DC Universe

[GeorgeC]

This doesn't solve any script issues, but it makes for a better looking Superman film!

It just wasn't Superman, top-to-bottom.

It was such a dreary film and the Superman I know was always an inspirational character.
That was one of the fundamental differences between Batman and Superman that I discovered about the mid-1980s.


Superman was meant to inspire people and you're NOT supposed to be afraid of that character... The abilities he has means he has to work super-hard to NOT abuse those powers otherwise he'll blow the public trust. I thought that this aspect of the character was well-explored in the Superman: TAS and Justice League series. Once he was brainwashed by Darkseid (at the end of Superman: TAS), it took years for him to convince the public-at-large that he had shaken off that programming and was a good guy again. This is one of the few times besides the Elsewords novels (Superman: Red Son) that I've agreed with the 'don't trust this guy' attitude... there was good reason for the public to not trust him for a while.

As for Batman, he's human and he HAS to inspire some fear because that's one of the few edges he has against super-villains and regular guys with handguns or knives. He's very mortal... It works to his advantage for people to be afraid of him. IF ANYTHING, being associated with 'public trust' organizations like the JLA would actually work against Batman's mission in Gotham...


It's amazing to me how much they blow it as far as these characters are concerned... This stuff is NOT hard to figure out but you have to be a fan of the original material to begin with and understand that there are basic things about these characters that you just don't mess around with... That's why I shiver when I hear certain means become associated with superhero projects...

(I steer clear of projects that these guys are involved with => Akiva Goldsman, Zac Snyder, Christopher Nolan, David Goyer... I just don't like their work and the way they have 'tweaked' the characters for the big screen. I have tremendous respect for Richard Donner, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett, and the other principal animated series team members because they left the basics alone for the characters... They 'got' it...)

[GeorgeC]

More 'nice news' to add to the pile of REALLY, REALLY 'good' PR that DC/WB gets these days ==>

http://www.newsarama.com/24341-gerry-co ... ssues.html

<SIGH> There was a bad feeling among a lot of older comic fans and comic professionals when it was announced that WB was taking a bigger interest in DC and all the DC Comics editorial offices were being moved to the West coast closer to WB.

The first HUGE fallout over this sort of thing came after Superman the Movie was announced in the mid-1970s and it became publicly know that the character's creators were neither being acknowledged or paid for their work. A decade later, a small series called Watchmen was published and DC refused to the let their rights to the work lapse (and return to the creators) and kept the series in perpetual reprint (which has made that company probably many million of dollars since). There were quick changes made to DC's policies because they very quickly lost the services of one of the best writers they had for that past decade after that mess.

(The Watchmen movie itself was eventually made and was so-so according to most. DC turned around a few years later and made sequel books to the original Watchmen mini-series which were nowhere near as good as the original series.)

There really are no good guys among the big publishers. People have to be aware of what WILL happen when they create original works or 'derivative characters' for large publishing companies. You can expect stuff like this to happen unless you have a very good lawyer and even then ---!


It'll only be a matter of time before the tide changes and they're saying this about Marvel once again... Not as if there wasn't a huge flap over the creators credits and royalties for Spider-Man years ago after the 2002 film was released! It's just been more typical to hear about that sort of thing with Marvel for the last three decades. DC actually had very good, mostly professional AND cunning editorial/executive staff -- some of whom WERE comic book creators themselves OR at least had a heart and saw it was better business to actually treat the more current, active character creators BETTER than the original character creators in the late 1930s and 1940s were treated. Those guys retired in the middle of the company's restructuring a few years ago.

This is the part of this business that I NEVER liked but it is a HUGE part of the history of the medium and its spin-off into TV and movie production.

[Randall]

Death of Superman lives showing in London this month at a comic show:

http://www.mcmexpostore.com/collections ... -comic-con

May be too pricey if all you're interested in doing there is seeing the film, but if I was in London, I'd go!

[ShyViolet]

LOL!!

[Ben]

I love these Supes/Bats "talks", they crack me up!

[ShyViolet]

Bats: They'd never kill Han!
Supes: Well I hope you're right, because I have a bad feeling about this.
Bats: You're a bad feeling about this!
Supes: What does that even mean?

