"Justice League: Warworld" Animated Release Talkback (Spoilers)

[Yojimbo]

Three people with amnesia discover they are anything but normal and targets of a sinister place called Warworld in the latest entry in the popular series of DC Universe Movies.

Justice League: Warworld
Studio: Warner Bros. Animation
Release Date: July 25, 2023 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital; TBA Max Streaming Service

Synopsis: Warworld is like no other enemy. Who are the mysterious gunslinger with a golden lasso, the barbaric warrior with a dark knight's helmet; and the mild-mannered, bespectacled G-man? More importantly, how are they key to rescuing Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman - who disappeared from Earth - from the waking hell that is the omnipotent battle planet Warworld? Their disparate fights for survival in seemingly unrelated time periods could lead directly to unraveling the fate of the entire Justice League itself - as well as a looming crisis in the DC Universe.

Justice League: Warworld Bonus Content
4K, Blu-ray, and Digital
-"Illusions on Warworld" – Go behind the scenes and inside the process of designing and creating three distinct genres for the Justice League to inhabit on Warworld. Run Time: 7 minutes, 45 seconds
-"The Heroic, the Horrible and the Hideous" - Dive deep into the origins and histories of the key players on Warworld and learn how the filmmakers brought them to life. Run Time: 7 minutes, 52 seconds

Discuss the Justice League: Warworld animated release here!

Please note this talkback is for both the Justice League: Warworld animated feature and all aspects of the assorted home media releases. Spoilers are allowed, so those who have yet to see the movie may want to avoid this thread until they have.

Related Threads:
-Justice League: Warworld News and Discussion (Spoilers)
-Superman: Man of Tomorrow Talkback (Spoilers)
-Justice Society: World War II Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Long Halloween - Part One Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Long Halloween - Part Two Talkback (Spoilers)
-Green Lantern: Beware My Power Talkback (Spoilers)
-Legion of Super-Heroes Talkback (Spoilers)
-DC Showcase: Adam Strange Talkback (Spoilers)

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[Yojimbo]

The movie's defining feature is how the portmanteau movie format gives audiences a taste of Elseworlds, DC's take on what-if styled stories, interwoven with familiar DC lore and story genre. In this case, Wonder Woman is a no-name drifter with no memories but a clear sense of right or wrong and super powers. A very handy combination as she arrives in a town in the Old West besieged by outlaw forces led by Jonah Hex. Or Batman in a Conan the Barbarian-esque world on a perilous quest with band of rebels led by Warlord to take down an evil wizard with his hands on some oddly modern technology. And lastly a B&W 1950s alien crash landing investigated by federal agents Kent and Faraday which dovetails into paranoia as the witnesses realize one of them is the alien but the shapeshifting aliens, plural, reveal themselves and make their move to silence everyone. The core theme that prevails through each story is even with a lack of memories or sense of self, these three individuals still do the right thing and prove there's more to heroism than putting on a flashy costume. Wonder Woman chooses to go against Hex after his men almost murder an entire family. Batman betrays the evil wizard who hired him and fights alongside his target to liberate the world. Superman stands up for an alien rather than open fire under orders from his fellow agent and legend in the field of intelligence.

In Wonder Woman's story, Jonah Hex alludes to the Revolutionary War, Mexican-American War, and Civil War while talking about his family heirloom then name drops Sweetwater, which I believe comes from a Lobo comic... set in the Old West. Batman's story is mostly a nod to Mike Grell's Warlord comics but there is a moment when Batman briefly remembers some of his famous rogues gallery. The minotaur reminded me of this Conan comic from Marvel but maybe it was in a barbarian movie from the 80s. In Superman's story, it is revealed Faraday fought in the Battle of Iwojima in World War II then founded the Central Bureau of Intelligence from DC and took part in the Janus Directive, a comic book arc in which the terrorist organization Kobra made a big move against the intelligence community. Faraday also name drops Majestic 12, an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. Some of the fake witnesses appear to be DC characters like the Langs and Snapper Carr. The whole of Superman's story definitely took inspiration from The Twilight Zone's "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" episode from May 1961. Mongul alludes to the Crystal Key needed to fully operate the Warworld's arsenal as well as the Largas, the previous owners of Warworld in the comics.

