itt: consternation and wailing about Zach Snyder's upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN film/sequel to MAN OF STEEL -- official title: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

Was Superman Returns any good (by which I mean, was it better than Man of Steel?)

it was v bad, but man of steel was worse. superman returns has at least a bit of respect for the character

I would love if these movies all got shot in sequence, starting with some huge spectacle and then getting shittier and shittier as the budget runs out, until the final scene are just the stunt doubles standing in front of green screens reading the script.

my superman obsessed musical colleague thinks this is the best thing ever; but he also loved Man of Steel and I doubt his ability to be rational about this character.

Superman is one of the few DC characters that I genuinely like a lot, and I find it incredibly baffling that anyone with pre-exising affection for the character would find Snyder's depiction to be anything but a thoughtless, cynical betrayal of nearly a century of generally similar depictions. Unless the dude just, like, really digs his costume or something?

i enjoyed Superman Returns but thought Kevin Spacey was a bad choice for Lex. no desire to go back to that movie but it's too bad they went away from that visual style, i really liked it.

actually watched Man of Steel last night for the first time. didn't hate it! the beginning was really cool w the Kryptonian space stuff but it really runs out of gas once he gets the suit. it was a really stupid movie that is good at emotional/Speilbergian manipulation and occasionally hints that it may have something to say or be about something but nah here is a shot of a little kid pretending to be superman with his doting parents looking onward.

mostly this Superman just almost always looks off-model to me. it's hard to explain. the first shot of him flying at the camera there was a huge blood vessel in his forehead and it was just....ugh.....no...

It's kinda like The Last Temptation of Supes with its lead unable to muster the gravitas

Possible? Likely. Most people have poor taste. And most films are pretty disappointing, particularly Hollywood films, let alone blockbusters. They're all degrees of bad. But this is one whose critical reception was pretty, almost shockingly universally negative, almost unusually so, and it seems to be doing OK, so I'd suggest what we/critics look for in a film is as always totally different from what the average movie-goer looks for. Which apparently is literally anything between 90 and 130 minutes projected on a screen. Which is why most big budget films are shit. Hollywood fails up.

tbh sometimes I'm entirely happy to just go catch a flick and eat some popcorn. and if I'm going to a theater it might as well be IMAX and it might as well be a spectacle. all I ask is to not be insulted! (looking at you, SPECTRE... and maybe Hunger Games...)

what irks me is the notion that all cape-and-tights flicks occupy a single place in the imagination or the moviegoing pocketbook. marvel has done exceedingly well precisely by recognizing that the superhero flick is not a genre in itself. the marvel studios productions (not spider-man, not x-men) succeed by placing superfolk in other genres (buddy comedy, caper, space opera, political thriller, supernatural thriller etc), which is why the marvel machine will keep cranking out solid hits in the face of all hopeful critical speculation that this particular pile of crap signals any kind of turning point or creative exhaustion.

the thing about superhero flicks is that they can't really adopt the "leave your brain at the door" method of action films because the whole appeal of their superheros is their mythological world and their characterization. at least some means of adept (even if simple) storytelling has to accompany the on-screen eye-candy.

and that's why this Supes is so far below the rest of its ilk, in addition to the reasons roger mentions. it fails at storytelling, world-building, and characterization. it succeeds only in eye candy (tho tbh even that part is overrated).

it's also kinda inexcusable cos you have an almost inexhaustible repository of comics to pillage from in developing the film.

which Superman comics do you think Snyder ought to have derived stories from

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v139/mengblom/bums/01_action_337.jpg

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3841/751/1600/WF289-HandNGlove.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--AmdQK38Z--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18y813usuufvfjpg.jpg

https://alldaycomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/worlds-finest-ad5-e1386102470690.jpg

http://41.media.tumblr.com/aeb109f75ae74971b1fcf2e4d08b4316/tumblr_nkph8ezR4L1sat64io1_500.jpg

WE WANT TOPHAT SUPERMAN!

Making out with Maxima on your dead wife's grave - that's pretty fucking cold Clark

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/e/ec/Superman_Family_Vol_1_184.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090208200953

https://pastorchrisjordan.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/superman-comic-2.jpg

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/jimmyolsencover12.jpg

http://www.cynical-c.com/archives2/bloggraphics/051.jpg

http://mar1annec.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c0c9353ef0115707489c3970b-pi

Basically, "Superdickery: The Movie"

Mort Weisinger: The Movie

the 'superman accuses batman of being a witch' story would be a fine sequel for this movie http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2016/03/26/i-love-ya-but-youre-strange-that-time-superman-tried-to-burn-batman-at-the-stake-for-being-a-witch/

wasn't planning to see this tonight but I did. even more hamfisted than I expected but credit where credit is due it wasn't entirely shite. some fine shots, a couple of almost genuine moments worked in between all the false and forced ones.

in a weird way it kind of reminded me of the wachowskis' work of the last, oh, 20 years: it tries to do some things. it trips on its own cape at every turn but I kinda respect the attempt. Laughed out loud and rolled eyes almost constantly but I didn't come out angry like I did from SPECTRE... that said, the only reason I'm not calling for eisenberg to be shot into space is I assume he delivered the performance he was asked for.

