JJ Season 2 Trailer

Coming next month:



Really enjoyed the first season Defenders, eh not so much but was ok.

Season 2 looks REALLY good imo

Enjoy

Peace.

/K

I am watching but are they breaking any new ground here?

Hmm, not sure what you mean by "breaking new ground" tbh.

This season seems to be delving more into Jessica's background. But I don't know if that is what you are reffering to.

I always watched this show for the more, hmm, complicated characters and narrative then typical superhero fare. Nice change of pace.

And Krysten Ritter is brilliant. As someone once said, she has made an art of playing damage characters and fits the role so well. Not to mention she looks great imo

Peace.

/K

I don't dislike JJ, but I think the writers got her character wrong. She has super strength, but a lack of invulnerability which to me makes no sense.

Imagine if you have the strength to crush a steel lock. As the metal begins to twist and bend, its going to exert an equal amount of pressure on your own body, or hand in this case. In other words, that same lock you crushed is going to break, cut, or hut your hand quite badly.

While I totally understand what you are saying d_k_c and get where you are coming from, I must confess, "science in comics" has never been an issue with me

Peace.

/K

Mmm is it Science or just bad writing? I'm no scientist, but take the flash. the flash, moving at that speed, and that velocity would certainly kill anyone he encounters.

BUT a writer, who isn't a scientist either.....Wrote, that the flash has some field around him that protects him and those he touches at that speed. So, fair enough. I don't car about this field, I don't care for the science...I know its there. Thank you writers for the clarification.

But writing without clarification is hack.

I got into trouble with my buddies, because of my criticism of Rey in starwars (After the Last Jedi.). None of them, mind you know that I love empowered women as much as I do. I told them, you cant just write a character, you need the build the character. Which the writers grossly failed to do.

Anyways, some of the girls I was with argued that I was only saying these things because I have a problem with empowered women. I shook my head in disagreement, but not verbally.

Then I suggested that you can't use Hyperspace as a weapon, otherwise you could hit a planet with an X wing at Hyperspace and literally destroy the planet, why have a death star?. Again - I got the whole don't bring science into science fiction,

Its not science - Its HACK writing.

Rian Johnson should be ashamed....

That's my deviated rant...

I'm okay now

=)

d_k_c wrote: Mmm is it Science or just bad writing? I'm no scientist, but take the flash. the flash, moving at that speed, and that velocity would certainly kill anyone he encounters.

BUT a writer, who isn't a scientist either.....Wrote, that the flash has some field around him that protects him and those he touches at that speed. So, fair enough. I don't car about this field, I don't care for the science...I know its there. Thank you writers for the clarification.

But writing without clarification is hack.

I got into trouble with my buddies, because of my criticism of Rey in starwars (After the Last Jedi.). None of them, mind you know that I love empowered women as much as I do. I told them, you cant just write a character, you need the build the character. Which the writers grossly failed to do.

Anyways, some of the girls I was with argued that I was only saying these things because I have a problem with empowered women. I shook my head in disagreement, but not verbally.

Then I suggested that you can't use Hyperspace as a weapon, otherwise you could hit a planet with an X wing at Hyperspace and literally destroy the planet, why have a death star?. Again - I got the whole don't bring science into science fiction,

Its not science - Its HACK writing.

Rian Johnson should be ashamed....

That's my deviated rant...

I'm okay now

=)

I totally get where you are coming from, DKC. While I think the boundary between bad science and hack writing is often subjective, it is a boundary that every writer and director has to be very aware of all the time. It's easy to get lazy here when dealing with superhumanly empowered characters.

Also, it's right up there along with "show don't tell" advice for authors, is the "build don't write" character rules.

The first season of JJ did that pretty well.

