Cobra Kai

Deadwaste said:
i noticed after i posted the comment
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For what it's worth, I would recommend taking the free trial and cancelling immediately after you finish binging... It really is a great show if you have any nostalgia at all for the 80's.

I was thinking about it, and there is no way in he'll Hollywood could make a movie like the karate kid today.

If they tried, it'd probably be starring an ethnic minority of some sort for diversity sake, some inoffensive (and safe) washed up Asian guy in the Miyagi role (like Jet Li or Jackie Chan), and they probably wouldn't even be learning Karate (even though its in the damn name) because that's "too violent". It would probably suck.
 
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UnKillFill said:
If they tried, it'd probably be starring an ethnic minority of some sort for diversity sake, some inoffensive (and safe) washed up Asian guy in the Miyagi role (like Jet Li or Jackie Chan), and they probably wouldn't even be learning Karate (even though its in the damn name) because that's "too violent". It would probably suck.
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That is exactly what happened in 2010

I watched the first 2 episodes of Kobra Kai but cannot bring myself to pay 3$ an episode for the rest.
 
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Honestly, this series is really fucking good. You see a lot of this nostalgia kick where you see the story is basically identical, with new characters. This basically turns the original on its head and removes the 1980s dichotomy and blurs the lines between 'geeks and bullies' and it isn't one sided either, showing Johnny or Daniel's methods as truly good or truly bad. There's also basically
The Karate Kid movie playing in reverse this time around, so the series serves as a reboot of the Karate Kid movie at the same time it is a sequel to the movie itself. Its meta as fuck

The writing is actually shockingly good, especially when you think about this series is on YouTube Red. Its kinda sad when you have a YouTube Red series' writing putting major series like Star Wars to shame.
 
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Secret Asshole said:
Honestly, this series is really fucking good. You see a lot of this nostalgia kick where you see the story is basically identical, with new characters. This basically turns the original on its head and removes the 1980s dichotomy and blurs the lines between 'geeks and bullies' and it isn't one sided either, showing Johnny or Daniel's methods as truly good or truly bad. There's also basically
The Karate Kid movie playing in reverse this time around, so the series serves as a reboot of the Karate Kid movie at the same time it is a sequel to the movie itself. Its meta as fuck

The writing is actually shockingly good, especially when you think about this series is on YouTube Red. Its kinda sad when you have a YouTube Red series' writing putting major series like Star Wars to shame.
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Well the thing is that the series had Ralph Machio and Billy Zabka going to put great input into the series. I do certainly love that there is great nuance in this series where you could see where Miguel needed some more aggression in his life while Johnny's son needed balance. This is honestly more of what Star Wars should have been like where there is great callbacks to the original, there are new characters to help pass the torch to with the added bonus that the older characters still have great development left in them.
 
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Cricket said:
That is exactly what happened in 2010
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Gotta say I've only seen a few episodes but so far it's really good. It goes to show you don't need a massive budget to create a decent show these days. They also reference the movies but not in a forced or lame way. The funniest thing so far was the kid cleaning up the dojo and asks Johnny if he cares how he wipes the windows, an obvious Wax-On Wax-Off reference. The reply is a non-chalant "Nope, don't give a shit!"

I actually am impressed because I expected it to be a lame "OMG KARATE KIDS....REMEMBER SWEEP DA LEG??!?!?! REMEMBAH WAX ON WAX OFF? REEMEMBER WHEN MIYAGI KICKED ALL DOSE KIDS' ASSES?!?!! HURR DURR!!!! REMEMBAH!?!?"

It also kind of explains what the hell is wrong with Johnny. He may have grown up with money but you can tell he probably would have switched with Daniel's home life since at least while poor, the kid was rich in friends and family.

I think it's excellent writing where you can take a spoiled psycho from the original movie and explore why he was such a sadistic dick head. Hell...it's even good because it makes you feel sorry for the kid.
 
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I hate it. The daughter of LaRusso can fight but does nothing but being involved in love triangle crap. His son is also useless as fuck. The writing of the female characters is fucking bad except for the fat black girl.

It would be great if the blonde chick that bullied the fat cobra kai chick and the other bullies become students of LaRusso. Like he turns bad people into good ones while Lawrence and Kreese make bullies out of friendly kids.

I bet in the end they both open a new karate school and combine their techniques. Because something something BALANCE.

