We also got a glimpse of Katana's Soultaker, which was either degassing for some strange chemical reason or is magical too.
I think magic is 100% in play, and not just as "advanced alien technology." They've been kicking around the JL Dark project for a while.
My take is that it's not about pure realism in the DCEU, but instead about a little more realism in terms of how the existence of aliens, magic, etc. is received by the world.
Do we know if/when the Justice League Dark film is actually happening, and whether it's going to fit into this universe or not? I've seen things saying it's been moved up, moved back, cancelled, not cancelled, part of the DCCU, not part of it... I really hope it does go ahead, simply as the John Constantine deserves more than just one cancelled (but very good) series. Swamp Thing and Zatanna would be cool additions, too.
I don't think they're going to shy away from magic itself, it's pretty integral to a lot of characters they have lined up (WW, Shazam, Enchantress, Black Adam, Constantine and Zatanna if JL Dark does happen), I was more wondering how they were going to handle the mythological side of the WW stuff, whether they're going to make this particular pantheon a proven reality ect.
gorgon wrote: We also got a glimpse of Katana's Soultaker, which was either degassing for some strange chemical reason or is magical too.
It's magical. Geoff Johns said that it "devours the souls of those it has slain".
I think magic is 100% in play, and not just as "advanced alien technology." They've been kicking around the JL Dark project for a while.
My take is that it's not about pure realism in the DCEU, but instead about a little more realism in terms of how the existence of aliens, magic, etc. is received by the world.
So, initially before the WW project ever started filming there were suggestions that the Amazons/Atlanteans were going to be the descendants of a Kryptonian scout ship(the one we saw trapped in the ice in MoS).
Dunno if that is still going to be the case, with a bit of mysticism thrown in.
That scout ship thing was speculation from the guy at Batman on Film that the interwebz took and ran with (and freaked out about). I *believe* one of the execs at WB is on record saying she's the "daughter of Zeus."
Edit: WB would be idiots to ignore the awesomeness that was Azzarello's run on WW, and her relationships with the gods (her family) was central to that storyline. And I don't think that they're idiots.
Edit part deux: From an article on Screenrant...
So when Batman V Superman producer Charles Roven discussed the film for LMU Film School’s Hollywood Masters series, his comments regarding the next heroes to be introduced weren’t too shocking:
“Well Wonder Woman’s in it, we know that. She has powers, she’s a goddess. She’s half… she’s a demigod. Her father was Zeus."
Still disappointed with the casting choice for WW.; she doesn't look very much like a warrior at all. Sadly(for me anyway ), it seems like she'll be around for awhile.
To clarify-
Spoiler:
Compare
To
Different strokes for different folks and all that, but If they're going to cast a "feminist icon" they could at least not pick someone from a profession that's notorious for body-image issues(fashion model).
Well, if she's super strong she isn't probably actually working her muscles much. Throwing a sword around would be like you or me whipping around a straw.
She is not human - our rules about how our muscles look etc don't apply - Its the same with Asgardians, Elves, Eldar - loads of other sci-fi and fantasy races - they are inherently super strong, agile, fast because they are physically better than us. It might be the result different body composition, storage - transmission of energy, magic, or whatever.
Whether she is the daughter of actual Gods (whatever that means in the DC Cinematic universe), Kryptonian or something else we don't know but it means that she doe snot need to be big and bulky - just have the right background............
Remember that the Kyrtonians had at least one super ninja/mad scientist with a flying dragon to ride around o and apparently they was all fine and "realistic"
BlaxicanX wrote: The whole "what do you need muscles for when you're a fantastical being" thing kind of falls apart when you look at Superman, who's fethed ripped.
For me it's not entirely about build. It's also about presence. Nothing I've ever seen in Gadot in and nothing in her pictures I've seen indicates I'll believe she could lay a dude out. Super powers or not she just lacks an aura of tough and capable.
kronk wrote: I seem to recall an argument on these boards about cat woman not looking the part in The Dark Knight Rises. I will repeat here what I said there.
STFU you goddam nerds and look at that ass!
Spoiler:
Seriously. Her fething muscles is where this loses reality for you?!?!?!
Jesus on a pogo stick.
So what you're saying is... She was casted for eye candy, and not because she fits the part?
Nah, I actually believed catwoman in Dark Knight Rises. She pulled off confident gymnast thief very well.
I'm not sure the muscles are the issues for everyone. Most people I talk to fee the same way I do. It's the aura of potential mayhem mixed with toughness and a capability around violence.
I never would have guess someone like Emily Blount for instance would have it. But when you see her in that "Live, Die, Repeat" movie, whatever the actual title, she totally pulls it off.
I guess I'll know more when I see it in theatres. Because I will see it in theatres
Said it since she was cast...the big question with Ms. Godot is her acting chops, not her muscles. Not that WW requires her to be Meryl Streep, but that's what carries a performance.
I mean, JHC...Scarlett Johannson isn't the least bit athletic-looking, and yet fanboys don't utter a peep about her as Black Widow. Of course, they're probably busy ogling other "assets," which are really what 75% of the complaints about Godot have to do with. But really, SJ does a decent job in the role, we suspend our disbelief, and it works.
Quite frankly, a lot of the fan suggestions I've seen for WW have predictably been no better or even worse. Gina Carano? She's cute and has physicality, but really don't see "goddess" presence. And I don't know that she's any improvement in the acting department. I don't see leading lady there.
Jamie Alexander...well, maybe. At times she even looks just like WW as drawn by Cliff Chiang...think it's in the eyes. But IIRC she talked with WB about the role and it didn't work out.
If someone wanted to bring up Charlize Theron, you'll get no argument from me, as she's basically *perfect* for the role -- terrific actor, has height, presence, looks, and can play tough or sweet. But they also probably weren't going to get her.
Given that the geek hivemind has a track record of fairly awful judgment with regards to casting genre characters, we should probably give Godot a chance.
Given that the geek hivemind has a track record of fairly awful judgment with regards to casting genre characters, we should probably give Godot a chance.
Omega symbol on the ground, definitely Darkseid, as was speculated earlier when the last trailer had what appeared to be Parademons.
In a word, awesome. The funny thing is here that if Darkseid is to appear in JL Part 1, then DC have actually beaten Marvel to the punch, DS will take on the League before Thanos meets The Avengers... Not that I'm usually one to pit DC against Marvel, I just sit back and enjoy great films and comics from both, but since Thanos and Darkseid started out as pretty much identical characters, this is the one comparison that can be fairly drawn, I think.
Gadot (who will totally fight you) told the magazine she initially thought she was auditioning to play Catwoman. Instead, she landed the role of Wonder Woman/Diana Prince, who will also totally fight you. Gadot said the two sides of her character — both of which will be seen in Batman V Superman — have their differences.
“They have the same attitude. Although when she is Diana she tries to blend in, she is not too outgoing. I don’t want people to think she is perfect. She can be naughty.” [Empire via What Culture]
The interview also revealed the DC Cinematic Universe version of Wonder Woman is going to be more than five thousand years old and was already in retirement when Batman V Superman begins. Gadot said Wonder Woman retired because “she’s seen it all. She has seen what humans can do, so it was very hard for her to come back and fight.”
Wouldn't say she was a day past 4,500 !
Guessing with that range of experience she'll still be better h2h than Batman then !
Yeah, apparently they're on record as saying WW is the best hand-to-hand combatant in their universe... Batman being the second best, of course!
Interesting that they're going with her actually being immortal. Big question about her now, power wise, is can this version fly? We've not seen that yet, and something about her stance in the (admittedly brief) glimpses of her in the trailers almost suggest to me that she can't, she seems very grounded while Superman is flying pretty much wherever possible.
Paradigm wrote: Yeah, apparently they're on record as saying WW is the best hand-to-hand combatant in their universe... Batman being the second best, of course! .
Paradigm wrote: Yeah, apparently they're on record as saying WW is the best hand-to-hand combatant in their universe... Batman being the second best, of course!
Interesting that they're going with her actually being immortal. Big question about her now, power wise, is can this version fly? We've not seen that yet, and something about her stance in the (admittedly brief) glimpses of her in the trailers almost suggest to me that she can't, she seems very grounded while Superman is flying pretty much wherever possible.
I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have her as being able to fly - I doubt she would need to be ridding a horse if she could (unless she just fancies the novelty) Also I would guess its more costly / PITA for them to make? Then again she does arrive in the battle with Superman and batman from nowhere.........
An immortal done well would be cool - for me one of the few really cool characters in Agents of shield is the Asgardian Elliot Randolph, nice to have a non angst ridden immortal
Paradigm wrote: Omega symbol on the ground, definitely Darkseid, as was speculated earlier when the last trailer had what appeared to be Parademons.
In a word, awesome. The funny thing is here that if Darkseid is to appear in JL Part 1, then DC have actually beaten Marvel to the punch, DS will take on the League before Thanos meets The Avengers... Not that I'm usually one to pit DC against Marvel, I just sit back and enjoy great films and comics from both, but since Thanos and Darkseid started out as pretty much identical characters, this is the one comparison that can be fairly drawn, I think.
Well, Marvel has more incentive for drawing things out with Thanos, since Marvel superhero films are all they make. They don't want to get there TOO quickly. I tend to think that WB has a shorter-term focus -- that they don't plan to run this DCEU until 2037 or whatever Feige says these days about the MCU. After 2020 or so, WB will probably move on to other things and maybe reboot some of the characters. Which seems kinda fitting giving the history of their respective comics universes!
And regarding the two big bads...Darkseid is much scarier than Thanos, IMO. Thanos is trying to impress a chick! Who doesn't understand that? Darkseid wants to crush the concept of free will...just because.
Well, Disney are also working on this little thing called Star Wars every year or so...
I do think DC will continue past this first wave, as long as superhero films are making money and pulling in the crowds. Whether that'll be with new characters or whether we'll start seeing sequels (Batman sequels are a given), they may not have it all planned out but I don't think they're going away any time soon.
I must say I do prefer Darkseid to Thanos, but that could be because I've just seen more of him.
Well sure, but Marvel Studios isn't making the SW films. Marvel Studios exists within Disney only to make Marvel character films.
And TBH, I'm expecting some superhero movie exhaustion to hit in a few years time. When you look at the lineup across all three studios, it's really a lot. Too much, probably.
gorgon wrote: And TBH, I'm expecting some superhero movie exhaustion to hit in a few years time.
For the most part I have been hearing that for a few years. Lots of genres get popular for long periods, like Westerns in the past or action movies in the 80's, and I imagine that Superhero films aren't any different at the moment.
I think people might pick and choose what they see more but that they will still rake in the cash. I mean, just this year I'm iffy on Dr. Strange & BvS. Though I'll probably see all of them this year.
Next year on the other hand I'm iffy about WW, Wolverine 3, and Spidey.
And does Marvel really have 3 films slated for 2018 and 2019?
Isn't Gambit also this year or next? I can't say I'm hugely interested in it (after Wolverine 3 I think I'm just going to call it a day with the X-verse, 3 trilogies- Wolverine, original, prequel- that thus far don't have bad film among them as far as I'm concerned), just for the sake of completeness.
Hulksmash wrote: I think people might pick and choose what they see more but that they will still rake in the cash. I mean, just this year I'm iffy on Dr. Strange & BvS. Though I'll probably see all of them this year.
Next year on the other hand I'm iffy about WW, Wolverine 3, and Spidey.
And does Marvel really have 3 films slated for 2018 and 2019?
Yep. And three slots in 2020. To me it seems like doubling down at a time when fatigue could set in. But Marvel does a good job at keeping the budgets down for their films, so even if they aren't doing huge box office, they'll probably be profitable ventures.
I got a little chuckle out of "Captain Marvel" and "Shazam" being back to back, considering the history of those characters and their names.
Hulksmash wrote: I think people might pick and choose what they see more but that they will still rake in the cash. I mean, just this year I'm iffy on Dr. Strange & BvS. Though I'll probably see all of them this year.
Next year on the other hand I'm iffy about WW, Wolverine 3, and Spidey.
And does Marvel really have 3 films slated for 2018 and 2019?
Yep. And three slots in 2020. To me it seems like doubling down at a time when fatigue could set in. But Marvel does a good job at keeping the budgets down for their films, so even if they aren't doing huge box office, they'll probably be profitable ventures.
I got a little chuckle out of "Captain Marvel" and "Shazam" being back to back, considering the history of those characters and their names.
The difference is that one should be awesome and the other will require a miracle to turn into something watchable! And yes, Shazam is the latter!
Of the entire schedule, the only ones I'm not keen on are Shazam (really don't like the character, I can't take him seriously), Spidey (I am a huge fan of the Garfield ones, I doubt this one will be as good), maybe The Inhumans (depends whether Agents of SHIELD keeps going down the Inhuman route for the next 3 years, I might be Inhumaned out by then), and the X-verse ones I mentioned before. Other than that, bring it on!
I hazard to guess that Shazam will be the lightest, most comedic fare offered by the DCEU.
So I did some minor sleuthing re: Wonder Woman. There's a shot in a recent trailer that shows her (as Diana Prince) on an airplane. If you look closely at the wall behind her, you can see that it's a Turkish Airlines plane. This is interesting because the Themyscira Plain in Turkey is where the mythical Amazons were supposed to have lived. The comic book writers borrowed the name to refer to the fictional Paradise Island.
So, I think it's probable that the Amazons in the DCEU are located in modern-day Turkey. That could be an island as in the comics, or it may simply be a city on the Themysicra Plain, as per the original myth.
And that could be the explanation for the WWI setting of the Wonder Woman film (as opposed to the character's traditional WWII association) -- it's the fighting on their doorstep during WWI (the Ottoman Empire being one of the Central Powers) that gets the Amazons interested in "man's world" once again.
The whole Wonder Woman story sounds really interesting - the Amazons/Scythans/ etc story has a lot of potential - look forward to seeing what they will do with it.....
Some great films coming out this year and some.....less so - now that I have seen the trailer for Deadpool I will try to avoid it..............all the rest look good though
gorgon wrote: I hazard to guess that Shazam will be the lightest, most comedic fare offered by the DCEU.
So I did some minor sleuthing re: Wonder Woman. There's a shot in a recent trailer that shows her (as Diana Prince) on an airplane. If you look closely at the wall behind her, you can see that it's a Turkish Airlines plane. This is interesting because the Themyscira Plain in Turkey is where the mythical Amazons were supposed to have lived. The comic book writers borrowed the name to refer to the fictional Paradise Island.
So, I think it's probable that the Amazons in the DCEU are located in modern-day Turkey. That could be an island as in the comics, or it may simply be a city on the Themysicra Plain, as per the original myth.
And that could be the explanation for the WWI setting of the Wonder Woman film (as opposed to the character's traditional WWII association) -- it's the fighting on their doorstep during WWI (the Ottoman Empire being one of the Central Powers) that gets the Amazons interested in "man's world" once again.
Simply fantastic! Can't wait for this now (well, I couldn't already, but y'know, even more so now!). This new Batman looks so much more brutal than any previous version, and I'm completely sold on Irons as Alfred after that first shot.
And that look on Supes' face when Bats blocks his swing at the end... yeah, he's rather irate...
True, he's a fantastic actor, I just wasn't sure he could pull off the slightly carefree, stiff-upper-lip nonchalance needed for Alfred as well as the darker and deeper stuff we know he can do. All doubts banished now, though!
Trailer looks great. That might be the best Batman fight sequence that we've seen on film to date, and we aren't even seeing all of it. Especially with the traditional-looking suit, it really looks like the Batman of the comics in action.
If you don't blink, you can see that shot of Batman overlooking the ruined city and firepits, with the symbol in the ground.
AduroT wrote: Nah, probably just the initial hit and he's holding back because he's not used to a human being that strong with the power armor.
As much as Kryptonite gloves/ring/suit is the standard, I'm more leaning towards Supes holding back, seeing as earlier in the trailer we see him fly a fully armoured Bats through a building, not something I imagine he could do in proximity to Kyrptonite. I still expect Kryptonite to factor in somewhere, but I doubt it'll be something he immediately uses, more a last resort (or used by Luthor).
Since they have mentioned that the suit is more a delaying tactic than something to allow him to take Supes mano-a-mano, I imagine it'll be similar to The Dark Knight Returns (as much as we're all sick of hearing that phrase used in connection to this film! ) where Bats doesn't need to beat him down, just hold him up long enough for a plan to kick in. Could be Kryptonite, could be someone else stepping in (pretty sure WW will be the one to bring their fight to an end in one way or another).
I promised I wasn't going to watch anymore trailers but... I just had to.
And yup, that one worked. - I'm super excited for the film now. I do think they went a tiny bit too brutal with Batman's last hit against the thugs though - faceplanting him so hard his head disappeared was a bit much....
IMO, the look on Cavill's face is more "what the feth is going on" than "hmm...tougher than expected." And there's a BvS LEGO kit that suggests an answer.
gorgon wrote: IMO, the look on Cavill's face is more "what the feth is going on" than "hmm...tougher than expected." And there's a BvS LEGO kit that suggests an answer.
What is up with Lego and leaking spoilers? Am early Lego leak gave us the first look at the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World.
To the above about too many super hero movies......I honestly think we are gonna hit a bubble soon. the MCU has kinda gone down in quality barring netflix, with too much focusing on setting up final Avengers. Im gonna need to catch up on Agents of sheild and Daredevil and jessica jones to make sense of it. oh well, i got alot of painting to get done.
hotsauceman1 wrote: To the above about too many super hero movies......I honestly think we are gonna hit a bubble soon. the MCU has kinda gone down in quality barring netflix, with too much focusing on setting up final Avengers. Im gonna need to catch up on Agents of sheild and Daredevil and jessica jones to make sense of it. oh well, i got alot of painting to get done.
1) OK?
2) Thanks for waiting almost 3 weeks to add that!
Anyway...
...the new trailer looks great!
I was already really looking forward to this one, now, even more so!
gorgon wrote: IMO, the look on Cavill's face is more "what the feth is going on" than "hmm...tougher than expected." And there's a BvS LEGO kit that suggests an answer.
What is up with Lego and leaking spoilers? Am early Lego leak gave us the first look at the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World.
I believe Lego also leaked that (potential Civil War spoilers)
Spoiler:
Ant-man will become Giant Man in CW; the 'Airport Showdown' set has a massive minifigure (megafigure?) of Giant-man.
I'm avoiding the BvS one, though, so no one say nothin' outside of spoilers, please!
hotsauceman1 wrote:To the above about too many super hero movies......I honestly think we are gonna hit a bubble soon. the MCU has kinda gone down in quality barring netflix, with too much focusing on setting up final Avengers. Im gonna need to catch up on Agents of sheild and Daredevil and jessica jones to make sense of it. oh well, i got alot of painting to get done.
You really don't need that. DD and JJ are pretty much entirely self-contained bar the odd throwaway reference, and they've come out and said that the Agents of SHIELD stuff will not be crossing back into main MCU territory in the forseeable future (except possibly with The Inhumans, but even then, they've said the movie version will be different to the ones showing up in AoS). All you need to see is the movies. I'd also argue the quality is only getting better. Iron Man aside, all of the Phase 2 movies have been better than their Phase 1 counterparts, Age of Ultron and Winter Soldier were a new high points, Guardians was an unmitigated hit and for what it was, Ant-man was as great as it could have been too (much better the second time round, in fact).
Sasori wrote:I wish they had just skipped the second trailer.
This trailer was by far the best one.
I'll agree with the second part there. I must admit the Doomsday trailer was perhaps a little heavy-handed, but stiff decent at setting up the movie. As much as has been given away, there's still a lot we don't know (where do Wonder Woman and Luthor fit in all of this, why exactly are Bats and Supes fighting this time, how does Batman's past factor in, what kind of Justice League setup are we going to see?)
Part of me does hope it's all a big bait-and-switch with Doomsday, though, and that the 'Is she with you?' scene will be the end of the movie; Supes and Bats are just reaching the end of their battle, WW drops in and enter Doomsday, the Trinity are assembled, roll credits, open JL Part 1 with the three of them taking on Doomsday... No way that'll happen, though.
If anyone cares to know the LEGO spoiler (it's not a big one, but still)...
Spoiler:
The set is called "Kryptonite Interception" and features Batman and the Batmobile with some LexCorp workers driving a forklift carrying Kryptonite.
Not too hard to figure that out. ALTHOUGH, I'm guessing that Luthor won't that upset in the movie over that particular theft. Because how would Batman even know about Kryptonite or what it might do under certain seeds were planted?
gorgon wrote: If anyone cares to know the LEGO spoiler (it's not a big one, but still)...
Spoiler:
The set is called "Kryptonite Interception" and features Batman and the Batmobile with some LexCorp workers driving a forklift carrying Kryptonite.
Not too hard to figure that out. ALTHOUGH, I'm guessing that Luthor won't that upset in the movie over that particular theft. Because how would Batman even know about Kryptonite or what it might do under certain seeds were planted?
