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Old 03-24-2016, 03:21 PM   #1
Hack&Lube
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Default Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice [SPOILERS THREAD]

A lot of people have started to see this film today. I watched it this morning and enjoyed it very much despite some mis-handling in the story and lost opportunities.

My condensed thoughts from the other thread:

That was my favorite superhero movie since the first Iron Man. Bad logic? Leaps and bounds. Snyder's lame filming style? Definitely. Powerful moments that kept reminding me of the past 20 years of Superman and Batman comics? Tons! It was just full of powerful moments and I loved that. I've also finally been able to appreciate Zimmer's Superman theme. I really disliked it in MoS but it is very poignant in this one. Batman's music feels a little Burton era esque but you hardly hear it. Wonder Woman gets some crazy electric guitar thing which I thought wouldn't make sense but it fits the Amazonian fierceness.

Comic book characters are really about a sense of aesthetics, style, themes, and powerful imagery. A lot of comic book films and TV shows don't have those moments. This film does for me, and Batman finally appears as I've always thought he should on the screen. Cavill finally starts living up to Chris Reeve's legacy. Wonder Woman was also well done. Some parts of it made me feel a little like it was an Alex Ross comic.

I think this film represented the characters much better than I expected. Batman is definitely a little older and I excused his behavior as simply being weathered and a little more psychopathic. You all saw in the trailer that this is post "Jason Todd" if you know what I mean. He even has a line where he says something to the effect of good guys don't stay that way forever and he's plagued with lunatic nightmares throughout...one of which actually feels like a DC "Crisis on Infinite Earths" style comic plot.

The plot and leaps of logic may not make sense at times but the dialogue is fast paced and sharp and doesn't linger long enough to be bad. I sense there was a missed opportunity to have the Batman vs Superman fight be actually be about something...something substantial; ideological, about their ideas of what justice should be, etc... but it turns into Batman going mad from all the carnage in the previous year and losing the control he's fought so hard to get his entire life - and Superman fighting because of damsel/family in distress syndrome.

One thing I didn't figure out from my viewing:
Spoiler!


Thoughts on what's coming next?
Spoiler!

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Old 03-24-2016, 03:59 PM   #2
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I had a feeling that's what you meant by the Doomsday reveal in the trailer.

One question. Am I doing myself a disservice by not seeing it in 3D and IMAX? Or just a personal preference thing? Tonight is my only real night to see it for a couple weeks and the only good seats left are in standard theatres.
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Old 03-24-2016, 04:37 PM   #3
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I had a feeling that's what you meant by the Doomsday reveal in the trailer.

One question. Am I doing myself a disservice by not seeing it in 3D and IMAX? Or just a personal preference thing? Tonight is my only real night to see it for a couple weeks and the only good seats left are in standard theatres.
I watched it in the small screen (in 3D) at Chinook as part of an event this morning at 8AM so I can't comment on the IMAX version or if it will be a whole lot better. There are a lot more character closeups and things than grand landscapes so maybe it won't be that important. I enjoyed it just fine.

As usual, 3D starts off with a lot of wow factor but your brain eventually forgets about it and it stops standing out eventually. I personally like to watch everything 3D if possible anyway, it gives it the extra cinematic feel.
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:03 PM   #4
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Darkseid is 100% the next villain. Supes won't have a big explanation for his return. He'll just come back.
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:17 PM   #5
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Darkseid is 100% the next villain. Supes won't have a big explanation for his return. He'll just come back.
I was like "YOU IDIOTS! DON'T PUT HIM IN A BOX! PUT HIM IN THE SUNLIGHT!!!"
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:27 PM   #6
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Carpenters had calloused hands building the set for this movie
Electricians pulled and pulled endless wire
People woke up at 3am to cook food for the actors
Millions were spent flying people around
Millions were spent advertising the movie


And they didnt bother to write a 2nd half of the movie. Unreal. This movie is a perfect example of why movies are so bad right now... they have a fairly decent 1st half or even 2 3rds of a movie... then things just fly into the toilet. I can't believe how stupid and silly things got in the last hour. It's really on par with the last Star Trek. Couldn't they afford amazing writers?

Even if they wanted to basically do nothing as far as writing goes.. why not take a popular comic book and expand out the story, knowing the formula works?

Things that didn't make sense or were done wrong:
-Too many storylines in too short of a time
-Wonder Woman was non needed and made things ... weird
-Lex had no real plan and if he did it was so far short of his supposed genius that it comes off silly
-The ending was.... powerful stupid

Ugh. Just ugh. So much was going right for the first half. Affleck is a great Batman. Adams is a wonderful Lane. Hell, Superman whoever he was, was pretty great too.

BOOOOOOOOO
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:27 PM   #7
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All of this with the caveat that I actually liked this film, especially in contrast to MoS.

The 'time traveller' was pretty clearly the flash to me. I'm guessing that the moment in time that was changed was as simple as Batman not putting the gun down, and believing that the henchman would pull the trigger. Horrible timeline averted.

