Ryujin
Legend
See, that's the thing though. I was thinking about this and that thought occurred to me too. DCU looks bad by comparison. Only thing is, I'm not sure that holds. There's a lot of pretty mediocre MCU movies. Sure, Iron Man was fantastic. Great movie. But, Iron Man 3? That was pretty bad. The two Thor movies are, IMO, entirely forgettable. We spend 2/3rds of the first one with Thor not actually being Thor and sitting around in a coffee shop bemoaning the fact that he isn't Thor. Captain America was great. But (again, IMO) Winter Soldier was... boring? Again, largely forgettable. Let's not forget Ed Norton's The Incredible Hulk. Not exactly covering the series in glory.
And, if we want to get technical about it, there's still the X-Men movies (very hit and miss) and the Spider Man movies (again, completely hit or miss). I know they aren't MCU movies, but, kinda sorta?
While there have been stellar MCU movies (and there certainly haven't been any stellar DCU movies) there's been more than a few movies that have largely been carried by the brand.
Maybe that's the difference. MCU movies, even the meh ones, are still buoyed up by the great MCU movies. Whereas DCU just hasn't bought that kind of goodwill by having a really good DCU movie.
OTOH, DCU on the small screen is kicking ass and taking names.
Where the Captain America movies are concerned, in my experience, most people seem to have a preference opposite to your own. Not that it means anything, though, as we all have our preferences.
The big difference between the MCU and the DCCU seems to be one of tone. Tone appropriate, or not appropriate, to the source material. The MCU is full-on three colour comic in tone. The DCCU is grim-dark graphic novel in tone and that would be fine, if they were making movies about different properties. It could have worked for "Suicide Squad" but that movie had other failings (making it the Harley Quinn and Will Smith in Deadshot's costume show; the abortion that was Leto's Joker...). If they hold that tone with a property like "Justice League Dark" they might be onto something. Or if they used the same tone in some of the "Dark Horse Presents" products, then maybe that would work.
What they need to do, is somehow capture the spirit of the comics. The hopefulness that they engender. They don't have to mimic Marvel's roadmap to do this, nor should they, but they need to find a more appropriate FEEL to their movies. As you said, they're kicking arse in the animated realm. How do they do it? The way that I just said.
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