Justice League (2017)

[MarkHB]

13 hours ago, WritinMan said:

Apparently his original vision was for the movie to also be in black and white, so they are preparing that version as well with no current release date. I think it will be called: Zack Snyder's Really Milking it Now Justice League.

It's actually Zack Snyder's Justice League: Justice is Gray Edition.  He's also working on an Imax-formatted remaster of BvS that will get a home video release as well.

What I'd love, given a winning lottery ticket, is a 4k projector that can be set to automatically maintain image height or image width, so for shows that switch from regular HD 13:9 to cinema widescreen, the image would expand out on the sides rather than shrink into a letterbox (Flirty Dancing of all things did that, go to cinematic widescreen for the dance routines).  Alternatively, you could hit a switch for a given video (or it would recognize it automatically) and it would maintain screen width when the show starts in widescreen and swells out to HD in places (The Dark Knight Bluray where it fills the screen for the bits that were filmed in IMAX).  Alas, the good Sony 4k projectors start at $5000 and go up in increments of 5 grand, and I don't think the "automatically notice change in aspect ratio and react accordingly" function exists anywhere, so that's probably never happening for me absent the aforementioned sudden deluge of unthinkable riches.

 

[MarkHB]

Worldwide Release on March 18 has been worked out!

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by MarkHB

[Anduin]

18 hours ago, WritinMan said:

Apparently his original vision was for the movie to also be in black and white, so they are preparing that version as well with no current release date. I think it will be called: Zack Snyder's Really Milking it Now Justice League.

George Miller's original vision for Fury Road was BNW, though he realised it needed to be colour for general audiences. He later released a BNW version. It's nice, but I prefer the colour. And Miller was originally going to direct Justice League. Just following his predecessor, or coincidence?

[MarkHB]

19 hours ago, Anduin said:

George Miller's original vision for Fury Road was BNW, though he realised it needed to be colour for general audiences. He later released a BNW version. It's nice, but I prefer the colour. And Miller was originally going to direct Justice League. Just following his predecessor, or coincidence?

It's apparently because the version of the movie he brought home on a hard drive (the original Snyder Cut) was B&W, so that's the way it lived in his head the last three years.

[MarkHB]

Vanity Fair has a long piece: Justice League: The Shocking, Exhilarating, Heartbreaking True Story of #TheSnyderCut

Quote

Marvel Studios movies, whose success exerted so much pressure on the DC team, hit on a formula that mirrored their comic book roots—telling stories about relatable, everyday people grappling with sudden phenomenal powers. Snyder’s DC universe approached its superheroes from the opposite direction, depicting gods and immortals who are at ease wielding cosmic strengths but strain to be human and connect to the ordinary world. The director envisioned this as operatic, tragic, and perhaps a more challenging type of comic book storytelling, but Warner Bros. feared it made his heroes gloomy, their abilities a curse.

No real plot spoilers in the article.

[cambridgeguy]

Vetoing the Bruce/Lois romance was a good call.  That can work (the animated series did it) but it would have just added more angst to a movie which already seems to have plenty of it. And it's always entertaining to see everyone in their costumes .... and Ray Fisher in the motion capture pajamas.

[Bruinsfan]

Bruce/Lois?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

Bruce/Lois?

Yep. 

Quote

But Warner Bros. did nix some of his more sweeping notions for Justice League, like adding a romance between Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne and Amy Adams’s Lois Lane, who was mourning Superman’s death in the previous film. “The intention was that Bruce fell in love with Lois and then realized that the only way to save the world was to bring Superman back to life,” says Snyder. “So he had this insane conflict, because Lois, of course, was still in love with Superman. We had this beautiful speech where [Bruce] said to Alfred: ‘I never had a life outside the cave. I never imagined a world for me beyond this. But this woman makes me think that if I can get this group of gods together, then my job is done. I can quit. I can stop.’ And of course that doesn’t work out for him.”

🙄🤢

[Bruinsfan]

Warner Bros. was 100% right to stomp on that idea like a rattlesnake's head.

