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Shazam/Captain Marvel
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KageRyu
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2022 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@Whill, the Shazam live action series you mention in the first post is available on Tubi.
I vaguely remember liking it as a child, but when I tried to watch now it shows its age too much for me. Way too 70s for me now. It's a shame, I tried to resist growing up, but it has happened after all.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2022 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KageRyu wrote:
@Whill, the Shazam live action series you mention in the first post is available on Tubi.
I vaguely remember liking it as a child, but when I tried to watch now it shows its age too much for me. Way too 70s for me now. It's a shame, I tried to resist growing up, but it has happened after all.

https://tubitv.com/series/300008441/shazam

Cool. I feel you. Shazam! was my first superhero (actually concurrent to Spider-Man on The Electric Company). I can have nostalgia for something in my childhood and still not be able to enjoy it now. I'm afraid I would have the same reaction as you if watching 70s Shazam now, but I kinda do want to see Isis again, so I think I will try to at least watch the first Shazam episode with her in it.
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KageRyu
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I vaguely remember the Isis show as well. I had thought I had seen that listed on Tubi too, but it does not seem to be showing up now. I did not watch that much as where I grew up it was often on against another show I much preferred, Jason of Star Command.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:07 am    Post subject: Black Adam Reply with quote

I saw Black Adam tonight. It was hard to understand a lot of dialogue so I will definitely watch it again when it comes to home video, so I can watch it with captions.

My first impressions of it? It is a super action-packed extravaganza, but the plotline feels undeveloped, as if the action sequences were all planned first and some storyboard editor came up with a thin plot to link them all together. Some of the jokes fell flat.

I like the Justice Society characters but none of them really get their due since so much of the focus is on Black Adam. Hawkman was really cool as realized, but his power level remained unexplained as he was shown going toe to toe Black Adam multiple times, a being more powerful than than Captain Marvel. I'll have to get out and read the four issue comic book tie-in series I collected.

The titular character didn't seem like much more than a collection of trailer movie lines. His full background is revealed by the end of the movie, and there is a bit of character development, but there is a particularly cringy summatory statement made by a character about Black Adam at the end that really doesn't do much to explain what an anti-hero is or differentiate him from a villain.

And the movie's antagonist was much less developed than the JSA. And there is a character from Suicide Squad in this film, and I was like, WTF is she doing there?

At this point I feel it is safe to say that Black Adam was better than Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 1984, and The Suicide Squad. But that isn't saying much.
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Last edited by Whill on Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
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CommanderFocs
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2022 7:04 pm    Post subject: Black Adam review Reply with quote

Ziz wrote:
Spoiler-free review, per Nerdist.com - It's three films in one and can't decide which it wants to be - dark and serious, light and fun or building a superhero team. Depending what you expect from it, it will be different combinations of hits and misses.


I totally agree. I was originally pretty excited for the movie because I enjoyed Shazam a lot, but the movie seemed all over the place and didn't have a good flow. The plot was pretty bad, and the enjoyment of a good story just wasn't really there for me. The action is pretty cool though. I would give the movie around a 5 out of 10.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2022 2:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am wondering, what's everyones thoughts on Shazam 2??
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2022 7:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is lots of reorganization and rebranding going on since Discovery bought Warner Brothers. Walter Hamada (who is largely responsible for ruining Justice League) is officially out. DC Films is now DC Studios. The DCEU is now the more logically named DCU. And...

Peter Safran and James Gunn announced as Co-CEOs of DC Studios

Yes, James Gunn of Guardians of the Galaxy (and The Suicide Squad) fame. Peter Safran produced many DC movies.


garhkal wrote:
I am wondering, what's everyones thoughts on Shazam 2??

I just rewatched the first Shazam! last week. I really love that movie. And Shazam! was the last good DC movie. Despite four meh movies in a row, I am still looking forward to Shazam! Fury of the Gods (March '23). The villains are Hellenic demigods and Wonder Woman will make an appearance. They really need to greenlight Shazam v Black Adam ASAP before all the Shazam kids are all grown up.
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ThrorII
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2022 9:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just saw Black Adam this afternoon. It's not a mess, and its not bad. It's just not great.

