Your kind of asking for something I don't think I've personally seen done when it comes to a series of comic book movies. If I understand what you're saying you mean to suggest you can do say "Bruce Wayne/Batman is compelling in the Dark Knight Rises because..." without referencing any other media of Batman up to and including Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Or say something like Civil War without including any previous information about Stark or Rogers given from their previous appearances be it in the movies or comics.
I'd love to see it and I mean that. I'm not at all being sarcastic so if you're willing to go for it I would be very interested in reading it.
It's a little different when it's a literal continuation of a previous storyline. That is something that is, explicitly, supposed to rely on the knowledge of the past episode because it actually happened. Nothing from the comics or animated series or other movies happened in the Snyder verse continuity because...well, that's how we divide up continuities. Sequels are extensions of continuity.
But again,
this isn't a continuity issue. To use your examples, Dark Knight Rises sets it's conflict up so that a new person can understand it: Bruce Wayne is a retired Batman whose depressed and seeking a death wish. Civil War reminds us of Tony's parent issues and Steve's attachment to the past, and then demonstrates the destruction shown by the Avengers and the Sokovia accords are introduced.
A viewer whose seen the past segments will get
more out of it, but a new viewer will have an idea of whats going on. Similarly, this is actually
NOT BvS's problem. It establishes it's conflicts well enough. Superman is viewed as a god while saving people and Batman is a someone who sees potential danger in Superman. We all went and saw and understood (mostly) what was going on.
But the thing is, if you get me talking about Civil War, I have a lot of things I can praise about it's storytelling. I could make a huge write up about the escalating conflict between Tony and Steve, how it gives a fairly unique motivation for the conflict to every character even if they get divided evenly between 2 sides, I can talk about the morality of the story, etc. To give a specific example, lets say Cap's relationship with Bucky. Everyone hates Bucky, including Bucky himself, because he doesn't view that he was mind controlled to be an excuse for what he did and neither does just about anyone else. While Captain America has sound reasons for defying capture, it's also part of his own desperation to save his last connection to his past, since Peggy just died. It's a genuinely shitty position and you can see Steve's uncertainty as he keeps fighting for what he believes is right, but has the cost of having to fight his friends weighing in on him more and more and everyone, including Bucky, keeps telling him it's not worth it. Pitting Steve's inner conflict as him trying to save the relationships he's made in the present while also saving his last past relationship is a genuinely good dramatic set up, which pays off at the end where Tony finally loses it. And there's nothing I need to say about the comic book history of Captain America or even the previous movies (though they would add more definition to what Cap's past actually is to him) to talk about what a good narrative set up that is.
The most I've ever seen for BvS is praising bits and pieces. Batman being a horror movie monster is cool, Alfred is well acted, Wonder woman is boss. But nothing that talks about the narrative structure as a whole, or how different narrative threads tie up into one big movie arc in a nice way, or whatever. And these things are all pretty superficial, side things, rather than internal drama. I'm asking to see a write up praising BvS's characters as characters, the story as a story.
EDIT: Well I stand corrected. But yeah, be the thing you want to see.
I actually have, in past posts. I've analyzed BvS by looking at it's story by itself. Only thing is that it's been pretty much entirely in the negative. For me, BvS is a bad movie BECAUSE the way the story goes doesn't line up properly, for various reasons. I can tell you that I've only gone the "not my superman/batman" route in the extremist of circumstances, and only after all other criticisms were thrown out. I care about stories themselves. What Batman and Superman are on a cultural iconography level is just trivia to me. It's interesting to know, but it doesn't mean anything beyond being an mildly interesting factoid.
Still, just for novelty's sake, I'd like to see what a fan's would come up with trying to make an argument for the movie just using the movie itself. I can't come up with this argument because BvS doesn't line up right for me. But if there is a fan for whom it does, I'd be interested in seeing if they can put together an argument for the films merits without moving outside the film.
