BvS All Things Batman v Superman: An Open Discussion (TAG SPOILERS) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 295

[KillerMcQueen]

Honestly, it doesn't really exist within' this genre - especially when half of the movies' responsibilities are to capture action beats and visually bringing to life comic book panels.

That inevitably leaves out less time to access truly cerebral qualities. The Watchmen was the closest thing and look how much most of the GA hated it. Snyder was lazy and tried to port the guts of that film over to BvS. It felt borrowed and cheap. Hell the whole "Who is the super man and what does he mean to us" stuff was straight from Dr. Manhattan.

I'd hardly way "most of the GA hated it" in regards to Watchmen, or even BvS.

 

[Pondslider]

So if Wonder Woman

Spoiler

was so concerned about the photograph of her and Captain Kirk getting out and people learning her secret why did she give Batman the hard drive back with the picture still on it? Did she not find it? Did she forget to delete the file? Does she just not know how computers work?

 

[matt47]

So if Wonder Woman

Spoiler

was so concerned about the photograph of her and Captain Kirk getting out and people learning her secret why did she give Batman the hard drive back with the picture still on it? Did she not find it? Did she forget to delete the file? Does she just not know how computers work?

She couldn't decript it.

 

[KillerWolf]

So if Wonder Woman

Spoiler

was so concerned about the photograph of her and Captain Kirk getting out and people learning her secret why did she give Batman the hard drive back with the picture still on it? Did she not find it? Did she forget to delete the file? Does she just not know how computers work?

She couldn't decode it and returned it to Bruce.

 

[Pondslider]

She couldn't decript it.

I couldn't remember if she gave the reason. Why did she give it back at all if it that was that important to her though and risk one person knowing turning into two and potentially even more people?

 

[Charlatan]

I couldn't remember if she gave the reason. Why did she give it back at all if it that was that important to her though and risk one person knowing turning into two and potentially even more people?

she knew that he needed it for something and she trusted him. enemy of my enemy I suppose. Or she knows who he is and what he does.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Marvel has PLENTY of Elseworlds styled What If? stories and a crazy amount of universes. Marvel and DC Comics are quite literally parallels of each other. That's just an excuse and it has nothing to do with the question about the movies. If Marvel could make cinematic interpretations of their characters that the vast majority of Marvel fans are happy with then DC can do they same. They just need a Kevin Feige type who gives a **** enough to make it happen.

Marvel fans get pissed off all the time as well when films stray too much from the core elements and personality of the characters. Just look at Fant4stic and Andrew Garfield's version of Spider-Man for recent examples.

 

[Poni_Boy]

Marvel fans get pissed off all the time as well when films stray too much from the core elements and personality of the characters. Just look at Fant4stic and Andrew Garfield's version of Spider-Man for recent examples.

Marvel = Marvel Studios in that example. I would have said Fox or Sony otherwise

 

[Wylie Times]

Marvel fans get pissed off all the time as well when films stray too much from the core elements and personality of the characters. Just look at Fant4stic and Andrew Garfield's version of Spider-Man for recent examples.

People didn't have a problem with those films because they strayed from the source material, they have a problem with those films because they sucked.

The X-Men films stray VERY far from the source material but they're quite beloved by the majority of fans and the general audience. The only ones that weren't liked were the ones that sucked.

 

[DeadStroke]

I'm convinced this movie is the Batman Returns of this generation.

It will be more appreciated years from now....despite some of its flaws.

 

[Mjölnir]

Oddly you have two sentences next to each other that seem to contradict, at least in my mind. Those characters WERE complex, which is precisely why a large part of the GA didn't go for it. I agree with your second line wholeheartedly, and think that Snyder made a wrong estimation of his target group so in that way he was wrong. But I'm glad that he took the leap anyway, because it was simply amazing to those (given it's a smaller percentage) who understood his vision for the film - and this is coming from someone who simply hated Superman Returns, the Schumacher Batman movies and Green Lantern - so I can't call myself a die hard DC movie fan. I will admit when a movie a garbage and BvS, to me, was a short-changed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

Well, we disagree there then. I think their motivations were pretty straightforward, and if anything they were underdeveloped. Even on something so important as Superman's will to take down Batman they stopped developing it to fruition and just threw in an external reason instead. I don't think people disliked the movie because they didn't understand it, because it's not that hard to understand save for some pretty large comic book references (mainly referring to Batman's visions/dreams which are allowed to take up some time) which most of course won't get since most don't read comics.

I'm glad you liked it though. I wish I did, but I didn't and I've not seen anyone say anything that indicates to me that I had trouble understanding the movie. I just think Snyder showed again that he's not a good storyteller, and the multiple storylines he had to handle made it clearer than ever.

Quite the contrary. MCU is straight forward, but if the DCEU was anywhere close to being straight forward, there wouldn't be so many questions still surrounding the Knightmare sequence, future Flash's message, Communion clip and burnt Wayne Manor. It would be deceptive to say the DCEU is straight forward, and like my response above, that's probably Snyder's mistake, that the GA would not necessarily enjoy dealing with a puzzle of a movie, after being conditioned to MCU's feed-it-to-your-face format.

