Amph Here's Some Money, Go See A Swap Thing: DCU/Elseworlds Discussion

IATIN: Not too much, or you'll end up like this:

 

Well, this is right where the rubber hits the road with comic book films, isn't it?

The fact is Warner Bros. can't just make movies for devout fans of the comic alone - and by devout fans I mean those who religiously read every issue that comes out. Large as that fanbase probably is, it's nowhere near enough to fund the massive return that a major release requires to not be considered an abject monetary failure. I'll be honest, I've done no devoted GL reading beyond a casual browse across the Wikis to get a small sense of how the hell Hal Jordan and homies turned into the Rainbow Brite Corps. I still admire the character, though, just off his associations with the JL gang back in the Silver Age days, and that's really the major reason I went and watched the film.

What I'm sayins is that devoted fans of the character will see the film and pick up all the oblique references and minor character points echoed on film, of course, but you can't necessarily count on the entire moviegoing audience doing so, or (I would argue) even a majority. You've only got two hours or so in which to tell a good story to people who might very well have only a passing familiarity or no familiarity with the character and make the film stand on its own, unlike comics where you can languidly run out a character arc over literally years. In that context, I'd venture it's a lot harder to render certain characters plausible or sympathetic. To me, Blade was arguably the best effort at doing this with a comic book character. When I first saw it I didn't even realise it was based on a comic book character, but the selection of characters, themes, and plotlines was still strong enough to run what was a pretty damn decent story off it.

There's also the fact - and it's something I think Jabba-wocky and I have argued before - that some concepts and some characters are a lot easier to suspend disbelief on in the comic book format than they are on film, and indeed there's only certain villains or concepts that are strong enough to withstand the glare of the silver screen. In the Batman mythos, across all the Batman films anyway, I think there are good reasons --other than recognisability, which plays a part -- for why we haven't seen people like the Mad Hatter or Clayface as Batman's foes in film. I would argue besides being relatively minor members of the Batman villain pantheon, they are very, very difficult to put on a movie screen with a straight face, especially in "reality-based" universes like Nolan's. In a comic it's not quite so hard to do; the very medium of comics means that make the reader fill up with his own imagination the blank spaces in the frames, and you tell your story with still images which the reader then animates in his imagination. Paradoxically, on film, because it's seen as a "realistic" medium, it's that much harder to force the audience to suspend disbelief for the same character.

 

Hmmm I dunno Arkham City and Origins did a pretty creepy Mad Hatter. It all depends on the story and if someone can come up with a good one.

 

I could argue the reason why Man-Bat hasn't shown up as a bad guy in a Batman movie, besides his recognizably, is pretty much that reason. Some people would be like, "Let me get this straight: In this movie Batman fights a guy who actually turns into a bat? A literal Bat-Man, if you will? That's ridiculous!".

It's probably the reason why they haven't.

 

This is really the problem though, isn't it?

Why on EARTH (pun intended) would you try and make a "reality-based" universe version of something like Green Lantern? I didn't understand it when they tried it with Superman, but why would you want that in Green Lantern?

By all accounts -- since I've still yet to see it -- the GL film actually worked okay when it was off Earth... but that was a minority of the film?

Why wouldn't you go all gangbusters with it and go the entire opposite route, totally ignore reality and go for broke? I can't see them trying to make a "dark and gritty" Flash movie and that's next on the docket...

 

Like I said, it's harder to suspend belief in "reality-based" universes. I'm not saying all comic book films should be or are made that way. The Nolanverse puts up some pretty firm walls of reality around itself, and if nothing else it's a brilliant example of what joys come from working within limits.

But throwing physics out the window still doesn't entirely solve the problem. GL being closer to a Marvel film than a Nolan film didn't help it with what was said above -- the original Jay/Silent Bob "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THAT GUY'S HEAD??" thing. Even accepting GL's universe-stretching premise, it was a bridge too far. Exactly why I'm not sure, but IRD Internets might've pinpointed it: it didn't have an explanation for why it happened, even within the universe itself. About all I could say about it was that when Parallax (SPOILERS!) infects Hector Hammond it made him look somewhat like the Oan it had once been, but no reason, even in-universe, was ever given for it as far as I remember.

