[GRUNTING] [GASPS] [EXHALES] This moment. This moment right here, this
is what sets the DC Animated Universe apart from almost every
adaptation of the beloved DC Comics characters, or really
any other superhero adaptation. If you're unfamiliar, this is
a scene from the pilot episode of Batman Beyond. This sequel television
show takes place in Gotham 50 years of
the events of Batman-- The Animated Series. It shows an old,
haggard Bruce Wayne using a technologically
advanced batsuit in order to stop criminals. And yet his body just
isn't up to the challenge. Despite having a
heart attack, he's attempting to do
the right thing. But in doing so, he's
forced to cross the one line that he swore he never would. He picks up a gun. This moment is brilliant
character writing. Batman ends the
same way he began-- with a, well, you already know. See, guns are antithetical
to Bruce Wayne. His monastic devotion to
protecting the innocent from the evils of the
night have evolved to the point where he
has a strict moral code, a visual iconography, and only
two real lines he won't cross-- no killing, no guns. And all of that is
broken in this moment. And we the audience
know it instantly. This is something none of the
live-action versions of Batman have ever truly gotten correct. But also none of those
adaptations that Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, Stan Berkowitz,
and Paul Dini at the helm. But we'll get back to that. If you're unaware, the
DC Animated Universe is a series of shows
and films interconnected in a shared continuity. Sounds like a familiar
concept now, but in the '90s, it was unique. The DCAU started on
September 5, 1992, with the premiere of Batman-- The Animated Series. Believe it or not, it lasted all
the way up until May 13, 2006, with the cancellation
of Justice League-- Unlimited. If you're not familiar
with the inner workings of that timeline,
it's pretty simple. The Animated Series, Superman-- The Animated Series,
The New Adventures of Batman and Robin, Batman
Beyond, Zeta Project, Static Shock, Justice
League, and Justice League-- Unlimited. All there. It also included the feature
films, Mask of the Phantasm, Batman and Mr. Freeze-- Sub-Zero, Mystery of
the Batwoman, Superman-- Brainiac Attacks,
and Batman Beyond-- Return of the Joker. If that's a lot to remember,
don't worry, you don't need to. This interconnected
tapestry of films and shows produced one of the most
intricate and well-crafted superhero universes
ever put to screen. And it did it a solid
decade before the idea of producing interconnected
cinematic universe was a fashionable thought. Because all this reminds you
of something, doesn't it? Yeah. The DCAU kind of feels like
the MCU or the Arrowverse, but also distinctly
doesn't feel like the DCEU. Simply put, the DCAU
should have been the blueprint for both the MCU,
but more importantly, the DCEU. What makes it even
more frustrating is that Warner Bros. easily could have
hired the minds behind the Animated Universe
to shepherd DC Cinematic Universe into existence to
help mold, well, what they've already molded in the past. They just chose not to. So let's delve a little deeper. Let's examine what is so great
about the DCAU, what common attributes that it shares
with the MCU and the DCEU, and also where it
can all go wrong. Let's see what DC's
Cinematic Universe maybe should have done differently. OK. So if you're familiar with
the history of comics, you know that both the
Marvel and DC Universe were constructed bit
by bit organically. Action Comics No. 1 and Detective Comics No. 27 didn't originally take
place in the same worlds. And we're going to get a little
granular here, so bear with me. After National Publications
saw what was working, they leaned more into the
idea of caped characters and eventually put all
of their caped characters together on a team. Same thing with Marvel. Stan and Jack had been creating
comics for Timely, a.k.a. Marvel, for a long time prior
to 1962's Fantastic Four No. 1. But after they started
working on that project, the success beget more success. And the Marvel universe
ballooned out from there. So lets smash-cut 30-ish years
or so later, and the DCAU literally functioned the same. There was no plan to
make a universe out of Batman, the animated show. It was just so successful,
that new and interesting opportunities to tell
stories kept popping up, and the creators took
advantage of them. The MCU was built
much the same way. The idea of an interconnected
tapestry of franchises began for Marvel
after former Toy Biz exec, and low-key
mastermind behind most of the Marvel subsequent film
and television adaptations, procured the rights to Iron Man. Marvel decided to
launch a film studio, adapting their own intellectual
property into feature films, off the backs the success of
Fox's X-Men series and Sony's Spider-Man franchises-- you
know, the Sam Raimi ones. And they followed through. The first two outings for the
fledgling Cinematic Universe would be in the summer of '08. Iron Man with RDJ and The
Hulk with Edward Norton. Both these films were
solid origin films. They were intended to
set the characters up for continuing adventures. And in one case, they succeeded. After the resounding
success of Iron Man and the weird
pseudo-not-failure of Hulk, Marvel Studios announced
on May 5, 2008, a plan to produce
a Captain America movie, a Thor movie,
Iron Man 2, all of which would interconnect and lead
up to an Avengers film, which if you look at it, is very
similar to the structure of the DCAU, which,
again, a decade earlier. Start with individual pieces,
organically grow them, and let them become
something bigger like, well, Justice League-- Unlimited. Across the street
at Warner Bros. However, DC Comics--
things were a bit rocky. After the undisputed
success of the MCU, WB decided that they needed
their own Cinematic Universe off the ground. However, even though like they
were behind the eight ball, they didn't follow the
model that both the DCAU had pioneered and didn't
want to appear as they were mimicking the MCU. So instead, they took
the opposite approach. Big team movies, then
spin-offs out of it. The launchpad film was going
to be called, Justice League-- Mortal. That's right, the
first DC Universe film was going to be called,
Justice League-- Mortal. It would've depicted the titular
big seven coming together to stop fast-food tycoon and
mind control enthusiast Maxwell Lord from taking over the Earth. Then an interconnected web
of solo superhero outings would have spun
out of that film. So the inverse of the
