zslane

It is difficult to tell stories about the same character for nearly 75+ years. Attempts to freshen up the character for each new generation are inevitable, and not all attempts are going to work well. It ruined the Star Trek franchise (IMO), and it is ruining the DC(E)U. I would say that 50-75 years of creaking continuity has ruined 616 and whatever DC calls its comic book multi-verse, but at this point nobody really expects the comics to save themselves from their own editorial misadventures anyway.
 
Me, I'm looking forward to the tv version of Wild Cards now.

It is difficult to tell stories about the same character for nearly 75+ years. Attempts to freshen up the character for each new generation are inevitable, and not all attempts are going to work well. It ruined the Star Trek franchise (IMO), and it is ruining the DC(E)U. I would say that 50-75 years of creaking continuity has ruined 616 and whatever DC calls its comic book multi-verse, but at this point nobody really expects the comics to save themselves from their own editorial misadventures anyway.
 
Me, I'm looking forward to the tv version of Wild Cards now.

It's relatively easy to change characters in significant ways when they aren't your company's primary cash cow. Spider-Man is rare in that he's been Marvel's most popular character and yet was allowed to evolve, however slowly, over the decades. Most of the time, publishers are terrified by the prospect of changing the successful formula of their most profitable characters, and so they remain largely unchanged over decades. This isn't a failure of creative vision, it is a product of commercial expediency.
 
It also doesn't help that we're talking about characters that have lived in their respective universes, fighting the good fight, for longer than many of us have been alive. If they don't age chronologically with the real world, then they essentially live in a state of suspended animation; a state of suspended characterization is pretty congruent with that.

What I hate about it is that even if he had to make it, the writers allowed the Batman (did you hear that THE BATMAN) to be outmanoeuvred by the Joker.
 
The whole superpower of Batman is that he always knows what is going down.  I loved the fact that the villains my have appeared to have Batman in an impossible situation but the Batman's preparation and attention to detail means that he sees a flaw or has pre-prepared stuff that allows him to turn the tables at the last minute.
 
It distressed me that they think that having Batman make a decision to choose between girlfriend and political necessity is a relevant story for Batman.  I was waiting after he saved one to show why he knew the other was safe all along...
 
 
Doc
 
...similarly distressed by writers thinking that making Captain Jack sacrifice his grandson to save the Children of Earth was a suitable outcome for a hero in the Doctor Who universe...  :-( 

Well, I assume that the folks who witnessed severe tonal inconsistency aren't just making that up. Which means that everyone else is either just tone deaf, so to speak, or don't care about such things. Which review one takes to heart very much depends on which group one falls into, I imagine.

Just saying that The Incredible Hulk remains one of my favorite Marvel movies, and made decent box office. So crap is in the eye of... actually, I think I'll leave that one right there.

This is the superhero genre (if you'll permit me to call it a genre). There are going to be fight scenes. I get that.
 
The thing is, fight scenes in superhero movies have (perhaps unsurprisingly) become afflicted with the same core problem as chase scenes in action thrillers and sex scenes in porn. They go on way too long for what they accomplish narratively. They are cheap filler intended to keep the viewers occupied, even if they aren't really engaged, so that the 35 minute story takes up the requisite 90-120 minutes of running time. It is a rare movie indeed that manages to use the fight/chase/sex scene effectively as a storytelling device.
 
I suppose there is a significant percentage of the movie-going population that enjoys mindless entertainment for its own sake. But I'm at the point where I don't really like to spend much money or time on it anymore. I have too many demands on my time and far too many better options. That's why, as much as I love superheroes, I only get out to see about half of the MCU films in a theater (I have yet to see a DCCU movie in a theater; Wonder Woman may pull me out of my cave next year though). The majority of movies I rent/stream via Netflix instead, and I honestly don't feel I've missed out on much in doing so.

If there's one thing I've learned it is that I simply can't trust the reviews of others when it comes to these things, especially when they say a movie has "great action scenes." Too many folks have heaped high praise on The Dark Knight for its action scenes, which were often incoherent messes, for me to trust anyone anymore.

Batman and Superman have decades of former representations on television and film essentially weighing them down, and so there is immense pressure to find a fresh take on the character with each new outing. That tends to lead studios in all kinds of disastrous creative directions. "Staying faithful" to the character looks to studio execs like code for "copy a previously take on the character," which is anathema to them.
 
In contrast, aside from Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, the characters in the MCU are all completely brand new to most viewers, and so Marvel enjoys the luxury of having no audience expectations to meet. I find Spider-Man to be a fascinating case. Despite a very successful, and pretty faithful take on the character not that long ago (i.e., recent enough to be in the CGI era), Marvel is betting that they can do it at least as well, if not better. If it was WB/DC trying that (and with any character other than Batman), that hubris would lead to catastrophe, I'm certain of it.

Batman and Superman have decades of former representations on television and film essentially weighing them down, and so there is immense pressure to find a fresh take on the character with each new outing. That tends to lead studios in all kinds of disastrous creative directions. "Staying faithful" to the character looks to studio execs like code for "copy a previously take on the character," which is anathema to them.
 
In contrast, aside from Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, the characters in the MCU are all completely brand new to most viewers, and so Marvel enjoys the luxury of having no audience expectations to meet. I find Spider-Man to be a fascinating case. Despite a very successful, and pretty faithful take on the character not that long ago (i.e., recent enough to be in the CGI era), Marvel is betting that they can do it at least as well, if not better. If it was WB/DC trying that (and with any character other than Batman), that hubris would lead to catastrophe, I'm certain of it.

