Netflix Marvel: "You are the dumbest Iron Fist yet."

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Netflix Marvel: "You are the dumbest Iron Fist yet."

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

HIJK posted:

I guess? Comic book land is a place where you can precisely control violence enough so that you don't murder anyone if your heart is pure enough. It's about ~symbolism~.

Well, the Hulk apparently doesn't kill any civilians in his rampages, so anything's possible.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 23:50

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 05:44

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Mameluke posted:

I just spent all day watching this. I think it's on par with Jessica Jones and the first season, and far better than early reviews made it out to be. The Punisher was fantastic; 2x11 I think he and Karen would make a much better couple than her and Matt. Karen and Foggy were also great this year; it was very satisfying to compare their mundane, yet incredibly loyal and compassionate behaviors to Matt's more conventional heroics.

I agree 100% with this. I hated her privileged, gleeful sociopathy; the first season also featured a powerful murderer who challenged Matt's ethics, but his name was Wilson Fisk and Matt rightfully opposed him. I also consider the ninja poo poo to be Daredevil's worst aspect, so I was a little biased against her anyways.

I thought Elektra's Manic Murder Dream Girl act was largely just that. She drops the act after ep 8.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 04:40

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

SamuraiFoochs posted:

Nah, I still really loving disliked her compared to the others, even at peak pathos.

Eh, I liked her a lot. Elodie Yung killed it.

Different strokes.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 04:54

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

HIJK posted:

Holy loving gently caress I am bawling at the monologue from Episode 4.

e: And then they ruin it with this loving tumblr shipping poo poo goddammit GODDAMMIT

I really like what they do with the Matt/Karen romantic relationship through season 2.

Seriously though, AvClub called that (ep 4) kissing in the rain scene "something out of a Nicholas Sparks movie, and it's hard to disagree with that.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 05:46

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

HIJK posted:

My problem is that it's dissonant. That monologue is incredible and wrenching and then they switch to Matt feeling Karen up in the rain and we only get a few minutes to make the transition from "holy gently caress heartbreaking" to "romantic playtime!!!!!!!!!!!" All of this emotion pouring out of Frank and then we're supposed to flip a switch and giggle at them in the rain. I mean really.

I totally agree. And it wouldn't work as a scene on its own, either. Standing outside in a downpour in New York City didn't look romantic or sweet, it looked insanely uncomfortable.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 06:10

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Mameluke posted:

That's true, but considering how much it was also played up in the (post episode 5, I forget which) flashbacks of her relationship with Matt, breaking into someone's home and smashing all their stuff, then setting up an incredible moral quandary for Matt for seemingly no other reason than kicks, I thought the change in her writing was inconsistent. She also continues to play up the "actually you love mayhem and are just like me" line, which I thought had been dealt with better in the first season and the Punisher plot. But, again, I find all the ninjas and Stick and Nobu painfully incongruous with everything I like about the show.

And speaking of, *wow* at the Punisher, again. Jon Bernthal's performance reminds me a lot of Cuba Gooding, Jr. on American Crime Story, in that both play characters who are objectively horrid people, but whose behavior seems to come from such an obviously damaged and vulnerable place that you can't help but empathize with them.

Post ep 8, we find out that Elektra was sent to seduce Matt as part of a mission from Stick. Her trying to nudge Matt over the line into being a killer seems to have been her mission objective.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 06:34

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Good Lord Fisher! posted:

As someone who has always found the idea of the Punisher a really loving boring one, I gotta say his portrayal here has turned me around on him a lot. Good acting, good season in general (except for [2x09?] the increasing focus on the ninjas, who really were dull as loving dishwater as antagonists go)

Eh, the actual threats in the Punisher's storyline are pretty generic as gently caress.

Give me hordes of ninjas over interchangeable mook ethnic stereotype gangsters any day of the week.

Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Mar 19, 2016

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 09:27

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Hijo Del Helmsley posted:

As much as I love this version of the Punisher, I really hope he doesn't get his own show.

It'd ruin the mystique if it was entirely focused around him. Plus I'd have a bit of an issue of making a guy who essentially boils down to being a mass shooter that sympathetic. Might send the wrong message.

Plus, he'd need a supporting cast, and it would be way too easy to gently caress that up somehow. Like, Edmondson's run levels of topical hosed up.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of him as a recurring character, although I honestly would rather see more of Elektra.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 10:17

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Escobarbarian posted:

People who have finished the season, I have one question: does Karen find out Matt is Daredevil in this season? Can't stand them dragging this poo poo out for much longer.

Yes, it's the penultimate scene.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 10:57

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

SonicRulez posted:

They didn't. They made that scene way better though.

Seriously Jon Berenthal is great. And D'Onofrio somehow still manages to completely steal the 2 hours he's a part of. I couldn't tell where they were going once Frank got in jail, but once I realized it, I was hype. He beat Matt's rear end. A total contrast (in a good way) to how easily Daredevil always managed to trounce Punisher.

Well, to be fair, Fisk beat Matt's rear end, not the Daredevil's. It would be one hell of a telltale if a blind man suddenly started pummeling a mobster into the ground, after all.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 20:10

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

This season could have used a few more episodes to better flesh out the concluding arcs of both storylines, especially Frank Castle's storyline with the Blacksmith's organization. That in particular felt incredibly rushed and thinly plotted.

Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:

My impression of this thread: "why wont the blonde bombshell date the obese goon "

They did, didn't they?

(Marci was great this season.)

Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Mar 20, 2016

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 02:23

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

RareAcumen posted:

No? Nobu got back up and Stick stabbed and sliced his throat.

