DC MOVIE THREAD

[odessasteps]

F Snyder and F burton and F Nolan are not mutually exclusive.

[Eivion]

14 minutes ago, EVA said:

Saw someone make a good point today:  In a world with a Batman who is perfectly okay with killing people, HOW IS THE JOKER STILL ALIVE?

That is a good damn question that will probably never be answered.

Speaking of which what is the general opinion on Affleck's Batman? I thought he did ok for what he had to work with, but I'm so much more interested in seeing what Affleck could maybe do on his own w/o Snyder's influence or at least said influenced lessened..

[Raziel]

I disliked the Burton's with time,

 

But yeah, in Batman 89, Bats blew the shit out of Ace Chemicals with a bomb from the Batmobile, that dropped right in front of the mooks shooting at it.  So the kill count in 89 was pretty high since there seemed to be a bunch of mooks in that Chemical plant alone.

[EVA]

20 minutes ago, Eivion said:

That is a good damn question that will probably never be answered.

Speaking of which what is the general opinion on Affleck's Batman? I thought he did ok for what he had to work with, but I'm so much more interested in seeing what Affleck could maybe do on his own w/o Snyder's influence or at least said influenced lessened..

Yeah, based on what he had to work with, he was fine.  I think the scene at the warehouse at the end (quibbles with the body count aside) really sang and felt like a Batman flick I'd be interested in seeing.

My guess is an Affleck/Terrio Batman movie would be very procedural with an emphasis on the detective work, which I would be SO game for.

 

That said, and this is getting a little tangential, I think it would be kind of awesome if Batman gets zapped into the past at the end of JL.  I didn't love the Return of Bruce Wayne (I felt like the covers often promised a more interesting story than wha the issue actually delivered), but all the while I was reading it, I thought it would make a kickass movie.  I mean, if you're going to have Batman mixing it up with the likes of Darkseid, you might as well double down and go gonzo instead of doing yet another street-level story.

[Niners Fan in CT]

45 minutes ago, Jingus said:

Two wrongs don't make a right.  

Or three and that's just film. Let's talk about the "they don't understand the character" posts because I never know which iteration you are referring to.  These characters have been around for 75 years. Batman was hanging people in the 40s.  Who exactly is this Batman that's misunderstood? Who understood Batman? Certainly not Miller, everyone here apparently hates that version. Not the Burtons. Not the Nolans.  I think it's clear now that some folks will just never be happy.

[Ligerbusa]

58 minutes ago, EVA said:

Saw someone make a good point today:  In a world with a Batman who is perfectly okay with killing people, HOW IS THE JOKER STILL ALIVE?

He's not perfectly okay with killing people. If he was in a hand to hand fight with Joker, he's not going to kill him. 

And maybe Batman would rather punish Joker than let him die.

[Niners Fan in CT]

He didn't even kill the goons in the warehouse. People are acting like he's The Punisher. The gas tanked exploded and maybe took out the one dude. Everyone else left with bruises and broken bones.

[Brian Fowler]

IIRC, it was in late 1940, just over a year after Batman's first appearance, that the no killing and no guns rule went into effect.

There have been exceptions here and there since in the comics (Son of the Demon and All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder he definitely kills people, TDKR and The Killing Joke there's debatable killings, and probably a few others I'm forgetting as far as killing. Batman with a gun happened at least a couple times early in the Silver Age by a new creative team that wasn't aware of the rule, and it's been a go-to "shit just got so serious Batman is breaking his rule!" moment for decades.) but it's mostly been a hard and fast rule since then.

Miller's work is influential as hell, but I'd point out that his only major Batman story that was actually considered in continuity is Year One.

[Craig H]

When Bruce says something to the extent of, "we're all criminals," he's made his peace with racking up a murder-death-kill or two or ten.

I'm still not sure how I felt about Affleck's Bruce Wayne/Batman. I thought his Batman was very clumsy and too muscular. I'm sure someone could argue, "well, he's old, so he has to pack on muscle," but frankly, that's bullshit. Affleck decided to put on a ton of muscle because he was going to be playing a superhero, not because Batman is old and he has to rely on muscle. And his Bruce Wayne was such an incredible downer.

