3 episodes into The Boys and fucking loving it. The total antithesis of the MCU and a huge middle finger to the over-saturation of superhero media. Plus, Karl Urban.

In that case, I'd love to watch it!

So how come no one is talking about the boys? It's fucking beautiful, don't you guys have anything to say?

Antony Starr is perfection.

Anyone watching any of the Arrow-verse Dc shows? I haven't but the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover has me intrigued by the returning cast from previous Dc movies and shows.
Brandon Routh (superman returns) will return as a Kingdom Come style Superman.

Tom Welling & Erica Druance will be returning as their versions of Clark & Lois from the Smallville tv series.
Kevin Conroy (the extremely iconic voice of batman in most animation since the 90s) will play a crippled Kingdom Come style Bruce Wayne.
Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLAd-G42w8
Clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=y ... rDBkZw-85s

===

Wonder Woman 1984 trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfM7_JLk-84

For Me...
Pros
- Wigg looks good and is giving me Vera Farmiga vibes.
- The white house fight looks to be well choreographed.
- Flashbacks to the Amazon competitions looks cool.
- The lassoing lightning bolts is a really preposterous idea even for comics but the effects sold it from the bit shown.
- Pascal is selling it on the commercials.

Cons
- The Gold outfit looks ok but the wings look extremely cheap. They really should have CGI-ed them.
- The wishing stone is the most "really?" manner of going about Cheetah's story I could think of, usually it's some dark human sacrifice cult stuff or epic god figure giving her her curse/powers. I worry they are making it too safe.
- The 80s music really doesn't fit near the end of the trailer.
- On a personal level I don't care for the Trump call outs with Maxwell's appearance and the the shot of a wall being destroyed (in the leaks it's some dictator/king who wished for his city/country to be safe)

Pros from outside the trailer
- I can't find the article this second but I saw that Jenkins confirmed that Cheetah would be a mix of practical and CGI. Which is for the best considering how awful the entirely CGI cat people look in the Cats trailer.

Cons from outside the trailer
- It's just really not what I wanted from this movie at all. When I heard it would have Cheetah and set in the 80s I was picturing Diana fighting the Soviets and tracking Cheetah through deep jungle among ancient temples Indiana Jones style. And I had hoped that Diana and Minerva would have been friends for a long time and she would be really sympathetic like in the recent comics but from the leaks it seems...


===

Birds of Prey trailer from last month - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGM4uYZzfu0

Pros
- Glad it seems to have kept the Suicide Squad visual style.
- Happy with Mew being in the film.
- Obi Wan seems to be having a lot of fun.

Cons
- Black Mask has no Black Mask (supposedly this has been fixed in re shoots), none of the characters look anything like their comic counterparts in almost anyway. Harley's outfits are deep trash. There is no excuse for not at the bare minimum using her iconic colors in some way, she looks like a crazy cat lady that fell into a confetti factory.
- HATE what they have done with Cassandra Cain.
- They are pushing Harley front and center and the other characters got zero spotlight.

Harley Quinn is basically DC's Deadpool at this point, they'll market her to the end of the earth.

I'd say Harley Quinn is more DC's Iron Man. The fan-favorite character with the right name actor bringing them to life that they can literally put into any of their films to boost a films appeal. She can be the focus of the film, or she can be a co-lead or a key supporting role or just a cameo and audiences will go see it for her. Kinda like how Marvel has just thrown Robert Downey Jr into one movie a year every year since 2015 (and will next year in Black Widow) so they can put his face on the poster. With Birds of Prey in 2020, THE Suicide Squad in 2021, a potential Gotham City Sirens film AND sequels, etc after that I doubt Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn won't show up in theaters at least once a year for the foreseeable future.

Deadpool is ... he brings such meta-baggage that he can't fit naturally into every type of film.

First footage from...
The Falcon & The Winter Solider
WandaVision
Loki
(all series for Disney+)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62EB4JniuTc
Extremely excited for TF&TWS, already getting TWS/Civil War vibes. Love that they are bringing back Zemo.

On this...

Really hoping they give us a non cheap authentic version of Wanda's iconic costume, if they only give us this Halloween costume and then put her back into another damn jacket & street clothing style suit I am gonna take it as a slap in the face. If they can make Aquaman, Ocean Master, Black Manta, Doctor Strange & Deadpool all virtually identical to the comics while looking magnificently crafted and non silly they can damn well do it for Wanda also.

Black Widow
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxAtuMu_ph4
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1eykFE1fSA
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTL3OZkVMHQ
No complaints/concerns, looks solid. Shot of her leaping from the explosion is straight out of one of her recent comic series.


2nd Birds of Prey Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3HbbzHK5Mc
Better and more fun seeming then the first but aside from Black Mask getting his mask (thank you) my complaints/concerns largely remain the same.

Morbius trailer 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLMBLuGJTsA
Looks shockingly decent, better then Venom's trailers looked (still haven't seen that)

Bloodshot trailer 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R-qIOGyEcw
The CGI looks a little better for that falling fight scene & while the punch looks cool it seems kinda overpowered for the character, more Superman-ish.

