Analyzing how the DCEU films went wrong is MUCH more interesting that watching the actual films!
Agree, or disagree?
shareAgreed. There have been a ton of great youtube vids on the downfall of the DCEU.
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MovieChat Forums > Justice League (2017) Discussion > Analyzing how the DCEU films went wrong ...
I admit to watching youtube videos discussing, dissecting, analyzing and pontificating on just what went wrong at Warner/DC. I have yet to re-watch a single DCEU film after that initial Blu-ray purchase and I own them all on Blu-Ray. When family comes over to the house no one has ever asked to watch a DCEU film. Not a one.
shareI still astonished every day EVEN MORE at the awfulness and failures of the DCEU films, example a week ago, I had my opinion of JL sink even LOWER....
I was reading an article The other day, and The article was about if you want to truly understand how bad Justice League is, sit down and watch Avengers Infinity War and Justice League Back to Back....
Now I've already seen Justice League and Avengers IW Many times...I love AIW and already had the opinion JL was an Abomination....
but The point of the article was, If you watch them back to back, You Will get a much better understanding of just how many things AIW did RIGHT and How JL did those things WRONG....in fact the article points out AIW does them about as RIGHT as you possibly can, While JL does them Literally as WRONG as ANYONE ever could or ever Will......The main one being The Villain....
anyways, sure enough....I went ahead and watched JL and AIW back to back....and I swear in truly is stunning watching these 2 films back to back....
Its about The Greatest example ever of watching how 2 movies with the same concept and Ideas can turn out on the complete different ends of the spectrum....
The only other example I can think of of 2 films having the exact same ideas,concept and being made for the same audience and fans and where 1 film turned out amazing and the other turned out awful is Civil War and BvS....
Honestly it still baffles me that WB screwed up this badly. BVS and Civil War are literally the same film one is well done and the other is awful. I will tell you why I think things went bad. Lets start at the top.
If you noticed WB has not had success critically with Superman films since the Donner era. Well okay other than lukewarm at best. Superman Returns was a sequel pretending that Superman 3 and 4 never existed. Well slight issue with that. Why do Superman and Lois Lane look so much younger than their Donner counterparts?
Superman Returns tried so hard to imitate Donner's vision. Therefore it ended up feeling like a generic version of it. Critics were lukewarm but audiences were bored to death by it. The characters do not do anything all that interesting. Superman sits and sulks, his chemistry with Lois is non existent and nothing visually interesting was done. In the Donner era catching planes moving giant rocks was acceptable because we did not have the tech to do anything else with the character. Superman Returns came out in 2006 and Spider-man 2 came out in 2004. The train sequence on Spider-man 2 blows anything away in Superman Returns.
Superman Returns was a case where it should have been a reboot rather than a sequel. So then comes Man of Steel. The reboot part of it is brilliant. Problem is they took the reboot in the wrong direction. They decided for it to be an origin story. Now here is the problem with that. Superman the movie did that already. We all know the origin story of Superman.
However okay if you are going to do that try and set yourself apart from the past. The only thing they did was change the tone. It now has adopted Nolan's more realistic, serious and gritty tone. Unlike Donner's version which was lighthearted fun and cheese in a good uplifting way. The thing is they still recycled what Donner did. Man of Steel is basically a remake of Superman 1 and 2 subtract Lex Luthor.
I literally eye rolled when it was revealed that Zod was the villain. I was like are we trying to branch out and be original at all? I mean look at the story blueprint.
Zod gets banished to phantom zone
Clark gets told he is here for a reason ny Johnathon Kent
Zod escapes phantom zone with his fellow comrades
Zod hates Jorel
Zod has henchmen at his side. Ursa=Faora even have the same hair aesthetic. Big guy=Naan
Big fight between Zod and Superman in the city
Thing is if you are going to do the origin again which I was against could we at least have gotten a different villain? Brainiac was a very missed opportunity here. He is missed because think he is super strong which allows for great action sequences, he is also intellectual which makes him far more interesting than a villain like Doomsday.
Man of Steel was like okay guys the reason everyone hated Superman Returns was because there was no action... Am I denying that action might have helped no but even putting action in Superman Returns it still would have been a disappointing movie.
