Daredevil's 3 Seasons Equal Or Surpass TDK Trilogy And Feige Had Nothing To Do With It... Discuss.

[divan]

Daredevil, while undoutebly without moments of greatness that rival even the best comic-book movies is for me, overall, a very messy production. Especially in its first two seasons, you've got hours of content preoccupied on subplots that don't flow naturally with the story, being filler at best and hurting the characterization and rythm at worst. It doesn't even touch the best Marvel Studios movies for me, much less the almost impecable execution of the Dark Knight films.

 

[Iceman]

TDK is the crown jewel of superhero films.

Daredevil is the crown jewel of superhero TV.

 

[BaronZemo]

Feige is the main reason the mcu, possibly the best franchise in history and definitely the most successful one is what it is. trying to discredit him sounds really petty.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

I enjoy Daredevil more than the TDKT.

The show has a consistently compelling main character for me, while I think Batman got less so after Begins. Ledger had a great performance as the Joker but I think Fisk is a better written character with more dimensions, and it's the latter that feels like his plans actually make sense within his capacity and power, and doesn't feel like plot armor because the story wants something to the extent that the TDK Joker does. I'd probably give the supporting cast to Daredevil as well, although it's possibly a bit unfair given how much time we get to spend with people in a show.

Daredevil can of course not compete with the effects and visual budget, the TDKT looks much grander and has some great practical effects. I'm still hesitant to give it the action though, as I might be of the opinion that the superior fight scenes in Daredevil are enough to bring it up there in that category, as fighting is a very core aspect of both characters.

 

[FunkMiller]

Batman Begins is the best superhero origin movie, period. The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie, period. Rises is nowhere near as good, but is still a Chris Nolan movie, so is of a high standard.

Daredevil is excellent... but the pace drags through season one at points, and the latter half of season 2 is awful - like, the worst episodes of Arrow awful, with all that idiotic Ninja nonsense. Season 3 is sublime.

Daredevil is great, but it simply wouldn’t exist without The Dark Knight.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I just don't think it's a necessary debate...

Is any of the movie and TV debates on these boards necessary?

 

[Spider-Aziz]

but Fisk > bane and ra's and scarecrow and blah blah blah...

 

[Flint Marko]

TDKT (well, the first two) and DD S 1-3 are god-tier and this is a worthwhile debate.

Avengers 1 and 3 still hold the crown though.

 

[Awest66]

I don't suspect I'm alone in thinking that TDKR is a bit of a mess while still having some good or even great moments. But it's interesting that some of your criticisms of DDS2 could easily be turned around onto Rises.

You're not alone in that opinion certainly but whatever the flaws of TDKR, DD season 2 has much more blatant and worse examples.

Arcs not feeding into one another meaningfully? Well the Gordon letter stuff doesn't really come to much of anything now does it? Bane revels it and it changes... Nothing.

It's how Bane gets the truth about Harvey Dent out in the open and gets the blackgate prisoners on his side. It's hardly comparable to Frank and Elektra's story arcs basically existing in different universes with Matt himself being bounced between unrelated story arcs like a pinball.

Characterization about a code against killing being hazy and inconsistent?

Batman just tells her to guard the doors, not to actually shoot anyone. In contrast, Daredevil is starkly opposed to Frank killing people to the point of even debating it but at the boat, He out of nowhere says "Let's try it your way just this once", How in heaven's name is that better? Worse still, Matt says he and Elektra can't be together because their just not right for each other but then at the end, He wants to run away with her?

The supposed commentary of Bane's "revolution" is muddled at best and we never get any idea about the people of Gotham's reaction to it. The idea that Bane allowed the police to be cared for instead of just gassing them all to death is only out shined in incredulousness than the idea that said same police officers would after being trapped for months and fed the bare minimum underground would be somehow an effective fighting force. Let's not even begin to get into why Bruce Wayne would be okay with the inherent danger of a nuclear fusion lab being within Gotham City limits.

The whole point of the revolution is to tear Gotham apart while forcing Bruce Wayne to watch, experiencing the depths of his failure in trying to make Gotham a better place. It was a missed opportunity to show more citizen reactions but I felt the former was communicated very effectively. It's still a far better plot than whatever the Hand was trying to do. The whole part of the Gotham police being able to fight after months under ground also requires some suspension but honestly no more so than a man being able to get up and function with half his face burned off like TDK. You're really stretching for the last one.

