I’m up to episode five with the Defenders, and I’m enjoying it so far, except for Iron Fist. But let’s leave that until later. Let’s heap some praise on this before I unleash the disdain. One word of warning: if you haven’t seen the other series, you’ll like get lost among the relationships, motivations, and dynamics. You could certainly muddle through if you are focused, but it’d be rough going through parts.
It was great seeing all the characters again, and I have to give major kudos for how well each character is followed, their essential inner conflict illustrated and their relationships highlighted in very succinct but full vignettes. It was great reconnecting with the characters and they were all true to their own series. Well, most of them, but I’ll get back to that later.
The events that happened between the characters individual series and this are communicated mostly in either quick visuals or asides. We thankfully see very little of Basil Exposition. This is just a part of the generally strong writing that understands most of these characters and gives us more of what we initially loved. The only problem with all the re-introduction is that there’s also a lot of stage-setting happening in parallel, and most of the first half of the eight episode series was pretty slow. There were a few action scenes, but not much and nothing too impressive. Things pick up after the heroes unite late in episode three, but that’s a long wait.
And then there’s Iron Fist. I am absolutely biased in that I love the Iron Fist of the comics who is absolutely not the Iron Fist of the Netflix series. I guess expecting four for four was too much, but it saddens me that the character I love the most is the one they fucked up (in my opinion). Iron Fist is the first character we meet, and the attempt to address the general failure of the Iron Fist series to make Finn Jones credible as the greatest martial artist on the planet failed due to the complete incomprehensibility of that first fight scene after he gets involved.
What is most frustrating is that there are glimpses of the Danny Rand of the comics – enthusiastic, flippant, friendly, optimistic – and I think Finn Jones captured that really well. The angry, angsty Danny of the Netflix series just seems as petulant here as he did in his own series. What’s worse, Colleen Wing, who came off pretty good in Iron Fist, is inconsistent here, almost like the writers didn’t know what to do with her so when they wanted someone to react in a certain way, they could always get Colleen to do it.
On the plus side, there are a couple of fights which better showcase Danny as Iron Fist, as a master martial artist, but this again is tragic to me because it illustrates the failed potential. There could have been a good Iron Fist series and we could have had a good character in the Defenders, but I guess the showrunners figured angst sells.
And to them I would point to Wonder Woman. Diana in that movie is much more like Danny Rand in the comic books than what we see on the small screen. She is not conflicted, though she is sometimes confused. She is a warrior par excellence and she revels in that. She revels in her ability to help, to protect people. That’s Danny in the comics. And he’s not perfect. He’s a tactical genius not a strategic one. That’s why he and Luke Cage make such a good team in the comics – they complement each other.
Anyway, if you aren’t as invested in Iron Fist as I am, you’ll get a lot more enjoyment out of the Defenders. It’s a good series,but not the best. Still, it gets back to the quality of the pre-Iron Fist shows. Iron Fist and Colleen Wing are, unfortunately, the weakest links. I haven’t even gotten into the villains, who are all interesting and presented pretty well, but that can wait until I’ve finished watching and have a more complete idea of the show and its arc.
I give the first five episodes of the Defenders 4 daring power fists of Jones out of 5. If you liked the other Marvel Netflix series, you’ll like this one. It’s slow to get going, but it’s nice to be able to spend time with most of these characters again. Iron Fist remains (sadly) the weakest of the characters but (thankfully) even he has some bright spots.
You can find out more about the Defenders at Wikipedia and IMDB.
I’m on episode three of season one of Killjoys, a Syfy original about interplanetary bounty hunters. It’s interplanetary rather than interstellar because these bounty hunters work a collection of four planets known as the Quad or the J Colonies. It’s obviously inspired by Firefly without being a slavish imitation of it. There’s also a hint of Cowboy Bebop, though moreso just the idea of sci fi bounty hunters than characters or feel,
I’ve just finished season one of Marco Polo on Netflix and I have to admit to quite enjoying it. That “I have to admit” is mostly for myself, as I watched the first two episodes about a year ago when it originally came out and walked away. I had to get myself into the Braveheart meets Gladiator zone of “historical” entertainment and then it worked. It’s enjoyable with some fun characters, smarmy intrigue, good martial arts and absolutely horrible battlefield scenes.
There are certainly problems with this movie, and if an “Everything Wrong With . . .” video happens, it’ll probably reach into 20 minute+ territory, but y’know what? I couldn’t care less. We could do the same with Superman or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Don’t care. Love those movies, and I love this one.
I was the spotlight author in issue 79 of the Canadian speculative fiction magazine On Spec and I described myself as a hack. That’s kind of how I have always envisioned myself. I am a worker, not an artist. If I get paid for stuff, it’s because it’s good enough, not because it is good.
I have a hard time deciding if I like this or its predecessor, Beyond the Pool of Stars, better. Like Beyond the Pool of Stars, Through the Gate in the Sea reads much more like heroic fantasy with touches of epic fantasy rather than gaming fiction. There are hints throughout that yes, this is rooted in the rules and expectations of a role-playing game, but this does not dominate the flavour of the book. If you cringe at tie-in fiction – which I honestly generally do with a couple of exceptions – you needn’t fear this novel. It is not as strong as the Desert of Souls or the Bones of the Old Ones – Howard Andrew Jones’ two novels with Dabir and Asim, his best works for certain – but it is riveting.
I’ve been a Wolverine fan for quite some time. It’s likely because he was the first mainstream Canadian superhero teenage me found, but there were also some very significant Wolverine stories back in the day, and the Wolverine mini-series written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Frank Miller cemented Logan as my favourite super. When James Mangold seemed to be bringing aspects of that mini-series to the screen in The Wolverine, I was cautiously excited – cautious because of X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Now, being a PC player, I don’t have access to Red Dead Redemption. I really liked Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood and Gunslinger, but the only other Western-themed computer game I’ve been recommended is Gun, which I started but which never really held my interest. Hard West is something different – a turn-based tactical shooter. That’s cool, because gunfighting is what I was looking for, but the story elements are a bit lacking. Not that there’s not a story, there are multiple stories, but the player’s input into the stories is minimal. This is the same as the Call of Juarez games, which are Western shooters on rails.
I’ve had a few false starts with these kinds of stories, originally inspired by the movie Painted Fire (Chi Hwa Sun – not See Uhn as the announcer in the trailer pronounces it). This was a movie by Im Kwon-Taek, who is the finest Korean director bar none in my opinion, and starring one of Korea’s greatest living actors, Choi Min-Sik. The difference was that while the character of Jang Seung-Up was also an entré character for the politics of that period, he did not have the self-awareness or the savvy of Hokusai – at least as the one is portrayed in the movie and the other in the podcast. I think both would be interesting, with Hokusai much more of an insider and Jang much more of a rebel.