DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (Page 11 of 19)

What sort of ruins the whole arrival for me is the whole "Is she with you?" "I thought she was with you" back and forth....which literally only works for the trailer.  It's a cool line but makes absolutely no sense in the context of the movie.  Superman should be asking that, but Batman knows *exactly* who she is.  She isn't trying to hide her identity, and maybe he's trying to distinguish between Batman knowing Diana and Bruce knowing Diana.  But I don't think Bruce was supposed to be covering for her....I think it's a line designed for the trailer that they put in the movie and didn't edit out.

Haha, come now.  You can criticize that one line....it's all I ask

It's a great line for the trailer.  It just needed to be cut for the movie.  Or altered.  Clark could say "Is she with you?" and Bruce could says something else witty.  "I don't think she's with anyone" or "I think she's with us" or something.  Or even just that Batman smirk to let the other guy know that he knows something the other guy doesn't know (even/especially when he doesn't).

Have fun at Wonder Woman!

Saw Wonder Woman last night, as most have said, great film. Limited CGI, intrigue and mystery, and period piece elements. Gadot did an excellent job as well, she's really right for the part. How ironic that the Justice League trailer preceded this film, and looked like even more of a mess than BvS.

Well, that's my question.  They have Chris Pine....could they bring him back?  She acts like she hasn't seen him in a while, but could he have survived?  Could the Flash have grabbed him out of time and brought him to the present day?  Could he have been, I don't know, recruited into the Green Lantern Corps?

Also....CAN SHE FLY OR NOT? Haha.

Most comic book fans agree with you, if that makes you feel better. I don't know what it is. Part of me thinks that a lot of people have just gotten used to seeing Superman done poorly, so they have a hard time accepting a version that actually has some thought behind it. Another part of me gets that while I like layers and grounding and all of that, most people just want to have fun and don't think about it as much as I do... which sounds like I'm calling them stupid, but I'm not. It's just that different people process stories in different ways.

I don't know about Steve. Bringing him into the present would be too convenient, and I'd hate that. So now they're stuck with him being dead. He could become the Spectre, but that doesn't really make sense. I just don't get why they killed off Diana's main co-star and love interest when the story didn't really require it. If he were Lois Lane, he'd still be alive.

Does anyone own Superman II? Not the Donner cut, but the original?

If so, could you tell me how things are left with Zod and his team? In the versions I'm seeing on YouTube, they die. In a later televised version, released years later, they're seen getting arrested. In the Donner version, I think Superman reverses time, so they're back in the Phantom Zone.

But I don't know which one is the "normal" version on the modern releases.

That's what I thought. Thanks.

I'm in one of those conversations where people are insisting that the old movies are superior, because Superman would never kill.

The weird part is that even without the arrest, people are arguing that Zod and his minions weren't killed by Superman. They say that Superman just threw Zod down a slide and never implied that he died.

If true, that would be the lamest ending to a movie ever. Like "I just sent Zod down a slide, Lois. I guess that means that the fight's over. We won. Let's go home, because Zod... went down a slide."

Sigh.

If Evil Superman is featured in Justice League (something that I've always expected, but am wary of), I don't see how Red Son is an option for a live action movie. They can't keep making movies where Superman is twisted into something else.

I'm sure Warner has considered it. They seem to be taking the approach of throwing around a lot of ideas and seeing what sticks, which I kinda like. I just don't see this going anywhere.

I was thinking about another idea. What if Warner/DC released some smaller movies, in between the big blockbusters, to flesh out the DC universe a little? These could be small, character-driven stories that are set in the same universe but don't require the budget of the bigger movies. Like... a story about the Kents discovering an alien baby and how they deal with that situation. Something like that. I don't know. I was just wondering what an indie film would look like, but set in one of those comic book worlds.

The Bat-Family stuff is confusing to me.  If they exist, why weren't they helping Bruce in his crusade against Superman (or trying to talk him out of it).  I still think a line was needed to either explain why they were gone ("You're pushing away everyone like you did with Dick and Barbara") or ("Dick called again.  I don't know why you won't accept his help").

