‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

I agree that the third act of Man of Steel was a debacle (although there was some terrific stuff in the first two, along with a number of problems), but I'm going to remain hopeful that the sequel will be better. I've seen cases where creators stumbled on the first try and then learned from their mistakes and got better. Heck, I think Batman Begins fell apart in its third act (though not as catastrophically -- in more ways than one -- as MoS), whereas The Dark Knight was almost perfect (although ...Rises stumbled again).

Granted, much of what I've heard so far about the sequel's approach to writing Batman is disheartening, but I wouldn't be a superhero fan if I didn't believe in hope.

 

It's less than two years before the film comes out. Anybody who doesn't already know how they're going to grade it is just waffling.

 

Some things are just certain. Put your hand into boiling water, you hurt yourself, jump from a highrise, you kill yourself, etc...

 

A new comic-book movie is announced, fans predict it's gonna suck . . . .

 

I honestly don't know since I wasn't around forums at the time, but what were peoples general predictions for movies like Superman Returns, Daredevil, and Catwoman? Because those were movies where it turned out it was safe to predict they would suck (actually, I'm probably one of the 10 people who like Daredevil even before the director's cut, but its not generally well thought of so I mentioned it).

This one is easier to predict, though. I'd guess that anyone who hated Man of Steel will probably hate this. I'm still waiting on MoS (I'll probably get it from the public library sometime in december) but I've read all the spoilers and will just be watching it as part of my fairly common practice of watching movies I know I'll hate because I like the franchise/character (its the only reason I watched Into Darkness and TDK Rises, sequels to my two most hated movies of all time). I learned my lesson with DC. If David S. Goyer or Christopher Nolan is involved, it will suck. I will grant that Goyer can write a few good Blade movies, and I did enjoy Nolan's Inception and Memento, but neither can write/direct/produce a DC movie to save their lives.

If you liked MoS, odds are this will probably be the movie for you. All of Goyer's Dc movies have enough elements that, if you love or hate them, you'll probably love/hate the next one. I'm 2/3 with hating Goyer's DC movies (Batman begins was just mediocre, which is a huge advantage over TDK and Rises). Even if Nolan is barely involved with this movie (like with MoS) it all comes down to if you liked the other movies. This isn't exactly a blind prediction, I doubt Goyer grew a sense of fun and started writing a heroic, not depressing/dark superman or Batman between scripts, so everything someone loves (or hates) about his work will definately still be present in this movie.

 

It's not a new comic book movie. It's a sequel to a very polarizing comic book movie with the same director. If you disliked Man of Steel there's a very high chance that you're going to dislike Superman/Batman too.

 

A chance, yes, but not a certainty. As I said, many creators have been known to improve on the second try. So while I'm skeptical about the sequel, I'm hoping for the best. I'm certainly not going to root for it to be bad the way some fans seem to do.

 

I loved Man of Steel but I'm not happy about the direction the sequel is taking so I'm cautiously pessimistic.

 

^ Yeah I'm not quite as excited as I wished I was either. I really wanted to see the story of the first movie continued, but it's sounding more and more like this movie is going to be almost a whole new thing.

 

Not necessarily. My hope is that the reason they're going for a more seasoned, veteran Batman is so that he can kick some sense into Clark, make him see what a total failure he was as a hero in MoS, and show him what it takes to be a real hero. Like actually making an effort to protect civilian lives and avoid unnecessary property damage.

Although that wouldn't entirely solve this Clark's main problem, which is that he has no will or initiative of his own but just goes through life doing what various male authority figures (from Jonathan to some random priest to Jor-El to Zod himself) instruct him to do.

 

Having humility and seeking guidance from those who are more experienced hardly sounds like a bad trait to me. Especially for a Superman who is just barely getting started and doesn't yet know how to use his powers properly.

 

they shouldn't have to do that though. it should be the other way around. Superman should be the one to give Batman the pep talk. having Batman come in and give him tips on how to be a hero just makes Superman look like a chump.

 

Jor-El saved the planet. Superman was just following his instructions. And then he followed Zod's instructions to kill him rather than attempting to have an original idea and find another solution. And he was totally useless at protecting innocents in his fight with Zod; in every respect he let Zod define the terms of their engagements, and never gained any sort of actual control over the situation except when he was following Jor-El's plan. Jor-El was the actual protagonist of Man of Steel, even though he spent most of it dead.

I agree entirely. Unfortunately, the Superman of Man of Steel is a chump already and we're stuck with that. Short of another continuity reboot, the only way to fix that is to have Superman -- and, by proxy, Snyder and Goyer -- admit his shortcomings as a hero and learn to overcome them.

 

And what other solution would that be?

Because all Zod has to do is get his head free and then innocents get BBQed so there is a bit of a ticking clock there and no writer giving out asspull third options.

 

Good god, the man was facing down a superpowered trained killer whose clear intention was mass slaughter with no training in how to use his own abilities. On top of being expected to stop an alien invasion by people he'd never met from a home he never knew existed. "Overwhelmed" doesn't even begin to cover the situation Clark was in here - there's no training wheels, no stopping muggers. And of course this is all after he's been told by implication - since childhood, by the father he obviously adored more than anyone - that a part of him is dangerous at best, and potentially shameful. When he finally decides to try and claim his heritage and his past the entire planet is put in existential danger, thus seeming to prove Jonathan correct (albeit not how he expected).

The whole thing was set up so we could see a more flawed Clark getting his ass kicked to hell and somehow mostly overcoming it - but at the expense of massive devastation (personally and for the city of Metropolis). It's not necessarily pleasant... but it's really well-done, and the implication is that he'll become the more traditional Superman.

 

No, the devastation was not really well-done. It was horribly, insultingly done. It dragged on forever, to the point that I almost walked out of the theater when the orgy of wanton destruction started up a second time after I thought it was over. It was gratuitous and had absolutely no impact on the story; if you read a transcript of the film's dialogue, you'd have no clue that it even happened, because not a single speaking character was the least bit affected by it, and they were joking around in the Planet offices (which shouldn't even have still existed) as though it had never happened seemingly mere days later. And there was no reason for it to happen in the first place; Zod had no reason to choose Metropolis as the site of the ship's landing, because Kal-El had never even been there. There was no personal or emotional stake in having the battle in Metropolis; it was just arbitrarily there because that's one of the beats you expect in a Superman movie. So much in this movie was just tossed in because it was expected rather than actually being earned.

And on top of all that, it was incredibly stupid. Buildings do not fall down the moment a human-sized body slams into them, I don't care how tough it is or hard it hits. They're designed not to do that. The World Trade Center towers were hit by jet airplanes and took well over an hour to fall -- and it wasn't the impact that caused their collapse, it was the cumulative damage from the runaway fires. Toss an invulnerable human through a skyscraper and you'll punch a hole in it, but it will not instantly collapse like a house of cards. The entire sequence was both pointless and nonsensical. In many respects, it should not have happened at all.

 

^This. Yup. Uh-Huh. Well said.