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

[zslane]

1 hour ago, Starlord said:

HGH, supplements and hard work is more likely anyway.

 

Hmm. I'm not so sure:

 

"In truth, despite what’s on the Internet, HGH doesn’t build muscle in otherwise healthy adults the way testosterone would, says Michael Kjaer, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of sports medicine at the University of Copenhagen." -- Men's Health, 06/22/2016

 

My money is still on steroids, especially for such a dramatic increase in muscle mass. I've seen Dwayne Johnson in person and in countless interviews and tv shows over the years, and that image of him on the left is what he normally looks like. That isn't his "slimmed down for a movie" physique.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Steroids don't make you huge but they do allow you to train far beyond your body's normal limits, and keep training regularly so you build up faster.

[zslane]

You're splitting semantic hairs there, Christopher. At the end of the day, the Rock could not have achieved the degree of bulk you see on the right without the help of a significant, sustained steroid cycle during his training. That's all I'm pointing out. Anyone interested in the exact physiological mechanics of muscle hypertrophy and all its related biological mechanisms is free to google the subject, but I think it's pretty clear that the Rock was "on the juice".

[Lord Liaden]

"Could not?" That I'm not willing to accept without more empirical evidence in his specific case. Not that I'm saying you're wrong that he was using steroids; only that it being physically impossible for any of the many athletes and body builders who have achieved a comparable physique, without steroids, is unprovable.

[Old Man]

 

Johnson is Samoan; his bulk is not all that unusual, even in the right hand photo, given his DNA and his insane training regimen.  (His definition certainly is unusual, but most of the Samoans I've seen in the weight room are football players or movers, not bodybuilders.)  It's hard to say for sure whether he has had any chemical enhancement or not.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

You're splitting semantic hairs there, Christopher.

 

I'm sorry I didn't mean that as a criticism or contradiction, I just wanted to clarify how steroids work.  They are the tools by which people get ridiculously big because they heal faster and let your body grow beyond its normal limits.  There's no natural way to get as huge as the Rock is today, no matter what their ethnic background.  That's why nobody ever in the history of man got that swole in the past.  They could be big, but not cut and muscular like that.

[zslane]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

I'm sorry I didn't mean that as a criticism or contradiction, I just wanted to clarify how steroids work.  They are the tools by which people get ridiculously big because they heal faster and let your body grow beyond its normal limits.  There's no natural way to get as huge as the Rock is today, no matter what their ethnic background.  That's why nobody ever in the history of man got that swole in the past.  They could be big, but not cut and muscular like that.

 

Exactly.

 

Being part Samoan doesn't give him any particular advantage when it comes to "getting jacked". Samoans tend to be "large" because of a higher BMI, not because they have more muscle mass than the average human. Nor do Samoans exhibit any higher degree of genetic affinity towards excessive anabolic steroid use than any other phenotype.

[sentry0]

I'll just leave this here and go....

 

https://batman-news.com/2018/03/18/justice-league-ends-box-office-lowest-dceu-movie/

 

[Old Man]

It's unreal that BvS is the top performing film in the DCEU.  The movie that I had to explain to my kids. "No, Batman wouldn't use guns or brand people.  No, Superman wouldn't fight in the middle of a city if he could help it.  No, they're not supposed to fight each other.  No, Batman isn't the bad guy."

[sentry0]

11 minutes ago, Old Man said:

It's unreal that BvS is the top performing film in the DCEU.  The movie that I had to explain to my kids. "No, Batman wouldn't use guns or brand people.  No, Superman wouldn't fight in the middle of a city if he could help it.  No, they're not supposed to fight each other.  No, Batman isn't the bad guy."

 

Of that list, BvS is far and away the worst one for me too.  The only redeeming quality was Wonder Woman and there wasn't enough of her to justify the time investment in that overly long mess...

[Hugh Neilson]

BvS had a lot of hype, and "buyer remorse" probably contributed a lot to the later movies under-performing.  WW had to persuade audiences that it was much more "the Wonder Woman part of BvS" than "the rest of BvS" to perform as well as it did, I think.

 

No Batman films on that list?  I guess they are separate from the DCEU.

