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Television

Daredevil TV Show Debuts; Early Reviews Positive 114

An anonymous reader writes: Daredevil has been a staple of Marvel's superhero lineup since the 1960s. But Daredevil's most recent on-screen legacy was a terrible film in 2003 starring Ben Affleck. Since then, Marvel has gotten a lot better at adapting comics to the big and small screen. Yesterday saw the debut of a new Daredevil television series. It's a Netflix original, which means the whole first season went up at once. Early reviews of the show are quite complimentary. Slate praises the acting, and adds, "Daredevil is a bloody show that also bleeds: It has more interest in human bodies than much recent Marvel fare, and more interest in human beings as well. It's remarkably patient, resisting the urge to tell its viewers everything at once, a restraint largely enabled by the binge-y sprawl of the Netflix format." Ars Technica says the violence can be a bit over-the-top at times, but praises how the choreography and cinematography reflect the main character's blindness. The Verge simply says Daredevil raises the bar for superhero television, even though many new shows have found success recently.
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Daredevil TV Show Debuts; Early Reviews Positive

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    I hadn't read any of the comics when I went to see the Daredevil movie in the theater. I enjoyed it. Why do I keep seeing people online say it sucked? Probably the same tools who didn't like the Thomas Jane Punisher movie, which was also good.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      The theatrical release wasn't that great, but that was largely due to executive meddling. The Director's Cut is much, much better but many people don't give it a chance because they disliked the one they saw in the theater or on TV.

    • by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquare@@@gmail...com> on Saturday April 11, 2015 @07:52PM (#49455381) Homepage Journal

      the film is fine

      people feel entitled to dramatic opinions about mediocre topics

      • by TWX ( 665546 )
        It does seem like the less the topic really affects them, the stronger they feel about it and the more noise they make on it...

        I enjoyed the film version. I tend to compare a lot of superhero/comic-book movies to the 1989 version of Batman, and I found the villain and the setting both more plausible in Daredevil, and while there are fantastic elements to the hero, they were certainly no more out-of-line than other comic-book movies.

        If I remember right, the movie came out in that period when the Affle
        • exactly

          the opinions are usually predicated on issues that have nothing to do with the movie, or have to do with the movie, but are obsessed with stupid details

          for example: people bellow hatred for the scene in indiana jones 4 where he survives a nuclear blast in a refrigerator

          as if the first 3 movies were models of realism, or as if realism is the point in going to see an indiana jones movie

          most movies are ok. if they stink, you forget about them. not talk about them constantly. if someone has a loud, boori

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by BennyX ( 4069527 )
          I may be in the minority, but I didn't find any of the Fantastic Four movies to be terrible. I went in expecting a brief respite from reality, popcorn in hand, and I got exactly that. Mind you, I have yet to watch the Roger Corman FF film. I'm sure that is terrible.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

        The movie was awful, even if you don't care about the comics. One of the worst parts was when Daredevil is rejected by Electra, so beats her up until she likes him. It was the same as when Bond did the same to Pussy Galore in Thunderball, as if nothing had changed in 40 years.

        More over the acting was terrible, somehow being blind gave him matrix vision style sonar, and the CGI looked rubbish.

        • you can level such nitpicking at any movie ever

          pick your favorite movie in your mind

          i can level a dozen same whiny self-important "devastating" opinions at it

          the simple fact is that there are billion ok movies, and a few that are truly awful, mostly on technical terms. that's it. the movies you and i might call great is simply trendy subjectivity that will come and go over time

          your opinion simply is not as important nor authoritative as you imagine it is. that's just a blind ego talking

          but people like to come in as some sort of self-imagined heavy authority on the quality of movies or lack thereof because it fills them with a sense of importance missing from mediocre lives

          watch movies, enjoy them

          no one gives a fuck about your common shallow opinions, and they carry no weight

      • by BennyX ( 4069527 )

        the film is fine

        people feel entitled to dramatic opinions about mediocre topics

        haha, you're absolutely right about that!

    • I hadn't read any of the comics when I went to see the Daredevil movie in the theater. I enjoyed it. Why do I keep seeing people online say it sucked? Probably the same tools who didn't like the Thomas Jane Punisher movie, which was also good.

      It's a big budget Hollywood film, popular opinion isn't necessarily correlated to quality.

      There's nothing worse than seeming to be one of the uneducated masses, if all the cool people decides that X is terrible then saying you like it just tells people you have poor taste.

