Talk DC films and television stuff here.
DC Movies & TV Forever
- This topic has 1,004 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 10 months ago by
.
Author
-
-
-
-
Dune should never be a movie. A typical movie has about as much plot as a short story, and Dune is, what, 500 pages? It would take 10 movies (or 5 seasons of a TV series) to do Dune justice.
I think adaptations like Lord Of The Rings show you can take a long book and capture the essence of it – or at least, make a decent adaptation – without having to go that far.
-
It’s not that different from Star Wars, Avatar or even Princess of Mars, actually, and really isn’t similar to Game of Thrones very much at all. GOT took a revisionist literary approach to the classic Lord of the Rings style of fantasy, but DUNE fit right in with the mainstream of Science Fiction. If anything, it is more similar to Lord of the Rings than Game of Thrones
I can see what you’re saying from a genre perspective, but I think Jon’s right when it comes to the pure plot elements. It’s all about these Houses struggling for power over Arrakis, the leader of House Atreides – and supposed co-protagonist – is put into an impossible (though on the face of it advantageous) position and he’s a righteous guy who tries to do what’s best for the people of that planet, but behind his back everybody’s already talking about him like he’s a dead man. And then he’s betrayed and killed horribly and his son has to find new allies to get his revenge. So the setup is similar (and I think Martin must have had Dune in mind when he decided go the other way and red wedding the oldest son). Plus, there’s sort of magic, at times combined with sex, there’s brilliant rogue-ish fighting dudes, feasts of violence, and there are huge magical animals that in the end decide everything. I can easily imagine a lot of people watching the first half hour of Dune and thinking, hey, this is kind of like Game of Thrones, isn’t it?
-
At heart though, I think people take DUNE too seriously. It’s not that different from Star Wars, Avatar or even Princess of Mars, actually, and really isn’t similar to Game of Thrones very much at all. GOT took a revisionist literary approach to the classic Lord of the Rings style of fantasy, but DUNE fit right in with the mainstream of Science Fiction.
And on top of what Christian said, I’m gonna have to disagree with all of that… Dune ain’t NOTHING like Star Wars, Avatar, Princess of Mars, or LotR for that matter…
People take Dune seriously because it’s a sci-fi series for adults, not for kids and it has a load of adult themes throughout… SW is just a power fantasy, Dune is very much the opposite. It’s very political, very philosophical, very introspective and at times very boring (in its lack of action I mean).
I don’t know what you classify as “mainstream sci-fi” but to mean that means something like Star Wars, indeed, and in that case, yeah no, Dune ain’t nowhere in that ballpark. I mean, it’s kinda like saying Watchmen is like the Superman movie.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Go back and look at FOUNDATION from the 40’s or Arthur C. Clarke’s CITY AND THE STARS in the 50’s. Even Alfred Bester’s THE STARS MY DESTINATION is another good example. These were the novels written contemporaneously or even before Herbert and they have just as complex ideas.
DUNE was not written just for adults and STAR WARS was not just for kids. Both have teenage protagonists who are the most important people in their universe in a power struggle that spans a galaxy. They get involved in wars of rebellion against an empire and learn to use their innate superhuman powers to gain the advantage. It has far more in common with STAR WARS than GAME OF THRONES has to LORD OF THE RINGS. Heck, DUNE is closer to LOTR than it is to GOT. The difference between them is essentially DUNE is a novel and can explore ideas and STAR WARS is a movie that needs to accentuate adventure. All movies need to move, but ideas are still explored in Star Wars as well. At heart, STAR WARS is like a John Ford Western in space. I think it may have even been shot on the same cameras as the old Westerns. Also, it is important to remember that Star Wars was a revisionist film as well. It took the old FLASH GORDON strips and serial films and reformed them for a 1970’s audience.
It’s not like LORD OF THE RINGS had any less developed ideas than DUNE either, but adventure is the focus of fantasy as well while science fiction has always been about ideas over character and plot. When you read Dune, you get a lot of dialog about the ideas, but you do not get any more character development than Luke Skywalker in Empire in comparison or Jake in Avatar.
With Game of Thrones, Martin added strong character conflicts to the generic fantasy setting that were not seen very often. He fleshed out the nature of the politics more in line with what we would see in our own history, but the politics were there in LORD OF THE RINGS as well from the first Council of Elrond.
Also, most importantly, Martin brought modern views of sex and immorality to the fantasy genre as well as an internal life to the characters that we would recognize. As much of an interior monologue Paul Atreides has in DUNE (hilariously so in the Lynch film) it’s just as clear and reasonable as his outward expression. The internal conflicts he has are conflicts of ideas rather than deeper more chaotic and impulsive and irrational kind we’d see in characters like Jaime Lannister or Arya Stark or Jon Snow. Just read the first few chapters of DUNE and then read the first few chapters of GAME OF THRONES and the difference in the writing approach will be apparent. While read DUNE and read anything else written around the same time in the science fiction or fantasy genre – including LORD OF THE RINGS which can’t be more than a decade older than DUNE – and it will fit right in. Earthsea would be another good example for comparison.
At the same time, I imagine there were as many teenagers reading Game of Thrones as were reading Dune when both were published. Certainly, all the people I knew who had read DUNE did so in their teens. Paul starts as a teenager after all, and that was the reading audience when Herbert was writing. People reading Twilight or Hunger Games when they came out certainly would have been the audience for Martin’s books as well.
The headache with the DUNE adaptations isn’t that they failed to capture the essence of the novel, but that they did. Even Herbert thought Lynch’s DUNE perfectly captured his book and I’m inclined to agree. It just means that the book itself is not a good source for an adaptation. Primarily, I think that’s because it is rich in the things that movies can’t do – exploring ideas – and shallow in the things that movies can do – move. Game of Thrones and Lord the Rings are rich in both, and while DUNE will sacrifice character development and conflict to serve the ideas it wants to explore, Game of Thrones will explore characters and their desires in opposition to the the central conflicts of the books and actually let them affect the plot as a result. Fantasy has always been good at creating characters that the reader will like or admire and hate. Martin made his characters, whether hated or loved, relatable personalities that developed and affected others and the course of the story.
