It Can't Be Ignored: The DCEU Is a "Mess"
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Prissy-Priscilla — 9 years ago(January 31, 2017 06:20 PM)
Sincerely, I hope they do pull it together. Wonder Woman is one of those heroes I grew up with.
The problem with the DCEU is that they tried to roll out a major conflict after just one independent movie (Man of Steel), and then produced a film with villains the general public has no idea about. Except for maybe Harley Quinn, but how many people really know her other than a passing mention?
Suicide Squad was a jumbled mess ultimately tripping over the many strands of narrative it tried to weave. It would be like doing Avengers without first introducing Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor in their own movies, to establish their background, motives, and personalities. We went into Avengers knowing who these people were and, by extension, who others were that featured in these stand-alone stories.
BvS took an interesting concept but absolutely desecrated DC lore in what I can only call a disrespectful and deliberate mishandling of the source. Sources don't exist to be copied, they exist to inspire and augment your own vision of them. Arguably, the DCEU is plagued with bad production, but Snyder is also responsible for the direction MoS and BvS took. Looking at his comments, I don't think Snyder truly understands the characters at all. He might be passionate about the characters, but passion isn't enough.
I can illustrate this in one comment: Batman kills people in BvS.
Batman doesn't kill. Period. He has a very good reason not to, one that defines everything about him and his purpose. When Batman kills he will lose his reason to exist. It was a definition that Christopher Nolan completely understood in his films and Dent's death
destroyed
him. He spent the next 8 years between
The Dark Knight
and
The Dark Knight Rises
spiraling downward into ruin. He hung up the cape because he'd broke his one cardinal rule and couldn't trust that he wouldn't do it again, and again, and again, until he became what Batman was born to fight against.
And yet, Snyder's Batman flippantly kills people without batting an eye. Snyder excused this as it's not him directly causing their deaths, and Batman wouldn't care if their death was of their own doing, but that isn't Batman's world view. And this was the problem with Snyder's control of the films: he fundamentally doesn't "get" who they are; who DC wrote them to be. -
wheezklaw — 9 years ago(January 31, 2017 07:04 PM)
I don't have a problem with Batman killing. Bill Finger and Bob Kane had him shooting a gun in 1939. Ala The Shadow.
However, Batman uses Detective skills before making a decision like that. Snyder threw away any Detective skills and turned Batman into a Punisher -like Meathead.
I sincerely hope the thugs he branded and /or killed didn't have Marthas visiting their graves. -
Prissy-Priscilla — 9 years ago(February 01, 2017 11:26 AM)
Batman's had several revisions since the Golden Age of comics. The one I'm referencing is post-Crisis Batman.
Still, Batman is answerable only to himself (because he chose to operate outside of the law), and the moment he doesn't hold himself accountable for the irreversible and absolute exercise of authority over life and death, the line becomes blurred and, soon, vanishes.
A man accountable only to himself might excuse actions that can be amended if he's wrong, but also the lack of a defining line, the lack of any accountability even to himself, leads - irresistibly - to a presumption of moral certainty. Once the idea enters you head that a person should die, that moral certainty (and you must be absolutely certain or you can never trust yourself to begin killing based on who you believe should be killed), without any accountability, means you can find a reason to kill someone if you wish to do so.
Batman understands this, he watches it transpire every day in Gotham, he relives the murder of his parents in his darkest moments. Once Batman commits murder he's no better than the thing he was born to fight.
And something you point out: Batman was created because his parents were killed by a criminal. If death and revenge can create a Batman, they can (and did) create the opposite effect. Batman can not know whether this or that criminal has family or friends who might be scarred and set out on the path of vengeance if Batman kills the criminal, giving rise to new monsters.
And this is why I find a Batman who doesn't kill to be far more complex and interesting than a Batman who
chooses
to kill even one villain.