Goyer's Martian Manhunter Comments Are Why DC Can't Have Nice Things

RossaLincoln

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Goyer's Martian Manhunter Comments Are Why DC Can't Have Nice Things



Here's one more example of how wrong things can go with DC's movie universe.

We've all had a bit of fun at the expense of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134682-Superman-Batman-Title-Revealed-And-Its-Hilarious] this morning, but joking aside it's worth asking how such a formless, generic title ended up being selected. Probably for the same reason that by and large, the DC-based movies really aren't as good as the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Warner Bros. and DC seem to hire people who kind of hate comic books to make their comic book movies.

Case in point, David Goyer, screenwriter of The Dark Knight trilogy and both Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman v. Marbury v. Madison, which makes him essentially the boss of bosses for the DC Cinematic Universe. Last night he appeared on the astoundingly sexist comments [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scriptnotes-podcast/id462495496?mt=2] about She-Hulk are generating the most discussion, but it's what he said when the conversation turned to DC Comics mainstay Martian Manhunter that tell us everything we need to know about precisely what is wrong with DC's attempt to clone Marvel's box office success.

Martian Manhunter, AKA J'onn J'onzz, is of course the last survivor of an ancient Martian civilization, notable for being one of the cofounders of the Justice League of America. He has not been announced to appear in the upcoming Justice League film however, and based on what Goyer said when asked about the character, it's looking like he likely won't. After first dismissing Martian Manhunter as too obscure to matter, Goyer explained how he can't see making use of the character without removing nearly everything associated with the character. I'll just let his words speak for themselves:

"He can't be fucking called the Martian Manhunter because that's goofy. He can be called Manhunter... The whole deal with Martian Manhunter is he's an alien living amongst us... So he comes down to Earth and decides, unlike Superman who already exists in the world now, that he's just going to be a homicide detective... So instead of using super-powers and mind-reading and like, oh, I could figure out if the President's lying or whatever, he just decides to disguise himself as a human homicide detective. Dare to dream!"

"I would set it up like The Day After Tomorrow. We discover one of those Earth-like planets... So maybe like... we get the DNA code from that planet and then grow him in a petri dish here... He's like in Area 51 or something and we're just basically... doing biopsies on him."

I probably don't need to tell you that Goyer is rather painfully uninformed about Martian Manhunter. Yes J'onn J'onzz assumes human form and supports himself by working as a homicide detective, but he also spends his off duty hours dressed as... Martian Manhunter, Superhero at large. Which is why he's well-known enough to be one of the JLA's charter members.

It's been said before, but Goyer almost appears to be ashamed that he's even associated with comic book films. So it is that the best he can come up with, when asked about one of DC's most interesting properties, is to delete any trace of the his origin story, misunderstand core aspects of his character, and saddle him with a genericized sobriquet so hackish it almost belongs in a Matrix sequel and plot points that reflect the worst cliches of the last 20 years.

I can't argue that Martian Manhunter isn't as well known as Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman. But using obscurity as an excuse to ignore him shows a painful lack of imagination. Marvel has made billions producing movies about ancient Norse gods and talking raccoons. Meanwhile, DC's attempt to copy Marvel is being run by someone who thinks the lone survivor of an ancient Martian civilization is too nerdy for audiences to accept. Make of that what you will.

Source: Badass Digest [http://www.themarysue.com/david-goyer-calls-she-hulk-sex-fantasy/].

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Jan 27, 2011
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*blinks slowly*

......And this guy is on the project........Why?

He clearly has little to no working knowledge of the subject matter, let alone any love for it. Why the hell is he on the project? *scratches head*
 

Ieyke

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Because DC makes terrible decisions.
Almost nothing but terrible decisions.
 

jabrwock

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To be fair, to your average movie-goer, MM's origin sounds Superman-like.

"He's the last of his race, come to Earth, and when not flying around using his superpowers he has a secret identity as an average human."

