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Justice League: Gods and Monsters
149 Plays3 years ago
There have been a lot of animated Justice League movies, and in this episode Perry is joined by author Gordon Dymowski to discuss one of the oddest ones of all. Justice League: Gods and Monsters featured Bruce Timm's return to the DC characters, except this Justice League is composed of General Zod's son, Kirk Langstrom, and Bekka of the Fourth World. It's an interesting and somewhat strange addition to the canon that doesn't quite work so well.
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Transcript
Introduction to Audible's Offerings
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, fellow superhero cenophiles. Did you know that almost 30% of adults say they haven't read a book in the past year? Primary reason why is a lack of time. Well, Audible's here to help with the gift of found time. Thanks to Audible, you can listen to audiobooks like Marvel Comics, The Untold Story, or Slugfest inside the epic 50-year battle between Marvel and DC.
00:00:19
Speaker
Read up on the history of superheroes in comics and movies with Grant Morrison's Supergods. You can also check out Vanguard, my original superhero novel series, or try The Vrilagenda or The Adventures of Fortune McCall, both of which were written by our duly departed host emeritus, Derek Ferguson.
00:00:35
Speaker
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All you have to do is go to audibletrial.com slash SuperCinemapod and with your free trial you get one free audiobook and two free Audible Originals. In fact, you get to keep those titles even if you cancel before the trial is over. So what are you waiting for? Head on over to audibletrial.com slash SuperCinemapod and start your free trial today.
Justice League's Power and Government Influence
00:01:32
Speaker
At least 50 dead in the embassy massacre. And not just dead, dismembered, burnt alive, sucked of their blood. A virtual house of horrors. Granted, the victims were part of a terrorist organization. Wondered when you'd mention that. But what about our terrorist organization? What about the Justice League? It's not like we haven't been warned. What the government has sanctioned is more than a super-swap team.
00:01:59
Speaker
It's a weapon of absolute power, and we all know where that leads. Sooner or later, the ties between the Oval Office and the Tower of So-Cult Justice will finally fray. And then who will be in control? Not you, buddy. Not anymore. Why do you even listen? They hate us. Don't let the crowds down there fool you, Becca. They are not la gente comun. The real people.
00:02:26
Speaker
There are many who would like nothing more than for us to take over. Tell her, Kirk. 22% domestically, 29% worldwide. Revolutions have been built on less. Imagine ending all the ideological squabbling. No more war, no more insurrections. All those little dots down there connected to a single, productive purpose. A world brought together as one. Under us. Under us. You just got less sexy.
00:02:54
Speaker
I'm not saying that I would, but things aren't getting any easier with Washington and the day may be fast coming when we'll have to consider our options.
Guest Introduction and Film Overview
00:03:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine. And I'm here today with a new guest, a guy who's been listening to the show for quite a while. And this is his first time actually appearing on the show. And that's Gordon Demoski. Gordon, how are you doing today? Good, good. How are you? Doing pretty good. So before we get started talking about today's movie, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?
00:03:24
Speaker
Okay. Well, I am a, what's considered a new pulp author. So I've written for mostly for pro se. I'm also the lead organizer for the Chicago doctor who meet up and write. And also I'm, when I'm not doing that in my day job, I'm a digital marketing consultant and copywriter. Okay. Nice. Yeah. And that's actually how we met was through, I believe it was at a windy city pulp, if I'm not mistaken. I believe so. Yeah.
00:03:53
Speaker
The one and only time I was actually able to make it out there for that.
00:03:59
Speaker
So today we're talking about one of the DC animated movies. And this was the 23rd film in the DC universe and the animated original movies. Up until recently, even still know they're still doing them, but they've been doing a bunch of these direct to video movies. And this one was pretty significant in that it was
00:04:26
Speaker
The first one that Bruce Tim had done in a while since I believe since the the Justice League unlimited stuff, if I'm not mistaken.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, he yeah, this is the I think this is his first four way back into doing the whole DC animated stuff. That's right. Yeah. So this is called Justice League Gods and Monsters, which it's it's more of an it's not really what you mostly expect from a Justice League movie. It's more of an Elseworlds type of tale or or what if for those of you who are more familiar with the recent Disney Plus stuff.
00:05:00
Speaker
where it's a Justice League, and it has the Trinity, it has Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but they're a complete, they're completely different characters in those roles. Yeah, it's kind of a complicated Elseworlds, because most Elseworlds are usually like Superman, but in Soviet Russia, or Batman, but in
Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Character Origins
00:05:21
Speaker
Victoria, London. This one, it's like Superman is
00:05:25
Speaker
is the son of Zod. Batman is basically man-bat but a vampire and Wonder Woman is at least for me a relatively obscure character from the new gods. Same here yeah but that's I'm not very familiar with the the fourth world stuff to begin with other than like you know Orion and Mr. Miracle and
00:05:47
Speaker
and dark side obviously but for the most part the new god stuff the fourth world stuff has never really grabbed me that much so so i'm complete most of that stuff is just completely foreign to me yeah it for me it's it's not bad it's just kind of like it's
00:06:04
Speaker
You know, it was at a time when Kirby was kind of right, was like, Hey, I'm no longer at Marvel. I'm just going to go crazy. And you could see why he needs a good writer with him. Yeah. Cause it's a lot of, it's a lot of like, I mean, in his mind, I think he was probably seeing it as, Oh, I'll do this, this kind of one-on-one with the new gods and kind of traditional archetypes. And it just does not really mesh at all. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of felt the same way. And it.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, the New God stuff. I never really understood why it was all the appeal of it, but some good stories have come out from the people who have been influenced like some of Morrison's stuff in Justice League, Tom King's Mr. Miracle stuff more recently. But for the most part, it's just been very difficult for me to really get too excited whenever I see a New God's character pop up.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, for me, the new gods didn't really kick in quite honestly until the Great Darkness saga with Legion of Superheroes, where it's it was such a curve ball to see Darkseid. And I think over that point, except for Kirby, he really wasn't a major player. He was like.