[Lord Liaden]

DCEU continuity is considered to have started with Man of Steel.

 

And very insightful re Wonder Woman. It actually had the second-lowest opening weekend box-office of any of the movies on that list. Word of mouth brought people in to watch it subsequently, and repeat viewing kept WW's b.o. drop-off from week to week relatively low. If BvS and Suicide Squad had been the kind of critical and fan successes everyone hoped for, I wouldn't have been surprised had WW cracked the billion-dollar club.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I agree, I think Wonder Woman would have done much better had the previous films not given people the impression that DC just cannot seem to do comic book movies right.  They have characters that are so iconic and so much a part of the American and even world psyche that people longed to see them handled well in film.  Instead they just mishandled the properties in film after film and by the time Wonder Woman came along people were saying "not gonna fool me again, maybe on Netflix"

[zslane]

The recent change in leadership over at WB has the DC fanboys high on the hope that the ship will be righted, and righted quickly. I remain skeptical. I guess I have a real "prove it to me" attitude when it comes to DC movies, and so far only Wonder Woman has managed to show me anything worthwhile (since Nolan's second Batman movie). One good movie is a fluke until proven otherwise, in my view.

[Matt the Bruins]

I'm willing to grant that Justice League represents a course correction at least attempting to get them moving in the right direction, though not a full 180° like Wonder Woman was. Even moreso if the rumors about WB pink-slipping Snyder when Whedon was first brought on for rewrites are true—that would indicate they correctly identified the problem with his vision for the franchise during filming and were just too image-conscious to publicly own up to it.

[zslane]

Excising Snyder and his vision is only a partial solution. A bigger issue, in my view, is the extent to which WB imposes itself on the creative process to the detriment of the final product. Getting rid of one director does not cure the disease at the heart of the failure of the DCEU, IMO. Replacing its head honcho was a necessary move as well, but we have not yet seen the results of these changes at WB. Until there is actual evidence, in the form of excellent films on screen (and more than just one, like, say, the WW sequel), that WB has figured out how to turn its stable of DC characters into successful franchises, I will remain skeptical.

[Cassandra]

I think they hired Snyder because of his visual style in movies like Watchmen and Sucker Punch.  The problem is that the movies he's done have a much harder edge then a Superhero movie should have.  

 

It says a lot that his funniest movie was Dawn of the Dead.

[Lord Liaden]

From what I've read, WB has long prided themselves on giving their directors creative freedom to realize their visions. When Zack Snyder was hired for their Superman reboot I remember that being explicitly stated. (The fact Snyder himself explicitly stated he didn't like the comic-book character should have been a big warning sign.) Then the results of his vision started coming in. Man of Steel wasn't a bad movie IMO, but it was pretty divisive for the fans. WB execs really thought they had the goods with BvS, and were shocked by how the movie was received. In response it appears they went radically in the opposite direction with Justice League, trying to course-correct by directing by committee, which predictably also fell short. (Patty Jenkins reportedly had to fight with the studio to get her own vision for Wonder Woman across. Thank God she stuck to her guns, because she clearly loves the character and gets what makes her special.)

[zslane]

18 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

In response it appears they went radically in the opposite direction with Justice League, trying to course-correct by directing by committee, which predictably also fell short. (Patty Jenkins reportedly had to fight with the studio to get her own vision for Wonder Woman across. Thank God she stuck to her guns, because she clearly loves the character and gets what makes her special.)

 

Not only Justice League. Suicide Squad also suffered from onerous meddling and course-correcting by the studio. Then there's all the subsequent chaos of trying to get The Batman off the ground, the overall strategic decision to try and match Marvel at their game, etc. WB showed a consistent inability to get out of their own way, with their intransigent commitment to Snyder being only one example of that. Feige would never have continued with a director who was responsible for a movie that received the kind of scathing public scorn that BvS received. Yet WB doubled down with Snyder and put him in charge of Justice League. I'm sure some would call that loyalty, but others would call that poor judgment (me being among them).

