Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

As far as I know, he still eats and sleeps. He should have normal bodily functions, aside from the boost that the yellow sun gives him.

Even without that, I think he would need a home. He would still have interests of his own, family heirlooms, someplace to keep his clothes, etc.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Well, he probably doesn't *need* a job, but I'm sure he wants one.  Bruce Wayne hates having to be Bruce Wayne, but I think Clark Kent likes being himself.  Batman is Bruce's life, but I don't think it works that way for Clark.  So I think he enjoys his downtime and enjoys being a normal guy.  After all, he's been a normal guy most of his life.

Would it be that big of a deal if Clark wasn't a journalist?  I don't think so.  Did he really show any interest in journalism at all in Man of Steel until the last two minutes?

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

True. I think he could still be a writer, even if he's not a journalist. I don't know if he'd write fiction or non-fiction, but I could see him selling books. Writers can be a little less visible than journalists these days.

Restructuring his life a little bit could allow them to introduce Chloe Sullivan, probably. She can be Lois' cousin... Maybe Chloe is responsible for formatting Clark's books and running his website (stuff like that), and introduces Clark to her cousin Lois, who is another writer that she works with. Clark and Lois can still work on their own books at times, and together at other times.
But where would this leave Perry and Jimmy?

The newspaper world has given Superman a lot of characters with different perspectives. Cat Grant is another one. John Corben. So, how could we restructure his life while holding onto these established and beloved characters?

Because obviously, we're now in charge of this project. smile

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Hahaha well they won't give us a damn project so let's just take one.

And I'm speaking more to how I think Clark would try and live his life in a modern world.  In Man of Steel, he meets Lois before ever working at the Daily Planet.  Jimmy and Perry are big parts of the story before he ever works there.  If they amended Clark's role and took out the Daily Planet part, I think he'd meet them naturally and *bam* they're all friends smile  I could see Clark and Jimmy becoming friends, not because they're co-workers, but because Jimmy has such a great nose for news and is such a big fan of Superman.  Clark could let him in on the secret to alert Clark of what's going on in the city.

And yeah he could absolutely write fiction.  I mean he's an alien who was raised on Earth.  I could see him ghostwriting a fictional series about Krypton based on the stories he invented in his head about his home planet.  And yeah maybe he publishes anonymously through Chloe or a contact from Lois until he meets Bruce.  And....

Bruce -  "you freakin' idiot - you're writing stories about Superman."
Clark - "I use a pseudonym.  And Lois and Chloe protect my identity."
Bruce - "So if anyone put two and two together, they'd go after...."
Clark - "Oh geez...."
Bruce - "Don't worry.  I already bought the publisher, purged any record of you, and I'll take care of publishing.  You're a good writer."
Clark - "Really?  You've read my stuff?"
Bruce - "I mean...it's all on my kindle.  Don't have much time for reading."

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I like this...

Clark - "I'm thinking of writing a book about a billionaire playboy who becomes a crime fighting ninja by night."
Bruce - "I'm thinking of writing a story about an alien whose friends and family never hear from again."
Clark - "I didn't know you could write."
Bruce - "Yeah. True crime."
Clark - "Right, right... I mean, it sounds more like fantasy to me."
Bruce - "Okay, I've managed to trace the components of the bomb from last night back through a dozen of Luthor's dummy corporations. I've forwarded the information to a contact of mine in Homeland Security. Luthor's already on his way to the airport, so I set off the fire alarm on his private jet, which should keep him tied up for a while."
Clark - "You did that all right now?"
Bruce - "While we were having this conversation."
Clark - "...okay. Should I fly somewhere and do something?"
Bruce - "You just keep writing those stories."
Clark - "I can shoot lasers out of my eyes."
Bruce - "Which is adorable."

I have to stop this now. I have real work to do. smile

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

If Max Landis can get his Superman story printed, we can get something done, right?  This is gold!

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I'm planning my Man of Steel rewatch, for before I go see BvS. I doubt that I'll be able to see BvS within the first several days of its release, but I don't want to be spoiled, so it can't be too long.

Anyway, with Easter falling on the release weekend, I will probably want to watch it before then. So I'm thinking of maybe watching it next week. If anyone here is planning to rewatch, maybe we can coordinate, so we can compare thoughts and notes, rather than relying on our memories of having seen it a while ago. I'd say that we could live tweet/post about it, but then we probably wouldn't be watching the movie smile

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128 (edited by Informant 2016-03-12 11:49:00)

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Oh! I know that most people probably aren't as into getting deals as I am, but I thought I'd post this anyway.

Best Buy has some DC related blu-rays on sale (like seasons of The Flash, Arrow and Gotham for $14.99, and some other movies/shows for low prices), and you get $8 to spend toward a BvS movie ticket with the purchase too, apparently. I have a $5 promo card for Best Buy, so I will probably get season 1 of The Flash for $10, which will give me an actual product to keep after seeing the movie, rather than just a ticket stub smile

http://slickdeals.net/f/8523437-select- … pickup?v=1

The Flash comes with a digital copy too... cool.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I read the prequel comics to BvS.  Pretty cool.

Although is it weird that Lex's wig bothers me so much?  The Lex I appreciate wouldn't mind that he's bald.  He's proud of it.  Like he's proud of everything related to him.

But if he's Lex Jr......why would he be bald?

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

So it is a wig? I wasn't sure if he was going to lose his hair in the movie or if it was a wig.

I guess a wig could be like Clark's glasses. It makes people see him a certain way. With the hair, he looks like on of those stupid young techno wiz kids who you don't really have to take seriously, despite his earning a lot of money. Bald might make him seem more imposing.

But I just saw a picture of him from he movie, with very shortly trimmed hair... are you sure it's a wig?

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I'm assuming its a wig.  But we saw him with a bald head in one of the first promo shots.  Unless something happens in the movie that makes him either shave his head or lose his hair, I assume it's a wig.  No idea.

I could see it being like the Bruce Wayne persona - where people underestimate him.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I think he shaves it. At least, judging by the picture that I saw. I'd post it, but I don't know where it came from and I don't want to spoil anything by mistake. But if you search Google for "Batman v Superman Lex", it should be the fifth image result.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

It's possible..  I still think it's a weird look for Lex, even though it's sorta canonical.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Lex, in various incarnations, has been conceived as someone who vowed revenge on Superboy because he thinks Superboy caused him to lose his hair. The more recent businessman-Lex has been characterized as someone who is simply jealous of Superman, but at times, he's impersonated his own son by transplanting into a younger clone body (with hair). There's certainly no default version of Luthor who's okay with being bald, although there are some who barely comment on it.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Well, I know Lex wouldn't prefer to be bald, but I just tend to like the Lex that doesn't mind being bald.  He makes the look his own instead of hiding it under a ridiculous wig.

Note - you guys know way more about comic Lex than I ever could.

And ireactions - I complimented a supplemental comic.  I've grown tongue

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Can I just say that it is really annoying how so many people around the internet have been pre-reviewing this movie? They go on about it being too jammed with heroes and villains. They go on about the movies that should have been released first, to establish characters. They go on about the tone of the movie. They go on about so many things that they can't possibly have an informed opinion about, just because it will draw clicks. It is really annoying.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Well, I'm seeing the movie Wednesday.  I've been pretty harsh about it, and I'm legitimately worried that it's going to disappoint.

But at the same time, I've been waiting for this movie for a long time.  I've been excited about seeing Batman face Superman on the big screen for a long time.  I WANT it to be good.  I WANT it to be great.  No one benefits from this movie being bad.  Not even Marvel fans - DC having a successful franchise would breathe new life into the comic book movie industry.  A bad comic book movie just decreases the lifespan of the entire industry.

So, yeah, I don't understand people who are hating on the movie if they haven't seen it yet.  After Wednesday, it'll be fair game.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I probably won't get to see it for a while. Be sure to let us know what you think... But with spoiler warnings. smile

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

And ireactions - I complimented a supplemental comic.  I've grown tongue

There's nothing revolutionary about appreciating media tie-in material. Back in the day of STAR TREK and STAR WARS with reruns hard to find and home video a distant dream, novelizations and novels were often the only means of getting more of a property outside of theatre screenings and possible syndication. You're just catching up to the rest of the world.

I honestly don't know if I will see BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN in theatres. I barely go see anything in theatres anymore; haven't seen DEADPOOL or STAR WARS, mostly because I've got Netflix and Amazon to keep me busy and can watch at my leisure. I'm looking forward to CAP3 and I don't even know if I'll see that in the cineplex. I certainly hope B Vs. S is good.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

ireactions wrote:

There's nothing revolutionary about appreciating media tie-in material. Back in the day of STAR TREK and STAR WARS with reruns hard to find and home video a distant dream, novelizations and novels were often the only means of getting more of a property outside of theatre screenings and possible syndication. You're just catching up to the rest of the world.

Awww, I thought you'd be proud of me after all the crap I've taken for dismissing.....whatever it was I dismissed back in the day?  Fringe?  I don't even remember.

