This walks a very fine line of depressing and cathartic. Some of us needed to hear it, and for others, it just serves as closure. Either way, I'm glad it was said.
"It's good for these things to be your entertainment. Maybe it's even okay for them to be your mythology. But they shouldn't be your life." This is, no joke, the best closing argument to ANYTHING geek-related. It's fine if you have fun with stuff, think about stuff, discuss stuff, even take life leasons from stuff. But YOU are not the stuff you obsess over. Also, you seem to be speaking these words to yourself just as much to your audience. Maybe that's the crossroads every nerd, geek and the like come across at some point. Do I let these things define me? Should I? When people tell me to "get a life" and I answer "this IS my life". Should it be?
You got some growth from realizing that, rita. It’s not a great conclusion, but it’s better than being stuck in these as your life like some other people have.
I used to obsess over these cbm franchises and got into online arguments with people over Marvel vs. DC and all that crap. But eventually I realized that I was horribly wasting time and energy over things that don’t make a huge difference in my life. Sure it’s nice to enjoy movies and it sucks to be disappointed when one, or many, of an IP you like turn out bad. At the end of the day, it’s much better to just sit back and enjoy what you enjoy and not let anyone get in the way of that.
I think this articulates what I feel when I describe “superhero fatigue.” I’m not tired of superhero movies as a concept, I’m tired of them feeling obligatory and soulless.
@@GreekDudeYiannisIt’s basically torture porn. Where you want to have your work seen as serious so edgy writers go into rape, blood and guts and then, a scene or two later, its like nothing happened. Mature storytelling is how one recovers from trauma and now it has changed them. Plus, we had a story about Batman getting raped and that’s Son of Batman.
I learned this from video games, particularly the Final Fantasy series; Don’t be loyal to a brand, be loyal to a specific creative who made the stories you like worthwhile. Because the brands are just managed by a bunch of marketers who own what you liked.
With video games especially, there are a bunch of franchises that basically lost their foundational creative voices but are still major brands today. Final Fantasy is a perfect example because what FF was 20 years ago has very little to do with today outside of the brand
From the Man of Steel Wikipedia article: "In 2009, a court ruling resulted in Jerry Siegel's family recapturing the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's copyright. The decision stated that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films, but if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Shuster and Siegel estates would be able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film." I imagine the settlement WB could've paid the co-creators families would've been far less painful than the decade-long disaster that was the DCEU.
Good luck... he's gonna need it. His new boss is a micro-managing idiot who only cares about the bottom line and sucking the toes of his right-wing politician-friends... remember, David Zaslav greenlit "Sarah Palin's Alaska." He loves giving platforms to conservative sideshow-attractions. If the "Fire James Gunn" hashtag had happened under God-Emperor Honey Boo Boo's watch, Gunn would have disappeared faster than you can say "You'll Never Work In This Town Again."
We don't know if he understand the character, pump the fucking brakes. We do know he likes him and seems to have a much better handle on both character presentation and superhero appeal than most, so that's a big plus.
@@chavesa5 Hes completely unafraid of going heartfelt with superhero stories, which has been the hugest obstacle in getting a good Superman flick. Everyone else is terrified of making him a good natured farm boy from Kansas.
I have watched more hours of you dissecting the DC Cinematic Universe than the movies themselves, and I think I got the better deal. The "Realty That Bad" on "Batman v Superman" is something that I put on in the background while doing other stuff. I have never watched the original media from start to end.
But my gods, does it hit so hard. I contrast that closing with the more optimistic summation of the Really That Bad takedown and BvS and you can just feel how dead Mr. Chipman's hopes are now.
The ending line is something more people need to hear and not get defensive about. And there's a difference something being your mythology and being your religion. But no, too many people will still be wrapped up in making this their obsession. Here's hoping things get better in all things.
that line kind of rings false coming from Bob considering how creepily fanboyish he's been in the past in regards to the Raimi Spider-Man films, especially in his review of ASM2 with how ridiculously overdramatic he was in claiming that film made him not want to review movies anymore, like I see no difference between that nonsense and the toxic part of the DCEU fandom.
@@jadedheartsz Yeah, the whole thing rings very fake. If only Bob could’ve convinced himself of this ten years ago. Would’ve saved himself a lot of time and energy. If only he’d realize now that the MCU is just a can of air as well. It seems like Bob has never spend as much time and energy on any franchise as he has on the Snyderverse. It’s pretty clear he has some big attraction to it, he’s very deeply invested into loving to hate it. As with most nerds it probably goes back to something that happened at high school.
@@mabusestestament Dude, that's a personal shot. Come on, can't we just discuss this stuff without attacking one another. People's opinions are not immutable, and he's done a spectacular job over the years outlining in extreme detail why there has been general disappointment with the approach WB took. He has in general elevated the conversation while also calling out bad actors engaged in intellectual dishonesty. Nothing he says means you can't like the movies, but he is trying to articulate why most of us are disappointed. But importantly, people just shouldn't have knee jerk reactions to criticism. You can like something and still recognise that it is objectively bad. I love Smallville, but it is objectively poorly executed much of the time. Similarly, I didn't enjoy the Wire, but I can recognise that it is extremely well executed, just not my cup of tea. Right from Man of Steel onward, this is the cross purposes fight that has been going on, people rushing to defend stuff they like, purely because they like it and dismissing any fair criticism. The phenomenon is not restricted to the DCEU, but very little has failed as commercially spectacularly as the DCEU, so it has become the general example of the worst example of this. And this is the main lesson that the fandom needs to learn. Nuance.
At the very least, they proved Shazam was a viable idea in this day and age. Say what you will I got a new Superhero out of it I didn’t even know I’d like.
I truly think the passion and energy needed to create and sustain a universe outside of the comics was already used by the minds behind the DC Animated Universe back in the 90’s and 2000’s. It has strangely never gotten better than that.
