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I hope Suicide Squad really is more Dirty Dozen with guys that happen to be superheroes, than a superhero movie with a Dirty Dozen theme. Very little to no origin explanation, just an actual story that happens to have superhumans.

I suspect that given the # of and wide backgrounds of the villains, you will get your brief origin/history/backstory.

Something like....

Recite name...list crimes...maybe show some flashes of said crimes...a little interaction with the guards/authority....then add to the group for the big speech.

 Ouze wrote:

I hope Suicide Squad really is more Dirty Dozen with guys that happen to be superheroes, than a superhero movie with a Dirty Dozen theme. Very little to no origin explanation, just an actual story that happens to have superhumans.

I hope this as well... I mean, honestly, I think the few lines from the trailer could suffice for "origin" stories on most of the characters.

I like the Guardians of the Galaxy approach. Simple quick origin for the main guy, super quick "here is who they are and what they did" for the other guys, then the movie

That was actually one of the better parts of BvS. Everyone knows Batman's origin story, so they covered it in less than 2 minutes, felt like, over the opening credits.

Marvel have also come out and said. "No you are not going to see Uncle Ben die again."

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
Not to mention I grew up with either TERRIBLE super hero films like Superman 2.

Oh come on, Superman II was that bad...

Have you watched it lately, or are you going on memory? If you watch it now and set aside all your nostalgia, etc...not a good film. Looks every bit a film that was started by one director, then finished by another with different ideas.

On a side note, it's funny to consider how people gripe about Man of Steel and long for Reeve's version, when in SMII he:

1) Kills a de-powered Zod unnecessarily by throwing him down a chasm
2) Returns to beat up a helpless trucker after getting his powers back
3) Beds Lois (and impregnates her if you consider Superman Returns as part of the series), and then *erases her memory of it happening*

But hey, Reeve grins a lot. And there are silly one-liners. And Otis.

I definitely prefer the full Richard Donner version of Supes 2. And 3 and 4 were both God-awful. But yeah, even CR's Supes does some pretty crappy stuff. Zod, the pettiness with the trucker, and knocking up Lois and making her forget it? Yeah...not cool, bro. I never really considered rufies to be part of superman's power set.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Yeah, but isn't Alan Moore just a miserable human being in general? I've never seen anyone mention Alan Moore in conjunction with the emotion of happiness; always anger. The dude would make a good 40k character at this point.

There are other artistes who feel personally insulted that their work is popular enough to have been considered for a movie, especially when that movie is a slavish homage to the source material in many ways, literally recreating comic panels and sequences shot-for-panel.


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 d-usa wrote:
I like the Guardians of the Galaxy approach. Simple quick origin for the main guy, super quick "here is who they are and what they did" for the other guys, then the movie

Guardians did an especially good job introducing the characters. It's kinda nice that nobody felt the need to show Starlord doing his crossfit HIIT WOD - he's already fully complete when he hits the planet.

Rocket exists as a character, a person, when they start with his POV and snarky VO, so the audience is wondering what he looks like before they finally see him - another fully-formed character. Just jumping right in. But I will say this - I would LOVE to see Rocket's origin story as a movie...

The specifically call out his Lylla, so it would be awesome to see him in full Ranger gear on Halfworld... That would be a tremendous romp, a kid-friendly PG movie.

 gorgon wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
Not to mention I grew up with either TERRIBLE super hero films like Superman 2.

Oh come on, Superman II was that bad...

On a side note, it's funny to consider how people gripe about Man of Steel and long for Reeve's version, when in SMII he:
*

But hey, Reeve grins a lot. And there are silly one-liners. And Otis.

Nostalgia. And a whole lot of "my generation is better because of X Y Z reasons. I can't really stand the original Superman movies, they just annoy me something fierce. I didn't like the one where Lex was played by Kevin spacey either. Didn't mind man of steel though, I thought that was a pretty decent Superman movie. And that's from a guy that doesn't really like Superman, I find him a bit dull from being so powerful.

 gorgon wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
Not to mention I grew up with either TERRIBLE super hero films like Superman 2.

Oh come on, Superman II was that bad...

Have you watched it lately, or are you going on memory? If you watch it now and set aside all your nostalgia, etc...not a good film. Looks every bit a film that was started by one director, then finished by another with different ideas.

Yeah I have watched it lately, and no I don't think it's that bad. I'm clearly not alone because it has an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 87 on Metacritic.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Except they didn't do either - they made a mistake IMO by focussing only on "lets have sups and batman fight" and then trying to crowbar in a reason for them to do so - throw in a nonsensical plot with a miscast main villain and its a mess.

The more I think about it, the more I think the problem was that Batman and Superman didn't fight enough. There was more time dedicated to mincing around at Luthor's party, and way more time spent fighting the big bad guy, than there was with the two main characters doing all the fighting we were promised. It should have been in three parts I think, with Batman becoming more of a threat in each fight as his kryptonite weaponry increases each time.

Part of this is the need to wedge in the stuff setting up the franchise, but there was also a crazy amount of flabby nonsense in the script. Did we really need Lex's plot in Africa, and the White Portuguese, and his plot with manipulating/exploding the government?