And yeah my buddy works for (company sponsoring BvS #secret) and I get to go to a special/free screening.  So that's pretty cool.  I'll post a spoiler review and a non-spoiler review smile

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

*ponders this*

To be honest, I can't remember you dismissing anything. I recall you saying you thought the STAR TREK rebootquel comics did a nice job of tying the NEXT GEN cast to the alternate universe movie. I do recall you saying that the AVENGERS movie couldn't depend too heavily on tie-in comics to show the team meeting for the first time and that it had to happen in an onscreen movie.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I thought the Star Trek reboot comics were really cool.  It gives the story so much more to work with and bridges the gap from the old universe to the new one.  But the key is that the movie doesn't depend on it to work.  If you're a hardcore fan, it makes the story better.  If you aren't invested enough, the movie itself can stand on its own two feet.

Enter the Matrix was another one that I thought was pretty good.  It tells a parallel story that criss-crosses with the main story at a couple different places, allowing for some context if you really wanted to know how Niobe knew when to save Morpheus.  If you don't care to know why, it doesn't hurt the story.

One recent example that I think did a bad job was the new Star Wars (don't worry, no spoilers).  After too much politics ruined the last trilogy, I thought The Force Awakens suffered from not enough backstory.  Not enough explanation.  In fact, not enough politics.  I had no idea who characters were, who the major factions were, why they were fighting, how factions were connected, etc.  And when I found out that a lot of that was delivered in comics/novels/other "new extended universe" materials.  So the movie actually suffered from a lack of context, and you're sorta dependent on extra materials to really understand what's going on.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I've seen a few early comments on BvS so far. People seem pretty positive about it.

If this movie can make Wonder Woman work, it must be good. That character rarely works in the comic books and is usually a disaster on screen. She tends to lack focus.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

http://www.hitfix.com/harpy/zack-snyder … in-the-bud

Their reporting is really sketchy, and the quote doesn't really even seem to support it (I didn't read the full story), but if their conclusion is correct (big if), that's....disappointing.  If we're going to get a brooding Superman and a brooding Batman, can't we have a wisecracking Flash?  I mean....isn't that how this happened? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtGHuM1GYMs

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I think HitFix just needs to sit down (to borrow a phrase from Wendy Williams... I don't know why). Now that BvS is being seen and people are liking it, they need more click bait. Wonder Woman is out because people have already seen her, and footage from her movie. So they're picking something down the line. They're taking a quote where Snyder said that the Arrow/Flash universe is not the same style as the movie universe, and they're using that to make all kinds of assumptions about future movies.

Don't get me wrong. I think BvS will not be universally beloved, and I have my own concerns about some choices being made. But HitFix is just trying to go back to the well after getting a ton of publicity by crying wolf about BvS.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Well I just think they need to make sure that all the movies don't need to be tonally like MoS or BvS.  Both of those movies are darkly colored....most of the scenes take place at night.  The reason the "Batman in the desert" scenes look so visually different isn't because it's (possibly/allegedly) a dream but because it's bright.  It looks like 90% of BvS takes place during night - which is fine because Batman looks a little silly during the day (see the end of Dark Knight Rises). 

But one of the things I like about the MCU is how the Avengers movies are the combination of these weird worlds.  A World War II soldier in a bright costume with a tech genius in a hot rod cyborg suit with a norse god and a green rage monster.  You have science and magic and a bunch of clashing cultures.  But it works.  One thing I was hoping to see in a Batman vs Superman movie was going to be the clashing of those two worlds.  Bright and sunny Metropolis vs. dark and gloomy Gotham.  It's what was pretty cool about the Batman/Superman adventures in the DCAU - those two cartoons seemed so different and mashing them together was just bizarre.  But cool.

Instead, they just brought Superman into a more sepia-colored world to make things fit a little better.  But Flash should be fun.  Even if Barry isn't as much of a jokester as Wally, I think it should be somewhat close to the tone of the TV series.  It should be fun.  And bright.  And exciting.  If it's a brooding story about Flash trying to go back in time to save his mom...it just might miss the whole point.

There's a difference between taking the material seriously and being too serious.  And they need to find that balance.  Because, in my opinion, these movies still need to be fun.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Okay, I see BvS tonight.  The reviews I've seen are.....bad.  I'm not going to let it cloud my judgment - I like movies that most people hate and vice-versa.  I do want to outline some of the stuff that bothers me about the way DC is doing this just go get it out of the way.  Some of these things might bother me when I see it - some might not.  We'll see.

- The age thing.  I've beat it like a dead horse, but it still bothers me that Clark and Bruce aren't the same age. 
- The unified tone.  Batman is night and dark.  Superman is daylight and colorful. To me, more than anything, the draw of these two fighting or joining forces is the idea that they're so tonally different. 
- We know Superman.  We don't know Batman.  I know using Nolan Batman wasn't possible, but it's weird that I'm supposed to get excited about Batman vs. Superman when a) I don't know this version of Batman and b) this version of Batman has a ton of history I have to catch up on.
- Everything about Lex.  Don't love the casting.  Or the look.  Or the personality.  Or the fact that he's Lex Luthor Jr.
- Cramming in Aquaman and/or Flash.

Hopefully some of these fears, based only on trailers, are alleviated.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I have seen some bad reviews, but I've also seen some really positive reviews. I think it will divide the audience. I think some will legitimately hate it, but I also think that some reviewers are going negative because it's been so cool to have the movie lately.

I haven't seen anything near the "disaster" that people predicted.

Based on a comment or two that I saw, I'm wondering if this is like a Batman movie with Superman as a secondary character.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Informant wrote:

Based on a comment or two that I saw, I'm wondering if this is like a Batman movie with Superman as a secondary character.

Yeah that's what the trailers make it seem like.  Which, again, is a strategy I don't like.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

There appears to be a major difference between critic reviews and audience reviews. Interesting.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Another look at the upcoming Wonder Woman movie...
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/03/24/wo … ow_twitter

I'm not usually a huge fan of the character, but it looks like they're going in a pretty good direction here. I like the style of DC. They use film imagery the way really good comic books use art.

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Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Well, I had to leave my car at the mechanic, and with several hours to wait, I decided to go to the movies. I saw BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN and this film has me exclaiming: I've seen worse!!!

Spoilers






























I thought it was good. Not great. It made some critical errors. Basically, Superman in this movie is handled awkwardly. The script puts Superman and Clark Kent at such a vast distance from the audience that it's impossible to really get a feel for who he is or what he's feeling. Superman in this movie is aloof, unreadable, unknowable -- even when he really shouldn't be.

The movie is shockingly unclear on what Superman has been doing since MAN OF STEEL. We get a lot of talking heads about his actions, but the prequel comics do more to show him engaged in emergency response and humanitarian efforts than this film. We get a few scenes of Superman rescuing people from fire and flood -- and they don't work. Superman is either filmed from far angles or played by Henry Cavill with such rigid solemnity that it's hard to get a read on him. Does he care about people? Does he feel called to save them? What drives him to do whatever it is he's doing? It's impossible to tell because so little of the film is spent engaged in superheroics.

Tom Welling, when engaged in super-saves on SMALLVILLE, was aided by directors and writers who made saving people a visual spectacle of excitement. Zack Snyder has a few shots of Superman coming out of a burning building and hovering over flooded cities like it's an obligatory detail to brush over. Tom Welling played his supersaves with an urgent gentleness; he cared about people. Henry Cavill plays these brief scenes with an inscrutable coldness.

On some level, this is deliberate -- this is really a BATMAN movie and we're supposed to understand how Bruce sees Superman. In the absence of knowledge, Bruce assumes malice and threat. But the movie never gives you any visceral, emotional way to feel otherwise because Cavill and Snyder have completely failed to portray Superman with compassion or empathy. 

When the Senate is bombed, Superman stands in the midst of the explosion, surrounded by people in the process of being incinerated -- and Cavill's reaction is just frozen blankness. Tom Welling's Clark would have been grief-stricken, enraged, agonized, tried to grab as many as he could and get them to a hospital. Snyder's Superman is never shown to even try; you're supposed to just assume he did all that.

Thankfully, Affleck's Bruce Wayne is an extremely compelling, riveting presence in the film and without him, there would be nothing to watch. Bruce's loathing towards Superman is completely palpable and on some level feels reasonable because of how unpleasant Superman's presence comes off. The turnaround in his character is absurd, yet Affleck totally sells why Batman has a change of heart and Slider_Quinn21's grousing about Affleck being too old to play this character looks even more ridiculous in a post-release era.

Affleck's physical presence is incredibly convincing and most importantly, Affleck works as a very different Batman from Christian Bale. This Bruce isn't a distant intellectual whose combat skills are a means to an end; he thrives on physicality whether it's wine, women or war. This Batman is prepared to kill in the sense that he's a soldier fighting a war and while he doesn't set out to murder, he doesn't shed a tear for criminals getting blown up or crushed by overturned cars. It's an uncomfortable turn for Batman -- except Affleck's world-weary, hardened Bruce makes it clear this is a superhero who has had to set aside some of his idealism to survive and keep going.

I confess, however -- at times, I struggled to see Bruce Wayne, instead seeing a ridiculously famous actor known more for his interpersonal scandals than his characters.

