DC Extended Universe

Hello friends. The DC Extended Universe, or DCEU, began with the the release of Man of Steel in 2013. Since then, Batman v Superman has also been released. And now, Suicide Squad is on its way. I didn't see a thread on this specific topic, so I figured I'd make one. I'm interested in seeing where this universe goes as it only has two films to its name right now.

Here is the current lineup of films to come for the DCEU:
Suicide Squad (2016)
Wonder Woman (2017)
Justice League (2017)
The Flash (2018)
Aquaman (2018)
Shazam (2019)
Justice League 2 (2019)
Cyborg (2020)
Green Lantern Corps (2020)

Seems like they're gonna release two films every year, like Marvel.

What do you guys think of the DCEU so far?
 

Ohmachi

Sun✡Head
from a business stand point DC saw that Marvel was making a ton of money. They thought "DAMN! Why arnt we making billions of dollars on comic book movies? lets get in on that!" Now they are trying to get in on that, but for whatever reason they lack the "Umpf" and the Vision of what it takes to make that happen. Look at that line up! They want to be the Avengers and the money that comes with it soooooooooo bad. They want it more then you want your Waifu. The U.S. dollar is their waifu. They want that sooooooooooo bad. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD, I cannot express in words how badly they want that money, and maybe a lessor extent the prestige. From a historical standpoint though, they aien't getting it, and they aient getting the money, nor the prestige and their movies are probably going to suck. They are not trends setters, they are the band wagoners.

That my two cents on it.
 
superheroes scare the living shit out of me
one punch man could care less because no one can make him bleed
maybe you'll watch these DC movies, but not me
 
from a business stand point DC saw that Marvel was making a ton of money. They thought "DAMN! Why arnt we making billions of dollars on comic book movies? lets get in on that!" Now they are trying to get in on that, but for whatever reason they lack the "Umpf" and the Vision of what it takes to make that happen. Look at that line up! They want to be the Avengers and the money that comes with it soooooooooo bad. They want it more then you want your Waifu. The U.S. dollar is their waifu. They want that sooooooooooo bad. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD, I cannot express in words how badly they want that money, and maybe a lessor extent the prestige. From a historical standpoint though, they aien't getting it, and they aient getting the money, nor the prestige and their movies are probably going to suck. They are not trends setters, they are the band wagoners.

That my two cents on it.
All companies want to make money lol. But yeah, I get it. Superheroes movies are what's in right now, so of course DC wanted to get in on it. But honestly, I pretty much agree with you. I think it's a bit too early to really say they're failing compared to Marvel, since they only have two movies, but they sure as hell ain't doing good so far. Admittedly, I didn't see BvS, but I didn't like Man of Steel, and I'm not getting my hopes up for Suicide Squad either. I'm still gonna see it though.
 
Sorry for the necro, but I thought it'd be good to bring the DC universe conversation back up. Obviously the first three movies were, well not all that good, but I think DC has a lot of promise from here on out. For anyone that hasn't seen Wonder Woman, it is great (this is coming from a person that went into it assuming it'd be "meh"), and also the trailers for the justice league look quite promising. Aquaman especially comes off as a complete badass. Obviously the DC universe isn't really on par with how many movies marvel is pumping out, but honestly I think DC's movies will be of higher quality and less campy than marvels. That being said, lots of marvel movies are great and they all have their place, I just think the DC universe will consist of a slightly different type of movie than the marvel universe. Anyone think the DC universe will learn from its success in WW, or was it just a bit of luck and they'll crash and burn like the previous three installments (in terms of movie quality, not box office)?
 
I'm in the minority that really liked Batman vs. Superman. Especially since it came out at the same time as Civil War the contrast in how everything was handled is really evident. The Avengers, in being concerned about heroes and their accountability, seeks to regulate and make a political argument out of things, simply trying to shift responsibility and improve public image within a framework that currently exists. Batman vs Superman on the other hand approaches that same question from a more principled, philosophical angle.

