Iron Fist

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Iron Fist

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Mar 18, 2017 12:14 am

So, based on the piss poor reviews it's been getting, I decided to check this series out for myself, and, just...oh god. What really kills this show is the set up. Basically, a big part of the plot is that people think that Danny Rand is a crazy hobo, and he's written so poorly, so stupid and naive, that you begin to think they're right. He just shows up out of the blue after 15 years and expects everyone to be casual about it. He actually expects people to be familiar with his martial arts background and everything :"Hello random Kendo instructor, I do martial arts too, as you know, there's this mystical dimension called K'un-Lun". That kind of stuff. He's dressed in rags, has no shoes, says all this stuff and seriously expects people to just be all:
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Also, there's this weird, nonsensical subplot with
Spoiler: show
Harold Meachum
just pretending to be dead and
Spoiler: show
hanging around in a random secret roomed tucked away in the Rand Industries building
.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby NathanLoiselle » Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:02 am

I watched the first two episodes and I have to say as someone who has no knowledge of the comics. AWESOME! This is frankly Jessica Jones good. I also didn't read the comics for Jessica Jones so there's that. So, like dissenting opinion and shit.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby KleinerKiller » Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:05 am

The "HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO BE ASIAN" controversy around this show is incredibly stupid, even on the basic level that while more Asian-American representation would be cool, there would inevitably be just as much clickbait controversy if the first Asian lead in these shows happened to be the kung-fu guy.

That being said, while I plan on watching this once I get up to speed on all the rest of the Netflix output (I started Daredevil, but then got sidetracked binge-watching Arrow), three things are keeping me hesitant: the fact that Finn Jones is by all accounts a remarkably boring lead who can't simulate a fight to save his life, the apparent complete and utter lack of a compelling antagonist like the rest of the shows have had, and Scott "Lumberjack Dexter" Buck being the showrunner. The latter is sadly unchangeable, but can anyone confirm whether the first two things hold true the whole way through?
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:46 am

KleinerKiller wrote:The "HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO BE ASIAN" controversy around this show is incredibly stupid, even on the basic level that while more Asian-American representation would be cool, there would inevitably be just as much clickbait controversy if the first Asian lead in these shows happened to be the kung-fu guy.

That being said, while I plan on watching this once I get up to speed on all the rest of the Netflix output (I started Daredevil, but then got sidetracked binge-watching Arrow), three things are keeping me hesitant: the fact that Finn Jones is by all accounts a remarkably boring lead who can't simulate a fight to save his life, the apparent complete and utter lack of a compelling antagonist like the rest of the shows have had, and Scott "Lumberjack Dexter" Buck being the showrunner. The latter is sadly unchangeable, but can anyone confirm whether the first two things hold true the whole way through?

It seems like that Asian casting controversy is going to be surpassed by the whole "White guy explains tries to explain what martial arts is to the female Asian kendo instructor" thing.

Apparently, it grows the beard a bit in episode 6, but that's out of a ten episode season. But mostly, it's about an annoyingly naive guy who doesn't understand that things can change after 15 years or that secret mystical interdimensional Tibetan monasteries aren't common knowlege trying to just pick off where things left off.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby Piter Lauchy » Sun Mar 19, 2017 4:46 pm

Just watched the last episode and let me just throw in this resounding

Spoiler: show
MEH
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby sunglasses » Mon Mar 20, 2017 2:24 pm

Started watching it and I'm not feeling the hate you guys are.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby Piter Lauchy » Mon Mar 20, 2017 6:14 pm

sunglasses wrote:Started watching it and I'm not feeling the hate you guys are.

Oh, I don't hate it. I also don't love it. IF commits probably the worst sin entertainment can commit: being boring and forgettable. I really liked two things, but they weren't enough:
Spoiler: show
Ward Meachum's character arc and Claire, although Claire being awesome is pretty much just a given at this point.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby Australia » Mon Mar 20, 2017 8:07 pm

I think people are being too harsh on it. I certainly didn’t hate it but I don’t think it’s going to be a show people remember. I’d throw it in with the CW superhero shows, which kinda hurts considering the Netflix stuff has consistently beaten the rest of the superhero shows, but it’s not a terrible thing. It’s a fun enough way to spend the weekend. Doesn’t help that it came out at the same time as Logan and Legion, which are far more likely to stand the test of time.

