Board 8 > Board 8 Ranks: The DC Extended Universe! (sign-ups & interest topic)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome all, to the next entry in the long running Board 8 film ranking series! It is my first time hosting one of these and Im excited to see how things go! This time, were going to delve into a part of the world of cinema that is perhaps a bit less prestigious than some weve covered in the past but no less interesting: The DC Extended Universe, or DCEU for short.

The DCEU was Warner Bros attempt to compete with Disney and Marvel by launching a competing shared universe of films based on its own DC Comics universe, somewhat bootstrapping it onto what had been conceived as a standalone Superman film to do so. At the start, lifted by general excitement around superheroes and pre-existing love of the characters, it launched to enormous financial success despite mixed critical and audience reception.

Eventually though, that excitement evaporated, and led to a rapid-fire series of financial duds that may have by itself brought the age of superhero box office dominance to an end. This year, the DCEU was replaced by James Gunn & Peter Safrans new DC shared universe, the DCU, meaning that this is the rare cinematic shared universe which is complete in its entirety. Despite its eventual fall, the DCEU still represents a selection of highly interesting, and occasionally great, superhero films that were (in theory) more driven by directors than a central producer running the whole show. This universe does not feel like the same safe film over and over again, but a true assortment of different takes on what superhero films can be. With that in mind, this is sure to be an interesting set of films to discuss.

So, lets see the sixteen films we will be watching:

Man of Steel (2013)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Suicide Squad (2016)
Wonder Woman (2017)
Justice League (Whedon cut) (2017)
Aquaman (2018)
Shazam! (2019)
Birds of Prey (2020)
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Black Adam (2022)
Shazam!: Fury of the Gods (2023)
The Flash (2023)
Blue Beetle (2023)
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)

To participate, just watch the films and rank them from best to worst, then send that ranking (ideally as a Google Doc or Sheet) to [email protected] or by Discord DM @ad_listri. Writeups are optional but highly encouraged. As this is a significantly shorter list than previous, Ill set a somewhat nearer due date and say that lists are due November 1st. Should you need an extension, please let me know. I hope youll take part!

A quick note on Batman v Superman - there are two versions of the film, the theatrical cut and the Ultimate cut, feel free to watch either or both as you prefer, just rank it as a single film. It would be helpful, but not essential, to mention which you watched in your writeup though.

Tagging rankers from the previous list:

@PrinceKaro
@Johnbobb
@Inviso
@Zigzagoon
@Evillordexdeath
@Mythiot
@Great_Paul
@Suprak_the_Stud
@red13n

Oh. Yay.

Lol tag.

There are some movies on this list I actually quite like and there are also some movies on this list that, for me, rank amongst the worst superhero movies of all time.

Should be fun!

I've seen all of these aside from Wonder Woman '84 which I was dissuaded from seeing due to it being reviewed horribly! Maybe I'll participate this time. I could definitely do with a refresher on a handful of these though.

I've tried to watch a particular one of these movies and either gotten bored or fallen asleep within 30 minutes a bunch of times.

I have seen a few of these. I think the only thing i remember of them is one movie and the ending of another. So rewatches all around.

One the one hand, I've seen almost half these films. On the other hand, I don't want to revisit nearly any of them and I've struggled to make it twenty minutes into a few others.

My sparknotes review of Joss Whedon's Justice League from having watched the first two or three scenes:
Ant-Man & The Wasp has better visual effects and story than Justice League (at least the horrible first twenty minutes). Ant-Man & The Wasp. Released the same year as Black Panther and Infinity War with work being done on Captain Marvel and Endgame. 3rd place if not 5th place in terms of their vfx teams. Better everything than the flagship tentpole DC epic.

I've seen most of the early ones already and some are substantially better then others

This is definitely some of the most variance in quality of any of the lists we have done.

I've watched most of these and could with an excuse to watch the rest, so I'll join.

LightningStrikes posted...

This is definitely some of the most variance in quality of any of the lists we have done.

I don't know about this but it may be one of the biggest fights for all of the bottom spots.

Do we need to have watched them all to participate?

Anagram posted...

Do we need to have watched them all to participate?

Yes, that's how these work.