There's also one that
Spoiler:
shows Batman shooting superman with a kryptonite blast from a cannon. Figured that's the one being discussed, actually.
gorgon wrote: If anyone cares to know the LEGO spoiler (it's not a big one, but still)...
Spoiler:
The set is called "Kryptonite Interception" and features Batman and the Batmobile with some LexCorp workers driving a forklift carrying Kryptonite.
Not too hard to figure that out. ALTHOUGH, I'm guessing that Luthor won't that upset in the movie over that particular theft. Because how would Batman even know about Kryptonite or what it might do under certain seeds were planted?
There's also one that
Spoiler:
shows Batman shooting superman with a kryptonite blast from a cannon. Figured that's the one being discussed, actually.
I liked the trailer. It was fun, it was quick, it gave me an impression that Batman would be super cool and that Superman would also be super cool. This was, I think, the best trailer of the lot.
That trailer actually made me interested to see it - it helped that they had some humour and very little of Lex - who I have not seen anything to like in any trailer.
Sigvatr wrote: Everytime I see "Lex", I don't want to see the movie again. This must be the biggest miscast in recent movie history...for a long time, even.
I Know right - hopefully we are missing something and he will be great and not what he seems to be in the trailers - horrible.
Sigvatr wrote: Everytime I see "Lex", I don't want to see the movie again. This must be the biggest miscast in recent movie history...for a long time, even.
I recall people saying the same thing about Heath Ledger as Joker and Michael Keaton as Batman and both were really good at the part so maybe gnashing one's teeth about casting at this point may be a bit presumptive. I'm skeptical about Gal Godot but I'll give her a shot before wailing about it.
I think we really need to see what this Lex is before we judge the actor in the role.
If this Lex is supposed to be a growling, scenery-chewing, middle-aged, real estate-obsessed villain, then sure, he's probably not the best choice for the role. But OUTSIDE past movies, Lex has been different things at different times.
Since this Lex is LL Jr., I wonder if they aren't taking a few basic notes from the LL II storyline from the mid post-Crisis era, without the whole clone angle. To wit, Dad was the more obviously ruthless one while Jr is the energetic optimistic type (at least publicly). Some of the fake interviews have suggested this.
Sigvatr wrote: Everytime I see "Lex", I don't want to see the movie again. This must be the biggest miscast in recent movie history...for a long time, even.
I recall people saying the same thing about Heath Ledger as Joker and Michael Keaton as Batman and both were really good at the part so maybe gnashing one's teeth about casting at this point may be a bit presumptive. I'm skeptical about Gal Godot but I'll give her a shot before wailing about it.
She still looks like Skeletor's niece though.
Gal Gadot is bloody gorgeous wtf you talking about?
gorgon wrote: I think we really need to see what this Lex is before we judge the actor in the role.
If this Lex is supposed to be a growling, scenery-chewing, middle-aged, real estate-obsessed villain, then sure, he's probably not the best choice for the role. But OUTSIDE past movies, Lex has been different things at different times.
Since this Lex is LL Jr., I wonder if they aren't taking a few basic notes from the LL II storyline from the mid post-Crisis era, without the whole clone angle. To wit, Dad was the more obviously ruthless one while Jr is the energetic optimistic type (at least publicly). Some of the fake interviews have suggested this.
My Fav Lex was the Smallville one - agreed we have only seen clips - but in the clips he seemed a whinny prat.
Sigvatr wrote: Everytime I see "Lex", I don't want to see the movie again. This must be the biggest miscast in recent movie history...for a long time, even.
We all said the same about Heath Ledger, and look how that turned out...
gorgon wrote: I think we really need to see what this Lex is before we judge the actor in the role.
If this Lex is supposed to be a growling, scenery-chewing, middle-aged, real estate-obsessed villain, then sure, he's probably not the best choice for the role. But OUTSIDE past movies, Lex has been different things at different times.
Since this Lex is LL Jr., I wonder if they aren't taking a few basic notes from the LL II storyline from the mid post-Crisis era, without the whole clone angle. To wit, Dad was the more obviously ruthless one while Jr is the energetic optimistic type (at least publicly). Some of the fake interviews have suggested this.
That's the route SMALLVILLE took too - and it worked well!
Sigvatr wrote: Everytime I see "Lex", I don't want to see the movie again. This must be the biggest miscast in recent movie history...for a long time, even.
We all said the same about Heath Ledger, and look how that turned out...
Thanks to that roll I keep an open mind anymore. Because DAYUM!
JK Simmons has rumoured to be announced as Jim Gordon in the Justice League film.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this. I mean, I still kinda want to see him again as J Jonah Jameson in Spidey, that's just always been a perfect part for him.
And Gary Oldman, considering the time that Justice League will be filmed at, would have been a perfect age. - And again, he fits Jim Gordon's look perfectly.
In saying that, JK Simmons does have the Batman Animated Series Gordon look pretty closely. (Until I realised he has less hair than he used to...)
Compel wrote: JK Simmons has rumoured to be announced as Jim Gordon in the Justice League film.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this. I mean, I still kinda want to see him again as J Jonah Jameson in Spidey, that's just always been a perfect part for him.
I want pictures of that no-good Batman! Bruce, you know him, see if you can get photos of him!
Compel wrote:JK Simmons has rumoured to be announced as Jim Gordon in the Justice League film.
It isn't really a rumor, he is playing Gordon in the JL film.
kronk wrote:Why not Gary Oldman?
Look at the (possibly justified) confusion/anger of bringing up an older franchise in the Ghostbusters trailer and apply that to Batman on film. Using him again in an unrelated world would make baby Jesus cry, I think.
After following this and watching every trailer, I still I think I'm likely to see this, but I have a hard time coming up with enthusiasm for it. I'm worried it might be dark, broody garbage - the visuals of the darkest parts of the Nolanverse, with the poor writing of Sucker Punch. The only thing that really interests me is seeing Gal Godot as Wonder Woman since it's new and interesting.
I think Affleck will probably do a good job as Batman since I think Ben Affleck is a relatively decent actor - I loved him in The Town, and Gone Girl. However even a good actor can be failed by bad writing and directing and Zack Snyder does not make me think good direction is likely. Similarly, I like the guy who plays Superman. I just wish it wasn't so damn joyless.
Perhaps I will be surprised, though. I'd like to see it do well because I do like superhero movies. When I was a kid, I couldn't have imagined how popular and mainstream this stuff would become.
Here are some tweets from Anthony Breznican (@Breznican), an EW reporter who's seen the film:
1. If you loved Man of Steel, you'll love BvS.
2. If you loved Man of Steel, but not the end, BvS may redeem that.
3. If you hated Man of Steel and the whole grim/dark thing, okay, probably not for you.
4. Wonder Woman is fearsome.
5. There's a moment between Batman & Superman that'll make even the most cynical eye tear-up a little.
6. Fans will have a lot to discuss (and fight over.)
I loved that it took things people didn't like about Man of Steel and jiu-jitsued them into being part of the story.
I'm just fine with a darker tone and some thoughtfulness. If I want to see yuks and dance-offs, I'll go watch a Marvel film. I don't need to see Bruce dance the Batusi again. It won't be worse than Avengers 2, which was a steaming pile.
Regarding #4 above, there have been a lot of rumors and whispers that WW steals the film.
Well I consider Man of Steel one of the best comic book movies ever made*, so... guess I'm in for a treat! Saw a BvS billboard earlier, and it hit me that the film I've been looking forward to for nearly 3 years now is finally coming out! Can't wait!
*Only contenders are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Winter Soldier, Kingsmen... maybe Amazing Spiderman 1...
I'm just fine with a darker tone and some thoughtfulness. If I want to see yuks and dance-offs, I'll go watch a Marvel film. I don't need to see Bruce dance the Batusi again
Darker tone - man of Steel - really? The comedic space opera of the first section on Kyrpton made John Carter of Mars look like a serious documentary............. Look at me I am mad scientist ninja with my own space dragon.............
Yes, MoS had a darker tone..especially toward the end.
I think if you compare the way the threat of Ultron vs Zod was presented to the world, Zod was far more menacing.
He was on all channels, threatening world destruction if Supes wasn't handed over.
Supes also straight up killed Zod...a fellow Kryptonian...in a pretty hardcore way. Sure..we see so many movies where people snap necks...but they do so with so little emotion. That is where this is "darker" than other movies...we see the choice Supes has to make...one of the hardest and most difficult of moral choices.
Ultron was limited in scope and threat. The public had no knowledge of him. He was also presented as a robot, and so de-humanized in our eyes. When he was defeated it was a very "comic book" ending he met. The "darkest" (and arguably one of the dumbest) parts was Quicksilver dying.
gorgon wrote: And once again, you dip into "I have no idea what Mr. Morden is going on about" territory.
You do recall Supermans dad right? Who for no apparent reason had a Space Dragon to fly about on and in a society where people were selected for their one role in life was not only the best scientist in the whole wide world but also could easily defeat the best solider they had in single combat. I assume he was exiled to his oh so special tower cos he was a loony.
That was not dark - it was Flash Gordon style space Opera - that and the oh no we are all going to die - if only we had some way to escape - like on these giant spaceships we have loads of.............oh yeah lets do that - I figure the only person actually left on Krypton when it blew was the mad scientist's mad wife.
The earth centred stuff was much better but the death of Sups "dad" was pretty badly done and made little sense
After a dull and tiresome fight scene where the two main protagonists took turns to drag each other through buildings - yeah Superman killed a guy who happened to be from his planet.
The fact that they would have killed thousands previously is apparently no big deal?
Quicksilver dying saving a child is much more heroic and arguably darker than guy kills other guy he had no emotional connection with to stop him killing people. Sups put down a mad dog....nothing more. It was highly noticeable in the Avengers films that the main focus of the team is saving lives whatever the risk to themselves
The talk between Vision and the last Ultron is nicely done - about his fear of death.
still its all subjective in the end...................
I really hope the new Sups / Batman film is good - the Wonder Woman stuff looks ace, the Batman ok and the sups stuff better - but the Lex stuff looks horrible sadly.
To be fair, Jor-El's whole reason for having a natural birth for his son was to break free of the Kyrptonian class system, so it's not unreasonable that he's something of a polymath in protest.
Kal killing Zod is not 'dark' because they have any kind of connection, it's dark (if that's the right word for it) because it represents the final end of his race, it's also significant as it represents him choosing humanity over Krypton, his new home over his birthplace... I'd also replace the words 'dull and tiresome' with 'epic and visually stunning' in describing the fight. Better than anything in Marvel, I reckon.
Comparing DC to Marvel is something of a dead end, though, I think. Even going back to the comics, the approach taken by each is completely different; I find Marvel are more about the story, DC tend to focus more on their character's internal conflicts and they're a lot 'greyer'. The 'Marvel=fun, DC=miserable' stereotype (just compare DC's Flash series to Marvel's Daredevil, the complete opposite is true) is oversimplified, but there is a notable difference that carries over to the films.
It isn't the final end of his race, necessarily. The ship with the rest of the rebels (Commander Faora) etc were sent back to the Phantom Zone, if I recall correctly.
They escaped once before, perhaps may do so again.
True, though I recall some of the technobabble about merging the two Phantom Drives would destroy them, so they'd be trapped in the Phantom Zone even if they were technically alive (been a few months since I last watched it, though, so I may be misremembering). Kal making the choice of Earth over Krypton is the important part of the scene, I think. The concious decision to kill Zod is what marks that.
Well, those 6 bullet points have made me pretty much super positive about the film. - It was the end chunk of the film I had issues with.
I had a theory a while back about how the Batman VS Superman fight would end that might fit in with that "tear up a little" point.
My theory was, Batman would eventually overpower Superman to the point of, at least, the only way Superman could defeat Bats would be to kill him (ala Zod).
Except, instead of doing that, Clark stops.
"Do it. Just do it. If you truly think I'm a threat to this world, your home, your city. Do it, kill me. <Insert big speech here>"
Batman raises fist, ready to strike... Grabs his arm and helps him up instead. Yet, Batman, being Batman says something like, "If you ever step out of line..." "I know."
He also destroyed the space ship that represented the last chance to seed a new planet (i.e. it had a genesis device on it) when he laser-beamed down the ship that Zod was flying. The whole ending of the film was him not only defeating the evil plan, but doing so in a way that would prevent any chance of salvaging part of Krypton, since he was more focused on saving human lives. (I know that there is a lot about that scene that seems to focus on killing and not saving, but I mean that he could have tried to keep the ship intact, but instead took it down quickly.)
Those six bulletpoints above are really enticing. I loved MoS on a recent rewatch, but felt that the final fight scene against Zod should have been cut (i.e. he should have gone into the Phantom Zone as well, ending the film 5 minutes earlier), so to hear that this is like MoS but minus that final scene is really encouraging.
I'm more hyped now. The trailers ranged from meh to awful. Seeing it with my friend on Friday 1st, so I've got to be careful to avoid the spoilers in the reviews of it from the critics (because fanboys, in my experience, tend to proclaim films as the greatest thing since sliced bread, regardless of how good the film actually is).
I'm going with my wife and some friends to a midnight showing (in 2d) on Thursday. Really excited for it. I sat and rewatched Man of Steel last weekend in preparation, a film which I like more with every new viewing, though the final fight with Zod is still one fight too many, I think. The noise that Ben Affleck and Gal Galdot have done a good job is reassuring - since we are apparently going to be seeing these characters a lot more on the big screen, going forward.
Also, interesting that the audience reactions don't mention the other JLA members. I'm curious to see how much screen time people like Cyborg and Aquaman really get.
Probably will see it, but not nearly as buzzed as I was at the weekend.
Sigh...so much potential. It sounds like they should have stuck with Luthor, no need for Doomsday/Darkseid (they should be a Justice League enemy, not just Bman+Sman). Wonder Woman being good is a plus though.
40% on Rotten Tomatoes? 48% on Metacritic? Think I'll stick to the CW's Arrow and Flash.
Depends who you hear it from. I just watched a video on YouTube where the guy said it was all kinds of awesome. Then again I watched a video where the hosts panned it as barely watchable. *shrugs*
That is exactly why I set very little store by reviews, they're the opinions of individuals and there are going to be as many different angles as there are reviewers. I for one can't see how this film can be anything less than stellar, given the trailers, the premise, the source material... But equally, I can see someone who's seen exactly the same things about it as I have, and reached the conclusion that it's going to be a bloated, overcrowded, overly dark mess.
It's a film with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in, to me, that is just such an awesome thing to finally see on the big screen that I pretty much know I'm going to enjoy it, regardless of how well it's been made (though I have a great deal of faith that it's going to be an excellent movie in its own right).
It's going to be a commercial success, because you've got two of DC's most iconic characters duking it out and a whole lot of supporting characters including Wonder Woman (who I hear steals the show), Doomsday (has been getting negative reviews) and Lex Luthor (described as a marmite performance).
Batman and Superman alone should rake in the money of the fan boys to get to the $800m box office. Anything less is a flop, considering that Deadpool, it's competition at the time of posting, garnered almost $750m on about a fifth of the budget that BvS had.
KingCracker wrote: Depends who you hear it from. I just watched a video on YouTube where the guy said it was all kinds of awesome. Then again I watched a video where the hosts panned it as barely watchable. *shrugs*
Yeah, the reviews are *all over the place*. They can't even agree on individual elements of the film. Reviewers who liked it mostly praised the cast. Other didn't like the film but felt the performances were good. And others didn't like the film and really bashed the performances.
Even individual reviews are disjointed. One of the reviewers from Forbes spent 1000 words laying into the film, then closed by praising its visuals and saying he was still looking forward to the rest of the DCEU. The other Forbes reviewer gave it a positive review. WTH?
I do think that some critics just have it in for Snyder, and at this point WB would almost be better served by just putting the 'Alan Smithee' label on anything he directs. The reviews would probably tick up a bit as a result.
I haven't seen it yet, but it kinda seems like that early "review" I posted from the EW(?) guy might be on target -- if you liked Man of Steel, or liked MoS except for necksnaps, you'll probably like this one. If you didn't like MoS at all, it might not be your movie.
Although a friend of mine pointed out how many critics said it was better than Man of Steel...but then rated it lower than what they gave MoS. I dunno. I tend to think this movie is largely critic-proof anyway.
Bound to be let down sooner or later: Deadpool and 10 Cloverfield were both epic. Might as well be let down by Batman, and then raised up again by Suicide Squad!
From the reviews, BvS is Daredevil (movie) meets Sucker Punch.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
gorgon wrote: Yeah, the reviews are *all over the place*.
Even individual reviews are disjointed.
What you are seeing is that an overwhelming critical consensus that the movie is pure fething gak. That's the truth of, it and any drunk reviewer will tell you so one-on-one in a dark closet.
However, as Suicide Squad is coming out (and is likely to be a home run), they don't want to be blacklisted for trashing a half-BILLION DOLLAR movie (because that's how Hollywood rolls), they need to find a silver lining, the one little nugget of chocolate in the barrel of gak, and play it up. If they're normally kissing butt like there's no tomorrow, but calling out imperfections, then that's a "positive" negative review.
That is the difference between BvS versus F4, where the critics were free to take the glove off and slap the F4 team around.
If I see a trailer and I like what I see...I figure I will enjoy the movie.
Not listening to others has allowed me to enjoy more movies than most, I am sure.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have enjoyed films like:
Prometheus
Chronicles of Riddick
Amazing Spider Man 1, 2
Spawn (though admitttedly that is more of a "tolerate it" level)
(Just to name a few)
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't see plot holes or glaring instances of deus ex machina....I just don't tend to get worked up about them to the level of ruining the movie for me.
If I see a trailer and I like what I see...I figure I will enjoy the movie.
Not listening to others has allowed me to enjoy more movies than most, I am sure.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have enjoyed films like:
Prometheus
Chronicles of Riddick
Amazing Spider Man 1, 2
Spawn (though admitttedly that is more of a "tolerate it" level)
(Just to name a few)
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't see plot holes or glaring instances of deus ex machina....I just don't tend to get worked up about them to the level of ruining the movie for me.
Anymore it feels to me like most reviews don't actually have anything to do with movies being "fun to watch" or "enjoyable" and if I read them I feel like I'm reading a paper in a scientific journal: lots of technical jargon and analysis relevant to other people in the field (how was the editing, cinematography, sound, special effects), but no real focus on "will it entertain me while I turn of my brain and shove $10 popcorn in my face and wash it down with "$8 soda".
I can read review after review about a performance sports car that has crappy engineering, needs frequent trips to the shop, has crappy gas mileage, horrible emissions standards, and it will take 5 days to special order replacement tires from Italy. But none of that answers the question of "is it fun to drive". And movie reviews are the same way, most of them don't answer the question "so what, is it fun to watch?"
There is a reason why there are a number of movies on Rotten Tomatoes with a 30% Critic Rating and a 80% Public Rating.
Well, I've gotten myself (even more?) hyped for the film, Batman: Bad Blood just arrived today and I watched that, thoroughly enjoying it. - It's the best of the Batman&Damien animated storylines that have been so far.
My spoiler-free review of Batman VS Superman. (I gave in and went to the midnight showing)
If you're not a Batman/Superman fan: The film is messy and confusing and probably won't convince you to like the film.
If you are a Batman/Superman fan: You'll love it, it's awesome, a great experience. Go see it in the cinema!
If you're a Batman/Superman MEGAfan: You will love it, but will have *major* concerns about various plot decisions.
Or
you'll hate it, it's an abomination to the legacy of Batman / Superman but at least Wonder Woman was on the big screen at last and was awesome.
So I went to a midnight screening. I enjoyed it, and had fun watching it and discussing it afterwards, but it was a really weird movie. I would say that it is a 70% movie; not bad, but not exactly good either, sort of in the middle. Mainly because individual scenes were really fun and interesting, but the overall package was poorly constructed. The editing is really hopeless in places, and the first half of the film feels like a series of stuff, rather than a plot, as a result. It is a film that would have been better either with less content (and a tighter focus) or with more content (and more space given for stuff to breathe). I'm interested for any potential Director's Cut, as that would show how much of the 'connective tissue' of the film was left on the editing room floor.
The acting is generally good. Lex Luthor is a disaster though, and he rivals Dr Doom for 'miscast villain'. Alfred was fun, but didn't have enough space to work in. I also felt that Henry Cavill was a bit unconvincing as Clark Kent.
The fights are good, but poorly located: you get none for large periods, then loads of them strung together. The film would have benefitted from breaking them up a bit.
The film ends in an interesting place, and it sets up the next films very nicely, I think.
Spoiler stuff in the spoiler tags:
Spoiler:
So, I had some really big concerns. Firstly, Batman kills more people than Lex Luthor does. I'm not really cool with that, but it does make sense for the angry and bitter Batman on display. Furthermore, the dream sequences were a mess - there were too many, they had weird placement, and the bit with the future dude (flash?) is totally opaque and confusing. I've sat and thought about it, and I still don't see how 'Lois Lane is the key!' is a clue that would help Batman to avoid weirdo bad future, since she was not actually the source of either the conflict or Luthor's plan.
