Nerdy Observations 1: dissecting the DCEU

By: John Tolly

From its inception with 2013's man of steel the DC's extended universe or DCEU has not met with the same critical or comercial success as it's Marvel counterpart despite having some of the most iconic names in super hero history. It's failures have been many and its success have been few, but why is this? what is it, that on paper should be sure fire hits have been meet with mediocre response at best and at worst down right disgust from some fans and more importantly, can it be fixed? First lets take a look at the myriad of issues facing the DCEU;buckle up cause its going to be a bumpy ride. 1:Lack of knowledge of the character: From a Superman who never smiles, to a batman who conveniently seems to forget his no gun and no kill policy. Many of the early DC films seems to forget exactly what makes this character beloved and special, instead of the big blue boyscout we get a brooding Clark Kent,whos sad because he thinks he's alone, and instead of a batman story in which a much darker Dark Knight is brought back from the edge of crossing his own line by a Superman,nothing is ever mentioned of this important part of the characters mythos. To be totally fair though they do seemed to have improved in this area as Wonder Woman seemed to have gotten a decent job at getting the characters personality down and from the trailers they seemed to have nailed the Billy Batson/Shazam dynamic 2:Lack of Consistensy: From director changes to rumors of actors droping out, its hard to get invested in something when you don't even know if its going to last. If the DCEU is going to succeed in any way they need to lock down long term contracts from their major stars, which conveniently brings us too our third issue. 3:Lack of direction Where exactly is the DCEU headed? Is it headed toward a confrontation is Darksied? Are we gearing up for Flashpoint? What exactly is the end game?(no pun intended) In the MCU we have always known since the first Avengers that it was all leading up to Thanos and every movie after that has built on to that, and although he's hinted at in Batman v Superman and named in Justice leauge, there was no mention or even hint of mention of the Lord of Apokolpis in either Wonder Woman or Aquaman? 4: lack of Continuity The Arrow verse is separate from the DCEU, then there's the the DC online universe which is separate from all that, and then there are shows like Gotham which seem to be in a universe all there own. Its enough to make your head spin? So what's the solution? Can the DCEU be saved? I believe that yes, it can but its going to take time, and the dreaded R word... REBOOT! Fortunately they have a built in out right in there very own story archives.....FLASHPOINT! With rumors circulating that both Afleck and Cavil leaving there perspective roles soon,A hard reset on the Universe maybe the best thing, start with a clean slate and take the time to tell a good story while still paying homage to some of the greatest superhero of all time. But hey, that's just my nerdy observation and I could be wrong.