Easiest overview would be to say that six teenagers in Los Angeles discover that their parents harbor a dark murderous secret. They unite to slowly stop their parents from continuing their terrible acts. Airing originally on Hulu.
Its a ten episode first season that works similar to that of AMC's Preacher. Rather than establishing the characters in one single episode and progress to being runaways. The first season offers a deep dive into each character, their relationships with their parents acting out over a full season, avoiding the continual weekly flashback, to deliver exposition when a show goes in the mode of current events and stops to explain why we are at this point of conflict. The series presented by the OCs Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage who are the show runners, deliver a modern look at teens with a normal cross section of teenage angst, acceptance, sexuality, peer pressure, suicide/death, and first world problems of kids living in Los Angeles would normally face. We get a strong sense of home life and most importantly see the perspective of the parents in light of them being aware that what they are doing is wrong, and rationalize how they live with those decisions. As for the remarks to Preacher; we see a town, the residents of this town, what these characters call home, and who they really are, before blowing the town off the face of the planet and sending our protagonist on a perilous journey.
Knowing how they got to the point of no return, and the stakes of them keeping off the grid for the remainder of the series, becomes clearly understood. The show slowly develops how their options where dwindled and how moments have triggered events and relationships to change forever, and the consequences of who or what is waiting for them if they get caught.
James Gunn directed and co-wrote the movie; the film’s
opener with a baby Groot introduction began just after the first movie wrapped
and was in the works for 2 years, with the director choreographing and wearing
the motion capture suit for months in advanced before principal photography began
with the sequel. Having all the lead
actors blurred in the background in a big fight scene; becoming a musical
interlude with Baby Groot interacting with the guardians as he is listening to Quills
awesome vol. 2 mix song of Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra.
The Largest theme of the movie is about family, the first
installment saw the guardians are loners who forge a family bond amongst
themselves into becoming this group. We see that Rocket re-learnsthis lesson of family and acceptance by the
most unlikely source. The mystery of Peter Quill’s lineage is answered , and
how he was able to hold an infinity stone in his hand without perishing is
answered, and the sisterly rivalry between Gamora and Nebulafinally gets settled. We also learn that
Yondu was sold into slavery and that Sakar rescued him resulting in Yondu joining his adopted family as a ravager whereupon Sakar became like a father to him.
A comic book re-iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy was released from 1990 to 1994 with the Guardians existing in the 31st century and one of their founding teammates was Yondu. Who bares a large fin plate on his head. Jump ahead 20 years to 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy hits the motion picture theatres, with rave success. According to the director, the film takes place 3 months after the events of the first Guardians, we have a flash back of Peter Quill’s parents back on earth in Missouri 1980, and then 34 years later present day. The Guardians have taken a job protecting precious batteries for a civilized race from an alien energy draining monster. In its sequel, Yondu now appears like the image of the 1990's comic and spoiler alert, becomes an honorary member of the Guardians as well as an original Ravager.
Mantis the lone liaison of the living Planet Ego joins the team, and offers a potential relationship with Drax the destroyer.In the original Guardians we the audience were introduced to another celestial like Ego. Named Nowhere; the collector who lives inside the head of Nowhere, the lower g god has become a place where beings mine for precious material.
Sakar played by Stallone fostered Yondu until Yondu's betrayal; the theme of fathers and sons would become the most prevalent underlining story arc throughout this film between Ego, Quill to Yondu. This movie marks the 15th film in the marvel cinematic universe, It was the 8th highest grossing film in 2017; Star Wars the last Jedi took top spot; Disney still won, because Beauty & the Beast Live Action re-make took second spot and Thor Ragnarok was 9th. Giving Disney 4 slots of the top 10 films of 2017, and 13 movies that have earned 1 Billion dollars at the box office at this point.
For those with technological interest, this was the first film shot with an 8k resolution camera; the Red Weapon 8k. and shots inside the cockpit was filmed with a stabileye which as it is promoted by the film's Director of Photography Henry Braham "So small that you can get it in there next to the actors". The Director James Gunn has claimed on record he had a great relationship with Disney on creating both Guardians 1 and 2. Disney allowed him plenty of creative space, the only blowback as he phrased it was putting in a Warlock teaser because fans felt that the character would appear in Avengers: Endgame.
For clarity, the fin attached onto Yondu (last name Udonta) head is called a Yaka Arrow controller, hence the weapon . Yondu Udonta uses to impale his multiple victims is called a Yaka Arrow. The arrow was created by Centaurians. a blue skin alien like Yondu himself who is Centaurian. In an episode within season two - Agents of Shield. Lady Sif tells Coulson there are 6 species of aliens that are blue skin when Coulson asks after encountering an alien at the Guest House (GH).
