Justice League: What Went Wrong? (vs. Thanos & Infinity War) - Wisecrack Edition 

you saw justice league five times, dude do you need a hug?

i left the theater watching JL saying: ok the next one could be good i left the theaters after infinity war: i wasn’t emotionally prepared for that!

Themes Infinity War: The hardest choices require the strongest wills. **Thanos won because he chose to sacrifice everything** Justice League: You can't win alone **Superman soloes the main boss and entire army**

Why do people say that JL was forgettable? I still get flashbacks of this movie and it makes me angry how bad it was.

The mistakes DC made compared to the success of Marvel can be summed up in six words: Marvel took it's time, DC rushed.

DC literally had a cheat sheet on how to make a good franchise. It bothers me a lot.

I saw Justice League on an airplane and halfway way through I turned to the stranger next to me and I said "this movie is sooooo bad." She just nodded her head and laughed.

Justice league: *"you can't save the world alone"* Me: *"but isn't that exactly what Superman did in man of steel?"*

Deus Ex Martha has to become a new term in cinema

What went wrong is the pacing. They rushed everything to cash in on the cinematic universe trend instead of taking their time to flesh out the characters.

I find it funny the power rangers movie has more plot and genuine characters than dc cu

The fact that DC was trying to introduce three entirely new heroes, their villain of the film and the McGuffin that causes the conflict, all in Justice League, really can't be emphasised enough as a reasone for why it failed. It's like if Marvel waited until Avengers to introduce Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Loki and the Tesseract, when instead they gave themselves the space to introduce all the heroes (arguably with the exception of Hawkeye, but he still gets the first scene in Avengers as his establishing moment, and what there was of him in Thor actually shows us a lot about him), the villain and the McGuffin before the film even began. The only characters with remotely significant screentime in Avengers who we hadn't already met were Maria Hill and The Other, and they're very much secondary players. All Marvel had to do when it came to make their team-up movie was toss the ingredients they'd already assembled into the pot and bring it to the boil.

Important philosophical question nobody seems to be asking: Is it still a trident if it has 5 damn prongs?

I'll do you one better: WHY went wrong?

"Well I... I guess that was a movie" The perfect summary for Justice League

when Screen Junkies rated Infinity War with S for spoilers but not Justice League they are literally saying it indirectly

The MCU did a better job at creating a background for Thanos and the infinity stones in their movies and end of credit scenes but the DCCU didn't even try

5 times? 5 TIMES? You must be into some kinky stuff if you do that to yourself

MCU: movies to introduce characters first --> team up DCU: team up --> explain characters' backgrounds later

Avengers did it better because we got to see growth in each character. In Avengers we got to see how their personality clash for the same goal but different ways. Thus cobflict. That one movie was the perfect set up when we finally get to see the end result. In DC i just feel. Good guy vs bad guy.

Uhhh "throwing the superman Christ metaphor into the trash?" I'd say they had one last metaphor by having the bastard respawn in three days.

The problem with Justice League is the motherboxes weren't named Martha!!!

Another huge problem was literally every marvel movies was exposition to the avengers which was exposition to infinity war. We had literal years to learn about every character and connect with them and see them interact with each other and thus become attached to them and actually care. We even see Thanos multiple times through out. We are even getting captain marvel before infinity war if I remember correctly. Justice League had man of steel BVS, AND wonder woman. all but 1 of these movies was tied to the building of the justice league. To which we were introduced to each character via Diana being shown them through a screen so the audience would be re-drawn in and get that hype high from seeing them all and knowing it's happening. There are plenty of people who like super hero movies but have no idea who they are so there is no explanation causing no hype for them and just having it fall flat. Justice League had no world building and I feel it was a big issue for it (to those that read this do not try to argue with me or make some weird debate this is just my opinion)

6:14 That whole scene explains why the aquaman movie should've happened before justice league

You saw it FIVE times?! You have my deepest sympathies.

Deus ex MARTHA??!! You brilliant bastard, Jared...

