Start asking questions and answers welcome to Man of Steel answers insight commentary on your Man of Steel apologist Dr. awkward what we just got done watching avengers age of all Tron and it was quite a spectacle some great action and cheeky banner the plot wasn't airtight but I don't think you walk into a Marvel movie expecting that if you like the sequence that pretended to be a single continuous shot from the first movie or that iconic shot where the camera circles around the avengers this is basically a two-hour version of that is always your expectations are in check probably enjoy yourself honestly I don't have the time to be doing three weeks of episodes straight much less crate content for the website and the YouTube channel there's so much DCC news that I just haven't had a chance to comment on and with so many questions popping up I thought I'd just do a quick unscripted mailbag to clear out as many questions as I could the only prep that I've done is to consolidate similar questions gather the notes that I had on any of the old outstanding ones and call any loaded question a loaded or leading question presupposes fax or some emotive implication or connotation less interested in the answer and more about asserting a point I don't mind rhetorical questions or Socratic questions but phrasing a loaded argument in the form of a question is unlikely to get a response from me I got enough substantive questions to answer without having to unravel the intentions or presuppositions of a loaded question of not answering those but onto the questions I think the general approach of an attack is DCC you questions first than the films and release order meaning Man of Steel Batman be Superman suicide squad wonder woman and justice league and that if we have time but I don't agree will all tackle some miscellaneous questions about this is future Dr. awkward here after this episode was recorded and edited and about to be released the new suicide squad cast picture was posted and so I recorded my initial reactions and that's been added in we may go back and do a more in depth analysis in the future but I just want to get this out to you in a timely fashion so those will be down in the suicide squad section as we get back to the regular show the onto a general DCC you questions and several listeners sent me this one as a rule I don't do responses to specific works of criticism but since I've gotten so much mail about the Hollywood reporter article and the color video on Man of Steel I guess I'm just can address them with the recent Hollywood reporter article it raised alleged issues about the DC cinematic universe based on unnamed quote unquote sources there's really only one issue raised and that's the fact that Warner Bros. is using multiple writers in parallel development on their upcoming films and that these writers have received limited direction or guidance everything else flows naturally out of that one little detail which by the way we knew way back in 2014 but article poses this as a problem and alleges it as symptomatic of a lack of a Kevin fight he we talked about the lack of a Kevin fight he in the mail back of episode 18 in my opinion has remained essentially unchanged but let's talk about the article first while the Hollywood reporter is a trade on par with variety article isn't so much reporting news as it is giving voice to a specific salacious view and inventing a crisis around it to give the story and narrative the article itself is careful to couch most of its assertions in the opinions of others but the selection of those opinions has a clear narrative thrust behind the story is of a company missing a mastermind to guide everything in the doubt that that has seated amongst analysts and investors and a few unnamed insiders let's take a step back for a second one brothers isn't Sony it isn't struggling by any means in the WB knows how to build franchises and exploit properties and make money the DC cinematic universe is just the latest intellectual property to be exploited Warner Bros. has a great relationship with its directors the visual effects houses their stable of writers actors producers and other talent in a unlike Disney Warner Bros. maintains a two-way relationship with the distributors in the theater chains nobody is boycotting Warner Bros. for trying to up their cut of ticket sales like has happened in the past with Disney and is happening with German theaters right now in the stormy seas of the movie business Warner Bros. keeps an even keel and it is a well oiled machine with respect to the production marketing release and sale of movies however a profitable stable solid routine machine doesn't really make for much of a story doesn't the readership want the drama of the Sony leak or the disaster of the departing director so the article didn't interview the content or the confident or the competent willing to go on record about how happy they are with how things are going it specifically dug for dissent the satisfaction and doubt with people who would never own up to their alleged statements and unfortunately this meant that anybody with doubts or fears or anyone who actively dislikes the DCC you have latched onto that article as support for the position without really thinking through its thesis if we really boil the article down it says one thing a few writers are upset that films that are years from release don't have crystal clear direction right now it's not a big deal it's an invented crisis for the sake of the story and if history supported the thesis that I suppose Marvel must've been free of these issues because of Kevin fight he right well that wasn't the case at roughly the same time in the MCU's production history there were clashes between creators and executives I reman to was struggling with the script in production issues and despite an alleged clarity of vision the MCU is still rife with glitches and continuity I don't think there necessarily worth allowing them to detract from your enjoyment of the films but if you've watched age of all Tron you know that it requires a little bit of rec conning to allow it to make sense with the first avengers film and I reman Paris and some other points in past and see you films Kevin fight he's clear vision may allow progress to proceed more smoothly now but it has also led to falling else with Edgar Wright John Favreau and possibly just sweeten it didn't prevent or stop the reshuffling of the film slate to accommodate Spiderman and if you don't think there was wailing and gnashing of teeth for those who had their productions delayed because of that got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you don't get me wrong Spidey's contribution is significant but it isn't a cure to any of the issues that Warner Bros. is alleged to have right now since the same ills happened in and at Marvel under fight he's watch I have friends that work with Marvel licenses and changes in directions from the top always lead to grumbling about restarting scrapping work or errant direction that's simply a fact of life in a fact of production that no studio is immune to but you have a fight he or not it's low hanging fruit to find a writer or an artist willing to complain about lack of direction throw a rock and you'll hit a creative person with that experience throw another rock and you'll find an analyst willing to express doubt simply put there's nothing to the article that couldn't have been said about Marvel or any other studio at this point of production yes there's a certain romance to Marvel airlifting in we didn't to do script rewrites on films that just proves the point that multiple writers is the norm even if it's your relief header getting cold then and having a fight he doesn't immunize you from these issues if anything he exacerbates them as we didn't has recently