I'm mostly starting this thread for the upcoming Netflix series of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. And eventually The Defenders as well. But you can discuss any Marvel live action here you want.
If you want to talk Agents of Shield or Agent Carter, go ahead, but I'd rather keep discussion of those shows to their respective threads.
So, in current news, I just saw the trailer for Daredevil and I thought it looked pretty good, though it is Iron Fist I'm most looking forward to. I've wanted live action Iron Fist for a long time now.
UPDATE: Full list of MCU series suitable for discussion in the thread
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Agent Carter
Daredevil
Jessica Jones
Luke Cage
Iron Fist
The Defenders
Damage Control
Cloak & Dagger
Most Wanted
The Punisher
All are series either currently being made, in development, or rumored. This is the topic for any of them.
Yeah, after Agent Carter, I've had some of my faith restored in Marvel's television branch, so I'm looking forward to the Netflix shows. Hopefully the Daredevil series can make up for that shitty Ben Affleck movie.
i did not know dd, iron fist or luke cage (and his wife) were getting series! that is awesome.
After Agent Carter I'm willing to give it a chance, especially since Netflix is pushing them and their track record has been pretty good.
Also, the showrunners are quite interesting:
QuoteExecutive Produced by series Showrunner Steven S. DeKnight ("Spartacus," "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," "Angel") and Drew Goddard ("Cabin in the Woods," "Lost," "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," in addition to writing the first two episodes of "Marvel's Daredevil"), along with Marvel TV's Jeph Loeb ("Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," "Marvel's Agent Carter," "Lost")
If you haven't seen the trailer, I recommend it.
I saw the trailer a couple of weeks ago. It looks decent, but it's still too early for me to tell how good the quality will be when the finished product comes out.
Agent Carter excels from a relative lack of involvement from Loeb. If his finger prints are still here, I dunno.
New trailer for Daredevil! (http://io9.com/all-new-daredevil-trailer-reveals-marvels-darkest-creat-1690513261)
It's a month away now.
Damn, didn't expect that. Will watch it soon.
Of course it's very easy to mess up, but I think they've got this. They've nailed the look, feel, themes, and style of Daredevil in just this trailer. The usage of blood and water are very effective for the Catholic themes they're going for, too (of course I'm biased there ;)), but so is just about everything else. I'm also liking how they'll be exploring good vs. evil, as well, ("Just because the other man's evil, doesn't make you good.") and the way they're portraying the Kingpin as a man who lost the line between good and evil.
Short of a screw up, I'm really liking where this is going so far.
"Just because the other man's evil, doesn't make you good." Yes, I love that line. I've recently became a Daredevil fun so I'm excited after just seeing this trailer. I'll have to dust off the old Netflix for this next month. I've never watched an exclusive series on it before.
How many Easter eggs can you find? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltzGfeqWp_M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltzGfeqWp_M)
A reminder that Daredevil is being put up on Netflix on Friday and early buzz is very positive.
Sort of makes up for DC being repeats this week.
Also, Trailer 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQFhHGMhdbw) and Trailer 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZKzaw4l_7Q) have been released.
I didn't put 2 and 2 together about it being on this Friday. Whoa, I've been waiting for this to come!!!
I'm still trying to decide if we should just talk about Daredevil here, or if I should make its own thread.
And apparently, ABC is working on an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off (http://www.avclub.com/article/abc-and-marvel-are-putting-together-agents-shield--217789). There's no word on what this will be about, or if it'll replace Agent Carter (hell, AOS hasn't even been officially renewed), but saying that it's an AOS spin-off rather than a MCU spin-off opens possibilities up to that area.
Quote from: Avaitor on April 09, 2015, 03:54:15 PMAnd apparently, ABC is working on an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off (http://www.avclub.com/article/abc-and-marvel-are-putting-together-agents-shield--217789). There's no word on what this will be about, or if it'll replace Agent Carter (hell, AOS hasn't even been officially renewed), but saying that it's an AOS spin-off rather than a MCU spin-off opens possibilities up to that area.
How about we make the spin-off a reality show where a SWAT team travels the country, kicking in the doors of people who still watch this vile, repulsive, piece of shit, and put bullets in their brains.
Just watched the first two episodes a bit ago of Daredevil. So far, it's fantastic! It's too early for me to spoil any of the plot, so I'll just say that the show has a great cast so far, as well as superb camera work and great fight choreography.
Quote from: GregX on April 10, 2015, 11:48:42 AM
Quote from: Avaitor on April 09, 2015, 03:54:15 PMAnd apparently, ABC is working on an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off (http://www.avclub.com/article/abc-and-marvel-are-putting-together-agents-shield--217789). There's no word on what this will be about, or if it'll replace Agent Carter (hell, AOS hasn't even been officially renewed), but saying that it's an AOS spin-off rather than a MCU spin-off opens possibilities up to that area.
How about we make the spin-off a reality show where a SWAT team travels the country, kicking in the doors of people who still watch this vile, repulsive, piece of shit, and put bullets in their brains.
:whuh:
That's.....harsh. I mean I dropped the show too, but I could see why some people would stick to it. Just on the wrestling board I go to, there's a number of guys there that apparently like season two has gone.
Plus, my mother watches it too, so yeah....NO.
In other news, Daredevil is finally up on Netflix. I just watched the first episode, but I'll just save my throughts for when I finish the entire season over the next few days.
I will say that it's already better than that Ben Affleck crapfest, which isn't saying much in and of itself, but I still take it as a good sign.
Quote from: GregX on April 10, 2015, 11:48:42 AM
How about we make the spin-off a reality show where a SWAT team travels the country, kicking in the doors of people who still watch this vile, repulsive, piece of shit, and put bullets in their brains.
I'm sure you meant it in jest, but please don't make posts like this on AR. Thank you!
Quote from: Foggle on April 10, 2015, 02:10:56 PM
Quote from: GregX on April 10, 2015, 11:48:42 AM
How about we make the spin-off a reality show where a SWAT team travels the country, kicking in the doors of people who still watch this vile, repulsive, piece of shit, and put bullets in their brains.
I'm sure you meant it in jest, but please don't make posts like this on AR. Thank you!
Fair enough, it won't happen again.
Two episodes into "Daredevil" and, how shall I put this? It's a much better show than "Special Snowflake & The SHIT Squad" and "Got Ham", but that's damning with faint praise. If I want to watch a darker superhero TV show, "Arrow" is doing it better. If I want to watch a show about a struggling lawyer in the seedy underworld, "Better Call Saul" is doing it much better. Those shows consistently leave me wanting the next episode right away, and waiting a week for the next one is frustrating. I have the option to watch the next episode of "Daredevil" right now, and the one after and the one after... and the thought just feels like a damn chore.
It's not bad, but it's not good either.
I'm also only 2 episodes in, myself, right now. I'm enjoying it a bit more than you are, but I definitely agree that Arrow is a better "dark superhero" show. I'd also say that Agent Carter is still by far Marvel's best live action series. That said, I certainly don't find watching the show to be a chore, though it doesn't really hook me into watching the next episode either.
Still, being only 2 episodes in, I think it's solid, personally. Speaking of Arrow again, it sort of reminds me of its first season, where the show was a ways off from hitting its stride, but still entertaining in its own right. Of course, the quality could easily go to shit, get better, or stay exactly the same as I make it through the rest of the season, so as I stated before, my final verdict will only come after completing the season.
I watched 5 episodes.
Excellent. One of my favorite superhero shows by far.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 10, 2015, 06:55:50 PM
I watched 5 episodes.
Excellent. One of my favorite superhero shows by far.
Glad to hear it! I've never been particularly keen on live action superhero television, but everything I've read about the Daredevil series makes it sound great to me. Going to watch some soon!
Quote from: Foggle on April 10, 2015, 08:40:48 PM
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 10, 2015, 06:55:50 PM
I watched 5 episodes.
Excellent. One of my favorite superhero shows by far.
Glad to hear it! I've never been particularly keen on live action superhero television, but everything I've read about the Daredevil series makes it sound great to me. Going to watch some soon!
Personally I'd say that Arrow gets really good after the first season. It's just decent up to that point, though.
I do really want to give Arrow another shot eventually. I wasn't a huge fan of what I saw, but it seems like you guys really like the later seasons.
Couldn't stand Gotham, SHIELD, Smallville, or anything else I've seen, though.
Quote from: Foggle on April 10, 2015, 08:40:48 PM
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 10, 2015, 06:55:50 PM
I watched 5 episodes.
Excellent. One of my favorite superhero shows by far.
Glad to hear it! I've never been particularly keen on live action superhero television, but everything I've read about the Daredevil series makes it sound great to me. Going to watch some soon!
I think you'd really like it. Episodes 4 and 5 in particular were knockouts. Episode 2's backstory was one of my personal favorites, Jack Murdock's story was so touching, especially when the crowd starts cheering.
(https://breakinggeek.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/figtin.png)
One of my personal favorite moments from any superhero show or movie.
Apparently it takes some inspiration from both The Wire and Oldboy, which is pretty much all I needed to hear. ;D
Quote from: Foggle on April 10, 2015, 09:09:37 PM
Apparently it takes some inspiration from both The Wire and Oldboy, which is pretty much all I needed to hear. ;D
Wilson Fisk is really good too. Of all the live action attempts, I think he makes the best villain so far. Especially when you see what he can do when someone makes him mad.
I've still got more to see, but it has hooked me. It starts out a bit slow, but I like slow, so the breathing room doesn't bother me. It also helps that the fights scenes have no shaky cam or quick cuts which make them last really long.
That all sounds wonderful to me. :joy:
Quote from: Foggle on April 10, 2015, 09:02:34 PM
I do really want to give Arrow another shot eventually. I wasn't a huge fan of what I saw, but it seems like you guys really like the later seasons.
Couldn't stand Gotham, SHIELD, Smallville, or anything else I've seen, though.
Gotham and SHIELD are awful, so it doesn't help if you're watching the worst of the worst.
Arrow is sort of like a Whedon show, where it takes some time for the characters to really find their footing, but the writing improves by the end of the first season, and gets surprisingly excellent by season 2's second half.
I mean, don't go in expecting quality on the level of The Wire, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, etc., as its clearly not that type of show, and even as a darker superhero show, it thankfully doesn't take itself "too" seriously so it can be really fun at times. But all the same, it's currently the best in its genre as far as TV superhero shows go, IMO, which is just really refreshing for me since most other shows that I watch focus on some dark anti-hero-ish sort of protagonists and all manner of scheming, betrayal, and general unpleasantness; which are great, of course, but can be a bit too depressing in bulk. :P
The first season and a half of Arrow is a pretty good superhero show, but by Three Ghosts it gets great all the way through to now.
If you want something fun (with some dark moments) you might like The Flash. It's got a good sense of humor and makes a good counterpoint to Arrow.
Adam West doe.
Quote from: Avaitor on April 10, 2015, 11:48:15 PM
Adam West doe.
Y'all KNOW I love the 1960's Batman show. It's the best. :)
Thanks for reminding me about it. I keep forgetting to put the DVDs on my wishlist.
My family got me the BD set for Christmas (I think because they wanted to watch it too ;)) and it's a truly amazing release. :joy:
I wish that I had enough to get the mega Blu set.
But I did just buy the complete series set of Taxi, so...
Caught the first episode of Daredevil. Loved it! Can't wait to watch the second one tomorrow. :)
Just got done with the 7th episode. This show has gotten progressively better, to my delight, and Stick is an awesome character. I'm really hooked, now, but unfortunately I have too much to do today, so I can't watch anymore episodes until tomorrow (and I'll also have to watch the season premiere of GOT tomorrow, as well).
I finished it off. Loved it. Especially on a character level. By the end I was really on the side of Matt and his friends and was pulling for them to succeed. I also really liked that Kingpin and his men got a lot of focus which easily made him my favorite villain in the whole Marvel Movie Universe. Of course I could quibble about the speed of the show, but it honestly didn't bother me at all. I was engaged in every moment.
Here's hoping it did well enough to merit a second season, because I want to see more of these characters. Though I think the hints as to what we're going to get next are pretty obvious just based on Stick.
Daredevil seems to get progressively better. Just finished episode 4, and I haven't been this engaged by a TV show in some time!
**cough**Game of Thrones**cough**
I'm 8 episodes in, and it's great. Foggle, if you like it now, it gets even better by the end of the fifth episode. ;)
True Detective, then Breaking Bad, then Treme, then Game of Thrones. That's how I'm gonna do. ;)
Daredevil gets better as you get used to the characters. I'm betting a re-watch would do it a lot of additional good, too.
Also, that fight scene at the end of episode 2 deserves a lot of credit.
Quote from: Foggle on April 13, 2015, 10:06:00 PM
True Detective, then Breaking Bad, then Treme, then Game of Thrones. That's how I'm gonna do. ;)
I thought that you already watched Breaking Bad. ???
Not all of it. :(
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 13, 2015, 10:09:11 PMAlso, that fight scene at the end of episode 2 deserves a lot of credit.
Oh god, yes! It looks like somebody took notes from old-school Bruce Lee films. No shaky cam bull-shit at all. Just straight up excellent choreography from a stationary camera where you could see all of the action. Nothing else is there to enhance the effects. The action is comprised entirely of good stunt-men pretending to beat the crap out of each other.
It was basically that amazing fight scene from Oldboy but with a different camera angle and no hammer. :D
Quote from: Foggle on April 13, 2015, 10:13:09 PM
Not all of it. :(
Man, I don't know how you could manage to just stop in the middle, I couldn't help but binge-watch the shit out of it into the early hours of the morning, even when I had a big presentation assignment to do the next day at the hospital that I was doing my rotation at during that time. I literally just couldn't stop watching. :joy:
Actually the fight scenes in this show are really good in general. They frequently feature little to no camera cuts, NO shaky cam, and some cool stunts. It's like the return of old school action sequences.
If this staff is going to be behind Iron Fist, then I'm beyond excited for that.
Quote from: Foggle on April 13, 2015, 10:06:00 PM
True Detective, then Breaking Bad, then Treme, then Game of Thrones. That's how I'm gonna do. ;)
I still really need to see Treme. And Enlightened really should be on there.
And I still really need to start on this. But right now, I'm just too busy to.
I'm 10 episodes in, now. Anyone who found this show to be a bit too slow in the beginning should really stick with it. Over the course of this season (so far), it has only gotten better and better. I'm really loving the supporting cast, now, and the story-line has been kept very intriguing in terms of how things play out. While I still stand by my opinion that Arrow is (currently) the best superhero show around, this one already has a superior first season, and I can see it becoming a close second by the end of it, and maybe even surpassing Arrow by its next season if Netflix decides to order one. Either that or they will just go ahead with The Defenders after a season of each of these individual shows hit streaming. Either way, I can't wait to see the return of Matt Murdock/Daredevil in the MCU, and I'm not even done with the season, yet!
They're currently producing Jessica Jones right now, which means it will probably play out like this:
Daredevil - 13 episodes
A.K.A. Jessica Jones - 13 episodes
Iron Fist - 13 episodes
Luke Cage - 13 episodes
Defenders - 8 episode event
For a total of 60 episodes.
What they do after that is anyone's guess, but I'm almost certain Iron Fist and Luke Cage will share a show should they move to season 2.
I assume Daredevil will get a second season that introduces characters like Elektra and The Punisher into the MCU. Luke Cage & Iron Fist as a shared season 2 seems like a no-brainer to me, as well.
Speaking of which, if Fox ends up making a sequel to the Deadpool film, my money's on it being a Cable & Deadpool movie.
My only problem is having to wait at least two years for a season 2 of Daredevil. I really want to see more of this character and his friends and foes.
Season 2 will almost certainly include The Hand and The Chaste as well as Elektra and Bullseye, possibly the Punisher as an anti-hero ally, but I'm fine with whatever they do. As long as it's more Daredevil.
Watched episodes 7 and 8 of Daredevil. Didn't much care for the former; it was nice seeing how Matt learned to fight, but not knowing what Black Sky was really detracted from my immersion, and Stick just kinda' came out of nowhere, giving me no reason to care about his character or organization. Episode 8, however, was the best one so far IMO. No other superhero movie or TV show I've seen has ever had such an interesting and well-developed villain as Fisk. Brilliant television.
Wow, I totally disagree about episode 7, it's one of my favorites. Stick is an awesone character, and the stuff you seem to be focusing on were the least important parts of the episode. Black Sky was the Macguffin for this episode (though I still haven't finished the season yet, so maybe it'll come back), and Stick had to be introduced somewhere, so you're complaint about him coming out of nowhere doesn't really make sense since Matt's past has been presented to us in chronological order via the flash-backs, and he of course wouldn't meet Stick until after his dad's death.
The whole episode was also an excellent character-study of Matt and his stance at that point in the series. Stick points out that he'll never get anything truly accomplished until he's willing to cross a certain line. He represents the opposite side of the coin to the priest who serves as Matt's other guiding figure throughout the season, and although Matt rejects him in the episode, he hasn't truly given up the temptation to follow Stick's recommended path.
To me, it's one of the finest written, directed, and acted episodes in the series out of the 11-episodes that I've seen so far. We're just going to have to agree to disagree on that.
When I say he "randomly shows up," I mean he just somehow walks into a parking garage not only knowing that Matt would be there but also that the guy in the mask was him. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination in a universe where characters like Hulk and Thor exist, but it still took me out of the moment, if only briefly. Also, Black Sky may be a MacGuffin, but having what I assume is a child slave pop up only to serve no purpose other than die without any explanation didn't sit right with me.
Maybe it's because I haven't read the comics, but I just thought Stick was an asshole. I get that he's basically Daredevil if Daredevil wasn't compassionate or against killing people, but I didn't particularly have an opinion on him one way or the other. The character study was interesting enough, but it didn't really make me feel anything like the scenes with Matt's dad or Fisk's family did.
I didn't actually dislike the episode though, it was still pretty good; I just wasn't as engaged in it as I was with the other 7. Glad it worked more for you.
The Stick episode exists to flesh Matt's past out to show where he got his training from. Otherwise it is to do two other things, one of which is spoiler-related to Nobu which is brought back many times before the end of the season and the other is to hint as to where season 2 will be going.
Whether you like any of those things is up to you, but that is why the episode is there.
Well, as long it isn't just dropped, I'm good. If it gives more development to Nobu later on, then I rescind my complaint. The only mention of it in episode 8 was "I'm not happy! It's hard to get!" which just made me annoyed instead of intrigued.
Anyway, I'm glad the episode is there, even if I didn't quite like it as much as the others. I'm sure Stick will be important in season 2, and it was good to know where Matt's training came from. I just found myself less engaged than usual, is all.
On an off-topic note, why am I always the one defending good stuff that I like? As in: Hunter X Hunter (from g2s), Fumoffu (from CX), MVC3 (from Rynnec), Daredevil episode 7 (from you), Spider-Man 3 (from the rest of the world), and so on. Maybe it's because it's not in my nature to talk about what I dislike, but I need to play things out from the other perspective a bit more often. It seems like way more fun. :humhumhum:
Quote from: Foggle on April 16, 2015, 09:48:11 PM
When I say he "randomly shows up," I mean he just somehow walks into a parking garage not only knowing that Matt would be there but also that the guy in the mask was him. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination in a universe where characters like Hulk and Thor exist, but it still took me out of the moment, if only briefly. Also, Black Sky may be a MacGuffin, but having what I assume is a child slave pop up only to serve no purpose other than die without any explanation didn't sit right with me.
It's a series. Not a movie. Stuff like that can (and probably will) come back. Maybe by next season or in The Defenders if not this one. For the sake of the episode, that wasn't the focus. Stuff like this happens in television all the time, so it doesn't seem like a fair criticism to me. I mean, I didn't hear anyone complaining about the Infinity Gem in GOTG barely being utilized because it was mainly just there as a Macguffin and wouldn't be truly important until Infinity War.
QuoteMaybe it's because I haven't read the comics, but I just thought Stick was an asshole. I get that he's basically Daredevil if Daredevil wasn't compassionate or against killing people, but I didn't particularly have an opinion on him one way or the other. The character study was interesting enough, but it didn't really make me feel anything like the scenes with Matt's dad or Fisk's family did.
I haven't read the comics either, so that didn't factor into my judgement. Stick is an ass-hole, but that's an intentional aspect of his character. Do not ignore, however, that he did a lot to help Murdock and that he purposely acted the way that he did to toughen the kid up. He was the one who taught Matt to see his blindness as a gift rather than a burden, which from a character with a questionble moral alignment, was a surprisingly positive influence. He is a mentor to Matt, but stands out because he's different from the typical archetype, in that he's neither a pure good nor evil influence. And in that regard, despite being a killer, he isn't presented as a good or bad character. Just as a character.
Take for example the scene where he leaves Matt as a kid. It's very well-acted just through facial expressions alone. When Matt shows him affection for just a moment, he actually pauses briefly to consider it, and you can see hints of both doubt and also a little sentiment in his facial features. He then tells Matt that he can't be a father-figure to him, which can seem ass-holish at a glance, but consider the fact that he has a point. Whatever Stick was training him for, he knew that Matt wouldn't be up to par if emotions got in the way, so from his point of view he's sparing him from going down that path. Of course, Matt tries to pursue justice anyway, but under his own lofty ideals, and that's what the confrontation in the present is about. The point being, though, is that he's not just a darker version of Daredevil, like you suggest. He's a character, and one that I hope to see return and be further fleshed out in the future.
As for the stuff with Matt's dad, I liked it well enough, but I feel like I've seen that parent to kid relationship done better before. With Stick, I felt that he brought something new to the mentor archetype.
Not once did I say the episode was bad. In fact, I said it was good, and I just didn't care for it as much as the others. I picked my words carefully to specify how it was my opinion that specific elements detracted from the overall experience for me, not that I thought they were outright bad. I've tried to tone down talking about things I dislike lately, and only even mentioned episode 7 because I loved episode 8 and watched them both in sequence. (Do note that making fun of notoriously bad arcade ports isn't quite the same thing, in my opinion.) I even said I was happy that the episode worked better for you than it did for me.
I didn't care about the Infinity Gem in GOTG, and the film also revealed what it was minutes after we first saw it. Child slaves are a lot more interesting, and Daredevil is much stronger from a storytelling standpoint, but I was worried that it would never be explained until The Defenders. This annoyed me greatly, as I would rather take DD as its own work rather than a lead-in to a crossover event, since it's so good so far.
Stick turning down Matt's gift was my favorite part of the episode.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on April 16, 2015, 10:27:26 PM
Maybe it's because it's not in my nature to talk about what I dislike
::)
What? Shonen manga don't count since I barely post about them anymore, smart-ass. :>
You made a fairly detailed post about how much you didn't care for Azumanga Daioh, without any prompting, just last week. :humhumhum:
Yeah, and that was the first time that I had criticized something generally well-liked in a long time. I never said that I don't ever talk about what I dislike. I just stated that it's not in my nature, and that I should do it more often since it seems more entertaining to criticize than to defend. :bleh:
Of course, when I try to be too negative about something, then I realize that I just feel much better writing about the things that I genuinely love.
Just finished the season. Great show, overall, despite a slow start.
I'll be really interested to see Stick return in the future and learn more about his organization and mission, but as for the story of Matt Murdock's transformation into Daredevil, it was a great first season. The supporting cast also grew on me over time. I really grew to like Foggy, Karen, and Ben.
Spoiler
I also actually felt a bit sad to see Ben get killed off, since I really did end up appreciating the character and his role in the story.
Kingpin was also a really well-done villain. He's the kind that you can clearly call a "bad-guy," but not 1-dimensionally evil like most MCU villains.
I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the upcoming Marvel shows on Netflix. After both this and Agent Carter, while neither show was anywhere near perfect, they were both completely unique in tone from each other yet equally entertaining, and it convinces me that Marvel's TV department actually knows what it's doing, and that AOS was just a huge first misstep that shouldn't happen again.
And of course, yes, this completely washes out the bad taste of that 2003 fuck-up.
The show successfully put both Daredevil and Kingpin up several ranks now as up there with my favorite superheroes and villains. Charlie Cox is Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Vincent D'Onofrio is Wilson Fisk/Kingpin.
In general, Marvel has been pretty excellent at casting their most iconic characters since day one. RDJ as Tony Stark, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and even though Ed Norton wasn't the best choice for Bruce Banner (he wasn't bad, just not great), they fixed it on their second attempt with Mark Ruffalo. And of course they nailed the casting on GOTG.
It's no surprise that they got it right yet again, with Daredevil.
Watched two more episodes. This show is too damn good. Marvel raised the bar for superhero television in 2008 with The Spectacular Spider-Man, and now they've done it again with Daredevil. I don't think I've been this engaged by a TV series since I finished The Wire. Just brilliant. Going to buy the Blu-Ray set for sure. There better be a season 2.
I've already talked about why I personally love "Stick," but my overall personal favorite episode is "Nelson v. Murdock," as I'm all about characters over action, and that was a great character piece, IMO. I love that Foggy didn't just become the "comic relief side character" that lesser writers would have made him. You really get a sense that him and Matt are genuinely great friends, and seeing their trust tested like that really came through in their emotional responses via terrific acting.
Also, the costume design for Daredevil's suit us excellent. One of the best I've seen in the medium, film, TV, or otherwise. It's just a shame that we only got to see it in the finale, so I can't wait for Daredevil's return in The Defenders.
Nelson v. Murdock is probably my favorite episode so far as well. Foggy is surprisingly great.
I haven't seen the costume in the show proper yet, but it looks very slick and comic-accurate in the still images I've seen. I think the upcoming Deadpool movie is going to have the best superhero costume design yet, though; it literally looks EXACTLY like the comic book!
Yes, I like how every episode gives time to breath on a certain character in certain episodes as the plot goes on. Foggy, Karen, Ben, Stick, Jack Murdock, or even Wesley, are all characters I really grew to know by the end. Not to mention characters like Claire, Father Lantom, or Vladimir, who might not have many appearances compared to the rest, but are also very memorable.
I definitely want to see more.
The costume design on Arrow and The Flash is also excellent, IMO.
The worst superhero costume design from an actual big-budget production easily goes to Green Lantern....because painting CG over Ryan Reynolds doesn't qualify as a costume, and it just looks wrong. I get that they were trying to make it look otherworldly, but it just came off looking....like CG painted over Ryan Reynolds.
Green Lantern's costume actually looked worse than the Bat-Nipple suits. :shit: :shit: :shit:
I finally got around to watching the first 2 Daredevil episodes. It's pretty good so far, even if it's not perfect.
Charlie Cox so far is a fine Daredevil. He has a good balance between charismatic and dedicated that fits the character, and most of his delivery is solid, the Bale-esq line aside. I also like Karen, who's a strong female in the MCU sense, in that she's smart, able, and deserves her own time to shine away from the boys. But I was a little annoyed with Foggy in the first episode, but he won me over a little in the next since he's given something to do as the relief, instead of being it just because.
Besides that, the direction is pretty solid throughout, with some great fight scenes and sharp composition. This helps the merely above-average writing, but I can already tell that there is more to look forward to as it goes along. Consider me sold.
The first 4-5 episodes are merely solid. Good stuff, but hardly great. I feel like episodes 6 and on are where the show really takes off.
To be honest, I thought every episode was fantastic. (Still have two left to go, though.)
Finished it! I thought the finale could have been a bit longer, but overall it was an excellent and very satisfying show. The ending is great, easily working as both a standalone conclusion and a lead-in to a second season. I do hope they make more outside of that crossover event thing. :)
It depends on how successful the show (and related merchandise) is. If it makes Marvel money, we'll get a sequel, though sadly we'll have to wait AT LEAST two whole years to get one, or possibly even longer.
I'm still looking forward to the other Marvel shows on Netflix. I've really liked what I've read of Ed Brubaker's run on Iron Fist, so that should be a great "fun" Marvel series (in contrast to the gritty crime drama that Daredevil is).
One thing that I'm curious about is when exactly this takes place in the MCU timeline. Obviously it has to be after Avengers, but I'm not sure where it fits in the context of Phase Two.
Also, considering that this was the most serious and noticeably darker in tone MCU production to date, it does slap me as incredibly hilarious that this somehow takes place in the same Universe in which Viking demi-gods, a talking raccoon and tree, and apparently Howard The Duck exist. :joy:
I'll be sure to do my part and pick up the BDs when they come out. :el_hail:
I'm really looking forward to both Luke Cage and AKA Jessica Jones. I don't know much about the latter character, but the MCU is long overdue for a female-led superhero story, and I'm a huge Bendis apologist (except for when it comes to X-Men, where his writing is complete garbage). I'm sure I'll enjoy Iron Fist as well, but I only really know him as Luke Cage's partner. I should check out Brubaker's run.
I'm just going to assume that Daredevil takes place between Guardians of the Galaxy and Age of Ultron due to its release date. Personally, I find the MCU to be more fun if you also include films like Blade, X-Men, and Big Hero 6 in it, but I've never been a huge stickler for comic book canon, so maybe that's just me. :lol:
As for no X-Men, blame Fox for that. Characters like Wolverine and Deadpool would be so awesome in the MCU.
As for Blade, I only really know it by the movies as opposed to the comics. While Daredevil shows that Marvel is willing to do something dark, Blade might be a bit too violent and graphic in nature to be associated with the more family-oriented demographic that Marvel is currently catering to.
I do wish Deadpool was allowed appear in the MCU just so that we could see him troll the Avengers during Infinity War, but damn, Fox is really killing it right now. First Class and especially Days of Future Past were amazing, and Deadpool looks like a dream come true for me.
I think The Punisher might appear in Daredevil season 2, but yeah, Blade probably isn't going to be brought into the MCU, unfortunately.
Also, while I know that they aren't exactly great movies, I have a lot of nostalgic attachment to the first two Blade films, and it's hard for me to imagine who would be able to replace Wesley Snipes in that role.
And yeah, Fox is doing great with X-Men right now....because Bryan Singer came back. In the period that he was absent from the franchise, though? It almost self-destructed. Also, the Fantastic Four movie looks awful, so it feels like Fox as a studio doesn't really know what they are doing. They just happened to be lucky enough to get some talented people to save the X-Men franchise.
I love the first two Blade films. They're not high quality entertainment by any means, but they're ridiculously awesome if all you're expecting are badass popcorn flicks.
Fant Fourstic looks terrible, I agree. That Deadpool movie is buying them a lot of credibility with me, though... I've read some of the leaked script, which they seem to be mostly adhering to, and all I can say is that it's going to be the most accurate version of the character ever seen outside the comics. I mean, I loved the Deadpool game and his appearances in stuff like Hulk Vs., but they aren't exactly good representations of him or his story.
Quote from: Foggle on April 19, 2015, 09:25:03 PM
I love the first two Blade films. They're not high quality entertainment by any means, but they're ridiculously awesome if all you're expecting are badass popcorn flicks.
And also the second one had Guillermo del Toro behind it, who's never not been entertaining when he makes a film, in my book, so there's that. Oh, and I distinctly remember the late, great Gene Siskel giving the original a positive review, so fuck it, I think that they are both cool movies that (mostly) hold up, and prove that R-rated Marvel films can most definitely work.
My mom wanted me to check if there was a release date for season 2 yet, and I found this article: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/15/daredevil-binge-thoughts
I had to stop about halfway through because I was raging too hard. Fucking horrible.
Pshhh....That's nothing. You should see the hilariously over-the-top level of nit-picking that Arrow has been getting, with about half of it being complaints that they aren't shipping Ollie and Felicity, and the other half being about shit that's barely consequential to anything relating to the actual plot or character arcs going on.
Compared to that, this stuff is pretty tame, though ultimately just as stupid for the fact that it's either nit-picking or completely unfounded criticism.
I saw one of those Arrow articles I think. Some people just live joyless existences, I guess.
People just love to complain. No matter how good something is, you'll encounter ass-holes who have nothing better to do than to look for everything wrong with a show or movie rather than enjoying it for what it is.
Even high-profile shows like Game of Thrones or Better Call Saul aren't exempt from this. For the former you get book purists bitching about how it's different from the source matetial, or others making ridiculous claims that it's basically a porno because it has a few sex scenes every couple of episodes (it's actually pretty tame by HBO standards). Nevermind that the writing, acting, and directing are top notch. With BCS it's either complaints about it being too different from Breaking Bad or whining about how "this doesn't connect to this doesn't connect to this" while ignoring the fact that the show is still ongoing and also character-driven rather than just conveniently trying to tie every little incident together.
It makes sense to complain about AOS or Got Ham because those shows have huge, crippling flaws that make them unbearable to watch for some people. At least shows like Daredevil and Arrow are generally good to begin with. Meanwhile, I'm no longer even following those other two shows.
I'm almost certain a re-watch will bring the early episodes up to the level of the latter ones. Now that we know the characters, it's a lot easier to understand where they're coming from and why exactly things are the way they are. Honestly, I want to re-watch it, but I want to wait a bit longer to let it settle in and watch other things first.
Maybe a season 2 that takes place a few years later is a good thing. That way Daredevil will have grown in experience and become such a threat that the Hand will have to directly engage him themselves.
As for the other Netflix Marvel shows, Jessica Jones will probably be more noir detective in execution so it should transition well between Daredevil and Iron Fist. Though at this rate I'm expecting second seasons for some of these shows. Daredevil apparently did well both critically and in watches.
If we're talking about when it takes place, I found this timeline out there:
QuoteBefore 20th Century
Thor: The Dark World (prologue)
Thor (prologue)
20th Century
Agent Carter
The Iron Ceiling (flashbacks)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (1942 flashback)
Captain America: The First Avenger
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season two)
The Things We Bury (HYDRA Fortress flashbacks)
Shadows (flashbacks)
The Things We Bury (The Rat flashbacks)
Agent Carter
Now is Not the End
Bridge and Tunnel
Time and Tide
The Blitzkrieg Button
The Iron Ceiling
A Sin to Err
Snafu
Valediction
Daredevil (season one)
Shadows in the Glass (flashbacks)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season two)
Aftershocks (1983 flashbacks)
Guardians of the Galaxy (1988 prologue)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season two)
The Things We Bury (1989 flashbacks)
Daredevil (season one)
Cut Man (mid-1990s flashbacks)
Into the Ring (mid-1990s flashbacks)
Cut Man (mid-1990s flashbacks)
Into the Ring (mid-1990s flashbacks)
Cut Man (mid-1990s flashbacks)
Stick (mid-1990s flashbacks)
Iron Man 3 (New Years Eve, 1999 prologue)
21st Century
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season two)
Melinda (flashbacks)
Daredevil (season one)
In the Blood (2007 prologue)
Nelson v. Murdock (2010 flashbacks)
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger (prologue & epilogue)
The Avengers
Iron Man 3
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season one)
Pilot
0-8-4
The Asset
Eye-Spy
Girl in the Flower Dress
FZZT
The Hub
Thor: The Dark World
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season one)
The Well
Repairs
The Bridge
The Magical Place
Seeds
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Chase
T.R.A.C.K.S.
T.A.H.I.T.I.
Yes Men
End of the Beginning
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season one)
Turn, Turn, Turn
One Door Closes (flashbacks)
Providence
The Only Light in the Darkness
Nothing Personal
Ragtag
Beginning of the End
Guardians of the Galaxy
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season two)
Shadows
Heavy is the Head
Making Friends and Influencing People
Face My Enemy
A Hen in the Wolf House
A Fractured House
The Writing on the Wall
The Things We Bury
Ye Who Enter Here
What They Become
Aftershocks
Who You Really Are
One of Us
Love in the Time of HYDRA
One Door Closes
Afterlife
Melinda
The Frenemy of My Enemy
The Dirty Half Dozen
Scars
S.O.S
I kept it only to films and TV for ease of use.
I would say DD probably takes place around the same time as Guardians.
So the AOS spin-off is very likely going to be about Mockingbird. (http://www.avclub.com/article/agents-shield-spinoff-will-probably-be-about-adria-218300)
I won't lie, I haven't got to the second season yet, but its fans tend to be people who think the show pulled a 180 with the post-Winter Soldier season 1 episodes (spoiler alert: it did not). As a result, I haven't seen Palicki's take on Bobbi. But I do wonder if this means that Hawkeye will appear on the show, and if so, how long will it take until all they do is bicker?
People keep saying season 2 was a major turnaround for the show, but as you said, people were also hyping the second half of season 1 which really wasn't an improvement from what I saw.
That said, Marvel needs to keep the quality up and they can't do that if something like AoS is tarnishing their brand. Especially considering that it's their obvious weak link.
I watched as far as the season two premiere of AOS, and it was still just as much of a POS as when it first started, IMO. That's not even me being harsh. I'm fairly easy to entertain, as evidenced by how much I enjoy The Flash despite it being a bit too formulaic and far from perfect. The problem with AOS was never truly story-related. It was always about characters. None of them besides Phil Coulson are the least bit likable, and even Phil has completely ceased to be interesting in the show. So, when the big Hydra story-line hit, I couldn't care less because I wasn't invested in any of the characters. In fact, I specifically made a post about how Ward's heel turn was essentially a complete waste since the character barely felt any different despite switching sides, and he had absolutely no interesting character arc to go through. It was just "Hi guys, I've actually been evil this whole time, but it's not like you could ever tell thanks to my monotonous acting ability and complete lack of nuanced range."
So, forgive me when I refuse to believe the same people who said that AOS got good in the back half of the first season claim the same thing about the second one. If they can enjoy it, then that's good for them. I just can't bring myself to watch any more of it, though, so I won't.
Well in actual good Marvel news, we're getting a second season of Daredevil sooner than we thought! (http://marvel.com/news/tv/24478/netflix_orders_a_second_season_of_marvels_daredevil)
I got to watch the next couple of episodes earlier today, and while it isn't really a show that you can marathon, it's a good one, alright. I am liking Kingpin so far, as his date was a welcome change of pace and a great introduction to the character. I can't wait to see what's next for him.
Thank you Lord Jesus. :shakeshakeshake:
Excellent news!
Quote"Marvel's A.K.A. Jessica Jones" comes only to Netflix later this year and "Marvel's Luke Cage" premieres on the streaming service in 2016. Future series exclusively debuting on Netflix include "Marvel's Iron Fist" and "Marvel's Defenders," a mini-series event that reimagines a team of self-sacrificing, heroic characters.
I'm guessing it will premiere after the Defenders event, but I can't say enough about this good news. I'm excited!
Awesome!! :joy:
Hmm, but we are losing Steven S. DeKnight for this season. I'm not sure if that's a good sign, but the talent chosen to follow up as producers look promising enough.
"The Coulson thing was, I think, a little anomalous just because that really came from the television division, which is sort of considered to be its own subsection of the Marvel universe. As far as the fiction of the movies, Coulson is dead." ~ Joss Whedon
He means the network shows, I assume. Daredevil is definitely canon to the films and I'm pretty sure Feige said something about wanting The Defenders to potentially appear in Infinity War.
I have no problem with this.
I think he specifically means Agents of Shield. Nothing in Agent Carter can really be considered non-canonical.
