The DCEU is a mess, that is fairly obvious. Of the five films that have been been released, I have seen four (all of them except Man of Steel) and enjoyed one (Wonder Woman). The fact that these films have been disappointing irritates me quite a lot. Not because I’m a huge fan of the comics, but because a lot of these characters are, at least to some degree, cultural icons who deserve some degree of respect in these adaptations.
In this new series, which I am giving the creative title ‘Fixing the DCEU’, I am going attempt to do exactly that: fix the DCEU. I’m going to try and fix all of the existing films which I have seen, and once that’s done, I’m going to continue on and build up my own DCEU. It’s going to be an interesting journey, and we’re going to visit some pretty odd places. But before we delve into building our very own cinematic universe, we need to work out what went wrong with the existing one.
1: Originality
This is an umbrella term that I’m using for two things: the originality of the idea of the DCEU itself and the originality of the films. It might sound slightly odd to call the idea of the DCEU unoriginal, so let me explain.
The DCEU is a shameless rip-off of the MCU. It was one of several recent attempts to copy Marvel’s formula, and like most of these universes it came of as a cash-grab. For reasons which I will get into later, these universes failed to reach the same level of success as the MCU. They also failed to copy the parts of the MCU which made it successful, which I’ll also touch upon later.
This unoriginal universe has managed to produce quite a few unoriginal films. This goes from the films themselves to the marketing around the films. A perfect example of this is the posters of Civil War and Batman Vs Superman, which are almost identical. The similarities between these two films go beyond the posters, with the premises of the two films coincidentally being very similar. Other DC films bare striking similarities to Marvel’s offerings. Wonder Woman has some very similar story beats to Captain America: The First Avenger, and JusticeLeague was meant to be DC’s version of The Avengers (in more ways that just being team-up films).
2: The Darkness
Oh my god these films are so dark. Not in terms of their story (although they try to be), but they are literally dark. Especially in the earlier films, there is a very washed out colour palette. I know that this was mostly due to Zack Snyder’s style, and he uses it in the vast majority of his films. It can work, but god is it boring to look at. Compared to the bright colours of the MCU, it really doesn’t stand out.
The MCU’s visual style is much more attractive than the DCUs dark colours, and it makes its films much more interesting to watch. Thor : Ragnarok is a great film anyway, but I would happily watch it just for its visuals. The bright colours and varied backgrounds (particularly on Sakaar) draw your attention into the world of the film and make it seem alive. The visuals of the DCEU’s films, for the most part, do the exact opposite. They are meant to reflect the tone of the film, but end up creating an uninteresting-looking world.
The visuals of the MCU also work because they are based on the comics. Comic books are normally colourful and trippy and camp, an aspect of them which the MCU reflects in its colour scheme. While some recent comics DC, in particular the New 52, have had a darker tone and colour scheme, DC’s comics are equally bright and camp. It would be a mistake at this point to completely embrace the comics, as this would make the films of the DCEU seem too similar to the MCU, but they should try and find a visual style closer to the comics.
3: Studio Intervention
This isn’t a problem that’s limited to the DCEU, or indeed cinematic universes as a whole, but it has been a huge problem for the DCEU. Creating the universe matters more than creating good films. Dates for films are set years before they even enter development (although Marvel do this to some extent they’ve been getting better in this regard), which puts pressure on the production of the film, often creating problems when the film actually enters production. David Ayer, the writer-director of Suicide Squad was only given six weeks to write the film, and it really shows.
As I’ve said, this problem extends beyond the DCEU into other film franchises and cinematic universes. Solo‘s directors were fired by the studio and replaced half-way though filming, which has left a film which felt like a mishmash of two different films. The Flash, which was a planned future film of the DCEU (who knows what will happen to it after the mess that was Justice League) went through similar issues. Two different directors left the project due to creative differences, and the third set of directors were confirmed as being in the role earlier in the year.
As the MCU shows, studio intervention is not the way forward. One of the reasons their films stand out is because they do the opposite of this: give the directors they appoint autonomy. Instead of forcing their will upon the directors and creating a film somewhere in between the director’s and the studio’s vision, which really appeals to no-one. The directors are allowed to create whatever they want, building upon the foundations of the work of the previous directors. This has allowed them to create an interesting, varied universe. Ragnarok is a great example of this. Taika Waititi was given creative freedom, and allowed to go in whatever direction that he wanted and what he ended up making stands out as (in my opinion) one of the MCU’s funniest, most compelling films to date.
4: Earning a Cinematic Universe
This is the biggest problem that most cinematic universes have. They rush into creating the universe without building it up first. After the success of the MCU, every studio wanted to create their cash cow. Instead of slowly building up this universe, they jumped straight to their own version of Avengers Assemble (as it’s called in the UK). They just seem to forget the five (if you include The Incredible Hulk) films that it took to create the interesting world and a cast of compelling characters.
This problem is evident in so many failed cinematic universes. Instead of making a compelling film with characters you want to see more of, a lot of time is wasted to set up the future films (which we usually never see). The Mummy (2017) is probably the worst offender in this regard. Russel Crowe’s character is way to prevalent in this film considering that he isn’t the main character. It would kind of be like Nick Fury appearing in half of Iron Man instead of just the final scene (it is exactly that, seeing as Dr Jekyll is a shameless copy of Nick Fury).
The DCEU is also guilty of this, and this is one of the problems that I can most easily tackle in this series. Instead of establishing their characters and universes through individual films, Warner Brothers rushed straight passed them to a crossover. This offence is perhaps worse, because it doesn’t just skip to Avengers Assemble but instead skipping further ahead to their own version of Captain America : Civil War. This film worked because we had followed these characters for years by then; we understood their motivations and had reasons to support one side or the other (or perhaps neither). This is an issue that I’ll bring up again when I reach my version of Batman v Superman, because it’s so interlinked with this film.
So, now we have established the problems with the DCEU we can get on to fixing the individual films. I’m not sure exactly how often I’ll visit this series, but it will come back fairly regularly. Next week will probably be something slightly different, more based on my own stuff than existing franchises.
Next time on fixing the DCEU: Batman: Return to Arkham
Post-Millennial Panda 