“… Sir, DC fans want Suicide Squad to be popular.”
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Does it matter how many of them there are? IMO the point is to have an artistic vision and realize it - NOT to pander to prospective viewers. The paradox is that if the public knew what makes a good movie (or comic, or anything) they would already be content creators themselves. Besides, nobody told the studio that they had to gamble hundreds of millions of dollars.
I am ambivalent about this. Entertainment seems to basically mean filling empty time for people. There is no point in creating media if they do not have anything to say. Besides - what counts as “entertaining” is subjective.
I would prefer for comics and movies alike to be less formulaic and take some creative risks.
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Another thing which puzzles me, which I am seeing here, is comparing the output of DC and Marvel as if they are related somehow. Is Penguin better/worse than Hachette?
As a kid, I read a fair amount of DC comics - and none of them were superhero comics. I liked their weird horror and sci-fi anthologies like Tales of the Unexpected.
For a medium where anything is possible, I always thought that their reliance upon superhero tropes was clichéd. That’s why I mostly went for underground comics.
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This is very hard to decide.
On the one hand crap penguins nice patterns.
On the other hand are women with axes irresistible.
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Superman spends an awful lot of time killing people. When he’s not doing that he’s commonly presented visually with allusions to Christ. Something that was followed up on in Killshrew VS Manbulge by showing Superman as an actual figure of religious reverence for the public.
Zak Snyders Superman = Murder Jesus.
Man of Steel was not a terrible movie. It was a serviceable if bland action flick. Deathmarmot vs Codpiece on the other hand is an objectively bad movie. And there are no end of unpackings of why out there online right now. Including some by people who study and teach film and media (and for my part I have a BA in Film/Media). In terms of basic building blocks of story. Basic mechanics of how film works. How it is assembled. On a technical level. That film is both broken and bad. Which isn’t always evidence of an objectively, overall bad movie. Something can be broken, ineffectual, improperly made, or just plain fail in its aims and still be quite interesting (in fact I tend to prefered flawed but interesting over anything else). StabBadger vs Dancebelt fails on both fronts. Its neither an interesting failure, nor a competently assembled block of bland fun. But that’s besides the point.
What I was getting at was that the versions of those characters depicted do not resemble the versions of those characters that fans are into. The versions that they became fans of. So these movies can not be seen as an attempt to make films for the hardcore fans. Superman in his most loved, fan favorite iterations is not a mopey guy who is willing to kill. Comics fans did not fall in love with Superman because his parents told him it was better to hide than to help people. The Batman that fans are so rabid about is defined in large part by the fact that he does not, will not, and cannot kill. And so forth. However much you pack oblique, mutated references to the comics in. These version are not the versions fans are looking for. No fan of Jimmy Olsen was dying to see him as a CIA agent who is promptly killed. In the grand scheme of things Death of Superman and the whole Doomsday thing are not well loved.
What you’ve got here is DC, perhaps, playing to fans of very specific things. Grim and gritty, overwrought releases from the late 80’s through the mid-nineties. And even more specifically rabid fans of things like The Dark Knight Returns, Death Of Superman and other headline stories from the time. And while there are a sizable number of people (often those growing up at the time) who seek out and prefer that material (there’s a reason Rob Liefeld keeps showing up again, often at DC), they’re a fraction of the over all fan-base. And in my experience while those things are often liked or loved by big swaths of the fandom. They are not prefered by anything approaching the majority. If memory serves, even among the “all male all white all college student” demographic from when I was most into comics the kind of person who is all about this stuff are a vast minority. And often mocked. I’ve seen the “No Liefeld is the greatest” fight starter kicked out of the dankest basement comic shop. And seen less dank comic shops owned by these sorts run themselves into the ground, noone else wanted to shop there. In any case the people who are rabid fans of this stuff are no more deserving of the “hardcore” or “fan” label than my friend who’s collected every issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Or it should be noted my female friends who subscribed to every Bat-Book, and subsequently dropped them over recent Batgirl fuckery.
More over that era in comics, that approach to comics wasn’t particularly successful. There were huge sales by the early nineties. But a lot of that was driven by scummy sales tactics (alt covers, collectible issues, stunts, crossovers) inflating things. And the industry nearly died by the end of that era. The grit and spit approach drove a lot of people away from comics entirely. Flash forward to the 00’s and comics are rising in popularity and you see a return to what had come before. To please the “fans” and the "hardcore’ IE the handful of people who actually liked the stuff that drove everyone else off in the 90’s and struck around. It worked briefly but sales cratered again, until the spike in superhero movies became the prime driver of profits and interest in the books. There are fans of this stuff, but they are not the fans. Or indicative of most of the fans of these characters and properties. And fans of any sort are vastly out numbered by the general public. Most of BloodWeasel VS Mangirdle’s box office came over seas, especially from china. Are we really going to assume that playing to the tastes of white, 30-40 year old fans on one specific approach to these characters is the driver of that?
