Tribal Spaceman
Oh, OK.
Jason Momoa is coming to Wrexham Comic Con in two weeks. I'm gonna have to get him to sign something.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
- Thread starter BTG
- Start date
I really want a solo Batman and solo Superman with this team and cast.
Tribal Spaceman
Oh, OK.
I'd be happy with that, as long as there's a different crew!
You know what? The things you say make a lot of sense and would have greatly enhanced the movie; however, they do not properly translate into the film. There are just bits and pieces around, but the narrative is so all over the place that is just falls painfully short in setting these character traits.
That's why "Martha" comes out of nowhere and feels lazy and ridiculous, because setting Batman as someone with mental health problems and traumas was just too much of a task when they were trying to do so many other things.
Same with Clark, you seem him interested in his journalist job, but it's all very ineffective.
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It's a movie that would work so much better in comics form.
But then you need to adapt it so it makes sense in the film medium. It's ok to demand for suspension of disbelief, it's a superhero movie after all, but the glaring narrative and character motivation problems present are hardly solved by: oh, it's just more like a comic book than the rest.
I'm pretty sure they could have had achieved a sweet spot between it feeling like a comic book and flowing /making sense as a film.
I think like I've said before, I watched this movie as though I was reading a graphic novel. So what people see as being 'all over the place' just felt like a comic book where I'd follow different threads of different characters by turning the page i.e. 'meanwhile in Gotham....', 'meanwhile in Metropolis....', 'meanwhile in Nairobi....', 'meanwhile in Wonder Woman's secret hideout....' - so it didn't feel jarring or all over and I actually really liked the exercise of following those threads and seeing most (if not all) of them come together.
I'd also argue about Martha coming out of nowhere because there's a reason they spent so much time on that opening scene of Batman's trauma and placed emphasis on Martha Wayne in a way they never have before in any Batman story on film. Like ever. It's always about Thomas or just his parents in general. This time, visually and deliberately, they focused on her, her pearls, her face when she fell, the first word we hear in that scene is Bruce's father whispering 'Martha' and we see her die. And Bruce visits her grave a couple of times in the movie, and has a crazy nightmare about her grave specifically with weird black blood dripping out of it. The breadcrumbs are there throughout that his overall trauma of losing his parents is tethered to her in particular, so it's not absurd that he loses his shit when Clark mentions the name and it takes Lois saying it's his mother for him to stop having a full on episode or panic attack. I didn't need him to have some extensive monologue to explain it. This film is a bit like playing Hansel and Gretel in a labyrinthine forest as the viewer and following the threads or breadcrumb trails, and it depends whether a viewer is interested in doing that or not, at least to me. And it's totally understandable if not because it's a long ass film and not the easiest film to digest.
Similarly with Clark, I don't need the journalist angle to become his entire story because it's only part but it says the same things about him as his struggle with Superman does. He had a couple of strong scenes with Perry where he got to articulate his thirst for justice, we saw him doing research about Batman and getting those photos of Bruce's particular brand of bat-justice and being justifiably horrified, we heard him questioning Bruce about the vigilante. To me that's enough to give shade to the character and display his frustration and desire for justice but some of the limitations of a journalism that is analogous to our own real world journalism where sensationalism is the order of the day - and newspapers would rather focus on the 'sexy' story rather than some vigilante in a crime-ridden Gotham who's been terrorizing the populace there for years.
Sadly the movie was not this effective on me. I did not get that comic book feeling, but instead a disjointly edited film that felt messy.
But I see what you're saying, and I think the pieces of the puzzle are there, which makes it the more frustrating for me. I still think the Martha moment was terribly handled, it just didn't work, even when you remember all pointers. There was not a single moment that showed Batman was capable of restraint, actually he was shown more reckless than ever, never not taking action.
The Martha moment just wasn't effective. It needed a scenes-worth of addressing the fact he's just been triggered/his actions. Instead it's like nothing happened and suddenly they're besties. Most offensive thing is how incredibly stupid and bullish the two main characters are. World's at stake and they both need to do some explaining, which would actually diffuse the entire conflict? NO LET'S JUST MASH EACH OTHER TO PULP
I feel I'm just the opposite. I didn't want it explained, to me that would've been way on the nose and I'd probably end up complaining afterwards about why they felt I needed that explained to me when it was right there onscreen. Although I'm fully aware that this opinion is in the minority and most viewers would've probably appreciated a debrief scene where he talks about his trauma etc. Different strokes.
If characters defused conflict by something as simple as communicating in rational and reasonable ways from the jump then there wouldn't be much story, let's be real. Batman could've called Superman up in the first scenes of the movie and they could've had a nice conversation and Bruce could've told Clark that it's not cool Superman was out there destroying whole cities with his Kryptonian buddy, and he's got to do better, and also his approach to super-heroing is kind of messy - who goes around flying in broad daylight in a bright red cape getting the masses to worship and admire them or be suspicious of his motives instead of inspiring some good old fear and terror? But that wouldn't work as a story and it also wouldn't be in character for Bruce (not even just in this film) given that he's a paranoid rich dude asshole who mostly believes terrorizing his city is the best way to stop crime - he just took his strategy to the next level with Superman, who he deems dangerous and who could become a super-powered tyrant if allowed to continue, judging from that desert nightmare he had.
I feel obligated to point out that technically the world wasn't really at stake until after Bruce got his head out of his ass and finally listened to Clark instead of going through with his one-man crusade of paranoia. Doomsday was only unleashed when Lex realised his plan to get Batman to kill Superman / Superman to murder Batman hadn't worked. I have to admit, a little shamefacedly, that I sort of generally accept poor communication skills in these films. Civil (Gang-fight) War is probably going to be much the same in terms of characters reaching maximum levels of stupidity all because they wouldn't sit down and talk like reasonable folks - except I expect it to be even more ridiculous since there's going to be 15 Avengers going at it for ultimately idiotic reasons.
Warner Bros. Projected To Earn Less From "Batman v Superman" Than It Did From "Man of Steel"
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/04...tman-v-superman-than-it-did-from-man-of-steel
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/04...tman-v-superman-than-it-did-from-man-of-steel
Because BvS cost more. Can you take your little vendetta elsewhere? It's tiresome.
Bit OTT. I appreciated @shadedeflector posting the article. Also if the film cost more then obviously the studio want to make more money from it. 'Because BvS cost more' doesn't explain why the film is below projections profit wise.
I saw this last night. Went in with anti-expectations due to the press furore surrounding it, but I actually enjoyed it. The plot was a complete mess but meh, it's a comic book movie, no shade... Batfleck was good, Henry was fine, Amy was great, Gal was good. Wonder Woman punched. It was fine, and no worse than the Avengers or whatever. People do way too much on these movies, both ways.
It's more about a long line of passive aggressive and patently untrue posts claiming the film "bombed", it dropped 80% in its second weekend, Warner is cancelling their DC film slate etc. But hey if you enjoy the Marvel Fox News, be my guest.
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According to Forbes, BvS will eventually make Warner Bros around 125m profit.
Man of Steel made 40m profit. So that's bullshit.
Geoff Johns has now become a producer on Justice League, as well as other future DC projects. I think he will help out with the world building and characterization.
However, I don't understand why they don't just hire Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. They created Harley and the DCAU. Justice League/Justice League: Unlimited were flawless.
However, I don't understand why they don't just hire Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. They created Harley and the DCAU. Justice League/Justice League: Unlimited were flawless.
Tribal Spaceman
Oh, OK.
I wish I could be excited by this, but Geoff Johns buggered up the Masters of the Universe comics and shoehorned in a cruddy character he had designed, for no reason. It has to be better than BvS, though.