Whedon To Direct Avengers - April Fool's??

[Houngan]

DC has a boatload of other baggage to deal with.

Nolan is ending Batman, so they need to either relaunch or figure out how to a) do JL without Batman or b) use Nolan's Batman with however he leaves it. Relaunch is more likely.

Next year's Man of Steel has to not suck.

They need to put Wonder Woman in the hands of someone who can bring her to the screen and not be terrible (have you seen the unaired pilot for the TV show? terrible).

I still haven't seen Green Lantern, is it worth saving or should they relaunch that too?

Last I heard out of The Flash movie was they hired the guys who wrote The Green Lantern movie to write it. Good thing? Bad thing? Is there more news?

Aquaman? Perhaps they can make Entourage a reality and get James Cameron to direct since he's still fascinated by stuff under water.

Do we bring Martian Manhunter into it?

To do the Justice League right, they really need to get someone to take the helm overseeing all the films, get them to be good and slowly tie them together. Marvel did that with The Avengers, but can DC do the same for the Justice League?

All good points. I didn't like Green Lantern at all, but I think that is very much because he doesn't translate well to live action. He's just too cartoony and it's too hard to fit his powers into a universe with Batman. The Avengers were able to shoehorn Thor into the universe because his primary powers are hitting stuff and lightning and throwing a hammer. Hulk? Hits stuff. Iron Man? Hits stuff and has guns. Captain America? See Iron Man, low-tech version.

I still want them to try, mind you, but you're absolutely right about the challenges. I'd be down with just doing a feature length movie using the animation from the DC Universe Online trailer.

[CLWheeljack]

All good points. I didn't like Green Lantern at all, but I think that is very much because he doesn't translate well to live action. He's just too cartoony and it's too hard to fit his powers into a universe with Batman. The Avengers were able to shoehorn Thor into the universe because his primary powers are hitting stuff and lightning and throwing a hammer. Hulk? Hits stuff. Iron Man? Hits stuff and has guns. Captain America? See Iron Man, low-tech version.

Yeah, the problem with DC is that the best interpretation of many of their characters are essentially demi-gods, which doesn't lend itself well to team-ups, and doesn't lend itself well to the human-level stories that movies are committed to tell. The fact that there's a huge power disparity between Batman, (to a lesser extent) Wonder Woman, and the other heavy hitters is just icing.

If they were willing to, I think that modern audiences could handle cosmic level stories now that Marvel has laid the ground-work. But DC has to commit to that, and not tell half-assed Marvel-style everyman stories. That was the same problem that Marvel had with Thor (which I watched this weekend), it tried to do both, and the earth parts were pretty much just tedious.

I don't know how you bridge the gap thuogh. Maybe you could make it work with Batman as the audience-insertion character, he's the most familiar now, and he'd also be the most relatable in that crowd. But you'd need a much more sympathetic Batman to pull that off. Of course, after Nolan, Batman has to be rebooted regardless.

[Harkonis]

I've always had a problem with DC being way overpowered compared to Marvel. I realize there are ridiculously powerful things on both sides, but really other than Batman all of DC strikes me as godlike.

Thor is probably the only one of the Avengers that comes across that way with Hulk a close second.

Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonderwoman, they are all portrayed as nigh-unkillable so often.

[BiggerBoat]

Enh, I dunno. Looking at articles about the movie in the press, and the actual reviews, there seems to be a fairly solid perception that the movie is a cut above Michael Bay Explosion Fest #324 because of that Whedon ensemble cast thing.

There seems to be a pretty pervasive recognition, at least in the media, that Josh Whedon managed to pull this together despite the challenges of the concept.

I've seen Avengers twice now, and he really did thread a needle on this one. It could have been so very bad.

Disney/Marvel would be insane not to bring him back for Avenegers #2, for which I am sure he'll be able to negotiate pretty great terms. Heck, if I were Disney/Marvel I'd be considering giving him a a consulting role for the next few years to help with the other movies.

