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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Done with Episode 7. The scenes between Ward and Harold were fucking great. Watching as Ward just keeps getting run through the wringer until he finally stabs and mutilates his own father is engaging. Wonderfully engaging. Madame Gao is delightfully evil, and I fucking love how she just waltzes into Rand and starts dealing in her own evil shit within the company without any way for Danny to get her to stop. Heck, Danny is actually pretty fucking good here, I almost forgot how he came off as so creepy and unsettling early on. He's doing stuff because it's the right thing, and he's going against the people in his company who are doing some seriously shady shit.
Which still makes me pissed off at how the show takes forever to get to this point when they should've cut down the first five episodes to be three episodes. People would've given this better reviews if they'd done that, and hell, I'd take a slower second half if it meant the first half was still good. So far this is definitely the weakest of the Netflix shows (though the strong character moments make me at least position this slightly above Daredevil Season 2), and that's mostly because it takes forever to get going, and even when it's good there's still some glaring flaws. Finn Jones is an alright actor but he sometimes comes off as unnecessarily stiff and wooden, in addition to the fight scenes with him often being weak. The editing during the fights is largely atrocious to watch and downright confusing. Danny and Colleen having sex out of seemingly nowhere...no. Just no. Hell, I don't even get too much of a sense of closeness between them. They play off each other better now, but in the early episodes they don't feel particularly close to each other.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?Bump.
Done with Episode 8. The fight with Lewis Tan's character was great, kind of hilarious actually. I don't doubt he'll wind up coming back next season, he's too good of a character to possibly pass up on using again (plus the whole hint about him probably having a darker side when he's sober is ripe with potential). Ward dealing with his traumas is fun to watch, but the whole thing with Joy flat out hiring a private investigator (most likely Jessica Jones going by the dialogue) to dig up dirt on the people in the company trying to screw over Danny and the Meachum siblings is surprising but also kind of fitting. She's not that nice after all. If they'd actually managed to cut down the first five episodes to be three episodes, and the preview for critics ended with this one, this would've been so much better in terms of pacing and writing.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I'm glad to see you're enjoying the Meachum family. They're the best part about Iron Fist. And they get even better (or worse, from an in-universe perspective) going forward.
Unrelatedly, I have no doubt that Zhou will return. Lewis Tan is great.
Episode 6 was great but the Bride of Nine Spiders felt wasted, as you noted.
edited 15th May '17 6:48:07 PM by Anomalocaris20
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
I don't, and not just because I still think that Danny Rand can be pretty much everything EXCEPT Asian. He was good in that scene because he had the luck to get directed by the best of the bunch who worked in that show AND because he had a role which allowed him to overact. But it was still overacting.
Anyway, I think that Joy isn't that nice was made clear pretty early when she exchanges an ORGAN for the pier they want and Ward looks positively shocked by what she has done. Iron Fist is a little bit like Ao S in that regard, a lot of what happens in the first episodes seem a little bit random, but they are all puzzle pieces for a big thematic whole.
Still seems like an unnecessary objection based on the idea that Danny would've been more accepted in K'un-Lun if he was Asian, which doesn't really seem to have much to support it. Danny's fish-out-of-water story rarely mentions his race. Him being a poor little rich kid who got beaten with sticks until he fell in line seems like the more difficult adjustment, and that could've happened to anyone.
Lewis Tan is winking at the camera a fair bit during his scenes, but he's got the screen presence to get away with it. He's got more personality than Finn Jones and he's better at martial arts. He's only got eight minutes onscreen to sell us on the character, and the rest of the episode is fairly subdued, even downright mediocre, so I'm more inclined to credit the actor over the director. Kevin Tancharoen is a fine director, especially when it comes to action scenes, but saying he's the best of the bunch here based on an episode that's really not his best work? That's stretching it.
The episode and the fight is clearly made in his style. And he is excellent in drawing the best out of the actors. They all bring some of their best performances.
Btw, I actually like the romance between Danny and Coleen. They are cute together in a "awww, those clueless, overly romantic teenagers" way.
I just can't really see it with Danny and Colleen. I know a lot of the early reviews and fan buzz said that Colleen was much more interesting than Danny, but I think she's kind of bland. I just don't get a feeling of closeness between her and Danny. Unless I'm missing something, of course.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?The impression I get is that it's very much a physical attraction and appreciation for the others skill at punching septums
Forever liveblogging the AvengersHuh...guess that might make sense, I guess. Battle Couple then.
Ya know, even though Danny isn't really my favorite of the four Defenders and so far Iron Fist is probably one of my least favorite parts of anything from the TV side of the MCU (Probably situated somewhere around Daredevil Season 2 and Agent Carter Season 2), I still like him much better than Matt. Danny comes off as largely bland sometimes but I don't, like, want to repeatedly punch him in the face for being an idiot.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
He is my second fav defender after Jessica....Luke is okay, I guess, but being the "strong silent type" often makes him boring and Matt really p... me off, especially in season 2.
Wait a little bit concerning Colleen. You might understand the attraction of her character and their relationship around episode 10, even if you don't share the view.
Matt is my favorite, Danny is my second favorite, followed by JJ and LC.
I mostly like Danny for being the happy-go-lucky fellow among the violently grim Defenders team.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."There's not a single one of the Defenders I hate, I really like them all as a character. I just find Luke the least interesting. But he's a great character, as Adric said, kind of a urban Captain America. I do wish he took himself less seriously from now on so he could be more like his comics self (who's a tad less dramatic).
Matt I like the most for biased reasons. As a Catholic who's had his share of punching people in the face, Matt's arc of "catholic struggling with his Blood Knight tendencies" reasonates with me.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Remember that short in the DVD of Iron Man 3 where "the true Mandarin" has Trevor Slattery killed for pretending to be him on TV?
It's like that. Hydra doesn't appreciate all this publicity it's been getting. They are very busy trying to run a country right now and don't need people spilling their secrets.
edited 15th May '17 4:32:42 PM by TobiasDrake
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