Batman Begins worked because it told a story with Batman we had never seen on the big screen. His origin was never done therefore seeing it was fresh and new. It was only alluded to in the Burton films never delved into. Man of Steel just recycles stuff we have seen.
Taking the realistic gritty approach to Superman failed because Superman is not Batman. Am I saying you have to be as campy and lighthearted as Donner's Superman no. You need Superman to be not quite that dark though.
So the problem now when you move on to BVS is both Superman and Batman are dark and brooding. Therefore there is no difference or contrast between the characters. Daredevil and Punisher work because they are so different. Same goes for Cap and Iron Man see my point?
So then once you make BVS they tried to rush it out of the gate. Instead of learning how Marvel did it they decided to take the shortcut and when it comes to work shortcuts taken become glaringly obvious. They literally tried to cram in every major comic book character arc into one film. Death of Superman, The Dark Knight Returns etc. Here is the problem though. Just shoving in stuff into a film and saying recognize that, does not mean it makes sense in the context of the film. Simply seeing stuff I recognize from a comic book on the screen does not automatically make me go oh yeah this movie is good.
Having Batman kill people on a whim makes things too complicated. If he is so willing to kill random thugs why let Luthor live?
The motives behind Batman and Superman fighting was weak. Their fight was weak. The issue also is the fight is going to be one sided either way. If Batman has kryptonite he will easily demolish Superman. If there is no kryptonite Superman will demolish Batman. What makes Iron Man vs Captain America cool is the fight is it is pretty evenly matched. Therefore the outcome is not so predetermined.
Jesse Eisenberg has been good elsewhere but the issue is his Lex feels so out of place. It feels like a scooby doo villain in a dark dreary film. Issue is the universe in which they set up does not really cater to those kinds of villains. This is not Sam Raimi's Spider-man where camp and cheese belongs. From the start it takes itself very seriously.
What I find funny is this. Richard Donner's Superman, and Sam Raimi's Spider-man are bother lighthearted and cheese in a good classic fun way. However did you notice that both of those films have great dramatic moments that put any of BVS's attempts to that to shame? It is because despite being lighthearted and fun they put character and story telling first.
Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman" was the one DC film that managed to combine the darkness of the recent DC films with the lightness of the 80s films, and make it work without being cheesy! (OK,without being extremely cheesy.) She put Wonder Woman in one of the darkest moments in recent history, and had her bring light into the darkness.
Which is incredibly goddamn simple, why the hell couldn't they have done that with the new Superman? What could be more obvious?
No, the Cavill Superman is a failure, because they put him in a dark world, and let the world drag him down. Which is missing the point of Superman, right there in one sentence.
Yep Wonder Woman was the only DCU movie worth anything. I had a feeling a Wonder Woman solo film would be good. The reason I had that feeling is because she hadn't been done to death.
We had never seen a wonder woman film on the big screen therefore her origins feel fresh and original. Problem with Batman and Superman is they have been done so many times it's hard to do something fresh with them.
To me it all boils down to the writing. Plot and script. It was never the "darkness" nor the "seriousness." A distant 2nd would be the casting/acting.
A good writer can make the most mundane or silly (DC) topic interesting. As has been said a million times before: DC should have followed the exact same path that their cartoon department followed.
I agree for the most part. No matter the tone it can be good or bad. We have great dark comic book movies. Such as The Dark Knight trilogy, Sin City, Logan etc. We have terrible ones such as BVS, Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four 2015. There are good lighthearted comic films Superman the movie, Superman 2, Spider-man, Spider-man 2, and bad ones Fantastic Four 2005, Green Lantern, and Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer.
shareMarvel made it look like making enjoyable superhero movies was the easiest thing in the world... until DC came along and showed everyone how difficult it really is.
That's the thing, if you compare the movies hheres a ton of similarities, but Marvel's end results have been good films overall, and except for "WW", DC's have been terrible.
And the thing about comparing "Infinity War" to "Justice Leage" is that "IW" was vastly more difficult to make, yet its a better film. I mean "JL" has six leading characters and "IW" has anout thirty, yet the heroes of JL seem idiotic and unlikable, while forty or fifty characters in "IW" are established as likeable and are all given something interesting to do. Which is an insanely difficult thing to bring to your narrative structure, yet the end result is a fun and coherent film. And can DCEU make even one coherent film? Well they can make one, and one out of five isn't good.