Justice League New Frontier

[Prison Mike]

I ordered the DVD. Should be here tomorrow and then I can see it! Can't wait to watch it. It looks really good.

 

[Dodger]

Just watched online. outstanding. I loved how they didn't hold back and showed some violence and swearing. Batman, I loved. Sisto did a good job.

My only problem with the movie was the pacing. I feel the final battle went a bit too quickly but hey, that's OK. The movie still rocked.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I was never a huge fan of the original story; I quite liked the idea of the story, but how it was actually told just didn’t click for me, because of the art (which I found unsuited to the subject; it’s hard to take seriously a story where all the women are cherubs) and the crowded, unfocussed story. However, I am a huge fan of the DCAU animation crew, so having them adapting it was a huge plus, and I figured that the need to cut for a 75 minute movie would actually work to the story’s benefit. And, indeed, that’s the case here.

Spoiler

There’s been a lot of characters and scenes excised, but what there is almost qualifies as a photographic/word-by-word reproduction of the book. Cooke was involved in the DCAU (Batman Beyond especially), so his work translates very well to the Timm animated world. On the stuff that was cut, principally:

1. The Challengers, apart from Ace Morgan.
2. Minor cameos in the book are cut down to visual cameos here, including Green Arrow and Adam Strange.
3. In particular, the really dumb scene with all the mystical heroes deciding not to help stop the destruction of the world because this is ‘a new age’ isn’t here, which is a huge plus.
4. The only really notable scene from any of the kept plots that isn’t here is Superman’s visit to Themyscira and his conversation with Diana about leadership; instead, there’s a scene with Lois that addresses basically the same theme.
5. The ‘John Henry’ plot, which is confined to a news report here.
6. The Losers.

The story itself is still basically focussed on Hal and J’onn (it feels even more Hal-centric here than the book, maybe because they cut all the thought monologues, which affects J’onn a lot more than Hal). One of the things that I do credit the book for is writing one of the few versions of J’onn I’ve ever found interesting; conversely, the book-Hal is saddled with some truly horrid dialogue, which is absent here, so that’s another plus for the film.

My one real complaint: incredibly, despite the fact that her part is minor, the DCAU crew finds room to screw up Wonder Woman’s mythos. In the book, the scene where the Centre overwhelms Themyscira is preceded by a snippet of Diana and some other Amazon cheerfully fencing; in the film, the other Amazon is angry with her, says that many of them want "new leadership", and then attacks her. For ****’s sake, people, the DCAU’s botching of the Amazons was already one of the few black marks on the whole enterprise, and you still haven’t found time to actually read any of her comics? Ugh, that does not fill me with hope for the WW animated movie in the works.

 

[C. Lee]

I just finished watching it....absolutely fantastic, I loved it.

 

[Sub-Zero]

should i read the graphic novel before i see the movie?

 

[explode7]

^How about neither?

 

[PeteVenkman]

I bought it as an early birthday present to myself. It was amazing. It's so weird to watch something with characters that i grew up with in present day (the last twenty years) and see them in the context of 50 years ago. The animation was great, almost reminded me of Johnny Quest, if Johnny quest had a top notch budget. It's probably one of, if not, the best "cartoon" movie I've ever seen.

 

[Dr. Fate]

That sucks that they cut Superman visiting Wonder Woman at Themyscira & replaced it with him hanging with Lois, but I guess they did it because they thought it looked "too romantic" between Supes & Di.

 

[C. Lee]

should i read the graphic novel before i see the movie?

I haven't read the GN yet...but thoroughly enjoyed the movie. So I would say that you don't have to read it first.

 

[Noir]

I loved this movie.. This is how a Justice League movie should be done.. The JFK speak at the ending gave me chills

9/10 for not having Doctor Fate.

 

[LostSon88]

My Target only had the single disc...am I missing much when compared to the two-disc?

I don't really listen to commentaries and from what I can tell, the single disc is only missing the "The Legion of Doom" doc.

 

[Joker]

there's a couple other documentaries, and some bonus JLU episodes on the 2-disc.

