Lex Luthor is proving a surprisingly difficult character to get right.

I like James Gunn’s Superman movie.  But I’m a bit annoyed by how over half the discussion of the film is about the film’s Lex Luthor with many saying it has the most perfect understanding of the character, when for me how the film handled Luthor is what I liked the least. 

First of all, as someone who likes the CEO Lex Luthor, it bugs me how many modern takes seem to feel forced to include the CEO element when they really just want to do the Mad Scientist.  This is what the Zach Snyder and James Gunn's takes on Lex Luthor have in common, to them the time as a CEO is just a step in the origin they want to get out of the way as quick as possible.  

I want years, maybe even over a decade of Lex Luthor secure in his CEO position before any type of downfall or prison time happens, that’s what we got in the 80s-90s DC Comics and Superman The Animated Series.  Lois and Clark is an interesting middle ground where I’d ideally want multiple seasons in a TV Series but at least getting a whole 22 episode season is better than only one single movie.  For comparison David Xanatos in the Gargyles Cartoon is a good way to handle things. 

However there is another issue I have with this take on Lex Luthor that would apply whether it’s a CEO or Mad Scientist take on the character.   Which is why I still prefer Batman V Superman’s Lex to this one. 

I dislike the very thing so many people are praising right now.

I don’t want Lex to be single-mindedly obsessed with Superman in the way The Joker is with Batman. He should hate Superman only because he’s in the way, Superman currently takes up a large percentage of his energy, and it can over time become somewhat personal.  But this desire to make destroying Superman the only real goal he actually cares about is something I hate.

Gunn cited Allstar Superman as an inspiration and yeah that comic is largely where this way of characterizing Luthor comes from.  And I honestly don’t mind it so much in that story as its own stand alone Elseworld thing.  But as the primary characterization of Luthor in what’s supposed to now be DC’s main Cinematic Universe, it’s really dull and short sighted. 

In the early history of the CEO Lex Luthor I prefer the way he was written by Marv Wolfram over John Byrne, making him a CEO was Wolfman’s idea in the first place and Byrne it turns out was a Right Wing Conservative so always out of touch with why most Superman fans think Superman’s best enemies are Corporate War Mongers and Slum Lords.  After that I again liked how he was handled in season 1 of Lois and Clark and STAS. I liked Lionel Luthor on Smallville (at least the first 3 seasons) as a glimpse of what a fully developed Lex Luthor could be like. And interestingly enough I liked the take on Luthor in season 2 of The Joker Blogs which is not official but an internet Fan Film project taking off of The Dark Knight universe. 

Ya know what story originally with a non CEO Lex Luthor could easily be rewritten as a CEO Luthor story?  Superman IV The Quest for Peace.  Luthor’s plot in that film could easily lend itself to a corporate War Profiter, and then you could also make him the guy buying the Daily Planet as well. 

Fate/Zero is the Darkest work of Fiction I give a 10 out of 10.

Possibly even the Darkest I give more then a 7.

It is the Darkest instalment of it's franchise for certain.  And like Revenge of The Sith ends as badly as it does because it's a Prequel, it's about setting wrong what our future heroes will set right.  Fate/ is overall a pretty optimistic franchise, it's name is meant to be Ironic, it's generally about beating Fate and rejecting Fatalism.  Now the average Fate/ Anime is not as much like a Magical Girl show as Fate/Khalied Liner Prima Illya, and that's fine, it's okay that there is a spectrum here.

But it's also in my opinion by far the darkest work of the "Urobutcher", as I've said repeatedly Madoka Magica and it's clones in-spite of everything are true Magical Girl shows where love and courage triumph.

Most other Anime thought of as being Dark Edgelord Anime have a limited appeal to me.  And plenty of the other Anime I like that are often considered super Dark and Edgy have a lot of light people don't see largely because of people who didn't watch them all the way to the end.

But I didn't say "Anime" or "Anime and Manga" in the title, I said fiction in general.  And when it comes to Dark works of Fiction I'm known for defending, it's often material related to DC Comics, Snyder Films, the live action Titans show, and Comics like Identity Crisis, War Games and the Bruce Wayne Fugitive Storyline.  

And for each of those cases the answer to "do you like them less then Fate/Zero or are they less Dark then Fate/Zero?" is BOTH.  And there is a limit to how much darkness I tolerate even from DC, I don't defend Future's End of any of the overly edgy New52 stuff, Fate/Zero is closer to their lever of edgy darkness, but is better then them at not feeling like it's all being done only for shock value.

The only things I can possibly say I like more then Fate/Zero that can maybe be described as at least more Dark then they are Not Dark are the Anime named Noir from 2001 and The Dark Knight from 2008.  But both are works I have very optimistic interpretations of in-spite of everything.

Snyder of course is the real controversial subject here. I really don't think any of the people who've made hours long Video Essays on why Snyder is the most cynical, toxic, pessimistic, nihilistic, misanthropic film maker of all time have watched Fate/Zero.  There is no way they can be as unforgiving of what they're unforgiving of while also being as unable to see the light in the darkness as they are when it comes to Snyder, and still be able to even sit through Fate/Zero.  Fate/Zero is much closer to being everything those people accuse Snyder of, and the optimism buried beneath the surface is visible mostly through knowing what it's a Prequel to.

And yet it would also be far more difficult for them to deny Fate/Zero was written by a good intelligent writer and directed by a skilled talented director.  Snyder allows his Style to hide his Substance, Gen Urobochi and UFOTable do not.

What does it say about me that Fate/Zero uniquely is able to be as Dark as it is and yet still be as appealing to me as it is?  I don't know really.

Justice League, Both Cuts are good movies

That’s my double Hot Take, each has their advantages and disadvantages.

I wasn’t expecting to have this reaction.  I’ve always known I’m not as much of a Snyder Fanboy as I sometimes come off to others, but clearly I myself was overestimating our alignment.  So much of what I liked about the Theatrical Cut that is not in the Snyder Cut I really assumed would be.

I’m quickly growing to have a similar relationship with Justice League as I do Superman II where my ideal hypothetical version of that movie combines elements of the Theatrical and Donner versions.  However the differences in Aesthetic Style here make doing a Fan Edit not nearly as easy.

I can say that while the Theatrical Cut should have been longer, 4 hours I would not have tolerated for a movie theater viewing where I can’t pause it.  No Superhero movie should in theaters be longer than The Ten Commandments.  However like the LOTR Extended Editions home viewing is different.  The same runtime as the Avengers movies would have been the ideal.

The best “superficial” praise I can give the Snyder Cut is that every scene or moment which is on paper the same in both versions is better executed here, better editing and cinematography and special effects and definitely a far more cohesive Musical Score.  And a lot of the longer scenes, and other stuff one might say adds nothing to the “plot” and may therefore get criticized as padding actually helps the film’s Gravitas and Characterization.

As far as the actual story goes the chief improvement in the Snyder Cut is everything involving Cyborg and his Father and the characters connected to them completely cut from the theatrical, he is the heart of the film and who was most done dirty by the theatrical cut.  Most of what I now dislike about the theatrical version are the alternate scenes with them.

However there is one more detail of the Theatrical Cut I would be completely adverse to including in an ideal hybrid cut and that is the Flash landing on Wonder Woman’s boobs gag.  One of the few Anime clichés I’m glad I (usually) don’t have to worry about in a Hollywood movie.

The Flash is overall also done better by The Snyder Cut, but I also like everything with him in the Theatrical besides that one gag I just mentioned.  However I don't consider major extra Flash scenes to be necessary.

Aquaman comes off about the same in both versions, which is good, he’s cool.  

Steppenwolf I don’t care about either way.  He is different but I really don’t care about his greater depth.  As I said before in Super Team formation films I’m fine with the villain being just a plot device.  The DeSaad and Darkseid scenes I enjoyed as a Nerd, but I don’t think what they add to the film really matters, they were there to set up future films that still might never get made, and Darkseid is the kind of character I feel should be ominously mentioned for years before he's ever even glimpsed.

However what I would most prefer to be gone are the Injustice inspired bad future visions, and I now want that gone from BvS too.  I was hoping that storyline would be resolved by the end of this film.  I don’t want more Evil Superman BS, that was supposed to be done away with once this film finished Clark’s Hero's Journey.  It turns out Snyder was planning more than a Trilogy and that disappoints me.

The Theatrical version of Justice league for all it’s plot holes and imperfections is still a fun movie that gets most of the core characters right.  And compared to The Snyder Cut is far better as a Superman movie, or a Batman movie and sure as hell a better sequel to Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman films.

The Theatrical Version despite having less than half as much Runtime feels like it has twice as much humanity.  Patrick H Willems talked about how Whedon’s Avengers movies have more glimpses of the normal civilian population and their reactions to the Superheroes then the Russo films, and that same contrast exists here.  

That Instagram video of the kids recording Superman at the beginning, that goon Batman uses to bait a Parademon, the Opening Credits sequence, having civilians around they need to protect during the big final battle, and other little moments right before cutting to the end credits.  All of that adds a lot of humanity to the theatrical version that I missed here.

I want to talk briefly about the Mustache controversy of the theatrical version.  People keep saying it's something you can’t not notice, except when I first saw it I hadn’t heard about any of this and I indeed didn’t notice it.  That one particular screenshot people like to meme to me just looks weird because of Cavil’s facial expression, in a way lots of freeze frames in a film will.

I hate the inclusion of the Black Superman Suit.  A lot of people think it's a requirement for a Superman returns from the Dead storyline, but this isn't a direct adaptation of Reign of The Supermen.  I would have been fine with it if it was only temporary like in those Comics, but him having it in the closing shirt rip shot symbolizes what I’ve already complained about and feel betrayed by.  I’m one of many who defended Snyder’s choices for Man of Steel and BvS on the grounds that it's Superman’s beginning.  Instead The Snyder Cut has revealed that Darker Edgier Superman was the long term plan.

