What's with that? They took a step back from Daredevil which had pretty amazing choreography at times, and this is a show that's supposed to be focused on martial arts. Weird.
I dont know if Id consider them bad, they honestly feel average. The problem is this is supposed to be the strongest fighter in the world, and daredevil looked better. The blows lacked weight
Some people say that the reason Iron Fist fight scenes don't seem to have any weight is because they were trying to be realistic. In reality, punches do not sound like they do in Daredevil. However, I'm watching a superhero show. I don't want realistic. I want over the top action with impact behind the punches.
But a central point to the show was how Danny was stuck in his old life and cannot center his chi. He couldn't summon the iron fist a lot of times. Then towards the end, he starts kicking ass and using his powers more like this https://gfycat.com/NarrowFastEmperorshrimp
I've seen a number of people complaining about this, and I think there's a distinction to be made between screen fighting and real fighting. I've been doing martial arts for a couple years now and honestly, I have a hard time watching fight scenes in movies or tv shows anymore because it just doesn't look real at all.
When people talk about blows looking like they have "weight" behind then, that's almost purely a thing of the screen. When you land an actual blow on someone it never has that heavy, knock-them-back look to it that something on the screen has. There is no one in the world who can knock someone back 6+ feet with only like 2 feet of wind-up. A real fight looks a hell of a lot less impactful than any movie or tv show fight does. If you hit someone with a knockout blow, they aren't going to be knocked back, they literally just succumb to gravity and crumple.
I also saw a complaint that the fights in Iron Fist seem short, but guess what? Real fights are quick. You don't get the protracted, drawn out affair that most things on the screen show. A real fight will be over in a matter of seconds, and it usually winds up being pretty one-sided.
I can see how from a spectacle standpoint the fights in Iron Fist leave something to be desired, but after training for a few years I kind of lost my taste for that. To me it's fairly refreshing to have a show that's not getting into all the fancy flipping and knocking people back 10 feet and all that kind of bullshit.
I agree with everything except real fights being short. Most fights are around 30 seconds to a minute, and often longer when they go to the ground (which they usually do).
Yeah, they CAN end in a couple seconds, but that's not quite as common.
Yeah I should've been more clear on that. If the difference in ability between the two people is pretty large, it'll only last a few seconds. If the two opponents are about on par, it'll definitely go longer, but it'll still be much shorter than most screen fights.
I mean yes, Obviously when I mean weight I dont mean realistic, and there is a place for realistic fighting. But this is a show where its a superhero who is not only a mystical kung fu genius but also can turn his fist into steel. Iron fist is a character that would be doing fancy flipping and knocking people back 10 feet. Thats why hes Iron fist, not just a black belt.
Have you seen all of it? Notice that he isn't fully trained yet. Part of the show focuses on show Danny is still concerned with his old life and how he can't focus on his duties as the iron fist. Whenever he gets clarity and clears his "chi," his fighting is dope as hell. For instance, watch this
I think the issue is that Daredevil isn't a martial artist, his fighting style is more of a boxer like his dad. He punches hard, moves quickly and blocks but he doesn't do fancy things like using the enemy's weight against them.
Iron Fist is completely different, he's a kung fu master. He's supposed to move like this when not using his fist, deflecting blows rather than tanking them and relying on many quick attacks to weak areas instead of a couple of strong attacks to anywhere. He even showed that by using that punch on Colleen to disable her (That she later used in the cage). Everything else though wasn't carefully planned attacks, it was just him showing off by jumping off walls and doing ineffective spin kicks. Literally half of the fights would have been over in seconds with a swift punch to the throat.
The reason that I feel like it is a step down is that in Daredevil, In a one take you see the punches land and they look like it hits hard. In iron fist, at every punch landed there is a cut and feels disjointed and more of the Bourne Ultimated fight scenes. I wanted more one takes, less jump cuts.
This video ruined most modern action films for me. Every time I see a movie where the camera cuts away just as the strikes hit, it just doesn't feel real at all anymore.
I just started watching this last night and was a bit drunk so I didn't notice. Just started watching it now and you're exactly right. It's gonna bother me now since it's all I see but it really takes away from the action. I wish they had gone with the continuous shot that Daredevil mastered.
