It’s an action film cliche, its even spread into video games like the Batman Arkham series or the* Assassins Creed* series. The hero is surrounded by enemies and instead of the enemies attacking in groups, they wait and move in one at a time and the hero easily takes them out one by one.
Why do they do it that way? I know in the film or game it’s supposed to show the hero as the badass, but come on … anyone with common sense knows the idea of strength in numbers.
So my question is this … in a real world situation, do t you think this one at a time attack is in anyway feasible? Should you attack in groups? Is it playing unfairly if you do? Also, has there ever been a film where they DID attack as a group??
In many action movies where this happens if you look in the background there will be a ninja or two just jumping right left to make it seem like more action is happening than really is.
I can come up with a couple of edge cases where someone might see an advantage in it. One is the case where the attackers expect the target to make a break for it, and are maintaining encirclement while trying to wear them down. The other is to avoid a circular firing squad scenario, in which the attackers get in each others’ way enough that the target can turn it to their advantage. Still smacks of ineptitude, but you can kind of see the logic.
Much more plausible are cases where the target manages to force one-at-a-time engagement. That’s something I’ve been taught in martial arts classes: when faced with multiple opponents, you don’t wait to be swarmed, you go on the offensive. Pick an opponent, go after them, and get behind them, so you’re no longer encircled. Then you try to maneuver to keep the numbers that can come after you at any given time manageable. (I’ve put this tactic into practice in simulated combat many times over the years, and it’s very effective, but exhausting.)
This is also known as the law of Conservation of Ninjitsu. One ninja attacking the hero is a deadly foe who is capable of fighting the hero one-on-one and nearly beating him. But 10 ninjas attacking the hero collectively only have the same amount of ninjitsu as the single ninja. So while one ninja is a deadly threat, 10 ninjas together are just mooks that can be easily defeated. So they must coordinate such that only one ninja at a time is attacking so that one guy at least has a chance. If all ten tried to attack at the same time they’d barely be able to walk upright due to only having 1/10th the ninjitsu.
It depends. I’ve read martial arts books that claim only 5-6 people can attack one person before they start running into each other. That said, based on some experience in playing college pranks, 5-6 attackers don’t have to “win,” they can just dogpile the target and crush them with sheer mass.
OP mentions games like *Assassin’s Creed *and Batman. The effect they are talking about is called “Unit Slotting” and it is used in many different games, including FPS games. For example, if you played a battle scene in “Call of Duty” you might see many soldiers running around on the battlefield but only a handful of them actually threaten the player while the rest just shoot in the player’s general direction. When it is done well, it creates the illusion that the player is winning despite the odds. *Assassin’s Creed *and Batman are just used as examples because it is implemented poorly.
FWIW, I’ve done some martial arts classes and observed that when multiple people attack one target, the attackers tend to be much less cautious than they would in a one-on-one fight. Whether this lends plausibility to movie fight scenes or not is up to you.
Jackie Chan developed a trick for fighting multiple opponents at once. His crew was trained to make certain sounds as they attacked depended on where they were relative to him so he could still defend against attacks from all directions and make it look really good.
Hes the only one I am aware of who pulls it off though.
I think action movies are trying to move away from this cliche actually. For example, if Bourne went against a group, he had a gun in his hand. If he had to do hand to hand fighting he only had one attacker or could force only one attack at a time. There might be two guys but it was rare and they were never portrayed as being on his level, just average.
There are also movies where they make it look like the group is attacking at one by carefully choreographing the moves so the attacks come very closely in sequence and often the hero uses bad guy one to defeat bad guys two and three, by flipping up and kicking, throwing guy into friends, etc.
If I see the bad guys attacking in order these days it’s a crap movie (Divergent I’m looking at you.) or there’s going to be a meta reference at some point.
That said, it’s easy to see how the first couple of mooks would end up attacking the likes of Batman or Xena first. The first one is either the stupidest member of the group or the most egotistical; the second is number two in one or both categories. The rest probably leave, get forced to turn around by the Joker or Ares or whatnot, and only then attack. Even then they’re not enthusiastic, and probably thinking, “Damn it, why does nobody ever bring rifles on these occasions?”
I seem to recall a scene in one of the Matrix sequels where a hundred Agent Smiths all attacked Neo at the same time. And Ted Healy had no trouble doling out a round-house slap to all three Stooges at once.
Other than that, nope, it’s pretty much a movie staple that audiences learn to accept. Like the parking space on the city street that is always there when the hero needs it, or the wrapped birthday present that you only have to lift the lid off of, never have to rip the paper.
As has been said, the way to deal with multiple attackers is to maneuver so that only one or two can reach you, and are in the way of the rest of them. It makes much more complicated blocking to shoot a running battle like that, but clever use of terrain can work into it.
In the case of sword fighting or other medieval style combat, historical techniques would work well. Typically they aren’t suited to stage combat because a successful defense and counter means the fight lasts for two moves. That’s perfect for dispatching legions of evil guards without forcing them to use the most incompetent attacks possible.
There is also the fact that even if your evil forces outnumber the badass, he is guaranteed to take a few of you out when you attack en masse, and nobody wants to be one of those guys. As a result only a few are brave enough to charge in, and they don’t have the backup needed to survive, so they die horribly. The rest see this, and don’t want to be next.
I can think of one hypothetical situation where one at a time would make sense, although it probably has no bearing on movies let alone real life: Let’s say that the Hero and all the Mooks are all armed with some weapon so powerful that no one wielding it can be overwhelmed by numbers- throwing more bodies at it just puts more bodies in harm’s way. Like an unblockable light saber, or a short-range but extremely powerful widebeam Disintegrator Ray Blaster™. In that situation, the only strategy that would make sense for the mooks would be to engage the Hero one-on-one, where if the odds were 50/50 for each duel, the hope would be to eventually get lucky.