DC Movie Universe

[JayMysteri0]

Since I'm here, I guess we can do an update on the Green Lantern series coming to HBO Max.

Green Lantern: Marc Guggenheim Wants Series to Atone for 2011 Film

HBO Max's Green Lantern writer/EP Marc Guggenheim wants the series to finally "get right" what Ryan Reynolds' 2011 film got wrong.

bleedingcool.com

What was noticeable to myself and a few others is the idea of correcting the mistakes of the Ryan Reynolds GL, but NOT the mistake that involved casting Ryan Reynolds over the GL that most fans were NOW aware of. Meaning, ...John Stewart.

Who still is nowhere to be found. While Arrowverse unfairly teases fans over whether or not John Diggle becomes John Stewart 2.0, which they clearly spell out will NOT be involved with Green Lantern series.

DC is still treading in choppy waters with the whole Ray Fisher/Joss Whedon JL fiasco. A fiasco that brought in a lot more dirty laundry involving DC/WB execs. Stop screwing with the fans DC. Do your latest attempt to get over Hal Jordan, but don't ignore John Stewart because he became the default Green Lantern for many fans because of a great cartoon you should be proud of. Once again, DC animation showing how to get it done, while DC live action trips over it's own feet.

 

[SuperMatt]

Since I'm here, I guess we can do an update on the Green Lantern series coming to HBO Max.



What was noticeable to myself and a few others is the idea of correcting the mistakes of the Ryan Reynolds GL, but NOT the mistake that involved casting Ryan Reynolds over the GL that most fans were NOW aware of. Meaning, ...John Stewart.

Who still is nowhere to be found. While Arrowverse unfairly teases fans over whether or not John Diggle becomes John Stewart 2.0, which they clearly spell out will NOT be involved with Green Lantern series.

DC is still treading in choppy waters with the whole Ray Fisher/Joss Whedon JL fiasco. A fiasco that brought in a lot more dirty laundry involving DC/WB execs. Stop screwing with the fans DC. Do your latest attempt to get over Hal Jordan, but don't ignore John Stewart because he became the default Green Lantern for many fans because of a great cartoon you should be proud of. Once again, DC animation showing how to get it done, while DC live action trips over it's own feet.

I prefer DC comics to Marvel, but the live-action movies have almost all been disappointing. At least Legends of Tomorrow is a fun TV show.

I’d love to see John Stewart as THE star of a GL movie.

 

[Eric]

Give it a go, I don't mind.

Or did you want to start a new thread like @Huntn has done before, but a little more in general about such movies?

At first thought, discussing how multi dimensions has taken over super hero movies and their ties to the early versions in comics would cover a lot. Leaving a wide area of things for others to update.

This could go both ways (notice I said "this" and not "I" before @DT starts sending me a bunch of suggestive PMs). Like Loki for example, it could technically be its own Wiki.

Okay, so let's discuss before I hijack your thread here (I already sorta did, sorry) and see what @Huntn thinks, I get the feeling he would be really good at running such posts.

 

[JayMysteri0]

I prefer DC comics to Marvel, but the live-action movies have almost all been disappointing. At least Legends of Tomorrow is a fun TV show.

Legends of Tomorrow's success is due entirely to how bad it failed as an idea season 1. Season 2, they took an "Aw F it" approach, making it so different it was great. It was something finally different.

Right now, when it comes to comics, I dislike the big two completely. Everything is about making that next crossover event that brings in bank, and it never does. I recommend if you can, check out Boom Studios, followed by ( which is ironic since Image is blueprint ) Image. Right now one of the hottest things going is Something is killing the Children, which Netflix just picked up. I avoid the big two for comics nowadays, the movie & tv divisions are way more creative than the source material.

 

[JayMysteri0]

While it's on my brain, I thought I would hash out some of the issues involving Green Lantern. Issues completely self imposed.

First we need to get one thing out of the way. Especially since it ties indirectly to Ray Fisher. Cyborg does NOT belong in the JLA. Anyone can line up & fight me over this. Cyborg is THE quota hero that fragile White fans fear. Cyborg is one of the Teen Titans. His best friend is a Titan, his most memorable things involve the Teen Titans. So why is Cyborg NOT with the Teen Titans and in the Justice League?

John Stewart.

Or more to the point, because John Stewart became the default Green Lantern for a generation of fans over THE Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

Make no bones about it. Hal Jordan as Green Lantern is a bad ass, THE Green Lantern. But DC F'ed that up. They made him a bad guy, he literally killed a city, and then 'redeemed' him.



