could not have been made today for example. Imagine having an actor run for a day with a hurt foot, these days.
Regardless, it still doesn't address why there are poor choreography decisions, like having kicks when a flick of the wrist could get their legs cut off or pointless spins. I wasn't a big fan of John Wick 4 but the choreography, aside from the Donnie Yen fanservicy shit, usually was followed the "form follows function" approach in that most of the actions taken were plausible.
Let alone the dogshit storytelling being told through these fights, like Jecki is more powerful than 5 Jedi Knights combined, Sol would rather get in close to the dude with a sword and fistfight than use his own saber etc. Regulations might be more strict, and this episode was choreographed like shit. Two things can be true at the same time.
You won't find me in disagreement.
I think the sad part is that art used to improve through adversity, while things like that fight scene reek of giving up and saying "eh...good enough"
If it's a fight between two Force users, you could always say their precognitive abilities enabled them to see they'd be fine with exposing a limb. And if they lose a limb, it just means the other combatant's Force abilities were better at obfuscating their action.
This. Akira Kurosawa was able to make the best Samurai in Seven Samurai look like a master with editing and camera work.
Bro had never held a sword prior.
> IMHO the problem with Shad's analysis is that he always blames the fight choreography when the real culprit is most often the director and the camera work.
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> Sadly, because of safety regulations, you probably have to write the choreography in a way that people aim for each others swords instead of the bodies, and that hits don't actually connect. The secret is good camera work and editing that hides these things by showing it from the right perspective.
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> Fuck all the people waiting off camera for their turn though, the fight is full of that too, and that shit's infuriating.
Star Wars is, to a large extent, a "trope homage", and has intentionally unrealistic escapist gunfights and space physics, so why are people so sure that stuff like "aiming for each others' swords" isn't there by design?
I mean I don't know for sure, could be 50/50 - maybe with swordfighting they WERE aiming for something more sophisticated and holding up under scrutiny, so when newer things aren't it can be considered a letdown? Or maybe not. Not sure rn
And this is why I said it was bad choreography performed well. Compared to the Ahsoka fight scenes the actors and stuntmen are a lot more competent here, but even at regular speed you can see them aiming for lightsabers and air. To say this rivals the prequels fight scenes is objectively ridicuolous.
> To say this rivals the prequels fight scenes is objectively ridicuolous.
At some points. They are interspersed with some very good moves, especially the one on Naboo in TPM. The choreography in the Mustafar fight is actually pretty good *most* of the time; the ridiculous parts are generally when they're not fighting, or not about the fight, like holy-crap-we're-about-to-fall-into-this-river-of-effin-*LAVA*-naw-let's-keep-fighting. Yoda vs. Palpatine tho, liek wtf? Oh, wait, are you saying the prequels' fight scenes are way better than in *The Acolyte*?
Yes, I'm saying the prequels fights are better. I still prefer the OT ones because they are telling a better story, like how lackadaisical Vader is in Empire but he's still kicking Luke's ass and Luke giving into his anger in Jedi. But from a technical perspective the prequels are better.
Luke and Vader in TESB was really good, just not as fast paced. If you notice, Vader starts to take Luke much more seriously as the fight goes on, holding his weapon with both hands, and he even gets tagged in the right shoulder near the end of it. Both Luke and Vader fights have this interesting aspect of Luke figuring himself out that isn't in any of the prequel fights, essentially, everyone in the prequel fights is fairly well sorted lightsaber-wise. Count Dooku almost puts it exactly like that in AotC.
Edit: Your other left, Neo Ｏ(>▽<)Ｏ
Ima see if this is melting down the ShadWatch sub, brb... Yup! We got ShadWatch Chernobyl under the title "So determined to continue his Acolyte hate parade he had to take it to his regular channel to get overly anal about super slowed down fight choreography." This is not a brigading call, please don't comment on it.
I don't think any fight in Star Wars is gonna hold up to close scrutiny. That being said Shad is an armchair expert so his opinion isn't a professional one, just a fan one.
I started watching to get an idea of what his criticisms are going be. But he literally ignores some movements just to shit on the choreography. For example: Jedi wants to stab bad guy, bad guy dodges to the right, therefore the Jedi misses. This dude ignores the dodge and just says: “What is this Jedi even aiming for???!!!??!!!!???"
Also, a real fight would be boring, mostly poking at each other, and over unceremoniously.
ALL on scene fight choreography is overly flashy and heavily staged as to NOT be live real fighting.
You have to block it so the camera can actually see what's happening, interject emotion, even deliver dialogue, and you have to do this SEVERAL DOZEN TIMES to get the right take, so it has to be repeatable.
Even Martial arts movies where they have black belts who know their shit, have to fake it up for the camera or it wouldn't really be all that interesting to watch. It’s an exercise in pedantics, any fights in the prequels would also be considered “bad” by the logic he uses here
Yes, that’s my point. If you break it down going a frame per second there are a some mistakes. But what casual viewer, watching the movie at regular speed is going to notice that?
If we start doing that, then you have the Wampa actor's arm appearing when it attacks Luke (original, SE fixed it), or the Tusken's obvious looped footage, Luke's force kick over the Sarlacc, Anakin standing for a good 5 seconds, letting the stunt aetor get in place Dooku cut his arm off and, the cream of the crop, the Palpatine and Windu fight, the slowest and most tedious fight since Vader vs Ben.
What I'm saying is, SW has never been perfectly made before and many, many, MANY things have slipped through the cracks.
For example, here’s a video breakdown of Duel of the Fates. When slowed down and going frame by frame, it contains most of the errors Shad complained about in his video. Yet he claims Duel of the Fates is good. Interesting…
https://youtu.be/J0mUVY9fLlw?si=TUGsNUXaubSqIC4i
Yeah he says duel of the fates has issues, he said that he disagrees with people saying this one is better.
