Quite enjoyed Justice League as it was but this is looking really good.
Improving Steppenwolf is what will make the difference here as his character was rather "been there, done that". But to be fair its hard for villians to stand out in such an overcrowded genre, and not every villian can be played by Jack Nicholson or Gene Hackman.
The theatrical version already had too much random stupid crap going on. Why not more?
Because Zack Snyder's many lackluster films are a solid basis for the belief that his version of a lackluster film would be less lackluster.
The announcement that this would be more of a miniseries did actually catch my eye, cause that would maybe be enough time to cover all the basis the first movie tried and failed to cover. But it looks like no real effort has gone into fixing any of the movie's other problems, and at least one of them seems far worse; an inflated sense of self-achievement that is completely unearned.
I'll be checking it out, because I'm curious as to how it compares to the Whedon version... but I'm really not expecting much. Going by that trailer, it's a humourless explosion-fest with bad CGI.
And almost all of them are comic adaptations to boot. So yeah. After the mediocre adaptations of Watchman, Batman, Superman, and Sucker Punch, I'm not sure what compele people to believe his special version of Justice League will be some master piece. The man has never put out anything passably better than 300 and 300 was almost a shot for shot adaptation of the comic book.
I enjoyed Watchmen and Sucker Punch. I've never understood the clamor for the JL Snyder Cut, though, given that Man of Steel and BvS were largely reviled by the fanbase.
I'm not confident the Snyder cut will be any better than the original movie, but am interested in seeing the differences.
Can't remember the last time a Director got a do-over. It's a very interesting concept for movies that had a lot of potential and seemed to miss the mark.
It's a movie with no interference from the production (that should close the narrative arcs of previous Snyder movies) vs a Frankenstein of a soon-to-be erased (ala Spacey) director that is doing the same story again and again since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Should not even be a match, at least in theory
Hmmm. Nah, Snyder is a hack who doesn't really understand the material he is trying to adapt in my opinion.
He doesn't get the characters of Superman or Batman at all. So they come across as completely unlikeable in his films.
Visually, he's quite good, and he can direct a sequence of events in an engaging way. Maybe with a script that wasn't written by some of the worst hacks in Hollywood he would put together a visually interesting film.
But Justice League was awful, BvS was awful, and Man of Steel was deeply mediocre. Watchmen was visually nice but it was fairly clear that Snyder didn't really get what it was supposed to be about. 300 was something where his visual style and the actual substance of the comic matched up pretty well, but I think he's not well suited to other comic book adaptations.
Y'know...this thing is going to be turned up to 11. Eleven out of 10 on the Snyder scale. Four solid hours of content, easter eggs every 10 seconds, tons of destruction, Batman dropping f-bombs, etc. It's going to be *him* without any guard rails...a budget/control combo unlike anything he'll ever have again for the rest of his career. Better buckle up, LOL.
But I'm going to watch it for sure. If nothing else, the visuals look like a big improvement. Seemed like Whedon kinda washed out the theatrical cut in trying to visually brighten it up. I feel like stuff is popping better in these trailers. And while Snyder's vision definitely isn't to everyone's taste, at least we'll see a coherent vision instead of whatever the Frankenstein monster theatrical release was trying to be.
I certainly don't know if it'll be good. There are a lot of reasons to think it won't be. And four hours (it's back to being a 4-hour event instead of a miniseries)...um. But the whole enterprise and how it came to this is fascinating. So I have to watch (possibly in two installments).
I've ranted far too long about my concerns with the Snyder Cut (Sidenote, this is the first time I feel comfortable enough not *ing half the title out) and the concerning impact it's had on DC's landscape on twitter that, I'm not sure I have enough energy anymore...
But, as an example, DC made a few posts yesterday about Nightwing, a character that doesn't even exist in the 'Snyderverse' because Snyder killed Greyson, and every 3 replies was hashtag spam from people about the movie.
The day before, they did a big announcement about the return of Milestone Comics, again people and bots came out in force.
The whole situation is just worrying...
Anyways, I replied to say a positive thing... I agree, 300 was good, I think for reasons much like the previous poster said compared to the others. Even my mum liked 300.
techsoldaten wrote: I'm not confident the Snyder cut will be any better than the original movie, but am interested in seeing the differences.
Can't remember the last time a Director got a do-over. It's a very interesting concept for movies that had a lot of potential and seemed to miss the mark.
I think its terrible, to be honest. Most movies have 'potential,' that isn't a reason to redo them (especially not to immediately turn around and redo them).
This seems like purely a vehicle to squeeze more money out of a bizarre combination of hope and naivety, by serving the over-eager fans a plate of garbage twice.
If it works, it will only incentivize 'screwing up' a film, creating a demand and then producing the 'real film' a year or two later.
Anyways, I replied to say a positive thing... I agree, 300 was good, I think for reasons much like the previous poster said compared to the others. Even my mum liked 300.
Ugh. 300 was one of the worst films I've ever seen. I was actively angry at my girlfriend at the time for insisting we see it. At least with Transformers, she bought a copy at Walmart and I did have to pay money or sit through the 'movie theatre' experience to deal with that tripe.
Compel wrote: But, as an example, DC made a few posts yesterday about Nightwing,
Ugh. That post was Horrible. They’re all like Nightwing’s bringing the Cake for Valentine’s Day and then it’s all shots of him in his bodysuit or shirtless or in the shower... And not a Single picture of his butt! Do they not know what cake means?! Amateurs...
My friends and I really enjoyed the first version so will have to see if its as good.
IMO JL was already better than Man of Steel - with the tedious endless fight at the end and Bats vs Sups was ruined by a single character in every scene he was in.
Not sure what will be in it it but someone killing off Loopy Lex in it would make it my film of the century.
300 is (again IMO) a fantastic adaption of the comic and although little if anything is historically accurate for me it works as the story the Spartans till - NOT the reality.
Da Boss wrote: Hmmm. Nah, Snyder is a hack who doesn't really understand the material he is trying to adapt in my opinion.
He doesn't get the characters of Superman or Batman at all. So they come across as completely unlikeable in his films.
I agree that Snyder was a very poor choice person to launch what WB needed from a cinematic universe. But I'd say that he gets his preferred versions of those characters just fine. The problem is that he's very focused on them (*especially* with Batman), while audiences have their own faves or aren't up to speed with the references.
Man of Steel isn't the dark, depressing film that some claim it is. One big factor is it being conflated with BvS (which definitely is those things). Another is people not being familiar with more current versions of the character. It's not really their fault...Superman '78 is *the* iconic representation for many people, but it didn't match the character in the comics even at the time. Reeve's supremely confident, somewhat cornball Supergod boy scout troop leader has many more Silver Age sensibilities than Bronze Age, IMO. And Superman Returns helped didn't help audiences evolve by being a weird sequel-y thing to 25+ year old movies.
As we've discussed here many times, Marvel actually turned its lack of A-list heroes into a big advantage by being able to define the B- and C-listers without baggage. Personally, I think they got Captain America fundamentally wrong at the core. The veneer is there. But you'd have to be a big and longtime Cap fan to really understand the points I'd make about that, and how many people are? Movie Cap worked great in the context of those movies. They could do what they needed to without people crying foul. Win for Marvel.
The goal of them is typically to see how much of the mythos and extraneous stuff around them can be peeled away until you get to the point where there's little enough left that the character is still recognisable and still feels like the character.
Of course, speaking objectively, each person may have different points where this feeling is lost and I think this is where mass market film adaptions can come into trouble a little.
I'd say for many, the deconstructions found in the Nolan trilogy worked. With, potentially, the exception of Bane. But I'm not entirely sure that's a deconstruction and more, just a completely different character with the same name.
Man of Steel, I think it's safe to say, mostly worked, EXCEPT I'd say for many people, I don't know if it's a statistically significant number of 'many' but anyways, I think for me at least, and several others, it was the necksnap that crossed that line. - For me, and others, at that point, the deconstruction no longer 'worked.'
You then get to Suicide Squad, BVS and Snyder Cut, which has no(?) Nolan involvement and it's still deconstructing and it's deconstructing FURTHER and then you have more people switching off because it IS like, "I don't recognise this character anymore as Batman, as Joker, as Superman" or whatever.
But for others, they could very well be fine with it.
The thing is, and this is where I think the cultists and Snyder especially fail, is that after the deconstruction, there's supposed to come the REconstruction and that's where you end up getting things like 'Man of Tomorrow' or 'All-Star Superman' or, I think, Hush.
I'd say for many, the deconstructions found in the Nolan trilogy worked. With, potentially, the exception of Bane. But I'm not entirely sure that's a deconstruction and more, just a completely different character with the same name.
Batman is difficult for live action, because so many of the circus freak characters that work so well in comics just look silly in real life. Nolan did a great job of grounding this characters and making them work on the screen. Even Bane, for me, was fine... Aside from that ridiculous voice.
Man of Steel, I think it's safe to say, mostly worked, EXCEPT I'd say for many people, I don't know if it's a statistically significant number of 'many' but anyways, I think for me at least, and several others, it was the necksnap that crossed that line. - For me, and others, at that point, the deconstruction no longer 'worked.'
Funnily enough, the ending of MoS was one of the few things that worked, for me. Zod forced his hand, and Cavill absolutely sold that scene, emotionally.
I had real issues though with the guy who can move so fast he's just a blur letting his dad die because someone might see him... I get why that scene happened, in relation to the story they were trying to tell, but it was just not believable.
The issue with deconstructions tend to be that especially these days that everyone wants to do such, just look at any of Tom Kings Work for the most part. Eventually you get to the point where there is nothing to deconstruct.
I had real issues though with the guy who can move so fast he's just a blur letting his dad die because someone might see him... I get why that scene happened, in relation to the story they were trying to tell, but it was just not believable.
That's kinda the issue with most of the first line DC roster in a nutshell. They're so powerful, Batman aside, that the stakes have to absurd in order to generate any jeopardy, or alternatively one has to willingly overlook how the hero seemingly forgot an element of their abilities for a minute.
I think that's probably why Batman, on balance, is probably the most consistently popular amongst non-comic folks. Ultimately, Bat Thermos aside, if he gets it wrong and takes a bullet from a random thug who gets lucky it's game over. Which, incidentally, is the vibe I get from the upcoming Pattinson effort.
Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.
As for DC's stable, broadly speaking, their big heroes and the Justice League as a whole should be used for big mythological tales, that's why they're there, and is something that, broadly speaking, has worked for over 80 years.
For individual heroes, particularly Superman, I'd recommend Grant Morrisons video about All-Star Superman, where he makes the specific choice to make Superman as overpowered as possible for his story.
"That's why we made him even more powerful than ever cause everyone kept saying, 'you can't make a Superman story because if he can do anything than what conflicts are there?' Emotional conflicts. The biggest ones. The ones we all understand."
I'd say for many, the deconstructions found in the Nolan trilogy worked. With, potentially, the exception of Bane. But I'm not entirely sure that's a deconstruction and more, just a completely different character with the same name.
Batman is difficult for live action, because so many of the circus freak characters that work so well in comics just look silly in real life. Nolan did a great job of grounding this characters and making them work on the screen. Even Bane, for me, was fine... Aside from that ridiculous voice.
Man of Steel, I think it's safe to say, mostly worked, EXCEPT I'd say for many people, I don't know if it's a statistically significant number of 'many' but anyways, I think for me at least, and several others, it was the necksnap that crossed that line. - For me, and others, at that point, the deconstruction no longer 'worked.'
Funnily enough, the ending of MoS was one of the few things that worked, for me. Zod forced his hand, and Cavill absolutely sold that scene, emotionally.
I had real issues though with the guy who can move so fast he's just a blur letting his dad die because someone might see him... I get why that scene happened, in relation to the story they were trying to tell, but it was just not believable.
I would agree with MOS - I was fine with some of it and even the final kill - not an issue for me personally but I get how it breaks the character for others.
In fact one of my main issues with the Nolan films was how dumb Batman was - especially in the second film - its awful so yeah it was not a Batman I recognised or enjoyed and the same with most of his other versions of the characters.
Meh, that's what you end up with when the character is meant to be smarter than then people writing them.
The Bendydick Comfypatch Sherlock Holmes suffered with the same issues.
Invariably the clues are telegraphed so heavily that in reality my dog could solve the issue (not even the older, smarter, one, the younger one that keeps hitting her head on stuff) or the detective ability becomes some Deus ex machina plot device, or in Batman's specific case he just so happens to have packed the precise bit of kit in his bat-pants that day to let him do the thing he needs.
I've accepted that writing genius-level characters is hard and set my expectations accordingly now, results in far less disappointment.
Compel wrote: Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.
Yes, and no. The very fact that it was Superman is part of what made it so powerful, and why it was such a power move by Zod. He deliberately forced Superman to make a choice between two crap options, knowing that would mess him up whichever one he chose. And the fact that this happened (in this continuity) early in Superman's 'career' can then be used as a character shaping moment - the fact that he was forced to kill that one time should make him more determined than ever to not let himself be put in that situation again.
In fact one of my main issues with the Nolan films was how dumb Batman was - especially in the second film - its awful so yeah it was not a Batman I recognised or enjoyed and the same with most of his other versions of the characters.
Nolan certainly did undersell the 'World's Greatest Detective' aspect of Batman...
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: On a semi-topical tangent, any recommended reads for The World’s Greatest Detective working those little grey cells?
I enjoyed 'Batman Secret Files #2' The Riddler, but that was part of Tom Kings series, which... isn't great, if you find it by itself though, it's a good one, particularly for the reader.
I'd also recommend Tomasi's Detective Comics trade 'Mythology' that is a really great mystery, for Batman and the reader.
Part of me wants to say the Court of Owls saga, as well as Hush, but part of me is also kinda reluctant about them too.
I saw JL in theater and this still seems to have the same problems
Too dark, Taking itself too seriously, Pallete ranging from brown to not so quite brown.
Where people actually clamoring for a redo of justice league? and I think its been shown, Barring Aquaman, this little DCEU venture hasgiving us nothing but bad movies sense.
BlackoCatto wrote: The issue with deconstructions tend to be that especially these days that everyone wants to do such, just look at any of Tom Kings Work for the most part. Eventually you get to the point where there is nothing to deconstruct.
I think the issue is that they're seen as something that is 'good writing' (this is a bad assumption) and are often undertaken or appreciated in ways that defy their nature (this is a bad thing). Liking a deconstructive work is as easy as being a member of the audience. Making one requires significant appreciation for the source material so that you can actually aim the story effectively. At the end of the day a deconstruction is really taking a genre and playing it on the sliding scale of idealism vs cynicism, choosing where to apply optimism and convention vs applying realism and subversion.
Zack Snyder thinks mainstream comic books are stupid and that the average comic fan is stupid. He conflates liking works that are deconstructions of the genre with having a good understanding of it. Except he hates the genre so he can't actually put a good deconstruction together. He can only make dark and edgy swill that likes to parade around an unearned sense of cleverness and intelligence.
Zack Snyder wants to be the modern Alan Moore but that title has already been claimed by John McCrae in my book and at best Zack Snyder is the poor man's Frank Miller. Frank Miller was successful because he didn't do deconstruction. He just took things and turned the dark and angsty up to eleven and threw in gratuitous violence. He knows what he is and what his works are, so they can be crazy dark and fun at the same time. Snyder doesn't have any sense of himself as an artist, only an image of who he wants to be which doesn't reflect his actual talents. So we end up with half-baked mediocre work that thinks it's better than it is (which makes it worse than it could be).
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: On a semi-topical tangent, any recommended reads for The World’s Greatest Detective working those little grey cells?
Disregard if you've already read it, but The Long Halloween and its sequels are always classics. I want to say Knightfall has a bit too, but I think I'm just saying that because I like the story.
hotsauceman1 wrote: There is a saying i heard once, To really hate something, you have to love it too.
That's asinine and clearly wrong.
Read any soldier's account from a war that weaponized xenophobia, or listen to bigots for about 30 seconds. Love isn't involved.
The 'thin line between love and hate' trope is _very_ messed up and damaging to people and their relationships.
Voss wrote: The 'thin line between love and hate' trope is _very_ messed up and damaging to people and their relationships.
In many situations yes. In a more general sense though, I do think it can be surprisingly applicable to fictional works and audiences.
No one works up the energy to be pissed at a movie they don't care about (when's the last time anyone cared about Failure to Launch?). On the other hand, plenty of people can work up the energy to be pissed about crappy adaptions of their favorite works because they love those things and the movie is crap. Looking at you Lightning Thief. I don't know how you managed to feth it up so badly, but how damn did you feth it up badly! The Percy Jackson series already plays out like an action movie the bar was so low! When fans work up the energy to throw ire at something for not being good enough, it's probably because they wanted it to be good to begin with.
That said, I think Snyder's issue is different because I don't think he likes the works he's adapting and doesn't appreciate how the deconstructions he seems to like actually functioned or what made them good. He confuses style for substance almost universally and that's a backwards mentality for deconstructive works.
Compel wrote: Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.
Yes, and no. The very fact that it was Superman is part of what made it so powerful, and why it was such a power move by Zod. He deliberately forced Superman to make a choice between two crap options, knowing that would mess him up whichever one he chose. And the fact that this happened (in this continuity) early in Superman's 'career' can then be used as a character shaping moment - the fact that he was forced to kill that one time should make him more determined than ever to not let himself be put in that situation again.
That was a major plot point in John Byrne's Man of Steel relaunch after Crisis on Infinite Earths. There was also a really cool scene in Legends of the DCU (comic) where Batman is investigating a murder that framed Superman and Superman references the exact moment in the MoS comic as his reasons for not killing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Almost forgot:
When this hit, my brother asked my opinion. I said "45% of people are going to lash out because it's not Marvel, 45% are going to lash out because it's Snyder, and 10% will look at it objectively." I was apparently FAR too optimistic in my assessment...
DC in general has the problem that their Animated Movies/Shows have always been very good
and to get equal good or better live action movies is tricky
(unless Marvel were there never really was a modern outstanding animated movie/show)
Snyder works if he can bring the Comic 1:1 on the screen
300 is a 1:1 version with some minor changes
Watchman had more changes, some for the better, some for the worse, but overall it works (never understood why some very short but important scenes were cut)
with the DCEU, Snyder would have been the right choice to take one comic and turn it into a movie
yet they took parts/themes/idead from several comics and turned them into 1 movie and this did not work out very well
this happens wit many movies today, instead of making a movie about the 1 story of the comic, they take the whole series to make 1 movie and things get lost (Alita as best example)
Instead of Batmen VS Superman (nad JL), they should have just taken the 4th part of Millers The Dark Knight Return series (The Dark Knight Falls), give it to Snyder and say, make a 1:1 and continue with The Dark Knight III
The neck snap for me wasn't the issue. It made sense - look at the devastation Zod had caused in Metropolis, he was too dangerous to be allowed to live and Superman could not capture him.
Nah, what I hate about the Snyder superman is Pa Kent being an Objectivist and that he's so miserable and reluctant about helping people. Also, his Clark Kent is not very likeable, nor his Lois Lane. But MoS is the strongest of the Snyder DC movies for sure.
Others have said it better but Snyder just doesn't like traditional comics, he thinks they are for kids. Only the violent and darker deconstructions are interesting to him without really understanding the original characters. That's why it's no big deal to have Clark Kent be guided by an Objectivist philosophy or for Batman to kill people left right and centre and use a gun in every second fight scene.
To be honest, those movies have ruined both characters pretty thoroughly in the popular imagination. I doubt they will recover for quite a while yet.
People mentioned Grant Morrison here and I have the same problem with him to an extent. All he does are weird post modern deconstructions of the characters, to the point that the characters barely feel "there" any more. I much prefer the workhorse serial comics by people like Chuck Dixon, who just told stories month after month keeping the characters who they were and not shaking up the status quo or reinterpreting everything. Comic books are supposed to be a serial medium, but the industry is addicted to shake ups, reboots and reinterpretations because they are easier to write than a solid monthly series where interesting things happen while maintaining the status quo.
To defend myself by my invocation of Morrison, I was specifically talking about 'All-Star Superman' - other things are a whole different can of worms, that typically result in me getting a headache if I try to understand them, but I still absolutely believe All-Star Superman works as an example of a reconstruction.
Fair cop. I know Morrison is talented, and I wouldn't look down on anyone for enjoying his stuff. It's just not my cup of tea. Didn't mean to come across as critical of you at all.
Compel wrote: Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.
Yes, and no. The very fact that it was Superman is part of what made it so powerful, and why it was such a power move by Zod. He deliberately forced Superman to make a choice between two crap options, knowing that would mess him up whichever one he chose. And the fact that this happened (in this continuity) early in Superman's 'career' can then be used as a character shaping moment - the fact that he was forced to kill that one time should make him more determined than ever to not let himself be put in that situation again.
Right. And this underlined his 'choice'...Earth over Krypton. That's why I thought it was weird that they went there again in BvS before his death (the 'my world' stuff). He'd already made that decision throughout the battle of Metropolis..."Krypton had its chance." I thought that was a powerful line.
For me, it was also interesting putting the character in a no-win scenario. For too much of the character's history, there was no such thing...never any real stakes. Superman '78 included...maybe even 'especially'. Faced with a dilemma, he would just superpower his way out of it and win. This is partly how his array of superpowers was formed. One can say that the setup was contrived...fine. I think I'd argue it was no less contrived than the most of the escape ropes over time.
Bringing this back on topic...the snap was Snyder and Goyer's idea. Nolan thought it was OTT at first, but they eventually sold him. He did kill Zod at one point in the comics, but you can point the finger at ZS on that one. I understand it for all reasons that have been said, but if that second of the film turned people off, then it was probably a misstep.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Compel wrote: To defend myself by my invocation of Morrison, I was specifically talking about 'All-Star Superman' - other things are a whole different can of worms, that typically result in me getting a headache if I try to understand them, but I still absolutely believe All-Star Superman works as an example of a reconstruction.
His run on JLA was also hardly a 'deconstruction'. If anything, it was a restoration by putting all DC's headliners together again after years of too many second-rate heroes on the team. Multiversity wasn't deconstructive...hard to get more 'constructive' than that one. We can keep citing examples.
I agree, I liked the Zod fight for the reasons you outline. It's good to see Superman having to contend with someone who is too dangerous to be stopped that he cannot overcome in any other way. And he makes the choice, I think the right choice, to kill Zod. Any other choice could have had terrible consequences. What prison on Earth could contain Zod? He would eventually break free and wreak unimaginable havoc again, and he might defeat and kill Clark next time. No, it had to be that way.
Goyer though, urgh. What a hack. I'm really suspicious of anything he is involved in by now.
Da Boss wrote: The neck snap for me wasn't the issue. It made sense - look at the devastation Zod had caused in Metropolis, he was too dangerous to be allowed to live and Superman could not capture him.
Nah, what I hate about the Snyder superman is Pa Kent being an Objectivist and that he's so miserable and reluctant about helping people. Also, his Clark Kent is not very likeable, nor his Lois Lane. But MoS is the strongest of the Snyder DC movies for sure.
Others have said it better but Snyder just doesn't like traditional comics, he thinks they are for kids. Only the violent and darker deconstructions are interesting to him without really understanding the original characters. That's why it's no big deal to have Clark Kent be guided by an Objectivist philosophy or for Batman to kill people left right and centre and use a gun in every second fight scene.
To be honest, those movies have ruined both characters pretty thoroughly in the popular imagination. I doubt they will recover for quite a while yet.
People mentioned Grant Morrison here and I have the same problem with him to an extent. All he does are weird post modern deconstructions of the characters, to the point that the characters barely feel "there" any more. I much prefer the workhorse serial comics by people like Chuck Dixon, who just told stories month after month keeping the characters who they were and not shaking up the status quo or reinterpreting everything. Comic books are supposed to be a serial medium, but the industry is addicted to shake ups, reboots and reinterpretations because they are easier to write than a solid monthly series where interesting things happen while maintaining the status quo.
Dunno if you heard, but DC is seriously cutting back on publications and has laid off most of it's creative talent. The company appears to be up for sale by AT&T. Warner would retain rights to make movies, DC would continue putting out comics.
The 2 people who appear to be serious contenders for buying it are Steve Jeppi, owner of Diamond Comics, and Robert Kirkman, creator of the Walking Dead.
Bringing this up here because of something I've suspected for a long time - Hollywood needs to be at arms length from publishing for the model to work. The theory behind Justice League is you could bring in a director like Snyder and have him refine the vision of someone like Geoff Johns. Obviously, this didn't work out well, but I'd place the blame with Warner moreso than with DC. People seemed to want to see a movie that was about the Justice League they know from the comics, what came out was very different in tone and execution. The amount of money it lost pretty much ruined DC's business model.
