Batman V Superman

[Kaido]

I went in with a few friends and none of use have any clues on comic, none of us understand why they(Batman/Superman/Lex) do things that they're doing, all of us agree this is the weakest Superman ever and we all impressed with WW. To us this is the same lvl of AoU

I wish they had picked one theme & stuck with it. Like, the opening was very artsy, which I liked, but they dropped it. Then it went into a serious political thriller type of movie with the terrorists, senate hearing, etc., which would have jived well with how classy Wonder Woman was at the social events, how serious Lois Lane was, etc., but they kind of went a Michael Bay route later on.

Sort of like how they made the last few Batmans more serious or more "adult" in terms of seriousness but kept it that way throughout the whole movie, from Liam Neeson to Michael Cain...they really stuck with the single mood/theme in those movies. For as long as the movie was, it was strange that they didn't offer any reasons (or at least, good reasons) for the various character motivations. Like, it's 2016...you can't just be "bad" anymore, why are you bad? What's your story, Lex? Why do you hate Superman instead of Zod, Batman? Meh

 

[Kaido]

Yea most of what I wrote was my own interpretation after the fact.

Spoiler

During the movie I was sitting there going...was Batman's mom's name Martha too? Why are they showing this gravestone?

This is the problem with two moody main characters who don't talk much. This works in a comic where they use a thought bubble for internal dialogue, but it doesn't translate well to the big screen.

They needed Deadpool.

Haha yes.

It was funny, because after the movie, we were wondering if all of the dialogue was written within Twitter's 140-character limit. Everything was like a sentence or two long :thumbsdown:

 

[Kaido]

I disagree completely, I don't understand why Superman would fight batman

Spoiler

to get his mom back when he can hear Lois Lane and save her on another continent but cannot hear his own mom when she is kidnapped, get real! Also Superman would not just let Lex Luthor go, he would grab him and tie him up so he could not get away before going to fight batman, ridiculous.

I had the exact same thought as soon as that happened. He's only tuned into one person? Psssh.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I think they dropped the ball on this. Lex could have been the next Loki...he really could have stolen the show. I liked how they introduced him...basically a Mark Zuckerburg with a twitch. They had good momentum, but they didn't go anywhere with it. I think it would have been better with more personal involvement...like maybe Lex's father was killed in the battle with Zod, so he has some personal stake for why he wants to kill Superman other than "just because". That was the big issue with this movie - they didn't give any reasons for the characters to do what they did. And the reasons they did give were stupid. It kept throwing me out of the movie because I wasn't really onboard with anything anybody was doing because they were doing it for dumb reasons.

Half in the Bag made a good point that the way his character was played he'd have made a better Joker or Riddler. Which makes sense. Lex was always a very smart and down to earth (sorta) person. Here he just seems insane.

 

[Kaido]

Half in the Bag made a good point that the way his character was played he'd have made a better Joker or Riddler. Which makes sense. Lex was always a very smart and down to earth (sorta) person. Here he just seems insane.

Expanding on that, I thought Jeremy Irons would have made a great Batman (despite his age). He already has a cool voice & is awesome.

And yeah, now that I think about it, Eisenberg would have made a pretty good Riddler. They should have picked Benedict Cumberbatch to be Lex

 

[Fritzo]

Eisenberg as Lex is one of the biggest mis-casts of all time. I also get the feeling that this movie was 5 hours long, and so much was cut from it to get the time down we're left wondering what the heck is happening. It's like reading every other page of a book.

In fact ,I know EXACTLY what happened to this movie: there was too much story to tell, and WB wanted to force Justice League out as soon as possible, so they rushed it and the result was Dawn of Justice.

For this to have been done correctly, there should have been a second Superman movie with a lead to BvS, a new Batman movie with a lead to BvS, and that would have taken care of all of the lead-ups needed to tell a coherent story.

 

[Kaido]

Eisenberg as Lex is one of the biggest mis-casts of all time. I also get the feeling that this movie was 5 hours long, and so much was cut from it to get the time down we're left wondering what the heck is happening. It's like reading every other page of a book.

Agree

In fact ,I know EXACTLY what happened to this movie: there was too much story to tell, and WB wanted to force Justice League out as soon as possible, so they rushed it and the result was Dawn of Justice..

Agree

For this to have been done correctly, there should have been a second Superman movie with a lead to BvS, a new Batman movie with a lead to BvS, and that would have taken care of all of the lead-ups needed to tell a coherent story.

