Tag: Daredevil

Marvel’s Netflix Properties Continue to Shine, Adding to 2017 MCU Content

Television

In case you’ve been hiding under a digital rock for the last week, Netflix dropped Marvel’s Luke Cage last Friday, and the overall reception has been pretty positive, even as some issues have been raised about the narrative structure and pacing.  Still, it’s an entertaining and does a serviceable job of depicting race and racial issues through the lens of a superhero story.

There are quite a few compelling women characters, all of whom are related to the actions the central character without being defined by him.  It’s beautifully shot, and its R&B and hip-hop soundtrack is very prominently spotlighted, all making for a unique, enjoyable, and ultimately important entry into the Marvel experience.

Luke Cage makes for a fourth full season of Netflix properties that have a connection (however loose) to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the overall consensus seems to be that this corner of the MCU is the most consistently well done so far.  Daredevil was so successful that its second season was greenlit within one week of the first season premiering on Netflix, and Jessica Jones explored dark and disturbing themes of control and obsession in a way that clearly resonated with viewers.  A second season of this show has also been approved, though it remains unclear as to when it will air.

marvelnetflixdefendersIt will likely be a while, though.  At the New York Comic Con, it was announced that 2017 would be a full one for Marvel Netflix, with three shows on the schedule for next year.  Iron Fist has had a release date of March 17 confirmed, with The Defenders–which will combine characters from the four preceding shows–likely to release during the middle of the year.  Likely at near the end of the year will be The Punisher, whose main character Frank Castle was one of the highlights of Daredevil’s second season.

This is, of course, really exciting news for Marvel fans.  With Netflix committing to no less than three Marvel shows next year, that adds to the three MCU films (Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok) that are already scheduled for next year.

There also continues to be talk about more Marvel properties on the way.  Cloak & Dagger, Damage Control, and other unnamed shows are in various stages of development or pre-production, though how reliable the information turns out to be are unknown at this point.

Still, it’s impossible to deny that 2017 will be an exciting year for Marvel fans.  There are no less than six different properties confirmed to release or premier next year.  That averages out to a new experience every other month!

I may not be at NYCC this weekend, but I’m just as stoked about these announcements as the attendees!

The One-Sided Nature of Marvel Studios’ “It’s All Connected”

Movies, Television

nickfury-imAnyone who knows me can tell you that I’m a big fan of the MCU that Marvel Studios started back in 2008 with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk.  I love the interconnected nature of the movies, and how they reinforced the notion that these were characters whose actions would affect the plots and developments of others that came along.  It was a brilliant way to conceptualize and bring together a movie franchise, and it was so uniquely a Marvel opportunity, that I knew their film The Avengers was going to be a huge hit, even as far back as Iron Man, when it was only being hinted at.

making_mine_marvel_5With the ever-present phrase “It’s all connected” a seeming mantra of the entire universe, it seemed a no-brainer that there would be plenty of connections, however tenuous, between the films and the shows that emerged on ABC and Netflix.  And as far as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been concerned, they’ve made plenty of references to the films to show they’re connected, from having some of their stars (Thor‘s Jamie Alexander, The Avengers‘ Cobie Smulders and Samuel L. Jackson, and Captain America: The First Avenger‘s Haley Atwell jump quickest to mind) appear on the show, to having episodes and plot arcs made in direct response to the events of the films.  Netflix shows Daredevil and Jessica Jones have made small, oblique, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them references to the films, but thus far have mostly kept to themselves in terms of really connecting to anything else.

Where there has been the least amount of connection in terms of acknowledging properties outside its own wheelhouse, however, has been with the films.  And that is a major, ongoing source of disappointment for me.

Now, I realize that making movies is way different from making television shows, and I know it’s unlikely, and maybe even impossible, to really work the characters, plots, and developments of television into a film in any substantial or meaningful way.  Movies are planned out years in advance, whereas television can turn on a proportional dime as needed.  I get it–we probably won’t see any television characters in the films anytime soon, if ever.

But I think it’s criminal at this point that the word “Inhuman,” as used in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., has yet to even be uttered on screen in any of the MCU films.  I find the studio’s indefinite suspension of the previously planned Inhumans movie to be off-putting and disingenuous in light of it’s mantra.

As best I can tell, the only reference I’ve seen from the films to anything not originated in the films has been the Theta Protocol, which even then involves the Helicarrier that was first seen in The Avengers.  Even then, also, I’m not sure the name itself is even mentioned in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In any case, my point in all of this is that, as the originating medium of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the films should be doing more to cross connect to the other content that’s out there.  And again, I realize we may not ever see Daisy Johnson or Mike Peterson or Melinda May, or even (though I really hope I’m wrong here) Matt Murdock or Jessica Jones or Luke Cage in the films.

I still think, however, that including a throwaway line about the Inhumans emergence or the chaos going down in Hell’s Kitchen would be something manageable.

before-daredevil-has-the-punisher-already-appeared-in-the-mcu-just-bear-with-me-steve-653803Come on, Marvel Studios.  Would it really be that hard for you to do that little?