If DC was to ressurect itself under a new publisher, there's a chance it could get back to creating the kinds of sustained narratives that drive a franchise. With JL, Warner was trying to craft a franchise out of something that was JL in name only. It didn't have much to do with story arcs from the original and that may have been too experimental for most fans.
Superhero comics are in a weird place economically. They have amazing brand recognition. Everyone knows who Superman and Batman are and culturally interest in the characters is vast.
Yet, comics themselves are a shrinking medium. Competition from video games and television and manga have been edging them out of the market for years and DC and Marvel have both generally shrugged in response and done little to change up their business models. Part of the problem is that mainstream American comics enjoyed a certain niche dominance in the 80s and 90s I think. They had a broad read from young children to older adults, but new forms of entertainment have been beating on their door since then and gradually eating away at their section of the pie. Manga I think has been especially damaging; manga is very similar in style and content as a visual comic medium, and a single volume of manga is more competitively priced than an issue of a DC or Marvel comic book in terms of content. Manga and Anime go hand in hand, and have a greater consistency and novelty than western comics which keep obsessively repeating certain plot points from 20-30 years ago. That's coming home to roost now, except while Marvel has the MCU and a thriving licensing business spurned on by it, DC has met continual failure to expand itself into the new and more diverse entertainment economy.
I think you're right that executive meddling deserves a lot of the blame for various things not succeeding, but there's also something I'd blame as innate to DC comics; they always seem to take their adaptations and expansions too seriously. IDK why it is. The comics have lots of funny and light hearted moments and Marvel isn't exactly any less dark than DC most of the time. Yet, there's a quality that is lacking in DC that I think defies explanation but continues to hold it back and it's something in the mix that always ends up with DC seeming to take itself far too seriously.
Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).
The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.
Compel wrote: Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).
The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.
Yeah, see I don't disagree with this at all.
That's why I find the problem hard to describe on the DC front. Saying DC is darker doesn't work. Even saying it takes itself too seriously doesn't quite work. The issue is deeper than one of simple content or presentation.
Maybe the right way to put it is applicability? As time has gone on, certain elements of Marvel have maintained a sort of timeless quality. The X-Men comics can be interpreted and appreciated in almost any era; young men and women who are different struggling to live in a society that doesn't accept them. We can critique that sure, but that basic concept in itself will always have a demographic. In comparison, Batman is a rich kid sad his parents died. It's compelling in its own way, but it lacks a certain pop in the way Spiderman is a story about a common person who suddenly finds himself shouldering responsibility he never asked for. Superman is an idealistic sort of figure, but not as clearly defined in what his idealism is supposed to represent as Captain America.
So maybe it's that DC has struggled to really make itself stand out. It's not like it can't. Superman and Batman has between the two of them stared and centered in some amazing comics over the years, but their best works aren't reflected in the serial nature of mainstream publications which I think lack some of the clearly defined undercurrents of Marvel's main lines. Marvel has maintained a sort of narrative relevance as time has marched on, while Batman has remained very 80s Dark Age for the last 30 years and Superman has just bounced back and forth with no one seemingly know what to do with the character. And that kind of raises another issue; Batman and Superman carry this ship. If Batman and Superman are floundering, then the entire line is floundering.
Superhero comics are in a weird place economically. They have amazing brand recognition. Everyone knows who Superman and Batman are and culturally interest in the characters is vast.
Yet, comics themselves are a shrinking medium. Competition from video games and television and manga have been edging them out of the market for years and DC and Marvel have both generally shrugged in response and done little to change up their business models. Part of the problem is that mainstream American comics enjoyed a certain niche dominance in the 80s and 90s I think. They had a broad read from young children to older adults, but new forms of entertainment have been beating on their door since then and gradually eating away at their section of the pie. Manga I think has been especially damaging; manga is very similar in style and content as a visual comic medium, and a single volume of manga is more competitively priced than an issue of a DC or Marvel comic book in terms of content. Manga and Anime go hand in hand, and have a greater consistency and novelty than western comics which keep obsessively repeating certain plot points from 20-30 years ago. That's coming home to roost now, except while Marvel has the MCU and a thriving licensing business spurned on by it, DC has met continual failure to expand itself into the new and more diverse entertainment economy.
I think you're right that executive meddling deserves a lot of the blame for various things not succeeding, but there's also something I'd blame as innate to DC comics; they always seem to take their adaptations and expansions too seriously. IDK why it is. The comics have lots of funny and light hearted moments and Marvel isn't exactly any less dark than DC most of the time. Yet, there's a quality that is lacking in DC that I think defies explanation but continues to hold it back and it's something in the mix that always ends up with DC seeming to take itself far too seriously.
Last I read, DC has been doing better of late after all the changes. That they cut a lot of costs -- including very high-priced talent -- and it's paying off. Perhaps I'm wrong.
Personally, I think a big problem for the comics publishing business is that they aligned themselves away from developing the comics collectors of tomorrow. The industry made its bet on comic book specialty shops that are frequented more by adults with disposable incomes who visit every week. What's more, they've juiced their profits for years on things like variant covers and giant Secret Crisis War on Infinite Infinities tie-in events where 'everything changes' (until it changes back). This comic fan grew up buying comics with one-shot stories when I happened to find myself in a newsstand/convenience store/etc. Low commitment all around. My kids like comics okay, but long-running story arcs just dampen their enthusiasm.
However, they're very open to digital, and they like my subscription to DC Universe Infinite because they can access the long story arcs and such on their schedule. I think the future will clearly evolve down that path, and I think it's sustainable...well, for everyone except comics stores. I expect that printed books will exist for a while, but steadily decline, become a novelty and then die out as we older folks age out.
I'll agree with the general consensus that Snyder doesn't understand what he takes apart well enough to know how to put it back together in an interesting way. To me, nothing illustrates this more than the needless moving of the "nothing ever ends" dialog from Doc/Oz to Owl/Rorsch. I quite like the movie as a whole, but this change really serves no purpose and really misses the point and power of the whole thing.
I don't think his Superman issue is really unique. Trying to make Superman interesting is a problem that's plagued writers for decades. He makes the common mistake of seeing Superman as the character and not putting the work into writing Clark. The alien "more human than any of us" is a powerful idea that's entirely rooted in his upbringing but requires investing in goals that aren't tied to the costume. The change to a fundamentally good savior from above who fortunately looks past his suicidal redneck upbringing leaves the character directionless.
The neck snap isn't really a problem in the film. It's issue is primarily just that there's nothing behind it. We're not given a character who seems particularly hesitant to kill, nor one that seems particularly concerned with helping others. We're not connected to the people of Metropolis to be horrified by its destruction. When the big moment comes, there's no conflict to connect with. It's angsty noise rather than a meaningful character building that's devoid of any of the impact it thinks its creating by having the boy scout kill.
Zack Snyder wrote:Once you’ve lost your virginity to this ****ing movie and then you come and say to me something about like ‘my superhero wouldn’t do that.’ I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ I’m like down the *****ing road on that.
It’s a cool point of view to be like ‘my heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t ****ing lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corporations. My heroes didn’t commit any atrocities.’ That’s cool. But you’re living in a ****ing dream world.
Which, of course, brings me personally back round to 'Whats so funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way' and 'Superman VS The Elite.'
Hopefully I bleeped out all his swearing properly.
I think I started replying to this thread trying to be positive, and I really should and I'm really sorry to all the people who are kinda into this sort of world - I kinda like the Injustice series as well (which acknowledging its own problems, particularly involving Wonder Woman), which isn't TOO dissimilar on the surface.
But I just find it really, really hard to engage positively.
Compel wrote: Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).
The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.
Yeah, see I don't disagree with this at all.
That's why I find the problem hard to describe on the DC front. Saying DC is darker doesn't work. Even saying it takes itself too seriously doesn't quite work. The issue is deeper than one of simple content or presentation.
Maybe the right way to put it is applicability? As time has gone on, certain elements of Marvel have maintained a sort of timeless quality. The X-Men comics can be interpreted and appreciated in almost any era; young men and women who are different struggling to live in a society that doesn't accept them. We can critique that sure, but that basic concept in itself will always have a demographic. In comparison, Batman is a rich kid sad his parents died. It's compelling in its own way, but it lacks a certain pop in the way Spiderman is a story about a common person who suddenly finds himself shouldering responsibility he never asked for. Superman is an idealistic sort of figure, but not as clearly defined in what his idealism is supposed to represent as Captain America.
So maybe it's that DC has struggled to really make itself stand out. It's not like it can't. Superman and Batman has between the two of them stared and centered in some amazing comics over the years, but their best works aren't reflected in the serial nature of mainstream publications which I think lack some of the clearly defined undercurrents of Marvel's main lines. Marvel has maintained a sort of narrative relevance as time has marched on, while Batman has remained very 80s Dark Age for the last 30 years and Superman has just bounced back and forth with no one seemingly know what to do with the character. And that kind of raises another issue; Batman and Superman carry this ship. If Batman and Superman are floundering, then the entire line is floundering.
You hit the nail on the head with the overreliance on Batman and Superman. Although the studio execs would never admit it, there was one major factor to the Marvel movies being as popular as they were: Back when the first couple of films were coming out, Marvel wasn't allowed to fall back on the X-men or Spider-Man. It's hard to remember now, but back in the before times, Spider-Man and Wolverine were the two Marvel characters that people actually knew about. Sure, they'd heard of Iron Man and Cap, but didn't know anything about them. The fact that Marvel Studios was forced to have their first movie be essentially a blank IP meant that they had the opportunity to sell a new character to fans, and Iron Man 1 was fortunately good enough to do so, as was The First Avenger.
DC either hasn't gotten that opportunity or hasn't taken it. The closest we have now is general audiences actually liking Wonder Woman now that the movie is out, but that's not nearly good enough. Look at the mainstream perception of everything else. Green Lantern is still a joke. Aquaman could have been saved by the movie, but no one watched it and DC still isn't ready to admit that that character has his own problems (there's a reason why most Marvel comics don't involve Namor). Green Arrow had a show on the CW, but general audiences don't watch TV shows; if they did, Daredevil probably would have been in Endgame. The closest they've gotten in recent history is kind of selling people on the Flash by putting him in the Justice League movie, but unfortunately, that film turned out to be, well, what it is.
The only way for DC to bail out their Batman-shaped ship is to create good movies based on everyone else. Sell the Flash to people. Everyone loves relatable charismatic inventors, or I'm told. Make him Bill Nye or Adam Savage in red spandex. Then do the same thing with Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and maybe even some less well-known characters like the Elongated Man. It's really not too hard.
Or, you know, they could just keep going down the Batman/Superman rabbit hole and eventually leave the public eye entirely while constantly wondering why no one likes hearing stories about the same superhero that's been getting movies for the last half a century.
DC movies outside of Batman always reek of executive meddling and chasing success rather than setting the bar. Sometimes that involves chasing the success of Batman, but rarely do you see a feature film that understands the character beyond appearance and powerset.
Some of that is the same issue you see with all comic characters in that they've evolved significantly and there's a huge difference between who they were in their origin stories and their iconic personalities that hold up now.
That's actually something Aquaman does well. It walks a really good line of showing the character unburdened with responsibility while making the movie about him accepting his role and taking the weight of leadership for the good of his people. The movie has other problems, but it was clearly written with an understanding of when Arthur works. WW and Shazam! generally get this as well.
GL is a good example of a movie that wanted to write a sequel but didn't know how to get there. Hal is just really written as this generic, blank slate protagonist without really understanding how his personality is important to his role in the story. I think he's probably the second hardest main league member to get right, which is why he so often ends up in the same, bland shell Superman does.
The C Reeve Superman films were/are iconic and that may be part of the issue.
Same (IMO) with the Burton Batman films and the Nolan versions, however bad I think the latter were they are the benchmark to which the others are set.
The Marvel films did not have that issue of cosntantly being compared to the iconic films.
I also think that the best superhero films are about the people, relationships etc - and thats what the Marvel films do so well - as well as the action and imgaery and snappy dialogue. I would agree that Aquaman/Wonder Woman works in that way (and it also something Nolan never does and I don't think can)
but bottom line is you have a to make a good film drama that happens to have a superhero/s in it - not a "superhero film and again I think thats what Marvel does very well.
Compel wrote: Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).
The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.
I think Batman probably has him beat, there. Although Spiderman at least stays upbeat about it all...
This is actually something I'd really like to see change in comics - everyone lives in a quasi-stable time bubble where they only age very, very slowly (unless they're kids, in which case they may or may not age as the ongoing plot demands) and little reference is made to the passing of time outside of the story at hand. And as a result, everyone winds up with a thoroughly improbably amount of stuff happening during the time that they spend wearing that costume.
I'd love to see Marvel and DC, during one of their thoroughly irritating universe reboots, actually set a strict, believable timeline on each character, populate that timeline with a reasonable amount of adventure and mayhem, and then retire or replace that character with a successor. We would see actual, visible character advancement, and they would get to explore different aspects of each hero without having to keep rebooting them all the time.
GL is a good example of a movie that wanted to write a sequel but didn't know how to get there. Hal is just really written as this generic, blank slate protagonist without really understanding how his personality is important to his role in the story. I think he's probably the second hardest main league member to get right, which is why he so often ends up in the same, bland shell Superman does.
What you're saying here obviously checks out with the last couple decades of precedent, but for the life of me I can't understand why Hal's personality has been such a stumbling block. People right now seem to love stubborn, charismatic men who are slightly on the dumber side at times. That's why Thor's so popular, right? It seems like translating Hal's core character traits to screen should be easy. Is there something I'm missing?
This is actually something I'd really like to see change in comics - everyone lives in a quasi-stable time bubble where they only age very, very slowly (unless they're kids, in which case they may or may not age as the ongoing plot demands) and little reference is made to the passing of time outside of the story at hand. And as a result, everyone winds up with a thoroughly improbably amount of stuff happening during the time that they spend wearing that costume.
I'd love to see Marvel and DC, during one of their thoroughly irritating universe reboots, actually set a strict, believable timeline on each character, populate that timeline with a reasonable amount of adventure and mayhem, and then retire or replace that character with a successor. We would see actual, visible character advancement, and they would get to explore different aspects of each hero without having to keep rebooting them all the time.
Part of the problem is that a lot of characters live and die by their long term relationships. For example, as much as I love Wally as the Flash in a solo series and as well as he can fit in the League, he can't quite replace the dynamic Barry creates with Bruce and Hal. Personally, I like the idea of a decade or so reset, but a lot of these things work because they were forged over lifelong events. Hal and Ollie for example, aren't a dynamic that you can force, but one that came naturally from the civil rights era. Part of the problem with reboots is they have nothing to offer in place of this, and can't really plan how the future will naturally create this. It's similar to the problem of trying to force Cyborg into founding League status. He's a great character, but one who thrives in the stories about seeking acceptance that come from younger characters. He doesn't have anyone to work with in the classic League and attempts to make him more series reduce his personality down to 'Puter status.
So in a way I agree, and I have no idea how to pull it off.
I think Batman probably has him beat, there. Although Spiderman at least stays upbeat about it all...
I'd kind of disagree about Batman... At least comic Batman, the movies it's true, probably. With one exception.
I think a lot of modern Batman is really about him building and protecting his family. Whether it's Damian, Catwoman, Kate or even a miniature clone of a [ur=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/batman/images/c/ce/Jarro.jpeg]psychic alien starfish that lives in a jar.[/url]
There's kind of a feeling to me, at the end of his arcs, he'll come through it in a better place.
Spider-man, well, more specifically, Peter Parker, has always seemed to be stuck in this never ending horror cycle of "Well, I can save the day, or lose my job, or save my job, and disappoint my family. Or help my family, and then something horrible happens to my friends. Or do those 3 things and then the villain kills some innocent person and it's all my fault.
There was a wonderful Batman moment I read recently where Bruce is being all gloomy. "One hundred and eighty-two innocent people murdered this year."
Then Damian chips in with, "Last year, it was 214, father." Then Alfred comments, "231 lives the year before that, Master Bruce. I'd like to point out the number of murdered innocent souls has been dropping since the night you rang the bell and put on the cowl."
And then? He gets dragged out to go to dinner with his family. And the story ends.
GL is a good example of a movie that wanted to write a sequel but didn't know how to get there. Hal is just really written as this generic, blank slate protagonist without really understanding how his personality is important to his role in the story. I think he's probably the second hardest main league member to get right, which is why he so often ends up in the same, bland shell Superman does.
What you're saying here obviously checks out with the last couple decades of precedent, but for the life of me I can't understand why Hal's personality has been such a stumbling block. People right now seem to love stubborn, charismatic men who are slightly on the dumber side at times. That's why Thor's so popular, right? It seems like translating Hal's core character traits to screen should be easy. Is there something I'm missing?
The main thing is that a character like Hal or Thor really depends on their supporting cast to do the heavy lifting in the story. They're a reactive characters by nature rather than someone with a narrative drive. Thor needs a quest, usually from Odin sometimes in response to Loki to get his adventure rolling at which point he can react to each challenge along the way. Hal's primary version of this is either the Guardians or Sinestro, neither of which fit in particularly well with his original origin story. He gets the ring and then... does... what? Bad guy appears and he fights them, but he needs a supporting cast that gives that fight purpose. Generic love interest and "guy in the chair" best friend (seriously, what was Waititi's purpose in this movie?) aren't going to cut it. When you've got a reactive character as your lead, you really depend on a motivated antagonist and a strong supporting cast to give the story meaning so your hero can really thrive how much unwavering conviction in doing the right thing can win the crowd.
I think Batman probably has him beat, there. Although Spiderman at least stays upbeat about it all...
I'd kind of disagree about Batman... At least comic Batman, the movies it's true, probably. With one exception.
I think a lot of modern Batman is really about him building and protecting his family. Whether it's Damian, Catwoman, Kate or even a miniature clone of a [ur=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/batman/images/c/ce/Jarro.jpeg]psychic alien starfish that lives in a jar.[/url]
There's kind of a feeling to me, at the end of his arcs, he'll come through it in a better place.
Spider-man, well, more specifically, Peter Parker, has always seemed to be stuck in this never ending horror cycle of "Well, I can save the day, or lose my job, or save my job, and disappoint my family. Or help my family, and then something horrible happens to my friends. Or do those 3 things and then the villain kills some innocent person and it's all my fault.
There was a wonderful Batman moment I read recently where Bruce is being all gloomy. "One hundred and eighty-two innocent people murdered this year."
Then Damian chips in with, "Last year, it was 214, father." Then Alfred comments, "231 lives the year before that, Master Bruce. I'd like to point out the number of murdered innocent souls has been dropping since the night you rang the bell and put on the cowl."
And then? He gets dragged out to go to dinner with his family. And the story ends.
One More Day really crushed my soul as MJ was like the one thing in Peter's life that wasn't about making him miserable and gave him something to keep fighting for.
Batman's big problem is that too many people define him by distrust in others, so he regularly drives his family away and resets things. I've long felt the Incorporated era was cut woefully short in this regard. To a degree I get it, but we've also long hit the point where Joker murdering a few dozen people each weekend before Bruce breaks his teeth before putting him in a cell for a few days is... not a good or healthy character dynamic.
GL is a good example of a movie that wanted to write a sequel but didn't know how to get there. Hal is just really written as this generic, blank slate protagonist without really understanding how his personality is important to his role in the story. I think he's probably the second hardest main league member to get right, which is why he so often ends up in the same, bland shell Superman does.
I don't know that I agree with that. The GL film was really bad, and the character of whichever GL it was about was the central problem. He wasn't presented as a protagonist. He was presented as a stupid, arrogant, forgetful, sexist jackhole with no redeeming features or any interesting traits beyond 'fly planes real good.' He was Tom Cruise in Top Gun dialed up to 11.
So I turned it off, because whoever that was, his story wasn't even vaguely appealing. (And I also don't think I'm alone with the general audience when it comes to being unable to differentiate between various Green Lanterns)
That's very different from the Superman problem (which the modern films never address like the films and tv shows that came before). Supermans problems are his connections and his vulnerabilities that have jack/squat to do with his powers. When the film is only about his powers and his relationships make no sense (leaves his dad to die because he says so?), it just goes splat.
I've actually been fortunate enough to have never watched the GL movie. It wasn't something that interested me when it came out, and by the time I was more invested in DC and the various GL series in particular, I was rightfully warned away from going back to see it.
I don't know that I agree with that. The GL film was really bad, and the character of whichever GL it was about was the central problem. He wasn't presented as a protagonist. He was presented as a stupid, arrogant, forgetful, sexist jackhole with no redeeming features or any interesting traits beyond 'fly planes real good.' He was Tom Cruise in Top Gun dialed up to 11.
Hal Jordan (the Green Lantern in that particular film) is admittedly supposed to be forgetful, stupid, and to an extent arrogant. Well, maybe "stupid" is too far, but he's certainly no Batman. It's hard to come up with a good comparison. Hercules in his Disney incarnation maybe? Either way, Hal's main appeal is that he's just a fun guy to hang out with. He's pleasant, positive, funny, and genuinely cares about the people he protects. If they fethed that up, and it sounds like they did, it's no wonder you didn't like the character.
Spider-man, well, more specifically, Peter Parker, has always seemed to be stuck in this never ending horror cycle of "Well, I can save the day, or lose my job, or save my job, and disappoint my family. Or help my family, and then something horrible happens to my friends. Or do those 3 things and then the villain kills some innocent person and it's all my fault.
The issue with Spider-Man, in my eyes, is that the writers are always too scared to push his story forward. Aunt May almost died in the Clone Saga, but they backed out at the last minute and, as comics are wont to do, brought her back to life. Spider-Man had to live for about a year with his identity revealed before One More Day, but the whole reset turned that back to the way it was as well. I don't think I even need to bother mentioning his relationship with Mary Jane.
The most baffling thing is that there seems to be a subconscious agreement at Marvel that people hate this. I can think of at least 3 separate comic runs where the entire story centers around an alternate universe Spider-Man and Mary Jane having a child and a happy marriage, but for some reason they don't want to do that in the mainline series? Why? I don't think I'll ever understand it. Such is life, I suppose.
I can think of at least 3 separate comic runs where the entire story centers around an alternate universe Spider-Man and Mary Jane having a child and a happy marriage, but for some reason they don't want to do that in the mainline series? Why? I don't think I'll ever understand it. Such is life, I suppose.
There is a long running fear that a stable adult relationship and especially kids ruins entertainment for people. I think it started in 70s/80s sitcoms, but a lot of entertainment execs treat it as entirely verboten.*
Part of it, I suspect, is the perception that is where 'Happily Ever After' starts and the story is over. But reinforced by generations of Nielsen ratings.
Why might be seeing a shift away from that particular trend with the shift away from network television and all its hang-ups, but no idea how long that would take to translate over to comics.
*as aside, its because of this that when Infinity War introduced Stark's kid, I knew for certain he was going
Spoiler:
to die.
The 'Hollywood narrative' is basically pre-programmed there.
I can think of at least 3 separate comic runs where the entire story centers around an alternate universe Spider-Man and Mary Jane having a child and a happy marriage, but for some reason they don't want to do that in the mainline series? Why? I don't think I'll ever understand it. Such is life, I suppose.
There is a long running fear that a stable adult relationship and especially kids ruins entertainment for people. I think it started in 70s/80s sitcoms, but a lot of entertainment execs treat it as entirely verboten.*
Part of it, I suspect, is the perception that is where 'Happily Ever After' starts and the story is over. But reinforced by generations of Nielsen ratings.
Why might be seeing a shift away from that particular trend with the shift away from network television and all its hang-ups, but no idea how long that would take to translate over to comics.
*as aside, its because of this that when Infinity War introduced Stark's kid, I knew for certain he was going
Spoiler:
to die.
The 'Hollywood narrative' is basically pre-programmed there.
It's somewhat depressing that somehow having a stable adult relationship is seen as undesirable considering how rare its becoming in both IRL and in fiction. I've already noticed there's a lot more single/divorced parents being shown in some kids shows which is pretty concerning IMO. If I want wholesome couples I have to go out of my way to find books and mangas that itch that scratch for me. Considering that life definitely doesn't just become EZ-mode once you're in a committed relationship, it just smacks of laziness and the idea that there's no inherent "drama" that you can usually pull like the love triangle.
I wouldn't say there's no inherent drama. But the easy road for shows is couple's drama, which in hollywood terms is usually 'spiteful bickering.' Personally I get enough of that in real life.
This particular aversion is largely limited to the transition for younger characters (like spiderman or various robins). There's a long history of shows that start out as (and focus on being) family dramas that don't have the same hang ups. Its just not something you usually see in comics.
I think the closest you really get in media is stuff like Sky High and Spy Kids, where the family drama is focused on the kids.
Otherwise you get plotlines like the Fantastic Four kid and Scott Summers/Jean Grey nightmarish timeline(s) child(ren). Don't know about you, but for me those kind of push (and justify) that aversion.
