"Justice Society: World War II" Animated Release Talkback (Spoilers)

Rate this movie

  • *****

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • ****1/2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • ****

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • ***1/2

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • ***

    Votes: 3 27.3%
  • **1/2

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • **

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • *1/2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • *

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11

Yojimbo

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Some interviews from after the news thread closed and this talkback opened.

-April 26, 2021

Interview with Stana Katic. Comic Book Article

Interview with Stana Katic. KGET Article

Interview with Christopher Diamantopoulos. Screen Rant Article

-April 27, 2021

Interview with Omid Abtahi. Fanboy Nation Article

-April 28, 202

Interview with cast ad crew. Comics Beat Article

-May 4, 2021

Interview with Christopher Diamantopoulos. WBHE YouTube

-May 6, 2021

Interview with Stana Katic. WBHE YouTube

Interview with Omid Abtahi. Hall of Justice episode 232

-May 9, 2021

Interview with Jeremy Adams and Meghan Fitzmartin. Voice America/Kids First!, 36:26-47:58

-May 10, 2021

Interview with Liam McIntyre. WBHE YouTube

-May 11, 2021

Interview with Matt Bomer. WBHE YouTube

-May 12, 2021

Interview with Armen Taylor. WBHE YouTube

-May 13, 2021

Interview with Meghan Fitzmartin. Hall of Justice Episode 233

-Today

Interview with Elysia Rotaru. (warning: Elysia swears on occassion like a sailor). Hall of Justice Episode 234
 

Mostezli

N0t 4 3very1 & Th@t'$ OK
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That was pretty good. Going against the grain here because of how weirdly paced and written that first act or so was, it actually got so much better after Barry learned about where he actually was. Of the now 3 "Atlanteans go to war against the surface world", this was clearly the best rationalized take. Going back to one of the weirdly written parts, as unnecessary as it was to necessitate Flash to save Steve Trevor for the JSA to realize he's on their side, I totally get the eventual callback to Aquaman, another hero, having been manipulated into fighting for the Nazis.

Obviously Dr. Fate doesn't actually care about Barry - mending his relationship with his gf or has to help save this other world's battle. Prime Earth needs its Justice League and The Flash is merely the messenger.
All aboard for Crisis and hopefully more movies on this Earth (sorta like JLD).
 

CyberCubed

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Just watched this and it was really boring. I don't know, these DTV movies don't seem to be doing it for me anymore. The characters are always so DULL character wise in this. It feels like nobody has any real personality besides their basic archtypes they're known for.
 

Jiggle-Bot

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May 26, 2005
Messages
341
My quick take. I loved the art style, it's similar to Superman: Man of Tomorrow but I liked it better in the WW2 setting. Wonder Woman's design and animation is both a classic for me and also with brutal and visceral in the way she fights - taking out those Nazi troops at the beginning was impressive and in the same vein as the first Wonder Woman's best action scenes.

I liked the narrative arc for Barry Allen with him accepting the risks of his job and his relationship with Iris West with a caveat. The engagement ring finally finding its home with Barry and Iris is both tragic and happy. Maybe I'm overthinking it but that engagement ring followed the same journey a green lantern ring would take but instead of finding someone worthy its about finding couples who are prepared to make the choice (and sometimes sacrifice) of loving commitment.

And now back to the caveat. Maybe it shows my age but the movie's storyline of "my crime fighting job will endanger you, so I can't commit to a long term relationship" did not add anything new to this trope. If you love someone and they love you back for who you are then crime fighting isn't really an excuse for avoiding commitment. Just ask every police officer, military personnel, fire fighter, security guard, or anyone who's profession puts their lives on the line and are able to find and maintain happy relationships.

It took Barry a whole time travel and alternative universe trip to figure out that out.

And now to what I don't like, I've watched WB's animation fare since Batman the animated series. For me it mostly peaked at Justice League Unlimited from a story telling point of view with occasional brilliances in their subsequent DTV showings. Comparing JSWW2 to what came before - and perhaps this is unfair - it doesn't bring anything new to the table that hasn't been done before. Sure the action is better choreographed but Flash going to WW2 - there's bits of JLU Savage Time in there, giant sea monsters finales - hmm The Terror Beyond.

Perhaps we've been spoilt by the scope of the live action Marvel Movies but I was hoping DC's DTV's foray would reach those levels of story telling but I find them stuck in the JL and JLU era stories. Nothing wrong with that but I've seen it done before.

And this is a criticism of all super hero movie finales not just this one, maybe instead of the distraction of a big monster finale (or CGI slugfest) give us the intimacy of a personal but brutal fight. You don't need to have heroes and villain's fly through buildings in their punch out, just make the fight have emotional resonance.
 

Mostezli

N0t 4 3very1 & Th@t'$ OK
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And now back to the caveat. Maybe it shows my age but the movie's storyline of "my crime fighting job will endanger you, so I can't commit to a long term relationship" did not add anything new to this trope. If you love someone and they love you back for who you are then crime fighting isn't really an excuse for avoiding commitment. Just ask every police officer, military personnel, fire fighter, security guard, or anyone who's profession puts their lives on the line and are able to find and maintain happy relationships.

It took Barry a whole time travel and alternative universe trip to figure out that out.

