"I've learned this much take what you can when you can" "then you've learned nothing!" those
are some bold words for a chap who's had about 80% of his sword choreography lifted directly
from another movie Justin on my last couple of episodes I have said things like IMDb lists the
fight director of X movie as y person and I've had people come to me and say actually that is
not correct it is not that Belgian it is a different Belgian entirely IMDB trivia
it turns out is the same way generally accurate but not entirely accurate and so it is in this
case I absolutely love the secret of NIMH I adored it as a child and now that I've watched it again
recently as an adult it still holds up it's still really good and it apparently provided
some subconscious inspiration for my novel writing which we'll get to in a minute because on this
channel we like to talk about film combat and to misquote Taylor Swift I think I've seen these
moves before and if you've been around for the last few fight analyses you've seen a few of them
too this video is sponsored by me and my book just stab me now for reasons which will become readily
apparent in a couple of minutes I'm Jill bearup I'm an actor combatant which is someone who can
pretend to fight people on stage without actually hurting them and the plot of The Secret of NIMH
goeth thusly this is Mrs Brisby she's a widowed field mouse with a bunch of kids and one of them
is sick and not allowed to go outside until he recovers which is a problem because her house is
in the middle of a field and the farmer is about to plow so she goes to the rats who live in the
rosebush to ask for help from Nicodemus the rats like her late husband are really smart because
they were experimented on at NIMH Nicodemus says yes we loved Jonathan here is a magical amulet
and yes we will move your house Jenner the rat on the other hand wants Nicodemus dead and also
wants the amulet so he says yes we'll move your house after all accidents can happen then there
are some Shenanigans Where Mrs Brisby drugs the farmer's cat so it can't interfere with the house
moving and then she gets caught by the farmer's kid she over here is at the rose bush where the
rats live is going to be bulldozed which does make sense because I mean it glows at night if
I were the farmer I would be concerned about that too and the Rats start to move her house but in
the middle of it Jenner performs some sabotage and gets Nicodemus killed and then tries to kill Mrs
Brisby to steal the amulet both of which even his sidekick thinks are a bit much Justin the captain
of the guard has to sword fight Jenner, Justin wins but Jenner isn't quite dead and eventually
the dying sidekick kills Jenner but then the house starts sinking with the kids inside oh
no luckily the magical amulet and the power of Courage of the heart Saves the Day all's
well that ends well the rats go off somewhere else and Mrs Brisby and the kids are safe in
the house regardless of who is playing what field the end I would like to tell you that as a child
I adored Justin and so probably that is why when I watched this film again for the first time in
about 20 years I looked at Justin and I thought oh Robin and oh Leo I mean he's even a captain this
isn't the only childhood memory I have recently unlocked on characters from whom Leo probably
took inspiration but that's another video before I rewatched it I was under the impression that
Justin and Mrs Brisby totally having a moment was just a product of my fevered childhood imagination
"who may I ask" "oh yes yes she can be
trusted this is no stranger my dear may I present Justin the captain of the guard Justin Mrs Brisby"
"not Mrs. Jonathan Brisby?" "yes the same"
"it is an honour and a privilege my lady" "if we could dispense with a formalities"
"how beautiful" "ma'am?"