----
Though the Young Justice 'tv' series progresses to the point that a lot of heroes have semi-retired and kids are showing up, though the focus isn't really on any of them. Main characters do get engaged, however, and there's usually a season hiatus time skip, so when Season 4 finally happens, it could do something with the idea.
Incidentally I love the episode of Young Justice where some villain/assassin, I forget who, found out where the day care all the heroes sent their kids to was.
Spoiler:
Whole episode as the main story was going on we’re getting clips of dropping the kids off, adults friendly chatting, and this dude setting up across the street to kill them all. Then right at the end Shiva shows up, tells the would be assassin no, heroes are enough of a pain in our butts without that level of extra motivation, and kills the dude and covers the whole thing up.
Comics have traditionally been the medium of kids and teen. Spiderman has been a teen and then younger adult and the single superhero that sells the most merch (toys and gak) to kids.
The end result is he gets married to MJ... and then hes and clone and it's Ben Riley's turn with the new 90s spiderman suit to match. Young and single baby!
Then old peter is real and what does Ben do? Grabs a Jean vest and becomes scarlet spider. The 90s is back for the kids baby!
Then on top of that... tragedy builds good stories and spiderman does tragedy a LOT.
Ultimately they want kids to relate to spiderman on some kind of level. And a man in his 30s with a job and a wife and a kid just ain't doing it for a 11-14 year old.
I think that comics is fundamentally a serial medium and trying to have an arc like in a novel or a movie is a fundamental mistake.
We all consider stuff like Sandman and Watchmen classic because it follows the traditional narrative structure and therefore is very satisfying.
Serial writing can't really do that. Or if it does, it's actually a mistake, essentially that writer being selfish and messing up the status quo for the person that comes after them. A good serial writer can work within the confines and still do something interesting and entertaining while leaving the status quo alone.
If you don't do that, you end up changing the status quo to the point that it is unrecognisable to newcomers (spiderman in his forties with two kids is not the character new readers are expecting) or weighing it down with so much baggage that it becomes totally unwieldy (making a psychic clone in a jar a recurring character).
And then, eventually, you have to do the reset. You've gotta start again with the core concept. The resets and the people who write them tend to be reviled, but really they are essential to the longevity of the series and are usually only fixing problems introduced by others over time. The problem is that all the comic "big names" feel writing serials is beneath them and want to do earth shaking stuff all the time, so the reset cycle gets shorter and shorter and we spend more and more time worrying about continuity and alternate worlds and various "crisis" storylines rather than getting on with telling a story about a hero doing hero things which is what most people expect from a comic book story.
That put me off DC. The golden age for me was when you had a bunch of DC comics which were chugging along with a well maintained status quo that was enjoyable and a nice story every month that was interesting and fun but didn't need to shake up the whole series. I'm talking about Chuck Dixon's run on Robin (Tim Drake) and Nightwing, and Devin Grayson's run on Legends of the Dark Knight, and the main batman title being written by a rotating cast who mostly did short arcs with new villains and so on. Some time after that great few years, they started with Infinite Crisis and it's been a constant reshuffle ever since. And Batman as a comic disappeared into Grant Morrison's private postmodern world that is impenetrable to me and doesn't feel like the same character. I'm really not fond of Damien Wayne either.
And given that the movie version of Batman is a gun wielding maniac, I guess I'm just not a batman fan any more. Weird. He was my favourite super hero all through the 90s and into the early 00s. The animated versions still tend to be true to what I consider the character to be, at least.
But I guess it is also troublesome that Batman is a really rich guy who takes out his trauma on the mentally ill and economically disadvantaged rather than using his wealth to fix systemic issues. It just kinda...doesn't work when he stops being a millionaire and starts being a billionaire. Why is he using that money to build gadgets instead of actually fixing systemic problems? Wouldn't any time spent as Batman just be inefficient compared to time spent dealing with complex systemic issues? So I guess he just likes beating up poor people. Huh.
I realise that is a fairly obtuse way to look at it, I just think they shouldn't have scaled up his wealth as much as they did. But I guess it's part of aspirational stuff in the USA I don't understand. They made Peter Parker into Mark Zuckerberg for a whole run, and...I dunno. I feel like I just am so far away from getting that that I might as well be in a parallel reality!
Da Boss wrote: I think that comics is fundamentally a serial medium and trying to have an arc like in a novel or a movie is a fundamental mistake.
We all consider stuff like Sandman and Watchmen classic because it follows the traditional narrative structure and therefore is very satisfying.
Serial writing can't really do that. Or if it does, it's actually a mistake, essentially that writer being selfish and messing up the status quo for the person that comes after them. A good serial writer can work within the confines and still do something interesting and entertaining while leaving the status quo alone.
And it's worth remembering that not every attempt to "move a character on" was fondly remembered and caused everyone to cry out for the reset button. Blowing up Nightwing's hometown in Infinite Crisis. Ms Marvel and the legendarily bad Marcus Immortus thing. Cassandra Cain becoming a cold-blooded killer who inexplicably spoke Navajo. Many, many, many others.
And given that the movie version of Batman is a gun wielding maniac, I guess I'm just not a batman fan any more. Weird. He was my favourite super hero all through the 90s and into the early 00s. The animated versions still tend to be true to what I consider the character to be, at least.
One line in Lego Batman that prompted a (despairing) laugh from me was when Batman listed Superman as one of his greatest foes, and Joker's response is a bemused "But Superman's a good guy!"
It’s oft mentioned in the comics anymore how Bruce publicly funds a lot of charities, then further secretly funds even more stuff like Arkham itself, and just generally puts a ton of money into various Gotham infrastructure. Fight the immediate crime as Batman, and fund preventative/rehabilitation efforts as Bruce. Of course actually solving the issues would ruin that status quo and end the series, so various institutional corruptions and incurable psychopaths will always get in the way.
It's a common 'hot take,' usually found on tumblr that typically doesn't have any real relevance to Batman as a character that's portrayed in the comics.
It's probably not that far aware from the Snyder interpretation of the character either.
I think Kingdom Come said it best.
"More than anyone in the world, when you scratch everything else away from Batman, you're left with someone who doesn't want to see anybody die."
If you'd like to read about a 'realistic' take on DC superheroes, without the inherent cynicism of Snyder, I'd suggest reading 'Worlds Greatest Superheroes' by Paul Dini and Alex Ross.
I can think of at least 3 separate comic runs where the entire story centers around an alternate universe Spider-Man and Mary Jane having a child and a happy marriage, but for some reason they don't want to do that in the mainline series? Why? I don't think I'll ever understand it. Such is life, I suppose.
There is a long running fear that a stable adult relationship and especially kids ruins entertainment for people. I think it started in 70s/80s sitcoms, but a lot of entertainment execs treat it as entirely verboten.*
Part of it, I suspect, is the perception that is where 'Happily Ever After' starts and the story is over. But reinforced by generations of Nielsen ratings.
Why might be seeing a shift away from that particular trend with the shift away from network television and all its hang-ups, but no idea how long that would take to translate over to comics.
*as aside, its because of this that when Infinity War introduced Stark's kid, I knew for certain he was going
Spoiler:
to die.
The 'Hollywood narrative' is basically pre-programmed there.
Except the narrative for Hawkeye counters this very well - he is in a happy mariage with kids and part of the point of Tonys sacrifice is that people like him can be reunited with his family. Their introduciton in Ultron was an unexpected (to me) and well done aspect.
Incidently the sacrifice here is more effective as well not just as a emotional payoff but because its make sense in the moment (mostly - lets not get into the many ways that Strange could have cut off Thanoos arm with his portals in Infinity War 1) - whereas the Superman sacrifice in B vs S make zero sense when Wonder Woman is basically standing there going - hey give me the spear I'll kill him dead and not suffer any ill effects- I was giving as good as I got without it! It just comes off as stupid.
In terms of character deconstructions, it would seem General Public just isn’t that interested in it.
Consider what came before.
For Batman? Tim Burton films and the 60’s TV show remain the public perception of the character. And the sublime Animated Series.
Superman? Christopher Reeve and the John Williams music. Absolutely iconic. The Big Blue Boy Scout.
Wonder Woman? Lynda Carter’s incarnation.
All quite campy in their own right. And with the exception of the Nolan films (middling, good, god awful in that order) those are the takes most people will think of.
For my money, Edge Lord takes on them just aren’t as interesting or entertaining. And their alter egos aren’t terribly interesting either.
Compare to the MCU. Their alter egos are pretty much just Code Names. And it’s the interplay between them that creates the interest. Because at all times they remain fallible human beings, despite their powers and abilities.
BvS went straight for a Civil War type affair, but it all felt incredibly forced, especially the “you Mom has the same name as my Mom we should party” idiot resolution. Loopy Lex is just a symptom of a crap film, rather than the cause.
Even in MoS, there’s no attempt by Superman to negotiate with Zod - and all because his alleged Dad’s hologram told him Zod was a Richard. Absolutely zero middle ground is explored. Where was even the suggestion that Supes would assist Zod, but they’d need to find a different planet to terraform. That could’ve made the resolution more interesting, with Zod showing his insanity, and refusing to backdown on terraforming Earth.
MDG, I'm not really sure where you're going with that DC/Marvel comparison. And I don't think audiences are as stuck on those older versions as you say. Reeve's Superman still looms large, but audiences have moved on from Adam West and Linda Carter...as the box office has shown.
BvS certainly had its problems. I don't think Zod was one of MoS's. He was one of the better superhero movie villain of the past decade IMO. As the movie explained, he had his purpose. It wasn't to show up and negotiate...he was a warrior caste who would literally do whatever it took to preserve/restore Krypton. So he did. I don't think the average moviegoer is clamoring for Snyder's '11' approach all the time, but villains who can't be reasoned with are all over our entertainment...right? Even the DC animated films are popular without being campfests that have Clark telling Darkseid and Doomsday to eat their vegetables.
Shoot, Christopher Reeve's Superman didn't fight Zod with his words...he depowered him and threw him down a chasm. Then went back to the bar to brutalize the guy who previously beat him up there. So.
The basic cycle of retcon is essentially that when kids grow up to work on comics, they go out of their way to make the comics like they remembered them when they were kids.
Are you arguing that the story should have been written such that Zod was a reasonable fellow open to negotiation?
As written...there's no reason why he would be once he had the codex, knew Earth could be their new home, and that its star would make them gods. He was basically a Krypton-first extremist...the movie explained that he was genetically designed to be that way. It wasn't that he had something against humanity exactly...human civilization was just in his way to restoring Krypton and fulfilling his reason for existence.
It's not unrealistic...we've seen pretty horrible things done to indigenous peoples throughout human history because a more powerful people decided they needed the land.
I think, honestly, if you want a modern Superman origin movie that's newer than Superman 1978, Man of Tomorrow is right there.
It deals with pretty much identical themes to Man of Steel in a lot of ways but does it so much better.
Jonathan Kent : You know what they are going to say, what we've always said: the world is dangerous and unforgiving. If you are different, special, you have two options: you can either...
Superman : Either meet it head-on and accept the consequences or you can keep you head down and accept the consequences. There is no wrong choice, but...
Martha Kent : But you have to make one.
Superman : Why?
Jonathan Kent : Because you are not our little boy any more. Becoming a man means making these choices for yourself. Just be ready. Because each choice, each action, has consequences.
gorgon wrote: Are you arguing that the story should have been written such that Zod was a reasonable fellow open to negotiation?
As written...there's no reason why he would be once he had the codex, knew Earth could be their new home, and that its star would make them gods. He was basically a Krypton-first extremist...the movie explained that he was genetically designed to be that way. It wasn't that he had something against humanity exactly...human civilization was just in his way to restoring Krypton and fulfilling his reason for existence.
It's not unrealistic...we've seen pretty horrible things done to indigenous peoples throughout human history because a more powerful people decided they needed the land.
No, I’m suggesting there was zero reason for Superman to not try to negotiate. Instead he just dives on in to having a punch up.
gorgon wrote: MDG, I'm not really sure where you're going with that DC/Marvel comparison. And I don't think audiences are as stuck on those older versions as you say. Reeve's Superman still looms large, but audiences have moved on from Adam West and Linda Carter...as the box office has shown.
BvS certainly had its problems. I don't think Zod was one of MoS's. He was one of the better superhero movie villain of the past decade IMO. As the movie explained, he had his purpose. It wasn't to show up and negotiate...he was a warrior caste who would literally do whatever it took to preserve/restore Krypton. So he did. I don't think the average moviegoer is clamoring for Snyder's '11' approach all the time, but villains who can't be reasoned with are all over our entertainment...right? Even the DC animated films are popular without being campfests that have Clark telling Darkseid and Doomsday to eat their vegetables.
Shoot, Christopher Reeve's Superman didn't fight Zod with his words...he depowered him and threw him down a chasm. Then went back to the bar to brutalize the guy who previously beat him up there. So.
I think the point he was trying to make wasn't that Supes should have resolved the issue by negotiating reasonably with Zod, but that Supes should have TRIED to negotiate... and only resorted to lethal force after Zod proved he COULDN'T be reasoned with.
But in MoS he never even tried. Thus, the disconnect between MoS and people's expectations of Superman.
I actually think the broader issue with MoS is that it completely ignored Clark Kent as a mask Superman wears. By removing the humanity Superman adopts in his time on earth for an edgy teenager's super angsty story about wandering the earth and doing jack all for years, Snyder completely hosed the lowkey thing that makes the Superman character work. Without Clark Kent Superman is just a brute who talks lofty and smashes things (Homelander from the Boys). Clark Kent is what brings home his compassion and empathy, integrating the superhuman into the human.
But Snyder clearly had no interest in the character as anything but a flying brick who can break necks. You could say his entire take on Superman is a very 'brute force' interpretation that I think rips the heart out of the character. People focus on the Zod thing because it's very different from how we often view Superman, but the movie was off the rails long before that moment because it never grasped the heart and soul of the character.
Did we not see the same film? Was the whole sequence of Zod demanding Superman being turned over by Earth not in the UK version? Kal went, willingly, to turn himself over...and Zod+crew promptly tried to kill him on board of their ship once he was depowered by the Kryptonian atmosphere.
Yeah, he could have saved Jonathan...but he's still human, at heart. He's scared.
As for the constant, annoyingly vexing fixation people have with the whole "Martha" thing...Bruce/Batman dehumanized Superman. To him, he was nothing but a potential weapon.
Hearing Clark/Superman call out for "Martha"(AND LOIS LITERALLY EXPLAINS THIS IN THE SIMPLEST TERMS TO THE AUDIENCE/BRUCE! "It's his mother!")...it flips that switch off. He's not some sword of Damocles hanging over the world anymore--he's a person, calling for his mother as he lays potentially dying.
This is the whole schtick of Batman. It's a mindset for Bruce, it's his 'warface'. They did a great job examining it in a fairly recent short story where Penguin is bragging about having known who Batman was for decades. He says that he didn't kill Bruce Wayne because without that last veneer of humanity? Batman would kill him. Batman would kill every last damn villain he could get his hands on, because without Bruce Wayne...Batman takes over.
gorgon wrote: MDG, I'm not really sure where you're going with that DC/Marvel comparison. And I don't think audiences are as stuck on those older versions as you say. Reeve's Superman still looms large, but audiences have moved on from Adam West and Linda Carter...as the box office has shown.
BvS certainly had its problems. I don't think Zod was one of MoS's. He was one of the better superhero movie villain of the past decade IMO. As the movie explained, he had his purpose. It wasn't to show up and negotiate...he was a warrior caste who would literally do whatever it took to preserve/restore Krypton. So he did. I don't think the average moviegoer is clamoring for Snyder's '11' approach all the time, but villains who can't be reasoned with are all over our entertainment...right? Even the DC animated films are popular without being campfests that have Clark telling Darkseid and Doomsday to eat their vegetables.
Shoot, Christopher Reeve's Superman didn't fight Zod with his words...he depowered him and threw him down a chasm. Then went back to the bar to brutalize the guy who previously beat him up there. So.
I think the point he was trying to make wasn't that Supes should have resolved the issue by negotiating reasonably with Zod, but that Supes should have TRIED to negotiate... and only resorted to lethal force after Zod proved he COULDN'T be reasoned with.
But in MoS he never even tried. Thus, the disconnect between MoS and people's expectations of Superman.
As Kan said...he did. That was the whole second act of the film. Zod demands that Kal-El turn himself in. Clark goes and talks to a minister about whether he can trust the government or Zod. After thinking about WWJD, he reports to the government peacefully and gets given to Zod, who is shown to be a LIAR about his plans for Earth.
If we're going to talk about the film, we can't ignore whole chunks of it. I assumed that MDG was talking about negotiation after Zod turned on the world engine. But why would Zod do that?
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LordofHats wrote: I actually think the broader issue with MoS is that it completely ignored Clark Kent as a mask Superman wears. By removing the humanity Superman adopts in his time on earth for an edgy teenager's super angsty story about wandering the earth and doing jack all for years, Snyder completely hosed the lowkey thing that makes the Superman character work. Without Clark Kent Superman is just a brute who talks lofty and smashes things (Homelander from the Boys). Clark Kent is what brings home his compassion and empathy, integrating the superhuman into the human.
But Snyder clearly had no interest in the character as anything but a flying brick who can break necks. You could say his entire take on Superman is a very 'brute force' interpretation that I think rips the heart out of the character. People focus on the Zod thing because it's very different from how we often view Superman, but the movie was off the rails long before that moment because it never grasped the heart and soul of the character.
If you actually watch the film, it makes the point multiple times that Clark is helping people during his travels. That's the big chunk of Lois's arc and in fact how she tracks him down. There's a montage with voiceover that shows her talking to all the people whose lives he's touched. She even tells him that but comments that not helping people doesn't seem to be an option for him. Since helping others is shown onscreen and mentioned in dialogue...what more should the creators have done? I suspect that you're solely focused on the boss battle. Fine...but there's a lot of movie before that.
And are you saying that Clark should be feeling human emotions or not? He does that throughout MoS and even BvS. Feeling like an outsider, searching for his place in the world, being regretful about his failings, etc....isn't that a very human Kal-El?
LordofHats wrote: I actually think the broader issue with MoS is that it completely ignored Clark Kent as a mask Superman wears.
I think this is where a lot of writers get in trouble. I'll blame Tarantino for the epic speech, but writing Clark as a mask is what causes Superman to become boring. He might hide his powers as Clark, but more out of preservation for what's really important. Clark is far more of who he is than Superman. Superman is relatively aimless. He maintains the status quo but isn't looking to fundamentally change the world and actively rejects guiding the general populace or in any way interfering with their lives. Clark's dreams in life have nothing to do with his powers. He wants friends, he wants love, and significantly, he wants his words and ideas to matter. He seeks acceptance, not as an all powerful godlike being, but as a peer. He finds joy in the simply ordinary wonder of our world and all the people in it. He'd be happy just being Clark, but the world needs Superman and he's the only man for the job.
LunarSol wrote: The basic cycle of retcon is essentially that when kids grow up to work on comics, they go out of their way to make the comics like they remembered them when they were kids.
That... doesn't make sense. That means the next generation of writers is trying to copy the original, then the 3rd gen is trying to copy the original (since 'copy of the original' is what they grew up on) and so forth. That's just stasis and likely why DC particularly is a painful series of reboots that don't go anywhere. But that cycle doesn't require much retconning.
Retconning is often the product of specifically diverging from the source material, either because it was stupid, follows outdated social standards, technology outdates a plot element (so many comic plots are nullified by the ubiquity of cellphone cameras) or the author just plain didn't like that element. Its intentionally _not_ trying to make them as remembered.
LordofHats wrote: I actually think the broader issue with MoS is that it completely ignored Clark Kent as a mask Superman wears.
I think this is where a lot of writers get in trouble. I'll blame Tarantino for the epic speech, but writing Clark as a mask is what causes Superman to become boring. He might hide his powers as Clark, but more out of preservation for what's really important. Clark is far more of who he is than Superman. Superman is relatively aimless. He maintains the status quo but isn't looking to fundamentally change the world and actively rejects guiding the general populace or in any way interfering with their lives. Clark's dreams in life have nothing to do with his powers. He wants friends, he wants love, and significantly, he wants his words and ideas to matter. He seeks acceptance, not as an all powerful godlike being, but as a peer. He finds joy in the simply ordinary wonder of our world and all the people in it. He'd be happy just being Clark, but the world needs Superman and he's the only man for the job.
Yeah. As I know you know, the bumbling "Clark mask" hasn't really been a thing in the comics since the Crisis in the '80s. DC flipped the character then and just about every Superman writer in every medium since has followed suit. There are a couple notable exceptions, but that's because those writers wanted retro tributes (Superman Returns, All-Star Superman).
MoS is interesting because it got a lot right. I think the villains are cool and the action is very well directed and feels right to me in a way most Superman movie action doesn't. If I compare it to the previous superman movies there's no comparison, the ludicrous Lex Luthor from those movies is not anywhere near as good a villain as Zod is here.
But they screwed up the character of Clark Kent and Martha and Jonathon Kent really badly, because Snyder is a big fan of Ayn Rand and wanted to incorporate that idea into the movie, and so lost the small town heart from the character, that kind of compassion and humility that is what makes Superman likeable.
It's a shame. Because that stuff is really important to Superman.
Right, I left out the part where in the time it takes those kids to grow up, the original writers or someone similar has allowed the story to grow, often incorporating their own life experiences now that they've grown up and seek to see the characters grow along with them.
Da Boss wrote: I think that comics is fundamentally a serial medium and trying to have an arc like in a novel or a movie is a fundamental mistake.
We all consider stuff like Sandman and Watchmen classic because it follows the traditional narrative structure and therefore is very satisfying.
Serial writing can't really do that. Or if it does, it's actually a mistake, essentially that writer being selfish and messing up the status quo for the person that comes after them. A good serial writer can work within the confines and still do something interesting and entertaining while leaving the status quo alone.
If you don't do that, you end up changing the status quo to the point that it is unrecognisable to newcomers (spiderman in his forties with two kids is not the character new readers are expecting) or weighing it down with so much baggage that it becomes totally unwieldy (making a psychic clone in a jar a recurring character).
I personally think this is rather silly. I've read tons of interesting comics where the status quo wildly shifts over time, from standalone series to more serial entries (Brian K. Vaughn is a saint and has contributed heavily to both those categories). Maybe it doesn't work for headliner series where readers have expectations coming in, but for lesser-known comics I don't see any reason not to actually have the characters and their situations change over time.
LordofHats wrote:I actually think the broader issue with MoS is that it completely ignored Clark Kent as a mask Superman wears.
But Clark Kent isn't his mask - he is Clark Kent. It's just that Clark Kent happens to have incredible powers and abilities that other farm boys from Kansas don't have.
In terms of how Clark Kent identifies himself, he identifies as an Earthling first and foremost. Him being an alien isn't really that critical to his ideology or beliefs, because he was raised with good parents, with good morals, on Earth.
If you asked him for his name, the one he likely calls himself in his head, it's Clark. Not Kal-El, not Superman - Clark. Superman is just the mantle he puts on so he can keep enjoying the "normal" life he actually wants, without being guilty through inaction. Because, as another mentor put it, with great power comes great responsibility.
Fundamentally, Clark's a farm boy with a ton of power, and therefore, a responsibility to use it well.
LunarSol wrote:
LordofHats wrote: I actually think the broader issue with MoS is that it completely ignored Clark Kent as a mask Superman wears.
I think this is where a lot of writers get in trouble. I'll blame Tarantino for the epic speech, but writing Clark as a mask is what causes Superman to become boring. He might hide his powers as Clark, but more out of preservation for what's really important. Clark is far more of who he is than Superman. Superman is relatively aimless. He maintains the status quo but isn't looking to fundamentally change the world and actively rejects guiding the general populace or in any way interfering with their lives. Clark's dreams in life have nothing to do with his powers. He wants friends, he wants love, and significantly, he wants his words and ideas to matter. He seeks acceptance, not as an all powerful godlike being, but as a peer. He finds joy in the simply ordinary wonder of our world and all the people in it. He'd be happy just being Clark, but the world needs Superman and he's the only man for the job.
Da Boss wrote: MoS is interesting because it got a lot right. I think the villains are cool and the action is very well directed and feels right to me in a way most Superman movie action doesn't. If I compare it to the previous superman movies there's no comparison, the ludicrous Lex Luthor from those movies is not anywhere near as good a villain as Zod is here.
But they screwed up the character of Clark Kent and Martha and Jonathon Kent really badly, because Snyder is a big fan of Ayn Rand and wanted to incorporate that idea into the movie, and so lost the small town heart from the character, that kind of compassion and humility that is what makes Superman likeable.
It's a shame. Because that stuff is really important to Superman.
I didn't feel like that was the case. It felt more akin to a "coming out" moment than anything else, IMO. As romanticized as "small town America" is, in the Midwest it's not Mayberry.
