The Hand being so boring is probably why, in Iron Fist, a lot of people found Ward Versus His Dad way more compelling than Danny Versus The Hand. Ward's conflict with his father is deeply personal, Danny's conflict with the Hand is just so...unclear. Danny can hardly even explain why he wants to fight them, beyond "Because I was trained to!"
13 hours of, "I'm meant to destroy the Hand." -Ok. Then do it already. -Well...I mean there's an awful lot of them. I've just got the one glowing fist. -Then your training is useless! The Punisher could wrap this up in an afternoon.
You are totally right, Punisher could easily have dismantled The Hand all by himself. well the one from defenders and IF. the one from DD seemed more capable.
There's an interview with the Defenders showrunner by Entertainment Weekly that reveals a lot about why the Hand plot was such a mess. There are basically two main reasons. Reason 1 - They had no long term plan for the Hand. They were just making stuff up as they went along. The Defenders showrunner actually said that Madame Gao was grinding up the dragon bones, the very limited quantity of mystical substance they need to stay alive, and putting it into her heroin. Reason 2 - Writers from the different shows were not talking to each other. So basically, the Iron Fist writers had no idea what the Daredevil writers wanted to do with the Hand and just made up their own stuff. The Defenders writers had no idea what the Iron Fist writers wanted to do with the Hand and made up their own stuff.
+KingOfMadCows Well that's just disappointing.You'd think that due to the success of the first two seasons of Daredevil that whatever plan they had for the Hand would've been something interesting and entertaining. But nope, turns out they had issues with what to do with them.
KingOfMadCows How could they fucking produce a show like this? No proper sit down and discussion moments? They just half-assed through a plot at each other and tripped over each other until 8 episodes of bland nonsense was created? This is ridiculous and not the kind of shit that Marvel loving creators should tolerate
Well, to be fair - there's nothing wrong with making up stuff as you go along. That's what the MCU did with Thanos - when he was first introduced in 'The Avengers', no one had any idea how they were actually going to use him. And they continued to tease him for years (in GOTG, in Ultron, in GOTG2) without ever having a plan for him, until Infinity War. And yet - Thanos worked GREAT in Infinity War, IMO. He sucked in all of the previous teases, but he was awesome when he actually got to take center-stage. The same could have been done with the Hand. So, I don't blame the lack of long-term planning. I blame the showrunners of 'The Defenders', which just didn't do a good enough job.
They are the mortal enemy of the Immortal Iron Fist, protector of Kun Lun and sworn enemy of the Hand, who are the sworn mortal enemies of Kun Lun. I'm Danny Rand, btw. You know, Danny Rand? I'm the Immortal Iron Fist, Danny Rand!
Fucking Slayer I can tolerate a lot of shit sometimes but I really didn't like Iron Fist first of all his character is inconsistent he supposed to be a child on the inside because he spent 15 years in kunlun yet at some points in the series he acts like a competent adult and in others he acts like a child like he was supposed to there's no progression for his character there's no narrative Arc will there was an attempted one but it didn't work so it doesn't count honestly I would have made the entire series shorter 8 episodes like the Defenders; what I liked about the Defenders is that it was paced well nothing ever felt like it dragged on but Iron Fist I felt like they could have found out who he was in episode 1 because episodes 1 through 4 were a nightmare
If you look at Daredevil, they were definitely putting in clues implying that Black Sky is meant to be possessed by some kind of spirit or demon, possibly the Beast. Nobu talks about "the Rising" and implies that there's something in the hole that's linked to the Black Sky. He also says that the Black Sky is supposed to lead the Hand and offers to serve Elektra. The kids they kidnapped in season 2 weren't just having their blood drained, they were having their blood replaced by some kind of unknown organic substance. It was also implied in Daredevil that Madame Gao is completely unrelated to the Hand and kind of sees them as being beneath her. She even worked against the Hand by offering Daredevil information about them. But Iron Fist screwed all that up.
Yeah, one reason why they were so disappointing in Defenders is because they set them up actually pretty well in Daredevil. They seemed like a genuine threat and it makes you wonder how he could take on such an ancient organization with this mystical plan. It sets up so much potential and so many simple ways to make it work, and proceeds to do none of those for some reason. Seriously, what producer watched the final cut and said, "yeah, this nonsensical corporate version of the hand, led by this generic, non-ninja, straight from a teen sci-fi flick, leader woman who's only motivation is wanting Elecktra to become her child and that's about it, would be the best version for our netflix team up event, so much so that we should focus on their strange relationships and non-chemistry for more time than we should show the Defenders actually fighting together and working together as a team - in a show called the Defenders"
Exactly! Thank you! They never explained the blood, and Gao was definitely separate from Nobu. Maybe they'll continue with some shadowlands stuff in Defenders season 2. We never saw Gao and Merikami die.
Yep, Ironfist contradicted almost everythig said in DareDevilk Nobu literally said "you won't be the only Demon to walk the streets" And Gao warned DareDevill about the hand, and that he should do something about them, rather than finding the drug dealers
In the comics, the Hand is a Ninja Death Cult worshiping a pre-history Japanese Demon. In the show, they are... nothing in particular, really. In the comics, their leadership is mysterious and ominous, to the point that they don't even have identities of their own; they are ALL the Hand. In the show, the leadership is a guy with a knife who shows up twice, and then some people overacting in a boardroom, and also Sigourney Weaver who is completely wasted. In the comics, Elektra joined the Chaste, and was sent to infiltrate the cult as a double agent by Stick. In the show, she is "the Chosen One" with a "Destiny" and no agency. In the comics, the Hand's attempts to resurrect her as a perfect weapon were stopped and then corrected by Daredevil and one of Stick's allies. In the show, she's an empty vessel and then evil and then an idiot and then dead, again. In the comics, the Hand want to bring about the end times and hand humanity over to the Biblical "Beast". In the show, they dig a hole in the ground and collect some bones. I don't mind that it's different... I mind that it's bad. Lesson: changing just about everything that made them work in the beginning was a bad call. Oops. Hope "The Punisher" is good, though...
tonystark106422 pretty sure if they operated in the same way here people would say there's no real threat seemingly because they don't have a face detaching them from the heros. And if they bought back a biblical beast people would deff complain about that
I hated how many times the defenders repeat the same speech about how evil the Hand is, and how they are in war with them, yet in the show they barely show the Hand doing Evil things. I swear, they copy/pasted the same lines of dialog about the Hand like 6 times, along with the one of Danny Rand saying he is the iron fist.
Through the whole of Defenders I was waiting for a massacre to happen at the police station. it would have really given TheHand some credibility as a threat.
Stuart J.A. And above all, they became GENERIC. What's sad is that Marvel Netflix villains have generally been pretty great! Kingpin, Nobu, Killgrave, Cottonmouth, and to a lesser extent Diamondback and Mariah, were all awesome. Then we come to Defenders and all the bad guys are horribly uninteresting. Even Gao is less interesting by virtue of being hamfistedly connected to the Hand. She should have been the Crane Mother.
Marvel. Thalia I think because Perlmutter has little power to things unmarketable/unknown to the public (unlike the MCC who generalize the hell out of great potential ex: Thor 2, Iron-Man 2, 3, AOU, Ant-Man, even though I liked some of these movies). GOTG is straight up Gunn's creativity/passion realized. After 2015, it's not there anymore and seems to me that the highest draw aka Netflix is controlled as all hell. Phase 2 suffered the most because Perlmutter and Phase 3 shines THE BEST without Perlmutter. And remember, Scott Buck ruined Dexter, unhireable buuutt cheap. Perlmutter is a cheap racist asshole, him hired for Iron Fist and Inhumans makes so much sense.
The Hand is bar none the worst part of Marvel-Netflix. Every time it comes into the picture, everything gets bogged down and it hurts the quality. For instance, I think Elektra's a great character and Elodie Yung performs her to perfection, but she always got stuck with this boring and repetitive storyline. Some people say they shudder to think what Daredevil season 2 would have been like without The Punisher. But I'd say they found out with Iron Fist. Even the critics think so. The Netflix shows that don't, or barely, feature The Hand all scored 90+% on Rotten Tomatoes. Thankfully, with the ending of The Defenders, it seems The Hand will be out of the picture indefinitely. I'm excited to see the likes of Kingpin and Black Mariah back in the picture. Not to mention The Punisher.
For as much as I liked Defenders, the Hand definitely felt meh. They just didn't compare to the other villains the Netflix Marvel stuff had set up, specifically Fisk, Killgrave and Cottonmouth. With those villains there's something real about them, but the Hand just feels like it's fake, if that makes sense. Like, it's so obviously fictional compared to everything else that I can't take it seriously. Idk, to me Marvel's Netflix shows work better when they're more grounded in reality instead of mysticism and magic.