Superman's death was weak, overall, and they focused on it so much that it seemed painfully obvious that he will be back. Not a huge fan of this, as it seems hamfisted.
Lex Luthor's plan seems barmy at best, and only makes sense to me if I assume that he is actually mad or under Darkseid's control. I know nothing about Darkseid, beyond what the first volume of New52 JLA told me, so I remain in the dark. It is noteworthy that this - and Future Flash's appearance - were so confusing to me; if I, a reasonably big Batman fan who has read a few comics and seen S1 of the Flash, walk out of the cinema confused, what hope does the general audience have? A lot of things could have been explained better.
I liked how they showed the rest of the JLA. It felt like a good way to show them and their powers, without shifting the narrative of the film to focus on them. It would perhaps have worked better after the big fight scene, though.
That is all that I have for the moment. Overall, I enjoyed it, and found it interesting and fun, but I am predisposed to like it. The film has serious flaws, and not everyone is going to enjoy it, especially if they are expecting Captain America 2 or Antman. I would say that it is worth the price of a cinema ticket.
I'm probably going to go see this tomorrow. I have very low expectations but I really, really enjoy going to the movies. Partially it's because I am able to really escape into them, partially it's because I didn't get to go almost ever when I was a kid, but mostly I like hoovering up a pound of popcorn and a bucket of soda.
There hasn't been anything good out since 10 Cloverfield Lane and I am hot to go.
Frazzled wrote: Bound to be let down sooner or later: Deadpool and 10 Cloverfield were both epic. Might as well be let down by Batman, and then raised up again by Suicide Squad!
Yes, Yes, and oh man, Yes. I cannot wait for Suicide Squad.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Darn page previews. SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS
Spoiler:
I think it's entirely possible that Lex is under Darkseid's control to an extrent. - He clearly knew more than he was letting on, going by his crazy rant at the end.
Future dude was the Flash. - Who I think was a big miscast. Looks more like indie rockband style dude than a police forensic detective.
The "big things" that would annoy megafans.
While, I wouldn't say Batman really directly kills anyone in the film, except perhaps but blowing up flamethrower dude. But there were *way* too many situations where he pretty much almost certainly was responsible for peoples death. - EG, Batwing machine guns hit the front of a truck, exploding it. He was clearly not shooting at the truck cab, but it's *really* unlikely that anyone there could have survived that explosion.
Part of it does seem intentional though. - The Batman for the majority of the film feels so completely hopeless that he effectively just doesn't care anymore. He's not going to kill someone, but he just doesn't care about the consequences of what the does. - This is highlighted / shown to be intentional by the discussion about the Batman brand being a deathmark.
- Alfred does call him out on it though and, can be assumed to be working on him about this for future films. Plus, the ending does suggest that he's rediscovered 'hope' now.
Incidentally, how the flip did I never notice Martha Kent and Martha Wayne. That was really well done.
Not sure that Lex Luthor knowing *everyones* secrets was the best move though.
I did like the justice league 'videos' though. Kinda tells you the basics of what you need to know without having to delay by going through the whole Marvel style origin movie stuff. I'm looking forward to the Justice League films.
I think the "Lois Lane is key" tends to refer to various interpretations of Superman (Such as in Injustice: Gods Among Us), where Lois is one of Clark's real ties to humanity. Specifically, if she were to ever suffer a violent death, the world would be screwed. Presumably in Justice League, Batman will be faced with a choice at some point to do something like either (A) Save Lois or (B) Defeat Darkseid. In the dream sequence / future, he chooses Option (B), resulting in Lois dying and Clark becoming evil - eg, worse than Darkseid. Whereas, the correct choice is (A), perhaps resulting in Darkseid continuing to be a threat (but temporarily defeated, due to power of friendship), but Superman stays on the line of Truth, Justice and the American way.
I'll chime in too, in spoiler-free fashion. This will probably get *long* because it's stream of consciousness, but could even be longer just because I feel like there's a lot to talk about, and if I get started I'm going to be here for a while (not in a bad way). I'm happy to discuss spoiler-y stuff and particular points behind spoilers in the next couple days.
It's not a perfect film, partially because it's so ambitious. There's a lot of ground to cover -- transitioning from and tying up Man of Steel, introducing this Batman -- and to a lesser degree Wonder Woman and getting you interested in THAT film, laying some groundwork for Justice League, and even starting to introduce the ultimate threat in the DCEU. I think some reviewers are remiss not to give a certain allowance to Snyder knowing how hard this would be for ANY director. Getting down to brass tacks, I think some kind of "B" rating is fair within the film's genre. If you want to argue for a "C", I won't agree, but might acknowledge some of your points. It's not a "D" or "F", and I'll never really understand an argument for those kinds of grades.
The film is probably a little too brisk, and needed more room and time to simmer and breathe (although again, it was a long list of boxes it needed to check). Some unevenness resulted. And it almost requires that you've seen MoS. However, I didn't feel at all like the film was fatally flawed because of this. I'd call it a weakness and leave it at that. It's not an "incoherent mess." I thought the script asked some interesting questions early on. That might have been lost somewhat during the last third of the film, but it wasn't brooding for brooding's sake like some of the reviews would have you believe. It's a world and public still wrestling with the reality of this alien god running around doing stuff, and to me that's a realistic note. *shrug* This aspect of the film is personified in Holly Hunter's character.
Yes, it's a broody Clark/Superman in this film because he's still wrestling with the gak that went down in MoS, the disturbing ways people are acting toward him -- worshipful or terroristic, and some really unfortunate gak that happens during the movie. Something happens in this film that I think would have any reasonable person in his boots questioning whether the whole superhero thing was worth it. And I'd recommend that you believe the reviewers who said Cavill is good in the role...I liked his performance.
Batman/Bruce...I found it reasonably believeable that he'd feel the way he did. He's a damaged, extreme Batman who's been doing his thing for too long without any help or a lot of hope that he even made a difference. Then the Battle of Metropolis happens, he feels the aftermath of that very personally and deeply, and then with a few pushes... Some might not like that he's not THE good guy, or maybe even a good guy throughout the film. But I thought the end showed a Batman fully back on track, if that makes sense. And in a spot where he's the damn best...making plans. Affleck was also good in the role I thought...probably my fave Bruce/Batman to date. Interestingly he was Bruce for most of his screen time, it seemed. Of course, then when he's in the cowl...I dunno, personally I found myself thinking, now THAT is the Batman from the comics...or at least the closest thing that we've seen. Cripes, he actually does detective work! Importantly, I feel like this Batman (and Alfred) was established well enough by this film. I don't need the solo film first before we get JL.
What brings them together rang fairly true to me. Clark has a very good reason for hunting down Bruce, and Bruce...is in a mood. Too much so? If you want to question it, fine, but then see the first bit of my last paragraph. What makes them STOP fighting -- which is ultimately the more important point, right? -- is interesting. It may not ring true to everyone. Again, if you want to call that a potential weakness, that's fine. But I think some spackle was applied to that possible crack just because of the presence of another character in the scene.
Lex. This isn't the scenery-chewing real estate-obsessed Hackman/Spacey Lex, and it isn't the cold, calculating Lex from Smallville either. He isn't as goofy as the trailers might make him seem, but he's a twitchy sonuvagun. Eisenberg went with a "insanity/megalomania simmering hot *just* below the surface" thing. Snyder, Terrio and Eisenberg made some choices there, and not everyone might like them. Personally...I was okay with it. Over-the-top, perhaps, but he's a villain in a comic book movie and there were times I thought Eisenberg was very effective. He and Hunter had a number of scenes together and had good chemistry, I thought.
The rest of the cast was good. Gadot looked good and not out of place like people feared. Obviously, Wonder Woman is revealed and gets some good moments, but stays somewhat mysterious, and they leave a lot for her solo film and had me looking forward to it. Call that a checked box. Amy Adams was good, and Jeremy Irons was a great Alfred...if he had had the screen time that Caine built up over 3 films, I'd probably say that Irons is the best to date. Fishburne didn't have a lot to do in the Perry White role, but I thought he actually had some of the snappiest lines. I even laughed out loud a couple times. My god, it wasn't so humorless as to drain my soul!
The presence of the other JL heroes was IMO very deftly done. Cyborg and Aquaman are in the film, but not in the story...and you'll understand what I mean when you see it. Flash...different thing. Or is it? That's something to talk about behind spoilers.
Visually, the film is pretty darn amazing...different and IMO much better than MoS. The opening scene is IMO an incredibly artistic version of something you've seen before. There's a lot of night stuff -- although Batman is a main player, remember -- but Snyder didn't shoot this with the blue filter like MoS. Colors are noticeably brighter, especially Supes' suit. The fights were pretty great to watch. Hell, just go for that and have fun with that if nothing else floats your boat. The final battle...if you want to say too much CGI or whatever, fine...call that a weakness. I didn't find it to be a fatal flaw, and during that sequence you get to see WW in action, which is a treat and kept me from focusing on how Doomsday looked anyway. They did go somewhere at the very conclusion of that fight that was both obvious, and yet still a little surprising. But what it did was take some of the issues people had with MoS, flip them around and leave things in what might be a more satisfying and appropriate place for some. The "Knightmare" sequence was stunning visually, IMO. I think I read that part was filmed in IMAX? I caught a regular showing, but that would be something to see.
Which kinda leads me to mention that I also enjoyed the easter eggs. Some very subtle, others not so subtle, but something only a DC fan would probably understand. And I'm sure I missed more.
@Compel -- I dunno about your assessment...I think it creates categories that aren't there. I've been a fan of the Superman character for 4 decades. I'm the guy who immediately got excited to see the shattered moon in MoS, knowing that it was the moon that Jax-Ur blew up. I'm the guy who immediately wondered and still wants to ask Goyer or Snyder if Russell Crowe's fighting moves were intended to represent Klurkor. I was the kid who learned in elementary school that other kids would look at you funny if you're playing Superman and bring up Super-Ventriloquism. And I liked this film, don't have deep rooted issues with it, and really want to see it again, because I have a hunch that it's going to shine more the second time through. I'm actually inclined to suggest that people with such issues with some of Snyder's decisions in the last two films really AREN'T as big of a Superman fan as they think they are...it's more likely that they're mega-attached to a certain version of the character at a given point in time. *shrug* He's been different things at different times...I think a "megafan" understands and rolls with that.
Okay, that was crazy long and it's very late. Looking forward to discussing it in the days to come.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Darn page previews. SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS
Spoiler:
I think it's entirely possible that Lex is under Darkseid's control to an extrent. - He clearly knew more than he was letting on, going by his crazy rant at the end.
Future dude was the Flash. - Who I think was a big miscast. Looks more like indie rockband style dude than a police forensic detective.
The "big things" that would annoy megafans.
While, I wouldn't say Batman really directly kills anyone in the film, except perhaps but blowing up flamethrower dude. But there were *way* too many situations where he pretty much almost certainly was responsible for peoples death. - EG, Batwing machine guns hit the front of a truck, exploding it. He was clearly not shooting at the truck cab, but it's *really* unlikely that anyone there could have survived that explosion.
Part of it does seem intentional though. - The Batman for the majority of the film feels so completely hopeless that he effectively just doesn't care anymore. He's not going to kill someone, but he just doesn't care about the consequences of what the does. - This is highlighted / shown to be intentional by the discussion about the Batman brand being a deathmark.
- Alfred does call him out on it though and, can be assumed to be working on him about this for future films. Plus, the ending does suggest that he's rediscovered 'hope' now.
Incidentally, how the flip did I never notice Martha Kent and Martha Wayne. That was really well done.
Not sure that Lex Luthor knowing *everyones* secrets was the best move though.
I did like the justice league 'videos' though. Kinda tells you the basics of what you need to know without having to delay by going through the whole Marvel style origin movie stuff. I'm looking forward to the Justice League films.
I think the "Lois Lane is key" tends to refer to various interpretations of Superman (Such as in Injustice: Gods Among Us), where Lois is one of Clark's real ties to humanity. Specifically, if she were to ever suffer a violent death, the world would be screwed. Presumably in Justice League, Batman will be faced with a choice at some point to do something like either (A) Save Lois or (B) Defeat Darkseid. In the dream sequence / future, he chooses Option (B), resulting in Lois dying and Clark becoming evil - eg, worse than Darkseid. Whereas, the correct choice is (A), perhaps resulting in Darkseid continuing to be a threat (but temporarily defeated, due to power of friendship), but Superman stays on the line of Truth, Justice and the American way.
Spoileryness done!
It's too late for me to reply to this, but Great Rao, I'm doing it anyway!
Regarding your point about a certain female...
Spoiler:
Yep, I agree. Lois is the key. If she falls, he falls, and then they all fall. I want to see it again and try to make out everything Flash was saying, though.
And regarding Lex...
Spoiler:
I took it more to mean that he got all the info from the Kryptonian library, got to the part about the New Gods -- especially the naughty ones -- and it kinda blew his mind. Almost like a Lovecraft character rolling around gibbering after being confronted with that kind of cosmic horror. Darkseid is pretty much cosmic horror, after all. And Lex was already off his rocker about a single Kryptonian. Then he probably got hit with stuff like the existence of the Anti-Life Equation, etc.
Personally I loved the note it struck at the end with Bruce aware that something's coming, and starting to make plans. We're talking about Batman with advanced warning...that gak is in the bag.
I think I might have actually fist-pumped seeing the Mother Box during the Cyborg sequence.
I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this movie as much as I did. I definitely didn't think it was as bad as the reviews had suggested.
For me, parts of the story felt rushed, which is odd to say for a film of its length. Equally, though, other parts seemed to drag. It was a lot of building, and then suddenly stuff happened and the goals changed and it kinda felt like they wanted to introduce sa many characters as possible. Basically, it was a little all over the place at times.
Enjoyed the film a lot. As already said, it's got it's problems, but it had a lot of ground to cover. There were easily 2 films in there. But even the slow parts were enjoyable, particularly if they were concerning Bruce Wayne/Batman. Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons stole the movie, absolutely top notch.
Leaning between a 4/10 and 5/10. Visually, the film is a Snyder - incredible visuals, loving the slow-motion and then OOOOMPFH cuts, AMAZING soundtrack. Affleck does an awesome acting job and really manages to deliver the angrier Batman, Superman...well, bland as usual.
Anything else is a horrible, horrible mess. The script is a disaster with critical plot points being just ridiculously bad, the teasing of the other JL heroes in YouTube clips style feels horribly tacked on and is done in an extremely bad way (the Cybot scene, what the heck!),
Spoiler:
Superman losing was clear right off the bat because Batman would not be able to defeat him in any logical situation, thus in order to "fool" the audience, Batman had to "win"...not realizing that the movie's ending was spoiled by the JL TRAILER! Like...how stupid is this? We already know that Superman survives because he will lead the JL in te JL movie. This immediately kills any trace of suspense.
Overall, the movie is awesome to watch for its visuals and the AMAAAAAAZING sound, but it has as much depth as a random Adam Sandler movie, i.e: none. Great visuals, great soundtrack, good actors (with the exception of a terrible Eisenberg miscast), trash writing, trash pacing.
My advice: don't watch it in the cinema, wait for the 30 minutes longer (!) Bluray release and buy the soundtrack in the meantime.
Well hopefully those 30 minutes contain key plot points that ties together the ~2 hour film.
@Compel
Spoiler:
there was a whole debate on Ezra Miller/Grant Gustin as the big screen Flash. I'm told to wait for Ezra's performance but I've got Gustin-tinted lense (currently it's my favourite show on TV) so I might be a bit biased.
Some JL characters are literally introduced in YouTube style by a major character browsing "files" and stumbling upon short clips by them doing their signature moves. Aquaman is beyond cheesy.
To be fair, though, DC really doesn't have as awesome heroes as Marvel. Superman is incredibly boring by concept, Aquaman is...Aquaman, Cybot is lame...Marvel simply has far more vibrant and interesting heroes.
Yea. Barring Batman (and Flash, by virtue of the TV show), I don't find DC all that interesting.
I agree, though. The video introductions felt a lot like "how can we quickly and effortlessly introduce the rest of the characters?" It was ham fisted and smacked of being a last minute idea. Very poorly done.
I was never much of a Superman fan until I saw the animated film Superman VS The Elite - it pretty much addressed all my issues I had about Superman.
I also particularly enjoyed the Wonder Woman animated film, though I imagine that someone going, "I don't want mythology in my superhero shows" would have issues with it.
I was never much of a Superman fan until I saw the animated film Superman VS The Elite - it pretty much addressed all my issues I had about Superman.
I also particularly enjoyed the Wonder Woman animated film, though I imagine that someone going, "I don't want mythology in my superhero shows" would have issues with it.
Both of those were awesome. Then again, while Marvel has generally been better with live actors, DC animated movies blow Marvel so far out of the water, that I think Marvel gave up.
Watching this tonight with friends and family. We'll see how it goes.
Sigvatr wrote: How could I forget the most important thing?
Spoiler:
The movie's core plot point is Superman's and Batman's mother both having the same name. I am not kidding. Really.
I don't see that as a fair or accurate characterization based on the meaning of those words. It is "a key fact upon which the title conflict changes."
Spoiler:
If someone feels that they don't buy it, again, I understand. However, for me that crack was spackled over by Lois's presence. The way I took that scene, the name Martha jarred Bruce, but then learning that it's the name of the alien's earth mom - and here's his girlfriend too - was enough to momentarily break the fever that Alfred referred to. Bruce is at his core a good man, right? And it's not as though his rage disappears - it instead quickly pivots to Luthor after he quickly realizes that he's been manipulated.
YMMV. I didn't hate it because I thought they tried to inject a little more into that scene than just Martha. To me, that feels like it could have been a Goyer thing that Terrio then improved some with his rewrite.
Regarding the inclusion of the other JL characters, if it HAD to be done, was there a way they could have done it better? The film was crowded as is, so while the approach they took might feel "tacked on," at least it didn't crowd the movie even more by including them in the story.
Sigvatr wrote: To be fair, though, DC really doesn't have as awesome heroes as Marvel. Superman is incredibly boring by concept, Aquaman is...Aquaman, Cybot is lame...Marvel simply has far more vibrant and interesting heroes.
In theory, DC has the better heroes - all of their heroes are superlative. World's fastest, world's best detective, etc. Marvel's heroes simply have more depth, because they're inherently slightly flawed.
____
No, it's Cybot -- OP is German, and "Cybot" is absolutely correct. YOU are wrong to "correct" him.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
angelofvengeance wrote: Granted, Marvel has much deeper pockets than DC nowadays, they're certainly on to a winning formula with the majority of their movies.
I was quite happy with how they introduced the other JL characters - it made sense, it fitted into the context of the story, it didn't take up too much space. The biggest question for me is whether that footage would have been better placed elsewhere - for example, with Wayne and Diana sitting in his car after the funeral. Just an idea. Anyway, like I say, it worked on the basic level: to tell the audience that these other guys exist, and that you will see them soon.
The Rotten Tomatoes score is really punishing at this stage - 30%. I don't believe that it is that bad - I mean, that is worse than X-Men Origins: Wolverine & the Daredevil film - but it does reflect both the expectations for this film, and also the importance of it as a franchise opener. Lots of speculation over on Reddit about whether we can expect Synder to be ejected from the JL shoot, which begins in a fortnight. Interestingly, Audience Satisfaction is far higher, and although I don't know much about how that usually goes on RT, I suspect that it shows audiences generally enjoyed it, despite the problems with it. Hard to gauge exactly though, since even through the flame wars it is apparent that most everyone agrees on the basic points: Lex Luthor bad, editing bad, pacing bad, action good, Batfleck good, etc.
I watched the Screenjunkies guys talk on it, and they focused on a fairly succinct comment that, 'there are five films here, and none of them get properly developed'.
Charles Rampant wrote: The Rotten Tomatoes score is really punishing at this stage - 30%. I don't believe that it is that bad - I mean, that is worse than X-Men Origins: Wolverine & the Daredevil film
Audience Satisfaction is far higher,
No, it probably is that bad. It is beating Fat Wedding 2 (27%), London has Fallent (24%), and Divergent (11%). Fantastic Four was down at 9%. Quite frankly, 30% is probably on the high side of where the movie should land. Realistically, BvS belongs in the lower 20s -- the "top critics" (who have to see all the movies as their job) are running about 3:1 against, so 25% is where it should top out.
Audience members were personally invested into BvS by having to pay for their tickets, line up for midnight screenings, finagling pre-screenings. The only people doing that are hardcore DC fans. That 25% did not like it speaks volumes.
No, it's Cybot -- OP is German, and "Cybot" is absolutely correct. YOU are wrong to "correct" him.
Sigvatr's a big boy, he doesn't need others to take offence for his sake. Especially as Cyborg isn't the most well known character in the world, it's not exactly unlikely that someone wouldn't know his name and, perhaps, I wasn't wanting to others to be confused. "It's worth saying..." isn't exactly a gigantic call out, as opposed to "YOU are wrong".