Might there be some part of Superman, fighting his own battle with General Zod, who cares little in comparison about collateral damage against another race? What about this situation can be trusted in the long term when you have heroes like Harvey Dent whose hearts have changed unexpectedly? There's the obvious problem of dealing with villains like Superman if he's not around, but more importantly, his presence as a godlike entity clearly changes the dynamic no matter what else exists out there. Earth's solution in opening up a dialogue, inviting him to a hearing and possibly negotiating with him about conduct in the future, rung far more true to me than the audacity of SHEILD in slapping red tape all over the place. The final spark in seeing that even more meta humans are crawling around in the woodwork, just waiting to make their mark, only hastens the need for definitive cultural reform.

Lex makes a compelling villain in manipulating public opinion at every turn and setting up pieces behind pieces in his war. The final hurdle, Doomsday, is so fucking well executed in presenting an unstoppable threat that brings out and thematically and emotionally relevant action scene. In these Superman movies the director has pulled a large amount of clear inspiration (can't remember where but he confirmed this somewhere) from Birdy the Mighty: Decode (really great anime, as an aside). In particular what you're looking at is shit like this:


You have powerful, durable, lightweight characters closing large gaps and forcing each other through tons of walls and structures, really dynamic camera angles and moving backgrounds adding to the complexity of the scene, and raw emotion in the characterization of each action that's very thematically relevant. Wonder Woman leaping across great distances only to hack away before getting flung twice as far and bodied, rotating the camera to see Batman and Superman stalling for time before meeting the same fate really gave me the sense that it was all they could do to contain it. Because of this, you really get sold when Wonder Woman's barely holding on with the lasso even after the kryptonite bomb, and Superman still has to go in there with the spear and sacrifice himself. (I'll admit this death is later lessened by the near certainty that Superman won't be dead for long, but that doesn't detract from the moment.)

I'm looking forward to how this resolves into the Justice League proper, and Wonder Woman was more of what I'm looking for (origin stories being kind of tiresome at this point aside) as far as action and characterization. Do we really need to have a movie for each of the other guys though? We've already got Flash in the Arrowverse and we didn't feel the need to reboot Batman again after the Dark Knight trilogy and every other fucking time he's shown up.
 
I'm in the minority that really liked Batman vs. Superman. Especially since it came out at the same time as Civil War the contrast in how everything was handled is really evident. The Avengers, in being concerned about heroes and their accountability, seeks to regulate and make a political argument out of things, simply trying to shift responsibility and improve public image within a framework that currently exists. Batman vs Superman on the other hand approaches that same question from a more principled, philosophical angle.

Might there be some part of Superman, fighting his own battle with General Zod, who cares little in comparison about collateral damage against another race? What about this situation can be trusted in the long term when you have heroes like Harvey Dent whose hearts have changed unexpectedly? There's the obvious problem of dealing with villains like Superman if he's not around, but more importantly, his presence as a godlike entity clearly changes the dynamic no matter what else exists out there. Earth's solution in opening up a dialogue, inviting him to a hearing and possibly negotiating with him about conduct in the future, rung far more true to me than the audacity of SHEILD in slapping red tape all over the place. The final spark in seeing that even more meta humans are crawling around in the woodwork, just waiting to make their mark, only hastens the need for definitive cultural reform.

