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DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

thribs said:
I hope they don’t fall back on just doing silver age Superman again. You need to give him a bit of an edge in today’s world. People will just make fun of him again if not.
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They will give the people exactly what they ask for, and the people will whine and moan about it. After Returns, people said in unison "Give Superman a villain he can punch!!!". Snyder said "Ok, here you go" and the people said "ZOMG TOO VIOLENT!!!!"

Now everyone is begging for a happy Superman. WB is like "Here you go!" and the people will probably be like "Ewwww Big Blue Boy Scout!!!!".
 
Ugh, so Netflix seems like they were inspired by WB removing Max originals and are removing Lillehammer. https://screenrant.com/lilyhammer-netflix-removes-first-original-from-streaming-service/
Reminder: if you love a show you have to buy it on physical media (if possible). Can't assume that a subscription is the same as ownership, even for originals.

Hemlock Grove also going away.

EDIT: Possible that Netflix is just losing rights to "originals" that they actually leased rights to from other places. So not a tax scheme like WB.
 
crookeddy said:
They will give the people exactly what they ask for, and the people will whine and moan about it. After Returns, people said in unison "Give Superman a villain he can punch!!!". Snyder said "Ok, here you go" and the people said "ZOMG TOO VIOLENT!!!!"

Now everyone is begging for a happy Superman. WB is like "Here you go!" and the people will probably be like "Ewwww Big Blue Boy Scout!!!!".
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That tends to happen when referring to "people". That group is made up of many opinions.
 
F. King Daniel said:
Joss Whedon's JL showed how awful a wise cracking Marvel-style Henry Cavill Superman can be.
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Aside from my usual bromide that quality is not about category, just about how well or poorly any individual instance of that category is executed, I would argue that the theatrical JL is a poor example, since Whedon was hobbled by having to come in and retool a very different filmmaker's movie in midstream, resulting in a chimerical hybrid of styles that wasn't anyone's best work. When Whedon was allowed to create a superhero team movie entirely from scratch, we got The Avengers, one of the best superhero movies ever. So if Whedon had been able to make at JL movie entirely from scratch rather than trying to "fix" someone else's movie, it would probably have turned out better.

As for Cavill, I've always found him to be a chameleonic performer able to adapt well to any type of character, from a dark and humorless one like the villain in Mission: Impossible -- Fallout to a snarky wisecracker like Napoleon Solo in Guy Ritchie's underrated The Man from UNCLE, or a more dryly witty character like Enola Holmes's version of Sherlock. So if he wasn't able to make a lighter Superman work in JL, that's probably because of the afterthought nature of the reshoots, and he could've done better if the character had been defined more consistently throughout the process.
 
Cavill's "enormously joyful Superman" thing is clearly a reaction -- if not an overreaction -- to negative perceptions of his previous portrayals of the character.

The thing is, I'm not sure any live-action Superman has actually come off as "enormously joyful." Kirk Alyn may be the closest -- he displayed a certain giddy enthusiasm in the role.

For all that Christopher Reeve's version is regarded as the "Big Blue Boy Scout," he actually had his fair share of angst and internal conflict.
Sketcher said:
This is all a moot point. Tyler Hoechlin is the superior current Superman anyway.
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Agreed, but I have found myself warming to Cavill a bit lately. No one is more surprised by this than I.
crookeddy said:
They will give the people exactly what they ask for, and the people will whine and moan about it. After Returns, people said in unison "Give Superman a villain he can punch!!!". Snyder said "Ok, here you go" and the people said "ZOMG TOO VIOLENT!!!!"

Now everyone is begging for a happy Superman. WB is like "Here you go!" and the people will probably be like "Ewwww Big Blue Boy Scout!!!!".
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:lol: Probably.
crookeddy said:
Reminder: if you love a show you have to buy it on physical media (if possible).
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This.
 
The Realist said:
Cavill's "enormously joyful Superman" thing is clearly a reaction -- if not an overreaction -- to negative perceptions of his previous portrayals of the character.
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Or maybe it's just what he sincerely wants to see in the character. Maybe he's thinking of how Christopher Reeve played Superman. Maybe he really believes the character should be optimistic, because we could use a character embodying hope and kindness in these increasingly dark times.


For all that Christopher Reeve's version is regarded as the "Big Blue Boy Scout," he actually had his fair share of angst and internal conflict.
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Which is not inconsistent with being joyful. Joy doesn't require the absence of angst or pain -- on the contrary, joy and pain tend to be two sides of the same coin, because if you feel really strongly about someone or something, then it intensifies all your emotions, both good and bad. That's what joy is -- not just anodyne good cheer, but intense, impassioned, overwhelming happiness. Stories often balance moments of intense joy against moments of intense pain and grief -- say, the joy of a character discovering that a loved one they thought was dead is still alive, or the joy of two people who've been separated finally finding each other again. We often feel joy because we survive or transcend our sources of pain, fear, and anguish.
 
