DC. Lol.

CGI in Aquaman looks fake as shit. Shazam looks ridiculous. Say what you want about Superman's grim/gritty costume, but it looks great. And Marvel has figured out how to do colorful stuff without it looking like a cartoon. No one complained about lack of color in Thor 3, but Thor still looked proper cool.

Zachary Levi looks like his head was CGI'd onto an inflatable dummy. Does anyone still hold out hope that DC will ever make a decent movie in the DCEU (again)? Man of Steel is on Netflix so I rewatched it recently and I have to say, it's actually better than I remembered. I declare it to be good. WW was okay. I remember rating BvS 6/10. I don't know what I was thinking. I must have been still drunk on that badass Bats fight scene. BvS is thoroughly mediocre otherwise. SS was godawful. JL was worse.

I have more confidence in Johnny Depp coming back to his Pirates days in CoG than DCEU digging itself out of the hole. We all still remember that badass Bohemian Rhapsody trailer for SS, yes?

 

It basically won’t happen if they keep trying to mimic Marvel.

They had a massive success in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which is ironically responsible for showing that comic book movies could be a success. The thing is, Dark Knight only loosely pulled from the comics. It was a Mystery/Thriller first, and an action movie second.

They also had a huge success in Wonder Woman. If that movie left out Ares and left out Dr. Poison (god knows WW1 didn’t need another crazy person releasing gas, and honestly, you could replace that entire plot line with “generic war mission”) the entire thing would have been spectacular. It would have been an action movie twist on the coming of age story with some serious commentary on human nature.

DC continually tries to make grimdark/gritty work with hammy comic book tropes which just looks like shit. When Marvel tried it, it goddamn flopped (Thor Dark World). If they want villains, they should reimagine their comic book villains into figures that are legitimately horrifying, like Heath Ledger’s Joker.

 

I really don't understand the DC cinematic universes obsession with him. He beat Stephenwolf alone, essentially rendering the Justice League impotent and unnecessary beyond calling Superman for help, his movie(s) sucked, and his powerset/origin is pretty fucking boring IMO. Justice League could've been a chance for everyone to shine, hyping up audiences for Aquaman's and Flash's movies, and possibly even a Cyborg movie but instead we get the aborted mess that is the Justice Leage movie.

If you want a decent brainiac alien invasion, play/watch Injustice 2.

That's easy enough to get around. Just say that they were hiding from Ares or recuperating in another dimension or some shit. Not like audiences will care.

 

I dunno, I think it's actually the opposite. They're trying to be different to Marvel and do their own thing (Not doing enough standalone movies, trying to be darker and more gritty, not integrating other mediums) but at the same time they're rushing to compete with them.

The problem is that Marvel have cracked the code. They've set the precedent that this is how you do Superhero movies. This is what works. This is what makes you money. DC trying to do their own thing is like someone trying to figure out a way to make bread without flour because they want to do their own thing.

It doesn't even make sense from a business point of view. Surely there must be some higher up thinking "Marvel is doing this and they're making more money than us. Perhaps it might be a good idea to take inspiration from some of their ideas?".

 

I’m waiting for Disney to sue over their rights to the little mermaid.

 

You mean like cornbread?

 

Still made using flour/meal, just made from corn instead wheat or some other cereal crop.

 

People aren't willing to comment on the issues that Marvel has with a fair few of it's movies, especially Guardians 2, Ragnarok and Infinity War. The fucking jokes.

Half of Thor's people died. He made a fucking joke. A quip. Peter Quill's father just mentioned he murdered his mother. His response? You killed my Mom...AND MY WALKMAN.

But for DC..I think Shazam looks fun as hell. I enjoy Levi's work. Aquaman's CGI looks weak but the film looks interesting. Shame it's gonna be compared to Black Panther. Matt Reeves is hopefully gonna be the saviour of the DC universe..I don't know who'll play Batman but I have faith.

Uh, BvS...Man...I'd say it's a 7/10 for me for fan service. But the cinema release is a shambles. The Ultimate version is better.

Everyone made fun of the Martha line, and yeah it's stupid sounding but here's the logic behind it

Batman is driven by his parents murder. It's literally what powers him to do the ridiculous things he does. So the name Martha is a trigger for him to break him out of his rage to see that he has a chance to save 'Martha' and to reflect on his ignorance about Superman. To see the human in Superman. He has a mother that he's about to lose. Just like Bruce.

There was too much in that movie. And Doomsday should have been fucking Bizarro. Goddamn it.