[Chyromaniac]

Yeah - the VF article feels like it's attempting to paint the WB/DC execs as meddling and undercutting Snyder's creative vision - but if that's what they were getting from him, it's kind of hard to fault them.  Not that they are blameless either - increasingly this seems like a situation where no one had a good take on the project (or the entire shared universe for that matter).  For me, this is the most illuminating quote of the article:

Quote

“How am I supposed to introduce six characters and an alien with potential for world domination in two hours? I mean, I can do it, it can be done. Clearly it was done,” he says, referring to Whedon’s version. “But I didn’t see it.”

This just seems like a fundamentally flawed concept, regardless of the run time.  By the time the MCU got to their big team up film, they didn't need to introduce any of the main heroes, or even the primary villain, because they had spent five films building the world - they didn't just tack an extra hour or two onto Avengers to cram in intros for Thor and Cap, which is what it feels like Snyder was/is attempting to do here for at least Cyborg and Flash.  If Zack needed more setup material to make Justice League work, then why didn't they make another direct lead-in film, instead of wasting time with a largely irrelevant Suicide Squad?  Or, is it possible that they just didn't need to be in this film in the first place?

Can you imagine s scenario where instead of the early DCEU as we know it, we had gotten something like this:

2013: Man of Steel - largely as is, but omits much of the Smallville backstory, time that can be made up by having Superman save more people in the final battle.  Post credits scene shows a broken Bat Signal in the rubble of the ruined city - (gasp) it was Gotham!

2016: Batman v. Superman The Caped Crusader - Spurred by the destruction from the previous film, Bruce Wayne returns to the role of Batman to determine if Superman is a potential threat.  Through his investigation into the attack, he learns the truth about both Superman's alien nature, and Clark's humanity.  This is primarily a Batman solo film where he's mostly fighting MIB types and Kryptonian defense systems- although he also seeks help from Diana, who could  be researching metahuman history.  Moments from Clark's childhood could be used in this film instead, including a more nuanced reveal of the Martha connection.  This film ends with Bruce finally confronting Clark - but deciding to treat him as an ally, and without any direct confrontation between them.

2016: Suicide Squad MoS 2: Doomsday - Basically the Lex Luthor plot from BvS, but without the dumb "BvS" element.  As Superman becomes more high profile as a hero, Lex attempts to subvert and undermine his image and legacy.  Meanwhile, he also creates and unleashes Doomsday - who handily defeats Batman in one fight, and manages to restrain Diana (now revealed as Wonder Woman) in another.  Finally, it's up to Superman to take down the monster, but at the cost of his life.  Everyone is sad, but Diana vows to carry on Superman's legacy "for all those we have lost."  In a post credits scene, Darkseid - monitoring events from Apokolips -  says that the time may finally be right to "reclaim what is ours," and sends Steppenwolf to Earth.

2017: Wonder Woman - same film, it works fine as is.

2017: Justice League - Steppenwolf arrives on Earth and battles the Amazons and Atlanteans for the Mother Boxes.  Realizing the scope of the danger, Diana brings Bruce back for "one last fight," and tells him she has learned of another warrior they could recruit (It's Aquaman).  Those three take on Steppenwolf's forces, but basically to a draw.  Bruce then says that who they really need is Clark, (which is earned because they've been friends for more than 5 minutes in this version).  They find and capture the final Box, and harness it's power to bring back Superman (who doesn't try to kill them).  Finally a complete team, the Justice League of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman manage to defeat Steppenwolf and his army.  Batman decides that with his super friends by his side, maybe he's not ready to hang up the cape after all - and Superman and Lois reunite.  Also, the boxes are sent to the Phantom Zone, but not before unleashing energy that could create new metahuman heroes and villains - the end.

This sets the stage for the remaining DCEU films as they exist - although perhaps the Suicide Squad/Birds of Prey concepts/characters could be retooled into an extended "Gotham City" film series, along with another Batman.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Chyromaniac
slight word choices

[MarkHB]

Given where they were at in the story (which had originally been broken for 2 JL movies, remember), forcing it into not only a single JL film but decreeing that that would be no more than 2 hours was horrible planning by the executives.

