#bbor's commentary

In F4, there is an almost utopia-level of trust that the citizens place in the hands of the team that shocked me, but it fit well within the movie. It felt believable within the world and went hand in hand with the retro-futurism.

Opposite this, the shady (and at times downright evil) governments contrasted well with the hopeful, bright Superman. You're not supposed to trust the government here. It feels very modern--I mean, can you imagine every country in the world working together in the same way as they did in F4? It's unrealistic to rely on and trust the governments in Superman. It feels right to put your trust in this Superman who truly believes in saving people and is deeply kind.

Batman runs parallel to this. It feels grittier, obviously, and the contrast instead comes from unlawful justice vs the corrupt police force of Gotham. However, it is fundamentally the same contrast as in Superman because there is a conflict between the hero and the government. Batman believes in justice above all, and you can place your trust in that.

Then if we take a look at the majority of Marvel's films (specifically Civil War), there is no contrast between the Avengers and the government. From the outside perspective, both are fallible organizations; you could easily see the citizens of New York believing that neither seem to care for individual people and only care about the safety of a planet as a whole (the "sacrifice a few for the many" shtick). We're supposed to trust the Avengers as our heroes but would they stop in the middle of an attack to save a dog? (I'm not taking about individual Avengers, just the group as a whole from the perspective of people in-universe). In addition, how are we, the audience, supposed to trust that the Avengers will take justice into their own hands when the government fails to do so if they lack literally any connection to ordinary people that heroes should have?

Okay. Overall, I thought it was a good movie. I generally have a hard time enjoying direct adaptations but for this one I tried my best to not compare it to the book while watching it since WOT is genuinely one of my favourite comics and the movie deserved to be watched for the sake of itself.

I think the movie is a sad, yet enjoyable story. The casting for Kara and Ruthye is fantastic. I loved how Supergirl was characterized (she was both fun and tragic), the story with Krypto as a puppy was good. It is definitely something I'd rewatch.

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Now to compare, because I don't think I'm capable of not doing so. This may sound critical but I genuinely enjoyed the movie.

Obviously some things were going to be changed, but I found some of them disappointing. The time spent on their journey felt much shorter, and as a result I feel Kara and Ruthye didn't form as strong of a bond. They spent hardly any time on the green sun planet where Ruthye watches over Kara. There was no "it's too big, we're too small." No meetup at the end where they talk decades from the present. (However I did like the open-ended birthday celebration that they flew off to together, it for the development of the movie).

The genocide of the the purples being changed to a child trafficking ring confused me at first, but it makes sense from a universe-building standpoint due to the fact that Superman's plot was focused on a genocide. However, it changes Krem from an evil bastard of a killer who enjoys others' suffering to a disgusting pedophile. It adds a gendered layer which completely changes the themes. My main problem with it though is that this change makes the universe more flat/impersonal by removing the important non-humanoid characters.

I know nothing about Lobo except from Superman: the Animated Series. He's a funny little guy. Some scenes I was like,, why is he here? But he worked just fine in the movie.

Some of the things I liked most about Kara in the comic wasn't quite shown. How much she takes the time to help others while her eyes burned with anger of injustice and grief--like how three times she cared for the dying on Krypton, how she spoon-fed an injured alien, how she dug graves for a stranger on Tilluis. All of those pained people who she helped through their own grief. It wasn't like I couldn't see that being true from movie Kara, but they didn't take the time to show it.

With that comic nerd spiel out of my system, I can go on to say: the two main actresses were fantastic! They captured their characters really well and made it their own. I recommend it to all superhero and sci-fi fans.

The main characters are a poc girl who enters the magical world without knowing about it previously but has some sort of related power, and an old money white boy that inherits a magical legacy and is her mentor

He shows her around a secret magical organization at the college

They try to uncover a mystery around a death

I don't really like the mentor x mentee thing in either but it's worse in Legendborn since she's 16 and he's like 20 edit: I was wrong about Nick's age he's 17

This movie was actually really good. It was dark, yes, which often leads to him being out of character, but it truly felt like Batman. There wasn't anything weird added like batman movies sometimes do (cough Selina dying and being brought back to life by cats cough batman gunning people down from his Batplane cough) besides them suggesting Thomas and Martha were killed in something other than a random mugging and even that was left open-ended.

It really hit the nail on the head for the true villains of today's world: corrupt politicians & cops, and extremist incels who think the world is out to get them (both of which are majority white and male). It was quite poetic that in the end, Gordon and the mayor-elect were left trying to fix the city, both of whom aren't white and one of whom is a woc.

When Batman was holding the flare, leading people across the flooded area to safety, he looked like a symbol of light. Sure, he's turned himself into shadows, but at that moment he was light, with his main objective being to help people. Honestly, throughout the whole movie Batman was in the light a surprising amount.

When Bruce's voice is narrating the end of the movie while there's montage of him helping get people to safety with the National Guard and he says that vergence isn't enough, the city needs hope… That was perfect. He really is a symbol of hope and light just like Superman. Maybe not outwardly, but he is.

Also, the parallel of Lex Luther saying "Maybe that reporter you always do interviews with. Maybe I'll kill Clark Kent next" and the Riddler saying "Bruce Wayne. He's the only one we didn't get. But we got the rest of 'em, didn't we?". They think they're so smart but they don't know anything about their foe.