Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Ray » Sun Feb 25, 2018 6:32 pm

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Postby El Squibbonator » Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:40 pm

You know, I think the guy's right. Superman more or less embodies America's innocence and optimism--two things that have been in short supply since the beginning of the 21st century and even more so today. That's also the reason Batman has displaced Superman as DC's most iconic character. Batman can be easily associated with the problems that are relevant today, such as corruption in the government and inner-city crime. The irony, of course, is that Superman was introduced as "the Man of Tomorrow", even though his writers must now struggle to make him fit in with contemporary values.
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Postby Guy Nacks » Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:41 pm

The Snyder interpretation of Superman notwithstanding: Superman is a symbol of who Americans wish they were; Batman is a symbol of who we actually are.
Among the people who use the Internet, many are obtuse. Because they are locked in their rooms, they hang on to that vision which is spreading across the world. But this does not go beyond mere ‘data’. Data without analysis [thinking], which makes you think that you know everything. This complacency is nothing but a trap. Moreover, the sense of values that counters this notion is paralyzed by it.

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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Chuckman » Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:45 pm

Superman's values are timeless. The fundamental argument of Batman vs Superman (the philosophical divide between the characters, not the movie) is "people are fundamentally good, and 'human nature' is a deeper truth beneath worldly concerns" and "people are inherently selfish and weak, and must be disciplined into submission".

Or in other words, the idea that everyone would be Superman if you freed them from physical needs and dangers as Superman is free from physical needs and dangers, contrasted the idea that everyone can become the Joker unless society and people of fantastic willpower like Batman force them not to. It is American religiosity interpreted through the lens of alien vs human in tights to secularize a theological argument but it is still fundamentally a theological debate.

Batman is more popular because of a general shift in American consciousness because of the changes in Batman himself. The smiling action scientist who has goofy adventures with the boy wonder has been entirely supplanted with a fascist icon of the protest work ethic just world fallacy nonsense that permeates our culture. Batman is morally superior because he brutal and rich and the Burton/Nolan/Snyder variations all touch on how fundamentally sick the worldview that the post-Neil Adams, Frank Miller version of Batman lionizes. Specifically: Burton lampoons it (if you pay attention to his version of Batman he paints Bruce as a fairly gormless social pariah nerd who relies entirely on his fancy suit and gadgets, probably one of the most broken version, Nolan asks serious questions about what Batman represents and whether his worldview is healthy (Begins is fairly straightforward but questions the morality of the character, TDK touches on how the militarization of Batman reflects the post-9/11 transformation of America into an armed camp tolerant of overreach and civil liberties abuses, and TDKR is all about how being Batman is a sickness and Batman's popularity is a sickness, using Bane as a mirror to hold up to the character and ultimately concluding by slapping the audience in the face with a direct comparison between his Batman and the Adam West version) and Snyder is just RAH RAH VIOLENCE IS FUN and is a complete tonal mess thanks to the constant flipping back and forth between "this is serious and people die and it's meaningful" and "you can totally drop this guy on his head and break his fucking neck and blow up this truck full of people and everybody is okay because we didn't show the bone shards".

Superman is too hard to bring to the screen. He's too hard for these people to grasp. He's more than John Carter by way of Moses envisioned by a couple of Jewish guys, he is a solar godform of hope and strength through compassion and empathy. The difficulty of bringing him to screen is that to make him commercially palatable (at least in the view of spineless hollywood creatures) you have to remove his fundamental quality:

Superman is a mirror and a light at the same time. When we look up at this shining being blasting a light into our souls, a perfect man who came from the sky to do only good, we cannot see anything less but our own imperfections burning in that light. We look at an ideal of a man with limitless power doing good works because a man who has been freed of fear and hunger has nothing left but good, and start making excuses for why no one would ever act like that. Do you know why? For the same reason sociopaths and narcissists do their damndest to convince everyone that their behavior is normal. Because we cannot answer the challenge of the perfect man. It's not a matter of being unable to reach his heights but no longer being able to aspire to them.

