DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (Page 13 of 19)

Okay, I'm going to write some thoughts on the movie. I am not reading anyone else's comments from earlier, because I want to give my own reaction. Unfortunately, I have seen headlines and critic comments, so some of my thoughts will be in response to them. I will read all of your comments later, and reply then.

First, my concerns going into the movie were that the studio had listened to the critics too much and tried to fix something that wasn't broken. I was worried that the characters would change and the feel of the universe would be ruined. I was worried that Joss Whedon would attempt to "fix" Snyder's work and would turn it into a mess. I was worried that the big CG villain would get in the way of developing characters and telling the story that had been set up in the earlier movies. I was worried that it would be too... Marvel.

So now I've seen the movie, and I am happy to report that it was a pretty big success. After the DCEU stumbled in terms of storytelling with Wonder Woman, they came back strong with Justice League. The story was big enough to require this team to come together, but gave the story some room to establish them as characters and their relationships with each other. The characters were all unique individuals, with fully formed personalities and perspectives. When they clashed, it didn't feel cheap or false. There was no conflict for the sake of conflict.

The powerful moments in the story all succeeded. When the team came together, I felt a geeky excitement. When Superman came back, I had an emotional reaction. It all worked. Even Bruce holding Superman in such high regard worked for me, because Superman not only proved himself when he died, but he also represents the moment when Bruce was completely duped by Lex. That is a deep wound.

Keeping Superman out of the story for so long allowed them to avoid scenes in which the team should have finished the fight but didn't, just because the movie needed to continue. Once Superman showed up, he was as powerful as he had to be.

And for the record, I had absolutely no problem with his face. I think the reason that people were distracted by it was because they were told to look for it. If they hadn't been told, nobody would have known or cared. I was more distracted by Cavill's accent just after he was resurrected.

The movie didn't feel disjointed or awkward to me. I think they managed to combine a lot of different characters and personalities pretty successfully. I didn't feel like this was Joss' movie, and despite some reports, I think it wasn't delayed because it didn't need to be. It was done.

Was it the deepest movie in the franchise? No. However, it managed to do better than most movies with that many major characters. It avoided pretty much all of the problems that I have with movies like The Avengers or Civil War. I enjoyed the movie a lot. I'm happy about that. It was a natural extension of what came before. It was smooth, without any moments that struck me as false. There were one or two moments that I might have edited differently, but nothing huge.

Like I said, I think a lot of opinions that I've seen were based on behind the scenes rumors, and anonymous sources. I don't think there's anything to be done about that, except just not read those reports.

I hope the studio doesn't mess this up. I hope Snyder comes back. I hope that the media just burns in flames. Lois was right. It's not about finding the truth in the world anymore. The press is about bullshit*t, no matter which section of the paper you're reading.

I probably had more to say than this, but I'm distracted, so I'm probably forgetting a lot of it. I will come back any reply to all of your thoughts when I get a chance

Oh, and I watched Spider-Man Homecoming last night. I should comment on that too, because the differences between these movies was pretty significant. Just take everything I said about JL and reverse it for Homecoming.

Maybe they were trying to bring in a hint of a Kryptonian accent?

It doesn't bother me a ton because of when that accent pops up, but I did kinda pause to ask what was up with that.

I can see that, but in terms of establishing a team full of people who don't know each other, it felt kinda natural for us to not know them either. All of the characters who knew each other were characters that we knew as well, so it felt like everyone was on the same page.

Yeah, I think Bruce and Diana were definitely the stars, with Superman coming in late and the others building up around them. The problem with the Avengers model was that it forced Marvel to set up The Avengers in those solo movies, which prevented them from telling good stories with the solo movies. Everything in Marvel revolves around the *next* movie, so nothing ever matters in the present.

Batman v Superman was a natural extension of Man of Steel, and Justice League was a natural extension of BvS. Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman exist on their own. I don't think that I have a problem with this approach. Then again, I already know a lot about these characters. The movies feel like they're meant for comic book fans who know what's going on, but I have family members who know less than I do, and they seem to enjoy the movies.

Okay, time to reply to everyone else. Sorry for the delay. Directly after my family left town after the holidays, I was working on a movie and the hours got pretty insane, so I haven't had a chance to reply until now.

