DC comes out with a cartoon…, erm, “animated feature” movie every other month or so.
The basic formula is pretty simple. Take an established story (aka “retcon”) from the DC Universe, animate it, hire some pretty decent voice actors to read the lines, and send it out direct to video… oh, and since it’s direct to video, we can make the stories PG-13 instead of having to tone them down to mere PG (or worse!) and, therefore, include stuff like “people bleeding” and “people shuffling off this mortal coil” in the story. I mean, it’s one thing to have Green Lantern punch a bad guy by imagining his ring making a fist that goes on to punch a guy, right? It’s quite another to have him punch a hole in the side of a ship in vacuum which then has the bad guy… well, I won’t go into details but I will instead read from an abstract from The Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics:
Collisionless expansion into vacuum is considered for the case of a uniform gas emerging with time-dependent properties from a circular orifice, upstream of which Maxwellian conditions prevail. The density and momentum are given by integrals valid in the whole unsteady free-molecular expansion, including the region close to the orfice.
You know what happens when a guy finds himself blocking the orfice? Your movie gets a PG-13, that’s what.
Anyway, the movies are rated PG-13 (for mechanics and applied mathematics reasons) and the storylines are both accessible for first-timer kinda people (that is, people who know who these guys are but don’t know much beyond who they are) and for the long-time fans who have a sense of humor about how they’re watching movies made for people who aren’t them.
For example: Tonight I’ve finished watching Green Lantern: First Flight and found myself surprised by the line it straddled.
I mean, let’s think about the movie that’s coming out Friday. We know that it’s going to be a fairly formulaic Hero’s Journey kinda story (and, don’t get me wrong, I see *NOTHING* wrong with that). I figured that First Flight would be following the exact same template. Without getting *TOO* far into spoiler territory, I’ll say that it doesn’t. If it’s closer to anything it’s closer to Training Day. The story isn’t about how Hal learns to be a Green Lantern but about how Hal learns how dysfunctional the Green Lantern Corps can sometimes be.
Sinestro shows up, Boodikka shows up, Kilowog shows up, Tomar-Re shows up… everybody you are thrilled to see shows up… but, hey, you don’t need to know their names. You just need to know that Hal is the rookie and Sinestro is the veteran… and the story will take you from there.
There are about a dozen of these things. Batman stories, Superman stories, Wonder Woman, Spectre, Green Arrow… even (sigh) Jonah Hex.
Each story is less than two hours (okay, 90 minutes) and each does a fairly decent job of walking the fine line of being a movie a 14-year old boy would want to watch and a movie a parent wouldn’t mind being forced to sit through. It’s a brilliant leveraging of the various intellectual properties and allows a great many creative types to flex their muscles.
If you haven’t picked up one of these and rented it (or netflix primed it on a lonely Wednesday night), you should give it a shot if the superhero genre holds *ANY* interest for you at all. You’ll remember things.
It makes me wonder why Marvel isn’t releasing one of these every month or so…
Huh. I find the animated movies to be hit and miss, but you’ve convinced me to see First Flight, for sure.
Well, by “hit and miss” I mean “I’ve seen two. One hit. One missed.”
I also meant to comment on this:
It makes me wonder why Marvel isn’t releasing one of these every month or so…
I know, right? These things strike me as a no-brainer. Lots and lots of material, little pressure, and they can’t be expensive to do, as far as superhero movies go.
Well, there’s a reason that this isn’t a Tuesday post… but I was surprised at the degree of sophistication in these cartoo… erm, animated movies.
It’s not kid stuff anymore. Adolescent stuff, sure… but not kid stuff.
Marvel’s been making these too, just not anywhere near so fast. DC’s has the advantage of an in-house animation studio that had been making superhero cartoons almost continuously since 1992.
I’ve seen the first four of the full length movies, along with the collection of shorts.
Superman: Doomsday was worth it for the characters (especially Luthor), but the story fell flat–probably because they left out the four supermen, IMO the most interesting part of the Death and Return story from the comics.
Batman: Gotham Knights is a collection of anime shorts that tie in to the Nolan movie franchise. But as a tie-in, they’re a failure, and only about half of the shorts are interesting on their own merits.
Justice League: New Frontier is a gem–it’s got all the charm of the comic it adapts, and a lot more narrative cohesion.
Wonder Woman is the real stand-out though. It’s a pretty straightforward origin story–But it’s a well-written, well-acted, and well-animated origin story. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of the customer base avoided this one because it was “for girls”.
“First Flight”, “Crisis on Two Earths”, and “All-Star Superman” are on my wish list. But the Superman/Batman ones are based on some truly godawful comic books, and I suspect the same is true of “Under the Red Hood”
Under the Red Hood was pretty good, I thought.
If I have a problem with any of the Batman movies, it’s because Batman isn’t played by Kevin Conroy.
But I think that that’s true of all of the Batman stuff, even the 1988 movie (which predates the animated series by three or four years). (I do make allowances for the Adam West television show not being voiced by Kevin Conroy.)