Wonder Woman's not much of a character, but she's delightfully portrayed by Gal Godot in her fencing with Bruce and her laughter when battling Doomsday. Lex is good, although his bombing of the Senate seems oddly pointless. The movie has some truly peculiar sequences -- a future vision of a malevolent Superman and a Batman at war, a strange visit from the Flash calling attention to Lois in a subplot that has no payoff -- it's awkward. The final battle sequence in Gotham seems to take place in a shadowy landscape of nowhere with no sense of geography. The ending depends on being moved by Superman's sacrifice except Superman has been such a cold figure of nothing that it doesn't really work.

As ZACK SNYDER's SUPERMAN and ZACK SNYDER's BATMAN -- it's good enough, but it's not great, mostly because Superman's so detached that it's hard to enjoy the movie and I really can't tell what this movie is trying to say about superheroes or anything, really. MAN OF STEEL, regardless of its faults, was about a man taking control of his destiny and choosing who he wanted to be. BVS is about a man who feels powerless and... I dunno, fights a giant monster and then something or other. At least MAN OF STEEL's destruction porn is redeemed now.

As I said -- I've seen worse!

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Okay, I wrote this last night.  Posting it tonight. 

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

I really didn’t think I was going to like this movie.  Too many things I thought were going to go poorly, and a lot of them ended up not being that bad.  I still don’t think this is the way I’d start the universe, but it’s not a terrible foundation. 

Stuff that worked:

- Batman.  Batman works.  You sorta buy his universe, and there’s hints that a lot of really cool stuff has gone down.  They also didn’t really make Batman “old” or “worn down” – he’s just a veteran.  Alfred and Bruce have a good rapport, and their relationship works.  I did see that Martha’s gravestone said she died in 1981.  So that makes Bruce in his 40s.  He makes reference to 20 years in Gotham.  So I’m surprised that he’s not more worn down, but I guess he’s not.  More on him later.

- Lex.  The hitfix stuff said that Lex and Batman work, and they were right.  Pretty much every time he was goofy in the movie was in the trailers.  The only annoying time is the brief scene where he’s introducing Bruce and Clark.  The rest of the time, he’s a solid villain.  BTW, it’s not a wig.  Also more on him later.

- Wonder Woman.  She’s mysterious, and there’s good teases to a bigger world.  They didn’t show too much and cut the legs off her movie, but they did enough that you’d be pretty excited to see a trailer or see the movie.  Her powers were probably a bit confusing to some people, but she was a good fighter.

- The movie is long, but it gets around.  Lois and Perry get nice roles.  Alfred gets screen time.  Lex is set up.  Bruce is in it a ton.  - Like I said, Diana is in it the perfect amount.  I think everyone that was supposed to get screen time did.  It’s long, but it gets a lot accomplished in 150 minutes.

- The opening scene with Batman going through the Battle of Metropolis is amazing.  It humanizes that whole sequence in a way that Man of Steel really, really failed.

- The Knightmare scene is a cool tease.  I bet that gets left on the cutting room in most movies, and I’m glad they kept it in.

- The big fight is done well.  Definitely worth the wait after all these years.  You can really tell these guys are working hard.

- Doomsday is cool.  I don’t know if he needed to be as big as he was, but you really fear him.  I really wish they hadn’t included him in the trailers.  That could’ve been an epic surprise.

- I’m sure there were a hundred Easter eggs, but it wasn’t bogged down by Easter eggs.  The rest of the Justice League easter egg cameos were really well done.

- The end is sold.  I knew it wasn’t going to stick, but it was pretty sweet.

Stuff that didn’t work:

- Superman.  I’m sorry….I hate this Superman.  Maybe he’ll be better in Justice League, but there was a part of me that hoped he stayed dead.  Seriously.  It was cool to see him fight, but his character is just a mess.  Everything is so morose and depressing.  When he saves the girl from the burning building in Mexico, he looks sad and it’s shot in slow motion.  When he saves the rocket, it’s sad and slow motion.  The capital blows up, and it’s sad and slow motion.  I thought the first movie didn’t let him have enough fun, and this was even worse.  He has fun for two minutes in the bath with Lois and *nothing else*.  This movie desperately needed a scene like the airplane crash from Superman Returns, both to show that Superman is a good dude and to show that he’s crazy powerful.  Everything he’s done in 18 months was either truncated or shown in a way that was zero fun.

- Batman’s backstory.  They show stuff we don’t need to show (the death of the Waynes….again.  The falling in the cave….again).  But they don’t show stuff that I’d love to know.  How well known is Batman?  Is he an urban legend to most?  That one cop had never seen him – have most cops seen him?  Where’s Gordon?  What happened to Robin?  Were there other Robins?  Is there a Batgirl or Oracle?  What happened to them?  How many criminals were active?  Are any still active, since he’s only fighting Russian gangsters in the beginning.  How does Gotham feel about Batman?  He’s more brutal now – was he more or less beloved/feared before?  What did Bruce do for 18 months?  Was he waiting for the Kryptonite?

- The length.  It’s way too long.  Way way too long.  The whole subplot with the bullet tied everything to Lex, but there was an awful lot of that stuff when Lex basically implicates himself in the end anyway.  The whole part with the spear could’ve been cut down so there’s not a sequence that took Clark away from the battle.  Even the Wayne employee’s arc just made things drag.  Nothing in the movie was unnecessary, and they all tied in.  But it just made the movie really long.

- The Battle of Metropolis.  We all know this bothered me from Man of Steel.  And the saving grace was going to be that it is a huge part of Dawn of Justice.  But it really isn’t.  Bruce is the only one who really seems to remember it, and he and Lex are really the only ones who talk about it.  Metropolis seems fine.  Outside of some protesters, no one really seems worried about it.  And the big scenes with the Senator aren’t even about the Battle of Metropolis but some random incident in Africa.  And while the opening sequence is incredible, it reminds me that there’s no way that the death toll was only thousands.  And, honestly, I don’t really even think Clark learned his lesson from the Battle.  I’m not sure he really learned anything from it.

- Lex Jr.  Maybe it’ll come back later, but I don’t see any reason to make him Lex Jr.  Maybe he’s a clone.  Maybe Lex is pulling strings.  But it seems awfully weird to have Lex Sr. mentioned several times but no real hint as to where he is.  It’s weird that Superman and Lex’s son are going to have this big rivalry, and Lex is….somewhere.  The whole thing reminds me of Amazing Spider-Man 2, and if that’s your reference point…..yikes.

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ireactions wrote:

Thankfully, Affleck's Bruce Wayne is an extremely compelling, riveting presence in the film and without him, there would be nothing to watch. Bruce's loathing towards Superman is completely palpable and on some level feels reasonable because of how unpleasant Superman's presence comes off. The turnaround in his character is absurd, yet Affleck totally sells why Batman has a change of heart and Slider_Quinn21's grousing about Affleck being too old to play this character looks even more ridiculous in a post-release era.

Affleck's physical presence is incredibly convincing and most importantly, Affleck works as a very different Batman from Christian Bale. This Bruce isn't a distant intellectual whose combat skills are a means to an end; he thrives on physicality whether it's wine, women or war. This Batman is prepared to kill in the sense that he's a soldier fighting a war and while he doesn't set out to murder, he doesn't shed a tear for criminals getting blown up or crushed by overturned cars. It's an uncomfortable turn for Batman -- except Affleck's world-weary, hardened Bruce makes it clear this is a superhero who has had to set aside some of his idealism to survive and keep going.

Well, I still don't love the call they made.  But I was worried it was going to be much more of a Dark Knight Returns homage than it ended up being.  Batman wasn't retired.  Or, honestly, even thinking about it.  He didn't talk about his career like it's wrapping up. 

And I'd be happy for you to go back and throw my own words in my face, but I don't think my problems with Affleck had anything to do with Affleck himself.  He's gotten better as an actor, and as a big comic book nerd, I knew he'd give this role his all.  He's a kid from Boston who gets to be Batman....he's going to give it his all, and he's grown as an actor.  My problem was (and still is) that Batman and Superman have zero relationship in this movie.  They come to a truce, but Bruce talks reverently about Clark in the film's finale and that was odd to me. 

What bothers me about Batman facing Superman is that an old Batman should know better.  Eighteen months have passed, and he's a guy who has seen his fair share of people.  Yes, a lot of his people are "freaks dressed as clowns", but this is supposed to be a Batman who has spent years trying to save Harvey Dent.  A guy who has seen Jim Gordon giving the best years of his life to fighting corruption in Gotham.  And to compare Superman to Joker is unfair.  Superman is powerful, yes.  But Bruce spends a great chunk of the movie trying to prepare himself to kill Superman and makes zero effort to try and understand him.  Once again, the detective part of  Batman was sorta shrugged off.  And if Batman is going to be in the Justice League, he simply has to be "the smart one."  It's the only role that really works for him.

You're right about Superman.  He's not relatable at all.  The part in the bathtub is the only humanizing part.  The part in Congress, saving the kid in Mexico, saving the flood victims - you're right, they're shot in a way that he's an alien.  He's Kal-El.  As far as this movie is concerned, Clark Kent is 2% of the character.  And that's my problem with this version, and it's a reason I have trouble with the idea that Informant loves it so much.  Clark grew up in Kansas, and like he says in the finale of that movie, he's about as American as it gets.  But he also seems to accept Krypton way too quickly.  "On my world, it means hope."  On your world?  You've never been there.  You know almost nothing about it.  Your world is on Earth, and like Lois says, on Earth, it's an S.