Christopher said:
As for Cavill, I've always found him to be a chameleonic performer able to adapt well to any type of character, from a dark and humorless one like the villain in Mission: Impossible -- Fallout to a snarky wisecracker like Napoleon Solo in Guy Ritchie's underrated The Man from UNCLE, or a more dryly witty character like Enola Holmes's version of Sherlock. So if he wasn't able to make a lighter Superman work in JL, that's probably because of the afterthought nature of the reshoots, and he could've done better if the character had been defined more consistently throughout the process.
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Have you watched The Witcher? He's fantastic in that too. While I do like his Superman, and he was good as Walker in MI:F, Geralt is the first role that comes to mind for me when I hear his name.
 
JD said:
Have you watched The Witcher? He's fantastic in that too. While I do like his Superman, and he was good as Walker in MI:F, Geralt is the first role that comes to mind for me when I hear his name.
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I haven't had much interest in The Witcher from what I've heard about it, but lately I've been catching up on a couple of other popular shows on Netflix that I hesitated to try but ended up liking a lot, The Good Place and Stranger Things (the latter of which I just finished catching up with literally minutes ago). So it's occurred to me that maybe it's worth a try.
 
theenglish said:
The Good Place is the most original comedy I think I've seen, plus it got a lot of high school kids interested in philosophy during the pandemic.
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Unfortunately, it borrowed heavily from the "Twilight Zone" episode "A Nice Place To Visit", and I figured out the twist before the pilot had finished airing. I subsequently never finished watching it.
 
I have. I never would have seen it if my sister had not convinced me to do so. It's one of the most original sitcoms I have ever seen.


When Whedon was allowed to create a superhero team movie entirely from scratch, we got The Avengers, one of the best superhero movies ever. So if Whedon had been able to make at JL movie entirely from scratch rather than trying to "fix" someone else's movie, it would probably have turned out better.
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I won't deny that "The Avengers" is still one of the best superhero movies I have seen. But . . . upon re-watch, I've found some of the humor to be a bit heavy-handed. Forced.
 
DarrenTR1970 said:
Unfortunately, it borrowed heavily from the "Twilight Zone" episode "A Nice Place To Visit", and I figured out the twist before the pilot had finished airing. I subsequently never finished watching it.
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I knew the twist years in advance, since I only just watched it recently, but it's still a great series in so many other ways. Even knowing the surprise, I was still very impressed with how the twist was revealed (there's a particularly marvelous bit of acting from Ted Danson at the key moment), and I intend to rewatch season 1 sometime so I can see how they laid in all the subtle clues and foreshadowing.

And that's just the first season. The series evolves so much from season to season, getting bigger and more cosmic in scope, unlike anything I've ever seen in a sitcom. It has great characters and compelling relationships and is exceptionally rich in philosophical discussion for any American TV show, particularly a sitcom. It's immensely clever with impressive visual effects. And it somehow manages to strike a balance between offering a dark depiction of the afterlife as a Brazil-like bureaucratic dystopia and being an incredibly optimistic, humanistic, life-affirming show.
 
thribs said:
I hope they don’t fall back on just doing silver age Superman again. You need to give him a bit of an edge in today’s world. People will just make fun of him again if not.
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I doubt anyone at WB+D would think that has a place with / interest from modern day audiences. There's no evidence of a widespread call for the silly, bumbling, "golly gee, Lois" Silver Age version, extending to the Donner interpretation of the character. Singer attempted it and was met with less than enthusiastic reactions--not due to Routh's version being a so-called deadbeat dad in the film--but the slavish dedication to bring back the worst of the Newmans and Benton's influence which defined the script of the Donner film. The comics matured since the late 60s, responding to readers' interests, but film adaptations took a little longer (The Incredible Hulk TV series being the first and most overtly mature comic-based production starting in 1977), and next to no one looked back, wanting the worst of late Golden/Silver Age comics again.

Just as WB would never unearth the Adam West Batman series or the Legends of the Superheroes TV specials and believe there's significant interest in the productions ever being the main film version (or even as an alternate universe experiment), one can see any idea for the handling of Superman being the same.

The existing Cavill outings already laid out the most believable character growth (slowly--by necessity), with Superman trying to find his way as an alien in a world where part of the population may not trust a being like him in his debut, to taking on the role of protector (in a more official capacity)--to the point of seeing Batman and his methods as a genuine criminal threat to order & the idea of justice in Dawn of Justice, to his acceptance of his place in ZSJL.

Going from that natural progression, Cavill's Superman no longer has to stand apart from humanity as much as needed to do in Man of Steel.

What's important to note is that this is all about the Superman side--not the Clark side; as Kent, he was already seen as trying to integrate as much as he could through his gateway to humanity in his relationships with Lois and his mother. Its the Alien With Otherworldly Power side that needed to find a place among fragile humans, and by the time of ZSJL, he achieved that.

As a result, Cavill's next movie performance--contrary to those who rattle their bones with the self-generated fiction that Superman would be exactly the same as he had been in MoS (when he was not in his other appearances so far) should (if WB+D handles this properly) build on the aforementioned character growth, and not dump an unwanted, Saturday morning / Weisinger version on a world that willingly left that behind several generations ago.
 
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