Batman v. Superman: The stupidest argument of all time

Apparently, you have to have qualifications before you can criticize movie trailers now.  You can't just chalk it up to taste anymore.  You have to prove your impartiality before you can speak on movies now.  I don't know where this shit started, but it really needs to stop.  The Batman v. Superman trailer was leaked over the weekend, and naturally, some folks didn't like it, but folks got mad when they dared express that online.  Like, more than usual.

We're talking about a movie trailer about a fictitious alien that wants to be friends fighting a fictitious rich guy with an inability to let go of the past.  It sounds like the plot to a Pixar movie, but people were acting like they were investigating a murder, trying to figure out the motives of people who didn't like it.  This isn't exactly serious scholarship here.  Taking on critics of this movie trailer isn't going to get you a job at The Atlantic.

It just blows my hair back when people get this serious over fictional characters, as if it's going to make a bit of difference either way.  Instead of people just enjoying the fact that we're all nerds, people are out here acting like people who didn't like it are going to block off the theaters in an act of censorship.  People are actually drawing conclusions about the characters of real, living people based on what they thought about a movie trailer.  Because, as we know, movie trailers are the modern iteration of Rorschach tests.

And the thing is, I don't think people defending the trailer really understand where the problem is coming from.  People aren't loving the way this movie is turning out (and the one before it) because it continues the Batman-ization of the DC Universe, and it was something that a lot of people could see coming after The Dark Knight came out.

See, Batman is grim and gritty.  He's tormented.  He wreaks vengeance on those who wronged him so that others don't have to suffer like he did.  Basically, this dude is broken inside and uses that to punch criminals until they're broken like him.  That formula for a superhero made Warner Bros. a billion dollars.  And because movie executives are generally unimaginative, they said, "Hey, Superman is having trouble.  Why not make him like Batman?"  You know, completely ignoring the context surrounding Superman's movies.

I mean, the problem with Superman Returns wasn't that Superman isn't tormented, it's that it was two and a half hours of washing Richard Donner's balls.  But who has time for a true examination of the issues?

And that's why Man of Steel is the way it is.  That's why Superman is morose, everything is dimly lit, and there's no sense of joy or fun in a single frame of the movie.  That's why Superman doesn't save anyone.  Superman lives in Batman's world now, and in Batman's world, you need to learn that life is shit.  

Except that's not the world Superman lives in.  Superman is supposed to represent all of those good things.  He tries to save people before he punches people.  He's supposed to inspire people to be good and do better.  He always tries to de-escalate the situation, even though he's powerful enough to turn the person in front of him into a fine, red mist.  That's what makes him Superman.  Of course he can kill everyone on Earth, but he doesn't want to.  He wants to show us a better way.  Even if he's existing in Batman's dark, depressing, basement of a world, at the very least, he needs to be that.  He wasn't, and right there is the difference in opinion on Man of Steel.

Superman fans didn't need for Superman to change.  Batman fans needed for Superman to change.  And Batman fans loved that movie.

That's why some people weren't excited to see the Batman v. Superman trailer, because they're worried that it's gonna be more of the same: A Superman that Superman fans don't recognize. And there's a huge possibility of that if the movie is based on "The Dark Knight Returns," a story that paints Superman as a government-owned bitch.  The only people who want to see that are Batman fans.  It has nothing to do with a secret love for Marvel or an inability to let go of the Donner Superman movies or any other of the silly shit I've seen thrown out there this weekend.  Maybe it just doesn't look that good to some people.  We're talking about art, not an arms treaty.

We won't know for sure until the movie gets released, but in the meantime, dial back the hostility.  We're all allowed to have opinions, and none of us need to justify them to you.

A Calm, Sensible Reaction to Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor

Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luthor, because Michael Cera is already booked.

I'm sure that's the kind of reaction that DC was expecting and I'm all too happy to give it to them.  And it's not even because I'm angry about the casting. I actually kinda like it.  I, unlike so many others, have perspective.  The perspective that comes from an reading too many comic books.  I understand that there are many different versions of Lex Luthor, and that Jesse Eisenberg fits into a few of them.  Dare I say, this casting is brave...and bold.  Please, hold your applause, because that joke was awful.

Still, you're gonna have to go through the initial shock of people saying, "The fucking dude that played Mark Zuckerberg is gonna be Lex Luthor?"

I saw a guy on Facebook that said, "Is he going to invent Facebook to defeat Superman?"  Really, that's the level of discourse DC has to face, and it's not like Jesse Eisenberg has given the fans a ton of ammo to throw back at him.  This won't go much past unfunny Facebook jokes and DC will be fine with that, because they already weathered the worst of this storm with Ben Affleck.  That was an epic tantrum, and once we got past that, it's like people couldn't really get that mad anymore.  It was like the world said, "Okay, we all know this flick is gonna suck. They really can't do any worse than this." 

And after that, Gal Gadot just got questions about her physique, mostly because no one knows who she is.  Jesse Eisenberg is just getting bad jokes, like the ones I've written just now.  It's all just been diminishing nerdrage, so we'll probably be done with this story by Monday.  No one even noticed that Jeremy Irons is playing Alfred.

I saw more outrage yesterday that Fox wants Channing Tatum to play Gambit in a future X-Men movie.  It wouldn't be a surprise that Fox was thinking about doing some more bad X-Men casting, but people were legit mad at that, I guess because Channing Tatum is too sexy or can't act or something.  As if Gambit is a character filled with such pathos that only a Shakespearean actor could capture it all.  Anyway, the X-Men flicks are filled with terrible decisions. I still believe that Halle Berry was cast because she was the only black person the producers could name.