[Christopher R Taylor]

I can see how Justice League could have been a lot better, but there were problems that carried over from Batman vs Superman.  They would have been better off just ignoring that movie ever existed, but I think it was partly done when the film came out and they found out that was a really bad direction to go.

 

Aside from some of the characterization issues (flash as a doofy clumsy fanboy and hipster bro Aquaman) it was decent as superhero movies go.  I didn't like Batfleck so its nice to see him being replaced, but how he was handled was tolerable.  So the bones were there, just not assembled well and I do strongly suspect the studio was leaning pretty hard on the film making, which didn't help matters.

 

But I'm with zslane: one good film (and for me, not even as good as many have said) doesn't convince me they've figured it out.  Their track record is not great.

 

2 good Batman films, 1 poor one

1 godawful Green Lantern disaster

3 bad Superman films (although I did really like the version of Supes that Brandon Routh gave us)

1 uneven and ultimately poor Villain movie

1 uneven and not bad Justice League

1 pretty good Wonder Woman.

 

3½ wins over 13 years and 10 films is a pretty terrible track record, especially since 2 of the wins were right at the beginning.  This ain't baseball.  Hitting nearly .300 is really bad.

[Spence]

I think the biggest issue is the versions of the Heroes they are portraying. 

 

All of them, well most of them, are greater than life HEROES.  They never were intended to be "relatable to the average person" or "a reflection of real life".  And yes there are many half-assed attempts to destroy the character concepts in the 90s/00s.  But overall the core concept was always "greater than life" both physically and ethically/morally.

 

Cavill was a great choice for Superman.  Unfortunately the script and visuals of Man of Steel were not about Superman. 

 

Wonder Woman was awesome because even though they changed time period and tweeked characters, they kept the substance, personality and concept of the Heroine intact.

 

Suicide Squad flopped because they turned Harley Quinn from the extremely popular and recognizable quasi-villainess into a grunge reject.  They may have kept a portion of the video game croed, but they drove away the far larger older crowd that know HQ from the original show. 

 

For me statements by various people from the studio as well as directors about how dumb and outdated superheroes are, indicates they have no idea of what they are in the first place or why they are popular. 

 

I don't watch a super movie or TV series for a lesson in ethics or a directors' opinion on current affairs.

I watch it for fun. 

 

Superman was always a beacon of light that always acted "right" with a priority to protect.  Not a brooding whiner that gets pissed, brawls and can casually kill enemies. 

[zslane]

38 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

2 good batman films, 1 poor one

:

3 wins over 13 years and 9 films is a pretty terrible track record, especially since 2 of the wins were right at the beginning.  This ain't baseball.  Hitting .300 is really bad.

 

The two good Batman films don't really count in my book since they aren't part of the DCEU, and they pre-date the desperate charge to compete with Marvel in the shared universe market. That's when WB really went off the rails and lost the ability to do anything right. Let's face it, the staggering success of the MCU really put the zap on WB's head, and they haven't been able to get it screwed back on straight since. Yes, Wonder Woman was the exception, but it was only that, the exception rather than the norm, and so far it merely represents that one lucky swing that manages to knock the ball out of the park.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Unfortunately the success and quality of 2 out of 3 Batman films made Warner Brothers believe that was their path to success: more dark broody angst.  And, terrified of Green Lantern's crapfest bombing (I actually forgot that, should add it to the list and adjust the stats) they were desperate to avoid anything that seemed remotely like it or 1960's Batman.  Or the last few ghastly Burton-era batman films.

 

So while they're not really part of their DC universe concept, both Batman and Green Lantern had huge impact.

[zslane]

Well, I guess it depends on to what extent you credit Nolan (and the success of his movies) for pushing WB over the edge from an operational point of view. I give way more credit to the success of the MCU than to the success of the Dark Knight trilogy.

[Lord Liaden]

I'd go with some of both. After all, the spate of DC films between Burton and Nolan were critical and audience flops, relatively or unequivocally. Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy won praise and megabucks, and looked to be a distinctive alternative to the Marvel formula. Those floppish DC movies were also attempts at being more "comic-book" (at least to the WB executive's very limited understanding of what that means), to which they probably attributed their failure, rather than to them just not being very good.