Especially since it's totally obvious he'll be back soon.
Spoilers Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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Especially since it's totally obvious he'll be back soon.
Due to a tiny flat and a lack of free walls I'm cursed to watch it on a regular TV.
It's still awesome though, I don't think Snyder gets nearly enough credit for just how good the movie looks.
This was the third time I've seen Ultimate Cut, but I've only seen the Theatrical once. I honestly can't remember when was the last time I've seen the same movie 4 times within a year.
I might just go with the Theatrical next time, and use that as an excuse to watch it again soon, because technically I haven't seen that in a while and never on a small screen
Due to a tiny flat and a lack of free walls I'm cursed to watch it on a regular TV.
It's still awesome though, I don't think Snyder gets nearly enough credit for just how good the movie looks.
I don't always like his aesthetic choices (among his films I've seen), but I'm never bored by them. And, for years (long after most people I know had some kind of HDTV), I still had a standard CRT (a good one in its day). However, I have always had (since my teens) a very good sound system. Whether stereo or surround, it has always been hooked up to the video gear. I'd rather have a small screen and very good sound than a big one with crappy sound. Even a decent pair of headphones will enhance the experience if in a small space with easily bothered neighbours.
This was the third time I've seen Ultimate Cut, but I've only seen the Theatrical once. I honestly can't remember when was the last time I've seen the same movie 4 times within a year.
I might just go with the Theatrical next time, and use that as an excuse to watch it again soon, because technically I haven't seen that in a while and never on a small screen
There are times I prefer the theatrical release but in this case, much like Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, the longer cut is so much better that going back to the original release never occurs to me.
I just finished (re)watching BvS and CACW back to back, and outside of the theatrical cut's problems with editing and pacing, I say the biggest thing that made a difference at the BO for the two movies was what I call moments of awesome. Civil War had so many Marvel heroes featured (including The AMAZING Spider-Man) and it gave the audience a lot of good action to digest. BvS has good action, but it nearly all comes in the last third of the movie. At past the hour and 35 minute mark. That's a long frikkin time.
The Martha moment from BvS and the Maria moment in CACW don't bother me and made sense for both Bruce and Tony's respective characters.
Zemo and Lex's unbelievably convoluted plans, that were executed to near perfection due to coincidences (plot) still baffle me.
The Martha moment from BvS and the Maria moment in CACW don't bother me and made sense for both Bruce and Tony's respective characters.
Zemo and Lex's unbelievably convoluted plans, that were executed to near perfection due to coincidences (plot) still baffle me.
Like a lot of people, you're assuming that everything Zemo did was according to some elaborate plan he concocted in detail ahead of time and that every twist and turn was in accordance with said plan. If one pays attention, you can see that this is not the case and that he's improvising more than one might think and not everything that's happening is directly his doing. Mostly, he's just manipulating the existing circumstances to his advantage (like any good strategist.)
It starts with him determined to find a way to bring down the Avengers. Knowing that he can't go at them directly, he instead looks for weaknesses and he starts quite reasonably with the massive dump of sensitive date from SHIELD & Hydra. Somewhere in there he decrypts some fragment or secondary account of what really happened to Howard Stark and the true identity of The Winter Soldier. If true, it's a surefire way to set Stark & Rogers on a collision course but In order to prove it, he needs access to Barnes.
This is when things start to get complicated as he's preparing several steps ahead. So to break it down: -
Step 1) He tracks down the Hydra agent who was one of Bucky's handlers and acquires the pass-phrases to activate his conditioning.
Step 2) He stages a bombing at the signing of the Sokovia Accords (where he knows at least some of the Avengers are going to be present) and frames Bucky, knowing he'll be quickly flushed out of hiding and that the Avengers (most likely Cap) will involve themselves.
Step 3) He impersonates someone he knows will be brought in to question Barnes in the event of his capture and arranges for the power outage to cover what happens next.
Step 4) He activates Barnes' conditioning, gets the mission report and location of his home base in Siberia (where the hard proof he needs will be stored.) Then sends Barnes off on a rampage as he slips away.