Or, if Bruce was too blinded with rage in BvS, why aren't they helping with the Justice League*?  I know they don't have powers, but you'd think he'd want people he trusts alongside him, even if they aren't necessarily in the front lines.

* I know they could show up or be referenced.  Basing this off the idea that we know they probably will not actually appear or we'd likely know that.

All true.  It's just weird that in the ultimate "world building" movie, they didn't really flesh out the world of the main character.  I like little nods to a bigger world, especially when it's a world they hope to play in later.  I like in the Arrowverse how they've alluded to Batman (Jimmy referred to him as "Clark's friend" and Winn referred to him as "more of a frenemy").  Back when there were a ton of rumors that Nightwing would appear on Arrow, they had Oliver talk about going out with a buddy in Bludhaven.  Stuff like that is fun.

Even including the Gordon line, the impression I'm getting from the DCEU is that there was one Robin and he's dead.  I absolutely love the idea of doing Bat-Family stuff, and I want to see a Nightwing movie about as badly as anything (#PadaleckiForDickGrayson).  But if they're doing to do that, I need an explanation for where they were.  Even if it's a flashback movie for Barbara, I need to know why she wasn't in BvS/Justice League.  For Dick Grayson, it's gotta be critical if the relationship is *so* bad that neither wants anything to do with the other, and Alfred isn't even trying to make things right.

Not saying they won't, but I'm making my expectations known

I just think there's so much they could do with the backstory of a Batman who's operated for so long.  What's he done?  How many times has a saved the day?  How much do people know about him?  What were his big successes and big failures?  Who came into his life?  Who left his life?  How many of his famous Rogues' gallery has he fought? 

There are ways to dive into this with a line of dialogue here or there.  Ways to show bonds that were created and bonds that were destroyed.  I think Logan did a great job with that...by referencing just enough about the "Westchester Incident" without showing or telling us so much that it distracted from the plot of what we were watching.  But we got enough about it that we basically know what happened...it was mostly in subtext which made it so much better.  They could've done the same thing with Bruce/Alfred/Tim/Jason/Dick/Barbara/Damien/whoever.

The problem is that we've seen so much of Batman but know so little about him.  How long has he been Batman?  There's no real indication.  The furthest we flash back in the DCEU for Batman is the scene where he takes down Harley and Deadshot, right?  And those were relatively recent events, right?  We know he had a Robin and that he died (by Harley and/or Joker).  We can suspect based on some graffiti that Riddler existed in some form.  But even the dialogue in BvS is contradictory with itself - with Perry calling him "The Batman" (like he's well known) and Clark calling him "the Bat vigilante" (like he's recently showed up on the scene).  The police don't seem to be working with Batman (or all that familiar with his work), and yet the newspapers imply that his methods have gotten more violent (meaning his methods are familiar enough that they could tell the difference between him getting more violent and not).

The main evidence that Bruce has been around for a while is in a couple lines of dialogue, but the strongest is simply Ben Affleck's age.  If they'd cast Armie Hammer and kept the entire dialogue identical, I'd assume that Bruce has been active for a couple of years....certainly not a ton longer than that.

Sorry to get back into this.  I know it's all material I've covered before, but it's just something that gets at me.  I just feel like we should know way more about this guy than we do.

DC has the best posters.

Yeah, it's from Comic Con, I think. Haven't we had official word on Superman already? I thought we did.

The new footage looks great too.

https://youtu.be/g_6yBZKj-eo

One thing is bugging me about the video from Comic-Con.  There's a Superman logo in London, there's a Daily Planet headline that ways "World Without Hope" and Bruce is talking about how much hope Superman inspired...and how "he made them see the best parts of themselves."

And my thought is....whaaaaaattttt?

I think that's how most versions of Superman would be described, and in most Death of Superman stories...I think the world would respond similarly.  The Daily Planet surely would.