I did like Bruce Greenwood in Young Justice (IIRC he also does the batman voice in Under the Red Hood).
And if you’re making allowances for the 1960s batman, you should make allowances for Batman: The Brave and the Bold while you’re at it.
I watch every “The Brave and the Bold” episode with my boys just hoping that Aquaman will show up and shout, “Outrageous!”
Lordy, I have seen almost all of these on both sides. As mentioned above, Marvel does do these (Avengers 1 and 2, Hulk vs., Ironman, Dr. Strange, Thor, Planet Hulk, etc.). They definitely do not have as many though. As for DC I found my favorite one to be Crisis on Two Earths. That was fun for me. The most interesting aspect of DC, for me, has been the whole Alternate Earths thing they do.
Just picked up Emeral Knights, but have not watched. We shall see how this one is. I did like First Flight and I woudl not be sad seeing that live action in the upcoming movie (no idea if that is how the movie will turn out).
I did see X-Men: First Class. As long as you can get past the movie’s retcon on Mystique and the timing on Xavier walking around, the movie is great.
I thinnk that the 2nd half of the movie will be more like First Flight… the first half will be Iron Man/Spiderman/Legend of the Guardians. We’ll see the guy get his new powers and have a blast learning how to use them.
And *THEN* we’ll see Sinestro and his true colors.
(I mean, seriously: His Name Is Sinestro.)
I’ve always figured that his name is basically “Lefty”, and that the GL ring is just doing a very awkward job of translating it into English.
Also, I think it’s possible that they’re saving Sinestro’s true colors for the inevitable sequel.
That would certainly make sense… but, for some reason, the folks who make movies always tend to the idea of overstuffing the turkey rather than showing something akin to restraint.
It’s weird to say that any given superhero movie shows restraint, but compare Iron Man or Spider-Man to either of Christopher Nolan’s Batfilms. Nolan is practically minimalist.
(Of course, watch me prove myself the fool when the third movie comes out starring Robin, Bane, Poison Ivy, and Mr. Freeze.)
Iron Man’s actually a good example, considering that we haven’t yet seen the Mandarin.
I sincerely doubt that we will *EVER* see the Mandarin.
They have said that we will see the Mandarin. However, they have also said that the Mandarin is like the Emperor from the Star Wars movies. Once he shows up and you have the final confrontation, it’s over for Iron Man. You really can’t go any further. Thus, they’ve admitted to having trouble figuring out the right way to do it.
I’ve always thought that more superhero movies should start somewhere after the very beginning. A had a Flash work-up in my mind that took for granted that Barry Allen had already been the Flash and dealt with the transition to Wally West (who’d moved on from his Kid Flash days and is called back into duty by Max Mercury after Allen’s death). I had a similar idea for Green Lantern, with Hal Jordan leaving Earth and handing the ring off to John Stewart. And then, if you are so inclined, you can do prequels if you want to show Barry or Hal starting out.
That being said, it’s looking like they’re going to do a good job with the Hal Starting Out movie.
But “The Hero’s Journey” is *FUN*. I enjoyed the first Spider-Man, and Iron Man did a great job with it. It’s why I’m looking forward to Green Lantern.
But Superman Returns was… well, it was awful. Thor? I haven’t seen it and can’t say definitively but it strikes me as a “Fish Out Of Water” story instead of anything else.
These are modern myths. If you want to skip the origin story, you’d better have one heck of a strong second act (and most superhero scripts are put together by committees incapable of writing such).
Thor was pretty good. It was fish out of water and and person growth story (almost a hero’s journey, but more a transition for one type of hero to another).
For the most part Hollywood has firgure out how to do the hero’s journey storyline. They definitely have more difficulty with continuing the story in the sequels. The only exception I can think of right now was Nolan’s Dark Knight. That was as good (for some better) than Nolan’s hero journey in the first.
It’s fun, but “Wow! Powers! Awesome!” has been done* so many times. Many years ago, when superhero movies were poorly written, I wouldn’t have expected better. But since Marvel got in the game (forcing DC to step theirs up), they’ve actually made sequels that are *good*.
* – Though kudos to Marvel for abandoning the “Wow! A masked man!”** and instead not making every one of them the mysterious first masked man.
** – They actually did this a long time ago, in the 1990 Captain America movie. Way back in the 40’s, a couple of young kids (one of which would grow up to be one of the many Ronny Cox as President Presidents) made allusions to the Human Torch and I think others.
While I admit that it has been done so many times, I’d submit that it has also been done *WELL* a huge chunk of those times.
When it comes to non “hero’s journey” kinda stories, I’m stuck thinking of how studios seem to demand more and more and more for the sequel. For example: Spiderman 3. There is *NO* reason that Sandman should not have been enough villian for that story (Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin could, conceivably, be used as examples for this as well but there were sooooo many things that went wrong there).
What movies that didn’t follow this particular formula also did it right? The only ones that come to mind are the ensemble films… most notably the first (and maybe second, maybe) X Men movie(s) and the first (and maybe second, maybe) Hellboy movie(s). Oh, and The Dark Knight (which, frankly, is a category unto itself).
