Post by ayanami on Mar 12, 2018 12:13:14 GMT
This review has actually been sitting on my drive for quite some time now. It was originally supposed to be a full review including all the important characters, but I kinda got bored half-way through and never finished it. But at least the villains portion was already complete and since DoTheMath recently revived this section, I decided to just go ahead and post what I've already got. Who knows, maybe I'll rewatch the show eventually and finish the second part of this review.
Until then, here's what I got so far:
Now that I finally watched The Defenders over the course of the last four days, I wanted to sum up my impressions in a (lengthy) review.
To not give the wrong impression – because there are a lot of things I want to complain about here – I really enjoyed the show. If this review were just about its most important aspect, namely The Defenders themselves, I would rate the show a solid 10/10. Everything about the four guys (and gal) was awesome: The way they each started in their four separate corners, but ended up on the same case nevertheless; the way their first meetings were less than amicable, including the obligatory hero vs. hero fight (seriously, what would superheros be without those?); the way the four bonded with each other on different levels (fighting style, personal, professional, …); I could go on and on, because all that was pretty much perfect. Everything I wanted from the show.
But of course, the show is more than just the four eponymous Defenders, and this is why at the end of the day, my rating is only an 7, maybe an 7.5 out of 10. I’m gonna go into each of my critique points separately, but I think the one reason that pretty much explains everything that I found wrong with the show, is that there was too little time. Honestly, I can’t understand why Netflix would first decide to give each of the individual characters thirteen episodes per season (which were admittedly a bit long in some cases), but then cut this episode order down by five once all of them got together. Maybe they were going for more of an “event” feeling for The Defenders, maybe there were budget concerns, considering that actors get paid by the number of episodes, or maybe it was already tough enough to get all these people on board at the same time for eight episodes, let alone thirteen. Maybe it was a bit of all of the above. Either way, in my opinion this was a massive disservice to the show and (almost) every complaint that I’m gonna list from here on out can be answered with, “Yeah, they could have done that… If they had had more time.”
Let’s start off with the villains. This is in fact one of my major gripes with the show. While every individual Defenders show so far had had amazing, charismatic, well fleshed-out bad guys, this time they were a complete dud imo. And everything that did work was simply a continuation of already established characters like Madame Gao and Bakuto, who didn’t need much screen time to solidify their role in the plot, thanks to the other shows taking the time to flesh them out. Not that they didn’t try, of course.
Alexandra especially had all the ingredients to be a perfect villain, not in small part thanks to the amazing Sigourney Weaver. Let’s just take a look at her introduction in the first episode here: On the one hand you have the established character of Madame Gao, who has so far been kind of the bogeyman of the Netflix shows, and on the other hand there is Alexandra, who has just shown up in the limelight and she’s all: “Yo, girl, feed the birds for me, will ya?” I mean, damn! What a great way to show the audience that this is not a character to be trifled with. Going just by this scene alone, we know that Alexandra holds all the cards, that she’s feared even within The Hand, and that, while her earlier established illness certainly motivates her actions, she’s probably as tough-as-nails as they come.
Only that she’s not.
We know that Alexandra is ill, so it makes sense that aside from the brief moment of her taking down the recently awakened Black Sky, she stays away from the fighting. Understandable, yes, but still kind of a bummer. We also know that she’s reeeaaally old, but considering that the other leaders of The Hand were with her in K’un-Lun all those centuries ago, it leaves me wondering why this trait was played up so much for Alexandra in particular. (On a side note here: Constantinople is not the ‘ancient’ name of Istanbul. It was the name of the city until the Turks conquered it in 1453 and the name Istanbul grew in favour with the populace. 1453 is hardly ancient! Plus, officially the name Constantinople was still used until 1930; so nice try Marvel, but better luck next time.)
So instead of fighting or doing anything else cool, Alexandra’s only purpose on the show seems to be in bringing back Elektra and delivering some god awful boring speeches about – hell, I don’t even remember – to The Defenders and Danny Rand in particular. Obviously I can only speak for myself here, but when she was finally killed off in an anticlimactic scene rather reminiscent of Samuel L. Jackson’s death in Deep Blue Sea – only not packing quite the punch – it was met on my part with a resounding “Ugh!” So much to at least the possibility of Alexandra having any sort of merit on the show. You might call it irony that she was ultimately killed by the one thing she counted on to save her, I call it a ton of wasted potential. Alexandra could have been great, but in the end she was shafted in favour of lots and lots of “been there, done that”. Which brings me to the second villain on my list of complaints:
The Black Sky. Or is it just Elektra? What. A. Let-down. *sigh* So they’ve been teasing the Black Skies for two years now, every since Daredevil S1, and all they could come up with was, “Hey, let’s make her a great martial artist”? Okay, well, obviously someone objected at this part, pointing out that the Netflix shows are already filled to the brim with skilled martial artists (cue Jessica: “Am I the only one left who doesn’t know karate?”), so they decided to mix things up a bit: They made her a super-great martial artist! *double sigh*
Even worse, this is nothing that can be explained away with the writers having too little time. The Black Sky/Elektra got a ton of screentime, and while the process of her regaining her memories was certainly interesting to follow, it still lacked any kind of originality. In fact, this is a complaint I have in regards to the whole show. With Elektra and The Hand being the main villains, and Alexandra being so utterly ineffective to change things up, The Defenders often felt more like Daredevil season 2.1, than its own entity. Only difference was that Luke and Jessica had stumbled into the mix, because Danny Rand felt right at home, fighting The Hand, as well.
