DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming) (Page 7 of 19)

Another point about Suicide Squad

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Why didn't any of the members of the squad know each other?  I understand why none of them might know Captain Boomerang if he spent his entire career on the other side of the world.  But Harley and Deadshot worked out of the same city, and it didn't seem like they'd ever interacted before.  Killer Croc also worked out of Gotham and is a major Batman rogue.  I know he probably doesn't collaborate a lot, but they've run into each other, right?

If they wanted some fun character stuff, shouldn't there have been a scene or two where the Squad members talk about previous jobs they'd worked together.  Or at least their hatred of Batman?  Or maybe their hatred of Belle Reve?

They bond over the course of the movie (a little), but there's no indication that they'd ever bonded previously.  Am I taking too many liberties in the comic universe where villains seem to interact with each other all the time?

I've heard way more "word of mouth" positivity than with Batman Superman.  I think people definitely like it more than BvS.  At least the random people I interact with (including a few women at work who were saying they liked it).

I'm excited for you to see it.

I'd prefer a "Joker only appears in Harley flashbacks with additional flashbacks" edition

Okay, responding to some of your comments now...

I don't think a lot of these characters would or did know each other. I think it's like with the Justice League, where the villains might eventually know each other, but at this point there isn't a whole lot of teaming up. Deadshot wasn't robbing banks and causing chaos like the Joker. He just took jobs from high-paying clients. I don't think that he and Harley would run in the same circles.
That said, it would be funny to see Harley end up in Arkham and see some of her former patients. Even funnier if she started therapy sessions in there, with her new brand of medicine.

Joker, I don't disagree about. I was surprised to see how much he seemed to care about Harley, since it was more one-sided in the animated series. But again, this movie was about Harley. If Joker comes back in another movie, hopefully they can flesh out his character a bit.

Boomerang and Croc are definitely the backup singers in this movie. I didn't dislike their characters or think that they should have been cut though. Not everyone on the team can have the same level of attention. Sometimes you need a Chekov and Sulu just to make it a team instead of a buddy-cop movie.

Waller has always been an interesting character to me, because I can never tell if she is a good guy or a bad guy. She does some messed up things, but she doesn't usually do them just for herself or her own gain. In this movie, she struck me as a "greater good" character. She has a mission and no interest in deviating from that mission.

El Diablo did turn out to be a more interesting character than I expected.

I don't think that Deadshot really "beat" Batman. Batman didn't have an interest in pummeling Deadshot in front of his daughter.

I'm still digesting the movie, but I can't think of anything that I really didn't like at all.

Argh. Again, Suicide Squad appears to be holding its own, making more on Friday than Guardians of the Galaxy did on its second Friday, get the articles are all about its massive drop and how doomed they are.

What am I missing here?

While I think that a lot of people have perfectly legit opinions about the movie, I think that a lot of the negative comments are also just echoing what the press told people to see months ago. People are saying that the movie sucks without deleted scenes that nobody has seen, and which only exist as rumors at this point.

The funny part about this weekend is that people released early articles about how Suicide Squad flopped in its second week and what a disaster it is... Then the movie surprised them by remaining on top this week, so now they have to release updates that try to paint that as a failure.

Something that DC is going to have to look out for regarding their movies.  It was brought up on the Weekly Planet podcast (which, yes, has become a regular listening appointment for me), and I think it's correct (for the record, neither hated it but neither loved it).

BvS was 3-hour movie that was hacked to a point where the theatrical version is certainly worse than the extended edition (where you either liked it and love the longer version or you hated the theatrical and at least think the extended version makes more sense).  With the extended edition, you get scenes where character motivations and plot holes are filled in.  Without it, character motivations are blurred, and the plot makes less sense.

With Suicide Squad, I'm hearing a lot of things.  That Croc and Boomerang have more to do in the extended cut.  That Joker appears more and is more "Joker-y" in the deleted scenes.  That character motivations shifting throughout the movie is explained in deleted scenes.  That the full movie experience will be in the extended cut.

And I wonder how many times they can pull off this trick where you're essentially paying to see the movie twice.  You want to watch a hacked-up version of the movie that will make less sense?  Pay your $15 in theaters.  But you want the real movie with all the scenes that make the movie make sense?  Buy the blu-ray.