Different can be lonely. Different can be ostracizing, not just for the individual in question...but their families too. Can't speak for anyone else, but that's the takeaway I had from the kid/manager who saw Clark saving the bus as a teenager and the fact that even years if not decades later...he's hesitant to talk about Clark being different to an outsider like Lois.
Hell, that was part of the whole bit about Clark being overwhelmed as a kid. The kids treat him differently, as though he's broken. It's why Martha goes to the school. The teacher doesn't seem to know what to do about it and the kids are just standing outside, acting like he's a freak. Like he's a monster.
I could relate more to that scared little kid than I could the kids outside, whispering about Clark being weird or broken. That's my life experience--I've been the one kids thought "broken" or "weird".
Man of Steel and the way Cavill played Clark/Superman? I could feel that hope far more than I could from Reeves. Reeves was just a padded suit with quippy one-liners and a bright color palette. It was that romanticized Midwest, where Ma and Pa Kent were idealized versions of Midwestern values.
I dunno. Maybe I'm viewing the movie through my own lens more than anything else. This was more Superman than Reeves was, for me. He's a symbol of hope. That tomorrow will be a better day.
Cavill's portrayal of Clark+Superman? That was there, even with the filters and grit.
I dunno. Maybe I'm viewing the movie through my own lens more than anything else. This was more Superman than Reeves was, for me. He's a symbol of hope. That tomorrow will be a better day.
That's definitely not the messaging I got from the current films.
Tomorrow will be worse (assuming it isn't just a pile of rubble), and it will most definitely be at least partially superman's fault.
As a symbol, a false messiah (which is really the thrust of the flailing attempts at 'deconstruction'), this superman simply attracts destroyers, and he's more than willing to share out destruction in a large radius.
If he's a broken person, he's more than willing to share that too.
Da Boss wrote: If I compare it to the previous superman movies there's no comparison, the ludicrous Lex Luthor from those movies is not anywhere near as good a villain as Zod is.
Even as a kid watching Superman: The Movie in the theaters, I couldn’t figure out how that was supposed to be Lex Luthor. The LL of the day was a mad scientist of Clark’s age (they were friends originally) who wore a purple suit and fought Superman using his inventions and weapons. The LL that came after the Crisis was an older ruthless capitalist billionaire who fought him with money and laws. (Current version blends these two). Movie Lex was an older criminal real estate developer who lived underground with two incompetent twits as henchmen. In Superman Returns Singer even doubled down on that mistake! As he’d be able to keep his precious land after people figured out what he did in either case.
Watching S:TM with my dad is an important memory for me. And Superman was already my guy, so it helped take my fandoms to 100. But the movie itself just doesn’t hold up well now, for a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with SFX etc. Great Caesar’s Ghost, what’s the message of the movie at the end? That’s it’s good to mess around with human history, screw the consequences? Or at least when his favorites are involved? Yikes.
There's good and bad things about the old Superman movies. Gene Hackman very much fits in the 'bad' I think. The endings are another thing too...
I think what people are able to do now is separate the various elements of the films out from the overall mess. - I can't help but think one day someone is going to do a documentary about Donner versus Salkind as a mirror to Snyder (after all there was 'The Donner Cut' of Superman II).
Ultimately though, there were things that were really good in the Reeve films, that people can pull out from the mess. Just like there are elements, even now, that can be pulled out from the Snyder films.
Trying to be positive again.... Flight is an amazing sequence in Man of Steel, as was the Warehouse scene in BVS, and of course, Alfred and Diana. I'd also say Perry, what little we saw of him, was good too.
But going back to Reeve films, there is still so much good in them. From Lois as the walking whirlwind to Pa Kent's scene that brings tears to my eyes every time I see it.
And the thing is... I think Henry Cavill could do this too, he could be as great - we see flashes of it through the movies, such as during the 'Flight' sequence.
He just needs to be given a director and a script that will let him. Actually let him be a modern mix.
Now, I can pretty much guess that most people aren't fans of the CW shows, but I think their version of Clark does manage to give off the '78 vibe, but still manages to play it more straightly, like people would expect of a modern incarnation (although, it is of course worth pointing out that Lois made fun of Superman in the 1978 movie of being old fashioned too).
I think, given the right director and opportunity, Cavill's Superman can come closer to this feel to make people like me happier, but still not lose all elements of the Snyder style.
gorgon wrote: If you actually watch the film, it makes the point multiple times that Clark is helping people during his travels.
Angstily wandering the earth is not an element of the Superman character and turning Papa Kent into Uncle Ben (but completely uninspiring) is not an improvement.
what more should the creators have done?
Told a story about a troubled but trying person and not a wangsty teenager's idea of how a troubled but trying person behaves. If you have to montage to opening, then there's already a problem. Montages are for abridging events that are important to know happened but would be tedious show in detail. It's a horrible way to provide characterization but that's more a nitpick against the movie than anything.
I suspect that you're solely focused on the boss battle. Fine...but there's a lot of movie before that.
I think your confusing me with someone else. I said nothing about the boss battle and honestly have no opinion on it one way or the other (I think the arguments about it ignore that 'Superman doesn't kill' has always been a loose rule when it comes to the character, who has in fact killed people over his publication history). In context, it's also just a bizarre obsession, cause Zod was literally threatening genocide and I've never seen anyone complain about the thought of Hitler getting one between the eyes. With the destruction shown in the movie not killing Zod in that moment would have been bizarre*. The movie achieved mediocrity well before that scene imo. I think the scene probably could have worked, but the rest of the movie was such a heartless sell I couldn't care one way or the other by the time it came up. The movie was a weak take on Superman.
*Then again, if he hadn't I think people would complain about that instead. The scene isn't really the problem with the movie. The problem with the movie is that it's on the dull side. The ending becomes a hate sink because it's the last thing a lot of the audience remembers from it. Everything else is really rather forgettable beyond the description "and then there were explosions."
And are you saying that Clark should be feeling human emotions or not?
Disappearing for years because your dad died is not a normal human reaction. It's melodramatic swill, and it's bizarre in MoS because Superman has never been Spiderman so I don't know why Uncle Ben was killed, am unconvinced that that whole plot point actually paid off in any meaningful way, and I think Snyder thinks edgy teenager behavior is deeper than it really is. I'd almost accuse the people behind MoS of thinking they had to imitate the tone Nolan's Batman trilogy to the darkest edginess, where the edges sticking out everywhere weren't so much a strength as an annoyance people who liked those movies were willing to overlook. It helped that being Batman made dark and edgy sort of a 'comes with the territory' deal, but dark and edgy Superman is a weird take on what is normally Batman's optimistic counterpart.
Feeling like an outsider, searching for his place in the world, being regretful about his failings, etc....isn't that a very human Kal-El?
Very. It's a shame it's completely hand waved away in both movies. Overbearing amounts of angst are not deep or insightful. If the point was to present Clark as struggling to find his place in the world, both movies completely failed. MoS montages that entire bit and then throws it aside to get going on the main plot. BvS was too confused and convoluted plot wise to ever offer much for it.
writing Clark as a mask is what causes Superman to become boring.
Disagree. When DC threw this aspect of the character out the window is when the character started floundering and Superman has struggled to find footing ever since. Clark Kent is central to the Superman character. The dissolution of that to simply tell stories about Superman being super is tantamount to Batman suddenly deciding his parent's being dead is an unimportant factoid of his life rather than it's defining element.
LunarSol wrote: The basic cycle of retcon is essentially that when kids grow up to work on comics, they go out of their way to make the comics like they remembered them when they were kids.
That... doesn't make sense. That means the next generation of writers is trying to copy the original, then the 3rd gen is trying to copy the original (since 'copy of the original' is what they grew up on) and so forth. That's just stasis and likely why DC particularly is a painful series of reboots that don't go anywhere. But that cycle doesn't require much retconning.
Retconning is often the product of specifically diverging from the source material, either because it was stupid, follows outdated social standards, technology outdates a plot element (so many comic plots are nullified by the ubiquity of cellphone cameras) or the author just plain didn't like that element. Its intentionally _not_ trying to make them as remembered.
The editor in chief of DC is on record having actually said he was doing that. He says"keep the classic characters classic. Do new stuff with the new characters". It's why Hal Jordan is green lantern again instead of all the paralax going mad and killing everyone then becoming the specter thing. They had moved way past Hal with Kyle Raynor for years until he took over.
Da Boss wrote: If I compare it to the previous superman movies there's no comparison, the ludicrous Lex Luthor from those movies is not anywhere near as good a villain as Zod is.
Even as a kid watching Superman: The Movie in the theaters, I couldn’t figure out how that was supposed to be Lex Luthor. The LL of the day was a mad scientist of Clark’s age (they were friends originally) who wore a purple suit and fought Superman using his inventions and weapons. The LL that came after the Crisis was an older ruthless capitalist billionaire who fought him with money and laws. (Current version blends these two). Movie Lex was an older criminal real estate developer who lived underground with two incompetent twits as henchmen. In Superman Returns Singer even doubled down on that mistake! As he’d be able to keep his precious land after people figured out what he did in either case.
I loved the Gene Hackman Lex. But then, I'd read few Superman comics and none of them had Lex in. Superman at the time was pretty ridiculous. Making giant vacuum cleaners at super speed to suck up toxic clouds, etc.
Sure, there was a bunch of laughs at Otis' expense ("he spotted those catlike reflexes"/"It's not that I don't trust you....... I don't trust you") but I remember the dialogue of the high frequency message to lure Superman to his lair and the kryptonite, laden with contempt for Superman's world view.
Reading 'Lex' stories later on, in his awful outfit that in retrospect looks like an even worse version of Buzz Lightyear and Dr Evil, I couldn't understand who this creature was. But I guess if you come late to a character, without 'growing up' with them the ludicrousness is more apparent.
There has been recent things with the idea of Clark 'wandering the Earth,' I think that's been most well done with 'Superman: Birthright.'
But, it's handled differently, it's very done as a 'I'm trying to find my place in the world, figuring out how best to help people, what I can do.'
But it's done in a completely different way. Birthrights wander is about Clark meeting new people, understanding the world, building connections with all of humanity.
As opposed to being the grumpy silent guy at the back of the boat that doesn't really speak with people.
The culmination of Birthright, is Clark, in his capacity as a roving reporter meets and becomes friends with a Nelson Mandela type figure in Africa. This person becomes a local symbol of hope and inspiration for people in his country. He's then killed and its from this that Clark gets the idea that he can be a symbol of hope, one that can't be ended with a bullet.
So, it's a very similar factual events but the symbolism behind it is completely different.
Snyder seems to have taken wikipedia page of Injustice and gone, 'oh, Lois and Martha the only people he cares about in the world' without realising that Injustice is a darker world with not-our-Superman, and even then it involved:
1) Him being directly responsible for Lois', and his childs, death.
2) Everyone in the Daily Planet, all his friends, all his coworkers dying as a result.
3) In fact, all of Metropolis dying.
I'm not a super comic fan I'd read a couple, I knew who Captain America, Iron Man, Falcon, Black Widow and a few others were. I'd read some DC but not nearly as much. My "go to" was Grifter and Wild C. A. T. S. I enjoyed enough most of the Superman movies and enjoyed the hell out of all the Batman movies, even the ones with armour nipples.
I hadn't watched Smallville or any Arrow verse (but my kid watches Teen Titans Go and I find it a nice show like Justice Friends should have been).
I *hated* BvS so didn't have high hopes for JL. It was soso. It was ok but not a good ensemble movie, the heroes overlapped too much and the story was mediocre. I'd like to see the Snyder cut to see if it could improve the story like the Highlander 2 directors cut did.
I'm not expecting a major new story put together from the bits and the acting of some characters was atrocious.
gorgon wrote: If you actually watch the film, it makes the point multiple times that Clark is helping people during his travels.
Angstily wandering the earth is not an element of the Superman character and turning Papa Kent into Uncle Ben (but completely uninspiring) is not an improvement.
But he WASN'T wandering the earth to be 'angsty'. He was searching for information about where he came from. It makes some sense to me...he couldn't fly yet but by moving around his vision and hearing abilities could be pretty handy. We have to presume that something led him to Alaska, because he's there for a while and it's there that he gets the tip about the Kryptonian scout ship in the ice. When he returns to Smallville and greets Martha, that's what that conversation is about. "I found them!"
I'm genuinely perplexed that you'd watch the film and think he's just walking around randomly for no reason. Then stumbles across the key information while working at a random dive bar in the middle of nowhere? When we watch a piece of entertainment, some of the connective tissue is on us. If we refuse to do that, then almost anything we watch is going to seem random and dumb.
Also...Clark traveling the world and doing some stuff before becoming Superman has been part of the mythos for decades now. It's been in the comics and had some live action mentions IIRC.
Da Boss wrote: If I compare it to the previous superman movies there's no comparison, the ludicrous Lex Luthor from those movies is not anywhere near as good a villain as Zod is.
Even as a kid watching Superman: The Movie in the theaters, I couldn’t figure out how that was supposed to be Lex Luthor. The LL of the day was a mad scientist of Clark’s age (they were friends originally) who wore a purple suit and fought Superman using his inventions and weapons. The LL that came after the Crisis was an older ruthless capitalist billionaire who fought him with money and laws. (Current version blends these two). Movie Lex was an older criminal real estate developer who lived underground with two incompetent twits as henchmen. In Superman Returns Singer even doubled down on that mistake! As he’d be able to keep his precious land after people figured out what he did in either case.
I loved the Gene Hackman Lex. But then, I'd read few Superman comics and none of them had Lex in. Superman at the time was pretty ridiculous. Making giant vacuum cleaners at super speed to suck up toxic clouds, etc.
Sure, there was a bunch of laughs at Otis' expense ("he spotted those catlike reflexes"/"It's not that I don't trust you....... I don't trust you") but I remember the dialogue of the high frequency message to lure Superman to his lair and the kryptonite, laden with contempt for Superman's world view.
Reading 'Lex' stories later on, in his awful outfit that in retrospect looks like an even worse version of Buzz Lightyear and Dr Evil, I couldn't understand who this creature was. But I guess if you come late to a character, without 'growing up' with them the ludicrousness is more apparent.
I appreciate Hackman's performance. And even as a kid I'm not sure that I needed him to be in the purple suit. Comic LL at the time was driven more by a vendetta against Superman that came from when they were teens, and that doesn't work well for various reasons. But movie Lex was just trying to make money in real estate...really violently. He's like some kind of failed version of the corporate Lex that came later in the comics. That Lex would have made his money in real estate through brains and yes, some violence...but no nuking fault lines required. Maybe it's important to consider that the guy who wrote the story was primarily known for Mafia crime novels.
gorgon wrote: But he WASN'T wandering the earth to be 'angsty'. He was searching for information about where he came from.
I think he was being angsty XD
I'm genuinely perplexed that you'd watch the film and think he's just walking around randomly for no reason
I didn't say there was no reason. I think the reason is dumb. Turn papa kent into a backwards Uncle Ben and Clark is sad and searching for answers? If you want to make that the point of the movie you could probably get away with it, but that got handwaved off about 40 minutes in so the whole thing was really just a waste of time that preceded things exploding and Supes trying to save the world. Even then it's not what I'd expect from the Superman character.
I'd also point out how it foreshadowed how incredibly one-note most of DC's current LA films and characters are. The entire DCU has this problem of confuse edgy teenagers for adults. I could actually buy it in Wonder Woman cause she's an Amazon and maybe the whole immortality thing means she doesn't grow out of that immaturity as fast, but I really started getting tired of it before MoS was even thirty minutes into the movie. I watch anime. I don't need more angst playing out on screen. The only movie it really works in in Shazam! and Shazam actually is about an edgy teenager so it's not nearly as groan inducing for me. I feel like this rounds back to an earlier suggestion I made that mainstream comic books have a demographic problem. They want to appeal to a wider audience, but they continually bind themselves to being juvenile entertainment and it would really help if they picked a lane. You can't be mainstream comics and the deconstructive comics Snyder loves so much, so the DCU has this constant tonal problem where it acts like its making some kind of commentary and has an intelligent stream to it, but it's too mired in melodrama to really make any of that coherent or meaningful.
When we watch a piece of entertainment, some of the connective tissue is on us. If we refuse to do that, then almost anything we watch is going to seem random and dumb.
True. It's especially hard to buy into it when what we're watching actually is random and dumb. MoS was random and dumb.
Also...Clark traveling the world and doing some stuff before becoming Superman has been part of the mythos for decades now.
Compel wrote: Snyder seems to have taken wikipedia page of Injustice and gone, 'oh, Lois and Martha the only people he cares about in the world' without realising that Injustice is a darker world with not-our-Superman, and even then it involved:
Jimmy Olsen is arguably a more important to Clark's character than Lois Lane in that regard.
I have a hard time disagreeing with that too. - Of course, Jimmy also got shot in the head and killed by the Joker in Injustice, in like the.... 3rd panel?
It was *exceptionally* early.
Of course, Snyder doesn't even acknowledge Jimmy's existence, except the BVS Ultimate Cut, where he never even meets Clark, and is a secret CIA spy that dies immediately after meeting Lois.
Funnily enough I rewatched the Ultimate Cut this week in preparation of the Snyder Cut, and I had a similar thought.
I do wonder if somewhere out there in Snyder world there's a James Olsen still covering local dog shows, yet to land his dream job at the Planet and meet Lois and Clark, and completely unaware his identity was stolen by a CIA black operative.
Compel wrote: I have a hard time disagreeing with that too. - Of course, Jimmy also got shot in the head and killed by the Joker in Injustice, in like the.... 3rd panel?
It was *exceptionally* early.
Of course, Snyder doesn't even acknowledge Jimmy's existence, except the BVS Ultimate Cut, where he never even meets Clark, and is a secret CIA spy that dies immediately after meeting Lois.
I would absolutely *lay money* that Snyder's pitch to the studio for the DCEU (remember that MoS was the Nolans' idea and not explicitly the launch of a 'universe'...in fact they never liked that concept) was that Injustice would be a big influence. You can see it all over BvS and his original plans for JL...in which Lois would die and then Clark would succumb to the Anti-Life Equation and turn evil. Hell, you can see it in the costumes. I'm sure the studio ate it up considering how popular that sub-franchise was.
Then at what point did the studio start to ask...um...is this really what we wanted? LOL. When they started getting dailies? At the first screening? From what I've read, even a little before the release of BvS the studio was asking him to change his JL plans. And getting this back on topic, what we're going to get on HBO Max isn't really Snyder's ORIGINAL story. This was what he shot after the studio demanded changes. The LIGHTER version, LOL. Then the studio still didn't like what they saw, which is when Snyder was fired and Whedon brought on board to overhaul it.
I feel like...everyone involved was wrong? The studio meddling was beyond belief, and they should have known Snyder. And yet Snyder seemed to make those films for an audience of one. That's partly on the studio for putting Snyder in charge...but don't you have to know that your bosses need 'four-quadrant' films? Kids watching and asking their parents for toys? For the franchise to have legs that can't be there if half the characters get capped? Jay Baruchel once called BvS "the world's most expensive indy film', and he's right! It was Snyder with $250 million being allowed to make a movie for himself.
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Kanluwen wrote: Man of Steel had "Jenny", that was actually supposed to fill the role of a young, aspiring newsperson.
I've always wondered if Jimmy Olsen in BvS was supposed to be just a spy who used a forged identity.
I feel confident that was Snyder's take on Jimmy and that he was happy to cap him. I mean, he said that intended the dead Robin to be Dick. But Chris McKay was pitching a Nightwing film to the studio around that time. So I think that's why BvS made it unclear which Robin it was. But Snyder was fine with removing Grayson from DCEU. It's that stuff that I can't get my head around.
Regarding Jimmy, would that have been the retcon after a mild reboot under a different director? Yeah, probably.
gorgon wrote: I feel like...everyone involved was wrong?
I think that the first few DCU entries absolute and very visibly suffered from a case of "too many hands on the wheel trying to steer the ship." It helped absolutely nothing (I'd hazard to guess that MoS lackluster performance, and then nervousness leading to the release of BvS made the suits super nervous about what they'd gotten into). It's especially glaring in Batman v Superman and Justice League, then Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Shazam! feel like they're three different styles of film making. Aquaman was very corporate driven, Wonder Woman very collaborative between execs and the directing team, and Shazam! was somewhat hands off where the creative team was left to their own devices. Not sure if or when they'll figure out what they want to do. Of those movies, Shazam! is the only one I'd call unquestionably good, but none of them were bad and they were all better than Snyder's obsession with the edge. WW1984 was a mess of a movie but the COVID.
Snyder's Justice League I think is definitely a mix of a vanity project on Snyder's part (This is how it should have been!) and some boardrooms noticing that they can probably make money off the deal regardless of whether it's any good or not, since most of the footage already exists and all they'll have to pay for is some extra post-production and marketing.
I think that the first few DCU entries absolute and very visibly suffered from a case of "too many hands on the wheel trying to steer the ship."
It helps to remember the timing:
June 28, 2006 Superman Returns
May 4, 2007 Spider-Man 3
May 2, 2008 Iron Man
June 13, 2008 The Incredible Hulk
July 14, 2008 The Dark Knight
May 7, 2010 Iron Man 2
May 6, 2011 Thor
June 17, 2011 Green Lantern
July 22, 2011 Captain America: The First Avenger
May 4, 2012 Marvel's The Avengers
July 20, 2012 The Dark Knight Rises
May 3, 2013 Iron Man 3
June 14, 2013 Man of Steel
November 8, 2013 Thor: The Dark World
April 4, 2014 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
August 1, 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy
So, at the dawn of the MCU, DC had a successful competitor. Iron Man was super exciting and got people talking about this march to an Avengers movie, but the story of the summer was The Dark Knight. DC had a winner in its own style. It's also pretty clear that Green Lantern was developed as a more direct answer to Iron Man. It takes a similar styled character (arrogant guy who flies around shooting lasers) who similarly hasn't had a lot of public exposure and has the opportunity to really explode and is very similar to the early MCU films in terms of pacing and tone. It's failing seems to have pushed DC towards going more with what works and at the time we were all desperate for Nolan's follow up, so its not like DC was failing in their niche. A Nolan style Superman had been in the works since The Dark Knight succeeded where Superman Returns failed.
Then Avengers absolutely explodes and DKR by comparison doesn't fail by any means, but definitely doesn't stand up to the competition. When Man of Steel doesn't totally work either, DC finds themselves way too far behind to catch up and goes into full catchup mode, committing to a huge slate of films basically to meet shareholder demands. The bet on the table here is pretty clear. Mash together two of the most successful comics in DC's entire history under the vision of the guy who had successfully adopted the other big DC title and follow it up by beating Marvel to the punch with the original version of Thanos in the sequel. It's really not until BvS experienced one of the biggest second week drop offs ever that we saw things go completely off the rails. At this point Justice League was in flight. Filming was starting for the first of two films based on a movie that got rejected pretty hard by the public. From here on everything is basically a mix of salvage efforts, trend chasing and damage control. I sincerely doubt things would have gone better had Snyder's family tragedy not pulled him away. It's possible the Snyder cut will redeem the film; but I I think that might have a lot to do with the benefit of hindsight at this point.
Yeah. As we've discussed, the problem was the lack of agility. They'd put all their eggs in one basket and gave themselves no time to course-correct.
I saw your mention of trend-chasing. FWIW, I heard that the studio found the characters that audience-tested best in JL were WW, Aquaman, and Flash. Bats and Supes were at the bottom. I can't remember what was said about Cyborg, but I think the top three were clearly those I mentioned. Harley Quinn in SS tested off the charts, IIRC. And which films happened and which didn't?
Sure, a WW sequel was a given, but the studio gave Jenkins creative control and let her keep it. Aquaman was already in the works and Wan had control and a big budget...but those things didn't stop them on JL with Snyder. Birds of Prey happened in order to feature Harley. Flash seems like a cursed project with a recently controversial star that fans don't seem to be clamoring for, yet WB keeps trying to push it forward. Meanwhile, Batman was rebooted (Affleck had something to do with this, but still), and Henry Cavill will probably never get a MoS sequel. The studio's gotten pitches for MoS2 from good directors and writers...they just haven't bitten. Shazam, the character who was sued into oblivion for being a Superman ripoff, got a film while the actual Superman character is sidelined indefinitely...Cavill or no Cavill.
To me, this reeks of letting audience tests, social media reactions, etc. drive the enterprise instead of good creative management. (Hmm...maybe it's not a coincidence that Cavill's management has him so active on social media.) Course corrections are a legit thing, but I'm not convinced that WB has been reading the room well at any step. So much probably would have been different if they'd immediately given MoS a sequel, perhaps under a different director. MoS was divisive, but I think it's important to note that Batman Begins wasn't wildly embraced by everyone either. But it broke some eggs that needed to be broken and set the stage for a superior sequel. And I get the sense that opinions about MoS actually have softened with time even without a sequel. The studio just need to keep the faith, stay patient and make small corrections and good decisions.
