"Justice League Dark: Apokolips War" Animated Release Talkback (Spoilers)

"Justice League Dark: Apokolips War" - Rate and Discuss this DC Universe Movie title


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bigdaddy313

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Awesome movie the only problem I really had was how Darkseid easily killed the whole of the Green Lantern Core.
I know his powerful but not that powerful.
 

CyberCubed

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Movie was pretty bad, with a few good moments. The moment I saw everyone dying I knew they would reset everything. Also some real ridiculous moments like "the power of love" bringing people back to life like Constantine and Damian, lol. Batman snapping out of being controlled by Darkseid just because he remembered his parents being shot was, eh.

Besides that too dark, too violent. And it makes this whole 15 movie continuity pointless. All the development with Damian and Batman, all the development of these Teen Titans, everything between Superman and Lois, Aquaman/Green Lantern/Flash's stories, Wonder Woman's....it's all pointless now because this universe is over.

Part of the reasons I prefer each DC animated movie to just be standalone comic adaptions like all the others are, they don't have to do some weird long shared universe like this New 52 thing was. I hope they never do a shared universe again, and just make one-off movies as loose adaptions of the comic stories.

I mean what else is there to say? I imagine watching all these New 52 movies in a marathon and reaching this...the whole ending makes it all pointless.

All I can say is thank god this universe is over. Thank god.
 

Yojimbo

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Got 40 tweets from the live watch.

A song improvised by Hynden Walch didn't clear and ended up with the one in the movie.

Shazam missing his right eye was a nod to Captain Thunder's scarring in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.

The Furies were the crew's idea to bring a horror element into a sci-fi setting.

The Furies were also a nod to Future's End.

Lex Luthor's proposed solution at the start was a bit of characterization from Ernie Altbacker.

Constantine was 100 percent more an a-hole in the first draft.

Early on, instead of Etrigan, Clark had a flower in his lapel that later turned into Swamp Thing in a key moment and was his "Break glass in case of emergency" backup plan.

There was a draft where King Shark and Constantine were a thing because since he's magic, Constantine could understand him but he ghosted him when Shark got clingy.

Mairghread Scott breaks down the fight on Stryker's Island. Lois probably has better form but Harley is faster and stronger and Harley was fighting for fun while Lois was fighting to win and recruit the Suicide Squad. Lois was more focused and meaner.

Mairghread Scott's very first pitch was "Last of Us" with Clark as Joel and Raven as Ellie on a magical road trip to recruit the few remaining heroes. John Constantine was always the shady guy who you didn't know if he'd save the team or betray them for his own purposes. Eventually, he became the lead.

King Shark's one line is a nod to Gail Simone's run with the character in the comics.

Christina Sotta got the opening scene with Constantine and Zatanna.

Early on, Mairghread Scott decided on Clark, Raven, Constantine, and Damian surviving.

Granny Goodness and the rest are off world occupying other planets they've conquered.

One of Mairghread Scott's earliest thoughts was to have Cyborg as the unwitting mole.

James Tucker originally intended for Cyborg's catchphrase to be used in Justice League: War.

James Tucker went back and forth on how much to show at the beginning in the main title but decided on "less is more" and he wanted to keep people guessing at just how badly things went.

Matt Peters directed the pub scene.

Mairghread Scott's first meeting about the movie was on February 26, 2018. Back then the movie went by Justice League Dark: Last Man Standing.

Clark's new look was a nod to Superman X from the Legion of Superheroes animated series.

Mairghread Scott had the idea for Clark's green symbol in high school when she wrote a short story about an Elseworld version of Supergirl for her AP Writing class.

Initially, the Batman reveal was earlier in the movie but was moved during the edit.

In Mairghread Scott's earliest drafts, there was an extra step in the plan to stop Batman. Constantine and Clark traveled via magic to the Flashpoint universe to recruit Thomas Wayne to help defeat and/or turn Batman back to the light.

Mairghread Scott reveals in the first outline, Damian and Wonder Girl had retreated to Themyscira with the League of Assassins, because its magic hid their presence from the world of men and Darkseid.

A lot of the banter between Captain Boomerang and Constantine came from Liam McIntyre improvising in the recording session.

Mairghread Scott credits Ernie Altbacker for Captain Boomerang's dialog.