Agents of S.H.I.T.E. deserves to be non-canon tbh.
That quote just made my day. I never considered AOS to be canon, anyways.
As for Agent Carter, being set in the past makes it work with continuity either way.
Daredevil also seems like its part of the MCU.
The Netflix shows certainly are since they're planning to have the Defenders show up in Infinity War.
But, Coulson? I doubt he'll ever show up in the films ever again.
So even Whedon now realizes how much his brother screwed up I take it?
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 23, 2015, 01:46:17 PM
"The Coulson thing was, I think, a little anomalous just because that really came from the television division, which is sort of considered to be its own subsection of the Marvel universe. As far as the fiction of the movies, Coulson is dead." ~ Joss Whedon
JOYGASM!!!!
:shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake:
Just finished the episode. So far, a decent start. And of course everyone and there grandma knows that was Vincent D'Onofrio on the phone. That's one of the most recognizable voices on tv.
Also, it was so good to hear the Avengers (the movies' events) get referenced.
"I was a mean three-point shooter on my high school basketball team. I like the long shots."
"This isn't a game, Karen."
I really am enjoying Daredevil, but damn if it doesn't have some dumbass dialogue. Some of the cheesier moments are highlighted by the show's upped violence, which makes them stand out in comparison to the movies. Another moment that comes to mind is the previous episode's "You and I have a lot in common"/"I'm nothing like you!" montage between DD and Kingpin.
Just finished watching episode 2 of Daredevil. Decent episode outside of too much Foggy and the clumsy fight at the end.
I liked the fight at the end because it felt realistic. Matt Murdock isn't skilled enough at this point, so his fighting style is supposed to be imperfect and full of mistakes. That combined with the stationary camera (as opposed to terrible shaky-cam) made it feel much more intense.
Not to mention the fact that he was half-dead and missing a lot of blood which was supposed to parallel with his father marching to his death because it was the right thing to do.
I forgot to mention that I was so surprised to see Rosario Dawson.
And the fact that Daredevil had his super smell for once. I was geeking out at that. :swoon:
Ah, Fisk and Ben Urich in one episode. Beautiful. :'(
Quote from: gunswordfist on April 30, 2015, 01:38:16 AM
Ah, Fisk and Ben Urich in one episode. Beautiful. :'(
If it's the one I'm thinking of, that was a pretty powerful episode.
The more I think about this show the more I want to re-watch it.
Got some good news and some bad news for you guys.
The bad news is.....Agents of Shield got renewed again. :bleh:
The good news is.....so did Agent Carter!!! :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake:
http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/05/agent-carter-renewed.html
It's only good news then. Because Joss Whedon already confirmed that, for all intents and purposes, AOS doesn't actually exist, and thus we can all go on enjoying AC and ignoring AOS.
AoS was on the bubble. They have a lot to prove next season.
Agent Carter is good news, though. Any word if it's another mini-series event? I liked how packed the first season was because of it and I'd kind of like more like that.
No real word yet, but it seems likely that we're getting another 8 episodes. The first season wasn't successful enough to merit a big enough order for more.
I'm not too surprised that AOS was renewed, either. The show is hardly a big hit, but it serves enough synergy purpose to stick around until ABC can come up with a better longer form Marvel or Star Wars show to replace it.
The Mockingbird spin-off isn't happening. (http://www.avclub.com/article/unlike-anyone-mcu-agents-shield-spinoff-dead-219182)
That's not really surprising, since there was no mention of it during ABC's press release, but this is about as official of a clarification as we can get. Although the other ABC Marvel show could still happen...
Watched episode 4 of DareDevil...well that was, brutal. Also, what a good car door that was.
The darker and more violent nature of Daredevil (an advantage of being a Netflix series) gives me hope that maybe one day we could see something like a new Blade series in the MCU. And yes, I know that a Blade TV series actually existed and ran for one season, so nobody has to bring it up. I just want to see an actual well-written R-rated comic book adaptation again.
I know that I'm in the minority on that opinion, but the thought of something like this (https://youtu.be/0m822scb5MA) happening to an AOS character or something along those lines is just too much fun.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on May 22, 2015, 07:08:36 PM
I just want to see an actual well-written R-rated comic book adaptation again.
Deadpool! Also, Kingsman and Snowpiercer if we aren't just talking about superhero comics.
Well, I still haven't seen Kingsman, yet, and I'm excited for Deadpool but can't be sure if it'll be good or not until the movie actually comes out, but Snowpiercer is definitely really good.
I finished watched episode 5. Things are heating up and whoa, DD actually has his radar sense!
I watched episodes 6, 7 and 8 over the last few days. Episode 6 was pretty bleak and I loved it. Episode 7...whoa, I did not expect to ever see a present day Stick. I loved seeing more backstory on Matt. And the fight at the end was so incredible. Episode 8 - within 2 minutes of seeing Bill Fisk, I hated the guy. What a piece of shit.
Contrasted with Jack Murdock, there isn't much competition over who was the better dad.
Though the Kingpin's obsession with the painting makes much more sense after you see why it appeals to him.
I have finished episode 9. I love the moral conflict going on. It was a surprise (well kind of, thanks Netflix picture) to see where Matt first meets Fisk. Elena gets killed and Matt meets Fisk and Wesley again and they actually fight. I really didn't see that coming. Also, looks like DD has taken his first life. That was really shocking. And of course so was Foggy unmasking him at the end.
Aaaand I just finished episode number 10. Foggy's acting is a whole lot better when he's serious/angry, strange enough and this episode made me like him a whole lot more..strange enough. I love the Elektra hint drop when they said Matt was trying to get with a Greek girl. Weird enough, I wouldn't have picked up on that if it wasn't for the movie, probably. Poor Urichs. That was just sad to see. And everything with the Fisks at the end was shocking and surprising. This was really one of my favorite episode if not my favorite so far and there was little action in it.
I honestly like every character in the show. They did a remarkable job of adding layers to everybody. I wasn't the most knowledgeable on Daredevil before, but I'm definitely planning on changing that eventually.
As for what's next in the show, I think the ending to episode 11 (IIRC) will probably surprise you a great deal.
Dammit, sentences like your last one is why I was completely ignoring every post in this thread since I started the show. :D Sorry, I'm extra spoiler squeamish, even to the point where it doesn't even make sense.
I just know what I do from the handful of comics I've read...the movie and well that's mostly it.
Also, Leland is making me crack up. "Someone can't hold their liquor". Just typing that makes me crack up. I hope he doesn't get shot.
Episode 11...yea, that ending was shocking. :o
An hour or two ago tonight I finished episode 12 of Daredevil. :cry: He was supposed to meet Spider-Man. Besides that, whoa, so the obvious back stab was so obvious that I completely did not expect it. I can't complain. One more episode left.
First impressions be damned, I watched the last four episodes of Daredevil in a row today and loved it. I really want to see Marvel invest more in this format than the movies, actually.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on June 01, 2015, 02:07:15 AM
I really want to see Marvel invest more in this format than the movies, actually.
Same here! Serialized television lends itself far better to adaptations of stories told via the comic book format than single films do, I'd say.
Eh, we're getting both, so I don't see any problems on my end.
Whenever something new and popular comes out, it feels like the popular reaction is: "Wow, this is awesome, screw those Avengers and Guardians movies, those suck compared to this."
But I say that Marvel has it down perfectly. Leave the bigger-budget movies for stuff that's far too reliant on special effects and big actors to be done in television format, like any of the Avengers or solo Avengers films (though, Captain America could arguably work in the TV format) as well as GOTG. With the Defenders characters, Marvel wisely picked street level heroes with little to no outlandish powers or abilities who have plenty of smaller-scale and more character-driven stories to adapt that are perfect for TV.
Marvel's doing it the right way, IMO, so leave the movies the way that they've been. Either way, you're getting what you want, as we have three other solo shows coming to Netflix, a Defenders mini-series, and even a second season of Daredevil.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on June 01, 2015, 02:07:15 AM
First impressions be damned, I watched the last four episodes of Daredevil in a row today and loved it. I really want to see Marvel invest more in this format than the movies, actually.
That's not a bad idea. I pray the Iron Fist show is just as good.
We're getting a season 2, which bodes well for the future of these series.
Quote from: gunswordfist on June 01, 2015, 11:16:36 AM
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on June 01, 2015, 02:07:15 AM
First impressions be damned, I watched the last four episodes of Daredevil in a row today and loved it. I really want to see Marvel invest more in this format than the movies, actually.
That's not a bad idea. I pray the Iron Fist show is just as good.
A certain character in this one will be in that show. Though they did push it last in line, and I'm not exactly sure why. But after Daredevil it was the one I was most interested in seeing.
Guardians is still my favorite MCU thing, so it's not like I'm calling it bad? I've always preferred the TV format to films for anything that contains a lengthy story with lots of character development. And while they couldn't do all the awesome special effects in a GOTG TV show, it would still make for an amazing weekly series.
I think the serialized format works better for some, while other characters are stronger in film. I'd probably get bored of an Iron Man show, even with RDJ, but Daredevil really seemed to have worked better as a series.
Just keep Jeph Loebas as far away as possible.
Quote from: Avaitor on June 01, 2015, 01:42:22 PM
I think the serialized format works better for some, while other characters are stronger in film. I'd probably get bored of an Iron Man show, even with RDJ, but Daredevil really seemed to have worked better as a series.
Yeah, I completely agree with this.
Well, we ARE getting the GOTG animated series in just a few months, but given Marvel's animated show track record since they canceled AEMH, I'm not keeping my hopes up for it to be good.
As for TV vs. Movies, I'm just saying that both have their place. Some big stories work better as movies, whereas long serialized story-lines can be adapted for TV. I've even gone on record saying that I prefer AEMH for its great stories and character development to the live-action Avengers movies, so clearly I enjoy the TV side of things quite a bit.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 01, 2015, 02:26:10 PM
Well, we ARE getting the GOTG animated series in just a few months, but given Marvel's animated show track record since they canceled AEMH, I'm not keeping my hopes up for it to be good.
Man Of Action why... :cry:
QuoteAs for TV vs. Movies, I'm just saying that both have their place. Some big stories work better as movies, whereas long serialized story-lines can be adapted for TV. I've even gone on record saying that I prefer AEMH for its great stories and character development to the live-action Avengers movies, so clearly I enjoy the TV side of things quite a bit.
I also thought SSM was way better than any of the Spider-Man films! But yeah, it really does depend on what kind of story they're trying to tell.
A few hours ago, Daredevil became the first live action show I've ever completed (shut up, I know it's getting another season. Let me enjoy my hollow victory). The finale was pretty good and whatshisname is now my 2nd favorite Daredevil (first favorite live action, before anyone says anything stupid.) It sucks that 3 of my 6 favorite characters died (Ben, Owlsley and Wesley). Wesley was turning into my favorite right hand man since Owen.
Leland has a son, by the way. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Feel free to ignore my wall of text. I would have replied sooner if I didn't hate spoilers so damn much. Also, I was thinking about Leland's son a bit. I wonder if he'll try to get Kingpin killed in prison. That would be interesting.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 10, 2015, 06:55:50 PM
I watched 5 episodes.
Excellent. One of my favorite superhero shows by far.
It's my favorite superhero show so far.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 15, 2015, 03:26:21 PM
They're currently producing Jessica Jones right now, which means it will probably play out like this:
Daredevil - 13 episodes
A.K.A. Jessica Jones - 13 episodes
Iron Fist - 13 episodes
Luke Cage - 13 episodes
Defenders - 8 episode event
For a total of 60 episodes.
What they do after that is anyone's guess, but I'm almost certain Iron Fist and Luke Cage will share a show should they move to season 2.
Ahh, sweet, 13 episodes and Iron Fist will likely cross over to Luke Cage and vice versa. I hope they give him his yellow energy and use good CG on it and not give it the Jean Grey/Magneto non-effects effects.
Quote from: Foggle on April 15, 2015, 04:10:49 PM
I assume Daredevil will get a second season that introduces characters like Elektra and The Punisher into the MCU. Luke Cage & Iron Fist Heroes For Hire as a shared season 2 seems like a no-brainer to me, as well.
Speaking of which, if Fox ends up making a sequel to the Deadpool film, my money's on it being a Cable & Deadpool movie.
:)
I love Punisher but I don't think he fits in MCU at all. I think his movie rights are tied up anyway.
I'd of course love a Cable & Deadpool movie. Isn't Deadpool still tied to the X-Men's universe though?
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on April 16, 2015, 09:36:34 PM
Wow, I totally disagree about episode 7, it's one of my favorites. Stick is an awesone character, and the stuff you seem to be focusing on were the least important parts of the episode. Black Sky was the Macguffin for this episode (though I still haven't finished the season yet, so maybe it'll come back), and Stick had to be introduced somewhere, so you're complaint about him coming out of nowhere doesn't really make sense since Matt's past has been presented to us in chronological order via the flash-backs, and he of course wouldn't meet Stick until after his dad's death.
The whole episode was also an excellent character-study of Matt and his stance at that point in the series. Stick points out that he'll never get anything truly accomplished until he's willing to cross a certain line. He represents the opposite side of the coin to the priest who serves as Matt's other guiding figure throughout the season, and although Matt rejects him in the episode, he hasn't truly given up the temptation to follow Stick's recommended path.
To me, it's one of the finest written, directed, and acted episodes in the series out of the 11-episodes that I've seen so far. We're just going to have to agree to disagree on that.
Pretty much all of this. I've been thinking ever since I finished the show and I got to say that episode 7 and Nelson Vs. Murdock are my favorites out of the entire series.
Quote from: Foggle on April 16, 2015, 09:48:11 PM
When I say he "randomly shows up," I mean he just somehow walks into a parking garage not only knowing that Matt would be there but also that the guy in the mask was him. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination in a universe where characters like Hulk and Thor exist, but it still took me out of the moment, if only briefly. Also, Black Sky may be a MacGuffin, but having what I assume is a child slave pop up only to serve no purpose other than die without any explanation didn't sit right with me.
Maybe it's because I haven't read the comics, but I just thought Stick was an asshole. I get that he's basically Daredevil if Daredevil wasn't compassionate or against killing people, but I didn't particularly have an opinion on him one way or the other. The character study was interesting enough, but it didn't really make me feel anything like the scenes with Matt's dad or Fisk's family did.
I didn't actually dislike the episode though, it was still pretty good; I just wasn't as engaged in it as I was with the other 7. Glad it worked more for you.
He surprise threw kid Matt off of a building for training and Daredevil said he hated him in a comic a read a week or two ago. Does that answer your question? :D
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on April 17, 2015, 09:21:54 PM
I've already talked about why I personally love "Stick," but my overall personal favorite episode is "Nelson v. Murdock," as I'm all about characters over action, and that was a great character piece, IMO. I love that Foggy didn't just become the "comic relief side character" that lesser writers would have made him. You really get a sense that him and Matt are genuinely great friends, and seeing their trust tested like that really came through in their emotional responses via terrific acting.
Also, the costume design for Daredevil's suit us excellent. One of the best I've seen in the medium, film, TV, or otherwise. It's just a shame that we only got to see it in the finale, so I can't wait for Daredevil's return in The Defenders.
:shakeshakeshake: :swoon: :swoon: You love Nelson V. Murdock as much as I do.
Also, I have no clue what The Defenders is.
Quote from: Avaitor on April 18, 2015, 06:45:49 PM
I finally got around to watching the first 2 Daredevil episodes. It's pretty good so far, even if it's not perfect.
Charlie Cox so far is a fine Daredevil. He has a good balance between charismatic and dedicated that fits the character, and most of his delivery is solid, the Bale-esq line aside. I also like Karen, who's a strong female in the MCU sense, in that she's smart, able, and deserves her own time to shine away from the boys. But I was a little annoyed with Foggy in the first episode, but he won me over a little in the next since he's given something to do as the relief, instead of being it just because.
Besides that, the direction is pretty solid throughout, with some great fight scenes and sharp composition. This helps the merely above-average writing, but I can already tell that there is more to look forward to as it goes along. Consider me sold.
Yeah, Foggy was getting on my nerves at first. The fact that he's probably my favorite normal human (i.e. not a badass or deranged or a hero or anything) in comic books right now made it that much worse. I still prefer the Mark Waid version but he's in a good 2nd place ever since Nelson v. Murdock and hasn't had a misstep since. :)
Quote from: Foggle on April 19, 2015, 09:25:03 PM
I love the first two Blade films. They're not high quality entertainment by any means, but they're ridiculously awesome if all you're expecting are badass popcorn flicks.
Fant Fourstic looks terrible, I agree. That Deadpool movie is buying them a lot of credibility with me, though... I've read some of the leaked script, which they seem to be mostly adhering to, and all I can say is that it's going to be the most accurate version of the character ever seen outside the comics. I mean, I loved the Deadpool game and his appearances in stuff like Hulk Vs., but they aren't exactly good representations of him or his story.
I loved his role in Hulk Vs., I like him in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 were he's a giant troll, played as him a bit in X-Men Legends 2 but can't say much about that and I still stand by him being the funniest boss ever in Shattered Dimensions. But of course the world still needs much more Deadpool.
Quote from: Foggle on April 29, 2015, 07:51:28 PM
Quote from: gunswordfist on April 29, 2015, 06:59:20 PM
clumsy fight at the end.
:wth:
I still stand by this. ;D
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 30, 2015, 11:49:29 PM
Quote from: gunswordfist on April 30, 2015, 01:38:16 AM
Ah, Fisk and Ben Urich in one episode. Beautiful. :'(
If it's the one I'm thinking of, that was a pretty powerful episode.
The more I think about this show the more I want to re-watch it.
Wihch one did you think it was?
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on May 22, 2015, 07:08:36 PM
I know that I'm in the minority on that opinion, but the thought of something like this (https://youtu.be/0m822scb5MA) happening to an AOS character or something along those lines is just too much fun.
Awesome
I don't remember what I was referring to. But I still want to rewatch it.
I was referring their first episode, iirc.
I really need to rewatch this show as well. I took like a month break in between the early episodes.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that Marvel has already gotten the rights back to Punisher, as well as Blade.
I wasn't sure. I just remember ramblings of a sequel to War Zone being a Barracuda movie. I would have preferred that since I love Barracuda and like Warzone.
And yeah, Blade without Wesley would be hard to see. When they say an actor is a character, he's probably at the top of my list with Blade.
It's interesting how Fisk hates seeing his name dragged through the mud as much as his father did. So much so that he had the freaking internet scrubbed of anything bad about him.
The Punisher will be in season 2 of Daredevil! (http://marvel.com/news/tv/24699/jon_bernthal_cast_as_frank_castle_in_the_netflix_original_series_marvels_daredevil)
This is a perfect fit both for the themes of the show and for the character himself. I also much prefer Frank Castle when he works with someone else.
Can't wait for this!
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fx.annihil.us%2Fu%2Fprod%2Fmarvel%2Fi%2Fmg%2F9%2Fc0%2F5577507a7fdad%2Fstandard_incredible.jpg&hash=6f264d2bdaa91b3de0b4b71919827be8520d3179)
That should certainly be interesting. I wonder if it means the show will get to Punisher Max levels of blood and gore and violence in Season 2.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 09, 2015, 05:00:37 PM
The Punisher will be in season 2 of Daredevil! (http://marvel.com/news/tv/24699/jon_bernthal_cast_as_frank_castle_in_the_netflix_original_series_marvels_daredevil)
This is a perfect fit both for the themes of the show and for the character himself. I also much prefer Frank Castle when he works with someone else.
Can't wait for this!
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fx.annihil.us%2Fu%2Fprod%2Fmarvel%2Fi%2Fmg%2F9%2Fc0%2F5577507a7fdad%2Fstandard_incredible.jpg&hash=6f264d2bdaa91b3de0b4b71919827be8520d3179)
HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME!!!! :swoon:
Please let this be the beginning of a Punisher spin-off. A Punisher series done like Daredevil would be amazing.
http://www.comicvine.com/articles/jon-bernthal-cast-as-frank-castle-for-second-seaso/1100-152544/ (http://www.comicvine.com/articles/jon-bernthal-cast-as-frank-castle-for-second-seaso/1100-152544/) Interesting.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.comicvine.com%2Fuploads%2Foriginal%2F7%2F73958%2F4615993-chfdzadxeaif0b5.jpg&hash=7c004801238894e9983761e12f20907ce6bf7ab7)
I love it when actors familiarize themselves with the source material. That probably contributes to why Charlie Cox was so good as Daredevil.
As I said before, just look at the early trailers for Daredevil and imagine Frank Castle in there. He fits perfectly. Though I do heavily anticipate the moral battles between the two more than anything.
They'll probably start out as enemies and then end up becoming allies by the middle of the season, with the obvious clash between them initially being their stances on killing.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.comicvine.com%2Fuploads%2Foriginal%2F11114%2F111144184%2F4616701-0344908847-CHG0n.png&hash=fc6dd5598e6838a60396d17e833959b465208345)
Pretty cool.
I do wonder what else season 2 will have. I'm thinking they'll save Elektra, Bullseye, and The Hand for season 3 at this rate, but focus instead on what the rise of a hero like Daredevil would entail in Hell's Kitchen and the power vacuum the Kingpin left. Or maybe Fisk still pushes things from behind bars. I'd guess Tombstone, Ikari, The Owl, and Typhoid Mary, are obvious candidates for immediate threat level villains all working from different places.
Either way, I'm excited.
The Owl? He's kind of dead, unless you mean Leland's son. I have a theory that he'll have the same name as his father and try to kill Kingpin in jail (did I already say this?) I don't know about if whatever powers The Owl has will carry over into the show though. The Hand established a foothold with whatever property that acquired in Hell's Kitchen (namely Elena's apartment complex) so I'm 100% convinced that they'll be in season 2. It seems a bit early for Elektra and Bullseye but then again time will probably pass a lot in between both seasons so maybe it won't feel rushed. It's probably just me though.
I assume Leland's son will become The Owl to try and crush Fisk for what he did to his father. Tombstone would obviously fill in the void left by the crime lords and the other two are just obvious street level threats that would threaten Daredevil more directly. Honestly, I don't see any other Daredevil villains outside The Hand and these really fitting into the tone of this show, and The Hand could very well still be involved sending assassins like Ikari after him.
Elektra and Bullseye make a lot of sense, but they're a bit too important to Daredevil to be on the sidelines this soon into the game. Though I guess they can be introduced, yet more as side/background characters for now.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 10, 2015, 06:46:31 PM
Elektra and Bullseye make a lot of sense, but they're a bit too important to Daredevil to be on the sidelines this soon into the game. Though I guess they can be introduced, yet more as side/background characters for now.
I have a feeling both of them will pop up next season in minor roles and then return as major characters for season 3. I also think they might end up making a new Punisher movie (or series) if his character is well-received in season 2.
A series is more likely since Marvel tends to keep its movies more family-friendly, whereas they can get away with darker story-lines and a bit more violence on Netflix.
Something that puzzled me recently is that Marvel apparently said they want their Netflix shows to remain somewhat family-friendly, like "hard PG-13 instead of R." Now, I don't know if it's just me, but I'm not sure what planet you'd have to be on to consider Daredevil a PG-13 series...
Well, maybe I've just watched too much Game of Thrones (and HBO shows in general), but the violence in Daredevil seemed fairly tame to me. There was blood and on-screen deaths, but more often than not the violence was implied rather than shown in full force (such as with the notorious car door scene).
The real maturity of DD came from its themes rather than its violence, IMO.
I'd also like to point out that the way movies and TV are rated these days are complete BS, IMO. This video does an excellent job of explaining it: https://youtu.be/O-NeJRrgoTY
Yeah, PG-13 seems fitting for Daredevil. It didn't have much I wouldn't show to teenagers.
That seems like a good video, I'll watch it soon.
Maybe I'm out of touch when it comes to movie ratings (as I hardly pay attention to them anymore), but I'm not sure this scene would fly in a PG-13, even today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEW53_5donY&t=18s Obviously it's nothing compared to Game of Thrones, but then again neither are most NC-17 films.
I had considered that scene, but while it is definitely violent, it's in a darkly lit area and you barely see any blood. I personally feel that it could count as "hard PG-13" rather than straight-up "R" material, myself. Personally I find the car door scene to be more disturbing, and once again that's still more implied violence rather than directly shown.
I think maybe 20 years ago the car door bit could have gotten an R rating, but yeah, it's not particularly explicit despite the shocking-ness, so I guess it wouldn't today.
To be fair, I almost never watch modern PG-13 movies unless they're Marvel or James Bond, so I don't really know what kind of stuff can fly in them these days. DD just seemed a lot more brutal to me than, say, The Avengers. Though I guess it wasn't too much worse than Casino Royale, and that was almost a decade ago.
The original Star Wars featured a scene with an arm getting severed and blood leaking out, and TESB had a scene where Han Solo slices open a creature and has Luke covered in its entrails to keep him from freezing to death. Indiana Jones has a scene where Nazis get their faces melted off. Poltergeist has a scene where a guy hallucinates ripping his face off. Beetlegeuce has way too much bizarre and fucked-up imagery to keep track of, and Michael Keaton quite clearly drops an F-bomb in one infamous line of the film.
Guess what all of those movies have in common? :humhumhum:
It's not that movies today would get a harsher rating twenty years ago. It's the other way around, actually. Censorship has actually gotten worse for PG and PG-13 movies over the years. None of those movies that I mentioned could even dream of getting away with a PG rating if they came out today and didn't heavily edit those scenes to tone them down. On the flip side, movies like The Lord of the Rings and The Avengers would have easily been PG had they come out in the 80's or early 90's.
You're right that censorship has gotten worse overall, but for some reason my brain always defaults to how Evil Dead 2 was apparently so "shocking" that it got banned in some countries and received an NC-17 in the US, when it could have easily gotten a PG-13 today.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 10, 2015, 06:46:31 PM
I assume Leland's son will become The Owl to try and crush Fisk for what he did to his father. Tombstone would obviously fill in the void left by the crime lords and the other two are just obvious street level threats that would threaten Daredevil more directly. Honestly, I don't see any other Daredevil villains outside The Hand and these really fitting into the tone of this show, and The Hand could very well still be involved sending assassins like Ikari after him.
Elektra and Bullseye make a lot of sense, but they're a bit too important to Daredevil to be on the sidelines this soon into the game. Though I guess they can be introduced, yet more as side/background characters for now.
Whoops, I missed you said Season 3. Looks like we agree there on Elektra and Bullseye.
Tombstone is a Daredevil enemy, right? I just know him from the Spider-Man cartoon, lol. Too bad they can no longer use the Urich angle with him. :(
Quote from: Foggle on June 10, 2015, 08:27:57 PM
I think maybe 20 years ago the car door bit could have gotten an R rating, but yeah, it's not particularly explicit despite the shocking-ness, so I guess it wouldn't today.
To be fair, I almost never watch modern PG-13 movies unless they're Marvel or James Bond, so I don't really know what kind of stuff can fly in them these days. DD just seemed a lot more brutal to me than, say, The Avengers. Though I guess it wasn't too much worse than Casino Royale, and that was almost a decade ago.
This. I think I'm just comparing the show with other PG-13 movies when I think the show would be "R" territory.
And in what why would they not consider LOTR a PG movie? lol I also remember Goldeneye being PG, which is shocking compared to how they rated movies afterwards.
Tombstone is a Daredevil enemy and one of the crime boss supervillains of Marvel like Kingpin and Silvermane. But Tombstone is the next best thing to have with Wilson Fisk in jail.
His power would also be quite difficult for both Daredevil and Punisher to overcome, too. I'm certain next season will have a few more dangerous street level powers like his and Typhoid Mary's are.
Silvermane...sounds like another familiar face from the 90s Spidey cartoon. lol
I wonder how they'll handle supervillains in this show.
You should check out Tombstone's appearances on Spectacular Spiderman. If he's even half as good on Daredevil as he is in that show, it would be interesting.
:immad: :imnothappy: I'll consider the following.
(https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2142/5781/original.jpg)
http://www.comicvine.com/articles/season-2-of-daredevil-will-be-daredevil-vs-the-pun/1100-152740/ (http://www.comicvine.com/articles/season-2-of-daredevil-will-be-daredevil-vs-the-pun/1100-152740/)
I'm a bit late but http://www.comicvine.com/articles/marvel-announces-elodie-yung-to-play-elektra-in-da/1100-152837/ (http://www.comicvine.com/articles/marvel-announces-elodie-yung-to-play-elektra-in-da/1100-152837/)
Now I await Bullseye and we should be on our way.
In other news, Marvel still hasn't cracked Iron Fist yet (http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/07/02/marvel-hasnt-cracked-the-iron-fist-series-yet). Is that really so hard to just use the Brubaker comics and old kung-fu movies as a source? That's really what people want to see.
QuoteYou could technically do that with Iron Fist - he could mention his chi and shit a couple of times, but you don't have his hand glow
I stopped reading after this. If his hands don't glow, I don't watch. seriously.
It's easy to take for granted how tough it is to translate something as out there as superhero comics to a medium of movies or television and actually make it good, especially since Marvel has been doing that for years, now.
But make no mistake, making films is hard work, and most of what you actually end up seeing in the final product vastly differs from the original concepts that were initially pitched. Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Daredevil didn't just happen overnight and turn out good simply because Marvel wanted them to. Those took a lot of planning and effort. So I can understand perfectly fine how Marvel has to take its time with Iron Fist.
QuoteNews is coming out that Punisher could get his own stand-alone series now. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos revealed "Some [shows] will selectively have multiple seasons as they come out of the gate."
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comicvine.com%2Farticles%2Fnetflix-confirms-when-jessica-jones-will-air-and-f%2F1100-153034%2F&hash=3173f9c38cb299f31f1593508852100c169f416f)
http://www.comicvine.com/articles/images-of-jon-bernthal-as-frank-castle-for-daredev/1100-153168/ (http://www.comicvine.com/articles/images-of-jon-bernthal-as-frank-castle-for-daredev/1100-153168/)
Jessica Jones trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3s178GW0Q)
November 20th. Looks like it's making 2015 after all.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on September 28, 2015, 04:24:23 PMJessica Jones trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3s178GW0Q)
November 20th. Looks like it's making 2015 after all.
Full trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWHUjuJ8zxE)
It definitely looks like a good followup to Daredevil. I'm glad it made 2015.
Ah, less than a month away. Jeez Marvel, why so awesome?
When's the exact time that Jessica Jones is released?
Anyway, my expectations are low but I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel blew me away again. I want to get some snacks for this.
I honestly can't remember when Daredevil was put up, but it was a bit of a wait.
Still, I'm hoping for the best from this.
Netflix's shows usually come out at 3 am eastern time, since they're based in the west coast. At the same time though, they did put the latest season of OITNB up at 9 pm in the summer, so who knows.
Well, I'll probably be late today watching it so it'll probably not matter. :D
So, let's see, what's the tally now?
Agents of SHIELD: Complete and total crap.
Agent Carter: Terrific.
Daredevil: Awesome
Jessica Jones: Tragically beautiful... maybe I'm being premature, I'm only two episodes in, but it hooked me.
I'm no mathematician, but I think this averages out to Marvel's TV department being very good at what they do. Now, if only their animation department would follow suit.
Glad to see that you enjoyed Daredevil after all. Simlar to me, it looked like the first couple of episodes hadn't really grabbed you. I ended up really getting hooked on the show by the episode five cliffhanger, myself.
I really wish that I could start Jessica Jones today, but I'll have to hold off until after Thanksgiving for reasons and shit.
Looking at their output so far, AOS sticks out like a sore thumb. When I found out that none of the movie department people had any involvement with it, and that Kevin Feige personally oversaw the production of Agent Carter, it all suddenly made perfect sense. Agent Carter and Daredevil were run by talented people. AOS is run by ABC and hacks. No wonder the movie department has disowned it.
Checked out the first episode of Jessica Jones. It was really good! I liked the Daredevil premiere more than most, but this was a much better series opener. The writing and acting were both great, but the soundtrack and cinematography were the clear standouts IMO. Excellent jazzy score and fantastic usage of color/camera movement. Can't wait to watch the second one tomorrow! :joy:
I watched the first couple of episodes, they're good but not as strong as Daredevil. Gets much better as it goes, though. The second half of episode 3 and on through episode 4 are great. Still have more to go.
It's out? Ack, and I still haven't watched Daredevil. My backlog is piling up... :sweat:
Saw the next two episodes. I wouldn't really say this show is either better or worse than Daredevil - it has completely different strengths and similar weaknesses - but, for me, it's definitely just as engaging. Despite having very little screen time so far, Kilgrave is already my second favorite MCU villain (doubt it will be possible for anyone to surpass Fisk). I'm liking these Netflix shows way better than the movies, to be honest.
I'm starting this up tonight, and I'm excited!
Quote from: Foggle on November 21, 2015, 04:02:29 PMI'm liking these Netflix shows way better than the movies, to be honest.
Eh, I think that it's a tad unfair to group the movies altogether and then say that "this or that" is way better than those collectively mediocre Marvel movies, which I have never agreed with, myself. On the contrary, Marvel has been pretty good about tonally differentiating their different franchises, despite them all sharing a Universe. Captain America is not Iron Man, and Iron Man is not Thor.
Is it fair to say that the Netflix shows are on par with or maybe even a little better than Marvel's best movies like Iron Man, Guardians, The Winter Soldier, and so on? Absolutely. And it's just as fair to say that they are way better than Marvel's weaker output like The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, or Thor: The Dark World. But lumping them all together and using the weaker films of different franchises to collectively hold down the quality of genuinely great films in their own rights doesn't make much sense to me, personally.
Personally, I still think that Marvel has it down really well with which characters are more well-suited to films and which to shows. Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, are much better as big-budget films that can really tell epic stories that don't have the constraints of a TV budget. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist are all street level heroes who work better tackling smaller cases and such.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 21, 2015, 06:00:59 PM
Eh, I think that it's a tad unfair to group the movies altogether and then say that "this or that" is way better than those collectively mediocre Marvel movies, which I have never agreed with, myself.
When did I do that?
You know I love Guardians of the Galaxy and both Captain America films, and also like the original Iron Man. The only MCU movies I actually think are bad would be Iron Man 2 and Incredible Hulk; I will readily admit that the Avengers films are good (especially the first one) but not my cup of tea. I just happen to think that Daredevil and (what I've seen of) Jessica Jones are the best superhero shows I've watched, along with Spectacular Spider-Man. Saying I find something superior to something else does not necessarily mean I think the latter is a lesser work. To this day, Guardians of the Galaxy and Winter Soldier are by far my favorite superhero movies (unless you count Kick-Ass, I guess).
QuoteOn the contrary, Marvel has been pretty good about tonally differentiating their different franchises, despite them all sharing a Universe. Captain America is not Iron Man, and Iron Man is not Thor.
Is it fair to say that the Netflix shows are on par with or maybe even a little better than Marvel's best movies like Iron Man, Guardians, The Winter Soldier, and so on? Absolutely. And it's just as fair to say that they are way better than Marvel's weaker output like The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, or Thor: The Dark World. But lumping them all together and using the weaker films of different franchises to collectively hold down the quality of genuinely great films in their own rights doesn't make much sense to me, personally.
Are you reading my posts from 2-3 years ago or something? All I said was that I'm finding myself liking the Netflix shows more than the films so far. Yes, that's a generalization, but DD and JJ are easily my favorite entries in the MCU at this moment in time, somehow surpassing 2014's films, which I already thought were 10/10 comic book adaptations. I love the artful manner in which these shows are shot and the excellent development they were able to give Fisk, plus I find the MCU's versions of Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones to be the most interesting protagonists in a live action superhero adaptation to date. Each series has a few noticeable problems, sure, but rarely have I found myself so engaged by television. I'm only lumping The First Avenger in with The Dark World in the sense that they are both films in the same series of films. Obviously there is a huge quality disparity between the two, and I'm not judging the best movies on the merits of the worst ones; I legitimately have found both serialized TV entries more enjoyable than even the best of the theatrical releases. My comment was not meant to disparage what Marvel puts into theaters as a whole, but more to celebrate just how good I think their Netflix output is so far.
QuotePersonally, I still think that Marvel has it down really well with which characters are more well-suited to films and which to shows. Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, are much better as big-budget films that can really tell epic stories that don't have the constraints of a TV budget. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist are all street level heroes who work better tackling smaller cases and such.
I agree that the Avengers characters are all better suited to film than television (except Spider-Man if you count him, his story really needs a treatment similar to SSM to reach its full potential IMO), but I think Guardians at least could work equally well for both. A big budget is preferable, of course, but I could easily seem them making a truly great Firefly or Star Trek-esque TV show out of GOTG (the Man of Action cartoon doesn't count).
Ah, I misunderstood you, my mistake. ;)
I personally love the better Marvel movies as much as I love Daredevil and Agent Carter (I still have yet to see Jessica Jones). I can understand and respect your viewpoint, though.
Sorry if it seemed like I was attacking your opinion. It seemed like you think that I did, but I was only responding with my defense to what I thought that you were saying, instead of what you were actually saying. :)
It's okay! Sorry if I got a little overly defensive. :sweat: I know I've said things like what you were defending against in the past, and I'm trying to distance myself away from such bad vibes and unfair generalizations. I'm definitely not trying to paint my opinion as the "right" one or anything! I do agree that the better Marvel movies are every bit as good as DD and JJ, but I think I'm just more partial to the lengthy serialization format overall. Which is probably why I still feel gutted over SSM's cancellation. :(
Should I watch Agent Carter, by the way? I intentionally avoided it at the time because I was worried about it being too similar to AOS, but it seems like it might have a similar feeling to The First Avenger, which is of course excellent. :)
Yeah, as a fan of The First Avenger, I absolutely loved Agent Carter. Keep in mind that despite being an ABC show, it's not run by the same people who do AOS. Kevin Feige and the rest of the head movie department people had no involvement in the latter, but got personally involved with Agent Carter, and the vast difference in quality shows. It also helps that Hayley Atwell is a superb leading actress, and having Shea Whigham from Boardwalk Empire doesn't hurt either. ;)
Okay, I'll be sure to check it out, then. :D
It's always nice to see Clarke Peters, and hear his hella voice again!
Quote from: Avaitor on November 22, 2015, 01:33:11 AM
It's always nice to see Clarke Peters, and hear his hella voice again!
God yes. I sort of squealed when I saw him in episode 2. :il_hahaha:
I'm 3 episodes in, and this is very good. I don't want to say if it's better or worse than Daredevil, though, since they're different, equally well-made series.
But really, while I do understand the complaint that Marvel needs to have more female and non-white-led properties (which is totally true, but let's please don't act like this is a problem that only Marvel is guilty of), people have got to stop sleeping on the shows. Agent Carter and Jessica Jones are steps in the right direction.
