Marvel's The Defenders: Why is the Hand So Boring?

so I finally finished watching the defenders and the whole time there's one question that I can't stop thinking about why is it a hands so boring so far in Marvel's little Netflix mini universe they've made six seasons of television - for daredevil and one each for Jessica Jones Luke Cage iron fist and the defenders of those six three feature the hand as primary antagonists which is a problem they first show up in the second season of daredevil as an ancient society of ninjas that's also very involved in multinational corporations at first they seemed exciting since you know ninjas but this storyline quickly grows dull since there are no real characters in the hand just a general formless threat and the show seems to mistakenly think that adding more ninjas will create more drama then they're back again in iron fist again involved in corporate espionage and now linked to iron fists backstory since he apparently spent years in the mystical city of Kunlun training to fight the hand again they're this vague threat with unclear motives controlling things from behind the scenes but hey maybe it's all going to culminate in something interesting finally the hand takes center stage as the big bad in the defenders as we get to know their leaders and understand their goals while the heroes team up to stop them from destroying New York City but after all that mystery it turns out the leaders of the hand might as well be board members for some corporation and their grand plan is both boring and nonsensical they want to get iron fist to punch a wall to destroy New York so they can get a substance that will allow them to live forever apparently they use the last of the substance to resurrect Elektra because I guess they thought she might be helpful so where did the writers go wrong how did they take an inherently cool concept and make it distinctly uncool to find out let's go back to their comic book origins on paper a lot about the hands introduction in the show and comics is similar they were introduced by writer artist Frank Miller during his legendary story of the Elektra saga which is a major inspiration for both daredevil season 2 and the same pieces are there daredevil and electro fighting ninjas resurrections Electra's death stick in the chased waging an eternal war but the use of these pieces is very different so the hand er involved in an ancient ongoing war with a not quite so evil ninja organization called the chased of which Daredevils former mentors stick is a member so how did the show and comic deliver this information differently in the comic the hand enter the story occasionally but we never know much about them we know they're assassins for hire that they can resurrect the dead and that's pretty much it then more than a year into the story after Electress death stick says a few lines about how he's fighting this ongoing war against the hand and then he dies so that's all we know and all daredevil ever finds out oh yeah Black Widow is there too later we learned more about the traced in the hand in an extended flashback that follows Elektra through their worlds as she's trained to become a ninja the story pieces out bits of information about the hand to us over several years but they remain mysterious we never really know how they function and that's what makes them interesting the show takes a different approach right after daredevil first encounters some of the hands ninjas stic arrives sits down and proceeds to just to recite the hands entire Wikipedia entry it's a full five minutes that's just Scott Glenn sitting in the chair dumping info on the audience you know that old saying about show don't tell well the writers of these shows apparently don't and it becomes an ongoing problem with how the hand is presented and when we meet the hands leaders and find out their motivation that they were cast out of Kunlun it's very hard to care because even out of all these shows we never see Conlon not even an iron fist a show about a guy who spent 15 years there the most we see is a small room good drama comes from conflict the Marvel TV villains that have been effective all head clear strong conflicts with Wilson Fisk we understood his motivations and the ideological difference that brought him into conflict with daredevil kilgrave's conflict with Jessica Jones is deeply personal and drives that entire season story but with the hand the conflicts are nebulous the hand is involved in heroin distribution assassination shady corporate dealings in ancient war with the chaste and later on trying to destroy New York the motivations are unclear the goals are unclear and it makes the conflict unclear other than that the heroes are trying to stop them because they're just generally bad telling us iron fists destiny is to destroy the hand it doesn't make a compelling conflict the big problem that becomes clear over the course of these seasons is that the hand were never meant to be primary antagonists look at Miller's entire daredevil run and as often as the hand appear the main conflict is never with them most of the stories involve ongoing conflicts with the kingpin or bullseye and the hand show up because they're hired assassins out of Miller's 24 issues as a writer artist the hand only appear in eighth and in the comics daredevil never gets involved in the war between the hand and the traced he crosses paths with them a couple times but sick dies before he can even attempt to recruit him the only time daredevil actually teams up with the chased is at the very end of Miller's run as he's trying to get Electress dead body back from the hand before they can resurrect her as their new champion but in the defenders stick shows up and immediately ropes daredevil Jessica Jones Luke Cage and iron fist into joining his side in the war against the hand they get fully immersed in a conflict that in the source material mostly existed off to the side and the reason it existed off to the side is that it works better that way these are faceless organizations engaged in a war that has gone on for millennia that sounds cool but once you zoom in there's not much to latch on to and throughout the past 30 years of Marvel Comics it's hard to pinpoint a great story where the hand is the primary antagonist there are plenty where they're involved like the Wolverine story enemy of a state our Miller's own Elektra assassin but in these the hand tends to be a force that sets the story in motion are part of the backstory are sometimes the story will focus on just one of their agents like Lady bullseye to my knowledge there are no great stories about stopping the hand from taking over the world in Marvel's Netflix shows the writers tried to reconfigure the hand into something they weren't meant to be and lost sight of what made them interesting they made ninjas boring and that's just unacceptable also this is a small note but these shows left out one of the coolest things about the hand that their champion at any given time is possessed by a demon they worship call to the Beast that's so cool why would you leave that out hey guys thank you for watching and thank you to my buddy will Carmack for giving me the idea for this video if you like this and want new videos that are kind of like this every single week you should probably subscribe them this video is brought to you by Squarespace if you want to make a website they want to be a really simple easy process but still look great than the Squarespace is the obvious choice they have beautiful award-winning designer templates picking a domain name is really really easy nothing to install or upgrade no annoying stuff like that there's 24-hour customer service it has a lot going for it and for 10% off your first purchase go to Squarespace comm / Patric my name the link is in the description now if you like me you were frustrated by the defenders and want something similar but much better I would highly recommend the original Frank Miller's daredevil run which I talked about a bunch in this video it's great and also the immortal Iron Fist by Matt Fraction Ed Brubaker and David aaja which is like a hundred times better than the Iron Fist show it's great you should check those out if you wanna help us make more of these videos because you like what we're doing use check out the patreon if you want to yell at me about anything and get updates on the new things we're working on you should follow me on all the social media links and I will see you next Wednesday