And really to look how not into it most people are you can just look at the box office numbers you already cited.
Shankmarmoset VS Bikeshorts :
Budget: $250 million
Domestic: $330,360,194
Global: $872,662,631
Guardians of The Galaxy:
Budget: $170 million
Domestic: $333,176,600
Global: $773,312,399
A tent pole picture, a sequel/crossover. Featuring the two of the most visible, loved, movie sellingest characters in history. Directed by a bankable name director, and staring Ben Fucking Affleck fresh off the Oscars. Was beat at the domestic box office by a lower budget secondary picture featuring unknown comic characters. The book featuring those characters had only 25 issues out at the time it was announced, and had been cancelled due to lack of sales. Headed by an unknown director who’s filmography featured some weird, dark, gross shit and not much else. Staring a sitcom actor. A talking Raccoon. And a dancing Tree.
And DC only managed to beat them internationally by ~$100 mil. A bonus that’s probably eliminated by the bigger budget. Given Guardian’s lower budget, supposedly smaller marketing costs, successful merchandising, reinvigorated books, recently launched (but not very good) cartoon, etc, etc. Its almost certainly been far more profitable. I’ve heard rumor mill wise that the actual profit from the property as whole has breached a $1bil mark (heard).
DC took a can’t miss premise. An automatic win. And could not beat out an concept that is on its face, absolutely insane. A picture with a built in spectacle and fan base, lost out to one based on a property that had maybe 25,000 people regularly reading it.
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(I know, different things with the same name. Some of the stories would probably work in a comic format though)
I think that’s why Alan Moore put the pirate comics in Watchmen.
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Then I’ll let you and your BA in Film/Media have fun yelling at it, if that’s your premise.
I appreciate that you disliked it and have very strong reasons for disliking it. It’s the same yelling at a cloud I heard on a jillion movie message boards, in lengthy paragraphs like these. It’s clear you enjoy doing so, but I’m honestly not that interested. Thank you, though.
Hey feel free to like it anyway. Just don’t try to tell me its a competent piece of work. There’s nothing wrong with liking things that are bad. I like all sorts of things that are terrible. Just don’t delude yourself that they’re good because you like them, or that you like them because they’re good. Like I said not my point anyway.
I do not think it is plausible to argue that it was targeted at fans, “hardcore” or otherwise. Nor do I think it was a bold or interesting move to do so. What little they did in that direction. The fan service part. Seems to be targeting a very narrow band of fans of very particular material. And I’m starting to get suspicious of which narrow band, and why. Given the number of absolutely awful moves DC has been making in this direction. Did you hear about the Killing Joke DVD? Have you seen the way Harley Quinn now seems to be mostly about boobs?
Everywhere I look I see fans, legit fans. Writers of small scale fan sites, people who cosplay at every release and convention, serious collectors, academics who write and lecture about this stuff for a living, actual writers and artists who work in the industry, shop owners, parents who desperately want to share this with their kids. Complaining about this exact approach. If they aren’t “the fans” if they aren’t “hardcore” who the hell is?
Beyond that there’s the very old critique of this sort of thing. This stuff is not any more complex, meaningful or mature by virtue of its “dark” take on the material or aspirations of sexy times. That’s a child’s view of maturity. Its a substitute for actual complexity and maturity. Instead of thinking things through, doing good work, doing something interesting (like making a fucking Tree an international star) throw some tits at it. Make sure there’s blood. Everyone’s backstory reads like a very special episode of Blossom. Its lazy, and its pandering.
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I found the latest installment (well, second latest) of the MCU’s outing with Ultron to be jaw droppingly insulting to both the character of Black Widow & to women in general (as were my fem friends who saw it with me) what with the “hide the zucchini” line (are you serious?!) & turning BW into little more than a trophy for “one of the boys” - which, mind you, can only even make “sense” if you go all the way back to Avengers #1 & play Barry White over her first encounter with Bruce as The Hulk chasing her through the helicarrier, oh, and only if that look of absolute terror (which we never see from her before or since) is actually her “oh” face. I call BS.
