1y ago

The DCEU ends not with a bang, but a wimper.

10 years after Zod's snapped neck, Martha, "some kinda Suicide Squad", CGI moustache, rennouncing your wish, the hiearchy of power changing, and Speed Force PS1 graphics, the DC Extended Universe finally comes to a close. And it ends the same way it started - with a Rotten score.

Looking back at all this wasted potential, what would you have done differently with the DCEU, and what are your hopes for James Gunn's DC Universe?

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1y ago

The DCEU ends not with a bang, but a wimper.

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62 comments

I wasn’t even aware a new Aquaman movie was being released.
- This is how bad the situation is.
  Hopefully it is decent, I liked the first one.
  
  If the trailer is any indication (and I know it isn't always), it's bad and the cast is really phoning it in. Jason Momoa has never been a great actor but every word he says sounds like he's reading it from notes he wrote on his hand. Nicole Kidman is like, "things are bad" with the same tone of voice I say, "we're out of milk." Just really terrible.

what are your hopes for James Gunn’s DC Universe?
Harley needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.
Whenever Harley is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Harley?"
- Personally, I think the DCU should be a realistic, down-to-earth setting...that's completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots.
  And also we should win stuff by watching.
  
  Something something science-based with dragons something something.
  
  Like dinner with Margo Robbie.
- You would
- #2: Exactly. They need to be saying what we're all thinking anyway.

This is the case for when franchises get milked forever. They CAN'T die on a good note. Good notes is what promotes sequels. Only when they get a low note they start discontinueing.
It's why most franchise stories seem to end on dissatisfactory cliffhangers
- Sometimes it's not even "forever". Wonder Woman '84 was only the 2nd film and it shit the bed so hard it not only killed any future WW movie, but it tanked the Star Wars movie the director was supposed to do next.
  
  I mean, the first Wonder Woman movie was garbage too so...
  But hey the Zack Snyder cut of justice league was pretty dope
- Exactly.
  This is why I support the MCU going out on a limb with their new stuff. They're already on a dang limb, so own it. This will happen to them someday, too, and they know it! So when an opportunity comes up to risk everything to go out gloriously and respectably, you take it. If/When they're lucky, they'll find something new and squeeze a few more years out of it.
  DC never did that without backsliding on it.
  It's decreasing returns. I mean I know we've had disney princesses around for nearly a century, but you gotta take basic economics into account in this stuff.
- Does Logan count as ending on a high note, or is that just waiting to be sullied by bringing Hugh Jackman back into the franchise?
  
  Wouldn't know. I kinda stopped paying attention lately lol.

#1 thing I would have done would have been putting Bruce Timm and Paul Dini in charge and left them alone.
"Yeah, just like the animated stuff, but live action. GO!"
- Did you watch Batman and Harley Quinn? No thanks. As much as I love Batman TAS, Bruce Timm should not be let near new Batman stuff.
  
  it would have been better if they didn't spend most of the movie just showing us their fetishes
  
  I did not, but in terms of the way they built out the animated universe was superlative.
  
  That showed us that the Animated Series was so good because the network restrictions forced him and his team to be creative. When given full control, we get... Well, this and the Killing Joke

Looking back at all this wasted potential, what would you have done differently with the DCEU,
Don't try to cash money imitate MCU
Don't try to compete in a saturated market with a similar product
Hire actual screenwriters to plan continuity and style
and what are your hopes for James Gunn's DC Universe?
Don't try and just go back to animation since DC still dominates in that format.
Pay morbillions to make Batman Arkham Alsume remastered remastered version

- Trying to make DC a gritty Marvel is what fucked it up for them.
  The core Justice League members are endlessly optimistic and idealistic, even Batman, and that is what makes them work.
  Having Superman let a tornado kill his dad is what makes it fail.
  
  Eh. I think the issue is they were half assed gritty. Either go balls to the walls or don't. None of this gritty shit peppered with smarmy one liners every five mins. Commit goddammit.
  
  That was such a stupid scene in an otherwise pretty good movie.

When the review embargo was set for 15 hours after it opened in the UK, I knew the reviews weren't going to be favourable.

Hopes? None. Warner Bros. has no fucking clue how to use DC characters and ideas in theaters. They may get lucky with specific movies being decent, but the best movies are not even as good as the worst of the animated movies and series. They keep throwing money and names at live action, instead of focusing on telling good stories that stay true to the essence of the characters.
I don't see Gunn doing any better tbh. For one, he's going to be hamstrung by whatever Warner decides is the goal. For another, he's going to end up limited by whatever flawed view executives have of the servers characters. And then he still may not have a grasp of what either comics fans or non comic fans need from a movie featuring DC characters.
- I think that another risk you run by putting Gunn in this role after he found the only success in modern DC movies and series is pressure to become too Gunn-y. The same way that Marvel was so taken with Taika Waititi's Ragnarok that they had him go even more Waititi on Love and Thunder, which clearly made it worse, and then tried to incorporate similar humor in other projects that fell flat. Sometimes playing to hard into a unique success just proves that it was either largely novelty-driven or that you just can't recapture it.
  
