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 Frazzled wrote:
Evidently you did not like Suicide Squad.

Suicide Squad was pretty bad XD

Just saying. Guns and explosives seemed exceedingly sufficient to deal with the problem they were facing when Deadshot was around, but what? The US Army can't make up for a lack of superhuman accuracy with sheer volume? Well of course it can't then the movie would be over too soon! The whole plot was like watching a really bad excuse to just put some bad guys in the role of heroes. The individual pieces were a lot better than I expected, but the whole puzzle was a mess. On top of that, I just didn't find the film all that charming.

The DCEU has been taking body hits since Man of Steel on multiple fronts. Even as the films have been quite profitable they haven't produced the mega franchise ballooning out into hyped film after hyped film, which the people funding these films obviously seem to want.

I'd like the quality of these movies to improve so I'm all for the people making them taking a step back and reassessing how they're doing things.

I did not like suicide squad, but I did enjoy harley's ass...

It all goes back to how DC can make good tv shows but not movies, and Marvel makes better movies than TV shows (though I really like Daredevil). Flash, Arrow, and Legends are great fun, and I hear Supergirl's better now, too.

That does baffle me.

DC's animated output whizzes all over Marvel's.

DC's TV output is usually more enjoyable than Marvel's (Netflix and Agent Carter though are superb)

But the films? DC just cannot get it right. And again, I blame Zak Snyder.

It can't just be Snyder though. Snyder isn't causing the problems with the Flash movie, and Snyder didn't make Suicide Squad.

It's true that it can't just be Snyder, but getting him out of the directors chair would be a huge step in the right direction. His movies are just god awful. 300 is the only thing he's ever done that I've liked, everything else has been total trash. I'm not expecting DC to turn the ship around in any meaningful way while they've still got him on board, and for such huge properties as Justice League to boot.

DC makes great Animated movies. Seriously, check those out if you haven't.

They do make awesome animated movies. Cuz they're made by awesome teams. Not that dumbass Snyder.

What is it exactly people dislike about Snyder's directing style? I really enjoy the way he puts his films together, and I think he's one of the handful of directors out there whose films you could recognise based on the directing alone.

His movies go all over the place, jumping from place to place, a pain in the neck to follow, and just overall feel "blah".
Watchmen: Crap
300: eh
MoS: required 4 viewings to be passable
BvS: NEEDS the extended cut to make sense. But then suffers from length.
Yes, I realize ALL of that counts as my opinion. But I also personally know only one person who actually liked the Watchmen movie. And he looked like he was trying to join the trenchcoat Mafia. And the critics wouldn't have panned MoS and BvS as badly as they did if they were good or great movies.

Being recognizable isn't always a good thing. Hell, Hitler is instantly recognizable, regardless of how much of a caricature is made of him; I dare anyone to find how that's "good". Instant recognition isn't always good.
And don't anyone actually be stupid and think I compared Synder to Hitler. Just don't.

Well now you know more than one person who liked the Watchman movie, though I don't have any Columbine shooter anecdotes or Hitler comparisons to make about Snyder though. Sorry.

See, that's the thing; I don't know you. You are a faceless Internet person to me, the same way that I am to you. I've met one person in the flesh who liked watchmen.

And would you prefer Trump instead of Hitler? Or Stalin? Or Charles Manson? I picked an easily recognizable person to make the point that "easily recognizable isn't always good". That's all.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I've met one person in the flesh who liked watchmen.

And apparently it was enough for you to use them as an (bad) example.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
And would you prefer Trump instead of Hitler? Or Stalin? Or Charles Manson? I picked an easily recognizable person. That's all.

I just said I didn't have one to make. For someone who brought up Hitler in a thread about movies you seem awfully sensitive about it.

There's also the "it's just so depressing" thing to watch, with Snyder. It's not Superman, it's Mopey-man. So, even though Suicide Squad isn't his film, it still has the same tones and shades.

In saying that, I don't have strong feeling against him but, for example, I don't dislike Watchmen, but I certainly don't find it enjoyable.