That's a hard sell to an American audience. They don't want a movie where their masculinity fantasy -Batman, who is more of a callous, violent, self-sufficient psycho than even James Bond- to be undermined by a truly good person. Because Batman is not good. There hasn't been a Batman on screen who was a good person since Adam West. Hence the repeated narrative thread in the post-1989 Batman films of Batman being caught in a cycle of violence. The movies themselves can't escape the conclusion that their Batman makes things worse and perpetuates a dark cycle that he could choose to break at any time.

That's why all the Superman criticisms that try to drag him down and stack the deck against him in these movies are bullshit. Batman and Superman are fundamentally the same:They are men who can do anything. People prefer the version of that which satisfies their dark inner urges.

They're the same character. They're both the Superman in the Nietzschean sense. They are the answer to "what is beyond man?" Except Batman is the cheap, lazy option without self reflection with a preference for hurting people that hurt us.

The on-screen character of Batman, especially in the post 9/11 world, evinces weakness, not power. He is not a powerful character. He is a sad little boy in a playsuit crying out for mommy and daddy. A perfect avatar of a sick nation that turns away from its spiritual void and instead blindly heaves consumerist junk into it while denying anything that might make them look back and see what they've become.

We are a captive culture utterly ruled and defined by our fear. We wallow in it, soak in it, pull it into every cell of our collective putrefying body and forget what it was to be brave. Superman isn't America's god, he's America's tombstone.

View Original PostGuy Nacks wrote:The Snyder interpretation of Superman notwithstanding: Superman is a symbol of who Americans wish they were; Batman is a symbol of who we actually are.


So, like, yeah. That.
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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Ray » Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:04 am

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Postby Chuckman » Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:19 am

People who tell you that want to exploit your fears in order to control you, Ray. People often presume to see in others what they discover first within themselves.

A good Superman movie can easily be made. All you have to do is stick to the story and modernize the presentation. Man of Steel goes off the rails with a bunch of half-baked psuedoprofundity. I think we all know that I am an expert in half-baked psuedoprofundity so I know it when I see it.

Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Throw in some super feats, a Lois romance, and put Lex in a power suit. Just tell the story.

A great Superman story requires risks a studio would be not be willing to take as part of a blockbuster franchise. He would have to take stances. He would have to get political. He would have to say and do things that certain elements of our society would find offensive. He would have to be an exemplar of goodness. The movie would have to have people questioning their own core beliefs as they walk out of the theater. Warner Brothers isn't going to do that.

The problems with the DCCU come down to lack of focus, overall poor director selection, and trying to over-serialize in a medium best suited to standalone stories with self-contained plots with the continuity treated as no more than a sequel hook.

What? Are you serious? The guy who STOPS criminals from hurting innocent people? The guy who WANTS to keep people from suffering the same BS he went through is the bad guy? You're just being vindictive at this point. Batman is not a fascist, he's the opposite of a Fascist. and I know you're going to get on my case for that. But there are evil people in the world, just as nasty if not nastier than the joker. and Batman puts a stop them. Saving lives from irredeemable monsters who can't be compromised or bargained with is a BAD thing?


The character of Batman in Batman (1989) and its sequel, the Nolan Batman Trilogy, the DCCU, and the works of Frank Miller is some varying degree of fascist power fantasy, yes. As I said, Burton makes fun of it, Nolan meditates on it, and Snyder fuckin' loves it. They are all very explicitly not good people.

Batman makes more sense in a world where there's shapeshifting clay monsters and people with freeze guns. If you're a Batman in a Batman (1989) world or a Nolan world and you do Batman things you're undeniably an asshole. Either of those characters could do more good just through philanthropy.

Batman in the comics may be a philanthropist and clandestinely help petty criminals turn their lives around and all that, but in the popular non-comic-reader consciousness Batman has become a pop culture icon for everything that's problematic about superhero fiction.

There are many other versions of Batman that are not fascist, but none of these versions of the character is especially concerned with saving people. One is a neckbeard with fancy toys, one is emotionally stunted and self destructive, and one is a self-hating asshole. But he looks damn fine doing it.

