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Marvel the Defenders

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So, has anyone else seen the show yet?
 
all fictions said:
Aight, I checked and you are right. Just try to put more meat in your posts then.
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I like to keep my posts short and sweet. plus I didn't want to put up spoilers even in spoiler tags about the show so far and risk spoiling it for others.

What episode are you on now? I'm about to watch the last episode myself.
 
Having marathoned the series, my non-spoiler thoughts are as follows:

The Defenders' first five episodes are great. They have all the strengths of the best Netflix MCU has to offer, and overall the series benefits from Sigourney Weaver's graceful performance and the development of Danny Rand into a good character (not necessarily a suddenly lovable guy, just a good character). The dialogue is mostly well written, the cinematography is a little show-offy but in a pleasing manner, and overall I came out happy to watched the season.

That said, the last three episodes fall victim to the pacing and quality curse of all the Netflix MCU seasons except Daredevil S1 and Jessica Jones S1; a weak third act finish. Surprisingly weak, given all the elements available to use for a more emotionally driven conclusion. It really makes me feel more like I want to see a second Defenders run if only now that they're finally free of the Hand plot.
 
So I'm only on page one of this thread but I've gotta ask.

On a scale of Iron Fist to Daredevil Season1, how good is this show and should I finish watching Iron First before seeing it?
 
Sucal said:
So I'm only on page one of this thread but I've gotta ask.

On a scale of Iron Fist to Daredevil Season1, how good is this show and should I finish watching Iron First before seeing it?
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You need to watch all of iron Fist before watching Defenders as some of what happens there, leads into what is happening in Defenders.
 
I am also in the "I have not watched iron fist but want to watch this" boat. I just checked out of IF after like episode 2 or three, Danny was a dick, the corporate stuff was boring and the fights were very sub par. I am on episode three of the defenders now and feel like I am reasonably fine. The boardroom fight was great and the characters are interacting well so far. Misty Knight continues to be annoying, however. Is her whole character "Harass the heroes because of misunderstandings?" I mean Jessica is not exactly a friendly person but seeing Misty do the same dance with her that she did with Cage was eye rolling. Sigourney seems fine so far but she has yet to do anything but act cryptic and menacing. Overall a good start I would say but I am a bit worried. These things tend to have really good starts but lose steam at like episode six or about's which makes me a bit wary of declaring anything.
 
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Finally finished the entire series. I will have more thoughts tomorrow after a good night's sleep, but I just want to point out two things about the show, one I liked and one I disliked.

Strangely enough, I liked the Hand in this. Usually, Netflix Marvel shows failed to explain to us why they were evil. It worked in DD S1, where they were just this not-quite ninja nebulous criminal organization that deliberately clashed with the more "grounded" antagonist Fisk. In DD S2, less so, because despite having a clear goal, acquiring the Black Sky, exactly why they wanted it was left vague besides "lol power". Then in IF, God knows what the Hand wanted, because when they weren't a mystical ancient conspiracy selling drugs, they were a mystical ancient conspiracy training randos for reasons and watching people with cameras for...reasons.

Here, in Defenders, we were shown they were willing to destroy NYC for their plan, and said plan made sense with what we knew about the Hand. They are still not the best villains, but they had a better showing than in previous shows.

The thing I disliked about The Defenders was Colleen's "arc" (subplot?). I just...didn't really care about her searching for a purpose, and Bakuto is just kind of annoying as a villain.
 
I enjoyed the show, but I agree with Susana Polo's complaint that Luke and Jessica don't seem to get much development compared to Matt, Danny, and Colleen. They're involved and they drive the plot, but they don't experience any real evolution. Luke still wants to look out for Harlem and Jessica is back to doing cases.

I did massively enjoy whenever anyone was taking the piss out of Danny, like when Luke rips him out for his privilege.
 
Well, Defenders was everything I thought/hoped it would be. I'll give it a 3.
out of three ;)

thanks to people talking about stuff that happens in comics after Luke Cage aired, I spent a lot of the final episode going "Is this where Misty loses her arm? I think she's gonna do something that loses her arm. Yeah she's on her way to losing her arm. Okay, she's definitely about to lose her arm in a moment and I can see how. Any moment now... yep she's losing her arm. And she's lost the arm!

All in all, I felt like I was kinda watching a sequel to all four shows,
particularly in the first few eps where it jumped between them before they teamed up.

And one bit I kinda liked seeing even more than the Defenders teamup was
getting all the 'sidekick' characters together in a room, and particularly having Karen and Trish talk. Pun not intended.
But yeah, I agree with @Jace911's agreement that Luke and Jessica didn't get so much development as the others. But I was glad that Danny got a lot cos he rather needed it :p (And I double agree that I loved seeing Luke give Danny the privilege speech.)