But when you have a "realistic" and "nuanced" Superman, I don't think that'd be the case.  Superman was a controversial figure in these movies (as he would have to be).  Not just because of the Metropolis incident or the incident in the desert.  When he shows up to Washington, he's met with protesters that hate him.  Sure, he was also beloved/worshiped by some, but I don't think there'd be the universal solidarity with his passing.  Any tribute to Superman would be, if anything, controversial...even taking into account the way he sacrificed himself.

And Bruce's words are bizarre...because it's only Superman's sacrifice that made him see the best in himself....when he was alive, Superman made Bruce literally see the worst in himself.  Ten minutes before Superman died, Bruce was literally trying to murder him.

One of the things that bothers me about this portrayal of Superman is how they want to play both sides.  This Superman is layered and nuanced and much deeper than the Christopher Reeve Superman.  He's caused so much damage and pain and he lives with that pain....but he's also universally beloved and everyone (including his near-murderer) thinks of him fondly.The battles in these movies are huge and realistic and amazing and thrilling and destructive....but don't worry, very few people die.  Sure, Superman was under congressional investigation and strongly protested and was (at least, partially) responsible for a ton of deaths in more than one of his heroic actions...but he's universally beloved and internationally mourned upon his passing.

I just don't feel like there's any consistency in how we're supposed to see him.

Well, I don't know about that for a couple reasons:

1. People don't change their minds easily, especially now.  I think if people hated Superman after Metropolis, everything that happened afterward would just back up that opinion.  There would be people who'd blame Superman for the explosion at Congress, and there'd be people that'd have "proof" that Doomsday and Superman were working together and Batman / the mysterious woman killed them both.

2. There were no witnesses.  No people were around.  The military would give their story, but that'd be the only story the people would hear.  I don't think Batman gives interviews (and he's feared too), and it's hard to tell what public persona Wonder Woman has, if any.  In Death of Superman, Clark died on international TV.  In this, he died under mysterious circumstances against an "unspecified" monster. 

It's obvious from the full military funeral and the Day of the Dead scene that a lot of people loved him.  No protests, apparently.  I just don't buy that it'd flip that fast.

The Daily Planet headline could be a different part of the movie....maybe after Steppenwolf attacks.  That happens all the time.  The Superman symbol in London could also be something else....it doesn't even need to be sanctioned by the British government - it could be something else entirely.

And I get that Bruce was really upset and driven to madness by what he saw in Metropolis....and then he snapped out of it.  It's just weird that he acts like Superman was a beacon that gave people hope....when Superman basically drove him to an inch of murdering him

Yeah, but it's just hard for him to say that Superman made him see the best in himself.  I mean maybe he prefaces it in the movie with "I was blinded, but..." (which is why I'm an a-hole for criticizing things out of context ) - it's just weird.  I'd actually really like to know where the other League members stand on Superman.  Barry knows about Batman (at least by reputation, he doesn't seem to know that Batman doesn't have powers based on the "I'm rich" exchange), but I'd like to see where everyone stands on Superman.

I don't think the point of Superman's "death" was to make us think that he was dead. I think they needed to show the world within the DC movie universe that he wasn't just doing what he did because nothing could hurt him. He did it because he was a hero, who really was willing to sacrifice himself for a greater good. We saw this with the line from Batman about Superman not being a hero. I think their world needed to see that Superman would fight for them, and save them, and sacrifice himself for them because they are his people, and they don't have to fear his motives. When he comes back, the world's view of him will probably be pretty different.

If they had just sent him off into space, I think that would have had the exact opposite message.

I get what you're saying.

I think from a marketing/storytelling standpoint, keeping Superman out of the press for a year allowed the audience to relate with the idea that he was gone. We always knew that he was coming back, so it doesn't really trick us into believing that he did die, but we did have a "Where is Superman" vibe, which adds weight when we do see him. A lot of the images that we're seeing with him are for merchandise, not the movie itself. Merchandise always messes up the vibe that movies go for with this stuff.

