Jessica Jones

[tomandtish]

I'd argue you can have objectively bad things IN movies (usually filming glitches, etc.), but whether they make the movie bad is subjective. Showing camera men, set lights, etc. is probably objectively bad UNLESS you're filming a comedy/spoof that's breaking the third wall.

Case in point: the car in Fellowship of the Ring is one small but (I'd argue) objectively bad element in the movie. It's a mistake.

[eggynack]

I'd argue you can have objectively bad things IN movies (usually filming glitches, etc.), but whether they make the movie bad is subjective. Showing camera men, set lights, etc. is probably objectively bad UNLESS you're filming a comedy/spoof that's breaking the third wall.

Case in point: the car in Fellowship of the Ring is one small but (I'd argue) objectively bad element in the movie. It's a mistake.

The thing is, even in a practical sense, I don't think that these kinds of criteria hold up. Yeah, I could argue against this on pure media subjectivity grounds, but it's a lot more straightforward to say, no, some people probably like filming glitches and such. As you yourself point out, some movies are made better with technical glitches, and we can extrapolate that better making into some qualities that could be considered broadly applicable. In particular, glitches can be funny and interesting, because they break with expectations and the norm. A movie like Birdemic wouldn't be half as fun to watch as it is if it didn't glitch all over the place, and that's not because it's breaking the fourth wall by doing so. And before you say otherwise, no, I would not consider Birdemic an objectively bad film, because I would never ascribe that quality to a movie I found consistently funny and entertaining. A drama would not usually be made more dramatic by way of glitching, but I can, on the above basis, say that it would likely be funnier. We could consider this a negative trade off, because we're losing some of the film's core engagement to this arbitrary other quality, but one could trivially imagine someone who prefers comedy to drama enough to make that worth it.

There's another important question here that I haven't yet touched on. That being, what is a glitch? Thinking through it, the only definition that really makes sense to me is a thing that's present in the work that, for whatever reason, was not intended to be there at all, that would be fixed if possible. We could narrow this definition in some way, I think, but I think it would be wrong to widen it. Even if the boom mic is in the shot, I wouldn't call that a glitch if it was put in the movie on purpose. This, I think, is critical to your contention that these would constitute objectively bad film qualities. But, and here's the critical part, that sort of criteria makes no sense.

Imagine two movies, each wholly identical to the other, up to and including a boom mic that's present in one scene. The only difference between these movies, in fact, is that the first had the boom mic show up by accident, while the second put it there on purpose. By the definition I'm using, the only one that really makes sense here, the first movie has a glitch and the second doesn't. So, in spite of the fact that a viewer would experience each movie exactly the same way, the glitch metric would have us believe that the first movie is objectively worse than the second. All in all, any metric that relies on how the work matches up with the artist's vision is going to fall apart in this way, because we're ultimately going to put the work in front of a bunch of people who never get to see what the original vision was, and it is in this vision-less context that we generally consider film quality.

[SuperPanda]

Re: Subjectivity vs Objectivity in art

As someone who teaches literature and has studied linguistics I think I'm in that frustrating middle ground on this topic.

Almost every single individual piece of filmed media can be examined and measured objectively using methods similar to those applied in descriptive linguistic studies - examining what has been and continues to be the most successful methods and tools for accomplishing a given task. I would equate this to the grammar and phonics of the film (I'm going to be using poetry as a comparison).

A poem can be objectively examined to identify sound patterns it creates through rhyming, repetition, assonance, alliteration, meter, ect. The phrases within the poem can be examined using the tools of grammar not only to compare them against a prescribed "correct" but instead to see how they function as language.

Example: "Whose woods these are I think I know" - the opening line of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is grammatically incorrect. That said few people have a problem with the altered structure because the meaning is communicated clearly despite the "incorrect" order of the phrases. Most of the attention in the poem is captured in the final stanza with the repetition of "And miles to go before I sleep." One reason that the third line of the last stanza draws so much attention and feels so important to many readers is that it breaks a rhyming convention established earlier in the poem. AABA, BBCB, CCDC, DDDD. An examination of many poems from many different writers shows that intentionally breaking their own rules within the poem draws more attention to it even if the reader is not consciously aware of the breaking of the rules. This is a linguistic to creating a focal point in a painting. We're naturally drawn to the beginning and endings, so the Frost example is a bit like a painting which has a set of eyes in the center of the canvas staring directly back at us.

Using tools like this I can examine how expertly crafted the poem was by assessing how each part adds to other parts. I can determine that Frost is a master of poetry by looking at the body of his work and noting how carefully each poem is crafted.

That all is the craft of his work though and the craft serves the art.

To truly measure whether or not Frost makes good art I need to step into the subjective and acknowledge that the sum value of his craft is more than its constituent parts. This is specifically because the primary appeal of poetry is Pathos. A scientific report is objectively good if it is clear, well thought out, and informative. A poem is only "good" if it evokes the correct emotions and evokes them correctly. We simply don't understand the science of emotion well enough at this juncture to really deal with them objectively - let alone express how we experience them with anything approaching objectivity. We don't even have an objective lexicon for discussion emotion, it is purely subjective despite being something we do all share.

This is even weirder when you consider that almost all art which has ever been considered to have stood the test of time does so specifically because it speaks to emotions that we as humans share now and have done for all our recorded history. So there must be something objective about emotion if we can all share experiences - and yet we don't have any way to talk about it which isn't subjective.

So a film can be objectively well made and still be bad art. A film can be objectively poorly made and be art because of it. A film can do everything "right" and still somehow be bland. Like with poems imperfections sometimes enhance a work of film while other times they damage them beyond repair.

Speaking of which...

