DC Animated Original Movies Discussion

[Johnny]

Just saw Batman: Soul of the Dragon last night!

I have no idea whether or not it was at all "good". The flashbacks took up too much space, the four main characters each needed more room to breathe, there wasn't enough Batman-in-costume, etc. But it was definitely cool. That '70s vibe, fashion, the soundtrack with the slap-bass, obviously the kung-fu... not to mention, Richard was extremely attractive. It was a blast. I just kinda wish there was more of it.

This makes two movies in a row that I really hope get a sequel. I wonder if I'll feel the same way about JSA WWII. I'll almost certainly want a Long Halloween sequel, since Dark Victory is my favorite Batman comic, though that isn't quite the same thing.

I wonder if any of them will get sequels. What a thing to do to a fanbase, haha!

As for JSA, I'm disappointed that Alan isn't in it too, but I'm more concerned that Barry is. A more straightforward story set in WWII is one thing, but a time travel story? Oh jeez, that's just gonna take up a lot of narrative space. I already thought the four mains of Soul of the Dragon were short-changed, and there are more JSAers than that already. That's before you add in the time travel.

Also, Barry's mask just looks bad, I have no idea what they're doing with his nose, and Stana Katic seems to be doing a "trying way too hard to sound vaguely like Gal Gadot" voice, and I am not a huge fan so far. Maybe I'll feel differently when I hear more of it.

Either way, I'm pretty excited to see I guess.

Anyone else notice that the side of the box-art for Man of Tomorrow and Soul of the Dragon match up at the top to form a big "D", presumably with the next two forming a "C"? I think it's real neat, haha!

I don't understand at all why Wonder Woman needs to speak with an accent everywhere now just because of Gal Gadot. DCSHG is doing the same thing. Not to mention Stana Katic voiced Talia in Arkham City and anytime I hear Diana speak with an accent in that clip I think of Talia.

[John Venus]

I don't understand at all why Wonder Woman needs to speak with an accent everywhere now just because of Gal Gadot. DCSHG is doing the same thing. Not to mention Stana Katic voiced Talia in Arkham City and anytime I hear Diana speak with an accent in that clip I think of Talia.

It makes sense since she wouldn't sound like a native English speaker and it's only now that DC is getting their heads wrapped around the concept.

Though I wish they got somebody who could do a convincing accent. Either somebody who wasn't a native speaker or someone like Gina Bellman from Leverage who can imitate multiple accents.

Yeah, homogenizing the Canaries is just something that was bound to happen. I loved that Dinah had a power her mother didn't but did not make her identity around it. From top to bottom, Dinah always made her own decisions like her mother before her.

It looks like they're just interchangeable now, which is really sad.

We'll see how it goes. But I'm getting the feeling that it's another missed opportunity to really explore the two generations of Black Canary's.

[Frontier]

Yeah, homogenizing the Canaries is just something that was bound to happen. I loved that Dinah had a power her mother didn't but did not make her identity around it. From top to bottom, Dinah always made her own decisions like her mother before her.

It looks like they're just interchangeable now, which is really sad.

I think Dinah has the Canary Cry here so she's not the only non-Meta in the JSA (not that she needs to be a Meta, but still).

(Well, technically Hourman uses tech so he's not biologically a Meta, unless I'm mistaking how Miraclo actually works).

I don't understand at all why Wonder Woman needs to speak with an accent everywhere now just because of Gal Gadot. DCSHG is doing the same thing. Not to mention Stana Katic voiced Talia in Arkham City and anytime I hear Diana speak with an accent in that clip I think of Talia.

I think Grey Griffin's accent for Diana sounds better than Katic at any rate, but I feel like it's going to be difficult for VA's to pull off just to sound like Gadot.

[Gaius]

I don't understand at all why Wonder Woman needs to speak with an accent everywhere now just because of Gal Gadot. DCSHG is doing the same thing. Not to mention Stana Katic voiced Talia in Arkham City and anytime I hear Diana speak with an accent in that clip I think of Talia.

It's not ubiquitous but writers going back to Perez have stated that in-universe Diana does have an accent.

[Thezmage]

The powers that be wanted a shared animated universe yes. Yes a lot of characters didn't show up until the DCAMU. But there's no reason to apply cause and effect to that. No causation. If the powers that be wanted no shared universe and for these characters to show up, then those characters would appear outside of shared universe films. There's no reason to link the two. Batman Soul of the Dragon shows that.

Yeah, that's the thing: The powers that be don't want these characters showing up unless they're guaranteed to make a profit. Until they can show audience interest WB doesn't want to pay money to produce them.