As for how they could have handled it differently in the story, I don't think that it would work to send Clark into space. It's too much like Superman Returns, and it doesn't fit this character right now. He doesn't have a space ship, or contact with other aliens. He wouldn't know where to go even if he did go off into space. And again, I think it would work against this portrayal of the character. He is grounded and human in most ways, not the super alien Superman that we see in other versions. I kinda hope they never go there with him.

Had an interesting thought.  I wonder if DC considered having Ben Affleck finish the shooting of Justice League before going with Joss.

Well that's the article I read before I asked my question.  They already had a great director on set who was a part of the process from the beginning.  I'm curious if they asked Ben if he wanted to finish - doesn't that happen a lot?  An actor with directorial experience directs certain scenes?  I swear Ed Norton's done it a couple times.

Superhero Hype also wrote that they're changing the tone of Cyborg's character to be "lighter" - http://www.superherohype.com/news/40288 … s#/slide/1

I've also heard a couple people speculate that, while there probably wasn't much (if any) reshot material in the Comic-Con trailer, the jokey scene at the end with Flash and Gordon felt like Whedon.

I thought that was weird too.  He also says that it's weird, but he doesn't say goodbye either.  I thought it'd end with "have a good night!" or something goofy like that.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/40314 … k#/slide/1

Interesting comments from Affleck.  Sounds like they're revamping Batman a bit following BvS.  Makes sense from a real-world and in-universe perspective.

So, Joss Whedon's ex wife has written an essay!
http://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-femi … cole-says/

It says nothing that we didn't know if we were paying attention to Joss' career. Basically, he's an asshole who uses feminism as a way of hiding his misdeeds.

As I said, I've known this stuff for a long time. Anyone who knew about how he treated Charisma Carpenter would know that he wasn't a feminist. Add to that, his many un-feminist themes (which seemed to celebrate abuse and rape at times, which made for great TV sometimes, but not a feminist angle at all). The man has been using the feminist act to build up his own career and ego for a long, long time. So I'm happy to see that it's finally being discussed openly.

The question is, what does this mean for Batgirl? He was obviously hired because "Feminist!", so what does the studio do with it now? Do they stand by the man who apparently drove his wife insane an, to some degree, did it on purpose? What would that look like, having him as the director of an iconic female superhero?

Well, if he touches on The Killing Joke mythology, then he could present Barbara being shot, paralyzed from the waist down and then stripped naked so that Joker can use the photos as part of an attempt to drive her father crazy.  Actually sounds like something that would fit into the Snyder-depressionverse.

I've seen suggestions of behavioral problems with Charisma in the past, but I've never seen anyone who actually knew what they were talking about. It all seemed like people making wild guesses based on the fact that she was fired. If you have a more legit version of that story, I'd be really interested in seeing it.

However, the story from Charisma is that she had been dealing with her own personal stuff (there may have been more than one miscarriage) which probably contributed to the stress, but Joss actually got mad at her when she revealed that she was pregnant, because it ruined his plans for the season. Not only did he fire her... he didn't actually tell her that he fired her. She found out about it in the press, and she found out about it after she'd missed pilot season, which was a sh*tty move on the part of the Angel producers. Especially since they'd been working with her for seven seasons by that point.
So the next year, they asked her to return to the show. She was hesitant, because she didn't want to come back if she was just going to be killed off. They swore that they weren't going to kill her off, and eventually, they talked her into signing. After she signed, they told her that she was going to be killed off.
Charisma tells the story in a joking manner, saying that she actually liked the approach once they told her, but the fact is, they lied to her and manipulated her into coming back.

That story is relevant to me because it reminds me of what they did with Robia LaMorte. After season 2 of Buffy, Robia had a life changing experience where she became a born-again Christian (she is now a minister, so it was a huge deal for her, not some subtle event). She signed on to appear on season 3 of Buffy, believing that she would be playing some form of Jenny Calendar. Instead, she found out (after signing) that she was going to be playing the Buffyverse equivalent of Satan. It was something that she was very uncomfortable with. It was another example of the bait and switch that Joss and his team used, which I find distasteful (it's Hollywood, so I'm not shocked by it. I just think it's in poor taste to sign someone under false pretenses when you know they will be uncomfortable).

