Another trailer.
I’m kind of wondering if and hoping that they’re going to release a soundtrack to go with this show.
Great trailer. I haven’t watched Daredevil or Jessica Jones but might jump on Luke Cage.
What would I be missing if I jumped in with Luke Cage?
Some worldbuilding (the nature of powers we’re dealing with in the Netflixian chunk of the MCU, who some of the various powers–Fisk, the Yakuza, etc.–and entities–The New York Bulletin and IGH) will be lost, as well as some character relationships (particularly Claire Temple and, well, Jessica Jones, of course) and why they work they way they do at the start of Luke’s show.
I expect it will be eminently followable, but there might be points where you scratch your head or think something’s sort of come out of nowhere when it really hasn’t.
The fact that both Daredevil and Jessica Jones are excellent television should be enough of a reason not to go into Luke Cage blind, though!
About fifty or sixty blocks south, there’s a lawyer who punches the crap out of bikers and muggers and gangsters and ninjas and other bad guys. The kicker is, he’s blind. He runs around at night dressed like the Dread Pirate Roberts until he levels up his costume, and has a real devil-may-care attitude toward rooftop and hallway brawling. He has friends who aren’t as good at punching bad guys even though they aren’t blind. They’re in danger from a big bald guy who wants to redevelop some real estate, and later they’re in danger from a psycho war vet and more ninjas who might be zombie ninjas and an ex-girlfriend. And not all of his friends stay alive or stay his friends. It’s an interesting story with really good choreography where guys hit guys, and a fun (maybe unrealistic?) take on starting up a law firm, and has almost nothing to do with Luke Cage except there’s a beautiful nurse who eventually helps him, but the nurse doesn’t help him in Daredevil.
Somewhere on the same island, there’s this private detective, Jessica. She’s a trainwreck. She’s not a bad PI, especially since she has super magic powers that make her really strong and fly a little bit and be practically invulnerable to damage. She also drinks a lot and sleeps around because she’s not invulnerable to emotional trauma, and man, she has been traumatized. This hypnotist is really good at hypnotizing people, and he hypnotized her for a long time to do really creepy shit. She thought he died, but surprise! he didn’t. Now she’s got to stop him, because she knows how dangerous and creepy he is, except her amazing powers don’t do too much against his mind powers. She’s got to bite off way more than she can chew. She also has friends who aren’t as good at punching bad guys—except for this guy, Luke Cage. He is really good at punching bad guys. Jessica and Luke have a really exothermic chemistry, and of course they start going at it, because their genitals are like the unstoppable force and the unbreakable object. But again, she’s a trainwreck, which makes it hard to keep up a stable relationship. Also, Trinity from the Matrix is in the show, and I liked her role. So is the aforementioned beautiful nurse, who helps Luke Cage, who normally doesn’t act like he needs a nurse.
If you don’t want to watch either Daredevil or JJ, I’m sure all the necessary character beats will be rehashed in Luke Cage. I think the earlier two shows are both good and cover separate ground, though they’re both about a singular Manhattan-based superhero who wants to stop a greater evil while protecting his or her squishier friends and breakable neighborhoods. If you only watch one, DD has the better fight choreography and is more sympathetic to the visually disabled, and JJ is more psychological (but still has great action scenes) and is more sympathetic to women, especially battered women.
To binge, or not to binge, that is the question.
This show and Jessica Jones interest me a lot more than Daredevil. If I just skipped to watching JJ and Luke Cage, is there really much I’d be missing without watching DD first?
I don’t think it would lessen your enjoyment of Luke Cage or JJ without having watched Daredevil. Though there is a supporting character that is tied to all three, it isn’t required you meet that character in Daredevil first.
Yeah, I’d agree- DD probably isn’t needed (though I like it lots). You really should watch JJ before LC, though. He’s a relatively major supporting character in there, and I’m pretty sure a bunch of stuff in JJ is setting up for this series.
Think I’m going to step right in at Luke Cage, myself. Watched the first two episodes of Daredevil and wasn’t feeling it, didn’t watch Jessica Jones at all. This one looks pretty cool though, at least give it a couple episodes to hook me.
Only seen one and a half episodes so far. Good series to check if your subwoofer is working though.
I loved the first season of DD the best out of all of them. It has the tightest and most layered story. Plus the last episode where Kingpin escapes was just phenomenal, IMO. He was just oozing swagger in that scene.
I couldn’t get into Daredevil. I watched the first 4 episodes or so, but couldn’t keep going.
All of Jessica Jones is not worth watching in my opinion. There’s so much padding, it’s a waste of anyone’s time. I liked the show overall, and watched the whole season, but it wasn’t worth spending so much time on.
So I’d say jump straight into this one.
Just watched the first episode. So far Iove the tone. Definately a Shaft/Black Dynamite vibe going with the music, settings, and vernacular. Plus the kid who’s Big Kahuna Burger Samuel Jackson eats in Pulp Fiction is a detective in this. Haven’t seen him in a while!
Speaking of Black Dynamite, Adrian Younge did the score for that and (at least partly) for this. We’re only four episodes in, and the music–both the score and the selected songs–is fantastic. Music is the bedrock of the show so far–I kind of hope the villain makes it because his club is so cool.
The music was certainly great, both the live bits and the score (which fit the '70s vibe perfectly). I really liked the bit at the opening of episode five (which the internet tells me is Jidenna with “Hail to the Chief”), and when Method Man showed up toward the end- that was fun. :D
I was sad we got an edited version of Bring da Ruckus.
Honestly so far I am underwhelmed. I get that they are going for a certain tone but this is so far nothing but a derivative cliche filled copy of every blaxploitation film ever made. Ive only watched the first episode so hopefully it gets better but episode 1 was very wince worthy. I will give it time because so far Netflix has done a good job with their Marvel products. Still, I barely finished the bloated Jessica Jones ( good but would have been great if it was about 3 episodes shorter, they crammed to much filler into it and there was seriously no rational reason why Tennants character survived beyond the 4th or 5th episode ) and I will put this one on a shorter leash because of that.
I’m about 5 episodes in and I really like the tone and visual style of this. The story is not great so far, you would think Luke would just break the legs or put the bad guy permanently out of action and move on.
I’ve watched the first five episodes and am reasonably happy with it - that said, the only moment I truly loved was when they put him in his original costume in episode 4 - that was great fan service.
The one thing that the Daredevil seasons had that this (and Jessica Jones) haven’t really had yet is a sense of being in the larger Marvel universe. On the other hand, I love that this season is using so many characters from early on in the Power Man comic (modernizing them, when necessary) -but it still feels more insular, in part because Daredevil’s characters have interact with more other characters in the comics (Kingpin, Elektra, Punisher). Maybe with the Night Nurse showing up that’ll change.
I do think it was somewhat brave for this show to be focused solely on a street level Harlem perspective and not shy away from political issues (keeping Harlem black, etc,) - more importantly, not doing it in a hamfisted way. Wish they didn’t make every single white guy a villain though.
I liked the lead actor as the character in Jessica Jones and still do - he certainly physically is a perfect fit - but he’s a bit of a lightweight actor now that he’s more under the spotlight. The effects demonstrating his abilities have been a bit cheesy so far too, but overall he/they are fine.
I like this Netflix universe a lot though - I hope the remainder of this season has some of the big moments/shocks of Daredevil season 1 and Jessica Jones though.