They had a shared tv universe before that starting with BTAS - it still took over a decade to get a Teen Titans cartoon and that was outside of the DCAU. So no, we definitely weren't getting a Teen Titans movie before that you are correct - but not for the reason you suggest. It had nothing to do at all with the need for a shared universe at all, and everything to do with the fickle whims of the powers that be.

The powers that be want to make money. Being willing to take a chance on a less popular property on a television schedule is one thing, being willing to do so for a stand alone movie that takes the place of one of their three-four releases a year and is not being partially funded by advertising and merchandising revenue is an entirely different thing. They allowed the Judas Contract to be made because the Teen Titans vs Justice League movie was quite profitable and they had reason to believe people would spend their money on it because of it's place in continuity. Same with Justice League Dark: Apokalips War. Same thing applies to Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (The prior Wonder Woman animated movie did not sell well enough), because of the shared universe AND the theatrical movie's success Warner was willing to spend their money to produce the film because they thought people would buy it.

The powers that be really aren't that fickle: They want money. They sometimes have different ideas as to how to make that money, but their desire remains the same

Anyone else notice that the side of the box-art for Man of Tomorrow and Soul of the Dragon match up at the top to form a big "D", presumably with the next two forming a "C"? I think it's real neat, haha!

I noticed. I also noticed that while Man of Tomorrow's portion of the D contained images of characters from that movie, the Soul of the Dragon part of the D had a big Wonder Woman on it.

[Vakanai]

Yeah, that's the thing: The powers that be don't want these characters showing up unless they're guaranteed to make a profit. Until they can show audience interest WB doesn't want to pay money to produce them.

Exactly! And the shared universe has nothing to do with that.

The powers that be want to make money. Being willing to take a chance on a less popular property on a television schedule is one thing, being willing to do so for a stand alone movie that takes the place of one of their three-four releases a year and is not being partially funded by advertising and merchandising revenue is an entirely different thing. They allowed the Judas Contract to be made because the Teen Titans vs Justice League movie was quite profitable and they had reason to believe people would spend their money on it because of it's place in continuity. Same with Justice League Dark: Apokalips War. Same thing applies to Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (The prior Wonder Woman animated movie did not sell well enough), because of the shared universe AND the theatrical movie's success Warner was willing to spend their money to produce the film because they thought people would buy it.

The powers that be really aren't that fickle: They want money. They sometimes have different ideas as to how to make that money, but their desire remains the same

See, if we removed the bolded we'd be in complete agreement. They allowed the Judas Contract because TTvsJL did so well (which doesn't require a share universe to make sequels), and TT GO might have helped. Bloodlines was made because of the live action movie and was originally planned to come out closer to WW84.

The powers that be are all about making money. But there's no reason to believe that they believe shared universe = more characters = more money. Certainly there was a time looking at the MCU that they believed that shared universes did - after the DCAMU not raking in more of a profit and their DCEU misfires, that's not as strong a belief I think. And none of that shows that the shared universe improved the ok-iness for more obscure characters.

[Thezmage]

See, if we removed the bolded we'd be in complete agreement. They allowed the Judas Contract because TTvsJL did so well (which doesn't require a share universe to make sequels), and TT GO might have helped. Bloodlines was made because of the live action movie and was originally planned to come out closer to WW84.

Huh? Yeah, if we thought the same thing then we'd agree. The bolded part is non-negotiable for my position

The powers that be are all about making money. But there's no reason to believe that they believe shared universe = more characters = more money. Certainly there was a time looking at the MCU that they believed that shared universes did - after the DCAMU not raking in more of a profit and their DCEU misfires, that's not as strong a belief I think. And none of that shows that the shared universe improved the ok-iness for more obscure characters.

Before the shared universe: Green Lantern got two films and the second one only because of the theatrical film, a Wonder Woman movie was made that underperformed and got all of their female-starring films on the slate cancelled, and a Teen Titans film was announced in the first wave and never actually got greenlit, and otherwise everything was Superman, Batman, or Justice League with the same heroes and every once in awhile a Robin or a Supergirl showing up. After the shared universe in addition to getting a greater variety of other characters in the Batman, Superman, and Justice League stories but also we got movies headlined by the Teen Titans, the Suicide Squad, John Constantine, and the return of Wonder Woman. The presence of a single film afterwards featuring Richard Dragon in a bit part doesn't change the fact that we saw many films greenlit in the continuity era that were explicitly not being greenlit beforehand.

[Vakanai]

Huh? Yeah, if we thought the same thing then we'd agree. The bolded part is non-negotiable for my position



Before the shared universe: Green Lantern got two films and the second one only because of the theatrical film, a Wonder Woman movie was made that underperformed and got all of their female-starring films on the slate cancelled, and a Teen Titans film was announced in the first wave and never actually got greenlit, and otherwise everything was Superman, Batman, or Justice League with the same heroes and every once in awhile a Robin or a Supergirl showing up. After the shared universe in addition to getting a greater variety of other characters in the Batman, Superman, and Justice League stories but also we got movies headlined by the Teen Titans, the Suicide Squad, John Constantine, and the return of Wonder Woman. The presence of a single film afterwards featuring Richard Dragon in a bit part doesn't change the fact that we saw many films greenlit in the continuity era that were explicitly not being greenlit beforehand.