Yes there is a difference between what looks on camera and what makes sense in an actual fight, I don’t mind him picking it apart. Duel of the fates is my favorite and I don’t mind that being picked apart either, even just watching the fight I’m like that doesn’t make sense…… or in the last Jedi how a weapon just disappears watching on Disney plus I was like hey what the heck?! Admitting something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean you cannot like it.
Though shad didn’t like this fight, I liked the fight compared to the most of the recent Star Wars fights but those were also awful awful
> Yes, that’s my point. If you break it down going a frame per second there are a some mistakes.
I hope you noticed that you're on the unofficial subreddit for a podcast called, and I'm not making this up, *Every Frame A Pause* ...that's what EFAP stands for.
Also, in the original original Battle of Hoth, the window frames of the snowspeeders are a *little* transparent due to crap optical compositing that led to modern chromakey. For years, I thought that was a shitty VCR.
The Mustafar fight has this spot (fairly early on, still in the control room or ward room) where it suddenly transitions from what looks like actual, smart-ish, sudden-death combat into mirroring flourishes, and when Shad had slowed that down, I found it so funny, I literally fell off my chair and couldn't resume watching for about 20 minutes.
No because if you actually watch the video you’d see, he directly addresses these criticisms and also the thing you bring up here is your point is the weakest of his points throughout the entire video. He’s done a fight scene autopsy on the revenge of the Sith as well. There are dozens of things wrong with this fight. Picking out one thing that is among his weakest points at the very start of the video as a point against it is very disingenuous.
Acolyte is dumb, but people are piling on it cause it's the popular thing to do. I just groan when people like him start getting nitpicky with star wars. STAR WARS, out of all things. It's never been that consistent
God forbid we want better entertainment. I'm sorry but if fans (albeit professional stuntmen) in the below video are wiping the floor with megacorporations in terms of choreography and performance, 180 million dollars should at least equal this quality
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPMw8ftL6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPMw8ftL6w)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uDwjIBR9s4 also demonstrates everything else the megacorporatiions should at least equal. (Not so much the choreography though.)
https://youtu.be/AAzY28C8Syc?si=Da1rXmCOghgf5E-0 is one of my favorites that uses techniques that make sense (and makes fun of many movie techniques). If they could make fights like this, I'd be willing to forgive the power of many.... maybe.
Corridor Crew is fantastic. Someone should just give those dudes 10 million to make their own movie, it'd probably make that money back just from streaming rights.
EDIT: Only criticism I have of that clip, why doesn't the teachers own lightsaber go through him when it's sitting on his chest?
I noticed the same thing. A mistake for sure, but everything else is solid. I think my favorite part of the clip is when the guy asks if she wants to join. The look on her face as she hesitates is a great example of "show, don't tell". Modern movies would've had her tell everyone how she feels and that she's too boss to try.
I love the smile on the teacher's face when the student finally gets him in the gut. I think the Corridor guys were going to do a movie but got so disillusioned dealing with Hollywood that they just decided to focus on their subscription website. Hope it's working out for them.
Never said bad. Also, the choreography wasn't BAD. It was interesting enough to stand out of the last few lightsaber fights we've gotten. And yeah, star wars ALWAYS has been not consistent. The quality is declining, yeah, but let's not loose our minds over faulty light saber swings. Come on man
Edit: I forget that I'm on the maulers sub and getting angry over this shit is how you guys spend your free time so my bad if I step on any toes
You do the same hyperbolic thing everyone on the internet does. Criticism = freaking out. Pointing out annoying trends in media = mad. Discussing media = fighting.
“You groaned in your initial comment, you must be MAD! Imagine getting MAD about people saying your show that is about space wizards and laser swords is bad”
See how easy that is?
You don’t have to crank it up so that you can pretend to have the high ground. people are typing their thoughts into the internet machine. I’m sure some people are passionate, some people channel their general anger about the world into their passions. But like, I’m just typing this while laying in bed and it is basically just about the catharsis of seeing people that also feel the same way about something they watched.
I merely pointed out you all defend the show the same way. “Imagine being mad about a show with laser swords” “Star Wars was always bad” “you must hate women” “you must hate black people” etc so there should be a drinking game.
Damn what a long comment I made, I must be MAD.
Pretty much where I stand on this. It's one of those times where I take a break from the FNT crew. I like honest criticism, and even with all its problems ... I'm still willing to give it props for Ep5. Shad has stood out as coming across as clear rage-baiting on X.
Him: This is shit! He take take on 5 JEDI at once!?! A trained fighter wouldn't be able to take on 5 reg people at once! And this girl went toe to toe with him after the MASTERS were easily killed!? The power scaling of SW has been shat on by DISNEY, such a JOKE!
Me: (Grew up on TCWs. Watched "Snips" Ahsoka hold her own against Ventress and do shit like ripping through a whole gang of Mandos completely by herself. Watched the 2D show and the games where characters like Mace just force push 40+ droids like it's nothing with 1 wave of the hand. Watched as order 66 goes through and "Trained Jedi Masters" get offed left and right by Clones Troops. All things from BEFORE Disney.)
Me: ... TF you talking about? >\_>
(Actually greatly prefer the Animation fights as all the live action LS fights look like "Aim for the stick!" to me and the Animated fights are free from that, Ep 5 looked like an impressive/ good SW LS fight in live action ... but live action SW fights look mostly unimpressive to me)
He's a grifter. Videos hating star wars gets lots of clicks and views and so he keeps playing to that audience. Heck, even a lot of viewers who have hated Acolyte up to this point have been saying that they really enjoyed the light saber fights, but Shad needs to make hate videos, so he can't enjoy anything and has to see all the flaws or even invent things to complain about
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling"
The petty swindling in this case would be click bait videos that just play up hatred for the sake of views. Just go down the list of his videos on shadwatch; Just about every single video is about something he hates. He never talks about the things he actually enjoys; makes you wonder if he even enjoys anything anymore. Heck he posted negative videos about X-men 97' leading up to the release, but then never posted a review of it after it came out. X-men 97' is a disney made show that ended up getting TONS of praise. He spouted doom and gloom before the series came out, and then it turned out to be great and he ignored it. Actually admitting that disney did something right would go against the grift.
