DCEU: The Wings of Liberty Have Lost Some Feathers

[Red Tiger]

On 14-11-2017 at 2:43 AM, Kalbear said:

Ya done messed up, Zack and Joss

https://twitter.com/melsil/status/929857954697924612

Really not that big of a deal. They show the abs, whoo-hoo. This is the same dude who did 300. I prefer the Wonder Woman outfits, but it's nothing big.

[Eggegg]

10 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Really not that big of a deal. They show the abs, whoo-hoo. This is the same dude who did 300. I prefer the Wonder Woman outfits, but it's nothing big.

Yeah i think someone is trying to crowbar a political point onto something fairly innocuous there. Just like most people on twitter.

[Kalbear]

45 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

Yeah i think someone is trying to crowbar a political point onto something fairly innocuous there. Just like most people on twitter.

Alternately they entirely missed the point and a whole lot of people who were very happy with WW for showing women in garb and actually functional armor are turned into something else. 

It's not the worst thing ever, but it is disappointing and is another example of them being thoughtless. 

[Knight of Ashes]

Reviews have gone down from lukewarm to cold.

Too bad.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

Really not that big of a deal. They show the abs, whoo-hoo. This is the same dude who did 300. I prefer the Wonder Woman outfits, but it's nothing big.

I'd put it down to the "300" effect - especially as it's showing off their 12-pack abs. I guess it still highlights the differences between directors though.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Alternately they entirely missed the point and a whole lot of people who were very happy with WW for showing women in garb and actually functional armor are turned into something else. 

It's not the worst thing ever, but it is disappointing and is another example of them being thoughtless. 

While apparently functional armour I still wonder how often we'd see men fighting in short skirts? I guess the wonder woman film was a step in the right direction at least.

Other reviews:

Chris Stuckmann says it's the "least Snyder-like film he's seen by the director" and that it feels like it's by a sole director in terms of even-tone. He suggests Whedon may have done more than WB have let on. That or there's been some heavy editing.

 

 

[polishgenius]

Reviews seem to suggest that, apart from an overload of CGI, the biggest problem is that the villain carries no threat or significance, which isn't a shock, because all the great villains they could have picked out and they chose fucking Steppenwolf.

The main positive on the horizon, assuming this doesn't bomb so hard it kills the DCEU, is that the slate of upcoming films is (1) pretty much all directors with steadier hands than Snyder (I missed that they've got fucking Gareth Evans in talks to direct a Deathstroke movie- long long way to go before that spools up, since Batman has to happen first, but that'd be great) and (2) mostly solo or smaller-cast films.

[Myrddin]

Apparently the Rotten Tomato score appeared and was yanked. Take this tweet with as many grains of salt as you need.

https://twitter.com/LightsCameraPod/status/930840483429015552

[The Anti-Targ]

45 minutes ago, red snow said:

 

While apparently functional armour I still wonder how often we'd see men fighting in short skirts? I guess the wonder woman film was a step in the right direction at least.

 

I dunno your definition for short, but the Scots and the Romans fought in skirts. The Roman legion's were above the knee and Scottish kilts were knee length. So, short-ish.

From a practical perspective I would imagine that a fighting skirt needs to be knee length or shorter to facilitate mobility and agility. You can only really go past the knee in your attire if you are wearing pants.

Abs on the other hand should always be protected, because it's a big soft target to aim it. Seriously, any army that kits out its warriors with exposed midriff armour isn't worthy of being called an army.

I think Zac Snyder is welcome to try to make a 300 ladies version. But doing it to the Amazons in Justice League was the wrong movie. If you want to do the 300 vibe with warrior women, then make those warrior women with the rock hard abs the center piece and heroes of the movie, just like the warriors in 300.

[Eggegg]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Alternately they entirely missed the point and a whole lot of people who were very happy with WW for showing women in garb and actually functional armor are turned into something else. 

It's not the worst thing ever, but it is disappointing and is another example of them being thoughtless. 

If it helps fit a narrative then I guess it’s a fair comment. 

 

14 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I dunno your definition for short, but the Scots and the Romans fought in skirts. The Roman legion's were above the knee and Scottish kilts were knee length. So, short-ish.

From a practical perspective I would imagine that a fighting skirt needs to be knee length or shorter to facilitate mobility and agility. You can only really go past the knee in your attire if you are wearing pants.

Abs on the other hand should always be protected, because it's a big soft target to aim it. Seriously, any army that kits out its warriors with exposed midriff armour isn't worthy of being called an army.

