Take Man of Steel as the first example. Clark listens to his dad and just watches him die in the Tornado rather than reveal himself. The character as I've known him all of my life (since the early 70's) would never do that. He would also do everything he could to take the fight from the city once he saw the civilians getting hurt. They made it darker and made him more willing to take a life. He flat out killed Zod rather than try to fly off with him and stop him. I understand what they were trying to do, but they really missed the mark in my opinion. There were several other problems I had with that movie, but I forget them at the moment.
In Batman vs Superman:
Lex Luthor and his behavior was another huge change for the sake of change. I'm told he was driven mad off-screen, but he still acted too much like the joker and less like what Luthor had evolved into over the years in comics. The editing for the movie, the time taken to set up later movies rather than produce a smooth consistent story for this movie, and the numerous plot holes that the movie has just washed over any good there might have been. They tried to cram the content of around 4 to 5 movies into one while also being a lengthy trailer for Justice League.
I get why they decided to try to go dark and gritty, but the manner in which they did it made the overall thing not work well. They wanted to present a different perspective on what the world would be like with these beings than Marvel did, but lost something in the translation. I truly feel that a lot of their problem is meddling by WB executives. People want to like Superman and see his movies. People want to like Batman and see his movies. That Superman was not only unlikable, he wasn't relatable to any degree. Affleck as Batman did a decent job for what he had to work with. He presented a jaded, worn out Batman. I just took issue with his utterly stupid reasoning for wanting to kill Superman. I get that the graphic novel used that reasoning, but that doesn't make it any less stupid.
Here is what I think is happening: Execs at WB are worried that the Superhero bubble will burst in the near future and want to milk it as fast as possible. They want to establish enough of the DC universe to get to the "best" stories and the first stories suffer because of this. Add in that until NOW, they didn't have ONE creative director in charge of meshing it all together. Because of this, everything was a muddled mess.
First off, I would like to thank you for a straight-forward, well-explained reply. I appreciate it very much.
There are things that I both agree and disagree about the majority of your comments but I will be brief and stick with
Man Of Steel (because I'm at work and actually trying to be productive right now
) . It alludes to what I mentioned before about the evolution of comics characters.
I'm an old comics collector, buying thousands of them, mostly DC and Marvel titles, in my youth, starting in the 70's and ending (full-time purchases) in the late 90's. I watched Superman/Kal-El/Clart Kent evolved from what he used to be. As the character grew, he killed enemies to save humanity (
Superman #22 in the late 80's) and battled an enemy in the very middle of Metropolis (e.g. Doomsday in the same plot arc from the early 90's). Heck. Outside the comics, Superman killed Darkseid in a battle royale in the animated
Justice League (maybe early 2000's?) motivated more by revenge than by any high morale standard.
I respect your take on Jonathan Kent's death but I look at it differently. At the core of a true hero is ultimate sacrifice. Clark believed in him and his fears so much that he sacrificed the only father he ever knew for what Jonathan thought was for the better good of his son and the world. It was the last lesson Jonathan taught Clark. It instilled Kal-El with steely resolve to do whatever necessary despite the personal cost. Actually, that scene is Kevin Costner's best throughout the entire movie in my opinion.
Gotta get back to the grind. Did want to mention that I agree totally about what the Warner Bros executives are doing with the franchise. It may have turned off Christopher Nolan so badly that he did not wish to direct any of the current movies, which I think is a crying shame if true. Nolan's take on the Batman was exceptional in my book, especially in
The Dark Knight. I would like to believe his directorial touch would have made the current movies agreeable with a much larger percentage of their audiences.
