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| Where is the dark haired tall beefy guy who loves water and brooding? |
Fresh off of the viewing of Justice League, my mind is a raging storm of comparisons, film criticism, fanboy delight and hopeful wishes. I am a smoothie blend of cinema skepticism with generous amounts of super hero love. DC has always been my franchise of choice and I have been pulling for them to skyrocket above the competition. I don't hate Marvel. I wish them the best and consider them a good source of pure entertainment. I just want some healthy competition and variety. America has always been about having too much of a good thing.
Let's address the elephant in the room. Marvel wrote the handbook on creating pieces of a franchise that fit like an interlocking puzzle. Before Iron-Man, Captain America and Thor were incorporated into the big super hero machine, super hero movies were one-shots (trilogies at best). Now we get a buffet of colorful super heroes in which young and old alike can enjoy. This new universe building became the standard in which we judge all super hero movies. We cannot look at another super hero movie without giving it the Marvel formula test. Because every Marvel offering since early 2010's has had a strict set of rules that governs how a super hero movie should look, we have that forever ingrained in our brains. It is a cacophony of Disney magic, levity, proper character storytelling and safe conflicts that create the blueprint of successful super hero franchises. Let's look at the blueprint that Marvel is faithful to.
1. Characters need to be governed by a simple spirit that can be translated into a moral or a motivation (Captain America is looking out for the little guy, Hulk's struggle with the monster within, Scarlet Witch needs to be understood more than feared, Iron-Man needs to learn responsibility.)
2. The conflict needs to be in the background, while character development needs to be the focus.
3. Humor is the safety switch which ensures no story will ever be considered bland
4. The action scenes must be full blown atrocities to real physics.
5. Every dot and tittle of the movie must be easy to swallow and give the viewer a sense of completion.
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| The only Marvel movie that dare ask "What if the audience only laughed 40% of the time?" |
You might think this is a criticism of Marvel's safe method of movie making, but I can safely say that this method has guaranteed that a movie will either be highly enjoyable or just okay. You will never get a terrible movie and you will never get something that breathes new life into the genre.
Now let's talk about the absurdity of trying to chase after the comic universe model. Super hero movies are no longer a treat to hungry fans, but an expectation and an entitlement. The process of making them is more akin to releasing a new iPhone each year than a mega story event that redefines the comic book genre.
We have DC coming late into the universe building game and the pressure they feel to establish their own feel and win at the rules that Marvel had set. Naturally, when you are trying to achieve both it becomes a disastrous failure. Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice is what happens when a company that has made its mark on hard science fiction (over character development) and complex hard to digest stories (over simplicity) has to catch up with the competition. Justice League and Wonder Woman is what happens when the same company surrenders a piece of itself to the Marvel model, but is still hoping that you can distinguish between the two companies.
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| A 2 hour homage to 70's party music |
The whole thing is absurd because the comic book universe model is being treated like the only way to create a super hero movie. The yearly double offering standard of Marvel is such a powerful influence that every competitor feels the need to bow to it.
But what about these other ways to tell comic book stories? DC could thrive through other means of comic book storytelling. For example:
Every three years we get a new DC Earth. Characters are reimagined with a theme that captures a specific time in DC history. It could be a trilogy with some spin off stories within that three years. That way you could get different flavors of DC cinematic history and play with different rules. Maybe for the next three years DC portrays the Justice League on a cosmic level, busting aliens and keeping the universe from imploding, but the next trilogy portrays the gritty darkness of film noir gangsters. Then we could jump to 60's new frontier Justice League and show off its love of zany villains and wacky science fiction. Meanwhile, characters that have interesting back stories get one-offs during their three year reign. We could touch upon every awesome corner of the DC universe without worrying about character overkill.
OR
DC finds its trademark stories (The Long Halloween, Infinity Crisis) and focuses a boat load of attention and love to them. They could be two parters (because telling a complete story in 2 hours is a cinema sin). Everyone is hankering to the point of getting hangry on DC releasing its cornerstone stories. If Zack Snyder wants to hijack one it's okay because DC would use a different voice for the next year round.
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| #neverforget |
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