FLASH series being developed for The CW

If I had any thought that the movie universe could be good, I'd probably want them to be linked. As it is, I am happy to just have fun tv shows.

 

Having them linked would have been my preference. This and Arrow could have been DC's Agents of SHIELD but the lack of Superman's revelation makes that difficult now.

 

This is pretty much how I feel. At the very least, it would be better to start with an effective movie universe and deliberately spin a TV series off from it, as Marvel has done and is doing, than to start out with separate TV and movie continuities and then try to stitch them together retroactively. (Although that would kind of fit DC, because most of its characters started out in unconnected worlds that were eventually grafted onto one another.)

 

I think DC makes the wise choice by keeping things seperate. It is evident now that Agents of Shield was forced to spin its wheels for half a season waiting for the Cap movie to hit theaters. What if the movie bombed? AOS would have been hanging on by a thread.
DC now has the option of being able to try something new in each medium without having to worry about playing catch up with some movie project.
The interesting question is will we see multiple versions of characters or are they locked into that specific medium?

 

But it feels like CONSTANT rebooting, to the point of it not being worth it to try to follow the new versions.

TV versions don't have to match the movie versions..but as media merges...where movies hit homes faster via Netflix...and the line between movies & TV shows is blurred.

All the goodwill that one medium builds for a character, after awhile it gets annoying that it's essentially dumped for a "newer" version or "fresh vision."

I like how Marvel is making different things that are interconnected, but can be enjoyed as individual pieces. The connecting pieces can be very minor -- but knowing it's all connected, even in small ways, makes the experience much more enjoyable.

OK, so in Marvel's case, the movies drive the TV shows. Any reason why it can't be the other way around?

 

Awesome. I don't think this because Man of Steel sucked (although it totally sucked), but because it's great that both universes will have the freedom to do what they want without worrying about steeping on each others toes. We all remember the shittiness of the Bat Embargo in Justice League. I don't want to see that again.

 

Without the Batembargo in Smallville, they never would have used Green Arrow like they did.

And then Arrow never would have happened.

It all worked out for the best.

 

Just be glad we didn't get the Green Arrow from Smallville.

 

Ah, but you are underestimating how much I need Chloe Queen in my life.

Alison had a guestspot on Wilfred last week.

 

^ Makes me want to start watching again.

I read the article above and got to thinking about how we almost got Amazon as a potential spin-off.

 

Whatever they storyboarded, it had to be better than Debra Winger as Wonder Girl in the 70s.

 

I don't see why. There are already countless different DC continuities. The comics alone have multiple separate timelines -- Golden Age (Earth-Two), Silver/Bronze Age, post-Crisis, post-Zero Hour, New 52, and I think I probably missed one or two. And that's not even counting imaginary stories, Elseworlds, TV tie-in books, and other alternate continuities. The comic strips were always in a different continuity from the comic books, and the Superman radio series was in a separate reality from either (and had the most inept version of Batman ever). There are many different DC screen continuities. Live-action Batman has the '40s serials (which may or may not be in continuity with each other), the '66 series, the Burton/Schumacher movies, Birds of Prey, the Nolan movies, and now Batman v Superman. Live-action Superman has the George Reeves series, the Christopher Reeve movies, the '88 Superboy series, Smallville, Superman Returns, and now MoS/BvS. Animated Batman has the two Filmation series, Super Friends, the DC Animated Universe, The Batman, The Brave and the Bold, Beware the Batman, and a plethora of separate DVD movie continuities and a few DC Nation comedy shorts. Animated Superman has the Fleischer cartoons, the '60s Filmation Superman and Superboy shows, Super Friends again, the '88 cartoon, the DCAU, Brainiac Attacks, Legion of Super Heroes, Krypto the Superdog, guest spots on The Batman and TB&TB, and a plethora of DVD movie continuities and DC nation shorts. And so on.

So there have been so many DC universes over the decades that I don't see how adding a few more is a problem. It's always been part of the character of the franchise that its heroes are reinterpreted in many, many different forms.

Granted, but a lot of those incompatible continuities existed at the same time as one another. The Superman radio series ran simultaneously with the comic books, comic strips, and Fleischer animated shorts, and they all informed and influenced one another and cross-promoted one another, but they were all in separate realities.

Sure, that's nice, but that doesn't make it the only way to do things. I think it's good if DC's approach isn't a carbon copy of Marvel's. As Icemizer said, Marvel's approach poses problems for the TV series because they have to follow the lead of the movies and that can artificially restrict and inhibit their storytelling. It's problematical coordinating two works of fiction that function on very different time scales, and at least one of them usually has to suffer for it. (That's why Pocket Books and IDW Comics don't coordinate their Star Trek tie-in continuities but instead have separate, incompatible ones. It's just not feasible.) If the movies and TV shows are each free to operate on their own separate schedules and follow their own needs independently of one another, then that's good for both of them.