      For what it's worth I saw the apparently bad theatrical release and I recall enjoying it, then again I might have terrible taste in movies.

    • by BennyX ( 4069527 )
      I think people who go into a movie expecting to be entertained rather than expecting a movie to be 100% faithful to a comic-book generally walk away satisfied. It's the die-hard comic book fans with the high expectations that are usually more vocal about their opinions regarding movie adaptations.
  • Yes, some of the violence is utterly overdone. But overall the series seems to be done pretty well.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Gore (Score:4, Informative)

      by slaker ( 53818 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @08:17PM (#49455453)

      The fight choreography is wonderfully deliberate and brutal. They ramped up the audible component of it as might befit a character with super-human hearing while eschewing the shaky-cam (e.g. Bourne Ultimatum) style and using the excuse of poor lighting. I got a sense that most of the people doing the fighting we actually reacting instead of responding in some programmatic fashion and I very much liked that evidence of injuries sustained remained, even several episodes later.

      I did take exception to the idea that Daredevil said that he did not kill. I saw a lot of things that would result in pretty serious head trauma or internal injuries and I'm thinking not everybody made it to the nearest E.R.

      • I'll take the lack of head trauma resulting in eventual death and file it alongside the guy whose lack of sight gives him the powers of echolocation and touch so sensitive that he can sense micro-vibrations in the air.

        Fun show!

      • I like the fact that they really acknowledge the fatiguing aspect of fighting. Makes it seem so much more real.

  • by dixonpete ( 1267776 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @07:35PM (#49455323)
    I've seen 3 episodes so far and it's been enough to make me wonder why regular TV is such crap in comparison.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      I guess you have not noticed the absence of commercials. It is amazing how much more enjoyable a story line can be when you are interrupted constantly.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        As a pirate, I haven't involuntarily seen a commercial for over 5 years. Much love to the release groups who strip all that out for me. Those guys make TV worth watching.

        • Piracy (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Etherwalk ( 681268 )

          As a pirate, I haven't involuntarily seen a commercial for over 5 years. Much love to the release groups who strip all that out for me. Those guys make TV worth watching.

          Stop it. There's no excuse for piracy of television these days--the free offerings over the internet have gotten too numerous, as have the relatively low-cost online streaming services. If you're paying for an internet connection you have access to lots of media for free. And netflix gives you a pretty big library if you pay for that too.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            "the free offerings over the internet have gotten too numerous, as have the relatively low-cost online streaming services"

            That may be true for your country, not everyone is so lucky nor treated the same way.

            • "the free offerings over the internet have gotten too numerous, as have the relatively low-cost online streaming services"

              That may be true for your country, not everyone is so lucky nor treated the same way.

              Yeah, I have no objection to your pirating video in North Korea.

              • Re:Piracy (Score:5, Informative)

                by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) * on Sunday April 12, 2015 @09:03AM (#49457089) Homepage Journal

                The GP could be almost anywhere outside the US. Even in Europe and Australia we have crippled versions of Netflix. We get Daredevil because it is a Netflix show, but there is a vast amount of programming you can't get online outside the US. There is satellite/cable but they doube dip (charge you a subscription fee and still show adverts) and don't let you subscribe for just a month or two at a time, it's usually 12 months minimum.

                Say you live in the UK and want to watch Game of Thrones. You choice is to pay hundreds of pounds and see adverts with Sky or Virgin Media, wait for box sets and not be able to join in the conversations at work or on social media, or pirate. I'm not saying piracy is morally justified or anything, only that I can understand why people do it. The alternatives suck.

                • by mjwx ( 966435 )

                  Say you live in the UK and want to watch Game of Thrones. You choice is to pay hundreds of pounds and see adverts with Sky or Virgin Media, wait for box sets and not be able to join in the conversations at work or on social media, or pirate. I'm not saying piracy is morally justified or anything, only that I can understand why people do it. The alternatives suck.

                  Its the same in Australia, if you want to watch Game of Thrones you have two choices, $45 a month to Murdoch or pirate.

                  Given the fact that Rupert Murdoch is a vile, irreprehensible and morally perverse person and this perversion is pervasive throughout all his organisations, paying him is supporting that moral perversion.

                  Ultimately, things like Netflix are going to kill Foxtel in Oz. Not even having a stranglehold on live sports is going to be enough to save it considering you have to pay extra to get

          • by Anonymous Coward

            > There's no excuse for piracy of television these days-

            Sez you.