I'm going to do my best to have this post make sense, despite responding to everyone at once.

ireactions:

I understand this comment, but I have to disagree. The plot of this movie seemed like a direct and natural extension of what happened in Batman v Superman, which was itself a natural extension of what happened in Man of Steel. I thought that a lot of thought went into how this plot would play out, which villain would be used, how they would pace all of the story beats, etc. There were quite a few elements that could have easily gone super wrong with this, but they were avoided expertly. I think you could make the argument that any plot point in any story is just there to set up what happens next. The question is, is it natural and smooth, or is it a poorly crafted excuse?

When I look at The Avengers for example (not to compare comic book movies, but because it's low-hanging fruit), many of the plot elements seem to be there as some sort of fanboy wish fulfillment, rather than as logical extensions of the plot. As a result, a lot of the movie's big destructive moments could be avoided simply by eliminating the Avengers themselves. That's a problem.
The movie is filled with moments that serve the movie, but not the story... if that makes any amount of sense at all.

In Justice League, keeping Superman out of the picture for a while serves to build danger (this shows thought and consideration going back to BvS). Once Superman is there, the villain is quickly taken care of. The cliches of "evil Superman" or "amnesiac Superman" aren't drawn out for false drama, as they often are in other movies/shows/novels. They're addressed and resolved before they detract from the situation. Drama isn't created by any characters simply not saying a simple sentence that could resolve the story (another oft-used cliche). The banter is natural, and never feels like it's just servicing fanboys who have dreamed of this moment for decades. I never felt that the movie was false, which impressed me. I'm not saying that it was perfect, but it was never bullshitting me in the way that so many other stories do.

One part that I found to be an interesting twist on expectations was when Aquaman insists that if Clark is brought back, he will lose something. Anyone familiar with any resurrection story in scifi or fantasy expects this to be his soul or his conscience. They expect it to be dark and bad. However, when Superman returns, he (at least in the short time that we get to see him) seems to have lost some of the weight that he had carried before. The burden of death that surrounded him (purposefully) since Man of Steel didn't seem to be there. In his first two movies, we had a lot of skull imagery, which wasn't present here.

We agree!!!! WE AGREE!!!!!!

Slider_Quinn21

I probably should have waited for my Superman resurrection comment until I got to your thoughts. It seems random up above now, and it could have seemed more purposeful if I'd read what you said before I gave my thoughts in response to an unrelated comment by ireactions. Oh well.

I'm going to disagree. This method made sense to me because we know the characters who are familiar with each other, and we don't really have a feel for the characters who aren't part of that group already. Therefore, the movie feels authentic. We are where Bruce and Diana are, and they're the eyes through which we enter the Justice League. If we were very familiar with everyone before they come together, we would have lost the element of disjointed/mismatched characters coming together. Sometimes familiarity hurts a story.

The Marvel method doesn't work for me because the individual movies suffered as a result of needing to set up The Avengers. Captain America couldn't end with Steve and Peggy walking off into the sunset, because Steve needed to be in the present for The Avengers. Therefore, his entire first movie is stripped of relevance and emotional impact. We're told that he and Peggy are in love, but we never get to see it. When all is said and done, he's trying to get into her niece's pants right after Peggy's funeral.

They should have allowed his movies to play out in the past, with the audience knowing that he will be frozen (because we see him in The Avengers), and his third movie could end with that moment of him being frozen. In terms of his character and his movie, that would have been a stronger move. In terms of the overall MCU, it is unacceptable. Therefore, Captain America is sacrificed for The Avengers. It's a pattern that is repeated over and over again in the MCU.

And this is where I have to ding Wonder Woman again. There was no need to kill Steve and it didn't make the movie better. Her movies don't need to play out in the present. She wasn't even frozen. But we all know that I have problems with Wonder Woman as a movie, partly because it was the one that tried the most to be like Marvel.

I also disagree that BvS is a Batman movie. The theatrical version may have been, but the extended cut was more of a Batman and Superman movie.

As we've seen in Suicide Squad, Barry has thwarted some crimes in costume. However, he designed his costume simply to be abl to run at high speeds without his clothes burning off. Bruce commented that it was made of the same material that's used to keep shuttles from burning up upon reentry from space. It's not a superhero suit, it's... a helmet.

