Comic Book and Superhero movie & TV discussion.

[Carbomb]

That's really awful. No-one should ever have to bury their child. Maybe he thought throwing himself into his work would be his way of getting through it.

Good to see Whedon on board, at least. I think he'll do a great job, given his writing for the Avengers franchise.

[CavemanLynn]

Trying to put aside the circumstances, it'll be interesting to see how Whedon's involvement affects the final film. Both Snyder and Whedon have such distinctive styles, I can't imagine how well they'll mesh.

[chokeout]

13 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said:

Trying to put aside the circumstances, it'll be interesting to see how Whedon's involvement affects the final film. Both Snyder and Whedon have such distinctive styles, I can't imagine how well they'll mesh.

Whedon has been the go to man for script re-writes for 20 years. They've been quick to point out there won't be a shift in tone with the stuff he's adding in but he's obviously been picked for a reason. Let's face it, if there's one thing the WB films need it's a bit more character and lighter dialogue. I'm not expecting miracles though.

[Carbomb]

Don't want to be uncharitable given what Snyder's gone through, but to be absolutely frank it's good he's out and Whedon's in. Every DC film so far that Snyder's been on has been abject. If any other director had had a run like he's had, he'd have been ditched by now.

Whedon's involvement now actually has me very interested.

[Chest Rockwell]

I can't imagine he's got an unlimited budget and time for reshoots. He'll largely just be working with what he's given right, not rebuilding the thing from scratch?

[chokeout]

Oh yeah, it's not suddenly going to stop being a Zack Snyder movie. At best it'll be the same film with a fresh pair of eyes on it, which will hopefully stop the bloat that his movies seem to have. It'll probably just end up like BvS with some one liners shoe horned in.

[ColinBollocks]

For the most part, early reviews for Wonder Woman are positive. Looks like DC finally may have made a good film in a while.

[Daaaaaad!]

Everything I've seen and read says 'good, not great', but to be honest after BvS and Suicide Squad I think that's okay. Glad to see such an important character have a successful debut solo movie as well, it's important for this to do well to get rid of the stupid Hollywood thinking that female superhero films won't sell.

[WyattSheepMask]

I've still not got round to watching the Ultimate cut of BvsS so can't say how that compares, but it would have taken a special effort to have been as bad as as Suicide Squad. I was indifferent when I saw that in the cinema, but I gave it a second try the other night on Sky. Its fucking terrible

[Merzbow]

Suicide Squads nothing more than a collection of music videos, and not in the great way Moonwalker did it. And yes, Moonwalker is ace and I'll fight you all.

The trailers for Wonder Woman have made it look pretty decent so far, isn't a 79/100 metascore really high for a superhero movie too?

[Carbomb]

Suicide Squad was fucking dire. I mentioned some of these points ages ago, but here they are again with a little more (probably masturbatory) detail:

1. Harley Quinn had no reason to be there and no agency, when she could've been the lynchpin of the team. As it is, in story terms, what she brought to the table was that she was hot, insane and liked fighting with a baseball bat or sledgehammer (which, of course, eminently qualifies her for membership of a team put together to deal with super-normal threats).

Not saying I'm some amazing movie writer, but I would've positioned her as eventually emerging as the team strategist/tactician. The arc would be simple: Rick Flagg is the team leader because of his abilities as a conventional soldier, but as the movie progresses, it becomes increasingly evident that the bizarre nature of what they have to deal with leaves him completely unprepared.

During a disastrous first outing, which sees them lose one or two people because Flagg makes the wrong call, Harley reluctantly steps up because their survival depends on it, and her unique perspective enables them to survive. Following this, she's designated team leader; she hates this because she just wants to do criminal stuff side-by-side with the Joker. Cue conflict and confusion on her part, because her self-preservation instincts are gradually joined by a grudging respect and camaraderie with her team-mates, which further complicates the Joker relationship.

Either way, she needs a reason to be there.

2. The Joker should never, in any movie he's in, be:

a. the least funny character

b. the least menacing character

c. the least relevant character to the plot.