But that's just an idea and in the end I dgaf since I stopped watching.
 
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Sinners Sandwich said:
I hate it. The daughter of LaRusso can fight but does nothing but being involved in love triangle crap. His son is also useless as fuck. The writing of the female characters is fucking bad except for the fat black girl.

It would be great if the blonde chick that bullied the fat cobra kai chick and the other bullies become students of LaRusso. Like he turns bad people into good ones while Lawrence and Kreese make bullies out of friendly kids.

I bet in the end they both open a new karate school and combine their techniques. Because something something BALANCE.

But that's just an idea and in the end I dgaf since I stopped watching.
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Daniel's daughter, actually all of the girls in this show, act exactly like how *real* teenage girls act. If anything, the fact that Samantha can still somehow kick ass after giving it up for several years, is the unbelievable bit... not that she grew up and tried to distance herself from her father when she grew up.

As for the rich bitches (who I can assure you, I have met girls who act EXACTLY like how all of them act) the funniest part was that one of them (I believe her name was Yasmine?) Literally had a nose that looked like a pig snout, and yet she had the nerve to call another character (The "fat black" girl) a "pig".

Daniel's son was a little shit, and I loved him for it. I dare say, if this character were real, (and a few years older) he'd probably be a member of the farms himself..

Coming back to the "fat black girl" (Aisha) She was actually one of my favorite secondary characters in the series. (I liked "Hawk" a bit more though)

I dare say that you did not understand the series at all... Johnny did not (necessarily) "Make bullies out of friendly kids." And at *very* least, that was clearly not his intention. He taught wimpy kids to stand up for themselves and not be pussies... In a way that was, at first at least, wholly beneficial to them. His intentions never seemed to be to actually create "bullies" (And he seemed to be genuinely dismayed near the end when it became clear that he had inadvertently turned Miguel into one.) -His methods are *clearly* flawed, but it's also clear that he isn't entirely wrong either. (Likewise, it's clear that Daniel and his methods are not always right.)

For the record, I do personally at least give *some* credence to the "Daniel was the real bully" theory...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssm6eq12f7g
(I at *very* least recognize that it was not as black and white as: Daniel=Good, Johnny=Evil) and the fact that Cobra Kai seems to make a *direct* reference to this theory, is just part of why I love it so much.
 
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Sinners Sandwich said:
I hate it. The daughter of LaRusso can fight but does nothing but being involved in love triangle crap. His son is also useless as fuck. The writing of the female characters is fucking bad except for the fat black girl.

It would be great if the blonde chick that bullied the fat cobra kai chick and the other bullies become students of LaRusso. Like he turns bad people into good ones while Lawrence and Kreese make bullies out of friendly kids.

I bet in the end they both open a new karate school and combine their techniques. Because something something BALANCE.

But that's just an idea and in the end I dgaf since I stopped watching.
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You know why they went with Johnny's kid and Miguel over the daughter, right? Its because by having Johnny's kid vs. Larusso's daughter would have been too cliche, predictable and cheesy. And Johnny's son is involved because this is basically Johnny's story. We also need to see how this mentality reflects on a student that never was exposed to Johnny Lawrence. Miguel also acts as the vehicle for the viewer who isn't initiated in the 'Karate Kid' movie(s). We need someone on the complete outside to guide the viewer as a completely new character. Like, if you're jumping in with a spin-off story in a fantasy world that most people know, but you're rebooting, you have the 'stranger from a strange land' (or in this case, another part of Cali). So you need Miguel and you need Johnny's son (because this is Johnny's story, and his relationship with his son is a strong part of that). So there really isn't room (at least, in the initial season), for Larusso's daughter in the main narrative. There's also another reason for this as well.

The love triangle between Larusso's daughter, Miguel and Johnny's Son is basically 'The Karate Kid' movie in 'The Cobra Kai' series. I hate to go all literature and story structure scholar, but that's the meta-narrative of history (story) repeating itself. A large chunk of this is in spoilers since you can't really talk about the points you bring up without mentioning how the first season finishes out.