To make Dune a movie in the same mold as Game of Thrones, they’d have to completely rewrite the entire thing because, really, there is only one character in Dune that’s truly relatable to the reader and he’s mostly a Vulcan. There is also a huge portion of his struggle against the empire that is skipped over compared to the portion of the story from leaving Caladan to arriving on Arrakis and joining the Fremen. But if anyone did rewrite Dune to give the characters more relatable personalities, they’d have to accept that it might not end up in the same place as the novel.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Go back and look at FOUNDATION from the 40’s or Arthur C. Clarke’s CITY AND THE STARS in the 50’s. Even Alfred Bester’s THE STARS MY DESTINATION is another good example. These were the novels written contemporaneously or even before Herbert and they have just as complex ideas.
I haven’t read either of those, so I can’t really comment on those. That said:
DUNE was not written just for adults and STAR WARS was not just for kids. Both have teenage protagonists who are the most important people in their universe in a power struggle that spans a galaxy.
Yeah sure, I’m not saying only kids can enjoy SW or only adults can enjoy Dune, and sure both have “teenage protagonists who are the most important people in their universe in a power struggle that spans a galaxy” but that’s about where the similarities end.
Now, sure all of the stories above mentioned have character development and they all explore ideas… but I mean, that’s what a “story” entails, no? Of course they would have those. For me the difference is in the themes and ideas they explore and more importantly the way they’re explored. You can’t really compare the way politics is explored in GoT with “the council of Elrond” because come on, GoT explores that subject in like all of the books, in fact, it’s the focus of the series, whereas in LotR it’s practically an after-thought.
By the same token, you can’t really compare Paul to Luke Skywalker or to Frodo or… let’s not even mention “Jake” lol… but there are more similarities between the dune characters and the GoT characters for sure, given their moral ambiguity, although even GoT has a proper hero in the form on Jon Snow, whereas Dune has none. The most direct comparaisons I can think of between GoT and Dune are: Paul and Danny, and then LetoII and Bran, except GoT never really explores the consequences of Bran’s ascension to power, because that’s no the point of that particular story.
In the end my point is this: stuff like SW, LotR, and… do we really need to bring Avatar into this? That movie is shit xD
Anyhow, those type of stories are in the end about a more simplistic struggle between good and evil, sure they touch upon other themes as well, but they’re about the “good guys” defeating the “bad guys”, and that is only possible because in those stories there are clearly defined “heroes” and “villains”, whereas in both GoT and Dune, there’s no such thing, those books are filled with morally grey characters (with the exception of Jon Snow) who are both heroes and villains, or neither in most cases.The headache with the DUNE adaptations isn’t that they failed to capture the essence of the novel, but that they did. Even Herbert thought Lynch’s DUNE perfectly captured his book and I’m inclined to agree. It just means that the book itself is not a good source for an adaptation. Primarily, I think that’s because it is rich in the things that movies can’t do – exploring ideas – and shallow in the things that movies can do – move. Game of Thrones and Lord the Rings are rich in both, and while DUNE will sacrifice character development and conflict to serve the ideas it wants to explore, Game of Thrones will explore characters and their desires in opposition to the the central conflicts of the books and actually let them affect the plot as a result. Fantasy has always been good at creating characters that the reader will like or admire and hate. Martin made his characters, whether hated or loved, relatable personalities that developed and affected others and the course of the story.
To make Dune a movie in the same mold as Game of Thrones, they’d have to completely rewrite the entire thing because, really, there is only one character in Dune that’s truly relatable to the reader and he’s mostly a Vulcan. There is also a huge portion of his struggle against the empire that is skipped over compared to the portion of the story from leaving Caladan to arriving on Arrakis and joining the Fremen. But if anyone did rewrite Dune to give the characters more relatable personalities, they’d have to accept that it might not end up in the same place as the novel.
Well that’s why I said that they fucked up and should’ve made an HBO series instead of another movie (or two, more accurately which will certainly help this time around, but still won’t be enough I reckon), so they have time to explore BOTH the characters and the ideas in Dune.
But I don’t see why they’d need to “rewrite the entire thing”, at most they’d need to expand on the secondary characters a bit more, as in give them more time to breathe (more screen time for example), and yes, they’d need to actually show the action (which Herbert usually hates to do), but all of the ingredients are present in the books, the only thing you really need is a competent writer(s) to write an adaptation, as with any other adaptation, really.
Also, are you comparing Paul to a vulcan? Come on Johnny… I think you need to re-read Dune =P
Edit: Also, we’re kind of derailing the DC thread… maybe move this to a Dune thread? We can use that one to discuss the movie too, whenever it drops… or the story-telling thread or something… I mean, I’m fine with it as is, but not everyone might want a Dune discussion in the DC thread…
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
That would be a good idea. However, I find Dune is essentially a good vs evil story. Paul is presented as the good guy in every sense of the term (even more than John Carter actually is a “good” guy) and the Harkonnens, the Spacing Guild and the Emperor are cartoonishly evil in the book. Baron Harkonnen could be the basis for Darkseid and Piter Devries might as well be DeSaad. The Bene Gesserit are more ambiguous but entirely self-interested. Paul is so good that he even questions if what he is doing is good, but he knows he is doing it by necessity.
Frank Herbert said that he thought people should be very careful of messiahs and Dune was written to show that, but the first novel doesn’t really ask that question. That’s a question addressed by the two less successful but more interesting sequels, but, again, the Atriedes twin protagonists and especially Leto II are unquestionably the good guys of the story and their antagonist, Alia is a better villain than the Baron, but in the end, she is the Baron.