I've watched Infinity War at least 7 times, and it never loses its impact. I couldn't bear to watch Justice League more than once.

Now we know why Dr strange wanted Tony to live at all cost

MCU = Your grandmas’ lovely chocolate cake she bakes for you every month. You often wonder what makes it taste so good, your gran knows: it’s baked with love. DCEU = That cheep cake you buy at the gas station because you forgot pudding. It always tastes subpar because the massive TNC that produces it sacrifices flavour for cheaper alternative ingredients. Oh yeah, it’s made on a conveyer belt in Algeria and shipped across the world over many months. And when you eat it, you find hair in it.

I’d assume that the biggest difference between Justice League and Infinity War is the films that lead up to it. Marvel has been setting up its universe for a whole decade, and DC tried doing that over a span of like 3 years. It is because moviegoers are so familiar with marvel heroes that the relationships and dramatic action flows seamlessly throughout the movie. Justice League fails in that sense as well, as most people know DC heroes from other franchises apart from the big screen. Marvel did origin movies for a whole decade and then made a big crossover event. DC made two origin movies, with Superman and Wonder Woman, and then made two crossover events with a bunch of new characters the big screen hasn’t seen much of, so it fails. I believe the biggest problem DC has is them trying to copy marvel without setting up their groundwork.

the MCU dedicated at least one movie for each mcguffin/character or team, JL shoved 3 (identical) mcguffins, a new villain and 3 new main cast members each with unique back stories into one movie.

Justice League was a response to all the criticisms of Batman V Superman. Lack of humor/levity, too aesthetically dark, downer-Superman...But all the fixes they applied are superficial. The DCEU's problems run even deeper than just making a few Joss Whedon quips. It's foundation is cracked beyond repair Also, quick mention. We never see the full scale of Steppenwolf's abilities. He prefers to use his army of putties, we don't feel how strong he is compared to the rest of the Justice League. Aquaman is capable of holding him off and Superman beats him, of course. In Infinity War, we learn in the 5 minute mark, just how dangerous Thanos is; by him taking down the Hulk in hand-to-hand combat without even breaking a sweat. The audience is now thinking, "Holy shit! Thanos just took down the Avengers' trump-card like he was sparring practice! He's not just fucking with them, he's legit dangerous"

Emotional connections between Justice League's main characters are as fake as Superman's baby lips.

Justice League wasn't feeling too good anyways...

Justice League was a Mess.

Endgame: "So I heard you like catharsis?"

I think it would be better if you compare JL to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, simply because it has the same concept. Uniting a team without even having an "Origin Movie" if you may. The only difference is that ITTSV did it better than JL

I hate how their solution to their problem with superman is to simply scrap Caville. Caville easily could’ve been a great superman, but the writers & director(s) never gave him anything to do other than “stand there and look like superman” without ever bothering to develop the character around it. As for the mustache fiasco, maybe if the production team did a better job in their first take and didn’t request reshoots months later, they wouldn’t have had that problem in the first place. I’m not saying Caville is a great actor, but can’t expect an actor to put on a good performance if they never give him a character to play in the first place. He never would’ve topped the performance that Reeve portrayed in the older ones, but he still could’ve done an arguably good job if he just had SOMETHING to do or represent

Wait, so did Jared like Justice League or not? I wish he'd been clearer.

Very well done. Great analysis. I really enjoyed this!

WB rushing to compete with Marvel, not having a solid plan, not leaning on any of the comics or animated shows as a base for the movies, changing characters completely, Burning through important moments in the Batman V Superman, no world building, I may have repeated my self but any thing else I'm missing?

deus ex martha is my new favourite term

"Well, I guess that was -- a movie" is what my son and I said when we came out of JL. I was jumping out of my seat during Avengers.

