The Marvel Cinematic Universe TV Thread

[JasonM]

Weirdest part about the cottonmouth to Silverback stuff was that for the first part of the series everything was written very straight and true and very much like a gritty crime series that dealt with serious issues like young kids gangbanging and politics profiting of the crime going on. It had it's weirdness, but all in all it dealt with serious topics whilst staying 'super'.

Then Cottonmouth got killed, Diamondback appears. And the acting of Diamondback's character is just so extremely cheesy and over the top, it loses that gritty urban edge and veers straight into 70s style blaxploitation. I get that they wanted to give Luke a more 'personal and dangerous' enemy that could fuck him up big time, but it was ultimately silly as fuck that was extremely jarring compared to what came before.

It's like you start with The Wire/The Shield, and then the director decides at the half-way mark to turn it into CSI: Miami.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah, the tonal shift in Luke Cage is a hard pill to swallow. I like Diamondback's actor, and I know he can do a more grounded version of the same kind of character because that's more or less who he plays in Boardwalk Empire, so that's mostly on the showrunner.

I can't get with "Iron Fist is only bad in comparison to the rest of the Netflix stuff." I mean, yeah, it totally is, but I also found it bad in comparison to nearly all of superhero TV from the last five years, except for season 3/4 of Arrow and maaaaybe season 3 of The Flash. I've already groused about all the reasons I found it awful here before, though, and it doesn't seem healthy to dwell on it with The Defenders just over two days away.

[Benjamin]

Best part about the Defenders? Almost 100% sure there is no Bakuto in it.

[GoGo Yubari]

Spoiler

I thought I saw him fighting Colleen in one of the trailers.

 

[livid]

2 minutes ago, GoGo Yubari said:

  Hide contents

I thought I saw him fighting Colleen in one of the trailers.

 

Spoiler

I thought I saw him too but IMDb doesn't have The Defenders as a credit for the actor so not sure. 

 

[Josh]

Wait - without actually spoiling - what's being discussed behind those spoiler tags?

[livid]

Ben's post 

 

[K]

Finished Iron Fist today. Again, totally fine. Weakest of the bunch for sure, but I liked it enough.

[Avenged Probably]

On 16/08/2017 at 23:04, K said:

Finished Iron Fist today. Again, totally fine. Weakest of the bunch for sure, but I liked it enough.

Me too. I really liked it, not as much as the others but I got a lot out of it. That said, the sooner you start viewing Colleen as the main protagonist... well you're gonna enjoy it a tonne more.

As a fan of the books I loved that by the end they set up a bunch of really cool stuff either for Defenders or a season 2.

[Lint]

I liked Iron Fist.  I didn't like it as "the last show before The Defenders" though.  Felt it was a little lacking then.  Had it been an earlier show, before JJ and LC, it would've worked out better I think

[Monkey D. Lars]

Need to see like everything except season 1 of Daredevil. Might go watch them all if you guys really, I mean really enjoy the Defenders!

[FestiveJack]

Two episodes into Defenders and I totally get what people have said about Foggy. Just the worst (almost).

[Benjamin]

14 hours ago, MadJack said:

Two episodes into Defenders and I totally get what people have said about Foggy. Just the worst (almost).

Really? I'm also two episodes in now and I've quite enjoyed him.

Also, finally found a Danny Rand scene I enjoyed! He's been absolute bollocks otherwise.

[DFF]

Four eps in. I think the opening two are slow and disjointed; they almost feel like a prologue. Three was markedly better and four better still. 

[angeluzcr]

Good show, as someone say, the 2 first episodes (specially the first) seems slow, but they are setting everything up.

About Foggy he become bad the moment He changed from "fun loving and positive" Foggy to "worried all the time" Foggy,In fact one of my favorite episodes of all the shows is "Nelson vs Murdock" from DD first season.

[Benjamin]

Karen and Foggy have become insufferable.

Onto episode 7 now, and I might finish this today.

[I Don't Mind]

Finished Defenders.

Before going into it I thought 8 episodes would be about right to make sure things don't drag out too long, but they probably could have even cut that in half. There's so much repetition. The two best attributes of the series was Elektra's story arc and the hallway fight scene. It was fine overall, but I was left pretty underwhelmed

Edited August 20, 2017 by I Don't Mind

[Benjamin]

Yeah, just finished the finale, and it is a real mixed bag. There a couple of really great parts, some fun parts, and a lot of dumb decisions. Some spoiler-y thoughts on the full season in spoilers below.

Spoiler

 

Fucking hell, killing Alexandra so that fucking boring and absolutely non-directional Elektra can become the central villain was the dumbest mistake ever. Sigourney Weaver was putting a ton into that role, and her story arc was incredibly compelling, compared to the stoned up "Black-uh Sky-uh" who suddenly decided to grow personality, except no one seemed to know what that personality was except she was kind of unpredictable? It was nonsense. The moment Elektra killed Alexandra I wanted to throw something at the TV, she absolutely stunk it in Daredevil season 2, and I was just barely tolerating her presence here.