Several reasons. For one thing, there's a lot more money at stake in the movies, and potentially a larger audience. Having the smaller work's needs drive the larger work -- and impose limits on it -- makes no business sense; it's the tail wagging the dog. The bigger, more profitable branch of a franchise has always taken the lead. That's why so many comic book series have changed themselves to resemble their mass-media tie-ins even though they were the originals -- going all the way back to the Superman comics adopting the Daily Planet, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Kryptonite from the radio series and Superman's power of flight (rather than jumping really far) from both radio and the theatrical shorts. The radio show and the cartoons had larger audiences than the actual comics, so they had more influence.

Also, different media have different audiences. Sure, a lot of fans are going to follow both the movies and the shows, and the crossovers are done for their benefit, but there are also going to be plenty of people who watch only one. After all, a movie is a smaller investment of time, so you'll get more people curious enough to see a movie than you'll get people committed enough to invest in weekly viewing of a series (or buying of box sets or marathon strreaming of entire seasons). So there will probably be more moviegoers unfamiliar with the series than there will be series viewers unfamiliar with the movie. Therefore, it makes sense to design the movies to be standalone and to weave a series in between them. Make the movie dependent on the series continuity and you're likely to confuse people.

Plus, as I said, the schedules are too incompatible. You can produce an entire season or more of television in the time it takes to produce a movie. So a TV series can follow a movie's lead because it has enough advance notice of the film's story to know what direction to go in; but I don't think it could be done the other way, because the plotting of the TV series would evolve too swiftly for the movie to keep up. True, it has been done before up to a point; Star Trek: First Contact and Insurrection came out while Deep Space Nine was still on the air, and made vague efforts to acknowledge elements of its continuity (Worf on the Defiant in the former, the Dominion War distantly informing the plot of the latter), but they were very minor, broad-strokes things and the film stories were still kept very much separate from what was happening on TV. Any closer story coordination, any direct, timely cause-and-effect like the events of The Winter Soldier upending everything on Agents of SHIELD, would be very, very hard to do, because of the enormously greater lag time in producing a movie and getting it to the screen. A movie series could only react very slowly to changes in a TV series -- it could acknowledge a status quo that was established months or years before, like Worf being on DS9 or the Federation being in a long-term war, but it would be extremely difficult to get a movie into theaters and have it be a direct outgrowth of things that happened the previous week in a TV episode. Maybe, maybe it could work if the movie came out in the hiatus between seasons, but it would still be very difficult to coordinate things in that direction. The first X-Files movie came out shortly after the fifth-season finale and reflected the status quo established at the end of that season, but was designed to be a standalone story that viewers could follow without having seen the show.

 

But by Silver Age, they began to make sure that the dozens of titles would still be consistent with each other.
The thing is...with each successive generation of comics, they had more and more continuity among them. Golden Age, they might not have been as worried (Like Star Trek TOS).

TV & Movies in this age (especially with movies rapidly being shown on regular TV, even so soon after premium cable gets them) are so much on the same page. Yahoo news (or whatever internet news one follows) will show news of both TV & movies in the same vicinity... I think THAT news would be more confusing.

Things like animated series (especially geared toward younger kids) -- that's easier to differentiate and dismiss the noncontinuity.

It also depends on the properties involved. The properties might only need a small way to tie-each other together, and have plenty of excuses why they don't "visit" each other more often. Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, will get HUGE boosts from being a part of the greater Marvel Universe...I don't know if there are any connections with Agents of SHIELD, I don't imagine them needing to be big. Just the post credit scenes that we saw is enough to get people (like my wife) who wouldn't be interested at all in the GotG movie actually decide to see it after all.

At the rate DC is going, I think any movies still wouldn't affect the TV versions of Flash & Arrow much...and they still could be easily separate, with Superman & Batman being based in other cities...they don't have to drop by for everything. And Superman & Green Lantern have extraterrestrial duties, so a simple one liner can handle that in a TV series episode.

What you've said about the complexities, the risk, and probability of failure and difficulty of coordination all make very good sense, so I hear you. (And definitely your insight of the novel aspect is very valuable)

But making all the live action properties (which i would view as like regular , mini series and annuals are with comics) part of the same universe would make each that much more exciting and get new fans in. Agents of ShIELD really got me to watch the Thor & CA movies RIGHT away, and I have no regrets for that.

The problem is there is no DC visionary that can give an outline of the cinematic universe, and give general guidelines. There's no JMS giving the outline of a 5-10 year plan that can be altered as needed, but gives a healthy frame work to work from. It might be a team of creative setting itup.But it CAN work.