The Good
The show had definite lulls. Towards the end of the second hour, I was wondering when the ass-kicking was going to happen. All exposition and no action makes Australia something something. But I was smiling by the time he punched that asylum wall down so I guess it did something to get me invested in Danny.

One of my favourite movie tropes is someone scaling the outside of a building but Danny’s response to getting kicked out a window immediately afterwards (“You are really pushing the limits of karma”) I enjoyed more and is probably the one line I’ll end up quoting in everyday conversation.

I continue to be in love with Claire Temple but I was surprised how much I liked Hogarth, considering I found her insufferable in Jessica Jones. Colleen Wing, however, was my favourite of the newbies in the show. And while I’m no shipper, her chemistry with Danny made their relationship the only one in the Marvel Netflix universe I was actively rooting for, as opposed to just enjoying for what it was, while impatiently waiting for non-sexual action to take place. The fact that she was Handmade was probably the most interesting part of the season. It had been hinted at, of course, but her internal conflict and biting the Hand that fed her just made her the most interesting character for me. I love/d Elektra because you never kno/ew where she’s going to fall, but in Colleen’s case, it’s out of genuinely being loyal to two opposing forces and the fact that she manages to stay lovable rather than hypocritical is quite the achievement.

I was surprised how funny this show was. Even the stuff Eric hated, where Danny just nonchalantly assumes everyone would be cool with the idea that he was in a dimension that opens up every fifteen years and he genuinely doesn't understand why the world he grew up in is so difficult to believe. The whole fish-out-of-water thing worked for me, watching a Buddhist try his hand at capitalism and that slapstick scene where he’s moving the chair all the way around the table so he can sit with his only friend in the office was just funny. There’s a scene in a moving truck that has an entire lounge room set up inside it. Not only that but the hallway fight where the bad guys are swinging hatchets around was ridiculous and I love when a superhero show leans into the goofy and bonkers because otherwise it just doesn’t live up to the premise (see below for complaints about how little this occurred). Yeah, the hallway fight was derivative of Daredevil, but they could very well make that a staple of the Netflix shows and I wouldn’t care because they always entertain me. Even Luke Cage had that whole running through the building using a car door as a weapon thing.

I physically winched when Harold pulled the sword horizontally out of the daughter-beater’s head, but not when the sword was swung in. What is that about? Just a nails-on-chalkboard dealio?

“Is there a version of this where we don’t kill someone?”


The Bad
This was the first time I actually saw where the people saying 13 episodes is too long are coming from. The more Jessica Jones, Daredevil and Luke Cage the better, as far as I’m concerned, but I really felt the filler this time around. Where the other shows had side-quests and backstories, this had corporate head-butting, which was cringey in the right ways but if I wanted to see lawyers arguing about their companies doing stuff in a conference rooms and then wondering where their ethics and profession part, there’s already Suits for that. It took way, way too long for the first real Rand v Hand confrontation. The first half of Daredevil season 2 wasn’t heavy-Handed Hand-heavy but they gave us the awesome Punisher plot to pad it out and that’s the main difference. Entertaining filler is entertaining. Quite a few of Supernatural’s best episodes are filler. Circling a plot without interacting with it is how you get the last few seasons of The Walking Dead. It’s boring. I found my mind wandering at times. The last five episodes are by far the best and it’s because you could actually feel things happening.

I don’t know if the show really understands the execution of comic book logic. Two characters come back from the presumed dead before the first episode. The whole revival plotpoint is supposed to either cause excitement or distress because a hero or villain we thought was finally gone is back for more, but we haven’t met these people yet so why do we care either way if they’re alive? Sidenote, there must be ten times more fictional people who’ve successfully faked their deaths than real people. How common is that crime in our universe? It’s like amnesia or stabbing/shooting someone while fighting over the weapon and then looking like you were the one who was wounded for nobody’s benefit until your victim falls to the floor.