 

[The Caped Knight]

The movie was Incredible just like the comic book version.

 

[CLARKY]

WOW, only & just WOW!!! The movie rocks !!! I found it better than S : Doomsday. Nevertheless, I found that the movie did cut too many things from the comic book. It go straight to the goal : defeating the Centre.
The actors were good, effects and animation too. Sometimes it had a feeling of old cartoon, I regret there were not more things like this.
To be honest I'm not entirely satisfied with the movie, but it is still truely excellent.

 

[Ghostrider87]

I am getting it today from Best Buy. It should excellent and there will be a lot of screen time from Hal Jordan.

 

[Sub-Zero]

just saw it. pretty good. aside from wonder woman's cheesy one liners at the end. much, much better than superman:doomsday(and that's coming from a superman fan). can't wait for gotham knight.

 

[The Guard]

Watched it On Demand last night, and I'm really glad I didn't purchase it. Given the potential of the source material, there's just not much there to cheer about in the final product. It was a bit more mature (or at least it tried to be) than the average animated product, and that was interesting to see.

I've never been a huge fan of the storyline for The New Frontier (I think it's very simplistic and very random), so I may be a bit biased, but The Centre was just cheesy and poorly developed, and having Keith David give it a human voice didn't help.

The voice acting, with the exception of Jeremy Sisto's Batman and the voice actor for Superman, was mediocre at best. Lucy Lawless was ridiculously over the top as Wonder Woman, and almost every single other voice actor was off the mark, pretty much soundling like they were reading their lines or simply not giving a damn about their roles. Absolutely hated David Boreanaz's nigh emotionless, very one note Hal Jordan in most of his scenes.

The animation ranged from fantastic to terrible. The power usages were pretty inconsistent, the flights looked just terrible, and the capes looked even worse. Someone needs to explain to some of these animators that people do not always close their eyes and smile like anime characters when they cheer or applaud.

The action sequences were nothing impressive after what we've seen from previous Justice League animated projects. I was left feeling like someone dropped the ball at some point.

There were some moments I enjoyed, mostly the throwback character designs and nods to things like the JSA, and moments with Batman, Superman, Hal Jordan finding Abin Sur and Green Lantern VS The Centre, but overall, the project just felt...scattered. At least SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY had some decent emotion and animation/action to it.

 

[explode7]

^Well if you think that is bad you should go watch the avengers.

 

[The Guard]

I have. ULTIMATE AVENGERS was easily a better all around effort. Better animation, better acting, more interesting dialogue, you name it.

 

[Dread]

After months of eager anticipation after some good trailers, JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER hit store shelves yesterday (as a normal release and a 2-disc special addition that's maybe $5 more) and if I can gauge my ancedotal account, this will sell very well. I went to a BEST BUY store in the heart of Manhattan in the early afternoon (before 3:30 p.m.) and the 2-disc special edition was already sold out, and by the time I finished plucking a DVD off the shelf, 2-3 other guys had already done likewise. I haven't seen a comic based DTV selling this well since the original ULTIMATE AVENGERS. Naturally, with Bruce Timm & Co. behind the production and with Darwyn Cooke himself involved in the production, we expected an instant classic.

My first gut reaction after seeing it? This was a good film that was utterly cheated out of timeless greatness by a low running time. As it is, it is A-/B+ quality. Had it been allowed more time, it could have easily been an A+ translation.

I actually read the comic book version of the story, which is titled DC: THE NEW FRONTIER, last year in anticipation of this tale. That title is accurate because while it does focus on various characters like Hal Jordon, J'onn, and so on, it really encompasses a wide range of the DCU of the Silver Age. It was a story where more of the enjoyment for me was in the details and the style than in the actual plot. Cooke's attention to detail and handling both comic book and real life elements from the 50's era was incredible. Working in themes of racism and McCarthyism alongside the costumes and aliens and dinosaurs really made it click, along with the strong character focus on Hal, Barry, and J'onn. Cooke's immediate reaction to hearing about this animated project was, according to a teaser blurb, "there is NO WAY they could tell this story in so short a time frame", or words to that effect.