00:07:15
Speaker
generic bad guy. You know, it's like you almost expected him like Thanos to have his own helicopter at some point. Right? Yeah. So looking at this movie, what did you think?
Film's Structure and Audience Reception
00:07:30
Speaker
What were your thoughts? You know, the first time you watched this, and then what do you think of it again, you know, rewatching it for this episode?
00:07:37
Speaker
Well, when I first saw it, it was intriguing because I kind of I mean all the visuals for it, like the promotional graphics looked interesting. And I actually first saw this a couple of years ago when I saw it, believe it or not, I saw it at Dollar Tree. And so I picked up a copy of this. This along with Return of the Craped Crusaders with the Adam West Batman. Right. The first time.
00:08:02
Speaker
Right. The first time I thought it was very interesting because it's it's such a it's not like I said, it's not a straightforward else world. It kind of integrates little bits and pieces from other kind of runs and other elements. The other thing that kind of struck me was it is almost like
00:08:24
Speaker
And I mean, this is a compliment like fan fiction, like Tim was like, OK, oh, I can use this character. I'm going to pull that in. I mean, and this character, I'm going to pull that in. It's.
00:08:34
Speaker
Um, it's also not really, I know the animated movies are usually not meant for kids, but this is an incredibly graphically violent movie. Not, it's not a bad, it's, I can almost see this in theory as Bruce, Tim saying, Oh, Zack Snyder thinks he's hardcore. I'm going to do him one better. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. Cause I was kind of thinking about Zack Snyder a lot when I was rewatching it this time and
00:09:04
Speaker
And maybe that's why that I haven't really, I couldn't really grab onto it was just because it felt too much like the kind of stuff that Snyder's doing. So it didn't really, I don't think it had that same kind of shock and awe vibe that I think Tim was probably going for with it because of everything we've seen with Batman V Superman, which came out before this to begin with, so.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, and kind of watching it this time around, I happened to catch, there were actually three smaller films that came out on, I think it's the Mashinima channel, it's like a video gaming channel. Right. And they were good and they helped flesh out the characters a little bit. And then I saw a feature at this morning and I didn't have time to read it, to find it, but there were actors actually a digital comic series that went along with that.
00:09:57
Speaker
And the main issue, I mean, the sense I get watching it this time are two things. One is that this there may have been a lot more thought into like building this into its own franchise. And then with this, you know, things didn't work out and it kind of fell apart. And the second is that.
00:10:18
Speaker
there's a lot to the script that I kind of think I think it starts off strong and up until like the third act that's when it starts to get a little wobbly because there's some things that just don't it doesn't quite fit and it it kind of seems like it's okay we it's almost like at act three they said okay we need to figure out how to get the characters out of this and one character literally drops out of the sky to say
00:10:44
Speaker
Hey, this is what's going on. You need to stop it. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking about the companion series, you had mentioned that to me when you were emailing about this. I didn't have a chance to actually watch those three parts, but you're right. I think that plus the companion comic book series that J.M. Damataeus and Bruce Timm worked on together.
00:11:08
Speaker
It looks like Tim expected this to be a larger thing because he had done, and I'm not sure, did you read any of those comics?
00:11:19
Speaker
I wasn't able to find them, so I don't know what they're about. Because it's just, there's a one shot of each of the main characters, and then there's a three issue Dots and Monsters miniseries. So I'm thinking that it's just basically the stuff that we had in the companion series and this movie, just like a comic adaptation of it is what it seems just based on what I'm seeing on Wikipedia. Yeah, and it's kind of like, I kind of feel like it was almost set up that
00:11:50
Speaker
If you like, you could enjoy the movie, but you would get more if you saw the videos and you saw the comics like on the DVD, I have the companion pieces are not in that. And that kind of surprises me because usually DC's animated stuff, it's even, you know, you know, Blu-rays or DVDs, there's usually they're usually chock full of that stuff.
00:12:15
Speaker
idea, you know, but it also has this feel, and something I really don't like in any piece or any series where it's like, you have to watch everything in order to get a piece of it, or to get the whole story. It's like, you know, I mean, the only way that the only time that ever worked was Babylon five, but Babylon five was deliberately structured that way. It wasn't like, okay, you need to go
00:12:39
Speaker
Even if you read the tie in novels, you still got as long as you indulge in the main series, you got something out of it. Right. Yeah. I wonder how much of it was. So there are two possible reasons why they could have left it out based on what I'm reading here. First is maybe there's a rights issue with machinima.
00:13:00
Speaker
That would make sense. The other one is because this was originally supposed to be an ongoing thing. So the first, the three episodes that were released, those were just supposed to be the first season. And then there was supposed to be a second season with 10 episodes that was supposed to come out in 2016. But Sam Liu had said that the series was shelved until things worked out and
00:13:28
Speaker
things are worked out and also cause he was working on other projects. So maybe they had expected to do something longer and then to kind of have it released as its own thing and then just never ended up happening. Yeah. And it's, I can kind of see why it would be shelved because I think with this, with this particular piece, it's because it's not straightforward. You end up with, you end up with trying to have to think things through like,
00:13:58
Speaker
There was, in 2003, Big Finish did a series of, they called them Unbound, which are Doctor Who audios, but it's like, what are different scenarios? And one of them is a story called Full Fathom Five. And the basic premise is that, spoiler alert for those of you who are listening, that the doctor is basically a means to justify the end sky. Like at one point, he's bribing a smuggler,
00:14:28
Speaker
really secretive about a government project. And at one point, he's talking with a scientist who believes, who actually gives the infamous, well, you know, the Nazis did a lot of atrocious things, but we got a lot of science out of it. The doctor has a gun. And he says, Oh, so if I were to shoot you right now, would you think that's justified? No, wrong answer. Bang.