I recently decided to watch Iron Fist, I'm not caught up on the Netflix Marvel verse having only seen Season 1 of DD and JJ so far and enjoyed both. I'd heard this was the worst of them and wanted to get them out of the way.

My question to the forums is: How can you complain about the fight scenes when there is so very much worse about this. (I'm only 11 episodes in)

Spoiler

Show

11 episodes in and I still feel I know nothing about Danny except that he's an incredibly arrogant and entitled little brat. I don't think there's been a show where I've enjoyed watching the protagonist get his butt kicked so hard.

I mean, on the one hand he's suppose to be this amazing martial artist - on the other 11 episodes in and the only people who aren't dismissive of his fighting ability are "a red shirt student," "the girl who loves him, and "Himself." Just about everyone else has been echoing these forums by saying he's a very disappointing Iron Fist.

Still I'm 11 episodes in and the only answer to why he abandoned his duty is "he suppressed his emotions." - And since Davos is in that exact same boat I can't believe this would come as a surprise to anyone if it were the reason. He left his sacred duty because "I saw a bird and thought - hey I can runaway and be rich." So having been trained for 15 years to become a warrior with a live long sacred duty - he has never developed any concept of responsibility?

Why did he want back into his company before he knew the Hand was there? He didn't seem to want the money (though that didn't stop him from going full-on rich boy the second he got it. This annoyed me so very much because I was sure they were setting him up to have conflicts between his Buddhist teachings and his decadent life-style... but it doesn't matter because he doesn't care.

Why throw out a line about a vow of chastity and then have him sleep with Colleen and never bring the vow thing up again? There has so far been zero conflict about that - and they've already done the "I'm with the Hand" stupid reveal where it would make sense to bring that back.
I made you break your vows, clouding your judgement, and making you loose the iron fist. I didn't know that's what they wanted me to do,
you have to "let go" of your earthly attachment to me to refocus your Chi..." - Sure its very similar to Aang's plot in season 2 of Avatar: Last Airbender, but honestly that's a good place to be cribbing plots from.

Who is the actual antagonist? This season feels like they threw and entire rogues gallery at me all at once. Harold is clearly suppose to be an evil mastermind figure and really, and entire season dealing with him manipulating Danny against Gao would have been amazing with Ward melting down before turning to Danny for help to kick off the resolution. Instead we established that Ward is a douche early on and as such his meltdown and drama feels like wasted screen time because there doesn't seem to be any possible payoff.

Bokuto (Sp?) seems like he's trying to be the new Gao/Fisk/villain - but he entered the story so late and has so little established motive that I honestly don't care. He's got a bit more of the charming devil compared to Gao's quite mystic charisma, but apart form "Hand, army,
money, plan to use Danny..." he has no established motives. This series is really pushing the "mystery" angle on a hero whose only
solution to a problem so far has been to punch it. It feels like they dropped Hulk into a batman story and left out the "puny god" humor.

Joy? She seems to be doing this conflicted dance between her altrusitc self and her Randian (Anne Rand) self with the latter winning more and more as the series progresses. The tension of her being in Harold's grasp is undercut by what seems to be her growth towards becoming a villain for a future series. I like her growth and her arc, she'd be a good foil for Danny - it just feels like they're trying to hard to push "the good Meechum is in danger" so that they can M.Night.Shamazam me with a "But she was actually a villain, mwahahaha"

Davos? Dude has some serious anger issues towards Danny, he has goals which are directly in conflict to Danny, I keep waiting for him to kill or try to kill Colleen. They've set him up for a dramatic conlfict with Danny but he'd be a horrible choice for villain. Danny's who arc so far is that he has absolutely no sense of personal responsibility about anything. Davos is a friend who is trying to get Danny to accept responsibility -
if the two wind up having an epic smack-down because Davos was secretly evil it would completely undercut any hope that the season ends with Danny accepting his responsibilities as the Iron Fist or as Danny Rand.

Danny himself? They teased the "you've been brainwashed" stuff and I know its Colleen whose been brainwashed because of how things work in comic-book stories - but this far into the story and it feels like a massive waste not to have been setting up everything as Danny's own fault.

To that effect: Why does it matter if the Fist is not there to guard Kun Lun? The Hand knows he's not there, they went to China knowing he's not there, and they've done nothing about it. Set up the synthetic heroine as using something stolen from Kun Lun specifically because he wasn't there. Have Gao target Rand specifically because she knew about the prophecy and orchestrated Danny becoming the next Fist.
Have Bukoto and Gao be at odds because Gao wants to help the Iron Fist in order to redeem herself from whatever sin got her cast out of Kun Lun so that she could one-day return and Bukoto wants to corrupt him to use in his war to take over the world.

Or better have Bukoto be an underline of Harold the whole time and reveal him later in the series after we've seen Ward melting down but don't know why.

How I'd have restructured Iron Fist (so far)

Spoiler

Show

Early (can be a flashback episode within the first 3 episodes) Show Danny earning his passage back to the states in fighting pits in Asia. Yes this would mean underwhelming fight scenes with our Danny, but if the plot is good that sin would be forgiven. Create tension by having some monks from Kun Lun trying track him down and take him back. Establish Danny as good at running away (and establish him as running from his responsibilities) Have a scene where he accidentally hits someone too hard, maybe even killing them, in a fighting pit and he runs before collecting his winnings. Show him afraid of his power and responsibility.

Arriving in New York can be done similarly, but have the man google things. Later on Davos suggests Danny told him all about the internet and yet Danny himself never uses it. Instead of revealing Ward talking to Harold, instead have Ward meeting with Gao over the docks. Show how absolutely terrified of the Hand Ward is. When the mental hospital stuff goes down have it be Ward who thinks of using Danny to fight the Hand and releases him to do it - then have Danny still angry at Ward and Joy for not ebracing him go to Hogarth.

