Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 02:34:05 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  TV  |  Topic: Marvel's Iron Fist 0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 Go Down Print
Author Topic: Marvel's Iron Fist  (Read 50547 times)
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #105 on: March 27, 2017, 03:50:25 PM

I just got to the bit where they went to China. Holy shit this is bad.


"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737

the opportunity for evil is just delicious


Reply #106 on: March 27, 2017, 04:47:22 PM

I gave up after 4 episodes.  Now binging on Legion as an awesome alternative.
MahrinSkel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10857

When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!


Reply #107 on: March 27, 2017, 05:27:24 PM

Oh my god, this 13th episode....

It is shit. It is slime from a maggot that has been burrowing in shit. It should never have been shot, and once they had, they should have decided 'Fuck, this is bad, let's pretend there were only 12 episodes and end it on a cliffhanger.'

--Dave

--Signature Unclear
Shannow
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3703


Reply #108 on: March 28, 2017, 06:06:15 AM

My son pointed out that Finn Jones is Loras Tyrell. Yep, Ive watched 6 seasons of GoT and 6 episodes of this and never made the connection.

Someone liked something? Who the fuzzy fuck was this heretic? You don't come to this website and enjoy something. Fuck that. ~ The Walrus
NowhereMan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7353


Reply #109 on: March 30, 2017, 08:39:43 PM

Big old meh. Yeah the ending sucked both for resolutions and setting up any future series. I get that they wanted to go with a symbolic 'your past is the foe you must defeat' but the symbolism was clumsy, inconsistent and they never really settled on anything more than some vague desire for revenge that just flared up when they needed to move the plot along. I think maybe they were trying to balance between 'is he seeking revenge or a family?' but it came off poorly. Also the ending  Ohhhhh, I see.


"Look at my car. Do you think that was bought with the earnest love of geeks?" - HaemishM
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #110 on: March 31, 2017, 12:39:57 AM

Episode 11. Right now I'm trying to decide which is worse. The scripting of the sudden but inevitable betrayal arc, or the bad cgi emo fist flashbacks.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Tale
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8558

sıɥʇ ǝʞıן sʞןɐʇ


Reply #111 on: April 17, 2017, 03:29:23 PM

I enjoyed this series. I had a good time.

I kept expecting it to suck, based on what I was seeing here (avoided the spoilered items until now), but it didn't get too bad.

Considering I didn't even finish Luke Cage, this is a step up! I'd rank it third after Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but I wasn't disappointed.
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #112 on: April 21, 2017, 02:16:06 PM

Since the time that I finished watching I have heard a lot more positive reviews than negative.  That surprises me as I was very disappointed, but it seems to indicate that causal watchers, as opposed to the hardcore folks that finished first, are more tolerant of the weaknesses.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
NowhereMan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7353


Reply #113 on: April 22, 2017, 07:27:42 AM

Honestly, I'd put this on a similar level with Flash in that it had a plot which had a lot of actions that fall apart if you spend more than 5 seconds thinking about them (WTF? Why China, why? Also  The action is reasonable and the plot doesn't really drag. While it might not always make sense there's definitely character development. I see this being the weakest of the Netflix but I'm not surprised that it's been generally well received.

I'm starting to feel that the Netflix team are good but they are very limited by the source material. With Daredevil and Jessica Jones that was rich and edgy enough to work, with Ironfist it was corny and with Luke Cage I feel like they needed to get him an opponent that could actually physically match him, which led to a really unsatisfactory finale.

"Look at my car. Do you think that was bought with the earnest love of geeks?" - HaemishM
Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #114 on: April 22, 2017, 12:13:52 PM

Basically, I think their problem is that they are just ever so slightly embarrassed by the comic-book roots of the characters and they are a bit hampered by budgets and they haven't found a way to match narratives to the size of the buy from Netflix.

Put that together and you get some consistent problems:

a) Pacing issues
b) Padding out character arcs in order to not have too much action
c) Uncertainty about what kind of challenges to throw at the characters that don't involve 'supervillains' in the simple sense
d) Thematic weaknesses in adapting the source material because they want to carve away the pulpy, adolescent elements

With Daredevil, they had the easiest job, because Miller, Bendis and Brubaker had successively made him a more adult, complex, crime-noir character, particularly with adding the Catholic element to the mix.

