Comic Creators Comment on Batman Movies

[Silver Nemesis]

Neal Adams on Batman v Superman:

"You really want to ask me that? Okay alright, I'll tell ya. I have held out such hope for that movie, because they tried to fix something of the last one, where you sit, everybody criticizes, uh, Superman practically destroys Metropolis fighting these Kryptonians when he could've taken them to the Sahara desert or to the moon or somewhere where you're not killing people, and so they're sitting there and basically saying okay, now Bruce Wayne Batman is blaming Superman for doing that, and so he wants to control him and to undo him. Unfortunately at the end, if we track the movie, he ends up killing him, duh! I mean it, is that the point we want to receive at the end. Now we know he's not dead, but the point is that if he challenged Superman and he's going to kill him, he kills him. It's just he uses some other weapon, ya know.

So what has happened that's good about the move? Well, they tried to fix the previous movie. Mmmmm they didn't exactly. They tried to do Frank Miller's Batman and they sort of did it, except it's not 20 or 30 years in tthe future, which is the only way you can do that movie. They brought it in the past so the first thing you see is Bruce Wayne with Gray in his temples. First thing, you don't want to see Bruce Wayne with gray in his temples. I can have gray in my temples cuz I've earned it, but he is supposed to be 29 years old. So suddenly we don't know how old he is. Suddenly we don't know where this is taking place in the history. Suddenly we're, by solving this problem you make more problems. Now the convoluted problems that are made start affecting your plot. Now you start asking questions like oh, who's the villain at the end (Doomsday), yeah, you throw in Doomsday and you go whoa whoa wait a second, can't we have Doomsday have his own film? We just lost that film.

Then we have Wonder Woman, who apparently can't do anything. I mean she doesn't do anything in the movie, she just looks good, ya know, but, and she does look very nice, those close-ups are fantastic, and she poses well, but she's got a lasso that I understand its latest power is to be able to control people, like she throws around somebody and they not only have to tell the truth but she controls them. Should've been the end of the movie. Wasn't, wasn't, so she was useless so why was she there? So now I'm given a teaser for a Wonder Woman movie that I want to see, I want all this to happen, but I can't understand why they keep on throwing it in in the wrong way, and so I'm not going to get it."

http://comicbook.com/2016/05/17/neal-adams-reveals-what-he-thought-of-batman-v-superman/

[The Dark Knight]

Interesting comments. I'm trying not to get too worked up about these things anymore, so all respect to Mr Adams. However I'll agree to disagree about his take on TDK Returns Batman not being 20-30 years into the future. It's not that, but the core spirit is retained. It seems to me Zach Snyder's world exists in current day. Bruce is an older man and is not supposed to be 29 years old. He's already been through that and now has the mental baggage, as shown by glancing at the old Robin suit.

[BatmAngelus]

It's not secret that I wasn't a huge fan of the film, but I disagree with all of Neal Adams's comments. Batman ends up killing Superman? How? Bruce having gray temples is a problem? Why would Doomsday deserve his own film? He was just a gimmick villain to kill off Superman in the comics.

Dave Gibbons, who wrote his own Batman and Superman story in World's Finest, had this to say:

I feel what DC has done particularly with the Superman vs. Batman movie is they really have taken a misstep on it. I mean, I wrote a comic book called 'World's Finest', which was Superman vs. Batman, and what I homed in, and I am not saying this is the only take, but it might have helped, was you have Batman who is a dark hidden creature who lives in a dark evil city whose antagonist is a brightly colored clown. You got Superman who is a brightly colored figure, the yang if you like to Batman's yin, he lives in a bright hopeful city, but with a villain, an opponent, who is a dark grey scheming business man. So the whole universe's are completely complimentary. When I wrote my story, I got a lot of mileage out of crossing those over, and it turned out Luthor went to Gotham, and the Joker went to Metropolis, and the Joker wanted to black out Metropolis, and Luthor wanted to set Gotham on fire. So to me if you are doing Superman vs. Batman, the first thing, which is implied by the "vs," is there has to be a difference, and I think where the latest film suffered was because they were both these dark opaque angsty creatures.

I thought, I have to say that Ben Affleck's Batman was brilliant. I thought if he'd been in a Batman film on his own... I also think DC sort of lost their nerve because Superman Vs. Batman, which is basically Frank Miller's Dark Knight story, is enough for a movie without putting Doomsday in it, which is another complete Superman movie, without shoehorning The Flash and the Cyborg, and without Wonder Woman, she's a movie in her own right.

Perhaps at the moment, I'm less than 100% thrilled with DC. I'm certainly not coming down on Zack, but to my taste, they kind of missed the [inaudible] there. I think also Marvel have been really bold. They introduced the characters slowly, so when they put them all in a movie together, it gave me that same thrill as I had when a kid when they put all the characters into the Avengers. 'Wow! They're all in one comic!' And the latest Captain America [Civil War] movie, the bit when the two teams run toward each other with all their powers blazing was just 'Oh! Yeah! This is what comics are all about!' I think Marvel have done it with verve and wit. DC kind of missed out on that.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/batman_vs_superman/watchmen-co-creator-dave-gibbons-slams-dc-batman-v-superman-a142211

[BatmAngelus]

Frank Miller on Ben Affleck's Batman:

Talking at MegaCon 2016 in Orlando this weekend, Miller wouldn't be dragged into sharing his thoughts on the mixed reception to the movie, but did mention that, "I was rooting for Batman." Saying that Ben Affleck and Warner Bros. are more than welcome to call him for his input on The Batman, the comic book creator went on to praise the actor's take on the character. "I liked it, he's a good actor. I mean, he's obviously very, very close to this material and plays it with great affection."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/batman_vs_superman/the-dark-knight-returns-creator-frank-miller-weighs-in-on-ben-a142242

[johnnygobbs]

Most of us agreed that Ben Affleck did a great job and is one of the few unanimously praised aspects of BvS.