But all of that believe it or not is besides the point.

John Stewart was created by the legendary Denny O' Neill, during his legendary run with the legend himself Neal Adams during the 70's 'road trip' Green Arrow / Green Lantern pairing.

Yes, I have this comic. It was a cherished acquisition.

John Stewart was the classic angry young Black man, wronged. Who got sent the ring. You can read up on your own.

The point was John Stewart existed, and was made as back up GL along with gym teacher/loud mouth/right winger/lovable asshole Guy Gardner.

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/One_Punch

One of the greatest moments in Justice League history.

When the Justice League cartoon was made supposedly they weren't allowed to use certain characters because they may have had other projects or ties to something else. So no Hal Jordan, and supposedly John Stewart was used. John Stewart was THE Black guy on that Justice League, but not because they needed a Black Guy. Others say that is why he was used. You can run with whatever version you like. Stewart though became a very popular component of a very popular cartoon. He was involved in a interracial romance with another character ( Hawkgirl ) that was very popular. I did like the pairing. I really LOVED the later pairing of Batman & Wonder Woman, which makes you realize that Bruce Wayne is the best choice for Diana Prince not Clark Kent. It was such a weird choice that I thought was great & they ran with it in the cartoon ONLY. I digress though.

When the decision came to make a Green Lantern movie, the studios understandably wanted a star. The younger fanbase at the time that was going to see the movie though, wondered who the White guy was. We're also ignoring that, the movie is... just baaaaaaaaaaaddd.

When Geoff Johns ( Basically DCU's head writer of sorts ) became justifiably popular with his reboot of Green Lantern & later works wanted Hal Jordan back as Green Lantern. So when it came time to reboot JLA, it meant kicking the popular Black guy out. So they went with any other Black superhero that was powerful enough to warrant being in the Justice League.

Problem?

Black superheroes in general are rarely if EVER as powerful as the big names.

So they went with Cyborg, amping up his powers & tying him to the internet.

To Teen Titans fans it's stupid, and it reeks of the quota thing some White conservatives get all in their feelings about. Ironically, those conservative fans love Cyborg in JL. Go figure. In the comics though, fortunately Cyborg is back where he belongs in the Teen Titans, no longer shoe horned.

To tie back to Ray Fisher. Geoff Johns is tied into all that baggage brought up about racism & DC/WB.

So if you made it this far, you might see it's just as easy to use John Stewart. You don't have to replace Hal Jordan, as he once did successfully, but DC needs to stop pretending he isn't THE Green Lantern for many.

Side note: In the Arrow shows they did say John Diggle's father's last name is Stewart.

That's some biased comic book history courtesy of Jay. Thank you for your time. I left a lot out.

Sorry for the TLDR, wanted to distract myself from some stuff

 

[Thomas Veil]

​

I'd call that one of the great moments in comic book history. Aside from Beetle laughing his ass off, the other great thing about this scene was Canary in the next panel (not shown). After the rest of the leaguers start getting down to business, Canary is still thinking, "Batman punched Guy...and I missed it?? Oh, God...I am so depressed!"

Justice League International was, I think, my favorite comic of all time.

 

[Huntn]

Give it a go, I don't mind.

Or did you want to start a new thread like @Huntn has done before, but a little more in general about such movies?

At first thought, discussing how multi dimensions has taken over super hero movies and their ties to the early versions in comics would cover a lot. Leaving a wide area of things for others to update.

My understanding is that comics has a long history of killing off characters and bringing them back?

 

[Herdfan]

My understanding is that comics has a long history of killing off characters and bringing them back?

But think about it, when we were kids, you read comic books for what, 7-10 years and then moved on. So a whole new group of kids came along who had no idea a character had been killed off. It wasn't until the movies that this became an issue.

 

[Huntn]

It's new to us here so it would essentially be a beta test, but if you look over at MR in any of these Wiki threads it gives the idea. Essentially, it opens your first post up so that anyone can update it. I know it has added functionality like moderating updates, etc but I haven't really tested any of that yet. If you're up for it I can do that on this post, if not, no hard feelings. This is your thread.

This could go both ways (notice I said "this" and not "I" before @DT starts sending me a bunch of suggestive PMs). Like Loki for example, it could technically be its own Wiki.

Okay, so let's discuss before I hijack your thread here (I already sorta did, sorry) and see what @Huntn thinks, I get the feeling he would be really good at running such posts.

I’m very hesitant to grant wiki rights to most of my thread ideas. Over at MRs I only made one wiki thread and that was the list of media related threads posted there. As far as I know no one has contributed to it which is fine. I also got it pinned which is how a thread like that should be. Wiki posts for lists is good. I would never have posted something like the Avengers/Infinity Stone Saga thread as a Wiki post. That is my creation.

I might have missed it, but what kind of Wiki threads are you thinking about? Correct me if I’m wrong, but A wiki post only makes the first post editable, right?

 

[Huntn]

But think about it, when we were kids, you read comic books for what, 7-10 years and then moved on. So a whole new group of kids came along who had no idea a character had been killed off. It wasn't until the movies that this became an issue.

Some kids read comics all the way into adulthood. I took a long break from comics at about puberty, never read X-Men, but found myself reading X-Men comics 1960s-80s pub dates, in my 40s after becoming enamored with the movies, but for that period of time I don’t remember anyone coming back after apparently dieing, but my memory is shot to hell.

 

[Eric]

I’m very hesitant to grant wiki rights to most of my thread ideas. Over at MRs I only made one wiki thread and that was the list of media related threads posted there. As far as I know no one has contributed to it which is fine. I also got it pinned which is how a thread like that should be. Wiki posts for lists is good. I would never have posted something like the Avengers/Infinity Stone Saga thread as a Wiki post. That is my creation.

Fair enough, it's something you would definitely want to be interested in doing. I think that some of these categories could benefit from that but if nobody contributes then it really doesn't matter anyway.

I might have missed it, but what kind of Wiki threads are you thinking about? Correct me if I’m wrong, but A wiki post only makes the first post editable, right?

Correct, just the first post and all changes are tracked, etc.

 

[JayMysteri0]

My understanding is that comics has a long history of killing off characters and bringing them back?

The joke is of course 'anyone is dead until their next first issue'.

It isn't so much the 'history of killing off characters', it's the lack of respect for their deaths. To the point that it's a running joke that when Marvel kills off someone, you know it's until they are in a movie, then they will be back. In the 'Arrowverse' it's it's own set of jokes.

Some kids read comics all the way into adulthood. I took a long break from comics at about puberty, never read X-Men, but found myself reading X-Men comics 1960s-80s pub dates, in my 40s after becoming enamored with the movies, but for that period of time I don’t remember anyone coming back after apparently dieing, but my memory is shot to hell.

That's the REAL problem comics faces. The Reed Richards & Ben Grimm you would remember would have fought in the Viet Nam war. Not very practical. It often means retconning the ages of heroes & villains over & over. That's not counting DC's long history that involves literal ages: Golden Age, Silver Age, etc. Before there was a Justice League, there was a Justice Society. There were more multiple Flashes & Green Lanterns to explain this, but NOT Batmen & Supermen. So one early idea back in the 60s? To have an Earth 1, Earth 2, and so on.

Thus our early multiverses.

 

[Edd]

About the Green Lantern film, which was terrible…what blew me away was how much of the GL mythos they packed in the film. I mean, they shoved the whole GL Corps into the origin film of a character that most of the public doesn’t care about. This wasn’t a Batman movie. They swung for the fences, gambled big and lost big.

 

[Huntn]

Fair enough, it's something you would definitely want to be interested in doing. I think that some of these categories could benefit from that but if nobody contributes then it really doesn't matter anyway.


Correct, just the first post and all changes are tracked, etc.

I’m good with making a list or a how-to guide in a wiki post. But even a how-to guide can get dorked up if there are too many cooks, Incompetant cooks, differences of opinion or vandalize and run. I’ve not paid enough attention to what you had in mind. What kind of topics do you see as wiki posts?

Here is the one at MRs: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/list-of-television-movie-and-book-discussion-threads.2209167/ I’m the only one who updates it and that’s ok with me.

 

[JayMysteri0]

There's a few more specifics about the upcoming Black Superman movie in this article.

Michael B. Jordan Is Bringing Black Superman Val-Zod to HBO Max

io9 has confirmed reports that Michael B. Jordan will be creating a Superman limited series for HBO Max, revolving around the Black Superman of Earth-2, Val Zod.

gizmodo.com

After a few years of waxing and waning, it seems like DC’s Men of Tomorrow are back in the spotlight at Warner Bros. Alongside the plans for Ta-Nehisi Coates and J.J. Abrams to bring a new Superman to the big screen, a new report suggests that Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan is working on a separate Krypton-themed project for streaming service HBO Max.

