MCU and DCCU Differences in Mentality

This isn't so much about discussing the differences about the companies (though that can be done as well) but in the group mentalities of their characters.

We have: - Views on killing of enemies - Views on protecting civilians - Views on secret (or not so secret) identities - Anything else you can think of.

I know that the actually threads often get filled up or derailed by this sort of discussion, so this can be a place specifically for that.

Please note: - No bashing, flaming, etc. - Please be respectful towards each other.

I'm pretty sure that we all have some love towards both companies, which makes us all the more passionate when we feel they've done something incorrectly (the opposite of love is indifference, not hate, after all) but please keep things friendly-ish.

With only one actual film in the DCCU, there isn't much room to discuss any type of consistency in any of those things.

The Dark Knight Saga could be considered an honorary DCCU film, despite it not being official.

It doesn't really work though, because the Dark Knight Saga hinges on Batman being a unique phenomenon which in urns makes Gothem something unique attracting unique threats such as The Joker and Bane, who in turn have to be dealt with in unique ways.

Yeah, sorry. At the moment, until a movie staring Batman actually comes out, I am including the Nolanverse in this discussion.

It might be better to title this thing Marvel and DC movie differences. We can included Spider-man as well as the X-men franchise as well.

So uh...everything made in the 2000s or later?

And it does still work. Mostly because having the Nolanverse be a thing doesn't prevent MOS from having happened afterwards (even in a different universe).

edited 4th Aug '14 9:44:23 AM by Notoyax17

No thanks then, they're all too different for something like this.

The way I see it, from just this one movie, DC is more about gaining by losing, while Marvel mainly is about gaining by gaining. It's far more optimistic, even in the saddest of moments. Yes, some do grow by sacrificing, but it isn't always the case, if they can they will find another way.

The thing is that people praise the Marvel movies as though they are somehow superior in storytelling or more accurate to the comics than a lot of the previous films. The truth is the movies are just as mediocre as previous attempts but manage to hide it well with a more consistent tone, good casting, inspired humor and the intercontinuity connections. That alone is an admirable accomplishment in its own right, but the only films in the MCU I would consider genuinely good (and not covering its flaws with jokes) is the two Captain America movies and the first Iron Man, although even Iron Man squeezed by from RDJ elevating the script into something passable.

I'm interested in what the DCCU is going to try, because they are going for a darker tone and more complicated issues. They may be flawed because of not quite exploring those issues properly, but they don't try to hide them with distracting humor. I still joke with a fellow film-student friend about the whole "He's adopted" line in The Avengers that brought the movie to a halt.

edited 4th Aug '14 11:04:22 AM by KJMackley

The Joker was the only villain in the entire trilogy whose motivations were about Batman existing.

Making $1.5 billion is being brought to a halt?

The uniqueness of the situation of Gothem was what justified lethal force, suicidal efforts, incarceration without trail and conspiracies of spying on civilians and alerting police reports.

The Dark Knight and the moral choices within it hinged on the fact that the struggle was part of an escalation the law had never seen before.

The Dark Knight Rises hinged on the consequences of the decisions made in the previous film. An entire class of people locked away without trail under the Dent Act back Bane for example.

Those people being locked away weren't about Batman, though. Gotham was a teeming hive of scum and villainy long before Batman came about. Festering Shithole Gotham created Batman; Batman did not create Festering Shithole Gotham.

The Dent Act was a response to the fact that Gotham was effectively controlled by organized crime. The League of Shadows wanted to destroy the city because it was a teeming shithole controlled by organized crime. Bane and Talia intended to destroy the city to complete Ra's al Ghul's work, because it was a teeming shithole controlled by organized crime. Batman came into existence in response to Gotham being a teeming shithole controlled by organized crime.

Batman set the ball rolling by introducing a solution to Gotham that wasn't "Kill everyone", but the trilogy's plot still revolved around the unique circumstances of Gotham being a murderous, crime-ridden cesspool; Batman being just one small symptom of that. Gotham wasn't escalating because of Batman; Batman was part of an escalation Gotham had been undergoing for a long time.

edited 4th Aug '14 1:12:24 PM by TobiasDrake

Are you really going to throw box office as a "counter" to creative criticism? Then by god we have nothing to complain about regarding Transformers or the Star Wars prequels.

I barely remember that line. Was it Thor talking about Loki or something?

Yeah it was something like 'hey now, no matter what he's done, Loki is still my brother.'

'He just killed five hundred dudes.'

'...He's adopted.'

I've always disliked that line. It's funny the first time, but its delivery is really awkward in the movie itself (it literally stops the scene cold for a few seconds, which gets really noticeable when you're not in a theatre with a dozens or laughing moviegoers), and is pretty out of character for Thor no matter how funny it is.

But that's just unrelated ranting...

edited 4th Aug '14 2:14:03 PM by KnownUnknown

• BANNER: I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.
• THOR: Have care how you speak! Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother.
• ROMANOFF: He killed eighty people in two days.
• THOR: He's adopted.

Why are we fussing over that?

Thor is a mixed bag to begin with. He definitely sees his own people as superior to humanity, but he cares what we think. Hence: Have care, he's (Loki's) stronger than any of you. . . . but we're not all like that.

edited 4th Aug '14 2:20:10 PM by Journeyman

It did generate a minor controversy but I have no clue what KJ means by saying it brought the movie to a halt.

