When it comes to a Pavlovian response, you never think long on what happens when that response is betrayed. When the dog doesn’t get the bone. When the bell rings and the dog’s natural response to not getting that bone is depression and even frustration. And then the experiment ends there. The problem is that this now affects the way the dog will think about that ringing. I know this metaphor is an odd one, but it mostly describes the relationship between Marvel and DC comics movies.
Ever since 1998, since Blade came out, we have had supernatural superheroes in Hollywood. While at the beginning they weren’t well received, they still weren’t bad movies in their own right, some even gaining great critical acclaim and blowing up the box office (i.e. the Toby Maguire Spiderman Series and the X-men series through Fox studios). With each separate Marvel installment from multiple different studios, they have developed a formula for how Marvel movies are made. We have seen the Marvel formula now, and it has worked for the most part. There is very little that Marvel studios can do wrong now in our eyes as we as an audience have become accustomed to this superhero movie formula.
So now when a new runner in the race comes into our focus, and challenges the way that these movies should be made, our natural reaction is to critique them harshly. Let me paint a picture for you. Take two different marathon runners in a race. One is in first place and the other is in second. The first place man uses his arms to gather and maintain momentum when running, has elongated strides, and pushes his chest out to push his body forward. The other does a much more subdued version of the running style of the first man. The second man has shorter strides, puts his head down, and only moves his arms a tiny bit to gather and maintain momentum. Both styles of running are useful at different situations in the entirety of the race and both runners can switch up styles given the terrain of the race and the position they are in. These two runners exemplify Marvel and DC respectively. Each has their own individual style. DC, right now, is trying to play catch up; call it a pseudo-sprint, to Marvel. Marvel, meanwhile, is coasting with a good strong race already run, and is trying to maintain its high standards while also trying to use different running styles based off the terrain. The problem here then is the people watching these runners. When people only see the first running a great race, they say to themselves “this is how all runners should run”. The problem is that this now puts anyone else trying to make their own style of “running” obsolete, before even having a chance to prove themselves. And DC in this case, even before their universe of movies had begun, was put under harsh criticism for its style.
That’s not to say that both these brands haven’t suffered mistakes in the past. Batman V Superman was not as good as it could’ve been. This was due to a script that wasn’t fully fleshed out in content or description; and was more jam packed full of material than it could handle. While overall it was a satisfactory, first foray into the larger picture of a DC universe, the story it tried to tell was a bit of a mess due to bad scripting (ironically, since having an Oscar-winning screenwriter). The incoherent plot aimed at creating the Justice League and elevating the characters to a place of recognition, but it did not succeed in doing this. Simply put, it tried to be something it didn’t necessarily have to be. One would also argue that Warner Bros. Studios got in the way and edited the movie too much. With the editing, it created a much more disjointed movie than that of the Ultimate version of the movie, which was much better and addressed a lot of the concerns that many fans have voiced.
As stated before, Marvel has also suffered its own mistakes for a number of reasons, and the audience they have developed has responded in kind. There have been multiple videos talking about the quality of filming and how Marvel has followed trends, losing creativity in filming films that stand out more than other films of the action genre. For instance, there have been videos describing how most Marvel movies will use less black values in their shots. This creates a lack of depth to the shots, where the scene needs to have a crisp visual to make sense of movement in the shot and for other colors to pop out. You can listen to more information here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWYtXtmEFQ
As I said before the score is also something that most people that like Marvel movies can’t even recall. The musical scores of the Marvel movies are unmemorable and generic. It, in theory, has become safe and riskless for them, now that they depend on previous scores while abandoning creativity in new scores in future movies. This has resulted in un-emotive soundtracks to some of the best action movies of all time. For more info on that watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs&t=223s
When you look at the box office results for Marvel movies as well, you begin to realize that if we go back to the first films of their cinematic universe, they were just as successful as the DC Extended Universe’s first movies as well. Comparing these sets of movies of Marvel, DC comics movies have made more money than the first two of Marvel, being Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Obviously there were different budgets and different marketing numbers that can be attributed to each of the first two DC films, Man of Steel and Batman V Superman. But even with those two entries into DC’s universe, we are finding a huge fan following despite slightly contentious endings to each. Compared to the Marvel universe’s first steps, Warner Brothers is on the right track to making better and more successful movies. This is potentially possible due to Warner Brothers evolving their cinematography, and incorporate more characters and visionary filmmakers to their agenda. With Batman V Superman aiming to be a billion-dollar movie and missing that mark, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should be overly worried for the state of this movie universe that is in its infant stage. Marvel didn’t have their first billion-dollar movie until Avengers, and we know what it took for that movie to truly become the powerhouse that it was. It took 4 full years and needed long lasting and memorable buildup from some of the greatest characters in the Marvel universe in their own respective movies. For more Box office info on the Marvel universe look here:
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Marvel-Cinematic-Universe#tab=summary
DC should be given every chance to succeed as Marvel has. They have made a lot of creative choices, both in the studio and in the source material departments, aimed at pleasing both fans and new viewers alike. With that being said, I do think that this universe can easily be the quintessential universe of superheroes we need, albeit with a different flavor and quality. We all just need to give them a chance.
