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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I mean, let’s look at Man of Steel, and the frankly bizarre take on Pa Kent. No son, don’t use your powers because Gubmint.

Never mind there’s….basically bugger all the Gubmint could do to ever contain Clark/Superman, so his approach makes no sense other than to make Snyder’s Superman lame and edgy.

My absolute favorite part of this scene is that when they cut back from the flashback they don't even have the same dog that Pa died saving.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I mean, let’s look at Man of Steel, and the frankly bizarre take on Pa Kent. No son, don’t use your powers because Gubmint.

Never mind there’s….basically bugger all the Gubmint could do to ever contain Clark/Superman, so his approach makes no sense other than to make Snyder’s Superman lame and edgy.

I think you're pretty wrong here, and I'm guessing you don't have kids...?

MoS tries to take a grounded (-as-possible) approach to the material. And when you become a parent in real life, protecting them becomes your #1 objective. Basically everything in your life becomes secondary. And you worry pretty much all the time.

Remember that you as the viewer/reader familiar with the character have the benefit of knowing just how powerful he is. Jonathan and Martha know he's tough, strong and fast, but why would *they* think no one can possibly hurt him? Especially when he's younger and his powers ARE weaker. It doesn't matter that he has powers...he's their child and they would be worried sick every time he threw himself into a dangerous situation. And gak, he does actually end up dying at some point.

What's more, they have GOOD REASON to worry about the government swooping in. They found an alien baby in a spaceship in a field (think about that for real), and then probably had to do some fudging and maneuvering in order to be able to adopt this baby they just sorta...found. Whole town knows there's something weird about the kid too. Show off those powers and it'd take just a little bit of investigation to end up at the Kents' front door...and Lois does.*

And let's consider the real world and the times that supposedly benevolent governments have actually done terrible experiments on their own, human citizens. Think the alien that might not be viewed to have ANY civil rights might be at risk of getting cut open? If it was your kid, would you be confident that the government *couldn't* cut him open because he seems immune to injury around a farm?

MoS mostly has a very smart take on what it'd be like to be Jonathan and Martha. The issue comes when Jonathan suggests Clark maybe should let people die rather than expose his powers. It's hard to see how Clark ever gets to be Superman with that kind of advice, so it's really odd it's written that way. That scene is really good otherwise and could be perfect with just a couple word swaps. But that's more or less Zack Snyder for you.

*I actually really like how MoS infers that Smallville kinda knows and is covering for Clark and the Kents. There's something really heartwarming about a whole town knowing one of their own is special and protecting him instead of offering him up. I mean, Pete Ross (at least I think that's who the redheaded kid is) seems to kinda give him up, but Lois seems to already have the story at that point and is just looking to confirm it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
Parasite. Metallo. Mongul. Lobo. Darkseid. Doomsday. Amazo.

Moving away from physical you also have Lex Luthor, Mister Mxyzptlk, and Bruce Wayne.

Edit: Not disagreeing about power levels in JL, just pointing out he does have enemies that can smack him around. In general I've never really liked Batman and Superman being shoved together as they are radically different types of stories and power levels. Still, the better Superman stories/moments don't rely on his god like power.

Oh, I guess because of the Doomsday Clock we can add Dr. Manhattan to the list.

Cyborg Superman, Bizarro, Brainiac, various other Kryptonians, Daxamites, Imperiex, Kalibak, Ultraman, etc.

He's tussled with characters like Vartox and Maxima at times, who are also around his power level.

 gorgon wrote:
Ultraman

His most powerful foe!

Wow. Jet Jaguar got a makeover.

 gorgon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I mean, let’s look at Man of Steel, and the frankly bizarre take on Pa Kent. No son, don’t use your powers because Gubmint.

Never mind there’s….basically bugger all the Gubmint could do to ever contain Clark/Superman, so his approach makes no sense other than to make Snyder’s Superman lame and edgy.

I think you're pretty wrong here, and I'm guessing you don't have kids...?

MoS tries to take a grounded (-as-possible) approach to the material. And when you become a parent in real life, protecting them becomes your #1 objective. Basically everything in your life becomes secondary. And you worry pretty much all the time.

Remember that you as the viewer/reader familiar with the character have the benefit of knowing just how powerful he is. Jonathan and Martha know he's tough, strong and fast, but why would *they* think no one can possibly hurt him? Especially when he's younger and his powers ARE weaker. It doesn't matter that he has powers...he's their child and they would be worried sick every time he threw himself into a dangerous situation. And gak, he does actually end up dying at some point.