Paul is like a Vulcan because he represses any emotion he feels in the story to the necessity of his reason. His internal life reflects the same rigid training he applies to his external actions. It’s not like the internal life of a modern or “adult” protagonist of a novel even of the same time period.
I think people should reread Dune because I’ve read it several time fairly recently and I did project a lot into the first time as a teenager that wasn’t really there when I read it as an adult. However, that’s true of Star Wars as well. Dune was a traditional science fiction novel of its time period and fit in with what his peers like Asimov, Clarke and Zelazny were writing as well as other books Herbert had written before Dune. And they were much more traditional than what writers like Ursula Le Guin or Samuel Delany were writing at that time. Delany really has been unfairly forgotten. Nova is a terrific book.
My point is that what it shares with Game of Thrones is just the political struggle – and really not a very complex one – and not the rich characters and their complicated desires and struggles. There are interests of the spacing guild, the Landsraad, the Emperor and CHOAM with various schools like the Bene Gesserit, Mentats, Suk doctors playing parts but only the first one plays any active role in the struggle due to their breeding program. It’s not as nearly complex as the political interests of Westeros depicted in the Song of Ice and Fire, and, again, A Princes of Mars and the John Carter novels also had political intrigue on Barsoom and so did many other science fiction stories published then.
In the 90’s, Game of Thrones brought an updated historical and literary realism to the fantasy genre typified until then by books like Lord of the Rings on one end and Earthsea on the other while at around the same time, authors like Dan Simmons were bringing the same sort of approach to science fiction with books like HYPERION. The point here is that the characterization in the stories had changed quite significantly and that’s what made them appealing to a much wider audience. Honestly, I feel like Hyperion is to Dune what Game of Thrones is to Lord of the Rings, but, wisely, the Hyperion Cantos only needs two books to reach a conclusion.
Of course, this was not lost on Herbert who returned to Dune in the 80’s and wrote characters that were much more interesting and relatable. Honestly, I think God Emperor of Dune is far superior to the original novel and the characters of the last three books (written between 1981 – 1985) much more interesting that the first three (1965, 1969 and 1976). If any of the novels would make a good streaming series, I think those last three are much better material than original trilogy. While, the major challenge for a movie adaptation of DUNE or even a television adaptation is that it actually does not have the necessary characterization in the novel that are really what provides the basis for any adaptation to film. So either rewrite it to give it that characterization or, essentially, go the opposite direction and make it another STAR WARS.
Personally, though, I don’t think DUNE or FOUNDATION or any other classic of science fiction really provide much good material to adapt. They weren’t created from a cinematic perspective. BLADE RUNNER, though, is a good example of how they had to completely change the story to even approach adapting the book. Fortunately, though, PKD’s novel did not have an army of fans who would have been outraged by all the changes, while a similarly bold departure from DUNE’s source material would probably blow up in their faces.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
That would be a good idea. However, I find Dune is essentially a good vs evil story. Paul is presented as the good guy in every sense of the term (even more than John Carter actually is a “good” guy) and the Harkonnens, the Spacing Guild and the Emperor are cartoonishly evil in the book. Baron Harkonnen could be the basis for Darkseid and Piter Devries might as well be DeSaad. The Bene Gesserit are more ambiguous but entirely self-interested. Paul is so good that he even questions if what he is doing is good, but he knows he is doing it by necessity.
By the by, I re-read the first 3 books like 2 years ago and read for the first time the rest of the saga, so it’s still pretty fresh in my mind… just so you know that I’m not discussing this as something I remember from my teenage years or from a decade ago… that said:
Again, a 100% disagreed on every count. Dune is very much NOT a good vs evil story… let’s go one by one:
– Paul is not presented as a “good guy in every sense of the term” at all… in fact the book goes to great lenghts to show that he’s selfish, vindictive and opportunistic, and a coward to boot, mind you, he’s not “evil” either, he’s just a very flawed human being with superhuman abilites. He is the protagonist, sure enough, but he’s not a hero.
The books (specially the sequels, like you said, but the first one as well) very much explore what Herbert said about “not trusting charismatic leaders”, because Paul knows he is a fake messiah, he knows he’s taking advantage of fake prophecies and of the Fremen’s fanaticism in order to further his own goals, which are very selfish in nature. He also knows, thanks to his prescience, that in order to achieve his goals, he’ll unleash something VERY bad for the whole universe, yet he does it anyways (even though he tortures himself over his decisions)… and then to top it all off he doesn’t even have the cojones to see it through and decides to leave the burden and suffering to his son. So yeah, Paul is a selfish coward basically, not a “hero” in any traditional sense.
And as for his “vulcan”-ness, again, not at all: The litany against fear is not about repressing your emotions, but not giving into your fears, which are two very different things… Paul is actually very emotional throughout the books, he’s constantly tormenting himself over his decisions and the consequences of his decisions and all of that jazz. He’s so emotional that in the end he’s not able to take the “golden path”… surely a purely rational being would not hesitate to do so.
– The spacing guild is not protrayed as “cartoonishly evil” at all: yes they hold the empire hostage, in a sense, because they’re the only ones who control space travel, but in the end, their goal is not to control the empire, but to make sure “the spice flows” because they need it to do their thing, and also to survive, because let’s not forget anyone addicted to spice needs to consume it or they die, and the navigators need very large quantities of spice.
– The Emperor too is not cartoonishly evil… in fact, he’s not really evil at all, he’s just the tool that keeps the status quo in place so that the spice can flow. He doesn’t have personal issues against the Atreides, but sides with the Harkonnen because the Harkonnen are in the end more suitable to maintaining the status quo.
