The DC Extended (movie) Universe

[Nurse Katie]

I figured now was a good a time as any to start an official thread regarding DC's ambitious and so far underwhelming movie universe, especially given the recent news that the upcoming Justice League will actually be one movie despite all advertisements and PR said it would be two. But more on that later. For now, consider this the official thread for all things related to the DCEU.

So I think it's safe to say that DC's plans for a cinematic universe to rival that of Marvel's is off to a rocky start, and that's being generous. Man of Steel was a critical hit in grossing over six hundred million dollars, which for the start of a new franchise is none too shabby. The film itself was...okay. Not good, not bad, just...okay. Both fans and critics alike were split down the middle, some loving it, some loathing, and some just kind of 'eh' about it. It had good things going for it. Henry Cavil is not Christopher Reeve and nobody ever will be, but he's nonetheless a great choice for Superman. He's tall, handsome, charming, and has the acting chops to pull it off. The movie had some impressive visuals and a solid cast and idea, but was also needlessly dark and the narrative was all over the place. The one thing everyone seems to agree on with this movie is that Superman himself was way too dour and morose, and that people were looking forward to a kinder, gentler Superman now that the movie got the "Superman finds himself" story out of the way.

And then Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice happened, which I can only describe as both a toxic medical-waste dumpster fire of a movie and a massive Dear John letter to DC's most iconic characters and everything they represent, especially Superman who has the sourpuss-mode from Man of Steel cranked to fucking 11. The movie was eviscerated, deboned, and passed through a meat grinder by critics, fans were more divided than ever, and despite a strong opening it witnessed one of the biggest box-office next-weekend drops in movie history. Warner Bros, to the surprise of no one, has been on non-stop damage ever since, swearing up and down that their following movies will be more fun, more focused, and hyping the shit out of the BvS ultimate edition swearing up and down that it will answer the questions audiences had.

To some, that sounds like a relief. I myself have been adamant that if DC wants to tell darker stories then fine, but they also have to be good and that making everybody act like Batman is not the answer. On one hand, it seems that they're taking those criticisms to heart, saying that they won't mirror Marvel's formula but also won't treat humor and levity like dirty words anymore. Sounds good on paper, until you hear about how they describe Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg as 'fun' characters, a scene between Batman and Flash that's eerily similar to the Tony Stark and Peter Parker scene in Civil War, and Wonder Woman smiling, smirking, and basically being a pretty face. On one hand, okay, Flash being the class clown is fine, I see Aquaman being this movies version of Marvel's Thor, but if there's one character in this movie besides Batman who should be moody and world-weary, it's fucking Cyborg. We're all know and love the jokey, larger-than-life powerhouse with a big appetite and a zest for living that was Cyborg from the Teen Titans cartoon, but you also have to remember that show was aimed largely at seven to 13 year olds. In the comics, at least before the New 52 fucked it up, was pretty god damned tragic.

History Lesson!

Victor Stone was a child prodigy. He was a mechanical, mathematical, and engineering genius with an IQ roughly measured at 170, got straight A's in classes and subjects well beyond his age group, was loved and adored by students and teachers alike, could charm the pants off a heartless ice queen, and was not only an Olympian-level athlete but was also very handsome and had a body that looked like it was chiseled from a marble statue. Despite all the attention at school, the people he actually wanted attention from didn't give it to him; his parents. While his parents loved him, they were rarely there for him. His father Silas was a humorless, condescending, stick-up-his-ass stiff who didn't approve of his son's interest and pursuit in sports and physical activity while his mother Maude was an eccentric workaholic so wrapped up in her experiments that she'd often forget how old her son was. Suffice to say, his home life wasn't the greatest.

One day tragedy struck. While visited his parents one day at work and getting into an argument with his dad, a portal to an alternate dimension was opened up and a monster born from Silas' guilt and regret from never being there for his son when it mattered...comic books are weird...emerged from the portal killing Maude and injuring Victor to the point that even if modern medical science could somehow save him he'd be dead before the ambulance even got there. In a desperate attempt to save his son, Silas removed all damaged body-parts and replaced them with cybernetic components. The experiment was a resounding success and thus 'Cyborg' was born. Victor...didn't take it well, lashing out against his father for turning him into one of his science experiments. Up until joining the Titans, it didn't get any sunnier. His friends, his girlfriend, and the entirety of his school and neighborhood ostracized him, looking at him as less of a man and more of a monster, forcing him to drop out of school entirely. Because he was declared legally dead during the experiment there was no way he could get a decent job, have a bank account, or even legally drive despite having a license. The only way he could make some semblance of a living was by working two shit jobs that paid cash while living in an apartment so dingy and derelict that calling it a rat hole would be insulting to actual rat holes. He lived like that for an unspecified amount of time (I think two or three years was implied) before Raven found him and he was brought in to the Teen Titans, a group of misfits and outcasts just like him with a snazzy new tower built by his father as a way of saying sorry for not being there when it mattered.

