Justice League official "Zack Snyder" cut on HBO Max

Snyder's characters are the DC characters in name only, but I found the Apokolips Batman scenes quite interesting. It felt like it was pieces of something larger in Snyder's mind; Batman responsible for making Superman go rouge, Earth has become Apokolips 2.0. I'm guessing the new scene with the JLA and the Joker was before Batman was captured by the Parademons and held by the soldiers of Superman in BvS. Its the best addition to the movie IMO and I think the WB should greenlight Snyder to make more of these alternate universe things.

 

If they can afford to film a movie twice over and splash down $70 million to complete a 4 hour cut they didn't want then they might be able to find a few coins down the back of the sofa to do more.

 

There's no such thing.

 

The joker said something about multiple time lines. The Beavis future hellscape and the Synder cut future hellscape are different timeliness.

Timeline 1, Clark is rageful and Lois is not there to calm him down and bring his mind back. The Supermanless Justice League loses and the motherboxes achieve unity opening a space bridge and the Apocolipitican army walked to America. The Flash goes back in time to Batman v Superman and tells young Bruce that "Lois Lane is the Key"

Timeline 2. Lois Lane is coaxed to be present as Clark is resurrected. In the original theatrical cut, she was Bruce's "secret weapon", and Alfred Chauffeured her to the battle zone. In this cut, she just wanders into the fight and saves the day, but Its possible that Bruce manipulated her to be there where they needed her, and they just left it vague. Superman joins the final battle, they still lose, the mother boxes achieve unity, and Darksied conquers the planet. Seconds after all is lost, Barry goes back in time to stop unity.

Timeline 3, Barry stops unity, Darksied can't come to Earth by space Bridge so he guns his fleet, arrives a year or two later by ship, conquers the planet and brainwashes Superman. The key difference to the cursed earth from Timeline 1 and three is that Victor survived, and Bruce has some super powered allies rather than just sand weasels with ak47s.

Also...

Someone here said something about how the Joker killed Lois Lane in Timeline 3, which is apocryphillia I can't source.

 

That's really interesting. I've never heard of Robert Bly, but according to Wikipedia he was a leader in the "mythopoetic men's movement" of the 1980s and 1990s. In reading the summary, they honestly seem like they were diet misogynists -- they don't outright condemn feminism, but they have this notion that being around women more than men somehow damages masculinity and makes men too feminine, and that feminism dilutes men's voices.

I don't want to overstate this, because from looking at that article and at the entry for Bly himself, they weren't like the modern Incel or "Men's Rights" movements -- Bly was anti-Vietnam, he organized conferences to celebrate the archetype of the Great Mother, the mythopoetics did leave room for the validity of the idea that women are oppressed and feminism is a valid response to that oppression. But still, these ideas about women as damaging to men in some way -- and the gender essentialism it's based on, which strikes me as something that would inevitably lead to becoming transphobic if this system of thought were to even acknowledge the existence of transgender people -- do strike me as being a form of misogyny.

This does seem consistent with Synder's presentation of Superman's world, wherein the only women are not exactly objects to be fought over, but also don't exactly have full agency independent of their relationships to men.

This ties into something I realized last night. A few things that struck me in re-watching Batman v. Superman last night about the role of women in Snyder's work:

• Bruce's vision of a nightmare world in which Superman reigns as a fascist leader under the implied paramountcy of Darkseid
• The Flash's prophecy: "Lois Lane is the key! You were right about him [Clark]!"
• Snyder saying that even before he left the film, he had wanted to do (but was prevented by Warner Bros. from doing) a storyline in Justice League wherein Bruce and Lois have fallen in love and gotten together, but Bruce faces a "dilemma" when Clark is resurrected over whether or not "give her back." This of course opens the question of why he's treating Lois as an object to be given from one man to another, and of why there would be any more of a "dilemma" than if Lois had simply broken up with Clark and chosen to date Bruce instead.
• The entire "Superman comes back wrong"/"Superman-in-black" thing from the Snyder version of Justice League
• Jonathan Kent's ghost scene in Batman v. Superman is essentially all about this idea that it is futile for men to try to be good, and that only the love of a woman makes the idea of goodness attainable or desirable
• Clark refers to himself as alienated from the world after the Capitol bombing and runs away. Then at the end, evoking his father, he declares that Lois is "his world" and sacrifices himself specifically to save her.

