Finn Jones, David Wenham and Sacha Dewan in Iron Fist. Natalie Portman and Corey Stoll kind of felt like they weren't buying into the whole superhero thing, like they were doing it half-ironically. I also never felt any chemistry between Jane and Thor. I'm kind of up-and-down with Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One over the years, but I'm kind of coming down on "she wasn't quite right." If the concept was to make her a druid from Ancient Britain, they shoiuldn't have dressed her like a Buddhist monk. Or, if they wanted her to be a Buddhist monk, maybe they just should have gone ahead and cast an East Asian actress. I don't really know what they should've done, but I don't think the character quite worked.
That's kind of it, though, as far as miscasting, for me. There's some others where I can't tell if they were wrong for the part, or were let down by the material, or they were just working with a different conception of the character than I would have liked. I suppose Swinton could fit into that category. For example, I can't say that Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke were bad, they just felt a little off, somehow. Olga Kurylenko didn't bring anything to her part, but maybe there was no there there, maybe that character could've been anybody. Basically the whole cast of Eternals. It did take me a minute to adjust to Don Cheadle's version of Rhodey, just because Terrence Howard got there first and his portrayal was closer to what I remember of the character from the comics. Initially, I thought he wasn't right for the part, but I've gotten with his version of the character since then. I rewatched Iron Man 2 for the first time not too long ago, and I liked him more than I remembered.
I'm a bit puzzled by this. I only saw season 1 and half of season 2 of Daredevil, but I thought it was excellent, and that D'Onofrio was an absolute revelation as Fisk. Are you saying that these are elements that shouldn't feature heavily in the promotion of the new series?
I don't think Daredevil is a big part of the show. I've only seen the first episode, so I don't know for sure. Kingpin plays an important role in Maya's story; I guess it remains to be seen how much D'Onofrio is actually in the series. Could be a lot, could be a little. But the promotion, such as it is, doesn't seem to be focusing on Alaqua Cox very much. If it was just one thing, I wouldn't think much of it, but there's a handful of little things that together suggest Disney may not have great expectations for the show.
The first ep of Echo was okay. A lot of stage-setting, particularly for people who didn't watch Hawkeye. Some good fights, some clunky dialogue. I don't have any grasp of the story yet; they've set the premise, but not the plot, in the first ep. Kind of pilot-like, in that sense.
Watched The Flash movie. Was OK. Nothing special, really. I got the disk from the library, and then figured I'd watch the special features. But then never did, because why bother?
Second ep of Echowas better. Someone on a podcast made an interesting point, that the recap of prior events in the first episode may not have been very useful for someone who hadn't watched Hawkeye, because it was so confusing and didn't really explain anything very well. I guess I assume at this point that only the hardcores are even watching this stuff, but if this guy is right, and a new viewer who's maybe intrigued about seeing a show with a deaf lead, or a show with a Native American cast, then the first episode may be even worse than I thought it was. I figured if it got viewers up to speed without making them watch Hawkeye first, then I could live with it, but if it didn't even do that...
Someone else on the same podcast made a comment similar to what I said above: Everybody on the podcast was surprised to see the Daredevil cameo in the very first episode, and he said it was like Disney "don't trust themselves" (to make a good show, that people will watch on its own merits).
Anyway, like I say, the 2nd episode was better. I'm finding Alaqua Cox very watchable. Her doofy cousin is fun.
I glanced at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and it's getting "hey, not bad" critic reviews in aggregate. And if you mentally discard the troglodytes and donkeys, the audience scores seem reasonably positive.
p.s. The 2nd episode takes place in Oklahoma, but like so many Marvel things, it was filmed in Georgia. I've never been to Oklahoma or Georgia, but do they look anything alike? I'm imagining people on Oklahoma watching this show and saying, "they said this was Oklahoma, but I'm still waiting to see it..."
Echo, ep. 3: The bowling alley roller-rink fight was a hoot. One article I read said it looked like it could've been partly inspired by Coen Bros movies. I didn't think of that while I was watching it, but yeah, I can see that now. Come to think of it, the Tracksuit Mafia from Hawkeye had kind of an obvious Coen Bros vibe, too. otoh, I'm not sure what to think yet about Maya seemingly having some sort of mystical super-powers. I'll have to see where they take that in the last 2 episodes before making up my mind.