DCU still has the problem of introducing heroes out of the blue with no understanding for the audience who they are, or what they can do (or relative power levels...) The Justice Society was just thrown out there with no clue how they relate to the Justice League (are they from before the League, after the League, etc.)

The movie tried to be too much: Intro to Black Adam, intro to the 4 members of the JSA, and intro of the villain.

The 3rd act villain really seemed shoe-horned in, just to have a 3rd act villain.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2022 5:27 pm    Post subject: Black Adam/DCU Reply with quote

ThrorII wrote:
The movie tried to be too much: Intro to Black Adam, intro to the 4 members of the JSA

I agree with this. And it is really sad because the whole reason Black Adam was not the villain of Shazam! was to give Black Adam his own origin story instead of cramming it in with the Shazam heroes. Shazam! adequately introduced six superheroes and its villains, so Black Adam comes across like, "Okay, six superheroes is too many in the same movie as Black Adam's origin, but four superheroes should be fine." That logic was flawed because none of the Justice Society characters got their due in this film.

ThrorII wrote:
...and intro of the villain.

I don't expect this villain to ever return, so I don't consider this an "intro" of the villain per se. Like a lot of superhero movies, this villain seems like a one-off.

ThrorII wrote:
The 3rd act villain really seemed shoe-horned in, just to have a 3rd act villain.

I get that reaction but I don't completely agree. The character who ended up becoming the main villain was there from the beginning, and the first two-thirds of the film had hints of what would happen. But the villain and overall plot still weren't that well developed.

ThrorII wrote:
DCU still has the problem of introducing heroes out of the blue with no understanding for the audience who they are, or what they can do (or relative power levels...)

This is a common complaint I've heard over the years. Part of it seems driven by the general formula of single superheroes (before they ever crossed over with each other) and origin films, but part of it also seems based on the specific Marvel success with the altered premise of solo movies leading up the first The Avengers being the benchmark. (Even that is slightly flawed, because Hawkeye was not adequately introduced in Thor–he basically had a cameo and never even fired a single arrow, then in The Avengers he spent half the film mind-controlled by the bad guy.) IMO this criticism is not completely valid for DCU films, and the general sentiment oversimplifies the considerations.

Man of Steel was an excellent, standalone introduction to the current Superman. Nuff said.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition) was an adequate introduction for its primary titular character. Batman is oversaturated in the superhero film genre. Most audience members are already familiar with the basics of Batman's origin and character, so BvS focused on the aspects important to the Batfleck version of the character and the story of this film. I find it totally works.

I can see this criticism for Wonder Woman in BvS which they even joke about in the film ("Is she with you?" "I thought she was with you.") But my perception of 'not enough WW' may be colored by the facts that (1) I personally was extremely well-versed in the general character from comic books dating back to 1941, (2) we soon got the planned, proper, full introduction to WW in the first WW prequel which had overlapping production with BvS, and (3) Diana Prince's thin purpose in the BvS plot is completely overshadowed by how awesome Wonder Woman's superheroic introduction is in the third act of BvS. Overall, the Ultimate Edition of BvS:DoJ is a slightly imperfect cinematic masterpiece, so in the end I don't really have any problem with the end result.

After MoS, Warner Brothers had greenlit and fast-tracked a shared DC film universe like the MCU, so wanted to quickly build towards a Justice League franchise. They put Zack Snyder in charge of it, and gave him only one single film in between MoS and JL. The obvious first step was putting Batman and Superman together in the same film, and at some point during development it was decided to also introduce Wonder Woman to cinema, so we would have the Holy DC Trinity appearing together first, plus a proper spinoff film dedicated to WW before JL. Was the plan rushed? Sure. Were WB execs motivated by pure greed, fantasizing of Avengers-level grosses? Absolutely. After the theatrical version of BvS "only" grossed $874 million (which was WB's own fault after requiring 30 minutes to be cut from it), WB execs despicably used the circumstances surrounding the death of Zack Snyder's daughter to rip Justice League out from under him mid-production and bring in the Avengers director in an attempt to "marvelize" Snyder's film without the expense of making a whole new movie, the result of which was the 2017 theatrical frankensteined JL movie.

