BvS David S. Goyer IS the Script Writer! - Part 2

[DA_Champion]

By the way, why does everyone instantly believes in Captain America, a fugitive, when he announces that SHIELD is being controled by Hydra. And why does a member of the council demands Pierce´s arrest without proof of anything? Did i miss something?

I think it's a metaphor for how the audience is willing to accept the ridiculous plot.

Captain America was so similar to any other Marvel movie that i can´t believe everybody is talking about it as something completely revolutionary.

I gave the movie a high rating but I'm beginning to think you're right. What the movie benefits from in my opinion, is that it's the first Marvel movie with good cinematography, and second, that the jokes are actually funny. That second point may sound trivial, but hearing jokes that were actually funny was a refreshing change after Thor 2 and Iron Man 3. The technical craftsmanship in putting this movie together was very strong.

However, the plot of the movie, the premise, the villain... all of it get a failing grade.

lol so the idea of an offshoot of nazi's infiltrating the CIA is stupid.

Indeed.

Considering Operation Paperclip was a real thing. Considering the CIA have trained and armed countless "terrorists" and enemies how is it stupid?

Given that you know how to turn on your computer and log on to this website, I doubt that you actually believe that the existence of Operation Paperclip or the arming of Afghans in the 1980s demonstrates the plausibility of Nazi takeover of the United States in 2014.

******************************

Anyway, we're off-topic. If somebody wants to discuss a more direct comparison between Goyer's writing and that of the CA:TWS, and audience reactions, I'm game, but otherwise we should stop here.

 

[PacificBoy]

Given that you know how to turn on your computer and log on to this website, I doubt that you actually believe that the existence of Operation Paperclip or the arming of Afghans in the 1980s demonstrates the plausibility of Nazi takeover of the United States in 2014.

C'mon man, you're better than this straw man bull.

 

[The Endless]

The plausibility of an alien invasion by humanoids who speak perfect English who want to exterminate all life to terraform it is also stupid and actually, much more cliche. It's a typical alien invasion movie except it's Kryptonians. Especially considering the world MoS is set in is much more similar to ours than the MCU's world, which from the start has clearly been intended as an alternate reality with more advanced tech etc. Yet you're criticising TWS because it's plot is about an offshoot of nazi's infiltrating the MCU's super spy agency and using it's resources and power to destabilise the world and assassinate key poltical figures.

Audience and critical reactions speak for themselves.

You don't see many people complaining about the overkill destruction and CGI fest at the end of TWS. You see loads of people complaining about the overkill destruction and CGI fest at the end of MoS.

Why is that?

Evidently more people give a **** about the important things (characters, story) in TWS so their minds aren't drawn to other things, namely the overkill destruction and CGI extravaganza.

Why is that?

Because evidently the characterisation and story in TWS is more engaging than the characterisation and story in MoS.

 

[DA_Champion]

C'mon man, you're better than this straw man bull.

His argument was as follows:

1) The Americans recruited the best Nazi scientists;
2) The CIA armed Afghans in the 1980s;
3) Therefore, it is plausible that a Nazi secret society could take over the US government in 2014.

Sorry, no. I don't believe that he really buys it. He's pretending to believe it, convincing himself that he believes it, because he doesn't want to let go of the illusion that CA:TWS was a literary masterpiece.

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

a movie with a better script can still be less enjoyable than a movie with a worse script because the script is not the only factor of enjoyment.

 

[The Endless]

His argument was as follows:

1) The Americans recruited the best Nazi scientists;
2) The CIA armed Afghans in the 1980s;
3) Therefore, it is plausible that a Nazi secret society could take over the US government in 2014.

Sorry, no. I don't believe that he really buys it. He's pretending to believe it, convincing himself that he believes it, because he doesn't want to let go of the illusion that CA:TWS was a literary masterpiece.

I never said TWS was a literary masterpiece. And you have simplified my points to a ridiculous degree. And i don't know how many times i must say this, Hydra never took over the US government. They took over a spy agency.

My point was, in terms of a fictional action movie set in an alternate universe, i don't think it's that far fetched that an offshoot of the nazi's could infiltrate a super spy agency and use it's resources to their gains. Explain to me why that is any more ridiculous than an alien takeover by humanoids who speak perfect English? Considering the tone of MoS is much more serious and the world it is set in is much more grounded. You're being disingenuous.

I brought up the CIA arming, funding and training it's own enemies because the plot of TWS is a pretty clear allegory for security agencies creating terrorist threats to gain funding and to gain more power.

What was the plot of MoS again? Alien invaders want to exterminate all life on Earth so they can terraform it. Oh wow, how inspired and plausible!