When you've already set up your movies to be as uninteresting and hyper-realistic (not to be confused with actual realism) as possible, having another super-alien means you have less time to flesh out the cast of sidekicks who are only there to show how serious everything is.

Poor Manhunter will likely be relegated to a cameo. Maybe when SM and BM form the JLA, Manhunter will be sitting at the table, but that's about it.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Okay.... fuck say what you will about the X-Men movies, at least they have the balls to actually call their characters their actual superhero names. The Marvel movies get around this by doing away with secret identities, so it's just as easy to call Captain America Steve Rogers.

Why does Warner Brothers think this guy is the right one to make superhero films?
 

erbkaiser

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Jun 20, 2009
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Marvel took the fact all their well known heroes were licensed out to other studios and made it into a strength: characters like Iron Man and Thor were really pretty much obscure to the main public, so they didn't need to worry about too much of a backlash when they overhauled them for the films.
And even the comic fans seem to like them.

DC on the other hand owns all its properties. And yet it still can't figure out what to do with them...
 

RatRace123

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aegix drakan said:
*blinks slowly*

......And this guy is on the project........Why?

He clearly has little to no working knowledge of the subject matter, let alone any love for it. Why the hell is he on the project? *scratches head*
He wrote the story for all 3 Dark Knight films. Which is apparently more than enough cred for DC to just say "Here, take all our characters and make them print money like Batman did, 'cause we don't know how."

That, of course, seems to completely ignore the fact that the Dark Knight trilogy was aiming for a more grounded, realistic feeling, which Goyer seems to have just revealed to be the only style he's capable of crafting stories with.
It's definitely not a style that DC should adopt wholesale if they hope to create a cinematic universe to rival Marvel's, and certainly wouldn't work for a character like Martian Manhunter.
 

Mr. Omega

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I don't think they'd have to adapt the detective thing in a film. One of the things Marvel has going for them is that they have struck the right balance between being respectful to the source material, but not slavishly devoted to it. They know what works about Iron Man (they went out of their way to skip the 'bodyguard' thing), what works about Thor (no Donald Blake in the films). A lot of people I know who know about Martian Manhunter just know him as J'onn J'onzz, because of the Justice League cartoon.

As I said in the She-Hulk article, it's not the fact that he doesn't know all about the character that bothers me. It's that he acts like he does know and casually dismisses it.
 

Kolyarut

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I'm not sure I'd entirely go in the same direction if I was adapting the character, but I don't think he's wrong in suggesting that Martian Manhunter isn't an especially cool hero. DC's got a great stable of characters, but it's also got some real clunkers, and I'd say MM is one of their highest profile ones. There's just very little appealing about a green dude with a weird forehead who dresses like He-Man gone wrong, whose origin story is largely similar to Superman's (last survivor of dead world), and whose powers are the same as Superman's except also he can read minds and he can shapeshift to look less awful.

There's also the issue of the Curse of Mars - the fact that the mere mention of Mars is absolute movie poison, because audiences associate Mars with awful cheesy pre-Star Wars pulp sci-fi, and by and large they're right to do so.

Clearly, there are comic readers out there who love the character, because he's managed to persist for an awfully long time, but I really can't think of a worse A/B-lister in either Marvel or DC's roster, as far as I'm concerned, and there are plenty of better characters you could fill a Justice League with.
 

Covarr

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David S. Goyer isn't a talented writer. I maintain that the Nolan brothers (especially Jonathan) were the driving forces behind any and all quality in the Dark Knight trilogy.

P.S. Thanks
 

Kolyarut

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Soviet Heavy said:
Okay.... fuck say what you will about the X-Men movies, at least they have the balls to actually call their characters their actual superhero names. The Marvel movies get around this by doing away with secret identities, so it's just as easy to call Captain America Steve Rogers.

Why does Warner Brothers think this guy is the right one to make superhero films?
For eleven years the X-Men movies were too embarrassed to allow their characters to dress in anything but black leather, I'm not sure they're the go-to-franchise for faithful adaptations...
 

