Alright, so lets discuss the matter at hand, Mark millar made some earlier comments regarding the believability of the Justice League on screen, now though I agree with him on some regards, I must also denounce him because no premise is ridiculous only presentations. Justice League, for lack of a better word has been a long time coming. On hype alone, it must double as not only the most ostentatious movie ever brought to screen while simultaneously being the most action packed thought provoking and climatic. If I may borrow a phrase from Louis C.K. “awesome? It literally left you in awe?” Yes it has to be that.
DC from my observation has been rather odd. From day 1 they were owned by Warner Bros. and subsequently all products put out by them would come from the same collective hive mind. Same general pool of producers for their projects, Jonah Hex, League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Green Lantern so on and so forth. In their lesser successful exploits into film properties of their characters it came across as a lets throw talented people into a pit and have them make this movie. Obviously it’s fail proof. Well ain’t Hollywood a wacky little town. Let’s list off a recent example in Green Lantern, it seemed to come out of left field to be honest. You see The Dark Knight “Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus” had come out and in hindsight people can talk trash all they want now, but good golly jolly Buddha in the sky eating pie, THAT WAS A DAMN GOOD MOVIE. Even taken out of a superhero context it could be simply viewed as a crime caper, a genre that Mr. Nolan excels at. Back to the subject though, “ Extra extra read all about it DC signs Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan” the headlines read as a child on a soapbox belted out with his arms flailing an internet link rapidly while the crowd of servers pelted down upon him. Hannibal, Deadpool (PaperMan if you wanna talk specifics) and now Hal Jordan, this was weird hows he doing all this? Why isn’t he Deadpool *, Hooray DC is WINNING, (we’re we saying winning then? Charlie Sheenisms flew by pretty quickly and I don’t care to look them up) expletive followed by snarky comment, yay does this mean Justice League?, How is Green Lantern gonna work in the Nolanverse?
Commentary read as such. That last one got to me, after Batman Begins and TDK how would a Justice League follow, you’ve set rules, guidelines. This is your most successful franchise and as such this is the pre ordained way this universe would work right? RIGHT? STOP PLAYING WITH MY EMOTIONS DC!!! And then they hired Martin Campbell, oh okay whew! why didn’t you say so? I for one sat back relaxed, watched some cartoons sipped some chocolate shakes and awaited bliss. You wanna know why? BECAUSE MARTIN FREAKIN CAMPBELL. He directed GoldenEye and Casino Royale, if anyone can kick off a new chapter of a smart action franchise, it’s this man. Plus by my calculation the heads at DC were still in Scrooge Mcduckian levels of swimming money pools they made way back off of Batman Forever, they’ll toss the man a 100 million and some of the best cgi people in the biz, he’ll hire a wonderful supporting cast around Ryan Reynolds (who may I remind you is seriously capable of expressing emotions and having muscles simultaneously) and we’ll all have a great movie. Financially and artistically this is a perfect set up.
Such simple times, we were all so young, weren’t we? I bet we had almost forgotten that superhero movies when done bad are indeed horrible. So it came to be a supporting cast of award winning brilliant actors had been put in small supporting roles, Martin Campbell presumably glanced at a script or a camera lens and as it was Hal Jordan stopped a helicopter fuelled by 1994 cgi technology to save this chick from gossip girl before flinging a plane into a giant poop monster while Peter Saarsgard committed seppuko to his career.
Fascinating, wasn’t it? You can gather up a bunch of delicious ingredients for your sandwich. But the meat of that sandwich cannot be stale.
Then Thor and Captain America came out shortly after and showed how to more effectively use aliens and their technology, in a superhero movie, very few poop monsters though so point to GL. Thinking about it though this it’s kinda always been how DC works, they have two movies that will make money Batman is infallible as is Superman, (I don’t wanna hear any talks about part 3 and 4 that is just fan fiction that got quite out of hand). Then they try and go outside that box and you gotta commend them, they try but it’s never a full home run it never makes Batman money. This is presumably because when Alan Moore writes a novel on no circumstances whatsoever should you have the audacity to sully his art by making it into something else, Beethoven made music Picasso painted, they works are finished trying to replicate it would be at best a shallow homage or worst a ridicule.
