Why Civil War Worked and Batman v Superman Failed | One v One

and she said compromise where you can where you can't, even if everyone tells you that something wrong is something right, even if everyone tells you to move, it's your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look at them If you follow the big Hollywood blockbuster franchises A couple of years ago, you might remember a sudden avalanche of movies called vs. where cute guys fight each other, fast and furious Marvel DC transformers, no matter if the movies were about humans or cars or humanoid robots turning into cars, each of them did it sometimes with good results other times with not so good results However, the clear winner was Marvel with Captain America Civil War, which at least I think is not only one of the strongest MCU entries to date, but also one of the best movies vs. of all time, so in honor of that other new Marvel Captain movie almost hitting theaters, I wanted to try to figure out why that is and what the most effective way is.

To understand what makes Civil War so great is to contrast it with another similar superhero versus movie that isn't as great, another superhero versus movie that, unfortunately for all the DC fans like me, turns out to be Batman V Superman that I have examined. BVS in the shell before its positive side and also its negative side, so maybe you could accuse me of beating a dead horse and maybe in a sense I am, but as a counterargument I would say that it is necessary here because we like it or No. These two films are very similar mirror images of each other and if we want to understand why Civil War

worked

from start to finish while BBS didn't, we'll have to find the difference between them and, at least in my eyes, that the central difference is Pretty simple: one movie is personal and the other is impersonal, so let's take these two very similar superhero versus movies and focus on their versus elements to see how they do things differently.

Let's see how the choice to be personal instead of impersonal made the Captain. America v Ironman, the versus movie that Padma V Superman could never become, let's look at exactly how you can and can't make a versus movie that works, since vs movies. The ones they were talking about are about good guys colliding with good guys, the simple one. The most important thing you need for your movie to work is a good reason for the good guys to fight. The way Civil War accomplishes this is by introducing the Sokovia Accords which would place the Avengers under the supervision of the United Nations after all the deaths. and the destruction that the Avengers have inadvertently cost, you know, the Accord is an impersonal motivator that Steve Rogers would obviously support since he's the good soldier Tony Stark, in turn, would obviously oppose since he's the uncontrollable billionaire playboy and so on.

Rogers' motivations. and Stark would be in conflict and the two would actually end up clashing, it would all work but it wouldn't be great because right now the motivations are impersonal, not personal, but the reason

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war is so fantastic in this area is because it requires this impersonal motivator and makes it a personal motivator Tony Stark actually supports the Accords because he feels personally responsible for the destruction and death they have caused. Steve Rogers, on the other hand, opposes the airport because he has seen firsthand how powerful government entities can be. Corrupt and dangerous there is no decision making process here we need to be brought under control whatever form that takes.

I'm a game, it's not a shield, it's not a shield, no, but it's run by people with changing agendas and agendas, that's good, what if there's somewhere we need? go and they don't let us, we may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still ours. There are also the Bucky Barnes and Stocks family factors, but we will get the dose next, even without them, as of now we have. There are clear and appropriate motivations that make the movie work, and most importantly, those motivations are personal and therefore more powerful with Padma being Superman. This motivation factor is one of the biggest weaknesses.

There are motivations, but only personal motivations. Batman wants to defeat Superman because Superman maybe could. possibly turning on humanity Superman wants to defeat Batman, the older Batman does bad things to bad people or later because Lex Luthor tells him that not only are those motivations not personal, but they also have nothing to do with each other, there is no a clear philosophical question that Batman and Superman disagree that there are no Sokovia courts to be fair vs. There is some personal motivation with Lex Luthor wanting to destroy Superman because Superman reminds him of his childhood when he was beaten by his father, but again, it's not directly personal. with Civil Wars Zemo, who wants to destroy the Avengers because the Avengers killed his family, both work, but one is more powerful.

In fact, I'd argue that most of the supporting characters in Civil War have more powerful directly personal motivations than any character in Batman V Superman, then. How could BBS fix this? How could you deal with more personal motivations like the

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war by selecting a single clear philosophical topic that your main characters may not agree on on a personal level? For example, the issue of Batman's habit of killing criminals. I want to know why I decided to let Batman kill in this picture. You know, I tried to do it in that technical way. Well, I perceive it as if it were not him.