Birds of Prey happened in order to feature Harley.
It also seemed quite notable that the early stuff for that film made it seem like, well, an actual Birds of Prey film, and it shifted over time to the Harley-'sploitation film it ended up as.
The studio just need to keep the faith, stay patient and make small corrections and good decisions.
They mostly just need to make good films, rather than drek. Its _really_ bizarre to watch a studio consistently misjudge the general audience when other studios can just sleepwalk their way to billions with really basic formulas.
Birds of Prey happened in order to feature Harley.
It also seemed quite notable that the early stuff for that film made it seem like, well, an actual Birds of Prey film, and it shifted over time to the Harley-'sploitation film it ended up as.
The movie struck me as yet again another film with too many hands on the wheel (I always forget it happened...).
There were two films in this movie;
-An ensemble film with several characters who could be spun off into future movies (Black Canary, Huntress, The Question, etc).
-A Harly Quinn centric movie in the vein of Dead Pool.
And when thrown together those two things kind of beat each other over the head, and I'm not even sure why the first thing was a thing at all. The Birds of Prey aren't even B-list in super hero circles, they're a really niche thing. If they wanted to make something Harley centric but that could be spined into future films they would have been better off focusing on Harley and Poison Ivy, who remain a popular pair of characters for numerous reasons (and the Harley Quinn animated series did this to great success). And paradoxically, I don't think Harley has ever even been associated with the Birds of Prey team, though she runs in the same circles as many characters who have been.
They mostly just need to make good films, rather than drek. Its _really_ bizarre to watch a studio consistently misjudge the general audience when other studios can just sleepwalk their way to billions with really basic formulas.
I've pointed out many times over the years that DC wants Avengers money and they want it now. Something that's hard to do when you're completely unwilling to put in the work necessary to build the foundation for such a film.
Birds of Prey happened in order to feature Harley.
It also seemed quite notable that the early stuff for that film made it seem like, well, an actual Birds of Prey film, and it shifted over time to the Harley-'sploitation film it ended up as.
The movie struck me as yet again another film with too many hands on the wheel (I always forget it happened...).
There were two films in this movie;
-An ensemble film with several characters who could be spun off into future movies (Black Canary, Huntress, The Question, etc).
-A Harly Quinn centric movie in the vein of Dead Pool.
And when thrown together those two things kind of beat each other over the head, and I'm not even sure why the first thing was a thing at all. The Birds of Prey aren't even B-list in super hero circles, they're a really niche thing. If they wanted to make something Harley centric but that could be spined into future films they would have been better off focusing on Harley and Poison Ivy, who remain a popular pair of characters for numerous reasons (and the Harley Quinn animated series did this to great success). And paradoxically, I don't think Harley has ever even been associated with the Birds of Prey team, though she runs in the same circles as many characters who have been.
They mostly just need to make good films, rather than drek. Its _really_ bizarre to watch a studio consistently misjudge the general audience when other studios can just sleepwalk their way to billions with really basic formulas.
I've pointed out many times over the years that DC wants Avengers money and they want it now. Something that's hard to do when you're completely unwilling to put in the work necessary to build the foundation for such a film.
It also doesn't help they don't have a singular vision that Kevin Feige helped set with the MCU, so alongside the cash-grab attempts to follow the trend set by Marvel, they have competing and conflicting ideas for what the universe should look like that is dictated by the public reception of each movie they release. It's no wonder they keep creating Frankenstein monster movies.
They should model it after how the DCAU was run, with people like Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and the like who actually get the characters.
Yeah, that's true too. While the Animated stuff has had a few stinkers (some of which are just inevitable given what they're based on, like Killing Joke, or the weirder crossovers/ non-standard genre stuff), they're consistently good to great, while the live action films are just lost in the woods. Someone from the animated side needs to sit down and give basic lessons in filmcraft.
One of the bonuses of the animated films is that they're almost entirely self-contained. Only a few actually reference other films and you could not know those other films exist and it wouldn't make a difference.
Voss wrote: They mostly just need to make good films, rather than drek. Its _really_ bizarre to watch a studio consistently misjudge the general audience when other studios can just sleepwalk their way to billions with really basic formulas.
Let's be fair...WW, Aquaman, Shazam, Joker is a pretty solid group. All were very profitable (something like $3.2 billion total box office there) and solidly reviewed or better. Birds of Prey wasn't my jam, but critics liked it. The Batman and The Suicide Squad look promising. it isn't all bad.
But they're going to get a WW84 here and there since they gave up on a centrally controlled, tightknit universe. WB's history is that they're a hands-off studio. The director's studio. They were like that with Snyder at first, then went the other way, and now are back to trusting directors...just not one director to rule them all. This plan has its weaknesses too, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the keys on the bigger budget stuff are being handled to directors like Wan, Reeves, Gunn, etc...those who have shown that they can shepherd a franchise. Each of those guys basically has his own mini-franchise under the DC banner.
Cathy Yan is probably pretty talented. But BoP was her first franchise-type film and it showed. WB even brought in John Wick's director to help her (nothing to be ashamed of in itself...Marvel does this stuff also) add and choreograph some action sequences to fill it out, and it still felt thin to me. I just don't think there was much there beyond "It's Harley!". Wan, Gunn, and company know how to make big movies. Jenkins is a good director too...even great directors lay eggs sometimes. But that's going to be the DC experience going forward...highs and lows.
LordofHats wrote: One of the bonuses of the animated films is that they're almost entirely self-contained. Only a few actually reference other films and you could not know those other films exist and it wouldn't make a difference.
That is always an option.
One of the big secrets of the MCU is that they’re almost entirely self contained as well.
LunarSol wrote: One of the big secrets of the MCU is that they’re almost entirely self contained as well.
Well yeah, but anyone who has watched one can tell there are other movies. The MCU is built on the idea that there are other movies and they don't hide it. Most individual films function just fine on their own, but the MCU makes no attempt to hide or obscure that it's a huge series. The DC animated films are rarely interconnected and those that are are so loosely connected it doesn't really matter aside from a line of dialogue or two. That gives the animated films a degree of freedom that I think benefits them. Not having to worry about a unified continuity lets the characters malleably shift to meet the tone and style of the current story, and a single movie can toy around with stuff and not worry about how it'll affect future movies.
AduroT wrote: The DC animated films were just as connected as the MCU. They were building on and referencing each other quite frequently.
They most certainly are not.
A few of them are connected, like Justice League vs Titans and Judas Contract and both movies have a continuity with Son of Batman. All three happen after Justice League War. Hell to Pay is a sequel to Assault on Arkham (though you'd only know it from the premise and a line or two of dialogue). They're seriously exceptions. Out of the three dozen some animated films they've released in the last 15 years, maybe 1/3 share any continuity with each other and most of them coincide with the last DC reboot.
Superman: Unbound. Superman vs. The Elite. All-Star Superman. Red Son. Gods and Monsters. Bad Blood. Killing Joke. Under the Red Hood. Hush. None of these movies seem to share any continuity with one another. Several of them are themselves based on stand-alone comics, or stories from different iterations of the DC comics universe. The overwhelming majority of the animated films are clearly not intended to be a 'shared universe.' One of the more recent ones actually seems to be intended as a loose sort of sequel to Justice League Unlimited, bringing back a lot of the old cast and animation style (though clearly never referencing the one JLU episode that dealt with the Legion of Superheroes, so it's really more a spiritual sequel than a literal one).
AduroT wrote: After Justice League War came out they were explicitly an EU baring a few exceptions.
Yeah and Apokolips War is the most recent continuation of that string, but along side it we've got five other movies that aren't related to it at all (and that's just from the last year or so). The EU films are the exception outside of 2015-2017, when most of the movies they released were connected to it. In the past 4 years they released a little over a dozen movies. Only 4 shared continuity with prior films.
It's this run that people are talking about...the 'DCAMU':
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Justice League: War
Son of Batman
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Batman vs. Robin
Batman: Bad Blood
Justice League vs. Teen Titans
Justice League Dark
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
The Death of Superman
Constantine: City of Demons - The Movie
Reign of the Supermen
Batman: Husha
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War
The creators viewed it as a 'universe' and it's obviously at least loosely connected to anyone watching them. The Darkseid and Damian Wayne arcs are definitely connective tissue, if nothing else.
Broadly speaking, the animated films over the past 15 years or so can be split between 'Elseworldsesque' style movies and a MCU style canon called the DC Animated Movie Universe, with Flash acting as a bridge between old and new universes.
<Older movies, eg Superman: Doomsday, Crisis on Two Earths>
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Justice League: War
Son of Batman
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Batman vs. Robin
Batman: Bad Blood
Justice League vs. Teen Titans
Justice League Dark
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay (Direct relationship to Flashpoint Paradox)
The Death of Superman
Constantine: City of Demons (ish, unofficial, done by The CW)
Reign of the Supermen
Batman: Hush
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War
<Possibly the new JSA movie.... Possibly>
Variuos other movies are functionally standalone or tie into other settings, like the JLU-ish ones (EG Justice League: The Fatal Five. Batman & Harley Quinn... Maybe, that's a weird one). This also includes, for example, Superman Red Son and Gotham By Gaslight.
gorgon wrote: The Darkseid and Damian Wayne arcs are definitely connective tissue, if nothing else.
A few of them are tied together by Flashpoint Paradox, though I think you could watch those ones and never know it. Which is really why I again point out it's different from the MCU. The MCU constantly and overtly references other films in the MCU. You couldn't watch a Phase 2 MCU film without being reminded there was an Avengers movie that happened before it, and then the same thing happened after Age of Ultron. In the DC animated films that share continuity, you could watch them and never know it half the time because the only strings tying them together are vague or loosely alluded to (this struck me as a purposeful design choice cause it makes it easier to sell these movies Direct to DVD with minimal advertisement). Some of them actually become effectively stand-alone if you cut Damien Wayne out of them because his character arc is the only shared string in a couple. A few are only strung together by references to Wonder Woman and Superman dating and that's literally the only thing connecting them.
I mean, 'these movies are unrelated except for the things, events and characters that relate the movies' is certainly a stance to take...
People can quite happily enjoy the Ant-Man movies in isolation, or the Guardians movies. You don't need to watch the Iron Man trilogy, plus Avengers 1+2, plus Civil War, to enjoy Spider-Man Homecoming. - At worst, you just need to have the cultural osmosis that there's a guy called Tony Stark that exists.
I’m guessing the recent Superman and Batman movies where they’re just starting out are the beginning of the new continuety, and the upcoming JL movie with a future Flash is establishing the starting point in a kind of prequel move. I’ll be incredibly surprised if Flash isn’t arriving from immediately when he left in Apokalypse.
I think right now, it's just simply really ambiguous, quite possibly intentionally so.
I'd say 'Soul of the Dragon' is supposed to be its own continuity as a love letter to Bruce Li films, that may have its own sequels.
'Man of Tomorrow' could also just be entirely its own thing, or it could be a prequel like you say. - To bring it all back on topic again, much like Man of Steel was supposed to be.
We won't know with the JSA movie until we see it I think, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also make it intentionally ambiguous and leave it up to people to decide, is Barry running back in time from the previous film series, or is he just doing a Barry.
Like, they could literally leave it as, "I ran back in time, I didn't mean to be here" and that's all the explanation there is.
Compel wrote: People can quite happily enjoy the Ant-Man movies in isolation, or the Guardians movies. You don't need to watch the Iron Man trilogy, plus Avengers 1+2, plus Civil War, to enjoy Spider-Man Homecoming. - At worst, you just need to have the cultural osmosis that there's a guy called Tony Stark that exists.
Yeah, but you can't watch Ant-Man 2 without knowing there's an Ant-Man 1. The second movie is completely predicated by the first, even if the second can stand on it's own.
In comparison, you could watch Superman Doomsday, and never know there are any other related movies. Doomsday never brings up the events of past films. The only thread actually connecting it to any of them is a minor plot point that Superman and Wonder Woman used to date, which was shown in a prior a movie. It's literally the only thing that strings the films together.
It's a difference between an overt continuity where the audience is assumed to have watched other films in the franchise (but is not required to) and an almost Easter egg like reference to another movie that exists. I don't know why this distinction is hard to understand except that I'm maybe not explaining it very well. Actually
I think right now, it's just simply really ambiguous, quite possibly intentionally so.
This! This is kind of what I mean to get at. The movies we're talking about are a single continuity yes (except for the ones that obviously aren't), but that continuity is really ambiguous. It's not like the MCU, where there are these big events in certain movies that other movies are intended to follow through on or deal with consequences of. Homecoming directly responds to Avengers with smaller but still important connections to Iron Man 3 and Civil War. You know those movies exist and happened in Homecoming, even if Homecoming works fine on its own. The DC animated films are connected by vaguer strings, which makes the continuity of the films more ambiguous (which does seem like a purposeful choice on the part of the people making them).
Superman Doomsday was made in 2007, several years before the Flashpoint / N52 Continuity (What most people refer to as the DCAMU), Superman and Wonder Woman did not date in that movie.
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox - Introduced N52 Batman at the end of the film.
Justice League: War - Starred N52 Batman
Son of Batman - Starred N52 Batman, introduced Damien Wayne and N52 Deathstroke
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis - Starred N52 Batman
Batman vs. Robin - Starred N52 Batman
Batman: Bad Blood - Starred N52 Batman
Justice League vs. Teen Titans - Starred N52 Batman and Damien Wayne and the N52 Justice League
Justice League Dark - Starred N52 Batman and Constantine and the N52 Justice League
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract - Starred Damien Wayne
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay - Direct relationship to Flashpoint Paradox, as a significant plot point of the movie
The Death of Superman - Had the entire N52 Justice League, continued plot from JL: War
Constantine: City of Demons (ish, unofficial, done by The CW)
Reign of the Supermen - Had the entire N52 Justice League, continued plot from JL: War
Batman: Hush - Starred N52 Batman, in his N52 Batman suit, that he then changes out of and into the Hush comic inspired suit.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines - Direct prequel to JL:War
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War - Is literally the 'Endgame' of the DC Animated Movie Universe, highlighting characters from the various narrative threads of Justice League Dark, Superman, Damien Wayne and Raven.
I really don't know how to more explicitly make this point anymore. It also has very little to do with the Snyder Cut.
Sorry. I'm thinking of Death of Superman. It's weird because its the only one they've remade XD (EDIT: And that new one that just rehashes Red Hood but that one's really lame XD)
AduroT wrote: The Red Hood one doesn’t Just rehash Red Hood, it’s got a few additional short stories in there as well, some of which were pretty good.
Yeah, but it wasn't worth buying for what little new material was in it (not at release price anyway). I also think it ended up being like Killing Joke, where it had these plot threads that existed but didn't really come together, though at least it was never as cringy as the first half of Killing Joke and it had better animation. I'd rank it though in the bottom five of the animated films. Maybe even at the very bottom if not for the weird Batman ones, Ninja and Gaslight? I really didn't like either of those (and I feel like I should have liked them :/).
Gaslight was pretty alright. Ninja is Garbage. Just the lowest of the low. You start watching it and you’re like wow, this is pretty bad, but trust me, it gets worse and worse as the movie goes on.
Compel wrote: I think we're going to be seeing lots of good stuff from Sam Liu in the future.
I can see him being a rising star.
Sam Liu has been around for a few decades now. He did the original crisp line art for the Cyberpunk rpg back in 1988 (and some was reused for 2020).
One of the other artists used to do graphic design work for LFL (and also worked on Shadows of the empire).
Storyboards (including some cool art from Jim Lee) have leaked that break down Snyder's *original* plans for JL2 and 3. It's...um...interesting. It's not all bad and it certainly has an epic sweep...I just don't know where some of Snyder's choices come from.
They can be found here, at least for now...WB may take them down.
I'll hold my hand up and say I've only skim read it...
But that ending... Yikes. Big Yikes. Nope, just nope. I do not like that.
I might have misread the general flow, but it kind of seems like it's 3(? I didn't understand the 2 and 2a thing) films made out of the 'Justice League: War' movie, with added timey-wimeyness and general Snyderishness.
gorgon wrote: Storyboards (including some cool art from Jim Lee) have leaked that break down Snyder's *original* plans for JL2 and 3. It's...um...interesting. It's not all bad and it certainly has an epic sweep...I just don't know where some of Snyder's choices come from.
They can be found here, at least for now...WB may take them down.
I think I’m fine with all of that, save the Bruce/Lois/Supes love triangle. Though now, the team losing and using time travel to undo their loss has already been done by the other guys.
Ahtman wrote: Well...that was certainly...something.
Uh...yeah, right?
@Compel -- his original idea was three movies. Which became two, and then one after BvS happened and the studio lost their gak. At least I think that's the play-by-play.
Snyder is a REALLY talented director. I love MoS, although again that was really the Nolans' baby that he directed. But man...some of the choices in those boards. Just...why...does he *have* to do things that will p*ss people off? And how does he not understand that what WB needed from him was big crowd-pleasing stuff? If you want to go dark and experiment, then the solo/side films are a fine place to do that. Let Ayer make Suicide Squad as dark as feth! But the main line JL vein's gotta be fun and make people feel good about the brand.
gak, they needed to sell toys to kids! I mean, I guess it's an opportunity to sell Green Lantern with Exploding Arm(TM) and Sucking Chest Wound Batman(TM) toys.
gorgon wrote: Storyboards (including some cool art from Jim Lee) have leaked that break down Snyder's *original* plans for JL2 and 3. It's...um...interesting. It's not all bad and it certainly has an epic sweep...I just don't know where some of Snyder's choices come from.
They can be found here, at least for now...WB may take them down.
I think I’m fine with all of that, save the Bruce/Lois/Supes love triangle. Though now, the team losing and using time travel to undo their loss has already been done by the other guys.
Superman: The Movie did it first. And honestly...it was lazy writing there too.
Batman apparently only saving Lois because it's his bun in her oven, which is pretty tacky and eww
that doesn't sound that bad, but then I thought the Justice League movie we got wasn't that bad either.
The weird bit is it looks like the plan originally was to wrap up the whole DC Movie-verse after a handful of films, rather than have it as an ongoing thing.
They seem to be really leaning into, 'yeah, directors do whatever you want, we tried the MCU, we screwed it up, just put out films that will make us money please.'
That's been WB's studio brand for decades...the director's studio. I don't think they're ever going to do Feige-style central control well (I mean...look what happened), so it's probably the best approach for them overall.
My impression was that they're aiming for some movies to be 'DCEU'-branded and linked continuity, and others that will be standalone titles so that they can play around a bit more with different properties.
Which is fine, on the surface. I'm more concerned with whether or not the movies are good than with whether or not they share continuity.
Unless there's some agenda at work in the media just cherry picking the positive reactions, it seems that early screenings are overwhelmingly favourable.
There's definitely stuff going on with it. - There was a sweep of identical 'Zack Snyders Justice League is a masterpiece' posts going on twitter a couple of days ago.
Although... I dunno. The fact that all those reviewers are talking about it being lighter in tone... I mean, the $70 million worth of reshoots have to go somewhere, right? And there was that article about how there were people on set nudging the movie to be lighter in tone too, even before Whedon got involved...
Who knows, maybe it DOES come down to hindsight being 20/20 and it being a better film as a result?
There's an extremely petty part of me that is annoyed by this.
Not that it really matters for me, personally, HBOMax doesn't exist in the UK and I'm not going to be going out and buying a daft 24 hour rental of it.
It wasn't $70 mil in reshoots to ready this for HBO Max though. Think he said that it was only about 5 minutes of new (meaning not shot back in 2016 or whatever) footage? All the money undoubtedly went to finishing effects for all the footage that didn't make it into the theatrical cut.
Still, while early reactions seem positive, I expect that to moderate. For one thing, there are some critics who just really do not like anything that Snyder does. Furthermore, there are many more critics who don't have any agenda against the guy, but just find his stuff to be divisive.
Something to really remember about this is that the theatrical cut opened shockingly LOW in terms of box office. And that was when no one knew Whedon had rewritten and reshot so much. Even if, say, a superior 3-hour Snyder cut had been the theatrical release...it still would have opened LOW. Maybe a better movie gets you a better second weekend. But the audience 'well' had already been poisoned by BvS. The interest wasn't there. I don't know that history would have been much different.
Justice League's weak opening is probably most directly due to BvS, but it had actually been really good it would have been able to pull interest back in through good word of mouth. The Snyder Cut has had the benefit of some 3 years worth of good word of mouth, so I suspect it will at least make a big splash based on that.
If (IF!) it actually turns out to be really good - well... That's a great comeback story.
Lance845 wrote: We don't know anything about the shills that got to see these early screenings and are making these reviews. They literally mean nothing.
Again: We'll see.
It comes out in 3 days, surely we can hold in the name-calling for at least that long.
Film critic Dan Murrell made a video recently on the trends of Rotten Tomatoes scores to fluctuate depending on timing. Reviews are really high among early reviewers, come down a bit the week before release when the most critics release their reviews, and then either spike or plunge during opening weekends, only to taper to a more moderate score over the next couple weeks of release. He has theories on why critic scores do that.
Something to really remember about this is that the theatrical cut opened shockingly LOW in terms of box office. And that was when no one knew Whedon had rewritten and reshot so much. Even if, say, a superior 3-hour Snyder cut had been the theatrical release...it still would have opened LOW. Maybe a better movie gets you a better second weekend. But the audience 'well' had already been poisoned by BvS. The interest wasn't there. I don't know that history would have been much different.
BvS had one of the biggest first week drops in film history. That definitely hurt, though there wasn't really any positive buzz for JL to turn it around.
Justice League's weak opening is probably most directly due to BvS, but it had actually been really good it would have been able to pull interest back in through good word of mouth. The Snyder Cut has had the benefit of some 3 years worth of good word of mouth, so I suspect it will at least make a big splash based on that.
If (IF!) it actually turns out to be really good - well... That's a great comeback story.
... I'd still rather have gotten Man of Steel 2.
True, it's totally possible a better JL film with great buzz would have led to much better 'legs' for its box office.
And I do think there will be a *little* critical goodwill toward Snyder just because of the particulars. Everyone knows now that some stuff that went on was pretty disgusting. Namely, the parts where the studio kinda used his daughter's suicide as a cover story, and claimed right up through release that it was still Snyder's movie and vision. The redemption angle has got to buy him a little something in some corners.
I agree totally regarding MoS2. That was the misstep that started the dominos falling. Batman Begins didn't do gangbusters BO either, and wasn't universally loved by critics. But it set things up for a terrific sequel. HOWEVER...it's hard to know if ZS would have delivered the conventional crowdpleaser the franchise needed. Remember that MoS was really the Nolans' idea that Snyder directed. From past comments, it sounds like Snyder really wanted SM to fight Batman so he could kinda/sorta make the TDKR adaptation he always wanted. Even if the studio hadn't been pushing hard for the 'universe'...would MoS2 have looked a lot different from BvS? I'm not sure. Under a different director, certainly. Or with more (quality) studio oversight, perhaps. If Kevin Feige would have produced a MoS2, we probably would have received a more conventional, easily digestible, widely popular, if a little by-the-numbers sequel that did great box office. It just isn't as hard as WB makes it sometimes.
But man, Cavill and his Superman seem absolutely dead to the studio. They had Christopher McQuarrie and Cavill pitch them on a MoS2 and said 'meh'. I'm confident McQuarrie would done a terrific job.
Entertainment Weekly released its review. It kinda goes quite deep into the details of the film and it's really clear that the reviewer did NOT enjoy the film. But also kinda like, overly heavily did NOT enjoy the film, if that makes sense.
Reading it, I think my takeaway is:
It's better than BVS. There's also some actual genuine attempts to lighten the mood from Barry. It is however questionable how successful these attempts are.
But overall, it is basically the same film as Whedons, but Snyderised. So, less cringe (which is good), but more Christ allusions, sweeping shots and GRIMDARK MOODY DRAMA.
The soundtrack fits the film more too, which could be a plus.
So posts here would indicate that some are going to hate this before seeing a single frame because it's Snyder, some are going to hate it because it's DC, some will hate it because it's not the MCU specifically, and anyone that may have a positive view will be called a shill and ignored.
If I wind up liking it I may not even post saying so, it's not worth the Brony level drama it'll induce...
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Film critic Dan Murrell made a video recently on the trends of Rotten Tomatoes scores to fluctuate depending on timing. Reviews are really high among early reviewers, come down a bit the week before release when the most critics release their reviews, and then either spike or plunge during opening weekends, only to taper to a more moderate score over the next couple weeks of release. He has theories on why critic scores do that.
