Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Bazza]

 

 

 

[Ranxerox]

14 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

 

Iron Fist Season One: Less said, the better. A truly bad show that felt rushed to production, with a complete mis-cast of the title character and, for the first time, a lack of solid writing. The first of the Marvel series were slow paced with plenty of deep character moments, but the writers of Iron Fist just inserted "lots of pointless talking", a plot that made little sense and was clearly forced to setup the inevitable Defenders series, and ultimately failed in its one true mission, to bring a real flare for martial arts/wuxia style... lacking any real choreography, martial training, or commitment to fight scenes that Iron Fist demands. (Daredevil had way better fight scenes, and he is the crime series, Jones is the noir detective battling personal demons, Cage is the socially conscious everyman hero... Iron Fist needed to bring the Shaw bros./jet Li aspect/or go full tilt into the pulp legacy of Iron fist, but failed to do either.) Almost unwatchable by the end... which is too bad, as Iron Fist is one of my personal favorite characters since I was a kid.

 

 

 

10 hours ago, zslane said:

I put Daredevil season 1 and Jessica Jones season 1 at the top spot together, and I agree with RDU Neil with his ranking of their villains. I also agree that the less said about Iron Fist the better. It is just too easy to imagine how it could have been infinitely better, and so it is infuriating we got what we did.

 

 

Personally I enjoyed Iron Fist. The martial arts were bad, but I watched Arrow for years and its martial arts were in there own way just as bad despite the years of practice their actors had doing them.  The pacing was good, without the the feeling that episodes 8 through 12 were just there as padding like so many Netflix series.  The story with Ward and his father was compelling.  Madame Gao was a good villain.  Colleen Wing was cool.  Moreover, prepare yourselves for heresy, I liked the character of Danny Rand.

 

Yes, if I was a fan of Danny Rand from the comics, I probably would have hated him in the Netflix series.  However, Danny Rand in the comics never really did anything for me.  The Netflix's Danny Rand at least I found interesting.  The idea that taking an orphan and training him for years to be some ultimate warrior would result in not some peaceful zen warrior but instead in a really emotionally messed up man struck me a wonderful overturning of a stale troph.  Every good thing about Danny Rand was stuff that he brought with him to K'un-Lun as a sweet, innocent boy.  All K'un-Lun added was violence.  If you doubt this, look at messed up Davos is.  Early on we see him subduing and tying up a food truck owner to use his truck to spy on Danny, and to pass the time he scares the s*** out his prisoner.  Had Danny Rand not won it instead, this is the guy who would have become Iron Fist.  Think about that.

 

I also liked him in the Defenders.  I found him to be a refreshing counterpoint to everyone else's angst and cynicism. 

[Pattern Ghost]

2 hours ago, Bazza said:

Comcast is welcome too as long as Marvel gets their characters back. 

 

I wonder if Marvel is more likely to get their characters back if Disney buys Fox or if Comcast does? Hmm . . .

[Bazza]

If Disney does, it is virtually guarenteed. 

[clnicholsusa]

Thus far, none of the extended Marvel film universe has actively disappointed me, with one exception. Marvel's Runaways on HULU. There may be an audience out there that would have appreciated it, but I was not part of that audience.

It isn't ironic that I said the same thing about Beverly Hills 90210. I haven't checked, but I think the writer's from that prime time teenage soap came out of retirement to do Runaways.

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

I loved Runaways.

[zslane]

Comcast is not a movie studio, so if they acquire the Fox assets, they will no doubt keep the studio going under the existing Twentieth Century Fox brand and hold onto the X-Men rights. They may release the FF rights back to Marvel, though, since that has yet to prove itself as anything but dead weight as a property.

[Starlord]

Also, Comcast is evil.

 

Not mega-corporation evil.

 

Like, old testament evil.  Cthulhu evil.  Guy-who-doesn't-like-bacon-evil.

