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Finished up the series last night, absolutely brilliant stuff. I'll concede that the first half of the series was stronger than the last, and arguably the ending was left too open, but other than that, I can't complain about anything else. Danny was a likeable lead throughout, the supporting cast was great (especially Ward and Harold), the action scenes were really well done and the pacing was just right.

I'd probably put is slightly above DD1 just because it got going a bit quicker, not quite as good as DD2.

I can't help thinking that the Hand's goons were a bit crap if even whatshername the nurse could beat them up, but I quite enjoyed that. It would have been nice to find out what the Hand were up to, other than just being heroin dealers.



I even managed to get the references to all the other three shows, which I usually miss, so hurrah for me!

 -Loki- wrote:
At the moment the best thing about the Defenders is that there's a Punisher series after it.

Yeah, I think I'm giving Iron Fist a pass - there are just too many aggregated reviews showing it to be sub-par - but I am sort of excited about the Punisher series.

Finished it yesterday... the first few episodes were great, after that... not so much. For a master of Kung Fu, he's getting his ass kicked way too much and barely uses his Iron Fist, and when he does, it's for knocking down doors. Okay, he wasn't up against anything super-powered and he would mush a normal human with it, but still... the use in the last episode was kinda redeeming, though.

What was rubbing me the wrong way, that they changed the Iron Fists history to be of the Order of the Crane Mother. Why would they do that? It's such a small thing, but I can see no reason for it. Maybe they wanted to compress the Seven Cities of Heaven into one: K'un Lun?

I thought it was odd that he had trained for fifteen years as a warrior to fight and defend the city but when someone was killed he seemed like it was a total shock. He is a trained soldier surprised by attackers being killed or maimed. It was like in the Harry Potter movies where even after eight years of magic and studying magic the characters acted like they were awestruck by the idea that magic existed. YOU'RE A FREAKIN WIZARD YOU KNOW MAGIC EXISTS.

Admittedly I am only four or so episodes in so maybe it will change but it has been a slog to get through. JJ may have been slowed paced but the characters were well done and the theme was very well executed but this...this ain't that. I expect better from my Marvel Netflix gosh darnit!

I think he trained for fifteen years, but never actually defended Kun Lun for real; it's hidden away like Brigadoon, after all. That was probably the first time he'd seen someone actually killed in a fight.

Is the strangely English monk going to follow in Chiwetel Ejiofor's footsteps and become evil for no obvious reason, do you think? Did he make it back to Kun Lun in time to get killed, was he just too late and is now stranded in wherever the monastery goes on his own, or is he still in Nepal or Manhattan?

I never said he was experienced in killing people but he did train for over a decade as a soldier so it really shouldn't be a shock. It is the attitude to it that I find problematic. The way he reacted didn't seem right for someone in his position.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I think he trained for fifteen years, but never actually defended Kun Lun for real; it's hidden away like Brigadoon, after all. That was probably the first time he'd seen someone actually killed in a fight.

Is the strangely English monk going to follow in Chiwetel Ejiofor's footsteps and become evil for no obvious reason, do you think? Did he make it back to Kun Lun in time to get killed, was he just too late and is now stranded in wherever the monastery goes on his own, or is he still in Nepal or Manhattan?

Danny's friend Davos?

 Ahtman wrote:
I never said he was experienced in killing people but he did train for over a decade as a soldier so it really shouldn't be a shock. It is the attitude to it that I find problematic. The way he reacted didn't seem right for someone in his position.

I don't think any of Danny Rand's reactions made much sense at all - and I'm putting that on the actor. I just don't think he (yet, improvement is always possible) has the chops to portray a lead.

I'm hoping the ensemble nature of Defenders will draw more out of him, and let the character and actor develop.

Also, the odd thing? He wasn't trying to hide his superpower from anyone. In the general Marvel Netflix thing, that's kind of unusual, and it may have contributed to my slight bafflement. (only slight. I don't regret watching it as I do Suicide Squad or Arrow, just a damp squib compared to the rest of it's stable mates). So there was no 'curse you and you're sudden but inevitable betrayal' stuff for him to deal with - no 'everyman' such as Foggy - just yet more not especially convincing Ninjas.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don't think any of Danny Rand's reactions made much sense at all - and I'm putting that on the actor. I just don't think he (yet, improvement is always possible) has the chops to portray a lead.

