Agreed. I don't like seeing extremely flashy sword work or extremely flashy fighting, as i am always wondering why the smarter of the two fighters just doesn't do a short fast strike while the other person is trying to look cool, and then walking away from the now defeated opponent. all the tv-tropes rules regarding fighting apply here.....
PeterZ wrote:]
As a former fencer, I feel I must point out that where Inigo kills the 4 guards in 2 secs is one of the few places in movies where I've ever seen real fencing (finger and wrist movements controlling the blade) instead of stage fencing (elbow and shoulder movements controlling the blade) in all of moviedom.
Every time I see stage fencers flailing with a rapier, their elbows out and swinging their blades like a claymore, I just can't take the scene seriously. To have such opponents back in college, I would have made it past regionals. I enjoyed the PB fencing scene very much.
I will say that Basil Rathbone was the best fencer I've seen in film. It galled me to see him lose consistently to that hack, Eroll Flynn.[/quote]