In the first fight they probably also tried to take Paul's shield training into account. In the book it's mentioned that he often slows down his attacks, as you have to when fighting shields, but that's interpreted by the fremen as cruely "toying"
I thought of it more as showing that when push came to shove, Paul was a VASTLY superior fighter than his opponent, to the point that he COULD essentially play patty cakes with him. E.g. if I, someone who has zero experience, were to spar with Matt, I'd honestly be surprised if the skill gap wouldn't allow Matt to play sticky hands with me. And, again the way I'm interpreting it, it also explains why Paul was so reluctant to actually kill him, because Paul didn't see it as anything even remotely close to being a fair fight. He didn't end the fight until Stilgar points out that there is only one way to end the fight and that Paul should stop toying with him.
@MrMartinSchou maybe that's the intention in the movie, which I actually haven't seen yet. In the books (if I remember correctly, it's been a while) we see the scene through the eyes of Paul's mother. And for one she's not sure if he actually is capable of killing someone (as it is his very first real fight) and she's seeing that he attacks as his opponent if wearing a shield (which is what he was training to do)
They explicitly didn't in the movie for this fight. The whole arc of Paul getting a little too cocky after the fight and a little too comfortable with killing someone never shows up in the film. He's just kinda portrayed as scared and wimpy at this point. Good movies overall, but they definitely took a lot of liberties with Paul's character and development.
“Gurney says there’s no artistry in killing with the tip, that it should be done with the edge.” “Gurney’s a romantic,” the Duke growled. This talk of killing suddenly disturbed him, coming from his son. “I’d sooner you never had to kill…but if the need arises, you do it however you can-tip or edge.” “Gurney Halleck’s words were there to remember: “The good knife fighter thinks on point and blade and shearing-guard simultaneously. The point can also cut; the blade can also stab; the shearing-guard can also trap your opponent’s blade.”” “Killing with the point lacks artistry,” Idaho had once told Paul, “but don’t let that hold your hand when the opening presents itself."
Quoting to explain ftw. Also needed to mention that they stripped the suits before the flight to avoid wasting valuable suits. Both the training and that detail would've made the slashing make full sense
All groovy till someone slits your tendons causing you to drop your weapon. Great thing about Dune is that melee makes perfect sense in the lore. I wish all movies used armor or a shield, or regeneration. Something to give reasons on why heroes are avoiding death instead of giving the enemy Storm Trooper aim. Even John Wick
@@dianapennepacker6854 that's why we wear protective layers, though. Dune's melee makes sense... but the rest of the lore about the shields causing a nuclear explosion? Absurd. Sounds like the worst engineering oversight ever, or a really idiotic way to make a sci-fi novel into a fantasy novel.
If you were deep in the desert away from sietch, a cut up stillsuit, while not immediately lethal, would mean a slow death unless you could repair your stillsuite... So, cuts on Arrakis could have consequences not seen here on Earth.
Just a note, on the second fight's ending, Paul allows the second blade to plunge into his shoulder, at the same time retrieving the other blade from his body and using it to stab the guy. He doesn't divert the blade back.
one detail in the book i like with the Jamis duel, is Paul takes a bit of time to get used to fight against an unshielded opponent, he is really fast on the defence but keeps missing Jamis because he slows to account for the shield that's not there.
I had never realised this before, but I don't think the fight ends the way you say it does. Feyd stabs Paul in Paul's left side with his own knife, and then tries to stab him. Paul grabs the blade with his right hand, and then redirects it. But we see after this that Paul's left hand has stabbed Feyd with Paul's Knife (the one that was in his own side) And afterwards we see Paul draw Feyd's knife out of his own right shoulder. So Paul redirected Feyd's knife into his shoulder with his right hand while drawing out the knife in his own side and stabbing Feyd with the left.
Yep this was always my interpretation as well. Paul's initial stab wound is to his left torso. When Feyd falls away, Paul has a knife in his left hand, and is stabbed in the right shoulder. There is no knife in his torso. So Paul allowed Feyd to stab him in the shoulder/chest and used that moment to take his own knife from his belly and to stab Feyd with it.
Yep I had to go look at it in the 4k short to verify what you said but you are absolutely right.. he redirected Feyds back into Feyd and stabbed him with his own knife with his other hand at the same time.
I think here we see the story telling in action, Feyd's cruelty, wanting to prolong the fight and torture Paul with the "inevitable" outcome, is the very thing which gives Paul the opening to end the fight and fits the story-telling very well.
The choreo Roger Yuan worked into the Dune films has been, in my opinion, some of the very best in film history, and I’m very thankful he had a director with the restraint to not ruin it with shaky cam and cutting.
In the books we see swords and knives used commonly on Arrakis bc shields couldn’t be used, as they would call the worms and send them into a frenzy. Additionally shooting laser based weapons and shields caused a type of nuclear explosion, so we don’t see lasers being used where someone could potentially have a shield. Dart guns and rifles were common in the books. The Atreides soldiers carried Kindjals and push daggers a lot IIRC, where the Harkonens tended to carry longer swords and blunt force weapons. Duncan Idaho is a Ginaz swordmaster too, it was a cool bit of lore when they showed Duncan fighting against Sardaukar troops, as the Ginaz would be some of the few who could stand up to them and win.
Great breakdown, Matt. I just want to mention a mistake though. The camerawork makes it hard to tell, but the second fight ends with Paul pulling the crysknife from his own body "undercamera" and stabbing Feyd with it, while Feyd is completely focused on stabbing what ends up being Paul's shoulder. If you look at the still from 33:38, you can see the handle in Paul's hand isn't that of the Emperor's dagger. It's more clear in the full clip: when Paul pulls the knife from Feyd's body, you can see the Emperor's blade still in Paul's shoulder.
@@camsy83 Yeah, although I can't fault anybody for missing it. I think it's a small lapse in what is otherwise very good cinematography. I couldn't tell for sure what had happened the first time I saw it. And after I read Matt's description, I had to watch the full scene again just to make sure I wasn't wrong.
It may have already been said, but I think one of the really excellent things about the Paul v Feyd duel is how their family lines and personalities show through. Feyd has likely never truly fought a capable opponent in a fair fight - he has trained with great fighters but only fought in rigged gladiatorial combat. So his fighting style is flashy and showy - I think this is why they have him doing big slashes and thrusts; it looks good from a distance even if it's dangerous in a real fight. When he has Paul at his mercy he chooses to draw the moment out, and savour it, because he is a sadistic psychopath. Paul has been fighting for his life all day, and is likely exhausted, so he's sloppier than we see him when training or fighting Jamis. He does something Feyd is likely psychologically incapable of doing, which is willingly take a blade to win the fight. He was taught a noble method was best, but to win at any cost when it came to it. A major theme in the book is also the animals vs humans conjecture; the Harkonnens are held up as examples of people incapable of restraining their animal nature. We see this with Feyd - he shouts, gets angry, gets frustrated when it's not an easy victory, makes mistakes as a result. Paul is silent the whole fight, because he is a human, capable of putting his base instincts aside. That they choreographed these deeper themes into this fight is, in my opinion, brilliant.
With regard to the "sticky hands drill" (~12:00)... one thing to remember is that this is Paul's first actual fight, so him doing things that are like drills would be reasonable
I think the fact it looks like training is also by design. Once paul has jannis figured out, he's not even close to being able to land a strike anymore. Making it look like training shows how outclassed jannis is.
@@russellstephens3580 And Jannis is just acting on rage and arrogance, assuming he can out maneuver Paul without being as defensive as he should have been.
You comment about both getting stabbed reminds me of a warning from an instructor: The loser of a knife fight dies in the street The winner dies in the hospital
As some one whom got stabbed in the hand, and had the artery in it severed. I understand that mentallity. I was lucky i managed to get to the hospital as fast as I did. I lost a LOT of blood, enough to start having tunnel vision and starting to feel faint. So stabb wounds or just even hand wounds can be extremely dangerous. especially towards the wrist in the area of the pinkyfinger in the palm. just slightly abow the ball there. It happened about 7 years ago. my hand still hurts from that day. Don't ever get stabbed in the hand. -10.000.000/10 would not recommend the experience.
I also think some of Fyde's slashes instead of stabs can be explained by the fact that the character belives he is a better fighter. He wants to draw the fight out and savor the kill. Plus, although he has combat experince, but he also fought alot of slaves in the arena. I think his fighting style reflects that.
Feyd is inherently cocky and fights like it, to the point where in the book and the David Lynch movie when he realises Paul is a better fighter and is winning the fight, Feyd tries to cheat and use a hidden blade in his suit to stab Paul.
Slaves and drugged Attreides with only half-shields and basically naked. Then it was that one Attreides who wasn't drugged properly (in the movie it's the Baron testing him, in the book it's more likely political infighting in the wider family just below the Baron, maybe even Rabban or Piter behind it.
When I worked in the ER we saw a fair number of hand wounds when someone using a guardless knife, stabbed another person, hit bone, and the hand rode up onto the blade causing nasty wounds to the palm or fingers.
Trained for awhile with a martial scool in Rome thats been around since 1500's and was the last school to organize knife duels in the 1950s, they still train military personnel in knife combat. In both single hand and second hand duels the first rule of knife fighting NO SLASHING. Second rule was DISTANCE, a grapple or close contact almost always ended the duel on the leave. Third rule was dodge not block and keep oval pattern footwork.
I'm glad you mentioned the head being vulnerable because I was going to bring up the fact that most of the slashes and cuts were at the head and throat and that can be very. effective
Matt great breakdown as always. "Defanging the snake" is the #1 goal in Filipino Kali. You slash at the hand, wrist and forearm constantly and if you can trap the opponent's arm for a split second the knife should already be there for the disabling cut. They didn't employ this strategy at all. As far as their stance goes I've been taught to stay light on your toes, circling your opponent, moving in and out and leading only with the point of the blade. Not bending over, leading with your head, your empty hand or your leg. Always keeping the pointy end pointed at your opponent assures that if they rush you they'll impale themselves. One more thing they didn't address because no one got cut, is that any type of cut causes the body to go into shock and with each slice the the brain of the injured person slows them down and likely make them pass out.
Fun fact; "May your knife chip and shatter" is them saying "May you die", because a crys-knife is kept sharp and durable by being kept near your body's electrical field according to Dune Lore. A crys-knife kept near your body won't chip or shatter, because a sandworm consumes a lot of rock, and their teeth are thus made to eat rocks, very hard to break.
@@MrBlaktoe I forget if it's after hearing Jamis's curse, but I remember Paul considers that. The line is something like "...he didn't know the breaking [tension?] of this blade, didn't even know if it *could* be broken". Can't remember if they said breaking strength/tension/strain/point; I think ultimate breaking strain is what real-life nerds say.
If I was about to have a knife shoved through my face and the only way to stop it was to grab the blade, _I would grab the blade._ It isn't a lightsaber, it wouldn't vaporize my hand. Especially if I was wearing gloves like Paul here, the blade didn't even cut him.
