DC Extended Universe

The difference is that the entire basic premise of Planet of the Apes is about talking primates. In the DC universe, talking apes are just one aspect of the Fantasy Kitchen Sink the characters live in. Notice how the Marvel Cinematic Universe didn't just dive right into the weird stuff. It started with Iron Man, who was basically an exaggerated version of something that could conceivably happen in real life (robotic armor, I mean), then the movies brought in the more far-fetched ones like Hulk and Thor. The idea of Asgard was introduced in its own movie where the whole premise was about Asgard. Then Avengers brought in aliens. Then Guardians of the Galaxy brought in an entire alien-based setting with weird aliens in a movie where the whole premise was about weird aliens. If Rocket Raccoon had popped up in the first Iron Man with a quick "Oh, he's an alien" explanation, you can bet the general audience sure as heck wouldn't take it seriously. They'd laugh. Heck, that's exactly what happened with Howard the Duck's cameo. "A talking cartoon duck out of nowhere? Ha! What?"

But the DC Cinematic Universe won't really be able to ease into the idea of Grodd. Not unless they either A) give Grodd an entire prequel movie to himself or B) spend a good portion of one of Flash's movies establishing Grodd's backstory.

I think option A would probably work out the best, except I doubt Grodd's really high up on DC's list of characters worthy of standalone movies, so that's not gonna happen.

The problem with option B is that Grodd's backstory has no relation to Flash whatsoever. Heck, I don't think he'd even have anything to do with Flash if he didn't happen to show up in Central City for whatever reason. The TV show fixed this by tying Grodd's backstory into Star Labs.

But my issue with that is, well, if we're going to start changing up Grodd's backstory to suit the narrative, why is he even a gorilla in the first place? He obviously could've just been a regular metahuman (maybe a giant one with super strength or something), which would save the writers the trouble of having to justify why a gorilla has human intellect.

The only reason I can think of that being a gorilla is a relevant part of Grodd's character is that it makes him a non-human, which probably factors into his mindset and motivations and stuff. But then, the Flash TV show hasn't introduced Gorilla City yet or even shown whether or not Grodd sympathizes with other apes. Maybe it will later, though (if they have the budget).

But even if the movies do explain Grodd's backstory, it's just gonna bog down the movie the way bringing in a random confusing villain with no real ties to the hero always bogs down the movie. "Electro is a bad guy in the comics, therefore he should be in this movie, and who cares if it makes things more convoluted!"

Really good superhero movies use a villain with a connection to the hero, like Iron Monger or Yellowjacket or Loki. The narrative didn't have to grind to a halt to shove those characters up the story's butt. They just fit naturally.

If anything, Reverse Flash / Professor Zoom / whatever-his-name-is is probably the best candidate for the villain of the Flash movie. Grodd should only show up in Flash 4 or 5 when they start running out of ideas.

Well, I did say there are some aspects of the show that I do really enjoy. Grodd's just not one of them. Captain Cold was done really well, though.

Also, to be fair, Cisco made a bunch of jokes about Grodd in the episode, but, well, the comic relief character will always crack jokes about the villain regardless of context, so overall Grodd was still treated seriously. There was also the "Grodd hates bananas!" scene, but I'm honestly not sure if that was intended to be funny, at least for the reasons the writers meant it to be.

edited 30th Aug '15 6:24:34 AM by spashthebandragon

If they were literally thinking "let's ape Batman Begins" then they dropped the ball on that too. BB starts with Bruce meeting Ras Al Ghul, and then gives us all the backstory intermingled with his training. MOS starts on Krypton, Clark as an adult doesn't even show up until about the 20 minute mark, which actually follows the pattern established by Superman: The Movie.

Once again, those are superfluous details. Superman: The Movie had absolutely no flashbacks - it was completely linear. Man of Steel, on the other hand, took a page from Batman Begins and after the opening sequence, interspersed adult Clark with flashbacks to Clark's childhood.

But the DC Cinematic Universe won't really be able to ease into the idea of Grodd. Not unless they either A) give Grodd an entire prequel movie to himself or B) spend a good portion of one of Flash's movies establishing Grodd's backstory.

