Justice League (2017) (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

About Ben Affleck's quote I posted above: I just realized an "edit" that was made to it that I wanted to clarify.

In the words of Rocket, "Only he didnt say fricking"

I curse all the time but aren't there lots of kids at the panel too? I'm not sure if that's kinda messed up or really, really funny.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I curse all the time but aren't there lots of kids at the panel too? I'm not sure if that's kinda messed up or really, really funny.

I'm not really sure. I'd love to go to this some year, but I've never been. Though my understanding is that in order to get into one of these big "Hall H" panels attendees basically have to stand in line for hours and hours and sort of "miss" going around the convention that day. So I'd be surprised if many "young" kids would be up for that.

 

[Sean Bryan]

In an interview with entertainment weekly, Ben Affleck Affleck talks more about playing Bateman and steppingstone down from directing.

http://ew.com/movies/2017/07/22/ben...l&xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter

My status remains what it always is. I’ve done the two movies. I’ve always intended on doing a third if Warners wants to make it. Certainly, if the Batphone rings, I will answer."

"It’s such a big job, in terms of the stunts and the suit and the action and the character. Trying to do that, and direct, would probably be too much. Something would be compromised. I think it came off, optically, to the broader world, like lack of interest or enthusiasm. When in fact I love this character."

"I think getting Matt Reeves to come in and do it is really, really exciting, Matt hasn’t really unveiled his full vision yet. He wanted to wait until Apes came out, and he was obviously consumed with that. So I’m looking forward to hearing what his story is."

"Warners has been working on it, making sure we’re getting it right. That’s the partnership you definitely want. With Wonder Woman, they really hit a home run. With [Justice League], I think we’ve found the tone, and found the flavor of it. I’d love to do it as long as they’ll have me. Eventually it’ll be somebody else, and I’m sure they’ll get somebody great. But while I’m doing it, I’m going to do the best job I can, and really appreciate how lucky I am."

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Just because Snyder also uses narrative shorthand - in trusting the audience that has 75 years of history with the character to color in a few additional areas of the coloring page - doesn't mean those things are to be assumed as absent from the context of the overall story.

If it is not shown in this iteration of the characters it doesn't exist. As always if one has to go outside the frames of the film to fill in gaps, the films have failed in their narrative.

Especially in this iteration which has deliberately set out to deconstruct those 75 years of history.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Joss Whedon is getting a co-director credit for Justice League. At least, that is what this tweet from WB would indicate.

"A film by Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon"

 

[TravisR]

Never say never but I'll be surprised if that co-credit is on the movie or its ad campaign.

 

[Alf S]

So does every superhero or supervillian in evey movie have to fall out of the sky and land on one knee and one fist and slowly look up??

 

[Sean Bryan]

Never say never but I'll be surprised if that co-credit is on the movie or its ad campaign.

Doesn't the MPAA have specific criteria for who can be billed as a "co-director"? So yeah, Whedon may not meet that criteria.

 

[Sean Bryan]

This "article" is reporting that Whedon's reshoots are relatively significant to the point that there have been some scheduling difficulties with some of the actors.

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/just...ng-conflicts-warner-bros-spending-25m-a152809

 

[dana martin]

wait for the home video release the Ultimate Edition will have 4K, 3D, Theatrical Cut, Snyder Cut, Whedon Cut

 

[Brandon Conway]

If it is not shown in this iteration of the characters it doesn't exist. As always if one has to go outside the frames of the film to fill in gaps, the films have failed in their narrative.

I disagree completely. One of the main ideas of the art of cinema is to infer meaning between the edits. This is hardly the first film to rely upon assumed familiarity of the material from an audience to fill in narrative. To some degree every film does this - they assume you understand a head nod means "yes" instead of saying it; they assume you know cross-cutting between two locations means they are taking place simultaneously, etc. You call it a failure to not spell everything out, I call it respectful to not need to coddle me about knowing who Superman is or what he's meant to represent. I can infer that when Perry White says a new headline questioning if the public's love for Superman is ending that, you know, he's therefore been loved by many in those 18-months prior. Hell, Civil War did the same for Spider-Man just two months later - it trusted the audience to fill in his backstory re: getting powers, Uncle Ben, etc. Do you assume those things didn't happen because you didn't see them?

 

[Brandon Conway]

Whedon's cut, for any relevant purposes, IS Snyder's cut. Snyder brought him in to write the scenes Whedon is currently supervising. If Snyder hadn't left the film he'd be directing those exact same scenes Whedon wrote.

And Whedon is not getting directing credit. The DGA will never allow it, no matter what some Warner UK YouTube uploader writes (and then is forced to remove).

 

[Brandon Conway]

This "article" is reporting that Whedon's reshoots are relatively significant to the point that there have been some scheduling difficulties with some of the actors.

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/just...ng-conflicts-warner-bros-spending-25m-a152809

Pretty much what Roven said a couple months ago - the biggest hurdle re: pickups was the scheduling of the cast.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

To a certain extent, we can be asked to fill in the blanks and that can be acceptable, but past that point, you're asking too much of the audience.

In Civil War, we're not given Spidey's origins - just that he's had an incident that gave him these powers. That's fine for the story Civil War wants to tell. How Spidey became Spidey isn't relevant to that story, so it's fine. We can imagine that he was bitten by a spider and that Uncle Ben existed and died, but we don't actually know those things happened. If Spidey were to, for example, have a panic attack during the airport fight scene and start screaming "Ben!! I'm sorry!!" that would make no sense because we don't actually know if that is part of this Spidey's history. Marvel can use our familiarity with the generic character for a quick intro, but Marvel cannot rely on the Raimi film to fill in the blanks because it's a different iteration of the character.

