It Was Never Real: The Rise and Fall of the DC Extended Universe, and The People Who Supported It

PHOENIXZERO · Nov 20, 2017

If that Flash movie ever gets made I really do hope it ends up being the thing that reboots pretty much everything outside of Wonder Woman.

CoolestSpot said:
This truth here is what hurts me most. DC as so much material to pull from for the big screen.

Civil War was kind of Marvel's big thing and they did that. They have plently of good stories nothing on DC's pantheon in that way.

Unfortunately I think a big part of their not doing that comes from the differing of corporate structures and ego on the WB end.

EDIT: Goddammit, I accidentally deleted my replies to other stuff on this edit. >_<

LionPride · Nov 20, 2017

pramod said:
You know, that's another point I wanted to make about the DCEU standalone films. WW was great, but it did nothing in terms of "universe building". Except for that little thing with the photo which was more of an easter egg. Unlike the Marvel films which usually try to introduce new characters and universe-connecting elements into each film (like the Infinity Stones). You always get the feeling they are building up to something bigger.

If your end goal is the big team-up universe cash cow, you have to try to build up your universe through the stand alone movies.

Disagree

Einchy · Nov 20, 2017

The Driver said:
but imagine not having any self awareness of how this looks from the outside.

eh.

LoyalPhoenix · Nov 20, 2017

Saya said:
My fandom > Your fandom

says every fandom ever.

GAMEPROFF · Nov 20, 2017

BadAss2961 said:
First off... I have friends that are MCU fans.

lol

ElBoxy · Nov 20, 2017

PHOENIXZERO said:
I know opinions and all but... I had paragraph written on my dislike of SR and Singer's two and a half hour long fanwank to the Donner movies and was about to do one for MoS too but it's too damn late, it'd be repeating much of the same complaints we've all seen for years anyway. As a Superman fan since I was a little I didn't like Returns for a host of reasons but I didn't hate it with ever fiber of my being like I do with Man of Steel every time I think about it, such a weird feeling coming out of the theater rating it as fairly average but then on the drive home start clenching your steering wheel harder and harder is you think about what you saw. The only thing MoS did successfully was make SR look better in retrospect.

Returns is soulless, which is worse imo. It's a movie that might as well not exist if you've never seen Donner's Superman.

The_Strokes · Nov 20, 2017

Good read, the big points for me were:

There's no understating TDK's success. Every CBM that WB has made since TDK has been trying to replicate what made that film such a landmark achievement. But the fans have also been chasing the same high, for both the right and wrong reasons. TDK worked not because it was dark, but because it was exactly the movie it needed to be, uncompromised by studio interference or pandering to its intended audience. But it also gave fans something they took out of context: validation that their fandom was "adult fare".

Not only most DCEU thought of itself as this serious, thought-provoking superhero universe, it's so pretentious at times it became obnoxious. And the fact that they blew up their big shot on a trailer showed how desperate they were and is an issue that it presents itself in Justice League, again.

broncobuster said:
Person who wrote this doesn't really understand the history of these things. There's so much that's incorrect.

And the whole Marvel vs DC fan thing seems to come from a place of, in this person's own words, labeling himself an MCU fan and drawing imaginary lines.

Curious to hear your take, also, when did he mention he was an MCU fan? I missed it.

Disco · Nov 20, 2017

Where does this dumb narrative of the dceu movies having an air of self importance come from? That element was only prevalent in one movie out of 5 (BvS).

Deleted member 8593 · Nov 20, 2017

Disco said:
Where does this dumb narrative of the dceu movies having an air of self importance come from? That element was only prevalent in one movie out of 5 (BvS).

Man of Steel is pretty self-important, to the point where like half of the movie deals with a fabricated conflict that makes no sense.

LionPride · Nov 20, 2017

Disco said:
Where does this dumb narrative of the dceu movies having an air of self importance come from? That element was only prevalent in one movie out of 5 (BvS).

Bro it can't be a dumb narrative when it's true, even if it's only for one movie, that's one movie too many then when you have those who shall not be named writing god damn essays on why the general audience is too dumb to get BvS....well...