00:14:55
Speaker
and that's a radically
Elseworlds Storytelling and Film Critique
00:14:56
Speaker
different take on the doctor. It's hard to explain in a, whereas another is what if the doctor after his trial, after the second doctor's trial ended up in 1990s Hong Kong rather than 1970s England. So it's, and I think Gods and Monsters has a little bit of that because it's not, it's kind of okay. One is what if Superman were Zod's son rather than Jor-El.
00:15:24
Speaker
And, you know, that kind of, they pull a lot of the mythology from the burn run. And Kirk Langstrom's probably the one that's a little bit more straightforward because it's like, he's got cancer. He creates a serum out of bad stuff. And then except it ends up turning him into a vampire versus, you know, turning into man bad. And the one thing I, and, and,
00:15:53
Speaker
Wonder Woman's origin I thought was, they actually do a whole flashback to it. And I kind of see it as, it's the one where I kind of feel like they didn't really think through her story. Cause it's like, like, if you know, like I had to go to Wikipedia to understand what the, you know, canon context is for like a better word. Yeah, I did too. I had the same problem with that. And you know, towards the end where,
00:16:23
Speaker
She ends up going off and I'm thinking why like I didn't see the rationale because it's she's, she's going to quote unquote redeem herself, but there's nothing for her to redeem. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. That whole thing was kind of, I found myself kind of like shaking my head at that point at the end of the movie where I didn't really understand her reason for redeeming herself or whatever. And, um,
00:16:52
Speaker
I can understand if she was going back for revenge or something like that, but I think she already got revenge. So like, I just, it just didn't really, it just seemed like they needed an excuse for some reason to get her away, probably because that was what the second season was probably going to have, was going to do some stuff with her going back to the fourth world. That's the only thing I could think of. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I've, and it's, it's also hard to cause, um,
00:17:20
Speaker
with the main and what I liked about the film, the film does two, at least for me, does two things really kind of well. It kind of lays out, starts to lay out the plot that maybe, because Lex Luthor is in this, so it kind of lays some groundwork for possibly he's the antagonist, but it kind of does a very subtle switch. And that, you know, that kind of switch
00:17:47
Speaker
I think I see where they were going with it, but it doesn't really make any sense. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:55
Speaker
Although that being said, I did like how Luther was portrayed in this. I did like his rationale for like his fear of Superman. That's always been the kind of rationale that I thought made the most sense for Lex Luthor and was the most justifiable,
Character Motivations and Script Analysis
00:18:12
Speaker
right? The fact that he's fearing the power that this one man has and he has to feel like he has to put a check on that power. That's always made a lot of sense to me.
00:18:22
Speaker
Right. And I kind of and I like how they went through that through line, but toward a kind of bother, what kind of maybe bother me isn't the right word. It just didn't make sense that at one point Superman goes to confront Luther in his orbiting space satellite because every supervillain has an orbiting space satellite.
00:18:48
Speaker
And Luther says, well, I gave up the seek for power long ago. Now I'm in a thirst for knowledge, and it doesn't fit in with
00:18:57
Speaker
the behavior that he's demonstrated up to that point. Yeah. Yeah. And it also feels like there's a one or two missing because it feels like the implication is that Luther is either dying or has some kind of disease. I had gotten that kind of idea as well. And and you're right now that you mentioned it, they don't come right out and say anything about that. But just like the way he's depicted makes it seem like he's he's dying.
00:19:26
Speaker
And it's like, you know, towards the end, they actually basically give him the metron chair. Yeah, I know. And it's like. And it really does feel like and you know, let's just go into like who the big bad is. And flashing back to Kirk Langstrom's past, he was friends with Will Madness and Will's girlfriend Tina and their, you know,
00:19:53
Speaker
And both men were part of Project Fairplay, which is every super scientist you can think of in the DC universe, even Pat Dugan. And this is before Stargirl. So, you know, they were like, okay, that was Tim probably going through DC's who's who going, okay, who can I include in this? It sounds plausible. And part of Lang's Batman's origin in this story is that
00:20:21
Speaker
he's creating his bat serum to combat his cancer. As most research scientists often do, you know, never, never mind. You know, you'd, you'd figure, okay, the way that, but they introduce a will Magnus's nanites, which have a little bit of lead, which have lead, iron and a little bit of mercury, wink, wink. Yeah. And so
00:20:46
Speaker
that basically turns Kirk Langsman into a vampire. But at the end, and there are these three kind of, they're referred to as metal men that go around. One has Superman's, like a Superman's laser vision, heat vision. Although I don't see how, if it's a single beam coming from the Android and Superman's heat vision comes from two eyes, how they can say, oh, it's the same thing. Batman's is basically okay,
00:21:14
Speaker
Since Batman's a vampire, you see two slashes around the neck and Wonder Woman's Metal Man has. And I probably misgendered the the Android, but it's. Has a sword in high heels and it turns out those were that was all Magnus's idea, because
00:21:36
Speaker
his girlfriend was always in love with Kirk, even though she was involved with Magnus. A year after they got married, Magnus kills her, basically gets angry and smacks, you know, hits her, she hits her head, he ends up building an Android duplicate of her. And it's like, okay, I can see going after
00:21:58
Speaker
I think they're trying to set it up that Magnus was kind of like a narcissist and they don't really do that completely. It's such a weird leap he makes. Like I accidentally killed my wife and so now I think all of humanity should have a hive mind. You're missing a few steps there, Will. And what's interesting too is that in watching it again at the very beginning,
00:22:27
Speaker
Um, it's right after they do this, this raid on, uh, an embassy and they're in their tower of justice. And Superman basically says, you know, if I get my way, everyone will be of one mind and we'll think alike and we'll all get along. And that's precisely Will Magnus's plan. Yeah. Like it's one of those really, it's like bad screenwriting 101. Like you're, you're kind of, you're kind of giving away the game, but, and with Magnus too, it was like,
00:22:57
Speaker
I can see it if it's a one-on-one between him and Batman. I mean, that makes sense. And the Justice League is just getting in the way, but it feels like it's more, it feels like it's way out of proportion here. Yeah. You know, there's really not a, it doesn't really fit a lot. And it also, and part of this plan involves him basically getting burnt to a crisp
00:23:22
Speaker
so that his android wife could give him the nanites that can make him basically super madness. Yeah, it has a very Lex Luthor and Batman V Superman type of feel to the plot where it just it just doesn't really, when you try to break down what his master plan is, a lot of it doesn't really work. Right. But also there's
00:23:44
Speaker
And it seemed like they were trying to go for this whole idea of like, oh, Will's the villain. Ooh, we surprised you, type of thing. But as soon as we saw that flashback with him, I'm like, this guy's a dick. He's going to be the villain. Yeah, I mean, you know, he's, that's why I think they're trying to code him as a narcissist because
00:24:04
Speaker
They come home drunk from a party, you know, you know, she's, you know, Tina's letting them in and she says, this designated driver is heading home. And Will's like, well, I'm the designated boyfriend. And I mean, I mean, you know,
00:24:22
Speaker
And it reminded me of a couple that I know in real life. It's like, oh, OK, yeah, he's that kind of guy. And then a little later, when they have the obligatory Kirk dying in the hospital scene, Tina's with him. And Magnus is basically looking at his research.