In 2021, everyone knows the main villain of DCEU is WB itself..

urgh, i love the whole father son relationship that peter and tony had in IW, showed some growth from Homecoming

Opinion time: I honestly think that Justice League should not have been made so soon. Every character felt shoehorned in and most of the cast had nothing to build on. Everyone complains about origin stories for heroes, but JL proves why we need them. WB/DC is trying to cash in on the hero movie money by mimicking Marvel movies without giving the characters time to establish themselves because they missed that boat. The only truly established characters for JL were Superman and Wonder Woman, but the former spent most of the movie 6 feet under and the latter suffered from undermining her well written role from her solo movie to a far more generic character with less emotion behind her action. The cash grabbing is backfiring and they need to focus on one hero at a freaking time before you start doing mash ups.

Fantastic analysis. Thanks for making this Jarrod.

You have a new subrscriber. I am thoroughly impressed with how you breakdown your reasoning behind the premise of this episode. I've watched several other movie critique videos and they are often full of subjective (not necessarily wrong) ideas or problems they have with the movies they're critiquing. Never before have I seen one of these videos go into such depth using philosophy and actual cinematography to explain their points the way you have done so in this video. I feel like I just attended cinematography 101 and I was thrilled to come back for the next class when this one ended.

Superman, batman where my childhood heroes! *they're so interesting!* It takes talent to stuff it up....

"the movie that makes Batman V Superman looking like a master piece" ,Ooooh slow down there…

*Superman, Batman and Justice League* animated was my favourite as a child. Then *X-Men, Spiderman & Avengers* stole my heart.

You dudes are awesome! Thanks, MatPat.

10:44 "...Strange bartering the time stone away to save Tony's life" (X) DOUBT

Strange gives Thanos the stone because it leads to the one scenario that defeats him and saves the stone. That scenario is one that means Tony’s demise in the upcoming Endgame. Which means Strange is holding to his word to Tony that if it comes between Tony, Peter or the stone, he wouldn’t hesitate to let either die to maintain the safety of the stone. Tho he does make a valiant effort to avoid that situation from happening, so, he’s not completely void of, at least, respect for Tony. He doesn’t really do it to save Tony’s life. It only appears to be so if you’re not recalling the previous conversation.

I love these kind of videos because I learn so much about what makes a good story.

This is a great video. I always love your work.

Hey wisecrack, Zichri here. Please do a what went wrong on the Dark Phoenix.

Last time I came this early my wife was deeply disappointed.

Awesome Vid. Just subscribed!!

i'd love to see more writing analysis videos. There's no way I'll afford film school at this rate so Wisecrack and Skillshare are all I have to look forward to.

The moment you brought up Infinity War I was like "oh come on, this is massacre on a dead horse".

So...from your plot synopsis, I'd say there's a more fundamental failing than even dramatic action: failure to understand the characters and their core motivations. When you're working with established characters like this, you need to understand where these characters are coming from. Batman's entire existence as a character is bound up in the grief and guilt he feels about his parents death, and his motivation is to put things right - make the world one where bad people don't have the opportunity to hurt others the way they hurt him. Everyone watching this movie knows this, right? Then why in all of these excerpts in a video largely focusing on scenes involving the character that were clearly meant to be pivotal, do I just see a big burly guy making decisions despite the advice of those around him? That's not Batman, that's a stereotype of the sociopathic CEO. I'm also tempted to argue that the rough stubble look is very counter to the character. He's a pretty high functioning individual, having successfully maintained leadership of a large corporation as well as becoming a successful anti-crime ninja. Unless this movie takes place like 3 days after he decided "I'm going to grow a beard," he'd be better groomed than that. (Compare to Tony Stark - the only times he's looked disheveled in the movies that I've seen have been during apocalyptic battles and their immediate aftermath, and that bit in Iron Man 3 where he's driven out of his home and is failing at being a homeless person.)

Excellent analysis. Subscribed for more.

I think this analysis got it exactly right. Great job.

There are also other issues, like Superman is the rest of the Justice league combined, so there's no need for the rest of the crew. And conflict had no lasting consequences, (flash's stage fright, for example). Also, they didn't set up any conflict for movies to come: BvS at least have us a little of "who the hell is her", to introduce the need for wonder woman's movie, but I feel no need for a flash, cyborg or Aquaman movie, because backstory was info dumped and conflict was kinda solved

Justice League: “Well, I guess that was a movie”. Good summary.

