Titans: 5 Ways DC Can Actually Save The Upcoming Show
Irrespective of the platform on which they air, fans across the globe should appreciate the brilliant lineup of television shows debuting over the next few years. DC released the trailer of Titans in the SDCC 2018 recently and this version of Titans boasts of a darker tone, where Titans kill, brood and curse their adoptive heroes. This might be a disaster waiting to happen but with the right amount of hype and love, this show can become a worthwhile adaptation of the Teen Titans. Here’s how.
5. Make Robin’s rage work
Everyone blew their shit when Robin said “Fuck Batman” to a group of things in the trailer of Titans. There’s nothing wrong about showing Dick Grayson’s transformation from Boy Wonder to Nightwing because it was certainly an important milestone in the character’s history. But the problem here is that it makes Robin look like a whiny brat and not like an adult who’s ready to find his way in the world.
If the story is executed properly, Titans could possibly show his journey and with a Nightwing film in the news, this could definitely broach both of themes together.
4. Adapt The Team’s Best Stories
The Teen Titans have never fallen short of iconic storylines and a choice of a better comic to inspire the series would definitely make the experience worthwhile.
For the Titans, their attempts to translate the source material to a different format hasn’t always worked out as we saw in their recent adaptation of The Judas Contract. There are numerous storylines to look at, ranging from Titans comics to Young Justice. We hope that they manage to bring them all together and weave them perfectly on the screen.
3. Change the Colour Pallet
This is probably the oldest criticism that WB’s DC has faced: their colour pallet is way too dark. Except movies like Shazam, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, DC has always painted a dark imagery with a blue grey tint.
The world built for Titans doesn’t look inspired by DC as it lacks gods and monsters but they’ve seems to manifest the same approach in Titans. It might work for the astral plane in which Trigon resides but both, Beast Boy and Starfire look a bit out of place in this world. There’s certainly nothing wrong with using dark surroundings but when it’s about portraying the youth of DC, they should have used a different approach.
2. Show some self awareness
Titans needs to show an element of self awareness as soon as possible, just like CW’s Legends of Tomorrow. The problem in the Titans’ tone is well documented by now but DC needs to go deeper into these issues.
These tones have already been mocked in Teen Titans Go! where they show how silly comic adaptations can look if and when they take themselves too seriously. It’s hilarious that they have an episode which mocks the tone ignoring their own adaptations but this needs to be executed well in Titans because the show is in an extreme need of a complete correction.
1. Make sure other shows learn from it
Titans would mark the beginning of DC’s new streaming service which will showcase all their future shows. We have shows like Bar Harley Quinn, which would be an adult comedy, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol and Stargirl lined up for the online service.
It’s important that these shows learn from the mistakes of Titans and use it as a great lesson. Swamp thing would be dark in its own ways while Doom Patrol and Stargirl will have a different tone, altogether. If all the successive shows manage to learn and correct the mistakes made in Titans, DC might have a bright future ahead.