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 Charles Rampant wrote:
I always get sad when people complain about there being too many Superhero films. I mean, there has been an endless tide of Romantic Comedies for just about the entire history of Cinema, why do we not hear the despairing cries about how many of those there are? :p

But people did complain about the heaping numbers of romantic comedies when they were flooding the market. And they complained about the heap of gross out comedies when they were flooding the market. Hollywood finds something people have an appetite for, and then they flood us with that thing until we plead with them to please make movies about something else. And eventually we stop going to see Julia Roberts with some guy celebrity... they fight but then they fall in love.

So far the saturation point for comic book movies hasn't been reached, but I don't think that's because comic book movies have some vast untapped potential. I think it's probably more because two of the major players have shown a really good records of consistent work. Marvel has released approx 4 million films at this point, and only Iron Man 2 and Age of Ultron have been poor, and FOX has done really well X-Men as well - 4 out of 5 is a really good batting average.


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 gorgon wrote:
But hey, Reeve grins a lot. And there are silly one-liners. And Otis.

And think people often take more from the tone of the film than it's actual events. Reeve is starry eyed and all american, while Cavill is just so damn sombre all the time. The two things most complained about in MoS - the city wide destruction and killing Zod, would probably have to happen in just about every Superman movie for it to have a workable level of tension. But because much of the story is about him being reluctant to be a hero, and Cavill is directed to be so miserable about everything, it impacts how we judge his actions in those last scenes.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I definitely prefer the full Richard Donner version of Supes 2. And 3 and 4 were both God-awful. But yeah, even CR's Supes does some pretty crappy stuff. Zod, the pettiness with the trucker, and knocking up Lois and making her forget it? Yeah...not cool, bro. I never really considered rufies to be part of superman's power set.

I haven't seen it, but I've heard that the "Donner cut" -- although rough -- undoes a lot of the damage done by the other director.

 sebster wrote:
And think people often take more from the tone of the film than it's actual events. Reeve is starry eyed and all american, while Cavill is just so damn sombre all the time. The two things most complained about in MoS - the city wide destruction and killing Zod, would probably have to happen in just about every Superman movie for it to have a workable level of tension. But because much of the story is about him being reluctant to be a hero, and Cavill is directed to be so miserable about everything, it impacts how we judge his actions in those last scenes.

Honestly, I think *some* people just can't get past the Christopher Reeve movies and never will. People didn't like it when Cavill smiled at the end of MoS following all the destruction. But it's apparently fine to show all your pearly whites with gusto after giving your girlfriend a super-rufie and beating up a normal human with your god powers.

Some things just get a pass, other things get hyper-scrutinized. *shrug*

Said this before, but the iconic nature of these characters works against DC to some degree. People get very attached to this or that version, and think that's the correct and only version that should be seen. Marvel used a lot of B- and C-level heroes in its films, which were blank slates for most of the public, and even to comics fans who didn't have prior live-action incarnations for comparison. Said more simply, the Marvel films are defining these characters for people, while the DC films have the specters of past incarnations of Superman and Batman, and some folks are just going to prefer past versions. I have a feeling they'll fare better with WW, just because the Lynda Carter version was so long ago and doesn't carry the same kind of import. Aquaman is another great opportunity to redefine in a positive way.

Apparently, Ben Affleck will be directing the next Batman film.

Yep! That should be a good one.

In other news, I saw a column "worrying that Suicide Squad may be dead on arrival." So the negativity machine is cranking right back up.

More and more I'm convinced that negative BvS articles were seeing very high click rates, and that's a reason there was so much piling on and spreading of false rumors, etc.

People pay way too much attention to self-proclaimed "film critics" who haven't even seen the movie before it has been released.

And I also feel that sometimes, critics forget the very simple idea of: suspension of disbelief

I mean seriously....these are *fictional* stories about *fictional* characters doing *fictional* things. It is meant to be, first and foremost, entertaining.

If more people would just embrace that disbelief for the 2-3 hours that are required...more peple would be better off and enjoy more movies.

Just my 2 cents.

 gorgon wrote:
In other news, I saw a column "worrying that Suicide Squad may be dead on arrival." So the negativity machine is cranking right back up.

That's ridiculous. SS is now very clearly another Batman movie. Mark my words, SS will do very well.

Unless DC decided to "fix" it with meddling, a la Superman 2... That's my only real concern, that DC is panicking over BvS and Marvel, and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

From the very beginning the speculation was that Batman was the one who put all those villains away. I'm not sure why people are surprised by Batman being involved in a film in which Joker is a main character.

Everyone involved has debunked the rumors about WB wanting to cram in more humor and change the tone of the film.
However, I do think Ayer got his reshoot money for additional action because WB felt it was insurance to make sure this film is as good as it can be. The problem for them probably wasn't the finances of BvS but that it wasn't the immensely popular hit they wanted to launch the whole enterprise.

DC hid Batman for quite a while, even though we saw that the greatest number of prominent SS members were Batman-related. Also, most SS comics are about the SS doing their "Dirty Dozen" stuff, not Batman.