Agree

Yup, that's exactly it - felt like they cut out a ton of stuff, they wanted to push Justice League out to compete with Marvel, and it should have been split into two movies. Superman needed more controversy to build up around him...he needed time to feel bad for killing Zog, time to see the destruction that he was a part of & the toll it took on people, time for the government to build up a case against him & for Lex to frame him. It was all very rushed. I liked the thing his dad said to him about how his actions of saving the farm ended up drowning the horses & remember the screams, because that's what Superman needs to feel about the lives that were lost as a result of his participation in the battle with Zod. He's just totally stoic about everything. And then if they had ended that second Superman movie with a shot of the faceoff between Batman, that would have really set it up for the Batman vs. Superman movie.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

While I agree that this lex Luther isn't very true to his comic form, I do think eisenberg as this version of him was done really well.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Yup, that's exactly it - felt like they cut out a ton of stuff, they wanted to push Justice League out to compete with Marvel, and it should have been split into two movies. Superman needed more controversy to build up around him...he needed time to feel bad for killing Zog, time to see the destruction that he was a part of & the toll it took on people, time for the government to build up a case against him & for Lex to frame him. It was all very rushed. I liked the thing his dad said to him about how his actions of saving the farm ended up drowning the horses & remember the screams, because that's what Superman needs to feel about the lives that were lost as a result of his participation in the battle with Zod. He's just totally stoic about everything. And then if they had ended that second Superman movie with a shot of the faceoff between Batman, that would have really set it up for the Batman vs. Superman movie.

It's amazing how much Marvel has raised our standards for stuff like this. This whole paragraph is a credit to how well they have managed their franchises since Iron Man 1.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Does anyone really want a standalone Aquaman movie? I bet the writers/cast/James Cameron of Entourage jaws are dropped.

 

[Childs]

Learned about this yesterday:

Spoiler

The cameraman that died in the desert was...Jimmy Olsen! I remember wondering if that was him since it would have made sense to have Jimmy with Lios on an assignment. Then he had the tracker and I was thought "heh, that was kinda weird, although I guess the CIA would be involved in something like this", and when he died I didnt think much of it. Finding out that was Jimmy, and he was CIA could have been its own interesting movie, but to throw it away like that was kinda lame.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...s-why-he-killed-off-jimmy-olsen-a6954956.html

And Eisenberg originally auditioned for the Jimmy Olsen role.

 

[OutHouse]

It's amazing how much Marvel has raised our standards for stuff like this. This whole paragraph is a credit to how well they have managed their franchises since Iron Man 1.

God Bless Stan Lee!

he is coming to Denvers comic con in June and i really want to get his autograph.

 

[Kaido]

It's amazing how much Marvel has raised our standards for stuff like this. This whole paragraph is a credit to how well they have managed their franchises since Iron Man 1.

Yeah, that first Ironman was a gamechanger...real acting, real story, and ALSO a comic-book movie. Just well-done all around. And then they came out with Winter Soldier, which was just an amazing, solid action movie with just the right pacing for you to not get sick of the action. No more "Batman & Mr. Freeze" flicks haha.

 

[Kaido]

Learned about this yesterday:

Spoiler

The cameraman that died in the desert was...Jimmy Olsen! I remember wondering if that was him since it would have made sense to have Jimmy with Lios on an assignment. Then he had the tracker and I was thought "heh, that was kinda weird, although I guess the CIA would be involved in something like this", and when he died I didnt think much of it. Finding out that was Jimmy, and he was CIA could have been its own interesting movie, but to throw it away like that was kinda lame.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...s-why-he-killed-off-jimmy-olsen-a6954956.html

And Eisenberg originally auditioned for the Jimmy Olsen role.

/whoa

 

[Kaido]

Does anyone really want a standalone Aquaman movie? I bet the writers/cast/James Cameron of Entourage jaws are dropped.

I'll watch anything if they do a good job on it. Just look at Guardians of the Galaxy...I'd never even heard of them before, but they had a fun story, good characters, and a great soundtrack and it turned out to be a sleeper hit. Ant-Man was actually pretty fun too, way better than my expectations for it were.

 

[poofyhairguy]

God Bless Stan Lee!

As far as the movies are concerned I am pretty sure Kevin Feige is the guy who keeps them all on the same wavelength by force. He isn't always successful (Iron Man 3 almost ruined it) but what they do is amazing when you compare it to DC based movies.

The problem with DC movies is Batman. Batman has to be dark, his world has to be dark. BUT Batman is also the most valuable DC movie property, so therefore if DC is to have a unified universe it has to be dark to work for Batman. To me that shows sometimes the unified universe thing is overrated.

