Pattinson/Reeves Batman Movie (Formerly Affleck Stand-Alone Film)

[CyberCubed]

DVDs will be dropped eventually. Reminds me of the people stubbornly clinging to their VHS collections in the early 2000's saying "Oh they'll never stop releasing stuff on VHS, I still have my VCR!" Look how that turned out.

[sdp]

Most people don't care about quality they care about convenience hence why streaming has been killing physical media for the last decade and why BluRay never became the successor to DVD as it was supposed to be. DVD sells better also because of convenience and people not caring to upgrade. It was the same with the music industry. "But the quality" "but you don't own it" "but they still sell a lot", yeah there's a niche, just like LPs never went away and are popular again but for the average person it's irrelevant.

I feel like such an idiot for buying so many DVDs in the 2000's, but whatever I guess they brought me joy even if I only watched each movie or show a maximum of two times.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

DVDs will be dropped eventually. Reminds me of the people stubbornly clinging to their VHS collections in the early 2000's saying "Oh they'll never stop releasing stuff on VHS, I still have my VCR!" Look how that turned out.

Because it was a cumbersome and inconvenient format. It was a $25 item that held two hours of content, and it was replaced by a format that could be sold for the same price or cheaper, hold more than three times as much content, and take up 1/3 the shelf space as a VHS cassette. If DVDs weren't a superior format in literally every single respect, it might not have been so cut-and-dry. As it was, there was literally zero reason for VHS tapes to still exist. They had become utterly redundant.

Meanwhile, vinyl albums are a big deal again despite "everyone going digital" because News Flash: Digital music sounds like absolute sh*t. The only convenience factor is that you can plug it directly into your ear, but it sounds. Like. SH*T. Thus why CDs and even vinyl records still exist. People who actually care about music and don't just use it for background noise actually want it to sound good.

Disc media has none of the problems streaming does. "I don't like having stuff on my shelf." "I like to steal and I don't like to pay for things." That's the only "advantages" that streaming has over disc media.

A guy who insists on watching movies on high-speed so he can get through them faster obviously isn't going to be an authority on this subject, because that person obviously doesn't care for anything resembling texture or nuance. They're not going to notice or care about sound or picture sounding like sh*t. They just want a cheap lay. Well, alright for you. But MOST people have higher standards than that.

And as I've pointed out, you've been beating the same drum for over a decade and we're barely an inch closer to your prediction, so it's kind of annoying by now. I could come on here every day and say "The sun is going out! The sun is going out!" And eventually, I'll be right. But not tomorrow. So I wouldn't waste my time. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" and all that.

Originally Posted by sdp

Most people don't care about quality they care about convenience hence why streaming has been killing physical media for the last decade and why BluRay never became the successor to DVD as it was supposed to be.

Most people are ignorant philistines, yes, but they shouldn't be allowed to set standards for people who have actual taste. Thankfully, they don't run everything YET.

[neatoman]

Well, the difference if that VHS... Well, sucks beyond video output. The damn tapes literally become unwatchable and just get worse until there's nothing but static. The only reason that format held on was because it was cheap.

If DVD/Blu-Ray is replaced but there is still some demand for physical releases... Maybe the replacement is something that can hold multiple movies? I mean yes, you can probably put multiple movies on one disc already, but it might seem more convinient to have all three movies in a trilogy on the same one.

[Leo656]

Well again, that's kind of my point. Nothing ever really "dies" until a replacement comes along that truly is better at doing every single thing and more.

People who stream have to deal with lag, interruptions, outages, and whatnot. With discs, as long as you don't smear your Cheetos-covered fingers all over them, they'll outlive you and work fine. Y'know what a huge inconvenience it is when my music cuts out in the middle of a workout? Every time it happens, I curse myself for not having my Discman handy so I wouldn't have to deal with that crap. Not to mention inferior sound quality and other issues already mentioned.

An all-streaming future is only "The Best Future" for lazy, cheap asses who don't care if the thing they're watching or listening to is inferior. So long as there are people who want an overall better experience, options will still be available for those people, whether it becomes "niche" or not.

That's all I've been saying. Things diminish based on trends and changing tastes, but they only "die" completely once they become utterly pointless. Disc media and even vinyl albums aren't there yet. Their "replacements" don't overwhelmingly improve on the experience, thus they've stuck around despite no longer being the dominant format.