Have Danny missing depositions, meetings, and even a court appearance because he's busy fighting the Hand. Have Hogarth corner him and ask if he event wants his money and position back. Danny gets one of his: I don't know. moments and it becomes clear that what he really wants is to be Danny Rand (and not the Iron Fist). Have this be the point where Colleen starts to fall for him.

Have Davos show up here so that Davos is encouraging him to be Iron Fist while Colleen is trying to get him to be Danny Rand. Claire can be the only one asking why he can't be both.

Have more confrontations with Gao where she forces him to choose between "duty" and "what is right" only have her more than a little disappointed everytime he forsakes his Duty. Have her flat out tell him that he cannot run from his responsibility or his choices - he must choose. (Near the end of the series have her give him a mystic mcguffin that will let him know when the way to Kun Lun is about to open so that he can return to guard it - pointing out that he only needs to guard the path when it is open. The correct choice is to be Danny Rand,
and the Iron Fist - to fullfil his duty both to Kun Lun and to fighting the Hand. Have her explain she was trying to make him choose this on his own so that he could become a great Iron Fist and perhaps redeem herself and gain entry back to Kun Lun, but she sees she has failed because she had to explain it. Have her say she will keep testing him, if he continues to fail she'll have to wait for the next Iron Fist.

Have Harold, Joy, and Bukoto kidnap and kill a monk Danny liked from Kun Lun, spurring the final plot-line as Danny must recover stolen items from Kun Lun to restore peace. Have them reutrn as the way is closing and have him explain to his teachers what Gao taught him. Have them disapprove, especially because Gao is involved, but respect the wishes of the fist. Have Davos not make it back to Kun Lun and show him angry with Danny for everything. (In a following season have him working on a way to take the Iron Fist from Danny so that Kun Lun can have a protector it deserves).

I think if the plot was a bit more focused and the writing was a bit better none of us would care about the fight scenes.

[tomandtish]

The thing is, even in a practical sense, I don't think that these kinds of criteria hold up. Yeah, I could argue against this on pure media subjectivity grounds, but it's a lot more straightforward to say, no, some people probably like filming glitches and such. As you yourself point out, some movies are made better with technical glitches, and we can extrapolate that better making into some qualities that could be considered broadly applicable. In particular, glitches can be funny and interesting, because they break with expectations and the norm. A movie like Birdemic wouldn't be half as fun to watch as it is if it didn't glitch all over the place, and that's not because it's breaking the fourth wall by doing so. And before you say otherwise, no, I would not consider Birdemic an objectively bad film, because I would never ascribe that quality to a movie I found consistently funny and entertaining. A drama would not usually be made more dramatic by way of glitching, but I can, on the above basis, say that it would likely be funnier. We could consider this a negative trade off, because we're losing some of the film's core engagement to this arbitrary other quality, but one could trivially imagine someone who prefers comedy to drama enough to make that worth it.

Subjective enjoyment of objectively bad glitches would not make the glitch itself objectively good, especially if the director has indicated it was a glitch.

There's another important question here that I haven't yet touched on. That being, what is a glitch? Thinking through it, the only definition that really makes sense to me is a thing that's present in the work that, for whatever reason, was not intended to be there at all, that would be fixed if possible. We could narrow this definition in some way, I think, but I think it would be wrong to widen it. Even if the boom mic is in the shot, I wouldn't call that a glitch if it was put in the movie on purpose. This, I think, is critical to your contention that these would constitute objectively bad film qualities.

We're on the same page so far

But, and here's the critical part, that sort of criteria makes no sense.

Imagine two movies, each wholly identical to the other, up to and including a boom mic that's present in one scene. The only difference between these movies, in fact, is that the first had the boom mic show up by accident, while the second put it there on purpose. By the definition I'm using, the only one that really makes sense here, the first movie has a glitch and the second doesn't. So, in spite of the fact that a viewer would experience each movie exactly the same way, the glitch metric would have us believe that the first movie is objectively worse than the second. All in all, any metric that relies on how the work matches up with the artist's vision is going to fall apart in this way, because we're ultimately going to put the work in front of a bunch of people who never get to see what the original vision was, and it is in this vision-less context that we generally consider film quality.

Well, yes and no. Does the scene make sense to have a boom mike in it? If they are filming in a movie studio, then the presence of a boom mike makes no difference, whether accidental or on purpose.

The concern I have with your argument is that (barring the parodies and spoofs we mentioned earlier) it isn't realistic to say you'd have two scenes exactly the same except one has an out of place element accidentally and one has it intentionally. Could Peter Jackson have added the car to that scene intentionally? On some very technical level, sure. Is it at all realistic to think that he would have? No.

[Legato Endless]

This is even weirder when you consider that almost all art which has ever been considered to have stood the test of time does so specifically because it speaks to emotions that we as humans share now and have done for all our recorded history. So there must be something objective about emotion if we can all share experiences - and yet we don't have any way to talk about it which isn't subjective.

This is arguably where cultural conditioning and evolutionary behaviorism intersect in some messy and as yet poorly understood ways.

I recently decided to watch Iron Fist, I'm not caught up on the Netflix Marvel verse having only seen Season 1 of DD and JJ so far and enjoyed both.

It's mild to moderately downhill from here. But DD2 and LC are better than Iron Fist.

My question to the forums is: How can you complain about the fight scenes when there is so very much worse about this. (I'm only 11 episodes in)

The fight scene complaints as I understand them aren't supposed to be the crux of the show's problems. It's more the silver bullet establishing the show doesn't have any baseline competence. The fight scenes are so objectively badly crafted that it's an easy lead before more ephemeral criticism like plotting, structure, characterization, pacing, theme, direction etc.

I think if the plot was a bit more focused and the writing was a bit better none of us would care about the fight scenes.

