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Author Topic: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice  (Read 282980 times)
HaemishM
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Reply #1295 on: April 13, 2016, 08:29:24 PM

David Goyer was writing the meeting agenda.  why so serious?

Khaldun
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Reply #1296 on: June 22, 2016, 06:02:20 AM

Somebody really, really does not get it.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/06/zack-snyder-set-justice-league.html


I love the quote on Wonder Woman's costume--she's allowed to have a bright color because it's the "congealed blood of thousands of her victims".

More importantly, you can just see in this piece and the others that have been filed about this set visit that Snyder is struggling to understand unfamiliar things like "humor" and "fun". (In the io9 piece on the set visit, they quote one of the other people working on the film saying that they learned that people don't like to see heroes "deconstructed": meaning it's our fault for not understand the great man's Art.)
Jeff Kelly
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Reply #1297 on: June 22, 2016, 06:21:37 AM

He just has a real boner for Watchmen and thinks that every piece of comic book content has to follow its template.
HaemishM
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Reply #1298 on: June 22, 2016, 07:20:56 AM

The red in Wonder Woman's costume comment and the shit about deconstructing heroes makes me want to punch that fucker right in the face all over again. You didn't fucking deconstruct the characters, you fucking made them into grimdark alternate reality versions that bore almost no likeness to the fucking characters they were based on. It had nothing to do with deconstructing characters. Get tae fuck with that.

MahrinSkel
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Reply #1299 on: June 22, 2016, 08:03:02 AM

“The demons must have caught the scent of the Mother Box,”

“The demons must have caught the scent of the Mother Box,

The demons must have caught the scent of the Mother Box,”

“The demons must have caught the scent of the Mother Box,”

What a brilliant line of dialog. There's no way to parse it that isn't incredibly stupid. That takes real talent.

--Dave

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SurfD
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Reply #1300 on: June 22, 2016, 11:24:24 PM

The red in Wonder Woman's costume comment and the shit about deconstructing heroes makes me want to punch that fucker right in the face all over again. You didn't fucking deconstruct the characters, you fucking made them into grimdark alternate reality versions that bore almost no likeness to the fucking characters they were based on. It had nothing to do with deconstructing characters. Get tae fuck with that.
Indeed.  It's almost like they went "these are all the things that DONT make Batman Batman, so lets make a movie about Batman being those things.  Oh, and there will be a brooding guy with a giant S on his chest in it too."

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Velorath
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Reply #1301 on: June 23, 2016, 03:59:09 AM

Inbetween spending 38 pages and counting discussing a movie that has been well established to be bad, you guys are all going out there and supporting good movies right?
SurfD
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Reply #1302 on: June 23, 2016, 04:53:26 AM

Inbetween spending 38 pages and counting discussing a movie that has been well established to be bad, you guys are all going out there and supporting good movies right?
I  get to watch all my movies  for free, so good or bad, I cant really say i am "supporting" them, but hey, cant complain.

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Bunk
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Reply #1303 on: June 23, 2016, 06:01:34 AM

Inbetween spending 38 pages and counting discussing a movie that has been well established to be bad, you guys are all going out there and supporting good movies right?

I went and watched Warcraft last night, does that count? :P

I was going to watch this movie at some point. Had planned to at my local theatre a few weeks after it came out. Except it wasn't playing there anymore. Zootopia was still there though, a movie I'd seen a month prior

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Khaldun
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Reply #1304 on: June 23, 2016, 09:59:20 AM

I am very glad to spend money on good movies, and do so with pleasure. I also don't care about most bad movies. I care only when: a) I'd like to see a good movie version of a particular character or story and b) I can readily see how a movie could have and should have been good.
Venkman
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Reply #1305 on: July 07, 2016, 06:19:25 PM

So I finally watched this, but as the director's cut version on iTunes, not the theatrical one.

tl;dr: Nothing here none of you haven't been saying since March, except maybe some things the extended cut seemed to include that smoothed things out.