Has anyone else seen Black Panther?
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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Ray » Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:31 am

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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Gob Hobblin » Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:35 am

^

You've taken this argument very personally, Ray: you've inserted some personal attacks in there that I fail to see have any bearing on the discussion.

That being said...

...Batman, as he exists now, is character that exists because of failures in the system. The system has failed, so someone steps up to take charge. That is an inherently unrealistic power fantasy, because the implication behind it (and why Batman is so relatable) is that, "If I had the money/time/motivation/resources, I could also be Batman." And you can't, because we can look at the many 'Gotham Cities' around the world, and see what vigilante justice really looks like.

It's ugly.

That being said, the character of Batman comes about because rampant crime contributed to his parents' death, and has resulted in Gotham being a dangerous and twisted city. And yet, Batman's existence is what perpetuates the broken system: he doesn't fix the system that creates these criminals, he just goes out and beats them down, throws them in Blackgate or Arkham Asylum...rinse, wash, repeat. It makes for fun comic book stories, but it's a failure in terms of actually solving anything. And we need that, because if Batman actually gave a lasting and good contribution to Gotham, we'd run out of stories.

And I say this as a BATMAN FAN. He's my favorite DC superhero, but objectively: he is as much a contribution to Gotham's continued plight as is the criminals in the city. He doesn't use his resources to beef up the police services, contribute to an effective criminal justice system, enhance Gotham's education and business communities, he uses them for Batman: it's true that Bruce Wayne makes his charity contributions, but how much of his time and money is spent on gadgets and hunting hoodlums, as opposed to aggressively cleaning out the systems that break the city?

Nolan's Batman Begins actually contains a very subtle (and probably unintentional) jab at that. There's a theme of destroying the legacy of parents, or upholding them: Bruce Wayne is faced with an emotional crisis when Wayne Manor is destroyed, and it highlights to him that he's wrecked his father's legacy. Alfred insists that the legacy is more than a building, which is true...but Batman further destroys his father's legacy in destroying the monorail to save the day. There's no indications the monorail is rebuilt, but...that's a big deal. Studies indicate that public transportation is CRITICAL for people to leave poverty, because it provides cheap and easy transportation for people to travel from where they live to where they work.

Batman destroyed that. And the next two movies clearly demonstrate that the poor and wealthy divide (and the crime that such a thing breeds) has clearly grown.

Batman is a hero, yes, and he does good. Yes. He is also the equivalent of putting a bandage on a wound that needs a tourniquet: not the worst thing to do, but not the right thing, and ultimately more harmful than not.
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Postby Chuckman » Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:40 pm

I wasn't talking about Batman as a whole, I was talking about his recent (i.e last 29 years) of film representations:

Burton era Batman is a deranged, physically unimpressive but intelligent social stunted 'neckbeard' (thought, obviously, he predates the neckbeard stereotype by some decades) who relies on his fancy suit and gadgets. Like the following incarnation, he is very much a "cycle of violence" character. ("You made me." "You made me first.") His version of the Joker very explicitly exists because of this version of Batman's own actions. This Batman is also uninterested in philanthropy or even social interaction, reclusive to the point that he's not maintaining the "Bruce Wayne is a loudmouthed idiot child playboy and could never be Batman" disguise. He's either Batman or enjoying the irony of being surrounded by people who are too stupid to guess he's Batman.

The sequel expands on the theme of vigilante justice worsening society found in the first film by explicitly making Batman a tragic figure, but one more of pathos that the operatic grandiosity found in the comic book incarnation. He's a sad pathetic man who meets a sad pathetic woman who could love each other if they'd let go of the past.

In that regard, Burton's version has more in common with one of Batman's literary antecedents, the Count of Monte Cristo, than the comic book Batman. Revenge is destructive.

