II am NOT a Kevin Smith fan, but I have always LOVED the story RE: Superman can't fly, and he has to fight a giant spider. Because it's true and shows you just how INSANE the Hollywood system is.
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New Flash trailer
- Thread starter bondoking
- Start date
II am NOT a Kevin Smith fan, but I have always LOVED the story RE: Superman can't fly, and he has to fight a giant spider. Because it's true and shows you just how INSANE the Hollywood system is.
Surprised to see good reviews!
I liked it. A LOT. But I’m also the one guy on the planet that liked WW84
I was laughing out loud at parts…. In my packed theater of 8. So I’ll eat my hat over this not bombing… I’m honestly surprised it’s not a bigger hit… but then I didn’t get the WW84 hate.
Can def see why Gunn liked it. It’s got that comedy/heart feel.
I liked Ezra in it. Young Ezra was a bit much at times but still, it contrasted well and made older Barry less annoying
Keaton brought me back to 13 year old me in 89… seeing the movie that would awaken comic reading in me….
Super girl was awesome.
There was no big villain battle - thank gawd
Fun way to do an origins story
Had a couple great emotional scenes. Good setup payooff
Opening scenes were great. Camp as hell, but fun to see the league working together.
Wow tho…. That is some trash CG going on. I can see reasons for some of it… or excuses… but yikes.
I’ll prob check it out again.
I liked it. A LOT. But I’m also the one guy on the planet that liked WW84
I was laughing out loud at parts…. In my packed theater of 8. So I’ll eat my hat over this not bombing… I’m honestly surprised it’s not a bigger hit… but then I didn’t get the WW84 hate.
Can def see why Gunn liked it. It’s got that comedy/heart feel.
I liked Ezra in it. Young Ezra was a bit much at times but still, it contrasted well and made older Barry less annoying
Keaton brought me back to 13 year old me in 89… seeing the movie that would awaken comic reading in me….
Super girl was awesome.
There was no big villain battle - thank gawd
Fun way to do an origins story
Had a couple great emotional scenes. Good setup payooff
Opening scenes were great. Camp as hell, but fun to see the league working together.
Wow tho…. That is some trash CG going on. I can see reasons for some of it… or excuses… but yikes.
I’ll prob check it out again.
Paraphrasing Kevin Smith’s quote on it (cuz I don’t remember it exactly):
“I’ve spent so many years shouting out pop culture, it’s so cool that pop culture has started shouting out me”
ghostryder
Legendary Member
And that’s why I turn down all edit jobs from VFX studios.
Noooooo thanks.
Paul Andrew
Master Member
I will never poo-poo all the work that goes into the crazy amounts of vfx that movies "need" nowadays...
But damn. This film had some rough patches. Like, I cringed at a few shots and I tend to be pretty forgiving.
Definitely broke the verisimilitude in a few places.
But damn. This film had some rough patches. Like, I cringed at a few shots and I tend to be pretty forgiving.
Definitely broke the verisimilitude in a few places.
Bloop
Sr Member
A lot of their intended audience was alive for Batman 89. They now have kids, and it's why superhero movies and Star Wars do well. They're 4 quadrant movies - they appeal to adult men & women and younger people (again, parents and kids).
I think the bigger issue is streaming - a lot of people will happily wait for the DC movies to hit
EKF5
Active Member
Overall I found the film to be a "B" effort - the plot hangs together, reading Flashpoint in advance wasn't necessary, and the majority of problems in the film were forgivable.
I have no idea if Miller is a good actor or a bad actor and Miller's personal life may be irrelevant to most people considering seeing Flash. But Kylash is correct. I am sure the character we saw on the screen is the one we were supposed to see. And I think that was a problem for the movie. People, generally, have to identify with and root for the protagonist for a movie to succeed. When the advertised protagonist of a movie has a history of being a stereotypically annoying character, the studio is asking a lot of the audience to assume the character deserves the central role and will be enjoyable to watch. (To restate this with hyperbole, Flash was a bit like making a Star Wars film about Jar Jar Binks.)
For me, making Flash into an annoying nebbish in the initial appearances made no sense. While the animated Wally West version is annoying, he's competent (and aimed at a younger audience). Barry in the comics has been a bit shy, but never annoying. But making annoying behavior the focal point of a secondary character in a movie helps make the primary characters more heroic. But the decision never made sense to me since as a speedster he should have plenty of time to think about the implications of what he's going to say before he says it. So while he might say socially stupid things at first, and might be inclined to say them again, he's smart enough and has enough time to correct his choice by the second or third try (an acceptable character arc for the Justice League appearances if they bothered to use it).
I think if Barry Allen had completed a character arc to a more socially acceptable behavior set before this movie, the movie would have had a better chance to succeed.
