I watched S3 over the course of 3 nights. Still great, loved the end. Only detrimental things I see coming is it seems like it should be a 4 season show at most. Anything more and they'll enter Walking Dead level of gross regurgitation.
I watched S3 over the course of 3 nights. Still great, loved the end. Only detrimental things I see coming is it seems like it should be a 4 season show at most. Anything more and they'll enter Walking Dead level of gross regurgitation.
Agree. I enjoyed season 3 a little less than the previous 2 for that reason. The best part of this series is the lack of prolonged success of all the original actors making them available and willing to do this. Like I dug seeing the Japanese chick, who has held up great, and the villain from KK2 making an appearance again. They’re going to run out of those neat little twists though.Quote:
Originally Posted by gut
Never botherd watching this before today, really enjoying it so far
Season 1 is top top...maybe the single best season of any recent show.
Season 2 is ok, same with season 3....fights are beyond silly but that’s ok...
Season 8 will be Johnny and Daniel getting into hijinks while living in the same nursing home, while their grandkids are getting taught by a hologram Mr. Miyagi.Quote:
Originally Posted by BCRAgree. I enjoyed season 3 a little less than the previous 2 for that reason. The best part of this series is the lack of prolonged success of all the original actors making them available and willing to do this. Like I dug seeing the Japanese chick, who has held up great, and the villain from KK2 making an appearance again. They’re going to run out of those neat little twists though.Quote:
Originally Posted by gut
I also agree that they should end it at Season 4.
This is partially where "Silicon Valley" went wrong. Season 1 was brilliant, but the subsequent seasons were just different rehashings of Season 1, and it went for 6 seasons, which became painful.
There's only so many ways they can tell the story of, "Grown-up Daniel and Johnny try to mentor teenagers, who then use karate to violently fight out their teen angst problems, and everyone tries to teach them it's very bad and they need self-control."
They've done a great job with character development, for the most part. As I mentioned during Season 1, all of the characters are flawed, yet none are outright bad -- not even Kreese, who is somewhat humanized at the beginning of Season 3. The only unrealistic character is Daniel's perfect wife.
But yeah, they're also going to run out of original movie characters to bring back. Also, let's not pretend we want to see them all back. The Karate Kid Part 3 was an abomination. They even screwed up the casting of that one, where they hired an actual 17-year-old to play Daniel's love interest, then had to do a rewrite because Ralph Macchio (28 at the time) felt creepy kissing a 17-year-old. She was turned into a friend, instead. LOL. Then the Terry Silver character was played by a guy much too young to have known Kreese in Vietnam. Whole move was awful.
Is it just me or is Ralph Macchio a way shittier actor now than back in the day? doenst really matter still enjoying the show, just started season 2
Fair to say this prediction thread biggest pfa reverse lock? Outside of bitcoins are dead of course.
When is the Hillary Swank cameo....talk about a needless sequel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Quote:
Originally Posted by TexterWhen is the Hillary Swank cameo....talk about a needless sequel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
That sucked, as did the 2010 reboot where they somehow thought Jayden Smith was going to take over the franchise (lol).
However, both were less obnoxious than Karate Kid Part 3, which pretty much failed at everything it tried to do.
That Jayden Smith one was decent, at least it was changed up a bit...not great but a kid would enjoy it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan DruffQuote:
Originally Posted by Texter
That sucked, as did the 2010 reboot where they somehow thought Jayden Smith was going to take over the franchise (lol).
However, both were less obnoxious than Karate Kid Part 3, which pretty much failed at everything it tried to do.
Hello again, poker friends.
I see interest in this show has waned, at least on this forum. There was zero discussion of Seasons 4 and 5, which saw the return of Terry Silver as a supervillain.
Season 6 has been completed, and is the final one of the series. The first third of it (5 episodes) dropped on July 18, 2024. The second third will be released on November 15, 2024. The final 5 episodes will appear sometime in 2025.
This is definitely non-standard. While Netflix has released split seasons in the past, most notably Ozark season 4 in 2022, this 15-episode final season has 50% more episodes than their other 10-episode installments. Why didn't they simply make Season 6 consist of 8 episodes, and then wait a year and release Season 7 with the final seven? Why do a long Season 6 in three parts?
Creator Hayden Schlossberg actually made this decision. He felt that there was no easy breaking point in episode 7 or 8, but that there were good breaking points at the episode 5 and 10 marks. Thus, he felt for binging, doing a 5-5-5 format was much better than 8-7, and also better than a big drop of 15 episodes.