I marathoned through more of the episodes yesterday afternoon. I only have three episodes left. Jessica Jones is superb! I love that she's definitely flawed but not to the point of her being a jerk, which a number broadcast and cable stations would go overboard with. I like Trish and Malcolm, and even Officer Simpson. I don't really care for the lawyer and her subplot though. Man or woman, an affair angle in a show like this just comes off like padding. But the rest is very good! David Tennant knocks it out of the park as Kilgrave. Honestly, I don't see why he's not ever referred to as the Purple Man. I can understand not having his skin purple like it is in the comics, but in a show that's otherwise subtle I don't think it was a good choice to have always referred to as Kilgrave when Purple Man can be used much more subtly.
The only real bad thing about Jessica Jones is it triggers my Daredevil withdrawal. DD's second season can't come soon enough. Also can't wait until Punisher's series starts. I hope these people will also do Ghost Rider, that would make for a cool series.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on November 22, 2015, 12:09:24 PM
The only real bad thing about Jessica Jones is it triggers my Daredevil withdrawal. DD's second season can't come soon enough.
I know! :drool:
Quote from: Avaitor on November 22, 2015, 11:40:11 AM
I'm 3 episodes in, and this is very good. I don't want to say if it's better or worse than Daredevil, though, since they're different, equally well-made series.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel, as well. It feels like neither a retread of nor an attempt to outdo DD, IMO; it's just its own thing (like how all the MCU films are different from each other). The way it should be!
Also, it's strangely a minority opinion to still dislike AOS, but everything I've seen from even now gives me no incentive to think that it's a good show.
A lot of people seem to agree it's gotten better, but since it's practically been rendered non-canon and there are so many better superhero shows to watch from both Marvel and DC, I have to wonder why anyone would bother.
Despite having to take a mandatory state board exam tomorrow, I decided to call it quits on studying since I've been doing that for almost a month and there isn't really much more I can do to cram dull, repetitive state statutes into my head.
So, I decided to check out the first two episodes of Jessica Jones. I really like what I've seen so far. Krysten Ritter (who I distinctly remember from season two of Breaking Bad) is great in the role, and I was surprised to see that Luke Cage is a supporting character in this series, being that he's going to be getting his own solo-show next.
It actually kind of bums me out that I'll be too busy packing up for my trip home to watch the rest of this show until after Thanksgiving.
Quote from: Foggle on November 22, 2015, 04:07:40 PMA lot of people seem to agree it's gotten better
Even the people who actually like it still seem to admit that it's one of the weaker superhero shows, though. In this video from Screen Junkies, three different comic book fans all unanimously rank it below all of its competition except for Gotham: https://youtu.be/lGRzAAV1yCk
I just finished watching the first two episodes. Kind of funny how the show wears its raunchiness on its sleeve. Besides that, this show has my attention and I like Jones.
Saw the fifth and sixth episodes. Wow, Krysten Ritter and David Tennant are such talented actors! I love Jessica's character and Kilgrave is easily the scariest villain in any superhero comic book adaptation I've seen. Just like DD, this just gets better with every episode. I thirst for Daredevil season 2 and Luke Cage now. :drool:
Speaking of Daredevil season 2, I've heard that apparently the production people at Netflix are so impressed with how The Punisher has turned out in the early footage that they want Marvel to give him his own spin-off show.
Also, is Kilgrave the same character as The Purple Man from Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes? I know nothing about the comic books, but I get that impression based on the fact that both characters use mind control and in JJ you see purple lighting around Jessica whenever she's thinking about him and his influence on her.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 22, 2015, 09:35:44 PM
Speaking of Daredevil season 2, I've heard that apparently the production people at Netflix are so impressed with how The Punisher has turned out in the early footage that they want Marvel to give him his own spin-off show.
That's awesome! An adaptation of Punisher MAX with real effort put into it would be a dream come true. :swoon: Also, I hope Luke Cage and Iron First have a combined season 2 titled Heroes For Hire. :)
QuoteAlso, is Kilgrave the same character as The Purple Man from Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes? I know nothing about the comic books, but I get that impression based on the fact that both characters use mind control and in JJ you see purple lighting around Jessica whenever she's thinking about him and his influence on her.
Yep! In the Jessica Jones comic book, Alias, Kilgrave is actually purple and also referred to as The Purple Man.
I still kind of want a Daredevil & Black Widow show somewhere down the road, but since it seems like we're getting Elektra sooner than later, and who knows how much longer Johansson will play Nat, that seems like a pipe dream.
But Power Man & Iron Fist needs to happen, yes. I also would like to see The Pulse happen, but it'd probably have to happen without Jameson. I think that Robbie could appear, though, since he's yet to appear in a Spider-Man movie.
I badly want them to cast Iron Fist now because I want a Luke Cage & Iron Fist spin off show (Call it Heroes For Hire!) sooner than later.
I only got to see episode 5 this weekend, but it was a great episode. That opening theme is just incredible. Kilgrave sure is one nasty creep.
Episode 3. Jessica finally meet Kilgrave and much more raunchiness ensues. I'm loving this show
Only got to watch one episode today, but it was really intense! Kind of wish I could just marathon it like some people. :il_hahaha:
Saw the final three episodes earlier today. This series is a blast. I won't spoil it but the final showdown between Jess and Purple Man (I refuse to use Kilgrave because it's more stupid and sillier sounding than Purple Man and its not his real name in this anyway) is great. I can't wait to see what they do with more seasons of this.
Just be glad they removed one of the L's. It was literally just the words kill and grave mashed together in the comic. :lol:
Yeah, Bendis isn't exactly subtle.
I'm watching episode 7 now, and I'm still very positive towards the show. The acting and writing are great all around!
Quote from: Avaitor on November 23, 2015, 11:52:04 PM
Yeah, Bendis isn't exactly subtle.
He was named before Bendis even worked on Marvel though.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on November 24, 2015, 01:15:19 AM
Quote from: Avaitor on November 23, 2015, 11:52:04 PM
Yeah, Bendis isn't exactly subtle.
He was named before Bendis even worked on Marvel though.
Shit, and I actually have the first Daredevil Essentials book somewhere. Lee is definitely not subtle, either.
I'm on episode 9 now, and holy shit! There were instances that I felt Daredevil wasn't able to fully handle its darkness, but i feel like Jessica Jones has this down 100%. It's getting more painful to watch, but is all the more powerful to handle. Great stuff.
I finished the series! Jessica is now my favorite MCU protagonist (closely followed by Daredevil and Captain America) and Kilgrave is now my second favorite antagonist (after Fisk, naturally). What a truly great show, just like DD. Pretty psyched for the upcoming second seasons, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Defenders now. :) If only we could get a third season of Spectacular Spider-Man as well...
....And AEMH (with the original team of writers, of course).
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 26, 2015, 04:41:19 PM
....And AEMH (with the original team of writers, of course).
And let's also have them cancel the Man of Action Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon for one made by the AEMH and SSM staff. ;)
I hope they're making good progress on Iron Fist. That should be fairly different from the other MCU series and movies (until Doctor Strange, anyway) dealing with mysticism and martial arts. Last I heard itwas pushed last because they were having problems getting it together.
Quote from: Foggle on November 26, 2015, 04:45:54 PM
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 26, 2015, 04:41:19 PM
....And AEMH (with the original team of writers, of course).
And let's also have them cancel the Man of Action Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon for one made by the AEMH and SSM staff. ;)
Now that would have been awesome.
Unfortunately, the animated shows have no hope until they get someone new in charge of them.
Jeph Loeb (I know, I know) said in an interview that the rumors were false and Iron Fist's development is proceeding smoothly. I'm sure they'll give us some real info on it after Luke Cage and/or Daredevil season 2.
I watched episode 4-8 on this Turkey Day
Spoiler
So much to say but I'll only say a little. Oh Jessica oh Jessica, it makes no sense whatsoever that you slept with Luke over half a dozen times before/instead of A: Catching Kilgrave first and then coming to him B: Keeping your distance C: Both! That obviously ended in a bad situation.
Dammit, wish I didn't watch the trailer. It spoiled the great precinct scene, even though I did assumed a lot of people would die.
I can imagine what Jeri's going to end up doing.
I just finished the season. Overall, I really enjoyed the show. If I'm to be honest, I still find Daredevil to be just a smidge more to my liking, but that does not at all mean that I didn't love what I saw here. I think that Kilgrave is easily one of the MCU's stronger villains (though, like Foggle, I think that Kingpin takes the #1 spot by far), and Jessica is easily one of the MCU's best heroes. She proves (along with Agent Carter) that a well-cast, great female character backed by strong writing and directing can carry their own story in the MCU. The TV series have nailed it twice. It's long past-due for the movies to follow suit.
I have minor gripes here and there, including to some extent the one that GSF brought up, but one in particular that kind of bothered me was the ending:
Spoiler
For one thing, I really wasn't fond of the way that Kilgrave was defeated. I love it when a villain is outsmarted, but falling for the cliche reverse psychology shenanigans felt way too beneath him, IMO, despite his delusional love for Jessica. Just because she didn't get all out of line and show any anger after he made out with her adopted sister doesn't prove that she's faking being under his control, and it felt rather out of character for him to just dismiss the idea that she was putting up a really great act after all. I feel that he was smart enough to come up with a more definitive test than what he did, and it bugs me that the writers didn't handle his defeat much better than they did. He deserved a better way to go out, IMO.
And that brings me to my second point. Among other things, one thing that I really loved about Daredevil is that it recognized how great of a villain Wilson Fisk is, and that he could have more to his character arc, so naturally they had him appropriately defeated and broken, but not dead. MCU films have a bad habit of just killing off their villains at the end of each movie so haphazardly. Granted, most usually aren't that interesting to begin with, and it was a smart decision to let Loki live, but most of these deaths still feel like such a waste of great potential. Daredevil managed to avoid this trope, and that makes me excited to see where the story can go when that villain inevitably returns to the story. I was hoping that the same could be done for Kilgrave, who was just a great character in general, but was disappointed to see him killed off at the end, and as I mentioned in my previous point, I wasn't satisfied with the way that it happened.
Those issues I have aren't nearly as much of a detriment to the series as I make them sound, but as my only somewhat major gripe with the show, I felt that it was worth mentioning. That said, this is still easily one of the best things to come out of the MCU, movies or otherwise.
Spoiler
I don't like it when villains get killed in superhero stories in general, but Kilgrave needed to die IMO. I found his anticlimactic death pretty cathartic, since he gets trounced so easily despite his ego making him believe he was unstoppable and in the right. That said, I don't blame you (or anyone else) for not agreeing with me, as I seem to be in the minority in always loving this kind of death for characters like him.
Spoiler
Actually, Kilgrave's death reminded me of Bill's from Kill Bill, which is probably the best for him.
I feel that Kilgrave's death was important for the show, and Jessica's character in general. She will never fully get over everything he has done to her, but it's going to make for some fascinating material to see how she adapts to life without him being there to haunt her physically. Emotionally, well...
I finished episode 9 at the end of the last hour. Sin Bin reminded me of Carrie Anne-Moss' Unthinkable so much. I wonder if they did that on purpose.
Spoiler
Another one of Jessica's plans went south. I wonder if Simpson is supposed to be that one Captain America who's parents Red Skull killed. That might be a stretch. It would kind of explain while he beat up a thousand guys while Jessica got tasered into oblivion in probably the biggest narm moment in the series so far. lol I thought he might have been S.h.i.e.l.d. earlier in the episode but not so much anymore. Especially since he probably could have just told the doctor about Kilgrave. I love that smile Jessica cracked at the end of the episode. I suspect that Reva's blood stopped Kilgrave's mind control from working ever again. I wouldn't be surprised since so many seem to love using that blood cure trope.
I finally finished the show.
Spoiler
I've been forgetting to say this but the show is pretty intense. I think episode 10 was the most intense for me. I had to stop a few times during it. Wendy being murdered, Clamons being murdered and Simpson going out there and me worrying about Hope just...Of course episode 11 was right behind it. I am now thinking Simpson is/was a part of some Hydra cell that tried to duplicate the super soldier serum. I suspect Luke and Jessica will be fighting them in Cage's show. They had Sequel Hook all over them.
I was going to say that I liked Jessica Jones more than Daredevil and Black Widow (don't ask) but I think she's my favorite MCU character. Hell, maybe favorite live action comic book character ever. I think it's safe for me to say that for now.
Unimportant stuff: I think how Kilgrave got killed was predictable after awhile. I'm still kind of surprised they killed him because he's still alive in the comics (well, the last time I checked) but of course there was nothing else they could do with him so no complains. Robyn..boy, they gave that fucking weirdo too too much screentime. I'm sure the internet is making fun of her as we speak. I wonder if Loeb had something to do with her because..blame Loeb. :thinkin:
This was all bittersweet. I don't see Jones getting into anything close to what happened in her debut season. I'm sure it'll be closer to a normal superhero series with her putting supervillains more frequently. Obviously what happened to her can't be done again. I'll still watch though.
Oh and I think Jeri was my 3rd or 4th favorite character in the series. I thought she was going to all complete evil or something. I liked that even she had boundaries...even though the whole baby thing...Either way, Carrie Anne-Moss played the hell out of that part. I was liking awkward Simpson before he went all crazy..I just assumed the actor himself was awkward or something at the beginning.
Quote from: Foggle on November 23, 2015, 10:01:42 PM
Just be glad they removed one of the L's. It was literally just the words kill and grave mashed together in the comic. :lol:
:whuh:
Quote from: Avaitor on November 23, 2015, 11:52:04 PM
Yeah, Bendis isn't exactly subtle.
I'm watching episode 7 now, and I'm still very positive towards the show. The acting and writing are great all around!
That reminds me, I was seriously impressed by how great the actresses for teen Jessica and Trish were. They were giving the adults a run for their money.
Quote from: Foggle on November 26, 2015, 04:31:10 PM
I finished the series! Jessica is now my favorite MCU protagonist (closely followed by Daredevil and Captain America) and Kilgrave is now my second favorite antagonist (after Fisk, naturally). What a truly great show, just like DD. Pretty psyched for the upcoming second seasons, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Defenders now. :) If only we could get a third season of Spectacular Spider-Man as well...
Kilgrave's 1st or 2nd for me. It's either him or Loki. And I like this show slightly less than Daredevil.
Quote from: Foggle on November 27, 2015, 01:44:36 AM
Spoiler
I don't like it when villains get killed in superhero stories in general, but Kilgrave needed to die IMO. I found his anticlimactic death pretty cathartic, since he gets trounced so easily despite his ego making him believe he was unstoppable and in the right. That said, I don't blame you (or anyone else) for not agreeing with me, as I seem to be in the minority in always loving this kind of death for characters like him.
Spoiler
2nded. Basically, Kilgrave dying represented Jones moving on with her life and no longer being controlled by him, even if he couldn't literally do that anymore. Also, Kilgrave walking right into Jess' trap was almost laughably stupid. I can get over that though.
Quote from: Avaitor on November 27, 2015, 02:37:13 PM
Spoiler
Actually, Kilgrave's death reminded me of Bill's from Kill Bill, which is probably the best for him.
I feel that Kilgrave's death was important for the show, and Jessica's character in general. She will never fully get over everything he has done to her, but it's going to make for some fascinating material to see how she adapts to life without him being there to haunt her physically. Emotionally, well...
Yes, this, yes. Jeez, I wish I wasn't always late to these threads. I hate bombarding y'all with quotes like this. :D
On the contrary, if you pay attention to the part where her lawyer has to basically lie for her to justify her murder of Kilgrave, the look that she gives on her face is one of genuine realization with a hint of guilt, from my interpretation, and suggests that her decision to resort to killing will be haunting her for some time in the future, whether he deserved to die or not.
And I disagree that there was nothing more that could've been done with his character. Going by his past, he clearly had a descent into the person that he became as he began to live on his own. That makes for a three-dimensional character, and he could have still had further aspects to his character arc which were never explored before finally being finished off. To say that he needed to die is fair, but to say that he needed to die by the end of this season is like saying the same thing for Wilson Fisk. Both of those guys have so much potential to their characters still left untapped. Only one of them, however, may actually get the chance to capitalize on that potential.
Spoiler
Fisk is very different from Kilgrave. Over the course of DD, Wilson basically became his Marvel comics counterpart. They can obviously get more mileage out of him. I think Kilgrave sticking around would have made things eventually get stale. They already showed his past. He already did virtually every horrible thing he could have done to Jessica. He would have just kept on going straight after her, trying to kill her. Plus, he became completely and totally overpowered.
Spoiler
As great a villain as Kilgrave was, he's one that would really suffer from overuse IMO. It also benefited both the narrative and Jessica's character arc for her to kill him at the end of season 1, I'd say. They'll probably show more of his past in season 2 via the IGH subplot, at least.
Spoiler
So any thoughts on who IGH is? The Inhuman Growth Hormone theory or a way to sneak some mutants into the MCU like an article I read suggested?
Those arguments could just as easily be turned around on Fisk. We already saw his past and he already did a bunch of horrible things. That doesn't mean that we've seen his full character arc progress, though, and the same applies to Kilgrave, IMO.
Also, ANY character would suffer from overuse, so that's a moot point. I'm not saying to make Kilgrave a regular character again, just like I don't believe that Fisk should be, but future appearances would have a lot more weight to them. The difference here is that Fisk is being treated like an actual character, which makes him interesting and warrants future appearances. Kilgrave had that same potential but is ultimately only treated as a villain, and a villain always needs to die at the end because that's the trope, but it's that same line of thinking that would deprive us of otherwise great characters in other great series and films.
Shows like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and Breaking Bad excel at those sorts of characters, for a frame of reference. Arrow was also smart not to kill off Deathstroke.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on November 29, 2015, 04:55:25 AM
Spoiler
So any thoughts on who IGH is? The Inhuman Growth Hormone theory or a way to sneak some mutants into the MCU like an article I read suggested?
It's no secret that the MCU fully intends to utilize mutants that don't exclusively belong to the X-Men brand. They'll just sneakily have to call them something else. IGH may very well fit the bill as a mutant-related organization.
While I understand the want to not kill off superhero villains, I don't know how you could write the scenario in a way where Kilgrave gets out alive. Jessica Jones was in no state to lower her hatred enough to spare him, and his powers would have rendered any due process completely useless. You could have him get away with his crimes and ride away with the boat, but that leads to either a dangling plot thread or a complete change in setting (Jessica Jones Vice perhaps?). And frankly, they had Jessica capture Kilgrave only for him to escape so many times as it is that another season of that would've been exhausting.
You don't actually have to do that for another season. There are plenty of ways to keep Kilgrave incapacitated or unable to use his powers and under restraint. He could be brought back into the story at a later time, perhaps even past the second season.
But whatever. It seems like I'm just not going to be able to agree with any of you on this, so agree to disagree it is.
Did I mention that I liked how Luke Cage turned out? They didn't force "trendy" hip hop clothes on him and made him use slang over other sentence, unlike the modern comics of him that I've seen. He came off as intelligent and cool. Besides maybe Immortal Ironfist, it was my favorite iteration of the character.
Quote from: gunswordfist on November 30, 2015, 12:05:26 AM
Did I mention that I liked how Luke Cage turned out? They didn't force "trendy" hip hop clothes on him and made him use slang over other sentence, unlike the modern comics of him that I've seen. He came off as intelligent and cool. Besides maybe Immortal Ironfist, it was my favorite iteration of the character.
Yeah, I loved that too. :)
The Punisher will be in the next season of Daredevil. (http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/daredevil-season-2-to-have-faster-pace-punisher-morality-debate/ar-BBo16zb)
EDIT: Also Elektra. (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/29/daredevil-elektra-photo)
Hasn't that been known for a while, now?
Yeah, I still remember gsf flipping out about it.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on December 30, 2015, 08:42:56 AM
Yeah, I still remember gsf flipping out about it.
I remember that guy losing his shit too.
Dammit, gsf read that way too fast and then freaked out again and thought Punisher and then Elektra were getting their own shows next year :'(
Since it was never posted here, let me just post the Season 2 teaser of Daredevil. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y44m5739m-4) The first part is just clips from season 1, but the last thirty seconds teases the new stuff.
And yes, some changes for the upcoming season include faster pacing (which will be good to differentiate it from season 1), more romance, and a moral battle with the Punisher. So far, I'm liking what I'm hearing and seeing.
Oh, and an interesting cameo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB8ApZbRHd4) for season 2.
April needs to get here (it comes out in April, right?)
Apparently the official release date is March 25.
So, even earlier than last year.
Awesome! :im_nabeshin:
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on January 06, 2016, 03:45:02 PM
Apparently the official release date is March 25.
So, even earlier than last year.
:huh: It went from about 2 years to a year to under a year, amazing. :worship:
Quote from: gunswordfist on January 06, 2016, 06:13:13 PM
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on January 06, 2016, 03:45:02 PM
Apparently the official release date is March 25.
So, even earlier than last year.
:huh: It went from about 2 years to a year to under a year, amazing. :worship:
That's what happens when a show does even better than the high expectations it had already.
Wow, right on my birthday.
New season 2 trailer for Daredevil! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ZGgFuyv8U)
It was, uh, pushed up to March 18th now. :D
I can live with that. I'll watch it in a bit :)
I reread that. Oh, push UP and not back. Jesus, I am used to bad news when it comes to release dates that I assumed wrong. That's fucking amazing. *actually watches trailer this time.*
In case you had your doubts, season 2 of Jessica Jones is happening. (http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/jessica-jones-season-2-netflix-krysten-ritter-mike-colter-luke-cage-1201666573/)
We also have Daredevil season two, Luke Cage (Iron Fist seems to have been delayed until early next year), and just later this very month, Agent Carter season two. Marvel TV is going to kill it this year.
Also, Legends of Tomorrow is premiering in just a few short days, and combined with Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl (which I still need to catch up to), DC isn't slouching either, by any means.
That's a total of eight genuinely good superhero shows to watch in this year alone. We may have very well just entered into the golden-age of this genre on TV.
Thank Christ the Teen Titans show by the Batman & Robin writer didn't get greenlit in order to ruin that streak.
Well, we already have Gotham and AOS to do that for us....
We're also getting Lucifer and Legion shows that are looking iffy to me, but eh, there will always be bad to balance in between the good.
I just hope that the Y: The Last Man series happens, and delivers.
Good news. Now I just need a Punisher show fully announced.
If Netflix has their way, you'll get it sooner than you think. Word is that they loved what they saw of the character from early season two footage so much that they've essentially been pleading with Marvel to make a spin-off series for the character ASAP.
I've been hearing that. A Punisher MAX type of series would be an absolute dream.
It kind of feels that the Punisher is better suited for a TV series than a film franchise, so that should work.
A Punisher show is already on the way.
Quote
The Punisher, actor Jon Bernthal's character from Netflix's Daredevil, will get his own Netflix spinoff series from Marvel, Deadline has confirmed. The character makes his debut when Daredevil begins its second season March 18. No date has been set for The Punisher bow, which was first reported by TVLine.
-Deadline
Quote from: Peanutbutter on January 18, 2016, 10:54:25 PM
A Punisher show is already on the way.
Quote
The Punisher, actor Jon Bernthal's character from Netflix's Daredevil, will get his own Netflix spinoff series from Marvel, Deadline has confirmed. The character makes his debut when Daredevil begins its second season March 18. No date has been set for The Punisher bow, which was first reported by TVLine.
-Deadline
:swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: Give us Barracuda, Jigsaw and the arcs The Slavers, Welcome Back Frank, Born and In the Beginning, please! Jesus, I love me some Punisher. Didn't expect to ask for so much :sweat:
Netflix and Marvel are really tearing it up.
I still want some Iron fist and Defenders news, though.
That's all I want to hear for now.
I'm almost done with the first half of last night's Agent Carter premiere, and I'm really digging it so far. The location switch seems to be a good call to keep the show fresh, as the lighting is keenly lit to keep the vintage Hollywood aesthetic going. It also helps that Peggy, Jarvis, and the gang remain as likable as ever.
I'll have to save the second episode, as well as Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, for later, but I'm happy so far.
Since I don't have Cable or Sattelite right now, I'll have to be a week behind on Agent Carter episodes since the ABC app only lets people without providers watch episodes once they turn a week old.
https://youtu.be/xt6uagFjJsU
They went too easy on this show, if you ask me. Still pretty funny jabs, though.
Good stuff. All reasons why I ditched it.
But the excuse that it has only a portion of the budget and therefore can't be as good is hogwash. The writing being lackluster is not a budget issue. No one complains about the special effects.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on January 26, 2016, 12:53:46 PM
Good stuff. All reasons why I ditched it.
But the excuse that it has only a portion of the budget and therefore can't be as good is hogwash. The writing being lackluster is not a budget issue. No one complains about the special effects.
:thinkin: Good points.
Get hyped: http://youtu.be/m5_A0Wx0jU4
They did it. They finally nailed Frank Castle on screen.
Not only that, but... everything looks awesome! It's Daredevil in all its greatness but with more. That conflict, that direction, those themes, those characters. Something tells me that I'm going dig this. And we're only a month out!
Finally? Castle was fine in WarZone.
The Thomas Jane movie was also good. But I'm really looking forward to both Daredevil and Punisher!
Eh, didn't care for him in any of the movies. But then I've always liked him more when he bounces off characters like Spider-Man or Daredevil.
Since I want to watch the show (mostly) blind, I'm not going to watch the latest or any trailer. And I won't be back until I watch the show. I will say that even though I've seen like a second of her in the last trailer, I think who they picked as Elektra will be perfect for the role. I cannot wait to see her in action!
Well, I do hope you come back for this.
Because there's been some Iron Fist news. (https://marvel.com/news/tv/25516/scott_buck_to_showrun_the_netflix_original_series_marvels_iron_fist?linkId=19388163) It's officially in production. Obviously it will be the last of the four series to premiere.
QuoteReturning to New York City after being missing for years, Daniel Rand fights against the criminal element corrupting New York City with his incredible kung-fu mastery and ability to summon the awesome power of the fiery Iron Fist.
Ok, I'm back in here one time to post this: http://mashable.com/2016/02/25/finn-jones-iron-fist-netflix/ (http://mashable.com/2016/02/25/finn-jones-iron-fist-netflix/)
Sounds cool. He does look a lot like Danny.
Even as a big Game of Thrones fan, I can't make a comment on this casting since Loras is a pretty minor character on the show with barely any screen-time (despite being important to one of the main story-lines from last season).
It is good to hear that they're moving forward with Iron Fist though. I'ver been hearing some troubling reports of the constant delays being due to pre-production problems, and that Marvel was considering canceling the series entirely.
I'm really glad they're moving forward because Iron Fist has always been a hero that has never quite gotten the focus he's deserved despite his abilities and the quality of his stuff.
I heard the reason why they were having problems moving forward was the whole mystical element and how to fit it in, but I really don't think it should be that hard. If it's up to Netflix's usual standards, this should be great. It should be much different than the other Marvel shows if they hit it right.
And, speaking of the other shows:
Daredevil trailer 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cn3DVV0LHY)
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on February 25, 2016, 09:03:07 PM
I'm really glad they're moving forward because Iron Fist has always been a hero that has never quite gotten the focus he's deserved despite his abilities and the quality of his stuff.
I heard the reason why they were having problems moving forward was the whole mystical element and how to fit it in, but I really don't think it should be that hard. If it's up to Netflix's usual standards, this should be great. It should be much different than the other Marvel shows if they hit it right.
Again, they better make Rand's limbs glow or I'm boycotting. :unimpressed: *leaves for real this time*
Edit: And yes, Iron Fist does deserve to finally be mainstream. He's interesting enough to become that big.
Any Daredevil hype? After season 1, I couldn't be more excited.
Unfortunately, it won't be out until early morning, so there's still a bit of wait left.
Of course I'm hyped! After season 1 and Jessica Jones, how could I not be? ;)
Is there an exact time it'll be uploaded?!
No, but it always gets uploaded really early in the morning so there's no chance of watching a few before bed. Still, I'm hyped anyway.
After watching the season, I suggest watching a few episodes of Person of Interest to anyone reading. You might find some strange similarities between the two. :D
My hype levels just suddenly got out of control. I have high expectations for Elektra and The Punisher. I'm liking going to bed early so I can wake up early and start watching. Sucks that tomorrow will be busy and it'll be impossible for me to finish until Saturday night. :'(
It start in 1 hour and 10 minutes!! I was going to go to sleep in 30 minutes but FUCK THAT, FUCK SLEEP!! I'm going to catch 2 or 3 episodes. Wake up fast and catch about 6 more before I go out.
I'll hopefully get to watch 2 or 3 tomorrow, myself. :)
I'll try to start it up after work tonight. I'll only get to a few episodes, though.
I'm 4 episodes in so far, and personally I'm really digging it. I love The Punisher in this show, and the staircase fight scene from episode 3 may just have surpassed the hallway fight scene from the first season as my favorite action scene in this show.
Now to see how Elektra turned out. It'll also be great to see the return of The Yakuza and Stick later on this season, as well.
Just spent the past hour trying to watch the first episode. First, my internet decided not to work for 40 minutes (thanks, Time Warner). Now, Netflix keeps glitching out or refusing to buffer the episode once I've initially loaded it. I'm 9 minutes in and unable to continue. Fuck streaming.
Seems like more of a connection problem than a streaming problem. I've had that problem before as well, and usually because my connection was slow. Right now my connection is fine and I've had no problems streaming.
Yeah, my first issue was definitely a connection problem. Just a little mad at streaming since you have to be online to do it and my internet can be kind of wonky. :( About to try again!
Just finished the first episode. Great start to the new season; probably the best Marvel Netflix premiere yet! I absolutely loved how it introduced the Punisher, and can't wait to watch more later. :im_nabeshin:
I'm a bit behind today, but episode 1 was off the wall. The Punisher had literally one line (word, actually) which made him more than a credible threat. It's nice to see him in his early days before he learned any semblance of restraint, too. Then there was Foggy and Karen being incredible and Matt continuing being a great hero. DD is back and as good as ever!
Going straight into episode 2.
I'm 7 episodes in and just can't stop watching.
I will say that the Elektra/Yakuza sub-plot, while fine, isn't nearly as good as The Punisher story-line, which is amazing. But if my biggest complaint about a show is that sometimes it's only just pretty good, and great the rest of the time, then you know that it's an awesome show.
I really loved how they built up the Punisher in the first episode.
Spoiler
Having that Irish mobster give a five-minute monologue about how he was going to be the next bad guy after Fisk and then immediately get killed by the real antagonist was awesome.
That's one of my favorite narrative devices in this kind of story. :D
I just finished off episode 3. Wow, this is certainly paced faster than season 1 was, though with no less great stuff.
Spoiler
The moral battle between Matt and Frank in episode 3 was pretty amazing in how they went back and forth. Matt is too cocky and Frank refuses to admit culpability for his faults. Charlie Cox and Jon Bernthal are amazing in their roles. It's up there with episode 2 in season 1 as one of my favorite episodes.
There's no question that this is the best portrayal of the Punisher in live action by far.
Just watched episode 3. It did the, imo, the greatest Punisher/Daredevil comic book scene ever
Spoiler
with The Punisher tying up Daredevil and sticking a gun on him with the only way to stop Frank from killing someone is to shoot him
from Welcome Back, Frank. I suggest everyone read that. Also, the stairway scene was unbelievable awesome. Unlike the hallway scene from episode 2 of season 1 I liked it..hell, freaking loved it. The argument between Frank and Matt seemed so natural. I'm happy that got good actors for both guys. I can't believe I can't watch anymore right now but boy tomorrow night I'm marathoning the rest of the show.
Episode 8:
Spoiler
1. FISK!!!!
2. STICK!!!!
3. How the hell is Matt having so much trouble believing Stick's story? This is the same Universe in which a giant green monster tore up half of New York, an alien invasion destroyed the other half, a magic hammer-wielding demigod is totally a thing, and an evil AI-controlled robot attempted to bring about the extinction of humanity by lifting up a small country and slamming it back down to Earth. Compared to all of that, the concept of The Hand seems pretty tame.
Just wrapped up episode 6. I'll probably finish up tonight with one more and then call it a night.
So far, this is every bit as good as the first season. Which basically means its more of Marvel at its best. If season 3 isn't announced by the end of the month I'll be very disappointed.
Just finished the season. It was a hell of a binge-watch, but it was worth it. Personally, I loved it. This was a great follow-up to an already great first season, IMO.
Two episodes in, and my only gripe so far is that Punisher's voice is nowhere near deep enough. I'll get used to it though.
I think it's perfect, myself. We don't need another Grizzly-Bale Batman.
I watched the first 3 last night. I thought that the first was a little slow, until that explosion of an ending. As soon as the Punisher shows up, though, is when the season has started to pick up.
I can't wait to watch more!
Up to episode 7 I believe. The stairway fight was indeed awesome! Remember, we already have confirmation for a Punisher spin-off. After every scene with him, I can't wait to see even more of him!
I'll watch some more when I get off the Net, can't wait to see where they go with Elektra and DA Reyes.
Yeah, that stairway fight was incredibly badass. I love this new trend in film-making where action scenes are done using tracking shots with as little cutting as possible - it looks amazing every single time. Oldboy will always contain my favorite iteration of this kind of scene, though.
A little disappointed that
Spoiler
the Punisher is already seemingly out after episode 4. I hope he comes back later on!
Jeremy Renner wants a piece of that Netflix love. (http://www.slashfilm.com/hawkeye-netflix-series/)
Quote from: Foggle on March 20, 2016, 04:25:43 PMYeah, that stairway fight was incredibly badass. I love this new trend in film-making where action scenes are done using tracking shots with as little cutting as possible - it looks amazing every single time. Oldboy will always contain my favorite iteration of this kind of scene, though.
If we're talking about melee-style fighting, then I 100% agree that Oldboy is the best tracking shot of a brawl-style fight (which is to say that it's a purposefully less refined and somewhat more realistic style of fighting). I particularly like how it draws attention to the fact that the protagonist is a vulnerable man and has to take a beating himself when facing that much opposition, and he gets visibly tired as well. It completely broke the trope of the Bruce Lee style of a seemingly invincible man taking on those lesser than him with perfect choreography. Of course, I mean that with the utmost of respect to the legend himself. And while one could argue that Jackie Chan broke the trope with his slapstick style of fighting with humor injected into it, I've always seen that as more of an intentional (and brilliant) parody of the style of film fighting that Bruce Lee made popular, as opposed to an evolution of the art-form.
As for street brawl-style fights in general, though, my favorite has always been the Roddy Piper and Keith David fight from They Live, for managing to be both legitimately well choreographed and hilariously over-the-top at the same time.
As for tracking shots in regard to action scenes in general, the hospital shootout from Hardboiled has always been and still is my favorite, by far.
QuoteA little disappointed that Spoiler
the Punisher is already seemingly out after episode 4. I hope he comes back later on!
Minor Spoilers (since the trailers kind of give this away, anyways):
Spoiler
This definitely isn't the end of his arc in this season, if that's what you're worried about. He still hasn't even gotten to wear his iconic skull symbol get-up from the comic books yet (by episode 4), after all. ;)
One thing that does legitimately bug me about this season is how Foggy still tries to guilt-trip Matt over the whole vigilante thing. I think that Matt's argument that people die when he doesn't help pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of any of Foggy's counter-arguments. And seeing as how Daredevil never kills people (at least not directly or intentionally), it's not like he has no control like The Punisher. I get that Foggy is pissed that Matt isn't there for their real jobs enough, but that doesn't automatically make what Matt is doing wrong, or less important.
Yeah, Foggy is more often than not annoying. He doesn't drag the show too much, but with Elektra and Page getting some nice development, Foggy's just standing around while everyone else goes by. Plus, he looks like a ten-year-old kid in a monkey suit.
It made me happy when I finally got to that trailer line in the show, where Matt straight up tells Foggy that he is who he is, and isn't going to take any more shit from him about it.
I just finally finished the season.
Spoiler
I think I still like Season 1 more but S2 put me through a lot of emotions. I was teary eye a few times. Probably all from the Punisher. The graveyard scene and two times he talked to Karen, iirc. Basically, Frank stole the show. Jon Bernthal's portrayal of the character is probably my favorite version of the Punisher. They did it so right. They made you feel sorry for him and his family, without forcing you to think he's supposed to be a hero and how brutal he was showed exactly why you probably shouldn't. If his series is going to be anything like this then I'm very interested.
Overall, I liked Elektra even though she was kind of..bratty, idk lol, before she stopped lying to Matt all the time and it was revealed that she was one of Stick's student. Then it was all good from there.
I called Stick a jerk twice because I ended up rewinding the part where he opens the door on Elektra in Matt's bed when Karen came by. What an asshole. lol I hope we see more of him.
I am officially sick of Kingpin's stilted, pretentious dialogue, which is why I loved it when he talked normal after Matt pissed him off. That's what I want to see more. He needs to just stop pretending like he was ever trying to do good. He never did a single good thing in season 1, he just talked about it. I don't care for this show's Kingpin that much.
I loved how Karen and Foggy had a lot to do. They were set up with a lot since the beginning. I like it when the non-hero character don't get ignored. Also, looks like the saddest part of anything I know about Daredevil's life is about to be set up and I'm not talking about Elektra dying.
I think that's virtually everything. I kind of wish they didn't want so long to reveal who the villains were but whatever. Also, Clancy Brown was officially the Blacksmith right? they made that a bit confusing. I also can't believe they got Brown on the show. That was fucking awesome.
Quote from: Foggle on March 18, 2016, 07:02:11 PM
I really loved how they built up the Punisher in the first episode.
Spoiler
Having that Irish mobster give a five-minute monologue about how he was going to be the next bad guy after Fisk and then immediately get killed by the real antagonist was awesome.
:D I also wonder if it's the same mobster from the Kitchen Irish comic. I of course absolutely hate that comic so I'm glad I forgot his name but still.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 18, 2016, 02:06:51 PM
I'm 4 episodes in so far, and personally I'm really digging it. I love The Punisher in this show, and the staircase fight scene from episode 3 may just have surpassed the hallway fight scene from the first season as my favorite action scene in this show.
Now to see how Elektra turned out. It'll also be great to see the return of The Yakuza and Stick later on this season, as well.
The best action scene in the entire series. I'm glad that teased Daredevil getting his billy club like I thought it would after seeing him with the chain.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on February 16, 2016, 05:12:07 PM
Eh, didn't care for him in any of the movies. But then I've always liked him more when he bounces off characters like Spider-Man or Daredevil.
:-\ If they ever put him around Spider-Man, I am going to quit the MCU.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 18, 2016, 06:33:03 PM
I'm 7 episodes in and just can't stop watching.
I will say that the Elektra/Yakuza sub-plot, while fine, isn't nearly as good as The Punisher story-line, which is amazing. But if my biggest complaint about a show is that sometimes it's only just pretty good, and great the rest of the time, then you know that it's an awesome show.
Agreed.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 18, 2016, 08:06:15 PM
Episode 8:
Spoiler
1. FISK!!!!
2. STICK!!!!
3. How the hell is Matt having so much trouble believing Stick's story? This is the same Universe in which a giant green monster tore up half of New York, an alien invasion destroyed the other half, a magic hammer-wielding demigod is totally a thing, and an evil AI-controlled robot attempted to bring about the extinction of humanity by lifting up a small country and slamming it back down to Earth. Compared to all of that, the concept of The Hand seems pretty tame.
