Apr 6, 2017, 2:11 PM
To the surprise of absolutely no one, I'm in it for Colleen Wing.
Also, watching Iron Fist and then Into the Badlands right afterward made the already superior latter even better than it is - and it's pretty damn good.
Full spoilers: Iron Fist
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@Ganymede said in Full spoilers: Iron Fist:
@Arkandel said in Full spoilers: Iron Fist:
You have the Hand as your bad guys and there's not one fucking ninja in the whole season?
Dude, not every ninja needs to go around looking like a villain from TMNT.
YES THEY DO THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF NINJAING
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said in Full spoilers: Iron Fist:
YES THEY DO THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF NINJAING
It's this sort of lame-ass thinking that brought about Iron Fist in the first place.
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Eh. I love Badass Grandma and Bad Faramir.
But yeah I think so far it's the worst written of the marvel tv series. Not as bad as the first season of Arrow, mind. But kinda on that level with less topless salmon ladders.
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Topless salmon ladders make everything better.
And while I'm wading around in the shallow end, Danny has very striking eyes! swoon
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I accept that I probably fall into the minority here of people who actually enjoyed the hell out of Iron Fist from start to finish. Because I honestly did. (Though I was honestly hoping that we'd see Harold Meachum go more beast-mode bad guy than we did. David Wenham as a badie, awww.... ) I enjoyed the details and the tie-ins to all the various storylines through-out this corner of the Marvel Universe. For example, I thought that the exploration of Harold's resurrections was interesting because we're bound to see Elektra return thanks to The Hand. (And it confirmed what Stick told Daredevil in the previous series, the only way to actually kill these people is by removing their head.) I found Danny to be appropriately "stumbling through the real world" as someone who is a bit out of touch since he'd been away from it for over a decade and then his experience was limited to the perspective of a child and clearly harboring some serious PTSD issues, my only big issue with him was how single-minded he was with "Gao killed my parents", but we never want to see the worst in the people standing right in front of us, in his case the Meachums.
I still like the fact that is wasn't so overwhelmingly depressing as the other Defenders were - Daredevil was an emotional yoyo, Jessica Jones hit a new level of "I might need therapy after I watch this that I hadn't experienced since I watched Torchwood: Children of Earth" and Luke Cage started out depressing for me post-Jessica Jones and honestly was my least favorite. (That's the series for me that I enjoyed the first half of the season perfectly well, but struggled to even make myself watch the rest of it.)
Since we're full of spoilers, I'll tell you that right now I strongly suspect that Gao is the actual Crane Mother, which if so would be pretty awesome. That she's pulling Davos' strings (and he's already the Steel Serpent) backing him up to charm Joy the rest of the way into the dark side (She's just as bat shit as her brother in that series, she just hid hers better all along. She's the full canister of bat shit in the comics, where there was no brother - Ward Meachum was her uncle in the comics.) and since Joy Meachum and the Steel Serpent partnered up all the time and were 2 of Iron Fist's major antagonists that's just set up for them to be the thorn in his side if Iron Fist gets a season 2.
I found the divisions within The Hand to be interesting, especially since some of the repercussions of The Incident are what created those opportunities and I do enjoy when all the corners of the MU line up together. My 2 cents, anyway.
- 15 days later
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Spent a lot of time wondering when Danny was going to get some Iron Fist Viagra. So much ham fisted writing to remove his super power from the conflicts that I was rolling my eyes by the end. I'm guessing someone thought that Luke Cage wading through mobs of goons without much pressure wouldn't be repeated, maybe? Despite the fact that Luke Cage is virtually invulnerable I found the fights tense and rewarding whereas Iron Fist just left me wondering if Danny was sneaking out to eat donkey meat every time he was supposed to be training. I think it's more the fight choreography than Finn Jones' acting ability making the fights look just weak overall. It wasn't tense so much as making Iron Fist appear incompetent to me.
It was also telling that the big climatic battle had the hero running from the villain. I was sorely reminded of Corey Haim running away from Christopher Collet in Prayer of the Rollerboys and that is not a good thing because you really don't want me mentally comparing your hero to a Corey Haim z-grade action film.
Was it a waste of my time? Absolutely not but it was probably the weakest outing so far. Tom Pelphrey as Ward was probably my favorite character as he seemed to be the one that had believable growth throughout the series. I'm hoping they firm up Iron Fist for the Defenders but I'm just trying right now to imagine Danny and Luke hanging out as Heroes for Hire and it's not quite gelling in my head at all. -
My order is something like DD1 > JJ > DD2 > LC (first half)/IF > LC (second half, because killing your superbly acted interesting villain to replace with a loony toon is dumb).
But I'll agree that my biggest gripe with IF was that the fight choreography wasn't as good as it could have been for the martial arts focused entry. And yeah it probably wasn't all Finn's fault. Stunt people are a thing, you can make it work, but there was just so much weird, lame stuff, drawn out fights with single mooks, etc. I liked the tournament well enough, since those characters have a legit basis to be giving him trouble. Ultimately its hard not to be let down when DD set a ridiculously high standard, as one of the best choreographed things on TV ever, even with season 2 occasionally looking like the TMNT movies (and no, I don't mind TMNT-ish ninjas, with the obvious connection between the two, but the big rooftop fight was vague and a little silly compared to the brutal hallway and stairway masterworks).
Best thing in IF was definitely the Meachums, who really acted circles around everyone else and just had more character depth going on, although I disliked the easy role flip at the end.
