Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

[Lord Liaden]

Except that we already know that Diana removed herself from worldly affairs after WWI. She didn't participate in WWII, so any sequel that takes place during WWII would have to do so without her in it.

 

Well, she didn't participate in WW II in her Wonder Woman guise. To me BvS makes it clear she's familiar with the modern world beyond Themiscyra, so she must have continued to interact with it in some capacity from time to time.

[Greywind]

As an aside:

I wonder if the increasing use of the term Show Runner is being used by people with actual creative insights as a means of distancing themselves from a despised term, i.e. "producer." Probably not. It's probably just me putting y spin on it.

 

1. the person who has overall creative authority and management responsibility for a television program.

   "the vision of the show as a whole does not come from the freelance or even the staff writer, but from the showrunner"

[Pattern Ghost]

I don't think they're so worried about being confusing as much as looking like a rip-off.

 

You're right, but you'd have to be confused to think it was a rip-off.

[Cassandra]

These discussions are fascinating. Just continue to keep me convinced to never watch any of the DC movies... ever.

 

Happy to be of service.

[Cassandra]

There has been plenty of barbarism in mankind's history, yes, but WWI was really the first instance of mechanized slaughter on a scale of millions. I also don't get the sense that she would have stuck around to see how it all ended.

 

 

My brain keeps on rebelling and making the title "Tony Orlando and Dawn of Justice". Obviously, Superman gets his power from yellow ribbons in that one, and Batman must knock three times on the ceiling (or is it twice on the pipes?) in order to enter the Batcave.

 

I'd rather see that.  At least we'd get Ruthie Raines from Trancers.

[zslane]

Sorry, just got back from watching the Flash time travel again.

 

Yup. Makes perfect sense. No possible way they'd ever put Wonder Woman into WWII.

 

Some writers, when confronted with a continuity problem, think "I know, I'll use time travel." Now they have two problems.

 

My thanks to Jamie Zawinski for the original bit of wisdom that is based on.

[drunkonduty]

 

1. the person who has overall creative authority and management responsibility for a television program.

   "the vision of the show as a whole does not come from the freelance or even the staff writer, but from the showrunner"

 

 

Thanks mate, but I know what it means. I got 15 years in Film & TV post- * and am familiar with the jargon.

 

That definition for show runner could have been used by any of the producers I worked with to describe what they thought the producer's role should be. In a couple of cases they were able to add real benefit to the show. In most cases they were morons. The morons still effected the show's creative style, they just effected it negatively.

 

I was musing as to why that particular buzzword was being used in the first few cases. Were the people using it trying to distance themselves from a role they thought of as over-blown and frequently filled by career politicians rather than people with actual creative talent? I don't know. And I am aware that my dislike for producers as a breed colours my perceptions. That said, I would bet dollars to donuts that there are many producer types out there who now want to call themselves "show runners." Because buzzword.

 

Sorry for the de-rail. I shall try to stay on topic from now on.

 

 

*Which, by the way, is why I have a hate-on for producers.

[zslane]

Yeah, to my mind, a real showrunner can be boiled down to, "The guy/gal who writes most of the episodes," because as a rule, the best showrunners tend to be the ones who know how to write, and whose creative vision is expressed through their own distinctive voice. Rod Serling, JMS, Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, Tom Kapinos, Jenji Kohan, etc. Being a showrunner should be a creative position, not a political one or a logistical one. That's what producers are for, and the good ones clear the way (politically and logistically) so that the showrunner can get on with the primary business of being creative. The two should never be confused for each other. I guess that nowadays they too often are.

[Christopher R Taylor]

If its not time travel, its "reboots" the latest hack writer's way to fix things.  I fully expect the end of Avengers Infinity War to be a cosmic reboot.

[Bazza]

Show runner: the person who liaises with the studio or tv network limiting their meddling.

 

More often than not.

[bigdamnhero]

Yeah, to my mind, a real showrunner can be boiled down to, "The guy/gal who writes most of the episodes,"....

I agree the writing is key - the main difference between film and TV is on TV the writer is king whereas in film they're an afterthought unless they're also the Director. But they don't necessarily write the majority of the individual episodes: few individual writers whose initials aren't JMS can put out that many quality scripts on a weekly schedule. Even if you go back and look at Buffy, Joss only wrote a handful of episodes each season. What he did do was plot out the overall season arcs, approve or assign each individual episode idea, and approve/polish the individual scripts.

