Author Topic: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)  (Read 21156 times)

Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #40 on: November 22, 2017, 12:14:25 AM »
Avengers worked because we had each hero built up in at least one film before they teamed up. So we got to know the characters.

I don't think this is an entirely true statement.  In general, Marvel does a good job introducing characters and letting us get to know them before throwing them into other things or the big Avengers movies.  But I don't think you can credit this for the success of the first Avengers movie.  Although we *saw* Hawkeye in Thor, we were not introduced to the character until Avengers.  Hawkeye's cameo in Thor is not all that different from the cameos of the Flash and Aquaman in BvS.  And while we were introduced to Black Widow in Iron Man 2, we were not really introduced to the character much.  Even the Hulk is kind of soft-rebooted in Avengers.  The Avengers is anchored in the characters of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, but it spends time building the other characters.

I think it is a true statement that the Avengers movie is a logical out growth of the prior movies and a very good payoff for Iron Man, Thor, and First Avenger.  But it is a very strong stand alone movie in its own right. And the three prior movies were also strong stand alone movies in their own right.  I think this shows when you consider that I believe Marvel word of mouth is a lot stronger than DCEU word of mouth.  There are a lot of Marvel fans who don't like all of the movies but are willing to take a chance on them.  There are a lot of Marvel fans who will recommend people watch a Marvel movie even if the person they are recommending the movie to didn't like previous Marvel movies.

Even if you didn't like Thor, you might like Guardians.  If you didn't like Guardians, try Winter Soldier.  Its okay to not like Winter Soldier, try Ant-Man.  Even if you didn't like any of them, try Dr. Strange or Ragnarok, maybe you'll like them.  These are things Marvel fans will tell people about upcoming Marvel movies.  But nobody really says this about the DCEU movies.  They don't stand alone.  If you liked one of them, you still might not like the others.  But if you didn't like MoS, odds are really good you're not going to like BvS either.  And I while I think more people will like JL than BvS, even I wouldn't recommend JL strongly to someone that doesn't like the current DCEU movies.

This is the real strength of the MCU in my opinion.  They didn't have access to the obvious franchise building properties.  They couldn't use X-Men.  They couldn't use Spiderman.  They couldn't use the FF.  So they had to start from scratch, and they had a weird hodgepodge group to try to build around.  Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America are all very different characters, with very different sensibilities.  Each had to exist in a very different story telling context.  That diversity became a huge strength for Marvel: it bought them the opportunity to branch out and experiment.  X-Men after X-Men movie doesn't buy you the opportunity to launch a Guardians, or an Ant Man, or a Dr. Strange.

Even if you didn't like *any* Marvel movie or have never seen a single one before I would still recommend you try Black Panther coming up.  I am willing to stick my neck out and ask someone, even a non-Marvel fan, to give it a shot.  I don't think people are sticking their necks out for the DCEU, even the people who like those movies, and that's ultimately what is costing them box office.

JL looks like it will end up making about as much money as Dr. Strange.  Now, you can look at that and say that since Dr. Strange cost much less money to make it is the more successful movie (Dr Strange cost about half as much).  But most people don't know that.  Most people only know how long the lines are for both movies, how many of their friends saw those movies, and how much people are talking about those movies.  The same number of people are ultimately going to watch those two movies in the theaters, and yet the buzz is that JL is a failure and Dr. Strange is a success.  And yet they both captured a similar number of eyeballs.  That's very important to take note of.  Forget the budget: most of us don't know the budget.  But we had a certain expectation for Strange: it was a quirky journey to an unexplored area of the MCU, and it delivered on that.  That's what makes it a success in the eyes of the fans and the movie going audience, not the numbers.  We expected great things from JL, and even the average uninformed movie going audience member probably expected a lot going into that movie given the build up to it.  The movie didn't deliver, so that makes it not a success.

Money isn't everything.  Suicide Squad was profitable.  By some analyses, Suicide Squad was more profitable than Winter Soldier.  But there's no question which movie was the more successful one.

Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #41 on: November 22, 2017, 12:19:41 AM »
It was just an awkward scene. 6 academy award nominations worth of cringeworthy. Really though it's been 2 movies now where they've been paying for casting Amy Adams as Lois. They have to justify casting a top name with scenes but they don't really have much for her to do except watch Clark fight and look worried. Most of her scenes feel tacked on which contributes to the disjointedness they already have going in spades.

