Marvel's Iron Fist

It's established in universe that Danny liked rap music before his parents died.

There's a whole bit in the first episode where the song that plays when he first arrives back in New York was what he was listening to when his parent's plane crashed.

The scene in Defenders episode 3 where the four of them fight the Hand while Run the Jewels by Run the Jewels (from the album Run the Jewels) plays is made so much better by the music, as one example (Coleen has a scene in episode 4 that is also made better by a RTJ song actually)

And saying rap music fits Luke Cage but not Iron Fist...yeah, I'm not even gonna touch that one.

I'll reiterate they should find some music with traditional Chinese elements like:

Too slow...and honestly, I rather would have Danny listen to music which would represent what some rich kid from New York might have listened to in the 1990s/early 2000s. Something which is distinctively his style to present his identity, not something which was thrown in there to make it easier to pair him with Luke Cage later on.

Techno would have been great. Those fast beats are perfect for fast fight scenes.

You do know that white men are the primary purchasers of rap music right?

Sure...I don't think I worded that well. To clarify:

Danny should have his own music genre to represent him - which means rap is out because it is Luke's sound, Jazz is out because it is Jessica's sound and Hymns/classical music is out because that keeps turning up at Daredevil. I would also avoid the 70th because that is soooo Star Lord now, and maybe stay away from soul, since Falcon already claimed that one, and Latin-American music because that is Ant-man's thing.

It should be a music genre which would fit a rich boy growing up pretty isolated in the late 90s of New York...which would mean either the kind of music his parents would most likely listen to (which I guess could be rap if they caught the early wave, but not something along the line of Barbarshop and maybe not the Beatles...that might be a little bit too early) or something which would have been all over MTV around that time.

And it should be something with fast beats, so that it could look great to his fight scenes. Hence I ended up with Techno, but I am not married to the notion, I take something else unless it isn't something of the above.

Kinda off topic here, but I don't think Foggy Nelson will be 4 for 4 with the Netflix shows coming out this year. Even if Foggy and Marci Stahl are going with Jeri Hogarth to her new independent practice, as suggested by dialogue in Jeri's last scene in Jessica Jones season 2, I think that we'll only see Jeri appear onscreen (and maybe a cameo from Pryce Cheng and/or Malcolm) in Iron Fist season 2, and Foggy and Marci will never be seen, for the simple fact that Elden Henson and Amy Rutberg were very busy filming Daredevil (Elden being tertiary lead, while Rutberg's social media has suggested Marci's getting a lot more screentime in Daredevil for season 3).

I think most people would agree that's an exceptionally rigid and limited view to take.

Plus, rap is an expansive genre. While Luke and Danny both listen to rap, they listen to different kinds.

Luke likes Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Danny likes Out Kast and The Cool Kids. It fits since Luke is older. Further, while Danny's tastes run to slightly more electronic influenced rap, Luke also listens to older more funk stuff like James Brown (incidentally, the use of Payback in episode 13 of Luke Cage, season 2, was just as good as when Black Lightning used it. Its just a damn good song.)

Edited by ArthurEld on Jul 21st 2018 at 12:04:02 PM

Well, then pick a rap direction which is known for fast beats (is there something like this? I frankly admit I really don't care about sub-genres in music that much, I am perfectly satisfied with the broader strokes...I think most people are, nobody really cares about the difference between Renaissance, Barock or Viennese Classic). It should be something which is distinctive for the general audience (which has a lot of people in it which might not listen to rap at all), something which clearly tells the audience something about who Danny Rand actually is.

Look, you want this because you approach it from a "hey, I think it is great to see a white person connected to Rap" point of view. And yes, it is kind of great...hell, one of the reasons I was so much against having rap in the Black Panther movie was because I felt that it would be such a cliche thing to do. I approach it from a "what would have improved the first season of Danny Rand in the eyes of an audience"...and one of those things (aside from getting the colour coding right and better editing) would have been to pair him with a music which would make his movements look faster.

Edited by Swanpride on Jul 21st 2018 at 10:29:28 AM

I don't think Anarchy Club is "too slow". It's good training music (I practice kickboxing to it). At any rate, it seems kind of silly to me that a character whose primary driving point is "the meeting between the modern, urban New York and the ancient, mystical K'un-Lun" can't get any music that represents that kind sort of blend. Mind you, there is some hip-hop to that effect (primarily via Wu-Tang Clan), but Iron Fist doesn't use any of it.

Zack Hemsey (of Inception fame) has made a career of blending rapping with traditionally classical Chinese/Japanese instruments in his work:

If you think it's cliche to have rap music in a movie-period, whether it's Black Panther or Star Trek or anything, then you're already looking at things the wrong way.

Danny likes rap music. The people who are doing the music supervision for the show like rap music. That's literally the only reason they need.

No, what you need is something which will enhance the scenes in the show. Listen to soundtracks from more or less every martial arts movie out there...there is two kind of music in them: Those slow tunes (usually played by a flute) which is ideal to show the graceful aspect of martial arts and play well to some landscape porn and those super-fast drum pieces which are used for the actual fight scene. That is NOT an accident. As I said beforehand, movements made on fast movements look faster than the same movement combined with a slower rhythm.

