Superheroes!

Synobun said:
@EgonSpengler, do you recommend starting Ms. Marvel and watching as it releases every week, or waiting? I've noticed that a lot of shows release on a schedule that doesn't necessarily fit how they were filmed. (Most of the MCU shows, for example, released weekly but were designed to be watched all in one go.)
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Generally speaking, I prefer shows weekly. This one does have little mini-cliffhanger endings so far, like tv shows used to do.
 
Really didn't like what they did with him in Hawkeye. Hope he's much better in the inevitable Daredevil revival or whatever's happening.
 
Yeah, there was something off about Fisk in Hawkeye. The Echo series started production last month, he could be in that.
 
Slow day week at the office. Fan-casting Fantastic Four.

Reed Richards
First choice: Jon Hamm. 51 years old, 6' 1". Probably best known for Mad Men. He's almost a little too masculine and suave. I kind of want Reed to really be the nerdy scientist, but I think with a good script he could pull that off.

Second choice: Timothy Olyphant. 53 yrs old, 6' 0". Justified. Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian and Boba Fett. A bit more of a rascal than Hamm. Again, would have to play more of a nerd than we've seen him as in the past.
Spoiler :

Susan Storm-Richards
First choice: Katheryn Winnick. 44 yrs old, 5' 6". Lagertha in Vikings. With her 2nd- or 3rd-degree black belt in tae kwon do, she could help make Sue a self-confident action hero, to contrast with Reed's on-the-spectrum scientist.

Second choice: Jessica Chastain. 45 yrs old, 5' 4". For a more intellectual Sue, if you want to emphasize her position as a scientist to rival Reed, rather than an action hero.
Spoiler :

Johnny Storm
First choice: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 41 yrs old, 5' 9". Mostly, I like his energy, a balance between thoughtful and driven.

Second choice: Ryan Gosling. 41 yrs old, 6' 0". Maybe a better choice if you want Johnny to be kind of a playboy, male-model type of guy.

Curveball choice: Elliot Page. 35 yrs old, 5' 1".
Spoiler :

Ben Grimm
Fully-animated. I would skip the origin story altogether and go with the FF as a fully-formed group, which is why I'm going with older actor, so you wouldn't need anyone to play him before his transformation. That said, if you did want to do the origin story, or use some flashbacks, you could cast just about anyone in the role. I like the idea that he's older than Reed and Sue, but I'm not sure that's even a requirement.

Victor Von Doom
First choice: Cristoph Waltz. 65 yrs old, 5' 7". I like the idea of using his age and size to play into the Mozart-and-Salieri relationship with Richards, emphasize his jealousy and resentment. Physically, he's almost impotent without his armor, but can still be menacing in a slow-burning, "just you wait" kind of way.

Second choice: Alexander Skarsgard. 45 yrs old, 6' 4". The opposite of Waltz, could play Doom as threatening, a physical specimen even without his armor. You'd believe that, with the armor, he'd be a real handful for a team of heroes.

Curveball choice: Colman Domingo. 52 yrs old, 6' 2". Does Doom really need to be European? Domingo has real gravitas, and a great speaking voice, and can be kind of unsettling.
Spoiler :
 
Superman and Lois season two is finally done. The release schedule for this was atrocious, and I don't confidently know how I rank it now that it's over. There have been many gaps. It was good, I think, but a part of me wishes I had waited to binge it all in one go. This was really the worst possible way of releasing the show. It feels like intentional sabotage by the network.
 
Synobun said:
Superman and Lois season two is finally done. The release schedule for this was atrocious, and I don't confidently know how I rank it now that it's over. There have been many gaps. It was good, I think, but a part of me wishes I had waited to binge it all in one go. This was really the worst possible way of releasing the show. It feels like intentional sabotage by the network.
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I've long wondered why the networks do that, especially now that the traditional broadcast calendar is gone the way of the dodo.

---

For some reason Disney+ has retitled Jessica Jones. It's now A.K.A. Jessica Jones. Seems like a weird little tweak to make, apropos of nothing.
 
EgonSpengler said:
For some reason Disney+ has retitled Jessica Jones. It's now A.K.A. Jessica Jones. Seems like a weird little tweak to make, apropos of nothing.
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Yeah... I mean, I may be misremembering but isn't that the character's birth-name — i.e. not an AKA at all...?

