DCEU

What do you like about the dceu? I found justice league and aqua man to be really fun movies and I thought man of steel was ok, I haven’t seen bvs, sucide squad or Wonder Woman yet tho. So what do you guys think?

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The DCEU is the pinnacle of all things DC. Superhero fans have been waiting for ages for a movie universe of this level of quality for ages and now we have it. It is an excellent movie franchise in every way, from its perfect cast, to its epic feel, to its breathtaking look and cinematography, to the superb quality of its action scenes, to the complexity and meaning in its stories, to the emotional depth of its characters, to some of the most beautiful musical scores in cinema. Thank you to Zack Snyder, David Goyer, Hans Zimmer, etc., for starting it off so perfectly and to the rest of the directors, writers, and everyone else involved, for continuing it as well as they have been.

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lol…okay XNam…how much are they paying you ? lol… but seriously the DC movies have been…average. Not bad…and I think a lot of the problem is that they’ve always been in a reaction mode to what Marvel has been doing. Sort of like trying to walk North using a spinning compass. They see something, pivot to that, see another style, pivot to that, and haven’t found their tone. That being said, I think recently they may have found a style that works better for them. If anything they need to focus on making good individual movies. Not try to force this connected universe idea that Marvel started. Just focus on good, quality movies.

I like most things about the DCEU. My only major gripe was with the editing of BvS. It feels disjointed in some areas (this applies to the R-rated cut too) and long for the sake of long, instead of being long because the story dictates it (which it didn’t). The World’s Finest three parter of STAS told a good world building, team-up tale of Superman and Batman in just over an hour.

That aside, I’ve enjoyed all of the movies. Justice League wasn’t the definitive cinematic take on that property, but for what it was it was fun. I think Suicide Squad is alot of fun (it captures the tone of the SS franchise as a whole quite well). BvS had fantastic action and the best cinematic introduction of a character (Wonder Woman) in decades. Wonder Woman was a triumph, Aquaman was great fun and I love MOS.

I’m eagerly anticipating Shazam!, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 1984, and Aquaman 2. Most of all the next standalone Superman movie and the sooner the better on that one.

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@HorizonB, the one major example of WB/DC’s “reaction mode to what Marvel has been doing” was the Justice League reshoots when they got a Marvel director to reshape Justice League into more of a Marvel-style comedy movie. This was their biggest misstep. It’s hard to defend your claim that that’s the “style that works better for them,” when Justice League ended up their least successful movie. Other than that, the DCEU’s been totally distinct from Disney’s Marvel movies, so your accusation that they’ve been copying Marvel all along doesn’t stand up.

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I like the DCEU thus far. Snyder has a problem bringing in a movie under 3 hrs and BvS was a mess editing wise but overall good. I hate comparing them to Marvel and was not happy with the finished product on Justice League. I don’t blame Whedon because the studio is the one who demanded it be 2hrs. Even Aquaman went over that threshold and it wasn’t introducing a team & new characters like Flash & Cyborg. I am sad that we won’t get to see Snyder’s full vision realized but am still excited for the movies that are coming.

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Okay, I will admit that the DCEU didn’t get off to a great start, as Man of Steel was on the whole rather lackluster. It kinda makes sense that people wouldn’t want to give it a chance, but it doesn’t even REMOTELY deserve the negative reputation it gets.

Suicide Squad, while poorly paced, still had great action scenes, kick-ass action scenes, likable characters, good acting, and a killer soundtrack.

BVS, while it did get butchered for the theatrical release (thanks a lot, Steve Mnuchin), was still a compelling story with great acting and action, and introduced some of my favorite versions of Batman and Wonder Woman. The dialogue and character interactions were also great, and the movie as a whole is a lot deeper and more meaningful than the mindless fluff critics dismissed it as.

I keep hearing people say that the DCEU is too dark and depressing, but I just don’t see it. It may have some cynical themes, but it has just as many moments of humor and heart to balance it out. Sure, these moments don’t receive as much focus as they would in the MCU, but they’re still there. In fact, I’d argue that the DCEU is less bleak than the Christopher Nolan trilogy, if only because the DCEU actually includes the fantastic elements that Nolan sacrificed in the name of “realism”. (Not to mention that, for all people complain about the supposed washed-out colors of the DCEU, at least these movies - especially the more recent ones - actually HAVE colors, as opposed to the Nolan trilogy which relied almost exclusively on a palette of black, grey, and brown with orange explosions.)

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Sorry, didn’t mean to repeat myself. Meant to comment on the music in SS, but commented on the action scenes twice.

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One of the things I love about BvS is Batman’s takedown of the thugs after he and Superman make nice. I love how much of a skull cracking, @$$ kicking total bad@$$ Batman was in that scene.

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BvS is my favorite, hands down. That doomsday fight just gives me goosebumps.

I didn’t really enjoy MoS the first time I saw it, but it was a bit better the second time I saw it. I can’t say why.

Aquaman was a great movie. I saw it directly after Into the Spiderverse though so unfortunately it wasn’t the star of the night.

Wonder Woman was awesome until the end. The final showdown sadly didn’t work for me. Dr Strange had the same problem, living up to the buildup is always hard.

Justice League… Just wasn’t a very good movie. I am not going to say a Snyder cut would have been better, but whatever this was, it was a huge lost opportunity.

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I’m a fan. I enjoyed all of them, and my favorite is probably the extended cut of BvS. I think they really catered to the comic book nerd in me with some iconic moments. However I think that is one the reasons many of the movies were critically panned/didn’t do well. They needed to have more of a mass appeal. It’s great that we have more coming…I just hope Superman doesn’t get thrown by the wayside.

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Besides the wonderful EFX, memorable theme songs, spot-on casting and costuming, the thing I love best about the DCEU is that the storytelling and plotting of nearly all the movies doesn’t insult my intelligence by always going to cheap and easy quips. Comic books especially superhero stories are not all just one thing so reading for the past five plus years that the DCEU is wrong because humor isn’t its default setting. The naked ambition that Snyder brought to MOS and BVS and was set to bring to the rest of his proposed five story arc is the kind of expansive vision I live for as not just a fan of comic books but as a student of film.

Sameness not experimentation is what will kill this cinematic golden age of CBM’s because just because a protagonist with supernatural powers runs across the screen just like the hero in a similar film doesn’t mean it should be a one to one copy. Just because horses are in a Clint Eastwood western just like they are in one by John Wayne doesn’t mean I’m upset because they aren’t the same movie.

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