DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

[theenglish]

..and Lobo. Sigh. Never a great or even interesting character.

I don't understand the appeal either, but the character is so popular that there was a huge backlash when DC tried to reboot him for the New 52--

 

[USS Firefly]

When Gunn was tweeting out images of Kingdom Come, I thought that’s what they were planning for Cavil and crew.

That was my hope.

 

[Tosk]

It really does seem that the decision to go with a younger Superman doesn't really have a lot of fans.

Sometimes it's hard to let go of what you have for the future thing you haven't seen yet.
If the new DCU kicks all sorts of ass (and we all hope it does) then most people will be on board. ...And if all the "I am quitting DC!" people truly do, all the better. They won't though of course, I don't know who they think they're kidding.

 

[The Realist]

It really does seem that the decision to go with a younger Superman doesn't really have a lot of fans. Needless to say all the Snyder stans are going to hate it but no one else seems very enthusiastic about it either.

I have some enthusiasm for it, because my sweet spot for Superman stories in terms of characters and setting is the classic one: Metropolis, the Daily Planet, Lois, Jimmy, Perry. So I'm very happy for that to be the focus.

As much as I love Superman & Lois, I have never, ever enjoyed the show more than during the Metropolis flashback scenes in "A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events." And notably, they found ways to make Clark's early days at the Planet seem fresh and new, and to change up his dynamic with Lois in original and delightful ways. So it certainly can be done.

 

[Australis]

Rgo is a terrible, terrible thing. I read (in a William Goldman book, I think) when a new broom sweeps clean at a studio, it doesn't want any reminder of the successes of the previous one. What I don't understand is, why not keep the same actors, at least for the sake of continuity and fans, and simply make a better movie that you can point to? People are weird.

Plus, I feel secret identities are a discredited trope in this age when we've seen how toxic the secrets of the powerful can be, or the dishonesty of people in relationships. A lot of the classic "hide the secret identity from friends, family, and love interests" stories feel like gaslighting in retrospect.

The bad guys, if they know who you really are, can attack or kill the innocents that are your family and friends (hence why in the Golden/Silver Age Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson were always being kidnapped, to slow Superman down). Especially someone like the Big Guy, facial recognition tech today would be a problem. Full face masks are the only way to go, and a voice changer too.

Would you read a book that was released chapter by chapter only to find out there’s not going to be an end? Maybe, but most are going to think twice.

Ask Charles Dickens or Steven King (The Green Mile).

A film, to my mind, should stand alone. If not, it's a poor film, and no amount of interconnectedness will save it.

Agreed, but having tabs and tags that interlock it with other movies can be pretty cool, and you can ignore them, like the Black Adam end-credits scene. Marvel had it sown to an art.

 

[Dee1891]

Sometimes it's hard to let go of what you have for the future thing you haven't seen yet.
If the new DCU kicks all sorts of ass (and we all hope it does) then most people will be on board. ...And if all the "I am quitting DC!" people truly do, all the better. They won't though of course, I don't know who they think they're kidding.

I would have been ready to let go of Henry Cavill if the time was right. I don't the time was right to let go of him. And apparently, many others feel the same. As for the new DCU, enjoy it. I won't be, because I won't be watching. I've had enough.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

@YLu Would you support the MCU's next slate of releases if you knew going in that Marvel Studios had already effectively declared that they were going to start their film franchise from scratch?

Because that's the equivalent to the argument that myself and others were actually making.

Be honest.
If it was announced that the MCU was ending after everything ready to go was released, you don't think people would still flock to Guardians 3?

They would. Because the movie still looks amazing. Ending cinematic universe or not.

Just like people will probably see Aquaman 2 if it looks just as good. Or Flash if people want to support a criminal.

 

[Dee1891]

Needless to say all the Snyder stans are going to hate it but no one else seems very enthusiastic about it either.

I find it interesting how the media and many fans have transformed fans of Zack Snyder into "stans" - as if people have to be "excessively enthusiastic and devoted fans" in order to be fans of Snyder's work. I find this insulting. And to think this negative portrayal began because of those petitions regarding Snyder's version of "Justice League". This wasn't the first time such a petition was created for a particular production. CBS's 2006-2008 series, "Jericho" comes to mind. Yet the media and certain fans didn't start portraying such petitions as something negative until the ones for "Justice League" popped up.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The bad guys, if they know who you really are, can attack or kill the innocents that are your family and friends (hence why in the Golden/Silver Age Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson were always being kidnapped, to slow Superman down). .

Obviously, and comics have a number of famous examples of civilians hurt or killed due to the hero's secret identity not being so secret to the villain. It is rather an insecure position for anyone to think keeping your secret tied to your dangerous life's mission "gaslighting".