While talking about the movie with a friend, he pointed out how everyone who has played Bruce Wayne has injected a healthy amount of humor in the character to contrast the "Bruce Wayne" character of being a playboy millionaire with Batman. Keaton had his touches on the character ("YOU WANNA GET NUTS? LET'S GET NUTS!") and so did Kilmer, Clooney and Bale. I really liked Bale's take where Bruce Wayne in reality wasn't a playboy millionaire who lived a party lifestyle and you really got to see Bruce Wayne wear two masks: one as Batman and one as what everyone expected out of someone with his stature. You had scenes where Alfred refers to Bruce's partying, you had Bruce always mugging for a camera, taking the Lambo out for a drive, jumping into a fountain in a restaurant with two girls, etc.

I didn't expect the same stuff from this Batman, but it was so flat. The guy walked around just bumming everyone out. I'm sure people at Lex's gala were happy to see him leave because conversations probably went something like:

Attendee: "Hey, Bruce Wayne! How have you been?"
Bruce: "My parents died as a kid...Make sure you wear a seat belt driving home tonight. Most traffic accidents happen within a mile of where you left. Don't let your kids grow up like I did."
*Insert Debbie Downer sound*

[Craig H]

15 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

He didn't even kill the goons in the warehouse. People are acting like he's The Punisher. The gas tanked exploded and maybe took out the one dude. Everyone else left with bruises and broken bones.

Yes, I'm sure the one guy who had his head slammed through a wooden crate and the other guy who got spiked into the floor on top of his head walked away just fine.

Nevermind that Batman, after being stabbed in the arm by a goon, pushes that same goon up against a wall and proceeds to stab that goon right back with the same knife.

No, that's not a Punisher type move.

[odessasteps]

I havent read it in a while, but theres a 70s story (by Denny i think) where Batman meets the Shadow and Bats mentions he was one of his inspirations but constantly throughout the story turns down the chance to use guns/the Shadows pistols. 

(Thats the gist; i may have details fuzzy.)

[Matt D]

It's not specific GOTCHA examples that matter so much as the spirit behind things, what it represents, and what it could represent. To go against any of that has a huge cost and the benefit better damn well be worth it. Some sensationalist deconstruction that represents how fucked up our country is in 2016 doesn't seem to cut it to me. It seems like it's the time when we need what Batman represents the most. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

3 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Yes, I'm sure the one guy who had his head slammed through a wooden crate and the other guy who got spiked into the floor on top of his head walked away just fine.

Nevermind that Batman, after being stabbed in the arm by a goon, pushes that same goon up against a wall and proceeds to stab that goon right back with the same knife.

No, that's not a Punisher type move.

He stabbed that guy in the arm. As for the others, if we're going to count those as kills then  why not count Daredevil kills. All the things he's done to people over two seasons and none of them died from it. Hard to believe. And even though he was pushed over the edge or to the brink after all that's happened..  Superman reminded him of who he used to be. That's why he didn't brand Luthor.

[Niners Fan in CT]

10 minutes ago, Matt D said:

It's not specific GOTCHA examples that matter so much

It's not GOTCHA moments, Matt.  The thing is, people have an idea of what a character is when they are growing up with that character and they don't give a crap about how the character used to be and they don't want to see any changes for that character as they grow older. It ruins their childhood or something, I guess. That's where the criticism for Man of Steel stemmed from because it was a film where you are no longer getting the Donner Superman that you loved so much when you were 15 or whatever.

 

[Matt D]

I've got little love for the Donner Superman. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

Someone asked me, how come people don't shit on how much Tony Stark was altered in the Marvel movies. Couple things. First, I think most people agree that the changes were probably for the better and Downey is awesome but there's something else to it.  Nobody knows who the hell Iron Man is.

DC is at a disadvantage with their heroes in one regard. Is Batman bulletproof to critics?  Box office wise..probably.. but not with overall critical reception.  Even Guardians of the Galaxy, they changed a ton about Drax and they changed a ton about Gamora. I don't believe those changes were for the better but most people have no clue who they even are.

DC's heroes are iconic. Marvel's heroes are whoever Feige wants them to be because nobody knows the difference.

[Brian Fowler]

But you have to understand, the vast, VAST majority of Batman comics ever published, and I mean probably well over 90%, he had a hard and fast rule against both killing people and using guns. You can say it's not an important trait to translate (and clearly filmmakers have tended to agree with you) but to  argue it's not a party of the comics because of things that happened before the character was solidified or the extremely rare counterexample, is to ignore 70+ years of fairly consistent storytelling.