As far as the superstrength without invulnerability argument goes, the two have to go together to some degree, otherwise, the "science" becomes distracting and subtractive from the character's experiences. You can do that in many ways with telekinesis and forcefields, but if the assumption is that their muscles are vastly stronger, then every tendon, ligament, bone and skin cell has to be similarily improved, otherwise, their bodies would tear themselves apart either from internal or external forces. That doesn't mean they are bulletproof necessarily, but it means their body is made of tissue that's correspondingly tougher as their muscles are stronger.

This brings us to the limit of science. There are no substances in science which can be made hundreds or thousands of times stronger without their looking or feeling different. Which kind of invalidates most superhero secret identity concepts unless we explain them as telekinesis and forcefields. Kara in Supergirl, for instance, simply doesn't feel like other women. The Girl of Steel would feel like she's made of steel. Season 1 set the stage for that in EP1 when Kara bumped someone casually on the street while carrying coffee and the pedestrian went flying but the coffee never spilled. And then the writers promptly forgot all about that concept.

I tried very hard to write around that with Velorians by using bio-energy fields that can be turned off by inhibiting the thyroid's functioning with gold chokers. A somewhat cumbersome and unsatisfactory solution to a problem at the science boundary of superheroes that had always bugged me. Obviously, Niven was bothered by it as well which led to his Woman of Kleenex "head blown off" spoof that highlighted one of the problems of a Kryptonian mixing with humans.

I give kudos to any writer or director who attempts to tackle this in a realistic way, but most don't bother. Which leaves things in the hands of "magic". Magic always leaves me unsatisfied as a solution.

And yes, I agree that Rey suffers that problem in Return.

Shadar

I generally work on the principal that if the rules/physics makes sense you can fudge the numbers. For example I have no problem with say the hulk lifting a ship over his head, in theory it would be possible so I can ignore the effects of concentrating all the load into a small area. However I'm less keen on seeing someone stop a helicopter from taking off for example unless they have some form of flight or have anchored themselves to the ground, in which case once again I can ignore the numbers involved. Of course showing some consideration to the physics involved, such as lifting a ship very carefully and with a lot of metallic groaning is a bonus, but I'm happy to overlook numerical mistakes in the cause of story.

In this case my view is that Jessica Jones has some enhanced durability but not to the same scale as say Luke Cage. She can use her strength without hurting herself and would be more resilient to impact than a normal person (and probably has an enhanced liver given how much she drinks), but without being hard enough to be bullet proof. I would imagine it would for example take more force to stab her than someone else but not so much that it would be immediately apparent. Also her muscles, ligaments etc might only be particularly strong in certain directions/under particular circumstances and would be similar in strength to a normal human otherwise, similar to how timber is stronger parallel the grain than perpendicular to it.

AuGoose wrote: Tactile telekinesis. She exerts force by touch, so her muscle strength, body mass, and bone rigidity have virtually nothing to do with what she's capable of lifting or flinging... which is also why she can FLY. An ability that the writers have danced around (while still hinting at) repeatedly.

Strength has very little to do with how high you can jump -beyond a certain point the only value that matters is twitch speed and JJ is plainly ordinary in that regard. And yet she's still an amazing jumper and landing from those jumps is the only impact she's abnormally resistant to...

It's entirely self-consistent (and good writing). We just haven't gotten to the punchline yet.

Agreed... the high/long jump concept is very flawed. Once someone's feet leave the ground, the only factor that matters (given weight, etc are constants) is her velocity at the moment of launch. Given the short distance that legs can stretch, that implies massive acceleration. That requires tremendous strength, but an even more tremendous rate of contraction. Fast twitch nerves and muscles. So fast that she'd be able to catch bullets in mid-air.

Also, launching that fast might shatter the concrete under her feet.

The only plausible quasi-scientific explanation I can see for JJ's jumps is that she's using her flight ability as the core power within the apparent action of jumping and landing. Which is consistent with her history. She used to be able to fly just fine back when she was Jewel.

An analogy appeared in Thor: Ragnarok when Odin told Thor that his hammer, Mjolnir, that Hela had destroyed, had mainly been useful as a tool to focus his power. He didn't actually need it. But he never would have figured that out if it hadn't been destroyed.