Lex makes a compelling villain in manipulating public opinion at every turn and setting up pieces behind pieces in his war. The final hurdle, Doomsday, is so fucking well executed in presenting an unstoppable threat that brings out and thematically and emotionally relevant action scene. In these Superman movies the director has pulled a large amount of clear inspiration (can't remember where but he confirmed this somewhere) from Birdy the Mighty: Decode (really great anime, as an aside). In particular what you're looking at is shit like this:


You have powerful, durable, lightweight characters closing large gaps and forcing each other through tons of walls and structures, really dynamic camera angles and moving backgrounds adding to the complexity of the scene, and raw emotion in the characterization of each action that's very thematically relevant. Wonder Woman leaping across great distances only to hack away before getting flung twice as far and bodied, rotating the camera to see Batman and Superman stalling for time before meeting the same fate really gave me the sense that it was all they could do to contain it. Because of this, you really get sold when Wonder Woman's barely holding on with the lasso even after the kryptonite bomb, and Superman still has to go in there with the spear and sacrifice himself. (I'll admit this death is later lessened by the near certainty that Superman won't be dead for long, but that doesn't detract from the moment.)

I'm looking forward to how this resolves into the Justice League proper, and Wonder Woman was more of what I'm looking for (origin stories being kind of tiresome at this point aside) as far as action and characterization. Do we really need to have a movie for each of the other guys though? We've already got Flash in the Arrowverse and we didn't feel the need to reboot Batman again after the Dark Knight trilogy and every other fucking time he's shown up.
I'm not 100% sure they're current movie lineup or game plan, but I don't think DC plans to delve as deep as marvel by giving each hero a movie, or several. Hopefully they will stick with quality over quantity. With the dark knight trilogy looming over any batman movies for the rest of time, it would be a travesty to make a new batman movie so soon, which I don't think they have planned so that's good. I agree that having a movie for the flash would be a poor decision, although that's partly because I'm not a fan of the actor. I do believe however that aquaman and cyborg deserve movies of their own (which they're indeed getting). Aquaman is the most shit on superhero of all time, so it's finally time he gains some respect. In addition, Wonder women deserves a second movie for a multitude of reasons, chief being that her first movie was great and that women superheroes are obviously underrepresented in pop culture through the Hollywood film medium.
 
Interesting that this thread was bumped today, because I saw wonder woman today. I don't think wonder woman was great, but honestly, I can't quite articulate why at the moment. I usually don't form concrete opinions on movies after just watching them. All I really know is that I'm not really sure I'd consider wonder woman a good movie. Though I don't think I'd say it's bad either. My opinion is liable to change in the future though, possibly after a rewatch.

It's hard to tell where dc will go from here. Admittedly, I haven't seen bvs or suicide squad yet, but from what I heard, wonder woman is apparently an improvement, so hopefully dc will continue to head in the right direction. I am looking forward to justice league, so here's to hoping that'll be good.

About everyone else getting movies, the flash probably doesn't need one, but maybe dc thinks they need to make one for the people who don't watch the show (like me). Does the show go over flash's origin story? Because if it does, at the very least, the movie shouldn't be his origin story. I'm fine with an aquaman movie. As waffletitan said, it'd be nice to see one of the lesser respected heroes getting to kick ass on the big screen. Cyborg getting a movie allows for more poc superhero representation. I don't think shazaam has ever had a movie, and I wouldn't be surprised if the average moviegoer didn't really know who he was, so giving him a movie might be to introduce the general audience to the character. Green lantern corps is probably happening because the last green lantern movie was ass lol. Also, Batman is getting a new movie. The working title is "The Batman" and I believe it's getting either a 2018 or 2019 release.
 
Yeah the flash series gets his origin story. It's campy as fuck, but like idk we don't need all these individual movies when the team ones showcase everybody well enough anyway. Origin story movies in particular are just getting old with how drawn out they are with lazy villains that are easy to knock down but maybe that's just me. Or maybe it just feels forced, like there's some obligation to do a solo aquaman movie because he's on the team.
 
I feel you on origin stories. If I had to guess why they're done, it's probably either 1. to get kids who know nothing about the character going in familiar with them or 2. the studio feels obligated somehow, like they have to justify why the hero is fighting. I can kinda understand both points, especially if the hero is someone who has never had a movie or much exposure outside of the comics in general. Though the fact that dc is having these heroes' movies come after justice league is really odd. With marvel, they typically have the individual movies come before the group ones, so that if you watch them in order, you can know who they are and why they're on the team. With dc, all of these heroes are getting movies after justice league, so them getting individual movies isn't really there to explain who they are or why they're on the team. There's also probably obligation to do all these solo movies because that's just what marvel is doing, and it clearly works for them. And after all, more superhero movies = more money.
 
