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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    I haven't seen Ca: CW, so I don't know if the Movie was any better than the comicbook storyline it was adapted from.
    It was. It was VASTLY, VASTLY better.

    For a kick off, the conflict was more around Tony and Steve and much more personal and was presented in a MUCH better and more even-handed fashion. (I mean, that's not saying much, but...!)

    I went in wth the lowest expectations of any of the Marvel movies because of the source material and I throughly enjoyed it (and probably will more on a second watch).

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    Because I'm not quietly whittling they were going to pointlessly kill off Rhodey for The Dramas.

    As what they did had just as much emotional impact and has a greatly superior pay-off at the end, with that scene between him and Tony. THAT is the gold standard of why killing a character off is a waste, because its a tacit admission of "I can't think of anymore stories to tell with that character."

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    It was. It was VASTLY, VASTLY better.

    For a kick off, the conflict was more around Tony and Steve and much more personal and was presented in a MUCH better and more even-handed fashion. (I mean, that's not saying much, but...!)

    I went in wth the lowest expectations of any of the Marvel movies because of the source material and I throughly enjoyed it (and probably will more on a second watch).

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    Because I'm not quietly whittling they were going to pointlessly kill off Rhodey for The Dramas.

    As what they did had just as much emotional impact and has a greatly superior pay-off at the end, with that scene between him and Tony. THAT is the gold standard of why killing a character off is a waste, because its a tacit admission of "I can't think of anymore stories to tell with that character."
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    Especially in comics books where there are dozens of writers, some of whom might have good ideas, and someone else is just going to bring them back in a few years.

    Side note: I was legit surprised to find out that Jean "My Headstone literally says BRB" Grey is only now being brought back to life after being killed off in 04
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    My problems with Civil War are primarily that it seemed to exist mainly to set up conflict for the next film, and that it was less of a Captain America film and more of an Avengers film. I might have preferred it if Age of Ultron had been a single-hero film (because Ultron was a fun villain who could conceivably return later) and Civil War was the Avengers title. Plus I just couldn't see Captain America's point, even though the movie does try to imply he's right at the end.

    Honestly? I don't really think hero teamups work in movies. If I was doing the Justice League in a cinematic universe I'd make it a setting element, it's the justification for another hero occasionally turning up or how characters get information, but there's no massive team up fight in any of the films.
    Ah come on. Captain America's point was pretty obvious "the safest hands are still our own." The movie also made it clear he was in the right, forget the politics, simply because Tony Stark was being an *******.

    Finally, the counter point to superhero team-ups didn't work: Avengers, Avengers II, Captain America: Winter Soldier & Civil War, Spiderman: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnorok. So many incredibly successful films based on team up...indeed, the entire MCU follows a grand plan where every solo movie follows to a team-up.

    You may not personally like Superhero cross-overs, the MCU isn't the most successful franchise in movie history, because of cameos, and the team-ups are occurring with more and more frequency as these movies just get more and more successful.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)

    Compare that to Iron Man's "I'd rather that moral choices of individuals get supervised by others" (because I know I cannot be trusted to make the right moral choices 100% of the time).

    I agree with Iron Man more than with Captain America on this - such major moral choices really should be double checked.

    (I am purposely leaving aside the actual implementation of the idea in the Sokovia Accords because we really don't know how well it was implemented. We've been down the rabbit hole of "if the Sokovia Accords say X, X would be bad/good/OK". You can make a case any which way)

    Civil Wars don't decide who is right, only who is left. The film quite clearly ends with moral failings across the board, and everyone is worse off than they started with. An excellent end-of-second-act situation, really. Now they have a hole they need to claw their way out of.

    GW
    I don't see how Captain America's team ends up with moral failings. This group seemed to me to play without moral failings, while Tony Stark was making plenty of them. These include bringing a teenager for extra muscle, kill the Winter Soldier (for personal reasons) and Captain America too because he got in the way, bring in external force into the internal scwabble, at the end and had a bunch of Avengers arrested for not signing on to his plan.

    There is certainly clear sides to this movie, and we know how Sokovia Accords are being implemented according to the movie, at least: The "enhanced" that refuse to sign are imprisoned in small, solitary cells using high tech to suppress their powers.

    Also, it doesn't work, Agents of SHIELD has Daisy sign just to continue using her powers in covert missions that, due to the nature of their missions (such as fighting government officials), clearly, no one is signing off on. Meanwhile, the Accords do result in all the Inhumans being registered on a government database that of course immediately ends up the hands of terrorists that wish to commit genocide. None of the Netflix shows even mention the Accords.

    I would agree, in concept, that it seems like a good idea to put rules and oversight in place for individual and groups of vigilantes that have been allowed to essentially engage in military, covert ops, and police work that operate with absolute immunity from such things as laws or responsibility for property damage. Its also an idea whose time has never come in the real world because it has never actually been allowed for vigilantes with no relationship to law enforcement or the government to operate in an utterly unrestricted fashion.

    However, superheroes and the way they operate is not real world. Nor is the proposals for regulating them sensible. Civil War in the comics was over a Registration Act the sought to catalogue all individuals with "powers" (and its really that vaguely defined) and their secret identities and then induct them into a military-like force.

    The Sokovia Accords also sought to induct every "enhanced" individual and subject them to some sort of UN-based world-spanning supervisory committee instead of a military organization, and its clear that individuals need approval before participating in certain operations or using their powers. The committee probably meets once a month and can debate for months before authorizing the use of powers. This does not sound like a practical way to control the use of powers you want available in the case of a sudden crisis.
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  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    It was. It was VASTLY, VASTLY better.

