The Problem With DC Action Scenes 

Aquaman: "yeah" "O Right"

Marvel's top villain = Thanos DC's top villain = Rotten tomatoes.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="272">4:32</a> editing to the next scene is great. Awesome action cut

I was waiting when that punching would end at the end 😂

1. Physics Matter 2. Use Powers Creatively 3. Use The Pauses Thanks. I needed to know this for my own story writing. I'm definitely going to have plenty of action sequences.

Nerdwriter1 Dating advise: 1. Physics Matter 2. Use Powers Creatively 3. Use The Pauses

Legend has it, that batman is still punching superman

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="396">6:36</a> to <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="421">7:01</a> "Consecutive normal punches."

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="271">4:31</a> - <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="273">4:33</a> that smooth cut ❤️️❤️️

People are missing the point about the pauses. It's not about being funny or serious, but having the characters say or do something that's specific to their personalities. There's nothing funny about Captain America telling Spider-Man that he's a New Yorker as well. It's just a moment that's specific between the two of them. The video's point is that the pauses in the DCEU tend to be generic. Anyone who grew up watching the DCAU can attest to this. Livewire (after being doused w/ water): "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" Harley Quinn: "..........Yeah?"

Marvel's Greatest Villan is Thanos the Mad Titan. DC's Greatest Vilan is Rotten Tomatoes.

Took me a while to figure out that last shot was on loop. As always, great video!

"Okay, so we've got Batman fighting Superman, how should this iconic battle between two opposites play out?" "Well, we could play on Batman's unique talents, specifically, his reputation as a detective and master tactician, coming up with comparatively clever and surprising ways of dealing with Superman's abilities. Like turning Superman's strengths into weaknesses, preying on Superman's overconfidence, you know, the wit and guile approach." "You're fired." "But I-" "Get out." *New guy comes in* "Alright, what do you think?" "Umm... He could just shoot him with kryptonite gas and punch him a lot of times." "Perfect! Take all this money and have it to me by Friday."

I always knew I hated lines like, "Don't make me do this," because they're corny and don't add anything but never realized how well Marvel used those pauses.

I've always thought the CGI has been strange in DC. Sometimes, it's awesome. Other times, it looks like I made it in photoshop.

O-RIGHT!

Awesome synopsis. Ending was perfect.

For those of you who defend the DCEU, think about the time in Justice League: Unlimited where the league fights a nanotech machine in Dark Heart. When the Batplane is damaged and Batman ejects, his ejection seat is damaged and he plummets to earth. While falling, he says, "Batman to all points, I could really use some help here, since I can't fly...at all. Now would be good". That was comedy gold, hearing Batman acknowledge his lack of powers in a deadpan manner. Not just here, the majority of the DCAU movies and TV shows combine action and comedy to make it enjoyable. So why can't DCEU do it right? Simple, beat the MCU by any means necessary. It's their motto from day one. They clearly didn't pay attention to the source material. DC is dark, complex and more interesting, but the subtle humor in between the darkness is what balances it, which sadly isn't in the DCEU. Marvel knows it's weak points, and by getting the cast, writers and action right, they're ruling the roost at the box office.

I agree with everything. In addition, DCEU made their heroes too invincible. Every hit inflicted on them doesn’t seem to hurt them. The only character that should be with is Superman unless kryptonite is involved.

That ending is hilarious, awesome job Evan! 😊

That ending loop was 👌👌👌

"Nothing is graceful or tactical. It's all just BRUTE.FORCE." I think you've summed up the wrong part of DC actions perfectly.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="178">2:58</a> did not age well

Great cinematics or camera movement is also a great thing in these movies. A great example is <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="31">0:31</a>. I love that shot

Marvel has had its fair share of bad films such as Thor 2 and Age of Ultron, but I would still rather watch those movies on loop than watch BvS or Justice League because the MCU is committed to making movies people can have fun with, even at their worst. I get that DC is supposed to be darker, and I respect that, but darker should mean more grounded characters and real stakes. The DCEU seems to think "dark" just means grey skies, minimal dialogue, and forgettable action.