I worked with a Vietnam War vet and he had a nasty scar on the palm of his left hand. He got it when an enemy charged out of the bush with his bayonet and all the guy had time to do was grab it and hold on long enough to get his own knife out and end the fight.
Cool fights, looks like the main character definitely could of used some lighter shoes, and had his hands a little lower in his starting stance at 17:30 with a little more movement if we're gonna go snake style instead of fencing style with knives though? Or at least like your about to kick him in the face in a higher stance or back up easier myself, and probably not a 90° right and left foot orientation in my fencing stance either like karate or even after doing a knifehand block first I think? As snake would obviously be too fast with a lighter slash to his outstretched fencing wrist from a low dart and half cutting his hand off with my tantos though? And try not to run at the guy with a shank at his side and then get chased with your backturned like that prison video, and circle to the right and offside and then back and confuse the opponent, or catch the wrist and bringing the arm behind the back can be good with some backhands sometimes?
It's sweet to hear he knows about FMA. The part of this information that is not emphasized is that the fighting scenes in Dune are BALINTAWAK Eskrima based choreography. Balintawak is usually teached and practiced with 1 single stick, and not with a bladed weapon. It is in the core of FMA that you can use almost anything with the FMA moves, either edged or blunt weapons. I think the owner of the channel is pretty familiar with all these (and probably much more as well), so I am not sure why this was not taken into consideration.
One thing about the fighting at 10:35 to 10:58 is that every pause Paul had a killing blow whether it was a stab to a kidney, a slash to the neck, or a stab under the arm to the lung. So yeah it looked to us like it was just theatre patty cake, the reality was it was Paul demonstrating his superiority to Jamis also hence Stilgars question to Jessica if Paul was toying with him.
4:30 Yes and no, against Fremen, a slice on the stillsuit can be just as deadly as actually penetrating the skin, since the stillsuits regulate water and without a fully functioning stillsuit you'll be dead from dehydration in a short span of time, unless you have friends nearby with reserves. I'd imagine on Arrakis, the Fremen would have learned how to target the weak points in the stillsuit just as much as how to actually hurt the person inside.
In the book, and the miniseries, Paul and Jamis fought in a sealed chamber with stilsuits removed. Also, in the book, it is mentioned that the nerve root of the tooth leaves a hollow track from the tip and is typically filled with poison. Jessica caught on to this with Mapes when presented with her knife, as it needed to be blooded before resheathing, and at first had the point going in for the cut, but Mapes gave a sign that Jessica's training caught and then turned it to the edge. Which made Mapes believe even more in the prophecy. They really underutilized the use of poisons in the movies. In the books, they're are so much more uses. Like Paul getting stabbed in Part 2 by Feyd, that didn't happen in the book, and the gladiator scene earlier explained that Feyd uses a poisoned blade, and in Part 2 Feyd uses his own dagger, not the Emperor's.
@@Laarye just one correction; Feyd did use the Emperor’s knife, but he had a hidden poison needle or small blade built into his suit. That he could deploy when needed.
@ In the book he tried to use the needle, but he failed and Paul turned him around sort of flipping him onto the ground stabbing his crysknife under his chin into his brain, killing Feyd.
11:33 i think that is or is supposed to be an indication that jamis have already lost his shit and basically accepted his fate in a sense, there's no will to fight in him any more
yes, and wanted to add it shows Jamis has depleted moves Paul does not have a response to. It looks rote because the fight is done and there is nothing more to say. The dialogue is over
A Balintawak guy here, yeah for cinematic purposes they used more slashes than thrusting... which we do have and which I would be using more in such a situation. And no attempts at intercepting incoming attacks, blade vs wrist, etc. But I really liked the intricacies of their choreo with the very active checking hand due to Balintawak
Also. Paul pulled his own knife out of himself to stab Feyd. Fred's knife doesn't get deflected and Paul pulls it out of himself after Feyd collapses. Edit: I meant Feyd not Fred, but it's too funny to change.
You mentioned wanting to get up off the ground in a knife fight. While I would generally agree, I recently say a show where they tested various martial artists in various scenarios. The defend against a knife attack scenario was very interesting. Most failed rather spectacularly. One fellow did simply drop to his back and defended himself with his feet. Thus preventing fatal cuts to his torso. This was a timed trial, and only the attacker had the knife, but I thought quite an interesting result. It was in the second season of the show Ultimate Self-Defense Championship. Worth a watch.
That show didn't consider cuts or stabs to the legs. Nice shirts but nothing for the legs. They even had to think for a while before considering a face/eye stab an stopping wound. That's a nice show, improving every season. Pulling guard against an standing knife armed opponent is silly. Both statements are true and not conflicting against each other.
I never really understood the never go to the ground mantra. It’s a bit like saying never get punched or never get stabbed. You don’t always have a choice.
It ignored the most fatal cut and that is the femoral artery. You will die in seconds. Staying on your back and giving the attacker that target as a gift is very, very foolish
Loved the fights in Dune. If you ask me, they found a very good balance between realism/authenticity and more theatrical moves / making things slow enough so the typical audience can mostly tell what's going on.
Yeah iirc the martial arts in the Dune films are mostly based on Balintawak Eskrima which is a Filipino Martial Arts school; the Atreides salute is a variation/modification of a common FMA salute. Would be cool if you could've also checked out the Arena fight between Feyd and the Atreides prisoner, since the latter was played by Roger Yuan who was the fight coordinator for the two films
Come on, Matt, killing with the point lacks artistry! (It's a book reference, not actual criticism, I'm enjoying the video and learning stuff from it, as usual.)
@@BakunauaX2435 Gurney, one of the characters and a weapons master, thinks slashes are more 'romantic' than stabs. It makes enough sense- slashes are more dramatic and cool looking than an efficient, no nonsense shank. Its partly to characterise that he's a warrior, but also an artist.
11:00 I don't think this is a fair criticism. The point of that exchange is that Paul keeps going for a killing blow and stopping intentionally and Jamis is stopping because he can't comprehend why Paul hasn't killed him (and then grows with rage each time because he thinks he's being made fun of). So this ''sticky-hands'' type of exchange is completely intentional on Paul's part and unintentional (and infuriating) for Jamis.
OLDBOY. It has the only scene I've ever seen depicting one guy taking on 10 or so at the same time that was even remotely believable. So, Mr. Easton, I would love your opinion on the famous hallway fight scene and the hero's tactical use of, well, a framing hammer.
Yes! That hallway fight is incredible (and was used as the basis for one of the coolest setpieces in Sifu, which is a game made of amazing setpiece fights).
@a-blivvy-yus hell yea. I just love how the scene was shot at such a flat straight angle to that hallway.. that director really wanted to make the scene plausible and pulled it off as far as I'm concerned
An important point missed with the finish of the Jamis fight is that -- if you read the book -- you'll know that Paul predicted that Jamis would switch his knife hand as he charged in, meaning he could get past Jamis' guard and safely attck him on the opposite side. So that's my critique of this video: A huge amount of this fight is informed not just by real life knife doctrine but the _internal psychology and observations_ of the characters as made accessibly by the original Dune novel as the source text. Very pivotal to understanding how this fight was planned and executed and why the stillsuits were used even though it would in many ways be sacrilidge even in context.
Is there anything to the thought that a reason why there is so much slashing is, yes, it looks more dramatic, but also is far less likely to end up in a serous injury if a choreography mistake is made? I’d think even prop weapons jabbed in a vulnerable spot could be quite painful, damaging or even deadly.
I have heard that's a concern - a retracting prop knife that jams and fails to retract is suddenly a real threat of impaling someone, while a slash with a dull blade might score the skin, but isn't going to kill someone.
Speaking of slashing, in Finland in the 19th century there was a so-called Häjyjä. They have often been romanticized, they were actually a group of idle robbing and raping young men. Their weapon was a knife, puukko, a Finnish multipurpose knife, which was much better suited for precise woodworking than e.g. Bovie knife. But at least according to the stories, they specifically slashed the targets of their violence, as stabbing could lead to death (and a prison sentence, which was sometimes served in Siberia). Slashing was done with the index finger placed on top of the blade to prevent too deep cuts. According to the family story of one of my acquaintances, they got their surname Tuikkanen because they didn't really know how to cut, but they stabbed (Tuikkanen means something the same as stinging). And get certain consequences.
Great video! I quite like the way Paul moved in that second duel, especially things like that corkscrew flip he did. The thing with Paul is that he's a very skilled practitioner of Prana Bindu, so he has not only great strength and agility but also a superhuman level of control over his body. So movements and tactics that a normal person might not want to risk are fairly easy for him to pull off, and I like how that aspect seems to have been represented. I've done a similar defensive kick out of reflex before, and have seen the concept in at least one historical source, so it's viable.
Dune is one of my very favorite books! One thing to note: Paul Muad'Dib is fully immersed in Fremen culture during his duel with Feyd Rautha. He fights alongside the Fedaykin. Herbert based the Fremen on Bedouin, and while there were certain artistic licenses taken for dramatic on-screen effect, I wonder how Arab fighting styles might be represented.
I do really enjoy you’re film fight breakdowns. And I’d certainly like to see more. Rob Roy is one of my favourite. Couple others to recommend The Mark of Zorro (Tyrone Powers/Basil Rathbone) The Duelists (Harvey Keital/Keith Carridine) The Deluge (Daniel Olbrychski/Tadeusz Łomnicki) Scaramouche (Stewart Granger/Mel Ferrer)
Both duels in the books were almost entirely without clothing. Only wearing something like a loincloth or trunks. Any emphasis on slashing may have had come from a need to reference the books while for whatever reason having the duels fully clothed in the movies.
Fun tidbit: if you go frame by frame during the sequence where Paul gets stabbed with his own blade, you’ll see during the standup grappling portion that Paul actually is about to lock Feyd’s arm before Paul’s left hand mysteriously withdraws until he gets stabbed with his own blade. Its blink and you’ll miss it, but for the sake of choreography, Timothy had to give up the superior position and totally withdraw his left arm for no reason to make the redirect and stab possible 😂
Matt, on the salute and curse. The fight choreographer is a student of my instructor. The salute is actually the reverse of a salute used in sparring. The blade over forehead "3rd eye" symbolizes that we wish to learn from the experience. Cupping the hilt with tip pointed towards the sky symbolizes that no blood will be shed. Interesting they reversed the order. However, in the Philippines there is a separate salute to challenge to a killing duel. "May thy knife chip and shatter" i believe is from the source material. But ilustrisimo often did curses before duels in real life. My wife is thai and wai kru has a similar protective curse aspect also
I was training in the Inosanto system back in the 90’s. And we were told there is a difference between “slash” and “cutting” with a blade. We were also taught how to “thrust slash” using the point of the knife. Practicing the angle drills.
The chip and shatter has a meaning in the book. The Crysknife is unbreakable, until the owner of the blade dies. The blades are tied to the life force of the its owner, and when he dies then it loses its strength and can be broken.