What's more, they have GOOD REASON to worry about the government swooping in. They found an alien baby in a spaceship in a field (think about that for real), and then probably had to do some fudging and maneuvering in order to be able to adopt this baby they just sorta...found. Whole town knows there's something weird about the kid too. Show off those powers and it'd take just a little bit of investigation to end up at the Kents' front door...and Lois does.*

And let's consider the real world and the times that supposedly benevolent governments have actually done terrible experiments on their own, human citizens. Think the alien that might not be viewed to have ANY civil rights might be at risk of getting cut open? If it was your kid, would you be confident that the government *couldn't* cut him open because he seems immune to injury around a farm?

MoS mostly has a very smart take on what it'd be like to be Jonathan and Martha. The issue comes when Jonathan suggests Clark maybe should let people die rather than expose his powers. It's hard to see how Clark ever gets to be Superman with that kind of advice, so it's really odd it's written that way. That scene is really good otherwise and could be perfect with just a couple word swaps. But that's more or less Zack Snyder for you.

*I actually really like how MoS infers that Smallville kinda knows and is covering for Clark and the Kents. There's something really heartwarming about a whole town knowing one of their own is special and protecting him instead of offering him up. I mean, Pete Ross (at least I think that's who the redheaded kid is) seems to kinda give him up, but Lois seems to already have the story at that point and is just looking to confirm it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
Parasite. Metallo. Mongul. Lobo. Darkseid. Doomsday. Amazo.

Moving away from physical you also have Lex Luthor, Mister Mxyzptlk, and Bruce Wayne.

Edit: Not disagreeing about power levels in JL, just pointing out he does have enemies that can smack him around. In general I've never really liked Batman and Superman being shoved together as they are radically different types of stories and power levels. Still, the better Superman stories/moments don't rely on his god like power.

Oh, I guess because of the Doomsday Clock we can add Dr. Manhattan to the list.

Cyborg Superman, Bizarro, Brainiac, various other Kryptonians, Daxamites, Imperiex, Kalibak, Ultraman, etc.

He's tussled with characters like Vartox and Maxima at times, who are also around his power level.

How goddamn DARE you, sir. This is the internet, and you are not allowed to see positive aspects of any of Zack Snyder's films.



Because Zack Snyder, apparently...

 gorgon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I mean, let’s look at Man of Steel, and the frankly bizarre take on Pa Kent. No son, don’t use your powers because Gubmint.

Never mind there’s….basically bugger all the Gubmint could do to ever contain Clark/Superman, so his approach makes no sense other than to make Snyder’s Superman lame and edgy.

I think you're pretty wrong here, and I'm guessing you don't have kids...?

MoS tries to take a grounded (-as-possible) approach to the material. And when you become a parent in real life, protecting them becomes your #1 objective. Basically everything in your life becomes secondary. And you worry pretty much all the time.

Remember that you as the viewer/reader familiar with the character have the benefit of knowing just how powerful he is. Jonathan and Martha know he's tough, strong and fast, but why would *they* think no one can possibly hurt him? Especially when he's younger and his powers ARE weaker. It doesn't matter that he has powers...he's their child and they would be worried sick every time he threw himself into a dangerous situation. And gak, he does actually end up dying at some point.

What's more, they have GOOD REASON to worry about the government swooping in. They found an alien baby in a spaceship in a field (think about that for real), and then probably had to do some fudging and maneuvering in order to be able to adopt this baby they just sorta...found. Whole town knows there's something weird about the kid too. Show off those powers and it'd take just a little bit of investigation to end up at the Kents' front door...and Lois does.*

And let's consider the real world and the times that supposedly benevolent governments have actually done terrible experiments on their own, human citizens. Think the alien that might not be viewed to have ANY civil rights might be at risk of getting cut open? If it was your kid, would you be confident that the government *couldn't* cut him open because he seems immune to injury around a farm?

MoS mostly has a very smart take on what it'd be like to be Jonathan and Martha. The issue comes when Jonathan suggests Clark maybe should let people die rather than expose his powers. It's hard to see how Clark ever gets to be Superman with that kind of advice, so it's really odd it's written that way. That scene is really good otherwise and could be perfect with just a couple word swaps. But that's more or less Zack Snyder for you.

*I actually really like how MoS infers that Smallville kinda knows and is covering for Clark and the Kents. There's something really heartwarming about a whole town knowing one of their own is special and protecting him instead of offering him up. I mean, Pete Ross (at least I think that's who the redheaded kid is) seems to kinda give him up, but Lois seems to already have the story at that point and is just looking to confirm it.

Honestly Man of Steel starts off really well. It just falls apart in the second act because the escalation of events gets so insane so fast. Plus we take this very noble hero and suddenly he's destroying fuel stations and blasting holes through buildings and the collateral damage and people killed through that are never touched upon, yet for his character he should have been utterly horrified at his actions.

Also the complete lack of any attempt at negotiation, and Supes taking a hologram claiming to be his Dad, who he couldn’t possibly remember, at face value that Zod is all Evil Bad.

