The Defenders The Defenders Discussion Thread (NO SPOILER TAGS NECESSARY!)

[Blitzkrieg]

This is the 7th episode, the penultimate one and there is still no urgency to any situation. Why are we wasting time time for random and totally irrelevant dialogue between Collen and Rosario Dawson's character. Why are we wasting time on boring things in a show about powerful folks teaming up to beat the big bad.

 

[Dark Raven]

Apparently Finn Jones wants to see the Iron Fist costume too, and says that fans need to write angry letters to Marvel:

[YT]dYFkuiLctak[/YT]

 

[Nathan]

I think they overall handled it pretty sloppy. We already spent a whole season on every character, in Daredevil's case 2 seasons, and yet it takes at least 2 hours for the heroes to finally get together. I think it should have been action and urgency right from the very first Episode. I am not saying every episode needed to be nonstop action. But why is there still so much buildup required, after we already sat through 5 seasons of buildup? Why give everybody their own angle? Felt really farfetched how pretty much all 4 of them appeared at the same time, at the same building. Some call it fate, I call it contrived writing.

You have Claire right there, who knows each and every one of them. She's the Coulson of the Netflix shows. She's the connective tissue. Episode 1 could have maybe started with Danny getting the **** beaten out of him, and he finds his way back to Claire. Luke, fresh out of jail, is of course at her place and decides to lend him a hand. Avoiding that whole white privilege bs, because Luke beat up his fair share of thugs. And because Claire knows that the Hand is involved, she decides to finally to contact Matt, after 2 seasons of basically forgetting his existence.

That could have been all in the very first Episode. And now we have 80 minutes, that could be wisely spent on actually developing the villains. There's so much more I would streamline in the show and use the time on actually important things. Seriously, a well written script would have probably only needed 4 Episodes. After 5 Seasons of buildup, I would have been fine with the Defenders basically having the length of an extra long movie. Anything from 2-3 hours would have been fine.

 

[Iceman]

Haha, good. And I didn't know he was English either.

 

[javonstokess]

I think they overall handled it pretty sloppy. We already spent a whole season on every character, in Daredevil's case 2 seasons, and yet it takes at least 2 hours for the heroes to finally get together. I think it should have been action and urgency right from the very first Episode. I am not saying every episode needed to be nonstop action. But why is there still so much buildup required, after we already sat through 5 seasons of buildup? Why give everybody their own angle? Felt really farfetched how pretty much all 4 of them appeared at the same time, at the same building. Some call it fate, I call it contrived writing.

You have Claire right there, who knows each and every one of them. She's the Coulson of the Netflix shows. She's the connective tissue. Episode 1 could have maybe started with Danny getting the **** beaten out of him, and he finds his way back to Claire. Luke, fresh out of jail, is of course at her place and decides to land him a hand. Avoiding that whole white privilege bs, because Luke beat up his fair share of thugs. And because Claire knows that the Hand is involved, she decides to finally to contact Matt, after 2 seasons of basically forgetting his existence.

That could have been all in the very first Episode. And now we have 80 minutes, that could be wisely spent on actually developing the villains. There's so much more I would streamline in the show and use the time on actually important things. Seriously, a well written script would have probably only needed 4 Episodes. After 5 Seasons of buildup, I would have been fine with the Defenders basically having the length of an extra long movie. Anything from 2-3 hours would have been fine.

Here's the deal: if they would have been throw together, people would complain about that.

The first two episodes basically need to do 2-3 things. Catch up to where the characters are NOW, introduce the bad guys and set into motion the events that the heroes together.

Folks forget how long it took to get the full Avengers team standing side-by-side in the first movie.

 

[Iceman]

I didn't have a problem with how long it took for them to get together but the 8 episode count meant doing that left less time for other aspects (like the villains) and they got neglected as a result.

 

[javonstokess]

I didn't have a problem with how long it took for them to get together but the 8 episode count meant doing that left less time for other aspects (like the villains) and they got neglected as a result.

It's ironic, alot of people (myself not included) have wished for the Marvel Netflix shows to have less episodes, but I do agree that this show would have benefited from at least 2-3 more episodes...and about 10-15 million more dollars of budget.

 

[Nathan]

I think 8 Episodes is more than enough to develop a villain. Maybe if they would have spent time on other things, instead of showing us Alexandra eating a meal, drink wine, take pills. They had the time, but they did nothing with it.