In any case, I was pretty fine with the 'youtube' section particularly since it would have been the first time a lot of people out there would have seen these characters.
He is very well-known:
Now, Beast Boy, he's obscure...
The youtube thing is a rather clumsy thing to shoehorn into the movie, when it should have been handled as Batman at the Bat-computer in the Bat-cave post-credits.
Audience members were personally invested into BvS by having to pay for their tickets, line up for midnight screenings, finagling pre-screenings. The only people doing that are hardcore DC fans. That 25% did not like it speaks volumes.
Actually, those of us who liked it more than the *dire* reviews are more than capable of making sound judgments about the film without having 13 dollars spent or a history with these characters in other mediums render us hopelessly biased. That's a really cute assertion, though.
One could even more easily question the motivations and biases of someone who jumps into a discussion to slag a movie that they haven't actually seen and namedrop unrelated films from another studio.
JohnHwangDD wrote: He is very well-known: Now, Beast Boy, he's obscure...
The youtube thing is a rather clumsy thing to shoehorn into the movie, when it should have been handled as Batman at the Bat-computer in the Bat-cave post-credits.
HERESY.
Although I hear rumours about a live-action Teen Titans, which is cool.
I'm fairly certain that Cyborg was retconned in the new 52 to be founding member of the JL in place of Martian Manhunter, so amongst fans he should be known.
BvS is currently sitting at $93m box office last I checked. So yeah, bad film according to critics, but money-making machine by virtue of DC's two biggest names.
Audience members were personally invested into BvS by having to pay for their tickets, line up for midnight screenings, finagling pre-screenings. The only people doing that are hardcore DC fans. That 25% did not like it speaks volumes.
Actually, those of us who liked it more than the *dire* reviews are more than capable of making sound judgments about the film without having 13 dollars spent or a history with these characters in other mediums render us hopelessly biased. That's a really cute assertion, though.
One could even more easily question the motivations and biases of someone who jumps into a discussion to slag a movie that they haven't actually seen and namedrop unrelated films from another studio.
Early viewer reviews are most often vastly more positive than later ones. This isn't a big conspiracy of some sorts, it's a logical consequence as there's multiple factors coming in: frenetic fans are the first ones that want to view the movie and thus want it to be good, buyer's / early bird remorse etc.
I'll see it tomorrow with the wife. As long as it's more consistent with the pre-final fight with Zod MoS then I'll be fine. That last fight with Zod put me into bleh on MoS.
The youtube thing is a rather clumsy thing to shoehorn into the movie, when it should have been handled as Batman at the Bat-computer in the Bat-cave post-credits.
HERESY.
Although I hear rumours about a live-action Teen Titans, which is cool.
I'm fairly certain that Cyborg was retconned in the new 52 to be founding member of the JL in place of Martian Manhunter, so amongst fans he should be known.
"in place of Martian Manhunter?"
NOOO!!!!! MM is the best not-Superman Superman, bar none.
I took it more to mean that he got all the info from the Kryptonian library, got to the part about the New Gods -- especially the naughty ones -- and it kinda blew his mind. Almost like a Lovecraft character rolling around gibbering after being confronted with that kind of cosmic horror. Darkseid is pretty much cosmic horror, after all. And Lex was already off his rocker about a single Kryptonian. Then he probably got hit with stuff like the existence of the Anti-Life Equation, etc.
Personally I loved the note it struck at the end with Bruce aware that something's coming, and starting to make plans. We're talking about Batman with advanced warning...that gak is in the bag.
I think I might have actually fist-pumped seeing the Mother Box during the Cyborg sequence.
Spot on stuff there Gorgon - I think you've nailed it!
Well, most of it?
It still appears that Lex knew...almost everything about almost every one pre-Kryptonian Scout Ship.
Much of what I have read about it or seen elsewhere I generally agree with. I liked it but didn't love it. It has moment of greatness but also some low points. The first part of the movie seemed to be where the ambition and interest were as it set out to deal with the effects of MoS as well as showing Batman investigating what was happening in the background. The latter part where they tried to shoehorn in follow up film lead ups was less focused or interesting.
I thought the fight with Doomsday was nice but it seemed a waste of Doomsday in a lot of ways.
Gal Godot was ok: not great, not awful, just ok.
Putting Gotham and Metropolis so close to each other seemed kind of odd.
Overall I think people should see it if they are interested, just know that it is a flawed film going in.
Ahtman wrote: Much of what I have read about it or seen elsewhere I generally agree with. I liked it but didn't love it. It has moment of greatness but also some low points. The first part of the movie seemed to be where the ambition and interest were as it set out to deal with the effects of MoS as well as showing Batman investigating what was happening in the background. The latter part where they tried to shoehorn in follow up film lead ups was less focused or interesting.
I thought the fight with Doomsday was nice but it seemed a waste of Doomsday in a lot of ways.
Gal Godot was ok: not great, not awful, just ok.
Putting Gotham and Metropolis so close to each other seemed kind of odd.
Overall I think people should see it if they are interested, just know that it is a flawed film going in.
...as most films are!
I think this is also getting a bit of the Comic Book Movie Backlash from 'serious reviewers' and/or 'filmgoers', maybe?
And it is always easier to bash on DC films, for the most part - and that is largely DC's own fault!
Something about it just felt off when I came out and got to discussing it with friends, but couldn't place it.
Spoiler:
In regards to Lex, I felt the eccentricity worked in some scenes (the science mumbo jumbo, "ooh Zod's body, ooh the scout ship" etc etc). but felt kinda flat footed in others where I feel Lex should be a bit more charismatic (the speech)
I'm really not sure what movie all the reviewers who rate this one at 'horrible' actually saw...
But I'll admit to being a bit biased!
I predicted bad reviews to a friend of mine the day before the embargo lifted, and it had nothing to do with what I expected from the movie. One strike is that it's Zack Snyder. Some critics just have it in for the guy. Strike two is about the framing of the movie. Had they just written and marketed it as a Marvel-style smash up, thrown in more yuks, etc., I think critics would have backed off. By trying to work in some heavier stuff and pathos, the reviewers took the gloves off. They don't watch and critique Zootopia in the same way that they do The Revenant, right? Same thing.
The film has its flaws without question. The creators also took some chances and made some interesting decisions. But some of them are molehills that got turned into mountains by certain reviewers. And when you see reviews laying into aspects like the visuals and cast (beyond some of the choices that Eisenberg made)...well, yeah, then I really have no idea what movie they screened.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ahtman wrote: Much of what I have read about it or seen elsewhere I generally agree with. I liked it but didn't love it. It has moment of greatness but also some low points. The first part of the movie seemed to be where the ambition and interest were as it set out to deal with the effects of MoS as well as showing Batman investigating what was happening in the background. The latter part where they tried to shoehorn in follow up film lead ups was less focused or interesting.
I thought the fight with Doomsday was nice but it seemed a waste of Doomsday in a lot of ways.
Gal Godot was ok: not great, not awful, just ok.
Putting Gotham and Metropolis so close to each other seemed kind of odd.
Overall I think people should see it if they are interested, just know that it is a flawed film going in.
Welcome to the 'liked it even if I didn't love it" club! And in addition to your last statement, it almost needed to come with a "MoS Knowledge Required" label. I now finally understand what Snyder meant by calling it a MoS sequel, even though it's obviously not MoS 2.
Regarding the battle with Doomsday (this is for anyone)...
Spoiler:
...were you surprised they 'killed' Clark? Seems obvious for a Doomsday story, but I never expected it to go there. What I thought was interesting was how they used that - and also the sequence with him eating the nuke - to redeem the character for some of the things some didn't like about MoS.
Was interesting that the nuke eating sequence was also inspired by The Dark Knight Returns, while the cemetery scene was a *reversal* of the end of TDKR.
Just saw it. Hated Watchmen, was disinterested in 300, felt MoS was meh. Basically...I think Snyder is a crap director.
Freaking loved this movie. Was Lex a bit off? Yeah. But I enjoyed everything else about it. Set my expectations low because of the reviews and my bias against Snyder, and I was blown away.
...were you surprised they 'killed' Clark? Seems obvious for a Doomsday story, but I never expected it to go there. What I thought was interesting was how they used that - and also the sequence with him eating the nuke - to redeem the character for some of the things some didn't like about MoS.
Spoiler:
While obvious in hindsight I didn't really think they were going there since there was so much made of how this was basically a set up for a JLA movie. Honestly I would have probably been happier if they left him that way (at least for awhile) so that it doesn't undercut his sacrifice so much.
timetowaste85 wrote: Just saw it. Hated Watchmen, was disinterested in 300, felt MoS was meh. Basically...I think Snyder is a crap director.
Freaking loved this movie. Was Lex a bit off? Yeah. But I enjoyed everything else about it. Set my expectations low because of the reviews and my bias against Snyder, and I was blown away.
Ben Affleck IS Batman. Hands down.
Batflleck is the best part of this movie, but the superman part was awful.
Batman's Fightscenes were amazing, and Supermans were awful CGI messes.
I am going to do Warner Brothers a favor, this movie could have easily been 3 separate movies. They squandered and opportunity to build a coherent universe for a rushed mess.
Spoiler:
Spring 2016: Batfleck which Batman returns to Gotham after being dead for a long time from the Nolandverse. The existance of superman forces his hand. When he returns, he finds Wayne manor destroyed aand John blake no where to be seen. It seems a new 'Batman'has been doing stuff in his absense. The Leauge of Shadows has been cloning Bruce Wayne.
This can have Batman vs Batwing and the introduction of Damien Wayne. Full-on Batman baatfleck movie with the same action effects used in BvS.
Fall 2016: Suicide Squad. Perfect movie. Leave the origins of this joker a mystery but follow the return of the joker story arcs where JaredLeto is John Blake, corrupted and driven mad by the Heath ledger joker.
Winter 2017: Superman - Take basically everything from BvS about government issues and Lex Luther and make a self contained movie with no batman. Luthor gets control of the alien ship (Which is basically braniac) and takes that wounded dude and does alll his gak to frame batman. Luthor stays 'legal' so braaindead sups can't put him in jail. First Villian is Metallo. Disabled dude survive the explosion and is rebuilt with a robot body by krypton tech and heart of kyrptonite. Battle ensues, Metallo at the bottom of the ocean or some crap. Movie ends with Lex being 'Meh, I have broken no law, you have no proof' and superman doing the 'i am waatching you.' thing.
Summer 2017: Stand Alone Wonder woman movie. Maybe even her 1918 retro movie which sets her up having a reason to 'watch' mankind until present.
Winter 2017: Batfleck 2: Real BvS. Jared Leto joker decides to enuse chaos by plotting bat vs superman using basically Lex's poorly thought out plan from this movie. Joker would kidnap a mom to force them to fight. He would punk Lex luthor to steal his kryptonite. Make it a Joker plot which is foiled in the end and Bat and Supes go their separate ways. Luthor is mad as gak.
Spring 2018: Make a nother isolated movie, Cyborg and the mothercube I guess. That is the most darkseid-related.
Fall 2018: Superman 2: Braniac. Luthor is mad, and attemps to ressurect Zod (not make a lame clone) with mind control stuff so it obeys him (opposed to murdering him immediatly). Bizzaro is born. Luthor uses Bizarro to stage crimes to frame superman. Fight ensues, Nuke scene happens, Bizarro turns ugly and broken. During this Luthor is freaking out and Braniac activated shortly when zod was revived as bizarro. Braniac begins doing his own crazy gak. Cyborg is introduced as his motherbox is the only thing combating braniac's world-wide control. Teamup, braniac defeated. Boomtube opens, Apokalips exposed.
Winter 2019: Suicide Squad 2: Luthor is defeated, lost his empire and hates superman. Amanda Wallace declares war on Superman on behalf of the US government. A crapton of villains attempt to assassinaate Superman and Hijinks ensue.
Summer 2019: Flash Movie: Flash is living a fun happy life as a hero in his city. Everyone loves him, He beats up on Bommerange aand cold and other fun stuff. But he time travels to the future for macguffen reason and sees 'justice lords' and apocalypse. Full on lobotomy Superman, Old man bruce wayne, Evil everyone. Flash helps batman bring sense to justice lord superman but it is too late. He watches everyone get killed by darksied and flaash goes back to regular time and hunts down batman.
Winter 2019: Justice League: Combine Supes, bat, Cyborg, Flash, Wonderwoman and BAM, you got a movie franchise with Darkseid and apokalypse being the major antagonist.
Of course Superman fighting was mostly CGI. Batman is, for the most part, just a guy with some gear while Superman is flying to the stratosphere or shooting heat beams from his eyes. One you can get away with doing practical effects and stunts while the other? Not so much. I had no issues with that honestly.
WW did not actually interact with the plot in any meaningful way or help move it along. Her existence didn't help unveil anything.
And all she really did was show up to be pointlessly invincible and castrate batman. Know what would have been better than "Is she with you?"
Spoiler:
"I'll handle this... This was my plan B"
And then Batman in all his human-ness uses his forward thinking to hold Doomsday down while Superman goes to save Lois.
Hell, They could have even ripped off the avengers and had the Bat Mech show up and just pummeled the crap out of Doomsday. Anything would have been better than Batman sitting on the sidelines with his GUN.
This Wonder Woman would have made so much more sense if she had a stand alone film pre-movie and had a legitimate reason to actually be sniffing around those two... (who are awful at concealing their identities.)
I am going to do Warner Brothers a favor, this movie could have easily been 3 separate movies. They squandered and opportunity to build a coherent universe for a rushed mess.
Spoiler:
Spring 2016: Batfleck which Batman returns to Gotham after being dead for a long time from the Nolandverse. The existance of superman forces his hand. When he returns, he finds Wayne manor destroyed aand John blake no where to be seen. It seems a new 'Batman'has been doing stuff in his absense. The Leauge of Shadows has been cloning Bruce Wayne.
This can have Batman vs Batwing and the introduction of Damien Wayne. Full-on Batman baatfleck movie with the same action effects used in BvS.
Fall 2016: Suicide Squad. Perfect movie. Leave the origins of this joker a mystery but follow the return of the joker story arcs where JaredLeto is John Blake, corrupted and driven mad by the Heath ledger joker.
Winter 2017: Superman - Take basically everything from BvS about government issues and Lex Luther and make a self contained movie with no batman. Luthor gets control of the alien ship (Which is basically braniac) and takes that wounded dude and does alll his gak to frame batman. Luthor stays 'legal' so braaindead sups can't put him in jail. First Villian is Metallo. Disabled dude survive the explosion and is rebuilt with a robot body by krypton tech and heart of kyrptonite. Battle ensues, Metallo at the bottom of the ocean or some crap. Movie ends with Lex being 'Meh, I have broken no law, you have no proof' and superman doing the 'i am waatching you.' thing.
Summer 2017: Stand Alone Wonder woman movie. Maybe even her 1918 retro movie which sets her up having a reason to 'watch' mankind until present.
Winter 2017: Batfleck 2: Real BvS. Jared Leto joker decides to enuse chaos by plotting bat vs superman using basically Lex's poorly thought out plan from this movie. Joker would kidnap a mom to force them to fight. He would punk Lex luthor to steal his kryptonite. Make it a Joker plot which is foiled in the end and Bat and Supes go their separate ways. Luthor is mad as gak.
Spring 2018: Make a nother isolated movie, Cyborg and the mothercube I guess. That is the most darkseid-related.
Fall 2018: Superman 2: Braniac. Luthor is mad, and attemps to ressurect Zod (not make a lame clone) with mind control stuff so it obeys him (opposed to murdering him immediatly). Bizzaro is born. Luthor uses Bizarro to stage crimes to frame superman. Fight ensues, Nuke scene happens, Bizarro turns ugly and broken. During this Luthor is freaking out and Braniac activated shortly when zod was revived as bizarro. Braniac begins doing his own crazy gak. Cyborg is introduced as his motherbox is the only thing combating braniac's world-wide control. Teamup, braniac defeated. Boomtube opens, Apokalips exposed.
Winter 2019: Suicide Squad 2: Luthor is defeated, lost his empire and hates superman. Amanda Wallace declares war on Superman on behalf of the US government. A crapton of villains attempt to assassinaate Superman and Hijinks ensue.
Summer 2019: Flash Movie: Flash is living a fun happy life as a hero in his city. Everyone loves him, He beats up on Bommerange aand cold and other fun stuff. But he time travels to the future for macguffen reason and sees 'justice lords' and apocalypse. Full on lobotomy Superman, Old man bruce wayne, Evil everyone. Flash helps batman bring sense to justice lord superman but it is too late. He watches everyone get killed by darksied and flaash goes back to regular time and hunts down batman.
Winter 2019: Justice League: Combine Supes, bat, Cyborg, Flash, Wonderwoman and BAM, you got a movie franchise with Darkseid and apokalypse being the major antagonist.
I dunno, I feel like your list would make some things worse.
1) BvS certainly may have been rushed, but making 9 movies before JL (or is it 13 including MoS and the Nolan films under your plan?) seems like at least twice as many as is needed.
2) This Batman doesn't need to be the Nolan Batman, and going down that path just limits these filmmakers creatively and probably leads to more confusion. I think that one of the successes of this film was its establishment of Batfleck, and note that we'll get more of his backstory filled in with Suicide Squad.
3) The John Blake/Robin/Joker fanboy stuff is terrible and incredibly convoluted. I don't see how introducing that would address the most common issues people have had with the DCEU so far.
IMO, the issues with BvS are almost entirely story related. It was always going to be somewhat of an issue given how much ground BvS had to cover, but I think some of them were also fixable and don't represent some fatal flaw in WB's approach to the whole shebang. We're going to learn more about Batman and the world of the villains in SS, and WW will have her own feature before JL. Let's see where the enterprise is at that point. I had my doubts about Marvel after stinkbombs like IM2, Thor, etc. and they managed to rally and string together some better films.
And I liked this film - warts and all - much more than IM2.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I just like how DC was obliged to do Batman's origin. Again.
I kinda wonder if anybody doesn't know the Batman origin at this point:
Spoiler:
His parents get shot
Can't we just take that as a given?
It seems that they take the running gag of Batman going "MY PARENTS ARE DEAAAAD" a little too seriously. I agree totally with that, its similar to Spiderman's origin with Uncle Ben and his adage of "With great power, comes great responsibility" and how badly they fluffed that up attempt at paraphrasing that line in the Amazing Spiderman. Some things are kind of established in their mythos, not sure why they want to beat viewers over the head with the same stuff over and over tbh.
JohnHwangDD wrote: There might be someone who's ignorant of Batman's origin. I can't imagine it, but I believe it's possible.
I think anyone who would see an advertisement for a movie featuring Batman and feels compelled to go see it probably has a pretty solid understanding on the basics of his backstory.
I mean, the character is nearing his 80th anniversary. He, along with Spider-Man and Superman, are as ingrained in popular culture as anything by this point.
I've heard that they are going to release an R-rated (more violence, no nudity) version this summer, with an extra 30 or 37 minutes of footage. Link. Seems like we might get a much better version, if this includes more scene-linking and breaks up the massive fight sequence at the end a bit.
That's still not the character of Batman I grew up with. It annoys me when adaptations change the fundamental nature of characters for no particularly good reason.
I wasn't annoyed in MoS when Supes killed Zod because there's plenty of precedent for Supes killing really super powerful bad guys. I was annoyed at how they changed the character of Pa Kent into something really dumb.
Perhaps I'm weird but I think Super Heroes should act as examples for children. The moral core of Batman was that no matter how bad you were, he wouldn't kill you. It is what made him stand out. There are few enough rolemodels like that for children. It's aggravating to see one dismantled because a director wanted to be "edgy".
Frank Miller's Batman doesn't kill people in DKR either - I've got the foreword where he explicitly states that his introduction to Batman started with the declaration that he never kills baddies and that's what kept him fascinated by the character. (Though Frank Miller is a lunatic, but Snyder's use of his comics to justify it is crap.)
I'm a massive fan of Batman...but let's be honest, he does kill. Sure, it's usually done via inaction, rather than directly by his own hands, but it still happens.
That's pretty much what occurs in this movie and I actually liked that aspect. I feel that is suits an older, more worn down and less idealistic Batman.
In a character that is 80 years old, there will always be versions of the character that break all the rules.
That is inevitable.
However, I would say that "The batman does not kill" is one of the most consistent things about the character.
It's not a massive crime for Snyder to go against that - Burton did the same thing. But for me, that makes this movie version of batman a crappy version of batman and so I will not support the movie with my money, as it will only annoy me.
Da Boss wrote: That's still not the character of Batman I grew up with. It annoys me when adaptations change the fundamental nature of characters for no particularly good reason.
For what it's worth, there is a reason for it in the film. - I'm not going to go as far as to say it's a good reason. However, I can understand the filmmakers decisions behind it all and the character arc they've gone for Batman throughout the film.
Also, the good news is, they've kinda retcon'ed Pa Kent to have been a lot less of a jerk in this film.