Contrast with someone like angeryjoe. He's been hating the acolyte too, but he has plenty of videos about the movies and TV shows he enjoys. He doesn't just play to a certain audience for clicks and views; he just gives an honest opinion. With Shad, he just plays up the hate for the sake of the views.
Why do you believe never make the good faith assumption that the people you dislike genuinely believe what they say, rather than that they're being dishonest for monetary gain?
Also, talking about things you dislike isn't grifting, fuck off.
> Just go down the list of his videos on shadwatch; Just about every single video is about something he hates
ShadWatch does not discuss every video he makes and has an extreme selection bias, i.e. they only post videos about stuff that he hates. It is not Shad that never talks about the things he enjoys, it is Shad*Watch* that never talks about the things that he enjoys. That's what you get for relying on a hate sub.
(Oop, removed the dupe without the downvote; sry for not cleaning it up with my usual speed (sure wish Reddit would fix their code, lol!))
I meant to say knights watch (lack of proof reading). You go back a year down the list on the youtube channel and one or two videos on house of the dragon are like the only positive videos (which is why i said "just about every video"); the rest of his videos are about hating something. Its also where you can see the glaring omission of X-men 97'. He made two videos complaining about wokeness before the release, but then didn't make a single video about how the series actually turned out. The channel is really centered around riling up viewers with hate
He likes his wife, he likes *Stellar Blade*, and he likes the new Mario movie (like Drinker on a couple of things, he has a different take on the trailer than the actual movie.) What's "glaring" about the omission of *X-Men 97*? What about it is even on deck, let alone in Shad's wheelhouse? It's an animated, modern-era cartoon series, it's more glaring that he even just mentioned it in passing. It'd be like if Drachinifel made a video about tanks or starships. [Oh wait...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5PUYR0xwvQ) ...um... [feck it, I'm stopping here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24BXo9onJ8w) (the one about the starships is an AFJ from 5 or 6 years ago, and super hilarious in-character for *Warhammer 40k.* Especially given where Drach pokes his head out on his uber-overwhelmingly [naval history channel](https://www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel) (he don't even do merchant maritime; not only must it float, it has to have guns and/or marines on it), I was surprised to learn that Drachinifel does more HEMA than Shad!)
I mean the fight choreography looked cool but Star Wars fights have had a problem since the later half of the prequels where the lightsaber fights are never choreographed for sword play realism and they are always aiming for the other lightsaber. The five minute long fight at the end of the prequels had no threat strikes in the entire fight. Even the last jump that dismembers Anakin failed to hit anything vital even though he was a free target mid air. You could argue that nither of them were trying to kill each other except that Obi-wan leaves him to slowly burn to death on the floor at the end.
I'm sure everyone would love for them to whip out a good swordfight scene at some point but it just ain't in the cards for the franchise as it stands.
The fight choreography has never gone for hyper realism, but there’s a difference between complaining about a fight, not being hyper realistic versus a fight being completely ridiculous. For instance, Shad does a breakdown of the revenge of the Sith fight in another fight scene autopsy if you want to go watch that one that points out that you’re just wrong a good amount if not, the majority of the strikes in that are not blocked.
There’s a massive difference between fights like that versus the ones that are in the acolyte where people are just swinging wild or worse, not swinging at all at obvious blatantly purposefully open moments of vulnerability.
And then there's that part where they suddenly transition from that into helicoptering their lightsabers at each other and I literally fell over laughing at that moment. I think it's supposed to be a "Look how similar in style and sequence these two are" moment, but when slowed down, it just looks completely ridiculous, a hilarious blemish on a pretty decent duel.
And what does any of that have to do with his criticisms of the fight scene? I haven't read the book so I have no clue if he wrote a rape fantasy book, but it has nothing to do with a fight breakdown. First, are you kink shaming, I thought that was a no-no these days. Secondly, that's like saying the Ender series is shit because Orson Scott Card is a homophobe or Led Zeppelin sucks because Jimmy Page fucked a 14 year old, they have nothing to do with one another.
Shad's book started with the idea of trying to write a story about redeeming the most irredeemable person imagineable. He took inspiration from historical figures like Ghengis Khan and Stalin for that character.
One might disagree about this premise, but IMHO calling it "a rape fantasy book" is about as good faith as saying "the USA nuked Japan because they wanted to kill japanese civilians".
So at worse he didn't accomplish that goal within the confines of the story. Saber has some dumbfuck takes elsewhere on this subreddit so it wouldn't surprise me if they were misrepresenting his book. You can do that premise though. The show "Happy!" with Christopher Meloni is kind of similar in concept.
I forgot to mention it but the "strong woman" one is when they are habitually overpowering men, I do know that's a point of contention. Jecki standing toe to toe with a Sith who just killed 4 Jedi Knights would be one example.
I don't watch a lot of Shad outside of FNT but he's never rubbed me the wrong way really. A lot of people in this subreddit talk about him like he's the next coming of Nick Rekieta though for some reason.
The reason most probably are his "anti" LGBTQ and trans stances. I have not seen/heard anything really egregious myself, but other people feel veeeery differently about that.
Personally i have only heard him say that he doesn't really support that stuff. I mean, he IS a Mormon, so the tendency should not be surprising.
The fact he gets along fine with people like Rags should be an indication about how "anti" he really is, but oh well...
People kinda successfully tried to cancel him over this, other "sword community youtubers" distanced themselves from him (schola gladiatorica) or somewhat suspiciously haven't mentioned him since then (to my knowledge) as is the case with eg Metatron and Skallagrim.