[Doc Shadow]

1 hour ago, Starlord said:

Also, Comcast is evil.

 

Not mega-corporation evil.

 

Like, old testament evil.  Cthulhu evil.  Guy-who-doesn't-like-bacon-evil.

 

Wow  That's evil. 

[Lord Liaden]

Whereas Disney is cutting-edge evil, like Skynet, or the Borg.

[drunkonduty]

RE. the Netflix shows

 

(I haven't yet sat down to watch Jessica Jones 2 yet so  with that in mind...)

 

I'll rank Jessica Jones1 and Daredevil 1 as the two best. Both series are really solid all the way through to great climaxes. Good stories. Excellent characterisation. I enjoyed the central casts in both shows. And the supporting casts for that matter. Top notch telly.

 

Luke Cage has a great start but I'll agree with the folks above who've said the second half was kinda muddled and messy. But a great character, a great setting in Harlem. If they can focus on that more and the need for shoe horning in super villains the show will just get better.

 

Iron Fist was fine. Yeah, Danny Rand ain't that likeable ; he has major anger management issues that make him a bit of a douche. BUT that is kinda the point of this character. Madam Gao makes for a great villain and I was happy to see more of her. I loved Ward and, um, the rest of his family whose names I can't remember. ?  I gotta ask, what was wrong with the fight scenes? No they weren't wuxia. Nor were they the sort of exhausting, gut-wrenching realism of Daredevil's fight scenes. (I loved DD's fight scenes.) They were somewhere in the middle; that is they standard for action flick fight scenes. Okay, we coulda hoped for more. But they weren't bad.

 

Next I'll put DD season 2. Yep. After Iron Fist. Because there were two completely unrelated plots crammed in there. Not that there was anything bad in either of the two plots. But using the first half of the season as a prolonged trailer for Punisher was just a waste of time that could have been given over to the Hand plot. (Conversely the Hand just pushed the Punisher plot aside; your choice. But since Punisher was getting his own show anyway why cram him in here?)

 

Punisher didn't need to overlap with the other shows. You could still have had Karen Page in the show. And Foggy. And Jerry. But just have him have his own show.  I rate this show this low because I just don't like Punisher. But in truth it is a good show. Well written, well acted, well directed, well edited. Shame it's about the Punisher is all.

 

And last The Defenders. It wasn't good. Too much going on. Shoving in cameos by  Foggy, Karen, Patsy took up time that could have been used for the plot. For that matter Luke and Jessica just had no reason to be there and it felt like it. Still good performances by the cast. It looked good like all the shows. But it failed at story.

 

Cheers all.

[Bazza]

Annette Bening Joining 'Captain Marvel' (Exclusive)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/annette-bening-talks-join-captain-marvel-1110284

[RDU Neil]

6 hours ago, drunkonduty said:

RE. the Netflix shows

 

 

And last The Defenders. It wasn't good. Too much going on. Shoving in cameos by  Foggy, Karen, Patsy took up time that could have been used for the plot. For that matter Luke and Jessica just had no reason to be there and it felt like it. Still good performances by the cast. It looked good like all the shows. But it failed at story.

 

Cheers all.

 

Good point on Luke and Jessica. While the viewer knew that, ostensibly the entire city was at risk (that never actually seemed the case, and everything ultimately is about... dragon bones?  Whaaaaa?) there was no personal reason for Jessica and/or Luke to be involved, and they weren't together anymore, and Luke and Danny aren't friends, so...

 

Basically, where the MCU movies took the time to EARN the big team up (I'd argue that they failed in execution, but that's me) the Defenders felt forced together for a reason that wasn't clear to them until, maybe the end, and even then...

[Ternaugh]

20 hours ago, zslane said:

Comcast is not a movie studio, so if they acquire the Fox assets, they will no doubt keep the studio going under the existing Twentieth Century Fox brand and hold onto the X-Men rights. They may release the FF rights back to Marvel, though, since that has yet to prove itself as anything but dead weight as a property.

