Justice League (2017) (1 Viewer)

[Lord Dalek]

Once upon a time a well respected film critic described a movie he had just watched as "a forced four-hour walking tour of one's own living room".

This is thirty minutes longer than that film and far more of a chore to watch.

 

[TonyD]

I bought Man of Steel on iTunes.
Only have it on blu so the $10 was worth it to me.
Starting the marathon

 

[Citizen87645]

Watching the first 40 minutes. Honest Trailers is going to have lots of fun.

Spoiler

Especially with Wonder Woman doing her part to continue the DC Murderverse.

 

[Malcolm R]

The critic at CNN did not care for it, either:

The director’s cut is an endless, joyless 240-minutes of tedium. The problems that plagued the theatrical version of the film — too many characters, an unfocused plot, a deeply uninteresting antagonist — are compounded rather than ameliorated at twice the length.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...r-cut-hbo-max-still-mess-just-way-ncna1261344

 

[TJPC]

I really don't understand the anamosite toward these DC films. I am about 1/2 way through watching and find the movie really good. Is it the old DC vs Marvel rivalry? My only mistake was not watching the theatrical cut again first. This would have been a better indication of what has changed.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I really don't understand the anamosite toward these DC films. I am about 1/2 way through watching and find the movie really good. Is it the old DC vs Marvel rivalry? My only mistake was not watching the theatrical cut again first. This would have been a better indication of what has changed.

I've made the same mistake! I'll probably try to watch the theatrical cut while this four hour movie is still fresh in my feeble brain. I might do so tomorrow morning.

 

[Citizen87645]

I really don't understand the anamosite toward these DC films. I am about 1/2 way through watching and find the movie really good. Is it the old DC vs Marvel rivalry? My only mistake was not watching the theatrical cut again first. This would have been a better indication of what has changed.

There's been a lot written about it already. But my reasons after watching the first section, are the gloomy aesthetics and all the slow mo. I know this is Snyder's thing and it's fine in certain films, but it just doesn't hit me where I'm at right now and knowing I have over 3 hours more to go is not motivating.

I tended to favor Marvel as a comics reader and collector, but I had a fair number of DC titles I enjoyed.

 

[dpippel]

I really don't understand the anamosite toward these DC films. I am about 1/2 way through watching and find the movie really good. Is it the old DC vs Marvel rivalry? My only mistake was not watching the theatrical cut again first. This would have been a better indication of what has changed.

There is a LOT of new footage, and major changes from the theatrical version. It's a completely different film. As for the "animosite" toward DC films, I've got no dog in the hunt. I either like a film or I don't, based on its own merits, and I'm just not a fan of Snyder's aesthetic. THIS film has its moments for me, and I particularly like Superman's arc here much better than Whedon's version. Darkseid, however, turned out to be a big disappointment. A two dimensional antagonist at best, he falls flat and comes across as more bumbling than dangerous. He's no Thanos, that's for sure.

In the end, this version of Justice League is still gloomy and ugly, and it needs to be trimmed down by about an hour or so IMO. There's just too much indulgent fat in it. Like @Josh Steinberg said, I'm glad it exists but wish I liked it more than I do.

 

[jayembee]

I really don't understand the anamosite toward these DC films. I am about 1/2 way through watching and find the movie really good. Is it the old DC vs Marvel rivalry? My only mistake was not watching the theatrical cut again first. This would have been a better indication of what has changed.

No, it's not the old DC vs Marvel rivalry. I've been a regular (outside of a few gaps now and then) comics reader since the early 1960s. I read both DC and Marvel (as well as a lot of other publishers). While I generally liked both of them, I had a definite tropism for DC. In fact, there was a fairly long period where I was buying almost all of DC's titles, and very few of Marvels.

In terms of the movies, I have a decided preference for Marvel over DC. Mostly because the Marvel movies portray their characters almost exactly the way they were in the comics as I read them. DC's...not so much. I don't think the DC films have done justice to the characters in the way the Marvel movies have. So it's actually the fact that I'm more of a DC fan that makes me like the DC films less.

I said earlier that I hated Man of Steel, and that's kind of an example of what I mean. I think Zack Snyder is a talented filmmaker, and has a very cinematic eye. MoS has a solid cast, top-notch effects, has excellent frame composition, is paced surprisingly well, all things considered. But it's 2½ hours of misery. The fall of Krypton is misery, Clark's childhood is misery, the battles of Smallville and Metropolis are both exercises in unbridled death and destruction, i.e. misery. There's a scene in the film where Superman is on the Arctic ice-pack, lifts his face up to the sun, absorbing the solar radiation, and launches himself into the sky. That's the only moment of pure joy in the entire film. And I haven't even mentioned the character assassination of Jonathan Kent...

