I always thought that scene was supposed to be weird.Pretty good job on the suit and mask then.Still makes the entire scene weird though.
Spoilers Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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Yeah, you get to see him filming the scene on the Blu-ray extras, and he was actually rocking the ol' grey pajama look that they always get stuck with, like Ruffalo when he does his Hulk scenes.
Haven't seen the extras yet, I'll try to make time this weekend.
I suppose so, but all the dreamsequences Bruce had pulled me out of the story a bit.
I suppose so said:
Yes, and the director is responsible for the development and execution of said script.
This is incorrect.
For example, when Warner Bros. approached Christopher Nolan to direct Batman Begins, there was no script. Nolan sought out David S. Goyer and hand-picked him for the job. Nolan & Goyer worked very closely on the film's story and script, which Nolan is credited as co-writer. For evidence, I suggest you watch the behind-the-scenes documentary on the film, which details the many script brainstorming sessions Nolan & Goyer had overseeing the development of the script.
With Man of Steel, due to the controversial ending Snyder & Goyer had to explain the thought-process behind the ending many, many times. Here is just one example of Snyder having to explain his creative choices in regards to the ending. If Snyder was not responsible for the creative direction of the script, as you proclaim, then why is he explaining his clear creative choices when it comes to the ending of the film... which has to be written in script form before executed on film?
There are many other examples of Snyder & Goyer explaining how they conceived of certain creative & story ideas that were not popular among many critics and viewers. I can go on and on and cite many other examples, but I think you get the drift.
(As a sidenote, a producer's job is often logistical. A producer is charged with handling the management of time, resources, actors, locations, hiring people, etc. A producer's job rarely involves making creative decisions, unless that producer is specifically charged with that task. And even then, that person is usually an executive producer, and not given the 'producer' label outright.)
Batman Begins is not mediocre. Most audiences and critics will disagree with you.
Yes, Snyder had input into the story. But Snyder didn't write the script. He's not a writer.
History will be my judge.
Yes he is. He has several screenplay credits to his name.
We're not telling a director anything, we're squabbling among ourselves.
Since JacksonArcher is a director, you actually are trying to tell a Director what a director does on a film.
And these are the credits he has accumulated through his long career:
300 (screenplay) [with Kurt Johnstad & Michael Gordon]
Tales of the Black Freighter (Video short) (screenplay) [with Alex Tse]
Sucker Punch (screenplay) / (story) [with Steve Shibuya]
300: Rise of an Empire (screenplay) [with Kurt Johnstad]
Now, who was saying "It would be cool if", and who was writing dialog and crafting scenes?
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice had a number of fundamental problems with its structure that Avengers: Age of Ultron did not have.
The first and most obvious problem is that Henry Cavill is not playing Superman. I'm not sure who he's playing, but his character is fundamentally not the same person as Superman. Superman is an aspirational figure, not psychologically realistic; he's the guy we all wish we could be if we were good enough and powerful enough, not someone driven by pain and guilt. Superman is a child's moral power fantasy, not a grown man's guilt power fantasy. Both Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice are nominal Superman films made by people who either don't understand or don't like the Supereman archetype.
But let's set that aside, and accept the idea that this is a Superman movie where Superman is full of guilt and pathos, coming into conflict with another famous Golden Age superhero who is full of guilt and pathos. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice is not even the good version of that.
The most basic problem with Batman v. Superman is this: The entire final act is superfluous. The Batman/Superman arc reaches its natural climax when Batman and Superman reconcile and Martha Kent is rescued. Absolutely nothing involving Doomsday or Superman's death needed to be there, and it distorted the natural emotional climax of the film. Instead of Batman v. Superman, we ended up with Batman v. Superman Plus the Death of Superman. Which creates a state of emotional numbness due to the film's lack of focus.
In fact, nothing about doing The Death of Superman makes any sort of sense. Whatever power The Death of Superman has as a story comes entirely from the weight of history leading up to it: The fact that the audience knows and has spent so much time bonding with Superman. You care about his death (if you care at all, since this was the original "major superhero dies but he'll be back" storyline) because you have been reading his comics and watching his movies for years and years and years. So, if you're doing this new version of Superman, you can't just introduce him in one movie, kill him in the next, and expect it to have any emotional power. The audience hasn't had time to bond with the character, especially since his sequel is half about a totally different character. There were a lot of rumors Marvel Studios was going to kill Captain America at the end of Civil War--and if they had, it would have made some emotional sense, since the audience had by that point had four movies to spend with Cap and come to care about him even before Civil War itself. Introducing your title character in Man of Steel 1 and killing him off in Man of Steel 2 is just bad planning.
