DC Extended Universe

Genre has little to do with the tone, the Thor movies could go straight Shakespearean heaviness (no getting hit by cars, no taking the subway to the next fight, no Loki illusion jokes) and it would have a different tone but still be the same genre.

You do realize that Shakespeare had moments of supreme levity in his plays, right? He wrote both dramas and comedies. So "Shakespearean" is definitely a tone that the movie was going for, especially since Kenneth Branagh had direct Shakespeare before. Those moments of levity? Are exactly the kinds of things you would see in a Shakespeare play (in the modern day, since there were no cars in Shakespeare's time).

That's why I called it Shakespearean heaviness, he had his comedies but when he gets heavy it gets HEAVY. It's a nice diversion from the actual topic, though.

And of course superhero movies have different tones, the argument is that the MCU movies are pretty uniform in tone. They're not quite as light and silly as the Fantastic Four films or Spider Man, but not quite as dark and serious as The Dark Knight Saga or Man of Steel. They are probably just underneath the X-Men films in that manner.

The subject of what the tone will be is of major concern to most studios, the difference between funny and parody can make or break the tone.

edited 30th Jul '15 3:34:28 PM by KJMackley

yeah i would agree that the tone in most marvel movies is more uniform than not. it's not necessarily something that you can put into words all that easily but it's pretty noticeable.

as i've said elsewhere, just compare any two films in the mcu to each other, and then compare them to say, the tim burton batman movies. you'll find a lot more similarities than differences between the two mcu films, guaranteed. it almost feels like there's a "house style" of marvel film-making in much the same way dc or marvel are said to have house styles of drawing.

edited 30th Jul '15 4:59:50 PM by wehrmacht

@Advertising: I don't think the Stingers should count when describing what the movies are about. They're short little bits designed to encourage people to stick around through the credits, some of them aren't even made by the people directing the movie. One minute at the end of a movie is not enough to dictate what it's all about.

And how is having secondary characters from previous movies (Coulson in Thor, Howard Stark in Captain America) advertising the next movie? How does it even qualify as "advertising" rather than just "part of being a shared universe"?

Mmm...let's take this apart.

There is the genre. I think we can all agree that those are different in each Marvel franchise and sometimes even within said franchise (Captain America comes to mind). I am not sure if DC will do the same thing or put the emphasis elsewhere.

Then there is the style. That includes staging, structure and visuals. And despite what some people say about the directors not being "allowed" to use their signature style, the different franchises are actually visually very different from each other. The most easiest way to see this is to pay attention to colour. The Incredible Hulk was extremely green, Guardians of the Galaxy uses red-tones, The Winter Soldier used muted colours, Agents of Shield is grey and blue, The Avengers movie use a lot of blue, too, but instead of grey they add primary colours, Daredevil uses harsh yellow, orange and red, Thor a lot of Gold and The first Avengers focussed on red, white and blue to underline the propaganda aspect and the Avengers. It looks like the DC universe will go mostly for a lot of grey and muted colours, but it is too early to tell how predominant that will be.

Then there is the kind and level of humour which is used. This is another aspect which varies. Avengers and Iron Man tend to use a lot of one-liners, but The Winter Soldier and Ant-man go for a very dry and witty humour. Got G goes batshit crazy and is more prone to make an inappropriate joke (but without going all potty humour). And the Thor humour is actually very Shakespearean. Marvel can go very serious or it can go on a fun ride, though they usually prefer to do the fun ride. Man of Steel tried to use humour, too (the Brezel truck and the soldier which swoons over superman come to mind), but only very sporadically and personally I found most of the jokes pretty unfunny. But I am ready to bet that some of the script writers DC has lined up might do better in this regard than Goya.

And finally there is the "tone" of the movie. And all the elements I mentioned play into it. If you do a Thriller, you would pick the fitting colour and fitting music for one. If you don't, it doesn't feel like a thriller. At best it feels like a different genre, at worst it feel horrible inconsistent. In any case, since genre, style and humour does differ in the Marvel movies, I dispute that they all have the same tone. Take Ant-man for example. It felt way more laid back and "smaller" (no pun intended) than the usual Marvel movie, and the humour was often very cynical.

A Shared Universe is typically that these characters have isolated adventures and are, well, still in the same "sandbox." With Thor and Captain America having specific elements leading into The Avengers, the MCU is more of an anthology where every movie is connected with characters and plot elements that coalesce into the BIG team-up. It's made very clear they don't exist in a vacuum, to the point the movie that follows it sequentially is often more of a sequel than the actual sequel. At this point everything is hyping Civil War short term and Infinity War long term.

I wonder...the X-men verse is mostly a collection of sequels and spin-offs. The MCU feels more like a giant universe which you can explore completely, but you can just as easily skip some parts (IE the Netflix shows or Got G). Currently the DC universe looks like it will shape up to be something inbetween, with most of the movies building on each other, but without the need to have Batman or Superman show up in each sequel.

Suicide Squad will definitely be the deciding factor on this. Dawn of Justice for all intents and purposes is a sequel to Man of Steel (in themes, if not the name), while Suicide Squad at its core is a Lower-Deck Episode. We do have Wonder Woman on the way before Justice League, with Aquaman and Flash after that, and all would have to be fairly big movies to do the characters properly.

Snyder said that Justice League is their focus, while letting the other character movies do their own story. So it seems the main way it would be different from the MCU is that each character movie will be a focus story in their particular arena, letting Justice League be the big crossover instead of another part of the story.

Personally I only hope not all these movie will be so grey. I might actually like Man of Steel, but that's a point I can't really defend the movie on.

Batman v Superman already looks like it has more color than Man of Steel. Superman's suit is more colorful than the Man of Steel suit.

I think it is because Batman v Superman has a better cinematographer.

Larry Fong wasn't available to work on Man of Steel. He worked on 300 and Watchmen. The only movie he worked on during Man of Steel's production was Now You See Me.

edited 31st Jul '15 3:06:05 AM by Halberdier17

DC always struggled with a close knit, compacted continuity in contrast to Marvel. That was because DC had many properties that were separated until crossovers happened. Marvel on the other hand always made characters, events, and locations so closely connected that it was hard to let any of those things breath on their own. In Marvel pretty much everything is jumbled, while DC things tend to remain disconnected. so DC movies should do a better job at stand alones because that's their greatest strength. but it als odepends on what happens in these adaptions. for the MCU everyone has been focusing more on who these characters really are. basically their life story defined by their personality and blah blah blah. im not sure how DC movies will turn out differently for aquaman wonder woman blah blah blah. MOS was weird.

edited 31st Jul '15 11:23:41 AM by xbimpy

True, and I appreciate that effort. But the movie still seems overall darker (presumably because most of it takes part in Gotham City), and Wonder Woman has a distinctly darker shade of red on her armor. I do hope this is just for this movie's athmosphere, though I don't believe that rumor they intend to not put any humor at all in their movies (I think it has been debunked anyway).

That was just a rumor because even Man of Steel had moments of levity. I thought some scenes were funny in Man of Steel.

Also for Suicide Squad David Ayer said despite the teaser being very dark the movie is actually hilarious.

I sure hope so, because even though I really loved that trailer, I felt like this athmosphere wasn't really like something I'd expect for the Suicide Squad. I'll wait to see the film. I'll be glad if it's really hilarious^^

edited 31st Jul '15 12:43:05 PM by Theokal3

I know. Especially the fact that Suicide Squad will be DC's answer to (Fox) Marvel's Deadpool.

I mean, which would you want to go see? An ultra serious movie where all the action is real, gritty and violent with no sense of self-awareness over its own grim darkness. Or one that is basically Guardians of the Galaxy on steroids (that is the best way to describe the upcoming Deadpool movie).

Personally I think either approach is valid.

I would want to watch both, because people has got to have varied tastes.

I'd also want to watch both.

people act like having a serious movie is somehow a bad thing even when we already have a bunch of light-hearted "fun" superhero flicks as it is. superhero films shouldn't be pigeonholed into being one or the other.

I just want a good movie. Though I admit, I personally prefer it if they don't go all melodramatic. But that's more mine preference. If other people enjoy it, I won't rip into a movie for that.

I want watch both too (probably should of added that in my last comment so people won't jump the gun and assume I didn't want to watch it because it is too serious).

Guess my problem with this movie (which ties into my personal distaste for David Goyer's style) is how it just seem to assume humor of any form equates to being "childish". Especially when compare to the Deadpool movie that will most likely have a balance between over the top comedy action and dark more somber moments since it is an adaption to Deadpool. Maybe the film (Suicide Squad) will have some black comedy cause let's face it how can an idea like sending out dangerous criminals to stop terrorist and save the world does not scream 'Hilarity Ensure'.

Plus, if anybody can't tell, I'm very excited for the Deadpool movie. So my previous comment is more of me thinking that movie will be better then Suicide Squad won't be good.

david goyer seems like an asshole in general from what i've heard and most people think he's not a very good writer either.

Well, it's a good thing that David Goyer didn't write Suicide Squad then. It was written and directed by David Ayer.

Well that's one error I am glad someone points out to me. Guess I am still thinking about how the production of these movies are done by the guy that leads me to assume he has involvement with this movie.

Goyer is a decent writer. Not everything he touches turns to gold but he was a major player in the Blade and Nolan Batman movies (He directed Blade: Trinity but given the Troubled Production and difficulty with Snipes it's amazing the film was even somewhat coherent). What really happened was he was on a podcast and in trying to play to the crowd said that She-Hulk is just a sexual fantasy, which earned the ire of the internet. That's all anyone has to go on with regards to him being an "asshole," but who isn't just a little bit more of an asshole on the internet.

edited 3rd Aug '15 11:02:35 AM by KJMackley