I like that the DCU is being led by not only an excellent writer/director, but also one whose two favorite superhero movies ever are the original Donner Superman and Into the Spider-Verse. I think it sets a good precedent.
What absolutely kills me about this is that it's not as if these characters can't be used to tell great and wonderfully impacting stories, it's not as if they can't be used to tell incredible blockbusters, or any possible story in between Like maybe this is just me personally, but when I think about Superman too much, like all the implications and philosophy and ideas that have been drawn through him over the years, I get a little bit weepy And I remember the first time I saw the man of steel trailer. I thought for a second that they got it, that they understood what I saw in Superman And then I watched the movie, and have been disappointed in everything they've done since
Yeah, the trailers for Man of Steel were for an interesting introspective movie about young Clark growing into an understanding of his powers and place in the world, while the movie was about an alien invasion being fought off by a hidden alien coming into his powers, which also gestured vaguely at the introspective story and said "there's a more interesting story over there somewhere that you can figure out for yourselves while I get on with the explosions and racking up the body count"
we may have gotten very little from the DCEU, but we've been blessed with this video series, in which we saw you personally grow & vicariously relived our own growth in the process. i appreciate this bits in life that lead to the exploration of the human experience through our shared feelings & for what it's worth, i'm proud of our development & happy to have you around, sharing your passion for art with us
I'm actually glad that's your conclusion because watching Marthabox I kept leaning closer and closer to it. Some of it was fun, but nearly none of it managed to be as important as it thought it should be.
Nothing exceeds like excess. Make the first, it makes money. Decide to see if they can make a second, do it, it makes money. Rinse, repeat, until they don't make money. Go look for the next trend.
I appreciate the preamble making sure everyone knows that you said all this prior to actually seeing Flashpoint, but bro this shit was prescient as FUCK 😂
@@thetribunaloftheimaginatio5247 I believe our OP is talking about real momentum, which all but died in 2017 with Justice League. The rest has been nothing but the twitching of a corpse.
I know they're the antithesis of what Really That Good started as, but the trio of Really That Bad videos you did on BvS are among my favourites of your work. I'd say those mattered, even if I would agree they perhaps weren't worth the lasting cultural damage to DC and WB's legacies.
The DCEU has always felt to me less like "lets make stories with iconic characters" and more like "leveraging IPs and brand managment" excercise. That was the fatal flaw that ruined it, it never felt like it needed to exist other then as projects to keep the Shareholders happy
You're completely correct, but let's be honest here -- the MCU is exactly the same. It has only ever been an exercise in brand management. But one with enough sub-brands enticing enough to pull in some interesting artists to occasionally mine a worthwhile story from it. But all these damn cinematic universes are nothing more than the filtering of various IPs through cartel capitalism.
If I had a nickel for every time the DCEU ended with a bomb starring a guy with a lightning bolt on his chest, laughable CGI and embarrassing cameos, I'd have fifteen cents. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened 3 times in 8 months.
@@Markunator Black Adam, Shazam 2 and Flash have all been promoted as wrapping up the DCEU/ Snyderverse/ whatever we're calling it since those two names weren't official either.
It's a lesson that television, even after years of hemorrhaging audiences, still hasn't learned. When the story is over, and there's nothing left to say, let it go. Let it end.
Gonna be honest, I think Bob's ranting about each DCEU failure was one of the only things I actually looked forward to. It's been nice having them help cope this whole time.
Seeing the opening action set piece of Flash just made me feel sad for the DcEU that could have been but never will be. Thanks WB and DC for constantly fucking around, backpedaling and wasting everyone's time over the years
A reporter once asked John Lennon, 'Can we look forward to seeing more Beatles' films coming out?' John replied, "Well, there'll be more of them. But I don't know if you'll be looking forward to them!'
Your annual reminder that DC was cruising happily on its TV shared universe while all these film problems were happening. And people still don’t want to give the Arrowverse credit because The CW.
It's amazing. I said all these things yesterday, mostly to myself and the captive audience of my girlfriend, and then figured they're too obvious to matter. Then Bob says them all in a video, and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm glad someone who knows what he's talking about said all that. Someone needed to."
This took a toll on you, my guy. I hope you will be able to have more joy in your work and life soon. (Er, the parts I can see, anyway. Parasocial relationships and all that.)
Hard to miss the note of utter defeat in his final words. Like me, he just tallied up the ongoing cost of this series of bad decisions and came to the only logical conclusion: not even close to worth it.
It failed at the beginning, when Man of Steel featured a horrible interpretation of Superman and his supporting cast. There were some high points for the DCEU but it was doomed once they mishandled Superman and that's exactly why Gunn feels that he has to do Superman juatice for the DCU to succeed.
I wouldn't say DC/Warner was ever pursuing a live action cinematic universe because they "had" to or because the fans demanded it. No, the simpler reason is they saw all the money Marvel/Disney was making and thought they could make that same kind of money.
@@SavageBroadcastDid you miss the quotation marks? It's a sign they never "had to" but wanted to. In Hollywood, no one wants to be first but everyone wants to be second. In this case, all Warner Brothers succeeded at being was last.
I mean while I agree with you for the most part, this churning out movies for the sake of movies did give us Shazam and a good suicide squad which I don't think would have ever been made otherwise
Hey Bob, first wanna say I absolutely love your content and everything that you do, you have my continued subscription ✌️ I just wish, with how good your videos are, there was more original/new content. Regardless, I still love what you do so keep up the great work, you're awesome 👍
The DCEU was most certainly not trash. We got some spectacular movies from the DCEU. Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad 2, Shazam, Shazam 2, Aquaman, Birds of Prey, The Flash. These movies were GREAT.