 

 

Comcast is a movie studio (and owns a bunch of OTA and cable channels), through their ownership of NBC Universal. They also control 30% of Hulu, and Fox's assets would give either Comcast or Disney another 30%.

[massey]

4 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

 

Good point on Luke and Jessica. While the viewer knew that, ostensibly the entire city was at risk (that never actually seemed the case, and everything ultimately is about... dragon bones?  Whaaaaa?) there was no personal reason for Jessica and/or Luke to be involved, and they weren't together anymore, and Luke and Danny aren't friends, so...

 

Basically, where the MCU movies took the time to EARN the big team up (I'd argue that they failed in execution, but that's me) the Defenders felt forced together for a reason that wasn't clear to them until, maybe the end, and even then...

 

So... one problem I had with Defenders.  If the Hand people knew they were going to die, that they had run out of dragon bone juice or something, why not do the ritual thing that they did to Ward's dad?  He kept coming back to life over and over again, without any dragon bone juice.  Yeah apparently you become more violent each time, but so what?  It's better than being permanently dead.

[zslane]

4 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

Comcast is a movie studio (and owns a bunch of OTA and cable channels), through their ownership of NBC Universal. They also control 30% of Hulu, and Fox's assets would give either Comcast or Disney another 30%.

 

Point of clarification: Comcast is a media conglomerate. It isn't a movie studio. Owning a studio through subsidiaries does not make you a movie studio yourself. Comcast does not produce movies. At most they facilitate financing (like Netflix does). For instance, you've never gone to a movie and seen the Comcast logo appear as the studio brand preceding the opening titles. What you see is the Universal logo with "a Comcast company" underneath. The way you read that is: "Universal made this movie, but Comcast pays its operating bills."

 

-*-*-*-

 

Re: Iron Fist - The biggest reason to despise Iron Fist is because it failed so profoundly to live up to its potential. The story that was told was one of the least  interesting stories you could possibly tell given the wealth of fascinating source material at the writers'/producers' disposal. Danny being annoying and the fight choreography being third-rate are not the show's biggest weaknesses; the entire storyline and the style with which it was told was. Iron Fist should have been far more cinematic than it was, it should have been positively drenched in the aesthetics and culture of Kun Lun, but instead the show spent 100% of its running time in hum-drum, mundane New York City. Instead of the MCU version of Into the Badlands meets Kung Fu we got Dallas meets American Ninja.

[Lord Liaden]

10 hours ago, Bazza said:

Annette Bening Joining 'Captain Marvel' (Exclusive)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/annette-bening-talks-join-captain-marvel-1110284

 

Hasn't the film been in production for a while? Seems kind of late for a major casting announcement.

[Greywind]

Like Dinklage and Infinity War?

[Bazza]

36 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Hasn't the film been in production for a while? Seems kind of late for a major casting announcement.

 

True. The film started filming g in Feb this year for a week or two to claim a tax credit and from what I remember would go into full production a month or so later. 

 

I posted it as others (like yourself) might want to know. I'm personally over supporting/minor role cast announcements. Overall I find them relatively irrelevant to the enjoyment of the film. My preference is if studios issue a press release then reveal the role this actor/actress is playing. If this role is a spoiler, then don't issue the press release. 

[Ranxerox]

12 hours ago, Bazza said:

Annette Bening Joining 'Captain Marvel' (Exclusive)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/annette-bening-talks-join-captain-marvel-1110284

 

I was disappointed to discover that she was not playing Tracy Burke.

[Ternaugh]

6 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Point of clarification: Comcast is a media conglomerate. It isn't a movie studio. Owning a studio through subsidiaries does not make you a movie studio yourself. Comcast does not produce movies. At most they facilitate financing (like Netflix does). For instance, you've never gone to a movie and seen the Comcast logo appear as the studio brand preceding the opening titles. What you see is the Universal logo with "a Comcast company" underneath. The way you read that is: "Universal made this movie, but Comcast pays its operating bills."