[CLWheeljack]

I've always had a problem with DC being way overpowered compared to Marvel. I realize there are ridiculously powerful things on both sides, but really other than Batman all of DC strikes me as godlike.

Thor is probably the only one of the Avengers that comes across that way with Hulk a close second.

Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonderwoman, they are all portrayed as nigh-unkillable so often.

It's just a question of how much a character goes into space. Superman, GL, both from space, both over-powered. The Flash was just fast for a while, but then they gave him his own speed-dimension, or something, so he's basically from space now. The Martian's less overpowered, because he's not really from space, just Mars.

Thor, Silver Surfer, etc. From space. Hulk was just very, very strong, then he went into space and became a god-king.

Power-wise, I think Hulk's basically as strong as anybody else in the entire Marvel Universe, including the Eternals, Celestials, etc. Again, though, there was a lot of power inflation in the 90's. When they did the Marvel-DC crossovers, Hulk did go toe-to-toe with Superman. I don't remember if they had some stupid "kryptonite has gamma radiation, so Hulk is kinda like kryptonite" sop though.

[Houngan]

I've always had a problem with DC being way overpowered compared to Marvel. I realize there are ridiculously powerful things on both sides, but really other than Batman all of DC strikes me as godlike.

Thor is probably the only one of the Avengers that comes across that way with Hulk a close second.

Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonderwoman, they are all portrayed as nigh-unkillable so often.

True enough, though it's fairer to say that Marvel's uber-powered characters weren't their most popular characters, rather than them not having them. Beyonder, Silver Surfer, Galactus are all gods, or near as doesn't matter, along with the entire Norse pantheon. DC's problem is that they keep bumping their characters in service to story and sales and then bumping other characters to maintain some reasonable parity. Superman started out as a mix between Colossus and Cyclops with flight thrown in as well, but now he's a walking invulnerable nuclear reactor light-speed God, and they've dragged WW, GL, and the entire Marvel clan along with him just so he can have some peers. My beloved Flash has become DC's Hulk, the one-trick-pony character that becomes the Deus Ex Machina at the end of the storyline.

Still, shit goes boom and people fly around, so I love it.

[Murph]

Even so, I suspect Whedon doesn't love Firefly as much as the fans do. I suspect he has some other pocket ideas he'd rather do if given unlimited money for a vanity project.

Every interview I've read makes me believe he absolutely loves the world and the universe and characters and would return there in a heartbeat...but I don't think he'd do it without bringing the whole cast back together, and he's well aware that they're just...too busy. Especially Nathan.

[Murph]

I still haven't seen Green Lantern, is it worth saving or should they relaunch that too?

Last I heard out of The Flash movie was they hired the guys who wrote The Green Lantern movie to write it. Good thing? Bad thing? Is there more news?

Green Lantern was...eh. Most people 'round here hated it. I wouldn't say I HATED it, personally, but it wasn't on par with what I've come to expect from Superhero movies. For a Justice League movie to be done well, yeah...pretty sure they'd have to reboot Green Lantern.

And if the guys writing the script to that are doing The Flash? That doesn't bode well. Green Lantern's real problem wasn't the cast or the effects to NEAR the degree that it just didn't have a very good script to start with. I think Reynolds could've done a great job in that role if he'd had more to work with.

[Hugin]

Green Lantern's real problem wasn't the cast or the effects to NEAR the degree that it just didn't have a very good script to start with.

And you're being kind. :)

The Green Lantern script was terrible. Really, really terrible. The plot makes no sense, the structure is a complete mess, and with perhaps 2 exceptions the dialogue is completely unmemorable.

[Telefrog]

It wasn't a good script, plus (and I know comic fans will hate me) but the whole Corps as depicted was just damn silly. Fish head dude, purple gorilla guy, red dude with Ming the Merciless head, council of big head folks, etc.

[Houngan]

I found it hard to watch on an international flight, if that hints at the problems.

[CLWheeljack]

It wasn't a good script, plus (and I know comic fans will hate me) but the whole Corps as depicted was just damn silly. Fish head dude, purple gorilla guy, red dude with Ming the Merciless head, council of big head folks, etc.