shared that his each and every creative choice was relentlessly questioned Marvel has teams of writers work shopping the script so it is not at all surprising that Warner Bros. is rapid prototyping films through several iterations visions and writers with limited guidance at this point scripts are the least costly thing to develop and it makes sense to run trials now rather than interfere with the vision of your filmmakers after shooting has begun the Hollywood reporter brings us nothing new on this front as we've known that the WB was pursuing simultaneous development of Aquaman back in August 2014 and wonder woman in December 2014 and of course the writers whose efforts were called would be disgruntled and dissatisfied back then the writers may consider themselves casualties of a lack of vision but the truth is it's their job to inspire if they find that scene or that Hulk or that structure that is so compelling that it can't be denied is there any doubt that the WB would happily build a corner of the DCC you around it there writing needs to be at that level to make it past the gauntlet the DCC you uses source material as inspiration rather than as an outline which gives the writers free reign on where to go with the universe and the characters as long as the story resonates with the studio and personally I'm more excited about the best ideas becoming the stories of the DCC you made it to film by people passionate about their projects is the primary philosophy over everything rather than everything being run by the vision of a single producer we literally already have that I don't need another version of that anyways in some it was a bit of a fluff piece putting together news that we already knew with an unsupported thesis that fight he would cure all these issues that struck a spark for detractors ready to dam the DCC you despite none of this being unique to the WB or really an issue at all note that only Marvel has shuffled its release states to date we've heard nothing about any of the DCC you films slipping yet outside the speculation so it's much ado about nothing and I've already said more on this article than it deserves like with anything whether you're interpreting testimony or parsing evidence evaluating character motivations or trying to find a plot hole always try to take a step back and look at the larger context and the other points of view here it may sound horrible that the writer has to start from scratch from the studio's perspective what is that compared to the sinking feeling in the serious stakes when you feel the need to rework your movie as its shooting I'm sorry that a few writers had their feelings hurt and are frustrated but you don't hold a multibillion-dollar franchise hostage just so that they can feel that their every contribution is guaranteed to make a movie okay I'm kind of rambling sorry I think I've mentioned before that I have several family members that are hardest so they've all worked under these kinds of conditions were direction seemed fickle and unreasonable and so it absolutely heard those disgruntled stories from the creative's but I've also seen the finished product and well okay okay I'm rambling can never get to get through all these questions at this rate but the bottom line is that there is more than one way to make movies and only the finished product matters okay on to Man of Steel a number of you also sent me this one Mitch Rebecca Maggie and others sent me this YouTube video that asked the question what if Man of Steel was in color in the video doesn't really raise anything that I haven't heard before so it's content didn't bother me nor did its reception where people bandied about as proof that Man of Steel will look better I was more bothered by the lack of genuine analysis and disappointed by the rebroadcasting of the video without such analysis or disclaimer and the misinterpretation of the reception at least in my opinion so not really to go into the video itself but it's description has been updated as of April 25 addressing many of the concerns about its claims obviously it isn't a restoration the people who made the video art colorists they did indeed alter the originals and they claim the video was meant primarily for comity and admit that it's a misleading opinion piece I was saddened that the vast majority of the sites running with this video didn't catch or address any of the concerns that even the video makers had to raise themselves after the backlash to the video but basically color grading is an art and if you search for color grading breakdowns or color grading reels or something similar in video or YouTube you can get Justin inkling of how much of an art it is you can see that he can get as granular is practically painting every element in every frame but rarely is it as simple as slapping the filter over the whole thing of course it is also one of the final processes to be applied and so it often suffers from the greatest time pressure listener Kevin expressed a concern that the color grading of the teasers that we see right now art reflective of what will see in the final film and that's actually a fair comment Kevin notice the difference between the Man of Steel trailers and the final film and you may have noticed that even between the different age of all Tron trailers and spots the grading and the visual effects have changed however if you've listened to my episode on color hopefully you'll understand that I don't consider change brightness or saturation inherently good or bad like I said I'm not upset at the YouTube video for suggesting Man of Steel should have more color I'm just disappointed that is discussion wasn't more debt if we take color grading to be an art then of course you can criticize and comment and analyze and discuss it as art and you can have a purely visceral reaction more on that later what to have a meaningful conversation beyond just your gut reaction means trying to understand the artist choices and their reasoning and their technique in the video attempts to do that little bit by assigning Nolan relative motives that are pretty easy to discredit on many fronts but also that's not really an artistic choice that's more like an editorial or managerial one they never really understood or explored the artistic reasons for the color choices another expert colorist might make different artistic choices and then explain why their choices work together and those choices could result in brighter colors are more saturation but their choices would be driven by the whole work not simply the goal of more vibrancy for its own sake so in other words I'm open to other interpretations but only if there actual interpretations driven by artistic interests and not just the blind position the brighter is better now on that point I'm not at all surprised that many people preferred the brighter more vibrant more saturated colors when the two are compared however I question the validity or perhaps the meaning of that test you know whether people are shown Superman or if they were shown beach balls in a side-by-side comparison invariably people will pick and prefer the more saturated colors however over the course of an entire film is a certain fatigue to highly vibrant colors and people actually prefer less intensity this phenomenon has been well studied and observed such that televisions on the retail show floor have demo motes that boost saturation and for the sound they boost the base the trouble in the volume but when you buy that television and you take it home the default settings are far more moderate once you hook up that TV and enjoy it probably the best example of the flawed methodology of this kind of test is the criticism over the Pepsi challenge where tasters were given a blind sample to sip and tended to prefer and pick Pepsi over Coke however despite