>That's bad writing. You can have memorable side characters.
>Every quality show on TV has memorable side characters. The
>Marvel/Netflix shows have weak side characters; I think most
>people would agree. To simply dismiss that out of hand seems
>to dismiss the entire premise of this post.

It’s not bad writing to have unmemorable side characters. That’s a very rigid definition. Personally I’d rather focus more on the major players. Again, Zip doesn’t need tick. Dumpster dude IS memorable, but doesn’t really need more than he has. Any time spent on a guy like him is better spent on fleshing out a character like Shades.

These shows are extremely top heavy and have plenty of characters worth exploring. The henchmen don’t really need anything more than they got.

>2. >
>"So… no ideas or context to support the assertion that more
>episodic episodes will be a benefit, particularly since you
>want to trim screen time and episodes? "

>And I think it's just obvious logic that if you have a story
>that only fits 8 episodes, that having four episodic episodes
>to kick things off and establishing the characters is better
>than having filler episodes or a lot of overlong or filler
>scenes in the middle of when the show should have momentum.

It’s “obvious logic” to make half of an 8 ep show episodic? Also, where was all this “filler” you’re talking about? I saw an awful lot of back story and fleshing out of characters who actually matter. You’re going hard to elevate weed carriers to hypemen and hypemen to people who matter.


>You could have Luke handle something for Pops or for Chico so,
>you know, maybe we give a damn about him.

Give a damn about who? Luke? People gave a damn about Luke. Maybe not you, but you seem to hate these overall anyways. If you mean Chico? Why do we need to care about Chico? His character wasn’t exactly designed for sympathy and Pops was the vessel to make us care about Chico and that was very effective for both Chico and Pops. How much more did we need to care about Chico, if that’s who you’re talking about?

>Maybe show Mariah actually doing something politically instead
>of talking about plans. Maybe show her keeping her cousin at
>bay for her political career or doing something that might
>tick him off because it helps her.

>Maybe within his case, Luke actually UNCOVERS that the
>Rebuilding Harlem movement is a fraud rather than have a dude
>literally hand him a pamphlet while they are rousing people.

>Maybe show Cottenmouth actually successfully doing something
>to establish that he's even remotely competent.

>There are countless options that could have established a
>stronger foundation for the show and not forced them to
>stretch out some of the storylines.

>Or, if you don't want to do that, then you rewrite your main
>conflicts so that they are more involved and have more than
>the usual Marvel/Netflix bad guys falling into traps, traps
>not working, good guys face backlash.

Again, what was stretched out? Those are perfectly reasonable suggestions but I didn’t see anything stretched out. You talk to me about not adding to the discussion and dismissing things while you keep using generic critiques like “filler” and “stretch out story lines” but aren’t actually explaining what those flaws were.

>3. "Yes, a rocket launcher is a pretty good way to take
>someone out who seems to keep slipping through your grasp."

>LOL. Besides being the epitome of "Well, that escalated
>quickly." It makes no sense for him to blow up a building that
>his cousin might want to take over for her project or that he
>would want to get money out of through his collections.
>And yes, I know that a lot has been going on in NY in this
>universe but I think a rocket launcher attack would still
>bring on some undue attention. It's nonsensical.

Not in this world. This is the epitome of you looking at what you would do in this world and applying that to a desperate character in a world where outlandish is the quickly becoming the new normal. Of course it escalated quickly, he’s trying to wipe out a serious thorn in his side and brought out the big guns.

Further, Luke already fucked up his people for trying to collect money in that very building. Yes, it’s heavy handed and there are always potential consequences that we can pick to death and point out all the variables…… but then this was a guy who was shooting people in the face on a whim. The rocket launcher was perfectly in line with his character and this is still a comic book in TV form.

>4. "And yet they fleshed out all the major characters pretty
>damn well. Perfect? Flawless? No, but the solution to that
>isn’t to beef up characters who are ultimately disposable.
>The solution is to adjust and improve on the characters who
>matter."

>We're talking about the side characters and there shouldn't be
>characters who just don't matter to the point that you don't
>bother writing them well. Your utterly disposable characters
>can have personality.

They didn’t have personality? None? That’s not what I watched.

>Again, Justified was filled with them.

Go watch Justified then.

>And, no, I personally don't think they've done a good job with
>the main characters because I thought the villains in Luke
>Cage especially were all pretty lousy. One way to fix that is
>to give them stronger foils to battle against. If the side
>characters are stronger, it helps the main characters. It's
>one of the reason why they're called supporting characters.