 

And no, the complaints about Man of Steel aren't about the Donnor film. It's about the character of Superman from the films, comics, animated series, radio serials, and TV shows. Is the character a completely straight line that follows a clear path in all that since 1938? Of course not. But one would have to be willfully denying nearly all of his history to say Man of Steel wasn't a pretty radical reinterpretation of the character as it relates to his most consistent traits and personality and tone. Again, you can argue that making such a radical change isn't a bad thing, or was even necessary, but to act like it's not out of step with the character as he'd been portrayed is simply wrong.

[Craig H]

14 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

He stabbed that guy in the arm. As for the others, if we're going to count those as kills then  why not count Daredevil kills. All the things he's done to people over two seasons and none of them died from it. Hard to believe. And even though he was pushed over the edge or to the brink after all that's happened..  Superman reminded him of who he used to be. That's why he didn't brand Luthor.

It's like you don't get it. And it's like that because you don't get it.

So here it is. You keep doing this thing that's really annoying and it's something that children do, which is to deflect judgment onto something else. We're not talking about Daredevil here, we're talking about BvS. If you want to fucking talk about Daredevil and the kills he has racked up, then by all means, go do so. There is a thread for that. In this case though, each and every time people provide you with a reason for why BvS was fucked up, you will say, "well what about Daredevil!" or "what about Iron Man!" or "what about the Avengers!" You're providing no argument to the contrary when you go and say, "well such and such did it too!" It doesn't fucking matter because we're talking this particular movie, these particular characters, and every time you bring up someone from Marvel, you look childish. 

Superman didn't remind Batman of who he used to be and if he did, uttering "Martha" is the weakest fucking reason for it. The guy went from, "WE MUST KILL THIS ALIEN GOD!" to "this man was my friend and I failed him" because their mom's share the same first name. Think about that for a minute.

Except you likely won't. You'll continue to die on this hill and will bring up Thor or something.

[Matt D]

Marvel's done four things exceptionally well.

1. They struck a fun tone with Iron Man, modernizing it while keeping enough details to make it work.

2. And this is most important, I think: they got Captain America right. That's the iconic character right there and they proved that he could work even in a post-modern world. Superman could too. 

3. They hit the marks on Avengers, not all of them, but enough.

4. They managed to launch a few smaller properties successfully, leaning on some specific house style elements that people enjoy while differentiating them with separate genres. Dr. Strange is next, which is magic horror, and thus unlike anything they've been doing. It all feels different. It all feels the same.

Building on what Brian said, has Superman killed? Yes. But it led to Exile. It was shown as a massively horrible mistake and had huge, huge costs. It was also not the story that they led the post-crisis Superman with, and it existed within a broader spectrum than that. If you're only going to do one story every 3 years, or whatever, there are different things you can and can't get away with relative to if you're putting out four comics a month.

If you do one Spider-Man movie every three years, you probably shouldn't do the one where Doc Ock takes over his brain. That's an interesting twist on the formula to see what something different would look like, but they're still trying to establish the movie baseline, and they went far afield because that's what excited Snyder and that's what WB thought that America would lap up because it loves seeing its heroes fall and shown to be even more horrible than we are. Look at the popcorn eating and hand-wringing in something like the Cosby note. It's a spectator sport, our national pastime. 

[Brian Fowler]

And I'm not even saying Warners and DC are wrong for doing this. BvS for a B- from men, and a B from women, but it got an A from people under 18. Go where the money is, etc.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it. And, hey, in the end, I got more enjoyment from it than I expected (lowered expectations for the win! Hooray) so... Shrug

[Jingus]

1 hour ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Or three and that's just film. Let's talk about the "they don't understand the character" posts because I never know which iteration you are referring to.  These characters have been around for 75 years. Batman was hanging people in the 40s.  Who exactly is this Batman that's misunderstood? Who understood Batman? Certainly not Miller, everyone here apparently hates that version. Not the Burtons. Not the Nolans.  I think it's clear now that some folks will just never be happy.

