[TV] She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (*SPOILERS*)

[Endus]

I mean, this is a perfect example really. My point was that their direction from prerelease resulted in a bunch of hate and a bunch of love, neither of which had anything to do with the actual product for the most part. So it's hard to sift through the attackers/ defenders for actual discussion.

It really isn't.

You dismiss everything as "I don't like a thing so nobody should like it" because you are incapable of having an honest discussion on any of your little crusades. You don't even understand the other side and are happy that you don't, and it's easy to just throw anyone that disagrees with you into that category.

There's plenty of people who've commented on various things they didn't like who I didn't criticise for doing so. I've commented on some things that irked me, too. So you're just lying, here, deflecting. It's only a very specific type of argument I was ever slamming.

[Fabinas]

Little too click-baity for my tastes. Seems just like he wants to appeal to people that agree with him.

Wow. Stay on the surface, man. You evidently can't dig deeper.

Take time to read some of it:

"...I couldn’t help but feel that everything I was watching was just so… empty.

I knew my hunch was right when, in the final episode, Jen looks to the camera in one of her many asides to the audience and says, “This is a mess. None of these storylines make sense.”

They don’t; they never did. That’s where my problems with She-Hulk start. This is a series that completely lacks its own identity. Despite claims by Jen that this is a “lawyer show,” she does precious little lawyering. Superhero interludes are fleeting. The comedy is lazy, the drama meaningless."

"The finale, with its tour through Disney’s studios, attempts to make fun of this tonal confusion. But instead of landing as an earned, funny self-own, the self-referential gag came across as the writers trying to justify their misjudgments by implicating themselves before we can."

"Characters continue to be reduced to tired tropes, shorn of dynamic motivations and personality , before punching each other or making a terrible joke that only the writers (or discernment-lacking super fans) find funny. This is a show in which Daredevil’s return to our screens is less a welcome homecoming or reinvention than an opportunity to include another male object of ridicule and pretend that makes She-Hulk progressive."

"...These are moments that suggest She-Hulk could have been so much more. Instead, every scene that moves the show forward is immediately sent backward, undercut with unfunny jokes, bad scripting, and wildly inconsistent tones."

Before accusing me of cherry picking (of course i am, i couldn't copy/paste all of it) go read it, instead of dismissing it for it's title. Which you know, it is supposed to be click bait. But it's the content that counts.


EDIT: post format

[Svifnymr]

It really isn't.

oh, well as long as you say so.

There's plenty of people who've commented on various things they didn't like who I didn't criticise for doing so. I've commented on some things that irked me, too. So you're just lying, here, deflecting. It's only a very specific type of argument I was ever slamming.

I'm pretty sure you don't even know what I was talking about. You just lumped it into the argument and ignored what you consider a deflection.

So, to reiterate, I think the show had a good basic framework of comedy to it, but needed more time to flesh out the setups and delivery better. Instead, they went more referential with the, as you say, " incel misogynist bigot brigade" bait and it feels like that style of joke is more polarizing and leaves out a lot of the people that don't care. Either you get the Defenders that love it, or the Attackers that hate it, but the actual humor falls flat for a lot of people if they're not neck deep in the back and forth of it all. I don't think they really got folks to invest/care about Jen/SheHulk so much on her own, even though the actress is likeable enough.

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When your "problem" with the show is literally a meta problem the show is explicitly calling out, itself, then your actual "problem" is either that you're not paying attention, or this rather uncomplicated show flew over your head somehow.
(snip)
You can't call it "misjudgements" when the entire intentional point was that they're silly and She-Hulk's gonna call that out. It's not like they were writing this show and got to Ep 9 and realized it was a mess then. It was crafted to be that mess, on purpose; that's literally the story. That's the point.

It's always hard to judge though with some of this stuff, if they intentionally made it dumb, how much of it? Should the people that praised the episodes feel bad for liking it? The folks that hated it feel justified? Can we trust that they actually intended this? Meh, who knows I guess. In the end it just depends on if there was enough attention to justify another season I suppose. Obviously taste varies, but I found Deadpools mockery better done overall.

I do think most of the supporting cast is, for lack of a better word, disposable. Sure, Wong will be in more stuff (though probably without his new partner in viewing) and Abomination. Titania could be useful here or there (a villain that actually survived is a rare thing at times). The rest of the non-SheHulk characters though? Other than a SheHulk season 2 I doubt we'll see any of them again.

[draynay]

Other than a SheHulk season 2 I doubt we'll see any of them again.

Ok... I mean they made the deliberate point that they wanted to make their own show and not fret too much over greater MCU implications. I'm not fretting either, I liked that they did their own thing and kept the stakes small within the framework of the show.

[Twdft]

The rest of the non-SheHulk characters though? Other than a SheHulk season 2 I doubt we'll see any of them again.