I’m not sure what the correct term is, but the Warner Brothers executives from 2008 until 2023 managed to mismanage the studio to such an extent that they destroyed a nearly century old film studio, arguably the most important American mythology, a similarly important English mythology. I don’t know if that is a record, but it’s definitely something to be ashamed of…
I just want to say that as big a disaster as the DCEU was and ‘in all honesty probably will continue to be’ I learned a lot about blockbusters from your Really That Bad of Batman v Superman. So thanks for that at least.
@@luckybrass8457 I mean it would be wacky and most of the movie going audience would probably see them as the X-Men ripoff they were but I just want something off the wall. Im even looking forward to the Crow remake as something NEW, ironically
Let's also be clear that the monomyth, while an interesting idea, is increbly flawed, poorly researched, and much more limited in scope than it has often been touted.
I think SUPERMAN dose have something to say about the modern world we live in .. but It has to be well written. It's can't be just thrown out there just couse
i still don't understand how the refrain from DC fandom during the Snyder era was that WB was putting the cart before the horse, yet now with golden boy Gunn at the helm, a 10-year plan without ONE good movie made yet is something to be excited about. we've seen this movie already... feels like i'm taking crazy pills
Yeah, I'm with you. It's nothing but a repeat of the same mistakes of the last decade, this new plan. Only difference is that Gunn is designated as the fall guy for when it fails. Such is the copium of DC fandom: "Wait until this, wait until that..." And in the end, they're just left with the wisdom of John Fogerty: "Someday never comes."
You don't need a mythic statement when you have Bob dressed up like a Mortal Kombat character. You don't anymore, but I imagined it anyway. And it was better than most DC movies I've seen.
I think the that the bigger lesson to be learned by all that Campbell and Junge jazz is that these reoccurring themes and archetypes are emergent properties and we have much more in common with each other than we think.
What worries me is whether WB/DC have burned too much audience goodwill at this point. Between the Snyder fans not wanting to move on, and the rest of the public clearly having lost interest, Gunn & Co are going to have a huge uphill battle trying to put butts in seats. At least for anything that isn't Batman-related, since that's apparently the one DC property that people will still show up for.
As a movie in itself, I kinda liked it. It was a fun romp, hell, my Mom liked it and she only likes maybe 1 in 5 of these things, she gets drug along because everyone else in the family likes super hero movies. But as a whole, to the DCEU, it was a one off and because of that it's kinda a mess. If ALL of them were like this from the beginning,true to the source material, as you can be given time and everything, with these fun cameos and any humor, like Man of Steel to here, this would have made money and been fine, the baggage before it just kills these movies. People don't dislike Comic movies, just look at Guardians and Spiderverse, they just want different ones, stop hitting the formula beats and explore the genre.
Ive said it many times, the fact that WB owned DC since forever but marvel beat them to the cinematic universe, is an utter waste of IP and shows where their heads were.
"But they shouldn't be your life." As I've gotten older (I'm about to turn 39), I've come to realize that about a lot of things I like. It's okay to be a fan of something, but it's dangerous to obsess over it. I've seen way too many toxic fanbases to not wanna become like that. Get a life, people.
To me the worst part was not the movies (that ranged from okay to oh my dear lord in heaven why is Superman causing 9-11). The worst part was the DC only fans. The mean spiritedness and almost vitriolic hate they had on offer. Where Marvel felt like it was a let’s come together and have a good time the subtext of smug superiority just made everything worst.
I shall never forgive Zack Snyder for spreading that poison in the name of petty, pointless revenge. None of it was ever going to bring his daughter back or even kill the pain of losing her the way he did.
Everyone I talk to about The Flash live action film, I make sure to tell them there's a superior version of this story in animated form and tell them they really need to watch The Flashpoint Paradox.
Well done Bob. Sadly your words are very true. I hope that DC can learn from this amd to be honest I think they as a comic company have always done an excellent job on one shots and shorter stories. They need to capitalize on that strength and hit Marvel where they fail. I'm a big Marvel fan boy comic wise but they have almost always failed with big events. DC has had some success with them but they tend to fail at points there too. They should come up with movies and properties that dint require a 10 year watch to get the story. If they can make compelling shorter stories that may be it a lot more and they could maybe even over take Marvel because there are many no comic fans who still dint have the time or patience to sit through a decade of films.
The world ended not with a bang; but with a whimper.... .... The DCEU was a Banshee Death Metal Howl, Black Metal Shriek of a deathcry that will be a Brown Note to whichever unfortunate soul happens to hear it!
I trust Bob's opinions not because he has the best opinions, but because he has the right opinions. The only time I ever cared about DC was during the Kids WB lineup, the spinoff drama Lois and Clark and the first season of the Harley Quinn animated series.
Bob, you are anchor of sanity with the amount garbage we had to put up with this. Please, I am one of the two people who actually enjoyed Howard the Duck.
DCEU's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
To me the DCEU's biggest failing was always so obvious. They decided to do the dark and gritty version of their franchise rather than the campy, fun version. Which just doesn't work. Marvel *could* do dark and gritty. Its a much more grounded setting than DC is. They didn't, but they could probably pull it off. DC can't pull that off. Batman specifically *can* be dark and gritty, but even Batman is much better when its dark and campy. I have no idea why they kept trying to make a DCEU with the tone of "The Dark Knight". And it really was just miserable. I haven't watched the vast majority of the DCEU. But every single shot of every single movie from that disaster looks like it was filmed with a tragic family housefire happening just off screen. It looks so joyless. And thats before you get into the fact that they were half assing it the whole time. Like, they kept trying to jump straight to "The Avengers" without laying the groundwork. The only thing more baffling than their decision to keep making these, is the fact that theres a decent sized chunk of people who were actually invested in the DCEU and seriously thought it was a competitor to Marvel. It seems to me like Snyder is responsible for its general miserable aesthetic so I blame him. Everything else about them sucks too, but if there was a core of joy or entertainment to be found in the concept maybe the rest wouldn't have been so phoned in. But they chose "funeral weather" as their aesthetic right from the start and doomed the entire idea.
