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It's weird how differently I see Man of Steel and Batman v Superman than you guys. When I watch Man of Steel, I absolutely see Clark trying to get the fight away from the city, and Zod trying to inflict as much damage as possible. The whole battle seemed like a desperate attempt on Superman's part, at least to me. And when it comes to BvS, I don't see it as the world adoring him as much as you do. I see a world where there are a lot of different views of Superman. Some love him. Some hate him. He doesn't know what to do with either side.

A lot of what we see of Superman in that movie is from the perspective of others though. We see the flood from the perspective of a victim, looking up at him. We see the Mexican fire from the perspective of the crowd that envelops him. We see the Battle of Metropolis from Bruce's point of view. We even see his statue from the perspective of a guy who hates him. There is a lot of perspective going on in the movie, and not much of it comes from Clark's point of view. So a lot of the criticism about him seeming above it all, or angry or whatever is just the result of how those other people are seeing him.
It's an interesting take. I would have liked to have seen this movie from Superman's point of view, but it would have been a totally different thing.

The thing with Marvel is...

Okay, even Community (which was largely unrealistic and often just spoof work) had something to connect with. Strong characters, portrayed by a team of incredibly talented actors and Chevy Chase. The writers cared about what they were doing. They didn't just throw crap at the wall when they were spoofing something, they were doing very specific jokes about things that they usually felt very strongly about. Even the Glee episode was full of nuance that most people wouldn't even recognize. They understood that despite the complete lack of reality, they needed to take the work seriously. That is why it worked.

The Marvel movies don't care about character. They don't care that Steve Rogers lost everything he ever knew or loved. He lost every bit of life he ever dreamed about. He lost everything, and wound up transplanted into a world where he genuinely does not belong. Every thought in his head is probably a hate crime by today's standards. They did nothing with that story, which should be *the* story for one of their two central characters, who has appeared in four movies now.

So, if they don't care about character, they need to care about plot, right? Except, they don't. The movies are filled with completely irrational writing, doing everything they can think of simply to get to the next big action sequence, which was obviously thought up before they considered the rest of the story that they would later try to construct around it.

So, we have no character and no plot. Okay, well at least they will shoot it well and make it look pretty, right? Except, no. They don't. They have second-rate directors with second-rate crews, creating shots with no thought behind them. The lighting is bad. The visuals are usually pushed too far, removing any sense of reality. And without some ounce of reality, there is nothing to connect with.

The movies are fun and entertaining, but they are fun and entertaining in the same way that cotton candy is. It's a treat with no substance, which leaves you hungry the second you're done with it.

Some of the movies are entertaining. I don't hate everything about the Marvel universe. The Captain America movies are watchable. Guardians and Ant-Man were solid entertainment (with notably more character work and attention to scene construction). But the only things worth discussing about the Avengers movies were how they compare to the DC movies. One and a half Iron Man movies are forgettable at best. The Thor movies... does anyone go back and watch them? The problem is, unlike Community, I don't get the sense that the writers love these characters or take the work seriously. I get the feeling that they just need to churn out another movie because it's on the schedule.

Say what you will about Man of Steel or Batman v Superman, but you can't deny that thought was put into them. The framing of a scene, the lighting of a scene, how characters would be portrayed... you may not agree with it, but there was obviously some time and effort put into it.

I just don't understand how people could apparently care so little about characters that they have to spend so much time with. I don't need it to be realistic in every sense. I don't need bodies dropping every time a punch is thrown. I just need *something* to sink my teeth into.

I will admit that at this point, my dial is set to "dislike" when it comes to Marvel. It's not impossible to come back from that. Smallville came off of its worst season and went right into its best. Supernatural did the same (season 7 is apparently a really harsh year for TV shows). Once the switch is flipped from "like" to "dislike", it takes work to flip it back. So I can't deny that there is some bias going into my watching Marvel trailers or discussing their movies at this point.

Something you don't really think about until you're selling books on Amazon: Amazon.uk reviews don't appear on Amazon.com. for tax reasons or whatever, the sites are kept separate. As a result, reviews don't cross over between sites. This keeps review numbers lower across the sites, which is potentially damaging to sales all around (for smaller authors). Some sites won't let you run promotions through them without a certain number of reviews, so that makes it more annoying.

There are worse problems to have, but it can be frustrating.