I actually disagree. Netflix has broken the longtime weekly release model of network television, thus allowing for binging. That's all well and good, but if you're going to use the binge model, then let the people binge. Don't shoot a 15-episode final season, then artificially place months in between episodes 5 and 6, then again between 10 and 11. What's the point? Let the people watch it how they want. And if that's not good enough, then just release it weekly over a 15-week span, and allow people to binge after that.
That aside, this has been a successful series. It was loved by viewers, well received by critics, considered a great follow-up to the Karate Kid franchise (and in fact far better than the later films), and apparently the cast and crew were treated respectfully. The casts over the years were culturally diverse, but there was little politicizing or hidden social issues worked in. It appealed to both young people (who related to the teens in the story) and older people who had fond memories of the Karate Kid franchise. They brought back almost everyone notable from the original films. All we needed was Chad McQueen playing the sociopathic Dutch, and everything would be complete.
Well, I guess I might as well let that rumor fly as well.
I have been told that Chad McQueen will appear in the final season of Cobra Kai, playing his villainous Dutch character. I have not been told if Dutch will end up reforming (as Chozen did), but the series did previously state that Dutch was in state prison, and thus couldn't make it to a meetup with Johnny's old friends. Presumably Dutch will still be a bad guy, and remain that way. Dutch was one of the few teen characters who did not show some humanity at the end of the original movie. It has been assumed by many Karate Kid fans, including Druff, that Dutch was simply a sociopath, and enjoyed tormenting and hurting Daniel. He would be a perfect irredeemable villain.
There were only two major Karate Kid universe characters not to appear yet in Cobra Kai. One was Dutch, and the other was Hillary Swank's Julie. However, I am hearing it will be McQueen being the final character to return, and Swank will not be in the series at all.
Dutch did not appear in the first 5 episodes released for Season 6, but there's still 10 to go.
On a different note, Mary Mouser, who plays Daniel's daughter Samantha, has gained a considerable amount of weight.
Look at Mouser's midsection in this scene near the end of episode 1
This is not an unflattering angle. In fact, it's more flattering than other scenes, where she seems to be carrying a disproportionate amount of weight in her midsection.
Young women do not typically gain weight this way. Typically it shows up mostly in their thighs, ass, face, and upper body. It is unusual for young women to have rolls of fat in the lower abdomen, unless they are obese, which Mouser is not.
What is going on? There have been some speculations online that Mouser is pregnant. However, that seems not to be the case, as her weight has been drifting upward throughout the seasons of the show, and photos several months apart near the time Season 6 was filmed do not show a significant body difference.
It is believed that Mouser's Type 1 Diabetes is to blame here. Sometimes the medication for diabetes can cause weight gain in unusual places, and that is assumed to be the culprit in this situation. It would also explain why Mouser was not asked to go on a diet to bring the her body back into the shape expected of what is supposed to be a fit high school senior. It seems that she simply can't help it due to the diabetes, so the choice was either to have her in Season 6, or to drop her. They obviously chose to keep her. It is interesting to me that they are not attempting to hide her weight gain, yet it is also not addressed in the series.
Fortunately Mouser's character Samantha was supposed to be cute and girl-next-doorish, and not sexy or beautiful. Thus, the weight gain is only problematic for the character's believability as a physically fit karate champion, but not for anything else.
The other problem is that the actors have aged too much, and now it's a real stretch of credibility to believe they are high school students. Peyton List, playing Tori, is now 26 and looks it. Xolo Mariduena, who plays Miguel, is 23 but actually looks at least 25. Some of the other characters are now looking distractingly old. That's the problem when you start with characters who are already a bit old for the part, and 6 years pass. That's another reason this show had to end.
We will see if I end up being correct about Dutch. I'll post again here when the other 10 episodes are released, or if we see Dutch in the next 5.
I agree the show should have ended seasons ago. It became, as predicted, repetitive.
I hadn’t even noticed the weight change of the girl. Most young girls are fat anymore and she was very clearly never an athlete of any sort. Her winning anything was always silly. Any scene involving her required the other actor to basically perform in slow mo.
While adults playing high school kids is always dumb, I’d expect an old Hollywood guy to find it less problematic. We grew up watching a 29 year old Olivia Newton John and 35 year old Stockard Channing in Grease. Previous high school shows like a Beverly Hills 90210 with Ian Ziering being 26 and that other chick in her 30s before episode 1 of season 1 ever aired. Having late 20/early 30 people playing kids is old Hollywood.