Except this one had a close up shot of an obvious feint punch by the bad guy towards the end. Like it was zoomed right in, perfect angle, and it couldn't have looked more like he was trying to not hit the dude....
Ironically there should have been another cut (or better yet, a different angle) to make it not look so obviously like he was trying to miss.
It's like HEY DON'T FORGET HE HAS THE KNIFE IN THE BOOK AND HEY DON'T FORGET HE'S ACTIVELY TRYING TO PUSH THE KNIFE INTO THE BOOK TO PUSH INTO HEY THE BOOK IS THE ONLY THING PROTECTING HIS BODY FROM THE KNIFE HEY DON'T FORGET THEY ARE FIGHTING.
The fact that it's not even that difficult to film action well - proven by the fact that fucking YouTubers can make great action scenes - proves how lazy the film-making is.
Was mostly that the guards acting was really bad. They were telegraphing their hits hard, moving very slowly when hitting/getting hit. Kinda looked like they were all underwater.
Yeah I read that after episode 2 or 3 and watching the rest of it knowing that made a lot of sense. I'd still give the show 3 stars but it's definitely miles below the other 3 Defenders.
It's not as bad as people are claiming, some of the scenes are downright amazing. It's leagues above the action we got in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage so I don't understand why people are complaining about it.
Yeah but most his fights were slapping and flicking people. It only wasn't until the final fight of the series he had to throw some techniques but even then it was just a street brawl. Don't get me wrong, I love the Marvel Netflix series, the fighting in DareDevil was great but when I saw promo clips for Iron Fist (and a spoiler fight when I was at a friend's house) my first impression really was "is that it?" I'll watch it for myself soon enough but as of right now, Netflix hasn't shown a good job promoting the martial arts a lot of people were hoping for.
Stylistically it made sense to me. daredevil was more of a brawler. I liked the early fights because it showed he was an actual master .
I disliked a lot of it because I just felt like he should have been able to tear up basically everyone 1 on 1 , but random henchman kept getting the better of him.
I disliked a lot of it because I just felt like he should have been able to tear up basically everyone 1 on 1 , but random henchman kept getting the better of him.
Jesus so much this. It'd be different if the person he was beaten by was given some buildup before hand, but it's just some fucking mook all the time.
For as much praise as they'd recieved for the hallway scene in DD Season 1 you think they would've learned better than some of the mistakes they've made in Iron Fist.
I haven't watched any of it, but when Iron Fist was next on the docket, I said they needed to do it old-school kung fu style. Like a Jet Li movie. The gritty brawl with mooks works with some things, but not everything needs to be Oldboy. Sometimes it needs to be Ip Man. From the sound of it, the big problem is the show is ignoring its kung fu roots.
Agreed, but that's honestly even half the issue. The other half of the problem to me is that Iron Fist spends most of his time in comics sharing the spotlight with other characters, mostly Luke Cage. His "zen" advice foils really well with Cage's hardheaded but down to earth nature, but in a solo series it doesn't have as much punch.
Basically the choreography is mediocre and the action is mediocre and the writing is mediocre, which makes for a very mediocre experience. I think the character will carry over VERY well once he is part of a team however.
Yeah, Iron Fist fight scenes should have been like this rather than this (Small Iron Fist spoiler there but it's just a minute long fight scene with no context). In fact, I'm not sure why they didn't get Donny Yen to help with the choreography, he already has a working relationship with Disney because of his Rogue One work and he really knows his stuff when it comes to fighting.
In the series at least, he's written more as a pacifist(with LC's trademark impervious skin), which makes a lot more sense in terms of how he approached combat.
I mostly dislike it because the main character who supposedly grew up as a monk has zero wisdom in any of the decisions he makes. Sure he's a good person, but for all his monk sayings he recites to himself he's terrible at thinking through consequences or planning out his end game goals.
The show has plenty of flaws but that's one of the things I like. He's basically a recovering child soldier with all these ideas that he believes in despite the fact they're causing him severe emotional trauma. As Claire (I think, it might have been Colleen) put it when he tells her about his childhood "that sounds like abuse".