So it seems to me that in Snyder's ideal world, the storyline would have been that Bruce and Lois have begun dating during Clark's death. Clark comes back, Lois does not immediately dump Bruce and start dating Clark again, and Clark has somehow gone bad/wrong. The dystopian vision Bruce had comes true, until the Flash is sent back in time to tell Past!Bruce that Lois is the key to keeping Clark from going fashy. Bruce reluctantly "gives" Lois back to Clark, and Clark's love for Lois redeems him.

That's... well, there's a hell of a lot to unpack there. There's the casual sexism of treating women as something men "give" to one-another as though they don't have their own agency. But even beyond that, there's this deeply misanthropic and misogynistic notion underlying that storyline, introduced by the Ghost of Jonathan Kent in BvS and reinforced by the mechanics of the plot, that goodness is futile and men will naturally embrace nihilistic violence without a woman's affection. And there's this notion that Lois Lane is literally the only thing keeping Superman from becoming a genocidal dictator.

This is the kind of storyline a guy with some deeply problematic and toxic views on human empathy, violence, and how men and women relate to one-another, creates. This is a plotline that, consciously or subconsciously, represents a bias towards fascistic, misogynistic beliefs about the world.

All this is, of course, fully consistent with Snyder's prior depiction of Lois, Martha Kent, and Martha Wayne as objects who exist to provide Clark and Bruce with motivation rather than as independent moral agents in their own right. In BvS, the only woman who has an emotional life of her own outside of a man is Diana; Snyder mostly presents women as, to paraphrase Paulo Frierie, "beings-for-others."

I would be onboard with that interpretation -- that the Kents aren't a perfect emblem of Small Town Common Sense Morality, that they're totally overwhelmed and don't always know the right thing to do -- if they weren't literally advocating for innocent people to die and for Clark to abandon the idea of having a moral responsibility towards other people. I'm sorry, but that crosses a line from being "dang, they're really overwhelmed but they love their son" to outright immoral. You've literally got the Ghost of Jonathan Kent arguing that it's futile to try to be good in the world (unless a woman loves you) and Martha Kent saying Clark has no moral obligation to help anyone but himself, and then you've got, as I noted above, this idea that Clark doesn't care about the world, only Lois -- the end result is a toxic and immoral message, that says that nobody has any obligations to anyone outside their loved ones and the world can go hang. It's pretty sick.

I mean, that's great, but Superman was not designed to be psychologically realistic. He was designed by Siegel and Shuster to be a children's moral power fantasy. Turning him into a sullen, alienated dude who doesn't really care about the world, is only motivated by the love of one person, and is honestly kind of resentful of the people he's helping for needing to be saved? It's gross.

And he vacillates between talking about how "different" Clark is and then talking about how Clark has a destiny to change the world. The idea that Jonathan views Clark as superior is the clear implication of the combination of talking about how he's different and how he's got a destiny to change the world.

This is an incredibly misanthropic, nihilistic view that opens the door towards intellectually justifying abusive behavior and ideological justifications for fascism. It is a completely inappropriate message for a Superman movie with a large children's audience to endorse.