I actually think they could have done well to start GL on earth, even dealing with an invading alien or something, but just contained on earth. Then, the big reveal at the end of the movie is that there are other Lanterns. I feel like that's the plot that would have made sense on a personal level, while easing the audience into the idea of space monsters and giving you the opportunity for non-stupid human drama because the movie is still essentially human scale.

[Christien Murawski]

I guess I'm just getting soft(er) in my old age, but this story got me a little dusty just now. Or it's dusty in here. However you people say it. Don't worry. Nothing bad happens. It's just so sweet.

It also made me feel incredibly guilty for not liking the Captain America movie.


-xtien

"Of the people in this room, which one of us is A: wearing a spangly outfit, and B: not of use?"

[Brian Rubin]

If they're serious about it, it's not that hard. They just need find a directing partner for Paul Dini and throw money at him until he agrees to work on it.

Bruce Timm or Alan Burnett, duh. ;)

[CLWheeljack]

Bruce Timm or Alan Burnett, duh. ;)

I was thinking they'd want somebody with live-action experience (I don't think any of them have any).

[MattKeil]

I was thinking they'd want somebody with live-action experience (I don't think any of them have any).

Couldn't end up much worse than Superman Returns or Green Lantern. Hell, Whedon wasn't exactly a proven blockbuster commodity either until a week ago.

[gurugeorge]

I actually think they could have done well to start GL on earth, even dealing with an invading alien or something, but just contained on earth. Then, the big reveal at the end of the movie is that there are other Lanterns. I feel like that's the plot that would have made sense on a personal level, while easing the audience into the idea of space monsters and giving you the opportunity for non-stupid human drama because the movie is still essentially human scale.

Yeah I think that's part of the problem with the GL film. Sure, the idea was to have an epic scope, but it's just too much information for the general audience. The alien passing on the ring to Hal Jordan and him discovering his abilities and using them to fight crime, then Parallax (as he was depicted in his human form, that was great acting and all) would have been quite good enough for a first GL film.

Plus also, the one area where they could have gone really whacky and cool (the constructs) is precisely where they went pretty lame. Where were the giant fly swatters, etc.? (The racing car thing was pretty cool but it was far too elaborate and confusing for a "first public display").

[Joe O'Malley]

And you're being kind. :)

The Green Lantern script was terrible. Really, really terrible. The plot makes no sense, the structure is a complete mess, and with perhaps 2 exceptions the dialogue is completely unmemorable.

I fell asleep watching it. Somewhere between green energy being punked by yellow energy and the old saw about the one great watcher going bad (I'm guessing his name was Saruman)and the human lantern really maybe not being worthy, blah blah crossing Karate Kid with Lord of the Rings aren't we heroic and ZZZZ......

[straight]

Among the many difficulties with a JLA movie is that "super-speed" is a completely broken concept that has never, ever been used consistently. It's easier to get away with it in comic books, but I don't think you can make it work in a movie.

Flash should beat any villain without super-speed before the villain knows what happened, even if the villain surprises him (this scene from the JLA cartoon where Flash stares at a giant boomerang for an entire second before just letting it hit him is typical of how hard it is to portray his speed consistently). And any fight between Flash and a villain with super-speed should be nothing but a blur to everyone else. Either the audience sees nothing but a blur or the whole thing needs to look like a bullet-time scene with everything & everyone frozen in place while Flash fights his enemy. I doubt you can make a watchable movie in which every action scene is either a blur or a guy moving at normal speed through a frozen environment.

All this should be true of Superman (and the Martian Manhunter) as well. It's a little easier to ignore Superman's speed if he's on his own, but if he's sharing the screen with the Flash, it's much harder. Even Wonder Woman (who can move fast enough to deflect each individual bullet from a machine gun volley) should be mostly a blur to a normal human being (including Batman).