Something you probably haven't considered in the analysis is that crysknives are much sharper than any modern day blade in existence, able to cut through even protective gear with a slashing cut. Crysknives are functionally different from the kindjals used by the soldiers of the Imperium, which are purposed for shield fighting. A shorter blade was sometimes used in accompaniment with the kindjal, called a slip-tip, which was often poisoned.
This knife pairing is seen in Feyd's gladiator set presented to him. I'm pretty certain in the book they talk about one or both of the knives being poisoned.
@@pork-the-fork In the novel, Feyd-Rautha 'borrows' his knife from the Emperor because the blade is coated with a soporific that is supposed to slow down the victim and essentially soften him up without making it too obvious that poison is being used. It's a nice, dastardly touch that (IIRC) is missing from not only Villeneuve's movie but also Lynch's.
"May thy blade chip and shatter" Has a specific Femen meaning, the Crysknife is made from the tooth of a worm, they are Infact basically indestructible, and don't ever chip or shatter. they are razor sharp but primarily they are a stabbing weapon and 5he Fremen fight this way. Also not inspired by Kris style blades, but named for the Crystaline material the knives are made of, also the blades are maintained by the electrical field of the owner, and will degrade over time if not in regular contact/presence of a owner. Special preperations are made when a knife is put in storage. "May thy blade chip and shatter" It is a blessing in a fremen duel, saying "i hope you are able to hit me so hard your knife brakes" (which they never do) Its not that femen knives are fragile so they have to adapt their style to avoid breaking them.
This is more complicated than a simple review, but I would love to see how you would make a sword fight version of my favorite fight scene of all time. I'm talking about the Robert Downy Jr's bare knuckles fight in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. The reason I love the scene so much is that it gets around the classic problem of fight choreography, that you've talked about many times. Normally, a realistic fight between skilled fighters still looks sloppy, and is hard for the audience to follow, let alone gain any understanding of plot or character development. So I'd love to see you choreograph a short, skillful sword fight, with the slow-mo version giving you time to explain the nuances involved, and then the full speed version still showing all of the things you described in the blink of an eye. (If anyone else feels like taking a stab at this, please reply to this post with your results!)
John Wick (the first movie in the kitchen scene) when he is struggling with a guy, hits the back of his knife to stab it into his opponent. So some movies do show that.
In the books, duels are fought without wearing still suits (valuable equipment), and the water of the loser goes to the winner. In part, this is to replenish water lost during the combat....
Good analysis. Also: as someone who has read the books, I knew that Paul would get stabbed the moment that the emperor gave his weapon to Feyd. Because the Harkonnen poison their weapons, while the emperor does not. So it is "safe" to get stabbed with the emperors knife, which leads to more drama in the fight. I'm not the only one who figured that out.
As someone that has studied fma as part of my overall martial arts training (and I also do hema) a VERY common misconception is that it contains mainly slashing cuts. This is unequivocally untrue. While initially a student is taught 8 angles of attack, of which 3 are thrusts. As you gain experience, you are taught to thrust those angles both in a regular grip, and in an "ice pick" grip. Most people don't get past the initial training stage to get to espada è daga, or daga training. But there is MUCH more to fma than just slashing
Just as a random note. In the fight with Feyd Rautha, i'm pretty sure Paul pulls the knife from his own stomach and uses that to finish off Feyd after diverting the dagger in his right hand. As you can see the final knife is in his left hand. Anyway just thought it would be a helpful FYI :) Edit : After re-watching i'm now 100% sure on this. Matt if you see this, are there any documented events of individuals pulling blades from their body to dispatch an opponent?
Besides fight choreography reasons, the use of the edge over the point could be cultural based on the novel. In the high culture of the Imperium the use of the point is considered crude, the edge artful - a detail Frank Herbert borrowed from the fighting practices of the Caucasus as described in Sabres of Paradise. But Paul's instructors considered survival more important than art, and taught him how to kill with the point when necessary. I could be wrong but I also recall the Fremen consider stabbing disrespectful because crysknives sometimes contain a well-tip full of poison, which you'd only use on someone whose water you consider unworthy of recycling. Not something to be done in a ritual duel, even if your blade isn't poisoned. Would love a breakdown of the gladiator fight on Giedi Prime.
They used the "stickyhands" bit I think to show that Paul is just reading the fight like he knows the outcome already (he does, he's seen all the outcomes where he dies and knows the path forward, even though it isn't a Clear Picture) something that generally real people don't have that kind of advantage.
Still-suits, to the best of my knowledge, are NOT "armor". They're a life support system. Slashing someone's life support system, which would compromise the catch-pockets, which held reclaimed water would *absolutely* make sense as a tactic. Even if you don't kill the opponent outright, you could still doom them to die by virtue of rendering their life support system useless.
Sure, but what does it matter if they die hours later, when they will have plenty of opportunity to kill you before that?! Damaging the still suit is not like a wound that will actually hamper them during the fight. Also, if they know that they're gonna die anwyay, this might make them more aggressive as they would be bent on revenge, so they would be less concerned about a double as long as they can take you with them.
Having studied FMA it should be known the Spanish Influence in blade fighting had a huge influence on Phillipines and weapon culture. They have a blade culture not gun culture and my advise is if you see a Phillipino with a knife “Run”!
I was one in a drunken conversation with a bloke who was much bigger then me, he was a former body builder and would have KO'd me with one punch. He was telling a story about this time a "midget" as he said started mouthing off to him on the train and that he was just sitting there thinking "Bro, I'm far bigger then you and you want to fight!". I replied with "muscle isn't everything in a fight if you don't know how to use it!", he then told me that he was a brown belt in Karate and pushed his chest out. I took a sip of my beer and just calmly said" Filipino martial artist" and his chest deflated faster then a car tyre that just ran over the police spike strips! FMA has a reputation for a reason and as you said, if you ever encounter a FMA practitioner you should run. It doesn't matter if we have a weapon in our hands or not because we train to utilize anything as a weapon but we also have one of the more deadly empty hand systems.
I'm absolutely all for more dagger or knife content: be it legal cases, historical accounts, movie/tv/book reviews, "what if" questions, or treatises. Bonus points if you get excuses to show off some channel favourites like the Bowie knife, kukri, navaja, or Fairbairn Sykes.
The crysknife is made from a sandworm tooth ... and is an Original Frank Herbert name But it was probably named by him after the Kris ... But the ones in the film don't match the book description very well The ones in the book are are stabbing weapons ... The knife that Paul was trained with were slashing weapons All knives in the books are often poisoned In the books nobody wears actual armour ... either they use holtzmann shields and ordinary clothes, or still suits ... all the fighting styles require full movement, and the weapons used will either go through any armour as if it wasn't there, or layers of clothing will do almost as well
This has always confused me: can the full-body shields not protect the user from the blast caused by the exploding shield of another shield user, if the former shoots the latter with a lasgun?
@@Vlad_Tepes_III This ain't your average grenade size explosion. It's more off a nuclear size explosion. Hence everyone agreeing on melee fights. No one is going to survive that.
I generally agree about not wanting to end up on the ground but i have to admit that 'Jordan Teaches Jiu-jitsu' gave an incredible performance of pulling guarding then using leg locks and upkicks against an aggressive attacker with a weapon in the shank tank (simulated knife defence exercise) on the latest series of the Ultimate Self Defence Championships.
I have done iai, iaido, iaijitsui, kendo, and Kenjitsui and one of my sensei did escrima. In order to not to damage the blade edge the back of the blade to block or re-direct, also often the knife is used backwards so the blade protects the wrist and the hilt is often used to hitting and sometimes the psycho stabbing motion is used. I understand the slashing motion which you are correct about is necessary to get into a position to stab even in samurai styles mainly kendo and Kenjitsui, iaido and iaijitsui. Another technique is to slide down the opponents blade to cut the hands..
Slashes don’t necessarily equate to cutting. In thick clothing or armor the purpose is more like striking and manipulating the limb. A good knife is essentially an iron truncheon when slicing can’t penetrate
Just the fact that the blades don't make an audible ringing or swishing noise with every move was a great improvement compared to the usual hollywood knife fight/attack scenes. The scenes were appropriately suspenseful and dramatic. Fit the tone of the movies very well.
What I like about Paul fighting Feyd Rautha is that they use the grounded stuff to pay off the outlandish stuff: it respects the intelligence even of viewers who don't know anything about martial arts by saying, "We're not throwing this stuff in because we don't know how fights work -- we'll _prove_ we know how fights work, and then we'll work this Street Fighter nonsense in because it's rad and we're all here to be entertained." It's effective use of lampshading which is an important area where technical understanding and storytelling play off each other and getting it wrong prevents the two from coming together to tell an engaging fightscene. Another factor ignored here is prescience: Paul is a kwisatz haderach and Feyd is pretty close to being one himself, which means both of these fighters can effectivly see the future. So dragging his blade acorss Feyds armor might _look_ pointless, but it may actually have been pivotal to causing events to play out in Paul's favor. Obviously the story can't lean on this too much so as not to strain the credulity of even the most naive viewer, but that is going on in the background here. This fight is properly understood not just as a knife duel but a war of two incredibly enhanced minds. That is what makes this a _science fiction_ knifefight, not a medieval knifefight or a Phillipeno machete duel. Just having a good knife fight isn't the only concern here because it needs things to set it apart and project it into the science fiction/fantasy world of Dune. So in this weird sort of way, Paul failing to cut through Feyd's armor is how this fight becomes something akin to a lightsaber duel, but it does it very subtly and without any actual sci-fi armaments being used by appealing to internal psychology in a way that a film isn't strictly capable of as a visual medium, but it makes that leap of faith anyway. The main game changer in how this film is made is that Dune beileved in Frank Herbert's novel and trusted it to essential take the weight of things the movie could never support on it's own and just pray that the audience cares enough. The effect of this shines through even if the viewer doesn't have the required context; you can just sence that something is there even though you literally can't see or hear it.
One of the things overlooked when discussing the slashing moves among the Fremen is that a slash can damage the ability of the stillsuit to function correctly and kill the wearer as surely as a thrust.
The cuts to the suit in this environment could conceivably be almost as bad as cuts to the body in a medium term. If your still suit is damaged, you're going to die of dehydration. So while not fight ending in itself, it is not entirely a pointless threat to attack the armor in their case
That's a very good point, but I feel the Fremen would never do that as it is wasteful and lacks honour. If I remember, the Jamis fight in the book is fought out of stillsuits (happy to be corrected, my old brain isn't as sharp as it once was)
Suggestion: please review the shorter fights in Scaramouche. They're textbook fencing, and there's also some interesting training methods featured in there.
With the first fight, the 'static' nature was supposed to be, in part -- intentional. The 'champion' had already seen/done the fight countless times (in a way) with that opponent and didn't want to have to have the guy die (again).
Jams final feint is to switch hands behind his back. A trick seen in real combat and I think taught to soldiers in WW2. I've seen it done in historical fencing as well. Paul stepping off line and passing instead of trying to block the attack is both negating what hand Jams holds the knife and Paul finally fighting for real, with full mobility and so he ends it in one final move in a passing stab.