Finally The New Mutants trailer 2 (1st trailer came out in 2017) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_vJhUAOFpI

Black Widow "final" trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybji16u608U
It's been pushed up to November so it doubt it will actually be the final trailer, sadly as they have already shown a ton of footage.
Looks great to me regardless.

Captain Marvel 2 set for July 8, 2022.
I am sure they will get another female director but they really really need to get the Russos back for this, I liked Captain Marvel (2018) but she direly needs her film equivalent to The Winter Soldier. WW84 honestly looks weak to me and Carol getting a stand out second film would boost her popularity at the perfect time to make up for WW's folly (should it not be received as well as her 2017 film).

I'm sure WW84 is going to do fine regardless, given how well-liked the first one was (it's probably the most unambiguously popular DCEU movie, after all).

JJ Abrams and Bad Robot will oversee a Justice League Dark series for HBO Max.
https://www.comicbookmovie.com/justice_ ... ax-a174635
Really hope it includes the 2019 version of Swamp Thing.

Universal doing a Green Hornet movie.
https://www.comicbookmovie.com/green_ho ... ot-a174632

I’d rather see the story of the Swamp Thing stand-alone show play out than watch JJ ruin it with mystery boxes.

Finally watched...

Justice League (2017)

- Diana's above duel with Steppenwolf was among the standouts in the trailers for me and unfortunately was too quick in the film.
- Steppenwolf's entrance and attack on the Amazons is well done, the CGI for the fields was weak but it still managed to be a tense action sequence, I liked the Amazonian team work.
- I like Cyborg in this. Unlike others I moderately like his design. His CGI like the rest in the film fluctuates, the worst I recall is the first shots we see of him when the team meets Gordon.
- Really under rendered CGI for many of the backgrounds during the final battle.
- Aquaman is the most underused/underdeveloped of the cast.
- Flash's running style is weird but I only noticed it during the end montage.
- Flash isn't as annoying as I had been led to believe.
- Score is really unremarkable & meh.
- Unlike others I have zero problem with Diana wearing more sexy outfits or some of the Amazons having exposed muscular abs however I agree some of the lines suggesting Diana as a romantic partner seemed immature & weird. Aquaman's line about it while under the lasso's influence was fine but the lines from Alfred not so much. And yeah the moment of Flash falling on Diana's boobs was horribly filmed, the same gag worked in Age of Ultron because it was urgent and close up but this was just awkwardly forced as hell.
- Besides the mouth CGI, somethings are just off about Superman in this. During the opening and 1 or 2 other moments he seems kinda detached and smug in a way that I genuinely never felt from him in Mos/Bvs. That said he was still mostly cool & fun towards the end, I liked his brief banter with Cyborg.
- I like Ciaran Hinds but his Steppenwolf voice work was weak and not menacing most of the time.
- I actually like Steppenwolf's final design more than the more generic monster version of Snyder, this was more faithful to the new 52 comics. That said his face needed some work, could have used the viking beard from the comics and some red in the armor.
- Despite the massive budget and apocalyptic threat the film seems small in scale/scope especially compared to Mos & the final battle taking place in a largely deserted area just emphasizes that.
- Too many cringy lines, "you smell good", "thirstiest" and others.
- Diana still longing for Steve after a hundred years was a bit much.

Hopes for the Snyder cut! (for the record I am not among those clamoring for this despite being a fan of Snyder's Mos & Bvs)
- Better score.
- Batfleck being more serious throughout the film.
- More depth & screen time for Cyborg.
- More depth to Steppenwolf.
- None of the cringy Whedon lines.

Aquaman (2018)

Pros!
- This is legitimately probably the most visually beautiful film I have ever seen.
- Choreography is outstanding in virtually all battles, chases & fight scenes.
- 90-95% of the film's CGI is shockingly impeccable. It's astronomical how much better this CGI is compared to that from Justice League and they came out back to back years. The scene with the Trench attacking the boat was some of the weaker CGI and it was still plenty decent.
- The outfits for Aquaman, Manta, Orm & Mera are magnificent and some of the most faithful in the history of superhero films. Mera's was the "weakest" of the 4 (I don't love the flat octagon pattern compared to the sharp scales on her JL suit) and it's still fully great. It truly shows how there is no damn excuse for the awful outfits in Birds of Prey.
- Score is great, fluctuates from epic choir to 80s techno and does it virtually seamlessly.
- Entire cast does a good job. Heard is a little inconsistent but not bad.
- Mera isn't as charismatic or nurturing as I feel the comic version is but the film didn't really give her time for such, they treat her as a very practical, straight to the point badass woman.
- I think they got the tone just right wondrous, epic & fun but not silly.
- Manta & Orm are the best Dceu villains after Zod for me so far (haven't seen Shazam or bop). Manta's origin scene with his father is well done.
- Love the mass assortment of globe trotting locations.
- This is exactly the kinda epic battles & massive sense of scope the Thor movies have all been missing. And they also don't outstay their welcome like I have heard the battles in the Hobbit films do.