IMO...there are too many yahoos with blogs who get to have a vote. And unlike more established critics, they're under outside pressure to get clicks. This could take the form of a negative pile-on...and I absolutely think that happened with certain DC films...competing to see who could slag it the hardest. Or this could take the form of a glowing review to get views/likes/clicks approval from diehard supporters. And Snyder's truest believer following is certainly...something. I saw that some of them are now going after reviewers giving ZSJL a positive review because said reviewers were critical of Snyder in the past.
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Just Tony wrote: So posts here would indicate that some are going to hate this before seeing a single frame because it's Snyder, some are going to hate it because it's DC, some will hate it because it's not the MCU specifically, and anyone that may have a positive view will be called a shill and ignored.
If I wind up liking it I may not even post saying so, it's not worth the Brony level drama it'll induce...
I don't really see that at all.
Personally, my expectations are that it'll probably be better/more satisfying just because it'll be a complete vision and not a Frankenstein monster. Beyond that, we'll have to wait and see. I expect it to be full Snyder straight from the tap, so mileages may vary.
Den Of Geek has given it 2 out of 5, which isn’t exactly glowing.
I think I’m getting morbidly curious about it now. I mean, I’m aware of the behind the scenes issues JL had, and I fully support Snyder’s decision to focus on what is more important in life.
But it was still a pretty awful film. And other than Dawn of the Dead (which is a solid reimagining remake update of a stone cold classic, genre redefining movie) I’ve not really enjoyed his fare - so I’m afraid to say I’m not holding out much hope.
Just Tony wrote: So posts here would indicate that some are going to hate this before seeing a single frame because it's Snyder, some are going to hate it because it's DC, some will hate it because it's not the MCU specifically, and anyone that may have a positive view will be called a shill and ignored.
If I wind up liking it I may not even post saying so, it's not worth the Brony level drama it'll induce...
I want to be clear. I am not calling any general audience reviews shills. I am calling the internal reviews that come out of WB private screenings shills.
Does everyone really not remember when the first reviews of BvS were screenings of the movie with WB executives who gave the movie a standing ovation?
This initial wave of "reviews" means nothing because these are LITERALLY people hand picked to sit in a room and watch it. They could be people with bias by being family members of executives or whatever. These "reviews" amount to advertising.
Now that critic reviews are starting to come out we start getting something like a clearer actual picture. But of course one mans worst movie ever is another mans best.
My PERSONAL anticipation for the movie is it will be better than the theatrical because Wheddon is a hack who sucks. But it still won't be good because Snyder hates superheroes and doesn't know how to do them properly. We are still going to get a Batman who kills a building full of people, uses guns, etc... The final scene will still probably take place in a big red hazy empty green screen sound stage.
I am going to watch it. I am HAPPY to watch it. I would LOVE for it to come out as actually good. But this is the version as envisioned by the guy who had Lex Luther put a jar of piss on a ladies desk because he thought thats what that character was about... I mean... what the hell should I expect?
An IGN review just came out giving the film an 8/10, and the guy who wrote it it sounded like he loathed the "original." A lot of the Entertainment Weekly article's points don't make too much sense either (why did they hate Cyborg's CGI so much? It looks fine). I hate to say it, but I think I may be looking forward to watching this version.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: News to me from DoG’s review, if not anyone else? It’s four hours long.
Four. Hours.
If I can rent it for a few quid, might be worth a whirl.
I saw this when it leaked for an hour (someone accidentally replaced Tom & Jerry with it and a bunch of kids got surprised until they fixed it).
Pretty crazy. A 5-6 episode mini series feels a lot more digestible. I have no idea how I'll fit it in, but I get the service as part of a bundle, so I'll try to find a time.
Personally I have no hype for this despite being both a DC fan and someone who enjoys Snyder's craftmanship. The Whedon version was bad, but also clearly a result of a studio trying to contort what they had into something it was never meant to be. That alone will almost certainly make it "better". Whether that results in it actually being "good" depends a lot on what there is to work with and while I think Snyder's pretty talented, his take on the characters hasn't done much for me. I don't really need to spend too much time thinking about whether or not it will be good. I'll just see for myself.
Flipsiders wrote: An IGN review just came out giving the film an 8/10, and the guy who wrote it it sounded like he loathed the "original." A lot of the Entertainment Weekly article's points don't make too much sense either (why did they hate Cyborg's CGI so much? It looks fine). I hate to say it, but I think I may be looking forward to watching this version.
That EW reviewer (Franich) hates everything Snyder touches. Like through a red haze. It may not be a good film, but Franich would be the last person's opinion I'd listen to about it. He's like the polar opposite of the Snyder mob on Twitter.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: News to me from DoG’s review, if not anyone else? It’s four hours long.
Four. Hours.
If I can rent it for a few quid, might be worth a whirl.
That's been out there for months. Original plan was a 4-part miniseries, but I *think* that might have become problematic for compensation-related reasons. Like does that now count as four movies or one?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: News to me from DoG’s review, if not anyone else? It’s four hours long.
Four. Hours.
If I can rent it for a few quid, might be worth a whirl.
Yeah thats where I pull out and say "nah I'll just read the clip notes."
It stinks but I have very little hope for Zack Synder, I would be surprised if he pulled it off, but honestly 4 hrs? Thats a bit much even for a nerd like me.
The Guardian have published their 4* review, and that's a 4* review that opens by calling the previous version vapid and calling Affleck and Cavill insipid, so that's not what you'd call a fanboy gushing.
Azreal13 wrote: The Guardian have published their 4* review, and that's a 4* review that opens by calling the previous version vapid and calling Affleck and Cavill insipid, so that's not what you'd call a fanboy gushing.
But you have to use the Bradshaw substitution cypher, which makes it about a 2, maybe even 1 if the print ad adjustment is applicable
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm pretty sure that was the (supposed) internal reaction from WB themselves, not from the first reviews.
Yeah...we know now that wasn't exactly the case, LOL. Marvel hypes stuff this way too. Think it's just part of the business now given the way people obsess about films in development.
Flipsiders wrote: An IGN review just came out giving the film an 8/10...
Meanwhile the guy at Gamespot gave it 3/10, and sounded very angry and petty about it.
Probably because he had to watch 240 minutes of something he'd already decided he'd hate, LOL. Matt Goldberg at Collider gave it a D- or something, which was predictable. Steven Weintraub from the same site seems to be more positive, however. At least for now.
TL;DR -- Divisive director is still dividing fans and critics.
Azreal13 wrote: The Guardian have published their 4* review, and that's a 4* review that opens by calling the previous version vapid and calling Affleck and Cavill insipid, so that's not what you'd call a fanboy gushing.
But you have to use the Bradshaw substitution cypher, which makes it about a 2, maybe even 1 if the print ad adjustment is applicable
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm looking forward to it. Just not sure how I'll watch it.
I’m gonna watch it with my eyes.
Whether they’ll require bleaching afterwards remains to be seen. But Leto’s god awful, charisma and charm free Joker is in it, so chances strike me as high. Got some new stuff in for the old Kidderminster, but some stains must take precedence over others.
Probably because he had to watch 240 minutes of something he'd already decided he'd hate, LOL. Matt Goldberg at Collider gave it a D- or something, which was predictable. Steven Weintraub from the same site seems to be more positive, however. At least for now.
TL;DR -- Divisive director is still dividing fans and critics.
It's very strange having no horse in this and seeing so many people who still do despite it being a race that most people weren't all that interested in before it even began.
Clearly there's emotion on both sides, LOL. Everyone knew how the Snyder Twitter mob can be. Shoot, they're out there slagging some people who gave this one a GOOD review, simply because the reviewers weren't 'on board' in the past. That gak is getting cult-like.
But I'm a little surprised by certain critics' specific reactions. I fully expected a mixed critical response...it was never going to be any other way. But some of the negative reviews...man, it's like they're taking this every bit as personally as the Snyder mob. Maybe it's partially *because* of the Snyder mob? But that's still no place to be as a movie reviewer IMO.
I think the 'because' of the mob is quite possible. It can be hard, even for professional reviewers to disassociate the final product from the harassment they've received from the products fans, particularly when those fans are responsible for releasing the film in the first place.
In saying that, I also think the critical reviews can be more helpful than the glowing ones for this movie, especially if they wear their opinions on their sleeve like the EW review.
Like, from that I can gather:
It's a better movie than BVS.
There's some humour in it that brightens the mood.
It's still, functionally the same film, with added exposition and story beats.
It's VERY Snyder, but not I don't think it really is BVS/Watchmen/SuckerPunch-like FULL SNYDER, either from the benefit of hindsight, or the first batch of studio notes from before everything went to heck in the original production.
I think, overall,
Snyder 'Associate Producers' will adore and love the movie.
People who are ambivalent to the Snyder style will be fine with the movie.
People who are mildly distasteful of the style will find it an improvement to BVS.
People who have been turned off of the style, or who dislike the style in general, or Snyder's DC universe setup, will continue to dislike it.
I feel like this is a good time to bring up that Fan is the root of both Fandom and Fanatic. You can like something. Even love it. But once you cross into Fandom it becomes something else entirely and it seems at least as a collective that they loose any sense of reason in relation to their particular obsession.
@Compel - Probably right about the audience breakdown.
I think the reviews on Vulture and rogerebert.com seemed...smart to me. They more or less said that it might be flawed and excessive in so many ways...but that's the point. It's a nearly uncompromised, personal artistic vision from a director (after it was compromised perhaps more than any big-budget film in history). Maybe we'll like it and maybe we won't, but how often does this kind of movie get made that way?
So yeah...I think I can get behind that. Bring it on!
Azreal13 wrote: The Guardian have published their 4* review, and that's a 4* review that opens by calling the previous version vapid and calling Affleck and Cavill insipid, so that's not what you'd call a fanboy gushing.
But you have to use the Bradshaw substitution cypher, which makes it about a 2, maybe even 1 if the print ad adjustment is applicable
Mornington Crescent?
Sadly not, a mixture of my distrust of The Guardian's film critic along with a suspicion that 'reveiws' in print media may or may not by influenced by ad space purchased
Gail Simone has had some very kind and positive words to say about the movie.
So I'm going to talk a little about me now.
I'm still really struggling to reconcile stuff. It seems like this legitimately is going to end up a fine to good superhero movie, with lots of stuff I expected and worried about just not being there. I mean people can see my lists on this thread for themselves.
But I'm still massively hung up on that 'virginity' speech and the generally harassment from the fanbase, which IS still continuing.
Like Gail has been harassed as much as anyone (and still is now) but can dissociate that from the movie.
I just can't do that I'm still actively annoyed by that speech, it's STILL irritates me that the big announcement of the return of Milestone Comics had a whole bunch of replies of '#restoretheSnyderverse'. It still bugs me that The Plan was Bruce and Lois feel in love and have a baby that Clark raises. AND I really worry about they impact of this kind of fan entitlement will have on the future. EG the #ayerscut too.
But it's ended up apparently not being a cynical and dour grimdark grump fest like I expected. And might end up being legitimately fine-to-good.
And yeah I know I'm too invested and am having trouble squaring this circle but it also feel it's kind of important to say this all here, so my cards and opinions are laid on the table, so that none good and thinks I'm pretending or covering up my previous opinions.
Peoples opinions are allowed to change. If you felt one way before even watching it and feel a different way after watching that isn't only fine it's expected. And if after THAT you think about it and feel differently again? Good. Feel however you do.
About Milestone. That gak is just inherently racist. Why did DC make an entirely different comic universe to have black super heroes? Why not just have the events of the Milestone universe take place in the normal DC universe and then a bunch of new characters just interact with the rest of DC? Static is legit a great character and the events surrounding his origin along with the rest of the Bang Babies is just a good story with interesting implications for regular ol DC. They keep partially introducing him to regular DC and then wiping it out again when they inevitably reboot. Just fething stop.
Work done, and considering a take out curry for dinner.
Think I’m gonna 7 day trial NowTV movies, and potentially scorch my brain with this.
I remain open to being pleasantly surprised.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Thoughts so far, a little over an hour in.
Spoiler:
Definitely feels a bit disjointed. Some scenes are absolutely cool, such as the alliance battle against Darkseid.
The effects are quite ropey though, especially Loopy Lex at the beginning.
However, it may be stylistic choice. The alliance battle reminded me of 300, in that it was super stylised. If so, that’s not ropey effects, that’s me just not feeling it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoiler:
Definitely feels like the super cut of a TV series. I’m undecided if that’s a good or a bad thing myself.
Let’s just say I’m two hours in, and whilst we can tell it’s building to something, and quite competently so, I’m still wishing they’d just get on with it.
Lots and lots of exposition, but kind of out of phase. The Mother Boxes for instance don’t get explained for a good hour or so. And it keeps cutting to origin story type stuff.
I think that part of my opinion would be distinctly softened if I hadn’t seen the cinema version.
There is a somewhat odd and slightly creepy scene with the otherwise charming Flash. He saves a Lass from a car crash, and takes time out to stroke her hair, then with Snyder Subtlety, grabs a Sosig out the air...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Local power cut has forced a recess on my viewing.
Gonna pick it up again on my iPad, as that’s 4g.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh.....oh god.
It started off alright. Certainly signs of improvement. Then it disappeared right up its own arse, refused to come out, and worse? Refused. To. End.
When you’ve successfully translated the landmark fantasy novels to the big screen? You can have a “bye everybody” multiple endings.
When you’ve successfully wrapped up a 20+ movie shared universe leading to that film? You can have your multiple endings.
When you’ve made a handful of distinctly ropey films, why?
Yeah, to me it's clearly an improvement. Of course it runs long, but I already figured that into my calculus. It was planned as a miniseries, and if it was a theatrical release, of course it wouldn't have been 4 hours. And in fact, I'm betting you could cut this down to 3 or close to it without losing most of the added connective tissue.
It's interesting how the story beats are mostly similar so far but the tone is different.
I liked it. If it wasn’t so long, I’d watch it again this weekend.
Random takeaways in no order:
Much more brutal than most Marvel flicks (aside from the now defunct Netflix shows), alot more vulgar too, which caught me off guard.
This Joker doesn’t work. Might’ve been an improvement from Suicide Squad, but I can’t get into it.
The music choices in some scenes were offensively bad and kind of distracting (in my opinion).
Steppenwolf was vastly improved and worked pretty well as a villian. Parademons were also toughened up it seems. Was a pretty awesome scene when they flew out of the water with their boss after the temple fight.
The flashback Green Lantern went out like a chump.
I hope they have a good reason for The Martian to have sat out for so long.
Who is the chick next to Darkseid?
Kind of excited for more solo flicks from the League members. Might finally watch Aquaman.
Definitely feels like a course correction for DC films. But WB will gak the bed again, no doubt. WW1984 kind of proves it.
8/10. Might be my go to “Play this movie will I hobby” movie for awhile.
Edit: Some more thoughts:
That parademon sketch had to have been some kind of inside joke or maybe a young fan sent it to Zach Snyder and he decided to put it into the movie to make that lil fella happy. I lol’d at it and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to.
I never knew Cyborg was so powerful. Like wipe out the world powerful.
Still bothers me that Batman is so nonchalant about his true identity.
I’m still willing to give this Lex Luthor a chance, perhaps explain that an intrusive alien influence drove him temporarily/annoyingly crazy, and use that to put him back on track. But I’d be cool with a recast/reimagining as well.
It was fine. It is an improvement to the initial film but I doubt it will change any minds radically. If you didn't like the first you might move up to "ok" but doubt it will leap multiple tiers. It is more consistent in tone with the other films with a lot of "witty banter" removed; there is still some humor but not Whedonesque humor.
Overall I thought they did Darkseid fine and the little changes to Steppenwolf, both physically and his motivations, improved him as an antagonist.
Edit: I really don't understand the choice of 4:3 aspect ratio.
nels1031 wrote: Uh, for anyone else out there, don’t do like I did and Google anything in spoiler text. Unless thats your thing. Its the middle part that sends it wayyy off course.
Once again Google proves I should never try to make a joke. I've edited it down.
Edit: I really don't understand the choice of 4:3 aspect ratio
It's not 4:3 (I mean, it is, but) so much as optimised for IMAX. Weird flex but that's why.
He's also been going on about a B&W version of the film. I don't think the worldwide audience for that would even fill a small town...but that's ZS for you.
I finished it last night and need to chew on it a bit. But overall it feels like a much better told story. There's just a lot of little things, and not necessarily the ones that got all the hype, like the cameos from a certain other hero. The characters felt a little truer. Barry was still comic relief but not quite the same one-note scaredy-cat he was in the theatrical cut. The scene with Iris is a gem IMO...really sweet and light and beautifully edited and shot. You watch that and think...Zack man...why can't you bring that more often? Arthur feels more like the guy from the solo film thanks to just a few lines and portion of a scene (when they were discussing Cyborg). Bruce wasn't as weary/cranky...in fact, he seemed fairly cheery and energized.
The Flying Fox turned out to be a metaphor for the state of the team...who knew from the theatrical cut?!? And how about the establishing shots! You actually have a sense of where they are! Amazing. I realize Whedon was chopping every split second he could to achieve that ridiculous 2-hour mandate from the studio, but the lack of establishing shots for scenes is a big reason the theatrical release screams SHOT ON SOUNDSTAGE. Also, gone is the dumb rooftop scene, gone is the pointless Russian family, gone is all the uncomfortable leering at Diana. Yeah, I'm good with all of this.
Superman was a bit of disappointment, even with a normal lip. Loved hearing the Zimmer theme, and the scene in the cornfield wasn't so corny (pun intended). But people are going to joke that Snyder is obsessed with Superman turning evil or being dead...and I'm not sure they're wrong. The idea that Lois is his only tether to humanity -- and the movie kinda beats you over the head with that -- just seems dumb. It's not even true for this Superman based on what we saw in MoS, where it's implied that the town's been covering for him for years, because too many people had seen him DO THINGS. And I don't know why he'd be in the black suit at the very end, other than ZS just thinks it's cool.
It's obviously a huge improvement, but I'm not sure what I think. It's pushing so hard to be dramatic but the stakes and dialog just don't really justify the constant barrage of weighty choral music over everything. I feel like I'm on the razors edge of mockery, but the dialog is never QUITE hamfisted enough to push me over the edge.
The bank scene really sums up my feelings overall. Like, its really cool and the extra dramatic stakes are a step up from the original, but a lot of the extra time gives my brain a moment to just have tons of questions. Like the slow mo bullet dodging doesn't click with the time on the bomb and she's given SO much time to just take the gun away at the end. She also ends the scene basically destroying a building to take out the one guy for no real reason. It's STILL better, but its interesting to watch them back to back and see how much lighting and pacing matters.
LunarSol wrote: Like the slow mo bullet dodging doesn't click with the time on the bomb and she's given SO much time to just take the gun away at the end.
Yep, that bothered me as well. Common annoying trope in films. If they are going to add a timer to build tension, make it accurate ffs.
I am probably minority but I liked the old Steppenwolf more. He felt more Apokoliptian.The new one, with his weirdo ''horns'' being actually a part of him, looked like a separate species rather than a member of the same race as Desaad etc.
It's obviously a huge improvement, but I'm not sure what I think. It's pushing so hard to be dramatic but the stakes and dialog just don't really justify the constant barrage of weighty choral music over everything. I feel like I'm on the razors edge of mockery, but the dialog is never QUITE hamfisted enough to push me over the edge.
The bank scene really sums up my feelings overall. Like, its really cool and the extra dramatic stakes are a step up from the original, but a lot of the extra time gives my brain a moment to just have tons of questions. Like the slow mo bullet dodging doesn't click with the time on the bomb and she's given SO much time to just take the gun away at the end. She also ends the scene basically destroying a building to take out the one guy for no real reason. It's STILL better, but its interesting to watch them back to back and see how much lighting and pacing matters.
Well, no one's ever just...disarmed efficiently...in a Snyder film, LOL. Gotta rub some funk on it. Superman went to town on Steppenwolf there. And Diana could have just tossed him through. I get the rationale for their actions, but it didn't HAVE to be foot to the floor there with either of them.
There were also scenes where it seemed like he just used every scrap of footage he had. We didn't need to hear the WHOLE Icelandic song, LOL. That's why I think a 3-3:15 hour cut of it might be really good. Lots of the extra stuff is better, but there's plenty of room to pare it down.
Shadow Walker wrote: I am probably minority but I liked the old Steppenwolf more. He felt more Apokoliptian.The new one, with his weirdo ''horns'' being actually a part of him, looked like a separate species rather than a member of the same race as Desaad etc.
On that matter, I found his armour always just sort of shifting somewhat distracting. A CGI lesson in can not meaning should.
I thought the old version was completely uninteresting visually, so a little too much visual interest with this one didn't bother me.
Here's a little thing that I really liked the concept for -- the molten metal communication via the Mother Boxes. It was clearly like a parallel technology to the Kryptonian nanotech bead thing from MoS...just more sinister. Guess it's also underlined by the scout ship's reaction to the Mother Box. "ME NO LIKEY!"
Maybe that sounds dumb, but I love good concept work like that. Thorough thinking.
Oh...Ryan Choi! Crispus Allen! Fan service-y easter eggs maybe, but it's fun seeing a well-populated DC universe.
gorgon wrote: And I don't know why he'd be in the black suit at the very end, other than ZS just thinks it's cool.
I was wondering about that as well and the best guess I have is that he wore black to eat up solar energy faster as, iirc, the first thing after putting it on is fly into space and soak up some rays.
Here's a little thing that I really liked the concept for -- the molten metal communication via the Mother Boxes. It was clearly like a parallel technology to the Kryptonian nanotech bead thing from MoS...just more sinister. Guess it's also underlined by the scout ship's reaction to the Mother Box. "ME NO LIKEY!".
That four hour run time is probably due to the slow mo. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Yeah, I also wondered about WW not just taking the guy’s gun and why she destroyed the bank. Super lucky all that debris managed to not hit anyone below.
How much does Arthur spend on shirts? Where does he keep them all? He has to pull his shirt off and toss it aside every time he gets in the water, where apparently local lasses then collect them to snuggle and sniff.
Flash seems dramatically more powerful here, while simultaneously more useless in a fight. He apparently can’t touch anything without destroying it, which would be more real life accurate granted, but it doesn’t leave him with much to do. He’s told to help evacuate the prisoners and all he does it run back and forth telling them to hurry up. His primary contribution is a battery charger.
The effects, such as Steppenwulf, didn’t look Better to me so much as More Expensive.
Why did the Atlantans lose the ability to speak underwater? They just made dolphin noises, and had to hydrokenesis up air pockets every time they wanted to have a conversation.
I liked Martian Manhunter’s cameo. He does such a minor thing giving a pep talk to Lois and yet he inadvertently saved the world doing it. Why did he not help more? He probably didn’t know what was going on. He’s hidden well enough that Batman didn’t know about him to try and recruit him.
Black suit Supes is ok. I know in the cartoons/comics it was indeed to increase solar absorption to speed his recovery from death, but he seemed pretty darn recovered right off the bat and they make no reference to a need for such and he’s still wearing it at the end. Except for nightmare, where he apparently now goes back to red and blue for evil.
Power levels are weird. So, Aries is able to deal a wound bad enough on Darkseid that he full retreats. Wonder Woman beat Aries in single combat. Steppenwulf repeatedly gives WW a beat down even when she has help. Superman TRIVIALLY puts down Wulf, like zero effort on his part. Why should we be afraid of Darkseid now? We’re Told he’s a top dog, but he’s so far down this ladder of one upmanship now.
Overall, I did enjoy the movie and found it suitably entertaining. It handles some stuff better, but with double the runtime it should. Otherwise it just feels so pretentious. The music, the slow mo, the 4:3 I deserve to be in imax aspect ratio, everything just screams self important.
Power levels are weird. So, Aries is able to deal a wound bad enough on Darkseid that he full retreats. Wonder Woman beat Aries in single combat. Steppenwulf repeatedly gives WW a beat down even when she has help. Superman TRIVIALLY puts down Wulf, like zero effort on his part. Why should we be afraid of Darkseid now? We’re Told he’s a top dog, but he’s so far down this ladder of one upmanship now.
I agree with the exception of the Darkseid. When he fought with the Ares he was known as Uxas = before the Omega power = he was on a level of the Old Gods. Now he is much more powerful.
Power levels are weird. So, Aries is able to deal a wound bad enough on Darkseid that he full retreats. Wonder Woman beat Aries in single combat. Steppenwulf repeatedly gives WW a beat down even when she has help. Superman TRIVIALLY puts down Wulf, like zero effort on his part. Why should we be afraid of Darkseid now? We’re Told he’s a top dog, but he’s so far down this ladder of one upmanship now.
I agree with the exception of the Darkseid. When he fought with the Ares he was known as Uxas = before the Omega power = he was on a level of the Old Gods. Now he is much more powerful.