 

[PacificBoy]

His argument was as follows:

1) The Americans recruited the best Nazi scientists;
2) The CIA armed Afghans in the 1980s;
3) Therefore, it is plausible that a Nazi secret society could take over the US government in 2014.

Sorry, no. I don't believe that he really buys it. He's pretending to believe it, convincing himself that he believes it, because he doesn't want to let go of the illusion that CA:TWS was a literary masterpiece.

I leave you and The Endless to work out this particular argument but what I'm saying is that you don't need to resort to what's basically petty insult to make your point. You have shown that you don't need to.

And who's saying CA:TWS is a literary masterpiece?

Anyway, agree with you, my last word here, we're taking over the Goyer as writer thread with the TWS chat.

 

[The Endless]

a movie with a better script can still be less enjoyable than a movie with a worse script because the script is not the only factor of enjoyment.

Of course not. But the TWS script is in my opinion much stronger than the MoS script. In terms of characterisation and story. It seems the majority of critics and audiences agree.

A lot of people were excited and engaged by the finale of TWS. A lot of people were bored and weary of the finale of MoS. It's because they don't give a **** about the characters or the story.

That's all i'm saying.

 

[DA_Champion]

The plausibility of an alien invasion by humanoids who speak perfect English who want to exterminate all life to terraform it is also stupid and actually, much more cliche. It's a typical alien invasion movie except it's Kryptonians. Especially considering the world MoS is set in is much more similar to ours than the MCU's world, which from the start has clearly been intended as an alternate reality with more advanced tech etc. Yet you're criticising TWS because it's plot is about an offshoot of nazi's infiltrating the MCU's super spy agency and using it's resources and power to destabilise the world and assassinate key poltical figures.

Audience and critical reactions speak for themselves.

You don't see many people complaining about the overkill destruction and CGI fest at the end of TWS. You see loads of people complaining about the overkill destruction and CGI fest at the end of MoS.

Why is that?

Evidently more people give a **** about the important things (characters, story) in TWS so their minds aren't drawn to other things, namely the overkill destruction and CGI extravaganza.

Why is that?

Because evidently the characterisation and story in TWS is more engaging than the characterisation and story in MoS.

I'm not arguing that Goyer's script for MoS was vastly superior to the script for CA:TWS. I think they're of comparable quality. Like I said on the previous page, TWS has better jokes and less clunky dialogue, MoS has a better villain, a more coherent plot, and I think it has more of an arc for the main character, but I'm not sure, I'd have to think more about the last point.

As for critical and audience reactions, they're worth what they're worth, they're not the absolute proof you claim them to be. I won't bother to list the counterexamples here, you've heard them before and quite frankly I should not need to remind you.

It is good of you to acknowledge the similarity in the climaxes of MoS and CA:TWS. Let's compare and contrast:
- Both Washington and Metropolis are heavily damaged, tens of thousands of people are probably dead;
- Neither movie really acknowledges this;
- Steve Rogers saves the world by sticking a USB stick into the aircraft carrier that he got from Fury. Lois Lane saves the world by sticking a USB stick into Clark's baby carriage that she got from Jor-El;
- Agent Fury kills Alexander Pierce, Superman kills Zod;

It's mostly similar. The main difference I see is that in MoS, Zod was committing suicide, there was that added significant layer of depth.

 

[The Endless]

I won't argue that Zod was the superior villain.

I wouldn't say Washington is nearly as damaged. The Helicarriers went down in the sea and into the SHIELD building. But the fact that it is the US capital and therefore we are already invested in it, gives an advantage over Metropolis. The DC of TWS FEELS like a real city. Metropolis? It's just some fictional CGI city that hasn't had any characterisation of it's own. Why should i care if it gets destroyed? It's like the generic CGI cities of Bay's Transformers films. Seeing skyscrapers getting levelled is visually shocking. But again, why should i give a crap? If i'm not invested in the characters, the story or the world it's set in, the greatest CGI in the world won't interest me for longer than 5 minutes.

 

[Space Ghost]

Again, Agent 13 and others questioned it. It took a direct order from a high-ranker to drown the protests. The council wasn't even in the picture because it's an internal affair. Cap is a national hero AND a SHIELD agent. HYDRA was pulling the strings behind the scenes as well under the guise of national security, closing down lines of communication.

By the end, Agent 13 and others seemed pretty predisposed to go against high-ranker orders.