You are putting way too much thought into this. The DCEU doesn't need to ease into Gorilla Grodd. Right now, Suicide Squad is introducing a bunch of different villains, one of whom (Enchantress) has literal magic powers. At which point, the audience will either accept it or they won't.

And once they do accept it, all they need to do is open the Flash film with a scene like this:

FLASH: Oh crap, it's Gorilla Grodd!

GREEN LANTERN: Wait, what? You have an enemy named Gorilla Grodd?

FLASH: Yeah, he's a talking gorilla named Grodd. What was I supposed to call him?

Boom. Taken care of.

"Electro is a bad guy in the comics, therefore he should be in this movie, and who cares if it makes things more convoluted!"

The problems with Amazing Spider-Man 2 were many and varied, but making Electro a bad guy was not one of them.

Really good superhero movies use a villain with a connection to the hero, like Iron Monger or Yellowjacket or Loki. The narrative didn't have to grind to a halt to shove those characters up the story's butt. They just fit naturally.

Except if you keep using villains with a "personal connection," suddenly you will have to twist the narrative in order to give any villain a "personal connection." The fact of the matter is, giving one or two villains a personal connection is fine, but there are some villains where it just doesn't make any sense. But you still want to use those villains, because they are iconic and interesting.

For example: The Dark Knight has arguably one of the best supervillains ever, the Joker. But, hey, unlike in Burton's Batman, this time the Joker has no personal connection to Batman. He's just some guy who decided one day to put on clown makeup and make some chaos. However, this just makes him scarier, because we don't have any backstory or any reason for him doing all this.

Gorilla Grodd doesn't need to have a personal connection, but he can totally show up in a Flash movie. If audiences can accept a talking raccoon whose backstory is completely revealed only in dialogue and his walking-and-talking tree friend, then they will totally accept a talking supervillain gorilla.

edited 30th Aug '15 8:43:51 AM by alliterator

So the talking telepathic gorilla is just supposed to show up without any sort of outside context or explanation whatsoever? Y'know, I could accept that if Grodd is supposed to be a background villain or a comic relief villain or something, but if he's supposed to be the main antagonist of the movie, that'd be a pretty crappy way to introduce him into the story.

I mean, imagine if Age of Ultron had opened with:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Hey, what's with this evil robot trying to kill everyone?

IRON MAN: I dunno, lol. I guess evil robots are just a thing that exist. Just another day in the life of the Avengers, amiright?

HAWKEYE: We call him "Ultron" because he seems pretty ultra.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Oh, okay.

*and then the rest of the movie expects you to take Ultron 100% seriously*

Yes it was. The movie spent a bunch of time introducing Max Dillon and trying to make him sympathetic to the audience, and then in the end Electro amounted to nothing more than a generic mook for Harry Osborn. So that's however-much screentime wasted that could've been spent focusing on the actually important characters like Peter or Gwen or Harry. Electro's presence in the movie resulted in things being way too cluttered and inelegant.

Heck, Electro actually could've appeared without explanation, unlike Grodd, because he's basically just a "generic bad guy with electricity powers." He doesn't need a complex backstory to justify his existence the way Grodd does. It's a setting where humans can get superpowers. Now, if the DC movie universe was a setting where talking animals were normal, then Grodd wouldn't need a backstory, but even with all the weird crap that goes on in the DC universe, talking animals just aren't that commonplace.

The difference between the Dark Knight Joker and the hypothetical DC Cinematic Universe Grodd is that Dark Knight Joker was just a regular person. Heck, they even took out the chemical bath origin. A regular person doesn't really need any explanation to justify his existence the way a friggin' talking telepathic gorilla from Gorilla City does.

edited 30th Aug '15 9:11:36 AM by spashthebandragon

The movie spent a bunch of time introducing Max Dillon and trying to make him sympathetic to the audience, and then in the end Electro amounted to nothing more than a generic mook for Harry Osborn.

Then the problem wasn't that he was a bad guy, the problem was that he was a mook. Don't confuse "bad guy" for "generic bad guy." Electro was always the bad guy — Amazing Spider-Man 2 just misused him.

A regular person doesn't really need any explanation to justify his existence the way a friggin' talking telepathic gorilla from Gorilla City does.

