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Movies with the best and most epic battle scenes

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Bulzeeb

Member
Yes I like Sato Takeru as Himura Kenshin. Yes the last two aren't Miike Takashi movies.
Unless you mean something else?

ah, I still remember Den-O, those where some nice days

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RedShift

Member
It's a toss up between Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith. Probably the former.

As an aside, fuck Braveheart. The history in that movie varies from historical revisionist to just made up bullshit, and you can really see Mel GIbson's bigotry seeping through the entire movie. Especially with the blatant homophobia.

Lee & Herring's Braveheart extra final scene
 

Gorger

Member
Longest Day - Attack on the Harbor and the invasion of Normandy
Amazing longshot, before the era of CGI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZMkleDjWI

Alexander - Battle of Gaugamela
The most epic and realistic depicted battle Hollywood have produced of the classical era.
http://vimeo.com/89611267

Waterloo - The great French and British cavalry charge.
This massive charge depicted thousand of men and horses clashing together during the epic conclusion of the most decisive battle during the Napoleonic wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dBfdNrf9A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vlcuvrM1po

Apocalypse Now - Ride of the Valkyrie
This classic scene always gives me chills and puts me at the end of my seat.
http://vimeo.com/85066050
 

JB1981

Member
It's a toss up between Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith. Probably the former.

As an aside, fuck Braveheart. The history in that movie varies from historical revisionist to just made up bullshit, and you can really see Mel GIbson's bigotry seeping through the entire movie. Especially with the blatant homophobia.

Lee & Herring's Braveheart extra final scene

Your criticism has nothing to do with the craftsmanship behind the battle scenes.
 

El Daniel

Member
Good battle scenes shouldn't just have lots of impact and brutality, they also need to impart a really strong sense of geography, of tactics making a difference, of who's winning and why. As such, Helm's Deep still really takes the cake for me (and the RotK Battle of the Pelennor Fields is just a poorly-directed bummer in comparison).

How so?

It's been a while since I last saw the movies but I liked the battle in the third movie even more than the second. (Maybe because of the monsters and giant elephants involved.)
 
Longest Day - Attack on the Harbor and the invasion of Normandy
Amazing longshot, before the era of CGI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZMkleDjWI

Alexander - Battle of Gaugamela
The most epic and realistic depicted battle Hollywood have produced of the classical era.
http://vimeo.com/89611267

Waterloo - The great French and British cavalry charge.
This massive charge depicted thousand of men and horses clashing together during the epic conclusion of the most decisive battle during the Napoleonic wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dBfdNrf9A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vlcuvrM1po

Apocalypse Now - Ride of the Valkyrie
This classic scene always gives me chills and puts me at the end of my seat.
http://vimeo.com/85066050

Waterloo really had the most impressive large scale battles. De Laurentiis got his moneys worth when he rented a part of the Russian army for the film.
 
The Last Samurai doesn't get much, or any love, sadly.

The-Last-Samurai-1CD2.gif

Agreed, it's a bit formulaic in that it's basically Dances with Wolves with Samurai, but it works very very well. The respect for ancient Japanese culture and it's portrayal is unmatched in hollywood movies. One of Tom Cruises actually good performances too, it's one of those movies I can always watch when it's on. Great Hans Zimmer score too.

I think the initial knee-jerk reaction of "White man is the last samurai? how ridiculous!" did a lot of harm to the potential reach of the flick, lotta people don't realize that Samurai is plural I guess.
 
I think the initial knee-jerk reaction of "White man is the last samurai? how ridiculous!" did a lot of harm to the potential reach of the flick, lotta people don't realize that Samurai is plural I guess.

It's translated in the singular form in virtually every language in which articles and adjectives have singular/plural forms. But I thought the character played by Ken Watanabe was the last samurai, not Tom Cruise.
 
It's translated in the singular form in virtually every language in which articles and adjectives have singular/plural forms. But I thought the character played by Ken Watanabe was the last samurai, not Tom Cruise.