Because he thinks he's a murderous asshole.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 19, 2016, 09:14:32 AM
Two episodes in, and my only gripe so far is that Punisher's voice is nowhere near deep enough. I'll get used to it though.
:oo: Not sure if serious. I think Bernthal's voice is freaking deeper than Clancy Brown's, which really says something.
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 20, 2016, 07:18:43 PMI just finally finished the season. Spoiler
I think I still like Season 1 more but S2 put me through a lot of emotions. I was teary eye a few times. Probably all from the Punisher. The graveyard scene and two times he talked to Karen, iirc. Basically, Frank stole the show. Jon Bernthal's portrayal of the character is probably my favorite version of the Punisher. They did it so right. They made you feel sorry for him and his family, without forcing you to think he's supposed to be a hero and how brutal he was showed exactly why you probably shouldn't. If his series is going to be anything like this then I'm very interested.
Overall, I liked Elektra even though she was kind of..bratty, idk lol, before she stopped lying to Matt all the time and it was revealed that she was one of Stick's student. Then it was all good from there.
I called Stick a jerk twice because I ended up rewinding the part where he opens the door on Elektra in Matt's bed when Karen came by. What an asshole. lol I hope we see more of him.
I am officially sick of Kingpin's stilted, pretentious dialogue, which is why I loved it when he talked normal after Matt pissed him off. That's what I want to see more. He needs to just stop pretending like he was ever trying to do good. He never did a single good thing in season 1, he just talked about it. I don't care for this show's Kingpin that much.
I loved how Karen and Foggy had a lot to do. They were set up with a lot since the beginning. I like it when the non-hero character don't get ignored. Also, looks like the saddest part of anything I know about Daredevil's life is about to be set up and I'm not talking about Elektra dying.
I think that's virtually everything. I kind of wish they didn't want so long to reveal who the villains were but whatever. Also, Clancy Brown was officially the Blacksmith right? they made that a bit confusing. I also can't believe they got Brown on the show. That was fucking awesome.
I actually agree with most of this. Except I'm still not sure how I'd rank this season in comparison to the first (it's definitely close, though), and I enjoy this show's Fisk in a love to hate sort of way.
And yes....
Spoiler
Mr. Krabs is The Blacksmith.
:D
I was going to mention how I'd rank the series but I was already going on for too long. :D
At this very moment I'd go: Daredevil Season 1>Jessica Jones>DD Season 2. The first two seem more consistent, from what I can remember. I have only seen them all once. I'll do a replay of all of Daredevil soon enough.
Also,
Spoiler
I'm kind of surprised they didn't reveal Bullseye. I think it's almost too obvious that Fisk is going to hire him in Season 3 and make him go after Daredevil. I also thought he'd be the one to kill Elektra..maybe she'll end up dying again. lol
I still can't rank these seasons or shows, but as far as first impressions go, I'd say that the Elektra stuff is weaker than anything in season one, however The Punisher arc is, IMO, the best material to come out of this show to date, by far.
So, while I agree that this season is less consistent than season one, I personally feel that the high points are even better.
Hmmm, yeah The Punisher probably my favorite thing about this show. Hell, I think I might like him more than Matt now.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 20, 2016, 05:17:58 PM
Spoiler
This definitely isn't the end of his arc in this season, if that's what you're worried about. He still hasn't even gotten to wear his iconic skull symbol get-up from the comic books yet (by episode 4), after all. ;)
Spoiler
Yeah, he's back already. :il_hahaha:
I actually don't dislike Foggy or Elektra, to be honest. But I only just finished episode 5.
Punisher's definitely better than both put together
Spoiler
So what was the sarcophagus full of blood for? Is that how The Hand resurrect themselves? With blood magic? And now I can't remember when we saw scenes of Nobu or any of the Hand ninjas in daylight...
And what made Elektra different from the Black Sky kid Nobu had last season? It seemed like she was their chosen one because of the way they bowed to her, but then what was the deal with the previous kid? So there are multiple Black Skies? And why did Stick kill that Black Sky without a second thought while protecting Elektra as a kid, only to change his mind about that and try to kill her as an adult? And why even save her life with the baking soda if you were going to plan a hit on her a couple episodes later? Stick was a cool character, but his motives didn't make sense by the end.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 21, 2016, 02:21:17 PM
Spoiler
So what was the sarcophagus full of blood for? Is that how The Hand resurrect themselves? With blood magic? And now I can't remember when we saw scenes of Nobu or any of the Hand ninjas in daylight...
And what made Elektra different from the Black Sky kid Nobu had last season? It seemed like she was their chosen one because of the way they bowed to her, but then what was the deal with the previous kid? So there are multiple Black Skies? And why did Stick kill that Black Sky without a second thought while protecting Elektra as a kid, only to change his mind about that and try to kill her as an adult? And why even save her life with the baking soda if you were going to plan a hit on her a couple episodes later? Stick was a cool character, but his motives didn't make sense by the end.
That's actually a lot easier to explain than you're making it sound:
Spoiler
Clearly Stick was going against The Chased's orders in trying to protect Elektra and use her for their cause. When he realized that she would no longer be his loyal agent, he decided to kill her off rather than risk her being captured and used by The Hand.
And seeing as how TV shows have a tendency of having ongoing plot threads, is it really so strange that not every single question is answered in a single season? Black Sky and The Hand were introduced in the first season, and nothing was resolved with them then. That sub-plot progressed in this season, but still didn't wrap-up. Clearly this is an ongoing plot that is building up to something bigger. It's kind of hard to claim that it has left too many loose ends when it isn't even close to finished, yet.
Still not done, but it is great stuff. Continuing off of an excellent season 1, Daredevil continues its momentum. I do wish Foggy had more development like his episode last season, but otherwise I'm enjoying just about everything.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 21, 2016, 02:21:17 PM
Spoiler
So what was the sarcophagus full of blood for? Is that how The Hand resurrect themselves? With blood magic? And now I can't remember when we saw scenes of Nobu or any of the Hand ninjas in daylight...
And what made Elektra different from the Black Sky kid Nobu had last season? It seemed like she was their chosen one because of the way they bowed to her, but then what was the deal with the previous kid? So there are multiple Black Skies? And why did Stick kill that Black Sky without a second thought while protecting Elektra as a kid, only to change his mind about that and try to kill her as an adult? And why even save her life with the baking soda if you were going to plan a hit on her a couple episodes later? Stick was a cool character, but his motives didn't make sense by the end.
Spoiler
Not sure if it's blood magic. According to Night Nurse, the guinea pigs Daredevil got from The Hand were full of some kind of drugs or some shit. I think they use that type of shit to both revive and control their minions. It's still kind of unclear and confusing though.
Stick's motives were confusing. Possibly because he was conflicted about what he should do. I don't know. And the deal with the Black Skies is much more confusing. They already had him should have "won the war" or whatever back then and I have no clue why there's more then one.
Spoiler
Finally finished forty minutes ago.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}
The entire season was great! I don't think every episode has to be the length of Game of Thrones as some scenes could have been deleted, but this season was amazing overall.
I loved both Elektra and Punisher's arcs. Seeing Matt struggle constantly with debating Foggy after arguing similarly with Punisher was a good contrast. And more interesting was him wrestling over leaving everything behind to stay with Elektra.
Obviously she'll be back at some point. I loved Elodie Yung. She's a fine addition though I imagine she won't be back for a long while.
With Kingpin still and jail and Nobu finally ended by Stick, Bullseye has to be the main villain for Season Three. No one else would be more fitting, even though I still don't know whom all of Daredevil's Rogues Gallery are.
A little disappointed that Nelson and Murdock was dissolved. Obviously, Foggy and Matt will make up at some point but I think their firm should have lasted a couple more seasons. It just doesn't have as much emotional impact having them close their business so soon.
I don't know what Matt will be doing, but at least he finally let Karen in by telling her his secret finally. S3 can't get here soon enough!
Oh and Foggy was fine this season. He has every right to be mad at Matt, especially with how little attention he gave their case.
Just finished episode 6. That one was really good! I'm loving both the Punisher and Elektra storylines so far, though I would definitely give the former a slight edge.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on March 21, 2016, 08:03:21 PM
Oh and Foggy was fine this season. He has every right to be mad at Matt, especially with how little attention he gave their case.
Yeah, I honestly haven't had any problems with Foggy at all. He pretty much acts exactly like I'd expect a superhero's civilian best friend/business partner would.
Foggy's anger is every bit justified when Matt leaves him holding the bag, but not so much about the Daredevil thing he keeps harping about. By now he should really know the hero thing is not a switch Matt can just turn off.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on March 21, 2016, 08:03:21 PM
Spoiler
Finally finished forty minutes ago.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}
The entire season was great! I don't think every episode has to be the length of Game of Thrones as some scenes could have been deleted, but this season was amazing overall.
I loved both Elektra and Punisher's arcs. Seeing Matt struggle constantly with debating Foggy after arguing similarly with Punisher was a good contrast. And more interesting was him wrestling over leaving everything behind to stay with Elektra.
Obviously she'll be back at some point. I loved Elodie Yung. She's a fine addition though I imagine she won't be back for a long while.
With Kingpin still and jail and Nobu finally ended by Stick, Bullseye has to be the main villain for Season Three. No one else would be more fitting, even though I still don't know whom all of Daredevil's Rogues Gallery are.
A little disappointed that Nelson and Murdock was dissolved. Obviously, Foggy and Matt will make up at some point but I think their firm should have lasted a couple more seasons. It just doesn't have as much emotional impact having them close their business so soon.
I don't know what Matt will be doing, but at least he finally let Karen in by telling her his secret finally. S3 can't get here soon enough!
Oh and Foggy was fine this season. He has every right to be mad at Matt, especially with how little attention he gave their case.
Because spending his time saving lives and fighting an evil organization is clearly a waste of time.
Matt obviously wasn't ignoring the case on purpose. He had more important things to do. Like, legitimately more important. Foggy was completely in the wrong.
And Foggy definitely knows what Matt's risking. He found him lying on the roof with his mask cracked. From the increasingly small window Matt allows him to look into, he should know gambling his life fighting vigilantes and crime syndicates is going to take away time from looking into another case. Unless he thinks all the superheroes on the other side of New York City are great multitaskers, then that's just plain unsympathetic on Foggy's part.
Well Iron Man is an incredible multitasker :thinkin:
He's also rich (so, no money problems or places that he just has to be to on time for work reasons), doesn't have a secret identity to worry about, and nobody gives him shit about being a superhero.
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 22, 2016, 03:06:55 PM
Well Iron Man is an incredible multitasker :thinkin:
But Age of Ultron happened because he knew he couldn't handle all the work on his platter.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 22, 2016, 03:35:42 PM
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 22, 2016, 03:06:55 PM
Well Iron Man is an incredible multitasker :thinkin:
But Age of Ultron happened because he knew he couldn't handle all the work on his platter.
I still need to see that. :)
Saw episode 9! That one was truly exceptional.
Spoiler
I loved seeing Fisk again, and the Punisher was just amazing in that prison fight. Karen continues being great and Matt telling off Foggy for always riding his ass was a great moment. I also enjoyed Stick's role in the previous episode and am liking Elektra's character a lot more now. However, ninjas stealing blood from imprisoned children was a bit too over the top IMO. There's a thin line between dark and hokey, and the show is definitely straddling it at the moment.
Jesus, this season is violent, though. Way more blood/gore than Jessica Jones, which already had way more blood/gore than Daredevil season 1. At this rate, I can only assume The Defenders will be a remake of Martyrs featuring superheroes. :il_hahaha:
Considering that this takes place in the same fictional Universe which has a talking racoon and Howard the Duck, ninjas and zombie children don't seem that far-fetched, IMO.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 22, 2016, 04:55:08 PM
Considering that this takes place in the same fictional Universe which has a talking racoon and Howard the Duck, ninjas and zombie children don't seem that far-fetched, IMO.
It's not the fact that ninjas and zombies exist, just the whole situation felt like something out of Torchwood to me. That said, I didn't know there were going to be zombies, which would have explained the scenario better I guess. :( Guess I should have waited to watch the next episode before bringing it up...
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 21, 2016, 10:37:06 PM
Oh and Foggy was fine this season. He has every right to be mad at Matt, especially with how little attention he gave their case.
Because spending his time saving lives and fighting an evil organization is clearly a waste of time.
Matt obviously wasn't ignoring the case on purpose. He had more important things to do. Like, legitimately more important. Foggy was completely in the wrong.
[/quote]
No he wasn't ignoring the case completely on purpose, but there were things he could have left to Elektra. He never fully told Foggy about the Hand, its his own fault Foggy wasn't on his side. Foggy was not completely in the wrong, especially when Matt could have still made it to Castle taking the stand.
Okay, yeah, the next episode made it seem less silly. Only three left to go!
I won't lie, some of the Hand's material feels almost like the League of Assassins in Arrow, which I'm not sure is right for the series or not.
But if this is going to help out for Iron Fist, then I'm fine with how it's turning out. The movies did a decent job making Thor and Captain America fit into the same world.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on March 22, 2016, 08:30:45 PMNo he wasn't ignoring the case completely on purpose, but there were things he could have left to Elektra. He never fully told Foggy about the Hand, its his own fault Foggy wasn't on his side. Foggy was not completely in the wrong, especially when Matt could have still made it to Castle taking the stand.
Spoiler
Were you paying attention to the part where Matt didn't even believe that The Hand existed? He thought that it was a story that Stick made up, and while I have issues with him not believing Stick in the first place, it completely explains why he wouldn't tell Foggy about them, because even he didn't really know much of anything about them until the end of the season (at which point he already went separate ways from Foggy).
And leave Elektra to deal with stuff by herself? Despite not openly showing it at first, Matt clearly cares about her, and it's not in his character to refuse to help someone who undergoes life-threatening situations, especially when they have a common enemy (in this case The Hand, but Matt thought that it was the Yakuza for most of the season). You're basically saying that Matt should abandon fighting an evil, corrupt group just to give more attention to his social and work life, which is absurd because one situation clearly has more immediate consequences at stake than the other if ignored. With the trial, at least Foggy was a capable lawyer, and The Punisher was kept restrained for a significant period of time.
It's not in any way Matt's fault that Foggy still has problems with the path that he chose. In season one it made sense for Foggy to be angry because Matt was keeping such a huge secret from him for so long, and it was all a shock that Foggy didn't know how to handle. In season two, Foggy himself continues to stay as Matt's partner of his own accord. At that point, any problems that he has with Matt's double-life are on him. Matt's blunt line to him toward the end of the season says it all: that he and Daredevil are one in the same, that he's done apologizing for who he is, and that if Foggy has such a problem with it, he can dissociate with him. I was so glad that he said it, too. Foggy really needed to hear it and get the picture that Matt will always pick being a hero over having a normal life. It's in his very nature.
Quote from: Avaitor on March 22, 2016, 08:46:03 PM
I won't lie, some of the Hand's material feels almost like the League of Assassins in Arrow, which I'm not sure is right for the series or not.
But if this is going to help out for Iron Fist, then I'm fine with how it's turning out. The movies did a decent job making Thor and Captain America fit into the same world.
I have the same impression about The Hand, but personally I actually liked most of the League of Assassin stuff, so I'm cool with something similar in Daredevil.
Quote from: Avaitor on March 22, 2016, 08:46:03 PM
I won't lie, some of the Hand's material feels almost like the League of Assassins in Arrow, which I'm not sure is right for the series or not.
But if this is going to help out for Iron Fist, then I'm fine with how it's turning out. The movies did a decent job making Thor and Captain America fit into the same world.
I do think that the show's tone and its actual content are a bit dissonant when it comes to the Elektra/Hand storyline. It feels a little corny at times to me, as it's trying to be dark and gritty despite the villains being immortal ninjas and zombie children (I guess this is what the original TMNT writers were making fun of?). I still like it overall, though, and the episode where Matt and Elektra infiltrated the Roxxon building was just the right mixture of campy and serious. I kind of wish there was more stuff like that in the show.
I think that it mostly works because the show has done a good job of planting the seeds and slowly building up the supernatural elements since the first season. We got a little bit of that stuff early on, and now we had quite a bit more this season. I fully expect more of that material to come into play later on.
While I agree that it can get sappy in a few scenes and moments of dialogue, I personally feel that the majority of it has been worked into the tone of the series quite well, myself.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 22, 2016, 09:03:58 PM
I think that it mostly works because the show has done a good job of planting the seeds and slowly building up the supernatural elements since the first season. We got a little bit of that stuff early on, and now we had quite a bit more this season. I fully expect more of that material to come into play later on.
While I agree that it can get sappy in a few scenes and moments of dialogue, I personally feel that the majority of it has been worked into the tone of the series quite well, myself.
Oh, absolutely, it works at least 95% of the time, and I'm glad they aren't watering down the supernatural or "comic booky" elements to create a more grounded experience. There are a few stumbles, but overall this season is every bit as good as the previous Marvel Netflix outings, and the Punisher storyline is among the best material in any superhero adaptation.
Yeah, I'm not really opposed to the concept, either, and I'm also a fan of Arrow's League storyline. But at its weakest, it seems like the show struggle with deciding the right tone to use the Hand.
I will say that I do like how the show still has an overarching story, but cuts a lot of it into arcs. It helps to keep the pacing fresh, as they try to give everyone a fair amount of time. Punisher and Elektra are well-developed, and the main characters aren't forgotten about, either. I felt that the first season dragged in parts (and so did Jessica Jones, for that matter), so this little extra touch of brevity really helped to make S2 superior.
Oh yeah, thank Christ they aren't trying to hide the sillier stuff. I remember in Jessica Jones when they kept having to tiptoe around it as if they were banned from saying "Captain America" even once.
Quote from: Avaitor on March 22, 2016, 09:08:46 PM
I will say that I do like how the show still has an overarching story, but cuts a lot of it into arcs. It helps to keep the pacing fresh, as they try to give everyone a fair amount of time. Punisher and Elektra are well-developed, and the main characters aren't forgotten about, either. I felt that the first season dragged in parts (and so did Jessica Jones, for that matter), so this little extra touch of brevity really helped to make S2 superior.
Even though Daredevil season 1 and Jessica Jones dragged a bit, I think I appreciated their singular focus more, personally. Punisher is an amazing character, but this season desperately lacks an antagonist as engaging as Fisk or Kilgrave IMO.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 22, 2016, 09:10:46 PM
Oh yeah, thank Christ they aren't trying to hide the sillier stuff. I remember in Jessica Jones when they kept having to tiptoe around it as if they were banned from saying "Captain America" even once.
They might very well have been. Even though they're connected, I feel like Marvel doesn't want the films and TV shows explicitly referencing each other's characters (except Agent Carter, obviously).
I'm glad there wasn't an overarching villain this season. One because it makes it different from season 1 and two because they can't top Fisk so soon. It made this season a pure world-building season and it works great as a bridge from season 1 into the next one. Focusing on different things benefited season 2 a lot. I already can't wait to see where its going to go next season.
Now when is Matt gonna show up in the movies?
I remember reading an interview saying there would have to be quite a few arrangements made in order for any of the TV characters to appear in the movies, like that one where the Russos were unsure as to whether the Defenders would appear in Infinity War.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 22, 2016, 09:24:35 PM
Now when is Matt gonna show up in the movies?
Infinity War, prob--
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 22, 2016, 09:26:20 PM
I remember reading an interview saying there would have to be quite a few arrangements made in order for any of the TV characters to appear in the movies, like that one where the Russos were unsure as to whether the Defenders would appear in Infinity War.
Oh. Shit.
I really hope they can arrange for the Defenders to appear in Infinity War, maybe even get Deadpool and some X-Men in there too. That'd be the greatest superhero event movie ever.
Very unlikely given Fox. According to Feige, they wouldn't even give them Galactus or the Skrulls despite neither of those characters having a hope of appearing in the Fox movies.
Quote from: Foggle on March 22, 2016, 09:28:38 PM
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 22, 2016, 09:24:35 PM
Now when is Matt gonna show up in the movies?
Infinity War, prob--
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 22, 2016, 09:26:20 PM
I remember reading an interview saying there would have to be quite a few arrangements made in order for any of the TV characters to appear in the movies, like that one where the Russos were unsure as to whether the Defenders would appear in Infinity War.
Oh. Shit.
I really hope they can arrange for the Defenders to appear in Infinity War, maybe even get Deadpool and some X-Men in there too. That'd be the greatest superhero event movie ever.
As much as I would like Infinity War to go all out, I think we're lucky enough to be getting Spider-Man in Civil War.
Still, I hope they get the Defenders in there. It will be a real loss if they can't.
:( I just want Deadpool to show up in the post-credits scene so he can discuss his proposed buddy comedy with Spider-Man! Though I guess that's probably too much to ask given the rights issues. :(
But yeah, if the Defenders don't at least cameo in Infinity War, it'll be the biggest missed opportunity of missed opportunities.
I could see Ryan Reynolds show up in a red suit and try to mess around with the heroes in a post-credits scene. But that would be it.
The only way that we'll ever get any X-Men characters in the MCU is if those movies start to do pretty poorly, and FOX is forced to pull a Sony in order to keep their franchise alive, and even in that situation I'm still doubtful of whether or not FOX would be competent enough to make a move like that.
Fox is still clutching those Fantastic Four rights despite that franchise being as dead as Bill Cosby's career. The only way they'll hand X-Men characters to the MCU would be if extortion were involved.
As much as I want to crap on FOX for incompetence, I also have to admit that they've been handling the X-Men franchise really well in recent years. I mean, The Wolverine was a snooze-fest, IMO, but First Class, Days of Future Past, and Deadpool were all excellent, and personally I have faith in Apocalypse to be good with Bryan Singer directing it.
Foggy didn't really need to know about The Hand. In fact, it seemed like he would have not given a damn. Also, Elektra would have either killed everyone or gotten captured. The former wouldn't have been too bad though. :D
Edit:
Spoiler
I honestly feel like they didn't go far enough with the supernatural stuff which is probably why we kind of got half-assed explanations from probably almost everything extraordinary The Hand did. I guess they are saving the resurrection explanation for Season 3 to surprise Matt with it for when Elektra comes back.
Oh another note, I expected Elektra to start out as a villain (I read somewhere that she was the leader of The Hand in the comics) which is why I got extra excited when she showed up. Once I think about it, I would have still preferred that. Nobu basically being the main villain this season felt kind of flat with how quickly he died last season. I'm not sure I could stomach Elektra returning as a villain after everything that happened between her and Matt in the last few episodes.
I think they're building up the more mystical elements. There's more in season 2 than in 1, but they are there in both. By season 4 I'm guessing it will be all out on the table.
I hope so. I can't really knock a good setup
Spoiler
I also wonder if Madame Gao is an Iron Fist villain. According to her in season 2, she just went back to Chinatown, but I still think the theory of her coming from K'un Lun could be true.
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 23, 2016, 07:28:55 PM
I hope so. I can't really knock a good setup
Spoiler
I also wonder if Madame Gao is an Iron Fist villain. According to her in season 2, she just went back to Chinatown, but I still think the theory of her coming from K'un Lun could be true.
Spoiler
It would be an easy cross-over to make since she's the biggest player on the streets currently not dead or in jail.
Do you guys think Frank will be back in season 3? I don't think they'll be getting to a Punisher show for a while yet since they still have Luke Cage, Iron Fist, JJ season 2, and Defenders to go through.
Spoiler
I think Elektra's storyline will continue in season 3 while the Punisher's will continue in his own series, possibly featuring characters from Daredevil in supporting roles.
Well, word is that Netflix REALLY wants a Punisher spin-off series, and it's not like Marvel is opposed to doing it, but with all of the other projects that their TV department is juggling right now, it probably won't happen anytime soon. At the very earliest, it could premiere by late next year, after The Defenders, but even that's quite a stretch.
Since Bullseye is a major villain for Punisher, too, I figured it would be a good way to meld the two in to a common enemy. If anything, if he isn't going to have a show any time soon, I really hope they consider bringing him back for DD again.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 29, 2016, 09:30:46 PM
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 23, 2016, 07:28:55 PM
I hope so. I can't really knock a good setup
Spoiler
I also wonder if Madame Gao is an Iron Fist villain. According to her in season 2, she just went back to Chinatown, but I still think the theory of her coming from K'un Lun could be true.
Spoiler
It would be an easy cross-over to make since she's the biggest player on the streets currently not dead or in jail.
Do you guys think Frank will be back in season 3? I don't think they'll be getting to a Punisher show for a while yet since they still have Luke Cage, Iron Fist, JJ season 2, and Defenders to go through.
Spoiler
(https://m.popkey.co/6cbf33/kvpaw.gif)You're God damn right! It would be like her to just wait and do something big when the time is right.
I think he'll have his own show before Season 3 but I could be wrong. Either way, I do expect him to be in both.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 29, 2016, 11:58:48 PM
Since Bullseye is a major villain for Punisher, too, I figured it would be a good way to meld the two in to a common enemy. If anything, if he isn't going to have a show any time soon, I really hope they consider bringing him back for DD again.
I didn't even know that. I hope Bullseye is amazing in whatever shows he's in. He's top 30 comic book villain for me just from reading him in Deadpool comics.
I honestly don't think DD season 3 will be airing next year. Since they still need to get through Luke Cage and Iron Fist before The Defenders, they really want to do a Punisher solo series, and (IIRC) they've confirmed that they'll be releasing one season of Marvel Netflix every six months, I have a feeling we won't be seeing much of these characters until late 2017/early 2018. :(
Whoa...well, if it comes to that, then I'm grateful that they got DD 2 out so early. It was originally supposed to air in 2017 and we got it in slightly less than a year later. I'm greedy and hope they still pull off giving us Luke, Iron Fist, Defenders, JJ S2, Punisher and Daredevil Season 3 by the end of 2017 though. :light:
Luke Cage is currently scheduled for September, so it should be out before year's end.
Then next year we have the obvious Iron Fist, JJ season 2, and nothing else currently announced. If that's all we're getting I assume they will still throw in the Defenders at the end of it. That would make up the lack of a DD season 3 to me if they did that.
Why do we need both Luke Cage/Iron Fist seasons AND a Defenders season so soon? As much as I think the Luke Cage series should be good, I'm starting think that maybe they should have just had him on Jessica Jones as the co-protagonist and do his stuff later. Marvel is doing way too much at once.
They weren't planning on Daredevil or Jessica Jones getting second seasons, so their plans have gotten considerably more complicated.
They weren't planning on a Punisher spin-off series, either, but now everyone wants it to happen. It looks like lately Marvel's TV department is TOO GOOD for their own good. :sweat:
When this was first announced it was meant to be four shows with 13 episodes each capping off with Defenders.
Season 2 of DD and JJ wrecked those plans as did them taking their time on nailing a direction for Iron Fist. Not to mention, their production fell a bit behind. Defenders was originally supposed to premiere at the end of 2016. Obviously not happening any more.
Just think of it as a phase like the Marvel movies.
Phase 1:
Daredevil
Jessica Jones
DD season 2
Luke Cage
JJ season 2
Iron Fist
Defenders
Phase 2:
The Punisher
?
And so on. I find it easier to parse out that way.
Also, we need an Iron Fist season soon because he is one of Marvel's most underrated characters and is quite awesome. ;)
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 30, 2016, 07:13:58 PM
When this was first announced it was meant to be four shows with 13 episodes each capping off with Defenders.
Season 2 of DD and JJ wrecked those plans as did them taking their time on nailing a direction for Iron Fist. Not to mention, their production fell a bit behind. Defenders was originally supposed to premiere at the end of 2016. Obviously not happening any more.
Just think of it as a phase like the Marvel movies.
Phase 1:
Daredevil
Jessica Jones
DD season 2
Luke Cage
JJ season 2
Iron Fist
Defenders
Phase 2:
The Punisher
?
And so on. I find it easier to parse out that way.
Also, we need an Iron Fist season soon because he is one of Marvel's most underrated characters and is quite awesome. ;)
Man its just crazy. I liked Luke Cage in Jessica Jones and I'm sure Iron Fist should be good, but they should just scrap the Defenders and let some these shows play out some seasons first. This is feeling a bit scattered to me.
Would it be they had a way to shoot two seasons at once or something.
Screw that. The more, the merrier. Cage just being a co-protagonist would be lame. Cage and Iron Fist are overdue for shows.
Not to mention, they are all run by separate teams. The Daredevil team would just be sitting around twiddling their thumbs if season 2 wasn't greenlit. Or worse, they would move on to new projects (like DeKnight did) and a potential season 2 would be a major letdown without them.
Oh, and after two seasons or so I wouldn't mind a "Luke Cage & Iron Fist" show to take over from their individual ones. :D
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 31, 2016, 04:16:47 PM
Screw that. The more, the merrier. Cage just being a co-protagonist would be lame. Cage and Iron Fist are overdue for shows.
Problem is that half of them have to have longer hiatuses.
How so? They have separate teams and we got Daredevil Season 2 in less than 1 year. Even with Daredevil, its Season 3 will probably be out shortly after its previous season 2 date, which was 2017.
Anyone else call Fisk's new prison friend Black Wesley? And anybody waiting for Fisk to say "Thank you, Black Wesley" to him?
Defenders shoots at the end of the year. (http://www.slashfilm.com/defenders-start-date/)
So yeah, there's the reason they didn't announce DD season 3 yet. This means Iron Fist and JJ season 2 will be the Marvel shows for 2017 leading up to Defenders.
Neat article (http://screenrant.com/marvel-tv-universe-guide/) on the TV universe. It lists out all the shows and their current status.
Frank Time is Nigh. (http://www.ew.com/article/2016/04/29/punisher-marvel-netflix?xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter)
Cool. Though I guess this means he won't be in DD season 3, which is a shame.
I'm happy, but at the same time, I don't want Marvel's TV division swamped.
I'm starting to think that it would be for the best if they just dropped the Defenders and just continued to let their other series do their own things.
Bernthal was superb. He just looked and even sounded like the Punisher. I don't know who they'll have as the main villain unless they do Jigsaw, but its bound to be awesome.
Quote from: Avaitor on April 29, 2016, 10:39:27 AM
I'm happy, but at the same time, I don't want Marvel's TV division swamped.
I'm starting to think that it would be for the best if they just dropped the Defenders and just continued to let their other series do their own things.
That's exactly what I was arguing earlier in this thread. Let both Luke Cage and Iron Fist's series have room to breathe, we do not need a Defenders series out that quickly.
I wouldn't mind if we got a few more seasons of each series first, with crossover episodes taking place between each of them to still take advantage of the shared Universe. Then The Defenders could be released as a big event mini-series.
I'm still waiting for Marvel to throw a bone and have at least one of the Defenders cameo in a Marvel film, even if the tones would clash so hard.
I don't care how, but I want to eventually see at least one scene in which The Punisher converses with Howard the Duck just for the sake of acknowledging that they exist within the same continuity. Fuck tonal clashes.
I just want to see Barracuda in live action.
Agent Carter has been given an early retirement. :(
http://tvline.com/2016/05/12/agent-carter-cancelled-abc-season-3/
It's a shame to hear considering how good it was, but at least it had a pretty satisfying ending, all things considered.
I'm just more baffled that AOS is still going, though.
AOS is sticking around because it's going to hit syndication numbers. If a series can make it to a third season, it's usually safe for at least one or two more for that reason, especially if it's owned by the network. But I really do doubt that the show will do anything in syndication.
It sucks about Agent Carter being over, though. But this is also something that I've been expecting for a while, since not only has it never done too well in the ratings, but Hayley Atwell has her new show now. Ah well.
So Chloe Bennet just bit the hand that fed her: http://io9.gizmodo.com/agents-of-shield-star-says-marvel-doesnt-care-enough-ab-1777057136
Also, AoS is being moved to 10pm next season. Otherwise known as the "Death Slot". ABC cancelled Agent Carter (I loved it, but the ratings just weren't there), and they rejected that Marvel's Most Wanted AoS spin-off and considering AoS's very mediocre and dropping ratings, I can't blame them. So yeah, a fourth season in the death slot to bleed off their episode order and it's done.
And don't count on any of these characters making their way to the big screen. After the Feige/Perlmutter split. AoS might as well kill off it's cast during the final season. The Inhumans movie is dead already.
In my mind, Agent Coulson is still very much dead. And Chloe Bennet's recent comments reveal someone who was killing time until she got a promotion to the movies... a promotion she probably thought was coming with the Inhumans movie, and now she's bitter because she realizes it's not.
This is some of the best news that I've heard all year. I'm glad that the MCU is throwing this show under the bus.
Well, here's my theory: http://gregxb.blogspot.com/2016/05/ponderings-on-special-snowflake.html
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F67.media.tumblr.com%2F9f325f3906109719b8ad8a72c0119177%2Ftumblr_nmo0003Gsi1rjh2ymo1_500.gif&hash=eb79b5d9f8df05c079584696e17a4341e0d62fc4)
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F67.media.tumblr.com%2F08ad61b239b2b4325791009c5ebb81f4%2Ftumblr_nmo0003Gsi1rjh2ymo2_500.gif&hash=ffbb4d1b72a173e929c2490a78af97d44f21a49a)
We better be getting Defenders next year. I don't want to go a whole year without any Daredevil at all.
Yeah, Daredevil is one of the biggest reasons I want them to hold their horses on a Defenders series. Just give Luke Cage and Iron Fist each have a few of their own seasons first. The iron is not going to be bone cold just because they don't rush it.
I honestly wouldn't mind if they took a cue from the CW superhero shows and had characters from one-series team-up with characters from another series in one or two episodes each season, while having the characters still retain their own solo story-lines throughout each season of their respective shows. That way we could experience the benefit of a shared Universe and it would help hold us over for a few years until they did a full-fledged Defenders show where all of the characters team up.
I mean, they've essentially already sort of done this by using Jessica Jones as a jumping off point for the Luke Cage character. I don't see why the same logic wouldn't work with either Daredevil or Iron Fist.
Well, it is sort of unfair for Daredevil fans. The show came out, was a hit, and had a second season, which was also a hit. But there's no room for a season 3. So now they have to wait to see him again while JJ (season 2), Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Punisher all get their own series? That's like a two year gap to not have anything in production. That's pretty ridiculous for a hit show.
The least they can do is let Matt be a recurring character in Punisher season 1. He is spinning off from the show, and took up a lot of focus in DD's last season. It would be nice if the Punisher show could do the same for Matt.
I don't think Jessica Jones season 2 is happening until after The Defenders. Daredevil season 3 will probably be out before it.
Luke Cage trailer! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymw5uvViqPU) It's out in September!
Iron Fist teaser! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCSPda7xQ3s) Coming soon!
Defenders teaser! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBZtM8q2Z1g) Coming 2017!
Marvel X Netflix sizzle reel! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jyd8MeKOgg)
Wow, that was a lot of stuff.
Okay, I missed this.
Daredevil season 3 teaser. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBedwWhp6to) It says "coming soon" as well.
Looks like we won't be waiting two years for season 3 after all.
Oh, man. (http://screencrush.com/jessica-jones-daredevil-punisher-2018-defenders/)
QuoteSpeaking from the TCA press tour, Netflix boss Ted Sarandos confirmed that where Luke Cage would premiere on September 30, both Iron Fist and The Defenders will occupy the two slots in 2017. Jessica Jones Season 2 was said to film back-to-back with The Defenders, with The Punisher starting production sometime thereafter, but Jones, Castle and the newly-announced Daredevil Season 3 will all wait until at least 2018.
The Defenders better be worth all this wait.
Another Luke Cage trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfJvnb4H3TE&feature=youtu.be)
Really liking the look of this.
First episode of Luke Cage was cool. Especially liking the added literary allusions to this. The nod to Justin Hammer was cute too, even if this show's still just as tip-toey about referencing superheroes like Jessica Jones was.
First episode was fucking awesome! The soundtrack is so perfect. Everything else was great too - on par with if not better than Daredevil and Jessica Jones IMO - but goddamn, the music. For that alone, this will probably end up being my favorite Marvel TV thing... until they make a Power Man & Iron Fist series.
I'm three episodes in and loving it so far, but I have to say, I'm actually starting to understand (aside from just business semantics) why the MCU is resistant to crossing over with the Netflix shows. They are just way too tonally different. Movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, Age of Ultron, and Civil War work because despite being so fantastical, they embrace that nature all of the way. They don't try to be realistic or establish hard, grounded rules, so they can work as stories the way that they are. Meanwhile, the Netflix shows keep the really out there elements to a minimum, and try to tell stories that are grounded and realistic enough to almost be able to work without any superheroes at all (minus Daredevil season two, which did gradually stray further into comic book territory throughout the course of the season).
There is also the fact that while the MCU films are particularly good at being well-made, family-friendly experiences, the Netflix shows tend to tackle more mature themes, and thus the characters and stories are written around those.
My point in this being that while I can buy characters like Frank Castle and Luke Cage existing in the same Universe together, I can't imagine those characters ever interacting with a talking raccoon or magic hamner-wielding demigod in the same Universe as well. I feel like the tones of these two Marvel entities wouldn't mix, and you wouldn't be able to have these characters featured in the movies as anything other than cameos without significantly altering who their characters are in order to fit a tone that they clearly weren't written for.
As someone who genuinely loves both the darker and more adult Netflix shows but am also not an anti-fun buzz-kill and enjoy a lot of MCU films just as much for different reasons, I do think that it may be best if the only interconnectivity between their Universes stays at the level of someone in Daredevil or Luke Cage occasionally referencing an Avenger in passing.
Although....perhaps I could see the entertainment value in Wilson Fisk violently removing an alien's head with a car door....:thinkin:
Just finished the seventh episode....
OK, I definitely didn't see that coming. Totally subverted my expectations way more than anything in Daredevil or Jessica Jones. :huh:
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on October 01, 2016, 09:04:03 PM
Just finished the seventh episode....
OK, I definitely didn't see that coming. Totally subverted my expectations way more than anything in Daredevil or Jessica Jones. :huh:
I just finished Episode 3. Saw quite a bit of buzz about Episode 7. TVTropes calls it the Seventh Episode Twist for a reason.
Can't wait to see it tomorrow!
DUDE episode 3 had a fucking fight scene set to Wu-Tang Clan. This is officially the most awesome superhero adaptation ever!
I just finished the season. Goddamn that second half was just so addicting. I haven't been so compelled to binge-watch a series since the first four seasons of Game of Thrones.
The ending, once again, completely subverted my expectations.
Spoiler
Mariah actually wins, or at least doesn't go down this season. She gets away scott-free for all of the terrible things that she did, and Luke goes to prison. And while it makes sense that a TV series can do this since it has future seasons to continue the plot with, I still wasn't expecting such a cliffhanger for any of the Marvel stand-alone series before The Defenders. I mean, yes, the evidence to absolve Luke of his crimes is recovered by his friend at the very end, but it still leaves a bitter taste in your mouth that someone as despicable as Mariah gets to walk free. It's a very untraditional and ballsy ending to the season, even by the standards of the Netflix shows, and leads me to anticipate that future seasons of all of these shows will be far less predictable.