I don't blame Amy Adams for that.  I've seen her in Arrival, I know she can play Lois Lane.  But they are not giving her enough to do.  Or rather, they are not giving her the right things to do.

Consider: why does she show up in the second act?  It isn't because of agency, it is because she is brought there.  In the comics, at least the modern comics, Lois Lane would have had more agency in that particular plot moment.  But here, because of the need to give that agency to another character, Lois Lane loses a major opportunity to be a stronger character.

In my opinion, the problem is not that they are trying to find things for Amy Adams to do.  The problem is when you are telling a story involving Superman, it should never be hard to find something for Lois Lane to do.

Vee

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #42 on: November 22, 2017, 12:26:23 AM »
Oh I don't blame her at all. It's not her fault they can't write a coherent story where she'd behave like Lois Lane instead of writing a story then remembering they should probably figure out something for Lois to do.

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #43 on: November 22, 2017, 02:26:49 PM »
Daredevil remains Affleck's best review superhero movie - it's understandable why he wants out :P
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doc7924

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #44 on: November 22, 2017, 05:48:10 PM »
They could have had a movie for Flash and Cyborg both but it wouldn't have helped. Wonder Woman being good was an aberration.

Well a least we got one great one out of them. Maybe that's all they had.

Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #45 on: November 23, 2017, 12:48:10 AM »
Daredevil remains Affleck's best review superhero movie - it's understandable why he wants out :P

Actually, no that's Justice League.  Justice League has the higher audience score on RT, and while it has slightly lower tomatometer percentage, it actually has the higher average rating (5.3 for JL, 5.2 for Daredevil).

Vee

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #46 on: November 23, 2017, 02:25:33 AM »
At least he diversifies. DD and JL are turds for completely different reasons.

Night-Hawk07

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #47 on: November 26, 2017, 07:03:23 AM »
Just got back from JL. Better than BvS, not as good as WW. That's not to say it's horrible, but I'm with Arcana on the bit about recommending people who don't care for DC movies see this one. Not like I would for any Marvel movie. I can gauge that through my girlfriend.

She's not a comic fan, and prior to meeting me, only saw the movies if her family was watching. She was the first one to mention seeing Thor, she's always down to watch Deadpool, and loves the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. I've had to drag her to see BvS, WW (which she ultimately liked), and now JL. She enjoyed JL, but not to the degree she does any Marvel movie.

Something else I want to point out from Arcana's post above: Dr. Strange's popularity vs. JL's. I'm probably not far off saying most of the audience that went to see Dr. Strange knew nothing, or at least very little, about him. Compare that to JL where everyone knows at least five of the six heroes featured in he movie; three of them probably being the most popular heroes on the planet. Yet, DC's heavy-hitter team-up movie is going to pull similar numbers to a Marvel B-lister. That has to hurt.

I'm as big of a Batman fanboy as they come, and even I found JL and BvS to be "good, but not as good as [insert Marvel movie here]." I'm not sure what it is, but DC is missing something Marvel got right. Not something minute us nerds will notice like story coherence and direction; the general movie audience doesn't seem to notice such things. Whatever it is, they need to figure it out.

CG

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #48 on: November 27, 2017, 02:47:56 PM »
I'm as big of a Batman fanboy as they come, and even I found JL and BvS to be "good, but not as good as [insert Marvel movie here]." I'm not sure what it is, but DC is missing something Marvel got right. Not something minute us nerds will notice like story coherence and direction; the general movie audience doesn't seem to notice such things. Whatever it is, they need to figure it out.
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Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #49 on: November 27, 2017, 10:15:01 PM »
Just got back from JL. Better than BvS, not as good as WW. That's not to say it's horrible, but I'm with Arcana on the bit about recommending people who don't care for DC movies see this one. Not like I would for any Marvel movie. I can gauge that through my girlfriend.

She's not a comic fan, and prior to meeting me, only saw the movies if her family was watching. She was the first one to mention seeing Thor, she's always down to watch Deadpool, and loves the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. I've had to drag her to see BvS, WW (which she ultimately liked), and now JL. She enjoyed JL, but not to the degree she does any Marvel movie.