You have a two months to check out the ones youre missing though so you have time! I always think the more people that participate the more fun these tend to be so give it a shot if you have the time!

You dont have to see them all to comment in topic though. We had some people last time that didnt watch them all but added to the discussion for the ones they did. You just cant submit a partial list is the only thing.

Oh man I just noticed we have both the Justice League OG and Justice League Snyder cut.

Im going to request a day off work, watch both back to back, and spiral into insanity.

Thanks.

Yep, as others have said you need to submit a complete list but youve got two months to catch up. Also it is convention if you do submit a list dont reveal it to anybody but me until the rankings have been posted! It would be great to have as many people as possible involved so even if youve never submitted a list before please do!

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Oh man I just noticed we have both the Justice League OG and Justice League Snyder cut.

Im going to request a day off work, watch both back to back, and spiral into insanity.

Enjoy the madness!

To justify (pun unintended) this decision, I think something like around two thirds to three quarters of ZSJL is not in the original film. They are very different despite telling the same story, and definitely interesting to compare to each other.

funny enough I've seen all of these except Man of Steel

LightningStrikes posted...

To justify (pun unintended) this decision, I think something like around two thirds to three quarters of ZSJL is not in the original film. They are very different despite telling the same story, and definitely interesting to compare to each other.

it's a fair inclusion. They would fall on drastically different places on my rankings

Johnbobb posted...

it's a fair inclusion. They would fall on drastically different places on my rankings

Oh, for sure. I wasnt complaining - just thought it was funny.

I see every single one of these is on HBO Max except for Blue Beetle? I did a quick search online and it says it is on HBO but when I search on the actual app it isnt getting pulled up for some reason.

Oh boy. Not sure which of these films will be ranked at the bottom for me.

I haven't seen a single one of these films. I'm mildly interested so I'll mark myself as a maybe and see how it goes.

I've seen some pretty bad ones, but I know that some of the ones I've not seen are also notoriously awful, so the bottom half of the list should be... uh interesting I guess.

I've seen all of these except Blue Beatle so I can do this one.

Unlike most lists, I'm going to have to think about which of like six movies is going to be last instead of first though.

e: oh I see that that seems to be the consensus good. what if... we started the list from 1 and go down? That would probably be way more fun

I actually feel that there is a very clear last place for me. Several bad but one that stands out as awful.

There is 100% a clear number one for me and a clear number sixteen. 15-10 or so are very tricky. There are two I haven't seen yet but I'm just going to assume they're both ahead of number ten.

Well, speaking of the DCEU I finally started watching Peacemaker and that show is great!

I'm in, especially since I only have 4 more films to watch.

I'm going to keep count of how many times these movies put me to sleep with the overload of grey.

(We are at 2 in an hour and a half)

watched 2 movies so far

I went into town today and got some of the earlier films on DVD while I was there - Man of Steel, Suicide Squad and Justice League from CEX for 1.50 each, and Batman VS Superman in a second hand junk shop for 50p.

I was very naughty with that one - I went to the counter to pay, but the cashiers were taking a while because they were busy looking at some old records from the 1970s, noting they were so old they still referenced Yugoslavia. All DVDs cost 50p each in the shop, with the exception of any items with small coloured dot stickers on them, including DVDs, and I happened to notice BVS had one of these stickers on it, indicating that it actually cost 2. I put it down on the edge of the counter, spine facing towards me, placed another DVD I was buying on top of it (Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones - I saw a scene on television decades ago of a man stepping in lava and literally melting like he opened the Ark of the Covenant, so I want to see the rest of it), then used one finger to discreetly peel off the sticker so that it would fall to the floor. Once I'd done this, that's when one of the cashiers came over and I paid, getting a 1.50 discount without anyone knowing, until my confession here.

There are a few left I still need to get (Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 1984, Black Adam, Shazam 2, Flash and Blue Beetle - of these, I've seen Wonder Woman, Black Adam and Shazam before), so I'll hit up Ebay for them.

Finally watching my second movie (the length of these really makes it harder to invest time in them).

5/16

Just did my first writeup and it was far longer than I thought with much more I could have said. This is going to be a fascinating discussion!

I still haven't been able to get through my first movie.

6/16

9/16

three good, six bad