the success in these tests repeated research showed that while he quick sip lead testers to preferred the sweeter of the two beverages most tasters preferred a less sweet beverage over the course of an entire can and that was reflected in their buying habits and in the market share of the two companies coax dominating with 42% market share to Pepsi's 28% writer Malcolm McDowell suggested in his book blink that quote Pepsi is sweeter than Coke so right away it has a big advantage in the subtest Pepsi is characterized by a citrusy flavor burst unlike the more raise any vanilla taste of Coke but that burst tends to dissipate over the course of an entire can't and that is another reason that Coke suffered by comparison Pepsi in short is a drink built to shine in the sip test" so we could always predict that the greater saturation would win in the visual equivalent of a sip test but that doesn't mean that it's the universal preference of people consuming an entire movie again that doesn't mean that there couldn't be an artistically rendered version with brighter colors that people prefer just to some prefer Pepsi to Coke in the end but it does mean that the predictability of the sip test is a far less reliable predictor of what people actually want under real-world conditions the consistency of the subtest isn't proof that one recipe is better than the other by the same token for color grading the artist is trying to way balance and achieve much more than just vibrant colors if there was no art or subjectivity to taste or to choice they could just turn the dial all the way up without thought or consideration for balance right the next Man of Steel question I had comes from CP way and gold Mitch and Alan who all ask about characterization questions versus the Brandon Routh Superman Capt. America in the MCU and it sort of the Boy Scout arc type some dizziness or mash them all to one question and all tackle the last one for since it's pretty easy I don't believe that Man of Steel Superman will ever be or should be a Boy Scout in the sense that most think of it out in the sense that he's virtuous and always there to help he resembles a Boy Scout however when it's applied to Superman it usually assumes a certain degree of blind adherence to quite mottos and codes and following them naïvely here Superman's adherence to virtue is anything but blind as we discussed in the poem anyway last episode Superman is more than aware of the costs of helping every time he helps compromises his identity and his first public acts of assistance is to surrender his freedom to humanity in a further this is a Superman who has to balance principles and interests rather than relying absolutes so there isn't this absolute code to be followed in a blind or naïve fashion said to me that means that this Superman is never going to be that same kind of oblivious Boy Scout from my notes the idea of Boy Scouts sort of blindly following codes and helping grannies cross the road likely originated with a 1909 satirical cartoon that was drawn and written by Sir Bernard Partridge back to the days where suddenly would have the name Sir Bernard Partridge it showed a young maybe nine-year-old Boy Scout meeting an elderly woman with the caption our youngest line of defense Boy Scout to Mrs. Brittania they're not grandma no danger can befall you now remember I am with you and so it was a statement about the young American nation trying to garden defend England it served to mock the naivety of the Boy Scout in believing that he could protect and help old Bretagne which was England now ironically this mocking cartoons served as the inspiration for this actual activity now attributed to scouts that is helping old ladies cross the street that it doesn't mean that Superman can't be optimistic and the light but he will never represent that sort of false hope that's mocked by Sir partridges cartoon a little boy doesn't really provide any protection just like a hero who always gets written out of moral quandaries doesn't really offer any inspiration on how to deal with them as a really minor spoiler age of all Tron gently mocks the idea of a naïve code adherence with the running gag about language the idea that it hearing to a code doesn't really represent any kind of true virtue but it's just a childish code and that sort of acts as a strawman to distract you from the choices they get made later based on similar codes I've mentioned in the past that the central debate between security and liberty was undermined in the winter soldier and on a more personal character level Steve was set up to choose between his friend and the lives of millions but again was written out of having to make that choice in any kind of meaningful way in age of all Tron we again revisit the desire for security at the expense of making monsters but in many ways the avengers are written out of the quandaries yet again just a few more mild spoilers but there's a point where Tony and Bruce reach the crossroads of an issue for a second time and they disagree on what the right course of action is now obviously the plot needs for them to go a certain way in the story of the avengers isn't about Tony persuading Bruce to agree through complicated moral philosophy or argument but it's a little telling that they cut away from Tony actually persuading Bruce and that when we come back to that scene Bruce's on board but we don't quite know how in real life you're going to encounter people with a difference in opinion but when you need their cooperation you need to be up to convince them and here we got what amounted to a trust me when that had already been shattered previously in the film there's another obvious issue with the needs of the many versus the needs of the few or that issue of the greater good and without getting into the specifics Capt. America makes decision that doesn't quite jive with his choices at the end of the first Capt. America film you can distinguish and reconcile it but there is a superficial issue but ultimately he isn't faced with a hard decision or really any kind of decision at all because once again their written out of having to make that choice or deal with that issue so originally when the question was posed to me it was whether Capt. America or Superman are represented within their films more true to their characters and I think Superman had to show more real character in alignment with his tradition where is Was put into more traditional situations in alignment with his tradition so in the first case we truly test the character and it shows that he can stand up like steel even under extreme circumstances whereas in the latter case Marvel chose to stay in safer waters where basically any good guy would basically fair okay the moral hurdles and challenges in tests of the character were so relatively low that even an ex-KGB or sketchy head of a covert ops organization brainwashed assassin's and even Eastern European terrorists could all clear those hurdles without much effort there are merits to each approach in the first approach your trying to stop the audience from taking the icon for granted and in the other approach you're trying to familiarize the audience with an icon that has been forgotten or faded with Superman many people take for granted that he's heroic and that his heroism is easy because of his powers so Man of Steel and to some extent Superman returns provided moral hurdles to show heroism isn't easy to stop taking that idea for granted and just assuming it for Capt. America who barely registered on the brand recognition radar until recent years it's about building up a reputation that didn't exist so even if it means contrived in easy circumstances that's maybe what it takes to create the Association of course down the road with a film like Civil War it will confront that and I think that's