Mairghread Scott took inspiration from Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 for Lois Lane.

Christina Sotta took the emotional Raven and Superman flashback scene to board herself.

Kathryn Marusik did last minute freelance help with the Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang scenes.

For the glasses needed for Constantine's spell, Christina Sotta really wanted them to look like ones worn by the Invisible Man in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

James Tucker boarded the Green Lantern scene.

The rest of the fight with the Furies was boarded by Sam Liu.

Mairghread Scott pitched Batman's speech to Robin to James Tucker during work on Wonder Woman: Bloodlines.

Batman having a flashback to the death of his parents was one of the first things she pitched.

James Tucker did a lot of rough designs.

Mairghread Scott reveals a key moment from the earliest drafts was Lois saving Clark.

Christina Sotta notes James Tucker changed the order of some scenes in post production.

Christina Sotta reveals she framed the ending of Constantine and Wonder Woman leaving to mirror Raven's choice in Trigon's realm in Justice League vs. Teen Titans.

Mairghread Scott recalls James Tucker pitched the ending.

Mairghread Scott approximates the message of the movie being love can save the day in dark times. Key turning points happened after characters expressed their love for one another.
 

-batmat-

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Were the Furies not at all in the movie or did I miss them completely?
James Tucker went back and forth on how much to show at the beginning in the main title but decided on "less is more" and he wanted to keep people guessing at just how badly things went.
I disagree so much with this. After all the hype, we don't get to see that fight. It's like right after Thanos gets the last infinity stone, they cut right to the 5 years later part. Feels as bad as hyping up Smaug and then kill him off in the first scene of the last Hobbit movie.
 

Dallas Kinard

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I disagree so much with this. After all the hype, we don't get to see that fight. It's like right after Thanos gets the last infinity stone, they cut right to the 5 years later part. Feels as bad as hyping up Smaug and then kill him off in the first scene of the last Hobbit movie.

I 100% agree. Horrible, lazy and cheap decision. Why build up to what could have been an incredible showcase of DC Superheroes in action - all while dying in a tragic/epic way - and then decide to just skip the entire battle and just show a cheap montage via flashback? Imagine Death Of Superman just glossing over the actual Doomsday battle and skipping to after Superman died? It's pure laziness.
 

BigFatHairyDeal

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I 100% agree. Horrible, lazy and cheap decision. Why build up to what could have been an incredible showcase of DC Superheroes in action - all while dying in a tragic/epic way - and then decide to just skip the entire battle and just show a cheap montage via flashback? Imagine Death Of Superman just glossing over the actual Doomsday battle and skipping to after Superman died? It's pure laziness.

I personally would've been okay with the bold had they done it for the 2018 film. The battle with Doomsday keeps showing up in other media, including the 2007 DTV movie. An argument could be made that more ground could've been covered if they focused on aspects of the Death and Return stories that haven't been depicted as much, but that's not really the focus of this discussion...

For this movie, I think it would've seemed like diminishing returns to have a big epic battle at the beginning and the end. My mind these days gets numb to action sequences that go on for too long, or if a movie has too high a ratio of action to narrative-building. Short of upping the movie's run time by 15 minutes or so, whatever more action they would've added to the film was going to take away from the story elements, and I wouldn't have wanted that trade-off.

Looking at this franchise as a whole post-Flashpoint Paradox, though, I think one of the recurring issues is that story elements that we should've seen play out on screen were things that they ultimately didn't have enough time to cover.
 

Palin Dromos

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Here's the YouTube replay of film's online panel
Gary Miereanu moderates a talk with Jerry O'Connell (Superman), Matt Ryan (Constantine) Jason O'Mara (Batman), Christopher Gorham (Flash), James Tucker (Executive Producer), Ernie Altbacker (Screenwriter, Christina Sotta (Co-director), & Matt Peters (Co-director)
 

Yojimbo

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At one point in the script, the new Furies only had little devices on the side of their heads controlling them but James Tucker wanted irreparable damage done to them. Christina Sotta suggested Future's End for new designs. Future's End happened to be the title Tucker had in mind for the movie but DC didn't want to confuse fans into thinking it was a strict adaptation.
 