    For a kick off, the conflict was more around Tony and Steve and much more personal and was presented in a MUCH better and more even-handed fashion. (I mean, that's not saying much, but...!)

    I went in wth the lowest expectations of any of the Marvel movies because of the source material and I throughly enjoyed it (and probably will more on a second watch).

    Spoiler: CA:CW
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    Because I'm not quietly whittling they were going to pointlessly kill off Rhodey for The Dramas.

    As what they did had just as much emotional impact and has a greatly superior pay-off at the end, with that scene between him and Tony. THAT is the gold standard of why killing a character off is a waste, because its a tacit admission of "I can't think of anymore stories to tell with that character."
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    Eh, while I believe there are legitimate reasons to kill of characters, that was done really well. I was actually worried they were going to do some form of 'the suit saved him from being seriously injured' while watching.


    Quote Originally Posted by Reddish Mage View Post
    Ah come on. Captain America's point was pretty obvious "the safest hands are still our own." The movie also made it clear he was in the right, forget the politics, simply because Tony Stark was being an *******.

    Finally, the counter point to superhero team-ups didn't work: Avengers, Avengers II, Captain America: Winter Soldier & Civil War, Spiderman: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnorok. So many incredibly successful films based on team up...indeed, the entire MCU follows a grand plan where every solo movie follows to a team-up.

    You may not personally like Superhero cross-overs, the MCU isn't the most successful franchise in movie history, because of cameos, and the team-ups are occurring with more and more frequency as these movies just get more and more successful.
    To answer these points in order:

    1) My problem was that Captain FranceAmerica came off as egotistical, although I haven't seen Winter Soldier, while Tony came off as being an **** but actually having logical reasons, and then at the end the film abandons all pretence of Tony being in the right because he was too much of an **** and had an emotional reaction.

    2) Out of all of those I haven't seen two of them, one I thought was the weakest of Phase 3 Marvel, two certainly wouldn't have worked as stand alone films, and the last (Ragnorok) is how I think teamups should be done, a couple of characters coming into the movie instead of thirteen that I struggle to remember who's on what team.

    3) I like crossovers/teams fine, but I don't think they fit in films. They're fine in series, where the focus can be easily shifted in each new episode.

    Also, why are so many superheroes American? It's nice that we're finally getting a film dedicated to a nonAmerican human hero.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Well, I don't follow sales numbers or anything, but I think DC is doing well in the comics department at least. They seem to be putting out much better products than Marvel.


    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Also, why are so many superheroes American? It's nice that we're finally getting a film dedicated to a nonAmerican human hero.
    Because comics are primarily made for American audiences and take place in America? Even someone like Black Panther who comes from a make-believe country is heavily Americanized in order to appeal to those markets. American audiences just aren't going to go see a movie about Captain Mapleleaf.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2017-11-23 at 01:21 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Overly high expectations and bad luck. Batman and Superman are characters that a lot of people are extremely invested in, so every time a movie gets made featuring one of them, a lot of people are ready to say 'that's not my superman/batman'. And most of them have different conceptions of what 'my' superman or batman is, which makes it a very, very difficult line to walk.

    In response to this, Suicide Squad was forced to become a tentpole movie instead of the side story it was intended as, which put it in a lose/lose situation, where softening its hard edges alienated its core audience, but not softening it damaged its broad appeal.

    Wonder Woman, freed of these impossible expectations by being not quite so well known, succeeded quite well critically, there were potential pitfalls in various gender issues but it got around them by sidestepping.

    Which brings us to Justice League, which had a ridiculously troubled production where the first director had to step aside due to a family tragedy, and the replacement was immediately hit by three separate scandals. Their styles didn't mesh well, and the compromise had trouble pleasing either set of fans.

    All that said, it's only out a week, there's still time for it to surprise us.

    Aside: One of the reasons I had trouble liking Civil War was how US centric it was, which is normally fine, but the entire point of the movie was about countries asserting their sovereignty, which made it massively jarring when the
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    US Secretary of State orders the German police to 'shoot on sight' a suspect in Romania for a crime committed in Austria. That is not how countries work.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Even if you've enjoyed their movies, they've got troubled productions on top of troubled productions. I don't know what the root of it is, but there's a clear competency issue within WB regarding their DC films and while art from adversity is a thing it seems more of art as a crap-shoot. They're the Sonic Team of movie making.

    They're making three goddamned Joker movies! I don't want one really, and a Joker Origins movie seems antithetical to the basic nature of the character while a Joker + Harley Quinn movie seems like it exists just to tempt fate.

    I don't like comparing Marvel and DC because its becomes mired in partisan attitudes not dissimilar from American politics, but Marvel Studios met relatively minor setbacks with phase two and from that Disney decided to silently reform the studio around Kevin Feige who has had a proven track record worth having confidence in with getting movies done and within the expectations of quality. There needs to be a rudder for your enterprise, not merely a heavy wind blowing you forward to meet market expectations.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Reddish Mage View Post
    don't see how Captain America's team ends up with moral failings.
    Assault, theft, obstruction of justice, interfering with police in the lawful execution of their duties, resisting arrest. And that is only in one scene.

    There are moral ways to protest the Sokovia Accords, just like there are moral ways to protest some laws. See, for example, Ghandi, Rosa Park and MLK. But Captain America employed none of those. He unilaterally decided he was right and everyone else was wrong, and therefore that he could do whatever he wanted. That whole "The world tells you to move, you tell it you won't" speech? That is terrifying, when you consider who might decide that applies to them (Frank Castle, for example).

