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Author Topic: Marvel's The Defenders  (Read 14311 times)
Trippy
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on: May 03, 2017, 11:12:07 AM

« Last Edit: May 03, 2017, 11:18:25 AM by Trippy »
MediumHigh
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Reply #1 on: May 03, 2017, 01:12:01 PM

I wonder if Luke Cage is going to stand around scowling at everyone and everything except night nurse the whole show.
I wonder if Iron Fist will always sound like a ten year old when saying "I am the Iron Fist"
I wonder if Jessica Jones will always look bored the entire time
Is Matt Murdock the only one going to bother having an emotional range?

Find out next time in.... NETFLIX AVENGERS!!
eldaec
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Reply #2 on: August 07, 2017, 01:30:25 PM

Review summary:

 DRILLING AND MANLINESS

And trailer 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_6J9BqgonU

Though I'd only watch it if either you think you need convincing or if you like punchlines being spoiled.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2017, 02:08:29 PM by eldaec »

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Reply #3 on: August 18, 2017, 04:03:11 AM

This is great.  Almost done.

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Reply #4 on: August 18, 2017, 04:09:32 AM

Watched the first 20-ish minutes this morning getting ready for work and I couldn't get into it. Probably because I was reminded how little I cared for some of the characters and it *IS* the lame "here's where the heroes are" recap. Was nice seeing DD, Foggy, and Luke on screen again though so I'll probably give it a real go this weekend.

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Reply #5 on: August 18, 2017, 08:20:44 PM

I never finished Ironfist.  Will this disappoint?

Fake edit:  i await IW's final verdict .
MahrinSkel
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When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!


Reply #6 on: August 18, 2017, 08:57:12 PM

I'd put on a par with Jessica Jones or Daredevil season 2. Much better than Iron Fist, but not as good as DD season 1 (which was one of the best shows ever, IMO, and a very high bar). In a lot of ways, it's DD season 3, with all the other Netflix Marvel heroes as guests.

--Dave

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eldaec
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Reply #7 on: August 19, 2017, 06:27:14 AM

Half way through. Not on the level of Jessica Jones but still lots of fun and better than the rest.

Only real niggle is that I don't feel they are dealing with the number of characters brilliantly. 

Also, after this I think I've seen enough of almost everyone involved. Not a criticism, it just feels like most characters have said or done everything they need to. Clearly I'll sit through anything they make, but Jessica is the only character I actually want another season from.

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Reply #8 on: August 20, 2017, 03:10:08 AM

Finished this. It was ok and best summarized by
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Reply #9 on: August 20, 2017, 07:27:46 AM

I dunno, for me what summarizes the whole thing best was everyone treating IF like the complete dumbass he is.

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Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #10 on: August 20, 2017, 11:12:20 AM

While watching it I had fun but with every passing day I keep thinking how lazy it was on all levels.  World spanning shadow organization around for thousands of years? Let's fight the heroes with like, a dozen guys in suits at the end.

The whole thing just screamed network tv budget.

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Reply #11 on: August 20, 2017, 01:04:10 PM

I haven't been able to get through a combined 3 episodes across all series from the Netflix Marvel stuff.

Just the shittiest pack of heroes with the most mediocre of acting talent.
Khaldun
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Reply #12 on: August 20, 2017, 04:22:32 PM

I love the concepts, I love the characters, I love the basic approach, but...so far the padding and the complicated ambivalence of the producers towards the source material and the cheapness that's very likely a Perelmann dictate have made it hard going. Luke Cage at six would have been great. Jessica Jones at six great. DD 1 was pretty good as-is. DD2 at eight, no more, good. IF was just a misfire period at every level.

I wish they'd take a pause now and figure this out better.
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Reply #13 on: August 20, 2017, 05:05:16 PM

Big spoiler but fuck it.


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Tale
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Reply #14 on: August 20, 2017, 06:59:00 PM

Daredevil season 1 is superb. I can't imagine not enjoying that. The first season I watched was Jessica Jones, which comes after that, and it's extremely unorthodox and often tongue-in-cheek, especially in gender-flipping the roles of fucked-up reluctant superhero and buff dumb blonde.

These series are low-key superhero stories. They could all be drama series without super abilities, whereas the rest of the Marvel universe revolves around the abilities.

I'm at episode 5 of Defenders. It's good enough so far. I found it had the slowest start of all these series, but my wife is keenly watching for the first time since we lost interest 2/3 of the way through Luke Cage. She's hooked, but I had to explain Stick to her and The Hand's ability to to rez (her initial take: "did the other series have this voodoo shit?"). Also she is annoyed the ignorantly-defined "real African" character. If, like her, he was from the 54-nation continent of Africa, he would go by a nationality, e.g. Kenyan, Zimbabwean, Nigerian, not "African".
MahrinSkel
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When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!


