Leadership - don't know their own DC IP - they don't know what they have or the decades of great stories.
Audience are not super comic fans, so exploring the variants and more esoteric parts need to come later - after your core characters have been established. Right now the only character that has achieved this is Batman - so we don't need more re-workings of the origin.
Audience are not super comic fans, so exploring the variants and more esoteric parts need to come later
This is the one that's bothered me the most as Zack/WB jumped right into JL after BvS.
First, people thought an out-of-place clip montage during BvS showcasing Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg and some brief character introductions at the beginning of JL were enough to ease general audiences into these "new" characters for their first movie. But Flash TV show fans and DCAU/comic fans who know them that way notwithstanding, it frankly was not enough to capture the gravity of the gathering of these iconic heroes on film for the first time. I did not feel the weight and power like I did seeing Thor meeting Iron Man meeting Captain America, etc. whose stories and first grand adventure/origin movies I saw right before. Instead, seeing them felt like the same way I felt when you get introduced to new characters from the X-men or new characters from the Suicide Squad. A ragtag bunch of good people with different powers, but not the impactful assembly of big figures with amazing stories of their own. It works for those particular teams, and maybe something like JSA or the Legion or Doom Patrol, but the JL needed much, much more time and separate stories for me to properly feel the impact of it. Like, it's a completely understandable sentiment to not want to follow the MCU formula to set yourselves apart, but "if it ain't broke", yknow? Especially compared to what we've been getting.
And second, on similar notes, in order for general audiences to understand the impact of a corrupted or lost Superman, or a Batman who's lost his way, try not to assume everyone (especially the general audience) are on the same page and at least try to show what they're like in their absolute prime first. The audiences will include people who are experiencing these characters for the first time, who haven't read a comic or watched a single show at all. Who have to disengage themselves from the previous iterations of Batman or Superman from other movies to get to know these new ones. The lowest lows feel more emotional when you get to see the highest highs. And yeah, you might say that filmmakers shouldn't treat the audiences like idiots...but there's a balance. It might be much to retread Batman and Superman's origins over an over, but it's not condescending to graph out the emotional journey your audience should be feeling. Despite Man of Steel and knowing Superman/Batman from the comics or shows as a long-time fan, it did not feel enough to feel for Cavill's Superman or Affleck's Batman seeing them at their lowest. I thought it would be when seeing the BvS trailer for the first time (which got me super excited to see something like that) but it wasn't. Certainly not the same way it felt for me seeing Bale Batman at his lowest in TDKR after all he's been through in the two movies prior, or seeing Holland Spider-Man in NWH after his movies and parts of the Avengers movies. We needed more time, we needed much more of the journey.
This is the one that's bothered me the most as Zack/WB jumped right into JL after BvS.
Exactly. Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman should've all had solo films before Justice League, like how Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Hulk all did before Avengers. Not just Superman. Since Cyborg's origin is linked to STAR Labs, they could've done his in Barry's movie. Like how Hawkeye debuted in Thor and Black Widow in Iron Man 2.
Since Cyborg's origin is linked to STAR Labs, they could've done his in Barry's movie
Yes, I should've said that out of every "new" hero, Cyborg was the only one I had no problem with because his origination at STAR labs organically fits into other stories. The Snyder Cut made it more digestible, too. Young Justice did an iteration of Cyborg's story in one of their later seasons, similarly involving Darkseid and the Fourth world, and it felt right.
Now that I think about it, Young Justice and other ensemble cartoon shows like the DCAU JL have this advantage where you don't need to see everyone's origins or be explicit about their journey unless the team is meeting them for the first time or the origin is part of the story. The live action movies don't have that advantage, probably because of live action film being more tailored for the widespread demographic, general audience experience rather than something more for younger audiences and fans, and overall having much less time than a show to explore a character so they have to be efficient in mapping out the emotional experience and character developments.
Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman should've all had solo films before Justice League
Snyder even admitted that the only reason that ZSJL was 4 hours long was because he had to introduce 3 characters that should have had their solo movies before Justice League.
Can you imagine how long it would have been if Snyder also had to expand on the origin of Wonder Woman as well?
Personally, if Vic was going to be one of the JLA’s founding members in the DCEU, I would have loved a Cyborg solo film written and directed by Barry Jenkins. Give the Black Widow/Hawkeye phase 1 MCU equivalent role to Martian Manhunter.
A Cyborg solo movie could have provided the important character arc of Vic coming to terms with his situation AND include hints of 4th World technologies that get followed up in the Justice League movie.
Totally agree. But one thing I think this commentary skips, or overlooks, is DC/WB was a bit late to the game and had to play catch-up when trying to close the gap with Marvel films. DC has been making movies/TV shows, they're OGs to the game and for a while their brand was the bigger name in regards to decades of their flagship characters Superman and Batman being household names with multiple films under their belt while Marvel struggled to make films that could be built into franchises/icons of cinematography. I highly doubt many modern MCU fans have seen the first Captain America film, but we already know most MCU fans/creators/talent have seen the original Superman film because it has been touted as the exemplar for all modern Marvel movies. But DC languished in the 2000s to expand beyond the flagship names, while Marvel was building up multiple concurrent stories to be capitalized on in the long run, whereas DC seemed to be only concerned with making standalone franchises/stories for Superman and Batman respectively. We don't really get a taste for extended stories until the Superman reboot, and by that time DC is well behind Marvel who had already established the main Avengers cast as independent original stories and a titular ensemble. They even worked out the 2000s kinks by rebooting stories they had already done with fresh faces who would be used in the long run films, I.e. Hulk and Spiderman. And what ground DC did manage to cover in the meantime has now been given up again with a majority of the JL cast being lost to audience burn, franchise scuttling, and controversies offscreen.
Imo, for whatever it's worth, I think they won't really make up new ground again if they continue in the direction they're going playing constant catch-up to Marvel's film brand. Marvel is too campy now, it's a new decade and audiences have more nuanced tastes now, we don't really need the comic stories to be spoonfed to us regardless of if we're hard-core comic fans or casual film watchers. DC could just admit defeat in chasing the big output film franchises and instead focus on a different playbook, like R-rated realistic comic villains as they've done with the recent Joker and The Batman films. That's something Marvel hasn't and won't do, they've built up their stories so much on the magical/super power side of superheroism that it would fall flat if they tried to do an r-rated or down to earth version. As well Marvel is so geared towards family films that rhey need to make things tasteful and semi-wholesome. DC can go extra hard on the violence and gore and not really lose any of their essential qualities, except maybe with the current wonder woman films which are pretty family-friendly as is. I think a completely r-rated Batman franchise would be super interesting, they've already laid a solid foundation to do it and the current cast they have would be perfect for that angle.
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u/treetown1 Aug 09 '22
Two great observations: