What is a neck lift?
and why is it important in films?
Simply put
It's a movie trope frequently used to demonstrate Super Strength,
often applied to make one character appear helpless or outmatched compared to another.
It's used A LOT in comic book and fantasy movies
So why is this important?
Well Unfortunately it has been MISUSED
to compensate for bad writing
or to fill in for action scenes in PG 13s
Which leads me to a term I've coined called the "Protagonist throw"
What is that you ask?
It's a neck lift combined with a throw
Originally used for intimidation
The earliest movie I've seen use the "Protagonist throw", and used effectively
is in the original 1985 movie "Fright Night"
When Jerry "the vampire" confronts the protagonist Charley,
In order to threaten Charley into stopping his investigation on our villain
The Antagonist demonstrates his super strength by lifting Charley by the neck
followed by throwing him across the room!
Jerry is only threatening Charley and doesn't necessarily want to kill him!
But he could kill Charlie if he really wanted too
an example of this would be shown Later in the film
When Jerry gets angry and kills a nightclub bouncer, by crushing his throat
and throwing him across a dance floor
Now a MISUSE of this trope would be in the
2011 REMAKE of Fright Night
where Jerry clearly wants to kill Charlie, but for some weird reason grabs his neck and
throws him
THEN intimidates him for no reason, while only 15 seconds earlier
Jerry had just grabbed and killed a man with no hesitation (original Jerry cameo)
Now I know there will be people putting their hands up and saying
"Well durr, if Jerry had Killed Charlie the movie would be over.."
and they would be absolutely right!
The movie would be over (roll credits)
Which is brings me the whole point of this video
The "Protagonist throw" has been used more and more
to effectively ruin potentially great movies
Case in Point
The Terminator Franchise
In the Original 1984 James Cameron version
Arnold Schwarzenegger's character "The T800" kills a man by punching him very hard!
Now I will ask you this question:
how many times does "the Terminator" physically touch The main protagonist Sarah Connor?
The answer is once.
At the very end of the movie!
Where it tries to chock her but isn't quite close enough to get a grip on her throat.
Now Let's compare that to the more recent 2009 "Terminator Salvation"
AS you can see both movies have the same level of success and scores on IMDB.. oh wait
OK well what about Terminator 2, the T1000 must at least poke John Conner?
it almost kills him, but no it never touches him,
and for a good reason,
The T1000 literally kills anyone within its range,
With that in mind, can you imagine it grabbing John and throwing him?
No, because would just be stupid,
the suspension of disbelief within the movie would be broken,
and the threat of the Terminator within your subconscious would be gone
A movie does not have to be realistic, only believable and internally consistent.
When the director pushes an audience beyond what they're willing to accept,
the scene fails in the eyes of that audience.
As far as Science fiction or fantasy is concerned,
I know I'm willing to go along with the expiations and explanations of how the movie works,
but when the laws of the movie are broken, it comes off either contrived or funny
and yes, John Conner should be dead in this scene and Katherine Brewster should be dead
too
In the Mummy
The main protagonist gets thrown around, while everyone else around him gets killed..
In Game of Thrones
John snow gets thrown twice and hit with the blunt end of a weapon
while the guy before him gets stabbed and dies instantly
In Immortals
The Minotaur vs Theseus
instead of just hitting Theseus over the head with his club
the Minotaur likes to throw our hero several times
"clearly a more effective technique for killing him"
I could go on with more examples
But I think the most extreme use of neck throws and knockbacks
within a single movie, would be in Director Bryan Singer's - Xmen.
Apart from a wolverine fight or two,
as soon as two people or more see each other
everyone ends up flying around on invisible wires!
There are ways to get around this trope
for example In Prometheus
the Engineer rips the android David's his head off
and goes around killing people with ease
(yes throwing someone into a wall at that speed could kill them)
This adds a high level of threat to his character
as the audience has now witnessed the fact
that if he gets his hands on you,
"you're dead"
So when our protagonist gets informed he's coming for her, you know she's in big trouble
The engineer almost kills her but Director Riddly Scott does a good job
setting up the scene so she has an escape!
Now if the engineer had grabber her, and then threw her again and again..
it would have destroyed any suspense or realism,
and left you wondering how she survived his attacks?
I'm not asking for movies to be like something out of a Ninja Turtles cartoon where no one
hits each other
Or that action movies only work because their R rated
But I often find that as soon as a movie breaks the rules it's created, it becomes less enjoyable
well - for me at least,
I know everyone has different limits to their "suspension of disbelief"
Some may be higher than others
and I know the "Protagonist throw" isn't the only thing wrong with movies today
but it's misuse is not helping things get better!
On that note I'm going to bring this video to an end
But I'm going to leave you with this question:
What makes a good adventure movie for you?
Do you care if the hero gets thrown around like a rag doll?
does that irritate you?
or have you never noticed till now?