Hmmm... one of the points that MovieBob, and others, have made is that the names of some of the Apokolyptan villains are so silly that just saying them reduces them for an audience. But I wonder if actually using those names was to be the plan for ZSJL.

Look at the hero characters; they don't REALLY get called by their hero names, and they don't refer to each other that way very often either. The names are in there so we make the association, but Bruce and Alfred don't talk about, “Batman” as if it's a name they themselves use.

Clark talks about Superman as an idea, but he doesn't CALL himself Superman. Lois doesn't call him Superman. The world calls him Superman, but no one addresses him that way to his face because it's not his name. It’s more like a title.

So how do we know anyone in the movies would be running around talking about, “Darkside" this and, "Steppenwolf" that? Changing the designs to make them more alien looking and less like - well - comic book villains, and using other names, changes the energy around them.

And I don't for one second believe that has anything to do with being, “ashamed" or embarrassed by the source material. It's all about intent. If you want the material to land a certain way you have to adjust it to do that. It doesn't mean you don't like or respect the source

material in any way. I've always found that perspective to be troubling. How much more respectful can you get then someone saying, “I think we can do this straight and make it work because the characters can shoulder that weight and not break”?

In fact the only people I can see having an issue with this are people for whom the kind of balls out cheeziness of comic books is one of the aspects of the form they covet, and they just don't want to be asked to take them, "seriously" in the way these movies are asking them to.

But for everyone else, design and portrayal follow intent, right? If you're going to try and create an, “actual" drama with these characters, one where you are asking the audience to invest in the film as if it were any other drama like Heat or Private Ryan or literally ANY OTHER

then there are things that get changed as a result. You design a certain way, you light a certain way, you shoot a certain way and yes you have to write things a certain way as well. And then you ask the audience to give you the space you need to create that world.

You can't convince, force or MAKE the audience give you that leeway. All you can do is ask for it, and some people like MovieBob probably never allow them that space, and the material will never work for the as a result. But that's always going to be their choice to make.

So do you think this will be the case? That we'll hear the comic book names so we can make the association but for the most part the characters will have a, "real" name that they'll be referred to most of the time so we can see them as real and not just as cartoon characters?

What do you think, #OpinionNerds?