I am not sure if I'm the only one thinking the fights post vol 3 are nowhere near Monty's level, including the Maiden's fight. I spent a lot of time watching, and re-watching Monty's early works, I watched pretty much everything related to him on YouTube and read all controversies (Shane's letter, Jeff Williams decision on staying with RT), and I did exactly what he keeps telling us - keep watching things, keep making new ideas and keep learning new ways.

The fluidity (use of gravity and recoil, character flow), rhythm (dance-like fight following background music), camera work and choreography are unmatched even to this day. The Maiden's fight is the CLOSEST to Monty's level, but it is still very far from it in terms of choreography, fluidity and rhythm if you analyze it frame by frame.

-- MY TAKE ON THE FUTURE OF RWBY'S FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY --

One of the things that make the past fights so fluid versus now is the team size. In early volumes, Monty used to animate pretty much everything with Shane Newville out of passion, dedicating more time than anyone can on the project to perfect it. Having a small team has its pros and cons, especially with an exceptional animator like Monty. According to Shane's letter, Monty had the thought of taking RWBY private with a small team and this wouldn't surprise me - a bigger team can feel clunky, you have to go through a lot of people, who most likely don't share the same drive and motives as you, and you have more chances of having conflicting ideas. Obviously, the incompatibility of working with a team lead to the departure of Shane from RT. No matter how bias his letter could be, CRWBY has undoubtedly changed a lot and grown in sheer team size, for better or worst.

There is no going back to what CRWBY has once been, a small dedicated team with one of the best lead animator in the world (if not the best in my own eyes) - they moved forward. In order to replace such a great animator, they had no choice but to have a bigger team to fill his shoes, and they did, with passion (according to Twitter accounts from current animator team). Clearly, these people are no Monty, they don't dance like him, they have other background profiles, they have different ways to animate fights, they are working with a new engine, and they have REALLY BIG shoes to fill. It is no easy task and I can't fathom being in their place when the bar is set so high. Vol. 5 was an improvement to Vol 4. in terms of fight choreography and this is how I will evaluate them.

About the Maiden's fight specifically, according to Tweets from animators, there seems to be a small dedicated team who orchestrated that fight, and it was put together by another team for final production. It took away everything they have to make it happen and the effort itself is worth our praise. Is this the best they can do ? Are we satisfied ? As a First Member, I will keep paying to watch this stuff, BUT NOT WHEN SO MANY OTHER FIGHTS HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY DESTROYED OR SET ASIDE FOR THIS FINAL MOMENT.

Yang vs Mercury rematch, great opportunity for Yang character development (I waited literally years for this one, and it is just skipped)

Ruby Yang vs Mercury Emerald, a great opportunity to show off the improved teamwork of two siblings, after how much time CRWBY spent showcasing the sisterly love between these two in this volume

Qrow vs Raven, seriously Qrow was SO underwhelming during the whole encounter it was simply embarassing

Blake vs Adam, a very much anticipated fight, CRWBY should've spent a bit more time and effort than one blow to show Blake's character development, very anticlimatic "fight".

As a Monty's fan, I cannot fathom how epic all these previously mentioned potential fights would've been if he was around, and the fun he would've had animating them. I had that feeling many times throughout the volume, from training with Oscar and co., to Adam stabbing Sienna, and also felt it many times during Blake's storyline. So many potential fights being ignored is so out of character in a world full of huntsmen and weapons.

-- HOW TO IMPROVE MOVING FORWARD --

There are clearly LOTS of things to improve going forward, starting off with hiring a fight choreographer. Then, the cool factor is missing and needs to be fixed live. Monty abused the cool factor, a lot, for a good reason, and it worked great, because everything had to be cool, look cool and feel cool. What does it mean ? In simple words :

Dance flow like choreography with a great rhythm. Backflip dodges and sidesteps, charge in instead of running in, backflip dodge then charge in ! oh, and abuse the guns, we love guns, abuse the recoil to charge in or dodge ! or how about use that recoil to initiate next move, don't forget weapon and gun sounds, abuse weapon flips and 360s before every move and pose, it looks cool, slow-mo posing after connecting combos before fatal blow, what about connecting team work combos with team names ! now put that all together, and also remember the camera work and shot angles, very very important, can't hide any important moves and transitions.