So now I'm just wondering if Daredevil season three will happen before The Defenders and Luke Cage will play a supporting part in it (like he did in Jessica Jones), or if certain plot points from this season will bleed over into The Defenders, since it seems that they kind of have to as this stuff just can't be ignored until Luke Cage season two.
Pretty great season. I'd put it second only to Daredevil. Luke was an excellent hero, and his villains were some of the best in the entire MCU. Particularly Shades and Mariah. Not to mention the story was engaging from start to finish with a pretty good twist in the middle. Though I do wish Luke would have gone for calling Claire's "attorney friend" at the end. All in all, I wonder how Iron Fist will be able to stack up to this.
The Defenders is looking mighty good right about now.
Just saw "Manifest" the show's seventh episode.
Spoiler
Holy Toledo were they ever not kidding about this episode! Cottonmouth being killed I actually wasn't shocked by, just that it was Mariah that killed him and not Shades. Didn't see Luke getting shot with the Judas Bullet right the end too, I saw that sniper and immiedately I was like, "Oh no, here it comes....". Great episode. The final five are going to be insane!
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on October 02, 2016, 09:41:45 PMSo now I'm just wondering if Daredevil season three will happen before The Defenders and Luke Cage will play a supporting part in it (like he did in Jessica Jones), or if certain plot points from this season will bleed over into The Defenders, since it seems that they kind of have to as this stuff just can't be ignored until Luke Cage season two.
Next is Iron Fist, and then Defenders. JJ season 2 and DD season 3 are after them.
I don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility for Defenders to cover the ending of this season in order to bring him into the fold. They do have to get all four of them together, and right now three of them are very closely related. It's all about where Iron Fist falls into it next.
It's really hard for me to not just binge through all of Luke Cage right now, but I will be strong. So far Marvel is 4 for 4 with their Netflix output as far as I'm concerned. Each series has its own unique appeal that makes it among the most engaging material on TV to me:
Daredevil - Damn good gritty superhero epic. Like the prevailing modern interpretation of Batman but way cooler.
Jessica Jones - Relatable horror story about emotional abuse and overcoming trauma. Bizarre but accurate.
Luke Cage - Neo-blaxploitation without the exploitative bits. Groovalicious soundtrack is integral to every scene.
I'm going to be incredibly disappointed if Iron Fist isn't some ridiculous dragon-punching kung fu masterpiece now. They keep raising the bar every damn time. :cry:
I'm sure it is being saved for last because of the mystical elements, but I really hope they match the old school kung-fu feel for it. They nailed the atmosphere for the others, but Iron Fist needs the mysticism in order to work.
I'm still on the fence in regards to Loras from Game of Thrones playing Iron Fist, but I'll probably watch regardless. Need to know how they'll follow up on that Madame Gao subplot from Daredevil.
I also feel like Iron Fist could afford to be at least a little bit more lighthearted than the other series. We have three series that are already pretty dark and gritty, plus with The Punisher getting his own series down the line, that'll make four. It almost feels necessary to have Iron Fist be that one series in The Defenders lineup that feels a bit more hopeful, while still being relatively grounded compared to anything in the movies. I think that following the general tone of the Ed Brubaker run would be a perfect fit for it.
Yeah, I hope Iron Fist is more lighthearted than the other shows. I'm not too familiar with him outside of his team-up comics with Luke Cage, but it seems like he tends to add levity to situations despite being a serious character himself. I'd be so happy if his series resembled a classic Bruce Lee movie in terms of tone and style.
Just finished episode 10 of Luke Cage. Things are starting to heat up again and I will see if the 2nd half is inferior to the first.
So, I just found out that Alfre Woodard who played Mariah in Luke Cage also played a minor role in Civil War. Either that's meant to set up some hardcore theory-crafting, or the Marvel film and television departments just messed up on coordinating their casting to avoid any overlap.
Finally just finished Luke Cage. Good lord, watching almost 13 hours when your last day off was the weekend BEFORE last takes forever. I might like this show even more than Daredevil season 1. Like DD Season 2, it's second half is weaker but it is still better than that. They couldn't really top what they did with Stokes. Luke's long recovery process and Misty being benched was tge worst part of the series. Also, I cannot stand Mariah Dillard. It's like having a boring, evil talk show host for a villain.
As for the good, Stokes, Shades and Diamondback are all better than Kingpin and Kilgrave. Especially Shades. He is my favorite right hand man villain ever. Even moreso than Mad Dog from Hard-Boiled. He was intelligent, intimidating, had a great presence and he even has a bit of honor with how he felt about the Pop situation. Stokes was a damn good crime boss. He was never annoying or a pretentious manbaby like season 1 Fisk. I like Diamondback even more because I am a sucker for super corny Blaxploitation/70s/80s style Big Bad. I can't believe they had the balls to have someone say so many nutty lines. "Bye, Felicia."
They nailed Luke Cage perfectly. I truly like him now since it's not comic book writers trying to write hip hoo dialogue but instead a cool, intelligent flawed man. And I am thoroughly impressed with how freaking much Claire Temple got to do. I thought Risario was just going to cameo but she ended up being the most helpful non-superhero Marvel Netflix character and she had a lot of good moments.
Shades was the most surprising character. I was actually relieved when he got away from Zip and his men because I really want to see more of him. Diamondback and Stokes were great villains, but Shades' cool and calculating planning and code of loyalty was refreshing considering the number of backstabbers there were in the story. His joy of "discovering" Mariah's dark side was really sinister, and I'd really like to learn more about him.
Completely agreed. I rewinded him surviving lame ass Zip's assassination attempt when I watched it today. I am also happy he didn't go on to kill Diamondback or vice versa. I hope to see much more of both.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on October 04, 2016, 08:59:55 PM
Shades was the most surprising character. I was actually relieved when he got away from Zip and his men because I really want to see more of him. Diamondback and Stokes were great villains, but Shades' cool and calculating planning and code of loyalty was refreshing considering the number of backstabbers there were in the story. His joy of "discovering" Mariah's dark side was really sinister, and I'd really like to learn more about him.
Not including Cage, Shades was the best character in this series aside from Pop. Cottonmouth was good, Diamondback was even better, but Shades was awesome. I don't know if he's from the comic or an original character, but they caught lightning in a bottle when they put him in. Can't wait to see more of him.
I just finished this last night, and holy shit, it was great! I definitely preferred it to the second season of Daredevil, and probably even the first. I'm not sure about Jessica Jones, but also keep in mind that I seem to be in the minority on here in preferring that to Daredevil.
But wow, the cast was perfect.
Quote from: Avaitor on October 05, 2016, 10:30:33 AM
I just finished this last night, and holy shit, it was great! I definitely preferred it to the second season of Daredevil, and probably even the first. I'm not sure about Jessica Jones, but also keep in mind that I seem to be in the minority on here in preferring that to Daredevil.
I liked Jessica more than Daredevil as well. :) I'm on episode 8 now, and Luke Cage continues to be my favorite. It's got so much style
and substance, excellent acting, great writing, brilliant musical decisions, etc. Can't wait to watch the rest!
I still say that the first Punisher story arc which was covered in the first four episodes of Daredevil season two are still by far the best, strongest, darkest, and most emotionally-driven piece of entertainment to ever come out of the MCU. On its own it arguably makes for a great 4-hour stand-alone movie. That said, season two as a whole kind of suffered from having everything that came after that point feel disjointed. The other problem was that they basically showed us all of their best material in the beginning to the point where nothing afterward could compare, even if it was mostly good stuff in its own right.
The first arc of Daredevil season 2 is amazing. As a whole, it was my least favorite Marvel Netflix season, but that first arc by itself might be my favorite bit from everything so far. It was so, so good.
Honestly, I still like Daredevil season two a lot. It's easily the most flawed season, and like I said the first four episodes far overshadow the rest of it, but there is still a ton of really good stuff in the rest of the season. It just had the huge misfortune of having to follow-up material that was nearly perfect.
Oh, the whole thing's definitely great. Every season of Marvel Netflix so far has been sublime IMO.
My problem with Daredevil season 2 is basically everything that doesn't involve the Punisher, give or take some of Matt and Foggy's stuff. I wasn't a big fan of Elektra, the Hand, Matt and Karen's relationship, Karen's arc, etc.
But that might just be the best use of Punisher that I've ever seen, and I loved all of his stuff.
I enjoyed everything in DD season 2, but I felt Matt himself didn't get nearly as much focus as he did in season 1. When it wasn't about Frank, it was about Foggy, Elektra, or Karen. When season 3 comes around I hope that changes.
Hmmm, I guess Matt didn't get a lot of attention in season 2. And I agree that DD Season 2's first half is really strong if not MCU Netflix's best arc. I think Elektra should have started out as a villain instead of giving Matt all those annoying lies, like I have saud before.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on October 05, 2016, 08:06:36 PM
I enjoyed everything in DD season 2, but I felt Matt himself didn't get nearly as much focus as he did in season 1.
Yeah, I think this was my main problem. Matt is an extremely likeable and compelling character, and when he wasn't the main focus of season 1, Fisk was, and he was equally engaging. I don't hate Karen and Foggy like some people do (even if the latter can be grating at times), but I enjoyed the idea of Elektra's character more than the execution (her actress was great, though) and the Punisher fell a little flat for me after he escaped from prison. The major villains of the later arcs also didn't have the presence of characters like Kilgrave and Cottonmouth, which is a shame because the antagonists are a big part of what makes these Netflix shows so good. Overall, it was a little scattershot, but Luke Cage has proven that Marvel TV can do stories with multiple main villains and arcs well, and I have complete faith in Daredevil Season 3/Iron Fist/The Defenders.
I was thinking up comparisons between The Wire characters and Luke Cage characters, and so far I've got
Shades:Slim Charles
Cottonmouth:Stringer with shades of Marlo
Mariah:Clay Davis with a little Brianna Barksdale
Luke Cage:Cutty
Misty Knight:McNulty
Pops:Blind Butchie
Quote from: Foggle on October 05, 2016, 09:08:46 PM
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on October 05, 2016, 08:06:36 PM
I enjoyed everything in DD season 2, but I felt Matt himself didn't get nearly as much focus as he did in season 1.
Yeah, I think this was my main problem. Matt is an extremely likeable and compelling character, and when he wasn't the main focus of season 1, Fisk was, and he was equally engaging. I don't hate Karen and Foggy like some people do (even if the latter can be grating at times), but I enjoyed the idea of Elektra's character more than the execution (her actress was great, though) and the Punisher fell a little flat for me after he escaped from prison. The major villains of the later arcs also didn't have the presence of characters like Kilgrave and Cottonmouth, which is a shame because the antagonists are a big part of what makes these Netflix shows so good. Overall, it was a little scattershot, but Luke Cage has proven that Marvel TV can do stories with multiple main villains and arcs well, and I have complete faith in Daredevil Season 3/Iron Fist/The Defenders.
Elodie Yung is great. The Punisher didn't have as much focus in the second half so of course he didn't come off as great as before.
I finally finished Luke Cage and it was definitely one of my favorite TV shows ever. GOD I am so excited for Iron Fist and The Defenders now.
http://youtu.be/Pqc5GEwO7OQ :joy:
Wow, they didn't waste any time with this trailer. I'm already sold.
If this is out in Spring like it seems to be, then the Defenders can't be too far away.
Iron Fist is already confirmed to be releasing in March next year. We'll most likely be getting The Defenders in the Fall season if Marvel follows suit with how they've handled the release schedule of the Netflix series' so far.
Still think its a bad idea to rush out Defenders so fast at the expense of Daredevil's third season or Jessica Jones' second.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on October 11, 2016, 10:05:09 PM
Still think its a bad idea to rush out Defenders so fast at the expense of Daredevil's third season or Jessica Jones' second.
I think the cliffhangers at the end of DD season 2 and JJ will be resolved in The Defenders. Everything is building up to that crossover, even more so than the Phase 1 films were.
Quote from: Foggle on October 11, 2016, 11:07:52 PM
Quote from: Peanutbutter on October 11, 2016, 10:05:09 PM
Still think its a bad idea to rush out Defenders so fast at the expense of Daredevil's third season or Jessica Jones' second.
I think the cliffhangers at the end of DD season 2 and JJ will be resolved in The Defenders. Everything is building up to that crossover, even more so than the Phase 1 films were.
The end of Luke Cage, too.
I wouldn't be surprised if the end of Iron Fist does the same thing.
Another day, another 500 tweets and articles over how a white guy playing Iron Fist is the worst thing to happen to Asians since Nanking. Jesus, I almost want Marvel to recast him so everybody can shut the fuck up about it. I hate how every Marvel or Disney thing is now surrounded by so much debacle over racial politics, like casting one white guy in a Mulan movie or Luke Cage's actor having a white wife is a bigger travesty than the Syrian refugee crisis.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on October 12, 2016, 01:53:10 PM
Another day, another 500 tweets and articles over how a white guy playing Iron Fist is the worst thing to happen to Asians since Nanking. Jesus, I almost want Marvel to recast him so everybody can shut the fuck up about it. I hate how every Marvel or Disney thing is now surrounded by so much debacle over racial politics, like casting one white guy in a Mulan movie or Luke Cage's actor having a white wife is a bigger travesty than the Syrian refugee crisis.
Its really stupid because having Iron Fist played by an Asian plays into the "Asians all know Karate and Kung Fu". They're just nitwits looking for something to be offended by.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on October 12, 2016, 01:53:10 PM
Luke Cage's actor having a white wife is a bigger travesty than the Syrian refugee crisis.
This is the one that gets me. I saw a surprising amount of people talking about how the show and its creators can't be pro-black because Mike Colter's wife is white. Complete nonsense.
I hadn't seen anyone complain about Iron Fist before you pointed it out, but I haven't really been looking either. A simple Google search of his name, though... :-\
There's always something to whine about.
Marvel hasn't flubbed with a single casting decision for these shows yet. I have no reason to believe they did here, and the trailer only solidifies that they did right again.
In other news, Daredevil is finally coming to Blu-Ray this November. I'm not sure how many of these shows I'll double dip on, but Daredevil is a no-brainer.
I will probably buy all of them. :el_cry:
They better leave Mike alone. >:(
I do think Tilda Swinton was a bad call for The Ancient One, but if I had my choice, the character wouldn't have been used for the movie at all.
And it doesn't look like there will be any bonus features on the Blu, which would be my main incentive to buy it. But I have been wanting to collect the non-AOS Marvel shows, anyway.
Ugh, her casting is even worse than I thought then.
So Legion's first episode was mesmerizing. Very interested where Noah Hawley will go with this.
Iron Fist trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9OKL5no-S0)
March 17th! Can't wait!
Thinking about it, Legion's premiere felt more experimental than those of the Netflix Marvel show's. Definitely more camera tricks and effects used, that's for sure. All the shots where Legion uses his powers are cool to see. A lot of scenes to slowly confuse you and make you think this is all just magic realism, all in a crazy guy's head who just happens to be more articulate than other crazies, and then boom. You're reminded this is X-Men.
I heard when Noah Hawley was asked to do an X-Men show, he was given the choice of doing either Legion or the Hellfire Club. Wonder what the latter would've been like. And I am interested as to how this connects to the X-Men films, because producer comments have been ambiguous as to whether they're connected or not.
Yeah, the premiere for Legion sounds pretty badass. When I catch up with other things, I hope to get to it.
Legion's off to a great start. It feels different than other comic book shows, even something like Preacher, and in a good way.
We need something like this.
So the reviews for Iron Fist are in and... it's looking like a dud. I don't think I've heard a single good thing about it yet.
Ah well. I'll still watch it just to see if it lives up to the legacy, but I'm more excited to order the Immortal Iron Fist collections instead.
Yeah, I've been pretty unhyped for Iron Fist overall. I still think all the talk about how the show is Orientalist or whitewashing is bullshit (even if they did cast an Asian guy to play Danny Rand, I still probably wouldn't be enthusiastic), but hearing how the show doesn't really do anything new compared to the other Netflix shows hasn't really lured me in.
I was hyped until I heard about this. Ugh, I still hope it's great. It sucks that the superhero I was looking forward to coming to live action the most is getting a bad start.
The most attention I've put into Iron Fist recently was when some crazy lady on Twitter bitched at Finn Jones and temporarily bullied him off of the site by calling him a whitesplainer. Like people know he's just the actor, right? And the people telling him to quit the role, they expect someone to decline all that Marvel money and let the general public know them forever as Loras from Game of Thrones instead?
Danny Rand has always been white. On one level, I can see why casting a Chinese actor could be a good thing, but on the other,knowing today's climate and the industry's mixed success with writing for Asian roles, I feel like we'd still get some gross Yellow Fever tropes in the show if they did. Not to mention how it could easily build on the stereotype that all Chinese people know marital arts.
Basically, from what I understand, whitewashing is not one of the show's problems.
I don't know, most of the reviews seem to focus too much on the supposed "whitewashing" as opposed to actual flaws being explained.
Though this was supposed to be done by the people behind the final seasons of Dexter. Never watched that show, but I remember the rumors about how goofy the final episodes are. So to me, this is up in the air. I'll wait until tomorrow after I've watched it to state if its good or not. I will say that I still think they rushed this out way too fast when they could have done another season of Daredevil or Jessica Jones. Or at the least give a different hero a shot. I really don't get the hype of this Defenders project they want out so bad.
I'll watch it either way. All I want is an entertaining show.
After this I hope they just merge Luke Cage and Iron Fist into one show, though. These limited Netflix slots are pushing too many shows out of the way. Lets get Defenders out already so we can start getting Daredevil yearly.
I don't really see the point of the Defenders being made. These aren't heroes who shouldn't really be teaming up like this, and frankly, I'm not sure what direction it's going to go in. The thing with these shows is that they start off strong when they're grittier and more down-to-earth than the MCU films, but when they start to embrace more comic book-like plots in their latter halves, they start getting less enjoyable, so if it gets supernatural, I'll probably get bored.
Also, I'd rather the Defenders monkier be used for the films, since we already have Doctor Strange and Hulk. If Marvel could just get the Surfer back...
Thing is, it's already being filmed right now. What I want is to get it over with so we can start getting season releases on a regular schedule. Waiting an extra year for DD season 3 is asinine.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 09, 2017, 04:45:40 PM
Thing is, it's already being filmed right now. What I want is to get it over with so we can start getting season releases on a regular schedule. Waiting an extra year for DD season 3 is asinine.
Yeah this is how I feel too, basically. They want to do it, its one of the main reasons they set all these shows up in the first place. It's going to happen whether some of us have reservations or not. As long as Defenders is good (even if Iron Fist turns out to be bad), I can be satisfied. I don't mind the paranormal stuff since they're going to have to do it if there's any hope of letting them gel with the movies. With the right script, I think seeing the Netflix Marvel gang interact with the outer edges of the universe would be fun to see.
Wait, Iron Fist is out? Fuck, these shows sneak up on me.
Anyway, I am excited about The Defenders. Avengers but possibly by people who have done shows (the Netflix series) better than most of the MCU movies? Sold!
Iron Fist and Luke should not be merged. Cage did his own thing too well for a team up. I hear The Defenders won't be in Infinity Gauntlet. Hopefully they show up in Infinity Gauntlet Part 2, possibly as backup since I suspect at least one Avenger will die by the end of Part 1.
Also, when's The Punisher coming out? If it's all at least as good as Frank's DD2 episodes then it could become my favorite anything ever.
Iron Fist isn't out yet- it will be up this coming Friday.
And I thought that we're getting Punisher after season 2 of Jessica Jones, but I haven't really been keeping track of the show's schedules. I would much rather have the Punisher show than season 3 of Daredevil, myself- if we get more of that knock-off Legion of Shadows stuff that plagued DD's second season, I'm not sure if I'll stick around for that.
The Hand is kind of integral to DD's story. Hopefully next season Marvel won't squeeze in more characters to take away from Matt, but I still really liked season 2. And I would much rather a season 3 to Daredevil than literally anything coming up.
Having to wait two years in between seasons is crap, honestly.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 12, 2017, 08:24:51 PM
The Hand is kind of integral to DD's story. Hopefully next season Marvel won't squeeze in more characters to take away from Matt, but I still really liked season 2. And I would much rather a season 3 to Daredevil than literally anything coming up.
Having to wait two years in between seasons is crap, honestly.
Yeah it really is. I'm hoping the critics are just full of crap about Iron Fist because I'm going to be angry if Daredevil had to be delayed for a project that couldn't even be kept together.
I hope Iron Fist isn't as bad as what the critics are saying, but the showrunner did work on the seasons of Dexter where this happened.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.buddytv.com%2Farticles%2Fdexterfeels.gif&hash=6336843e530a6f062c54faf6a4ee1526b674b143)
:D :D :D :D
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 13, 2017, 06:45:47 PM
I hope Iron Fist isn't as bad as what the critics are saying, but the showrunner did work on the seasons of Dexter where this happened.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.buddytv.com%2Farticles%2Fdexterfeels.gif&hash=6336843e530a6f062c54faf6a4ee1526b674b143)
Never understood the massive hate for Dexter's later seasons, myself. It's clearly one of the best TV comedies of the past decade. Just about every episode had me rolling with laughter.
I'm just amused by how controversial the series finale (that the Iron Fist showrunner co-wrote) was, that the president of Showtime had to step in and tell people to chill.
I just finished the first episode of Iron Fist. It was the stupidest and most hilariously bad thing I've watched in a while. And I saw Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale last week.
In all seriousness it's a shame that Iron Fist is such a train-wreck. I'm still going to watch it in full just to get to The Defenders, but for as much as I love Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, they are so dark and depressing that I felt as though Iron Fist was a chance for Marvel to add a much needed bit of levity to this particular side of their Universe. This could have been the fun show to balance out the heavy drama of the others, similar to CW's The Flash. But with the hugely negative reception to what we just got, I can't help but feel like Marvel's response will be to double down on making shit as dark as possible, which might get a bit tiring for me if I'm to be perfectly honest.
I agree. I'd prefer a lighter series, or even something akin to Agent Carter for Netflix. The other show's tones work well for the most part, but there isn't much variety between all of the darkness.
If the show had a lighter tone and didn't take itself so seriously, it might have been salvageable. But it takes itself very seriously. And what it's taking seriously is seriously stupid.
To wit, I've watched through episode 4 so far. The biggest problem of the show is Danny himself. It's no wonder why people in the show think he's a lunatic, because he constantly makes idiotic decisions and says things no sane person would take seriously. And for a superhero, he certainly hasn't been very heroic so far. None of the other characters are particularly likable or interesting either, except for Harold who has charisma and personality, which the other characters sorely lack. When it isn't being contrived the show is extremely dull with poor excuses for fights that leave no impression and drawn-out sequences that go nowhere and make the episodes feel longer than they already are. It's really hard to believe that the show is as ill-conceived as it is.
I don't quite agree with that being its problem. The thing is, we've already seen lots of this mysticism and such in Daredevil season two with the Nobu arc, and that took itself very seriously as well but wasn't laughably bad at all. I'll grant you that it has a bit of a mixed tone that constantly flip-flops since some actors seem to be playing it straight while others ham it up to the extreme, but at least so far thst hasn't been too out of the ordinary for this genre. The CW DC shows tend to do that a lot more, actually, and those are part of their charm.
The problem with Iron Fist, at least in my eyes (based only on the first two episodes, to be fair), is on two fronts. One is that it takes way too long to get to the point of anything. For example, everything that happened in the first episode could have easily been covered in twenty minutes, and it's pretty clear to see where the story is going, leading to frustrating segments where you know exactly what will happen and there is nothing of interest to distract you from the predictability aside from the occasional fight scene (and that wire-fu is hilariously bad every time Danny has to do any parkour or acrobatic jump). The other, and arguably bigger issue is the writing. Specifically the dialogue. Let's just say that this is a show that most definitely could have used the Joss Whedon touch, because holy fuck are these some of the most stilted and over-expository lines that I've ever seen in a show.
Despite that I kind of find myself able to continue the show as a guilty pleasure of sorts if only because I think some of the idiotic writing is actually unintentionally entertaining in the same sort of way that a show like Dexter was.
I wasn't referring to the mysticism, but the plot of the show itself. How Danny tries to reconnect with Joy and Ward and their attempts to keep him out of the picture is ill-thought out and incredibly questionable. I get he's been away for a while and is out of touch with social norms, but did Danny seriously expect he could walk into a high-profile corporate building dressed the way he was and with no proof he is of who he says he is and convince Joy and Ward he's alive? He thought that admitting he broke into Joy's apartment and locked her dog in a closet was going to convince her he wasn't a psycho? Ward thought assassinating Danny was a smarter move than having him arrested when he had perfect grounds to because Danny literally put his life in danger when he almost drove the car off the roof? The writers thought the scene where Danny's mother flies out a hole on the roof of the plane looked anything but hilarious? That's the stuff I can't take seriously.
But yeah, the show is tediously slow and the dialogue is painfully basic. With the exception of Harold, who can be fun in his aloofness, everyone else is written as their archetype and feel like nothing more. It doesn't help that the first three episodes are pretty much pointless since Danny gets his share of the company at the beginning of episode 4 and only then does the actual plot feel like it starts to start. They really could've abridged the first three episodes into one and had where episode 4 began be the beginning of the second episode.
Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on March 17, 2017, 07:31:58 PM
I wasn't referring to the mysticism, but the plot of the show itself. How Danny tries to reconnect with Joy and Ward and their attempts to keep him out of the picture is ill-thought out and incredibly questionable. I get he's been away for a while and is out of touch with social norms, but did Danny seriously expect he could walk into a high-profile corporate building dressed the way he was and with no proof he is of who he says he is and convince Joy and Ward he's alive? He thought that admitting he broke into Joy's apartment and locked her dog in a closet was going to convince her he wasn't a psycho? Ward thought assassinating Danny was a smarter move than having him arrested when he had perfect grounds to because Danny literally put his life in danger when he almost drove the car off the roof? The writers thought the scene where Danny's mother flies out a hole on the roof of the plane looked anything but hilarious? That's the stuff I can't take seriously.
Quite frankly, there wasn't even enough plot from what I saw for their to be that much in the way of story issues from the first two episodes of the show. But as for the points that you mentioned, I believe you already kind of explained the first question that you brought up. He's been away from social norms for the majority of his life, and he was only ten when he left that society, so of course he's completely oblivious to the fact that people won't trust who he is simply because he says the truth. And yes, his attempts to get them to believe him come off as idiotic and creepy, but once again, this guy was raised by both an ancient and literally other-worldly place for most of his memory. They make it a clear point that he doesn't think like normal people do. I do agree with the point that you mentioned about the Mitchum's stupid attempts to eliminate Danny, but I chalk that up more to bad character writing, myself.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the show, and wouldn't be surprised to see it succumb to bad plotting the further that I get into it given that these are the same people behind a show like Dexter which was full of that particular issue. I'm just chalking its problems from the two episodes that I've watched up to writing more than anything else, with the key difference between writing issues and story issues being that the latter has to do with the overall picture being overly inconsistent and not adding up or making a whole lot of sense, while the former is the specific issues of things like character motivations not making sense of overly idiotic and contrived ways of certain events that unfold in-between major story points, or as I elaborated on earlier, that dialogue.
QuoteWith the exception of Harold, who can be fun in his aloofness, everyone else is written as their archetype and feel like nothing more. It doesn't help that the first three episodes are pretty much pointless since Danny gets his share of the company at the beginning of episode 4 and only then does the actual plot feel like it starts to start. They really could've abridged the first three episodes into one and had where episode 4 began be the beginning of the second episode.
No joke: Harold and that intern kid are my favorite characters from this show so far. They are so laughably goofy that they just chew up the scenery where they are present in all of the delightfully wrong ways. That conversation that he has with his son in episode two when discussing what to do with Danny is hilarious. It's clearly supposed to be taken as him seeing the bigger picture and his son being the close-minded nitwit, but it comes off as Harold being a delusional mental case whereas his son is son has a "I have no idea what the fuck is even going on right now" sort of look on his face. If the rest of this show was better written I'd chalk it up to clever humor, but as it stands it's clearly more of that unintentionally funny writing that actually kind of makes the show not boring to watch when it isn't completely dragging out the story.
I finished the pilot just now. Some of the dialogue is a bit basic, but I haven't any problems with Danny. Being away for so long since being a kid explains why he thought he could return as if it were nothing. I didn't find Joy or Ward boring. In fact I enjoyed Ward's scene with his dad near the end. That was the best part of the episode.
The only thing "laughably bad" to me was Danny's Mandarin and car jump. Both of those were goofy, but they didn't take me out of the story. I severely disagree with Danny's mom getting sucked out somehow being funny. The real problem in that part was the bad line reading by the dude playing his dad. That aside, the pacing of the pilot was good. Each scene flowed right into the next and nothing felt dragged out. I am very surprised to be in the minority on this.
I'm definitely going to watch more. From what I've heard the show gets really good after episode 6. I don't think this had any bigger flaws than DD's first season.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 17, 2017, 08:48:43 PM
Quite frankly, there wasn't even enough plot from what I saw for their to be that much in the way of story issues from the first two episodes of the show. But as for the points that you mentioned, I believe you already kind of explained the first question that you brought up. He's been away from social norms for the majority of his life, and he was only ten when he left that society, so of course he's completely oblivious to the fact that people won't trust who he is simply because he says the truth. And yes, his attempts to get them to believe him come off as idiotic and creepy, but once again, this guy was raised by both an ancient and literally other-worldly place for most of his memory. They make it a clear point that he doesn't think like normal people do. I do agree with the point that you mentioned about the Mitchum's stupid attempts to eliminate Danny, but I chalk that up more to bad character writing, myself.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the show, and wouldn't be surprised to see it succumb to bad plotting the further that I get into it given that these are the same people behind a show like Dexter which was full of that particular issue. I'm just chalking its problems from the two episodes that I've watched up to writing more than anything else, with the key difference between writing issues and story issues being that the latter has to do with the overall picture being overly inconsistent and not adding up or making a whole lot of sense, while the former is the specific issues of things like character motivations not making sense of overly idiotic and contrived ways of certain events that unfold in-between major story points, or as I elaborated on earlier, that dialogue.
That's a fair distinction to make. But we can both agree the character writing is bad, and I personally can't take Danny as a character seriously because even though I understand why he might be acting the way he does he's still behaving like an idiot and I don't find any reason to actually like him or sympathize with his plight. If the show had started with him performing some act of heroism, at least then it would give a sense of why Danny's worth rooting for. But all we have to go on in the first couple of episodes is that his parents died when he was a kid and he's trying to reconnect with his past and he has to defeat The Hand for... reasons. I'm just not sure why I'm supposed to care about him when all he's done so far in the show is endanger the people around him and makes bad decisions that only make him seem more like an irrational psychopath.
Quote
No joke: Harold and that intern kid are my favorite characters from this show so far. They are so laughably goofy that they just chew up the scenery where they are present in all of the delightfully wrong ways. That conversation that he has with his son in episode two when discussing what to do with Danny is hilarious. It's clearly supposed to be taken as him seeing the bigger picture and his son being the close-minded nitwit, but it comes off as Harold being a delusional mental case whereas his son is son has a "I have no idea what the fuck is even going on right now" sort of look on his face. If the rest of this show was better written I'd chalk it up to clever humor, but as it stands it's clearly more of that unintentionally funny writing that actually kind of makes the show not boring to watch when it isn't completely dragging out the story.
The show clearly wants us to think of Harold as eccentric but well-intentioned, at least from how far I've gotten, but like you said, he's amusing because of how random his thought process is and how hillariously passive aggressive he is to Ward, who - stupid decisions to off Danny aside - at this point I'm honestly sympathizing with as the most rational-minded person in the show.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on March 17, 2017, 09:24:28 PM
I severely disagree with Danny's mom getting sucked out somehow being funny.
It came out of nowhere and looked goofy, as if she was being pulled up through the holes by wires. I was watching this with Vlord and a friend and all three of us laughed out loud. All I can say is that if I was supposed to feel sad about Danny's mom dying, there were way better ways to shoot and execute that scene more effectively.
DD's first season was the best season of any of these shows so far.
I haven't watched this yet, but I've been rapidly losing my interest in these as they go along. JJ was filled with characters I hated and some strange leaps of logic, and Luke Cage had all kinds of pacing problems and an ending that just made me shrug. At this point I'm wondering if I'll even bother with the Defenders. DD is the only one I've legit liked all the way through.
And having to wait until 2018 to see what I really want to see isn't making me want to bother checking any of these out either.
For what it's worth, one thing that I will say in defense of the show is that all of the racial controversy about it is fucking stupid. The show has plenty of issues, but that certainly doesn't strike me as one.
I especially have to laugh at how some reviewers call it white-washing (despite the fact that Danny is caucasian in the comic books) to be displayed as a martial arts master instead of an Asian person. For one thing, that criticism is itself in incredibly ironic racial stereotype, as there are a number of individuals of non-Asian descent who have studied and mastered various forms of martial arts not indigenous to their regions, but secondly is that the idea that a martial arts master has to be Asian is in itself in insane ratisl stereotype. I can't stand the insinuation that shows like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were better simply because they didn't feature a white male as a protagonist. Those shows were better because of good writing, directing, and acting. Not because of the gender or race of their leads.
And I'll also throw a bone to Finn Jones. Quite frankly I believe that the critics are giving him way more flak than he deserves. While I'm not too keen on the Danny Rand character from the first few episodes that I've seen, I don't see it as him turning it a bad performanceor him not being a fit for the character. The problem is the weak material that he has to work with. And the reason I say this is because, for all of the bad parts about this show (and there are a lot), there are some legitimately good moments. I think that the plot about him teaming up with Hogarth to legally regain his company is legitimately well done and contains some of the better acted scenes in this show, and particularly the parts where he explains the philosophy which he holds on things involving martial arts and his roots in Kun-Lun are some of the more interesting aspects of this show, and he does actually sell me on the character in those moments. Had the show been focusing more on those elements, it could have been a much better product, IMO. As it stands it currently stands it's like an unintentionally funny dramedy with some cool martial arts mixed in. Not a good product, but at least somewhat entertaining as a time-waster.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 17, 2017, 10:28:05 PM
For what it's worth, one thing that I will say in defense of the show is that all of the racial controversy about it is fucking stupid. The show has plenty of issues, but that certainly doesn't strike me as one.
I especially have to laugh at how some reviewers call it white-washing (despite the fact that Danny is caucasian in the comic books) to be displayed as a martial arts master instead of an Asian person. For one thing, that criticism is itself in incredibly ironic racial stereotype, as there are a number of individuals of non-Asian descent who have studied and mastered various forms of martial arts not indigenous to their regions, but secondly is that the idea that a martial arts master has to be Asian is in itself in insane ratisl stereotype. I can't stand the insinuation that shows like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were better simply because they didn't feature a white male as a protagonist. Those shows were better because of good writing, directing, and acting. Not because of the gender or race of their leads.
And I'll also throw a bone to Finn Jones. Quite frankly I believe that the critics are giving him way more flak than he deserves. While I'm not too keen on the Danny Rand character from the first few episodes that I've seen, I don't see it as him turning it a bad performanceor him not being a fit for the character. The problem is the weak material that he has to work with. And the reason I say this is because, for all of the bad parts about this show (and there are a lot), there are some legitimately good moments. I think that the plot about him teaming up with Hogarth to legally regain his company is legitimately well done and contains some of the better acted scenes in this show, and particularly the parts where he explains the philosophy which he holds on things involving martial arts and his roots in Kun-Lun are some of the more interesting aspects of this show, and he does actually sell me on the character in those moments. Had the show been focusing more on those elements, it could have been a much better product, IMO. As it stands it currently stands it's like an unintentionally funny dramedy with some cool martial arts mixed in. Not a good product, but at least somewhat entertaining as a time-waster.
So, you're saying it's basically a martial arts b-movie?
As to Spark's post, while I agree that Daredevil is easily my favorite of these shows, I disagree about JJ and LC being weak shows. I legitimately found JJ to be great. It had issues, but I still came out of it pretty impressed. I agree that LC has some serious pacing issues, but it had a good deal of emotional weight to its characters to carry me through the experience.
And I'm kind of surprised that I'm apparently the only person on this board looking forward to The Defenders. While I agree that I'm much more excited for a third season of Daredevil, I really do legitimately want to see these characters cross over and play off of each other. I can manage to wait an extra year to see more DD. It's getting rather annoying to see The Defenders written off as worthless just because it doesn't fit evey person's personal little idea of what THEY think is best for the Marvel Netflix-verse.
Honestly, even with the relatively poor quality of Iron Fist, I'm still excited for The Defenders because I love these street level heroes and their very personal conflicts, and moreso than even The Avengers I feel that it'll be really interesting to see these individual chsracters clash and interact with one another. But I suppose that makes me the weird one out in this case.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 17, 2017, 10:30:07 PMSo, you're saying it's basically a martial arts b-movie?
Pretty much. I mean, it's no Ong-Bak, but it's more entertaining than say a crappy DTV 80's American martial arts flick.
I'm mostly overexaggerating. I actually did like Luke Cage outside of those things. I didn't think it was amazing, but I did enjoy it.
And, sure The Defenders as a team up sounds pretty cool on paper. I guess I'm just skeptical about it since the only one of these series I devoured was Daredevil (yes, including season 2. I liked the Hand stuff a lot) and hearing it passed over for another year just made me a bit irritated, I suppose. At the very least he will be in The Defenders with the other characters (Will actually be glad to see Luke Cage again, honestly) so at least there's that.
In the future, however, I think they should merge some of these shows to both save on available Netflix slots and to avoid pacing issues by having more centralized focus on characters. Luke Cage and Iron Fist really should be Heroes For Hire next.
I think that JJ is my favorite of the shows thus far, but aside from Trish, I didn't like the supporting cast all that much. It was all about Jessica and Killgrave to me. And my big problem with Luke Cage, honestly, was Diamondback. The show brought a good amount of intriguing villains to the table, and was giving us something truly promising with Cottonmouth, and while I think what happened to him was a good twist, they ultimately spent too much time on by far the least interesting antagonist.
I'd say that the first season of Daredevil is probably the most consistent of them all so far, but at the same time, I think that I prefer the best parts of JJ and LC to it. And while I didn't like Elektra, the Hand, or Matt and Karen's relationship material in S2, I was all for the Punisher's stuff, even as someone who's never been a big fan of his character.
I'm going to check out Iron Fist later tonight, but I don't have high expectations. But I shouldn't say anything before I try it out.
Jessica Jones was interesting, even if they did the "Jessica captures Kilgrave only for him to get away because of reasons" plot one too many times. And her neighbor Robin was the worst. Any scene she was in made an episode feel like hours. I didn't hate any of Luke Cage's cast, but I do agree that Diamondback was a poor successor for Cottonmouth. We get this cruel criminal overlord who also has a code and moral values that puts him at odds with his position in the game, and he gets replaced by Luke's comically evil half-brother who's secretly responsible for everything bad in his life?