Well, do you think we'll see any of the non-Hawkeye characters in its season 2 again? Or a non-Loki, non-Moonknight etc...

[paxen]

Pretty sure She-Hulk will appear as a supporting character in some upcoming movie, anything else would be a waste. But her characterization may be slightly different; eg the fourth wall breaks are a staunch tradition of solo She-Hulk comics, but she doesn't do that shit in other comics.

But if you look at how they portrayed her in the fights in ep 8, I think that's a She-Hulk that would fit right in with the MCU.

Also, the only excuse I will accept for not having Tatiana Maslany in a major MCU movie is that she doesn't want to. She could be a new RDJ.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I do think most of the supporting cast is, for lack of a better word, disposable. Sure, Wong will be in more stuff (though probably without his new partner in viewing) and Abomination. Titania could be useful here or there (a villain that actually survived is a rare thing at times). The rest of the non-SheHulk characters though? Other than a SheHulk season 2 I doubt we'll see any of them again.

I mean, most supporting cast members don't have much carry over outside of their show of origin. MJ is super important to the Spider-Man films....but that's as far as she goes. Sam Wilson's sister? Wouldn't expect to see her in anything not directly involving Sam. Aside from Kang...we aren't likely to see many Loki cast members outside of that show.

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Wow. Stay on the surface, man. You evidently can't dig deeper.

Take time to read some of it:

Before accusing me of cherry picking (of course i am, i couldn't copy/paste all of it) go read it, instead of dismissing it for it's title. Which you know, it is supposed to be click bait. But it's the content that counts.

I read the article...and the content isn't any deeper than the clickbait title. I can see why you liked it though...like I said... it was written just to get the approval of people like you.

[Fabinas]

I mean, most supporting cast members don't have much carry over outside of their show of origin. MJ is super important to the Spider-Man films....but that's as far as she goes. Sam Wilson's sister? Wouldn't expect to see her in anything not directly involving Sam. Aside from Kang...we aren't likely to see many Loki cast members outside of that show.

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I read the article...and the content isn't any deeper than the clickbait title. I can see why you liked it though...like I said... it was written just to get the approval of people like you.

I would love to see an article about She-Hulk written for people like you.

(For me, that means blindly dismissing without any critique, but for the sake of discussion, i digress)

Something with deeper content and not a clickbait title.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I would love to see an article about She-Hulk written for people like you.

(For me, that means blindly dismissing without any critique, but for the sake of discussion, i digress)

Something with deeper content and not a clickbait title.

Probably something that talks about the actual strengths and weaknesses of the show (yes, the show has it's flaws...I've never said it doesn't) without having to flop around "culture war" bullshit.

[Witchblade77]

I wasn't turning anything around, or agreeing or disagreeing with your general statement, but continuing the discussion with my own opinions added in. Guess it was fruitless.

It's just a discussion forum, discussing things, I'm not trying to take what you said and latching on to things or whatever, just replying and adding my own opinions on things overall.



The last sentence is basically what I was referring to. The bit of discussion I saw from them about the show early on was them picking their audience for accolades and baiting folks for free press. It has always been a thing where certain formats were more geared towards others, but it has now become a common element to say "this is a chick flick and not intended for you" rather than just trying to capture a broader audience. Afterwards I tuned out the back and forth until Disney+ did a $1.99 for a month offer.

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Hell, the ad's I've seen for TikTok, that's basically what TikTok IS, I think.

rather then deliberately baiting I would posit that they knew the reaction they would get by sheer virtue of existing and proceeded to put that anticipated reaction that they absolutely CALLED into the show itself, which also made sense given how meta this show is.

[Rtrain]

The people they were "baiting" were the incel misogynist bigot brigade. Getting irked about that makes as much sense as hating on Indiana Jones films because of the anti-Nazi rhetoric, and complaining that it should be "more open to a broader (Nazi) audience" and "stop being political".

If those are the arguments you're making, on that kind of basis, you're exactly the kind of person who deserves that kind of baiting and mockery. They fired the first "shots", through their rhetoric, and whining about shows like this firing back is just eminently pathetic.

If you don't like a thing that other people enjoy, then the onus is on you to go find something you do enjoy, not to spend your time trying to ruin other people's enjoyment. Especially when your entire argument boils down to "I don't like a thing so nobody should like it." I don't like professional sports, so I don't watch them; I don't hate-watch them and post on forums about how stupid it is and how every team sucks. I'm not a fan of period dramas, especially 19th-century-set ones, so I don't watch shows like Downton Abbey or Bridgerton, but I don't go around forums for fans telling them their show sucks. It doesn't. It's a great show. I just don't like that kind of thing, so I'll spend my time watching stuff I do enjoy.

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That's a rather garbage "review". I'd just like to pluck out one bit;

I knew my hunch was right when, in the final episode, Jen looks to the camera in one of her many asides to the audience and says, “This is a mess. None of these storylines make sense.”