Overall, I would say it's definitely still worth checking the film out, Da Boss (even if it is on this uncut DVD version), though I would recommend the cinema. There's enough sheer awesomeness that I think you can still enjoy the film if you were of a mind to.
Crappy version of Batman? No, not even vaguely. Affleck's portrayal of him was excellent. It was easily my favourite part of the film and I'd argue that he's the best movie version of Batman to date.
The movie does have issues, but their portrayal of Batman isn't one of them imo.
Enjoyed the movie...The plot at least. Didn't like the directorial choices. The shaky cam and out of focus effects bugged me. Made the action sequences a bit hard to follow.
Granted, part of this might be because of the seat I had...Second row and almost all the way to the side. But it's what was left pretty much.
I thought the movie made it pretty clear that Lex Luthor is Alexander Luthor's dad, thus the 'off' portrayal of him. It isn't actually the Lex that we know.
I don't really have a problem with Batman letting circumstances kill mooks. He doesn't try to kill them, but doesn't stop them from dying. A lot different from the Batman I grew up with (Granted, we're talking Adam West and Superfriends Batman ) but still a valid interpretation of the character.
Da Boss wrote: In a character that is 80 years old, there will always be versions of the character that break all the rules.
That is inevitable.
However, I would say that "The batman does not kill" is one of the most consistent things about the character.
It's not a massive crime for Snyder to go against that - Burton did the same thing. But for me, that makes this movie version of batman a crappy version of batman and so I will not support the movie with my money, as it will only annoy me.
Y'know, I always took it less as "Batman does not kill" but rather "Batman does not murder".
There's an important distinction between the two. One is cold and calculated(murder), but the other can be justified as being done in a "It's me or them" situation(killing in a fight storming a bad guy's hideout etc).
I don't, and I don't support any media where that is the interpretation.
Might seem like a silly stand, but at the end of the day I know it will stop me enjoying the movie, so going to see it will waste my money, and in any case I don't want it to be successful.
It's the same reason I dropped Doctor Who when River Song resulted in him becoming less of a Pacifist.
"That's how it starts. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel."
Which makes sense for this Batman.
Spoiler:
Who in some ways is sort of having a crisis of confidence in what he is doing (the scene where he asks how many good guys are left in Gotham and how many stayed that way).
Yup, I get that. And I get that a character in publication continuously for 80 years in a serial medium is going to have all sorts of weird and wonderful arcs.
It's just not an arc I particularly enjoy. I guess we all form our views on whatever was the "definitive" batman. I got into Batman through the Knightfall comics mostly written by Chuck Dixon, and Dixon bat-family comics are still my all time favourite DC stuff. A supplement to that was the old animated series and the various animated things they've done since. I really enjoy those.
A hard bitten batman who betrays his core ethic is not a character I'm interested in. Glad you guys liked it though - I just won't be giving my money to Snyder and encouraging more of this.
Da Boss wrote: I did, and that scene also disgusted and annoyed me, and I've never re-watched it.
Nicholson's Joker is also massively over-rated. He's nothing more than Nicholson in white face paint.
I find Nicholson's performance great, but overshadowed by Ledgers portrayal.
As for gun-using Batman, the only instance I have ever accepted that is under Thomas Wayne in Flashpoint Paradox. Bruce using guns is a no-go for me(unless it's non-lethal, but even then I've never seen Batman use non-lethal guns to my knowledge).
I'll probably see it next Saturday when I make a train journey to see a mate, but I don't have high expectations.
Da Boss wrote: The one I remember most clearly is the machine gunning scene.
The scene where he blows up the goon is hysterical. You should watch it again. The only thing is that the explosion doesn't follow up with a red mist coming down.
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generalgrog wrote: Doomsday was fantastic, good thing I didn't know it was going to be in the movie, I was surprised to see it.
Really? Doomsday was clearly shown in the spoilers. The problem is that he looks more like a Ninja Turtle than comics Doomsday.
What is also interesting is that a lot of the things they show Batman doing are taken almost straight from the comics.
Spoiler:
When Batman busts through a wall, grabs the machine gun from the goon, proceeds then shoot the chemical tank one of Lex's henchmen is wearing making it explode and kill the henchmen that is from the comic. Of course in the comic Batman just outright shoots the guy after responding to "I swear I'll kill her" with "I believe you". Batman (often) doesn't overtly murder people like The Punisher but he sure has killed a lot in his time.
I will admit that I was biased against Gal Gadot Wonder Woman before going to see the movie, and watching it did nothing to change that. For what little she was featured in it, she just kinda looked like she was in/from a Maybelline commercial. She was a total bore, and didn't remind me of anything Amazonian.
Spoiler:
The wife thinks they digitally thickened her legs, and I'm inclined to agree with her...
Affleck did a lot better than I expected, and I liked Cavill from Man of Steel already. Overall I felt the movie itself was okay, not great but okay. A lot of it was quite entertaining, with a few meh parts. I agree with the opinion that it was too much story for one movie.
I saw the movie today, and I really enjoyed it. Of course, with Gal Gadot and Amy Adams in it, what's not to enjoy?
Spoiler:
I thought the action was great, although I didn't especially care for the end, when Superman gets gored by Doomsday and "dies". Of course most of us knew when it happened that it wouldn't be permanent, but to me it was unnecessary. Having heard (from my brother) about that basically happening in the comics did make me feel better about it though. I did enjoy the cameos of Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash. Very cool previews of those characters.
Choppy. Poorly edited. Too slow and too fast. Morose. Relentlessly dour. Most of the characters - especially Lex - had no or poor motivations. Lex in general was bad and detracted from the film. Lois just kinda floated around almost because she had to be.
Sounds like I hated it, right?
Not at all. I think this is a deeply flawed movie, but I walked away entertained. The best part was sadly the opening sequence with Bruce in Metropolis, and nothing quite managed to rise to that level throughout the rest of the movie's runtime.
An easy 7/10 - well above average, but not great.
All in all this movie was failed (as opposed to failed) by its marketing. That second main trailer ruined the ending, and WB's 'damage control' trailer that switched the focus back to Batman vs Superman only deepened the wound because that trailer's big Batman action sequence takes place towards the end of the film, so you know that A). it's coming, B). so is Doomsday and C). they will all team up.
If Doomsday had been kept a secret, and the moment where WW showed up a complete unknown to audiences, this movie would have been fantastic.
Affleck was great and the best Batman/Wayne..bar none.
yup
So I have a question, not being someone who is totally up to speed with the DC universe...
Spoiler:
Who is Luthor referring to at the end? Darkseid?)
GG
Does seem the most likely option.
especially given the huge symbol carved on the planet in the dream/future vision and those flying guys.
also ;
Spoiler:
The bit where you see Cyborg being "made"... that looked like it might be a Mother Box there that fixes him perhaps ?
Given the identity of the Russian "miniboss" I wouldn't be too surprised if he's not dead perhaps ?
Spoiler:
In the comics KGBeast lost/cut off his hand, wouldn't be too surprised if he turns up again, allbeit somewhat crispy now.
Aquaman looked cool in his little cameo.
One wondered if he might in fact turn up at the end-- perhaps to help retrieve a certain thing from the water. Alas....
8 out of 10 for me.
WW was very good, much better than I'd thought. When she's fighting the beastie there's a bit when she's knocked down , and then has this big ol' grin on her face as if she's really relishing a chance to actually be a in fight.
Aquaman is hardcore. Loses his hand to pirahnas after his ability to talk with aquatic life is removed and what does he do? He doesn't complain, he sticks a harpoon on it, then gets revenge on the guy that took his arm away.
He will also throw a bear at you. That's way more badass than Supes will ever be.
And in Injustice, he was one of the better characters. Plus being an angry drunk in the Throne of Atlantis movie. Aquaman hasn't been a wuss/joke for years. He's actually kinda badass now. Mamoa will be cementing his role as a badass from here on out, I think.
Saw it this weekend and really liked it. Loved Affleck's performance of not just Batman, but Bruce Wayne. He is the definitive Batman as far as I am concerned, and hope he does 20 movies in the role.
Keaton was okay for his time as Batman, but terrible as Bruce Wayne, and Bale was ok as Bruce Wayne, but terrible as Batman. Actually, I am not really a huge fan of Nolan's movies even though I agree they are better than the previous ones, but to me, the best thing that came out of the trilogy was Heath's Joker, even know I have the feeling Leto's is going to surpass it as more authentic Joker.
Wonder Woman is awesome as you hear.
The move had the usual over the top destruction that really just bores me now. I mean, going thru 9/11, I understand what the significance of a building or two collapsing means. However, when you destroy much of a city, its desensitizing. Nevertheless, I am a huge fan of Snyder's style, casting, and artistic direction. I am a huge fan of the extended edition of The Watchmen too, and can't wait to see the extended version of Batman v Superman.
The one thing I keep reading about, which blows me away for its stupidity, is the criticism of Superman killing Zod in Man of Steel. It made perfect sense to me, and I cannot understand how anyone can say 'Superman murdered Zod'. So many idiots populate this planet.
Anyway, I am a huge MCU fan, and have been so excited for Captain America - Civil War, but I dont think any of those actors will capture the essence of their characters as the BvS ones did. I think Civil War will be a fun movie, but I appreciated the darkness of this film. The Batman fight scenes alone are worth the price of admission.
The bit where you see Cyborg being "made"... that looked like it might be a Mother Box there that fixes him perhaps ?
Almost definitely! Like I think I said in my 'War and Peace' rambling review, I believe that I may have unconsciously punched the air in the theater when that showed up. Fortunately the theater had stadium seating, so no injuries or brawls resulted.
So in the "Knightmare" sequence...
Spoiler:
...those are obviously Parademons, and I guess we can assume the helmeted guys are Justifiers?
Seems like audience reviews -- while not stellar -- are still tracking a good bit higher than those of the critics.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Choppy. Poorly edited. Too slow and too fast. Morose. Relentlessly dour. Most of the characters - especially Lex - had no or poor motivations. Lex in general was bad and detracted from the film. Lois just kinda floated around almost because she had to be.
Sounds like I hated it, right?
Not at all. I think this is a deeply flawed movie, but I walked away entertained. The best part was sadly the opening sequence with Bruce in Metropolis, and nothing quite managed to rise to that level throughout the rest of the movie's runtime.
An easy 7/10 - well above average, but not great.
All in all this movie was failed (as opposed to failed) by its marketing. That second main trailer ruined the ending, and WB's 'damage control' trailer that switched the focus back to Batman vs Superman only deepened the wound because that trailer's big Batman action sequence takes place towards the end of the film, so you know that A). it's coming, B). so is Doomsday and C). they will all team up.
If Doomsday had been kept a secret, and the moment where WW showed up a complete unknown to audiences, this movie would have been fantastic.
My wife hadn't seen any of the trailers, and indeed loved those scenes. She actually started clapping when Wonder Woman showed up. She also thought Eisenberg was supposed to be like the Joker, which worked better than as Lex Luthor.
I think the reason Wonder Woman is such a hit with audiences is because she seems to be the only character who actually has any fun in the movie.
I think the reason Wonder Woman is such a hit with audiences is because she seems to be the only character who actually has any fun in the movie.
I've read that a few times.
Given Batman's origin and some peeks into his past here and the whole setup of the film - no surprise that he's rather...angry.
Superman is also shown as conflicted and unsure as to whether or not he should even be 'Superman' - a theme that's repeated throughout the movie. So no surprise that he's rather conflicted as well.
Wonder Woman?
Well, something so awful happened that she basically exiled her self for almost 100 years.
Saw it with the wife this weekend. Overall enjoyable but once the wife and I started discussing it fell apart fast for us. I think they are fighting so many incarnations of all the characters except for Wonder Woman that it's hard to overcome that.
Spoiler:
On that note Gadot was bleh for me. Cheap suit tricks and what looked like cgi'd thicker legs doesn't make her look Amazonian and she was just there to promote her solo movie and set up Justice League. While I don't mind someone making appearances for upcoming media she should have contributed to the plot somehow. Everything she did Batman and Superman could have done if they just barely tried. I don't think I have any interest in the Wonder Woman movie. The wife didn't believe her in the role either and she doesn't care about comics.
My favorite Lex has always been the Smallville Lex. So I didn't mind Eisenberg's Lex outside of a few of his moments like the speech where the insanity came out at the wrong time for the plot. Also I hated they gave him zero reasons for his super over the top convoluted plot to get them to fight to kill one or the other.
Affleck was the standout for me. He nailed the feel and style of the Batman for me while doing a fabulous job of being Bruce too. Honestly he's my favorite Batman. Others have been better at one or the other but he's the best overall to date. Irons was an excellent Alfred to me. Just the right touch of exasperation with his charge/son. Did anyone catch the name of the guy Affleck called at the beginning of the movie that was his employee in the tower that fell? I couldn't tell if it was Jim or John. If it was Jim and it was Gordon who he gave a job to after retirement that would have actually made Affleck's animosity much more realistic to me. But it probably wasn't.
Supes was Supes. Solid performance for being given so few moments to actually act. The sorry on his face as he stands in the fire was excellent.
It just felt like they jammed to much stuff in and so felt incomplete and way to long.
I think the reason Wonder Woman is such a hit with audiences is because she seems to be the only character who actually has any fun in the movie.
I've read that a few times.
Given Batman's origin and some peeks into his past here and the whole setup of the film - no surprise that he's rather...angry.
Superman is also shown as conflicted and unsure as to whether or not he should even be 'Superman' - a theme that's repeated throughout the movie. So no surprise that he's rather conflicted as well.
Wonder Woman?
Well, something so awful happened that she basically exiled her self for almost 100 years.
But yes, she appears to enjoy a good fight too!
She also enjoys yanking Bruce's chain earlier in the movie. She's cocky and she clearly likes a good fight. Batman is tortured throughout the movie, but that's the point. Superman on the other hand...Superman made sex in a bathtub look grim.
I liked the film. I thought Affleck and Cavill both nailed their roles. Godot's interpretation was enjoyable to watch, but some of her scenes at the end felt inconsistent. The first half of the movie was a mess, but the payoff at the end lifted the film in my eyes. The score was really distracting for the first hour, overbearing and monotonous. I suspect that was because Snyder wanted every scene to sound 'epic', even when nothing was happening. The guy probably listens to Dies Irae every time he visits the john.
I think the reason Wonder Woman is such a hit with audiences is because she seems to be the only character who actually has any fun in the movie.
I've read that a few times.
Given Batman's origin and some peeks into his past here and the whole setup of the film - no surprise that he's rather...angry.
Superman is also shown as conflicted and unsure as to whether or not he should even be 'Superman' - a theme that's repeated throughout the movie. So no surprise that he's rather conflicted as well.
Wonder Woman?
Well, something so awful happened that she basically exiled her self for almost 100 years.
But yes, she appears to enjoy a good fight too!
I think that what they wanted to show us at the end is a re-energized Bruce who's found the better parts of himself again (see the scene in the cell), AND who now has a defined purpose for being Batman beyond crime in Gotham. I dunno, I just really like the idea of him getting organized and prepping for what's to come. Clearly these guys get that about the character from what we saw in the fight against Supes. Anyway, it's almost like someone or something chose wisely to send him those visions...?
Meanwhile, we have (presumably, given the final scene) a more experienced Superman with a much-improved relationship with the public and government. Much about WW isn't clear, but presumably she's discovered some very good reasons why she should get re-engaged in "man's world." I doubt JL will be sweetness and light, but going forward these characters might be the more familiar, positive forces that people want to see.
Regarding WW, I understand the argument for giving her a solo film first. However, I hazard to guess that WB wanted to interest us (and especially younger males) with this WW before her solo film hits theaters. The track record with female superhero films is very poor, although obviously limited. I can imagine some trepidation on the studio's part, given the investment. Note how much farther down the road Marvel is with their franchise, and they won't have something similar for what, a couple more years yet? It would appear that they're also wary of the risks, despite having a character and actress (ScarJo) clearly capable of heading a successful film.
I took it more to mean that he got all the info from the Kryptonian library, got to the part about the New Gods -- especially the naughty ones -- and it kinda blew his mind. Almost like a Lovecraft character rolling around gibbering after being confronted with that kind of cosmic horror. Darkseid is pretty much cosmic horror, after all. And Lex was already off his rocker about a single Kryptonian. Then he probably got hit with stuff like the existence of the Anti-Life Equation, etc.
Personally I loved the note it struck at the end with Bruce aware that something's coming, and starting to make plans. We're talking about Batman with advanced warning...that gak is in the bag.
I think I might have actually fist-pumped seeing the Mother Box during the Cyborg sequence.
Spot on stuff there Gorgon - I think you've nailed it!
Well, most of it?
It still appears that Lex knew...almost everything about almost every one pre-Kryptonian Scout Ship.
They've made him look more generally demonic to fit the whole god/man/devil theme, but ladies and germs, I do believe that's Steppenwolf with Mother Boxes in tow. The horns are different, but they have that forward/downward lean.
Including that scene would have helped the bit with the painting, although it might have been another thing to confuse the non-DC fans. It'll be interesting to see how the extended version and extra half-hour improves the movie (or doesn't).
So presumably the orbs over his head represent the planetary system of Apokolips? They seem to be moving in an orrery-like fashion. Looks like the Kryptonians had extensive knowledge of the New Gods.
Looking at the box office and it's $420m? That's even better than predicted.
It seems like the film that is good visually and to Snyder's credit, he does know how to do action scenes. Seeing it Saturday with a mate for sure now, will probably go in, enjoy the action but leave discussion of the film alone lest I feel like I wasted my time.
Alpharius wrote: I read that the budget on this movie was around $250 million, and that an additional $150 to $180 million was spent on 'advertising and promotion'.
I then read that the fill will need to pull in $800 million world wide in order to 'break even'.
Huh?
What (obviously) am I missing?
Perhaps some of it is going to be seen as 'sunk costs' and a bunch of the advertising budget is being thought of as advertising for the Justice League in general. And, some accounting wizardly maybe has those 'advertising and promotion' costs spread across the following films?
I left this movie with a very resounding "meh". Great visuals and acting but the whole movie seemed incredibly rushed and humourless as if DC just wants to move on from origin stories and make a JL movie as soon as possible.
Spoiler:
Things I liked: Affleck was the perfect Batman and Bruce Wayne and his scene during the Supes/Zod fight was fantastic!
The actual BvS scene was also really well done as there was genuine tension as to who would win the fight.
I also liked the whole controversy over Superman's power and how he should be held responsible.
Stuff I didn't like: Everything about Doomsday. I really enjoyed the comic with him in so to see his origin changed and a really bad CGI blob replace him as well as the fact that he felt shoehorned in just felt wrong. I think he would have been much better off in a separate movie with someone like Lex manipulating his actions so as to have more than just an angry rage monster as the only villain.
Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Lex seemed a little too crazy for me. I think he would make a fantastic villain don't get me wrong, I just always pictured Luthor as more sane and very calculating. I also have no idea why he wished Batman to die. Sure he stole the Kryptonite but he was manipulating events well before that correct?
The movie also felt too long in general. I would have preferred a better build up of tension between bats and superman have their conflict end in a more dramatic fashion.
Honestly I loved the Dark Knight Returns cartoon so much that the movie could never compare to it. Batman's killing of the Joker in it was so meaningful compared to the gun happy, knife to the chest batman we saw in BvS. Hopefully this movie will serve as a good platform upon which many new DC movies can sit which now have more freedom to do their own thing now that the whole origins thing has been dealt with.
His voice modulator/amplifyer. Gave everything he said as Batman real impact. Much beter than just faking a gravelly voice in the Bale films which got to the point of being hard to hear what he's actually saying.
The first showdown with them where Batman asks 'Do you bleed?' through that augmentation sounded awesome.
Alpharius wrote: I read that the budget on this movie was around $250 million, and that an additional $150 to $180 million was spent on 'advertising and promotion'.
I then read that the fill will need to pull in $800 million world wide in order to 'break even'.
Huh?
What (obviously) am I missing?
Well...it certainly wasn't spent on paying off film critics.
I'd be inclined to chalk that up to a dire analysis. Hard to believe that they'd paint themselves into that kind of corner.
Alpharius wrote: I read that the budget on this movie was around $250 million, and that an additional $150 to $180 million was spent on 'advertising and promotion'.
I then read that the fill will need to pull in $800 million world wide in order to 'break even'.
Huh?
What (obviously) am I missing?
The WB studio spend $250M + $150M = $400M total on the movie. That is their cost out of pocket.
The movie theaters get revenue from moviegoers and send a fraction of that back to the studio. The fraction varies but is about half of the gate. More in the first month, less in trailing months.
The movie needs to drive $800M global revenue so that the theaters can send the $400M back to the studio to pay for the devleopment, etc. The remaining $400M covers the cost of having a movie theater, ushers, along with the theater's overhead and profit.
If the movie only made $400M in the theaters, then there would only be about $200M going back to the studio, for a net studio loss of -$200M.
