Since we had a couple of good conversations about the Marvel/Netflix adaptations of Luke Cage and Daredevil it seems like this is a good place to discuss the new “Iron Fist” trailer:
I know this probably has a lot to do with the source material (which I admit ignorance of) but seriously, how many times does Hollywood have to do the “spoiled rich white guy goes missing in Asia for years, learns incredible new abilities and returns to his city as a superhero” trope? That’s pretty much the exact plot of Doctor Strange and Arrow and Batman Begins and The Shadow and probably dozens of other franchises that are slipping my mind at the moment.
Well they are just cribbing from the comic books and pulps here.
And comics/pulp stories tend to rely on formula a lot but it can still work even if it is cliche.
That’s kind of a cop-out. There’s nothing preventing them from tweaking the source material. In fact they tweaked Batman’s origin story to be MORE in line with that trope, not less.
Well that’s a different studio… sorta as Warner owns both Marvel and DC. I was ambivalent about that one actually as I really like Ra’s Al Ghoul in the comics where he sometimes helps out Batman and is much more complicated villain (well for a comic book anyway).
It was a nice film but kinda meh on reflection. I didn’t bother with the 2nd till I could see it for free and still haven’t seen the last.
I would say that this is true of comics which are of the “superhero” variety, but not so much of others. Which is why as a comics reader in my teens I avoided those comics, even at a time when they were attempting to subvert their formulaic tendencies. Unfortunately, Hollywood has been terribly formulaic, and I suspect that this is why comics movies have been catching on. For better or worse, they deal with familiar archetypes.
Personally, I think they would be better off making movies of comics which defied formula, such as Zap! or Tales of the Unexpected.
In Stark’s case that isn’t how he got his talents, but it was where he learned the important lessons about the value of human life that inspired him to be a superhero (which is another big part of the trope). It’s also where he learned the value of super-powered robotic armor.
Well in the original was 1963 and South East Asia was the war zone and it wasn’t so much by the time of the movie we can’t really do that so lets go with Afghanistan and Terrorists/Warlords.