    If I can be said to "follow" any philosopher, I "follow" Kant: an action is only moral if and only if, should everyone perform that action, it would remain moral. As far as I am concerned, Captain America's choices where across the board immoral for most of the film.

    All that said, this is not really the topic at hand. And we already went through this in the actual Civil War thread. By all means answer my points, but after that, lets agree to disagree.

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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    ... Zack Snyder is a good visual director. He is not a good director. Those two are different jobs. It's like giving a butcher his own meat restaurant. The jobs might seem linked, but they need different skill sets.

    I'm not even sure I can agree with that. he has one basic visual setup that he does to death over and over again. it worked well in 300, which was so over the top that the style worked there. but he uses it everywhere even when it doesn't work.

    There was still too much of that influence left in Wonder Woman, which is why it was a decent film to me, but not a great one.

    Honestly, he's like John Woo. If you take out all the slow motion you can cut the film time in half.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
    On TV?
    ...It just seems like the Superhero Genre bubble burst within four years (Marvel's ratings are also dropping, and Inhumans was a disaster).
    True, but Marvel's live action movies are going strong, and have even improved somewhat. Inhumans had an incredibly rushed and messy production because they wanted to make it a movie, then a TV show, and they're trying to make the inhumans the MCU X-Men which doesn't work. But it's really an outlier whe looking at Marvel as a whole.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
    I like the animated movies. I mean, Killing Joke sucked. But, everything else has been good? No?
    Not really, as someone stated Son of Batman was awful providing us with a terrible Deathstroke and impotent Talia Al Ghul (and then they ignore their portrayal to make her more monstrous than the comics version in the sequels). Justice League: War made Superman and Green Lantern into complete docuhes, and Wonder Woman had a mental disability. The Batman: Unlimited is childish fluff. DC has lost it's edge on Animation.

    Though to be fair Marvel's animation is lacking as well. Their current Spider-man cartoon is terrible (as was it's predecessor), they canceled Avengers: EMH for a lousy cartoon that was "closer to the movies", and rarely make any D2DVD films. But at least the films and live action shows are something to look forward to.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Well, it is not just DC, of course, but all most all of Hollywood.

    First off the DC TV shows are perfect for what they are made for: Young 20 something super dramas....with superheros mixed in a bit. There target audience is your typical, mostly female, young person who just loves young drama And the very casual comic reader, mostly male, who read some comics in the past. So the basic idea is a couple can watch it together as the perfect show: ''she'' loves all the young drama and ''he'' loves the superhero tights and action. (Though you can switch around the he and she too). The shows are made for the person who has no idea what a comic is, and the casual reader from long ago.
    There's nothing wrong with Drama. The problem with the CW shows is that it feels so pointless because the characters behave in such unbelievably stupid ways to make mistakes just for conflict. And the love stories aren't well written with characters who have chemistry together. It feels forced and not natural. Superhero shows have done romance well, but none of the CW shows are.
    Last edited by Zmeoaice; 2017-11-23 at 05:27 PM.

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zmeoaice View Post
    True, but Marvel's live action movies are going strong, and have even improved somewhat. Inhumans had an incredibly rushed and messy production because they wanted to make it a movie, then a TV show, and they're trying to make the inhumans the MCU X-Men which doesn't work. But it's really an outlier whe looking at Marvel as a whole.
    It's more than that: marvel's current CEO is a huge Inhumans fanboy and has been trying to devalue the X-Men IP and replace the X-Men with the Inhumans for a decade and a half(Using "Nuhumans" as a replacement for Mutants in general is more recent.)

    And now you know the reason why, in the comics, there have been so many bad X-Men calls and so much obvious Inhuman shilling despite the Inhumans kind of being **** for the last couple of years.
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zmeoaice View Post
    There's nothing wrong with Drama. The problem with the CW shows is that it feels so pointless because the characters behave in such unbelievably stupid ways to make mistakes just for conflict. And the love stories aren't well written with characters who have chemistry together. It feels forced and not natural. Superhero shows have done romance well, but none of the CW shows are.
    it's not even that they behave in stupid ways for conflict. That can happen. But the same characters will do the same thing over and over again. No one ever learns. It's why I dropped all of them but Legends.
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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)

    Compare that to Iron Man's "I'd rather that moral choices of individuals get supervised by others" (because I know I cannot be trusted to make the right moral choices 100% of the time).
    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Also like six weeks ago for him everyone who might have been involved in that oversight was actually Hydra.
    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    While for Tony, N weeks ago he created a murderous AI. As I said, both of their positions make good sense from their personal perspectives.

    GW
    Also, one of the things you're supposed to remember about Steve is that he's of the WWII generation, so a fairish chunk of his concept of accountability is in opposition to the phrase "I was just following orders".

    It's to be noted that Tony's position of 'make peace, try to change things later on the sly' works for engineering problems, but not human relations. He probably realized that by the end of the movie, since he's abandoned his position to adopt Steve's 'act, then ask forgiveness'.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    My problems with Civil War are primarily that it seemed to exist mainly to set up conflict for the next film, and that it was less of a Captain America film and more of an Avengers film. I might have preferred it if Age of Ultron had been a single-hero film (because Ultron was a fun villain who could conceivably return later) and Civil War was the Avengers title.
    Would you mind expanding on this? It's not clear to me why the title is a sticking point. (This is coming from someone that felt disappointed with Civil War.)
    Plus I just couldn't see Captain America's point, even though the movie does try to imply he's right at the end.
    Interesting. I think the movie did a good job setting up both perspectives. Captain America is the "heart" of the team; he has the strongest moral compass and the drive to act on his convictions. He chafes at the idea of someone else calling the shots on his behalf. Especially considering that his former handler, SHIELD, was revealed to be controlled by Hydra. Captain America accepts that there might be collateral damage from their actions, but he still believes they are the best ones to make the decisions.