The council certainly knew about what was happening. Not only the council, but the entire country, since they were having fights and being chased in broad daylight. And Nick Fury was attacked by guys disguised as police officers and SWAT team and nobody gave a damn about that. That issue wasn´t even addressed. What happened was no mystery. It happened in broad daylight. Yet, nobody got involved. No FBI, no CIA, nothing. The subject isn´t even addressed. He simply gets attacked by cops and that´s it.

Pierce used the truth/facts of the situation against Cap: that Cap was hiding something about Fury's death and was on the run. If anything, it's a great example of good writing.

Not really. He didn´t use any known facts. He had a private conversation with Steve and decided he was hiding something. Then he ordered an attack in the building, wich is also a little dumb.

If you rewatch the scene during Cap's speech, you can see the council members turning to Pierce when Cap said he's the HYDRA leader and see Pierce cocking his head in acknowledgement

Yeah, if you´re being accused of something like that by a fugitive, you just confirm it.

His plan was not well carried and well protected, wich only makes me believe non of these people would have been smart enough to fool an entire country for years. That´s why i call it bad writing. Nothing seems credible to me.

Well, I'd agree it's somewhat lazy in that it's delivered in the form of an exposition dump. It's probably the most out-of-place scene, but it's done so for pure comic-book, pulp sensibility's sake. It's hardly dumb because it references a very real-life event in Operation Paperclip.

It probably was done because it was easy to do. Taking the easy route is a great example of bad writing.

Not a fair statement since a lot of your gripes have been explained

Not really. Most of the problems i have with the movie are still here. You would have to remake the movie in order to make them go away.

I enjoyed the movie, but it´s simply not outstanding, IMO. The plot is simple, mediocre and full of laziness. Some characters lack proper development. The movie has pretty big problems. That doesn´t stop it from being entertaining. But if people wanna talk about greatness and being "ground breaking", it´s important to address certain issues.

I just feel that Marvel covers a lot of it´s problems with cheesy humour, excess of fireworks, good looking characters and light storytelling. So if things don´t make sense, you can just ignore them and be entertained by two good looking superheroes talking about what they had for breakfast.

But because i don´t get easily impressed by superficial elements, i tend to require a little more from the plot.

 

[PacificBoy]

Right. Obviously I disagree with most of what you said but I think going further will bog this thread more. Cheers for the responses anyway. Always nice to hear a non-fan's perspective.

 

[DA_Champion]

I won't argue that Zod was the superior villain.

I wouldn't say Washington is nearly as damaged. The Helicarriers went down in the sea and into the SHIELD building. But the fact that it is the US capital and therefore we are already invested in it, gives an advantage over Metropolis. The DC of TWS FEELS like a real city. Metropolis? It's just some fictional CGI city that hasn't had any characterisation of it's own. Why should i care if it gets destroyed? It's like the generic CGI cities of Bay's Transformers films. Seeing skyscrapers getting levelled is visually shocking. But again, why should i give a crap? If i'm not invested in the characters, the story or the world it's set in, the greatest CGI in the world won't interest me for longer than 5 minutes.

You say that we shouldn't care for Metropolis, yet, people cared, they were horrified by the destruction even though they've seen vastly more destruction before in other movies before. From that it's clear that Snyder/Goyer were able to assign some characterisation and thus value to Metropolis, even if we've failed to identify what devices they used to do so. I think what they did is that they made Metropolis into New York, which is the case historically (statue of liberty showed up in Superman 1978), and everybody cares about New York.

In contrast, nobody feels bad about the levelling of Washington in CA:TWS. It's called Washington but it doesn't feel like Washington. Shield headquarters is based there, but not much else. There's a mutiny in plain sight and only SHIELD can deal with that mutiny. It's kind of ... ghost town version of Washington.

It's very hard to build a sense of place, to build a setting, I guess.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

I don't feel the setting was very established in DC either, probably only as much as Metropolis, I can't immediately recall any civilians and their reactions to the helicarriers going online.

But SHIELD was established, as was the Triskelion, and that was what was destroyed. Had it only been the Planet that was completely destroyed in Man of Steel, it would have had more of a connection. The Smallville fight had more emotional weight to the setting.

 

[Marvin]

Of course not. But the TWS script is in my opinion much stronger than the MoS script. In terms of characterisation and story. It seems the majority of critics and audiences agree.

A lot of people were excited and engaged by the finale of TWS. A lot of people were bored and weary of the finale of MoS. It's because they don't give a **** about the characters or the story.

That's all i'm saying.

That's not actually all you are saying, you're taking it a step further and adding some inferences at your discretion.

