WI Supergirl were as good as OTL's The Dark Knight

[TJSwoboda]

Inspired by the two threads listed below (I can't get them to embed correctly): Imagine that the Supergirl movie is made with Helen Slater in the title role, but everything else about the production goes much differently. The end, hypothetical product here is a movie that we'll assume is the equal of OTL's The Dark Knight.

Now, if anyone else wants to do my homework for me and put together a cast and director, feel free , but my focus here is how film and superhero history post-1984 is changed: Do we get more women superheroes? Does a Wonder Woman movie follow? How many Supergirl sequels get made? Finally, how does Superman IV pan out if the franchise isn't sold to Cannon to ruin?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-make-one-of-your-favourite-movies-bad.389527/
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-make-the-worst-movie-you-ever-saw-good.260675/
(the Wikipedia link embedded fine, but the standard UBB code for links on this forum isn't working)

 

[Brady Kj]

Can you explain what you mean by that? I'm of the opinion that the Dark Knight was worse than Supergirl.

 

[TJSwoboda]

You mean the 2008 movie The Dark Knight is worse than the 1984 movie Supergirl? You're probably in the minority on that one...

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Well, if the Supergirl Movie was good there'd probably be a Superman/ Supergirl team up movie, as well as a Supergirl 2.

 

[Maximara]

Well, if the Supergirl Movie was good there'd probably be a Superman/ Supergirl team up movie, as well as a Supergirl 2.

IMHO you would have to butterfly a lot of things to get a somewhat decent (never mind actually good) Supergirl movie. Remember we are talking 1984 here and DC themselves had so little idea on how to make the character interesting they killed her off in Crisis in 1985.

Given what happened with Superman IV (1987) and the fact that in terms of quality the Batman films (1989-1997) followed the Superman films I think that a good Supergirl movie would have simply delayed the Superman movie franchise decline into a black hole of horrid.

 

[TRH]

She didn't have an interesting motivation. She came to Earth in search of a MacGuffin, but the writers clearly had no interest in her searching for it, so they had her go native and go to school until the villain came looking for her. She needs something more compelling to define her character and make a more engaging conflict.

 

[Maximara]

She didn't have an interesting motivation. She came to Earth in search of a MacGuffin, but the writers clearly had no interest in her searching for it, so they had her go native and go to school until the villain came looking for her. She needs something more compelling to define her character and make a more engaging conflict.

Which was DC's problem with the character as well. In a good number of her comic stories Supergirl's motivation was about as interesting as watching paint dry. It didn't help that DC had made an event out of updating her costume back in 1970. It was like once she stopped being a member of the Legion of Superheroes DC had no clue on what to do with the character. Heck, DC even had two stories where Supergirl met what at first appeared to be her past self.

 

[Mike D]

You mean the 2008 movie The Dark Knight is worse than the 1984 movie Supergirl? You're probably in the minority on that one...

I don't think I've seen Supergirl but Dark Knight is a truly horrendous film. It's terrible.

Supergirl can't be all that much worse?

 

[TRH]

I don't think I've seen Supergirl but Dark Knight is a truly horrendous film. It's terrible.

Supergirl can't be all that much worse?

It has no plot, the villain is some woman who uses a MacGuffin of ultimate power to kidnap some random construction worker or something, and Supergirl is too busy attending boarding school to be a superhero. It's pretty bad.

 

[TJSwoboda]

I don't think I've seen Supergirl but Dark Knight is a truly horrendous film. It's terrible.

Supergirl can't be all that much worse?

Are we both thinking of The Dark Knight (2008), not The Dark Knight Rises (2012)? As for Supergirl, see TRH's summary. As a kid, Supergirl was the first movie that, among movies I actually wanted to see/was looking forward to, made me say afterward "Um, that wasn't very good."

 

[Maximara]

It has no plot, the villain is some woman who uses a MacGuffin of ultimate power to kidnap some random construction worker or something, and Supergirl is too busy attending boarding school to be a superhero. It's pretty bad.

Are we both thinking of The Dark Knight (2008), not The Dark Knight Rises (2012)? As for Supergirl, see TRH's summary. As a kid, Supergirl was the first movie that, among movies I actually wanted to see/was looking forward to, made me say afterward "Um, that wasn't very good."

I wouldn't say that it has no plot as going after a MacGuffin was the plot (the bird in The Maltese Falcon is a MacGuffin) but then the movie seems to forget about the MacGuffin and goes wandering all over the place remembering near the end 'Oh yeh Supergirl is supposed to be looking for our MacGuffin, better have her finally go after the thing'.

