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Thursday 8 December 2016
Game of Thrones actor Finn Jones enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Iron Fist
Netflix
WIRED recently visited the set of Marvel's Iron Fist, observing how Netflix shoots and converts a show for 4K HDR video quality.
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While behind the scenes, we spoke with Iron Fist showrunner Scott Buck and Allie Goss, Netflix's vice president of Original series. Here, the creators discuss the genesis of the series, controversy over the casting, and the impact of Marvel's superheroes.
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Iron Fist is the fourth of the originally announced Marvel series, following Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, and leading into team-up series The Defenders. While the heroes chosen for the crossover are all "street level" characters, Iron Fist himself is the most supernaturally tinged.
Power-wise, he's no Thor, but Danny Rand â€" Iron Fist's secret identity - did grow up in a mystical realm known as K'un-Lun, where he trained in martial arts and fighting skills long lost to the mortal world. He eventually gained the power and title of the Iron Fist; the ability to channel his chi into explosive strikes. Don't expect to see too much of that backstory laid bare in the first season, though.
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"The mythological aspect, we sort of keep as a mystery that lingers throughout the series. We haven't fully explored it in this first season," Buck tells WIRED. "We approach Danny Rand as a person, and try to see the world through his eyes. As for the flashiness of the fist, it's dealt with in what we hope is the most realistic way possible.
Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), Danny Rand, and recurring Marvel supporting character Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) are the core trio of Iron Fist
Netflix
The mythological aspects of the character could have made him the hardest character to fit into the mix â€" and indeed, is probably the reason Iron Fist was last in the line-up to debut, giving the creators longer to get their approach just right. For Buck, it was Danny Rand's personality that appealed most, though, as well as the opportunity to explore who he is after he returns to present day New York after being presumed lost and dead for decades.
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"To me, when I first encountered the character, it seemed to me like these were not the greatest super powers in the world. Like, 'all he can do is punch really hard?'," Buck recalls. "But that's sort of what appealed to me about it â€" he has this one gift, and he can use it some ways, but in the rest of [his] life, it's just not all that significant."
"[Danny's] greatest gift is just his martial arts skills, and that's not a super power â€" that's something he struggled for and earned by training day and night throughout his whole childhood," he continues. "So from that perspective, we do try to keep it very real and grounded."
From Goss' perspective, the human side of the characters is what's been most important about the Marvel shows Netflix has produced so far.
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"What we've strived to do together, both on this show and prior, is just to tell a great character driven story first, and a superhero story second," Goss says. "We don't want to downplay powers or abilities, or the fact these characters are derived out of comics and graphic novels â€" that's what's so special about them. But we want to expose them in a way where you really get to see the character's story, that's a little more aimed towards adults and explores these people in a way beyond just the 'superhero'. That feels a little generic, given how deep these characters have the ability to be."
The capacity of the comics to tell compelling, character-driven stories first and super-powered fables second was what originally impressed Goss about the source material. Discovering there was such depth to them initially came as a surprise.
"I remember when I first started reading comics years ago, I literally called a friend who was into them and I was like 'oh my gosh, these are just good stories!'," she says. "I didn't realise that, but once you get into it, they're rich full characters with so much to explore."
Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing is a long-time ally of Iron Fist in the comics - a skilled swordswoman and renowned martial artist in her own right
Netflix
Long-time comics fans are well aware of that depth, and the decades of continuity that some characters have. It's a trick the Netflix Marvel shows have been employing since the first season of Daredevil, where packets of drugs being distributed by crime lord Wilson Fisk â€" the Kingpin â€" bear the insignia of the Steel Serpent, one of Danny's major foes from the printed page.
"Sometimes things are done because they're fun, just drop them in and go 'Eh, the next series will figure them out!'," Buck says of the continuity between the series. "There's a bit of that, but I do speak to the other showrunners, and because we are leading into The Defenders, we have to leave our show in a very specific place [but] we do plant seeds and stories that will then come to fruition."
Ultimately, each series also needs to stand on its own merits though. Buck continues, "there does have to be a lot of co-operation between the different groups but other than that, we work distinctly by ourselves."
Beyond 4K: Netflix lets us in on plans to push the HDR revolution - starting with Iron Fist
Beyond 4K: Netflix lets us in on plans to push the HDR revolution - starting with Iron Fist
The production of Iron Fist hasn't been without controversy, though. Aside from ill-founded rumours it had been cancelled due to its challenging mythological aspects, supposedly being replaced by The Punisher in the pre-Defenders billing (instead, Punisher is getting his own show, spinning out of the events of Daredevil season two), there has been debate around the character's ethnicity.
Iron Fist was created in 1974 by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane, inspired by the popularity of kung-fu cinema at the time. While badly dubbed Shaw Brothers films filled American grindhouse theatres, the comic book industry reacted with colourful variants on the genre, including the likes of Bronze Tiger at DC and Shang-Chi, another Marvel character.
Iron Fist, proving books are more powerful than violence
Netflix
In translating Iron Fist to another medium â€" especially one already dominated by Caucasian characters â€" many fans suggested Marvel should reimagine Danny Rand as an Asian American hero, even giving rise to the trending hashtag #AsianAmericanIronFist. It was a complicated issue â€" ignoring fidelity to the comics, you're left with broadly two options; either you end up with an Asian character whose 'superpower' is kung-fu, hitting the all Asians know martial arts trope, or stick with a white character who somehow becomes magically better at kung-fu and saves the day â€" the Mighty Whitey cliché at best, the problematic white saviour syndrome at worst.
The character and his background was originally unknown to Buck before getting involved with the series.
"When Marvel came to me with this idea, I had never heard of Iron Fist or Danny Rand," Buck says. "I had never read the comics. What [executive producer] Jeph Loeb pitched to me specifically was this character, and that's what pulled me in, what intrigued me."
"The other aspects are things I've only learned about afterwards," Buck continues. "I can say definitively that Danny Rand is no 'white saviour'. He's trying to save himself, if anything."
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Ultimately, Buck and Marvel decided to stay true to the comics, while hoping to avoid the clichés. While the version of Danny Rand that viewers will meet when the series debuts in March will still be Caucasian, he may be different to the comics in other ways.
"One of the things that appealed to me about Danny was that even though there have been several comic books written about him, there wasn't this great big backlog of information or stories about him," Buck says. "It allowed us to be a little bit more creative and take a slightly different direction with this character."
"Also, if you do go back and read the Iron Fist comics, some of them show a completely different origin story from one series to another, and Danny is very different character in different comics. That gave us the freedom to create the character we specifically wanted to."
Iron Fist season one will premiere on Netflix on March 17, 2017.
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