One way It could work would be to make it more real by commenting on real life cults and fanatics. Marvel shows enjoy being edgy, so adding in some uncomfortable details of cult mentality could be a great way to make a cult of assassin ninjas feel grounded somewhat.
Agent SuperArgo also in the TMNT universe Matt Murdock was holding the turtles before the chemical spill. So in that universe the accident that made Daredevil also made the turtles.
Good shit my guy. That demon part at the end should have been included. Cause the show never manages to make Elektra interesting enough to be a driving antagonistic force like they wanted to. That, and I never bought that she was as great a warrior as the shows wanted us to believe.
Great video. But i think the Hand's problems in the show are just an expansion of what their problem in the comic books was too: That they were always too nebulous. Their goal was never very clear and in the whole Marvel universe, their world threatening plans seem much smaller in comparison to the likes of Hydra or cosmic threats. It's why Kingpin, Killgrave and Punisher have worked much better in these shows. Those don't pretend to be world changing threats, just people with their ideals who are doing stuff that's oposed to the main heroes. While Frank Miller handled them better, many of their weaknesses as villain were still present in his stories.
The Chitauri army was more believable than the Hand in Defenders - because you don't know anything about them as they are just the tools of the real antagonist Loki - they could have motivations but being in a battle, the team doesn't get any time to know them, or really care to. The Hand, on the other hand ( ;) ), are the show's main antagonist who you come to know far more than you ever wanted to, and when put together makes absolutely no sense - their abilities make no sense - the characters are really out of place for an ancient shadow organization with that much influence - and they aren't threatening at all. The Chitauri was at least a fun threat to watch the Avengers fight together.
The Hand are boring because they are overplayed and were misused. they were good only in the first season of Daredevil. there were so many small hints in daredevil one and two regarding Iron fist they built my anticipation. Everybody who knows even a little bit about Marvel comics knows that Irion Fist has absolutely nothing to do with the Hand. making the Hand, into enemies of K'un-Lun was just pure unoriginality and laziness. It is clear that Madame Gao was not intended to be a member of the hand when she was created, and I waited anxiously to discover who is her true master and how he is connected to the iron fist, and why the drugs they manufactured connected to Steel Serpent. Iron Fist and the Defenders creators took all this enticing material the creators of Derdavle created for them... and threw it out the window. the Chaste and the hand have nothing to do with Iron fist and K'un-Lun. Iron fist villans are about as unknown and obscure as Luke Cage's villains, but the creators of Luke Cage took the time and effort to look at the comics, find his traditional villans and do something intriguing with them, the creators of Iron fist didn't bother to draw any thing from the source material at all.
For me, the Hand was good only for most of S2 of DD. It was cool and scary when they were super ninjas who could mask their breathing and we didn't really know who the leaders were and they weren't involved in the business world. Having DD and Iron Fist easily beat dozens of them no problem made the soldier seem weak. Electra being a chose one was annoying. Having the leaders be easily beaten and seem like pretty normal was even worse (Madame Gao's super punch was cool and I think that's what all of them should've been imo. Mysterious and super powerful. Not like Bakuto and Alexandra. I mean). I think a regular Hand ninja (the ones dressed like ones. There could still be recruits who are like the ones in the later episodes) should've been almost at DD level. So, that fighting more than one at a time would feel intense. Like, imagine if every Ninja would be on Nobu's level. With the leader(s) being ad good at fighting as DD, but with the strength of Jessica Jones. Maybe some superhuman durability too, IDK. Like have one of them be so powerful that all of the Defender have to beat him/her together. Not that one woman who was trained for a few decades can beat one in a one on one fight.
All of them being Nobu level would be stupid. They would be overpowered. I dont mind them being a bit of fodder, What I hate is their commanders were not impressive. For God sake's Daredevil was beating NOBU'S BOSS while Nobu always gave Daredevil a hard time. I wish they were built up better too. Like each season or show introduced us to the leaders like they did with the defenders. Nobu's boss should have been far more dangerous, when I heard about him I thought he would be impossible to fight but nope. Gao randomly becoming part of the hand made no sense either
Timeyin Sholaye That’s the point . They need to be powerful for their to be a reason for the heroes having to team up to beat them you know nothing Jon Snow :
The one solution to this problem was doing what Marvel did in The Avengers. The chituari aren't interesting, they're just mindless drones basically. But it works because their leader Loki is a compelling villain. Hence, from the start, they should have introduced one main leader of the Hand and built up this character as a legitimate threat but also making sure the villain had understandable motivation. Also, how come in The Defenders none of the Hand soldiers are dressed like ninjas anymore?
"That is so cool, why would you leave that out?" You know why, the same reason we still haven't seen K'un Lun or the dragon, the same reason the shows will never truly cross over with the movies: Money. Despite both Netflix and Disney having more than enough resources to probably pull it off, they just won't.
The Hand just didn't feel or look like the hand to me. They were straight up Ninjas in Daredevil Season 2 and then in Defenders they were just regular looking thugs???
And the leaders all living in some million pound penthouse having ‘boardrooms’ etc when they should be Japanese people in temples. The Hand should’ve been a Japanese ninja only cult, They honestly lost the plot
I actually want to see The Mandarin in Defenders S2, because now would be a good time to do The Ten Rings right! The way they were handled in the movies could’ve been a lot better, and since they were presented like a terror group, it would make sense to use that in a TV universe meant to be grounded in reality. I know there are actual ten rings involved and maybe they could tie this into Iron Fist somehow, like maybe make the ten rings the Marvel Netflix version of the Infinity Stones?
The 'real' Mandarin needs a movie. I actually like how they used the name in Ironman 3 but they also implied that there was a 'real' one out there. An Ironman/Defenders/maybe some other avengers crossover would be great. Maybe have season 2 lead into the film. Hammer could show up to help out? (I'm just spitballing now)
Steven Song I know why, because they didn’t want to “offend” Chinese audiences and that’s where they get their financing, and China and other Asian countries are a good market to help boost major studio movies.
Definitely have a point! It just that I vaguely recall reading Feige interview about how he couldn't set up The Mandarin with Ten Rings in Iron Man 1. P.S. In my aforementioned comment, I meant to say, "I still can't get over the fact that Feige, Black didn't put faithful Mandarin."
Censorship law in China is very strict about how it's people and culture are depicted. Anything not aligning with the government's view of China is forbidden. It's the reason we never see anything Chinese in Marvel movies, it's why Doctor Strange was moved from Tibet to Nepal, and The Ancient One is played by Tilda Swinton.
The thing is that Netflix's serialized format is clashing with Marvel's episodic format. Alias, Daredevil, Iron Fist and Luke Cage are comic book series that don't have single story arcs that can be turned into 13 hours of TV. They need to adapt more than one arc per season. This characters have several enemies and several stories, writing their shows as if they were "House of Cards" creates a lot of problems. One of them is trying to make The Hand "mysterious" while constantly having to cut back to what them in their evil lair. Those scenes are useless filler, but they think that they need them to create an 8-hour miniseries and two 13-hour seasons. It's ridiculous.
Agreed. If they insist on doing 13 episodes, they're gonna need to throw in more story arcs and different villains. It's so boring waiting 13 hours for the hero to get their shit together to fight the one enemy they could have probably defeated in the first episode. I never understood what Luke Cage was waiting around for? Look at your typical Spider-Man comic. It'll open up with him defeating some lower level villain in a fun way and then the plot for the larger villain develops aside from that. Defenders is just, "We need to defeat the Hand. The Hand is our sworn enemy." 10 hours later "Still working on defeating the Hand. Lots of ninjas. Much punching. Almost done. Ok that's it."
Yeah I agree that they're basically just a blob of conflict rather than villains. Which is a problem when good villains are half the strength of the Marvel Netflix shows IMO. The Five Fingers of The Hand actually have a good motivation too, they want the dragon blood hidden behind the door that only the Iron Fist can open so that they can remain immortal because they're scared of death, which isn't nearly complex enough to warrant three seasons of buildup. Heck, the only villain with a simpler motivation was Kilgrave who just wanted to own Jessica, and that wasn't really left a mystery, it was very explicit which is why he was scary.
Let's be honest: the reason Marvel left out The Beast is because, with Sigourney Weaver leading the hand, they knew it would result in too many "Zuul is coming!" jokes.
The personal conflict is super important. Watching this makes me think of TMNT, since the whole conflict of the Foot verses Splinter and the Turtles was almost a parody of the Hand, Stick and Daredevil. But in, TMNT the conflict works, because Saki and Yoshi have real, personal history, and Splinter's relationship to the turtles is actually fatherly. None of the characters cared about Stick enough for him to really be a uniting force. The only character that would have done that is Clare, and again, the Hand is just too nebulous for that to work.