The Driver · Nov 20, 2017

LionPride said:
Bro

You seem super duper defensive

I don't feel that way rn but my take on it is this,

You seen me in the DCEU thread all the time. Imagine if I made a long twitter thread on whatever issue I perceive the MCU to have, often including misinformation and team sport junk in said thread. Even if my point had merit, which I'm not saying this guy doesn't, you'd probably still look at me with all the side eye just because "hey aren't you always posting in the DCEU thread.".

But then again I'd also never feel the need to put out something like this on a topic I don't really care enough about to speak on though.

BadAss2961 said:
First off... I have friends that are MCU fans.

Lol, never change

broncobuster · Nov 20, 2017

PHOENIXZERO said:
Well, he did kind of cause it in the first place since they came to Earth because of him.

Snyder is one of those fans who saw DKR and all those "edgy" 90s comics and took the wrong things from them.

Superman destroying the drone was supposed to be a "funny" light scene to lighten the mood after Superman kills Zod instead of dealing with and addressing it.And... Superman and the stupid MacGuffin brought them to Earth so yeah... It's kind of his fault. I hated that and the position they put the character in. It would've been mostly fine for a sequel but it's just another instance of Snyder/WB trying to smash together too much.

I don't want to be defending Man of Steel because I don't like the movie... but it was the military who dug up the Kryptonian ship in the first place and we already knew Zod was tracking down every ship. If Superman did anything, it was move up the timetable. And the guy turned himself in to the Kryptonians to leave Earth alone. Kinda dumb on his part because Jor-el already told him Zod was shifty.

One thing I'll say about Man of Steel, I never got why people had sympathy for the trucker who inappropriately touched the lady at the bar.

The_Strokes said:
Curious to hear your take, also, when did he mention he was an MCU fan? I missed it.

It's in the person's twitter thing. I clicked it to read what they wrote. Not to discredit but maybe hint where their head is at.

As for some of the things incorrect, yeah, pretty much their whole telling of the Man of Steel production. For one, the situation was WB had to make a Superman movie within a certain time frame. A number of directors were in discussions. For guys like Duncan Jones and Ben Affleck (there's a longer history there with Affleck and DC properties), among others, they didn't have the experience to make it within that time frame. Ultimately why Zack Snyder was brought in was his experience with making a big effects driven movie. And he was working off David Goyer's script. This idea that Zack Snyder had total creative control and made what he wanted isn't really true.

I believe Man of Steel filming happened close to The Dark Knight Rises. Originally it was going to be a December 2012 release. It wasn't an ideal situation to begin with.

Also skips past discussions around Green Lantern, which was WB's attempt at cribbing from Marvel Studios' success of Iron Man and building to a cinematic universe. WB gutted that movie badly. Hell, you had Clark Kent in the original script.

Anyway, point being: WB meddling with DC properties has always caused problems for them. By and large their successes came from letting strong directors make the movies they want... save for Bryan Singer's weird pseudo-sequel to an unreleased cut of Superman 2. It took damaging the Batman brand with Batman&Robin to let them explore giving directors like Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan the keys.

LoyalPhoenix said:
says every fandom ever.

Trader Joe's fandom are the only ones who can judge.

Unless there's some secret Trader Joe's forum out there talking shit.

Disco · Nov 20, 2017

Nooooope. Man of Steel is a fairly standard superhero movie, not written particularly well but it makes no qualms in trying to punch above it's weight either. All that stuff people whine about with Johnathan Kents advice to Clark is far from some deconstruction of the superman character or some shit. It's just applying some skepticism and paranoia to his parenting.

He handles superman like he's Alf or ET basically. "You're an alien, don't publicize your shit because you're not mature enough yet, here's a tornado I'm going now..bye"

Can man of steel really be called pretentious?

I think people are becoming too emboldened by the criticism of these movies that they're now seeing fit to throw every negative label they can think of at this stuff. Just call them bad movies. I definitely think BvS does suffer from lofty ambitions however, but I liked it for that. But the rest are just bog standard superhero movies.

GAMEPROFF · Nov 20, 2017

Dunno, the article claims that its also about how the supporting elements of a movie were done and when you consider this, MoS really acts like its super important.

Strangelove_77 · Nov 20, 2017

You know what's frustrating about these threads - almost no memes. You guys get so invested in this that you forget about memes.