Essentially, he is correct.

At 75 minutes, the story basically grinds through a CLIFF'S NOTES version of the story, scaling down many scenes to the bare bones and eliminating a lot of the spare elements meant for mood, or details about lessor characters (The Losers sequence that opens the comic is completely eliminated for instance, with only Faraday's death scene homaging it, and other bits pop up in title sequences). More than some stories, NEW FRONTIER was a tale where the devil really IS in the details and without them, you have a good, fun adventure story, but it isn't quite the same. Because, boiled down, the plot is fairly generic; various heroes and government people team up against all odds to destroy an alien menace before it kills the planet. NEW FRONTIER was about more than that simple plot, but without a second to spare for that sort of thing, the animated movie is forced to be more blunt and concise and while I enjoyed it, it just didn't have that OOMPH I got from some of the comic. I am also curious how those who hadn't read the comic would react to this bare bones treatment; I could imagine some 13 year old kid who hasn't read it going, "ULTIMATE AVENGERS had more action" and dismissing it.

The fact that the running time is so short is one of those areas where the execs at WB that approve these things simply do not get it. 75 minutes is naturally the "golden time" for a DTV so it can be re-aired on some network and only require a 90 minute block (15 minutes worth of commercials). However, these DTV's are intended for an older audience and the language alone will prevent it from airing on CN unless they really bend some standards. If these are meant to be standalone movies to appeal to older fans, then they need to be MOVIES and not snippets barely longer than 3 episodes of a TV show. Disney & Pixar have gotten movie audiences used to longer animated movies. THE INCREDIBLES, CARS, and RATATOUILLE all bordered close to the two hour mark. Even Marvel LG's DTV's, which are hardly as classic as some of the Timm material, started getting it right with their later releases, inching closer to the 90 minute marker and even surpassing it (if the box to DOCTOR STRANGE is to be believed). At 75 minutes, JL:NF is packed to the gills and hardly any scene or character has room to breathe. The fact that despite all this the movie is still enjoyable says something about the devotion of the production team and actors chosen.

Despite the low running time, there were some notable changes to the core storyline, basically to allow Batman and Superman at least one extra scene than they had in the comic version, if not several. This I am sure was done for corporate reasons, as Batman & Superman are the biggest stars DC has. Batman especially, as his movie/TV franchise is the healthiest of any DC character right now. Since the film had to rely more on the actual plot, more effort was made to connect The Centre to the other superheroes via having him "posess" the various villains they are fighting, such as Captain Cold for Flash or that cult-leader for Batman & J'onn in Gotham. It was awkward at first but it helped connect things together since this was the basic plot so I felt it worked out. Some scenes were negated or altered; the scene with Hal as a kid is completely gone and I think that was a bad call, but again, with only 75 minutes, what can you do? Rather than meeting Batman with Gordon via the Batsignal to give him the data on The Centre before trying to rocket home, J'onn managed to invade the Batcave. J'onn in particular relies more on shapechanging and his density/invisibility powers than strength, much as he did in JL/U, as Timm naturally seeks to separate him from Superman, and I always am down for that. The biggest addition was including Batman in the final battle and having him come up with some of the plans; in the comic Batman is absent from the main story after his meeting with Superman (with Robin in tow). Again, as the WB approved this story more than likely because it had Justice League characters in it, it was probably estimated quickly to include "The big three" in the final battle, even if Superman seemingly takes a powder rather quickly. Naturally Ray Palmer, Green Arrow, and Adam Strange take part in the final battle but much like everything else, even their cameos are chopped down (Green Arrow has no lines of dialogue, for instance, and the scene of Hal training as GL in the desert is omitted, another bad call for me). Faraday also isn't present in Central City for the trap to arrest Flash, which eliminated the need for a "meeting" between the pair later. Damn that run-time. One could go on and on about what was cut and altered, and I bet Cooke may have done so on his commentary track.