It's the same issue I've had with other Netflix shows like Stranger Things. They often don't have enough plot to fill their season, and since they're too serialized to utilize standalone episodes, they often give some bland at best annoying at worst character their own arc to fill another two or three episodes' worth of script. And while this at least gives even the minor characters something to do, it usually leads to unwatchable moments like Foggy just being such a jackass to Matt for the whole second season of Daredevil, or anytime Steve and his jock friends showed up in Stranger Things.
And speaking of Iron Fist's "whitewashing", I found another one of the people complaining, and they're seething with rage over how Charlie Cox isn't actually a blind guy (https://twitter.com/MsJayTeeRattray/status/842803225866723328). As well as accusing Supergirl of being ableist, racist, and misogynist for some reason. I wonder if these same people have freakouts because Patrick Stewart isn't disabled, or how Robert Downey Jr doesn't actually have shrapnel in his chest. With this along with that one Twitter who screamed at Finn Jones, these guys really need to cut it out with these Chris-chan level outrages over superhero shows. It's almost as bad as those tumblr users who ganged up on the kid who plays Will Byers in ST because he wasn't gay.
Yikes. People are fascinating.
Well, I watched the first episode and a quarter-ish last night. The connection went out during the second episode, but I wasn't feeling attached enough to it to give it another shot (it was also almost 5 am). It also looked like it was going into that tired "is the person in the asylum REALLY crazy" trope that shows have been doing forever, which even Legion didn't really nail when it tackled that this week.
I don't think this is the worst thing I've seen or even laughably bad, but... yeah, this is kind of dumb, and the weakest MCU Netflix show to date from even the little that I've seen. I'll get to more later tonight, and see if I feel anything different.
For what it's worth, I'm up to episode six and while this show is by far the weakest one and riddled with issues, there have been more genuinely good things about it past the first 3 episodes (which, as Lum said, really could have just been condensed into one), and while I'm either annoyed or board by some sub-plots, the main story-line actually has some decent weight to it, IMO. Episode 6 in particular was really enjoyable as an homage to classic martial arts flicks like Game of Death. The writing and acting are still really clumsy, but when the show focuses on the elements of the Iron Fist mythology and that classic martial arts film mentality, it becomes genuinely more enjoyable, IMO.
So while I definitely agree with most people that it's not a very good show, I'm actually regretting calling it a train-wreck before seeing enough of it, because it's not nearly as atrocious as the RT score is suggesting that it is.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 18, 2017, 12:54:05 PM
For what it's worth, I'm up to episode six and while this show is by far the weakest one and riddled with issues, there have been more genuinely good things about it past the first 3 episodes (which, as Lum said, really could have just been condensed into one), and while I'm either annoyed or board by some sub-plots, the main story-line actually has some decent weight to it, IMO. Episode 6 in particular was really enjoyable as an homage to classic martial arts flicks like Game of Death. The writing and acting are still really clumsy, but when the show focuses on the elements of the Iron Fist mythology and that classic martial arts film mentality, it becomes genuinely more enjoyable, IMO.
So while I definitely agree with most people that it's not a very good show, I'm actually regretting calling it a train-wreck before seeing enough of it, because it's not nearly as atrocious as the RT score is suggesting that it is.
So what I heard was right? Awesome! Unfortunately, I've gotten a bit busy with family related stuff so it might be tomorrow before I can watch more episodes. Can't wait to see them later!
Well, that's not exactly what I meant. I don't agree with the assessment that this show suddenly gets good after a certain episode. More so, it's that the first three episodes are brutally slow and messy in terms of writing. The other episodes are as well. It's just that when the main plot starts there are some genuinely good moments and developments in the story amidst all of the poorly handled material. That said, the bad stuff still outweighs the good stuff, IMO. I just wouldn't go as far as to say that it's a complete train-wreck is all. On the whole it's more just a standard-quality Network show than the level of quality that we've come to expect from the other Netflix Marvel shows.
Watched the first two episodes, and it was just this 2-hour interval where I alternated between getting ridiculously bored or laughing my ass off. Like the scene where Joy found out who Danny was because she gave him an envelope of M&Ms. Or how Danny decided the best way to prove he wasn't crazy was telling a doctor how he went to another dimension through China and was taught under warrior monks. The cast also had this weird lack of disbelief suspension, given they're living in the Marvel cinematic universe. Everyone's so skeptical about Danny being back even though it should be far from the weirdest event to occur in their lives, but I suppose Danny's bright idea to break into Joy's house and lock her dog up didn't help his case at all. Except maybe Colleen, none of the cast really grabbed onto me in terms of personality or charisma, but the worst of all was Ward. Ward just reminds me of a Disney Channel sitcom antagonist, to the point where he even pauses his dialogue on occasion as if a laugh track were supposed to play. He was just such a cunt in those two episodes. Not as bad as Robin, but I don't imagine watching more of the show if it means he's still a main presence throughout. Bringing up Dexter again, he was like Quinn. And nobody should ever possibly think of making a character like Quinn again.
You haven't seen anything yet. Wait until the episodes that tackle Ward's drug addiction. His acting is hilarious.
I'm on episode 5, and between this and what I've heard of the later Dexter episodes, I seriously think that the showrunner doesn't know how regular people act.
Then I looked up and saw that he wrote the dog episode of Six Feet Under, and now I know that he's strongly disconnected from reality.
So between him, Jeph Loeb's continued involvement on it, and its likely ties to AOS, I think that I'm going to sit out Inhumans on ABC.
Oh boy....so, do you guys remember back when Diamondback replaced Cotton Mouth as the main antagonist in Luke Cage and he was a far less interesting villain? Well, Iron Fist does something similar, except Madam Gao (who is legitimately one of the few interesting characters in this show) takes a backseat to Bukudo, and let's just say that this is one of the most over-the-top, hilariously bad performances that I've seen from any piece of media in a long time. Compared to this guy I could almost even take Harold seriously. It's that ridiculous.
Well, just finished the season. Wow, now that was a mess. I'll stand by my comments saying that there were aspects of the show that I genuinely enjoyed in-between, but overall it was marred by really bad writing.
I have to say, though, the biggest overall issue that I had with this show was a serious lack of any character to feel any sympathy for or relate to. Particularly Danny himself had absolutely no character arc whatsoever. His stupidity and naivety in the beginning of the series could be justified by him slowly maturing from his child-like mentality over the course of the season, but he learns absolutely nothing by the end, and completely justifies all of the negative things that people say about him over the course of the series. When the last thing that Clair, an ally to him and the other Defenders, says to him that he's pretty fucked up and needs psychological help, and the line is actually completely justified in an unironic way, then you know that the writers has tremendously screwed up at trying to convey their hero as an actual hero. Matt, Jessica, and Luke all have their personal flaws and inner demons, and none of them are perfect, but that strengthens the relatability of these characters as they are constantly trying to do the right thing, and over time learn ways to improve themselves. Essentially, you see the hero within each of them emerging over time. In comparison, Danny is just an ignorant ass-hole from the beginning to the end. He's just flat-out unlikable with few, if any, redeeming qualities.
The thing is, all of the Marvel Netflix shows have writing and pacing issues. However it's compelling characters that pulled us through those. Iron Fist has no main lead that I really care about, making it much harder to ignore the writing flaws like I could for the other shows, and making my entertainment value that I got out of the show come from unintentionally funny villains and absurdly atrocious dialogue at times.
For what it's worth, the character is still getting a second chance with the Defenders, which has a different showrunner, so I genuinely hope that it works out with better overall material to present us with, but at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel just writes the character out after The Defenders.
What is this tweet talking about? (https://twitter.com/sam_kriss/status/843247319856414721) One of the reasons why those first two episodes of Iron Fist were such a bore was because they didn't have enough ninjas for me. This jackass thinks he's too good to watch goofy ninja fights?
I still wouldn't really call it a good show, and Danny's still a bad character, but I do think that the series works a little better when it revolves around him, Colleen, and Claire. The latter two are actual characters with some sense of logic (still sticking around Danny aside), and they have their moments.
But I can't stand Joy and especially Ward. The latter's drug subplot is hilariously terrible.
I finished this last night, and I can say that unlike AOS, the ingredients for a good show are there. While Danny and the Meachums are broken characters with weak actors, there's something in each of them that, with some fine-tweaking, could be made into better characters. A better show runner would definitely help.
But as is, this isn't a good show. I can see if you like the show if you like to play contrarian for some reason, but on its own, yikes.
And if you're skipping the show, check this out (http://uproxx.com/tv/iron-fist-defenders-guide/).
On good Marvel show news, we finally have a confirmation that Legion's dad is Charles. And that the Shadow King is after them.
Just started episode 9.
Spoiler
NO FUCKING WAY!! THERE IS NO REASONABLE REASON THAT HE HAS HIS FINGERS BACK! I call bullshit.
Actually, severed fingers can be reattached if the operation is performed within a limited amount of time after they were cut off. The process is called replantation, and it has been around for quite a while.
Spoiler
I'm not even sure where to start and I'm sure I'll forgot some thing I've been wanting to say. I will say that I don't think this show is bad even though I thought about giving up watching it a time or two. It was kind of fascinating to me for some reason. Anyway, I do like Finn Jones as Iron Fist, he just didn't have the best writing to work with. Also, I was going to say that Joy was less likable than her brother, who I kind of like, but the ending makes that go without saying. Also, what were the writers thinking by making her a villain? Her brother killed her father..again and she already knew he couldn't be trusted. Yet him dying...again, put her over the edge to set up a plan to kill her friend. I hope she dies a few episodes in during Season 2, if that season even ever happens. I also thought how they put Colleen in Danny's life was badly done (him bugging her to let him do lessons) and Claire because spouting lines she should have said, like when she comforted him on the plane while Wing did nothing. And how Claire showed up out of nowhere being trained by Colleen was forced. Of course I like her and I like Wing so this doesn't really matter. I thought it was dull that they made Harold the main villain. They gave him way too much screentime. I really liked Madame Gao. Too bad lowrent villains got in the way of her shining. Also, Danny is kind of a dumbass and so is Wing. They got so easily manipulated by Gao that it is not even funny. They literally were getting headaches from what she was saying and ended up doing some things she wanted them to do. I don't mind a villain that's smarter than the heroes but not when the heroes just look stupid a lot of the time.
Also, how about that RZA episode? The one with The Thunderer narrating and Danny fighting The Hand in that tournament. Easily the best part of the show. I wish the series was just Danny running around beating up The Hand. That would have been better than him whining about his parents. Also, they need to get RZA to do much more episodes. I am happy to see that he is a good director.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 25, 2017, 11:34:40 PM
Actually, severed fingers can be reattached if the operation is performed within a limited amount of time after they were cut off. The process is called replantation, and it has been around for quite a while.
Spoiler
So Harold performed surgery on himself while dead in a river?
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 17, 2017, 11:19:54 PM
Jessica Jones was interesting, even if they did the "Jessica captures Kilgrave only for him to get away because of reasons" plot one too many times. And her neighbor Robin was the worst. Any scene she was in made an episode feel like hours. I didn't hate any of Luke Cage's cast, but I do agree that Diamondback was a poor successor for Cottonmouth. We get this cruel criminal overlord who also has a code and moral values that puts him at odds with his position in the game, and he gets replaced by Luke's comically evil half-brother who's secretly responsible for everything bad in his life?
Honestly, it is safe to say that Robin is the worst thing out of any of the Marvel Netflix series.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 19, 2017, 03:13:59 AM
Watched the first two episodes, and it was just this 2-hour interval where I alternated between getting ridiculously bored or laughing my ass off. Like the scene where Joy found out who Danny was because she gave him an envelope of M&Ms. Or how Danny decided the best way to prove he wasn't crazy was telling a doctor how he went to another dimension through China and was taught under warrior monks. The cast also had this weird lack of disbelief suspension, given they're living in the Marvel cinematic universe. Everyone's so skeptical about Danny being back even though it should be far from the weirdest event to occur in their lives, but I suppose Danny's bright idea to break into Joy's house and lock her dog up didn't help his case at all. Except maybe Colleen, none of the cast really grabbed onto me in terms of personality or charisma, but the worst of all was Ward. Ward just reminds me of a Disney Channel sitcom antagonist, to the point where he even pauses his dialogue on occasion as if a laugh track were supposed to play. He was just such a cunt in those two episodes. Not as bad as Robin, but I don't imagine watching more of the show if it means he's still a main presence throughout. Bringing up Dexter again, he was like Quinn. And nobody should ever possibly think of making a character like Quinn again.
:D :D :D Oh yeah!
Quote from: gunswordfist on March 26, 2017, 09:48:27 PM
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 25, 2017, 11:34:40 PM
Actually, severed fingers can be reattached if the operation is performed within a limited amount of time after they were cut off. The process is called replantation, and it has been around for quite a while.
Spoiler
So Harold performed surgery on himself while dead in a river?
I thought that he got his fingers reattached before he got killed off for the first time. In all honesty though I can't remember the specific details of what happened at what specific time. All your post mentioned was that you didn't believe it was possible for his fingers to be reattached and I was only pointing out that such a thing does exist in real life, without regard to how it happens in the context of the show, which quite frankly I don't care enough about to recall the specifics of those details.
Here's a review saying that Iron Fist champions the contradictions of capitalism, fights against the "rejectamenta of modern society", and is mere one chapter in the "fascist opera of our time" that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (https://thebaffler.com/latest/iron-fist-kriss)
Watched the third episode of Iron Fist, and I'm still confused by Finn Jones being cast as Danny. Marvel could have cast an actor who was Asian to win easy progressive points, an actor who looked exactly like Danny Rand in the comics to appeal to the fans, or someone who was skilled at martial arts so at least he would be entertaining to watch. They did none of the above, resulting in a choice that appeals to nobody. Finn isn't particularly good at making Danny seem like an interesting character. If anything, I feel bad for Joy because she's between an asshat of a brother and a crazy childhood friend.
To be fair, the bad action scenes have more to do with the rushed production schedule of this show, with Finn Jones having well under an hour to rehearse his choreography before they began shooting. Charlie Cox also didn't know any martial arts going into Daredevil, but they had the appropriate amount of time to work on choreography and shooting the action scenes. The scheduling of Iron Fist's production was handled incredibly poorly, though, mostly due to all of the delays that it faced in production.
I can understand if there was too little time to rehearse, but there are Japanese children's shows that have less time than Iron Fist does in shooting fight scenes, and they somehow do it better. In the third episode, there was a fight that had thirty camera cuts in ten seconds, like a sequence from Taken 3. If you have that little time for choreography, it would've been better to hire an actor who already knew martial arts so he could naturally slip into the scene rather than require extra hours for training and rehearsing. You probably could have hired Steven Seagal of all people, and he would've done a more fluid fight scene.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on April 10, 2017, 09:07:14 PMI can understand if there was too little time to rehearse, but there are Japanese children's shows that have less time than Iron Fist does in shooting fight scenes, and they somehow do it better. In the third episode, there was a fight that had thirty camera cuts in ten seconds, like a sequence from Taken 3. If you have that little time for choreography, it would've been better to hire an actor who already knew martial arts so he could naturally slip into the scene rather than require extra hours for training and rehearsing. You probably could have hired Steven Seagal of all people, and he would've done a more fluid fight scene.
Once again, to be fair, those Kamen Rider shows usually cast actors who are already at least somewhat trained in martial arts, or who have at least had experience with stage-fighting/choreography.
It would have been better off if they gave Finn Jones a costume, though. They could have given him a more practical design like they did for Daredevil in season one of that show. The reason being that it would make it easy to have a well-trained stunt double slip into his place for the action scenes. Of course, shooting a good action scene is a lot harder than just having a good martial artist or stunt man, though. I do wish that more people would truly appreciate the hard work, planning, rehearsal, training, and extensive repetition that goes into shooting the incredible fights in something like The Raid or John Wick, or even the hallway or staircase fights from Daredevil. People always seem to tend to take those for granted and have a "see, what's so hard about that, why doesn't every show meet that level of quality for action" mentality; when the point is that they went above and beyond what most other film-makers would do in order to make their action scenes so stand-out good in the first place.
Not that I'm excusing Iron Fist for its poor fights; don't get the wrong idea. It's essentially a martial arts action show made by people with no experience in that field and who also didn't take the proper amount of time to get it right like the crew for Daredevil did. That said, it was poor decision making on the part of the higher-up Marvel TV producers who hired the entirely wrong crew to make this show in the first place, IMO. While I can agree with criticizing Finn Jones for a poorly done job overall, I don't feel that it's fair to give him and him alone all the blame for everything wrong with Iron Fist as an overall production.
Regardless, though, I just wish people wouldn't brush it off when other productions do get their fights done well. Even those Japanese kids shows have tons of hard work put into them relative to the amount of time and budget that they have to work with, and the people working on them have years upon years of experience with this kind of material and how to choreograph and shoot it. That can't be taken for granted.
Here's who will be in the New Warriors show (http://uproxx.com/tv/marvel-new-warriors-series-cast/).
Getting Squirrel Girl in alone will make this a hit. I really enjoy what I've read of her.
Meanwhile, here's a trailer for Marvel's Z-list superhero duo that few people have a strong opinion one way or the other. (https://twitter.com/Marvel/status/854788218117607424)
I've read one or two stories, and I think Cloak and Dagger are okay, but don't really stick out to me.
This looks fine, though. I could give it a shot.
What are we, some kind of Runaways trailer? (https://twitter.com/JackRicofficial/status/859771894932926466)
Defenders trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h3m7B4v6Zc)
August 18th.
Here's hoping this is as good as the trailer looks.
EDIT: Okay, DD's showrunners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenders_(miniseries)) are behind this. Now I'm hyped.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-_ZagnXcAIN3Ue.jpg:large)
I already hate the Inhumans.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on May 03, 2017, 12:34:46 PM
Defenders trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h3m7B4v6Zc)
August 18th.
Here's hoping this is as good as the trailer looks.
EDIT: Okay, DD's showrunners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenders_(miniseries)) are behind this. Now I'm hyped.
Thank God. Still want to watch the rest of Iron Fist, but I'd still prefer the DD crew over IF's people in regards to the fight scenes.
Is that the Bastard of the Dreadfort that I spot on the far right?
Between, this, Iron Fist, and the X-Men franchise, I'm starting to see a strange correlation between Marvel-licensed films/television and former or under-used Game of Thrones actors....or it could all just be a strange coincidence.
Yeah, I'm not watching Inhumans.
I'll watch at least one episode out of curiosity.
But it's bizarre how Marvel can't seem to realize when a bad idea's a bad idea. With Inhumans and HydraCap, they keep pushing that shit no matter how much the fans, critics, and people working on the MCU alike say they're sick of it. Marvel's had an entire year of fans telling them turning Captain America into a HYDRA agent is a bad idea. And instead of listening, they make a big event out of it.
They are trying to top everything terrible about the 90s.
The trailer for the new X-Men show is out. (https://youtu.be/qTzW9rMcbzk) I guess people who thought Legion didn't have enough action scenes will be excited, but I'm not sure about this one.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fhyq98mK.jpg&hash=023de691c4dad249dcbec6ef26c52d5e751b67f9)
The only people in that picture who don't look like they hate being there are Daredevil and Quake.
So, does anybody else think Sigourney Weaver's character was wasted? I was hyped to see what the show would do with an actress like her, and just which Marvel villain she would play, only for her to play an original character who
Spoiler
gets killed by Elektra who takes her place.
Yeah, I was expecting more from her but she suffers from the same problems that most MCU villains do. In the end she just felt more like an antagonist than an actual character. To be fair, though, this was really more about having an excuse for The Defenders to come together, but getting an actress as high-profile as Sigourney Weaver really raises one's expectations.
On the brighter side of things, I really did enjoy seeing the core characters interacting with each other. Danny Rand was certainly a lot more tolerable playing off of the other heroes, especially Luke Cage.
The Defenders was pretty damn fun! My only complaints are Alexandra was just evil, humorless Hogarth and I can't wrap my head around what Electra's intentions were.
To add to that, I'm also not a fan of how they continued Danny's streak of being a moron. Like, I know that they are only feeding into what everyone already thinks of him from season one of Iron Fist, but I'd like to instead see them try and improve the character by making him learn from past mistakes instead of subjecting us to more of his stupid shenanigans. Like, when he was fighting Elektra and she needed him to activate his Iron Fist in order to use it as a key and couldn't kill him until he did that, literally all he had to do was not summon his Chi. Hell, he didn't even have to fight her, but even if he did he could just stick to normal martial arts like he started out doing and not actually summon the power in his fist that she could use to potentially destroy all of New York City. Even if he was getting his ass kicked he still couldn't be killed by her since she needed him alive, and he could have simply stalled her until help arrived. But, nope, he's just got to be as rash as ever and activate the one thing that he has complete control over and can also be used by the villains to achieve their goal. It's the kind of stupid that's incredibly frustrating to deal with as a viewer as opposed to being part of a well-written character arc.
Gripes like that aside, though, this was a lot of fun. It's not as good of a first time team-up as The Avengers was, but it does showcase how well these characters and their actors can play off of one another. In that regard, we can wait a few years before the next season of Defenders, and in the meantime it would be cool if each of these characters could have guest appearances in each others' shows, like Matt Murdock dropping by in an episode of Jessica Jones to help her solve a case, or Danny Rand teaming up with Luke Cage on a certain mission that ends up being a neat little homage to Heroes for Hire. That would be pretty cool to see, and would be quite reminiscent of what one would expect from an actual comic book involving any of these characters.
The show is sounding good, but I've had no real desire to connect to Netflix here to check it out. I probably won't get to that until BoJack Horseman starts back up.
I do wish that they could have taken the chance to improve on Danny's character rather than doubling down his worst traits, though. That sounds frustrating, and will only make Iron Fist feel like less of an afterthought than it should be.
For what it's worth, his interactions with Luke Cage in this season were legitimately fun moments, and temporarily made you forget how annoying he could be. It was like Danny was a completely different character in those scenes. As in, a character that you actually want to watch, instead of one who actively infuriates you.
That sounds good.
I think Iron Fist worked best somewhere around the middle-to-late portion of its run, when Colleen and Claire join and share good chemistry with each other. Danny worked a little better there as well, but it was their show IMO.
Interestingly, Colleen featured a lot more prominently in this season than I expected. In fact, she arguably has the biggest role of any of the supporting characters, even more so than Claire, which took me by surprise. Thankfully, being arguably the only character from Iron Fist that worked, she wasn't a hindrance in this show.
Yeah, Colleen was definitely the Pink Ranger of the team.
Checked out the first episode of Defenders. I enjoyed it, but I can't say it gripped me like the first episodes of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, or Luke Cage did (I know a lot of people weren't big on any of the premieres, but I really enjoyed them). The scenes with Jessica were great and despite dragging a bit at times I thought the scenes with Matt were too. Luke wasn't bad but I felt his scenes lacked some of the authenticity from his own series. Seems like I didn't miss much by skipping Iron Fist. The villain (whose name I do not know) already seems quite a bit weaker than Fisk, Kilgrave, Cottonmouth, Punisher, etc. but I'll wait and give her a chance. Overall, definitely interested in checking out the second episode tomorrow, but not quite as excited as I hoped I would be.
Prepare to be Punished: https://youtu.be/lIY6zFL95hE
I'm not going to lie, the Marvel Netflix shows have undergone a serious downward spiral in quality by making the same mistakes as the Berlanti DC shows (ironically enough) by stretching their resources too thin and producing too many shows at once in close proximity to each other in favor of quantity over quality. While The Defenders isn't anywhere near as bad as Iron Fist, it still shows signs of being rushed in its production just so that Netflix could have their "Avengers" show without gradually building up to it and earning it like the movies did. It really shows with how sloppy the writing was and how much lower the quality felt than what we're used to seeing from the show runner of Daredevil. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of the issues from these later shows came from the creative development period of these shows being severely limited in order to meet a release deadline, as it's easier to believe that than something like the writers of a show like Daredevil suddenly sucking at what they've proven that they could do extremely well before.
That said, I also have to admit that The Punisher still has me at least somewhat interested since The Punisher arc from season two of Daredevil is easily the high point of the entire Netflix MCU, and this show has the benefit of having a mostly clean slate and being largely separate from the rest of the Marvel Netflix shows in terms of both its content and cast.
I'm interested in how it seems to be a mish-mash of several Punisher eras. Like it will apparently do some of the darker comics like The Slavers, but include Micro and the Frankmobile.
I don't know how well that'll work, but I'm still very curious.
I'll probably still be keeping up with the Netflix shows unless we get a couple more Iron Fists, anyway.
I watched the Inhumans pilot for a laugh, and my God, that was bad in every way possible. Lame music for the soundtrack, actors who look constipated in every scene (especially Black Bolt and Karnak), a villain who makes so much of a good case for why the Inhumans are shit that you're wondering why he's the villain, and the goofiest ways they showed off their powers. (https://youtu.be/nmzNKeEBaUY?t=74)
Ever since Marvel has pushed Inhumans as the new mutants, I keep thinking "Why?" People like the X-Men because they're misfit underdogs who are given shit by society, have powers that hinder their life as much as it helps, and have complex, troubled lives, yet they try their best to do good regardless. While the Inhumans are weird moon royalty who still believe in eugenics and slavery. Why would anyone root for people like that over the likes of Cyclops and Wolverine?
Marvel originals are moving from Netflix to Disney's new streaming platform. (http://www.slashfilm.com/no-more-new-marvel-netflix-shows)
This won't end well
Quote from: Daikun on November 09, 2017, 06:03:25 PM
Marvel originals are moving from Netflix to Disney's new streaming platform. (http://www.slashfilm.com/no-more-new-marvel-netflix-shows)
Guess I'll just wait for the blu-ray releases from now on!
Guess they're blaming Netflix for the huge box office drops they've all been getting, since blaming piracy didn't work out so well.
Quote from: Daikun on November 09, 2017, 06:03:25 PM
Marvel originals are moving from Netflix to Disney's new streaming platform. (http://www.slashfilm.com/no-more-new-marvel-netflix-shows)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rhw2rxuRPco/hqdefault.jpg)I'm so happy that I abandoned ship.
I just finished binge-watching The Punisher. The reviews on this one have been pretty lukewarm, and in general Marvel's Netflix output has been pretty disappointing this year with Iron Fist being a dud and The Defenders being underwhelming in its overall mediocrity.
That said, in all honesty I really loved The Punisher. I'm honestly a bit surprised that the reviews for it aren't better than just alright with the general consensus. It does have some issues, but it's the same issues that literally ALL of these shows have, which is mainly the pacing (they really don't have to be 13 episodes long per season). Even then, though, I rarely found myself bored with the show and the acting was on-point here whereas all of the other shows, even Daredevil, had at least a few over-the-top or outright bad performances.
And unlike Luke Cage this show didn't have a major drop-off in quality in its second half. I'd even argue that it properly built up to its climax AND delivered on it in a way that most of these shows fail to do. And props to it having a real actual ending. While it leaves the possibility open for another season, it also wraps up all of its loose-ends in a way that could also make this a strong stand-alone miniseries with a fully realized arc and resolution. None of this bull-shit set up for future seasons that are overly crammed into every other Marvel show.
This is honestly one of my favorite comic book shows. Not really sure what everybody else was watching.
I'll have to check this one out. I skipped Iron Fist and I've been dragging on The Defenders but what you're saying piques my interest. :D I didn't think the second half of Luke Cage was particularly bad; definitely weaker than the first half, but it was still my favorite of the Marvel Netflix series so far even though I found Daredevil season 1 more consistent overall and Jessica Jones' conclusion more satisfying.
The second half of Luke Cage is damn good, just not as great as the first half.
Quote from: gunswordfist on November 19, 2017, 12:33:50 AM
The second half of Luke Cage is damn good, just not as great as the first half.
The main problem is that Cottonmouth was one of the most likable characters and best villains in the entire MCU while Diamondback was only marginally better than the movie villains. The stuff involving the protagonists remained just as good IMO, and I absolutely love that they made Wu-Tang Clan canonically part of the Marvel universe. :il_hahaha:
It still bugs me that Cottonmouth was a terrific antagonist, Shades was doing a lot of the lifting in a cool, unique manner, and Mariah was building herself up to be a worthy adversary, but the show decided to focus on a villain as mediocre as Diamondback. If the show's priorities were in better place, the show could have been a lot better.
tbh though, I've never understood the argument that the MCU's TV shows are better than their films. The movies are traditionally a lot more consistent imo.
That was just early hype from Daredevil and Jessica Jones being much better than expected. Both first seasons set a bar that none of the other shows/seasons could quite match (except for The Punisher, IMO).
They also happened to come out around the time that franchise fatigue was starting to set in for some people when it came to the MCU movies, so the new darker tone of the show was a breath of fresh air in a way that made them stand out more. Looking at it on the whole, though, the movies, while having a couple of duds in the mix, are generally a lot more consistent in quality.
Honestly, I think Daredevil season 1, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage are better than any of the MCU films I've seen except for maybe the first two Captain America films and Guardians of the Galaxy (still need to watch Vol. 2). But as a whole, are the shows better than the movies? After Iron Fist, Defenders, and especially Inhumans, I'd say definitely not.
Since Disney is taking all their Netflix shows and putting them on their own app, it leads to the amusing scenario of a small child playing on his iPad and accidentally clicking on The Punisher when they meant to search for Pixar films.
Quote from: Foggle on November 19, 2017, 10:26:58 PM
Honestly, I think Daredevil season 1, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage are better than any of the MCU films I've seen except for maybe the first two Captain America films and Guardians of the Galaxy (still need to watch Vol. 2). But as a whole, are the shows better than the movies? After Iron Fist, Defenders, and especially Inhumans, I'd say definitely not.
As someone who thinks Guardians 1 is laughably overrated, outside of having quite possibly the greatest climax ever, you gotta watch GOTG 2 dude.
I still stand by saying MCU's shows are better than their movies. I've missed Ant-Man, Ultron and haven't seen Ragnarok yet..damn, I watched more than I thought. Anyway, the tv shows only real hiccup is Iron Fist. While I don't think none of the movies are bad, there are a lot of disappointments...mostly Thor and Iron Man (even though I need to rewatch 3 without being distracted). While outside of Guardians 2 and what is my current favorite superhero movie, Winter Soldier, none of them have reached the highs I've gotten from Luke Cage, Daredevil, the first half of DD2 (probably my fav. part of any live action show) or The Defenders. Again, I need to do a lot of rewatching..which will probably mean me watching them on putlocker, but this is how I feel.
There are some parts of the MCU Netflix shows that the movies just can't outdo, like Wilson Fisk's arc, Jessica and Trish's relationship, the first half of Daredevil's second season, and Cottonmouth. But on the other side, the shows haven't yet accomplished that feel I got from watching Winter Soldier and Civil War.
Yeah, the first half of DD season 2 is sooooo good. I kind of lost interest after that but the first half may be the best material the MCU has produced thus far. I will say that the Captain America films definitely have a unique and special feel to them that I don't think anything else in the MCU has captured, so I definitely agree there too.
I liked Civil War when I first watched it, but as time has gone on I have developed a lot more issues with the movie. I still kind of enjoy it, but more so for certain scenes, characters, and aspects as opposed to the film as a whole. I also don't personally consider it to be a Captain America movie, no matter how Marvel wants to title it. If I'm to be honest, I kind of prefer Avengers: Age of Ultron, despite everyone giving that film way more shit.
The First Avenger on the other hand is an underrated tribute to golden age superhero tales and The Winter Soldier is one of my favorite comic book movies of all time, let alone the best MCU movie (IMO).
I'm also quite partial to Spider-Man: Homecoming. After re-watching it twice, I can say that it's actually a lot more well-constructed of a film than I initially realized (and I already liked it well enough on my first viewing). It also helps that Peter Parker/Spider-Man is a more naturally relatable character than most other comic book characters. I temporarily forgot about that with Sony's TASM films, but upon revisiting both this and the Raimi films, I was reminded of how compelling this character can be when done right. Also, it helps that this movie is basically a live-action take on TSSM (still my favorite super-hero related thing ever).
And yeah, The Punisher arc of Daredevil season 2 (the first four episodes in particular) is my favorite thing to come out of the entire MCU so far, period.
Quote from: Foggle on November 20, 2017, 02:00:01 PM
Yeah, the first half of DD season 2 is sooooo good. I kind of lost interest after that but the first half may be the best material the MCU has produced thus far. I will say that the Captain America films definitely have a unique and special feel to them that I don't think anything else in the MCU has captured, so I definitely agree there too.
I need to rewatch the Cap Trilogy. I still stand by loving The Winter Soldier for somehow surpassing the ludicrous hype I had for the film.
And yes, the first half of Daredevil S2 just might be that good. I don't think even John Woo's The Killer has pulled my heartstrings as hard as Jon's Punisher did, when it comes to badass characters.
Heh, I somehow forgot about Homecoming, you know, the last movie in theaters I've bothered watching. Everything else has been said so I'll just say that I love how tight the directing/camera work on that film is. Hell, it's my 2nd favorite MCU film. Probably current 1st since I owe TWS a rewatch just to be sure.
Yeah, I can't really argue about the first Punisher arc in DD season 2, or the high points of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. But it's also hard to go against Winter Soldier or the first Guardians.
Watched the series premiere of Runaways. Parts of it are cool and feel like the comic, while other parts feel a little too ABC Family for my taste. Confused on what they're doing with Molly, since not only is she not a Mutant due to rights issues but
Spoiler
her parents are dead and Gert's parents adopted her.
Since I've done it for the movies before, I figured that I'd quickly rank all of the Marvel Netflix shows from favorite to least favorite just based on my personal opinions right now:
1. Daredevil (Season 1)- This is still the bar by which all of these others shows are measured in terms of quality. It's not perfect, and it has its share of pacing issues like all the rest of these shows have, but it still genuinely holds up as good television.
2. The Punisher- I still insist that this one is a lot better than some people give it credit for. I love Jon Bernthal's portrayal of Frank Castle, and in terms of plotting, writing, acting, and directing, this is still the tightest season of any of these shows next to the first season of Daredevil, so far.
3. Jessica Jones- While it does have some bigger issues with pacing than the above two shows, the great moments present here really help it stand out. One thing I can definitely say about this one is that it manages to have highs without having any real lows. At worst it can just be kind of "meh" at times, but the high points really help bring you back into the experience.
4. Daredevil (Season 2)- As I've stated before, if we were to divide this up into arcs, The Punisher arc is so good that it's not only my favorite thing to come out of the Marvel Netflix TV shows, it's my favorite thing to come out of the entire MCU, period (yes, even above the first two Captain America films, which I have a strong personal love for). The rest of the season, however, is a mixed bag. I flat-out just don't like the Elektra, and I'm really not a fan of the actress portraying her in these shows. The final arc which sees Daredevil finally confront The Hand straight on has some good moments in it but also feels very victim to the MCU's bad tendency of trying to shoehorn in too much set-up into one story in order to set up another. I'd argue that this portion of Daredevil was an even worse offender of this trend than Avengers: Age of Ultron and Iron Man 2, which is really saying something in regards to the latter especially.
5. Luke Cage- I still maintain my opinion that the first half was excellent whereas the second half was a drop in quality. To be clear, I don't hate the second half, but I have more issues with it than just Diamondback being a weak villain. I also felt that the plot itself became less focused and more of a mess after the tightly paced and well-written first seven episodes.
6. The Defenders- After all of the build-up and hype for this, I think that everyone was really holding out hope for the Marvel Netflix shows to really come together and have their Avengers moment, and in all honesty we were really let down. On a surface level this is a perfectly competent show. However, beyond that, it never really rises above "just alright enough to not be bad." It's essentially high quality mediocrity, in that it's a show made by people talented enough to make good content, but only really succeeding at not making complete shit while not really doing anything to excel either. Even if these shows are supposed to be a bit darker and more down-to-earth and realistic than the movies, there still has to be an element of both high-stakes to incite the team-up, as well as some sort of feeling of grandeur to emphasize what a major event it is for these characters to be teaming up for the first time. Instead, what's supposed to be the biggest event in the MCU TV shows somehow feels like an even smaller deal than most of these shows do individually. For a point of comparison, while the CW DC shows aren't technically what you would call particularly great shows, if nothing else, they have a much firmer grasp on how to do an exciting and memorable crossover than this series. Basically, either go all-out, or don't even bother. That said, I still say that it would work much better if, just like in real comic books, we had characters from one-show crossover onto another for one or two episodes to establish that they inhabit the same Universe and occasionally work together, as opposed to just pretending that the other characters flat-out don't exist until the next season of The Defenders rolls around. Once again, even the CW DC shows at least get this much right.
7. Iron Fist- It's just not a very good show. For what it's worth, I'd still take even this dung-heap over Agents of SHIELD or Inhumans, but that's about the best thing that I can say about it, and it's not really much. I honestly don't have much to add beyond that. They're honestly better off just making Danny Rand a side character in the next season of Luke Cage (if they still intend to keep him around), than to give this show another full season. Essentially make him the MCU TV equivalent of what The Hulk is in the movies.
1. Jessica Jones- I can't argue against the show's pacing issues, or its weak supporting cast. But this still resonates stronger for me than any of the other Netflix series. Besides how genuinely terrifying Kilgrave is, Jessica and Tish's friendship is easily among the strongest of the MCU, and the mystery direction works. And while the fight scenes are the least impressive here, I don't think that's a detriment, but rather fits with the story and characters. It might not be the strongest overall, but it's my personal favorite.
2- Daredevil season 1- Easily the most consistent season thus far, it did almost make #1, but I just really connected with JJ a bit more. But this is a tight super hero show that only occasionally got a little big for its britches. It's also anchored by a strong core cast, as Foggy and Karen work well with Matt early on, and Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin just about surpasses Michael Clarke Duncan's take on the character, which itself was easily the movie's strong suit.
3- The Punisher- I mostly enjoyed this one, aside from Madani being practically worthless. The action scenes were fresh and exciting, finally taking a break from the other shows constantly trying and failing to match that stairwell fight in Daredevil's second episode. Instead, we get some exciting shoot outs and some other brutal twists. It also helps that Jon Bernthal is fully committed to the character, and gets a great performance out of him. He also works well with Micro, and even Karen, who's less of a wet blanket here than she was in Daredevil's second season. I think of all the shows thus far, this is by far the most that I want more of, which speaks a lot to its quality.
4- Luke Cage- We've talked about what doesn't work about the series before, and there's not a big need to repeat most of that here. I think another problem that I had with the series is Luke himself; Mike Colter does well with action scenes, but when the show needs him to pick up big dramatic moments, he wasn't totally game for it, which especially becomes apparent with the wealth of talent in the cast. Besides that, I give it points for giving the most character to its location- I get a better feel for Luke's side of Harlem than I did for Hell's Kitchen, or pretty much any other MCU location aside from maybe Queens in Homecoming. And I am curious to see where they go with Mariah in season 2.
