All Things DCEU News, Discussion, and Speculation - Part 4

[Zarex]

No, there isn't. He allowed himself to be a weapon of the US government. It's the complete opposite of everything the character stands for and has stood for since his inception in 1938.

I am in full agreement that TDKR Superman is far from Clark's best look. I gave him a participation medal for having his heart in the right place even though his brain and courage were MIA.

You misunderstood me. Snyder's Batman isn't heroic, and Snyder makes that clear. Miller, on the other hand, gives us an equally unheroic Batman and does not make it clear that Bruce has fallen.

TDKR Batman is a suicidal, lonely, middle-aged alcoholic obsessing about a tragedy that happened in childhood. I found it super clear.

Snyder portrays his Batman as a man who has become consumed by feverish rage in the face of trauma and powerlessness. His Batman must be saved by an act of grace and redeemed through a self-affirming heroic act. Batman's fall from grace in TDKR is not similarly criticized in Miller's work. Miller's Batman is worse because he knows Superman. He knows Superman's humanity. He has been friends with Superman. Yet, he attacks him anyway, nearly kills him anyway. Violently attacking a stranger is less redeemable than attacking a friend? Seriously?

You give Snyder's Bruce a pass due to your head canon of an undiagnosed mental illness that rarely presents in violence.

Batman encourages the torture of criminals he apprehends? PTSD!
Batman murders a slew of folks trying to avoid vigilante justice? PTSD!
Batman needs a funky 90s boy band jam for the Batmobile? NKOTB!

And TDKR Batman doesn't nearly kill anyone. His (nearly) invulnerable friend is no worse for wear after the tussle, which Bruce had planned on losing. In TDKR an attempted murder wasn't prevented because Bruce and Clark's grandparents both picked up the same book of baby names.

It's cynical because neither character really changes. It's a story that epitomizes the deconstructionist trend and set a standard for Superman as a government stooge Boy Scout for decades.

Bruce goes from suicidal loner to a leader committed to a cause. That's growth. Clark defies the government that had been controlling him. Well, it's a start.

Definition of thesis: A thesis is also the main idea, opinion, or theory of a speaker or writer, who then attempts to prove it.

Internet Dictionary War! Internet Dictionary War!

Thesis - a statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved.

 

[MbJ]

The problem, in my opinion, is one's expectations for the death of Superman.

No, I just felt it wasn't well done and that the movies hadn't done enough to make me care about the character. BVS certainly did not do much to make me care about him.

 

[Flint Marko]

No, I just felt it wasn't well done and that the movies hadn't done enough to make me care about the character. BVS certainly did not do much to make me care about him.

Wouldn’t be a defense of the DCEU if it wasn’t the viewers fault for something.

 

[STARMAN]

Robles is saying Cavill will appear in Shazam.

 

[MbJ]

Robles is saying Cavill will appear in Shazam.

That would be pretty cool. I liked the suggestion that Billy Batson was one of the kids taking the cellphone video. It'd be a nice nod to the fact that he was a kid reporter in the Golden Age comics.

 

[MbJ]

Thought this was interesting. A survey using facial recognition tech to gauge emotional responses to DC's characters was done.

Marvel and DC movie trailers by using a facial coding and emotion recognition platform called Affectiva.

The respondents participating in the Marvel/DC study, and others like it, only need internet connectivity and a standard web camera. As viewers watch stimulus, Affectiva can measure their moment-by-moment facial expressions of emotions. The results for this study were aggregated and displayed in a dashboard.

Marvel trailers also index higher on the “brand linkage” score (how well they fit with a respondent’s image of the comics), indicating that inconsistent DC character connections could be having a negative effect on the audience’s emotional engagement with its trailers.

“We were surprised to see, across all trailers tested, that the emotional response was lower than expected for set pieces and special effects, particularly in the genre we were looking at,” ZappiStore research architect Ernie Collings said. “The results indicate the way DC can reboot and change characters across trilogies or between TV to film might be having a detrimental effect on how well the public connects with those characters."

The part about DC as a brand especially stuck out for me. I think that's why the reputation plays a bigger part than some fans want to admit.