00:24:42
Speaker
It's like he can't even be concerned about his friend. Yeah. And I could never even understand why. Because Will is right about one thing. It's obvious that Tina's in love with Kirk. So what was she doing with Will in the first place? It just didn't really make any sense. And see, I never saw the whole Tina in love with Kirk thing. I think there's nothing. There might have been enough, at least for me, to suggest that there might have been
00:25:12
Speaker
platonic relationship, maybe even like a sibling like I never got that sense that she was in love with Kurt. Oh, I definitely did. I thought like the way she was like doting on him, it, it definitely seemed like she I definitely picked up the affection that she had for him. Especially when you compare her relationship or lack thereof to to will because she doesn't seem to have like any attraction or
00:25:38
Speaker
or care or affection for him at all. So when you put those two next to each other, you're right, you could look at it as a much more platonic thing, but when you compare her relationship to Kirk, to her relationship to Magnus, it seems, it's very obvious that she's much more into Kirk than she is with to Will.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, and that's I think the really big problem with the script is that like the fact that you and I are basically having a difference of opinion about this. It means that something was not communicated clearly. Yeah.
00:26:14
Speaker
You know, but I do think that the other big clue was that the person who voiced Will Magnus is C. Thomas Howell, who is the the main leading man for the asylum. So, you know, like, like that should be your first clue right there. Now, the thing I felt watching this is that like I love Elseworlds type stuff, but
00:26:39
Speaker
You gotta have a reason for why you're doing this Elseworld. Like a good Elseworld story reveals something about the character, right? So like, you know, you mentioned Red Sun earlier and that's a perfect example, right? It's, you know, would Superman still have those same values if he grew up in Soviet Russia, right? The whole nature versus nurture thing. Which is also what, another one that always pops into my mind is,
00:27:09
Speaker
What if, there are a few what ifs involving like, there's one I really remember it was like what if the Punisher become Captain America, right, and it was, it was like right after his family had been killed and instead of becoming the Punisher that the
00:27:24
Speaker
the government recruits him to fill in takeover for Steve Rogers who had been injured. And it was an interesting, it was an interesting take on, you know, what would Castle do if he was given another option and all that. And, but this one, I didn't really feel like there was much reason for a lot of these characters, just like, I mean, what if Bruce Wayne became a vampire would be more interesting than what if Kirk Langstrom becomes a vampire and
00:27:54
Speaker
becomes Batman instead of Bruce Wayne. Right. Or like I could see where some of the animated movies, the more recent ones have kind of they've done this kind of approach, but it's more of a you could tell they're doing it just to kind of like one which just came out this year. So I don't even think it's on HBO Max's Batman Soul of the Dragon. Yeah, yeah, that it's not on HBO Max. Yeah, I've been waiting for it because it's
00:28:22
Speaker
All I can say is if Derek Ferguson were alive and he saw this, he would just freak out because it's basically Batman in 70s martial arts grind core. If I'm not mistaken, I think the trailer came out before he passed and we have talked about it. And he was really keen on it.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's basically enter the dragon, but with Batman. Yeah. So Richard, and it's based on the 70s archetypes. So Richard Dragon is drawn and written basically as Bruce Lee. The bronze tiger, and I forget his his civilian name, is drawn like Jim Kelly. And I think Shiva is I can't I don't know if there's any 70s female martial arts. I'm just going to say Michelle Yow because
00:29:10
Speaker
Why not? But it's, I liked it because it's, it's as much a, it may not be as, as character, you know, it doesn't, may not reveal much about Batman's character. Well, it does in terms of his willingness to work with other people, but it's, I love the kind of really hip kind of 70s style or justice society, World War II, which it kind of suffers a similar problem with
00:29:38
Speaker
Justice League gods and monsters in that, you know, and I don't want to go into too much details, because that's not the movie we're talking about. But there is a villain involved that they don't really name until the end credits, you know, usually like, and it's an obscure villain. So it's not like you see a bald guy and go Luther or a guy with three things on his head. Oh, that's Brainiac. It's and it
00:30:04
Speaker
But with Gods and Monsters, again, going back to the Zack Snyder comparison, it's a really nice, well-polished work. But when you start looking at it, there are just pieces that don't really fit. Yeah. I mean, it also doesn't help that with
Character Development and Missed Narratives
00:30:28
Speaker
Like really with the end, I could see this, if this were like a big hero arc where they start as being, you know, yeah, like at one point Superman says, um, there are times where I don't know if I, um, you know, I'm, I think it's like, I'm not sure whether I should rule this world or conquer it. Um, but today it's, it's going to feel rule the world or save it. And today it doesn't feel like there's much of a difference. There doesn't really even seem like a,
00:30:58
Speaker
Most characters, even if the arc is, I'm going to be, if Superman went from, I'm in control, you all work under me to, okay, maybe that isn't such a smart idea, maybe I should be gentle.