[Houngan]

Among the many difficulties with a JLA movie is that "super-speed" is a completely broken concept that has never, ever been used consistently. It's easier to get away with it in comic books, but I don't think you can make it work in a movie.

Flash should beat any villain without super-speed before the villain knows what happened, even if the villain surprises him (this scene from the JLA cartoon where Flash stares at a giant boomerang for an entire second before just letting it hit him is typical of how hard it is to portray his speed consistently). And any fight between Flash and a villain with super-speed should be nothing but a blur to everyone else. Either the audience sees nothing but a blur or the whole thing needs to look like a bullet-time scene with everything & everyone frozen in place while Flash fights his enemy. I doubt you can make a watchable movie in which every action scene is either a blur or a guy moving at normal speed through a frozen environment.

All this should be true of Superman (and the Martian Manhunter) as well. It's a little easier to ignore Superman's speed if he's on his own, but if he's sharing the screen with the Flash, it's much harder. Even Wonder Woman (who can move fast enough to deflect each individual bullet from a machine gun volley) should be mostly a blur to a normal human being (including Batman).

You're absolutely right but it would be absolutely awesome if they could pull it off. Immortals did a decent job of depicting the gods' speed but only as a passive observer. I really wanted them to rewind that scene after the fact and show it from the humans' perspectives. god shows up, kicks guy across room - blur - everybody explodes and the god is standing on the other side of the room.

[CLWheeljack]

I joked about it a little earlier, but I really would love to see a movie made out of Neil Gaiman's Eternals, and he has a scene where he explores the super-speed issues pretty well. There's a hostage situation where Mark Curry is slowly starting to remember how to use his super-speed, and he narrates his thought process as he figures out what to do. He can't touch any humans including the guys with guns because he'd basically snap them in half. He can't touch the bullets because they have tremendous kinetic energy, so they're really hot, and regardless, all that energy has to go somewhere.

Besides which, it's a great self-contained story. A little long for a single movie, but I think you could massage it into a Star Wars like thing, where the first movie tells a complete story, but then if it does well, you can tell the rest of it.

Is Martian Manhunter that fast these days? I know he was originally superman ctrl-r kryptonite, fire, but they seem to play up his shape-shifting and telepathy more these days, I got the impression his physical power level has dropped.

Also, I don't know the history that well, but was Flash always as fast as he is now? You could probably attenuate his speed somewhat in the movies.

[Houngan]

I joked about it a little earlier, but I really would love to see a movie made out of Neil Gaiman's Eternals, and he has a scene where he explores the super-speed issues pretty well. There's a hostage situation where Mark Curry is slowly starting to remember how to use his super-speed, and he narrates his thought process as he figures out what to do. He can't touch any humans including the guys with guns because he'd basically snap them in half. He can't touch the bullets because they have tremendous kinetic energy, so they're really hot, and regardless, all that energy has to go somewhere.

Besides which, it's a great self-contained story. A little long for a single movie, but I think you could massage it into a Star Wars like thing, where the first movie tells a complete story, but then if it does well, you can tell the rest of it.

Is Martian Manhunter that fast these days? I know he was originally superman ctrl-r kryptonite, fire, but they seem to play up his shape-shifting and telepathy more these days, I got the impression his physical power level has dropped.

Also, I don't know the history that well, but was Flash always as fast as he is now? You could probably attenuate his speed somewhat in the movies.

It depends, and that's exactly what they did in the team books to make him reasonable. In his own title his perception kept up with his speed so that everything around him slowed down, making him pretty much invincible outside of being caught off guard. But in the Justice League books he was just really fast and out of control most of the time.

These days I think they cranked Wally up past light speed. Barry was always near-light-speed. Wally did slow down in the first part of his run to the speed of sound, but after a while he worked it out. So yeah, give him a razor blade and he can just run around and cut everyone's throat before they can fire a neuron.

[DarthMasta]

Just saw it again today. In 3D this time.

Can anyone tell me why 3D movies exist?

[Telefrog]

Can anyone tell me why 3D movies exist?

Money.