exactly right at least for some people part of the reception to is of all Tron comes from the idea that where taking greatness for granted and it becomes really easy to nitpick the avengers without appreciating just how much it manages to do right so were sort of on that path towards taking the Marvel cinematic universe for granted and I think that means is that like we saw a little bit and Ironman three you might start to see a little bit a deconstruction from here on out to give those characters a little more genuine depth when compared to Superman returns I think part of the issue was that the continuity there was incompatible with the kind and the degree of deconstruction that was being applied to the film it's just a little bit masochistic to create this romantic notion of the one true love and then deconstruct any possibility for the hero to have that as we discussed way back in episode 13 think it was trying to patch modern sensibilities and realities on so fundamentally older and more fantasy version of Superman and while Man of Steel's reception means that in may be odds with the general perception of some carrying around the baggage of tradition within the film itself is built and intrinsically more complicated and nuanced mythology meaning less need for deconstruction in the future but simply continuing to build on the reality already established there's no one way to tell a serial story you can go from cartoony to real or from realtor more fantastic they both have their pros and cons and seeing as how we already have the Superman one through Superman returns and we have the Marvel universe and gratified that were getting a slightly different approach with the DC you okay in our last Man of Steel question for this mailbag had asks why I keep bringing up morality and philosophy in these recent episodes it's mostly because I'm slowly but surely getting to the tornado scene and most of the deeper debate about that circles around these kinds of moral questions and philosophical questions and I'm actively researching these kind of things as we approach it so it bubbles up into the podcast and I disorder record it as a way of memorializing the reading and the research and I'm doing more generally it's a plea to ask people to keep an open mind and to recognize that their preferences don't necessarily reflect absolute truth war fact these things get complicated and complex out on the extremes and they're not nearly as clear cut as we sometimes like to believe it's sort of an aside but I recently read an article which a link in the show notes about research which found that we stop listening to new music after the age of 33 so with comics and comics properties which have lasted close to 80 years I try to do my best to make a conscious effort to keep my mind open and try to avoid taste freeze described in more detail in the article or at least to recognize when or if my tastes have frozen and not to dismiss the tastes of others because of my own biases there's something inevitable about older people telling younger people that their taste is terrible but I don't need to participate in that and it's something I'm actively trying to avoid because I remember being told everything that I loved and enjoyed was terrible by the generation before me these things are cyclical while that's a reason it's not really an excuse but I'm rambling and I have to speed up moving onto the Batman be Superman questions subpoena lay asks what's Batman's beef against Superman and.we don't know how come back to this probably some other time comic book nerd points out that the lines that we here in the film particularly from Batman could be pulled from anywhere or in a different context within the film Gail Simone on twitter mentioned that everything that she sees feels like it's from the first act if you think back to the Man of Steel teaser everything again was from the first act except Clark running with a Cape as a boy which is still chronologically early in the story and a single shot of Superman taking off now we got far more substance in this teaser than in that one so we probably caught a glimpse of things beyond the first act but I don't think much more than that and again were talking about what 42 seconds of substantive footage so that's it and I know I keep bringing up age of all Tron but we literally finished watching it just a few hours ago so it's still on my mind but there were a lot of little shots scenes in sequences from the trailer and the teasers the didn't make it into the final film so I think we can hold off for now from plotting out the entire film based on just 42 seconds of footage right next question Todd asks if I've seen the batwing art and I have it doesn't line up perfectly with the new Batmobile if you put them side-by-side they do share similar lines designs and features so if this batwing art is 100% representative of the final product idea of the Batmobile converting into the batwing is dead but if this art is just a concept of what it should look like rather than what it literally looks like there are enough common features there that it still might be a possibility the engineer in me knows that there's not a whole lot to be gained by a modular cockpit and that you're better off with two different vehicles built and designed from the ground up but the gadget fan in me would love to see that kind a gimmick and imagine the toys that they will sell if you're Batmobile can also convert into a batwing right next question I got a number of tweets and emails asking me to comment on the comments of others so let's just quickly run down the ones I have here I don't have any of the clips prepared or any of the quotes verbatim in my notes so disorder paraphrasing please take with a grain of salt the first one is the Joss we Indians excitement at Batman be Superman and also his comment that great power naturally comes with questions and differences in opinion and I love that not just for the truth of the statements but because it proves there is no need to draw pointless battlelines the WB didn't go with Wheaton's wonder woman script and he's the director of marvels lack ship film franchise if anyone was going to toe of fictional party line it would be we but he's just excited just like the rest of us to enjoy Batman be Superman irrespective of who signs his paycheck in a Zack Snyder love Star Wars JJ Abrams loves DC comics there's no need to despise something else just because of the made up battlelines you can enjoy it or not all on its own merits okay the other comment was Neil Degrasse Tyson saying something to the effect that Batman answers to the Commissioner and Superman does whatever the hell he wants what we don't know whether he speaking about the mythos in general or within the context of Batman be Superman talk about the mythos in general he's correct Batman often has ties to the state from the bat signal to the bat phone and very often the government at some level is aware of his secret and tolerates him and we seen that dynamic in the DCA you where Waller knows his identity and in the CW's arrow where artists knows Oliver's identity so within the tradition of comics it's not a radical idea that Batman is on some level beholden to the state of course on a more romantic level most of us think of Batman as the unbridled vigilante whereas Superman follows law and order in kingdom come Superman's retirement was not precipitated just by the death of Lois Lane but by his heart being broken when the people praised the vigilante killing the perpetrator rather than having faith that the system would met out justice Superman often shares a good working relationship with the police and that's taken to its extreme in the dark Knight returns where Superman acts as a government lackey but if we talk in more general terms of Dr. Tyson is right