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, no. No one in the 90’s was doing or selling “shared universes”. That’s the difference. It’s the norm now, People expect it after THIRTY MCU films pushing the concept in a 10 year period, audiences loving it and everyone else trying to do it too. Hollywood and audiences were on a whole different page then. People who are irked about the viewing public’s expectations in regards to superhero movies NOW can direct their ire to Marvel and the audiences who ate that connected universe shit up and made it the norm. Do you know why people don’t have those expectations for “Joker”? Because DC had to make it clear that it wasn’t part of a connected universe. That they had to do that shows how much the expectation of connectivity is there. Because of that people just viewed it as it’s own thing with no expectation of a sequel much less connectivity to other DC films.

It isn't like the MCU said "All Superhero films from now on must do things our way". Blaming the MCU for others trying to copy it is silly.

 

[Christopher]

As much as I love Superman & Lois, I have never, ever enjoyed the show more than during the Metropolis flashback scenes in "A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events." And notably, they found ways to make Clark's early days at the Planet seem fresh and new, and to change up his dynamic with Lois in original and delightful ways. So it certainly can be done.

But that was a flashback within a story whose main focus was elsewhere. So it's not the same as doing something purely as an origin or early-years story for the umpteenth time.

The bad guys, if they know who you really are, can attack or kill the innocents that are your family and friends (hence why in the Golden/Silver Age Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson were always being kidnapped, to slow Superman down).

Except that example disproves your argument. Lois and Jimmy didn't know Superman's secret identity, but they got kidnapped all the time anyway, because they associated with Superman. The "protecting my loved ones" argument goes out the window when you spend just as much time with your loved ones in both identities.

Also, if someone even suspects a person of knowing a hero's identity, they could get kidnapped and tortured even if they don't actually know it. So hiding the identity doesn't protect them from torture, it just protects the hero from being found out when their loved ones are tortured. It's hypocritical to say it's about protecting others when it's really about the hero covering their own ass.

Besides, it's getting it backward to say that keeping people ignorant keeps them safe. If you know that a close friend, colleague, or loved one is a superhero, then you're forewarned about the risks that come with that and can take steps to protect yourself. It's actually grossly irresponsible for a hero to keep their loved ones ignorant of that risk. In real life, when people work in intelligence or undercover police or whatever and have to keep their identities secret from their adversaries, they still tell their families what they do. They don't tell them specifics about their missions, but they don't hide the basic fact that they are spies or undercover cops, because their families need to know the risk they're taking and be forewarned so they can take precautions. If you want to keep the general public from finding out, okay, but it's obscenely wrong to hide it from the people close to you who have a right and a need to know what they're getting into.

Agreed, but having tabs and tags that interlock it with other movies can be pretty cool, and you can ignore them, like the Black Adam end-credits scene. Marvel had it sown to an art.

The point, though, is that that's an added value on top of the core worth of the individual movies. It's an optional bonus, in addition to the value the work has on its own terms. The problem is when people start thinking the connections are the only thing that gives movies value. That's just delusional. It doesn't matter how well you nail the boards together if the boards are rotten.

Or Flash if people want to support a criminal.

No movie is made by one person. Ezra Miller is just one of the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who participated in making the movie. Just because Miller's the most visible face doesn't mean they're the one responsible for the whole thing; they're just a person the filmmakers hired to stand in front of the camera and speak and act as others instructed them to.

If you found that the guy who bagged your groceries and brought them out to your car was a drug dealer, would you throw out all your food? No. That one person is not solely responsible for the product you receive. They're just the one who delivered it to you.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

It’s beyond simple “sequel potential” as these are looked at as not just sequels for a specific character, but part of a larger story building to some inevitable big cross over. See everything Marvel has done. The vast majority of their films, sequels and all, are all in service to the larger narrative. Dr. Strange 2 bled more out of Vision and Scarlet Witch, and seemed to be settling up the multiverse for future movies. Stranges’s story was crammed somewhere in between those other two pieces of the larger narrative. That is the norm. Few people were going to see this just for Strange’s story alone.

Of course not, and there's not another franchise / connected universe more dependent on the torrential flood of Easter eggs and plot teases in one film setting up another than the MCU. Remove the aforementioned eggs and plot teases and there's barely a story to support itself. The advocates behind the convenient "I don't need connection to see the other film" BS augment have spent more than a decade doing just that--hanging on a film universe where the majority of its productions were deliberately designed not to be remotely independent so they would jump at the bait of the next film, yet they attack individuals who recognize plotting designed to not only tell one story, but support the larger narrative.

Its hypocritical axe-grinding in the extreme against a franchise, certain talents and a fanbase for no valid purpose other than pull the same, hourly BS attacks similar to a recently banned member known to this thread.

If DC is smart, they’ll remove all post credit scenes that are setting up any larger story in the remaining films and use The Flash film to give closure to this era by having the universe get reset.

