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2017/11/17 21:57:38
Subject: Netflix's The Punisher Trailer #2 and Release Date Pg3
I'm not going to say it's bad or that I regret watching it, but I enjoyed it the least out of the Netflix shows so far. Which I actually feel bad about, because it should get credit for just presenting Frank as he is - a murdering nutter who likes killing regardless of what justification he purports to have - but the end result just confirms my initial suspicion that Castle makes a much better sympathetic sort-of-antagonist than he does a protagonist.
WARNING: the following contains both spoilers and some maybe-kinda-sorta-political stuff, which is unavoidable given the subjects discussed in the show so you know, don't @ me.
Spoiler:
The occasional forays into gun politics was also a touch unintentionally comic to someone from outside the US, as they solemnly present a "rational middle-ground" view that to most of the rest of the developed world seems very nearly as bizarre as the full on "Sic Semper Tyrannis" kid, while the guy presented as the loony bleeding-heart/hypocritical sleazeball was just articulating the completely normal status quo for most of us(I mean really, the whole "an actual nutter who bombed multiple places has made direct threats to your life and now you want armed protection - haha, checkmate libs!" shtick was so bizarre; I almost want to believe its clumsiness was the result of trying to insert artificial "balance" because of the whole crazy 2nd-ammendment civilian-murdering guy thing, but who knows).
Micro and Marzani were occasionally sympathetic, but almost everyone on the show is one degree or another of arsehole, which again feels like it was intentional so on the one hand I don't feel fair criticising for it, but on the other results in a cast of characters I didn't really like much and so didn't particularly care what happened to.
Overall, unless there's some tie-in to the other shows, I'll probably give the doubtless inevitable season 2 a miss.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Compel wrote: I couldn't resist reading the spoiler, despite not having netflix right now...
A comment you made there reminded me a lot of a thought I had on Iron Fist.
"It's like Season 1 of Arrow, but every single character in the show is an arsehole."
So it's like Season 1 of Arrow then? Seriously though, I must be odd since I quite enjoyed Iron Fist and don't get the hate for Danny - he was a whiny spoilt brat, sure, but he's supposed to be, him shedding his selfishness and becoming the hero he already pompously claims to be is a big part of his character arc. Which is, as I said, a reason I don't really feel "right" criticising Punisher for treating Frank in exactly the same way, but for some reason it just doesn't work for me here. Maybe it's because Iron Fist presented Danny sort of as a hugely annoying arse right then, but a fundamentally well-meaning person and someone who will grow into a proper hero eventually, while Punisher keeps hammering home that there really isn't anything redeemable about Frank, that he's not motivated by much of anything except his own love of killing and even his original semi-sympathetic revenge motivation was really just another excuse to indulge his inherently violent personality. The issue that brings up for me is that the only way you could really get an audience to cheer for Punisher once you've laid him so bare is to make whoever he's fighting an even worse monster then him, but even that doesn't really work when he exists as part of a reality that contains actual heroes who would be just as capable of defeating the bad guys without joyously slaughtering everything that stands in their way.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Yeah... Iron Fist was terribad. Entertaining in spots, certainly more so than the (far better) Luke Cage, but still awful.
Anyway...
For the first 6 episodes of The Punisher I did not know where it was going. I could see the beginnings of a plot but it felt a bit listless, adrift and, well, not very Punisher-y.
That changed pretty quickly though, and by the end I thought it was fantastic. The 10th, I believe, episode, where we see a lot of the same event from different angles, was fantastic. The fights were brutal (haven't seen that much blood since Ransom*!).
Very much enjoyed it, and I do hope there second season especially after what happens to Billy.
*In the sense that Ransom had a very bloody last act. Obviously more gory things like, say, Spartacus, had more blood, but that's ultra-violence. It's stylised. This? This was just brutal.
I don't think he qualifies as murder crazy, he certainly has no qualms about killing enemies and wants them dead to satisfy his desire for revenge but his rage is directed specifically at his targets and he takes strides not to involve innocent people or bystanders, repeatedly endangering or disarming himself in order to protect hostages. He has a very clear set of rules of engagement and a sense of honor although it's a very dark one. The are some noble actions in his deeds and a number of the other characters try to get him on a heroic path but he's very much an antihero and doesn't want to change from that path "I am home" was pretty much a perfect expression his character who only feels pain and loss and is incapable of ever having happiness again, even when it's within reach he walks away from it.