since Batman exists inside Commissioner Gordon's good graces there's no better illustration of that than the Batman animated series episode entitled over the edge which shows what happens when Gordon goes to war with Batman by contrast Superman is not bound by the laws of man or even of nature he's bound only by the restraints and the constraints that he puts upon himself which in some loose way is the Nietzsche and idea of that were mentioned and the man who abides by his own rules to use the Christopher Reeve Superman is the model although the laws of nature and the guidance of krypton say that he's not to turn back time he does it anyway in Superman for of those sovereign states have decided to proliferate nuclear weaponry Superman overrides the law of man and disarms the world in the fairytale reality of the stories it's not an issue but in a setting more like our own in Man of Steel were the Batman be Superman it's entirely reasonable that those questions get asked and why don't expect a final complete answer and guessing they can a be a little more nuanced in treatment than they got in age of ultra now if we apply Dr. Tyson's statement to Batman be Superman and interpreted narrowly and more literally or Batman is actually a state agent surprisingly I'm on board with that I know it's a departure from traditional Batman and he could have some fans up in arms but from my perspective it's another way to totally rationalize the entire Batman mythos while distinguishing it from Nolan's Batman for Nolan's Batman you can sum up all the logistics with two words billionaire ninja everything is explained by one of those words are the other however I think a different take on Batman could be rationalized with just one name James bond how did he get his training he was recruited and trained just like James Bond his stealth his secret identity his gadgets and his combat skills all government issued just like James Bond any of Batman's logistics can be explained using the James Bond arc type and it isn't that far removed from tradition when many versions of our third was himself a former spy who taught Bruce spy craft combat them like it makes the transition to a globally sanctioned justice league smoother if Batman already has government contacts really there were only two issues and they are oversight which traditional Batman always has just in a sort of more passive fashion and the so-called license to kill if Batman really is a covert ops superspy than he'd have a license to kill and an expectation to use it and that may or may not be consistent with Batman be Superman although it is at odds with tradition it could be used as an explanation for his separation from the government but it we may have to prepare for the possibility that Batman does not have a no killing code in the DC cinematic universe if you think about the sheer it logistics of stopping evil in a war on crime that stretches for decades it's difficult for thou war to be without casualties in a real-world setting even setting aside the guns traditionally Batman stops things through violent concussion we've seen from the close-ups of his costume that his knuckles are covered with the metal and in real life striking people with metal knuckles with the intention of knocking them out always brings with it the risk of death media die from the punch or you die from falling and hitting your head or you die from the inability to breathe while your unconscious simply put you can't survive decades of war pulling punches and it's unlikely that you've knocked out hundreds of men without causing death or permanent maiming of some of them of course that analysis is with reality dial all the way up in the very existence of Batman necessitates that you bring that dial down some and you know what I take it all back because in Man of Steel we had the stylized combat between's odd and Jor-El punching each other in the face with armored gauntlet it's so there's evidence and there's precedent that we have a ready dial that back here in this universe so these conclusions aren't necessary but they're useful thought experiment for testing the boundaries of what Batman is or could be an again not simply take these characters for granted about that was not a quick it all and too much of a tangent just on Tyson's comments let's just quickly go over Henry cavil's comments first he said that Batman be Superman is not a Man of Steel SQL and second he said that Superman crushing Batman in an instant wouldn't be Superman like or consistent with Superman's character and honestly I think I'm just a skip these does I don't really have anything to say that isn't over analysis of what is mostly off-the-cuff answers and semantic parsing I pretty much agree with everything he said I don't see a problem or a portent of any issues what year I guess I'll just insert one more random comment I think Forbes estimated that the total overall revenue from tickets pay-per-view sales concessions and merchandising for the Floyd Mayweather and the Manny pack he our fight to be 500 million basically half $1 billion-Batman be Superman has a more exciting card take that as you well aren't on to suicide squad oh suicide squad I have been dying to talk about this but I don't know where to start there's been so much news summary things that have come to pass I think I'll hit these couple of things rapidfire got the Joker picture Batman poor Ben Affleck onset and Viola Davis so starting with that Joker picture a didn't like the Joker picture which isn't a bad thing it is in a bad thing necessarily I didn't like Heath ledger's first Joker picture either and that's because a man with hideous scars on the size of his mouth is hard to look at your supposed to feel revulsion and discussed and want to look away and hear the Joker isn't nearly as hard to look at but his eyes and his teeth in the power of his skin they provide plenty of nightmare fuel he so it's still not pleasant to look at and in one sense in might've been comforting to see an image that everyone agreed represented the Joker unanimously however intellectually I'm happy it doesn't because again it's easy to take these characters for granted and I really feel like DC is a concerted effort to avoid our preconceived assumptions this Joker is definitely distinguishable from every prior look and will just have to see how it jibes with the performance of the Joker skin tends to suggest that the DCC you has dealt with the weird for well now but it's still not beyond the bounds of reality many have joked or criticize that this Joker it looks like Marilyn Manson or somebody who shops at hot topic but I think that just means that this Joker could actually get around in the world under that guys you know he would turn heads and he would draw attention but then quickly get dismissed as somebody on the fringe of society as opposed to somebody who's actively a threat to it or perhaps maybe sort of trite way of putting it let us Joker could actually shop at hot topic where as every other Joker shows up and the police are called that means that this Joker can actually participate in the realistic world without having to rely on tropes to make his machinations work so in that sense it's a more mundane Joker but nonetheless completely true to the spirit of the character of the tattoos fit with that motif but I don't really expect to see a lot of films since he'll probably be clothed for most the film but if he's not letters posted some impressive Jim photos so maybe this will be one of the most physical jokers we've ever seen without like not much to say I think it's great that he's onset and that he's in costume and it suggests that they're doing world building and reinforcing the shared universe with this extremely popular character I hope that we get Superman or Clark cameos in some of the