DC Comics Multimedia General - A crisis of infinite fuck ups

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In amongst all this Flash talk, Gotham Knights TV show passed away unmourned.

Harvey Dent finally had acid splashed in his face and we now know where the show's non-existent budget went. About four minutes of screentime with some relatively okay effects. Some unappreciated person behind the scenes actually put some effort into that. In recognition of this effort Misha Collins attempted to act. He waited until the final episode of the series and it mostly consisted of him smiling and trying to make his voice a bit more gravelly, but we appreciate the proof that he is indeed a living human being and not a coma patient that somebody put animatronics in.

So it turns out that Rebecca Whatshername, the big villain of the season has a few exploitable weaknesses. Not least of which is setting up a giant bomb with obvious countdown and then walking away leaving Joker's Daughter chained to it and able to access the timer. Not least either, is her first trying to coax Harvey's evil personality out of him and then, when said evil personality appears, immediately untying him and standing there unarmed because as his evil side and being, you know, evil, she can absolutely trust him and he wont immediately try to kill her.

Almost none of the plot made sense. Rebecca - head of the Court of Owls - sets up 12 bombs "to cover her tracks", arranges for the knights to be arrested only so she can then send the talons to kill them. Not only could she have just had the talons wait for the knights instead of having the police arrive, but the talons, being immortal, unkillable assassins who can wade through an entire police station slaughtering armed police with impunity, are naturally completely unable to deal with four teenagers in melee. The knights dispatch them with nary a sweat in a couple of minutes of dubious fight choreography. It's like the shows producers went to the insurance people and said "what sort of stunts are we covered for?" and Legal said: "one of them can stand on a table, I guess. Maybe hold a stick and hit the stick held by another person. But like only a couple of times and whilst standing still any other movement". They also left out Joker's Daughter as she was chained to the thirteenth bomb during this. Which was wired so that if it was disabled, the others would all detonate. Some deep thematic stuff there with Duella (get it? Joker's Daughter's name means dual, like Harvey's two identities and she's like, good and bad at the same time).

We end on a cliffhanger where Batman's adopted son runs back into Wayne Tower with literally five minutes to spare before it blows up, to retrieve Batman's journals. Which not only are simply on a shelf in Bruce Wayne's office right out in the open, but have been there for this entire season untouched by crimescene investigators, security or indeed the Gotham Knights who could have gone back and got them at any point if they're that important. Anyway, building blows up, shocked team members, search for body not found, etc. Because he was rescued / kidnapped at the last second by Henri Ducard. And that's where it ends, never to be resolved.

What can I say? A couple of the young cast showed promise - the FtM trans girl most of all, oddly enough and Joker's Daughter - but most of them were just not engaging. I can't wholly blame them - the material all of them were given was dreadful and only the two I mentioned managed to elevate it to any degree at all. There were glimmers of decent plot, here and there. But really, after Batwoman, why were these writers allowed near a TV show ever again?
 
Uranus Pink said:
@Overly Serious I'm seriously questioning whether Gotham Knights is actually better than fujo bait Supernatural. Cause your episode summaries read more like 90ies syndicated schlock instead of current year CW's STD ridden rectal discharge.
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Well you see it's like this. I never watched Supernatural. So I could watch some of it and then let you know, but just doing so implies the possibility it could be worse than Gotham Knights, and I'm not risking that.
 
Overly Serious said:
Well you see it's like this. I never watched Supernatural. So I could watch some of it and then let you know, but just doing so implies the possibility it could be worse than Gotham Knights, and I'm not risking that.
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Watch season 1, maybe 2. They're okay.
Do you like the Trickster episodes? Maybe watch the full 5 but possibly scope out episode summaries and decide what to skip.
Everything after that is, from what you have described, Gotham Knights quality. Rather than suffering through use the internet to find episode summaries and look at episodes you like the sound of.
 
New DC anime:
They truly refuse to kill the Suicide Squad brand, what does WB see in it?

Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed said:
I find it perplexing that Zaslav cancelled Batgirl because it would tarnish the DC brand, when he had three movies back to back (Black Adam, Shazam 2 and The Flash) that came out that not only lost a bunch of money for the studios, but arguably tarnished the brand just as much if not more than Batgirl might have.