I disagree. You completely missed my point where I said that Rocket Raccoon — a talking raccoon in space — was able to drunkenly explain his origins in two seconds. If Rocket Raccoon — whose origin is that he was normal raccoon who was genetically modified to serve as a warden to a mental ward planet called Half-World — can show up with little-to-no explanation, then so can Gorilla Grodd.

Or, if they wanted to, they can go the Ultron routine and completely explain where he comes from. The difference between Ultron and Gorilla Grodd, however, is that Ultron was actually created by one of the Avengers, so his origin is right there. Gorilla Grodd, on the other hand, comes from Gorilla City, so for everyone to know his origin requires either the Flash to travel to Gorilla City and figure it all out or for someone to explain it to him (which could be boring), so it might be easier and better for Grodd to show up without origin (or with modified origin, like the show).

edited 30th Aug '15 9:45:44 AM by alliterator

Some Wonder Woman news.

Hoyte Van Hoytema will serve as the director of photography.

Wonder Woman will eventually shoot scenes in Basilicata, Italy, in addition to the U.K.

Wonder Woman will be known as Nightingale during its production.

edited 1st Sep '15 2:45:46 AM by Halberdier17

Have they finally decided to greenlight the production? Last time I checked it was still not finalized.

Patty Jenkins was in London doing pre-production and it will start filming in the Fall.

It was announced in the Empire Magazine article about the DCEU. They also said at the same time pre-production starts for Justice League in January.

edited 1st Sep '15 3:48:39 AM by Halberdier17

Well, you're clearly not actually reading what I wrote, so let me repeat myself for you yet again:

Presumably, a Flash movie will be taking place in Central City, a place where, y'know, talking gorillas aren't considered an unremarkable occurrence. Whereas Rocket Raccoon is clearly able to walk down the street without a bunch of passing aliens screaming, "AGH! WHAT'S THAT THING?" So they're really not comparable at all.

edited 1st Sep '15 7:45:17 AM by spashthebandragon

Presumably, a Flash movie will be taking place in Central City, a place where, y'know, talking gorillas aren't considered an unremarkable occurrence.

And you've completely missed my point, too: I'm not talking about the in-universe populace's response, I'm talking about audience response. Two completely different things. The audience for Guardians was expecting an alien world...but not a talking raccoon. And yet they completely accepted him. (And don't say it's because of aliens. Because raccoons are not aliens.)

I'm pretty much talking about Suspension of Disbelief. If the audience can accept a superfast guy who fights against a guy with a cold gun and a heat gun and a weather wizard, then they will accept him fighting against a talking gorilla with little issue.

If Rocket had shown up in Iron Man, that would be incongruous because Iron Man was steeped in a type of real-world drama, weapons and the Middle East and so on. The Flash is nothing at all like Iron Man in that he is much more goofy, Silver-Age-y (if they go with that version) and therefore a talking gorilla would not be out of place in his rogues gallery.

edited 1st Sep '15 8:33:53 AM by alliterator

I am not a big fan of Flash, but despite all the craziness in this show, the moment the Gorilla turned up was a big "WTF" moment for me. It was too out there, at least at this point.

With a movie which is set in space or a fantasy world, you can more or less throw whatever you want into it. The audience will accept it as long as it fits into the rules which the writers established for this universe. Naturally you could establish rules for a Superhero movie which make it normal that something like this is happening. But Man of Steel established the World as "our world in which Aliens are something remarkable". Explaining Wonder Woman will already be difficult. A talking Gorilla is even more goofy.

Not really Suicide Squad mentioned Superman being a beacon which brought Super powered individuals out of the shadows again. They were there but were driven into hiding until the events of Man of Steel allowed them to come back.

Also the Flash movie is after Justice League Part One so aliens could possibly become more prevalent in that universe by then.

But, again, one movie shouldn't set the tone for all movies, especially not if you have multiple franchises within a shared universe.

edited 1st Sep '15 8:57:30 AM by alliterator

Also because who expected we would see the stuff in the MCU after Iron Man?

It didn't fit the tone that was established in Iron Man but all the other movies after Iron Man made it believable.

I don't see the the issue with Electro. He was just this poor guy who got pushed around and finally decided to push back. He was confused, people were shooting at him and his hero didn't even remember his name.