The theatrical BvS and JL definitely failed at adequately "introducing" Aquaman and Cyborg. But Zack Snyder's Justice League fully gives Cyborg his due (we get his full origin and he's kinda the central character), and ZSJL also showed it would have been an adequate introduction for Aquaman (but of course we already had a solo Aquaman film by the time ZSJL saw the light of day). ZSJL does give Barry Allen more characterization, but his origin is still completely missing other than being referred to as an accident. They were obviously planning on following the same pattern of Wonder Woman and Aquaman by giving Flash his full origin in his own solo film after JL. (The Flash comes out next year.)

So in the end, considering the versions of the films unmuddled by WB and the order they were made, I would have to say that Superman, Cyborg, and the Shazam Family were completely satisfactorily introduced in their introductory films; Wonder Woman was semi-fully introduced; Batman and Aquaman were adequately introduced; and Flash was somewhat insufficiently introduced. I do not consider Suicide Squad and its two sequel movies to be superhero films at all and don't care to evaluate them.

ThrorII wrote:
The Justice Society was just thrown out there with no clue how they relate to the Justice League (are they from before the League, after the League, etc.)

It is definitely vague but there was a little. In this film the Justice Society was considered an international task force, somehow at least temporarily directed by Amanda Waller, so there is no indication they are related to the Justice League. There was also an indication that they had a history longer than the JL's, which would place them as existing before JL. At least Doctor Fate, Hawkman, and Atom Smasher's retired uncle (Henry Winkler) would have been involved in a pre-JL Justice Society. Doctor Fate is magickal it was established in the film that he is being much older than Pierce Brosnan looks, and Henry Winkler pretty much looks as old as he is, so the superheroic days of his character could be long behind him. There was a 'getting the team back together' vibe (with the current Atom Smasher and Cyclone being new recruits), so my impression was that the team existed a long time ago and stopped existing before the JL, then Amanda Waller recruited them for this mission. The oddball though is Hawkman, since the actor is only in his 30s and doesn't look older. It possible that Hawkman was originally in the JS in his previous incarnation, but that is me bringing in my comic book knowledge into it because I'm pretty sure that wasn't in this film (unless I missed it).

ThrorII wrote:
Just saw Black Adam this afternoon. It's not a mess, and its not bad. It's just not great.

I can't quite bring myself to say that it is even that good. Glad you seem to like it at least a little more than me.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2022 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

With all the hoopla over ezra miller, i am wondering if that DCEU flash film will still be done.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2022 10:31 am    Post subject: The Flash Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
With all the hoopla over ezra miller, i am wondering if that DCEU flash film will still be done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Extended_Universe#Upcoming_films

Yes, The Flash film is still on. Ezra Miller is back on his meds! What didn't make as big of headlines is that he finally came back to WB, got help with his legal and mental troubles, and officially issued a public apology. (He gave an excuse that he was reacting badly to a loved one who committed suicide.)

The new WB CEO has said he has seen the film and it is great. He said he believes in it 100% so it will not be cancelled. (This was the same guy who cancelled Batgirl when it was almost finished, which means he sees that movie as so bad that the all the money spent has to be written off because the movie seeing the light of day would hurt the brand. Ouch.) The Flash was already done being filmed and after $200 million spent on it, they got Ezra Miller and some other actors back to do some reshoots. So The Flash is charging forward to its 2023 release date. It's the next film after Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:57 pm    Post subject: Fury of the Gods Reply with quote

My son and I saw a Thursday night preview of the Shazam! sequel. It's a fun adventure. A good amount of super-heroic action and comedy.

My first reaction is that it probably isn't quite as good as the first one (a film I love), but it really is the only good DCEU film since the first Shazam!. (As far as the other DC movies, Joker and The Batman were ok, worth a single viewing each, but I enjoyed FotG more). The villains of FotG were not as well developed in the story as the first Shazam!'s villain.