5- Daredevil season 2- I almost put this above Luke Cage for the first Punisher arc, which is absolutely wonderful. But I really do not like the show's take on Elektra or the Hand, which is a shame, since I really like her character in the comics. This is the second time she's been screwed over in media now. I also really got tired of Matt and Karen's bullshit, and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to them having more scenes together in season 3.
6- The Defenders- I wasn't expecting the next Avengers, but I was hoping for something a little more notable. Or at least try to fix some of the flaws of certain characters, but the show only seemed to double down on Danny's stupidity and Elektra's annoyingness. When the heroes worked together, it could be entertaining, but on the whole, it's a strangely forgettable crossover.
7- Iron Fist- There were hints at a good show in the middle act, when Colleen and Claire showed surprisingly likable chemistry with each other. Davos was another decent addition, and I might like to see where his story goes in season 2. But Danny just fails every test of believability and likability, while the Meachums were no better. As annoying as the show got, I did think there was potential here, but Danny needs a serious overhaul, or these shows need more of a sense of humor to make it so we can laugh at him, not with.
I've been reading through Frank Miller's Daredevil run, and while I know that season three will definitely be covering Born Again, I hope that it finds a way to fit Gangwar in there because it's a pretty damn great Kingpin story. Just change things around to keep Vanessa dead instead of it being a fake out, because fuck that character. Also it's about time that we get a genuinely good version of Bullseye in live action, so there's that, too.
I actually rewatched season 1 of Jessica Jones on and off recently, and I still really like the series. The weak parts are a little less iffy than I remembered, while the core story and characters that worked still really hold up. I'm about to start season 2 now.
Season 2 of Jessica Jones is a step-down overall, but not irredeemable.
Spoiler
For one thing, I feel like this is the only one of these shows that improved in the second half, as its themes started to mesh a little better and started to build on the main story. I also liked Hogarth and Malcolm a lot more this time around than I was expecting to, as they were only okay for me at best in the first season. Also, no Robyn, and Will was killed in his only appearance.
But a lot of it didn't work as well as I'd have liked. Trish's addiction arc didn't seem to have much of a point. It could have been built more on the stress of her reuniting with her mother and abuser, but she started using the inhaler... just cause? And I also wasn't a big fan of Sterling being the reason Jessica formed Alias, as it feels like he was literally made up on the spot. I'll give it credit that they had decent chemistry and while cliche, the episode dealing with it worked fine, but it was a half-ass reveal. And despite being a strong reveal, Alisa was no substitute for Kilgrave. Although I don't really know how you could top him. His appearance was probably the best episode of the season.
I'd probably put this in Luke Cage/Daredevil season 2 range. Definitely better than Iron Fist and Defenders, but not as strong as this or Daredevil's first season, or Punisher.
Honestly, this whole season felt way too padded and really shows that this mandatory 13-episode season structure is bad for these shows. You could boil this season down to just four or five episodes and it would likely flow a lot smoother.
Overall, though, this whole season was a massive disappointment. Jessica herself is the saving grace, but I didn't like anything else about it. The new characters all sucked, I hated Trish's subplot, and Hogarth's ALS issue didn't really connect back to any of the core characters or story in any meaningful way. Worst of all, though, is that most of the season was just painfully boring. In a weird way I found it even harder to get through than Iron Fist. That show was worse all around, but at least it had quite a few laughably bad moments worth sticking around for. Most of JJ season two was just stuck in this odd neutral territory of neither good nor awful, but just "meh."
I think part of why I liked the Hogarth stuff so much, besides it giving Carrie-Anne Moss the chance to show off some acting weight, is because of how disconnected it is from the core story. I liked that it rarely intersected with Jessica or Trish's arcs. In hindsight, that is probably more of a negative on the season, though.
These seasons definitely do run too long, although if The Defenders was anything, it was an example of how cutting the episode order isn't the only solution to making these shows more consistent. Maybe they should only be 5 episodes long, but I'd honestly suggest that maybe these should stop being season-long arcs, and should be more episodic. I'm not even saying exactly procedural-esq, but maybe even go back to something like the Whedon shows which balanced story with case of the episode material. I get that overarcing storylines are in right now, but not every show can be Breaking Bad.
Despite the overall quality being somewhat mixed, I feel as though Daredevil season two had the right sort of approach. Instead of doing one big story-line, break up the season into smaller, loosely connected story arcs. The Punisher arc comprises the first four episodes and is amazing. The Elektra arc is a bit more lopsided but a lot of that has to do with me not being a fan of her actress (she does a pretty poor job with the character, IMO) and her having so much screentime (but The Punisher side-plot in that arc is of course the best part of it), and the third arc is the Nobu arc which is a bit better than Elektra but does suffer a bit from trying too hard to set-up for The Defenders. Regardless, though, one thing that they all have in common is that none of them feel dragged out. They play out more like chapters of a larger story, with some being better than others, but if you don't like one, you can at least have hope that the next part is better. On the other hand, if you're already growing bored or outright disliking a season-wide arc like in Iron Fist or JJ season two, then you pretty much know that you're in for a long-ass slog the entire rest of the way.
I watched four or so episodes of the new season. And yeah, the producers don't have a story worth telling for 13 hours.
Spoiler
I am annoyed they killed off Nuke, meaning he won't have a place in Daredevil season 3.
Jessica Jones Season 2 is the worst Marvel Netflix show ever.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on March 15, 2018, 11:47:53 PM
I watched four or so episodes of the new season. And yeah, the producers don't have a story worth telling for 13 hours.
Spoiler
I am annoyed they killed off Nuke, meaning he won't have a place in Daredevil season 3.
Him being alive was a bright spot quickly taken away from this show.
Legion's back, and so are the dance-offs. (https://youtu.be/KvdKqaiqI_U)
Recently got the season one Blu-Ray from Amazon. I want to give it a full re-watch before jumping into season two, so I may fall a bit behind.
Quote from: gunswordfist on April 05, 2018, 04:27:24 PM
Jessica Jones Season 2 is the worst Marvel Netflix show ever.
This is what I keep hearing.
Really hoping they don't botch up DD season 3. The Netflix shows are kind of sliding downhill.
Speaking of the Netflix shows in relation to the MCU, while the original plan was clearly to have these characters cross-over into the movies at some point, in retrospect it's good that they decided against that seeing as how over-stuffed the cast of Infinity War already is. That said, I must admit, part of me is disappointed in the fact that I'll never get to see a scene of The Punisher and Rocket Raccoon mowing down a bunch of Outriders together or Thanos using the Time Stone to erase Iron Fist season one from the MCU canon and the Reality Stone to recast Danny Rand with a better actor.
Oh, well, I suppose that's what fan-fiction exists for. :>
Got a newsletter from Warren Ellis explaining why Kingpin is so evil.
QuoteThesis: Wilson Fisk is the greatest villain in the Marvel film/tv universe. He is more evil than Thanos and all those other bastards. Evidence:
https://youtu.be/u7EmsWIQeio
The omelette is an ancient French dish, one of that wonderful people's greatest gifts to the world. It's a three minute job at most, and less than two of those are in the pan. It is simple and should be pure. Don't put milk in it. You don't need butter. Don't fucking flip it like it's eggs over easy. It's a fucking omelette. He does these things to destroy the omelette because he is evil. Eeeeee villllll. He only uses butter and milk so he can destroy more things while making breakfast.
Get a small non-stick pan on the hob, at three-quarters heat. Crack two eggs into a bowl and dash them with a fork for thirty seconds. You don't need to whisk them. An omelette should not be a homogenous mass. You want ribbons of yolk and white tangled together.
When a tiny drop of water in the pan sizzles when it hits, pour the eggs in.
Leave alone for thirty seconds. Just let it sit and work.
Take the pan and shake it, like you're doing figure-eights with your wrist. Most of the work here is with the pan handle. If you're really good, you won't need a spatula at all. But this isn't a test. Lift the edges of the forming omelette with the spatula. After a minute, the whole thing will become free of the pan and slide around. Keep shaking it. You want the top to look like scrambled eggs, shiny and almost-set.
This is why you don't fiip it. An omelette is an exercise in textures. Firm to the bite on one side, soft and airy on the other.
If you want a filling, it goes in now, just for fifteen/twenty seconds to warm it up.
Then you flip the right hand side of the omelette into the middle. You will see that the underside has become firm and golden.
Slide the whole thing on to your plate so the left hand side folds underneath.
Now you season. I'm currently using black sea salt and smoked paprika.
I had some left over aromatic duck from a Chinese meal last night,so I just shredded a little bit of that. Experiment. You can wilt baby spinach right on top of it for twenty seconds. Some people grate cheese in. Sometimes I chop up some red bell pepper and toss that in.
Perfect is the enemy of good. As you will see below, today's is a little ragged and a touch too gold in places. But you're not making food for a photo book. You're making something that tastes good and surrounds the intent of the object. It's just eggs, comrade.
If you're counting: without the filling, this omelette is around 150 calories and around 25g of protein. It's not classical, because it doesn't use butter, but in the days of good non-stick pans, I don't personally think it's vital. Your mileage may vary. People will tell you to use water (for the steam effect, to aerate the omelette) or milk (for reasons beyond my understanding). (Actually, no: I suspect milk in particular is a chef's tool for banging out a reliable omelette for two hundred covers at breakfast.) I always prefer to experience the thing in itself, for itself. Don't be Wilson Fisk.
In the words of Madame Poularde: "I break some good eggs into a bowl, I beat them well, I put in a good piece of butter in the pan. I throw the eggs into it and I shake it constantly. I am happy, monsieur, if this recipe pleases you."
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on April 05, 2018, 07:35:49 PM
Quote from: gunswordfist on April 05, 2018, 04:27:24 PM
Jessica Jones Season 2 is the worst Marvel Netflix show ever.
This is what I keep hearing.
Really hoping they don't botch up DD season 3. The Netflix shows are kind of sliding downhill.
I seriously doubt that'll be a problem. The shows have two separate teams...I think.
I watched the premiere of Cloak and Dagger. I like Tyrone's character and his issues toward that police officer, but Tandy was just a bitch. Like if someone watched Sarah from Orphan Black and took everything remotely likable away from her.
I was really into this season of Luke Cage up until the last episode.
Spoiler
Really? Luke becomes a crime boss after seeing how much of a monster Mariah was? If he really needed a firmer hand to protect Harlem, couldn't he just call Danny to help him out again? Use a literal Iron Fist than a figurative one? Because what the show tries to do by having Luke talk about making Harlem great again while DW calls him Trump? That allegory doesn't flow for me. Even with the prior hints like Luke almost killing Cockroach and getting mad at Claire, it was still hard to believe him turning heel.
From what I'm reading about season 2 of Iron Fist, it's a step-up from the first, primarily action-wise but still isn't perfect. I'll get to it eventually, but I'm already getting kind of tired of these shows. Although cutting the season down from 13 to 10 episodes sounds a little more enticing.
Same here. I am still legitimately interested in Daredevil season three since I'm a fan of that character, but while I initially enjoyed seasons one of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, I have since had no desire to re-watch them, and both of their second seasons, while not necessarily bad, felt like a huge slog for me to get through. The Defenders was also disappointingly lackluster, and after how much I fucking loved Infinity War, ot feels like such a shame that the Netflix shows can't even come close to capturing that same level of chemistry between their characters here. I may have mostly given up on the CW DC shows, but even those at least have way more fun crossovers. While I will still watch it, I am currently in no hurry to get around to Iron Fist's new season.
I genuinely enjoyed The Punisher, and if they ever make another season of that, I'll certainly give it a shot. Again, same with Daredevil, which is the only one of these shows that actually feels like it remembers that, among other things, it's a superhero show with actual super heroics involved, whereas the other shows seem to get way too up their own ass in delivering us an obvious and ham-fisted message rife with an over-abundance of social commentary. So, as for the other Defenders shows, I'm personally pretty much done with them at this point.
I didn't like Jessica Jones' second season at all, and mostly kept Defenders on as background noise, but I did enjoy Luke Cage's second season. As for Iron Fist, his second outing is an improvement so far. It doesn't feel as off as it was last year.
I liked parts of Luke Cage season two, but the slow pacing really hurt it for me. I feel like you could have cut it down by four or five episodes and it would've felt so much tighter. Mariah's character arc with her daughter was great, as was Bushmaster's complex motivations, but Shades's sub-plot was really hard for me to get into, and I wasn't really feeling Luke's arc of trying to repair his relationship with his father. It was more of a mixed bag for me, with good parts sprinkled in here and there, as opposed to season one where I distinctly love the first half but wasn't too big on everything after Diamondback took over.
I didn't even like Mariah's stuff or Bushmaster as much. You could easily make a drinking game of each time she mentions how her daughter is the only thing she has going for her, and he didn't really stick out for me. And I'm still not sold on Mike Colter as Luke. I don't think he has the acting chops to sell him as well as Charlie Cox or Krysten Ritter do their characters.
The season worked better for me than Jessica Jones' second, but I wasn't that into it.
I really liked Mariah's arc. How the events from the first season have broken her apart and took her to a course in villainy that even disturbed Shades, and her failed attempts at bonding with Nightshade. And Bushmaster starting off as this crazy superhuman who cuts off people's heads as intimidation tactics, but then we slowly realize he and Luke aren't so different.
So, I finally got around to Iron Fist Season 2 and it went from being hilariously bad to being boringly mundane. I mean, yeah, nothing in this season was nearly as outright atrocious as season one in terms of writing or acting (well, there were SOME bits that still came off really cheesy), but it also had no real highs either, so in a way it kind of feels worse than season one since I could at least laugh at the incompetence of that. The sad thing is that if done right, Iron Fist could have easily been my favorite of the Netflix Defenders shows. martial arts movies fantastical Asian mythology (which should have been the main inspiration for this show's tone) are so much up my alley that it should be the easiest thing to make me get into. And yet we have a show that takes itself far too seriously and has absolutely no fun with its concept. It basically tries too hard to be Daredevil but doesn't manage to do that show's concept nearly as well.
In all honesty, though, while they mostly started out strong, I've been getting really tired of the Netflix Marvel shows aside from Daredevil and The Punisher; though, on that note, I am genuinely excited for Daredevil season 3 since it's covering my favorite story arc from the comics. That said, does anyone else find issue with the release schedule for these shows. They released new seasons of each of the solo shows in such quick succession of each other that it kind of felt overwhelming and made this section of the Universe feel way too over-saturated. I mean, people complain about three MCU movies a year being too much, but damn does this make that release schedule look widely spread out. We got new seasons of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Daredevil just over a month apart each, and Jessica Jones was just a few months before that. I'm not sure who's idea it was to release these new seasons like this, but it was a pretty terrible one as it just makes it that much harder to want to keep up with these anymore.
Say what you want about the movies, but at least the film division of Marvel knows how to make the properties that they adapt build off of each other and make the shared Universe concept all the more enticing. When it comes to the shows, for as much praise as we initially gave them, it's clear that they worked far better as stand-alone affairs. The shared Universe aspect doesn't feel properly implemented at all, and honestly becomes more cumbersome as these series' continue. It's just more "stuff" rather than interconnecting pieces that cleverly work together to make for something even grander on the whole.
Yeah, the release schedule is weird. I haven't even finished Iron Fist yet, and the new Daredevil season is coming next week. It's like if the Marvel movies came out every month instead of 3 a year.
I'm starting to think that Netflix is trying to get as much as they can out of these shows before Disney's streaming service comes, in case they find a way to get Marvel out of their contract.
I agree about Iron Fist season 2- it's in just about every regard a better show, but it also lost a bit of the (admittedly dumb) fun that made the first season not an entire slog to sit through. It was a humorless drag that even with solid fight scenes (but I'm really ready to call any fight scene that isn't trying to recreate the staircase scene way back in Daredevil S1 at least somewhat entertaining at this point) made it hard to watch more than an episode or two at a time. And apparently it's the first of these shows to be cancelled, which I say no loss to.
Iron Fist has been canned. (https://t.co/WJNSNy8zUR) I guess this means we're getting more Danny in the next season of Luke Cage.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on October 12, 2018, 10:13:31 PM
Say what you want about the movies, but at least the film division of Marvel knows how to make the properties that they adapt build off of each other and make the shared Universe concept all the more enticing. When it comes to the shows, for as much praise as we initially gave them, it's clear that they worked far better as stand-alone affairs. The shared Universe aspect doesn't feel properly implemented at all, and honestly becomes more cumbersome as these series' continue. It's just more "stuff" rather than interconnecting pieces that cleverly work together to make for something even grander on the whole.
Totally agree. I loved the first seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, but I didn't particularly enjoy DD season 2 (outside of the first three episodes, which were amazing) and couldn't even make it through Defenders or Iron Fist season 1. I honestly have no interest in watching the Punisher series or the second seasons of Jessica and Luke, which is really weird to me because I was all in on the Marvel Netflix stuff at first. I think the main thing keeping me from wanting to watch these is that they feel way too long. Daredevil season 1 was a little bloated at times but benefited a lot from its length because it had exceptional development for both Matt and Fisk as characters. Season 2 had no business being as long as it was imo, and Jessica Jones season 1 started spinning its wheels at the 2/3 point because it felt like the writers were ready to end the story but execs told them it absolutely had to be 13 episodes long. I didn't dislike the second half of Luke Cage season 1 nearly as much as many people did but it really should have been like 10 episodes total and kept Cottonmouth as the villain the whole time.
The thing is that you can read an entire TPB in like 30-45 minutes (or an hour if you're slow as shit like me) and I think superhero stories do really well with that kind of fast pacing. The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon moved a mile a minute but it didn't feel rushed and the characters managed to develop
a lot over the course of those 26 22-minute episodes (shorter than the run time of a single Netflix season!). Spider-Man 2 has a really satisfying story that packs in plenty of emotional and fun moments AND manages to make Dr. Octopus an interesting, sympathetic character - all in a little over two hours. And obviously people love the MCU movies because they keep making bank. I'm not sure why Marvel feels that their "street level" heroes need to have their stories adapted via molasses-slow prestige dramas that go out of their way to avoid even uttering the name "Captain America" as if the writers are embarrassed to be working with a superhero IP.
I wouldn't say Marvel Netflix has gone completely off the rails yet. While Season 2 of Jessica Jones felt aimless, Season 2 of Luke Cage was a step up from the first season. It made up for how lacking Diamondback was by bringing in Bushmaster, along with gripping dialogue scenes between Mariah and Nightshade and the one with Shades and Comanche. There was some baggage that could have been cut, but I think the Luke Cage showrunners are doing better than the others.
Also, I guess with Disney announcing their streaming service will have MCU shows, ones that actually have movie characters like Wanda and Loki, it'll be interesting to see the MCU shows compete with each other.
Foggle: Yeah, the biggest issue with these shows is the pacing. Hell, even the good seasons suffer to an extent from being padded out. Though, since you brought it up, I actually really liked The Punisher. It feels very stand-alone and tells a complete and engaging story that has a beginning, middle, and end and doesn't even do any sequel baiting like most of these shows tend to do. Frank Castle goes through a pretty interesting character arc and becomes a far more multi-dimensional and nuanced person than the grim-dark killing machine that he started out as. The reviews for this season were mixed, but I actually fall on the side of people who really loved it. It does still suffer from those typical pacing issues to an extent, and is far from perfect even beyond that, but it's honestly my favorite of these shows to have come out since Daredevil and Jessica Jones's first seasons.
Your posts do make me feel better about Luke Cage season 2 and The Punisher. I'll probably at least check both of those out sometime. Hopefully Daredevil season 3 will be really good too. What was so bad about Jessica Jones season 2, by the way? I'm morbidly curious but I don't feel like dedicating the time to watch it if it's awful despite loving the first season.
I don't know that I'd call it awful, myself. I just found it to be a very boring and tedious affair, and I absolutely couldn't stand a certain character who happened to be a major focus of the season.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on October 13, 2018, 01:17:27 PM
I don't know that I'd call it awful, myself. I just found it to be a very boring and tedious affair, and I absolutely couldn't stand a certain character who happened to be a major focus of the season.
Which character is it? I remember season 1 had one
really terrible character but I'm pretty sure she died at the end of it. I remember liking everyone else.
It's a new character introduced in this season, but I didn't say who to avoid spoilers. If you don't care, though, then it's:
Spoiler
Jessica's mother.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on October 13, 2018, 04:15:30 AMAlso, I guess with Disney announcing their streaming service will have MCU shows, ones that actually have movie characters like Wanda and Loki, it'll be interesting to see the MCU shows compete with each other.
Based on this, I want a Loki mini-series based on his story arc from Journey into Mstery. There's even a basis for this since in both the comics and movie Universes, he died during a big crossover event, which means that he can be reborn much like he was in the comics. In the case of the show, if for some reason they can't get Tom Hiddleston to agree to do it (most likely for cost reasons), then they have an already built-in excuse within the context of the Universe to replace him with a younger actor with equally great comedic chops (though, I don't want Hiddleston to be replaced, but I'm just assuming that the possibility is there). You'd have to replace Hela, though, since I doubt that Cate Blanchett would ever be willing to reprise that role for a show. There would also be a basis to replace the actors for most supporting Asgardian characters (or pretty much anyone aside from Thor himself) if they used bits of Straczynski's run to explain how that happened.
I'd also like a Hawkeye mini-series based on Matt Fraction's run.
Luke Cage joins his comic partner Iron Fist in the Cancellation column.
https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-cancels-marvels-luke-cage/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=58469612
Was this due to bad viewership numbers, or were both series canceled because they're doing Heroes for Hire after all?
Heroes for Hire may not be out of the question, but I'm still not expecting Netflix and Marvel's partnership to last that much longer.
So, I've been marathoning my way through Daredevil Season 3 today.
I've made it no secret that I've been thoroughly disappointed with the Marvel Netflix output since the latter half of Daredevil Season 2, even though there are things that I've liked here and there in each show (and again, The Punisher was an exception to the rule). However, despite all of this, I was still very excited for Daredevil Season 3 since it's heavily inspired by the Born Again story-line, one of my favorite comic book stories that I've ever read, personally.
So far, whereas the other shows have been a slog for me and it's been hard to watch more than a single episode per sitting, I've just gone through seven episodes straight of Daredevil's latest season, and I'm loving every minute of it. It's not really my bias, either, since despite loving the story that serves as the main influence for this season, it's still at best a very loose adaptation of that source material. That said, something about the decisions that they made going into this season are really clicking with me in a strong way. They completely ditched the convoluted stuff with Elektra and The Hand from Season 2 and The Defenders, and instead went back to basics focusing on the conflict between Daredevil and Wilson Fisk, and the show is that much better for it. However, while it's still too early to say, I'm also liking this even better than season one as, despite being about the same length, I'm not feeling the same pacing issues that tend to plague most of these shows.
The plot is kept simple and there are very few scenes so far that feel like obvious filler or padding to me. Additionally, I really love how they've handled Bullseye so far. My only real knowledge of him from the comics comes from Miller's Daredevil run, so I'm not all that up to speed on other interpretations of the character, but much like the rest of this show, his character here seems to be a very loose adaptation of his comic book counterpart, but regardless, I absolutely love what they've done with this character. His backstory is an interesting parallel to Matt's in regard to how they both felt abandoned growing up, yet made vastly different life choices and walked down very different paths in response to that feeling. It really makes him an excellent foil for Matt/Daredevil, which while that's supposed to be The Kingpin's role, is necessary here since of course Fisk is confined for most of the season so far. Also, it gives a great excuse for a great combat-based rivalry between the two as relative equals, since while Fisk could take on Daredevil just fine on his own, you aren't really going to get well-choreographed fights from his side of the equation. And on that end, the way the action is filmed here really does remind me of how good this show is at doing action. This is especially apparent after the choppy editing and over-use of quick-cuts present in Iron Fist.
Also, I'm really liking how "most" of the side characters are being handled here compared to previous seasons (as well as most Marvel Netflix shows in general). I say most because there is one new supporting character in particular who kind of annoys me, but otherwise the returning cast is handled very well in terms of the writing. I've made it no secret that I was rather irritated how nagging and oppressive Foggy was to Matt in Season 2, for example, and I still stand by that, as I don't feel that his reasons for good enough justification for acting the way that he did. However, Season 3 fixes a lot of that for me by showing him wanting to be a more supportive friend regardless of whether he's ticked off at Matt or not, since he also understands the importance of the fact that Matt is saving innocent lives. Likewise, even characters opposed to Matt or Daredevil tend to have much better reasons and clearer motivations for how they align themselves than in the preceding season.
So, yeah, overall this season has been a pleasant return to form for me, and I can't wait to binge through the rest of it tomorrow.
I'm shocked Jessica Jones got renewed and Luke Cage didn't. I assume they will probably relaunch both it and Iron Fist together as Heroes For Hire with the Cage showrunner, but who knows.
And good to hear that Daredevil season 3 is an improvement!
So, I ended up finishing Daredevil season three in just two days.
I don't normally do this, especially when something is still fresh in my mind, but I'm going to go ahead and say that this is my personal favorite season of any live-action superhero show ever. It manages to get almost everything right to such a high degree that it even makes season one look more flawed in retrospect (and that's not a knock against season one as much as it is a praise of this one). It's sort of like the DMC3 to season one's DMC1 in that way. Going back to the roots of the original while improving upon it in just about every conceivable way. I'd say that as far as pacing goes, while all Netflix Marvel seasons drag at points, this is the one that came the closest to justifying its 13-episode run for me, and if there's any part of it that dragged, it was the beginning couple of episodes (and even those were still good, IMO). That said, episode four and on were just so tightly-written and paced. There's one major flashback episode in the back-half of the season that could also serve as a detractor in that it halts the momentum of the show up to that point, but at the same time it's sort of like what Stick did in season one, so I don't mind it all that much.
This doesn't change my mind about the Netflix Marvel shows steadily declining in quality as they have gone on, but this is a very pleasant exception to the rule. I wouldn't really care if every other Marvel Netflix series got canceled (even The Punisher, which I personally really liked, was stand-alone enough to not really need a sequel season), but this one is still great enough to deserve to keep going for at least one or two more seasons, IMO. There's enough good source material to serve as inspiration for future stories that could be on par with what we've seen so far, but I definitely wouldn't want it to go past five seasons and end up feeling as tired and predictable as every other superhero TV series still going on today (not including Legion, as I still haven't seen its second season).
Spoiler
I had no idea who could possibly be paying for Bullseye's surgery instead of leaving him in prison crippled from the neck down, so I checked the name of the doctor on the Marvel wiki (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Kenji_Oyama_(Earth-616)). So I guess Lady Deathstrike's dad is the main villain for season 4.
It took me a little longer to finish it than I'd like, but I'm wrapping up season 3 of Daredevil now. See, MCU, this is why you don't kill off your villain the moment they're introduced. Bringing Fisk back was the right call, and Bullseye made for a great addition as well. This is easily the best season since The Punisher.
Goddamn it, again? (https://deadline.com/2018/11/daredevil-canceled-netflix-3-seasons-1202511521/)
This one particularly stung. While the second seasons of Luke Cage and Iron Fist held improvements over their first, I just plainly never clicked with either shows the way I did for most of Daredevil's run, nor do I think they could have done anything as good as its third season. And I really do think they could have come up with at least one more solid season, if not two.
There has to be something going on. And I wouldn't be surprised if Jessica Jones and/or The Punisher ends up with them on the block before the end of the year. If they don't, that'll probably be it.
I understand why the is happening, and was even expecting it, but I'm still not happy about it. I couldn't care less about the other shows aside from Jessica Jones season 1 and The Punisher, but Daredevil was really something special and stood out among the more family friendly stuff in the MCU. I guarantee that you'll never get to see anything like that on a Disney streaming service.
If nothing else, at least Daredevil went out on a high note.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 29, 2018, 09:28:32 PM
I guarantee that you'll never get to see anything like that on a Disney streaming service.
Sigh... yeah. (https://twitter.com/sepinwall/status/1068324396513837058)
Marvel/Disney were not involved in the cancellations. (https://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/12/01/marvel-tv-execs-shocked-daredevil-cancellation/) I can only assume that Netflix is purging all the shows that they don't fully own (American Vandal's been cancelled for similar reasons). Since even though it went down in views, Daredevil was still a highly watched show on streaming platforms.
(https://i.imgur.com/D5NDYtH.png)
For what it's worth, though, even though it wasn't intended to be the ending, season three still works out to be a nearly perfect conclusion to the story.
Spoiler
Kingpin is back in jail, and this time is likely to stay there for good. Matt, Foggy, and Karen are finally back together again. And Matt has finally had his faith restored and affirmed by Nadeem's sacrifice, proving that people can be redeemed. Just about every plot thread set up since season one has been satisfyingly resolved, with the lone exception of Bullseye. That said, even in this case, it could be seen as a way that Matt will always have evil to fight, but otherwise it's a solid ending to the narrative.
While these shows clearly won't be integrated into the MCU at this point, I do hope that Disney at least shows some respect to it's fanbase and doesn't try to use alternate versions of these characters for at least a few years. As it is, I don't think that I can picture another Matt Murdock being as good as the one that Charlie Cox played.
Another thread worth checking (https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/1069649213498277889).
It's official- Punisher and Jessica Jones are cancelled. The third season of JJ will be Marvel's last Netflix show.
I'll still give season 3 of JJ a shot, even after the second one's mehtastic turn, but I was not a big fan of Punisher season 2. It just never really went anywhere for me, which is a shame since I really did like the first season.
I agree. The Punisher season two was dreadfully boring. I will defend the first season as underrated and I'd still argue that Jon Bernthal puts on a genuinely good performance for the character, with his arc of Daredevil season two being some of my favorite MCU content. However, I had to crawl through season two at a snail's pace, and it honestly felt like doing homework just to watch the entire thing so that I could say that I watched all of the Netflix Marvel shows. If not for that, I would've just dropped it.
From out of the ashes comes a Ghost Rider show. (https://twitter.com/IamGabrielLuna/status/1123590774308737025)
Would've preferred Blaze or Ketch, especially if they're planning to adapt Midnight Sons, but this is still awesome.
Even though Game of Thrones has left a bitter aftertaste to the idea, I've been wondering how Marvel could conquer the hour long prestige drama like they've done with movies. They've certainly tried with the Netflix shows, but they've gotten too many bumps in the road, or they were cancelled before they could really stretch their wings. And the Disney+ shows feel more like miniseries than anything that could reach the ambitious scope of Breaking Bad. I think I mentioned this before, but using the X-Men would sound like a great idea. Hundreds of characters with their own intertwined arcs and labyrinthine plots would be great in a TV format, and would help differentiate MCU's X-Men from the movies. If not them, maybe try out a villain. Make someone like Dr. Doom the Marvel equivalent of Walter White/Tony Soprano.
In order for something like that to work they'd need to pick an ensemble of characters that could work with consistently smaller-scale stories which wouldn't require a huge budget and lent itself well to drama. With something like the X-Men, you definitely could pull that off, but I feel as though the FOX X-Men films have trained audiences to expect bigger, more important stories from them. Perhaps if it was one of the spin-offs or off-shoots of the X-Men, you could pull that off a bit easier.
The funny thing is they already kind of have a prestige-level series like that with Legion, but the only problem is that nobody watched it because of how weird and over-the-top it looks.
Honestly, though, I feel that having intertwining mini-series actually IS the best way for Marvel to stand-out as opposed to just trying to be like GOT or something of that sort. Marvel stories aren't really the best suited for long story-lines with a definitive ending point, but those short, sweet, stylized comic runs would be perfect for them, in trying to adapt stuff like Tom King's Vision run, or Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run. And we already have a Loki series confirmed, with the Journey into Mystery and Agent of Asgard runs being perfect inspiration for how that series could work, mixing humor and wit to make for a very unique take on the MCU, seeing it through the eyes of someone who's clearly not a hero but is willing to work against even worse people than himself by playing dirty and outsmarting them. There's a lot of potential there.
Pleasantly surprised to see Andrew Stanton in the director's credit for this season premiere of Legion.
Oh yeah, I finished season 3 of Jessica Jones the other night. I thought it was an improvement over the previous run, but still not as good as the first season, and only somewhat of a satisfying conclusion. While I more or less liked seeing Trish deal with her powers, it just reminded me that I wish these shows were more episodic instead of attempting to be 13 hour movies. And that they had more of a sense of humor.
Now that it's over the halfway point of the final season, it's finally struck me just how rare Legion is. People like to say Disney could never make Logan or Deadpool, but they forget even Fox had cold feet over both movies and Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds respectively had to heavily negotiate and take a pay cut just so those movies could even get made. While with Legion, this is the kind of product I don't think we're going to see from Marvel again any time soon. This is a really alienating show. None of the characters are particularly good people. Both of the leads are rapists. All the scenes this season where the audio switches to Chinese and you get a lecture on how time travel works. It teeters on a thin line between "Psychological post-modern masterpiece that turns a C-list X-Men character into a complex tragic hero/villain" and "Pretentious garbage that learned the wrong lessons from Twin Peaks and makes you question why any executive greenlit this". Legion's mostly on the former category for me, but it definitely plays with fire so much that I can get why it's hard to find other people who like watching the show.
That sounds amazing, I'll have to give it a look. :thumbup:
It's a little bit like Noah Hawley's other work Fargo, as that show isn't an adaptation or sequel to the movie but a show that takes place in that movie's universe and re-interprets and analyzes other Coen Brothers movies. Though that series is a lot more understandable than Legion.
Legion was at its best in its first season for me, but I'm still somewhat captivated by its refusal to stick to any kind of norm. It's not always fun to watch, but it's usually still pretty interesting, more than enough to justify sticking around.
Heard a rumor Marvel wants to reboot Luke Cage and Iron Fist for the movies. Despite how many times Marvel Netflix fell, it's still a shame because I think the actors more than earned their place to stand next to their movie counterparts. Takes me back to when the lead actress for Agents of SHIELD was angry at Marvel Studios for treating TV characters like they're the black sheep of the MCU. I think if they wanted to put Luke or Danny (or Colleen considering their show's ending) on the big screen or another series, they should keep those actors and just soft reboot their way around everything so audiences won't have to catch up on four seasons of show.
While I feel bad for the actors who put the time and effort into their characters only to be dropped and forgotten about, I can sort of Understand Disney's logic in not wanting to tie those into the grander MCU. In general these clearly weren't planned out in conjunction with the movies (which, in a way was a good thing as it gave the showrunners more creative freedom to work with) and while I'm all for different parts of the MCU tonally differentiating themselves from one another, the Hard-R nature of these shows just didn't mix with the family friendly content that Disney was going for. Tack on the legal jargon that over-complicates crossing these series over with the movies, and from Disney's perspective it's easy to see how this could be more trouble than it's worth.
That said, I'm not a fan of them instantly replacing these characters. At least show some respect to these shows and the effort the actors and writers put into them. Otherwise, they could declare these to be part of the Cinematic Multiverse and then cast people like Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio in the main Universe version of the same roles, like they did with J. K. Simmons.
Harry Lloyd made a surprisingly great Charles Xavier. He combines the altruistic diplomacy from Stewart's portrayal with the youthful command of McAvoy's. It's almost disappointing he only showed up for three episodes in the entire show.
Anyway, Legion ended how I expected. A lot of erratic scenes and unanswered questions all to the tune of Pink Floyd's Mother.
Choosing to reboot I Love Lucy is a strange but kind of bold choice for Marvel: https://youtu.be/sj9J2ecsSpo
You know, for all of the flak that Marvel gets for being too safe and cookie-cutter to appeal to all viewers, seeing Vision walking around as a literal corpse as well as some of the other horrific things that this episode subtly implies has been going on is surprisingly disturbing.
Wanda's into robo-necrophilia.
You know, normally I ignore this little quibble because it's just a comic book thing that you accept, but considering the situation at hand, one really has to wonder why nobody has even mentioned the thought of trying to call another Avenger for assistance at this point. Three-weeks post-snap we know that there are at least a few available at this point who care enough about Wanda to want to aid in the situation without killing her.
Also, just have to say that I'm loving Paul Bettany's performance in this show. Elizabeth Olsen is great as well, but this show has given them SO much more material to work with than the movies, being that Civil War and Infinity War treated them more as glorified plot devices than fully-realized characters.
And I'm wondering if Evan Peters as Quicksilver is just him playing a town resident who Wanda just subconsciously filled into the role of her late twin brother (with his casting being a cheeky little nod to his former role as the character), or if he was somehow legitimately pulled out of the FOX-Men Universe and changed to assume his new role in Wanda's reality bubble.
(https://i.redd.it/0xn74e4ukrf61.png)
Didn't notice this reference.
Got to say, I really like Wandavision when the camera's on Wanda and it's about the feeling that grief, while natural but when unchecked, can consume your world and hurt all the people around you while you vicariously live through an idealized past that never actually happened. But when it's about Agents of SWORD, feels too much like those scenes in CW superhero shows where the characters talk in their base or lab, explain about how to stop the villain of the week, and deliver one-liners and continuity references. Think it's why I didn't like episode 4 that much since it was the exposition episode, and the theme's moved to the side so they can directly explain the plot. Too much telling than showing.
I agree, I much prefer the WandaVision content to Agents of SWORD. In addition to the tiresome exposition, this material feels like a compromise to MCU fans who won't be interested in the sitcom content. That, and I don't care for Woo or Darcy's characters.
I noticed that last week. Saw people put off by the first three episodes who thought episode 4 was when things picked up, while those who liked those episodes were disappointed.
While I'm not altogether as negative about the SWORD stuff as you, I do agree that the show is at it's best when focused on it's central two characters. I see episode 4 as a necessary evil to contextualize the rest of the show, but feel that switching back and forth between the two story-lines works rather well which is why episode 5 was my favorite to date.
I don't totally hate episode 4 or the SWORD stuff, although that was my least favorite episode to date. Frankly, I'm all for seeing how the story expands.
Spoiler
side note, who do you think they'd splurge on, McKellen or Fassbender? Both? Neither?
Spoiler
Probably neither, but McKellen's done sitcoms before, so he'd fit. They're apparently doing a Malcolm in the Middle episode soon. He can be Cloris Leachman's character.
So, is it just me or did WandaVision totally skip the 90's-era sitcoms by jumping straight into a Malcolm in the Middle parody (early 2000's)? Also, it slightly bothers me that this and the previous episode dropped the 4:3 aspect ratio since those would have still been used for those eras of TV.
That said, this episode did a good job of delivering on some genuinely creepy vibes, and gives me a better idea of what the next Doctor Strange movie may be like with more Horror themes in mind.
Also, Yo-Magic, obvious metaphor for the entire point of the show aside, should totally be an in-Universe product.
Yeah, I thought they were going to do a Roseanne pastiche, but I guess last week was doing double duty. Also want to say this was the first episode to feel uncomfortably nostalgic, it was at the first act where I thought "Oh, they're parodying shows that were new when I was a kid instead of shows that were already old at the time. This feels weird."