GAMEPROFF · Nov 20, 2017

Strangelove77 said:
You know what's frustrating about these threads - almost no memes. You guys get so invested in this that you forget about memes.

Deleted member 18568 · Nov 20, 2017

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but is this real?

Marvel and DC are both comic book publishers. The "characters" are almost interchangeable by design. What are people upset about? What a tremendous waste of energy.

A five thousand word tweet analysis sums up the application of time to completely the wrong thing.

Make good movies and people will come. Even to see an R-rated Deadpool comedy.

GAMEPROFF · Nov 20, 2017

Vibri said:
Marvel and DC are both publishers. The "characters" are almost interchangeable by design..

No.

Edit: Or are you talking about Marvel and DC beeing the characters?

mac · Nov 20, 2017

Vibri said:
Maybe I'm out of the loop, but is this real?

Marvel and DC are both comic book publishers. The "characters" are almost interchangeable by design. What are people upset about? What a tremendous waste of energy.

I'm putting a $5k fatwa on your head.

Einchy · Nov 20, 2017

Vibri said:
Maybe I'm out of the loop, but is this real?

Marvel and DC are both comic book publishers. The "characters" are almost interchangeable by design. What are people upset about? What a tremendous waste of energy.

A five thousand word tweet analysis sums up the application of time to completely the wrong thing.

Make good movies and people will come. Even to see an R-rated Deadpool comedy.

I think you are out of the loop 'cus your post doesn't really make sense in the context of the Twitter thread.

balohna · Nov 20, 2017

Something I think is worth noting is that Marvel's cinematic universe didn't start with their A-tier heroes. Those ones were already in the hands of other studios. They had to begin with their B-tier (except Hulk, who I'd say was maybe like B+), and in doing so elevated them to A-tier. Then they started moving down the list and elevated stuff like Ant Man and Guardians into mainstream consciousness.

The tweet thread touches on this, but I think he sort of glosses over the fact that Iron Man, Captain America and Thor were not even close to Spider-Man or X-Men in public mindshare. It forced Marvel to take a different approach, and gave them the opportunity to really present their own vision for a new universe. They had to introduce audiences to their heroes, which also gave them a great opportunity to establish a universe.

Of course, execution is the most important part. But I am fairly confident the MCU would have sucked if someone just decided Raimi Spidey and Singer X-Men were in the same universe, and added onto that.

Deleted member 8593 · Nov 20, 2017

Disco said:
Nooooope. Man of Steel is a fairly standard superhero movie, not written particularly well but it makes no qualms in trying to punch above it's weight either. All that stuff people whine about with Johnathan Kents advice to Clark is far from some deconstruction of the superman character or some shit. It's just applying some skepticism and paranoia to his parenting.

He handles superman like he's Alf or ET basically. "You're an alien, don't publicize your shit because you're not mature enough yet, here's a tornado I'm going now..bye"

Can man of steel really be called pretentious?

I think people are becoming too emboldened by the criticism of these movies that they're now seeing fit to throw every negative label they can think of at this stuff. Just call them bad movies. I definitely think BvS does suffer from lofty ambitions however, but I liked it for that. But the rest are just bog standard superhero movies.

Man of Steel makes a huge deal about Krypton and the role of the individual in society. Kal was conceived because his parents rejected that and wanted him to represent the idea that someone can make the choice to be something bigger than what society intended them to be. Thematically speaking, the movie puts this "choice" at the center and throws in Zod as the anti-thesis of it. But in the story, this conflict isn't played out at all. There's a bunch of badly written pseudo-philosophical back and forth between him and his dad but at the end Kal is the same exact person he was in the beginning. It's all surface while making a big deal out of it. That's the definition of pretentious.

People aren't "emboldened" at all. This kinda criticism has been levelled against MoS since it came out. If you don't wanna talk about that and just want to speak about how these movies are either "bad" or "too ambitious" you can just say that.

Deleted member 18568 · Nov 20, 2017

Einchy said:
I think you are out of the loop 'cus your post doesn't really make sense in the context of the Twitter thread.

Clearly I've been under a rock because I missed the whole "DC fans send death threats to critics" thing. Is that for real?