All that is why I refuse to give Snyder the pass Mr. Chipman consistently does. At its core, Snyder's "talent" consists of regurgitating superior source material with extra bad add-ons that bring down the quality of the project. Mr. Chipman praises him for "taking risks" which supposedly proves he's not a hack. But you only deserve that praise if you actually SUCCEED. Otherwise, you're just a degenerate gambler who keeps losing more than you ever won on bad bets anybody could have called. And that's before you get into Snyder's exploitation of the cult that further poisoned the discourse...
I want DC to make a film adaptation of Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality, the story where in which a team of characters from cancelled comics go on a quest to find and convince the writers to include them in the post-reboot universe.
I think Gunn will succeed with the DCU and the only reason the DCEU was such a mess is because the architect (Zack Snyder) had zero understanding of the characters and zero respect for their history. If Man of Steel and BvS were good, there wouldn't be a need for constant course correction and studio interference.
@@johnathonhaney8291Zaslav has more faith in Gunn than the previous regimes had in Snyder, and rightfully so. Gunn understands and respects the DC characters far more than Snyder ever did. Also, it's an open secret that Zaslav has been planning on selling WB to NBCUNIVERSAL in 2024 so he won't be an issue for much longer. That's why he gave Gunn a 4 years deal and asked for an 8 year plan, they want something of note to offer NBCUNIVERSAL during the acquisition.
If Teenaged Zac had realised that Watchmen was a parody and critique of Objectivism and not an endorsement, he might not have thought it was possible to actually make an entire series of Objectivist Superhero movies. Which it isn’t because celebrating selfishness is the opposite of heroism.
@@BaithNaYeah, I remember how Zaslav screwed over TCM this past weekend after shooting similar fairy dust up their ass. His "faith" in Gunn begins and ends with using his name to make that sale. Gunn strays off the path, he's gone.
This walks a very fine line of depressing and cathartic. Some of us needed to hear it, and for others, it just serves as closure. Either way, I'm glad it was said.
Yeah if the movie is his life in career. Not everybody's struggling like that
"It's good for these things to be your entertainment. Maybe it's even okay for them to be your mythology. But they shouldn't be your life."
This is, no joke, the best closing argument to ANYTHING geek-related. It's fine if you have fun with stuff, think about stuff, discuss stuff, even take life leasons from stuff. But YOU are not the stuff you obsess over.
Also, you seem to be speaking these words to yourself just as much to your audience. Maybe that's the crossroads every nerd, geek and the like come across at some point. Do I let these things define me? Should I? When people tell me to "get a life" and I answer "this IS my life". Should it be?
You got some growth from realizing that, rita. It’s not a great conclusion, but it’s better than being stuck in these as your life like some other people have.
Didn’t he write a book about he avoided his family to play more Mario bros?
I used to obsess over these cbm franchises and got into online arguments with people over Marvel vs. DC and all that crap. But eventually I realized that I was horribly wasting time and energy over things that don’t make a huge difference in my life. Sure it’s nice to enjoy movies and it sucks to be disappointed when one, or many, of an IP you like turn out bad. At the end of the day, it’s much better to just sit back and enjoy what you enjoy and not let anyone get in the way of that.
Wow. Great comment!
I think this articulates what I feel when I describe “superhero fatigue.” I’m not tired of superhero movies as a concept, I’m tired of them feeling obligatory and soulless.
I don't think the DCEU films were "soulless" at all, Snyder clearly had a passion for them.
@@jadedheartsz Did he? It seemed like he didn't like the characters, and just tried to mould them into something he did.
@@jadedheartsz Even if it's over a decade old now, he did say, "Batman could get raped in my movie."
I don't think that's passion.
@@GreekDudeYiannisIt’s basically torture porn. Where you want to have your work seen as serious so edgy writers go into rape, blood and guts and then, a scene or two later, its like nothing happened.
Mature storytelling is how one recovers from trauma and now it has changed them.
Plus, we had a story about Batman getting raped and that’s Son of Batman.
@@jadedheartsz lol Snyder.
"It's good for these things to be entertainment. Maybe it's even okay for them to be your mythology. But they shouldn't be your life" Well said Bob.
I learned this from video games, particularly the Final Fantasy series; Don’t be loyal to a brand, be loyal to a specific creative who made the stories you like worthwhile. Because the brands are just managed by a bunch of marketers who own what you liked.
Creative Business Unit 3
"And be wary of guys who like to put zippers and belts in places they shouldn't be"
@@rickrollerdudenono, that idea was one of the fun ones.
With video games especially, there are a bunch of franchises that basically lost their foundational creative voices but are still major brands today. Final Fantasy is a perfect example because what FF was 20 years ago has very little to do with today outside of the brand
From the Man of Steel Wikipedia article:
"In 2009, a court ruling resulted in Jerry Siegel's family recapturing the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's copyright. The decision stated that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films, but if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Shuster and Siegel estates would be able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film."
I imagine the settlement WB could've paid the co-creators families would've been far less painful than the decade-long disaster that was the DCEU.
Good luck to James Gunn. I'm so relieved that Superman is finally being written by somebody who likes and understands this character.
Good luck... he's gonna need it. His new boss is a micro-managing idiot who only cares about the bottom line and sucking the toes of his right-wing politician-friends... remember, David Zaslav greenlit "Sarah Palin's Alaska." He loves giving platforms to conservative sideshow-attractions. If the "Fire James Gunn" hashtag had happened under God-Emperor Honey Boo Boo's watch, Gunn would have disappeared faster than you can say "You'll Never Work In This Town Again."
And yet he still feels the need to give us another origin story.