Lastly, the movie's ending is another not-so-subtle reference to what appears to be an upcoming adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Rumors of such a movie have hit the Internet off and on the past few years. Hard to deny when Harbinger shows up. Or the "Old Man" voiced by Matt Bomer who appears to Warlord and Batman briefly. Hmm, now who else has Bomer filmed in this movie canon. Interesting and seems the payoff will be in a later movie. In "Superman: Man of Tomorrow," Lobo told Superman and Martian Manhunter there are other Martians and Kryptonians out there. He turned out to be telling truth: White Martians on Warworld and Supergirl in the previous canon movie "Legion of Super-Heroes." In "Justice Society: World War II," we first met Wonder Woman she was a variant version on parallel Earth in the Multiverse. Spectre alluded to the universe reacting and what looked like an anti-matter wave at the end of the Constantine: House of Mystery short. Warworld's confirmed to have a Zeta Beam, which we saw first in the Adam Strange DC Showcase short and "Green Lantern: Beware My Power." In "Legion of Super-Heroes," Brainiac states he foresaw "threats." So clearly, the DC Universe animated DTVs are on the Multiverse bandwagon that the comic book movies are delving hard into right now. Has the audience for these canon direct-to-video movies been paying attention and/or remember all these connecting threads and does the movies do enough to remind us about said threads? Will audiences still have the patience and stomach for all this when this Crisis movie finally comes out? The Multiverse is a fad now, will it be when this all concludes? We'll see.

The final 20 minutes of the movie were disappointing and frustrating. While the theme of heroes always doing the right thing is sort paid off with Martian Manhunter making the ultimate sacrifice but not spending a second on trying to save the prisoner clones or those working on Warworld. The actual ending is a freefall and the big action set piece is bland. Trying to explain and settle everything in 20 minutes is a feat unto itself but then the ending is overshadowed by a deus ex machina that literally comes out of nowhere to set up the next movie. The movie has to explain what's going on with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman but then it crams even more – the victims of Warworld are being endlessly cloned, negative emotions fuel a planet-shaped weapon whose history is haphazardly explained, it can travel the Multiverse somehow, Lobo's working for Mongul for reasons then other reasons because he's the proverbial loose cannon, Mongul wants to use Warworld for bad guy stuff, Martians were given some key that makes Warworld fully operational, Lobo's a double-crosser but it's really because Martian Manhunter planted the idea in him off screen, everyone's gonna die, and some new character plucks Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman away to her ship at the last second and says there's something even worse coming. Uh... yeah.

Worse yet, this continuity of movies continues to have a villain problem. Mongul was completely interchangeable and lackluster. The problem with the villain only appearing in the final minutes of the movie is no impression is made. Sure it seems there's some level of irony that he was trapping people in illusions while he himself is trapped by the allure of Warworld's power akin to a drug addict but it's a speed date. There he is, he says some lines where you get a baseline gist, and then guess he died in the explosion. The title of the movie is about the same bait and switch this line of movies has to rely on to get past marketing and get a greenlight. While something in the vein of "Trinity: Warworld" would have been more appropriate... for a movie called "Justice League: Warworld," the actual organization doesn't appear in full force at all. The only members are Batman, Superman, and Martian Manhunter but the League isn't even acknowledged and Wonder Woman isn't from their universe. Do Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman even regain their full memories by the end? It didn't feel clear enough. In a more ideal scenario, Warworld could have a two part movie with the first part dealing with the mini-stories and ending on a reveal they're really on Warworld then spend the second part on Warworld: the reveals, building up Mongul's arc better, and the Trinity fighting their way to Mongul level by level and then putting the Harbinger scene in an end tag after the credits.

The movie's special features are only a pair of two informative featurettes that focus on what went into making the movie. The 7:45 "Illusions on Warworld" is a behind the scenes look at the process that went into designing and creating the three distinct genres used for the movie. Producer Jim Krieg explains Warworld came from a want to explore corners of the DC Universe hardly explored and Butch Lukic elaborates he always wanted to do a western, a Conan sword-and-sorcery, and a 1950's sci-fi with a twist of the Twilight Zone. Writer Tim Sheridan explains the framework of the movie allows audiences to see Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in a new light. Character and background designs are shown throughout the featurette along with finished animation of the movie and comic book interiors related to the discussion. The discussion goes from story to story, Old West and Jonah Hex to Skartaris and Warlord, and 50s Sci-Fi and Agent Faraday. The black and white Red Scare setting is compared to how Agent Kent lives in a black and white, good and evil world. Darren Criss comments on going with less bravado because this Kent is unaware of his powers. Lukic ends the featurette explaining he's trying to finish off a 30 year career in animation before he himself heads off into the sunset.