That's pretty much S.O.P. for Hollywood, yeah. The CW's "Berlantiverse" shows were all set in fictional cities, which they could do because of their DC Comics background. Hill Street Blues (1981) famously never said where it was set.
This sort of thing is usual, not just for Hollywood. Think of Budapest standing in for 1950s Paris for adaptations of Maigret, for example. On the other hand I do remember seeing both Morse and Lewis being filmed actually in Oxford!
A time travel episode in Strange New Worlds' third season has Starfleet visit modern (21st C) Toronto, and several Toronto landmarks actually featured in the episode.
That's pretty much S.O.P. for Hollywood, yeah. The CW's "Berlantiverse" shows were all set in fictional cities, which they could do because of their DC Comics background. Hill Street Blues (1981) famously never said where it was set.
Well, to be honesr, I think outright stated fictitious or ambiguous locations are different than saying one location is another when they look obviously different. That's my view. Imagine the outcry of filming in a city in India, and saying it was set in Jerusalem.
They don't look "obviously different" to most of the target audience, though, so why should they bother? Nothing you see on a screen is realistic, one way or another. It just pretends to be. If you happen to be knowledgeable about what's being shown then the fakery seems obvious, but to most people it doesn't.
They don't look "obviously different" to most of the target audience, though, so why should they bother? Nothing you see on a screen is realistic, one way or another. It just pretends to be. If you happen to be knowledgeable about what's being shown then the fakery seems obvious, but to most people it doesn't.
There's differing degrees of pretend fakery, though. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies are unworldly by nature, so filming in Tunisia or New Zealand doesn't matter, and nor do most other real world connections (like how loan word notions are used or not, for example), only the internal inconsistency of the fictional setting's lore. On the other, hand movies about Tom Clancy novels (though, I don't now, off hand, any of their filming locations) are held to much higher standards of realism (though Clancy's overrarchy plots are, "melodramatic, cowboy, wahoo, dick flick," fair, but the many, many details are much tighter. So, one cannot judge expected realism from all movies wirth the same lense.
Iron Fist was just trash overall... I just couldn't get into it. I tried hard to but it just didn't do it for me... the first thing that had me eye rolling about it was how shamelessly they copied the Bruce Wayne backstory from Batman Begins
Natalie Portman/ Jane was never credible as Thor's love interest. It kinda reminded me of Conan the Barbarian/Destroyer/Red Sonja. Sandahl Bergman as Conan's lost love, Valeria, was basically an Amazon, a fierce warrior and Conan adored her precisely for that quality. In Destroyer, he snubs the advances of the Princess Jehnna (Olivia d'Abo) and points her to their companion Zula (Grace Jones) as the type of woman he likes, the type of woman Valeria is... he immediately qualifies it by saying Valeria doesn't look like Zula, but what he is attracted to he admits, is her strength. Its the same for the Kalidor character the Governator plays in Red Sonja, who is basically a Conan character. Brigitte Neilsen is similarly a fierce, tall, powerful warrior woman, and she is believable, they make sense as a couple. Jamie Alexander's Sif made sense as Thor's girlfriend or even Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie (although IIRC I think Valkyrie was supposed to be gay or bi)... Natalie Portman just made no sense... she actually made a little more sense when she actually became lady-Thor in Love and Thunder, but I agree with you, that the chemistry was still missing.
I'm kind of up-and-down with Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One over the years, but I'm kind of coming down on "she wasn't quite right." If the concept was to make her a druid from Ancient Britain, they shoiuldn't have dressed her like a Buddhist monk. Or, if they wanted her to be a Buddhist monk, maybe they just should have gone ahead and cast an East Asian actress. I don't really know what they should've done, but I don't think the character quite worked.
See I really liked Swinton as The Ancient One... I get the cultural appropriation complaint, but its not like she was performing in yellowface, they clearly present her as European. As I've said numerous times... I'm prepared to hand-wave that kind of thing in most circumstances when we are dealing with made up characters. As you know, I often pushback at people insisting that fictional characters have to be a certain race or ethnicity. White Ancient One, Black Little Mermaid... its fine... As long as they are entertaining, I'm here for it. It might be that I have a different perspective and/or sensibility about it because when I was growing up almost all the main/significant characters, especially the main heroes, were white. I enjoy seeing diversity in characters, but I don't need it to be able to enjoy the story.