I've seen a few comments on social media that note that the Bruce/Lois concept shines a whole new light on Clark's words in the BvS Knightmare sequence: "She was my world... and you took her from me."  Given the other nixed idea that has been mentioned before -- that Lois would be killed -- to me it seems that Snyder and Terrio were trying to find the right formula for Clark loses Lois and that's what makes him vulnerable enough to succumb to the Anti-Life Equation and throw in with Darkseid.  The goal was apparently to do a take on Justice League: Origin, which was the New52 version of the formation of the JL and which was adapted in animation as Justice League: War, of which that's largely the plot.

This isn't the DCEU or BvS thread, but I have to wonder... in that meeting years ago when they were talking ideas for the Man of Steel follow-up, who was the mysterious someone who said, "what if he fought Batman?"

[Chyromaniac]

4 hours ago, MarkHB said:

Given where they were at in the story (which had originally been broken for 2 JL movies, remember), forcing it into not only a single JL film but decreeing that that would be no more than 2 hours was horrible planning by the executives.

I’m still a bit confused about the two film plan - the JL Wikipedia  entry says that by June, 2016 “part 2” was being regarded as a distinct film, and not a second half of “JL 1.”   To me that suggests that Snyder’s plan for this film was always essentially what we have here - the JL forms, and the heroes battle Steppenwolf.  If so, then Snyder always wanted this to be his 4 hour epic cut.  Unfortunately we will never know if that version would have been any more successful back in 2017 - personally, I kind of doubt it.  But again, I don’t think either Snyder or the studio had a workable solution for this film back then.  Maybe this will work in 2021, but I suspect that it will be due to more than just the quality of the film.

As for who made the BvS call, it seems like it could have been the man himself...

Zack Snyder Explains How Batman Ended Up in the 'Man of Steel' Sequel
 

“I gotta be honest, it definitely was a thing that... after Man of Steel finished and we started talking about what would be in the next movie, I started subtly mentioning that it would be cool if he faced Batman. In the first meeting, it was like, "Maybe Batman?" Maybe at the end of the second movie, some Kryptonite gets delivered to Bruce Wayne's house or something. Like in a cryptic way, that's the first time we see him. But then, once you say it out loud, right? You're in a story meeting talking about, like, who should [Superman] fight if he fought this giant alien threat Zod who was basically his equal physically, from his planet, fighting on our turf... You know, who to fight next? The problem is, once you say it out loud, then it's kind of hard to go back, right? Once you say, "What about Batman?" then you realize, "Okay, that's a cool idea. What else?" I mean, what do you say after that? ...But I'm not gonna say at all that when I took the job to do Man of Steel that I did it in a subversive way to get to Batman. I really believe that only after contemplating who could face [Superman] did Batman come into the picture.“

[cambridgeguy]

Well of course they had to go with Batman.  It's not like Superman has a history of facing off with an evil billionaire businessman who, when necessary, is happy to slip into a green and purple armored suit to fight him.  It sure does suck that Superman's rogue's gallery is so nondescript that you have to pull in someone from Gotham.

[MarkHB]

16 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

I’m still a bit confused about the two film plan - the JL Wikipedia  entry says that by June, 2016 “part 2” was being regarded as a distinct film, and not a second half of “JL 1.”   To me that suggests that Snyder’s plan for this film was always essentially what we have here - the JL forms, and the heroes battle Steppenwolf.  If so, then Snyder always wanted this to be his 4 hour epic cut.  Unfortunately we will never know if that version would have been any more successful back in 2017 - personally, I kind of doubt it.  But again, I don’t think either Snyder or the studio had a workable solution for this film back then.  Maybe this will work in 2021, but I suspect that it will be due to more than just the quality of the film.

As for who made the BvS call, it seems like it could have been the man himself...

June 2016 is after the release of BvS and after the call to condense Part 1 and Part 2 (and also "get to the hope faster," in Geoff Johns's words) had been made.

I believe the plan was for Part 1 to end with a Boom Tube opening up revealing Apokolips and Darkseid to the JL. Part 2 was them defeating Darkseid. I'm not sure where in the timeline the Knightmare scenario (Darkseid's corruption of Superman and conquest of Earth) would have been resolved, in Part 1 or Part 2. 

I had never seen that quote where Snyder himself came up with "fight Batman," so thanks!