Yes there would be, and it is straight forward. Referencing comics is not complex writing it's just pointing at something that requires previous knowledge that most don't have. You can't make the link between the omega sign and Darkseid if you don't even know about Darkseid to begin with. They didn't explain why Batman is having what seems to amount to visions, so not much to understand there either, just guess. Things like the burnt manor is also not complexity, it's just something they showed us but didn't make any point out of yet.

None of those things are any more complex than any arbitrarily chosen end credits stinger from the MCU, or things as Star-Lord having some special ancestry. Just scenes that show something that the GA might not pick up on what it means because you need comic book knowledge, or because the movie isn't telling you the meaning of it yet. It's just less jarring for people if it doesn't interrupt the actual movie but instead either flows with the ordinary narrative or appears afterwards.

 

[jfurioso]

Hell the whole "Who is the super man and what does he mean to us" stuff was straight from Dr. Manhattan.

I think a lot of the more serious superhero movies that want to explore in any depth the idea of the hero and its place in a more realistic world are going per force to tread on many of the same material as Watchmen. Alan Moore has stated that the hero, and the superhero in particular, can be a mostly toxic idea, a whitewashed glorification of the violence of individual glory-hounds or outright monsters. So if you want to do tackle those issues you have to address such perspectives. It all goes back to a common notional core of this particular conceptual debate.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Marvel = Marvel Studios in that example. I would have said Fox or Sony otherwise

That's because Marvel Studios doesn't make these sort of drastic changes with their main characters. The closest is Hank Pym, but even he was largely the Hank Pym of the comics in the past. We just got an older version of him in the present.

The point is that the idea that Marvel fans are easier to please than DC fans is a myth. If Captain America started acting like Superman in BvS, I guarantee Marvel fans would be upset about that too.

 

[antoineflemming]

That's because Marvel Studios doesn't make these sort of drastic changes with their main characters. The closest is Hank Pym, but even he was largely the Hank Pym of the comics in the past. We just got an older version of him in the present.

The point is that the idea that Marvel fans are easier to please than DC fans is a myth. If Captain America started acting like Superman in BvS, I guarantee Marvel fans would be upset about that too.

Um, Cap is serious most of the time in the MCU. He's kinda at that point already.

Oh, and speaking of changes with their main characters. RDJ's Tony Stark wasn't much like the comic book version of the character. I'd say that's a drastic change.

Not only that, but slight changes to the characters is not what is hurting BvS. Superman is pretty much the Superman of the comics, where he's serious in serious situations (he just hasn't been given any scenes where he's not in a serious situation; Clark, however, has been in non-serious situations, and we've seen how jovial he can be). Batman is pretty much the Batman of the comics. The only difference is that he kills, which is no different than the still-loved Keaton portrayal. Not only that, but I've only seen comic fans complain about that. You quite exaggerate the degree to which WB has made changes to the comic book characters.

And by the way, Marvel fans are still upset with how the movies have portrayed Thor.

 

[Wylie Times]

That's because Marvel Studios doesn't make these sort of drastic changes with their main characters. The closest is Hank Pym, but even he was largely the Hank Pym of the comics in the past. We just got an older version of him in the present.

The point is that the idea that Marvel fans are easier to please than DC fans is a myth. If Captain America started acting like Superman in BvS, I guarantee Marvel fans would be upset about that too.

The Guardians of the Galaxy in the MCU are a pretty big departure from the their comic book counterparts.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Um, Cap is serious most of the time in the MCU. He's kinda at that point already.

Oh, and speaking of changes with their main characters. RDJ's Tony Stark wasn't much like the comic book version of the character. I'd say that's a drastic change.

Iron Man's actually been my favorite comic book character for some two and a half decades, and I'd say that the MCU version is a very faithful portrayal of the character.

 

[JtheDreamer]

And by the way, Marvel fans are still upset with how the movies have portrayed Thor.

Thor needs the most work of them all. It's all been downhill since his first movie. In the teamups it's like he's relegated to bouncer status. I hate it and hope Waititi can actually give me something for Ragnarok.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The Guardians of the Galaxy in the MCU are a pretty big departure from the their comic book counterparts.

Well, Quill and Drax are (Rocket and Groot are very faithful). But they never had many fans in the first place. They are a bit of an exception because of how obscure they were. It isn't the same thing as the Avengers, even the less popular ones like Ant-Man.

The more popular and iconic a character, the less that can be changed before fans get upset. That is the same with DC and Marvel.

 

[parkerpete]

I think a lot of the more serious superhero movies that want to explore in any depth the idea of the hero and its place in a more realistic world are going per force to tread on many of the same material as Watchmen. Alan Moore has stated that the hero, and the superhero in particular, can be a mostly toxic idea, a whitewashed glorification of the violence of individual glory-hounds or outright monsters. So if you want to do tackle those issues you have to address such perspectives. It all goes back to a common notional core of this particular conceptual debate.

