Am I the only person on earth who genuinely liked Iron Fist?

[Mormolyce]

I liked it just fine. It's even with Luke Cage for me. Much better than JJ, but nowhere near DD, imo

For me it kind of goes: DD - JJ - IF - LC.

I felt like season 1 of DD was perfect, season 2 was perfect for the first half but uneven in the second (not bad but had some issues). JJ was great but also went a bit wobbly after the halfway point, almost felt like they had to insert a few episodes of filler to make the full run or something. Iron Fist I liked more than I thought I would. Luke Cage wasn't bad but just didn't really grab me, it was also strong in the first half but went off the rails a bit in the second.

Overall they're all between pretty good and great for me.

[Ivanstone]

Luke Cage wasn't bad but just didn't really grab me, it was also strong in the first half but went off the rails a bit in the second.

Luke Cage was very good but suffered from one big problem: Diamondback. I liked Cottonmouth, Mariah and Shades. The three of them spent a good chunk of the series building up Diamondback into this extremely intimidating figure and when he finally arrives, he promptly face-plants.

Iron Fist suffered from having a less-compelling main character and relatively weak villains. Harold Meachum was ok, Madame Gao is fucking great. Bakuto was kind of boring and Davos was shit.

Daredevil and Jessica Jones work as well as they do partly because they have exceptional villains.

[Stormcall]

In addition to Danny, I like Kathleen Wing very much as a character.

Not enough to realize her name is Colleen, not Kathleen though, lol.

[Mormolyce]

Luke Cage was very good but suffered from one big problem: Diamondback. I liked Cottonmouth, Mariah and Shades. The three of them spent a good chunk of the series building up Diamondback into this extremely intimidating figure and when he finally arrives, he promptly face-plants.

I agree, I thought the actor was good but the plot didn't do him a lot of favours and he wound up feeling less threatening and more boneheaded. Even Shades, who was previously acting as the harbinger of Diamondback, calls him on how stupid he's being during the club fight.

[tyrlaan]

Showrunner: I like my Hand to be Japanese Ninja's, thank you very much. I do appreciate diversity, and Wing's students are a good use. Having the Bakuto main villain was just horribly miscast, no sense of danger like in DD1/2. Madame Gao seemed to lose all her specialness with the show too, she was very interesting in DD1/2. The main writer's other work is Inhumans, so I'm not thinking the guy will do much else any time soon.

Yeah that's a good point about the Hand. I think it's been nagging at the back of my mind and hadn't quite made it to the surface. Especially Madame Gao. She gets some of it back in Defenders, but the Hand in general has other problems in that series. What's a shame is the introduction of the hand in DD2 was actually quite good.

[Endus]

Yeah that's a good point about the Hand. I think it's been nagging at the back of my mind and hadn't quite made it to the surface. Especially Madame Gao. She gets some of it back in Defenders, but the Hand in general has other problems in that series. What's a shame is the introduction of the hand in DD2 was actually quite good.

See, I went the other way with The Defenders. I was all stoked because I thought they'd been building hints that Gao was something way more than human. Specifically, I thought she was the Crane Mother (a power basically equivalent to the dragon that gives the Iron Fist his power). Instead, she's one of a handful of regular people who just managed to live a long time. And she had magic powers that none of the others had because fuck you we're not explaining shit. Just argh.

[Jujudrood]

I liked the show, but...
Finn Jones wasn't a great pick, and the character writing was pretty abysmal.
I swear if he tells someone he's "Danny Rand" one more goddamn time... we know, they know, everyone freakin' knows.
I liked Faromir as the bad guy. I thought he did well, as did the brother/sister combo. Colleen was decent, played her part well, and I'm always happy to see Rosario Dawson on my screen so that's a plus.

The best part, IMO as far as the fighting goes, was vs drunken guy.
That was fun to watch and the guy who played him (can't recall his name) was entertaining, funny, genuinely skilled, and I wanted more of him.
The other fight scenes that involved Jones felt... sloppy and rushed, cutting far too many times to cover up the fact that he is not a martial artist.
Should have left Loras in GoT and found an actual martial artist to play the part because it wasn't all that deep nor was it particularly in need of top tier acting; just be a monk, misunderstand things, and kick ass. Maybe a funny one-liner/quip here and there, but what we got was a doofy "karate kid" type of guy who was not just a fish out of water but more so a fish in outer space as much as he just seemed out of place in the show.