Once Upon a Time is a stupid show. Not because fairy tales are stupid, but because they completely tossed the concept of the show after season 1 and it has been an embarrassing mess ever since. The point was to contrast between "reality" and fantasy. The second they destroyed the reality of that world, it was pointless. Also, killing Sheriff Graham was stupid, but Jamie Dornan is great on The Fall, so he is better off.

I don't need realism in comic book movies. However, when you take these characters and put them in a real world setting, with flesh and blood actors, things change. If you have a real adult waving a gun around, shooting bullets in random directions like they do in cartoons, it comes across very differently. If you have flesh and blood actors simply behaving like cartoons, why are you spending hundreds of millions of dollars? Flesh and blood is an investment in reality.

I think it is irresponsible to show real people using high powered weapons so recklessly. They are minimizing the seriousness of weapons in the minds of kids. They are turning a real-looking gun (/missile/whatever) fight into a game without consequences, and unlike BvS, they are inviting small kids to watch this.

Things that work in comic books and cartoons don't work in live action. Dropping an anvil on Dean Winchester's head was funny, but it also killed him.

I don't think it needs to be realistic though. They just need to take the writing of it more seriously when dealing with flesh and blood.

I don't know.

https://youtu.be/6wlMrOtw4jw

I just have a hard time processing this stuff. They are firing explosives at each other, crashing vehicles, etc... while making friendly chit-chat. I hope that the movie is more even and this is just a case of bad commercial making, but I just don't get it. I don't care if my friend is wearing a bullet proof vest, I'm not going to shoot him. And I'm certainly not going to do it in the middle of an airport (though to be fair, it looks like the least used airport in the history of man).

Also, are we really going to have a group of heroes picking on little Spider-Bite? That seems uncool.

It's like they wanted to play it as random, but they also didn't. Within the episode, they have Laurel holding her mask and saying "One last time..." which made it quite clear who was going to die.

They had more natural options for the death, bit they backed away because they didn't want to upset fangirls too much, and for some reason they viewed Laurel/Black Canary fans as a vocal minority.

I am all for sudden, tragic death. But it can't feel cheap when it happens.

That doesn't explain the fascination with including their (rumored) marketing budget in with the movie's budget while failing to include product tie-ins with the profits. They're inflating the cost of the movie while deflating the earnings, just so they can make the story sound more grim.

One thing that I think may have hurt return viewing was the announcement of the extended cut so close to the theatrical release. If I see that, I'm not going to bother going to see it in the theater again. I'm going to save my money and wait for the extended "real" version of the movie. I think the movie will do well when it comes to home video.

The Jungle Book...

Budget: $175 million (plus marketing)
Total domestic take thus far: $191,477,426   
Total Foreign take thus far: $341,300,000   
Equaling: $532,777,426

Pretty good, right?

Batman v Superman (after it's second week, assuming my numbers are right):

Budget: $250 (plus marketing)
Domestic: $260,408,047
Foreign: $422,500,000
Total: $682,908,047

I'm not going to compare movies. I'm going to compare media reactions... For the Jungle Book, I've seen a lot of stories about its huge success and how much people love the movie. Nothing about not fining an audience. Nothing about how much they need to make in order to make up for the cost of marketing. I could just be missing those articles, but I haven't seen them.

So, why the difference? The Jungle Book is a family friendly movie which people will probably see multiple times. It didn't bring in as much money in terms of product tie-ins (based on what I've seen in stores, it's just not as visible as BvS). So if all things are equal, shouldn't the articles be written about how disappointing this big budget movie with a lot of A-list names behind it is?

I'm fascinated by the media portrayal of Batman v Superman. I can't help it. I have nothing against The Jungle Book. It's doing well. But the overall narrative is that BvS failed to connect to an audience and that it was a failure, despite the fact that it did pretty well at the box office (especially for a movie that kids can't see) and actual audience reactions have been favorable. Where is the media coming from? What is their angle? Is a flop a better story?

And they serve Sliders, so this thread is on topic!

I'm getting a little uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. 

I haven't been to any of those places yet. I know they just opened up an Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson (next to that cabin with a basement, hidden deep in the woods... Supernatural joke. Never mind) but I haven't actually gone. I do imagine that it would be distracting, but for the less important mo ies it probably wouldn't matter. Their menu looks interesting anyway.

