Justice League Animated Movies

[stryc9]

I've been watching various episodes from Justice League Unlimited recently and came away very impressed with the mind bending storylines and almost constant action.

Then about a week ago my mate rolled up with these feature length movies featuring the JL.

With trepidation, we watched one. I was thinking there was no way in Hell it could be as good as the show, right?

Wrong. All three of these movies I checked out were tremendously amazing. Somehow there was even more non-stop action than the show and the scope of these films absolutely puts those big-budget DC and Marvel live-action blockbusters to shame.

I highly recommend Superman and Batman:Apocalypse as the basic flow of the movie is this:
Supergirl crashes to Earth in a meteorite, is taken in by Clark and the JL only to be kidnapped by Darkseid and taken back to his home planet Apokalyps.

The JL travel to this planet and proceed to kick the living shit out of everything and anything that moves, and the result is awesome.

It is worth cranking this shit thru a decent stereo as the constant fighting has some of the sickest impacts I've ever had the pleasure of hearing come from an animated feature.

It may well seem like I'm gushing, but in this age of limp, stagnant anime and mind-numbing flash based western efforts this is like a jewel that shines.

You see it has to be said that these movies do not mess around. It's not like the Hollywood stuff where half the film is some lame contraction of the original story trying to justify a plausible reason to a mainstream audience why the main character is running round in tights and a cape, it simply respects your intelligence enough to expect you have some background with these characters, and then just gets down to the ass-kicking

I grew up on FOTNS, Ninja Scroll, Overfiend etc in the nineties but it seems that finally the best in eastern action animation may have some competition at the top.

Thoughts?

[guyot]

The DC animated movies are great.

But for the apocalypse one, I really wish they'd gotten in Michael Ironside to reprise his role as Darkseid, because he was beyond amazing in superman/jl. He just nailed it. Have you seen the nineties superman series?

[blackoak]

Great endorsement, I'll have to check these out with my knowledgable marvel/DC friend.

[Mortificator]

The only one I've seen so far is Apocalypse. The fight against Darkseid at the end was boss.

I generally think DC heroes are lame, though, which reduces my enjoyment of an otherwise capable production.

I really wish they'd gotten in Michael Ironside to reprise his role as Darkseid

"Had I known one human's death would pain you so, I would have killed more."

[stryc9]

I generally think DC heroes are lame, though, which reduces my enjoyment of an otherwise capable production

Yeah the designs are pretty camp, but I'm starting to get off on that anyways

I had a good laugh at some of the lower tier members of JL like Shining Knight (looks like a Norman soldier), and there's a dude thats like a cowboy as well which is funny.

Marvel's characters of course have a history of being edgier in design, but so far to my knowledge none have been portrayed like this.

It's all well and good to have Wolverine running around in a cartoon but if the fight choreography is lame and there is no impact to the hits then who cares I guess.

Have you seen the nineties superman series?

Nope, at the time I thought it might have been a bit lame. Was I way off base?

Also, I will reiterate the comparison I made between the scope of these movies compared to the Hollywood flicks. The live action stuff just seems so small and insignificant in light of the sprawling epicness portrayed here.

I think my mate is right in saying that if they were trying to replicate the scope of the animated films in a live action feature the budget would be blown out astronomically.

Take the Superman movie for instance (the recent one). My mates girlfriend walks into the room while it's on and asks what he's watching. She has to, as a lot of the movie could be just about anything, even a television show what with the amount of bullshit dialog scenes between normal people to catch the mainstream demographic and save on budget.

[guyot]

"Had I known one human's death would pain you so, I would have killed more."

Yesssssssssssssssss

Nope, at the time I thought it might have been a bit lame. Was I way off base?

Not if you only saw season one, which although it had its good episodes was rather spotty(bit like season one of justice league). I gave up on it myself when it was originally being aired on tv, before darkseid was even introduced - near the end of season one.

I lucked out in that my brother bought the dvd's when they came out and discovered that it became very, very good in season two. And some of the Justice League/Justice League Unlimited storylines follow up Superman : TAS stories, and become even better with that context behind them.

Take the Superman movie for instance (the recent one). My mates girlfriend walks into the room while it's on and asks what he's watching. She has to, as a lot of the movie could be just about anything, even a television show what with the amount of bullshit dialog scenes between normal people to catch the mainstream demographic and save on budget.

When we were watching it at the cinema, my friends & I were wondering when Luthor was going to take control of a giant mech or something and actually give the film a decent fight scene.

Instead we had to put up with creepy superman stalker outside lois's house