 

[misslane38]

I see, so you don't have siblings, I get it

I have an identical twin sister. The idea that I would fight her rather than find other ways to resolve conflict makes absolutely no sense to me.

The conflict can end in several different ways. You can change your opinion, you can move on, you can forgive etc. You know that friends fight in real life, right? There's no weight to a fight over a conflict that has no easy resolution? It's better with a simple misunderstanding? I don't see how. The conflict has weight because there's no easy resolution. It seems that you only want a conflict with an easy way out. There's no depth or complexity to the conflict in BvS. It's just bad writing. And heroes shouldn't use violence to resolve conflicts? Eeerm, that's kind of what comic book heroes do ...

Not even close to what I'm saying. I'm saying that close friends with a history wouldn't resort to violence to solve conflict at all. There's a stronger basis there for diplomacy. Knowing each other means knowing pressure points, leverage, and all other kinds of ways to reach someone without ever having lashed out in anger or violence. There can be weight to a conflict between friends, but as soon as violence is introduced as a solution, then the weight dissolves. I don't have a problem with heroes using violence to resolve conflicts with villains. Friends? No.

I really don't care about the comics. I felt Superman's death didn't carry any weight simply because he's one of the least interesting protagonists in a superhero movie ever.

But his death isn't about him; it's about us. It doesn't matter if Superman dies or some other wrongly hated "other" dies because the weight in the death is in what it says about us as human beings. There was a heroic man who died for a world that had hated him, fought him, and tried to kill him. And the result of his death is a reckoning among humanity who can see just how much the man it feared and doubted was willing to give for it. Superman is a stand-in for literally any other good person who has given and risked everything even for those who wouldn't do the same for them.

This is straight up nonsense of the highest order. Bitter conflict between two people who love each other doesn't have to "make sense" and it rarely ever does, but it's a very real, very human thing that happens every day.

Sure, it does, and so does PTSD, but I'm more sympathetic to someone dealing with mental illness than I am with "heroes" who are brothers in arms resorting to violence to resolve conflict.

You can be as disingenuous as you'd like to try and make your point, but you're clearly not convincing anyone.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm speaking what is true for me. I cannot imagine good people with a longstanding relationship using violence to resolve conflict. It makes much more sense to me that violence would emerge out of misunderstanding. Conflict between strangers and friends makes sense, but conflict involving violence with a loved one makes less sense. When strangers fight, usually fear is involved. It's not pretty, but it makes sense. When loved ones fight, there is love there. Love and hate coexist, but I have less patience and understanding with those who love each other hurting each other in brutal and violent ways to resolve conflict.

I am in full agreement that TDKR Superman is far from Clark's best look. I gave him a participation medal for having his heart in the right place even though his brain and courage were MIA.

I don't think his heart was in the right place at all.

TDKR Batman is a suicidal, lonely, middle-aged alcoholic obsessing about a tragedy that happened in childhood. I found it super clear.

Again, the problem isn't that the elements to condemn and criticize Bruce aren't there in TDKR. The problem is that Miller doesn't lean into this version of Bruce as particularly problematic. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants Batman to be awful, yet also heroic.

You give Snyder's Bruce a pass due to your head canon of an undiagnosed mental illness that rarely presents in violence.

You're kidding, right? First, I'm not giving him a pass. That's the exact opposite of what I'm doing. I'm suggesting that Snyder's Batman is condemned and must be redeemed for his PTSD-induced violent hysteria. Miller's crooked Batman is crooked, but Miller presents this as part of his charm.

Batman encourages the torture of criminals he apprehends? PTSD!
Batman murders a slew of folks trying to avoid vigilante justice? PTSD!
Batman needs a funky 90s boy band jam for the Batmobile? NKOTB!

It is tied to his PTSD, but that doesn't it make it okay. But it makes him more sympathetic. There's a self-righteousness in Miller's Batman that Miller doesn't do enough to criticize, and indeed seems to celebrate. Snyder doesn't romanticize Bruce's fall or his mental illness at all.

