#like being assholes to gunn and the new dc universe for no reason

[navree]

...at least it's not the snyderverse? i'm trying to remain optimistic. 😣

Confession time, I have ambivalent feelings about the Snyderverse. There's stuff I didn't like but there's also stuff I liked a lot.

For one, I think it had really solid casting. Cavill nailed the look of Superman, J.K. Simmons as Gordon is brilliant, Ray Fisher was really good as Cyborg, Jeremy Irons is brilliant in anything and God almighty I wish they'd kept him for The Batman as Alfred cuz I loved his Alfred, and Ben Affleck is a really good actor and he had some great moments and great looks as Bruce Wayne. The only duds were Ezra Miller, who's psycho, and Gal Gadot, because she's not a very good actress (most of the success of Wonder Woman, which I loved, came from Patty's writing moreso than anything intrinsic in Gadot's performance).

There's also some good ideas and good bones to Snyder's ideas for the DCEU. I like most of what he was trying to do with Superman's origin in Man of Steel, and honestly, Batman's motivation for his conflict in Batman v. Superman makes a lot of sense. Bruce is someone whose abhorrence of senseless violence is the cornerstone of his beliefs; his parents were killed in an act of senseless violence, and brutality for brutality's sake without a thought to consequences is something he fights against at all times. It is absolutely reasonable that Bruce, seeing not only wanton destruction from someone who is making no attempt to mitigate it, and has infinitely more power to do real harm than anything else Bruce has seen, has serious concerns and wants to at least be prepared in case he ever goes rogue, not to mention the movie does give us solid reasons for it to be personal with how he loses people in the destruction of the WE building (and also that scene of him running into the danger while everyone runs away? brilliant). I also like that this is an older, more jaded Bruce who has been distinctly marked by the death of his child and the havoc that wreaked on him (though I don't give a FUCK what Mr. Snyder says, that is not Dick Grayson, when has Dick Grayson ever been the dead Robin, that is Jason Todd, I accept nothing else, it's Jason who Bruce lost even in the Snyderverse). It's canon to the comics that Jason's death made Bruce more violent, more volatile, and actively changed him for the worst in a way that not even Jason's resurrection has been able to fully heal, so that being part of Bruce's issues in the Snyderverse works as well.

And I also want to acknowledge that Snyder has absolutely been shafted by WB. The director's cut of BvS does make more sense and have more to the story than the theatrical version. And then there's the whole mess with Justice League, even though I don't fault Snyder for leaving production due to his daughter's death, and I'm fine with the push to see his version that came out of it, especially given a) how bad Josstice League was and b) Joss Whedon being a shithead in general. And there's the fact that WB was clearly gunning for a DC MCU from the getgo, without understanding that, for all its myriad of sins (and oh boy are there many), that took time, and you really had to build up a lot of those characters individually before slowly mixing them into a shared universe that could be its own entity. WB didn't get that, so demanding a Justice League before we even got solo movies for any of the players besides Superman was always gonna be doomed to fail, and executive meddling can't be laid at Snyder's feet.

And I do want to mention that the Snyderverse had movies that weren't created by Snyder or had much input from him, both good and bad. Wonder Woman and Aquaman, I thought, were great, and those were made by different creatives, and Suicide Squad (2016) was atrocious (though I did like that Affleck was willing to make cameos to lend credence to the universe, and that it had Harley as a participant in the death of Robin, because most people don't really grapple with the fact that, even though Harley didn't exist when ADitF happened, any retcon to have her involved with Joker from the getgo is going to have her as a likely participant in the torture and murder of a child, and it's an interesting way to delve into her character and how her own agency intersects with her being a victim of the Joker's abuse).

But there are some serious, serious issues with the Snyderverse that did make it really hard to root for.

Most glaringly, Snyder has good ideas, like I outlined, but I don't think he's a very good writer. Take, for example, the much derided Martha scene. I get what he was going for, Bruce is lost in rage and Clark's focus on saving his mother not only reminds Bruce that Clark too has people he loves, just as Bruce does, but that he has his own underlying humanity, humanity that Bruce cannot ignore anymore and has to confront, that Clark is more than a threat, but a full person. It's a way to highlight how lost Bruce has become in this mission, and to show how humanity comes from who you are, not where you're from, and that Clark is good to his core in a way that's admired. That's the point of the scene, I get that, I understand it, but there had to be a better way to write it than that. I mean, Hell, just have Clark start talking about "my mother" as Bruce is getting ready to gut him, which can lead to confusion on Bruce's part because "your mother's an alien", which leads to Clark struggling to explain that his mom's in danger even as he's near death himself (and also idk why Lois is there, I love Lois as a character, though I wasn't overly fond of Amy Adams's version despite my love for her as an actress, but she shouldn't be there). But instead we get the Martha thing, and it ends up reading as Bruce realizing, somehow, that there are more people named Martha than his mom, and it ends up reading really stupid. This is what plagues a lot of Snyder's DC stuff, especially in BvS and with Bruce, which is that the ideas work but his execution in the minutia really doesn't and bogs the whole thing down. (I will say that I did like the writing of Bruce in the scene at Luthor's party, especially when he was being sneaky, that was good).

Snyder also is a good director in terms of visuals, very good, I like his visuals in a lot of his stuff. But I don't think he's a very good director when it comes to performances. He can't really pull anything stupendous out of any of his actors. And some people, like Ben Affleck, are good enough that you can still get good stuff from them irregardless, but some of them are not. And Henry Cavill, however much I love him in The Tudors, is one of those actors who does need a director to guide him to give a truly memorable performance, especially if he's as outside of his wheelhouse as he was with Clark. So Clark, who's our first introduction to the Snyderverse and also its emotional lynchpin a lot of the time, falls flat, because Snyder doesn't really seem like an actor's director, in spite of his visual eye.

