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20 years ago this month, ALIAS gave us one of the best girl-on-girl fight scenes ever (spoilers ahead)

Remember ALIAS? Well...Season 2 had its season finale exactly 20 years ago. Yeah...we're old and tired.
I was thinking about this show earlier today as i heard it's now available on Disney + in the USA...and this scene was the first thing i thought about. (that's really the reason why i mentioned spoilers in the title...maybe you always wanted to see this show...if so, go away cause it's a huge spoiler)

In a time most of Hollywood relies on fast cuts, dramatic music, random slowmo shit, etc...these two actresses committed and did a lot of the fight by themselves instead of leaving most of it for their doubles.

Why was this remarkable for its time?

1. This was peak JJ Abrams, he knew what he was doing with ALIAS (before he left for LOST that is) and this scene was the peak of a huge plot point: Sydney finally realizes that woman that was living with her was sort of a clone of her best friend which was most likely dead.

5. The amount of stuff happening while the fight is unfolding including Sydney finding her best friend in the bathtub and them using random house objects to improvise the fight, since none of them was ready for that to happen.

5. Notice how there's quite a few long cuts, no music during the first half of it...nothing. They just kept it simple. Just a brutal fight happening, punches and kicks being thrown around with some sound effects that may or not have aged in a weird way.

The fight in question:



The making of:



Anyone remembers this?

Trivia: JJ Abrams gave Tom Cruise the DVDs of the first 2 seasons of ALIAS back then when he was trying to direct Mission Impossible 3. After Tom watched it all, JJ Abrams was hired and they started their partnership that is still in place nowadays. A lot of ALIAS influences on MI3 actually.
 

Nico_D

Member
So... how is this series? I remember watching it here and there when it aired but for some reason never invested time to watch it episode by episode.

Is the quality good all the way through?
 

Vyse

Gold Member
I just rewatched the whole series. Shame they can’t seem to get a reboot off the ground. Tarantino episodes were great. Ahead of its time and heard it struggled to get an audience. Went off the rails a bit in the latter seasons, but still enjoyed the run.
 
I just rewatched the whole series. Shame they can’t seem to get a reboot off the ground. Tarantino episodes were great. Ahead of its time and heard it struggled to get an audience. Went off the rails a bit in the latter seasons, but still enjoyed the run.
It's not that it struggled...but it never became a phenomenon like Buffy or the TV show JJ Abrams did right after, Lost. It was mildly successful. Once they changed the schedule to Fridays, Jennifer Garner was pregnant as well, her ex- boyfriend was her co-star and he was barely in the final season...things started to go offrails. The chemistry just wasn't there anymore.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
rubbing hands GIF


Girl on girl, my favori....

Chris Farley GIF by Leroy Patterson
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
No offense but while the choreography is decent, the actresses CAN NOT pull this off. They stick their gun WAAAAY out in front ready to be blocked, every punch and kick is slow, well telegraphed, and the other is just waiting to parry it. It is a terrible example of a fight scene and even with the low low low bar of "girl on girl" this is a mediocre example when there are real female fighters/stuntwomen who can do much better performances.

Still, at least it tries and for 2000's era TV with like 1 episode filmed a week I suppose it is ok.
 
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