I think Zac Snyder is welcome to try to make a 300 ladies version. But doing it to the Amazons in Justice League was the wrong movie. If you want to do the 300 vibe with warrior women, then make those warrior women with the rock hard abs the center piece and heroes of the movie, just like the warriors in 300.

That’s Snyders style though, as much as I dislike it he is a least consistent. Everything he does is like some sort of over blown pornography. I respect Man of Steel because mostly it’s quite restrained. But he can’t help himself and so in this it feels like everyone is naked and everything is more explosion-y! 

[red snow]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I dunno your definition for short, but the Scots and the Romans fought in skirts. The Roman legion's were above the knee and Scottish kilts were knee length. So, short-ish.

 

I know the Romans/scots and according to some roman historians some barbarians fought naked (or just covered in paint). How many films have skirt-wearing male soldiers in slow-mo pants-flashing kicks/sweeps/dives? Snyder is probably the only one who might be guilty of this. Deadpool did it and that was a parody.

Compare the "wonder woman" trailer with the "Sucker punch" trailer - Emily Browing and Gal Gadot have very similar fighting moves and similar clothing (besides one having an admittedly schoolgirl vibe). I can understand why people may have forgotten "sucker punch" but i really don't see much difference in how the female leads are fighting in terms of visuals/clothing. Although one of the other Sucker Punch trailers tends to focus on burlesque dancing and a bunch of young women being restrained/imprisoned by men so I'm not going to argue the content/message in both films are similar!

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, red snow said:

While apparently functional armour I still wonder how often we'd see men fighting in short skirts? I guess the wonder woman film was a step in the right direction at least.

It's based on real greek and roman armor, which did exactly that quite often. There's a really good breakdown of how awesome it is here, that's well worth reading. 

Mostly, the Amazon armor in WW was thoughtful and deliberate. This is thoughtless and lame. That really isn't about politics, and more about lameness.

 

[red snow]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's based on real greek and roman armor, which did exactly that quite often. There's a really good breakdown of how awesome it is here, that's well worth reading. 

Mostly, the Amazon armor in WW was thoughtful and deliberate. This is thoughtless and lame. That really isn't about politics, and more about lameness.

 

Cool article. 

The BBC has a pretty good article about it too - along with the idea that Wonder Woman has made people more aware of other films getting it wrong.

 

 

[Kalbear]

Another way it gets it wrong: if the Amazons are wearing that armor, why does Wonder Woman's armor look the way it does? That doesn't make sense at all. In the WW movie it was clearly a stylized, cool version of a number of different pieces that they had. It stood out, but it fit in with the rest of the armor and garb. 

This doesn't at all. Wonder Woman's armor looks completely alien to the amazons in the pic. It shows no continuity, no culture, nothing.

This is also something that Game of Thrones often gets really right - while the garb isn't always authentic, it's almost always thoughtful and deliberate. It's something Black Panther appears to be hitting out of the park. It's another example of DCEU just not being that thoughtful.

[Knight of Ashes]

Harsh.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/justice-league-reviews-what-critics-are-saying-1058621

I might follow Vanity Fair's advice and skip it.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

5 hours ago, red snow said:

Cool article. 

The BBC has a pretty good article about it too - along with the idea that Wonder Woman has made people more aware of other films getting it wrong.

 

 

I'm not even sure what the Justice League redesign accomplishes. The women look ridiculous in the second picture, and I guess I wonder if WW made us more aware of stupid fetishware noted in the link from Kalbear. Seeing WW's great costume design compared to the others--it's almost embarrassing to think of what the movie would have looked like if Gal Gadot had shed her cloak to reveal a Linda Carter bikini. It would have been distracting and ridiculous. The WW we ended up with was believable as a warrior and superhero. She's my favorite in the DC movie universe. I always loved Superman as a kid, or Martian Manhunter--but now I just want WW to be the center of it. She's the heart and soul of it. Reading these articles makes me realize how important it was to get her armor right.

[red snow]

3 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I'm not even sure what the Justice League redesign accomplishes. The women look ridiculous in the second picture, and I guess I wonder if WW made us more aware of stupid fetishware noted in the link from Kalbear. Seeing WW's great costume design compared to the others--it's almost embarrassing to think of what the movie would have looked like if Gal Gadot had shed her cloak to reveal a Linda Carter bikini. It would have been distracting and ridiculous. The WW we ended up with was believable as a warrior and superhero. She's my favorite in the DC movie universe. I always loved Superman as a kid, or Martian Manhunter--but now I just want WW to be the center of it. She's the heart and soul of it. Reading these articles makes me realize how important it was to get her armor right.