 

Yeah, um, no, I'd have to disagree with that one. (As to it being just a matter of a good story, I'm not saying how the Hatter was done in A.C. wasn't nicely executed for the format.) The medium remains all-important. Video games are a different medium again to film. There are many different assumptions you are working with and different expectations that you have as a viewer when you sit down to have more lives than Doctor Who in a video game and when you sit down to watch a film. Put it this way, sit down and watch one of those "I have edited all the cutscenes together" versions of Arkham City, then go and sit down and watch "The Dark Knight". After doing that, ask yourself whether they are really able to be substituted for one another, whether you could really, honestly sit down with the same suspension of disbelief watching Arkham City on a silver screen acted in live action.

 

So can we suspend disbelief for Darkseid, if so why or why not compared to say Man bat or Mad Hatter or a Clay Face.

I mean Superman is an ALIEN. We just had an alien invasion in MOS, anything pretty much goes at this point Id say. The floodgates are open.

 

(1) Darkseid hasn't been on a Superman silver screen yet. Again, consider the medium. Animated series are not live action films. I'll lay five e-credits he's very unlikely to ever get on the silver screen, precisely because it'll be hard as hell to suspend disbelief to have him just pop in via boom tube and start tearing up the place.

(2) Superman being an alien is a central assumption for the story. That's one thing. The alien invasion in MoS (as it was in S-2) is no bigger a jump, requires very little additional suspension of disbelief, because it's actually repeating Superman's own invasion of our planet: Zod and friends are all from Krypton. I did not say suspension of disbelief was impossible, only that as you get wild and woolier, the imagination's muscles in holding that bar up start to tremble. And as GL demonstrates, it's ever-so-easy to put one too many straws on that bar and bring the whole imaginative construct crashing down on the viewer's head.

 

If they do a Justice League Darkseid is almost a lock. Maybe Braniac too but I have a hard time imagining why they won't do Darkseid. Its a JL level threat.

 

Then I can only hope, very earnestly, rubbing my lucky rabbit's foot so hard it wears down to the leather, that they build it up carefully and wisely, being aware of the conventions and limitations of the film format. I'm not saying it's impossible, only that it's something beyond the capabilities of Hollywood's directors absent the most switched-on ones who understand the real differences with the media and understand how delicate a balance it is. Snyder has some promise, and hopefully Watchmen was an education for him in how you can do some stuff in comics that you can't do on film, but (a) Snyder may not wind up doing a Justice League film and (b) I'm not sure if he's up to the job, notwithstanding his background.

 

Which is interesting because now they have to get directors for the other properties which will (hopefully) spin out of MOS2. I'm curious as to who would do these, Snyder can't direct them all.

And about the comics and movies thing, Marvel is going to have a little experience with this very soon with Guardians of the Galaxy, Im not a huge Marvel fan but I've gone to see every movie of theirs so far because it looked good. But damn. I don't think I can go to this one, it just looks too weird to me. I've never heard of that team before the movie was announced.

Am I alone in thinking GOTG will not be a big hit and could be a flop?

 

I hope one day to see Darkseid on the big screen.

Darkseid IS.

 

I have a feeling GotG is going to be the one where, when you ask someone in 20 years if they like the Marvel movies, and that person says, "yeah, I love Avengers!" you say, "Oh, yeah, Avengers was okay, but I liked GotG way better on account of how much more street cred I have than you, so".

 

No. Indeed my personal prediction is that GOTG will illustrate exactly what I've been talking about above: that there's only so far you can suspend disbelief on film. GOTG has one human character among all the alien weirdness, but unless they make all the others very relatable, I'm predicting this sucker's going to wind up like Farscape: cult following ten years down the line, real life fail.

EDIT: Replying to Volderon, not you, E.F.

 

He should wait until Justice League.

Speaking of GotG, I can't imagine how would Lee Pace' Ronan the Accuser look like.

 

I wouldn't believe Darkseid unless we also got Brainiac. Who is with me?

 

One for JL I and one for JL II

 

SO SAY WE ALL!!!!!!1!!!!!!1!!!!!!

 

Actually beside Darkseid, I want to see Imperiex in JL movie.

 

I want all three of them in the one film: Darkseid, Imperiex, and Brainiac. I have spoken. Ender Sai I want you to call your Vice President of Hollywood friend and insist on it.

 

I'm on the phone to the vice president of Hollywood now, and telling him that Imperiex has to be involved.

 

He gets more lives for Christmas!