Not enough Jessica Jones, and way too much fucking Danny Rand. I get that can't be helped, because they chose the Hand as the first villains for the Defenders to go up against, but for crying out loud, Danny is a one-note character. He was actually semi-compelling when he was fighting the other three, but then he got kidnapped and turned into the usual "I must destroy the Hand" said repeatedly.

Not enough Jessica Jones.

I hope to God that we steer clear of all this Hand mystical bullshit from now on. It's not interesting or fun in any way, and we've had 3 whole seasons of Marvel's Netflix with them as the primary antagonists. It wasn't interesting when Nobu was the baddie, sure as fuck sucked when it was Bakuto, and this one ending with Elektra taking over, it was sad. The internal conflict within the Hand was certainly the most interesting part about it, but with Alexandra dead, that all went out the window quickly. Really glad it seemed like Gao probably made it out alive, though, Wai Ching Ho is awesome and really looks like she enjoys playing her role.

Really not enough Jessica Jones. And half the time, it was like the action choreographers and the directors seemed to forget that she has super strength. It got really annoying at times.

It was an interesting season of TV, though. Thought they tried a bit too much of cramming all the bit players in from all the series (though I'm glad Turk still managed to sneak his way in). The action was all 100% mostly forgettable, the most interesting fight scene was probably... I wanna' say the Defenders fighting among themselves, probably. Danny versus Luke, Danny versus Matt were pretty fun. Other than that, there were way too many ridiculous sword fights (and fuck off, Bakuto, good riddance) and way too little action at times, specifically in the middle episodes. 

Have no clue where Matt ended up, except in some nunnery apparently, but if this is going to go in some fucking Christian K'un Lun direction or some bullshit, I might tap out of Marvel's Netflix franchise entirely. I am so fed up with what feels like a bunch of white people throwing every conceivable Asian stereotype they know at this genre (ninjas, monks, fucking dragons). Wonder if he and the Punisher will see each other again.

 

 

[Josh]

@I Don't Mind - put your post in spoilers for god's sake.

Finished Defenders. Full season spoilers within.

Spoiler

It's certainly not the same feeling that the first Avengers movie gave us when it came about. The individual separate series are mostly better than this one. It varies in quality throughout.

That said, I'm glad I watched it and I'd rank it above Iron Fist and maybe Daredevil Season 2. I definitely disagree with most of the immediate reactions I'm seeing here.

Scattered thoughts:

• I've never understood why people were so down on either Foggy or Karen, and that hasn't changed here. They're just as good as any other supporting character, and better than some.
• The cinematography is clearly quite clever, but it's almost too clever in the first episode or too. The color scheme and inventive shots actually became distracting. Thankfully they calmed down by episode 3.
• I actually loved Elektra killing Alexandra. I was hyped for Sigourney Weaver, but they really didn't give her much to work with. She was fine, but Elektra made a much better central villain.
• I agree that it would be nice to give the Eastern mysticism a rest for a while. I feel we might get that now that the first phase is done. Iron Fist could easily keep it going though. I doubt I'll watch it anyway.
• That said, I LOVED the way they treated Danny here. One the first truly great moments of this season is Luke verbally unloading on Danny about being a privileged white boy.
• Continuing that idea, they kept up the idea that Danny has a Messiah Complex and no self-awareness - and absolutely everyone gives him shit for it. "I am the Immortal Iron Fi-", "Yeah, sure champ." That's the gist of most of his scenes and I loved it.
• But he'll probably be only marginally more tolerable in his own series, so yeah, I'll probably skip it.
• I certainly love Jessica (and Luke) more than anyone else here, but they really didn't need more to do. The story just didn't have as much of a natural connection for them, so they did all they could. They'll still be great in their respective series.
• To go back to an earlier point, these series really do work better when focused on just one or two central heroes. There's more time to build emotional depth and consequences there. Maybe a second season of Defenders could change that if they can find a way to spend more time on developing relationship dynamics and not worry as much about meeting a quota of fight scenes.
• Welcome to the Netflix Marvel Universe, a world filled with hallways and flickering lights.
• Some of the fight scenes got a little muddy and you couldn't quite follow what was going on, which is not a complaint I usually have with these shows. But there were a few good ones, with the first full Defenders fight and the final one under Midland Circle being the stand-outs.
• I'm curious what happens next with Misty. Is she going to get a cool prosthetic and be closer to a superhero now?
• Killing Stick was the right call. He was a great character, but he had fulfilled his purpose and his death gave some needed weight to the proceedings.
• At first I wasn't thrilled when we learned Matt was still alive, thinking it was just a cheap ploy for tears. But now I think it was a good call. There's still more they can do with Daredevil (and Elektra), and "killing" Matt Murdock once and for all gives that story the new chapter it needs.

Like I said, it's an imperfect, uneven season, but one I'm glad I watched  I'd still be up for another Defenders season, particularly since they don't need to spend so much time on exposition and introductions anymore, meaning more room to develop relationships and stakes.

 

[I Don't Mind]

What about my post is spoilering? Redacted and redacted are in the trailer. The rest is just overall show opinion

Edited August 20, 2017 by I Don't Mind