This is hard to master, but fairly simple to initiate. You just have to be warry of when to do it, and it could be as little as 2 to 5 seconds of animation.

Let's take Nora for example. In the previous volumes, she is one of those over the top character who could solo team RWBY during the food fight and inflict the killing blow to the scorpion grim. She can swing that weapon and once she does, you can feel the impact.

Now take a look at the small encounter against Hazel. She runs and jumps in with her hammer on top of her head, which is a very typical lazy way of charging in, then gets instantly countered. She then managed to hammer Hazel with a charged up hammer knocking him flying. The presentation was underwhelming, and here is one way to improve it :

Have Nora hop, put weapon below feet, and use weapon recoil to charge in while spinning (kind of like in Vol 1 against scorpion fight), then when she is charged up ready to "take him down", use a similar move that she pulled off against Weiss during food fight (spin hammer on top of head), then use weapon recoil to strike at full speed.

Not only are these changes small and doable, they make the blow more impactful, and the character more lively and feel more skillful. A big problem right now is the characters "forgetting how to fight". These little details are crucial to make believe that it is not the case. The key here is also to avoid running, there is a reason Monty almost never used running instead of charging in, or using weapon recoil to engage or disengage. It's just that much more lively, cool and smarter. Running, screaming and jumping in is the worst possible way to sneak in behind an enemy for someone who is supposed to know how to fight, which brings up my second point.

Screaming... screaming.. and more screaming. This has become the new trend to all characters and they must all adapt to this most clever way to initiate a sneak attack. Let's count (I may have missed a few), Blake's mom charging in with food tray screaming, the brothers screaming their lungs trying to sneak behind Ghira, Oscar screaming before knocking Lionheart down the stairs, and Nora screaming her lungs sneaking behind Hazel. This has to stop, it is extremely annoying, and serves no purpose. It kills the surprise and the best way to replace screaming as a way to show a character is approaching is using weapon noise just like Yang did previously, as simple as that. Characters need to make better decisions during fights, and we know they can from previous volumes. Speaking of which, here comes my third point.

Decision making has been horrible this season. Here are a few examples : Blake freezing the brothers then backing off to plan next move, Ghira distracting Blake when she was on top of things (literally), ending up being stabbed and Blake stunned, Qrow and Ozpin being very skeptical about Lionheart's behavior, and yet leading everyone right into the trap with no back up plan but to "...fight" like Ozpin put it. Bad decisions really take a toll on the general feeling and atmosphere surrounding the fight scenes, and make them a lot less suspenseful.

There are so many little things that could be improved. We could've seen a better Jaune after all that training, not a Jaune tripping over himself after attempting one strike. We could've seen Ruby being a bit more useful and agile with her scythe, not dropping it after one single kick from Mercury. Characters feel clunky and unable to flow. What happened to Qrow who could solo Tyrian, Salem's henchman, and yet being tossed around like a fodder ? Yang shown as exhausted after we've barely seen anything she did except those few cutscenes is very anticlimatic, Weiss forgetting she has a rappier that she can actually fight with. Ugh.

I am an outside observer and I could already see all these flaws, why can't CRWBY ? Is it a lack of time ? Funding ? Experience ? What is it that puts RWBY back so much ? The potential of this show is unmatchable. The fight scenes are unique, the weapons are great, the characters are awesome, everything is there for absolute greatness, except EXECUTION ! I hope CRWBY pulls through this. I have never been so invested in a show and I want to see it bloom past Vol. 1-3.

If you have made it through this wall of text, you are a true RWBY fan who wants the best for this show. This is no rant, and I am not bashing the current animators. In fact, I think they're doing great, but direction needs to hire a choreographer, and need to put more attention on the details that can make a big difference in the end as shown previously. This is the longest constructive feedback I have ever written and I sincerely hope that I am not alone with this thought.