How could the Hand not be boring. What do you want...for the 5 members of the Hand to tell jokes, do hand springs down the hall, and play practical jokes that makes everyone laugh?
The highest rated Marvel Netflix outings Luke Cage Daredevil Season 1 Jessica Jones The lowest Daredevil Season 2 The Defenders Iron Fist Notice that all 3 of the stories that revolved around The Hand were not met with the same acclaim as those that did not. The whole thing is ridiculous. I watch these fights involving swords and karate and can't help but think of Indy pulling his revolver.
I agree with your points and want to add 1 more. The show runners were focused on bringing the Defenders together organically(not just a lucky coincidence everybody together in episode one) that by the time the team was together all the conflict and Electra stuff had to get squeezed into what time was left.
Hard to fear a league of highly trained ninja assassins that can't take a single punch from a regular guy. You really need 4 superhumans to take down this threat? The Punisher could literally walk into a room and wipe them out without sweating. Luke Cage should have been able to stop all of them. There was no threat, you're just waiting for the team to get their shit together and go do what they keep talking about doing.
Great video as always! I agree with a LOT of what you say in this video - the Hand IS misused in the Netflix shows, and that misuse does make them boring, and I do think giving them essentially the same tactics and motivations as Hydra in Agents of SHIELD dilutes their potency. But I don't think the pacing of their introduction, or how they're incorporated into the shows (at first) is really an issue. Technically, the Hand are introduced in Daredevil S1, an unnamed, mysterious organization with mysterious goals, and Stick drops by to manipulate Matt into helping him stop them, and then leaves without explaining their purpose or origins. Then, a year later, Season 2 of Daredevil only reveals them as the main antagonists halfway through the season. This is essentially the same pacing you described in the comics. My big issue with the Hand on Netflix is that, to be used as the main antagonist of the entire franchise, they needed a singular vision to define and guide them through all these shows. Hydra works in the movies because Feige (and for a while, Whedon) plotted it out. Hell, TV Hydra works because all of its machinations are limited to one series with the same showrunners. The Hand on Netflix has switched hands from Drew Goddard to Steven DeKnight to Marco Ramirez & Doug Petrie to Scott Fucking Buck to just Marco Ramirez trying frantically to tie it all together at the end, and they feel exactly as schizophrenic as that would imply. And the BIG problem came when someone decided they should be the main antagonist of the Iron Fist, because that required them to bend and twist what was already established about the Hand and Madame Gao so much that they broke both. Go back and watch DD S1 -- Gao was never supposed to be part of the Hand. She was never supposed to be exiled from K'un Lun. The Black Sky was never supposed to be the Hand's leader, it was supposed to be a weapon, or maybe a component in a ritual, but there's supposed to be MANY of them, not just one they've been searching for 30 years. The Black Sky stuff could have been salvaged (which is why I don't place all blame on DD S2), but shoehorning the Hand's story into Iron Fist's (thereby carving away everything interesting about the Iron Fist's actual origins), and then tossing Madame Gao in with them instead of giving her her own unique story as was obviously intended, was a betrayal of all three. There was a right way through this narrative maze, but finding it required a singular vision. Instead it was like a bad game of Telephone (with Scott Fucking Buck being that dude in the middle who adds in words no one ever said).
I actually like The Hand who are one of my favorite evil groups of comic books, this Netflix's versions are just dull and underwhelming. Spot on the ninja costumes though.
ALSO I don't think a SINGLE "ninja" actually showed up as a "ninja" in The Defenders. Daredevil and Iron Fist showed them all decked out and fighting like ninjas and that just didn't happen in Defenders. Weird. Man, while I enjoyed the watch, once The Defenders was over, I was SO disappointed. The hand was boring, half of the story and Iron Fist's involvement didn't make any sense or consistency, etc. It was just a sad way to go.
In Daredevil S1 they were mysterious and interesting, after that it went downhill. They should've gone with the comic version and the demon they worship
I think The Punisher will work at least and be good. The story is about a man who's family is murdered and who lives only for vengeance. Like Jessica Jones he will also be involved with the shows villain or villains on a deeply personal level. We know his motives. We will likely learn theirs as well. I have to agree about The Hand, there is nothing to like or as villains to hate about them. In a table top RPG they would be the evil wizards who take over the land "because they're evil."
Its more fun to what matt fight a ninja than to explain a mystical ninja cult. It loses all the magic to explain them. There suppose to be canon foder, just ninjas to be fought.
I feel like you could make an entire multi part series about everything wrong with The Hand and Defenders in general. Don't even get me start on how Defenders suddenly makes the leap from simple evil ninja group to multi national world organization that for some reason only has ninjas even though only one of the members is actually Japanese????
Well, Westerners have been studying ninjitsu in Japan and their own countries since the '80s, so non-Asian ninjas in New York City are plausible. They would just be survivalist/militia people with muscles and automatic weapons, who shop from the Bud K Catalog and read Soldier of Fortune magazines!
The main thing that got me was how boring most of the fights in Defenders seemed in general - like none of the hits landed, no one got injured or even tired, it felt like watching a bunch of characters I really love and Danny rand appear in an episode of power rangers. The fact that they're a million secret skilled ninjas didn't help I've not liked the hand pretty much since their introduction in DD season 2 (and what it did to elektra as a character didn't leave a great impression either) but I thought they'd at least pull off something pretty okay. It just felt like a giant excuse for big fight scenes, when they could've done way more
I've never seen a "ultra-powerfull secret organization" to be entertaining villian. My hipothesis is that its because, if they are allpowerfull and allknowing, and hero has to defeat them, they must either be alldumb, or you have to show that there were not that powerfull, both cases are dissapointing. Or you can make the hero to be basicly god. which also doesn't work.
Yeah, the hand seemed like a scary and powerful threat in Daredevil Season 1 but by the end of Iron Fist I didn't even care. They looked especially weak as hell by the end of The Defenders, Luke and Jessica were taking down hand henchman with ease. MCU Netflix should have built up the hand for a few more seasons, it seemed rushed.
I had a somewhat similar question occur to me while watching the second season of Daredevil: _Why is it so hard to make ninjas look cool in live action?_ Seriously, they can look great in comics and animation and stuff, but whenever you put a real person in a ninja costume it just looks silly. And Daredevil managed to make, you know, _Daredevil_ look kinda awesome. Marvel is actually good at that.
My feelings exactly. It also made a lot of the dialogue trash. It just turned every scene into: the hand is evil, we have to stop the bad guys, they want power, we have to work together.
I thought they were collecting the blood and needed the substance to resurrect a Vampire then use that to introduce Blade and Moon Knight. It would've been cool
thanks for the video, i needed it today. and scott glen talking for 5 minutes is still gold in a show more about talking than choreography. specially the day he passes away.
This analysis gave me a little closure. Like it's ok that I didn't enjoy Defenders as much as I hoped I would (I still enjoyed it, but yeah, the hand were boring for these exact reasons) and also to help me understand what led to the decisions that led to them being boring.
The problem is that the Netflix stuff started to imply mysticism in Daredevil season 1 and then rapidly decided against it and wanted to base it in science and give explanations for everything. Cool Ninjas who appear and disappear, they go out of their way to say apparently every Ninja learned a complex route of tunnels throughout NYC. How boring is that? In Iron Fist they made the Hand basically recruiting Ninjas from Glee boarding school and again so boring, why did you explain that, why did you take away the mystery of the organisation? This recruitment bit isn't even necessary. All they had to do was act like they were the Chaste, have the boarding school be full of good people but the management of it be infiltrated by the Hand like Bukatuo. The Netflix shows suffer hugely from bad writing, an aversion to mysticism, poor ideas and worst of all poor budging (there's literally a scene in Jessica Jones, where she punches a fish tank and they follow it up with a shot on wet shoes, and every time she lands from 'flying' the actress basically jumps off a box out of camera like they used to do on 90s Lois and Clark, it's stupidly cheaply made for a Netflix show) If Netflix can't do these shows properly, they shouldn't have them.
I think the story in Defenders could have worked, but they had very poor setup. They needed to show Danny Rand IN Kun Lun, not just him talking about it all the time. Dr. Strange was actually training at a temple. That's what they needed to show Danny Rand doing. But the writers seemed to do everything they could to avoid Kun Lun, even killing the monks off-camera. They just had to start Danny in New York so they could prepare for the Defenders series. Making the Iron Fist series a mere stepping stone. I think the writers were kinda pressure into a bad situation with the Hand. In Daredevil, they alluded to a big battle that was supposed to happen in New York and they were handed the Hand and told "Do something with this." So they had to think of a city-wide conflict involving a bunch of generic ninja with no clear motivation. And all they could come up with is a localized conflict with just a brief mention that a larger area of New York could collapse. The five fingers of the Hand was an interesting idea, but the way they were presented, Wilson Fisk seemed more dangerous. I imagined Fisk would have just laughed at their organization and convinced Electra to work for him instead. The conflict between the Chaste and the Hand could have been interesting but we saw very little of the Chaste.The Defender's series just didn't have enough setup to tell the grand story they needed to tell. And perhaps not a big enough budget either.
