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Post by takewithfood on Jul 22, 2017 9:57:53 GMT -5
Marvel's The Defenders will be out in 4 weeks (August 18th), and they've just released a new trailer. We somehow don't have a dedicated thread for this yet, so I thought I'd compile all the major teasers and trailers in one spot. Here they are in chronological order:
SDCC teaser, July 2016:
Release date teaser, April 2017:
NYCC villain reveal (spoilers), October 2016:
First full trailer, May 2017:
Teaser narrated by Stan Lee, July 2017:
Latest, and probably last trailer, July 2017
My expectations are kinda low. I have a feeling the show's success will depend a LOT on chemistry between the cast and characters. Fingers crossed.
~TWF
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Post by Gris on Jul 23, 2017 4:36:41 GMT -5
The chemistry with the actors seems to be fine judging from the interviews and such, if that will translate to the screen remains to be seen. I think it will be good, it's hard to be optimistic after Iron Fist, but they seem to have recognized that it didn't go well (changed the showrunner for the S2). Just having Daredevil and Jessica Jones is worth for me, honestly.
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Post by takewithfood on Jul 23, 2017 11:16:57 GMT -5
I'm definitely liking the chemistry between Matt and Jessica. If they can get Danny and Luke's bromance going, I think I'll be sold.
~TWF
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Post by takewithfood on Aug 19, 2017 10:09:16 GMT -5
So, this came out yesterday and I'm most of the way through it. It's.. okay? Watchable. As expected, Iron Fist is the weak link in the show. Not only are the two leads from IF weak actors, but it's like the writers don't even know what to do with them. But it's watchable so far.
Anyone else tuning in/binging?
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Post by RidiculousNinja on Aug 21, 2017 7:05:15 GMT -5
Just got to the point where I could watch but why does no one like iron fist? just curious as to everyone's opinion.
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Post by takewithfood on Aug 21, 2017 7:49:49 GMT -5
Just got to the point where I could watch but why does no one like iron fist? just curious as to everyone's opinion. Well, for me it's a lot of things. [WARNING: SPOILERS]The obvious starting point is that Finn Jones is not a very good actor. He's not awful, but he doesn't elevate his own series to the level that Charlie Cox (Daredevil) or Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) do in their own shows. In particular I find his emotional range to be very weak. He sometimes smiles, but otherwise almost exclusively makes this frowny face: It's flat and boring and not what you want from a lead actor. Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing) is not much better, either, and when you put them together it's just cringey. The real trouble with the show, though, is the writing. It's flawed on so many levels, and I could go on for days about it, but I'll try to be brief. For starters, they don't even bother to establish Danny's character, which is insane. We never get to see K'un-Lun, or almost anything Danny does to become the Iron Fist. Our only glimpses we get into what made Danny the person he at the time of the show are one flashback to his memories of the plane crash, and one scene where Ward Meechum is mean to him. That's it, and honestly, the latter does more to establish Ward than it does Danny, since Ward is the one whose behaviour is on display. The problem with this is that we never get to understand Danny's motivation or perspective on a personal level. When he says "I love this city", we have to take him at his word because we never get to see him fall in love with the city. When he tells Joy Meechum that they were old friends, we have to just accept it, because we never see or feel it. When he talks about how hard his training and trial to become the Iron Fist were, again, we just have to go "Uhm, okay," because we are only ever told, not shown. This makes his motivations extremely unclear. Why has he come home? Does he really want to take back his company? Is he shirking responsibilities in K'un-Lun? What are his responsibilities in K'un-Lun? How far is he willing to go to get what he says he wants? Danny is a mystery, and as a result we feel little to nothing for him because we don't understand what makes him tick. He has no discernible character arc because we don't understand