 

To me it seems like there's been a certain amount of "title creep" with producers, where the title in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean that person has creative control. Or someone gets an Executive Producer credit because they have name recognition but they aren't actually involved in the day-to-day running of the show. And then you have things like the Arrowverse: 4 different shows that each have their own Producers, but Berlanti is the guy with the overall vision who keeps everything tied together. So "show-runner" has been adopted as an informal title to distinguish the one person who is actually, y'know, running the show.

[Matt the Bruins]

Narratively it is because she spends the whole movie "removed from the affairs of Men," as she had been for the better part of a century. Bruce is quite the inspirational speaker...

"Just a feeling."

Oooooo, I have chills.

[Hugh Neilson]

The fight between Batman and Supes. Very, very forced. More so than Civil War. Supes could have just opened with "Lex Luthor has my mother hostage..." and we could have skipped some serious stupid.

Unlike the viewers, I don't think Superman knew that the brutal vigilante who brands Bat-Symbols onto thugs would be concerned about the danger to his mother. Both Bats and Supes were operating based solely on what the general public knew about the other, so neither was viewing the other as, in any way, a sympathetic character rather than a dangerous threat.

 

Neither could see the player of the other PC across the game table.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Unlike the viewers, I don't think Superman knew that the brutal vigilante who brands Bat-Symbols onto thugs would be concerned about the danger to his mother.

 

Meh, would have taken him 5 seconds to find out, its yet another "we don't get this character" moment, from writers who just wanted a conflict between Superman and Batman.

[Lord Liaden]

OTOH Superman opened that encounter trying to explain the situation to Batman, before Bats starting taking shots at him. But Supes wasn't seriously threatened or even much hurt by those weapons, so the only reason for him to stop talking and start fighting was because he let himself get pissed off and start acting like a dick.

[bigdamnhero]

Unlike the viewers, I don't think Superman knew that the brutal vigilante who brands Bat-Symbols onto thugs would be concerned about the danger to his mother. Both Bats and Supes were operating based solely on what the general public knew about the other, so neither was viewing the other as, in any way, a sympathetic character rather than a dangerous threat.

That's actually a fair point: we as fans naturally want to measure them against how we know Superman and Batman would "really" act in that situation. But this was Super-Snyder and Bat-Snyder, neither of whom had given each other (or the audience) any reason to suspect they give a shit about anything. I still think it was handled poorly (like everything else in the damn trainwreck), but within Snyderverse continuity it's not exactly out of character for them to each assume the other is a complete asshole.

[massey]

This movie wasn't too bad, as long as you scrape the names off of the characters, and ignore all the things that are clearly there to set the stage for other movies.

 

If this had been titled Mr. Omega vs Night Dick, Dawn of Justice, then it would have been fine.  We just have preconceived notions (based on nearly 80 years of comics) as to who the title characters are.  We know that Superman is a good guy, and Batman is a good guy.  We know that the characters in the film are supposed to be better behaved than what we see.

 

But this is a DKR, halfway to crazy town, super PTSD, Robin is dead Batman.  And this is a Superman where Fake Pa Kent told him he should let kids drown so the gubmint doesn't find out about him, and Fake Ma Kent told him "you don't owe sh*t to those people."  Supes is surprisingly restrained given the horribly irresponsible advice he gets from his parents.  He must have had an Uncle Ben or somebody around to teach him about caring for people.

 

If I had no idea who Luthor was, then Jesse Eisenberg's dreaded Lex Renfield, the Clown Prince of Facebook would have been interesting.

 

I thought the action scenes were generally well done.  Batman really came across as a dude who can hit you for 12D6.  Superman looked incredibly powerful.  Doomsday was a big CGI monster, but that's pretty standard these days.  Ben Affleck did a way better job than I thought he'd do.  I thought he'd be one of the worst parts of the movie, and he ended up being probably the best part.  So good for him.  The weird time travel flashback/flashforward things were way too confusing unless you know what parademons are.  That part was just a big mess.  The super-bullets that exist solely to prove Lex's connection to the destroyed village were pretty dumb.  Just use regular bullets next time, the kind you can buy anywhere on Earth.

