DC at SDCC

So if you follow me on Twitter you’ll know that I’ve been off the grid for the past two weeks due to Military Training. Now over the past two weeks I did have a little bit of internet and I got some of the news that came out of San Diego Comic-Con. There was a lot of cool information that came out, a lot of good trailers, not just from DC but from Marvel as well. It is very exciting to hear that Brie Larsen is confirmed as Captain Marvel and then Doctor Strange trailer was pretty cool.

Doctor Strange Trailer 2

However, the big thing I’m pulling from this SDCC is the two trailers that DC dropped near the end of the convention. That is the trailer for Justice League, and the trailer for Wonder Woman.

Now I suppose I need to clarify before I move on with this post. I’m a little confused on whether or not the Justice League video was a trailer or just special footage. Some outlets are calling it special footage, others are calling it a trailer. For the sake of arguments, I will call it special footage and I’ll explain why, especially since I’ll be starting my thoughts on that video first.

If you go into the Justice League video thinking that it is a trailer, you’re going to be a little disappointed. This is not a trailer. This is a lot of clips from the movie strung together, arranged with music, and edited to look pretty so we can get a glimpse of what The Justice League is going to be like. I say that because I went into this thinking that it was a trailer and was a little bit disappointed.

Here's the video for you if you haven't seen it already.

The video strings together a bunch of clips of Bruce Wayne going around like Nick Fury and gathering the members of the Justice League together to defend against a still unknown threat. The big scenes are him in a fishing town confirming the legend that is Aquaman, and meeting Barry Allen for the first time.

The clips where Bruce Wayne is meeting Aquaman are… okay. They’re not fantastic but they are a little humorous when juxtaposed with him and Wonder Woman saying he more or less said yes to joining them, when really he said no. Is it laugh out loud funny?  Absolutely not, but it does allow for a little bit of levity.

Overall, I like the look of Aquaman, I just would have liked to see him in a little bit of action instead of Bruce Wayne just describing him like he’s describing Jaws.

Then you’ve got the scene with Bruce Wayne and Barry Allen and I enjoyed that scene, again, for the most part. I thought the scene was your pretty standard Nick Fury superhero recruitment scene. I’ve heard a couple people compare this scene to Tony Stark and Spider-man in Civil War and I guess they have their similarities but at least they’re having fun with it. My question is, what if Bruce Wayne had been wrong and that wasn’t Barry Allen, basically he would have thrown a very sharp batarang straight into the face of a young man whose house he just broke into and he would have added him to the list of people he straight up murdered in Batman v Superman.

Now the issue I have with the Flash scene is one of the issues I have with the video overall. DC has been criticized ever since Man of Steel that there isn’t enough levity and fun with these movies and I think a lot of the times, people mistake fun with comedy. And that’s because we’ve been preconditioned with all the Marvel movies that that is the right way to do it. So now, DC is trying to inject that humor into their movies and I’m worried its just coming off as forced.

Now, the humor isn’t as forced as the, “Is She with you?” scene from Batman v Superman, but I’m just confused on why they’re trying to inject Bruce Wayne with a lot of the humor. I’m not saying that you need to make Bruce Wayne a stone cold, never smiling character, but Batman is not the one who is cracking off jokes in The Justice League. They could have used Superman to create some of the humor… OH WAIT, THAT’S RIGHT THEY KILLED HIM OFF…

My point is, stop trying to make Bruce Wayne funny! He can be a real character with real emotions but you gotta stop trying to make him funny.

Even Ezra Miller’s delivery of some of his lines were kind of awkward and strange. Overall, I’m excited for Miller as Barry Allen especially to juxtapose him with Grant Gustin’s Flash. I think for a lot of the fans of CWs The Flash, Ezra Miller is going to have to bring it to really place himself apart from Gustin’s Flash. I never thought I’d say that about a character from a show on The CW but it really is an issue I think might come up.

The other issue I have with this trailer is Cyborg… he looks weird. Again, this is early footage and they probably will clean up some of the visual issues, but I wasn’t impressed with Cyborgs look. I’m excited to see a full mechanized Cyborg, but at the same time you can see how a lot of his appearance is CGI and that might be an interesting obstacle to overcome.

Overall, I like the look and feel of The Justice League. I like seeing everyone together and I like where its headed. There’s just a couple of tonal issues and execution issues with the trailer that I’m wary about.

And here’s the thing, if Batman v Superman hadn’t been as much of a cluster and divisive, I would have enjoyed this a lot more. I have to take solace right now that this is just exclusive footage strung together to show that Justice League is coming. I’m sure in the next 6 months we’ll get a full trailer that gives a better look at the movie and what exactly the plot is going to be. But for now I’m not wild about it.