And it can also run its course. The MCU was amazing when it produced Avengers 1, but by the time we got to Avengers 2 it was boring because we knew no one could really die or have anything really change or it would screw up the Civil War movie. At some point Marvel needs to shock us and do something like kill someone we all like or it will lose its excitement.

The real man who also doesn't get enough credit is Kevin Smith. He was pulling off the unified movie universe concept a decade before the MCU.

 

[preslove]

Marvel did well because it was a comic book company that started a movie studio. They had a story group that planned out the movies, much like the story group plans out the comics. Then they hired good movie talent to make good movies. This was so successful that they sold to disney for billions. Disney wisely decided to keep Marvel Studios as a separate subsidiary and to promote from within. This has kept the marvel engine running great.

WB's problem is that it's an Entertainment conglomerate with a tiny part of its portfolio held in DC comics. The Warner Bros management has been planning this all out with Zach Snyder and other meh movie makers, with a tiny amount of input from actual comic book people. This has led to many stupid decisions, like making 2 grim superman movies. This is REALLY bad because DC only has a couple super heroes that don't suck.

 

[poofyhairguy]

WB's problem is that it's an Entertainment conglomerate with a tiny part of its portfolio held in DC comics. The Warner Bros management has been planning this all out with Zach Snyder and other meh movie makers, with a tiny amount of input from actual comic book people. This has led to many stupid decisions, like making 2 grim superman movies. This is REALLY bad because DC only has a couple super heroes that don't suck.

I kinda feel for DC because their main superhero (Superman) doesn't resonate with the modern consumer. He is too goody two shoes, too powerful, and he forces people to suspend the belief when he "hides" behind a pair of glasses. That flew in the 1970's, but today we expect someone like Netflix's Daredevil that gets his ass kicked half the time. So thanks to Batman success they feel the way to make Superman work is to make him dark, because hey that works for Batman.

Marvel had the EXACT same problem with Captain America, and his first movie kinda sucked because of it. Their way around the problem going forward was to turn Captain America movies into basically The Avengers sequels- aka make it more than just about him. The Civil War movie could have been Avengers 3 and no one would have blinked.

That is the problem with using the comic books as sources- a lot of these concepts come from a different age when consumers expected something different from entertainment. Then you try to tie them all together which amplifies the dated parts of each character.

DC has done much better with its TV shows that don't have to be dark and don't try to live in each other's universe. There is some crossover sure, but each show still gets to be what it needs to be to work. That is the best way forward for them, but we won't get it because this movie the thread is about was too much of a success.

 

[K1052]

well, no shit. people like you who already have a low opinion of this movie still pay money to go see it. Don't think the movie is good? Vote with your wallets and don't go see it.

Uh...my interest is in the opposite happening.

Having seen this now I can say that it isn't the worst movie my eyeballs have been exposed to or even the worst superhero movie of recent years (that honor definately goes to Amazing Spideman 2). Overall I was pretty meh on and my largest complaint is that about 30 minutes of repetitive Superman MoS bullshit could have been edited out and the movie would have been non the worse...or possibly better. The action sequences also became rather gratuitous and actually boring in many places.

 

[Fritzo]

I kinda feel for DC because their main superhero (Superman) doesn't resonate with the modern consumer. He is too goody two shoes, too powerful, and he forces people to suspend the belief when he "hides" behind a pair of glasses. That flew in the 1970's, but today we expect someone like Netflix's Daredevil that gets his ass kicked half the time. So thanks to Batman success they feel the way to make Superman work is to make him dark, because hey that works for Batman.

Marvel had the EXACT same problem with Captain America, and his first movie kinda sucked because of it. Their way around the problem going forward was to turn Captain America movies into basically The Avengers sequels- aka make it more than just about him. The Civil War movie could have been Avengers 3 and no one would have blinked.

That is the problem with using the comic books as sources- a lot of these concepts come from a different age when consumers expected something different from entertainment. Then you try to tie them all together which amplifies the dated parts of each character.

DC has done much better with its TV shows that don't have to be dark and don't try to live in each other's universe. There is some crossover sure, but each show still gets to be what it needs to be to work. That is the best way forward for them, but we won't get it because this movie the thread is about was too much of a success.

Superman has to potential to be VERY relevant to today's audiences. He should be marketed as "hope", but some people won' accept him due to paranoia. They're trying to play that angle, but it's done in such a clumsy way it's just not working.