[Sandman]

On 11/16/2020 at 4:00 PM, MarkHB said:

I've said since it came out that I thought that, by itself, Justice League is an entertaining movie.  But, thematically, tonally, stylistically... as the conclusion of the trilogy that started with MoS and BvS, it was wildly off the mark and (if you liked what the first two were doing) disappointing. It is very much a case of "one of these things is not like the others."

To which my response would have to be: Thank God! I agree; on its own terms, Justice League is a reasonably entertaining movie. I feel like it's now being excoriated because of Whedon's involvement. (And it does sound like the set was not a fun or healthy environment. But there were stories in the press about how awful Snyder was to work with around the time of the movie's release, as I recall. I know this says more about the fickleness of the press than about either director.) I see the enthusiasm for The Snyder Cut, but I don't truly understand it. Do these fanboys not remember that Batman Vee Superman was an awful, infuriating movie? Allow me to provide a five-word reminder: "MY. MOTHER'S. NAME IS. MARTHA!"

Edited February 26, 2021 by Sandman
My second paragraph probably belongs in the BvS thread. Sorry.

[Bruinsfan]

I don't think the fans who've been cheerleading the Snyder Cut would agree that BvS was an awful movie.

[BetterButter]

Zack Snyder's Justice League ends on "massive cliffhanger" for even-less-likely sequel

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, BetterButter said:

Zack Snyder's Justice League ends on "massive cliffhanger" for even-less-likely sequel

Wait, it’s a four hour movie that his fanboys begged him for and he couldn’t even give them a complete story. Actually, that’s completely consistent with Snyder and doesn’t surprise me at all. 

[Chyromaniac]

Jeez- ending on a cliffhanger for a sequel that will never happen...  Who does Snyder think he’s working for- HBO Max, or Syfy?

I honestly can’t believe how stupid this all is.  For one thing, what an incredible degree of arrogance this is on Snyder’s part.  Sure - the DCEU storyline has moved on, Ray (the “heart of JL”) has torched every bridge in Burbank, and you only got this chance because WB is desperate for content for the app - but go ahead and pretend like Barry’s gonna zip you back to do part 2 by 2019.

And the studio!  How was this not the one caveat?  End.  It.  You’re letting this guy blow $70 million (on top of what you’ve already spent on this film) to get the edgelords off your back- and you’re letting him promise them more???  Hoooleeee $#!t...  If I were Hamada, I’d Poochie the ending- “oops, Darkseid died on the way to his home planet.”

Look, my interest in this project has been, at best, morbid curiosity.  However at least I could take comfort in the idea that, good or bad, this would finally be over.  Snyder and his fans could get a version of this film that was hopefully more to their liking, and we could all scratch this one item off our toxic pop culture debate scorecard.  But no - apparently there’s no escape from this desaturated, slo-mo, dirge Rock movie nightmare.

[Sandman]

On ‎2‎/‎26‎/‎2021 at 5:28 PM, Bruinsfan said:

I don't think the fans who've been cheerleading the Snyder Cut would agree that BvS was an awful movie.

You're probably right about that -- but I still say they're wrong.

All I got from the Vanity Fair article was:

• I will never be a Snyder fan; I don't appreciate his aesthetic, and to me he never fails to sound like a pretentious, self-glorifying asshat; and
• The entertainment press is almost incomprehensibly fickle.

 

[Chyromaniac]

I’ve been thinking things over since this weekend, and I feel like I want to clarify that my comment about Ray Fisher “burning bridges” was not a judgment on the validity of his claims- but just a reflection on his employability as Cyborg in any future DC film.  Whatever anyone thinks of him, his allegations, or the DC/WB executives, at this point there’s no chance he’s coming back- regardless of how JL v2.0 is received.

[BetterButter]

Fine, let's baselessly over-analyze these Snyder Cut chapter titles

[cambridgeguy]

If this is true then it's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard

Lois Lane lying to Bruce about his kid?  That being the reason for Batman to take the Omega Beam?  Why are so many people convinced Snyder is some creative genius if THIS is what he came up with?

[MarkHB]

I note that the storyboards themselves have been removed from Twitter.