I agree with the whole assessment of the hand being generally not the focus of most stories being the reason they were so meh in the show. But that argument completely ignores the show creators' input. They COULD have made it interesting, but super failed at it. In a sense the show felt to me like a boardroom mandated super TV event, rather than growing organically out of the previous shows.
Turns out Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel television, straight up told the writers not to write backstory for Nobu and Gao because “Nobody cares about Asian people”.
I was so excited for this show and I was blown away but Jessica Jones and daredevil but when I watched it I was so disappointed and I wasn't sure why, but you have definitely put it into words so thanks
I can't recall the context, but in the first season when Stick shows up, he kills the Black Sky. Who was holding the Black Sky at the docks? Were they members of the Hand?
Thing is, the Hand after DD Season 2 stopped being Ninjas, and just became Vague. Like, why did Gao become a Hand leader? Why did they kidnap kids? What happened to that guy Stick was talking to? Instead we just got BORING.
They couldn't use the Beast because the MCU is trying to be grounded that Fox's X-Men started thus removing any elements related to the supernatural (until they made the Dr. Strange movie).
Always found the Hand out of place in the Netflix shows. They conflicted with the gritty, realistic feel and tone the Netflix shows had been going for with DD season one and parts of JJ despite Kilgraves supernatural abilities. They especially conflicted with how DD season two handled the Punisher and the nuance writing being done there. With Frank, you saw very human emotions, conflicting morality for him and Matt, questions about the justice system and vigilante actions. Nelson and Murdock finally doing major lawyer work after the first season showed little of it. Then the Hand stuff comes in and we get zombie blood drained ghouls, overt ninjas in Hells Kitchen fighting with swords and arrows like it's the 18th century. Rambling mumble about the Black Sky again that did hardly anything to really grab attention. A by the numbers love triangle and stop the Orientals from bringing the war as Stick calls it. All of this and you still have the frank stuff going on contrasting it. It just feels lacking overall and this felt more so in IF and Defenders where they needed to hold the threat and focus more. Add in basically not giving one of the best actresses around anything to do and then killing her off for shock value and you can see why many find the Hand underwhelming. It's like how Diamondback in LC clashed with the Wire feel of LC that Cottonmouth and Mariah brought in the first half. Which just show how when the Netflix shows try to be comic booky, it comes up lacking, looks very pantomime and flat. They need to work on making sure that the villains fit with the tone, context and feel of Netflix shows. Kilgrave shows a supernatural villain can work if enough attention to detail is put in. Diamondback and the Hand show what happens when not enough is done.
Nontheless, Madame Gao is one of the most charismatic and enjoyable vilains in the whole MCU. A shame she's somewhat misused in Iron Fist and Defenders.
This is a really good video! You do something here that I've never seen before: analysis and critique of the Netflix shows made by comparing them to an informed reading of the original comic book source material. It often feels like there's two solitudes when it comes to this kind of reviewing. There's comic book readers who know that something is "off" but can't say why, and movie and TV fans who know why something works in those mediums, but can't talk about the concepts as they exist across media. You bridge that divide in this video, and it's really well done.
I couldn't understand why the Hand was obsessed with Black Sky so much! What if the former believed Elektra to be "the beast"? Could have been more convincing!
The answer to most of these questions are: 1. Budget 2. No time to think of things in the writer's room 3. Budget 4. "But this is what fans will recognize!" 5. Lack of general focus/narrative being pulled by too many bosses 6. Budget
Also, lacking of the ninja costumes. They only wore them in DD and for one scene of IF, but in Defenders they wore suits and regular attire, so it made them look too generic and unrecognizable as an actual ninja clan
Sooner or later I'm hoping people realize that "realism" is boring. I understand that a bunch of ninjas hiding in shadows and playing a subtle game is "realistic", but that doesn't make it "fun". And it's not just the TV show; it's the movies too. Batroc showed up in Captain America: Winter Soldier and I didn't even realize it was him because he was portrayed "realistically".
The problems with the Hand are A) Having five leaders, rather than a singular one B) To many plotholes C) Not focusing on the magical elements, while still clearly having magic
Netflix Daredevil introduced something called a "Black Sky," the one hint of a supernatural something before the series reminded us that this version of New York was recently invaded by space aliens. Why does Stick want it dead so bad? What did he mean that that kid isn't human? The phrase "Black Sky" isn't in the comics from what I can tell. Ominous! Turns out that it's a person with the special ability to... quickly become very skilled at martial arts.
![Eminem - Temporary (feat. Skylar Grey) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZaK9Wi5ho0o/mqdefault.jpg)
Even the Foot clan is more interesting than the Hand -- and they're a _parody_ of the Hand.
...somehow this is the best
Plus, the Ten Rings are even better than the Hand now 🤣
The Hand is technically in Daredevil in s1 and used so much better as a mysterious force than what they eventually became
I still don't understand why they ditched the Red Suits.
@Greg Elchert also in his second, and in the Final battle he nearly killed him for 100%, if Electra didn't sacrficed herself.
Exactly!!!!
The Hand being so boring is probably why, in Iron Fist, a lot of people found Ward Versus His Dad way more compelling than Danny Versus The Hand. Ward's conflict with his father is deeply personal, Danny's conflict with the Hand is just so...unclear. Danny can hardly even explain why he wants to fight them, beyond "Because I was trained to!"
13 hours of, "I'm meant to destroy the Hand."
-Ok. Then do it already.
-Well...I mean there's an awful lot of them. I've just got the one glowing fist.
-Then your training is useless! The Punisher could wrap this up in an afternoon.
You are totally right, Punisher could easily have dismantled The Hand all by himself. well the one from defenders and IF. the one from DD seemed more capable.
Pretty much 🤣
There's an interview with the Defenders showrunner by Entertainment Weekly that reveals a lot about why the Hand plot was such a mess. There are basically two main reasons.
Reason 1 - They had no long term plan for the Hand. They were just making stuff up as they went along. The Defenders showrunner actually said that Madame Gao was grinding up the dragon bones, the very limited quantity of mystical substance they need to stay alive, and putting it into her heroin.
Reason 2 - Writers from the different shows were not talking to each other. So basically, the Iron Fist writers had no idea what the Daredevil writers wanted to do with the Hand and just made up their own stuff. The Defenders writers had no idea what the Iron Fist writers wanted to do with the Hand and made up their own stuff.
KingOfMadCows Do you have a link? That sounds interesting
You gotta be ducking kidding me
+KingOfMadCows Well that's just disappointing.You'd think that due to the success of the first two seasons of Daredevil that whatever plan they had for the Hand would've been something interesting and entertaining. But nope, turns out they had issues with what to do with them.
KingOfMadCows How could they fucking produce a show like this? No proper sit down and discussion moments? They just half-assed through a plot at each other and tripped over each other until 8 episodes of bland nonsense was created? This is ridiculous and not the kind of shit that Marvel loving creators should tolerate
Well, to be fair - there's nothing wrong with making up stuff as you go along.
That's what the MCU did with Thanos - when he was first introduced in 'The Avengers', no one had any idea how they were actually going to use him. And they continued to tease him for years (in GOTG, in Ultron, in GOTG2) without ever having a plan for him, until Infinity War.
And yet - Thanos worked GREAT in Infinity War, IMO. He sucked in all of the previous teases, but he was awesome when he actually got to take center-stage. The same could have been done with the Hand.
So, I don't blame the lack of long-term planning. I blame the showrunners of 'The Defenders', which just didn't do a good enough job.
The Hand? Isn't that the enemy of the Immortal Iron fist, defender of Kun Lun!
Lord of Cinder sworn enemy of the living weapon the inmortal iron fist protector of kung lung indeed.
Nah, they're the enemy of Wolverine and Daredevil
They are the mortal enemy of the Immortal Iron Fist, protector of Kun Lun and sworn enemy of the Hand, who are the sworn mortal enemies of Kun Lun. I'm Danny Rand, btw. You know, Danny Rand? I'm the Immortal Iron Fist, Danny Rand!
ColtSteele Who!? Danny Rand!? But you're the sworn enemy of the hand the inmortal iron fist trained in kung lung to become his protector?