Now the Justice League trailer was something that I didn’t expect at all. I had no idea that that was going to appear during Comic-Con. And while the same goes for the Wonder Woman trailer, looking at the timeline on when these movies come out, I realized that this was the perfect time for the Wonder Woman trailer to drop.

And while I was a little bit underwhelmed by the Justice League trailer, I was pleasantly surprised by the Wonder Woman trailer. We saw Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman, but I thought she could have been utilized differently and maybe with a little bit of subtlety. But overall, I liked Gal Gadot and the movie wet my appetite for more of her as Wonder Woman. While Batman v Superman was a IS Wonder Woman and she can kick ass. And if the movie gives me any feelings like the ones I got from the trailer, I think Wonder Woman might be one of, if not my most anticipated Super hero films of 2017.

test for her to actually show that she could look like wonder Woman, her standalone movie is her opportunity to show that she

The action looks fantastic to start things off. The weird thing about this trailer is that it is reminiscent of the fan made trailers I’ve seen for Wonder Woman movies in the past, so much that when I watch this, I can’t help but find it hard to believe that this movie is actually happening. It came out of no where and sometimes I have to look at the projected schedule and just remember that this is a movie that is coming out.

But the thing that sets it apart from the fan made trailer is the human interactions between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine as Steve Trevor. Those two were the main attraction of the trailer but everyone seemed to have a part to play and it looks really great, especially augmented with the visuals.

The last thing worth mentioning is the mythos behind Wonder Woman. She mentions how she was created by Zeus and you see the Amazonian women and it all feels like its pulled out of a greek myth.

And that’s the parts that DC is allowed to borrow from Marvel. When I saw the Amazonians, I couldn’t help but think about Asgard from the Thor movies, and I couldn’t help but think about how the mythology was so well handled in that and I really hope they do the same for Wonder Woman. I don’t want them to totally copy it, but there is a reason why Diana Prince goes to our world, and there’s a reason she leaves. I really hope there is a great explanation to all those things and it utilized both the Amazonian home and the setting of World War 1 correctly.

I’m just overall excited for Wonder Woman.

But I’m still cautious. I’ve been watching more and more clips from Suicide Squad and I’m really hoping that that movie knocks it out of the park.

At the moment, DC’s batting average is not very good. While I personally think that Man of Steel is a fantastic Superhero movie, it still is pretty divisive among super hero fans. Some people, like myself, love that movie, and some people really hate that movie. And then there’s Batman v Superman, which I think even DC’s staunchest supporters will say wasn’t the best movie out there.

Now even if you’re talking about the theatrical cut, I will say that Batman v Superman doesn’t deserve the levels of hate. I think a lot of people, myself included, were really excited for that film and when it wasn’t that good, we let our emotions take control and say that it was just a horrible film. When in reality, it was just sub-par.

My worry is that because that film didn’t do as well as DC wanted it to critically, I think they’re going to shift course a little bit and try and make the DCCU more like Marvel in a way that I think would be unimaginative and a waste of potential.  

We have to remember that Marvel had 5 movies to develop a tone, test things that may or may not have worked, and land on a tone that worked for them before they got all their heroes together to create that perfect franchise building movie that was, The Avengers. DC is trying to set that tone early so they can get to The Justice League faster and its definitely going to have its growing pains. Instead of having multiple movies for fans to get accustom to the tone and the feeling, they have a couple of movies with the Marvel bias already in their minds. We have something that works already set up, it might be difficult for people to shift their thinking from the fun, comedic, light heartedness of Marvel to the gritty, shadowy world that is DC.

I want DC to have their own tone, I want them to have their own voice, something different than Marvel. If I wanted them to be the same, I would rather DC just sell the movie rights to marvel and have them do it. But I would like DC to take control and make something that is theirs, and own it.

If they wanted Suicide Squad to be darker and have less humor in it, they should have kept it the way it is and not (allegedly) changed anything to appeal to a wider audience that was already sore from Batman v Superman.

Overall, I don’t think tone is DC’s problems, I think it’s the writing. And as much as I advocated for him, I think that means we need to get rid of Zack Snyder.

Maybe not entirely. Let him produce and still be involved with a franchise that he’s obviously interested in, but let someone else  take the wheel and let some other writers take control. I have liked all the creative work done by a lot of people involved with movies like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, but the quality is not where it needs to be, especially with the task DC has in front of them.

Stop trying to make Batman funny, have fun with these movies, but make your own tone and make it the best you can.

But that’s my thoughts on a lot of the information that has come out of DC from SDCC. What do you think? Did I miss something? Would you like me to discuss other parts of the convention? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I’ll leave you with this. Here's the last trailer for Suicide Squad. A movie that I'm looking forward to probably more than any movie that's coming out in the next month. Enjoy!