– As for the Harkonnen, I wouldn’t even say they’re evil either, although I suppose they’re the closest to a traditional “evil faction” in the first book, but in the end again, the Baron is more like Tywin Lannister, in the sense that yes, he is ruthless and will fuck you up, plus the Harkonnen and Atreides have history an bad blood between them, but the Baron is shown as an extremely pragmatic, efficient and intelligent ruler, the one who would be best suited to rule over Arakis and the production of spice, even though again, his methods are more totalitarian and violent.
In fact, again, the books reinforce the notion that the Harkonnen aren’t “evil” per-se through the fact that the Harkonnen blood line is INTEGRAL to the creation of the super-being, and the Atreides and Harkonnens are presented more as two sides of a coin, sure with one side being more kind and altruistic, the other being more cruel and opportunistic.
– And the Bene Gesserit, again, not “evil” per-se, even though they’re the ones pulling the strings from the shadows and are directly responsible for the whole bloody mess that Paul will unleash upon the whole universe. They’re very much a morally grey faction, who can do good but also a lot of bad… but they’re probably the most complex faction in the series, so I’ll just leave it at that.
-As for Paul’s children, sure they’re the “heroes” and the “good guys” in Children, and I guess Ganima stays “good”, but Leto is also a very morally grey character after that, hell he is THE morallt grey character by excellenece… but if you don’t want to take the later books into account, sure I’ll give you that they’re the clear “good guys” in Children.
My point is that what it shares with Game of Thrones is just the political struggle – and really not a very complex one – and not the rich characters and their complicated desires and struggles.
As for the rest, sure the “only thing” Dune share with GoT is the political struggle, but that’s because that’s all GoT is about. That said, 2 things:
1) First of all, there’s also the element of “Kryzelac” (or whatever it’s called) in the Dune series which is a direct parallel to the threat of the white walkers and the undead army… meaning a catastrophe that the protagonists are ultimately aware of and trying to prevent, so it also shares that. and
2) I don’t agree the political themes are not complex in the Dune series, considering most of the series deal with that theme, and not lightly, the comentary on power, politics, bureaucracies and whatnot is very much omnipresent in pretty much every book of the series.
That said, yes, Dune also deals with other themes GoT doesn’t, which is why Dune is ultimatly richer in themes than GoT, where GoT is richer in its character development. But I still mantain that not only they’re quite similar, but that if you think about it, they share A LOT of parallels… now I’m not gonna say Martin aped Herbert, because it’s more likely that they both took from historical events, but I’m sure Martin was inspired by both Dune and LotR when writing GoT. In fact, I would say that GoT is basically Dune dressed as LotR.
Think about it: The Starks are basically the Atreides, the Harkonnen are the Lannisters, the Bene Gesserit are the council member-types, like Varys or someone like Oleana Tryell, the Emperor is a bit like Robert, and the guild is kinda like Little Finger. As I said before, Paul is like Danny, Leto I is like Ned Stark, Leto II is like Bran, the Baron is like Tywin, etc… The parallels and similarites are too many to ignore.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Those are great points and certainly the novel is richer than any of the adaptations. The Harkonnens and the Emperor and the weird guild spacers are not as cartoony as they were in the movie, but you can’t deny that they are written pretty malevolently and as conniving villains ready to kill each other to save their own skins. Added to this is that the quest for the Iron Throne in the Song of Ice and Fire, the novels, is quite different, and essentially irrelevant to the reader while the “Golden Path” element of the Dune novels at least for the first trilogy, is what every scene practically concerns.
There are far more differences between Martin’s series and DUNE than between Star Wars or Lord of the Rings and Dune. The biggest difference of course being the characterization, but more importantly, there are practically no point of view characters who aren’t noble or are defined by their relationship to the nobles in Dune. Even out of the Fremen characters, we really get to know only the most important ones. Dune is all about the politics in that sense rather than about the world and the basic condition of the people in it.
However, that’s classic science fiction, and it is centered around Paul. Again, can you deny that in the story there is any point you are not rooting for Paul? He is no more ambiguous a hero than Luke Skywalker was. Or Jake Sully (or was it Scully? I can’t remember hardly any other names of the characters in Avatar), for that matter. Luke starts as a brash, disrespectful, angry and stupid young kid who’s not really that good at anything other than fixing droids. He wants to join the Imperial Flight Academy which means he would be fighting for the Empire – not that he cares. He nearly gets killed in the first few minutes we get get to know him and runs around like a frickin’ idiot until he ends up getting his father figure killed. In Empire, he’s still rash and reckless, but with a talent for flying and an unreasonable amount of unearned bravery, who defies orders in the middle of a war so he can go to a swamp planet some ghost told him about. There, he’s arrogant and short-tempered, and it’s an important point that people kinda gloss over – he fails his Jedi training. Then leaves early to almost sabotage the escape of his friends that he left to rescue. Then, in Return of the Jedi, he calls himself a Jedi even though he never completed his training and almost ends up a murderer because he still can’t control his temper. It’s only at that point that he refuses to give in that he becomes a Jedi.
Luke is a far more ambiguous character than people usually give the story credit for, but he’s essentially Paul for the movies. I think I agree with you that if you try to do a Game of Thrones style narrative for Paul in a movie, it’s not going to be good because that won’t really work in short form while the Star Wars approach really does.
If you read the Star Wars novels, they reveal similar things to Dune. The reason the Emperor is creating massive engines of destruction like the Death Stars is that there is an external threat outside the empire that will overwhelm them if they do not have these weapons. Again, the Sith are not as evil as first appearances lead us to believe. They are driven by the necessity of survival and see strength and power as the only approach to achieve that. Also, the Jedi are not as good either as their denial of the Dark Side has led to an imbalance in the Force that gives them Darth Vader. Naturally, the “Force” powers and those of the Bene Gesserit are obviously influenced by the psychic new age stuff all over the place when they came out.