If and When a truly superior format comes along? That's another conversation entirely. But it hasn't happened yet.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

I am younger than you and its not really any difference. I only get Blu-Rays if they come with the DVD.

That's insane. Your eyes can't see the difference between 480p and 1080p?

I can understand someone not seeing a huge upturn with 1080p vs. 4K depending on your setup... but 480p vs. 1080p? It's like night and day.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

I've moved on to 4K's. I don't have very many, but that's how I like to own my very favorite movies. It is the HDR that really steals the show. I purged all my DVDs long ago and have one or two blu rays - The Batman Animated series collection and Princess Mononoke.

I'm into 4k as well. The quality improvement across each generation - DVD to BluRay to 4k is huge.

I still all digital for most stuff nowadays but still go for 4k physical copy on the stuff I really I love or really want to see high end. I love streaming, but
the picture quality you get from disc sourcing via a laser in your home is still much better than what streaming bandwidth can deliver so far.

Even at Blu Ray I was wondering what HD could do for something like animation at this point - what's on the cell is what's on the cell. The Ghost In The Shell just came out in 4k and holy crap it's an amazing transfer.

[frank_one]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

DVDs will be dropped eventually.

Not in the next 5 years. Which one will be dropped first, DVD or Bluray?

[Coola Yagami]

If you own a DVD, it's yours. It doesn't matter if it's out of print, if the company was bought by Disney, if suddenly the actor in it said something stupid and now they want to remove it off of Netflix/Hulu/whatever, or if something offensive would later get removed or censored later on. The DVD you own is still in your hand and will still play the original movie as originally intended at the time you bought it.

Hell, you can laugh at people complaining that Netflix is removing 'The Office' which you watch your 'The Office' box set.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

If you own a DVD, it's yours. It doesn't matter if it's out of print, if the company was bought by Disney, if suddenly the actor in it said something stupid and now they want to remove it off of Netflix/Hulu/whatever, or if something offensive would later get removed or censored later on. The DVD you own is still in your hand and will still play the original movie as originally intended at the time you bought it.

Hell, you can laugh at people complaining that Netflix is removing 'The Office' which you watch your 'The Office' box set.

Wait, when is The Office leaving? I only just started watching it.

Don't like it enough to own it, but I'd like to finish the series.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by frank_one

Not in the next 5 years. Which one will be dropped first, DVD or Bluray?

BluRay since it's already being phased out for 4K bluray which is technically a different format and 8k blurays soonish so 4k also has its years numbered in a way. Discs are such an awful media, definitely won't be around by the end of the 2020s though.

[Leo656]

If I dig around I promise I'll find a quote of you saying the exact same thing circa 2012.

"Discs are such an awful media". You're smokin' crack, RaverBoi.

[ZariusTwo]

Terrance Winter quits Matt Reeve's HBO Max Batman spin-off citing creative differences


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...source=twitter

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

Terrance Winter quits Matt Reeve's HBO Max Batman spin-off citing creative differences


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...source=twitter

I saw that. Curious what happened, and what it means for the show. What was Winter's vision, versus what Reeves wants?

[Andrew NDB]

Interesting talk about what the Affleck "The Batman" script would have been about. "Interesting" I say, but a little... more grim-dark than I think most of us were expecting. I thought it was supposed to be about some big "rough night" with Batman going through lots of inmates in Arkham Asylum or something? Not Deathstroke killing "all" of his loved ones? Also stuff on that after the end credits scene on the boat with Lex in the Whedon cut of JL:

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/batma...0726#gs.nl3cmk

Though I'm a little confused by the bit about the boat. Is the version where it set up Affleck's "The Batman" a remnant of the Snyder cut, then Whedon reshot it to set up a (very hopeful, I might add) Justice League 2? Or did Whedon shoot both versions and neither one is Snyder footage? I'm not sure how to read that bit.

[Leo656]

Eisenberg said in a few interviews over the years that he was never on set for Whedon, all of his JL scenes were with Snyder.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Eisenberg said in a few interviews over the years that he was never on set for Whedon, all of his JL scenes were with Snyder.

That's what I was thinking. It'd be hard to believe Whedon would call in Eisenberg... unless WB was making him do so. Snyder must have just shot it two ways to appease the bosses.

