Ive changed my mind on The CW-verse being connected to the films. It should NOT be connected, in my opinion, because The CW-verse is getting to the point where its nearly the most perfect live action representation of a superhero universe ever. It all boils down to how The Flash will do, but its looking so promising that Im seriously considering it as better than anything the film medium can do in general (Warner Brothers or Marvel Studios no company bias here, both studios equally). Im starting to wonder if television is the way to go for this genre.
If you were to take every superhero film ever made (less than 100 films?), write each movie individually on a piece of paper, put them all in a hat and draw a film at random, you could make a legitimately sound argument as to why Arrow is better than that film. Thats because most of the films in the genre arent good.
If you look at the two seasons of Arrow, which are a total of 46 episodes for the series so far, thats 46 episodes times approximately 42 minutes per episode; weve gotten over 32 hours of Green Arrow in live action. Thats more hours than Spider-Man or Iron Man, and arguably Superman and Batman if you only look at the films. For those who complained about The Flash not being adapted to live action, by the time the first season is over, we will have gotten 16 hours of The Flash
roughly the equivalent of 8 films.
Yet for Batman vs. Superman, we will have waited over two years to sit in a theater and see a movie that will be approximately two hours. Two YEARS for two HOURS. And half of you people will HATE that film. Arrows got 32 hours within two years. The Flash will be connected to that universe with an additional 16, and were not yet counting the potential second season of The Flash, nor the guaranteed third season of Arrow. Its more than the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
My point is, I feel like the films are losing their way, both DC and Marvel. Were looking at 100 million, 150 million, 200 MILLION dollar budgets, for films that arent THAT much better than what were getting on television. Do the over-extended CGI sequences matter THAT much to you? If not, television can be the answer. Is the quality of acting THAT much better? If not, television can be the answer. Are the talents of Andrew Garfield, Gal Gadot, Chris Hemsworth THAT much higher in quality than Grant Gustin or Stephen Amell? If not, television can be the answer. 200 million dollars is more than the two seasons of Arrow COMBINED, and thats the budget of one film.
Im not citing the hours of these shows as automatically being of a higher quality than films
but the whole purpose of these characters was to have continuing stories that lasted a long time. There can be extended arcs on television, even more than a trilogy. You can know and explore characters for longer periods of time than films ever can. What you cant get in CGI spectacle is made up for with compelling stories. Stories are why these characters have survived so long in the first place.
Lets face it: comic books are soap operas for dudes. And thats EXACTLY why The CW is hitting it out of the park. Theyre taking the very foundation of comic books and making it exactly that. They are serials. They are soaps. They are continuing, seemingly never-ending stories
as they SHOULD be. They are comic books in live action. Each episode of Arrow is like a single issue of a comic book, whereas we just finished Issue #46 (episode 46). Movies cant do that.
Movies have an impossible task of taking 70+ years of comic book history and making ONE, two-hour film that is the all-encompassing interpretation of all those decades. The Dark Knight Rises tried to incorporate the Knightfall saga, which is roughly 73+ issues, into a two-hour movie that also represented Frank Millers The Dark Knight Returns as well as No Mans Land. Chances are, youre either going to use 5% of that material, or youre going to cram so much stuff that it just irritates anyone with knowledge of the material. Im not criticizing Nolans work (I love the trilogy dearly), but the very act of adapting any of this stuff to film is going to automatically start with the process of cutting and chopping. People will be unhappy.
Television has that challenge too
but not as much. Arrow has incorporated an INSANE amount of comic material, while even making room for inventing new characters out of thin air. Its extraordinary. I realize the Batman archives have more material to choose from, but still.
My other point is, is this genre so prestigious and so high-art that it NEEDS to have these bloated, ridiculous budgets? Maybe Im crazy, but the comic book was envisioned as a rag, a funny book, a throw-away magazine, like a TV Guide, or a People Magazine, or a National Enquirer, that you could fold up, roll up into your back pocket, spill chocolate milk on it
and when you were done reading it, you THREW IT AWAY BECAUSE IT WAS TRASH. It was trash art. Now its turned into this endeavor where a movie fails because it didnt follow the interpretation of Issue #689 of Blah-Blah-Blah. Its nuts. If anything, a medium like television is the most appropriate way to represent the genre. Its cheap, its simple, its indefinite as opposed to a single film, and you keep coming back week to week for the next installment just like a comic book. And then you throw it away and move on to the next story, just like a soap opera.
Anyway, my overall thesis here is that I wouldnt connect the shows to the films, because the shows have the potential to be better in the long run. And the total hours of content in live action shouldnt turn into a Quantity vs. Quality debate, because the shows are clearly showing a higher quality than a LOT of films in the genre (in my opinion).
