Justice League official "Zack Snyder" cut on HBO Max

A nightmare of their own creation, though.

WB wanted a Marvel tone, they were going to get that regardless, agreed? They were in charge and that's what they wanted, one way or another, and they wanted it FAST. They went to (essentially) the source in Whedon but anybody else would have had the same marching orders. Sure, it wouldn't have been the same movie as Whedon's (this goes without saying) but the chances are still huge that it would have completely failed. The tonal shift they wanted would never have worked with what Synder had already done. There was zero chance this could have been salvaged with what WB wanted and how quickly they wanted it.

Delaying and letting Snyder was really the only option and that wasn't even a consideration. Too many Christmas bonuses on the line for that.

 

What's most interesting to me here are Terrio's defenses of his work on Batman v. Superman. It's interesting to hear that in some ways, he fought to make it less nihilistic than it already was -- someone Terrio doesn't name wanted Batman to still be branding people at the end, and Terrio fought against that, for instance. Terrior's primary creative focus seems to have been in Batman's character arc, which was admittedly one of the stronger parts of that film. (Even there, though, Terrio did not do enough work to justify Bruce's instant 180-degree-change from hating Superman to accepting Clark as a friend and equal, all over the mere coincidence of thir mothers having the same name. It almost, but does not quite, work.)

In other areas, I think there's just a fundamental disconnect between the kind of film Terrio wanted to write and the kind of film a Superman movie ought to be -- it's all well and good to say that you want to deconstruct Superman by making a comparison between the long-term consequences of his actions in Nairomi (Nairomi???) and those of U.S. imperialism on formerly colonized nations, but 1) this is based on creative conceits that are more appropriate for an adult film than a children's hero character, and 2) this attempt at deconstruction still does not actually have any payoff or reveal any deeper truths. There is, for instance, no indication that Clark in the expanded cut of BvS has a personal realization that he was being kind of racist in his actions in Nairomi -- the attempt at doing an "adult" version of Superman fails on its own terms because Clark at no point evinces the kind of maturity or self-realization an adult in his circumstances ought to have. (Also, revealing that the events of Nairomi were the result of Luthor's manipulation severely undermines the entire attempted comparison of Superman's intervention to U.S. imperialism.)

I really do appreciate Terrio's remarks about wanting to do a version of Justice League where the characters are more emotionally three-dimensional, where there's a sense of love and purpose and redemption. If that's the case, then the Snyder cut of Terrio's script might be genuinely less nihilistic than BvS and than most of Snyder's other films. I'll probably find out this weekend.

Setting aside the apparent fact that Whedon is an abusive piece of shit and that he apparently feels way too threatened when a black man disagrees with him:

I think Whedon's creative sensibilities were such that the 2017 edit was never not going to be a Frankenstein's monster patchwork. Whedon was never not going to try to reconceive of the entire project from the ground up, because he as an artist (insert predictable "Whedon's not a real artist" replies here) probably never supported the original Terrio/Snyder vision. The only way to avoid this would have been to hire someone who did not have a strong creative vision of their own and would be willing to just try to re-create Snyder's vision.

But that was itself never going to happen, because Warner Bros. execs had lost faith in Snyder's creative decision-making even before he left the project as a result of the failure of Batman v. Superman; they were essentially already trying to get Snyder himself to chance his creative vision in the middle of production, which is not itself a good decision either. (Not that hiring Snyder was itself a good creative decision in the first place. His perversion of Alan Moore's thematic concerns in Watchmen should have precluded him from adapting anything other than an Ayn Rand melodrama.)

Basically, the metaphorical ocean liner was going the wrong way, they tried to change course too fast, and instead the ship hit an iceberg.

 

Finally sat down and watched it. Overall I do like that Darkseid was put back into the story; but overall yes it was too long and Snyder really needs to learn editing down scenes isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Also WTF is up with cropping it into a 4x3 video format. The excuse that this somehow preserves "Snyder's vision" is either bullshit, or Snyder really has lost it.

Overall yes I think it's better than the theatrical release; but it still could have lost another hour and I think have been okay. Steppenwolf constantly phoning Apokolips every 15 minutes got ridiculous.

Also I am sorry but the idea that Darkseid couldn't recall that the one planet he left the anti-life equation inscribed on was the one planet that sent himself and his troops packing back to Apokolips 5,000 years earlier (not to mention the fact that he was nearly mortally wounded in the fight) was ridiculous as well. Given Darkseid's ego I don't think Earth is a planet he would soon forget.

 

Being pedantic, I don't think it was cropped to 4:3, rather it was the widescreen that was cropped. As to whether or not that was a successful artistic decision, I'm not so sure.

