Jul 20, 2025 06:40 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 20, 2025 06:45 PM by C C.)
(Jul 20, 2025 04:25 PM)Syne Wrote:https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MQyDFGjnJO0
ADDED (video excerpt): And it's here where we see review bombing start to take on legitimacy. It's not just about critiquing the show.
What a review bomb is really about at its core is about critiquing the culture that corporations have been infected by that produce these stupid hacky stories.
People are sick and tired of watching as their favorite characters and worlds are deconstructed to make way for modernity infused storytelling that always follows
the same predictable beats. They always insult beloved established characters, insult the lore, and insult the audience in some way, shape, or form.
There's always a racial and gender hierarchy that must be adhered to, even if it costs the story believability and respectability.
Riri is better than Tony Stark because she's a black woman and he's a white male. Her superior talent isn't demonstrated to any believable degree to prove this. She just drops it in a few lines that she's better than him.
[...] Now, the running argument to this is that we're all racist and sexist for not automatically loving Riri, but we're the same audience that liked Tchala and Sam Wilson, you know, before.
[...] It's not race or sex that we have a problem with. What we have a problem with are people utilizing race and sex to force heavy-handed socopolitical propaganda on an audience that just showed up to watch super-people punch other super-people, with some drama and character development in between.
And that's what's at the core of these review bombs that have been happening over the last handful of years. Bad faith actors try to pass it off as just a bunch of bigots throwing a tantrum. But what it really is a rebuke against the abuse these cultures inflict on these properties and franchises that we love in order to use them as a soapbox to preach something no one needs to hear.
Despite shooting for the first season of Ironheart having been completed before the Hollywood strikes, the producers explained here that the strikes were still somehow the reason it took two and a half years for Ironheart to be released.
Both before and after the show's debut, this reviewer (who is a legit fan of the character) was also troubled by its release format. He remarked in this article:
For me, there are two potential factors at play. The first is that Ironheart doesn't meet Disney and Marvel's expectations. If they're unhappy with its quality and/or concerned about how it'll perform, releasing all six episodes close together would ensure the show doesn't suffer huge weekly audience drop-offs. If they're that worried, though, why not just release the whole series in one go, like they did with Echo?
Whatever the rationale may be, the fact that Ironheart might be rushed out is a big worry for me. I hope my assumptions about the final Marvel Phase 5 project are wrong. But, if Marvel confirms that the other three episodes will air on the same day, I'd be incredibly suspicious of Ironheart's truncated release format, and I wouldn't be able to shake the feeling that the show is proverbially being thrown to the wolves.
"When I asked Nagelhout and Ohanian if there's a specific reason behind the show's unusual release format, the latter replied: "Those decisions are above our pay grade, but I think it's just about how Marvel and Disney distribute content."
Probably another reason for any potential studio lack of confidence in the series is that Riri Williams associates with the criminal element throughout the first season, making the character morally ambiguous. She even strikes a deal with Mephisto (a villain who is essentially the devil) at the end to magically enhance her suit. While she may or may not have had ulterior (good guy) motives for buddying up to all these malefactors, the studio would have wanted to speed up the audience knowing about that as soon as possible (ergo the quick release of all the episodes in two batches).The above also touches upon accusations of the series catering to racial stereotypes. The narrative was caught between a rock and a hard place: If you make Riri a perfect princess from the start, then it downgrades story complexity and character evolution. But if you make her substantially imperfect at the outset, then (again) it triggers the appearance of racial stereotyping.
At any rate, the two and a half years of the show sitting on the shelf (despite filming already being done before the strikes), along with the legit fans' worries about other curious oddities, just fed the impression that the studio itself lapsed in caring about Ironheart's success. Where the ultimate blame rests (if Ironheart doesn't get renewed).