 

[Iceman]

It's ironic, alot of people (myself not included) have wished for the Marvel Netflix shows to have less episodes, but I do agree that this show would have benefited from at least 2-3 more episodes...and about 10-15 million more dollars of budget.

Less episodes on the solo shows I can understand. Throwing all these guys together as well as all their supporting characters and the villain along with a decent story is harder with so few episodes. Not sure why they didn't do another couple at least. The budget seems to have been a big issue though.

 

[javonstokess]

I think 8 Episodes is more than enough to develop a villain. Maybe if they would have spent time on other things, instead of showing us Alexandra eating a meal, drink wine, take pills. They had the time, but they did nothing with it.

I honestly thought Alexandra was quite developed. I think had this been the normal 13 episodes, she probably would have been given a full episode dedicated to her a la Kingpin/Cottonmouth which would have been nice...BUT we knew all we needed to know about her.

I realize alot of you disagree with this.

 

[KevTravels]

Here's the deal: if they would have been throw together, people would complain about that.

The first two episodes basically need to do 2-3 things. Catch up to where the characters are NOW, introduce the bad guys and set into motion the events that the heroes together.

Folks forget how long it took to get the full Avengers team standing side-by-side in the first movie.

Agreed. We knew it was 8 episodes and we knew they couldn't have met up from the start. I figured it'd be like 3 episodes past before they all got together. I was pleased parts of the team were introduced to one another by the end of the 2nd.

The creators wanted to make sure all their bases were covered for fans and for folks who were not aware of the prior shows.

But def for me the first episode was a total bore. I barely got through it

 

[KevTravels]

Less episodes on the solo shows I can understand. Throwing all these guys together as well as all their supporting characters and the villain along with a decent story is harder with so few episodes. Not sure why they didn't do another couple at least. The budget seems to have been a big issue though.

I was quite surprised we got as much of the supporting characters that we did. I honestly expected we'd see them in the premiere and in the finale. Colleen was like in every episode and Missy may have been in 6/8 I believe.

 

[Dark Raven]

The supporting characters didn't seem to interact at the police precinct until about 2 episodes later when Trish finally interacted with Karen. It would've been good when they first arrived to have introduced each other or to see others interact and remark that they were there for the same reason. Instead, most of them were like people at a hospital waiting room where everyone's there to be treated for something but no-one usually interacts.

Did Karen and Trish even know each others' names or were they just doing that thing like people do in hospital waiting rooms or other places where they make polite conversation but never actually introduce themselves to each other?

I would've liked more interaction between Colleen and Misty as well, considering they're meant to be a team.

And Matt barely seemed to interact with Claire.

 

[kguillou]

I agree that towards the end the sense of urgency was not handled the best way. I remember towards the end of episode 7 i was thinking "holy crap, theres only one episode left and we're wasting time at a police station? They need to rescue Danny so he can suit up for the finale!" Lol

I was so SO certain that before the final battle Matt was gonna take the crew to Melvin so he can create suits/ armor for Danny and Luke.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

It's been all downhill since the 5th episode. That episode was a downgrade from the previous two as well but I was still pleased with it. Nao, the show has turned mediocre. Why do we need Trish and Karen to have that dialogue in the middle of the finale. Even the interactions are not that funny anymore, it peaked in Eps 3 & 4 and it has not been the same in the last few Eps. I was hoping for much better stuff all around.

 

[Iceman]

I was quite surprised we got as much of the supporting characters that we did. I honestly expected we'd see them in the premiere and in the finale. Colleen was like in every episode and Missy may have been in 6/8 I believe.

They added a lot for me and I would have liked the ones that didn't feature as much to have got more of a chance too. It really makes the whole joint universe feel lived in and genuine when the supporting characters are significant too and develop relationships with the other heroes or other supporting characters.

 

[Dark Raven]

It's been all downhill since the 5th episode. That episode was a downgrade from the previous two as well but I was still pleased with it. Nao, the show has turned mediocre. Why do we need Trish and Karen to have that dialogue in the middle of the finale. Even the interactions are not that funny anymore, it peaked in Eps 3 & 4 and it has not been the same in the last few Eps. I was hoping for much better stuff all around.

Just an observation here. Why do you keep saying "Nao" instead of "Now"? I've noticed this for some time now. It's not some relative of Madame Gao.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Just an observation here. Why do you keep saying "Nao" instead of "Now"? I've noticed this for some time now. It's not some relative of Madame Gao.