The 7:52 "The Heroic, the Horrible and the Hideous" is a primer on the origins and histories of the key characters of the movie. Jim Krieg, Butch Lukic, and Tim Sheridan discuss how movie provided an opportunity to create a much different Warworld than seen before in animation, a mechanized planet powered by hate and anger and almost a drug to Mongul, giving him power but also dooming him. Krieg goes so far as to compare this version of Mongul to a combination of Sauron and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings franchise, asking does he have the "ring" or does the "ring" have him? The featurette also touches on Martian Manhunter and how he was used by Mongul to conduct psychological warfare and on Lobo and his infamous self-interest. Lukic comments on the final moments of the movie as part of something they have been planning since day one.

It is a let down there are no commentary track or once again not even a sneak peak of the next movie. The sneak peek is supposed to be a staple bonus feature and that's been removed. Not even bonus episodes from the DC Vault are present. The drive now seems to be an absolute bare minimum set of featurettes to summarize some of the cast and crew's thoughts on key aspects of the movie's creation.

 

[Fone Bone]

Justice League: Warworld

During the first ten or fifteen minutes I thought there was a good chance I would be giving this a positive review. But that turned into a slow-motion trainwreck. I'm a little appalled. Simply because there was no need for this movie to be as bad as it was. It chose to be. For reasons I don't get and I don't want to get.

So this will NOT be a positive review, despite me responding well to the Western atmosphere at the beginning that was mostly dialogue-free and effectively used animation, sound, and music to convey both the mood and what was happening. If the whole movie had been like that, we wouldn't be in this mess. What this WILL be is a relatively in-depth review for these DC Universe movies, which I don't usually care enough about either way to do a thorough deconstruction. But what the hell was that?

Let's talk about the cliffhanger ending. They're still doing Crisis?! Even though Kevin Conroy is dead?! What is the freaking point then?! That pisses me off like nothing else. I really hate Warner Bros Animation and DC Comics, and this was BEFORE Zaslav took over. The unmitigated GALL of this studio to rarely hire their best Batman, and outside of Justice League Action, only put him in inferior productions, and then they do this? I am furious. What a giant middle finger to Conroy's amazing career these past few years have been. And to do Crisis without him is the final kick in the pants. I am furious. I am appalled. I am sickened.

Let me a settle a bit. There was a ton of bad stuff in the movie and I don't want me feeling offense on Conroy's behalf to make me neglect them. This movie has EARNED my bad review, and damn it, I intend to give it everything it deserves there. I want to itemize every last way this movie sucked, and failed the premise, the characters, and the viewers. I say viewers, because I don't see eye to eye with the fans, and for all I know they liked it. But for average viewers who barely know about this stuff, or at least closer to me, barely care about it, I speak on behalf of the DC layman: That was bad. That was annoying.