I read a article yesterday (can't recall where; I'd read a bunch) of Snyder's Justice League. It had a good assessment of the differences between the MCU and the DCEU (or, at least, Snyder's corner of it). The Marvel films present their heroes as flawed human beings (even the ones who aren't human beings) with superhuman powers. Snyder's DC films present their heroes as gods. I think that's a legitimate perspective. The problem is that it makes the characters less relatable.

Comics have always re-presented their characters from one generation to the next to match the contemporary zeitgeist. The aura of xenophobia present in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman is, I believe, a valid interpretation of the characters in a post-9/11 world. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I feel obliged to point out that I haven't watch the Snyder Cut yet. I want to watch it in one swell foop, and I need to carve out a four-hour block to do so. Maybe tonight, more likely tomorrow, possibly not until Sunday.

 

[TJPC]

I read every comic that had to do with Superman even ones like "Lois Lane" from middle school through high school. Comics were supposed to be for children only and by the middle of high school I hid my comic addiction. I stopped reading them about 1970. The problem for me today is that the characters continued to develop and authors of different books gave them different characteristics and origin stories unknown to me. Because of this the DC characters act differently then I remember them sometimes and new characters surface that I am unfamiliar with like Cyborg.

 

[TravisR]

I stopped reading them about 1970. The problem for me today is that the characters continued to develop and authors of different books gave them different characteristics and origin stories unknown to me. Because of this the DC characters act differently then I remember them sometimes and new characters surface that I am unfamiliar with like Cyborg.

In that vein, the big reboot of DC Comics continuity (in an effort to modernize their comics) was Crisis On Infinite Earths in the mid-80's but over the last decade, I believe there's been at least one other total overhaul of continuity and other events have also rejiggered the continuity. I imagine that even casual readers of today's DC comics must find it tough to totally keep up.

 

[JimmyO]

In Canada we have a strange situation for subscribers of “Crave TV”, (or perhaps it’s my Rogers ignite cable co, Crave app.) Apparently if I want to watch the movie now, it only streams through the app on my my phone or iPad. If I want the “big screen” experience, I have to wait until 9:00 pm on Saturday and PVR it on one of the ”Crave channels”.
In other words it does not stream, but is scheduled.

Not sure why you are getting that. I am in Toronto with crave (on the web) and I can stream it on demand at any time I like. I just looked again and I can play it right now. No schedule to worry about.

 

[Thomas Newton]

Two characters got introduced that I know nothing about so those that are more comic book savvy, please clue me in.

A newspaper review said that they are Darkseid and Desaad.

Desaad is a torturer and mad scientist who works for Darkseid.

Darkseid is a dictator who rules Apokolips and many other conquered (slave) worlds throughout the DC multiverse. He's constantly looking for the "anti-life equation", something that would let him instantly enslave all other beings in the multiverse. This quest has brought him or his minions to Earth a few times, where usually it falls to Superman, Green Lanterns, or a team such as the Justice League to stop him.

Darkseid has physical strength and invulnerability on a par with Superman – and can fire Omega Beams from his eyes to harm or kill victims, or teleport them in time and space. What makes him really dangerous is that he's a strategic planner, like Bruce Wayne, who also commands huge armies and very high technology.

By the way, mother boxes aren't nearly as scarce as the Justice League movie makes them out to be. They're like smartphones – every New God, and every parademon slave in Darkseid's army has one. The DCU Steppenwolf would not need to go to a lot of trouble to recover a long-lost mother box or two. He'd just grab a couple of new ones out of an armory.

 

[Robert Crawford]

A newspaper review said that they are Darkseid and Desaad.

Desaad is a torturer and mad scientist who works for Darkseid.

Darkseid is a dictator who rules Apokolips and many other conquered (slave) worlds throughout the DC multiverse. He's constantly looking for the "anti-life equation", something that would let him instantly enslave all other beings in the multiverse. This quest has brought him or his minions to Earth a few times, where usually it falls to Superman, Green Lanterns, or a team such as the Justice League to stop him.

