[Kickaha]

I dunno, I didn't *love* it, but I liked it. Then again, I had to make the conscious decision to put my brain in "True Lies" mode... if they were going for an 80s action movie, they did it. One-liners, cheesy camera framing, scenery-chewing baddies, one-dimensional stereotypes... they pretty much hit all the checkboxes.

I think folks were expecting "Wonder Woman in 1984", and what they got was "a 1984 style movie about Wonder Woman".

Verrrrrrrrry different things.

The one thing I think they totally, 100% completely dropped the ball on?

The soundtrack. I was expecting an 80s soundtrack, ala Guardians of the Galaxy (70s) or Captain Marvel (90s), or more specifically, Atomic Blonde.

But noooooo...

[psmith2.0]

Yes!!

I blame Stranger Things.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 DC/WB's mistake was doing the "us too!" thing and trying to out-Marvel Marvel when they probably should've just carved their own path, avoided comparisons and didn't fast-track the whole "team up" thing the way they did. They tried to do in two movies/two years what Marvel had spent 4-5 years (and as many movies) building toward. And it showed.

They also forgot to include Nathan FIlion as Green Lantern.

[drewprops]

This is more fundamental than DC simply screwing thing up.

A lot of DC characters are archetypes that subsequent superheroes were based on. And they themselves are closer to gods than to mortal men, and the manner in which the characters have been depicted (over time) has created some structural issues that screenwriters and studios have so far been unable to escape.

And in the case of the films it's due to continual corporate churn. Until the ownership of the DC characters finds safe, stable harbor, the franchise is vulnerable to an endless stream of origin story reboots.


I decided to try to watch Justice League a few days before WW84 was released.

Oh boy.

It was a poor man's Infinity War.

Sure, it was based on the comics, but they didn't do the work to the get there. They never do the real work to get anywhere. They have to wrap it up in one film because they have not earned an audience that will allow them to do a cliffhanger.

Well, they actually have, with the Christopher Nolan Batman series and more recently with the latest Joker film.

Bottomline: Warner is an unreliable steward of this intellectual property and yes, in need of a visionary who can make these stories resonate with their human audiences.



...

[Kickaha]

"A lot of DC characters are archetypes"

That's it in a nutshell. Not just archetypes that later characters were based on, but archetypes in the Jungian sense, a callback to mythologies instead of storytelling.

To me that's always been the critical difference between DC and Marvel. Marvel tells stories of people who stumble into having unusual powers through very human circumstances. DC tells myths.

Every time Marvel tries to go the mythic route (Earth X, Marvels, etc), they can't keep up the intensity, and every time DC tries to go human and relatable, they blow it.

They have their own styles and the characters reflect that. For my money, one of the better stretches in comicdom was Morrison's JLA run, where he purposefully built a pantheon and told stories that wouldn't have been out of place in Campbell's research. Relatable, they were not, but they were mythic in scale and scope.

Marvel writes humans, DC writes demi-gods.

And those are *DAMNED* hard to translate to the big screen for one-shots, but as you said, they haven't earned the audience good will to build a world and draw the viewer in. Quite the opposite.

Ironically, the Arrowverse did a better job of that...

[kscherer]

I haven't seen any of the DC/WB stuff other than Man of Steel and Aquaman, which were both so awful* that I haven't returned for anything else. And I mean nothing**. I have no idea what's going on in there, and I don't want to know. Thanks for the update. Now I know not to waste my $1.50 on Redbox when it comes along in a week or two.

* I don't watch movies for the actor/actress. Tom Hanks and Jennifer Aniston are my favorites, and there is loads of their stuff that does not interest me.

** I caught the first ten minutes of WW a couple years ago and thought the opening so dreadful that I wandered away and played Minecraft while the girls ooed and awed, and then complained about how terrible it was.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Marvel writes humans, DC writes demi-gods.

But Thor is a demi-god, and his trilogy was superb.

And while it's argued that Superman might be overpowered for most team ups, somehow the Hulk is still a usable Avenger.

-----

I lean to the DC 'just doesn't know what it's doing' side.

We're about to get our 158th Batman. In the real world, it costs 100k to build a flying car.
But in a fictional world where a billionaire is an outlaw superhero, the Batmobile never takes to the air.

At this point, if they're going to do Justice League ever again, they need to do the best version of the League.
I want a full slate, a Watchtower in space. The original six as friends and all in their prime.

[psmith2.0]

I, too, can do without further “how it came to be” origin stories. Just get to it. We all know who can do what, and why.