            Piracy is the online tv that respects my privacy and doesn't try to profile me.

            But regardless of that, I fundamentally disagree with the system of copyright. Every dollar I spend into the current copyright system helps to prop it up and helps keep down other funding models.

            So to you I say stop supporting copyright. There is no excuse for copyright these days. We have the capability to do better, we just don't have the political will.

          • No excuse for piracy? What world do you live in? Here in the real world the official offerings are distributed on broken unreliable systems that give you terrible image and sound quality, and frequently stop working in the middle of your watching.

            Yesterday I just had great reminder that there are yet excuses for piracy, when I watched Game of Thrones legally on HBO's own streaming service and had to wait because it was one hour late, and the image quality could be resumed to questions like "that blob is a t

    • by Phrogman ( 80473 )

      Yeah, I am really enjoying it. Only watched the first 3 episodes so far, but I am trying to make it last a few days at least, or I would just sit and watch the whole thing.

    • by DextAU ( 4065483 )
      I actually thought the same thing, its really good watching TV but not TV and thinking, how are they going to advertise to me now? I use adblock, no script, ghostery and netflix to get my entertainment, I do not buy newspapers or magazines? Am I officially off grid for MSM advertising now? I think yes and its liberating.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        I actually thought the same thing, its really good watching TV but not TV and thinking, how are they going to advertise to me now?

        Product placement.

    • Part of my gut says budget, I suspect they have a small budget and I honestly feel a lot of screen action is ruined by a big budget. The more money you get, the more fancy stuff you throw in, and the less you can empathize with what's happening to the characters.

      I truly find a lot of action films boring, when I see a guy who can defy the laws of physics get punched it's hard for me to empathize. But if I see a guy who's just a really good athlete get thrown into a wall I can actually relate to how that feel

      • by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        These are not low-budget productions. They've got a budget of $200 million for the Marvel Netflix stuff, which comprises four shows and a miniseries over roughly three years, or around 60 episodes. That's higher than most non-network shows, like Breaking Bad or Mad Men or The Walking Dead. Not quite Game of Thrones level, but these are still not small budgets... especially considering the limited set building and VFX compared to a show like GoT.

        • That's higher than most non-network shows, like Breaking Bad

          I looked up info about this, and it was around $3m per episode in season 4 for BB. Mad Men was somewhere between $2m and $2.5m. $3.3m, as per the Netflix deal, seems on the high end, but not out of the ordinary, especially for a Marvel property rather than a random one-off show. Also to consider is that it's a Netflix show, which AFAIK usually have higher budgets than the Marvel deal (House of Cards is $4.5m, OITNB is just under $4m, Marco Polo was $9m). Netflix almost getting into HBO territory with their

    • It's pretty good, and reminds me of the Daredevil comic books I read 30 years ago. Nostalgia. The story and characters depth and development is not Breaking Bad or The Shield grade, though. Entertaining, still, but they use (well, must agree) a lot of the known recipes to make something watchable nowadays. In other terms, the show is a good marketable product, not a piece of art.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, regular TV is shit! What with their Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Wire, Sopranos, The Shield, Justified, The Americans, Black Sails, Vikings, Fargo, Game of Thrones, Its Always Sunny in Philidelphia, Halt and Catch Fire, The Leftovers, Walking Dead, and True Detective! Fuck TV and all its shitty shows that are shit!

      • Wow! Nice list AC.
      • The OP's point was probably a criticism of the sad state of network TV. Most of the shows you cite are on basic cable (AMC/FX) or premium cable, not basic over-the-air network TV. Thus, your criticism only underscores how pathetic network TV has been by comparison. I mean, as far as network TV goes, we only have Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and then what else? Jane the Virgin? Fresh Off the Boat?

        AMC: Mad Men; Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Half and Catch Fire, Walking Dead

        HBO: The Wire, The Sopranos, Game of Throne

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      I've seen the same three episodes and I have to agree, except to say that it's a bit slow in parts. I don't mean there is a lack of action - House of Cards wasn't "slow" but had zero action. When it's good, it's really good though.

