Decrease in quality of DC Animated Movies lately?

As most people acknowledge, DC is very good at making high quality animated movies rapidly. And I agree, I like almost all of them. But lately I have noticed a big decrease in quality. So much so that I dont even eagerly await a new movie. In my opinion, Batman TDKR pt 2 was their last quality movie. Even though I loved the source material "Batman: Brainiac", I thought the movie Superman: Unbound was not engaging or interesting. Then again with Flashpoint Paradox, and then the trailers and clips for JL: War looked so godawful: so cheesy and uninteresting and childish. While Son of Batman looks better than JL: War, it still doesnt seem to be anywhere near back to Batman TDKR, or Under the Red Hood, or Year One, or All Star Superman, etc, levels of quality.

Also another observation is their change to anime style, instead of Bruce Timm-ish style. I think it subtly started first in Batman: Under the Red Hood, but reached a new level in Flashpoint Paradox. While not as much of a problem as the decrease in quality of the stories, still worth noting.

Anyway, anyone else notice a recent decrease in quality too?

Yes I can definitely see your points and I understand why you feel that way

But hey there have only been three movies since TDKR Part 2 so I don't think it's fair to compare three movies to the long list of other movies. As someone who really enjoyed Flashpoint and thought it was one of DC's top animated movies I would have to disagree but I can understand why someone would dislike the movies but I think this has to do with disliking the actual source material than the actual movie.

One thing I can say is that I personally don't think animation has decreased in quality. Quality of story and some people complained about the character models in Flashpoint and War but animation was still great, action scenes in both of those movies were still top notch.

Short Version: Newer movies are more action driven, and far less story driven, with worse scripts. Animation is also worse, but not as much of a big deal.

I think so. There's been cooler fight-scenes, but the stories/flow of the movies haven't been as good (though, IMO, Flashpoint & the first arc of n52 JL weren't that good of stories to begin with). Part of it has to be the increasing level of diverting from the source-material. And it doesn't help that the art choices have been worse-than-better more often than not, IMO. (Superman vs the Elite being the worst, IMO).

@jphu8414: I did find Justice League: Origin to be a really bad story, and Justice League: War seemed to have made it worse. About the source material, I loved Superman: Brainiac, but I still found Superman: Unbound to be a decrease in quality from the previous norm.

Also about the animation, I dont mean its quality has decreased, I just think it has become much more like the anime style, which I personally dislike, but others may like.

"But hey there have only been three movies since TDKR Part 2 so I don't think it's fair to compare three movies to the long list of other movies." Thats a good point, hopefully the quality gets better again.

@lightsout: Yeah totally agree. Although I thought Unbound was very similar in story to Brainiac, but lacked in the script.

Yeah I noticed the Anime thing too, it was incredibly prevalent in the Flashpoint movie. It doesn't bother me personally (I actually think it's pretty cool) but I can totally understand if you don't like.

Hopefully Son of Batman is good, from the previews and trailers I think it looks awesome, but I'm a Damian fan and I'm just happy that he 's finally getting the spotlight so I might be a little biased

I thought Flashpoint and War were okay, and Son of Batman looks pretty awesome. I do agree that there has been better animated films like UtRH, TDKR p1 & p2, etc...

I liked Justice League:War, it was my favorite so far.

I think the lack of any real animated-TV presence (not like in the hey-day) makes so many of us put more weight on each flick. I know my thirst for DC-animation is never quenched.