With Batman I’ve already praised that scene where he coaches Barry and how much I liked that.  I also liked that Lois calming Superman down was Bruce’s plan, in the Theatrical Cut that’s the pay off to Barry’s future warning, in the Snyder Cut it only adds to that to set up a final pay off later.  I also like when he says to Alfred that Clark is more Human than he is.

In the Snyder Cut Diana kills that British Terrorist, this isn’t exactly contradicted in the Theatrical but it's clear that’s something Whedon chose to cut because he knew it didn’t fit with how Jenkins’ Wonder Woman movie ended.  A lot of people have been praising the moment with the little girl soon after saying “how could they cut that?” they aren’t looking at the context.  There was no way to include that while still hiding that Snyder had filmed Wonder Woman killing someone.  In addition to that I also don’t like her being so determined to decapitate Steppenwolf either.

I also miss all of the interactions between Bruce and Diana unique to the Theatrical Cut.  I do not interpret them Romantically, Alfred is just being a naggy parent who wants grandkids.  I like that they talked about Steve Trevor, something only briefly alluded to in the Snyder Cut.  I like that Bruce is a dick in one scene but not going to Frank Miller levels.  I like that he sees Diana as the one who should actually lead the team.

As stand alone works of art The Snyder Cut is more “Auteur”, but both were in truth collaborative projects.  I appreciate both and I hope the Theatrical version is never buried and forgotten.

Superman:Man of Tomorrow is a good animated movie

And it has inspired some spurious thoughts for me to comment on.

So for the first act of the film it felt like they were kind of handling things very similarly to Man of Steel, and I was predicting in my head that it'll be received differently because it has a brighter color pallet and more traditional musical score.  But by the end it distinguished itself from MOS in a much more substantive way.

The first main props to give this film is it playing up the Superman as an Immigrant allegory far more explicitly then any prior superman movie.  I'm noting that here but talking about that aspect of the film in-depth is better suited for someone who's actually had an immigrant experience.

Batman V Superman I still feel was touching on that in a more substantive way then any prior Live Action movie, but it's also wrapped up in Snyder's other themes and Batman being the one made into a Xenophobic Bigot is something too many fans didn't wanna deal with.  I of course feel making an icon like Batman the one who has to overcome being wrong in that area is more challenging to the audience, but I'm someone who feels after all the attention DKR gets that it's only fair Batman become the villain of a Superman story for a change.

The final resolution of this film is almost a case study in why perhaps Superman is better suited for Anime then Batman.  Batman has gotten two shots at an Anime because, A. DC gives Batman more attention at everything, and B. I imagine everyone working at DC still stereotypes Anime as edgy 90s OVAs.

The main thing that I think would be different if this film had been done by an Anime studio with Anime writers is that even Rudy wouldn't have had to die, which is what I'd have preferred.  But I imagine most negative reviews of this film (if they exist at all) will focus on how much of a cop-out it is that J'onn and Lobo both have fake out deaths.

I don't think anything gives more of a misrepresentation of my overall tastes then how often I feel compelled to defend things I'm not really a super fan of for getting hate they don't deserve. For example I defended Twilight on IMDB when my preferred taste in YA Vampire Melodrama was The Vampire Diaries (the first four books and the first two season of the CW TV Show are very different but both very good) for example.

But lately of course I kinda hate how some people's main experience with me may be seeing Tweets and YouTube comments where I defend Zach Snyder.  Because the stereotype of a Zach Snyder fanboy is some edgy hipster who looks down on Superhero movies where the Hero saves a kitten from a tree and has empathy for the villains they fight.  And yet I've spent most of the last month watching Sailor Moon content and Raildex Anime.

Even when it comes to my status as a defender of Hollywood blockbusters that get crapped on I'd rather the face of it be Speed Racer, Super Mario Bros, The Phantom Menace or more recently Sonic and the sequels to Frozen and Maleficent.  I mainly love optimistic feel good movies.

Heck going back to The Vampire Diaries my main criticism of the show's early seasons was that they kept killing people off, like every three episodes.  And what made me finally drop the show was when they started literally sending characters to Hell.

Fact is I haven't even watched any of the Zach Snyder movies I'm nominally a fan of in over a year.  In fact you may notice I can't even consistently spell his name right. Lately my Zach Snyder experience has mainly been watching YouTube videos about his movies.

And of course my taste in Superman in general is much closer to this animated movie then to Man of Steel or BvS.  But Superman is an Icon and a flexible one, I can respect taking him in a direction I wouldn't.

And to prove there is a limit to how much Edginess I can tolerate even for Batman.  The work of the other Snyder who's famously written for Batman I absolutely despise, and yes that even includes the stuff most people seem to like.

Sometimes it seems like the problem is the internet has gotten so polarized between "Dark and Edgy" vs "uplifting and optimistic" that I guess some people can't wrap their head around appreciating both.  But then people who hate on Snyder's movies will praise Logan and The Last Jedi.  I guess it's easy to claim those films are less unrelentingly dark because it's harder to pretend they don't have funny haha moments.  But to me Logan is the Superhero movie that flat out crosses the line into being too pessimistic to ever be appropriate for that franchise in ways DC has only ever done in the actual Comics.  And the other one I don't want to get into again.

I've watched a couple mind-numbing Zack Snyder video essays where when I'm not going "no the film is literally saying the opposite" I'm instead going, "Western Superhero Comics are simply not compatible with your preferences, watch Anime instead".  Of course recommending Anime can be hard, because sometimes the ones that are the least "Dark" are also the most "fanservciy".  I wanna recommend No Game No Life but these SJWs will not be able to get past the amount of screen time given to the 11 year old girl's panties.  I wanna recommend Railgun but then we have certain quirks of Kuroko and Saten, and then Index flat out doesn't relent.  I wanna recommend a Magical Girl show but.... well the actual Shoujo ones should be fine but there aren't many of them I give a 10 out of 10.

If I tried hard enough I could think of plenty of fan service free recommendations.  But I'm realizing that in every area my favorite stories are the ones who's great qualities overcome the aspects I generally don't prefer, rather then ones that are exactly like what I would write since those really don't exist, not till I get off my lazy @$$ and write something myself, and mostly the stuff that does seem close to that is what actually makes me go "I'd do that better" which is the kind of critic I'd rather not be.

And that's why I have to still consider Man of Steel a better Superman origin story then Man of Tomorrow even though the latter is in premise more like my Superman.  Man of Steel has the advantage of an actual feature length to flesh itself out, and even regardless of that simply is more expertly written and directed.  Still this movie is good and I recommend it for everyone who's a fan of Superman.

Ya know what's really wrong with this "you can't make a Superman movie like a Batman movie" nonsense?

I did a post on this topic way back in 2015.  That was back before BvS came out, now my relationship to that film has become much more complicated but I remain ultimately a defender.  That post was about the Comic Book precedent for specific stuff, this is about something deeper.

The problem with the way people are saying "you can't make a Superman movie like a Batman movie" the way these Snyder haters are is that they're saying it in a way that implies doing the opposite would be equally wrong.  And yet it's clearly not, even according these same people.

Batman stories that are not dark and in fact pretty light have been incredibly popular and successful.  From the Adam West Batman, to Batman: The Brave and The Bold to the Lego Batman movie and Batman Unlimited.  And I should remind people Batman Forever was until 2008 the second highest grossing Batman movie.  Not to mention that the comics themselves were consistently kid friendly for 30 years from 1940 to 1970.  And along side Denny O'Niel and Frank Robbins work there was plenty of goofy Batman stuff still being made in the Bronze Age thanks to writers like Bob Haney.

There was a time when these not Dark takes on Batman were considered inherently offensive by many loud fans, insisting being not dark was the reason Batman and Robin failed.  But the success of the Brave and the Bold cartoon has largely marginalized that mentality.  And now the people whining "that's not my Batman" are saying it about him killing or using guns, or being too paranoid, and these people will with a straight face say Batman and Robin is a better film then Batman V Superman. Today the Bright Knight is considered equally as valid as the Dark Knight.

So no, saying "you can't make Superman like Batman" isn't sufficient reason to say a darker (emphasis on "er" since I don't actually consider Snyder's vision that dark) take on Superman is inherently wrong.

Since the Golden Age comics are the justification for saying Batman was Dark originally, here's something I'd like to point out, the very earliest Siegel and Shuster Superman stories had the same tone as the earliest Batman stories.  Those stories dealt with very real issues of the time, and their Superman did not have any kind of no kill rule, they modeled him after Samson remember.  And also frankly those early Batman stories weren't actually as Dark as they're made out to be, stuff happens that seems like gritty subject matter on paper, but it's actually treated about the same as the Silver Age treated it's subject matter.  Don't judge a book by it's cover, the most popular Golden Age cover to Dark Batman Fanboys was on the inside a pretty ridiculous story.

And I think it's more valid to use the original creators vision as an argument for how to do Superman then it is Batman because originally Batman was a cash grab derivative character.  Superman was a passion project of struggling artists who's run away success was why Batman was created to begin with.

But even if it was true that from their inception Superman was the shining hopeful one and Batman the utterly dark one.  Why should a light take on a dark character be considered inherently more acceptable then a dark take on a light character?

If the objection is fear that parents and kids will assume something is okay for them based on the brand name alone.  That again goes the same both ways, in fact making a kids show from a property that's dark in origin should be worse, because even as a kid I was interested in things like continuity, so yes if you show your kids a 70s Godzilla movie they might wind up asking to see the original Godzilla movie.

The fact is, lots of kids grow up to desire seeing the fiction from their childhood grow up with them.  There has been a backlash against Dark Magical Girl shows kind of comparable to what we're seeing with Man of Steel's rejection.  But the thing is Gundam was a darker and grittier take on a genre that had previously been consistently for children also.  And thus that backlash has not been nearly so seemingly universal.