Is there a reason the evil father-son duo look the same age as each other? IMDB says there’s a 17 year gap between actors but the characters look like they’re four years either side of forty. I guess you could argue Harold’s immortality makes him age slower, Wolverine-style. Immortality is wasted on the youth as Abe Morgan would say.

None of the villains did anything for me. They worked fine as obstacles but personality-wise, none were scary or menacing or fun or even interesting. Kidnapping Gao was Jessica Jones-lite without the payoff, The Meachums had their moments but they flip-flopped so often, I wouldn’t call any of their plans genius or remotely thought-out on their part. I really liked when Danny’s mate arrived, understandably pissed that he abandoned everyone after beating him to become protector, and with Danny repeatedly breaking his promise to return, I thought he’d make a great adversary, which it looks like he will later on, but if he’s not going to be important until the second season, why not introduce him in the second season?

Daredevil and Jessica Jones exceeded my expectations. Luke Cage met my expectations. Iron Fist is easily the weakest season of the five so far but I still enjoyed it for what it was, but I wasn’t looking forward to it the way I am, say, new Stranger Things or Guardians 2. He’s a less awesome Batman, what with the monk training and rich businessman by day shtick, but I guess if he was an equally awesome Batman, it’d be harder to have differences and conflict between the three males come Defenders time. Still, I feel like a title character should be enough of a character to earn the title if that circular logic makes any sense. I like him. He’s a crafty bugger. I just think he’ll be served better as a team member than a solo protagonist. We’ve seen Matt at death’s door several times but we rarely saw Danny get a scratch on him. The repercussions of his actions didn’t really extend very far. Well, apart from the last scene where abandoning his post got his entire tribe killed.

Heavily implying Danny once fought a dragon is one of those things I'm in two camps about. Obviously they didn't have the budget to show it and teasing us with it is kind of fun, but it encapsulates the whole 'telling, not showing' they did for the majority of Danny's backstory. They showed the plane crash scene four times but God forbid they show an action scene while he's in training or something.

This show should have leaned into the ridiculous so much more. It really pulls its punches and the best parts of the show are when they go full comic. I watched Skull Island today and it’s a thousand percent better than the last Kong movie or the first 90% of the last Godzilla movie because it goes full Kong right off the bat and rarely takes a breath without some creative monster or another popping up. I don’t know if I’d call it a great movie but it is the best monster movie I have seen in a long time because it knows what is. Iron Fist just doesn’t.

If all the episodes had been like episode 12, with alliances forming and breaking and sleight of Hand manipulations, I’d probably be more invested. I think 12 is probably my favourite.


The Ugly
Killed by an ice-cream scoop. It’s how he would have wanted to go. How bittersweet.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby TheSyrupNugget » Wed Mar 22, 2017 10:07 am

Honestly, I didn't mind it. I agree that it's the weakest Defenders series by far, but as Australia said, it holds up essentially fine against most superhero TV shows on air right now. It's pretty much level with Flash or Arrow quality wise, and reasonably watchable. Not great, but also not the miserable dumpster fire people are making it out to be.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby gisambards » Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:57 am

Two episodes in. It's not that bad, and it's definitely better than the second half of Luke Cage, but that's not saying much.
Finn Jones is a little boring, and the martial arts stuff tends to be dull, but neither is irredeemably so. There's some interesting stuff throughout (not quite enough, however), and while Meachum is no Fisk, Kilgrave, Castle or Cottonmouth, he's a damn sight more interesting than Nobu or Diamondback. I haven't got to where Gao appears yet, but based on her previous appearances I'd expect her to rank about the same on the Badguyometer.
Two things it's definitely missing that every other Defenders series has had:
1) Good soundtrack. The soundtrack for Iron Fist is perfectly competent, but nowhere near as interesting as the soundtrack for the other three - mostly just generic synths, where the others were all quite unique.
2) A sense of place. New York in Iron Fist very much just feels like Generic Big City, whereas the other three really managed to make it feel like a unique place.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby Australia » Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:16 am

I know I’m late on this one (as far as I generally post these within five days of release for some reason) but if you wanted me to spend two days in France binging the second season of a show that was okay at best the first time around just to write a bunch of jokes and list scenes you already saw yourself, well, you should have said something. You know I’d do that for you. Anyway, back in the country now and relapsing to my TV addiction, so on with the thing.