Yesterday's Batman trailer:

 

Today, a Superman trailer:

 

[MarkHB]

Apparently, the story-behind-the-storyboards is that there is an exhibit coming up in Dallas titled "The Dreamscapes of Zack Snyder's Justice League".  WB shut it down because the storyboards and other materials in the exhibit immediately made it out onto the Internet, but the fact it's at the AT&T Discovery District is really interesting because to me it points to someone or someones at AT&T in Dallas being far more supportive of this film than Toby Emmerich is.  Here's a shot of the title card at the entry of the exhibit.  There are some photos in this Reddit post.  There's a site that has captured the full story of JL 2 and 3 from the storyboards, but I'm going to take that discussion either to a new thread since strictly speaking it doesn't pertain to the film this thread is about.

Edited March 6, 2021 by MarkHB

[MarkHB]

I've since heard that this was an early outline that they discarded (he had already said that the studio nixed the "Lois + Bruce" and "Lois gets fridged" story points).  It may have been before Terrio came in as I guess it was written by Snyder and Geoff Johns. Most of this info is coming from video interviews I haven't had time to watch and people posting on Reddit so FWIW.

More character promos:

For International Women's Day:

And here's a commercial running on Twitch:

 

[BetterButter]

'Justice League' Surprises Some HBO Max Subscribers with Accidental Debut

[MarkHB]

Cyborg promo:

Also, Zack did this brief interview with Grace Randolph where he gives a bit of a viewing guide for the movie, as well as talking a little about the story as shown in the Dallas exhibit.  One thing I didn't realize was that those storyboards, Zack's original sketches to show camera angles, etc., were actually gone over by Jim Lee.  Now I really wish they hadn't all gotten pulled off the Internet.

ETA: This site does have the storyboards as they're being presented in Dallas.

Edited March 9, 2021 by MarkHB
Added link

[Peace 47]

On 3/5/2021 at 12:27 PM, cambridgeguy said:

If this is true then it's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard

Lois Lane lying to Bruce about his kid?  That being the reason for Batman to take the Omega Beam?  Why are so many people convinced Snyder is some creative genius if THIS is what he came up with?

Although I’m all for giving Lois Lane, my favorite comic character, more to do in screen adaptations, why do the people who make Superman movies have this irresistible temptation to make Lois Lane a liar about her kid’s parentage?  (Kind of like Superman Returns.)  The Lois Lane that I know and love would never ....

Glad they nixed that idea.

[Trini]

Interview with Ray Fisher and Joe Manganiello at Vanity Fair: Justice League: The Untold Story of Cyborg and Deathstroke. I haven't read the whole thing, but they give some more behind-the-scenes details.

[MarkHB]

NY Times interview with Zack Snyder.

 

Quote

Do you see the DC heroes on a grand level, like characters from Wagner or “Lord of the Rings”?

It’s obvious I take these characters and their mythology really seriously. I want them to be fully realized as characters, existing in that world. I don’t think that it’s cool to have fun at their expense. And there was a vision that we had, a complete universe, fully fleshed out, that we really wanted to take all the way.

Was that to draw an intentional contrast with what Marvel is doing in its movies?

I knew it before “BvS,” when we made “Man of Steel.” Marvel is doing something else. They’re doing, at the highest level, this popular action-comedy with a heart. And they have that nailed. An effort to duplicate that is insanity because they’re so good at it. What DC had was mythology at an epic level, and we were going to take them on this amazing journey. Frankly, I was the only one saying that.

 

[starri]

13 hours ago, MarkHB said:

I don’t think that it’s cool to have fun at their expense

Unless it's the cold-blooded murder of Jimmy Olsen, I suppose.

[Guest]

Critics can’t agree whether ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ is the worst or a knockout

Unsurprisingly, the reviews are all over the place. 

[dwmarch]

My spoiler-free review is that while the movie is entertaining, I don't think it needed to be four hours long. More thoughts to come tomorrow after it's been released.

[Spartan Girl]

11 hours ago, Dani said:

Critics can’t agree whether ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ is the worst or a knockout

Unsurprisingly, the reviews are all over the place. 

From what I read, it’s the same movie despite the alterations.