Dive knives usually have some kind of "snap in" retention and push button release on the scabbard. They are routinely carried upside down (e.g. on a bcd strap). They're also not generally considered to be fighting knives. They're more for safety or for spear fishing.
It's set thousands of years in the future. Technology able to traverse the galaxy. Pretty sure they could invent a sheath that the knife wouldn't fall out of. Magnetised or whatever.
From a story telling perspective, the fight scenes in Dune are extremely powerful, and I'm not talking about the dialogue. Jamis views Paul as a weakling who is not strong enough to survive. He is not threatened by him. It's easy to take Jamis' offer to kill Paul quickly as some attempt to psychologically dominate him, however that's not the intention. He's sincerely telling him that he's too weak to survive and offering him a quick death. So looking at the very beginning of the fight you can see that in the stance which he chooses. He offers Paul a handicap and when Paul fails to capitalize on the handicap, Jamis takes what could be considered a dishonorable or cheap shot as he launches a powerful offensive. It's visible as they exchange blows that Jamis realizes that he was wrong and he has misunderstood that this is a powerful warrior. This change happens about the time that Paul knocks Jamis to the ground for the first time. His attacks become more fierce and more focused on power hoping to overpower the young warrior whom he recognizes as having superior skill. Paul exploits one of his power moves for a kill and asks if he yields which is a tremendous insult in a fight to the death. There is no way to recover your honor from that. If you win, you still lost your honor and if you lose, it was clear that you were so outmatched that they had to offer you mercy. You can see him recognize this and his frustration and rage vent as Paul begins to dominate him exchange after exchange. The cut scene to the mother explaining that Paul has never killed a man changes the arc entirely. Jamis is defeated, now Paul has to fight himself and make the decision to take life. This is foreshadowed by his visions and experiences. It transforms this fight from an action scene into a major plot point of the entire story and it's done so beautifully.
Love your video and analysis, it was Dune the novel that inspired me to study FS gutter fighting. Small point of order though, the books describe the tooth of a sandstorm as serrated, a rough natural material, the sheaths are made of sandworm skin.lined with natural hemp fibres..So the sheath would stick to the blade like velcro....There is little chance of dropping it...indeed in the books if an offworlder sees a crysknife they have to be killed ,it's religious heresy... if the knife is ever drawn it needs blood on the blade to settle it back into its sheath, so the fremen cut themselves if needed, this preserves the blade integrity
What Paul does at the end is not deflecting Feyda's blade to stab him with it. But rather deflect it away from his vital organs with one hand only and still gets stabbed, as a diversion, while he takes off the blade that he was initially stabbed with and stabs him in a vital organ.
Erm, if you're being slashed at - especially towards the unguarded face, it's going to put you on the defensive. If you fail to defend, then the arm can be extended into a stab at he face, and whilst it's unlikely to be fatal, it's going to cause an ungodly amount of pain, and is likely to cause enough of an opening to allow a fatal stab, whereas committing to the thrust from the outset is slower in delivery and recovery and if unsuccessful, opens the hands and wrists to slashes the which is also a fight ender in most cases. When your own hands and wrists are relatively unprotected like this, using a slash to provoke a defensive reaction can give an opportunity to deliver a cut or even a thrust to the hand or wrist. If you can push your opponent back defensively, there is a possibility of them stumbling and then the arms reflexively go back opening the ribs and abdomen, but closer than that, the groin and femoral artery and vein.
Since the still suit is Very carefully crafted containing Numerous tiny flexible pipes... A slash that could cleanly sever a very great number of them in one strike, Could be effective within the context of How utterly vital a working stillsuit is to survival on the surface of Arrakis. If your opponent is taking damage to the functionality of their suit, it Could force them into a more defensive (worried) position... Which could allow you to dictate quite a bit in the fight. (No idea if thats valid, but... It feels like it fits the canon)
Its not just dramatic effect to favor slashing over stabbing, but its actually a safety issue. THere are a lot of ways to film a slashing move and have the actors never close enough to ever get hit by each other. Film it at a slight angle and the subjects look like they are up close and personal when in reality they are 5 away from each other. There are a lot less techniques when it comes to thrusting and stabbing attacks. You have less options with filming a stab at certain angles to make it look dangerous but be completely safe and the nature of a thrust or stab is that its an attack that closes distance. Your subjects can be far enough apart from each other to be out of danger, but one subjects accidentally moves forward during the time they are supposed to move backward, they can easily run the prop weapon and get seriously injured depending of the speed of the choreo and the stiffness of the prop weapon. It's why in Kung Fu movies when you see someone using a pole arm and or a spear in a kung fu movie there is often a focus on the part of the sequence that features one of the subjects dodging a ton of thrusting attacks. Its a special set piece to showcase the talent of the films stunt performers and to make sure they get every dollars worth out of the sequence, because stabs and thrusts require all parties involved to be at their A game.
The duel with Jamis was significantly altered from the books: originally it was fought in loinclothes, not stillsuits, which the story decided to forego for sake of pacing/structure. So you could argue they Villeneuve had to treat this like an unarmored knife duel to limit the scope of the changes he was introducing to the source text. That doesn't really turn aside any critiques on the use of the stillsuits, but it does supply some context.
When I saw it in the cinema, I was a little confused by the ending of the second fight shown here, due to the way it was edited. I think they had to be careful about how much wound detail they showed in order to get the film passed as a 12A/ PG-13 and keep the teen audience, so it ended up being a little unclear what had happened. It's much more obvious seeing Matt play it back with pauses and commentary. Fantastic films.
one thing to note in the book they did not fight with the still suits on when doing a ritual fight/dual. The damage to a still suit would spill and lose precious water. its also why the winner was gifted the losers water.
To comment on your so-called qualifications. You are far better qualified than you think. I would be willing to put money on the fact that, unlike most, you have probably been in a lot of fights with bladed weaponry, even if it's just sparing. Study is one thing. Putting it into practice is another. I studied military history and tactics when I was a kid. Then I joined the US Marines and found that out lol
He also worked with the UK Home Office regarding knife wounds/knife defense, so he has institutional experience as well. Probably why he mentions CCTV footage of "real fights" that would have shown up on public cameras
@tylerphuoc2653 Like I said, he is more qualified than he leads us to believe. He is too humble for his own good 😆. I've been following him ever since Drach did a collaboration video with him.
19:45 To your point, it does look like Paul is thrusting (and aiming for the less armored midsection) whereas Feyd is the one mainly slashing and maybe he’s just assuming a metal blade would work well enough against a stillsuit.
Hey Matt, thanks for doing this breakdown, loved it (as much as the movie). I am a BJJ practitioner and realize the limits of the art, pretty sure all of us do (and they cross-train). I also did HEMA fencing before. The "kick" to the overarm (or the shoulder for the matter) is a thing we do a lot, it is a part of techniques and we learn to do it consistently, i find it perfectly plausible. Also the arm twists are correct imo. I'd do some rolls too :D to retreat or attack from below but would be comical XD Cant wait to try some of these in the summer with my HEMA friends.
Movie fights I want to see discussed: 1. The yari duel in A Hidden Fortress. 2. The waterfall fights from the original Black Panther. Definitely fights that would make for good opportunities for crossovers with other RUclips personalities that might have more understanding of the specific styles being discussed.
Not a fan of dramatic leg sweeps in fight choreography, but that one was a beaut, it felt like it had good speed and momentum and was timed for maximum surprise. Rewatching the second fight has me appreciating it far more than the initial impression it gave at the cinema... which is an odd failing of film-making to make.
You should check out "King Arthur" 2004. I remember it being pretty good, though it was a long time ago when I knew less. Should be some interesting stuff to pick apart in there.
There's a trick in the name "crysknife." It is constructed to evoke the SE Asian Kris, but the word also reflects that the fact that the knife is made an organic crystalline material derived from the sand worm's teeth. Thus the curse hoping that your knife will chip and shatter.
What you also have to remember with movie sword/knife fights is that you're not trying to kill your opponent. And as such, in an interview I once saw with a stunt Director he explained that: cuts and slashes for safety sake weren't aimed at the body but at the sword and thrusts were aimed in such a way that a block would force the weapon away from any point of contact. Until makeup or special effects took over for the kill or wounding camera shot.
Bald: check
Expert with bladed weapons: check
You know... Matt might be a Harkonnen.
Calling the Harkonnens "experts" with bladed weapons might be a bit of an overstatement...
@@VideoMask93 looks like we found an Atreides.
Do the Harkonnen deeply appreciate the butt or penetration to the same degree? Besides Feyd. And probably his Uncle.
😂😂👍🏻
@@VideoMask93 Feyd was pretty good.
In the first fight they probably also tried to take Paul's shield training into account. In the book it's mentioned that he often slows down his attacks, as you have to when fighting shields, but that's interpreted by the fremen as cruely "toying"
Yes, they really didn't adapt the book fights well, IMHO.
I thought of it more as showing that when push came to shove, Paul was a VASTLY superior fighter than his opponent, to the point that he COULD essentially play patty cakes with him.
E.g. if I, someone who has zero experience, were to spar with Matt, I'd honestly be surprised if the skill gap wouldn't allow Matt to play sticky hands with me.
And, again the way I'm interpreting it, it also explains why Paul was so reluctant to actually kill him, because Paul didn't see it as anything even remotely close to being a fair fight. He didn't end the fight until Stilgar points out that there is only one way to end the fight and that Paul should stop toying with him.
@MrMartinSchou maybe that's the intention in the movie, which I actually haven't seen yet.
In the books (if I remember correctly, it's been a while) we see the scene through the eyes of Paul's mother. And for one she's not sure if he actually is capable of killing someone (as it is his very first real fight) and she's seeing that he attacks as his opponent if wearing a shield (which is what he was training to do)
They explicitly didn't in the movie for this fight. The whole arc of Paul getting a little too cocky after the fight and a little too comfortable with killing someone never shows up in the film. He's just kinda portrayed as scared and wimpy at this point.
Good movies overall, but they definitely took a lot of liberties with Paul's character and development.
You actually hear someone say that Paul is playing with his opponent, and (at least in the book) this is how Paul's shield training manifests.
“Gurney says there’s no artistry in killing with the tip, that it should be done with the edge.”
“Gurney’s a romantic,” the Duke growled. This talk of killing suddenly disturbed him, coming from his son. “I’d sooner you never had to kill…but if the need arises, you do it however you can-tip or edge.”
“Gurney Halleck’s words were there to remember: “The good knife fighter thinks on point and blade and shearing-guard simultaneously. The point can also cut; the blade can also stab; the shearing-guard can also trap your opponent’s blade.””
“Killing with the point lacks artistry,” Idaho had once told Paul, “but don’t let that hold your hand when the opening presents itself."
Quoting to explain ftw. Also needed to mention that they stripped the suits before the flight to avoid wasting valuable suits. Both the training and that detail would've made the slashing make full sense
Well, I will have you know that I'm a master of the art of 'just the tip'.
All groovy till someone slits your tendons causing you to drop your weapon.
Great thing about Dune is that melee makes perfect sense in the lore. I wish all movies used armor or a shield, or regeneration. Something to give reasons on why heroes are avoiding death instead of giving the enemy Storm Trooper aim.