For me, the show from my childhood that I sometimes turn to precisely because I can count on it to be optimistic and fairly consequence free is Pokemon.  But sometimes I myself imagine what a truly darker take on that premise could be like.  It's of course already had moments that can be dark in the same way a Disney cartoon can sometimes get dark.  But at the end of the day, no, I don't want it to get any darker then the darkest moments of the first 5 movies.  However if a Dark and Gritty Pokemon movie becomes inevitable, I'll either not watch it, or give it a chance and not re-watch it if it fails to engage me.  I'm not gonna go around saying "that's not my Pokemon" or "they ruined my childhood".  My problem with Mystery of the Mirage Pokemon is not that it's arguably dark, it's that it failed to even try to be entertaining.  Meaning I'd compare it to Superman Returns before I would Man of Steel.

The difference between Superman and the Magical Girl Warrior genre is not that one is a single character and the other an entire genre, Superman has produced more content then some entire sub genres. The main reason I find the people whining about Dark Magical Girls so annoying is that there is no shortage of the traditional stuff still coming out for them.  We still have nearly 50 episodes of PreCure every year (that alone dwarfs the amount of Dark Magical Girl content we get each year) and two movies, plus during this time we've had a Sailor Moon revival, a Cardcaptor Sakura revival, and new stuff like Twin Angel Break and Hina Logic.  And then there is stuff that tries to find a balance between these two extremes, Symphogear, Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, and we've had new installments of the Nanoha franchise.

The problem with Superman is DC's been failing to give the traditionalists what they want anywhere.  The Comics will often forget that Clark Kent is a thing, in Animation he stopped getting solo projects for a long time after MOS came out until they finally decided to take a second shot at the Death of Superman, I love that story-line but shouldn't we actually show this Superman alive first?  And in Video Games it's primarily been Injustice.

The Supergirl TV show was the best the Michael Baily type Superman fans have gotten, being a mix of early Post-Crisis and Donnerverse sensibilities.  But Superman himself only occasionally shows up on that.  And I don't know if it's still good, I stopped following DC TV shows early in it's second season.

So I think there might have been much more acceptance of Snyder's Superman if we'd had an Animated Superman TV show in the vain of Batman: Brave and The Bold, maybe give that show's Superman a spin off.  As for me, I still judge Snyder's films on their own merits, and issues aside I think it is a valid take on Superman.  Here's a good video essay I watched recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKI0UO5U7qo

If your objection to the title of this post is that, "those light takes on Batman aren't exactly the same thing as a Superman story" then you've invalidated this as an argument against MOS in the first place.  No MOS is not exactly like a Batman movie either, BvS gave us some scenes of what a Snyder directed Batman movie would be like, and there was nothing like that in Man of Steel.

The issue of Superheroes killing Bad Guys

There has traditionally been a pretty harsh dichotomy to how this issue is approached.  Either they are super strictly determined never to kill even in scenarios where no real Jury would convict a real person of Murder.  Or you have the Punisher and Rorshach who exclusively kill because they have given up any hope that criminals can be reformed.  Some reasonable middle ground is rarely taken.

There was a time when marvel Comics official policy was that Captain America never even killed anyone when he was fighting in WWII.  Yes they were so determined to keep his hands free of Blood they wouldn't even admit he killed f----in Nazis on the battle field.  Meanwhile in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's universe.

In real life actual Law Enforcement is traditionally taught to always shoot to kill and never any less.  Maybe that is part of the problem our society currently faces and I would fully support a movie saying it's wrong that we train Cops that way.  But pretending Superheroes can do their job with the polar opposite policy is not the answer to that problem.

Linkara says he views Superheroes as like modern Knights Errants which is why he brings up the movie Camelot sometimes when talking about Superhero comics.  And that's cool and all, but even the Romanticized Arthurian version of what Knights were had no absurd blanket rule against killing the enemy, they were soldiers fighting in wars.

That's part of why I found the MCU so refreshing.  Because right from the start they were willing to acknowledge that if a Billionaire is gonna fly a f-----in Gundam to Afghanistan to stop a warlord from massacring a village, he's gonna have to kill some people.

What I find so ironic about all this talk of why the DCEU and MCU are so different, is that what really bothers people was Zach Snyder applying the MCU policy on killing bad guys to DC's Big Two.  But also unlike Marvel let this change in approach actually be thematically relevant, while Marvel was just hoping people simply wouldn't notice that Iron Man blew up a clearly maned Tank right in the trailer.

And I get it, people are used to these two characters in particular being usually uncompromising on this issue.  And some even like the irony of DC's Dark Superhero being the one who's strictest on his no kill policy (except when he's not).

But even as I do prefer Batman to stick to his No Killing and No Guns policy much more strictly then either Snyder or Miller's Batman does.  I am pretty baffled by how easily fans accept the "If I kill this unrepentant mass murderer who keeps escaping and killing more people then I'll become just like him" argument he makes in stories like Under The Red Hood.  That logic is pretty stupid.

The killing Batman does in BvS can be put in a few different categories.  First of all the nightmare Future Vision kind of shouldn't count, the whole point was everything about that was his worst nightmare including becoming a literal solider (Snyder films tend to paint the military as a necessary evil at best).  And in terms of him being reckless in scenes like car chases, let's stop pretending Nolan's Batman wasn't also pretty darn reckless.  And likewise with the disposal of KGBeast, I find it funny how a scene ripped directly from most Nerds favorite Batman Comic is treated as a huge betrayal of the character but "I don't have to save you" wasn't.

The branding is what's truly most controversial, with some acting like this makes Batman worse then The Punisher.  And to be honest even I think that plot-line could have been handled better, but not how you might expect.  And I'm even gonna set aside the Lex was actually behind the branded criminals dying in prison aspect which wasn't made clear enough in the theatrical cut.

First of all it is, even in the theatrical cut, presented as something Bruce just started doing, with that news paper we're shown being seemingly even Alfred's first time hearing about it.  Yet some people act like this Batman has been doing it for 20 years.

Secondly, the only person we ever see branded was a Sex Trafficker.  Those kinds of criminals tend to get that treatment in prison anyway.  It's almost as if the only purpose the Branding really serves is to give people, particularly Clark, a reason to blame Batman for it even though that would probably have been that guy's fate in prison regardless.

I think it'd have been interesting if the Brand was intended to have the opposite effect, like the Mark of Cain, saying "I don't want this guy getting off that easy so if you kill him you answer to the Bat".  But then that one is killed how he is because he was transferred to Metropolis and Clark simply wouldn't know the full context at first.  And maybe that was the original plan before the script got revised, who knows.

But my point is in the final product it is far more worth criticizing as a plot contrivance then as the worst violation of the No Kill rule any version of Batman's ever committed.

What really bugs me though is how the same people so offended by Snyder's two films also think Wonder Woman was DC finally getting it right, finally depicting a Heroic Superhero.  When in fact Wonder Woman is far more of a killer then the title characters in either Snyder film, and the killing itself far more condoned by the narrative.

In BvS we're supposed to view Batman as going too far, and he does abandon this dark path for a more optimistic outlook at the end (so Angry Joe saying "it'll be weird if he's not killing in Justice League" was always stupid of him).  And in Man of Steel Clark was trying not to Kill Zod, seriously I'm surprised no one's yet made a "Superman should've killed Zod sooner" argument.  But even if he couldn't have killed Zod sooner then when he had him in that Sleeper hold, he was still at that point pleading with him, he was trying not to have to kill him even though it was always inevitable.

Meanwhile Wonder Woman's mission was an assassination mission from the start and no one cares, she even kills the wrong person the first time, and nobody cares.

Is it because we see Wonder Woman as being in a literal war?  Even though the character Superman killed is called GENERAL Zod and he'd basically declared war on the planet.  But they're not in period piece cosplay so we don't register it as a "real" war.  Frankly I see it as pure hypocrisy to be okay with the Amazons killing Germans invading their island but not Superman killing someone only he could stop on a genocidal rampage.

Of course all the way back in 2005 the OMAC Project/Infinite Crisis story-line brought up a lot of talk on how Wonder Woman's no kill rule had "always" been less strict then Batman or Superman's, and so she was naturally the one to put in the situation of killing Maxwell Lord.  But to me that is the sad irony of how these characters have changed since the 40s.

In their earliest golden age appearances neither Batman or Superman had any hesitation to kill, Superman was modeled after Samson by his Jewish creators remember.  It was Wonder Woman alone who had a more pacifist policy right from her introduction, Marston wanted to reject the more violent and "Masculine" approach of most superhero comics.  So Wonder Woman preferred to reform her enemies EVEN when they were literally Nazis like Paula Von Gunther (though due to Marston's Racism I doubt we saw equivalent stories of Japanese villains being reformed).

You see Marston would not qualify as a Feminist according to Tumblr Feminists calling modern Anti-Feminists idiots who can't read the dictionary.  Because he did not view the genders as equal but unapologetically preached female superiority.  So among other things he held the problematic view that violence is inherently Masculine.  He'd frankly be disgusted to learn that by the 2000s his Amazons were being depicted as basically female Klingons.

Marston's ideology had a lot of issues, but what I do like about it as a Pacifist and a Feminist (and a Non Monogamist) I feel is embodied in a much better more refined way by the Magical Girl genre in Anime and Manga.  As much I did enjoy 2017's Wonder Woman, it'll never be the ideal depiction of Diana to me, to me Diana should be the West's Sailor Moon and Yuki Yuna.  DC has Big Barda to be their muscular sword wielding warrior woman.

What I'm saying is I like Snyder taking a more realistic approach to Violence in Superhero stories.  As opposed to Nolan wanting to kill off half his villains but also wanting to pretend he kept the No Kill rule intact.

Look, I'm writing this as someone who is firmly against the Death Penalty and strongly Anti-War. But those morals of mine relate to why in real life I disapprove of Vigilantes in the first place, even if they had a no kill rule.  So rooting for Batman already requires me to set aside my real world ethics when watching this fictional setting.

Some Superman fans are exactly like Fundamentalist Christians.