 

The majority of Batman's writers and the majority of Batman's fans agree that the character is best used when he's not killing people.  If he IS willing to kill people, then what's special about him?  We've already got a Punisher.  We don't need another one.   And seriously, why should "this superhero never kills people" be such an incredibly difficult rule to follow? 

And especially when the killing is done so callously, with Bats just slaughtering henchmen like their lives don't matter.  That's unacceptable, it completely goes against everything in the character's motivations.  Everything that drives Batman is "never let people die".  When that's changed, when he becomes so much more blase about human life, he's much less interesting.

 

 

If he MUST kill someone, the story should DEAL with that.  Ya know the one time I'm completely fine with Bats whacking someone?  Two-Face in The Dark Knight.  Batman was exhausted, badly wounded, completely spent.  He had nothing left, no bright ideas, and he was stuck facing his worst nightmare: the white-meat babyface Harvey Dent turned into a psychotic heel.  All the work Batman did to keep Harvey safe (including sacrificing the woman he loved, even if it was unintentional) had gone to shit.  So, to save the life of an innocent child, Batman makes a blind leap of pure instinct, having no plan and no idea how it's going to turn out.  And it winds up doing the ONE thing he's spent the entire movie trying to prevent; killing Harvey Dent.  

And does he shrug it off?  Does he just go "eh... shit happens" and continue the fight?  Hell NO, it utterly DESTROYS him.  Even though he wasn't actively trying to break his One Rule, even though he didn't have any better choices in that circumstance, he makes no excuses whatsoever: it was wrong.  He takes full responsibility, lets the cops blame him for Harvey's murder, and stops being Batman for years afterwards.  THAT'S how Batman should react to taking a life. 

 

Similarly, I never had that big a problem with Superman snapping Zod's neck, because they'd so thoroughly foreshadowed the entire thing.  Superman spends the whole movie trying to deal with Zod in any way other than killing him.  He had it drilled into his head by Pa Kent that he's not God, that he has no right to decide the fate of anyone else.  And it's made all the more poignant by the fact that Zod is the only other Kryptonian left on Earth; Supes is forced to destroy the last remnant of his blood kin, in order to save his adopted community.  Their final moments together are Clark begging Zod to stop, and Zod flatly saying "Never!".  And then... well, they didn't follow through with it the enormity of such a choice afterwards, but at least Henry Cavill had the decency to act really bummed out.  

 

That's okay.  It effects the character in an important way.  It matters to the story.  But Bruce just going "meh!" and dropping bullets and bombs on a bunch of mooks is the exact opposite.  It's the exact kind of callous disregard for human life which goes directly against everything about Batman which is important to the consensus of people who care about the most about his portrayal.  

[Niners Fan in CT]

 

21 minutes ago, Craig H said:

It's like you don't get it. And it's like that because you don't get it.

So here it is. You keep doing this thing that's really annoying and it's something that children do, which is to deflect judgment onto something else. We're not talking about Daredevil here, we're talking about BvS. If you want to fucking talk about Daredevil and the kills he has racked up, then by all means, go do so. There is a thread for that. In this case though, each and every time people provide you with a reason for why BvS was fucked up, you will say, "well what about Daredevil!" or "what about Iron Man!" or "what about the Avengers!" You're providing no argument to the contrary when you go and say, "well such and such did it too!" It doesn't fucking matter because we're talking this particular movie, these particular characters, and every time you bring up someone from Marvel, you look childish. 

Superman didn't remind Batman of who he used to be and if he did, uttering "Martha" is the weakest fucking reason for it. The guy went from, "WE MUST KILL THIS ALIEN GOD!" to "this man was my friend and I failed him" because their mom's share the same first name. Think about that for a minute.

Except you likely won't. You'll continue to die on this hill and will bring up Thor or something.

I brought it up because people have raved about Nolan's Batman on here and nobody seemed to have an issue with him killing anyone. If it wasn't a problem then why is it a problem now. If that's not something you want to discuss then cool, don't discuss it. But I like comparing because this has been going on for a couple years here. There are a handful of people in this thread that take issue with whatever changes were made to Superman or Batman or whoever but the same people have no issue with the changes made to any Marvel property in any of those threads. I don't see why it's such an issue for you for me to ask why they have a problem with one thing and not something else. If it's annoying then don't read it. If you don't want to talk about it, don't.
 