Ha!

[Dacey]

Jumping in here...kinda late? I've been so busy with school and various health issues that I haven't been around much, but hopefully that is turning around and I'll be able to spend some serious time on the site again.

Anyway, I do think people are maybe overreacting to certain aspects of the trailer. It's pretty obvious that Superman hasn't been "corrupted by his power" or anything like that. The media has just turned on him, and Lex Luthor--who we clearly hear briefly--may be one of the people behind that. It's also possible that Lex and Bruce Wayne are business partners in some way, which could give Lex the chance to manipulate him against Superman (it would also be really cool, to me anyway, if Lex were smart enough to figure out that Wayne was Batman. I was so happy that Man of Steel immediately got over the "Lois has no idea who Clark is" aspect, and it would be neat if Luthor was one of the main driving forces in keeping Bats and Supes focused on each other, rather than have their eyes on him).

It also looks like Bruce as an "older" Batman is falling into the "secluded retirement" that the character was in in TDKR. Again, the audience is clearly not meant to "hate Superman." Rather it looks like Bruce has fallen into some form of depression, a mid-life crisis of sorts, and here's Supes doing what he used to do, only much better than he ever did or could, and he's getting the love of the world. Batman has to be feared in order to stay a force for justice in Gotham. Superman doesn't need to be. And with Alfred's "look what's happening to my boy Bruce" line, it seems as though he's been watching his friend "obsess" (and the way Batfleck is looking forward, it appears that's what's happening) over Superman for quite some time. In any case, it looks like it's Bats who "picks the fight," so to speak.

I have no problem with the look of Man of Steel or this film, which looks a lot like Watchmen from what we're seeing. You don't hire Zack Snyder to direct your film if you don't want it to look like a Zack Snyder movie, and I can't think of one movie--Spartan Owls included--the man's made that hasn't been visually stunning in some way. We all love the way the Reeve films look, obviously, but we've had five of those including Superman Returns, plus a great animated TV series that was clearly borrowing the same visual cues. Nothing wrong at all with us getting movies that look "different" at this point.

My "concern" is the movie getting overloaded. With Bats, Supes and Lex all in the same movie, you have more than enough for a pretty sweet action movie (with the big showdown before the two heroes before they inevitably kiss and make up in order to defeat Lex), but I'm trying to come around on Wonder Woman being included. Gal Gadot certainly looks the part, and, unfortunately, having her in a movie that's guaranteed to be a box office smash may be the "safest" way to introduce her to the big screen (especially since her own solo film will almost certainly switch directors again before all is said and done, as the current helmer hasn't made a film since 2003's Monster, and we all remember what a kick-butt action movie that was, right?). Even so, I don't see how you put Aquaman (who, again, looks perfectly fine in the still we've seen) into the story, but clearly this is studio interference rather than Snyder at play, as DC wants to play "catch up" with Marvel without taking the time they did in developing their universe.

But oh well. I'm still excited as heck, and, again, have no problem with the "different" approach. Let's face it. No one is ever going to "top" Reeve, Kidder, and Hackman, so there's no point in trying to "duplicate" what they brought to the screen (in the way that Returns ran a little too heavily on nostalgia for its own good). I loved Man of Steel, and Suicide Squad is looking cooler than I thought it might, so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that they'll be able to pull this off, at least until I have reason to feel otherwise. Will DC top Marvel on the big screen? Of course not. But whatever happens, at least we'll get what's sure to be at least one memorable fight scene between arguably the two most iconic superheroes of all time. And that alone is enough to have me stoked.

[Ben]

Your stoked what...?

[Randall]

I just think that Warner is missing the boat here in terms of accessing a family audience. I have no desire to take my boy to see Bats Vs. Supes, and he wasn't too thrilled with the trailer when I showed it to him anyway. On the other hand, we were both darn excited for Age of Ultron, and loved it when we saw it on the weekend.

[Vernadyn]

Some say that Marvel Studios tends to pander to the kiddie audience and that anyone who likes their films has the maturity of a grade school kid--one doesn't even have to bring up the Daredevil series to see how ridiculous such a claim is. But it is true that the Marvel films are more "family-friendly." I do enjoy adult-oriented films and books, but I really admire the skill it takes to craft a story that appeals to most ages without feeling overtly calculated.