Shadar.

For the sake of discussion, I'm gonna come at this from the opposite side.

Is it "bad writing"? Well, one could argue no. The reason? The point of the character and the story is not their power set.

Could everything be explained (either scientifically or in-world)? Sure. But why waste all that screen time when most people watching don't really care?

Superhero's (and heroines) aren't about how much they can lift, or whether they can fly, all according to the laws of reality. They are about good overcoming evil, justice prevailing, honor and team work, and all that.

Sure, for some people, the little details like that (powers explained) matter. I'm willing to wager to most, they don't.

Hence, I wouldn't call it "bad writing" or even "lazy writing". It's just not the focus of the story.

Just my 2 cents

Peace.

/K

kikass2014 wrote: For the sake of discussion, I'm gonna come at this from the opposite side.

Is it "bad writing"? Well, one could argue no. The reason? The point of the character and the story is not their power set.

Could everything be explained (either scientifically or in-world)? Sure. But why waste all that screen time when most people watching don't really care?

Superhero's (and heroines) aren't about how much they can lift, or whether they can fly, all according to the laws of reality. They are about good overcoming evil, justice prevailing, honor and team work, and all that.

Sure, for some people, the little details like that (powers explained) matter. I'm willing to wager to most, they don't.

Hence, I wouldn't call it "bad writing" or even "lazy writing". It's just not the focus of the story.

Just my 2 cents

Peace.

/K

I suspect you are right in many cases, where the director has made a decision regarding scarce screen time to focus on character development that is unrelated to her unique abilities. Directors have to make all kinds of choices about what to show and develop and what not to. The human struggle inside the character is admittedly the most important thing to make real.

But I would argue that in many cases they can do a better job of the character's pseudo-science in mere moments of extra screen time, or a few extra lines of dialog. It seems that if they are going to spend lots of CGI money and screen time to show the use of their powers, a few more minutes to underpin how they work doesn't seem too much to ask. Not to mention making their powers consistent from moment to moment, or show to show .

But maybe the real laziness is the audience, who doesn't care about any of this. The powers are just a prop.

Given my long fascination with this genre, as is likely the case with many of us, we are "power geeks" in that we want to know how things work.

And it can be done well. Marvel mostly did it right in Thor: Ragnarok when Hela crushed Thor's hammer in her grip. That set the stage for her being far more powerful than Thor, or anyone else who had ever touched Mjolnir. A gobsmacked moment. It also forced Thor to grow and realize that his powers weren't limited by the loss of his hammer, or that he even needed it. But only after going through a profound sense of loss. In the end, we saw Thor grow, and it was related to how he handled the nuances of a bit of pseudo-science regarding his powers.

Or so I saw it...

Shadar

I definitely agree with you on some points Shadar. Even I will admit that a few lines of dialogue to explain certain things would be justified.

The Thor example you give is a good one tbh. I always think of the scene in Age Of Ultron, with Maria Hill explaining to Capt. about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. She gives a scientific explanation of their power set, to which Capt. responds "??" She finishes by saying "One is fast and one is weird".

A simple scene that captures exactly the point. No more exposition then that is needed imo.

I once wrote a story (for myself) about a woman who gains great power. While I was writing it, I kept having this nagging feeling at the back of my mind "Why doesn't she just use her powers all the time?" So I wrote a few lines of dialogue in a scene, where she explains to her friend, that its a rare disease (she thinks) she has. She gets the power, but at a cost. Continued use either kills the person or sends them mad. Nothing new, and didn't need anymore then that as the story wasn't about her powers.

On the consistency point, I totally agree with you. Supergirl and The Flash stand out to me in that regard. Their powers are totally dictated by plot. Some more consistency would definitely help, especially with Supergirl. But like I said, tbh, I don't really watch those shows for that level of detail. The drama outweighs things like that for me.

Which I think we both agree on.

Peace.

/K