The Darkseid bit was all so heavyhanded. There was no reason for any of it. And why in the world would Lex Luthor know anything about Darkseid at all? That made no sense. Really absolutely everything about the Luthor storyline made no sense.

Why is Lois always in the middle of fight scenes? Isn't her 'super power' reporting on things? Like Ben Ulrich? Her relationship with Clark seems to be built on exactly nothing.

Zack Snyder doesn't understand human emotion or motivation, and isn't smart enough to fake it. His movies look great though.

Sorry, just had to vent a little on a couple of points. I actually enjoyed the Affleck side of the movie. I believe the reports that said that he was rewriting dialogue on the set while in full Batgear.

Yes, the more I think about it, the Luthor parts were all horrendous. Make all of those into stock character action and reaction, and the movie would be great.
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:33 PM   #8
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The Darkseid/Batman dream sequence was laughably bad and out of place. As was the random mid fight scene JLA preview interlude. The Flash cameo was non sensical.
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:33 PM   #9
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Sorry for me being the comic book newb, but when WW was opening those files, I saw flash, aqua man and who was the last dude supposed to be?
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:43 PM   #10
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One more thought. Lex Luthor should hate and envy superman all at once. He should loathe him, treat him like a disgusting alien who is infecting "his" people and at the same time love toying with him. His jealousy of Metropolis and the world showing their love and awe to this bizarre non human should give Luthor anguish.

This was abundantly clear when Singer made Superman Returns. Spacey chewed the scenery a bit but was an excellent Luthor. I mean, that movie was so boring it was offensively bad and involved a hilarious real estate scheme but at least they did an ok job with Luthor.

This Luthor though? None of that. I think he hated Batman just as much as superman and they never did a good job of establishing why. In fact halfway thru the movie he switched from hating superman to hating batman. Why? For the stupidest reason ever! Because Batman stole his krypton which he was gonna use to kill Superman. Except that's exactly what Batman was gonna do with it! And he's probably better st it than Lex. So what does our boy Lex do? Well hire ####ing superman to kill Batman of course! MORON!!!!!

Not to mention how he sprung Doomsday from the already moronic magical Kryptonian ship like he was Saruman hatching Urukai in LOTR.
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Old 03-24-2016, 11:48 PM   #11
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One more thought. Lex Luthor should hate and envy superman all at once. He should loathe him, treat him like a disgusting alien who is infecting "his" people and at the same time love toying with him. His jealousy of Metropolis and the world showing their love and awe to this bizarre non human should give Luthor anguish.
For me, nothing can live up to the characterization of Lex in the Lex Luthor: Man of Steel comic mini series. They really get it spot on.
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Old 03-25-2016, 02:40 AM   #12
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I really wanted to love this movie... As evidenced by my posts in the other thread.... It was not great.

The first half was good. Luthor missed the mark big time. He was more like the toyman. Luthor is supposed to be confident and charismatic. Instead we get his awkward son, that nobody likes.

The Doomsday stuff had all the depth of a video game cut scene. The cameos by other heroes were weird.

This movie could have been a descent Batman flick, but they added too much crap on. The Batman stuff had a very Frank Miller or Arkham Asylum vibe, which was great.

The good news is that they might be able to learn their lesson and set up some descent movies in the future. The universe as a whole is definitely salvageable.

I think a major hurdle going forward will be the Superman casting. He just has zero personality. Superman is supposed to be a friendly generally well liked persona. In this film, his presence was a drain in every scene.
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Old 03-25-2016, 02:42 AM   #13
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Sorry for me being the comic book newb, but when WW was opening those files, I saw flash, aqua man and who was the last dude supposed to be?
The Cyborg.

Guy who's body gets destroyed and his tech guy dad builds a new one for him. He's generally associated more with the teen Titans than the justice league.
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Old 03-25-2016, 02:50 AM   #14
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All of this with the caveat that I actually liked this film, especially in contrast to MoS.

The 'time traveller' was pretty clearly the flash to me. I'm guessing that the moment in time that was changed was as simple as Batman not putting the gun down, and believing that the henchman would pull the trigger. Horrible timeline averted.

The Darkseid bit was all so heavyhanded. There was no reason for any of it. And why in the world would Lex Luthor know anything about Darkseid at all? That made no sense. Really absolutely everything about the Luthor storyline made no sense.

Why is Lois always in the middle of fight scenes? Isn't her 'super power' reporting on things? Like Ben Ulrich? Her relationship with Clark seems to be built on exactly nothing.

Zack Snyder doesn't understand human emotion or motivation, and isn't smart enough to fake it. His movies look great though.

Sorry, just had to vent a little on a couple of points. I actually enjoyed the Affleck side of the movie. I believe the reports that said that he was rewriting dialogue on the set while in full Batgear.

Yes, the more I think about it, the Luthor parts were all horrendous. Make all of those into stock character action and reaction, and the movie would be great.
Luthor learned about Darkseid from the ship, that had the knowledge of 100000 worlds.