You need a flashlight to watch DC movies

Imagine owning the two most popular superhero characters of all time yet ruining your movies anyway.

I remember this one screenwriter talking about how a scene should be doing more than one thing at once, and that if it doesn't, you should stop and think about how you could incorporate more into it; Especially when it comes to fight scenes, and a lot of movies remind of how true that is.

The root problem with the entire DCEU is rushed production. Whatever problems it has on its films are only the branches.

I am a huge fan of the mcu but the dark night trilogy is amazing

The ending part is hurt to see🤣😂

The sad thing is that DC had it all laid down in front of them regarding plot, action, set pieces, humor, style, etc. It was their animated universe: The Batman, Superman and Justice League series. What a waste.

I think it would be cool if DC would do something different with their movies, instead of just other superhero movies. Like a batman detective movie. But then a genuine detective story. Or a green lantern buddy cop movie. Green lanterns are just space cops. or maybe a disaster movie about trying to get baby Kal-El to his escape pod.

That ending is so good.

Batman’s warehouse fight scene was kinetic fluid and pretty badass -just should be mentioned

DC should hire you to fix their movies. Period.

The Nolan trilogy stands out as having incredible writing and pretty grounded set-pieces. It's a real shame the films/writers that came afterwards don't value story as much as visuals. Marvel have been incredible in recent years but there are still a few boring Marvel films, maybe I just ignore them because there are so many good Marvel films lol

The warehouse scene from bvs is one of the best superhero action sequence I have ever seen

Nerdwriter1: criticizes the DCEU Also Nerdwriter1: Shows a Joss Whedon movie

INT. Hellscape - Hell

One of my biggest gripes, which I actually did an essay on, is that DC movies no one looks hurt at all. Even in the better action the of Wonder Woman it is just plain impossible to be worried about the stakes of the scene when she doesn’t have a scratch on her.

Personally, I think the warehouse scene and Batman fighting Superman in BvS were really good. Which is probably the reason why I didn’t hate the movie to the core.

"O right." When I first heard that in the cinema I was like. "Oh no."

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="65">1:05</a> lmao I had to rewind the video because I missed a few points laughing too much. That was unexpected (but welcome!) from a Nerdwriter video.

Superhero fatigue Mcu earned 4b this year, yeah superhero fatigue

so superman has never kicked anyone

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="272">4:32</a> that transition thooo

oh man nerdwriter video essays are like watching actual movies, but with better plots and cooler dialogues

I feel like Wonder Woman and it's genuinely good set pieces got left out of this discussion. WW's action scenes did not have witty one-liners but they did require her to use her skill set creatively as well as interact with her environment and her team in a way that I found utterly gripping. The final fight scene not so much obviously, but the fight on Themsecyra, the fist fight in London, the crossing of no man's land and the liberation of Veld? Those were fantastic!

I enjoyed the slow-mo when Aquaman's brother (Ocean Master?) landed on the submarine when they were fighting.

I feel like Shazam really improved on most of these points. Hopefully the dceu continues to do this into the future.

Punching hard and taking a hard punch seems to be the only powers a lot of superheroes in film have these days. That's why I prefer the X-Men movies. Those heroes can't get thrown all over the place and stand up without a scratch. They'd die just like I would. I can relate to that. I can't relate to two near-indestructible people slugging and throwing one another through buildings and suffering no ill effects. Not unless you put a damage meter on the screen so I know when someone is in actual danger.

As of late, mad max and John wick have had me most engaged in their action scenes. So fresh and unique. Dc is like watching a dark, muddy rain puddle

What makes the fights in the MCU so good is the focus on the characters. The characters aren’t tossed into a fight; a fight is built around the characters and their abilities. Say what you want about Marvel’s shortcomings in others areas, but their respect towards their characters is unparalleled.