    Steve Rogers is blue collar, as opposed to Tony Stark's white collar. For Tony, it is easy to think that things need to be codified and managed and bureaucratic. Whereas Cap is the kind of guy that can accept a deal on the strength of someone's word, or handshake.

    On Team Cap, it makes no sense for Clint to come out of retirement and risk everything. Except he owes a debt to Quicksilver, so he is there for Wanda. Falcon is there because Steve is his friend and he is going to stand by him. Wanda is there because she is struggling with fear and rejection, and she realizes that she can't help it if people are afraid of her, she can only control her own emotions. Team Cap is driven by character. Steven will take this stand because his friend is in danger and needs him. Remember he only ever considers signing the Accords when Tony makes the case that it is in the best interest of Bucky; sign the Accords and we'll go in and bring Barnes in and get him the help he needs.

    Team Iron Man on the other hand is very rational. Rhodes is the first to make the argument, citing the nations that have voted, the organizations involved, the power dynamic between a global accord vs a handful of enhanced individuals. Vision trots out a formulaic prediction, essentially, treating it very objectively. Iron Man is in full damage control, submitting Wanda to house arrest and using Steve's friendship to Barnes to persuade him to sign the Accords and keep the Avengers together.

    I'm not meaning to derail the thread with Civil War, but I brought it up to contrast the difference in the way these same scenarios were handled differently by DC and Marvel. In Civil War it made sense (to me). It looked and sounded like adults having real and meaningful conversations (for a movie) and coming to a major disagreement that made sense for the characters (minus Ant Man). BvS didn't have any of that. We got "if there is even a 1% chance Batman" and "You can't stay a good guy" Superman slugging it out for whatever reason and then making amends for Marth--- well, you know how it goes lol.

    Quote Originally Posted by Reddish Mage
    I don't see how Captain America's team ends up with moral failings.
    Cap doesn't even read the Accords or what they entail. The movie lets him leave the original meeting because of the death of Peggy. Then Barnes is framed at the signing and Cap goes after him. At that second meeting, where they are brought in, Cap should have tried to barter. Give and take. Tony offers him the safe capture of Barnes and professional help for him. When Cap finds out about Wanda, he allows his convictions to get the better of him and stops the entire process. No more negotiating. Remember, Tony is trying to keep the Avengers together. He is frustrated at the airport scene because he's doing everything he can to make this work and Cap is simply saying "No" without really giving it much thought. He told "the world to move" instead. That's... not great, lol. There were other ways Cap could have handled this. He is in a tough spot, because he knows Barnes has been mind-****ed and he believes Barnes is innocent and he knows there is a global shoot-on-sight command in play. Cap's up against the wall to save his friend, but he didn't allow Tony to help him out of that situation because he didn't want to consider signing for even a moment. That's a moral failing.
    The "enhanced" that refuse to sign are imprisoned in small, solitary cells using high tech to suppress their powers.
    Rather, if you refuse to sign you have to retire, like Clint. If you break the law, you are imprisoned in small solitary cells, like Clint.

    @Sapphire Guard: Nothing against you but, your post irked me lol. Seems to remove any responsibility to make a good movie from the producers, and places that burden on the fans to simply be content with the movies.

    Overly high expectations and bad luck. Batman and Superman are characters that a lot of people are extremely invested in, so every time a movie gets made featuring one of them, a lot of people are ready to say 'that's not my superman/batman'. And most of them have different conceptions of what 'my' superman or batman is, which makes it a very, very difficult line to walk.
    No, that's not it. I don't mind a movie exploring the consequences of a Superman on Earth, and what it means for nations and for humanity and all that good stuff. It's real, it makes sense. These things would be considered and talked about. Make that movie. But you have to make it good.
    In response to this, Suicide Squad was forced to become a tentpole movie instead of the side story it was intended as, which put it in a lose/lose situation, where softening its hard edges alienated its core audience, but not softening it damaged its broad appeal.
    Suicide Squad is a horrible mess of a movie and I can't believe you're blaming fans/viewers for it.
    Wonder Woman, freed of these impossible expectations by being not quite so well known, succeeded quite well critically, there were potential pitfalls in various gender issues but it got around them by sidestepping.
    Wonder Woman was freed from Snyder, which allowed it to breathe, and was buoyed by the socio-political zeitgeist. It's also not a great movie, but it's watchable and not nearly as bad as the rest. Has nothing to do with fan expectations (though I suspect it would be in the opposite direction, in which fans simply *want* it to be amazing). People saw daylight in a DC movie, and characters smiling and making jokes, and the viewers were tricked into thinking they were watching a cinematic masterpiece lol.
    Which brings us to Justice League, which had a ridiculously troubled production where the first director had to step aside due to a family tragedy, and the replacement was immediately hit by three separate scandals. Their styles didn't mesh well, and the compromise had trouble pleasing either set of fans.
    No, again, it still could have worked. The problem with JL is that it was set up by MoS and BvS. The cinematic universe was already in trouble and JL was always going to be fighting an uphill battle to redeem it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
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    Eh, while I believe there are legitimate reasons to kill of characters, that was done really well. I was actually worried they were going to do some form of 'the suit saved him from being seriously injured' while watching.