The guy wasn't that stable to begin with.

So a psychic gorilla is more "out there" than a female golem endowed with godly power facing off against the kitchen sink of Greek myth?

edited 1st Sep '15 9:51:55 AM by nervmeister

Well in the DCEU Wonder Woman is the daughter of Zeus.

Yeah, I'm thinking Amazonian demigod princess is about as believable as talking telepathic gorilla.

But really, what I want to see is Monsieur Mallah and the Brain. French anarchist gorilla and mad scientist brain in a jar! IN LOVE!

It's less goofy for sure.

So, a woman sculpted from literal clay (like in fucking art class) with a rope that somehow jacks peoples' speech centers and makes them tell the truth and bracelets she can use with such speed and pinpoint hand-eye coordination, she can deflect entire volleys of the tiniest and fastest-moving projectiles is somehow less goofy than a gorilla with telepathy?.........Color me surprised.

EDIT: Well, if we wanna stretch things, I guess Casino Royale gave real world credence to the idea of using rope to make people tell the truth. So that's one point for you, Swanpride!

edited 1st Sep '15 10:40:50 AM by nervmeister

Except, if you remember, my argument isn't that Grodd shouldn't exist. It's that he shouldn't be taken seriously. I'd be totally down with a wacky Silver Age-style Grodd, but every time I say so, somebody goes, "NUH UH GRODD IS SUPER DARK AND EDGY IN THE COMICS HE NEEDS TO COMMIT GENOCIDE AND TEAR OFF PEOPLE'S HEADS SO BLOOD GUSHES EVERYWHERE OR ELSE IT'S BEING UNFAITHFUL TO THE REAL GRODD NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE A COMEDY LIKE TEH MARVEL MOVIES OMG!!!1!"

I actually thought the setup to Electro's existence was done really well. The problem is there was no payoff. Electro was just kinda killed off unceremoniously with no genuine resolution or sense of catharsis for his character. ASM 2 was way too overstuffed with disconnected plotlines.

The difference is Wonder Woman is getting her own movies where the central focus is going to be on Greek mythology being real (though I'm not sure how Batman v Superman is going to handle that. They might just leave her as an unexplained cameo or something and not really touch up on the Greek mythology aspect of her until her own movie).

Like I said, if Gorilla Grodd got his own movie that was all about scientists making talking animals or something, then fine, I'd be down with that. But trying to rewrite him to fit into Flash's main story like the TV show did is just so... contrived.

And, again, I'd be totally fine with Grodd showing up with no explanation so long as he was a comic relief villain or a minor background villain Flash defeats early on just to establish he's the hero of Central City or something.

edited 1st Sep '15 11:19:32 AM by spashthebandragon

Hmm. When I started this conversation, I believe I was responding to someone who was saying that Gorilla Grodd was simply too ridiculous to be used at all or too convoluted so that the entire movie had to be about his origin or something.

I don't agree that Grodd shouldn't be taken seriously — he's definitely a big villain for the Flash. But the Flash as a whole shouldn't be dark or gritty at all; the TV show has a good Silver-Age-type vibe to it at the moment, which works well and I think they introduced Grodd in a good way (somewhat silly, but still very dangerous).

I wouldn't call it silver age. Unless there 2nd an episode with a giant turtle boy and a mind swapped kangaroo defeated with twinkies that I missed.

There was an episode with mechanical bees. I rest my case.

And a villain named Brie Larvan.

Amazing. I love the Flash so much.

Here's the original quote from wehrmacht that started the Grodd conversation:

And then alliterator said:

And then I said:

So my stance is basically, "It's not impossible to write Grodd seriously, but in my opinion the Flash TV show writers couldn't pull it off, and I'm pessimistic that the Flash movie writers could, either."

And personally, I'd much rather see a lighthearted and silly Flash movie anyways. Even though I liked Man of Steel, I don't want every DC movie to have its tone.

As for the Flash TV show, it definitely has some Silver Age vibes to it, but overall its way too somber to have the exact same tone as a Silver Age story. A true Silver Age Flash TV show would be something more akin to the Adam West Batman. There wouldn't be all this "My dad's in jail and I can't confess my feelings to Iris waaaaaaaaaaaah!"