Animation director Jay Oliva took to social media today to express his love for the work Zack Snyder has done on the DC Films and to explain how different it is to bring characters life in live action like Superman who have endured for over 75 years, explaining that when you adapt any of these characters you can’t just choose one version, but you have to honor each version that has appeared throughout the years.
He goes on to explain that George Reeves and Nicholas Hammond are the versions of Superman and Spider-Man respectively that he holds to high regards because those are the ones he grew up with, but there’s still room to see new versions of the characters. He closes out his words with expressing that neither cinematic universe is dead and to say that the constant bickering f who is better is a disservice to what the characters represent. He also states that he owes his career to the writers and artist who created these characters and continue to bring more stories as he continues to work because of them.
Director Jay Oliva is known for his animated features, such as the DC Animated Films The Dark Knight Returns Parts 1 and 2, Justice League Dark, Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox and more. He’s storyboarded most of the DC Films such as Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman and Justice League as well as non-DC films.
I worked on 4 out of the 5 DC films. (I wasn’t asked to work in suicide squad. I would have loved to have worked on it!) 🙂
— Jay Oliva (@jayoliva1) February 8, 2018
The essence of film is story and trying to retell stories about characters that have been around for 75+ years is hard. So a lot of what we do is take bits and pieces of the mythology and give it a make over. It’s not too familiar but you distill just enough of the character.
— Jay Oliva (@jayoliva1) February 9, 2018
So who’s version is better? More valid? More canon? All of them. Superman, Spider-man, Batman, Iron man, etc are all extensions of what we hope and love about story. These characters have changed through the decades to appeal to new audiences.
— Jay Oliva (@jayoliva1) February 9, 2018
So in short, the DCEU is not dead. The MCU is not dead either. Both live in the hearts of us who love what they mean to who we are as a person.
— Jay Oliva (@jayoliva1) February 9, 2018
So in closing. It’s a disservice to distill the characters of DC and Marvel into a pissing contest of who is better. Instead look at what each character means to all of us. We love them because they appeal to our humanity and who we all wish to be in our simple lives…. heroes
— Jay Oliva (@jayoliva1) February 9, 2018
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