It did take me a minute to adjust to Don Cheadle's version of Rhodey, just because Terrence Howard got there first and his portrayal was closer to what I remember of the character from the comics. Initially, I thought he wasn't right for the part, but I've gotten with his version of the character since then. I rewatched Iron Man 2 for the first time not too long ago, and I liked him more than I remembered.
D'Onofrio is fantastic in that role... have we seen any of him against Spidey yet? I don't think so but i don't remember for sure... I might have missed something...
Its the same for the Kalidor character the Governator plays in Red Sonja, who is basically a Conan character. Brigitte Neilsen is similarly a fierce, tall, powerful warrior woman, and she is believable, they make sense as a couple.
The character WAS supposed to be Conan, as a matter of fact, but the Howard estate pulled the rights for Red Sonja to use the character in the movie at the last moment due to some legal minutia, and they basically just renamed him, as the movue was all but finished.
The sudden plummet in temperature yesterday trapped me in a bed all night, so what better way to spend that time than by binging Echo?
Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. It's about equal to Loki season two, which I'd rank number one in this era of Marvel shows. Interestingly, it seems that Disney's foray into Indigenous media has been the strongest of their recent releases; the Kahhori episode in What If...? was its best, and now this show*.
But as with other shows that follow the same character development arc, I have beef with the ending.
Spoiler:
Namely, Echo is a killer. Her journey to finding her family and her love and her morality was paved by death. In fact, her initial crusade began by (assumingly) killing Fisk. So she embraces her ancestors, she gains her bloodline powers, and she saves the day. Great! But for some reason, through Disney logic, this necessitates Echo leaving terrible people alive. She works some mojo on Fisk to relive his memory of killing his dad, and she simply lets him go to keep being Fisk elsewhere. It is honestly pretty nonsensical and stupid. Pacifism is an ideal that doesn't hold up to scrutiny when challenged by horrid killers who are motivated by killing. If you refuse to kill Fisk, then imprison him. Expose his lies and his crimes. Something. Don't do a little magic and then wave him off with a kiss on the forehead. It's meaningless. It has no moral beyond allowing people who do terrible things to walk away and continue being terrible. I am sure Disney loves this message, as do the rich, but it's a stupid message for human beings capable of empathy.
I would have also liked to see more of Daredevil or Hawkeye in this.
* I googled to confirm Kahhori's spelling, since I keep accidentally wanting to spell it as Kahhoni, and was bombarded by a slew of articles from the typical anti-wokeists asking the real question: Is having two Indigenous superheroes REPETITIVE and EGREGIOUS? As we all know, having more than one superhero of a particular ethnic group is simply redundant. It's why Captain America, Iron Man, Parker's Spider-Man, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp are such a diverse collection of people.
There's differing degrees of pretend fakery, though. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies are unworldly by nature, so filming in Tunisia or New Zealand doesn't matter, and nor do most other real world connections (like how loan word notions are used or not, for example), only the internal inconsistency of the fictional setting's lore. On the other, hand movies about Tom Clancy novels (though, I don't now, off hand, any of their filming locations) are held to much higher standards of realism (though Clancy's overrarchy plots are, "melodramatic, cowboy, wahoo, dick flick," fair, but the many, many details are much tighter. So, one cannot judge expected realism from all movies wirth the same lense.
Still thing they do is to count on the fact that very few of their audience knows a location well enough to say "That wasn't it". You have a few really famous places. And often those can be faked with a set, or just a handful of irreplaceable scenes filmed there, while the rest was filmed elsewhere. Now I don't live in a really well known area, but there are a handful of times when a TV show, or episode of one, was set in or around here. But nothing was filmed here, and as a whole the show's creators didn't do any background research. They just threw a dart at a map, and that's where it hit, so they call it that. But the number of people who saw the show and could see that was trivially small (I'm looking at you, Gilmour Girls). There have been a number of shows set in New York, but filmed mainly in Vancouver. Because it's cheaper, and hey, all you need is some city and a big harbor for a background.
