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Author Topic: Marvel's The Defenders  (Read 14312 times)
MediumHigh
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Reply #35 on: August 23, 2017, 02:25:04 AM

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.

Don't waste a perfectly good Asian actor on a role that demands him to be an indecisive twat with mommy issues. I mean fuck we have the last 10 years of anime main characters living out the basement fantasy of its weeboi fanbase for that.

Iron fist sucks because they want an anime main hero with an origin story where no one acts like an anime character and everyone knows who the fuck they are already. So when he is with the grownups he gets treated like a child, who you can't grab the TNT away from. I didn't hate the iron fist show, but maybe because I've been watching recent anime and de-sensitized my taste pallet when your main character who suppose to be this great warrior, defender of fucking heaven has more in common with deku from my hero academia.

And not knowing what to do with him in this show is painful to watch, but doesn't kill the Defenders. I liked it, not more than daredevil or jessica or luke cage but definitely better than whats on TV. And whats on TV is bad. I wish they just give up on having us care about his personal story and just focus on him being a bad ass martial artist, but you know Netflix has a command from on high that any tv show they make gotta be meta, gotta have social relevance. And while that is easy when your talking vague nothings about today's social issues, its less pointed when your trying to over compensate for a white guy beating up poor people because he knows magic kungfu.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2017, 05:48:20 AM by MediumHigh »
eldaec
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Reply #36 on: August 23, 2017, 03:44:26 AM

Also we've had 18 hours of shows with Iron Fist in them. That is a lot of screentime in which to show zero growth. RDJ hasn't played Iron Man for that long.

Regardless, I enjoyed this.

« Last Edit: August 23, 2017, 03:50:42 AM by eldaec »

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eldaec
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Reply #37 on: August 24, 2017, 02:40:40 PM

Actually one thing did niggle aside from Fist.

"Jessica Jones is an alcoholic ha ha ha what a good punchline"

It might have been that it was never funny.

"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
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Reply #38 on: August 24, 2017, 05:53:28 PM

She is showing genuinely Wolverine levels of shrugging off the drink in ways that are a bit, hey hold on. She's not a high-functioning alcoholic in her habits and amounts but she is treated as if she is one, as if it doesn't impair her except when it's a funny character bit for her to be slightly impaired.
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Reply #39 on: August 24, 2017, 09:59:12 PM

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.

I would want them to proceed by not having shows dedicated to shitty fucking heroes and having the standard course of action be "make it grimdark, everyone fucking broods."
Khaldun
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Reply #40 on: August 25, 2017, 05:44:58 AM

Yeah, I think this is the other thing they need, is to be less embarrassed by the superhero genre. And to spend a bit more money. The long, draggy intervals in all of these series except DD 1 has something to do with wanting to avoid anything that looks like super-hero action for a lot of it for both financial and 'ew, superheroes' reasons.

The MCU is also creeping up on a problem that all super-hero universes have but only a few really come to grips with: that life eventually would be substantially different in those worlds, that things would change for everyone. The old Wild Card books that George Martin edited grabbed that problem by the balls and solved it; so does Kurt Busiek's series Astro City. Marvel and DC's main comics mostly ignore it except when they don't (when they don't often leads to great stories).

The MCU kind of has to deal with it because it's trying fairly hard to stay "realistic" and to be fairly constrained in the way it visualizes superheroes, whether we're talking the TV or the movies. Hence Jessica Jones making fun of Daredevil for having a costume, Luke Cage finding someone being "the Iron Fist" faintly ridiculous just as a concept, etc. This is not a universe where the first thing that someone who gets a power greater than human thinks to do is put on skin-tight spandex and punch bad guys in the middle of Times Square. Captain America's costume starts as a stage stunt and then becomes just a variation on a practical soldier's uniform custom designed for a superstrong guy with a shield. Thor's outfit is an alien's thing and everyone sees it as amusingly outre but also a bit awesome. Hawkeye and Black Widow basically don't wear 'costumes'. The Hulk doesn't either. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver don't. Ant-Man finds his own science outfit kind of ridiculous. Even Spider-Man's outfit is basically being turned into a variation of Iron Man's: a technology first and foremost, not a disguise or "union suit".

But the Avengers-level films are now dealing with: what does it mean to the world when there's a team of global law enforcers/special ops people who have these powers? The Defenders was a bit more reluctant to come to grips with that. Harlem's different because of Luke. There's that one bit where Karen is trying to reassure Matt that he did something necessary and good by being DD even *if* he doesn't need to any longer. They're going to have to keep working on that. Your urban-level characters have either got to be a bit obsessive or kinky or whatever--being a superhero has to be something they just have to do, even if no one really needs them--or the metasituation has to require superheroes because something's changing, so that they have no choice but to keep doing it. Usually it's the latter--the event that made superheroes also makes supervillains, the police have given up and gone home (some versions of Batman's Gotham City at the time Batman suits up), something.

