Bro just shut up. Please. We're not trying to say that things are beautiful and perfect - we're all aware of the current situation and are clearly worried about what will happen...but there's nothing we can really do right now, and sitting around dooming and whining is not helping ANYBODY, in fact it's making things worse.

He had some awesome movies, like Under Siege, but seems like he's kind of gone the route of Hulk Hogan - nobody likes working with him and turns out he's actually not a great person.

Personally, what I liked about Seagal in his heyday was that his characters weren't beaten up. In action films of that period, especially with an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, it was customary that in the final battle the hero would turned into a punching bag for the villain and only after thousands life-threatening injuries would he have the strength to win. But Seagal always allowed the strongest of the enemies to carry out a couple of good punches, no more. And sometimes he received minor wounds. Therefore, by the way, it is strange that jokes about coolness were told specifically about Chuck Norris, and not about him.

Is that really a thing in ? I feel like I see it a lot in anime, but not really in films (from that era). Maybe Rocky movies, but the typical Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, for instance, has him just straight dominating most encounters.

I guess Die Hard featured that trope. Any other famous examples? Not saying this to doubt you, I just never noticed. Or maybe I've watched the wrong movies, lol.

A hack fraud martial arts actor whose claims as a martial artist rank a littlbe bit above George Dillman and Ashida Kim, most notable for a forgettable film career and crapping himself after choked out by Gene LeBell. Oh, and also being a rancid human being.

Except as the poster child of failing upwards.

I wouldn't say big in terms of popularity... He always seemed to have presence but nobody was ever flocking to the newest Seagal flick because I swear the man is the reason Direct To Video/DVD/Streaming was invented.

Because generally speaking they were terrible.

For one thing, the Chuck Norris jokes started as Vin Diesel jokes and just took off due to a heavy(er) dose of irony. For another: That's because Seagal was never actually cool. He was in movies but literally not one that came after Under Siege was particularly notable, because he was an absolute asshole that nobody wanted to work with.

And also just a shit martial artist.

Die Hard was kind of where the "invincible hero" trope started losing ground, due in no small part to the fact that McClane was played by a then-better-known-for-comedies Bruce Willis, who looked absolutely nothing like the typical Action Hero embodied by Schwarznegger and Stallone, and didn't have the sort of martial arts skills that others like Van Damme had. Though I think martial arts heroes became more common after Die Hard as well as the scene transitioned from muscle men to eventually the likes of Keanu Reeves.

Anyway he's done both blues and dance music and the knowledge of these things has been clawing away inside my skull like I just got spotted by a Winter Lantern.

He was not awesome in his movies and was a sexual predator/serial abuser who also made the very very very bad mistake of being a douchenozzle to Mr Judo Gene Lebell, who choked his arrogant flabby flailing arse to sleep, not just once, but twice and made him crap/pee his pants, and then, in douchenozzle fashion, tried to SUE HIM, but his lawyers( and MANY in the stunt/martial arts community) convinced him that the discovery portion of the lawsuit will show how a 70PLUS year old Grandfather wearing a Pink Gi choked out Mr Action Hero.
There is just SO MUCH MORE TRASH to this guy, it?s why he ran to Russia to avoid the inevitable consequences of his sexual assaulting behavior

I reiterate: Steven Seagull, not important or relevant to anything except a jail cell

As an example, I immediately remember films with Van Damme. Also with Dacascos and Don "The Dragon" Wilson. To a lesser extent, but it also happened with Lundgren. Albeit in a humorous way, Jackie Chan began to practice this trope almost before anyone else. Snipes in the Blade trilogy also received punches in the final fights. Yes, perhaps this is more true in films about martial arts than in action films with an emphasis on shootouts, in which Schwarzenegger and Stallone starred. And I'm not sure if Die Hard fits into this trope, because Willis suffers throughout the entire film.

Wasn`t it Bruce Lee who joked that missing a kick from Chuck Norris is like getting hit by a train?

Die Hard came out in 1988 (and the Soviet one in 1967, but that's a conversation for another day). Before this there was already Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, Van Damme, Cynthia Rothrock and many others. I think it's more likely that someone like Nicolas Cage would have Willis to thank for getting leading roles in action films than a martial artist.

Part of the fun of running watch parties is digging out weird stuff to fill out intermissions. Thank Godoka for Bosnian Ape Society.

Behind the Bastards did a good episode or two on him, and I highly recommend Napoleon Blownapart's video on Make Believe Martial Arts if you just want the short version of his various utter failures as a martial artist and human being.


Couldn't tell you, I despise Norris almost as much as Seagal and as such tend not to pay much mind to his accomplishments.

But at least he could kind of act and I'll never have to live with his auto-tuned voice singing the word "punani".

Let me rephrase: Die Hard was when the Invincible Hero trope really started to become a thing of the past in Hollywood. Elsewhere in the world it was much less common, true, but in American cinema (and Italian knockoffs thereof), the trope was alive and well right up to about the 90s.

I remember Chuck Norris jokes being a thing in the 00s. I haven't seen anyone make any Cuck Norris jokes in years.