As a brief aside, I went into Iron Fist knowing basically nothing about it besides the titular character being named Danny Rand and doing martial arts stuff. I don't have any real interest or knowledge of 'martial arts stuff', so whether that was good or bad was pretty neutral to me. But I did like learning Hand stuff (which is important to know before Defenders) and all the Meechum intrigue and also Colleen was great, so I had a fun time watching it. (Ironically my first impression of Danny was "He's a white guy? I'd assumed he would be Asian, does that mean I'm racist for thinking in such stereotypes?" lol)

Also, I like trains. So the scene transitions were cool.

Random thought: is it my imagination or did Karen get 10% more adorable?
FUS RO DAH!
So, dragon bones, hey? I wasn't expecting dragon bones. Neat. And lol the whole thing about 'New York falling' was actually meant completely literally, heh.

Also one review I saw of Daredevil S2 talked about how Elektra was completely shaped by other people, without any real agency of her own. And it seems like the writers were aware of that cos Elektra sure turned that one on its head :p

And finally, because no Marvel production would be complete without a stinger...
He's comin'.




He's comin' to collect.
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The Englanderish said:
Granted, there's exceptions, but a great deal of the core heroes suffer from being extremely hard to like.
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Hmm, when I think about the Avengers as people, they're mostly not people I'd be pals with. They're fun to watch as heroes, but not so fun as people. So yeah, that's a fair assessment.
I think Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Vision are the ones I'd most like to hang out with, though they're kinda less core. (And War Machine and Falcon who are even lesser core. Black Panther seems like a pretty cool guy but is probably too intense for me to be casual with. I dunno, need to see his movie.)
Spidey's alright but he's a kid. Cap tries too hard to be nice which just makes him all the more insufferable. In a fight between Cap and Iron Man I guess I'd be sitting on the sidelines enjoying the fight and not caring who wins. But I'd be sitting far from Zemo. But that would probably figure into Zemo's master plan somehow, dangit.
 
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Alex said:
I am also in the "I have not watched iron fist but want to watch this" boat. I just checked out of IF after like episode 2 or three, Danny was a dick, the corporate stuff was boring and the fights were very sub par. I am on episode three of the defenders now and feel like I am reasonably fine. The boardroom fight was great and the characters are interacting well so far. Misty Knight continues to be annoying, however. Is her whole character "Harass the heroes because of misunderstandings?" I mean Jessica is not exactly a friendly person but seeing Misty do the same dance with her that she did with Cage was eye rolling. Sigourney seems fine so far but she has yet to do anything but act cryptic and menacing. Overall a good start I would say but I am a bit worried. These things tend to have really good starts but lose steam at like episode six or about's which makes me a bit wary of declaring anything.
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I liked Misty in Luke Cage, but here having her harass the heroes like she did there is just very annoying.
 
Sucal said:
F****

I hope Defenders is still available in 2019 then

*goes back to watching Preacher*
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You don't need to watch Iron Fist; a quick catch-up of plot points on Wikipedia or the like will get you up to speed. What you need to know amounts to "this secondary character worked for the Hand in their backstory but is now one of the heroes" and "this villain who died in Iron Fist is brought back."

Defenders was good. Not "worth watching Iron Fist for" good, but good.
 
Sucal said:
So I'm only on page one of this thread but I've gotta ask.

On a scale of Iron Fist to Daredevil Season1, how good is this show and should I finish watching Iron First before seeing it?
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It's great for most of its run, but has a weak finish. You don't really need to watch Iron Fist at all to follow what's going on, provided you know that: Danny Rand is the Iron Fist, the Hand is his enemy and they killed the people who trained him, aaaand that's pretty much it. Everything else you can pick up along the way.
 
Sucal said:
So I'm only on page one of this thread but I've gotta ask.

On a scale of Iron Fist to Daredevil Season1, how good is this show and should I finish watching Iron First before seeing it?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ant221 said:
You need to watch all of iron Fist before watching Defenders as some of what happens there, leads into what is happening in Defenders.
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Absolutely not, actually. Just wikipedia Iron Fist ahead of time, you don't need to watch it (and you shouldn't) to get the relevant plot points for Defenders.
 
IMO, The Defenders sorta fails in the last few episodes compared to the first five or so. I still quite like it, but I think that, as seems typical with most of the Marvel Netflix series, the start is stronger than the end. Also, for some reason, neither Jessica or Luke seem to really get any character development, at least when compared to Iron Fist and Daredevil. That said, it's generally a pretty entertaining series and the showrunners have started the long process of making Danny Rand an entertaining character who can take a joke. The fight scenes seem to have actually been planned and trained for, too!
 
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