Alright who is in the JLA movie, debate

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

They don't need a retcon, they just need to make it a different character altogether. Have Bruce Wayne, but don't have it be Nolan's Wayne that Superman is in. Nolan's Batman can probably be best viewed as a miniseries. It told a three part story and resolved the character which for Batman actually is possible and less so for WW or Superman that are both Super regardless of effort. It was a character study wrapped in the clothing of a Superhero movie. But it doesn't fit well in a Universe designed to be ongoing. It's also a very specific taste.

Essentially, the problem you see with Supes and Batman needing to be fleshed out is how we know JLA really isn't... well ready. If you're going to throw that many characters together, you can characterize all of them but you can't do the grunt work of massive backstory. Avengers really only had time for Widow/Hawkeye (mainly by tying them together) and Hulk. CA, IM and Thor simply played aspects of their established personalities.

[lordlundar]

Ok, to be fair lets look at the other side, marvel. How in the past (and sometimes in the present) each has also been somewhat bleh at times.

You sparked me into it.

Lets start with the green whale in the room, the Hulk. The hulk really when you get down to it is not interesting (that is why some movies they made about the hulk failed). He is Supes on a very bad day. Invulnerable, strongest there is, etc etc. When the human side of him was boring, people found him boring..and just watched it for the next "HULK SMASH".

That is a disappointing part about Hulk is that "HULK SMASH!!" is the only thing that people know him for. Thankfully he's written better more recently (In the Avengers movie he doesn't even say the signature line and in Earth's Mightiest heroes? They made Hulk far more intriguing than banner and extremely well rounded) but it really does boil down to a writer just having no clue what to do with him.

Captain America had to overcome his own checkered past, much like Aquaman (except you know, no water powers). Like Aquaman, take away what powers he shares with the rest of the avengers, and you just have a flag waving soldier. He doesn't even get the powers in the water bit.

Ehh, not really. Cap hasn't been the excessive patriot since WW2 ended. Heck, since the 90's he's been written as largely anti-establishment. For the most part Cap's been about fighting evil wherever it is and whatever it is than any blind patriotism.

Thor. Even worse then superman in some ways. He is a blasted God (not demigod like supes)..you have to give him ridiculously powered enemies OR rely on his team to pick up the 'wow' factor. True, he has the whole thee and thou which is cool, but again..not really that much different then supes to be honest. In fact since he is from a different place (much like WW) he could be compared honestly with WW except of course a ridiculously overpowered WW ('Great Hera!' 'By Odin's Beard!')

Thor I'll grant you. In standalone he deals with cosmic level threats alone and his development boils down to flipping off his father and getting spanked for it. In teamups he tends to be either the alpha strike and put out for the rest of the fight or the omega finisher to land the final blow. Otherwise he just tends to be there unless it deals with his standalone stuff.

The point being, that everything mentioned about the JLA can be put on the Avengers also. Only instead of ONE superman, they have TWO. TWO that they have to put up against godlike beings for the movie not to be boring. Why do you think that for the majority of the movie that Hulk was kept out as much as possible? Sure they hit the nail on the head with Loki, and the next one looks like its going to be Darkseid (or is it Apocolypse ? Sorry mind drawing blank here).

Thanos. Darkseid is DC and Apocalypse doesn't have the bumpy chin. :P

And it really does show the difference between the two. Marvel writers for the most part have shifted to a character focus instead of a powers focus that DC is still caught on. It's why Batman is still such a big seller. He's the only A-lister for DC that doesn't rely on powers. DC still pushes on what they can do, not who they are. Marvel still has a way to go (Hulk can stand to be better fleshed out on his character as opposed to a foil for Banner and Thor needs more development in general) but they do tend to be more character driven than what you see in DC stuff.

The moral of this is, that if done right, anything can be over come. They just have to do it right.

I fully agree. That's been the trouble with a lot of DC characters. Unless it's an A-lister there tends to be little effort put into it. Marvel suffers for this as well but not as much.

[Nekojin]

Several people have mentioned this, so I'll stick my neck out and address the elephant in the room here: Retelling the origin story.

Everyone knows Batman's origin. Everyone knows Spider-Man's origin. People who have never seen any of the movies know these two well. Superman, somewhat less so these days, but still, he fits into the same mold - almost any time we have a gap between movies, the movie studios feel compelled to start off a new series with a retelling of the origin, usually with some twists to keep it fresh. Why do they do this, when we already know these characters pretty well already?