 

[Gaius Julius Magnus]

If you could get Reeve to agree to appear in it, not just a cameo but a major supporting role, then you could maybe rewrite the movie with Superman mentoring his cousin after she arrives on Earth somehow in a coming of age story for Supergirl/Kara similiar to the first Superman movie between Brando's Jor-El and and Superman.

Probably derivative of the first movie and obviously wouldn't be as good as The Dark Knight but probably better than what we got in real life

 

[thekingsguard]

Give it the budget Dark Knight had, spend more than 5 mins on the script, then cast some popular rising star as the villain and have her OD.

 

[Archibald]

And also, don't cast Marion Cotillard - I remember all the flak she took for the scene where she died (people blasted her for that scene)

 

[Mike D]

It has no plot, the villain is some woman who uses a MacGuffin of ultimate power to kidnap some random construction worker or something, and Supergirl is too busy attending boarding school to be a superhero. It's pretty bad.

Sounds better than Dark Knight...

Are we both thinking of The Dark Knight (2008), not The Dark Knight Rises (2012)? As for Supergirl, see TRH's summary. As a kid, Supergirl was the first movie that, among movies I actually wanted to see/was looking forward to, made me say afterward "Um, that wasn't very good."

No, I think we're thinking of the same one. Terrible Batman film, Heath Ledger won every Oscar ever awarded, the VC, the Nobel Peace Price and Crufts Supreme Champion for dying before it was released? He can't have got the awards for his performance anyway, because it was awful.

I'd genuinely rather watch Open Water on a continuous loop for the rest of my life and Open Water makes me want to eat my own liver to escape the pain of watching it.

 

[Johnrankins]

No, I think we're thinking of the same one. Terrible Batman film, Heath Ledger won every Oscar ever awarded, the VC, the Nobel Peace Price and Crufts Supreme Champion for dying before it was released? He can't have got the awards for his performance anyway, because it was awful.

Although I disagree with you somewhat (He wasn't THAT bad) I agree with you it was far from an Oscar winning performance. I didn't know you could win an Oscar for dropping dead.

 

[TJSwoboda]

I think Ledger would have been nominated if he hadn't died, though whether he would have won is highly questionable. But when someone like my dad proclaims it his favorite movie of the year, I have to contend that Nolan and his crew did something right.

Give it the budget Dark Knight had, spend more than 5 mins on the script, then cast some popular rising star as the villain and have her OD.

Heh, pretty much, but I'd like to think it could be done on a smaller budget.

I'd genuinely rather watch Open Water on a continuous loop for the rest of my life and Open Water makes me want to eat my own liver to escape the pain of watching it.

LOL... Wait, Mike D = Chet Arthur?

 

[Brady Kj]

Several of the things he did were clever ideas and the writer deserves props. But the movie didn't have anything else I found appealing. I thought the Joker seemed bored during most of the Dark Knight.The lighting was bad, the movie was too noisy in some parts and too quiet in others, Two Face was even harder to seriously than ever before, Christian Bale continued to do a ridiculous Batman voice, none of Batman's gear was sleak and stylish, and they wasted a great opportunity to give Barbara Gordon an appearance. Also, is The Dark Knight the one where Batman hacks into everyone's cell phones to spy on them, or is that The Dark Knight Rises? That is not a heroic act, and therefore not something Batman should do.
Supergirl was exactly as described earlier in the thread, and it doesn't make sense for Supergirl's first movie to mix genres, being about a space alien whose villains are witches. . Witches should only have been introduced in a sequel, after Supergirl's already established. and on top of that, the writers failed to make Jimmy and Lucy interesting characters or find a believable way to put them into the story. The way I see it, the two movies were about equally bad, with Supergirl coming out slightly ahead because in Supergirl, one of the witches was funny.

If you want Supergirl to be "equal" to The Dark Knight, then it's a matter of opinion, unless you define "equal". If you want Supergirl to be similar to the Dark Knight, that's a bad idea because the character isn't suited to the Dark Knight style. If you want Supergirl to have similar box office success or similar popularity with critics, that's a good question to ponder.

 

[Johnrankins]

Agreed, Joker is supposed to be flamboyant and Ledger's portrayal of him too low key. Joker is extremely manic, hyperactive nut case. Nicholson did a good Joker, Ledger did not. Two face was a complete waste, Two Face didn't really make a name for himself by the end. What they probably should have done is have him survive at the end and have him the villain in the next film .

 

[deathscompanion1]

I'm not sure its possible.

I mean if Supergirl was a great and well received movie whilst The Dark Knight was a flaming pile of shit most of this thread would be about how actually Supergirl was terrible and TDK was actually an unappreciated diamond in the rough.