I have a hobby of writing, nothing too serious, but I've learned a lot about storytelling and story structure from your channel. If I ever get published, I'll definitely consider your channel as important in getting me there. Thanks.

Wisecrack is such a good channel.

It’s all because of the fact that they spent millions of dollars to take out Henry Cavill’s Mustache and use SO MUCH CGI on both his mouth and his face. For me, it’s because of that one particular thing that just ruined the entire movie for me.

Yo I never notice in the background how Doctor strange's cape is like "whoa did he really say that"

These videos are great

Awesome video -- it would be great if Wisecrack follows this up with a sequel that speaks about the different corporate cultures of both the studios behind these franchises and how it affects the movie making :)

If I may, I would also suggest another issue that the film has and that is gravity of the villain or his actions. JL attempts to present to us a villain who can end worlds, conquer vast armies, and potentially bring forth the apocalyptic vision we saw in BvS. The problem is that we don't see that happen. Comparing him to Thanos, we saw the devastation that Thanos and his forces give to the Avengers from the start by besting the Hulk and all Asgardians, arguably the strongest Avengers available, in the film before the opening title is shown. His weight and power is established from the very start. Stepenwolf is only said he's strong and yet can only go even with the JL without Superman even around. Add to that his 'army' which is little more than mass video game fodder and it adds up to a weak threat. Additionally we were supposed to expect more from our villains in really only two and a half movies. Thanos and his agents had been built up and hinted at over various films and we saw characters grow and rise to these challenges in preparation for the big final boss. In contrast we see what the films seem to present as the final boss, or at least one very high up there, from the very beginning and all we see beat him are a amazonian warrior and DC Jesus who can solve anything smack him around while a quirky speedster, a billionaire, Cyborg, and another warrior with a trident make short work of the army and any other issues. Now yes, I know that Darkseid is the real ultimate big bad of the DC Universe. But from what we've seen, there's no real challenge unless, like in the vision, Superman turns to his side. But that in itself is another problem. Remember how the comic nerd in you first saw the Omega symbol? First heard the mention of mother boxes? We gushed when we heard that knowing what was to come was a Superman vs Darkseid beat down. Then we saw how Superman was going to fight with him and the stakes completely changed. What happened to that? Where were the recruiting attempts from Stepenwolf? Where are the doubts that he's on the right side? Sure, we see him ready to kill Batman, but one talk with Louis and he's back to the overpowered good guy he was. How is that end point supposed to be switch sides again? In the end, yes Jarred, I agree with your video and this rant will likely be very jumbled and confusing, but ultimately another massive symptom from the flaws you addressed are that the story hasn't presented us with a threat we can take seriously nor any flaws that service to make that threat more memorable or legitimate.

Here's the easier answer: BvS happened.

Thank you! You quantified perfectly what I'd felt watching it. It's a movie that is going through the motions of a movie and very little else. It's "And then they did this. And then they did this. And then they did this" not "They did this because of this, but because this character is this, then this occurred because he was thinking this" I watched it and felt it was simply there, but I couldn't quite place my finger on why it was so...hollow.Until now watching your vid!

That and Infinity War had several films building up to that one as well. Good video.

Could you do a video on Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann and it's philosophy.

"I guess that was a movie" was exactly my reaction to Justice League! Infinity War, on the other hand, was emotionally devastating from start to finish- a roller coaster ride of emotional highs and lows watching characters who have been developed over the course of 20 or so films in the last ten years. Marvel Studios knocked it out of the park and Warner Brothers/DC fucked up a whole universe of characters with high potential in their shitty poorly planned cash grab movies!

Great video, as always. But, I can't help but ask... What the hell happened to that show where Jared gets edited into the scenes??? That was really well done and a great concept. Hope to see more of that in 2019. Keep up the good work, fellas.

"Well, I guess that was a movie." --- Literally the best description of Justice League I have heard anywhere.