Nolan era Batman is very clearly mentally ill. His entire arc is one of self destructive behavior. He's a man who can't take yes for an answer. He already has all the tools at his disposal to effect change (because he explicitly occupies a world of swat teams and mafiosi and not magic men and mud monsters and he has a shitload of money) but he seeks out the means of more visceral action; philanthropy and advocacy doesn't offer the physical satisfaction of giving a beatdown or terrifying a criminal. In the process, he delves too deep (as Gob wondrously explained) and destroyed his father's legacy, erasing him in the act of avenging him. He is a failure of a person.

In the sequel, The Dark Knight, Batman is more like his comic book incarnation but is still in a grounded world. He's a figure that make sense fighting ninja manbats or Poison Ivy cactus monsters but he hilariously outguns common criminals. In this sense he embodies the American prison-industrial complex that feeds on arming cops with military weapons and tactics to push junkies through a broken justice system into prisons where slavery is still explicitly legal by the terms of the Thirteenth Amendment. His archnemesis is less a comic book Joker and more a genius anarchist who based himself on the comic book Joker. Nolan takes the conceit of comics -we accept that Arkham and Blackgate are revolving doors thanks to the willing suspension of disbelief required for an ongoing continuity without constantly inventing new villains and running the well dry- and turns it on a commentary on vigilante violence. Bruce's quest for vengeance creates the problems he sets out to solve. This version of the character is not heroic, any more than a firebug firefighter who puts out fires he starts is heroic.

Finally in his third film Nolan translates his own fatigue with blockbusters, grief over Heath Ledger, and tiredness of the character after making a definitive statement on him, into an exploration of the cultural fixation on Batman and the American mythology of the vigilante. In an ultimately confused storyline which detours into Goyer kind-of-sort-of commenting on the Occupy movement at the time without really going anywhere with it, Nolan labors on how Batman is a pretty tired concept, doesn't fit into the real world, and what the audience really wants is Adam West, just brooding and in the rain.

Then you come to the Snyder version who is explicitly a bad person. His Batman is a severely broken individual. He is more Lex Luthor than Lex Luthor is in a movie where Lex is the nominal villain. Snyder takes up the theme of fatigue as if he were continuing Nolan's character in a kind of spiritual successor role. All his great battles are fought, his allies lost, and he lurks around the edges of a pre-arranged takedown of Superman that's set up and telegraphed like badly executed kayfabe in a wrestling ring with Bats as the Heel and Supes as the unlikeable Face.

That's why Justice League was so disappointing, it comes off -weird mix of Snydery ponderousness and Whedonesque jocularity and atrocious pacing and (internal) continuity aside- as a sequel to a series of films that don't exist, where they were all as good and effective as Wonder Woman and there were more of them. If Superman in the previous movies was more as he was in the brief clip at the beginning of JL and at the end of the movie after his obligatory brooding was out of the way I venture there'd be much less sturm and drang over these movies.

The thing about these interpretations is that they are all informed to some degree or another by Frank Miller (arguably, BvS is just an elaborate bit of mummery to bring the Superman/Batman fight from TDKR to the screen, context be damned) who wrote a series of comics where Batman is unabashedly, even proudly a fascist figure (and no, punching a muscular woman with swastikas on her tits (what the fuck, Frank?) doesn't make Batman anti-fascist, it's about more than symbols) who embodies several of the points of Eco's ur-fascism.

Short version: If you remove Batman from his context and strip him of his detective skills, pathos, and compassionate nature (To paraphrase Kingdom Come, Batman and Superman deep down share the same core values: They don't want to see anybody die) you leave him as a machismo fantasy of weapon and physical strenght obsessed class warfare against the poors and the weirdos.

TDKR/Burton/Nolan/Snyder Batman could do more by resisting his baser urges to do harm to the 'bad people' but lacks the courage.

Weakness. Not power. The true hero wins without fighting. That's why I liked Black Panther so much, probably more than Wonder Woman; T'challa in the movie is a hero who truly seeks to use violence and particularly killing only as a last resort. (As befitting a Ruling King)

Also if you reject the idea that human nature is either or good or not fundamentally evil you should reject Nolan's The Dark Knight, whose climactic scene makes a bold statement that bad people are not necessarily evil people.