Collider first had word that Jordan and his Outlier Society production company are developing a Superman project for Warner’s HBO Max. A person close to the project confirmed the story to io9 and clarified that it would actually be a limited series. Unlike the upcoming Superman movie penned by Ta-Nehisi Coates, this project won’t be re-imagining a version of Clark Kent, the classic Superman of DC Comics. Instead, Jordan’s project will star Val-Zod, first introduced in 2014 as a Kryptonian from Earth-2 in DC Comics’ vast multiverse who took on the mantle of Superman after the Kal-El of his reality was killed in an invasion of Earth-2 by Darkseid and his army of Parademons.

Warner Bros.’ plans for the Superman character have been up in the air for years in the wake of the character’s revival in the DCEU under Zack Snyder. Henry Cavill, who starred as Clark Kent in Man of Steel, the theatrical cut of Justice League by Joss Whedon, and this year’s release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, has long discussed wanting to continue playing the character. While a sequel has been rumored for years, instead the character has largely been left to the wayside as Warner focused on other areas of its DC Comics stable.

This year has already seen the announcement of multiple Superman-adjacent properties, however. On television, the character launched a new CW show, Superman & Lois, while an upcoming animated series, My Adventures With Superman, is set to bring the character to HBO Max and Cartoon Network. Meanwhile, Sasha Kalle will play Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El (a.k.a. Supergirl) in Andy Muschietti’s The Flash, before appearing in her own long-in-the-works spinoff film.

There is also...

DC’s New Batgirl Has Been Found in Leslie Grace

In the Heights star will play live-action Barbara Gordon in DC and Warner Bros.' Batgirl movie, which is set exclusively on HBO Max. Bad Boys’ Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah will direct the film, based on a script from Birds of Prey’s Christina Hodson.

gizmodo.com

Warner Bros.’ expansion of the Bat-wing of its myriad plans for the DC movieverse just took a major leap forward: a new cinematic Barbara Gordon has been found, and it’s In the Height’s Leslie Grace.

Deadline reports that Grace—one of several names to emerge on a purported final list of options earlier this week, alongside Isabella Merced, Zoey Deutch and Haley Lu Richardson—will play Barbara Gordon in the standalone Batgirl movie, set to debut exclusively on HBO Max. Bad Boys’ Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah will direct the film, based on a script from Birds of Prey’s Christina Hodson, who was brought into the project after disgraced director Joss Whedon bowed out, citing that he was unable to create a story for one of the most popular female heroes in DC Comics’ stable of characters.

Batgirl is just one of the many, many Bat-adjacent movies DC has in the works at Warner Bros. right now. Of course, Matt Reeves’ The Batman will bring in Robert Pattinson’s new take on the Dark Knight, but Andy Muschietti’s Flash standalone will also bring back both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton’s versions of the iconic protector of Gotham. Chris McKay, who recently directed The Tomorrow War at Amazon, has long been attached to a Nightwing movie that he’s still talking about actually doing. And that’s not to rule out HBO Max offerings like the upcoming season of Titans—which will also feature Savannah Welch as Barbara Gordon, more specifically in her role as Oracle rather than Batgirl—and the planned Gotham PD spinoff set in the world of Reeves’ Batman film.

We currently have no idea which continuity, if any, this new version of the character will be featuring in but we’ll bring you more on Batgirl as and when we learn it.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Okay, so in the "What movie are you watching?" thread I promised further comments on "The Suicide Squad". Here they are.

I put them here not just so I could write expansively about the movie, but because of what I fear this movie portends for the DC universe.

Spoiler: LOTS of spoilers.

I had two different reactions to “The Suicide Squad”: extreme disappointment at the movie itself, and ire toward the reviewers who have been kissing the movie’s ass while pissing on the grave of the 2016 original.

I’m still having thoughts, so don’t be surprised if I come back here and append further remarks.

Movies first.

Construction

The 2016 movie gave us a decent introduction to the characters, which of course is important to a first movie in the series. The 2021 version didn’t have to explain the whole idea of the Task Force X, but goes too far in the opposite direction, throwing a list of mostly no-name villains and telling us and telling us little to nothing about them. Only Bloodsport gets a good scene, and even then it feels derivative of a similar one with Deadshot in the original film.

