Results 1 to 14 of 14

Thread: Finally! A Twilight Saga thread

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,946

    Finally! A Twilight Saga thread

    We've had threads on Vampire flicks & Cancun starring Taylor Lautner. Now the Twilight Saga finally earned its own thread with Eclipse.

    'Twilight: Saga' cast kung fu fighting
    Carter By Kelley Carter

    Here's the good news: Near the end of "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" -- the third installment of the book-to-silver screen series that your girlfriend, daughter or colleague can't stop talking about -- some butt is kicked.

    There's a buildup throughout the film, which opens Wednesday, that's felt from the second it starts -- if you know nothing else about it, you know it's going to culminate with a big fight scene.

    That's where John Stoneham Jr. comes in. The former martial arts athlete was the stunt coordinator for the film, and he was charged with getting much of the cast in shape and teaching them wing chun, a form of kung fu you'll see when you inevitably get dragged to go check the film out this weekend. (Or perhaps at a midnight showing?)

    Whatever you do, don't go to sleep. The fight scene is incredible, and Stoneham, who's been training since the early '80s in martial arts, talked with us about how he turned a ragtag group of Hollywood actors into lean, mean vampire and werewolf fighting machines.

    Question: Tell us how you crafted that big battle-fight scene.

    Answer: It was the vampires against the wolves -- it just became a giant planning thing. We had to put everybody on wires and rigs to fling them around, and they added the wolves digitally later on. It was a real planning phase. It started off and just grew and grew and grew. It was more tackles and throws and such.

    Q: Who took to the mixed martial arts fighting easiest?

    A: Kellan Lutz is the bulldog. He's the big tough guy, so he just ran people over. He sent my stunt guys flying. There were times he had to run into them and he would usually hit them pretty hard, so they would fly pretty good themselves.

    Q: Why is martial arts so hot on film right now? We're seeing it everywhere this summer.

    A: It kind of goes in waves, I think. For a while everybody was on wires and floating around. Now it seems to be back to this organic thing, and it's as real as possible. Obviously, we have vampires, so it's a little bit of a stretch. Everything now is more physical and pounding. I don't know. Maybe it helps people's aggressions?

    Q: So actors have to be athletes now? Not just pretty faces?

    A: On that film, the cast hadn't done a lot of physical stuff in the other movies, so it was kind of challenging. We had to put them on a workout program as soon as we got them. Two to three weeks before filming, we got them and we put them through a little training regimen. They were running a lot; we had this giant treadmill that we built and put them on a harness. They did a lot of running and jogging for cardio, fight training for moves. They probably worked six or seven weeks' worth of training by the time they got to the battle sequence. The 20 vampires were my stunt people. We tried to put the cast in and have them do as much as they could and as much as they were comfortable with. Originally, when they first started, it was like, "I'm going to do what?" But they got into it, and they got pretty good at it.

    Q: If I wanted to train to fight like a vampire, what should I do?

    A: The vampires have super speed. So for them, your cardio has got to be top-notch. I couldn't have the actors huffing and puffing. They're not even supposed to be breathing. It's not going to look very good in their scene. So cardio is important. And stretching, because if you're running and you pull a hamstring, you're done for the day or done for the week. So it became a huge stretching/cardio thing for everyone involved. You need that for agility, running and jumping and speed. I would say a lot less weights -- you're not trying to build muscle. Just stamina.

    Q: What other films have you choreographed that you've used MMA in?

    A: I did "2012," we had a boxing thing in that. We had a lot of fighting in "The Incredible Hulk" -- but that was a lot of CGI. A lot of it now has been a blend. Like in "Hulk," we had to choreograph the fights, and then they would have my guy in a little green suit and put markers on them. We create the fight, then they put the Hulk scan on the guys. So lately it's been a lot of CG enhancement stuff for me. I've also been doing these end-of-the-world movies. We had a bunch of fighting in "Max Payne." But it seems like there's been a little less fighting and a little more violence.

    Kelley L. Carter is a freelance entertainment reporter. She can be reached at Kelley@thekelleylcarter.com.
    After Ip Man 2 in Asia and Robert Downey plugging Wing Chun in Sherlock Holmes, Wing Chun should be on fire now.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    San Diego, CA.
    Posts
    1,162
    Gene there are some things grown men shouldn't do...and Twilight is foremost amongst them. Please lock this thread asap!

    Now if you wanted to start a Sokie Stackhouse thread...thats an entirely different story.
    Last edited by Hebrew Hammer; 07-02-2010 at 06:20 AM.
    "if its ok for shaolin wuseng to break his vow then its ok for me to sneak behind your house at 3 in the morning and bang your dog if buddha is in your heart then its ok"-Bawang

    "I get what you have said in the past, but we are not intuitive fighters. As instinctive fighters, we can chuck spears and claw and bite. We are not instinctively god at punching or kicking."-Drake

    "Princess? LMAO hammer you are such a pr^t"-Frost

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,946

    Now, now, HH, I didn't even know who Sokie Stackhouse was until you mentioned her.

    Actually, Google tells me it's Sookie. Design Sifu has been talking up True Blood a lot lately, but frankly, I'm just not that into vampires. I suppose Sookie might be an exception.


