DC Animated “Justice League Dark: Apokalips War”… and its crushing disappointment. [SPOILERS]

[Crossroads Inc.]

SO just a quick recap.
Back in 2014 DC started a new series of animated films that would eventually lead to a new ‘unified universe’ of movies, stopping the trend of one-offs they had been doing.

Going from Batman, Superman, we got our first ‘Justice League!’ unified movie that introduced an Epic fight with DarkSeid! Kicking him to the curb and off Earth. From there movie after movie built on top of the originals, until in 2020 we were promised the Penultimate Showdown between Earth and Darkseid! A final battle that would tie up Six years of a single DC continuity!

And…

Dear god was it a disappointment…

[SPOILERS]





So, yeah, what was supposed to have been a climatic final battle, basically turned into “Flashpoint-2.0” with a hefty GOREFEST added in for what seemed like pure shock value. In the first 5min of the movie, we get told the JL is going to lead a battle to end Darkside… Which obviously fails, which I was expecting. What I was NOT expecting was what we got next, a text pop up that reads “TWO YEARS LATER”

Yeah, 2 years, the earth is BORKED, half the population dead, and we are told the original attack ended with most of the JLA killed or brainwashed into Darkseids slaves…
Basically, a set up where the ONLY way you could “end” it is with a giant re-set button.

Now don’t get me wrong, the movie had its moments, it had its fun and it had its drama for what it was worth… But surly I am not the only one who went “Oh, Time Travel reset” 10min into the movie.

[Majin Gojira]

I think the fact that they thought to incorporate elements from godddamn "Future's End" - one of the worst crossover stories DC has ever produced, tells me exactly how bad it is without even seeing it.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So, I never really read the comics, either growing up or these days. Almost everything I know from DC comes from the animated shows and animated movies. Which is typically nice for not being spoiled about a lot of the animated movies…

That said, I looked up the plot line of the comic you mentioned, and GEEZE, what a hot mess. And sadly I can see exactly the elements they picked from it, typically the worse parts it would seem.
Time travel is almost always a cop out way to fix something. And it doesn’t help when you see it coming from the start.

Even leaving that aside, so much of the movie seem forced specifically to get a GRIMDARK setting for the excuse of packing in as much gore and shock as possible, knowing they would hit the reset button.

The big shame was, I actually LOVED how the movie ended! Trigon laying the smack down on Darkseid, and then finally all of Apokalypse being sucked into a void dimension, trapping the two of them forever... Talk about a satisfying end to two very unpleasant individuals…

[Batman]

You could've specified you were talking Justice League Dark: Apokalips War because there already was an animated movie called Justice League: DARK and I was mildly confused there for a moment

[LadyTevar]

You could've specified you were talking Justice League Dark: Apokalips War because there already was an animated movie called Justice League: DARK and I was mildly confused there for a moment

As was I... I was thinking the JL:Dark with Constantine.

[Batman]

Yup. That's the one I was thinking about

[Crossroads Inc.]

Thank you for changing the title M'Lady,
Incidentally, the OTHER "dark" movie I absolutely LOVED. If mostly because Batman seems so "annoyed" the whole time at having to deal with....magic things.

[LadyTevar]

Thank you for changing the title M'Lady,
Incidentally, the OTHER "dark" movie I absolutely LOVED. If mostly because Batman seems so "annoyed" the whole time at having to deal with....magic things.

I'd still not seen it, not found it available anywhere

[Batman]

Kindly fix the double Justice League in the thread title?

[Darth Yan]

I actually kinda liked it a great deal. Trigon vs Darkseid kicked ass, I found Raven and Superman's bond surprisingly touching and it really felt like a desperate do or die mission

[Crossroads Inc.]

I actually kinda liked it a great deal. Trigon vs Darkseid kicked ass, I found Raven and Superman's bond surprisingly touching and it really felt like a desperate do or die mission

Oh I agree with the first part of what you say 110%.
The smack down of Darkseid vs Trigon was epic.
Also seeing Raven "Go Super Saiyan" and unlock her healing powers again.

It is just a shame it all gets reset by the Time Travel button.
I really, REALLY would have LOVED a version of this that, basically had the same ending.. just without the soul crushing interlude / death of 90% of all hero's and then know it will all be reset so it doesn't matter.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The past couple of years of DC animated movies have just been crushingly "okey-ish".
NVM the ones that messed up (e.g. Killing joke, and it's 55% of filler content). The rest have been nice, but just feel like they would have worked out better as multipart JLU episodes (give or take the animation budget and choreography).