Reply #15 on: August 20, 2017, 08:18:48 PM

I think the idea with him (beyond the origins of the characters in a much less aware time) is that when he and the rest of the Hand left K'un Lun, there were no nations in Africa, certainly none by their modern names.

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Reply #16 on: August 20, 2017, 08:26:46 PM

Then he'd identify by tribal name, like Kikuyu or Zulu or Luo. But I guess it doesn't matter that much.
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Reply #17 on: August 20, 2017, 08:33:47 PM

Argggggh, yes--it would never have occurred to anyone who left Africa prior to 1850 or so to think of themselves as generically "African" until they'd spent time in the West. Go back two centuries, and people from the African continent who happened to fetch up elsewhere in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, or North America, completely did not think of themselves in those terms and largely speaking neither did Westerners or Middle Eastern societies. Slave traders in 1750 identified Africans in terms of their societies of origin, some of them inventions or recombinations invented by outsiders, but many pretty well recognizable to those people in their own societies of origin.

But this isn't something special for Africans--take *any* people out of history somewhere between 1750 and a thousand years before that and they wouldn't use *any* of our modern terms to describe themselves. "German" and "Italian", for example, would be largely unintelligible to people living in those territories in 1650. If you establish they know about people today and have had a chance to recategorize, then the African characters should be either identifying with a contemporary ethnonym or a nation.
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Reply #18 on: August 20, 2017, 09:38:40 PM

Everything about the show is lazy to differing degrees. Notice the green screen on the elevator scenes in ep 7-8? It's babylon5 era sfx.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2017, 04:06:01 AM by Lakov_Sanite »

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jgsugden
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Reply #19 on: August 20, 2017, 10:24:33 PM

They have all changed their names several times.

It was fine... a bit anticlimatic, but pretty much what I expected.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #20 on: August 21, 2017, 06:53:35 AM

I just realized for an ancient shadow cabal of ninjas, there wasn't a single ninja in uniform in the entire series.   swamp poop

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Reply #21 on: August 21, 2017, 06:56:39 AM

I just realized for an ancient shadow cabal of ninjas, there wasn't a single ninja in uniform in the entire series.   swamp poop
The entire show took place on casual Friday.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Ironwood
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Reply #22 on: August 21, 2017, 07:26:21 AM

Yeah, this took a sharp nosedive into shite town once it became clear that this was the Moron Fist In Charge Show.

It's not even funny.  The character is awful.  Literally, I wanna ask anyone who reads Iron Fist comics to tell me that THIS is not an accurate portrayal, because Danny is just... fuck stupid.  I mean, like eating paste special retarded stupid. 

I liked how they started it tonally and had the four sorta 'montaging' and it came together well.  But after about, oh, I dunno, midway through when Danny became the focus, it just tanked.  Totally fucking tanked.

The Hand are retarded.  Elektra/Sky was retarded.  The Cops were retarded. Ripley was fucking retarded.  Stick was retarded.  Daredevil was awesome.  Jessica and Cage were pretty much background scenery, even though I still love them.

Damn.

I mean, it's still better than the Iron Fist Series, but, you know, wasted opportunity here I think.

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Reply #23 on: August 21, 2017, 07:34:42 AM

Bleh, shitty to hear.  I'll try to give it a watch and see how far I make it.

This Iron Fist does not represent the character in the comic in the slightest.  Like, night and day difference on every level.  Iron Fist was actually the series I was most looking forward to when they announced all this, and it was the one they fucked up the most.  What a total mess.

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Reply #24 on: August 21, 2017, 07:35:21 AM

I like the main characters(iron fist is more of a mascot) but I'm really getting sick of tv superheroes having MASSIVELY inconsistent powers. One scene we have Cage breaking through walls, getting hit with cars and walking away and the next he gets punched and knocked down, fucking what? Also being the black sky apparently means fuckall, it was just Electra back from the dead, no super powers.  Basically just another assassin which they should have had hundreds of.

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Reply #25 on: August 21, 2017, 07:40:31 AM

Bleh, shitty to hear.  I'll try to give it a watch and see how far I make it.

This Iron Fist does not represent the character in the comic in the slightest.  Like, night and day difference on every level.  Iron Fist was actually the series I was most looking forward to when they announced all this, and it was the one they fucked up the most.  What a total mess.

No Joke.  I even went back to watch Iron Fist (I skipped it on recommendation from here) and, man, man, man.  It's just a shitfest from start to finish.  I don't blame the Actors, or the cultural appropriation shite or even the fight scenes ;  for me, this is just badly, badly, badly written and directed shite and it's quite disheartening to see it continued in Defenders. It's just awful plot nonsense that's grabbed from anywhere and doesn't even recognise what a good job of writing and tone the other shows managed.

It's sad.  SAD.

