Movies

Whether it be DC or not, this thread will be a place were you and your fellow members can rate and discuss movies!

See any good movies lately? I don't watch a lot, but I think the last movie I saw was Bruce Almighty. I forgot how funny it was.

Last movie I watched was American Soldier. I really liked it

Saving Mr.Banks. If you haven't seen it. Go see it. Heartfelt and bitter sweet, it had me choking up at the most random moments.

I saw The Good Dinosaur yesterday. Had several problems with it. Main issue feeling like it was an excuse to show off their environment technology.

The film is beautiful, but lacks explanation. With a character that doesn't talk (Spot) it's hard to get anything out of him. The first act dragged on slower than an ant pushing a brick through the desert.

DID THE FORCE AWAKEN, OR DID IT AWAKEN!?!?!?

Star Wars was great! Not perfect by any means, but I'm glad it's not just a movie :D

A new DC animated movie was just announced, Justice League vs. Teen Titans.



http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/markcassidycbm/news/?a=130103

That picture almost doesn't look real! I was worried but I trust Liu and Burnett to make this a good one.

I feel like Rae and Star's designs are strongly taking after the ol' series, especially Rae. I guess they know their fanbase.

Surprised to see Damian and Blue Beetle rounding out the cast, and a little peeved at how young BB seems and how old Star seems. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

I'm unsure about it myself. The new DC movies have been hit or miss as of late.

You get an atrocity like Justice League War, but then they release Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox.

They puke out Son of Batman, but then Batman vs. Robin is actually entertaining.

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis is probably didn't have anyone with a working brain behind it, but Justice League: Gods and Monsters was breathtaking.

So which of the new DC Animated Films will be the one to actually have more effort involved? Batman Bad Blood? Or Justice League vs. Teen Titans?

Personally, Teen Titans seems a little crazy. They have a ton of characters involved, a lot of plot threads that will probably get tossed aside. Trigon is involved. Damian messes up a Justice League mission? The Justice League gets brainwashed?

Batman Bad Blood takes up the story where Nightwing takes up Batman's mantel after he goes missing. They took out a lot of details but it may be for the better. I like Dick as Batman and Damian as Robin working together. They have a good chemistry. So I'm not sure where this will go.

Holy crap Damian?? That little shit...

Yeah he's had three movies now.

EDIT: This will be his fourth. The problem with Damian is that when he's in the movie, he demands a certain amount of attention. So yeah, I'm not sure how it'll turn out.

I actually enjoyed Son of Batman! The entire film felt like more of a set up and introduction of Damian for future ventures, which is why Batman Vs. Robin was so successful. It was a necessary step to bring in audiences not familiar with his character before, and well executed for what it was.

I can totally see the issues with the story for Titans as of right now, but all we have is that one sentence summary. I have faith Burnett has something more up his sleeve. We'll see as more details are revealed.

If we're going by track record, Jay Oliva was the director for Under the Red Hood, another film about Robins stepping out of the Bat's shadow, and one of my personal favorites. There's no doubt in my mind Bad Blood is going to be an excellent film under his direction, but I don't think that means Titans will have to suffer as a result!

When it comes to wanting to introduce a character into a film universe to the audience, I feel that they could have done it in a better way. I feel the only reason I don't like the movie is because what they were trying to accomplish by telling it. They added Deathstroke into the mix to downplay Talia's negative traits, so that Bruce and Talia could be shown as more loving towards Damian. He pretty much took up her role from the comic to make her out of character and more of the victim rather than the antagonist.

There's nothing wrong with villains being villains. Deathstroke doesn't even care about the League of Assassins, he'll chew up anyone Ra's throws at him. If they had just kept to the comic's continuity it would have made for a better film, just like the other films based on comics, like Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Flashpoint Paradox actually made me cry. There was no effort involved in the story for Son of Batman. They could have just introduced Damian like they introduced Nightwing in Under the Redhood. Two thugs just talking about who Nightwing is to give the audience all they need to know.

I don't look at a tree and ask "Wow how did that tree get there? What's it's origin story?" I can make the leap automatically in my head that before it was a tree it was a smaller tree, and before that it was like a nut or something. No one needs to specifically point out that Cyborg is the tech-guy, Robin is the leader, and Starfire is the amazonian like alien. You can figure that out when Robin gives orders, Cyborg talks technojargon, and Starfire lifts a building and has glowing green eyes.

I just hope they're both good, but goodness, I've been burned before. Burned hard. Justice League War was actually a good comic. It wasn't really about what they had to do, but it was more of how everyone interacted with each other. It was their first time meeting, but damn in the movie, it was like everyone was just barely tolerating each other.