    I thought about putting this on the Airbender thread, but I'm hoping someone here will bite the bullet for us here and review the kung fu fighting in the Twilight saga.
    Jackson Rathbone - Kung Fu training for previous flick helped him with Eclipse
    By Sophie Eager Jul 1, 2010, 18:55 GMT

    Eclipse star Jackson Rathbone said his Kung Fu training for a previous movie helped him with his stunts in the new flick.

    Rathbone, 25, plays the role of vampire Jasper Cullen in the popular film franchise and admitted he trained in Kung Fu for two months for his previous movie Airbender, which helped him film Eclipse.

    He said to J-14 magazine: 'I did Airbender before Eclipse. That was really handy because by the time we filmed Eclipse, I had lots of Kung Fu training behind me.

    'I was able to keep going with movie stunts that I had already been exposed to. I had done a lot of movie stunts so it was very serendipitous.'
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    NW Arkansas
    Posts
    1,392
    According to IMDB, Isaacs is the voice of General Zhao in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    NW Arkansas
    Posts
    1,392
    Admiral Zhao, sorry.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    new york,ny,U.S.A
    Posts
    3,230
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    So does Lautner do any decent martial arts in Twilight? Werewolf fu? I guess I'm on Team Jacob.



    Hold the phone, Isaacs is Malfoy? Malfoy vs. Jacob? If only I could get a kung fu Harry Potter thread going...if only... Do we need an Abduction thread?
    airbender while it was a critical mess, actually it is the worse reviewed movie of the year thus far...its like i been saying kids dont read reviews...my 14 year old nephew actually enjoyed the movie(note he has only been to a movie theater three times in his whole life so idk how credible his assessment is) it made almost half its original budget of 150mil(give or take) so we can expect a sequel to the film, even if it suffers a30-40% drop off next week(my current projection) this film is on its way to making a profit....paramount was smart to put this film in 3d even thou its useless, 3d tickets are almost 20bucks, twice the amount of a regular movie ticket(basing it off the average ticket price in new york city, so it may vary). we can expect sequels lets just hope M.night wont be at the helm of them.

    as for twilight, im not really a fan of the series. but i will admit to renting them on netflix when they come out just to stay current, plus i have control and can fast forward when it gets boring or if kristen stewart god forbid has a monologue(talk about gawd awefull acting, bleh) if she is the standard for young hollywood its no wonder they got the new spider man from england. anyway i think the second part was better then the first and i heard the third is better then the second, hopefully so ill find out in a few months,lol.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Canada!
    Posts
    23,110
    when did kfm become a bathhouse?
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    local
    Posts
    4,200
    Quote Originally Posted by David Jamieson View Post
    when did kfm become a bathhouse?
    who wants to take a bath with me??

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    local
    Posts
    4,200
    hehehe... this is what happens to men who go and see this sh!t.

    A NEW Zealand man was found dead in his seat at a movie theatre.

    Police said they were treating the death as unexplained, but not suspicious, The New Zealand Herald reported.

    The man's body was found at a theatre in the capital Wellington about 8.30pm (local time) last night at the conclusion of the vampire film, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/bre...-1225888147224

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,946

    Dang, that's two pwns in a row by uki

    Not sure who he pwned exactly, but stand back. You might be next.

    Working Hollywood: 'Twilight: Eclipse' fight coordinator Jonathan Eusebio
    'Vampires present their own set of challenges,' says Eusebio, who also worked on 'Iron Man 2.'
    June 27, 2010|By Cristy Lytal, Special to the Los Angeles Times


    Majoring in biology at UC Irvine may not have been the most obvious preparation for a career as a fight coordinator for films, including "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse." Still, Jonathan Eusebio sees value in his studies of mitochondria and cytoskeletons.

    "Biology doesn't relate to film but school teaches you how to interact with different types of people, be disciplined and turn things in on a deadline," he said. "School gives you those necessary skills to get things done."

    The Canadian-born son of two nurses, Eusebio moved to California as a third-grader and took up taekwondo, boxing, judo and several other martial arts a few years later.

    "When I was growing up, I used to watch a lot of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung," Eusebio said. "Hung is one of Jackie's seniors, and he's a famous martial artist in Hong Kong and China. The way I see choreography is influenced by those guys."

    After college, he followed friends who were stuntmen into the film business, and worked on the "Bourne" trilogy, 2006's "300" and this year's "Iron Man 2."

    "Every movie we approach in the same way," Eusebio said. "The director tells us what he wants and then we just try and make his vision come true."

    Lively up yourself: While the previous "Twilight" installments may have been more focused on emotions, the third movie packs a real punch. "It wasn't a fight-intensive series to begin with, but the third one is starting to get a lot of battles," Eusebio said "There's a big sequence when the Cullens have to train for fighting [another group of] vampires. There's a big charge at the end where the Cullens have to fight all the newborn vampires. And then there's a big scene where Edward has to fend off Victoria and her new lover Riley. So this movie has a lot of action going on in there."