    To answer these points in order:

    1) My problem was that Captain FranceAmerica came off as egotistical, although I haven't seen Winter Soldier, while Tony came off as being an **** but actually having logical reasons, and then at the end the film abandons all pretence of Tony being in the right because he was too much of an **** and had an emotional reaction.

    2) Out of all of those I haven't seen two of them, one I thought was the weakest of Phase 3 Marvel, two certainly wouldn't have worked as stand alone films, and the last (Ragnorok) is how I think teamups should be done, a couple of characters coming into the movie instead of thirteen that I struggle to remember who's on what team.

    3) I like crossovers/teams fine, but I don't think they fit in films. They're fine in series, where the focus can be easily shifted in each new episode.

    Also, why are so many superheroes American? It's nice that we're finally getting a film dedicated to a nonAmerican human hero.
    1) What's odd is (and its been pointed out ad nasaum). Tony Stark started his superhero career by taking the Afghan war into his own hands and rebuffing the US government because he wanted to fight terrorists on his own terms. Captain America started out working as part of the military, then SHIELD, and even attacked highly placed people in the US gov't for not following the law in ordering extra-judicial killings. The key is to engage the movie on its own terms, Captain America's position was well articulated and ultimately the one that prevails (at least from an audience POV, Sokovia Accords completely get implented)

    2) There's never been a teamup of thirteen heroes yet. Although infinity war probably gets to that number. We certainly do have a number of movies that can't work as a solo movie, but that's a point in favor of team-ups. You even admit Thor-Ragnorok is good for having a team-up!

    3) I don't see the counter to my point that the movies are fantastically successful and well-loved for their team ups. You are still saying flatly they don't work in movies, without qualification. I personally think Avengers is much better than the last major Arrrowverse Crossover on TV.

    Finally you complain there's too many Americans, but of the Avengers: Thor is alien, Scarlet Witch is Eastern European, Vision is an android, Black Widow is Russian. We are left with Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, and Hulk for the Americans. Considering that Marvel comics tend to be American-centric, half of the Avengers are not American.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Assault, theft, obstruction of justice, interfering with police in the lawful execution of their duties, resisting arrest. And that is only in one scene.

    There are moral ways to protest the Sokovia Accords, just like there are moral ways to protest some laws. See, for example, Ghandi, Rosa Park and MLK. But Captain America employed none of those. He unilaterally decided he was right and everyone else was wrong, and therefore that he could do whatever he wanted. That whole "The world tells you to move, you tell it you won't" speech? That is terrifying, when you consider who might decide that applies to them (Frank Castle, for example).

    If I can be said to "follow" any philosopher, I "follow" Kant: an action is only moral if and only if, should everyone perform that action, it would remain moral. As far as I am concerned, Captain America's choices where across the board immoral for most of the film.

    All that said, this is not really the topic at hand. And we already went through this in the actual Civil War thread. By all means answer my points, but after that, lets agree to disagree.

    Grey Wolf
    I'd ask for clarification on some of your points but if you don't want to discuss further:

    1) All three of your moral examples were breaking the law, so it requires some unpacking to draw the line and say their protests were moral but Captain America's was not a proper reaction.

    After all, Cap's stance was that his vigilante hands should not be subject to anyone's authority, followed up by practicing what he was preaching by resisting being forced to submit to actual authority by force, and Captain America did it non-lethally, which for superhero comics violence tends to be excusable as long as its non-lethal.

    2) I've been watching Punisher, Frank Castle appears to have a point.

    3) Appealing to Kant does not make a strong case. Its a rather elementary point that any alleged universal moral imperative fails without making them absurdly qualified (start with "do not kill" and before long you get "do not kill unless a) b) c) d) e) f) and possibly h) i) and j, and you can probably qualify it). The test for a universal imperative to Kant is that they apply equally to everyone, in all circumstances, so all you need is a single individual in a single morally conflicted situation to make them troublesome. I think you need some other means of defining what's moral.

    That said, I agree with you on Captain Americas points don't work for real life morality. However, there is no point in reading real life into the MCU. In real life, Captain America's points might not work or appear extremely, but in real life a small team of superheroes is not among the possible responses to urgent world-spanning threats. MCU and comics is a world of routine supervillain-causes crises, that are regularly (and pretty much exclusively) countered by lone-wolf individuals, or small superhuman teams. Also, the ideas of how to regulate those individuals and teams are absurd, and amounts of stripping individuals of certain human rights just because they are deemed to have "powers" (with a flexible standard that includes Black Widow because, I guess she's just too good at a her job) and moreover, the regulations have been since shown not to work and to play into the hands of supervillains.
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    So here's moviebob's explanation. There's a second part to this as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8BPzCvrxLY
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    American audiences just aren't going to go see a movie about Captain Mapleleaf.
    You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right?

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    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right?
    And Martian Manhunter is from, well, Mars but that doesn't stop either of them from being as American as apple pie.
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    I'm not even sure I can agree with that. he has one basic visual setup that he does to death over and over again. it worked well in 300, which was so over the top that the style worked there. but he uses it everywhere even when it doesn't work.

    There was still too much of that influence left in Wonder Woman, which is why it was a decent film to me, but not a great one.