Reading Merusk's writeup a few pages back, I think there's a number of things the extra 30 minutes included that helped the movie. Not nearly as much as, say, The Abyss Theatrical vs The Abyss Director's Cut (the "cut" part gotta be history's worst cut sequence). But some of the disjointed shit Merusk outlined plus what my oldest tells me she saw in the theater makes me think they shoulda gone with the longer version and said screw the seat turnover beancounters or whoever set the hard time limit.

Basically, the extra 30 seems largely to be additional pieces of content that blend between sequences. For example, in the theatrical release it sounds like Superman saves Lois from Luthor throwing her off the tower, confronts Luthor, is given the threat and time limit, and then flys off to fight Batman, only making some minor "Bruce we gotta talk" before getting pissed off to fight back. There's an additional piece that happens though:

.

There were lots of bits like this. Another one that jumps out:


The thing the extra 30 doesn't do is justify at all Luthor's motive. he doesn't seem to want to rule the world. If The Joker is basically Batman without rules, then Luthor still comes off as Bruce Wayne without self control. The impression I got, which is really just me overthinking the movie and not reading any of the studios' or Director's retconning or whatever, is that as Wayne didn't trust an all powerful being enough to want to kill him, Luthor didn't trust him either and didn't trust above-the-law-and-obvious-about-it Batman.

What is never established is what Luthor thought he'd do with Doomsday about it killed Superman or Batman, whichever showed up from the fight.

So, no motive, no foresight, terrible writing, and acting only justifiable if you understood the motive and had good writing, overall Luthor to me was the hugest fail. And I mean a huger fail than Superman once again having no problem killing anyone, and Batman using fucking guns (and also not having any problem killing anyway).

Also:

My sense is that the longer version made this a story of redemption, specifically Bruce's. Luthor was just a trigger for what Bruce wanted to do anyway (get rid of the above-all-humanity alien). But in realizing Superman wasn't actually a bad guy, and instead always tried to do the right thing even if it didn't help him, Bruce realized he'd gone too far down the whole into criminality. He was perpetuating the bad because he first fought fire with fire and then branded them to let the dogs tear them up.

Ultimately, I don't know they could have done this another way. Yea they coulda gone bright-color light-humor cheery like Avengers, but then everyone would bitch that BvS didn't live up to the grimdark of the source material. That was not a happy graphic novel. In fact, and maybe this was obvious in the theatrical cut, but they reversed the bad guys between the GN and the movie and added that redemption arc resulting in sequels to come, something the GN didn't really have.

But they totally wasted both Luthor and Doomsday. The fight broken up by WW with Luthor-damning data woulda been enough to set up Justice League. Then a movie establishing that. Then a movie about Darkseid. Then the Doomsday movie where he kills or nearly so most of anything that gets in his way before the most powerful of them all also goes down.

That's a universe. This was just trying to cram too much into one movie because they're probably still  not sure how many more they'll get funding for.
HaemishM
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Reply #1306 on: July 07, 2016, 07:37:40 PM

Part of their problem was basing too much on Dark Knight Returns, including the 20 years of enmity between Bats and Supes without the 20 years of resentments that caused it. They tried to establish the fight without earning the justification.

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Reply #1307 on: July 08, 2016, 07:11:22 AM

Much like the new ST movies.

Most of these reboots are relying on the tropes and character-beats of an old series while wanting you to accept the, "No it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT" lie. No, it's just a bad story and you're using brand-loyalty to shore it up.

At least make it obvious and use the beats to set-up new characters like TFA did. Instead they want us to believe that after 2 hours of hating each other Spock and Kirk will sacrifice their lives for each other due to their deep bond of trust. Or that Bats and Supes will be best buddies after they bond over mom having the same first name.

Fuck some of these stories are awful.

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Venkman
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Reply #1308 on: July 08, 2016, 06:31:42 PM

I dunno. I think the callbacks are fine, but we're talking 30 years ago. Not only were we different as people, society was different.

Plus, format. I only read the Graphic Novel. But whether you read that or were reading the four comics in realtime over the months, they had a lot of page to establish the background. You could pick it up, not know anything about each protagonist, but learn along the way the origins of the enmity (including side stories about Green Arrow, etc).