If DC wants to have "serious" movies with character development, they can't cut out the scenes that make the characters work.  You can't cut out scenes that make characters worthy of even being in the movie. 

And I have to think, again, that it's partially due to lack of leadership at the top.  How does a 3-hour script get approved when they aren't going to release a 3-hour movie?  Why are we getting an entirely new editing company making a completely different version of a movie based on a trailer?  Why are we hyping up a character who's in the movie for 10 minutes and does nothing?  Why have so many members of the squad when only three are relevant?

Johns and Affleck should fix some of these issues, but it's a bit of a mess when they keep having to say "wait for the blu-ray!  that's the real movie!"

The problem I have with Suicide Squad is needless excess.  In the theatrical version of the story, Captain Boomerang and Killer Croc serve almost zero purpose.  In the words of Nick Mason on the Weekly Planet, they're given "odd jobs" to do just so they feel like part of the team.  But like I said, they could be cut out and there's no real effect on the plot.  Someone else throws the bomb.  That's it.  Captain Boomerang only throws three boomerangs the whole movie, and they give him that "camera boomerang" gimmick just so he feels important (they were upset because they're Australian )

Joker's "present day" story, in the theatrical version, serves almost no purpose.  If you cut it out entirely, then there's just two effects:

1. Amanda Waller gets on the second helicopter "first"
2. You either have to explain why Harley is separated from the group after the helicopter crash or just cut out their reunion (either of which would work seamlessly). 

Other than that, there's just some text messages.  Joker's role could've simply been in the flashbacks (and if you want a final shot, him breaking her out of prison) and it still works.  You could even have him be "dead" from Batman instead of the helicopter crash, and her surprise that he's alive still works.

If you can cut that much of a character from a film and create almost no plot holes, then the character doesn't need to be there.  And I thought Leto's Joker was boring enough that he could've been cut, and my enjoyment of the movie would've been negligibly affected.

So I'd be counting on deleted scenes to justify the existence of these characters.  If I'm supposed to care about Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, the Joker, or Katana, it's gotta be in deleted scenes.  Otherwise, those characters didn't need to be in the movie, and the "extended cut" should be versions where they're edited out.  Because, yeah, teams need redshirts, but Slipknot has more impact on the story than Joker/Boomerang/Croc.  And he's barely introduced, and he's in the movie for two minutes.

That's a problem, IMO.

As a side exercise, try to take out someone like Hawkeye or Fury from the Avengers and see what plot holes arise.  Even characters like Maria Hill and Dr. Selvig have crucial elements that cannot be eliminated.  Same with Guardians.  If you want to talk non-comic book movies, even something like Star Trek has a crucial scene for every main character.  Not just participating in a large action sequence, something they're actually contributing to the story.

That's the problem.  Imagine a Justice League movie where Cyborg does almost nothing for the entire plot and can be edited out without causing any plot holes.  It'd be a huge problem.

I mean if you got something from Croc or Boomerang, that's awesome.  I know I saw the movie last weekend, but the more time that passes, the less I can remember *anything* relevant that they did.  They make a couple offhand jokes, Boomerang is the one that convinces Slipknot to escape, Croc swims underneath the battle scene (but doesn't detonate the bomb). 

And this is where I think you're misunderstanding me.  Mis-utilizing the characters or under-utilizing them is different from what I'm talking about.  If you edit out Hulk, you cause plot holes (how did they find the sceptor?  How does Thor get thrown off the heli-carrier?  How does Loki end up unconscious in Stark's tower?).  Thor would be almost impossible to remove without destroying the movie (who took Loki into custody?  how did Loki escape the ship?).  Not to mention there are scenes that revolve entirely around one of those characters (Thor sets up the first intra-Avengers fight, and Hulk is in the middle of the second one).

If you took editing software and literally removed Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang from every ensemble scene and removed any scene where the characters are alone, I really don't think any plot holes are created outside of "who threw the bomb?"  Slipknot escapes because of course he does.  The soldiers take the bomb through the sewers because that was the plan originally.  There's no "video boomerang" but they got intel some other way.

Some dialogue might not make sense, but we're talking about removing entire characters with (and again, I could be forgetting something) almost zero impact on the plot.