way this should work. The project was going to be
directed by Mad Max's George Miller. However, despite getting pretty
far along in pre-production and having a whole
film cast, and being ready to shoot in
Australia, the project was shelved at the last minute
due to the financial crisis. DC then pivoted to attempt
to follow the Marvel model. Well, things don't
always go as planned. The idea was a
solo Superman film. The film would share the title
with a long and gestation sequel to Bryan Singer's
Superman Returns, but would be helmed
by Zack Snyder. The film ended up coming out. It was a modest success
at the box office, but it was by no means a
runaway smash-hit on the level of any of the MCU films. As such, WB executives did what
executives do best and panicked and decided they needed to pull
out the big guns immediately. They didn't have time
to wait for establishing all the solo characters in
their own films and, you know, building character. They needed to get to
the highly recognizable intellectual property
front and center. This would lead to rushed
and poorly conceived versions of Batman v. Superman-- Dawn of Justice, which is
a loose adaptation of both The Dark Knight
Returns and Death of Superman, a heavily
re-edited Suicide Squad, and, well, you
know, now Justice League. We all know what happened there. It would eventually go on
to produce Aquaman, Shazam!, Wonder Woman and Birds of Prey. So now that we have an
overview of the MCU contrasted against the constantly
readjusting DCEU, let's break down why Warner didn't
follow the template of what they had already
accomplished literally over the past 15 years prior. Remember this, the Batman
holding the gun moment? That moment tells you everything
you need to know about Batman. And it shows you him at
the end of his arc, which is a key distinction,
because Batman Beyond is about passing on the mantle
to the next generation. Everything Bruce Timm, Eric
Radomski, and the other DCAU stalwarts did took
these key details as the starting points
for these characters, something the MCU has in spades. And to be clear, every
MCU movie isn't great. The MCU in general isn't
necessarily amazing. But structurally speaking,
it's hard to argue that the MCU didn't
get something right. Do I love every MCU film? Not even close. But what I do know is that
they understood what it meant to create their universe. Sometimes their
jokey banter makes these characters
feel kind of samie, but underneath all
of that, they get what makes the various
characters tick on a bone-deep level,
again for the most part. Now look at the way Eric
Radomski constructed the look and feel of Batman-- The Animated Series. All the backgrounds of the
show were drawn on black paper, so that it felt like the shadows
were the primary attribute Gotham had. That aesthetic
choice flows directly from the character
of Bruce Wayne. The fact that the
governing style was Dark Deco, meaning
Gothic art deco, also comes from
Batman's history. He's a character that's
been around forever and, yet, he's timeless. Just like the
aesthetic of the show. There's computers and
phones, and, yet, zeppelins and old-timey radios. The world of the show
is built around Batman. The show comes
from his character. Same thing from
the Superman show. It's bold and bright, and it's
reminiscent of the Fleischer brother cartoons, but still
contemporary and modern. It's timeless and iconic. Tim Daly, the voice of
Superman in the show, is so perfectly cast, that an
entire generation of people hear him in their head when
they read Superman comics. They didn't try to make
Superman grim or morally gray. They didn't try to
update him for the '90s. They made him a perfect
distillation of everything that had worked before. So let's juxtapose
that with Man of Steel. And it doesn't really learn
those lessons, does it? Let's look at another reasonable
distillation of this-- MCU Cap versus DCEU Superman. They are two sides
of the same coin. Warners was concerned that
Superman would appear hokey or out of step with the times. So they let Snyder run
with a darker, more conflicted Superman
in Man of Steel. In many ways, they
have lost confidence in their ability of
their man out of time to connect with
modern audiences, because his morality
was something from a bygone era in
their opinion, which is exactly what Marvel chose
to do with Steve Rogers and people loved. That's what they keyed
in with Steve Rogers. That's what made
Captain America work. Understanding the
tonality of your character and building that tonality
from inside the character, not crashing that
tonality onto them. Ultimately, the fact that
Dwayne McDuffie, Bruce Timm, Stan Berkowitz, and
Paul Dini were literally employees of Warner while
all this was going on is exceedingly frustrating. Because this
tonality is something they understood
down to their core. And this tonality
is exactly what has driven separation between
DC movies and Marvel movies, and arguably exactly what has
made the Marvel movies more successful than the DC movies. Tonal consistency
into understanding. The right people for the
job were right there even, if they had just been the
executive producers guiding things along the way. They certainly understood
these characters better than, well, maybe Zack Snyder. And that's not a
shot at Zack Snyder. He's an incredible
visual filmmaker. But being a good
filmmaker does not give you the expertise
that these men who build these worlds,
these iconic worlds, had. So why weren't they involved? Well, a few reasons--
politics, money, and vision being the primary ones. However, the more
important aspect of this is that they weren't ever
even in the conversation. Because animation isn't thought
of as culturally important in the same way live-action
film is or television. Animation is for children,
live-action is for adults. The heads of the WB wanted
high-profile directors and writers,
despite some of them not being massive fans
of the source material. The Justice League-- Unlimited
season two finale epilogue is one of the best
Batman stories ever told. If you need any convincing
that the DCAU team would have knocked this
out of the park, this should be the front
and center example. But, alas, it
wasn't meant to be. And honestly, it doesn't
matter, because the DCAU still exists and is fantastic. Well, guys, that's it for
today's episode of Nostalgic. As always, if you enjoyed this
video, press the like button. And on your screen
right now should be two more episodes on Nostalgic. So you can stay right
here and check those out, and hopefully I'll see you
guys in the next video.