I think you might be optimistic about that. Put another way, if Jessica Jones' fight scenes were a lot worse, I doubt it would severely impact people concerning the show. The fight scenes aren't why anyone is here, and the lack of stylish choreography compared to DD's Old Boy-esque antics was considered very in keeping with the milieu of an untrained everywoman struggling to be a hero. Buffy the Vampire's Slayer's less than high caliber choreography (especially early on) being another example where no one really cares and it's almost never cited when it comes to show criticism.

But Iron Fist is a martial arts extravaganza. It's baked into the premise. Genre expectation on that front was going to be a pretty hefty thing. So I agree that the show could still have won a lot of people over, but I think if the writing was fantastic we'd instead get:

"I liked the show, but man, I hope they improve the choregraphy for season 2."
-The Playground

or

"Great Drama. Bad Kung Fu experience."
-Reddit

People would still gabber the way do when any core ingredient of a genre piece like this doesn't hold up.

[tomandtish]

I think if the plot was a bit more focused and the writing was a bit better none of us would care about the fight scenes.

I think you might be optimistic about that. Put another way, if Jessica Jones' fight scenes were a lot worse, I doubt it would severely impact people concerning the show. The fight scenes aren't why anyone is here, and the lack of stylish choreography compared to DD's Old Boy-esque antics was considered very in keeping with the milieu of an untrained everywoman struggling to be a hero. Buffy the Vampire's Slayer's less than high caliber choreography (especially early on) being another example where no one really cares and it's almost never cited when it comes to show criticism.

Hard to tell. Honestly, Danny was so unlikeable and poorly written (in my subjective opinion) that this is the one Netflix Marvel series I didn't finish (and obviously didn't like). What little fighting I saw was poor, but everything else was so poorly done that I quit after 6 episodes.

[ereinion]

Danny is the reason I sympathize with company boards pricing up medicine

[SuperPanda]

This is arguably where cultural conditioning and evolutionary behaviorism intersect in some messy and as yet poorly understood ways.

Agreed - it is also probably to do with how the human brain processes emotion. We know that the brain uses both electrical and chemical signals to transmit information. We understand the electrical part very well (Its works alot like a binary does in a computer) and we have a good idea of what many of those chemicals do - we just don't have any idea how they do what they do. Basically the brain appears to work off a systems of math in which 1 + blue = x is a valid formula for processing emotion and we simply don't have any kind of mathematics yet which can model that.

On top of that bio-chemical puzzle are all the added layers of socialization and the resulting confusion there-in. I can think of famous pieces of anthropology like "Shakespeare in the Bush" which help demonstrate that "universal" stories aren't universal, but then there are also things like "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" which does cross cultures. In Linguistics we look at various levels of a piece of language - such as the structure of the plot and major beats within it. When a pattern like Campbell's Monomyth crops up across a huge swath of human cultures it becomes possible to say that this model is objectively more successful than others within this specific genre of language (heroic stories and myths).

It's mild to moderately downhill from here. But DD2 and LC are better than Iron Fist.

I don't hate Iron Fist but it sure annoyed me (I finished now).

Mostly I wish the entire first season had been told from Colleen Wing's perspective with Danny as a supporting character. Ward and Wing were wonderful characters who put in great performances and could have carried an entire season in this universe. I'll check out Luke Cage next and DD2 last since I hear its the best of the remaining ones.

Side note: Everytime I hear Claire mention "You're not bulletproof" - knowing that she knows Luke Cage, I wonder why she just doesn't call him. Also I'm unsure when this fits into the netflix timeline - I don't really remember what happened with Hogarth at the end of JJ - I know she got badly hurt but I thought she survived and this seems to be a much nicer Hogarth than that one (but she's dealing with a rich person she likes instead of JJ).

The fight scene complaints as I understand them aren't supposed to be the crux of the show's problems. It's more the silver bullet establishing the show doesn't have any baseline competence. The fight scenes are so objectively badly crafted that it's an easy lead before more ephemeral criticism like plotting, structure, characterization, pacing, theme, direction etc.

I think you might be optimistic about that. Put another way, if Jessica Jones' fight scenes were a lot worse, I doubt it would severely impact people concerning the show. The fight scenes aren't why anyone is here, and the lack of stylish choreography compared to DD's Old Boy-esque antics was considered very in keeping with the milieu of an untrained everywoman struggling to be a hero. Buffy the Vampire's Slayer's less than high caliber choreography (especially early on) being another example where no one really cares and it's almost never cited when it comes to show criticism.

Oh, I get that. With the show's premise I'd have wanted to see Kung Fu Hustle style smack downs or go full wire-fu wuxia for some amazingly absurd fights. The weak-sauce middle ground they picked between stylized wire-fu here and there and "realism" just felt poorly done throughout.

I think the fights should have felt like I was watching a combination of anime and a Jet Li film (I prefer Jacky Chan, but I think these actors could have pulled off Jet Li style wire-fu with practice and clever edits, I don't think anyone on this show except maybe Wing could have pulled of Jacky Chan style fights).

But Iron Fist is a martial arts extravaganza. It's baked into the premise. Genre expectation on that front was going to be a pretty hefty thing. So I agree that the show could still have won a lot of people over, but I think if the writing was fantastic we'd instead get:

"I liked the show, but man, I hope they improve the choregraphy for season 2."
-The Playground

or

"Great Drama. Bad Kung Fu experience."
-Reddit

People would still gabber the way do when any core ingredient of a genre piece like this doesn't hold up.

Yeah, I agree... The show just frustrated me because it held the potential to be something I could really like, it had awesome supporting characters with compelling stories. Wing had great fights - so they had the raw talent they needed. Its just that pretty much everything aside from Wing and Ward was as poorly thought out as Danny's actions throughout the story.