And TDKR Batman doesn't nearly kill anyone. His (nearly) invulnerable friend is no worse for wear after the tussle, which Bruce had planned on losing. In TDKR an attempted murder wasn't prevented because Bruce and Clark's grandparents both picked up the same book of baby names.

Bruce and Clark stopped fighting in BvS because a complex series of events allowed Bruce to gain clarity. "Save Martha" combined with supremacy over Superman, Lois protecting Superman, and Batman in the position of Joe Chill all came together to have the effect psychologists seek to produce through exposure therapy for PTSD. The effect of the resolution of the fight is to begin a path of healing for Bruce.

In TDKR, Batman engages in a fight he intends to lose, so what's the point? It's violence for the sake of violence. And, in my opinion, Batman does kill in TKDR. He shoots someone who is left bleeding out. Miller's Batman never has an epiphany that sets a course for his self-improvement or redemption. There's no moment where he must start climbing out of his dark hole of cynicism and fascism.

Bruce goes from suicidal loner to a leader committed to a cause. That's growth. Clark defies the government that had been controlling him. Well, it's a start.

Not for me. There's nothing in the story itself that provides any thread of hope or redemption for heroes or humanity. It's cynical to its core.

Internet Dictionary War! Internet Dictionary War!

Thesis - a statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved.

You're making my point for me. A "statement" can be an opinion. You see that, right?

No, I just felt it wasn't well done and that the movies hadn't done enough to make me care about the character. BVS certainly did not do much to make me care about him.

You don't have to care about him. You only have to care about yourself as a member of humanity. If you can relate to the idea of the cycle of fear, violence, and distrust that allows hate to fester and lash out to destroy what is good in the world, then you can mourn the essential hope from the "other" that Superman represents.

 

[Boy Scout]

Wouldn’t be a defense of the DCEU if it wasn’t the viewers fault for something.

Or a response that takes up a third of the page for no reason.

 

[Flint Marko]

You don't have to care about him. You only have to care about yourself as a member of humanity.

We've officially reached new levels of mental gymnastics.

 

[misslane38]

We've officially reached new levels of mental gymnastics.

It's quite the opposite, actually. It doesn't require gymnastics of any kind to feel the symbolic weight of a good person dying to protect those who feared and persecuted him. It's innate human empathy and bargain basement symbolism. Scholars of storytelling have found this trope echoed in every culture across all of recorded history. It's so deeply and universally human as to not require spelling out at all. If you think it's complicated, well, that's on you. To me, it's the simplest act of empathy I can imagine.

 

[Flint Marko]

It's quite the opposite, actually. It doesn't require gymnastics of any kind to feel the symbolic weight of a good person dying to protect those who feared and persecuted him. It's innate human empathy and bargain basement symbolism. Scholars of storytelling have found this trope echoed in every culture across all of recorded history. It's so deeply and universally human as to not require spelling out at all. If you think it's complicated, well, that's on you. To me, it's the simplest act of empathy I can imagine.

You literally just said that you don’t have to care about a character to care about their death. According to you, you don’t have to put in the legwork to make audiences care about a character - just show said character sacrificing himself for people who don’t like them and boom, mission accomplished.

That’s bad story-telling. You’ve thrown the white flag trying to argue any actual merits of how Superman’s death was executed and are now championing this moment entirely on assumed empathy. Thats not how story-telling works.

 

[misslane38]

You literally just said that you don’t have to care about a character to care about their death. According to you, you don’t have to put in the legwork to make audiences care about a character - just show said character sacrificing himself for people who don’t like them and boom, mission accomplished.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. No one has to know someone in order to feel something about a sacrificial death. I didn't know anyone on United 93 who risked their lives and died bringing down their plane before it was used as a terrorists' weapon. I don't know any one of the soldiers who died at the Vietnam Memorial in DC, yet I cried when I visited.

That’s bad story-telling. You’ve thrown the white flag trying to argue any actual merits of how Superman’s death was executed and are now championing this moment entirely on assumed empathy. Thats not how story-telling works.