Maybe I am not giving fans enough credit and people will be gunning for me about this review. Maybe y'all hated it as much as it deserved to be. Maybe. But the biggest thing I recall about fans and this movie line was seeing a ComicCon panel on one of the Blu-Rays for one of these things a few years ago, and the guy in charge of DC movies, I think it was James Tucker at the time, asked the audience if they preferred R-rated animated films to PG-13 ones. And damn them, those braying hyenas in the convention center hooted like the classiest studio audience for Married.. With Children or Jerry Springer that ever existed. As of the time of that panel, Batman: Soul Of The Dragon, had not been made yet. But I thought of all R-rated Western animation from the 1970's to the present starting with Ralph Bakshi, and I can safely say until Soul Of The Dragon hit there had never been a SINGLE great R-rated animated film. All of them, ALL of them had been smut-filled edgelord "Look what we can get away with" desperate affairs with nary a decent script among them. You want to throw the South Park movie at me? Maybe. But like everything else South Park, it's much less pleasant to view in hindsight than it was at the time it was made. Hell, even if I give you the idea that South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was at least a GOOD movie, I will still say it and Soul Of The Dragon remain the only two R rated animated films that earned THAT specific designation too. Those ComicCon fans squealing and giggling at the possibility of future uncovered sideboob nipples and f-bombs is simply put, why I am not a superhero comic fan and never will be. I value entirely different things from that fandom. And if you want to call me out on this, fine. Whatever. Crap like this movie is constant and I'm sick and tired of having to hold my tongue from suggesting the actual thing currently in my darkest thoughts: Maybe it's the entire premise that is the problem. Maybe the first three Phases of the MCU movies and the DC Animated Universe being awesome are the actual unusual projects, and the outliers. Maybe the truth is, the genre mostly lends itself to crap. I would love to believe otherwise, because on a personal level, I love you guys very much. I learn SO much from you guys and I appreciated every single point you've made, even the ones I disagree with. I just think you deserve better and I think you ought to start recognizing this about yourself.

Do you know what kills me? There are a LOT of great superhero comics out there. But they aren't the ones that start reboots and events and get amazing sales. I have read a superhero comic or two that proudly lives up to the premise and potential, and I recognize there are probably at least a THOUSAND issues that is true for that I have not yet read. But really tie-in projects like these should get people who can take or leave DC Comics INTO the actual comics. And if this is the best way they can sell them, I wonder if it's the actual premise that's the problem. This should NOT be the ordeal it is.

How hard would it be for somebody to write a decent script for a Batman film? If Mask Of The Phantasm's exact script had been made in 1989 instead of the lousy Tim Burton crap, Warner Bros would have made five times the box office they got. It probably would have surpassed Star Wars, and E.T. as the high grossing film of all time. And it's like freaking pulling teeth here. Plenty of Batman writers write (or at least used to) write a decent Batman script for the comics once a freaking month! And you're telling me this movie is best we can do? It's insane.

Was it necessary to make Batman a completely amoral, selfish, money-grubbing, murderous sociopath upon losing his memories? How does that help the franchise? How does that win over new fans? DC is REALLY bad at this. When it comes to stuff like this and Titans it's pretty much unbelievable what I actually have to complain about. "Don't make Batman an amoral sociopath only interested in money" should NOT be the note I need to pin to any given DC writer's snowpants so they don't forget. That is self-evident and should go without freaking saying. What is WRONG with the writers, here?

About that R-Rating. I think it was deserved, and paradoxically, 100% unnecessary at the exact same time. This entire movie could have been told with a nearly identical script that doesn't purposefully alienate every potential kid in the audience. R rated Justice League animated films? Is Warner insane? They couldn't even get people to see an R rated Harley Quinn or Suicide Squad movie and they think people are fine with doing this to Batman and Superman? What the hell?

What's especially infuriating to me, is that as fast as loose as DC plays it with the integrity of the characters and premises, it's entirely situational, and all of the Edgelord crap they pull comes from a point of weakness and timidity. They would not have nixed an oral sex scene between Batman and Catwoman on Harley Quinn if they actually HAD the artistic freedom principles they claimed to be championing with this gross stuff. "We can't show that! Kids buy action figures of Batman!" Yeah? Then maybe realize what your actual target audience is before making a raunchy R-rated comedy with blood-spattering violence and Joker and Harley dropping f-bombs. I wound up LOVING Harley Quinn. But the choices DC made to first present the show made it an extremely difficult show for me to love, and it took time, and was a process of growth to get there. And part of me is convinced that R rated Batman adjacent cartoons just shouldn't exist. I'll make the Harley Quinn exemption to this belief now. I wouldn't have two seasons ago.

If I want to be completely honest (and I try to be in my reviews) I will concede it's possible this film might be of a higher quality than another film in this line I previously gave a positive review for. And if you want to call me out for THAT too, that's fair. But I like the fact that I have higher standards now, and I won't apologize for them. This movie is dreadful. *.

