Jump to content

DC Movies- if at first you don't succeed...


Cassandra

Recommended Posts

To me, it all comes down to making a good movie.  If Pixar can make us care about bugs, cars, robots, etc., then WB can make us care about Green Lantern or any other character in their stable. Write a good story with strongly written characters, make the audience care what happens to them, and then execute well. That's what needs to happen.

 

All the rest is just stuff around the edges, to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, the first Iron Man movie felt a lot more like a sci fi flick than a Superhero flick to me. They picked a relatively unknown character (outside comic fandom) with a sci fi powersuite, and were able to build in a Supers trope or two, but to me it did not feel like a Superhero movie.

 

I get the distinction you're making, but while IM wasn't rife with comic-book tropes and imagery, what it did include was very important and fundamental to the genre. We have a less-than-admirable lead character who experiences a traumatic event causing him to re-evaluate his entire life, and dedicate himself to making up for past sins and protecting innocent people. That's a textbook superhero origin. The hero's close ally turns out to be his secret nemesis, who takes on a version of the hero's powers so the two of them have to duke it out in the climax. And IM didn't try to disguise its four-color-comic roots: bright vibrant colors, improbable techno-gimmicks, and larger-than-life action sequences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The DC movies have yet to really break out of "classic studio mold" to bring the comics to the screen, and it will take someone with some vision, backbone and credibility to make that happen. It's amazing MCU managed it. Maybe the WW movie will be their breakout - time will tell.

 

You know the positive comment about the recent Wonder Woman movie trailer that I've been hearing and reading the most often? The colors. WW's costume is actually bright blue, red, and gold. Her Lasso of Truth glows like Christmas lights. Themiscyra looks like a real sun-drenched Aegean island. Sure, there are some scenes with an overall darker, greyer tone, like the European trenches... but that's appropriate to that setting. WW always stands out against it visually, as she should. The overall color palette looks much broader and more vivid in this movie than in previous WB super films, and people seem to respond to that.

 

It leaves me hopeful that the director, and maybe the studio at last, "get it."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The DC movies have yet to really break out of "classic studio mold" to bring the comics to the screen, and it will take someone with some vision, backbone and credibility to make that happen.

"Classic studio mold" has still made mountains of cash and even some damn good movies now and then. The problem with DC/Warner is not just that they're making bad comic book movies - if they got good reviews and pulled in a broad general audience, it wouldn't matter if fandom complained that they weren't true to the comics. The problem is they're making just plain bad movies. (Or more objectively: movies that have failed to generate much excitement from audiences or critics.)

 

I blame Frank Miller.

 

No really. I know I blame Miller for a lot of things, but hear me out on this one.

 

Warner owns the rights to the biggest, most iconic and recognizable superhero names ever. And yet since Superman II in 1980, the only truly successful superhero films they've put out have been Batman movies. What's the most influential and best-known Batman comic, particularly among non-fans? DKR, no question, will Moore's Killing Joke a distant second. Both Burton's 1989 Batman movie and Nolan's trilogy in the `00s explicitly listed DKR among their biggest influences, and both made tons of money. By contrast, every time they've tried to make a "lighter" superhero movie it's bombed.

 

Unfortunately, rather than concluding "fans will go see superhero movies if they're well made, know what they're about, and hold together reasonably well," the WB Execs have concluded "People love Frank Miller Batman and hate Adam West Batman - no, there's no middle ground here - so everything needs to be Frank Miller-style."

 

Put another way: DC movies went from the Silver Age (West's Batman, Reeves' Superman) straight to the Iron Age, and in their minds, those are the only two options.

 

Meanwhile, Marvel's movies have been much more Bronze Agey, splitting the difference between Silver & Iron. I think in the eyes of the WB Execs, Marvel can get away with it because their heroes are already a little more believable, grounded and relatable - plus, they don't have a lot of Silver Age baggage in the popular consciousness they need to distance themselves from, like WB so obviously feels they need to with the DC characters.

 

So now that the public isn't reacting well to WB's DC movies, they literally don't know what to do to "fix" them without going full on Adam West. So we wind up with Suicide Squad which (from the reviews) can't fully commit to being dark because apparently audiences don't like that anymore, but can't commit to just being a fun action movie because that way lies Adam West and madness. So they try to do both poorly.

 

Help us Geoff Johns. You're our only hope.

 

Edit: To clarify, I'm not actually a big fan of most of Johns' comics. But at least he gets that Adam West and Frank Miller aren't the only two options.