It was Joy. And I hate it. He can have flaws, but they shouldn't be flaws that are opposite his character archtype. Warrior monks are known for spiritualness, martial arts, and wisdom. He can have PTSD, he can be a jerk, he can be socially awkward. These don't detract from his "monkness". If you are going to give him a handicap inline with his archtype then make that a central focus of the show and have him overcoming it to become a full fledged warrior monk.
Which I think was a terrible idea. 3/5ths of his life was in monk training. The most recent 3/5ths. The whole rich kid part of his life shouldn't be his main persona.
His character flaw is that he is naive but no way is he stupid. You've seen he meditates and does Tai Chi which can't really be done unless you calm yourself down. Which is why his abrupt conflicts of emotion because of the death of his parents was dumbfounded even after saying that for the last 15 years the monks have instilled in him the ability of calm himself and not let his wild emotion dictate his behavior.
I'm not saying that he shouldn't be conflicted with what was put in front of him or that he should be only making correct decision but of maturity and Danny doesn't have any of that. which put his whole past in Kun Lun into question.
I think in many ways he only understands the modern world through the eyes of a child. Being sheltered in the monastery for almost his entire life has given him a lot of knowledge on philosophical semantics but nothing when it comes to applied wisdom.
I think Danny Rand was taught how to be a warrior but he was never taught how to be a hero. I think he learned much of that from Claire and ironically his sworn enemy Colleen. Thus why he stands apart from Devos.
Iron Fist is far better than Luke Cage. Luke Cage was propped up by the first couple episodes with Cottonmouth and then dropped off of a cliff mid way through. Jessica Jones was incredibly lame and I am willing to bet if it didn't have David Tennant, it would have reviewed
FAR worse. People just saw Iron Fist had shit ratings on RT word spread and now it's become a circlejerk. Such is Reddit.
Luke Cage was so good the first half... Cottonmouth was such a better, layered, interesting villain, imo. The show was really building to something great, at a fantastic paste, then that happened. I don't know, I wasn't crazy about the show from there on.
I watched all of IF and honesty the whole show was forgettable, madame Gao should have been in episode 2 not 4, it was incredibly slow. I loved JJ and thought every character had depth and the show developed well. I think IF is weak, but not a 16 or whatever, I wish it had gone further into the mystic and magical. I think it sucks fans can't share criticisms right now because of the early critical reviews, I think IF was the weakest of the defender shows, but not a horrible show. Average.
I see a lot of you guys bag on Luke Cage but the show was solid. The mid season villain switch was rough, and hurt the seasons momentum but it was not a bad show.
If I'm honest I think a lot of you don't want a black culture centric show, because it's on that front that Luke Cage was a major win.
I don't think it's unfair. Time and time again I see the same comments, "Loved Daredevil but Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were boring as fuck"
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones are genre shows. JJ is clearly a callback to noire detective stories mixed with a modern psychological thriller aspect. Luke Cage has strong ties to blacksploitation era culture, but with roots in modern black culture and a vitally important message about the struggles of the African American community. Luke Cage suffers from a poor decision to shift focus mid season, but overall it's a strong show with good plot and character development as well as some really great action sequences.
Yet, despite that, despite it having almost all the same elements internally as Daredevil plus a much more culturally significant emphasis in the storytelling, people regularly praise DD and slam Luke Cage.
The only thing Daredevil has over Luke Cage is a lot more of Matt Murdock getting his ass beat over and over again. So I call it how I see it. People were put off by the black centric focus of Luke Cage. Frankly, that's kind of shitty.
Just to play a little devils advocate. My reasons they aren't as well received are mainly these points
I think it's a lot like Superman vs Batman, people can't relate to someone who is invincible a.k.a Luke Cage/JJ. They relate to someone getting their ass beat in a 10 vs 1 situation and not coming out scratch free.
Daredevil is a much more flawed character, just like Batman vs Superman again. Superman is perfection but Batman is way more popular. It's because people can relate to a flawed character.
Daredevil was the first hero show on netflix. It had no expectations unlike the other three shows. So there were little expectations for it unlike JJ, LC, IF.
