HBO max is planning a great birthday gift for me next month. Finally the Jack Snyder version of the Justice league will be released. A movie that was destined to be one of best works ended up being reshot and contaminated due to a personal tragedy of his daughter passing away during the post production and the formula based calculations of the production house. Marvel makes a lot of money from their movies, they all have comedy, so let’s squeeze in some funny dialogues and punchlines here and there. Marvel seems to know the hit formula, let’s copy. Our director is not available, the film he made looks very dark and gloomy. Why not rope in the guy who made Avengers? Henry Cavill has already grown a mustache for Mission Impossible and is contractually obligated not to remove it? Let’s go ahead and shoot with a mustache, graphics team will take care of it. A movie before post production is just a bunch of scenes shot in random order. This movie was put together by people who had no idea of what the original film maker intended to convey.

This is why the Justice league felt so awkward and illogical. A movie whose titles start with a bitterly peimistic rendition of Leonard Cohen’s everybody knows cannot have silly things in it.

Every James Bond movie ever made, has the MI6 agent order a Martini. He is specific about how it is made. He wants it shaken, not stirred. Just like Monsieur Bond, I have a specific preference to the movies I watch. I prefer the ones that shake me to the ones that stir me with excitement. If they are exciting too, that is a plus but the minimum requirement is that they shake my brain into a thought process. From the movies like 12 Angry Men and The man from earth that shook my idea about what a film needs to be, to be engaging, to the animation features from Pixar before they were acquired by Disney, to the super hero movies of the present generation which are mostly guilty pleasures, I always find solace in the ones that have a deeper meaning and original thought in them.

For example, 12 Angry Men and The man from earth showed me the value of screenplay Both of them have a plot that can be explained in 20 seconds, have absolutely minimal background score, have no super stars, were shot on a shoe string budget in a single room. Christopher Nolan is the master of showmanship. His movies are a visual spectacle but your need to put all your grey cells to work to understand them. Compare that with Quinten Tarantino, who shoots the movies in the sequence of scenes, has clever dialogue, simple plots but complex characters. You learn something new in the movie every time you watch it. Then come the animated pieces of art from Pixar where they took you into their crazy thoughts of what if your toys came to life to what if your emotions are things living inside your head. Finally we come to the fast food equivalent of today’s cinema.

The mega assembly line of super hero movies coming out of the Marvel factory that churned 23 movies in last 11 years is the Coca cola of the mutant movies. Very successful, very popular but is it good for you? FYI, they have 11 more planned for release in next 3 years. Phew! that’s a lot of movies. When you compare the number or the money they make with the next one in line, the DC comics there is no comparison. But every couple of years a movie like the Watchmen, Dark Knight, Joker , Wonder woman and the now much anticipated (at-least by me) Batman come by which do not make a lot of money, do not grab a lot of awards but give you an idea of what a comic book based movie could be like.

I am not saying I hate Marvel. They do come up with occasional gems such as Logan and Deadpool. But since Disney has decided to become the British empire or in cinematic terms Mr Smith from matrix, everything from Pixar, Star wars and now comic book heros have been destoryed on the comveyor belt designed to mint money. Did you know that The Pirates of carribean was supposed to be a children’s movie? The director saw it differently and Disney released it as is because they had already spent the money and didn’t want to spend anymore reshooting it. It was a huge hit, then Disney started laying its eyes on making movies for Adults. This board room bureaucracy from Disney has nipped the creativity of so many artists and they are not stopping anytime soon. They started with taking moral oriented fables and tales from all across the world and modifying them into pop corn worthy material from which no child can learn anything, moved on to influencing girls into getting into abusive relationships. They spent the past decade spoiling more franchises and ruining the originality and imagination of film makers. Logan and Deadpool were not because of this bureaucracy, they were inspite of.

Now look at the works from DC. There are some stupid stuff. When it comes to new ideas, not every thing work. Who can forget green lantern, catwoman and George Clooney as Batman. The adaptations of the graphic novels Watchmen and V for Vendetta carried the idea and ideology of the books to the silver screen. So did count less batman adaptations. If Marvel owned Batman, would they have let Tim Burton give his weird take on it? Or would they have let Christopher Nolan make the epic saga, which only leaves you pondering if only Heath Ledger was alive and they could have gone ahead with the original script for part 3 or would they have approved one of the darkest movies ever ‘Joker’?

This is why I prefer DC. I see more passion in their screenplays and story lines. They are philosophical not genre driven. Watchmen shows how the lives of super heros in a practical world would be like, V for Vendetta shows the worst case scenario of a non-inclusive, xenophobic society, the History of violence shows you the life of a guy haunted by his past, so does Batman begins with a sumptuous load of the journey a person who set out for revenge but ends up becoming a vigilante, Womderwoman was a review of patriarchal society and hypocrisy of the human race, Dark knight returns was the take of finding courage in outrageous adversity. I’m not even going to get started on Dark Knight. It will take hours to explain the master piece.

Most of the initial movies in a franchise are brainchild of a writer, the sequels and prequels that follows are driven by the greed of studios. John wick and Mad max are exceptions. But that discussion is for another day. Just like a Vodka Martini that is shaken instead of just stirred shows the additional effort and passion that went into making it, DC offers the heart of some film maker much more often than Marvel does.

PS: I also thank DC for Anne Hathaway as cat woman. The most gorgeous portrayal of a female super hero I ever saw. Her image on the Batman bike has burnt a everlasting impression in my retina And then shattering it with Gal Gadot as wonder woman.