[Murph]

And sadly, it works. General Joe Public still thinks the 3D gimmick is new and exciting. I do have people who get all worked up about 3D movies. I actually thought The Avengers did 3D as right as it can be done -- and both times I saw it, I saw it in 3D, as that was the request of the people I was seeing it with -- but I don't feel like it was a substantially better experience other than a couple of scenes that were pretty well done. Mostly, I'm fine with 2D.

[Joe O'Malley]

I think Flash would be just fine if he had super speed but not a super-reactive nervous system. So if, say, he thought about running at super speed he'd have to be careful, because if he misjudged a distance or a corner he might comically splat himself.

It'd also be good as it would remove his near-invulnerability. if you take Flash as he is, and you managed to sneak up on him to club him over the head, his reactions are so fast that he'd theoretically still not get clubbed because he'd launch himself away as soon as he felt the breeze or first touch against his costume when the pressure started. No follow-through on the clubbing, Flash never gets clubbed as it stands.

Not sure why I want Flash to get clubbed, btw...

[Houngan]

I think Flash would be just fine if he had super speed but not a super-reactive nervous system. So if, say, he thought about running at super speed he'd have to be careful, because if he misjudged a distance or a corner he might comically splat himself.

It'd also be good as it would remove his near-invulnerability. if you take Flash as he is, and you managed to sneak up on him to club him over the head, his reactions are so fast that he'd theoretically still not get clubbed because he'd launch himself away as soon as he felt the breeze or first touch against his costume when the pressure started. No follow-through on the clubbing, Flash never gets clubbed as it stands.

Not sure why I want Flash to get clubbed, btw...

Which brings up the other problem, that Flash has never been handled with the care of, say, Batman in regards to canon. The exact scenario you describe happened back in the 90s run of Flash, except Wally at the time was barely supersonic, and it was a bullet instead of a club. His superspeed kicked in by itself and he was able to pull all of the bullets out of the air and save a crowded theater. Which really, really doesn't make sense because his top speed at the time was only about twice that of a bullet so they should have been traveling at a relative half-sprint speed even with him full on.

Can somebody please post Ogre shouting "Nerrrrrds!" now?

[straight]

I think Flash would be just fine if he had super speed but not a super-reactive nervous system.

Part of the problem is video games. Anyone who's played GTA knows you're not going to be able to zip around Manhattan at 300 mph (much less the 750 mph speed of sound) without some kind of bullet-time reflexes.

In a JLA movie, Flash has got to be at least as fast as Superman, who has to be at least "faster than a speeding bullet" -- e.g. 900 mph or faster (subsonic bullets hardly count as "speeding").

[CLWheeljack]

In a JLA movie, Flash has got to be at least as fast as Superman, who has to be at least "faster than a speeding bullet" -- e.g. 900 mph or faster (subsonic bullets hardly count as "speeding").

There are some limits you can put in place to give the Flash an edge, or at least differentiate them. For instance, Superman can fly that fast...but can he run that fast? Can he think that fast to be able to, say disassemble a bomb in super-speed? Also, Flash traditionally has much better acceleration than Supes. Depending on how he's being written, Superman can take a while to get up to speed.

I could probably make some kind of American muscle car / drag race vs sports car / rally race comparison, if I knew something about cars.

[Chris Gwinn]

Which brings up the other problem, that Flash has never been handled with the care of, say, Batman in regards to canon. The exact scenario you describe happened back in the 90s run of Flash, except Wally at the time was barely supersonic, and it was a bullet instead of a club. His superspeed kicked in by itself and he was able to pull all of the bullets out of the air and save a crowded theater. Which really, really doesn't make sense because his top speed at the time was only about twice that of a bullet so they should have been traveling at a relative half-sprint speed even with him full on.

Can somebody please post Ogre shouting "Nerrrrrds!" now?

I can't believe I'm making this post.

Do you mean his top speed was half as fast as a bullet? Because if he's twice as fast, then he can easily match speeds with them and pluck them out of the air.