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Originally available to stream on DC Universe, Titans became part of the HBO Max original lineup as many other DC comic book projects moved to the streamer. Three seasons in and the show has had the opportunity to tackle a lot of comic book storylines and introduce a cast of familiar characters.
Superhero-inspired content has seen an explosion on both the big and small screens in the last decade, partly thanks to CW’s Arrowverse and partly thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It might make fans wonder if Titans could have been better served on the big screen, or if television is the perfect medium to tell the story.
10 Movie: Titans Could Have Had A More Streamlined Story
One benefit to telling a story on the big screen is that it tells one long narrative, not several smaller ones. That might have helped focus and streamline the plot threads that Titans has tried out over the first few seasons.
In a Titans movie, it’s likely that a single comic book event would have been used for inspiration, like Raven’s father coming after her. Instead, the first season of the show featured that as one plot point, Dick Grayson’s disillusionment with being Robin as another, and the mystery of just who Kory was as a third — not to mention all of the other supporting players who had to have their own introductions.
9 Show: Titans Has The Ability To Introduce More Characters
With a movie, too many characters can create confusion for the audience. With a television series, a character can be introduced in one episode and brought back five or six episodes later without bogging down the storyline.
Titans doesn’t always succeed in the latter area, but the show does have a great opportunity to introduce a lot of characters not every comic book fan associates with the team. Bringing in Hawk, Dove, and Blackfire at different stages in the story expands the team beyond the usual lineup of Dick, Kory, Raven, and Gar that fans are already familiar with thanks to the cartoon versions of the story. It also allows for the series to expand on the idea of disillusioned sidekicks, giving more depth to characters like Donna Troy and Jason Todd than a spot in a movie might have.
8 Movie: A Bigger Budget Means More Dazzling Fight Sequences
Titans makes good use of its budget, sticking largely to hand-to-hand combat scenes, limiting transformations, and employing plenty of fire as a practical effect. But movies generally have more time and money to make fight sequences and effects the best they can be.
That means a movie would likely be able to show fans the full range of Blackfire and Starfire’s amazing power sets, something the show likely won’t get to do. A movie would also mean that Gar would get to transform into a variety of animals, not spend years only being a tiger.
7 Show: Titans Has The Freedom To Explore Characters’ Backgrounds
A movie is typically contained to a runtime of under three hours. That means not all of the characters are going to get equal time on the screen. It also means that some characters might never be explored at all unless there are sequels for them to take the spotlight.
Titans makes an effort to make sure all of its characters get their turn in the limelight and have their backgrounds explored. Kory’s reasons for being on Earth, Jason’s motivations for becoming Red Hood, and Gar’s desire to have a family all get their due without detracting from anyone else’s story.
6 Movie: There Could Be Less Focus Placed On Batman
Because Titans places so much focus on members of the Bat-family, like Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and now, Barbara Gordon, Batman’s story as a mentor gets a lot of screen time.
There’s no question that comic book audiences love Batman; the character wouldn’t have so many movies and TV shows about him if they didn’t. The trouble is that the more focus is placed on Batman, the less is given to the other characters. A movie could mention Batman once or twice and be done with the character instead of repeatedly pulling Dick and Jason back into Bruce Wayne’s orbit.
5 Show: Titans Doesn’t Have To Paint Batman As A Hero
One good thing about the relationship Titans has with Batman is that the hero of Gotham is really no hero. Dick and Jason looked up to Bruce Wayne as a father figure, but Bruce proves himself a horrible role model, parental figure, and mentor over and over again.
The fallout associated with working with Batman informs the character arcs for Dick, Jason, and Barbara in the series. It makes the group more than just former sidekicks, but kids who grew up with a lot of trauma as a result of working for someone they wanted to trust implicitly. It’s a great take on the relationships featured in the comics.
4 Movie: Titans Could Potentially Have Faster Pacing On The Big Screen
One of the common criticisms of Titans is that it isn’t as fast-paced as it could be. With the series being a drama, it tends to get bogged down in the more serious details at times. Being a drama isn’t a bad thing, but the slow pace takes some getting used to.
Because of the time constraints associated with movies — and the necessary tightening of stories as a result — the pacing could also be improved if Titans had wound up on the big screen. Fans wouldn’t have felt like the road to get Dick Grayson from Robin to Nightwing was too long, for example, if it was a necessary point early in a movie.
3 Show: Titans Can Feature A Variety Of Compelling Villains
If the series had been on the big screen, it’s likely the movie would have only featured a handful of villains. The main villain would have been Trigon for Rachel’s arc, or Deathstroke for the infiltration and betrayal of the group, for example. Because it’s a series, however, Titans has both.
It’s also featured Cadmus Labs in season 2 and takes on Scarecrow and Red Hood in season 3. The series is able to flesh out a fully formed world populated by these villains instead of just giving the audience one.
2 Movie: A Movie Would Ideally Force Consistency In Storytelling
There’s one thing that’s very true of movies versus television: consistency is a lot easier to maintain in a three-hour project as opposed to a 30-hour one. Across Titans’ multiple seasons, tone, backstory, and characterization have oscillated more than they likely would in a movie.
It’s true that in television as ideas evolve, certain aspects of a story that worked at the beginning might not work 12 hours in and get dropped completely. Gar, for example, is sometimes used as comedic relief in Titans, but other times, he’s the most mature and level-headed of the heroes. Likewise, Kory’s original murderous tendencies get glossed over after the first season. These aspects would be more consistent in a movie adaptation — in theory.
1 Show: Titans Doesn’t Just Stick To Gotham
Though there are a variety of different locations in DC Comics, when DC characters come to the screen, there tend to be two major locations the audience just has to see: Gotham and Metropolis. Due to so many of the Titans characters being connected to Batman, Gotham is a particularly important location in the series.
Gotham is a major part of the storyline in the third season, but it’s not the only Titans locale. The fledgling team does a lot of traveling in the first season before making a home for themselves in San Francisco in the second. It’s a nice change for fans, moving to a real working city instead of one of the fictional DC ones.
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