 

Ah, yes, you're right. The name Daily Planet apparently debuted in November 1939, three months before the radio series hit the air. But the editor in the comic strip remained George Taylor until mid-1941, long after the comic book had adopted Perry White from radio.

Radio Batman was simply a terrible, terrible crimefighter. He never figured out a single clue or deception until Clark/Superman explained it to him, except in those occasional episodes where he and Robin pursued a case without Superman because Bud Collyer had the day off. Since neither he nor Robin seemed to carry any equipment other than rope, their go-to moves when put into deathtraps were either to yell for help or to resign themselves to death until Superman showed up to save them. And whenever Robin was abducted or disappeared, Batman's typical response was to mope around in despair until Superman convinced him it was worth making some effort to do something about it. Then there was the time when Batman and Robin hid under a villain's bed to steal his kryptonite and were given away when Robin sneezed.

Indeed, the radio show barely seemed to treat Batman as anything other than a conventional detective/man of action. They treated his and Robin's whole secret-identity thing very haphazardly. Once, Robin was accused of being a catburglar and arrested, and even though they fingerprinted him, they didn't take his mask off and somehow failed to attempt to determine his real identity. Then there was the time that Clark's private-eye friend Candy Myers sought out Batman's help on a case and came to see him at his and Robin's house -- presumably Bruce Wayne's house, which in this reality is in Metropolis -- even though he's not supposed to know Batman's secret identity. And Batman and Robin are routinely written as though they don't wear gloves. Sometimes the writers just seem to forget they're supposed to be costumed heroes. Although they usually remember the capes, as you'd expect of Superman writers.

Also, interestingly, they interpret Batman's cowl as two pieces, a bat-styled hood worn over a half-mask. Which actually is an understandable mistake given how Batman's cowl was drawn back then, blue on the top and sides with black shading around the eyes. If you didn't look closely, you could mistake it for a blue hood over a black face mask. But what's harder to understand is why they once described Robin as also wearing a bat-styled hood over his mask. Or what exactly it means when they say the Batmobile is a "bat-shaped car."

The actor who played radio Batman in most of his surviving appearances, Matt Crowley, doesn't sound anything like we expect Batman to sound today, more of a light, upbeat baritone, higher than Bud Collyer's Superman voice. But their Robin, Ronald Liss, did a terrific job; he's just how you'd imagine the clever, wisecracking Robin of the '40s comics would sound.

By the way, they did an interesting alternate version of Robin's origin story on radio. Turns out his mother was a French immigrant who had family in the French resistance, and a blackmailer was threatening to expose her family members' identity to the Nazis if they didn't pay him. They ultimately decided to expose his blackmail, so he killed them -- with Dick being merely a spectator to their last performance rather than a participant.

Again, if they'd started out with that intention from the get-go, it might have worked, but I'm not sanguine about the idea of trying to shoehorn two originally separate continuities together. I just can't buy that Man of Steel happened in the Arrow universe.

Isn't that Geoff Johns's role? As "chief creative officer," he's responsible for developing and coordinating all the mass-media adaptations, or so I understand it.

 

i'd agree...having a master plan from the get go would make it work. I guess i'd have to rewatch it... but I don't see the 2 universes being incompatible...Superman's appearance might have been just before Arrow began his crimefighting, but isolated to Metropolis (or at least not touching Starling City).

Honestly, I don't know the politics at DC... he may have that title, but is unable to create a grand plan, just modify existing ones. Tome, his work on Smallville was excellent, and helped bring the series more inline with the greater DC universe, in a fun way.


I love DC (grew up on 'em), but how they have this mess with live action...it's frustrating.

I wish they could've trusted someone to be a JMS and have a Bbaylon 5- type of plan with "trap doors" to allow creative freedom and unforeseen circumstances.

 

That ought to be "could," not "would." There's never any way to guarantee that a creative undertaking will succeed. There are a thousand variables that can contribute to success or failure, and nobody's ever figured out a way to predict or arrange a surefire success.

Half of Metropolis was destroyed. The economic impact of the disaster and the rebuilding would probably trigger a nationwide recession. Not to mention the worldshaking impact of the revelation that alien life and superpowered beings exist. I mean, that was a core thematic element of MoS -- Snyder and Goyer approached it as a first-contact film, a story about the impact of the discovery of aliens. The entire world would be transformed by this. It's impossible that nobody in Starling City would be talking about it or have their worldview changed by it.

Not to mention that the CW-verse has only recently begun to discover superpowers -- first through the Mirakuru drug, and now through the accelerator accident in Central City. MoS and its sequels are in a universe where superpowers are commonplace: Not only is Superman around, not only is Batman already a well-established veteran, but we know that Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman, the Shazam Formerly Known as Captain Marvel, and others are part of that world too.