The Alien beings are Kree, Interdites, Levians, Pheragots, Sarks, and Centaurians.
Ironically the Patsy Walker character of Hellcat was a member of the original Defenders back in 1977 when the Defenders had its own running comic book series. Hellcat made her debut in issue #44. The series could be found almost in its entirety in the back-of-the-room comic book bins in the late 80's to late 90's at normally reduced cost from many of its contemporary titles. The series was an almost forgotten relic giving away to the boom of the 90's, and the resurgence of comic book properties. Like X-men, Joe Quesada's Marvel Knights which included Punisher & Daredevil, and Marvel's Ultimate's were all gaining a new generation of audiences. Fast forward nearly twenty years later; The Defenders of this era are an entirely different cast of characters but is now regulated to the backstreets of New York. We have four urban heroes united against a common enemy whose power and influence dates back a millennia, reaching across all four corners of the globe. Its bedlam happens to be in the heart of New York where the Defenders will stand united. Unlike is predecessors of individual series, this season was only 8 episodes long as opposed to the normally slated 13 for Marvel/Netflix shows. The reasoning can be largely attributed to that the back story is less important as over 52 hours of content and story on all its members was readily available to stream prior to the season's release.
The enemy is the Hand, with special attention on the death and resurrection of the character Elektra, both of whom are Frank Miller creations. The season's showrunners of Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez have written and created a different story arc for these heroes, peeling back the mystery and origins of the Hand to give a big enough conflict to snare all of them to work together on this one. The build up of the team up stemmed on the third day of release for season one of Daredevil, when ratings and analytics came in; and Marvel/Netflix green lit season 2 of Daredevil along with a Defenders season. And a call to casting was sent out immediately for all of its members to get formed. Fans and its Star Charlie Cox was amazed of the confidence and forward thinking and planning that went into setting up the Defenders in a course of two short years, giving each member their own season. To establish this series in the making. with the pinnacle promotional image of all four in a white hallway battling the Hand, with Elektra entering from the back un-dead walking towards them unaware if she friend or foe.
Patsy Walker, played by Rachael Taylor has a cameo appearance near the end of the season as she is a side kick to the Jessica Jones Character, and develops her own story fully before that series comes to an end. In the original 1970's comic the members which had a revolving door of characters were all non-team members like Prince Namor, Hulk, Nighthawk, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Silver Surfer, they were based at Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. As the reasoning of their formation was never really made clear, and so it is with that blind circumstance that we have these Defenders unite serendipitously.
The character made his first appearance on May 1974, in issue #15 of Marvel Premiere. Iron Fist was a co-creation of Gil Kane (Green Lantern) and Roy Thomas (Conan the Barbarian). Centering around a man who can summon a mystical force by channeling his chi. An ability he developed within the city of K'un-Lun.
Similar to a batman origins, as did the CW's re-telling of Oliver Queen in the series Arrow. This version deposits the Iron Fist who as Danny Rand was legal heir to a billion dollar corporation, His family was tragically killed in the series opener flashback, while Danny was at a young age of 10. He lived in a hidden monastery, inside a pocket dimension which opens its doors to the real world every 15 years. Like Oliver Queen, in those missing years the monks of Kun-Lun trained and transformed Danny into a living weapon and sworn enemy of the Hand; Deadly assassins whose reach covers all corners of the world.
The Show's composer is a Canadian music producer Trevor Morris, whose credits include scoring television shows like Vikings, The Borgias, and The Tudors (which awarded a primetime Emmy for original main title theme). The season's showrunner was Scott Buck whose previous works was writing for HBO's Six Feet Under series, and co-executive producing HBO's Rome. Buck was later the showrunner for the final 3 seasons of showtime's Dexter. With an impressive track record on his resume Buck was hired to serve as showrunner and executive producer for Iron Fist in late 2015, and a year later showrunner and executive producer for the ABC television series Inhumans. Both shows received overwhelmingly negative reviews by both critics and the general audiences. As Inhumans was initially set for a three season run and was decisively cancelled just after one. Unfortunately, Buck has not been working or been accredited for any production since the one, two punch of his disregarded television works.
The season's most ambitious and daring episode was episode 6, titled "Immortal Emerged from Cave". Directed by RZA, written by Dwain Worrell, the series takes place with Danny and Collen flying to China to stop Madam Gao. The episode has Danny Rand facing a series of martial art masters like a game of death gauntlet, and kicks off the confrontation with an interlude which pays homage to Jackie Chan's the drunken master. RZA who is a member of the Wu-tang clan and renown fan of martial art theatre, induced a refreshing out of the box story to an otherwise uncolorful series.