If you look at Age of Ultron, they pulled in $1,400M globally against a nominally similar $400M budget, then the studio would have gotten $700M back, for a nice $300M profit. That's good business.
If you look at Fantastic Four (2015), they grossed $168M against a $200M budget, getting back a mere $85M for a whopping -$115M loss. Ouch.
I absolutely loved this movie. I was surprised how much it was a Batman movie, with Superman more as a secondary character.
And it was a really good take on Batman, with the brutality and insanity of the character put at the forefront and turned up to 11. It seemed to be both a new take on Batman and also a continuation of the character in Nolan's films. It fit well with the very dark vision Snyder is trying to bring to the franchise.
The film also managed to expand on Man of Steel's themes and explore them in much more interesting ways. The Day of the Dead scene, brief as it was, probably said more about religion than most religious movies that I've seen. The film also managed to explore and expand on the themes of Nolan's Batman, and probably look at them in a more interesting, less in your face way. But the two sets of themes didn't really fit that well together, though, and where they should have been in conflict in Batman v Superman fight scene there wasn't really anything - ultimately that fight felt driven more by plotting than any true difference in the characters. I think it did probably lead to a lot of people's complaints about there being too much movie - in terms of events and complications there was no more to this than any of the Nolan Batman movies, but with two competing sets of themes I think that led to the feeling that this had too much movie going on. But that's just nitpicking the day after the movie, not a real complaint as it didn't bother me when I was watching the movie.
Probably my only real complaint was Batman's dream sequence, which stopped the pacing of the film stone cold, at a point where the film needed to be focusing and moving to it's conclusion.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I just like how DC was obliged to do Batman's origin. Again.
I kinda wonder if anybody doesn't know the Batman origin at this point:
Spoiler:
His parents get shot
Can't we just take that as a given?
I think the scenes going back to his parent's death weren't so much to explain to the audience that Batman's origins, but so the audience made the connection in the Martha scene.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Da Boss wrote: However, I would say that "The batman does not kill" is one of the most consistent things about the character.
It's not a massive crime for Snyder to go against that - Burton did the same thing.
Nolan's Batman killed as well. Remember the nonsense logic at the end of Batman Begins - I can't kill, but I don't have to save you. It's funny how that annoyed me, whereas this Batman's far more extreme violence was fine. I think it's more about how the character fits within the given movie universe, and how well the character is consistent and believable within that particular work.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The WB studio spend $250M + $150M = $400M total on the movie. That is their cost out of pocket.
The movie theaters get revenue from moviegoers and send a fraction of that back to the studio. The fraction varies but is about half of the gate. More in the first month, less in trailing months.
The movie needs to drive $800M global revenue so that the theaters can send the $400M back to the studio to pay for the devleopment, etc. The remaining $400M covers the cost of having a movie theater, ushers, along with the theater's overhead and profit.
Yeah, this is the finance that studios operate under. Rule of thumb is that you want to make back about double your total budget to break even, but because the studio gets more out of the first week of release and less each week after, a film that takes a lot of its gross in the first week will be better for the studio than a film that earns steadily for weeks or even months. This produces the unfortunate reality that a film that's really good but has poor initial interest can still end up being a loser for the studio even when good word of mouth means it keeps making money for months after the initial release. And the flip side of that is that a much hyped movie that sucks, and therefore has a massive box office drop off after the opening weekend can still be a big money spinner, because the studio is getting almost all of that early return.
The other complication is what they call the 'nut'. This is a fixed operating cost negotiated between the theatre and the studio. It represents the cost of keeping a theatre open, and the first chunk of box office goes to cover that before any money goes to the studio. So a film on opening might in one theatre might gross $10,000, but $2,000 of that might go to the theatre first up, and then the remaining $8,000 is split 80% to the studio, 20% to the theatre. The effect of that is smaller movies with lower $/theatre actually have to have a better box office to budget ratio to break even than huge tent pole productions that are much more likely to put more bums on seats in each showing.
That big 55% drop suggests that reviews and word of mouth having an effect on the non-fanboy crowd. That suggests that week-over-week is going to see big drops. We could have a big -70% drop next weekend from $170M US down to $51M, although the foreign side probably won't drop so fast. I think the movie breaks even entirely on the strength of foreign sales. If BvS actually finishes under $750M globally before Civil War hits, I will be surprised.
JohnHwangDD wrote: That big 55% drop suggests that reviews and word of mouth having an effect on the non-fanboy crowd. That suggests that week-over-week is going to see big drops. We could have a big -70% drop next weekend from $170M US down to $51M, although the foreign side probably won't drop so fast. I think the movie breaks even entirely on the strength of foreign sales. If BvS actually finishes under $750M globally before Civil War hits, I will be surprised.
I don't know if the bad reviews are exactly having that effect. My parents would never have seen the movie until they heard how bad it was, making into something of a challenge. My wife had no interest in seeing the film until the Sad Affleck meme dropped. Unlike FF, the entertaining bad reviews for this mix well with the spectacle and the high profile to make the critical bomb into something of a phenomenon. Combine that with the fact that people watching for the Batfleck or Wonder Woman are coming away happy, and it may end up with repeat viewing legs.
Frozocrone wrote:Still, $420m for 3 days isn't bad at all. Not great, but not bad. I can see $800m easily attaintable for it's theatrical run.
That's...not bad?
I'm betting that the studio is probably pretty happy with the results so far - the true test is that dreaded 2nd weekend drop off though!
You're welcome!
Merely breaking even on $400M is not good when the executives want this to be a $1 BILLION movie, like Avengers. And Iron Man 3. And Age of Ultron. And Civil War. With quirky "little" movies like Deadpool and Guardians pulling a fat $750M each. They wanted to pull in at least $100M profit on this, and were probably internally high-fiving themselves for a $250M profit before the final prints came out and marketing went into "damage control" (hence, the NDAs and embargos and limited critical screenings). It is a hell of a thing when you pay top dollar to get something that is obviously Not Good, and still have to market it like crazy.
Also, that Fantastic Four reference isn't the meanest thing I've read. Professional reviewers were semi-facetiously supposing that BvS was actually a Producers gambit.
I just think that a lot of people are working really, really hard to tell everyone how bad this movie is when it actually is pretty good and a lot of fun - if you're a fan of this kind of movie (superhero, action/adventure, Batman, etc.)!
JohnHwangDD wrote: That big 55% drop suggests that reviews and word of mouth having an effect on the non-fanboy crowd. That suggests that week-over-week is going to see big drops. We could have a big -70% drop next weekend from $170M US down to $51M, although the foreign side probably won't drop so fast. I think the movie breaks even entirely on the strength of foreign sales. If BvS actually finishes under $750M globally before Civil War hits, I will be surprised.
I don't know if the bad reviews are exactly having that effect.
Cause and effect is always hard to prove, so we'll just have to see how it turns out.
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Alpharius wrote: I just think that a lot of people are working really, really hard to tell everyone how bad this movie is when it actually is pretty good and a lot of fun - if you're a fan of this kind of movie (superhero, action/adventure, Batman, etc.)!
JohnHwangDD wrote: Merely breaking even on $400M is not good when the executives want this to be a $1 BILLION movie, like Avengers. And Iron Man 3. And Age of Ultron. And Civil War. With quirky "little" movies like Deadpool and Guardians pulling a fat $750M each. They wanted to pull in at least $100M profit on this, and were probably internally high-fiving themselves for a $250M profit before the final prints came out and marketing went into "damage control" (hence, the NDAs and embargos and limited critical screenings).
There's probably no junkier form of financial review than claiming a project failed because it didn't reach some arbitrary profit expectation that you made up yourself.
What the actual studio expectations were for BvS are unknown to us, and even if we had them they're irrelevant to the actual result. All that matters is the cold, hard maths of money in, money out.
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Alpharius wrote: I just think that a lot of people are working really, really hard to tell everyone how bad this movie is when it actually is pretty good and a lot of fun - if you're a fan of this kind of movie (superhero, action/adventure, Batman, etc.)!
Yeah, when the bad reviews hit, and when a few people on this thread kept driving negatives, I admit I started to think the film was a genuine dog. Having re-watched much of Man of Steel didn't help either. If we hadn't pre-booked tickets with friends my wife and I might not have gone (I was really worried about dragging her to another Man of Steel).
But then I watched the film and it was just great fun. The action was properly brutal and engaging, the characters were all well drawn and realised, and while the plotting was more 'busy' than effective, it didn't bother me during the film.
Ok, so the critic reviews have been terrible, and considering how much I disliked MoS, I was firmly not going to see this film. However; I am hearing alot of positive (if not amazing) things from regular people, and I wonder if that's just a product of the people who've seen it already are largely those who enjoyed MoS, and consequently made the effort to see this eairly, and, in turn; are enjoying the same sort of things about this film.
So, I suppose my question to those who've seen it and liked it is; did you also enjoy MoS? and is this film more of what you enjoyed? Or; if you didn't like MoS and did enjoy this film; would you recommend it to a fellow did-not-like-MoS person?
This is one of the most pathetic movies I have ever seen. I am pretty sure it was directed by a committee of accountants. Batman is a moron who uses guns to kill people without pause or remorse. Wonder Woman is an after thought in every possible sense. Superman is the only sympathetic character but his greatest foe is the script itself, which overpowers him again and again until it finally kills him and then hounds him in the grave. I have never before walked out of a theater with such a strong sense of the basic contempt in which a studio can hold the movie-going public.
Pendix wrote: Ok, so the critic reviews have been terrible, and considering how much I disliked MoS, I was firmly not going to see this film. However; I am hearing alot of positive (if not amazing) things from regular people, and I wonder if that's just a product of the people who've seen it already are largely those who enjoyed MoS, and consequently made the effort to see this eairly, and, in turn; are enjoying the same sort of things about this film.
So, I suppose my question to those who've seen it and liked it is; did you also enjoy MoS? and is this film more of what you enjoyed? Or; if you didn't like MoS and did enjoy this film; would you recommend it to a fellow did-not-like-MoS person?
I think it depends on why you didn't like Man of Steel, because there's many different reasons that people didn't like Man of Steel
Personally, I disliked Man of Steel because the plodding first half used flashbacks to pretend something was actually happening, because it spent ages on Kevin Costner in yet more cornfields giving some of the worst and weirdest parenting advice I've ever seen, and then spent the second half of the movie with Superman and some other superpowered beings smashing each other in to buildings, which didn't seem to hurt anyone involved... meanwhile Amy Adams killed a bunch of Kryptonians extras with the help of AI/space ghost Russell Crowe. Then it finally got to a conclusion with a bunch of sci-fi gobbledigook that amounted to a crazy plan that just might work! Oh and Russell Crowe was riding a space dragon, the hell was that.
I actually got annoyed all over again just typing that out.
Anyhow, the new film had none of that. Probably the only thing that's carried over is that Superman, and the whole of the film, is still very grim and very serious. But it works better here because it's not saddled with yet another origin story, and actually looks at the moral questions of Superman's existence in a more interesting way in a shorter time (there's a lot more than Batman than Superman). That said, the film won't be everyone's cup of tea, as you've probably read in this thread. Batman is not a purely good force, he's brutal and more than a little bit crazy, and way less reserved in his use of violence, and that clearly puts some people off. And I think some people naturally want a lighter tone.
Anyhow, yeah, all I can say is I really didn't like Man of Steel, and I really liked this. I can't tell you you'll like the film, all I can do is tell you what I like about it, and hope you give it a shot.
Oh, and it did spend one short scene giving a quick explanation for why Kevin Costner's advice in the first movie was so terrible. So there's that.
So, I suppose my question to those who've seen it and liked it is; did you also enjoy MoS? and is this film more of what you enjoyed? Or; if you didn't like MoS and did enjoy this film; would you recommend it to a fellow did-not-like-MoS person?
I'd say it depends on what you liked or didn't like about Man of Steel. I think that's a big difficulty with the film. - The film goes out of its way to directly address some of the issues people had with Man of Steel's plotline, so the people who had those issues are going to be pretty happy.
On the other hand, there are still many stylistic choices (One could call it Snyder-isms), that are the same with Man of Steel, that if people really hated in Man of Steel, they are still going to hate in Batman V Superman.
I honestly do genuinely think that reviews either for, or against this film aren't going to help you decide whether to see it, particularly if you're geekily inclined. You will probably find things you dislike in the film but on the other hand, there are things that you are probably going to love too. It's going to be down to your own opinions whether the 'things you dislike' outweigh the 'things you love,' which is why I think this film is a hard one to decide.
On the other hand, for the non geekily inclined, I think it's going to end up being a case of whether the spectacle of it all does end up outweighing the messiness and confusion aspects of it.
Personally, I kinda want to go see it again in the cinema. - I wanted to do the same for Star Wars but never got round to it, yet I'm probably going to make an attempt for BvS so that's got to say something, right?
The thing is, a lot of the negative things from people who have seen the movie in this thread, I probably can't really disagree with. What the things I'm disagreeing with it about are more the "importance" or "impact" of those things, or whether personally there are mitigating circumstances on those issues that mean that I, personally am ok with. And, ultimately, it's going to be where you personally lie on that spectrum is going to decide on whether you find it's an enjoyable film or not.
So yeah, overall, the only way to find that out for sure is to just go see it, you might be pleasantly surprised and, the film is certainly at its best on the big screen.
Commander Cain wrote: Stuff I didn't like: Everything about Doomsday. I really enjoyed the comic with him in so to see his origin changed and a really bad CGI blob replace him
Hey man, don't fat shame the Cave Troll. He's had a hard time finding new roles since Lord of the Rings. Frankly I'm glad to see he's getting himself back up on hit feet and getting back out there. He had pretty solid acting chops in this movie for what little was asked of him.
Pendix wrote: Ok, so the critic reviews have been terrible, and considering how much I disliked MoS, I was firmly not going to see this film. However; I am hearing alot of positive (if not amazing) things from regular people, and I wonder if that's just a product of the people who've seen it already are largely those who enjoyed MoS, and consequently made the effort to see this eairly, and, in turn; are enjoying the same sort of things about this film.
As usual, the truth is somewhere in between As with most movies, it has good and bad sides. Visuals, music and most acting (Eisenberg excluded) is really damn good, but the pacing is lacking and script / editing are trash. My best advice is to fully turn off your brain when watching the movie - and you will have a very, very enjoyable time with lots of fun. It all depends on what you're looking for in a movie - and if you just want some OOOOMP POW POW WOOOSH PEWPEW fun times, then this is your perfect movie. If you expect anything more, you will be disappointed.
It has one of the huge flaws many superhero movies and movies in general have and why they are vastly inferior to series - character development. Compare a Daredevil to a Batman and Batman is ridiculously bad in comparison. This is a given as you compare 2ish hours to 13ish hours of a series. Like, Daredevil in the series has a similar conflicht that Batman has - he doesn't want to kill people, but people get killed because he doesn't kill...uhm. So I think that Affleck version of Batman, the story of a bitter, but realistic man, is a pretty damn good believable story.
Alpharius wrote: I read that the budget on this movie was around $250 million, and that an additional $150 to $180 million was spent on 'advertising and promotion'.
I then read that the fill will need to pull in $800 million world wide in order to 'break even'.
Huh?
What (obviously) am I missing?
Its Hollywood accounting gimmicks, designed to insure even blockbusters somehow never make a profit.
It doesn't even include package tie ins, which are the real money maker.
Manchu wrote: This is one of the most pathetic movies I have ever seen. I am pretty sure it was directed by a committee of accountants. Batman is a moron who uses guns to kill people without pause or remorse. Wonder Woman is an after thought in every possible sense. Superman is the only sympathetic character but his greatest foe is the script itself, which overpowers him again and again until it finally kills him and then hounds him in the grave. I have never before walked out of a theater with such a strong sense of the basic contempt in which a studio can hold the movie-going public.
Did we see the same movie? I would love to see what you expected to happen. Like in detail.
Batman killing without pause or remorse? This isnt the Batman of the 1950s. Batman has been getting darker and darker since the late 80s. The idea that a 'hero' only using his fists, is always going to find himself not having to resort to lethal methods at some point while facing guys with G36s and other assault rifles is just as looney as the idea of someone going up against guys with G36s with just his fists. This Batman is scarred from losing he friends to guys he was trying to defeat without killing. I think its reasonable for him to set that restriction aside from time to time, after all, these guys are trying to kill him.
Its like hearing Superman murdered Zod. Absolutely ridiculous. Zod was hell bent on killing everyone on earth, and gave Superman no choice in killing him. If anything, Superman is guilty of not killing him sooner.
Manchu wrote: This is one of the most pathetic movies I have ever seen. I am pretty sure it was directed by a committee of accountants. Batman is a moron who uses guns to kill people without pause or remorse. Wonder Woman is an after thought in every possible sense. Superman is the only sympathetic character but his greatest foe is the script itself, which overpowers him again and again until it finally kills him and then hounds him in the grave. I have never before walked out of a theater with such a strong sense of the basic contempt in which a studio can hold the movie-going public.
Did we see the same movie? I would love to see what you expected to happen. Like in detail.
Batman killing without pause or remorse? This isnt the Batman of the 1950s. Batman has been getting darker and darker since the late 80s. The idea that a 'hero' only using his fists, is always going to find himself not having to resort to lethal methods at some point while facing guys with G36s and other assault rifles is just as looney as the idea of someone going up against guys with G36s with just his fists. This Batman is scarred from losing he friends to guys he was trying to defeat without killing. I think its reasonable for him to set that restriction aside from time to time, after all, these guys are trying to kill him.
Its like hearing Superman murdered Zod. Absolutely ridiculous. Zod was hell bent on killing everyone on earth, and gave Superman no choice in killing him. If anything, Superman is guilty of not killing him sooner.
Well, some folks just don't like an overly dark and disturbed Batman. I think the conclusion intended to show a Batman who got his groove back. But this Batman -- clearly TDKR-inspired, but also maybe a step beyond that -- was fairly batgak crazy for the majority of the film, and darn near a villain, which doesn't reflect what we see in current comics.
Stepping back, I think finding the right tone/characterization for the DC characters is a little trickier than the characters in the Marvel-made films, which were more of a blank slate to the general audience. Heck, the Marvel movie characters are now informing the comic versions, something you especially see with Iron Man. I simply don't remember Tony Stark being as happy-go-lucky or wisecracky in the past as he's been post-RDJ.
Meanwhile, in both comments and reviews for both MoS and BvS, Christopher Reeve tends to come up again and again. It's a narrow, single rendition of the character across its extensive history (similar to the BvS Batman), but clearly people like a Superman talks corny, acts the fool as Clark Kent, and wears a big grin a lot. *shrug* Personally that wouldn't play well with me, since I feel like we moved past that Silver/Bronze Age version a long time ago in the comics.
It was probably always going to be harder to suit everyone with the DC characters, but it's fair to say that the WB folks definitely rolled the dice with some of their choices. I have no issues with their handling of Superman to date, but if the Injustice-type scenario that Bruce's vision and Flash seem to be warning us about sees any real fruition in future films...I think that would be a big misstep. I feel like the end of BvS moved us past Superman as a controversial figure or villain, and they should probably tread lightly there going forward in the DCEU.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm less and less enamoured by the fact that Batman was killing people left right and centre.
Snyder, it's time to go. Let someone else handle Justice League.
This was my friends and I's thought. Bad Future Batman killing people? Okay, shows how bad things are. Batman deciding that Superman is dangerous enough that he needs to be taken down permanently? Okay, shows how serious a threat he thinks Supes is. Batman murderizing a bunch of nameless henchmen? Why, other than trying to remain the darker hero in a universe where Superman is snapping necks?
Weren't most of the people he killed, nameless henchmen in a vision of a possible future and to punctuate how grim things had become? Other than that there were the two guys on the .50 cals, the guy with the Flamethrower and probably some dudes in the car chase.
Automatically Appended Next Post: BtwWB deliberately went dark because of how bad Green Lantern was received. They want less humor and more of a serious tone. It's not just Snyder. Suicide Squad will be the same way.
Manchu wrote: This is one of the most pathetic movies I have ever seen. I am pretty sure it was directed by a committee of accountants. Batman is a moron who uses guns to kill people without pause or remorse. Wonder Woman is an after thought in every possible sense. Superman is the only sympathetic character but his greatest foe is the script itself, which overpowers him again and again until it finally kills him and then hounds him in the grave. I have never before walked out of a theater with such a strong sense of the basic contempt in which a studio can hold the movie-going public.
Did we see the same movie? I would love to see what you expected to happen. Like in detail.
Batman killing without pause or remorse? This isnt the Batman of the 1950s. Batman has been getting darker and darker since the late 80s. The idea that a 'hero' only using his fists, is always going to find himself not having to resort to lethal methods at some point while facing guys with G36s and other assault rifles is just as looney as the idea of someone going up against guys with G36s with just his fists. This Batman is scarred from losing he friends to guys he was trying to defeat without killing. I think its reasonable for him to set that restriction aside from time to time, after all, these guys are trying to kill him.
