New Iron Fist Trailer

A couple days ago Netflix released a new trailer for Iron Fist. It's pretty good. I mean on it's own, in a vacuum, it's fantastic but I have a few minor issues with it that probably aren't really it's fault.

The biggest one is the Might Whitey trope. I've talked about it a bit here before but in case you're unfamiliar the Mighty Whitey essentially refers to a type of story where some white guy is placed in a different culture and suddenly becomes better at everything that culture does, often he becomes an exalted hero or leader. It's a story telling trope that was big in the 18th and 19th century but is still plenty popular today. I mean when I think of famous Samurais, Tom Cruise is the first one to come to mind...

Anyway, the story of Iron Fist is a product of it's time and by that I mean it's kind of a rip off of the TV show Kung-Fu. White kid is stranded in a Mystical Asian city, learns super Karate, becomes the most powerful Karate guy on the planet. It's fine, I mean it's lazy but its fine. If you want to complain about Asian representation in Superhero movies and TV shows ask someone why there's no Kamala Kahn/Ms. Marvel movie, or an Amadeus Cho Netflix series. Iron Fist has a long history in the comics and they're sticking with the original origin. It's like a B- move for Marvel. They did hire RZA to direct an episode so it's not like it's all bad here. Also Iron Fist is far better know as being part of Heroes for Hire with Luke Cage and that book actually had real cultural significance in the 70s with it's portrayal of a pair of black and white superheroes who were best friends. If Marvel/Netflix decides to go that route and once those two characters are paired up, the Mighty Whitey/cultural appropriation stuff starts become less and less of an issue.

My one other knock here on this specific trailer is the whole, hey kids here's the last of the Defenders. I'm totally over the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff. I think it worked fantastic in Captain America and Thor for the build up to the first Avengers movie but it kinda ruined the Iron Man movies. Also obviously Avengers two was a loosey goosey mess and Joss Whedon directly blamed the insistence from Marvel to add a bunch of cinematic universe nonsense into the story. I don't really think any of the Netflix shows have really suffered in the build up to the Defenders but that doesn't mean I'm still not wary of it.

Ok, this is way more that I had planned on writing about this trailer. I'm sure the show will still be good, if nothing else it's probably going to have a great soundtrack.

First Look at New Marvel Netflix Shows

Sweet Christmas, Netflix and Marvel really brought the heat when it came to SDCC first looks. We get the first trailer for Luke Cage and Iron Fist and a super bonus teaser for The Defenders. The Luke Cage trailer in particular is perfect. If the entire series is 10 episodes of Luke Cage wrecking low level thugs set to Wu-Tang tracks I'm totally fine with that.

The Iron Fist trailer doesn't provide as much action but at least gives you a sense of core of the character. Homeless Karate Man. In the comics Danny Rand is also quite rich so we'll see if that plays into the show or not. It probably would have been cooler watching him blow the door off that warehouse if I hadn't just watched Luke Cage do the exact same thing AND beat up guys with a car door.

I think I might be more excited for these TV shows than I am the next round of Marvel movies.

Leaked Links

New 'Star Trek' series to blast off on CBS streaming service. Yay for new Star Trek! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO for this subscription garbage. If you hadn't heard yesterday. CBS has confirmed that they're working on a new Star Trek series. They also confirmed the show would be exclusive to CBS's new streaming service which costs like 6 bucks but offers all the CSI and NCIS spin-offs you could ever want. I'm torqued for a couple reasons. First off the majority of CBS's programming is the reason people pay 10 bucks a month for Netflix. Secondly, and I've bitched about this before, I'm already beyond tired of having to pay for and manage, multiple subscription services.

I have a bad feeling about this. CBS's hoping to drive people to their service by offering a show that appeals to the demo best equipped to pirate said show.

Leaked Screenshots for Fallout 4 on the PC. Sweet Christmas, these screenshots of Fallout 4 for the PC on it's highest (?) setting are pretty fantastic. It's really amazing how they're able to render stuff like trees and dirt so realistically, the future is now.

Netflix’s ‘Iron Fist’ Is Now Rumored To Be A TV Movie. Aw man, this kinda sucks. Iron Fist is awesome and his backstory in K'un-Lun is really interesting and after seeing Daredevil I'm positive Netflix and Marvel could translate it really well. A TV movie is still better than nothing but I'd love to see the Immortal Weapons or the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven translated to more of a long form story.

Return Of The Jedi Was Great, You Ewok-Slandering Fools. I get it, Empire Strikes back is better than Return Of The Jedi but it's not like ROTJ is bad. People that hate on it are just trying to hard to be cool.