I think earlier in this thread or somewhere else I said something about how this movie needed more setup. I still believe that. But (at least in the one I saw), I think they did the best they could to cram a new origin story for both (Affleck as Batman at all, Batman as aged, Superman as a god figure) and then push through the narrative. I only think Luthor's motives were really undefined.

Also not sure where you're going on NuTrek. In the first one, Kirk and Spock had different motivations that aligned. In the second one, they established the quid pro quo of saving each other's lives. Though I did not like the "Khaaan" moment in particular, that was just because it was a gimmick appropriation.
HaemishM
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Reply #1309 on: July 08, 2016, 07:37:11 PM

Kirk and Spock in Wrath of Khan had not only 1 3/4 of a movie of established continuity and relationship, they had YEARS of TV shows even though the shows didn't last a long time by network standards. People grew up seeing Kirk and Spock in this relationship. Similarly with Batman and Superman in Dark Knight Returns - there was literally years of continuity that those books played off of and the contrast between the World's Finest Batman/Superman team-ups of the '70's and '80's and the hostility they had towards each other in Dark Knight was one of the things that gave that such focus.

You're right in that there was not nearly enough setup for this - that's my point. Before becoming best buds at opposite ends of a kryptonite lance over their mothers having the same name, they had no history. They had met all of twice. They had no friendship and no rivalry. Things just HAPPENED because the plot said it should. The extra 30 minutes may have given some weight to it but it couldn't have been much. We really didn't even have much of a read on Superman, since the first movie was basically an origin story and Clark Kent the reporter was an epilogue to that movie, and was barely a participant in BVS. None of the relationships in the movie were earned at all by time. It was just really bad writing that was only partially saved by the iconography of the characters, giant set piece battles and explosions and Wonder Woman.

MahrinSkel
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Reply #1310 on: July 10, 2016, 02:09:40 PM

Even with the extra scenes, the "Martha" scene makes no god damned sense. You've been obsessively planning to kill Superman, you've got him on the ropes, about to deliver the coup de grace, and he says your mother's name...so you turn 180 degrees because you both have mothers named "Martha"?

WTF? And then Supes decides that he's okay with Batman taking point on saving his mom, you're going to completely trust the guy who was literally just trying to kill you, with your mother's life? When you were going to kill him to save her?

That whole scene is a fucking mess, apparently because they wanted to set up the final battle and had run out of story beats. And it's supposed to be the epiphany, when all is made clear to the protagonists. The intellectual denouement moment of the whole plot. But they just pull it out of their ass.

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Khaldun
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Reply #1311 on: July 10, 2016, 08:19:00 PM

Pretty much this was what folks predicted would not work about the movie back when they announced that the big Dark Knight Returns scene would be an inspiration--that it would require some kind of awkward, unconvincing set-up to put characters who don't know each other into a situation that is premised on a long, intimate relationship that has gone from friendship to enmity. I would think that any screenwriter even remotely competent would see the same thing. So this says two things: 1) Snyder likes visuals, so he liked the visual of DKR and didn't care about the characterization; 2) the suits liked whatever they were told was likeable. Which means 3) Goyer wrote what he was required to write and probably ended up convincing himself it was great. 
Margalis
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Reply #1312 on: July 10, 2016, 11:41:47 PM

So this says two things: 1) Snyder likes visuals, so he liked the visual of DKR and didn't care about the characterization; 2) the suits liked whatever they were told was likeable. Which means 3) Goyer wrote what he was required to write and probably ended up convincing himself it was great. 

Snyder's whole schtick is to create individual scenes that look cool or have some "meaning" or symbolism (messiah imagery ahoy!), often inspired by previous work, without regards for how they piece together.

Batman fighting Superman is a cool scene. But it only makes sense in context.

Quote
Most of these reboots are relying on the tropes and character-beats of an old series while wanting you to accept the, "No it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT" lie. No, it's just a bad story and you're using brand-loyalty to shore it up.

The thing is, Batman and Superman being at odds to this degree isn't even really an old trope or character beat.

I think it's fair for movies to assume the audience knows the characters and to rely a bit on previous knowledge that may not be technically canonical. For example we can skip an origin story for Spider-Man because we all know it.