Way more so than in DD Season 2 which I honestly don't find any great level of fault with and think executes it's stories and character arcs to a more consistent and satisfying end.

Not even close. The main problem with the second season of Daredevil was that it succumbed to IM2 syndrome, in that it became more focused on setting things up for other shows rather than focus on it's own story. TDKR at least gave a Bruce a satisfying consistent character arc, what exactly was Matt's? His purpose in that season was mainly to serve Elektra and Frank's character arcs and even those were muddled. The decision to add a conspiracy angle to the death of Frank's family was ill-advised and revealing Elektra as the Black Sky while giving us no clue of what exactly that actually means was ridiculous.

In terms of consistency, DD season 2 has way more problems, especially in regard to the Hand and their lack of clear motivation and no storyline was really brought to an end there, They all just kind of fizzled out.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I tried to watch DD several times and never got into it. There was little excitement and it's overly gritty for my taste.

Not going to vote, because I didn't watch the series in full.

 

[henzINNIT]

Roughly the same level. Daredevil wins because it starts and ends (currently) so well, and despite the much lower budget, has much better action.

 

[Drizzle]

It's impossible to compare three seasons of a show to three films. There's so much more room for character development in a show and films have a bigger budget to allow for more spectacle. Apples and oranges.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

Daredevil is the better one for me. I also think that has more reasonable reputation, while I think TDK is one of the most overrated movies of all time. A gritty crime take on a superhero and they can't even write an intelligent villain so he ends up with plans that doesn't make sense in how he accomplishes them and the police force is at times reduced to the Police Academy. Daredevil certainly has its flaws, but it manages to contain its tone far better than the TDKT and Matt Murdoch is so much more believable as a tormented vigilante than Bruce Wayne is.

Dardevil also has far better action. That video on the first page is utterly hilarious. I don't know what it is with Batman that made Nolan so very sloppy. Perhaps he didn't care and just saw it as a stepping stone to doing the original movies he wanted to make.

 

[Awest66]

A gritty crime take on a superhero and they can't even write an intelligent villain so he ends up with plans that doesn't make sense in how he accomplishes them and the police force is at times reduced to the Police Academy.

I don't know what film in TDK trilogy you're describing because this doesn't fit any of them.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

To be fair the God Of Chaos aspect of the Joker in TDK while yeah, stretching credulity (especially since fans taut the Nolan films' "realism" so much) is matched by what I am calling Kingpin's Magical Corruption Powers on display in DDS3 (especially in the home stretch of the last three episodes). These plot contrivances both play into the themes of the villain characters but both also strain realistic analysis. You kinda have to accept both as baked into the idea of both characters. Besides which, these aren't run of the mill antagonists. The term Super Villain always encompasses a greater level of competence, ability and indeed larger than life characterization for me.

I always point to Zola's talk with Jones's Col. in the first Captain America movie as a good explanation of this. He reveals the Skull's ultimate plan to the Col. who basically calls it crazy, as most villain plans are. Zola's response is the summation of why super villains no matter how ridiculous they or their plans may be from a realistic POV are in story to be taken seriously by the narrative and thus the audience:

Zola: "The sanity of the plan is of no consequence."

Col.: "And why is that?"

Zola: "Because he can DO IT!"


So I think for things like DD and TDKT always going to be some suspension of disbelief hand waving involved with those aspects. It kinda becomes an issue when discussing these entertainments though when fans so passionately ague the level of "grit" and realism in a DD or TDKT as an end all be all selling point. They are very good and grounded pieces of super hero storytelling... But they are still ultimately super hero stories that rely on a **** metric ton of acceptance of ludicrous narrative flights of fancy. And... That's okay.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Feige is the main reason the mcu, possibly the best franchise in history and definitely the most successful one is what it is. trying to discredit him sounds really petty.

But it is interesting that for some DD is the best thing produced by Marvel and yet this comes from the Loeb/Perlmutter side, no? BTW what was "discrediting" about stating Feige, who is indeed successful beyond most people's wildest dreams, not actively involved with DD? Is that not a fact? It's simply interesting that the DD show is so very good despite being outside his orbit of direct influence.