He's very much like John Rambo in first blood a man who's pushed to his limit and snaps with very violent results, it's a war being waged against the establishment and corruption not simply a fight. Fighting an enemy forces defeat on them with the goal of allowing the wrongdoers to change and vindicate themselves even if it's a small and unlikely chance, Frank has given up all hopes of redemption both within himself and others and can only pursue total destruction, which is war.
Spoiler:
I liked the series pretty well but I do feel feel that he's approached in a bit different fashion than he was in Daredevil, I would have preferred for the gang war elements to have remained an ongoing part of the story rather than kicking off the series by ending the gangwar. Beyond just the flashbacks to his family's murder I think the PTSD elements were fairly well done as it's the other side to the giant mountain that causes his break. It was part of the core story in the Daredevil arc but we didn't see the finer details at the time and going more in depth in Punisher was good. I liked the way it tied them all together and also drove the the unit apart.
I did find some of the characters a bit flat but as a TV series not every character will always have great material. I was hoping to see a bit more of Kingpin since he does such a stellar performance in DD, but maybe that'll be material for season 2. The firefights in the later episodes were pretty awesome, but it felt like things were fairly idle for the first half the season. I get that they were working on the backstories and relationship building with Micro but coming from the intense gang war action to having to ramp back up seemed like it lost a lot of steam in between. DD he was dealing with the big picture elements, then the first half season he goes back to small stuff of interactions with Micro and Curtis, then back to big picture which was a bit disruptive in the flow as the narrative and pacing is different and so may create a hurdle for a lot of viewers. I enjoyed the character building but I wonder if they could have framed it a bit differently so that it felt like it was flowing along with the big picture events rather than being a spacer in between.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/11/19 16:10:20
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paulson games wrote: I don't think he qualifies as murder crazy, he certainly has no qualms about killing enemies and wants them dead to satisfy his desire for revenge but his rage is directed specifically at his targets and he takes strides not to involve innocent people or bystanders, repeatedly endangering or disarming himself in order to protect hostages. He has a very clear set of rules of engagement and a sense of honor although it's a very dark one. The are some noble actions in his deeds and a number of the other characters try to get him on a heroic path but he's very much an antihero and doesn't want to change from that path "I am home" was pretty much a perfect expression his character who only feels pain and loss and is incapable of ever having happiness again, even when it's within reach he walks away from it.
I disagree, I think the "I am home" moment was him finally acknowledging what the show was dancing around and implying all season - he fights and kills because he wants to, because he likes it, because it gives him a thrill. The Marines, Cerberus(this one in particular is key, his actions as part of that unit have no justification and he obvious knew as much at the time and simply didn't care), the death of his family, they're all just ways he gives himself permission to indulge his inner darkness without having to admit that's what he was doing. Plenty of villains have a "code", the issue is the motivation - Frank is essentially Dexter with guns, he's found a way to control and direct his impulses but it's still his impulses that drive him, and like I said I can't really get behind a character like that as a protagonist because their occasional, situational concessions to conventional morality are completely overshadowed by the fact that any good outcomes of their actions are incidental, their core objectives are selfish and only their choice of target mitigates them to the point they can't really be considered "evil" per se, and even that mitigation is lessened by the presence of other actual heroes who could deal with the same problems without indulging in a murder spree.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/19 16:34:06
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Except at the point he says "I'm home" he's being beaten and tortured to the point of death so it's him accepting that the only state he feels anything is when it's pain and suffering which in turn generates the rage. He wasn't actively killing anyone during that sequence, but only once he accepts the fact he's completely lost does the switch flip back on and he's able to resist and fight again as that's what empowers him not simply the drive to kill.