When you say things like "..it's because they don't..." you are stepping into a fickle territory.
Whomever it is that was 'bored' during the end fight of man steel could have been so due to a whole assortment of reasons beyond the ones you are choosing to bestow. For example, in TWS, the writers had the foresight to have cap [BLACKOUT]put the uber usb into the slot[/BLACKOUT] mid fight so the tangible tension could remain high throughout the fight. MOS decided to have the 'bomb' shut off before the fight began. Both of these approaches have the pros and cons(a lovely discussion), but what's of note is how such circumstance affects 'boredom' or rather the tension of the conflicts. At the very least it's worth noting. Now all that is thrown out the window in favor of your, and I paraphrase 'well people agree with me on this because of characterization... etc, and the critics(score) and audience..etc are proof. No, next you will be saying the lighting in TWS was better and critics and audiences agree based on..

Secondly, alot of critics and people on the internet say they were 'bored' of the finales in the TF films(1&3). Hardly a solid indicator of the greater truth imo. Especially when you have alot more going on in terms of agenda.

Thirdly, the way I understand it; the issue wasn't about if cap does it better, it was about the fact that the film also ends in a [BLACKOUT]mindless cgi extravaganza with countless, nameless lives snuffed and explosions and a literally 'mindless' villain, zany plot, no mass funeral thingy..etc [/BLACKOUT]That the presence of that out doesn't disqualify it from it's game changing epithets. The finale of TDK for example is very much a different thing in terms of villain motivation, cgi extravag....

Just saying.
I like both films but I'm more convinced of the double standard now then last year. They both need to do better imo.

EMH did a brainwashed TWS wayyyy better imo. Just cause he'd being used doesn't mean he's a mindless brute. There is a far greater opportunity for intimacy and making it personal when the villain can muster and even utter their motivation to us/the hero.

It's also worth noting Caps sits at a 7.5 avg vs the 6.2 mos has, with a fraction of the reviews counted(and my personal favorite), a few films under it's belt for audience acclimation, not quite the sweep people are making it out to be imo.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Winter Soldier could have been done better. I think most people going in would have expected him to be the villain, but it turns out he was just the vehicle that moved the plot along. An extra 10 or so minutes could have vastly improved him.

 

[MrsKent26]

A lot of people were excited and engaged by the finale of TWS. A lot of people were bored and weary of the finale of MoS. It's because they don't give a **** about the characters or the story.

That's all i'm saying.

That's all? That's a lot of generalization.

 

[Space Ghost]

Right. Obviously I disagree with most of what you said but I think going further will bog this thread more. Cheers for the responses anyway. Always nice to hear a

non-fan's

perspective.

I paid to watch all Marvel movies, so i can consider myself a fan. But to enjoy a movie and to think it is a ground breaking piece of art are two different things, IMO.

 

[Boy Scout]

Spoiler tags exist for a reason, guys.

 

[PacificBoy]

I paid to watch all Marvel movies, so i can consider myself a fan. But to enjoy a movie and to think it is a ground breaking piece of art are two different things, IMO.

Ah, consider me corrected then. I enjoyed the heck out of the movie but hardly think it's a groundbreaking piece of art. Don't think anyone has said that really.

 

[Space Ghost]

Ah, consider me corrected then. I enjoyed the heck out of the movie but hardly think it's a groundbreaking piece of art. Don't think anyone has said that really.

I´ve seen the words ground breaking, fantastic, amazing, outstanding, game changing being used very often.

 

[PacificBoy]

I´ve seen the words ground breaking, fantastic, amazing, outstanding, game changing being used very often.

True but hardly saying a masterpiece of art.

 

[snpklsdmbldr]

people tends to exaggerate (good and bad) right after watching any movie. give it some time.

 

[Jumpman]

I won't argue that Zod was the superior villain.

I wouldn't say Washington is nearly as damaged. The Helicarriers went down in the sea and into the SHIELD building. But the fact that it is the US capital and therefore we are already invested in it, gives an advantage over Metropolis. The DC of TWS FEELS like a real city. Metropolis? It's just some fictional CGI city that hasn't had any characterisation of it's own. Why should i care if it gets destroyed? It's like the generic CGI cities of Bay's Transformers films. Seeing skyscrapers getting levelled is visually shocking. But again, why should i give a crap? If i'm not invested in the characters, the story or the world it's set in, the greatest CGI in the world won't interest me for longer than 5 minutes.

You lost the argument right there if you're comparing the villains in TWS to Man of Steel.

It's not a good argument to start.

EDIT: Read it wrong. Sorry.

 

[Lencho01]

Spoiler tags exist for a reason, guys.

Spoiler

Superman is Clark Kent!