I don't follow the comic scene. The fact that this deserved such a forensic analysis seemed bizarre, like a storm in a teacup - unless I'm missing something and some people really do care that much. I though that shit died out with Sega vs Nintendo in the 90s. whatyearisthis.gif

Einchy · Nov 20, 2017

Vibri said:
Clearly I've been under a rock because I missed the whole "DC fans send death threats to critics" thing. Is that for real?

Yes.

Lets just say things got a bit wild when RT reviews started coming in for BvS and they were...worse than expected.

broncobuster · Nov 20, 2017

Vibri said:
Clearly I've been under a rock because I missed the whole "DC fans send death threats to critics" thing. Is that for real?

I don't follow the comic scene. The fact that this deserved such a forensic analysis seemed bizarre, like a storm in a teacup - unless I'm missing something and some people really do care that much. I though that shit died out with Sega vs Nintendo in the 90s. whatyearisthis.gif

Fanatics sending death threads? Yeah. It's real. This Twitter person framing things a certain way? That's fiction. It's sadly always been a thing and always will be a thing.

It's honestly worse when there are fewer negative reviews, because like with Dark Knight Rises and Uncharted 3 and Thor Ragnarok and any Zelda game and on, you have a swarm of people attacking the few dissenting voices.

BrickArts295 · Nov 20, 2017

Man the hype for Man of Steel has real. With the end of Nolan's Batman Trilogy and the success of Avengers and the MCU, those MoS trailers were some of the hypest trailers for until the most recent Last Jedi trailers. MoS Official Trailer 3 still gives me goosebumps. I miss those times, even after the release of MoS (which I enjoyed a lot) I got pretty hyped about DC films moving forward. But the second they announced Batman V Superman and not a sequel to MoS, that made me uneasy and now here we are.

danm999 · Nov 20, 2017

Dardan Sandiego said:
Man of Steel makes a huge deal about Krypton and the role of the individual in society. Kal was conceived because his parents rejected that and wanted him to represent the idea that someone can make the choice to be something bigger than what society intended them to be. Thematically speaking, the movie puts this "choice" at the center and throws in Zod as the anti-thesis of it. But in the story, this conflict isn't played out at all. There's a bunch of badly written pseudo-philosophical back and forth between him and his dad but at the end Kal is the same exact person he was in the beginning. It's all surface while making a big deal out of it. That's the definition of pretentious.

People aren't "emboldened" at all. This kinda criticism has been levelled against MoS since it came out. If you don't wanna talk about that and just want to speak about how these movies are either "bad" or "too ambitious" you can just say that.

Man of Steel is full of these kinds of internal contradictions.

Clark is supposed to be a symbol of humanity that will make them create wonders. A saviour. Jor-El says something to this affect.

But all the terrible things that happen to Earth and humans in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman that Superman opposes wouldn't have happened if he never came to Earth...

The_Strokes · Nov 20, 2017

broncobuster said:
It's in the person's twitter thing. I clicked it to read what they wrote. Not to discredit but maybe hint where their head is at.

As for some of the things incorrect, yeah, pretty much their whole telling of the Man of Steel production. For one, the situation was WB had to make a Superman movie within a certain time frame. A number of directors were in discussions. For guys like Duncan Jones and Ben Affleck (there's a longer history there with Affleck and DC properties), among others, they didn't have the experience to make it within that time frame. Ultimately why Zack Snyder was brought in was his experience with making a big effects driven movie. And he was working off David Goyer's script. This idea that Zack Snyder had total creative control and made what he wanted isn't really true.

I believe Man of Steel filming happened close to The Dark Knight Rises. Originally it was going to be a December 2012 release. It wasn't an ideal situation to begin with.

Also skips past discussions around Green Lantern, which was WB's attempt at cribbing from Marvel Studios' success of Iron Man and building to a cinematic universe. WB gutted that movie badly. Hell, you had Clark Kent in the original script.

Anyway, point being: WB meddling with DC properties has always caused problems for them. By and large their successes came from letting strong directors make the movies they want... save for Bryan Singer's weird pseudo-sequel to an unreleased cut of Superman 2. It took damaging the Batman brand with Batman&Robin to let them explore giving directors like Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan the keys.

Oh yeah, this is true, there's a degree of stupidity in Warner when it comes to handling its comic book properties that's uncanny, and that Zack was initially brought in just to follow Goyer's story is true too, but I mean, they eventually let him off the leash and he delivered the mess that BvS is, which is something that arguably did a whole lot more damage than MoS.

