Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

Royal_sl said:
I mentioned it earlier but the decision to base the DCU on the example set by the Nolan Batman films was an executive decision made above Snyder.

I said that a decade ago on FOH. There was a leaked memo that said that since Batman has their #1 box office overall, and Superman wasn't doing as well, and that from now on, all characters would be grimdarked. I think that was when Superman Returns didn't do so well, but the Nolan movies were doing fine. They said this, but this was around when Iron Man 1 came out. They just kind of ignore what Marvel is doing, and have done so for years.

tldr: I could see this being forced by the studio heads, because they said it ten years ago that people only want grimdarked superheroes.

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

Royal_sl said:
Jon Schnepp over at Collider was as vocal yet reasonable a critic of it when it was initially released in theaters as any out there but the director's cut brought him around. He echoed what a few have said here in that the longer run time actually seemed shorter when you're watching it because it's flaws are less glaring and they don't pull you out of the viewing experience nearly as much. He said he'll never watch the theatrical version again but can actually recommend the director's cut. With the initial edit reportedly coming in at 4 hours it makes you wonder if they could have largely avoided most of the harsh criticism had they opted to release it in 2 parts since they were wanting to do so much set up for Justice League.

I've not bothered to watch it yet but I'll definitely be checking out the Ultimate Edition eventually.

They could have split the movie in half, before having them fight Doomsday. And they could have spent more time on Wonder Woman's origin, and also explain why Batman is straight up murdering everyone.

I also forgot to add, there was more time with Clark Kent in the Ultimate version. He seemed more like a real person, with real issues.

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

Royal_sl said:
Jon Schnepp over at Collider was as vocal yet reasonable a critic of it when it was initially released in theaters as any out there but the director's cut brought him around.

The Ultimate version was about as good as Man of Steel. Take that for what it's worth.

DickTrickle · Jul 5, 2016

Lyrical_sl said:
There was a leaked memo that said that since Batman has their #1 box office overall, and Superman wasn't doing as well, and that from now on, all characters would be grimdarked.

That would have been an interesting take since Superman Returns came out one year after Batman Begins and made the same amount of money. I guess it was about perceptions and budget differences between the two (though I thought I remember some concern that BB didn't make more money than it did, its budget was still $100 million less).

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

DickTrickle_sl said:
That would have been an interesting take since Superman Returns came out one year after Batman Begins and made the same amount of money. I guess it was about perceptions and budget differences between the two (though I thought I remember some concern that BB didn't make more money than it did, its budget was still $100 million less).

Superman Return box office: $391 million, cost of 204 m
Batman Begins: 374 m, cost of 150m

Hmmm, I thought BB did better. But I'm pretty sure that after Dark Knight did $1B, they decided to go a different route with all of their characters and grimdark them. There was no way WB was going to make Superman sequel and not crack 500m. TDK was eight years ago, we are getting old. The Dark Knight kind of cemented their view that grimdarking was the way to go for all future releases.

Blackyce · Jul 5, 2016

Royal_sl said:
I mentioned it earlier but the decision to base the DCU on the example set by the Nolan Batman films was an executive decision made above Snyder. I think they're holding out hope that they can coax Nolan into directing more DC movies at some point in the future and they want anything he does to mesh with what has already been released. Not to mention he's also a producer on MoS and BvS.

I'm not sure if they're going to stick with that plan at this point though.

I wouldn't have minded the dark tone DC / WB has set for themselves, they just needed to make decent movies like the first two Nolan Batman movies. Since they have failed miserably with Man of Steel and BvS I'm thinking they need to move on from that concept.

Royal · Jul 5, 2016

Lyrical_sl said:
The Ultimate version was about as good as Man of Steel. Take that for what it's worth.

I'm probably in the minority here but I really liked MoS. Though I'm not heavily invested in seeing the source material religiously adhered to and don't care to see an updated version of Donner's take on the character.

radditsu · Jul 5, 2016

Lyrical_sl said:
Superman Return box office: $391 million, cost of 204 m
Batman Begins: 374 m, cost of 150m

Hmmm, I thought BB did better. But I'm pretty sure that after Dark Knight did $1B, they decided to go a different route with all of their characters and grimdark them. There was no way WB was going to make Superman sequel and not crack 500m. TDK was eight years ago, we are getting old. The Dark Knight kind of cemented their view that grimdarking was the way to go for all future releases.