At least there was a level of interest with the Batgirl film, and with Brendan Fraser, who just won an Oscar for Best Actor not long ago, playing Firefly, that would have brought more interest, no matter how trash the film is.

These business decisions are just so ridiculous, it does concern me how these people got into these positions in the first place.
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Late, but wanted to reiterate.

Shazam was the only successful film besides Aquaman. It made enough back given its low budget and had good audience reactions, so Shazam 2 would resonably be seen as a win by WB execs. Aquaman was also successful, so a sequel seemed like a good idea.

Black Adam not only had Shazam's success, but Dwayne's star power, which was grossly overestimated by WB and Dwayne himself. They though the Rock was a win button.

Finally, The Flash had so much money poured into it that tax write-offs would hardly save them, so may aswell pray for a miracle. They also thought Keaton would carry, which toy wise, he did. Basically, it was a no win situation. By the time Zaslav got in, it was too far down the pipeline to kill and it was impossible to make back money either way.

Batgirl and Supergirl were easy kills, low budget and destined to tarnish DC's two biggest brands in comparison to something like Shazam, a literal D-lister, fucking up. If Batman dies, they are screwed, if Blue Beetle dies, no big deal.
 
I really enjoyed Shazam 2. Mary Marvel got some Khazar milkers.

Yeah, there were cringe parts*, but at the same time, it felt genuine in a way most Marvel films try, and fail, to be. And for being a kid's movie, it was pretty fucking brutal. Probably the best comic book movie I've seen in awhile. Had a smile on my face the whole time.

*
-the little girl at one point tames a unicorn by throwing skittles at it and saying "taste the rainbow!"
-Wonder Woman shows up in the finale to stand in front of a green screen and smile awkwardly at people who are clearly not on set with her.
-one of the villains praises the crippled kid for protecting her from bullies at school, but really, he was just being a dick to them for no reason and got his ass kicked.
 
Stab You in the Back said:
I really enjoyed Shazam 2. Mary Marvel got some Khazar milkers.

Yeah, there were cringe parts*, but at the same time, it felt genuine in a way most Marvel films try, and fail, to be. And for being a kid's movie, it was pretty fucking brutal. Probably the best comic book movie I've seen in awhile. Had a smile on my face the whole time.

*
-the little girl at one point tames a unicorn by throwing skittles at it and saying "taste the rainbow!"
-Wonder Woman shows up in the finale to stand in front of a green screen and smile awkwardly at people who are clearly not on set with her.
-one of the villains praises the crippled kid for protecting her from bullies at school, but really, he was just being a dick to them for no reason and got his ass kicked.
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This. pretty much everyone forgets that sometimes, movies are make-believe sequences which still revolve around set rules and parameters. With all the jumped-up soyboys who are pretentious to "fit-in" and hate on the things they like in the company of normies, I feel that they don't see the simple rule of "if all you talk about is snark and being pretentious, then that's exactly what you'll be rewarded."

That said, Flash was fun, but yes; it is a horribly flawed story. Barry is kind of a sperg while the accusations of Ezra Miller IRL did not help the movie at all. Combined with doing Multiverse concepts two years late after EEAAO made the Multiverse thing a trend, the only great thing about it was Keaton and Supergirl. Also Michael Shannon as Zod. Always great.

This is where I segue into the three asshole directors I see parallels to the Prime Evils:

The only time I will like James Gunn is when he blows his brains out. I'm not talking from a Snyder fanboy perspective but Gunn is part of the pseudo-intellectual asshole director trinity of Taika Waititi and Rian Johnson who are so far up their asses that everything they do is "inherently better" and "fixing" the "problematic source material."

Even if they've never said it, you just feel the smug pretentiousness when they add the faux-80s or "quirky" elements which when you read Guardians of the Galaxy (DnA run, hell, even the classic Vance Astrovic stories!), or Thor (JMS, or Walt Simonson) they are stories of straight-faced heroism or high-stakes drama. This is the difference between the Prime Evils and people like, say; Nolan - yes, Nolan deconstructed Batman, but he never one-sentenced Batman in a dismissive, condescending way; but he genuinely looked at how a man who dresses in a Batsuit could translate in the real world with access to military-grade technology.