00:31:12
Speaker
There's no real development there. Langstrom is probably the one with the biggest emotional arc throughout because he moves from, okay, I'm this gloomy guy and I have no one to, yeah, I lost people that I loved, even though one of them turned out to be a narcissist. And you see him kind of loosening up. Wonder Woman, I think is kind of the one that it almost feels like
00:31:41
Speaker
Tim was like, okay, I've got this cool idea for Batman, cool idea for Superman. Wonder Woman, okay, yeah, let's hit Wikipedia, let's give her a sword, let's, you know, kind of, because it seems like her character, there's really no, like, I wonder why she's even called Wonder Woman. Yeah, I was gonna mention that too, because it's, it's, because you've got Superman, but this one is the son of General Zod instead of the son of Dora. Okay, that makes sense.
00:32:09
Speaker
Batman, but it's Kirk Langstrom. It's Man-Bat becoming a vampire. All right. You're pushing it, but I can still see the connection there. But Wonder Woman and Becca, I'm just like, how did you even get from A to B there? It's like Will Magnus' plan, right? It's like, I don't understand how you go from this part to jump to this part. That connection just doesn't really make much sense. I can see it if you had,
00:32:39
Speaker
someone who had at least some connection to Wonder Woman, right? Like if it was, I don't know. Like if it was Artemis, for example. Yeah, yeah. If it was Artemis or someone like that, that would make more sense. But, you know, you're bringing in even big Barda just because she is more well-known than Becca. I would have maybe given a pass on, but it's like Becca just seems like such a weird choice. Yeah, and you could see it if it were, say,
00:33:09
Speaker
Becca, a new god raised on Themyscira. That would make I think the only reason she's called Wonder Woman is that there's a thing on her head that looks like a W. Yeah. Yeah. But it's it's kind of like and her character. It's I understand the context of the video. It's basically she fell in love with the guy that she was supposed to marry. Her family is basically
00:33:36
Speaker
high father, high father is dark side decides, okay, I'm going to I'm going to kill everyone on apocalypse. And she says, Okay, you killed my husband. I don't want to be here. I'm out. That makes sense. And I can see I can see that element. But it's it's like other than that, what is she because it's like, okay, I've got a sword, I can jump in and out of places.
00:34:01
Speaker
I engage in, you know, kind of, there's the hint that she and Trevor were essentially, for lack of a better term, bed buddies. Um,
00:34:11
Speaker
there's really no, there's a couple of references to her and Superman being her boyfriend, but I'm not sure if that's meant as an insult or there was something there way in the past that we just don't know about. Yeah, that's another thing. It's like, they make reference to that several times and there's that speeddriver connection too. So I found myself thinking the same thing, like, well, especially the thing at the end when he's talking to her at the end before she leaves, it felt like,
00:34:41
Speaker
two old lovers saying goodbye almost. I mean, it certainly felt like they had more chemistry than Valentina did at least.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was the, she felt like the, and I'm not even sure how to frame this. It's like she's the obligatory woman that everyone wants or has had at one point. Like, you know, you could, you literally could take her out, maybe plug in big Barda as Wonder Woman, and it probably would make a lot more sense because you've got that.
00:35:13
Speaker
instant connection, but it, you know, it's, you know, the only thing, you know, and the only the other thing, and there are just some interesting. There's a lot here that I feel like the script should have either been either slightly longer or gone through another couple of right, another couple of edits. Yeah, because it does feel
00:35:38
Speaker
Another thing that jumped out at me too was Lois and how she makes the most sense of anybody in this movie up until the end. Her whole argument makes total sense.
00:35:58
Speaker
They're these super powerful beings. They kill, they maim, they just act like a wrecking ball. Of course, you should have questions about them. But they stop one supervillain and all of a sudden all those concerns she had are gone. That just didn't make any sense to me. Well, it's not even a real supervillain. It's Will Magnus. And that's the other question that I kind of had.
00:36:28
Speaker
Justice League Crisis on two Earths. I think that came out before this one. Oh, yeah, yeah, that came out a few years back. And. There you had other heroes on Earth three, but it kind of made sense because it's like you've got if you've got Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, you might have other heroes. Now, I know in the in the the three little short films, there's Giganta, who's a big blue female shaped robot.
00:36:54
Speaker
um there's Harley Quinn who's kind of this weird she's she's dressed in her highly sexualized early new 52 outfit but she's got this weird line on her neck and like it looks like stitches so i don't know if that's supposed to be like oh she's dark and gothic or like she had a head transplant i i don't know what that is and then there's Brainiac who was a kid basically a little kid
00:37:23
Speaker
who was basically designed to stop Superman. But other than that, where are the other, like, I can't believe these are the only three super powered people on the planet. Yeah, I mean, I understand, obviously, you understand why there's no Clark Kent here, because, you know, Joel and Laura didn't have a baby in this universe. But I didn't, I was wondering, like, even just very basic, you know, what happened to Bruce Wayne? What happened to Diana? That those, I found myself asking those questions a lot. And
00:37:50
Speaker
And another thing too is, and this picks up on the Zack Snyder thing about it too. And I think this movie has a very similar problem that the DCEU have, where they have this idea for a universe.
00:38:06
Speaker
And they decide to jump all in and start telling the story about the universe, but they don't do any buildup to it. So we don't have any reason to really care about it. So they give us this movie that has all these three characters in it. We get these, these three short episodes of a TV show, the first season of a TV show that has all these characters in it, but
00:38:28
Speaker
we're not meant to care about any of these characters to begin with so it's just so it all just kind of feels like a wasted effort because I could and I and if I was because I think the most interesting thing here is the is Superman is the most interesting character for me in this one um the idea although I think they
00:38:49
Speaker
I think they try to push it too far. I think if you're gonna be doing this Elseworlds type of thing, stick with one gimmick, right? So if you're gonna have Superman be the son of Zod, okay, but still have him raised by the Kenton, see where that goes. Or if you're gonna have him raised by migrants, which I think is a great idea and would be a really interesting story, yeah, awesome.