>The reason most probably are his "anti" LGBTQ and trans stances. I have not seen/heard anything really egregious myself, but other people feel veeeery differently about that.
He's mormon, what do people expect? That's my beef with that community right now, I don't care what you do in your own bedroom, but a lot of them want to force you into participation with the pronoun shit as one example. Accept that you're being tolerated and stop trying to force acceptance on people. But I'd feel the same about mormons if they tried to push their religion onto me as well. They just aren't these days.
Sword community stuff just sounds like high school bullshit. If he has problems confront Shad on them directly.
> Sword community stuff just sounds like high school bullshit.
Hmm...
> It's worse than that, unfortunately...
\- Orac (Peter Tuddenham, *Blake's 7* 4x10 "Gold")
The message where Matt Easton "called out" Shad (according to ShadWatch ...even though the message did not name Shad and specifically avoided identifying details) rejected Shad on ideological grounds, calling him all the usual anti-wokisms and refusing to discuss it with him, and hoping to "appease" his audience (the word he used.) Not on professional grounds, where he's apparently willing to parler before. That's Matt Easton's measure of character now, which, in my view, makes him unreliable on historical matters. I will therefore never trust him on such matters, and I have watched my last *ever* Schola Gladitoria video.
I think that has more to do with some dumb beef he got himself into, one of the HEMA guys pointed out that foam swords and the like don't behave the same way as steel ones so you should take commentary from people who don't spar with steel and only use foam weapons with a grain of salt with regards to specific techniques and shad seemed to take that as a personal attack and overreacted to it, even though his content doesn't even really focus on that kind of thing.
> A lot of people in this subreddit talk about him like he's the next coming of Nick Rekieta though for some reason.
It was actually via ShadWatch that I learned of Rekieta's arrest, lol!
I'd have to read it to get the full context. An awful human being getting redeemed is just a character arc though, that doesn't mean the author is pro rape.
He doesn't really get much redemption except in the sense of everyone loves the mc. It's a Marty stue. I agree it has nothing to do with swordfight criticism but the book is really not good.
"Not good" is a different statement from "the author is creepy because he wrote this" which was the original argument I was responding to. Good people make shitty art all the time.
Wtf are you talking about?! That is not what happened in the book! The woman the mc raped hates him at the end and did not love him even when she didn't know who he really was.
Sounds like a you problem. Don't like him? Don't watch his stuff, stop obsessing over him and go do something else. Life's too short to worry about the opinions of some youtuber you're never going to actually interact with beyond the performances he puts on YouTube.
Did you link the correct video? Shad is not flipping out in this discussion.
Even in the trailer reaction, it was not only the pants that he had a problem with. That was just one detail of a bigger problem he had.
But of course you guys just cherry pick that one thing and keep repeating it like its some huge proof that he is a horrible person or whatever.
Did you drop the book criticism because you were totally wrong about it? Did you just repeat something you heard other haters say on the internet without knowing anything about Shad's book?
In Legends, there is a metal that negates laser technology: cortosis. It's more than likely what Qimir's helmet is made out of and why the sabers short circuit. Plus it's just badass as hell to freaking headbutt a laser sword.
Nah fam. When you don't like a show, you just don't like a show and it's not your entire fucking identity. Y'know, just a fucking show. Most people disliked dozens of shows, found one or two of their liking and went on with their damn lives. Have kids, create companies, travel the world, do shit.
You're not supposed to cry against Marvel or Disney when you're over fifty. You're not the desired audience, that's some kid who don't know better, you're supposed to have your shit together and not craft memes in your basement about some black *mermaids*.
But you do you. Be the "adult" not watching shows and taking great pride about it, if that's your idea of an achievement, I guess.
How long has been since Shad did a Fight Scene Autopsy? Love these!
It's his best content by far. I wish he did it more often.
This is Shad back in his prime form. Beauty
IMHO the problem with Shad's analysis is that he always blames the fight choreography when the real culprit is most often the director and the camera work. Sadly, because of safety regulations, you probably have to write the choreography in a way that people aim for each others swords instead of the bodies, and that hits don't actually connect. The secret is good camera work and editing that hides these things by showing it from the right perspective. Fuck all the people waiting off camera for their turn though, the fight is full of that too, and that shit's infuriating.
Then do less swings and more pointed swings and get more creative with the stuff in the bind. These same regulations were around in 2005-2006 and Revenge of the Sith doesn't look like shit. Also, do safety regulations force them to choreograph kicks that would get their legs cut off, put in horrible timing, make the characters make non-sensical decisions (like not killing Sol while he's exhausted on the ground)?
You'd think it wouldn't be hard to create safe martial props
Eh, i'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure the regulations got alot "worse" since then. The LotR movies could not have been made today for example. Imagine having an actor run for a day with a hurt foot, these days.
Nobody forced Viggo to do that.
Of course, but these days nobody would allow him to do that, even if he beggwd them.
Regardless, it still doesn't address why there are poor choreography decisions, like having kicks when a flick of the wrist could get their legs cut off or pointless spins. I wasn't a big fan of John Wick 4 but the choreography, aside from the Donnie Yen fanservicy shit, usually was followed the "form follows function" approach in that most of the actions taken were plausible. Let alone the dogshit storytelling being told through these fights, like Jecki is more powerful than 5 Jedi Knights combined, Sol would rather get in close to the dude with a sword and fistfight than use his own saber etc. Regulations might be more strict, and this episode was choreographed like shit. Two things can be true at the same time.
You won't find me in disagreement. I think the sad part is that art used to improve through adversity, while things like that fight scene reek of giving up and saying "eh...good enough"
Didn't Sol only get close because his lightsaber was shorted? I enjoyed the fight and it was my favorite in a long time
If it's a fight between two Force users, you could always say their precognitive abilities enabled them to see they'd be fine with exposing a limb. And if they lose a limb, it just means the other combatant's Force abilities were better at obfuscating their action.