Well, there's a couple of reasons. The most basic reason is that everyone wants to put their mark on a classic. There's almost* nothing better than putting your own spin on a classic, and surprising the audience while giving them exactly what they expect at the same time. Every writer who aspires to write a Batman movie wants to change up the origin, show some facet that hasn't been explored before. Every director who gets tapped to direct a Spider-Man movie wants to show that he's different, he's better than those previous directors. And what better comparison can there be than having your version of the origin compare against their version?

And then there's the actors. There's no better way to immerse an actor in an unfamiliar role (that is familiar to the audience) than to give them a script where the character is doing something new, unfamiliar. Any missteps by the actor can be written off as missteps by the character.

Sadly, Hollywood has fallen into the Trilogy Trap - every contract is written for a three-movie obligation and no more; the Avengers franchise (and all of the related movies) is the first time in ages, aside from Harry Potter, that anyone has broken out of this mold. And when you're doing superhero trilogies, it's pretty much a given that you're going to get "The origin, with a twist" as the first of the three. Hopefully, DC can learn from Marvel here, and avoid that trap; they've fallen into it enough times with Batman.

As far as I can tell, Downey loves doing Iron Man, and he's going to keep doing it as long as there are movies to be made and he can be made to look youthful. It is, after all, a character whose career nearly mirrors his own. With luck, Marvel will be able to ride this for a decade or more of good, solid movies.

* The only thing better is providing something completely new and novel that goes on to be the thing that gets reiterated endlessly.

[Ginger Tea]

Well they couldn't make a trilogy out of a 6 or 7 book franchise (I forget if it was 6 books 7 movies or 7 books 8 movies), but you can lump twilight (my 'spelling' of it redlined but this auto corrected one looks just as off?) into that too as that wasn't a trilogy.

The only ones I've seen, well read, that have jazzed up the origin have been the Elseworld books and even then sometimes it's not too different an origin it's the growing up that tangents Supermans life not how where he lands (although Red Son is a good example).

Having Jack Naiper be the one to kill the Wayne family as a 2 bit thug gives a faceless character a name and a connection, not that he knew what his actions would cause later on in his life. But still, parents gunned down in an alley way, much the same.

Now if they changed Parkers spider bite that would be interesting, all they have done in the past is update some of the bits in between the bite and the donning of the costume, iir the wrestling of Ultimate and the Rami movie tied back to at least one updated retelling, so nothing much new there, though it forgoed the microscope to a more up to date and relevant piece of technology they were going to buy.
Changing it to be his mother being Aunt May and his father being the murdered Uncle Ben changes nothing apart from him no longer being an orphan.

Having him experiment with drugs and have one syringe contain a 'spider venom' or accidentally leaked black market super soldier syrum lost in a batch of other pre packaged needle based drugs, well although condoning drug use (which comics shied away from unless cringe worthy PSA's) having Parker become a superhero due to a drug habbit would be more interesting than another retelling of the same story even with a different writer director and actor.
His origin has veered so slightly over the years that that was one of my prime reasons to not watch the 4th movie, I didn't want to go over old ground if nothing much has changed.
And honestly had it?

Between Rami's and the other one, what were the differences?

[Andara Bledin]

The biggest difference is that the most recent reboot portrays Parker as the genius he is, while Raimi's interpretation kind of glossed over that fact. I much prefer the new one, so far.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Between Rami's and the other one, what were the differences?

The changes that Raimi made to Peter Parker to tell the story he wanted to. Rather than the genius aspect, I find Raimi's Parker more of an "every kid" that is shown to be extremely intelligent with an outsiders crush on someone, but he also seems to have age appropriate enthusiast's scientific knowledge. It's a fairly simple story from Spidey, to Norman, to Harry, to Mary-Jane's motivations. Also, scenery chewing.

Webb's restores some things like a high schooler that engineers and manufactures materials that 3M can't produce, Spidey's tendancy to be witty and sarcastic while fighting, and the original love interest. Parker's more of a jerk with his powers and not by a little bit. It also tries to (sorry for punning) weave a bit of a mysterious web around Parker's past and his adversaries. It tries to stay more grounded essentially but with a purer comics characterization.