Naturally, the narration from the characters is gone, which in a way made it odd to watch compared to the comic. SIN CITY was perhaps the best example of translating comic narration into a media adaption and doing it well. Of course, hey, that movie was long enough to do the job, wasn't it? Another HUGE omission, beyond the Wildcat fight, was the John Henry subplot. In fact, this film cut out the racial tension bit almost altogether. They kept the focus on the Cold War era paranoia but eliminated the race issue, which I felt was a huge mistake. All Henry gets is a footnote mention. Again, every issue you point to, and it all comes back to, "they didn't have the time."

The animation models do a great job of trying to capture Cooke's style, although they do have more angular elements, which seems to be Timm's thing. More straight lines and points and whatnot than Cooke did. But the core elements of his style are present in every design, and it is even clearer that Wonder Woman is slightly taller than Superman in NF, which is a detail I always liked (as well as her nickname for him, "spaceman"). The animation quality is better than many episodes of JLU and that's fine for a DTV. Some of the Flash running bits looked a little awkward but aside for that everything looked peachy. Flash's eyebrows did get somewhat distracting but aside for that, everything looked good, especially Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, J'onn, and Green Lantern himself.

The casting is top notch for over 95% of it; casting Keith David as The Centre was a mark of genius by Andrea Romano, and he totally nailed that role. Naturally, animation voiceover regulars like Lex Lang, Corey Burton, and Townsend Coleman all get roles to play, but the rest of the cast has done more sparse voice acting roles but they by and large do the job quite well. I will say that I didn't care for Jeremy Sisto's Batman; yes, I know after nearly 15 years of Kevin Conroy it is hard for anyone to step into the cowl, but Rino Romano and Ron Perlman have voiced the character since in various areas and I haven't minded them. Sisto acted well, I just thought he was a bit miscast, TOO gravelly. David Boreanaz is perfect as Hal Jordon naturally and Neil Patrick Harris does great as The Flash, which I figured he would having done Spider-Man a few years ago (The MTV series). Much ado was made of Lucy Lawless voicing Wonder Woman considering she often comes into the running for live action versions and by and large her performance was good; she said some lines with more gusto than was needed but that's just niggling really. Kyle MacLachlan's Superman sounded great too, perfect for the 50's era and perhaps a little beyond (I am unsure whether I preferred him to Adam Baldwin, who voiced Superman in SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY or not). From Brooke Shields to Kyra Sedgwick (who last worked with Timm on MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN, the last Batman animated material for the "Timmverse" that was made), the cast is stellar. Miguel Ferrer's J'onn naturally is worth mentioning. As always, Andrea Romano knows how to cast a...uh, cast. The little bump with Sisto isn't a major thing with me.

I bought the basic DVD so the only extras were a JUSTICE LEAGUE featurette that was about twice as long as any of the ones on Marvel LG features, a sneak peak at BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS (which I call "The Batiatrix" as it basically has the same format as THE ANIMATRIX a few years ago), and two commentary tracks. Even for a non-special edition, that's more extras than Marvel's DTV's offer, and is almost on par with the HELLBOY ANIMATED DTV's (which are ALWAYS loaded with great stuff). Naturally the 2-disc special edition has more stuff as well as 3 episodes of JLU on it, which is more than worth the few extra bucks if you feel like nabbing it. The WB used to charge $19.99 for 3-4 episodes of JLU alone, if one recalls.

Finally, when I watched SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY, it became very clear to me that Timm & Co. didn't care for the original DEATH OF SUPERMAN storyline and thus didn't feel obligated to translate it terribly faithfully, doing about 70% of their own thing with it, even if that meant rehashing some Bizarro episodes of S:TAS. JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER on the other hand shows a passionate love for the source material, with as many scenes and lines from the comic translated as humanly possible. That is why it pains me so much that the low run time ripped a lot of the soul out of Cooke's work here. Had Timm & Co. BEEN given an extra 15-30 minutes, I am sure it would have been legendary, or at least better. It is about time the WB was willing to put the time and money into making these things as long as an actual movie and not barely longer than an infomercial. Every animated DTV has been creeping towards and past the 90 minute mark and it is time that WB does so as well. I mean, could anyone imagine KINGDOM COME in 75 minutes? Because I sure as hell wouldn't want to.

