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Justice League trailer chat-back

#1

Okay, here’s an interesting fact. Both this and the Wonder Woman trailer were released same day and both have clocked up near identical 11.5 million views on Youtube already, which is spectacular. Compare to Doctor Strange’s also good 6 million views for some perspective on how big this is. But isn’t it interested that a solo character who has never had a movie like Wonder Woman is up there with a trailer featuring Batman and the entire DC kitchen sink?

I made a joke years ago that going straight into a JLA movie is the fastest way a studio could lose 250 million and I was kidding, but just a little. This movie is now edging closer to 500 million in terms of costs which means you need to be comfortably over the billion to break even, much moreso when you look at real costs and the fact that you get only one dollar in four raised back from China, for example.

Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are my three favourite characters. I want this to be great like I wanted BVS to be great, even though from the moment I saw those head-to-head boxing posters I really knew it wouldn’t be. Likewise, I wanted Man of Steel to be great and it really sadly wasn’t. I feel that same Cassandra thing going on here only more than ever. Aquaman as Wolverine is interesting, but it’s not Aquaman and the JLA isn’t the X-Men. JLA is the League of Nations, the grown-ups getting together, and having them rage against each other feels off because it’s Marvelising a DC concept. It’s just a misunderstanding of why it works as much as Superman being a bad-ass or Batman burning his symbol into criminals’ skin. The Flash for some reason is being played like Eisenberg’s completely off and irritating portrayal of Luthor when nothing about the character suggests he’s massively socially awkward. Is it because he’s playing another scientist? Why does he have a bat-cave?

Anyway, the previous two movies doesn’t give me confidence and everything from the off-tone to the soft rock soundtrack to Affleck’s scruffy Batman has me worried about this one. I hope I’m wrong. I love these guys so fingers crossed it’s great and I’m beautifully surprised:

#2

i really liked the trailer…but the bit that i didn’t like was Batman making jokes.
just doesn’t sit right with me.
Especially after BvS…Bruce is so dark a brooding…and drunk…yet makes jokes!
:unamused:

#3

I think this is spot-on. I have not been a fan of the Snyder DC films so far, so in theory I applaud them lightening things up and trying to have fun with it. But it does feel like after the relative disappointment of BvS the studio has decided that injecting a Marvel tone into the Snyderverse is the way forward, which if nothing else will be jarring. But they also seem to have taken archetypes – the rough-looking anti-hero, the nerdy young one – and imposed them on DC characters, rather than portray the characters we know from the comics; which, ironically, is pretty much how Marvel went about building their movie universe.

#4

I thought the trailer was awesome. I mean, we got a trailer for a Justice League movie. The long wait is over. I’m just happy we get to see Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg in the same movie. :smile:

#5

Although Im completely conscious of the diversity issue, I kind of wish this was the original 7 - with Martian Manhunter replacing Cyborg. Cyborg still feels pretty “token black guy” to me – I hope they can make the character work.

#6

Sorry, I don’t mean Marvelising in the sense of going lighter. I think their darkness is why they’re losing money and it’s especially ill-fitting of the DC characters, which should primarily be aimed at a younger audience. I mean Marvelising in the sense that they feel teenage. The DC characters are grown-ups who work together and have a vibe that feels like a head of state. Batman is a confidence East Coast old money guy who thinks he’s the smartest man in every room he walks into. Wonder Woman is royalty. Superman is the most powerful being in this solar system, etc. These are people very at ease with themselves and the threats are interesting, what makes them have to come together.

The Marvel formula of these guys bickering and so on gels well with a more teenage audience and feels at the root of the characters, but a complete misunderstanding of the DC characters and what makes them work. Hulk meets Thing and fights him. Superman meets Batman and they put their heads together to solve an impossible problem. The Aquaman thing I think is most off, but Flash doesn’t work either. This feels like a Marvel movie from 2010/2011, but with characters who just don’t gel together. Yes, it might be interesting, but it’s also going to feel wrong and like Man of Steel and BVS are interesting they’re making half as much money as the Marvel movies because audiences feel they’re wrong.