You could've taken him entirely out of the movie and it would've made little difference at all. He just came across as a slightly unhinged gangster with a bit of a quirk, and he should've been an all-out psychopath who will even act against his own interests on occasion just for the hell of it, because he found it funny.

Personally, I'd have had him in the "shadows", maybe just showing him in profile or his mouth speaking when he calls her. SS wasn't supposed to be about him anyway, so just have it be a teaser for a movie he will be in. They gave far too much away, and what they gave away was shit.

3. Will Smith's Deadshot just isn't enough of a villain. I love Will Smith, but the "good guy who's actually good really because he has to do bad shit for his little daughter's future" is not only cliché, it's just not Deadshot, who is one of the most interesting characters in DC in himself - he's a homicidal psycho who's barely holding on to not killing people. In this regard, it would've made him perfect as the "commander" figure, who perfectly teams up with Harley because they can relate to each other and thus understand each other's methods. They could even be written as Harley being the overall mission strategist, and Deadshot being the tactician who deals with the tactics on the ground. There's an arc in seeing how Deadshot and Harley develop a relationship as team-mates and how it affects their motivations as the film goes on.

I'd be interested to see if Smith can play a real psychotic character, rather than just a flawed hero. I think he's a good enough actor to do it, but who knows?

4. Do more with Slipknot before you kill him off. It's Booking 101 - give people a reason to give a shit about the character before you do things to them, or they're not going to care. If there's some investment in the character, it makes Waller seem even more monstrous for killing him so coldly. Have him be one of the guys who gets killed following the first mission: even though he follows Quinn's orders and helps the team survive, Waller kills him because he disobeyed Flagg's orders (this can also help with Flagg's arc, that he feels responsible for the team and thus it starts playing on his mind).

5. Killer Croc and El Diablo were horribly stereotyped. Give them a bit more to their characters than their ethnicities.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Carbomb

[WyattSheepMask]

The way Slipknot got jobbed out immediately was the best part of the film. Absolutely pissed myself, what a fucking loser.

Agree with your point about Joker too. Allude to him, but the build to him appearing, either at the absolute end of the film or another film entirely, should have been the payoff. Instead we got Jared Leto and his 'method acting' doing a poor knockoff of Leger's Joker. Oh, what's that Leto? You didn't watch Ledger's performance so that you wouldn't accidentally draw from it? Course you didn't mate. And you tried out different maniacal laughs on the public in New Orleans to seewhat got the best reaction, and yet in the age of the camera phone & social media there's no evidence of this? Course you did mate, now fuck off

Edited May 30, 2017 by WyattSheepMask

[CavemanLynn]

You could have had a whole sequence at the end, where Deadshot turns on everyone and goes on a mega geometric bullet blasting rampage, killing all the enemy, but then going psycho and strafing through the whole Squad, only to show it being in his mind and that he's fighting his nature for the good of the team. Will does good psychological crumble (see THAT death in I Am Legend).

And make Scott Eastwood SOMEONE, for God's sake.

Re: WW, the reviews have been quite amusing. It's great that DC have finally pulled one out of the bag (and yes, I'm attributing that to the lack of fetishistic man child at the helm), but I love how the tone of so many reviews is "oh thank fuck for that!"

[Lorne Malvo]

I've been watching the X-Men movies again before I get around to finally watching Logan. Is there any film franchise with a timeline/chronology as completely fucked as this one? Massive contradictions between ages and dates of events from film to film. Charles being in a wheelchair in the 60s then walking around in the 80s, Cyclops not recognising Wolverine in the first film despite being rescued by him in Origins: Wolverine, there's loads of examples.

I mean, I don't always expect 100% logic in my comic-book films but it just seems the filmmakers have no respect for continuity.  

[Carbomb]

In fairness, Wolverine: Origins was complete and utter toilet. So many plot holes it was difficult to know where to start. The main one that bugged me was Stryker had adamantium bullets, yet sent out Agent Zero, the guy with supreme gun accuracy as his super-power, with regular bullets. "Zero had no chance". Quelle fucking surprise, dipshit.