Then it’s straight on to the mission, which is where the movie compounds the above mistake. I’ll admit Waller’s betrayal of half the team was a nice twist and a very Waller thing to do, but then again it we don’t know these people we don’t really give a shit. It makes the scene feel not so much like a plot twist as a cheap gimmick.

The flashbacks. Not a big fan of them. Nor the graphics that appear in the sky and elsewhere. Leave that stuff to Bob ❤︎ Abishola.

The music. Meh.

Characters

The two relationships that are able to stand out from the rest of this dross are parental: Bloodsport and his daughter, and Ratcatcher and his daughter, Ratcatcher 2. I recognize the attempt to make Polka Dot Man a sympathetic character, and it would have worked if it weren’t undercut by three things: that ridiculous costume, the Christmas lights on his face, and his seeing his mom everywhere he looks.

Okay, Harley does have a relationship, but it never feels real, not like her attraction to Mr. J. She gets a few funny scenes and action shots, but they’re not enough to save the movie.

The rest of the cast…ecch. I’m not a big fan of anthropomorphized characters. King Shark was mildly amusing, but Weasel was sort of pointless, unless the point was to freak people out. Peacemaker comes across as a 2D version of Guy Gardner but with a kiddie helmet; and TDK is just the dumbest thing ever. Taking one of DC’s most ridiculous characters (Arm Fall Off Boy) and dropping him in this movie, even as cannon fodder, is just really juvenile.

Starro. Oh boy. If there was one aspect of this movie I was looking forward to, it was Starro, who is one of the biggest bads in the DC universe. Now, I understand that writers tend to alter characters, but making Starro an innocent bystander in space who got sucked into an experiment is just a waste of a good villain.

In the comics, Starro is an evil, mind-controlling would-be world conquerer, much closer to Darkseid and Thanos than to…well, whatever he’s supposed to be in this movie. If you’re going to introduce Starro into the DC movie universe, at least give him a better movie, a serious movie. Yes, he uses his stars to turn the people of Corto Maltese against the Squad, but he’s still never a serious threat. This Starro could be destroyed by a single military plane on a bombing run.

And what’s the point of bringing him to life with CG when the ultimate result looks like a man in a rubber suit?

Let’s not even talk about him expelling his stars from his armpits.

Logical sinkholes

How did Blackguard contact the Corto Maltese army ahead of time, anyway, from a mission he was just assigned to? And how come a woman as smart as Waller has a mission control team of millennials that seem like she hired them out of Walmart?

And later in the film, Ratcatcher and his daughter are shown perched atop a skyscraper. How the hell did they get there? These kinds of things bring the film to an ass-grinding halt when they force us to mentally call bullshit.

Tone

This is where the movie really fails for me. It’s hard to tell what Gunn was going for. Adventure with comedy undertones? Parody of its predecessor? Camp put-on like the Adam West Batman? To me it looks like it’s trying to be all three, and hence fails at all of them.

Then there’s all the violence and jokes. I’m not averse to some violence, but this was just over the top. In fact it was over over the top. Yeah, we get it, we get it. Blood. Guts. Gore. We see, we see. Okay already.

And a lot of the jokes were just stupid. I’ve read that Gunn has the sense of humor of a 14 year old, and that’s the way this film comes across: like a movie made by a 14 year old boy, for 14 year old boys, throwing any crazy idea into the mix whether it makes sense or not.

Okay, that's enough of a rant for now. I'll add more later.

 

[JayMysteri0]

Okay, so in the "What movie are you watching?" thread I promised further comments on "The Suicide Squad". Here they are.

I put them here not just so I could write expansively about the movie, but because of what I fear this movie portends for the DC universe.

Spoiler: LOTS of spoilers.

I had two different reactions to “The Suicide Squad”: extreme disappointment at the movie itself, and ire toward the reviewers who have been kissing the movie’s ass while pissing on the grave of the 2016 original.

I’m still having thoughts, so don’t be surprised if I come back here and append further remarks.

Movies first.

Construction

The 2016 movie gave us a decent introduction to the characters, which of course is important to a first movie in the series. The 2021 version didn’t have to explain the whole idea of the Task Force X, but goes too far in the opposite direction, throwing a list of mostly no-name villains and telling us and telling us little to nothing about them. Only Bloodsport gets a good scene, and even then it feels derivative of a similar one with Deadshot in the original film.