00:39:12
Speaker
show us that story, show us what that Superman ends up being, what his life is like growing up. Because I can't for the life of me imagine a son of illegal immigrants deciding, I'm gonna go work for the government now. I mean, I think it's so much more interesting if you have it, well, this government is responsible for like, all the hardship my family faced.
00:39:40
Speaker
and I want to get revenge or something, right? Or at least I'm very distrustful of them or something would be much more interesting, right? An immigrant Superman that really heavily leans into the immigrant side of the story would be really interesting, I think. Much more interesting than what we got here. Yeah, and the other thing too is this is the super, if we accept that this is, Zod is Superman's father,
00:40:08
Speaker
that character answers the question, if you've got Superman, why do you need any other heroes? Yeah, because this is this is a guy who basically tells us tells the government, screw you were, you know, we're our own thing. The one thing that in the origin that kind of bothered me is
00:40:25
Speaker
You know zod zod comes in interrupts the whole launching the birthing matrix into space and he's talking about drill tells them how well hey you, you shouldn't have, you shouldn't have dug into the planet, and they even call that out for like his war machine.
00:40:41
Speaker
If you're on a planet with super science, what are you digging for? Yeah, like I could see it. There's a line in planetary, the Warren Ellis book, where it's a riff on Superman's origin. But essentially, the Krypton equivalent says, well, we were doing these gravity launches and it disrupted the planet. Makes sense. Super science, you're going to go there. But why would you dig to power your war machine?
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, especially if you're, if you've got that kind of higher end science, or I could see where it's like, if they said, Oh, well, we created a miniature sun beneath it near the planet's core. Like, it's a, it really hadn't. It really hadn't. Again, I think this really has a very fan fictiony feel to it.
Film Execution and Creative Comparisons
00:41:32
Speaker
Like Tim was just like, Okay, I'll pull here, I'll pull here, I'll pull here. It's almost like he had forgotten the lessons he learned from
00:41:39
Speaker
Justice League series because there he kind of did the same thing only it was done with cleverness. So like I think one of the later episodes was basically the seven soldiers of victory but they didn't call them back.
00:41:53
Speaker
It was like, I think the episode was Patriot Act, if I'm not mistaken, where it turns out to be Green Arrow and Speedy are the lead. They bring in the Vigilante. I think they may have brought in the Crimson Avenger, but it's basically the Seven Soldiers of Victory. And that makes sense. There was also one with, wasn't Shining Knight part of that one or is that a different episode?
00:42:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I think one of the, and now that I'm thinking about this movie and I'm thinking about the killing joke, which is another one that Tim did. Exactly. Do we have to talk about the killing joke? Do we really have to? Just a little bit, because I think it illustrates a problem that Tim has, right? I think he needs, I think what we've seen is you look at, you know, Batman the Animated Series and Superman the Animated Series and the Justice League stuff,
00:42:46
Speaker
And they're amazing. And then you look at this one and it's okay, but there's lots of problems here. And then you look at killing joke and it's like, what were you thinking? And I think the problem is that Tim needs someone to hold him back. You need someone who's going to put constraints on him and say like, okay, okay. Kind of like what you were saying earlier with Kirby, right?
00:43:11
Speaker
that Kirby worked best when he had a writer there who was like, all right, Jack, let's tone down some of this. Let's pull it back, bring it back to reality a little bit. I think Tim needs someone else to come in and be like, maybe Batman and Batgirl shouldn't be fucking out of rooftop. Yeah, I think it's also a writer choice because I think Ellen Burnett wrote the script where like with the animated series and with Justice League, he had other writers like
00:43:41
Speaker
animated Batman, he had Paul Dini. Right. And there were there was a right. So he Tim could have the big ideas, but he could say, OK, this script needs to go to this person. It's way McDuffie on on the Justice League stuff. Right. And, you know, with with killing joke. Oh, and I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
00:44:05
Speaker
he had Azarello write it and Brian Azarello never met a paycheck he didn't like. And it was like, okay, first I'm not sure there's wisdom in adapting that particular graphic novel. Cause even the author said, yeah, not my best work. But it's the, oh, we need to expand this out. And the irony is that recently I've been watching
00:44:32
Speaker
I, uh, Jim Beard had asked me to write some essays for writing essay for one of his suburban sub training and blue grotto Batman 66 guides. And I've been watching season three with, with, which has the Von Craig is background. This, my particular episode starts with like Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon and commissioner Gordon all at headquarters. And the conversation is like, um,
00:45:00
Speaker
Commissioner says, I'm going to go out and and leave and and do something. And Bruce Wayne says, well, you know, I really don't think that it's appropriate for me and Miss Gordon to be alone in a room without a chaperone. And I'm thinking, that's so refreshing after the killing joke. So right. It is also a little weirdly Mike Pensions to
00:45:23
Speaker
But it's, I don't, I don't think the idea, it's kind of, I don't think Bruce Wayne should, I don't like the idea that Bruce Wayne needs a chaperone, right? He should be able to control himself. Well, you know, it was the mid sixties. It was a different time. Yeah. But, but yeah, I mean, I think, I just, I don't know. Bruce Tim's got some weird hang up with Bruce and Barbara. Cause he had that, he'd worked that into Batman Beyond as well too. And I don't know. I don't know why he's got that. Cause it's just really weird.
00:45:53
Speaker
Um, but, but anyway, yeah, killing joke aside. But yeah, I think what you have here is a case of a creator who's, and this happens, right? You have these, these creators
Creative Freedom vs. Coherent Storytelling
00:46:04
Speaker
who kind of get too big and then they kind of start buying into their own press a little bit, probably. Um, I don't know if that's necessarily happened with Tim necessarily, but, but whatever the case.
