Spoilers Arrow - Season 4

[theenglish]

This finale was definitely a disappointment. It almost seemed as if the finale should have been the previous episode and this episode was written just to get the the take down of Darhk. The nuclear missile plot was completely unbelievable--Felicity is the only computer expert in the world that can stop the missiles?

Does anybody know exactly what it was that stopped the magic? At first I thought that it must have been something to do with the city being inspired by Oliver, and somebody mentioned that upthread, but that seems too silly. Did it have something to do with Oliver's new magic neutralizing powers?

 

[Mr Light]

Ollie's magic neutralizing barely worked against normal level Darkh. It was the power of love and inspiration he formed in that mob of 200 people that overcame the unstoppable invincible power of 10,000 deaths. *tries to keep straight face* *fails*

 

[The Old Mixer]

Was anyone else expecting Darhk to blow the mob back with his super-breath?

 

[Christopher]

Ollie's magic neutralizing barely worked against normal level Darkh. It was the power of love and inspiration he formed in that mob of 200 people that overcame the unstoppable invincible power of 10,000 deaths. *tries to keep straight face* *fails*

I don't think it's implausible that light is stronger than darkness -- which, after all, is simply an absence of light.

And it wasn't just that immediate crowd. Ollie's earlier speech had been broadcast citywide and inspired thousands of people. Their positive energies were focused on him, and so he was able to harness the good vibes from all over the city, not just the immediate crowd. So basically it's the same logic that defeated Vigo in Ghostbusters 2, and that's good enough for me.

 

[Mr Light]

I was expecting him to slaughter them. Then his magic would have been back in full force.

Fortunately, the Ghost army decided to follow the Dark Knight Rises rules; never use your automatic weapons to fire indiscriminately into the mob; instead close to hand to hand combat to make sure you throw away your advantage.

 

[Christopher]

I was expecting him to slaughter them. Then his magic would have been back in full force.

But he couldn't, because Oliver was negating his magic.

Fortunately, the Ghost army decided to follow the Dark Knight Rises rules; never use your automatic weapons to fire indiscriminately into the mob; instead close to hand to hand combat to make sure you throw away your advantage.

That was more arbitrary, granted.

 

[Gaith]

One would think that as the head of ARGUS, Lyla could find Diggle a temporary (or even regular) assignment outside Star City with fewer contractual obligations and loss of freedom than the Army. Do the writers even watch their show?!

(And, given how often Digg's been doing his Spartan thing, and Lyla being the head of a theoretically major spy agency, why don't they have a live-in nanny?)

 

[Caretaker]

And now Willa Holland is calling out Warner Bros. on ending Arrow's use of the Suicide Squad.

 

[Christopher]

And now Willa Holland is calling out Warner Bros. on ending Arrow's use of the Suicide Squad.

While I sympathize, I think she's being a little unrealistic. After all, Marvel may nominally include the TV shows in its film universe, but the odds of the films actually using any cast members or story threads from the shows are slim at best. So even if DC's shows and movies did nominally share a universe, that wouldn't be likely to make much difference in terms of the film division's willingness to cast the TV actors and set their films in the show's universe. Sure, there have been film spinoffs of TV series in the past, but superhero movies are such big-ticket tentpole items these days that the studios would prefer complete freedom to make them their own entities rather than tying them to a TV universe conceived on a smaller scale.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The worst thing in my mind is that they have to sacrifice all the story lines and characters to the movie side. With all the talk on here about the benefits of separate universes the TV side doesn't get to reap any of the rewards.

 

[Christopher]

The worst thing in my mind is that they have to sacrifice all the story lines and characters to the movie side. With all the talk on here about the benefits of separate universes the TV side doesn't get to reap any of the rewards.

They still have plenty of their own characters and storylines to work with. DC isn't gonna run out of characters anytime soon. Why, we haven't even had a glimpse of the Metal Men, the Challengers of the Unknown, or B'wana Beast!

 

[Gaith]

The worst thing in my mind is that they have to sacrifice all the story lines and characters to the movie side. With all the talk on here about the benefits of separate universes the TV side doesn't get to reap any of the rewards.