Fucking Slayer I can tolerate a lot of shit sometimes but I really didn't like Iron Fist first of all his character is inconsistent he supposed to be a child on the inside because he spent 15 years in kunlun yet at some points in the series he acts like a competent adult and in others he acts like a child like he was supposed to there's no progression for his character there's no narrative Arc will there was an attempted one but it didn't work so it doesn't count honestly I would have made the entire series shorter 8 episodes like the Defenders; what I liked about the Defenders is that it was paced well nothing ever felt like it dragged on but Iron Fist I felt like they could have found out who he was in episode 1 because episodes 1 through 4 were a nightmare
If you look at Daredevil, they were definitely putting in clues implying that Black Sky is meant to be possessed by some kind of spirit or demon, possibly the Beast.
Nobu talks about "the Rising" and implies that there's something in the hole that's linked to the Black Sky. He also says that the Black Sky is supposed to lead the Hand and offers to serve Elektra. The kids they kidnapped in season 2 weren't just having their blood drained, they were having their blood replaced by some kind of unknown organic substance.
It was also implied in Daredevil that Madame Gao is completely unrelated to the Hand and kind of sees them as being beneath her. She even worked against the Hand by offering Daredevil information about them.
But Iron Fist screwed all that up.
Exactly what came to mind after Patrick's video! Mix Black Sky & the Beast materials! Adapt comic books with inspiration!
Yeah, one reason why they were so disappointing in Defenders is because they set them up actually pretty well in Daredevil. They seemed like a genuine threat and it makes you wonder how he could take on such an ancient organization with this mystical plan.
It sets up so much potential and so many simple ways to make it work, and proceeds to do none of those for some reason.
Seriously, what producer watched the final cut and said, "yeah, this nonsensical corporate version of the hand, led by this generic, non-ninja, straight from a teen sci-fi flick, leader woman who's only motivation is wanting Elecktra to become her child and that's about it, would be the best version for our netflix team up event, so much so that we should focus on their strange relationships and non-chemistry for more time than we should show the Defenders actually fighting together and working together as a team - in a show called the Defenders"
Exactly! Thank you! They never explained the blood, and Gao was definitely separate from Nobu. Maybe they'll continue with some shadowlands stuff in Defenders season 2. We never saw Gao and Merikami die.
Well it’s actually been confirmed they were making it up as they went along. They didn’t have an overall plan from the get-go like the films do.
Yep, Ironfist contradicted almost everythig said in DareDevilk
Nobu literally said "you won't be the only Demon to walk the streets"
And Gao warned DareDevill about the hand, and that he should do something about them, rather than finding the drug dealers
In the comics, the Hand is a Ninja Death Cult worshiping a pre-history Japanese Demon.
In the show, they are... nothing in particular, really.
In the comics, their leadership is mysterious and ominous, to the point that they don't even have identities of their own; they are ALL the Hand.
In the show, the leadership is a guy with a knife who shows up twice, and then some people overacting in a boardroom, and also Sigourney Weaver who is completely wasted.
In the comics, Elektra joined the Chaste, and was sent to infiltrate the cult as a double agent by Stick.
In the show, she is "the Chosen One" with a "Destiny" and no agency.
In the comics, the Hand's attempts to resurrect her as a perfect weapon were stopped and then corrected by Daredevil and one of Stick's allies.
In the show, she's an empty vessel and then evil and then an idiot and then dead, again.
In the comics, the Hand want to bring about the end times and hand humanity over to the Biblical "Beast".
In the show, they dig a hole in the ground and collect some bones.
I don't mind that it's different...
I mind that it's bad.
Lesson: changing just about everything that made them work in the beginning was a bad call. Oops.
Hope "The Punisher" is good, though...
I really hope so, too!
Perfect 👌 statement
tonystark106422 pretty sure if they operated in the same way here people would say there's no real threat seemingly because they don't have a face detaching them from the heros. And if they bought back a biblical beast people would deff complain about that
tonystark106422
They made them a Leauge Of Shadows ripoff minus the motive (Which was what made the Leauge awesome)
tonystark106422
They made them a Leauge Of Shadows ripoff minus the motive (Which was what made the Leauge awesome)
I hated how many times the defenders repeat the same speech about how evil the Hand is, and how they are in war with them, yet in the show they barely show the Hand doing Evil things. I swear, they copy/pasted the same lines of dialog about the Hand like 6 times, along with the one of Danny Rand saying he is the iron fist.
Through the whole of Defenders I was waiting for a massacre to happen at the police station. it would have really given TheHand some credibility as a threat.
@@dotcom2429 To be honest, that would of made them more of a threat.
I also think many arguments between the characters are unnecessary and repitative
The Hand succumbed to the MCU villain curse.
Idiotic, bland and disgustingly underpowered.
Stuart J.A. And above all, they became GENERIC. What's sad is that Marvel Netflix villains have generally been pretty great! Kingpin, Nobu, Killgrave, Cottonmouth, and to a lesser extent Diamondback and Mariah, were all awesome. Then we come to Defenders and all the bad guys are horribly uninteresting. Even Gao is less interesting by virtue of being hamfistedly connected to the Hand. She should have been the Crane Mother.
Well... Most actually seem way OVER-powered IMO. But other than that, I agree wholeheartedly.
Marvel movie villains are becoming less bland and more memorably better whilst all Televison fails.
Because Perlmutter.
bobbysworld281995 agents of SHIELD is good now.
Marvel. Thalia
I think because Perlmutter has little power to things unmarketable/unknown to the public (unlike the MCC who generalize the hell out of great potential ex: Thor 2, Iron-Man 2, 3, AOU, Ant-Man, even though I liked some of these movies). GOTG is straight up Gunn's creativity/passion realized.
After 2015, it's not there anymore and seems to me that the highest draw aka Netflix is controlled as all hell. Phase 2 suffered the most because Perlmutter and Phase 3 shines THE BEST without Perlmutter.
And remember, Scott Buck ruined Dexter, unhireable buuutt cheap. Perlmutter is a cheap racist asshole, him hired for Iron Fist and Inhumans makes so much sense.
The Hand is bar none the worst part of Marvel-Netflix. Every time it comes into the picture, everything gets bogged down and it hurts the quality. For instance, I think Elektra's a great character and Elodie Yung performs her to perfection, but she always got stuck with this boring and repetitive storyline. Some people say they shudder to think what Daredevil season 2 would have been like without The Punisher. But I'd say they found out with Iron Fist.
Even the critics think so. The Netflix shows that don't, or barely, feature The Hand all scored 90+% on Rotten Tomatoes. Thankfully, with the ending of The Defenders, it seems The Hand will be out of the picture indefinitely. I'm excited to see the likes of Kingpin and Black Mariah back in the picture. Not to mention The Punisher.
For as much as I liked Defenders, the Hand definitely felt meh. They just didn't compare to the other villains the Netflix Marvel stuff had set up, specifically Fisk, Killgrave and Cottonmouth. With those villains there's something real about them, but the Hand just feels like it's fake, if that makes sense. Like, it's so obviously fictional compared to everything else that I can't take it seriously. Idk, to me Marvel's Netflix shows work better when they're more grounded in reality instead of mysticism and magic.
Yes, that makes sense. Secret ninja organizations don't exist IRL; corrupt businessmen and serial rapists do.
One way It could work would be to make it more real by commenting on real life cults and fanatics. Marvel shows enjoy being edgy, so adding in some uncomfortable details of cult mentality could be a great way to make a cult of assassin ninjas feel grounded somewhat.
Hmm, thinking about it, that would've been pretty interesting to see.
TravenTalks agreed
yeah they were underwhelming and missing a cool factor
they fucking wasted Elektra's death by having Nobu kill her. they should have waited and have Bullseye do it, would have been way more impactfull
I watched Defenders out of some kind of duty. Wasn't into it though.
Brian Bagnall same I love marvel Netflix but I only watched it to support it
Brian Bagnall it's the lowest rated Marvel Netflix show yet.
alexh4319 that would be iron fist dear friend
ditto
The Foot Clan > The Hand
Sean Tuazon What's funny about that statement is that the Hand inspired the creation of the Foot.
the foot clan is a parody of the hand. or at least started out that way.
Sean Tuazon true
Sean Tuazon Did you know that the TNMNT were loosely based off of Daredevils comics.. Fact. Master Splinter is Stick, Foot Clan are the Hand..etc.
Agent SuperArgo also in the TMNT universe Matt Murdock was holding the turtles before the chemical spill. So in that universe the accident that made Daredevil also made the turtles.
Good shit my guy. That demon part at the end should have been included. Cause the show never manages to make Elektra interesting enough to be a driving antagonistic force like they wanted to. That, and I never bought that she was as great a warrior as the shows wanted us to believe.