00:46:16
Speaker
they get to a point where the higher ups feel like, okay, we don't really have to put any constraints on it because they make us so much money. Right. And I think too, I'm not sure where this comes after, because I know for a while it seemed like all DC was doing was like straightforward adaptations of graphic novels. So I don't know if this was,
00:46:39
Speaker
the first one, the first like truly original piece. So they kind of, I think they kind of went all in versus let's use this as a pilot and see what happens. You know, let's, let's do the Superman is odd sun thing because you could, the other major thing that we're hitting on is there's really poor world building. All it would have taken is for Superman and this one to like,
00:47:04
Speaker
to like, say to Walter, and you better tell Wayne to back off, or I'm going to destroy his business empire. There you go. That explains one or Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman is one says, Oh, yeah, I laid waste to Themyscira because I could, or, you know,
00:47:21
Speaker
you know, you kind of do the okay, but I still feel it's and maybe it's because we watch this stuff too much. And maybe have over the years, but I kind of feel like we're the other because you would feel that for something like this, you'd get you wouldn't get like dollar store cheetah blockbuster and livewire after you get like, you'd get like, okay, maybe the flash, but it's Wally West. But it's Wally West is a 10 year old.
00:47:50
Speaker
or you'd get like more, you'd get a halfway decent countermeasure. Even Red Sun had Green Lantern and Batman in different routes. It kind of feels like it's like set up to be, it's like, like you said, they had the cool idea, they didn't give Tim any limits. And he just said, okay, I'm just gonna write the script and this is what we're shooting versus let's massage the script
00:48:18
Speaker
maybe figure out how we do this and then do that and see what happens. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I wonder how much of this was just, we want to get Bruce Timm doing something. What do we have to do to get, and he's like, he's like, I want to do an original thing. I think, I think that may be part of the calculus, like, cause otherwise I don't see any reason why you would do this movie because it just, it definitely feels like a vanity project.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's probably a good reason why I found it at Dollar Tree. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, that's the surprising thing. That's one thing I'm surprising about it is, you know, reading up on it, it got a lot of positive reviews. And I was, frankly, I was kind of, and it was kind of, I felt the same way I did after Batman Ninja, because I had seen that one and I'm just like, I did not really like that.
00:49:16
Speaker
Derek and I had covered it and because he had been, he had, and he had heard, and I had been heard by everybody he's been like oh Batman and Angel was amazing and, and Derek had heard the same thing so he finally used it, the shows as an excuse to watch it, and he watched it and he's like I hated this movie and I'm like yeah I felt, I'm like oh good someone else feels the same way as me and
00:49:38
Speaker
And, um, so when you said you want to do this one, I remember not really liking it that much the first time I saw it and I thought, well, let's watch it again. Maybe, maybe it'll be different, but the same time I'm just like, after this war was over, I'm just like, I just don't get why it was so. Popular, but then I go online and I see like all it's got like all these positive reviews, got like a 85, 90%, you know, favorability rating. And so.
00:50:04
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't get what the popularity of this movie. I wonder if it's something that is it's basically people thought, oh, Batman ninjas, how can we go wrong? I mean, it's like I remember when we one of the things I remember you saying.
00:50:19
Speaker
when we were at when we met at Wendy City was you were talking about how you were studying Japanese history and you said most authors go in either one of three places when it comes to Japan and I'm going to mispronounce this Yakuza
00:50:35
Speaker
World War II and samurai. And that there are these whole other periods of Japanese history that are just, you could easily write really cool stories from. And I think this is kind of one of those where sometimes I think DC animated makes the right move, like red sign. We didn't do that before. Let's do it now. Okay. Our original Superman doomsday movie wasn't that great. Let's do the return of Superman. Yeah. Makes sense. But
00:51:04
Speaker
Uh, this is kind of that Batman ninja is probably like, okay, Batman ninjas yet that that's an automatic that'll sell. Um, this was probably, Oh, justice league, but evil. Yeah, we'll do that. Yeah. And I think, I think it had to have just been Bruce.
Film's Potential vs. Execution Failure
00:51:21
Speaker
Tim won do this. Cause I mean, if you're going to do evil justice league, you've already got crisis on two words. So.
00:51:31
Speaker
You've got the justice Lords. You've got the justice Lords or like, you know, why not do in which now they are doing injustice, but, you know, doing justice or something like that. So it all just feels just like lots of really weird choices went into this. Yeah. It's almost like, um, not only was he given a free reign, but you would think that just looking at it from a business standpoint at this point,
00:51:59
Speaker
maybe if you wanted to be cynical and say, oh, they're appealing to the Zack Snyder crowd. Well, he only had Watchmen and maybe I think Man of Steel was out in 2013. So this movie came out in 2016. So right. So you didn't have a lot of did had come out by that point. Oh, OK. I don't remember that. But it was. But that's that. But that's another thing, though, is that this the Snyder movement hadn't really taken off by that point.
00:52:29
Speaker
Right. The whole release the cider cut thing hadn't really taken off by that point. So and so I even that I don't I don't think why that would be an influence because, you know, Batman V Superman bombed. Well, I could I could see what we're talking DC here. Yeah, you know, they they they went all in and I could see where they might be thinking this is what audiences want. And I'd like to go on the record.
00:52:55
Speaker
on this podcast, I do not want you to release the Tim cut of this movie. It's not that great and there's some good ideas in it, but yeah, this really feels, it feels kind of rushed and not thought through. It's also frustrating because, like you said, DC has done a lot of these adaptations of these other stories. There's so many better stories that you could adapt from the comics.
00:53:24
Speaker
Kingdom Come, for example, is like perfect story that comes to mind that I'm amazed that hasn't been adapted yet. Crisis on Infinite Earths. There's so many different things you could adapt or you should adapt. What was it? Rock of Ages, the Grant Morrison Justice League story. So many different things that you could adapt before you get to, let's let Bruce Timm do his weird alternate reality story.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, or if you're going to do like an alternate reality story with dark superheroes, choose something a little bit more obscure like Batman Speeding Bullet, like Superman Speeding Bullet, you know, because it'd be interesting, okay, Superman, but adopted by the Waynes, they're killed. He basically says, hey, I got the power of a god, why not? Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, the, the,
00:54:21
Speaker
The elseworld story where Van becomes a vampire. What was it? The red rain one, I think it was called. Right. Red rain. Yeah. Yeah. Or like there are or even if you want to do something like the nail that that would be a great one. Yeah, that would be an amazing one.