We don't know if he understand the character, pump the fucking brakes. We do know he likes him and seems to have a much better handle on both character presentation and superhero appeal than most, so that's a big plus.
@@chavesa5 Hes completely unafraid of going heartfelt with superhero stories, which has been the hugest obstacle in getting a good Superman flick. Everyone else is terrified of making him a good natured farm boy from Kansas.
More like “understands what audiences want.”
“But they shouldn’t be your life”
As good and decent a thought as it is a line to end a video on. Thanks, Bob
I have watched more hours of you dissecting the DC Cinematic Universe than the movies themselves, and I think I got the better deal. The "Realty That Bad" on "Batman v Superman" is something that I put on in the background while doing other stuff. I have never watched the original media from start to end.
Your coverage of the DCU was one of the best things to come out of the DCU.
Bob's Really That Bad episodes on BvS is the definitive review of that movie imo
"If we're gonna do more of these... they better mean something" ~MovieBob, 2023
Now that's a quote worth putting on a plaque.
Was that a backdoor pilot for an epic Police Academy teardown marathon? Let's go Bob! 😂
Patrick Willems already did that: ua-cam.com/video/UCxZ_QdaSQ8/v-deo.html
Pattrick H Willems already has done a video about that series.
The Flash had so many years of production hell I’m shocked it even came out at all. I never actually thought I’d get to see it in theatres.
I gotta say this was probably my favourite part out of the entire Marthabox series. Love that summation.
But my gods, does it hit so hard. I contrast that closing with the more optimistic summation of the Really That Bad takedown and BvS and you can just feel how dead Mr. Chipman's hopes are now.
The ending line is something more people need to hear and not get defensive about. And there's a difference something being your mythology and being your religion. But no, too many people will still be wrapped up in making this their obsession. Here's hoping things get better in all things.
I wish I could share in that optimism.
that line kind of rings false coming from Bob considering how creepily fanboyish he's been in the past in regards to the Raimi Spider-Man films, especially in his review of ASM2 with how ridiculously overdramatic he was in claiming that film made him not want to review movies anymore, like I see no difference between that nonsense and the toxic part of the DCEU fandom.
@@jadedheartsz And that was...how many years ago?
@@jadedheartsz
Yeah, the whole thing rings very fake.
If only Bob could’ve convinced himself of this ten years ago. Would’ve saved himself a lot of time and energy. If only he’d realize now that the MCU is just a can of air as well.
It seems like Bob has never spend as much time and energy on any franchise as he has on the Snyderverse. It’s pretty clear he has some big attraction to it, he’s very deeply invested into loving to hate it.
As with most nerds it probably goes back to something that happened at high school.
@@mabusestestament Dude, that's a personal shot. Come on, can't we just discuss this stuff without attacking one another. People's opinions are not immutable, and he's done a spectacular job over the years outlining in extreme detail why there has been general disappointment with the approach WB took. He has in general elevated the conversation while also calling out bad actors engaged in intellectual dishonesty. Nothing he says means you can't like the movies, but he is trying to articulate why most of us are disappointed. But importantly, people just shouldn't have knee jerk reactions to criticism. You can like something and still recognise that it is objectively bad. I love Smallville, but it is objectively poorly executed much of the time. Similarly, I didn't enjoy the Wire, but I can recognise that it is extremely well executed, just not my cup of tea.
Right from Man of Steel onward, this is the cross purposes fight that has been going on, people rushing to defend stuff they like, purely because they like it and dismissing any fair criticism. The phenomenon is not restricted to the DCEU, but very little has failed as commercially spectacularly as the DCEU, so it has become the general example of the worst example of this. And this is the main lesson that the fandom needs to learn. Nuance.
Honestly this video would be completely unchanged if you had written the script after the Flash came out, which says a lot.
At the very least, they proved Shazam was a viable idea in this day and age. Say what you will I got a new Superhero out of it I didn’t even know I’d like.
I truly think the passion and energy needed to create and sustain a universe outside of the comics was already used by the minds behind the DC Animated Universe back in the 90’s and 2000’s. It has strangely never gotten better than that.
I like that the DCU is being led by not only an excellent writer/director, but also one whose two favorite superhero movies ever are the original Donner Superman and Into the Spider-Verse. I think it sets a good precedent.
"I don't have some profundity to end on"
*Finds something suitably profound anyway.*
Thanks, Bob. You've been like a rock through all this.
What absolutely kills me about this is that it's not as if these characters can't be used to tell great and wonderfully impacting stories, it's not as if they can't be used to tell incredible blockbusters, or any possible story in between
Like maybe this is just me personally, but when I think about Superman too much, like all the implications and philosophy and ideas that have been drawn through him over the years, I get a little bit weepy
And I remember the first time I saw the man of steel trailer. I thought for a second that they got it, that they understood what I saw in Superman
And then I watched the movie, and have been disappointed in everything they've done since
Yeah, the trailers for Man of Steel were for an interesting introspective movie about young Clark growing into an understanding of his powers and place in the world, while the movie was about an alien invasion being fought off by a hidden alien coming into his powers, which also gestured vaguely at the introspective story and said "there's a more interesting story over there somewhere that you can figure out for yourselves while I get on with the explosions and racking up the body count"
we may have gotten very little from the DCEU, but we've been blessed with this video series, in which we saw you personally grow & vicariously relived our own growth in the process. i appreciate this bits in life that lead to the exploration of the human experience through our shared feelings
& for what it's worth, i'm proud of our development & happy to have you around, sharing your passion for art with us
"So what? Sew buttons!" takes me out just as bad as it did the first time i saw that lmfao
Your content and ideas matter to me. Thank you for always fighting for what’s right.
I'm actually glad that's your conclusion because watching Marthabox I kept leaning closer and closer to it. Some of it was fun, but nearly none of it managed to be as important as it thought it should be.