The Flash was a stupid movie, but I couldn't help but feel that this was a story someone wanted to tell, and it wasn't a buy-the-numbers film. That multiverse scene with the Nic Cage Superman and the black-and-white cameo of Jay Garrick in George Reeves' Superman universe? Damn that is not a soulless corporate plug. the writer, director or someone in the pipeline genuinely gave a damn.
 
Liquid Kent said:
Even if they've never said it, you just feel the smug pretentiousness when they add the faux-80s or "quirky" elements which when you read Guardians of the Galaxy (DnA run, hell, even the classic Vance Astrovic stories!), or Thor (JMS, or Walt Simonson) they are stories of straight-faced heroism or high-stakes drama.
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to be fair, GOTG was such a niche thing even lot of comic books nerd weren't aware of it (there's just too much capeshit out there). which means they're not that established, even if it's just the "mindshare" (if you wanna go with that) so there's more leeway in the adaption. the other is if they would've stuck to the source material, I doubt it would've been as successful when most MCU normies are just confused ("wait, so what is this, avengers in space?!") or feel to samey doing the same thing as other heroes do now.
and to be fair again, the first is a fun movie on it's own (maybe less if you know the source), so I'd argue the end justifies the means.

thor got ruined tho, which in some part the success of GOTG is to blame (it's pretty common for companies to go "just do what the other successful thing does"), especially after the first and more so second movie. I really liked the first one since it perfectly fits the theme and old tragic dramas (which again was probably not what the plebs went to the cinema for), but even I can't really defend the second one, hardly even remember what it was about besides wasting eccleston and the "dark world" thread being a complete nothingburger.
ragnarock was watchable for one time, but LE FUNNEY DIRECTOR wasted two perfectly good plotlines, underused the villain (but damn, blanchett was almost 50 at that point) and ruined thor by turning it into GOTG lite. it's not a fucking ensemble if half the characters are the same, this is some fanfiction tier shit.

Liquid Kent said:
Damn that is not a soulless corporate plug. the writer, director or someone in the pipeline genuinely gave a damn.
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it does, but it's kinda pointless if it gets overshadowed by all the other shit. in that regard it's understandable most people in cases like this just throwing in the towel and not bothering if the result is pointless anyway. maybe kudos for trying.
 
It's been awhile and as I posted about it many times, I pirated The Flash and holy fuck is it terrible.

It really was not worth the investment and it bombing in the box office is perfect karma for the chucklefucks at DC. The fact Zaslav is not fired yet is beyond me since he is such a colossal fuckup for the company.
 
I Pirated The Flash and after watching it a couple times, it is easily the best DCEU film. I would go as far as to say that it makes the multiverse "work" in a coherent way. The drama felt very sincere, there was no excess irony, sarcasm, cynicism or nihilistic undertones. My only problem with the film is the early 2006 looking CGI.
 
ENAMETOOLONG said:
I Pirated The Flash and after watching it a couple times, it is easily the best DCEU film. I would go as far as to say that it makes the multiverse "work" in a coherent way. The drama felt very sincere, there was no excess irony, sarcasm, cynicism or nihilistic undertones. My only problem with the film is the early 2006 looking CGI.
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I can't decide whether to class this as sarcasm or bait.
 
Morethanabitfoolish said:
I can't decide whether to class this as sarcasm or bait.
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The thing with the DC movies being a lot less tied to formula than the Marvel movies is that whilst Marvel movies are all one note, sometimes done better and sometimes done worse, but almost always the same, DC movies get a less predictable range of responses. I think the poster is sincere. And for all I know, they're right. I liked the Snyder cut and some people here hate that.
 
Overly Serious said:
The thing with the DC movies being a lot less tied to formula than the Marvel movies is that whilst Marvel movies are all one note, sometimes done better and sometimes done worse, but almost always the same, DC movies get a less predictable range of responses. I think the poster is sincere. And for all I know, they're right. I liked the Snyder cut and some people here hate that.
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While I would normally agree the Flash movie is about how even with the ability to time travel some terrible outcomes are inevitable and you have to accept that. When they specifically say there are no nihilistic overtones I'm calling bait or sarcasm.

To you point about it being less tied to formula that kind of ties into what an above poster said about Guardians of the Galaxy. Much like say Stargirl for DC projects that have less of a public identity fixed in the general consciousness can do more in terms of things that are a bit less forced to line up with the comics.
 
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