Let Me Explain does a much better job explaining it than me, I'd watch his video on it.

JL was fucking awful. Affleck was dead behind the eyes. It was heavily fragmented. Nandos VS Movies is doing a rewrite that sounds good.

 

People are definitely willing to talk about the excessive jokes in Marvel - maybe not to the same degree as they rant about DC, but then, a few films having some poorly timed jokes isn't the same as half the films released thus far being basically awful. That said, for all the DC verses flaws, I'm still more interested in it than Sony's Spiderman spin offs.

I was actually talking about this with a friend the other week, and I've concluded that what I'd like to see from DC is a universe that's already established, and focusing on the next generation. That would give them something legitimately different to Marvel, it would avoid a lot of retreading and, assuming they get the talent, there's no particular reason it wouldn't work. Again, to be fair, they're kinda doing this with the Batman side of things, or appear to be at least.

 

Apparently Birds of Prey is confirmed for 2020? I'd never heard of this before.

 

Last I heard, just about everything past the Aquaman and Shazam movies they already have in the can and Wonder Woman 2 is highly tentative right now. Most of the bigger plans that were under discussion for the DCEU became a lot less certain when Justice League bombed.

 

Casting seems to be underway for the moment.

 

Well, let's hope it pans out and turns into a great movie. I was a big fan of the comic, so I'd love to see them properly adapted to the big screen.

That said, there are plenty of movies that petered out after casting discussions happened. Given how reactionary WB has been about the DCEU so far, Aquaman's performance (or lack thereof) could easily change things and get the film canceled or stuck in development hell.

 

AQUAMAN – Extended Video.

That scene was indeed awesome. Not sure about the rest, but James Wan will definitely deliver with the action scenes.

 

Aquaman looks so uncharacteristically 'comic-y' for a DC movie. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.

 

After having watched the trailer I've given up all hope. I don't know the time exactly but it seems like at least four years ago DC gave us the image of the most badass Aquaman ever. Since then they have repeatedly made Aquaman less and less cool.

I hate the cheesy CGI, I hate the Mera and I hate the script. Just from the trailer alone.

No. Seriously. They were on to such a good thing and then that trailer dropped. It felt like they were trying to cram the whole best bits of the movie into a trailer but even that failed.

"Aquaman is badass and real," - Circa 2016

2018 - "Big puzzle you can solve."
"HURR DURR I WASN'T LISTENING, LOL, COULD HAVE PEED ON IT."

My problem with this is already they've taken the snippets of the cool Aquaman we all kind of liked and made him the dumb guy who doesn't know how strong he is until the ravishing female lead shows him. Fuck this noise, I'm out.

Want to make an evil character? Cool, Let's make him look like wet Draco because he's white and that's bad and showing that will make us appeal to the audience that we only briefly salvaged by making a Wonder Woman movie. Which despite being a fucking perfect platform for 100% support we also managed to fuck up.

Nah. Fuck this. They had Aquaman in the bag with the first time we saw him and they managed to fuck it up completely.

 

So despite all my misgivings, exacerbated by finally watching Justice League at the weekend, I went to see Aquaman tonight. It's...ok. Quite fun, in a lot of ways, although not always intentionally. It's the first film I've seen in a cinema where I've broken the etiquette code and texted a friend, because some lines needed to be shared instantly. Black Manta looked fucking ridiculous in live action, and Jason Momoa has a lot of swagger and a decent bit of charm, but he's not a subtle actor. Not terrible, but he's definitely been cast more for his muscles than anything else. The plot was generic Chosen One/Magical MacGuffin, characterisation was thin on the ground. The last section of the film was a mess of CGI.

But, like I say...quite fun, in a mindless way. I probably won't remember it in a month, but I was never bored, and I'd be fine with watching it again.

 

It's never fun admitting to being wrong. Goddamn, Aquaman, I am sold.

This film is over-the-top silly, but they embraced it instead of shying away from it. All previous DCEU entries (yes, including Wonder Woman) tried really hard to be gritty and realistic. Thanks God James Wan had the guts to go balls-to-the-wall fantasy comic superhero. Eh, dialogue is sometimes okay, sometimes just bad, but there are a few really funny moments, the effects are much better than they looked in the trailer and they put the Snyder movies to shame.

Most importantly, the action scenes just look unabashedly cool. WB should give DCEU to James Wan, cause he just saved their atrocious franchise. I can see now why this film made a billion dollars. It's not "deep" or serious, and it's not trying to be. DCEU finally has a fun movie, one that I can see myself rewatching. 8/10, would spin a trident again.