[cambridgeguy]

Wasn't that always the point?  The basic plot outline wouldn't change, but some of the connective tissue would be fleshed out and the tone would be in line with Snyder's vision rather than a poor attempt at Marvelizing it (so about schwarma, er, brunch...)

[Guest]

4 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

Wasn't that always the point?  The basic plot outline wouldn't change, but some of the connective tissue would be fleshed out and the tone would be in line with Snyder's vision rather than a poor attempt at Marvelizing it (so about schwarma, er, brunch...)

I’m not sure if that was the point from WB’s standpoint but many Snyderfans had been saying (loudly and repeatedly) that it would be a completely different movie. 

[absnow54]

It's the same plot, but things were pretty different. Granted, I haven't watched the theatrical release since it came out, but the final battle especailly, was a totally different movie (I just remember the Flash and Superman rushing around to save all the Sokovians ala Age of Ultron, which, does not happen at all in this version.)

This movie was fine. I watched it. All 4 hours. The end was kind of weird. I'm not sure why they set up all this exposition for future Batffleck adventures, when they now have Pattman. All of that was new material they shot in October too. It just seemed weird (and went on forever...)

[vibeology]

It was so long and mostly still a mess. The Cyborg family stuff jumped out as much better so I'm thrilled for Ray who has put up with so much bs but aside from that it was too much and not enough at the same time and the epilogue was unnecessary and confusing. And make sure you stick around for the most Zack Snyder cover of Hallelujah to ever exist. 

I still don't fully understand the plot and I've seen both versions. I am good at following convoluted comic plots and I have the basics of this covered until they beat the bad guy, even if the bad guy was wallpaper. But why does Batman have prophetic dreams? And what the fuck was happening in that dream? And do I really need to care about Lex Luthor? Or the Joker? It was serviceable and then the epilogue broke my brain. 

It's not for me.

[supposebly]

I hear about this and I think this is the biggest prank Hollywood has played on the audience since, ... I don't know when. 

[voiceover]

Let us now all praise Zack Snyder for the Stunning & Brave act he pulled yesterday: shitting on a fan base during a fan-based charity livestream that was in the middle of raising $80 grand for a cause (suicide prevention) that was chosen specifically on his behalf.

Disassociating yourself from a group is one thing; perpetuating a lie about its members, quite another.

Hope you enjoyed all that loud & vocal support for your DC.  Don't expect it again.

[absnow54]

51 minutes ago, supposebly said:

I hear about this and I think this is the biggest prank Hollywood has played on the audience since, ... I don't know when. 

The best part is that it’s in 4x3 aspect ratio. 

[Guest]

Edited because I looked it up and this is one time I can’t criticize Snyder. 
For anyone else curious here is an article about what happened at the charity livestream. 

Zack Snyder Rips Alt-Right YouTube Channel Geeks + Gamers on ‘Justice League’ Livestream

Edited March 19, 2021 by Guest

[Lokiberry]

2 hours ago, Dani said:

Edited because I looked it up and this is one time I can’t criticize Snyder. 
For anyone else curious here is an article about what happened at the charity livestream. 

Zack Snyder Rips Alt-Right YouTube Channel Geeks + Gamers on ‘Justice League’ Livestream

Good for him. Never been a big Snyder fan but my respect for him has gone up.

[dwmarch]

I guess everyone is still watching this long sumbitch but since it has been released, my random thoughts (as someone not particularly invested in anything DC except Lucifer):

Some shots were way too long. Wonder Woman going to that island where the Amazons fired the arrow. Barry's introduction which was cute but didn't amount to anything. Aquaman getting serenaded by the women of the village. Aquaman taking his shirt off enough times to make me wonder where he is getting all these shirts. Lois Lane getting coffee twice. A loving tribute to American football. Cyborg playing out some random unfortunate lady's life story before giving her some bonus money. A dedicated, friendly janitor at Star Labs who has a family. Amber Heard. Alfred mansplaining the proper way to make tea to Wonder Woman. The Flash calling in about twelve times to say he was running out of stamina. Repeated scenes with Steppenwolf calling home to report that he's kinda sorta making progress but there's still a lot of movie left to go. A long discussion between Batman and Joker about what great frenemies they are that somehow snuck in from a different movie altogether. Lex Luthor teaming up with Deadpool. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This movie should be the basis for a film school project where you learn how to edit by trimming at least an hour off of this thing and still having the same movie left over after you are done.