Spoiler: One last grumble

Show

So in the final episode we get told that the theme of the whole season for Danny was letting go of his suppressed emoitons - which had been hinted at a couple times throughout the story and yet the way he does it is by doing exactly what Gao told him to? That wound would have killed Harold if he hadn't been a Hand-Zombie already, then he finally lets go his anger when he and Ward cremate the body which they know can come back to life - killing him anyway.

Honestly everything here could have worked if we'd just done this story from Ward and Colleen's perspectives (switching off as the plot meanders). I think Colleen's redemption or Ward's fall and rebirth would have been better core stories with Danny guest staring.

Danny just didn't have the charisma to carry a series - which is odd because the actor has loads of Charisma.

[Kyberwulf]

Mostly boredom.

That's why I usually respond to these things.
I am not exactly trolling, but I am not really trying my hardest to convince anyone either, I know that is pointless.

See the thing is, someone asked if Jessica Jones was worth watching. I responded, with no. It's not good and gave my reasons. Other people then accused me of whatever it is they accused me of, I say that, because they will just respond with, na uh.. you are wrong.

In any case, they started to hammer how wrong I was and how good she was as a character/story.

Which, none of the series 2 stories are really that good. A couple are adequate. Unfortunately that isn't Jessica Jones.

She is a pretty standard "Antihero" type character. Nothing special. She is given instant "sympathy points" for being a rape victim. That is her claim to fame. That is the reason why people seem to like her, and give her fame. She was raped, and she is a female protagonist. That's all it seems to me, that people who say they like the show, are saying.

If Jessica Jones was a guy named... Jimmy jones. I doubt the show would be considered as good. People would treat it with the same blase indifference reserved for the other movies.

[Leewei]

Side note: Everytime I hear Claire mention "You're not bulletproof" - knowing that she knows Luke Cage, I wonder why she just doesn't call him. Also I'm unsure when this fits into the netflix timeline - I don't really remember what happened with Hogarth at the end of JJ - I know she got badly hurt but I thought she survived and this seems to be a much nicer Hogarth than that one (but she's dealing with a rich person she likes instead of JJ).

Spoiler

Show

Jeri thought she was on top of the world in JJ, and had her perceptions corrected in a very traumatic way. Killgrave made her lover kill her estranged wife in her defense right before her eyes. Her attitude toward JJ was fairly believable. Jones was a violent drunk with super strength, and who was not above blackmailing and extorting Hogarth. Jeri's relationship with her was one of compatible skills and convenience. Jeri's friendship with Danny's parents was much more of one between peers who genuinely enjoy each others' company.

The Luke Cage series may well answer your question about why Claire didn't reach out to him.

[tomandtish]

Mostly boredom.

That's why I usually respond to these things.
I am not exactly trolling, but I am not really trying my hardest to convince anyone either, I know that is pointless.

See the thing is, someone asked if Jessica Jones was worth watching. I responded, with no. It's not good and gave my reasons. Other people then accused me of whatever it is they accused me of, I say that, because they will just respond with, na uh.. you are wrong.

In any case, they started to hammer how wrong I was and how good she was as a character/story.

Which, none of the series 2 stories are really that good. A couple are adequate. Unfortunately that isn't Jessica Jones.

She is a pretty standard "Antihero" type character. Nothing special. She is given instant "sympathy points" for being a rape victim. That is her claim to fame. That is the reason why people seem to like her, and give her fame. She was raped, and she is a female protagonist. That's all it seems to me, that people who say they like the show, are saying.

If Jessica Jones was a guy named... Jimmy jones. I doubt the show would be considered as good. People would treat it with the same blase indifference reserved for the other movies.

I try and stay out of these arguments because I usually don't seethe point, but Kyberwulf, you're complaining about what you started doing in your first two posts, and really what most people have been responding to....

No

Daredevil pretty much set the benchmark. All of the shows have some really sketchy writing. The actors usually aren't the problem. They needed more time to get better scripts and work on the fight choreography. Luke Cage has some good moments though.

Fyi. You might want to retitle this thread. Jessica Jones has some pretty ardent defenders the have HUGE blinders on.

I find it immensely amusing that someone can say that I do things and it's somehow bad WHILE doing the exact same thing they are claiming I do.

Funny thing about counter arguments. You don't have to accept them. You make them, and then someone else can make up their mind on who is right. Yeah, I do think people are wrong and biased about the show. Delusional I never said. That's a word used to bias others about my opinions. As is saying I ranted.

You could have simply come on and said "Here's why I don't like the show". But we see from your first two posts that you've decided that anyone who likes the show is wrong. Don't be surprised when people push back against that.

You then have some relevant points on why you don't like it on page two. Props. I may not agree with them, but if they are reason why the show doesn't work for you, so be it.

.... The Marvel Netflix shows arent entirly based on merit. From there inception, they have been judged on political reasons. Exception was the first daredevil season. The only exception of that was, it's gonna suck but we are holding out hope. It turned out good so it got a pass....

And right here is the post that's going to get you a lot of push back. So apparently anyone who likes these shows only likes them because they are checking off some PC checkbox?

You say the story was emotionally devestating. I say pretentiously trying to be emotional manipulative. The fact you have dealt with people like this, and feel so strongly is probably why you seem to be biased to me.

That's just my point. Jessica Jones seems to be judged solely that. All other aspects of the show are thrown out. The directing, the acting, the story, everything is out weighed by how it made you feel.

The thing is, I know people like that too. That's what made the villain so laughable to me. I felt sorry for him at points. I don't agree with how he used his power, and agreed he should have been dealt with. Yet, at points, I felt sorry for him. I felt almost sad when she killed him. Not because he was right or virtuous. Not that he should have lived. He did do wrong. Like I said. The story was so bad.. I don't know if they wanted that ... feeling. I hope they weren't trying to go for a Hannibal vibe. If they were.. they failed. I don't know what they were going for.. he was... just.. sad.

