DC Extended Universe (POST NO SPOILERS HERE!)

[FlashEarthOne]

I’m not pushing all the blame on Snyder. There’s precedent for Warners to screw up prior to the Snyder’s but I’m only talking about the faulty way they handled their cinematic universe by entrusting it all to Snyder who for all and intents purposes isn’t much a storyteller and his style doesn’t resonate as much as the MCU approach. And if there was such a culture of micromanaging then why is does the Nolan trilogy exist? Green Lantern I’ll give you.

The article in question doesn’t really show there was a culture of meddling that’s existed prior to the Snyder but it shows Warners became meddlesome after giving Snyder very little meddling on both MOS and especially BvS. If they hired a filmmmaker of Nolan’s caliber or at least good director with good story instincts than we’d be in a very different place right now.

I'm in the camp that has been saying a lot but NOT ALL blame should go to Snyder. The Snyder apologists always seem to deflect and spin in a way that puts no fault on him at all... it is bordering on worship. The meddling started when WB saw the BvS UE. It wasn't what they wanted. That is when the meddling started... it wasn't during the filming of BvS. He had control on the filming of both MOS and BvS until he showed them the UE. That is when they stepped in. They felt like they had given him too much freedom.

Zack had his pros and cons, WB didn't use him correctly.

Even Nolan's style doesn't fit something like DCEU. They should have Geoff Johns to oversee the project and hire different directors to do it.

Nolan's style wouldn't fit the DCU. I'm not sure Johns would be the answer as far as hiring any directors.

[Slowpokeking]

I'm in the camp that has been saying a lot but NOT ALL blame should go to Snyder. The Snyder apologists always seem to deflect and spin in a way that puts no fault on him at all... it is bordering on worship. The meddling started when WB saw the BvS UE. It wasn't what they wanted. That is when the meddling started... it wasn't during the filming of BvS. He had control on the filming of both MOS and BvS until he showed them the UE. That is when they stepped in. They felt like they had give him too much freedom.

Snyder was very awesome at shooting epic scenes from comic and got great action scenes, but he is a bad storyteller so you need someone else to write a good script for him. MoS pretty much showed both sides of Snyder. Awesome action scenes+some confusing storytelling and weird dark tone.

I think WB should have realized this right after MoS and try to make it work better, but they didn't do it well.

Still I want to ask, who had started and decided the BVS project? This is the most important part if we want to decide "who to blame".

Geoff Johns should be the overseer and there is no director with superior power, they just shoot their movies like MCU did.

[FlashEarthOne]

Snyder was no good storyteller but neither was Goyer, why did they let him write the story? If I'm not wrong Ben Affleck's team also wrote part of BVS.

MoS was quite good overall, better than SR which is why DCEU could make a start. BVS was the big problem here. It wasn't so bad as a movie, but surely a big wrong step on the overall plan."Who started and decided the BVS project" should take the most blame. It's gong to fail from the beginning, even if you have hired Nolan it's not going to be different.

Even with all the wrongsteps, JL could have been less of a problem if the budget didn't go up that high and it doesn't have super high special effect.

The problem is that a movie like JL is always going to have a big budget (maybe not $300 million.) The Flash will likely need a larger budget as well... maybe not as much as Aquaman. You are correct in that WB/DC needs to improve on their stable of writers. In this debate I'm always be more of a fact guy than speculation. I'm not going to go as far as "BvS was going to fail" on the concept alone. Perhaps if they didn't try to combine The Dark Knight Returns with the Death of Superman? I don't know the answers but maybe DC's writers should be forced to stick to more strict adaptions from the source material... like adapting comic arcs more directly because its seems like the writers (Goyer, Terrio) may be taking too many liberties. I work in the industry and understand the egos involved. Sometimes when trying to hard to "make things their own" creative people stray too far away from the source. Actors, directors, writers, hell in the case even costume designers are want to put their own spin on things understandably. In the process they go too far... I think that is what happened with Flash costume.

[Badou]

If Snyder's vision for MoS was more generally accepted instead of being so divisive then WB wouldn't be in the mess they are in. That movie kicked off the DCEU on such a bad note where fans are still talking about what bothered them about it. It is the root of all the problems because it set the tone and look of what they tried to turn the DCEU into, which many fans did not like. Then for some reason they decided to double down on Snyder's vision and do BvS, and that was even more divisive and basically sent WB into panic mode where they felt they had to change things to try and win back favor with the fans but the damage was already done by then.

I think Snyder can be a good director under certain circumstances, but he had his opportunity with these movies to get his vision across and it didn't work. He had MoS and BvS to showcase what he saw for the DCEU where WB let him have a lot of freedom to do what he wanted, maybe too much freedom, and that vision just never connected with the amount of fans WB was hoping for. It is WB's fault for continuing with Snyder's vision for a 3rd movie in JL when by that time they clearly were in serious panic mode. They should have gotten someone different to direct it from the start, because by then they knew what Snyder was going to try and do and WB had to have known that it wasn't going to align with how they wanted to course correct the movies.