other films or that we get the rumored Lex Luther cameo in this film but I'm glad that it seems like the filmmakers get to play with all the toys in the playtest having Batman in this film and hopefully Lex Luther's can add more authority and connection to the suicide squad regarding Viola Davis I still think there's been an official press release about her casting but I just want to mention that after watching how to get away with murder I'm completely on board with her as Amanda Waller Davis was always my first pack of though I did think that Oprah would've brought some spectacle to the film however Davis is still an unknown too much of the public so she's not can a be as distracting in the role certainly not as distracting as Oprah and there is no question that she has the acting chops I hope they give her something substantial to show her talent and start that love-hate relationship with Amanda Waller that makes the character so interesting and a completely random aside that nobody asked about I also had the opportunity to watched Carla D Levine's performance in timeless and my estimation of her as an actor has risen considerably now assuming had time to edit this speaking of casting there's a public radio interview with the casting directors of Man of Steel and Batman be Superman and some just go play that to give you a little insight into the process and not give myself a little break for women trailer for the upcoming Batman versus Superman movie was revealed late last week audiences caught their first glimpse of Ben Affleck as Batman the casting decision that generated a lot of hater rate on the Internet they also saw Henry cavil reprise his role as Superman Laura Kennedy is a veteran casting director who was in on the early plans to place these two men in superhero suits she's also worked on movies directed by Ben Affleck Argo and the town and the Witkowski's films cloud Atlas and speed racer among others David Reuben and Laura Kennedy sat down with the frames John Horn to discuss the job of being a casting director in today's film business Summit a starter they are a bit basic question if you are casting a casting directors what are the attributes that that job requires a casting directors are psychologists and matchmakers an astute readers of scripted material they are sensitive to both the actors process and the directors process and they are called casting directors because they direct the casting process to a caretaker's meeting with you care of all the needs and everybody the actors coming with a certain amount of nerds and anxiety dreams and hopes and wishes directors command with anxiety dreams and hopes and wishes and we have to calm them down we have to do can focus and we take care of director wants and to me that the two most important things in filmmaking are the script and the cast and every thing else is transportation and and I think that we were fortunate because were involved in the earlier stages of the filmmaking process where everybody is deciding what is this thing that were making can you each think of anecdotally example where you said trust me on this one I really believe in this person even it was an unknown who went on to greatness or even with somebody who'd never 100 greatness who defined a roll and made a movie what it is Laura from probably the most direct example from he has Henry cavil and Superman because when we had started Superman before this last Man of Steel that was time with Zack Snyder we had gone through a series of trying to rebuild it with a bunch of different directors and then we finally settled on a director Derek NFL got made and he was really lovely that we also tested Henry that Mrs. Brandon Routh badmouth and he was fantastic but it doesn't work as well as they had hoped to live weight seven years there really was still around and so I Him let's try this one more time you and me command lets you anyway this one more time looking at one Martian and I was just submitted hand to the directors and producers are likely Crissy Ellen was producing Zack Snyder was directing and everybody was in agreement and Henry was a guy Ametek Henry 78 years to make that happen but I nearly bought a talk about an international actors hundred about somebody more you found in Israel for wonder woman can you tell a little bit about how you cut that part will way looked worldwide and Zack really wanted somebody to Zack Snyder
or wanted somebody with European feel because the legend and wonder woman is that she's from Therese there was this you know the fan base needs these kinds of things he'd had a tangent is out in a way that seemed out faster. Series really loved her family matter she's absolutely fantastic she's 510 she did supermodel and she was in the Israeli army auto I got to love and she has no fear she's really gravelly did we looked all over the world for that more there is initially a fair amount of backlash about catching Ben Affleck as Batman how much were you anticipating that did you underestimate the reaction was that always can happen to that extent I think probably we anticipated a little as much as we got been handled it really well but I think it was hard on him I don't think any time people can't expect that to not have an effect on these actors doesn't matter if it's better anybody all this negativity he goes on unease website is really out of control and no one knows what Batman were making Malinowski character in this particular movie extra Christian it's a new Batman and he has a new take on it is work very hard and fast and he's committed himself to people are really to be surprised and I will always be people who don't like it that's fine but I think this stuff before they see the result and that to me is one of the biggest problems we have today which is casting but films in general or a Canadian David Reuben casting directors thank you so much for coming on a frame thanks so much okay guys I was just about to upload this episode and the suicide squad group photo was published by director David Ayer via twitter and so I figured I'd give my quick first impressions and maybe revisit this at a later date when I got more time to analyze it but from left to right we have Adam Beach rumored to be playing slipknot we have John Courtney as boomerang Karen Sugihara as katana D Levine as enchantress Joel Kinnaman as Rick flag Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn will Smith is dead shot a duopoly can know you a a body is killer croc and Jay Hernandes as Al Diablo so my first impression is that it's a we it's weird and it's confronting and is somebody who enjoys realism this is plainly a departure from that I have trouble imagining some of these weirder characters in this photo inhabiting the Man of Steel world in any way however that doesn't mean it won't fit the world of Batman be Superman and it doesn't mean that they won't fit the larger DCC you if Batman is the one cracking open the door to a stylized world of weird then these guys are kicking down that door which might be exactly right after we seen wonder woman in action at the end of Batman be Superman and if you think about the DCA you that had clear stylistic jumps in the world and the reality between Batman and then Superman and ultimately justice league and I don't think the DCA you suffered very much for that if you think about Fox Studios they have been the poster child of presenting casting costumes in a way that gets roundly criticized at first and then works perfectly in first class are days of future past so with an open mind that these confrontational costumes are going to look great in context let's just give each of them a short rundown going from least to most weird okay so first we got Rick flag and he's the first of three guys on this list or basically wearing traditional tactical gear his rifle is fully