where he starts, and don't understand where he ends. What lesson(s) did he learn during the show? How is he a different person by the end? What key decisions did he make to influence his story on a personal, or emotional level? What did he accomplish? Basically nothing. So why are we watching this show? Danny is also written like an idiot. He comes across as a petulant child who screams, shouts, and punches people when he doesn't get his way. He's also insanely naive, and openly tells people "I'm the Immortal Iron Fist from the mystical city of K'un-Lun" when any sane individual would know how insane that sounds. I mean he literally gets locked up in an insane asylum because he won't shut up about his magical powers. Nobody is this stupid in real life. It makes him unsympathetic. I honestly didn't really care what happened to him. Last script thing I'm going to touch on is how feeble they've actually made the Iron Fist. He barely uses the fist in the show. He punches a door once or twice, punches the floor once, and that's about it. For most of the show he lacks the ability to even harness the damn thing. And without it, he's not even on Daredevil's level in terms of combat ability, which is disappointing. Compare this to Luke Cage, almost every episode of which features Cage satisfyingly peppered with hails of bullets. That show knew what audiences tuned in to see, and on that front it mostly delivered. We tune in to Iron Fist to see, well, the damn Iron Fist, and to see Danny Rand kung-fu the hell out of some dudes. Instead we got brooding face, temper tantrums, and a whole lot of missed opportunities. I want to stress that I didn't hate the show. The parts featuring the Meechums were fantastic, and honestly could have been a shown on their own. Ward Meechum (Tom Pelphrey) is a very complex character trapped in an impossible situation that just keeps getting worse; he starts out as a villain we all hate, but actually manages to become sympathetic as we learn more about him, his past, his motivations, the influences on his life, and most importantly, as he makes key decisions that take him along a plot arc. Ward's father, Harold (David Wenham) is a delightfully insane villain who is also complex and just a delight to watch. Joy Meechum (Jessica Stroup) was also much more complex than secondary female characters normally get to be. When she's first introduced you might be tempted to assume she's a love interest, this figure from Danny's childhood who is the only one who starts to believe in him. But thankfully she gets to be much more than that, and at one point almost steps into the role as villain. Also a very strong performance from Stroup. Anyway, that's my very long (but I promise you no where near as long as it could be lol) answer. tl;dr: Great villains can't save the show from weak lead acting, terrible script and dialogue, and a boring, naive, childish protagonist. I've finished Defenders, by the way. I stand by my original assessment which is that it is watchable, but not great. I was sufficiently entertained, and nothing about the show was so offensively bad that it was distracting. It didn't have the depth that some of the solo shows (mostly Daredevil and Jessica Jones) had, but it's difficult to impossible to accomplish that with 4x the characters. It's just a different animal, so I'm not going to hold that against it (much). Danny was definitely the weakest link in the show, but his scenes with Luke Cage were actually okay. That fact, and some things that happen towards the end, really have me hoping they scrap the second seasons of Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and instead combine them to make Heroes for Hire. I think it would be a huge hit.
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Post by Janus on Aug 21, 2017 18:47:05 GMT -5
I just got past episode 4 and I really don't know if I can be bothered with the rest of the series, I never thought I'd say this but I'm actually bored. Does it get any better?
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Post by RidiculousNinja on Aug 21, 2017 20:44:07 GMT -5
Good feed back thank you a lot of the points you meantioned I noticed I guess I get too optimistic in some ways. (I liked the Tim story fantastic 4) they definitely needed flashbacks for iron fist in fact I agree with everything you said sadly but I'm enjoying going down the rabbit hole with ward and I'd leave my entire life for Colleen ....eeerrr anyway I appreciate the viewpoint do you think they can salvage ironfist?