00:54:41
Speaker
But I think DC was kind of going through its, we're only going to do stuff from the new 52, because the previews on the disc I have were for Batman Bad Blood. And I have no idea what that is. But even at this point, though, they were still doing some older stuff too, because they did end up doing Hush, which came from before that, Death and Return to Superman. They just released Long Halloween.
00:55:11
Speaker
So they were doing other stuff, but just adapting it into the new 52 style. But even still, this has no connection to that at all. So the whole thing just feels like, I don't know, I don't know what they were thinking of this. This really feels like, in all honesty, it's like a lost epic. It feels like there were scripts from the Justice League. It feels like, hypothetically,
00:55:38
Speaker
I could see where this might've been a pitch for the Justice League animated series, you know, to do it in the mirror universe, because Superman has a goatee. I mean, that's the only reason. And it just didn't get, never got that, and they decided to release it where you kind of go, you know, in that context, it would make sense. It's like Star Trek Enterprise did a mirror universe, a two-parter in the mirror universe. But it made sense,
00:56:07
Speaker
at Star Trek, you get it. And they did everything, even changing the original titles so that you knew you weren't getting the same episode. This feels like it was an outtake, but they never really fixed it so that it could stand on its own. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, it's just overall, I think it was just kind of a disappointment and just there's so many other
00:56:32
Speaker
things you could have done, so many other ways you could have chosen to adapt this. I mean, even just some of the designs felt like, like I love Superman's design. I thought that was really good, but even the Batman design, it felt really weird. Like he, cause I looked on the cover art and the white strip, it's got like, it's broken up by, you know, by black cutting into it, which looks much better. But here it's just like this big flat, like slab of white right over the front of his costume. It just doesn't look good at all.
00:57:02
Speaker
And Wonder Woman's costume is just way too busy. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I don't know. But just overall, just kind of a disappointment of a movie. Anyway, Gordon, do you have anything you wanted to add about this movie? Any final thoughts on it? I think there was a lot of, I could see where there was a lot of potential here, but I think it,
00:57:28
Speaker
You know, and I wouldn't mind. This is a universe I wouldn't mind seeing again if it were done better and more thought out. But right now it's just kind of like I mean, the one thing it kind of reminded me in terms of comic reading of DC's recent crime syndicate miniseries where it's basically OK. Basically, the crime syndicate against the League of Justice and trying to
00:57:56
Speaker
And the it probably has an even worse origin for Superman, which is basically Clark Kent raised by the Kents and the Kents are selfish. They're like they're Trump supporters, basically. It's like, oh, you know, people take advantage of you. You know, you got to look out for yourself, blah, blah, blah. And it's like that's probably the the the. There's some good ideas here, but it just needs to be. This would be one that I could see them remaking, but with a better script.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just need to know why this, why there's a reason for this universe to exist. Like, what is it that, because I don't get any sense that, you know, why we need to see this universe. It just, it just doesn't feel like, it just felt like, you know, Tim was just like, hey, I want to make, I want to do
00:58:49
Speaker
I don't even know what he was thinking. It just feels like everything was just kind of like thrown together. Like you said, it's very much, the fanfic analogy is really good because it does remind me of in my fanfiction days, going back and reading some stuff and just being like, why would you even, I can't even understand why you even would begin to think that.
00:59:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, at least what if Marvel's what if, you know, they did the obligatory Marvel zombies episode, but at least it paid off in episode nine. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I think that about wraps it up for discussion to this movie. So, Gordon, do you want to tell people where they can find your stuff?
00:59:32
Speaker
OK, well, I am on Amazon dot com. I also have a Patreon. If you go to Gordon Demosky dot com, there are links to everything with that just so people know. Oh, first name is G.O.R.D.O.N. Last name is D as in David. Why? Amazon Matthew. Oh, W.S.K.I. So if you go to that dot com, there are links to my Patreon, Amazon, everything.
00:59:59
Speaker
A lot of my online links are there. Chicago Doctor Who Meetup, we're actually planning a couple of listening events simply because with COVID, video and Zoom do not work well. So you can find us on Facebook and meetup.com. Our next listening event will be October 17th at
01:00:22
Speaker
2 p.m. Central, I'll be listening to an entry from, it's a Patreon-sponsored one, so one of our members chose this. It's from the Jenny the Doctor's Daughter box set. So if you want even more controversy about Doctor Who, go there. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this episode will actually be, so actually I think this episode will come out the day after that.
01:00:48
Speaker
Oh, well, then the next one after that will be on the 28th where we're doing the fourth doctor and the Vashta Narada. And that will be at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time. Just look up Chicago Doctor Who Meetup on Facebook. You can find us there, if Facebook's working. Yeah. Okay, well, Gordon, thanks so much for coming on. It was good having you on the show finally, and have to have you come on again sometime. No problem, thanks for having me.
01:01:15
Speaker
All right, that does it for us. You can find out more about this show. Go to Superherocinephiles.com, Supercinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. And if you search Superherocinephiles on Facebook, you can find our Facebook group there and you can find this page. Please be sure to like us and give us a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you want to help support the show at all, we've got a Patreon or we've also got one-time donations through Buy Me a Coffee or
01:01:43
Speaker
or PayPal, so you can find those also at the website. Thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time. You have been listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. Join our Facebook group by searching for Superhero Cinephiles where you can interact with us and other superhero fans. If you'd like to support the show, you can become a regular supporter at Patreon or make a one-time donation through PayPal, both of which can be found at our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com.
01:02:11
Speaker
If you buy or rent any movies through the Amazon links at our site, it helps support the show. Please be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. And as always,
01:02:42
Speaker
Good night. Good evening. God bless.