So really the entire film needed to be restructured: The film needed to focus on the conflict between Superman and Batman, and it needed to be written in such a way that the climax naturally comes when Martha is rescued. Adding in Doomsday and Superman's death is like adding the second and third acts of an entirely different movie on top of your film's natural third act while trying to cram those two acts into one. Bad structure.
There are plenty of other problems. At least one of them, Batman v. Superman does share with Avengers: Age of Ultron--the film is too packed full of characters for its running time. Both films needed more room to breathe. But even here, Ultron has a much weaker version of that problem, by virtue of its superior structure. It's not trying to shove the back end of an entirely different movie into its final third.
But an overabundance of characters is also a problem. To wit: Wonder Woman, awesome as she was, should not have been in this movie. Nor should the entire film have essentially stopped so that Batman could sit down at his computer and make the audience watch what amounted to teaser trailers for future movies. In point of fact, this is another manifestation of the DC Extended Universe trying to do too much--we didn't get The Avengers until Marvel Studios had produced five earlier movies introducing those characters, allowing The Avengers to function as a multi-tiered sequel for each of its heroes since the audiences were already familiar with them. It didn't essentially introduce the entire roster in the team-up movie.
That is not to say that this is superior by virtue of it being Marvel. It is superior by virtue of the folks at Marvel knowing that the appeal of a team-up movie comes from audiences seeing familiar characters interact when they had never interacted before, and by virtue of Marvel understanding that you first have to establish familiarity with individual movies that have focus.
It keeps coming back to a lack of focus.
Address these flaws, and you'll at least have a better version of Murderous Batman v. Guilt-Ridden Emo Superman than we saw.
Other flaws? Well, Superman shouldn't be guilt-ridden and emo. Batman shouldn't be into casually killing people. These aren't just variations on a theme -- these traits are the core of who these characters are, and to change them is to display a lack of understanding of the characters. There is a reason the DC Animated Universe's World's Finest: The Superman/Batman Movie works better than Batman v. Superman.
Similar problem with Lex Luthor. I love me some Jesse Eisenberg, but he wasn't playing Lex Luthor; he was playing the Joker in Lexdrag.
The plot was overly convoluted, and it is not clear exactly what Lex is trying to accomplish. It's all well and good that he wants Superman dead, but what did he want to accomplish with Superman out of the way? How did he plan on controlling Doomsday? What's this random nonsense about him suddenly having visions of Darkseid that comes out of nowhere at the end? How did he find out Batman and Superman's identities?
The dream sequences didn't need to be there. Snyder and company got so busy setting up future movies that they didn't focus on adequately addressing the motivations of the characters they already had.
The entire bit with Lois throwing the Krptonite spear away and then getting herself damsel-in-distressed so Superman could save her and retrieve the spear was pointless and did a disservice to the character.
Between Man of Steel and this, I'm still not sure how Superman's true identity is not public knowledge. But I digress.
The film is also hurt by Snyder's recurring problems with hyper-masculine iconography and pseudo-nihilism. Snyder doesn't seem to understand that while superheroes are for more than just kids, they are foundationally for children, and film adaptations of these characters ought to respect and embrace that.
And Jesus fucking Christ, could he please stop it with the bleak gray color palette? This is a goddamn Superman movie; it shouldn't have a moppy, sad undertone.
Those are the most basic problems with Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: It is structurally overwrought, it lacks narrative focus, it tries to serve too many characters, one of the two main characters it does serve is so warped from his archetype as to constitute being that character in name only, other characters have unclear motivations, and the plot is too convoluted.
This isn't about Marvel can do no wrong (Guardians of the Galaxy was severely overrated); this is about Marvel has so far told focused, character-driven stories that made narrative sense and were emotionally compelling to the large majority of people, but Snyder tried to do too much in one movie and learned that a jack of all trades is a master of none.
Isn't that true to the character of Lois? If you want Superman/Batman to remain as they've always been in the past, why not Lois?
I'm fine with Batman killing and Superman being moody. Batman has been killing people in movies since Michael Keaton when he dragged the joker to his death instead of saving him with another gadget from his toolbelt. Or kicking that goon off the tower. Superman was quite moody during the entire run of Smallville. I'd like to see some happy superman too, but I disagree that these characters need to be so locked into their mold.