[Craig H]

And also, just because I'm sure I'll get criticized as being a hater, but I fucking loved Man of Steel. You can go back to when that movie came out and see how much I gushed over it and how much I defended that movie. I've given up on arguing over the perceived kill count from the battle in Metropolis because there's no point, but I've pointed out more than once how there likely weren't that many people killed by Superman when the fight with Zod happened. By then, most of those buildings should have been evacuated from when the alien ship blew up and Superman was nowhere near the city. People argued differently enough to make that a huge point worth building the shoddy story around. It is what it is.

In any event, to me, Man of Steel was a story about hope, redemption and finding your way. I thought that FOR SURE it would lead to a more confident Superman, one who would save cats from trees or stop a plane from crashing, and one who would represent truth, justice and the American way. Instead, Superman lacked even more confidence to the point where his mom tells him he doesn't owe anyone anything. Just the direction things went in was such a monumental let down for me because they went in the direction of what everyone's complaints for Man of Steel were for. I just wish someone would have taken a moment to say that Man of Steel was only the first act and people can have their complaints, but we can change their minds as we continue to build this story. There was an opportunity to make people look at that first movie differently, and instead, it justified what everyone complained about and it made that Superman representative of all of the complaints.

So in the end, the Superman we have is the one people said, "this isn't Superman" and my hope was that he would become who they think Superman is. Batman is also fundamentally different to where he seemingly has no conscious. Alfred IS his conscious, one Bruce ignores. Someone mentioned Injustice and I think that's right. I don't know if I like that. BvS was also not 100% terrible, but the bad far outweighs the good. I LOVED the fight between Batman and Superman. It was well done, until the end of it, and about what I expected. Wonder Woman stole the show for me, as did her theme. I also really liked seeing an alternative point of view for the battle of Metropolis that was shown at the beginning. That was cool. Amy Adams was great. So was Jeremy Irons, and damn, can we finally get Jeremy Irons some better work now, please? The rest of that movie though, man...I hope Justice League is better.

[odessasteps]

30 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Someone asked me, how come people don't shit on how much Tony Stark was altered in the Marvel movies. Couple things. First, I think most people agree that the changes were probably for the better and Downey is awesome but there's something else to it.  Nobody knows who the hell Iron Man is.

DC is at a disadvantage with their heroes in one regard. Is Batman bulletproof to critics?  Box office wise..probably.. but not with overall critical reception.  Even Guardians of the Galaxy, they changed a ton about Drax and they changed a ton about Gamora. I don't believe those changes were for the better but most people have no clue who they even are.

DC's heroes are iconic. Marvel's heroes are whoever Feige wants them to be because nobody knows the difference.

I think Spidey is pretty iconic. If Marvel/Sony/... Veered from "from great power..." I think people would complain. 

I dont think people complained about Iron Man, because Tony didnt have much of a personality other than womanzer and alcoholic. In a way, RDJ was an inteiguing choice for Tony because it was a bit meta.

As mentioned above, Superman has pretty much been the "boy scout" in media,whether it was George Reeves, Dean Cain, Or Chris Reeves. Even a harder-edge Supes likely would have set off the average petson's radar. 

[Craig H]

2 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

 

I brought it up because people have raved about Nolan's Batman on here and nobody seemed to have an issue with him killing anyone. If it wasn't a problem then why is it a problem now. If that's not something you want to discuss then cool, don't discuss it. But I like comparing because this has been going on for a couple years here. There are a handful of people in this thread that take issue with whatever changes were made to Superman or Batman or whoever but the same people have no issue with the changes made to any Marvel property in any of those threads. I don't see why it's such an issue for you for me to ask why they have a problem with one thing and not something else. If it's annoying then don't read it. If you don't want to talk about it, don't.
 

Because we're speaking directly about this iteration and you're bringing up Daredevil! If Johnny steals something from a store and gets away with it and then I steal and get caught, saying, "well Johnny did it too!" doesn't make it any better.

I think there's plenty to talk about, but you make it difficult to do so when you keep deflecting and avoiding addressing the issue by pointing the finger to something else instead. It's stupid. Maybe people are talking about Batman in this way and not Iron Man or Daredevil or whatever else because they really fucking like Batman, or Superman, and they care more about them, their history, who they are at a fundamental level, and this means more to them at this point in time, or any point in time, than any other character.