Also I don't think the future was supposed to be a dream. That was the Flashes alternate future. The editing was bad and cut to Bruce Wayne in a chair. He wasn't sleeping when the Flash came in, hence the papers flying.

They should have used that scene as a reason for why he lets up on Superman. The mothers with the same name thing was absurd ... I'm going to stop the ultimate weapon.... No wait our mother's have the same name... Let's be best friends instead.
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Old 03-25-2016, 08:46 AM   #15
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Put me in the camp of people who don't know enough about the comics and don't really care how the characters in the movies compare to them.

Movie was enjoyable, had its fair share of silly but was a fun experience. Thought affleck was solid and Eisenberg was awkward. Didn't work for me. Felt the Doomsday stuff was unnecessary as I was really enjoying everything up until then.

6.5/10, entertaining popcorn flick.
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Old 03-25-2016, 09:01 AM   #16
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I saw it last night. Longer review to come later.

I wanted to love it. I didn't. I was worried that I would hate it. I didn't.

Biggest issue to me is probably Zach Snyder the editor. His ideas, characterizations and loyalty to the source material is spot on in my opinion. His visuals are fantastic and don't take away from anything. But does he know how to pace and edit dramatic scenes? There was so much jumping around and quickly edited scenes. Let the actors act. Let the dialogue play out.

I certainly will be seeing it again.
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Old 03-25-2016, 10:13 AM   #17
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Writers that shouldn't be allowed to work : Orci and Kurtzman.
Director's that shouldn't be allowed to work : Snyder.

I'm going to see if I can put an entire crew together, but this is where I start, with guys that have had way too many high profile projects in which they are the weak link.

After sleeping on it, I've come to the conclusion that anything that was touched by Luthor took away from the movie as a whole. Even Doomsday, brought to life randomly after Luthor apparently downloaded the knowledge of 100000 worlds, which included everything that you should NEVER do.

Doomsday was a blend of Luthor and Zod. That's a lot of material with which to build a character, and yet Doomsday had none of the traits of either man. He was the Abomination with less personality.

If all of Kryton's knowledge was downloaded into Luthor, that is a good reason for him to wig out, but he wasn't charming and stable before that point, so..... and he also said, 'Tell me everything', which would suggest a Motion Picture kind of learning montage, and absolutely not enough time for Luthor to learn how to build Doomsday in the first place.

Let alone pinpoint Darkseid as the one being in the galaxy who would take an interest in Earth.
Did he have visions about the Lanterns? The Guardians?
Other weird space stuff? Green people?
Why Darkseid? Didn't a 95% naked Starfire floating around the cosmos warrant a glace?

Screw off, Luthor. You weak ass character rendition.

I really liked all of the non-Luthor parts. I'll write about a useful and intelligent Alfred at a later time. And giving Batman a past without exposition. And Perry White being the best of the Superman cast. And Wonder Woman possibly being able to dismember Superman.

Damn it, Snyder. Why such great visuals interspersed with the storytelling ability of a five year old?
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Old 03-25-2016, 10:21 AM   #18
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I think that Lex figured out Superman is Clark Kent because he has half a brain and could picture him without the glasses, lol.

Reeves did such a better job of portraying Clark Kent.

Overall I think the movie gets a 2.5/10, I enjoyed the music, Wonder Woman and Alfred, Affleck was meh as Batman and his Bruce Wayne was just himself it seemed, was he even acting? It gets an extra point for the Flaspoint Paradox type flashback.

I was really bored for 3/4 of the movie, I wish they would just blow this whole thing up and start over. There was zero flow to this movie, the editing just seemed all hacked together. Horrible. I considered waiting for video or Netflix on this one but decided to give Snyder a chance, he failed me. I will wait for Netflix for JLA. I will go see Suicide Squad though because Ayer seems to be spot on. I predict they hand the reigns over to him for the future JL movies (after Snyder ruins 1 of course).
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Old 03-25-2016, 11:27 AM   #19
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Really wish they didn't spoil Doomsday and WW in the trailer. It would have been pretty cool to see WW debut the way she did. Also as mentioned earlier, showing Doomsdays pretty much gives away the ending.

Was pleasantly surprised that Ben Afflick was pretty good as Bruce/Batman.

Really didn't like Lex/Jessie Eisenberg. Cringe-worthy. Does anyone think think that maybe Lex was possessed by Darkseid or something from the start? Didn't really explain Lex's motivations at all.
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Old 03-25-2016, 01:45 PM   #20
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The slow shaving of Lex's head at the end was so juvenile and contemptible of the director that by the time Lex became Psycho Pirate for some reason, I didn't even flinch that much.

I expect in the JLA movie for the Scooby gang to appear and tear off Darkseid's mask to reveal the Anti Monitor, and then Lex's character arc will make sense.

Sorry. Got a little geeky there for a second.
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