Or maybe he just doesn't choose to do things that way. It's frankly pretty obnoxious to assume that the only reason someone wouldn't do things the way you personally prefer is because they're incompetent. It could be that they're perfectly intelligent and capable but have good reason to come to a decision different from your own.

See, there's the flaw in your assumption: That the lack of continuity is specific to the live-action division. DC's animated productions stopped having a shared continuity eight years ago. Every animated TV series they've done since 2006 has been in its own separate continuity (even Teen Titans Go! is out of continuity with Teen Titans, despite having the same cast), and the direct-to-DVD animated movie line has consisted almost entirely of standalones in separate realities (except for the two Superman/Batman films in 2009-10), although the plan that started last year is to do two films per year in a New 52-based continuity (ugh) and a third in an independent continuity.

So working with multiple separate realities is a conscious, premeditated choice on the part of the animated division of DC/WB; therefore, it makes no sense to assume that the same policy in the live-action division results from a failure of planning or coordination.

 

Ughh..Professional writers...it's like perfect grammar is important to their livelihood or something!

No, good point....but being a Trek fan..it's hard not to think "If i had the power of a movie/Tv exec..."

Starling City had its own 9/11-level tragedy. I don't think that Flash's Central City will be talking about it much (if at all), despite the enormity of that event (unless it's part of a crossover story with Merlyn)).

Not incompetant, but impotent. Johns maybe the Chief Creative Officer, but he's not the Chief ExecutiveOfficer or the Chief Financial Officer


Their worry of finances might be preventing this from happening. We know execs can really screw things up (i.e. Enterprise, Spiderman 3)

See, there's the flaw in your assumption: That the lack of continuity is specific to the live-action division. DC's animated productions stopped having a shared continuity eight years ago. Every animated TV series they've done since 2006 has been in its own separate continuity (even Teen Titans Go! is out of continuity with Teen Titans, despite having the same cast), and the direct-to-DVD animated movie line has consisted almost entirely of standalones in separate realities (except for the two Superman/Batman films in 2009-10), although the plan that started last year is to do two films per year in a New 52-based continuity (ugh) and a third in an independent continuity.

So working with multiple separate realities is a conscious, premeditated choice on the part of the animated division of DC/WB; therefore, it makes no sense to assume that the same policy in the live-action division results from a failure of planning or coordination.[/QUOTE]


My frame of reference for animation was "Challenge of the Superfriends", and a couple of animated movies I got at Redbox.

For me, not every single thing has to connect with everything else. Like, I don't expect Avengers 2 to reference the Phineas & Ferb Marvel heroes special (though it would be funny, in some small way).

For the "kiddie" shows, I am not very hung up on continuity -- it's mostly an intro for kids to the characters. Teen Titans Go is for little kids, right? And the"regular" Teen Titans is a little mature right?

Do they have the same animation styles? If not -- that helps make the differentiation make sense to me.

With live action...unless it's a parody..it's harder for me (and i think many others) to make that distinction.

The time difference is another... kids of my generation who grew up on Challenge of the Superfriends, RObotech and Battle of the planets have an affinity for those shows that other generations (and by generation, i mean like within a 5 year range or so) wouldn't get.

And lastly...the context of the media... TV and movies are nationwide...many people have an opportunity to be exposed (even if they aren't searching for it).

The animation, at least the more mature stuff, has to be found (i.e. buying or renting it somewhere)... so it's a more specific audience (i.e. younger kids who don't care or fans are are craving the stuff), not the casual general public.

 

Or maybe he just doesn't want it to happen. Again, just because you personally prefer something, that does not make it the only possible correct approach.

Continuity can be great, sure. But it's just one of the many possible ways of telling stories. It's a tool in the kit. It's not the only tool worth wielding.

And it can be done badly. From what I've seen about DC Comics' interlinked New 52 continuity, it's a total mess. The attempt to launch 52 new interlinked series all at once meant that talent and attention were spread too thinly and few of the books got the care they needed, so that quite a few were cancelled. The editorial control is reportedly too strict, with creators being arbitrarily fired when they don't follow the party line. And the continuity is awkward and clumsy, with a hamfisted attempt to force three Robins and at least one or two Batgirls into just five years of Batman's history because of the editorial dictate that all superheroes have only been around for five years. Overall, I see complaints from reviewers about the comics having too uniform a house style in art and storytelling approach. Conversely, though, the DC publications that are getting the most praise these days are usually the products of DC's West Coast digital-first division, books that are separate from the New 52 continuity and from each other and are free to establish their own distinct identities -- tie-ins like Smallville Season 11 and Batman '66 or anthologies where every story is in its own independent continuity, not bound to anything else. Sometimes standalone stories are better than interlinked stories, because category does not determine quality -- quality determines quality. Continuity can be good, but it is not an absolute necessity or a magic bullet that guarantees good stories.