*Compares a movie that took ten years of cinematic universe to set up against one that took two* "Why can't DC just copy Marvel, right guys?" The REAL problems with DC was their lack of foresight and overall greed. Ben was too god damn old to establish as a long term Batman. Henry is a boring default looking person. So now your two main characters are bound to be replaced. Then the fact that they rushed into this franchise because of money, instead of realizing Marvel is about to hit a peak leaving a huge opening for DC in the next few years to start their major storyline. Each character should have a minimum of two movies before the audience sees them together unless they are disposable. Edit: Apparently people in this comment section take moustaches extremely seriously. You've been warned.

WB rushing everything. That is basically it. They've actually shown they can make good solo movies with Man Of Steel, Wonder Woman, and based on reviews, Aquaman. That is cause they are focusing on making good standalone movies instead of rushing and cramming everything to get a Justice League movie. To tell the truth, I just want great standalone movies. That is what The Dark Knight and Logan did perfectly. They weren't trying to set up a sequel or a whole universe. Companies just need to hire a great director and fuck off. Some of it also goes towards Disney too but to a lesser extent. Disney has done a good job at making popcorn entertaining movies. I still hope their own "The Dark Knight" or "Logan" happens with Avengers 4, and based on the trailer, it looks like it can and I am excited to see it. And I hope that WB just focuses on making good standalone movies and refrain from doing crossing-overs for a while.

Project + Contradiction really reminds me of a scene from The Tempest (the play which is quite self-aware and seems to be the metaphor for the process of writing overall). When Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love at the first fight, Prospero (i.e. Shakespeare supposedly, i.e. the writer overall) says "but this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning make the prize light."

I think this analysis is spot on 😋

What went wrong ? WarnerBrothers.....

Do the philosophy of Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X) Contrast between Kenshin's and Saito's take on morality and ideals could be interesting

I avoided this video for so long cause I was like what went wrong it was made by Warner Bros but this video is probably the best Wisecrack video ever it really takes the cake 👍👍👍

Boom! Nailed it. All of it. ty

I literally finished today watching whole Marvel universe films (was a run for me) and I can tell. That Justice league actors are freaking dull. It so nice to see Marvel actors doing stuff, joking and "living" their roles. But Justice league actors are so cringy. They are unbelievable.

12:31 You missed the golden opportunity to make it say fart. I'm extremely disappointed.

Lessons From the Screenplay is a terrific channel btw if your into screenplays and how they make such a huge impact on a film

"I'm also a big believer in justice" is the most Superman line ever.

Jesus Christ, I won't even compare Justice league to Suicide Squad...

We know there are other planets with life because Superman is from Krypton, so how did all three mother boxes end up on earth?

A cinematic universe is like painting. You start with a goal in mind, and you execute it to the best of your ability. There will be mistakes that happen, and sometimes you have new ideas that you have to stop and think about before trying to add it to the already existing work. Maybe someone else will look at it and see a random stroke somewhere and wonder where it goes or what it will be. But in the end, it turns out beautiful. Maybe not everyone likes it, but it's clearly had a lot of love and effort put into it that can be appreciated

Time to revisit this after the Snyder Cut with “What went right”

I know who dies in End Game Spoiler Alert DC

I think where they messed up the most is by trying to catch up with Avengers instead of just taking it's time and coming out with all the origin stories first. They should have taken their time and put more effort into the individual solo movies so the audience had a chance to actually give half a shit about the characters. Instead they rushed it all out because they were worried about being behind compared to the MCU. It didn't help that Superman's CG mustache was one of the worse things I've ever seen. I think they should have had Cavil grow his hair out a little and his facial hair out to match the mustache length because his hair would have grown while he was in the coffin.

I watched Aquaman a few days ago and I had the same feeling than in every single DC film. Really good video, now I understand why I left the cinema like "it's ok, I guess" feeling.

I would love it so much if you did the philosophy of The Talos Principle. That game is amazing and I highly recommend it to all puzzle lovers.