Part of the reason Suicide Squad failed so spectacularly is because it tried to introduce the entire band of characters in the same movie. SS was released after The Avengers - I suspect some DC bright spark thought "That there MCU appears to be working out, we should have a crack at that." But The Avengers didn't introduce its characters in one big hit during the movie itself - each of them had their own individual movies, so that they had enough screen time to build up the character development. This meant we knew who they were *before* they got thrown into a movie together, and therefore that the diminished individual screen time didn't matter as much: the characters were already established.

Why are there so many origin stories? Because you can't cram a large cast worth of character development into 2 hours.
Oh and people have this weird thing for telling stories in chronological order? Might be relevant I guess.
 

Stellar

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And to clarify, the CW superhero shows are not continuous with the DC movies. The Flash for example, features different actors and a almost wholly disparate context and plotline. Assuming the CW shows are the "television shows" you are referring to, they don't serve as direct introductions to the cinematic universe, justifying the need for origin story movies.
 
I mean the analogue of Suicide Squad is Guardians of the Galaxy which did just fine introducing a bunch of people but sure.

I know the Flash tv show is discontinuous but so was TDK that's my point. At a certain point the people who care can be assumed to have close enough context.

You can tell me why we "need" these solo stories or why they're justified, and those reasons are perfectly valid. But at a certain point you cross the line from movies you might be making anyway to spending a bunch of time and money delaying the main attraction with shitty movies just so you can hype it a little better. There are other solutions, albeit probably less lucrative ones.

Nothing I say is gonna change anything, these movies are coming, but I'm not excited about them and that's not going to change either lol.
 
I mean the analogue of Suicide Squad is Guardians of the Galaxy which did just fine introducing a bunch of people but sure.

I know the Flash tv show is discontinuous but so was TDK that's my point. At a certain point the people who care can be assumed to have close enough context.

You can tell me why we "need" these solo stories or why they're justified, and those reasons are perfectly valid. But at a certain point you cross the line from movies you might be making anyway to spending a bunch of time and money delaying the main attraction with shitty movies just so you can hype it a little better. There are other solutions, albeit probably less lucrative ones.

Nothing I say is gonna change anything, these movies are coming, but I'm not excited about them and that's not going to change either lol.
Guardians of the Galaxy had 5 protagonists + an antagonist. How many did suicide squad have? 10? More?
I also thought that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 suffered from lack of character development due to the number of characters - they bumped it up to more like 8 + an antagonist, and I felt a lot of the character development felt like it happened unrealistically fast just due to lack of individual screen time.

I definitely get your point though. These origin stories are going to keep coming until they stop being profitable, regardless of whether or not they're necessary or good. The superhero genre has been massively overpopulated for the last little while, and I'd say we're probably at it's peak now.
 

GatoDelFuego

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The reason suicide squad flopped so hard is because it's an awful movie. You can tell it was reshot super hard due to "BvS not having enough laffs". All the weird jokes with Captain Boomerang and random one-liners in the first act were probably not in the original script. I've no idea WHAT the original was, because if it was just more action then nothing could have saved the movie. Will Smith and Margot Robie Versus The Zombie Pods doesn't make for a good anything. It's a real shame because the first third of the movie actually IS interesting, with the stylistic backstories and all.