kitted out with others sweet magical accessories and on his chest is an American flag so the chances of task force X being a private organization seems lower and it's much more likely to be a government black ops squad as it is traditionally in the comics it's a little interesting the flag is the only one with the scope of his rifle and not a particularly big one at that so this is squad it likely does most of its wet work up close and personal rather than from a distance next number two we got slipknot who also falls into that power military arch type but is a little weirder than flag because he's covered in cordage that his robe and you see to strange stylized stock lists but pistol gripped short barreled weapons dangling from either thought and if I didn't know that this was slipknot I might assume that those were breaching weapons but instead I believe there grappling guns with the grappling hooks folded or collapsed into the muzzle of each gun and having cordage running throughout his body means that he might be able to perform things sort of like the characters on attack of tie in which I've never watched but I'm aware of its impact on John audiences and supposedly that motor transport is really cool and really appealing it might be something they've got to pull off with these two grappling guns strapped to his thighs number three we've got dead shot so if slipknot is weirder for having broken grapple guns dead shot is weirder still by opting for red instead of olive drab or tactical black and for his to form mounted handguns dead shots rifle only has that a cog reflex sight so he likely gains long-range accuracy by way of his eyepiece or perhaps it's just as his nature skills or talent the ability to use forearm firearms as viable weapons demands skill in a certain amount of stylized realities so there inclusion proves that DC is committed towards something more faithful to the comics than what is starkly realistic in this case later Smith released a photo on Facebook where we get a closer look at the costume we see that there is a mask and in eyepiece and on his neck and his rifle appears to be the phrase I am the light the way no idea what that means of this point it seems vaguely religious but maybe will analyze that in the future but next we've got number for Diablo so Al Diablo actually isn't all that weird beyond his facial tattoos which are weird don't get me wrong but he's ranked more weird than the squad members with the weapons in the tactical gear because he seems so mundane and out of place on such a violent aggressive militarized squad without never fear if you're not familiar with Al Diablo he actually has Pyro kinesis in the new 52 and so that's how he'll bring the heat no pun intended to okay maybe happen was intended whereas you know dead shots penchant for accuracy seems to be in human it still may be an achievable skill but would Diablo it is just out and out a meta-human ability so the next weirdest person we've got is number five boomerang and he's weird like Diablo for some of the same reasons being seemingly a normal guy in normal clothes but he's weirder than Diablo because he's not even wearing than horrible clothes his left hand seems to be encased in chain mail and whether which makes sense for a man trying to catch razor-sharp boomerangs on the return flight and he's got mixed on his forehead and on the bridge of his nose suggesting that maybe he has an actually caught every boomerang perfectly maybe that he's been in some scraps boomerang just loses sleeves with that gold chain jewelry around his neck the polyester tracksuit under his heavy coat and the weapon duct taped to his right leg with the knit He's right out of the comic books which are weird now never would I have guessed that I would crank Harley Quinn is only the fourth weirdest looking person on the squad and my justification for that is putting aside the weaponry so far everyone including Harley could walk into a mall without the cops being, if Harley walked by you wearing what she's wearing you definitely would be startled but not Messerli threatened she's wearing Adidas branded high heels which were generally lambasted last year as the world's worst trend and somehow that's perfect that Harvey would adopt them Harley matches thematically with the image of Joker in the tattoos the rocker belt and the ripped T-shirt she's dangling a pair of handcuffs and sporting and ivory handled revolver in a holster under jacket it's a little tough to take her seriously on a team of soldiers assassins and meta-humans we don't have the context as to why she's on the squad I can see bursts of profoundly disturbing an effective violence coming from this Harley but deftly not a soldier like competence or seriousness is a small thing but I'm glad she's smiling in the photo the red and blue scheme seems to be inspired by the new 52 version rather than so for older more traditional red and black color schemes the muzzle break down some of those tattoos the tattooed on her left eye seems to be hashmarks which could be a kill count and that would put her around 40 kills which makes her amongst the worst murderers and American criminal history the other tattoos seems to say putting over a heart with an arrow through it and like with the Joker this is a totally unique look but it still captures the spirit of the character I'm not 100% on katana being weirder then Harley but I'm ranking it this way because the things that are intrinsic to her character and her look are weirder than with Harley basically is Lois Harley loses or hides that gun she can make her way in the real world albeit with people gawking and staring but katana can't lose her mask and are stored's and still be herself and if she goes anywhere with those things the cops are going to be called so a gun is generally a more practical weapon and that means you have to be on another level to bringing swords into a fight with automatic weapons I'm glad that there is another woman on this team and her inclusion makes the cast even more diverse in the comics katana is always a hero so I'm wondering how she finds her way onto the squad in this film and so far everyone in the cast screens action action action and the inclusion of a crouching sword master just reinforces that the mask is quite faithful to the current comics and speaking of comic book fidelity we come to number eight enchantress doesn't really look like anything that we've ever seen the comics and she would take the top spot for weird if it wasn't for killer croc have no idea what's going on here I think you see her and you call the cops not because you think you're in danger necessarily but because you think something has been done to her the few pieces of clothing that we can identify are heavily stylized and she looks like a priestess from a swords and sandals story I like that Crescent that's on her head it might suggest a crescent moon which would tied to her normal name which is June moon and part of her costume motif seems to be chains which might suggest that she is or was a prisoner of some sort the black makeup around her eyes makes her look even more undead then Harley Quinn and honestly I'm more terrified of enchantress than I am of killer croc I can't wait to see how she works into the squad I have difficulty imagining her inclusion if she doesn't have some kind of power whether supernatural or meta-human and I haven't really thought through all the implications of what it means to have people like enchantress of Diablo or the crock in the world your were training can bring you up to level of somebody of katana or dead shot but again that refrain that I think I'm going to keep coming back to is that in means that the DCC you is open to the fantastic the magical and the weird and that's just wonderful now finally we have the King of