    Honestly, he's like John Woo. If you take out all the slow motion you can cut the film time in half.
    Deciding to use that style in every movie is still a director's call. He is bad at those. Maybe under a proper director, he could have just done the job of a visual director and be an actual positive effect in movies.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai View Post
    Would you mind expanding on this? It's not clear to me why the title is a sticking point. (This is coming from someone that felt disappointed with Civil War.)
    Certainly. I'd just finished seeing a teamup movie with many heroes, I was all ready to see the next Marvel movie where they'd focus on Captain BrazilAmerica and a couple of other characters, instead they introduce two new heroes, return old characters when the current Avengers lineup is enough people for a film, and in general seemed to try to fit both a solo movie and a teamup in the same film. It wasn't really focused on the Captain in my opinion, but the Avengers, and so I felt mislead by the title.

    I mean, it's not a massive dealbreaker, but I get annoyed by the title because it didn't feel like it deserved the 'solo hero work' title (which, considering it's called Civil War, is idiotic, but they're my feelings).

    Interesting. I think the movie did a good job setting up both perspectives. Captain America is the "heart" of the team; he has the strongest moral compass and the drive to act on his convictions. He chafes at the idea of someone else calling the shots on his behalf. Especially considering that his former handler, SHIELD, was revealed to be controlled by Hydra. Captain America accepts that there might be collateral damage from their actions, but he still believes they are the best ones to make the decisions.

    Steve Rogers is blue collar, as opposed to Tony Stark's white collar. For Tony, it is easy to think that things need to be codified and managed and bureaucratic. Whereas Cap is the kind of guy that can accept a deal on the strength of someone's word, or handshake.

    On Team Cap, it makes no sense for Clint to come out of retirement and risk everything. Except he owes a debt to Quicksilver, so he is there for Wanda. Falcon is there because Steve is his friend and he is going to stand by him. Wanda is there because she is struggling with fear and rejection, and she realizes that she can't help it if people are afraid of her, she can only control her own emotions. Team Cap is driven by character. Steven will take this stand because his friend is in danger and needs him. Remember he only ever considers signing the Accords when Tony makes the case that it is in the best interest of Bucky; sign the Accords and we'll go in and bring Barnes in and get him the help he needs.

    Team Iron Man on the other hand is very rational. Rhodes is the first to make the argument, citing the nations that have voted, the organizations involved, the power dynamic between a global accord vs a handful of enhanced individuals. Vision trots out a formulaic prediction, essentially, treating it very objectively. Iron Man is in full damage control, submitting Wanda to house arrest and using Steve's friendship to Barnes to persuade him to sign the Accords and keep the Avengers together.

    I'm not meaning to derail the thread with Civil War, but I brought it up to contrast the difference in the way these same scenarios were handled differently by DC and Marvel. In Civil War it made sense (to me). It looked and sounded like adults having real and meaningful conversations (for a movie) and coming to a major disagreement that made sense for the characters (minus Ant Man). BvS didn't have any of that. We got "if there is even a 1% chance Batman" and "You can't stay a good guy" Superman slugging it out for whatever reason and then making amends for Marth--- well, you know how it goes lol.
    Honestly, it's literally 'there's no rational reason given'. It didn't feel like an argument between sides, it felt like a rational person going a bit too far and someone refusing to talk because he's been told that there might need to be some regulations. Tony does not act nice, and he does things he shouldn't, but at least there's a reason for his viewpoint.

    Quote Originally Posted by Reddish Mage View Post
    1) What's odd is (and its been pointed out ad nasaum). Tony Stark started his superhero career by taking the Afghan war into his own hands and rebuffing the US government because he wanted to fight terrorists on his own terms. Captain America started out working as part of the military, then SHIELD, and even attacked highly placed people in the US gov't for not following the law in ordering extra-judicial killings. The key is to engage the movie on its own terms, Captain America's position was well articulated and ultimately the one that prevails (at least from an audience POV, Sokovia Accords completely get implented)

    2) There's never been a teamup of thirteen heroes yet. Although infinity war probably gets to that number. We certainly do have a number of movies that can't work as a solo movie, but that's a point in favor of team-ups. You even admit Thor-Ragnorok is good for having a team-up!

    3) I don't see the counter to my point that the movies are fantastically successful and well-loved for their team ups. You are still saying flatly they don't work in movies, without qualification. I personally think Avengers is much better than the last major Arrrowverse Crossover on TV.

    Finally you complain there's too many Americans, but of the Avengers: Thor is alien, Scarlet Witch is Eastern European, Vision is an android, Black Widow is Russian. We are left with Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, and Hulk for the Americans. Considering that Marvel comics tend to be American-centric, half of the Avengers are not American.
    1) Yes, and it works because he was implied to be going overboard. He notably tones it down between 1 and 2 (although even in 2 he still acts like an ****), and generally seems to be undergoing positive character development. Meanwhile Captain America seems to have gone from standing for something greater to... doing what he wants to do. It's an understandable change, but it feels like the wrong direction for a superhero for me.

    2) Can't even exaggerate on these forums without someone taking it seriously! But my point was that eventually you get to so many 'main characters' that you can't focus on any, Thor had two plus one new one plus a villain plus possibly Loki (he was a tad out of focus), so 4/5 characters it had to focus on. Civil War had Cap, Stark, Bucky, Black Panther, some of Wanda, a bit of Vision, and so on until our villain almost gets no focus.

    3) No, I'm saying I don't think they work in movies, although I was tired and forgot to list my reason (reduction of focus). Note my example for a TV series assumed it was based around the team.

    Less complaining, more poking fun. I'd like to see heroes from other countries (how about an Indian superhero?), but I don't really care.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Certainly. I'd just finished seeing a teamup movie with many heroes, I was all ready to see the next Marvel movie where they'd focus on Captain BrazilAmerica and a couple of other characters, instead they introduce two new heroes, return old characters when the current Avengers lineup is enough people for a film, and in general seemed to try to fit both a solo movie and a teamup in the same film. It wasn't really focused on the Captain in my opinion, but the Avengers, and so I felt mislead by the title.