The instant the Skwad gets put into action the movie devolves fast. Off of the bat boomerang is useless, croc can...punch people, el diablo is a pacificst, and enchantress decided to be a villain (which is still the most obvious gripe with the entire movie, ffs). So the only people that can even fight are Harley and deadshot, and Harley just punches more people with a baseball bat. I was excited for boomerang and katana, but boomerang's entire character is "nah, I'm not down to fight at all" and Katana's entire character is "This is Katana. She works for me. She has a blade that kills people and absorbs their souls. Her husband got killed by the sword btw. OK, we all know who katana is? Let's not have her show up ever again". Let's not forget Slipknot, The Man Who Can Climb Anything (ok maybe he has 1 grappling hook but whatever). Now THAT'S a killer app! What is the point of all these one-liners? "We're bad guys! It's waaht we dooh". The movie keeps telling everybody that the suicide squad is supposed to be these crazy bad guys but in grand total they steal 1 purse and are obsessed with 1 pink unicorn.

You wrap it all together with 3 helicopter crashes, the fact that enchantress wants to build A Machine to destroy the world or something, and the stupid amount of fakeouts in the plot (like when deadshot is about to shoot Harley and misses....because he cares about Harley? for some reason?), and you get a truly garbage movie. I think it would have succeeded hat it not been a terrible movie, origin story and all.



Which is all a shame, because I'd consider BvS to be in my top 10 movies of all time list. I don't get why people have any criticisms of the movie at all, and its poor performance led to SOMETHING about SS changing that I'd like to blame it all on.
 

Hulavuta

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Suicide Squad did not necessarily need all of its characters set up beforehand. Ensemble casts have been done in films before The Avengers was ever a thing. There was an animated Suicide Squad film, Assault on Arkham, that handled it pretty well. In Suicide Squad the characters got plenty of time devoted to them anyway, it just wasn't used all the effectively. And it's fine if they're not all the focus, as long as they get more to do than Slipknot.

The problems with Suicide Squad were its strange editing (every character got 2-3 introductions for some reason, reshoots messed up the continuity creating set-ups with no payoffs) and nonsensical plot. A lot of the film would be fixed if they made it a smaller story, David Ayer admitted it himself in hindsight. If it was just a small heist movie, like stealing something or breaking someone out of a prison (again, taking cues from Assault on Arkham), it'd be much better. The whole point of the Squad is not that they're especially powerful, it's that they're criminals and therefore completely expendable and the US government has plausible deniability if they are discovered or caught. Having them save the world doesn't really make sense, but pulling off illegal heists does.


As for origin movies, I do not think they need to copy Marvel at this point. Having the origin stories with team-up teases worked for Marvel but I don't think it's something that audiences want to sit through again. It's emotionally tedious and everyone already knows the endgame is Justice League, unlike with Marvel where it was simply a tease and hint at first. Nothing wrong with introducing all the characters in one movie and then giving them spin-offs later. Maybe Marvel has changed the way we look at movie continuity now, but having them introduce characters beforehand was a bonus, not a necessity. Any problems Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman had (though I really liked Batman v Superman) came from execution, not on a fundamental level. At least in my opinion.

As for The Flash movie, I am pretty sure that is not going to be an origin story, but I'm not 100% on that. It's gone through a bunch of directors and I've even heard it was going to be combined with the Cyborg movie so it seems like a troubled production atm. Aquaman looks hype as fuck though

DC has stated their future plans depend on how well Justice League does, so I hope it does well. I've always been more of a DC guy than Marvel so I hope it can keep up this momentum.
 
The reason suicide squad flopped so hard is because it's an awful movie. You can tell it was reshot super hard due to "BvS not having enough laffs". All the weird jokes with Captain Boomerang and random one-liners in the first act were probably not in the original script. I've no idea WHAT the original was, because if it was just more action then nothing could have saved the movie. Will Smith and Margot Robie Versus The Zombie Pods doesn't make for a good anything. It's a real shame because the first third of the movie actually IS interesting, with the stylistic backstories and all.