The torture is intermixed with scenes of him having sex with his wife indicating that he has some wires crossed with enduring pain bringing him pleasure, there's never any scenes where he expresses joy or pleasure in killing anybody, or even feels a sense of relief or satisfaction because it's always simply part of the job "you gotta do what you gotta do". Even when he wastes his targets he never expresses any happiness in their death and never so much as cracks a smile, but Dexter lives for both the hunt and kill, the kill is a sacred and final act that he's highly ritualized and takes great enjoyment and pride in it, Punisher is performing a soldiers duty that he's sworn to uphold and in turn only feels more emptiness and loss as he gets darker and further away from the man Frank was before the war.
Frank Castle and the Punisher are two different personalities that overlap, Frank Castle is his pre-war humanity and compassion that still manages to peek out sometimes and is the force that keeps him alive but is slowly being crushed by the Punisher. The Punisher is the forlorn soldier consumed by emptiness, pain, and rage created from guilt and a life of war from which there's no return.
Punisher is seeking his own death and destruction so that his misery ends, but killing himself would be weakness especially when his revenge oath isn't finished. He's fully prepared to die in pursuit of vengeance, however what's left of Frank seeks to endure the loss of his family along with all the other pain and suffering as his act of atonement for all the past (and current) wrongdoing which denies the Punisher of the destructive final end he's seeking.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/20 00:11:51
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I feel that if this was just a stand alone series without the name Punisher, I would have really enjoyed it. The camera work was solid, the acting was good, the plot line moved along... but it did not feel like the Punisher.
He was not actually punishing anyone. Sure, there was violence. But it was directed mostly at grunts doing their job. (sure, they were bad guys, but military contractors are not bad by default and Frank didn't see them doing bad guy stuff... so just grunts.)
And the greatest offense of all...
Spoiler:
The show ended with "the Punisher" going to group therapy... That is the least Punisher thing I can imagine.
The show ended with Frank having his fingerprints and DNA wiped off the system. If that isn't a blank cheque to have him be the Punisher more freely, then I don't know what is.
The occasional forays into gun politics was also a touch unintentionally comic to someone from outside the US, as they solemnly present a "rational middle-ground" view that to most of the rest of the developed world seems very nearly as bizarre as the full on "Sic Semper Tyrannis" kid, while the guy presented as the loony bleeding-heart/hypocritical sleazeball was just articulating the completely normal status quo for most of us(I mean really, the whole "an actual nutter who bombed multiple places has made direct threats to your life and now you want armed protection - haha, checkmate libs!" shtick was so bizarre; I almost want to believe its clumsiness was the result of trying to insert artificial "balance" because of the whole crazy 2nd-ammendment civilian-murdering guy thing, but who knows).
Spoiler:
It's very reminiscent of the way 24 presented a senator that thought that Jack Bauer should tone down the torture and try and avoid shooting innocent people to encourage their friends to talk as insane villains.
Gen. Lee Losing wrote: I feel that if this was just a stand alone series without the name Punisher, I would have really enjoyed it. The camera work was solid, the acting was good, the plot line moved along... but it did not feel like the Punisher.
He was not actually punishing anyone. Sure, there was violence. But it was directed mostly at grunts doing their job. (sure, they were bad guys, but military contractors are not bad by default and Frank didn't see them doing bad guy stuff... so just grunts.)
I'm pretty sure all the people that ended up on the wrong end of Frank's gun were actively trying to kill him or someone else when he shot them - and not just because they saw the guy who's been running all over New York shooting people, because they'd taken a job to assassinate someone.
Spoiler:
Compare the way he handled the guys hired to guard the Senator to the guys sent after his old army buddy.
I think it's weird how someone could watch that show and come away with the impression that Castle is some kind of amoral serial killer who is motivated by sensation. He frequently prioritizes the lives of innocents and those he cares about above even his own mission for vengeance, and if faced with the choice to risk his life for someone else he will choose to do so every time, even if that person is a complete stranger. He even goes out of his way not to kill people like enlisted U.S. soldiers who are simply doing their job and have no awareness of the part they're playing in Agent Orange's plot. The targets of his vengeance are all clearly defined and he has absolutely no interest in hurting anyone who is not a threat to someone he cares about.
Gen. Lee Losing wrote: I feel that if this was just a stand alone series without the name Punisher, I would have really enjoyed it. The camera work was solid, the acting was good, the plot line moved along... but it did not feel like the Punisher.