I was listening to Jesus Christ Superstar again this morning, imagining an Anime adaptation of it with Jesus being an Anime Girl who looks kinda like Eiko Magami.  When something occurred to me.

A lot of the people hating on Zach Snyder's take on Superman engage in this weird double speak where they hate that Snyder seemingly plays up the Jesus metaphor again, yet at the same time hate him for not making Superman "without sin" by their standards.  And I realized that some Superman fans are exactly like the kinds of Christians who are so deeply offended by stuff like Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ.

Chalcedonian, Miasyphite and Nestorian Christians are all supposed to believe in the full Humanity of Christ, but any depiction that emphasizes the Humanity many get uncomfortable with for not being sinless by their standards.  Likewise true Superman fans are supposed to know that Superman's real name is Clark Kent not Kal-El, and we're constantly annoyed by people who say "Superman's a boring character because he's too perfect", but will then turn around and hate any depiction of Superman where he isn't perfect from day one.

KyleKallgrenBHH's video on Superman literally says that he's offended by Man of Steel for making Superman less godlike.  He unambiguously says he cares about the Deity of Superman more then the Humanity of Superman.  I've addressed that video once already.

I have my own issues with Snyder's take on Superman.  Likewise I don't disagree that the Jesus Christ Superstar depiction of Jesus is a little problematic Biblically.  But that doesn't prevent me from loving them each as highly entertaining works of Art that at least try to explore aspects of these Characters that many others are afraid too.

P. S.:  In a hypothetical production of JCS where all the characters are DCU characters, Herod should be The Joker, just imagine Mark Hamil singing that song.

For me there still is no ideal Superman movie.

For Batman, The Dark Knight was perfect enough that I could have been happy never getting another Batman film.  But Superman hasn't been so lucky.

I'm saying this even though I have ultimately settled on a relatively positive opinion of Batman V Superman.  That film's takes on Batman and Superman are valid takes.  They're not the takes I prefer, but frankly they are closer to what I prefer then either Christopher Reeve or Michael Keaton.

We still don't have an ideal Superman movie, but Man of Steel is to my tastes much better then any of the Donner films, and the best characterization of Superman on the big screen so far is what we got in Justice League.

On YouTube, TheFear97, Twin Perfect and iamthatroby have some good video essays defending Snyder's Superman movies.  I know most in the Video Essay genre love to beat up on Snyder's films, from Folding Ideas to KyleKallgrenBHH to FilmJoy, all people who've done some other work I really like.  So I wanted to point out that an alternate perspective does exist.

I don't have a problem with people disliking Man of Steel and BvS, but I have a problem with people saying things about those films that are provably false.  Like that Clark never smiles, or never does anything Heroic, or never tries to take the fight away from populated areas.

I don't even think there is a truly great Animated Superman movie.  Brainiac Unbound is the best Aniamted Superman movie so far, and Allstar Superman is a good love letter to the Silver Age Superman.  But nothing like Mask of The Phantasm is for Batman.

As far as Superman on TV goes, I like what we got in the first two episodes of season 2 of Supergirl.  I have a complex relationship with Smallville, the first 3 seasons I think were perfect, season 4 remained pretty close with bringing Lois in too soon being the main issues, but regardless Commencement was the show's best episode, it was great.

The best adaptations of Superman stories that involve acting however I think are the BBC radio dramas.  I wasn't fond of the Trail of Superman, but The Adventures of Superman which adapted John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries, and then their adaptation of The Death and Return of Superman, are pretty darn great.

We now have two Batman Animes.  So it's a shame there seems to be no interest in doing an official Superman Anime.  Superman's been an influence on Anime, the Fleischer shorts influenced the Grandfather of Anime, in fact the second one in particular may be why the Mecha Genre exists.  And it's not a coincidence that Tetsuo puts on a Red Cape in Akira.

A long time ago, before I was that into Anime, I heard a claim that some 80s Japanese Cartoon was about a character who's Superman and Wonder Woman's daughter in the future which they somehow got away with even though it wasn't done with DC's approval.  I never remembered what it's name was.  Lately my mind wandered to that subject again and so I googled it, and it was an Anime called Project A-Ko, a movie I'd just recently heard Digibro mention a few times since he and May did a commentary for it.  Apparently it too has been a very influential Anime.

So I watched the movie and it was a pretty fun, I could see it being the premise of one of those old Silver Age Imaginary Stories, except for what's uniquely Anime about it, which is arguably everything.  I also watched the Dub which I think was pretty good, sometimes it sounds silly but the movie itself is silly.

The character of B-Ko we are at one point told has a rich father, and then she starts creating Mechs and stuff.  I immediately thought, that must be Lex Luther's daughter.  But I knew this movie came out in 86, when the CEO Lex was just introduced in the Comics, it felt unlikely that could have influenced something in Japan that quickly pre-Internet.  And yet the nature of their rivalry had me thinking she must be the Luther in this scenario.

Then after finishing the movie I read on Wikipedia that she's supposed to be Tony Stark's daughter.  That took me by surprise, this is over 20 years before the MCU, why was Iron Man of all people the Marvel character they wanted to incorporate?

But I then watched the movie a second time along with Digi&May's commentary, this time Subbed.  And now I'm definitely seeing the Tony Stark in her.  It makes sense one would confuse an Iron Man based character with Lex when in a Superman context.  Because Tony Stark basically is Lex Luthor as a good guy.  I know the CEO Lex was originally compared to The Kingpin, but as time goes on fans came to prefer a Lex who can be both the Billionaire and the Mad Scientist at the same time, and that makes him into Tony Stark.

So this is basically a Fan Fiction about Superman & Wonder Woman and Iron Man having daughters who are Lesbians fighting over the same girl.  That actually got Animated.

Maybe next Disney will buy out Warner and then the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Cinematic Universe can merge together and create a live action Project A-Ko adaptation with cameos from Henry Cavil, Gal Gadot and Robert Downy Jr.

BTW, there was also a Wonder Woman anime in 1978 according to My Anime List.

Update: Apparently the Wonder Woman cartoon I mentioned above is actually South Korean, she looks like Wonder Woman but they make her an Alien.   I've found it online but not with Subs.

I'm not falling in love with NEW Movies as easilly as I used to.

That I have been watching and liking so much Anime kind of makes up for that.  But as someone who choose to at the start of 2017 brag about how easy I am to please, I don't like that I haven't truly been able to be that enthusiastic about the Blockbuster movies I've watched.

Infinity War has possibly broken this trend.  So many past movies I've raved about on this Blog after first watching them I was already starting to sour on by this point since seeing it, whether I admitted that publicly or not.  So that I still feel the same as what I said about that movie two weeks ago, maybe even appreciating some aspects more, is important.  Before that the last Live Action film that I kept loving as much as when I first saw it in the theater was Jurassic World.

Even Wonder Woman, which because of my Feminism I actively refused to say anything negative about while it was still fresh because we needed a Female lead Superhero film to be a hit.  The truth is it didn't take me long to realize that I think it's in the same place Superman The Movie and Batman 89 were, good enough that it'll be treated as perfect as long as there isn't another take on Wonder Woman to compare it to, but once there is, the conversation about it will change.

One factor might be I haven't been rewatching stuff as much I used to (that's true for both Anime and western cinema).  Becoming a regular Anime follower has caused me to have a lot more to watch then I used to.  And in terms of Films, I used to make a point to always give a film I liked a second theatrical viewing.  But now with ticket prices going up while I have had a lot less money, I don't think I've done a repeat theatrical viewing since before I started this Blog.   There was a time when I would never fail to see a Comic Book Superhero film in theaters, but in 2017 I skipped out on all the Marvel movies till home video.

The Dark Knight I saw 10 times before 2008 was over, 6 times in theaters and 4 on DVD.  For the next few years I wouldn't go more then 6 months without watching it.  But Batman V Superman I've still only seen twice and those viewings were not of the same edit.  Maybe if during the gestation period of my opinion on The Dark Knight I allowed myself to go over a month only thinking about it without watching it again my mind would have poked more holes in it.

Digibro likes to say the re-watch is the real watch of something.  In fact he's specifically said it can take till the third viewing to be certain what your opinion is, that the second viewing you'll notice more flaws then you did the first time but then the third viewing be back to loving it as much as the first.  That describes my relationship with The Force Awakens somewhat, I certainly enjoyed my third viewing of it more then I did the second.

But why have I watched TFA more times then BvS? When I care about that franchise less to start with and ultimately feel like I probably like BvS more?  Something about BvS has been making me afraid of coming to terms with it.

The lack of repeat viewings can't be the only explanation however.  Cause I still only watched 2008's Speed Racer twice when I first saw it last year and I still love it and honestly think it might be able to compete with The Dark Knight as my favorite western movie period, being perhaps the opposite side of the same coin.

Now some of you might say "dude it's because you like things so much you watch it more" even though I kind of already addressed that. Even with the Anime I've been watching, a decade ago something I enjoyed as much as I did In Another World With My Smartphone or Princess Principle I have have watched 3 or even 4 times by now.  But I simply have less viewing time available.

None of my issues with Batman V Superman are of it as a stand alone film. The complexity of my relationship with that film is on a purely Meta level.  (I'll be talking more about this in future posts.)  As a complete film and a work of Art I still think it's the best the DCEU has made and will probably stand the test of time better then most MCU films.  I predict 20 years from now the general perceptions of it and Captain America: Civil War will have swapped places.

This post may make good context for a number of upcoming posts I want to make about DC and MCU films, and films in general that have come out since the start of 2015.  But those posts will be less personal exploration and more like actual points.

It might be this is a natural consequence of getting so into Anime, the Anime I've watched has raised my standards and perhaps spoiled me to even the best of what America has to offer.  Both for escapist popcorn fun and for deep philosophically challenging tragedies. After all some of what I may have to say about Infinity War in the near future is about comparing it to Anime.

Update:  Since first posting this I have seen Batman V Superman a third time.  Some of the Jump scares and explosions still make me Jump even though I knew they were coming.  That's something that's never happened with my home viewings of any MCU films.