Darkseid has physical strength and invulnerability on a par with Superman – and can fire Omega Beams from his eyes to harm or kill victims, or teleport them in time and space. What makes him really dangerous is that he's a strategic planner, like Bruce Wayne, who also commands huge armies and very high technology.

By the way, mother boxes aren't nearly as scarce as the Justice League movie makes them out to be. They're like smartphones – every New God, and every parademon slave in Darkseid's army has one. The DCU Steppenwolf would not need to go to a lot of trouble to recover a long-lost mother box or two. He'd just grab a couple of new ones out of an armory.

Those weren't the guys I was talking about as I got my answer in that 2021 thread.

 

[TJPC]

Not sure why you are getting that. I am in Toronto with crave (on the web) and I can stream it on demand at any time I like. I just looked again and I can play it right now. No schedule to worry about.

You are correct! The first time I looked at it, I had about 5 minutes before we went out to do our weekly shopping. I did not notice that there were 2 choices. One lets you record the movie on the PVR feature of the cable box and one was a direct anytime stream.

I was just hoping no one would notice my mistake, but I can see that you are just too smart for me!
Did I mention I also wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays and my wife and I wrote all his sonnets?

 

[jayembee]

In that vein, the big reboot of DC Comics continuity (in an effort to modernize their comics) was Crisis On Infinite Earths in the mid-80's but over the last decade, I believe there's been at least one other total overhaul of continuity and other events have also rejiggered the continuity. I imagine that even casual readers of today's DC comics must find it tough to totally keep up.

"At least one" is putting it mildly. After Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), there was Zero Hour (1994), The Kingdom (1999), Infinite Crisis (2005), 52 (2006), Final Crisis (2008), Flashpoint/The New 52 (2011), and Rebirth (2016). And it's just happened again. They've just finished their latest reboot, Death Metal, which has segued into Infinite Frontiers.

Crisis wasn't an effort to modernize their comics, though they certainly took advantage of Crisis to do that. The actual purpose of Crisis was to simplify an egregiously convoluted backdrop of multiple universes with multiple versions of various characters that was too confusing to attract new readers. The irony is that Crisis took an infinite multiverse and collapsed it into a single timeline. The others slowly built the multiverse back up bit by bit. Death Metal/Infinite Frontiers has expanded everything back even beyond the multiverse to the Omniverse, where everything that has ever happened in DC Comics for the last 80+ years is all in continuity. The countdown has begun to the next reboot (I'm sure by 2025) that will collapse everything back to simplicity.

What DC doesn't realize is that doing this doesn't attract new readers. Certainly not enough of them to compensate for the ones they lose by monkeying with everything. I constantly come across long time fans who bemoan the fact that they can barely recognize any of the characters any more. Hell, there have been at least six different people who have been Batman's sidekick Robin (two of them female).

 

[Thomas Newton]

Hell, there have been at least six different people who have been Batman's sidekick Robin (two of them female).

There have been at least four people who were Batman – not counting Silver Age vs. Golden Age, etc., or all of the alternate versions of Batman shown in "Game Over for Owlman!"

1. Bruce Wayne
2. Dick Grayson
3. Terry McGuinness (Batman Beyond)
4. Superman (Batman:TAS, when Wayne was missing, and Robin wanted someone to tag along on an unannounced visit to Bane & company).

 

[TonyD]

sorry for his loss, and understand the Whedon is stepping in to finish up. but my question is with a release date 6 months away, how much will this change from Synder's original vision? will there have to be re-shoots, and the whole story dynamic change? Not that this is the Marvel universe, its darker and more serious, and honestly i think i prefer it that way so its different.

so will this lead to two or three different cuts going forward, like the Donner Cut of Superman II? only time will tell

Yes.

 

[TonyD]

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

Dana. Do you have a crystal ball.

 

[dana martin]

I wish, if I did I would have better luck with Mega Millions and Powerball numbers. And that money (at least part of it) would go to film restoration projects that I am interested in.


But i see them doing something like that for a physical release. Done get it over with and move on, now the question is in what aspect ratio will all of this happen. will the primary cast want to come in and do commentaries. is there more BTS from the reshoots.

Will this all lead to an Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad, because apparently WB went in and made changes ( or directed that a different path be taken) after bad reviews and returns from BvS. I think if there was an original "Directors Cut" that was viewed prior to the theatrical release, then yes I could see that as a possibility, with maybe a few minor tweaks to the special effects.

I think, I read that there is a group online now pushing for that.