I won't lie, I would like an entire Big Picture on why we got 7 Police Academy films beyond Michael Winslow
Could probably be boiled down to cheap to make, advertise, with a guaranteed audience looking for a cheap laugh.
Nothing exceeds like excess. Make the first, it makes money. Decide to see if they can make a second, do it, it makes money. Rinse, repeat, until they don't make money. Go look for the next trend.
Patrick Willems did a show on Police Academy. It was good.
@@mightygregdoge I was about to suggest this.
It was probably the theme music. It had no business being _that_ catchy and kick-ass - but it was.
I appreciate the preamble making sure everyone knows that you said all this prior to actually seeing Flashpoint, but bro this shit was prescient as FUCK 😂
That was a hell of a last line to go out on. Well said!
It's amazing how quickly this whole thing fizzled out because of bad decision making.
Quickly? This whole thing happened over the course of a DECADE.
@@thetribunaloftheimaginatio5247
I believe our OP is talking about real momentum, which all but died in 2017 with Justice League. The rest has been nothing but the twitching of a corpse.
I feel it was gone in a flash.
Warner Bros shows you can make a career purely from bad decisions. That's all they have been doing for nearly the past 10 years
@@johnathonhaney8291 Fair enough.
I know they're the antithesis of what Really That Good started as, but the trio of Really That Bad videos you did on BvS are among my favourites of your work. I'd say those mattered, even if I would agree they perhaps weren't worth the lasting cultural damage to DC and WB's legacies.
Same. I've watched them countless times. Terrific essay on what went wrong with that film.
@@lapislazuli5035And by extension, the larger DCEU project that finally blew off those rails like our Mr. Chipman predicted.
You did great work with Really That Bad. I didn’t expect we’d get so much acting from a serial choker.
The fact that we admit that there is no profundity, is itself the profundity.
The DCEU has always felt to me less like "lets make stories with iconic characters" and more like "leveraging IPs and brand managment" excercise. That was the fatal flaw that ruined it, it never felt like it needed to exist other then as projects to keep the Shareholders happy
You're completely correct, but let's be honest here -- the MCU is exactly the same. It has only ever been an exercise in brand management. But one with enough sub-brands enticing enough to pull in some interesting artists to occasionally mine a worthwhile story from it. But all these damn cinematic universes are nothing more than the filtering of various IPs through cartel capitalism.
@@interlockpicturesinc.2189I mean, not really? Or at least not in as high-profile a way?
@@interlockpicturesinc.2189I mean, not really? Or at least not in as high-profile a way?
If I had a nickel for every time the DCEU ended with a bomb starring a guy with a lightning bolt on his chest, laughable CGI and embarrassing cameos, I'd have fifteen cents. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened 3 times in 8 months.
Huh. You're right. Does that mean Aquaman 2 will end like that? Or peacemaker S02?
What do you mean by “ended with a bomb”?
It's symbolic of the lightning Frankenstein WB used to create its monster.
@@Chrismw81 Perfect, because the first DCU story will be Creature Commandos, starring Frankenstein!
@@Markunator Black Adam, Shazam 2 and Flash have all been promoted as wrapping up the DCEU/ Snyderverse/ whatever we're calling it since those two names weren't official either.
It's a lesson that television, even after years of hemorrhaging audiences, still hasn't learned. When the story is over, and there's nothing left to say, let it go. Let it end.
"So what, sew buttons!" is an expression I've never heard before, but I LIKE it!
Damn haven’t seen Bob this bitter since the Amazing Spider-Man 2 review.
Thank you Bob. It's been a long 10 years.
Gonna be honest, I think Bob's ranting about each DCEU failure was one of the only things I actually looked forward to. It's been nice having them help cope this whole time.
Hard but needed line there at the end.
It's wild to think after 10 years of build up we got...nothing...
Seeing the opening action set piece of Flash just made me feel sad for the DcEU that could have been but never will be. Thanks WB and DC for constantly fucking around, backpedaling and wasting everyone's time over the years
A reporter once asked John Lennon, 'Can we look forward to seeing more Beatles' films coming out?' John replied, "Well, there'll be more of them. But I don't know if you'll be looking forward to them!'
I've been watching for many years. This is my favorite video of yours!
Your annual reminder that DC was cruising happily on its TV shared universe while all these film problems were happening. And people still don’t want to give the Arrowverse credit because The CW.
I shall always give them that credit. Whatever one can say about quality issues, Arrowverse succeeded where DCEU failed.
Those shows were great in their first few seasons, but like many tv shows it ended up overstaying its welcome
“But they shouldn’t be your life”
In that moment, you could see Bob’s soul drain from his eyes from behind his sunglasses.
Yeah...the final realization that all this had been for nothing was hard to look at.
It's amazing. I said all these things yesterday, mostly to myself and the captive audience of my girlfriend, and then figured they're too obvious to matter. Then Bob says them all in a video, and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm glad someone who knows what he's talking about said all that. Someone needed to."
On the bright side it forced WB to finally make Wonder Woman and that was good. Plus I also liked Aquaman.
This took a toll on you, my guy. I hope you will be able to have more joy in your work and life soon. (Er, the parts I can see, anyway. Parasocial relationships and all that.)
Hard to miss the note of utter defeat in his final words. Like me, he just tallied up the ongoing cost of this series of bad decisions and came to the only logical conclusion: not even close to worth it.
All of that baggage, all of this controversy only to fail at the end
And yet none of us are really that surprised.
It failed at the beginning, when Man of Steel featured a horrible interpretation of Superman and his supporting cast.
There were some high points for the DCEU but it was doomed once they mishandled Superman and that's exactly why Gunn feels that he has to do Superman juatice for the DCU to succeed.
Wooooooooooooooo! That last line was so raw
1:00 omg ur right. James Gunn look like the pastor in kingdom come
Worth a thumbs up for that last line.