Misty was a supporting character. Scarfe was a supporting character. Both well done. Zip was a side character, a simple henchmen sitting atop the henchmen heap. We’ll just agree to disagree on the villains. I already suggested shoring up those characters going forward anyways.

>A. That's not what I meant by playing both sides. Playing both
>sides would be working with her cousin but then also cozying
>up to Shades because she sees her cousins is slipping and she
>doesn't want to go down if he goes down.

That’s not what I meant by playing both sides. Don’t be obtuse. She’s a council woman pushing an initiative to rebuild Harlem using money funded the destructive activities of her cousin. This is extremely cut and dry.

>B. When it comes to what you were referencing as playing both
>sides, well, it was kind of non-existent because she was
>constantly hanging out with her criminal cousin and nobody
>ever seemed to have any doubts that she and her cousin were in
>cahoots.

Because she wasn’t blindsided by a reported in her own home and categorically denied that her cousin did anything wrong live on TV.

Come on.

>But maybe an episodic episode that includes the two of them
>clashing in public about their separate approaches or maybe
>them actually taking separate approaches to solve a problem
>could have buoyed this. Or hell, just introducing them in a
>way that might make us think that she's using him to get ahead
>politically would work but isn't on his side would work.
>Knowing everything that is going on, heading to his club but
>saying, "I don't want to know the details" isn't really
>playing both sides all that much to me.

Well now that’s a suggestion.

>On top of that, what is she getting from him? She funneled
>money from her project to help him build the club. He uses her
>office to story his money. Let us see him doing something for
>her. Build that plotline and make it matter instead of it
>being Revenge for Pops.

I’ll have to rewatch to comment on this. I recall both of them reaping financial benefits there but I’ll need to have another look.

>6. "Yeah you re. You’ve made similar references throughout
>these posts lamenting the darker/more serious tone of non-MCU
>properties. You’re not alone in that either, but yeah. You
>guys want all these jokes and habitually complain
>about things that have a dead serious tone to them."
>
>OK. Thanks for telling me what I think.

I’m telling you what your consistent beat is on the subject. I’m telling you what you say. I imagine what you say stems from what you think.
So..… I guess you’re welcome.

>But I don't have a problem with more serious films. My problem
>has almost always been when people make films with a serious
>tone and then require massive suspensions of disbelief for the
>plot to work. To me, you can't have it both ways.

That has zero to do with the jokes. Dam near every plot in damn near all of these films is ridiculous when we think about it. that’s the nature of the medium.

>7: "It’s awfully arrogant to deduce that I don’t think
>anything needs to be changed simply because I didn’t think
>the changes *you* presented were all that necessary or even
>good. The only options there are I either think the show is
>flawless and above reproach, or I didn’t you’re your
>personal critiques all that valid."

>Your first post was dismissive of every other idea in this
>thread. And all you offered to improve it was more crossover
>eps. Of course, you offered "no ideas or context to support
>the assertion" that that would make the show better.
>I call 'em how I see 'em.

What ideas or context are needed for that suggestion? You want a dissertation on why having *some* interaction between these characters, who are being primed for a team up series, would be a good thing? Particularly when two of those characters are an actual team in the comics with one of them being married to another central character in the mix?

Yeah, THAT sure needed a deeper explanation.


>8. "Cool. You’re ridiculously defensive and taking this
>awfully personal. If you’d like to run a perfectly good
>thread into the ground because you’re wounded , I’ll be
>happy to help. I don’t see you complaining about me
>cosigning two ideas above yours."

>A "perfectly good thread" that you were dismissive of in your
>first post in it.

Like I said: YOU were ridiculously defensive and too it awfully personal. I didn’t like any of the ideas presented. What’s the problem? Again, if you don’t like people not liking your ideas… keep them to yourself.

>disagreeing with people and demanding they offer more evidence
>that you're willing to offer.

LOL@”demanding more evidence”. What are you even talking about?

>It's laughable for you to say that you want discussion and
>then not actually try to discuss anything, instead just saying
>they're wrong.

Welp that’s not what happened. I told Cap that was the first good idea in the post. I responded to your post and explained everything I disagreed with. You’re ridiculously reductive here. You talk like I just ran down your post and said WRONG WRONG WRONG and gave no reasons why.

>It's my problem with this board in general over the last few
>years, where it's a bunch of "You're wrong" or "Co-sign" and
>little actual discussion.

That’s literally not what I did, but please feel free to elevate and distort what actually happened into something that will help you justify your hurt ass feelings.