Superman is such a problem in this that I was sorta hoping that he'd stay (SPOILERS).  He's no fun.  He's distant.  He's cold.  He's just a mess.

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ireactions wrote:

The movie has some truly peculiar sequences ... a strange visit from the Flash calling attention to Lois in a subplot that has no payoff -- it's awkward.

To me, it jumped out as something comic fans would grab onto; the presentation was very similar to the sequence of events where Flash was running himself to death to save the universe in Crisis on Infinite Earths:

http://cdn1.sciencefiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1649657-crisis_on_infinite_earths__2_batman_flash.jpg

The above scene occurred in issue 1 and had no pay off until issue 8.

As he ran to catch a tachyon that was powering a world breaking cannon, Flash began to travel back in time and had brief moments where he appeared to people as he traveled backwards.  Flash kept trying to warn them of what was coming, but no one ever understood what he meant; so events unfolded as they would have anyway.

If it had not been framed as a dream in this movie, I would say this is exactly what they were trying to do with the Batman v Superman cameo; they were giving us a glimpse from the end of this big story where Flash is sacrificing himself.   But, it seemed to be shown as a dream; so that puts things in a more vague fog.

As for the movie itself, it wasn't bad.   I'm able to overlook alot of its problems, but I do wish we would have been given a more visual example of what I think happened to Bruce in this movie.   A montage of Batman's 20 year career so far could have shown us how his heroic ideals were slowly chipped away until all that remained was the vigilante; that each loss made him cross more and more lines until finally he was at a point where he felt no remorse in killing Superman.   This journey for Bruce was hinted at (especially through Alfred's dialogue), but I think the montage would have done a much better job of making this clear.  This was a Bruce redemption story in many ways; we found him as someone who had lost his way, but he's back on the path by the end of the film.

As for Lex Jr., I understand the decision now.   Jr. was presented as a highly unbalanced person, and I would have frankly found it hard to believe such an unhinged man was able to build a multi-national corporation.  It makes much more sense that he inherited it.

I did have one last thought watching the movie, though - will the Supergirl series keep it's quasi-continuity with the film universe and play off the death of Superman?  The closing minutes of the season finale could just flash up on the news feeds "Superman dead" and show Kara's reaction.  Then it's left there until next season when they could explore a Reign of the Supermen storyline where Kon-el, John Henry Irons, the Eradicator and the Cyborg Superman all pop up trying to be replacements for Clark.  I think it would be a good direction; and that Reign story could play out over the year and end just before the next chapter of Clark's fate ends up in theaters.

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TemporalFlux wrote:

I'm able to overlook alot of its problems, but I do wish we would have been given a more visual example of what I think happened to Bruce in this movie.   A montage of Batman's 20 year career so far could have shown us how his heroic ideals were slowly chipped away until all that remained was the vigilante; that each loss made him cross more and more lines until finally he was at a point where he felt no remorse in killing Superman.   This journey for Bruce was hinted at (especially through Alfred's dialogue), but I think the montage would have done a much better job of making this clear.

Yeah, I think it would've been a lot more helpful than another version of the death of the Waynes.  I don't know what it is about that sequence that makes people want to film it again and again.  I did read a theory that since two semi-high-profile actors (Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan) were playing the Waynes that they might eventually play around with Flashpoint.  Not sure if that would happen or not.

In my review, I asked all the questions I wanted to know about Batman.  There's a ton.  And I almost wish they'd just cast Affleck as Nolan's Batman and just pretended that all took place in the same universe.  Because then, at least, we'd know the backstory.  For a 2:30 movie mostly about Batman, we know surprisingly little about him.  I think a lot of it is just supposed to be assumed, but this is a Batman who seems to casually kill people.  Who disturbingly decides to use guns in the Knightmare.  And who seemingly is so overwhelmed with rage that he makes no effort to investigate whether or not Superman is a good guy or a bad guy.  I know he's assisted by a cold/alien Superman who never smiles, but the movie just lumps Batman with Lex and some protesters in the only group of people who think Superman is dangerous.  Even the military, who seemed somewhat concerned with Superman at the end of Man of Steel, doesn't seem that worried about him until the very end.  I thought that was very odd.

So I was thinking about the DCCU vs the MCU, and I kept coming back to the idea that Marvel seems to stay true to the comics with their cinematic universe and DC isn't.  That we're basically getting "canon" versions of the Avengers (with some updates but no major changes).  In the DCCU, we have quite a few changes, from "updates" to Bruce and Clark's "no killing rules" to a more-alien Superman to an older (but still very-much active) Batman to a Lex Jr. / missing Lex Sr. etc.

And I started thinking about why there are these tweaks.  Why we can't just have traditional versions of these characters, and I think I might've figured it out.  Before 2007, Iron Man wasn't really anything in pop culture.  Marvel fans liked him, but no one outside of comics had heard of him.  People had a casual understanding of Thor and Captain America, but people like Black Widow/Hawkeye/Scarlet Witch/Vision were all relative nobodies.

Meanwhile, Man of Steel is Superman's 6th movie.  He's one of the most (and in some cases, the most) popular superheroes around.  Dawn of Justice is Batman's 8th movie.  All in a span of 30 years.  The part has been recast five times in eight movies.  People know Batman.

So is the reason why this DC cinematic universe doesn't feel like a DC universe because they had to try something different?  Just doing a standard version of either of those characters just wouldn't work because we already know all their is to know?

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I dunno.

However, I would argue that despite Superman being kind of dull in this movie, the attack on Metropolis was certainly a factor throughout the movie. Wallace lost his legs in the attack and blamed Superman, Lex manipulated his anger to fuel Bruce's rage against Superman. No one is entirely comfortable with Superman due to the Metropolis attack and the repercussions of other supersaves.

Most significantly, when Doomsday attacks, Superman throws Doomsday into the air and punches him into space, taking it out of the city as best he can while also steering the flight upward so that if Doomsday does fall back down to Earth, he drops into an uninhabited area.

Still, it's not exactly Barry pulling people out of exploding cars every week, is it?

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Well, I mean I guess it depends.  The military's position on Superman (in both the movie and the prequel comic) is "well, what are we supposed to do?"  The surveillance they were trying at the end of the last movie is either nonexistant or irrelevant.  He seems to have no capacity within the government (think the DEO in Supergirl), and it doesn't appear that the government has done anything in response to the Battle of Metropolis.

And, yeah, it rippled through the movie.  It was definitely the catalyst.  But what was the real impact?  Metropolis seems like business as usual.  There's a memorial, but it seems like everything else is pretty much rebuilt (keeping in mind how long it took to rebuild the Twin Towers, New Orleans after Katrina, etc).  The movie made a big deal about the talking heads dealing with Superman, but the public opinion seems to be the public opinion of mainstream Superman.  Yeah, he's powerful, but he'd never hurt us.

When I saw the government scenes in the trailers.  "Today is a day for truth."  "This committee finds him responsible."  I, naturally I think, assumed that he was going to stand in front of a committee for the Battle of Metropolis.  But in the movie, it's a significantly smaller incident that he's having to face the government for.  If there was any sort of hearing, it's not referenced in any of the pre-movie materials or the movie.  That was a little frustrating.

So most people in the movie just trust Superman, despite the fact that Superman doesn't have the warm, media-friendly persona in this universe that he seems to have in every other version of the character.  There are some protesters, sure.  But you get the idea from the movie that it's not a widespread thing (or there'd be more protests at his statue).  In fact the statue is regarded in the movie as "beloved" - not even "controversial"

So the people in the movie who are anti-Superman are Wallace (who is manipulated by Lex), Lex (who approaches the government first), and Bruce (who immediately wants to kill him).  It's just weird that Bruce is in the same boat as Lex, and Bruce seems the angrier/more violent person.  When Batman and Superman fight, it's usually about a disagreement in how to handle something.  It's a disagreement on how things should be done.  Batman has always kept kryptonite on hand just in case, but I think he understands that Clark is a good person.

Mr Sunday Movies said that the disagreement they have would've been easily resolved with a one-minute conversation between two hyperintelligent people.  And Bruce had 18 months to follow Superman and see if he's really such a bad guy.  And, I'd think, a mid-40s Batman (1981 is when the Waynes died....if Bruce was 8, he was born in 1973 and would be 43 in 2016) would be more reasonable than a young, mentally-unstable Lex Luthor Jr.  Instead, Bruce starts the movie in the typical Lex Luthor "yeah, he's saved people, but he's a threat to everyone!" mindset.  And that was odd to me.

And, yes, Superman learned from his mistake.  As soon as he can, he flies Doomsday away from people.  That was good to see.  However, I thought it was a bit ridiculous that the movie kept reinforcing that no one was around.  It was after hours, so the business district was empty.  That island they landed on between Gotham and Metropolis was uninhabited.  The warehouse at the end was abandoned.  We get it - you want to make sure we know that no one is around.  It got distracting by the end to the point where I felt like the writers were almost making fun of the people who complained about the death in the first movie.