You're wrong. You are placing the ultimately weight of Superman's death on his characterization whereas I'm saying that much of the weight of his death comes from Snyder's characterization of us, humanity, and our response to someone like Superman. One's connection to Superman is only a small piece of the puzzle to building up to the emotion of his death.

The film itself establishes this relationship between Superman and humanity. Humanity, like you, doesn't love Superman and doesn't share a warm connection with him. They fear his otherness and his unchecked power. They fear the unknown. They are traumatized by the devastation caused during his introduction to the world. Does this sound familiar yet? Superman, according to critics of the films within and outside the film, is a self-centered objectivist, a Randian hero, and perhaps even a fascist. He's a cold-blooded murderer, aloof, and selfish. He's not good enough because he both does too much and does too little. Getting any warmer?

Then he dies to protect humanity. Is this the act of an omnipotent god? Is he selfish? Does he preferentially use his powers? Every fear and every doubt projected onto Superman is dispelled by his death. BvS is a story about humanity's relationship with the "other" and with power. The onus on the storytelling, therefore, is on us, humanity and the audience. We do not mourn for Superman but for ourselves. The legwork in the storytelling comes from interrogating who we are not who he is.

 

[BestGirl]

I hate the idea of friends "duking it out." I hate the idea of otherwise reasonable superheroes coming to blows over conflict despite having a shared history as colleagues. It's awful because, then, how does the conflict end? Heroes shouldn't be fighting to resolve ideological conflicts. Good, after all, is a conversation. There is no "weight" to a story about two heroes punching each other "over a conflict that has no easy resolution." Because heroes should know better than to use violence to resolve conflict. The only way a fight works is if the conflict is rooted in something other than ideology.

Good heavens, why do you even like superheroes? All they do is solve problems with their fists.

Batman and Superman can only fight in a way that makes sense and adds depth and complexity to their conflict by using their lack of history to tell a story about how trauma and powerlessness affects someone like Batman. BvS tells a story about PTSD, xenophobia, prejudice, and communication. It interrogates existential questions. Batman is ultimately sympathetic, yet flawed, because he falls into darkness as a result of trauma: the events of Black Zero tore open old wounds putting on a mask for two decades couldn't heal. Superman is sympathetic because he doesn't want to fight at all; he fights only to protect himself.

If you like the PTSD angle so much, Batman can suffer from it in my hypothetical movie and it could compel him to fight Superman in some way.

The fight is resolved as a result of grace and enlightenment. The conflict between Batman and Superman is revealed to be a result of misunderstanding rather than a breakdown of a longstanding relationship supposedly built on trust and cooperation. The story of BvS has more relevance to contemporary issues, too. Questions about the intersection of fear, trauma, truth, ignorance, power, and masculinity are explored. It's a story about how the corrupt and powerful lash out and play the public like puppets when their supremacy in the universe is challenged by the introduction of The Superman.

What sort of quagmire of conflict could old colleagues, Batman and Superman, fight over in your ideal story? How would that conflict be resolved? When does the violence end? How does your fight between Batman and Superman tell a more universal story that resonates with conflicts in our real world?

I'm not a screenwriter so I don't have to come up with a plot that would satisfy you. However, Civil War had Tony and Cap fighting in spite of knowing one another so start there.

 

[Zarex]

Again, the problem isn't that the elements to condemn and criticize Bruce aren't there in TDKR. The problem is that Miller doesn't lean into this version of Bruce as particularly problematic. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants Batman to be awful, yet also heroic.

You're kidding, right? First, I'm not giving him a pass. That's the exact opposite of what I'm doing. I'm suggesting that Snyder's Batman is condemned and must be redeemed for his PTSD-induced violent hysteria. Miller's crooked Batman is crooked, but Miller presents this as part of his charm.

It is tied to his PTSD, but that doesn't it make it okay. But it makes him more sympathetic. There's a self-righteousness in Miller's Batman that Miller doesn't do enough to criticize, and indeed seems to celebrate. Snyder doesn't romanticize Bruce's fall or his mental illness at all.