I'm pretty Easy to Please

That's one of the main areas where I don't fit in among most people who feel the need to express themselves on The Internet.  I don't think most of what Hollywood produces now is garbage, I don't think modern Anime is being ruined by Cute Girls, and I don't think Pop is destroying Music.

I have enjoyed the vast majority of fiction I've consumed.  And I've fallen in love with a pretty large percentage of that.  And I aboslutly hate only one particular movie that I do not wish to name.   Most of the other things I may complain about have some significant redeeming qualities that I have no hesitation to acknowledge.

Of course maybe it only seems that way because I'm unintentionally good at avoiding what I wouldn't like.  As much as I've been mostly only watching Anime lately, I'm not like an Anime YouTuber who feels the need to try at least the pilot of every new show.  Over 100 new Anime come out every year and I've probably still seen less then 100 total.

There is no particular rhyme or reason to what I decide to check out.  Maybe it was something in the description, maybe it was recommended by someone, maybe I saw a glimpse of it in a random YouTube video.  Maybe it came from the same creators as something else I liked.  It's pretty much all decided on a whim.

Still there are lately plenty of Anime I've started and not finished.  But I have no hate for those anime, or even a strong dislike.  They just didn't compel me enough.

Sword Art Online does a lot I really like, and a lot that really bothered me.  The Mother's Rosario arc was the best, it had none of what generally bugged me about it.

You might think the point of making a post like this is to say it should really mean something when I do dislike something.  But I'm not that presumptuous.  The one movie I hate has it's group of defenders, in the past when I was less mature that bothered me, but I've grown up now and don't care.

I guess my point is I wish more people took my approach.  If you can tell an Anime is the kind you'd hate from looking at the poster then don't watch it.  If you hated the original movie don't watch the Sequel unless you feel you have good reason to expect it to be different.  I have my own issues with Batman V Superman, but I have no interest in seeing it critiqued by people who spent 3 years hating Man of Steel, a movie I loved.

I've seem people make YouTube videos to specifically defend their Hate Watching of certain shows.  And it just comes off as petty.

I realize professional critics have a perception that their reviews won't mean anything if they only give positive ones.  But a traditional review is less then a page of text or a less then 10 minute video.  You don't need half an hour to talk someone out of watching something.

What really bugs me though is how many Positive reviews nowadays are based on constantly referencing how something else was bad.  The famous "Everything Wrong with" videos now have a channel doing the opposite, "Everything great about", (CineWins rather then CineSins).  In concept that should be right up my alley.  But the one on The Force Awakens is 50% "ain't it great how this isn't like The Prequels", which as anyone who knows me knows is the easiest way to turn me off.

And that's why simply telling me "don't watch/read the negative reviews" won't solve my problem, because internet negativity makes it's way even into positive reviews.

I guess the only point of this post is to tell people where I'm coming from.  I'm a pretty easy person to satisfy, and I will never take that as an insult.

The thing about Critics is knowing how to anyalize what they say

I've always been a bit of an Anti-Critic person, especially the main mainstream kind of critics.  2016 was a year in which taking such an attitude became particularly controversial, some of my fellow DC fans claimed a silly Disney conspiracy in negative reviews of DC films.

There is no direct correlation either way in whether or not a critically received film will be one I also like.  But when it comes to Genre films it's clear many are inherently disconnected from most of what casual viewers care about.

What I've come to learn is that the key is in knowing how to discern what they say, why they did or didn't like it.

I watched one YouTube video where a guy gave a positive review of the Comic Book Trade Paper Back Batman Black Mirror. A comic I haven't read.  And I concluded from what he said that this is a story I'd hate and shouldn't bother with.  Meanwhile I've had the exact opposite experience listening to his negative comments on Grant Morrison's Batman run.  But on plenty other Comics I've agreed with this person's opinion.

I've had similar experiences listening to YouTubers talk about Anime.

Digibro had a video recently where he said the differences between different tastes in fiction is being different in what flaws you can tolerate and what flaws you can't.  I disagree however.  Because the thing with especially the Star Wars Prequels is that so very often what I love is exactly what the haters hate, I don't respond to the criticisms because those very things are why I like Star Wars to begin with.

Now I have not yet watched Sword Art Online.  It's an Anime I've been putting off watching, I've decided I will try it soon, I'm not sure what I'll think.  But I know more about it going in then I have few other Animes.  Mostly from listening to very negative opinions of it.  Here I do not really hear the same things I hear from Prequel Haters.

Not once have I heard a complaint be something that is exactly what I'm looking for in Anime.  Some are things I'm not bothered by, like Plot Holes, Incest, and general Anime Cliches.  But also much of it speaks to exactly what often frustrates me in Anime, from gratuitous fan-service, to pointless sexual assault.

However these critics do mention occasional good things, and some are things that might win more points from me then they would others.   And I already know I like the cast it's Dub has.  And I really like it's composer, Noir/Madlax to Madoka to Fate/Zero, all great Anime Music.

I notice that the people who hate SAO the most, often really liked Asuna as a character, and are upset at how she gets treated.  That is certainly something I can relate to.

So I'll give it a shot, I'm expecting either something I'll hate, or something I'll enjoy with heavy reservations.  If I feel like talking publicly about it it'll probably be on my Tumblr, where I'll use an SAO Tag, and/or SAO Hate.

The Night is Darkest just before The Dawn

Popular opinion seems to go in circles with whether or not it's good for fiction, particularly Superhero fiction, to be dark.  With endless debates on whether or not it's good to make a dark version of something not dark before, or visa versa.  Or whether some Darkness is just Dark for the sake of Dark without a real purpose.  And my general thoughts are each scenario is different.

For this post however I want to focus on how a key factor in whether or not something Dark appeals to me comes down to whether or not there is still something positive and hopeful in there, particularly in how it ends.  But I of course realize to an extent even that is subjective, Happiness is an emotion, and different people emotionally respond to different things differently.

Mirai Nikki aka Future Diary is an example of an Anime that gets written off as gratuitously GrimDark and Violent by people who didn't finish it.  But it had a happy ending, a very happy ending, I remember watching it I felt about the happiest I had all year (I first watched it earlier this year, 2016) up to that point.  It's happy even without the OVA but the OVA makes it even better and so I wish the OVA would get dubbed.

A Happy Ending can be made even better and more rewarding if the journey to get there was a dark and difficult one.  The Book of Ecclesiastes can easily seem like the most depressing book of The Bible, but it's end is positive and uplifting.  Romans chapter 8 has been called Paul's summery of Ecclesiastes.

Madoka Magica is another Anime franchise with a reputation for being "Tragedy Porn".  Do I consider that reputation fair?  It depends.  The original 12 episode series takes us down a dark and emotional journey that subverts many expectations of the Magical Girl genre.  But it ultimately ends exactly how a Magical Girl show should, with a positive ending.  Then came Rebellion and did the opposite.  It seems another Madoka Anime is coming, maybe this one will end happily again.  But even if it does I fear it just means we're going to get an endless cycle of this franchise going back and forth.

In a way this is part of how Madoka parallels Evangelion.  The original series of Neon Genesis Evangelion was a show who's central theme was depression.  But the final two episodes ended with Shinji deciding he wants to live.  Then End of Evanglion comes to replace those last two episodes, and everything about it is debatable including if it was a happy ending.  The thing is it's ending didn't make me feel happy and no analytical analysis of it will change that.

Now what I'm talking about here can itself fit into two categories.

First is that even a very dark story can still have a completely conventionally Happy Ending.  Perhaps with something bitter sweet about it, some price had to be paid.  But overall good prevailed and everyone lived happier lives from that point on.

A great example of this would be Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, the second Nanoha Anime series.  Some might say that Anime isn't truly Dark but just very Dramatic.  I suspect that argument would be based mainly on how no characters in the story are truly evil.  But to me the key to a truly dark story is to show that someone doesn't have to be "evil" to wind up doing things that are harmful to other people.  Morality isn't always that simple.  It's been described (by Digibro) as a War Story that doesn't take a side, in a sense at least half of every great Dark work of fiction I've liked can be described that way.  This series is an incredibly emotional roller coaster ride, one of the most brilliant I've seen.  And I watched it even more recently then I did Mirai Nikki and it managed to top it on emotionally uplifting me.  Anyone who can watch the whole thing and not shed a tear simply has no heart.

Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises could also fit in this category.

Second would be stories that do have truly Tragic endings, sometimes very tragic endings.  But still with some glimmer of hope for the future.  Maybe that hope comes from nothing more then clear evidence that the survivors have learned from the mistakes that lead them there, like how The Dark Knight (the film which provides the title for this post) ends.

Or maybe it's because it's a Prequel that essentially ends with the birth of the Messiah who we already know will fix everything in the future.  Like Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of The Sith or Fate/Zero.  Thing is though, in both of those cases I feel even when viewed by people not knowing it's a prequel, (which has happened more for the latter), the ending message that the seeds are already planted to set everything right in the next generation would still be apparent.

Now I want to talk about two films where my assessment on this issue would probably be much more controversial then every example discussed above.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is a film I have very mixed feeling for.  The balancing scales of my feelings towards it have fluctuated several times, which is amazing for a film that still hasn't been out long enough for children convinced on it's opening night to be born yet.  My issues with it certainly come down in large part to feeling it was more dower then it needed to be.

But the issue of comparing it to the other big Superhero Versus film that came out a month and a half later is where I most consistently get defensive of it.

At face value Batman V Superman can easily be labeled a much darker and bleaker film then Captain America: Civil War.  But Civil War certainly had things about it that were dark.  And both films try to end on a positive note, but Civil War's positive ending feels inauthentic to me.