I continue to be impressed with Gotham. They do a great job of making this feel like the Gotham City that I grew up with. The city that will need Batman. And Bruce is developing nicely.

I've come to realize that they could easily cross over with The Flash, since Earth-2 is very similar to the world of Gotham.

I liked Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant-Man was fun. And Winter Soldier... Emily VanCamp is pretty.

That's it! I'm only saying nice things from now on!

The problems with Supergirl is that the writers have no sense of who the character is. They're writing her as Clark, which doesn't work. And they don't know how to introduce drama or tension for the character, so it always seem forced and false. Her sitting at an old news desk, basically asking people to clap is they believe, was ridiculous.

They seem to have to use this government agency, which doesn't fit well into the series. So we have a bunch of military scenes in this cave, and it doesn't seem remotely realistic. Especially putting Martian Manhunter in charge of the DEO again.

They don't know what to do with the supporting characters. Alex is a generic super chick who can do whatever the plot needs that week. None of the characters have strong personalities or purpose.

On The Flash, there is a clear sense of character. Cisco and Barry are both smart, but their dialogue couldn't be swapped without anyone noticing. Iris and Caitlin couldn't be swapped. Harry and Eobard can't even be swapped! dd to that a general sense of purpose in the writing. Episodes where they're just trying to waste time before the next big event stand out because there is a natural flow that is interrupted. Whereas with Supergirl, I get the sense that nobody has a clue what they're doing. The finale pretty much cemented that belief.

Supergirl does feel like a kid's show, because there is no great effort put into making it. The character is being written as a feminist icon, surrounded by feminists, doing feminist things, but it's all just fluff.

Only we don't get to see Krypto directly. They just show his collar and then have him zoom off to join Superman. But every so often, Kara comes home to find her shoes chewed up, letting her know that he is still out there and thinks she is swell.

With JK Simmons and now Willem Defoe being cast in Justice League, I'm starting to suspect that we might get Spider-Man showing up at the end of this film's trailer too!

Apparently, Defoe will be a good guy. Beyond that, we don't have much info. Any guesses?

The film definitely has a solid cast. I wonder if they're going right for Darkseid or if they're saving that for Justice League 2? They've been hitting all of the super powerful Superman villains so far. I hope we get another Superman stand alone movie, just so we can see him take down someone like Metallo, who isn't necessarily a "destroy the world!" type of villain.

The Freedom/Hate release day is here! It seem like it's taken forever to get to this point. I'm experimenting with running ads in a couple of places this time, so we'll see how that turns out.

I now have a about three months to get book 2 ready! This is going to be a long process

Exactly. A lot of the success had to do with the technology involved. 3D isn't as big as it was when that movie came out. More of the sequel success will revolve around creating a good movie. Was the first one actually good?

Word of mouth can help, and I don't think that the critics destroyed the movie's chances. But the negative news articles in the months leading up to the release, coupled with the reduced overall audience because the young kids can't go probably drove some numbers down.

These things are usually a machine that runs on excitement. Star Wars is not a great movie and none of the prequels were good. Yet the level of excitement in the press definitely built the audience. I have no idea how the movie turned out because I had to get past my annoyance with the marketing before I could think about seeing it. But the trailer revealed pretty much nothing about the plot, so it isn't like people were excited about that element.

I can't judge a film based on how much it cost to make. The audience was there. It made a lot of money. The general audience reaction to it has been good. The studio spent a lot of money, but that is really their problem. We don't know what deals they struck or how they balanced it all out. It really isn't for us to try to guess their happiness with how much return they got on their investment. We can judge the audience side of it, and in audience terms, it doesn't matter if the film's budget was huge or small. The audience went, and I think that anyone expecting it to be the biggest movie success ever was dreaming (and I may be guilty there too). It is the sequel to a movie that did well, bit not great. And it is about the billionth time these characters have been on screen. Add to that the fact that young kids can't go... Why would this movie be the highest grossing movie of all time? To comic book fans, it is huge to see these characters together. To random people who don't care, it might as well be Alien vs Predator.

I still say that the bad publicity pushed a lot of casual viewers away, and that had nothing to do with the quality of the movie. The press was out to kill this movie for a long time. It didn't work entirely, bit they left a mark.

Interesting that there is nobody jumping to disagree.