Tissan Young Same goes for Iron Fist he was a wuss /
Great video. But i think the Hand's problems in the show are just an expansion of what their problem in the comic books was too: That they were always too nebulous. Their goal was never very clear and in the whole Marvel universe, their world threatening plans seem much smaller in comparison to the likes of Hydra or cosmic threats. It's why Kingpin, Killgrave and Punisher have worked much better in these shows. Those don't pretend to be world changing threats, just people with their ideals who are doing stuff that's oposed to the main heroes.
While Frank Miller handled them better, many of their weaknesses as villain were still present in his stories.
That's literally what he said.
Hand was basically the Chitauri Army once again. Boring and un-engaging.
The Chitauri army was more believable than the Hand in Defenders - because you don't know anything about them as they are just the tools of the real antagonist Loki - they could have motivations but being in a battle, the team doesn't get any time to know them, or really care to.
The Hand, on the other hand ( ;) ), are the show's main antagonist who you come to know far more than you ever wanted to, and when put together makes absolutely no sense - their abilities make no sense - the characters are really out of place for an ancient shadow organization with that much influence - and they aren't threatening at all. The Chitauri was at least a fun threat to watch the Avengers fight together.
Or Malakith the Dark Elf.
The Hand was Perfect in Daredevil.
The Hand are boring because they are overplayed and were misused. they were good only in the first season of Daredevil.
there were so many small hints in daredevil one and two regarding Iron fist they built my anticipation.
Everybody who knows even a little bit about Marvel comics knows that Irion Fist has absolutely nothing to do with the Hand. making the Hand, into enemies of K'un-Lun was just pure unoriginality and laziness. It is clear that Madame Gao was not intended to be a member of the hand when she was created, and I waited anxiously to discover who is her true master and how he is connected to the iron fist, and why the drugs they manufactured connected to Steel Serpent.
Iron Fist and the Defenders creators took all this enticing material the creators of Derdavle created for them... and threw it out the window.
the Chaste and the hand have nothing to do with Iron fist and K'un-Lun.
Iron fist villans are about as unknown and obscure as Luke Cage's villains, but the creators of Luke Cage took the time and effort to look at the comics, find his traditional villans and do something intriguing with them, the creators of Iron fist didn't bother to draw any thing from the source material at all.
For me, the Hand was good only for most of S2 of DD.
It was cool and scary when they were super ninjas who could mask their breathing and we didn't really know who the leaders were and they weren't involved in the business world.
Having DD and Iron Fist easily beat dozens of them no problem made the soldier seem weak. Electra being a chose one was annoying. Having the leaders be easily beaten and seem like pretty normal was even worse (Madame Gao's super punch was cool and I think that's what all of them should've been imo. Mysterious and super powerful.
Not like Bakuto and Alexandra. I mean).
I think a regular Hand ninja (the ones dressed like ones. There could still be recruits who are like the ones in the later episodes) should've been almost at DD level. So, that fighting more than one at a time would feel intense. Like, imagine if every Ninja would be on Nobu's level.
With the leader(s) being ad good at fighting as DD, but with the strength of Jessica Jones. Maybe some superhuman durability too, IDK. Like have one of them be so powerful that all of the Defender have to beat him/her together.
Not that one woman who was trained for a few decades can beat one in a one on one fight.
Agreed, and then Iron Fist ruined them.
Timppa 3 I don't think every one should be on DD level just a credible threat yknow
i feel u
All of them being Nobu level would be stupid. They would be overpowered. I dont mind them being a bit of fodder, What I hate is their commanders were not impressive. For God sake's Daredevil was beating NOBU'S BOSS while Nobu always gave Daredevil a hard time. I wish they were built up better too. Like each season or show introduced us to the leaders like they did with the defenders. Nobu's boss should have been far more dangerous, when I heard about him I thought he would be impossible to fight but nope. Gao randomly becoming part of the hand made no sense either
Timeyin Sholaye That’s the point . They need to be powerful for their to be a reason for the heroes having to team up to beat them you know nothing Jon Snow :
So many great video essays dropping today. Fantastic job on this, man.
Hey Houston! Love your videos!
what else has dropped? I'm in need of new shit to follow
Gui Deandrade Just Write's new video (I saw him commenting on that)
There was also "Why Apple Needs Samsung" from Nerdwriter
Oh shit it's you
The one solution to this problem was doing what Marvel did in The Avengers. The chituari aren't interesting, they're just mindless drones basically. But it works because their leader Loki is a compelling villain. Hence, from the start, they should have introduced one main leader of the Hand and built up this character as a legitimate threat but also making sure the villain had understandable motivation. Also, how come in The Defenders none of the Hand soldiers are dressed like ninjas anymore?
"That is so cool, why would you leave that out?" You know why, the same reason we still haven't seen K'un Lun or the dragon, the same reason the shows will never truly cross over with the movies: Money. Despite both Netflix and Disney having more than enough resources to probably pull it off, they just won't.
The Hand just didn't feel or look like the hand to me. They were straight up Ninjas in Daredevil Season 2 and then in Defenders they were just regular looking thugs???
Alex Love maybe they couldn't afford more ninja like outfits?
And the leaders all living in some million pound penthouse having ‘boardrooms’ etc when they should be Japanese people in temples. The Hand should’ve been a Japanese ninja only cult, They honestly lost the plot
I don't know why, but you holding a microphone instead of having a lavalier mic makes you memorable. Like the scenes on the rooftop.
That's really nice to hear. I only do it because I don't own a lav mic
I actually want to see The Mandarin in Defenders S2, because now would be a good time to do The Ten Rings right! The way they were handled in the movies could’ve been a lot better, and since they were presented like a terror group, it would make sense to use that in a TV universe meant to be grounded in reality. I know there are actual ten rings involved and maybe they could tie this into Iron Fist somehow, like maybe make the ten rings the Marvel Netflix version of the Infinity Stones?
The 'real' Mandarin needs a movie. I actually like how they used the name in Ironman 3 but they also implied that there was a 'real' one out there. An Ironman/Defenders/maybe some other avengers crossover would be great. Maybe have season 2 lead into the film.
Hammer could show up to help out? (I'm just spitballing now)
Dude! I still can't get over why Kevin Feige, Shane Black couldn't put real Mandarin in Iron Man 3!
#WastedOpportunity
Steven Song I know why, because they didn’t want to “offend” Chinese audiences and that’s where they get their financing, and China and other Asian countries are a good market to help boost major studio movies.
Definitely have a point! It just that I vaguely recall reading Feige interview about how he couldn't set up The Mandarin with Ten Rings in Iron Man 1.
P.S. In my aforementioned comment, I meant to say, "I still can't get over the fact that Feige, Black didn't put faithful Mandarin."
Censorship law in China is very strict about how it's people and culture are depicted. Anything not aligning with the government's view of China is forbidden. It's the reason we never see anything Chinese in Marvel movies, it's why Doctor Strange was moved from Tibet to Nepal, and The Ancient One is played by Tilda Swinton.
The thing is that Netflix's serialized format is clashing with Marvel's episodic format. Alias, Daredevil, Iron Fist and Luke Cage are comic book series that don't have single story arcs that can be turned into 13 hours of TV. They need to adapt more than one arc per season. This characters have several enemies and several stories, writing their shows as if they were "House of Cards" creates a lot of problems. One of them is trying to make The Hand "mysterious" while constantly having to cut back to what them in their evil lair. Those scenes are useless filler, but they think that they need them to create an 8-hour miniseries and two 13-hour seasons. It's ridiculous.
Agreed. If they insist on doing 13 episodes, they're gonna need to throw in more story arcs and different villains. It's so boring waiting 13 hours for the hero to get their shit together to fight the one enemy they could have probably defeated in the first episode. I never understood what Luke Cage was waiting around for?
Look at your typical Spider-Man comic. It'll open up with him defeating some lower level villain in a fun way and then the plot for the larger villain develops aside from that. Defenders is just, "We need to defeat the Hand. The Hand is our sworn enemy." 10 hours later "Still working on defeating the Hand. Lots of ninjas. Much punching. Almost done. Ok that's it."
The simplest way to do this would be for the Hand to attack the precinct where the heroes were keeping their loved ones.
"Telling us Iron Fist's destiny is to destroy the Hand isn't a compelling conflict."
Now replace this with Wonder Woman and Ares.
Yeah I agree that they're basically just a blob of conflict rather than villains. Which is a problem when good villains are half the strength of the Marvel Netflix shows IMO. The Five Fingers of The Hand actually have a good motivation too, they want the dragon blood hidden behind the door that only the Iron Fist can open so that they can remain immortal because they're scared of death, which isn't nearly complex enough to warrant three seasons of buildup. Heck, the only villain with a simpler motivation was Kilgrave who just wanted to own Jessica, and that wasn't really left a mystery, it was very explicit which is why he was scary.
Let's be honest: the reason Marvel left out The Beast is because, with Sigourney Weaver leading the hand, they knew it would result in too many "Zuul is coming!" jokes.