Something else I want to point out from Arcana's post above: Dr. Strange's popularity vs. JL's. I'm probably not far off saying most of the audience that went to see Dr. Strange knew nothing, or at least very little, about him. Compare that to JL where everyone knows at least five of the six heroes featured in he movie; three of them probably being the most popular heroes on the planet. Yet, DC's heavy-hitter team-up movie is going to pull similar numbers to a Marvel B-lister. That has to hurt.

There are two different forces acting here I think.  I think Dr. Strange benefited from the Marvel effect.  Its Marvel, why not give it a shot.  JL is dragging the DCEU behind it.  But it is also suffering from the fact that expectations were higher in some respects for JL, as many saw it as a kind of Avengers movie bringing together the different DC heroes.  But although JL was marketed as such to a degree, and the story build up from BvS suggests it, JL is not in the same place as Avengers was.  It is not a good culmination of anything.

Quote
I'm as big of a Batman fanboy as they come, and even I found JL and BvS to be "good, but not as good as [insert Marvel movie here]." I'm not sure what it is, but DC is missing something Marvel got right. Not something minute us nerds will notice like story coherence and direction; the general movie audience doesn't seem to notice such things. Whatever it is, they need to figure it out.

Fundamentally, Disney is patient and Warner is not.  Marvel Studios knows that if you make your audience care about the characters they will care about the story, and they are willing to spend time making sure the audience knows, and thus cares about the characters.  Warner is trying to make bank off of the reputation of the DC characters, and that is bouncing back on them because the people who understand the comic book DC characters the most don't like the incarnations in the DCEU.

I was really hoping to see the crazy magic I grew up seeing in the pages of Dr Strange in the movie.  Instead, I got a much different kind of magic that was more Kung Fu matrix movie and less mystic battle.  But you know what?  I can live with it, because I got Dr. Strange, sorcerer supreme on screen.  It is an elseworlds Dr. Strange that is different from the one I grew up with, but I can still recognize the MCU version and he works in that universe.  This one is different, but I'm willing to learn about him.

Chris Nolan did that with Batman.  Nolan's Batman is a different version of Batman from all previous versions.  But he is recognizable as an alternate universe Batman, and he was a version movie audiences wanted to watch and get to know.  In two movies Nolan became the definitive Batman for a lot of movie going audiences.  It can be done if you are patient and craft a character-driven story.

Warner seems unwilling to take the time to do that.

ryuplaneswalker

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #50 on: November 28, 2017, 01:27:47 AM »
Quote
I'm as big of a Batman fanboy as they come, and even I found JL and BvS to be "good, but not as good as [insert Marvel movie here]." I'm not sure what it is, but DC is missing something Marvel got right. Not something minute us nerds will notice like story coherence and direction; the general movie audience doesn't seem to notice such things. Whatever it is, they need to figure it out.

I think one of the big things is that the Marvel Characters are at their core..the characters they have always been.

Compare Superman to Captain America.

They are both paragons of "Truth Justice and the American Way." boy scouts who love Apple Pie and Mom and all of that. Now these days that sort of core theme has become unpopular and "jingoistic xenophobic blah blah blah."

Man of Steel completely drops that at the core of his character, Captain America addresses it directly in the Avengers.

Quote
"The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little... old fashioned?"
"With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old fashioned."

Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #51 on: November 28, 2017, 03:15:53 AM »
I think one of the big things is that the Marvel Characters are at their core..the characters they have always been.

Compare Superman to Captain America.

They are both paragons of "Truth Justice and the American Way." boy scouts who love Apple Pie and Mom and all of that. Now these days that sort of core theme has become unpopular and "jingoistic xenophobic blah blah blah."

Man of Steel completely drops that at the core of his character, Captain America addresses it directly in the Avengers.

I don't think I see that clearly, because for one thing the Marvel characters themselves are not what they have always been.  They've changed over time in sometimes radical or weird ways.

I also think that for the most part the MCU characters are an invention of the movies where they pick and choose which pieces of comic book history they are going to borrow and which they are going to ignore completely.  The comic book Tony Stark is someone that has always been ruled by fear: fear of dying, fear of having his secret life revealed, fear of losing control of being responsible for the way his technology is used.  Fear is what ultimately fueled his alcoholism.  In the MCU, Tony Stark is a much more confident, less fearful person.  He isn't ruled by fear, and he isn't an out of control person although he often pretends to be.  He is someone ruled by guilt: guilt over his parents death, guilt over Yinsen's death, guilt about how his life of privilege was bought through death and destruction.  He doesn't care if people know he is Iron Man.  He revels in the attention.  But he also believes that everything bad that happens around him is the result of him not being smart enough or industrious enough to prevent it.  I think you can say similar things about the MCU Thor verses the comic books.