 

But, you know, change the names of the characters and take out the dream sequences and it was an enjoyable film.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

If this had been titled Mr. Omega vs Night Dick, Dawn of Justice, then it would have been fine.

 

 

Yeah, and really I wish that's what they'd have done with the last two superman movies.  Don't do a DC film, do your own franchise of Superhero movies.  Make your dark misery angst universe with new characters and nobody would have a problem with their behavior beyond being miserable and uncaring.  

 

Alan Moore got away with Watchmen because they were knockoffs of Charleton characters, not the real ones.  Turning Captain Atom into a detached amoral nude guy would have been really obnoxious.  Make up your own Dr Manhattan and you have a fine story.

 

DC needs to start making movies of their own characters for once.

 

I mean... gloomy Superman?  Zany jokester Hal Jordan?  Don't these guys even read their own comics?

[zslane]

If this had been titled Mr. Omega vs Night Dick, Dawn of Justice, then it would have been fine.

 

Yeah, and really I wish that's what they'd have done with the last two superman movies.  Don't do a DC film, do your own franchise of Superhero movies.  Make your dark misery angst universe with new characters and nobody would have a problem with their behavior beyond being miserable and uncaring.  

 

Alan Moore got away with Watchmen because they were knockoffs of Charleton characters, not the real ones.  Turning Captain Atom into a detached amoral nude guy would have been really obnoxious.  Making up your own Dr Manhattan and you have a fine story.

 

DC needs to start making movies of their own characters for once.

 

I mean... gloomy Superman?  Zany jokester Hal Jordan?  Don't these guys even read their own comics?

 

The above sums up my feelings regarding Paramount's handling of the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek franchise.

 

DC isn't the only studio ruining iconic characters from pop culture.

[Greywind]

Abrams says he's done with reboots. We can hope.

 

Maybe Snyder can get the rights to The Pro. Seems to be up his alley.

[bigdamnhero]

But, you know, change the names of the characters and take out the dream sequences and it was an enjoyable film.  

I still feel like if you change the names you're still left with an incoherent plot full of characters I don't care about competing to be who can be the biggest, dumbest asshole, followed by a contrived resolution followed by an even-more-climatic battle that wasn't properly established, all badly acted and shot through an Ugly Filter.

 

But y'know, YMMV and all.

 

Alan Moore got away with Watchmen because they were knockoffs of Charleton characters, not the real ones.  Turning Captain Atom into a detached amoral nude guy would have been really obnoxious.  Make up your own Dr Manhattan and you have a fine story.

Fair enough, although IIRC Moore only used Charleton knockoffs because they wouldn't let him use the real ones.

[Old Man]

The above sums up my feelings regarding Paramount's handling of the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek franchise.

 

DC isn't the only studio ruining iconic characters from pop culture.

Not to derail, but the characters are one of the things being done right in the J.J. Abrams Trek continuity. Urban's McCoy in particular is eerily accurate. What's missing is the thoughtfulness--each movie so far has been an empty action film with no moral conflict to speak of.

 

The Snyderveree would definitely be less offensive if it didn't twist established characters in such a dark direction. I don't think that's enough to make it into a good movie, but it would help.

[zslane]

Not to derail, but the characters are one of the things being done right in the J.J. Abrams Trek continuity.

 

I guess it depends on how you define "the characters". Most of the Abrams Trek characters are being redefined in such a way that they really ought to be given entirely new names, put on an entirely new ship, and given their own sub-franchise within the wider Star Trek universe. Just as CT suggests for the Snyderverse.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Not to derail, but the characters are one of the things being done right in the J.J. Abrams Trek continuity. Urban's McCoy in particular is eerily accurate.

 

 

To a certain extent.  they "Grrl powered" up Uhura so that she's not remotely the same character and Kirk isn't Kirk. He's just smarmy jerk kid who cheats.  The rest, yeah I think Abrams specifically went up to each and said "be the same guys" literally.  Why?  Because the reboot wouldn't have had much impact on their lives, so they would have ended up roughly the same character, while Kirk was apparently a completely different guy because his dad died.

[zslane]

I also don't recognize Quinto's Spock as Spock. And the fact that Abrams had Spock Classic meet and interact with New Spock only serves to demonstrate how much of a departure Quinto's Spock is from Nimoy's. So much so that he should have been given a different name and parentage.