[The Laughing Fish]

Ty Templeton

The Dark Knight Rises

https://tytempletonart.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/dark-knight-rises-websize.jpg

Considering that DARK KNIGHT is one of my favorite movies ever, and Batman is one of my favorite characters ever, and that Inception was, like, an amazing movie, my level of disappointment with this bloated, pretentious, wrong-headed car wreck of a film is a heavy burden.

Please, if you enjoyed this movie, don't send me hate mail.  You'll never change my mind.

https://tytempletonart.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/dark-knight-rising-in-four-panels/

I'm coming back to this because I don't understand what this guy is talking about. I find it mind-boggling that he calls TDKR a bloated, pretentious mess, when that perfectly describes TDK just as well. I've noticed some people elsewhere on the internet having similar opinions, and it doesn't make many sense to me.

This is the cartoon that he drew to describe his distaste for the film.



His third point about how he found it hard to cheer for Batman because he's incompetent, and got people killed, was exactly the same problem I had with TDK. In fact, Bane exposing the truth about Harvey Dent is predicated on Batman's involvement in the Two-Face cover-up at the end of TDK. It goes to show that lying to the public was a terrible decision to begin with, so how come Templeton was never bothered by that movie's ending? If he's going to hold it against TDKR for being an overblown pretentious movie, then he should do the same for TDK, because I really don't see how the second movie was any better.

I have to disagree with his assessment on Anne Hathaway too. I liked her part, don't get me wrong, but she didn't have much to do to become the best Catwoman ever.

[thecolorsblend]

Neal Adams on Batman v Superman

I realize what the premise of this thread is but I don't think I need ideas on what's wrong with Batman v Superman given by some wackjob who thinks the Earth is expanding.

[Dagenspear]

I'm coming back to this because I don't understand what this guy is talking about. I find it mind-boggling that he calls TDKR a bloated, pretentious mess, when that perfectly describes TDK just as well. I've noticed some people elsewhere on the internet having similar opinions, and it doesn't make many sense to me.

This is the cartoon that he drew to describe his distaste for the film.



His third point about how he found it hard to cheer for Batman because he's incompetent, and got people killed, was exactly the same problem I had with TDK. In fact, Bane exposing the truth about Harvey Dent is predicated on Batman's involvement in the Two-Face cover-up at the end of TDK. It goes to show that lying to the public was a terrible decision to begin with, so how come Templeton was never bothered by that movie's ending? If he's going to hold it against TDKR for being an overblown pretentious movie, then he should do the same for TDK, because I really don't see how the second movie was any better.

I have to disagree with his assessment on Anne Hathaway too. I liked her part, don't get me wrong, but she didn't have much to do to become the best Catwoman ever.

Bane revealing the truth about Harvey didn't cause anything. Of course lying was a bad move though. I don't know how that makes either of them bad. The entire strip is faulty, like Bane's dialogue being incomprehensible, when I understood it fine. Doing something isn't what makes a better Cawoman. Character does. But I wouldn't call her the best. One of the better adaptions yeah. Have a very great day!

God bless you all!

[The Laughing Fish]

Paul Dini on Margot Robbie's portrayal as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad:

Every clip that I've seen of Margot as Harley, she seems to have nailed it perfectly. When she's introducing herself to Katana, when she's walking around with the bat behind her shoulders, she just seems to have really channeled the true spirit of the character. Seeing that come alive is just amazing for me. I saw the shot yesterday of her and Joker in the therapy session getting ready to kiss, and I was just like, 'That's it, that's my girl.'

Source: http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1541850/what-harley-quinns-creator-thinks-of-margot-robbies-suicide-squad-performance

[The Laughing Fish]

Dan Slott has spent the last year complaining incessantly about the DCEU films, particularly BvS. Here are these pathetic tweets he made to describe the movie while touching upon the subject about human atrocities.

Do NOT make me watch any of BvS again.

You know, there is a thing called the Geneva War Convention.

Actually, they're called the Geneva Conventions, which prevented and persecuted actual human atrocities.

And yet, BvS was still made. Go figure.

https://twitter.com/ComicBookDebate/status/783304415600119808

Now as many of you guys know, I have a strong distaste for Nolan's Batman. But unlike the utterly putrid excuse for a human being mentioned above, I don't stoop THAT low to compare films I don't appreciate to something like the Holocaust. Slobb (which I use to describe his odious personality) should take a really hard, good look at himself before criticising other people's work so obscenely. Because the last time I checked, I've seen how an overwhelming number of Spider-Man fans are extremely upset with how he writes their favourite character for Marvel Comics. He needs to figure out what he's doing wrong with his life, and sort himself out.