Could've done without the Agatha Harkness's backstory (felt like something out of the CW), but it was neat to see the actual incident where a STARK missile killed Wanda's parents. It does put you in the perspective of how genuinely traumatizing that experience was for her.
The mid-credits scene kind of made me internally groan, though. It's like, are we really doing evil Vision here (with his reanimated corpse that Hayward is in possession of)? That's one superhero comic book trope that I actually don't want to see adapted and was glad that the MCU mostly avoided it up to this point. I'm hoping that they don't start now.
So Aaron Taylor-Johnson really wasn't available if they couldn't get him for the HYDRA flashback. Also a little coincidental, but bitter irony that this show builds off the back of Age of Ultron, uses SWORD, and guest stars Emma Caulfield all in the wake of the shit going on with Whedon lately.
Yeah, not sure what to make of Vision Blanco either. The show already has Agatha for the final antagonist.
Also thrown off that Wanda's parents had DVDs of Malcolm in the Middle in 1999, with the cover and everything. Guess the show didn't want her parents to own bootlegs.
Seeing a lot of scattered thoughts all over in regards to Wandavision, and noticing people take certain umbrage at Monica telling Wanda the Westview townsfolk will never know how much she's sacrificed and how the ending approaches Wanda's deeds as a whole. And I know she could've worded it better, but I understood where she was coming from. She was the lone voice willing to forgive Wanda and tell her this wasn't all her fault, knowing not only has she said goodbye to her magically constructed family, but also any chance of a normal or content life because her mental breakdown ensnared the lives of thousands. And we're obviously not supposed to root for Wanda here, we are meant to pity her and know that some people can accidentally let their self-destructive complexes hurt not only themselves but others. That sometimes it happens, and it's horrible when someone lets their anxieties turn themselves into the villain because more often than not that affects people who didn't deserve it. And even if one person forgives you, other people won't, and they have a right not to, but it still hurts nonetheless when you let your inner demons loose because there wasn't a consoling hand around.
The magic fight between Wanda and Agatha was disappointing though. Infinity War showed Marvel could do fun magic fights, but here, it was just ki blasts.
It definitely could have been worded better, but yeah I don't think the show was trying to alleviate Wanda of her crimes as some people seem to criticize. Monica just acknowledges that she understands how hard it was for Wanda to actually do the right thing.
As for the ending battles, I like how the two Visions resolved things via a logic debate. It just fits that character. As for Wanda and Agatha, I initially liked the idea of Wanda outsmarting her by pretending to blast her with energy to absorb only to actually be creating runes to inhibit her magic. However, it doesn't really make sense that Wanda would understand or know how to create a rune just from seeing Agatha have them up in her basement. Like, yeah, she now knows the concept, but how does she specifically know what kind of rune to create for herself and how to even get it to work? This is another one of those annoying cases of a character instantly picking something up from just seeing it once for plot convenience, rather than it making any kind of sense.
Kind of split on Falcon and the Winter Soldier so far. The Captain America movies are my favorite series out of the entire MCU, and I do really like Sam Wilson and Bucky as characters in this show, especially given more screen-time. That said, the whole Flagsmashers story-line does nothing for me so far, and I'm still waiting to see how they handle the False-Cap story. I was afraid that they'd just make him into an obvious and overdone anti-Trump or Republicans are evil allegory (I hate Trump and am not very conservative at all, but I'm sick of fiction shoving lazy criticism of that down my throat), but so far it at least seems to be handled with a bit more nuance than that so we'll see where it goes.
Not bad by any means so far, but aside from some good character work the show hasn't really hooked me yet.
Yeah, I read a little bit of US Agent's comics, and that combined with how the Flag Smashers' goal is globalism concerned me a little on what the show's trying to say. But it's fun so far.
It was honestly kind of a miracle that WandaVision was ready first. I think how bonkers that got helped to make the show such a zeitgeisty hit, especially when it's been so long since we got an MCU project (AOS notwithstanding), at least by the MCU's standards.
Episode 2 of Falcon and Winter Soldier is an improvement so far- keeping Sam and Bucky away definitely hurt the first episode- but I'll admit that I'm not in love yet, either.
The way they hastily changed Zemo to make him more like his comic version (giving him a purple mask, revealing he was a baron all this time, changing him from Bourne villain to Bond villain) was funny.
I actually feel like they worked the mask in organically enough. The problem is just that it kind of looks silly on him, but I also kind of don't mind that too much. Even the more serious Marvel fare can stand to have a bit if ridiculousness in the mix and still be taken seriously on the whole.
I will say, though, that I'm among the few who loved Daniel Brühl's performance as Zemo in Civil War and felt that he was actually beneficial to the movie's story, contrary to many criticisms. So far I like how they've handled him in TF&TWS as well. He's easily my favorite character in the show thus far and works fantastically as a wild card neutral party between the main protagonists and antagonists of the show.
Halfway in the latest episode, and I'm noticing a lot of Bullseye from the Daredevil show in US Agent. Specifically him from early in the third season where he's still pretending to be a normal person. The stilted attempts to play an honest soldier when there's an unhinged part of his mind craving for approval at the cost of others. He obviously won't be as monstrous or sociopathic as Bullseye was, but he makes for a funny analogue. And yeah, I already know Bullseye's actor auditioned to play Steve long ago.
I got similar vibes from him as well. A shame that Feige has kind of gone out of his way to de-canonize the Netflix shows without officially saying so.
This episode finally managed to make me give a bit more of a shit about the Flag-Smashers, though I was a bit annoyed by the cliche of Sam talking the bad guy down only for US Agent to come in and ruin it at the last moment leading to the "misunderstanding" trope.
Really like how they've handled US Agent overall, though. He's an ass-hole but they give him just enough nuance that he at least feels like a real person rather than a standard foil for the protagonists that only serves a story roll. The ending of the episode was also fairly ballsy for a Disney show, and I feel like that shot of the blood-stained shield will become an iconic MCU moment in it's own right.
Also gotta love how nobody was paying attention to Zemo when the Wakandans and US Agent started fighting, despite him being the very person they were fighting about.
I was expecting the final shot to be the conversation piece of the episode, but instead it's the scene where Ayo and the Dora Milaje shut down Bucky's arm (https://twitter.com/StephenSeanFord/status/1381414562046468097/retweets/with_comments) and everyone arguing whether it's right or not to put a failsafe or to keep Bucky in the dark. I figured no matter how much Bucky became a friend to Wakanda, they were never sure if he was one HYDRA remnant away from becoming brainwashed again, so they built a shutdown protocol in case. And in this case, they were right since from their point of view, he was helping out the man who killed their king.
This was a pretty damn good episode. Really love how they tied back in the early plot-threads from episode one, and the stuff with Isaiah Bradley really struck home with it's message. This definitely helped make both Sam Wilson and Bucky feel like fully realized characters stepping out of the shadows of just being Steve's sidekicks.
I wasn't expecting Elaine from Seinfeld to start her own villain team.
So, Falcon Captain America and Winter Soldier...
it needed 2 more episodes. One from Karli's POV, and another from Isaiah's. The show was riding a thin line with the Flag Smashers, never knowing when to make them sympathetic and when to make them villainous while only rarely knowing when to fuse those together into tragic villainy. They were frustrating characters to watch because the show never fully examined why they're on their path. Reminded me a little of the Legend of Korra villains, like when Kuvira had pretty valid reasons for stabilizing and uniting the Earth Kingdom but she had to commit a few war crimes because the show needed to remind us she's the villain. If they had a whole extra 40 minutes to space out Karli's life during the last 5 years and built a more compelling reason for why she thinks murder is the only language the world will listen, she could've been this show's equivalent to Killmonger. (As an aside, it's so weird that Killmonger and Karli have effectively shifted the criticism of MCU villains from "too one-note evil" to "why do these people who make reasonable points and challenges to the status quo also commit mass murder?") And for Isaiah, they should've done a flashback episode on his end. Hearing him describe what happened in his life was one thing, but I think having a full episode detail all that would've given a lot more dramatic weight to his character, while taking advantage of the episode a week format a little more.
Don't like what they did with Walker in the end. Seeing him find his moral compass in the climax I can understand, but wasn't it jarring seeing him playfully banter with Bucky when he tried to kill him in the last episode? Especially hearing the director say we were meant to like him in the end. I thought we were supposed to see him grow even worse, and killing that one Flag Smasher was just the start, to allude back to what Erskine said in the first Cap movie that being a good man is more important than being a good soldier. Before watching the finale, I assumed he was going to be the real final villain because of that. I suppose the MCU still needs him for a Thunderbolts movie or a Dark Avengers movie or something, but it's a little screwy the show decided Karli was too far gone but Walker wasn't.
But there were parts I liked. I love Sam's Captain America costume. Just watching him in action was so much fun. Nice to see Bucky get some peace of mind. And Sharon... I'm confused why the plot acts like her being the Power Broker was supposed to be a twist, but she was an interesting third party and it'll be cool to see what she's up to in Cap 4.
This whole season was a wild mixed bag. I really liked some stuff and was either indifferent to or outright disliked other stuff.
Karli doesn't work as a villain. She is left incredibly under-developed with her overall plan feeling very unclear throughout. John Walker was actually done very well....until the season finale absolutely botched his character arc. Someone gave the criticism that Marvel was making the mistake of treating this and WandaVision like long movies and trying to wrap everything up by the end rather than allowing certain plot threads to dangle for later, and that absolutely seems to be the case here. John Walker's character redemption arc could absolutely work if given proper time to develop, but you can't go from him brutally murdering a guy and viciously fighting Sam and Bucky to being all buddy-buddy with them in the span of an episode and a half.
That said, Sam and Bucky were fleshed out really well in this show and their chemistry was great. I also enjoyed Zemo. It's a heavily flawed season but there is groundwork to build something better off of it in the future.
Yeah, I'd consider Falcon and Winter Soldier to be a step down from WandaVision, never mind the Captain America films. I agree that the pacing was arguably the biggest issue, and particularly on both sides- it needed another episode or two to fully develop its story, but it also felt too padded at the same time.
It's not surprising that the series had a much more muted reception than WV did. I do think it would have garnered a little more interest if it was pushed back a little, but there's a reason that the only thing I've seen brought up from the series online is how most people don't like Walker. Which to be fair, he mostly succeeds at what the story aims for.
Wandavision had a larger reception because it was the relatively weird show, and it kept fans guessing what would happen next. What kind of sitcom are they spoofing next? What's the deal with the Evan Peters Quicksilver? What's the deal with Vision? While for F&TWS, it mostly serves as an extended epilogue to Endgame's final scene, and we already know Sam becomes Cap.
Not sure about Walker though. The director said in an interview that we were supposed to like him, (https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-falcon-and-the-winter-soldiers-director-breaks-down-1846785006) and if that's the case, I'm confused.
As recently as a week ago, I was talking to somebody about how much film synergy's affected Loki that any post-2011 adaptation or even comic art of him looks like a drawing of Tom Hiddleston than his middle-aged, goblin-like appearance. So of course, the show did this.
Spoiler
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5HnKDSWQAACZPX?format=jpg&name=small)
I haven't posted my thoughts on this show yet since I was going to wait until it was over, but so far it has been my favorite Disney+ MCU show by far. It reminds me a lot of Journey Into Mystery and Agent of Asgard with their combination of wit and humor. That said, I'm still weary of a disappointing ending like the last two shows had.
As usual, though, I love Tom Hiddleston's interpretation of Loki. It's refreshing to have an actor who is actually genuinely a fan of his character and has even read some actual comic books.
Weird that I had opposite reactions to WV and FatWS' endings. Wandavision's I had trouble with, but appreciated the more I thought and read about it, while I steadily enjoyed Falcon and Winter Soldier's ending less the days after it premiered.
So let me guess: All the Kang the Conqueror hints are just a red herring and the final villain is a King Loki or something?
I like over-the-top, but this version of Kang was a bit too awkward even by MCU standards. I get that there will be a more traditional version of him down the road, but I think what they were going for with the less evil version could have worked if they handled it somewhat differently.
I'm kind of conflicted on Loki as a whole. The first two episodes are the show that I thought I would get and honestly really wanted. It's Loki being an anti-hero scheming his way around much bigger threats than himself. I was expecting some level of a redemptive arc, of course, but thought it would play out a bit more gradually (and considering that a season 2 was already in the works, that makes it all the more strange that it happened so quickly). That said, I do like the layers that they added to Loki's character, and Sylvie ended up being a more interesting character than I thought she would, albeit the romance between them just felt weird to me. Mobius was easily the stand-out new character of this entire show, though, and I genuinely wish we got more between him and Loki since their chemistry was easily the best aspect of the entire show (maybe in season 2, hopefully). That said, with the final episode it's clear that this was more about setting up the next Doctor Strange movie, which I'm excited for, but it also reeks of that same Age of Ultron mistake where Marvel seems to underestimate people's focus on the here and now instead of what's to come. Even if there was another season planned, they should have committed more to giving at least some sense of closure to the broader plot threads and themes presented in the beginning of the show.
Of the three Disney+ shows so far, I still easily feel that WandaVision was the best one since it had the most interesting style and was pretty committed to it's premise almost the entire way through. The ending was weak, but not in a way that took anything away from the episodes leading up to it. I can still go back and re-watch individual episodes for fun and notice new things about each one. Falcon and the Winter Soldier felt a bit too much like it was trying to be the next Winter Soldier (and I mean aside from the fact that it had that character in it), but felt a bit too basic in it's execution and very muddled in it's message to really hit as hard as it wanted to. I don't really feel any need to revisit it after my initial watch. Loki I still think I would re-watch some of the early episodes and revisit some good moments from later ones, but it does feel like it squandered quite a bit of it's initial potential by the end of the season. I'd still watch season 2, with the hope that it would focus more on the aspects that worked the best in the first season and expand on those in interesting and creative ways.
I was a little iffy on what they were going for with The One Who Remains, and also thought Majors was portraying him too over the top at first. But the more I watched the performance the more I understood that this version of Kang was just an utterly broken man whose isolation, overwhelming knowledge of the timelines, and burden of guilt he bore has just made him a wreck, which manifests in his jittery and schizophrenic mannerisms and outbursts, and the more I ended up really appreciating it and excited for his more serious portrayal(s) of the character in the future.
I liked Loki overall. I was surprised it was not more of a time-travel adventure show a la Legends of Tomorrow and Loki's redemption arc happens pretty quickly, but I didn't mind it and thought the escalating twists and turns all the way up to the big reveal of Kang were a lot of fun. You can definitely tell the Rick & Morty influence from the showrunner's history with the show, especially in the final two episodes with all the interactions between the different Lokis and Kang describing the multiversal cooperation and conflict of his variant selves. I think the season ends in an interesting place and I hope that season 2 does have more of Mobius since he was my favorite character in the show.
For me, I find WandaVision's early episodes are the most interesting stylistically and would be more interesting to rewatch, but I think I like Loki the most overall out of the MCU Disney+ shows so far since I enjoyed it consistently beginning to end whereas WandaVision peaked at "Agatha All Along" and disappointed me in how it wrapped up.
The selfcest romance between Loki and Sylvie was baffling and felt like it came out of nowhere in the final episode though.
Admittedly, my perceptions of what I expect from a Loki story were informed heavily by Kieron Gillen's run on Journey into Mystery (one of my favorite Marvel comics), which was in many ways witty and humorous but also strikingly somber and tragic at key moments. Taking the show on it's own terms it did what it set out to do rather well, though I do still stand by my opinion of Loki's development feeling kind of rushed and that the show could have done with a bit less moments of set-up for future movies/shows.
Interesting, I'll have to check that run out. But yeah, I agree and share a lot of your critiques. It's been said plenty before, but the MCU's insistence on using movies/shows just to set up other movies/shows can be frustrating and annoying when you just want to watch a story that's satisfying just on its own.
I hated when Age of Ultron took a break just to show trailers for other movies. Especially when the Ragnarok they teased was nothing like the movie we got, so sometimes these aren't even accurate preludes.
Honestly, I didn't care that much for the first two episodes, and preferred when they went straight into the TVA's secrets. Really wished the fifth episode was its own arc to dig deeper into the other Lokis. We should've gotten more Richard E Grant. My problem with this and FAWTS is the opposite of the Netflix shows, that they don't have enough room to tell their season arcs. Loki was just going from place to place when it was almost a pity they didn't focus and puts it attention to where they were standing before running off to the next part of the plot. Like the scene where as soon as Mayor Loki shows up, he's immediately disposed of.
Which, like I said, almost makes me miss the way the Netflix shows were paced. And how they were too distant from the movies to need to do scenes that were just poorly-disguised trailers for them (they were poorly disguised trailers for each other though, one of the reasons Daredevil's second season and Iron Fist's first were so maligned was because they were extended prologues to Defenders). Granted, it didn't always work, and those flaws among others are why Loeb is out of the TV production side, but I do miss that branch of the franchise. If more for the potential than the final product in some cases.
Okay, now I know why Jonathan Major's performance felt familiar. A version of Kang/Immortus acted exactly like he did in the old X-Men cartoon. (https://youtu.be/Em4nEE3U4qw)
I liked all three shows (Falcon and the Winter Soldier a bit less so) but Loki was my favorite of them. Thoroughly enjoyed the character dynamics and off the wall storytelling.
Really digging the Hawkeye trailer. Several scenes from the trailer are straight out of Fraction's run, and it also feels a bit like Iron Man 3 in tone which I appreciate more in hindsight as a Shane Black movie more than a Marvel one.
(https://uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/bcs10-lalo-window.gif)
Hey, Lalo.
Funny that after Feige caved in and went "Of course Charlie Cox is back. We know you guys never shut up about Daredevil", D'Onofrio went ahead and said Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page is also coming back for something. (https://twitter.com/vincentdonofrio/status/1468122333965656066)
Spoiler
So I'm guessing that the MCU version of Wilson Fisk and Daredevil will be alternate versions of the characters from the Netflix shows, despite being portrayed by the same actors, seeing as how Fisk went back to prison at the end of Daredevil Season 3, whereas he seems to be currently active as The Kingpin in Hawkeye.
Spoiler
I don't know. At least 5 or 6 years passed in-universe between both shows. More than enough time for a crime boss. Fisk likely took advantage of the suddenly halved prison security during the Snap. That said, it brings to question when he mentored Echo. Was he just calling her in-between S1 of Daredevil, asking Wesley to check up on her and the Track Suits?
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on December 15, 2021, 05:32:35 PM
Spoiler
I don't know. At least 5 or 6 years passed in-universe between both shows. More than enough time for a crime boss. Fisk likely took advantage of the suddenly halved prison security during the Snap. That said, it brings to question when he mentored Echo. Was he just calling her in-between S1 of Daredevil, asking Wesley to check up on her and the Track Suits?
Spoiler
That's actually part of the reason that I think this might be a separate Universe version of Kingpin. It's heavily implied that Hawkeye and other key characters have strong ties to him in one way or another in their past in a way that wouldn't make sense to never have been brought up in the show if they were in the same continuity. It's still possible, of course, but having it be the same Universe also means carrying the baggage of the other shows, and I don't think that Kevin Feige wants Netflix's Iron Fist to be canonical to the MCU.
Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on December 15, 2021, 09:08:30 PM
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on December 15, 2021, 05:32:35 PM
Spoiler
I don't know. At least 5 or 6 years passed in-universe between both shows. More than enough time for a crime boss. Fisk likely took advantage of the suddenly halved prison security during the Snap. That said, it brings to question when he mentored Echo. Was he just calling her in-between S1 of Daredevil, asking Wesley to check up on her and the Track Suits?
Spoiler
That's actually part of the reason that I think this might be a separate Universe version of Kingpin. It's heavily implied that Hawkeye and other key characters have strong ties to him in one way or another in their past in a way that wouldn't make sense to never have been brought up in the show if they were in the same continuity. It's still possible, of course, but having it be the same Universe also means carrying the baggage of the other shows, and I don't think that Kevin Feige wants Netflix's Iron Fist to be canonical to the MCU.
Spoiler
Maybe, but I don't think they'd go to all the trouble of bringing back Cox and D'Onofrio, recently announcing they brought back Foggy and Karen's actors for a thing, possibly bringing back Ritter as Jessica Jones in She-Hulk if the rumors are true, and then say they're all playing alternate versions of themselves with no connection to the Netflix shows. I think it's more of a soft reboot thing where they're still the same characters but they won't explicitly address past events so viewers who haven't seen a dozen seasons of Marvel Netflix aren't confused.
That said, Fisk does seem different here if he's a big enough threat that Clint's scared. If he was exactly the way he was in Daredevil, I doubt Clint would have any problems killing him.
Spoiler
That's a fair enough point, though it's funny to think of a situation of, say, Luke Cage running into Blade and noting how he looks oddly familiar to someone else that he knew.
Hawkeye by Fraction and Aja is my second favorite Marvel Comics run of all time, and I have to say that after stewing on it for a bit after the finale, the show was a bit of a letdown for me, overall. To be fair it can't really be like the comic since comic book Clint is very different from MCU Clint, both in terms of history and overall personality. That said, the show heavily marketed itself as being influenced by that run, but ended up feeling like a very surface-level attempt to emulate it's charm without the nuance or heart that made it so memorable. On it's own it's an alright show with a few genuinely stand-out scenes, but it does feel dragged down by the usual issues that come with trying to conform to a larger franchise rather than to being it's own thing.
On another note, I actually fucking hated what they did with Kingpin in this show, even if it's a different version of the character from the Netflix show.
Yeah, I was slightly underwhelmed by the show on the whole, too, and I also rate Fraction and Aja's run highly. A big problem is that Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye just isn't that strong of a presence. As loathe as I am to give Whedon credit in 2021, he did at least try to give him a little more weight in Age of Ultron, but Renner just isn't up for it. And yes, I wasn't a fan of what they did with Kingpin, either.
That said, I thought Kate was terrific, and I really liked her time with Yelena. I'd gladly watch a season of just the two of them. The supporting cast was also decent, and there were some really cool fight scenes, especially that car chase in episode 3, I think?
I'd probably still rank it in the middle of the Disney+ shows. My current ranking looks like:
5- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
4- What If?
3- Hawkeye
2- Loki
1- WandaVision
Yeah, Fisk's appearance was off. The show pushed him too far to the end of the series to give him any weight in the overall story. Reminded me of when he showed up in Daredevil season 2. His inclusion doesn't add much beyond going "We didn't forget you, Marvel Netflix fans!"
Which got ironic, since I've heard the same episode pissed off Agents of SHIELD fans for introducing a contradicting version of Mockingbird.
Dude, Moon Knight is awesome. Don't really have to say much more than that right now. It's only the first episode but it's unironically really, really good, and feels more like an actual movie than a show so far.
After the disappointment of Hawkeye this is pretty refreshing to see.
Yeah, I didn't know the guy handling the Umbrella Academy show was working on this, but I really noticed it in this episode.
And it's fun seeing Oscar Isaac play an Egypt-themed Marvel character again.
We're finally getting season 4 of Daredevil. (https://www.ign.com/articles/new-daredevil-disney-plus-show-charlie-cox-vincent-donofrio?utm_source=twitter) Wish they got the season 3 showrunner though, heard he already wrote an outline for 4 before Netflix fired him.
Watched the first episode of Ms. Marvel and for whatever reason the most pressing question that comes to my head is how do the Guardians have a pronounced fan-base on Earth with fairly accurate cosplayers? Like, they were only on Earth for one battle and a funeral, and I doubt their exploits are actually known to anyone on the planet. Really weird stretch in world-building there.
Catching up on Ms. Marvel, and I'm really growing to miss when these MCU shows used to have longer seasons. Sure, Jessica Jones absolutely did not need to be 13 episodes a season, Luke Cage's first season clearly didn't know what to do after killing Cottonmouth, and Punisher was struggling to pad its plot out to fill the quota, but at least they had more than enough space to tell the story they wanted to tell. Ms. Marvel feels like another case where it could've benefited so much more if it was given 2 or 3 more episodes to even out the pacing instead of shoving everything into 6.
I can understand why Agents of SHIELD fans miss their show so much now. A 22-episode half-serialized, half-standalone series would feel almost refreshing compared to all the miniseries. Yeah, there's filler, but I almost want filler so we can have Kamala, Clint and Kate, or Steven/Marc go on some fun side-adventures unconnected to the main plot.
Yeah, I think Ms. Marvel would really benefit if it was more like Buffy and had a mix of story and monster of the week stories. And the thing is, zoomers do like that kind of storytelling. Even after everything Whedon's done, I still see teens and twentysomethings getting into Buffy, and I'm sure they'd like a modern equivalent of it.
Otherwise, the show has been fine, but aside from the promise in the beginning and the flashback material from this week, it's just been another Marvel show. Easily digestible, but not as good as it could be. I'm also starting to miss when they had longer seasons, or at least tried to make every episode distinguishable. Sticking to six episodes and largely turning each show into a large movie isn't it.
What I've noticed about the shows pretty consistently is that they tend to start out fairly strong and then lose their momentum in the middle and limp to the end of the story. The first two-thirds of WandaVision were great, but it didn't know how to conclude it's story. The first two episodes of Loki were everything I hoped for, but it felt like it droned on for the rest of the series trying to find it's plot. The first two episodes of Moon Knight were enjoyably surreal, but it became a basic action/adventure story til the end (though with the notable exception of episode 5 which did somewhat return to that surreal storytelling).
These shows suffer from the same problem as the current movies but in a different way. They aren't bad and have good story and character ideas in there, but in this case a lot of those ideas are exhausted early on and it's like the writers have little to no idea what to do for the rest of the season so they have to pad things out.
The Star Wars shows outside of The Mandalorian suffer from basically the same problem except that those don't even have strong opening acts. Both BF and OK were snooze-fests from the start to the end, with the most entertaining bits being unintentionally funny. The Mandalorian, while not amazing, has been the best Disney Plus show to me so far, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's the only one that actually feels like a show and not an extended movie chopped up into bite-size episodes. It's perfectly fine to have some stand-alone episodes to focus on and build character rather than a hyper-focused singular narrative.
I still say all the shows have the point where it all clicks in the penultimate episode, but the shows seemingly didn't know that was the penultimate episode, so they rush everything in the one after. Like imagine if in Daredevil's first season, we got the first 5 episodes and then the 6th episode was just the next 8 but edited down into one. That's what it feels like. Especially in Hawkeye's case. That absolutely felt like the last episode should've been the second half of a season, instead of keeping all of Fisk in just one part.
And yeah, they do end up feeling like long movies instead of TV shows, which is a problem with a ton of streaming shows as of late. I'm sure you can edit all of Obi-Wan into a 2-hour movie and lose nothing.
Hell, Obi-Won was supposed to be a movie. A trilogy, in fact, and from what I hear, it probably should have stayed that way.
I agree that Mandaloarian is probably the best Disney+ show to date, as it won me over even as a SW agnostic. Part of me thinks that may be the difference with Feige and Kennedy, but it may really just be that Disney trusts Favreau to do whatever he wants after Iron Man and Jungle Book, and he liked the idea of making a largely episodic series.
Spoiler
Knew they'd make Kamala a Mutant.
So let me get this straight... 18 episodes of Daredevil?
I'm happy to return to the characters, but these shows struggle to keep things entertaining with just 6, so excuse me if I'm skeptical on this so far.
I'm glad it's not just 6, because I know what will happen if it was just 6. 2 decent episodes, 2 messy unsure of themselves episodes, a penultimate episode that's pretty good but then suddenly reveals Bullseye or Frank or somebody else is back, and then a finale that desperately struggles to wrap it all up in under an hour while simultaneously shoving in a dozen sequel teases. But yeah, 10 or so would have been a fine number. 18 is stretching it a little.
The Netflix shows struggled to fill up 13 episodes, but Defenders was about half that length and somehow felt even more tired. Eighteen sounds exhausting... unless this is cut into parts or something.
The thing is, if you're willing to go the route of classic syndication style TV somewhat mixed with modern serialized narratives, then this could work. That is to have a larger overarching story that culminates in a finale, interspersed with several stand-alone episodes in-between to flesh out the supporting characters some more. People may call that dated, but I'd argue it works better than most people remember. Joss Whedon being a piece of shit aside, Buffy (at least the first five-ish seasons) and Firefly still hold up really well for that reason, IMO.
Or do 2 to 3 episode mini-arcs that have a recurring theme tying them all together by the end of the season. I wish more shows went with that route when plotting seasons.
And it's been ages since I thought about Defenders, but I remember the big problem there was the Hand were really lame bad guys. They never knew what to do with Sigourney Weaver's character, and they were too afraid to go full "wacky magic ninja" with them lest they get Foot Clan comparisons (while still making their masterplan to mine dragon bones with resurrective properties), so they end up being generic gangsters with a couple wizards in the mix, who all badly paled in comparison to the other Netflix MCU villains like Fisk, Killgrave, or Mariah. Not to mention how much they fucked up in making Elektra the final villain.
I don't know how they managed to make Jennifer Garner a better Elektra in comparison, but the shows sure did.
I always was bugged that they called this group the Defenders, since this means that we'll probably never see the comic version in the MCU and how batshit some of those comics could get. Also, was Trish even in it?
But I do agree, the Hand were weak villains and didn't fit with most of the other show's MO's. They were an especially poor use of your Sigourney Weaver.
I still kinda prefer Elodie Yung, if only because she never got a scene a dumb as this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAhWBjAcWQY)
And yeah, to this day, I don't get why they're called "The Defenders" instead of "Heroes for Hire" or "Marvel Knights". You'd keep that name for when you're ready to make a weird Doctor Strange team-up movie, not so some street-level heroes fight magic gangsters. Somehow, MoM felt more like the comic Defenders than this show. It was also fucking ironic how in the same year The Defenders came out, a Marvel movie featuring Strange, Hulk, and Valkyrie premiered and was closer in tone to the comic than the show was.
The other problem's there was clearly a street-level version of Thanos they could have used who could challenge the entire team for over a season, it's just he was already the main villain on Daredevil, so you're left scrambling for a villain big enough for four shows' worth of main characters to team up and fight against.
So She-Hulk's premiere was all right, but definitely felt too "run-of-the-mill 00s Fox show". I know they're trying to do Ally McBeal, but Ally McBeal's shelf life was like zero so...
So yeah, I have seen three episodes, and She-Hulk is bad. There's no real way around it. The show is a really shallow and poorly written attempt to emulate the humor and social commentary of the comics, but without an ounce of wit or subtlety. In fact, they make the character come off as a complete asshole unintentionally like having her belittle Bruce's deep history of trauma (like being abused by his father or attempted suicide) to try and prop up Jen as a character.
Here's the thing, when a show gets labeled as woke, there are generally three camps of people with opinions on it. You have the SJW crowd that likes anything with a PC-edge about it, the ass-hats who hate the idea of anything that points out social issues of any kind in their fictional media, and everyone in between who just want a show or movie to enjoy. I'd like to believe most people fall into the third camp, but sadly it's a pretty even split as far as I can tell. At any rate, while I'm fine with a show examining gender roles, the serious lack of self-awareness that these writers have tackling this subject matter genuinely hurts to watch. It's the worst kind of writing in finding any and every excuse to prop up whoever it identifies with as being unmistakably and unequivocally morally superior to anyone and everyone that doesn't fit their ideology.
It's the type of logic where, without the slightest hint of irony or nuance of any kind, they will characterize a a guy as being chauvinistic and stupid whereas any of the characters it cares about are propped up as being infallible angels devoid of flaws. Much of the humor revolves around Jen making sweeping generalizations about other characters (some of who she barely knows) based on their social status as men and being proven completely right about them every time, and said characters are written to be so cartoonish that they don't even feel like people.
What's so annoying is that both the comics as well as earlier MCU movies actually knew how to call attention to and commentate on different subject matter without treating their core characters as flawless or talking down to the audience. This show really has lowered the bar to an immense degree in that regard.
I'm still very confused why Marvel hired some Better Call Saul writers, and put them to work on Echo instead of the show about a lawyer. Or their other show about a lawyer. She-Hulk and Daredevil could use some BCS writing.
And my "run-of-the-mill 00s Fox Show" complaint still rings true. That Megan Thee Stallion appearance felt like whenever someone like Usher or Britney would randomly guest star in a sitcom about 20 years ago. Or that time Ashanti appeared in Buffy. (https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Lissa)
I've been rather burned out on the excessively mediocre Disney Plus content for a while now which is why I have yet to finish She-Hulk (not sure if I ever will) and haven't even started Andor yet.
I only just remembered that there was a Werewolf by Night special which I decided to check out because it looked at least a bit interesting. Overall it was pretty decent. I appreciated the homage to classic Universal Monster films, was pleasantly surprised by how violent they were willing to get, and thought it was cool to see a fully realized interpretation of Man-Thing. Best of all, it's less than an hour long. Amazing how much more entertaining something can be when allowed to play out for as long as it's concept supports rather than being arbitrarily stretched or condensed to meet a very specific episode count.
Yeah, I've just been watching She-Hulk through react channels on YouTube. Heard good things about Andor though.
I thought Werewolf by Night was more interesting than appealing. I liked all of the cues it took, but I can't say that it felt as rewarding as I'd like.
Although it's better than the whole of She-Hulk, which was honestly kind of dumb throughout. Although I like how the finale lead into the show's use of fourth wall breaking.
(https://preview.redd.it/ogntg51nk8u91.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ba01aadd6710e67641e0bdf80f8696a7bdb3e01b)
This makes perfect sense to me and I now consider it canon to Zdarsky's run.
I actually rewatched the Marvel Netflix shows when they came to Disney Plus. More accurately, I rewatched what I saw it was new, and saw for the first time the shows/seasons I had missed the first time around. I'll admit, part of my choice to do this was because I was excited seeing Murdock in No Way Home, and Fisk in Hawkeye.
Watching these shows now, I'm reminded of why I liked them back then, but I also remembered why I gave up on them in the first place. Daredevil was still great. I'd say easily the best Marvel show. I'd also say Jessica Jones season 1 is the best Marvel season (beating out the best seasons of Daredevil). But beyond that, Luke Cage lost itself after Cottonmouth, and I was mostly bored by Iron Fist and Punisher. The Defenders could've been better.
As for the Disney Plus originals, I really enjoyed a few of them, but the rest ranged from passable to forgettable. I do think making the shows required viewing for the movies is a bit too much for the Marvel universe? I always accepted things like "You need to see 20 movies before Infinity War comes out" but now we have a Doctor Strange movie acting as a sequel to WandaVision. In the past, someone could fall off the Marvel universe for years, but then easily catch up on them in time for a new Avengers movie by just dedicating a few nights to the movies they missed. However, I feel like anyone who has fallen off Marvel between Black Widow and would feel like getting caught up is too daunting, to fully understand the currently storylines.
That's just my take on it. I'm still on top of pretty much everything, including She-Hulk.
It's strange too since the movies can be inconsistent about it. Like Doctor Strange 2's trying to pay off unresolved plot points from Wandavision, while Love and Thunder spends a lot of time recapping and explaining the first 3 Thor movies and Endgame, almost redundantly so. There's either too much hand-holding or not enough.
And not MCU, but I just saw that Legion was on Disney+. I can get Logan or Daredevil popping up there, but having Legion there feels so weird. Wonder what that's gonna be like for any kids or casuals thinking it's just a regular X-Men show.
Adding the TV shows in really is just too much, and I'm noticing that it's turning off some of the MCU fans I know in real life. Some were fine to consider Endgame the end of their time as Marvel watchers, at least at the front of the line, while others are increasingly feeling burned out by underwhelming series and movies. I'm mostly with them, but I still think WandaVision mostly works, enjoyed most of Loki, and thought Ms. Marvel was largely fun.
And I largely agree with you on the Netflix shows, Talon, except that I like the Punisher's first season. The second was mediocre, though.
Ideally, they could recreate what the Netflix shows did and have the Marvel shows take place in their own corner of the universe where they can intermingle with each other but away from the movies, and the paths between mediums only cross in an Infinity War/Secret Wars-style event film or an odd cameo. It always seemed like they listened to the complaints that the prior Marvel shows were too distant from the movies (like calling the events of the Avengers "the Incident", nobody from the movies finding out Coulson came back to life and had his own adventures, a lack of communication between Feige and the Runaways producers resulting in this (https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Tina_Minoru_(disambiguation))) and went too far in the opposite direction.
Oh yeah, the Guardians Christmas special was fucking great. I didn't realize how much I missed Gunn handling these characters until now.
That may honestly be my favorite part of Phase 4. He's still yet to do any wrong with either Marvel or DC as far as I'm concerned.
Although I do have to wonder, to what extent is earth familiar with the Guardians? I recall some cosplayers at AvengersCon in Captain Marvel, but it seems like the tourists at the Chinese Theater were confusing Drax for Kratos, and neither Kevin Bacon nor the police he called seem to know who he and Mantis are. They could just not be that interested in heroes, though.
Drax and Mantis were dead for 5 years, so it's easy to see them not being as well-known.
Spoiler
Here lies Maria Hill. She never scored.
So I think I'm cured of my desire to watch everything in the MCU. I tried the first episode of Secret Invasion when it came out, thought it was boring as shit, and haven't caught up.
Not sure if I'll try any more shows, but I'll probably at least go see The Marvels, because it still looks fun.
Yeah, Olivia Colman's fun, but after watching the first couple, it's mostly just a show I'll watch via react channels. My main takeaway was "God, if only Disney talked to Tony Gilroy while he was working on Andor about making a SHIELD show. Or a prequel starring a young Nick Fury. Could've been the coolest shit. But alas..."
At the very least, it doesn't annoy me like the Secret Invasion comic did, but that's an extremely low bar.
Yeah, Marvel has effectively become a bigger budget version of the CW Arrow-Verse at this point. I still like what I like, and I'll be up for at least checking out the new Fantastic Four movie (whenever that manages to come out after the writer's strike and potential actor's strike delaying it's production), but with Guardians wrapped up I'm just not interested enough in anything else to want to keep up with it. Maybe Spider-Man if they do another one, but I'm pretty checked out otherwise.
I'm still wondering when they're gonna push the big red button that say "X-MEN" on it. That or follow Gunn's lead and do a Nextwave show to rival DC's Authority.
Also, I just remembered Zeb Wells of all people is co-writing Captain Marvel 2. They're gonna let him write MCU Kamala after what he did to Comic Kamala? Were G. Willow Wilson or Al Ewing just unavailable?
For what it's worth, it's interesting that Preston and Carmine are warmer on SI than I expected. (https://youtu.be/1YbbdxeDeP8)
Really awkward to have a Miss Minutes-heavy Loki episode considering what Tara Strong has been up to recently.
So far I'm enjoying Loki season 2 just fine. I enjoyed Loki's chemistry with Mobius more than his with Sylvie, so focusing on the former first has been a good call, and I also enjoy O.B. Although I'm really just happy that Jenny Nicholson got to see her Apple Pie Tree at Sylvie's McDonalds.