Sadly, I think Snyder's one kid-friendly film took the sad road of the Happy Feet films and Robert Rodriguez's kid films--there's material just for kids and material just for adults, but they don't blend well. Of course, I didn't think these films were very good to begin with. I actually liked Speed Racer, but that also has the problem of juxtaposing a feces-throwing chimp with a sermon on how race-fixing affects stocks. It just goes to show how difficult it is to make a good "family" film.

[Ben]

I think we also have to remember who owns Marvel now, and Disney is not going to the Marvel properties shy away from anything that isn't patticularly family friendly, especially on these budgets.

Marvel has, consistently, always been a little brighter, a little more humorous. A certain character's red and blue costume and an intentionally campy 60s series aside, DC has always seemed to pander more to the direct fans, rather than Marvel's more jovial approach that seems to spread to wider audiences.

I think I lot of that has to do with how Marvel has been exposed to audiences over the years, too: from before either company were corporate divisions, Marvel seemed more up for putting their characters on screen, from the TV Hulk and Spider-Man to any number of cartoons, while DC, after much earlier success with Superman and Batman, just stuck to cartoons apart from Wonder Woman on TV and the Donner features (which were not instigated by DC or, by then, Warners, to begin with).

I guess they've both had enough TV exposure to get in audiences' minds, but the big turning point was Burton's Bats, where the reaction against the West show was to do it all dark like the then comics...something that Warners has become stuck with while Marvel has remained truer to its roots and, in effect, used the darkness of DC's films to its advantage to present a lighter, brighter alternative to all the dark doldrums.

Now the Marvel films are getting a little grittier, but they won't go dark and go to places where the characters start asking each other if they "bleed"...

[Dacey]

Your stoked what...?

Fixing.

[EricJ]

Sadly, I think Snyder's one kid-friendly film took the sad road of the Happy Feet films and Robert Rodriguez's kid films--there's material just for kids and material just for adults, but they don't blend well. Of course, I didn't think these films were very good to begin with. I actually liked Speed Racer, but that also has the problem of juxtaposing a feces-throwing chimp with a sermon on how race-fixing affects stocks. It just goes to show how difficult it is to make a good "family" film.

Snyder made a kid-friendly film?
(looks up on IMDB)
...Oh, THAT one--No wonder I forgot. Yeah, Happy Feet Disease was beginning to set in at Warner, and every director who took himself seriously wanted to play with the new tech.

As for the Wachowski brothers, I thought Speed Racer was...well, judging from what we saw from them later, they were barking-looney enough to jump in at the deep end and do it right. Maybe they did take the vagaries of the plot a little too seriously, but if the original cartoon had a chimp and a kid, they didn't skimp on that either.
That would be a good lesson for Snyder in how to embrace both the serious and the silly in the source material, if you really want to "pay tribute" to the original.

Now the Marvel films are getting a little grittier, but they won't go dark and go to places where the characters start asking each other if they "bleed"...

DC attracts the deconstructionists, the Frank Millers and Alan Moores, who feel they have to make a big show of "reinventing" Batman and Superman to apologize for their 75 year history, and things go off the rails a lot more often.
That's their big stab at Serious Critical Validation, but we see what happens when the non-comic fans get a look at it.

Marvel is still in the stage of introducing its characters to us regular folk for the first time, and they know they can tell the story straight, without hiring fan-acolytes to say "Hey, remember that really dark and classic story arc where they killed off Robin??"
(Although the Netflix Daredevil seems to be a little too gratuitously "gritty", and probably sticking to the Frank Miller source where DD didn't have sonic radar powers like Ben Affleck did in the movie.)

[Ben]

I adored Speed Racer.

The only reason I don't have the BD is because it was only a 25gb disc (crazy for such a visual film), and there was a vague promise of a 50gb remaster, which never came. Then the 25g BD went OOP, which shows how much WB loved it, so I never got it.

Hopefully they'll be some kind of reissue at some point, hopefully on a double bill disc with something else I don't have.

[Dacey]

Can't say I "agree" with this per se, but I got a good laugh out of it...

http://www.avclub.com/article/well-batm ... ady-218186