With Jessica Jones, they solved problems #c and #d effectively: they remade a 'supervillain' into a really interesting and chilling antagonist and the nature of his powers solved #d as well and gave them themes about rape and trauma and healing to work with (again, following Bendis' lead from Alias, which might be his best Marvel work)

With Luke Cage, they solved #d some by embracing the blackness and dropping the xploitation--that part worked really well. But they struggled with #c because what enemy do you give a character trying to protect Harlem that feels sophisticated and rooted in our own lives who is just enough of a thematic/action-based challenge to a strong guy with invulnerable skin? If you just make his enemies people of finance and politics and criminal conspiracy, then you have to figure out why how they pose a proportional threat to him that he can potentially resolve--it feels as if they either ought to overwhelm him entirely or the exact opposite, as if they shouldn't be able to touch him. They were also hampered by the fact that Cage's actual rogues' gallery is really terrible until quite recently. So they reached out to find another 'strong guy' but were uncertain or tentative about making him too pulpy and comic-booky.

With Iron Fist, I don't think they solved any of this in advance, and they didn't have *any* strong takes from the comics to draw upon. The most innovative thing ever done with Iron Fist is a) teaming him with Luke Cage and making them 'heroes for hire' and b) Brubaker's very-late-in-the-game reinterpretation of the character as a more wuxia-inspired one with a bit of flavor from early 20th C. pulps thrown in on the side. They needed to have a really great idea about a different take and they only ventured a few tentative stabs in that direction. I think if they'd pushed a lot harder on the "Danny is actually pretty shit at being the Iron Fist" concept, that would have had some really potent possibilities--if he's basically a mediocre white man who semi-accidentally ended up having power not meant for him and they want to run with that idea in a much edgier way. Another might have been, "Danny was cannon fodder who was supposed to die defending his magic Shangri-la", e.g., if they redid K'un L'un so it's a city full of sleazy scammers who sucker Westerner dummies in with all this talk about how they're going to be the Chosen One and learn martial arts so that they can send them in like suicide bombers to deal with an enemy (say, they can remotely blow up the mystical energy of the Iron Fist), only Danny got lucky and the remote signal didn't affect him. So now he has to really master the Iron Fist and really get good at martial arts in order to survive. I dunno. There's possibilities, but they really didn't decide on anything as a strong direction and the source material isn't strong enough to help them decide on that.

I think if they're going to keep going--and especially if they add characters--they need to:

a) budget up for some more action that will use the powers of the powered characters
b) be slightly less tentative about the comic-book elements
c) avoid any character that they can't find a distinctive thematic angle for

I think they could possibly do Brother Voodoo (maybe with a renaming) or Ghost Rider (though that would force them to finally decide whether Agents of SHIELD really is in this same universe). Brother Voodoo as rooted in an Afro-Caribbean neighborhood in NYC, maybe serving as a healer/spiritual investigator, a kind of street-level Dr. Strange?

Maybe White Tiger though I think he/she is basically an incredibly generic character and the thematic use of the Latino/Latina identity has always been terrible. There's almost nothing to work with.

Moon Knight is just so close to Batman, but there's some versions of the character that have a bit of possibility--the multiple-personalities one, the working-for-a-god one, maybe.

After that I think things really start to get barren. Maybe some anti-hero types like Taskmaster would work.



jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #115 on: April 22, 2017, 01:17:25 PM

I'd stick with these characters as headliners unless you introduce a hero in a show and they jump off the screen. Wait for these characters to age out before you add a bunch of new faces.  We can only handle so many characters at a time.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2017, 08:30:33 AM by jgsugden »

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
NowhereMan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7353


Reply #116 on: April 22, 2017, 01:25:38 PM

I could see Moonknight as an interesting character in a 'is he insane or actually working for some quasi-divine entity?' type theme. Writers would have to be careful to not just straight up have Batman in a white outfit though.

