The
Batman v Superman trailer, then...
No,
just no. Dismal and dark and “Can you bleed? You will.”, oh dear.
Its not like I was expecting anything else, this is DC Warner we're
talking about, but there was the slightest glimmer of hope in my mind
that Chris Nolan's departure might have changed things a little.
Nope.
The closest thing to levity in this trailer was the fact that Ben
Affleck seems to be wearing the Batman costume from The Lego Movie...
And
all of this because The Dark Knight Returns is, for some bloody
reason, still the touchstone
for writing Batman. Can we just get over this, please? It isn't that
The Dark Knight Returns is bad, as such, though it isn't to my
tastes. Rather, its that it has this horrible gravity in the minds of
Warner Bros. where it seems to be seen as the “real” Batman from
which all other interpretations are just deviations unworthy of
discussion. And of course the most flashy component of the Frank
Miller Batman is his apparent total philosophical opposition to
Superman instead of their being friends who disagree on methods,
which is the far more common interpretation in the source material.
It's
not like I'm hoping for the Adam West interpretation to make a
comeback but I was hoping for some sign of influence from, say,
Batman: The Animated Series where Batman was dark and grim but
functionally human and capable of smiling.
But
everyone likes Frank Miller because his version of Batman appeals to
that oh so Nineties desire to make comics dark and mature, which in
the minds of far too many are the same thing and... can we just get
over it? The culture war here is kind of won and we nerds don't need
our nerd media to pretend at maturity to pursue a vague sense of
cultural acceptance because we have the cultural acceptance already.
What's
truly baffling about this all is DC are actively trying to imitate
Marvel's interlinked film continuity without imitating the things
that made people want to watch the individual films. Marvel's films,
whilst often having dark themes and subplots, are always pitched as
fun films. People go to see the fun films and like them so much that
they'll invest the time and money to follow them as a serial. DC are
just offering the serial without the fun.
Maybe
the logic is that DC doesn't want to “just” imitate Marvel and
this dark, washed out aesthetic is an attempt to be different. Or
maybe, as SallyP pointed out to me in comments when I talking about
“sinking” Marvel Studios last week, DC Warner are just plain
embarrassed by the fact that they're making films about superheroes.
I know it sounds strange when you first say it but it makes sense to
me, after all why inject grimdark into Superman of all characters
except to lessen the embarrassment of something as “immature” as
a wish fulfillment figure in red pants?
Even
in this they could learn lessons from Marvel. Marvel don't usually
make “superhero” films, really. Captain America was a straight
war film that happened to feature a superhero, the Iron Man films
were techno thrillers, The Winter Soldier was a conspiracy thriller
and so on.
Its
sad to think, though, that DC are embarrassed by their own properties
especially considering there's no need to be. They own some of the
most recognisable superheroes on the planet and, unlike Marvel, they
own all their own film rights but they only really do Batman because
Batman can be done grim and dark and “adult”. Marvel is at peace
with its silliness and the artefacts of its past. Marvel will make a
film with a talking raccoon and his talking tree sidekick or aliens
who are really the Norse gods, they even did Captain America with a
total lack of irony.
DC,
meanwhile, have such trouble with getting an angle on Superman that
they've had to bring Batman (and several other characters) into the
second film to save the series. Its sad, really.
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