Right now with the MCU TV shows, there really isn't that kind of overall thinking. Luke cares about Harlem, but where does that go? If the politicians and cops don't care enough about Harlem, that eventually means: fighting the cops and the politicians again (which they should have stuck with more anyway). Jessica has sort of lost a motivation and she sure as hell doesn't really care what's going on overall--that will have to change. Matt is an obsessive, maybe; the Hand and Elektra function as a secondary motivator. Iron Fist is stuck in his own origin/millieu--he's got nothing once the Hand and K'un L'un are sorted out. But if in the next round of series you more or less have these four people doing shit in New York that sometimes is visible and has public consequences, eventually that has to change shit. If you were a cop--or a government--and you knew there was an invulnerable guy who could walk into gunfire unharmed, that would change your status quo. If you were an FBI agent and knew there was a stealthy ninja vigilante who could sneak into a mob safe house and get the hard drive of an incriminating computer and then leave it as an "anonymous tip", that would change things. If you knew you could hire a private detective who could throw a car through a wall, that would change things.

The Spider-Man movie actually did an interesting thing with the Vulture along those lines: the street-level consequences of aliens attacking and so on. The TV shows need to do their own version of that.
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Reply #41 on: August 27, 2017, 07:52:31 PM

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.
You want them to end Punisher (one of the most well done characters to come out of this Netflixverse), and do Moon Knight (one of the worst and most pointless ripoff hero's in Marvels line up).

 Ohhhhh, I see.

But yes, kill Iron First or recast him or something god damn fuck

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Khaldun
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Reply #42 on: August 27, 2017, 08:11:55 PM

Moon Knight, yeah, I just can't see it.

If they want to do martial arts and give Luke a martial arts buddy, kill IF halfway through his season 2 and introduce Shang Chi to replace him. Though he has some pretty complicated baggage in his own right--I assume they'd just forget the Fu Manchu stuff, since it was a copyright violation back when they first did it.

Does Marvel Studios still own Blade? He could work really well, and introduce a new hook. Brother Voodoo maybe too if they can make him a bit less hokey.

They're doing Cloak and Dagger elsewhere, which is too bad, they could also work.

Ghost Rider, if they can reclaim him from SHIELD.

Taskmaster? He can almost be a protagonist, if he's done right.

Ms. Marvel, maybe, but I think she doesn't work with this mood--she needs to be upbeat and light, plus her powers can't be done on the cheap.
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Reply #43 on: August 27, 2017, 09:33:25 PM

Moon Knight - the first 20 episodes of the original comic - would be awesome. Yeah, he was still a Batman ripoff, but had plenty of unique twists. Moon Knight - I'm on the same team as Norse Gods version?No point.

So yeah, it would fit the Netflix mold quite well.

I am an admitted fanboi though, and own more Moon Knight comics than Batman comics.

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Signe
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Reply #44 on: August 27, 2017, 10:01:24 PM

So I don't read comics and have no idea who a lot of these characters are... but it doesn't really matter.  Iron Fist sucks even without any knowledge of his comic book background or what he should be like.  I don't like anything about him... his acting, dialog, story, face, hair, outfit... he's just annoying.  His shoes are especially unattractive.  I couldn't get through the Iron Fist series and he might have the ability to ruin The Defenders, which I don't think is so bad.

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Khaldun
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Reply #45 on: September 21, 2017, 02:04:40 PM

I finally finished this off with the last episode, which somehow I had lost enthusiasm for. It was honestly pretty crap (the last episode) on multiple levels. And I liked the series as a whole--the Chinese restaurant episode was excellent.