Warner Bros. is supposed to be better than that.  Or at least Christopher Nolan is and Zach Snyder are.  And I'm willing to give it a chance, because as I've said trying to talk people off the ledge today, it all depends on what kind of Lex Luthor will be in the movie.  You got your "evil businessman" Lex Luthor (who could stomp ass), and you got your "sociopath scientist" Lex Luthor (who could not).  I think the second one is something Eisenberg can work with.  As long as he's not on there talking about being the "greatest criminal mind of our time," I think we'll be fine.

Ben Affleck as Batman isn't worth an anger stroke

Watching the internet unravel after Ben Affleck was announced to play Batman was something to behold. Seeing millions of allegedly grown ass people lose their shit over a guy dressing up in a rubber suit was a memorable moment in the history of nerddom, right behind "The Dark Knight Returns," "everyone in America pretending to be nerds," and "guys being able to pull girls with superhero shirts on."  Except this was truly entertaining, and I thank you.

I guess I just never really understood that level of anger over something that I don't own or can't control. Sure, I've had differences with movie creators over things, because who the fuck reads that Catwoman script and thinks that their work is done?  Also, my hate for Joel Schumacher's Batman movies was so great, I actually made an ex-girlfriend cry because she wanted me go see "Batman and Robin."  But even that was after we left the theater.  I at least had the decency to watch the movie before I shit on it so hard that I hurt a person's feelings. 

And really, at the time, announcing George Clooney at Batman actually provided some hope, until they said that Joel Schumacher was coming back, and thus began a two-year long campaign to never see that movie.  All of which was ruined opening weekend, when she begged me to go with her and her brother and sister.  We went to see that fucking movie, and now, we're no longer together.  I'm not saying the two events are related, but that was a really shitty movie. 

Anyway, freaking out on that level based on announcements has never made sense to me. Especially considering how wrong fandom tends to be.

By now, everyone's been reminded of how wrong they were about Michael Keaton as Batman in 1989, and Heath Ledger as the Joker in 2008.  Even those didn't bother me at all, because in 1988, when they revealed Michael Keaton, I thought it was pretty cool that Mr. Mom would be Batman.  Keep in mind, I was 10, and still considered Garfield comics to be a prime reason to read the newspaper.  And when Heath Ledger was announced as the Joker, I really didn't mind, because every announcement came with the disclaimer that they were going for something different.  Which they did.  And everybody was happy.

No, I'm not comparing Batfleck to Heath Ledger's Joker, but it's not like it's a fuck up that you can see coming a mile away.  It's not like it's Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman or Keanu Reeves as John Constantine or every painful second of "X3: The Last Stand."  Some people are horribly miscast at times or are generally bad actors, and this isn't one of those times.  Now, that's the kinda stuff that fans should get upset about, but there you are, helping "Fantastic Four" make enough money for a sequel.  And instead, y'all wanna get mad about Idris Elba playing Heimdall in the Thor movie.  Look, Heimdall could have been played by Macho Man Randy Savage, and he still would have just stood there and been irrelevant.  That's why they were fine with turning him black.

Everyone has been bringing up all that old shit, like "Gigli" and "Daredevil, but Ben Affleck wasn't what was wrong with those movies.  You can see it if you watch them without actively hating Ben Affleck.  They were bad because of the people in charge of making them, and in the case of Mark Steven Johnson, writer/director of "Daredevil," he's proven that he was the problem when he made "Ghost Rider."  That guy is desperately trying to tell you to keep him away from the set of your movie.  That guy's directed five movies with an average Metacritic score of 5.6.  On Rotten Tomatoes, he has a 32.75% fresh rating.

I don't know what went wrong with "Gigli," though, because the guy who wrote and directed that also directed "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Midnight Run."  No one could have seen that coming.  But sure, it's Ben Affleck's fault that the fourth friend in the Hangover flicks was allowed to copy Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and call it acting.

That's right, the guy who spent the first Hangover stuck on the roof.  That guy.  Oh, and it was also Ben Affleck's fault that Jennifer Lopez's pussy monologue got through multiple edits.  Fuck, that was a painful movie to watch.  #butitwasntBenAfflecksfault

Right now, it's the cool thing to say that stuff, or talk about how you aren't going to see Superman/Batman or Batman/Superman or Batman vs. Superman, or Superman: The Quest for Peace, whatever they're going to call it.  But the more I think about it, the more I get excited about the idea of Ben Affleck as Batman.  And I'm the guy that everyone expects to be hyper-critical of everything (Man of Steel sucked, fuck you).  Because, like Matt Damon said, "He's not playing King Lear."  Except I've never seen that, so I'll go with the guy who played Gollum in "Lord of the Rings."  But he's been playing Bruce Wayne for the better part of his career, and since he already has the chin, all he has to bring for Batman is a better Batman voice than Christian Bale.  Preferably one that he can use when speaking meaningful dialogue.

But think about that:  All he has to work on for the next year is choosing a good Batman voice.  As long as he doesn't try to get creative or make him British, he's already won.  Honestly, I'm more worried about the writer and director.  Those people made made Superman an emo hobo and a killer. At the same damn time.  For all we know, these jokers might have Batman dancing or enjoying life.  I really don't know what to expect.

Even if you don't agree with this casting decision, why get mad?  If it fails, they will know, probably before opening weekend is over, that they made a mistake.  Not only that, you just spent two years hoping it failed so you could be right.  But if it succeeds, then you've just spent the previous two years being upset and wrong about something.  It's a no-win for you.  And most importantly, you had no effect on it either way.  You were angry, wrong, and irrelevant.  But if you sit back and just wait for it, you'll only be one of those things.