I don’t believe that is something I’ve ever heard about before.
Power levels are weird. So, Aries is able to deal a wound bad enough on Darkseid that he full retreats. Wonder Woman beat Aries in single combat. Steppenwulf repeatedly gives WW a beat down even when she has help. Superman TRIVIALLY puts down Wulf, like zero effort on his part. Why should we be afraid of Darkseid now? We’re Told he’s a top dog, but he’s so far down this ladder of one upmanship now.
I agree with the exception of the Darkseid. When he fought with the Ares he was known as Uxas = before the Omega power = he was on a level of the Old Gods. Now he is much more powerful.
I don’t believe that is something I’ve ever heard about before.
You just need to google his backstory. He was born as Uxas, a nephew of the Steppenwolf, before becoming a Darkseid.
I still find that something to be a major flaw in the movie, because you shouldn't have to go out of your way to research the villain's background to know that "wasn't even his final form!" type of information.
When you get somewhere by spaceship, which requires navigation, which I can’t see being done without star charts.....
How the hell do you “lose” that planet? I mean.....how?
I also found it confusing when Steppenwolf did the axe thing, and then said “it’s here, I’ve found it”, we’d not heard anything about the anti-life. All we’d seen was Darkseid doing the same axe thing when the big battle scene was kicking off.
So I assumed, and I daresay a fat slice of the audience assumed, he was meaning the third box, which he and we knew already.
But no, a bit later “I have found the anti-life”. With no explanation of what it is, or why Darkseid wants it.
I daresay that was a treat for people up on their DC, but I was just plain old baffled.
Here’s one, why now? The mother box called out because Superman died! Uuuuuuhhhhhh... They’ve been here for like 5000 years give or take. Superman’s been an active thing for like only a couple dozen. Were they sitting around like ok, after all these millennia now, now is the time! Oh, wait, no, check out that guy we better not. Oh wait, never mind, he died.
I think, for whatever reason, the implication was that the Earth was vulnerable for the first time in millennia, and it was Superman's death cry which the boxes heard that tipped them off.
I think, for whatever reason, the implication was that the Earth was vulnerable for the first time in millennia, and it was Superman's death cry which the boxes heard that tipped them off.
I mean I guess? It seems like Earth was a lot more vulnerable prior to Superman landing though, if they had invaded around the time of WW2, where basically none of the current heroes were active, it seems to make more sense. Heck, even after Ares murdered the whole Greek Pantheon would be a decent time to jump in, or when Ares himself died.
How do they even know what a Kryptonian is? They didn’t leave their planet hardly ever, that’s why they all* died when it blew up except for him. And the whole yellow sun thing was another shocking discovery. He hadn’t really made a name for himself off planet yet, being really rather new to the scene on earth still.
When you get somewhere by spaceship, which requires navigation, which I can’t see being done without star charts.....
How the hell do you “lose” that planet? I mean.....how?
Spoiler:
I get the impression that they hadn't traveled by spaceships for some time and it also hinted at that something happened far in the past that changed the dynamic of the group: Steppenwolf was exiled, Darkseid looked different as well as being shown more vulnerable in the past, and so on. There may have been some Dark Ages sort of period where a lot was lost. In MoS they showed Krypton had lost a lot over time as well when they became isolationist such as giving up on space travel and losing contact with a bunch of their old colonies. At the end Darkseid seemed to be referring to travel by spacecraft as "the old ways" which implies they hadn't done that in some time.
I don't know if they show up in the film but... If you can travel instantly throughout the galaxy via boomtubes, some other modes of transport probably would be old fashioned.
So verdict is that it's a vast improvement, but still not necessarily good?
Side comment:
I think a bit of DC's lore is going to continue to hold it back when it comes to movies. It's just so much cheesier IMO, to Marvel. Marvel has elements that are absurd, Rocket and Thor being the first two that come to mind and Spider-Man is at least on par with Batman in terms of being a silly dude with an animal name.
Yet DC just has so much corniness. Darkseid from the planet Apokolips? C'mon man, that's comparable to what an 8 year old would come up as names. Granny Goodness...actual Greek Gods and a backstory for Wonder Woman/Amazonians that borders on nonsensical. The Anti-Life Equation as well. It's just hard to take seriously when the names are so absurd and it tries to be deathly serious via Snyder.
I think the MCU gets away with it by being much more light-hearted, using real names frequently over aliases, and by toning down costumes to be more believable.
The big difference between marvel movies and the DC stuff we get is Marvel makes Movies that have super heroes in them and are about super heroes. DC make superhero movies circa 1998+.
Or to elaborate, Marvel doesn't treat superhero as a genre and then make movies in that genre. At least not in a long time. DC does. Marvel makes Comedies, Dramas, political/spy action films. They released a Tragedy towards the end of phase 3. They are ABOUT Super heroes, but they are not schlocky Super Hero Movies ala Dare Devil, X-Men, Ramis Spiderman, or Blade. With that intention to make an actual movie featuring these characters FIRST and not defaulting to a "genre" of film that has had no truly great films in it the material gets treated with a level of .... respect? seriousness? something that makes it more than what DC is doing with it.
Both universes are full of exactly the same cheesy nonsense. Ego is a planet with a face on it, remember? I just saw Batroc the Leaper for the second time in live action. But it's not treated as something for the funny pages.
Ok, finished it. Never felt like four hours. Breezed by.
And I really liked it. Marked improvement on the original version - I mean it really is a different film, even if some of the elements are similar or outright the same. The action beats just made more sense. The fight under the Gotham harbour, Themiscyra the fight at the end as well (no 'saving civilian' sub-plot nonsense). The movie had time to breathe, something it needed because DC decided to sprint before they could crawl and do an "Avengers" film without taking the time to introduce any of the characters bar Superman.
I actually liked Barry in this one - I came away finding him super-annoying in the original version - and I like how they did his speed.
Wonder Woman and Aquaman kicked ass, and whilst I still think "Is this guy still bothering you?" from the original version is the most Superman-y line ever committed to film, I love how they did his appearance in this; just no-selling Steppenwolf's axe.
Speaking ol' Steppy: He was great! His motivations were clear, he looked better, he was reasonably intimidating, yet at the same time I liked his relationship with DeSaad and Darkseid.
The flash forward was interesting - reminding me of Wolverine & The X-Men, where a good part of the season is set in the future in a post-apocalyptic world controlled by the Sentinels - and think that'd be a cool film to see.
Even the Joker was't annoying, though I'd love to know why he's part of that group.
AduroT wrote: How do they even know what a Kryptonian is? They didn’t leave their planet hardly ever, that’s why they all* died when it blew up except for him. And the whole yellow sun thing was another shocking discovery. He hadn’t really made a name for himself off planet yet, being really rather new to the scene on earth still.
Man of Steel explains it pretty clearly. Kryptonians left the planet quite a bit during an expansionist period in which they colonized the galaxy. Until...something...began destroying their colony worlds. They pulled back, and at the time of Superman's birth they had exhausted most of Krypton's resources. That's why they couldn't leave the planet en masse...they were alone, without resources, and a dying civilization on a dying world.
The Mother Boxes may or may not have known Kryptonians exactly, but it's not really important. The boxes were hibernating and 'woke' when Superman - a cosmic-level being - died. Like bumping the mouse to get a computer out of sleep mode.
FWIW, I really like the idea that Krypton and Apokolips had tangled in the past, and the scout ship's reaction to the Mother Box nicely underlined that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AduroT wrote: Why did the Atlantans lose the ability to speak underwater? They just made dolphin noises, and had to hydrokenesis up air pockets every time they wanted to have a conversation.
Because when James Wan made his Aquaman film, he ditched all the air bubble stuff to instead just have them...talk. There are other little inconsistencies, such as Mera saying that she was orphaned. Different creators doing things differently.
I'm not a fan of Snyder in the slightest (I haven't even seen any of his other movies save Man of Steel, which I did not enjoy), but Justice League was pretty much everything I wanted out of a big-budget DC "Avengers" equivalent. One of the things that people don't often talk about concerning DC is that DC, is a much more spectacle-focused franchise than Marvel ever will be. Almost every last comic under the DC brand either sets out to elicit either extremely strong positive emotions (awe, "coolness," sense of scale, et cetera) or extremely strong negative emotions (shock, outlandishly high stakes, cruel and depressing realism, et cetera). Basic comedy stories like most Deadpool stuff or low-to-the-ground stories with minimal stakes such as the archetypical Spider-Man comics/movies just don't work with DC's style. The DC universe is a place that at its best, is either brutally depressing and realistic, or, as is more often the case, wonderfully outlandish and committed to high stakes and memorable fights and setpieces over anything else.
The Justice League movie gave me everything I wanted in that regard. The story had some minor inconsistencies (as has been said before: How did Darkseid just forget where the Anti-Life Equation was?), but it was still good enough to follow and the action scenes were definitely worth it. I believe every last League member was done justice, especially the new additions. The setups for all the now-canned sequel and spinoff films were, with one exception, extremely well-implemented to the point where a couple of them might not even be seen as such. There were a ton of changes from the comics, which is great, because I'm pretty sure just about all of them made the movie much better. I like what Snyder did with Aquaman and Cyborg in particular, as I believe pretty much everyone else does as well. Even the pacing was great. I don't get why everyone hates additions such as the Icelandic song or Wonder Woman exploring the temple. Sure, they don't directly contribute to the plot, but they were still interesting and certainly worth my time.
Spoiler:
The only thing I didn't like about the movie was the flash-forwards. Jared Leto's Joker was surprisingly good, sure, but the whole concept just seemed unnecessary, contrived, and generally boring. Like, they could have just added a line where Batman or Wonder Woman says they've been getting bad dreams about Superman turning evil once Lois Lane dies and been done with it. That alone probably would have cut like thirty minutes out of the runtime. Also, this is a minor detail, but in one of those flash-forwards, we see evil Superman standing behind the corpses of a bunch of heroes, including what seems to be the Green Lantern who died in the flashback? What on earth is up with that?
The scene where Martha Kent is revealed to be the Martian Manhunter also probably should have been cut, as much as it pains me to say. The scene is more powerful if it's actually her.
All in all, it was a really good movie, and I just don't understand most of the complaints about it. It's just a problem with my brain, I suppose.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Since a lot of people are talking about it, I actually rather liked the justification for why Darkseid hadn't invaded yet. It probably should have been explained more, but I think Steppenwolf's "no Lanterns, no Kryptonian" line sums up everything well enough, provided you're aware of what he probably means. From what he's saying here, it seems like until around the time of Man of Steel, the Green Lantern Corps (all Green Lanterns are space cops) had a guy keeping an eye on Earth and the surrounding planets. Something has evidently happened to him, but by that point, as gorgon mentioned, Steppenwolf was instead keeping away due to prior bad experiences with Kryptonians. Superman's death was the first time where both of those failsafes were out of the picture.
This idea is actually supported by the comics. The current Green Lantern story established back in the naughts that Earth's previous Lantern went a bit nuts at the end, fething off and starting a doomsday cult instead of actually doing his job. Presumably, this would have been explained if DC's plan went right and they released a Green Lantern movie, retroactively wrapping up the Steppenwolf "plothole," but it sadly seems that that future will not come to pass.
Flipsiders wrote: Almost every last comic under the DC brand either sets out to elicit either extremely strong positive emotions (awe, "coolness," sense of scale, et cetera) or extremely strong negative emotions (shock, outlandishly high stakes, cruel and depressing realism, et cetera). Basic comedy stories like most Deadpool stuff or low-to-the-ground stories with minimal stakes such as the archetypical Spider-Man comics/movies just don't work with DC's style. The DC universe is a place that at its best, is either brutally depressing and realistic, or, as is more often the case, wonderfully outlandish and committed to high stakes and memorable fights and setpieces over anything else.
I don't think this is true at all.
Court of Owls Long Holloween. Batman Year 1 All Star Superman Red Son Swamp Thing: Mark Millars run. Under the Red Hood. Killing Joke
Some of the best most memorable stories that come out of DC are lower stakes more personal stories. If anything, the PROBLEM with DC is that they keep going for this grandiose crap thats all spectacle and no substance.
Flipsiders wrote: Since a lot of people are talking about it, I actually rather liked the justification for why Darkseid hadn't invaded yet. It probably should have been explained more, but I think Steppenwolf's "no Lanterns, no Kryptonian" line sums up everything well enough, provided you're aware of what he probably means. From what he's saying here, it seems like until around the time of Man of Steel, the Green Lantern Corps (all Green Lanterns are space cops) had a guy keeping an eye on Earth and the surrounding planets. Something has evidently happened to him, but by that point, as gorgon mentioned, Steppenwolf was instead keeping away due to prior bad experiences with Kryptonians. Superman's death was the first time where both of those failsafes were out of the picture.
The scene with
Spoiler:
Martian Manhunter at the end was originally supposed to be Bruce talking with Green Lanterns. Cool to bring J'onn into it, but I think it might have been better to keep that scene as GLs to explain their (lack of) presence, and keep the Martha scene as Martha as you said. Entirely possible that the local GL was just busy with something else for the week(?) that the movie took place. Let's not forget that Snyder was supposedly trying to get Ryan Reynolds a cameo...presumably for that same lake house scene. That probably would have nailed down the GL question.
Anyway, my family watched it and really liked it. My wife liked it SO much better that the theatrical cut. Usually with her, it's a matter of the characters in a given movie/show, and this version treated the characters much, much better overall.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: Marvel is grounded personal problems.
DC is gods and monsters.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Right. There are times I like to read about Peter's latest drama with MJ, and times where I want to see the JL unload on the New Gods because I just can't read another story about Peter's latest drama with MJ.
Of course, we're also making gross generalizations, as there's plenty of grounded stuff with DC and plenty of cosmic stuff with Marvel.
Something pointed out to me, it’s a Justice League movie where Superman never speaks to Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg, or Aquaman. Flash’s dad has more lines of dialogue than Superman. In the climatic fight scene Superman says only two words.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Marvel is grounded personal problems.
DC is gods and monsters.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
The best DC comics are the ones that deal with the grounded personal problems of gods and monsters.
Also, on the intended GL scene:
Spoiler:
It was supposed to be John Stewart at the end, not Hal/Ryan Reynolds.
I still haven't had time to really sit and watch the rest of this. Got through parts 2-4 though. I think the pacing improves, though there's a LOT that could easily be cut. I suspect some of it was actually left in to make the parts closer to a consistent 30 minute runtime. I think a lot of the focus on plot inconsistencies comes down to how long some of the exposition is. The movie regularly likes to explain things in painstaking detail that leave you a lot of time to focus on the detail and where it doesn't quite line up. Losing track of the only place you were ever defeated seems... questionable, mostly because they talk about it so much. It probably would help if the GL wasn't a total chump in the fight, since the lack of one is somehow a big deal? The bulk of this section focuses on introducing the new characters and building towards a mid-script failure.
I'm not sure what I think of Cyborg. His dad's podcast is absolutely bizarre. That whole sequence is weird power with no concern for consequence and clashes horribly with our introduction to Victor as a character. Restoring most of this goes a long way towards making him work but he just has weird reactions to every event. It's not unbelievable and yet, it's not really interesting either. Barry being more of a Wally take on the Flash feels like it might come together later, but his self contained episode doesn't quite sell the character. Aquaman is a little odd just because we've already seen the movie they were building. The air bubble thing really doesn't work and I'm glad they dropped it. Of the 3, Barry probably gets the best treatment in two relatively focused scenes that flesh out his character and direction for future films. They're very indulgent with the pocket dog and creepy doll caress, but a little snappier editing and they'd be about perfect.
The actual Act 2 battle is alright. I think the weirdest thing about it is that its trying to sell this "there's no one to unite/lead them" but the cast is mostly amiable. Like, Barry and Victor are totally cool following orders. Batman doesn't seem to be played up as the usual "I work alone" style here and Diana's general existence as a commander is just glossed over to make this happen. Really feel the lack of Hal in this sequence, who at least shifts more to a "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem. As is, the failing to work as a team thing comes across as cliche and hamfisted where it really needed to sell us on Superman's necessity. This is probably the ONE point where I feel the most BvS from the film. I get what they're trying to say, I can piece together all the ideas used to build the script, but it keeps over or under stating everything to the point where it only works when I explain it back to myself afterwards, rather than being something I connect with in the moment.
Also, favorite dialog exchange so far:
"I'll die before I tell you"
"You'll die if you don't"
So, you agree then? Is that what you're saying? This felt like one of those moments in a restaurant where the waitress says "enjoy your meal" and someone responds with "you too" rather than responding to the words actually spoken.
It may be down to my tuning out, but I don’t recall anyone trying to gang up on Steppenwolf during the first scrap. Rather they all take their turn, and figure “nope, he’s too strong”, hence they decide to dabble in necromancy.
And why didn’t we see Barry light speed punch him? The power field thing he generates seems to protect him from impact after all.
Did I miss something there?
And as ever, where the hell is Wonder Woman standing to always drop in from the top of the screen. Does she carry an invisible diving board with her, because she does it an awful, awful lot.
Flipsiders wrote: Almost every last comic under the DC brand either sets out to elicit either extremely strong positive emotions (awe, "coolness," sense of scale, et cetera) or extremely strong negative emotions (shock, outlandishly high stakes, cruel and depressing realism, et cetera). Basic comedy stories like most Deadpool stuff or low-to-the-ground stories with minimal stakes such as the archetypical Spider-Man comics/movies just don't work with DC's style. The DC universe is a place that at its best, is either brutally depressing and realistic, or, as is more often the case, wonderfully outlandish and committed to high stakes and memorable fights and setpieces over anything else.
I don't think this is true at all.
Court of Owls
Long Holloween.
Batman Year 1
All Star Superman
Red Son
Swamp Thing: Mark Millars run.
Under the Red Hood.
Killing Joke
Some of the best most memorable stories that come out of DC are lower stakes more personal stories. If anything, the PROBLEM with DC is that they keep going for this grandiose crap thats all spectacle and no substance.
I would say most of the comics you mentioned fall squarely under "cruel and depressing realism." Just because a comic has no aliens or worlds being destroyed doesn't mean it's low-stakes or doesn't rely on shocking the reader. Take the opening of The Killing Joke, for instance, or just about everything which happens in the Court of Owls (I'm thinking of the scene in which Batman gets in a robot suit and starts beating up dozens of ninjas). None of it involves Darkseid or such, sure, but it's all a lot more emotionally loaded than "these six guys are sick of Spider-Man, so they try beating him up as a group one time before immediately disbanding for a couple years."
Flipsiders wrote: Almost every last comic under the DC brand either sets out to elicit either extremely strong positive emotions (awe, "coolness," sense of scale, et cetera) or extremely strong negative emotions (shock, outlandishly high stakes, cruel and depressing realism, et cetera). Basic comedy stories like most Deadpool stuff or low-to-the-ground stories with minimal stakes such as the archetypical Spider-Man comics/movies just don't work with DC's style. The DC universe is a place that at its best, is either brutally depressing and realistic, or, as is more often the case, wonderfully outlandish and committed to high stakes and memorable fights and setpieces over anything else.
I don't think this is true at all.
Court of Owls
Long Holloween.
Batman Year 1
All Star Superman
Red Son
Swamp Thing: Mark Millars run.
Under the Red Hood.
Killing Joke
Some of the best most memorable stories that come out of DC are lower stakes more personal stories. If anything, the PROBLEM with DC is that they keep going for this grandiose crap thats all spectacle and no substance.
I would say most of the comics you mentioned fall squarely under "cruel and depressing realism." Just because a comic has no aliens or worlds being destroyed doesn't mean it's low-stakes or doesn't rely on shocking the reader. Take the opening of The Killing Joke, for instance, or just about everything which happens in the Court of Owls (I'm thinking of the scene in which Batman gets in a robot suit and starts beating up dozens of ninjas). None of it involves Darkseid or such, sure, but it's all a lot more emotionally loaded than "these six guys are sick of Spider-Man, so they try beating him up as a group one time before immediately disbanding for a couple years."
What I was saying is those stories had personal stakes for the characters involved. The big grandiose gods and monsters things that DC does are not about the characters them selves so much as the setting. It's about aliens, and gak. It's about super heroes shooting lasers and punching space ships to pieces without much int he way of the individual characters arcs. Look at final crisis? Maybe superman has persona stakes? But mostly not because it's just a story to be like "Superman can do anything so he does". Under the Red hood is all about the characters involved and their personal stakes. It's not so much about realism. You mention the mech suit. It's about the focus being on the characters. A character driven story instead of a events driven one.
It's not like Marvel doesn't also have that issue, but they have been doing better while DC seems to be doing worse as a whole.
It was supposed to be John Stewart at the end, not Hal/Ryan Reynolds.
Perhaps both, it appears. Per THR:
Spoiler:
“There was another idea I had for the Green Lantern that wasn’t Ryan, and so I thought that if we had gone down this path of Green Lantern, I would have had to have Ryan as the additional Lantern. Filling out the Lantern Corps a little bit more than say just one Green Lantern.”
Finished it last night. Overall, not bad. I'm not sure if its the best of the trilogy(?) of DCEU Snyder films, but its certainly better than BvS. It might be better than MoS? Probably not going to worry about that too much.
So, the last two parts. Superman comes back, then the big fight. More content that was MOSTLY in the original, but the added weight of character gives them meaning the original lacked. The fight with Superman here somehow felt more contrived than the original, though I love the creative displays of power, particularly Superman moving in near real time at Flash speed. Ultimately though this whole chunk highlights how awful these movies treat Lois. Some of the MoS callbacks are nice, but were never given a reason to think Clark is not going to show up and the stalling feels really, really forced.
So, the final battle. In some ways, I miss the red sky. It's a DC thing and while the darkness here works okay, there's parts where it obscures some great choreography. The Avengers Assemble shot feels super weird and forced given people railed against it in Age of Ultron but whatever. The fight is mostly great. I feel like the new cut goes out of its way to limit Jason Momoa's charisma but the team comes together well and its overall a lot of the same enjoyable stuff with better stakes propping it up.
Flash's final run is an absolutely stellar piece of visual design, but Erza Miller kind of ruins it for me. The costume looks really ill fitting and he talks way way too much, over explaining what the visuals sell on their own beautifully. The other oddity here is there's something of a stuttered climax to the fight, with 2-3 moments of failure that get resolved in ways that aren't as satisfying as I'd like. Superman taking the axe is great, but between the lack of color in the costume and the general CGI nature of the shot, it doesn't really look like it made contact and kind of hovers weightlessly off his chest. The Flash healing also really needed to be set up better, particularly since the scene sells it more as a mortal wound. The sequence keeps getting distracted from the literal "race against time" that the Mother Box presents. Still, the battle as a whole is quite well done and the initial barrage of epilogue's for the characters sells the future of the universe, particularly Flash and Cyborg solo films, quite well.
The "post credit" scenes on the other hand are largely an immediate reminder of all the ill will the DCEU had generated. Lex/Slade is okay, but everything with the Knightmare is awful. Leto and Affleck bounce off each other like wet rags and all the dialog drips of high school melodrama. It's really weird. The actual film, left me feeling very optimistic about the whole thing, but by the end of that final half hour I was back in my BvS mindset.
So yeah, that's a thing that happened. It's not bad. There's probably a far far better 3 hour cut like a film instead of a mini series, but it mostly works. The slow start and miserable post credits are probably my main gripes, as the core film that's not THAT different from the Whedon version is greatly improved with the time given to establishing shots and character build up. The cast is a little flat, kind of being painted in the same brush like you find in a Bendis comic rather than having their own voice. Momoa seems to be the big victim of this, seemingly constantly being told to shut up and pout more. It's worth experiencing on the whole though. I'm not sure I'd want anything more out of it, but it's solid enough to have been worth the time.
About Mamoa, I think the one scene thats gone that really worked and would have been a good addition, was WW secretly using the lasso on Aquaman to get him to open up. I think that one (and only one) scene that apparently was one of JW's is very fitting for both characters.
Thought it was pretty good until the last half hour. The build up was more natural feeling and cohesive than the original but the final battle was even more of an underwhelming anticlimax
I can't agree regarding the lasso scene. I thought it was cornball and uncomfortable (more Diana leering from Whedon) and brought the character too far 'down'. It's handled more subtly in this one through his conversations with Barry and Diana. You see that he has a heart without it going completely cheesy.
So regarding the black suit, here's Snyder's words from his Esquire interview:
ESQ: Except for when they do. True. What's the story behind Superman's black suit?
Snyder: It comes from Death of Superman of course. But I'm also into this Robert Bly book The Red, White, and Black. The white of naivety, the red of anger, and the black of humanity. I just felt like the black suit is really symbolic of that as well. But also, frankly, I flew him straight up to the sun to charge him up. I like the black suit as a practical thing of there needing to be a way for Superman to charge up quickly and be stronger than he was. So it works in a theoretical and symbolic way.