In fact on deeper meditation it occurs to me that Nolan pretty much agrees with my view expression in the post above: His version of the Joker is not driven by wealth or greed or power, as he himself says, it's about sending a message. That message is revealed in the film itself when Batman figures him out: Like all bad people who lack the will to change, the Joker sees to convince everyone else they are as bad as him. The point of his capers isn't to make a joke or steal money or some kind of performance art, he wants to break everyone else and force them into an irrevocable act of self-interest driven evil that will make everyone into a monster like him. He wants everyone to be his co-conspirator. He is like the vampire who smashes all mirrors so that he doesn't have to look into his own emptiness.

That is why it's so hard for Warner Brothers to bring Superman to the screen: Because he is the light, the Solar Father, and only when the light is shining must we confront our shadow; living in darkness, (as Zizek might say, living with the man who has become an animal) we could come to believe there are no shadows at all.

I strongly suggest anyone interested in thinking about superheroes read Norman Spinrad's novel The Iron Dream.

View Original PostRay wrote:
SPOILER: Show
Image


SPOILER: Show
Image
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Postby Gob Hobblin » Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:19 pm

Going through each of those versions, it's really hard to add anything to something so thorough, but:

Burton's Batman is almost gleeful in how he kills people. Like, he kills a SHIT ton of people in the first movie (you know there was a lot of Joker minions in that Axis chemicals plant), and in the second one, he ups the on-screen body count by setting a thug on fire, blowing one up (actually smiling at that second one)...he relished the violence.

And Chuckman is right: there is something severely wrong with Nolan's Batman (but in a right way: it makes him an interesting character how broken he is). He doesn't enjoy being Batman, and if anything, he hates it. This is the only Batman you'll probably see where Bruce Wayne does not see himself as Batman: he sees himself as Bruce Wayne, and is trying to actively shed the Batman persona. His miserable as Batman, and yet he puts himself in increasingly desperate and punishing situations. He WANTS to be punished, as if he subconsciously feels he was always responsible for his parents' death and wants to pay for that.

As for Snyder's Batman...Jesus, where do we start? I think the best commentary on that is his '1 percent' speech. That is...stark, even for Batman. It's always assumed Batman thinks there's a possibility, even a minute one, that anyone (including himself) can go bad and wreak great destruction. He takes precautions on those suspicions, but reasonable ones. Snyder's Batman ACTS on those suspicions, making him a very hardline and I would say dangerous individual. It's the same mentality that if anyone has a 1 percent chance of breaking the law, you have to treat that 1 percent as a 100 percent. You can say that he was in extraneous circumstances, considering the power of Superman. But...was he really?

Cause he wasn't.
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Postby Chuckman » Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:46 pm

If you look at this cowl from Batman Begins:

SPOILER: Show
Image


You see that if you take Bruce out of the suit, the suit is screaming in terror. That's also why, although they later designed around it, the Burton and Nolan versions of the suit are so cumbersome and restrictive despite the character traditionally being lightly garbed to maximize his flexibility and mobility. Being Batman is restrictive, it's a burden. He's walking around in a pain fetish suit.

He never puts the old suit back on for story reasons, but in Nolan's TDK Bruce puts on a lighter, more flexible suit and visibly more comfortable in it right when he starts thinking his job is done and he might be able to find a way out of being Batman, but there's an undercurrent of Fox easing him deeper into his delusions. He'd be better off taking the suit off entirely but Fox has given him a better high.

Don't get me started on the psychosexual implications of Batfleck basically crawling into a bodybuilder when he puts on the suit.
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Postby El Squibbonator » Mon Feb 26, 2018 6:28 pm

From your perspective, I take it the best recent Batman movie would be the LEGO one?
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Postby Chuckman » Mon Feb 26, 2018 6:48 pm

Mine? Yeah. If I had to rank them in order, considering all from '89 to present:

1. Batman Returns
2. The Lego Batman Movie
3. The Dark Knight
4. Batman (1989)
5. Batman Begins
6. The Dark Knight Rises
7. Batman and Robin
8. Justice League
9. Batman Forever
10. Batman vs. Superman

Batman (89) and The Dark Knight would make an interesting pairing to sit down and watch together since they are essentially wildly different takes on the same story.