Super Corpse Soldier · Nov 20, 2017

ryseing said:
I was going to make a separate thread for this, but your thread makes part of it redundant, so I'll just post what I was going to instead.

Rethinking The Dark Knight, or: In praise of Heath Ledger

TL;DR: Ultimately, listen to the linked podcast because it's really good, but The Dark Knight has some issues. The only reason we look back on it fondly is Ledger, but Ledger is a damned excellent reason to do so.

I agree with this interpretation of The Dark Knight. It's just okay with Health Ledger being one of the greatest film antagonists ever. Absolutely carries the film in my opinion.

Snack12367 · Nov 20, 2017

People think criticizing DC makes you a Marvel fanboy.

The first phase Marvel films weren't great. Iron Man may have been a hit, but I didn't like it. The difference was that the marvel films were spread out. They didn't throw all their eggs into a basket and pray. DC films feel like they need to be a hit or the whole thing falls a part and in a way, that's not wrong.

Marvel had a weird environment to work in. Because of the rights to some of their best characters being elsewhere, they both in films and comics had to build up a whole new fanbase for characters. Iron Man was B tiers before the films. Who cared about Thor before the movies? In a way though, the constraint of not having some of the most popular roster available, actually allowed them some creative freedom. They were able to take risks and try characters in ways they hadn't been seen before.

DC has the opposite problem. They've got the full roster, they are bound by the characters already established stories though. Superman has to work, because Superman is the linchpin behind it all. The DC universe doesn't work without Superman. The Nolan movies weren't a DC universe set of films, they were a self-contained world about Batman. If you can't get Superman right, the whole thing falls apart.

So they have to make Superman work. I'm not against the serious angle on it, but Man of Steel missed the mark for me. Batman vs Superman was a huge jump. It didn't make sense at the time and having seen the movie, I still don't. Superman was barley established and this Batman was so different from the others. From the off it felt like a misfire, like it had come too soon.

JL having seen it is the same problem. It's a lot better than the others, but it suffers a lot from pacing. It's all over the place.

Kinthey · Nov 20, 2017

pramod said:
You know, that's another point I wanted to make about the DCEU standalone films. WW was great, but it did nothing in terms of "universe building". Except for that little thing with the photo which was more of an easter egg. Unlike the Marvel films which usually try to introduce new characters and universe-connecting elements into each film (like the Infinity Stones). You always get the feeling they are building up to something bigger.

If your end goal is the big team-up universe cash cow, you have to try to build up your universe through the stand alone movies.

The problem with that is that it can also backfire. Especially Age of Ultron had just too many side threads that alluded to something we'd see in another movie. So I didn't mind that Wonder Woman didn't stumble upon a motherbox during WW1 or something like that.

jon bones · Nov 20, 2017

It's not exclusive to DCEU, they aren't the first or the only fandom to be completely overrun by toxic masculinity.

As a huge fan of the actual comics, I wish some of these nutters would pay attention to way their favorite characters treat others.

Deleted member 1476 · Nov 20, 2017

I liked the thesis, don't understand why people are jumping at the guy saying "why did he do this", "why is he wasting his time doing that".

Ithil · Nov 20, 2017

The Driver said:
Damn, imagine sitting down to write a twitter thesis diagnosing the toxicity in the DCEU fandom this long and rambly with a straight face.

Like, everyone knows WB fucked up, a good amount of the stuff here is self evident, but imagine not having any self awareness of how this looks from the outside. Dude's handle is Dr. Doom and it says he's a MCU fan in his bio, are we really supposed to believe he doesn't have a horse in this race lmao.

You surely must have a little self-awareness about responding to an article about the hostile reactions of DC fans with "He's clearly an MCU fan, he can't be trusted!".

WillyFive · Nov 20, 2017

The MCU started with rejected C-listers and public domain characters and turned them into icons. DC started with icons and turned them into characters that cannot beat the box office draw of a public domain character's sequel.

I was personally super disappointed with this fact as a DC fan, but it's true, and there are some people that could not handle that.