Again, correlation =//= causation, which is what you are arguing here. Because they happened once the shared universe started that means it could have only ever happened because of the shared universe, that's your argument. I just do not agree, and citing the fact that's just how it broke down as some kind of proof that it had to have been a shared universe to happen that way isn't going to convince me otherwise. Never mind the fact that even if these characters got to show up it doesn't help them much if at all that they showed up only for bad movies.

[Jabare]

[Thezmage]

Again, correlation =//= causation, which is what you are arguing here. Because they happened once the shared universe started that means it could have only ever happened because of the shared universe, that's your argument. I just do not agree, and citing the fact that's just how it broke down as some kind of proof that it had to have been a shared universe to happen that way isn't going to convince me otherwise. Never mind the fact that even if these characters got to show up it doesn't help them much if at all that they showed up only for bad movies.

http://thinkmcflythink.squarespace.c...ruce-timm.html

Are there plans to do any more sequels for the recently released DC animated films?

We had originally planned to do sequels for Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, but Wonder Woman’s sales started out extremely slow and then over time were eventually able to catch up to probably Justice League Frontier. The Exec’s decided because it wasn’t able to sell quickly right away, where as Justice League was, that there wouldn’t be any more female super hero films right now. We were developing and hoping to get started on a batgirl film based on Year One, but because of Wonder Woman’s slow sales start, that won’t be happening now.

With Green Lantern, it didn’t perform nearly as well as what they had hoped it would. In the long run it eventually made its money back, but the sales weren’t there right away during its release. Hopefully with the release of the Live Action film next year, that will open up the doors for more Green Lantern relate material.

Are there any current plans for an ‘Aqua man’ animated film?

No. We did developed an Aqua man script for a direct to video movie. Marketing decided it wasn’t going to be profitable enough to release.

Whilst correlation does not necessarily equal causation but observing patterns is how hypotheses are derived and thus how facts are determined. Nearly every form of causation that we have proven have started by noting a correlation. The preponderance of evidence is that something told the execs that these films would succeed when before they were certain that they wouldn't. To declare that it's a coincidence that these films got greenlit after the transition to a shared continuity is a coincidence is verging on Occasionalism

[Vakanai]

http://thinkmcflythink.squarespace.c...ruce-timm.html


Whilst correlation does not necessarily equal causation but observing patterns is how hypotheses are derived and thus how facts are determined. Nearly every form of causation that we have proven have started by noting a correlation. The preponderance of evidence is that something told the execs that these films would succeed when before they were certain that they wouldn't. To declare that it's a coincidence that these films got greenlit after the transition to a shared continuity is a coincidence is verging on Occasionalism

,,,uh, the pattern here isn't suggestive of your hypothesis at all though? At least none of what you just quoted has anything to with it. Yes, something told the execs that these movies could succeed before they would greenlight them - but it wasn't the shared universe approach. It was the writers/producers/whoever make the pitches anchoring those characters' introductory movies to Batman/JL, live action successes like Wonder Woman, and so forth. No one came up to them and said "because shared universe" and got Justice League Dark passed. Citing sales numbers of the comic, fans enjoying the va's take on Constantine in previous media, and adding Batman to it got it passed. Teen Titans? The existing shows, adding Justice League. Wonder Woman? Her live action movie. Suicide Squad? Harley's popularity exploding after the live action film. These were the more likely selling factors here.

[Drako]

Justice Society: World War II - Exclusive Trailer Debut

https://www.ign.com/articles/justice...ot-cast-photos

[Robotman]

Justice Society: World War II - Exclusive Trailer Debut

https://www.ign.com/articles/justice...ot-cast-photos

It’s cool that we’re getting a JSA movie but like others have already said, I wish there more members. Flash and Wonder Woman are already in every Justice League animated movie so I’m not super excited about their appearance here. I understand a big plot point of the movie is assembling a team of meta humans to stop the Nazis. So non-powered characters like Wildcat, Starman, Sandman, and The Atom wouldn’t work with the story. I wish they would have added someone like Amazing Man to make the lineup a bit more interesting.

[Thezmage]

I would like the Atom there, just to see them work in the concept of a guy who decided to fight crime because he was short

[Frontier]

One thing I'm a little tired of is how Flash's role in these movies keep getting boiled down to "time travel." Like, give Barry something new to do.