For the Amazonians, was their collapsing stadium for the mama box a bug or a feature? You seal it up and then collapse it into the sea or did that happen because of the chaos going on inside? Seems like they should have known better than to just drop a house on the kinds of enemies who generally have no trouble surviving that. At least the Atlanteans had Amber Heard guarding theirs, which I guess means they were worried about Jack Sparrow pinching it. But as it turns out, the best security for one of these things is to just leave it in your closet under a pile of sweaty old football gear. Bad guys won't even come near it.

Batman: my plane won't fly! Me: it's a brick with wings on it!

The 4:3 aspect ratio is unethical. I am sure the six remaining people on the face of planet Earth who have square televisions are happy but the rest of us own rectangles, Snyder. JFC.

To defeat Steppenwolf the good guys pulled a Thanos on him and rewound time back to when it was possible for them to defeat him. That's... handy.

Darkseid just kinda forgot about Earth, the place where he got his ass kicked back in the day? That was clunky. Also, as I'm not super into the lore, I don't get this anti-life equation business and how it relates to the mama boxes. To me they were all part of a package deal (as that seemed to be how they were presented in flashback) so I saw Steppenwolf getting all excited and making a call to say "holy shit! That thing we came here to look for is actually here!" Whereas I think it's supposed to be more like Terminator 3 where the T-X has the mission of going after John Connor's lieutenants but changes priorities once she discovers that John himself is nearby.

[voiceover]

No one involved is anything remotely like what the article called them.  Consider the source and do your own research before you condemn.

eta: I am linking a friend's response to this.  I encourage people to watch what he has to say -- you won't get cooties!🤣  

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by voiceover

[Guest]

2 hours ago, voiceover said:

No one involved is anything remotely like what the article called them.  Consider the source and do your own research before you condemn.

I well aware of that YouTube channel. In my opinion, they promote hate and feed off the most toxic parts of fandom. 

ETA: Is the outrage that he is two-faced in how he handled it or because he essentially said they promote hate? It my opinion, both of those statements are true. Snyder clearly benefited from those YouTubers and then tried to distance himself once his movie was made despite still thanking one of the worst in the movies credits.

I do think there is a possibility that Snyder legimately realized the dangers of the rhetoric of channels like Geeks and Gamers because of recent attacks against Asians now that it more directly impacts him through his daughter. 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Guest

[kieyra]

8 hours ago, Lokiberry said:

Good for him. Never been a big Snyder fan but my respect for him has gone up.

Heh, yeah, I think he's going to survive this one, if this is the level of his heresy:

Quote

“I know that on our donation page, we still have the Geeks + Gamers logo. I just wanted to say that I really — we talked about this and we’re really not associated with Geeks + Gamers as far as I’m concerned. I really wanna make that clear.”

I checked out the site and it looks like some sort of next-gen Gamergate bullshit pretending to be journalism. 

If anything, the site will get a massive (undeserved) boost by this, which is of course the name of the outrage game. 

[Peace 47]

18 hours ago, dwmarch said:

The 4:3 aspect ratio is unethical. I am sure the six remaining people on the face of planet Earth who have square televisions are happy but the rest of us own rectangles, Snyder. JFC.

Your comment is very funny, although I have to admit that the 4:3 aspect ratio did not really bother me in practice.  I will concede that I had this movie on in the background out of impatient curiosity while I had to finish some administrative work for my job last night, so I actually have to go back and watch it properly, because I missed whole chunks of the visuals of this thing.  (But I have no impulse control and wanted to see the scenes that I cared about, which were basically the Superman ones.) That said, my eyes couldn’t have rolled any harder than at the very beginning when that text appeared onscreen saying that it was in 4:3 aspect ratio to “preserve Zach Snyder’s creative vision.”  The pretentiousness!  I guess they had to say something, though, so that people wouldn’t think that there was a bug with the app.

Continuing in the tradition of my relationship with all Snyderverse movies, I felt that there were parts of this that I really hated, and parts that did flash inspiration.  The latter portions were a genuine improvement on the original.