Its like hearing Superman murdered Zod. Absolutely ridiculous. Zod was hell bent on killing everyone on earth, and gave Superman no choice in killing him. If anything, Superman is guilty of not killing him sooner.
Well, some folks just don't like an overly dark and disturbed Batman. I think the conclusion intended to show a Batman who got his groove back. But this Batman -- clearly TDKR-inspired, but also maybe a step beyond that -- was fairly batgak crazy for the majority of the film, and darn near a villain, which doesn't reflect what we see in current comics.
Stepping back, I think finding the right tone/characterization for the DC characters is a little trickier than the characters in the Marvel-made films, which were more of a blank slate to the general audience. Heck, the Marvel movie characters are now informing the comic versions, something you especially see with Iron Man. I simply don't remember Tony Stark being as happy-go-lucky or wisecracky in the past as he's been post-RDJ.
Meanwhile, in both comments and reviews for both MoS and BvS, Christopher Reeve tends to come up again and again. It's a narrow, single rendition of the character across its extensive history (similar to the BvS Batman), but clearly people like a Superman talks corny, acts the fool as Clark Kent, and wears a big grin a lot. *shrug* Personally that wouldn't play well with me, since I feel like we moved past that Silver/Bronze Age version a long time ago in the comics.
It was probably always going to be harder to suit everyone with the DC characters, but it's fair to say that the WB folks definitely rolled the dice with some of their choices. I have no issues with their handling of Superman to date, but if the Injustice-type scenario that Bruce's vision and Flash seem to be warning us about sees any real fruition in future films...I think that would be a big misstep. I feel like the end of BvS moved us past Superman as a controversial figure or villain, and they should probably tread lightly there going forward in the DCEU.
The Christopher Reeve Superman tapped into what made Superman so ingrained into popular culture in the first place: he was a super hero not because of his powers but because of his outlook. The movie was a bit heavy with the Christ metaphors, but it absolutely nailed that Superman was supposed to show people how good they could be, that he was an example to everyone. To be like Superman did not mean to fly, but to see the capacity for good in everyone. Snyder's Superman leaves that element out, although it looks like he is getting there the hard way. There are lots of superheroes who can punch planets out of their orbits, but only Superman was known for the absolute goodness of his actions...even if that wasn't strictly true in the material. The idea of Superman was more important than the man himself.
Batman saw every person as a potential criminal; Superman saw every criminal as a person. At least, that's the stereotype.
Best comic book movie ever, except possibly The Dark Knight (that particular decision requires a directors cut of BvS and a back-to-back viewing to call that one... ). I don't know what the critics that slammed it were watching, but it wasn't the movie I just saw.
I'll write up a more thorough review later on, but for now, I'll just say that if anyone's on the fence, go and see it now! There's a load for comic fans to get their teeth into, plenty of awesome action even if you've never read a Batman or Superman comic, fantastic visuals and score, and generally an awesome movie.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Christopher Reeve Superman tapped into what made Superman so ingrained into popular culture in the first place: he was a super hero not because of his powers but because of his outlook. The movie was a bit heavy with the Christ metaphors, but it absolutely nailed that Superman was supposed to show people how good they could be, that he was an example to everyone. To be like Superman did not mean to fly, but to see the capacity for good in everyone. Snyder's Superman leaves that element out, although it looks like he is getting there the hard way. There are lots of superheroes who can punch planets out of their orbits, but only Superman was known for the absolute goodness of his actions...even if that wasn't strictly true in the material. The idea of Superman was more important than the man himself.
Batman saw every person as a potential criminal; Superman saw every criminal as a person. At least, that's the stereotype.
Two points in response.
1) Most of the criticism that I've seen of the BvS Superman (let's table MoS for now) isn't about him not striving to help or set an example, and in fact he's shown saving plenty of people worldwide without prejudice and more or less dies twice during the film trying to save humanity. Instead, much of the criticism is focused around him being too "morose." Ergo...it must be about the fly-by grins and "good vibrations" cornball stuff for some people.
2) People are simply divided on Superman. Some want him to be a perfect paragon. Others find that boring and want him to be more relatable. To make him relatable means making him more like us, which is...imperfect. Call it SuperChrist vs. Superdude. I'm not a big fan of reducing things to binary arguments, but perfection is a binary concept, and I don't think people firmly in one camp or another will ever be satisfied with the other thing.
I also disagree with your Batman/Superman contrast. To me, the difference is that Batman is more focused on individual people. He fights local gangsters and saves people from muggings. This is very fitting for a hero borne out of the deaths of just two particular people. Superman's focus tends to be larger-scale or even global. He saves individuals too, but tends to spend more time stopping erupting volcanos and deflecting asteroids. This flows naturally from his "birth" out of the deaths of an entire civilization.
I strongly dislike the sudden objection to characterizing Snyder's BvS as a "DC Murderverse", because it has been this way from the beginning. Burton's Batman straight up murders goons without a shred of remorse. And it's hysterical. That's exactly what Batman *should* be doing in the movies. Stone cold murdering bad guys. For funsies. Like the Punisher. Because he is literally batgak insane and belongs in Arkham Asylum, not running amok on the streets. At least Button got that. And so does Snyder.
I do like how Snyder worked really hard to tell DC "feth you" in no uncertain terms. He did a fantastic job of checking each of the boxes that DC dictated he had to do. And telling them to all feth themselves as he did it.
Sigvatr wrote: Claiming that BvS is superior to comic book movies like Watchmen is just...wow. Have you /seen/ another superhero movie? D:
Watchmen is one of the few I haven't actually seen, but other than that, I've watched and enjoyed most of the ones made in the last decade or so. Pretty much all the Batman films (and dislike all except the Nolan ones really, the Burton ones do nothing for me), everything Marvel has done (90% of which I'm a huge fan of, only IM2&3 and Hulk I dislike), not to mention the various TV series in recent years that I've watched almost all of... hell, I even liked Green Lantern!
Frankly, BvS beat the hell out of all of them in scope, scale, look, weight, depth, cast, script... aside from the first 30 minutes which were maybe overcrowded and mixed, I can't fault any aspect of it. I loved it from start to finish.
All just an opinion of course, but yes, I do know what I'm talking about!
For the record, my top 5:
1) BvS 2) The Dark Knight 3) Avengers Assemble 4) The Winter Solider 5) Man of Steel
BvS was leaps and bounds better than Watchmen, which was terrible. It was also better than MoS by a landslide. It was not better than the first Avengers movie, X-men 2, Iron Man, CA: Winter Soldier, or the super recent Deadpool movie. ALL of those were better. Subjective opinions and all that, and while I disagree with the rating BvS received, I fully agree that it's rating should be lower than those I just listed. But not by the amount it was.
If you want to go by accuracy alone, DP would be the undeniable (except by nutjobs) winner of comic movies. Can't get much more accurate than having the actual creators be hands on during the entire process, where they only make a couple minor tweaks to avoid over-saturating the average moviegoers. But I digress. BvS was great. Just not as great as you're suggesting, Para.
If you want to go by accuracy alone, DP would be the undeniable (except by nutjobs) winner of comic movies.
I would agree with this 100%, while acknowledging that without all those other comic book movies to build the genre, Dead Pool probably would have never worked. So much of what made Dead Pool great is dependent on all those other movies (good and bad) existing
timetowaste85 wrote: BvS was leaps and bounds better than Watchmen, which was terrible.
I'd post an animated gif with someone's head comically violently exploding, but that would trigger the mods.
Frazzled wrote: We've relegated this must see to "maybe rental," based on the terrible word of mouth. Worse to worst we can fast forward what we don't like.
Director's Cut is 30 minutes (!!!) longer, so it's a win-win
Ugh. Other than the creepy kid who only wore trenchcoats and a Watchmen shirt, I never met a single person in real life who enjoyed it. It was the most depressing super hero movie ever created. Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
Until I saw the extended edition. Then I realized that the Extended was a masterpiece and the Theater version was just ok.
When I love the characters, I want more of them, so I have no problem with 3-4 hour long movies. Some movies arent long enough, like Blade Runner. I would have loved a 6 hour movie of that.
And I think the same will be with BvS. Whatever people are complaining about the editing and plot will prob be explained better as the movie was originally shot to be the 3 hour version, but then was edited down to 2:15. So in July I think most of us will think of the Extended edition as the definitive edition, like the extended is for Watchmen.
Or the Directors cut for Apocalypse Now. The Theater version was amazing. The extended, a masterpiece.
Remember they chop the movie down for the simpletons.
Ugh. Other than the creepy kid who only wore trenchcoats and a Watchmen shirt, I never met a single person in real life who enjoyed it. It was the most depressing super hero movie ever created. Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
The comic also had the heroes killing each other, that wasnt something just created for the movie. Most people I know that didnt like the movie, dont like it for the changes that were made to the comic and certain of the actors, not because it was a dark universe.
timetowaste85 wrote: Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
Lol wow. So because these super heros acted more like people, it was a gakky movie? Man, the world must be a frustrating place from your view in the tower, with all the random chaos going on down below.
Ugh. Other than the creepy kid who only wore trenchcoats and a Watchmen shirt, I never met a single person in real life who enjoyed it. It was the most depressing super hero movie ever created. Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
The comic also had the heroes killing each other, that wasnt something just created for the movie. Most people I know that didnt like the movie, dont like it for the changes that were made to the comic and certain of the actors, not because it was a dark universe.
In other words, blame Alan Moore -- a man singularly obsessed with bringing the age of the superhero to a close -- and not Zack Snyder.
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Frazzled wrote: We've relegated this must see to "maybe rental," based on the terrible word of mouth. Worse to worst we can fast forward what we don't like.
You may or may not enjoy the film, but the visuals are IMO worth the price of admission. Something to consider. I'd like to see it again in IMAX.
No offense, like, really, no offense, but to me, it just seems that you did not understand the movie. The entire movie was about what you just described - failing and fading superheroes. All of the Watchmen were what you described to the people - superheroes, saving people. Watchmen then goes a step beyond and looks at them after their prime time - what happened to the people behind the mask, to those with and without superpowers. Watchmen was about people with superpowers, not about supermans [sic]. It /wanted/ to be depressing, it was an adult movie. It wasn't about superheroes fighting each other, it was about people facing themselves and their past.
Superheroes aren't supposed to teach anything, by their very definition, they are people with outstanding powers. Simple movies have one-dimensional heroes such as Superman who shine glory and righteousness, good vs. evil, whereas more complex movies don't idealize superheroes, but take a more realistic look at them. Ozimandias turning against his fellow former co-heroes wasn't mindless killing, that's the crucial point - he did it to save billions of people and succeeded. Even Dr. Manhatten, one of the if not /the/ most powerful superhero that there is, had to yield to Ozimandia's intellect and planning. Now - if saving billions of people isn't superhero-y...what is?
So again, this isn't meant to imply that you are dumb or something, but Watchmen is a complex movie that is very, very different from simple movies like MoS, Elektra (hahahaha...sorry) etc. I understand that you, personally, did not like it because it didn't fit your super-idealized idea of a superhero, yet you can't fault the movie for it
timetowaste85 wrote: Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
Lol wow. So because these super heros acted more like people, it was a gakky movie? Man, the world must be a frustrating place from your view in the tower, with all the random chaos going on down below.
Help me out. You're ragging on someone about ivory towers when you're talking about a FREAKING comic book? Seriously?
Lets just say there are many many people who have no problem with films but think Watchmen was...unwatchable. These are comic book movies made from comics who's target audience is inexperienced 14 year old boys. African Queen it aint.
Mmm African Queen. I miss my VHS of that. Childrenz, VHS was something called a tape. Your parents thought they were great.
I strongly dislike the sudden objection to characterizing Snyder's BvS as a "DC Murderverse", because it has been this way from the beginning.
I will admit it's jarring to me to see Superman just outright paste a guy, even if he is holding Lois hostage (there's no way he survived being rammed through that wall at that speed, if he even survived impact with Superman at that speed). But one thing I do see as a possible future problem is if this version of Batman meets the Snyderverse Joker from Suicide Squad. The classic story ends with the Joker locked up (inevitably to escape again) and Batman's refusal to kill him. I can't see this Batman not just killing the Joker if they crossed paths- especially since it seems like they already have history.
The point of Watchmen as a story is to show how Superheroes would be flawed and weird in the real world.
I thought the movie adaptation was pretty good.
The comic is great for what it's trying to do, it does it really well. But I don't need every superhero to be like that, you know? I'm happy with Batman having his moral code and Superman representing all that's best about America and all that jazz. I was also fine with Batman being like the only major action protagonist who is anti-gun. I think considering the message these media send out to young kids is worthwhile (I would say that as a teacher I'm such a square).
That's not to say that liking BvS is badwrongfun. I am pretty sure I will hate it if I ever see it, but one of the cool things about comics is being able to have a lot of different takes on a character. It's the last home of the serial, and it gets a lot of stick for that, but it's pretty damn cool really.
Sigvatr wrote: No offense, like, really, no offense, but to me, it just seems that you did not understand the movie. The entire movie was about what you just described - failing and fading superheroes. All of the Watchmen were what you described to the people - superheroes, saving people. Watchmen then goes a step beyond and looks at them after their prime time - what happened to the people behind the mask, to those with and without superpowers. Watchmen was about people with superpowers, not about supermans [sic]. It /wanted/ to be depressing, it was an adult movie. It wasn't about superheroes fighting each other, it was about people facing themselves and their past.
Superheroes aren't supposed to teach anything, by their very definition, they are people with outstanding powers. Simple movies have one-dimensional heroes such as Superman who shine glory and righteousness, good vs. evil, whereas more complex movies don't idealize superheroes, but take a more realistic look at them. Ozimandias turning against his fellow former co-heroes wasn't mindless killing, that's the crucial point - he did it to save billions of people and succeeded. Even Dr. Manhatten, one of the if not /the/ most powerful superhero that there is, had to yield to Ozimandia's intellect and planning. Now - if saving billions of people isn't superhero-y...what is?
So again, this isn't meant to imply that you are dumb or something, but Watchmen is a complex movie that is very, very different from simple movies like MoS, Elektra (hahahaha...sorry) etc. I understand that you, personally, did not like it because it didn't fit your super-idealized idea of a superhero, yet you can't fault the movie for it
timetowaste85 wrote: Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
Lol wow. So because these super heros acted more like people, it was a gakky movie? Man, the world must be a frustrating place from your view in the tower, with all the random chaos going on down below.
Help me out. You're ragging on someone about ivory towers when you're talking about a FREAKING comic book? Seriously?
Lets just say there are many many people who have no problem with films but think Watchmen was...unwatchable. These are comic book movies made from comics who's target audience is inexperienced 14 year old boys.
Are we talking on the same website? This is a gaming site. One that heavily revolves around 40k. While you could argue 40k is for kids, its actually a very complex universe that can be appreciated by lots of ages. I highly doubt most of the novels written for 40k are being read by kids. The same for applies for comics. Many comics are not the 1950s version of Batman as you seem to think. Many deal with the darker and more realistic aspects of the humanity behind the superhero masks. Not really something a 14 year old would understand. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, etc, sure, mostly for kids. The Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum, The Watchmen, and others, not quite are.
Exploring the multi-layers of the mind is what makes these stories so interesting. You on the otherhand, seem to need to see things in absolutes. Keep in mind that some of these older characters were written at a time when values were a little different and things have changed a lot since then. If Superman was created today, who knows maybe the creater would have done something more complex like Spawn. The vast majority of people want to relate to characters in some way, and who the heck really can relate to Superman? You have to humanize him. And that makes him complex.
Same for Batman, and Wonder Woman too when her movie comes out. All these characters should be a little dark. The world is a F'ed up place.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I can't see this Batman not just killing the Joker if they crossed paths- especially since it seems like they already have history.
In The Dark Knight Returns, which heavily influenced BvS, Batman does kill the Joker. He kills Killer Croc in Arkham Asylum too. So Batman has been shown to kill before. Peeps just dont know it.
But that is one thing I do find interesting, everyone has their own ideas about what these characters should be and shouldnt. Like, I played with Star Wars figures growing up, and I loved playing with Boba Fett. When they showed him in Episode 2, I hated it. I saw myself under that helmet, and didnt need his origin. But some peeps do. And then they have this idea what Boba would or wouldnt do. I guess everyone is right in a way.
Ugh. Other than the creepy kid who only wore trenchcoats and a Watchmen shirt, I never met a single person in real life who enjoyed it.
It was the most depressing super hero movie ever created. Super heroes were supposed to teach about rising above the challenges. Not turning on each other and killing each other off because "times change". It was a foul abomination of a movie.
Sure, and that was the point of DKR - an exploration of an alternate, darker future where the world had gone to hell. It was notable for how it diverged from the mainstream batman. It was a really cool comic and made a big impression on me.
I've got no problem with hardcore characters - Judge Dredd is one of my all time favourites and he's a complete bastard. But I don't think every character has to be like that for it to be cool.
It's in the Killing Joke that Batman probably kills the Joker. I say probably because the end is very vague, to the point where no one really talked about it much until Grant Morrison brought it up and made the case. The case makes sense, even moreso because it's Alan Moore. He was probably trying to write the "last" Batman/Joker story.
Edit: Anyway, I think the intended point in BvS is that Bruce wasn't always like that (presumably it changed after the Joker killed one of the Robins), and at the end of the movie finds himself again.
Da Boss wrote: The point of Watchmen as a story is to show how Superheroes would be flawed and weird in the real world.
I thought the movie adaptation was pretty good.
The comic is great for what it's trying to do, it does it really well. But I don't need every superhero to be like that, you know? I'm happy with Batman having his moral code and Superman representing all that's best about America and all that jazz. I was also fine with Batman being like the only major action protagonist who is anti-gun. I think considering the message these media send out to young kids is worthwhile (I would say that as a teacher I'm such a square).
That's not to say that liking BvS is badwrongfun. I am pretty sure I will hate it if I ever see it, but one of the cool things about comics is being able to have a lot of different takes on a character. It's the last home of the serial, and it gets a lot of stick for that, but it's pretty damn cool really.
I'm pretty much agreed with all of this. Watchmen (comic) was deconstructing the superhero genre, taking "great power & responsiblity" to an end.
Watchmen (film) did a tremendous job of adapting the comic, but I did not like how he changed the ending. There were better, more faithful options that could have been. Oh, well.
Watchmen (comic) was a landmark because it was such a groundbreaking deconstruction, trying to show the impact of what supers would have. Batman is all about the good means to an end.
I will watch BvS on Blu-Ray, and probably again if/when Snyder does a Directors Cut. I especially want to hear his commentary, because it's obvious that he was forced to do things that he didn't want to do. There's a lot of Hideaki Anno "FETH YOU ALL!" in BvS that will be amusing to have him talk to or willfully ignore.
As far as serials go, I really, really love the Clone Wars. Truly excellent.
Da Boss wrote: Sure, and that was the point of DKR - an exploration of an alternate, darker future where the world had gone to hell. It was notable for how it diverged from the mainstream batman. It was a really cool comic and made a big impression on me.
I've got no problem with hardcore characters - Judge Dredd is one of my all time favourites and he's a complete bastard. But I don't think every character has to be like that for it to be cool.
Yeah I love Dread too. Didn't even mind Stallone's version either except he spent too much time with the mask off. However, the 'Dread' movie was pretty dead on. Wish they would make 20 of those films.
Da Boss wrote: I've got no problem with hardcore characters - Judge Dredd is one of my all time favourites and he's a complete bastard. But I don't think every character has to be like that for it to be cool.
The problem is that Judge Dredd is clearly a parody comic. Same with Lobo. Same with Punisher. When they turn a character that hardcore, he quickly becomes a joke. At least Deadpool is in on the joke.
Da Boss wrote: I've got no problem with hardcore characters - Judge Dredd is one of my all time favourites and he's a complete bastard. But I don't think every character has to be like that for it to be cool.
The problem is that Judge Dredd is clearly a parody comic. Same with Lobo. Same with Punisher. When they turn a character that hardcore, he quickly becomes a joke. At least Deadpool is in on the joke.
There are elements of parody in Judge Dredd but I wouldn't say it's pure parody. It's been a lot of things over the years, as you'd expect from a comic published weekly (and sometimes also monthly) for decades on end. I don't think Dredd is always a joke, sometimes the stories are very thoughtful and thought provoking.
Equally, I'd argue the best Punisher comics are the ones where Garth Ennis doesn't do his over the top gross out humour stuff and just tells and interesting story. Like, have you read Born? That story is friggin' awesome.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I will watch BvS on Blu-Ray, and probably again if/when Snyder does a Directors Cut. I especially want to hear his commentary, because it's obvious that he was forced to do things that he didn't want to do. There's a lot of Hideaki Anno "FETH YOU ALL!" in BvS that will be amusing to have him talk to or willfully ignore.