And here you double down. Is Jessica Jones a perfect show? of course not. No such thing. But a huge part of any drama is how it makes you feel, and some flaws can be overlooked if it makes you feel enough. It didn't in your case, and that's fine. But where you are getting pushback is telling us we're WRONG because we disagree. And when we're telling YOU you're wrong, that's the point we're disagreeing with.

By all means, feel free to disagree with us on whether or not the show is likeable. You feel the show hits too many PC check boxes, the acting and directing are poor, etc.? Feel free, those are valid criticisms. I'll disagree with you, but if it is how you feel about it, then it is valid.

What's not valid is you deciding why WE all like the show, and that why WE like the show is wrong. We all like the show, for a variety of reasons.

Heck even if someone likes it only BECAUSE it checks off a number of PC check boxes, that's not an invalid reason for them, and it isn't wrong.

Again, I hope you'll continue to share YOUR feelings on the show.

[Sapphire Guard]

The complaints about foreshadowing aren't "they didn't do three" it's that they established one thing and then either did something else that wasn't established or felt the need to explain the thing they already explained at the moment of it happening.

Which is bad editing.

Maaaybe, depends on whether there are alternate scenes on the cutting room floor or not. If it wasn't filmed to begin with the editor can't do much. But I still think a lot of that video was subjective based on assumptions, such as whether every character was meant to have the same length introduction, or what happened to Slipknot was meant to be a twist or a demonstration of the explosives and a character beat for Boomerang.

[Lord Joeltion]

Oh, I get that. With the show's premise I'd have wanted to see Kung Fu Hustle style smack downs or go full wire-fu wuxia for some amazingly absurd fights. The weak-sauce middle ground they picked between stylized wire-fu here and there and "realism" just felt poorly done throughout.

I think the fights should have felt like I was watching a combination of anime and a Jet Li film (I prefer Jacky Chan, but I think these actors could have pulled off Jet Li style wire-fu with practice and clever edits, I don't think anyone on this show except maybe Wing could have pulled of Jacky Chan style fights).

Funny enough, one of the only fight scenes that really irritated me a little (I watched enough Asian cinema already to expect subpar performance from hollywood anyway... so you might as well say I'm oblivious enough to Krappy-fu) was the drunken fist part. Because I only ever saw that style form Jakie Chan and on movies alone.

Further research proved me that... what was show on Iron Fist was the "real" Drunken Fist Style (which I never seen being performed on a tatami). Which is so different from the cinematic "style", that was the most jarring experience during the series for me. Turns out the Drunken Fist actor is pretty darn good at that style.

Spoiler: One last grumble

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So in the final episode we get told that the theme of the whole season for Danny was letting go of his suppressed emoitons - which had been hinted at a couple times throughout the story and yet the way he does it is by doing exactly what Gao told him to? That wound would have killed Harold if he hadn't been a Hand-Zombie already, then he finally lets go his anger when he and Ward cremate the body which they know can come back to life - killing him anyway.

Honestly everything here could have worked if we'd just done this story from Ward and Colleen's perspectives (switching off as the plot meanders). I think Colleen's redemption or Ward's fall and rebirth would have been better core stories with Danny guest staring.

Danny just didn't have the charisma to carry a series - which is odd because the actor has loads of Charisma.

Spoiler

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Danny's character wasn't very consistent to begin with. I wasn't surprised about him following Gao's advice because she was at the same time the wisest voice he had at hand (no pun intended) and the only "enemy" he could at least somewhat trust (or rather... the one he distrusted the least than anybody else). And his character never showed any real motivation apart from recovering his past life.

I can only assume they were aiming for somebody feeling more like a "stranger in a strange land" (as opposed to the other heroes, who happen to be more in tone with their own genre), but had very little time to really explore on the character. I mean, I don't think we ever get to really know Danny, and that was the biggest flaw of the series. I learned more about Ward (my favorite character from the seires) and other secondary ones than the lead of the series. Maybe that's what allowed me to somewhat enjoy IF after all. Throughout the 13 chapters I payed little to no attention to Danny's character. I was more focused on Ward than anybody else since chapter 1 (and I knew he would eventually trade places with his sister, ha!)

[SuperPanda]

Re: Drunken Boxing- I remember thinking the boxer himself didn't look bad, I'd met someone a few years back who knew BaGuaZhang and had demonstrated how it had similar footwork to drunken boxing. My issue with that particular scene was with the pacing, editing, and Kung fu master Danny not knowing that style exsisted.

Re: realism/wire fu middle ground. There were a few moments through the season with very jarring wire work - early on when jumping the taxi and a couple moments against Bakuto where there would be sudden wires. I like wire-fu when it's done well and I like bare knuckle real martial arts when it's done well. I'd have been happy if they'd even gone the wuxia trope of having different stances/styles to switch between them and established that early on.

I found the show was lazy about establishing the rules for what the mystic arts could do. In one scene he casually flips over an incoming taxi without seeing it, in another he gets blind-sided by a random body guard (the goon in the truck with the chemist).

Re: grumbles

Oh yes. He was one of my favorite characters too. If the series had focused on him and had Danny as a background character I'd probably be raving about it. Same with Colleen Wing. I'd have preferred her heritage to be a bit more clear - she seemed to suggest she was born in China and then raised in Japan and thens moved to the states early enough to loose any accent - poor enough to live in a village but of a Samurai line - it got confusing.