I actually remember liking BvS, both in story telling & style. Granted I haven’t seen it but the one time in the theater. I like the artistic sensibilities Zack imbues his films with, but I do recognize that, as art, they can solicit strong reactions from some who - IMHO - feel film isn’t an art form to experience, but a movie to be seen.
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I’ve watched it, yes. Very weird experience. I understood what they were going for with the new Batgirl intro (giving her character a background for context), but it came off as a lesser episode of The Animated Series. And the actual adaptation had moments that were extremely well done (or at least accurate to the source material), but for the most part the animation was shockingly cheap-looking. Very strange for something this highly anticipated. And there’s bizarre moments they added to it, like a scene where Batman interviews some prostitutes about the Joker’s whereabouts, and they giggle about how the Joker loves to visit them for a good time. Or another moment where Batman yells “SWEAR TO ME!!”. Ugh.
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DC Cartoons: A high standard that even the Marvel Movies could learn a thing or two from. I grew up reading underground comics and the occasional Marvel title, but I’ve got to admit that the Justice League cartoons utterly nail the transition from one medium to another.
DC Movies: Stuck in the Dark Knight 80s.
Marvel Cartoons: An insult to childhood, much less the adults sucked into watching them. The “Guardians of the Galaxy” cartoon is a textbook on how to NOT master audio for television. TV that hurts your ears as much as your brain.
Marvel Movies: Pretty damn close to understanding what people want from a superhero movie.
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ENTERTAINMENT IS A BUSINESS!!!
Studios are in the business of putting asses in seats 1st, and making great art far 2nd. I think the tentpole thing is out of control, but I don’t make the decisions. These things are juggernauts that have release dates before the 1st line is written. The movie will be released, if it’s good so much the better.
The only exception is Pixar, who don’t give a go till they have a good script, and it shows with their stellar track record. Toy Story would still have been great animated with stick figures. But thanks to morons like Roland Emmerich, Hollywood still thinks any movie with enough explosions will put them on the scoreboard.
Did you miss the part where I went to film school? In fact as some one who did. Who occasionally works in the visual arts, broadcast, video etc (when I can mostly a bartender), and knows a lot of people who do this sort of thing. Snyder is almost universally considered a hack by the people who most consider film an art form. The guy can put together a stunning image when he wants to. But he prioritizes those images over almost everything else. Plot, character, visual design of any other sort, performance. He’s basically stringing those “wow” images together with increasingly perfunctory what have. Derivative inconsistent characters, over done, dreary color pallet, visual design straight out of my high school trips to hot topic, dialog that makes you’re brains no work good. In fact there was a little video essay that made the rounds awhile back on the subject:
It drives me a little nuts because this guy insists on using “moments” as if its a suitable/acceptable term in film studies. Its not. The word he’s looking for is “shot” or “sequence” (for multiple shots not making up a scene in themselves), but I supposed he’s trying to be more expansive. Make sure multi-shot sequences, music ques, and what have are included in what he’s talking about.
As for Ultron? Well that’s a noted example of Marvel stepping in it. Something I mentioned. However I don’t think you quite read that situation right. The major complaint with Widow in that one usually revolves around the sterility admission. Basically she says she’s a monster because she can’t have babies. Reducing a woman to her ability to reproduce, which is relegates or reinforces the slight romance to her being potentially a trophy or conquest. But. If you re-watch the scene its relatively clear what they’re trying (but importantly failing) to do. She’s saying that the Russians made her a monster. And among the many things they did to her (or she allowed them to do to her without seeing it as bad, cause you know monster) is sterilize her. Banner mentions something about having/not having children immediately before hand, her revelation is in response. The scene is badly, badly, muddled. And on the face of it certainly comes off as what it’s accused of. But you can see what they were trying (and again failing) to get at. More over Scarlet Johansen was pregnant during shooting, so her roll had to be reduced and limited in certain ways. Apparently they had to drop a lot of material featuring Black Widow, particularly in terms of action scenes. And as was heavily reported at the time the movie was cut down significantly after shooting for time constraints. The entire movie is a bit of a jumbled mess as a result of all that. Script was heavily adjusted during shooting, and big chunks of context and connecting action were removed after market testing and completion.
SOOO. Its bad, and Marvel fucked up. But it appears to have been largely unintentional. And happened despite them trying the do better by Black Widow in this movie. That’s forgivable. And I don’t think its practical to attack people for trying and failing to do better. Less so the other instances where Marvel has fucked up in this regard. They push things like Jessica Jones. But forget that making every Asian in Dare Devil a magic ninja might be kind of racist. They make noise about adding a hell of a lot of diversity to the movies and comics. But they weasel out of adding an Asian Lead every chance they get. And so on.