The instant the Skwad gets put into action the movie devolves fast. Off of the bat boomerang is useless, croc can...punch people, el diablo is a pacificst, and enchantress decided to be a villain (which is still the most obvious gripe with the entire movie, ffs). So the only people that can even fight are Harley and deadshot, and Harley just punches more people with a baseball bat. I was excited for boomerang and katana, but boomerang's entire character is "nah, I'm not down to fight at all" and Katana's entire character is "This is Katana. She works for me. She has a blade that kills people and absorbs their souls. Her husband got killed by the sword btw. OK, we all know who katana is? Let's not have her show up ever again". Let's not forget Slipknot, The Man Who Can Climb Anything (ok maybe he has 1 grappling hook but whatever). Now THAT'S a killer app! What is the point of all these one-liners? "We're bad guys! It's waaht we dooh". The movie keeps telling everybody that the suicide squad is supposed to be these crazy bad guys but in grand total they steal 1 purse and are obsessed with 1 pink unicorn.

You wrap it all together with 3 helicopter crashes, the fact that enchantress wants to build A Machine to destroy the world or something, and the stupid amount of fakeouts in the plot (like when deadshot is about to shoot Harley and misses....because he cares about Harley? for some reason?), and you get a truly garbage movie. I think it would have succeeded hat it not been a terrible movie, origin story and all.



Which is all a shame, because I'd consider BvS to be in my top 10 movies of all time list. I don't get why people have any criticisms of the movie at all, and its poor performance led to SOMETHING about SS changing that I'd like to blame it all on.
I'm not of the opinion that batman vs superman is a bad movie at all, I'd just like to state my gripes with it. First of all there are a lot of random unexplained scenes, like the batman dream sequences where he's in the desert with aliens and when he sees the flash. I have no doubt at all that these will be explained or become clear in future movies, but there were so many of these "what is this" scenes that it took away from the movie and muddled things. I'm also not a big fan of the fact that batman uses guns and stuff rather than non lethal weaponry like the dark knight trilogy, but this can be forgiven because it's a different/new representation of batman and needs to differentiate itself from the dark knight trilogy because it cannot be replicated. By far my biggest issue is the stupid "Martha" line. I mean come on, they could've thought of something better or at least given it a better delivery, it's just a bit far fetched that simply saying "Martha" would change everything. I get the idea behind it and where they're coming from, but they don't succeed in the execution of making it look like a legitimate reason to not kill superman. Most of the film is pretty good, especially the fight scenes. The whole back half of the movie is quite strong, everything from the title fight on. I think the film is unfairly judged and will be considered better in a few years time, but it does undoubtedly have some problems.
 

GatoDelFuego

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I'm not of the opinion that batman vs superman is a bad movie at all, I'd just like to state my gripes with it. First of all there are a lot of random unexplained scenes, like the batman dream sequences where he's in the desert with aliens and when he sees the flash. I have no doubt at all that these will be explained or become clear in future movies, but there were so many of these "what is this" scenes that it took away from the movie and muddled things. I'm also not a big fan of the fact that batman uses guns and stuff rather than non lethal weaponry like the dark knight trilogy, but this can be forgiven because it's a different/new representation of batman and needs to differentiate itself from the dark knight trilogy because it cannot be replicated. By far my biggest issue is the stupid "Martha" line. I mean come on, they could've thought of something better or at least given it a better delivery, it's just a bit far fetched that simply saying "Martha" would change everything. I get the idea behind it and where they're coming from, but they don't succeed in the execution of making it look like a legitimate reason to not kill superman. Most of the film is pretty good, especially the fight scenes. The whole back half of the movie is quite strong, everything from the title fight on. I think the film is unfairly judged and will be considered better in a few years time, but it does undoubtedly have some problems.
The flash "dream" scene was a great way of showing off the future that batman was afraid of. idk about you but for me it definitely didn't muddle anything, it made the movie a lot more interesting cause I picked up right away that it was supposed to be the future with darkseid. The flash goes back to tell bruce that he has to find the justice league before it's too late. Batman uses guns in the dream because it's a nightmare future where superman and darkseid joined forces and there's no point in protecting anything any more. Unless you meant all the people he kills with grenades or whatever.