This is starting to veer off-topic, but I'm just going to say this: You are absolutely right to cite all of the abuses of Donald Trump and to point out that these abuses demonstrate that there's something majorly wrong with an unacceptably large percentage of the population. BUT. The simple, unavoidable fact is that Donald Trump never had the support of a majority of the American people. Ever. Not once. The American people rejected Donald Trump in 2016, and the only reason he got into the White House was that an anti-democratic relic of our government, the Electoral College, put him into power against the will of the people. At no point in his presidency did Donald Trump enjoy the support of more than 50% of the population. And a great many of the abuses he committed in power were either the direct consequences of, or were indirectly enabled by, other anti-democratic/counter-majoritarian features of the U.S. Constitution as it presently exists.

If we lived in a society that trusted the people and that practiced real democracy, Donald Trump would never have won the White House. In fact, if the Republican Party primaries had used a more democratic electoral method like ranked-choice voting instead of first-past-the-post, Trump would probably have never won the nomination in the first place.

And again: the very idea that the people are a mob that cannot be trusted is the origin of fascism. Trump is a prime example: He and his followers do not believe that black people, Latino people, or Asian people can be trusted -- individuals may be trustworthy but those populations as collectives are framed as dangerous threats rather than as equals with whom solidarity is possible. And mentally painting huge populations as untrustworthy is what opens the psychological door to dehumanizing them and abusing them -- of framing them as "others" against your in-group. And that opens the door to fascism.

It's not a tough question. You save the kids. Treating the option of letting a bus of children drown as valid is deeply immoral.

Which is intellectually incoherent, since really the only life whose needs might hypothetically be damaged is Clark's and his family's. Saying that Clark should let a bus full of kids die to protect him, Jonathan, and Martha is actually arguing that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many to survive.

I really don't think finding out aliens exist would be this big social revolution. I'd love to imagine that the Star Trek view, that it would be revolutionary and inspire humanity to solve all its major problems, would be true, but I don't think it is. But I also don't think the idea that it would cause riots in the streets or major social unrest is true, either -- we've been telling stories about aliens for over a hundred years now. The concept is familiar to the overwhelming majority of the population; this is not something that would be a huge shock.

And heck, the history of intercultural first contacts is full of cultures that initially viewed one-another as non-human. That didn't necessarily cause those cultures to undergo major unrest or damage. (Colonialism did, but that's not the same as merely having contact.)

I don't know how else to interpret that permanently sullen look on his face throughout the flashbacks, or his periodic acting-out and passive-aggression.

Anyone with a sense of moral decency.

I don't think that's a fair comparison, because Superman: The Movie does not depict Young Clark as being in a position to provide emergency assistance. Smallville is presented as a world where nothing serious ever goes wrong until Jonathan's heart attack, and Young Clark sets off into the world specifically to seek out emergencies where he can help.

I do agree that Man of Steel's Present-Day Clark is a great deal more empathetic and less anti-social than his flashback selves.

People are more than capable of helping folks and then building up resentments around it.

Oh, c'mon. I literally gave Man of Steel a B+. I liked it. But analyzing why a work of art fails, and analyzing the moral and real-world implications of the ideas that drive a story, is a perfectly fair way of evaluating art and its impact on the world.

Which would be great, except at no point does Man of Steel or Batman v. Superman present Martha as undergoing a shift in perspective as a result of Zod's arrival or realizing Clark's potential mortality.

He seems pretty fucking resentful during his entire saving-people montage. He's pissed he's being attacked, but he's also pretty pissed when people thank him.

When people are dying around him in the Capitol, he just stands there with a sullen look on his face instead of immediately setting about the process of rescuing the survivors or trying to reassure the public outside.

Instead, he runs off to Lois and declares: All this time, I've been living my life the way my father saw it. Righting wrongs for a ghost. Thinking I'm here to do good. Superman was never real. Just the dream of a farmer from Kansas." When Lois replies that that dream gives people hope and the icon of Superman means something, Clark replies, "It did on my world. My world doesn't exist anymore."

I'm sorry, but this dude is a sullen, resentful guy who doesn't really want to help the world (or else he wouldn't be doing it to appease his dead father) and resents Earth for not being Krypton.