Conversely, I think Man of Steel gets hit too unfairly here.  Because this is a form of reimagining of the origin of Superman, the Clark we see in MoS isn't "Superman" yet.  He is still working out his identity, and for the first time confronted with the choice of whether to side with the people of Earth or his own people, and he resolves that conflict by siding with Earth.  There really wasn't time in that movie to focus on the "truth, justice and the American Way" thing.  That should have been (part of) the focus of the second movie, but that movie took a left turn into a major plot morass.

CG

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #52 on: November 28, 2017, 01:48:42 PM »
! think one of the major the difference between Marvel and DC is that Marvel is making their movies themselves (they took a huge financial risk with Iron Man - if that movie had flopped, that would have been the end of the MCU) and they are making comics into movies by taking all the best stuff from the comics and putting it up on screen.  The Marvel comics characters are loved by their creators and it shows by which ones stand the test of time and connect with readers.  This has made the transition to the movies.

DC's parent company (WB) is making those movies. It might not seem like much, but that one degree of separation makes all the difference in the world. WB is making movies based on the comics.  WB is getting new creatives to use the DC comics as inputs and putting their own spin on things.  I think WB fundamentally doesn't understand why these characters are loved in comics form and they aren't making the transition to the screen.  The DC comics people love the characters, but they've been shut out.  Geoff Johns is now trying to make some changes, but it's going to take time to effect change to what's in the pipeline.  Patty Jenkins obviously loved and understood Wonder Woman and it showed on screen.

The comics don't need an entirely new spin, they need adaptation to a new format and maybe updating because the stories are old (Iron Man can't have been in the Vietnam war and still be in his 30's in 2010).  There's lots of great stories there to mine already with character drama and action that have already been approved by audiences.



doc7924

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #53 on: November 28, 2017, 06:52:31 PM »
! think one of the major the difference between Marvel and DC is that Marvel is making their movies themselves (they took a huge financial risk with Iron Man - if that movie had flopped, that would have been the end of the MCU) and they are making comics into movies by taking all the best stuff from the comics and putting it up on screen.  The Marvel comics characters are loved by their creators and it shows by which ones stand the test of time and connect with readers.  This has made the transition to the movies.

DC's parent company (WB) is making those movies. It might not seem like much, but that one degree of separation makes all the difference in the world. WB is making movies based on the comics.  WB is getting new creatives to use the DC comics as inputs and putting their own spin on things.  I think WB fundamentally doesn't understand why these characters are loved in comics form and they aren't making the transition to the screen.  The DC comics people love the characters, but they've been shut out.  Geoff Johns is now trying to make some changes, but it's going to take time to effect change to what's in the pipeline.  Patty Jenkins obviously loved and understood Wonder Woman and it showed on screen.

The comics don't need an entirely new spin, they need adaptation to a new format and maybe updating because the stories are old (Iron Man can't have been in the Vietnam war and still be in his 30's in 2010).  There's lots of great stories there to mine already with character drama and action that have already been approved by audiences.

That certainly is a factor - look at how much better the new Spidey film is co-made with Marvel, compared to the last two.

I liked the 3 with McGuire but the ones with Garfield were like meh.


Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #54 on: November 28, 2017, 09:40:40 PM »
! think one of the major the difference between Marvel and DC is that Marvel is making their movies themselves (they took a huge financial risk with Iron Man - if that movie had flopped, that would have been the end of the MCU) and they are making comics into movies by taking all the best stuff from the comics and putting it up on screen.  The Marvel comics characters are loved by their creators and it shows by which ones stand the test of time and connect with readers.  This has made the transition to the movies.

DC's parent company (WB) is making those movies. It might not seem like much, but that one degree of separation makes all the difference in the world. WB is making movies based on the comics.  WB is getting new creatives to use the DC comics as inputs and putting their own spin on things.  I think WB fundamentally doesn't understand why these characters are loved in comics form and they aren't making the transition to the screen.  The DC comics people love the characters, but they've been shut out.  Geoff Johns is now trying to make some changes, but it's going to take time to effect change to what's in the pipeline.  Patty Jenkins obviously loved and understood Wonder Woman and it showed on screen.