    Art versus life: Eusebio calls film fighting "an entirely differently monster than actual, real fighting. It's the same basics, but the movement and the philosophy of the movement are different. In film fighting, it looks like there's contact, but there's no contact. You want to hide your movements in real fighting. In movie fighting, you have to make everything long so the camera can see it as well as the audience. It's like choreography, like a dance between the two combatants."
    Every martial artist seems to want a piece of the Eclipse pie now.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    San Diego, CA.
    Posts
    1,162
    I have found the cure for this Twilight madness...enjoy.

    http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http...IXMRvKSYYSWNvg
    "if its ok for shaolin wuseng to break his vow then its ok for me to sneak behind your house at 3 in the morning and bang your dog if buddha is in your heart then its ok"-Bawang

    "I get what you have said in the past, but we are not intuitive fighters. As instinctive fighters, we can chuck spears and claw and bite. We are not instinctively god at punching or kicking."-Drake

    "Princess? LMAO hammer you are such a pr^t"-Frost

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,946

    And the thread goes on

    Sorry HH & DJ. It's martial arts pop cult news and worthy of repeating here. Gentlemen, meet BooBoo.

    BooBoo Stewart: martial arts to 'Breaking Dawn'
    Wed, Nov 23 9:21 AM ET
    by Alex Prewitt

    BooBoo Stewart may play a wolf on screen, but he moves like a ninja in real life.

    The 17-year-old jack-of-all-trades stars as Seth Clearwater in "Breaking Dawn," the latest installment of the "Twilight" series. After hanging around his father, a stunt coordinator, on sets when he was younger, Stewart became hooked. At age 10, he did his first stunt, playing a little Indian boy who got hit over the head with a tomahawk. That's when he knew he wanted to get into the business.


    Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagicBooBoo Stewart won the Junior Martial Arts World Championship in 2002 and 2003.

    Never did he imagine things would happen so quickly.

    "Yeah, it's crazy," Stewart said. "'Twilight' has been such a major thing for my career. I just got back from a premiere in Denmark, and after that night, I thought, 'Oh my gosh, this is insane. Being part of 'Twilight' is amazing. So many people are trying to do what I'm doing right now, it's really an awesome feeling."

    "Awesome" only begins to describes Stewart's talents. Save his on-screen chops as a wolf, he plays guitar and sings in a band with his two sisters which got a record deal with Walt Disney records, and he'll star as Nick Young, a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome in the 2012 film "White Frog."

    CGI took care of the fighting sequences in "Twilight," but Stewart could have probably held his own pretty well. He won the Junior Martial Arts World Championship in 2002 and 2003, but is fairly humble about his days wielding weapons and sparring.

    "I don't really bring it up, people just find out. I just think it's cool," Stewart said. "They think it's crazy, it's so crazy to be a World Champion so young. I don't know what I really think about it. It's just … it's a really neat thing to do, so hopefully I can return to it one day."
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    new york,ny,U.S.A
    Posts
    3,230

    as per genes request!!!

    so i took my niece to see this last night...and....i was bored out of my mind...not saying it was bad or good...just boring. up until the last 30mins. then it picks up and its over,lol...even if you dont really know the series too well like me you can piece it all together if you listen..i must admit kristen stewart has come a long way from the muttering studdering actress who looked like it was hard for her to breath. she seemed much more comfortable as an actress, which bolds well for snow white and akira, ill say this if she does well in snow white then i will see akira. my confidence in her as an actress is still shaky. the native actors and actresses in it were great and its too bad you dont see more native american actors in movies, sad actually. the male leads hold there own in the film in terms of acting i cant really fault any of them...watching my niece watched the movie and her cringing at parts and covering her eyes at others i realized that its more about the characters then the people who play them, to see them on screen is what excites fans. to be honest harry potter was a much better series for me, much more interesting and watchable. i guess i would give this a 3 out of 5. because the last 30 mins was really good. also if you are going to see this stay during the credits as their is a really interesting cut scene with some dastardly looking villains.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,946

    Slightly OT because it's Korea...

    It may not be a 'Chinese' theme park, but it's Hunger Games and Twilight.


    MOVIES
    ‘Hunger Games’ and ‘Twilight’ Are Getting Their Own Theme Park
    Mahita Gajanan
    Aug 16, 2017
    The studio behind popular film franchises like Hunger Games and Twilight has announced plans to open a theme park in South Korea.
    The movie studio Lionsgate announced Tuesday that it will open Lionsgate Movie World, a 1.3 million-square-foot theme part that will comprise seven different "zones" dedicated to a different film from Lionsgate. The park, which is the first branded outdoor theme park for Lionsgate, will be a part of Jeju Shinhwa World, a resort located on South Korea's Jeju Island.
    Each "zone" of Lionsgate Movie World will be focused on different blockbusters from the studio, including Hunger Games, Twilight, Now You See Me and the upcoming remake of Robin Hood. The zones will feature reproduced streets and towns from the films, rides that bring visitors to scenes from movies and themed restaurants.The movies inspiring the zones at Lionsgate Movie World have collectively grossed about $9 billion at the global box office, according to Lionsgate. The theme park is scheduled to open in 2019.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •