Swordsmanship in LOTR

[azimaith]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum but have already racked up some posts. I'm glad to see this forum has plenty of well educated people who really do know the historical sword, a rarity in this day in age. I've been practicing historical western swordsmanship for a couple years now as well as researching it so I'd love to have discussions with you all. Now, to prevent this from completely ignoring the purpose of this forum heres my question to all of you.

While we must admit that the theatrical version of LOTR has taken its creative liberties with swordsmanship, in your opinion, does it look accurate and realistic to you?

[Ereinion]

Welcome to WotR, azimaith!

I voted "yes", because, to me, most of the fights seemed credible enough, but there were some momonts, especially Aragorn's, that his fighting stile seemed a bit too Samuraish and Hollywoodish to me.... And other times it seemed that he just waves his sword around without really knowing what to do with it....

[azimaith]

Hehe I noticed that quite a bit.

[Orc]

Welcome aboard Azimaith.

For me, it's both yes... and no. They created different fighting styles for the different races, so they don't really correspond to any 'real' fighting style, making it hard to call it 'accurate'.

Overall, they did a pretty good job by hollywood standards. For the most part it looked pretty good. There were of course the occasional 'hollywood' sword play with people just swinging aimlessly or obviously just hacking at someone's blade rather than making an attempt to hit someone. But I suppose it's a bit hard to train hundreds of extras swordplay in a limited amount of time, and even harder for the orc and uruk-hai extras to even wield their weapons in all that makeup and prostethics.

Overall, it looked good. I laugh at the obvious hollywood stuff, and enjoy the bad with the good

:Orc:

[azimaith]

I enjoyed the seperate styles for each race, creative license isn't a bad thing, but I do get irritated when they over do the hollywood aspect, they did very well however for a movie.

[Nilion Elentano]

Originally posted by Orc
Welcome aboard Azimaith.

For me, it's both yes... and no. They created different fighting styles for the different races, so they don't really correspond to any 'real' fighting style, making it hard to call it 'accurate'.

:Orc:

If by any chance you are referring to the elven fighting style Orc, I will correct you if you don't mind me doing so...in the several interviews that the developers of the fighting styles for the different races, what they said that inspired the fighting style of the elves and specifically their weaponry, was a North Chinese style of fighting as well as some more Eastern European curved sword fighting styles.

If you would allow me (hopefully you will :idea: ) I will post a link the war infantry blade that inspired the desgin (roughly) of the elven infantry blade...since this was similar to the one that the Chinese girl that made the demonstration used...

http://www.coldsteel.com/chinwarswor.html

Hopefully it will give some better idea of ressemblance and will put the pro Japanese off their ideas...yes a lot of the influence is Asian, but it's also Eastern European. :fight:

:thumbs:

[azimaith]

Wow! That thing weighs 3.6 pounds! Thats one heavy sword, I haven't had experience with coldsteel but are they a provider of historically accurate pieces or more of a freelance thing. (As long as they aren't Budk kinda people)

[Nilion Elentano]

Originally posted by azimaith
Wow! That thing weighs 3.6 pounds! Thats one heavy sword, I haven't had experience with coldsteel but are they a provider of historically accurate pieces or more of a freelance thing. (As long as they aren't Budk kinda people)

I don't think that "historical" is their main thing...however they have a much better standard than a lot of manufacturers....to be honest I have never tried THAT particular model, but I have tried a version of that sword and feels very very nice in your hands, tho like most eastern swords, you make the most of it when making use of angled and crossed moves...

As for the quality, I don't think there's anyone out there who can claim to have the steel formulas they have mate, you could request the information and you would be sitting for hours reading and even if you have a slight knowledge of bladesmithing you would probably would be marvelled at the quality of each and every piece of steel they use...however swords is not their main thing...remember that forging a sword is not the same as forging small blades...
Something I had not asked you...what sort of blades do you use or have with you?

[azimaith]

Indeed, at least they don't use high weight as something a sword should be. Hmmm, I suppose they are really knife makers, I saw some of them, I know very little about knives and something about dagger combat and defense, not anywhere near as much the sword.