What I've tended to notice is people who like the comics like TASM while people who generally are more film literate gravitate towards Raimi.

[Nekojin]

As Andara says, Raimi's Peter Parker was kind of a dork with few redeeming qualities until his uncle was killed. He completely downplayed the fact that mainstream Peter Parker is considered a mid-level genius by Marvel standards - he's made his own powered armor suit on more than one occasion (mimicking Tony Stark's work, if not completely duplicating it), he made the web shooters and web fluid (which, according to one comic, is a phenomenal creation on its own - Reed Richards was easily able to build new web-shooters for Peter, but was unable to synthesize the web fluid), and has done tons of other similar inventions - micro-transceivers that reacted with his spider sense for tracking being another one.

Raimi's Spider-Man was barely a step above Kick-Ass* (in terms of apparent character intelligence). The most recent one really gives a chance for the actor playing Peter to shine.

* Edit: Yes, I'm being a little hyperbolic there. The scenes between Peter and Otto Octavius in the second Raimi movie do underscore Peter's brains a bit, but it's brief.

[Ginger Tea]

These are more character based changes, my original post was about these "Changes to the origin" that Nekojin brought up, are there any real changes to his origin or is it still boy gets bit develops powers and at some point his uncle is killed spurring him on with great power ...

I forgot though that Rami's had organic web shooters, which considering where a spider spins from, wrists are an odd choice.
Even the new Ultimate Spiderman got his powers by a spider with the OZ serum, perhaps even the same spider that bit Parker as when I read the book it seemed Parker was only Spiderman for a year or two before his death and Miles (I think that's his name) did a heroic deed sans costume early on, but then laid low for a year till parkers death, or was it a year after did he then take on the role, I forgot, but basically they gave Parker a small window as Spiderman compared to the actual length of the comics run, but that's comic book timing for you, or 24 weeks to show a day in real time (with adverts).

If the Spider bite was replaced with a venom esque symbiote then although going against established continuity, I would see it as a brave and novel approach, hell it's less far fetched than the true origin. It just sadly confuses the issue when trying to bring venom into the mix as that was indeed an alien symbiote.

Batman is always a rich orphan and has been discussed in the racelifting thread already.

Superman is always an alien baby sent from a dying world.

Outside of the Origin and prequel movies, I don't recall the Xmen having much screen time developing backstory and jean's I think was in the 2nd and that was more plot development than character.
We were just thrust into a world where mutants existed and were to just deal with it, true I felt less of a connection with the fringe cast as I had little to work with on them and some of the 3rds cast were just cameos in name only.
But I recall it being clear of origin faff, which was the main redeeming aspect of Returns.
It was meant to continue from either the Reeves universe or one of the TV shows, or it was a sequel to an origin movie that never happened, but we needed little introduction to people to get it.

Man of Steel however I have not seen, nor am I inclined, was never a Superman fan, I didn't mind Louis and Clarke, but I never picked up superboy or Smallville.
Mostly due to the fact he was touted in the movies as "Hey here's this new guy where did he come from?" yet the early years retconned that into irrelevance and at the time I didn't like that, but my comic habits in those years resided solely in the UK weekly of transformers alternating between splitting a US issue into weekly parts or an original story. And I only got into power pack due to them being the B side in the Return of the Jedi weekly, with Hurculese and early ROM padding out the pages of TF.

[Mytical]

Ehh, not really. Cap hasn't been the excessive patriot since WW2 ended. Heck, since the 90's he's been written as largely anti-establishment. For the most part Cap's been about fighting evil wherever it is and whatever it is than any blind patriotism.

True, however it was mentioned about how characters were in the past, and Cap was the flag waving soldier in the past. I was also drawing a parallel between Cap and Aquaman. Because GK mentioned Aquaman out of water, without any abilities not shared by others in the team was limited to water based heroics. Hulk and Thor have everything Cap does and then some, but Cap doesn't even have the 'powers in water' that Aquaman does. Aquaman has pretty much been written to be a tough hombre outside of his water realm instead of pigeon holed to the water any more. If you say 'Aquaman is bland' because the only abilities he does not share with his fellow heroes are water based, then you pretty much have to say "Captain America is even blander", because he has only his Vibranium shield.

Edit : Oh, and my memory isn't the greatest. Somebody mentioned WW getting bound up a lot, but somebody tell me..what was happening with Black Widow the first time we saw her in the Avengers? It's right on the tip of my tongue...