The Hand and Iron Fist suffered due to trying to crowbar the Hand into Danny's back story which has nothing to due with them.
The personal conflict is super important. Watching this makes me think of TMNT, since the whole conflict of the Foot verses Splinter and the Turtles was almost a parody of the Hand, Stick and Daredevil. But in, TMNT the conflict works, because Saki and Yoshi have real, personal history, and Splinter's relationship to the turtles is actually fatherly. None of the characters cared about Stick enough for him to really be a uniting force. The only character that would have done that is Clare, and again, the Hand is just too nebulous for that to work.
How could the Hand not be boring. What do you want...for the 5 members of the Hand to tell jokes, do hand springs down the hall, and play practical jokes that makes everyone laugh?
The hand at first was interesting and considering there were like 1000 ninjas in d2 but in defenders, were the fuck are the ninjas?
The highest rated Marvel Netflix outings
Luke Cage
Daredevil Season 1
Jessica Jones
The lowest
Daredevil Season 2
The Defenders
Iron Fist
Notice that all 3 of the stories that revolved around The Hand were not met with the same acclaim as those that did not. The whole thing is ridiculous. I watch these fights involving swords and karate and can't help but think of Indy pulling his revolver.
I agree with your points and want to add 1 more. The show runners were focused on bringing the Defenders together organically(not just a lucky coincidence everybody together in episode one) that by the time the team was together all the conflict and Electra stuff had to get squeezed into what time was left.
Hard to fear a league of highly trained ninja assassins that can't take a single punch from a regular guy. You really need 4 superhumans to take down this threat? The Punisher could literally walk into a room and wipe them out without sweating. Luke Cage should have been able to stop all of them. There was no threat, you're just waiting for the team to get their shit together and go do what they keep talking about doing.
The Hand is so boring because
*THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST, HAND OF KUN LUN HAS VANQUISHED THEM, AS IT WAS HIS D E S T I N Y*
Great video as always! I agree with a LOT of what you say in this video - the Hand IS misused in the Netflix shows, and that misuse does make them boring, and I do think giving them essentially the same tactics and motivations as Hydra in Agents of SHIELD dilutes their potency. But I don't think the pacing of their introduction, or how they're incorporated into the shows (at first) is really an issue. Technically, the Hand are introduced in Daredevil S1, an unnamed, mysterious organization with mysterious goals, and Stick drops by to manipulate Matt into helping him stop them, and then leaves without explaining their purpose or origins. Then, a year later, Season 2 of Daredevil only reveals them as the main antagonists halfway through the season. This is essentially the same pacing you described in the comics.
My big issue with the Hand on Netflix is that, to be used as the main antagonist of the entire franchise, they needed a singular vision to define and guide them through all these shows. Hydra works in the movies because Feige (and for a while, Whedon) plotted it out. Hell, TV Hydra works because all of its machinations are limited to one series with the same showrunners. The Hand on Netflix has switched hands from Drew Goddard to Steven DeKnight to Marco Ramirez & Doug Petrie to Scott Fucking Buck to just Marco Ramirez trying frantically to tie it all together at the end, and they feel exactly as schizophrenic as that would imply. And the BIG problem came when someone decided they should be the main antagonist of the Iron Fist, because that required them to bend and twist what was already established about the Hand and Madame Gao so much that they broke both. Go back and watch DD S1 -- Gao was never supposed to be part of the Hand. She was never supposed to be exiled from K'un Lun. The Black Sky was never supposed to be the Hand's leader, it was supposed to be a weapon, or maybe a component in a ritual, but there's supposed to be MANY of them, not just one they've been searching for 30 years. The Black Sky stuff could have been salvaged (which is why I don't place all blame on DD S2), but shoehorning the Hand's story into Iron Fist's (thereby carving away everything interesting about the Iron Fist's actual origins), and then tossing Madame Gao in with them instead of giving her her own unique story as was obviously intended, was a betrayal of all three.
There was a right way through this narrative maze, but finding it required a singular vision. Instead it was like a bad game of Telephone (with Scott Fucking Buck being that dude in the middle who adds in words no one ever said).
Joey Cruz Well said
I AM GROOOOT!
I gotta HAND it to you, Patrick, this was really well done
troyoboyo17 dat pun made me face palm 🤦♂️
I actually like The Hand who are one of my favorite evil groups of comic books, this Netflix's versions are just dull and underwhelming. Spot on the ninja costumes though.
ALSO I don't think a SINGLE "ninja" actually showed up as a "ninja" in The Defenders. Daredevil and Iron Fist showed them all decked out and fighting like ninjas and that just didn't happen in Defenders. Weird.
Man, while I enjoyed the watch, once The Defenders was over, I was SO disappointed. The hand was boring, half of the story and Iron Fist's involvement didn't make any sense or consistency, etc. It was just a sad way to go.
In Daredevil S1 they were mysterious and interesting, after that it went downhill. They should've gone with the comic version and the demon they worship
Because they are League of Assassins wannabe.
i still liked them. Reminded me of the Court of Owls. But i wish they did more.
Crushed it! I'm so hype you considered the suggestion
I think The Punisher will work at least and be good. The story is about a man who's family is murdered and who lives only for vengeance. Like Jessica Jones he will also be involved with the shows villain or villains on a deeply personal level. We know his motives. We will likely learn theirs as well. I have to agree about The Hand, there is nothing to like or as villains to hate about them. In a table top RPG they would be the evil wizards who take over the land "because they're evil."
Its more fun to what matt fight a ninja than to explain a mystical ninja cult. It loses all the magic to explain them. There suppose to be canon foder, just ninjas to be fought.
3:55 Little do we know that Kun Lun is just that one tiny room... The Hand were cast out because they can't fit anymore.
I only just caught up with Defenders - hence the delay watching this essay and your comment - but this killed me. 😂😂 Thank you.
I feel like you could make an entire multi part series about everything wrong with The Hand and Defenders in general. Don't even get me start on how Defenders suddenly makes the leap from simple evil ninja group to multi national world organization that for some reason only has ninjas even though only one of the members is actually Japanese????
Well, Westerners have been studying ninjitsu in Japan and their own countries since the '80s, so non-Asian ninjas in New York City are plausible. They would just be survivalist/militia people with muscles and automatic weapons, who shop from the Bud K Catalog and read Soldier of Fortune magazines!
when your sub box drops 3 video essays today and you're like. ok , thats cool, im fine with that
The main thing that got me was how boring most of the fights in Defenders seemed in general - like none of the hits landed, no one got injured or even tired, it felt like watching a bunch of characters I really love and Danny rand appear in an episode of power rangers. The fact that they're a million secret skilled ninjas didn't help
I've not liked the hand pretty much since their introduction in DD season 2 (and what it did to elektra as a character didn't leave a great impression either) but I thought they'd at least pull off something pretty okay. It just felt like a giant excuse for big fight scenes, when they could've done way more
I've never seen a "ultra-powerfull secret organization" to be entertaining villian. My hipothesis is that its because, if they are allpowerfull and allknowing, and hero has to defeat them, they must either be alldumb, or you have to show that there were not that powerfull, both cases are dissapointing. Or you can make the hero to be basicly god. which also doesn't work.
Yeah, the hand seemed like a scary and powerful threat in Daredevil Season 1 but by the end of Iron Fist I didn't even care. They looked especially weak as hell by the end of The Defenders, Luke and Jessica were taking down hand henchman with ease. MCU Netflix should have built up the hand for a few more seasons, it seemed rushed.
Dont know if anybody mentioned this already... but they feel far to similar to Ra's al Ghul/Damien Darhk/Lazarus Pit story line from Arrow.
Who would've thought a group of enemies who were faceless and had no individual identities would be boring?
I had a somewhat similar question occur to me while watching the second season of Daredevil: _Why is it so hard to make ninjas look cool in live action?_
Seriously, they can look great in comics and animation and stuff, but whenever you put a real person in a ninja costume it just looks silly. And Daredevil managed to make, you know, _Daredevil_ look kinda awesome. Marvel is actually good at that.
Hey random people scrolling through the comments, have a great day.
King Arthur I refuse
King Arthur thank you
Don't tell me what to do!!!
Jk, you too random person
King Arthur yo too
I have to go to work in a bit but I'll try
My feelings exactly. It also made a lot of the dialogue trash. It just turned every scene into: the hand is evil, we have to stop the bad guys, they want power, we have to work together.
I thought they were collecting the blood and needed the substance to resurrect a Vampire then use that to introduce Blade and Moon Knight. It would've been cool
Way better Evil Plan, too!
Would you ever do a episode just showing your comic book collection? I couldn't help pausing the video and trying to look at the shelves behind you!
thanks for the video, i needed it today.
and scott glen talking for 5 minutes is still gold in a show more about talking than choreography.
specially the day he passes away.
