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netgirl_y2kI was seven episodes into Iron Fist before io9 published their helpful summary of what happens in case you were only watching for Defenders related reasons, and in the self-defeating spirit of 'I've started so I'll finish' I carried on to the bitter end.
I mean, I like bad telly. I loved Lost Girl, I like Wynonna Earp, and I even liked the couple of episodes of syfy's girl Van Helsing that I saw. But I feel like those are shows that know they're bad telly, they lean in to the fact that they're bad telly. Iron Fist is bad telly that labours under the misapprehension that it's good telly.
Firstly, people more knowledgable and eloquent than me have talked about how Danny Rand should have been an Asian guy, so let's just take that as read. Danny Rand should have been an Asian guy.
Secondly, Danny Rand should have been literally anyone except Finn Jones; his turn as pouting knight Loras Tyrell on Game of Thrones didn't exactly inspire confidence in him as a leading man, but it turns out that GoT was actually flattering him to deceive. He is embarrassingly, tragically bad in this.
The thing that really baffles me about his casting is, like, surely decent actors with martial arts backgrounds aren't that hard to find? By the way, and I say this as a lesbian 'handsome actors + martial arts' is a fun google rabbit hole to disappear down for an hour or three. But instead they went with Finn Jones, who has neither the acting chops nor the martial arts training to pull this off. And, yeah, okay, maybe there wasn't that long between casting and the beginning of shooting, but that's all the more reason why they should have cast an actor with a martial arts background in the first place; but once it had become clear, as surely it must, that there was no chance of Jones being up to snuff in time, they should at the bare minimum have worked on ways (I dunno, shooting angles, quick cuts, costuming, whatever) to let a stunt man tag in as often as humanly possible.
There is one half-decent fight scene in the entire thing, between Danny and his boyhood chum Davos, which is filmed in the dark, in the rain, from a distance of about half a mile away. The rest of them are Just So Awful.
Tell a lie, actually, the best fight sequence in the entire show is the stylised, cgi figure in the opening credits who is doing flying kicks all by his lonesome. Nothing in the actual show regains those heights.
I didn't love the live action Beauty & the Beast, and the reason why is that the animated version has a built-in suspension of disbelief which, for me, the live action one just didn't have, so I was left sitting there in the cinema thinking: are we all just going to ignore that an actual human woman is falling in love with a lion/buffalo hybrid? And there is a similar thing at work in the Marvel Netflix universe; like all comic book properties they come with a built-in suspension of disbelief which just crumpled any time Finn Jones was on screen looking like he'd just had baby's first kung fu lesson, or doing constipated, shirtless tai chi.
Actually, have you seen the shirtless promo pics? Where he looks like someone's kid brother who is going to karate after school because he's getting picked on by the other kids.
So, Iron Fist is a martial arts show with a star who can't do martial arts, that alone would be an unforgivable sin. But if Finn Jones were a brilliant actor, who perfectly embodied Danny Rand maybe some small defence of it could be mounted. Alas, Finn Jones is the weakest member of the cast by some considerable margin; which is saying something because even the strongest actors were hamstrung by the clunky dialogue and abrupt heel-face-turns that subbed for actual characterisation or character development.
Even Rosario Dawson, whose exasperated Claire Temple has been a high point of the other Netflix shows, suffered from this heavy-handedness. The first time she basically calls Danny and Colleen violent maniacs who need professional help it's funny, the third time you've got to wonder why she's still hanging around them.
And Danny, he has about eight different personalities over the course of thirteen episodes. The only one Finn Jones plays with any sort of conviction or charm is earnest, shoeless!Danny who lives in the park; alas, this Danny swiftly gives way to half-arsed corporate crusader!Danny, angry!Danny, daddy issues!Danny, and my personal least favourite, shirtless tai chi!Danny.
Daredevil season two was already skating on thin ice on the white guy out-ninjas ninjas front, but that show at least had the much more more compelling Punisher arc. The b-plot here is equal parts boardroom drama, daddy issues, and Frankenstein's monster, and is even less interesting than that makes it sound. It did give me my favourite character of the show: Ward Meechum, who I was prepared to hate on account of his uncanny resemblance to Donald Trump Jr. but who spent most of the show developing a drug problem, embezzling money, and making numerous attempts to run away; finally, a guy who's having even less fun here than I am!
