Marvel Live Action

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, 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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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.

[Avaitor]

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.

[Dr. Insomniac]

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. 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.

[Avaitor]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Peanutbutter]

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!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Insomniac]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You haven't seen anything yet. Wait until the episodes that tackle Ward's drug addiction. His acting is hilarious.

[Avaitor]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.