I'd watch that... Actually, Snyder could probably do really well with that story

It's been confirmed that the air bubble will not be the main method of communication in Aquaman. Perhaps this was needed because Arthur isn't familiar with his roots and hasn't spent much time in Atlantis? Maybe he hasn't learned their language yet.

Yes and no. Yes, they are very much changed, but not in a "reboot" sort of way. They're changed as a natural progression of what's happening to them.

Bruce is a soldier who has been through a lot of horrible things and has mental issues because of it. Losing his team made this worse by isolating him. When he finds a new team, he reconnects with who he was and his purpose in this world. So it makes sense for him to behave differently.

And as I mentioned before, Superman lost some of the weight that he carried before. But it's all natural. Even Diana has reconnected with the world through this team (starting in BvS)

I thought the Steppenwolf decision was interesting. He was part of the Darkseid lore, but had been cut off from Darkseid. Therefore, his being here doesn't require Darkseid to show up at any point if they choose not to go there. I know that a lot of people didn't like the decision to go with someone like Steppenwolf, but I thought that it served the story really well and didn't feel like it was just filling screen time until the real movie happens later.

Green Lantern would have probably been too much for this movie. He's pretty powerful, so it would have lessened the impact of Superman coming back in the end. However, the movie does set up the need for the Corps to return to Earth.

People want this to be more of a Whedon movie than it is, or was ever going to be. Some people even say that Whedon wasn't given time to execute his vision... but this isn't his movie. He was brought in specifically to execute Snyder's vision, with material that Snyder was calling for.

Though we will never get it, I'd love to see a Snyder cut of the movie. Hopefully we'll at least get an extended version with more footage.

Did you ever get around to seeing the Ultimate Edition of BvS? I forget.

They could use this story to set up a pretty cool Batman Begins scenario.

I think that if the Batman movie doesn't happen, they could tell the story of what happened to the team through a Nightwing movie or a Batgirl movie. That'd be cool. Maybe Bruce was focusing on superpowered people for this mission, because it'd be pointless to send in a normal human? Don't know. Maybe he did contact Dick and we just never saw it.

With the Titans series happening, and probably not connected to these movies, we will probably never see Dick on screen anyway.

I disagree about JL wanting us to remember BvS differently. I'm not sure that I understand what you mean.

People always think that I want things to be dark and gloomy, but that's not the case. I have nothing against movies being fun. The problem is that writers often get sloppy when they're trying to be funny. They feel like they don't need to take their work seriously, which creates a lot of problems within their stories. Marvel isn't fun to me because the writing is sloppy and weak.

ireactions

Let's not forget that Lex called Steppenwolf in BvS. My memory of JL is a little foggy... how was it explained that Superman was holding Darkseid back? It's a jumble in my head right now.

The film didn't look bad or unfinished to me at all. Some of the stuff that looked rough in the trailers seemed much more polished in the finished product. I don't know what more time would have done. Not to compare movies again, but if you look at the Marvel movies, they have a ton of time to finish their stuff, and it usually looks much worse than BvS (at least to me).

There was nothing to be done about this. They couldn't wait for Cavill to shave, and the audience would have been distracted by the CG no matter what. It wasn't bad. I wasn't distracted by it at all, because I wasn't looking for it (despite knowing about it). The fact is that most of the criticisms of the movie are based on the media reports, whether those faults are actually in the movie or not. Unless Warner Bros. can buy every media outlet, like Disney does, they will continue to get horrible press. The movies themselves don't matter.

My brother said that he thought they removed Henry Cavill's furrowed brow, to make Superman look softer and more renewed after he came back. I don't recall noticing this though, so my brother could be wrong.

The fact is, there were probably people already working with Snyder who could have directed the reshoots. Bringing in Whedon at all just wasn't necessary. However, Snyder was discussing the reshoots with Whedon before he exited the project, so Whedon probably knew what Snyder was going for. The studio probably also thought that it would look less like an abandoned ship if they put a known name out there after Snyder left. Granted, the director usually oversees the post-productions elements that Snyder wouldn't be able to do, so I'm sure Joss did work on that, but I don't think that his contribution to the film is nearly as large as people want to believe. Most of what we have in the finished product, even the things that Whedon directed, are Snyder's vision.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I get the feeling that whatever happened behind the scenes didn't go well, and Joss will probably quietly exit the franchise within a few months. He doesn't seem supportive of Justice League, and there has been little buzz about his own Batgirl movie since he finished work on JL. Why wouldn't the studio be putting Batgirl out there a little bit more, since people are already discussing Joss Whedon so much right now?