 

-*-*-*-

 

Re: Iron Fist - The biggest reason to despise Iron Fist is because it failed so profoundly to live up to its potential. The story that was told was one of the least  interesting stories you could possibly tell given the wealth of fascinating source material at the writers'/producers' disposal. Danny being annoying and the fight choreography being third-rate are not the show's biggest weaknesses; the entire storyline and the style with which it was told was. Iron Fist should have been far more cinematic than it was, it should have been positively drenched in the aesthetics and culture of Kun Lun, but instead the show spent 100% of its running time in hum-drum, mundane New York City. Instead of the MCU version of Into the Badlands meets Kung Fu we got Dallas meets American Ninja.

 

The Walt Disney Company is also a media conglomerate, and is considered the second largest media conglomerate after Comcast. I leave it up to your expertise if they also don't produce movies.

[drunkonduty]

6 hours ago, massey said:

 

So... one problem I had with Defenders.  If the Hand people knew they were going to die, that they had run out of dragon bone juice or something, why not do the ritual thing that they did to Ward's dad?  He kept coming back to life over and over again, without any dragon bone juice.  Yeah apparently you become more violent each time, but so what?  It's better than being permanently dead.

 

Yeah, it's a bit vague there.

 

What I think is going on  is that Ward's dad WAS given immortality dragon bone juice.  The immortality dragon bone  juice gives someone limited immortality. I base this assumption on the fact that the Hand keep harvesting the dragon bones. I am assuming that they need to take it periodically.  When they do take it for a period of time (and that period would have to be more than a century based on Madam Gao's claim that she spent the 17th century being tortured) you can't die unless you are beheaded. Eventually the juice runs out of juice and you got mortality again. As for getting more violent with every death, who's to say that the Hand aren't  getting more psycho as they go along? They're ninja assassins after all. Elektra came back crazier than before.

 

Of course this begs the question, why waste some of the very limited amount of immortality dragon bone juice on Ward's dad?

 

But this is all my guesswork. The shows are very vague about the details. Which is probably deliberate on the part of the producers/writers as they probably wanted to avoid writing themselves into a corner. Which is fair. I mean the Hand have been around for 4 different series (DD1 & 2, Ironfist, and the Defenders) so that means a lot of different creatives have had a hand in their story. (Pun intended.) It's difficult to get consistency under these circumstances and I sympathise with the writers. But in the end this leads to us having a very muddled and unsatisfactory story.

[zslane]

2 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

The Walt Disney Company is also a media conglomerate, and is considered the second largest media conglomerate after Comcast. I leave it up to your expertise if they also don't produce movies.

 

Walt Disney Motion Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Studios make movies (along with four other production studios that don't have "Disney" in their names but which are owned by The Walt Disney Company). Both of these entities pre-date Disney becoming a "media conglomerate", endowing Disney with a long, celebrated history of film production. Comcast has no such history of film production. They are a technology company that has merely acquired production studios in a bid to achieve vertical integration of the entertainment business.

[RDU Neil]

21 hours ago, zslane said:

Re: Iron Fist - The biggest reason to despise Iron Fist is because it failed so profoundly to live up to its potential. The story that was told was one of the least  interesting stories you could possibly tell given the wealth of fascinating source material at the writers'/producers' disposal. Danny being annoying and the fight choreography being third-rate are not the show's biggest weaknesses; the entire storyline and the style with which it was told was. Iron Fist should have been far more cinematic than it was, it should have been positively drenched in the aesthetics and culture of Kun Lun, but instead the show spent 100% of its running time in hum-drum, mundane New York City. Instead of the MCU version of Into the Badlands meets Kung Fu we got Dallas meets American Ninja.

 

Best... review... ever.

[Bazza]

Cross posted with Infinity War thread. 

 

Avengers trifecta.