But, going back to my issue with the DC film stuff. I think it's still very much directors and their teams (which includes Snyder) very much wanting to try to reinvent things, put a fresh spin on things. A fresh Lex Luthor, a fresh Joker, that we don't actually ever get to see a normal version of them. I also think the comics have kind of fallen into this trap too, particularly with New 52.

I think that partly might be why I feel so close to the Arkham games, with the exception of The Red Hood (who is way better in the animated film 'Under the Red Hood' ), it's pretty much entirely what I'd call, for me at least, familiar versions of the characters and it just works so well.

For example, the ending of the Mr Freeze dlc mission in Arkham Knight is by far and away my own "head-canon" ending of Mr Freezes storyline.

 Ahtman wrote:
Well now you know more than one person who liked the Watchman movie, though I don't have any Columbine shooter anecdotes or Hitler comparisons to make about Snyder though. Sorry.

Add me, too. Thoroughly enjoyable film!

 Ahtman wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I've met one person in the flesh who liked watchmen.

And apparently it was enough for you to use them as an (bad) example.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
And would you prefer Trump instead of Hitler? Or Stalin? Or Charles Manson? I picked an easily recognizable person. That's all.

I just said I didn't have one to make. For someone who brought up Hitler in a thread about movies you seem awfully sensitive about it.

Please. Your comment in response was obviously snarky and sarcastic, designed to inflame. I'm not sensitive about it; I made a point, and got met by sarcasm. So I offered other names.

And yes, when I meet one person while I worked in a comic/game store, who came in every Wednesday and Friday, picked up the same copy of watchmen every day, wore a "who watches the watchmen" shirt every single day and a trenchcoat over it, and gets in everybody's face asking them their favorite parts of watchmen, book or movie, AFTER having seen the movie and disliking it...yup, leaves a thoroughly awful mental gak-stain. I realize Moore wrote the book. But I didn't read the book. I watched Snyder's movie.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It can't just be Snyder though. Snyder isn't causing the problems with the Flash movie, and Snyder didn't make Suicide Squad.

But he's executive producer. And you can see his influence all over them. He set the bar, low as it is, and DC seemed intent (Flash being reworked could be a good thing!) on leaving it where it was.

In all fairness "executive producer" can really mean anything in regards to TV/films. It doesn't mean that they are running the show or even very involved.

 Paradigm wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

But I don't think we're treading any new ground here with the MoS talk. I'm interested to see where the newer DCEU films go, although I'm afraid that they're going to emulate Marvel's worst qualities -- formulaic, bland, and so inoffensive as to be forgettable.

I don't think DC are in danger of copying The Marvel Formula. Marking themselves out as different is fundamental, even if in the short run it got BvS and MoS slammed for daring to have more ambition than the Marvel way of doing things. Behind the scenes, they might switch over to the more studio-focused method, but on-screen I think they'll continue down their route of making films to serve the characters and stories, rather than cut and pasting the same formula over and over again.

In the short term, it's biting them in the arse, but eventually people are going to tire of the standard Marvel film structure that, aside from TWS and Civil War, has remained largely unchanged since Iron Man. Which isn't to say it can't work exceptionally, Guardians and Ant-man for instance follow that narrative structure to the letter but are fun and charming enough that they're still damn enjoyable films, but ultimately people are going to cotton on, and while Marvel might change their style going into Phase 4, DC will be one step ahead.

I'm fully confident that this'll be the year DC's films start going head to head with Marvel, critically, commercially and in general audience reception. All the signs for WW and JL are good, and while there are people out there who will set out bash DC (and Snyder for some reason) without needing a reason to, I think the consensus will start to turn around... which will hopefully lead to the earlier being reconsidered as well, but if not then never mind, I'm still free to maintain that MoS and BvS are masterpieces better than even Marvel's (excellent) best efforts.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone seriously attempt to argue that WB's consistent failure to get the DCCU to live up to its potential is actually some deep, long-term supervillain master plan to position themselves for some future time when audiences, in defiance of all evidence so far, get sick of light hearted, affirming, effects-driven blockbusters in the Marvel style.