They don’t; they never did. That’s where my problems with She-Hulk start.

When your "problem" with the show is literally a meta problem the show is explicitly calling out, itself, then your actual "problem" is either that you're not paying attention, or this rather uncomplicated show flew over your head somehow.

It's like trying to claim that Back to the Future is a terrible movie because of the lack of continuity when Marty returns to his original present time, when that lack of continuity is explicitly meant to demonstrate how his actions caused the timeline to change. That's literally the point of the film. Calling it out isn't witty, it means you don't understand the film. Same here; the fact that weird-ass storylines all get pulled into big epic finales constantly in MCU films is silly. So the show pointed out that it's silly, as metacommentary, and then . . . didn't do that. The show wasn't making mistakes, there.

It's not that frickin' complicated.

You can't call it "misjudgements" when the entire intentional point was that they're silly and She-Hulk's gonna call that out. It's not like they were writing this show and got to Ep 9 and realized it was a mess then. It was crafted to be that mess, on purpose; that's literally the story. That's the point.

I think the show explicitly tried to shove down everyone’s throat how “meta” they are being and instead to a lot of people it came off as lazy writing. I don’t think anyone needs much depth to understand the intention of the episode, but it results in a really shallow experience.

I was very excited for the finale after enjoying the week to week since episode 2. The finale was a huge disappointment. If you isolate the episode from the show, I think it’s great, it’s cool. It’s a bit sloppy, sure, but at least it’s unique. But after the investment of the previous episodes I feel like I just watched 8 episodes of a show about a women superhero that ends with all the things she did not mattering except setting up daredevil, abomination, and hulk storylines. I dunno it almost felt like they knew they had a terrible ending, so they decided to make a joke about it instead. Im starting to think I’d prefer the horrible ending…

[Gumble]

You can't call it "misjudgements" when the entire intentional point was that they're silly and She-Hulk's gonna call that out. It's not like they were writing this show and got to Ep 9 and realized it was a mess then. It was crafted to be that mess, on purpose; that's literally the story. That's the point.

That's an amazing perspective to take, the show wasn't bad because the writers were bad or the story they made was poor, or the actors were not good at their job..... it was bad because they intended to make it that way. The massive reshoots they did for the last episode to turn it into the "oh we know its bad, haha isn't it funny", that was never intended in the first place, you write off as "well they always meant to make a mess of it".

I can only wonder why you have such a low bar of quality, but given the other things I've seen you comment on, your bar is really low.


I definitely wonder what type of show or movie you actually critically look at and say "wow that was bad". Is there a bottom for you, or is everything art and you appreciate it no matter how poorly done? However, since I can see the vitriol you post on the forums with, I have to imagine there are things you actually don't like watching. Not sure what actually reaches that level, but I'm sure it exists.

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I dunno it almost felt like they knew they had a terrible ending, so they decided to make a joke about it instead. Im starting to think I’d prefer the horrible ending…

The ending was done with massive reshoots that pushed the show's release back considerably (it was supposed to come out before Ms Marvel).

They DID know they had a horrible ending, so they changed it..... to this..... imagine how bad the original was.

[lurkanomics]

I think the show explicitly tried to shove down everyone’s throat how “meta” they are being and instead to a lot of people it came off as lazy writing. I don’t think anyone needs much depth to understand the intention of the episode, but it results in a really shallow experience.

I was very excited for the finale after enjoying the week to week since episode 2. The finale was a huge disappointment. If you isolate the episode from the show, I think it’s great, it’s cool. It’s a bit sloppy, sure, but at least it’s unique. But after the investment of the previous episodes I feel like I just watched 8 episodes of a show about a women superhero that ends with all the things she did not mattering except setting up daredevil, abomination, and hulk storylines. I dunno it almost felt like they knew they had a terrible ending, so they decided to make a joke about it instead. Im starting to think I’d prefer the horrible ending…

Yeah my (ex)girlfriend who I watch the show was super hyped for the last episode, especially since it took a few episodes for the show to grow on her and it turning into one she really liked.

The whole meta thing was cool for a few minutes but once the kevin thing started she yells out, 'wow this is too much, they've lost me' -and I totally see that, being completely ripped out of what looked like some cool set piece really took the wind out of everything when it ended up being some long talk about how the mcu operates...

[Endus]

That's an amazing perspective to take, the show wasn't bad because the writers were bad or the story they made was poor, or the actors were not good at their job..... it was bad because they intended to make it that way. The massive reshoots they did for the last episode to turn it into the "oh we know its bad, haha isn't it funny", that was never intended in the first place, you write off as "well they always meant to make a mess of it".

You're pushing conspiracy nonsense, at this point, and it doesn't even deserve discussion.