IMO (and I liked the film overall), you can "see the seams" in the story. It'll be interesting to see if the 3-hour Director's Cut (it is coming) improves this, or if some of the patchwork we're seeing is simply a result of a Goyer story that Terrio then rewrote, with both of them operating under a number of constraints. It seems easy in some cases to spot Terrio's influence, such as the Christopher Wren epitaph "if you seek his monument – look around you." I highly doubt that was Goyer.
JL will be solely Terrio and Snyder -- and fewer constraints should be placed on them for that one -- so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
Batman changing over the years is a good development. It just fits that after ohsomany years, he realized that he was wrong and that his lack of consequence led to the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.The constant failure he was to watch every day, the lack of change and the lack of the people's will to change, made him bitter and realize the cold, harsh truth: he cannot rely on the police to do the job, the corrupt bunch, who faciliated so many crimes and criminals getting away. He had to take fate in his own hands and end crime. Permanently.
Shortly after taking the dark path, he realized that he was right. The criminals weren't coming back, no bribing cops to get free, no selling each other out to get out of jail. A dead criminal cannot steal, rape or kill other people anymore. He stays dead. People were soon split on the new Batman. While some were embracing the new version of The Dark Knight thinking that he finally started to do something against crime, seeing his progress, others doomed him for his behavior, called him a low-life and hated him. The police turned on him, driven by false righteousness or hate.
Batman, however, still was The Dark Knight. Watching over the city. Differently. Yet still the silent guardian the city needs, not wants.
Ok I am getting off this thread, and just going to say I really like Snyder. He's a really talented guy. Was 300 historically accurate? No, but it looked just like the comic and was visually stunning. But the Spartans fighting for freedom and democracy? Lol come on. They even had slaves picking up the dead bodies at the battlefield. But the movie, is fun to watch.
I have to say I think the extended edition of Watchmen is near flawless. All the actors delivered.
Watched some of Sucker Punch, but not enough to form an opinion.
Man of Steel, great casting. Loved the first 3/4s of the film. But all the destruction, well, its desensitizing. Those around for 9/11, well, you dont forget the horror of a building with people collapsing. But when you show a whole city, like many movies from the Avengers to GI Joe do it, it kind of gets old. Like Stalin saying "A death of one is a tragedy, a death of a million is a statistic"). I am more impressed with the Daredevil hallway fight than I am with Superman vs Zod. Nevertheless, I hated the Reeves movies, so MoS is my favorite Superman movie.
Batman v Superman is awesome, but suffers from the overkill at the end. I dont need to see the world falling apart to appreciate an epic struggle. But the actors re-defined the characters to me and I appreciate that. And ironically, the first 10min showing the recap of the fight in MoS, was awesome. Showing all that from Bruce's point of view was far more powerful than what I saw in MoS. Loved it. Prob the most exciting start to a movie I have seen in many years.
But as visually awesome as Snyder movies are, he does a great job directing the actors. Who would have thought Affleck was going to crush this role 2 years ago? People even complaned about Gal, and she was one of the best parts.
All you guys enjoying Watchmen just show there is no accounting for taste.
And thanks for the personal attack, Hwang. Much appreciated.
I've actually read about half of the graphic novel. And found it as disappointing as the movie. And a large amount of the people I've asked have also read the book and hated the movie. It's not "deep". As much as you and Sig want to argue it is. The whole thing can be boiled down to "I want to be edgy and different from the super hero movies that are an escape from reality and drag them into a 'real world' setting". Honestly, it's pretty much the same thing as Game of Thrones/ASOFAI. A dark and damning idea that the writer HAS to be different from the other writers in his genre. Super heroes and fantasy stories are in general designed to be an escape from the reality of this world we live in. Super heroes, in addition to being an escape from reality, also have the challenging task of being people/characters we're supposed to look up to as they overcome odds we can't handle as regular people, while still retaining their humanity. Watchmen is not a super hero story. Not a proper one, anyway. It's the George RR Martin version of super heroes. And guess what; I dislike his work too. When something is built to be an escape from the real world, and you drag it back in, you defeat the entire purpose of its existence.
KTG17 wrote: Ok I am getting off this thread, and just going to say I really like Snyder. He's a really talented guy. Was 300 historically accurate? No, but it looked just like the comic and was visually stunning. But the Spartans fighting for freedom and democracy? Lol come on. They even had slaves picking up the dead bodies at the battlefield. But the movie, is fun to watch.
I have to say I think the extended edition of Watchmen is near flawless. All the actors delivered.
Watched some of Sucker Punch, but not enough to form an opinion.
But as visually awesome as Snyder movies are, he does a great job directing the actors. Who would have thought Affleck was going to crush this role 2 years ago? People even complaned about Gal, and she was one of the best parts.
Can't wait for Justice League.
I like Snyder, too. I love that he had the balls to do 300 with all the comic-accurate beefcake of a gay porno. or so I'm told.
As above, I like Watchmen, and will probably watch it again. Despite the ending.
I enjoy watching Sucker Punch. It's gorgeous. Here, enjoy:
Spoiler:
His direction is good. The problem for him is getting good writing. That's why Watchmen was so good until he veered off the comic. It's also why BvS is a clusterfeth. Bad writing.
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timetowaste85 wrote: And thanks for the personal attack, Hwang. Much appreciated.
I still suspect that I wont like the film, but I can give it a chance to prove me wrong when it rolls aound to the local discount movie night. Futhermore; if I've seen it, at least I can complain about it with authority.
Nah you're not alone on that one. The artwork for Watchman was probably good back in 86 (I assume?), but it has not held up well to time imo. I read it after the movie came out, and the artwork was a put off. I procrastinated that book for awhile.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Christopher Reeve Superman tapped into what made Superman so ingrained into popular culture in the first place: he was a super hero not because of his powers but because of his outlook. The movie was a bit heavy with the Christ metaphors, but it absolutely nailed that Superman was supposed to show people how good they could be, that he was an example to everyone. To be like Superman did not mean to fly, but to see the capacity for good in everyone. Snyder's Superman leaves that element out, although it looks like he is getting there the hard way. There are lots of superheroes who can punch planets out of their orbits, but only Superman was known for the absolute goodness of his actions...even if that wasn't strictly true in the material. The idea of Superman was more important than the man himself.
Batman saw every person as a potential criminal; Superman saw every criminal as a person. At least, that's the stereotype.
Two points in response.
1) Most of the criticism that I've seen of the BvS Superman (let's table MoS for now) isn't about him not striving to help or set an example, and in fact he's shown saving plenty of people worldwide without prejudice and more or less dies twice during the film trying to save humanity. Instead, much of the criticism is focused around him being too "morose." Ergo...it must be about the fly-by grins and "good vibrations" cornball stuff for some people.
2) People are simply divided on Superman. Some want him to be a perfect paragon. Others find that boring and want him to be more relatable. To make him relatable means making him more like us, which is...imperfect. Call it SuperChrist vs. Superdude. I'm not a big fan of reducing things to binary arguments, but perfection is a binary concept, and I don't think people firmly in one camp or another will ever be satisfied with the other thing.
I also disagree with your Batman/Superman contrast. To me, the difference is that Batman is more focused on individual people. He fights local gangsters and saves people from muggings. This is very fitting for a hero borne out of the deaths of just two particular people. Superman's focus tends to be larger-scale or even global. He saves individuals too, but tends to spend more time stopping erupting volcanos and deflecting asteroids. This flows naturally from his "birth" out of the deaths of an entire civilization.
1) I was only suggesting why Reeve keeps coming up. For many, many people, his is the iconic Superman. If there is any person who can be that incorruptible good, it should be Superman. Cavill did a good job with what he was given, but the film was trying too hard to be edgy. If the direction, pacing and dialog were better, I wouldn't have a problem with the concept of a murkier Superman who finds his moral center through struggle.
2)In BVS, he is clearly conflicted, maybe a bit too conflicted, when it comes to saving lives. Clearly the film was going for a Dark Knight vibe with Lex as the Joker trying to make Superman break his own moral code. That conflict means a lot less with a Superdude's soul at stake rather than SuperChrist's. And really, Superman was always written as a paragon in his better stories. Batman is more relatable. The X-Men are even more relatable. Maybe Snyder shouldn't try to make an X-Men movie.
Point conceded on the scale and dichotomy of the two heroes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For the Watchmen record, I really enjoyed the comic but felt no emotional response either way to the movie. It was. I saw it. I forgot it.
Frazzled wrote: Its Hollywood accounting gimmicks, designed to insure even blockbusters somehow never make a profit.
No, studios don’t go about trying to make every film lose money on paper. That’s both pointless and impossible.
There is a thing where revenues and expenditure (especially studio overheads) are shifted around between films in order to make certain films lose money no matter what happens. Typically this is because someone involved in the film foolishly took ‘points on net’ as part of their salary, ie part of their remuneration comes from taking a share of the profits of the film. But there can be other reasons, profits are often shifted from film to film to ensure the best tax effect in each country of production.
But I’ve not heard one thing about Batman v Superman having those issues. This is a simple case of the studio getting, more or less overall, about 50% of the box office take. So for a $400m production, they need about $800m back.
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KTG17 wrote: Seem like valid reasons to kill to me.
Yeah, both Superman's neck snapping, and Batman's kills were clearly justified by the events around them. Zod was just about to kill some terrified civilians right at that very second if Superman didn’t do something. The guys that Batman probably killed weren’t giving as clear a threat, but I think it’s more that they didn’t contrive events to avoid Batman having to use lethal force. Goons didn’t crash themselves trying to chase Batman, or set up all within punching distance of each other. If Batman was to take down a convoy to get that thing, or a room full of goons to make that rescue, he wasn’t going to be able to pull any punches.
Neither character murders in this iteration, they just don't have the luxury of circumstances allowing them to avoid using lethal force.
BtwWB deliberately went dark because of how bad Green Lantern was received. They want less humor and more of a serious tone. It's not just Snyder. Suicide Squad will be the same way.
It’s also to differentiate from Marvel.
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Sigvatr wrote: Ozimandias turning against his fellow former co-heroes wasn't mindless killing, that's the crucial point - he did it to save billions of people and succeeded.
Actually, Ozymandias believed he had to wipe out a city in order to save billions. The point is that he was probably wrong, and the other Watchmen were also wrong in believing him. They were all wrong because they’d spent their lives in the muck, among the scum, that they couldn’t see things any other way.
That’s the point of the Tales of the Black Freighter, the hero there was so obsessed the threat of the Freighter to his home town. So he suffered through awful things, and then set about doing awful things just to make sure they were safe. But in the end the Freighter was never coming for the town, only to collect him for their crew, on account of what he himself did to the town.
That’s probably the cleverest thing about Watchmen – in almost all stories the actual super power everyone hero has is that they’re right all the time, they automatically understand the situation and act appropriately. Things that would are really bad ideas in the real world, like vigilantism, become justifiable because the heroes never screw up, never target the wrong person. Watchmen added that uncertainty back, even the guy who can literally see the future doesn’t know what’s going on. And the final commentary on that is that Ozy, and then the rest of the team, become certain that his awful plan is necessary. But of course they’re wrong, and they just wiped NYC for no reason.
Anyway, Watchmen the movie was… okay. The comic is brilliant, of course, but while Snyder’s interpretation was very faithful and well executed, but often what makes something great is its context. The 80s comic was a commentary on 80s comics. The 00s film was also a commentary 80s comics, because it was basically the same thing. We didn’t really need commentary on 80s comics by then.
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Kojiro wrote: I will admit it's jarring to me to see Superman just outright paste a guy, even if he is holding Lois hostage (there's no way he survived being rammed through that wall at that speed, if he even survived impact with Superman at that speed). But one thing I do see as a possible future problem is if this version of Batman meets the Snyderverse Joker from Suicide Squad. The classic story ends with the Joker locked up (inevitably to escape again) and Batman's refusal to kill him. I can't see this Batman not just killing the Joker if they crossed paths- especially since it seems like they already have history.
Did you see Robin’s suit in Batman’s lair, with ‘ho ho ho’ and some more text written across it?
Anyhow, this Batman still hasn’t murdered. He’s used lethal force, there’s a difference.
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Da Boss wrote: I've got no problem with hardcore characters - Judge Dredd is one of my all time favourites and he's a complete bastard. But I don't think every character has to be like that for it to be cool.
Absolutely, not every character has to be like that. And I like the Batman version where he doesn’t kill. He fit the Burton setting well, and honestly when he did kill in that universe it undermined the film.
But that was a very different setting than this one, and followed different themes. In BvS a Batman who used non-lethal gadgets and could resolve everything with clean hands just wouldn’t fit. There’s a line that they like so much they use it twice in the film - ‘power can be innocent’. You have to get your hands dirty to do good. Batman shows no qualms about getting his hands dirty, he is in contrast to Superman who remains a reluctant hero. To show that Batman, but then have him back off from lethal force (or worse, have events conspire around him so that bad guys can get taken out without Batman doing anything)… it just wouldn’t fit.
I understand that’s not a vision of Batman everyone wants or will enjoy, but it’s a valid look at the character, I think.
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JohnHwangDD wrote: The problem is that Judge Dredd is clearly a parody comic. Same with Lobo. Same with Punisher. When they turn a character that hardcore, he quickly becomes a joke. At least Deadpool is in on the joke.
As has already been mentioned, Dredd isn’t always a parody. He’s often played straight, as an anti-hero. The Punisher also isn’t parody, in most cases he's an anti-hero as well. Batman is commonly an anti-hero as well.
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timetowaste85 wrote: I've actually read about half of the graphic novel. And found it as disappointing as the movie. And a large amount of the people I've asked have also read the book and hated the movie. It's not "deep". As much as you and Sig want to argue it is. The whole thing can be boiled down to "I want to be edgy and different from the super hero movies that are an escape from reality and drag them into a 'real world' setting".
Watchmen has an incredible amount level of depth, concepts that link back to earlier concepts, frames that reference earlier frames, themes explored in multiple ways, from different viewpoints. It isn’t Ulysses, but like Ulysses the first reading is really just the prep work to read it again.
Reading half of it and then thinking you can comment on it’s depth is farcical.
When something is built to be an escape from the real world, and you drag it back in, you defeat the entire purpose of its existence.
A superhero story just involves giving some kind of special power to one or more people, from there it can go anywhere that the author takes it. Arguing that it can only become breezy, escapist fun is as silly as arguing that it has to be grim, dark storytelling. Both can happen, and a million other stories can be told. It’s just a concept to spur the imagination, and tell any kind of story you want. Putting rules on that isn’t just defeating the purpose of superhero stories, it’s defeating the purpose of stories.
sebster wrote: But that was a very different setting than this one, and followed different themes. In BvS a Batman who used non-lethal gadgets and could resolve everything with clean hands just wouldn’t fit. There’s a line that they like so much they use it twice in the film - ‘power can be innocent’. You have to get your hands dirty to do good. Batman shows no qualms about getting his hands dirty, he is in contrast to Superman who remains a reluctant hero. To show that Batman, but then have him back off from lethal force (or worse, have events conspire around him so that bad guys can get taken out without Batman doing anything)… it just wouldn’t fit.
Kind of a tangent, but power vs. powerlessness was an important theme in the film. Both Bruce and Lex are enormously powerful people by any normal definition, yet both developed the "fever" that Alfred talked about in the face of Clark's power. Of course, Lex's fever was a selfish thing -- I'm brilliant and rich, and it's not fair that I'm so powerless compared to that. Bruce's fever was obviously more of external concern -- humanity is powerless and at risk because of that. Still, both men turned cruel as Alfred stated.
But then neither was truly intimidated by Clark either. Different thing in that deleted scene when Lex learned of the New Gods and met Steppenwolf and his brain leaked out his ears.
Watched the movie last night, and I gotta say I just don't know how Snyder keeps getting work. There were some things I liked about it, but on the whole I think it suffers from trying to do too much in one movie like Amazing Spider Man 2 did. It sounds like some fans are giving it a pass for that on the idea that it couldn't have been much better with all the ground they had to cover, but if your movie is too ambitious you need to reign it in and reduce the scope until you have something that's actually cohesive.
I surprisingly really liked Ben Affleck as Batman. I never thought I would say that, but I think he did a great job. I also really dug Jeremy Irons as Alfred, it was pretty cool to see a more hands on approach to that character. I can definitely understand people having issues with how cold blooded and utterly ruthless this Batman is, but I personally didn't mind it much for some reason. Maybe that makes me less of a fan, I don't know.
I really liked how they showed the events of Man of Steel through Bruce Wayne's eyes, that was really cool and well done. Definitely does a great job laying the groundwork for a confrontation between the two heroes. I also really enjoyed all the controversy about Superman and how it all affected him, making him question what he's really all about and becoming a reluctant hero. That stuff was great.
Things I didn't like: why the flying feth are Metropolis and Gotham so close together? Aren't these supposed to be two of the biggest cities in the DCEU? They just happen to be in spitting distance of each other? That was really dumb. The reason that they stop fighting was also really, really stupid. If they couldn't think of anything better, they should have scrapped the whole idea of them fighting each other to begin with. Wonder Woman was pretty bad ass, but felt completely and totally unnecessary to the movie along with the video clips of the other heroes. That kinda thing, if it had to be included, would have been better as a post credits scene rather than in the middle of the film.
Jesse Eisenberg was just... ugh, no. A lot of stuff with his character needed explanation. Why did he want them to fight? I mean a REAL reason, not just because he wanted to see God fall or whatever. How did he know what he was doing in the ship when he created Doomsday? The whole scene was like... boop beep, I have files on thousands of world. Would you like to create a Doomsday?
Overall I would say the movie easily deserves its current rotten tomatoes score.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: And really, Superman was always written as a paragon in his better stories.
I don't necessarily agree with that assessment. Then again, the truly great Superman stories are also few and far between. His books have mostly been a paragon of bad writing, frankly. People might think of The Death of Superman, but that story certainly wasn't great in terms of the writing -- that was a very simple, 7 issue brawl to the death with very little else to offer.
It's been in the Elseworlds and limited series where the stories have been better. The Superman: American Alien book currently running is one of the best Superman books in many years IMO, and is probably headed for greatness when all is said and done. And Clark is more of a Superdude in that series than a SuperChrist. He even hooks up with a future supervillain.
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Goliath wrote: I don't think that was his brain leaking out of his ears? I thought that it was supposed to be that whole goop he was standing in?
I didn't mean literally. I was referring to the fact that the look on his face made it seems as though his brain had gone through a blender.
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creeping-deth87 wrote: Things I didn't like: why the flying feth are Metropolis and Gotham so close together? Aren't these supposed to be two of the biggest cities in the DCEU? They just happen to be in spitting distance of each other? That was really dumb. The reason that they stop fighting was also really, really stupid. If they couldn't think of anything better, they should have scrapped the whole idea of them fighting each other to begin with.
They're both different kinds of analogs for NYC, and in fact some past DC publications have placed them in close proximiity.
As someone who grew up on Bronze Age stuff, I can remember them being described as being in the northeast US and near NYC.
You're not the first person to have complained about this. But quite frankly, this is another example of a baseless gripe by fans who aren't as knowledgeable about this stuff as they think they are.
Jesse Eisenberg was just... ugh, no. A lot of stuff with his character needed explanation. Why did he want them to fight? I mean a REAL reason, not just because he wanted to see God fall or whatever. How did he know what he was doing in the ship when he created Doomsday? The whole scene was like... boop beep, I have files on thousands of world. Would you like to create a Doomsday?
Overall I would say the movie easily deserves its current rotten tomatoes score.
The passage of time wasn't clear, but Lex is a super genius who suddenly had access to all the knowledge of a vastly more technologically advanced civilisation. It seemed pretty clear that he had to go back to get Zods body, so it's not as though he knew exactly what he was going to be able to do going in the the ship.
I only had a slight problem with his Lex right at the end when he started to drift a little more into Batman villain territory, which wasn't too sour a note given the amount of Batman we saw in the movie.
I enjoyed the movie. It felt like a comic book, possibly more so than any other super hero movie so far, for better or for worse.
It won't be in my top 5 super hero movies by any means but I'm interested to see where it goes.
If anything I hope it does well enough to continue down this path and not necessitate another bloody reboot.
They're both different kinds of analogs for NYC, and in fact some past DC publications have placed them in close proximiity.
As someone who grew up on Bronze Age stuff, I can remember them being described as being in the northeast US and near NYC.
You're not the first person to have complained about this. But quite frankly, this is another example of a baseless gripe by fans who aren't as knowledgeable about this stuff as they think they are.
Never said I was knowledgeable. I've read two comic books in my entire life. Knowing there's precedent for their proximity in the comics makes it a little easier to swallow, but it still seems pretty silly.
The passage of time wasn't clear, but Lex is a super genius who suddenly had access to all the knowledge of a vastly more technologically advanced civilisation. It seemed pretty clear that he had to go back to get Zods body, so it's not as though he knew exactly what he was going to be able to do going in the the ship.
.
See, it doesn't really seem like he's a super genius. The movie does a great job of making him seem eccentric but not so much intelligent. If the reason he knows how to make Doomsday is because he suddenly has all this vast knowledge, they did a really poor job of showing that in the movie.