BvS earned it's Happy Ending.  Bruce Wayne's character development makes sense, no matter how much you may want to mock a key plot device of it.  And so does Wonder Woman's.  All the talk about how many people are afraid of Superman adds more meaning to how he earned humanity's trust with his final sacrifice.  The exact scenario that brought about why he had to use the Spear feels way to contrived, but emotionally it works.  In the Crisis to Crisis DC Continuity Superman was once told "The last time you inspired anyone was when you were dead", but in this continuity His death is the beginning of him being an inspiration, and that is why I reject the idea that they should have held off on that story-line.  Bruce Wayne goes from someone who is doing harm even though he's not Evil, to someone inspired by Superman.

Civil War however dedicates most of it's last act to subverting the same Versus movie trope BvS handled beautifully.  But then wants us to buy at the very end that now Tony's going to cover for Steve.  Well I don't buy it.

Here is my real issue with Civil War

When I first reacted to Civil War, I couldn't fully put my finger on what bugged me about it.  Now I can.

It's that it puts so much effort into setting up only to subvert the whole "of course they'll come together in the end" expectation of a versus story.  I know the comic didn't end with them coming back together, well I don't like the Comic either but at least the Comic didn't have a subplot dedicated to baiting and hooking fans who like that message.

And it's insulting to me in regards to how this movie is compared to Batman V Superman.  BvS may have a darker tone.  But BvS ended on a message of hope and unity that Civil War literally said "____ You!" too.

In BvS things were darkest just before the dawn.  Civil War was just another Marvel movie all about setting up future movies.  BvS had a couple scenes that were there just to set up future movies, but with Civil War the very plot itself was only made to be a cliff hanger.

"Show don't Tell" isn't a universal rule

There are times when many people seem to think it is, or at least in a visual medium like film and animation it is.  I see it in Fanboy-Perspective's defense of Batman V Superman and Clark's lack of dialogue in it.

But there are times when I do feel telling is better then showing. Especially if you're someone who wants less Origin Stories in Superhero movies, what you basically want is to be told not shown.  Likewise if you don't like overuse of Flashbacks, you want to be told not shown.  I'm annoyed how many fans feel that dead Robin easter egg means some DCEU film HAS to flashback to when that happened, how about we just leave that to the imagination for a change?

If you are the opposite of me on the issue of if movies should be longer or shorter, or if you feel the same.  Sometimes telling is shorter and sometimes showing is shorter, it depends on what you're trying to communicate.

And this also ties into how I'm a big supporter of, especially for horror, the idea that what you don't see is more disturbing then what you do.

But the thing about any medium that has acting as one of it's story telling tools.  Is what you can do by showing how a character tells something, and how others react while listening.  When trying to understand Shakespeare, it's import to know that Elizabethian audiences would have cared more about what they heard then what they saw.

In the 70s TV Miniseries Jesus of Nazareth, there are many things I don't like about it (mainly the White Washing) but also things I think it did well.  One of it's highlights was showing Jesus tell the parable of the Prodigal Son to a room full of people, it was a far better choice then cutting to a dramatization of it.

I enjoyed Suicide Squad, but yes it is a flawed movie.  One of it's highlights is El Diablo telling his backstory in the bar scene.  I feel that could have maybe been improved by not having any flashbacks, but just having him tell the story.

If a movie is ever made of Paul Feval's John Devil.  I do not want any "Flashbacks" or whatever you might call a Dramatization of the stories Henri Belcamp tells about his adventures in Australia and on St Helena.  One reason is because none of those stories are entirely true, and the audience of a movie tends to assume anything we see play out must have happened.

But also because I want to see Henri Belcamp be an Orator.  I want to show how he plays his audience and how they are suckered in by it.  Same thing if a movie was made out of The Vampire Countess, another Paul Feval novel translated into English by Brian Stableford.

So no, what I'm saying is we don't need to see everything, it sometimes works to just tell us.

Movies being too long, vs movies being too short.

One common criticism of certain movies I'm not inclined to agree with is criticizing a movie for being too long.  It is my biggest disagreement with the film reviews of James Rolfe (The Angry Video Game Nerd formally known as the Angry Nintendo Nerd).

I like long movies, I like things fleshed out, I prefer adaptations that add (like Prince Caspian) to adaptations that remove.  Those are general rules though and there are exceptions, I do feel there are times when a movie can be longer then it's story justifies.  And I do think over 4 hours is too much to be watched in one uninterrupted sitting.

But thing is I tend to lean towards being interested in the kinds of stories that would need longer lengths to begin with.

The reason studios want shorter movies, considering 90 minutes enough to qualify as feature length, making 2 hours about the average and rarely allowing any blockbuster with a high budget because of action, adventure, SciFi or Fantasy elements to near or pass the 3 hour mark, is purely financial.  They want movies shorter not because they think audiences will like them less but because a shorter movie can have more showings on the same screen.

But it seems simply that being the standard has conditioned some people to think that's how it should be.  But Gone with the Wind, Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur were long movies that audiences were willing to sit through.  Not to mention most of Shakespeare's plays were written to be 3-4 or even 5 hour experiences. But now prices to see movies have gone up while longer films have become less common.

To me if a movie's story doesn't justify 2 hours it doesn't justify the Big Screen, that should be a 2 part episode of a TV series or a made for TV movie.

And it annoys me that Oscar Bait kinds of movies are allowed 3 hours far more often then Comic Book or Pulp inspired movies.  I feel it is the action and adventure that helps justify a longer length.  I'm more likely to be bored by a movie without that stuff going on forever.  None the less I like The Godfather films.

But to show that even I have standards, I will list the handful of examples where I felt a film was longer then it needed to be.

The Hobbit movies, mainly the second and third, the first was relatively fine.  LOTR was absolutely worthy of 3 three hour Theatrical films and 4 hour extended edition DVDs.  But The Hobbit is a very different kind of story, you can maybe justify splitting it in two films.  But this length issue overlaps with wanting it more like LOTR in tone also, The Hobbit is a simpler more fun and comical story.  It gets a little dark at a certain point, but it really stands out when that darkness happens.

Related to that, but I can't judge entirely since I haven't watched any of them.  But I feel like anytime a YA novel series last book gets split in two for the adaptation it is simply going to cause it to drag.  Whether it's Harry Potter, or Twilight Breaking Dawn, or The Hunger Games, or Divergent, though I don't recall if the Divergent films did that or not.

Also Peter Jackson's King Kong from 2005.  And again I have other issues besides the length, and overall I like it.  But such a simple story didn't need LOTR length.  Now I'm all for making it longer then the 1933 original film.  Most of what I'd remove is probably stuff from before we first see Kong, 40-50 minutes before we see him works, you do want to build that up, but over an hour is too much.  After that I'd cut the voice over quoting that really racist novel, and do what I could to trim the overblown T-Rex battle, 3 T-Rexes was overkill.

Once again, I'm forced to mention the existence of Superman Returns, I don't like being a hater.  A shorter length would hardly save this film, but it's notable that it is the only film that is under 3 hours that is still able to make me of all people think it was longer then it's story justified.

A Superman movie absolutely could justify being that long or longer, but not without an actual super powered villain for him to fight.  A remake (disguised as a sequel) of Superman The Movie doesn't need more screen time then the original, especially when it lacks the mini-movies about Krypton and Smallville.  It's also the biggest offender in my book in going on too long after it's climax.  It's justified for ROTK because it's the end of 3 movies not just one.  Batman Begins was a little shorter and it felt like more happened.  The Dark Knight was the same length and it's my favorite movie, it felt like a 5 act play, not 3 stretched out acts.

Last, let's discus a movie that I am on many levels conflicted towards.  Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It's Ultimate Cut is 3 Hours, how do I feel about that?  For the DVD it's fine, like the LOTR extended versions or Watchmen, that extra stuff on the DVD versions aren't needed but they are fun.  For home viewing you can pause the movie to take a break, to use the restroom or eat something, or in this film's case watch funny YouTube videos to relieve the stress.  You can also skip scenes you personally don't like but that others might appreciate.

But theatrically, no.  A Batman/Superman crossover film absolutely could justify three hours in my opinion, if it had some levity and brightness and overall more variety in the emotions in evokes.  At one time I felt like The Dark Knight Returns would have needed 3 and a half hours, but upon watching how well it was done as two 70 minute animated films, I now feel it wouldn't need more time then The Dark Knight Rises even if you made a point to do more then those Cartoons combined did.

However what I would cut and keep for the theatrical version would be different.

As much as I love the Injustice like Future Vision and then immediately The Flash trying to tell Bruce something from the Future.  We don't need that, what it tells us about Bruce's motivations we more then got from seeing his experience at the beginning and what he says to Alfred.  So I'd cut that or at least trim it down to a 30 second montage.  Also when Diana opens the file Bruce sent her taken from Lex, I'd show the three logos, that's all the Justice League tease we needed, I'd save her watching the three videos for the DVD extended edition.

What isn't in the Theatrical version and that I'd still keep out is first the Steppinwolf scene, it looks cool but isn't needed, and only a subset of even nerds recognized the character.  And I'd keep Batman confronting Lex in Prison as it was theatrically, adding the reference to Arkham is cool for Nerds but wasn't needed.  That scene as it was theatrically gives us all the future movie threat set up we need.  And since she wound up not being a comics character, Jena Malone's scenes weren't needed, they just elaborated on Lois's story-line which was handled fine in the theatrical cut.

What the Theatrical Cut absolutely did need was the additional Screen-time and Dialogue for Clark Kent/Superman, the actual main character, especially his investigation of Batman.  It needed the elaboration on what happened in Africa at the beginning as much as I hate confirming that CIA agent to be Jimmy.  It needed showing that the branded criminals being killed in prison was orchestrated by KGBeast presumably on Lex's orders.  And it needed the additional stuff with the woman from Africa and the Senator, and her being killed.

I could go either way on the football game.

That hypothetical edit might still be longer then the theatrical cut we got, I'm unsure.  And it wouldn't save the film's joylessness problem.  But it would be a far better film.

But I ultimately feel like there are far more films that needed more time to flesh out their details, then there are films that dragged too much.  In general I feel if you want the film to end you're simply not enjoying it, and if you don't want it to you are enjoying it.

