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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I remember one of the Dr. Strange comics involved the Real Life universe getting erased from existence and re-created a few hours later at the very instant it happened with no trace that it ever happened. The kind of shit blew my mind as a kid.
I am not saying that Iron Fist deserved a great rating, but it doesn't deserve such a low rating either.
The Doctor Strange Cameo, well, it actually depends. If they just put it in for the crossover then, meh, kind of pointless, but I don't think that they did. I am convinced that the whole scene mostly existed so that Loki could notice Doctor Strange wearing the time stone (which would make Loki the only being in the universe who has at least an idea where four of the six stones are located, since he is presumably also the one who send the aether to the collector - and Thanos himself already knows where the power stone was the last time). Also, Loki knowing that there is a wizard on earth could come in handy.
Basically, the main reason the first episodes of a TV show are more important when it comes to critical reviews is mathematical.
When you compare reviews of a movie, all the people who wrote them have watched the movie in its entirety - okay, 99% have, with the odd "I could not stand it and left the theater", which hardly influences the total score. In that, the reviewers will match the general population, who 99 times out of 100 does not leave the theater before the movie ends - even if the movie sucks.
When you compare reviews of a show however, not everyone will bother watching it until the end. Some will give it a chance, some will just drop it. So if, say, you only pick people who saw the entire TV show to give for example a 60% rating, then it means you consider that the opinion of all those who didn't watch it until the end matters. Except it does, because the proportion of people dropping shows mid-season is far more than 1%. As long as you have watched the first episode, you have a critical opinion of a show.
And since reviewers seldom decide to start with episode 6 or a season finale, it makes the early episodes that much more important.
I might agree concerning a network show with 20 plus episodes (and even then I feel the need to point out that a lot of cult shows didn't start particularly strong), but the Netflix shows are more structured like 13 hours movie. No reviewer would leave the movie after the first act and then write a review based on it.
But the reason movies don't last for 10 hours is that people don't want to sit for the entirety of that duration. If Netflix wants its shows to be treated like movies - then it should call them movies, remove episodes altogether and advertise them as such. Or, instead of making a 10 hours long show, craft four consecutive 2.5 hours long movies.
But if they say that they are crafting TV shows, then they will be treated by critics and viewers like TV shows, with each episode being watched sequentially...as long as they are interesting enough for you to keep going.
In the case of "cult shows with weak starts", presumably those become strong enough to drag back people that might have been miffed by the early episodes - and it means that the ratings will increase over time, and impact the RT score. Right now, JJ's score is low-ish because S2 has 7X% and the total note is an average of two points. If the season indeed takes over later on, you will see S2's score rise, and the total note rise too, before they reach their "definitive" stage.
Most of those cult shows usually have something interesting in the beginning to keep the viewer watching even if they aren't 100% invested. Iron Fist has pretty much nothing of interest for the first half, and if I hadn't already decided to see all of it I probably would have dropped it.
I finally watched Doctor Strange.
White-washing notwithstanding, it was a gorgeous, badly written movie. The visuals were absolutely stunning, and I felt like they were going too fast for me to enjoy them, but since my sight is deficient I cannot hold it against the filmmaker who probably is using people with healthy eyes as test subjects.
Benedict Cumberbatch was playing himself and was a bit monolithic at times, but I didn't particularly mind it, and the comedic timing was alright - not the best gags but they were quite good (the Beyoncé one I really liked) and there were neither too many nor not enough. The acting overall felt subpar for a MCU movie, with no real standout aside from Wong and Rachel Mc Adams being probably the most obvious Satellite Love Interest in the MCU. And it's a shame, because I adore that actress. Has she any hope of becoming a sorcerer later so we see more of her?
The whole story was nonsensical and coincidental to the extreme. It's one thing to say that a character is gifted, it's another to have him repeatedly survive the Big Bad through sheer dumb luck or Villain Ball grabbing. And really, seeing that guy just come and master what are supposedly incredibly complex spells and concepts in a few months - if not a few hours - went way beyond my suspension of disbelief. Believe me or not, a Training montage showing him progressing in other spells than "teleporting" would have made his survival more conceivable.
So...that was about average. Not a bad moment. I'll probably have forgotten about most of it in one week.
I think the implication was he was doing this for several years but if that's the case, they didn't sell it properly. And I still insist that outside of the one scene (you know the scene, the one with those freaky goddamn hands), the effects were at best forgettable as well. Dancing bears at their finest.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I haven't seen Dr. Strange and I'm not exactly in a hurry to, but I feel kind of sad that it's gotten this middling reception because I was originally quite looking forward to it because I felt it had the opportunity to offer something that was actually new. Instead by all accounts it turned out to be a mediocre iron man retread.
There were so many of them that I couldn't keep track. I would prefer to watch Inception instead of this one for the effects, because the slowest pace made it easier to follow what was going on, but that might be more due to personal limitations than actual design issues.
The scenery folding and bending was interesting if maybe a bit overused. The chase in mirror NY was fun. Overall it was imaginative though, and I'm not good enough to judge quality so it looked great to me.
Doctor Strange is outright the worst film in Phase 3, which is especially sad given that all of the other films in Phase 3 rank as outright some of Marvel's best and have addressed some of their prior criticisms. Doctor Strange just feels like a Phase 2 movie that they released during Phase 3 to clean it off of the slate and get people ready for Infinity War. I still outright think it's the worst MCU film and I still stand by that, it exemplifies every damn thing people criticized the MCU for and it is guilty of all of the franchise's faults and sins, all while offering nothing new to counter criticisms and outright doing even worse stuff with the whitewashing.
And it still needed a goddamn Pink Floyd soundtrack.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?Like, replacing the Ancient One with a white lady was unfortunate (and I'm more annoyed that it's predicated around trying to forget Tibet's a thing than anything else) but that's pretty much it.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Doctor Strange duels Thor The Dark World for worst film in terms of being disappointed as I was watching the film. It didn't actively bore me as much as TDW did, and tosses out more godzillas to entertain the average moviegoer, but it also didn't have anything remotely as interesting as some of the Loki scenes in TDW either. Naturally both films are the ones that feel the most like they were directed by committee. There's zero ambition to them.
Iron Man 2 was bad for me in hindsight but watching it I enjoyed myself enough even if the writing was incredibly sloppy. And I actually don't dislike The Incredible Hulk. It's not particularly great and it's plodding in places but the other half of the time I was entertained.
edited 2nd Mar '18 5:58:43 PM by AlleyOop
The film is boring as fuck and is so goddamn forgettable despite coming after thirteen goddamn movies that it's really hard for me to be too forgiving of it, the racism only adds to it. It's not just the whitewashing either, none of the characters are engaging except maybe Mordo and his entire turn to evil is stupid and makes no goddamn sense.
Iron Man 2 at least has some good jokes I guess, and The Incredible Hulk is more like a bizarre time piece of the early MCU before it got solidified.
edited 2nd Mar '18 5:59:44 PM by AdricDePsycho
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

Marvel stars are showing off Infinity War toys at children's hospital.
In honor of the Black Panther movie, BET is re-releasing its 2010 Black Panther series.
edited 2nd Mar '18 7:03:43 AM by TargetmasterJoe