Ooh, I can fanwank this one.
Colleen was there to get recruits in the door with the right mindset and base skills. By not knowing the true purpose, Colleen could speak honestly and from the heart about what The Hand were doing. Young, impressionable people would believe her as she unwittingly prepared them for further indoctrination. Once her students were turned over, they were already ready to believe whatever the sensei of their sensei told them.
It’s tiring for him to use it.
I’ve watched 8 or 9 eps and am finding it pretty unwatchable. I just don’t really care about the characters or whether or not Colleen’s sensei can teach Danny how to recharge his chi. Not sure I’ll finish out the series.
I know this is a stupid point to get hung up on - but did anyone bother to research how an airplane flies? I’m willing to suspend disbelief and believe that a white kid can learn Kung Fu and make his hand glow - but I would really like an explanation on how poisoning a pilot can make the top of an airplane just come flying off.
If both the pilot and copilot were poisoned, they would have most likely put the plane on autopilot (assuming it wasn’t already) and tried to figure out why they were getting sick. Most likely they would have died and the plane would have continued happily along at cruising altitude until it ran out of fuel or someone took over.
How in the hell does that cause the top of the fuse to just come off?!?!
And yeah, there would be some catastrophic decompression if that happened, but it certainly wouldn’t pull a grown woman off her feet and send her hurtling through the air.
And, if the pilots were dead, the plane would have hit the mountain at speed. I can’t see anyway that plane touches down a less than 400 mph. No way anyone survives that.
Keep in mind - none of that would keep me from watching the show. Its the poor acting, and boring plot lines doing that. But, it’d be nice if the realistic things were depicted realistically.
Many people have weird things that break their suspension of disbelief. I would explain that the poison was Plan A, and blowing the top off the plane was Plan B. Always be prepared. And people can be sucked out of airplanes. However, it is not common nor at all as it is shown in most movies.
Ok, so lets say that I believe plan b was the backup - which some how simulated turbulence for a while, shook the plane, made everyone nervous enough for Danny to freak out and his mom unbuckle and come over to comfort him before the top came off.
Even so, there’s a huge difference between normalizing the air pressure in a 14,000 cubic foot passenger plane and a 600 cubic foot business jet.
Of course the real answer is that it was done so the audience thinks is a normal accidental plane crash until the plot needed us to believe otherwise. Just seems lazy when it’s done without regard to actual physics.
There’s only so much I can attempt to handwave away (and this applies to any action show). Physics and action shows just do not go together well.
The turbulence and roof ripping off weren’t part of the plan. The plan was the pilot’s die and the plane crashes and kills everyone on board.
My fanwank would be that the turbulence was caused by the way to Kun Lun opening up. The roof coming off was just dumb - but gave Danny some extra guilt for having Mom unbuckle to check on him.
I know! Best part of the series! He goes from a suave an despicable villain to a pale and red eyed junkie. And you feel sorry for him, being diminished by his douchebag dad, and just not coping, wanting to run away. Its really well done.
I finished watching it recently, and it definitely seems like they’re still tinkering with pacing. Season 1 of Daredevil and Jessica Jones both ratcheted up the stakes so quickly (e.g. with sleeper agents everywhere) that it made the endings seem pretty weak. Luke Cage had more even pacing, which I appreciated, but it never quite had me on the edge of my seat. Iron Fist started off pretty dull but I thought it was pretty gripping for the last half of the season (leaving aside the usual measure of plot holes and dumb decisions).
But I disliked Madame Gao in Daredevil and I disliked her just as much in Iron Fist. She’s so self-consciously “mysterious” that she just seems totally shapeless to me. She uses slaves to make heroin because she’s totally evil…or not…and she has total omnipotence…or maybe she doesn’t…and everything is part of some fiendishly clever master plan…unless it isn’t. What kind of lame villain is that? At least she’s better than the Kingpin, who has a legion of fanatically loyal sleeper agents willing to die at a moment’s notice so that…he can build some luxury condos in Manhattan.
I and Mrs. Mahaloth finished it the other day.
We liked it. I keep seeing that this is “Marvel’s first failure on Netflix.” This was way better than Luke Cage, which we finished but did not like.
I’d rank the Netflix series like this:
This is my least favorite of the Netflix Marvel shows, but it’s still better than Agents of SHIELD for me, so there’s that. The problems I saw :
1.) Finn Jones has the Charisma of a wet turd.
2.) The writing isn’t quite up to par with the other Netflix shows.
3.) Madame Gao’s suddenly discovered affiliation sort of contradicts the feel for her that we got in Daredevil, which does the story no favors.
Luke Cage had pacing issues, but the character work was so engaging all around, that I didn’t care.
The fight scenes suck, badly. Danny Rand is supposed to be the best martial artist in the world, the very least they could do is cast an actual martial artist for the role, white guy or not. Are there no up and coming Chuck Norises? No Millennial Jean Claude Van Dammes?
I liked episode 6, when Danny has to take part in a silly “tournament” Gao prepares for him against four killers. It was a terrible, cheesy, yet enjoyable martial arts movie, as the rest of the show should have been.
Also the Drunken Master fight in episode 8.
That is the level of cheesiness that would make Finn “Ser Loras” Jones’ horrible acting work.
No, really, he’s easily the worst actor of the series, with the subtlety of a brick (“I’m angry! Graaah! Raaah! Now I’m having flashbacks! Gaaah!”) I mean, compare his scenes with the actor playing Davos… that guy could emote convincingly, look clueless in New York in a way that made sense, and look badass in a fight (unlike Jones). I was really wishing he had gotten the Iron Fist instead of Danny.
When the show started taking itself seriously is when the whole thing failed horribly. That last episode, where Harold Meachum finds out that Danny’s kryptonite is apparently using guns instead of just sending unarmed thugs against him one by one just highlighted how silly the whole thing is.
Still, I found his thick British accent somewhat jarring for a guy who’d supposedly spent all of his life in a mystical Asian monastery…
Yeah, the fight scenes really sucked. He so clearly has no training, and looks just like someone pretending to do martial arts moves. There have to be 100’s of young hungry actors in Hollywood with some martial arts training.
You realize, of course, that this means Jones was hired for his acting prowess.
The mind boggles.
Finn Jones just doesn’t make me believe in Danny Rand the Iron Fist. Who picked him for this role? I dunno, maybe he’s been great in something else but he’s just not working for me in this role. I find the supporting cast much more compelling which is just sad.
I’m also not sold on Boy Billionaire becomes “street-level” street-wise vigilante. There is so much they could have done with the character - cast a different ethnicity, made him of more modest origins. Or, if they kept all that, hired an actor who could better bring the character to life and make me care about the main character.
Well, can’t win 'em all.
He was probably hired because he vaguely looked like the comic book character.
The weird part is, I think of Danny Rand as a clean-shaven guy with hair that isn’t at all curly, so they’re obviously not trying as hard as they could. (Well, unless the idea was ‘Make him a white dude, but lower any Matt Murdock resemblance’.)
Not only is he white, but about as white as you can get.