Overall, not terrible, and the supporting cast/story arc definitely carried the weaker parts, those being Jones as a whole (actor, writer, choreographer, etc) and the interaction and lack of real chemistry with Wing, which left me pretty bored with that aspect.
I would say 6/10 as a show, 5/10 in comparison to other Marvel efforts. Pretty middle of the road stuff.

[OnlineSamantha]

It would be hilarious how bad it was if it didn't go on for like 10 fucking hours. I was so tired of Danny Rand and his whiny attitude by the end. I'd much rather watch a show about Colleen and Bakuta than I would Danny Rand and... Meechum I guess? The fights were awful which isn't all Finn Jones' fault. They should never hire that showrunner again, he can't do anything right.

[Kelathos]

The writing around the central character was weak, which only served the highlight any weaknesses the actor may have. The two did not compliment each other and this left a giant gaping hole in the series. A main character viewers actually detest.

Having him depicted more as a master and less as a child would have helped.

[Swalload]

Okay so I know I'm late on this one but I finally got around to watching Iron Fist - I'm way behind on Netflix shows, I watched DD season 1 and 2 and Jessica Jones when they came out but I only just finished Luke Cage and Iron Fist, about to start Defenders.

And I... liked it? Like seriously liked it. I actually couldn't wait to see each episode. It was surreal to watch it, knowing the reception it got, bracing myself for shit and finding instead a well written show with some really strong characters and great acting whose greatest sin was being... I dunno a bit slow? Maybe the subject matter wasn't appealing to most people? I mean fair enough, but personally I enjoyed it a lot.

I can see how the character of Danny Rand isn't instantly magnetic and likeable as the other Netflix Marvel stars are. Also his character and storyline take a while to develop and aren't anything all that original (I haven't read his comics but Iron Fist never struck me as one of Marvel's memorable characters - so I don't know how much of the fault of that is the show's). But honestly he didn't bother me and it was fine for what it was. Colleen Wing was downright awesome and I wonder if the show would've been better received if it was a Daughter of the Dragon show instead...

I actually LIKED the corporate side story with his various-shades-of-evil family. And I didn't think I would at the start at all. In fact in the first episode I groaned internally about having an Arrow-esque "rich kid returns from presumed death and has to deal with his crooked family" plotline again, but it actually won me over so much that by the end of the show I actually LIKED all three of his "family", who were all putting in incredibly strong performances. Did not expect that to happen.

I can see how other people might find that plotline boring though, if they were in this for the kung fu fighting. But I thought it was well written, the characters were well written and acted and it added a believable drama to the show.

Anyway, I feel a little bad for the writers and actors involved since they really did put in a lot of good work and got raked over hot coals for it.

It was not well written and the characters are not strong and the acting was not good. NOT THE WORST IN THE WORLD. But definitely worse than in DD. Even the nurse girl who is in both shows was much better in DD than in iron fist, most likely because of the bad writing I assume, her role in Iron Fist is borderline stupid.

I mean, I could make a giant post explaining why it's bad but based on past experience on this forum people just take it for an opinion instead of being willing to learn. So I'll just tell you that's it's factually not a good show, you are allowed to like it, we all have different taste. But outside of all possible opinion and perception, it was not a good show.

[Svifnymr]

See, I went the other way with The Defenders. I was all stoked because I thought they'd been building hints that Gao was something way more than human. Specifically, I thought she was the Crane Mother (a power basically equivalent to the dragon that gives the Iron Fist his power). Instead, she's one of a handful of regular people who just managed to live a long time. And she had magic powers that none of the others had because fuck you we're not explaining shit. Just argh.

