The Glade 4.0

what no

Is anybody else finding Danny's hobo beard tragic? Like, why. Just why?

Edit: Oh, good. It doesn't stick around that long. It's still kind of neckbeardy, though.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I am loving the slow burn on Iron Fist.

The reveal in the last scene of episode 4 gave me chills. That they managed to last 4 episodes in to do it was fabulous.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I burned through the first six episodes and I love it so far.


I also went to see Logan over the weekend. Fantastic.

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Raell Kromwell

Do I have to wrap this in spoiler tags? Because it's not a **** spoiler.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Watched all but the last episode of Iron Fist so far and liked it. Kind of amazed at the really bad critic response to it.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Iron Fist is the iconic exemplar of cultural appropriation. When so much pop culture criticism today (by volume, at the very least) driven by sites like The Mary Sue, Jezebel, and so on, how did you think The Rich White Dude Who Asians Better Than Asians: The Comic Book would go over?

I love the character (mostly thanks to Brubaker's brilliant mid-2000's revival run), but it's like throwing bloody, white meat to SJW piranhas. Everybody with a blog and aspirations of relevancy is going to be racing to be the first to cry "outrageously, insensitively problematic."

Nevermind that this is a serious break for an Asian actress who is stealing every scene she's in. And doing it because she's both badass in a fight scene and proving herself capable of remarkable emotional depth and complexity.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

The critical panning isn't generally sjw cultural appropriation bullshit, though. They are all over the place with reasons.

So far, five episodes in, I don't think it's bad, per se. I do think it's by far the weakest of the five seasons of Netflix Marvel so far. I find Danny Rand to be frustratingly unrelatable, beyond naive -- to the point of outright stupidity, and even personally unlikeable. I actually find myself pitying poor Ward Meachum for having to put up with this *******. Ward's a complete dick, but that's not enough to deserve having to put up with Danny Rand. The last straw should have been when the moron demanded a pharmaceutical division make no profits on pharmaceutical products. But then his idiotic actions with the chemical plant lawsuit...

He's doesn't even have the excuse of being raised a warrior monk. His challenge with the Hand sealed the fact that he's stupid at that, too.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Because everyone hates the Lawful good character...

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Raell Kromwell

Having taken a time-out from watching long enough to read a few of the reviews, I see where they're going with their revulsion -- they're seeing how they look to the rest of us people who live in the real world, and they recoil in horror and denial.

I mean, think about it. Danny is the epitome of the selfless warrior for justice and moral right and acting out of kindness and empathy to the detriment and denial of any and all practical realities around him -- like investing profits into new research, or including the overhead costs of failed or unproductive research in the pricing of marketable goods. He ought to be the hero to all the bleeding heart liberal hippies in the world... and they can't stand him, because he's utterly unbearable and naive.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I made it through the entire series, and without any spoilers this is why I didn't like it.

1. It was boring. I think this is partially because the three other characters had natural reasons they got involved in the fighting/hero stuff. His was much more drawn out and didn't feel natural at all. It was more like they had to put all these pieces into place for him to even have a reason for getting involved.
2. The villain. Or rather the three villains. They can't seem to make up their mind who the real bad guy is. This kind of launches from the first point. There was no main villain.
3. The end fight. Or lack their of. He can take on six people in a small hallway who are trained fighters, but struggles to subdue a non fighter because he has a gun? This next line I hope is not a spoiler, but during the end "fight" he pops out and kicks the gun out of his hand. He doesn't continue to fight him though. He runs off and hides behind something else so the guy can pick up his gun again and shoot at him some more.
4. The motivations. At the end they maneuvered everyone into place for the next season, but there didn't seem to be good motivations for the wild swings in character these people took.
5. The main actor. He's not a convincing fighter. I don't think he makes a good Iron Fist either. He just wasn't that good overall.
7. Very generic fighting. Other than the scene with the hatchet guys, and the scene with the drunk guy all the fighting was very generic and lacked any style. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage all had distinctive fighting styles. This was full of forgettable stuff.

But he's not lawful good, or he'd have refused to withdraw from the duel.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

No, that's not how that works.

The bleeding heart who can't see the suffering of dozens far away for the suffering of one right before their eyes can still be LG. In point of fact, LG demands he save the girl in front of him, because he still has opportunities to save the others later.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Na. He is now honorbound to never interfere in Hand business again.

Now, a good person will ignore that. But a lawful person cannot.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think these both have merit.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I agree with both of you. Danny is completely the nearsighted bleeding heart, but he's not LG because of it.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It's worth pointing out that Danny is not honorbound never to interfere in Hand business. He withdrew from the challenge, he did not surrender or forfeit. Gao's demand was that he withdraw, not that he concede victory to the Hand. He was not defeated, and is under no obligation to avoid interfering with Hand business.

Also noteworthy is that Gao demanded Danny withdraw only after he legitimately won. She broke the agreement.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

We have a few episodes still to go. We're enjoying it, but I agree that it's not quite as good as LC, JJ, or DD. I think Danny will shine more in the Defenders.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

It was slow with boss fight, but not bad. I enjoyed all the Marvel Netflix seasons so far, the high point was Daredevil boss fight, the low, Luke Cage and the boss fight that was just sad.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Yet another tv show that seems to conveniently forget that the board of directors could never overrule a 51% shareholder... it would mean every one of them would be replaced. This happens far too often on Television. Even in Arrow... the Queen family's stock ownership of the company would have maintained Oliver's control over the company even if the stock tanked. You can't be voted out of ownership.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Actually you can. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. If the board, or some group of representatives with a financial stake (typically employees) can get together and make the case that the owner is running the company into the ground, they can oust the owner. Now, this typically involves lawyers and a judge, and the owner is entitled to be financially compensated. Essentially, the owner can be forced to sell the company.

Why doesn't this happen more often?

You have to demonstrate gross incompetence, not just a bad business decision. Moreover, the process of ousting an owner takes a significant length of time. If the company starts to rebound, it hurts the case that the owner is ruining the company, so things really have to be in the tank. Financial ruin due to ownership is the argument, so it also has to be demonstrated that the company's poor performance isn't due to a sluggish market.

Very few people, or groups of people, can come up with the money to buy out owners or majority shareholders. Now, these people do exist, but they usually make the offer long before things get this bad. Generally speaking, owners and majority shareholders only get ousted after they refuse the guy who comes along and offers $500M for their failing business.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

So, a board member "commits suicide" in his office -- and the next morning they have a board meeting nearby his office and there's not a sign of any police investigation?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's because the Illuminati controls the company.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

No, The Hand...

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Raell Kromwell

I enjoyed Iron Fist a lot. Is it better than Daredevil? No, but it is better than the non-Punisher parts of Daredevil Season 2.

I was on board with Luke Cage right up until they killed off his most interesting and full-of-depth villain, just to bring in random psycho "we're related" powersuit villain000032. Yawn-o-rama.

Iron Fist? Holy ****, they have planted the seeds for 3 to 4 very good villains! All interesting ones, at that.

I enjoyed Luke Cage to a point, but had no desire to re-watch the series. Jessica Jones was good, but it also didn't inspire me to give it a re-watch (though for different reasons, it's just too heavy). Daredevil season 1 made me want to re-watch it, and I did. DD season 2 only made me want to re-watch Punisher stuff.

I already want to re-watch Iron Fist, so I judge it solely on that merit.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!