SmilingOtter
Master Member
It was considerably better than I expected it to be.
I do wish they'd done more of the "Flashpoint" storyline, having Keaton play Thomas Wayne, but that's a minor issue.
The Nicholas Cage bit was brilliant, as was having Clooney in at the end.
I do wish they'd done more of the "Flashpoint" storyline, having Keaton play Thomas Wayne, but that's a minor issue.
The Nicholas Cage bit was brilliant, as was having Clooney in at the end.
Too Much Garlic
Master Member
I liked it. I thought the two Barry's worked together well. The one older and broken, the other young and kinda spoiled.
Loved seeing the Keaton Batman again.
And actually loved the new Supergirl. Really wish she would have met Henry Cavill's Superman and that she would have been the Supergirl going forward.
And maybe I'm wrong, but did I hear parts of Joel Schumacher's Batman score mixed in with Tim Burton's Batman score whenever Keaton's Batman was on screen and doing something cool? Don't know if I'm imagining things, but wonder what it means if they actually did that. If they meant for it to be NOT the exact Burton Batman... then they could have easily gone the Thomas Wayne route.
Loved seeing the Keaton Batman again.
And actually loved the new Supergirl. Really wish she would have met Henry Cavill's Superman and that she would have been the Supergirl going forward.
And maybe I'm wrong, but did I hear parts of Joel Schumacher's Batman score mixed in with Tim Burton's Batman score whenever Keaton's Batman was on screen and doing something cool? Don't know if I'm imagining things, but wonder what it means if they actually did that. If they meant for it to be NOT the exact Burton Batman... then they could have easily gone the Thomas Wayne route.
Loved Barry's last line when he saw Clooney! Who the ---- are you! Made me laugh out loud!
The post credit seen was kind of waist to wait to sit through though.
The post credit seen was kind of waist to wait to sit through though.
Bloop
Sr Member
As far as the score, I'm not a fan of constantly dropping in each character's theme music - to me, it lacks cohesion as a score. Like, I'm already sick of hearing the Wonder Woman theme anytime Gal Gadot appears on screen in any of the DC movies. I think there's subtler ways of doing it without sounding like they just hacked together audio from a bunch of different scores, all with different styles, instrumentation, and sound mixing.
Joek3rr
Master Member
I often find, when composers, have to use themes that were written by other composers. They don't seem to know how to utilize that theme efficiently. And it ends up feeling just cobbled together.
Bloop
Sr Member
I'm reminded that directors will make "temp tracks" which are pieced together from other scores/songs and composers have to make a score that sounds similar. So some of the problem could lie with the directors.
Composers also often use orchestrators to arrange their music. Danny Elfman wasn't formally trained in music so when he was approached by Tim Burton and Paul Reubens to do the score for Pee Wee's Big Adventure he relied on fellow Oingo Boingo band mate Steve Bartek to do the orchestrations.
And it's a lot easier to compose orchestral-type music now with music composition software and realistic sound libraries (synths) - many scores don't even use real musicians anymore (especially TV series) because it's quicker and cheaper to use synth music, and the vast majority of people can't tell the difference between synth instruments and live musicians.
Getting back to the point, there have been a lot of ways for musicians of limited training to create film scores, so it's inevitable that there may be people that aren't the most proficient who are being tasked with making film scores. Sadly, I feel it's a lot of 'who you know' and 'how fast you can do it' that gets people gigs as film composers.
Bloop
Sr Member
Possible plot hole spoiler - apologies if this has been addressed somewhere already (I haven't tried to google it):
When we find our that the younger Barry is the mystery character, they reveal he's been going back in time over and over again, and he appears aged, like he's been doing it for years, maybe decades. My question: how is it possible for him to do that without food or water? It's already established that Barry needs to eat more to keep his energy levels up - which they also kind of never get into later in the movie. Seems like they introduced it and didn't really do anything with it. You'd assume that going back in time would require Barry to expend a ton of energy, so it doesn't make sense that he could keep doing it continually for possibly decades.
The only explanation I can think of is that it hasn't been decades, that younger Barry's body has been ravaged by the energy expended without any replenishment. He obviously shows the effects of redoing the same battle - more metal shards embedded in his body, and a build up of other charred material or whatever on his suit. So maybe he has only been trying to save Bruce and Kara for a much shorter amount of time than I assume, perhaps only days or even hours. I mean, even ignoring the drop in his energy levels due to using the speed force, he still is human and needs food and water to survive, so it wouldn't really be possible to go without sustenance for years, or even weeks.