If she'd responded to his assumption that she speaks Chinese by cursing him out in Japanese and scoff'd at his questions about teaching Kung Fu because she teaches Kendo, which is from a different culture, I'd be happier (But I still loved her story). i enjoyed Iron Fist despite my grumbles because I saw it as the Colleen and Ward show featuring Danny.


That said, I love the reactions of JJ to Danny in both Defenders Trailers and I think I'll genuinely like him when he mixes with the others.

[Sapphire Guard]

ID didn't hit the heights of the other shows, but it also didn't sink to their depths, I felt that everyone acted in accordance with their characters as given, the Hand felt more like a real organisation, there were no headbanging moments like

Spoiler: JJ

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Holgarth letting Kilgrave out of his cage

or

Spoiler: DD

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Nobu's giant army completely vanishing in the final confrontation

, but it also didn't rival the other shows' best parts.

[Reddish Mage]

I actually fond the idiot ball to be far more prevalent and worse in Iron Fist than anywhere else. It starts with episode 1 and doesn't let up.

Danny Rand, for starters, comes back not knowing that K'un L'un and Iron Fist are not things sane people talk about seriously. He is also unbelievably naive for thinking he could just walk in the front door of his corporation, but it's also unbelievably incongruent with his austere martial artist persona for him to decide to touch base with his former life at the point of his father's corporation (and not his home or childhood friends, which he goes to second).

Danny is unbelievably confused, conflicted, and naive for being a child (and he was an innocent child) when he was taken to K'un L'un. However, its played up to such extreme that sometimes he appears to be being played as austistic, poorly. Austism, as well the alienation and trauma of being in an institutionalized much of his life, which have all been done really well recently.

This Danny remains an ignorant, conflicted, and profoundly innocent personality throughout, although he eventually gains a certain clarity of purpose by interpreting signs and semi-mythic things he was taught in K'un L'un (but apparently they weren't big on details about much of anything...)

Much of what Danny does is from this standpoint of profound ignorance, and so he constantly does stupid and gauche things regardless of whether he is interacting with strangers, the dojo, his childhood "friends," the Hand, or the business world.

I realize the author is trying to do something deep. Danny is fairly accurately depicted as the product of an abusive, forced-monastic living after a somewhat awkward early-childhood.

Everyone Danny interacts with, including his "best friend," his lover, his childhood friends, the Hand, everyone, is neither an absolute friend or enemy but are presented somewhat ambiguously.

Danny is depicted the way he is, because he is desperately trying to find absolute good and evil in a world that refuses to provide it. He is also trying to find a clear purpose when he, in fact, has contradictory motivations.

I just think it could be implemented much better and with a lot less idiocy on the part of Danny (and everyone and everything around him) episode after episode.

[Sapphire Guard]

I felt that was consistent with the character we had, he's spent fifteen years with people that considered all this mystic stuff simple fact, it is not easy to just switch gears like that after so long in another world. He went to see Harold Meachum, what he thought was the surviving authority figure in his life. And he's never had the problem of not being recognised before, either as Danny Rand or Iron Fist, so it's difficult to adjust to. It made sense, even if it wasn't always fun to watch.

[Reddish Mage]

I felt that was consistent with the character we had, he's spent fifteen years with people that considered all this mystic stuff simple fact, it is not easy to just switch gears like that after so long in another world. He went to see Harold Meachum, what he thought was the surviving authority figure in his life. And he's never had the problem of not being recognised before, either as Danny Rand or Iron Fist, so it's difficult to adjust to. It made sense, even if it wasn't always fun to watch.

Perhaps how he initially revealed himself was consistent (still idiotic, but makes sense), as well as how he continued in the mental institution. He remains a fish out of water throughout the show, so maybe inconsistency isn't the problem, though idiocy is no easier to watch for that.

Knowing this person is the Iron Fist, however, even though I didn't read the comic, I tend to expect certain things of such a high-class martial artist (especially of the monastic variety).

There's a stereotypical calmness, a sense of internal and eternal wisdom, of direction and purpose, and of confidence and competence. When that isn't presence, we usually at least get epic levels of cockiness and badassery.

To get someone who is JUST a great fighter (although the fight scenes aren't all that great) but is at a total loss at how to interact with the world, is just uncomfortable. Danny shows the deepest sort of discomfort and confusion with both his internal philosophy and the externalities he is confronted with.

The character just isn't very smart, settled, or competent. He is also not the most convincing as a high-level martial artist. He has a certain innocent heart to him, but his ethical mindset runs more towards stupid martyrdom than sainthood.

I am disappointed that someone whose superpower is his martial-arts isn't convincing that way. I found all his ancient wisdom being so useless almost offensive. However, the constant ignorance on display just made watching him an act of frustration.

I have never been more frustrated at the TV while watching something.

[Sapphire Guard]

I see what you're saying, but I felt that was in line with the character. Idiot Ball for me is when characters make bad decisions that are out of character because they're necessary for the plot, but Danny's decisions felt like decisions Danny would make, even if they weren't the best course of action.

Metawise, they couldn't make him too powerful because that would stretch the budget and mean he'd outshine the other Defenders. It wasn't a fantastic show, but there was a lot I liked in it.

[Xyril]

She is a pretty standard "Antihero" type character. Nothing special. She is given instant "sympathy points" for being a rape victim. That is her claim to fame. That is the reason why people seem to like her, and give her fame. She was raped, and she is a female protagonist. That's all it seems to me, that people who say they like the show, are saying.

You're welcome to your own opinion on the topic, but it doesn't reflect how I view things and seems completely inconsistent with the vast majority of people I've interacted with. To me, a human being who was raped might engender sympathy, but the whole Rape as Backstory trope has been done so often, and so poorly, (particularly in the comic books) that my initial reaction is substantial skepticism. To me, one of the strengths of the show (and the source material) is that it enters a field that deserves a place in the top 50 list of terrible cliches and manages not only to avoid becoming a terrible cliche itself, but also managed to hold my attention despite the fact that I was ready to walk away the moment something confirmed my expectation that it would be trite and two-dimension. I mean seriously, do you ever find yourself thinking, "The main character is an orphan whose parents were murdered, I feel so much sympathy for him and I just know this is going to be an original and well-written story!"