While I’m not sure that I trust Hollywood to make a good superhero movie on anything approaching a consistent basis (“for a superhero movie” is something we used to say), I think that they’ve done far better with “Origin Story!” than with anything else (and *FAR* better with that than with “Sequel!”).
Yeah, well, Venom was entirely Marvel’s fault. Having read the plot that was written for a Venom-less S3, it would have made a far stronger movie.
I agree with Alan Scott. In the post-Crisis universe (but maybe not in upcoming reboot universe), Sinestro didn’t go bad immediately. I could easily see it as:
a) Hal saves the day and everyone says he’s the bomb-diggity while Sinestro is in the background.
b) a variant on his current origin. Sinestro goes too paramilitary with the Corps but then Hal beats Parallax and the Guardians tell Sinestro “You went too far. We’re stripping you of your ring.” The last scene of the movie has Sinestro muttering the usual “I wish I could get revenge” lines when the last remanents of Parallax appear and say “Maybe you can” opening it’s fist up to show a single yellow ring.
C) Sinestro turns out to be gay and, given the Corps “Don’t ask. Don’t tell” policy as well as the Guardians’ own sexual repression, they drum him out.
When it comes to non “hero’s journey” kinda stories, I’m stuck thinking of how studios seem to demand more and more and more for the sequel.
Well sure, but that would be the advantage of an atypical first movie. There’s not a previous movie to demand more, more, more from. You can have a great chess game between one hero and one villain. You could *start* with Batman vs. Bane rather than invariably having to put Bane in with a host of others as he was (awfully) in B&R and will be in Nolan’s next. Then, with the sequel to *that*, you can have the invariable overstuffing that the studios demand.
To bring it back to the DC animated movies, that’s another genius to this. So much less pressure. The ability to take the long view. I’ve actually been of the mind that the next Batman franchise should start with 10 movies in mind. Accept the fact that you’re going to be replacing actors mid-stream with cheaper ones. One every year or two, one or two villains a pop. The local theater was showing the sequel to that ninja panda movie. If they’ll show that, I think they will show a 6th Batman movie that only features Two-Face.
It seems to me that they’re not fully taking advantage with what they have. Treating each movie as this huge thing. For the big names, at least (Batman, Superman, Spiderman), the names alone with draw people as long as it doesn’t suck. That’s my thought, though Warner Bros has not been wise enough to contact me for it.
Here’s the formula that I’ve been kicking around for a Spiderman movie:
Opening scene with Spider-Man in the middle of a fight with a top-of-the-second-tier villian. Vulture, maybe. The Scorpion. Rhino. Not a whole lot of dialog beyond some quips from Spidey and some “how dare you?” comments from the villian and, hurray, after 8 minutes, Spider-Man wins. “Crap, I’ve got to get to class!” (or dinner, or a birthday party, or some fool high school thing that Peter Parker would feel obliged to go to.)
Opening credits.
Main movie involving Peter Parker and Spider-Man in equal proportion with one (*ONE*!!!!!!!) main villian from the top tier. Goblin, maybe. Electro, maybe. Doc Oc. At the end of the movie, tease the villian for the next one (for example: imagine if the only shot of Venom you saw from Spider-Man 3 was Venom leaping at the camera after the credits).
Get to writing the next one.
Seriously, you should be able to get 90 minutes out of each top tier villian. If you can’t, then you should choose a different top-tier villian. Heck, I can think of how you’d get 90 minutes out of freakin’ Mysterio.
The best part is that, by not over-loading villians in any given movie, you can use the unused villian in the *NEXT* film. (Spider-Man 4 could have easily worked with just Spider-Man and Venom. Easily. In a walk.)
And if you find that you have just one more story to tell with a villian… bring him back.
The best part is that, by not over-loading villians in any given movie, you can use the unused villian in the *NEXT* film. (Spider-Man 4 could have easily worked with just Spider-Man and Venom. Easily. In a walk.)
Dude, you should have HEARD me after I saw S3. My friends finally had to tell me to just shut up about it. The third movie should have been the venom costume while he’s fighting someone else (the final confrontation with Green Goblin, most-like) and the fourth movie should have been Venom. There’s just no question of how it should have happened!. That’s it. Full stop. Fourth movie writes itself.
That being said, Spiderman did do a better job of setting up one movie to the next than I am accustomed to expecting. Nolan really should have set up Harvey Dent in one movie and then Two-Face in the next, but it was a good enough effort that I will forgive him for it.
In Nolan’s defense, I think he was expecting to work with Heath Ledger again.
I think Nolan was absolutely right on the pacing of the Dent/Two-Face arc. For all the strong backstory and motivation he’s got, two-face is still a pretty gimmicky villian. By limiting to face to the final act of one movie, he managed to get everything that’s cool about two-face and none of the gimmick.
Jaybird, go see the movie so we can talk about it.
I got permission from Maribou to see it today (as in: permission to see it without her).
There’s a 10: 30 at the big theater that I like…
And there’s the post/review.