That would a wise plan; since they have removed all Gadot and Cavill scenes shot for The Flash--both rumored to point to planned continuing stories--they might as well cap off the film with a sense of finality (assuming its timeline follows that of the other three 2023 films).

@YLu Would you support the MCU's next slate of releases if you knew going in that Marvel Studios had already effectively declared that they were going to start their film franchise from scratch?

Because that's the equivalent to the argument that myself and others were actually making.

It is ignored--time and time again--for utterly nonsensical, flame-loaded reasons.

You can be guaranteed that the MCU die-hards' complaints would be heard from one end of the earth to another if Disney abruptly ended the series in favor of a total reboot, but i'm fairly sure someone will offer a less-than-convincing denial of that kind of reaction.

 

[Jinn]

@YLu Would you support the MCU's next slate of releases if you knew going in that Marvel Studios had already effectively declared that they were going to start their film franchise from scratch?

Because that's the equivalent to the argument that myself and others were actually making.

I can't speak for MCU fans (largely because I've seen like one of those movies since the start of the pandemic), but when the end of the Trek LitVerse was announced I was still happy to read the Coda trilogy, even though I knew that the story wouldn't be continued.

 

[Nightowl1701]

All they need to do is copy All-Star Superman.

Make the opening credits a montage of all the various versions of the origin over the decades - animated, TV, movie - and set it to either the John Williams theme or whatever new theme the film would have. Throw in the immortal radio/50's TV intro lines ("Faster than a speeding bullet," etc.). Where there's story variations, use the ones that fit the new movie's story (Lois knows/doesn't know, married/single, one/both Kents alive/dead, Luthor a fugitive/billionaire/President). BAM, there's your origin, let's go.

 

[YLu]

@YLu Would you support the MCU's next slate of releases if you knew going in that Marvel Studios had already effectively declared that they were going to start their film franchise from scratch?

Because that's the equivalent to the argument that myself and others were actually making.

Yes, I'd go see the movies. So I think would most people. Most people watch a movie because they think the movie itself will be entertaining. Its role as a building block in a shared universe is fun but it's secondary. Has it been so long since the pre-pandemic days of packed theaters that folks are forgetting how lots of people don't even bother to stay for the post-credits?

Hell, if anything, whatever becomes 'the last MCU film' would probably get a box office boost from that status.

 

[Awesome Possum]

One would think that fans of comic book movies would be familiar with the entire comic universe being completely rebooted. Marvel did it once, DC does it every few years.

The MCU seems to be headed towards something like that with Secret Wars which is about the destruction of the multiverse and it’s reformation.

 

[DigificWriter]

So I think would most people

I - and several others - disagree.

And yet somehow the clear communication of that differing opinion, instead of being cogently discussed, gets mocked and construed into a ridiculous assertion that all films only have merit if they're guaranteed to have sequels.

The number of people who skip seeing Aquaman 2, Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, and The Flash because they exist as part of a dead-end narrative even before they're released may not be huge, but it is a real potentiality and is going to impact the degree to which Warner Bros. Discovery can count on relying on them (those films) as a monetary asset.

 

[Samurai8472]

Sources close to production say that Gadot is still in "The Flash"

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603866816471760897

 

[Saul]

I wonder how things might have been different if Flash and Aquaman had come out this year as was originally planned....

 

[The Lensman]

It isn't like the MCU said "All Superhero films from now on must do things our way". Blaming the MCU for others trying to copy it is silly.

You left out the part of my comment that refers to the audiences. You’ve heard the phrase “the customer is always right”. The meaning of that phrase has been twisted and misunderstood over time, but the original meaning was to look at what the customer is actually buying, then sell more of that. Because that is what the customer wants and is willing to spend their money on so they’re always right. This is a business, first and foremost, after all.

See “serialized storytelling in television”. While not the first to do it, ‘Lost’ was a major hit that definitely popularized it, then others followed suit with varying degrees of success. Serialized storytelling in tv is the norm now. And plenty of shows that utilized this format got cancelled long before the end of the story, some before the story really even took off. I’ve seen plenty of people (those who came along after these shows were cancelled) lose interest in watching because there would be no end to the story.

Are there some who’ll watch anyway? Sure. They’re the minority. Most people don’t care for stories with no end. People like and want closure.

One would think that fans of comic book movies would be familiar with the entire comic universe being completely rebooted. Marvel did it once, DC does it every few years.

The issue isn’t so much a reboot, but feeling like movies designed to be part of a larger narrative, may not be worth one’s time if the there’s no payoff. Again, this can be mitigated by removing anything in the films that hints at a future plot points and they can reboot everything in The Flash if it involves time travel or the multiverse. Thus it acts as an ending and beginning.

Good-bye and hello.

The MCU seems to be headed towards something like that with Secret Wars which is about the destruction of the multiverse and it’s reformation.

So ‘Crisis On Infinite Earths’ then. Been there, done that.