MisterHero · Nov 20, 2017

*criticizes DCEU movies for being long-winded grasps at pseudointelligence*

*writes long-winded "psychological breakdown" of fans of said movies*

Yes, I read the whole thing. And yeah people can like things for strange reasons. Never stop shitting on people you don't like, internet.

barit · Nov 20, 2017

PogChamp said:
What's the oldest lie in America?

That Lex Luthor behaving like The Joker wasn't intentional.

*SNIP*

What did I just read the last 3/4 hour instead of following my class?? Is that what people mean when they say "You didn´t understand the movie BvS!"

lolz

Cuburger · Nov 20, 2017

I first realized that some DC fans were way too overzealous (to put it lightly) when The Dark Knight was voted #1 movie of all time on IMDb not more than a day after it released
http://www.slashfilm.com/the-dark-knight-voted-1-movie-of-all-time-on-imdb/
And before you think that people just loved the film that much, the article points out how it was spammed with user votes to make it #4 movie of all time by Thursday the day before it opened, before people even saw the movie. It was the first time I recall ever hearing of fans attempting to do something to that degree for a film they liked. People were that desperate for their favorite comic book's recognition and validation.

Then when TDKR released, people flipped out when it started to get negative reviews (for context The Avengers released in May of the same year and got a 92% and TDKR released in July and ended on an 87%) and started harassing reviewers. The negative comments were so bad they had to shut down comments on the site for the first time ever.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rotten-tomatoes-dark-knight-rises-351124

Rotten Tomatoes, the popular movie review aggregator, has suspended negative comments from reviews of The Dark Knight Rises, The Associated Press reports.

The site's editor, Matt Atchity, said it was the first time user comments had been yanked from Rotten Tomatoes but that postings would be restored by week's end.

"The job of policing the comments became more than my staff could handle for that film, so we stopped the comments altogether," he explained. "It just got to be too much hate based on reactions to reviews of movies that people hadn't even seen."

TDKR also had a fan campaign to vote the movie up to be a top 10 movie of all time as well, this time landing it at least as high as #10
http://www.nme.com/news/film/the-dark-knight-rises-is-10th-best-movie-ever-say-866276

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
5. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
6. 12 Angry Men (1957)
7. Schindler's List (1993)
8. The Dark Knight (2008)
9. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)
10. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I think the list speaks for itself.

The Dark Knight instantly became untouchable and a film that couldn't be criticized and it's follow up, the consensus that it is a far more flawed film, had fans trying to claim the same thing. Discourse around these films have cooled down a lot after 10 years, but these were the seeds of the ravenous fans that sowed the attitudes of the DCEU. Remember, this was at a time when DC films were "winning" and they had accolades and Batman was banking billions of dollars.

Drek · Nov 20, 2017

Lot of maxed out character count tweets for a really simple point:

WB chose the wrong people and the wrong tone. Done.

I thoroughly enjoyed 300 and Watchmen. Snyder's style worked well with the tone of those books. They weren't perfect, but they were tonally accurate and enjoyable.

I've enjoyed a portion of David Goyer's filmography as well. But what made you think the guy who rode shotgun to the Nolan's Batman run, helped write Dark City, and who worked on Blade, Crow, and Ghost Rider adaptations was the guy to handle Superman and the JL? Even when his work is good it's dark. Batman is the only JL character who really works well in that tone. Nolan already did that as well. No surprise that the least dark of their movies so far, WW, is by far the most successful.

Sgt. Demblant · Nov 20, 2017

Fans of things are the worst.

jett · Nov 20, 2017

That's a fairly sensible writeup of the situation.

I can only assume A LOT of people participating in the thread haven't even read it. It's about how and why the diehard DC fandom behaves the way it does. What are you talking about Iron Man 3 for?

Talraen · Nov 20, 2017

pramod said:
And what's so baffling about all this is that in comic verse , DC actually far outpaces Marvel in terms of well written adult classic stories. Dark Knight Returns. Death of Superman. Crisis. Kingdom Come. There was so much classic material. If they wanted to go dark and adult, there was no shortage of stories to draw from. So how did we end up with crud like BvS?

I think this may actually be a disadvantage for DC. They've chased a number of iconic moments (like the death of Superman) from the comics that haven't really worked. I think the X-Men movie franchise suffers from the same issue even more acutely. Like, we get it, you really want to do the Phoenix saga, but there are other X-Men stories, guys!