Cons!
- The romantic stuff in Sicily is weakly done but it doesn't last long.
- Black Manta's voice when he first appears in his iconic suit is a little hard to understand.
- Just a few cringy lines or moments (the toilet gag), not even close to as many as Justice League.
- Film felt a little long but there wasn't much I would have left out.

Overall!
Aquaman is objectively probably the best Dceu film, I still personally like Mos more but it does have more stand out mistakes.

Primary hopes for the Dceu going forward
- The rumors of Affleck coming back for a HBO Batman series come true.
- The alternate rumors of a Gotham PD series set in the Pattinson universe do Not come true.
- Man of Steel 2 happens with someone like Brad Bird directing.
- They don't kill off Arthur's parents in Aquaman 2.
- Emilia Clarke is not chosen to replace Heard as many have suggested (I am for heard being replaced just not by clarke)

I still think that Meera’s outfit should have come up to her neck.

I don’t think that DC should focus on movies. If the Snyder cut does well they should bring him back with a better team of writers and soft reboot the DCCU into prestige television shows building up to some theatrical releases.

Blockio, your post also (possibly inadvertently) points out the other failing of DC cinematic universe(s). Basically all of the films you mentioned as being good DC titles are all Batman titles. It's almost like the Chris Reeves Superman movies don't count as DC films anymore. I can't blame anyone for thinking that, or at least not even considering those films anymore. Ever since 1989, DC has really only put their cinematic eggs in the Batman basket, so he's kinda become the face of DC comics for an entire generation. (I mean, we saw three whole different phases of Batman films between Superman IV: Quest for Peace and Man of Steel.) But, in doing that, DC may have thrown the baby out with the bath water. DC can now only really "feel" like DC to a lot of the current audience landscape if it's got Batman in it, and Batman's look has evolved to be a very specific, gritty, gothic look that doesn't really fit in with any other DC comics characters. It's not like Marvel, where you can place Iron Man next to Spiderman or Deadpool and think, "Yeah, I can see those guys existing together." So now all of the other non-gothic-congruent DC superheroes need to bend over backwards and do cartwheels in order to fit in with DC's established Batman aesthetic, regardless of whether or not in turns into a visually cohesive or appealing film. Like, the Wonder Woman movie looked pretty good, and then in The Justice League she looked like she walked in on one of Batman's films, even though it wasn't technically a Batman film; it just had Batman in it, and now the whole film has to bend to his visual style. (Insert LEGO Batman's "I only use black bricks, or sometimes very, very dark grey," quote here.) Basically, DC has worked so hard to become "The Batman Film Company" that it's difficult for them to consider other DC superhero's appeal when making a movie. Hell, they could even rebrand themselves as "The Batman Film Company" without feeling the need to change a thing about their approach to DC films in the process.

I totally understand, but for someone like me who grew up interested in Superman over Batman, all of DC's branding just kinda feels one-sided these days. And regardless of which characters the fandom likes, the fact that non-Batman DC characters aren't trending with audiences as much naturally places some severe obstacles to creating a DCEU. For example, the studios involved will naturally get cold feet about a DC movie unless it looks like it could be a Batman instead. We saw this with both Wonder Woman and The Justice League, which had some pretty severe and obvious over corrections in the color grading after production to mitigate that erroneous aesthetic decision by the studio executives, and in the case of The Justice League it only served to show how silly the costumes that were designed to be hidden in shadow looked when they were in broad daylight. I understand that DC only attempted a DCEU in order to compete with Marvel, but I don't know how they thought they could easily pivot 2 decades worth of marketing and creative branding into something so antithetical to that branding.

Oh well. I probably won't sign up for HBOMax (I have an inherent mistrust of any media platform that isn't the physical copies of anything sitting on my shelf that I can keep forever), so I'll probably never see The Snyder Cut™.

Batman needs to be regulated as the one edgy and nihilistic friend in the group of otherwise colorful and bright characters. Rather than having the world to be gritty around him, resulting in a clash for the other characters, he should exist in a light-hearted world as the one guy that randomly and awkwardly waxes poetic about the night and the shadows, ruining the conversation for others trying just trying to play a game of scrabble.

Watching Justice League Dark: Apokolips War on Amazon Prime a few days ago made me realize that this was the first time ever Damian Wayne never annoyed me in the slightest bit. Maybe it was the puberty in the voice or the fact that an intergalactic war that turned his father into Darkseid's unwilling servant and dealing with his ever present feelings for Raven gave him a much needed levity in the ego sector. Absolutely adored the penultimate shot of the ending before credits rolled was Damian and Raven kiss. Such a shame that out of the many casualties, Nightwing may have gotten Starfire back but how can he enjoy it if he's gone out of his own sanity to the point which their sentimental moment was Kori consoling the poor soul. May be a fate worse than death if you ask me.