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Reply #26 on: August 21, 2017, 07:43:54 AM

Iron Fist in the comics started as a pretty straightforward attempt to cash in on 70s martial arts fever. He was a pretty bland character but not stupid or annoying. Then you got an Ebony and Ivory schtick going with Luke Cage where generally Iron Fist was the slightly dull straight man to Cage's more expressive, intense character. It wasn't really until Ed Brubaker's recently soft reboot that the character got a bit more of an interesting edge and the underlying mythology got more interesting too.

The one thing that you can't really get away from in the baseline version of the character is that he's a white guy who outdoes a local Asian guy in a mostly Asian extradimensional city and gains the sacred power etc. etc.  When Brubaker rebooted he didn't really go after that aspect of it too much, but he intensified Daniel Rand's fraught relationship with Davos and Davos' father in some useful ways.

I think what you see in the Iron Fist series and the Defenders is that they just do not have a clear idea of what to do with the character. You could do the whole "white privileged kid" in some sharp-edged ways; if you want him to be a hero, you pretty much have to have him work through that and become self-aware. You could do the "let's have fun with martial arts" schtick. Or just have him be the one upbeat, fun-loving person in a group of brooding urban vigilantes. But they don't have a take or a hook, so he's just there, like a big inert turd. And the problem is that Finn Jones simply cannot do some of those possible hooks. It's clear he's got zero ability to do great martial arts choreography. He can't do the "fun swashbuckler" at all. He might be able to do "privilege boy becomes more woke" but damn that takes a deft hand to not just be a pile of bad cliches.
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Reply #27 on: August 21, 2017, 08:57:52 AM

I quite like the Iron Fist character but that's just because I think Martial Arts are fun. In terms of the series, I was left kind of wishing that they had stuck to introducing him as a side character. There's not enough there, without going for a good martial artists and associated effects as the focus, to build a good series around. Fuck they could have even gone and short circuited most of the 'cultural appropriation' issues and made his character Chinese American son of a billionaire who found a mystical city and then just not really bothered dealing with that aspect of the character.

I'm only onto episode 3 and was enjoying it, I'll watch the whole thing but sad to hear that Danny becomes the focal character. Based purely on prior exposure and critical success I'd have assumed they'd have made Matt the reluctant leader. There wasn't really anything in the IF series that indicated he was someone others would follow beyond being stubborn (which came across as just dumb ass stubborn in the show rather than principled and determined).

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Reply #28 on: August 21, 2017, 09:33:53 AM

No,  they tried that and even had stick mentioning it but it didn't work.  He hardly led at all and the story followed fisty.

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Reply #29 on: August 21, 2017, 10:19:37 AM

The defenders leaves me with one big question.
The danny parts were annoying but he legit is a emotionally stunted kid in a mans body who grew into his power by years of effectively physical torture. There was not enough time after the first iron hand to handwave this for him to suddenly mature and be more competent.
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Reply #30 on: August 21, 2017, 10:57:05 AM

I still say it would have been a great take to have Danny's mom Chinese but as a boy he had zero ties to that side of his culture so his main arc would be accepting the kung fu shit wasn't all bullshit.  Make him a more cynical and fun character.  Thinking about that, defenders don't have ANY fun characters.  Jessica has some sarcastic wit and Matt and Luke are nice guys while Danny is an edgy teen but there's no fun guy, no flash or spiderman or an RDJ iron man to lighten the mood in scenes. It's just all brooding all the time.

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Reply #31 on: August 21, 2017, 07:16:46 PM

I keep imagining Daniel Wu from Into the Badlands as a Chinese-American Daniel Rand. He could play the bratty, double-privileged, babe-in-the-woods kid *and* do amazing martial arts. Finn Jones is just a giant block of inert nothing at the heart of it all.
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Reply #32 on: August 22, 2017, 10:37:31 AM

Out of curiosity: Given the decline, how would you want Netflix to proceed?  My best path for them would be to:

* Do more seasons that are shorter (film 2 seasons at a time, each 6 to 8 episodes, release them every 6 to 12 months rather than 12 to 24 months). 
* Keep Daredevil mostly separate. 
* End Iron Fist. 
* Merge Jessica and Luke into one series.
* End Punisher.
* Give us Moon Knight.
* Combine the ABC/Movie/Netflix by giving us a Hawkeye and Mockingbird series.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Reply #33 on: August 22, 2017, 11:15:31 AM

Do an anthology series based on the old Marvel Team-Up book that used to feature Spider-Man.

Three-episode arcs.

Cage + Iron Fist
Daughters of the Dragon
Daredevil + Spider-Man
Doctor Strange and Jessica Jones (that would be hilarious)
Moon Knight + Punisher
Black Widow + Daredevil

etc. Make a season order 12-episodes, 4 arcs. Have a theme connecting them all.

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Reply #34 on: August 22, 2017, 06:46:05 PM

I have no wish list, just get rid of Iron Fist.
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