Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Why Justice League of America the movie won't work

In what is probably a smart move from a financial perspective but disappointing from a fan boy's viewpoint, Justice League of America (JLA) may be coming to the big screen as a motion capture CGI movie rather than a live-action flick.

Obviously, there are some issues with releasing a full, live-action JLA movie:
  • It will be expensive
  • If JLA is to feature Batman and Superman, a live action film would probably require some consistency among actors, namely Christian Bale as Batman and Brandon Routh as Superman
  • Wonder Woman and other properties are potential other franchises coming soon
But a "real life" motion capture in CGI also has its drawbacks:
  • So far, this technology has produced creepy crap (The Polar Express) and just doesn't look that good
  • Why shouldn't Justice League of America try to compete with X-Men?
  • The visuals suck
Personally, I have some issues with Justice League of America the movie anyway. It's not that I wouldn't have fun watching the movie, but here are some reasons why it won't be as good of a movie as fans think it could be:
  • It will be compared to X-Men, a very good and very profitable franchise.
  • Unlike X-Men, the superheroes who make up the team all have their independent comic books and stories. They are not a cohesive team because they were not designed to be on a team.
  • For a movie, if all of the characters have separate costumes may cause a problem and will probably look cheesy.
  • You can't give them all the same uniform like in X-Men, because you can't very well change Batman's costume or Superman's.
  • Even as a CGI, won't there be some preference to have Christian Bale play Batman?
  • For consistency's sake, let's through Brandon Routh into that argument, too.
  • D.C. characters work better on their own.
  • Batman was always a silly member of the JLA. Awesome character, but completely out of place.
  • Justice League of America will likely be more sci-fi oriented than the more serious approaches the Batman and Superman franchises have been trying to establish.
  • I'd rather see D.C. invest the movie in high quality individual superhero flicks than an extravaganza such as this.

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