As BvS: DoJ shows, meddling doesn't have to change the tone to ruin a film. DC forcing Snyder to add Batman and Wonder Woman to his Superman vs Doomsday movie resulted in a 4-hour film, which then got butchered down to 2.5 hours and will "director's cut" back to 3 hours.

 TheMeanDM wrote:
People pay way too much attention to self-proclaimed "film critics" who haven't even seen the movie before it has been released.

And I also feel that sometimes, critics forget the very simple idea of: suspension of disbelief

I mean seriously....these are *fictional* stories about *fictional* characters doing *fictional* things. It is meant to be, first and foremost, entertaining.

If more people would just embrace that disbelief for the 2-3 hours that are required...more peple would be better off and enjoy more movies.

Just my 2 cents.

Very true - also people seem to ignore the fact that film critics are as or more biased to their own tastes than your average person in the street..............

DC forcing Snyder to add Batman and Wonder Woman to his Superman vs Doomsday movie resulted in a 4-hour film, which then got butchered down to 2.5 hours and will "director's cut" back to 3 hours.

I was not aware of that! Sheesh does that mean we could have had more Loopy Lex - shudder..........

Is there a comic reason why Harley goes to prison rather than Arkham Asylum given that she is insane? Is it just to keep her away from Mr J?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
DC hid Batman for quite a while, even though we saw that the greatest number of prominent SS members were Batman-related. Also, most SS comics are about the SS doing their "Dirty Dozen" stuff, not Batman.

As BvS: DoJ shows, meddling doesn't have to change the tone to ruin a film. DC forcing Snyder to add Batman and Wonder Woman to his Superman vs Doomsday movie resulted in a 4-hour film, which then got butchered down to 2.5 hours and will "director's cut" back to 3 hours.

I thought that batman on top of jokers car was one of the first shots released from this movie?

 d-usa wrote:
I thought that batman on top of jokers car was one of the first shots released from this movie?

It was. We've known about Batman being in this film (in flashbacks at the very least) almost from the get go. Nothing's been 'hidden'.

So sneaky...

But at this point it just feels like some people want to hate everything DC related and take pleasure in their desire to see it fail.

 d-usa wrote:
But at this point it just feels like some people want to hate everything DC related and take pleasure in their desire to see it fail.

Maybe, but personally I want these movies to succeed. It just feels like WB/DC are a few steps behind what Marvel Studios is doing so it seems like they're trying extra hard to play catch up.

Still, I'll be there to see his movie and especially the recently confirmed Batfleck movie.

Part of me does think that. But another part of me thinks I might just be conflating the general Snyder-hate with DC-hate.

I'll believe that a person hates DC though when they start hating all the DC TV shows on right now too. The DC TV shows go from a full spectrum of 'supergritty' (Gotham) to family friendly (Supergirl) with things in between. Considering they're all very different kinds of shows, disliking all of them would probably mean that they really dislike DC.

I want GOOD movies to succeed. That means DC making something GOOD that isn't a Batman movie or a Batman movie in disguise like BvS, or as I now learn, (Bv)SS...

Also, is it just me, or is most of the enjoyment of Got Ham from watching a train wreck in slow motion? Things like "clean" Gordon shooting the Mayor in cold blood. Or Alfred hitting a child.

And Green Arrow is clearly not-Batman.

OTOH, Flash has some awesome stuff:




I cannot wait to see Darkseid holding Flash like a puppet.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
But at this point it just feels like some people want to hate everything DC related and take pleasure in their desire to see it fail.

Maybe, but personally I want these movies to succeed. It just feels like WB/DC are a few steps behind what Marvel Studios is doing so it seems like they're trying extra hard to play catch up.

Still, I'll be there to see his movie and especially the recently confirmed Batfleck movie.

Indeed - I also don't want to pay good money to see poor films - Batman vs Sups was enjoyable enough so that was ok - but we came out of the cinema saying exacty that - "Hmm it was ok" - we came out of other films excited and going - "that was f$%%ing awesome

Also alot of people are not saying "I hate DC" they are saying - the film need to be x , y or z or if only they could have or she was great - he sucked big time in the film..............

Also DC is being compared to Fox and the Xmen films as well - which are also doing excellent work.

DC are apparently doing very well on TV and this is where Marvel have been playing catch up - Agents of Shield was poor to average at the beginning and took more than a season to reach its stride - although Agent Catrer was much better..............

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
DC hid Batman for quite a while, even though we saw that the greatest number of prominent SS members were Batman-related. Also, most SS comics are about the SS doing their "Dirty Dozen" stuff, not Batman.

The 'definitive' live action suicide squad cartoon is a Batman cartoon (Batman: Assault on Arkham).

 d-usa wrote:
So sneaky...

But at this point it just feels like some people want to hate everything DC related and take pleasure in their desire to see it fail.

Why? Because Marvel fanbois? Because 'Murica? Because comics in general.

From what I see those not into superhero comics don't care one way or another.

I really hope this movie is good. I enjoyed BvS a great deal, but I'm a sucker for heavy handed metaphors and appreciated Lex's zaniness.