This time, however, the narrative of 'The Karate Kid' is flipped on its head. Johnny with the dojo is the one who is the underdog, the down and outer. He's struggling to make these shy, bullied teens into people who could stand up for themselves. In a normal story, they wouldn't end up as hyper-aggressive. But the problem is Johnny never really put himself into that teaching, he's basically replicating the lessons of Kreese without realizing it. He's not a sadist or a psychopath, so 'winning at any cost' doesn't translate the same way. The problem is, like with Kreese, these kids worship Johnny and want to do anything for him. While Kreese exploited that bond, Johnny is horrified to learn just the lengths they will go to prove their loyalty to him. He learns all too late the lengths they will go. He tries to stop it, but in the chaos of the tournament, there's not much he can do. The problem is, this all comes in the last episode, so there's really no time to explore this revelation. That's why when he gets everything, he's fucking miserable. He didn't win the way he wanted to win. He won the way Kreese would have wanted him to do so. And he fucking hates it.

Why do you think Kreese shows up at the end? Sure, its a nice lead in to Season 2, but it also nicely ties up the narrative. Look at the way they're lit in the shot. Johnny is in the light, with Kreese being his doused in shadow. You've got two fold symbolism here: Johnny is the good guy and Kreese is the bad, is the surface level reading. Deeper (and the point of that shot) is that Kreese is Johnny's metaphorical shadow. No matter how much Johnny tries to step away, the shadow of that psychopath follows not only him, but his students. And that's why the revelation is horrifying to him and why he looks so despondent at the end.

That's where the second part of the 'underdog' story gets turned on its head. They win, but not the right way. And to top it off, its against his own son, which is also symbolic in a lot of ways as well. These students are like his children, and crushing any hope of reconnecting with his own child, because he taught them to destroy their enemies. And they do it, without mercy, all for their Sensei.


So narratively there's a lot going on. His son is also an asshole because two perfect kids, with a perfect wife is boring as fuck. Also he's the youngest child and its implied he grew up like a spoiled brat because he was unplanned while his daughter wasn't. They weren't wealthy when they had her, so she's more down to Earth. He's more of an entitled little shit, because they were both busy they probably didn't have as much time raising him. He also serves as comic relief. He's also like in a handful of scenes, so its not like he makes a big impact besides painting Daniel as not being the perfect parent or a guy with all the answers. It serves to humanize Daniel.

In terms of the girls, that's the way high school girls act. They're fucking miserable cunts. Correction, that's how all rich high school students act. All like miserable, fucking cunts.

I also can't fucking believe that a YouTube Red series about a fucking high-school karate movie is narratively this deep. What the fuck is going on.
 
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Something I want to point out is that Cobra Kai seems openly critical of the role that nostalgia and living in the past has on people's lives. This could be me projecting my own feelings onto the series- but I feel like both Johnny and Daniel are in some sense letting their High School days define them. Daniel is doing somewhat better, but then he won the karate tournament.

If it is intentionally critical of nostalgia-and I hope that's intended- I feel like we kind of need entertainment like that right now. So much now is just "hey remember this thing you liked? We made it again!"
 
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The Shadow said:
Something I want to point out is that Cobra Kai seems openly critical of the role that nostalgia and living in the past has on people's lives. This could be me projecting my own feelings onto the series- but I feel like both Johnny and Daniel are in some sense letting their High School days define them. Daniel is doing somewhat better, but then he won the karate tournament.

If it is intentionally critical of nostalgia-and I hope that's intended- I feel like we kind of need entertainment like that right now. So much now is just "hey remember this thing you liked? We made it again!"
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yeah.. that's part of why it got so many feels from me... I'm not immune to that shit. even despite not really growing up with the karate kid.. Except they "made it again" way better than the original...
 
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So... Here is some speculation for season 2:
I don't think Kreese is actually back. I think Johnny was telling the truth about him being dead, and the Kreese that appeared at the end of season 1 is a figment of his imagination or a manifestation of his guilt over *his* Cobra Kai being more in line with Kreese's views than the ones he was clearly intending it to be... (He was clearly dismayed when his pupils turned out to be cheatingly evil... he just wanted them to not be pussies, and there is a definite difference) It has already been leaked that "Mike Barnes" (The villain of Karate Kid 3, which I truthfully do not remember in the slightest.) will be making an appearance in season 2... It seems to me like the story would be really cluttered with both of them as main characters...
 
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I'm still watching this trainwreck, but I'll share my thoughts so far. I don't know if it's intentionally trying to have that bad 80s tv show/movie vibe, but it nails it. The first fight is a grown man beating up kids. Lol really? It's remarkably bad, but I still find it entertaining.
 
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