I wonder how many people are going to be upset when Suicide Squad isn't an all-out comedy. There are some funny characters in the movie, but I have a hard time imagining most of the characters as being comedic.

I don't view Snyder's style as grim or dour. A little muted, maybe, but only compared to other superhero movies. It looks like a lot of other movies that people wouldn't call grim or dour. It actually feels like a film from the late 80's or early 90's in a way, which is interesting.  The coloring reminds me of movies like Stand By Me or Field of Dreams.

This post is about to get image heavy. Sorry about that.

Compare:

With:

or:

With:

For a lot of the Superman scenes in BvS, there is an old school imagery that reminds me of the 30's or 40's. Such as this scene:

I don't see it as grim or dark or dour. I just see it as a film, compared to the popcorn movie that people expect something like this to be. Snyder uses light and shadow well. The color balance makes this character seem more real, whereas "traditional" superman always feels like a cartoon:

You say that Superman is cold and alien, but what is he looking at in this picture?

If I recall correctly, he is looking back at the home that is still burning. He saved the girl, but that doesn't make him happy to see her home burn. That's not cold. That's not alien. How many firefighters do you think would be smiling as they watched that house burn?

I don't think the door is closed on a lighter Superman. What we've seen so far isn't someone who enjoys this life. He is someone who has taken on the task of seeking out the most horrible things he can see on a daily basis, and he has nobody to do it with. He doesn't spend time with people who know what that's like. He is like Batman in a lot of ways, because they're both drowning.

Imagine a police officer in a horrible city, who sees suffering and death on a daily basis, or a soldier in some country where all they do is fight evil that never stops coming at them. How happy would those people be, especially if they were in it alone?

I get the desire to see Superman smile more, or to see more of his happy moments. But we didn't get to see a lot of his personal moments at all in BvS. Maybe we will in the extended version, I don't know. But we didn't see a lot of Bruce Wayne being Bruce Wayne either. People are already complaining about the length of the movie, so what would the reaction be if they added some happy scenes, just for the sake of showing the up side of being Superman in a movie that's mostly about the down side of being Superman? Do we want the scene of him saving a kitten from a tree and handing it to a little kid? Do we want the scene of him saying something inspiring to a teenager who feels isolated? And if we do want those scenes, which scenes do we cut from the movie in order to get them? Because the movie has already been edited down quite a bit.

I don't really have an opinion on that yet, since we don't know how DC's continuity will work out. There are a number of people who are working on the various DC films (Zack and Deborah Snyder, Geoff Johns, Richard Suckle, Charles Roven, Wesley Coller and I'm sure a lot more people that I don't have the energy to look up on IMDB right now).

At this point, it seem that while Justice League will move the story forward, a lot of the other movies will probably take place before BvS. Wonder Woman will probably take place mostly (if not entirely) during WWI. Cyborg, Aquaman and to a lesser degree, The Flash would be strange movies if they didn't tell origin stories. Since we've already seen footage of them in action in BvS, that means that their stories would probably take place earlier. It's hard to say when Suicide Squad actually takes place, but the Batman movie could very easily show us how Batman got to the point where he is in BvS. What happened to Robin and Batgirl? It would be great if Affleck brought Nightwing into that story and maybe ended it with the introduction of Tim Drake.

If most of those movies stand on their own, how much do they really need to work together? They have a team of people working across different movies, so do they need one person directing the whole thing? I don't know. It seems like the Snyders are overseeing the general direction of the movies, but there could be a hundred other people out there, making sure that Wonder Woman doesn't contradict Aquaman.

Would I say that the Marvel model has worked in this regard? No. I don't think the movies work well as one whole creation. I think there are continuity problems between the movies. I think the characterization between movies has been pretty bad. I think there is a huge disconnect between the films and the TV shows that are supposed to take place in the same universe, so DC's decision to keep them separate (yet within the same multiverse) makes more sense at this point. While I think that Marvel has put out some fun products along the way, I don't think that I would point to them as a model of how to get things done.

I can't really argue with your opinion, because you're entitled to it. It is a shame that you don't like it. I think there are a lot of layers to the Superman character here. Batman sees him as a threat. Lex sees him as competition. Most of the people see him as a savior or a god. Some of the people see him as evil or a false god. He sees himself as a failure. Lois and Martha see him as a normal guy, trying his best.