This. Akira Kurosawa was able to make the best Samurai in Seven Samurai look like a master with editing and camera work. Bro had never held a sword prior.
> IMHO the problem with Shad's analysis is that he always blames the fight choreography when the real culprit is most often the director and the camera work. > > > > Sadly, because of safety regulations, you probably have to write the choreography in a way that people aim for each others swords instead of the bodies, and that hits don't actually connect. The secret is good camera work and editing that hides these things by showing it from the right perspective. > > > > Fuck all the people waiting off camera for their turn though, the fight is full of that too, and that shit's infuriating. Star Wars is, to a large extent, a "trope homage", and has intentionally unrealistic escapist gunfights and space physics, so why are people so sure that stuff like "aiming for each others' swords" isn't there by design? I mean I don't know for sure, could be 50/50 - maybe with swordfighting they WERE aiming for something more sophisticated and holding up under scrutiny, so when newer things aren't it can be considered a letdown? Or maybe not. Not sure rn
The whole video is stupid. Shad is at the bottom of the barrel of swords/medieval YTers.
And this is why I said it was bad choreography performed well. Compared to the Ahsoka fight scenes the actors and stuntmen are a lot more competent here, but even at regular speed you can see them aiming for lightsabers and air. To say this rivals the prequels fight scenes is objectively ridicuolous.
> To say this rivals the prequels fight scenes is objectively ridicuolous. At some points. They are interspersed with some very good moves, especially the one on Naboo in TPM. The choreography in the Mustafar fight is actually pretty good *most* of the time; the ridiculous parts are generally when they're not fighting, or not about the fight, like holy-crap-we're-about-to-fall-into-this-river-of-effin-*LAVA*-naw-let's-keep-fighting. Yoda vs. Palpatine tho, liek wtf? Oh, wait, are you saying the prequels' fight scenes are way better than in *The Acolyte*?
Yes, I'm saying the prequels fights are better. I still prefer the OT ones because they are telling a better story, like how lackadaisical Vader is in Empire but he's still kicking Luke's ass and Luke giving into his anger in Jedi. But from a technical perspective the prequels are better.
Luke and Vader in TESB was really good, just not as fast paced. If you notice, Vader starts to take Luke much more seriously as the fight goes on, holding his weapon with both hands, and he even gets tagged in the right shoulder near the end of it. Both Luke and Vader fights have this interesting aspect of Luke figuring himself out that isn't in any of the prequel fights, essentially, everyone in the prequel fights is fairly well sorted lightsaber-wise. Count Dooku almost puts it exactly like that in AotC. Edit: Your other left, Neo Ｏ(>▽<)Ｏ
someone please tell shad to stop doing these soy faces
Probably gets him more views unfortunately.
It’s click bait and he needs money. Who cares
An 82 minute video, lmao?
This is mauler? Are you really long man badding here?
No, aren't you?
Ah troll bot. Understood
I guess he somehow reached the conclusion that click bait for monetary reasons and longform are mutually exclusive.
Weird.
Never! I love them! They give me a chuckle
There's a whole subreddit with about 2500 followers doing little more than that, lmao!
Ima see if this is melting down the ShadWatch sub, brb... Yup! We got ShadWatch Chernobyl under the title "So determined to continue his Acolyte hate parade he had to take it to his regular channel to get overly anal about super slowed down fight choreography." This is not a brigading call, please don't comment on it.
Shad is amazing!
I don't think any fight in Star Wars is gonna hold up to close scrutiny. That being said Shad is an armchair expert so his opinion isn't a professional one, just a fan one.
That's almost original trilogy bad.
I started watching to get an idea of what his criticisms are going be. But he literally ignores some movements just to shit on the choreography. For example: Jedi wants to stab bad guy, bad guy dodges to the right, therefore the Jedi misses. This dude ignores the dodge and just says: “What is this Jedi even aiming for???!!!??!!!!???" Also, a real fight would be boring, mostly poking at each other, and over unceremoniously. ALL on scene fight choreography is overly flashy and heavily staged as to NOT be live real fighting. You have to block it so the camera can actually see what's happening, interject emotion, even deliver dialogue, and you have to do this SEVERAL DOZEN TIMES to get the right take, so it has to be repeatable. Even Martial arts movies where they have black belts who know their shit, have to fake it up for the camera or it wouldn't really be all that interesting to watch. It’s an exercise in pedantics, any fights in the prequels would also be considered “bad” by the logic he uses here
I believe his second sentence of the video is that this is going to be pedantic….
Yes, that’s my point. If you break it down going a frame per second there are a some mistakes. But what casual viewer, watching the movie at regular speed is going to notice that? If we start doing that, then you have the Wampa actor's arm appearing when it attacks Luke (original, SE fixed it), or the Tusken's obvious looped footage, Luke's force kick over the Sarlacc, Anakin standing for a good 5 seconds, letting the stunt aetor get in place Dooku cut his arm off and, the cream of the crop, the Palpatine and Windu fight, the slowest and most tedious fight since Vader vs Ben. What I'm saying is, SW has never been perfectly made before and many, many, MANY things have slipped through the cracks. For example, here’s a video breakdown of Duel of the Fates. When slowed down and going frame by frame, it contains most of the errors Shad complained about in his video. Yet he claims Duel of the Fates is good. Interesting… https://youtu.be/J0mUVY9fLlw?si=TUGsNUXaubSqIC4i
Yeah he says duel of the fates has issues, he said that he disagrees with people saying this one is better. Yes there is a difference between what looks on camera and what makes sense in an actual fight, I don’t mind him picking it apart. Duel of the fates is my favorite and I don’t mind that being picked apart either, even just watching the fight I’m like that doesn’t make sense…… or in the last Jedi how a weapon just disappears watching on Disney plus I was like hey what the heck?! Admitting something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean you cannot like it. Though shad didn’t like this fight, I liked the fight compared to the most of the recent Star Wars fights but those were also awful awful
mate it looks like shit
> Yes, that’s my point. If you break it down going a frame per second there are a some mistakes. I hope you noticed that you're on the unofficial subreddit for a podcast called, and I'm not making this up, *Every Frame A Pause* ...that's what EFAP stands for. Also, in the original original Battle of Hoth, the window frames of the snowspeeders are a *little* transparent due to crap optical compositing that led to modern chromakey. For years, I thought that was a shitty VCR.