So, in the style of its writing and the structure of its story, DUNE naturally shares a lot more with STAR WARS but a lot of that is due to the fact that Dune and Foundation and other SF novels from the time strongly influenced Star Wars while I can believe that Dune influenced George RR Martin, I can’t really see that it was a direct influence since obviously Martin is taking a lot from English medieval history when it comes to the political situation and from Tolkien when comes to the setting. Also, equally in contrast to LOTR, Martin’s style and approach in writing is in counterpoint to the way Herbert wrote Dune. If Herbert was an influence, I think he’d just mention that some point in all these years.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
What do you think @ZackSnyder ? pic.twitter.com/PIVvo39aLa
— Tommy Chong (@tommychong) April 3, 2021
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
What do you think @ZackSnyder ? pic.twitter.com/PIVvo39aLa
— Tommy Chong (@tommychong) April 3, 2021
Hal Jordan, the Sunset Years
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
So, at the risk of adding fuel to the fire, I have tried watching the Snyder Cut twice now and can only conclude that I still don’t give a shit. Fair play to those who enjoy it but I don’t think I’ll be going back to try and make it through any more. It’s all just so… noisy.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
I liked Deathstroke. However, I think the term “knightmare” is kinda stupid. Who came up with that? That’s not official, is it? If it is, then down with the Snyderverse! … which is also a stupid term.
It’s never said in the actual films, but it’s used in the action figures and stuff like that.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Ray Fisher Opens Up About ‘Justice League,’ Joss Whedon and Warners: “I Don’t Believe Some of These People Are Fit for Leadership”
-
Ahh so that was the big exposé coming today…
Well it seems that old reddit rumour thread was right… I’m gonna try to fish it up, it has some spicy bits =P
Oh I found a part of it:
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
DC Films Exec Reportedly Vetoed Making Superman’s Grandfather Black, Regé-Jean Page Auditioned
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Here’s the Deadline article about a fake Frosty the Snowman movie starring Jason Momoa put out to distract people from the Fisher stuff last summer:
Jason Momoa To Voice Frosty The Snowman In Live-Action Pic For Warner Bros & Stampede Ventures
“From his role as a fearsome count in a land of ice and fire to the oceanic success we all had with Aquaman, it felt only right to realize Jason this time out of snow,” Berg said.
Said Silverman: “We know Jason’s as a true human being filled with love, compassion and a deep connection to ohana — all of which is the living spirit of Xmas and Frosty.”
Ah yes, The Fearsome Count Drogo, my favourite character.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Ray Fisher Opens Up About ‘Justice League,’ Joss Whedon and Warners: “I Don’t Believe Some of These People Are Fit for Leadership”
Geoff Johns comes off even worse than Whedon in that article, if only because his people actually responded to the claims. He really needs a new publicist (why Geoff Johns actually has a publicist is anyone’s guess.) Their defence seemed to boil down to “Geoff can’t be racist because he knows people of colour.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Ray Fisher Opens Up About ‘Justice League,’ Joss Whedon and Warners: “I Don’t Believe Some of These People Are Fit for Leadership”
While Whedon was a complete asshole on the set (and given the overly grandiose behaviour and arrogance with which he obviously treated everyone, you have to wonder about drug use), it sounds a little like Fisher overdid it when it comes to Hamada and Johns, accusing them of racism and incompetence when there doesn’t seem to be much basis for that (beyond Johns not dealing properly with Whedon earlier).
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I mostly agree. It’s clear that Whedon is a dick. Add to it that he was also in the middle of a very messy split from his wife (due to him being a POS husband) and I’m sure he was even more volatile. The rest sounds like a bunch of tone deaf, middle aged white dudes acting like tine deaf middle aged white dudes. Certainly I imagine there was probably some unconscious bias, but it really sounds like the studio just wanted a different movie than what Snyder filmed and they went about trying to change it in a very hacky, unprofessional way.
They also just come off pretty dumb, because they should have understood that it was essentially impossible to transform what Snyder filmed into the complete opposite kind of movie.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
They also just come off pretty dumb
Most studio execs are completely clueless, as evidenced by the part where one of them allegedly took Fisher to dinner to try and get him to say the “booyah” line because his kid knew it from the cartoon. Kids that young would be bored shitless by Snyder’s po-faced gloomfest.
-
Yup due to it being the only thing on a hotel TV that night I can confirm showing an 11 and 9 year old BvS they were bored shitless and gave up.
Since his favoured cut of Justice League is R rated then it’s pretty clear that Snyder had no interest in that audience anyway, which is fair enough, but then trying to shoehorn in a ‘catchphrase for the kids’ is completely stupid thinking.
In retrospect having seen the Snyder version though it’s clear everything about the Whedon cut is dumb as shit. Chris is right, it’s an impossible task to add a few badly written and produced scenes to try and change the entire movie which is 90% done. They should have just released it as it was, it would have done probably roughly the same at the box office and they could move on.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I don’t really get why it’s a big deal for him either but I also think including it or not is going to make jack shit difference to the movie’s appeal.
Both his objection and the producer’s insistence are a bit dumb.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
So it seems reasonable to try and include it, and I’ve never really understood why Fisher got so annoyed about that aspect.
He explains it in the article, and he’s right, tbh… He worked closely with Snyder and Terrio to build up Cyborg’s character, trying to avoid the usual “black man stereotypes”… so trying to give him a comedic catchphrase, when none of the other character has one, or trying to turn him into comedic relief for that matter, goes against everything he was doing and falls into the stereotypes he was trying to avoid.