I also find your comment funny because, despite the fact that, as you simplistically claim, rape victims must get automatic "sympathy points," Jessica Jones is written to be pretty terribly unsympathetic. This is even more true in the comics because the people she's such a jerk to aren't random strangers and newly introduced protagonists, but rather well-established and well-liked characters from the existing Marvel continuity. You spend quite a few issues suspecting something terrible happened to her that explains her behavior without actually being told what it is, and even after it was revealed, you feel a bit more sympathy for her, but at the same time you're still asking, "But how does this justify being such a b*tch to Ms. Marvel, who's just trying to be a good friend?"

[SuperPanda]

What made JJ's backstory work for me conpared to all the eye-roll worth rape as backstory origins I've heard of in comics was that they dealt with the subject intelligently and indirectly.

To try to illustrate what I mean I'm going to contrast Killgrave with Thomas Covenant from his first book. I'll almost certainly reference other works too. To start off in JJ the rapist is the villain while Covenant is a hero. This is where "instant sympathy points" can be analogous though in this case it's more instant antipathy points. It's a lot like Jamie Lannister in episode 1 of game of thrones - after what you see him do it takes a lot to feel anything but disgust towards him (I found myself genuinely liking the character later on though - even with him also doing more terrible stuff - so it's not impossible to have a sympathetic character who has commuted aweful acts).

In Lord Foul's Bane Covenant thinks he is in a dream when a passing teenager helps him out and he experiences a sudden, uncontrollable, rush of sexual desire and rapes the girl. She then continues to help him throughout the book, concealing his crime because she recognizes that he is an important man. While he eventually regrets his actions he is never held accountable to them.

In JJ, Killgrave is fully aware of his power and enjoys using it. He sees Jessica as a powerful person and he desires to express his power over her. He uses his power not only to control her but to dominate her. Sex happens but it is largely incidental to the element of control and power. Killgrave dismisses her criticisms because she "enjoyed" it or "didn't protest" completely aware that she wasn't able to.

Both figures are completely oblivious to their victims feelings and justify their actions in ways that minimize any sense of guilt. TC by claiming he didn't really have any control, anyone in his situation would do the same thing - Killgrave by claiming if JJ hadn't liked it she would have resisted more. Stepping off the page, the TC justification is used most often by other people excusing and normalizing the rape of others. The Killgrave justification is drawn from actual legal defenses rapists have tried to employ in the past. What about motivations? TC uses the "I really wanted to" argument that rape is ultimately about sex. Killgrave exercises control because he wants to be greater than the powerful woman he sees. Again the literature on the actual crime suggests that power and control are the motives which actually push people to commit the crime in the violent ways both series depict it.

Turning to the victims... the one in Lord Foul enables and assists Covenant because "he's the hero" and apart from some hints of guilt on his part and hints of resentment on hers - it's largely unaddressed. In JJ we have a person who was destroyed from the inside out by her attacker. Her sense of powerlessness is echoed by many people who have experienced the real world analogue. In lord foul, the victim refuses to come forward because the criminal is powerful and important - but this is a good thing because if she had publically accused her victim she'd have indirectly ended the world. In JJ what happens instead is that no one believes her. Another real struggle that people face dealing with this crime is victim blaming - so again this echoes reality.

So for me JJ the series (not the character) got "PC sympathy" points not for including rape - but for respecting the weight that subject matter should have. Lord Foul's Bane lost points for throwing it out there as some sort of "look I'm cool" and giving it no weight at all.

I like JJ herself because she felt like a more developed and well rounded Wolverine in some ways. She's got the gruff, loner, anti-hero persona that he has. Instead of "I'm really old and you all mortals die too easily" which is tacked on to Wolverine to justify his behaviors - hers are an understandable and logical evolution of her history. More than that she wants to be better and is held back by the same instincts which help her survive trauma. Logan is less consistent with a desire to avoid emotional entanglement because he'll just see everyone he loves die again. So I found JJ to be well written, not exactly likeable but certainly understandable. I'm psyched for seeing her an Matt play off each other as well as her and Danny. I think a child-like idealism was suppose to be part of Danny's character and JJ is a perfect foil for that opening up wonderful opportunities for comedy and growth in both of them.

[Reddish Mage]

Jessica Jones is excellent in so many ways for how they portray JJ.

The noire VO element (although I would prefer it without last-minute added JJ VO) adds to the vibe that JJ is a gritty detective. Yet the show works even better without the VO, because the show really shines from how it shows, and allows to unfold, the various aspects of her background.

While she takes self-pity, and what she does pretty screwed up, we see that she is, in her own way, fighting to survive, repair the damage, and heal.

JJ is much more than a rape victim, her first trauma was losing her parents and brother to the auto accident. Kilgrave just goes, takes someone already screwed up and adds an extra layer.

However, what Kilgrave does goes far beyond physical rape (which is almost incidental to what he really does). As SuperPanda points out, what Kilgrave does is far more about control and power. Here is where the show uses superpowers to great effect, he literally able to get inside JJ mind and play with her desires. The way his mind control works is that when he gives an order, the victim, for that moment, wants to obey and do what he said.

That is a level of screwed up that can only be achieved with superpowers, but it rings true to all sorts of abuse of power situations and it makes it much more human that what Kilgrave wants (in comparison to the typical supervillain is so small). David Tennant really shows the damage a small-minded person with power can achieve.