[turtle]

I watch WW84 with my girls and we generally enjoyed it. We all agreed that it wasn't "a Marvel" movie, but it was good. The fact that they were willing to make use of places my family has been (DC area) and things we have seen was one thing that really helped pull us into it though. I grew up giving tours of the Air and Space Museum as well as Natural History. I know those places so I felt like I was there.

Anyway, I didn't have great expectations but absolutely loved the cameo at the end. Again, I had to explain it to my kids. I can't blame them for not know Lynda Carter though or her importance.

[psmith2.0]

I meant to mention this the other day. One of the better parts.

When they didn’t show her face earlier, and then from behind at the end, I thought “okay, they're holding that back for a reason; it’s gotta be a surprise cameo...Angelina Jolie perhaps?”. I was quickly trying to run through all the brunette, appropriate-for-the-part actresses it might be. And then when she turned around I was like “oh wow, even better!” For some weird reason, I never even considered her. And she should've been the first! She does not age, and she has never not been hot. Thinking back to my childhood, it was her and Lindsay Wagner who first made me feel "special things".

[Ryan]

This isn't specific to any recent film, but is anyone else just too goddam tired of special effects?

Just flipping stop it already. I don't want to disparage effects artists—they're damn talented! But holy shit hiring a special effects department is not all it takes to tell a story.

Can we just have a good story that's well-acted? Is that too much to ask? I can't do another costumed gym-rat on a green screen ripped from a comic book. I'm just done.

Avatar was hailed as a major milestone for special effects but does anyone even remember that movie anymore? I can tell you it had some blue lizard creature things but beyond that, I don't remember the story at all.

I think the only recent production i give a pass for this is Stranger Things. Okay it's extremely derivative of Stephen King but they've got a story! It's compelling! There's character development! The Duffer Brothers didn't just string together a series of CGI monsters and call it a TV show.

Lately I've been watching that "Movies That Made Us" show on Netflix, the episodes about Die Hard and Home Alone. Those movies were successful because of their stories. not their stunts (the stunts helped though). Now we're onto Die Hard 17 or whatever and Bruce Willis could just film the whole thing sitting at a desk chair, they may as well photoshop his face into the scene.

I recall a few years some exec at the Scifi channel let slip that they realized no matter how little they spent on their productions, a certain portion of the audience would never leave. Kinda feels like we're doing the reverse now with SFX: no matter how dull the story gets, if you just make sure to blow $10 million on effects, a large portion of the audience just won't stop watching.

Anyways I'm drunk and ranty. Happy New Year.

[drewprops]

SOMEBODY GOT OLD!!!!!



And yes, tell me a story.

If it needs special effects use them.

Do not rely on them to cover over your inability to tell a good tale.

Those rules never change.

To paraphrase Shakespeare: Good stories will out.


...

[Ryan]

Why yes I did turn 30 in 2020.

[psmith2.0]

My little test has always been “could your favorite movie still hang together, just from a storytelling angle, without all the effects, stunts and trim?” In the case of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark (three of my all-time favorites and damn-near perfect in their lack of wasted frames or dialogue; if those were the only three movies Mr. Spielberg had ever made, it would've been enough for me) the answer is “yes”.

All the effects/stunts in those movies serve as icing on an already satisfying, delicious cake of three enjoyable stories that, IMO, would still thrill me if even if performed as a radio play and no visuals to speak of...the story of each was strong, engaging enough to pull me in (one of my favorite movie scenes of all time is the exposition scene in Raiders... where the two government officials show up to tell Indy and Brody what's going on, offer Indy the gig, etc. That is such a perfect 4-5 minutes of "laying it all out in a way that you know everything you need, for the remainder of the movie...the stakes, the power involved, why someone would want that artifact, the trouble/work to acquire it, the risks involved, the history behind it, the little moments of humor, Indy/Brody both realizing what's being talked about, etc.). I can sit and watch that scene, all on its own, anytime; it's just perfectly written/filmed, not a special effect to be found and has been a favorite of mine for decades). Without this simple scene, all that followed would be a confusing jumble of chases, fistfights and snakes.

For those who've never seen/don't remember: scrub up to the 2:30 mark for the start of that sequence; it's not even five minutes long, and there isn't a wasted moment/line in the mix! For those who didn't know, the government agent on the left is Porkins from Star Wars (and Lt. Eckhardt from 1989's Batman). William Hootkins is the actor. The guy got to work for Lucas, Spielberg and Burton. Not bad!

Anyway, a whole bunch of other movies can’t claim that. They’ve been flip-flopped, to where the effects/visuals seem to have come first and then a story perched on top.

That’s tough to pull off.

It always has to be about the story/writing. And we’re just in an era where those things don’t always take the front seat.