And I really think the martha line gets a bad rap. It really is just the straw that finally broke the camel's back for batman. The whole movie he's had everybody tell him how he's wrong to go after superman and it's just a personal revenge quest (which it is). Batman rationalizes it by saying superman is just an alien invader come to mess up earth, and can't have any morals at all. The whole "you're not brave" thing; he's basically turned superman into an object instead of a person in order to come to terms with what he's going to do. But then when superman mentions "martha", and especially when lois shows up, batman realizes that what he'd be doing would be no worse than what the guy who killed his parents did. Batman had plenty of reservations about what he was doing, and just kept pushing past them because he wanted revenge. It's not that the 1 line flipped batman from one side to the other, it's the situation and lois's appearance that made batman finally accept that he was doing something wrong.
 
The flash "dream" scene was a great way of showing off the future that batman was afraid of. idk about you but for me it definitely didn't muddle anything, it made the movie a lot more interesting cause I picked up right away that it was supposed to be the future with darkseid. The flash goes back to tell bruce that he has to find the justice league before it's too late. Batman uses guns in the dream because it's a nightmare future where superman and darkseid joined forces and there's no point in protecting anything any more. Unless you meant all the people he kills with grenades or whatever.

And I really think the martha line gets a bad rap. It really is just the straw that finally broke the camel's back for batman. The whole movie he's had everybody tell him how he's wrong to go after superman and it's just a personal revenge quest (which it is). Batman rationalizes it by saying superman is just an alien invader come to mess up earth, and can't have any morals at all. The whole "you're not brave" thing; he's basically turned superman into an object instead of a person in order to come to terms with what he's going to do. But then when superman mentions "martha", and especially when lois shows up, batman realizes that what he'd be doing would be no worse than what the guy who killed his parents did. Batman had plenty of reservations about what he was doing, and just kept pushing past them because he wanted revenge. It's not that the 1 line flipped batman from one side to the other, it's the situation and lois's appearance that made batman finally accept that he was doing something wrong.
Yeah, I'm aware of the explanations and stuff (now, not when I first saw the movie) I just was responding to

I'd consider BvS to be in my top 10 movies of all time list. I don't get why people have any criticisms of the movie at all
I personally think the movie is good, just wanted to shed light on what people have criticisms about.
 
I haven't seen bvs but I'm of the mindset that almost no movie/tv show/whatever is beyond criticism. Even if it's something I love. I've seen other people talk about the points waffletitan brought up and I think they're legitimate.

I can't weigh in too much on the bvs topic beyond that, but about suicide squad, it definitely had a troubled production. I remember reading once that it had two major rewrites, and David Ayer at one point was given 6 weeks to churn out a script. It also had competing cuts (Ayer's darker version vs. the studio's lighter version, in which the latter won), and had some editing done by Trailer Park, a studio that, well, makes trailers. If you've ever felt like either parts of or all of suicide squad feels like one long trailer (which I have heard some people say) then that's why.
 
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Hulavuta

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Honestly, my biggest criticism of Batman v Superman are all of the real people and pop culture references in it. I'm not usually one to care about product placement and stuff in films; it didn't bother me all that much in Man of Steel. But seeing stuff like fucking Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about the implications of Superman existing and Anderson Cooper giving a news report about the Doomsday fight, or even Perry White saying "I found this in your Dropbox" just take me out of the movie so hard.

It always seemed to me that Marvel was the one who was hip and contemporary, as they were more sci-fi, whereas DC always was more archetypal and timeless and more like mythology. Especially with BvS attempting to have big philosophical and religious themes. So having Bill O'Reilly show up in Iron Man isn't that weird and actually builds up the world more, especially as those films are more comedic. In BvS it is really tonally jarring. It takes away the attention on what the character is saying in favor of a reference "wow, hey I know that guy in real life, cool!" Very distracting. It is so weird because Neil deGrasse Tyson might as well be talking about Superman as a character in real life and you'd get the same feeling. Really sucked me out of the film.



