A thought on DC properties.
Dec. 13th, 2015 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingSo I 've been watching Supergirl with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
torrain and it's pretty darn good. It's nowhere close to as good as Jessica Jones or Daredevil (about as good as Agents Of Shield, I'd say), but it's better than Arrow. DC's TV properties have consistently been so much better than their movies that it's hard to believe they're from the same company.[1]
But there's a thing that really bothers me: Consistently, over and over, the characters on Supergirl reference the events of the movie Man Of Steel and *they all seem to think Superman was a hero*. No: Superman was a murderous psychopath, an amoral and vindictive thief, a menace to everyone around him, the cause of almost all the problems in the movie, and only *slightly* better than Zod because Zod actively wanted all humans dead and Superman just didn't give a shit about 6.99999999 out of every 7 billion humans. And it drags me out of the narrative every single time Supergirl-verse pretends that didn't happen.
And then I realised. The characters on Supergirl are talking about Superman as a hero because he *was* a hero. They're saying he saved the world because he *did* save the world. They aren't talking about his massive uncaring collateral damage because *that didn't happen*.
In Supergirl, the events referred to from Man Of Steel happened, mostly, but not the way the movie said they did. Pa Kent didn't tell Clark to let children die (an outright lie), Clark didn't stand idly by and watch Pa Kent commit suicide (he tried to save him and failed), Superman wasn't vindictive and thieving and didn't cause millions in property damage out of pique, and he certainly didn't kill at least as many innocent people from Metropolis as Zod did. The movie Man Of Steel is not an accurate recounting of events, it's the Fox News version.
Man Of Steel is an in-universe film, full of lies, produced and paid for by Lex Luthor.[2]
Now everything makes so much more sense.
[1]: The trick: It's not the same company. It's just that DC has given permission for The CW to make perfectly acceptable The CW shows that tie in with and reference their movies, while reserving the full force of terribleness that WB and DC are notorious for for their feature films.
[2]: This also explains, by the way, why in Dawn Of Justice the role of Lex Luthor (billionaire with an irrational hatred of Superman) is being played by Bruce Wayne.
torrain and it's pretty darn good. It's nowhere close to as good as Jessica Jones or Daredevil (about as good as Agents Of Shield, I'd say), but it's better than Arrow. DC's TV properties have consistently been so much better than their movies that it's hard to believe they're from the same company.[1]But there's a thing that really bothers me: Consistently, over and over, the characters on Supergirl reference the events of the movie Man Of Steel and *they all seem to think Superman was a hero*. No: Superman was a murderous psychopath, an amoral and vindictive thief, a menace to everyone around him, the cause of almost all the problems in the movie, and only *slightly* better than Zod because Zod actively wanted all humans dead and Superman just didn't give a shit about 6.99999999 out of every 7 billion humans. And it drags me out of the narrative every single time Supergirl-verse pretends that didn't happen.
And then I realised. The characters on Supergirl are talking about Superman as a hero because he *was* a hero. They're saying he saved the world because he *did* save the world. They aren't talking about his massive uncaring collateral damage because *that didn't happen*.
In Supergirl, the events referred to from Man Of Steel happened, mostly, but not the way the movie said they did. Pa Kent didn't tell Clark to let children die (an outright lie), Clark didn't stand idly by and watch Pa Kent commit suicide (he tried to save him and failed), Superman wasn't vindictive and thieving and didn't cause millions in property damage out of pique, and he certainly didn't kill at least as many innocent people from Metropolis as Zod did. The movie Man Of Steel is not an accurate recounting of events, it's the Fox News version.
Man Of Steel is an in-universe film, full of lies, produced and paid for by Lex Luthor.[2]
Now everything makes so much more sense.
[1]: The trick: It's not the same company. It's just that DC has given permission for The CW to make perfectly acceptable The CW shows that tie in with and reference their movies, while reserving the full force of terribleness that WB and DC are notorious for for their feature films.
[2]: This also explains, by the way, why in Dawn Of Justice the role of Lex Luthor (billionaire with an irrational hatred of Superman) is being played by Bruce Wayne.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-14 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-14 03:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-14 03:36 am (UTC)(Also, while I have always watched Arrow at least in part to see people clue-by-four Oliver Queen, I will just note that my adoration of the Flash TV show is nearly completely unqualified.)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-14 02:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-14 02:58 pm (UTC)(Which is not to say anyone else needs to watch it, and I'm fine with that. You do you.)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-15 04:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-15 04:38 pm (UTC)On the other hand, it DOES explain that while Luthor isn't a character, LexCorp logos appear all over the place: PRODUCT PLACEMENT.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-15 04:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-16 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-16 12:26 pm (UTC)I'd have to go digging to find specific episodes, I just remember it happening several times in the ones I've seen so far.