I don't think, in a new Superman movie, you need to belabor that Superman has heat vision or x-ray vision, or try to explain it. People know that's part of Superman. But Superman and Batman being at odds isn't to me part of a well-established canon. It's not part of any other movies, it's not really part of the cartoons. If you casually follow comics you see that they are often on the same team, and maybe at most have some philosophical differences.

To get the idea that Superman and Batman have serious enough disagreement to want to kill each other you have to have read DKR, which is essentially a possible-future what if story. And even in that story it's less that Batman wants to kill Superman and more that he wants to knock some sense into him and/or fake his own death.

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Khaldun
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Reply #1313 on: July 11, 2016, 06:25:21 AM

Basically it went like this:

Batman-Superman until 1985: best pals, almost indistinguishable in personality and attitude, hang out together to an almost unwholesome degree. Stories of them sometimes tease the idea of a rivalry or opposition but it is always a trick or twist, usually them playing at something to trick an enemy.

Batman-Superman 1985: John Byrne reboots Superman and makes him and Batman uneasy allies because of some really strong differences in personalities and mission. Batman works in the dark, with fear; Superman works in the day, with trust. Metropolis is a shining city of hope; Gotham a gloomy city struggling with depression and crime. etc. Kind of smart, actually, to use the obvious visual and thematic differences more effectively. But they still work together.

Batman-Superman 1986: Dark Knight Returns comes out and the Batman-Superman conflict in the final issue ignites a thousand fanboy imaginations. From this point on, "what if" stories in DC comics will frequently replay a variation on this scene, typically somewhat incompetently. 

Batman-Superman 1980s-1990s: They're re-established as friends, but the stylistic and philosophical differences remain and are often references. Superman gives Batman a piece of kryptonite and instructs him to use it if he's ever taken over by a villain. The TV cartoons also play up the rivalry/alliance angle (and add a fun twist, when Bruce Wayne romances Lois Lane...) 

So I think most people who think of the characters are not probably thinking of the way-back version where they were just buddies in that Golden Age way, but instead the friendship with big differences/tension version, which seems pretty natural even if you just have a casual familiarity with the characters.

But that's what drives me nuts--if they wanted to work with that, they could have. There's even a good comic-book template in the early reboot of the relationship--Batman decides to investigate Superman, Superman is worried about what he hears about Batman, they find out each other's identities, they discover they have to come together to deal with an immediate menace, they build a wary trust. But Snyder just had to have the full DKR visuals and that's terrible--they require a history between them to be worth a damn.
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Reply #1314 on: July 11, 2016, 12:07:30 PM

But that's what drives me nuts--if they wanted to work with that, they could have. There's even a good comic-book template in the early reboot of the relationship--Batman decides to investigate Superman, Superman is worried about what he hears about Batman, they find out each other's identities, they discover they have to come together to deal with an immediate menace, they build a wary trust. But Snyder just had to have the full DKR visuals and that's terrible--they require a history between them to be worth a damn.

So the DCAU version? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F90nxOlsm1s

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Reply #1315 on: July 12, 2016, 08:50:23 AM

Well, exactly--that was a beautifully executed version of "they meet, they almost-kind-of-fight, they work together". And then throughout the JL cartoons, their relationship kept evolving--the contrasts were still there, the tensions sometimes appeared, but also the respect and friendship too. Good stuff. It doesn't take much to tweak that into something more like open conflict if that's what's wanted, but the MCU version showed how much more satisfying it is when the emotional beats are attended to. The plot of Civil War is almost as jury-rigged but the attention to character and situation is hard-earned.
Venkman
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Reply #1316 on: July 13, 2016, 07:16:58 PM

Even with the extra scenes, the "Martha" scene makes no god damned sense. You've been obsessively planning to kill Superman, you've got him on the ropes, about to deliver the coup de grace, and he says your mother's name...so you turn 180 degrees because you both have mothers named "Martha"?
Yea pretty much. Except I took it as "Martha" stopping the killing stroke and Lois showing up cemented it when Bruce recalls what the Flash (I think it was him?) told him in the dream/speedforce vision: "You were right. Lois is the key [to retaining his humanity, presumably]".