And now to what I don't like, I've watched WB's animation fare since Batman the animated series. For me it mostly peaked at Justice League Unlimited from a story telling point of view with occasional brilliances in their subsequent DTV showings. Comparing JSWW2 to what came before - and perhaps this is unfair - it doesn't bring anything new to the table that hasn't been done before. Sure the action is better choreographed but Flash going to WW2 - there's bits of JLU Savage Time in there, giant sea monsters finales - hmm The Terror Beyond.

Perhaps we've been spoilt by the scope of the live action Marvel Movies but I was hoping DC's DTV's foray would reach those levels of story telling but I find them stuck in the JL and JLU era stories. Nothing wrong with that but I've seen it done before.

And this is a criticism of all super hero movie finales not just this one, maybe instead of the distraction of a big monster finale (or CGI slugfest) give us the intimacy of a personal but brutal fight. You don't need to have heroes and villain's fly through buildings in their punch out, just make the fight have emotional resonance.
But they're more preoccupied & on duty more than real-life first responders because of the superpowers or the obsession with vigilantism going up against threats that are beyond life & death. In Barry Allen's case, he's gone & back in a flash every other minute. I also just now realized, in WWII of all places, the JSA kept trying to isolate him or slow him down out of mistrust or messing with the time/multiverse. The realization for me is that that's in response to how he's always doing something in his universe.

I don't understand the comparison to the scope of live action Marvel movies. This is an entirely new universe; 2 movies in and they've already gotten to this many characters, their associated stories, & the multiverse. This wasn't even intended as a Flash origin of sorts like Man of Tomorrow was. I guess the tv show is why they're not committing to that.

With the 2nd half of the movie genuinely making the rather ok-alright first half much better, the emotions were much higher in that fight. It was sad to see Hawkman go, but he believes this time he'll be with his loved one. I wasn't at all expecting Steve Trevor would go as much as I did Hourman, but then the silly & what I thought was the unnecessary plotline of Trevor proposing to her everyday, came back around to that last & final moment. Diana decided it would be best to hand the remaining ornament to their love to a total stranger from another world. The poetry here is greater than I would expect from the average superhero movie.
 
Last edited:

Yojimbo

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Dusty Abell posted designs for:

-Hawkman
--Dusty wanted to do the original helmet with the big eyes and the tongue but that was vetoed.

-Brainiac
--Dusty tried to get the classic Curt Swan look used.

-Iris
 

ABrown

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Aug 28, 2008
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6,261
Gave this movie a watch, and it didnt do anything for me. I won't go into details. Gonna give Injustice a shot next. I'm a little more optimistic about that one.
 

BigFatHairyDeal

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Sep 7, 2004
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Gave this movie a re-watch since I want to understand better how the Tomorrowverse comes together.

So the villain was indeed Psycho Pirate. Someone needs to update the Tomorrowverse Fandom.com site... He and the man in the cell who gave Shakespeare the package weren't known to me when I first watched this a few years ago, really hurting my enjoyment of my first watching. They were sort of these loose threads that weren't interesting enough for me to remember as the next movies came out. I'd say that since the big picture is starting to clear up, my second watch has been a bit more enjoyable, but I think the movie should've done a better job overall of cluing us in. I'm hoping... no, fully expecting that there's a follow-up to the man in the cell.

Speaking about the cell and the package, Flash and Shakespeare have a strange exchange. Flash asks a bunch of rapid-fire questions, and Clark's first response is "Stuck? What are you talking about?" I had to rewind that scene several times to make sure Flash never used the word "stuck," so I think there was a dialogue gaffe.

Overall, I have two big complaints about the Tomorrowverse:

1) I think the exposition in these movies tend to be kind of awkward. When they want to explain stuff to new audiences, someone gives an unnatural sounding info dump

2) I feel like a lot of the build up and foreshadowing to events in Crisis trilogy ending up coming at the expense of enjoying the movies in the moment.

But to finish on a positive note, I'm enjoying Flash's story arc. If you watch this back-to-back with Crisis part one, you get a pretty good Flash story. And the funny thing is it doesn't really matter which order you watch the two, heh.
 

Yojimbo

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Gave this movie a re-watch since I want to understand better how the Tomorrowverse comes together.

So the villain was indeed Psycho Pirate. Someone needs to update the Tomorrowverse Fandom.com site... He and the man in the cell who gave Shakespeare the package weren't known to me when I first watched this a few years ago, really hurting my enjoyment of my first watching. They were sort of these loose threads that weren't interesting enough for me to remember as the next movies came out. I'd say that since the big picture is starting to clear up, my second watch has been a bit more enjoyable, but I think the movie should've done a better job overall of cluing us in. I'm hoping... no, fully expecting that there's a follow-up to the man in the cell.
It's not exactly clear if Charles Halstead Earth-2 and the Psycho Pirate who appears in Crisis Part One are the same person or two variants. They look similar and have the same VA but hard to say 100% imo.

The man in the cell who gives Shakespeare/Kal the Superman costume? That's the Kamandi from the Kamandi DC Showcase short. I think the implication is Dr. Fate did it, but after the ending of the short, he somehow got displaced to Earth-2 during WW2 and imprisoned and beaten by Nazis. Some think that's the same Kamandi who cameos in Crisis Part One but again, hard to say 100%.
 

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