Good stories where the Hand is the main antagonist can be found in the TMNT comics ;D
It could’ve been a lot better. If they fleshed it out more. And they also just completely drop the ball on it halfway through
The Immortal Iron Fist graphic novel is hands down the best Iron Fist story I've ever read!
They really first showed up in Daredevil Season 1. Madam Gao and Nabu both being part of it and are pretty involved in Fisk plot
This analysis gave me a little closure. Like it's ok that I didn't enjoy Defenders as much as I hoped I would (I still enjoyed it, but yeah, the hand were boring for these exact reasons) and also to help me understand what led to the decisions that led to them being boring.
Yes. They shouldnt have been the major antagonist. It should have been a supernatural enemy.
The problem is that the Netflix stuff started to imply mysticism in Daredevil season 1 and then rapidly decided against it and wanted to base it in science and give explanations for everything. Cool Ninjas who appear and disappear, they go out of their way to say apparently every Ninja learned a complex route of tunnels throughout NYC. How boring is that? In Iron Fist they made the Hand basically recruiting Ninjas from Glee boarding school and again so boring, why did you explain that, why did you take away the mystery of the organisation? This recruitment bit isn't even necessary. All they had to do was act like they were the Chaste, have the boarding school be full of good people but the management of it be infiltrated by the Hand like Bukatuo. The Netflix shows suffer hugely from bad writing, an aversion to mysticism, poor ideas and worst of all poor budging (there's literally a scene in Jessica Jones, where she punches a fish tank and they follow it up with a shot on wet shoes, and every time she lands from 'flying' the actress basically jumps off a box out of camera like they used to do on 90s Lois and Clark, it's stupidly cheaply made for a Netflix show) If Netflix can't do these shows properly, they shouldn't have them.
2:00 Why wasn't the Hand trying to bring back The Beast? Big heckin' eldritch demon trying to ruin the world is a cromulent threat.
I think the story in Defenders could have worked, but they had very poor setup. They needed to show Danny Rand IN Kun Lun, not just him talking about it all the time. Dr. Strange was actually training at a temple. That's what they needed to show Danny Rand doing. But the writers seemed to do everything they could to avoid Kun Lun, even killing the monks off-camera. They just had to start Danny in New York so they could prepare for the Defenders series. Making the Iron Fist series a mere stepping stone.
I think the writers were kinda pressure into a bad situation with the Hand. In Daredevil, they alluded to a big battle that was supposed to happen in New York and they were handed the Hand and told "Do something with this." So they had to think of a city-wide conflict involving a bunch of generic ninja with no clear motivation. And all they could come up with is a localized conflict with just a brief mention that a larger area of New York could collapse.
The five fingers of the Hand was an interesting idea, but the way they were presented, Wilson Fisk seemed more dangerous. I imagined Fisk would have just laughed at their organization and convinced Electra to work for him instead. The conflict between the Chaste and the Hand could have been interesting but we saw very little of the Chaste.The Defender's series just didn't have enough setup to tell the grand story they needed to tell. And perhaps not a big enough budget either.
Because okuyasu only used it like twice
Even in the comics, the best thing about The Hand was the cool ninja costumes... and they scrapped the cool ninja costumes...
I agree with the whole assessment of the hand being generally not the focus of most stories being the reason they were so meh in the show. But that argument completely ignores the show creators' input. They COULD have made it interesting, but super failed at it. In a sense the show felt to me like a boardroom mandated super TV event, rather than growing organically out of the previous shows.
I hadnt even thought about it, but this makes perfect sense.
I think it would be neat to see you compare Marvel's the Hand ninja to TMNT's the Foot ninja.
Turns out Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel television, straight up told the writers not to write backstory for Nobu and Gao because “Nobody cares about Asian people”.
I was so excited for this show and I was blown away but Jessica Jones and daredevil but when I watched it I was so disappointed and I wasn't sure why, but you have definitely put it into words so thanks
I can't recall the context, but in the first season when Stick shows up, he kills the Black Sky. Who was holding the Black Sky at the docks? Were they members of the Hand?
Thing is, the Hand after DD Season 2 stopped being Ninjas, and just became Vague. Like, why did Gao become a Hand leader? Why did they kidnap kids? What happened to that guy Stick was talking to? Instead we just got BORING.
They couldn't use the Beast because the MCU is trying to be grounded that Fox's X-Men started thus removing any elements related to the supernatural (until they made the Dr. Strange movie).
Always found the Hand out of place in the Netflix shows. They conflicted with the gritty, realistic feel and tone the Netflix shows had been going for with DD season one and parts of JJ despite Kilgraves supernatural abilities. They especially conflicted with how DD season two handled the Punisher and the nuance writing being done there. With Frank, you saw very human emotions, conflicting morality for him and Matt, questions about the justice system and vigilante actions. Nelson and Murdock finally doing major lawyer work after the first season showed little of it. Then the Hand stuff comes in and we get zombie blood drained ghouls, overt ninjas in Hells Kitchen fighting with swords and arrows like it's the 18th century. Rambling mumble about the Black Sky again that did hardly anything to really grab attention. A by the numbers love triangle and stop the Orientals from bringing the war as Stick calls it. All of this and you still have the frank stuff going on contrasting it. It just feels lacking overall and this felt more so in IF and Defenders where they needed to hold the threat and focus more. Add in basically not giving one of the best actresses around anything to do and then killing her off for shock value and you can see why many find the Hand underwhelming. It's like how Diamondback in LC clashed with the Wire feel of LC that Cottonmouth and Mariah brought in the first half. Which just show how when the Netflix shows try to be comic booky, it comes up lacking, looks very pantomime and flat. They need to work on making sure that the villains fit with the tone, context and feel of Netflix shows. Kilgrave shows a supernatural villain can work if enough attention to detail is put in. Diamondback and the Hand show what happens when not enough is done.
Nontheless, Madame Gao is one of the most charismatic and enjoyable vilains in the whole MCU.
A shame she's somewhat misused in Iron Fist and Defenders.
Iron Fist was unwatchable. Defenders was only watchable. This really nails why. Sooooo boring
sean bowman are you ok? Does it hurt you personally that I don't like the same things you do?
The whole reason the hand was boring was because of the budget. They tried to make something big, but it didn't work the they wanted it to work.
This is a really good video! You do something here that I've never seen before: analysis and critique of the Netflix shows made by comparing them to an informed reading of the original comic book source material. It often feels like there's two solitudes when it comes to this kind of reviewing. There's comic book readers who know that something is "off" but can't say why, and movie and TV fans who know why something works in those mediums, but can't talk about the concepts as they exist across media. You bridge that divide in this video, and it's really well done.
Also there weren't any ninjas in Defenders, maybe in one scene, but thats it.
I want a full picture of your graphic novel/comics collection it seems huge.
I couldn't understand why the Hand was obsessed with Black Sky so much! What if the former believed Elektra to be "the beast"? Could have been more convincing!
The answer to most of these questions are:
1. Budget
2. No time to think of things in the writer's room
3. Budget
4. "But this is what fans will recognize!"
5. Lack of general focus/narrative being pulled by too many bosses
6. Budget
Isn't anyone going to mention how the Iron Fist has to defeat The Hand by his hand...?
Felt the same way. The hand bored me so much
I love how even the Foot is more interesting than the Hand.
Also, lacking of the ninja costumes. They only wore them in DD and for one scene of IF, but in Defenders they wore suits and regular attire, so it made them look too generic and unrecognizable as an actual ninja clan
Sooner or later I'm hoping people realize that "realism" is boring. I understand that a bunch of ninjas hiding in shadows and playing a subtle game is "realistic", but that doesn't make it "fun". And it's not just the TV show; it's the movies too. Batroc showed up in Captain America: Winter Soldier and I didn't even realize it was him because he was portrayed "realistically".
I liked the Defenders but they portrayed the Hand differently than in Daredevils series....they were more lethal and deadly in my opinion.
The problems with the Hand are
A) Having five leaders, rather than a singular one
B) To many plotholes
C) Not focusing on the magical elements, while still clearly having magic
I just love your video essays, Patrick!
Netflix Daredevil introduced something called a "Black Sky," the one hint of a supernatural something before the series reminded us that this version of New York was recently invaded by space aliens. Why does Stick want it dead so bad? What did he mean that that kid isn't human? The phrase "Black Sky" isn't in the comics from what I can tell. Ominous!
Turns out that it's a person with the special ability to... quickly become very skilled at martial arts.
in the iron fist the hand was seen as the boogyman, in the defenders yeah not so much boogyman
Great essay! This is essentially the ONLY thing that bothered me in Defenders.
Also, that comic book collection is every man-child's fantasy.