But hey, let's just ignore years of experience in creating Martial Arts movies for our martial arts based TV show. I mean, what do those Chinese know about creating a great fight scene. We will do it OUR way with slow rap music, because that is cool and we really like rap music.

Edited by Swanpride on Jul 21st 2018 at 10:59:53 AM

You can just say you don't like rap music. It's ok.

I like it just fine...I have no preference for any particular music style I am pretty much a "uh, I like this song" kind of gal. Granted, Rap manages to create this feeling in me less likely than other genres if it is sung in English, because, frankly, the songs really lose something if you strain to understand what is said. The fact that it is usually slang in a foreign language which is delivered in some sort of half-singing really works against me. But I liked pretty much the whole of Luke Cage's season 1 soundtrack (not so much the second season, that was mostly just okay).

But hey, I am really into Tschaikowski that doesn't mean that I would have picked his music for Iron Fist. Because that would have been really, really random.

Then the rest of your "argument" doesn't hold water.

There are plenty of good martial arts films without Chinese inspired soundtracks, and most of the actual fights in Iron Fist aren't actually set to rap music.

You are either not getting or misrepresenting my argument…my point (which nobody really tried to dispute so far) is that you need a fast rhythm to make fight scenes look fast. If you pair them with something slow, they look slow, which can be fine if you go for something stylistic Wu style slow motion approach, but not if them make your already not up to par trained actor look even slower than he already is. I don't care if the sound itself is Chinese or not (or is Techno Chinese?) I care about this fast rhythm which most rap songs simply don't have. They fit when Danny does some sort of meditation slow movement (hence me not minding the use of music in the dojo scene), but you need something fast for the actual fight scenes. Rap is pretty much one of the worst genres for the kind of music you need, because rap is about talking over music in a pace which people are still able to understand, not superfast rhythms.

And I didn't even bring that originally up, btw. It was someone else who pointed out that the music in the first season of Iron Fist didn't work. It didn't work because for one, there was no clear connection to Danny established in a way that the music meant something (the iPod did, but not the music itself..that the difference to the mix-tape), and two, it didn't have the "fast tunes for fight scene, slow tunes for meditation" mix which other martial arts movies and shows use to great effect.

Edited by Swanpride on Jul 21st 2018 at 11:38:24 AM

So what fight scenes specifically are you talking about?

The hallway fight has fast, electronic music.

Danny vs Scythe has quick, more typical action music. Those are the first two that come to mind, cause I liked both those fights.

Again, rap music is not being used for the fight scenes.

The best music to score a fight scene was already used in Season 1, anyway. Take On Me.

Danny liking rap music was one of the few things I liked about his characterization season 1. It made him seem less of a prat.

And the choice of music is most likely part of the reason why you like them.

Iron Fist actually played a lot of the fight scenes without any music at all which, frankly, was a mistake, especially for the Colleen vs Bakuto fight, or they had this score, which was a little bit too slow for my taste and was often overshadowed by the sounds in the scene.

The hallway fight has at least a sequence in which there is a proper attempt to be made to sync score and movement in a way to make it look cool, and the drunken master fight has a few elements of it, too.

But none of this is a replacement for a really thought through soundtreck...and for using the music consistent. Like, having Danny like rap but playing fast paced score meant to symbolize Kun-Lun would have worked, too, but the music is all over the place.

So, I'm just going to tackle this from my point of view:

No, no, go ahead. I'm going to say that it fits Luke Cage because the story is set in Harlem, deals with gang violence, police corruption, and urban/social disputes. The rap that plays in that show is much better-used and fits the mood of every scene.

I'll admit that I forgot about that. Still doesn't make the use of it in Iron Fist any better.

And this scene is much better than any of the ones that I saw in Iron Fist.

Which is why my is that it's supposed to strengthen the bond between him and Luke, which is a better reason to include it, unless Danny Rand was always interested in rap music and that's just always been a part of his character.

Edited by Soble on Jul 21st 2018 at 3:35:26 AM

This scene you links illustrates exactly what I am talking about...it's not a fast rhythm per se, but the score itself is pretty fast and perfect to rise tension, and since they use a score for ironfist, when they change the rhythm you know that Luke Cage is behind the door because this kind of sound is connected with him in a way it just isn't with Danny. And then they used a faster rap than usual.

This would have been even more effective if Danny had his own style of music, too, that that his style could clash with Luke's...after all half of the fun of those characters together is how different they are. It would be a way better bonding experience if Danny would learn to appreciate rap through Luke.

That was the scene and song I was talking about. RTJ, by RTJ (from the album, RTJ).

And do you understand what I am talking about? The scene wouldn't have worked if the first part of it had played rap music. This is why Danny needs his own distinctive music genre or at least a distinctive sound for his fight scenes, something memorable which says "Danny is here! You better run now!" the way the use of rap does for Luke Cage in this scene.

I couldn't care less what kind of music he listens to, I never needed it to enjoy a scene.

I care very much what sort of music goes into a scene. A lot of music I listen to I discovered on the soundtracks of various video games and shows. In some cases, RWBY for example, the music can be the work's most redeeming quality.

I don't particularly like rap or country, but played in the right scene or moment, rap music and country music become Ear Worm.

Edited by Soble on Jul 22nd 2018 at 1:21:15 AM