But hey you’re writing the cheques, you got your papers in order and you make what you want, I respect that, if the creator condemns what you’re doing I think you should do the right thing and halt your steps, that’s just ethics to me.
A quick thing about me, I watched the Richard Donner Superman movie for the 1st time when I was ten years old, and yeah I get it I can see why it’s so wonderful, but it didn’t have that big an effect on me, it’s no Ninja Turtles: Secret of the Ooze. You know what’s good though? You know what’s the epitome of perfection from childhood cinematic experience (besides Lion King duh) Batman, Bruce Wayne I LOVED LOVEDDDDDDDDDDD da da da da what Tim Burton did and Batman Forever AND Batman and Robin, that’s right I said it I liked it, okay maybe that one is a bit past tense, I was seven years old and presumably the target audience of that movie. Batman action figures? Got it Batman collector’s cup from KFC? Still in the back of the cupboard Undying love for bat Nipples? Well actually, no that one didn’t hold up, even as an impressionable seven year old I could clearly tell Batman Forever was better than its follow up, but every time rational thought was a bout to have a minute to itself they threw another toy directly at my face then Coolio told me motorbikes were cool, then for a brief moment I thought Uma Thurman was attractive and then a bulldog was frozen solid while trying to wee wee on something and then and then UGHHHHHHHH this movie must be good because so many things are happening, this is exactly like how the toy commercials were, where two boys would have the batmobile smash into some rocks then Batman jumped out and shot some red projectile ( it was always red or purple) at Mr. Freeze and he would drop down right before the voice over guy would tell me something was sold separately.
So congrats DC you won that day but would shortly lose the war three years after when I decided to develop some sense of maturity or plot from a movie and a quick viewing on tv resulted in more laughs than probably intended, so I moved on, got into Marvel some birthday comic books and an independent film by a gentleman called Raimi? I think I’m pronouncing that right and BOOM OH YEAH MARVEL I watched these cartoons all the time, they’re awesome and from that point on I was into comic books not only movies and I was mainly a Marvel guy, they’re more relatable diverse yadda yadda ya know. And it went on like that.
Til I saw Christian Bale beat up some guys in the mud in an asian prison and I was teleported back to childish glee again, a flood of emotions as if my kid whimsy was trying to now inhabit my adolescent rebel mind. I thought all was gonna be well again, but I was paying way more attention this time. I’d spot your flaws, I’d see your mistakes, I know your characters, you gotta come right this time. As I’ve chaotically pointed out up above, that’s not always the case.
So you may ask, what’s the point of all this, what’s my grand revelation what am I trying to say? Well for one, who you hire has gotta care. Each of these characters you’re converting from ink to film, hold a special place in not just the older fans who grow up expecting the best treatment of a beloved character but also the kids who need the best introduction so this film, it’s characters and it’s adventures stay with them forever, because that’s what art is supposed to do. And great art is made from artists who know their subjects, Donner, Burton, Nolan, Favreau, Whedon. You know why adaptations made by these gentlemen are so wonderfully received? It’s because they know their characters, they know and have seen ill treatment of them in the past and they would never let down their fellow fans, because at the end of the day they are fans in the first place and what great shame would they bring to the village if ever they mocked it’s heroes.
In closing, thanks for listening to me rant for a bit, I hope there’s some semblance of entertainment out of this and if ever anybody at DC cared to listen, may I suggest a director for your upcoming Justice League? Someone who not only knows and feels general connection to your mythological characters. A man who is destined to right many wrongs and prove himself in the final test of his cinematic career? A beloved folk hero who was on the frontlines from the start championing and heralding tales of the comic medium? Say it with me now.