Thor and Hulk might be one-dimensional characters and they could probably be swapped for someone more interesting, but you can't edit out their scenes and still have a movie that makes sense.  Croc and Boomerang literally (and I mean that) have almost no impact on the plot and can be removed without affecting anything.

A good recent example is Rogue from Days of Future Past.  She was removed entirely from the plot, and it didn't impact anything.  Her story was interesting and it did add to the plot when she's there, but it was removed without altering the main story.  So, yes, Croc and Boomerang might've done the same.  But for the most part, they're doing so little and contributing so little that there was almost no point in them being in the movie at all.

I don't know that we're talking about entirely different things. You're talking about removing characters and reworking their scenes so that their work is done by someone else. In the end, the story might be tighter. With the Avengers, the problem is that if you take those characters out, you're forced to get rid of a lot of plot points that were jammed into the story and added little to nothing anyway. The problem with The Avengers is that a lot of the movie is made up of fanboy scenes that weakened the overall movie. The carrier scenes make no sense because apparently the big plan is to kindly ask the Hulk to get into his prison cell if he happens to break loose. The inter-Avengers arguments are thrown into the middle the story, detracting from the immediacy of the actual plot of the movie. Removing those fanboy elements would actually make the movie stronger. So while Croc and Boomerang might not add anything special, they don't really detract from the overall plot either. They don't add useless scenes of Captain Boomerang doing nothing in particular, just because it might look fun on camera.

But I guess I shouldn't get into The Avengers again, because it is a rabbit hole. The problem isn't even necessarily the characters, it's the writing. The whole thing is filled with plot holes and fanboy moments, and the actual plot is about three levels down on the list of priorities for the people making the movie.

Back to the topic at hand...

You know how you sometimes add salt to a recipe, not because you want the finished product to be salty, but because a little bit of salt can actually bring out the sweetness in it? I think the same is true for those characters. Croc and Boomerang don't have huge important moments on their own, but the way the other characters orbit around them gives them meaning.

Another example that I could give would be Major Ferris in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. She isn't a major character. She doesn't have a plotline. You could edit out most of, if not all of her lines and there would be no real change to the plot of the movies. However, her just being there on the team adds a different element that would be absent otherwise. She serves to strengthen the foundation upon which the plot is built.

In the Avengers world, I'd say that Hill or Coulson would be along the same lines. They add a little flavor, but removing them entirely and giving their lines to someone else would leave a movie that is more or less the same.

Have they announced an Ultimate Edition for Suicide Squad? I've been looking out for it, but I haven't seen one pop up.

While trying to cast Shazam / Captain Marvel, the guys at the Weekly Planet threw out the idea of Jared Padalecki.  Thoughts?

Ooh, I really like that too.  Padalecki is 34 and Affleck is 44.  That'd work, honestly.  If Bruce started his career at 25 and Dick was a teenager when his parents were killed.

Although I don't know if Nightwing will be in the DCEU.  I bet there's only one Robin and he ends up being Red Hood.

I would like Nightwing to end up in the Arrowverse, though.  I don't know how you do Dick without having the rights to Bruce, but one step at a time.

I agree and would love to see Nightwing on screen, but I'm guessing they're going to simplify things.  There was only one Robin, and he was "killed" (apparently by Harley per Suicide Squad).  He'd come back in a Red Hood story.  If Barbara Gordon is alive, she's not Oracle.

I said loooooonnnnnngggg ago that if they're going with an old Batman they'd get to do some cool Bat-Family stuff, but BvS gave *no* indication that the Bat-Family ever existed.  The Robin suit (which was shown but never mentioned in dialogue - "you've been a mess since *whoever* died") is the only indication that Bruce ever had a partner.  No partner in Suicide Squad, and if Harley did kill Dick/Jason/Tim, Bruce is able to control his emotions when he arrests her (the punch aside).

And I'd figure if they were setting up a Bat-Family, there would've been *something* in BvS.  Oracle or Robin or Nightwing offering to help or to bring Bruce back from the darkness.  Either before or after the "Martha" scene.  Maybe a phone call after Superman died to Barbara or Dick or Tim or whoever to apologize for acting crazy since *whichever Robin* died.  Promising to be better.  Even a line where Alfred says something about "you never even call back Master Grayson anymore" in the middle of the movie would've shown how alone Bruce was.