I wouldn't say DC/Warner was ever pursuing a live action cinematic universe because they "had" to or because the fans demanded it. No, the simpler reason is they saw all the money Marvel/Disney was making and thought they could make that same kind of money.
Correct...the moment The Avengers became the third-most profitable film of all time, they went that way with disastrous results.
That's basically the same as saying 'they had to'. That's a circular answer - they had to, because the money told them to.
@@SavageBroadcastDid you miss the quotation marks? It's a sign they never "had to" but wanted to. In Hollywood, no one wants to be first but everyone wants to be second. In this case, all Warner Brothers succeeded at being was last.
I’m totally stealing “so what? Sew buttons.”
" So what, So buttons" that made me laugh more than it should have.
This is it. This is Endgame... for Warner Bros. :(
A bit of X-Men ad copy I always remembered: "The end...because there never was a beginning."
Powerful statement at the end
"We fought so much over this."
Me, who doesn't use Twitter: Who is "we?"
Social media (including UA-cam) in general, probably
I mean while I agree with you for the most part, this churning out movies for the sake of movies did give us Shazam and a good suicide squad which I don't think would have ever been made otherwise
Wow. I am stunned.
Hey Bob, first wanna say I absolutely love your content and everything that you do, you have my continued subscription ✌️
I just wish, with how good your videos are, there was more original/new content.
Regardless, I still love what you do so keep up the great work, you're awesome 👍
Never seen you look and sound so sad as you did at the end of this. You need a hug, my dude? 'cause now I kinda do.
**hug** Hell of a waste, wasn't it?
The DCEU was most certainly not trash. We got some spectacular movies from the DCEU. Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad 2, Shazam, Shazam 2, Aquaman, Birds of Prey, The Flash. These movies were GREAT.
It wasn't for nothing. "Just that bad" on B vs S was one of the best pieces of, critique I've seen on this platform.
I’m not sure what the correct term is, but the Warner Brothers executives from 2008 until 2023 managed to mismanage the studio to such an extent that they destroyed a nearly century old film studio, arguably the most important American mythology, a similarly important English mythology. I don’t know if that is a record, but it’s definitely something to be ashamed of…
Our Mr. Chipman had a term he used in his "Really That Bad" takedown of BvS that fits: cultural vandalism.
I just want to say that as big a disaster as the DCEU was and ‘in all honesty probably will continue to be’ I learned a lot about blockbusters from your Really That Bad of Batman v Superman. So thanks for that at least.
DC has the rights to WildCATS. I'd rather see that at this point
WildCATS got a fun bit of appearances in the original Flashpoint, really the first time I thought positively of the very 90s superhero team.
@@luckybrass8457 I mean it would be wacky and most of the movie going audience would probably see them as the X-Men ripoff they were but I just want something off the wall. Im even looking forward to the Crow remake as something NEW, ironically
Which wildcats?
If they did a serious WildStorm series on Max like they did for watchmen that would be a great move. And a way to bring in several members of the CATS
Let's also be clear that the monomyth, while an interesting idea, is increbly flawed, poorly researched, and much more limited in scope than it has often been touted.
Indeed, Jung himself would probably be the first to tell you that there's more than one such story, albeit in a limited number at their core.
I am looking forward to the Big Picture becoming focussed on literally anything else!
I think SUPERMAN dose have something to say about the modern world we live in .. but It has to be well written. It's can't be just thrown out there just couse
i still don't understand how the refrain from DC fandom during the Snyder era was that WB was putting the cart before the horse, yet now with golden boy Gunn at the helm, a 10-year plan without ONE good movie made yet is something to be excited about. we've seen this movie already...
feels like i'm taking crazy pills
Yeah, I'm with you. It's nothing but a repeat of the same mistakes of the last decade, this new plan. Only difference is that Gunn is designated as the fall guy for when it fails.
Such is the copium of DC fandom: "Wait until this, wait until that..." And in the end, they're just left with the wisdom of John Fogerty: "Someday never comes."
+10 internet points for "champing at the bit"
I’ll still say that it was worthwhile, noteworthy, and dare I say important, that Winder Woman got to shatter several glass ceilings.
You don't need a mythic statement when you have Bob dressed up like a Mortal Kombat character. You don't anymore, but I imagined it anyway.
And it was better than most DC movies I've seen.
I think the that the bigger lesson to be learned by all that Campbell and Junge jazz is that these reoccurring themes and archetypes are emergent properties and we have much more in common with each other than we think.
What worries me is whether WB/DC have burned too much audience goodwill at this point. Between the Snyder fans not wanting to move on, and the rest of the public clearly having lost interest, Gunn & Co are going to have a huge uphill battle trying to put butts in seats. At least for anything that isn't Batman-related, since that's apparently the one DC property that people will still show up for.
As a movie in itself, I kinda liked it. It was a fun romp, hell, my Mom liked it and she only likes maybe 1 in 5 of these things, she gets drug along because everyone else in the family likes super hero movies.
But as a whole, to the DCEU, it was a one off and because of that it's kinda a mess. If ALL of them were like this from the beginning,true to the source material, as you can be given time and everything, with these fun cameos and any humor, like Man of Steel to here, this would have made money and been fine, the baggage before it just kills these movies.
People don't dislike Comic movies, just look at Guardians and Spiderverse, they just want different ones, stop hitting the formula beats and explore the genre.
Ive said it many times, the fact that WB owned DC since forever but marvel beat them to the cinematic universe, is an utter waste of IP and shows where their heads were.
Yeah, firmly up their ass. Fox had a similar problem by squandering the potential of X-Men.
"But they shouldn't be your life."
As I've gotten older (I'm about to turn 39), I've come to realize that about a lot of things I like. It's okay to be a fan of something, but it's dangerous to obsess over it. I've seen way too many toxic fanbases to not wanna become like that. Get a life, people.