If their big finale to the Darkh/magic arc is a fistfight and an arrow-stabbing, why should the WB trust them with more important characters/elements?

 

[Xerxes82]

While I sympathize, I think she's being a little unrealistic. After all, Marvel may nominally include the TV shows in its film universe, but the odds of the films actually using any cast members or story threads from the shows are slim at best. So even if DC's shows and movies did nominally share a universe, that wouldn't be likely to make much difference in terms of the film division's willingness to cast the TV actors and set their films in the show's universe. Sure, there have been film spinoffs of TV series in the past, but superhero movies are such big-ticket tentpole items these days that the studios would prefer complete freedom to make them their own entities rather than tying them to a TV universe conceived on a smaller scale.

And I think that's kind of the point she's making. If Warner is going to leave the movies as a separate universe, which she says she felt was a disappointing decision, then why do they keep taking all the toys away from the TV show? It's two separate discussions. "I wish they'd combined us with the movies." and "But since they didn't, why are they being so selfish with the fun concepts?"

And, at least in her point in regards to the TV show being told not to use concepts because the films are going to, she's absolutely right. If you're going to have separate TV and movie realities, fine. Understood. But then actually let the TV side play in theirs, instead of hijacking all the concepts for the film side. At least in the Marvel framework, it makes sense why certain properties might be off limits to the TV teams. Potential film properties need to be handled differently in a fully shared universe.

But there's no excuse for not letting the Berlanti-verse have it's own Suicide Squad, and playing with those same concepts. Or blacklisting characters from appearing, especially ones who aren't tied in to the major film properties. It's just silly, and counterproductive.

 

[Thestral]

It's also hypocritical considering, well, everything on The Flash. If viewers can handle two separate Barry Allens (and presumably Iris Wests, Central Cities, and most likely Reverse Flashes) they can handle two Suicide Squads.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Why, we haven't even had a glimpse of the Metal Men, the Challengers of the Unknown, or B'wana Beast!

Inferior Five!

 

[Christopher]

It's also hypocritical considering, well, everything on The Flash. If viewers can handle two separate Barry Allens (and presumably Iris Wests, Central Cities, and most likely Reverse Flashes) they can handle two Suicide Squads.

The difference there is that the Flash series was already underway before the movie was slated, so they kinda had to let it go ahead. I believe that if the movie had been commissioned sooner, the show would never have happened.

 

[Caretaker]

And it is my understanding that it was the Arrow producers who forced the hands of the Warners executives by mentioning elements like Ra's al Ghul. I wonder if their actions are preemptive to make sure nothing like that happens again. Also, do executives think that general audiences can't distinguish between multiple incarnations of a character?

 

[Commander Richard]

I think it's just that they want to make the movies special events. Why go to the movies if you can see these characters on TV on a weekly basis? Right now, they'll have to find some way to make the Flash movie quite distinctive from the show. With a good budget and X-Men's Quicksilver showing us that there are different and creative ways to do speedsters, I can see them accomplishing that.

 

[Gaith]

And it is my understanding that it was the Arrow producers who forced the hands of the Warners executives by mentioning elements like Ra's al Ghul. I wonder if their actions are preemptive to make sure nothing like that happens again.

I think that after Nolan's trilogy, the WB were fine with writing off the League of Assassins/Shadows as big movie villains.

 

[Christopher]

Also, do executives think that general audiences can't distinguish between multiple incarnations of a character?

Never underestimate general audiences' cluelessness about stuff we genre fans take for granted. There are plenty of people out there who don't even know the difference between Marvel and DC, or between Star Trek and Star Wars. And I've come across a couple of people who saw the title of my original SF novel Only Superhuman -- whose cover looks like this -- and thought it was about Superman.

I think that after Nolan's trilogy, the WB were fine with writing off the League of Assassins/Shadows as big movie villains.

Yeah. They're not against shows using elements that were in past movies; they just prefer to avoid anything that would compete with upcoming movies.