the last great "superhero" movie came out in 2008.

*cough* Logan *cough*

^ I stand corrected.

I figure if we're gonna discuss the Hollywood Reporter article, let's actually link to it: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warner-bros-eyes-slimmed-down-movie-budgets-under-toby-emmerich-1015390

Regarding my thoughts on the announcement, to be honest, I don't completely hate this. Not completely. Yes, it sucks that the only big budget, flashy movies we'll be getting for quite some time might be from cinematic universes, tentpole entries in franchises and what not, but I'm not too fussed about that. Those are the movies that everyone knows are going to do well, so it makes sense to give them the freedom to do what they want (well, I say 'freedom', even though there'll be re-shoots, rewrites, changes to make the work inoffensive enough to appeal to general audiences, and all the usual guff that makes me detest these sort of films).

Besides, I gladly admit to having no expectations for these kind of films getting better. When they're making billions and pleasing audiences just for doing what is (in the world of 'you-can-do-anything-when-backed-by-billionaire-corporations-with-near-endless-amounts-of-resources' film-making) the bare minimum, why bother changing how they operate? Besides, the bitterly humorous side in me hopes this fosters more resentment towards these films and helps to lead to their eventual death kneel in a few years from now, so there's one upside of superhero/franchise/universe films getting better treatment than everyone else, yet again.

But more than anything, I'm actually in support of the idea of trying to reduce budgets on projects without guaranteed success. No, really. Hear me out.

It's always baffled me, in a manner similar to the video game industry, how so many of these projects have such a high budget (for what they're trying to do, at any rate) that they need to make a ludicrous amount of money at the box office to just break even, let alone actually make any proft. And when you've got at least five or ten over-budgeted movies in production at any time, it's truly a wonder some studios haven't gone the way of THQ or Midway by now. But that's still not a good way to operate, and I'm in favor of doing whatever needs to be done to prevent (or at least reduce) frivolous spending on films that don't need it. If you can ensure that X film can still do what it needs to do at only half of the production cost without suffering for it, then do it.

Secondly, I'm also interested in the idea of a lot of people now having to deal with more tangible production constraints. It's often said that limitations breed creativity, and while it's likely NOT going to happen, I would really like to see some film-makers attempt to become more creative in how they make their film:

"You don't have the money to pull off this rather pointless action scene, so why not choose to merely show glimpses or the aftermath of this battle and make it more effective?"

"You've got 30 seconds of conversation between two people, so instead of shooting multiple shots that you can't afford, just go with one well framed shot that features both characters and says more through the framing than what you'd normally do."

"You wanna do a big action film with ridiculous gunfights, explosions and tanks? If you're not a big-name director, you better look into getting this animated; and it'll have to be 2D animated, since CGI's waaaaaaay beyond our allotted budget!"

I'll happily admit to being over-optimistic on this one (especially since it's possible that film-makers will just double down on making competent scripts and little else, much like what Hanna-Barbera and their contemporaries did when animation came to television in the late 50's/early 60's), but I may as well take something positive out of this.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:...Zack Snyder is not a visionary auteur director. He's not.
If he is an auteur, then it's in the same sense as an over-produced and slightly polished version of Uwe Boll is an auteur.
Snyder's defense of his video-game action visual style is in the same exact same vein as Boll's defense of his entire video-game action filmmaking style. The only difference is budget. There's nothing bold in that, there's nothing visionary to be had there

1 - Lets for the sake of argument concede Bvs was poorly edited & possibly didn't flow story wise but there is nothing incompetent about Snyder's direction of individual scenes, Boll does EVERY SINGLE facet of film making incompetently. Except the overlong & over dramatic tornado scene there is not a single scene in Mos that isn't superior on a film making level to the entirety of any full film of Bolls. Even the stupid ass church scene was more visually pleasing to sit through then any visual Boll ever cooked up.
2 - He isn't a visionary for the action scenes. Mos's battles were absolutely fantastic but Bvs's final battle was murky & standard fare.
He is visionary-ish for being willing to take risk/experiment with controversial things, for his in depth world building, for his ability to infuse awe & wonder into scenes. For his ability to make the world of the Dceu feel simultaneously realistic/grounded and incredibly epic/monumental.
3 - I don't get the video game comparison at all but regardless, why does doing a superhero film in this style NEED defending?
4 - The comparison really falls apart when you note that Boll makes films FOR his mindless incompetently filmed action scenes with no build up or characters of any kind while Snyder in both Mos/Bvs spent 40 minute stretches on both films with no action doing world building & working on the characters/mystery.

If that proved effective in cultivating captivating characters or not is besides the point, he still put in the screentime & effort to try and do so, Boll has NEVER tried on any level whatsoever. That absolutely puts Snyder leagues ahead of him as a film maker/storyteller.

and the Zack Snyder Fan Club using Snyder's angsty teenage video game aesthetic as a mantra to "Make Superhero Films Great Again" misses the point of what exactly it was that made superhero movies great in the first place.

Please do tell exactly what that is?
And no, superhero films already are consistently great, I am plenty happy with what the Mcu is doing.
Man of Steel just happened to be a absolute god send to me and 95% everything I ever dreamed of for the character and kick started my interest in him hardcore. If you told me in 2008 (when I started reading comics) that my favorite monthly comic would be Superman I would have laughed in your face. And yet here we are, his main title for Rebirth has been fantastic. And I enjoyed I would say 80% of his New 52 material.

Also, the last great "superhero" movie came out in 2008. (Nearly a decade ago!)

Winter Soldier.