Audiences have changed, our attention spans are much shorter, we have so many other ways to entertain/amuse ourselves than just 15-20 years ago, let alone 40, 60, etc.

It’s a tough thing. It’s show “business”, I get that. But there are a lot of lazy, middling and expensive movies out there, stinking up the joint and only serving as some effects house’s demo reel. I often wonder how some of them ever get greenlit, financed, etc. $200M is almost real money!

[Ryan]

Yeah, I can't think of too many movies that don't waste lines. Caddyshack maybe? The Matrix? Ferris Bueller definitely goes on the list—Broderick's opening monologue is just about perfect.

It's a short list.

[psmith2.0]

I wound up watching Unforgiven and Tombstone again yesterday. The Godfather and Goodfellas, respectively, of Westerns.

Both great movies, with the former more quiet, serious and slow-building while the latter is a total thrill-ride...action, gunplay, humor, quotable lines for days. Val Kilmer is the Joe Pesci of this movie. He isn’t the lead but he’s the character you most look forward to seeing/hearing throughout, and he steals every scene he’s in.

[Frank777]

I think someone told Ray Fisher that it was a really good time to speak out against the President, and he misunderstood the comment.

[psmith2.0]

I'm watching Justice League on TNT right now. I know I won't hang with it, but holy smokes this is so bad.

I can't believe this got greenlit. I can't believe somebody wrote this.

And the effects/visuals are like an early 2000's video game, those initial attempts at photorealism and all.

I'm 35 minutes in and I still don't know what's going on. And I've seen it before.

That's when you know a movie is bad...you're just as lost on your second viewing as the first. That's not normal.

Rough stuff.

[Frank777]

When you start wishing it included Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern, you know there's a problem.

[psmith2.0]

It could’ve only helped.

That CG on Henry Cavill’s face (digitally erasing his Mission: Impossible - Fallout mustache) was Birdemic-level work. But you can forgive Birdemic because it had a $42 budget and nobody involved knew what they were doing.

A major DC/WB project shouldn’t have that problem. This movie sucked - writing, acting, visuals, plot, sound*, etc. - in a way few ever have, for the talent, budget and resources involved. And for what it represented (the big-screen, live-action team-up of DC’s top characters).

This should have been a major, Avengers-level blockbuster.

Only Gal Gadot/Wonder Woman escaped unscathed, and then she goes and has a baffling, less-than sequel several years later. I bet you there won't be a third one of those either.

I just think these kinds of movies are played out and simply aren't the novel draw they once were, and the companies involved are just slow to get the memo.




*Seriously, there are entire patches of dialogue I can't even understand because of the sound/mix...pretty much everything Steppenwolf said, half of anything Affleck said while in Batman mode, Cyborg was muffled somehow and there were parts where the background noise (vehicles, explosions, etc.) were as loud as the foreground dialogue. And this is a movie where you have hear what's being said or talked about to even stand a chance of knowing what's going on!

This makes viewing #2 for me, and there will not be a third. I someone wonder if my initial assessment of a movie may be skewed or inaccurate, so I often feel like I need to give some movies an honest second shot, months/years later, just to see if maybe the theater experience factored in negatively, or my mood/outlook somehow colored the initial viewing, etc.

Nope, this legitimately sucks. There's no other explanation/cause. It's just a genuinely bad movie, and nothing's going to change that. There's no charm, cool sequences or reveals or "it's getting a lot of things right" aspect that will help it age well. It's just destined to be a expensive bad movie.

[Frank777]

No Green Lantern, but the Snyder Cut of Justice League has Martian Manhunter.

[turtle]

Lynda Carter deep faked over Gal.

Man, this tech has come a long way.

[Frank777]

How is it possible that random people on the net can do this, and people working for WB couldn't properly get a moustache off someone's face?

[psmith2.0]

I've been asking that for quite a while. Those scenes with Henry Cavill in Justice League are right up there with that Scorpion King sequence with The Rock in The Mummy Returns. And that was nearly 20 years ago!

More recently, that online example of the much better Mark Hamill/Luke Skywalker in the closing moments of the season finale of The Mandalorian...night and day difference! If all you saw was the episode, you'd think "hey, pretty good". But, seen side-by-side, there's just no contest. The deep fake on the right looks like Hamill/Luke. There's no odd, plastic-y "softness" or weirdness around the mouth when he speaks.

Disney/Lucasfilm did a so-so job but as soon as he spoke/mouth moved, things went a bit wobbly. Yet, some schmo on the Internet does a 10x better job with probably 1/1,000th the budget/resources?

I don't get it either. Why can't these studios do as good a job on these things? It certainly isn't a budget issue, and it can't even be a time-related matter either because the above guy had his video out within days of the episode airing. Disney/Lucasfilm had months to work on it, and probably multiple artists?