TemporalFlux

I agree that Warner Bros. doesn't get it. This is evident in the alterations that were made to Batman v Superman. The difference between the theatrical version and the extended cut is huge. That said, Warner Bros has managed to make the best comic book movies of all time. Putting aside the current DCEU (which I hold in high regard), they've put out Batman Begin, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Watchmen, 300, the Tim Burton Batman movies... not to mention numerous TV shows, both live action and cartoons, which are considered classics. The studio may not get why these products are popular, but that hasn't stopped them from doing them well.

And on a similar note, Feige might be a comic book fan, but he has not made many good movies (in my opinion). They are successful and have their fans. I give him that. But the difference here is quality versus success. I've seen it many times before in my line of work (sigh). The thing that sells more and which people love most isn't always better. It's just more commercial.

I could not possibly disagree more. I have seen a great deal of thought and care put into Snyder's work on these movies. People keep saying that he doesn't get the source material, or he doesn't know what he's doing, or whatever, but the fact is that the man has put a lot into these movies. The level of thought and care that was put into developing Clark's character is more than I've seen anyone put into it before. The flow of the stories. The way they follow through to each following movie while never feeling cheap or half-baked. The care put into building scenes and setting the tone... Yes, some of the imagery is taken from comic books, but you will see that in any comic book movie. I completely disagree that he has merely been stitching those visuals together though. He has sprinkled them in where they fit, but they have never gotten in the way of the story, or derailed the story.

And this concludes my replying for the day. I'm tired.

Okay, replying section by section.

On the Avengers model vs. the Justice League model

I get what you're saying, but I think that there's something to be gained from not being too familiar with everyone when the team comes together. You immediately lose any sense of discovery and unfamiliarity, even if it's supposed to exist between the characters.

Honestly, The Avengers might have been a better movie if the Thor movie never happened, and he just swooped in out of nowhere, with nobody having any clue who he was. As it stands, we don't have a real Hulk movie setting up the character in that universe. We have a sorta-kinda Hulk movie with The Incredible Hulk, but that is only loosely in canon at this point. We never had movies for Hawkeye or Black Widow, or Nick Fury. I would argue that Justice League did a better job as actually building characters than Marvel did with those characters, who are more like character concepts that can be filled out as needed.

I am a fan of using negative space in movies. There is something to be gained from what we don't see on screen, but I get that everyone isn't into that. What we do get from this movie is that Arthur is a man who feels abandoned by his mother and his Atlantian heritage, so he's never felt a great connection or responsibility toward them. At the same time, he feels alienated from the place where he actually did grow up, because he is out of place in the world. He essentially takes himself off the map, but still feels compelled to help people, like the village (and possibly the oil rig/Clark in Man of Steel). There is a lot of story to be explored, but he was cut off from the world where that story would need to take place. Putting the Aquaman movie before Justice League would kinda cut the legs out from under that character in this story.

Similarly, we have Victor Stone who was removed from the world after a horrible accident where he lost his mother. His father couldn't let him go, so he ended up turning Victor into something that didn't feel like him anymore. Again, if we had a Cyborg movie before this, you would need to remove the element of Victor rediscovering himself and his purpose in JL, because he would need to become a hero in his own movie.

Barry... I see what you mean when you say that his story feels disjointed with the Suicide Squad part, but it makes sense to me. He isn't unwilling to stop crime. In fact, he has a longing for justice. He isn't unwilling to use his powers. He doesn't feel scared off by them. He built the suit specifically so that he could run long distances and push his limits. He isn't so socially awkward that he can't make funny comments around them, which we see him do with Bruce as soon as they meet. There's nothing wrong with the Suicide Squad scene. The problem is that Barry isolates himself from the world and doesn't interact with anyone except his father, who is in prison and can only speak to Barry through a piece of bulletproof glass.

So, say we have a movie for each of these people. Immediately, Aquaman has to reconnect with his Atlantian side, because that's his story. Victor has to find the hero within and become a part of the world. Barry has to discover himself and the larger world, probably with Iris in the picture.