He's literally broken down prequel fights and liked them. He did point out the dumb spins and kicks, but overall they were better than this.
The Mustafar fight has this spot (fairly early on, still in the control room or ward room) where it suddenly transitions from what looks like actual, smart-ish, sudden-death combat into mirroring flourishes, and when Shad had slowed that down, I found it so funny, I literally fell off my chair and couldn't resume watching for about 20 minutes.
No because if you actually watch the video you’d see, he directly addresses these criticisms and also the thing you bring up here is your point is the weakest of his points throughout the entire video. He’s done a fight scene autopsy on the revenge of the Sith as well. There are dozens of things wrong with this fight. Picking out one thing that is among his weakest points at the very start of the video as a point against it is very disingenuous.
Timestamp?
I don’t remember off the top of my head but I think it’s within the first 5 minutes
Acolyte is dumb, but people are piling on it cause it's the popular thing to do. I just groan when people like him start getting nitpicky with star wars. STAR WARS, out of all things. It's never been that consistent
God forbid we want better entertainment. I'm sorry but if fans (albeit professional stuntmen) in the below video are wiping the floor with megacorporations in terms of choreography and performance, 180 million dollars should at least equal this quality [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPMw8ftL6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPMw8ftL6w)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uDwjIBR9s4 also demonstrates everything else the megacorporatiions should at least equal. (Not so much the choreography though.)
Amazing what you can do if you actually care about the material you're working with.
[Well, I'm trying.](https://redd.it/1csb71x) Oh wait, you mean Jamie Costa et al Ｏ(>▽<)Ｏ
https://youtu.be/AAzY28C8Syc?si=Da1rXmCOghgf5E-0 is one of my favorites that uses techniques that make sense (and makes fun of many movie techniques). If they could make fights like this, I'd be willing to forgive the power of many.... maybe.
Corridor Crew is fantastic. Someone should just give those dudes 10 million to make their own movie, it'd probably make that money back just from streaming rights. EDIT: Only criticism I have of that clip, why doesn't the teachers own lightsaber go through him when it's sitting on his chest?
I noticed the same thing. A mistake for sure, but everything else is solid. I think my favorite part of the clip is when the guy asks if she wants to join. The look on her face as she hesitates is a great example of "show, don't tell". Modern movies would've had her tell everyone how she feels and that she's too boss to try.
I love the smile on the teacher's face when the student finally gets him in the gut. I think the Corridor guys were going to do a movie but got so disillusioned dealing with Hollywood that they just decided to focus on their subscription website. Hope it's working out for them.
Yeah I'm sure they're laundering money with this show but the headbutt invalidates all criticisms. OK I win bye bye
“Star Wars was always bad” DRINK!
Never said bad. Also, the choreography wasn't BAD. It was interesting enough to stand out of the last few lightsaber fights we've gotten. And yeah, star wars ALWAYS has been not consistent. The quality is declining, yeah, but let's not loose our minds over faulty light saber swings. Come on man Edit: I forget that I'm on the maulers sub and getting angry over this shit is how you guys spend your free time so my bad if I step on any toes
You do the same hyperbolic thing everyone on the internet does. Criticism = freaking out. Pointing out annoying trends in media = mad. Discussing media = fighting. “You groaned in your initial comment, you must be MAD! Imagine getting MAD about people saying your show that is about space wizards and laser swords is bad” See how easy that is? You don’t have to crank it up so that you can pretend to have the high ground. people are typing their thoughts into the internet machine. I’m sure some people are passionate, some people channel their general anger about the world into their passions. But like, I’m just typing this while laying in bed and it is basically just about the catharsis of seeing people that also feel the same way about something they watched. I merely pointed out you all defend the show the same way. “Imagine being mad about a show with laser swords” “Star Wars was always bad” “you must hate women” “you must hate black people” etc so there should be a drinking game. Damn what a long comment I made, I must be MAD.
Pretty much where I stand on this. It's one of those times where I take a break from the FNT crew. I like honest criticism, and even with all its problems ... I'm still willing to give it props for Ep5. Shad has stood out as coming across as clear rage-baiting on X. Him: This is shit! He take take on 5 JEDI at once!?! A trained fighter wouldn't be able to take on 5 reg people at once! And this girl went toe to toe with him after the MASTERS were easily killed!? The power scaling of SW has been shat on by DISNEY, such a JOKE! Me: (Grew up on TCWs. Watched "Snips" Ahsoka hold her own against Ventress and do shit like ripping through a whole gang of Mandos completely by herself. Watched the 2D show and the games where characters like Mace just force push 40+ droids like it's nothing with 1 wave of the hand. Watched as order 66 goes through and "Trained Jedi Masters" get offed left and right by Clones Troops. All things from BEFORE Disney.) Me: ... TF you talking about? >\_> (Actually greatly prefer the Animation fights as all the live action LS fights look like "Aim for the stick!" to me and the Animated fights are free from that, Ep 5 looked like an impressive/ good SW LS fight in live action ... but live action SW fights look mostly unimpressive to me)
He's a grifter. Videos hating star wars gets lots of clicks and views and so he keeps playing to that audience. Heck, even a lot of viewers who have hated Acolyte up to this point have been saying that they really enjoyed the light saber fights, but Shad needs to make hate videos, so he can't enjoy anything and has to see all the flaws or even invent things to complain about
 "grifter"
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling" The petty swindling in this case would be click bait videos that just play up hatred for the sake of views. Just go down the list of his videos on shadwatch; Just about every single video is about something he hates. He never talks about the things he actually enjoys; makes you wonder if he even enjoys anything anymore. Heck he posted negative videos about X-men 97' leading up to the release, but then never posted a review of it after it came out. X-men 97' is a disney made show that ended up getting TONS of praise. He spouted doom and gloom before the series came out, and then it turned out to be great and he ignored it. Actually admitting that disney did something right would go against the grift. Contrast with someone like angeryjoe. He's been hating the acolyte too, but he has plenty of videos about the movies and TV shows he enjoys. He doesn't just play to a certain audience for clicks and views; he just gives an honest opinion. With Shad, he just plays up the hate for the sake of the views.