Maybe that's the problem? Too many cooks in the kitchen or something, with every little thing one of them doing compounding/expanding on the iffy-ness? Maybe just lock one guy in a room and say "make this look right, and don't come out until you do...you have nine weeks!". I don't know.

Yeah, it's very weird to see these major studios do such a less-than job on some of these things. If it were simply impossible, for anyone, to do (because the tech/ability just wasn't there and didn't exist), then yeah..."hey, that's good enough and does the job". But when you see what someone working on their own, for free, can pull off, it's pretty eye-opening. And sometimes even a bit embarrassing.

Henry Cavill looked like he'd been shot in the face with a pellet gun, or had a firework mishap, in Justice League. Don't tell me that's the absolute best work DC/WB is capable of. He looks like Bowzer from Sha Na Na, for crying out loud. (some of you younger pups here might have to Google that).

PS - Goodness gracious, Lynda Carter is so beautiful.

[turtle]

Seeing her spin in that video was such a flashback!

[psmith2.0]

The highlight of the show/episode.

Imagine if "team-building" and franchise/universe movies were in place 40+ years ago...we'd have that on-screen team-up with Christopher Reeve, Lynda Carter and...Adam West.

In a weird, twisted way, there's part of me that would've loved to have seen that. Kinda makes me wonder if someone, back in the day, tried to put that together? At least floated the idea to the higher-ups? Reeve and Carter would've made a devastatingly attractive lead couple. And West would've been...well, Adam West.

[kscherer]

Well, the only input I have is that Linda Carter is [was] a much better looking woman than Gal Gadot.

[Bryson]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Henry Cavill looked like he'd been shot in the face with a pellet gun, or had a firework mishap, in Justice League. Don't tell me that's the absolute best work DC/WB is capable of. He looks like Bowzer from Sha Na Na, for crying out loud. (some of you younger pups here might have to Google that).

He looks like he's just had his wisdom teeth out and then was subsequently stung by a bee on the inside of his cheek.

[psmith2.0]

It's odd how you can see the fuzziness of the "brush"(?) used to do the work. It's all blurry and weird/soft. It's so bad.

[psmith2.0]

Am I alone in my love for The Rocketeer?

I saw it, again, over the weekend and it’s still one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s just pure joy and fun! 10 years after Raiders of the Lost Ark[ it’s the movie that made me realize how much I loved that 20’s/30’s/40’s period setting in others like it that followed over the years (The Phantom, The Shadow, The Mummy, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Captain America: The First Avenger, etc.), as well as sending me back to discover those wonderful Max Fleischer Superman cartoons!

In short, load up a movie with fedoras, Tommy guns, ray guns, mad scientists, mustache-twirling villains (Nazis for extra points), beautiful saucy dames, robots, blimps and old propeller-based airplanes, cool cars, fist fights, old radios, coppers, exotic locales, Art Deco styling, club scenes with a big band, etc. and I’m in. I’m a sucker for all that stuff and I’ll watch even a shitty movie set in that period.

All this to say 2021 is the 30th anniversary of this movie’s release and I can’t believe nothing more has been done with the property in all this time!

Hollywood will do remakes/reboots/re-imaginings/sequels/prequels of the lamest, most played-out and undeserving nonsense over the course of decades, but they never saw fit to revisit a truly charming, fun property and try to make something of it.

So odd.

Reading the movie’s Wikipedia entry, I see where an animated sequel of sorts (Cliff Secord’s granddaughter) aired on Disney Jr. a few years ago. She has a jet pack, but looking at the pics, it doesn’t appear to be the same, and she has a different helmet and it’s obviously set in modern day. Looks to be as loose-as-possible, sequel-in-name-only aimed squarely at the 10-and-under market. But apparently a live-action sequel set 5-6 years after the events of the movie is in the works and will be shown on Disney+.

So that caught my attention!

Another reason to watch that service, on top of all their upcoming Star Wars stuff. Can’t believe it’s taken this long.

Anyway, seeing this movie again always fills me with the happy. It’s one of those movies - like Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark (noticing a connection here?), American Graffiti, The Empire Strikes Back and Goodfellas - that I love every frame, every moment. And if I stumble across it while flipping through the channels, I have to set everything aside and watch. Again.

Speaking of Raiders..., 2021 is the 40th(!) anniversary of that classic. I’m hoping we see some news/celebrations related to that. If this COVID stuff ever got dealt with and things edged a bit more toward “normal” at some point, I’d love to see some sort of special, limited theatrical re-release. Fingers crossed on that!