The airport fight in civil war, the first time i watched it, made me feel like a kid again, the 8 year old me playing with hes toys staging big fights. Another thing i mark out its when marvel heroes combine their powers or fight back to back and coreograph their moves, Thor hiting Captain Americas shield, Cap passing the shiled to Bucky and Bucky passing it back, they happen in the middle of fights, theirs no slow down or zoom in, but every time i watched them they popped to me.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="344">5:44</a> Great character interactions are priceless among comic book fans, and it's one of the things we hope to see on the big screen especially in crossovers. Harvey Dent: "Get outta my face, clown!" Joker: "Which one?" Storm: "Power of lightning, strike again!" Spider-Man: "Um... power of web shooters, get real sticky!"

This is one of the reasons why I prefer the MCU over the DCEU. And Batman is actually one of my favorite superhero.

Yeah, I grew up a DC fan. Mainly Batman. Never really cared for Marvel. Mainly because Captain America always sounded Cheesy to me, same with Captain Marvel. Never thought I'd be into the Marvel films. And DC's been heart breaking. I keep rooting for them, but they keep messing with my emotions. :P At least there will always be Batman: The Animated Series. That and a few good movies. Something that can't ever be taken away. Well, any time soon anyway. Well... who knows I guess.

Im just gonna say, Christian bale is amazing

Batmans fight scene in BVS has beautiful physicality

Captain America vs SHIELD/HYDRA Strike Team. The Elevator Fight Scene is one of the best for me.

WOW!!! I had a strange feeling about DCEU action scenes, but I just didn't know what it was til you mentioned it. Their lack of physics and character truly was a missing ingredient. Watching Man of Steel I just remember everything feeling too watery despite of all the weight it was trying to convey with things breaking. It just happened too rubbery.

Batman's hallway scene and the nightmare fights are both incredible

Superman is one of my favorites and it frustrates me the only use his super strength and flight. Hardly ever heat vision and you can forget super breath. This is why I really enjoyed the moment when Flash zoomed around Superman and Superman looked at him.

I got so into the Marvel fights that you showed. Then, when you flipped back to the DC ones, I'm like 'oh no, I was really getting into it, dammit'. Funny, how you just forget the DC fights, coz they are just not memorable.

MoS has the best fight scenes out of all of these superhero movies imo. Blew me away when I first saw it. Felt like I was actually watching Superman from the comics zip around and do his thing. The fights were just intense and really portrayed what it would be like to see characters that strong and fast fighting each other. That score too, I mean, Jesus, Hans Zimmer fucking nailed the music behind the Zod fight.

The show "Miraculous Ladybug" has had a few episodes that were really good examples of using powers creatively. It becomes really fun to see how the heroes counter each villain's new set of rules.

MCU Cap is the best representation of the peak human in comics and combat skills, he's acting exactly like in the comics, I'd love to see the same treatment for Batman one day, but DC haven't Marvel Studios...

The mashup of pause-lines in the DCU was cringeworthy 😬 great video! really broke down the problems quickly and clearly.