First off -- separate from whether or not it is true to the older versions of the character, it is simply bad filmmaking. It is an arbitrary choice that creates a pointless obstacle, so that the hero can "save the day" in what amounts to a fourth act that should never have been part of the movie in the first place. It is also inconsistent with what had previously been established about this Lois -- that she is smart and thinks fast on her feet.
Secondly: I didn't say I wanted them to remain "as they've always been in the past." I said I didn't want them to violate their characters' fundamental ethos. There is a lot of room for variations on a theme -- Jerry Robinson's Batman and Frank Miller's Batman are very different, but the ethos is the same.
I have no problem with getting rid of the practice of writing Lois as making stupid decisions that get her into trouble, because that practice was always inconsistent with the other facets of the Lois character (that she is smart, and ambitious). It was always an arbitrary choice to depict her as causing her own danger, and it was always lazy writing.
And that was also a bad creative choice.
There is a fundamental difference between temporary teenaged moodiness on a TV show, vs. fundamentally dour nihilism in a film. Films have to have more emotional focus, and to place the emotional focus into a mental state that is completely at odds with the character's archetype violates the basic ethos of the Superman concepts.
But that's only a secondary complaint. As I said, the film's biggest problems are structural. This film is not even the good version of Murderous Batman v. Guilt-Ridden Emo Superman.
What part of "hyperbole to make a point" was unclear?
I completely disagree on the structure of the movie. Since Lex is behind the conflict the whole time, it makes sense to have a final bad guy they team up against, and do that part of the story right there. Since their fight deflates, something is needed after that. There's no way they were ever going to pump out 2 - 3 more Superman movies just to set up his death a little better.
No, it's consistent with how she is established to be a risk taker, hence Superman saving her all the time. She would put herself in danger to get the story for her job or attempting to do the right thing. There's nothing wrong with her attempting to get that spear and contribute. What you're describing as a pointless task I would call the very core of their dynamic. She was trying to help him there.
I also liked the dream sequence. It works just fine in the context of the movie as a vision of Superman out of control, without thinking of it as set up for a sequel.
No, it's consistent with how she is established to be a risk taker, hence Superman saving her all the time. She would put herself in danger to get the story for her job or attempting to do the right thing. There's nothing wrong with her attempting to get that spear and contribute. What you're describing as a pointless task I would call the very core of their dynamic. She was trying to help him there.
I also liked the dream sequence. It works just fine in the context of the movie as a vision of Superman out of control, without thinking of it as set up for a sequel.
The problem is that the central conflict of the film has already reached catharsis; the primary tension has been released. Adding an additional bad guy after Martha has been rescued means introducing an entirely new arc with its on introduction, rising action, climax, and resolution, after the conflict which has driven the entire film has had its introduction, rising action, climax, and resolution, and trying to shove that entirely new arc into the final third of a movie that's almost over.
This is not good structure.
I'm fine with Superman and Batman having to team up in a final climatic battle. But the film should have been structured such that this "final boss" wasn't suddenly introduced out of nowhere to represent a new conflict after the original conflict had been resolved. Rather, it should have been structured such that revealing the "final boss" was the result of Superman and Batman resolving their conflict and that saving Martha Kent would coincide with defeating the "final boss." That would have created structural unity for the film.
No. This is the problem: the resolution of the Superman/Batman conflict should itself have been recognized as the natural end-point for the movie. If your central conflict "deflates" 2/3rds of the way through the film and you have to introduce a new arc after that, then your movie is not well-structured.
Then there is no point in doing a DC cinematic universe to compete with Marvel's.
EDITED FOR CLARITY: By which I mean, if they are not intending to give the biggest superhero of all time a series of films in addition to the other characters' films and the crossovers, then there is no point in doing a cinematic universe. Your entire series cannot be crossovers or else each character loses their own focus and appeal.
You don't have to do The Death of Superman at all. But if you do it, you can't do it on your second outing. The audience just hasn't had time to bond with the character. It is, again, an arbitrary creative choice that sucks the emotional life out of the story. End edit.
I'm not complaining about her getting the spear per se -- I'm complaining that she tries to get the spear when she was the one who tried to throw it away. She created her own obstacle out of short-sightedness and impulsiveness. This doesn't read as smart or brave, it reads as filmmakers making arbitrary choices.
One dream sequence works fine. Multiple dream sequences, followed by foreshadowing that stops the story dead in its tracks, followed by teaser trailers of future movies in the middle of the film, is trying to do too much in one film.