    I mean, it's not a massive dealbreaker, but I get annoyed by the title because it didn't feel like it deserved the 'solo hero work' title (which, considering it's called Civil War, is idiotic, but they're my feelings).
    Thanks, that makes sense if you're not looking for a team-up movie.
    Honestly, it's literally 'there's no rational reason given'. It didn't feel like an argument between sides, it felt like a rational person going a bit too far and someone refusing to talk because he's been told that there might need to be some regulations. Tony does not act nice, and he does things he shouldn't, but at least there's a reason for his viewpoint.
    I'm actually not even sure what people mean when they say Tony is acting like a jerk. What did he do? I feel like he's acting in charge, but he's sort of in a position to do that. It seemed like Tony was basically saying "We have to do this" and I don't think that was being a jerk. He was (arguably) trying to save Barnes as much as Cap was, just in a different way. I don't think Tony was being an ******* honestly.

    But I also don't think that Cap didn't have rational reasons. He doesn't trust the oversight. Those will simply be *other* people making decisions, but still just people. He'd rather be the person making the call, not someone he doesn't know sitting on a governing body somewhere. The conversation gets interrupted by Peggy Carter's death, and then the plot of the movie happens (Bucky is framed, Cap goes after him). That changes the conversation somewhat because now Cap is breaking the law, now there are higher stakes at play, both Cap and Tony are put between a rock and a hard place (Cap between adhering to the law and saving his friend, and Tony between Ross' need to control the situation and the rest of the Avengers).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai View Post
    Thanks, that makes sense if you're not looking for a team-up movie.

    I'm actually not even sure what people mean when they say Tony is acting like a jerk. What did he do? I feel like he's acting in charge, but he's sort of in a position to do that. It seemed like Tony was basically saying "We have to do this" and I don't think that was being a jerk. He was (arguably) trying to save Barnes as much as Cap was, just in a different way. I don't think Tony was being an ******* honestly.

    But I also don't think that Cap didn't have rational reasons. He doesn't trust the oversight. Those will simply be *other* people making decisions, but still just people. He'd rather be the person making the call, not someone he doesn't know sitting on a governing body somewhere. The conversation gets interrupted by Peggy Carter's death, and then the plot of the movie happens (Bucky is framed, Cap goes after him). That changes the conversation somewhat because now Cap is breaking the law, now there are higher stakes at play, both Cap and Tony are put between a rock and a hard place (Cap between adhering to the law and saving his friend, and Tony between Ross' need to control the situation and the rest of the Avengers).
    For me it has quite a bit to do with the fact that he seemed to wash his hands of the Avengers at the end of the last film, only to come right back to meddling with them in this one. His actions were understandable and he was probably the best choice to deal with it, but it feels like somebody sticking his nose where he doesn't belong.

    He also gets more jerkish as the film goes on, but that's understandable.

    The problem with Captain ChinaAmerica's position is that it's fine as long as the person making the call is moral. In a committee it's easier to make sure that any singular element is controlling the decisions.

    I mean, if we can assume that Cap's moral code aligns with society then there's no problem with him making his own decisions. But we can't assume that his moral code will always be what's best for society.

    But I think I might be annoyed that I was told it was going to be a discussion between two points of view, only to have most of that discussion sidelined for more action scenes. But eh, apparently people liked the film, at least the martial arts in it were decent.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    I'm not blaming anyone for anything. Acknowledging an extremely troubled production does not force anyone to call the result a good film, but it is a contributing factor to the quality of the end result, and so can be a valid answer to the question of why the film didn't work out, which is in line with the thread title.

    I don't want to get into a long argument, and I'm not calling the DCEU flawless, but it does seem like many (not all) of the criticisms are a question of preference and expectations 'That's not my superman' 'I don't like the tone' and so forth.

    Re Civil War, while Team Stark does have some points, I think the film itself made an effort to show him as wrong.
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    The Face of the Accords is Ross, who is presented as an unreasonable authority figure. Two of his team defect, and one is a part timer, where Cap's team is mostly on board. Cap's team are correct about Bucky, but Tony has to go against Ross in the climax to prove that the Accords don't work. Team Stark paralyses one of their own team by accident. The captured heroes are mistreated, shocking Tony. Tony puts Ross on hold by movie's end, a tacit acknowledgement that he himself doesn't abide by the rules he represents.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    it does seem like many (not all) of the criticisms are a question of preference and expectations 'That's not my superman' 'I don't like the tone' and so forth.
    No, the criticism along those lines is that the films are trying to have it both ways: MoS never presents Superman as "the old superman" but then tries to play it like its a big deal that superman kills his enemy in the last act... even though it is never indicated he has a problem with that. In BvS, Batman is shown branding criminals so they get shanked in prison... but the film tries to make it seem like this is odd for Batman, despite never actually showing his "actual" MO. So the film wants the viewers to draw on the "classic" characters when it comes to telling the story, but then also tries to tell us "no, they aren't those characters". MovieBob (which I linked to earlier and Dragonexx actually posted the Youtube) goes on and on about it, and he is right: either these are new interpretations (but then you don't get to play the card of "oh, they have crossed a line" since they never established that these characters had drawn such a line for themselves) or they are not, in which case the films did a terrible job of putting those characters onto the screen.

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    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    The odd thing about Justice League is, if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is way lower than the audience score--so it seems the few people who actually went to see it enjoyed it far more than the critics did? One wonders if word of mouth will improve its fortunes over time.
    Justice League is not terrible. It's better than BvS and Suicide Squad. It falls clearly short of WW, though.