Matt throws him off a building that looks to be at least 10 stories tall. I doubt he was thinking about how Nobu could recover from life threatening injuries when he launched him into the air.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 08:22

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Nelson Mandingo posted:

Me too. I don't think they give her enough characterization like Punisher but I think Elodie Yung did a great job with what she had. Like after that one fight scene she gleefully asks "So, hungry?!". This is a person who loves violence.

Also I would not be surprised in the least if Jon Bernthal got a netflix Punisher series. He can clearly carry a series. Infact, I hope he does.

I liked Elektra a lot, too. I just hope that in the future her characterization expands beyond her interactions with the men in her lives.

The Punisher has a huge advantage, though. Sad to say that fridging wives and daughters is a tried and true method of giving a male anti-hero pathos.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 19:32

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Nelson Mandingo posted:

Because the trope works.

I didn't say that it doesn't.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 21:11

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

SiKboy posted:

No tears for Frank Jr.?

I don't think even Frank had tears for Frank Jr. He was like the stuffed-in-a-fridge equivalent of the Brody son from Homeland.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 21:48

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

GlitchThief posted:

Daredevil is packed to the gills with blood, torture, gunshots, and other violence, but the part where Karen narrates her article is the only time I winced.

And this is after multiple people have been stabbed in the eye.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 08:10

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Eh, that fight choreography in Chocolate is good, but the sound design is still done by meat tenderizer to a side of beef. That's not exactly great.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 09:06

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Apoplexy posted:

It's Scott Buck. How that man got work after ruining Dexter is amazing to me.

The world is awfully forgiving to mediocre white men.

Jesus, this sounds like a mess.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 16:46

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Whose genius idea was it to portray Danny as naive to the point of childishness instead of, say, calm and easygoing?

# ¿ Mar 17, 2017 21:49

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Narcissus1916 posted:

The No Killing rule is especially odd given that Daredevil's first season handled it well. He won't actively try to murder people, but he's also not going to cry himself to sleep because some shitbag took a header down some stairs.

Then Season 2, with new showrunners, suddenly he's pleading with Castle like he's goddamn superman. Murdock should have a problem that The Punisher is shooting up his neighborhood and mass murdering folks left and right, but that was tonally off from the get go.

He also gets Elektra gutted by distracting her from stabbing a dude during a fight with sword wielding ninjas.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2017 02:12

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Narcissus1916 posted:

I don't get why people poo poo on Jessica Jones' fights.

Her fight against Luke Cage was great, as was the Patty vs Captain Roided apartment scene.

They came after Daredevil season 1's fight choreography is my bet. The fight scenes suffer in comparison, but then again Jessica isn't supposed to be a Kung Fu master.

Danny, on the other hand...

# ¿ May 8, 2017 21:13

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Buschmaki posted:

Danny Rand speaks to the first Asian person he sees in New York in Chinese, calls a room full of intercity youths "chattering monkies," and now the first person he uses the Iron Fist against is a black guy. Really showing his high-class NY roots.

Immediately after watching her put up posters in English, also.

Considering how bad Danny's Mandarin was, I'm not sure why Buck and co felt the need to showcase it. If the scene was meant to establish Colleen's ethnicity, there were better ways to do it than having Danny accost the first Asian person he sees in the street and assume that she speaks the language of her ancestors.

# ¿ May 13, 2017 17:55

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Stranger Danger Ranger posted:

Not at all, it was completely ridiculous, just a ham handed attempt to show this dude is legit, he speaks fluent asian!!

They should have had him eat at a Chinese restaurant then.

# ¿ May 14, 2017 17:07

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

Guy Goodbody posted:

He wasn't wearing shoes. A New Yorker was accosted by a strange shoeless man in ragged clothes. Also, at that point he literally was homeless and living in the park

Yeah, the show did have a pretty good backstory for why Danny would do something that's lovely and racist and actual IRL Asian Americans have to deal with. I'm not sure why that makes it not a problem with the show, or not part of the show's overall complete failure to make Danny likable.

I guess it's not like the show does an amazing job of portraying Asian characters outside of that one scene. See Madame Gao suddenly being part of the Hand, which as far as we'd known before then was a mystical Japanese death cult. It's mixing up different flavors of East Asian into a bland amorphous paste because you're too lazy to tell Chinese triads apart from the Japanese Yakuza.

Also, apparently all East Asians in New York City but that one couple running a Chinese restaurant in Luke Cage are gangsters or cultists.

This is pretty impressive because, unlike the other Netflix shows, this one is actually supposed to be all about East Asian-based mystical martial arts.

# ¿ May 15, 2017 06:13

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 05:44

Mars4523: Feb 17, 2014

enraged_camel posted:

Not sure what's so confusing about that. We've seen the Hand revealed to be a much more complex and multi-faceted organization than it was originally portrayed in Daredevil, with multiple factions that aren't necessarily friendly towards each other. There's a Japanese death cult component (led by Nobu), a Chinese drug manufacturing and smuggling component (led by Gao), pseudo-Asian youth re-education/brainwashing component (led by Bakuto), and probably many more. This is what you would expect from an ancient organization that presumably out-dates relatively modern cultures like China and Japan.

Really? You think that Chinese or Japanese culture and history is "relatively modern"? Were you thinking on a geological timescale?

There are no indications in Daredevil Season 1 that suggest that Madame Gao was affiliated with the Hand, and apparently going by the comics the Steel Serpent emblazoned on her heroin has precisely gently caress all to do with the Hand. Iron Fist's reveal that she is in fact a faction within the Hand screams of being the laziest retcon. The fact that Gao is Chinese and the Hand has been shown to be a cult of Japanese ninja raise red flags about depiction of East Asians.

# ¿ May 15, 2017 07:09

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Netflix Marvel: "You are the dumbest Iron Fist yet."