[lordlundar]

If you say 'Aquaman is bland' because the only abilities he does not share with his fellow heroes are water based, then you pretty much have to say "Captain America is even blander", because he has only his Vibranium shield.

Fair point, which is why I say that Aquaman is bland not because of the abilities, but because he's horribly written.

Edit : Oh, and my memory isn't the greatest. Somebody mentioned WW getting bound up a lot, but somebody tell me..what was happening with Black Widow the first time we saw her in the Avengers? It's right on the tip of my tongue...

Ehh, this also shows where context is important. Widow was bound simply to be a prisoner and let herself be bound to gather information. Wonder Woman in the early comics was fetish bound (no seriously, just about every time it's like the only thing separating her from a porn comic is she's dressed.) for little reason beyond titillation.

[Gravekeeper]

Captain America IS bland. He has the most generic and uninteresting powers out of the entire team. That's why I keep praising the Avenger movies with him. Because the writers made him interesting despite his blandness. Hence I keep saying Aquaman needs similar treatment to Cap.

When the character's superpowers are not a draw, the character themselves needs to step up and work a bit harder than other superheroes. The best example of this would be Batman. Ultimately, he's just a dude in a funny outfit. Its the character and intelligence of Batman that makes him successful. Hence without a compelling character, he falls flat ( Nolan Batman ).

Wonder Woman in the early comics was fetish bound (no seriously, just about every time it's like the only thing separating her from a porn comic is she's dressed.) for little reason beyond titillation.

^ That. Wonder Woman's weakness use to be that she lost her powers if a man tied her up. Thus she got tied up by men practically every 30 minutes. I mean she was really an idiot and/or masochist/sadist.

[Mytical]

The Black Widow bondage thing was tongue in cheek, because I thought it funny that it was mentioned that WW gets tied up a lot, and the very first scene with Black Widow was her bound. Thus the .

The general point though is, that most of the things that COULD go wrong with a JLA movie could have also went wrong with an Avengers movie.

Godlike being (Supes) - Check (Thor, Hulk)
Boyscout (Supes) - Check (Captain America was at one time pretty much that)
Poor treatment in the past (Aquaman) - Check (Cap again)
Poor backstories for some of the heroes (Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman) - Check (Black Widow, Hawkeye)
Poor Power/Pigeon Holed (Aquaman) - Check (Cap America..again)
Etc

If they really don't want to do a major retcon for a couple of the big 7..they can do what Avengers did with Black Widow, Hawkeye..make them support characters.

Now most likely because of Hawkeye they can not use Green Arrow, but since their other 'normal' hero is Batman (and he is no second stringer), they could use Aquaman and Flash as second stringers/ support characters. Then they really don't have to flesh them out.

Again though..it may be a moot point. Even if they made jaw dropping movies that were EPIC for every one of the JLA members, AND come out with the best movie ever, and that ever will be made, it will still be 'They just copied Marvel'. It is just too late now. Can it be great? Yes, but it won't be remember that way, sadly.

[Duelist925]

Captain America IS bland. He has the most generic and uninteresting powers out of the entire team. That's why I keep praising the Avenger movies with him. Because the writers made him interesting despite his blandness. Hence I keep saying Aquaman needs similar treatment to Cap.

When the character's superpowers are not a draw, the character themselves needs to step up and work a bit harder than other superheroes. The best example of this would be Batman. Ultimately, he's just a dude in a funny outfit. Its the character and intelligence of Batman that makes him successful. Hence without a compelling character, he falls flat ( Nolan Batman ).

This may just be a pet peeve of mine, but: A character is not bland just because their powers are generic. >.< A character is not their powers. Their powers are just one aspect of the entire character.

Cap, especially, has never been just about his powers--he has always been a soldier, fighting the good fight, standing for what America stands for, all that jazz. Back in the golden age he wasn't much beyond that, but, hey, golden age

^ That. Wonder Woman's weakness use to be that she lost her powers if a man tied her up. Thus she got tied up by men practically every 30 minutes. I mean she was really an idiot and/or masochist/sadist.

Wondy was basically bondage porn without the actual porn aspect, starting out. Thank god that stopped happening.