[FlashEarthOne]

Snyder was very awesome at shooting epic scenes from comic and got great action scenes, but he is a bad storyteller so you need someone else to write a good script for him. MoS pretty much showed both sides of Snyder. Awesome action scenes+some confusing storytelling and weird dark tone.

I think WB should have realized this right after MoS and try to make it work better, but they didn't do it well.

Still I want to ask, who had started and decided the BVS project? This is the most important part if we want to decide "who to blame".

Geoff Johns should be the overseer and there is no director with superior power, they just shoot their movies like MCU did.

I liked MOS but I think it suffered from Goyer trying to write a script similar in structure to Batman Begins. It is understandable WHY they did it.. to prevent the standard origin story but it didn't have the same strength as Batman Begins. I'm not that heavily invested in the Krypton universe but I also didn't like the aesthetics of their Kryptonian culture. Again I still enjoyed MOS and didn't have the issues with it that others did.

No one really knows right now who OKed BvS. I'm going to guess Berg or Tsujihara with Snyder.

[Clark_Kent]

I don't think he got screwed. However back when BvS came out I said that Snyder's biggest influence would be that he cast the JL and Luthor. He succeeded with WW and it appears the he may have succeeded with Aquaman and having Wan on board will help. Miller was a direct cast without looking at anyone else, it remains to be seen if Miller can carry his own movie. I personally think he really needs to evolve past his JL performance to do that. He needs a director who can reign him in... maybe make him run like a person who knows how to run. Those were bold decisions. All these other directors/writers have to work with the people who Snyder cast and time will tell if they work. We'll see what happens with the rest. You give credit where is due as well as fault.

I should have said ‘screwed’ as in, WB keeps chopping up his films (Watchmen, Sucker Punch, BvS, JL, to an extent on this last one)...the quality and entertainment of each is up to individual viewers to decide, of course, but if they hired the man to make a movie then they should let him make it. Obviously, if he turns in a product that is too long / too dark / too tonally different, then fine - don’t hire him to make another.

He’s an artist like every other director, so if you hire him to do a job then you should be prepared to live with the results, good or bad. If I commission an art piece and I don’t like it? I go to another artist next time. They knew what they were getting with his style after his first couple of movies. In the case of JL, delaying production following BvS’ critical backlash would have been expensive, yes. But more expensive than having to reshoot 30% of the movie? I don’t know about that.

That’s what I meant when I said he got screwed. They hired him for multiple jobs, he did his thing on them, but they weren’t willing to live with the results. So snip snip.

[Slowpokeking]

The problem is that a movie like JL is always going to have a big budget (maybe not $300 million.) The Flash will likely need a larger budget as well... maybe not as much as Aquaman. You are correct in that WB/DC needs to improve on their stable of writers. In this debate I'm always be more of a fact guy than speculation. I'm not going to go as far as "BvS was going to fail" on the concept alone. Perhaps if they didn't try to combine The Dark Knight Returns with the Death of Superman? I don't know the answers but maybe DC's writers should be forced to stick to more strict adaptions from the source material... like adapting comic arcs more directly because its seems like the writers (Goyer, Terrio) may be taking too many liberties. I work in the industry and understand the egos involved. Sometimes when trying to hard to "make things their own" creative people stray too far away from the source. Actors, directors, writers, hell in the case even costume designers are want to put their own spin on things understandably. In the process they go too far... I think that is what happened with Flash costume.

But the large budget didn't show up in the movie. By far I think MOS got the best fighting scene, CGI and costume design. The Kryptonians look much better than Steppenwolf and his buddies. It didn't cost that much. JL was fun but the fight and special effect wasn't that awesome.

I knew BVS was going to fail from the beginning and I was correct. You can't let the most influential heroes fight each other when you got only 1 previous installment. You can't let them fight to create further tension when the first priority was to build up the team. In order to make it, you got to tell "Why did they fight" "How did they resolve it and team up" in 1 movie which would be too much, which is why "Martha" became a meme. And it's going to make the "build up the Justice League" more difficult. Not to say we got 0 solo movie from 2014-2016.

[Slowpokeking]

If Snyder's vision for MoS was more generally accepted instead of being so divisive then WB wouldn't be in the mess they are in. That movie kicked off the DCEU on such a bad note where fans are still talking about what bothered them about it. It is the root of all the problems because it set the tone and look of what they tried to turn the DCEU into, which many fans did not like. Then for some reason they decided to double down on Snyder's vision and do BvS, and that was even more divisive and basically sent WB into panic mode where they felt they had to change things to try and win back favor with the fans but the damage was already done by then.