This was a movie at a) focused on Bruce and b) was definitely made with the intention of showing a bigger universe.  They didn't have to have a huge scene where Nightwing shows up - just a line of dialogue to indicate he exists.  Or an Easter Egg suit alongside the Robin one. 

The logical explanation for the lack of anything is the simplest one - Batman had a partner and he died.  No one is helping him because Robin was the only one who did, and Bruce never had another partner.  Alfred doesn't mention him because he knows Bruce would just fly off the handle.

Just my guess.

I can understand the idea that Dick doesn't want to talk to Bruce or vice versa, but Dick thinks of Bruce as his father.  Bruce thinks of Dick as a son.  I don't think they'd be able to stay silent when Bruce is about to fight Superman.  And if they did, I don't think the silence would last long.  Dick would call Bruce and apologize - thank God that he wasn't dead.  Or Bruce would call and apologize.  Couldn't believe that things went so bad.

These are world-building, character moments that would've really helped establish the world.  My problem with BvS is that I'm still not really sure who Batman is.  We know the crazy, murderous guy that Bruce became, but who was Batman before?  We've had three DCEU movies, two featuring Bruce, and we know almost nothing about him.  How long was he Batman?  Did he have other partners?  Was he retired when Superman showed up?  Did he retire because of Robin or something else?

BvS is a 3+ hour movie, and Batman is the protagonist.  How could they not give us more than we got?

You wouldn't need a Dick subplot.  Any line of dialogue in a 3-hour movie would hint at a larger world.  It happens all the time.  I mean, heck, it happens a ton *in the movie*.  We got teases of Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg without any special subplots.  We got hints of Bruce in Man of Steel.  A cool Flash cameo in Suicide Squad.

And it wouldn't have been forced.  We know that Bruce isn't acting like himself.  We know that Alfred is worried about him to the point where it seems like he's about to quit on him.  These are all times when someone (Alfred, probably) could point how history is repeating itself.  Or how people care about him.  Or how he's not in this alone.

Not mentioning anything about it, in my opinion, seems like a conscious effort to say that nothing is there.  Again, I hope I'm wrong.  But no Nightwing casting for Justice League.  And if the Batman solo film is entirely in Arkham then we probably won't get any Bat-Family characters there either.  Red Hood could be coming, but you just need one Robin for that. 

I'm guessing they'll go the simple route and the route that makes most sense to the public.  There was one Robin, Dick Grayson.  He died and then he came back as Red Hood.

I agree.  But this is the ultimate time for Easter Eggs, hints, etc, and there's just nothing in the three movies to indicate that Batman ever had another partner.  There's a Robin Easter Egg in both BvS and Suicide Squad, but there's nothing else.  And in this age of hints and teases and after credits scenes and ultimate editions, you gotta think they'd throw something in if the Bat-Family was going to be used at all.

I hope I'm wrong too.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/38080 … s#/slide/1

A couple interesting tidbits from this:

1) It provides the first visual evidence (that I've seen) that Harley was involved in Robin's death.  Although it says "accomplice" - she didn't do it (as was previously reported).  Since she's Joker's accomplice, that makes sense.  And based on how she reacted when she found out about Diablo's crime, she might've even been an unwilling accomplice.  Changes things a tad.

2) I didn't notice this, but Jared Leto was second billing in the end credits, ahead of Margot Robbie.  Considering how many scenes were seemingly cut (based on scenes not in the trailer and leaked scene descriptions), that both makes sense from a credits perspective (which were probably made before the movie was completely edited and/or were based on contractual obligations which were signed before the movie was completely edited) and explains why Leto is so upset.  He was signed as second-billing and gets a wandering 10 minutes of screentime.

It could still happen, but I was hoping the speculation would be true about Affleck's film being set as an "Escape from Arkham Asylum" type movie.

It could happen, but I wouldn't take many of the plot rumors seriously at this point. Either way, there is a lot of ground to cover for this character, so it should be interesting.

Well, the only thing is that he got billing (in the credits that were released) second.  Ahead of everyone but Will Smith.  That doesn't always mean anything, but it does usually mean something.  The example I keep thinking of is Scream with Drew Barrymore, but 1) that was done as a surprise because she dies so early and 2) she's still the final "and" billing on the poster (5th spot).