I feel that Jay has had several hits and misses himself. He directed Justice League War and Assault on Arkahm which I particularly didn't like. I liked bits in it, Assault on Arkham, but overall, I couldn't get into it. Otherwise I feel that his direction is for the most part spot on, he even directed a Batman v Superman scene. One correction though, Brandon Vietti did Under the Red Hood, the director of Superman: Doomsday.

(Oh my, that god long. Apologies.)

OOOOH BOY Am I embarrassed for mixing up Vietti and Oliva. My bad!

I can see what you're saying about Talia in Son of Batman but I also feel like that was an (unfortunate) part of the conversion to the screen. Taking another example, although this is different because it's a series: Cersei in Game of Thrones. In the books she is this awful, horrendous, spiteful woman and in the show, she retains most of those lovely traits but some of her actions are changed to make her more sympathetic. Like, and this is the least spoileriffic example I can think of, in the TV show she gives birth to one of Robert's, her drunken husband, children, but the boy dies as an infant. In the books she gets the baby aborted out of spite. It's easier to sympathize with her when the loss is out of her control instead of something she caused and easier to relate to her as an audience.

Talia wasn't meant to be the "villain" of Damian's story; she's his mom and had to be portrayed in a more positive light. Otherwise there would have been a weird dissonance between his maternal mother figure and the terrorist we all know and love. This was - correct me if I'm wrong! - Talia's first appearance in the DC Animated Films universe so they had room to reinvent her for the medium. This leaves space for future films with her to then address the conflict of character there. There wasn't time to develop the complexities of her character properly in that one film, so I wouldn't put it against them for setting it aside and letting someone else (Deathstroke) step in. Yeah, it's a cop out, but it's one that makes sense. The comic book it was based on was already part of a series and didn't have to worry quite so much about the set up. The film had to worry about new audiences and those unfamiliar to Talia. I watch most of these films with my dad, who is completely oblivious to the comics and most characters. He was so confused and distraught when, post-movie, I explained a little bit more about Tahlia and how she fits in the Batman universe. Had she been the big bad she is, he would have felt that discomfort with her throughout the film.

I think the case with Nightwing is a little different - he's been seen in other media way more than darling Damian had at that point. He's not super recognizable, but Dick Grayson and his many alter egos are the most familiar portrayals of Robin. They could just mention it in aside 'cause there was already enough information on him. Son of Batman was Damian's debut, and I think it would have been more confusing to casually mention "yeah Bats had a son" than it was to go through the whole explanation as they did. Especially since Batman is one of the most recognizable characters of DC Comics and in 99% of his on screen appearances he doesn't have a biological son.

I hope I'm making sense! Overall what it comes down to, in my opinion, is the film recognizing the audience and what they do and don't know. As someone who follows the comics it can become harder and harder to understand that distance in what you know versus the average consumer. And when it comes down to it, they're going to attempt to draw in as many viewers as possible, not just people who can follow along from prior knowledge.

As for Justice League: War, it was the first arc of the New 52 so prior reading goes out the window! That being said, they had to take those (Five? Six?) comic book issues, distill it into a little over an hour and still have it all come together and make sense. They had to get the plot out, forget developing character relationships beyond tolerance. Anything more personal would have felt too soon - "You met, like, ten minutes ago, and now you're best friends?"

I, personally, disliked War for the unnecessary shoving in of Shazam's character (Why???), but that's a whole other bag of beans. Overall found it to be a good film, solid 7.5/10 would watch again.

(Long response for a long response? Sorry!)

Ahahah it's alright. He's barely done any direct to DVD things, and he's more into the TV production than anything.

I understand what you mean by adapting things into a movie, I just felt they went about it the wrong way by abandoning essentially who she is. The reason she sent Damian to Bruce wasn't for his protection, I think there's a huge part of her that hates Damian, as he shows disdain for her. He barely sees her when he was with the League, and the only reason Talia brought him to Bruce was to distract Batman from his work so she could execute a grand scheme . I'm sure the average audience would understand "Talia is a bad guy" if DC allowed it. She's super distructive, and uses Damian for her own plot. So much so, that she even controlled his body at one point, and when he sides with Batman over her, she disowns him and puts a $500mil bounty on his head. People who aren't familiar with the comics could understand an antagonist if you set them up properly. Because trying to throw in sympathy for a murderous horrible woman just makes me shake my head. Stick to your guns, DC!

That's why I hate what DC is doing to Harley. I liked Harley the way she was. She was of independent thought, she chose to be evil, she chose to be with Joker, and she was crazy in her own way. Then 52 made her get a dunk in the same chemicals that Joker took a swim in and now she's siding with good guys, teaming up with Powergirl, and the Justice League. It's weird. There's nothing wrong with villains being villains. Captain Boomerang is probably the worst womanizing, drunk, cowardice trash there is, but he's an excellent character, and I love him. If they change him up to appeal to a general audience, of course I'm going to be upset with the end product.