 

[preslove]

I kinda feel for DC because their main superhero (Superman) doesn't resonate with the modern consumer. He is too goody two shoes, too powerful, and he forces people to suspend the belief when he "hides" behind a pair of glasses. That flew in the 1970's, but today we expect someone like Netflix's Daredevil that gets his ass kicked half the time. So thanks to Batman success they feel the way to make Superman work is to make him dark, because hey that works for Batman.

Marvel had the EXACT same problem with Captain America, and his first movie kinda sucked because of it. Their way around the problem going forward was to turn Captain America movies into basically The Avengers sequels- aka make it more than just about him. The Civil War movie could have been Avengers 3 and no one would have blinked.

That is the problem with using the comic books as sources- a lot of these concepts come from a different age when consumers expected something different from entertainment. Then you try to tie them all together which amplifies the dated parts of each character.

DC has done much better with its TV shows that don't have to be dark and don't try to live in each other's universe. There is some crossover sure, but each show still gets to be what it needs to be to work. That is the best way forward for them, but we won't get it because this movie the thread is about was too much of a success.

I disagree. I think Superman's optimistic, hopeful point of view would resonate well with audiences. People are yearning for a good guy to come in and fix things, or to show the way to a better world.

Sure, that last part was really corny, but superman is a corny character, and corny sells.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Superman has to potential to be VERY relevant to today's audiences. He should be marketed as "hope", but some people won' accept him due to paranoia. They're trying to play that angle, but it's done in such a clumsy way it's just not working.

I could see that. The only problem is Superman of the comics is too powerful to create the doubt that he could lose in a movie setting. Without doubt the hope is wasted.

I disagree. I think Superman's optimistic, hopeful point of view would resonate well with audiences. People are yearning for a good guy to come in and fix things, or to show the way to a better world.

I wish that was the case. I think right now a lot of people are looking for someone to burn it all down. That is why Batman resonates, and there are a million post-apocalyptic movies, and not to get political but why Trump is doing so well.

People are pissed and Superman is too much of a super douche to tap into that. We need a flawed character that turns a back on his evil wall street upbringing to fight another kind of evil. The hero we want is Batman, not Superman.

 

[Fritzo]

The problem with DC movies is Batman. Batman has to be dark, his world has to be dark. BUT Batman is also the most valuable DC movie property, so therefore if DC is to have a unified universe it has to be dark to work for Batman. To me that shows sometimes the unified universe thing is overrated.

This is EXACTLY what makes Batman and Superman work together, and it's not being exploited.

Batman is a violent, disturbed, has no special powers, and pursues justice through fear and logic.
Superman had a pleasant upbringing, had mid-west values, and those keep his immense powers in check. He pursues justice by trying to find the good in people and shielding the innocent.

These new incarnations of the heroes don't really follow that dynamic, and it's as important as the interaction between Batman/Joker for it to work. The characters are polar opposites on their views of the world, and it provides conflict and balance.

 

[preslove]

This is EXACTLY what makes Batman and Superman work together, and it's not being exploited.

Batman is a violent, disturbed, has no special powers, and pursues justice through fear and logic.
Superman had a pleasant upbringing, had mid-west values, and those keep his immense powers in check. He pursues justice by trying to find the good in people and shielding the innocent.

These new incarnations of the heroes don't really follow that dynamic, and it's as important as the interaction between Batman/Joker for it to work. The characters are polar opposites on their views of the world, and it provides conflict and balance.

Exactly. Superman is the sweet, Batman is the sour. Snyder's terrible movie universe is sour sour sour sour sour. It's too depressing/dark.

 

[Fritzo]

I could see that. The only problem is Superman of the comics is too powerful to create the doubt that he could lose in a movie setting. Without doubt the hope is wasted.



I wish that was the case. I think right now a lot of people are looking for someone to burn it all down. That is why Batman resonates, and there are a million post-apocalyptic movies, and not to get political but why Trump is doing so well.

People are pissed and Superman is too much of a super douche to tap into that. We need a flawed character that turns a back on his evil wall street upbringing to fight another kind of evil. The hero we want is Batman, not Superman.

I think we want a Superman. He should have his fantastic abilities, but constantly torn and tortured over using them because he's not sure exactly what his limits are and how many people could be killed as a result. The problem is he's just not being depicted correctly. The closest we've gotten to an accurate Superman is Christopher Reeve's first two movies, and they're so corny it's difficult to relate to them today.

This scene from Justice League sums up EXACTLY what Superman is about. He's not about power, might, or weaknesses...he's about restraint and the frustration he experiences every day knowing he could accidentally kill everyone around him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKbBPYvlpUU