Animated DC versus Live Action DC...

[KrangPrime]

I've been re watching Justice League.

I think it repeats better than Superman and Batmans animated series for some reason.

What is it about the animated guys that generally get these characters more than the live action or current comic book guys do?

Is it a mentaility that comic books have to be a certain way that holds them back? or that you can't do certain things in live action?



Do the TV guys have more time to plan things out better with a slower schedule, or do they have more freedom to explore?



there are so MANY memorable moments that just bring a smile to me.
Luthor and Braniac teaming up.
The Justice Lords.
Flash and his attempts to market himself.
Bruce telling flash all of their secret identities in Wayne manor.
The Martian Manhunter discovering christmas.
The Multi Men.
The Clock King and the suicide squad.
The Question singing pop songs from groups he claims to hate as he breaks into a facility.
Green Arrow being fun and snarky.
Booster Gold being my favorite subsidiary hero.

and the series just kept on getting better, right down to that last moment of batman giving the villains a 10 second head start.
it never got old, it never got boring...

yet, with the DC movie verse, and the over bearing comic book verse, I never get this feeling of awesome.
I think the last dc comic I gave a chance was when superman split into red and blue...because I thought the i dea was interesting, and I never stuck with it.

anyone else feel the same way? to me, Bruce Timm and his partners just GET these characters and if they where in control, the dc universe would be better off.

 

[Edraven99]

I think you're being a bit too - no offense - narrow minded.

Most of these characters have been around for over 50 years and there have been iterations galore of each of them. While the core of what makes these characters "Superman" or "Batman" have more or less stayed the same over the years, there have been both lighter and darker versions of each. I really enjoyed the JL and JLU series myself as well, but there are older folks out there who would make the same argument as you that grew up in the "Silver Age" of comics, where the characters were closer to the 60s Batman TV series, that would hate that iteration of those characters.

Same as those guys that grew up with Frank Miller's original "Dark Knight" series or the "Batman: Year One" stuff or the rebooted Superman in the 90s where they tried to make him less powerful and he couldn't fly in space and his invulnerability came from a bio-electric "aura".

As for the DC movie verse, Superman to me will always be Christopher Reeve, but there are people out there that loved Man of Steel; same with the Burton verse Batman vs.the Nolan verse version. I personally agree with you that DC is missing the boat with these characters by trying to make them more "real world", but there are people out there that really like that take as well.

In my opinion, just enjoy the fact that we can even have this discussion. When I was a kid growing up, the only version of these characters that we got outside of comic books themselves was the "Superfriends"

 

[KrangPrime]

Real world CAN work, but only with certain character, I think.

I personally liked Nolan's Batman verse for the most part. I especially liked that he was the only one that allowed Bruce Wayne to move PAST Batman and have some semblence of normal life for the character. and to me, Batman Begins is a near perfect retelling of the origin for modern times.

But, real world, I think, wouldn't work with say, Green Lantern or Martian ManHunter. they are just too far out there.

Personally, so long as it's done RIGHT... and the vibe feels RIGHT....I generally can enjoy it.

I liked Batman beyond, which is a tad darker than most series.
I liked Batman, Brave and Bold. which is far far goofier and off the wall.
I liked Adam West Batman.....it was stuck in the innocence of the 60s b efore people became too jaded with their super hero stuff.
I liked Batman The Animated Series.
I liked Superman The Animated Series.
I liked All Star Superman movie.
I liked Justice League 'Doom'....
I liked Young Justice...

I didn't like Anime Batman.
I didn't like Frank Millers Dark Knight.
I didn't like Teen Titans 2003 on CN.

not being narrow minded, but I DO like when things just feel.....
..
...effortless....

to watch. where the fun that the people creating it just comes out on the screen and in the performances.

To me, 90% of the time, that falls on the animated side of things. maybe i'm not just a comic guy. I follow very few.

 

[Mektar]

Maybe its just a matter of budget and freedom. Less budget, more freedom and less concequences as they are all straight to dvd compared to the movie verse that is big budget so one would think less freedom meaning more involvement from the guys throwing the money in there. Just a guess really and even tho im not a hater of the mvie verse i do however prefer the animated universe more

 

[third3ye]

My 2 cents, I think it just comes down to who gets the nod to produce the series or films, and not about size of budget, TV vs feature film, scheduling pace, etc. WB is a studio that likes to give a lot of creative freedom to its filmmakers. Given the declining quality IMO of the DC animated features as of late, I think it's pretty clear that Timm and Dini deserve the credit for the earlier animated series, whereas Oliva and Liu haven't been able to give us the same consistency for animated features. I wasn't even impressed with Timm's last animated feature effort in JL:G&M, though I suspect that had more to do with the alternate versions of the trinity being less appealing than the originals.

On the film side, it's pretty clear Snyder is struggling to simply 'get it' on multiple fronts (particularly Superman), and yet WB is still relying on him for the future of the DCEU :facepalm We also have to understand that WB hires filmmakers who don't do CBMs exclusively and have other passion projects, whereas for guys like Oliva, DC animation is their only job. So among live action filmmakers, there'll be a wider range of folks who get it and can execute it (Nolan) and folks who can't (Snyder). Snyder is perhaps their truest comic book director but he's really just awful as a storyteller. I don't necessarily know if the solution is to copy Marvel Studios and hire a person like Fiege to oversee the DCEU, but hard to ignore that as a best practice considering Marvel's track record. Cinematic universes are almost like a TV series with its long-form storytelling aspects, and TV series have showrunners... get my drift? Whatever the solution should be, it's pretty clear WB's current method just doesn't work for the DCEU and they need to start making some changes.

 

[Wes R]

I'd take the animated series of the 90s and 2000s over even most of their newer animated stuff. That said Marvel should stick to live action as their animated stuff isn't so good most of the time.

 

[SuperFLY]

I loved justice league but you can't really compare that to the movies.

a) its a series so has far more scope to expand on back stories, put in non-stories that do nothing to enhance plots, it's just a bit of fun (ala 'the burning... itching... flash tv ads). You can take time to build chars up and when you decide to do a big 3 parter or something you don't need to waste time establishing char development

b) there are some things that work in a cartoon that just doesn't work in real life. take man of steel for example. the last justice league episodes show superman smashing darkseid through buildings etc.. and it was awesome. same thing happens in man of steel with zod and all I'm thinking is 'oh my god, 000s of people were probably just killed in that building!'

the newer animated stuff is terrible.. maybe im just getting old but to me its over childish purile trash. comparing the 90s amazing spiderman to that current one where he's turning into some tiny kid with massive eyes, breaking the 4th wall etc.. *cringe*. 90s transformers to the current badly animated or cg series where i saw them sitting there having a singing competition over a vid screen.. what the...

I'm sure I'm a little rose-tinted but I also think they're dropping the age range to try to show it to a wider audience (and this overly PC society we live in doesn't help) so you get bland, 'safe' non-stories rather than things that actually mean something to people.

Doubt these days you'd get the rampant xenophobic/racist storylines (anti-mutant) you did in the old x-men cartoons or watch optimus prime (and others) die in the return to cybertron animated movie.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

Different audiences, as simple as that.