I think Jg's right though in that they aren't going to be adding a big mix of other characters. I'm kind of hoping that some of the issues with these characters can be ironed out in a team setting. Having the Hand as the main bad guys means Jessica Jones and Luke Cage can be physically challenged (so problem C from Khaldun isn't such a worry). I'd be worried if the writers don't get much more in terms of character takes than they have though and just relied on some natural energy to emerge. I think they need to have some clear and simple relationships thought out that they can build on. Cage vs. Rand would probably work as an antagonistic beginning but they're going to need something convincing as to how they get past that that isn't simply Danny saves Luke's life in a couple of fights and suddenly they're best buddies. Jessica is a relatively easy fit as a natural loner who is going to have huge trust issues. Murdoch... I guess I can see him working as a 'team leader' who knows more than the others and hides certain aspects (like a prior relationship with now evil Elektra?) but again hopefully they put some effort into making it reasonable not just 'I have a secret because it creates dramatic tension!'

"Look at my car. Do you think that was bought with the earnest love of geeks?" - HaemishM
Mandella
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1235


Reply #117 on: April 25, 2017, 09:43:04 AM

I enjoyed this series. I had a good time.

I kept expecting it to suck, based on what I was seeing here (avoided the spoilered items until now), but it didn't get too bad.

Considering I didn't even finish Luke Cage, this is a step up! I'd rank it third after Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but I wasn't disappointed.

Yeah, me too. It was a solid entry in the Netflix MCU, with a lot of fun/cool moments to keep me interested. Much better treatment of Ninjas/The Hand than second season Daredevil even, good fight scenes with no shakycam, some genuinely surprising plot twists, and I even liked the development of the sibling/family relationships. Characters were seemingly acting in contradictory ways because that's what people do in close family relationships. The person you hate today is the person you love tomorrow. And you always make excuses for loved ones, until you just can't anymore.

I did have a problem with a few things, but most I suspect were budget related. There were some really cringeworthy set backdrops (greenscreens?) -- come to think of it, pretty much all of K'un L'ung needed to be sent back for re-rendering. I haven't seen faker rocks since the original Star Trek.

But overall, thumbs up, would watch again.
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #118 on: May 30, 2017, 10:45:01 AM

I think I'd rather see them do a first season of Moon Knight or another Street Hero, but...

http://www.blastr.com/2017-5-30/rumor-day-season-2-iron-fist-be-announced-soon

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #119 on: August 16, 2018, 07:07:15 AM

Season 2, September 7.  I missed the announcement.

Preview reel looks bland. 

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #120 on: August 16, 2018, 09:41:15 PM

At least the fight scenes look like they will be better.
Hawkbit
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5531

Like a Klansman in the ghetto.


Reply #121 on: August 17, 2018, 08:16:09 AM

I watched IF1 again recently and liked it even more the second time. It would have been vastly improved by being only seven episodes instead of 13. Looking forward to this one.
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #122 on: August 18, 2018, 09:27:15 AM

While not as bad as some make it out to be, it is one of the two worst Marvel efforts.  I expect Season 2 to be better, but I still think they'd be betterending it there and move Jones, Cage and Iron First into a single Heroes for Hire series.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #123 on: August 20, 2018, 03:03:24 PM

That didn't go so well when they did Defenders. The last thing they need is more crossover. The cameos in each others shows is plenty, and tbh the films could learn a thing or two from how these shows have limited it (not defenders obv).

Also merging Jessica Jones into anything else is plainly mad.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #124 on: August 20, 2018, 03:17:10 PM

They don't have enough story, even in Jones, for any of these folks to carry 13 episodes.  Keep Jones and Cage as the alpha characters and make Fist a second stringer.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #125 on: August 20, 2018, 03:30:17 PM

They might actually need a Heroes for Hire that's 4 3-episodic arcs or something of that sort.
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #126 on: August 20, 2018, 03:32:18 PM

I'm completely happy with the speed these shows run at.

And even if I wasn't, it can't possibly be because there is insufficient story you could possibly get these guys involved in.

It is just a matter of how much they want to write. If anything most genre TV these days has way too much plot. I find it refreshing to watch these shows slow the fuck down.

But as I said I'm completely fine with the pace of these things. I'm glad they seem to have toned the amount of annoying flashback in the second seasons - they were the only sections that dragged for me.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #127 on: August 20, 2018, 03:33:28 PM

All that said, I think Cage 2 was very much hinting that they'd like to do heroes for hire at some point.