weird that has to be killer croc as weird as everyone else is on the squad we just a little effort they could passes human and that seems impossible with croc who has scaly skin and sharpened teeth his hands a wrapped like a boxer it is otherwise wearing rather mundane clothing perhaps ironically he's wearing alligator skin boots send a code but but his clothing is basically normal he's big but he's not inhumanly in nor mess and for him to have any relevance to this team a good assume that he's got some sort of resistance to small arms fire and incredible strength his presence here suggests that he's going to be in practical makeup rather than a visual effect and the whole group is standing in front of a sign welcoming them to Bellerive that's all the time I have for these quick impressions now back to your regularly scheduled episode okay and wonder woman news Matt asks about the change in directors and whether that's an issue and Towe asks about what I think about the new art regarding McLaren's departure and Jenkins as a replacement I'm glad I didn't talk too much about this upfront my general policy is to wait for an official press release because there's so much they can and does shift behind the scenes during production know there's been a lot of rumors and hearsay about the reasons for the departure I can't speak to how reliable are trustworthy those rumors might be how much weight we should accord them nonetheless because some have use this to create a narrative of chaos and disorder and incompetence let me just propose an alternative narrative that still fits the facts of the rumors that we've been told so basically the WB wanted a talented director and so they actively pursued and mood McLaren to make wonder woman from the outset McLaren had a different vision from the studio and both parties knew it the WB didn't hire McLaren blindly and McLaren didn't sign on assuming that Warner was 100% behind her of though there was a difference in vision Warner was open-minded enough to be convinced they've allowed talented directors to try out all sorts of radical visions in the past and they wanted to give McLaren a shot to convince them meanwhile McLaren knew that she'd have to work the process to do so to convince them and when she did they would officially announced her as the director by way of press release so to convince them McLaren had to start working on her own treatment of the story and to start to get involved the way Warner does big-budget preproduction asking for concept art in like of course this amount of interaction means that her involvement is leaked and we all know that McLaren is on board without official press release so in other words Warner and her intended to make the announcement after they had established or vision but instead we all know about it before she's an opportunity to convince them this else or as the director when this is really more like an audition or an internship McLaren was going to prove that she could work within Warner studio system on a big-budget production and in the process convince Warner of her vision Warner Bros. is willing to give you movie after movie if you can work within their system and this would be McLaren's first try at such a system and rumor has it that it didn't work out it doesn't mean that she would be great under another studio system or that she can learn the time but on her first outing with this system the production is rumored to be described as torturous if she had been able to turn out preproduction work smoothly with the system doubt we'd be hearing about the other disagreements but since there was trouble managing the system that cast doubts over the other points of her vision and allows them to part on the basis of creative differences so for example one such alleged disagreement was over the amount of action and the talking Tiger sidekick if McLaren was flying through preproduction and shown that she had a knack for it despite being her first time tackling such a project like with the Russo Brothers being entrusted with winter soldier as their first action film or Nolan being trusted with the $150 million budget of Batman begins when the average budget of his first three films was 17 million I believe that has she worked out those first couple of months Warner would've gone with her take but if she was struggling with their system there would be caused to be more conservative on the action or to avoid a supporting character that is all visual effects all the time so I think they agreed to part ways and then the WB signed Jenkins and that they confirmed that information to the press in a timely and strategic manner so long story short it's not the story of conflicting visions so much as Warner gave McLaren a shot to show what she could do with expensive preproduction and she wasn't compatible with their system at this time with her level of experience that doesn't mean that Warner system is wrong or that McLaren is a bad director just not a good fit after this trial. That narrative is more consistent with the subsequent hiring of Patty Jenkins who departed from Thor because of creative differences the split was because the studio couldn't control McLaren's vision then it would make sense to hire Jenkins was already left a Marvel movie for much the same reasons of course all of this is talking in the shadows in the dark and relying on hearsay we haven't got a statement from Jenkins or a press release on that either something reserved my comments about Jenkins until we get a press release on that for now let me just say that she's an incredible writer and director and I hope she gets a chance to apply both of those talents to wonder woman in answer to toe is question about the new art it looks good the Cape is interesting because it acts as a unifying piece of costume for all the Trinity characters and it's also in line with tradition since both on TV and in the comics wonder woman has on occasion worn a Cape it also appears to have a hood so it remains to be seen how much she'll wear the costume that appears in the Warner Bros. studio tour doesn't have a Cape syndicate might be ceremonial were not part of her standard gear however it also has a unique look to it that suggest some sort of utility or use beyond just an ordinary caper cloth will see we have some miscellaneous questions I think when I can handle them today but I got two questions pertaining to the justice league let's see a Maggie asks if justice league can beat the avengers at the box office and Scott asks if were going to get actual musical themes for the justice league and I'm regretting not prepared for addressing these an email or something I I don't know suppose anything's possible but it don't think we know enough at this point to hazard any kind of guess if Batman be Superman suicide squad and wonder woman all he did of the park I don't see why not you could even falter summon still get there but I guess my answer is it's too early to tell and it's the same for the musical themes I don't know that were getting musical themes even in Batman be Superman or whether they'll be carried forward I think it be nice to have and they readily manipulate your memories in your emotions and maybe even better if you could harm them but I don't know if there necessary or where filmmaking is today could be wrong but I think in the first two Daniel Craig Bond films they didn't use the James Bond theme is the film itself and I think of just a cut it off here I'm sorry to get all the questions but hopefully this should give you something to listen to until we get more exciting DCC you news thanks so much soliciting this is Dr. awkward your DC see you apologist signing off CNX time that answers Man of Steel answers insight commentary episode 22 epic mailbag to suicide squad cast photo I will ask the obvious question