My wife and I finally started it last night. It was a struggle to make it the first hour into the film, and I had to take a break. My initial impression: slow pacing, irrelevant scenes, and so far, completely a trite retread of other superhero films. I'll try to watch the rest of it and see how it goes.
Justice League: So, who's seen the Snyder Cut?
cmad1977
Hero
I mean.... it’s fine. I think it treats WW better even if she’s a more ancillary character in this movie. In general it seems more consistent in tone. Less... goofy?
Ultimately I’m convinced that Warner Brothers saw what the MCU was doing and felt like they needed to “catch up” for some reason. The emotional payoff/tension involved in the epic stakes of Justice League just haven’t been earned in the same way. IMO the DC movies would be better if they just followed their own path in their own time.
Ultimately I’m convinced that Warner Brothers saw what the MCU was doing and felt like they needed to “catch up” for some reason. The emotional payoff/tension involved in the epic stakes of Justice League just haven’t been earned in the same way. IMO the DC movies would be better if they just followed their own path in their own time.
To be fair, they are not wrong. When your main competitor is churning out one billion dollar movie after another (not to mention the tv shows, merchandising, etc etc), you can't help but go "holy crap, we have to get in on this!!!"
Marvel changed the paradigm and uncovered a new gold mine, and a lot of people were caught scrambling trying to get a piece of it. Now I agree with you at the end of the day, Justice League would never work like avengers without the initial lead up movies....we like Avengers because we organically grew with this characters. But I don't blame the DCU execs from trying to catch the comet as fast as they could, you can't leave billions of dollars on the table with no challenge.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I disagree with some of that. Yes, the DCU execs thought they had to catch the comet as fast as they could, but they've taken a lot of flak for it that they may have avoided by not rushing things and building up a bit more organically. It's possible they feel that the bottom could drop out on super hero movies at any time - and maybe that's true, and then maybe it's true that we'd get tired of the same characters and injecting DC's characters as Marvels' are waning would be the winning play.
The fact is - neither of us, the fans debating the issues nor the DCU execs know what's going to happen in the market. They made their play and got dragged over some coals for it. They've got some good anchor franchises started with Shazam and Wonder Woman. Aquaman wasn't bad. They should figure out how to reinforce those successes and develop into a better cinematic universe.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
At this point I think that WB and DC should abandoned the shared cinematic universe format and instead go with the Worlds of DC brand, a series of Elseworld tales that allows each story arc to stand alone (including sequels) with only vague overlaps when needed.
The Joker Movie showed that it can be done and it gives WB more flexibility to catch the zeitgesit without having to catch the MCU.
Imaculata
Hero
Their goal should be to make good movies, not to launch a million dollar cinematic universe. Marvel planned out the story for each of the characters carefully, so that each movie references events from previous movies, even when switching to a new character. Iron Man 3 for example, is all about Tony's trauma from the events during The Avengers. But Tony doesn't become a different character in Captain America Civil War, or the next Avengers film. These movies can stand on their own, but they also all follow the same canon.
In comparison, did Justice League acknowledge any of the events from Wonder Woman 84? No, it didn't. It acted like Diana had abandoned the world for decades and never gotten over her lost lover. If you're going to put these characters in a movie together, they have to still be the same characters canonically. Otherwise you get just a giant mess.
Remember how Universal tried and failed to launch their dark universe with the Tom Cruise lead The Mummy movie? Yeah, that project was dead on arrival, because The Mummy was such a stinker. They had dozens of other Universal monsters cast already! Guess all that is in the trashcan now. I wonder if contracts had already been signed?
DC should just focus on making good movies based on their properties. Their 2nd attempt at a Suicide Squad movie is clever, because Margot Robbie is great as Harley Quinn, and that property has potential if done right. Letting James Gunn have a go at it was the right thing to do. Lets hope it will make us all forget the first movie.
And if it IS a success, then they should spin off some of the characters into their own movies, before making a Suicide Squad 2.
Are they still obligated by contract to give Jared Leto his own Joker movie? I hope not.
In comparison, did Justice League acknowledge any of the events from Wonder Woman 84? No, it didn't. It acted like Diana had abandoned the world for decades and never gotten over her lost lover. If you're going to put these characters in a movie together, they have to still be the same characters canonically. Otherwise you get just a giant mess.
Remember how Universal tried and failed to launch their dark universe with the Tom Cruise lead The Mummy movie? Yeah, that project was dead on arrival, because The Mummy was such a stinker. They had dozens of other Universal monsters cast already! Guess all that is in the trashcan now. I wonder if contracts had already been signed?
DC should just focus on making good movies based on their properties. Their 2nd attempt at a Suicide Squad movie is clever, because Margot Robbie is great as Harley Quinn, and that property has potential if done right. Letting James Gunn have a go at it was the right thing to do. Lets hope it will make us all forget the first movie.
And if it IS a success, then they should spin off some of the characters into their own movies, before making a Suicide Squad 2.
Are they still obligated by contract to give Jared Leto his own Joker movie? I hope not.
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So funny enough, Marvel is actually not as on the ball as people think plotwise. An easy example, in Age of Ultron we see Iron Man fighting alongside the other avengers, awesome opener! Just one small problem, Tony is retired! He hung up the armor, he was done. But in Age of Ultron he's right back into it, no explanation.
However, where you are right, and in my opinion the most important part of the argument....is that the characters are consistent, even when the plot is not. And when they change...you understand why they changed. Thor is a very different character between Thor 1 and 2....because Thor 1 both softened him up and taught him greater responsibility. Iron Man goes from playboy to the "man on the wire" because of the events of the movies. But otherwise the characters remain who they are movie to movie.
Even when the plot goes a little wonky (another fun fact, Thanos was not intended for the main villain, Marvel didn't even have a main villain in mind when they made the first series of movies. Joss Wedon put in the Thanos cameo, and the rest was history), the characters see you through. And that is something I think DC dropped the ball on. Of there main 3 (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman), only WW really showed her character in her first movie, and thats one of the reasons everyone like it so much.
Rabulias
the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever
They kinda address this after the fact with a few lines in Captain America: Civil War, when Tony tells Cap that he gave up Iron Man for Pepper, but could not really give it all up, so he started again, and now he and Pepper are taking a break from each other.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
um you seem to be forgetting that Ultron was suppose to be Tonys retirement plan - created as a mechanism for global defence so Tony and the others didnt have to. When that plan failed, Iron Man had to be brought back to fix the problem he had created and it is addressed that Pepper isnt happy with that decision.
I came to realise just last year that the entire Avengers Arc is essentially Tony Starks story, he is the throughline who begins the story as self absorbed warmonger, does the heroes journey, then ends the arc as selfless hero. he impacts everyone and has the biggest transformation and launches the new post blip era.
.
DC has not been able to maintain the same through line, even though it appears Snyder had intended Superman to be the central link. Marvel mastered the principal of show not tell - portraying character personality through their actions, DC hasnt even got a good handle on what their character personalities are and relies on telling the audience what they should think about their symbols instead
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