The problem really is multiple:

a) The action was mostly not well-filmed or choreographed throughout, except in the fight in Midland Circle in the middle of the series and then in the Chinese restaurant. None of these shows have ever really hit those heights except for Season 1 Daredevil and a few bits in Season 2 Daredevil and this is a big problem, because it one of the few things they should be able to do stunningly well--strong physical combat scenes that turn on relatively subtle uses of superpowers. But the last episode is especially tarnished by this--the moment where we should see the four of them bringing their unique talents to fighting against a dangerous enemy is instead a messy, badly choreographed scene of fairly generic whack-a-henchman beat-downs.

b) The Hand got less menacing and interesting the more we learned about them. This didn't seem like an organization of dangerous immortals with influence inside every government and business. For people who try to *act* like they're the all-time conspiracy and criminal organization that every lesser mafioso and shady businessman should fear, they were basically just some mediocre martial artists who have some ordinary street trash henchmen (and not even very many of them). Once the four Defenders all found they were equally in the crosshairs of the Hand, they should have been in a desperate situation, and they played it that way for a brief moment--they seemed afraid, they gathered up all their loved ones, and then, pfffft all that tension just kind of evaporated. The friends and lovers and sidekicks should have been in enormous danger in a police station (come on, every shadowy immortal conspiracy knows how to buy off corrupt cops) and had to run into some form of even deeper hiding--it should have been a race: kill the Hand or see everything (even New York) die. We got told that those were the stakes, but from episode 6-8, it didn't feel like it any more. The more we saw, the less dangerous these people seemed, and the less sense it made to blow up Midland Circle. It's entirely tell and not show at that point and the show just couldn't sell what it was telling.

c) Elektra pretty much fucks the whole thing up, because she's the MacGuffin but her motivations, powers, etc., are almost entirely underexplained and the actress playing her basically couldn't fill through performance what wasn't written in script. I kept waiting for something to happen that made the plan to resurrect her make some kind of sense and it just never did.

d) Iron Fist comes close to outright ruining it in the last half just because he's so important to the plot and so underwhelming as a character *and* the performance compounds it.


Basically: they have GOT to get higher-quality action directors in, and they have got to solve the problems of pacing that have undercut every single one of these shows.
Mandella
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Reply #46 on: September 22, 2017, 05:05:42 PM

I find myself in the bizarre situation of mostly agreeing with Khaldun (no insult, it's just that usually I find we are entertained/offended by different things). I found a lot of things to like about the show, but I really did feel that they set up a menace that never really materialized. From an underwhelming Electra/Black Sky to a grand melee with no sense of menace to all the rest. Yes, we know they are not going to really kill off the mains and blow up New York, but there are a lot of secondary characters that could have been reasonably threatened.

Although, looking back over the list, I don't share the Iron Fist hate. I thought he was fine here, just to share a minority opinion, at least for this board (from what can be gathered from secondary means, it looks like Iron Fist's own show rated pretty much equally to Jessica Jones and Luke Cage as far as general Netflix viewers were concerned -- both of which pale to Daredevil second season).

And speaking of possibly shaky third party analysts, it looks like The Defenders is rating badly compared to any of them, so it's not just the opinion here that it was somewhat weak.

Armchair script doctor mode: They could have kept most of the relative menace without a problem, if they had shown that The Hand was an organization being left behind, a mere shadow of its former influence and glory, and the New York plot was a Hail Mary to win some of it back. Or, as was mentioned by Madame Gao, to leave, to return to Kun Lun, to retreat from this world (actually, we have no idea why they/she wanted to return to Kun Lun -- more mystery it would have been nice to have had been expanded upon).

But in any case, I know it's going to be a problem for me when halfway through a season I start to seriously root for the bad guys...
eldaec
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Reply #47 on: September 24, 2017, 08:13:48 AM

Agree about the last episode. But would note that you can say all of that about the final episode of every one of these shows except JJ.

They just aren't very good at doing last episodes.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2017, 08:17:50 AM by eldaec »

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Khaldun
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Reply #48 on: September 24, 2017, 11:30:29 AM

Yeah. It's such a striking pattern that it begs explanation. Jessica Jones I thought had an actual climax (but too much doodling around in the middle), the others didn't. I think they're spending so much time setting the mood and casts for each of these shows that they are forgetting that they also have a story to tell.
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Reply #49 on: September 25, 2017, 11:24:05 AM

I think its just a lot easier to create a mood and not give a shit if they resolve it, as they generally have no idea if they will get another season or not, so they think that they might not have to think up a way resolve the horrible situation they have the heros in, other than the heros being eaten.

Blake's 7 was famous for ending its seasons with the Crew in a horrible situation cliffhanger, so if they didn't get another season they could just say "Everyone died. Sorry"
« Last Edit: September 27, 2017, 02:49:09 AM by Sir T »

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Reply #50 on: September 26, 2017, 02:05:56 AM

Until the end, of course, where everyone died except Avon.

True Story.

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eldaec
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Reply #51 on: September 26, 2017, 12:57:07 PM

And if I'm going to watch 10 hours of a thing, I'd much rather they concentrate on making the 8 hour 'middle' good than the 1 hour intro or finale.