The Good
Even if this isn’t memorable by superhero standards, this is just a solid ninja show. Simple plot, rival gangs trying to fill the hole the Hand left and just fist-fighting for the right to lead. Good times.

Between this, the last Ant Man movie, the last Raid movie and to a lesser extent, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, I think the kitchen is now my favourite setting for a fight scene.

I was back and forth on Mary to begin with. I’m all for wacky characters but she wasn’t wacky enough. But by the halfway mark, I was debating which personality I enjoyed watching more and she ended up as one of the best characters.

I like that Danny is the worst-dressed billionaire in New York and nobody ever comments on it.

The most awkward dinner party since that time Jesse Pinkman had dinner with the Whites, or the Tightly (wound) Whities as nobody calls them.

That blood ritual was very Temple of Doom, which I’ll never sneeze at.

Danny being so pleased with himself when he finally recognised somebody was manipulating him. He’s very slowly learning.

Now that Bucky’s gone, Misty is my favourite sidekick with a Maserati arm.

Ward relating his addiction to Danny’s dragon is cheesy on paper but something about the execution worked for me. It might be the first time I really believed their bond considering how dickish they were to each other last year. Also it’s a bit reminiscent of an arc in Dexter where he’s naively trying to quit murder.

“Aren’t you supposed to say this is gonna hurt?” Nobody likes a backseat doctor, Ward.

“Not your best plan.”

“I need something that says I’m sorry I knocked you up and then fell off the wagon in front of you.”

The Bad
So we still don’t get to see how Danny defeated the dragon but we do go back to see him fight Davos for the right to fight the dragon? It’s almost like this show has a shitty budget or something.

I really like when shows change the credits for a Xmas theme or big event so I wish when Davos became the Iron Fist, they switched Danny’s head for his in the credits.

I guess I have to eventually accept that they’re sidelining Claire for some reason. But it sure ain’t going in the good column.

Danny is trying to learn the power of Tactics. But Danny already knows four moves. Forget Common Sense to learn Tactics?

Colleen wasn’t as interesting to begin with. I spent a few episodes trying to remember why she was my favourite character in the first season and then the garage fight happened and I was like ‘oh yeah’. And once she started training Danny and I realised where her story was going, I was back on board.

Having said that, Colleen got used to the Fist incredibly quickly. I assume there’ll be repercussions.

Also I’m getting sick of the MENU shows wrapping up the story 20 minutes into the last episode and then just spending half an hour wrapping up loose ends and setting up the next season. Ten minutes is more than enough to do that.

The Ugly
The delicate balance between Wing and Yang. What, am I writing for this show or something? Jesus.


So I still enjoy these shows but I hope they just permanently team up Iron Fist and Luke Cage from now on because they’re at their best bouncing off each other. I believe the next major superhero release is either Daredevil (Jesus, four Netflix seasons in a year, are you trying to kill me?) or Venom and I’m certainly more cautious about the latter but I hope both are good. As boring as it is to review the good ones, I actually like to be entertained by entertainment but hopefully there’s enough variety that I can flesh out both columns forever. I really don’t want to give Aquaman my money though. Hopefully by Christmas it becomes a funderwater movie as opposed to a blunderwater one. #StillabetterwordplaythanWingYang.
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby KleinerKiller » Sat Oct 13, 2018 3:05 am

After a dreadful first season and a second one I almost got halfway through before losing interest, Iron Fist has become the first Marvel Netflix show to be cancelled. Season 3 might've been pretty cool from what I've heard about the way things shake out at the end of S2, but it looks like that's not happening.

God willing, they mix Danny into Luke Cage's show and turn it into Heroes For Hire, and find some place for Colleen and Ward to hang out being cool (people apparently want Colleen to team up with Misty Knight for a Daughters of the Dragon show, but I've always been pretty down on Knight for being hazily defined and an absolutely awful cop, cool mechanical arm or no).
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Re: Iron Fist

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:07 am

Does Danny at least finally learn that the random hot dog vendor on the street hasn't heard of K'un-Lun?
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