I was really torn on the Epilogue.  On the one hand, I was sitting there fuming that it was incredibly self-indulgent to set up all these plot points for future movies which may (probably will) never be made.  It’s like, why leave Legion of Doom, Batman’s apocalyptic future vision/ Joker, etc., all hanging as teasers when you’ve got a bloated movie to begin with?  Hack that epilogue up and you could save 20 minutes right there.  On the other hand, Snyder was paid to deliver his original vision (regardless of what transpired since 2017), so I guess this properly should have been included as part of that (question mark ???).

After the discussion of the Snyder storyboards for future films in this thread, I can’t tell you how mad that pregnancy test in Lois’s drawer made me.  Few people who are not familiar with the storyboard discussion will probably actually clock that blink-and-you’ll miss it shot, but rage on my part, I tell you, rage!  (And to be clear, I don’t care if she sexed it up with Bruce, but just the implications of where Snyder meant to go with that!)  Also, I was really looking forward to the engagement scene, but there was not much more to it than what was in the trailers.  I kind of wanted Lois and Clark to talk a little bit more (give me that instead of coffee with Martian Manhunter), but they didn’t say much.  It was still a profoundly less stupid scene than the original theatrical cut, though.

I thought the editing and soundtrack immediately prior to Superman’s resurrection was a marked improvement, but I still didn’t click with how Superman came back both (1) with amnesia and (2) deeply cruel until he saw Lois.  I know it wasn’t much of a change from the original, but he was really frying Batman with that laser vision, and I didn’t remember that from the original.  The idea that Lois is the slim thread keeping Clark tethered to this world doesn’t sit right with me.  They are my OTP of all OTPs, but the Kents (well, maybe not this “let them die” version of his parents), what Clark learned from Jor-El AI, Clark’s own experiences out in the world, all make him more than someone who will snap without Lois.

Superman coming in to help the League in the CGI finale was great, though.  Dismissively saying “Not impressed” before freezing the axe and going to town on Steppenwolf was awesome.  Also, another cool action scene was Wonder Woman deflecting the bullets with her bracelets to protect those kids.  The scene looked great.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Peace 47

[absnow54]

I watched the theatrical release again, since it had been several years, and I don't know if Snyder benefited from lessons learned surrounding the film's criticism, but his version was much better. A lot of commentary said that his film wasn't as light or funny as Wheadon's version, but honestly, all of the best jokes from the movie were in the Snyder cut ("I'm rich" "Did I not talk before" "I bought the bank.")

The movie was definitely bloated. Fight sequences lasted way longer than they needed to. Slow motion sequences went on forever. The epilogue from Luthor's escape on needed to be axed. I think every scene in the movie could have been trimmed to keep the pace going. (I was screaming at my TV to get to the point already during the Joker scene!)

I really enjoyed them fleshing out Victor/Cyborg's story and his complicated relationship with his father. That was all a great addition. I'm also glad that they gave Barry/Flash more to do in the final battle than push a pickup truck really fast. Another improvement was changing the narrative around Superman's resurrection. They clearly framed that Steppenwolf and Darkseid were invading now because they were afraid of Superman, and that they could only defeat them with his help. I found that better than making it about Bruce's guilt, and whatever argument he had with Diana over it. The final battle was long, but it gave everyone something to do, where as the theatrical release it seemed like everyone was just standing around while waiting for their cue. Arthur/Aquaman did get some extra development, but was still largely just kind of there.

Still, the best version of this movie is going to be the 2 1/2 hour version of the Snyder Cut that a fan edits and posts on YouTube.

1 hour ago, Peace 47 said:

After the discussion of the Snyder storyboards for future films in this thread, I can’t tell you how mad that pregnancy test in Lois’s drawer made me.  Few people not familiar with the storyboard discussion will probably clock that blink-and-you’ll miss it shot, but rage on my part, I tell you, rage!  (And to be clear, I don’t care if she sexed it up with Bruce, but just the implications of where Snyder meant to go with that!)

I'm an idiot, because I assumed it would have been Clark's, but now I'm realizing that enough time had passed from his death to build an elaborate memorial and for Martha's house to be foreclosed, so obviously far more than a month or two had passed.