Let me start by saying, if you haven't listened to the latest episode yet, do yourself a favor, and go listen. I'm so passionate that you should go listen in fact, that ill make it easier for you to get there.
The last episode could have run for 3 and a half hours and I still would not have gotten out all that I needed to say. I am not naïve enough to think that everything I think about the DC films is the consensus. I know that Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice was widely panned. However, the film will always be better than the credit it gets.
The same goes for Batflek. Ben was a great Batman. His ability to really be the first actor to play what felt like an 'older' Batman was spot on.
The fact that the much sought after Snydercut of the Justice League film was not only a reality, but was even eventually released to the pleasure of every DC/Zack Snyder fan out there should speak volumes about the greatness that could have been, the greatness that was, and the greatness that could possibly be again.
I say all that to say this: perhaps what Reeves is doing with The Batman is, in my opinion, the way that the rest of DCEU should aim. The whole 'in your own universe' setting worked so well. That is born out by the fact that you as the audience weren't spending the better part of sixty percent of the movie trying to tie everything together, and the film makers weren't scrambling to work within an existing continuity forcing their hands in all the best parts of being the director of a comic book movie. You could just enjoy what you were doing at that moment.
Imagine how much it must have sucked for all the various directors of the Marvel films to have had this set list of rules they couldn't break in their films. As any filmmaker will tell you making a work of cinema is one of the most expressive forms of art there is. You're not restrained by the words on paper that tap into the imagination to create images, and you don't have to be
restricted by the single frame of a painting. You get to create living, moving, art. I mean, look at
Snyder's Justice League. You can literally take any single frame of that film, print it, and hang it as incredible pop culture art. In my estimation the kind of restriction marvel asks of their directors is like telling Van Gogh that he can only
paint in white on a white canvas that had to be displayed in the dark.
As far as DC goes, the future is bright and the fanbase is behind it provided the heads of the Warner Brothers studios step out of the way, stop trying to shoe-horn all the films into a single continuity, and allow their selection of insanely talented directors to create the beautiful works of art they are trying to. With more movies and shows in production, we at The A&D Show believe, the sky's the limit for DC.
What say you?
Do you prefer the one off events?
Or do you enjoy the meshing and continuity of the Marvel franchise?
Written by:
Austin Jabs
Co-host of The A&D Show
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