 

If Snyder didn't understand that Warner Bros had no intention of releasing a summer blockbuster in 4:3 someone was negligent, willfully obtuse or just stupidly vain.

 

It was going to be cropped for the theratical release. Snyder knew this.

 

I don't think he ever had any expectation of releasing it theatrically in this aspect ratio, but when he won carte blanche to realize his "vision" via HBO Max, he was able to indulge a notion that larger-than-life heroes are best visualized in a vertical frame. Because tall, or something.

 

Square is how it was shot.

It would have taken time and money to turn it into a rectangle.

"You can have it now, or you can give me another 15 million dollars, and wait a year."

 

It was 4:3 mainly for IMAX cinemas. That and he thought the more vertical look would help in the action scenes

 

Well, Kubrik envisioned almost all of his films in 4:3 or 1.66 (or similar).

KUBRICK AND HIS RATIOS

 

Sounds implausible.

 

Come on now. You know better than to bully people here.

 

...yes, but people obsessed with this man regarding characters that do not belong to them will find anything to bitch about, no matter how incorrect they are in that go-nowhere campaign.

 

The only way WB would get a Marvel tone is by getting someone from the Marvel films--specifically, Marvel's team movies for their team films. This was all calculated, with WB knowing they could not wipe away Snyder's then-unfinished vision unless they--in heavy handed fashion--hired Whedon. WB was not going to take a chance with a random director to clone the MCU with so much money and expectation involved. The end result was WB was utterly wrongheaded in trying to move the films away from what Snyder established, only to get a quip-battered, nonsensical film failing to continue to build on everything set up by Snyder.

Well, they certainly paid a price for that, and the entire journey from the massive level of fan interest, to the release of the Snyder Cut stands as a monument to just how foolish WB was with their Whedon experiment.

 

Maybe I'm not remembering everything accurately, but I didn't come away thinking he knew the ALE was on Earth. He came to conquer, but the Federation fended him off, nearly killing him in the process.
Please don't make me watch it over...

 

Sat down and started the Snyder Cut tonight. Here are my reactions as I was watching:

• The very first thing that appears is a note from HBO Max saying that the film will be presented in a certain aspect ratio “to preserve Zack Snyder’s creative vision.” Between that and the formal title of this version of Justice League being Zack Snyder’s Justice League, I gotta say this feels a little cult-of-personality-ish
• Unlike the 2017 cut, the 2021 cut opens with a CGI-ful slow-motion flashback to Superman’s death from Batman v. Superman. The color palette immediately turns dark and brownish. Less than ten seconds in and I already don’t agree with this creative choice
• Immediately after Superman’s death, we switch to Victor and the Motherbox activating. So this is already very different -- no Batman capturing a Parademon, no cover of “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen (which was, admittedly, the greatest thing about the 2017 cut)
• Why does Victor’s dad have a Motherbox?
• And now we see Lex Luthor being visited by Steppenwolf, plugging a minor plot hole from BvS
• The Atlantean and Amazon Motherboxes also active immediately upon Superman’s death. This seems a little sudden.
• Everything is muddy grey on Themyscira and oh my God I hate this color palette so much. It’s like Snyder has doubled down on rival studio Marvel’s biggest perennial mistake (as noted by YouTube film critic and video essayist Patrick H. Willems) of making every scene look like it takes place in a rainy parking lot.
• On the one hand it seems a little arbitrary that the Motherboxes would immediately activate upon Superman’s death. On the other hand, it’s not like it wasn’t arbitrary that they activated a few months later in the 2017 cut. And this at least creates a sense of a ticking clock, a sense of crisis.
• Cut to some muddied shots of a mountain and Bruce overlooking the Nordic village. He has come to search for Aquaman. This feels similar to the 2017 cut but more pretentious
• “Part One.” Oh God this thing really is four hours long, isn’t it? Jesus.
• “He says he climbed over the mountain.” “Impossible.” Ugh, Snyder’s back on his Randian superior-man bullshit.
• This scene is almost identical to its corresponding scene from the 2017 cut, but the music, color grading, and editing make its tone very different. Snyder is going for dramatic and edgy, but it comes across just as a lot more ponderous and pretentious. The reason this attempt at heightened drama and tension doesn't work well is that, as my girlfriend put it, “Fundamentally this scene is about Batman talking to a mermaid.”
• The ponderous tone actually obscures Jason Mamoa’s charisma compared to the 2017 cut.
• “I don’t owe anyone anything.” More Ayn Rand bullshit.
• So this whole village just knows Bruce Wayne’s secret identity now? Okay. Sure, why not?
• Random blonde Nordic women singing. This is not as dramatically effective as Snyder wants it to be.
• Jeremy Irons is reasonably charming as Alfred again
• Lois Lane, leaving a coffee shop in slow-motion to another needle-drop, in a grey and washed-out mis-en-scene. Setting aside how much I hate this color palette, this is Zack Snyder being self-indulgent. It’s the arbitrary slow-mo shots that push it over the edge.
• The bombers scene is set up by the score as being much more ominous than in the 2017 cut. We’re supposed to feel disturbed and scared. This is a subjective thing, but I do prefer the way the tone was handled in the 2017 cut -- as “superheroes-stopping-crimes-is-exciting-and-fun!” rather than “more-violence-in-a-nihilistic-loveless-world-because-humanity-is-depraved.”
• The corollary to “humanity-is-depraved,” of course, is, “That’s why they need a strong führer leader to inspire them.” This speaks to the implicit fascism that grows out of the ideas that Snyder’s films are built on. He’s not conscious of it, but it’s the logical conclusion of the version of the world he presents.
• The bombers’ motivations aren’t fundamentally different here, though their dialogue is less stylized than in the 2017 cut. I assume the bits about “holy fire” or whatever were Whedon’s additions.
• Okay, so it turns out the upskirt shot in the bombing sequence is Snyder’s fault, not Whedon’s?
• Wonder Woman’s intervention is genuinely less fun and her violence less fantastical and a bit more disturbing in this version. I don’t like her killing the terrorists, though of course Snyder has always been all-in on murdering goons. The pacing is also too slow.
• I do like seeing Diana comfort the schoolkids after killing the bad guy, though the “you can be anything you want to be” is a little on-the-nose.
• Okay, so it looks like the Amazon bikini thing is a Zack Snyder decision instead of a Whedon decision? That… well, this is the guy who made Sucker Punch, so that tracks.
• The re-designed Steppenwolf! So much more edgy! Literally, more sharp edges!
• Steppenwolf’s dialogue is different but not meaningfully so.
• The violence is a little more graphic. Not terrible yet but not the tone I would go for.
• Slow-mo on the Amazons in bikinis sealing the cavern. Snyder’s camera is objectifying them… I can’t say more or less, but differently, from the 2017 cut.
• The cavern collapses. Well, okay. I don’t really think this adds much to the sequence except a sense of tragedy that goes nowhere and does nothing.
• Sweet Zombie Jesus could someone please turn up the brightness on this thing? Visually it’s a gray and ugly mess.
• The bit where Steppenwolf grunts, flexes, and all the arrows on his torso break? I’m sorry but that felt like something out of a Rob Liefeld comic. And I mean that in the worst possible way.
• “The Great Darkness” rambling vs. “After the Unity, you will love me?” Well, the latter establishes slightly-clearer stakes (Steppenwolf’s victory means the end of free will) but is implicitly rape-y, whereas the former is just generic. Not sure how to weigh the two.
• “Part Two.” Pretentious.
• I’m surprised that Steppenwolf goes to a Russian nuclear power plant in this version, too. Since the Russian family was a Whedon addition, I assumed the overall setting was as well.
• Steppenwolf was trying to redeem himself in Darkseid's eyes in the 2017 cut as well, but I think it's a little more clear in this cut.
• Aboard Bruce’s jet. You can barely see Alfred. Please, God, someone turn up the brightness. This feels like “The Long Night” from Game of Thrones.