Even John Wick
@@dianapennepacker6854 Ah, was treating you like a grown up, but then you come out with a reference to that puerile childish nonsense.
@@dianapennepacker6854 that's why we wear protective layers, though.
Dune's melee makes sense... but the rest of the lore about the shields causing a nuclear explosion? Absurd. Sounds like the worst engineering oversight ever, or a really idiotic way to make a sci-fi novel into a fantasy novel.
If you were deep in the desert away from sietch, a cut up stillsuit, while not immediately lethal, would mean a slow death unless you could repair your stillsuite... So, cuts on Arrakis could have consequences not seen here on Earth.
and that's why in the books the fremen undress for their duells
@Kroiznacher Exactly! I was going to come back and say this...
Thos villainuveau films are stupid on so many levels ...
Not stupid but streamlined so loosing nuance.
Good point but damaging someone stillsuit isn't gonna stop them attacking you.
Just a note, on the second fight's ending, Paul allows the second blade to plunge into his shoulder, at the same time retrieving the other blade from his body and using it to stab the guy. He doesn't divert the blade back.
Thank you. Thanks what I thought too.
Yeah, that's what I thought happened
Also my interpretation. Great to get verification. :)
would have been nice to actually be able to SEE what happened lol. matts version is cooler.
@@ShagShaggio Or they pan back and BOTH daggers are sticking out of Feyd... and a third and fourth one for some reason...
one detail in the book i like with the Jamis duel, is Paul takes a bit of time to get used to fight against an unshielded opponent, he is really fast on the defence but keeps missing Jamis because he slows to account for the shield that's not there.
as I recall they also take stillsuits off for the fight
I had never realised this before, but I don't think the fight ends the way you say it does.
Feyd stabs Paul in Paul's left side with his own knife, and then tries to stab him.
Paul grabs the blade with his right hand, and then redirects it.
But we see after this that Paul's left hand has stabbed Feyd with Paul's Knife (the one that was in his own side)
And afterwards we see Paul draw Feyd's knife out of his own right shoulder.
So Paul redirected Feyd's knife into his shoulder with his right hand while drawing out the knife in his own side and stabbing Feyd with the left.
Yep this was always my interpretation as well. Paul's initial stab wound is to his left torso. When Feyd falls away, Paul has a knife in his left hand, and is stabbed in the right shoulder. There is no knife in his torso.
So Paul allowed Feyd to stab him in the shoulder/chest and used that moment to take his own knife from his belly and to stab Feyd with it.
Yep I had to go look at it in the 4k short to verify what you said but you are absolutely right.. he redirected Feyds back into Feyd and stabbed him with his own knife with his other hand at the same time.
I think here we see the story telling in action, Feyd's cruelty, wanting to prolong the fight and torture Paul with the "inevitable" outcome, is the very thing which gives Paul the opening to end the fight and fits the story-telling very well.
I don’t known whether it’s a good or bad thing that it’s caused so much debate. The clarity was lacking in the scene
@@GreenTimeEagle the fights were definitely too poorly lit.
The choreo Roger Yuan worked into the Dune films has been, in my opinion, some of the very best in film history, and I’m very thankful he had a director with the restraint to not ruin it with shaky cam and cutting.
In the books we see swords and knives used commonly on Arrakis bc shields couldn’t be used, as they would call the worms and send them into a frenzy. Additionally shooting laser based weapons and shields caused a type of nuclear explosion, so we don’t see lasers being used where someone could potentially have a shield. Dart guns and rifles were common in the books. The Atreides soldiers carried Kindjals and push daggers a lot IIRC, where the Harkonens tended to carry longer swords and blunt force weapons. Duncan Idaho is a Ginaz swordmaster too, it was a cool bit of lore when they showed Duncan fighting against Sardaukar troops, as the Ginaz would be some of the few who could stand up to them and win.
This, yes the good lore.
@@titanscerw Indeed! :)
"My sword was blooded in Grumman!"
- Happy Hour Idaho
they also use rapiers right? I kinda remember that.
@Diogolindir Yes
Great breakdown, Matt. I just want to mention a mistake though. The camerawork makes it hard to tell, but the second fight ends with Paul pulling the crysknife from his own body "undercamera" and stabbing Feyd with it, while Feyd is completely focused on stabbing what ends up being Paul's shoulder. If you look at the still from 33:38, you can see the handle in Paul's hand isn't that of the Emperor's dagger. It's more clear in the full clip: when Paul pulls the knife from Feyd's body, you can see the Emperor's blade still in Paul's shoulder.
I came here to say exactly this (though I was sure someone would have beaten me to it)
@@camsy83 Yeah, although I can't fault anybody for missing it. I think it's a small lapse in what is otherwise very good cinematography. I couldn't tell for sure what had happened the first time I saw it. And after I read Matt's description, I had to watch the full scene again just to make sure I wasn't wrong.
It may have already been said, but I think one of the really excellent things about the Paul v Feyd duel is how their family lines and personalities show through. Feyd has likely never truly fought a capable opponent in a fair fight - he has trained with great fighters but only fought in rigged gladiatorial combat. So his fighting style is flashy and showy - I think this is why they have him doing big slashes and thrusts; it looks good from a distance even if it's dangerous in a real fight. When he has Paul at his mercy he chooses to draw the moment out, and savour it, because he is a sadistic psychopath.
Paul has been fighting for his life all day, and is likely exhausted, so he's sloppier than we see him when training or fighting Jamis. He does something Feyd is likely psychologically incapable of doing, which is willingly take a blade to win the fight. He was taught a noble method was best, but to win at any cost when it came to it.
A major theme in the book is also the animals vs humans conjecture; the Harkonnens are held up as examples of people incapable of restraining their animal nature. We see this with Feyd - he shouts, gets angry, gets frustrated when it's not an easy victory, makes mistakes as a result. Paul is silent the whole fight, because he is a human, capable of putting his base instincts aside. That they choreographed these deeper themes into this fight is, in my opinion, brilliant.
With regard to the "sticky hands drill" (~12:00)... one thing to remember is that this is Paul's first actual fight, so him doing things that are like drills would be reasonable
I think the fact it looks like training is also by design. Once paul has jannis figured out, he's not even close to being able to land a strike anymore. Making it look like training shows how outclassed jannis is.
@@russellstephens3580 And Jannis is just acting on rage and arrogance, assuming he can out maneuver Paul without being as defensive as he should have been.
Liam Neeson grabbing Tim Roths blade has lived rent free in my head since I saw it on the big screen. Would love to see you revisit that film!
That is one of my favorite sword fighting scenes in any movie. It just feels so gritty and raw.
It's one of my favorite sword fights as well. It's probably in the top 10 most realistic movie fights with swords.
You comment about both getting stabbed reminds me of a warning from an instructor:
The loser of a knife fight dies in the street
The winner dies in the hospital
As some one whom got stabbed in the hand, and had the artery in it severed. I understand that mentallity. I was lucky i managed to get to the hospital as fast as I did. I lost a LOT of blood, enough to start having tunnel vision and starting to feel faint. So stabb wounds or just even hand wounds can be extremely dangerous. especially towards the wrist in the area of the pinkyfinger in the palm. just slightly abow the ball there. It happened about 7 years ago. my hand still hurts from that day. Don't ever get stabbed in the hand. -10.000.000/10 would not recommend the experience.
I also think some of Fyde's slashes instead of stabs can be explained by the fact that the character belives he is a better fighter. He wants to draw the fight out and savor the kill. Plus, although he has combat experince, but he also fought alot of slaves in the arena. I think his fighting style reflects that.
Feyd is inherently cocky and fights like it, to the point where in the book and the David Lynch movie when he realises Paul is a better fighter and is winning the fight, Feyd tries to cheat and use a hidden blade in his suit to stab Paul.
"There's no artistry in killing with the tip."
Slaves and drugged Attreides with only half-shields and basically naked.
Then it was that one Attreides who wasn't drugged properly (in the movie it's the Baron testing him, in the book it's more likely political infighting in the wider family just below the Baron, maybe even Rabban or Piter behind it.
@@thunder2434 it was orchestrated by the captive Thufir.
When I worked in the ER we saw a fair number of hand wounds when someone using a guardless knife, stabbed another person, hit bone, and the hand rode up onto the blade causing nasty wounds to the palm or fingers.
Thus I’ve always maintained that any sort of dagger or thrust-centric knife should have a guard.
Trained for awhile with a martial scool in Rome thats been around since 1500's and was the last school to organize knife duels in the 1950s, they still train military personnel in knife combat. In both single hand and second hand duels the first rule of knife fighting NO SLASHING. Second rule was DISTANCE, a grapple or close contact almost always ended the duel on the leave. Third rule was dodge not block and keep oval pattern footwork.
I'm glad you mentioned the head being vulnerable because I was going to bring up the fact that most of the slashes and cuts were at the head and throat and that can be very. effective
Matt great breakdown as always. "Defanging the snake" is the #1 goal in Filipino Kali. You slash at the hand, wrist and forearm constantly and if you can trap the opponent's arm for a split second the knife should already be there for the disabling cut. They didn't employ this strategy at all. As far as their stance goes I've been taught to stay light on your toes, circling your opponent, moving in and out and leading only with the point of the blade. Not bending over, leading with your head, your empty hand or your leg. Always keeping the pointy end pointed at your opponent assures that if they rush you they'll impale themselves. One more thing they didn't address because no one got cut, is that any type of cut causes the body to go into shock and with each slice the the brain of the injured person slows them down and likely make them pass out.
Fun fact; "May your knife chip and shatter" is them saying "May you die", because a crys-knife is kept sharp and durable by being kept near your body's electrical field according to Dune Lore. A crys-knife kept near your body won't chip or shatter, because a sandworm consumes a lot of rock, and their teeth are thus made to eat rocks, very hard to break.
Electrical field?
Not quite. A new, untreated, crysknife would need to be kept close to a body, but afterwards could be stored like any other weapon.
Exactly. They are nearly impossible to break. Thus making that pronouncement more akin to a prayer.
Well now that was super useful information. Thanks. I love the movies, but have not read the books. I have the first book on my shelf though.
@@MrBlaktoe I forget if it's after hearing Jamis's curse, but I remember Paul considers that. The line is something like "...he didn't know the breaking [tension?] of this blade, didn't even know if it *could* be broken". Can't remember if they said breaking strength/tension/strain/point; I think ultimate breaking strain is what real-life nerds say.
If I was about to have a knife shoved through my face and the only way to stop it was to grab the blade, _I would grab the blade._ It isn't a lightsaber, it wouldn't vaporize my hand. Especially if I was wearing gloves like Paul here, the blade didn't even cut him.
I worked with a Vietnam War vet and he had a nasty scar on the palm of his left hand. He got it when an enemy charged out of the bush with his bayonet and all the guy had time to do was grab it and hold on long enough to get his own knife out and end the fight.
Cool fights, looks like the main character definitely could of used some lighter shoes, and had his hands a little lower in his starting stance at 17:30 with a little more movement if we're gonna go snake style instead of fencing style with knives though?