Again, my preference, but I'm not even sure how they got "Gao is a member of the Hand" from DD1 or DD2. DD1, she was a different faction than the Hand guy! I don't know much about the background for Iron Fist other than what I've read online, but it makes sense to me that she would be attached to one of the other holy cities or something like that. She was in charge of chinese tong heroin trade stuff. There was some debate about keeping the "white guy in tibet" outsider vibe, which I don't want to rehash, but the series handled it by making every organization multi-cultural, which sort of makes "white guy in tibet" even worse to portray!

So KunLun isn't a tibetan city, it's a city full of every race/language/culture. At some point, five random people of 5 different ethnicities seized the power to make themselves immortal, but as you say, they didn't gain actual powers other than Gao having odd stuff. Then they went out to influence history even though none of their skills seem to have been formed when they did it. They had an air of authority but no real plans/ skills. This becomes worse in Defenders when they are literally chopping up dragon bones to make immortal juice...

It's probably good they destroyed the Hand, since it was so horribly mangled by IF and Defenders. Better to just put them out of their misery.

[kail]

No problem with liking it. I personally could not find a redeeming quality of the show. Main character was un-likable to me, villains felt supremely weak, plot was a mess, fighting scenes were super meh, etc. Iron Fist and his story pretty much ruined the Defenders for me. IMO, the show simply couldn't make the Hand work. Iron Fist is the equivalent of the Star Wars prequels to me.

[Deleted]

Faramir and evil-sibling duo was fun in a cheesy, self-contained way. Oh, and the drunken kung-fu master too!

But then there's the generally lackluster choreography during half of the show, the eternal drag of the plot, the whining, and so on.

I'd give it a 5/10, maybe? Watchable, but honestly, too many flaws to make it worth it for anything other than background material.

And they should have used the Fist way more often, or have it give a real impact. Danny tearing his way out of the Asylum door should have been him holding back.

[Shadowferal]

Endus hit a few notes to me...

Finn Jones had no fight training or experience. To play a top-tier martial artist in a martial-arts focused property where the bar had already been set fantastically high by Charlie Cox in Daredevil. He was "better" in The Defenders, but still not great; even the editing couldn't make him seem comfortable and proficient, compared to his co-stars, who often outclassed him here. He's supposed to be the Immortal Iron Fist; not getting social niceties is fine, but being beat up by mooks is dumb.

In the comics. I used to find it off-putting that whenever DD and IF went head-to-head, DD would come out on top.
After the Netflix stuff...I want to say it makes sense...but it still shouldn't. But I'm cheering DD.

[Kyr]

it was ok. i definitely don't understand all the absolute hate you see on the interwebs about it

[Daws001]

I found the actual character of Danny Rand, this zen, peace loving protector, to be refreshing given The Defenders are a moody lot. I thought Finn Jones was charismatic and did a good job given the material. I think the writing and direction of his character started to unravel and they relied too much on exposition to give him depth. How many times did they talk about Danny's past rather than actually show us?

I think Iron Fist had a shaky season but it wasn't terrible and I'd like to see them do better in season 2. They need to be mindful of redundancy, be careful not to reduce Danny to a joke (they went overboard in The Defenders), and need to invest more time in practicing and sharpening the fight choreography. That isn't an Iron Fist-only issue, though, as the combat in Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and The Defenders was also janky.

[Zethras]

Not enough to realize her name is Colleen, not Kathleen though, lol.

Oh whatever, I was 85% asleep when I posted this.

[Stormcall]

and need to invest more time in practicing and sharpening the fight choreography. That isn't an Iron Fist-only issue, though, as the combat in Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and The Defenders was also janky.

It sorta makes sense for Luke and JJ though, they're brawlers, neither one of them is supposed to be a highly trained martial artist.

[Woadnson]

Like a lot of people have already said, the writing (and often the acting) for Danny was pretty dire. Thankfully Colleen was excellent, so I ended up watching it all for her. RZA's episode was a highlight as well, however cheesy it was, and possibly because it was a different tone from the rest of the series.

[quras]

I enjoyed Iron Fist but my one major problem was he consistantly came across as too Whiny. Thats not the character from the comics and it didn't come across well on the show.

If they got rid of that I think it would really help.