As you can see here my biggest criteria for a good Batman presentation on film is, does it take the aspect of the character that it focuses on (Batman has too many sides to cover the entirety of his possibility in a two hour feature film) and do something fun or interesting with it? Or is it just violence/brooding/whatever porn?

I also did not place Suicide Squad on the list because Batman doesn't do anything there... but I should probably put it at 11 for having the dubious distinction of being only one of two (I think) where he strikes a woman in the face.

There's something weirdly fitting about Lego Batman turning him into a literal toy.

Since this is film and TV I should note that I consider the DCAU Batman to be the definitive Batman in any medium.
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Postby cyharding » Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:56 pm

^Then what are your views on Mask of the Phantasm? I didn't see it on your list.
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Postby Chuckman » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:44 pm

I've always mentally lumped that in with B:TAS rather than thinking of it as its own thing.

It's not TAS at its best. I'd consider it middle of the road for the series. My favorite TAS episodes are Heart of Ice, Over the Edge, and Love is a Croc. Mask of the Phantasm defines the Joker too much and I prefer to quietly ignore it. During the shaky early start of TAS it was heavily inspired by Burton before it became its own thing.

The World's Finest 3-parter crossover episode that linked B:TAS with S:TAS and kicked off the DCAU is a better movie than Mask of the Phantasm imo.

I do love that they brought Andrea back for a brief cameo all those years later for Justice League Unlimited.

Mask of the Phantasm probably has the best "birth of Batman" scene from any of the movies, though: https://youtu.be/N6K1qNsE9v0?t=41s

Also, like every Batman variation must, TAS eventually addresses the elephant in the room of Batman perpetuating cycles with an episode titled Trial which is one of the better ones. It's exactly what it sounds like: The inmates at Arkham capture Batman and put him on trial in a kangaroo court.
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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Julius » Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:53 am

View Original PostChuckman wrote:The thing about these interpretations is that they are all informed to some degree or another by Frank Miller (arguably, BvS is just an elaborate bit of mummery to bring the Superman/Batman fight from TDKR to the screen, context be damned) who wrote a series of comics where Batman is unabashedly, even proudly a fascist figure (and no, punching a muscular woman with swastikas on her tits (what the fuck, Frank?) doesn't make Batman anti-fascist, it's about more than symbols) who embodies several of the points of Eco's ur-fascism.

Short version: If you remove Batman from his context and strip him of his detective skills, pathos, and compassionate nature (To paraphrase Kingdom Come, Batman and Superman deep down share the same core values: They don't want to see anybody die) you leave him as a machismo fantasy of weapon and physical strenght obsessed class warfare against the poors and the weirdos.]


I am a huge fan of Batman,so i feel obliged to give my opinion on this.

Batman is a modern hero, and like such, does not seek trascendent goals. That being said,you don't seem to appreciate the realm of action very much..nor do you seem to have a clear understanding of said dimension. I'm not going to say that he doesn't have any fascist aspects, but that is too little,i mean Frank Miller himself suggested that the story of Batman may be a homo-fantasy... Talk about LACK of interpretations...

For starters Eco is a bad example, since his understanding of esoterism,or even fascism, is purely materialistic. Trust me,as someone who has read several of his books, i can say that he is a charlatan and a bad scholar.

There is a quote of an Hindu book called Bhagavad-Gita that, if i recall correctly says: "Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.”.

And, "“No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come” . Now, these quotes can be applied to Batman,in certain occasions.Doesn't seem shallow at all ,to me.

Contemplation is not inherently superior to action,and the Myth of the Holy grail, Chivalry traditions, as well as many classical Myths, can confirm this statement. If anything, Batman, is a social apologue, and not even a bad one,by american standards.