To me the worst part was not the movies (that ranged from okay to oh my dear lord in heaven why is Superman causing 9-11). The worst part was the DC only fans. The mean spiritedness and almost vitriolic hate they had on offer. Where Marvel felt like it was a let’s come together and have a good time the subtext of smug superiority just made everything worst.
I shall never forgive Zack Snyder for spreading that poison in the name of petty, pointless revenge. None of it was ever going to bring his daughter back or even kill the pain of losing her the way he did.
Everyone I talk to about The Flash live action film, I make sure to tell them there's a superior version of this story in animated form and tell them they really need to watch The Flashpoint Paradox.
Well done Bob. Sadly your words are very true. I hope that DC can learn from this amd to be honest I think they as a comic company have always done an excellent job on one shots and shorter stories. They need to capitalize on that strength and hit Marvel where they fail. I'm a big Marvel fan boy comic wise but they have almost always failed with big events. DC has had some success with them but they tend to fail at points there too. They should come up with movies and properties that dint require a 10 year watch to get the story. If they can make compelling shorter stories that may be it a lot more and they could maybe even over take Marvel because there are many no comic fans who still dint have the time or patience to sit through a decade of films.
The world ended not with a bang; but with a whimper....
.... The DCEU was a Banshee Death Metal Howl, Black Metal Shriek of a deathcry that will be a Brown Note to whichever unfortunate soul happens to hear it!
This is an amazing video. genuinely it should be seen by James Gunn
I trust Bob's opinions not because he has the best opinions, but because he has the right opinions. The only time I ever cared about DC was during the Kids WB lineup, the spinoff drama Lois and Clark and the first season of the Harley Quinn animated series.
Bob, you are anchor of sanity with the amount garbage we had to put up with this. Please, I am one of the two people who actually enjoyed Howard the Duck.
I'm one of maybe three that liked X-Men Origins Wolverine, so I feel you.
DCEU's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
"Nothing beside remains,/Round that colossal decay/Boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away."
10 years of movies, instantly reduced to some multiverse cameo a few years into the Gunn-verse. hopefully
God damn. Well said.
that sign off.....fucken aye buddy. bob fucken gets it. it shouldn't be you life
I appreciate the summary, I super didn't have the time to watch the marthabox videos all the way through
To me the DCEU's biggest failing was always so obvious. They decided to do the dark and gritty version of their franchise rather than the campy, fun version. Which just doesn't work. Marvel *could* do dark and gritty. Its a much more grounded setting than DC is. They didn't, but they could probably pull it off. DC can't pull that off. Batman specifically *can* be dark and gritty, but even Batman is much better when its dark and campy. I have no idea why they kept trying to make a DCEU with the tone of "The Dark Knight". And it really was just miserable. I haven't watched the vast majority of the DCEU. But every single shot of every single movie from that disaster looks like it was filmed with a tragic family housefire happening just off screen. It looks so joyless.
And thats before you get into the fact that they were half assing it the whole time. Like, they kept trying to jump straight to "The Avengers" without laying the groundwork. The only thing more baffling than their decision to keep making these, is the fact that theres a decent sized chunk of people who were actually invested in the DCEU and seriously thought it was a competitor to Marvel.
It seems to me like Snyder is responsible for its general miserable aesthetic so I blame him. Everything else about them sucks too, but if there was a core of joy or entertainment to be found in the concept maybe the rest wouldn't have been so phoned in. But they chose "funeral weather" as their aesthetic right from the start and doomed the entire idea.
All that is why I refuse to give Snyder the pass Mr. Chipman consistently does. At its core, Snyder's "talent" consists of regurgitating superior source material with extra bad add-ons that bring down the quality of the project. Mr. Chipman praises him for "taking risks" which supposedly proves he's not a hack. But you only deserve that praise if you actually SUCCEED. Otherwise, you're just a degenerate gambler who keeps losing more than you ever won on bad bets anybody could have called. And that's before you get into Snyder's exploitation of the cult that further poisoned the discourse...
I want DC to make a film adaptation of Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality, the story where in which a team of characters from cancelled comics go on a quest to find and convince the writers to include them in the post-reboot universe.
I still find it funny that looking back at it all, Man of Steel is the only DCU movie I actually liked.
I think Gunn will succeed with the DCU and the only reason the DCEU was such a mess is because the architect (Zack Snyder) had zero understanding of the characters and zero respect for their history.
If Man of Steel and BvS were good, there wouldn't be a need for constant course correction and studio interference.
ONLY if Zaslav leaves him alone and Safron is simpatico with him. Neither are guarantees or sure bets at this point.
@@johnathonhaney8291Zaslav has more faith in Gunn than the previous regimes had in Snyder, and rightfully so. Gunn understands and respects the DC characters far more than Snyder ever did.
Also, it's an open secret that Zaslav has been planning on selling WB to NBCUNIVERSAL in 2024 so he won't be an issue for much longer.
That's why he gave Gunn a 4 years deal and asked for an 8 year plan, they want something of note to offer NBCUNIVERSAL during the acquisition.
If Teenaged Zac had realised that Watchmen was a parody and critique of Objectivism and not an endorsement, he might not have thought it was possible to actually make an entire series of Objectivist Superhero movies. Which it isn’t because celebrating selfishness is the opposite of heroism.
@@BaithNaYeah, I remember how Zaslav screwed over TCM this past weekend after shooting similar fairy dust up their ass. His "faith" in Gunn begins and ends with using his name to make that sale. Gunn strays off the path, he's gone.
The problem you outlined is what's wrong with Hollywood in general. Execs afraid to create/ invest in new ip.
AND new tech and technique. It's why the current hyped threat of AI will go nowhere.
very well said.
I was so bored by flashpoint I literally took a nap by the end of it