James Gunn's DCU Is Falling Apart (critical drinker)

Another drinker doom post lol, he not entirely wrong but with a caveat: 

It’s not just about numbers, it’s not always about box office. 

I understand that’s the criteria Studios operate by, but there’s too much emphasis on it on our level as non studio-execs.

Even if it made a billion+, that’s not a degree of quality just means people bought product. Endgame & the Manga industry is proof that getting numbers doesn’t mean the product people consume is platinum or the absolute upper echelon, it means the marketing did it’s job to convince people to buy product.

Many people can enjoy a quality product but just because a lot of people bought product in droves, is not always indicative of quality. 

Numbers alone don’t mean it’s good or bad. that’s where I detract from Drinkers very common talking point: “box office”

S25 was bloated with classic Gunnisms; Corenswet did his best (he was the best thing about the film, thankfully. Though there are some characterization issues here & there (not MOS levels of bad characterization btw) but that’s the writer’s fault, not David.C, hence why D.C himself actually pushed back against Gunn on some writing decisions, so even the actor of the title character smelt some of the same contrivances i did

https://youtu.be/0IwY7Mfzw_w

The music was amazing, impressive shots (like X-El combos in that underground tunnel), wonky characterizations overall, miscasts/many miscasts (Mr.T was alright), undercooked plot beats, & thus Gunnisms galore getting in the way of the execution, which is why majority of his productions are gimmicky and predictable.

Joe Kelly should’ve written, and Matthew Vaughn should’ve been the director or Co-director with Gunn.

Gunn needed to offer notes or have a partnership here if he absolutely needed to be a director, or ideally, stay out of the way.  

Corenswet disagreeing with Gunn on-set over some scene details with that final Superman monologue (both Gunn & Corenswet in context had a point, but  Corenswet was right because his angle had less contrivances long term) is just icing on the cake as to why the movie (partly why) was without a doubt better than Snyder’s Man of Sulking as a Superman movie (been said MOS is a great Sci-fi movie but a horrible Superman movie), but S25 still below average as a movie because of Gunn’s Gunnisms.

And as a Superman film: it pales in comparison to something like Superman vs The Elite which was LEAGUES shorter in runtime, gets more done, had an excellent Superman, better characterization with less characters, better writing, better action, better theme/moral and said themes were given FOCUS & thus got to cook.

If Superman vs The Elite had Gunnisms:

1.  introduced to the Elite
2.  set-up the dilemma of Superman’s morality in the modern day being challenged by The Elite, which puts in question, is Superman relevant to the modern era, where morality allegedly requires a gray approach?
3. Lex has a pet Kryptonian (lets say it’s Kara in this take) who’s in her 40′s, she landed on Earth first, stronger than Superman (not his cousin but his clone) & was imprisoned this entire time on Earth. Her brain is beyond repair because Lexcorp turned her into a zombie & she has a peanut allergy, which Lex mocks her for for comedic effect. “That’s not funny“ you say? Exactly! It’s random, & that makes it funny, #WelcomeToGunnisms
   
4. Parasite is a bleeding heart victim who’s just misunderstood & has to consume peoples life forces to survive but his hunger is turning him into a planetary level threat, he is set loose by Luthor to end Superman and everyone killed by Rudy will be blamed on Superman for not stopping. P.R assassination by Luthor.
   
5. Btw the Justice League is here too for some reason
   
6.  And then out of nowhere it’s revealed Superman was actually carrying an alien pathogen, spreading it throughout his life to wipe the people of earth as an unknowing carrier, which was his real purpose for being sent to earth
7. Mxy is in the goddamn movie causing trouble, doing weird dumb shit (the Krypto of the film) 1000% unnecessary addition

See how bloated that is? 

All of those random ass plot beats stuffed into a single runtime, most of those are worth their own movies: Superman 2025 in a nutshell.

 If Gunn wrote Superman vs The Elite, that’s what we have gotten. And it sounds like it should be the best Superman movie in history (which is what people said when Superman 25 trailers dropped & we saw the kaiju) but we got a well shot mess, which I saw coming when I saw the Justice Crew aka Temu Guardians of the Galaxy. 

Gunn needed focus, because he kept putting more on his plate before we got to cook the previous introduction: 

Kohei Horikoshi’s mistake

Introduce plot beats & then dropped for more story set-ups, then resolve the previous introduction in the set-up after instead of focusing on the previous to let it simmer and get us invested, spread thin: this ADHD style of writing that plagues even that garbage My Adventures with Lois-Chan show, problems I saw since Season 1 Episode 1 & 2.

It’s actually thanks to me watching that dumpster fire that I recognized what S25 was on, it’s only ironic that the suits are so similar.

Superman vs The Elite movie got to cook cause there was less going on in it and the writer was/is competent:  And that writer of both that movie and Action Comics #775 was the same guy-

 Joe Kelly

TL;DR It’s way more than just box office numbers, because when you stress revenue so much, people then get this misconception (one that the anime community struggles with) that “box office” or “sales” = “It’s good" 

Wrong.