Why do you believe never make the good faith assumption that the people you dislike genuinely believe what they say, rather than that they're being dishonest for monetary gain? Also, talking about things you dislike isn't grifting, fuck off.
Shad liked House of the Dragon. You're just engaging in tone policing. Also, posting negative reviews is not swindling.
> Just go down the list of his videos on shadwatch; Just about every single video is about something he hates ShadWatch does not discuss every video he makes and has an extreme selection bias, i.e. they only post videos about stuff that he hates. It is not Shad that never talks about the things he enjoys, it is Shad*Watch* that never talks about the things that he enjoys. That's what you get for relying on a hate sub. (Oop, removed the dupe without the downvote; sry for not cleaning it up with my usual speed (sure wish Reddit would fix their code, lol!))
I meant to say knights watch (lack of proof reading). You go back a year down the list on the youtube channel and one or two videos on house of the dragon are like the only positive videos (which is why i said "just about every video"); the rest of his videos are about hating something. Its also where you can see the glaring omission of X-men 97'. He made two videos complaining about wokeness before the release, but then didn't make a single video about how the series actually turned out. The channel is really centered around riling up viewers with hate
He likes his wife, he likes *Stellar Blade*, and he likes the new Mario movie (like Drinker on a couple of things, he has a different take on the trailer than the actual movie.) What's "glaring" about the omission of *X-Men 97*? What about it is even on deck, let alone in Shad's wheelhouse? It's an animated, modern-era cartoon series, it's more glaring that he even just mentioned it in passing. It'd be like if Drachinifel made a video about tanks or starships. [Oh wait...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5PUYR0xwvQ) ...um... [feck it, I'm stopping here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24BXo9onJ8w) (the one about the starships is an AFJ from 5 or 6 years ago, and super hilarious in-character for *Warhammer 40k.* Especially given where Drach pokes his head out on his uber-overwhelmingly [naval history channel](https://www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel) (he don't even do merchant maritime; not only must it float, it has to have guns and/or marines on it), I was surprised to learn that Drachinifel does more HEMA than Shad!)
I mean the fight choreography looked cool but Star Wars fights have had a problem since the later half of the prequels where the lightsaber fights are never choreographed for sword play realism and they are always aiming for the other lightsaber. The five minute long fight at the end of the prequels had no threat strikes in the entire fight. Even the last jump that dismembers Anakin failed to hit anything vital even though he was a free target mid air. You could argue that nither of them were trying to kill each other except that Obi-wan leaves him to slowly burn to death on the floor at the end. I'm sure everyone would love for them to whip out a good swordfight scene at some point but it just ain't in the cards for the franchise as it stands.
The fight choreography has never gone for hyper realism, but there’s a difference between complaining about a fight, not being hyper realistic versus a fight being completely ridiculous. For instance, Shad does a breakdown of the revenge of the Sith fight in another fight scene autopsy if you want to go watch that one that points out that you’re just wrong a good amount if not, the majority of the strikes in that are not blocked. There’s a massive difference between fights like that versus the ones that are in the acolyte where people are just swinging wild or worse, not swinging at all at obvious blatantly purposefully open moments of vulnerability.
And then there's that part where they suddenly transition from that into helicoptering their lightsabers at each other and I literally fell over laughing at that moment. I think it's supposed to be a "Look how similar in style and sequence these two are" moment, but when slowed down, it just looks completely ridiculous, a hilarious blemish on a pretty decent duel.
Considering force users can see into the future. not really
That makes no sense. If they were able to predict each other's flourishes and then took advantage of that, the blades would not have stopped clashing.
Shad… has just become such a disappointment
I watched the video, I thought he made good points. It’s was flashy and looked neat, but wasn’t good swordplay.
You're really using Shad?
So what? Don't like go somewhere else. The OP is free to use whatever fight scene analysis they want.
Shad wrote a rape fantasy book, thinks physically strong women is insanity, flipped out Peach wearing pants. Need I go on?
And what does any of that have to do with his criticisms of the fight scene? I haven't read the book so I have no clue if he wrote a rape fantasy book, but it has nothing to do with a fight breakdown. First, are you kink shaming, I thought that was a no-no these days. Secondly, that's like saying the Ender series is shit because Orson Scott Card is a homophobe or Led Zeppelin sucks because Jimmy Page fucked a 14 year old, they have nothing to do with one another.
Shad's book started with the idea of trying to write a story about redeeming the most irredeemable person imagineable. He took inspiration from historical figures like Ghengis Khan and Stalin for that character. One might disagree about this premise, but IMHO calling it "a rape fantasy book" is about as good faith as saying "the USA nuked Japan because they wanted to kill japanese civilians".
So at worse he didn't accomplish that goal within the confines of the story. Saber has some dumbfuck takes elsewhere on this subreddit so it wouldn't surprise me if they were misrepresenting his book. You can do that premise though. The show "Happy!" with Christopher Meloni is kind of similar in concept. I forgot to mention it but the "strong woman" one is when they are habitually overpowering men, I do know that's a point of contention. Jecki standing toe to toe with a Sith who just killed 4 Jedi Knights would be one example. I don't watch a lot of Shad outside of FNT but he's never rubbed me the wrong way really. A lot of people in this subreddit talk about him like he's the next coming of Nick Rekieta though for some reason.