"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
Ginaz
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Reply #52 on: September 27, 2017, 09:43:48 PM

And if I'm going to watch 10 hours of a thing, I'd much rather they concentrate on making the 8 hour 'middle' good than the 1 hour intro or finale.

I've found the Netflix Marvel shows start out strong only to taper off in the middle and limp to the end.  The Defenders was no different.
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Reply #53 on: September 27, 2017, 11:52:31 PM

Except Iron Fist which already started limping, sadly.
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Reply #54 on: September 28, 2017, 01:52:39 AM

Iron Fist was DOA.

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NowhereMan
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Reply #55 on: September 28, 2017, 02:13:49 AM

I finally finished watching this and the show actually suffered from binge watching Netflix style. Or at least the poor quality aspects were way, way more apparent. I watched the final 3 episodes over about a week and enjoyed them more than the previous 5 that I'd binged (then had a 6 week or so break from). The action cinematography was a mess and the final fight was a bit of a let down as has been mentioned. That said there were some solid moments, the Stick and Danny scene was good but would have been better used as an opportunity for a resolving confrontation between Matt and Stick. That whole relationship really didn't get the attention it deserved, had they been putting Matt as a more central focus it would have been genuinely interesting to see him, once he'd accepted that the Hand had to be fought, torn between Stick pushing him to war like the Chaste had and Matt's nobler instincts for the team. I could see that having been a tension in the team that would have worked far better, Jessica being a more 'war is war, maybe we do need to take this to them' and Luke being more on Matt's side. Danny being indecisive.

Bleh, I thought this had great potential but it's ended up being a fun weekly viewing type series. Action direction since DD1 has been going downhill it seems and I don't think the writers have a clear idea what they want to do with Danny apart from have him be the focal point (and I think even that was more an accidental consequence of the plot, it was clear they did want Matt being central as well). If they could just fix the action and keep the stakes higher in the mid season this would be a really fun series.

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Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #56 on: September 28, 2017, 06:19:42 AM

Man I had a lot of problems but I never even realized that the stick/matt relationship never got any decent resolution thanks to that danny scene.   I also really need to emphasize how fucking stupid "the black sky" thing was. They were setting it up since season one of daredevil with an air of mysticism and mystery.  You were left wondering if the black sky was some sort of demon, some ultimate weapon and then you find out it's just a halfway competent ninja. I guess to this shows version of the hand an actual ninja with talent is something of a miracle.

Just disappointing on every angle.

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NowhereMan
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Reply #57 on: September 29, 2017, 09:02:23 AM

Yeah, having just caught the last part it kind of stuck out to me that I think at least some of the writers wanted the Defenders to be very much based around Matt's relationship with Stick and Elektra thrown in with the Hand. They just couldn't really seem to put aside the fact that they'd built up Danny Rand as the sworn enemy of the Hand and that this was about Kun'lun. I think, having seen the finale, Danny would have worked better in this as the Maguffin. The character didn't have an arc, didn't add to the tension and wasn't worth it for the martial arts. Hell he was just a Maguffin with way too much screen time. Transitioning the finale faster to Matt with Stick pushing him on one side and Elektra on the other and both wanting him to kill, whichever side it was for, would have been good for the non-spandex type tension. If they could have sold us on a guy in a devil costume having an argument about morality with a blind ninja and a Greek undead ninja, that would have been worth the whole build up alone (in terms of presenting grown-up super hero stuff). Instead I kind of like the resolution they got to but trying to go all out on action did not work.

Even that might have worked if they'd delved a bit more into the motivation of the Hand and the ideals of Kun'Lun (I like intellectual wankery) and maybe made some attempt to frame the conflict as one of ideals rather than 4 dudes who were pretty good at martial arts and inexplicably have a lot of cannon fodder. Shows like True Detective have shown that you can put the mystical into shows without needing a massive effects budget. Hell I don't even think the Defenders necessarily needed everything neatly resolved in terms of the Hand, leaving them as the tool of uncaring cosmic forces would have been a way better twist and doing something that suggested both the Hand and Kun'Lun existed as outposts of forces neither of which are particularly relatable could have actually given Danny an interesting character arc as he comes to grip with the idea that he doesn't have a clear role assigned to him anymore, that he's a vehicle for power he doesn't really understand.

Fuck now I want a job doing postmortems of comic show writing where I can go back in time and give ideas to writers.

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Ginaz
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Reply #58 on: October 01, 2017, 09:33:50 PM

Except Iron Fist which already started limping, sadly.

Yes, agreed.  It was awful from the very beginning.
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