    • Netflix has a couple huge advantages. First, they don't have t worry about censors. They can put whatever they want in the show and Nobody can say a thing. Network TV can't do that. Also they don't have to think about how long an episode is. Obviously they want the episodes to be within a certain range, but they don't have to choreograph the entire episode into exactly 42 minutes so they can fit it into an hour timeslot with all the required commercials. Also, with commercials, most shows write with the exp
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I've seen 3 episodes so far and it's been enough to make me wonder why regular TV is such crap in comparison.

      Ratings, aka eyeballs. And these aren't the L+SD/L+3/L+7 (Live+Same Day, +3 days, +7 days) numbers you see reported in the papers, no ,the netowrks buy the C versions of the numbers, usually C3, sometimes C7 (the difference is the program's rating is removed - the C ratings solely consist of ads). The programming+commercials numbers are provided for free, while the C numbers are provided by cost (it'

    • by DiEx-15 ( 959602 )

      I've seen 3 episodes so far and it's been enough to make me wonder why regular TV is such crap in comparison.

      I've seen 3 episodes so far and it's been enough to make me wonder why regular TV is such crap in comparison.

      I have seen more than three. It isn't good. It's GGGG-Great!

  • the binge-y sprawl of the Netflix format

    The fucking what, man?

    [Aside: I'll have a pint of what he's been snorting]

    • the binge-y sprawl of the Netflix format

      The fucking what, man?

      [Aside: I'll have a pint of what he's been snorting]

      Netflix sometimes releases the entire season of a show all at once, allowing people to download the entire season and binge-watch. Hence "binge-y".

      IIRC, they first started with "House Of Cards" as an experiment, and found that a lot of people liked the ability to watch it all in a weekend, or 2-3 episodes per night for a week, or whatever.

      Having to wait a week to see the next episode allows peoples' interest to wane. Also, for complex plotlines (see: "Lost"), people tend to forget important events that happ

      • it was either house of cards or orange is the new black. I cant recall which was first
        • by jander ( 88775 )
          I thought it was the "next" season of Arrested Development (At least, if memory serves me, was the first Popular "Episode Dump" that I remember...
      • Also, for complex plotlines (see: "Lost"), people tend to forget important events that happened weeks prior

        In my day, we had to remember dialog from three years back to appreciate B5. Might be why it got cancelled a few times...

      • Also, for complex plotlines (see: "Lost"), people tend to forget important events that happened weeks prior and have trouble keeping up with the plot.

        Interesting example, but how do you propose preventing the writers from losing track of the plot?

  • I didn't think the Alfeck Daredevil was "terrible".
    It was entertaining like a ride all the way to the end, but then again I tend to like most superhero stuff, so I must not be very discerning.

  • by koan ( 80826 )

    I've watched 3 episodes and the main character is pretty good.

  • It is excellent. There were several curveballs that I did not see coming, and several fastballs that I thought were going to be curveballs. It is not Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, but it is in the next quality tier for comic book television and film.
  • This appears to be an internet show, not a TV show, right?

    • If you own a modern BD player (eg oppo) it can connect to Netflix. Also nobody prevents you from connecting your computer to a TV.
    • by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      It's a Netflix series, but in a TV format, and it'll likely air on TV in the few territories where Netflix doesn't yet operate. Netflix's original content is a lot more similar to cable (like AMC or HBO) than it is to network television, but it's still hour-long episodic content.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Know why it's good? There aren't many fighting fucktoys (the modern TV/movie trope that a 120 pound slim waif, if you train her enough and she has enough gurl powah can beat the shit out of well trained 250 pound men using her kung-fu).

    A show/movie's general quality is affected negatively by the inverse ratio of the number of hot model broads kicking ass, in other words.

  • So far, emotionally overwrought. And according to the modern way, it humanizes Daredevil to the point that he is just a weird karate guy who just happens to stumble to a win in a fight. I'm waiting for the inevitable feminization of the storyline and the turning it from a male-centered story about a male superhero to a story about women. That seems to be "de rigueur" today. I hope they avoid the incredibly stupid mistake of the Ben Affleck version where the hero gets his ass kicked by a women (boot in the f
  • I never read the comic, but I seem to remember the film being an average or maybe slightly below average of the big budget superhero movies that started (IMHO) with the Tobey Maguire SpiderMan.

    I really don't know why everyone hates the movie.. Both of the recent Hulks were watchable too, yet most everyone seems to think at least the first one was horrible. (I watched the two near each other, I think on consecutive days, to compare.)

  • Thanks, have a nice day ;) http://www.educa.net/fisiotera... [educa.net]

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