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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.

That is always an option.

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.

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.

The DC animated films were just as connected as the MCU. They were building on and referencing each other quite frequently.

 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).

After Justice League War came out they were explicitly an EU baring a few exceptions.

 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)

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.

 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.

Oh I know. I was shocked that someone could screw up Batman but a literal Ninja, and somehow they screwed it up XD

 LordofHats wrote:
Oh I know. I was shocked that someone could screw up Batman but a literal Ninja, and somehow they screwed it up XD

Agreed - we watched that an amusement turned to scorn and that turned - lets switch this crap off

 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).

Sure, but he's only really started being visible as a director relatively recently, and each one has been pretty darn great.

He was director of animation (department head) at DC animation for a couple of decades, though prior to taking the helm on individual projects.

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.

https://imgur.com/a/ww6LwAt

Well...that was certainly...something.

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.