As for the whole thing about Martha, I really liked it as a concept, because their mothers having the same name really is a parallel I have never seen explored anywhere else. It might have been in a comic at some point but obviously not something big in the conscious of most people. The biggest question I have now though is why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker if he's now at the point where he's willing to break his one rule? Is the Joker's mother named Martha too?
 
Honestly, my biggest criticism of Batman v Superman are all of the real people and pop culture references in it. I'm not usually one to care about product placement and stuff in films; it didn't bother me all that much in Man of Steel. But seeing stuff like fucking Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about the implications of Superman existing and Anderson Cooper giving a news report about the Doomsday fight, or even Perry White saying "I found this in your Dropbox" just take me out of the movie so hard.

It always seemed to me that Marvel was the one who was hip and contemporary, as they were more sci-fi, whereas DC always was more archetypal and timeless and more like mythology. Especially with BvS attempting to have big philosophical and religious themes. So having Bill O'Reilly show up in Iron Man isn't that weird and actually builds up the world more, especially as those films are more comedic. In BvS it is really tonally jarring. It takes away the attention on what the character is saying in favor of a reference "wow, hey I know that guy in real life, cool!" Very distracting. It is so weird because Neil deGrasse Tyson might as well be talking about Superman as a character in real life and you'd get the same feeling. Really sucked me out of the film.



As for the whole thing about Martha, I really liked it as a concept, because their mothers having the same name really is a parallel I have never seen explored anywhere else. It might have been in a comic at some point but obviously not something big in the conscious of most people. The biggest question I have now though is why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker if he's now at the point where he's willing to break his one rule? Is the Joker's mother named Martha too?
I guess I didn't see it as a pop culture reference of joke, but more as another layer of realism at the time. Like you see the religious fanatic going on about Superman and then you see Neil deGrasse Tyson getting interviewed about our place int he universe and you're like "yeah, he probably would be a guest somewhere and weigh in exactly like this." At the very least it made the debate feel less abstract, and I might have gotten the same feeling if it were set in the 80s and they got a CG reconstruction of young Carl Sagan to speak instead. I can see where you're coming from on that, though, I definitely understand the criticism.

I'm mostly with Gato on the Martha line but I thought it got played a little cheezy nonetheless which didn't help an otherwise compelling scene (as evidenced by the reaction). Of course nothing is above criticism, and BvS is FAR from perfect but when I talk to most people about it they just laugh at me and call it obviously bad lol.
 

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I guess I didn't see it as a pop culture reference of joke, but more as another layer of realism at the time. Like you see the religious fanatic going on about Superman and then you see Neil deGrasse Tyson getting interviewed about our place int he universe and you're like "yeah, he probably would be a guest somewhere and weigh in exactly like this." At the very least it made the debate feel less abstract, and I might have gotten the same feeling if it were set in the 80s and they got a CG reconstruction of young Carl Sagan to speak instead. I can see where you're coming from on that, though, I definitely understand the criticism.
I didn't mean it is a joke, but just that I think a reference like that would only work as a joke. To me, it dates the movie immediately (which again, works for Marvel because the whole point of it is that it exists in the here and now). Having a religious fanatic see Superman as a god and having some contemporary scientist talk about what it means are fine as story elements, I just don't think it should have been a person that exists in real life and is recognizable. It goes beyond being "realistic" to "actually happening in the real world" which is very off, both tonally and in terms of setting. To exaggerate it a bit, just to make the point clearer, it would be as if the character of June Finch was instead replaced with the actual senator from Kentucky (yeah they probably wouldn't kill the real life senator in the story, but her death was incidental to her character anyway). I think most people would agree that would be a bit weird and "too real". So it's the same idea here, just to a lesser extent of course because these are just TV cameos and not major characters.
 

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