I'm watching it now and I feel the same way. This is a good character driven show but that character is not The Punisher, nor is it really Frank Castle.
I'm four, maybe five episodes in. It's entirely okay. Slickly made, particularly the action, and it's well written - nothing ground breaking but the plot moves nicely. And I really like the guy playing the Punisher.
I've got one problem though, and its big enough that I can't really engage in the show- I really just could not give a gak about the government conspiracy nonsense. I know its a core Punisher story, but its one I've never really engaged with because it just isn't that interesting. Part of it is that the secret evil government man is a pretty worn out cliche by now, but mostly its because its what takes away the Punisher's most interesting dynamic. There's a million stories of psychos getting revenge on the people who wronged, Punisher is the guy who's tragedy drove him to start slaughtering thugs and low lifes of any stripe, despite them having no connection to him personally.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
I still haven't watched it in part because of the same reason Sebster hasn't engaged with it. After seeing the trailer I saw that the bad guys were going to be soldiers/army types, probably corrupt like we saw in DD season 2. To me that's just not what makes the Punisher an enjoyable catharsis. I'm sick and tired of government conspiracy tv shows. It's so damn cliche at this point, especially when it just keeps ruining things I liked (Blacklist being another recent show that I really liked until it disappeared up the global/government conspiracy poop hole).
The government conspiracy in this show isn't necessarily far reaching, but a government conspiracy it is, and it takes the focal point during the whole thing. So if that's not your cup of tea then this one probably won't dazzle you.
Finished it. It's one of the tighter stories they've done however... it isn't the comic book Punisher. You could easily swap out Frank Castle with a generic character played by Jason Statham and it would still be the same show. Other than that, the show was really good at what it wanted to be and I'd recommend it on its own merits. Just don't go in expecting to get more of what Daredevil's Punisher gave us.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/01 06:02:59
So I did watch it and it was okay. Definitely not what I wanted out of a Punisher TV series though but it was okay. Actually one of the better government conspiracy plots in that it didn't try to over complicate itself, save for most of the villains being way to brain dead dumb to have ever gotten as far as they did.
LordofHats wrote: I still haven't watched it in part because of the same reason Sebster hasn't engaged with it. After seeing the trailer I saw that the bad guys were going to be soldiers/army types, probably corrupt like we saw in DD season 2. To me that's just not what makes the Punisher an enjoyable catharsis. I'm sick and tired of government conspiracy tv shows. It's so damn cliche at this point, especially when it just keeps ruining things I liked (Blacklist being another recent show that I really liked until it disappeared up the global/government conspiracy poop hole).
Maybe spoilery, but not super spoilery, but
Spoiler:
The bad guys aren’t US Military. It’s more a single rogue CIA dude who’s less corrupt, and more “ends justify the means” I do really bad stuff type, and a bunch of mercs.
There’s a bit more finer details than that, but that’s a brief synopsis of the villains.
LordofHats wrote: I still haven't watched it in part because of the same reason Sebster hasn't engaged with it. After seeing the trailer I saw that the bad guys were going to be soldiers/army types, probably corrupt like we saw in DD season 2. To me that's just not what makes the Punisher an enjoyable catharsis. I'm sick and tired of government conspiracy tv shows. It's so damn cliche at this point, especially when it just keeps ruining things I liked (Blacklist being another recent show that I really liked until it disappeared up the global/government conspiracy poop hole).
Maybe spoilery, but not super spoilery, but
Spoiler:
The bad guys aren’t US Military. It’s more a single rogue CIA dude who’s less corrupt, and more “ends justify the means” I do really bad stuff type, and a bunch of mercs.
There’s a bit more finer details than that, but that’s a brief synopsis of the villains.
Spoiler:
Meh. All the mercs who were that just walking corpses were ex-military and the the second main villain was a soldier who went mercenary. So army/soldier types, and corrupt. It was better than I expected, but it's still what it is. I honestly think Jon Bernthal is what really made the show work. The guy is easily my favorite actor to portray Frank Castle on screen/monitor. There's just this undercurrent of rage that he manages to convey so effortlessly, and it's that rage that makes Frank so human even as he's brutally murdering people. He's angry. Angry as feth at the world and how broken it seems to be. The previous two guys just didn't have that. They were too stoic.