To finish off the topic of the villains, here my impressions of the rest of the bunch:
Whatever you do, don’t mess with Madame Gao! Heck, this woman might just be the best villain to come out of the Netflix shows and Wai Ching Ho once again plays her to perfection. Always treading lightly, but certainly not to be underestimated. I can only hope that her days aren’t over yet and that we’ll see her again on any of the upcoming shows. It would be a shame otherwise.
Bakuto was still a smarmy bastard, but a charismatic one all the same. Shame he got so little screentime, but considering the fact that his character and especially his relationship to Colleen were already established, he still worked pretty well imo. Glad to see he got what was coming to him, though.
Sowande, a.k.a. the white hat guy. Yeah, I just had to look his name up, that’s how much of an impression he made. What, did they feel the need to include a black bad guy to get Luke involved in the plot, but couldn’t be bothered to actually give him an important role? Well, at least his speech during his imprisonment, about being captured by The Chaste before was pretty badass and much more memorable than anything Alexandra ever said, so at least I'll give him that.
And last but (not) least, Nobu, err, I mean Murakami. Another character whose name I had to look up and who once again makes me wonder what the writers were thinking here. Murakami was called the man pulling the strings behind Nobu, but did they have to make him such a copy as well? (Only without Peter Shinkoda’s charisma, that is.) The whole only-speaking-Japanese thing was overdone already, especially given the fact that even Madame Gao has long since begun talking in English as well. I suppose by giving the character pretty much the exact same introduction scene that Tywin Lannister got on Game of Thrones, they were trying to make Murakami more charismatic and intimidating, but at least for me this didn’t work at all. Well, at least I can hope that he will not have survived the ending, given his injuries, so that’s something.
To summarise the show’s issues with its villains: It seems that The Defenders developed the same problem the MCU movies are often plagued with, but which the previous Netflix shows had been so successful in avoiding. To focus so much on their band of heroes that the villains get neglected in comparison, resulting in an imbalanced match and rather bland opponents. If only they had had more time...
Until then, here's what I got so far:
Now that I finally watched The Defenders over the course of the last four days, I wanted to sum up my impressions in a (lengthy) review.
To not give the wrong impression – because there are a lot of things I want to complain about here – I really enjoyed the show. If this review were just about its most important aspect, namely The Defenders themselves, I would rate the show a solid 10/10. Everything about the four guys (and gal) was awesome: The way they each started in their four separate corners, but ended up on the same case nevertheless; the way their first meetings were less than amicable, including the obligatory hero vs. hero fight (seriously, what would superheros be without those?); the way the four bonded with each other on different levels (fighting style, personal, professional, …); I could go on and on, because all that was pretty much perfect. Everything I wanted from the show.
But of course, the show is more than just the four eponymous Defenders, and this is why at the end of the day, my rating is only an 7, maybe an 7.5 out of 10. I’m gonna go into each of my critique points separately, but I think the one reason that pretty much explains everything that I found wrong with the show, is that there was too little time. Honestly, I can’t understand why Netflix would first decide to give each of the individual characters thirteen episodes per season (which were admittedly a bit long in some cases), but then cut this episode order down by five once all of them got together. Maybe they were going for more of an “event” feeling for The Defenders, maybe there were budget concerns, considering that actors get paid by the number of episodes, or maybe it was already tough enough to get all these people on board at the same time for eight episodes, let alone thirteen. Maybe it was a bit of all of the above. Either way, in my opinion this was a massive disservice to the show and (almost) every complaint that I’m gonna list from here on out can be answered with, “Yeah, they could have done that… If they had had more time.”
Let’s start off with the villains. This is in fact one of my major gripes with the show. While every individual Defenders show so far had had amazing, charismatic, well fleshed-out bad guys, this time they were a complete dud imo. And everything that did work was simply a continuation of already established characters like Madame Gao and Bakuto, who didn’t need much screen time to solidify their role in the plot, thanks to the other shows taking the time to flesh them out. Not that they didn’t try, of course.