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http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/3/2/512832_v2.jpg

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Well, we'll have to agree to disagree and I can't even disagree that strongly -- which is to say I don't really feel like BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN is even worth defending. To be frank, were I not a superhero obsessive, I think I would have found this film to be a crashing bore. As it stands, the only reason I found it interesting is because I'm interested in Batman and Superman, but I can't overwhelmingly claim that I would  be all that invested in them if I'd only ever known ZACK SNYDER'S BATMAN & SUPERMAN.

I went home and watched THE FLASH and ARROW afterwards and was pleased to be reminded that superheroes can actually be FUN.

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ireactions wrote:

I went home and watched THE FLASH and ARROW afterwards and was pleased to be reminded that superheroes can actually be FUN.

Pretty much.

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I've seen several reviewers who have been accused of giving certain story elements from Star Wars: The Force Awakens a pass but then punishing Batman v Superman for the same stuff.  And while I didn't love BvS, I'm in complete agreement.  And most of the critics seem to agree with the sentiment too, with not much more than "well, it's just how I feel" as their counterargument.  I guess it's because Star Wars was fun and BvS wasn't?  Because while I agree with that, I think Batman v Superman was better than The Force Awakens.

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Wait.....wait....wait.

So the next movie is Suicide Squad.  Cool.  Looks fun.

Then Wonder Woman.  Awesome.  She was teased in BvS.  Looked great.  Looking forward to seeing her first movie.

Then Justice League Part One.  Cool.  We've set everyone up.  We know Batman.  Know Superman.  We'll know Wonder Woman.  We got teases of the others.  Awesome.

Then....Flash?  Then Aquaman?  Then Shazam?

THEN Justice League Part Two?  Wha....?

So how is that even going to work?  Are Justice League Part One and Justice League Part Two not connected?  Is it going to be like Avengers and Avengers 2?  Because it seems like they're doing it like Mockingjay or the last Harry Potter or Infinity Wars - where it's one long movie that they're splitting in two as opposed to two separate movies.  But if Flash and Aquaman are having solo adventures after part one, then part one can't end on a cliffhanger, can it?  So it can't be one long movie, I guess?

Because when they announced it, I'm picturing Darkseid standing on Superman's neck, about to kill him.  An army of parademons flying above a devastated Justice League.  To be continued in Part Two.  Which really doesn't lend itself to a fun Flash solo adventure taking place after it.

So is the titling not the way that it looks?  I know the 2-part thing is a pretty new development, but I thought for sure that's what they were doing with Justice League.

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According to a November 2015 interview, they're not being filmed back to back.

http://batman-news.com/2015/11/13/wonde … -revealed/

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ireactions wrote:

According to a November 2015 interview, they're not being filmed back to back.

http://batman-news.com/2015/11/13/wonde … -revealed/

That makes much more sense.  But if that's the case, the titling is a bit bizarre.  Oh well, my mistake.

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Slider_Quinn21 wrote:
ireactions wrote:

According to a November 2015 interview, they're not being filmed back to back.

http://batman-news.com/2015/11/13/wonde … -revealed/

That makes much more sense.  But if that's the case, the titling is a bit bizarre.  Oh well, my mistake.

They'll likely take the Part 1 out of it.   Part 1 could change to something like "Justice League: New Gods" and Part 2 maybe "Justice League: Cosmic Odyssey" (using Darkseid stories as the origin of those two names - just as "Age of Ultron" was the title of a comics story).  Of course, they may take a more direct approach with "Justice League: Omega" or something.

The Russo brothers have stated this is their intention with Infinity War Part 1 and 2; they said that one of them may not even be named Infinity War at all.  The Part 1 and Part 2 are just place holders until they decide on the title.

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Fair enough.  I realize the whole "breaking one movie into two movies theatrically" is relatively recent, but it's such a pervasive thing now that I figured that's what they were doing.  Good to know I was wrong.

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So I've allowed myself to read and listen to some of the more harsh reviews of Batman/Superman.  From Max Landis to Kevin Smith to the guys at the Weekly Planet, I think people are definitely being a little too harsh on the movie.  Some of the motivations are lame and weak, and the characterizations aren't great.  But I felt like this was a movie that people were eager to tear apart, as opposed to something like Force Awakens, where people were willing to forgive.

That being said, whether or not the movie succeeds, the film was designed as a launching pad for an entire DCCU.  And as some people have shown, there are some huge issues with that.  I know we've done a bunch of spoiler tags, but I feel like this one is important.

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Regardless of what you think about Batman killing, he seems to be doing a lot of it.  And, yes, Batman has killed before, but this one seems to be a lot more intentional.  If that's this version of Batman, that's fine.  But it does affect a solo Batman movie.  If Batman is willing to kill a couple dozen thugs for Lex, what's to stop him from immediately trying to kill the Joker (or the Penguin or whoever) the second they step out of line?  Is this a Batman whose first move is to kill?  Would that ruin a Batman solo film?

So Superman is dead.  We all know that he's not, and the last shot of the movie hints at that.  But it wasn't just Superman who died - Clark Kent died too.  I don't remember how this was handled in Death of Superman, but it was in the Daily Planet.  They buried him.  Not only that, they actually buried the Clark Kent version in Smallville.  People would've seen the body go in the ground.  How would they explain Clark Kent's resurrection when Superman comes back?  Is the secret identity done?  I realize the secret identity isn't a big part of this universe, but you gotta think that affects Man of Steel 2, right?

The Justice League tease.  So in the stolen data, there's the info on the Justice League, right?  There's files on Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg.  So it's obvious that Lex has information on these super-powered people.  First, why doesn't Lex include them in his plan to kill Superman?  Why use Batman to kill Superman when he has so much info on these other, more powerful people?  He already blackmails Superman and manipulates Batman.  Couldn't he do the same with them.

Then the weirder one.  In the data, the headings are the various logos for each hero.  It's first used as a tease, and then the movie uses the logos to show each hero.  WW symbol is Wonder Woman, lightning bolt is Flash, A is Aquaman, etc.  But these heroes aren't active.  We don't see Barry saving someone in his costume, he's in street clothes.  Aquaman is just out swimming.  Cyborg isn't doing anything.  As far as we know, these guys aren't active yet.  Lex seems to know more about their powers than anything.  Did Lex create their logos?  Did Lex give them their superhero names?  Isn't that a little crazy?

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Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/3/2/512832_v2.jpg

WOW! Kind of on the nose there.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

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The M0vie Blog has an interesting opinion: that BATMAN V. SUPERMAN has a solid script for the Superman character and writes him as a bright and shining hero, but Zack Snyder's style is completely mismatched to the plot and dialogue.

There is a sense that the director is not entirely at one with the script written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer. On a basic plotting level, BATMAN V. SUPERMAN is the story about how Superman saves Batman as a caring divine authority. Terrio and Goyer write Superman as restrained and compassionate while Bruce Wayne is a man who has lost faith. He has witnessed the cruelty of the world around him, seen it corrupt good men and reward vice. In such a world, how is it possible to believe in a beneficent God?

Superman serves as a beacon to guide Batman back towards heroism. Most obviously, the climax hinges on Batman saving a life instead of actively taking one.

At least, that is how it works in theory. In practice, it seems like Snyder’s direction is at odds with Terrio and Goyer’s script. Snyder’s interest in dynamic action sequences has the effect of dulling the big thematic point.  Snyder shoots Superman as all bombast and power. Hovering ominously in the sky and then advancing menacingly. The dialogue suggests that Batman should trust the alien, while the framing presents him as something of which the Caped Crusader must be wary.

http://them0vieblog.com/2016/03/31/non- … -superman/

Birth Movies Death, however, considers the film a moral disaster.

Every generation has a Superman. For generations there have been depictions of Superman that get the basic qualities correct. Whether you think SUPERMAN RETURNS is any good or whether you think the animated SUPERMAN or JUSTICE LEAGUE is the best ever, they all contain a Superman that a person can look at as a model for action. What would Superman do? Be a good guy, be polite, be kind. When I was watching SUPERMAN (1978), I saw a guy doing the right thing because it was the right thing. His strength wasn’t just physical, it was moral. I always looked to Superman’s inherent rightness as true north for my moral compass. Zack Snyder killed him.

In the Snyderverse, he is a cold and distant being who hovers ever so slightly out of reach of people trapped by flood waters, or who allows himself to be worshipped by a crowd of cartoonish Mexicans. This marble statue has no love within him, offers no comfort and is not a hero. Not a decent guy. He's a guy filled with anger, a guy who is haughty and disdainful of regular humans. A guy who, in many ways, represents the worst of us, a guy who struggles against his urge to do the right thing.

I feel terrible for the youngest generation who has this cruel, selfish Superman. I feel bad for the youngest generation who has been handed a jar of granny’s peach tea instead of truth, justice and the American way.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/03/30/ … amage-done

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I absolutely see what the first reviewer is saying.  And, honestly, I think all that is in there.  Batman kills people in them middle of the movie.  He's branding people and sending them to prison to die.  He's absolutely lost his way.  And at the end, the implication is that Bruce is changed.  That he let Superman down but won't anymore.  It's all in there.