Now looking at some of the other seasons of the Netflix shows I wish some of Feige's steady hand had been in place for Luke Cage or Iron Fist.

It's also interesting that some cannot even conceive of any kind of criticism of Feige or Marvel Studios though.

 

[fan4stic]

I think s1 of the DD is the only straight consistent season of it for me.

I think s2 has a better first pod than s1 altogether, but it becomes disjointed in the 2nd pod and ultimately hits big issues in it.

Spoiler

S3 is muddled for me. I think it suffers similar issues I had with s1 (Kingpin to me in s1 was woobified too much and he was given a wanting to make the city a better place motive, which doesn't hit for me and Bullseye feels similar to me), but to me it lacks the consistency and runs into the stop and start syndrome in defeating the villain that JJ hit, and I think that slows down the pacing, along with stopping the story in the middle of the action kicking in to spend 29 minutes on Karen's flashback, which I skipped through about half of. The story to me was hitting its crescendo and it didn't seem to me they had enough story to keep up to 13 episodes, so it has the characters fail so it can tack on more story. Matt's arc also loses impact, because his attitude is pretty much making him not rootable for, and I don't feel like they're able to buy it back. They just wrap it up at the end and it doesn't feel like he pays for it. I would've wanted to see him broken, remorseful and repentant by the end, which builds to his moment of not killing Fisk. But to me they just have him realize he's wrong with not much build up. The pacing of the show causes an issue for this for me. The nature of it for me, makes me want to finish it so I can see th conclusion of Matt's journey and come out of the other side and repent for his actions, but I think it's frustrating to sit through with the way Matt's character is and not having a strong idea of what his character conclusion is and the start and stop-ing of the story and defeating the villain. For Bullseye, I don't like taking 13 episodes and not even having him become Bullseye yet.

BB to me is better than DD s1.

TDK to me is better than s2.

TDKR to me is better than s3.

 

[Chesterfield]

Bah, the Cap trilogy is better than both all 3 DD seasons and TDKT.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Bah, the Cap trilogy is better than both all 3 DD seasons and TDKT.

Don't add option no 3.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Bah, the Cap trilogy is better than both all 3 DD seasons and TDKT.

Eh... You're entitled to your opinion but in my view that first Cap film is the essence of mediocrity. The best thing it gave us was Evans as Cap. He's great, even in that first movie, but the film around him is rather middle of the road. Not terrible but it hits no real highs on any level either. It wastes its villain and the actor that portrayed him and frankly, they didn't really develop the Cap/Bucky relationship to the point you cared, which is why they needed to add that post Steve's mom's death scene in WS, to actually show some kind of connection between the two. The sequels are strong films, no doubt but the first installment is kinda perfunctory all around.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

I don't know what film in TDK trilogy you're describing because this doesn't fit any of them.

The Joker. Already in the very first scene his escape plan is utterly moronic. The movie makes the Gotham police force out to be completely incompetent when they don't see the correlation between a school bus covered in dust and debris and a school bus sized hole in the bank . They were approaching a bank robbery so they'd naturally be extra vigilant, and they literally drive past the dusty bus just yards from the bank. The Joker was driving away extremely slowly so in such a serious and gritty movie like TDK the only logical result would have been that they quickly stopped the bus and arrested him. Going by that performance alone (and they do more equally awful things) I don't expect any crime to ever be solved in Gotham.

That he could hide by driving a school bus in a convenient line of other buses, despite that his was the only one full of building dust, is something I'd expect from the 60s TV show. That show has a tone where you can buy that sort of plan.

 

[Flint Marko]

Bah, the Cap trilogy is better than both all 3 DD seasons and TDKT.

If Age of Ultron weren’t somewhat of a disappointment, they’d have the two best trilogies in the genre.

 

[BaronZemo]

TDKR was way more of a disappointment than AOU.

 

[Awest66]

TDKR was way more of a disappointment than AOU.

Not even close. TDKR is superior to AOU in every concievable way (writing, pacing, villain, characters)

 

[henzINNIT]

TDKR was way more of a disappointment than AOU.

Facts.