Edited by bigdamnhero
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I get the distinction you're making, but while IM wasn't rife with comic-book tropes and imagery, what it did include was very important and fundamental to the genre. We have a less-than-admirable lead character who experiences a traumatic event causing him to re-evaluate his entire life, and dedicate himself to making up for past sins and protecting innocent people. That's a textbook superhero origin. The hero's close ally turns out to be his secret nemesis, who takes on a version of the hero's powers so the two of them have to duke it out in the climax. And IM didn't try to disguise its four-color-comic roots: bright vibrant colors, improbable techno-gimmicks, and larger-than-life action sequences.

I agree - they snuck in a few of the tropes, which (since it was a success) they can now get away with. Then they were able to add a few more tropes and downplay a few more of the traditional Sci Fi tropes. But I didn't find IM I a lot more comic book Superhero than the original Robocop.

 

Unfortunately, rather than concluding "fans will go see superhero movies if they're well made, know what they're about, and hold together reasonably well," the WB Execs have concluded "People love Frank Miller Batman and hate Adam West Batman - no, there's no middle ground here - so everything needs to be Frank Miller-style."

 

Put another way: DC movies went from the Silver Age (West's Batman, Reeves' Superman) straight to the Iron Age, and in their minds, those are the only two options.

This is pretty accurate, I think - not Miller (at least not alone), but looking at the ones that sell, and picking out one or two elements as the "reason they sell". I recall reading an article years back speculating on DC trying to emulate the success of early Marvel. So they look at a few books and decide "HEY - Bad art sells!" Well, of course, Marvel was more grounded in reality, so all the DC Supers start talking like the cool 16 - 24 demographic speaks - except they really start speaking like 45 yo WASPs think that generation speaks.

 

"Iron Man sold" or even "MCU sold" does not equal "Super-heros sell". It equals "a solid movie using real super-hero tropes can sell". Just like Dark Knight Returns does not equal "all edgy, nourish Super stories will sell and nothing else will". It really indicated "this different exploration of the character was well done and sells". We remember DKR and Watchmen 30 years later (God, I'm old...) because they were innovative, and great stories, and we forget the blemishes. We also forget the hundreds of other titles that tried to simulate their success but were not innovative, great stories, just tried to don similar trappings and success would follow even if the actual books were crap.

 

Hugh, I would disagree they didn't have a sci-fi style hero to go with. They did with Green Lantern and then laid a bomb with it as they miscast it, miswrote and did the amorphous blob space villain again, something the FF showed didnt work.

I don't see GL in the same light. Techno-suits, robots and cyborgs have been all over Sci Fi cinema, and Iron Man at first glance doesn't look all that different. What's the precedent for a blockbuster hit starring a guy with a magic ring?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We remember DKR and Watchmen 30 years later (God, I'm old...) because they were innovative, and great stories, and we forget the blemishes. We also forget the hundreds of other titles that tried to simulate their success but were not innovative, great stories, just tried to don similar trappings and success would follow even if the actual books were crap.

Exactly. It's also important to remember that DKR and Watchmen were both one-offs. If you want to deconstruct the superhero genre, you can do that in a very limited series, but it's difficult-to-impossible to then continue telling superhero stories. It seems to me part of the problem with BvS* is they wanted to deconstruct all the things about the genre that they didn't like while setting up a franchise of follow-on movies in that same genre. Pick one, because trying to do both just leads to a muddled mess.

 

* Which I haven't seen, so just going off what I hear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Incidentally, Indiewire's scathing review of Suicide Squad included the following note"
 

Harley Quinn...sexualized to such an extreme that she feels like she wandered out of the film’s XXX parody (there are more shots of her ass than there are of several of the film’s supporting characters)...a caricature of male fetishism.

And all I could think of was "Well, at least they got one thing faithful to the comics..."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So is this one big fetish film, what with the "gun fetishism" and the "caricature of male fetishism"*  being tossed about? I tell you right now that all of the trailers lead me to believe that this movie was about a bunch of second-string DC villains causing mayhem. All of the reviews lead me to believe that this movie is about a bunch of second-string DC villains causing mayhem. I'm sold. Next Tuesday (my next day off), I am so going to the theater to see this movie. I never expected it to be more than a Michael Bay-ish feast of violence and gunplay. This sounds exactly what I both expected and wanted from this movie.

 

 

 

*A phrase I am so going to appropriate the next time my wife catches me checking out some hot girl. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think all the comments about delivering solid storytelling are spot on.

 

We're going to get Marvel's version of Green Lantern in a few years when they release Captain Marvel, and I feel pretty confident that we'll get a satisfying film out of it. Which says to me that had Marvel done Green Latern, it would not have been a bomb. It's not the character that was the weak link in the chain there, it was the storytelling (and by extension, the people in charge of that).

 

Simply put, DC can't get it right, and in those rare cases when they do, it almost seems like sheer luck (because it isn't repeatable beyond a single sequel). It isn't an impossible task, as Marvel has been demonstrating for eight years now. But clearly it takes a kind of corporate culture that puts most of the creative control in the hands of those who understand and respect the source material best.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which says to me that had Marvel done Green Latern, it would not have been a bomb.