• Seriously, I can only assume that Zack Snyder resents the invention of the electric lightbulb and color photography. Like, I keep hoping that this is some sort of artsy thing where it will get brighter and the color palette less oppressive as the film goes on and the good guys beat the bad guys, but I have no such faith in his artistic ability.
• The score has a level of pretentiousness that matches that of BvS. That makes sense, since ZSJL’s composer is Thomas Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, who composed the BvS score alongside Hans Zimmer. Holkenborg doesn’t have Zimmer’s ear for memorable leitmotifs, though.
• Diana is still dressing like she’s about to go clubbing in a music video directed by a cishet dude while she’s working at an art restoration studio, so apparently that too was a Snyder decision rather than a Whedon decision.
• Okay, Victor’s dad stole the Motherbox before the movie started. That makes sense.
• Ominous-Kryptonian-leitmotiff comes back as we see the Kryptonian ship again. I love that theme even if I wish it was more explicitly based on Zod rather than Kryptonians in general.
• Ray Fisher is absolutely right to say that Victor’s literary precursor is more Frankenstein’s Monster than Quasimodo. “You know about monsters. How to make them.”
• Diana travelling to Greece to investigate the warning flame… I am not convinced this scene is necessary at all.
• The ancient Greek-style art explaining the Motherboxes and Darkseid is cool but is an example of the film lacking a sense of storytelling economy.
• Again, Aquaman-as-frat-boy just doesn’t work as well in the more ponderous tone Snyder establishes. There’s a sense of playfulness that Mamoa brings in the 2017 cut that’s obscured here.
• The arbitrary slow-mo and needle drop as Arthur just sort of… walks… is baffling. Yet again, there’s a sense of a director who’s lost a sense of pacing and storytelling economy.
• Willem Defoe! He’s just delivering exposition here but I always love to watch him.
• Okay, so Snyder gives us more of an explanation for why Arthur decided to investigate the safety of the Atlantean Motherbox than the 2017 cut did. The corrupt king trying to cover up Steppenwolf’s intervention.
• Oh, okay, so we see another variation on “we must take away humanity’s free will” motivation for Steppenwolf. Well, it’s less rapey than in the 2017 edit, so fine.
• DaSaad was unnecessary.
• Diana meeting Bruce in his cave. Gratuitous ass shot. So I guess that’s a Snyder decision too.
• Snyder gives us an explanation for the Bat-plane that we don’t get in the 2017 cut.
• They’re leaning into this concept of multiple universes in this cut. Guess everyone’s got multiverse fever.
• And we see Darkseid leading the ancient invasion instead of Steppenwolf. I’m not convinced that adding Darkseid as a visible character to this flashback rather than having it be Steppenwolf adds anything meaningful. It feels creatively arbitrary.
• We are an hour into this damn thing and Steppenwolf has still only captured one Motherbox.
• The explicit reference to the Unity of the Motheroxes as terraforming Earth feels a little too reminiscent of the Kryptonian World Ship in MoS.
• More blood than I would prefer in the flashback invasion.
• Snyder spends so much more dialogue on this idea of the ancient invasion being beaten back by the various factions joining together that it’s slightly obnoxious. It’s not a huge deal per se. But, when you combine that with the greater visual emphasis on their collective violence as the thing that saves them (concluding with the Atlantean king committing a war crime by murdering a disarmed Parademon who just wanted to escape when he could have taken him prisoner), I think that introduces an uncomfortable subtext. One of the ideas fascism is built on is this idea of violence as a regenerative force that unifies a nation. Again, I don’t think Snyder is a fascist -- but he’s got these ideas boping around in his head that he expresses in his films that lend themselves to fascism far more easily than I think he realizes.
• In fairness, I think I should note that superhero movies and comics are always dancing near these themes whether they mean to or not, because the superhero genre was essentially created as a reaction to the rise of fascism in the 1930s. But I think there are better ways to handle to these things that don’t just uncritically embrace these subtexts the way Snyder does during this ancient-invasion flashback sequence.
• Anyway, the flashback exposition goes on way too long.
• Okay, so we see Darkseid defeated. Gotta say, I think having the flashback invasion led by Darkseid instead of Steppenwolf is not only an arbitrary choice that doesn’t add to the film, but it actively hurts the film. By having Steppenwolf be the character who led the ancient invasion, the 2017 cut gives slightly greater emotional power to Steppenwolf’s arc -- we SEE him fail Darkseid in the flashback invasion, and that gives us a greater sense of why conquering Earth and redeeming himself in Darkseid’s eyes is so important today. I don’t want to give the 2017 cut TOO much credit here -- his motivation was stated less clearly in the 2017 cut, and Steppenwolf was pretty underdeveloped in the 2017 cut too. But seeing him fail Darkseid (rather than seeing Darkseid himself fail) did lend him a bit more depth as a character.
• This flashback is STILL going on oh my God make it stop.
• “They said the Age of Heroes will never come again.” “No, it will. It has to.” I’m pretty cynical about dialogue like this, but that exchange works.

Okay, so we're an hour in and we've gotten... a lot of arbitrary slow-mo shots of people walking. And flashback exposition. I'm not sure where the 2017 cut was at the one-hour mark but I'm pretty sure it was further along than this slog.

I'm setting the show down and going to sleep. More tomorrow.

 

Any news on a DVD release? I would like to check it out but I do not want to get HBO max. I rather own it for the same price as a month or two of HBO max.

 

The UK has pre orders up for the 4K and blu ray but I don’t know about the DVD.
HBO Max does free week trials if you look hard enough.

 

Three VFX guys compare the effects between the two versions.

 

One week is not long enough to watch this very long move and keep sanity.