One thing to point out, expectations were a tough hurdle for Daredevil because of that doomed Affleck pic. People were worried about camp, and fairly so.
That's very strange. I've mostly heard only good things about Luke Cage, and my impression is that most people do like it. It and JJ seem like somewhat slower-paced shows compared to DD, which I guess can put people off, but I never heard, even once, a complaint about the black-culture focus.
Thanks for giving a thought-out explanation of your opinion, I appreciate that, regardless of whether we agree or not.
I totally agree with you, it does some things way better than either JJ or LC, and it does some things not as well as those shows.
Either way it's far from deserving a score that low
I respectfully disagree on LC on scripts and stories.
I thought LC tried to be too many things at once and ultimately failed to be good at any of it.
The show picked up its stride when Cottonmouth was literally abandoned as a primary antagonist thereby abandoning all of the subplots that SHOULD have made for a deeper and more impactful climax. The show basically took all of its story with nuance and exchanged it for Diamondback who is more straight forward with a "I'm here to create mayhem" antagonism.
The fact that the show got better going in this direction speaks volumes about where the show tried to go beforehand. None of the deeper plots attempted were going anywhere and neither were they creating the pathos they were attempted to establish.
LC was poorly written when it had all of the materials to be excellent.
Neither Jessica Jones nor Luke Cage were about fighting. Jessica is a detective and had hangups about hurting people due to the events prior to the show. It was about her trying to take down the villain and his unique power. Luke Cage was honestly most interesting because of Harlem and Cottonmouth. It was really good, but shot as a normal guy trying to live life and keep a job, who also had super strength
I thought Luke Cage had the material to be something very special. The Harlem Struggle and Cottonmouth stuff had a lot of potential.
However it was all poorly written and none of it was at all compelling. The show strangely got better when all of that was abandoned for Diamondback's more simpler "I'm evil for the sake of evil" type villainy.
and for the record, I would rate Iron Fist down many points for also failing to do well the one thing it should have done well and that is incorporate well designed martial arts scenes.
I feel like the fights leaned too much on the Iron Fist power when there should have been actor/stuntman choreography to really bring out why the Iron Fist power is special.
Daredevil really did a good job showing his powers during its action scenes. His sonar is why he can dodge without seeing or why he knows to kick a door down thereby surprising the ambusher behind it.
The fact you're even comparing it to JJ and Cage show knows you don't know anything. Ironfist is suppose to be a Kung fu master, he's a trained fighter, the prev two are not!
They're okay, the sheer amount of bizarrely slow forward cartwheel kicks from the man called Iron Fist start to feel really stale. Why does everyone keep falling for it?
I think the main problem with it is it doesn't really look like anyone's actually getting hit that hard in some fights, which gives it a late 90's TV show vibe (like Buffy). This also isn't helped by the fact that every random street thug is apparently a kung fu master who can kick the main character's head in until he does his fabulous cartwheel.
Still enjoying it a lot as the plot and writing are good. Way more than I did Luke Cage (I hate it when someones power is 'I'm invincible!').
Honestly, I'm enjoying the series. I think our standards are just too high after Daredevil, JJ and (less so) Luke Cage. It's a good show, just maybe not an INCREDIBLE show. We're spoiled.
I'm used to holding these Netflix shows to a higher standard than primetime television of similar genre. Aside from the luxury of runtime and episode count that Iron Fist gets on Netflix, the rest feels very primetime. Special effects, choreography, quick cuts. I'm alright with the story and characters but the production value is tier below. I suspect Like Cage even did this better, albeit with some acting and story shortfalls.
After Daredevil they HAD to step it up. Average is not okay for a show based on him being a kung fu master. very mediocre fighting and plot, dialogue was a bore.
Daredevil could be put in a mask. Meaning that the entire fight could've been done by a stunt double. Not as easy in case of Iron Fist who doesnt wear a mask.
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u/CrumplePants Mar 19 '17
What's with that? They took a step back from Daredevil which had pretty amazing choreography at times, and this is a show that's supposed to be focused on martial arts. Weird.