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).

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).

Was there?
 
I must be in the minority who hears the concept behind the Suicide Squad and is just filled with lots of meh.

Was there?
 
I must be in the minority who hears the concept behind the Suicide Squad and is just filled with lots of meh.

Was there?
 
I must be in the minority who hears the concept behind the Suicide Squad and is just filled with lots of meh.

My 6th ed. collection looks like everyone esle's.
 

 
As do my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th ed. collections, pretty much.
 
But I also have a couple of books nobody esle in the world has.
 

Getting the actress cast as Captain Marvel to appear in an episode (or series of episodes) of AoS, with the aim of weaving her pre-origin story into the scripts of the television series, would be a production logistics nightmare. Marvel has repeatedly explained why the films and the tv shows won't be crossing over with each other, storywise or character-wise, no matter how much narrative synergy there appears to be. This most recently came up when people began asking how the AoS series, with its introduction of the Inhumans/Kree, will impact the MCU films, and vice versa. Short answer: it won't.

After two seasons of senseless melodrama, I have to say that Barry makes no sense to me as a character. He was raised by a loving foster family. He still has a loving foster father, an adoring girlfriend, a half step-brother who idolizes him, and friends who would probably die for him. And yet he remains so "torn up" emotionally that he can not even feel the love anyone has for him and must...oh bother.
 
It is every bit as insipid as portraying Batman as a grown-ass man who is still so tortured by the distant death of his parents that he is practically psychotic himself. Back when Bob Kane invented the character, the death of the elder Waynes was merely prologue, a way to explain Bruce's dedication to fighting crime. But the original incarnation grew up to be an emotionally stable adult who became the world's greatest detective and a respected crime fighter.
 
When did our culture become so attached to this idea that our superheroes have to be so psychologically fragile and emotionally destroyed that they hardly resemble real human beings anymore?
 
It is with great relief that I delete this show from my DVR. And not out of hatred, but out of deep, deep disappointment.

Back in 2014 I went through a major Lulu phase, pulling together PDFs and making "deluxe" hardcovers for many things. Only a couple of them were Hero System related. Among the other books I had made was this deluxe hardcover collection of the old FASERIP books:
 


 
These are fat hardcovers with full-color interior pages. Each one cost me about as much as a brand new college textbook, and that's after applying a substantial discount. The fun part was designing the cover graphics and, of course, seeing the final product in all its glory.

Back in 2014 I went through a major Lulu phase, pulling together PDFs and making "deluxe" hardcovers for many things. Only a couple of them were Hero System related. Among the other books I had made was this deluxe hardcover collection of the old FASERIP books:
 


 
These are fat hardcovers with full-color interior pages. Each one cost me about as much as a brand new college textbook, and that's after applying a substantial discount. The fun part was designing the cover graphics and, of course, seeing the final product in all its glory.

You make a valid point, Ternaugh.
 
It has long been understood/acknowledged, at least by Champions' original creators, that RPG sessions make for lousy comic (and by extension tv or movie) stories. One of the reasons for that is that highly effective play by smart players (call it "power-gaming" if you must) is a great way to "win the game," but not a great way to write a story with a classic (and therefore classically satisfying) dramatic arc.
 
Unfortunately, while tv writers are (usually) very familiar with classic dramatic structure, they are woefully behind the curve when it comes to creative and/or optimal use of super powers, and not nearly experienced or savvy enough to work out the logical consequences of the super power usage they do write into their scripts.
 
What we end up with is a huge disconnect between what the tv writers are capable of and what we, as diehard comics readers and Champions players, expect from a superhero universe/campaign. I'd like to believe that there is a middle-ground between the two extremes; that there is a satisfying mixture of classic storytelling and smart RPG-style power usage to be found. It probably just takes a different breed of writer than Hollywood generally has access to. Not many talented writers have a background in superhero RPGing. The original Wild Cards crew is about the only one that immediately comes to mind.

The only boxed version of Danger International that I know of was its predecessor, Espionage.

Very true. Once this season is over, my compulsive need to just "see it through" to the finale will end and I will delete the show from my DVR schedule. Same with Arrow.

I think it goes without saying that Barry has super fast mental processing capability. Otherwise he would not be able to react to anything that he encounters when moving at superspeed. He would not be able to read super fast or do his CSI work super fast, etc.
 
Didn't it bother anyone else that:
 
a. Zoom can apparently create portals from/to Earth-2 at will? That's one of those unexplained developments that comes from the minds of lazy, inept writers.
 
b. Barry just stood there and begged Zoom at the end rather than, oh I don't know, actively trying to stop him? Trying would have had infinitely higher chances of success than standing there like a sniveling child and pleading with that psycopath. Am I supposed to feel sorry for Barry now? It is hard to when he chose to just stand there and watch.
 
c. Barry is strangely very upset over what has just happened, which makes no sense for a character who can literally go back in time and change events. He has the ability to grant himself unlimited do-overs, but he doesn't bother?
 
There's just no justice in a world where Agent Carter gets cancelled while this garbage gets to continue.

Well, if this leaves room for Bobbi to replace May, I'm okay with that. Not that I dislike May, mind you, it's just that I like Bobbi better.