Now, the dumbest part of all this is that Cyborg gets his own origin story in JLA, and to be honest, while I’ve never understood or agreed with having Cyborg in the JL, Snyder & co. did a great job of showing WHY he deserves a spot on the premier SH team, they turned him into the god of technology, which is a great approach, instead of him being just a small potato robot guy with hacking abilites (which he didn’t even have, originally)… So had they gone ahead with this, DC would’ve had their own original “black supehero” capable of competing with Marvel’s BP… instead, now they’re going for a black Superman…
-
-
-
It’s certainly a much more grounded take on the traditional Black Adam costume, but the way the sweat makes the lightning bolt is pretty cool.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Oh boo-fucking-hoo, Chris Terrio. He whines that the version of Batman v Superman they released was half an hour too short. It was 3hrs 3 minutes long. If you can’t tell a Batman v Superman story in 3 hours maybe you’re bad at your job.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Oh boo-fucking-hoo, Chris Terrio. He whines that the version of Batman v Superman they released was half an hour too short. It was 3hrs 3 minutes long. If you can’t tell a Batman v Superman story in 3 hours maybe you’re bad at your job.
3 hours was the Ultimate Edition, the theatrical cut was 2hr32m.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
That’s still a ton of time to tell that story.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Oh boo-fucking-hoo, Chris Terrio. He whines that the version of Batman v Superman they released was half an hour too short. It was 3hrs 3 minutes long. If you can’t tell a Batman v Superman story in 3 hours maybe you’re bad at your job.
That’s not really what he’s complaining about, is it?
You know what though? Nevermind…
-
Oh boo-fucking-hoo, Chris Terrio. He whines that the version of Batman v Superman they released was half an hour too short. It was 3hrs 3 minutes long. If you can’t tell a Batman v Superman story in 3 hours maybe you’re bad at your job.
Or maybe save it for a different script.
Now, it feels like people who would be good writers for studio IP and franchises are not going to bother putting in really creative work because the studios just crap all over it anyway. Instead, they’ll go to Amazon or Netflix and write and produce something where they have an ownership stake and little interference.
Honestly, I would hope that the studios drive people away from these characters that have been around for 40 to going on 100 years. We might see a new crop of characters with new stories replacing them.
It does make me wonder what is the equivalent today of Superman in the 30’s or Marvel in the 60’s or the X-men and TMNT in the 80’s and 90’s. Or The Matrix in the late 90’s, even. Not just in superhero terms, but in general – even Harry Potter and The Hunger Games feels a bit old (though Harry Potter certainly is still going strong).
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Now, it feels like people who would be good writers for studio IP and franchises are not going to bother putting in really creative work because the studios just crap all over it anyway. Instead, they’ll go to Amazon or Netflix and write and produce something where they have an ownership stake and little interference.
Writers have been the lowest point on the Hollywood totem pole for a long time.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
What Terrio describes in that interview – of 30 minutes being chopped out of the film after the fact, with a lot of that being the quieter connective tissue because they wanted to keep all the big ‘money’ sequences in – makes a lot of sense. And I think the longer Blu-Ray cut does show how restoring that material improves the film.
I only saw that version and while I’m sure it’s improved compared to the theatrical cut, it’s still kinda bad.
And where the running time is concerned, well, part of the problem is not just the big action scenes but also that you have a director who is using slo-mo like half the time in the movie. He could’ve fucking sped up some of that, and that would’ve saved some of those character moments, you know?
That being said, clearly a lot of what was wrong with the movie wasn’t Terrio’s fault, and I like how clear he is about the mess he inherited. I do think he improved what he was handed immensely (the branding ending thing is insane) and brought a lot of dearly needed perspective to the movie. Given what the studio (and Snyder, at the time it was conceived) wanted it to be, there was probably no way it could ever have been a truly good movie.
This bit interesting:
Ben [Affleck] called me and said that he was working on this film, which was a Superman film in which he was going to play Batman. So he asked if I would read the script and consider doing a rewrite. He asked if I would do some character work. So it was already determined and storyboarded that Batman was going to be trying to kill Superman and that Batman was going to have gone down a dark road. He was branding criminals, and it had certain dark elements that were nonnegotiable and already in the story.
What did Affleck want you to do?
My job was to create a story and a tone, really, in which Batman could be that person, and in which two heroes could get to the point where they’re fighting to the death.
What was your approach?
I came into it thinking the only way that this could work is as a fever dream or as a revenge tragedy. I thought, How do we create a story in which Bruce Wayne is traumatized by the war of Krypton coming to Earth, and in which he enters into this kind of madness? He becomes Captain Ahab, and he won’t listen to saner voices, like Alfred, for example, who are telling him to just see reason. He’s a man possessed.
So the film was dark by its nature. As I worked on the movie, it seemed to me that it was a snapshot of what I was feeling on the ground in the country, which maybe didn’t become apparent until the madness and division that came about from the last presidency. I thought this superhero movie could be about getting into our worst natures, but then coming out of that into a redemption.
Also, the way he describes how the studio works is just terrible, and pretty much how you’d imagine it in a bad Hollywood cliché kind of way (Merc Lapitus!). This really just goes to show what incredible work Kevin Feige has been doing over at Marvel. Hats off to that man.
This bit was funny:
Something that was this big and prominent and then so widely derided, it kind of poisons your reputation, doesn’t it?
Yeah. It hurts your reputation, but more importantly, it poisons your soul and your confidence, especially when this other version of the film wasn’t seen.
You know, funny because the next thing he worked on after Justice League was Rise of Skywalker!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I don’t know, man, I think maybe Terrio just was out of his depth with all of these big jobs. He’s clearly been doing the best he can, but he went from having written just one filmed screenplay to being responsible for some of the biggest productions in Hollywood. Maybe that just wasn’t the right path for him. So going back to smaller movies, like he says he is, seems like a very good idea indeed.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Isn’t this akin to the old Hollywood studio system? The likes of Disney/Marvel and Warner/DC are the ones in charge of these big movie projects, they have final say in all matters and they will aim to lock up the creative talent to strict, lengthy contracts. Hell, they’ve even got their own direct distribution model now with their streaming platforms. If the creative talent play along and do a good job then they can make a ton of money along the way. They won’t be able to scratch their creative itches or really take a great deal of credit (though they can certainly be made to take the blame if things go poorly). But they can use these types of projects to pay the bills and potentially do their own, independent projects on the side (should their contracts permit).