The whole scene was stupid. The whole fight sequence was stupid. First Batman had to know none of that stuff was going to do shit to Superman, so I don't know why they bothered except for the imagery or callbacks to like Richard Pryor's computer in Superman 3 or whatever dumb reason they used to justify the hamfisting.

So the extended footage didn't save any of that. Nor did it save all of the Doomsday stuff. Nor Lex.
Bunk
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Reply #1317 on: July 15, 2016, 02:47:40 PM

Watched this a few days ago. It was dumb, but I was entertained throughout, which is impressive for a three hour movie. Thought it was the best of the three Supermans overall for entertainment factor.

I think I enjoyed it more than Age of Apocalypse as well.

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SurfD
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Reply #1318 on: July 15, 2016, 05:56:13 PM

Did I miss a superman movie somewhere?

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Venkman
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Reply #1319 on: July 15, 2016, 05:59:07 PM

Did I miss a superman movie somewhere?

He might mean the first one with Brandon Routh.
Evildrider
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Reply #1320 on: July 15, 2016, 07:08:36 PM

There are still more than three Superman movies though.   awesome, for real
Riggswolfe
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Reply #1321 on: July 15, 2016, 09:50:54 PM

There are still more than three Superman movies though.   awesome, for real

I think it was an awkward way of saying it's the best of the movies by any of the 3 Supermen: Christopher Reeves, Brandon Routh, Henry Cavill.

It's another way of saying he is certifiably insane.

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SurfD
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Reply #1322 on: July 15, 2016, 11:37:35 PM

Did I miss a superman movie somewhere?

He might mean the first one with Brandon Routh.
He said best of "three" superman movies.  We currently have "Man of Steel", and "Batman Vs Superman" as the only two movies in the new DC Cinematic Universe.  Was curious what the 3rd one was, unless I completely missed something.

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Venkman
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Reply #1323 on: July 16, 2016, 08:26:13 AM

I'm curious how often Bunk visits so he can enlighten us  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?
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Reply #1324 on: July 16, 2016, 02:15:59 PM

I thought there was only 2 Supermen


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Bunk
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Reply #1325 on: July 18, 2016, 07:41:06 AM

I'm curious how often Bunk visits so he can enlighten us  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Sorry for all the confusion. In my head I was lumping the Brandon Routh one in with Man of Steel (hadn't realized there were 7 years between them), and I disliked both of them either way.

As far as the original Reeves ones go... well, lets just say I think people get a little blinded by nostalgia when it comes to those. The original was campy but classic, sure, and the second gave us Zod - but three and four? Richard Pryor Supervillain. Superman versus a sheet of cellophane. Superman vs Nuclear blonde dude.

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Reply #1326 on: July 18, 2016, 08:13:05 AM

Do people really think 3 and 4 were good movies? I don't recall ever being around anyone who didn't think they were terrible when growing up. I don't know anyone under the age of 35 who's even seen them.

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HaemishM
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Reply #1327 on: July 18, 2016, 10:04:26 AM

3 did at least have that really well done Superman v Superman fight in the junkyard. Other that that, I liked it when I saw in the theater, but I was young. I have never seen 4.

Venkman
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Reply #1328 on: July 18, 2016, 03:52:16 PM

I didn't mind 3. I don't remember too much about the junkyard fight, but I remember lol'ing when he was flicking peanuts at the beer bottles. And I had a huge nerd thing for the near sentient computer he "fought" in the end.

4 though... shit, even when I first saw it, I thought it was the worst movie I'd ever seen. And that was before a number of really bad ones.

And thank you Bunk for clearing it up! smiley
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Reply #1329 on: July 18, 2016, 05:20:44 PM

I liked 3.  Of course I think I was 7 or 8 when I saw it.  I haven't seen it in probably 10-15 years, so my inner child will probably cringe a bit if I decide to watch it again, but it probably won't be the worst waste of time.

The 4th one... I watched it maybe twice and don't really recall much about it other than it seemed kind of heavy on the "peace" message.  That it didn't leave much of an impact is probably not a good thing for it.
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