For some reason the first example of one to pop in my mind is usually The Haunting of Molly Hartley.  It's not exactly a film others would think of in terms of run-time debates at all.  But I really like the premise, it's an Omen like tale but with a young woman, and I enjoyed most of it as is.  I would end it's narrative sooner actually, the ending graduation and putting in her dad in the institution scenes it didn't need.  I wouldn't add anything to the first act or maybe even first half, but it does need more fleshing out and development before we reach the climactic sequence.

Batman Forever is a movie I like as is, but could be a much better film if you add all the DVD deleted scenes and re-arrange the first act so the sequence of events is more like in the novelizations.  I've heard there are Fan-Edits that have done this, I haven't gotten to view them yet because torrents are to complicated for me.  I wish there were streaming sites like pirated Anime has for Fan-Edits of Hollywood films with available deleted scenes and/or disputed length issues.

Superman IV The Quest for Peace could be similar, but not all it's deleted scenes are found and many lack needed polishing.  I also had an imaginary ideal edit of Superman II in my head once, which may be longer then either the Lester or Donner cut.  I'll need to watch them both again to fully remember what it was.  The deleted scenes that made neither cut were also a factor, though I wouldn't add all of em.

The movie version of the Les Miserables Musical is as it is in my top 10 movies of all time easily.  But the thing is I like everything added that wasn't in the original Musical, but lament that other stuff got removed because they still wanted the total run-time to be the same.

Every movie version of The Count of Monte-Cristo.  I think it's an uphill battle enough as is to try telling the story as a stand alone single movie rather then a more serialized format.  But every attempt becomes more pathetic then it needed to be by not allowing itself to go over 2 hours, while at the same time not skipping the Origin Story part.  If you are going to include the backstory, it should be a 3rd to a 4th of the story, not half of it.

My opinion of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of The Sith is interesting, it is overall by far the best of the Star Wars movies.  Yet it is also the only Prequel, in fact the only George Lucas produced Star Wars film, I have any real criticisms of at all.  Those issues mostly relate to it's handling of female characters.

Much of that could be fixed by adding not all of the deleted scenes, but just the origin of the Rebellion plot-line.  It gives Padme Amdiala, the female lead of the trilogy, something to do in the first half.  Same with Bail Organa so his becoming a main protagonist during the second half doesn't come out of nowhere.  And Mon Mothma being in the film would give it more female representation.  It would give context to when Padme tells Anakin about feeling like they might be on the wrong side.  And the last scene that also adds another Palpatine and Anakin scene has him plant the seed to distrust Padme giving more context to his getting paranoid and force choking her at the end.

Many old movies of the 30s and early 40s, like some Warner Gangster and Universal monster films, I feel are kept from true greatness only by lacking more time to flesh out their stories.

I could and might make a separate post on the issues many DC Animated movies have from being limited to 70 Minutes (Especially Year One).

I think there is a chance The Incredible Hulk could have been saved by adding some of it's deleted scenes.  Many including the suicide scene didn't even make the DVD special features, and I now think that is best left as a story he tells in The Avengers.  I really like the movie as it is.  But it particularly annoys me anytime a Superhero film is under two hours.

I'm sure I'll later think of more examples that I'll be mad at myself for not remembering now.

How much of BvS was Snyder's original vision?

And yes I'm talking even the ultimate cut here.

One reason I'm doing this is I find it so ironic people want to blame Snyder for what they see as DC doing a Shared Cinematic Universe wrong, while I'm certain a Shared Universe was NOT his original plan at all.

There is much I love about the film and much I hate.  And I'm not saying Snyder's original vision would have had none of what I dislike, since I do have issues with MOS.

But, I think MOS under performing did make Warner change direction.

The-Fanboy-Perspective insists Batman being in the sequel and starting a shared universe was always the plan.  And I do think execs at Warner always considered it an option.  But I think while he may never admit it, originally Snyder was as against the Shared Universe idea as Nolan was.

Now a director being pressured to change his original vision is not necessarily synonymous with hating the experience or the film he wound up making, by the time he was filming I think Snyder loved getting to play around with Batman and Wonder Woman and The Flash and the allusions to Apokolips and Injustice.  And sometimes people change their original plans without external pressure at all, so it not being the original plan does not make it inherently invalid artistically.

And I think we do still have a version of his original plan.

Batman V Superman is still very much the middle act of a trilogy.  And because of that it was always going to be darker then Man of Steel, but maybe without Batman and specifically the DKR aspects it would not have been as unrelentingly dower.  Because MOS did have a sense of Humor, and so did Watchman and Sucker Punch and literally every other Snyder film.  Yet his reputation has become joylessness because of this one single film.  Much of this film is way more typical Snyder then Man of Steel was, but it is also far far darker and grittier then typical Snyder.

What Angry Joe hates the most was always going to be in the film.  The-Fanboy-Perspective is absolutely right that the Death of Superman was necessary, it's what makes this the middle act of a Trilogy and why in fact it works as that far more then The Dark Knight does.  Nolan read Joseph Campbell for Rises, but Snyder was drawing on him from the start.

Lex Luthor in some capacity I think was also always part of the plan, based on the constant LexCorp logos in MOS.

Aspects of what I'll say below could make it sound like I'm suggesting Snyder's original plan was almost exactly the same but with different characters playing the roles.  Obliviously that's not what I think.  I do not think any of the Flash, Aquaman or Cyborg stuff had equivalents in the original plan, nor the Injustice inspired future dream/vision, nor Clark investigating Batman though I hope he would have been investigating something, for many seeing investigative reporter Clark was their favorite part.  And certainly not the Martha stuff, which does happen to be what I loved most.

The Wayne Enterprises logo on that Satellite in MOS was seen as evidence of a shared universe even before they announced Batman V Superman.  But it was the same Logo from the Nolan films, no thought put into it at all.  There were all these fan theories that it might be relevant to how Bruce gets involved, and it wound up not being mentioned at all.  SR also mentioned Gotham and the Shumacker Bat-Films each mentioned Metropolis, those didn't lead to crossovers.

Instead we got Metropolis and Gotham being twin cities right next to each other, with the Bat-Signal visible from Metropolis.  Yet no mention of Gotham in MOS.  Originally when people said "where was Batman when Zod attacked" I was like, you're idiots, he isn't a global player and his concern is Gotham.  Once I realized Gotham and Metropolis were barely different cities, then I was like OKAY why was none of that mentioned? ever?

That twin cities decision tells me that whatever aspects of Bruce/Batman's role in this came from Snyder's original plans, were meant to be played by someone in Metropolis.  It might be two roles put together, with Alfred included to provide for when the role needed to be two people.  Or maybe not.  But if so I actually think that is a potentially brilliant way to write Batman into a story he wasn't originally in.

Maybe some of the Batman stuff was going to be a Metropolis urban vigilante like Steel or Gangbuster or The Gaurdian. And/or maybe Superman's fight where he nearly loses because of Kryptontie was meant to be against Metallo or Conduit or a Green Battle Suit Lex Luthor.  (Of course many details of that fight as finally filmed were clearly taken from DKR).

Actually the more I think about it, the more I think much of Bruce Wayne's role might have been the original plan for Luthor.  I think most of Eisenberg's role in this better fits a character like Maxwell Lord or Westfeild, someone corrupt in the Government who is good a greasing the wheels.

The-Fanboy-Perspective article I linked to also pointed out the significance of beginning and ending with a funeral.  If it wasn't originally gonna be Batman then how does that fit?  Maybe it was an idea that came to Snyder or one of the writers after Batman started being added to the script.  Or maybe it was going to begin with a Funeral of someone who died during the Zod attack?  Someone at the Funeral of their friend or relative who I'll call Jack who died during all that, who then flashed back to it.  I think the whole revisiting the ending of MOS from a more mortal perspective could have always been the plan, that was something I found really cool.

Remember that empty pod in the ship in Man of Steel? And the Prequel comic to explain it?  How there was all that speculation on it maybe setting up Supergirl?  What if Wonder Woman's role was originally meant for Supergirl?  Maybe someone suggested, this female character who's been on the Earth for centuries and has Superman's power levels could easily be replaced with Wonder Woman to set up her movie.

Man of Steel was a first contact film.  Michael Bailey talks about why that is central to what he doesn't like about it.  I think telling a Superman Origin story as a first contact film is a very valid way to do that story.  But it doesn't fit a shared universe where we learn later that all these Amazons and Atlanteans and Mother Boxes have always been here.

I'm not necessarily saying Snyder's original vision required Humans and Kryptonians as the only sentient species who exist in the Universe, (though aspects of MOS make it hard to believe otherwise, all that searching Zod and company did to find nothing).  But the Fantasy/SciFi hybrid of the New Gods mythos, the purely fantasy mythos of Wonder Woman and Aquaman, and more Doctor Who like SciFi mythos of The Flash fit in many Superman universes, but not in Man of Steel.

I think something like the Steppinwolf reveal might have always been planned, but it might have originally been Eradicator or Brainiac, perhaps a more TAS/Smallville inspired Brainiac.

I also think Justice League is going to be a version of what Snyder always planned for his third Superman film, the final act of the Trilogy.  And even Superman not being in the first 30 minutes to an hour of it could have been the same, but with the original plan being a World Without A Superman/Reign of The Supermen kind of story for that part.  I think the Codex being in his DNA may factor into how he resurrects.  And maybe Wonder Woman and the male Leaguers are replacing Supergirl and the 4 would be replacement Supermen.   In the story being told now, Cyborg being made from a Motherbox could mean he'll get taken over by Steppinwolf at some point and have to fight the others.

I've defended how DC is setting up it's Universe differently then Marvel's, not telling 7 origin story films first, by saying I want to just jump into an already rich universe, like every new Comic Book fan does, and many Animated Films do.  The thing is, I knew all that time but avoided drawing attention to how Man of Steel being an Origin film goes against that effect, it's now made the original Superhero the youngest.