Seeing a lot of people commenting about DC not needing to be funny/Marvel is too funny and that's what makes DCEU better. To that I say, you missed the point. At no point did he says DC should be funny. What he said was, Aquaman yelling "yeah" does not add a moment of audience engagement in that lull. In fact, it kills it because it adds nothing to the scene or the character and further deflates a moment of lull in the action following its peak. It's supposed to be sort of funny/kind of cool. Most DCEU pause dialogue is supposed to be for "that's cool" bait so the audience is engaged, but it rarely if ever manages it because the writing is comparatively poor for what it's trying to do. Marvel movies are funny, which means Marvel can easily and cheaply fill those moments with humour. DCEU movies should be filled with heart and humanity, those moments should be filled with characters deeply connecting, sharing a moment or at least giving themselves some structure for the fight between action peaks. That's a lot harder but a lot less cheap emotionally and requires quality writing to deliver in a way the audience actually connects to them. Instead they waste those moments on lines that make you lose your connection to those characters because instead of being humans with feelings, they are bland badasses with superpowers which, while partly true, shouldn't be the way DC handles them when the complexity of emotion and character of it's heroes is arguably DCs strongest card! DCEU shouldn't be Marvel, it should just learn from it's own mistakes better. A lot of that comes from the writing, which should be coming from a different person than the director imo. That way there is a person trying to be cool and shooting the scene for that goal and another person trying to build the characters and writing the scene for that goal, instead of one person juggling both and inevitably giving up on one of them to the detriment of the film as a whole. Action scenes don't just sit on their own structure/camera/music, they sit on the writing that gets them there, through them and past them. A terrible action scene that has characters you connect to during it and a goals that you are invested in can become great on that merit alone (the boring end fight of Guardians 1 is heavily improved by the fact we care about groot/rocket/quill et al that we even forgive the boring villain) and yet a pretty good action scene can suck because we care for no one in it or it's goals (any given action scene in Thor 2 comes to mind). Ok rant over.

damn it feels disgusting seeing Josh's justice league compared to zack's justice league

Batman's warehouse fight in BvS is still one of best that I've seen

I don't see how any discussion of contemporary superhero action scenes can be complete without a mention of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. TWS has the best hand to hand combat of any of the marvel movies, especially the scene when Cap meets Bucky for the first time. The visceral nature of the scene brought to life by two evenly matched super-people along with the scintillating background score and quick editing lend an urgency and sense of vulnerability to the characters. Also, unlike other Marvel movies the action is not interspersed with random quips and chit chat. But then again Cap is the kind of character that does not necessitate the use of CGI in his action sequences. But even when we talk about the likes of Hulk and Thor, MCU employs "clean" CGI and don't over saturate their frames to the point that the surroundings are nearly unrecognizable. BvS and JL are so heavily stylized in their effort to replicate comic book panels exactly that they lose a vital sense of realism to them. Man of Steel's final sequence has Superman and Zod continually hurling each other at buildings with little regard to ordinary humans caught in the fray. The disappointment isn't so much in that Superman does not attempt to curtail the damage, but in that the movie itself does not pay more attention to the civilians at risk. Contrast this with the action scene in Avengers where we see Cap actively instructing the police forces and working towards the evacuation of people from the area. MoS's CGI destruction prompted complaints and this was dealt with in BvS by having the final fight scene away from civilian populations, but again, that didn't do it any favours. With even less innocent bystanders in sight and even more CGI, the situation is further ostracized. One other aspect that is detrimental to DCEU action scenes is the use of slow motion with zero restraint. Even WW which has better action scenes is let down because every time WW would launch herself at a soldier, the kinetics are lost as exaggerated slow motion is employed. There are some who complain that the Civil War airport scene is poor because the visuals are highly neutered and it looks like a dreary Wednesday afternoon at the airport. But it is because of the lack of stylization that we can more easily buy into the prospect of superheroes landing blows against each other. And more importantly, the manner in which the superheroes combine with each other and play off each other's strength and weaknesses is fantastic. And while it definitely lacked a sense of danger(;they were holding back because frens), the final scene in Russia between Cap, Iron Man and Bucky fills in, with a strong emotional core and yet again, hand to hand combat heightens the stakes. Finally I believe the best action scenes are not just the ones that have good "fighting" but instead those that teach us something about the character to boot. That is why the No Man's Land sequence is WW is soo good, because for once the slow motion is justified by the theme behind it; it is earned. This is why the Cap-Stark-Bucky scene in the aforementioned Civil War is so good. Superman sacrificing himself in BvS would've worked if they'd built the character enough, or atleast have made him fall to a worthy opponent. To conclude, if DC were to better elucidate the precise nature of the powers of their characters and employ cleaner CGI with tad less stylization and slow motion, they really could make some great actions. As it is, their climactic battles are little more than loud CGI fests.