There were some minor reshoots, as there nearly always are in these kinds of productions. It wasn't a major rewrite, like you're claiming. This was always the story they were telling.

https://onetakenews.com/2022/01/28/s...ots-exclusive/

The rest of your comment was just personal baiting and I'm not responding to that.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

...that was the point. They were throwing the kitchen sink in for the Epic Finale™.

My bad for not being more clear about this, Titania's presence in the revised ending after She-Hulk has the chat with Kevin. She still was there without explanation, which made even less sense than Daredevil showing up because that actually cropped up in her conversation with Kevin.

Does Titania just stalk Jen? Cause the revised ending didn't give me any answer as to why she was there. The first ending I did get it was intentionally a mess of throwing everything in, regardless of how much sense it made.

[Biomega]

My bad for not being more clear about this, Titania's presence in the revised ending after She-Hulk has the chat with Kevin. She still was there without explanation, which made even less sense than Daredevil showing up because that actually cropped up in her conversation with Kevin.

Does Titania just stalk Jen? Cause the revised ending didn't give me any answer as to why she was there. The first ending I did get it was intentionally a mess of throwing everything in, regardless of how much sense it made.

There's various ways to read it. One option is that she was there in the big mashup, but she was so out of place Jen straight forgot about her during her "revisions" and so she stuck around. Given that the theme is the massive all-the-storylines collision, it makes sense she'd be there - but at the same time, she's so irrelevant it really underlines her entire attention-craving shtick.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Does Titania just stalk Jen? Cause the revised ending didn't give me any answer as to why she was there. The first ending I did get it was intentionally a mess of throwing everything in, regardless of how much sense it made.

We already know Titania stalks Jen...she showed up at the wedding just to fuck with her.

[Tyris Flare]

I had no interest in this show, and unlike a lot of people I don't hate watch. But this seems to hit the nail on the head as a perfect description of almost all media these days (repeated in this thread, and the LOTR thread, and every thread, over and over):

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before! A piece of pop culture has been announced, one with a diverse cast of characters and themes of female empowerment. Some conservative idiots lose their minds because they’re conservative idiots. Liberals respond by taking to the ramparts to defend the honor of the piece of pop culture against MAGA or whatever. Meanwhile, the actual artistic value of the pop culture in question is completely lost. Aesthetic concerns are buried beneath the demand to be political first. If you aren’t actively singing the praises of worthless shlock that’s vaguely associated with progressive politics, you’re one of them. My god, that She-Hulk show is fucking dreadful, and its feminist politics are warmed-over Sheryl Sandberg tripe, but people are like “actually the CGI is supposed to look like dogshit, it’s artistic” because they think defending Disney’s latest blast of entertainment Soylent Green is the same as storming the Bastille. Conservatives freak about diversity, liberals defend art without any reference to artist, rinse and repeat. I could be talking about 2016’s Ghostbusters, or I could be talking about the upcoming Little Mermaid remake. Nothing ever changes, and it is all so, so tiresome.

You people get that showrunners and filmmakers know all about this now, right? You get why they’re including the part where She-Hulk looks directly into the camera and recites a slogan stolen from a sign from the first Women’s March written by a junior from Vassar, right? It makes the stuff they make exempt from criticism. These are no longer shows or movies but rather volleys in the culture war, which makes ignoring their immense flaws not just permissible but a duty for all right-thinking people. We’re already living in the hell of TV shows essentially written by Twitter; nothing is more depressing to me than pointing out all the moments that showrunners stick in their work that’s designed entirely to elicit squeals from social media. When characters deliver awkward, stilted political speeches to camera because they know it will guarantee positive reviews and manufactured virality, it makes me feel like hope is lost. And at present, in terms of this cultural moment, hope is lost - there’s no way I can fight this tide.

The bigger thing for me, beyond the death of art and criticism I mean, is just how easy it is to inspire identitarians, just what they’re willing to consider a major political success. They are the cheapest dates imaginable.

[Jester Joe]

I had no interest in this show, and unlike a lot of people I don't hate watch. But this seems to hit the nail on the head as a perfect description of almost all media these days (repeated in this thread, and the LOTR thread, and every thread, over and over):

I mean. Is it really hitting the nail on the head when Stan Lee himself already said he'll use his comics to highlight real world issues too?

Like, how can you criticize the show for being accurate to the creator then while also crying about not caring about the artist?

[Tyris Flare]

I mean. Is it really hitting the nail on the head when Stan Lee himself already said he'll use his comics to highlight real world issues too?

Like, how can you criticize the show for being accurate to the creator then while also crying about not caring about the artist?

You're right, 1980 was 100% exactly the same as now and there's 0 meaningful difference in the material reality of cultural production.

(point is also that this is not just she-hulk, it is literally almost every piece of media now and it is so exhaustingly stupid that everything is defined by reverse partisianship)