Because they made her more of a maternal figure it would be out of character in the DCAU for her to put a bounty on her son's head, something she actually did. They did their set up the wrong way. I can understand cutting things or changing events for the sake of the story, but changing someone's core character is where I draw the line. Whenever Talia shows up, you're supposed to get this gut wrenching hate boil in your stomach. That's why you know she's poison to Bruce, she's poison to anyone she meets, and she's deadly because she's charming and you know she's just putting on an act, but how can you resist? You can't.

(Side-point: Jason Todd was beaten to death, then blown up, it was probably days since his death until he was taken to the Lazarus Pit, but when Ra's gets stabbed once and crawls to the edge of the Pit and all of a sudden it doesn't work? C'mon. Really?)

And I'm not saying thugs could say that, "Oh Bats has a biological son now?" I'm saying you could introduce Damian like this:

Nightwing visits the Batcave because he hears Bruce is having trouble on a case. No one is there, so he decides to poke around and wait for Bruce to come back. In swoops Damian, they fight for a bit since neither of them know who each other is. Bruce comes in and breaks up the fight to introduce Grayson and the audience to his son, Damian who isn't Robin yet.

That seems like a more effective way to go about it, you could keep it comic accurate, the audience is familiar with Nightwing, and you segway into Damian's arc without all this nonsense about Deathstroke wanting to be the leader of the League of Assassins. If Deathstroke the Terminator actually fought a 10 year old boy to the death, the boy isn't going to win. It doesn't matter how trained you are, his body has more limitations than a grown man with a super soldier serum.

The reason Damian works is because he's a kid, and he's a snot nosed brat who thinks he's the best at everything, and when you have him acting all serious and shit it's just not what 10 year old's do or talk like. Because there was such an abandonment of character in that movie, nothing seemed to work for me. To a general audience who doesn't know any better? I'm sure it was a great film, but you're cutting out the people who would actually pick up the movie. The comic book fans who care about the characters.

-

But wait hold on. Superman like instantly fell in love with Wonder Woman. Like he started hitting on her like nothing, and Steve Trevor was still around. What happened to Lois Lane? Like.. what? She doesn't exist? I kind of just wanted to see them interact with each other for an hour, but they didn't really do that. I understand compressing things for a movie, but it seemed like they added to it. The comics weren't very dialog heavy, but they said a lot without a wall of text. I mean look at this!



See how much character is in this one panel? Batman knows a lot of things. Green Lantern is a wise crack. Aquaman is serious. Flash is nervous because he's never seen so many heroes before. Wonder Woman is a warrior.

I understand why they threw in Billy, they wanted to use him like this character to introduce other characters. Like Will Smith in MIB or Ellen Page in Inception. They also had plans for the Throne of Atlantis movie, but honestly, they could have just used Cyborg for that since it was his first day as a hero. So you get this weird scene with two newbies running into the battle talking to each other and Shazam is like talking to Cyborg while they're both flying around and Cyborg is acting like he knows what's going on. Honestly, I would have preferred Aquaman over Shazam; they could have kept to the comics and introduced Shazam later. We don't need two guys to introduce everyone, you can already show that through dialog. Even then I don't need all this development, Cyborg and Aquaman can sort out their super best friend secret handshake off camera.

They worked together not because they're friends, but because they realized they couldn't do this alone. That's what made the story great. Their interaction with new people, their unwillingness to agree to work together, seeing how each one would react to every newcomer differently.

Eh, I don't think I have to watch it again. I probably will somewhere down the line, but if I want to know the story, the comics just did it so much better.

So I cringed when Damian claims he's a Titan.

Ahahaha, Merc, you've given me a lot to think about now when I watch films with all this.

But, personally, I'm just pleased to see the Titans making it to the big screen. Star's design didn't look quite as bad in action there, although she still radiates middle-age while Beast Boy is barely thirteen.

Lol yeah she totally looks older than she's supposed to. I'm glad we get to see more Titans that are actually serious rather than the lazy animated trash Cartoon Network is pumping out. I mean... the first episode was about what... sandwiches?

And yeah, sorry if I was going a bit overboard. I'm looking over my post now and thinking about all this pent up rant I've never been able to talk to about other than Erika XD

I've come to accept Teen Titans Go! for the parody that it is. I've seen episodes here and there and the writers seem very aware that they're not the show fans have been waiting for. It has its clever moments, especially when it pokes fun at the 2003 series or the source comic material.

And no worries! I was going overboard right with ya. I tried discussing it with my friends and they were confused at how passionate I was about my boys in colorful tights.