Then it’s straight on to the mission, which is where the movie compounds the above mistake. I’ll admit Waller’s betrayal of half the team was a nice twist and a very Waller thing to do, but then again it we don’t know these people we don’t really give a shit. It makes the scene feel not so much like a plot twist as a cheap gimmick.

The flashbacks. Not a big fan of them. Nor the graphics that appear in the sky and elsewhere. Leave that stuff to Bob ❤︎ Abishola.

The music. Meh.

Characters

The two relationships that are able to stand out from the rest of this dross are parental: Bloodsport and his daughter, and Ratcatcher and his daughter, Ratcatcher 2. I recognize the attempt to make Polka Dot Man a sympathetic character, and it would have worked if it weren’t undercut by three things: that ridiculous costume, the Christmas lights on his face, and his seeing his mom everywhere he looks.

Okay, Harley does have a relationship, but it never feels real, not like her attraction to Mr. J. She gets a few funny scenes and action shots, but they’re not enough to save the movie.

The rest of the cast…ecch. I’m not a big fan of anthropomorphized characters. King Shark was mildly amusing, but Weasel was sort of pointless, unless the point was to freak people out. Peacemaker comes across as a 2D version of Guy Gardner but with a kiddie helmet; and TDK is just the dumbest thing ever. Taking one of DC’s most ridiculous characters (Arm Fall Off Boy) and dropping him in this movie, even as cannon fodder, is just really juvenile.

Starro. Oh boy. If there was one aspect of this movie I was looking forward to, it was Starro, who is one of the biggest bads in the DC universe. Now, I understand that writers tend to alter characters, but making Starro an innocent bystander in space who got sucked into an experiment is just a waste of a good villain.

In the comics, Starro is an evil, mind-controlling would-be world conquerer, much closer to Darkseid and Thanos than to…well, whatever he’s supposed to be in this movie. If you’re going to introduce Starro into the DC movie universe, at least give him a better movie, a serious movie. Yes, he uses his stars to turn the people of Corto Maltese against the Squad, but he’s still never a serious threat. This Starro could be destroyed by a single military plane on a bombing run.

And what’s the point of bringing him to life with CG when the ultimate result looks like a man in a rubber suit?

Let’s not even talk about him expelling his stars from his armpits.

Logical sinkholes

How did Blackguard contact the Corto Maltese army ahead of time, anyway, from a mission he was just assigned to? And how come a woman as smart as Waller has a mission control team of millennials that seem like she hired them out of Walmart?

And later in the film, Ratcatcher and his daughter are shown perched atop a skyscraper. How the hell did they get there? These kinds of things bring the film to an ass-grinding halt when they force us to mentally call bullshit.

Tone

This is where the movie really fails for me. It’s hard to tell what Gunn was going for. Adventure with comedy undertones? Parody of its predecessor? Camp put-on like the Adam West Batman? To me it looks like it’s trying to be all three, and hence fails at all of them.

Then there’s all the violence and jokes. I’m not averse to some violence, but this was just over the top. In fact it was over over the top. Yeah, we get it, we get it. Blood. Guts. Gore. We see, we see. Okay already.

And a lot of the jokes were just stupid. I’ve read that Gunn has the sense of humor of a 14 year old, and that’s the way this film comes across: like a movie made by a 14 year old boy, for 14 year old boys, throwing any crazy idea into the mix whether it makes sense or not.

Okay, that's enough of a rant for now. I'll add more later.

To counter, since I really did enjoy one aspect of the movie that made it for me, the unpredictability.

The movie kept just going in directions I didn't expect, and that is why I enjoyed it. I think if you are aware of the comics that might be annoying because of the directions they took. I said in the other thread, that the movie seems to be made with 'plausible denial' in mind. Meaning that it takes the current DC movie universe strategy and runs with it. Meaning THIS Suicide Squad movie is it's own thing. They don't talk about any other DC movies, it's just some movie with DC characters in it. They don't do any world building, they just expect the viewer to accept that a world exists enough super villains to make up a Suicide Squad. There's no time line, there's nothing, the film just exists as it's own thing. Maybe to have things referred to in future films.

Spoiler: Some counter points

Which is why I believe they made zero attempt to explain things. One of the biggest complaints from comic book fans is how many times an origin is done in movies. Here, no origin. Shit's just happening. The viewer gets to fill in their gaps, because they've got a movie to make. Does it make for a strong movie? No. But it makes for a fun popcorn movie, where the viewer doesn't get bogged with anything.