The Killians directly. How about instead of making not-so-good excuses for Batman to kill criminals, you actually doubled down? have Batman kill criminals and make the BBS Sokovia Accords like that. Batman supports killing criminals because he has seen firsthand what can happen if he doesn't. Superman, on the other hand, is opposed to killing criminals because he is personally guilty of doing it and now maybe he has a lot of regret, he can't take back what he did, but he can make sure it doesn't happen again, for example, maybe towards the beginning from BBS we have a scene where Batman is about to brutally execute a low life criminal and then Superman. shows up to stop him and of course, since Batman obviously doesn't like this hypocritical alien acting as humanity's new supreme leader, they start to clash, not only are they now clashing over a clear philosophical issue, but they are also doing for reasons. which are purely personal in all great modern Hollywood action films, it is almost a given that there will be a certain amount of physical fights and just like with the motivation of the characters, to be powerful, these fights and physical battles at some point have To be personal in Civil War, one of the most memorable fight sequences is the fight at the airport where the Avengers finally crash into each other and while the sequence is very well done, entertaining and surprising, it is not the most powerful battle. of the movie and that's because at the end of the day, it's not personal right now except Black Panther, no character is fighting another for personal reasons, one side is fighting just to get to the next objective, the other side is fighting just to stop them. reach the next objective, a notion that is made very clear by the cheerful and impersonal attitude that the characters have.

Look, I really don't want to hurt you. I wouldn't stress about it. You have a metal arm, that's awesome, man. Sorry, the cap just killed you, but it won't tickle you either, hey Clinton, you're tired of playing golf. Well I played 18 shots, 18, you got tough, boy, are you from Queens, Brooklyn? I hate you, we're still friends, right? Why is the airport battle? It's supposed to work magnificently, but again it wouldn't work as the climax of the movie and if it had been the climax, this movie wouldn't be half of what it is, for example, throughout the story we've been building toward. a big epic final battle where Steve, Tony and Bucky fight an army of Winter Soldiers and if DC and Warner Brothers did civil war, that would probably be the final battle, but unlike DC and Warner Brothers, Marvel knows that it's huge.

It's not equally good, so instead of getting huge, they get personal. This is not going to change what has happened to date. This battle between Tony and Steve, and Bucky is probably the most impactful and powerful fight sequence in the entire MCU, far more so than any epic fight against. any number of random Winter Soldiers could have been the reason because it's so personal to the point where the fight becomes inevitable Tony Stark has to kill Bucky Steve Rogers has to stop him there are no words or commitments that prevent one of those two things to happen, compare this to Batman fighting Superman because Superman might one day be evil Superman fights Batman because Lex Luthor said he has to and therefore there are no personal reasons similar to the Civil War, which is very evident in the fact that, unlike Civil War, fighting here is not inevitable Superman could, for example, simply push Batman to the ground and then say: hey, listen, I don't want to fight, but Lex Luthor has my mom BTW her name is Martha obviously bbs is a little different from Civil War. because in the end Batman and Superman have to be friends, but the movie desperately needs more personal battles in both Batna's fight against Superman and his fight against the end of the world and if we learn from Civil War, how could that be done in the first place? place?