>Again, a critique is fine. You offered nothing besides:
>No.
>Who cares about side characters
>But I liked the main characters so no, you're wrong.
>It has to be New York
>and assuming that if the order was cut that wouldn't alter
>some of my other ideas.

LMAO you’re a goddamned liar. Here is my very first response:

“>- Open the season with some episodic episodes. Give us a
>sense of the area, the side characters, etc.

There’s been a ton of this from what I’ve seen. I can’t think of a single side character that needed more screen time. Further, I think the call for short eps and shorter seasons makes these even more problematic.

I see zero benefit in devoting more time to guys like zip or that dude Luke put in the dumpster.”
I disagreed and explained why.

OH AND THEN?

“>I think you could
>do one half of the season episodic and then those episodes
>bring you to the arc.

What about this makes the show better or tells the story 90% of us actually care about more effectively?”

No opening for discussion in any of my comments? I LITERALLY ASKED YOU FOR MORE DETAILS. Pretty much the definition of “opening for discussion”.

Next?

“>Let's see more of the lives of the villains besides their evil
>plots.

We saw an awful lot of that in each of these shows thus far. The villains and their lives have gotten a ton of screen time telling their back story and those stories have been told at least as well as the heroes in each outing.

I’m not sure what’s lacking there. “

That doesn’t sound closed for discussion at all. Not in the slightest. That says I disagree and that I don’t know what’s lacking there. Gee whiz, we’re three comments deep and still no “you’re wrong! No follow up comment or question, you’re just plain wrong”.

AND THEN…

“>Let's see
>more of the henchmen to get a better feel of them.

For what? Particularly given that you want shorter eps and shorter seasons. In a 16 ep season of 52 minute eps, knock yourself out, but when you’re calling for 42 minute eps and think 13 eps is too much it’s unfathomable to devote a greater percentage of less screen time to throwaway characters.

Cage has four central villains: Cottonmouth, Shads, Mariah, and Diamondback and they each got a significant amount of time. We don’t need zip getting more time in a smaller window when there’s plenty to work with there, particularly when you add at least two crooked cops and one cop who is on the fence for a fair portion and is still a protagonist to our hero despite being a hero herself.

There’s just no good reason to devote more screen time to Henchman 1 and 2, particularly when you’re calling for less screen time overall.”

So… four comments deep, still NOTHING like what you’re pretending I said. Nothing at all. Not even a vague resemblance. This far what I actually said and the way you’re portraying it are night and day.

NEXT? AND NEXT? OH AND NEXT?


>- Saner, smarter villains. I hated Fisk and Diamondback. The
>bad guys can be crazy ala Heath Ledger's Joker but they have
>to be competent.

Each his own i guess. Fisk was excellent. Diamondback was fine, i’m not excited for him but I’m not terribly bothered by him. He could definitely be improved but Fisk? Fisk was on point. You can always improve but he doesn’t particularly need anything more.”

First words? “Each his own I guess”. I don’t know how much more reasonably disagreeable one can get than “each his own I guess”. I agree that he could be improved but that I wasn’t bothered by him. I disagree completely on fisk, hence… each his own. That’s miles away from “wrong! “.

Yeah, I literally said a whole hell of a lot more than your badly misleading summary.

Here are the rest of my comments in the exchange:

“Nor should they be. That’s why secondary villains like Shades are there and helps Mariah rise through the ranks. We have Mariah playing two sides of the fence all through the show. “

“Two different formats and it makes perfect sense to establish a different identity for each.

This just further proves the point that some people really do just want all their comic book shows and movies to ape the MCU blueprint and add a joke every two minutes. Serialized dramas are huge hits over and over and over again, so I don’t see an issue with keeping that formula for these. The MCU has plenty of gut busting, side splitting wisecracks to keep people properly sedated. This format doesn’t really need more of the MCU temperament, particularly with the characters they’ve chosen for these shows. “

“Well this I can agree with. “


“Well, again, that’s just not the story being told and NYC is absolutely central to these characters. Sure, this season could have taken place in the south, but for what? But NY is central to the story being told and central to all the characters chosen for these shows.”

So… like I said… you’re a goddamned liar.

A lying ass liar with hurt feelings. Bruised ego. I dunno what it is but you’re super duper sensitive and just plain didn’t like the fact that I didn’t fawn over your ideas. Suck it up cowboy. All I know is this conversation is over and I won’t bother reading your next bullshit truth bending response because you can’t even be honest, liar.