Reading Too Much Into Everything

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (hereafter called BvS) is not a good movie. Most of us have either come to terms with this fact, or have begun to forget about the movie entirely. The underperformance of the movie has had several effects, from rumors that Warner Bros. will release the R-rated version of BvS, to the director Seth Grahame-Smith leaving the Flash movie over “creative differences”. Blame for the movie is being spread around, of course. But the ultimate responsibility, for my money, lays on Zack Snyder. Hundreds of people worked on the movie, but he was the one that made all the creative decisions that made the movie what it was. The thing of it is, it’s not like we didn’t have ample warning. Let’s look at a Zack Snyder interview with EntertainmentWeekly, from July, 2008. When asked about if he was always a comics fan, he said that he had a subscription to Heavy Metal magazine, but when a friend tried to get him into normal comic books, he said “No one is having...

Shamus Young, in his Twenty-Sided blog, talks about the different types of disbelief that forces a person out of the fictional work he or she is reading, watching, etc. For one person, it could be something technical. For another person, it could be some discontinuity in the sequence of events. For still another, it could be simple boredom. But they all have the same result; complete ejection from the fictional work into the real world. This happened to me while I was watching Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. One scene occurred that was so out of place, so unbelievable, that it violently ejected me from the movie and planted me squarely in the real world. And this scene is in a movie that has a guy that flies and shoots eye-lasers, a woman with a magic rope, and a murderous thug in a winged rodent cosplay. It was this scene: around half-an-hour into the movie, Senator Old Guy talks to Alexander Luthor (the young son of a far more interesting supervillain), saying “We can h...

So I had a discussion regarding superhero movies in the wake of a certain superhero movie, and the subject of fun came into my head. A lot, and I mean, A LOT of the criticisms (mostly by moviegoers) leveled against that certain superhero movie claim that one of the reason it failed was that it wasn't fun. I was about to claim the same thing, but thought about this wonderful article . To be sure, it was a thought-provoking piece. Should superhero movies be fun to watch? Certainly fun would be inherent in the genre, isn't it?  None of these comics were "fun" in the normal sense: Watchman, The Killing Joke, Supergod, The Walking Dead, the later Daredevil runs...I could go on. And yet all of these are good ideas for movies and TV shows (and some are there already). Fun should not be the only metric for a superhero movie (or indeed, any movie). Granted, a big reason for going to the movies is escapism (because real life is boring AND it sucks).  Superhero movies have...

This comment was made by Eight-Bit Hero, concerning the beginning of the Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice movie: Dear Literally Anyone Who Ever Makes A Batman Film In The Future, We DO NOT need you to re-tell Batman's "origin story" ever again. Seriously, even if, somehow, somebody is seeing your film without ever having heard of Batman before (right?), you do not need to show us Bruce's parents getting murdered in the street for a fourth (fifth? sixth? I lost count) time. Let them look it up. Convey Bruce's motivations in some other more meaningful way.  Sincerely,  Everyone (all bold text is the author's emphasis, not mine.) Marvel once again proves why they are better than Warner Bros. at this whole storytelling thing, by announcing last year that Spider-Man will NOT get an origin story in his next reboot.  How refreshing.

The embargoes have been lifted and the early reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are in the wild. But I will not comment on those. What I will talk about is a comment said about one particular review . This was said by ReburnsABurningReturns: I feel like people are watching these movies for all the wrong reasons. Like, turn off your fucking brain and enjoy the superhuman slugfest for what it is, and then turn your brain back on afterwards.  Or don't. (Cruising) through your day off in brain free (mode) is far more relaxing than worrying about being "cultured" or having complex social interactions with the most horrifically overrated thing on the planet, other people.  ( ) = edited by me for clarity This reminded me of an article posted by Matt Singer called Stop Telling Me To Turn My Brain Off During Movies.  For me, the most relevant portion of the article is this: "Turn off your brain" is less of a defense of a movie than admissio...

DC Comics will print comics based on Hanna Barbera properties . To be fair, I actually like parts of this idea. To see some of my favorites (Space Ghost, Birdman, Galaxy Trio, The Impossibles) get the comic book treatment is a good thing. Some of these properties are a good fit for comics and in fact some of them have been in comics before.  But I worry about whether they will be handled correctly. We have been given almost no information, and what little information there is has been in pictures done by various comic book artists. And if you want proof of how badly they may be handled, let's take a look at what they have planned for Scooby-Doo: Scooby-Doo? Where are you? Because I don't see you here! Since I don't have any other info, I can only go by the picture presented to me. And I have a few questions: Are the gang ghostbusters now? Because in another picture Fred's guns suck a monster into what I guess is his proton pack? Was Daphne ever in the m...

Youtube has responded to the #WTFU movement. It's the usual PR and doublespeak expected from a corporation. I will take it at face value and assume they are on top of this problem, but I won't be surprised if nothing gets done. So far there is no incentive for them to do so (one good incentive is that there is actually a rival for youtube, but there is none). Does this sound cynical? Yes. So, youtube, the ball is in your court. Prove me wrong. Surprise me by actually doing something about your Content ID problem.