"the lights they're quite lovely" but no having watched it again as
a grown-up there's there definitely there's definitely flirting happening there I'm not
quite sure how to feel about that but I'm sure that fanfiction.net knows how to feel
about that Rosamund the main character in the fantasy sections of Just Stab Me Now is not
unlike Mrs Brisby so possibly Caroline who is writing Rosamund also really enjoyed the secret
of NIMH as a child who knows though it has to be said just stab Me Now does not end with Rosy
getting magic powers but there was also that joke that I made at the end of the very first episode
do I have magic powers? not currently
yeah that's weird this is why this video is sponsored by me and just stab me now not
just because I enjoy sponsoring my own videos though so I do but because if you're going to
take inspiration from a movie uh it should at least be a good movie and speaking of taking
inspiration from movies let's talk about this sword fight today mostly not in a what is the
actual choreography kind of way but in a where did these moves come from kind of way because you see
IMDb trivia insists that quote the staging of the climactic sword fight between Justin and Jenner
was largely taken from the Errol Flynn basil Rathbone duel in the adventures of Robin Hood 1938
some choreography including the villain getting stabbed in the stomach was literally copied by
the animators other moments were inspired by fight scenes in the Vikings 1958 yes we're going to take
a look at this claim because it is stretching the truth somewhat now in animation it's not exactly
unknown for animators to take things from other places and rotoscope them to make something else
Disney is quite well known for doing it for example they took from their own Snow White
and The Aristocrats for the animated version that they made of Robin Hood but an animation studio
reusing its own animation is not exactly what's happening here what's happening instead is that
we are basically rotoscoping live action fights with our own characters as I said
the quote largely from The Adventures of Robin Hood is stretching the truth to breaking point
because largely this fight is from the Vikings and I'm going to prove it to be strictly Fair though
we're not just ripping this entire scene directly from the Vikings there is an entire section at the
start where Jenner is chasing Mrs Brisby and then Justin is trying to defend her with a stick before
he gets his sword which doesn't come from the Vikings or at least not from this particular sword
fight but after Sullivan the baddy sidekick who's now totally not on board with the being a baddy
thing throws Justin his sword and Jenner kills him for doing that we are on and we are starting
in the second phrase of this fight in the Vikings in the Vikings fight we're up high and obviously
this snarly chap with the glass eye is the baddie we largely replicate the geography of the Vikings
fight just in mud and rocks because obviously they are rat sized and as in the Vikings fight this
terrain problem adds a lot of visual interest unlike something like the Captain Blood fight
where there is a lot of fighting in straight lines uh in this one we are up Down Under over around
the houses and doing everything we can to make it as interesting as possible in a 360° kind of way
"Justin" "my sword!"
let's go as you can see some moves were inspired by the Vikings doesn't really cover it it's move
for move and shot for shot without me having to do any editing at all right up to the point
where Justin starts to talk "it was you you did it"
my gosh he's put it together so we have an extended part here which I have sped up to
500% so we can compress it down until we get back to ripping off their choreography again
[Music] well not this one shot
[Music]
in this section I have done a little bit of editing uh first to remove a few frames from
the ends of shots in The Vikings because the secret of NIMH fight is a little bit faster
and this part where Justin and the Viking chap do some overhead cuts the Viking chap
actually does a few more but we only have one from Justin and then after that we even have
given an extra insert shot of Jenner looking menacing Mrs Brisby acting as purple dress lady
"take what you can when you can" "then you've learned nothing"
and this is the point where the Secret of NIMH and the Vikings diverge and we get the adventures of
Robin Hood [Music] instead first Robin/Justin kicking the table/big bit of wood right back
at Guy of Gisbourne/Jenner and then the ending stab from Robin Hood as well and both of these
are inverted they're backwards as it were. Now unlike in The Adventures of Robin Hood the stab
does not immediately kill Jenner and so there are some additional Shenanigans but I think the claim
that the choreography is largely taken from the adventures of Robin Hood with some moments from
the Vikings is a little bit backwards wouldn't you say hopefully you can't get sued for redrawing
scenes from movies from the 50s and 30s into your ' 80s animated movie though if you can there's
probably a statute of limitations on that surely. and after all if you're going to steal steal from
the best the fight in the Vikings works perfectly for the secret of NIMH it's environmentally
interesting it uses the same kind of swords it has the same kind of dynamic between the
hero and the villain all in all just really good I hope you enjoyed this feeling of vague nostalgic
familiarity we will be back next time with a more comprehensive fight analysis of quite a
different movie there will be men manly man Men in Tights tight tights buy my book and see you soon!