Right, and my point is how all of those movies are filled with similar jokes and moments that are funny, but actually diminish rewatch value because of how it tossed the movie off tone. That was the worst (dare I say, egregious) example, but the Ex-Wife from Iron Man 2 is similar. You're almost waiting for a rim shot.

I also see it in the recent Star Trek movies, like Kirk swelling up when McCoy made him sick to sneak aboard the Enterprise, or a lot of the stuff Scotty does like transporting into the... sewer pipes? They're entertaining in their own right, but don't really do much for the story or characters.

In comparison, there is some humor in Man of Steel but it is more sedated and appropriate for the story and characters. Watching the asshole trucker try to shove Clark and instead knock himself back is very funny, while also shows Clark's restraint. Even Green Lantern had the utterly brilliant line about his Domino Mask "I've seen you naked! You think I wouldn't recognize you because you covered your cheekbones?" and it stays brilliant because of the chemistry between the characters.

^ I totally agree, but only specifically about Avengers. Avengers was extremely and in some cases detrimentally one-linery to an extent that isn't really reflected in the rest of the MCU except perhaps in Iron Man 3 (which had a lot of other problems as well). Avengers, in general, is built to be very entertaining but is not to be exceptional as a film/plot, and it's kind of unique among the MCU films because of it. It's definitely got its problems because of it, but I wouldn't necessarily make Avengers' problems into general MCU problems.

edited 4th Aug '14 2:40:35 PM by KnownUnknown

HAMMER: These are the Cubans, baby. This is the Cohibas, the Montecristos. This is a kinetic-kill, side-winder vehicle with a secondary cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX burst. It's capable of busting a bunker under the bunker you just busted. If it were any smarter, it'd write a book, a book that would make Ulysses look like it was written in crayon. It would read it to you. This is my Eiffel Tower. This is my Rachmaninoff's Third. My Pieta. It's completely elegant, it's bafflingly beautiful, and it's capable of reducing the population of any standing structure to zero. I call it "The Ex-Wife."

This speech demonstrates a few things about Hammer. He's a) a hopeless showboater, b) has absolutely no f*cking clue what any of the science-sounding words he's using mean, and c) is misogynistic. It's not just an amusing punchline, it informs on his character.

The adopted punchline, similarly, has a purpose. Thor is instinctively defending Loki by effectively threatening, "Don't speak ill of MY BROTHER or I will mess you up." He's demonstrating his big brother instinct. But he's also reeling it in when he hears the extent of Loki's crimes, with the adopted line being, "Objection withdrawn, speak ill of my brother however you like."

These funny lines don't exist in a vacuum; they inform on the characters speaking them and the circumstances surrounding them. Much of the MCU's humor is drawn from its characters casually conversing like ordinary people. By contrast, Nolan's characters speak entirely in thematic analysis of the movie's core principles.

edited 4th Aug '14 2:46:40 PM by TobiasDrake

MCU is a humorfest and optimists are always there. This thread seems to be taking a potshot at cold-hard cynics like myself who doubt DC (reasonably) and WB can make their movies work well. Just think about it for a second. Besides Superman and Batman all other films with super-heroes from the DC verse just can't work on film. Marvel characters don't have the memetic bash spin which DC characters will get.

I agree it's worse in The Avengers overall, but still there in the other movies.

I'm also talking about the ex-wife Anti-Climax punchline, not the speech itself. He did well enough in highlighting all the different weapons they were going to put on War Machine, but that speech and the punchline combine took a solid 2 minutes or so to build up and execute. That's a hell of a lot of running time for a joke. And personally, I felt Hammer was one of the weakest characters in the entire MCU. Maybe has a good moment or two with a good joke or two, but simply not plausible at all as a guy who is supposed to be second place only to Tony Stark. Another way to look at how the MCU places emphasis on the joke rather than the characters.

edited 4th Aug '14 2:59:00 PM by KJMackley

The "adopted" line is more of a "Loki's done such bad things that even Thor gives pause" gag, establishing how much Loki has done and how little Thor can do to defend it. However, it still clashes awkwardly with Thor's character, because otherwise Thor never portrays a willingness, even sheepishly, to disavow relation to Loki when the circumstances are tough - even in Dark World, where he freely regards Loki as an enemy that should be killed if he betrays them, he never once gives the impression that Loki is any less his brother. The "adopted" line, in contrast, is a very harsh "well, he's not really my brother" line that is very jarring coming from Thor, who otherwise tends to have too much honor to backtrack in that way.

Given that the intention was to show how overwhelming Loki's actions were to Thor, there were definitely better ways to show it that wouldn't have clashed with Thor's own perception of Loki - but the "adopted" line was likely seen as funnier.

The reason it halts the scene itself, however, is how it's presented. It's clearly treated like a punchline - it's given a clear set up, and once it's delivered the characters and everything that's happening actually does stop for a second. Once enough time has been suitably given for the audience to laugh, they actually just start talking about something else. It doesn't really much for the scene, and it kind of feels like something you might get in a sitcom.

I feel similarly, but much less strongly, about the "PUT DA HAMMAH DOWN" line. What it's trying to do is obvious, but the way they chose to do it is - while entertaining - pretty awkward on second viewing.

edited 4th Aug '14 3:05:56 PM by KnownUnknown