The comics don't need an entirely new spin, they need adaptation to a new format and maybe updating because the stories are old (Iron Man can't have been in the Vietnam war and still be in his 30's in 2010).  There's lots of great stories there to mine already with character drama and action that have already been approved by audiences.

Ironically, and there have been industry rumors since the beginning, but we now have more direct knowledge of the fact that almost everything good about the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes less from Marvel Comics proper and more from Kevin Feige himself.  It was Feige that wanted to lift elements from the comicdom but make the movies their own thing, and it was Isaac Perlmutter and the Marvel comics people that wanted to drive the movies to be more connected to and driven by the comics more directly.

You hear stories about how Perlmutter tried to strangle Marvel Studios budgets and make them low cost low risk movies.  How the Marvel steering committee wanted to axe Guardians of the Galaxy's sound track.  Most of the "nightmare" stories about working for Marvel/Disney seem to be more related to working with Marvel Comics corporate.  It was bad enough that Disney stepped in and literally ripped Marvel Studios from Marvel Comics.  Marvel Comics now has almost nothing to do with Marvel Studios and zero oversight on the movies.  Marvel Studios is not a direct subsidiary of Disney Studios and Kevin Keige reports directly to Disney Studios president, and not to anyone at Marvel Enterprises.

Marvel movies appear to be good *in spite of* Marvel comics, not because of them.  At least in terms of the corporate powers that be.  What Warners currently lacks is a Kevin Feige to be the point man for the movies, and frankly Zach Snyder isn't it.  I think they are trying to make Geoff Johns that guy, but Warners actually prefers to let their individual movies stand alone without someone else telling the talent what to do.

Marvel movies were originally being made by Marvel itself, but fortunately they had Feige to fight for their independence.  Warners has a history of letting the talent do whatever they wanted and ironically that meant there was no one looking out for the long-term future of the DC movies.  Marvel needed less corporate oversight and Disney freed them from Marvel.  DC needs more corporate oversight but they need a singular vision to manage them and they don't seem to have that figured out yet.

Vee

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #55 on: November 28, 2017, 10:38:54 PM »
If Marvel themselves were in charge we'd have had Iron Man rebooted 4 times by now with the 5th reboot being renumbered as Iron Man 11 (or 3, never can tell with Marvel arithmetic).

Arcana

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #56 on: November 29, 2017, 02:47:54 AM »
If Marvel themselves were in charge we'd have had Iron Man rebooted 4 times by now with the 5th reboot being renumbered as Iron Man 11 (or 3, never can tell with Marvel arithmetic).

Marvel itself was in charge, until mid 2015.  The most obvious public sign of the change was the Inhumans movie.  That went from a phase three movie to a maybe phase four movie to a TV series to an IMAX cofunded marketing stunt in months.  The Inhumans movie was a directive from Marvel president Isaac Perlmutter to feature the Inhumans prominently in the MCU.  As soon as Marvel Entertainment no longer had control over Marvel Studios, Feige wasted no time in kicking that directive to the curb.

Marvel isn't completely crazy.  They are still responsible for and can take credit for the television properties including the Netflix shows.  But they seem to do better with serials and lower budget productions than feature films.

ryuplaneswalker

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #57 on: November 29, 2017, 08:56:23 AM »
That certainly is a factor - look at how much better the new Spidey film is co-made with Marvel, compared to the last two.

I liked the 3 with McGuire but the ones with Garfield were like meh.

Garfield was a far better Spiderman than McGuire..McGuire was a better Parker than Garfield, but both had some gigantic writing issues to deal with.

doc7924

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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #58 on: November 29, 2017, 06:08:46 PM »
Garfield was a far better Spiderman than McGuire..McGuire was a better Parker than Garfield, but both had some gigantic writing issues to deal with.

I would LOVE to see Marvel tackle an FF film. When the Roger Corman unreleased film is way better then the recent Fox one - its time to let Marvel step in like they did with Homecoming.

I have a soft spot for the two with Evans as Johnny Storm - while not great by any means - I think they are still fun to watch.


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Re: Justice League (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #59 on: November 30, 2017, 03:01:14 PM »
Just finished watching Crisis On Earth-X.

I think the WB-DC film unit should feel ashamed they just their asses handed to them by the TV shows. 

THAT was a better "Justice League" movie than the actual Justice League movie.

Far better.