That is entirely possible and even probable.

I thought there was entirely too much going on in the show for it to have real legs. Is this a story about corporate intrigue and plots to control vast fortunes? Is this a story about battles against an ultimate evil and a star child sent to defeat it? Is this a story about kung fu, and a westener's journey to find his inner self?

It tried to be all these things and more. Spread too thin. It did not leave time for action.

That's very insightful, techsoldaten, and really sums up my main issues with Danny Rand, and the show's characters in general. Coming after Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, where you had characters with excellent developed motivation and reactions to events (with the exception of Diamondback's craziness) this just emphasized plot after plot, to the point that it may actually have worked better if they went full Saturday morning cartoon show and had each episode be a discrete Iron Fist adventure.

The highlights for me were when it went full kung fu.

I thought Cage's motivation was his lack of motivation. Look up 'Reluctant Hero' in the dictionary and there will be a picture of Mike Colter.

The problem with Luke Cage is they went too far with it. They went from Reluctant Hero to Reluctant Existence. I was surprised that he just didn't stop breathing to get away from everything. Even with the lack of action in Iron Fist I'm finding it far more entertaining than Luke Cage managed to be at its best.

Not to mention the action in Luke Cage was just as bad. Finn Jones might not be good enough to do the martial arts side of Iron Fist, but the action in Luke Cage just boiled down to 'stand around getting shot, throw stuff/people around'. For someone with super strength and unbreakable skin they chose the absolute most boring way to show that power. The Bring Da Ruckus fight was pretty good, and the rest of the show should have been on that level.

I really hope in The Defenders they explore both characters fighting a lot better.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I never said he was experienced in killing people but he did train for over a decade as a soldier so it really shouldn't be a shock. It is the attitude to it that I find problematic. The way he reacted didn't seem right for someone in his position.

I don't think any of Danny Rand's reactions made much sense at all - and I'm putting that on the actor. I just don't think he (yet, improvement is always possible) has the chops to portray a lead.

I'm hoping the ensemble nature of Defenders will draw more out of him, and let the character and actor develop.

Also, the odd thing? He wasn't trying to hide his superpower from anyone. In the general Marvel Netflix thing, that's kind of unusual, and it may have contributed to my slight bafflement. (only slight. I don't regret watching it as I do Suicide Squad or Arrow, just a damp squib compared to the rest of it's stable mates). So there was no 'curse you and you're sudden but inevitable betrayal' stuff for him to deal with - no 'everyman' such as Foggy - just yet more not especially convincing Ninjas.

Honestly as someone with PTSD a lot of his reactions did make sense to me. Especially the rando rage reactions. Also keep in mind that Danny Rand has not been outside of K'un Lun for 15 years, he is for all intents and purposes a man child. He was also never ever supposed to leave K'un Lun. So he would have no training on how to interact with outside world. The only thing the Iron Fist is supposed to do is stand at the pass and defend it until his time as the Iron Fist is over. That's it, that's his whole life.

On a side note Danny is actually the 66th Iron Fist and the absolute worst as of right now. He abandoned his duty and barely understands how to use the Iron Fist because he did not stick around to complete his training. He's not the white dude who goes and becomes better than all the natives, he is actually the white dude that goes and makes a fool of himself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hell he was living in isolation when Avengers would have happened. He's got no idea about the Avengers and or anything else.

 -Loki- wrote:
Even with the lack of action in Iron Fist I'm finding it far more entertaining than Luke Cage managed to be at its best.

That's exactly my thoughts. I think Iron Fist is a bad show, but it was more fun to watch than the much better Luke Cage.

Cage's "Don't Give a Feth Fu" style of fighting is only interesting for a while until you realise he's not not fighting because he's unbreakable, but he's not fighting because he just doesn't have the motivation to do so.

Shows can be slow, shows can be bad, but a show needs to avoid being boring. JJ was slow, IF was bad. LC was boring.

Don't be boring!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Even with the lack of action in Iron Fist I'm finding it far more entertaining than Luke Cage managed to be at its best.