Your other parts, that's an individual taste thing. None of those bothered me.

I thought the use of Bloodshot instead of Deadshot besides different actors was a fun comment on the old meta discussion about how derivative the Dead, Shot, or plethora of Blood characters there were in comics. I believe that was a Deadpool riff at one time, where the joke was everyone confusing Deadpools, Deadshots, Bloodshot, Bloodpool, Dead Blood, and so on. So making things similar fit there.

I really got the feeling how much they separated Harley from the rest in the film, was to accommodate the character. Her focus since the popularity of the cartoon and no Poison Ivy, is to show she's moved on from the Joker.

Your complaints about the villains & Starro kind of get lumped together. The film as the characters keep referencing ( especially an exasperated Bloodshot ) is just the whole ABSURDITY. Chances of you EVER getting to Starro in a flim? ZERO. So whether the character is true or not becomes irrelevant, the character was just used to service the absurdity running thru the whole movie.

Bloodshot's line in the trailer of "eh" is the movie

A guy who throws a javelin is a super villain. Really? They have a guy who's a weasel, and don't think to ask if they can swim. Because seriously, when's the last time you googled "can weasels swim"? They have a shark who thinks they can read a book, as they hold it upside down. Harley's perceptional abilities are so keen, she doesn't know who Milton is. Did they mention the guy was Milton before? Who remembers? Peter Capaldi has spark plugs / transistors in his head, ...for reasons.



So WTF? Why not end with fighting a giant space starfish, that is not slang for a butthole?

It even got it's own title card in the movie. Suicide Squad Vs. Starro. Because it was just so absurd.

The movie is about as far as you can go from Zach Snyder, and I LOVED it for that.

I myself embraced that.

My other assumption is that Waller basically allowed Blackguard to make his deal, otherwise the distraction wouldn't work. Which is so keeping with Waller's character, and how disposable EVERYONE is. Including her right hand man, who wasn't a criminal or had a charge in their head. That's some cold shit.

I didn't have the tone issues you did. The camp was reserved for Peacemaker which is why I thought John Cena & his tighty whiteys killed it. I thought with all the absurdity running around, watching the actors deliver their lines was a high point for me. No smirking, just matter of fact no matter what happens. I really did enjoy the dialogue because it never deliberately mocked the silliness of it all. It's just the world of DC comics, and they are struggling in it. She stole a watch that plays TV. Why? I don't know. She didn't either. It's just another stupid thing that happened. Oh, her dad also somehow managed to put Superman in the hospital. Something Zod didn't even do.

I thought one review I saw summed it up. It's supposed to be juvenile, it's fun.

The Suicide Squad is a vulgar and outrageously superior sequel

James Gunn improves upon the original Suicide Squad in nearly every way, with a triumphantly vulgar, immature, and gratuitous DC supervillain blockbuster.

www.avclub.com

It isn't the train wreck of the first film where movie execs reacted to the mass appeal of the SD con trailer, and didn't want to embrace how dark Suicide Squad should be. So we got a film that is silly, dark only in reminding us about expendability, and John Cena killing people with a blow dart. Ever expanding modular guns that seem endless until dramatic moment? Check!

No editing was attempted with this TLDR. I wanted to go back and watch Suicide Squad again, but after I watch Jazzy Jeff's celebration of the De La Soul getting their masters.

 

[Edd]

I liked it fine. I’ve never found Suicide Squad super interesting as IP. I collected a run in the 80s but far from my favorite.

So it was more entertaining than the last attempt, but Starro as a villain? I collected Justice League runs but don’t remember ever thinking Starro was anything better than goofy. That name sucks.

 

[Alli]

We just finished watching. I found it highly entertaining. As with Marvel, I expect the DC universe to be treated as a comic, which means even at its most serious, it is still funny. The scene where Harley (which incidentally, is my husband’s name), gets herself free, I turned to Harley and asked “do the animated flowers mitigate the violence?” It seemed perfect to me. It was like in the original Batman series when you’d see the big BAM and POW balloons.

 

[Huntn]

Okay, so in the "What movie are you watching?" thread I promised further comments on "The Suicide Squad". Here they are.

I put them here not just so I could write expansively about the movie, but because of what I fear this movie portends for the DC universe.

Spoiler: LOTS of spoilers.