With DC there aren’t a whole lot of buts. There are a whole lot of butts. You get an adaptation of the Killing Joke. A story that’s been pretty consistently (and correctly, even Alan Moore agrees) criticized for its misogynistic handling of Batgirl. That’s not great. So the creative team makes a lot of noise about fleshing out Batgirl, acknowledges the problem, wants to fix it. Good right? They’re trying! How did they try?! Batgirl fucks Batman then gets crippled to motivate a male character.
Oh and one of the writers called a reporter a pussy for heckling/criticizing this.
DC is fucking classy these days.
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No. That’s not the plot of The Killing Joke (the graphic novel, also the movie).
Barbara Gordon gets crippled by the Joker to try to drive her father, Commissioner Gordon, insane. He’s trying to give the most honest cop on the force (“the Average Man”) the worst day of his life to prove that anyone can be driven crazy by having “one bad day”.
You can disagree with the writer, Alan Moore, for this idea, but it didn’t originate with the current writing staff.
Giving Batman and Batgirl a relationship, though, was a crappy idea, and I don’t know whose hamfisted concept that was.
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Barbara Gordon is a minimal presence in that story. She is kidnapped, photographed nude against her will, and it is highly implied that she is sexually assaulted. Relegated to a damsel in distress, and sexualised (and in flagrantly abusive fashion). To render an effect on a male character. Jim Gordon. Who is likewise a minimal presence in story. Both are relegated to prop status. But as is sadly typical the disregard, and damage is disproportionately foisted upon the female character. This is done solely to effect character change or an arc in a male character, Batman. This is what I meant by motivate, as in motivate character development. That’s misogynistic. And that’s what the story is typically criticized for. Additionally because the story is short, and you don’t even get much about Batman in there. Its largely reliant on outside context for everyone but the Joker’s end of thing. Which is why it really only functions as a Joker story (which it does pretty well, and that’s why its hung around so long). But fails as a story for Batman, Gordon, and especially bat girl.
The guys who made the new movie decided to fix this by focusing on Barbara Gordon. A decent idea. But from what I’ve heard they didn’t merely give them a relationship. While its explicitly thrown out there this way. It reads as Barbara only wants to be Batgirl to attract Batman’s romantic attention. Their relationship sometimes resembles the paternal one of the comics, but Batgirl is most definitely sexualised and then they bone. At which point Batman largely avoids her, while Barbara stays at home by the batphone waiting for him to batcall. At which point they largely re-enact the comic story line where she is a sexualized, abused prop, used to motivate Batman. (again motivate in terms of character development)
That’s more than a crappy idea. That just plain bad. And I say that as some one who likes the comic in spite of its obvious flaws. You get what I’m saying about not trying?
ETA: Also do you maybe get what I was saying about which fans are they targeting anyway? A large number of Batgirl’s current fans are young women. Thanks to how well pulled off that new Batgirl run after New 52 was (a thing I’m pretty sure they put an end to BTW). So which fans are they trying to cater to here? Which fans are just really excited to see Batgirl fuck Batman? Cause I don’t think its all those young female fans. And reaction from the broader community of fans has not been good.
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It doesn’t read like that while they’re together, but they did add a weird subplot type thing where she’s confessing her feelings for him to a gay co-worker at the library (by calling Batman her ‘yoga instructor’). All of that is super awkward.
Important point, though, no, she doesn’t wait at home for him to call. She’s out in the field doing Batgirl stuff and calls him to talk. And at the end [spoilers] she quits, and becomes Barbara again before the actual story starts.
Ok, this has to be trolling like the Zootopia petition:
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I had hope but just barely, it looks like they didn’t have enough time to make any real meaningful course correction.
Hopefully Wonder Woman won’t be a joyless slog and might have color … there is time dammit!
Oh noes! Pussy? Anything but that! As if that’s supposed to be an insult.
Ok, none for you, Azzarello! Enjoy your life of forced celibacy and/or homoeroticism.
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I’d say he’s trying to reach a wider audience than just film students. To that end, he’s putting it in terms more relatable to laypersons. I can understand that it would irk you since he’s not using the applicable jargon, but the meaning behind it doesn’t feel wrong to me. As a graphic designer, somethings I’ve been taught about how to do my job more effectively is to put things in terms that will be more understandable to whoever I’m trying to reach. Like the client, or even coworkers/management (that presumably should have some grounding in my lexicon).