But both reviews are right in that Superman is portrayed as someone who is so cold and distant that he can't possibly be that beacon of light.  Instead of offering Bruce the chance to save Martha instead of killing Superman as a way to bring him back, it came off as confusing to me.  Superman could've easily saved Martha in ten seconds without any of the destruction and/or possible death we ended up seeing. Superman couldn't possibly know that Luthor had a Kryptonian monster so Batman should've been the one to confront Luthor.  I absolutely see what the script was trying.  But as I've been saying, Snyder is just not the right guy for this job.

I think the problem is that Snyder wanted to do a Batman movie.  So the movie is a Batman movie with Superman in it.  For the Batman movie to work, Superman can't be a guy who's clearly a good guy.  He can't be smiling with kids and babies.  He can't be saving Air Force One or protecting a bunch of innocents.  When he rescues people, he has to have dead eyes.  Otherwise, Batman really is a psychopath who is attacking the greatest hero the Earth has.  There has to be doubt.  Superman has to be portrayed as the bad guy.  And for most of the movie, he is.  In retrospect, the bathtub scene is way out of place because it shows a Superman who has fun.  Who smiles.  Who legitimately cares.  That Superman is completely absent the rest of the movie.

I don't blame Cavill.  I think he's just doing what he was told.

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Is there any truth to the idea that WB worked hard to get Bale back for BvS, and it was SNYDER who shot it down?

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Still avoiding this thread because I haven't had time to see the movie. But I saw another article that I wanted to comment on...
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/warn … 29376.html

The headline implied that this was the scenario that HitFix suggested earlier. Panic. Desperation. But the article itself reveals that the only change is *more* movies on the slate. Aside from this not sounding like panic to me, I thought that it was always the plan to add more movies. Probably Batman, probably Superman and maybe more... Possibly Birds of Prey, if some recent theories prove true.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

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Okay, I'm not going to bother reading what everyone else said just yet, because I just saw the movie and I want to write my initial reaction before I get all influenced by anyone else.

So, what did I think of the movie??? I thought it was awesome. Seriously, I think it was the most comic book-feeling movie I've seen. Obviously, it was more of a Batman movie than a Superman movie, so the tone of the movie makes perfect sense. I've seen complaints that the movie was too long, but that length was necessary, because the movie didn't skimp on any character arcs. Everyone who appeared had a complete arc, and each arc made sense. These arcs are essential for a movie like this, because it could easily become too cartoonish or too absurd, which would void the emotional impact.

Batman --
I doubted Affleck's casting. You know I wasn't a fan. And while I can't say that I think his acting has grown much, I do think that he fit well in this part. The weathered Batman who has been going it alone for so long that he doesn't believe that people can remain good anymore. The one who has seen allies turn evil or die. I want to see more of this Batman, because we usually never get to this point in the movies. Instead of rehashing what we've seen and starting over once again, we're seeing something fresh, but organic (no, this is not an ad for Whole Foods).
Everything about the character's actions made sense to me. I don't think that he was necessarily sane, but since when is Bruce Wayne supposed to be sane?

Superman --
Honestly, I expected the movie to be equal parts Batman and Superman. I quickly realized that this would not be the case and adjusted my expectations accordingly. We don't see Clark Kent as a reporter as much as we see Bruce being a detective. We get glimpses into his world and his mindset. It is enough to inform us of where he is without giving us too much sad Clark. He's conflicted. He's loving. He's scared. He's still a very human character, which is what I love about this depiction of the character. I am okay with the fact that secret identities aren't as bulletproof in these movies as they are in the comic books. I'm okay with seeing Clark sorta clashing with the reporter role, rather than loving it. Perry was asking him to be less than he wants to be, and Clark is tired of being less than his all. And the movie explores the danger in that, which is interesting.

Lois --
I like that Lois is allowed to be an equal in these movies, rather than just a love interest. I really enjoyed seeing her investigating the bullets and the conspiracy against Superman. Obviously, she is not impartial, but what journalist is these days?

Lex --
An interesting take on the character. Or, the character's son... I'm still trying to figure out whether he is *the* Lex Luthor or not. He definitely had his annoying quirks, but he came across as genuinely menacing and creepy when he needed to be.

Diana --
I'm not usually a fan of the character, but her introduction was very strong. It made me eager to see her movie, because it seems like they might get it right. Whereas the first Captain America movie felt like a waste of time because they didn't really take the time to establish the character and make him legendary before throwing him into the present and making him a legend, it seem like Wonder Woman will tell her story as it needs to be told, rather than what the next big movie needs it to be. She is already in the present, so her movie won't need to set that up.

The Flash --
Still not sure I see the point in having a Flash movie right now, but what we saw of him wasn't too bad. Having him appear in Bruce's vision was interesting.

Aquaman/Cyborg --
Their appearances could have been a little more subtle (especially Aquaman's) but I get that they had to clearly introduce the characters in a fast way. So it wasn't bad.


All said, I appreciate that the movie didn't feel like a gimmick. I've seen people complain that Batman and Superman don't fight more than once and it's not the central focus of the movie, but those people must not have read many of the comic books or watched the cartoons. This was always how it was going to play out. They like each other and it would have felt stupid to have them fighting over and over again, just because. One of my biggest praises of this movie is that the fight scenes weren't useless and the bickering wasn't hollow.

Visually, the movie was great. I imagine that people will be upset that it was dark, but it is mostly a Batman movie. A lot of the scenes looked like they could have been ripped from the pages of a comic book, but the movie still felt "real", meaning that it wasn't all perfect lighting and primary colors.

If I had one complaint, it would be that Gotham and Metropolis seem to be very close to each other and I'm not sure that they should be that close. It worked for the movie though.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Wow. I completely disagree with everything you are all saying about Superman. (go figure)

I don't see him as having dead eyes, or being uncaring. The whole time I was watching him on screen, I was thinking how uncomfortable he was, being called a god every five seconds and having people worship him. On the other hand, he was troubled because those who don't love him hate him and put the blame for a lot of the evil in the world on him. I saw him as very passionate and loving, but conflicted. I totally identified with him in a way that I never could with other versions of Clark in the movies, because they make him too happy and too chipper and completely unlike any person I have ever known in my life.

I get this Clark. I get how he grew up. I get how he feels. I get how he thinks. And all of that was done without them having thought bubbles over his head, telling me everything. I don't see him as alien at all. I don't see him as cold. I see him as someone who is supposed to be the strongest man on the planet, who people keep saying cannot be defeated, and yet he feels like he can't win. He tries to save Lois, but people die and he is blamed. He tries to save the city, but people die and he is blamed. He tries to appear before the committee to answer for his "crimes" and people die and he is blamed. Then there is Batman, who has completely gone off the rails and Clark thinks that he can finally shine a light on this guy who is legitimately crazy (from all appearances), and nobody wants to hear it. At which point should he have been smiling and joking?

The comic books get the benefit of having 80 years in which to show us small moments with Superman. To give us a glimpse here and there, where Superman saves a puppy and gives an inspirational speech to a sad kid. Even a TV show has the ability to show those moments. The movie doesn't. When was there time for Clark to be that Superman in this movie? When people were blaming him for the Battle of Metropolis? When people were blaming him for lives lost in Africa? When he was being blamed for crippling a man? When the people holding him responsible for countless deaths were blown up themselves? If he did smile in the midst of all that, people would have the same reaction that they had at the end of Man of Steel, criticizing him for joking around right after the Capitol Building was blown up!
And do people really want them to add another half hour to the beginning of the movie, just so they can show him being Superman on a normal day? Because people are already saying that the movie was too long.


I actually feel like this movie was treated the same way in the press as Superman was in the movie itself. There are so many worse movies that people are willing to love, but nobody cared about them. Nobody is writing stories about Disney in a panic after Age of Ultron failed to live up to expectations. Nobody is writing headline after headline about how miserable a failure Star Wars was, only to have the article itself reveal that it wasn't that miserable of a failure after all, a few paragraphs down. Nobody is saying that Star Wars has thirty different versions released because the studio is trying desperately to make some amount of profit off of the embarrassing franchise. This movie, like Superman in the movie, was seen as so indestructible that it became popular to try to destroy it. The movie, by all accounts, is doing well. Warner Bros should be happy. Yet we have "Sad Affleck" videos.

We have excitement over the Suicide Squad leading to the studio having more faith in the movie and giving them more money to make it as good as possible, yet all the headlines were about the panic over how much people hated BvS. There was no way that the media was going to represent Batman v Superman in a positive light. This goes back months before its release, so it isn't like I'm criticizing them for not liking it. I don't think it ever mattered whether they liked it or not. I do believe that there was an anti-publicity campaign coming from somewhere, for some reason. I won't say that Disney is behind it, but it feels like it at times.

Actual audience members seem to rate the movie much higher than the critics (which makes sense, since the only Superman that most of the critics know is the 1978 movie version). And comic book fans seem to rate the movie higher than non-comic book fans. These reactions are interesting to me.