Iron Fist was just trash overall... I just couldn't get into it. I tried hard to but it just didn't do it for me... the first thing that had me eye rolling about it was how shamelessly they copied the Bruce Wayne backstory from Batman Begins
Well, Iron Fist's backstory goes back to the introduction of the character. I actually don't know when that element of Batman's story was introduced. It's possible Iron Fist used that trope first, in the comics. But regardless, you're right, that backstory had been done recently (three times, in fact: Batman Begins, as you say, in 2005; Arrow on The CW in 2012; and Doctor Strange in 2016 - so we'd had not one, but three stories of the wealthy White man traveling to the Far East to learn mystical or semi-mystical arts and becoming even better at them than the Asians who taught them). So I felt like they needed make some changes to the character and/or story of Iron Fist. At the time, I thought they could/should have made Danny Rand Chinese-American, and therefore his journey to K'un-L'un could be about him exploring his roots. I think I had just read an article about how Chinese-Americans feel like they're regarded as American in China and as Chinese in America, and are kind of left feeling like outsiders in both cultures, stuck in the middle. I thought that could be an interesting element to add to Danny Rand's story. Then Disney did Shang-Chi, so that story isn't really on the table anymore, either, unless you make some big changes. It's a bummer, too, because I think Iron Fist's story is more fun than Shang-Chi's.
For anyone who hasn't read the comic, Iron Fist is a "legacy hero", like Black Panther and Doctor Strange (and now Echo), who takes up a generations-long mantle as the Immortal Weapon of the mystical city K'un-L'un, one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. The other six cities have their own Immortal Weapons: Fat Cobra; Tiger's Beautiful Daughter; Dog Brother Number One; Prince of Orphans; Bride of Nine Spiders; and Steel Serpent. Steel Serpent becomes Iron Fist's nemesis after Lei Kung the Thunderer chooses Iron Fist as his apprentice. Steel Serpent then becomes the apprentice of the sinister Crane Mother.
I was absolutely convinced that Madame Gao in season 1 of Daredevil was Crane Mother. Gao's mystical nature was hinted at when she was asked how many languages she speaks and she says "all of them." There was another moment, when she says she's leaving New York and I think Leland asks if she's traveling all the way back to China, and she says she's going "significantly further than that" - back to one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, I thought we were meant to assume. I actually still think this could have been the original plan, and that whoever did Defenders and/or Iron Fist [messed] it up, because of one significant clue: The logo on the packets of heroin in Madame Gao's drug lab is the chest tattoo worn by Steel Serpent in the comics. Images below. The pic on the left is a screen-grab from an episode of Daredevil; the pic on the right is the cover art for The Immortal Iron Fist issue 4, published in 2006. I remember some people saying the stamp on the packet of heroin was supposed to be a fish-hook - which would be clever, admittedly - but there's no way that's a coincidence. The two logos aren't just similar. When Matt broke into Madame Gao's drug lab with all of the blind people, I actually thought "holy [poo], are we about to see Daredevil fight Steel Serpent?" I was about to have a [freaking] heart-attack.
Spoiler:
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a good way for Disney to take a 'do over' on Danny Rand at this point. There's so much water under the bridge now, it wouldn't be as simple as recasting him. They'd have to make significant changes to avoid it looking too much like Shang Chi (and/or Batman Begins and/or Arrow and/or Doctor Strange). I would very much like to see them go back to Daughters of the Dragon, though. Jessica Henwick was the best thing to come out of Iron Fist, which they clearly recognized in season 2. Supposedly that spinoff series was on somebody's whiteboard of possible projects for Netflix. I bet they didn't know what they had with Henwick and Simone Missick when they cast them in Iron Fist and Luke Cage. Another moment where the miscasting of Danny Rand bit everyone in the [butt]: Finn Jones had no chemistry with Mike Coulter. Even knowing that "Power Man & Iron Fist" were a duo in the comics, I got no sense of them being friends in the show. Some of that could have been in the writing, I suppose. Their whole conception of Danny Rand was flawed from the start. I read that the showrunner of Iron Fist was inspired by the old Kung Fu tv show, with David Carradine. Meh.
I agree, I don't think being miscast is ever the actors' fault. Well, rarely, anyway. If they get offered a part, I think they have to be the sort of people who take on a challenge to even be professional actors in the first place.
D'Onofrio is fantastic in that role... have we seen any of him against Spidey yet? I don't think so but i don't remember for sure... I might have missed something...