That removed all of their arcs from Justice League. So now we lose the theme of heroes finding themselves through each other, and we have to come up with a whole new foundation for Justice League.

The Flash

Kinda already did this one, so moving on...

Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf's story runs counter to the Justice League's. He is isolated, and trying to be rejoined with the world that has been cut off from him. He wants to prove himself worthy of Darkseid. So his isn't just a generic "I want to destroy the world" story, as we often see. It's a story that parallels the story of our heroes. Specifically Batman, in a way. He had this family and this army, and he did great things with them, but he lost a battle and his life was destroyed because of it. Now he's seeking redemption.

The probably could have spent more time with Steppenwolf, developing those themes, but I'm not sure how to structure that element without it being too much. If you show a villain on screen too much, you usually end up with mustache twirling, or removing the sense of great danger. For example, the big powerful beings on Supernatural aren't really scary anymore, and spend a great deal of time in one location, talking about how evil they are.

Bat-Family

There's a lot that we could say might have happened here, but I guess we can't really explore it until we know more. As it stands in these movies, Batman had a partner and he died, and Batman hasn't worked with anyone else since then. However, the Batman movie might change our perspective on that, and if they do, we can discuss how well it all works together.

Then again, the Batgirl movie might be about Barbara joining Bruce as his first and only partner since Robin died. If this happens, it will be a continuation of his arc through his last two movies.

On BvS Revisionist History

I don't see it he way you do. I see a lot of people in BvS who saw Superman as their only hope in a dark world, while Clark (and Bruce) tended to focus on all of the people that he couldn't save, and the people who didn't like him. This is how people tend to be. I can probably quote more negative comments about my work than I can quote the positives. And in fact, even your comments about BvS tend to emphasize the more negative reactions to him than the positives. I love this element in the films, because it's realistic. I do agree that maybe the statue should have waited until after he died, but it worked with the themes of BvS, so it's hard to complain too much.

I think the world uniting in the loss of Superman is kinda BS, but in a realistic way. Think of 9/11 and how everyone came together with "Never Forget", and for a while, it seemed like the world was uniting in some really powerful way. But a lot of it was bull, and a lot of it was for show. Just like the actors who wore black to the Golden Globes were putting on an act. Some people want to be a part of something like that for selfish reasons, and they tend to be the loudest with it. They're probably mourning Superman for the same reasons they were bashing him before. Because it's a great community activity.

(Note: I'm not saying that all post-9/11 mourning was fake. But I think it's pretty clear that some of it was just for show)

I don't know. I think that if things were done that way, you'd end up weakening a lot of the movies and characters. If everyone can fight a Superman, Superman isn't the strongest man alive.

Then, with the individual movies... we know that you can have individual characters who then come together in a JL movie, because that's how the comic books worked. However, I think that you end up sacrificing the central theme of Justice League in favor of creating a movie where a bunch of people just come together because the movie needs them to come together. As it stands now, their coming together is what drives them to be better apart. And if you try to keep that emotional center in a JL movie after having each of them in a solo movie, you'd have to water down the solo movie and create an incomplete character arc for them.

So then we're left telling the hero stories in their solo movies and we need to come up with a JL movie that has purpose and some sort of theme. What's the theme? With Justice League, they couldn't have defeated Steppenwolf without Superman, and they couldn't have brought Superman back without everyone coming together. I just like that.

But yeah, it comes down to personal taste. I think people are used to the solo movies leading into the big group movie, but I think that it depends on the story that you're trying to tell and the theme that you're working with. For me, JL worked, and if you try messing with the recipe that created it, you're going to weaken the end product. In order to make it work, you'd have to create a whole new recipe for a whole new story, and at that point, there are a billion different ways to go.

As for the Bat-family... like I said, at this point, we can only work with what we have on screen. Anything else is wild theories. So far, it works.

And the Superman stuff, I guess we won't agree on. I just see BvS very differently than you, especially with the Ultimate Edition.

Do you think that if we got a Flash movie that was a character piece without any superhero action and a big kiss at the end, the critics would be more forgiving than when they release a pretty good superhero movie? They would just say that Marvel would never do that, and everyone would have a good laugh.