Or at least like your about to kick him in the face in a higher stance or back up easier myself, and probably not a 90° right and left foot orientation in my fencing stance either like karate or even after doing a knifehand block first I think? As snake would obviously be too fast with a lighter slash to his outstretched fencing wrist from a low dart and half cutting his hand off with my tantos though? And try not to run at the guy with a shank at his side and then get chased with your backturned like that prison video, and circle to the right and offside and then back and confuse the opponent, or catch the wrist and bringing the arm behind the back can be good with some backhands sometimes?
If this was fully true to the book, they would be fighting in just shorts, not the stillsuits
This
Which is one of the nice details from the 2000 SciFi miniseries with Alec Newman.
@@kemarisiteI'll have to check that out.
Matt: I'm qualified but not an expert.
Also Matt: Proceeds to demonstrate expertise.
I love this guy!
Not many on the planet have as much expertise as him but what, we love him like this, modest.
@@szalaierik It is a fine quality that we don't see enough today.
It's sweet to hear he knows about FMA. The part of this information that is not emphasized is that the fighting scenes in Dune are BALINTAWAK Eskrima based choreography. Balintawak is usually teached and practiced with 1 single stick, and not with a bladed weapon. It is in the core of FMA that you can use almost anything with the FMA moves, either edged or blunt weapons.
I think the owner of the channel is pretty familiar with all these (and probably much more as well), so I am not sure why this was not taken into consideration.
yes, this is a transposition of Balintawak single stick to a blade. Strange that the Author of this video didn't mention that...
One thing about the fighting at 10:35 to 10:58 is that every pause Paul had a killing blow whether it was a stab to a kidney, a slash to the neck, or a stab under the arm to the lung. So yeah it looked to us like it was just theatre patty cake, the reality was it was Paul demonstrating his superiority to Jamis also hence Stilgars question to Jessica if Paul was toying with him.
4:30 Yes and no, against Fremen, a slice on the stillsuit can be just as deadly as actually penetrating the skin, since the stillsuits regulate water and without a fully functioning stillsuit you'll be dead from dehydration in a short span of time, unless you have friends nearby with reserves. I'd imagine on Arrakis, the Fremen would have learned how to target the weak points in the stillsuit just as much as how to actually hurt the person inside.
My thoughts exactly 💯
In the book, and the miniseries, Paul and Jamis fought in a sealed chamber with stilsuits removed. Also, in the book, it is mentioned that the nerve root of the tooth leaves a hollow track from the tip and is typically filled with poison. Jessica caught on to this with Mapes when presented with her knife, as it needed to be blooded before resheathing, and at first had the point going in for the cut, but Mapes gave a sign that Jessica's training caught and then turned it to the edge. Which made Mapes believe even more in the prophecy.
They really underutilized the use of poisons in the movies. In the books, they're are so much more uses. Like Paul getting stabbed in Part 2 by Feyd, that didn't happen in the book, and the gladiator scene earlier explained that Feyd uses a poisoned blade, and in Part 2 Feyd uses his own dagger, not the Emperor's.
@@Laarye just one correction; Feyd did use the Emperor’s knife, but he had a hidden poison needle or small blade built into his suit. That he could deploy when needed.
@@Killjoy170why didn’t he use it?!
scrolled until i found someone mention that the first fight happened in the book without stilsuit, bare skin. thank you.
@ In the book he tried to use the needle, but he failed and Paul turned him around sort of flipping him onto the ground stabbing his crysknife under his chin into his brain, killing Feyd.
11:33 i think that is or is supposed to be an indication that jamis have already lost his shit and basically accepted his fate in a sense, there's no will to fight in him any more
yes, and wanted to add it shows Jamis has depleted moves Paul does not have a response to. It looks rote because the fight is done and there is nothing more to say. The dialogue is over
A Balintawak guy here, yeah for cinematic purposes they used more slashes than thrusting... which we do have and which I would be using more in such a situation. And no attempts at intercepting incoming attacks, blade vs wrist, etc. But I really liked the intricacies of their choreo with the very active checking hand due to Balintawak
Also. Paul pulled his own knife out of himself to stab Feyd. Fred's knife doesn't get deflected and Paul pulls it out of himself after Feyd collapses.
Edit: I meant Feyd not Fred, but it's too funny to change.
Tee hee 'fred'
@kennethg9277 my shame is limitless 🤣
You mentioned wanting to get up off the ground in a knife fight. While I would generally agree, I recently say a show where they tested various martial artists in various scenarios. The defend against a knife attack scenario was very interesting. Most failed rather spectacularly. One fellow did simply drop to his back and defended himself with his feet. Thus preventing fatal cuts to his torso. This was a timed trial, and only the attacker had the knife, but I thought quite an interesting result. It was in the second season of the show Ultimate Self-Defense Championship. Worth a watch.
I see later in the piece you saw the same show !😊
That show didn't consider cuts or stabs to the legs. Nice shirts but nothing for the legs. They even had to think for a while before considering a face/eye stab an stopping wound.
That's a nice show, improving every season. Pulling guard against an standing knife armed opponent is silly. Both statements are true and not conflicting against each other.
I never really understood the never go to the ground mantra. It’s a bit like saying never get punched or never get stabbed. You don’t always have a choice.
@@BigHossHackworth The point is to avoid if possible but be prepared if you absolutely have to
It ignored the most fatal cut and that is the femoral artery. You will die in seconds. Staying on your back and giving the attacker that target as a gift is very, very foolish
Loved the fights in Dune. If you ask me, they found a very good balance between realism/authenticity and more theatrical moves / making things slow enough so the typical audience can mostly tell what's going on.
Yeah iirc the martial arts in the Dune films are mostly based on Balintawak Eskrima which is a Filipino Martial Arts school; the Atreides salute is a variation/modification of a common FMA salute. Would be cool if you could've also checked out the Arena fight between Feyd and the Atreides prisoner, since the latter was played by Roger Yuan who was the fight coordinator for the two films
Come on, Matt, killing with the point lacks artistry!
(It's a book reference, not actual criticism, I'm enjoying the video and learning stuff from it, as usual.)
I don't know what does mean, but It did had artistry. I think you should look into rapier fights
@@BakunauaX2435 Gurney, one of the characters and a weapons master, thinks slashes are more 'romantic' than stabs. It makes enough sense- slashes are more dramatic and cool looking than an efficient, no nonsense shank.
Its partly to characterise that he's a warrior, but also an artist.
11:00 I don't think this is a fair criticism. The point of that exchange is that Paul keeps going for a killing blow and stopping intentionally and Jamis is stopping because he can't comprehend why Paul hasn't killed him (and then grows with rage each time because he thinks he's being made fun of). So this ''sticky-hands'' type of exchange is completely intentional on Paul's part and unintentional (and infuriating) for Jamis.
OLDBOY.
It has the only scene I've ever seen depicting one guy taking on 10 or so at the same time that was even remotely believable. So, Mr. Easton, I would love your opinion on the famous hallway fight scene and the hero's tactical use of, well, a framing hammer.
Yes! That hallway fight is incredible (and was used as the basis for one of the coolest setpieces in Sifu, which is a game made of amazing setpiece fights).
@a-blivvy-yus hell yea. I just love how the scene was shot at such a flat straight angle to that hallway.. that director really wanted to make the scene plausible and pulled it off as far as I'm concerned
I would also recommend "The Raid".
An important point missed with the finish of the Jamis fight is that -- if you read the book -- you'll know that Paul predicted that Jamis would switch his knife hand as he charged in, meaning he could get past Jamis' guard and safely attck him on the opposite side.
So that's my critique of this video: A huge amount of this fight is informed not just by real life knife doctrine but the _internal psychology and observations_ of the characters as made accessibly by the original Dune novel as the source text. Very pivotal to understanding how this fight was planned and executed and why the stillsuits were used even though it would in many ways be sacrilidge even in context.
Is there anything to the thought that a reason why there is so much slashing is, yes, it looks more dramatic, but also is far less likely to end up in a serous injury if a choreography mistake is made?
I’d think even prop weapons jabbed in a vulnerable spot could be quite painful, damaging or even deadly.
I thought the same
It's likely why the thrust to Feid's head was several inches above it.
@@yiarkungfu Safety is likey why the actor's as fuly suited up. instead of just the shorts of the book. Zero forgiveness of a fluffed move in shorts.
I have heard that's a concern - a retracting prop knife that jams and fails to retract is suddenly a real threat of impaling someone, while a slash with a dull blade might score the skin, but isn't going to kill someone.
Fight review suggestion: The bridge scene in Robin Hood, Men in Tights.
Fingers will not be spared!
Speaking of slashing, in Finland in the 19th century there was a so-called Häjyjä. They have often been romanticized, they were actually a group of idle robbing and raping young men. Their weapon was a knife, puukko, a Finnish multipurpose knife, which was much better suited for precise woodworking than e.g. Bovie knife. But at least according to the stories, they specifically slashed the targets of their violence, as stabbing could lead to death (and a prison sentence, which was sometimes served in Siberia). Slashing was done with the index finger placed on top of the blade to prevent too deep cuts. According to the family story of one of my acquaintances, they got their surname Tuikkanen because they didn't really know how to cut, but they stabbed (Tuikkanen means something the same as stinging). And get certain consequences.
The first duel with Paul and Jamus. In the book, they are in their lion cloths. Movie kept them in their armor
A detail that was kept in the 2000 SciFi miniseries with Alec Newman.
It was also in the sietch, not the open
@maxcorrice9499 Oh yeah, you're right
Great video!
I quite like the way Paul moved in that second duel, especially things like that corkscrew flip he did.
The thing with Paul is that he's a very skilled practitioner of Prana Bindu, so he has not only great strength and agility but also a superhuman level of control over his body.
So movements and tactics that a normal person might not want to risk are fairly easy for him to pull off, and I like how that aspect seems to have been represented.
I've done a similar defensive kick out of reflex before, and have seen the concept in at least one historical source, so it's viable.
Balintawak Kali was used in dune
Dune is one of my very favorite books! One thing to note: Paul Muad'Dib is fully immersed in Fremen culture during his duel with Feyd Rautha. He fights alongside the Fedaykin. Herbert based the Fremen on Bedouin, and while there were certain artistic licenses taken for dramatic on-screen effect, I wonder how Arab fighting styles might be represented.
I do really enjoy you’re film fight breakdowns. And I’d certainly like to see more. Rob Roy is one of my favourite.
Couple others to recommend
The Mark of Zorro (Tyrone Powers/Basil Rathbone)
The Duelists (Harvey Keital/Keith Carridine)
The Deluge (Daniel Olbrychski/Tadeusz Łomnicki)
Scaramouche (Stewart Granger/Mel Ferrer)
Rob Roy
Deluge
Duelists
Yes, I like those too.
The Duel lists would be a multi part. Love that film!
Matt all of the above would be awesome.