MM

#7

I think they can make Cyborg work although it would’ve been awesome to see him with the titans along with Nightwing, Kid Flash, and the rest of the group. I also wished Martian Manhunter was part of this group. It would be like the Justice League animated series which I watched when I was younger. I’m hopeful that we get Martian Manhunter down the line. GL will also join the group probably in the next JL movie where they will most likely face Darkseid.

#8

Supposedly a solo GL movie is still on DC’s slate for 2020, the year after the second Justice League film is due to come out.

It wouldn’t surprise me to have the character appear in the second JL film before being spun off into his own movie, given that that’s essentially how DC have been building their universe.

(It’s kind of the reverse of Marvel’s early model of introducing characters individually in their own solo films before bringing them into group movies - although Black Panther shows a bit of a shift in that approach.)

#9

Agreed. I think it pretty neat to see them working together in the Justice League and then showing what it’s like in their individual worlds. I think we get to see that first hand with Wonder Woman. In BvS, we see her join the fight with Bats and Supes and then we get to see her world in her first movie. I’m liking that approach just because it’s different from the approach Marvel took.

#10

While I agree that the “nerd pad” is a bit much for Barry Allen…the performance was spot on.
Barry is a bit of a dork and Ezra Miller did a great job of getting that across without seeming cliche or going too ham like they can.

#11

Yeah, that’s actually been their planned approach since “JL: Mortal” was in the mix.

#12

I’m probably not going to say much about this movie again until after it is released and I go and see it, which I will regardless of the initial reviews, as I don’t feel overly positive about it and from experience with Man of Steel and BvS, which I felt both had their moments, fans of these movies don’t take to kindly to any sort of criticism of them and they get pretty personal about it.

I switched the trailer off with about 30 seconds to go. I’ve no real inclination to watch it again. Im genuinely not that bothered whether this JL movie were be released or not. I’m not bothered if they never make a JL movie, or a Wonder Woman movie either. The chances of either of them not being a noisy, overlong bore is pretty slim. That’s my opinion. I kinda feel the same about the first 2 Avengers movies (and I love Joss Whedon - although he did get a lot right, they just really outstayed their welcome) so it’s not limited to what DC have done.

I switched it off because it wasn’t a trailer for a Justice League movie. It was a trailer for a movie with some narky teenager type and some guy out of Game of Thrones playing some character that I don’t recognise. Not the Flash or Aquaman.
The dialogue wasn’t particularly interesting. The thing that they’ve got right so far; Affleck as Wayne/Batman wasn’t in this trailer either.
I find it impossible to get excited about a movie that represents nothing to do with the Justice League other than the names of the characters at this stage.

I’m a massive DC fan. I’m loving what they are doing with Rebirth. I’m not that hard to impress, I think I’m positive about most stuff. I wasn’t even bothered about the version of the DC characters portrayed in BvS; I can handle an Elseworlds take on the characters, it’s the execution, and lack of restraint or cohesion that’s plagued Snyder’s 2 previous efforts. And fuckin ridiculous running times.

I want these movies to be good, I hope they are, I will go see them from some misguided feeling of duty. But the trailer did nothing for me whatsoever.

Roll on Affleck’s Batman movie. At least there’s some tried and tested talent involved in the script and directing seat there.

#13

Does anyone else feel that WB/DC missed a trick by getting Bruce Timm/Paul Dini to consult on how to build their universe of movies?

I’m not going to slag off a movie which hasn’t even been released yet, but I haven’t been hugely impressed by what the studio has done so far with these characters following Man of Steel.

#14

There’s a part of me that wonders if the film-makers had to write the JL this way.

There isn’t really too many films in history about the beyond-human grandeur of a person that’s hit big: the only two I can think of are Lawrence of Arabia and Ghandi. Normally it’s about finding that fatal flaw: like Citizen Kane and The Godfather.

With the exception of Cap, all of the Marvel characters are built upon one fatal flaw: Tony’s arrogant, Thor’s ignorant, Spideys nervous etc (also, notably Cap’s films aren’t really ever about just him).

The narrative of DC’s character is the opposite: the perfect woman, the self-made man, the ultimate being, the fastest man alive, an indomitable will etc. I think DC have tried to stay true to the characters on two recent occasions: we had the Statesmen superman in Returns and the self-made Bruce in Begins, but the subsequent films which broke the characters apart always did much better.