That's exactly my thoughts. I think Iron Fist is a bad show, but it was more fun to watch than the much better Luke Cage.

Cage's "Don't Give a Feth Fu" style of fighting is only interesting for a while until you realise he's not not fighting because he's unbreakable, but he's not fighting because he just doesn't have the motivation to do so.

Shows can be slow, shows can be bad, but a show needs to avoid being boring. JJ was slow, IF was bad. LC was boring.

Don't be boring!

I think LC was slow but I didn't find it boring or uninteresting. On the other hand, I thought JJ was both boring and annoying. It's the only Marvel Netflix series that I stopped watching and didn't go back.

I'm only 3 episodes into IF, but it's been entertaining enough. *shrug*

I do think it's ridiculous that Marvel dictates that these shows must have 13 eps, because I don't think there's been a single season of any one of them that couldn't have been much improved with fewer eps and a tighter storyline. By dictating the number, you lose one of the great advantages of the Netflix or premium channel formats.

Finished this last night, I really enjoyed it.. I'm not really a kung fu movie fan or anything, but I thought the fight scenes were good as was the overall story and the cast seemed to work well too. I don't really know anything about the comic, I read Daredevil for a while a long time ago, like in the 80's.. haven't been into comics since so all I have to go on is what's in the movies & shows.

Are there gonna be any other marvelnetflixiverse shows before they do the defenders? I liked all of em so far but I felt Luke Cage was a little slow, and Daredevil season 2 was great but I felt like the Punisher stole the show .. which wasn't a bad thing really.

As far as I know the next series to come out is The Defenders sometime this year and then later the Punisher series.

I finished this series, and I didn't think it was near as bad as the reviews said it was.

That being said, I don't much like the iron fist character.

Mostly because he is, apparently, a blithering idiot.

I mean, take Captain America. He's a wholesome, nice, boy-scouty character, but he's also intelligent and resourceful.

Iron fist is like captain America who is also 5 years old. The entire series consists of him making childlike, stupid decisions that get him and everyone else into trouble. He is also taken advantage of, misled, and lied to by just about everyone in the series, and he NEVER sees any of it coming.

I mean, I get that he's from shangri'la (or whatever it was), but he's still supposedly their ultimate weapon against foreign invaders and a worldwide ninja cabal. You'd think they'd have given him some kind of training or insight into how to deal with people who may not entirely have your best interests in mind.

Anyways. Was not an awful show, but by far my favorite parts were how people kept calling him childish, stupid, and "the worst iron fist ever". Fight scenes were also good.

Would have been much happier with a punisher series, which I can't wait for.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I finished this series, and I didn't think it was near as bad as the reviews said it was.

That being said, I don't much like the iron fist character.

Mostly because he is, apparently, a blithering idiot.

I mean, take Captain America. He's a wholesome, nice, boy-scouty character, but he's also intelligent and resourceful.

Iron fist is like captain America who is also 5 years old. The entire series consists of him making childlike, stupid decisions that get him and everyone else into trouble. He is also taken advantage of, misled, and lied to by just about everyone in the series, and he NEVER sees any of it coming.

I mean, I get that he's from shangri'la (or whatever it was), but he's still supposedly their ultimate weapon against foreign invaders and a worldwide ninja cabal. You'd think they'd have given him some kind of training or insight into how to deal with people who may not entirely have your best interests in mind.

Anyways. Was not an awful show, but by far my favorite parts were how people kept calling him childish, stupid, and "the worst iron fist ever". Fight scenes were also good.

Would have been much happier with a punisher series, which I can't wait for.

Well he is an idiot that is basically a child. In Kung Lau he never actually grew as a person, and only poorly as a weapon. He was surrounded by people that all shared essentially the same beliefs and had been raised to stand at a "Gate" and punch the badguys, not go off and be involved in the World. Also he clings to those people that betray him because they are the last remnants of his childhood, the only time when he really was a person. You can see that with him even listening to Ward and going to him despite how much of a dick he was to him before the death of his parents. He wanted what he used to have and couldn't see (because of the sheltered upbringing) that he was being used.

Also ya know, he couldnt even tell that the school full of people wearing Red and Black, was connected to the Badguys wearing Red and Black, he'd fought earlier. He only had the faintest sense that something was wrong after seeing a Knife.

Finished the series finally and found it disappointing. Of the four I would put it last. For a show about a living weapon the fight scenes were weak sauce, the characterization was botched, and the last few episodes seemed rushed all to hell to get somewhere after dragging their feet for what felt like ages. I'll still watch The Defenders but really waiting for The Punisher at this point.

Yeah, Jessica Jones had far better fight scenes.

I watched and it has it's moment but it really drove me crazy how often he gets his butt handed to him. I get the idea that he hasn't killed anyone and that puts him off guard but after 10-15 years of training he should be able to hold his ground in a fight far better than what he does. Everyone's ability to fight seems to be based solely on the demand of the plot which gets little dumb when it's in constant flux. How the heck was Danny the only one to survive the trial to become the fist when he can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag?

He spins between being proclaimed as a great warrior who's earned the fist but that seems to be a might low qualification based on how often everybody kicks his behind. Pretty much every other fighter seems to be a much more skilled and capable fighter. Danny is somehow picked for the fist over Davos, however Davos is clearly more skilled when they face off. Is the qualification for becoming the fist based on being a gullible rich white guy? As that seems to be his only constant.

I think the answer to that is supposed to be found in the early episode where Ward arranges for some inmates in the hospital to kick his ass.

He talks about how the harder he gets hit, the more focussed he becomes, and so he needs to get a beating before he starts to fire on all cylinders.

Rather tenuous, but I think that's the in universe justification.

 paulson games wrote:
I watched and it has it's moment but it really drove me crazy how often he gets his butt handed to him. I get the idea that he hasn't killed anyone and that puts him off guard but after 10-15 years of training he should be able to hold his ground in a fight far better than what he does. Everyone's ability to fight seems to be based solely on the demand of the plot which gets little dumb when it's in constant flux. How the heck was Danny the only one to survive the trial to become the fist when he can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag?

He spins between being proclaimed as a great warrior who's earned the fist but that seems to be a might low qualification based on how often everybody kicks his behind. Pretty much every other fighter seems to be a much more skilled and capable fighter. Danny is somehow picked for the fist over Davos, however Davos is clearly more skilled when they face off. Is the qualification for becoming the fist based on being a gullible rich white guy? As that seems to be his only constant.

Plus, it probably takes more to be an Iron Fist (i.e a hero) than being able to fight.... or some mumbo-jumbo like that.

I finished it. Overall, I think the series felt...rushed? I didn't hate it like the critics did, but it seemed to lack polish, from the script to the fight sequences.

At a certain point, I had the 'a-ha' moment that Danny is in fact *supposed to be* a really poor Iron Fist. And I like that idea. Where Luke Cage is reluctant and Jessica Jones is troubled, Danny is immature and incomplete. It just needed to be executed a little better -- which is to say both more subtly and less subtly.

I think it might have worked better to have characters openly discuss Danny's shortcomings earlier in the series ("Shouldn't you be better at this?" "I would have thought a super kung fu master would have more control over himself." etc.) and then have the actor give a more restrained performance so that Danny didn't come off as an angry brat *quite* so often. Then you cap that by giving him a clearer, better moment in the finale in which he takes a big step toward becoming a better Iron Fist.

While that last bit may be straight out of Superhero Origin Plots 101, I think it would help establish the character's arc, which was a little meandering as presented.

I didn't mind the corporate stuff. Danny Rand is a person with his feet in two worlds, and I thought that was part of it. I also thought the cast around Finn Jones was solid. David Wenham and Jessica Henwick seemed like standouts. Jones was probably the weak link, but then it's also entirely possible that the script and direction played their parts and let him down.

Overall, I'd like to see a season 2 of this show with a more polished story and script...and some more time and training for the fight sequences. I think the seeds of a really good series are there, if they choose to nourish them.

I believe part of the reason Danny was chosen over the others was due to him seeming to line up with a prophecy about fire and falling from the sky or something like that.

Meh, it wasn't the worst but it was bad. The main character is just to damn erratic. At least the other 3 are consistent in their own way.

I'm hoping daredevil is the glue that elevates everyone else. Otherwise punisher is my only Netflix marvel friend.

...wouldn't Daredevil be your friend too though?