To be clear, I don't care if Joss isn't a feminist. I'm not a feminist. I don't like the militant feminists that Joss has always pretended to be, so that's not what bothers me about him. It's the con he pulls with it. He used feminism to sell his work and to turn himself into some sort of feminist icon, and I have always found it frustrating because I've always seen right through it. I've always seen the "hot girl on girl" vibe  in his work while other people were going on about "empowering lesbian relationships". I've always seen the flaw in his presenting his work as feminist, while depicting abuse toward women in a strangely positive light. Buffy went from one very abusive relationship to the next, and it was played as romance. Echo was a mindless sex slave who didn't even develop a personality until somewhere in season 2 (by which point they were just falling back on old apocalypse stories on Dollhouse, because they had no original stories to play). Cordelia was impregnated by demons something like three times on Angel! And in one early idea for Firefly, Joss wanted to show us a syringe that Inara kept on hand in case of an attack. Essentially, she would inject herself and whoever sexually assaulted her would die. In the early episode pitch, Joss suggested that Inara would be captured by reavers and taken to their ship. When Mal found her, every reaver on the ship would be dead, suggesting that they had all raped Inara... and only at this point would Mal begin to treat Inara as a woman, rather than a whore.

Again, I'm not saying that it's not valid to put women through crap in stories. I'm just saying that it always seemed strange to me that Joss was going on about being a feminist activist while telling these stories. The feminist angle was BS from the start. Anyone who reads his tweets will see him comparing women to dogs, or criticizing the appearance of teenage girls who survived cancer (!!!!!). So when he gets jobs like Batgirl because of his feminist street creds, I get annoyed. Not even because the feminist stuff is an act, but because Joss hasn't produced anything worthwhile since Firefly was on TV. His Avengers movies are crap. Dollhouse was crap. Most of Angel was crap. Even Serenity fell far, far below the level of writing found on the Firefly series. Joss has taken to fluffing his ego rather than telling stories, as I've been saying for years.

I don't really care about Justice League. I think people are probably blowing his role as stand-in director way out of proportion. What he's filming was probably approved of and planned by Snyder before he left (which is probably why he was working with Joss in the first place), and it's actually not that unusual for someone else to direct bits and pieces of movies that are officially directed by someone else. I think the media is running with it because it feeds into the narrative of the DCEU being a flop, but in reality, it's just someone filling in after something truly horrible happened. And if the rumors are true that Joss is taking this opportunity to change the tone and purpose of the movie without Snyder's blessing, it just confirms that he is a douchebag on a truly massive level. And we will be able to tell, because Joss' writing style is pretty distinctive (meaning that he doesn't really write different characters and styles. They all just talk like Joss). We'll have to comment on Justice League after we see it and know how it turns out.
Batgirl is a different story. He got that job for one reason, and he doesn't deserve it. He was never the best choice for that job, and Kai Cole's essay just highlights that point.

Nobody is perfect. Everyone has done something horribly naive or selfish or stupid, and hopefully we learn and grow because of it. The problem with Joss is that he got some attention from Buffy, and rather than downplay this god-like reputation that he developed, he fed into it. He altered stories in order to feed into the praises that he was getting for himself. And this wasn't just a phase that he went through, it's been the last 15 years. As I've always said, it's not that Joss is untalented. He has a lot of talent and I learned a lot from what he created. The problem is that he put aside the talent and the art at some point, and he began to build himself more than his stories. In doing so, he began to treat others as less than him.

When Buffy became more about pandering to whichever group was giving Joss the highest praises at that moment, the show's quality fell hard and fast. When Serenity was less about honoring Firefly, it's characters and the things that people loved about the show and supported for so long, the movie turned into something that was almost insulting.

I can separate my feelings between a writer/director/actor and the work they put out. I don't have to like them in order to like their work. With Joss, it became pointless to try separating the two. That's a problem.