Don't forget Gal Gadot either. While the armour is very important especially compared to older versions she still brings a lot to the role in much the way that RDJR and Chris Evans bring a lot to Iron Man and Cap America. Given the amount of shit some people gave her when she was cast - she's had them all eating their words as I really can't think of any complaint about her as WW. I agree at this point she really should be the lynchpin of the DCEU and for all the misses the franchise has had it's probably been worth it for WW.

I'm trying to remember whether the comics have ever had her in similar armour? Given the comics have such a long history, I'd have thought at some point they may have but I'm not certain. I know their version of updating her a few years ago was simply to give her lycra trousers while the armour design actually allows the keeping of many aspects of the original design but in a functional way that fits with ancient history

[Eggegg]

53 minutes ago, red snow said:

Don't forget Gal Gadot either. While the armour is very important especially compared to older versions she still brings a lot to the role in much the way that RDJR and Chris Evans bring a lot to Iron Man and Cap America. Given the amount of shit some people gave her when she was cast - she's had them all eating their words as I really can't think of any complaint about her as WW. I agree at this point she really should be the lynchpin of the DCEU and for all the misses the franchise has had it's probably been worth it for WW.

She really is pretty much the only person with an ounce of charisma in the DCEU right now (maybe Harley Quinn and the new Flash could be counted). I had high hopes for Batfleck and he was almost good in BvS, but it does seem like his heart isn't in the role and the writing so far has been exceedingly poor for him. I don't think WW is a particularly interesting character and ideally you'd be building around someone else but they've literally messed everyone else up at this point.


 

[The BlackBear]

'Justice League feels like a pilot episode — it’s half-formed, overstuffed, and narratively a chore — but at least its gotten all those annoying introductions out of the way. And it only took five movies to get there.'

Ooof. I don't think I'll bother with this one. Wonder Woman was their last chance to keep me vaguely interested in the franchise, and it did, but not enough to subject myself to BvS part 2.

[DaveSumm]

40 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

'Justice League feels like a pilot episode — it’s half-formed, overstuffed, and narratively a chore — but at least its gotten all those annoying introductions out of the way. And it only took five movies to get there.'

Ooof. I don't think I'll bother with this one. Wonder Woman was their last chance to keep me vaguely interested in the franchise, and it did, but not enough to subject myself to BvS part 2.

Yea that was the phrase that jumped out at me as well. I don't think your fifth movie should be doing heavy lifting for things to come, I assumed the heavy lifting had already happened to make this a good movie.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

5 hours ago, red snow said:

Don't forget Gal Gadot either. While the armour is very important especially compared to older versions she still brings a lot to the role in much the way that RDJR and Chris Evans bring a lot to Iron Man and Cap America. Given the amount of shit some people gave her when she was cast - she's had them all eating their words as I really can't think of any complaint about her as WW. I agree at this point she really should be the lynchpin of the DCEU and for all the misses the franchise has had it's probably been worth it for WW.

I'm trying to remember whether the comics have ever had her in similar armour? Given the comics have such a long history, I'd have thought at some point they may have but I'm not certain. I know their version of updating her a few years ago was simply to give her lycra trousers while the armour design actually allows the keeping of many aspects of the original design but in a functional way that fits with ancient history

I think the original comics were fetish-wear, but that's only based on what I've heard in podcasts lately. I agree about Gadot. I was trying out a new podcast called Chapo Traphouse or something, and I happened to listen to their Wonder Woman review. Not only did they act like she was the worst actor, but they were extraordinarily out of touch with the theme of the film. Either way, listening to these people berate her acting and screen presence was almost shocking--those were things I never questioned for a moment. She was awesome. I think these three were the last three holdouts from the time when she was cast and everyone flipped out. (Just an aside: I summarily unsubscribed from that podcast--I can handle dissenting views, but this one seemed ethnocentric and mean spirited)

 

So yeah, this guy Marston who created her was really something. A psychologist hired by DC in the 1940s to create a female character. He wanted to create one who didn't punch her way through problems but solved problems the way a woman did. You know, love, making people tell the truth, and stuff that mom's are good at I guess? I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on the guy as he was going with aspects of what was considered empowering at the time, but he sure did fetishize her costume by playing up to the bondage imagery of the time.