History Lesson Over!

So, yeah. Does that sound remotely like somebody who would crack jokes and one-liners? We all know that his time with the Titans made him lighten up and accept his robotic half, but in this particular iteration of DC the Titans don't exist so that character development is pretty moot unless they seriously expect us to believe it happened offscreen. So given all that, it screams that DC isn't taking the criticism to heart so much as they're just going the other end of the extreme.

Honestly though? That's not even the biggest hurdle the Justice League movie has to clear. For one, Aquaman. Let's forget for a moment that the majority of pop-culture and casual movie-goers alike think Aquaman sucks, but he's also being played by Jason Mamoa. Now I know we all love Jason because of Game of Thrones and because judging from various cons and interviews he seems like a really cool, mellow dude, but guys, let's face facts. He's a shitty actor. Look at anything he's in where he speaks English and try not to cringe. He's like the anti-Arnold. Same muscular frame, same booming voice adorned with thick accent, hell, they even have the same chin. And they both played Conan! The difference is that while Arnold is charismatic and has a larger-than-life charm and personality, Jason...doesn't. He's only good at playing cavemen. Maybe he'll prove me wrong and Aquaman will be his big breakout role, but I'm not holding my breath.

And that's to say nothing of how sidelined Superman will be in the movie based on the team he helped create. We all knew he'd come back from death because the movie was Justice League and there are three characters who absolutely HAVE to be in a Justice League movie and Superman is one of them. Back when Justice League was going to be two movies there was at least some glimmer of hope that he'd return at either the halfway or end of part one and be the hero and icon of hope he's supposed to be in part two, but the movie just being one shot that right out of the sky. So, great. Instead of getting the character development he desperately needs he'll just show up during the final battle, the movie will hammer in MORE Jesus symbolism, and he'll swoop in to save the day just in time for the credits to roll and then whether or not we'll see another solo-Superman movie is still up in the air.

The thing is though, even if the rumored movie "Man of Tomorrow" was a sure thing, thanks to the events of 'Batman v Superman' any future director, writer, and producer of a potential solo-Superman movie haven't been written into a corner so much as written into a narrow five mile hole in the ground and buried in it. Jimmy Olsen, Superman's best friend and staple of the Superman lore and mythos since the fucking 40's? Dead, killed in an unnamed cameo early in the movie. Mercy Graves, Lex Luthor's right hand woman and staple of the Superman franchise? Dead, blown to pieces in the capital building. Lex Luthor himself, a terminally obnoxious twitchy man-child. Doomsday, Nuclear Man 2.0, and absolutely no sign of Power Girl, the Fortress of Solitude, Steel, Super Girl, any villain that isn't Luthor or Zod, or anything else in Superman's pantheon. Let's see, did I miss anything? Oh yeah. The Daily Planet featured Clark Kent's obituary saying he was killed outright in the Doomsday fight AND Smallville had an open-casket funeral for him! In short, he can't go back to being Clark Kent, which is a STUPID idea! Had it been a closed casket funeral or if they even just held a wake saying "we never found the body" then they could have at least made up some story about how Clark got knocked out in the ensuing chaos, was washed downriver, and spent the time between sequels lost in the woods or something, but because Batman v Superman went out of its' way to put Clark Kent in the ground (figuratively and literally) he'll pretty much have spend the entirety of any future movie he's in as Superman. And that sucks.

*sigh*

At any rate. Regardless of what happened with Batman v Superman, we're getting more DC movies in that canon whether we want them or not. I gave my piece, so how about you guys? What did you think of the movies presented thus far, and do you think there's still hope for DC's plan or is it a lost cause?

[thatguywiththefaceOG]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I have no idea why WB response to the diverse response to Man of Steel was to give Synder and Goyer free rain to pretty much double down on the worst aspects of their style.

[Nurse Katie]

I saw Suicide Squad today.

Wow…...that was bad.

No, not 26% on RottenTomatoes bad, but make no mistake. Suicide Squad is a terrible movie. It’s ugly, annoying, wrong-headed, obnoxious, and tries way too damn hard to be edgy. The dialogue is laughable, the story is stupid, the characters are more 2D than the cardboard cutouts of them on display at the theater, the editing dreadful, the pacing is so fast that it feels like the world’s longest trailer, the tone is a big hot mess, and as a whole it feels less like a movie and more like an elaborate practical joke.

It’s awful. Suicide Squad is absolutely astoundingly atrociously awful, and you should see it as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Seriously! No, I’m not fucking around or being the slightest bit sarcastic, you have to see this movie! You owe it to yourself to go see this movie and drink in the spectacle of this shitshow, because you couldn’t TRY to make a movie this bafflingly bad. Holy shit, where do I even begin to describe it?