The MCU, on the other hand, was forced to do without most of their their most iconic characters, and there haven't been too many super well-known stories for them to chase. I find myself wondering if that freed them to better translate everything to cinema. Hell, maybe the MCU would never have succeeded like it has if Marvel had the rights to the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-man at the start.

Jack Remington · Nov 20, 2017

Man of Steel got a standing ovation at my theater. It wasn't until months later that I learned there were tons of contrarians who hate it.

Finale Fireworker · Nov 20, 2017

I was really into comic book movies after Spider-man 2, which I maintain is still one of the best CBMs. I had very little interest in comic books as a whole, but seeing the characters made into movies gave me a new curiosity that kept me reading up on the drama of their production.

With DC, I felt like they were failing to take advantage of the fans they already had: the ones who loved DC heroes without ever opening a comic book.

Every time a Marvel movie did well, I'd think it was great, but these were characters I just met. I didn't grow up wanting to see Thor and Iron Man movies. I wanted to see Raven and Starfire. I wanted to see Terry McGinnis. I wanted to see John Stewart as Green Lantern. DC had dripfed me this content for years and years and made sure I knew the names of even their most obscure heroes and villains and this kind of legacy helped make things like Arkham Asylum and Injustice a success.

For me, the biggest failing of the DCEU is the insistence to avoid years and years of foundation formed in animation. ("That stuff was for kids - this new stuff will be for adults.") Gone are all the DC characters and teams people like me grew up with. WB wanted a different kind of "broad appeal." That never made sense to me. They had broad appeal. Now they have this.

I got off the comic book train, DC or otherwise, around The Wolverine. I just got tired of them and they don't interest me much anymore. But there will always be the itch to see my heroes brought to life again on the big screen. And they're not the ones from comics, they're from TV.

Poor Starfire, I hardly knew ye!

Mr. Von Touchdown · Nov 20, 2017

Talraen said:
Hell, maybe the MCU would never have succeeded like it has if Marvel had the rights to the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-man at the start.

Yeah the whole MCU was born out of wanting more creative control over their properties in the movie space and falling comic sales. So yeah, definite good thing.

And yeah, the tweet chain seems about right to me.

KonradLaw · Nov 20, 2017

Drek said:
WB chose the wrong people and the wrong tone. Done.

.

For Snyder yes, but I'm not so sure about Suicide Squad. Ayer was pretty much perfect for it. And it turned into a wreck. He never was the most consitent director, but SS is so far below his usual level that there just had to be something else there. The insanely fast production cycle, the short time to make a script, then the insane meddling WB did into this movie.
I think with SS they did pick the right people and right tone intially, they just proceeded to screw it all up later on.

jett · Nov 20, 2017

KonradLaw said:
For Snyder yes, but I'm not so sure about Suicide Squad. Ayer was pretty much perfect for it. And it turned into a wreck. He never was the most consitent director, but SS is so far below his usual level that there just had to be something else there. The insanely fast production cycle, the short time to make a script, then the insane meddling WB did into this movie.
I think with SS they did pick the right people and right tone intially, they just proceeded to screw it all up later on.

Watch Sabotage.
Actually, don't watch that.

Hiring David Ayer was a mistake.

Tom_Cody · Nov 20, 2017

The write-up in the OP rings very true. I definitely see the throughline from TDK to present.

Sibersk Esto · Nov 20, 2017

Disco said:
Where does this dumb narrative of the dceu movies having an air of self importance come from? That element was only prevalent in one movie out of 5 (BvS).

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KonradLaw · Nov 20, 2017

jett said:
Watch Sabotage.
Actually, don't watch that.

Hiring David Ayer was a mistake.

Sabotage wasn't good, but even that is far better than the mess SS ended up. Sabotage was just a weak movie, SS felt utterly broken. In a way I don't think I ever saw. You know how when there's shitload of trailers and promos before premiere some movies people try to make a mini-movie out of them on Youtube? That's how SS felt.

This is why I'm really curious to see how Bright will turn out. With big budget and fantastical elements it will be pretty good baseline if Ayer fucked SS up or if WB did.

It Was Never Real: The Rise and Fall of the DC Extended Universe, and The People Who Supported It

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