^ You remind me of a man who was sitting in front of me to the right at the screening of Pirates 5. I am truly jealous of the ability to sincerely enjoy this tedious nonsense and thoughtless dribble. I would have had more fun at the theaters lately if I could.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:^ You remind me of a man who was sitting in front of me to the right at the screening of Pirates 5. I am truly jealous of the ability to sincerely enjoy this tedious nonsense and thoughtless dribble. I would have had more fun at the theaters lately if I could.

Bayformers is thoughtless hence why I haven't bothered to see any of them past the 1st 2. I like Mos & Bvs specifically because I find them to be more thoughtful in various areas then other blockbusters/superhero films. If this was just about dumb fun I wouldn't be defending them.

Adapting things like that is exactly what they should do.

What's the alternative? A new and unsatisfying take on a classic character's origin story that everyone knows by heart, by a director who isn't really into it and starts to show it by the second or third film?

DC has 90 years of stories and ideas to mine. You want them not to be a cookie cutter copy of Marvel, the solution isn't more violence and sadness.

How about some period pieces with the characters in the era of their creation? Elseworlds? Some escapism?

Chuckman wrote:What's the alternative? A new and unsatisfying take on a classic character's origin story that everyone knows by heart, by a director who isn't really into it and starts to show it by the second or third film?

We get it already Chuck. You don't like MOS or BVS.

Like I said, the audience would have to be eased into it. Maybe introduce the concept of the Multiverse in the flash movie before the solo series? Maybe have an AU version of a character show up in one of these movies? Though that could potentially break all sense of narrative tension.

I'm not referring only two those two movies. There have been plenty of tired retreads besides those two.

I don't think audiences need to be eased into it. I don't think audiences are dumb and I don't understand why comic book/book fans think a movie audience has to be eased into things and have their hands held. Make a good movie with integrity and respect the audience.

Also, frankly, the shirt form of film lends itself to distilling out all the millstones nerds have imposed on their comic books with their irrational insistence on "continuity" and pointless minutiae over story.

...I'm thinking a lot of the blame should also be placed on David S. Goyer's shoulders. He was the writer, after all. And being the executive producer, that gave him more power than the average writer has.

Regardless of your opinions on the movies themselves that's one thing I tend to agree with.

Goyer has BeEn the albatross around the DCEUS neck since day one. The only reason he's still around is because of his involvement with the Dark Knight trilogy. Even though most of the problems people had with those movies can be attributed directly to his input. The biggest being the drastic changes to Bane in DKR.

I agree. I think a lot of the issues I called out TDKR for originated with Goyer. He definitely had a bug up his ass about Occupy and it turned into... whatever the hell Bane's fake hippy cult as a cover for an ancient(?) assassin league that wants to nuke everyone is supposed to be. (I still don't get where they were going with that or hot blowing up Gotham with an atomic bomb has anything to do with Ra's Al Ghul or why Ra's, some kind of French mercenary who knocked up a... Arabian? woman who gave birth to a French(?) lady who's too old to be his daughter and then got so mad about it he joined and took over (started?) a cult and then... did absolutely nothing to go after or rescue her (she climbed out and found him, I guess? right? Bane was still down there and she got him later? He just got grabbed by a bunch of people but looks like he could handle that since he must have been pounding down whey in a giant prison hole...) and decided to destroy an American city by... murdering a rich doctor and later finding his heir in a Chinese prison to train him in the Himilayas to...

The actual plot of the the Dark Knight trilogy makes no fucking sense if you actually stop and think about it, but the first two movies are well executed enough (and the second, really good one, references it very little at all anyway) that no one really notices because they don't give you pause to stop and think.

Actually, of the three, TDK is the best and it illustrates my point, here.

Let's say The Dark Knight had come out without Batman Begins to precede it, and was released just as as it was, with no Batman origin story at all. That's how you do it.

Chuckman wrote:1 - (I still don't get where they were going with that or hot blowing up Gotham with an atomic bomb has anything to do with Ra's Al Ghul
2 - or why Ra's, some kind of French mercenary who knocked up a... Arabian? woman who gave birth to a French(?) lady who's too old to be his daughter and then got so mad about it he joined and took over (started?) a cult and then... did absolutely nothing to go after or rescue her (she climbed out and found him, I guess? right?
3 - and decided to destroy an American city by... murdering a rich doctor and later finding his heir in a Chinese prison to train him in the Himilayas to...

Let me make it a bit clearer.
1 - The mission of the league of Assassins in this Universe is to destroy the principle example of corruption in this world which is Gotham in their eyes.
2 - Talia's mother's Warlord father imprisoned her, realistically he did not tell Ra's her location. It's never stated when Ras joined/created the league in relation to this event. But his creation/joining of it seems to have no basis in that event and more the death of his prior wife as he described in Begins.
3 - What doctor are you referring to? The league didn't have the Wayne family killed. Ra's stated that Thomas's philanthropy undermined the Leagues attempts to destroy Gotham with economics but he still said they were "gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help"

Neeson al'Ghul kind of implied that the League had something to do with it, but he was built up to be a manipulator, so...who knows?

Ironically, TDK is my favorite of the trilogy in spite of it's serious flaws. That's mostly chalked up to how much I enjoy watching Tom Hardy on screen: he made a very dull, cookie-cutter villain very interesting to me.

PSA announcement regarding spiderman homecoming.



Keep in mind, I'm still going to see the movie. . . but it's really sad to see them do this to one of my favorite characters. Maybe what they did with her will surprise me

If we're gonna get upset over initials, can I also complain about how Superman wasn't in a superhero movie with the initials "SP"? I mean, I think that case is pretty clear cut. Sony is trying to lie to us by giving us a superhero character with the initials "SP." We assume it's Superman, but it ends up being instead. I mean, who does that?