A Baldrick-esque cunning plan, maybe

EDIT: And to remain vaguely on-topic - the problem with the Flash movie is easy enough to grasp - Grant Gustin exists and anyone with a brain can see that, for all its flaws, the CW show has the actual person and character of The Flash/Barry Allen nailed to the wall. So the film version can either be the lighter, less grim-growly story & character the DCCU desperately needs, in which case it will almost certainly be compared unfavourably with the CW show, or they can push the character & story in a super grim-growly direction to differentiate it from the show, in which case it'll just sink into the melange of grey, murky, Angry Man Punchy Things Grr soup that the rest of the film universe consists of.

DC are clearly setting out to make movies that don't stick to the Marvel formula. Just as DC comics have always had a different tone to Marvel's, so do their films and that's very obviously deliberate. They could have made a Justice League film that as just a cut and paste of the Avengers script, it'd go over very well to general audiences but it'd be a massive disservice to the comics themselves.

People will tire of Marvel, unless Marvel start changing things up as well; they've been making the same film for 8 years now, and it'd done well for them but people are noticing. The trouble is that anything that doesn't follow that formula is dismissed out of hand for not being a 'proper' superhero movie. It happens to DC, but also to the recent X-men and Spidey films.

So DC's options boil down to either adopting the Marvel Formula at the cost of the integrity of their characters and source material, or they can stick to their guns and hope that one day, people realise there's more than one way to make a comic book movie, just like there's more than one way to write a comic. Fortunately, I think they're sticking to the latter, which suits me as I've loved all their output so far.

There will be lighter films (Flash, Cyborg, maybe a future Superman), but it won't be to copy Marvel, it'll be because it's what those characters are. You can't have a light, happy Batman movie because it just doesn't work with that character. You can't really do it with Aquaman or Wonder Woman either.

Ahh, so it's less an assertion that WB are devious movie geniuses, and more just plain old double-standards.

You don't like the current Marvel formula, so they should change it(and obviously audiences agree with you, despite stubbornly continuing to give Marvel money to see their films).

You do like the current WB/DC formula, so they should not change it, but only because the DC movies have "integrity" or somesuch because they're driven only by the characters, despite one of the largest criticisms of the DCCU films being that they take liberties with the characters.

Not at all. I do like the Marvel formula, they do it bloody well and continue to make fantastic films, but I don't want every comic book movie to follow that to the letter, any more than I want DC to write all their comics like Marvel. What I disagree with is the assertion that there's a right and a wrong way to make these films, and that because DC's films (or Fox's X-men or Sony's Spidermans) aren't like Marvel's they're somehow inherently worse. There seems to be a consensus among a lot of people that if a comic book movie isn't bright and colourful and light-hearted it's somehow 'wrong'.

As for the point about integrity, what I mean to say is that it'd be a disservice to (for example) Batman to make a Marvel-style movie about him even if that might make more money, hence my comment that DC should continue to do what they're doing even if in purely monetary terms they'd be better off copying the Marvel formula to the letter. You could make a Batman film by just taking the bones of an Iron Man film and doing a 'find and replace' putting Wayne where it says Stark. And it might be a good film and make boat-loads of cash, but it wouldn't be a Batman film really.

 Yodhrin wrote:
EDIT: And to remain vaguely on-topic - the problem with the Flash movie is easy enough to grasp - Grant Gustin exists and anyone with a brain can see that, for all its flaws, the CW show has the actual person and character of The Flash/Barry Allen nailed to the wall. So the film version can either be the lighter, less grim-growly story & character the DCCU desperately needs, in which case it will almost certainly be compared unfavourably with the CW show, or they can push the character & story in a super grim-growly direction to differentiate it from the show, in which case it'll just sink into the melange of grey, murky, Angry Man Punchy Things Grr soup that the rest of the film universe consists of.

This becomes Not A Big DealTM as soon as you consider that the movie will reach many more people than the TV show. The TV show does around a *1* rating. Even if you add in on demand viewings, etc., it's a very small percentage of TV audiences, and that makes it hard to claim that the show has the IP 'nailed to the wall'.

Also, Grant Gustin may exist, but he exists as a completely ordinary TV actor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
In all fairness "executive producer" can really mean anything in regards to TV/films. It doesn't mean that they are running the show or even very involved.