Both duels in the books were almost entirely without clothing. Only wearing something like a loincloth or trunks. Any emphasis on slashing may have had come from a need to reference the books while for whatever reason having the duels fully clothed in the movies.
Fun tidbit: if you go frame by frame during the sequence where Paul gets stabbed with his own blade, you’ll see during the standup grappling portion that Paul actually is about to lock Feyd’s arm before Paul’s left hand mysteriously withdraws until he gets stabbed with his own blade. Its blink and you’ll miss it, but for the sake of choreography, Timothy had to give up the superior position and totally withdraw his left arm for no reason to make the redirect and stab possible 😂
Matt, on the salute and curse. The fight choreographer is a student of my instructor. The salute is actually the reverse of a salute used in sparring. The blade over forehead "3rd eye" symbolizes that we wish to learn from the experience. Cupping the hilt with tip pointed towards the sky symbolizes that no blood will be shed. Interesting they reversed the order. However, in the Philippines there is a separate salute to challenge to a killing duel.
"May thy knife chip and shatter" i believe is from the source material. But ilustrisimo often did curses before duels in real life.
My wife is thai and wai kru has a similar protective curse aspect also
I was training in the Inosanto system back in the 90’s. And we were told there is a difference between “slash” and “cutting” with a blade. We were also taught how to “thrust slash” using the point of the knife. Practicing the angle drills.
That's cool. I trained with one of his best students for several years. Dan Innosanto is probably the greatest martial artist who ever lived.
The chip and shatter has a meaning in the book. The Crysknife is unbreakable, until the owner of the blade dies. The blades are tied to the life force of the its owner, and when he dies then it loses its strength and can be broken.
Never bring your wife to a nun fight.
That'd be "weird"(ing)
Something you probably haven't considered in the analysis is that crysknives are much sharper than any modern day blade in existence, able to cut through even protective gear with a slashing cut. Crysknives are functionally different from the kindjals used by the soldiers of the Imperium, which are purposed for shield fighting. A shorter blade was sometimes used in accompaniment with the kindjal, called a slip-tip, which was often poisoned.
This knife pairing is seen in Feyd's gladiator set presented to him. I'm pretty certain in the book they talk about one or both of the knives being poisoned.
@@pork-the-fork In the novel, Feyd-Rautha 'borrows' his knife from the Emperor because the blade is coated with a soporific that is supposed to slow down the victim and essentially soften him up without making it too obvious that poison is being used. It's a nice, dastardly touch that (IIRC) is missing from not only Villeneuve's movie but also Lynch's.
"May thy blade chip and shatter"
Has a specific Femen meaning, the Crysknife is made from the tooth of a worm, they are Infact basically indestructible, and don't ever chip or shatter.
they are razor sharp but primarily they are a stabbing weapon and 5he Fremen fight this way.
Also not inspired by Kris style blades, but named for the Crystaline material the knives are made of, also the blades are maintained by the electrical field of the owner, and will degrade over time if not in regular contact/presence of a owner. Special preperations are made when a knife is put in storage.
"May thy blade chip and shatter"
It is a blessing in a fremen duel, saying "i hope you are able to hit me so hard your knife brakes" (which they never do)
Its not that femen knives are fragile so they have to adapt their style to avoid breaking them.
I don't know about realism, but the first knife duel at the end of Dune part 1 looked really good.
Nope
Rob Roy was one of my favourit movies growing up so I'd love to see a return of it on the channel!
This is more complicated than a simple review, but I would love to see how you would make a sword fight version of my favorite fight scene of all time. I'm talking about the Robert Downy Jr's bare knuckles fight in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.
The reason I love the scene so much is that it gets around the classic problem of fight choreography, that you've talked about many times. Normally, a realistic fight between skilled fighters still looks sloppy, and is hard for the audience to follow, let alone gain any understanding of plot or character development.
So I'd love to see you choreograph a short, skillful sword fight, with the slow-mo version giving you time to explain the nuances involved, and then the full speed version still showing all of the things you described in the blink of an eye.
(If anyone else feels like taking a stab at this, please reply to this post with your results!)
John Wick (the first movie in the kitchen scene) when he is struggling with a guy, hits the back of his knife to stab it into his opponent. So some movies do show that.
In the books, duels are fought without wearing still suits (valuable equipment), and the water of the loser goes to the winner. In part, this is to replenish water lost during the combat....
Good analysis. Also: as someone who has read the books, I knew that Paul would get stabbed the moment that the emperor gave his weapon to Feyd. Because the Harkonnen poison their weapons, while the emperor does not. So it is "safe" to get stabbed with the emperors knife, which leads to more drama in the fight. I'm not the only one who figured that out.
As someone that has studied fma as part of my overall martial arts training (and I also do hema) a VERY common misconception is that it contains mainly slashing cuts. This is unequivocally untrue. While initially a student is taught 8 angles of attack, of which 3 are thrusts. As you gain experience, you are taught to thrust those angles both in a regular grip, and in an "ice pick" grip. Most people don't get past the initial training stage to get to espada è daga, or daga training. But there is MUCH more to fma than just slashing
I concur, we trained to use a variety of types of attack on each angel of attack: slashing, thrusting, percussive strikes, and continuous strikes.
"Killing with the point lacks artistry."
- Gurney Hillock
Just as a random note. In the fight with Feyd Rautha, i'm pretty sure Paul pulls the knife from his own stomach and uses that to finish off Feyd after diverting the dagger in his right hand. As you can see the final knife is in his left hand.
Anyway just thought it would be a helpful FYI :)
Edit : After re-watching i'm now 100% sure on this. Matt if you see this, are there any documented events of individuals pulling blades from their body to dispatch an opponent?
Besides fight choreography reasons, the use of the edge over the point could be cultural based on the novel.
In the high culture of the Imperium the use of the point is considered crude, the edge artful - a detail Frank Herbert borrowed from the fighting practices of the Caucasus as described in Sabres of Paradise. But Paul's instructors considered survival more important than art, and taught him how to kill with the point when necessary.
I could be wrong but I also recall the Fremen consider stabbing disrespectful because crysknives sometimes contain a well-tip full of poison, which you'd only use on someone whose water you consider unworthy of recycling. Not something to be done in a ritual duel, even if your blade isn't poisoned.
Would love a breakdown of the gladiator fight on Giedi Prime.
They used the "stickyhands" bit I think to show that Paul is just reading the fight like he knows the outcome already (he does, he's seen all the outcomes where he dies and knows the path forward, even though it isn't a Clear Picture) something that generally real people don't have that kind of advantage.
Yeah I see it as a call back to Neo blocking Agents casually.
Still-suits, to the best of my knowledge, are NOT "armor". They're a life support system. Slashing someone's life support system, which would compromise the catch-pockets, which held reclaimed water would *absolutely* make sense as a tactic. Even if you don't kill the opponent outright, you could still doom them to die by virtue of rendering their life support system useless.
Sure, but what does it matter if they die hours later, when they will have plenty of opportunity to kill you before that?!
Damaging the still suit is not like a wound that will actually hamper them during the fight.
Also, if they know that they're gonna die anwyay, this might make them more aggressive as they would be bent on revenge, so they would be less concerned about a double as long as they can take you with them.
They strip before a duel to avoid damaging the valuable stillsuits.
Having studied FMA it should be known the Spanish Influence in blade fighting had a huge influence on Phillipines and weapon culture. They have a blade culture not gun culture and my advise is if you see a Phillipino with a knife “Run”!
I was one in a drunken conversation with a bloke who was much bigger then me, he was a former body builder and would have KO'd me with one punch. He was telling a story about this time a "midget" as he said started mouthing off to him on the train and that he was just sitting there thinking "Bro, I'm far bigger then you and you want to fight!". I replied with "muscle isn't everything in a fight if you don't know how to use it!", he then told me that he was a brown belt in Karate and pushed his chest out. I took a sip of my beer and just calmly said" Filipino martial artist" and his chest deflated faster then a car tyre that just ran over the police spike strips! FMA has a reputation for a reason and as you said, if you ever encounter a FMA practitioner you should run. It doesn't matter if we have a weapon in our hands or not because we train to utilize anything as a weapon but we also have one of the more deadly empty hand systems.
I'm absolutely all for more dagger or knife content: be it legal cases, historical accounts, movie/tv/book reviews, "what if" questions, or treatises. Bonus points if you get excuses to show off some channel favourites like the Bowie knife, kukri, navaja, or Fairbairn Sykes.
I'll second that.
The crysknife is made from a sandworm tooth ... and is an Original Frank Herbert name
But it was probably named by him after the Kris ... But the ones in the film don't match the book description very well
The ones in the book are are stabbing weapons ...
The knife that Paul was trained with were slashing weapons
All knives in the books are often poisoned
In the books nobody wears actual armour ... either they use holtzmann shields and ordinary clothes, or still suits ... all the fighting styles require full movement, and the weapons used will either go through any armour as if it wasn't there, or layers of clothing will do almost as well
It's all fun games, until someone brought a laser weapon to a Dune fight.:v
Lasguns aren't common in Dune, because of the Holtzman-shields
@@Kroiznacher and on dune those shields arent common because of the worms
This has always confused me: can the full-body shields not protect the user from the blast caused by the exploding shield of another shield user, if the former shoots the latter with a lasgun?
@@Vlad_Tepes_III This ain't your average grenade size explosion. It's more off a nuclear size explosion. Hence everyone agreeing on melee fights. No one is going to survive that.
@@dariustiapula does that mean that the Holtzman shields have an upper limit for how much damage they can protect the user from?
I generally agree about not wanting to end up on the ground but i have to admit that 'Jordan Teaches Jiu-jitsu' gave an incredible performance of pulling guarding then using leg locks and upkicks against an aggressive attacker with a weapon in the shank tank (simulated knife defence exercise) on the latest series of the Ultimate Self Defence Championships.
I have done iai, iaido, iaijitsui, kendo, and Kenjitsui and one of my sensei did escrima. In order to not to damage the blade edge the back of the blade to block or re-direct, also often the knife is used backwards so the blade protects the wrist and the hilt is often used to hitting and sometimes the psycho stabbing motion is used. I understand the slashing motion which you are correct about is necessary to get into a position to stab even in samurai styles mainly kendo and Kenjitsui, iaido and iaijitsui. Another technique is to slide down the opponents blade to cut the hands..
Slashes don’t necessarily equate to cutting. In thick clothing or armor the purpose is more like striking and manipulating the limb. A good knife is essentially an iron truncheon when slicing can’t penetrate
Just the fact that the blades don't make an audible ringing or swishing noise with every move was a great improvement compared to the usual hollywood knife fight/attack scenes. The scenes were appropriately suspenseful and dramatic. Fit the tone of the movies very well.
What I like about Paul fighting Feyd Rautha is that they use the grounded stuff to pay off the outlandish stuff: it respects the intelligence even of viewers who don't know anything about martial arts by saying, "We're not throwing this stuff in because we don't know how fights work -- we'll _prove_ we know how fights work, and then we'll work this Street Fighter nonsense in because it's rad and we're all here to be entertained." It's effective use of lampshading which is an important area where technical understanding and storytelling play off each other and getting it wrong prevents the two from coming together to tell an engaging fightscene.