Alexandra especially had all the ingredients to be a perfect villain, not in small part thanks to the amazing Sigourney Weaver. Let’s just take a look at her introduction in the first episode here: On the one hand you have the established character of Madame Gao, who has so far been kind of the bogeyman of the Netflix shows, and on the other hand there is Alexandra, who has just shown up in the limelight and she’s all: “Yo, girl, feed the birds for me, will ya?” I mean, damn! What a great way to show the audience that this is not a character to be trifled with. Going just by this scene alone, we know that Alexandra holds all the cards, that she’s feared even within The Hand, and that, while her earlier established illness certainly motivates her actions, she’s probably as tough-as-nails as they come.
Only that she’s not.
We know that Alexandra is ill, so it makes sense that aside from the brief moment of her taking down the recently awakened Black Sky, she stays away from the fighting. Understandable, yes, but still kind of a bummer. We also know that she’s reeeaaally old, but considering that the other leaders of The Hand were with her in K’un-Lun all those centuries ago, it leaves me wondering why this trait was played up so much for Alexandra in particular. (On a side note here: Constantinople is not the ‘ancient’ name of Istanbul. It was the name of the city until the Turks conquered it in 1453 and the name Istanbul grew in favour with the populace. 1453 is hardly ancient! Plus, officially the name Constantinople was still used until 1930; so nice try Marvel, but better luck next time.)
So instead of fighting or doing anything else cool, Alexandra’s only purpose on the show seems to be in bringing back Elektra and delivering some god awful boring speeches about – hell, I don’t even remember – to The Defenders and Danny Rand in particular. Obviously I can only speak for myself here, but when she was finally killed off in an anticlimactic scene rather reminiscent of Samuel L. Jackson’s death in Deep Blue Sea – only not packing quite the punch – it was met on my part with a resounding “Ugh!” So much to at least the possibility of Alexandra having any sort of merit on the show. You might call it irony that she was ultimately killed by the one thing she counted on to save her, I call it a ton of wasted potential. Alexandra could have been great, but in the end she was shafted in favour of lots and lots of “been there, done that”. Which brings me to the second villain on my list of complaints:
The Black Sky. Or is it just Elektra? What. A. Let-down. *sigh* So they’ve been teasing the Black Skies for two years now, every since Daredevil S1, and all they could come up with was, “Hey, let’s make her a great martial artist”? Okay, well, obviously someone objected at this part, pointing out that the Netflix shows are already filled to the brim with skilled martial artists (cue Jessica: “Am I the only one left who doesn’t know karate?”), so they decided to mix things up a bit: They made her a super-great martial artist! *double sigh*
Even worse, this is nothing that can be explained away with the writers having too little time. The Black Sky/Elektra got a ton of screentime, and while the process of her regaining her memories was certainly interesting to follow, it still lacked any kind of originality. In fact, this is a complaint I have in regards to the whole show. With Elektra and The Hand being the main villains, and Alexandra being so utterly ineffective to change things up, The Defenders often felt more like Daredevil season 2.1, than its own entity. Only difference was that Luke and Jessica had stumbled into the mix, because Danny Rand felt right at home, fighting The Hand, as well.
To finish off the topic of the villains, here my impressions of the rest of the bunch:
Whatever you do, don’t mess with Madame Gao! Heck, this woman might just be the best villain to come out of the Netflix shows and Wai Ching Ho once again plays her to perfection. Always treading lightly, but certainly not to be underestimated. I can only hope that her days aren’t over yet and that we’ll see her again on any of the upcoming shows. It would be a shame otherwise.
Bakuto was still a smarmy bastard, but a charismatic one all the same. Shame he got so little screentime, but considering the fact that his character and especially his relationship to Colleen were already established, he still worked pretty well imo. Glad to see he got what was coming to him, though.
Sowande, a.k.a. the white hat guy. Yeah, I just had to look his name up, that’s how much of an impression he made. What, did they feel the need to include a black bad guy to get Luke involved in the plot, but couldn’t be bothered to actually give him an important role? Well, at least his speech during his imprisonment, about being captured by The Chaste before was pretty badass and much more memorable than anything Alexandra ever said, so at least I'll give him that.
And last but (not) least, Nobu, err, I mean Murakami. Another character whose name I had to look up and who once again makes me wonder what the writers were thinking here. Murakami was called the man pulling the strings behind Nobu, but did they have to make him such a copy as well? (Only without Peter Shinkoda’s charisma, that is.) The whole only-speaking-Japanese thing was overdone already, especially given the fact that even Madame Gao has long since begun talking in English as well. I suppose by giving the character pretty much the exact same introduction scene that Tywin Lannister got on Game of Thrones, they were trying to make Murakami more charismatic and intimidating, but at least for me this didn’t work at all. Well, at least I can hope that he will not have survived the ending, given his injuries, so that’s something.
To summarise the show’s issues with its villains: It seems that The Defenders developed the same problem the MCU movies are often plagued with, but which the previous Netflix shows had been so successful in avoiding. To focus so much on their band of heroes that the villains get neglected in comparison, resulting in an imbalanced match and rather bland opponents. If only they had had more time...