Great Unified Comics Thread

[Neil]

Yikes.

[katmai]

Yikes.

No, now be afraid.....

It will take a super director to take on the superhero team movie "Justice League." Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. has approached Ben Affleck to lead the DC comic book project.

Affleck isn't Joss Whedon, the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" wunderkind who directed the megahit "The Avengers." And he's not Christopher Nolan, who brought back Batman in the "Dark Knight" trilogy's stunning reboot -- and who already said 'no' to a 'Justice League' movie.

But the 39-year-old Affleck is a successful director ("The Town"), an Oscar-winning writer ("Good Will Hunting"), and an actor who even suited up as Superman in the biopic about George Reeves (who played the superhero on TV) in "Hollywoodland."

[Ideologue]

Ben Affleck's all right.

Anyway, a live-action superhero TV show?  We're just not there yet.

I mean, yes, Smallville ran forever, and Lois and Clark was fun, but the former is supposed to be kind of terrible (I have no idea, I've never seen an episode) and the latter was iirc not very wide in its scope.  And there are other counterexamples, but I just don't think it'll be worthwhile in 2013 or 14.

[Neil]

I wonder if it's possible to make a good Justice League movie?  Green Lantern was just so bad...

[Syt]

I wonder if it's possible to make a good Justice League movie?  Green Lantern was just so bad...

The Hulk movies sucked, too, and the character turned out fine in Avengers.

[Neil]

I wonder if it's possible to make a good Justice League movie?  Green Lantern was just so bad...

The Hulk movies sucked, too, and the character turned out fine in Avengers.

I liked Incredible Hulk.  Edward Norton is boss.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Norton did a decent job.

No, no Justic League movie will be good.  Catwoman, many of the Batman movies, Green Lantern... all DC live action movies are generally suck.  I wasn't too impressed with the latest Batman for tha tmatter, though I'm glad they didn't destroy Bane like they did with the POison Ivy movie.

[Ideologue]

Superman Returns was pretty good, despite all the bandwagoning naysayers.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I was bored to tears.  The bandwagoning naysayers did not exist, just that a lot of people rightly saw that it sucked.

[Neil]

Superman Returns was pretty good, despite all the bandwagoning naysayers.

My wife was furious with that movie.

"He's got a kryptonite blade stuck in him!  How can he still fly and lift an island?"

Also, their choice for Lois seemed weird to me.  I liked Spacey's Luthor though.

[Barrister]

Norton did a decent job.

No, no Justic League movie will be good.  Catwoman, many of the Batman movies, Green Lantern... all DC live action movies are generally suck. 

I'd like to opint out that Superman I and II are the greatest superhero movies of all time.

Superman Returns did in fact suck, although Spacey was good.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I did say 'generally'.  Superman I and II, the two Tim Burton Batmans were all good. 

[Ideologue]

Superman Returns was pretty good, despite all the bandwagoning naysayers.

My wife was furious with that movie.

"He's got a kryptonite blade stuck in him!  How can he still fly and lift an island?"

That part has the only bit in the movie I really don't like.

Now, I could get past the blade.  It's just a little piece.  And he's Superman, he's awesome, he fought the pain, and he did still almost die.  And it's not that he lifted the kryptonite island, because the base of the island could have been rock which would've shielded him from the K radiation.  No, it's that Singer made the deliberate decision to show the kryptonite coming out of the bottom of the island that got me.  I mean, c'mon, don't snap my suspension of disbelief like that.  It's uncool.

Also, their choice for Lois seemed weird to me.

Indeed.  Too young, too small.

I liked Spacey's Luthor though.

Yes.

The general criticisms seem to revolve around deadbeat dad/bastard-father/angsty Superman.  I liked that.  It was bold and different.  I thought it worked.

Oh, and the complaint that Superman went to Krypton instead of... I have no idea, fighting the supervillains that don't actually exist in the Superman I/II continuity?  Running for president?  Fucking Lois some more?  There's a lot of great reasons to go to Krypton.  Archaeology and wanderlust by themselves are perfectly satisfactory reasons for Superman to go to Krypton.  But there might also have been technology to salvage there to improve the human condition, or clues to other Kryptonian survivors*, or maybe a completely intact planet**, or even a rebuilt one.***

But in any event, it's silly to assume that the trip was pointless ex ante just because it turned out to be pointless in hindsight.

It's kind of a shame the journey to Krypton was cut--it needed to be edited down, but it's a very beautiful scene.

*Good ideas, like your Argo Cities or Kandors, as well as complete bullshit such as your Kryptos and your Dev-Ems.  Seriously, fuck Dev-Em.  That guy sucks.
**Iirc all Kal-El knows is what his father, whom nobody believed, told him, and the conspicuous lack of giant fleets of ark ships sort of suggests that either Kryptonians are very stupid and had only one qualified geologist on the planet--unlikely but it turns out it's true--or Jor-El was an insane person with access to a spaceship.
**That crystal shit built a giant castle and gave birth to a new continent--Kal probably knows its general capabilities, and that's not too far removed from knitting a planet back together.

[dps]

Ben Affleck's all right.

Yeah, but in the context of talking about needing a "super director"?  To me, that would be somebody like Hitchcock or Kubrick.  OK, they're dead, but there are still a bunch of living directors who have more stature (as directors) than Affleck. 

[Ideologue]

Fair enough.  I'm not sure whom (other than a few folks who already do them) I would like to see do superhero films.

A Kubrick superhero movie would have been pretty great.  Don't know what exactly I'd like him to have done, though.  Sandman?  That'd have been neat.

Oh!  In line with that last not-strictly-superhero-but-with-superhero-elements wish-in-vain, how about David Cronenberg doing The Filth?  He's alive, and that shit is right up his back vagina.  Fuck yeah.