It’s a Star Wars heavy podcast this week as we break down the latest Rouge One and Episode Eight rumors along with that whole opening crawl debate. What is it that makes a Star Wars movie? Plus Christian reviews Batman V Superman The Ultimate Edition. Alien Covenant rumors, Stranger Things on Netflix and why does the new Day of the Dead remake have the guys crying in protest again? Hear the guys weigh in this and much much more this week on The House of Gozer Podcast.
Listen Here : Episode 114: I Gotta Bad Feeling About This
THE BIG THING
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Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice The Ultimate Edition Review
by Christian
I won’t go into long lengths about story, plot, or the shortcomings or expectations this blockbuster had upon it’s initial release. God knows we have lamented on that subject since the movie came out in March.What I will tell you in that this version is the version I wish they would have released back in March.
This Ultimate Edition doesn’t fix everything but what it does do it steam line the story and flow of the film. It doesn’t feel like it’s missing something which is how the theatrical cut felt to me. It the theatrical cut it seemed like Superman was out to get Batman from the beginning which pretty much goes against character since this Clark Kent needs to rationalize things a bit before he gets to doing anything. In the Ultimate Edition He knows he didn’t do the things he was accused off so he goes looking for Kahina Ziri, the woman who testified to Senator Finch about the atrocities Superman committed he meets a bum and that is Clark’s first introduction to the Batman in this scene here.
Investigation
It definitely helps the film. Superman never wanted to fight Batman and especially kill him. While Clark certainly doesn’t like what he sees with Batman it’s only through Luthor’s manipulation that he gets pushed to confront him. The whole, ” the Bat is Dead speech ” Which brings me to another good thing about the ultimate edition. Luthor is less annoying. His path is a bit more clear his intentions a bit more meaningful. He is certainly not the Luthor we thought we were getting and certainly not like any Luthor is recent memory. Hell, even Gene Hackman’s Luthor was more intimidating that this one. What the Ultimate Edition serves up is a Smart and Crazy Luthor who is up to a lot more than you think he is. Jesse Eisenburg plays him as if he is a man on the edge. One straw away from the back breaking and letting all that crazy seep out from every pore of his being. Now it may be that I was so put off by my initial viewing of Luthor that it as taken me thing long to kind of come around to him. Lois is your path to Luthor as you discover through her investigations of the bullet how Luthor manipulated the media and the government to mistrust the man of steel. The one thing I wish we would have had in the film is a clear reason why Luthor hates him so much. Maybe it’s something Chris Terrio, Zack Snyder, and David Goyer felt we should know already. Like Batman Origin? We still got to see Batman’s origin in the opening credits. I think it would have helped the movie and the fans a lot to hear the why from Luthor’s mouth. That how how he found out both Clark’s and Bruce’s Identities. It certainly would have cemented why he went though all that trouble to try and do Superman in. Batman too for that matter.
Motivation
Speaking of Batman. The Ultimate Edition doesn’t really give you anything new to work with. This Batman obviously drew from Frank Miller’s DKR for inspiration and I liked the idea of this Batman that has reached the edge and now plans on jumping into it. While he looks more the part, the grey suit, the black cape, the many no nonsense criminal ass beatings, the body count he leaves behind goes against everything Batman stands for. ( one thing the Nolan movies got right ) If you take the body counts out of the equation, and the whole one percent chance speech, you do have the closest thing to comic Batman we have ever seen on screen. Something I know Ben Affleck is very passionate. The back and forth between him and Alfred are some of my favorite moments in this film. It’s almost like you can kind of get an idea of who this Batman was before his world got way too dark. Something I hope to see them explore in further outings. As I have said on numerous occasions on the podcast they can save this Batman as it’s clear in the end of the film he doesn’t brand Luthor. He doesn’t kill Luthor. He instead ops to keep a closer eye on him as revealed in the clip below.
Intimidation
The Ultimate Edition of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is not perfect but it does soften the blow. You can see clearly in its full three hour run time that WB Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Tsujihara meant what he said when he said it would be going for a more grounded in reality aesthetic and I get it. Marvel Studios is a powerhouse. They basically started a whole genre based on fan service. DC wants to play too but how to do it was a big problem at DC and WB and if Batman V Superman taught us anything its that throwing everything into it and making it too crowded was not a good idea and because of that story points and characters go unexplored and left to the audiences imagination.
That is the ultimate flaw of Batman V Superman. There is too much going on. Which is why three hours helps it. I can’t help but wonder how a three and a half hour cut would have been even better.
I think now DC Films has a very clear agenda with scaling down the producers and giving control to Geoff Johns. I hope that the future of DC films works. As a fan of DC characters I want to see them succeed. So I will cross my fingers while I am in line for Suicide Squad. Here’s Hoping.
MOVIE NEWS
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Darth Vader Returns – I thought this was old news – given that we heard though multiple sources that Vader would play a small part.
Forrest Witackers character – Revealed as someone already established in the Star Wars universe
Saw Guerrera. From the 5th season of Clone wars
Entertainment Weekly released new shots from Rouge One on the EW website
among those it was mentioned by Kathleen Kennedy that they are figuring out how to differentiate rouge one and film like it from the numbered films.
Quote K.K. “The crawl and some of those elements live so specifically within the ‘saga’ films that we are having a lot of discussion about what will define the [stand-alone] Star Wars Stories separate and apart from the saga films,”
James Camerons Comments of Force Awakens.
Here’s what he said – “I have to say that I felt that George’s group of six films had more innovative visual imagination, and this film was more of a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before, and it took a few baby steps forward with new characters. So for me the jury’s out, I wanna see where they go with it.”
LETS TALK SOME TV
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Let’s Get Strange at Netflix with Stranger Things
“A love letter to the supernatural classics of the 80’s, “Stranger Things” is the story of a young boy who vanishes into thin air. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl.”
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