One of the basic problems with Iron Fist is that Danny's main conflict is whether he wants to be a billionaire with no responsibilities, or an immortal weapon who got his powers from fighting a dragon.... and, dude, what's your problem? Both of those sound awesome.
(The other basic problem is that it's a comic book story that is simultaneously too attached to its origins to change or challenge the inherent racism of its premise, and kind of ashamed of those origins; the dragon fighting revelation comes late and sort of shame-faced, and it spends a lot of time early on pretending it's a boardroom drama.)
Colleen Wing comes through the season much better. Jessica Henwick, despite somehow being even worse than Finn Jones on Game of Thrones is much better here. Her acting is better, her fight scenes more convincing (possibly due to enthusiastic use of the bone snapping sound effect), and her arc simpler and more relatable - she has a teacher she trusts, she discovers he's been lying to her and using her for his own ends, and she kills him in the rain with a sword, as you do.
I read an idea somewhere that if they were so determined to make Danny a white dude billionaire, they should have made him an older white dude who was training Colleen Wing to be the next Iron Fist. That way the Defenders would still have financial resources should they need them come the team up, and it would acknowledge the origins of the comics, while also acknowledging that this is 2017 and they are now wildly inappropriate. And, damn, now I want that show. And because Jessica Henwick and Finn Jones actually did have quite sweet romantic chemistry, I see no reason why, in my fantasy version of Iron Fist, Colleen Wing couldn't have a sweet blonde boyfriend, who she needs to rescue from the bad guys because he's famously hopeless with violence.
I mean, I like bad telly. I loved Lost Girl, I like Wynonna Earp, and I even liked the couple of episodes of syfy's girl Van Helsing that I saw. But I feel like those are shows that know they're bad telly, they lean in to the fact that they're bad telly. Iron Fist is bad telly that labours under the misapprehension that it's good telly.
Firstly, people more knowledgable and eloquent than me have talked about how Danny Rand should have been an Asian guy, so let's just take that as read. Danny Rand should have been an Asian guy.
Secondly, Danny Rand should have been literally anyone except Finn Jones; his turn as pouting knight Loras Tyrell on Game of Thrones didn't exactly inspire confidence in him as a leading man, but it turns out that GoT was actually flattering him to deceive. He is embarrassingly, tragically bad in this.
The thing that really baffles me about his casting is, like, surely decent actors with martial arts backgrounds aren't that hard to find? By the way, and I say this as a lesbian 'handsome actors + martial arts' is a fun google rabbit hole to disappear down for an hour or three. But instead they went with Finn Jones, who has neither the acting chops nor the martial arts training to pull this off. And, yeah, okay, maybe there wasn't that long between casting and the beginning of shooting, but that's all the more reason why they should have cast an actor with a martial arts background in the first place; but once it had become clear, as surely it must, that there was no chance of Jones being up to snuff in time, they should at the bare minimum have worked on ways (I dunno, shooting angles, quick cuts, costuming, whatever) to let a stunt man tag in as often as humanly possible.
There is one half-decent fight scene in the entire thing, between Danny and his boyhood chum Davos, which is filmed in the dark, in the rain, from a distance of about half a mile away. The rest of them are Just So Awful.
Tell a lie, actually, the best fight sequence in the entire show is the stylised, cgi figure in the opening credits who is doing flying kicks all by his lonesome. Nothing in the actual show regains those heights.
I didn't love the live action Beauty & the Beast, and the reason why is that the animated version has a built-in suspension of disbelief which, for me, the live action one just didn't have, so I was left sitting there in the cinema thinking: are we all just going to ignore that an actual human woman is falling in love with a lion/buffalo hybrid? And there is a similar thing at work in the Marvel Netflix universe; like all comic book properties they come with a built-in suspension of disbelief which just crumpled any time Finn Jones was on screen looking like he'd just had baby's first kung fu lesson, or doing constipated, shirtless tai chi.
Actually, have you seen the shirtless promo pics? Where he looks like someone's kid brother who is going to karate after school because he's getting picked on by the other kids.
So, Iron Fist is a martial arts show with a star who can't do martial arts, that alone would be an unforgivable sin. But if Finn Jones were a brilliant actor, who perfectly embodied Danny Rand maybe some small defence of it could be mounted. Alas, Finn Jones is the weakest member of the cast by some considerable margin; which is saying something because even the strongest actors were hamstrung by the clunky dialogue and abrupt heel-face-turns that subbed for actual characterisation or character development.