[Leo656]

It's a bit of a dark premise, but it also fits where the series was always designed to go (and the specific story Affleck signed up for in the first place). The release order if everything had gone as planned was supposed to go: BvS, "Justice League: Part 1", "The Batman", and "Justice League Part II". The endgame of JLII was going to borrow from Final Crisis, with Batman sacrificing his life to give Superman a final chance to stop Darkseid, in turn both mirroring Superman's sacrifice in BvS and also Bruce "paying him back".

Narratively, the "Deathstroke destroys Bruce Wayne's life" plotline fits pretty neatly into what was scripted to happen in JLII. I always wondered what would have happened to people like Alfred or anyone else Bruce left behind once he'd given his life to stop Darkseid; if they were all already dead, though, Bruce's decision to make the ultimate heroic sacrifice makes a lot more sense. I mean what's left, y'know? If he's already lost everything then there's only one thing left to give. It makes sense.

I kinda feel like sometimes people forget the entire narrative arc was designed to end with him dying, and that that's the main thing that Affleck signed up for. When you work backwards from that a lot of the narrative decisions make a lot more sense as far as how they all fit together.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That's what I was thinking. It'd be hard to believe Whedon would call in Eisenberg... unless WB was making him do so. Snyder must have just shot it two ways to appease the bosses.

That's what I figured. We already know for a fact that what was scripted originally for "JL Part I" was already being changed and parts being moved around before Zack opened the lens.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

It's a bit of a dark premise, but it also fits where the series was always designed to go (and the specific story Affleck signed up for in the first place). The release order if everything had gone as planned was supposed to go: BvS, "Justice League: Part 1", "The Batman", and "Justice League Part II". The endgame of JLII was going to borrow from Final Crisis, with Batman sacrificing his life to give Superman a final chance to stop Darkseid, in turn both mirroring Superman's sacrifice in BvS and also Bruce "paying him back".

lol... so follow up "The Death of Superman" and "The Dark Knight Returns" with "The Death of Batman"? In like Batman's third movie? That sounds truly awful. Maybe in like DCEU movie #20.

Imagine if Iron Man just popped into, like, Thor 2 (and if Thor 2 was called "Thor v Iron Man: Dawn of Avenging") to sacrifice himself to save Thor... and after us never even getting an Iron Man 1. Who would care? That would have derailed everything.

[Leo656]

They were never, ever talking about doing 20 movies with this storyline or these versions of the characters, though.

Zack specifically discussed a "5-movie plan" for the central storyline from the beginning. It was never supposed to go on indefinitely, it was just supposed to be one "main" story with a few prequel/spin-offs like Wonder Woman and Aquaman and if those movies ended up getting sequels then "fine" but they never sat down with a giant flow chart and mapped out a gigantic 15-year 40-movie spiderweb. For one thing, that's not how WB ever does business. They never greenlight anything that far ahead, because it assumes way too much and they're a very creatively conservative company. Even if Snyder had laid out a long-term pitch for 20-30 movies back in 2011 - which never would have been discussed since "Avengers" hadn't even happened yet - WB still would have said, "Yeah, let's see how the first two work out before we start talking about a hundred more." They hired him specifically because he pitched them on one "big" story that could still fit within a "tight" framing of half a dozen movies or less, with room for the spin-offs to be their own thing entirely.

None of this is new information, by the way, it's all been openly discussed for like 8 years. This is what I mean about people judging things against what they were never intended to be. You keep talking about how they "should have done this" or "They needed to do X number of movies before doing _____", but 1. That's very fan-ficcy when people do that as a means of "criticism", and 2. Neither Snyder nor Affleck, specifically, ever had any intention of being around for 20 movies, and I doubt Cavill ever was either. Although I'm sure at least with Superman, the intention was to do at least one more sequel and they never got around to it. But that adds up to the "5 Movies" that have always been discussed as part of the main through line: MoS, BvS, JL Part I, JL Part II, and "MoS 2" either in-between JL movies or after JL II. Given that Snyder has always said that the entire 5-movie arc he pitched and WB bought was a Superman story first and foremost, that's the only thing that makes sense as "Movie 5".