It would however have been one heckuva lawsuit. :winkgrin:

 

At the risk of having my Fanboy Card revoked, I think we sometimes tend to overstate the importance of understanding and respecting the source material. I mean sure I love the source material and it's natural to want to see it handled by someone who shares my enthusiasm and likes what I like. But 90% of the movie-going audience just wants to see a good movie. I can think of plenty of great movies that veered wildly away from their source (Men In Black and Blade Runner leap to mind), and plenty of awful movies that stayed close to the source (Green Lantern had many faults, but I don't feel like straying too far from canon was chief among them). So while ideally I'd like to see a movie that's both "good" and "faithful to the source material" those are two independent variables.

 

Part of the problem with Warner/DC is they can't seem to decide what kind of movies they want to make. They want a dark, brooding, serious film that serious people will take seriously. But they also want a blockbuster action movies that everyone will go see. They want to deconstruct the very idea of heroics. But they also want us to cheer for their (anti?) heroes, and keep doing so over multiple movies. Now with SS they're desperately trying to insert some humor into the franchise because apparently that's what the kids want these days. But inserting a bunch of jokes into a movie that's not built to be funny makes for an awkward fit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To my mind, showing respect for the source material goes beyond simply "staying faithful" to it narratively or visually. I think it involves many elements like understanding the tone of the source material, understanding what worked and what didn't as the character evolved, how it resonated with readers over the years, which aspects of the character and his/her storyline most closely captures the spirit of the character and his/her place within the broader scope of his/her comic-book universe, etc.

 

I feel that the kind of person who truly grasps (and appreciates) all those elements is someone who is intrinsically going to "show respect" for it in a way that meaningfully impacts a movie adaptation. I'm not convinced that WB has allowed/found anyone with those qualifications to take the reins of their properties on film. I don't really consider Nolan such a person; I feel he succeeded (for the first two Bat films anyway) purely on the strength of his skills as a compelling storyteller in general. And Snyder talks a good game at conventions, but at the end of the day, his work speaks for itself.

 

Contrast that with Marvel/Disney who manages to find the right people even when they're not strictly adapting a pre-existing comic-book property (e.g., The Incredibles, which is a better Fantastic Four movie than anything Fox has ever made).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've noticed that Grace Randolph often has very, um, definite preconceptions about how certain properties should be executed in a movie. Her reviews are sometimes based on how well the film matches those, rather than what the actual movie is.

 

Jeremy Jahns, the reviewer I linked to earlier, at least makes an effort to evaluate how well a film succeeds at whatever it appears to be trying to do, whether or not he personally likes the choices made.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't really consider Nolan such a person; I feel he succeeded (for the first two Bat films anyway) purely on the strength of his skills as a compelling storyteller in general.

 

 

I agree, Nolan never really ever made a Batman movie, he has stories to tell that involved Batman and worked because they were good stories with a good character basis.  Little of what he did actually violated the Batman canon or the character as it developed over 50+ years previously, which helped a lot.  The Superman films pretty much decided they'd throw away all but the most superficial elements of the character's history.

 

It really takes someone who not only understands but likes the characters and their history to do them justice.  When they do you can get something really fun and respectful to the story.

 

Ultimately, I just cannot understand why you'd look at a wildly successful cultural icon, want to tell that story, then throw everything way and invent it yourself.  What's the point?  Its like making a movie about Santa Claus where he's a burly mercenary that has man-eating reindeer and throws bombs wrapped in Christmas paper.  Sure, you retained some of the elements, but why did you even bother calling it Santa?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is something appealing about any successful fictional character.  It doesn't matter whether it's Superman or Freddy Krueger, there is something about the character that readers/audiences/whoever responded to.  If you're going to translate that character into a new medium, you should try and make sure that the thing that makes them appealing is also translated into the new form.  "Being true to the source material" doesn't necessarily mean you have to make a movie that fanboys will love.  I've had enough internet conversations with fanboys to know that most of them have absolutely horrid suggestions for movie scripts.

 

Marvel has done a remarkably good job of putting their characters on the big screen, all things considered.  They know what audiences want to see.  They know what makes their characters popular.  They made half a billion dollars with Ant Man.  Freakin' Ant Man.  Guardians of the Galaxy, who I knew nothing about and I'm a nerd, made 3/4 of a billion.  They have it figured out.

 

DC does not.  They don't know why their characters are popular.  All they know is that Batman sells when they make his movies dark, and Green Lantern flops when they make his movie badly animated and cheesy.  But they're failing at "being true to the source material" in that they aren't reproducing on the big screen, what it is that makes the characters popular.  We're getting a super-powerful depressed hipster with great abs instead of Superman.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...