Haha. You're right and I also write 'Hafta' instead of 'Have to'. The first one is a weird habit and as for the 2nd one, I borrowed it from Dennis The Menace.

 

[Iceman]

Maybe they should change Madame Gao's name to Gow to accommodate Blitzkrieg.

 

[Dark Raven]

Or the Marvel Nao version of her could be Madame Nao. Gao is a has been.

 

[MadVillainy]

They added a lot for me and I would have liked the ones that didn't feature as much to have got more of a chance too. It really makes the whole joint universe feel lived in and genuine when the supporting characters are significant too and develop relationships with the other heroes or other supporting characters.

Opposite for me they took away a lot. I don't even dislike the characters but the time they used to show the supporting characters like continuing Colleens thing with her old master (who is really miscast because he looks so young) or Karen's problems with Matt could've been used to have the Defenders together more. Same with the villains. I felt they spent too much time with Weaver talking to Elektra, The Hand infighting, etc. Again something great that Avengers did was have a simple villain that they didn't have to give a lot of "solo" time.

 

[MadVillainy]

I think they overall handled it pretty sloppy. We already spent a whole season on every character, in Daredevil's case 2 seasons, and yet it takes at least 2 hours for the heroes to finally get together. I think it should have been action and urgency right from the very first Episode. I am not saying every episode needed to be nonstop action. But why is there still so much buildup required, after we already sat through 5 seasons of buildup? Why give everybody their own angle? Felt really farfetched how pretty much all 4 of them appeared at the same time, at the same building. Some call it fate, I call it contrived writing.

You have Claire right there, who knows each and every one of them. She's the Coulson of the Netflix shows. She's the connective tissue. Episode 1 could have maybe started with Danny getting the **** beaten out of him, and he finds his way back to Claire. Luke, fresh out of jail, is of course at her place and decides to land him a hand. Avoiding that whole white privilege bs, because Luke beat up his fair share of thugs. And because Claire knows that the Hand is involved, she decides to finally to contact Matt, after 2 seasons of basically forgetting his existence.

That could have been all in the very first Episode. And now we have 80 minutes, that could be wisely spent on actually developing the villains. There's so much more I would streamline in the show and use the time on actually important things. Seriously, a well written script would have probably only needed 4 Episodes. After 5 Seasons of buildup, I would have been fine with the Defenders basically having the length of an extra long movie. Anything from 2-3 hours would have been fine.

100% agreed.

Especially with the point that you could've caught up with all the heroes. You could've done that with 1 or 1.5 episodes

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Opposite for me they took away a lot. I don't even dislike the characters but the time they used to show the supporting characters like continuing Colleens thing with her old master (who is really miscast because he looks so young) or Karen's problems with Matt could've been used to have the Defenders together more. Same with the villains. I felt they spent too much time with Weaver talking to Elektra, The Hand infighting, etc. Again something great that Avengers did was have a simple villain that they didn't have to give a lot of "solo" time.

I agree with this. In plain words, all that time devoted to side character interaction could have been used for better things. There were other more interesting stuff that we could have seen but whatever was on screen at that moment simply bored me to death.

 

[Iceman]

Opposite for me they took away a lot. I don't even dislike the characters but the time they used to show the supporting characters like continuing Colleens thing with her old master (who is really miscast because he looks so young) or Karen's problems with Matt could've been used to have the Defenders together more. Same with the villains. I felt they spent too much time with Weaver talking to Elektra, The Hand infighting, etc. Again something great that Avengers did was have a simple villain that they didn't have to give a lot of "solo" time.

Yeah but if you didn't dislike them then your real complaint is the overall lack of time which could have meant sufficient time for everything that could have possibly contributed. Then noting would be taking away from anything else as the heroes, villains, overall story, supporting characters etc would all have a fair shot and it would be just a case of making them all as good as possible. The villain stuff needed to be a lot better in general yes (only Elektra came out positively overall for me), not just a question of time.

 

[Iceman]

I agree with this. In plain words, all that time devoted to side character interaction could have been used for better things. There were other more interesting stuff that we could have seen but whatever was on screen at that moment simply bored me to death.

When you have only 8 episodes for a big and complicated project like this there's always a chance that something only good will potentially take away from something better.