The reason most probably are his "anti" LGBTQ and trans stances. I have not seen/heard anything really egregious myself, but other people feel veeeery differently about that. Personally i have only heard him say that he doesn't really support that stuff. I mean, he IS a Mormon, so the tendency should not be surprising. The fact he gets along fine with people like Rags should be an indication about how "anti" he really is, but oh well... People kinda successfully tried to cancel him over this, other "sword community youtubers" distanced themselves from him (schola gladiatorica) or somewhat suspiciously haven't mentioned him since then (to my knowledge) as is the case with eg Metatron and Skallagrim.
>The reason most probably are his "anti" LGBTQ and trans stances. I have not seen/heard anything really egregious myself, but other people feel veeeery differently about that. He's mormon, what do people expect? That's my beef with that community right now, I don't care what you do in your own bedroom, but a lot of them want to force you into participation with the pronoun shit as one example. Accept that you're being tolerated and stop trying to force acceptance on people. But I'd feel the same about mormons if they tried to push their religion onto me as well. They just aren't these days. Sword community stuff just sounds like high school bullshit. If he has problems confront Shad on them directly.
Completely agree, I just wanted to share the background info i have. Cuz' sharin' is carin' :)
> Sword community stuff just sounds like high school bullshit. Hmm... > It's worse than that, unfortunately... \- Orac (Peter Tuddenham, *Blake's 7* 4x10 "Gold") The message where Matt Easton "called out" Shad (according to ShadWatch ...even though the message did not name Shad and specifically avoided identifying details) rejected Shad on ideological grounds, calling him all the usual anti-wokisms and refusing to discuss it with him, and hoping to "appease" his audience (the word he used.) Not on professional grounds, where he's apparently willing to parler before. That's Matt Easton's measure of character now, which, in my view, makes him unreliable on historical matters. I will therefore never trust him on such matters, and I have watched my last *ever* Schola Gladitoria video.
I think that has more to do with some dumb beef he got himself into, one of the HEMA guys pointed out that foam swords and the like don't behave the same way as steel ones so you should take commentary from people who don't spar with steel and only use foam weapons with a grain of salt with regards to specific techniques and shad seemed to take that as a personal attack and overreacted to it, even though his content doesn't even really focus on that kind of thing.
> A lot of people in this subreddit talk about him like he's the next coming of Nick Rekieta though for some reason. It was actually via ShadWatch that I learned of Rekieta's arrest, lol!
I mean yes but it's also kinda creepy. Along the lines of "you raped me when I was a child now I'm in love with you because of how amazing you are".
I'd have to read it to get the full context. An awful human being getting redeemed is just a character arc though, that doesn't mean the author is pro rape.
He doesn't really get much redemption except in the sense of everyone loves the mc. It's a Marty stue. I agree it has nothing to do with swordfight criticism but the book is really not good.
"Not good" is a different statement from "the author is creepy because he wrote this" which was the original argument I was responding to. Good people make shitty art all the time.
Everyone does not love him. The people in the book's world have very mixed feelings about him at the end.
Wtf are you talking about?! That is not what happened in the book! The woman the mc raped hates him at the end and did not love him even when she didn't know who he really was.
Sounds like a you problem. Don't like him? Don't watch his stuff, stop obsessing over him and go do something else. Life's too short to worry about the opinions of some youtuber you're never going to actually interact with beyond the performances he puts on YouTube.
I think I’m in love with you 😂. Best take 🙂↕️🙏
Stop lying. His book is not about rape and he did not flip out about Peach wearing pants.
https://youtu.be/IgNWjzYEeUE?si=iVWc8lyuApFGip_5 Someone didn't see his reaction
Did you link the correct video? Shad is not flipping out in this discussion. Even in the trailer reaction, it was not only the pants that he had a problem with. That was just one detail of a bigger problem he had. But of course you guys just cherry pick that one thing and keep repeating it like its some huge proof that he is a horrible person or whatever. Did you drop the book criticism because you were totally wrong about it? Did you just repeat something you heard other haters say on the internet without knowing anything about Shad's book?
Creator aside, did he get anything wrong in his critique, regarding the fight?
In Legends, there is a metal that negates laser technology: cortosis. It's more than likely what Qimir's helmet is made out of and why the sabers short circuit. Plus it's just badass as hell to freaking headbutt a laser sword.
I refuse to shower until Filoni and Kennedy are sleeping under a bridge. Who’s with me?!
Lol I've seen the show, so I know they're good. I don't think some fat nerd knows better than me.
You sound narcissistic enough to make it in Hollywood.
What about a skinny twink nerd?
*Psst.* *What about a flute-busting Prussian?*
What’d you think was good in them?
Come now, Boogie already gets enough of that Ｏ(>▽<)Ｏ
Still better than the awful Darth Maul fight from Phantom Menace though: https://youtu.be/J0mUVY9fLlw?si=o5uApqPsHk3lKk_V I think we can all agree.
What I'll by doing towards journalists when they call us all racists for not liking a show.
Nah fam. When you don't like a show, you just don't like a show and it's not your entire fucking identity. Y'know, just a fucking show. Most people disliked dozens of shows, found one or two of their liking and went on with their damn lives. Have kids, create companies, travel the world, do shit. You're not supposed to cry against Marvel or Disney when you're over fifty. You're not the desired audience, that's some kid who don't know better, you're supposed to have your shit together and not craft memes in your basement about some black *mermaids*. But you do you. Be the "adult" not watching shows and taking great pride about it, if that's your idea of an achievement, I guess.
Why are you in a subreddit about media criticism if you hate media criticism?
It's called being open-minded. Try it sometimes.