"AKA Daredevil/ Iron Fist/ Punisher" would make more sense in that respect — and "AKA Luke Cage" would even be appropriate, since he did actually change his name...
 
tjs282 said:
Yeah... I mean, I may be misremembering but isn't that the character's birth-name — i.e. not an AKA at all...?

"AKA Daredevil/ Iron Fist/ Punisher" would make more sense in that respect — and "AKA Luke Cage" would even be appropriate, since he did actually change his name...
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Being pedantic, would it not be correct to say that Daredevil is also known as Matt Murdock?
 
tjs282 said:
Yeah... I mean, I may be misremembering but isn't that the character's birth-name — i.e. not an AKA at all...?

"AKA Daredevil/ Iron Fist/ Punisher" would make more sense in that respect — and "AKA Luke Cage" would even be appropriate, since he did actually change his name...
Click to expand...
The comic on which the series was based was called Alias. I assume Netflix didn't want to use that name because of Jennifer Garner's show from 20 years ago. They did keep the name of Jessica's business - "Alias Investigations" - but I don't recall that they ever said why she called it that.
 
You could also say, "Daredevil, aka The Devil of Hell's Kitchen." In the comics, he was also "The Man Without Fear", but I don't think anyone ever called him that in the show.
 
Re the season finale of the Boys.

sigh...

Spoiler :
Maeve had no powers since the Soldier-boy explosion which negated superhero powers, but she somehow didn't die despite falling to the ground with him. I suppose she abandoned him in mid air and then reached the ground safely (which would be a first; she didn't do it in the plane where she could have waited and saved a couple of kids). I detest this kind of glaring retcon.
ps, rip Black Noir, though that was super-underwhelming.
 
Spoiler :
If Black Noir is really dead, they're completely rewriting the climax of the comics series...


Moderator Action: Spoiler tags have good uses! I added them here. Birdjaguar
 
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While doom-scrolling on the way to work this morning - didn't have the brain-power to read anything real - I saw a couple of reports that Disney wants to reboot the entire line of Netflix shows, up to and including The Defenders. Both articles were from websites I wasn't familiar with, so of course this should be taken with a ½lb of salt, but they both said the studio is talking to both Mike Colter and Jon Bernthal, who are each involved in other, very successful shows right now. I think Charlie Cox is a lock, and Krysten Ritter just needs to sign the paperwork and get her leather jacket and engineer boots out of the closet. Seriously, I think she really does still have them in her closet. The articles said Disney is also looking for someone to replace Finn Jones as a new Iron Fist. It didn't say whether Jessica Henwick was under consideration, but I've read that she'd like to do it.

I still haven't read anything about any of the supporting casts of any of these shows - there wouldn't be much point in getting them if the stars aren't on board yet - but if it were up to me, I'd bring all of them back. Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, Rachael Taylor, Carrie-Anne Moss, Eka Darville, Rosario Dawson, Simone Missick, Amber Rose Revah, Ebon Moss-Bachrach ('Microchip', in season 1 of The Punisher - and yeah, I had to Google his name; I thought he did a nice job, though). I'd send invitations to every single one of them and then see what their terms are; at least give all of them the chance to "call dibs" before doing any recasting.

One of the articles said that Disney wants to make all of the series "PG-13" (not "R", unfortunately) and put them behind its new child-friendly filter. I hope whatever Disney does are sequels to the Netflix series, with some necessary tonal adjustments. I don't want a hard reboot of any of these characters or their stories. For example, I can see a slightly less-depressed, but still cynical and snarky, Jessica Jones as a reasonable evolution of the character, going into a 4th season. I even have some loose ideas about how they could make The Punisher work.

No spoilers here, just nerdy rambling:
Spoiler :
Daredevil season 4 seems to be in the bag, in some form. I don't know if it's truly going to be a 4th season or more like a new 1st season. I would like to see the former and with everybody back, including Wilson Bethel as Dex, fully-outfitted as Bullseye, using a good rendition of his costume from the comics.

Jessica Jones season 4 also seems likely, but I don't think it's a lock yet.

Making Echo a part of this run of series seems like such a no-brainer, I'll be a little surprised if this isn't already their plan.

