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patentdragonI freely admit to being a Marvel fan of long standing, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see a DC Comics movie do as well as AVENGERS, or even better (and The Dark Knight Rises came pretty close). If the film's good enough, then the accolade is justly deserved... but I just feel that Justice League won't work.
You have to admire Marvel's guts; to take several of their supposedly "less well known" characters, make solid movies about them, then channel all that into something colossal like AVENGERS - and make it all work. Had it all failed, superhero movies would be dead in the water - it's that simple. Many of the general public won't understand the divisions between comic companies, and might just assume all the characters live on the same Earth, just never managing to cross paths, and one failure will taint all the others - how many people went to fairly big-concept AVENGERS fearing another Green Lantern?
I wanted GL to work. I wanted it to succeed. It fell short. Now, all my fanboy-ish cosmic hopes rest on Guardians Of The Galaxy, and I do not doubt that will rise to glorious heights, giving the movie-going public the low-down on arch-villain Thanos, briefly glimpsed in the mid-titles sequence of AVENGERS... but I digress, and I'm VERY good at that.
How is it that Marvel can take lesser-known characters, and emblazon them on lunchboxes and LEGO sets the world over, whilst DC seem to trip over themselves every third step? *ooops* Superman Returns... Batman Begins... The Dark Knight... *ooops* Green Lantern... The Dark Knight Rises - you get the idea. The Marvel Cinematic Universe series had been wall-to-wall awesome, only slightly stumbling with Iron Man 2, but even that wasn't enough to even hint at derailing the whole grand scheme, which I have been overjoyed to live to see... and there I go again.
Okay, let's get straight to the points.
One: Warner Bros, the owners of DC, have been too cautious with their properties, fencing the characters off from each other. Each character inhabits their own sub-universe, with never a mention of any other hero since that line from Batman & Robin ("This is why Superman works alone" - and come on, wasn't that movie just so gloriously over the top, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show...?) Now they want to bring them all together? There can surely only be one reason for that - to catch up with Marvel, and the viewing public will not miss that. No, sir.
Two: In recent times, DC have been carving a niche for themselves - the darker, grittier side, embodied by The Bat, and the (let's be entirely honest here, people) hero-hating hand of *choke* Grant Morrison. How can you go from that to something as "four-color" (sic) as Justice League? Expect the Morrison Cultists to rise jihadi-like in outrage that their messiah's vision has been sidelined... and out will come the critics' knives, and all the "*ZAP* *POW* *ZOWIE* Look who's just emerged from his mommy's basement"-type comments as comic-fandom trips over itself once again.
Three: The Big Boy Scout, Superman, is just TOO powerful. You'll either have to find some way to neutralise or weaken him, which will start people yawning (see just about every other Superman movie), or he'll be absent for most of the movie, and race to rescue at the end. This is a character who maybe should stay in his own "private Idaho Metropolis", allowing more *ahem* "down-to-Earth" heroes like The Bat, The Lantern (I agree with some commentators; make this one John Stewart, and avoid the inevitable comparisons to the GL movie, and accusations of having a team that's "too white") The Flash and Wonder Woman to take centre-stage. Maybe Superman turns up at the end, and the team say, "Naaah, we're okay, thanks. All sorted now."
2015 is still some way away. Warners and DC could still pull together some kind of lead-in that will work - but by that time, we'll be in the midst of AVENGERS 2 fever, and Supes and friends will still look like they're treading water (at best), while children gleefully pull on their Rocket Raccoon t-shirts. My feeling is that it's not going to be pretty...
...or it may be the greatest triumph in cinema history. I'm still to be convinced of the latter.
P.S. Beasts Of The Southern Wild looks rather interesting...
You have to admire Marvel's guts; to take several of their supposedly "less well known" characters, make solid movies about them, then channel all that into something colossal like AVENGERS - and make it all work. Had it all failed, superhero movies would be dead in the water - it's that simple. Many of the general public won't understand the divisions between comic companies, and might just assume all the characters live on the same Earth, just never managing to cross paths, and one failure will taint all the others - how many people went to fairly big-concept AVENGERS fearing another Green Lantern?
I wanted GL to work. I wanted it to succeed. It fell short. Now, all my fanboy-ish cosmic hopes rest on Guardians Of The Galaxy, and I do not doubt that will rise to glorious heights, giving the movie-going public the low-down on arch-villain Thanos, briefly glimpsed in the mid-titles sequence of AVENGERS... but I digress, and I'm VERY good at that.
How is it that Marvel can take lesser-known characters, and emblazon them on lunchboxes and LEGO sets the world over, whilst DC seem to trip over themselves every third step? *ooops* Superman Returns... Batman Begins... The Dark Knight... *ooops* Green Lantern... The Dark Knight Rises - you get the idea. The Marvel Cinematic Universe series had been wall-to-wall awesome, only slightly stumbling with Iron Man 2, but even that wasn't enough to even hint at derailing the whole grand scheme, which I have been overjoyed to live to see... and there I go again.
Okay, let's get straight to the points.
One: Warner Bros, the owners of DC, have been too cautious with their properties, fencing the characters off from each other. Each character inhabits their own sub-universe, with never a mention of any other hero since that line from Batman & Robin ("This is why Superman works alone" - and come on, wasn't that movie just so gloriously over the top, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show...?) Now they want to bring them all together? There can surely only be one reason for that - to catch up with Marvel, and the viewing public will not miss that. No, sir.
Two: In recent times, DC have been carving a niche for themselves - the darker, grittier side, embodied by The Bat, and the (let's be entirely honest here, people) hero-hating hand of *choke* Grant Morrison. How can you go from that to something as "four-color" (sic) as Justice League? Expect the Morrison Cultists to rise jihadi-like in outrage that their messiah's vision has been sidelined... and out will come the critics' knives, and all the "*ZAP* *POW* *ZOWIE* Look who's just emerged from his mommy's basement"-type comments as comic-fandom trips over itself once again.
Three: The Big Boy Scout, Superman, is just TOO powerful. You'll either have to find some way to neutralise or weaken him, which will start people yawning (see just about every other Superman movie), or he'll be absent for most of the movie, and race to rescue at the end. This is a character who maybe should stay in his own "private Idaho Metropolis", allowing more *ahem* "down-to-Earth" heroes like The Bat, The Lantern (I agree with some commentators; make this one John Stewart, and avoid the inevitable comparisons to the GL movie, and accusations of having a team that's "too white") The Flash and Wonder Woman to take centre-stage. Maybe Superman turns up at the end, and the team say, "Naaah, we're okay, thanks. All sorted now."
2015 is still some way away. Warners and DC could still pull together some kind of lead-in that will work - but by that time, we'll be in the midst of AVENGERS 2 fever, and Supes and friends will still look like they're treading water (at best), while children gleefully pull on their Rocket Raccoon t-shirts. My feeling is that it's not going to be pretty...
...or it may be the greatest triumph in cinema history. I'm still to be convinced of the latter.
P.S. Beasts Of The Southern Wild looks rather interesting...