(Re: "My world doesn't exist anymore." Recall again Clark's subsequent declaration that Lois is his world, and Ghost!Jonathan's declaration that doing good is futile and only a woman's love makes life worth living, and the foreshadowing from Future!Flash that Lois was the key to stopping Bruce's vision of Superman-as-dictator, and Snyder's avowed desire to do a storyline where Bruce has fallen for Lois but has to "give" her back when Clark returns, and we have, again, the setup for a deeply messed-up story about women only existing to prevent men from turning into nihilistic monsters.)

No, he absolutely does. That's Randian bullshit. What makes him Superman is that he recognizes his moral obligation and is happy to pay it. He recognizes an obligation and it is his desire to pay it. Whereas Snyder!Superman resents the whole thing.

Sure! But never at the expense of other people's lives.

I absolutely cannot stand that movie, precisely for that reason.

But also The Incredibles is 16 years old and will turn 17 in November. A child born the day that movie was released is old enough to have a driver's license. I think that might have something to do with why it hasn't gotten as much attention recently as Snyder's work.

 

Post life John Kent?

Ghosts are real in the DCU... But so are shape shifting Martians.

 

I think I've spotted at least two instances of Justice League using old footage for a new purpose. Both times it's Superman, so I'm thinking maybe Cavill was unavailable for the reshoot?

When we see Darkseid lay his hand on Superman's shoulder, it appears to be flipped footage from the end of Man of Steel when Clark screams and cries after killing Zod. Or an alternate take maybe. But it sure looks similar in my mind.

Second is the shot of Evil Superman turning up right at the end of the Knightmare epilogue. When he stands up into frame, that is absolutely the shot from BvS when he comes to save Lois from the warlord. You can even see his BvS hairline, which was noticeably further back in that film than the other two.

Now I'm off to try and find screenshots that prove me right...or horribly embarrass me.

Edit: Okay, so alternate take at the very least for one close up but the other is seemingly the same footage.



But also this one...

 

Pretty sure the anti-life equation has something to do with it also.

 

Is he a dictator or is he an attack dog?

Antilife would turn Clark into a simp, not a Hitler.

Are Parademons Bugs?

I looked it up, and it says that Darkseid converts every one into a Parademon. But New Genesis Shocktroops are 95 percent Bugs.

Bugs ain't gods.

Genetically engineered slave race.

Slavery under the New Gods of new Genesis, or antilife and parademon conversion from the New Gods of Apocaplips?

Not much of a choice.

I read a 90s comic, where the bugs claimed that the New Gods were responsible for several genocides, since the Bugs were breeding out of control during the era of peace between New Genesis and Apocolips.

 

If so, it's not something that Snyder spent a lot of time laying the groundwork for the way he did this idea of Lois as the only thing that keeps Superman connected to humanity.

 

It was mentioned three times.

Lastly... "Shit, no space bridge. Shheesh. I suppose we have ships. Fuck, someone gas up the fleet, we are going to Earth to get the Anti-life Equation. Fuck... I think me drivers license expired. fuck."

 

I think the reason he didn't come back for additional photography might have something to do with his contractual appearances as Superman. The same reason he didn't return in 'Shazam'. I guess he's contracted for one more appearance and he's holding out for something bigger like showing up in 'Black Adam'.

 

I think they already stated that he was too busy on the Witcher for the reshoots

 

Ann Sarnoff, CEO of WB, said in a variety interview that there won't be any sequel to Zack's Justice League. There will be no Ayer cut of Suicide Squad and they prefer to appeal to a broader group of fans than Snyder fans.

 

That's WB's loss, since there was an incredible groundswell of fans that made the Snyder Cut possible. I doubt any non-Snyder DC film going forward will ever have that kind of support for director's editions.

 

Well it looks like we need to get rid of this Ann person then. Or persuade the AT&T overlords

 

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/...cide-squad-ray-fisher-warnermedia-1234935580/

Interview gives a very definitive 'NO' to an Ayer cut. :-(