Great video, and so true. In Iron Man, Tony Stark used the fact that the early version of the Iron Suit would freeze in high altitude, against Obediah Stane. In Man of Steel, I thought that Zod and the other Kryptonians would be overwhelmed by their sudden superhearing power （hearing all different sounds and voices like young Clark）and that Superman would use that to his advantage. But the movie barely touched upon this and it was just punching and punching. There is no intelligence and finesse in their fight scenes.

DC : gods fighting each other Marvel : destruction across 3 cites and around 300 casualties

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="115">1:55</a> I love how Captain America receives a punch from Iron-man in the face and he just counterpunches back.

‘Love that cut to a Mad Max Fury Road clip when you mentioned spectacular action scene :))

is it just me, or are you talking(rapping) on the beat at the outro <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="422">7:02</a> ???

As much as I agree with the overall argument of this video, I'm disappointed he didn't bring up any of the good DC fights like when Batman beats up a room full of thugs in BvsS or the Manta fight in Aquaman. Only pointing out bad fights in the DC universe and not making any reference to the good ones really make him seem biased. Especially when Marvel only uses Karate and DC uses a bunch of different martial arts, even made up ones. DC does have a way to go, I agree with that, but a lot of the fight scenes are better than the majority of fight scenes in Marvel and no mention of them was made. A robust argument incorporates valid counter-arguments and crushes them. This video ignored them altogether.

Brilliant. Love your work Nerdwriter1! Everything is well thought out, your narration is calm and calculated, and ultimately your points come across very clearly.

The warehouse scene in BvS is an very good action set piece in my opinion

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="327">5:27</a> I like how this one didn't even need a pause for the quips. Marvel nailed Spidey on the big screen like none other.

''All right'' Aquaman, 2017.

Funny how the Smallville or Warehouse fight scenes were left out of the video

Remember DC; Making Action Realistic Thrills Home Audiences. I'm sure there's an acronym in there somewhere..

This was such a good video holy shit

Would love to know your thought on the differences between 2017 Justice League and 2021 Zack Snyder's Justice League

Legend has it that Batman is still punching Superman in the face.

Dude BVS warehouse fight sequence is the best thing I have seen in DCEU

And yet not even a mention of the warehouse fight in BvS. I get it. It would ruin the whole video.

I just wanna mention the BvS scene where batman breaks into that wearhouse to save Martha Kent, it was frickin awesome

I love DC comics and Marvel comics both!! It kills me that DC is having a slow start, but they're getting there!!

Please ignore all the cuts and camera angle switches just to pull of a few moves during a Marvel action scene.

The Problem With DC A̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶S̶c̶e̶n̶e̶s̶

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="212">3:32</a> that transition was so smooth

the main problem with superhero movies action scenes in general is that the fighting itself has no significance and the barometer with which one hero or villain to the next has no comparison. so when thor for example hits another person with his hammer in the face that would surely break that other perons jaw if not kill that person outright. but in a fight sequence it has the impact as if he gave someone a slight shove. they fall down for a few seconds, shake it off, then stand right back up. so the actual fighting holds no weight and only ends when something such as a definitive weapon or power move (i.e. a "magic sword" is introduced) that once and for all would go through the other persons heart or head, etc. etc.

Great video but ironically I think you contradicted yourself in the last clip. That scene is pretty devoid of sensible and effective character moments, except for that one instant when Bruce realizes Superman isn't taking the punches anymore, and they have that quick stare-down. It was pretty funny, and it actually said something about how Superman handles a situation like that--calmly, and with a little bit of humor

As a huge fan of DC Comics I can't agree more.

Gee I wonder why he didn’t mentioned: -Superman fight in Smallville -Batman warehouse fight scene -Wonder Woman No Man’s Land fight

i love these analysis videos especially because you combine your critique with great editing that emphasizes your point! that ending really drove it home lmao great job!