And what sort of blades do I use? Do you mean compisistion? I like swords that stick with spring steel blades, I must admit I know less about the metal than I do about the swords. I stay away from blades made from stainless however, they tend to be stiffer than spring steel blades. Anywho, Im not quite sure what you mean by what blades I use.

[frodo69]

They had actual sword smiths make ALL the swords in the movies... cool huh? :beer:

[azimaith]

Indeed, I like the functional looking blades.

[Big Ranger]

My only thought, during the final Orc/Uruk Hai scrum at the end of FOTR, especially Aragorn, was just how freaking EXHAUSTING it would have been to scrap as much, and for as long as he did in that one...you watch, and he just goes, and goes, and goes...anyone who's ever sparred like that at full effort, you know you'd need to have some kind of superhuman combination of strength and endurance...I was getting sore delts just watching...not that it looked phony or anything, it just ocurred to me last time I watched...

[azimaith]

Hehe the wonders of cutting together scenes, I imagine he had a break after a certain amount of time and they started again from there. As soon as he was off scene it was time to stop the tape and give them all a break I bet, just imagine the horrible heat in all those Uruk Costumes.

[Mithrandir]

Yes. Very credible.
Theres some scenes though that are not very realistic but theyre OK. For example everyone is getting beaten there on helms deep and Legolas takes a year to try to shoot down that orc running with the fire and he never gets hit or brought down. NEVER.

[azimaith]

The orc does get hit if memory serves, he just keeps running.

[Steve the Great]

Yeah, that's right. He got hit twice, but kept running... I think, he was a special berseker orc, who felt no pain at that moment...

[IronHills Dwarf]

Yes it was a berseker (one of only about thirty), first time he was hit in the shoulder, painful but not vital, second time he still managed to thrust himself forward with the momentum provided by the run.

[Gil Galad]

that was a poor bit of film making now, especially the way the other uruks didnt try to give him cover or anything.

i thought the fighting styles where for the most part good, with the usually film flaws(some show boating and then the excausble point of extras not being as good, but in a battle ur gonna have people who cant really fight that well anyway so thats not a big thang) i like the way the different races had different stlyes, its what you would expect

[azimaith]

Well I mean it had the same old movie cheese of edge to edge parrying and overstylized fighting to look cool and all. But all in all its not as bad as say... conan.

[Eomund]

I voted also "yes" because on many times it is realistic enough but sometimes it is not

[Mithrandir]

I mean Legolas, not the orc LoL

[Eomund]

aaaahhhhaaaa..... now we got it.

[TrueSwordsman]

I voted yes, on the point that in a lot of "sword" films you see a great deal of blade on blade contact, but you do not see much of it in the LotR films (a good thing).

Historically, except for fencing (1600's), every attempt was made not to let your blade come in contact with another (edge to edge). Doing so causes a great amount of dammage, dulls the edge, or can even break your sword (not a good thing in battle). In the LotR films you see a parry here or there, but for the most part it is used for offense, while body placement is used for defence.

:aragorn:

[azimaith]

Originally posted by TrueSwordsman
I voted yes, on the point that in a lot of "sword" films you see a great deal of blade on blade contact, but you do not see much of it in the LotR films (a good thing).

Historically, except for fencing (1600's), every attempt was made not to let your blade come in contact with another (edge to edge). Doing so causes a great amount of dammage, dulls the edge, or can even break your sword (not a good thing in battle). In the LotR films you see a parry here or there, but for the most part it is used for offense, while body placement is used for defence.

:aragorn:

Yes, blade on blade blocking is ridiculous, you do see it once annoyingly enough when Aragorn blocks Eowyns sword with the edge of his knife.

When parrying there are three teirs if you will of what to do when attacked from most desireable to least desireable.

1: Get out of the way and counter attack.
2: Beat their blow aside with the flat of your blade and counter
3: Absorb the blow on your armor (if your wearing any)

If you aren't wearing armor then its just 2 teirs, never ever ever ever ever block with the blade of your sword.