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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Chuckman » Tue Feb 27, 2018 1:16 pm

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/black ... 202710282/

The critical and financial success of Wonder Woman and Black Panther (which is expected to cross the $1 Billion box office mark despite a February release) has theater owners asking Hollywood for more representation in blockbusters and a more distributed schedule (in place of the Summer/Christmas season release schedule for blockbuster movies).

Motivated by self interest of course, but still nice to see. Also they're right about the release schedules. It's annoying for theaters to be basically empty of anything fun for a few months of every year.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski

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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Ray » Tue Feb 27, 2018 1:29 pm

[DELETED]
Last edited by Ray on Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Gob Hobblin » Tue Feb 27, 2018 1:51 pm

...They DO want a positive Superman, though! That was one of the number one criticisms of the direction that Zach Snyder took Superman: they made the character an Objectivist-style hero, and it didn't fit with who he was.

As for being justified in deciding immediately he's a threat, you're talking about a lot of information the audience is privy to...but the CHARACTERS are not. There's nothing to indicate that Batman knows what Superman's mindset is like, as Superman has (and does, in all of his scenes AS Superman, when interacting with people) portrayed himself as humble, polite, and generally friendly. There's very little basis for Batman's immediate decision that Superman is a threat.

And you can't use the battle in Gotham as justification, because there was another Kryptonian there. One who, had Superman NOT been present, would have destroyed the world.

But above all, there's a reason why the Christopher Reeve (and JLA Superman) are the ones many people like, and yes: it's because he's a boy-scout. For the most part (Christopher Reeve's Superman went in some strange directions). And the reason for that is BECAUSE Superman can crack the earth like an egg. Many writers have explored that, and shown that Superman (in his best boy-scout stories) deliberately plays up his humility, his good-nature, his patience, and his restraint, because he KNOWS he can be terrifying, and dangerous. He is an adult cage-fighter in a room full of squishy children, so he has to be extra-careful in how he presents himself, and how he handles them. And that's what makes a good Superman story: when he is eventually pushed to the point where he has to up the ante, to reveal his true power in pieces, against those opponents that require him to do so (Zod, Doomsday, etc.). When we can really see how powerful he is, and how restrained he is.

Now, if any, is the time we need a hero like that: someone who demonstrates patience and goodwill towards everyone, despite being able to initiate a holocaust on his own. That's why grimdark Superman rarely works.
Though, Gob still might look good in a cocktail dress.
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Re: Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

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Postby Chuckman » Tue Feb 27, 2018 2:12 pm

Writing a modern Superman story takes a level of skill and understanding that Warners seems unwilling to bring to the table. That's pretty much it.

Like I've said a few times, MoS deserves some credit for trying, but it spread in too many directions and didn't really attempt to answer any of the questions that it raises. Plus it makes the DCCU Superman seem like being Superman is kind of a pain in the ass. It would help a lot if they dropped the overwrought Jesus angle and just let him be Superman. Henry Cavill would be great for that, just blasting around with a shit-eating grin like he's thinking, "Yeah, I can fucking fly".

MoS and the DCCU as a whole insist on making him really awkward like he's put out by having to be Superman. It's like he doesn't even want to be there, which is bizarre given that Cavill seems to have a great time with it and he takes to the rare sunny moment like a fish to water.

Ray, you're kind of missing the point of Kingdom Come. Especially Magog's speech in which he makes the statement you quoted. Magog isn't angry that Superman refused to change, he's angry with himself that he failed to live up to Superman's standards.

Superman actually did change, which is the point of the story. He let the nihilism of the world overwhelm him and retreated to his fortress to grieve. Through the course of the story he is taken to a point of personal crisis as he gradually slips more and more towards being a "grimdark" character until McCay reminds him of who he is and he returns to his true self and casts aside vengeance.

Look at the full quote:

Your fault... you bastard. The world changed... but you wouldn't. So they chose me. They chose the man who would kill over the man who wouldn't... and now they're dead. A million ghosts. Punish me. Lock me away. Kill me. Just make the ghosts go away.