Troy Troodon

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You know as trivial and pointless Lady Shiva's presence her role was in this cinematic continuity, I must admit, her lack of exposure and her unfortunete death actually comes full circle with how Orm was shafted in Young Justice. :p
 

RoyalRubble

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I know I haven't really commented on every movie in this continuity but that doesn't mean I haven't watched them, or enjoyed them for the most part. I thought this worked pretty well as a conclusion to this particular time-line, though I am a bit disappointed they never really focused on some of the characters they bothered to introduce along the way.

The story is fine, and there were a few surprises as it played out. I will admit I would have liked seeing more from the first battle instead of the few minutes we got, but I liked how that helped with some of the reveals later in the movie, as to which characters suffered what fate. It got a bit too creepy at times but I think it was necessary. It's funny to think Justice League Dark was kind of my least favorite movie from the line (the movie itself is good, I just never really cared much for those characters, save maybe for Zatanna), so the title of this movie didn't really excite me as much, but I think as a whole this is a lot more entertaining. And I don't think that was only because more members of the actual Justice League showed up.

The action was pretty solid, very graphic at times but again I think it was necessary to properly portray Darkseid's intentions. I think just about every character who showed up here got to appear in a fight scene, however brief.

The character interactions were pretty fun at times, which worked well in contrast to the dire situations they were put in. It's cool we got to see some kind of development for a few of the relationships as well. Though it remains to be seen if anything like this will carry over to whatever they have planned for future movies.

It's funny but I never really considered The Flashpoint Paradox as part of this continuity, more like a prologue of sorts. Or at least I did before that surprising reveal from Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay. Re-enacting the Flashpoint at the end of this movie was somewhat predictable but I liked how it was staged. I also liked how there was no clear sign of whatever will result from it this time. Here's hoping things won't be worse than how they ended up in this story.

I will probably comment more eventually, but for now these would be my first impressions. The movie was pretty great, entertaining enough despite how bleak the story was at times or how brutal some of the scenes were.
 

khuddle

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Just saw it. Great premise (ie. the League attacks Darkseid and gets almost completely wiped out, leaving only a few stragglers to carry out a rebellion), terrible execution. I am issuing a restraining order against the Teen Titans and Suicide Squad to keep away from the Justice League AT ALL TIMES. Both of those outfits are a complete joke and pretty much ruined the movie. Raven has become an utter mess of a character that the writers don't seem to know how to handle. Ugh.

Last three movies for DC Animated (Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, Superman: Red Son and now Justice League Dark: AW) have ranged from mediocre to terrible. Bruce Timm and Co need to get their act together.
 

Yojimbo

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It's funny but I never really considered The Flashpoint Paradox as part of this continuity, more like a prologue of sorts. Or at least I did before that surprising reveal from Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay. Re-enacting the Flashpoint at the end of this movie was somewhat predictable but I liked how it was staged. I also liked how there was no clear sign of whatever will result from it this time. Here's hoping things won't be worse than how they ended up in this story.
Just the end tag for TFP with the Parademons is canon. Overall, think of it more of a branch timeline with a rebooted version of the original timeline seen at the start of TFP, the Flashpoint timeline that runs on a limited path, and the third timeline these movies exited in that's been now rebooted running in parallel to each other that only Zoom and Flash knew of previously before Constantine saw it. When Flash exited the Flashpoint timeline to reboot the original timeline, it triggered a splintering that created this third timeline.
 

RoyalRubble

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That seems to be the same panel they had a couple of weeks ago at the last Watch Party, it was also posted in this thread a few messages above. I guess they didn't get the cast & crew back together for another panel, which is understandable.
 
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Revelator

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Last three movies for DC Animated (Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, Superman: Red Son and now Justice League Dark: AW) have ranged from mediocre to terrible. Bruce Timm and Co need to get their act together.

Bruce Timm had very little to do with the film though. He's not even listed as an executive producer (James Tucker is). He does have an EP credit for Red Son, but that doesn't imply creative involvement. Mr. Timm is working on other projects.
 

drawangry

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Bruce Timm had very little to do with the film though. He's not even listed as an executive producer (James Tucker is). He does have an EP credit for Red Son, but that doesn't imply creative involvement. Mr. Timm is working on other projects.

If you have watched any of the interviews or behind the scenes videos, Bruce Timm is heavily involved in the creative development in these projects as is James Tucker. The directors follow their lead.
 

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