Bruce and Clark stopped fighting in BvS because a complex series of events allowed Bruce to gain clarity. "Save Martha" combined with supremacy over Superman, Lois protecting Superman, and Batman in the position of Joe Chill all came together to have the effect psychologists seek to produce through exposure therapy for PTSD. The effect of the resolution of the fight is to begin a path of healing for Bruce.

There's no evidence that Snyder's Batman is suffering from a mental illness. Or if he is, this particular version is carrying a heavier weight than every version of the character shown to date. Again, this is your head canon and you are welcome to it. But don't be disappointed if others can't follow along with your personal fan fiction. And I never "kid".
(Jk!)

You're making my point for me. A "statement" can be an opinion. You see that, right?

A thesis is an argument that can be proven true or false. The opinion I presented did not have this quality. I am not making youe point for you. But I doubt you will see it.

 

[Flint Marko]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. No one has to know someone in order to feel something about a sacrificial death. I didn't know anyone on United 93 who risked their lives and died bringing down their plane before it was used as a terrorists' weapon. I don't know any one of the soldiers who died at the Vietnam Memorial in DC, yet I cried when I visited.

You’re comparing real people, actual heroes who sacrificed their lives and made a tangible difference in the real world, to a fictional character’s sacrifice for a world that doesn’t exist.

I don’t know if you think this helped your case but it absolutely 100% did not. At all.

You're wrong. You are placing the ultimately weight of Superman's death on his characterization whereas I'm saying that much of the weight of his death comes from Snyder's characterization of us, humanity, and our response to someone like Superman. One's connection to Superman is only a small piece of the puzzle to building up to the emotion of his death.

The film itself establishes this relationship between Superman and humanity. Humanity, like you, doesn't love Superman and doesn't share a warm connection with him. They fear his otherness and his unchecked power. They fear the unknown. They are traumatized by the devastation caused during his introduction to the world. Does this sound familiar yet? Superman, according to critics of the films within and outside the film, is a self-centered objectivist, a Randian hero, and perhaps even a fascist. He's a cold-blooded murderer, aloof, and selfish. He's not good enough because he both does too much and does too little. Getting any warmer?

Then he dies to protect humanity. Is this the act of an omnipotent god? Is he selfish? Does he preferentially use his powers? Every fear and every doubt projected onto Superman is dispelled by his death. BvS is a story about humanity's relationship with the "other" and with power. The onus on the storytelling, therefore, is on us, humanity and the audience. We do not mourn for Superman but for ourselves. The legwork in the storytelling comes from interrogating who we are not who he is.

And here are those record-breaking mental acrobatics I referred to earlier.

If I don’t care about a character, I’m not going to care how and why they died. Period, end of statement. It’s a mind-numbingly simple concept to understand.

Do you actually think it was the film-maker's intention to make audience's feel cold and distant to Superman? That's.... beyond terrible. I don't think much of Snyder and the other story-tellers but even I don't think they're capable of something so moronic.

Moreover, I never felt I truly knew or understood their world. Why would I care that he saved the world? Did he even really save the world? Didn’t he only do it for Lois? Was Doomsday actually going to destroy the planet? Couldn’t Wonder Woman have done exactly what Superman did without the threat of kryptonite weakening her?

BvS is a rancid onion that gets worse and worse the more you peel away, and your attempts to paint it in a better light only make it seem all the more flimsy.

 

[Whatupman]

Not even close to what I'm saying. I'm saying that close friends with a history wouldn't resort to violence to solve conflict at all. There's a stronger basis there for diplomacy. Knowing each other means knowing pressure points, leverage, and all other kinds of ways to reach someone without ever having lashed out in anger or violence. There can be weight to a conflict between friends, but as soon as violence is introduced as a solution, then the weight dissolves. I don't have a problem with heroes using violence to resolve conflicts with villains. Friends? No.

That right there is ridiculous. Close friends with a history wouldn't resort to violence to solve a conflict? Based on what? Not the real world, which you love to bring up. Close friends fight all the time. And you know that domestic violence is a real thing, right?