Step 5) This is the critical part that some people miss: He makes his way to Siberia and calls the hotel back in Germany to order room service. By doing this he's intentionally blowing his cover and bringing both Stark and Rogers after him.
Step 6) He finds the tape, waits for them both to show up, presses play wanders off to commit suicide assured that he's irrevocably damaged them.
Remember that Zemo had nothing to do with the accords and the accompanying pressure on the team. He merely took advantage and applied leverage to an already precarious situation.
As for Lex's plan...yeah, none of that makes any reasonable sense. So far as I can tell it's all a complete load of bollocks.
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Different strokes for different folks. For me seeing mindless action every five minutes gets old fast. Action scenes are like ice cream:enjoyable on occassion but not something I want a steady diet of. In Civil War I liked the airport sequence but the rest of the action sequences outside the fight at the end were pretty forgetable in my opinion.
I thought the end battle for BvS was way better than that long borefest at the end of MOS.
On the contrary, it was coincidence that thwarted Lex's plans.
But not completely, since Darkseid is still coming.
Which isn't a problem if the material is interesting. Aliens is a good example, where it takes around 80 minutes before anything actually "happens".
Except I find Aliens the least interesting film of the franchise whereas the continued exploration of how a "real" Superman would create a highly conflicted response from the public in BvS is FAR more compelling to me. YMMV
The problem I have with Zemo is that I found his goal . . . rather irrelevant. The Avengers broke up for the first time in "Age of Ulton" and re-formed. So, when they break up for the second time in "Civil War", thanks to Zemo, they re-formed with Iron Man, War Machine, Vision and Spider-man. I really don't see why Marvel would think this was such a big deal in the second film.
Likeable characters and a director with a grasp of suspense are handy like that.
Believe it or not, 'Star Wars' is surprisingly quiet for the first half. After the initial shoot out, the only action we get before the rescue is one brief tussle with the sand people (all of three quick shots) and then Greedo getting fried in the cantina. We don't get a full action scene until the prison break about an hour and fifteen minutes in. Mind you from that point on the movie is basically in a dead run all the way to the end with barely a moment to take a breath.
There's a world of difference between parting ways because the threat has past and there are other things they each need to attend to, and parting ways because they've gouged bloody chunks out of each other in bile spitting fits of hatred.
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I like how you bend over backwards to explain Zemo's (lack of) plan, but just... don't for Lex, even though Lex's plan was never more "fixed" or elaborate, had a simpler goal and a more straightforward progression.
Who's bending? Zemo stated his intent and motivations quite clearly. Lex just flailed his limbs about and made vague statements about daddy issues and cherry flavouring.I like how you bend over backwards to explain Zemo's (lack of) plan, but just... don't for Lex, even though Lex's plan was never more "fixed" or elaborate, had a simpler goal and a more straightforward progression.
So did Lex, not sure how you manged to miss it
"I want to kill Superman" is not a motivation, it's a goal. A motivation is the reason for having that goal. And no, vague daddy issues don't cut it.
Now Bruce on the other hand had a motivation. He saw first hand the collateral damage that a being like Superman can inflict. He may not have been entirely rational, but you understood where he was coming from. Lex was written like they'd really much rather have Heath Ledger's Joker as the villain. A better impersonation of a puppy chasing a bus I've yet to see.
Lex is a power-mad megalomaniac, the mere existence of Superman, a powerful alien is his motivation.
That's been his thing in the comics, cartoons, and TV shows he's appeared in for a very long time, and that's the most established version of his character. Why is that suddenly a problem now?
Because in the comics we see him as a greedy and totally self-obsessed megalomaniac so it's understandable. In the movie, we see none of that and the only hint towards his hatred of Superman here is apparently because his daddy beat him.
The movie was a big disappointment for me. I was hoping, that it would at least be better than Man of Steel, which was already bad, but BvS managed to be even worse. Just a long boring slog, fully devoid of any fun and humour. Even the optic of it was crap, all bleak and devoid of colours. It looks like they used a filter to make the movie as depressive and lifeless as possible. Instead of looking forward to the Justice League movie, I just hope they scrap this whole thing and start anew soon. A reboot is badly needed.