Soviet Heavy

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Kolyarut said:
Soviet Heavy said:
Okay.... fuck say what you will about the X-Men movies, at least they have the balls to actually call their characters their actual superhero names. The Marvel movies get around this by doing away with secret identities, so it's just as easy to call Captain America Steve Rogers.

Why does Warner Brothers think this guy is the right one to make superhero films?
For eleven years the X-Men movies were too embarrassed to allow their characters to dress in anything but black leather, I'm not sure they're the go-to-franchise for faithful adaptations...
Correct, but at the same time, you had Patrick Stewart calling people Storm, Magneto, Rogue and Cyclops with utter sincerity. And their characters were pretty faithful to how they act in the comics. Black leather is a small concession to see Nightcrawler or Beast.
 

endtherapture

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3 articles today. 3 articles shaming the team behind the DCU films today. Can you spell "agenda"? Pretty sad if you ask me, at least make a judgement after the films are out instead of trying to smear the films before they've even got off the ground.

Anyway...I think calling him Manhunter would be much better. Martian makes him sounds very B-movie and old fashioned and kinda goofy.
 

Vivi22

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endtherapture said:
3 articles today. 3 articles shaming the team behind the DCU films today. Can you spell "agenda"? Pretty sad if you ask me, at least make a judgement after the films are out instead of trying to smear the films before they've even got off the ground.
You act as though pointing out that the title of the Batman v Superman movie is stupid, or that David Goyer is saying some utterly moronic things is somehow a judgement of the quality of the eventual movie. It's not.
 

Kolyarut

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Soviet Heavy said:
Correct, but at the same time, you had Patrick Stewart calling people Storm, Magneto, Rogue and Cyclops with utter sincerity. And their characters were pretty faithful to how they act in the comics. Black leather is a small concession to see Nightcrawler or Beast.
Mmmmhh... calling characters by their character names is really a bare minimum, else you're not adapting at all, you're just making up some new stuff. The character and story stuff is only very loosely related to their comic counterparts - for every Professor X and Magneto there's a Storm or a Mystique. They're not any better as adaptations than the Michael Bay Transformers films.

(also, no, the black leather was awful, and the fact that they had to crack the spandex joke to laugh over how stupid it would be if they were superheroes still makes me cringe)
 

RossaLincoln

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endtherapture said:
3 articles today. 3 articles shaming the team behind the DCU films today. Can you spell "agenda"? Pretty sad if you ask me, at least make a judgement after the films are out instead of trying to smear the films before they've even got off the ground.

Anyway...I think calling him Manhunter would be much better. Martian makes him sounds very B-movie and old fashioned and kinda goofy.
It needs to be said again that Marvel is making a movie about a talking raccoon named Rocket and his best friend the sentient tree. I'm pretty sure "goofy" and "old fashioned" aren't guarantors of badness or lack of audience response.
 

bdcjacko

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Jun 9, 2010
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ironman, Thor, and Capt. America were all B-list super heroes before their movies? I mean sure the average man on the street could have probably been able to name them if shown a picutre, but they aren't the A listers like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Wolverine or the Hulk. I feel like Martian Manhunter would be at least a B- lister, the average fan would say they recognize him. He shows up in the JLA cartoons and one off cartoon movies. It isn't like he is this Rocket Raccoon Marvel has a movie for.

Point is you can introduce this Martian Manhunter in other movies not unlike how Hawkeye and Black Widow were introduced in Thor and Ironman 2 respectively. Sure he is a silly character (i mean that from an outsiders perspective) but he isn't any sillier than Thor or all of Guardian;s cast. And that is half the point of superhero comic books, is to have these silly characters that do awesome things.

Goyer is short sighted and undervaluing what the mass will accept. Hell the masses just went in droves to see Godzilla. I think they can buy a flying green dude.
 

RealRT

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Wait a second, Goyer is in charge of DC Cinematic Universe? Well, now it makes sense why it blows, why the flying fuck does he still get job after Blade 3?