 

[Flint Marko]

Imagine actually trying to argue, with a straight face, that close friends wouldn't resort to violence to solve conflict simply because you saw it in a comic book movie you didn't like.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Sorry, are we saying, close friends DO resort to violence to resolve 'conflict', rather than say, oh, I don't know, sitting down together to talk the problem through with tact, understanding, dignity, compassion, empathy & the aim of ultimately wanting to protect the other person, as apposed to hitting them or attacking them and hoping that helps, because as someone who has experienced both approaches, I can categorically say being struck by the ex-friend didn't win the 'resolution'.

 

[Superchan]

Moreover, I never felt I truly knew or understood their world. Why would I care that he saved the world? Did he even really save the world? Didn’t he only do it for Lois? Was Doomsday actually going to destroy the planet? Couldn’t Wonder Woman have done exactly what Superman did without the threat of kryptonite weakening her?

BvS is a rancid onion that gets worse and worse the more you peel away, and your attempts to paint it in a better light only make it seem all the more flimsy.

Bingo. The reason why most of audience didn't care about superman's sacrifice is the same reason why most of the audience weren't sympathetic when he wrecked an entire city to beat Zod i.e. Snyder's superman was too mopey, too emo and frankly as flat as f***.
Snyder's DCEU films are equivalent to the SW prequels, horrible abominations that one cannot erase so we just have to accept them as low points in the characters' history and move on to hopefully bigger and better things (fingers crossed).

 

[Flint Marko]

Sorry, are we saying, close friends DO resort to violence to resolve 'conflict', rather than say, oh, I don't know, sitting down together to talk the problem through with tact, understanding, dignity, compassion, empathy & the aim of ultimately wanting to protect the other person, as apposed to hitting them or attacking them and hoping that helps, because as someone who has experienced both approaches, I can categorically say being struck by the ex-friend didn't win the 'resolution'.

Misslane said that close friends do not resort to violence to solve conflicts. Here you are saying that you have done exactly that. I think our point has been proven.

 

[MbJ]

You don't have to care about him.

And because of that his death left no impact whatsoever on me. Compare that to Logan, which had me weeping in the theater because we actually knew the character and the film did a good job actually setting up his sacrifice.

If your audience doesn't care about your protagonist, they're going to have a hard time feeling the impact of their death.

Justin Kroll has some more details on Flashpoint: He says the tone WB is shooting for is that of Iron Man one. Serious and dark when it needs to be, but fun and with a charming, likable lead. He also says Batman will not have a big role, which is why WB was looking at Ben to direct.

He also says the directors have a good relationship with producer Toby Emmerich, and are known for getting movies done without any drama or trouble behind the scenes, even if the end results aren't always good.

It's all in the first 20 minutes or so.

[YT]ihoWw0-EfJQ[/YT]

 

[Mandon Knight]

Misslane said that close friends do not resort to violence to solve conflicts. Here you are saying that you have done exactly that. I think our point has been proven.

I didn't engage the violence, he did, plus the guy was a loop-ball idiot, I think the key point to what's being said is 'close friends'.

 

[Flint Marko]

I didn't engage the violence, he did, plus the guy was a loop-ball idiot, I think the key point to what's being said is 'close friends'.

No, the key point is that making broad, categorically incorrect statements about what human being do or don’t do to refute the logic of a comic book film is ridiculous.

 

[Mandon Knight]

No, the key point is that making broad, categorically incorrect statements about what human being do or don’t do to refute the logic of a comic book film is ridiculous.

You crack on if you wish....

 

[misslane38]

Misslane said that close friends do not resort to violence to solve conflicts. Here you are saying that you have done exactly that. I think our point has been proven.

They key word is SOLVE. The violence won't solve the problem. When violence happens, it usually is indicative that attempts to resolve a problem have broken down and people are now only interested in gaining dominance with one side subdued. It makes sense that friends would fight or be in conflict if their emotions get the better of them or because one becomes convinced that the other person needs to be stopped, but the violence itself can't solve the problem.

For Superman and Batman, a conflict over ideologies cannot be solved with violence, and if they resort to violence it suggests that one or both has become either corrupted or pushed beyond their normal status quo. If they were in their normal state as friends and had their typical philosophies, then where does that leave them after their fight? If they can't change who they are, then the cycle of violence would only repeat.