[Gravekeeper]

This may just be a pet peeve of mine, but: A character is not bland just because their powers are generic. >.< A character is not their powers. Their powers are just one aspect of the entire character.

Well, yes, but that's not what I was saying there. The entire point of a superhero is that they have superpowers. But when those powers are not interesting, the character of the hero needs to be stronger to compensate. An uninteresting character with interesting powers can hold their own for a bit. Because the act of using those powers or seeing how those powers are countered by villains is interesting.

But an uninteresting character with uninteresting powers is dead on arrival.

Godlike being (Supes) - Check (Thor, Hulk)
Boyscout (Supes) - Check (Captain America was at one time pretty much that)
Poor treatment in the past (Aquaman) - Check (Cap again)
Poor backstories for some of the heroes (Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman) - Check (Black Widow, Hawkeye)
Poor Power/Pigeon Holed (Aquaman) - Check (Cap America..again)

Yes and no.

Superman could still rolfstomp Hulk and Thor. Hulk and Thor get tossed around quite a bit in reality.

Cap A was a boyscout, but he has a compelling Dark Past(tm). The same didn't work for Supes. Supes is almost kind of too good. Cap A is ultimately very human and thats an interesting struggle. Supes is the outsider. His conflict is his desire to help vs what he can do with his powers.

Cap A was silly, but not poorly treated. I'm not sure anyone got to punch Hitler quite as much as Cap. >.>

Black Widow and Hawkeye don't have poor back stories. They're actually handled fairly cleverly. Because SHIELD Is already a character onto itself, and BW and HW are agents of SHIELD. So you already get a bit of what they fight for just from that. Then on top of that, BW is a super spy, you're not suppose to know a ton about her, that's sort of the point. Neither of them have superpowers that require an origin story either. Flash, Aquaman and GL need an origin story. Aquaman and GL especially.

Aquaman vs Cap A isn't quite the same. All of Cap's powers are useful regardless. All of Aquaman's powers that are generic are useful regardless. But the specific powers that make Aquaman, well, AQUAman are pigeonholed into a specific environment. Which is the entire problem.

He's called AQUAman, but can't actually do anything involving aqua unless the fight is taking place in said aqua. It's like watching a Spiderman that doesn't use any climbing or web slinging. If those powers aren't going to be used, then whats the point? We came here to see AQUAman. Not overtly strong dude that just happens to fight in a weird swimsuit.

Basically the problem is that they tied Aquaman far to strongly to the theme of one environment. Hence he has a legacy of only showing up as a supporting character in one off ocean related episodes of other hero's shows. It makes sense to encounter Aquaman when Supes has to deal with an aquatic villain. It doesn't make sense to encounter Aquaman chillin' at Bank of America during a robbery.

[Mytical]

The Superman vs Hulk or Thor is debatable if he could curbstomp them. The debate of who would win between Superman and Hulk has gone on a long time. Hulk has no limit for his power, the madder he gets the stronger he gets.

Thor on the otherhand I have to outright disagree on, and here is why. First there is Thor's weapon. It's magical, and Superman does not handle magic very well. Thor's strength, durability, etc is on par with Supermans, but he has one of Superman's weaknesses on his side..magic. One of the reasons Captain Marvel could go toe to toe with Superman was his lightning, which Thor also has (CM Could call down lightning on superman by saying 'Shazaam'). Thor is regarded as an Immortal, Superman is not immortal. So while most of the time people would have Superman come out on top, it would make no logical sense for that to be so.

And as for 'alien' Thor is from Asgard..don't get much more alien.

The rest I will just leave as is. No sense beating a dead horse.

The Avengers movie showed the way to handle a team of beings. Their powers were not the showcase, the only one who had a lot of screen time 'suited up' was Iron Man. Thor and Hulk, had some action, but not a whole lot. Cap wasn't in costume much until toward the end. BW and Hawkeye don't have powers, so that wasn't hard not to showcase powers.

What JLA can not do is the alien invasion thing. At least not for the first one. Because that will put the last nail in the coffin. Sure they can have Aquaman only show up toward the final showdown with a world wide menace, and limit the 'corniness' factor, Same with flash, but they need a believable threat that is not alien in nature. IE something from Earth.

Heck it could be trouble between the surface and Atlantis or something. Just not alien. I guess the Lod (Though some are alien) would be good, but I think for the most part the Alien invasion bit would be a bad move for the first movie.