Marvel Netflix

[Ran]

@Werthead

Spoiler

I mean, he is Kingpin, a comic book supervillian and criminal mastermind. His having wormed his way into the feds to prepare an exit strategy if things didn't go as he hoped in the courts seems less surprising than the fact that he appears to have ignored the NYPD who, as someone else noted, are for once the "clean" police force when usually they're the dirty cops and the FBI are the good guys who need to clean things up. If he had bought some of them as well, things would have been quite different!

As to Karen, she literally told us she has shot someone before back in season 1. I don't know what about the story we see here is inconsistent with anything in the prior seasons. They even made a point of there being some sort of tragic secret behind her brother's death in season 2.

[mormont]

Can we stick to this thread for spoiler discussion please?

[briantw]

10 hours ago, red snow said:

Although I wouldn't be surprised if they found out about the snap at the same time as people who went to see the premier. 

I mean, I guess if the people writing comic book shows have never read a comic they wouldn't know it was coming.  

[red snow]

11 minutes ago, briantw said:

I mean, I guess if the people writing comic book shows have never read a comic they wouldn't know it was coming.  

Indeed! And not an impossibility.

[red snow]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

The latter part of Season 3 (now on Episode 10) has descended into utter farce, to the point of comical near-lunacy. I'm struggling to understand why the season has gotten so much critical acclaim when it seems to have disappeared up its own arsehole.

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Wilson Fisk is an immortal, ominiscent demigod who can see the future with utter clarity and put plans in place 2-3 years earlier to blackmail 20-odd FBI agents specifically to get them to work for him when this particular event takes place.

Also, Karen Page used to be a lowlife drug addict who shot her boyfriend and killed her brother in a car crash, which of course was compatible with how her character was portrayed in Season 1.

What the actual fuck?

American Vandal was made for Netflix by an external production company, which I suspect is where the problem came from. It might be the same issue with the Marvel/ABC shows. Netflix has to share profits and income with those companies, whilst on a 100% Netflix Original they keep everything. I suspect they are clearing house of shows made by external production companies to bring everything inhouse.

The fact that American Vandal was also, repeatedly, used by critics as an example of shows that depict teenagers realistically, with Netflix's 13 Reasons Why specifically called out for being bullshit in that regard. Corporations are certainly not immune from fits of glass-skinned pique overriding good business sense.

Netflix I think are getting to the edge of their bubble bursting. They still haven't made a profit whilst their growth has slowed dramatically and they don't have a secondary revenue stream to subsidise them (as Amazon Prime Video has). Their two biggest originals, Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, are both ending soon. They know that the Disney/Fox merger and their new streaming service could completely curb-stomp their own back catalogue. They're certainly not out of the fight, but they need to up their game and cancelling expensive external shows and doing more originals is their way of doing that, although the wisdom of that is dubious.

It's because reviewers only get the first 4-6 episodes in most cases. It's why some Netflix shows with a really strong second half can get a shitty review. Season 1 of sense8 suffered from this. I think there were even some reviewers who held their hands up and did a second review having watched the whole season. It still doesn't excuse shows for having an incoherent start but I guess with a binge show it's akin to damning a film because the first 15 minutes were bad. Or saying wolverine origins is great because you only got to see the films opening sequence.

I'm not discussing season 3 per se so hopefully not seen as ignoring mormont's request.

[mormont]

[mod] Guys, there is a dedicated thread linked a couple of posts up for specific discussion of DDS3. It's on the same page as this one. If you have a general point, like red snow's above, fair enough: but otherwise, there is no reason to post DDS3 stuff in here. It doesn't serve the discussion on either thread. [/mod]

[red snow]

interesting article (despite misleading claim of being the explanation) on a factor for some of the cancellations. It does suggest those first week viewings are important especially as it seems they level off to background clicks after a few weeks (probably very similar to opening box office weekends despite Netflix programs having an unlimited time to watch). And the results are pretty dismal for the marvel Netflix brand in general but especially so for Luke Cage and iron fist. It could be there's no conspiracy here at all - there's just not enough people watching and the season to season drop off had them scared about funding further seasons. It looks like the defenders didn't have "the avengers" affect at all in the sense all of the phase 2 films gained in box office after the avengers was  massive success while the defenders shows plummeted.

It also makes sense that JJ has a third swing and Punisher is an unknown in terms of second season drop off. 

Daredevil season 3 has lost first week clicks but it's still doing far better than the cancelled shows (and had a better baseline to begin with). Apparently there's more positive buzz about the season which may mean it takes longer to reach baseline views.

I'd be interested to see how big a surge there is when follow up seasons launch on previous seasons? I know I'm going to try and watch season 3 of narcos and season 1 of the sinner because there are new seasons coming out in a couple of weeks that I want to check out.

[briantw]

7 hours ago, red snow said:

interesting article (despite misleading claim of being the explanation) on a factor for some of the cancellations. It does suggest those first week viewings are important especially as it seems they level off to background clicks after a few weeks (probably very similar to opening box office weekends despite Netflix programs having an unlimited time to watch). And the results are pretty dismal for the marvel Netflix brand in general but especially so for Luke Cage and iron fist. It could be there's no conspiracy here at all - there's just not enough people watching and the season to season drop off had them scared about funding further seasons. It looks like the defenders didn't have "the avengers" affect at all in the sense all of the phase 2 films gained in box office after the avengers was  massive success while the defenders shows plummeted.

Makes sense, as Avengers was awesome but Defenders was just totally meh.

[red snow]

33 minutes ago, briantw said:

Makes sense, as Avengers was awesome but Defenders was just totally meh.

I'd possibly go so far as it made people less interested in the Netflix shows when they discovered how underwhelming the team up show was. It should have felt like a real event with all the characters together but felt more like a Daredevil plot was being dragged down by less popular characters.

