Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

There are a handful of directors (and writers and actors) who may well be talented but whose work is not for me. Paul Verhoeven is one such director; I’ve seen enough of his movies to know I’m never going to like what he does, so I don’t see his films anymore.
Zack Snyder is on the list. I get that some people like his work, but it’s not for me and I’m never going to really like anything he does. I wanted to like Justice League. I have enjoyed the source material for decades and I love the characters. But I did not, ultimately, enjoy this movie, which I watched in four parts. In fact, thinking about this movie drives me nuts, and I get angry at what could have been.
So, no more Snyder films. They’re just not for me.

 

[jayembee]

If all parties involved could figure out a way to bring costs way, way down, I suppose there’s a possibility, but these movies would exist outside the canon that WB is building, which creates brand confusion and adds extra expense.

DC/WB is building a canon? Seems to me that they've pretty much abandoned that idea. After Justice League (the Whedon Cut), they were at a loss about what to do. The success of Aquaman and Shazam! (and the earlier success of Wonder Woman) showed them that they had a good chance of putting out popular superhero films without having to force-fit them into a cinematic universe. Then along came Joker, which showed them they didn't have to make everything conform to a single vision.

That opened them up to allowing differing versions of characters to appear on film and television at the same time. While I suspect we're not likely to see Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor again, WB seems to understand that Eisenberg's Luthor and Jon Cryer's Luthor (on the Supergirl TV series) can co-exist. It seems to me unnecessary to codify the idea of a multiverse in the upcoming Flash movie, as I think people already get the idea.

 

[jayembee]

Ayers' Suicide Squad is another example of bad choices by Warner. Yes, the Joker is a bad guy, but do we need to see all the sadism? Again, another movie that was not fun.

I agree that Suicide Squad was not fun, but probably not for the same reason as you. I was turned off by the "darkness" of Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice (but not Watchmen or Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, so it's not darkness per se that's the problem), but I was actually looking forward to Suicide Squad, as I thought that was an appropriate property to handle in a dark way. WB's mistake with the film was taking the complaints about BvS too much to heart, and deciding to "lighten up" Suicide Squad (the fact that the best part of the film was Margot Robbie's dementedly comedic Harley is a interesting contradiction).

Though, without seeing an "Ayer Cut" to compare, it's hard to know if keeping its original darker vision would've made a difference. The movie was a hot mess for a number of other reasons. The Extended Version was something of an improvement, but not enough of one to suggest that there was a good movie hiding in there somewhere.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

DC/WB is building a canon? Seems to me that they've pretty much abandoned that idea.

I think we’re basically saying the same thing - WB wanted to keep the elements from Snyder’s films that struck a chord with the audience (like Wonder Woman) but wanted to discard everything else that would limit their future storytelling opportunities, and the work they hired Whedon to do on Justice League divorced the characters from the narrative that Snyder had been creating.

Maybe “canon” wasn’t the right word on my part but the point I wanted to make was that when you look at the “Snyder cut” of JL and compare it to the “official theatrical cut,” all of the charges seem designed to cut and run from Snyder’s vision of the characters. When they were reshooting JL, Affleck was still signed to do a Batman solo film and Cavill was still on board as Superman, etc. I believe that a lot of the changes WB wanted were so that they could have used those actors again but not been stuck with the characterization Snyder used. So in the “official” version, you’ve got a Wonder Woman that’s more connected to humanity and less violent; you’ve got a Batman that’s less dour; you’ve got a resurrected Superman having races with Flash and back in his classic colors. Cyborg got revised from a brooding, depressive super being to a more human characterization who has machine parts but isn’t as much of a machine; Flash became quippier and more of a team mascot that superpowered loner.

I think the overall point of those changes wasn’t so much to salvage the JL film as it was to make the JL film the turning point where suddenly every character was behaving more like the traditional interpretation rather than the more Elseworlds versions that Snyder was going for.

 

[jayembee]

That fanboy insistence on "darker" stories is what, ultimately, drove me away from reading DC comics (and that DC was constantly reinventing the comics as well). While I read, and enjoyed, Frank Miller's darker Batman and Superman tales I don't necessarily want that in the main books. That's what DC has done with the comics and it's bled over into the films. It's a major reason I still consider Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton's Batman films (Nolan's Batman films are passable at best) to be the current definitive versions of those characters. They, unlike any of the films in the past 25 years, are what most people seem to be looking for in those characters. The slate of films they've delivered since Man of Steel are more in line with Miller's vision of the characters - more suitable to "Elseworlds" stories.

Agreed. I love dystopic alternate versions. Not just of comics characters, but for almost any TV show that I've enjoyed (Star Trek's Mirror Universe, and the twisted alternate histories in such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate SG-1). But they should be just that: alternate histories.