Also, it sounds like the studio wouldn't let him shoot the scene with the GL(s). I'll make a guess that it's because of the upcoming GL series for HBO Max...they want to introduce *their* GLs on their schedule. Understandable. But still...in a way it's a little weird, right? Because they're supposedly embracing the multiverse approach...except where they don't want to embrace it, I guess.
I mean, clearly they want to move/evolve past the Snyderverse -- also understandable -- and yet he cast and introduced many of the characters they're moving forward with. His fingerprints are still all over WW, Aquaman, Flash...even Shazam in the mildest of ways. Affleck is going to be Batman one last time in Flashpoint, and Fisher would have been Cyborg again in that movie but for his blowout with the studio. Ayer introduced Robbie as Harley Quinn in his Snyderverse film. So they aren't burying the Snyderverse, nor will they be restoring it. #CherryPickTheSnyderverse
And in that environment, Henry Cavill can't get a new fething Superman gig. What the @#$% did he do to the WB execs?
And in that environment, Henry Cavill can't get a new fething Superman gig. What the @#$% did he do to the WB execs?
Blew them off for a WoW raid?
Again, I don't dislike the Black suit outright and I totally get the inclusion. I just really noticed how much the blue would have balanced things out in the final scenes, particularly when he's standing by Bruce.
Ultimately, I think Superman will struggle as long as WB has the mindset that they need to find the right way to change him to "fix" him rather than finding the right story for the character as is. At this point Cavil is tied to a failed experiment and they need a new guy for the next one.
Cynista wrote: Thought it was pretty good until the last half hour. The build up was more natural feeling and cohesive than the original but the final battle was even more of an underwhelming anticlimax
At 2x times the length, the build-up better be improved!
I dunno if it’s a self imposed perception filter, but it doesn’t seem to have really wowed anyone.
Most of the comments seem to be “it’s better than the theatrical cut, but”.
Me? I don’t exactly regret watching it. But at four hours long, and what is consider to be a lot of faffing around in that extra time, I won’t be watching it again.
The only real bum note for me was the pointless Jared Leto. I mean the scene itself is pretty pointless - setting up The Sequel That Will Never Be*. But Jared Leto himself. He was crap in Suicide Squad, roundly ridiculed, but hey kids, here’s more. It’s like inserting a Jar Jar scene into the original trilogy of Star Wars. Perhaps as a cut away for ten minutes of “comedy” after the medal ceremony.
The rest was....slightly worse than meh, I think. I don’t actively hate it, nor particularly dislike it. But I’m not exactly neutral on it.
*Unless this is stupid interference trying to create Deadpoolesque hype. If it is, I really don’t think it worked. Like, at all. For me it comes across more as “and having sat through that, now be thankful you didn’t sit through four hours of this drivel”.
LunarSol wrote: Ultimately, I think Superman will struggle as long as WB has the mindset that they need to find the right way to change him to "fix" him rather than finding the right story for the character as is.
They're doing it right on the CW with their new Superman show. Clark's challenges aren't physical, they're interpersonal. They're about how a god-like being deals with the more down-to-Earth issues like raising two teenage sons and trying to support his wife, all while his father in law is berating him for shirking his responsibilities for the world.
LunarSol wrote: At this point Cavil is tied to a failed experiment and they need a new guy for the next one.
Michael B. Jordan, it seems. Gotta get them woke points!
I dunno. I’d say that a 33-point increase in the RT critics score and a 25% increase in its audience score means that it’s being received better than “slightly less bad”. It *seems* like it’s been pretty successful for HBO Max, but only they know the sub numbers. I don’t think anyone is saying it’s Oscar-worthy, but what comic book movie is?
IMO, it is quite a bit more interesting than most, due to the drama surrounding it and because it’s an auteur work from a distinctive and often divisive director. Debating the precise level of the audience reception seems like the least interesting aspect to discuss. I mean, the thing is a total dead end...there will be no sequels. But it’s a free message board I guess.
LunarSol wrote: Ultimately, I think Superman will struggle as long as WB has the mindset that they need to find the right way to change him to "fix" him rather than finding the right story for the character as is.
They're doing it right on the CW with their new Superman show. Clark's challenges aren't physical, they're interpersonal. They're about how a god-like being deals with the more down-to-Earth issues like raising two teenage sons and trying to support his wife, all while his father in law is berating him for shirking his responsibilities for the world.
Yeah the comics guys have no issues writing Superman stories. The TV show is being handled well...and I’d say that it even shares some DNA with MoS. The film studio just seems baffled. Now they’re handling it to JJ, because we know he won’t be divisive.
Have you read the script for Superman Flyby or a synopsis? Yikes. It seems like the same bad ideas keep circulating through that studio even though the execs and creatives change.
Haven't seen it yet as I need to sweet talk the Mrs. into another streaming service, but I've noticed a decided lack of "Loopy Lex" commentary. Was he more restrained in this film?
Lex was really only in the post-credit-but-it-happens-befor-the-credits scene. I still think he’s poorly cast, but isn’t really given enough time to be all loopy. He recruits Deathstroke still, who has a grudge against Batman implied to be over his missing eye, and Lex tells him who Batman really is.
AduroT wrote: Lex was really only in the post-credit-but-it-happens-befor-the-credits scene. I still think he’s poorly cast, but isn’t really given enough time to be all loopy. He recruits Deathstroke still, who has a grudge against Batman implied to be over his missing eye, and Lex tells him who Batman really is.
He specifically gets called out as having been driven crazy and cured at Arkham in the scene. The important thing though is that he's not really in the movie in any capacity at all. Same with Leto, those two end up being the after dinner mint to the film laced with ipecac.
To be fair, JJ isn't confirmed to be directing yet. He's definitely producing though. Coates is a gifted writer. Will really have to see exactly where that goes.
More like the Boxing Day poop after Christmas Dinner with the all the trimmings and not being allowed to leave the table until you’ve cleared the plate your Granny insists on constantly topping up
AduroT wrote: Lex was really only in the post-credit-but-it-happens-befor-the-credits scene. I still think he’s poorly cast, but isn’t really given enough time to be all loopy. He recruits Deathstroke still, who has a grudge against Batman implied to be over his missing eye, and Lex tells him who Batman really is.
Yeah, that was the lead-in to the Affleck Batman film that never happened. Was going to be about Deathstroke hunting and taking down Batman by targeting everyone around him, and ending with a fight scene out of the video game.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I dunno if it’s a self imposed perception filter, but it doesn’t seem to have really wowed anyone.
Most of the comments seem to be “it’s better than the theatrical cut, but”.
I think it's just a movie that people went into with the correct expectations and pretty much everyone got what they were expecting. My friends who petitioned for it were SUPER happy, my friends who didn't appreciated the improvements but weren't exactly blown away, and my friends who didn't care continue to not care. We live in an era where setting expectations matters as much as the actual product. Wishing them luck with JJ on that matter....
His actual initial reboots do extremely well. That's why I thought getting him for just Ep 7 was one of Disney's best decisions and why bringing him back for 9 was easily their worst.
But Ep 7 set up the failure of the sequel series. The lack of long term story planning and reliance on mystery boxes took a sledgehammer to the series’ legs by the end of the first movie. Just because it was fast paced and had fun scenes doesn’t mean it was a good movie or a good franchise opener.
Same thing with Star Trek 09. By the end of the first movie, Kirk was unlikeable, Starfleet had lost its credibility, and the setting was broken. It was fun nonsense at the expense of everything that made TOS a viable franchise.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But Ep 7 set up the failure of the sequel series. The lack of long term story planning and reliance on mystery boxes took a sledgehammer to the series’ legs by the end of the first movie. Just because it was fast paced and had fun scenes doesn’t mean it was a good movie or a good franchise opener.
Same thing with Star Trek 09. By the end of the first movie, Kirk was unlikeable, Starfleet had lost its credibility, and the setting was broken. It was fun nonsense at the expense of everything that made TOS a viable franchise.
I don't really have a problem with anything in 7 and I think 8 sets up a great finale that we just never got. Part of that is just that I don't think Star Wars has ever relied on or benefitted from long term story structure. It's movies have always been self contained with huge time skips that make prior events less important than the immediate story. While I don't have an ounce of love for JJ's love of mystery boxes without care for how they're answered, I've also seen just how much of that damage is created by the community. WandaVision is probably the most recent example of people demanding the rabbit hole go all the way to the Earth's core and being disappointed when it's just its own story instead of being about continuity management. Fans put so demand into forcing 7 into a rigid set of cliches, but for my money, the failure was 9's attempts to appease them.
I had a guaranteed marketing sales with each movie - toys, plastic cups, bedding, underoos... Who cares if it sucked or not?
Short term thinking. He made Avengers money at the expense of making MCU money.
Kinda? Perhaps? What we do know is that despite a few attempts, no other studio has pulled off an MCU. Disney might be getting there with the TV series approach to Star Wars. But the MCU, Universal Dark Universe etc have all crashed and burned.
He’s still a financially successful director, and reliably so. That’s all movie studios really care about. Film A succeeding allows Films B and C to be made, and they needn’t be otherwise related. A few bum notes and losses and the whole thing can come to an end.
The MCU is successful because, well, who really knows? The films are all good fun, though quality varies. And it wasn’t really until Avengers Assemble that they made the really, really big bucks. What probably helped was that Iron Man, the first out the gate, was a really, really good film. RDJ was something of a hasbeen at the time, yet he made for an interesting Tony Stark. Recognisable to existing fans, accessible to newcomers.
But what we are seeing now is studios being possibly too risk adverse. If their first entry doesn’t do megabucks, they pull the plug or go interfering. Consider The Mummy. Oh gods that is a terrible film. Yet, the premise of a Universal Monsters series is a solid one. They’re well established in the public consciousness, to the point their Dracula et al have become the default look - like how many people call any vacuum cleaner a Hoover etc. It wasn’t entirely unsolvable as a problem, but they changed course and dumped the whole thing, which feels massively premature.
And when they do, it’s people like JJ Abrams and Michael Bay they turn to. Because their movies may not be great, but they’re reliable money spinners.
Yet, there are two notable MCU-a-likes, if you look carefully.
First, The Fast and the Furiverse. Loads of films, all making decent money.
Second? The Conjuring Universe. Those have all been profitable and healthily so, because they’re cheap to produce (not cheaply produced, which I consider a different matter). To date, according to the link to follow? A total production budget of $139,500,000, for a total box office take of $1,904,011,496. So not exactly massive compared to the MCU’s takings - but definitely wildly profitable.
And now I’ve waffled myself to the degree I’ve forgotten my point. Bugger.
From JJ's perspective, Avengers money is much better than MCU money.
The funny thing about the MCU is that most of its success has been built by making good movies that aren't really connected outside of the post credit sequence. This lets them gloss over things that don't work like the Incredible Hulk or Red Skull and focus on things that click, like RDJ and Loki. The post credit sequence is something that can be spun up pretty close to the film's release to tease movies that have already begun to take shape.
Iron Man promised the Avengers, but never let that drive the movies that came after.
Thanos is probably the best example of a long term promise that really only worked because the movies didn't become set up for his. He gets all the stones in Infinity War.
There was a similar break in the MCU fandom around Ultron. This was the movie where a lot of people got really upset it wasn't about things in other movies and really didn't reward them for consuming every film and theorizing what it all means. It was it's own thing that ironically, is at its weakest when its forced to explain magic space rocks that don't have anything to do with the film. Iron Man 2 is similarly one of the low points in the franchise due to a similar focus on setup over standing on its own.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But Ep 7 set up the failure of the sequel series. The lack of long term story planning and reliance on mystery boxes took a sledgehammer to the series’ legs by the end of the first movie. Just because it was fast paced and had fun scenes doesn’t mean it was a good movie or a good franchise opener.
Same thing with Star Trek 09. By the end of the first movie, Kirk was unlikeable, Starfleet had lost its credibility, and the setting was broken. It was fun nonsense at the expense of everything that made TOS a viable franchise.
I don't really have a problem with anything in 7 and I think 8 sets up a great finale that we just never got. Part of that is just that I don't think Star Wars has ever relied on or benefitted from long term story structure. It's movies have always been self contained with huge time skips that make prior events less important than the immediate story. While I don't have an ounce of love for JJ's love of mystery boxes without care for how they're answered, I've also seen just how much of that damage is created by the community. WandaVision is probably the most recent example of people demanding the rabbit hole go all the way to the Earth's core and being disappointed when it's just its own story instead of being about continuity management. Fans put so demand into forcing 7 into a rigid set of cliches, but for my money, the failure was 9's attempts to appease them.
Fans didn't really demand anything of 7. The writer/director forced those cliches in (maybe with help of the studio). People just reacted to what was presented- they didn't (and couldn't have) forced those all those cliches into the film. 9 failures were directly attached to not having an overall trilogy plotted out BEFORE 7, and instead dealing with the feuding director's takes on what it should be, as they made their individual films with no regard to anything like an overall story.
Similarly with WandaVision. That's like 80% continuity porn. Some wrap-up for characters that were neglected at the end of infinity war and a LOT of set up (here's where they are now for Monica, Woo & Darcy; Darkhold/SW->Dr Strange 2, creating another Vision & origin story). The actual story of WandaVision is actually fairly tiny. And mostly irrelevant given the writer's insistence on it not 'being about' consequences for the characters' actions.
Kind of? The only major mysteries 7 asks is what happened to Rey's parents and what happened between Luke and Ben. Fan's built way more mystery into Snoke than the film ever did.
WandaVision is only continuity porn if the only thing you take out of it is the events that pertain to some kind of nebulous larger story. Literally nothing of importance happens to Woo or Darcy and pretty much everything mentioned here is the stuff from either the last episode or AFTER the last episode.
Like.... no one enjoyed Return of the Jedi specifically because of the questions it asks regarding the challenges of rebuilding the republic in the wake of a successful rebellion. That's the danger of continuity; we focus on finding our happiness in the future rather than enjoying what we have.
WandaVision has a lot of merit as its own thing. It's got a great arc about the stages of grielf wrapped in desire at the heart of it to struggle to accept a new reality beyond loss. It would be good as its own thing; arguably, it would probably be better. Regardless, the meat of the story is definitely not the end, but its easy to overlook when we focus entirely on what's next.
LunarSol wrote: Kind of? The only major mysteries 7 asks is what happened to Rey's parents and what happened between Luke and Ben. Fan's built way more mystery into Snoke than the film ever did.
I think we're referring to different things here. When you said 'fans forcing 7 into a rigid set of cliches' I thought you were talking about 7, not the stuff the carried into the next film. Or rather failed to be carried, because the directors are hacks.
Snoke, I disagree entirely on. You don't introduce a big bad without intending some payoff. Villains need development as much (or even more) than the protagonists. Heroes can be reactive because stuff affects them personally (you killed my parents and burned my town!), villains needs a motive, and a background. Snoke is wretched, because he's a ball of nothing that adds zero to 7, actively wastes screen time in 8, and is just a joke in 9. Put Ren in charge from the beginning and nothing of note changes.
WandaVision is only continuity porn if the only thing you take out of it is the events that pertain to some kind of nebulous larger story. Literally nothing of importance happens to Woo or Darcy and pretty much everything mentioned here is the stuff from either the last episode or AFTER the last episode.
Continuity porn doesn't need to be important. It honestly usually isn't. But its written for the fans- if the writers didn't want it, not including those characters would have been simple- they're of such little use its clear that their only function _is_ continuity porn in the shape of 'where are they now?' As a political science intern, Darcy becoming a real astrophysicist is straight up a surprise that has zip to do with the Wandavision story.
WandaVision has a lot of merit as its own thing. It's got a great arc about the stages of grielf wrapped in desire at the heart of it to struggle to accept a new reality beyond loss. It would be good as its own thing; arguably, it would probably be better. Regardless, the meat of the story is definitely not the end, but its easy to overlook when we focus entirely on what's next.
Again, the continuity porn isn't restricted to the end. Its scattered about all over, but 'We interrupt this program' (ep 4) is huge, and continuity with the MCU is really the only purpose. It actually derails Wanda's story a fair bit by existing. (And I say Wanda's story for a reason. Vision exists to be rebooted as a character, but not much else other than a signpost to demonstrate where Wanda is falling apart)
But I would argue that the meat of the story _is_ at the end. The Wanda's fantasy is neat, but by its very nature its hollow. The show really only starts mattering when she starts learning about consequences. The rest is pure self-indulgence- that's important to the setup, but it doesn't really matter.
First, The Fast and the Furiverse. Loads of films, all making decent money.
The Fast franchise is nothing like the MCU. The Fast franchise is a single series of linier sequels (with the exception of the Hobbs/Shaw film). It's not an interconnected universe of different characters that overlap and work with one another from time to time.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But what we are seeing now is studios being possibly too risk adverse. If their first entry doesn’t do megabucks, they pull the plug or go interfering. Consider The Mummy. Oh gods that is a terrible film. Yet, the premise of a Universal Monsters series is a solid one. They’re well established in the public consciousness, to the point their Dracula et al have become the default look - like how many people call any vacuum cleaner a Hoover etc. It wasn’t entirely unsolvable as a problem, but they changed course and dumped the whole thing, which feels massively premature.
So the roles of studios and directors is something that's more interesting to discuss about ZSJL (at least to me). It seems like some critics 'came around' to some degree just because the thing is classic auteur filmmaking. The kind you don't see much with blockbuster films and extremely rarely with superhero movies. And it's a huge contrast with the theatrical cut, because that was clearly a film that had been chopped up and mashed together and reprocessed seemingly without care from anyone.
I can't get my head around why the studio would have thought what they released was a better option. Or even ready for theaters. But clearly, somehow they thought it SAFER. ZSJL isn't a masterpiece exactly, but it's at least SOMEONE'S vision and undeniably theirs. Not a Frankenstein monster result of overactive and incompetent execs and two very different directors. Not everyone may enjoy the meal that Snyder cooked up, but at least it's a coherent dish and not a bunch of gak thrown in a blender and handed to us with a straw stuck in it.
If that seems like a low bar to clear, well...yeah, it probably is. But we're in a low bar era full of big-budget brain candy theater films that are completely forgettable. This is going to sound like I'm picking on the MCU. Well, I do have my MCU favorites, and they're mostly the ones where some personal style leaks around the edges of the template. But then maybe half of the MCU is completely forgettable to me. I can't tell who the hell directed them and I don't even think I'm supposed to care. But I should care...that's part of what makes movies interesting. At least to me.
So as a fellow creative professional...FETH YEAH ZACK SNYDER! Congrats on getting your vision out there and creating something that's memorable and discussion-worthy.
The original cut was clearly made with 3 parameters:
- Make it colorful
- Make it funny
- Make it not one second longer than 2 hours
These are 3 things that the Snyder Cut makes abundantly clear were not features of the raw source material and could only be accomplished by mangling it into an unnatural form. It's pretty clear that even Whedon considered it an impossible demand if the opening credits are to be believed:
LunarSol wrote: The original cut was clearly made with 3 parameters:
- Make it colorful
- Make it funny
- Make it not one second longer than 2 hours
These are 3 things that the Snyder Cut makes abundantly clear were not features of the raw source material and could only be accomplished by mangling it into an unnatural form. It's pretty clear that even Whedon considered it an impossible demand if the opening credits are to be believed:
Spoiler:
Realistically, most films have upwards of 4-5 hours of footage and half or more will never make it into the final cut. Justice League's reshoots probably gave it more than most, thus making it easy to flesh the film out even longer. Without a doubt, JL would have benefited from another 30 minutes of run time. It would still be profoundly mediocre imo, but far less stupidly mediocre.
Do you mean JL theatrical cut or ZSJL? Just asking because based the way I would define a mediocre film...putting ZSJL in that category doesn't make sense to me. It's a lot of things, but plain, room temperature oatmeal it ain't. Strong like or dislike, or complicated feelings would all be more understandable, lol.
Now Captain Marvel...to me, that was truly mediocre. I saw it...and hardly remember it. Didn't have anything interesting or memorable going on with its visuals or style or performances or script or story. It just kinda existed. Larson's a good actress...I just don't think there was much there for her to work with. But lots of people sucked that one up through a straw, so I guess there's a market for it.
It feels like that's what the studio wanted when they brought in Whedon...'it doesn't have to be good, but DO NOT OFFEND'. Anyway, I'm happy to see that ZSJL wasn't that. And that current management is letting the creators create more now, even if it means it's not the same kind of universe as Marvel.
gorgon wrote: Now Captain Marvel...to me, that was truly mediocre. I saw it...and hardly remember it. Didn't have anything interesting or memorable going on with its visuals or style or performances or script or story. It just kinda existed. Larson's a good actress...I just don't think there was much there for her to work with. But lots of people sucked that one up through a straw, so I guess there's a market for it.
I guess people were afraid to criticise Captain Marvel for fear of being called misogynists.
Of course that means that any attempt to have an honest discussion about Captain Marvel's biggest failing (it's directors!) gets drowned out by "You just hate stronk wymyn!!!!" nonsense.
This is why I'm hoping the new director for Captain Marvel 2 can actually do something good with it. In the end they just should'a hired Lexi Alexander to make the first one. She knows how to direct action.
Now Captain Marvel...to me, that was truly mediocre. I saw it...and hardly remember it. Didn't have anything interesting or memorable going on with its visuals or style or performances or script or story. It just kinda existed.
gorgon wrote: Do you mean JL theatrical cut or ZSJL? Just asking because based the way I would define a mediocre film...putting ZSJL in that category doesn't make sense to me. It's a lot of things, but plain, room temperature oatmeal it ain't. Strong like or dislike, or complicated feelings would all be more understandable, lol.
I definitely qualify it as mediocre.
Now Captain Marvel...to me, that was truly mediocre.
This too, though less offensively so.
For me, JL was like a baby who wanted to sprint the 100m before it had learned to crawl and it cropped up throughout the movie by being really really wonky. Captain Marvel was in comparison just incredibly run of the mill and bland.
I saw it...and hardly remember it.
That's because it's not very memorable I can't help but feel a movie presumably about Captain M.'s one woman war against the Kree would have been more interesting given it's supposed to be a back drop to several other films in the MCU (mostly Guardians). As it was, the actual movie fel like going through the motions of an origin story while having nothing interesting to add. Doctor Strange was much the same for me.
I liked Captain Marvel on the whole. The Skrull twise was nice and its hard to hate Samuel L. Jackson befriending a cat. It lacks punch though, in no small part because it was released in the middle of Infinity. Need to watch it again out of that context.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Of course that means that any attempt to have an honest discussion about Captain Marvel's biggest failing (it's directors!) gets drowned out by "You just hate stronk wymyn!!!!" nonsense.
Realistically, that was ruined by a lot of nonsense about how Brie Larson doesn't smile enough, and other stupid crap, taking over the internet about the film before the movie even came out. Then it did come out, her performance and the film were profoundly 'meh' and instead of talking about that it was hard to talk through the haters masturbating to how right they were for being pigs.
This is why I'm hoping the new director for Captain Marvel 2 can actually do something good with it. In the end they just should'a hired Lexi Alexander to make the first one. She knows how to direct action.
It didn't help that Captain M. really feels like a cardboard cut out as a character. Someone presented to fit a mold more than an actual person. I don't feel like we really learned anything about her as a person in the first movie. We basically just saw her doing what almost anyone in her situation would do. That's not a whole lot to really build a unique character on. Reminded me a lot of The First Avenger, where I thought Evan's performance and the film suffered from being particularly bland. EDIT: Thinking of it, I think I feel the same about Doctor Strange. That character really didn't come into his own until he started bantering with Thor and Tony in later movies. In his own origin film, I found him to be bland and the film was only cool for being very different from other MCU films with the magic and all.
Makes me reappreciate Black Panther a bit. The third act was cliche and soured me on the rest of the film, but at least the film presented T'Challa and others with something of a defining personal conflict that went beyond being a nice person surrounded by donkey-caves.
Samuel L. Jackson befriending a cat
I'd completely forgotten about that XD
When the feth are we going to get a Nick Fury movie? Ever? Please?
Compel wrote: Not a movie, but Secret Invasion is supposed to be a Nick Fury centric tv show, in the style of Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
On topic.
Launching tonight. 'Justice is Grey.' - Zack Snyders Justice League, but in black and white.
Do I want to know what the rationale behind that is?
Is Snyder just obsessed with stripping out every possible signature aspect of comic books so he can prove how above them he is? Even going as far as color?
Or is it just the money? Resell the resell, but this time an even easier change so it costs less?
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I can't help but feel a movie presumably about Captain M.'s one woman war against the Kree would have been more interesting given it's supposed to be a back drop to several other films in the MCU (mostly Guardians). As it was, the actual movie fel like going through the motions of an origin story while having nothing interesting to add. Doctor Strange was much the same for me.