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Oh alright, gotcha… Well I don’t have issues with lenght as long as it’s “good” (as in it’s something I like)… 2, 3, 4, 5 hours… I don’t care. Of course I wouldn’t sit in a cinema for 5 hours because fuck that, I need to fart once in a while, but I have no issue with lenght per-se. But I’d rather sit through a good 3 hour movie, than a shitty studio mandated 2 hour one, hands down.
Though at this point, I don’t think it matters because clearly the objective is to make cookie cutter movies, same shit over and over and over again, so I suppose that shouldn’t be an issue where SH movies are concerned moving forward… seems DC is intent on doing Marvel movies and Marvel is just gonna keep doing Marvel movies, so…
-
-
-
-
-
-
This thread is almost exactly as I expected it would be after the release of JLSC. A comment or two followed by An impassioned defense from Jon explaining away any perceived flaws of the movie and related Snyderverse issues. I admire your dedication Jon.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
IGN ran the numbers and calculated that 24 minutes, 7 seconds of Zack Snyder’s Justice League was slow motion footage, from a grand total runtime of 4 hours, 1 minute, and 53 seconds. That is 10.35% of the film.
https://www.ign.com/videos/zack-snyders-justice-league-is-10-slow-motion
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Birds of Prey was a real mis-step. Probably another good example of why it’s not always a great idea to pick directors without a lot of experience for these kinds of big-budget movies. Cathy Yan had made exactly one feature length movie before this. And the script was kinda terrible, which doesn’t bode well for The Flash and Batgirl.
That being said, I now really want to see Yan’s debut movie, Dead Pigs:
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I actually thought the action scenes in Birds of Prey were quite well directed. My girlfriend especially enjoyed the fight scenes in the movie. I’d also be far more likely to watch Birds of Prey again over most of the DC movie output in recent years, so I don’t think I could call it a misstep, creatively. Yeah, it didn’t perform super well at the box office, but I certainly didn’t think it was worse than most of what they’ve put out. Of course, I also think Joker is mostly garbage, but audiences ate that up so I’m not the best judge here. I do think Birds of Prey might have been the last movie I saw in a theater before the world shut down, though.
Unrelated, but going back to the slo-mo in Justice League…now I’ve always kind of made fun of Snyder’s overuse of slo-mo in his movies but I think what bothers me about it most in Justice League is that it’s used really well with regards to The Flash’s powers, but by using it a bunch in other scenes it kind of lessens the impact of when it’s used with The Flash. Anyway, just a random aside.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I don’t think BoP is a bad movie, btw… It was a disaster everywhere else, starting with that stupid-ass name and the completely unnecessary R-rating. Sure, I would’ve gone in a different direction in terms of casting and the costumes, but the script itself was fine. It could’ve and should’ve been a light-hearted movie for young women, they had all the ingredients, but they fucked it up, as usual, and it tanked.
What worries me about the Flash movie is that it seems to be a completely studio mandated movie, as in the studio wants to use it for something specific, and given their track record with that sort of thing, I’m expecting another clusterfuck.
Edit: Oh, also, funny bit I read on Twitter: In BvS Superman dies aroung the 2:38:55 mark (give or take) and in JL he ressurects around that same time stamp… so yeah, the more you know =P
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
-
😂😂😂Ok I know I’m not the best looking guy in the world but how come whenever I’m fancast as a character it’s always one that’s ummmm…. aesthetically challenged?! 😂😂😂… This is probably why I can’t get that rom-com lead! 🤦🏻 https://t.co/q2NpcEcMgW
— The Artist Formerly Known as Super Duper Dave (@DaveBautista) April 15, 2021
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Dominic Purcell walks away from Legends of Tomorrow
Seems intent on burning that bridge good and proper.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
I’m now starting to wonder is Dom Purcell actually @Chris-S alternate identity? That original post could have been written by him.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Seems intent on burning that bridge good and proper.
That’s what it sounded like, but the title of the article has already changed to:
‘DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow’ Star Dominic Purcell Changes Tune Following Fiery Exit Announcement; Says He Will Return “Periodically” In Season 7
Guess some of those fake cunts put down even some more cash than whatever. Or reminded him that his contract isn’t done, as seems to be the case.
“I have and always have had a tremendous relationship with the Bosses and the studio @warnerbrostv…My wording was aggressive in tone because sometimes I get frustrated and annoyed [sic] it’s been a long long heavy year locked up in #Vancouver for 9 months without going home,” he continued. “Who doesn’t and who hasn’t lashed out. Im f***in human. So for god sake chill on.”
Drunk posting?
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Edit: Oh, also, funny bit I read on Twitter: In BvS Superman dies aroung the 2:38:55 mark (give or take) and in JL he resurrects around that same time stamp… so yeah, the more you know =P
The resurrection of Superman still bugs me out of everything in the movie. First, obviously, his death in BvS didn’t entirely work well dramatically. He just started (from our perspective) and now he’s dead! Probably should’ve had a MOS 2 before that.
Then, they happen to have a resurrection machine show up. But the Mother Box is obviously antagonistic toward Superman since it remained dormant until he died before sending the message to Steppenwolf (and not Darkseid, for some reason). So why did it resurrect him… unless it did something to him. There was that “Pet Sematary” line cut from the movie, but it played out much the same with a murderous Superman emerging from death.
This is the thing about the whole “alternate” vision of a world where Darkseid wins and Superman becomes his new “Steppenwolf.” First, a lot of people online are calling this an alternate timeline that Flash created when he reversed time to prevent the “Unity” of the Mother Boxes.