For one, the movie is dark. I don’t mean dark as in tone, I’ll talk more about that in a bit, but dark as in it looks like the majority of this movie was shot with the lights off while somebody was holding Lex Luthor’s jar of piss from Batman v Superman in front of the camera the whole time. Even scenes shot in the daylight and one where half the environment is on fire, it’s a genuine chore to make out what’s even happening. And God help you if you see this in 3D. The set and costume design look so fake that even Batman Forever would roll its’ eyes, everything from the costumes to the environment looking more plastic than an aging supermodel’s breast implants. Margot Robbie stated several times that the costume for Harley Quinn made her uncomfortable, and like everyone else I thought she meant that she didn’t like the idea of showing that much skin and her babydoll-T getting wet in front of a bunch of strangers let alone for the whole world to see. Now I think she meant uncomfortable in a much more literal sense, because holy shit! Her booty-shorts are so God-damned tight it looks like somebody either painted her ass red and black or gave her a wedgie before the camera started rolling. Poor woman’s butt-crack must have been chafed for a week after the movie wrapped.

The dialogue is stilted, both it and the story feeling like nothing was proof-read before they began shooting. Characters have their backstories and personalities explained multiple times, and things both the audience and the characters already know are treated as massive revelations. Hell, the only reason Enchantress has to be stopped is because she went crazy, and she only went crazy because the Suicide Squad was formed in the first place. Yeah, I’m not kidding! Suicide Squad’s mission is to stop a villain who is only a threat because of Suicide Squad, and nobody brings this up.

Characters speak almost entirely in quips and one-liners, and because this was produced by Zack Snyder there’s no shortage of pretentious claptrap and pseudo-philosophical gobbledeygook about the villain, the reason for the Suicide Squad in the first place, and that’s to say nothing of the feeble attempts at humor. Half the jokes don’t land and the ones that do are immediately ruined with either a stupid follow-up or a pause for effect that may as well have puppet-versions of the characters pop up and scream “LAUGH WITH US! LAUGH WITH US!” for all its’ lack of subtlety. This isn’t tonal dissonance as it is a tonal dimensional rift, one minute a woman being beaten half to death and the next making a crack about how .

Jared Leto’s Joker is the best part of the movie, but only in the sense that Jeremy Irons was the best part of Dungeons & Dragons. For starters, despite the fact that he has second billing, appears in almost all of the trailers, posters, TV spots, and promotional material and all those stories about how he was weirding everybody out on set, he’s only in the movie for maybe 8 to 12 minutes! He shows up, barely does anything, and then leaves. And his performance isn’t just bad; it’s embarrassing! The kind of acting that ends careers and dooms actors to the world of direct-to-DVD movie making. He has no charisma or wicked charm, he isn’t funny, he isn’t scary, no trait whatsoever that we associate with the Joker besides the make-up and green hair, and if Warner plans and making more movies with the Joker then they seriously need to recast this role ASAP.

Most of all, this movie absolutely stinks of corporate shilled, designed by committee, out of touch, chart following “Hey, this is what the kids are into these days, right?” cynicism. It’s the cinematic equivalent to a 47 year old dad buying a set of clothes at Hot Topic and saying ‘YOLO’ to impress his teenage son. An aging rock band that was big in the 70′s and 80′s trying to change up their game to appeal to 10 to 17 year olds in 2016. A gentrified neighborhood trying to show the kids how ‘cool’ and ‘gangsta’ they are by painting a mural of DMX right next to the Starbucks and Chipotle. It’s so astonishingly out of touch with the times that it wouldn’t shock me in the slightest if the entirety of the movie was written by a bunch of 50-something who think they know what young people are into these days because they visited Shadman.com and watched a few episodes of Ridiculousness.

Suicide Squad is the kind of bad movie where seeing how bad it actually is and speculating how it all went so terribly wrong is entertaining and endearing in and of itself. The kind of movie where the second you leave the theater you call your buddies, meet at your favorite pub, and you spend the rest of the evening laughing at how terrible it really was. And when it comes out on DVD you buy it and add it to you “So bad it’s good” collection and put it on you have a bottle of Jack and nothing else to do. If the return of Mystery Science Theater 3000 hasn’t finalized their episodes yet then they NEED to include this one because GOD DAMN is it a big hot mess. So by all means, see this movie! Grab your popcorn, sneak in a few beers and a couple of dimebags, check your brain and the door and enjoy the ride.

[No Pants]

Reading all that does not make my confidence in this movie any better...

[Lyger]

Well, I was wrong about Suicide Squad....

It's clear there was a good-to-decent movie there somewhere, but the studio's reaction to outside forces (critics response to Batman V Superman, the audiences love for Deadpool) made them panic and change the tone of the movie. Check out the first trailer and see the last: they're almost two different movies. This is what happens when you pander to the public: an absolute mess. Somehow Suicide Squad went from A-1 major motion picture to something that runs on a late-night movies-for-men channel. I don't have high hopes for Justice League for the same reason; it'll be a mishmash of what Snyder and the focus groups want.