Still, this is easily better than BATMAN: SUBZERO, or BRAINIAC ATTACKS, or some other of the DC DTV's. Parts of SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY jazzed me more but only because of the violence and the "WTF crazy stuff is coming next?" factor, as this was more predictable; overall this is a better product than S: D even if it is very different.

Had this bordered on 2 hours like CARS, I am sure this would be in the pantheon of DTV's or Western animation to begin with. As is, it is a satisfying plain hamburger instead of one with all the proper fixin's. It is very good but kept from greatness by the low run time. In a perfect world I'd love for another edition, a "director's cut" to emerge with another half hour, more scenes and whatnot, but I doubt that. For 75 minutes, this is the best NEW FRONTIER could have been. The opening and endings were particularly memorable with stellar use of music. Can't go wrong with that.

 

[explode7]

I have. ULTIMATE AVENGERS was easily a better all around effort. Better animation, better acting, more interesting dialogue, you name it.

Well thats your opinion. I think the avengers sucked a whole heap of donkey balls especially Avengers 2. And dont even get me started on that crap fest The Invincible Iron Man.

 

[The Guard]

I will agree with one thing said here. The running time had a huge effect on the film. Those "little moments" were missed.

 

[Prison Mike]

I just saw it and thought it was great. I haven't read the graphic novel so I came into this movie knowing virtually nothing about the plot. I was pleasantly surprised with the story and I loved that they showed some violence and blood and also swearing. The only thing I wasn't sure about was Batman. His voice seems off, like it wasn't organic like the rest of the characters. Also, everytime Hal spoke, I just kept thinking about Angel (David Boreanaz). So I guess the familiarity of his voice took me away from the character. The rest of the cast was great. The voice for Superman was perfect and I liked how the big three already knew each other and worked with each other (so we don't waste time with their introductions). The final battle scene was a bit short for my liking and Superman wasn't in it enough at the end. Overall, the movie was great and I enjoyed it more than Superman Doomsday. I would give this movie a B+.

 

[Hush]

I bought my copy at Best Buy and got a box set thingy with a Green Lantern Figurine, and the 2 disc set. FOR 20 BUCKS! talk about a steal! I thought the movie was great for what it was and some of the classic lines from the book were kept in such as Batman threatening Jo'nn, I wish though that The Challengers and The Losers would have made the cut. I also wanted the Wildcat fight, see my sig. I mean we all will complain about something we all wanted and we won't get them simple as that. I for one am happy we atleast got a NF movie i mean yeah was it missing some of the BEST comic bok panels ever created,yes, but we also got one of the most beloved comic book stories faithfully adapted. I agree with Dread 100% on his full review. Maybe this is the one story that deserved that 2 hour run time. Im a huge fan of the book and i could go on all day complainig about the inaccuracies and the cuts but i mean in the end its all good we got the NF and thats what we wanted. Kingdom COme I hope is next after Judas Contract, Gotham Night and Wonder Woman. IM not at all excited for Wonder Woman and Gotham Night has slightly peaked my interest. After Kingdom Come I hope for Hush hopefully or maybe Superman/Batman:Public Enemies. I give this 8/10 cause it blows S/D out of the water.

 

[modelnut]

Been a long time since I lurked or posted. I just wanted to see if anybody saw the same DVD I did.

Very disappointing. They gutted the book for the sake of time.

And having Batman running around in the daytime just doesn't work. He added nothing to the showdown with the Center and lost a perfectly good plane.

It is hard to believe that the same people involved in the excellent "Justice League" series also produced this blank-blank-blank.

BTW I thought the DC: Final Frontier graphic novel was one of the best since the original Dark Knight Returns. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course but that is mine.

-Leelan