I do agree that the reason for this type of movie coming out of DC is the fact that we've already seen these characters so many times before. People keep talking about DC catching up to Marvel, but it is really the other way around. DC is at a place now where, like in the comic books, they're able to tell different types of stories with established characters. Marvel is nowhere near that point. I was going to write a blog entry about this. Maybe I will.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

176 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2016-04-14 10:59:10)

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I wrote my review after watching the movie.  I still liked it.  It was still better than I thought.  But I hear certain criticisms, and I have trouble arguing against them.  And I think people are "unfair" to the movie because I think, universally, EVERYONE wanted it to be great.  And when it wasn't what people were expecting, people sorta tear it up.  Again, I think this movie's failures have a ton in common with the failures of Force Awakens.  But for whatever reason, people forgave the Star Wars film.  Oh well.

But here's the thing about Superman.  If he was uncomfortable with being a god and people worshiping him, he does *nothing* to stop them.  Nothing.  When he saves the person in Metropolis, they surround him.  He doesn't say "no, no, I'm just like you.  Please don't do that.  I'm just here to help."  When people are reaching out to him on top of their roofs like he's an angel, he just creepily floats over them....like an angel.  He wouldn't allow a GIANT STATUE to be built of him in the middle of Metropolis.  If Clark was uncomfortable with any of that, he doesn't really do anything to show it.

Now I know that it's hard to be Superman, but he NEVER smiles when he's being Superman.  When he's saving people, he shows zero emotion.  So that's either Cavill being a bad actor (and he's not), or Snyder wanted him to look cold and alien.  He's so cold and alien as Superman that the bathtub scene feels like it's from a completely different movie.

And I understand why.  Batman needs a reason to hate Superman, or he just looks like Lex in a bat costume.  Lex hates Superman even though Superman has done nothing but good his whole career.  He even hates the fun, colorful Superman.  It's illogical to us.  But for us to be convinced that Batman *isn't* crazy, Superman has to look cold.  Has to look alien.  He has to stare coldly while people worship him so that we are convinced that maybe the Knightmare version of him could be real.

The problem is that the whole fight is a misunderstanding that shouldn't have taken that long to clear up.  You say they spend more time with Batman as a detective more than Clark being a journalist.  I'd argue that neither character does either of those things.  Bruce does some detective work on the KGBeast mobster, but he does *zero* detective work on Superman.  Even the incident that the government is so concerned about, Bruce does zero investigation into. 

And, again, it makes sense because if Bruce were a half-decent detective in this movie, he'd figure out that Clark isn't a bad guy.  When Bruce says "even if there's a 1% chance that he's our enemy, we need to take it as an absolute certainty" he's exactly right.  When he says Clark has the ability to destroy the whole human race, he's exactly right.  But Bruce saw one fight (that saved billions) where Clark is seemingly fighting on the side of humanity, and he wants to kill him.  Then Clark does, seemingly, *nothing wrong* for 18 months.  And Bruce is just as mad 18 months later?  Hell, the inciting incident (the Capitol explosion) has nothing to do with Superman and cannot possibly be tied to him.

This is the primary reason why I didn't want an older Batman.  Because an older Batman wouldn't be impulsive.  He'd take his time, do his homework, and be absolutely sure that he's the "1% sure" that he is.  In this movie, Batman doesn't do anything other than see the Battle of Metropolis.  That's enough. 

Bruce doesn't investigate who Superman is.  Because if he did, he'd find out that Clark grew up in Kansas, never hurt anyone, and was a good guy for his whole life.  He would've ended up in the same place as Lois in the first movie....talking to Pete Ross and Whitney and Lana and all the people in Clark's life.  Hell, he probably would've spoken to Lois.  And MARTHA.  All it would've taken was Bruce listening in on the bathtub scene, and I think the whole movie ends there.

I really like the idea that Batman went murderously crazy after the Battle of Metropolis, and Superman spends the movie trying to save him.  That's a really cool idea.  That Batman and Lex are basically after the same goal, and Superman has to show him that he's basically become a supervillain.  But because this is a Batman movie, Superman *has* to be the villain for most of the movie.  We have to believe it.  So that message is completely lost.  We're led to believe, "Yeah!  Superman is crazy powerful.  He does look cold and alien.  Maybe Batman *should* kill him."

So instead of identifying with the hero (Superman), we end up identifying with the villain (Batman) and the REAL villain (Lex). And it's just so backwards that the script's message is just tonally lost.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I think that the difference between this and Star Wars is that Star Wars was fun.  People can forgive a lot if they're having fun; and the two actors that carried that exceptionally well were playing Rey and Finn.

Batman V Superman is pretty depressing; and that's kind of amazing when you consider that its inspiration (The Dark Knight Returns) had a lot of fun with satire despite being dark.  And I do hold Snyder responsible for that based on his similar tone in things like Suckerpunch.  He's probably not, but I imagine Snyder as this gloomy, emo guy directing the world to his downbeat view.

But yeah, it is kind of silly when you realize Lois is depicted as a better detective than Batman.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Yeah, Star Wars was definitely more fun.  I didn't love the movie, but I had tons of fun watching it.  I even saw it a couple days later with no qualms.  It's just sad that there was such little fun in BvS - that's why I think it really needed a Superman Returns - like airplane save.  A 5-7 minute sequence where Superman can use his powers to save the day.  But Snyder would probably end up with him saving Air Force One but accidentally killing the president.

TemporalFlux wrote:

But yeah, it is kind of silly when you realize Lois is depicted as a better detective than Batman.

And, honestly, it isn't close.  She does all the work to implicate Lex, and she does all the work in the first movie to find/discover Clark.  What's crazy is that Lex knows to go to Lois to get Superman's attention.  Even crazy/murderous Batman doesn't think to go there.  He just shines his own Bat-signal and waits for Clark to show up. 

And believe me, if the movie was about a Batman who'd completely lost his way....completely blinded by his hatred of "freaks dressed as clowns" to the point where he'd basically become Lex Luthor.....that's a great movie.  Honestly.  And, with seven Batman movies in less than 30 years, I think America would've accepted "okay, Batman's gone crazy.  Save him, Superman!"

But in that case, they can't paint Superman the way they did.  They can't give Bruce (and, therefore, Lex) reasons to believe they're right.  Clark has to be a shining beacon of hope that can burst through Bruce's anger and craziness.  And instead, every single public image of Superman is *exactly* like the Knightmare sequence.  I agree that Cavill gets to play Clark as human, but his Superman is *very* alien.  He never smiles but he also never speaks, right?  Does Superman have any lines before the fight with Batman?  He speaks to Lois (as Clark).  Speaks to Perry and company (as Clark).  Speaks to Bruce (as Clark).  I think Superman's only lines are to Batman (after the fight....and it's a threat) and then to Lex I guess.

If I'm Clark, I want Superman's public persona to be over the top to earn the trust back.  Apparently he does *something* to earn back Metropolis' trust, but it's hard to see what it was.  Because with what we saw, I'd still be *terrified* of Superman.  He has these great powers and these cold, emotionless expressions every single time.  He's the ticking time-bomb that Bruce is afraid of.  And when he's that, the entire purpose of the movie gets completely lost.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

I wrote my review after watching the movie.  I still liked it.  It was still better than I thought.  But I hear certain criticisms, and I have trouble arguing against them.  And I think people are "unfair" to the movie because I think, universally, EVERYONE wanted it to be great.  And when it wasn't what people were expecting, people sorta tear it up.  Again, I think this movie's failures have a ton in common with the failures of Force Awakens.  But for whatever reason, people forgave the Star Wars film.  Oh well.

See, I have to disagree with this. I don't want to make it sound like I don't think any of the criticism isn't legit just because I disagree with that criticism, but I don't think that everyone wanted it to be great. I think that for a long time, leading up to the premiere, there were more negative articles being written about the movie than positive articles. Things that were completely unfounded, just like we are seeing again now, with Suicide Squad. While a large part of the audience may have wanted it to be great, the press surrounding the movie turned bashing it into a pop culture movement before the movie was ever shown to anyone. Today, articles about the success of the movie are still given headlines about the failure of the movie. Articles about the faith that the studio has in Suicide Squad are still given headlines about their lack of faith in the movie.
I think that a lot of the negativity surrounding the movie now is caused by the media, turning it into something that it never was. The critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 28% while audience rating has it at %69 (which is actually down from where it was the last time I checked). IMDB has an audience rating of 7.2 stars, with 243,198 viewer ratings. Comicbook.com has it rated at 4.25 stars (out of 5) from 9353 voters, placing it #3 in their overall ratings, after The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, and just before The Dark Knight Rises and Deadpool.

All of this is to say that there is a huge disparity between the media reports surrounding the film and the actual response to the film. The media is not unbiased here and they never have been. So, why? Why do they want to drive the movie's numbers down? What do they gain from that? Is it just that negative headlines will result in more clicks? I don't know. But I don't think that there was much support for the film going in, the same way we see excitement about the next Marvel movie or Star Wars movie (is it a coincidence that they get nothing but positive press, no matter how bad their movies are? I mean, the last Thor movie got a 67% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that was a horrible movie. Age of Ultron got 75%, despite being widely considered to be a huge disappointment, even among Marvel fans)

The comic book audience has reacted to BvS much more positively (though not all praises) than the average viewers, which is probably related to the average audience taking more of a lead from critics.