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Post by takewithfood on Aug 22, 2017 0:40:58 GMT -5
I just got past episode 4 and I really don't know if I can be bothered with the rest of the series, I never thought I'd say this but I'm actually bored. Does it get any better? Sort of? Not really? Seeing them together in Ep 4 is one of the high points in the show, at least for me. There are only 8 episodes so you're half-way there. do you think they can salvage ironfist? I think they can, but the show needs A LOT of work. Here's my 5-point plan to fix the show: 1. Danny needs a clear motivation, and he needs a proper character arc. They need to establish where he is as a character, then decide where they want him to wind up, and then get him there through the course of the next season. He needs to grow as a person, or what's the point in telling his story? This is probably the most basic aspect of story telling, but they didn't even attempt it in Season 1, and didn't really have time for it in Defenders. 2. Danny needs a new villain. Audiences are going to be pretty tired of The Hand by now. His world needs to be bigger than just K'un-Lun (which we've never really seen) and the same handful of Hand villains. However, it seems like they're going to pit Danny against Davos in Season 2, so who knows. 3. Danny needs a power-up. He's portrayed as being on par with Daredevil in terms of hand-to-hand ability, possibly even slightly weaker somehow, which isn't quite right. In addition, he has no suit, no equipment, and barely ever gets to use the Iron Fist. Lastly, he only really ever uses the Iron Fist to punch things really hard, and needs to start tapping in to the variety of other chi powers that he has in the comics. 4. The show needs a wider supporting cast. Daredevil has Karen, Foggy, Stick, and introduced Claire Temple; Jessica Jones has Trish, Malcolm, Hogarth, and introduced Luke Cage; Luke Cage had Pops, Bobby Fish, introduced Misty Knight, and heavily involved Claire Temple; Iron Fist has.... Colleen? Joy and Ward were great, but were closer to villains than friends and allies. Danny needs more people in his life than just Colleen. 5. I'm going to say it again: Heroes for Hire needs to be a thing. Danny and Luke have decent chemistry, and their powers, backgrounds, methods, and personalities are so different that I think they'll play well off each other. Plus Misty and Colleen were great together, and would add a whole new dimension to the show. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is proving that super hero cross-overs (Civil War, Spiderman Homecoming, and from the looks of it, Thor Ragnarok), and I don't see why the same wouldn't be true of these Netflix shows. Make it happen, Netflix! Bonus: A bigger budget would help. I gather Iron Fist had the smallest budget of the four shows, and, well, it shows. You get what you pay for.
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Post by Gris on Aug 22, 2017 4:14:43 GMT -5
I watched the first three episodes of Defenders last night and I enjoyed the slow simmer, the we are doing our own thing and will slowly cross in each others way pace. They had a few moments that were very cool, Sigourney fills the screen with her presence alone even if having ninjas once more feels boring and just by the pleasure of having Matt being Matt and Jessica being Jessica it's worth it.
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Post by roxolid on Sept 4, 2017 12:42:31 GMT -5
Didn't enjoy the show. It was ok, but that's it. I'd prefer to watch Daredevil on his own or possibly Luke Cage if he goes up against superhumans instead of punks with guns who can't hurt him. i watched it for the sake of completing the series but agree with most of the criticisms on here. The writing was poor.
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Post by Gris on Sept 9, 2017 4:07:01 GMT -5
Watched it quite quickly but I forgot to come to comment it. It's mostly fine when compared to the weakest series, and although it's not on par with longer and better ones like Daredevil (specially the first season) or Jessica Jones (still my favorite) it's decently done and Sigourney Weaver is a pleasure to watch. Sadly it's short episode count makes it feel a bit simple, the whole season consisting on getting together then deciding how, when and where to punch the bad guys, since you know who they are. Not much of a problem with that, but this should feel like the Netflix Avengers, an exciting moment when our beloved characters that have grown in other series bundle up together to form a sum greater than its parts.
And it didn't. It lacks oomph, it lacks impact. And it's not just having to endure those characters you may like less than others, all superhero team movies have that, but it's the pacing, the focus, the lack of a finale that has some impact. I know that the budget it's restricted, but I'd guess that they still have more money than The CW DC series (although I really don't know) and those series may have their own tone and troubles, but they can manage their season finales way better than The Defenders (or Iron Fist, or Luke Cage...) did.
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