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Many of the articles that are coming out about this talk about how rushed the production was. That's probably more at fault for the lackluster fight choreography than anything else. After getting farther into it, I guess I get it. This seems more like metaplot set-up for The Defenders than an Iron Fist series in places, and I suspect that robbed it of time that the other Marvel Netflix entries had. But it really hurt the final product.
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@Three-Eyed-Crow But what metaplot setup for the Defenders did we get?
(SPOILERS)
... other than that there are factions within the Hand with different agendas what else? For all I can see, it basically sums down to "Danny Rand is a thing, and Claire has his phone number".
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Having watched Iron Fist in its entirety twice now, I feel safe in offering the following opinion of the show:
It was the weakest of the set so far, however it is made better by watching it from the start with the viewpoint that the show is about a -VERY BAD- Iron Fist and his bumblings. Danny Rand is not a good Iron Fist. He is not a good person. You are watching a self-centered man child flail his arms and witnessing the damage it causes to those around him.
If you watch it with that perspective in mind the show is actually much, much better. Ward Meacham is the true 'hero' of the story. He has the most growth and best subplot, after all.
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To the surprise of absolutely no one, I'm in it for Colleen Wing.
Also, watching Iron Fist and then Into the Badlands right afterward made the already superior latter even better than it is - and it's pretty damn good.
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@Admiral
WOW! Thank you for this. Really.
I watched this entire season with painful motivation. Every three episodes, I was like "Fuuuuuuck...what the fuuuuuuck..." The most joy I got out of Iron Fist was when Davros looks at Danny and says "you're the worst Iron Fist, ever!" He really spoke aloud what I'd been saying in my mind. It felt like a really shitty version of the Count of Monte Cristo.
But after reading this, I see what my problem was: I'd been watching it with a typical superhero frame in my mind. Where he knows who he is, what his role is in life, and kicking ass one iron fist to the gut at a time. But that's not who Luke Cage is; that's not who Jessica Jones was either; and Matt Murdock has some pretty grey morals by playing lawyer by day, blind-vigilante by night. So--why should I've assumed that Danny Rand was going to be any better than these three fuck-ups forced into being the budding defenders they will become?
He's a damaged young adult. He almost DIED in a plane crash, his parents are dead, and he comes home thinking that the world he knew as a child would accept him even as an adult [which it does not]. Then he has to deal with this quasi-familiar world around him that is always looking to screw him over or deceived or manipulate him for little more than it can. Danny's too trusting, and we see the results of his too trusting nature mixed with PTSD.
So TL;DR - thank you @Admiral again for giving me another lens to see this show through. I may actually watch it again and see if it changes my initial thoughts and feelings about this show.
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@DarkDeleria said in Full spoilers: Iron Fist:
But after reading this, I see what my problem was: I'd been watching it with a typical superhero frame in my mind. Where he knows who he is, what his role is in life, and kicking ass one iron fist to the gut at a time. But that's not who Luke Cage is; that's not who Jessica Jones was either; and Matt Murdock has some pretty grey morals by playing lawyer by day, blind-vigilante by night. So--why should I've assumed that Danny Rand was going to be any better than these three fuck-ups forced into being the budding defenders they will become?
This is a really good overview of their whole collection -- and it's spot on. It's what I like about the series they've done on the whole.
Typically, when we see this stuff in movie form, there's that 'budding hero phase' that is more or less a training montage punctuated by a dramatic heartstring tugger of an emotional turning point scene and even when well done, it's fairly sterile stuff. Expanding that out into the gritty detail of the hand-wringing, the failures that aren't played for laughs or seemingly exclusively to build up the cheer for the underdog finally seizing their power at the end of the training sequence, is a big change... but it's a starkly human one.
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My problem isn't really that I don't like him being the worst Iron Fist ever. It's just that I think they did it badly.
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Belated, I have limited time to watch and didn't want spoilers.
I'll weigh in on the enjoyed the series spectrum. For me Jessica Jones had this, the first half was pointless until the story of her, here friend, Steve and Kilgrave got going.
This first half was similar ...meh ninjas, the hand monks. The drunken master fight scene it got better and better starting there.
Totally classic wuxia. Three challenges (Goa, Bakuto, Harold), each defeat giving him meaning and advice for next challenge. They all become his teacher. They played on the standard three with the early tourney but that was too fast. Better he needed wits, not just iron fist smash things. That made it classic for me. Then in the end it's not looking out for answers but finding it within, when he didn't kill Harold. Any other way and it wouldn't of been kung fu americana, much as Luke Cage had to play off blacksploitation flicks of the 70s.
You get a glimpse of how bad ass he'll be when he finds himself be the double iron fist WW. II footage, homage to crazy costume like Luke Cages headband being in one episode.
Completely integral to Defenders. The mystic arts and they're reason to defend, more Hand, and financial backing to operate ... Matts firm isn't going to foot the bill. It has me hyped for Defenders when I wasn't initially cause I want the c next season's of DD Cage and Jones.
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I just finished last night. I enjoyed it? But not likely enough to re-watch. It suffered not only from not being the other shows, but from having so many random storylines, it was like they played Netflix Series Pictionary and made a storyline out of each guess.
The Meachum kids became my favorites. Danny learned nothing, no growth. I dunno, I'm glad I watched it, but I'm not sure how Loras is going to hold his own against the others in The Defenders. I love Finn Jones, but...
I'm willing to forgive them, though, for this much weaker showing if Punisher is really going to get his own series.
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"If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?"
-- Hamilton: An American Musical -
@Cupcake Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiit yes. I only saw mention on my quick Google Search to remember the Justice League for Marvel.