Except Snyder doesn't have the ambivalent attitude towards violence that Moore does, and that's why his 'Watchmen' was such a hollow movie.

This is Moore's formulation:
Comedian: A sociopath and a remorseless right-wing creep, but genuinely disturbed by murder on macro scale.
Rorschach: A deluded Objectivist whose moral clarity is somewhat sympathetic, even though he is clearly crazy, smelly and scary. He started out with good intentions but his experience of human brutality has left him permanently deranged. While he is correct to be horrified at Viedt's actions, his moral absolutism may destroy the fragile peace that has been acheived at the end of the story.
Dan: A 'normal' person with conventional values, who nevertheless participates in covering up a mass murder for the sake of peace.
Laurie: Same as Dan.
Dr. Manhattan: A Superbeing whose powers have rendered him distant from human emotions and concerns of morality, who also agrees to cover up the massacre.
Adrian Viedt: Committed to stopping WWIII. Correctly sees that 'costumed heroes' are at best, tools of the corrupt establishment, and at worst, totally ineffectual perverts and sickos who are part of the problem. So he implements a plan may save the planet, but at a horrific cost.
Expanded cast of comic-book boy, news vendor, prison psychologist, etc: Normal people who we get to know and whose fate is essential to understanding the costs of violence.

Here is Zack Snyder's formulation:
Comedian: Creep who gets his in SUPER-AWESOME KUNG-FU FIGHT
Rorschach: Super-kewl GOOD GUY VIGILANTE who takes no guff, and knows how to take out the garbage. Also he's SUPER AWESOME AT KUNG FU
Dan: He's a superhero and he's ALSO GREAT AT KUNG FU, BRO HE JUST PUNCHED THAT GUY SO HARD HIS BONE POPPED OUT
Laurie: Just like Dan but SOOOOOO HOTTTTTT
Dr. Manhattan: SUPER-BUFF, HUGE PACKAGE, SUPER-POWERS, BRO
Adrian Viedt: BAD GUY.

Expanded cast of normal people: WHO CARES BRO. UNLESS THEY KNOW KUNG FU.

 

[Jaxon]

She couldn't decript it.

She says to Bruce in the next meeting "it's military grade encryption" and gives it back probably expecting that he won't be able to crack it either (not knowing he's Batman at that point) or hoping that he'll delete it for her.

 

[Tymminator]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this (I've read a lot of stuff in this forum and I haven't seen it....but it could be somewhere)....but I just heard that Bill Finger gets a credit as co creator of Batman in the movie....thumbs up for that.

I noticed that. That was cool.

Iron Man's actually been my favorite comic book character for some two and a half decades, and I'd say that the MCU version is a very faithful portrayal of the character.

I agree. Even when Bendis wrote the Avengers, Tony was a LOT like that.

 

[Jaxon]

That's because Marvel Studios doesn't make these sort of drastic changes with their main characters. The closest is Hank Pym, but even he was largely the Hank Pym of the comics in the past. We just got an older version of him in the present.

The point is that the idea that Marvel fans are easier to please than DC fans is a myth. If Captain America started acting like Superman in BvS, I guarantee Marvel fans would be upset about that too.

The GA had no idea who any of the Marvel characters were prior to the MCU so they don't have a reference point.

Everyone knows Batman and Superman, so people are always going to be upset by someone elses interpretation.

 

[Clark-Kent]

Quick question guys. Am I remembering wrong or were there a ton of reporters inside the capitol building, yet Lois was siphoned behind the crowd barrier area? It seems to me she should have been covering the event/ had a DP press pass inside. I mean, CNN was inside after all Was it just a convenient way [blackout]because of course the building blows up.[/blackout] to keep her out of the situation or did I miss a reason why she wouldn't have been covering inside? Seeing her held back by the barrier confused me cause... well that's Lois Lane! lol

 

[antoineflemming]

Quick question guys. Am I remembering wrong or were there a ton of reporters inside the capitol building, yet Lois was siphoned behind the crowd barrier area? It seems to me she should have been covering the event/ had a DP press pass inside. I mean, CNN was inside after all Was it just a convenient way [blackout]because of course the building blows up.[/blackout] to keep her out of the situation or did I miss a reason why she wouldn't have been covering inside? Seeing her held back by the barrier confused me cause... well that's Lois Lane! lol

Yeah, Soledad O'Brien was in the Capitol building.... I don't think the Daily Planet is that important in this. And maybe they only let televised media in there.

 

[Flint Marko]

The GA had no idea who any of the Marvel characters were prior to the MCU so they don't have a reference point.

Everyone knows Batman and Superman, so people are always going to be upset by someone elses interpretation.

You're overestimating the general publics attachment to these superheroes. I don't think most people would have a problem with a dark superman movie if it was a good movie.