He's not complaining about what Superman did or didn't do, here. He's explicitly saying that the world made the wrong choice by embracing him and his approach to crime fighting. The world failed to live up to the example of Superman and rejected his ideals and suffered for it. He's accusing Superman of being too pure an ideal for everyone else to follow.

I mean, this isn't some wacky lolchuckman interpretation of the book. It's not even subtext, it's the plot. Look at another quote:

Norman: Listen to me, Clark. Of all the things you can do…all your powers…the greatest has always been your instinctive knowledge of right and wrong. It was a gift of your own humanity. You never had to question your choices. In any situation…any crisis…you knew what to do. But the minute you made the SUPER more important than the MAN. The day you decided to turn your back on mankind…that completely cost you your instinct. That took your judgment away.


Anyway the dumb thing about the "if there's even a 1% chance" thing in BvS is that, besides that line better belonging to Luthor...

It would be nice if the great detective did some detecting. In BvS, Batman doesn't figure out jack shit. He recovers no clues, he does no detective work, makes no deductions, gathers no evidence, doesn't think for himself. Luthor plays him like a tin fiddle, dictating his every move and handing him the information he needs to make the Goddamn Batman dance to his ludicrously overcomplicated and stupid plan.

Clark Kent is so sloppy with his secret identity (not to mention that you can become a reporter who is randomly assigned to different, highly specialized tasks on a seemingly random rotation without even going to college in this universe) that Batman being his World's Greatest Detective Self would figure out everything there is to know about this guy in the first ten minutes of the movie.

I mean, shit, wouldn't Batman at least know to "know his enemy"? The Batman I know would be incredibly suspicious if Lex Luthor put a giant computer full of his corporate secrets in... a library? Was that his house? Whatever... and just handed him an orgy of evidence...

Fuck. The expanded cut of BvS is at least coherent (the Luthor conspiracy is still dumb but it's dumb in a "this makes sense, but is unnecessarily convoluted" way) compared to the theatrical version but both of them are incredibly sloppy. It makes me wonder if Bruce's 2 hour six week beard growth in JL wasn't on purpose.

The plot of Batman vs Superman actually reminds me of the plot of Attack of the Clones, in that they both look like some kind of conspiracy or detective story at first glance but after the movie is over and you have a while to think about it, it's obvious the writers just took a bunch of tropey scenes and stitched them together without any connective tissue.

Snyder didn't write the movie, so that's not him, it's Terrio and Goyer. The script has the stink of Goyer all over it. From his past work I can see him being all edgy about Superman, the guy loves violent authoritarian protagonists and despises populists to the point that he turned the League of Assassins into the Ambiguously Brown Branch of Occupy Wall Street in TDKR. Of course he'd make Superman an indecisive nebbish.

To be fair, Lex's actual plan, as fully explained in the extended cut, is fine: He makes Superman look like a threat to goad Batman into fighting him and makes Batman looks like a vindictive psycho who commits murder by proxy to goad Superman into fighting him. He uses their respective personalities to push them into conflict to serve his own ends.

That part is fine. The problem is:

They actually go through with it, which is stupid. (This outcome is part of the "The only DCCU superhero who acts like a superhero is Wonder Woman" problem and makes both characters look like complete idiots) The key to the "Let's you and him fight" trope is that the heroes don't actually kill each other and figure out the ruse on their own.

Lex doesn't seem to have any problem with Batman. He has an ideological problem with Superman. His plan is needlessly convoluted. He clearly knows who Superman really is and how to lure him somewhere, and Kryptonite is a complete surprise. In this movie he could have killed Superman in the first act. His plan has a dozen extra steps, any of which could fail, for no reason. Shit, he could have just put a chunk of kryptonite in a box and mailed it to Clark.

They could have done anything. Team him Lex up with the Joker, have Lex develop red Kryptonite so Batman actually has to fight him, do something, do anything.

Christ what a wasted opportunity.
Last edited by Chuckman on Tue Feb 27, 2018 2:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski


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