DC Universe's Titans (Spoilers!)
mphil
Posts: 448
Let's discuss the show...
mphil
Posts: 448
Comments
From the trailer I was a little worried that the production values might not be good... it felt more amateurish than even the CW shows. But it's not. This is Marvel Netflix quality in my opinion (here I'm talking about the production values, not necessarily the story quality).
That said there are some stuff that I hope they fix. They definitely tried hard to bring the violence and let you know this isn't a kid's show. It was a bit much. For example, Raven's mother gets shot in the back of the head, and when the scene ends they show her dead body with a bullet hole in her head. Why they chose to add that shot I don't know, you could clearly see what happened, showing the gore was unnecessary.
On the plus side, Starfire is awesome. I think she's going to be a fan favorite here. Her storyline so far is that she wakes up in a crashed car with amnesia. She spends the rest of the episode trying to figure out who she is. She seems to be part of (or involved with) some criminal organization.
So for the first episode of the first show on a new channel this is pretty good. I expect the show to get better from here. This makes me more optimistic about the more adult shows to come (Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol). I can see those easily being on the Marvel Netflix level of quality.
For those who have shied away from the service because you didn't like the trailer, I implore you to give it a shot. Spend $8 for just one month. That's the cost of a single movie ticket. Watch this episode; it's less than an hour of your time. I think you'll like it.
Liked the pilot, thought Dick was really good, I liked Raven, Star Fire I wish was always fiery red but I understand they can't do that for budget reasons. Definitely going to catch up.
So strange to me that their at least considering doing a new Superman show, but absolutely refuse to try and make a real Batman one. I really think it would be so much easier to make a Batman show because only a handful of his villains have powers. Probably the toughest would be Clayface or Ivy
I honest don't understand the whole thing with Robin (and other characters on the show but especially Robin) being on the edge between good and evil. They treat "going over the line" like it's some sort of drug, and if Robin crosses it he'll fall off the wagon like a drug addict would. So even though Batman killed dozens of people, good guys like cops, and Robin simply ended it, that somehow now makes Robin a bad guy.
A disappointing end to the end of the season. Overall I liked the season, don't get me wrong. But damnit, nothing really happened, did it? I was hoping that buy the end they would have formed a team, and have had at least one good fight together. But nope, we're probably going to get another full season of them doubting themselves and willing to be heroes because of some misplaced fear of "going over the edge" or whatever.
Still, there was a lot to like from this season. And this makes me even more excited about Doom Patrol as I think it will take itself less seriously. Lot's a good stuff ahead for this service.
@mphil, I also found the last episode a little disappointing since they veered off the main story and directly into Dick's Temptation Into the Dark Side (reminiscent of that Trigon storyline when Wolfman and Perez switched over to the higher priced Baxter paper series). But I didn't take the story to mean that Dick was now kind of addicted to going over the line or over the edge. I could be wrong but I thought the purpose of Trigon's fake reality dream was to drive Dick into giving in to his basest impulse and kill Batman. (He did something similar with all he Titans in that first Baxter story.)
Dick's "sin" was that he didn't kill Batman bc he had to in order to save lives. Batman was already defeated under rubble and all the damage had already been done. Dick killed him solely out of frustration and anger. I took it to be like Adam eating the apple - once you give in, any goodness you have leaves. In this case you become a soldier for Trigon.
It was revealing that Trigon took no responsibility for the dream and claimed it was all Dick's choice, but that was clearly fudging the truth. Dick chose to go back home to California several times in the dream, but every time he did, Trigon would alter the illusion to distract Dick and then keep him in Gotham.
Btw, I'm only familiar with the original first few Steve Ditko issues of the brother duo of Hawk and Dove, Was that origin for Hawk from the comics with the female Dove?
I am eager to learn why Trigon kept Donna and Kori out of the house. Perhaps they are somehow immune to his reality altering dreams?
Did anyone catch the post-credits sequence? Did not see that coming. I worry about the show bringing such powerful heroes onto the show. It kind of negates the need for the other Titans and forces the writers to come up with equally powerful villains which becomes a huge problem in a live action show that has to adhere to a budget. I found the first season of DC's Legends fun, but when you have to carefully dole out how much of any given power a team member can show it makes the characters look less impressive. And the Legends heroes all had basically one super power a piece - having a Kryptonian on the team would've really killed the efx budget.
My fear with the Superboy reveal is that we're going to get another season of the team "coming together" and of the individual characters going through "finding themselves" phases. Adding more characters just means less time for each character to develop.
This is sort of why I liked Donna Troy in this show so much. Her development happened off-screen. By the time she appeared in the show she was developed, and self-confident.
*Arf!*