I had two different reactions to “The Suicide Squad”: extreme disappointment at the movie itself, and ire toward the reviewers who have been kissing the movie’s ass while pissing on the grave of the 2016 original.

I’m still having thoughts, so don’t be surprised if I come back here and append further remarks.

Movies first.

Construction

The 2016 movie gave us a decent introduction to the characters, which of course is important to a first movie in the series. The 2021 version didn’t have to explain the whole idea of the Task Force X, but goes too far in the opposite direction, throwing a list of mostly no-name villains and telling us and telling us little to nothing about them. Only Bloodsport gets a good scene, and even then it feels derivative of a similar one with Deadshot in the original film.

Then it’s straight on to the mission, which is where the movie compounds the above mistake. I’ll admit Waller’s betrayal of half the team was a nice twist and a very Waller thing to do, but then again it we don’t know these people we don’t really give a shit. It makes the scene feel not so much like a plot twist as a cheap gimmick.

The flashbacks. Not a big fan of them. Nor the graphics that appear in the sky and elsewhere. Leave that stuff to Bob ❤︎ Abishola.

The music. Meh.

Characters

The two relationships that are able to stand out from the rest of this dross are parental: Bloodsport and his daughter, and Ratcatcher and his daughter, Ratcatcher 2. I recognize the attempt to make Polka Dot Man a sympathetic character, and it would have worked if it weren’t undercut by three things: that ridiculous costume, the Christmas lights on his face, and his seeing his mom everywhere he looks.

Okay, Harley does have a relationship, but it never feels real, not like her attraction to Mr. J. She gets a few funny scenes and action shots, but they’re not enough to save the movie.

The rest of the cast…ecch. I’m not a big fan of anthropomorphized characters. King Shark was mildly amusing, but Weasel was sort of pointless, unless the point was to freak people out. Peacemaker comes across as a 2D version of Guy Gardner but with a kiddie helmet; and TDK is just the dumbest thing ever. Taking one of DC’s most ridiculous characters (Arm Fall Off Boy) and dropping him in this movie, even as cannon fodder, is just really juvenile.

Starro. Oh boy. If there was one aspect of this movie I was looking forward to, it was Starro, who is one of the biggest bads in the DC universe. Now, I understand that writers tend to alter characters, but making Starro an innocent bystander in space who got sucked into an experiment is just a waste of a good villain.

In the comics, Starro is an evil, mind-controlling would-be world conquerer, much closer to Darkseid and Thanos than to…well, whatever he’s supposed to be in this movie. If you’re going to introduce Starro into the DC movie universe, at least give him a better movie, a serious movie. Yes, he uses his stars to turn the people of Corto Maltese against the Squad, but he’s still never a serious threat. This Starro could be destroyed by a single military plane on a bombing run.

And what’s the point of bringing him to life with CG when the ultimate result looks like a man in a rubber suit?

Let’s not even talk about him expelling his stars from his armpits.

Logical sinkholes

How did Blackguard contact the Corto Maltese army ahead of time, anyway, from a mission he was just assigned to? And how come a woman as smart as Waller has a mission control team of millennials that seem like she hired them out of Walmart?

And later in the film, Ratcatcher and his daughter are shown perched atop a skyscraper. How the hell did they get there? These kinds of things bring the film to an ass-grinding halt when they force us to mentally call bullshit.

Tone

This is where the movie really fails for me. It’s hard to tell what Gunn was going for. Adventure with comedy undertones? Parody of its predecessor? Camp put-on like the Adam West Batman? To me it looks like it’s trying to be all three, and hence fails at all of them.

Then there’s all the violence and jokes. I’m not averse to some violence, but this was just over the top. In fact it was over over the top. Yeah, we get it, we get it. Blood. Guts. Gore. We see, we see. Okay already.

And a lot of the jokes were just stupid. I’ve read that Gunn has the sense of humor of a 14 year old, and that’s the way this film comes across: like a movie made by a 14 year old boy, for 14 year old boys, throwing any crazy idea into the mix whether it makes sense or not.

Okay, that's enough of a rant for now. I'll add more later.

I think I watched the 2016 version and did not like it. After Guardians of the Galaxy, for James Gun , this sounds like an artistic direction, one, I probably won’t like. Wait a second, I remember Harley Quinn, (how can you not remember her ) but don’t remember if it is from 2016 Suicide Squad or Birds of Prey.