I do disagree on one thing, though. I think Batman works as a dark character. I loved the Adam West TV series as a kid, but I just can't watch it anymore. And I'm not a fan of the Burton films (let alone the Schumacher films). I absolutely love Nolan's trilogy, though.

 

[jayembee]

That was the problem with Man of Steel. Cavill's Superman came off as callous, detached, and ultimately unlikable in that film. And then BVS turned him in to a borderline fascist.

I disliked Man of Steel for reasons I've gone over before, and I don't think remaking Superman as a dark character, a la Batman, is a good idea (what makes them work well together is that they're opposites). But I don't see him "callous, detached, and ultimately unlikeable" (well, maybe a bit detached), let alone a borderline fascist. Batman maybe, but Superman, definitely not.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Batman is an interesting case for a darker superhero for at least a couple reasons in my book. The first is his origins; he becomes a vigilante because his parents are senselessly murdered right in front of him as a child. You can tell any kind of Batman story you want, but the core of the character comes from this horrible thing happening to him that is so completely ordinary/real world plausible. It’s so much different than “baby from another world is sent to earth and gets magic powers from the sun” or “normal teenager gets bitten by bug and gets special powers”. It’s not only a dark foundation, but it’s something that could happen to anyone at any time in history. You don’t have to revise his origins to set it in another time period, which isn’t true of all superheroes.

And then the other interesting thing about Batman is that he’s a human character. He has money that he can use to buy influence, access and technology, and he’s got brains he can use to solve crimes, but there’s nothing inherently “super” about him.

Those two foundational elements of the character really open him up for a variety of interpretations in a way that feels more organic to me than it does with a lot of other characters.

What I love about Nolan’s take on Batman (and Man of Steel to a lesser degree, because so much of that film is filtered not through Snyder’s sensibilities but through Nolan’s) is that they imagine how our real world society would react if a real world “plausible impossible” version of those characters showed up. As much as I want to believe that Superman would be warmly embraced like in the Donner films, in a world as polarized as ours is, a flying alien with seemingly infinite powers first revealed to the general public in the context of a world invasion scenario might not be an easy sell to the world’s governments or citizens. And it was interesting to look at it that way, not as “what is the ideal version of Superman” but as “how would the world honestly react if this happened?”

 

[jayembee]

What I love about Nolan’s take on Batman (and Man of Steel to a lesser degree, because so much of that film is filtered not through Snyder’s sensibilities but through Nolan’s) is that they imagine how our real world society would react if a real world “plausible impossible” version of those characters showed up. As much as I want to believe that Superman would be warmly embraced like in the Donner films, in a world as polarized as ours is, a flying alien with seemingly infinite powers first revealed to the general public in the context of a world invasion scenario might not be an easy sell to the world’s governments or citizens. And it was interesting to look at it that way, not as “what is the ideal version of Superman” but as “how would the world honestly react if this happened?”

Even as I've continued to opine my disdain for Man of Steel, I've always said that I've considered it a valid interpretation. Every hero in the culture of humankind (comic book or literary) gets reimagined with each generation in a way that reflects the zeitgeist of the that generation. Man of Steel is an interpretation of Superman in a post-9/11 world. That's fine. I don't have to like that interpretation to acknowledge its validity.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m a very schizophrenic Man of Steel viewer - sometimes I watch it and I’m so totally on board with it, and other times it’s like “nope, no, no, no, nope!” - I can’t think of another movie where my own reaction varies so much from time to time even though nothing in it is a mystery anymore.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m a very schizophrenic Man of Steel viewer - sometimes I watch it and I’m so totally on board with it, and other times it’s like “nope, no, no, no, nope!” - I can’t think of another movie where my own reaction varies so much from time to time even though nothing in it is a mystery anymore.

On further reflection, that’s pretty much my reaction to all of the Snyder films I rewatch. I’m either totally onboard in the first few minutes or it doesn’t click at all. Just about any other movie I’ve previously liked, I’ll get into it eventually during a rewatch. Snyder is one of the few filmmakers where I’ll actually turn it off after a few minutes if it’s not clicking and try again another day.

Man of Steel worked for me last night. Fingers crossed on BvS for tonight.

 

[JimmyO]

On further reflection, that’s pretty much my reaction to all of the Snyder films I rewatch. I’m either totally onboard in the first few minutes or it doesn’t click at all. Just about any other movie I’ve previously liked, I’ll get into it eventually during a rewatch. Snyder is one of the few filmmakers where I’ll actually turn it off after a few minutes if it’s not clicking and try again another day.

Man of Steel worked for me last night. Fingers crossed on BvS for tonight.

And how did it go last night @Josh Steinberg ?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I had a fun time watching it. It’s well cast, the production values are all there, Snyder excels at tone and atmosphere. As long as I just go with it and don’t allow that little “but, but, but...” voice in the back of my head to begin speaking up, it’s all good. It’s not the movie I would have made but I dug it.