The sudden plummet in temperature yesterday trapped me in a bed all night, so what better way to spend that time than by binging Echo?
Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. It's about equal to Loki season two, which I'd rank number one in this era of Marvel shows. Interestingly, it seems that Disney's foray into Indigenous media has been the strongest of their recent releases; the Kahhori episode in What If...? was its best, and now this show*.
But as with other shows that follow the same character development arc, I have beef with the ending.
Spoiler:
Namely, Echo is a killer. Her journey to finding her family and her love and her morality was paved by death. In fact, her initial crusade began by (assumingly) killing Fisk. So she embraces her ancestors, she gains her bloodline powers, and she saves the day. Great! But for some reason, through Disney logic, this necessitates Echo leaving terrible people alive. She works some mojo on Fisk to relive his memory of killing his dad, and she simply lets him go to keep being Fisk elsewhere. It is honestly pretty nonsensical and stupid. Pacifism is an ideal that doesn't hold up to scrutiny when challenged by horrid killers who are motivated by killing. If you refuse to kill Fisk, then imprison him. Expose his lies and his crimes. Something. Don't do a little magic and then wave him off with a kiss on the forehead. It's meaningless. It has no moral beyond allowing people who do terrible things to walk away and continue being terrible. I am sure Disney loves this message, as do the rich, but it's a stupid message for human beings capable of empathy.
I would have also liked to see more of Daredevil or Hawkeye in this.
* I googled to confirm Kahhori's spelling, since I keep accidentally wanting to spell it as Kahhoni, and was bombarded by a slew of articles from the typical anti-wokeists asking the real question: Is having two Indigenous superheroes REPETITIVE and EGREGIOUS? As we all know, having more than one superhero of a particular ethnic group is simply redundant. It's why Captain America, Iron Man, Parker's Spider-Man, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp are such a diverse collection of people.
I finished Echo last night. I also liked it, but yeah, the ending left something to be desired. I wonder if it got rushed. iirc, it's by far the shortest of these MCU shows, only 5 episodes.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a good way for Disney to take a 'do over' on Danny Rand at this point. There's so much water under the bridge now, it wouldn't be as simple as recasting him. [And] Finn Jones had no chemistry with Mike Coulter. Even knowing that "Power Man & Iron Fist" were a duo in the comics, I got no sense of them being friends in the show.
When asked how to remove Danny Rand's problems on X/Twitter, Coker stated: "Simple fix. You can't focus your Chi unless you're centered and balanced. Lose the angst and Danny makes a lot more sense."
Still thing they do is to count on the fact that very few of their audience knows a location well enough to say "That wasn't it". You have a few really famous places. And often those can be faked with a set, or just a handful of irreplaceable scenes filmed there, while the rest was filmed elsewhere. Now I don't live in a really well known area, but there are a handful of times when a TV show, or episode of one, was set in or around here. But nothing was filmed here, and as a whole the show's creators didn't do any background research. They just threw a dart at a map, and that's where it hit, so they call it that. But the number of people who saw the show and could see that was trivially small (I'm looking at you, Gilmour Girls). There have been a number of shows set in New York, but filmed mainly in Vancouver. Because it's cheaper, and hey, all you need is some city and a big harbor for a background.
Its pretty cool when a movie/show/video is supposed to be set in a place you are familiar with and/or have lived in and you see things that you recognize... the movie Philadelphia and The Sopranos theme are just a couple that spring to mind for me.
I've got another (one of many) gripe with the DCU... my wife is watching Aquaman right now and I just noticed something... in the DCU opening sequence graphics, when they show the shadows/graphics of the superheroes they show all of them, even the ones who they haven't even announced any movies for yet, like Hawkman and Green Lantern (unless that Ryan Reynolds abomination counts, which I don't think it does), whereas the MCU is generally better about only including existing characters in their graphics.
Just falls in line with DCU rushing everything, overpromising and under-delivering... gah... they haven't even managed to fully introduce the big 6 yet and they're already considering reboots
Funny thing is, before they tacked the, "U's," on, there were far more successful, Hollywood blockbuster live-action (not cartoon) movies and TV series about DC than Marvel properties.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
about it was how shamelessly they copied the Bruce Wayne backstory from Batman Begins