    I expect it to do alright as a popcorn movie/in foreign audiences. They won't go broke on it.

    But it does exhibit some of the flaws of those worse movies. They double down on non-stop awe of Superman as a messianic figure. This is constant, and is never subtle. In an ensamble film, this greatly detracts from the other characters. If supes can literally do everything your entire team can do with one hand tied behind his back, okay...why is this a team-up, and not a superman movie? DC gets so caught up in admiring the iconic nature of it's characters that it forgets to build a decent story and embrace building relationships with other characters. Everything is batman or superman, and they don't know how to actually build anything new.

    Do most viewers know the bad of justice league? No, probably not. The foot soldiers are not threatening, and oh look, we have another doomsday engine powered by technobabble, just like in MoS. They need some villain with a plan beyond "change earth into a copy of my world"*. They need actually coherent characters and arcs.

    *Strictly speaking, Luthor's motivation isn't that. Maybe. It's wildly unclear what Luthor really is, other than crazy, but the most logical thing is somehow mind controlled by Darkseid, so I guess ultimately working to that end as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    I'm not even sure I can agree with that. he has one basic visual setup that he does to death over and over again. it worked well in 300, which was so over the top that the style worked there. but he uses it everywhere even when it doesn't work.
    He's great at telling a long story in a short space. Consider, the introductory song of Sucker Punch. It's perfect, and gives you all the backstory you need in a very economical space. He does a very similar thing at the beginning of BvS, where he goes over Batman's origin story. Thank god we didn't have to sit through another full length treatment of that. If it's necessary, make it tight. Watchmen also contains a great flashback sequence explaining how superheroism had gotten where it was.

    Unfortunately, if you give him a free reign and a lot of space, he tends to make a mess of it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai View Post
    It looked and sounded like adults having real and meaningful conversations (for a movie) and coming to a major disagreement that made sense for the characters (minus Ant Man)
    The Ant-Man movie blames Stark for a looot of problems, and there's no love lost between the Ant-Man folks and Stark. I'll grant that it's the weakest of the lot, since it's not well explained in the actual film, but Ant-Man probably isn't going to be thrilled about a Stark-led accords for obvious reasons, and of course, character wise, he belongs on Caps team.

    I do agree, though, that DC isn't hitting anywhere near this level in explaining character motivations. The fact that people can argue over motivations for Civil War, and who was right for many pages on end means that...those explanations are making sense to people, and people care about them. Right, wrong, whatever. Conveying the explanation to the viewer in a way they care about is what matters. I might disagree with Tony's decisions, but I understand his emotions in a way that screaming "WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?" isn't...quite the equal of.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    The problem with Captain ChinaAmerica's position is that it's fine as long as the person making the call is moral. In a committee it's easier to make sure that any singular element is controlling the decisions.

    I mean, if we can assume that Cap's moral code aligns with society then there's no problem with him making his own decisions. But we can't assume that his moral code will always be what's best for society.
    You really can't assume that an oversight committee's moral code will align with society either. Especially in a universe where these things are regularly taken over by actual Nazi super-villains.

    I suppose you could make some sort of worldwide election to put someone in charge, but that's not what the Accords call for...and honestly people would just elect Cap anyway.

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    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right?
    Deadpool is Canadian as well.
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    Half the Avengers are not American. Also quite a number of notables in the Justice League. While the material is often placed in America, and based on American-based comic books, the amount of non-American superheroes is actually pretty notable.
    Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
    It would have been awesome if the writers had put as much thought into it as you guys do.
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    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right?
    Technically, but he's typically treated as American by the narrative of the stories, and he almost always stays in America. He's not exactly what you'd think of when you envision your typical Canadian.

  30. - Top - End - #60
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Legato Endless's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is DC sucking so much?

    I think I'd push back on one lightly implied bias I usually see in these discussions. That a Justice League film as a jumping off point for expansion was somehow conceptually doomed from the start. It wasn't, DC's problems lie more with their bizarre executive mandates, problematic auteur director, and other issues of execution.

    As Moviebob himself points out in his skewering of the general DCEU, there's no reason a film couldn't introduce the Justice League in something shorter than two and half hours, and then have everything spiral out from there. You can ably introduce a half dozen or so people and make a good film with the right structure. Seven Samurai does it, it's Western knockoff does it, Fellowship of the Ring does it, along with a number of other extremely well regarded films that delineate their characters.

    The problem is you have to abandon your cruft. Don't waste the audience's time. Like, take the Justice League movie. *Minor Spoilers*: Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman could have been far better established if the film wasn't diddling around with obnoxious strangely orange saturated set pieces.

    The Amazon sequence is like the rest of the film. It's too long and communicates too little. We don't need 5 minutes spent on an elaborately futile game of keep away from the alien warlord. Portal goes off, Parademons enter. They start getting slaughtered by the Amazons. 5 seconds or less. Steppenwolf comes down, he swings his ax, everyone gets stunned, he leaves with the box. This could all be wrapped in half a minute easily. Similarly we don't need a half hour of minion killing. One week later, the only thing I clearly remember from that mess was when Aquaman surfs through a building on a parademon. Compare with FotR, which only has two major battle sequences, the second of which occurs largely offscreen while Frodo gets solo scenes with three different characters.

    Justice League's characters aren't undercooked because there's 6 of them, it's undercooked because its simultaneously a sequel and override of the last film, directed by a man more interested in vaguely allegorical visuals than character building.

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