However, that simply cannot be true. In the visions, Bruce’s and Cyborgs, we see an evil Superman. Diana being cremated in front of the Amazons, Batman captured and killed by Superman, and Batman and his surviving crew with the Joker, Flash, Deathstroke, Cyborg and Mera facing evil Superman at the end of the movie. If Flash had not run back in time, then all those people would have been dead – we saw them destroyed by the explosive transformational force of the Mother Boxes.
So, none of those scenes in the vision can represent an alternate timeline. Instead, those have to be scenes from the actual future – the future that the characters are still on track for. Darkseid and his armada are on their way to invade Earth. Lois Lane is still on a path to get incinerated and, somehow, Clark will blame Bruce for it. In the final flash forward in Bruce’s dream, Flash is wearing the armor he has in the vision that Bruce had in BvS.
The poorly named “Knightmare” world is not an alternate timeline, it is still the actual future unless something changes – Batman sacrificing himself to save Lois probably, because that seems like something the Joker was implying. That Bruce could have saved her but saved himself instead.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
The resurrection of Superman still bugs me out of everything in the movie. First, obviously, his death in BvS didn’t entirely work well dramatically. He just started (from our perspective) and now he’s dead! Probably should’ve had a MOS 2 before that.
Then, they happen to have a resurrection machine show up. But the Mother Box is obviously antagonistic toward Superman since it remained dormant until he died before sending the message to Steppenwolf (and not Darkseid, for some reason). So why did it resurrect him… unless it did something to him. There was that “Pet Sematary” line cut from the movie, but it played out much the same with a murderous Superman emerging from death.
Sure, the death was rushed, but they kinda needed to do it once they decided to go for Justice League, because remember, Snyder’s Superman is OP, like literally OP, so you need him out of the picture early on (much like they needed the Avengers to split up and Thor & Hulk be off-world in order for IW to work). Sure there should’ve been more time for all that, but it was what it was…
The resurrection machine however, didn’t just show up, since half of the equation was the resurrection chamber where Luthor created Doomsday by resurrecting Zod as an abomination, so the mechanism was already there. They do explain in the movie that the boxes aren’t good or evil, so I guess the way I took it is that Cyborg programmed the box to do so, much like Steppenwolf programs the boxes to create the unity at the end, so one used them for creation, the other used them for destruction.
Listen, I’m not gonna pretend the plot is air-tight, because it’s not, there’s a few issues and contradictions and plot-holes here and there… but you have to remember, Snyder didn’t get to do additional photography/reshoots in 2017, which is when they would’ve tightened up/fixed that kind of stuff (and that’s when they were planning on adding Harry Lennix’s scenes for example)… Despite the fact that he shot the knightmare sequence in 2020, he had limited access to only some of the actors (Henry, Gal and Jason were unavailable), plus the studio didn’t want him to add anything in the first place, so he was mainly working with what he had from 2017, warts and all.
So there’s no real point trying to justify certain plot issues, the movie ain’t perfect… far from it, but it is what it is… or rather, it is what it was in 2017 up until the point he left.
This is the thing about the whole “alternate” vision of a world where Darkseid wins and Superman becomes his new “Steppenwolf.” First, a lot of people online are calling this an alternate timeline that Flash created when he reversed time to prevent the “Unity” of the Mother Boxes.
Yeah but no, they’re wrong, because that doesn’t make sense… people are thinking that because of the Flash TV show and their mantra of “there are always consequences to time traveling”.
By the way, it’s not an “evil Superman” that we see… I mean, he is in actions, but in truth he is under the influence of the Anti Life Equation, so it’s not like he snapped and went evil like in the Injustice story. I’m clarifying this, because people keep bringing up Injustice, but there is a difference in Superman just going crazy, and him falling to the ALE’s influence.
However, that simply cannot be true. In the visions, Bruce’s and Cyborgs, we see an evil Superman. Diana being cremated in front of the Amazons, Batman captured and killed by Superman, and Batman and his surviving crew with the Joker, Flash, Deathstroke, Cyborg and Mera facing evil Superman at the end of the movie. If Flash had not run back in time, then all those people would have been dead – we saw them destroyed by the explosive transformational force of the Mother Boxes.
So, none of those scenes in the vision can represent an alternate timeline. Instead, those have to be scenes from the actual future – the future that the characters are still on track for. Darkseid and his armada are on their way to invade Earth. Lois Lane is still on a path to get incinerated and, somehow, Clark will blame Bruce for it. In the final flash forward in Bruce’s dream, Flash is wearing the armor he has in the vision that Bruce had in BvS.
Correct.
The poorly named “Knightmare” world is not an alternate timeline, it is still the actual future unless something changes – Batman sacrificing himself to save Lois probably, because that seems like something the Joker was implying. That Bruce could have saved her but saved himself instead.
Again, correct, although I wanted to add that Joker says something about “alternate timelines”, implying that maybe they have already tried and failed and somehow he remembers? Or maybe it’s just a bit of not-so-good writing by Snyder, which is also possible considering he wrote that and shot that in a week…
But more to the point, yes, it is the future that’s on track, however, from “our” POV it kind of is an “alternate timeline” in the sense that we know that eventually they succeed and the “main timeline” is the one where they’ll stop Darkseid, and yes, where Batman sacrifices himself to save Lois, so at least in that sense, it is an alternate timeline, techincally.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Now Dave, you know the true fans want it on Betamax.
But it’ll never happen as WB are actively sabotaging the movie.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
Yeah it was always planned, and I’m guessing there’s also gonna be a boxset down the line… they just re-released BvS in 4K with full 4:3 imax sequences too (and some color grading corrections I think)… which looks a bit weird, ’cause you go from horizontal bars to vertical bars, but you know… not a huge deal…
-
-
-
-
-