LordofHats wrote: He's angry. Angry as feth at the world and how broken it seems to be. The previous two guys just didn't have that. They were too stoic.
That's my exact problem with the Punisher series. The intro shows him hunting down and murdering everyone involved in his family's murder. So he's not DD S2 Punisher anymore, he's got experience. I expected his rage to have cooled down and him becoming more stoic, because that's what the Punisher is. But he didn't. He was careless and reckless most of the time.
Ray Stevenson in War Zone was imo a pretty good actor for a grizzled Punisher after years of fighting.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/12/06 13:08:24
Yeah but Shooter made the plot really fething stupid. The movie was great. One of the few of its kind I really enjoyed, but damn did the series go dumb.
Thinking about the show a bit more, I think Frank Castle (in this series) can be summed up in this paraphrased quote he says to Micro to get him to go on a two man job with him.
"Oh, are you pissed off now. Good. Being pissed off beats being scared every time."
That incapsulated THIS Frank Castle. He is always pissed off and angry, because if he stopped and thought about his life he would be scared instead, scared of the consequences and scared off what he would find within himself.
<shrug>
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LordofHats wrote: He's angry. Angry as feth at the world and how broken it seems to be. The previous two guys just didn't have that. They were too stoic.
That's my exact problem with the Punisher series.
The intro shows him hunting down and murdering everyone involved in his family's murder. So he's not DD S2 Punisher anymore, he's got experience.
I expected his rage to have cooled down and him becoming more stoic, because that's what the Punisher is.
But he didn't.
He was careless and reckless most of the time.
Ray Stevenson in War Zone was imo a pretty good actor for a grizzled Punisher after years of fighting.
I thought that intro montage was a flashforward. He's not wearing his trademark Punisher Skull outfit yet (I'm up to ep 6 now), so I assummed that intro was jumping forward to some point towards the end of the season.
IIRC He was already wearing it at the end of DD S2. The burning of the vest in that montage is intended as an indicator he's done being the Punisher, and the events of the opening few episodes are what bring him back. Donning the skull is clearly some outward sign of his mental state, when he stops being Frank and starts being the Punisher, whether that's purely intended as a visual cue for the audience or an actual part of this Punisher's mental process I don't know.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/08 18:25:21
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Azreal13 wrote: IIRC He was already wearing it at the end of DD S2. The burning of the vest in that montage is intended as an indicator he's done being the Punisher, and the events of the opening few episodes are what bring him back. Donning the skull is clearly some outward sign of his mental state, when he stops being Frank and starts being the Punisher, whether that's purely intended as a visual cue for the audience or an actual part of this Punisher's mental process I don't know.
Ah, completely missed that. Who was it that killed his family then? The mafia? Or the dirty Black Ops guys?
The Mob guys physically killed them in the crossfire of a bad heroine deal, but they were set-up by the Blacksmith and his crew who were part of the Black Ops conspiracy.
Yes, it gets a bit strained.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/08 18:35:28
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Seriously though, I must be odd since I quite enjoyed Iron Fist and don't get the hate for Danny - he was a whiny spoilt brat, sure, but he's supposed to be, him shedding his selfishness and becoming the hero he already pompously claims to be is a big part of his character arc. Which is, as I said, a reason I don't really feel "right" criticising Punisher for treating Frank in exactly the same way, but for some reason it just doesn't work for me here. Maybe it's because Iron Fist presented Danny sort of as a hugely annoying arse right then, but a fundamentally well-meaning person and someone who will grow into a proper hero eventually, while Punisher keeps hammering home that there really isn't anything redeemable about Frank, that he's not motivated by much of anything except his own love of killing and even his original semi-sympathetic revenge motivation was really just another excuse to indulge his inherently violent personality. The issue that brings up for me is that the only way you could really get an audience to cheer for Punisher once you've laid him so bare is to make whoever he's fighting an even worse monster then him, but even that doesn't really work when he exists as part of a reality that contains actual heroes who would be just as capable of defeating the bad guys without joyously slaughtering everything that stands in their way.
... dang." 