The show was more interesting when it was about the old guys. When it switched its focus to the high school kids, it got lame. Most of them can't act or kick or whatever. And yes, the daughter is awful.
I suppose I should explain a bit further.Quote:
Originally Posted by BCR
You are correct that Hollywood has a long history of using actors in their 20s to play high school students. Your example of 90210 was one of the most glaring, with older actors such as Ian Ziering and Gabrielle Carteris. In fact, Carteris was 34 when she left, still playing a high school girl.
However in the case of Cobra Kai, there were no unreasonably old actors playing the kids when the series started, but in Season 6 several of them are noticeably aged. Mary Mouser, despite the weight gain, actually is one of the few who still looks like she could be in high school. The others all look their mid-20s ages at this point, and it became distracting to be because they were believable as high school students when the series started. That was my only point, that we saw them age over the 6 years of the series, so it really needed to end or transition them to college. The creators chose to end it, presumably both for this reason and because the story has long run its course.
I agree regarding the series becoming repetitive. For the most part I like the writing, production value, and direction of the series. I do wish they got a bit more adventurous regarding the story arcs, and branched out from essentially the same story over and over. There's only so much you can squeeze out of Good Dojo Versus Bad Dojo and Good Sensei Versus Bad Sensei. The first season was best because there was no good and bad dojo or sensei, but rather two imperfect middle aged men with different interpretations of how to teach karate to teenagers. Unfortunately they have since delved into a good guy versus bad guy trope, though the kids have been very fluid, quickly jumping from hero to villain to hero again (even the minor characters!)
I do not like how they use Georgia for a stand-in for the San Fernando Valley. I think Druff mentioned this too, I forget either here or in his personal texts to me. This probably does not bother most of you, but having grown up in the valley myself, I really hate the absolute lack of authenticity in what is posturing as on-location shooting. If the Valley setting is supposed to be a major element to the show's plot, then shoot it in the damn valley! Of course Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx was filmed in Vancouver, so I'm sure New Yorkers were yelling at the screen there as well.
I would also like to state that I got to know Martin Kove a bit in the 1990s. Very nice guy. You'd never guess it from the character he plays in this Karate Kid universe. Kove just seems like a dude who is a cold hearted asshole, and thus was perfect for the role. That is the opposite of the truth.
In my conversations with him, while Kove enjoyed his work on the Karate Kid films and did not at all resent it typecasting him, his one reservation was being known as such a seemingly heartless character. They do somewhat humanize Kreese in Cobra Kai, both with his backstory and in the present.
Kove is also actually into the martial arts. William Zabka was not into the martial arts at all at the time of the first Karate Kid movie, but he later got into it somewhat and earned a green belt in karate (a mid-level belt). Thomas Ian Griffith, who played Terry Silver, actually is a black belt in real life in taekwondo.
I hope they shot his scenes already, cuz Chad McQueen just died.
Wow... you're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by themanwho
Here's an article about it: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv...en-1236000439/
He was only 63. That's the second Cobra Kai member to die young.
The good news is that we might still see him in Cobra Kai season 6, as they completed filming of the entire series already, from what I understand.
I hope Harry was right about him appearing. Note that the Hollywood Reporter article above claimed that he did "not return" for the Cobra Kai series, but it's also possible that they simply were going by current publicly- released information. Harry tends to have an extremely high batting average with the rumors he posts here, as you guys have seen.
It will be interesting to see if the Cobra Kai showrunners decide to reveal early that he'll be appearing later in the season.
I have watched 3 of the 5 episodes from Season 6. In one of them, Dutch was mentioned again by a "fan" of Johnny Lawrence who runs into him while Johnny was house shopping. Johnny answered that Dutch was in prison. This Dutch mention seemed pointless unless it was setting up his return later.
If we do see Dutch, it will be the second time we see a Cobra Kai member in the series where the actor is dead by the time it airs. The other one had cancer in real life and it was written into the character, as well.
Dutch/Chad will not appear in Cobra Kai.
Co-creator Jon Hurwitz broke the silence on the Dutch situation, now that Chad is dead.
Details: https://www.the-independent.com/arts...-b2612142.html
Cliffs: Chad was interested in appearing in Season 6, and they had meetings about doing so, including visits to Chad's house. They wrote a Dutch reference into episode 2 of that season, in order to remind audiences about him. However, Chad was "unavailable" despite showing interest, presumably due to his health problems stemming from his 2020 accident.
Sorry Harry, but you must have had outdated info. You were close, though. They were indeed going to have Dutch back, but Chad probably wasn't healthy enough to perform.