Yeah but the problem is that the Aesthetic of those Nolan films are dark, but the resolutions and themes are hopeful. He defeats Nihilism of the first, the second was the goodness of Humanity and Tiny Lister defeating ultimate chaos and the third was the defeat of undefeatable evil (a woman!) and literal myth making, plus we have a nightwing and he gets to bang Anne Hathaway for the rest of his life.

Greyform · Jul 5, 2016

Blackyce_sl said:
I wouldn't have minded the dark tone DC / WB has set for themselves, they just needed to make decent movies like the first two Nolan Batman movies. Since they have failed miserably with Man of Steel and BvS I'm thinking they need to move on from that concept.

Was it really dark minded though? I thought it was just stupid minded.. "I hate you because a building fell while you were fighting a super villain I had no chance to defeat" Really? that was the root of all of BatFleck's angst? "He's powerful, he might hurt us" Meanwhile "I can do what I want" It was just really annoying.

Amzin · Jul 5, 2016

Greyform_sl said:
Was it really dark minded though? I thought it was just stupid minded.. "I hate you because a building fell while you were fighting a super villain I had no chance to defeat" Really? that was the root of all of BatFleck's angst? "He's powerful, he might hurt us" Meanwhile "I can do what I want" It was just really annoying.

To be fair, that's actually a pretty accurate portrayal of Batman

Xarpolis · Jul 5, 2016

Kreugen_sl said:
I'll never watch the first half again. Not even under torture. Trying to catch up to MCU with one movie was fucking idiotic.

I never watched the movie before. I started watching it 2 days ago. I made it to the 60 minute point, and it was SO BORING. I know it'll get better soon when the action comes around, but god damn was it bad for the first third. I was watching the 3 hour version.

Devlin · Jul 5, 2016

It doesn't improve that much.

I think it's more difficult to bring the DC characters to film in general apart from Batman because they're just too corny.

Batman movies work in the dark as that's Batman's thing, he'd just look stupid in the daytime. None of the rest share that gimmick.

I think they could have made a fantastic Green Lantern movie along the same lines as GotG, totally set in space and a light hearted adventure romp.

spronk · Jul 5, 2016

it always blows my mind that hollywood thinks movie success is based on some weird scenario, like "if we had a white lead with curley hair and a villain who is hispanic but has a chinese mother, that guarantees success!!"

no you fucking retards, give the writers an extra year and have a dedicated script assist team that can jump in and help polish scripts, and pay each of these guys like $5m/yr so you only get the very best output. The foundation of a good movie is a great script. Pixar sort of does it with their movie development process, but they are fairly unique. About 75% of the movies I see I truly wonder how the hell anyone thought the script would turn into something enjoyable to see.

There are a ton of autistic people out there who can read a script and instantly rainman-divine whether it will be successful or not, just gotta feed them bombs and hits and weed out the ones that don't predict the hits. Hell, in a few years you will probably be able to have some sort of AI that can do it. A few years after that an AI will be able to WRITE the scripts.

Caliane · Jul 5, 2016

"dc is too corny" Meanwhile, talking raccoon, talking tree, vision, thor, Captain America, red skull, deadpool, spiderman, rhino, electro, green goblin, ghost rider, etc, etc, etc.
do you people even think of the stupid shit you are saying, when you say that?

Hell, half the problem everyone is calling for DC being retarded with this grimdark shit, while Marvel is not afraid to be fun. then you actually say with a straight face, "DC is just too corny."

Killer frost is somehow more corny then Iceman?
Half these characters were created by the same people. No one works at JUST DC comics. or JUST marvel. Kirby worked for both, etc.
A ton of characters are straight rip offs from one company to the other.

Or, Maybe its just Warner brothers execs are retarded. And Zack Synder sucks balls.