Zod has tech capable of terraforming worlds. Superman has the codex which could ensure his species comes back into being.

Why not even the offer/discussion of “look, I’ll give you what you want. But, we need to collectively sod off elsewhere to get this going. Leave Earth alone, you’ve absolutely no logical reason, other than forcing my hand, to attack it”.

But no. We get lazy hack writing instead.

Honestly its like a lot of films - the beginning paces out really well and sets a scene. Then they realise that they've only got 40mins left of the film to squeeze perhaps 2 or 3 films worth of content into it. So not only are things escalating really fast, but we skip huge chunks of story and plot that likely were planned out or drafted.

Suddenly things happen almost as if for no reason; the situation escalates super fast with no brakes; characters appear to become extremely shallow etc....


It's also a little strange when you've a gritty realistic take on Superman but then have to stick to "Zod pure mindless evil" because you've, again, run out of time.

Run out of writing and directorial talent and subtlety maybe.

So on Friday/Saturday I was seeing articles saying WB was considering three options for the Flash movie;

A.) Have Ezra publicly apologize and enter therapy and do a PR rehab tour and put out the movie as planned.

B.) Saying they were going to have nothing to do with Ezra moving forward, no promotional tours or anything, basically publicly fire him, but still put out the movie as planned.

C.) Just bin the movie.

Well now today I’m see articles where Ezra is publicly apologizing for his mental health episodes and seeking therapy, so it seems they’ve decided on option A.

He still needs to be arrested and tried for all the thefts, assault, etc etc etc...

Apologizing and going to therapy doesn't excuse you from crime.

Except he's a Hollywood celebrity. They almost never go to jail.

Yeah, That whole system of non-accountability needs to end.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Except he's a Hollywood celebrity. They almost never go to jail.

That isn't exactly unique to "Hollywood".

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah, That whole system of non-accountability needs to end.

Which is what certain movements are about.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah, That whole system of non-accountability needs to end.

Which is what certain movements are about.

Yeah. Taking too long.

Fingers crossed we don't have to be subjected to some tedious redemption narrative, blah blah I'm sorry (I got caught) etc, from him, and how much WB rare really willing to lose to "protect the brand" (or is it "winky measuring in the boardroom")

I predict Miller will do his therapy time and say he's sorry. WB will instruct him to keep quiet for the next year and cross their fingers. Miller won't do the press tour per WB's instruction, citing some personal reason. The movie will be released, make its money, and WB will walk away from him and let the courts do whatever.

And that's the right result. WB isn't going to cancel the film over this and they shouldn't.
I haven't seen other studios give back all the money they made on films that starred or were directed or produced by unscrupulous characters. Sporting leagues, same thing. And quite frankly, Miller's issues aren't at the top of mind of the general public in the way that other celebrity scandals have been. Miller will probably lose his career and that will be that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah, That whole system of non-accountability needs to end.

Which is what certain movements are about.

Feel like this is different because the legal system is already involved...it's not a case of there being victims that no one is listening to. So let the legal system handle it, as is their job.

 Lance845 wrote:
They need to put a definitive power level on Superman and that power level should be the DCAU. He can be hit hard and thrown around. He isn't so fast it's insane. He is tough. Fast. Strong. But beatable.

Superman in the Adventures of Superman and Justice League cartoons is peak Superman.

Just like it's peak Batman. And it's why they can both be in their own shows, the justice league, and have cross over episodes with each other and have it all completely work.

Batgirl was reported to have only test screened once. We know its score was in the 60s, which is a perfectly fine initial test screening score. Movies with worse scores have been released as-is.

So regardless of Black Adam's test screening reaction, the idea it was scrapped for being "irredeemable" doesn't hold up and doesn't tally with what test screen viewers themselves reported. Black Adam and Shazam are just points of reference.

The "profitability risk" argument is also extremely weak. It's got Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne in it, they could make money on an assembly cut pushed to petrol pump screens.

I still think there’s a reasonable chance this is all a marketing stunt, trying to whip up another “Snyder cut” style movement to raise the profile of the film. And if that doesn’t happen, they know most people don’t care (however sad that is), save their marketing budget and grab the tax rebate.

Personally, I think the poor test scores thing is a canard. Studios will release bad films if there's an audience for them. My hunch is that their research showed there just wasn't much interest in Batgirl, which is a very different thing. Math was undoubtedly done based on how many expected new HBO Max subs they'd see, and burying the film and taking the writeoff probably came out ahead.

Who knows what the full Zaslev Effect(TM) will be. But based on what I've read about him, he's a dude with a pretty strong grasp of the financial side. And it's hardly a secret that the streaming services have been spending wildly on content without paying proper attention to returns. They shouldn't have been greenlighting $90 million streaming films in the first place. Or at least not anything that wasn't going to be a real event that would majorly drive people to sign up. The math with series is different because people will stick around for 2-3 months. And the buzz is that the GL series, the Penguin spinoff series, and the second season of Peacemaker are all safe.

We also can't ignore internal politics as a motivator as well. Remember how Firefly was killed because it got poor viewing scores, but that was a direct result of its release schedule being messed up intentionally - random time slots, out of order release, time slots that competed with major events on other channels - eg sports events.


Who knows this could be another case of someone (or several someones) in key positions throwing up a "it tested poor so can it" purely for internal political reasons.

Or some strange quirk of finances (we'll get more not releasing it than releasing it etc...).

The actual quality of the film and what's produced might be the very least of elements.

Zaslev's history is fine for making things profitable, but I can't say I'm very impressed with the quality of the content he's been responsible for.

So, people are still in the early stages of grief? Slip in a few more anti-WOC conspiracy theories despite the number of WB films starring a WOC as a lead...

 Overread wrote:
We also can't ignore internal politics as a motivator as well. Remember how Firefly was killed because it got poor viewing scores, but that was a direct result of its release schedule being messed up intentionally - random time slots, out of order release, time slots that competed with major events on other channels - eg sports events.


Who knows this could be another case of someone (or several someones) in key positions throwing up a "it tested poor so can it" purely for internal political reasons.

Or some strange quirk of finances (we'll get more not releasing it than releasing it etc...).

The actual quality of the film and what's produced might be the very least of elements.

I'm sure there's an aspect there where Batgirl represents the 'old plan', and so Zaslev and his peeps don't have any qualms about killing it. That kind of thing happens everywhere in every industry.

But I think old and new management were also genuinely not aligned. Walter Hamada comes from horror films and he brought that lower budget-lower risk-solid profits mentality to the studio (Shazam, Birds of Prey, Joker, etc.). Zaslev and his people (which importantly now includes Alan Horn as an advisor) seem to want tentpole films per the reports. So Batgirl isn't aligned there at all as a too-expensive streaming film that maybe looks closer to CW than blockbuster.

And to be fair, the 'new plan' seems to be keeping the majority of stuff that was in the works with HBO/HBO Max and the feature films. But even before the Discovery deal was finalized, I thought it was interesting that there's zero clarity on the films front beyond the next 12 months or so...and it's been like that for a long time. We've known about Shazam 2, Aquaman 2, Flash, and Black Adam for ages. But what's next? I guess WW3 is kinda/sorta lurking out there. The Batman 2 also. But neither seems to be starting pre-production in the near future...?

They don't have to announce long-range plans to the degree of Marvel, but that's weird to me if you want even a loose universe. But I guess it sets things up for Zaslev's team, and maybe that was part of the conversation going on long before the deal was final.

 Just Tony wrote:
So, people are still in the early stages of grief? Slip in a few more anti-WOC conspiracy theories despite the number of WB films starring a WOC as a lead...

I'm not sure what the Warriors of Chaos has to do with this and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So, people are still in the early stages of grief? Slip in a few more anti-WOC conspiracy theories despite the number of WB films starring a WOC as a lead...

I'm not sure what the Warriors of Chaos has to do with this and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

going out on a limb here with "Woman of Colour".

Unfortunately, any film that has a Minority Lead tends to attract the "broflake" crowd that has just discovered what it feels like when the Next Big Thing is decidedly not of their preferred ethnic group & gender, and don't like it.....

xerxeskingofking wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So, people are still in the early stages of grief? Slip in a few more anti-WOC conspiracy theories despite the number of WB films starring a WOC as a lead...

I'm not sure what the Warriors of Chaos has to do with this and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

going out on a limb here with "Woman of Colour".

Unfortunately, any film that has a Minority Lead tends to attract the "broflake" crowd that has just discovered what it feels like when the Next Big Thing is decidedly not of their preferred ethnic group & gender, and don't like it.....

Yep. People all over the internet and even in THIS VERY THREAD have already suggested it was racism/misogyny or both simultaneously that was the reason it was capped.

People who don't understand the situation and are far too quick to assign motive to simple (and even complex) business decisions.

But it's far easier to just screen "He'S a RaCiSt!" than actually look at the reasons behind Batgirl *(and Scoob! 2's) cancellations.

I am not going to say it's one thing or another, but there is a history with Hollywood in general but WB in particular undervaluing female led super hero flicks. From Supergirl way back in the 70s to Catwoman. They rarely get a chance at all, and when they do get a chance it comes with severely reduced budgets and little to no advertisement. Then they all sit around going "See! Women led comic book movies don't make any money!"

Wonderwoman was the singular exception that proves the rule. And she only got to do what she did in the first movie because the execs cared so little for the project that the people making it got left alone to produce it.