The only explanation I can think of is that it hasn't been decades, that younger Barry's body has been ravaged by the energy expended without any replenishment. He obviously shows the effects of redoing the same battle - more metal shards embedded in his body, and a build up of other charred material or whatever on his suit. So maybe he has only been trying to save Bruce and Kara for a much shorter amount of time than I assume, perhaps only days or even hours. I mean, even ignoring the drop in his energy levels due to using the speed force, he still is human and needs food and water to survive, so it wouldn't really be possible to go without sustenance for years, or even weeks.
ScourgiousJinx
Master Member
Kara was the highlight of the film for me. Calle did quite well with making emotion and her character feel believable. I cared what happened to her. Keaton as Batman couldn't have performed better within the context of the film. The issues with Batman were mostly with the cliche dialogue, call backs and story. His arc felt trite with the older washed up hero making a difference once again and passing on banal nuggets of wisdom. I still love Keaton as Batman though. His delivery was solid.
Miller reminds me of French Stuart only more annoying, obtrusive and creepy. To my knowledge I had never seen anything with him in it and I'm not making that mistake again. His story was passable but nothing unique especially when familiar with the character.
Why they still need to make these larger than life movies, throw millions and millions of dollars into production (where just breaking even is a daunting task), crappy CGI, over the top special effects, ridiculous boring fight scenes and still depend on call backs & cameos without putting more effort into writing or story is beyond me. Moments that could be somewhat decent are turned into memberberries. The call back is inherent when an actor is rehashing a role, they don't need need to repeat the exact same lines from past films.
The DC clean slate should involve more effort into writing than anything else and maybe leaving alone characters whose stories have been told so many times its hard to care about them anymore. I love Batman and Superman but seeing more of them that just rehashes everything and tries to outdo past productions is just painful and boring to watch. For the most part it seems the superhero genre has completely lost its heart to over the top spectacle.
Miller reminds me of French Stuart only more annoying, obtrusive and creepy. To my knowledge I had never seen anything with him in it and I'm not making that mistake again. His story was passable but nothing unique especially when familiar with the character.
Why they still need to make these larger than life movies, throw millions and millions of dollars into production (where just breaking even is a daunting task), crappy CGI, over the top special effects, ridiculous boring fight scenes and still depend on call backs & cameos without putting more effort into writing or story is beyond me. Moments that could be somewhat decent are turned into memberberries. The call back is inherent when an actor is rehashing a role, they don't need need to repeat the exact same lines from past films.
The DC clean slate should involve more effort into writing than anything else and maybe leaving alone characters whose stories have been told so many times its hard to care about them anymore. I love Batman and Superman but seeing more of them that just rehashes everything and tries to outdo past productions is just painful and boring to watch. For the most part it seems the superhero genre has completely lost its heart to over the top spectacle.
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Well said.
I actually liked Keaton better here than in 89. (But I didn't like him in 89, so there's that.) But could do without him having devolved into The Dude.
So Barry can go into super speed immediately at times, but at other times he has to strike a ridiculous pose first and waste seconds waiting to charge up or whatever. Okaay.
The antics with younger Barry were supposed to entertain me but they sooooo didn't. Annoying as hell. There was no point to the roommates, other than for some expository dialogue about this timeline's differences. Could've been handled differently.
A lot of overwritten scenes, like one character explaining something and the other slightly rewording it so it's driven into our skulls:
"So if you have two and add another two, then you've gotta end up with four."
"OH, I get it! It's like if you have two and then there's another two. FOUR, man!"
Thanks.
And:
Okay, we get it, BTTF is different. Shut up about it.
Someone mentioned weird CG versions of the characters delivering dialog in closeup. I noticed a couple shots like that of Barry in the Speed Force Thunderdome or whatever it's called. It's like, c'mon, guys, if you need a new line, shoot a pickup or do ADR over B-roll.
I was entertained overall, but it wasn't good enough for me to recommend.
I actually liked Keaton better here than in 89. (But I didn't like him in 89, so there's that.) But could do without him having devolved into The Dude.
So Barry can go into super speed immediately at times, but at other times he has to strike a ridiculous pose first and waste seconds waiting to charge up or whatever. Okaay.
The antics with younger Barry were supposed to entertain me but they sooooo didn't. Annoying as hell. There was no point to the roommates, other than for some expository dialogue about this timeline's differences. Could've been handled differently.
A lot of overwritten scenes, like one character explaining something and the other slightly rewording it so it's driven into our skulls:
"So if you have two and add another two, then you've gotta end up with four."
"OH, I get it! It's like if you have two and then there's another two. FOUR, man!"
Thanks.
And:
Okay, we get it, BTTF is different. Shut up about it.
Someone mentioned weird CG versions of the characters delivering dialog in closeup. I noticed a couple shots like that of Barry in the Speed Force Thunderdome or whatever it's called. It's like, c'mon, guys, if you need a new line, shoot a pickup or do ADR over B-roll.
I was entertained overall, but it wasn't good enough for me to recommend.
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