Instead of continuing Iron Fist, I'd like to see Daughters of the Dragon with Henwick and Missick.

I definitely want them to bring back Colter as Luke Cage, but I wasn't excited about the future possibilities with the ending of season 2 of the Netflix series. They'd set up Luke to be some kind of benevolent organized crime boss. I don't know what a 3rd season would have looked like, so I suppose it could have been good, but I'm not a fan of the gangster anti-hero trope, and it didn't really make sense to me that Luke would do that. It just seemed to be out of character. He's the Reluctant Hero archetype, not the Anti-Hero archetype - people sometimes confuse the two.

Speaking of Anti-Heroes, I would love to see Bernthal as Frank Castle again, but The Punisher has to be the biggest challenge to make PG-13 without losing important character elements. That's partially why I would bring back Microchip and Agent Madani as supporting cast, if I were in charge. I would also ask Deborah Ann Woll if she has the fortitude to play Karen in two shows. I think those three characters could sort of steer Frank into not being quite so violent all the time. Good choreography and directors who understand how to film fights and chases would also go a long way to making Frank's action scenes tense without being as gruesome as they were on Netflix. iirc, Microchip went back to his family at the end of season 1 and didn't appear in season 2, so you'd have to come up with some reason for him to come back into Frank's life, but that shouldn't be too hard. And I can't remember where Agent Madani was at the end of season 2. I'm pretty sure she survived, but I don't remember much more than that. I'm pretty sure that, at the end of Daredevil season 3, Karen Page was a full-time journalist for that newspaper. (Did Mitch survive Bullseye's attack on the newspaper? If so, I'd bring that actor back, too, even if it's just for a couple scenes with Woll. I still wish Ben Urich hadn't been killed, but oh well.) Anyway, you'd have some work to do to make The Punisher something that can be on Disney+ and isn't just a lame shadow of its former self. That's going to be a tough balance to strike, but I think it's doable.

So then The Defenders would be Daredevil, Jessica, Luke, Echo, The Punisher, Colleen and Misty. No idea what the story or who the villain should be. It would need to be "street level", a significant threat for these heroes, but still in the dark alleys and back-lots of a rough New York that doesn't really exist anymore irl. It couldn't be anything so big and conspicuous that viewers have a point when they inevitably ask why Captain Marvel or War Machine don't intervene and just flatten the bad-guy in like 2 seconds.
 
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While catching up on Punisher S2 over the past week or so, it occurred to me that it wouldn't actually take very much to make it less wince-inducing and/or more teen-friendly (if not child-friendly!).

Tone down (or lose) the nudity/sex scenes, and not cutting to brief shots of mangled faces and bodies during/ after hand-to-hand fights, and it wouldn't be that much "worse" than the throat-cutting and blood-fountaining seen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S4 + S5 — which are not code-locked (at least, not in Germany).

Oh, and I suppose the language might need to be toned down a bit as well, but I'm not sure what's considered 'acceptable' for PG-13 these days.
 
EgonSpengler said:
While doom-scrolling on the way to work this morning - didn't have the brain-power to read anything real - I saw a couple of reports that Disney wants to reboot the entire line of Netflix shows, up to and including The Defenders. Both articles were from websites I wasn't familiar with, so of course this should be taken with a ½lb of salt, but they both said the studio is talking to both Mike Colter and Jon Bernthal, who are each involved in other, very successful shows right now. I think Charlie Cox is a lock, and Krysten Ritter just needs to sign the paperwork and get her leather jacket and engineer boots out of the closet. Seriously, I think she really does still have them in her closet. The articles said Disney is also looking for someone to replace Finn Jones as a new Iron Fist. It didn't say whether Jessica Henwick was under consideration, but I've read that she'd like to do it.

One of the articles said that Disney wants to make all of the series "PG-13" (not "R", unfortunately) and put them behind its new child-friendly filter. I hope whatever Disney does are sequels to the Netflix series, with some necessary tonal adjustments. I don't want a hard reboot of any of these characters or their stories. For example, I can see a slightly less-depressed, but still cynical and snarky, Jessica Jones as a reasonable evolution of the character, going into a 4th season. I even have some loose ideas about how they could make The Punisher work.
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Based on their recent track record, this is devastating news.
 
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