Another factor ignored here is prescience: Paul is a kwisatz haderach and Feyd is pretty close to being one himself, which means both of these fighters can effectivly see the future. So dragging his blade acorss Feyds armor might _look_ pointless, but it may actually have been pivotal to causing events to play out in Paul's favor.
Obviously the story can't lean on this too much so as not to strain the credulity of even the most naive viewer, but that is going on in the background here. This fight is properly understood not just as a knife duel but a war of two incredibly enhanced minds.
That is what makes this a _science fiction_ knifefight, not a medieval knifefight or a Phillipeno machete duel. Just having a good knife fight isn't the only concern here because it needs things to set it apart and project it into the science fiction/fantasy world of Dune. So in this weird sort of way, Paul failing to cut through Feyd's armor is how this fight becomes something akin to a lightsaber duel, but it does it very subtly and without any actual sci-fi armaments being used by appealing to internal psychology in a way that a film isn't strictly capable of as a visual medium, but it makes that leap of faith anyway.
The main game changer in how this film is made is that Dune beileved in Frank Herbert's novel and trusted it to essential take the weight of things the movie could never support on it's own and just pray that the audience cares enough. The effect of this shines through even if the viewer doesn't have the required context; you can just sence that something is there even though you literally can't see or hear it.
One of the things overlooked when discussing the slashing moves among the Fremen is that a slash can damage the ability of the stillsuit to function correctly and kill the wearer as surely as a thrust.
The cuts to the suit in this environment could conceivably be almost as bad as cuts to the body in a medium term. If your still suit is damaged, you're going to die of dehydration. So while not fight ending in itself, it is not entirely a pointless threat to attack the armor in their case
That's a very good point, but I feel the Fremen would never do that as it is wasteful and lacks honour. If I remember, the Jamis fight in the book is fought out of stillsuits (happy to be corrected, my old brain isn't as sharp as it once was)
Suggestion: please review the shorter fights in Scaramouche. They're textbook fencing, and there's also some interesting training methods featured in there.
With the first fight, the 'static' nature was supposed to be, in part -- intentional. The 'champion' had already seen/done the fight countless times (in a way) with that opponent and didn't want to have to have the guy die (again).
Jams final feint is to switch hands behind his back. A trick seen in real combat and I think taught to soldiers in WW2. I've seen it done in historical fencing as well.
Paul stepping off line and passing instead of trying to block the attack is both negating what hand Jams holds the knife and Paul finally fighting for real, with full mobility and so he ends it in one final move in a passing stab.
Dive knives usually have some kind of "snap in" retention and push button release on the scabbard. They are routinely carried upside down (e.g. on a bcd strap). They're also not generally considered to be fighting knives. They're more for safety or for spear fishing.
Knives can be hung hilt down with kydex style sheaths. They wont fall out. A primitive version of kydex would be like rawhide
It's set thousands of years in the future. Technology able to traverse the galaxy. Pretty sure they could invent a sheath that the knife wouldn't fall out of. Magnetised or whatever.
I believe it was implied in the books that cryknives and other bladed weapons were so sharp (in the future) they could partially cut through armor
From a story telling perspective, the fight scenes in Dune are extremely powerful, and I'm not talking about the dialogue. Jamis views Paul as a weakling who is not strong enough to survive. He is not threatened by him. It's easy to take Jamis' offer to kill Paul quickly as some attempt to psychologically dominate him, however that's not the intention. He's sincerely telling him that he's too weak to survive and offering him a quick death. So looking at the very beginning of the fight you can see that in the stance which he chooses. He offers Paul a handicap and when Paul fails to capitalize on the handicap, Jamis takes what could be considered a dishonorable or cheap shot as he launches a powerful offensive. It's visible as they exchange blows that Jamis realizes that he was wrong and he has misunderstood that this is a powerful warrior. This change happens about the time that Paul knocks Jamis to the ground for the first time. His attacks become more fierce and more focused on power hoping to overpower the young warrior whom he recognizes as having superior skill. Paul exploits one of his power moves for a kill and asks if he yields which is a tremendous insult in a fight to the death. There is no way to recover your honor from that. If you win, you still lost your honor and if you lose, it was clear that you were so outmatched that they had to offer you mercy. You can see him recognize this and his frustration and rage vent as Paul begins to dominate him exchange after exchange.
The cut scene to the mother explaining that Paul has never killed a man changes the arc entirely. Jamis is defeated, now Paul has to fight himself and make the decision to take life. This is foreshadowed by his visions and experiences. It transforms this fight from an action scene into a major plot point of the entire story and it's done so beautifully.
Love your video and analysis, it was Dune the novel that inspired me to study FS gutter fighting.
Small point of order though, the books describe the tooth of a sandstorm as serrated, a rough natural material, the sheaths are made of sandworm skin.lined with natural hemp fibres..So the sheath would stick to the blade like velcro....There is little chance of dropping it...indeed in the books if an offworlder sees a crysknife they have to be killed ,it's religious heresy... if the knife is ever drawn it needs blood on the blade to settle it back into its sheath, so the fremen cut themselves if needed, this preserves the blade integrity
What Paul does at the end is not deflecting Feyda's blade to stab him with it. But rather deflect it away from his vital organs with one hand only and still gets stabbed, as a diversion, while he takes off the blade that he was initially stabbed with and stabs him in a vital organ.
Erm, if you're being slashed at - especially towards the unguarded face, it's going to put you on the defensive. If you fail to defend, then the arm can be extended into a stab at he face, and whilst it's unlikely to be fatal, it's going to cause an ungodly amount of pain, and is likely to cause enough of an opening to allow a fatal stab, whereas committing to the thrust from the outset is slower in delivery and recovery and if unsuccessful, opens the hands and wrists to slashes the which is also a fight ender in most cases. When your own hands and wrists are relatively unprotected like this, using a slash to provoke a defensive reaction can give an opportunity to deliver a cut or even a thrust to the hand or wrist. If you can push your opponent back defensively, there is a possibility of them stumbling and then the arms reflexively go back opening the ribs and abdomen, but closer than that, the groin and femoral artery and vein.
Since the still suit is Very carefully crafted containing Numerous tiny flexible pipes... A slash that could cleanly sever a very great number of them in one strike, Could be effective within the context of How utterly vital a working stillsuit is to survival on the surface of Arrakis.
If your opponent is taking damage to the functionality of their suit, it Could force them into a more defensive (worried) position... Which could allow you to dictate quite a bit in the fight.
(No idea if thats valid, but... It feels like it fits the canon)
Its not just dramatic effect to favor slashing over stabbing, but its actually a safety issue. THere are a lot of ways to film a slashing move and have the actors never close enough to ever get hit by each other. Film it at a slight angle and the subjects look like they are up close and personal when in reality they are 5 away from each other.
There are a lot less techniques when it comes to thrusting and stabbing attacks. You have less options with filming a stab at certain angles to make it look dangerous but be completely safe and the nature of a thrust or stab is that its an attack that closes distance. Your subjects can be far enough apart from each other to be out of danger, but one subjects accidentally moves forward during the time they are supposed to move backward, they can easily run the prop weapon and get seriously injured depending of the speed of the choreo and the stiffness of the prop weapon.
It's why in Kung Fu movies when you see someone using a pole arm and or a spear in a kung fu movie there is often a focus on the part of the sequence that features one of the subjects dodging a ton of thrusting attacks. Its a special set piece to showcase the talent of the films stunt performers and to make sure they get every dollars worth out of the sequence, because stabs and thrusts require all parties involved to be at their A game.
The duel with Jamis was significantly altered from the books: originally it was fought in loinclothes, not stillsuits, which the story decided to forego for sake of pacing/structure. So you could argue they Villeneuve had to treat this like an unarmored knife duel to limit the scope of the changes he was introducing to the source text.
That doesn't really turn aside any critiques on the use of the stillsuits, but it does supply some context.
When I saw it in the cinema, I was a little confused by the ending of the second fight shown here, due to the way it was edited. I think they had to be careful about how much wound detail they showed in order to get the film passed as a 12A/ PG-13 and keep the teen audience, so it ended up being a little unclear what had happened. It's much more obvious seeing Matt play it back with pauses and commentary. Fantastic films.
one thing to note in the book they did not fight with the still suits on when doing a ritual fight/dual. The damage to a still suit would spill and lose precious water. its also why the winner was gifted the losers water.
To comment on your so-called qualifications. You are far better qualified than you think. I would be willing to put money on the fact that, unlike most, you have probably been in a lot of fights with bladed weaponry, even if it's just sparing. Study is one thing. Putting it into practice is another. I studied military history and tactics when I was a kid. Then I joined the US Marines and found that out lol
He also worked with the UK Home Office regarding knife wounds/knife defense, so he has institutional experience as well. Probably why he mentions CCTV footage of "real fights" that would have shown up on public cameras
@tylerphuoc2653 Like I said, he is more qualified than he leads us to believe. He is too humble for his own good 😆. I've been following him ever since Drach did a collaboration video with him.
19:45 To your point, it does look like Paul is thrusting (and aiming for the less armored midsection) whereas Feyd is the one mainly slashing and maybe he’s just assuming a metal blade would work well enough against a stillsuit.
Hey Matt, thanks for doing this breakdown, loved it (as much as the movie). I am a BJJ practitioner and realize the limits of the art, pretty sure all of us do (and they cross-train). I also did HEMA fencing before. The "kick" to the overarm (or the shoulder for the matter) is a thing we do a lot, it is a part of techniques and we learn to do it consistently, i find it perfectly plausible. Also the arm twists are correct imo. I'd do some rolls too :D to retreat or attack from below but would be comical XD
Cant wait to try some of these in the summer with my HEMA friends.
Movie fights I want to see discussed:
1. The yari duel in A Hidden Fortress.
2. The waterfall fights from the original Black Panther.
Definitely fights that would make for good opportunities for crossovers with other RUclips personalities that might have more understanding of the specific styles being discussed.
The expressions Matt uses are so nice. "a resisting target, so to speak" :)
Not a fan of dramatic leg sweeps in fight choreography, but that one was a beaut, it felt like it had good speed and momentum and was timed for maximum surprise. Rewatching the second fight has me appreciating it far more than the initial impression it gave at the cinema... which is an odd failing of film-making to make.
You should check out "King Arthur" 2004. I remember it being pretty good, though it was a long time ago when I knew less. Should be some interesting stuff to pick apart in there.
There's a trick in the name "crysknife." It is constructed to evoke the SE Asian Kris, but the word also reflects that the fact that the knife is made an organic crystalline material derived from the sand worm's teeth. Thus the curse hoping that your knife will chip and shatter.
What you also have to remember with movie sword/knife fights is that you're not trying to kill your opponent. And as such, in an interview I once saw with a stunt Director he explained that: cuts and slashes for safety sake weren't aimed at the body but at the sword and thrusts were aimed in such a way that a block would force the weapon away from any point of contact. Until makeup or special effects took over for the kill or wounding camera shot.