#nesh rambles

I am not saying you don’t have good arguments: You do. The whole thing is a kneejerk reaction to MCU, the box office (and really, overall quality) records of non-Vertigo DC movies that aren’t about Batman has been goddamn laughable since 1950, and they were not planning to write any crossover universe story script until they see one one-shot movie they made would get over 50 on RottenTomatoes. Jack Snyder is a hit-and-miss producer-director who has always prioritized visual prowess over grounded plotlines, and that stemmed the BIGGEST and yet most avoidable flaw in Man of Steel that caused it to divide and swipe off half the potential fans of that movie; and they’re using THAT movie as a groundwork for the cinematic representation of their ensemble heroes.

That being said, a lot of the naysayers forget the fact that things are never black and white. As someone who enjoyed Man of Steel, I will be the first one to admit that it’s that kind of movie where the 30% of it is SO good, a lot of people choose to numb their brain while watching the remainder of it just to enjoy that said 30%. Those are the people who think Man of Steel is a great movie. I am that person who thinks Man of Steel is a breakthrough despite all those really, really foolish flaws. It’s because Man of Steel finally broke the chains of Superman movies. We finally threw away our 1950 sensibilities, namely Superman movie benchmark of simply “seeing someone fly on the screen and carry heavy stuff” and be content by it. We could’ve gotten another Superman Returns but we didn’t and thank fucking god.

I still hold the notion that Man of Steel was in some part intentionally underwhelming. It may sound fucking stupid, like why would you make an intentionally bad movie, but the answer for that is very easy; it’s because it’s risk free. All DC wanted was a green light to launch their movies. They tried once with Green Lantern and what they got out of that was that the DCU was not ready. And Man of Steel was not really... that different of a movie than Green Lantern in terms of basic plot points. A guy finds out he belongs to a formation of beings which gives him superpowers, and he sides with Earth to represent the strength in humanity to battle something intergalactic. The story details of both movies that were layered on top of this structure was bare bones at best, and whether they worked or not should be handled in a case-by-case basis. But the thing they did with Man of Steel was that they fooled us about the movie being more mythical and grandeur than it ultimately was --and I’m talking about the Man of Steel trailers, mainly the third one. Swear to fuck, it’s better than the movie itself! It tells the story of Kal-El getting sent from Krypton, trying to cope with his alien physiology and powers during his teenager years, finding out about his heritage, the world turning against him the moment he wears the Kryptonian suit and demonstrates his powers, and him siding with the Earth nonetheless against a threat of the same origin as him. That’s the movie we were advertised, that’s the movie we WANTED to see, yet... that’s the movie we actually got, and did not enjoy as much. It’s because all those awesome plot elements were there but the in-between scenes were handled very, very stupidly, and I won’t detail them here. They weren’t lazy about filling those holes, but they filled them with the worst things they could. And I know they could fill them with better things and they WANTED to fill them with better things, but they didn’t, because they did not want to do anything that’s out of jurisdiction in a way that would contradict with universe-spanning sequels to come later... which were in no way planned yet, and would not be planned at all if the movie were to bomb like Green Lantern did.

And this is why I’m extremely hopeful about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The light is lit and things are now drafted and planned. Sure, it’s kneejerk, and sure they probably started writing it when Man of Steel was in its second day in theaters --probably after seeing the first tweet to describe Man of Steel as “not that bad”. They’ve been extremely careful with this plan but their direction is the best that they could’ve ever chosen. They still seem to construct the plot in a way that it will have a tight connection with Man of Steel, they don’t wanna make any other origin story movie, and they don’t want to repeat things that they’ve given for years and years. BvS:DoJ will be an adaptation of the Frank Miller series Dark Knight Returns but the trailer indicates that they adjusted the source material heavily --because the characters and their motivations in Dark Knight Returns sucks ass and they’re almost always heavily out-of-character. That’s a great way of doing that and it’s something that someone with a genuine knowledge and care on the source material would do. Coupled with that movie we are going to get the first movie adaptation of Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc and Enchantress among others in Suicide Squad, with a Joker design that’s different and INTERESTING. Seriously, who would imagine that their Phase 1 would include Suicide Squad? That’s really bold and creative of a choice for Warner Bros. given their psychology while handling their pilot of a movie, Man of Steel. It shows they’re finally coming guns blazing, it shows they have creative juices flowing, and their trailers indicate their sequel-sugar-rush will not get in the way of ruining plot and character consistency for sake of pure visual and visceral style.