Actually, Man of Steel was that type of movie until Zod showed up,and everyone hated it because Clark was too "emo" or whatever.

I was just coming to post that link!

I am in no way surprised by this. If anything, I'm surprised that there's a Joss comment at all, because I still believe that he was let go as soon as his ex-wife spoke out. He was already very passive-aggressive toward Justice League by the time it came out, which is not the tone of a team player who is still working with the company. They probably just didn't want bad press for JL, so they waited until after the home video release to make the announcement.

Just my theory.

Bruce Timm is still writing and producing the animated films.

I just don't have the patience for DC Original Animated Films anymore. I saw everything up to JUSTICE LEAGUE: WAR. NEW FRONTIER and GOTHAM KNIGHTS were excellent, the two GREEN LANTERN features were good, but the rest suffered from a terrible combination of medicore animation, weak production and poor adaptation.

The animation isn't outright *bad*, but there isn't a lot of camera movement and the motion isn't fluid. That's a problem for fight scenes because they never feel exciting or perilous; it's like watching a turn-based animatic in a video game. All the JUSTICE LEAGUE, WONDER WOMAN, SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN/BATMAN movies were devoted largely to 'epic' fight scenes that were slow and tedious.

NEW FRONTIER dodged this because it used very simple character designs that allowed smoother animation (much like the TV shows). The GREEN LANTERN films also had smoother animation, I'm guessing because they were set in space or on barren planets and there was less to animate.

Then there's the production problems. The BATMAN AND SON, BATMAN VS. ROBIN and BATMAN: BAD BLOOD features are focused on the relationship between Batman and his homicidal son, Damian. But, for whatever reason, it sounds like actors Jason O'Mara and Stuart Allan performed separately when recording their dialogue. There is no sense of them reacting to each other or playing off each other's performances. Bruce Wayne and Damian feel like they're in different rooms due to overlong pauses between exchanges and a lack of matching in their respective vocal presences. The BATMAN AND SON series creates no chemistry between Batman and son.

And finally, the adaptations make a lot of poor choices. ALL-STAR SUPERMAN offered a charmless adaptation of the comic without any of the story's wit and humour. UNDER THE RED HOOD adapted only a fragment of Jason Todd's story and it felt like an unaired pilot that never went to series. FLASHPOINT featured an alternate universe story that failed to first establish what's going on in the original universe (as it had no continuity with previous features).

I think everyone who works on these films is very talented, but for whatever reason, the budget, production schedule and development process is leading to material that's mediocre.

https://screenrant.com/batman-v-superma … challenge/

Good read. And finally, this conversation is becoming larger and less petty.

No. Paramount specifically denied the request the have Cavill shave the mustache, because of the MI character. It was all them.

Any time you do a movie, they have to design the character. A lot of the time, it ends up just looking like the actor, but they probably didn't want tall, young, handsome Cavill looking too pretty next to Tom Cruise, so they needed to give him a facial oddity of some sort, while still making him appealing to the audience. Actually, that might have been in Cruise's contract.

Regardless, I watched Justice League again at home (same night as Ragnarok, actually) and the mustache honestly doesn't bother me as much as it does some people. I know it's there, just because I know it's there. And there were ways to make that less obvious (for example, having that Superman cell phone footage shown on a TV or computer screen, from a bit of a distance and maybe a slight angle), but it doesn't ruin the movie for me.

I don't know that Cavill is really to blame. He probably signed onto the movie and had it on his schedule for after Justice League before any sort of hair/facial hair requirements were decided upon for the movie. He was probably aware that there would be JL reshoots, because that would happen even with Snyder. It's just a convergence of events at this point. Paramount isn't going to weaken their position for Warner Bros., and Warner Bros. is going to want to try to make their position as strong as possible too. Cavill was stuck in the middle.

I know it's pretty obvious, coming from me, but I think the blame goes to Whedon for refusing to think the problem through properly. As I said, the same scene (the cell phone footage was really the only one that I remember) could be accomplished in a number of ways. Hell, they could just make it look low-res/blocky and say it was a poor internet connection. But Whedon chose to do a high-res, full screen, straight-on closeup of Cavill's face, despite the obvious problem. And I think that shows weakness as a director, as well as possibly some of the passive aggressive attitude that we've seen from Whedon in regards to his work on the movie.