Maybe DC are taking a page out of the Marvel book because they HAVE to - they haven’t found a writer or actor good enough to make the heroes perfect AND interesting, so they have to make them flawed.

pinned globally #15
#16

What made Marvel different from DC historically is the flawed hero. That’s the main thing Stan added to the mix. Shoe-horning flaw into the DC heroes therefore feels forced and retrogressive. They can have their fallibilities like Batman’s arrogance, Superman’s kindness used against him, etc, but forcing flaws onto their personalities feels off and not a good basis for a movie. Especially an ensemble piece. This should be so simple just as Batman should never have been versus Superman. People waited forever to see them team up and fight the best menace ever, not each other. The fight each other in maybe movie 5. Imagine Iron Man 1 had been about him fighting Captain America.

You need to construct before you deconstruct, which is the problem with the DC movies. They’re being written for people who are fans of the present day comics as opposed to the general mainstream audience. Superman, etc, all coming together should be exciting.

MM

#17

[quote=“Mark_Millar, post:16, topic:7452, full:true”]
You need to construct before you deconstruct, which is the problem with the DC movies.[/quote]
I think this is a great point. It feels as though WB are taking their cues from the (popular) comics material that subverted these characters (DKR, Death of Superman etc.) without realising that these books played on decades of history, and wouldn’t have the resonance that they did without so much build-up.

I felt it was a similarly odd decision to start building their shared on-screen DCU from a point at which Batman’s career is behind him, he’s retired and well on the way to becoming the kind of character Miller wrote in DKR. It worked for that story but I’m not sure it’s a good foundation for the character as an ongoing player in the movie universe.

Marvel’s use of stories like Civil War is working because they’ve laid so much groundwork for them in previous movies, and everything feels like it carries the weight of all the character development so far. I wonder if DC’s hurry to reach the Avengers stage of their own movie universe will hurt them in the end.

#18

I’d have followed Dark Knight Rises with no mention of those movies. They were awesome, but I’d just let Batman sleep a couple of years. man of Steel would have been this glorious reinvention where he’s Earth’s first superhero and this leads into Wonder Woman then Flash and Aquaman movies all inside a couple of years. We hear about Batman in the background of the other movies and get a hint from behind Bruce Wayne at the back of Aquaman as he starts to gather a team. This would be Fassbender and we see him sitting here smiling as he gets them all together for a big threat that involves GL/ space/ The Guardians, rehabilitating the character like Avengers rehabilitated Hulk. GL is the most epic scoped character so it seems sensible the first JLA movie would be his scale.

This would have been my 2013-2016 movies with JLA out this summer, Suicide Squad out at Christmas for a bold departure and then straight into the sequels.

But sadly…

MM

#19

Saw the trailer, I like it for the most part but I’m going to be cautiously optimistic for this.
Seem’s like they’ll use Flash as the awkward scientist type for comedy relief, Cyborg look’s great and I guess they really are going for the badass interpretation of Aquaman to hopefully change public opinion of his character.

Just gonna sit back and hope for the best.

I recently seen the BVS directors cut and that recently gave me more confidence for these films but they really need to change up the tone and not take things so seriously, I like them for the most part but I think tone is the big issue.

#20

As someone who thinks Man of Steel is a top-five superhero movie (we’re out there), I would have pivoted to the lighter side after that film with a standalone film. I don’t mean “jokes” but I mean a more Donner-like tone. A sense of awe, as the Man of Steel becomes Superman.

You establish Batfleck in his own movie, and you bring them together from there (not to fight).

I’m not really feeling this film from this trailer. The “Magnificent Seven” idea is decent, but I don’t get why they are giving away all of the money shots here. Aquaman works for me, Flash not so much. And I am so tired of Joss Whedon-influenced dialogue and comic beats, even from Whedon himself. It’s everywhere from Marvel to Star Wars to Pixar and at this point it feels really lame and washed-up to me. We don’t need Batman to be f—ng Mal from Firefly. But anyway.

I’m still excited for this movie.

EDIT: Looking back over this post, I did not intend to make a pun by calling Whedon dialogue “washed up.”