I love Hans Zimmer’s piano theme for Superman. Creating a new theme for Supes after John Williams could have been a thankless task, but Zimmer’s work is really beautiful.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I had my second viewing of Zack Snyder’s Justice League last night.

My thoughts remain about the same: the stuff I liked, I still liked, and the stuff that I was less wowed with remain the same.

My biggest issue remains the villains and the pacing.

The villains just aren’t that compelling, though they’re at least given a tiny bit of characterization here compared to the theatrical version. We get very little on what makes Steppenwolf tick, and even less for DeSaad and Darkseid. (As a side note, I have always thought that DC’s naming/spelling of their cosmic villains is just dumb and that only grows with age.) Marvel has done this a lot better in their films; Loki is a phenomenally entertaining villain, and Thanos had relatable motivations and real presence. I get almost nothing from the trio here.

The pacing still feels off to me - it feels clear enough that this wasn’t written or shot to run four hours. It feels almost like an assembly cut in that it’s got all of the redundancies you’d write and shoot to give the editor all of the coverage needed to put it all together with all of the bases covered to ensure everything is clear to an audience, and that they put all of the footage together without doing the fine tuning. There isn’t really a scene or sequence that I’d remove wholesale. It’s more of a matter of there being redundant information within the same scene. There are lots of instances where a character might offer the same bit of exposition two or three times within the same speech, that sort of thing. Or scenes where little flourishes get extended beyond what’s needed. The rhythm of the film doesn’t match that of the extended BvS or Man of Steel. I think it could use some very minor trimming that might pull half an hour out of the film but would make it feel like it was moving better. It’s things like the people in Aquaman’s village singing for five minutes as he jumps into the ocean; that’s the kind of thing where typically you film the whole performance and just use a few seconds. It’s things like Flash in the finale first explaining out loud (to no one in particular) that he had to run faster than ever to go back in time, and then starting to run and offering the same explanation a few seconds later; typically you might overshoot that on set to give flexibility for editing and effects, but not with the intention of using every bit.

It’s clearly not a two hour movie, but I’m not convinced it’s a four hour one either.

My favorite part of the film is the newly shot Knightmare epilogue. It’s paced properly, it’s appropriately bleak, and it also just feels like something I’ve never really seen onscreen with these characters. It almost feels like that’s the movie everyone wanted to make, and all of the other stuff in the movie was just the film they had to get out of the way to get to the story they really wanted to tell. And that’s a shame. I want to see the movie with Batman at the end of the world, stuck with the Joker by his side as his only means to undo everything that went wrong. Now that’s an exciting premise. In just five minutes, Leto’s Joker is more interesting than the previous four hours of Steppenwolf. Affleck and Leto are great and I wish HBO Max would throw some money towards them having a proper film together.

 

[dpippel]

Those black bars are FREE darkness, baby...

 

[JoeStemme]

Even Zach cut this scene from his Snyder Cut!

 

[TonyD]

I don’t get it.

 

[ChrisOC]

That fanboy insistence on "darker" stories is what, ultimately, drove me away from reading DC comics (and that DC was constantly reinventing the comics as well). While I read, and enjoyed, Frank Miller's darker Batman and Superman tales I don't necessarily want that in the main books. That's what DC has done with the comics and it's bled over into the films. It's a major reason I still consider Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton's Batman films (Nolan's Batman films are passable at best) to be the current definitive versions of those characters. They, unlike any of the films in the past 25 years, are what most people seem to be looking for in those characters. The slate of films they've delivered since Man of Steel are more in line with Miller's vision of the characters - more suitable to "Elseworlds" stories.

I hear what you're saying, but I think DC's dilemma has been trying to have films that don't look or feel like MCU films. I like the darker stories from Nolan and Snyder which, ironically, are more realistic than the usual superhero fare. Even the new Wonder Woman films manage that, if you put aside the weird notion of setting the second in 1984. I never cared for Burton's Batman films, which I wouldn't recommend for kids, and Donner's Superman, while fine for kids, has no real weight.

 

[jayembee]

The villains just aren’t that compelling, though they’re at least given a tiny bit of characterization here compared to the theatrical version. We get very little on what makes Steppenwolf tick, and even less for DeSaad and Darkseid. (As a side note, I have always thought that DC’s naming/spelling of their cosmic villains is just dumb and that only grows with age.) Marvel has done this a lot better in their films; Loki is a phenomenally entertaining villain, and Thanos had relatable motivations and real presence. I get almost nothing from the trio here.

You can blame Jack Kirby for that. Trust me, these three are among the better ones.

 

[Malcolm R]

"Where Flash's super speed gets the same (slo-mo) treatment as Lois Lane setting down her coffee cup."

"Mother box."

 

[Detour (1945)]

You can blame Jack Kirby for that. Trust me, these three are among the better ones.

Are you trying to say the world isn't clamoring for a big screen version of Granny Goodness?