There's also the killing thing. For one, just off the bat (heh), Batman shouldn't kill. Ever. It is the antithesis to who he is on every level, and there's a reason why he sticks to it so rigidly in comics canon and why any attempt to make him a killer, even via inaction (cough Nolanverse cough) rings false and hollow. For two, Superman is a killer in this universe. Not great, but Superman has killed in the comics too. But somehow, this doesn't really seem to bother him. Clark is, indirectly, responsible for a lot of civilian casualties after Man of Steel, and BvS really should have shown him grappling with that continuously, in a serious way. He's standing as a symbol for hope, he wants to help wherever he can, and there are now scores of people who've left behind grieving loved ones, because of him. It should affect him a lot more than it does, drive a lot more than it does, especially as we watch how those deaths harden Bruce, and yet we don't really see anything from him, and it affects his character. Not to mention it makes him a hypocrite when it comes to Batman. "Oh the Batman branded someone while stopping them from sex trafficking young girls, he's so terrible!" you have literally snapped someone's neck, shut the fuck up. And also, yeah, Clark killed Zod. That should also affect him a lot in the next movie, not just because of how killing and loss of life should affect him in general, but because Clark, a Kryptonian orphan with no connection to his homeland, no people like him, has just decimated the only concrete connection to his home that he has. If BvS wants to highlight Clark's solitude, Clark's loneliness as an alien and how that affects him AND the people around him along with the general populace, his feelings on having to cut off a Kryptonian connection to save human lives should get a lot more screentime.

And, while I do laud Snyder having good base ideas, some of the base ideas didn't work. I understand wanting to shift Lex into being the kind of billionaire most people in the 2010s would recognize as "classic billionaire", make him more of a Zuckerberg or an Elon Musk, but the way they went about it didn't work at all. Doomsday coming in last minute didn't work, having Death of Superman this early didn't work, making Batffleck an angry Batman rather than the sad Batman he was born to be didn't work, Jonathan Kent's death didn't work, etc. And honestly, having it be a Dark Knight Returns adaptation really didn't work. Even beyond the general cultural stuff that influence TDKR, and my issues with it as well as Frank Miller as a creative, the Batman against Superman stuff didn't work in the Snyderverse, because Snyder doesn't seem to get why those stories hit so hard. They work because Bruce and Clark are friends, best friends, closer than brothers, they love each other so dearly and would risk so much for each other, put their lives on the line for each other no matter what, be there at their lowest (there's a World's Finest issue dedicated to Clark trying to help Bruce with the aftermath of Jason's murder, it's really good). Seeing them at odds, seeing them fight, it hurts because we know what was once there, and seeing it fall apart into enmity and violence is painful. Longtime friends turning on each other hurts to witness. It doesn't work if Clark and Bruce don't know each other and don't have any personal connection, because that takes away the edge that makes those stories tug at our emotions.

Like I said, ultimately I'm ambivalent. There's stuff that worked, especially in concepts and in broad strokes, and there's stuff that didn't, like Snyder's writing decisions once detail had to get involved. And between that and the ten million behind the scenes issues, like the studio constantly meddling in everything, like Ezra Miller's issues, like Amber Heard having the nerve to be abused by her husband which got everyone real mad at her because he was popular twenty years ago, it ultimately made the whole thing a giant mess that was doomed to fail, even if Snyder had been flawless (which he really wasn't, but the outside stuff that kept coming up in every single installment certainly exacerbated everything).

I'm hoping the studio backs off Gunn, and that he keeps up his good writing streak that we've seen with stuff like Guardians, and that the decisions I've seen that are worrying me turn out fine (or are at least rectified and dealt with in pre-production why is the FUCKING FLASH DIRECTOR in charge of Batman why God why?????? and also again please don't have the starting Robin be Damian I have strong feelings about that even though I love my dear boy), but it's early so we'll see. Fingers crossed.

[geekgemsspooksandtoons]

Let me give more of my thoughts on the whole situation with DC, Henry Cavill not being Superman anymore, and well...the film universe getting rebooted.

I’m glad the day after the news broke out that Henry is part of this upcoming Warhammer show. That’s fantastic and him being an executive producer is even more awesome. And honestly, despite what the plans were for the Snyderverse. I’m just grateful we still got Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Because it was still an end in a sense. Even if it was part 3 in a 5-part story. It feels like such a nice send-off. And I’m grateful Zack is in a better place when it concerns movie making.

But still...I hate the bullshit happening with WB and other recent shit. Not just James Gunn, but also David Zaslav, and the assholes that are Geoff Johns, Joss Whedon, and whoever else allowed the Hellish post-production of Justice League. Which was the big reason the DCEU became what it was. Despite I liked some of the later films. 

I think Channel Pup explains it much better than I could. Because I have an issue talking about this kind of stuff.

I will admit, despite I do like comic characters. And there are characters I really like from comics. But in all seriousness, I really or these days, don’t care for “Capeshit” or more so, superhero movies. I’m more of a fan of cartoons, horror, and whatever else. Despite I like certain films, and I really like characters such as Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, and whoever else. I just don’t care for the genre these days.

I was trying to inspire myself to make this to get angry by reading a reply by a good friend of mine when I shared this news. But they were right though in their response to me, talking about media spins which they make a good point, the “Idiot producers”. I’m just...I guess not looking forward to more stuff concerning this movie universe. I’ll be watching from the sidelines or whatever the Hell happens. I just wanted to get this out there.

But again, that video from Channel Pup I think explains it perfectly about my feelings towards the situation.