I thought the Watchman movie was the most faithful adaptation of the book that we're ever going to see in a motion picture format. The giant squid is ridiculous, and would have had audiences screaming WTF.

 Paradigm wrote:


As for the point about integrity, what I mean to say is that it'd be a disservice to (for example) Batman to make a Marvel-style movie about him even if that might make more money, hence my comment that DC should continue to do what they're doing even if in purely monetary terms they'd be better off copying the Marvel formula to the letter. You could make a Batman film by just taking the bones of an Iron Man film and doing a 'find and replace' putting Wayne where it says Stark. And it might be a good film and make boat-loads of cash, but it wouldn't be a Batman film really.

Just saying....




And I'm almost certain it'll end up making more money than BVS. And that's someone that has BVS: Extended Cut as probably my second favourite film of 2016 (first being Rogue One, X-Men Apocalypse probably third, Deadpool 4th)

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Please. Your comment in response was obviously snarky and sarcastic, designed to inflame.

It actually wasn't but it if it makes you feel better to imagine that go for it.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I'm not sensitive about it

You say that but you keep getting your undies in a bunch and replying; your actions and your words are contradictory.

The DC movies are very true to the characters! I've lost track of the number of people Batman straight up murders in the comics I read this week. The movie captured that very well.

Where was the outrage in '89? And how was Zack Snyder to blame for that one?




Maybe he only shoots a door with the Batmobile, but he shoots up a lot of gak with the Batwing cannons -- almost certainly killing a few of those goons -- and clearly tries to gun down the Joker with the cannons AND high-explosive rockets.

Perhaps these things that people think are immutable...aren't.



Snyder probably altered that Bob Kane artwork by drawing in that gun.

So, let me preface this with: I think that Batman killing people makes the character less interesting and, essentially less enjoyable/intriguing/exciting to watch.

However, to sort of build on the point above:

Batman '89: Like mentioned, he machine guns the heck out of a bunch of Joker goons.
Batman Returns: Stuffs some dynamite into a clowns pants and lobs him into a sewer
Batman Forever: Kills Two-Face by causing him to fall to his death
Batman & Robin: Actually doesn't kill anyone... I think. I just can't bring myself to watch it again.

Batman Begins: Burns a whole bunch of ninjas in their home. Followed by, "I don't have to kill you, I just don't have to save you." I'm pretty sure that wouldn't hold up in a court of law when you're responsible for sabotaging the vehicle in the first place.

The Dark Knight: Kills Two-Face by causing him to fall to his death (Hmm, sound familiar?). Arguably, the whole point of the film. - Breaking his one rule.

The Dark Knight Rises: Totally kills Talia and her truck driver. Just straight up murders them.

Now, lets get onto BVS. Here's the thing, played properly, I can be ok with Batman killing people in the film. Do I prefer he didn't do it? Yeah, sure but I can accept it in the context of the story that was told. And, I think... This is something that is even in the original cut of the film, not just the extended.

So, here's the thing. The Batman we see at the start of BVS, the one that kills people. He's a broken, defeated, destroyed Batman. He is one without faith, without hope. He pretty much directly says that nothing he has done in his life matters.

This Batman, one who basically doesn't care anymore. I can accept him killing. I'm not happy about it, but I can accept him killing.

Now, here's the thing, BVS is, effectively, a redemption story for Batman. That much maligned 'Martha' scene? That's a major psychological trigger for Batman. That trigger reminds him that he is doing an unjust act, just like that gunman did to his parents. And so, he stops.

And then? Superman sacrifices himself. I complained earlier in the thread about Mopey-Man and grimly dark grim darkness. But ultimately, BVS DOES have an inspiring, hopeful ending. At the end of it, we've got a Batman that has his groove back.

You'll note, that in Suicide Squad, Batman doesn't kill anyone. In fact, he actively saves Harley's life and talks Deadshot down.

And this is why, I'm cautiously optimistic for the future films.

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't hold up in a court of law

I'm pretty sure that dressing up in a costume and handing out vigilante justice wouldn't hold up in a court of law either.

I'm pretty sure you're just gak posting in this thread Ahtman.