If that's the case then yes, Katsumoto was definitely the titular last samurai. If I remember correctly the Samurai title is hereditary, so even though Cruise donned the armor at the end, he was definitely not one of them despite what most people assumed.
 
I cheered when Tom Cruise came back and there was a real government army this time to blow those feudal samurai assholes to pieces. All those peasants bowing respectfully to the samurai when they passed ? That's after centuries of having your head chopped off for not showing enough respect. Fuck those guys, even with the comically evil mustache twirling big business guy leading the government forces.
 

JB1981

Member
That's why I said 'as an aside'. Though Braveheart's battle scenes still don't live up to LOTR or loads of other stuff IMO.

I could not disagree more. Lord of the Rings' battles rely far too much on CG and quick edits to avoid an R rating. The camerawork in Braveheart gives the viewer much better spatial awareness and better view of what is happening onscreen. Add to that proper dramatic build up, intelligible strategy and raw brutality and lord of he rings just can't compare. Helm's Deep is a much better staged and paced sequence than Pelennor Fields btw
 

Karak

Member
The Last Samurai doesn't get much, or any love, sadly.

The-Last-Samurai-1CD2.gif

Came to post this.
Also Troy and Kingdom of Heaven had some good scenes but Helm's Deep was overly fantastic and just done so well it is hard for me to think of something better. Maybe Battle for Endor as some of the strategy and the land and space battles mixed was so exciting.

I liked Braveheart but the insane number of oddities in the battles bother me with extras not hitting one another and so forth. It REALLY took me out of some of the scenes. Still good though.
 
Speaking of Troy and oddities, theres a blink and you'll miss it of an extra falling down during the big infantry charge on the gates of troy, it was probably just a legitimate trip but I always thought it was fascinating and realistic that someone would trip and get trampled in a big charge like that.
 
Lawrence of Arabia. If you love adventure/war films, you owe yourself to see it. No CGI, groundbreaking cinematography, and the battle scenes weren't just gratuitous displays of violence.

This. The train derailing, the cavalry charges. Hundreds of actors involved, and sometime in real physical danger just because the only way to do it good was to actually do it. The will to do authentic shit like that pretty much has been killed by cgi.
 
Speaking of Troy and oddities, theres a blink and you'll miss it of an extra falling down during the big infantry charge on the gates of troy, it was probably just a legitimate trip but I always thought it was fascinating and realistic that someone would trip and get trampled in a big charge like that.

Hah, should have known someone had already made a gif of it

JysKXwI.gif
 

Regiruler

Member
Scott Pilgrim - The entire movie, but most notably the Gideon Graves fight.

EDIT: Wait, do we mean war-esque battles or the more traditional fight scene?
 

Loxley

Member
Agreed, it's a bit formulaic in that it's basically Dances with Wolves with Samurai, but it works very very well. The respect for ancient Japanese culture and it's portrayal is unmatched in hollywood movies. One of Tom Cruises actually good performances too, it's one of those movies I can always watch when it's on. Great Hans Zimmer score too.

I think the initial knee-jerk reaction of "White man is the last samurai? how ridiculous!" did a lot of harm to the potential reach of the flick,lotta people don't realize that Samurai is plural I guess.

I always thought that criticism was moronic. The movie makes it painfully clear that Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) was "the last samurai", as evidenced by the entire Japanese army bowing to him after he dies, and Tom Cruise's character going back to wearing his US Army uniform when he meets with the emporer to deliver Katsumoto's sword in the following scene. People were reading into the movie's title a little too much.
 
Scott Pilgrim - The entire movie, but most notably the Gideon Graves fight.

EDIT: Wait, do we mean war-esque battles or the more traditional fight scene?

I'd say that definitely counts, Scott Pilgrim actually had a bunch of really cool creative fight scenes. I hope Edgar Wright does something else action oriented, I don't think I've seen anything like it outside of animation.
 
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