  Amen. Though, tbh, I did shed a few tears during love and thunder, so it wasn't a total failboat.
  I like Gunn's style, but any time you just hand the reins to a single director, the risk of them cackling like a mad scientist and creating an abomination is high.
- For one, he's going to be hamstrung by whatever Warner decides is the goal.
  Gunn confirmed that DC Studios is completely seperate from Warner Bros., they will just be distributing the films.

The movies don't all have to be connected by a single overreaching narrative, give us some standalones. Give us a feel good Justice Society movie and a utopian sci-fi Legion of Superheroes. It would also be nice to move away from the core Justice League team and world or universe level threats. Let Nightwing stop the Zodiac Master's plan to rob a series of banks.
- You moron, they tried that with 'The Batman' and look how that turned out! /s
- Yeah, I feel that some of the best DC movies are when they are completely discomnected from a "bigger picture".
  Give us a feel good Justice Society movie and a utopian sci-fi Legion of Superheroes.
  Those two have already been done in the Tomorrowverse. Though the quality of those films are questionable...

Iirc isn’t rotten tomatoes where you want to wait for the audience score because the critics are often out of tune with the audience? Not that I’m disinclined to believe the movie’s bad though, like you said DCEU has been pretty abysmal.
- Yeah. Aquaman is fun. And incredibly derivative.
  Critics are still mad they're being forced to watch "superman, but underwater". I get that, I feel for them. But I don't feel for them enough to actually stop giving money to movies like "superman, but underwater".

I think they may go the MCU way this time and start working up with D Listers. If you can make Blue Beetle or Lobo or whatever unknowns work in a good movie, the. You get half a decade before the big hitters reappear and are anticipated.
Just put the A team on the animated series who seem to be doing a better job
- Wow. I 50/50 suspected you were making that up.

Remember when Jered Lettuce morbed all over his enemies in that epic scene in Morbius, the 2022 masterpiece? Yeah, me neither, but I heard it was totally awesome. They should hone in on that, do stuff with timelines and bring him back as Morbius, the eponymous hero of the 2022 masterpiece Morbius and then have the entire cinematic universe revolve around him, since he already has awesome brand recognition and everybody likes him. Also, everything should be dark, depressing and gritty. Great idea, right?
Right?
Guys?
- How could you mention Morbius morbing all over those guys without saying his catchphrase?
  "It's time to Morb."
  
  That is indeed his catchphrase, it is.
- I like the dark gritty depressing bit but not sure of anything else you're talking about

When I checked audience score was 77%.

Yeah. There was so much wasted potential in the DCEU.
But I don't consider Aquaman wasted potential at all. I'm a fan of the comic, but the source material never tried to be Black Panther, so a movie that did wouldn't have worked anyway.
Considering "The Aquaman" made it to 2 films, I figure Hasbro will be calling Jason Mamoa to star in a "Seaspray" movie any minute. Maybe have him cameo as Boat-guy-wity-parrot in a GI Joe movie, just for good measure.
My hopes for James Gunns version are pretty high. PeaceMaker is so lovingly made.
I do worry because I haven't seen James Gunn take on the unironically uplifting side of DC yet, and it needs to be there for the DCU to work.

The thing I would have done? Don't hire Zack Snyder to start a cinematic universe. And also tell him to take his daughter to a mental health professional.
My hope for the future is that they actually do a Justice League movie based on "The New Frontier".

I’m just confused at what the continuity is now. So with Aquaman 2, that’s the last of the old stuff and now it’s being rebooted with Gunn as DC’s Kevin Feige-esque person in charge? I feel like he’s been in that roll for over a year now, yet everything that’s been released is all part of the old continuity and was going to get phased out, so what was the point of all that then? Releasing stuff for a universe that’s getting scrapped (though will likely show up in 5-10 years in some crisis on infinity earths story or something).
- Movie making and planning takes a lot of time and money. It's done in advance. You can't just stop everything that's been in production from releasing.
- It takes years for movies to be made… have patience.

I hate WB with a passion with how they fumbled the DCEU. What a shitshow.
- Hey, it's not as if they could have involved the people who did the animated series or the Arrowverse TV series, both of which have been very successful.

I was hoping it would be better than this. Aquaman 1 was not masterpiece but with James Wan flavor it was at least interesting.

As long as Jason can continue to travel around the world in his jet, everything will be good. Right? Right??

That money could have saved starving refugees.

Is it me, or he seems very high in the photo? Like a full deluxe package of weed after party, high.

DC anything is worthless garbage.
- Even the comics??
  
  Especially the turd heaps that are the comics.

Any hope for DC died with Heath Ledger

Fuck the superhero comics movies! That's the worst shit that happened to the movie indistry..

62 comments