Channel: Patrick (H) Willems

Views: 171,012

Rating: 4.9172754 out of 5

Keywords: patrick willems, lumberjack films, patrickhwillems, the defenders, the hand, marvel, netflix, daredevil, the chaste, marvel comics, patrick h willems, defenders the hand, daredevil the hand, why is the hand so boring, marvel's the defenders

Id: bfjvoEvAzCE

Length: 7min 58sec (478 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 22 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/the-dandy-man]

If the Hand never shows up in the Netflix properties ever again, I’ll be happy

[u/[deleted]]

What sound does a one dimensional hand make?

Flop

[u/prelapsus]

I think this is why I haven't finished The Defenders. Lack of a compelling villain. Tbh DD1 and JJ spoiled us with fantastic villains. DD2 was still good because of The Punisher, but LC, IF and The Defenders all failed to keep my attention.

[u/aravar27]

Love me some PHW.

[u/El_Nino7]

For me it was the fact that the hand seemed so underground and formidable. Almost like they where everywhere and there was no way to stop them. That is what kept me on the edge when it came to the hand. DD season 2 I think did a great job making the hand seem like an amazing threat. Then the defenders happened and it was just lack luster.

[u/[deleted]]

Bad writing. Like, "Why is X in the Defenders bad?"

Because the Defenders is badly written, directed, shot, and choreographed.

Like, did you notice that their whole thing was "We're secret ninjas" and then they never had Nobu's Ninja dudes show up?

[u/CoMiGa]

Ironically I couldn't finish the video because it was so boring. I dug The Hand, but I also liked Iron Fist, so evidently, I am the minority.

[u/legospidey]

Videos like this are good therapy for me as I try to pick up the pieces and figure out what went so wrong

[u/[deleted]]

Because it's underdeveloped.