For me, all of that is right there on the screen. I love those layers, especially considering that Superman wasn't the central character. Each point of view is valid, which is also remarkable.

I also think that the movie looked great.

As for the media reaction... I think they wanted the Marvel version of this movie. It is obvious from the articles that they think that comic books are supposed to be light and fun children's stories, which we all know isn't exactly true.
They will love Wonder Woman more than the other movies, because there political reasons to love that movie. Suicide Squad came out of nowhere. The media is trying to damage Suicide Squad now, but I don't know how well that will work. I seriously believe that there was nothing that they could do to make the media like this movie. Even if they made it look like a Marvel movie, they would be criticized for ripping off Marvel's style.

I guess it is what it is. You see one thing and I see another. This movie is like that white and gold dress that everyone insisted was black and blue.

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.

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.

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.

Sleepy Hollow had a lot of cool characters (horrible writing, but strong cast), but Ichabod and Abbie were the entire premise of the show. They were the Witnesses who were the two people who were born to stand up to apocalyptic forces. Without the Witnesses, there is no plot to the show. They're just spinning Ichabod off.

Now, they're trying to spin it by making it a slayer-like situation where the Witness title passes on to someone else, but that doesn't jive with what the show had established up to this point. It's like Charmed where a 4th sister suddenly appeared so that there could still be three sisters after one died.

I could never get the hang of using a voice recorder. I usually hate the sound of my own voice, so that makes it hard to get into it.

Usually, my notes are mental. So writing ideas down is how I shift my perspective a bit before writing.

I don't know. I think that people watch shows for a lot of reasons and if a show is that easy to give up for something like this, maybe they've been on their way out for a long time anyway.

When it comes to Sleepy Hollow, I think the show needs to end. Yes, the actress wanted off the show. Yes, there is still Jenny, who I have always liked more as a character anyway. However, the show was derailed in season 2 and it never recovered. The style of the show changed. The mission of the show changed. The feel of the show changed. I stuck with it through all of that, but the fact is that there were two central characters who were both woven into the basic concept of the show. Without either one of them, the show cannot be what it was supposed to be. Now they're proposing this Charmed scenario where the magic can pass on to some long lost relative, but it doesn't work. The season didn't work. The last episode didn't work. Killing Joe didn't work. I think the show needs to end and Nicole Beharie leaving isn't the reason for that, but it's kinda the straw that broke the camel's back.

I have always liked how Sleepy Hollow handled it's characters. It wasn't about being diverse or empowering women or black people. They treated their characters as characters, and that did more good than all of the agenda-driven diversity on TV.

Wally West... I'm more upset about them changing him in the comics than on TV. They really didn't have a choice about his race on the TV show, since Joe and Iris are black (though they could have played Iris as bi-racial, I supposed). That said, if diversity and representation are so important, I have to wonder why it's the redheads who are always tossed in this scenario. Wally West, Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang... it seem like only the villains and the bullies get to remain redheads. I'm not super serious mad about that, but if the name of the game is diversity, it seems odd. A lot of redheads have been bullied because of their hair (what a stupid sentence to write, but it is true). Yet, when was the last time you saw Jimmy Olsen with red hair in live action? Never.

I don't believe in race swapping, sexuality swapping or gender swapping for the sake of diversity. I think it says more to introduce great new characters than to simply throw "groups" a bone by swapping out an established character with a long history. It's one thing to cast someone because they're the best person to play this role on screen (and again, I like the casting of Joe and Iris on The Flash, so it's fine) but to just decide to make someone a new race out of nowhere is silly.

In one of my book, I use the term "my pet gay" to refer to the untouchable, infallible gay characters who are treated as though they have a mental disability (everyone is super nice and all smiles) because they are gay. The idea that a character should be above being human because they need to represent a certain group in a positive light is stupid.

Basically, I'm against diversity for the sake of preaching. I want good characters who are good characters, and I don't care what color their skin is or who they kiss. I have no white guilt that I need to resolve, so if they want to impress me, it better be in the quality of the work, not the diversity on the screen.

And yes, I hated Charlie! She wasn't a fan-insertion character, she was indulgent fanfic who brought down the other characters around her so that she could appear to be a stronger character than she was. There are so many better female characters on the show, and I'm glad they killed her off. I'm GLAD! Do you hear me?!