But regardless of where that fits in, the fact remains that Zack pitched WB on "just" 5 movies, with the idea that other directors could then do spin-offs based on his version of the characters, and that's what everyone signed on for. Like Aquaman and Wonder Woman's movies, "The Batman" was going to be both a stand-alone but still tie directly into the events of the "main" JL films, in this case by bridging the two of them. Affleck, for his part, only signed on at all because he wanted to play an older, "tortured" Batman as well as be the first actor to do Batman's death scene. He was never interested in being Batman for the next 10 years. When WB reneged on that story was when he got disgruntled and walked away from it. He was never, ever going to be Batman in a bunch of different movies. Just the handful he signed on for, with the ending for the character he signed on for. I'm not even 100% sure "Suicide Squad" was originally part of the plan for that, or if he got called in as a "favor" or what.

The Superman/Batman parallel line through the central arc isn't even complicated. Superman redeems and re-inspires Batman though his sacrifice and death; Batman had by that point thought that "hope was a lie" and there was nothing left worth fighting for, until the "alien" he'd tried to assassinate gave his life to protect a world that feared and hated him, simply because it was The Right Thing To Do. This sets Bruce, re-inspired, upon a more hopeful path in Justice League, and eventually sets him upon bringing Superman back from the dead because "The World Needs Superman". Then in JL II, the roles would be reversed, with Batman being the one to sacrifice himself so that Superman could stop Darkseid, in similar fashion to how Superman had given his life to stop Doomsday, thus closing the narrative loop in a way that parallels the earlier film, something that happens a lot in Snyder's DC movies if you notice, scenes paralleling or mirroring each other. The symbolic and dramatic weight of what they were trying to do isn't at all complicated, and it makes a lot of sense from a narrative standpoint.

But this whole thing was never designed as a sprawling epic, at least not Zack's central story. They never even had any kind of plan or conversation past the 5 central movies and each character getting one spin-off. That was more than enough to keep everyone busy, and as we've seen they never even managed to get THAT far. It's kind of missing the point of the entire exercise to say "They should have done ____ 20 movies in" when they were never even looking that far ahead and nobody involved even discussed or signed up for that. Obviously they were hopeful to do sequels to things like Wonder Woman in the event that they did well, but those decisions were always a "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" scenario.

Absolutely any story sounds "awful" if you just plain refuse to play along with it or insist that it would be better if you wrote it. But that's the thing, "Here's what I would have done" doesn't count. Since they only agreed upon doing five central movies in the first place, would you prefer to have those Five Movies contain Big Dramatic Moments and things that had never been done before on film, or meandering "We'll save the Big Stuff for the sequels (which might never even get made)" nonsense? It was a "Go Big or stay home" pitch from the beginning, that was the entire point. They all wanted to do things from the comics that hadn't been done in DC films before, not just tread water and churn out filler. "And then we'll finally do The Big Stuff ten or twelve movies in." What?

Nobody agreed to do 20 movies. I really can't stress that enough. They said "We'll do 5 movies and make them all count," instead. So what? Did they really need to do "fluff and filler" movies like Marvel did with "Ant-Man" before getting to the Big Stuff like "Death of Superman" or "Death of Batman"? You might think so; I think that would be a colossal waste of time, assume way too much because they couldn't predict every movie would be a hit, AND the way WB operates they never would have even got that far anyway.

What they were going for was perfectly fine. It just wasn't "The Marvel Way" of doing it. Stories in comic books can be decompressed; within a series of films you have to make the most of your real estate. I'll take five movies where each one is important to the main arc and full of Huge Moments, over 25 movies where half of them are only there to set up the next one and otherwise don't matter at all, any day of the week. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a tightly-woven narrative that tells One Specific Story.

Like, in what universe would WB ever even entertain the notion of "20 DC movies" all connected. They've barely ever made it through three in a row before they get bored and reboot. C'mon. Let's apply Reality and Logic and "What We Know To Be True", and not live in "Here's What *I* Would Do" Land. The hypotheticals you propose would realistically never, ever, ever happen. Therefore, they're a bad form of "criticism" to apply towards what we actually got instead.

Maybe *you* would have tried to sell WB on doing 20-something "DCU" movies back in 2011. But you'd have been laughed out of the office and escorted off the property because WB has never played the game that way and likely never will. I'm not trying to be a dick; I'm just saying, your criticism of the arc structure makes no sense for a number of reasons. They were only committed to five "All Killer/No Filler" movies, and that in and of itself is Perfectly Fine. Not everything needs ten years of setup to get to the damn point.