Which is cool, so long as it is better than Defenders.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #128 on: August 20, 2018, 06:01:01 PM

Truthfully, for Cage and Iron Fist, there IS insufficient story in their Marvel histories. Neither of them had anything like classic arcs or adversaries or anything for much of their history either solo or together. They were flavor characters who sometimes got stuff that was a cut above that. Claremont started giving them real supporting casts and beefing up their enemies, but then he was pulled into X-Men. Cage becomes way more interesting once he gets pulled into Avengers and Thunderbolts, but most of that is so so superhero that it doesn't work for Netflix. Iron Fist became interesting by playing more thoughtfully with wuxia narratives and visuals, very very recently.

Daredevil got interesting a long time ago after having been a pretty dull character for his first 10 years or so. Jessica Jones started interesting and stayed that way until she married Cage.
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #129 on: August 20, 2018, 06:52:19 PM

All that said, I think Cage 2 was very much hinting that they'd like to do heroes for hire at some point.

Which is cool, so long as it is better than Defenders.
I saw that as a test run to take over Iron Fist and add him to Luke Cage if season two of Iron Fist is not popular.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #130 on: August 21, 2018, 05:57:14 PM

Truthfully, for Cage and Iron Fist, there IS insufficient story in their Marvel histories. Neither of them had anything like classic arcs or adversaries or anything for much of their history either solo or together. They were flavor characters who sometimes got stuff that was a cut above that. Claremont started giving them real supporting casts and beefing up their enemies, but then he was pulled into X-Men. Cage becomes way more interesting once he gets pulled into Avengers and Thunderbolts, but most of that is so so superhero that it doesn't work for Netflix. Iron Fist became interesting by playing more thoughtfully with wuxia narratives and visuals, very very recently.

Daredevil got interesting a long time ago after having been a pretty dull character for his first 10 years or so. Jessica Jones started interesting and stayed that way until she married Cage.

Fair enough , but lack of content in the comics shouldn't make it impossible for professional writers to put together 13 episodes a year.

Plenty of shows do it without any comic books to base it on.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #131 on: August 21, 2018, 06:14:56 PM

Yeah. But they did a good enough job in season 1 of everything BUT Iron Fist. Cage = play with black history and Harlem. JJ = work with Killgrave and sexual assault. DD = Catholic guilt, the violent desire to do justice, the complexity of coming from nothing into a professional life.

IF = a white martial arts guy? something?
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #132 on: August 22, 2018, 05:43:47 AM

Everyone forgets punisher.

But I agree. I just get grumpy at the suggestion that limitations of the comics prevent future versions growing beyond them, on TV or anywhere else.


"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #133 on: September 09, 2018, 02:56:00 PM

Couple of hours in, this is plainly a different show and that is no bad thing.

But they're pushing the Chinatown angle hard - which makes the whiteness of Danny a bit more awkward.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #134 on: September 09, 2018, 05:23:49 PM

Definitely different, but not good, either.  I think Danny, especially this incarnation, is just better off as a secondary character.  I'm four episodes in and I keep losing interest.  So far, they seem a bit lost.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
MahrinSkel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10857

When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!


Reply #135 on: September 09, 2018, 09:34:18 PM

In the end, they decided that Ser Loras was never going to look like a badass kung fu master, and
--Dave
« Last Edit: September 10, 2018, 03:53:02 PM by MahrinSkel »

--Signature Unclear
Cyrrex
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10603


Reply #136 on: September 10, 2018, 02:26:32 AM

Only 4 episodes in, and I like it just fine.  I also kinda liked season 1, relative to other random crap.  To be fair, however, I could probably watch 45 minutes of Colleen Wing looking back at the camera and doing nothing else.

"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #137 on: September 10, 2018, 08:00:49 AM

In the end, they decided that ...

--Dave
Spoiler tags?


2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
satael
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2431


Reply #138 on: September 11, 2018, 12:43:14 AM

A big disappointment (and after watching the first season I have only myself to blame):
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #139 on: September 12, 2018, 12:28:43 AM

I'm about half way - this is pretty good. Not amazing but good.

This show really makes me wonder why marvel TV can do women well and villians pretty well but the movies suck at both. Especially as the movies do most other things so much better.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  TV  |  Topic: Marvel's Iron Fist  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC