Marvel Live Action

[Peanutbutter]

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.

[Dr. Insomniac]

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.

[gunswordfist]

 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

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.

[Dr. Insomniac]

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.

[LumRanmaYasha]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Avaitor]

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.

[LumRanmaYasha]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[LumRanmaYasha]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

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.

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.

[Peanutbutter]

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.

[LumRanmaYasha]

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.

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.

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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.