The Defenders

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Mr Wallstreet
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The Defenders

Post by Mr Wallstreet »

It finally arrived (last week). Mild spoilers below.

I thought it was great. The characters all had great chemistry, and played off one another easily. The shortened 8 episode season, I thought, was a better fit than they 13 episodes for the individual shows. The pacing was also far better and the charectorization was more on point. You could see everyone's motivation a lot clearer and what they were afraid of.

Given all this, the show still had problems. Danny Rand remained the weakest charector in the show. His interactions with DD, LC & JJ helped elevate him but there still needs to be some serious improvement for IF in season 2 or I don't foresee him coming back for Defenders S2 or IF S3.

I was expecting more from the Hand as the ultimate bad guys in the Defenders but they didn't seem quite as scary. Instead all of the Defenders teaming up to fight one big enemy, they spent it fighting minions of the Hand and taking out the leaders one by one. It felt pretty anti-climactic. I was expecting a more epic/showy final battle.

The scenes in the police office where they rounded up all the friends of the main cast just dragged. They did absolutely nothing for me but make me bored.

Here's hoping the next Defenders will be better

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Tragic Angelus
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Re: The Defenders

Post by Tragic Angelus »

You and I talked about this already, but yeah I'm with you on a most of this. Overall, I really enjoyed the show. I liked the short season, but I still prefer the 13 episodes. I think there were problems with IF, LC, and even DD2 having longer season because we shifted who was the main villain every so often. IF in particular felt like I was reading three 4-issue arcs that were somewhat connected, but I liked the 13 episodes of JJ & LC. It offers just enough character development without wasting a lot of extra time delaying the end. All of the characters were developed by Defenders for the most part, so we could just jump right in.

My main complaint was that JJ & LC were sidelined and took a backseat to DD & IF. This was very much their show as it picked up threads from their last seasons. JJ & LC were just kind of there helping out, but they also held back a lot and didn't do as much as I'd have liked. I also was let down by what was revealed to be the Hand's goal behind the door. I expected something far more than that, but it is what it is. And yeah, I would've liked to see them fight a villain rather than henchmen. Occasionally the all took Elektra on, but really it was her against DD, and the other 3 against ninjas.

IF still needs a lot of development, but having 3 other leads rather than just supporting characters really helped balance him out. I liked how everyone rolled their eyes or blew him off whenever he went on one of his "I'm Danny Rand..." rants. Felt like what I was doing his whole show. I agree he needs to grow and develop more but I'm sure he'll be around somehow for a while. I don't see them getting rid of him, but I can see him taking a backseat in someone else's show (LC maybe? A little Heroes for Hire?)

Unlike you, I really liked the police office scenes. I liked seeing all the side characters come together. The whole show, whenever certain groups were together, I was the most excited. Finally seeing Cage and Danny together? That was awesome. Finally seeing Misty and Colleen together? Another awesome moment and I hope we get that series as well. It felt like in an event book where all the heroes finally come together, but this time we had the supporting cast rallying around each other to help out and start making those connections. Maybe it'll mean we have the chance of seeing some of them in other shows. Karen would make sense since she's a reporter now, and could easily show up in any of the other shows.

I really enjoyed it, but yeah I'd like a stronger villain next time. I'd like to see them maybe take on an actual team of villains, possibly those who survive the upcoming seasons of the four shows.

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wolf_2099
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Re: The Defenders

Post by wolf_2099 »

I did not like it... really at all.

I thought the writing was poor, and the characters, who did a great job with what they were given, couldn't save it.

This was supposed to be a street level show, that someone, had another world ending villain (maybe?), with plots wholes all through it.

They never really explained what the black sky was. The bad guys boil down to just wanting to live longer as their agenda, which I thought was weak. The hand was down graded from the scary bad asses they were in Daredevil.

Madame Gao turned from an interesting villain in her last few shows, to whimpering lapdog in this one. It just didn't work for me.

Danny walks into Midland Financial wanting to try something different and gets in a fist fight. How about maybe, since you're worth billions, maybe try and takeover midland financial?

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wolf_2099
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Re: The Defenders

Post by wolf_2099 »

Edit, and also the epilogue.

When he has been renewed for another season, the entire epilogue of everybody mourning him, etc is a waste of everyone's time and intelligence, I think.

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MGM
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Re: The Defenders

Post by MGM »

I'm with you on this. I really liked all the JJ scenes, because A) Jessica Jones is awesome and B) I love Krysten Ritter almost as much as Eliza Dushku.

But the rest... I dunno, it cruised on by without ever being cohesive and intelligent, I suppose. This was wallpaper TV. Oh sure, the scenes where some of these guys meet each other the first time are good (especially the one in the restaurant), but that was pretty much it. Interesting villains reduced to, well, nothing much. Eh.

At least we'll get some sort of Born Again season of DD. Hopefully it'll be better than the second season and if we're really lucky it'll be as good as JJ.

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wolf_2099
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Re: The Defenders

Post by wolf_2099 »

I'm with you Mitch, but I did like DD season 1.

I just reread my post, and it wasn't all that cohesive, which works for me, because I didn't think defenders was really cohesive.

All of these comic companies production studios spend a lot of time and effort into flashy and witty main characters, and a lot of good writing. They need the same efforts into the plot and the villains, though, otherwise everything falls apart. Looks at the villians in Nolans Batman films, they made the movies.

I don't think DC or Marvel, to my recollection has had an outstanding Villain in their current movies outside of Loki.

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