We need to increase Batman and Superman's motivations to fight. We already talked about some philosophical conflict before, but with this there should be more. Maybe Superman's fight with Zod actually killed someone Batman cares about. Maybe Batman's destructive habit of fighting crime hurt someone Superman cares about. Lois Lane, something that makes them really want to hurt each other, since they really despise each other now, they can't just kiss and make up in the middle of battle, so instead it should be something like this: Superman defeats to Batman and Then, like Zod, he is about to kill him because it seems to be the only option to stop him, but this time he has learned from his mistake and knows that killing is not the right way, so he lets Batman live and Somehow he's going to save it. his mother on his own and then ends up fighting doomsday and now Batman just feels like I don't care until he somehow finally changes his mind, maybe it's something L says first, maybe somehow He runs into Superman's mom, whatever it is that finally makes him see Superman as a man and not an alien who came here to destroy humanity, so he joins the battle to help him, plus the battle royale against the end of the world should also have more to do with Lex than just this random CGI monstrosity. everything is more personal, stay down, final warning for the last point, let's look at a couple of smaller but at the same time very important character elements to keep in mind when making a versus movie, those character elements are unbalanced internally and the connection with each other, first of all, the internal one. unbalanced if you want your heroes to disagree with each other to the point of fighting each other, not only do they need proper reasons to do so, but they would also need to be in a bad place mentally and that is because it is basic human nature to take more drastic and destructive decisions and actions when things aren't right, you wouldn't normally run a red light, but if you've just been cheated on by the love of your life, then you wouldn't normally tell your super nice chemistry teacher to go away fuck it, but if you just went to the movies to see justice league for the first time, then it's possible that in the civil war there was an imbalance like this on both sides, none of it is huge, but it's still very important .

Tony Stark recently broke up with Pepper Potts due to his inability to stop being Iron Man and now, although he tries to keep it hidden, he is clearly heartbroken and has no one to talk to or get support from, and then, and then, and then , he stopped doing it because the truth is that I don't want to stop I don't want to lose his family the Accords could split the difference Steve Rogers on the other hand finds out about Peggy Carter's death and because of this Bucky is now the only person he has since the moment he comes she said compromise where you can, where you can't, don't do again, none of these things are huge, but they are very important in influencing the decisions the characters make, secondly, the element of character connection, which is Self-explanatory if your movie is about two good guys who become enemies, those two good guys should share a connected personal relationship so that their conflict can develop and escalate.

The Civil War, for example, does this very well throughout the film. Tony and Steve are constantly there. sharing scenes related to their disagreement first the disagreement is verbally indirect than verbally direct and then finally it grows to the point of being physical first indirectly physical thandirectly physical something that would be impossible without an obvious but important relationship in Batman V Superman none of these characters The elements are adequately presented with internal imbalance. There are some starting points, but it is never enough. Bruce Wayne lost Robin to the Joker, but that seems to have happened a long time ago to the point where he's no longer fresh in his mind. and it really doesn't influence him much.

Superman is bothered by all the political controversy surrounding him, but that is suddenly put to the side, so it doesn't matter the same story with the personal relationship connected between Batman and Superman, since they don't really have any kind of relationship that allows that their conflict constantly escalates, they meet once for five seconds and then fight, they also run into each other without disguise, but it's still not personal, it happens only because Lex Luthor wants them to cross paths. so again neverNote, but now that we know how civil war works, let's see how BVS could do with internal imbalance.

All we have to do is strengthen some of the things we've mentioned before with Batman. Robin's death, for example, should have happened. Recently, he is still fresh in his mind and because of that, Batman has become quite manic and is only now taking up the habit of killing criminals like Superman. You can use policy if it really goes somewhere, but even more effective. It's just that Superman is still hurt by having killed Zod to the point that it's eating him up inside so much that he's become obsessed with not allowing something like that to happen again and since he now finds out that this vigilante bat kills people and right, it has to stop it with the connection, you need to find a way to give Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent a personal relationship, maybe it has something to do with Lois Lane like in the animated movie, maybe it has something to do with something else .

It doesn't really matter, as long as Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent share personal scenes where their conflict can develop and grow, they don't have to know each other in secret, it's enough for the audience to know and now, when the conflict between Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent grows . in the audience spies so does the conflict between Batman and Superman and there we have it, if you want to make a versus movie that is great, consider the following personal factors, give your heroes appropriate motivations and conflicting beliefs, make their battle climactic physics be intimate rather than grand.

Put them in a bad place mentally and give them some kind of connected relationship so their conflict can grow naturally. Do that and maybe you'll get a movie that's less bad, maybe Superman and more Captain America or Iron Man.