Darth Rosenberg said:
Strikes me that you've not really closely watched much of his work across the years, because I'm fairly sure the critical consensus regarding acting and characterisation across shows and comics like Buffy, Firefly, even Dollhouse, Astonishing X-Men, and so on would not be as you try to describe. His characters have dynamic range, yes, and being an auteur his work tends to be recognisable (themes of found family are primary, usually found alongside a deep mistrust of power structures/hierarchies. humanist hope and fatalism also run through, I'd say, all his works. the final brilliant chitchat between Vision and Ultron in AoU is pretty much his own personal belief system cut down the middle. what profoundly humane scenes reveal Snyder's soul, I wonder?) - which is a positive trait, unless you're an opponent of anything approaching auteur theory.
I?ve watched Whedon?s work just fine. At best I get something like Buff which I start out as liking but over time the cracks start to show. This isn?t even getting into more troubling aspects of his work like his fetshism is skinny, white women clobbering things twice their size (no one would have been whining about Gal Gadot?s body if she were cast by Whedon) or his creepy self inserts like Xander Harris. If thst stuff floats your boat, good for you. It doesn?t do much for me these days.
Darth Rosenberg said:
If you simply object to his style, then fair enough. But questioning his works depth of humanity is clearly reaching.
I can say the same of your attitude towards Snyder?s DCEU work.
Darth Rosenberg said:
Really? MoS and BvS represent any level of understanding of these two characters (since when was 'complete idiocy' a defining trait of the World's Greatest Detective, or Supes, for that matter)?
If you define idiocy as not being omniscient and being unable to read the script to know the plot ahead of time, I suppose I can see how they come across as idiots to you.
I mean, Batman?s status as the World?s Greatest Detective has always been laughably overrated given it amounts to him chasing blatantly obvious clues left by criminals who in many cases don?t care if anyone knows about their crimes and in others
want want to be caught. Given he?s done more detective work in BvS than previous films, it seems you really want a detective, you want Sherlock Holmes, standing over a footprint and extrapolating the gross national income of India.
And frankly, given how notoriously contradicting the depiction of DC?s characters are across stories and media, sometimes even within the same month of released comics, I can?t take Snyder just doing his own thing like everyone else has as reason to rip him apart.
Darth Rosenberg said:
Or any level of understanding of how to build an extended universe? I mean, I know they were fast-tracking copying Marvel Studios and Disney, but it takes a very special level of incompetence to pull off what BvS did.
If one assumes that everything Marvel does is Holy Writ, then of course, every other way is the bad way it seems.
Darth Rosenberg said:
Is Snyder wholly to blame for that? No, clearly not given he didn't scrawl the script out. But he was responsible for setting the tone, and trying to cohere a narrative worth a damn in editing, so he certainly takes a decent portion of the blame (had he half a brain he could've tried to fix the whole Martha nonsense. had he any self-awareness he might've just admitted early on that Eissenberg really wasn't right for an appallingly written role. were he not such a selfish lover of violence, he might've not executed Jimmy Olsen off-hand in case someone else down the line had stuff for Supes' iconic sidekick to do. and so on).
Snyder has zero control in editing. And between being wall paper in every film he?s appeared in, getting killed off in Smallville and basically having to be re-written into a completely unrecognisable character on Supergirl, I can hardly blame Snyder for being one of many to come to the conclusion of ?yeah this guy really adds nothing of value, does he??.
Darth Rosenberg said:
It's clear he's not overly willing to divert away from surface-level masculinist fantasies where these kinds of stories are concerned,
I have a lot of difficulty taking this argument seriously when you champion the MCU, whose version of Steve Rogers is nothing more than a self righteous, hypocritical war hawk whose only true skill and calling is beating the crap out of people and yet has somehow amassed a ridiculous amount of popularity.
Darth Rosenberg said:
so I'm deeply skeptical he could've successfully steered Justice League into slightly less self-serious territory. Like Whedon's style or not, but he will go down in pop-culture as an incredibly adept comic writer in TV, film, web series, and comicbooks (and as director, as Much Ado About Nothing demonstrates). Snyder will never be known as someone with a natural grasp for the ebb and flow of banter. He can compose violent visual frames suffocated in CG--- aaand what else? He's orgiastically smashed towns and cities to pieces with the morose MoS, made Batman a relentlessly sadistic - and bewilderingly unintelligent - murderer, but what else can Snyder offer with these characters and this muddled universe?
Are you Whedon?s auto biographer or something? Cause I really do not get why you?re trying this hard to shill him to me and honestly, it?s getting a little creepy.
As for what Snyder could do with them? How about actually focusing on their role as superheroes while acknowledging the fears and concerns of the people they protect. Something the MCU has avoided in Phases 1 and 2 and fantastically bungled in Phase 3 in Civil War. It?s amusing to me how Snyder is accused of promoting fascism in his DCEU films, yet the MCU is the one that champions putting unearned faith in charismatic individuals, while depicting the authorities put in place as inherently corrupt and incompetent, while the people they defend are helpless peons with no agency, their voices drowned out by the sounds of the melodramatic whining by the main characters. Civil War was supposed to be a valid examination of the Avengers? actions. But I guess the writers thought that wasn?t sexy enough so instead we got more drama with Bucky with the Good Hair and the destruction of Steve and Tony?s non-existent friendship. Had the MCU stuck to what they know best, quippy, bright action comedies, I?d have been more or less fine with it. But when Age of Ultron and Civil War decided that teen level melodrama was secondary to the themes they were meant to be examining, this universe went from mildly entertaining to outright offensive. These movies do the exact same crap the CW DC shows get slammed for except movies have less of an excuse given the shows don?t even have the budget for high octane adventure the films do and thus the soap opera crap is meant to fill in time between the punching.
And frankly, the Martha thing has been taken out of context so often for a cheap shot, I'm not even going to bother dignifying it by trying to explain it for the millionth time to someone who doesn't bother actually paying attention to that scene.
Darth Rosenberg said:
As for Johns: I've read only the tiniest slither of DC comics
And yet here you are crying about how Snyder got it all wrong.
Darth Rosenberg said:
(enough to know Joss should really be writing and directing a Kate Kane Batwoman film, not Batgirl), and never anything by him, but I'm reliably told he's known as a conservative, particularly with the key characters including the trinity? If so, how the hell did he let Warner and Snyder piss all over Batman and Superman and jam all they tried to into BvS (which was still trying to sort out its narrative details in the extended edit, so hapless was the theatrical pass)? Warner and DC's Kevin Feige he ain' - at least not yet. The apparently troubled production of Justice League (where Whedon, of all people, will be helping reshape it) doesn't suggest that'll change anytime soon, either.
You know it helps if you actually pay attention to what people say or do some damn research instead of saying, ?I heard it from a guy? (which interestingly enough describes just about every click bait report on the DCEU). Johns had next to zero control over what happened with BvS. His role amounted to a glorified consultant that WB mostly ignored. It wasn?t until May of last year, he was appointed the role of running the DCEU so maybe wait until the new films come out before you decide what he is and isn?t? Or maybe actually read something by the guy so you don?t come across like as talking about crap you don?t know about like the idiots spreading these rumors.
Whedon is not reshaping anything. he's the guy directing some additional acenes and completing the post-production work already started by Zack. At least, that's what we've been told DOZENS of times. Of course, this movie could be a Snyder movie from top to bottom and people would insist was the Holy Grail just because Whedon was involved in it. Only climate change deniers are as disconnected from reality.