My wife wants to see it in the theater and my son wants to see it again, so I will see it again. We'll wait until the D&D movie comes to the theater in a couple weeks and then not see that, instead going to see this movie.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm stoked for Shazam 2.. Especially after seeing black adam on dvd.
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PostPosted: Sun May 21, 2023 9:09 pm    Post subject: Dwayne Johnson killed Shazam Reply with quote

It's come to light that Dwayne Johnson basically sabotaged the Shazam franchise.

The comic book story that the first Shazam film was based on was told in an ongoing back-up feature of the new Justice League series (2011) which followed a major reboot of the DC comic universe. It had Black Adam, Doctor Sivana, and the Seven Deadly Sins (Doctor Sivana freed Black Adam). I have the entire comic story; the writing and artwork are excellent (here is a a compiled version). The movie rewrote the comic story and removed Black Adam, powering up Doctor Sivana with Seven Sins to be the main antagonist.

It's long been known that the reason Black Adam was removed from the first Shazam film was because Dwayne Johnson, an executive producer of Shazam! and long attached to playing Black Adam, talked DC into telling Black Adam's origin in a separate film before bringing Black Adam into the main Shazam franchise. Black Adam and the first proper Shazam sequel went into production on similar schedules so Black Adam's planned crossover was pushed off until a third Shazam film.

In the comics, Black Adam has become something of anti-hero, a dark adult version of Shazam. In recent years he was even a member of the Justice League (yes, League). After seeing the Black Adam film, it was more clear that Dwayne Johnson was enamored with this portrayal and had delusions of grandeur of Black Adam becoming a cinematic powerhouse on par with (or surpassing) Superman and Batman. For years, Johnson kept saying, "The hierarchy of power in the DC universe is about to change" and now we know more about what he meant.

It has come to light that Johnson never really cared about ever being a Shazam villain. He was only an Executive Producer of Shazam! just to take Black Adam from Shazam for his own selfish purposes. The Fury of the Gods stinger where Shazam is being recruited for the Justice Society was supposed to be a stinger of Black Adam where actual superheroes in the Justice Society recruited Shazam. Johnson got that removed from Black Adam and even forbade Justice Society actors from appearing in Fury of the Gods, so they got replaced by two very minor and mundane functionaries of Amanda Waller.

Johnson thought Black Adam would be a box office smash hit and could then dictate Black Adam vs Superman types of battles/team-ups, and basically become the central character of DCEU films. Dwayne Johnson may have even been trying to orchestrate a takeover of DC films at Warner Brothers. Black Adam's box office was a disappointment and Fury of the Gods bombed. Instead of both of these movies, a Shazam! sequel with Black Adam as the villain could have been a big hit, surpassing the first Shazam film and Black Adam.

Sure, there were admittedly other factors. Except for The Batman and Joker, DC films following the first Shazam! have been duds. The pandemic was a factor. And of course the downward spiral for the DCEU began when Warner Brothers mandated an over-edit of Batman V Superman and then despicably used the death of Zack Snyder's child to take the Justice League franchise from Snyder and reshoot half of the first film to make a frankensteined (attempted "marvelization") version that did not result in sequels. (The other DCEU films were originally supposed to be supported by a Justice League trilogy.) So ultimately Warner Brothers is responsible, and on top of all of that, they were swayed into a bad business decision by Dwayne Johnson of all people.

Although there is new management at Warner Brothers and they had already announced a reboot of the DCEU is coming after The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom come out this year, the Shazam side of the franchise controlled its own destiny because they wouldn't have to be affected by the reboot if they had been successful. But now, the Shazam franchise (including the spin-off Black Adam) is officially done. I'm just miffed that we never got a Shazam movie with Black Adam as the villain.

garhkal wrote:
I'm stoked for Shazam 2.. Especially after seeing black adam on dvd.

Glad you liked Black Adam. Did you see Shazam! Fury of the Gods? Did you like it? I did like it, but I bet a Shazam movie with Black Adam as the villain could have been better.
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PostPosted: Mon May 22, 2023 12:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Waiting on the library getting it on dvd..
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