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

Devlin_sl said:
It doesn't improve that much.

I think it's more difficult to bring the DC characters to film in general apart from Batman because they're just too corny.

Batman movies work in the dark as that's Batman's thing, he'd just look stupid in the daytime. None of the rest share that gimmick.

I think they could have made a fantastic Green Lantern movie along the same lines as GotG, totally set in space and a light hearted adventure romp.

You are partially right, in that Superman and Batman are polar opposites. Superman looks stupid being grimdarked, just as much as if they would try to make Batman fit in Christopher Reeves' world. Or you get Bat Nipples. Remember in TDK, when Batman goes out as Bruce Wayne to save that Accountant? It's because he knew the suit looked silly in broad daylight. Superman looks just as silly grimdarked. Look at DCUO. There's a reason why Gotham is perpetually at night, and Metropolis is in perpetual daytime. They get it.

The problem with Superman is the last time he's had a quality story in a movie, it was with Superman II and III. Superman Returns was alright, up until they had him fight an island in the final act.

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

Caliane_sl said:
"dc is too corny" Meanwhile, talking raccoon, talking tree, vision, thor, Captain America, red skull, deadpool, spiderman, rhino, electro, green goblin, ghost rider, etc, etc, etc.
do you people even think of the stupid shit you are saying, when you say that?

Marvel is cornier, but they pull it off with quality stories. The other thing going for Marvel is that it's characters have actual character flaws. Ant Man is a wife beater. Thor is egotistical and has to be tied to a crippled mortal's body as punishment. Iron Man is vulnerable to whiskey. Spider Man can't even afford web fluid components, at any given time, he might fall out of the sky because he doesn't have enough cash and needs to fight crime so he can sell pictures to the Daily Bugle. DC used to own comics, there was a point in time when Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman all sold more in a week than what the entire industry does now. They did one million copies at each print. They also got boring, because who wants to read about a character that will never lose. They had to do Crisis on Infinite Earths just to nerf everyone's power level down. So now, when they try to give them character flaws (Superman is a loner, Batman is a murderous dickhead), it's a shock.

Shonuff · Jul 5, 2016

Anyone else notice that Marvel is staying away from the edgier stories?

Srathor · Jul 5, 2016

Of course they are, they want to make piles of dumptrucks of money. They can do the edgy stuff on Netflix, like Jessica Jones.

Still if you look at Civil War my opinion is Stark is unforgivable, he crossed the line with the visiting them in the prison and kinda lording over them even while wallowing in his own guilt. Not much more dark than being locked up in the middle of the ocean after saving the world 2-3 times and being labeled as murderers and worse.

Hell just thinking about it twigs me, Fuck Tony Stark. God damned Benedict Arnold.

As for Supes vrs Bats, Meh Supes should be in my opinion the boyscout he has always been. Man of Steel still frustrates me with how damned Emo it was. And the fact that all of the DC movies just lack the characters having any fun whatsoever. Supes learns to fly and yay he is flying, without the yay. Christopher Reeves Supes had fun. in the second one he went back to the diner, which could have truly been a dick move, but wasn't due to the character they portrayed over two movies. He enjoyed the revenge but in a minor way.

Dandai · Jul 5, 2016

The DC writers could definitely use some pointers on how to properly use the interest curve (see below) to pace their movies and place some lighter/comedic/tension relieving moments.

Devlin · Jul 6, 2016

Caliane_sl said:
"dc is too corny" Meanwhile, talking raccoon, talking tree, vision, thor, Captain America, red skull, deadpool, spiderman, rhino, electro, green goblin, ghost rider, etc, etc, etc.
do you people even think of the stupid shit you are saying, when you say that?

Hell, half the problem everyone is calling for DC being retarded with this grimdark shit, while Marvel is not afraid to be fun. then you actually say with a straight face, "DC is just too corny."

I know you're a DC fanboy but the're just historically more kitsch/faggy than Marvel, they can't bring them into the light because it would highlight it.

DC's only "cool" character is Batman, a bachelor who hangs out with teenage boys at night.

Like Michael Jackson.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

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