For Leto to be 2nd billing, he'd either need to be paid the 2nd highest (which is possible even if he's not the 2nd star) or he's the 2nd biggest character.  And, again, just based on material that made it into the trailers, there's enough to think that maybe he was a much bigger character.  Maybe even as big as Harley (Leto is ahead of Robbie, who's easily a top two character in this movie, and she's arguably a bigger star than him).

So maybe they sold him as a big enough force in this movie and in Harley's backstory that he could be 2nd billing.   And if he was sold that, then I could see why he was upset.  If he wasn't sold that, I can't really explain why he'd be second billing.  He both doesn't have that big of an impact on the narrative and doesn't have the screen time to warrant that.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/38146 … d#/slide/1

Well, it's just one of those things.  These types of universes are sometimes built solely on the star power of the star playing a character.  Would the MCU be the same if Tom Cruise had been cast as Tony Stark?  Downey Jr.  has been very willing to do cameos and restructure his contract (granted, for a lot of money) to be the face of the MCU.  Would Cruise have done the same?  If Iron Man is just a sorta standard superhero film, does the MCU even take off?  Everything was sorta riding on that movie, and RDJ was a big part of it succeeding.

The same with the DCCU.  What if Jesse Eisenberg had played Jimmy in BvS, as was the original plan?  What if they'd hired the fan's idea of Bryan Cranston as Lex?  If Lex was a better villain, would BvS have been better received?  Would Lex have a bigger part in the MCU (would they have had time to add him to, say, Suicide Squad)?

Same thing about Affleck.  He's basically going to be in every DCCU movie because he's been so well received.  But what if we got 2003 Daredevil Affleck as Bruce Wayne?  Or if they'd cast a young unknown (which would've been my idea) and that actor dropped the ball?  Would Batman have still made the cut of Suicide Squad?  Would he be cameoing in Wonder Woman?  Probably not.

Stuff like that is interesting to me.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/38333 … e#/slide/1

I still haven't seen the BvS extended edition.  Or the Killing Joke animated film.  I'm behind on a lot of stuff.

We are getting a Suicide Squad sequel, a Harley Quinn spinoff called Gotham Sirens (with Megan Fox possibly as Poison Ivy?), and a Deadshot sequel.

Suicide Squad must've been a much bigger success than I thought.  I'm also entertained at the idea of Informant having to praise Megan Fox's work as Ivy

Megan Fox is an interesting person. One generally assumes that women who get lots and lots and lots of plastic surgery are vain, superficial creatures fixated largely on how they look and how others respond to how they look and are not possessed of any intellectual pursuits with creative ambitions, much like Kari Wuhrer in the 90s. But Megan Fox was actually an aspiring comic book writer and artist who approached several sub-DC/Marvel level comic book publishers (Top Cow, Wildstorm, Cliffhanger, Aspen) on numerous occasions with proposals and pitches. Fox failed to break into comics and fell back on acting and modelling. Is the world poorer without Megan Fox written and illustrated comics? I do not know, but God knows the comic book world needs more women in creative roles.

Grizzlor, did you watch the theatrical version or the extended cut?

I think that Megan Fox got a bad reputation for the way she handled herself when Transformers came out. She was cast in sexy roles that focused more on her body than her acting, but acted like she wanted to be taken seriously and was above it all. But whatever. She was young. She is funny on New Girl and seems geek friendly. She might be cool.

The extended version does a better job with some of that. The theatrical version turns Superman into a character that we see from everyone else's point of view, but not really his own. The extended cut restores his point of view, turning him into a proper lead in the movie. It gives him a whole plotline and character arc that was downplayed in the theatrical version.

I enjoyed both cuts, but I doubt that I'd ever go back to the theatrical cut. It isn't the movie that was intended, it was the movie that the studio demanded because they wanted it to be a certain length. In the extended version, you have Superman pursuing Batman and Batman pursuing Superman in a much more balanced way... and you also have information that makes you understand why they would be going after each other. Every character ends up looking better.

But yeah, I still want a proper sequel to MoS too. Fortunately, it is in the works. I just hope that they don't listen to all of the critics and turn a really good Superman into another Christopher Reeve rehash.