Even Rosario Dawson, whose exasperated Claire Temple has been a high point of the other Netflix shows, suffered from this heavy-handedness. The first time she basically calls Danny and Colleen violent maniacs who need professional help it's funny, the third time you've got to wonder why she's still hanging around them.
And Danny, he has about eight different personalities over the course of thirteen episodes. The only one Finn Jones plays with any sort of conviction or charm is earnest, shoeless!Danny who lives in the park; alas, this Danny swiftly gives way to half-arsed corporate crusader!Danny, angry!Danny, daddy issues!Danny, and my personal least favourite, shirtless tai chi!Danny.
Daredevil season two was already skating on thin ice on the white guy out-ninjas ninjas front, but that show at least had the much more more compelling Punisher arc. The b-plot here is equal parts boardroom drama, daddy issues, and Frankenstein's monster, and is even less interesting than that makes it sound. It did give me my favourite character of the show: Ward Meechum, who I was prepared to hate on account of his uncanny resemblance to Donald Trump Jr. but who spent most of the show developing a drug problem, embezzling money, and making numerous attempts to run away; finally, a guy who's having even less fun here than I am!
One of the basic problems with Iron Fist is that Danny's main conflict is whether he wants to be a billionaire with no responsibilities, or an immortal weapon who got his powers from fighting a dragon.... and, dude, what's your problem? Both of those sound awesome.
(The other basic problem is that it's a comic book story that is simultaneously too attached to its origins to change or challenge the inherent racism of its premise, and kind of ashamed of those origins; the dragon fighting revelation comes late and sort of shame-faced, and it spends a lot of time early on pretending it's a boardroom drama.)
Colleen Wing comes through the season much better. Jessica Henwick, despite somehow being even worse than Finn Jones on Game of Thrones is much better here. Her acting is better, her fight scenes more convincing (possibly due to enthusiastic use of the bone snapping sound effect), and her arc simpler and more relatable - she has a teacher she trusts, she discovers he's been lying to her and using her for his own ends, and she kills him in the rain with a sword, as you do.
I read an idea somewhere that if they were so determined to make Danny a white dude billionaire, they should have made him an older white dude who was training Colleen Wing to be the next Iron Fist. That way the Defenders would still have financial resources should they need them come the team up, and it would acknowledge the origins of the comics, while also acknowledging that this is 2017 and they are now wildly inappropriate. And, damn, now I want that show. And because Jessica Henwick and Finn Jones actually did have quite sweet romantic chemistry, I see no reason why, in my fantasy version of Iron Fist, Colleen Wing couldn't have a sweet blonde boyfriend, who she needs to rescue from the bad guys because he's famously hopeless with violence.
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Date: 2017-03-25 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-26 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-26 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-25 11:47 pm (UTC)Oh god, this would have worked so much better. Finn Jones makes a perfect damsel in distress.
I still love Claire to bits; I just wish she'd had more to do, and that people had listened to her more.
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Date: 2017-03-26 12:17 am (UTC)I've overthought this, haven't I?
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Date: 2017-03-27 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-26 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-26 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-27 12:19 am (UTC)I'm really hoping that perhaps Finn Jones will be better in Defenders or will be so overshadowed that he just fades into the background.
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Date: 2017-03-28 11:06 pm (UTC)Yeah, I have not given up on The Defenders as a lost cause or anything. But the difference that does jar between Iron Fist and the other Netflix shows is that the others are, in some fundamental way, about taking the side of the powerless against the powerful, and I'm not sure how well unemployed billionaire Danny Rand is going to mesh with that ethos. But I live in hope.
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Date: 2017-03-28 04:23 pm (UTC)Thus far, I agree: the show seems think it's good and its really not. Similarly, I feel like I'm supposed to like Danny, but I find it REALLY hard to.
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Date: 2017-03-28 11:16 pm (UTC)Yeah, Danny is so hard to like, not helped by Finn Jones coming across as such a dick in interviews and trying to blame the show's lacklustre reception on Trump. Look, I'm usually on board with blaming Trump for everything, but that's... a stretch.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-04 04:34 pm (UTC)I haven't seen any of the interviews, which sounds like a good thing. And yeah, you can't really blame that on Trump. lol