I think Snyder can be a good director under certain circumstances, but he had his opportunity with these movies to get his vision across and it didn't work. He had MoS and BvS to showcase what he saw for the DCEU where WB let him have a lot of freedom to do what he wanted, maybe too much freedom, and that vision just never connected with the amount of fans WB was hoping for. It is WB's fault for continuing with Snyder's vision for a 3rd movie in JL when by that time they clearly were in serious panic mode. They should have gotten someone different to direct it from the start, because by then they knew what Snyder was going to try and do and WB had to have known that it wasn't going to align with how they wanted to course correct the movies.

MOS was fine, it got its pros and cons and the reception was ok. As the start of DCEU it was good enough.

It's normal when the first movie of the trilogy got some unlikable elements, as long as you remove them in the future it's going to be fine. But WB didn't do it, instead BVS further expanded what ppl didn't like and failed.

[Slowpokeking]

I liked MOS but I think it suffered from Goyer trying to write a script similar in structure to Batman Begins. It is understandable WHY they did it.. to prevent the standard origin story but it didn't have the same strength as Batman Begins. I'm not that heavily invested in the Krypton universe but I also didn't like the aesthetics of their Kryptonian culture. Again I still enjoyed MOS and didn't have the issues with it that others did.

No one really knows right now who OKed BvS. I'm going to guess Berg or Tsujihara with Snyder.

MoS' story was decent other than the overly "the world fears Superman" tone. It wasn't executed well, too. Both the bus and the tornado scenes were terrible, they got to thank the acting of Costner.

The Kryptonians were probably the best part of the movie other than why didn't they leave the planet makes little sense. It would be much more reasonable if they used Brainiac to deceive the Krypton council like in TAS. Also Lara could have been put into the Phantom Zone for the illegal natural born. By far MoS has the best villains of DCEU, both characterization and action scenes.

[FlashEarthOne]

I should have said ‘screwed’ as in, WB keeps chopping up his films (Watchmen, Sucker Punch, BvS, JL, to an extent on this last one)...the quality and entertainment of each is up to individual viewers to decide, of course, but if they hired the man to make a movie then they should let him make it. Obviously, if he turns in a product that is too long / too dark / too tonally different, then fine - don’t hire him to make another.

He’s an artist like every other director, so if you hire him to do a job then you should be prepared to live with the results, good or bad. If I commission an art piece and I don’t like it? I go to another artist next time. They knew what they were getting with his style after his first couple of movies. In the case of JL, delaying production following BvS’ critical backlash would have been expensive, yes. But more expensive than having to reshoot 30% of the movie? I don’t know about that.

That’s what I meant when I said he got screwed. They hired him for multiple jobs, he did his thing on them, but they weren’t willing to live with the results. So snip snip.

Got it. I liked both versions of BvS enough but am still critical. I give him all the credit in the world for the good parts of BvS... but I also credit him for the parts I consider bad. That is why I say that BvS was on Snyder. JL is on WB ( maybe Tsujihara specifically) because they should have followed their guts and replaced Snyder. I liked Watchmen as well but also doubt that any incarnation of Sucker Punch would be good.

[Carabas]

Nolan's style wouldn't fit the DCU. I'm not sure Johns would be the answer as far as hiring any directors.

Nolan at least can do more than one style.

Also, Nolan was asked and he declined.

[Slowpokeking]

I don't like the design of Doomsday as well.

He should be nothing but melee fight with no fear, only the desire to kill, but too much of the fight was wasted on shooting vision and energy blast, which wasn't amazing and maybe too similar to Zod/Darkseid.

[FlashEarthOne]

Nolan at least can do more than one style.

Also, Nolan was asked and he declined.

I know. Not denying that,.

[Clark_Kent]

I don't like the design of Doomsday as well.

He should be nothing but melee fight with no fear, only the desire to kill, but too much of the fight was wasted on shooting vision and energy blast, which wasn't amazing and maybe too similar to Zod/Darkseid.

To be fair, this version WAS Zod :P Hence, the heat vision.

I'll give you the energy blasts though.

[SuperiorIronman]

Another contributor is also timing.

A Justice League movie now is a really bad idea when you consider that it is perhaps 5-6 years too late. Avengers not only beat them to it, it did so twice, and one of the big money makers in that studio did a pseudo Avengers 3 within a solo film. Said solo film also did better than it's counterpart which tackled similar subject matter. It didn't have to beat Avengers but Justice League didn't have a leg to stand on. It not only missed that moment in history, it failed to get off the ground in a meaningful way. We know how these films are supposed to work, a shared universe is a science now. The growing pains are over and yet from what I hear Justice League came out mediocre to alright. One of those what if? sort of scenarios is applicable here due to those growing pains. We would be far more forgiving in 2011 or 2012 when this sort of thing wasn't really done before. It would gain scoff later like Avengers does, but if the movie is good enough then the stigma wouldn't matter since it was breaking new ground and nobody had a clear idea of how it was supposed to work.

Justice League came too late and should've waited until the MCU culmination died down. As now you have 20 something films and a guy who resembles your big bad guy who is going to make it to screen first. Comparisons will be made and if Darkseid falls short he will be seen as a poor substitute to the guy who is going to break Earth's mightiest heroes.