 

[Rick Jones]

I was such a big fan of Man of Tomorrow and all of the promise of a new hopeful Superman. I really didn't expect that we would see the forming of this entire universe as fast as we did, or that Man of Tomorrow would be the anomaly in the continuity it created. When I watched this movie, I felt as though I was watching them finishing a speedrun to get to the dismal universe finale, like we previously saw with Apokolips War.

I have almost no anticipation for another Crisis type movie at this point. I just hope that the past iterations, all of which I am a nutty fan for, will be handled respectfully.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

One of the more middle-of-the-road entries in the animated film series. It bothered me at first at how out-of character Johah Hex was written though this is explainable once we learn what's going on. It was nice to connect with Travis Morgan and his friends again, even if they weren't the real deal. The black-and-white format for Clark's segment was a nice touch as long as you don't think about it too much.

This version of Warworld was just too different from its typical depiction; it took me out of the movie. The ending did J'onn J'onnz dirty.

 

[RoyalRubble]

The movie will be added to Max on October 23.

 

[Classic Speedy]

As I said over at TVTropes during the downtime, this was easily my least favorite DTV DC film in the last few years. I'll just repost it 'cause I don't feel like repeating myself:

I've liked most of the DC animated films (even the ones that seem to get a lot of hate, like The Killing Joke) but Warworld is one of the few exceptions. The first story is okay- if a bit cliche, but the second is virtually unwatchable and the third is only marginally better. Even after the big plot twist tying all three stories together is revealed, it didn't invest me like it should've. Also underwhelmed by the ending- won't say any more than that to avoid spoilers.

Part of it might've been expectations. I went in expecting a straightforward superhero movie and instead got a western, a Conan-esque giant monster fight and a 50s b-movie, with a bit of The Matrix at the end. And then only in the last 10 minutes do we get the superheroes in their familiar forms. It was kind of a mess.

Also, the animation outside the action scenes was really bare bones. One shot late in the film felt like something you'd see on a Filmation show- no movement, stock expression that undermined any potential emotion in the moment.

 

[Fone Bone]

As I said over at TVTropes during the downtime, this was easily my least favorite DTV DC film in the last few years. I'll just repost it 'cause I don't feel like repeating myself:

It really IS dreadful. Honestly, this is NOT the creative team I want tackling Crisis.

 

[#TeamMike]

I watched this and found it to be more boring than bad.

I think the worst DC DTV in recent years was the Injustice film, a completely butchery of some great source material, baffling deviations, miscast and flat performances (why not just use the iconic cast from the Injustice games)? All the hate people felt for the Killing Joke is the hatred I felt for that film.

 

[GWOtaku]

I was a bit ticked off by this one. It felt like only the Superman side story touched on something that really spoke to the essence of that character, with Clark Kent taking a stand against Red Scare style paranoia. Then the rest of the film was taken over by action and a whole load of multiverse stuff, and then they actually go and end it on a note that makes the whole thing out to be a teaser for another adventure. All of the stuff that happened in this movie, we are told & shown, basically didn't matter. War World blew up and everyone died and nearly the last thing we hear in the film is the trinity being told that oh, no big deal, compared to the multiverse that wasn't important at all.

Well. That kind of thing is, in essence, the absolute best case against using the multiverse in fiction.

Did not like it. Grade D for me

 

[#TeamMike]

I was a bit ticked off by this one. It felt like only the Superman side story touched on something that really spoke to the essence of that character, with Clark Kent taking a stand against Red Scare style paranoia. Then the rest of the film was taken over by action and a whole load of multiverse stuff, and then they actually go and end it on a note that makes the whole thing out to be a teaser for another adventure. All of the stuff that happened in this movie, we are told & shown, basically didn't matter. War World blew up and everyone died and nearly the last thing we hear in the film is the trinity being told that oh, no big deal, compared to the multiverse that wasn't important at all.

Well. That kind of thing is, in essence, the absolute best case against using the multiverse in fiction.

Did not like it. Grade D for me

Was this your reaction when watching the movie?

 

[Yojimbo]

Hall of Justice podcast did an interview with Ernie Altbacker.
-Jim Krieg actually wrote the frame of the 3 stories.

 

[Frontier]

Hall of Justice podcast did an interview with Ernie Altbacker.
-Jim Krieg actually wrote the frame of the 3 stories.

From a structure standpoint that makes a lot of sense .