BvS doesn't just use generic Batman lore, it takes specific incidents from specific iterations of Batman and makes it part of this Batman's history. If you want to understand this Batman and the world he lives in, you need to be somewhat familiar with things that are never addressed in the movie. That, to me, is a failing. If horcruxes were only explained in the Harry Potter books, and then the movie versions just assumed that everyone had read the books so they didn't need to cover it, that would have been a similar failing.

BvS also uses some narrative shortcuts to introduce Wonder Woman. While it doesn't hurt BvS, it's problematic because Wonder Woman, a BvS sequel, completely invalidates large chunks of her character arc from BvS. Once you've seen the WW movie, her actions and backstory in BvS no longer make any sense.

Because WB was in such a rush to make a team up movie, it wasn't built on great foundations, and it asks too much from its audience, and has handicapped its characters so badly that future films are trying to overwrite it as best they can, which for me makes the universe feel unstable.

The marvel movies may not be perfect, but the people making them have enough respect for their audience to maintain a kind of continuity that is eluding Warner.

 

[dpippel]

Well summed up Josh, and I agree with most of it. Say what you will about Marvel - the films that comprise the MCU flow rather nicely for the most part and the progression of events/character arcs is organic. They have heart. In contrast the Snyderverse feels forced, most of the characters don't resonate emotionally, and it all seems like nothing more than WB trying to play catch-up with Marvel to cash in on their superhero successes. I still think that handing the cinematic reins of their most iconic characters over to Zack Snyder was their biggest mistake.

 

[Sam Favate]

I wouldn't continue to call it "the Synderverse..."

Zack Snyder's future at Warner Bros.' DC movies: Limited at best, dunzo at worst

http://mashable.com/2017/07/25/zack...e-david-ayer-gotham-city-sirens/#t6v_mt39LkOp

 

[Brandon Conway]

BvS doesn't just use generic Batman lore, it takes specific incidents from specific iterations of Batman and makes it part of this Batman's history. If you want to understand this Batman and the world he lives in, you need to be somewhat familiar with things that are never addressed in the movie.

I wouldn't call the background to Batman in this movie terribly specific at all. A Death in the Family is VERY well known Batman lore. He then gives a very pointed speech to Alfred that provides all the detail one needs to know ("20 Years in Gotham"). All a person needs to do is take their general knowledge of Batman and assume the broad strokes of that history has occurred. This is hardly that complicated of mental gymnastics.

Wonder Woman, a BvS sequel, completely invalidates large chunks of her character arc from BvS. Once you've seen the WW movie, her actions and backstory in BvS no longer make any sense.

I don't think it's as contradictory as you do. She still kept herself from the world during the intervening years as far as we know, though I wager they mitigate this apparent contradiction in WW2.

Because WB was in such a rush to make a team up movie.... it asks too much from its audience

How dare they assume their audience can think it through! :p

The marvel movies may not be perfect, but the people making them have enough respect for their audience to maintain a kind of continuity that is eluding Warner.

They shoot for the least common denominator, which brings all people in at the same baseline need for zero experience with the material beforehand (Spider-Man aside). It's the most populist, most vanilla approach. And it's very fine vanilla, but damn it I want a variety of flavors when there are 10 comic book superhero films every year. It's the Passion of the Christ argument - BvS is a film that expects you to have more than zero understanding of what you are getting into. If you're not there that's not it's fault - except for those that wanted another scoop of vanilla.

I think it's fine to argue that it's not the most potentially profitable approach to have some minor exclusivity within a franchise film like BvS, and that the Marvel vanilla approach is the most inclusive flavoring. But from a film art perspective, who wants all the paintings in the museum to cater to just the broadest of tastes?

 

[dpippel]

I wouldn't continue to call it "the Synderverse..."

Zack Snyder's future at Warner Bros.' DC movies: Limited at best, dunzo at worst

http://mashable.com/2017/07/25/zack...e-david-ayer-gotham-city-sirens/#t6v_mt39LkOp

Well Sam, everything we've had from Man of Steel up to Justice League is most certainly Snyderverse.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I wouldn't continue to call it "the Synderverse..."

Zack Snyder's future at Warner Bros.' DC movies: Limited at best, dunzo at worst

http://mashable.com/2017/07/25/zack...e-david-ayer-gotham-city-sirens/#t6v_mt39LkOp

We've known this since the May 2016 DC Films restructuring. How many times can the same story be churned out in the press?

"While the Snyders' phasing out may not come entirely as a surprise, it's sure to send a shockwave through DC fandom"

"The Snyders are certainly not without their fans. Their exit will be a particular blow to the faction of DC Comics' fandom that supported them fiercely"

Nah. We actually have something called "memory recall". Stop coming to our defense and making up our wounds to sell your story. We never asked you to.

 

[DavidJ]

Because WB was in such a rush to make a team up movie, it wasn't built on great foundations, and it asks too much from its audience, and has handicapped its characters so badly that future films are trying to overwrite it as best they can, which for me makes the universe feel unstable.

The marvel movies may not be perfect, but the people making them have enough respect for their audience to maintain a kind of continuity that is eluding Warner.

Hope this isn't too off topic, but with your discussion of being in a rush and the lack of great foundations, it really bothers me that the first Flash movie we get is going to be Flashpoint. It feels like a similar mistake to BvS.