[briantw]

Just now, red snow said:

I'd possibly go so far as it made people less interested in the Netflix shows when they discovered how underwhelming the team up show was. It should have felt like a real event with all the characters together but felt more like a Daredevil plot was being dragged down by less popular characters.

Plus the stuff with the Hand was always the worst part of Daredevil.  So it was basically taking Daredevil's B plot, adding a bunch of other characters who didn't really add much to the experience, and was just generally not great.  It wasn't awful, but I don't think I'd quite call it good either.

[red snow]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

Plus the stuff with the Hand was always the worst part of Daredevil.  So it was basically taking Daredevil's B plot, adding a bunch of other characters who didn't really add much to the experience, and was just generally not great.  It wasn't awful, but I don't think I'd quite call it good either.

The DNA of the Defenders was off to a bad start. It probably would have turned out much better to ditch the ninja and just have the kingpin as the villain or at least a massive gang war between Kingpin. the hand and Luke Cage's enemies with the defenders caught in the middle of it. A punisher appearance would have been nice too.

[Myrddin]

Or having the Kingpin playing all (hero) sides against each other. They did have some rough time connecting, but the motivations and payoff felt meh. Leveraging a strong antagonist to drive realistic conflict (as demonstrated in DD3), Defenders could've been better.

 

[mormont]

The Hand plot for The Defenders was clearly seeded right from the start, at which point it likely made much more sense: as an antagonist, the Hand neatly link Danny and DD, and are a better challenge for people on the power level of JJ and Luke. And, well, at that point they didn't really know what would work. So, I get it.

Kingpin as an antagonist really would have felt like DD featuring guest stars too, if we're honest.

[red snow]

7 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

Or having the Kingpin playing all (hero) sides against each other. They did have some rough time connecting, but the motivations and payoff felt meh. Leveraging a strong antagonist to drive realistic conflict (as demonstrated in DD3), Defenders could've been better.

 

That approach worked for the Punisher episodes of Daredevil 2 as well. And Iron Fist was idiot enough to be easily fooled by Kingpin into fighting with Daredevil and the others. I imagine Jessica could have easily been paid by Kingpin (by proxy) to investigate Matt Murdock and discover his identity.

Basically there were a ton of options that would have went better than ninjas and wasting Sigourney Weaver's time. The graph from screenrant below also shows that the effect of the run up shows was that most people couldn't be bothered watching an amalgamation of the shows. So the damage was done almost before Defenders could make I worse.

Screenrant has been milking their data for more than its worth but this last one covers everything they've been teasing out over the last few days. I like a graph and it shows that Punisher and Daredevil are probably safe for now as they are breaking downward trends - particularly the Punisher. Maybe him not being part of "defenders" helped his case? the article points out how much competition Netflix generates within its own programming these days so that Daredevil was competing against several other shows the week of its release (10 apparently). If first week viewings are important then there's no way the Netflix shows aren't cannibalising each other.

I think it's probably wise Netflix are trying to consolidate the brand and hopefully the plan is to do another Daredevil for the end of 2019 so it doesn't lose momentum from a 2 year gap. Further seasons of JJ and punisher will depend on their next runs. I guess the good thing with the remaining shows is that they are easily self contained while Luke Cage overlapped with JJ and Iron Fist. I don't think we'll be seeing a daughters of the dragon from Netflix until they strengthen the brand.

[Myrddin]

14 hours ago, mormont said:

The Hand plot for The Defenders was clearly seeded right from the start, at which point it likely made much more sense: as an antagonist, the Hand neatly link Danny and DD, and are a better challenge for people on the power level of JJ and Luke. And, well, at that point they didn't really know what would work. So, I get it.

Kingpin as an antagonist really would have felt like DD featuring guest stars too, if we're honest.

Very true. But at least the antagonist would've been stronger.

Having everyone in New York City (yes I know the comics' NYC is more crowded) really does cause its own problems, tbh. Hell's Kitchen really isn't that far from Harlem. Brooklyn and Queens are at least over the river. HK and H are just on opposite ends of Central Park. Heroes should be bumping into each other. Defenders team up should be more common, or at least crossovers. The obvious hard part is story. Both why and why not someone is stepping in to help. 

And yes, there are a lot of people in that same small space. The nature of tv/movies having people bump into each other distorts that.

As an aside: When visiting NTC, I walked from Times Square, through HK, down to the Twin Towers memorial, and back up through China Town. Yes, my feet hurt like hell, but geographically, you can zip to any part of the city fairly quickly if you use a cab or subway.

[Corvinus85]

Yeah, but at least none of them have means of moving about quickly. The part where they take the subway in Defenders was funny. 

[briantw]

6 hours ago, Myrddin said:

Very true. But at least the antagonist would've been stronger.

I thought Madame Gao was a fine antagonist and she really seemed to enjoy being evil, it's just the whole Hand plot was kind of ridiculous and never really seemed to make a ton of sense.

[red snow]

22 hours ago, briantw said:

I thought Madame Gao was a fine antagonist and she really seemed to enjoy being evil, it's just the whole Hand plot was kind of ridiculous and never really seemed to make a ton of sense.

Immortal/undead ninjas was the problem. If gao had just been a Yakuza head it'd probably have been fine.

I guess Fisk was in prison as an excuse for not being involved. It could have been fun to see Fisk fighting the Hand as I imagine sucking new York into a hellpit or whatever it was they were doing isn't great for business if you are a bread and butter crimelord

[Corvinus85]

The Punisher season 2 teaser and date announcement. January 18. They clearly don't care that much about promoting this.

 

[briantw]

11 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

The Punisher season 2 teaser and date announcement. January 18. They clearly don't care that much about promoting this.

 

Well, it's gonna be canceled January 19th anyway.