I can't comment on how fun Star Wars was since the trailers didn't tell me enough about the actual plot to grab my attention and I keep forgetting that it's out there to be watched at some point. I will probably watch it eventually.

That said, I had a great time watching BvS. I don't know what qualifies as "fun". Is it about more jokes? Is it about brighter colors or more explosions? I had a blast watching BvS, because it was a solid movie and had great characters. I know people will disagree with that, but I never found myself thinking "Why would he/she do that?" while watching the movie, which is pretty rare in a superhero movie where they usually don't pay attention to character motivation. I always understood where Superman was coming from and I think that's one of the things that I love so much about this version of the character. He is usually beyond understanding. He is always a perfect boy scout type, with a bland personality and no real emotional core. Very few writers ask themselves how he grew up and what type of person that would make him today. Granted, this version isn't close to the typical image of Superman, but he is exactly what I would expect him to be if I had to sit here and outline the character from scratch, given his history.

The movie doesn't do his point of view justice, because it's not really about him. We get glimpses of who he really is, but most of what we see is through this lens of Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, or the general public. When he is hovering over people, it's usually more about the reaction of the people than Superman's point of view. They do see him as some sort of god in a lot of cases, which is why when we see him from their point of view, he is hovering above them and isn't one of them. He saves the kid in Mexico and he becomes lost in a sea of people who are reaching out to him, praising him. It seems like it would be almost as lonely and isolating to be Superman as it was to hide himself for all those years. But that makes sense to me. I understand that more than I would understand hands on his hips and cutting ribbons at the opening of a supermarket.


I like how Batman was used to tell that story of Superman. Lex Luthor was just a maniacal, arrogant, selfish lunatic. Batman was the human perspective. And yeah, while he was putting a lot of his detective skills to use on other people, he really wasn't looking into Superman. He didn't want to. He was angry about what happened in Metropolis and he wanted someone to hate because of it. He spent as much time as possible dehumanizing Superman, so why would he want to find out who Superman was during his off hours? Why would he want to know about Superman's parents? He wouldn't.
Add to that the fact that Bruce has been doing this superhero thing alone for a long time. He's seen bad guys just get crazier and crazier. He's seen good guys go bad. He's seen allies die. He has been trying to stop his farm from flooding for 20 years and nothing he does ever helps. He is broken. He needs Superman, but when he finally gets that help, he isn't able to believe it.

And again, I totally get this. It makes sense. It's where I imagine Batman would be in this universe and his thoughts are what I would expect them to be. The whole reason the Martha thing works is because in that moment, Superman becomes more human. He isn't begging for his life or screaming in pain. He is telling to Batman to go save Martha after he kills Superman. Batman can't dehumanize that (especially since he had that vision of his mother's crypt). Clark seemed to know who Batman was behind the mask, so did he do that on purpose? Did he know that the name Martha would get through the hatred and anger that Batman felt? Hard to say, but I think it's likely.

The cooler way to play Batman would be for him to win the fight and cut Clark's cheek and let that be that. Just to prove that he could and that Superman can bleed. But that would have said less about how desperate Bruce was at this point in his life.


And I do hold Snyder responsible for that based on his similar tone in things like Suckerpunch.  He's probably not, but I imagine Snyder as this gloomy, emo guy directing the world to his downbeat view.

I don't know that it's fair to characterize Snyder as being a gloomy emo guy based in his past work. 300 and Watchmen were made to look like the source material. He honored that well. And while Man of Steel was criticized for being gloomy, I saw it as inspiring and hopeful. I see BvS much the same... a desperate, scared world, looking for something to believe in. Batman unable to have that faith in someone until he sees that man die saving a world that he wasn't even born on. There is a lot of hope that comes out of Superman in these movies, but because it's not all bright colors and too-perfect lighting, people say that they're gloomy. And I don't think it's "emo" to put some thought and consideration into the characters. I'm bored with comic book movies that care more about being "fun" than exploring the depth of these iconic characters. They have great stories, which are rarely acknowledged. People wanted a paint-by-numbers Superman, rather than a movie that was treated like a real film.

I didn't see Sucker Punch, so I can't comment on that one. I can only comment on what I've seen and Snyder seems to be someone who cares about the source material more than he's given credit for. He's someone who put more thought into these characters than most comic book movies ever get. He takes them seriously as characters and doesn't try to create a cartoon in live action, which is exactly where movies like X-Men or most of the Marvel movies go wrong.


I can appreciate the fact that his interpretation of the character may not be for everyone. But that kinda makes his movies even more fitting for the comic book genre, because there is always debate about who writes which characters the best, or who draws them the best. It has driven me insane for many years that so many writers/artists used Christopher Reeve as their template for Superman, when I thought he was so wrong in that role. So I get that there are times when you just don't like how things are being done. I'm just not used to being the one on the side of enjoying and really getting a thrill out of Superman while other people are so down on him. This movie was fun for me, because while I was watching it, I was in it. I wasn't distracted by what I'd do better or whether or not the characters made sense. As someone who loves great characters and who sometimes finds himself checking his email during "exciting" action sequences, I thought the movie was a blast.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming)

Listen, I really really really do not want to make you dislike the movie.  I'm thrilled you loved it because I'm glad at least one of us loved this movie.  And while I do agree with you that a lot of people went into theaters either wanting to dislike BvS or tear it apart, I think that's exclusively based on Zach Snyder's BvS and not a "Batman vs Superman" movie.  I think, universally, everyone wanted "Batman vs Superman" to be great.  But I think Man of Steel + casting choices + bloated movie + dark tone scared a lot of people off.

I know you loved Man of Steel and really like Snyder.  But imagine Batman vs Superman had spun off Green Lantern or even the Schumacher Batman films.  You'd been waiting for your whole life to see Batman vs. Superman, and it ends up being George Clooney and his Bat-nipples vs. Nicholas Cage as Superman.  It'd be crushing.  And you'd probably find faults that weren't even there.

Maybe you can just read more into this Superman than I can.  I just thought Superman was a mess in this movie - way moreso than Man of Steel.  I thought Man of Steel was lifeless and no fun, but the flying sequence in Man of Steel is more fun than anything in this movie.  And that's what I'm talking about.  This is Superman!  There's gotta be a sequence where he sits back and thinks, "Holy crap, I can do X, Y, and Z!  This is awesome!"  We never get that in this movie.  It's 150 minutes long and a direct sequel to a Superman movie, and Superman enjoys his powers for literally zero seconds.

Because I don't think it has to be jokes.  I don't think it has to be Marvel-style action for action's sake.  I really don't.  Just a scene where you marvel at the idea that this is a guy who can lift a plane and fly at the speed of sound.  Who has diamond-skin and can hear an explosion across the planet.  His eyes shoot freakin' lasers!

And trust me, I get that they're trying to humanize Clark.  Make him realistic.  And if they decided that Clark was still hated from the Battle of Metropolis, and that's what's making him sad, that's fine.  When I wrote my version of BvS, that's the angle I went with.  That Clark simply can't do enough to win the people back, even if he has.  That he can do anything in the world, and that it's still not enough.  I can imagine my version of Superman looking sad.

But I don't think that's what this version of Superman is.  Yeah, Batman thinks that.  Yeah, Lex thinks that.  But even the Senator doesn't really think that.  Some of the talking heads in the movie think it, but the only protest in the movie is in Washington.  It doesn't even look like that big of a protest all things considered.  There's no one protesting at the statue, and when Wally defaces it, it's referred to as a "beloved statue."  If people in Metropolis mistrusted Superman, then it wouldn't be beloved.  There'd be protests there every single day, Occupy Wall Street style.

And that's where Snyder's vision messed with a great script.  Superman needed to be the star of that script, but Snyder wanted to make a Batman movie.  And he didn't want Batman to be an anti-hero, he wanted him to be the hero.  But Batman is *clearly* the villain.  Not an anti-hero.  A villain.  He's out to murder someone who has done nothing wrong.  And yet the movie has to make that work as a hero, so they make Clark look cold and alien.  Cavill's eyes might show more, but Superman doesn't do anything to inspire hope.  And in the 2-3 scenes where Clark is allowed to speak with Lois or his mother, he doesn't talk about his struggles with being a god.  He doesn't talk about being sad.

Because I think, in the script, he's not supposed to be sad.  He's supposed to be happy.  I bet he was supposed to be honored to save the victims in Mexico.  That he was supposed to be gracious and kind to the flood victims.  Maybe saving the rocket was supposed to be like the scene in Superman Returns.  But as you know, the director gets to interpret the script.  And if Batman is out to murder a clear hero, then he's a monster.  And Snyder wanted Batman to be cool.

I don't think the characterization is bad.  I have zero issues with the way Batman is done - I buy him completely.  And if Superman is sad but doesn't want to say anything about it, that's also fine.  But the rest of the movie starts to unravel because why would people trust him?  It's obvious that they do.  Superman has done *something* in 18 months to win the people over.  But none of that is in the movie because Snyder's vision needs Superman to be scary.

A truly great movie is in there.  I just think Snyder messed it up.  And I think when we see Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad and Affleck's solo Batman film, it's going to be obvious that the bigger villain in the DCCU is Zack Snyder smile