Batman V Superman is absolutely a sequel to Man of Steel in that it uses the same cast for all common characters, and draws on it's events (far more then The Dark Knight drew on Begins).  Yet it winds up for all the reasons I just said and some others I can't explain not truly feeling like the same universe to me.

The Comics themselves often have that vibe with all the Continuity re-shifting.  Following the original Crisis on Infinite Earths the Teen Titans were carrying on the same story-lines, but Superman's world is totally different and Wonder Woman started over, Batman was compatible at first but more and more flashback comics would rewrite his earlier history.  Or DKSA being a totally different kind of world to DKR.

Films did this back in the Universal Monster days.  Frankenstein Meets The Woflman references Ghost of Frankenstein events even though the town is a completely different kind of town, and takes place before it time period wise.

Man of Steel actually fits in the Nolanverse better then it does the 2016 and up DCEU.  The question of why Superman did nothing about Bane threatening to Nuke Gotham is because he didn't show up yet, he learned to fly a year later.  And it's Wayne Enterprises uses the same logo.  I'll designate it Earth-N.  And so those Fan Trailers of Bale and Cavil crossovers can be valid again.

BvS and Suicide Squad feel to me like the same universe even though they are tonally and stylistically different films.  But MOS does not.

I've watched the Batman V Superman Ultimate Edition

I enjoyed it.  I don't know how much of it is the extra material and how much is just me being more willing to accept what bothered me on the repeat viewing, but I enjoyed it.

The movie still isn't as great as I was hoping, but it's a good movie.

Batman is not a killer in this, it's explained that the branded criminals being killed in Prison was also manipulated by Lex.

This is not a legitimate R rated, film, Warner promoted it as a R rated version and so the MPAA played along, but if this had been the theatrical version it would not have gotten an R, it shows less then The Wolverine's theatrical version did (and has the same number of F bombs).  And it is in fact a less dark film then the theatrical version of this was, thanks to how much better it paints Superman and Batman both.

I noticed something when Superman and Doomsday were killing each other.  The Score at that point really had me thinking of Dancing Mad form Final Fantasy VI, maybe it's just me.

So my advice to everyone is check it out.

The-Fanboy-Perspective is making excuses for BvS

http://www.the-fanboy-perspective.com/

I wanted the film to be good and a hit as much as he did, but I've accepted that it wasn't what I or most fans wanted.

In one article he claims that Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman aren't the kinds of Superheros who make funny quips.  Actually Superman as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster wrote him absolutely did, Spider-Man's wise cracking was directly based on classic Superman.  When they had to force themselves to say something positive about Superman The Movie, all they could think of was that he said funny things.  So yes, the Superman I am a fan of makes funny quips as he also did during the Crisis to Crisis era.  Frankly the only prior precedent I can think of for a Superman who doesn't say funny one liners is Superman ret..... no I'm not gonna acknowledge it.  Of course I have no idea how crappy New 52 Superman has been talking.

And now there is this article where he is trying to lower the expectation for the teaming up of the greatest Icons of the Superhero genre.

The problem with trying to compare the correlation between name recognition and Movie ticket sales of Batman and Superman to say Ghandi, Jesus or Dracula, is that they are public domain, anyone can and does make fiction about them anytime they feel like it.  But only DC and WB can legally make Superman and Batman happen on the big screen, and people know that.  So when they appear it means something, it has a sense of authenticity to it that random Dracula movie of the week does not.

And I think epic blockbuster versions for Dracula or Frankenstein have become so rare because of that largely.  If the Source Material can be legally read online for free, making a movie out of it isn't as big a deal.

And the Pulp Heroes may be older but they've sadly fallen into relative obscurity, Zorro is the most still well known of the 3 mentioned, and he too should be Public Domain now, but people are trying to fight that.

Batman Begins was in a scenario where his last movie wasn't well received.  Batman was in the opposite position for BvS.  Begins wound up making more then expected, BvS made less.

And the kinds of people who'd complain about a Wonder Woman movie being too Feminist are exactly who should be offended by a Wonder Woman movie.

I won't be seeing Civil War

There were things I loved about Batman V Superman and things that bothered me.  But the problems I had are all because it's a Vs film.  So that's why it really bothers me that BvS's disappointment is seemingly only further guaranteeing Civil War will be a success.

Batman V Superman is at least based on Comics that were well regarded despite my personal issues with some, from DKR to the Death and Return story-line to hints of Infinite Crisis and Injustice.  Civil War is based on a comics story-line everyone hated originally and that I never saw defended before this movie was announced.

BvS was a direct sequel to a movie that while flawed I really liked, Man of Steel.  Civil War is most directly a sequel to Age of Ultron, which while I enjoyed it, I ultimately consider a disappointment, and I would also consider AoU inferior to BvS.

I keep hearing that Marvel has Earned it's VS movie by having the relationships between these characters established.  No, that is crap, to me this idea of having them fight is only justifiable even remotely if they have indeed just met and still don't understand each other.  Hence the fighting we saw in the first Avengers movie.

That's why the Civil War premise was offensive to me in the comics and it's offensive to me for the Movies.  It's because I care about the movie versions of these characters that I hate seeing their characters assassinated like this.  Each trailer pisses me off even more.

I'll watch the movie eventually on DVD, but I will not support it in theaters and all other Comic Book fans who want to discourage stupid vs films should do the same.  Please don't reward the failure of one Vs movie by propping up another.

Processing Batman V Superman

If I were a prideful person the last thing I'd do is possibly retract a glowing review of a film within 2 days of posting it.

Everything I said I loved in that initial review I still love, the issue is the things I was kind of in denial of.

First thing I should mention is because of my local theater's new pick the seat when you buy the ticket policy I wound up with no choice but to watch in the second row, and it was the Ultra Screen, and 3D which I've never had a problem with before but never been up front before.  I honestly think that hindered my ablity to enjoy the show somewhat, but I saw The Dark Knight in the first row of the same theater and that was no problem.

For the last year or two I've made a big deal out of the fact that my expectations of movies have never been wrong.  My opinion may be inconsistent with popular opinion but I'd never disliked a movie I thought I would love.  So maybe I didn't want to admit that that undefeated streak had been broken.  I wanted to leave this film proclaiming it to have beaten The Force Awakens, and that I couldn't do even yesterday.

There are different ways to criticize this movie.   And if you're someone who hated Man of Steel then your criticisms of it's sequel are useless, you should just not see the sequel if you didn't like the first.

There are two kinds of criticisms of Man of Steel, there are the film making and writing criticisms a professional film critic would make.  And while I find those far more understandable here then with many other films I've liked that the critics didn't (Like the Star Wars Prequels), I still see them are far from deal breaking, there is no doubt this film was a beautiful piece of art with some phenomenal acting.



Spoilers Ahead!!!





Then there are the criticisms a fan would have, Comic fans who have many things they both absolutely did and absolutely did not want to see recreated.  And my fellow SJWs who care about representation and stereotyping issues.  There is a lot to understandably hate about this movie.  But some things to like too.

As a Man of Steel fan I've never proclaimed it the ideal Superman movie, I'll make a post in the near future that will give an idea of what the ideal would be to me.  My hope for this sequel had always been that it would take us in the direction of the Superman I love, and what we got of that was a mixed bag at best.

As far as my personal Fanon/Headcanon is concerned Jenny is the Jimmy Olsen of this universe no matter what Snyder says.

I somewhat controversially said I do not have a problem with including Doomsday and not killing Superman.  And I even could have been ok with doing the Death of Superman this soon.  But this execution was mixed.  Two of the things I liked about how the Comics did it was that it didn't involve Krytponite and was absolutely not Luther's doing.  But I did like how it made me think of the Spear of Longinus.

The Fan Boy Perspective is pretty much expecting the coming R Rated version to be better.  There is little chance I will wind up feeling that way.  I wanted a film that was Dark but not a seeming full on rejection of the lighter side of the DC universe, and it is largely in that desire that I'm disappointed.

I was really bothered when Jena Malone (it'd leaked that she was Barbara Gordon) didn't appear in the film.  And if the "uncut" version has her appear in only one scene where she's crippled and ambiguously raped, I will frakking hate that version with a passion, whether it has been in theaters or now.

I'm ok with The Killing Joke moment being part of her history ONLY if it gives us Oracle, without Oracle it is useless fridgeing and nothing more.  And that is part of why the New52 canon bothers me.

The complaints people at the Mary Sue have I also consider valid.  When they're getting into what their site is about and not just vaguely saying it was "unpleasant".

I will still reject any sense of blaming the problems on the Shared Universe concept or "catching up to Marvel".

There is this notion that just because something does serve as set up for future movies means it's clearly irrelevant to that movie as a stand alone piece.  In art there is more to it then just what at face value advances the plot.  All of my favorite completely self contained Animes like Utena and Evangleion have lots of moments that are plot/story/character irrelevant but absolutely needed.  I love Iron Man 2 exactly how it is and honestly think it would be less of a coherent work without it's crossover elements.  Same with The Amazing Spiderman 2.

So how is all that Justice League set up relevant to this as a stand alone film?  Maybe because it's making Superman a Messianic archetype and now his Disciples are going to make more disciples.  His legacy will live on.

But I also must admit despite my denials that this movie wasn't their original plan.  A shared universe was Warner's plan I don't doubt, but I fear Batman was thrown into this particular film when MOS under performed.

Seeing Bruce's parents killed again is not redoing the origin.  Begins is still the only Batman origin story.  I do feel every version of the Batman mythos needs it's own version of that defining moment.  And the connection between Batman and Superman begins with how they are both orphans in different ways.

And last but not least I wanted Superman to win the title fight.  Even though I'm more of a Batman fan overall I did not want the expected DKR outcome again.  I guess what I like about how they made peace wouldn't work if Superman had won, but still.

And that just reminds me why I initial opposed a Vs film in the first place.  What I wanted was The World's Finest, or Dark Knight over Metropolis.