I don't know why I went to this. It was bad and boring.

The one thing in the movie that I thought was amusing is the idea that the way to get Superman to show up right away, wherever one happens to be, is to push Lois Lane off a building.

It's revealing that that gag has gone from Lois jumping herself to prove a point, to being pushed.

My cousin Paul, who has actually written these characters for DC Comics liked it. If I could give him the stink-eye via Facebook I would.

I had to set my fb purity to include "if you READ THE COMICS" and all variants of said phrase.

Pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGsrMaxx8N4

Skip about 6'00" in for actual relevant bits.

i am finding the trashing of this movie genuinely enjoyable and coming around to being happy this was made
half in the bag recap is very fun to listen to, makes me wanna order a little caesars pizza and play shadowrun

do they kill superman in this dumb thing? is that near the end?

yeah and they have a long drawn out fucking funeral for him that takes goddamn forever

and at the end, you see the dirt move in his casket indicating he's really alive, which everybody cheers at despite it being completely obvious he isn't dead.

after the third false end this dude next to me was like "aw seriously?"

oh and Martha Kent hands Lois Lane the engagement ring Clark was gonna give her and everybody cries. well except for the 3 of us in my row that were snickering

p sure the only reason Bruce's speech takes so long at the end is because it's to Wonder Woman and he wants to keep staring at her butt as long as he can

Superman is buried alive, I guess.

yeah, altho if he was alive then he either

a) didn't know it OR

b) is a huge dick and wanted to enjoy his funeral before he told anybody

I got some good schadenfreude in today reading an article about how much of the movie's huge weekend take was from presales. I cannot imagine that it won't freefall once word of mouth spreads.

Also, between the humongous filmmaking costs and the even more humongous marketing budget, this apparently has to do, like, Avengers-level business to break even.

jeeeeeeeezus, this sounds somehow worse than i already assumed it would be.
and the only darkseid reference is in dreams?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eMk1EBo7R78/Vcne5XD0grI/AAAAAAAAbkg/C4JDc_DI9tU/s1600/scan0131.jpg

The final shot in Batman v Superman — specks of dirt rising up over Clark Kent’s coffin — would seem to suggest that the last son of Krypton will have a similar resurrection in the Justice League movies. But Snyder almost didn’t include the shot. “I went back and forth with it, to be honest,” he said. “I do feel like it offers a teeny bit of hope for those people who need it. I feel like it’s obvious that we have to figure out a way to get him back, but I don’t know that everyone [knows that]. So I just wanted to give them that little jolt out of the theater, where they’re like, Oh shit! What’s going to happen?“

"It's obvious, but we needed to make it extra obvious."

http://www.comicbookbrain.com/_imagery/_2007_05_13/kamandi_spread_1500.jpg

Martha Kent hands Lois Lane the engagement ring Clark was gonna give her and everybody cries.

tbh I can't remember if he was buried as Superman or Clark Kent, but either way, as you hint at, they'd have probably figured it out when he didn't show up for work on Monday.

there is a bit where Perry talks about how nobody reads newspapers anymore, but he's mostly just a stupid police chief. "NOBODY WANTS TO READ A SMEAR PIECE ON BATMAN, CLARK!!! I ASSIGNED YOU THE FOOTBALL GAME", and telling Lois she has to fly Coach and not Economy Plus.

and the only darkseid reference is in dreams?

there is pretty heated debate as to whether these are purely dreams or not. I mean the Darkseid shit is DEFINITELY only a dream, it definitely doesn't happen, but there is heated disagreement over whether the Flash's appearance is real, as part of his time travel abilities, or it's him using time-travel in a dream sequence.

tbh by that point I was concentrating on my swelling bladder and the WGW "Who Gives a Shit?" JPG was replacing everything I saw on screen in my head.

any other cameos from major DC characters? is there an aquaman appearance?

it is kinda funny in almost all Superman visual media that anytime Kryptonite is used on the dude, he begins weakening slowly to the point where...he...can't....speak...words...running...out...of...breath

but anytime Kryptonite is used on any other native Kryptonian, the shit is instantly fatal.

yes, Jason Momoa's Aquaman appears for about 5 seconds, emerging from water.

and uhhhh there was some obscure character apparently, a torso on a wall that I didn't recognize. someone IDed them in an article a few days ago and I already forgot who it is. I think that's it?