In My Darkest Moments, I’m Taunted by the Suspicion that my Parents’ Murder was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.
Cynically, I Tell Myself it has Given my Life a Destiny and the Means to Fulfill it.
The Affleck Batman’s outward appearance is inspired by The Dark Knight Returns. Underneath the costume is an Alex Ross-Paul Dini inspired one, who has lost his way after twenty years in Gotham.
“In BvS, Bruce was a man obsessed with the past and the wrongs he perceived had been done by Superman’s hand. What he went through in that film gave him a totally different understanding of those events and who Superman really was. “
- Ben Affleck (source)
Batman: War on Crime Written by Alex Ross and Paul Dini Art by Alex Ross Lettering by Alex Ross
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition Directed by Zack Snyder Written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer Cinematography by Larry Fong Edited by David Brenner
So much of the design and visual effects of the Zack Snyder universe was so incredibly spot on that it clouds a clear review of the movies.
Zack Snyder directed 3 shitty movies in a row. Each one was a little better than the one before, but they were all pretty much just bad.
And the facts that Henry Cavill was perfect as Superman, Ben Affleck was great as Batman, and holy fuck - Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Ma and Pa Kent were overshadowed by a series of movies that cared more about making things look “cool” than they cared about actually making a good movie. They sucked. They were not “controversial”.
Basically, anyone with a brain and a basic understanding of the characters thought Snyder’s movies were stupid, over long drivel. But, they made a bunch of money overseas and in middle America. So, the defenders call them “controversial”. They were bad. The Big Bang Theory was ridiculously popular. It made sooo much money. And everyone on Tumblr routinely makes fun of how badly written that show was. Snyder’s movies sucked. They weren’t controversial. They sucked. And Batfleck being wasted on them was collateral damage.
The movie dawn of justice seemed to me to be rushing thru the story to play catchup with Marvel Movies. So the movie was like quick origin quick origin fight fight fight and done..
Yep.
Man of Steel had a lot of problems. Most of all? Too violent for Superman. It’s not about him killing Zod at the end. It’s about how the first 40 minutes was Russell Crowe as space Conan, then a nearly perfect 40 minutes of Kevin Costner teaching Superman to be... Superman. And then an hour and a half of stuff blowing up. Man of Steel was not a good movie, and it was NOT Superman. If anything, it was a movie about Rob Liefeld’s “Supreme” character.
Dawn of Justice was a montage of scenes from the comics. That warehouse fight where Batman saves Martha was staged and shot to have multiple direct references to the Dark Knight Returns. And the first time you see it, it’s like “hey, cool!”... and then you sit back and think about the whole movie and realize that there was really no plot to speak of, just a loosely connected series of “cool” things. It wasn’t a movie. It was Zack Snyder desperately trying to tell everyone that DC is darker and cooler than the Marvel movies. It’s entertaining, but it’s mindless.
And, lastly, Justice League. Wanna talk about competing with Marvel? I think DC wanted to have Darkseid as the big bad, because they don’t know how to market their movies. Then, Marvel beat them to the punch anyways and gave audiences the more interesting version of Darkseid: Thanos. So, DC said screw it, we’ll change the villain. And they could have dug out a classic JLA villain.
Despero would have been great. And different from Marvel. Eisenberg was terrible as Lex, but Dawn of Justice set him up as the villain, so we could have had the Injustice Gang. All of those were viable options.
But, nope.
Instead we got Steppenwolf. If any of Darkseid’s goons qualified as a twerp, it would be Steppenwolf. The guy is twerp. He shows up in the comics and gets smacked. That’s his role as a character. And his role in the movie was as a clear stand-in for Darkseid. And they switched him out because Marvel already did Darkseid first and better. That’s just fucking lame.
Oh, and another thing. Not having Grant Gustin as the Flash was a HUGE missed opportunity. That was an epic blunder. They could have made all of the DC platforms unified, just by saying “yeah, the CW shows are in the same universe”. Free marketing, better story, etc.
But, nope. We got some dude wearing a space suit and I kept wanting to see Grant Gustin being the better version of Barry Allen.
Zack Snyder’s DC movies were not controversial. They were bad.
