Zack Snyder's Justice League

[Ben Rice]

what do you guys think of it? i'm sure most you haven't watched it but what do you think of it conceptually?

if you don't know what it is it's essentially an alternate cut of the Justice League movie that came out a few years ago, Zack Snyder left the project during production after his daughter died and Joss Whedon was hired to finish it, the film was pretty much entirely rewritten and reshot in Snyder's absence and the final product was a fucking embarrassment both financially and critically. flash forward to now and Snyder has in the simplest terms released his version of the film and it's pretty much an entirely different movie.

I sat through the whole thing last night and overall really enjoyed it, not sure I'd wanna sit though it again but I'm really glad we got to see this and that Zack Snyder got to release the film he wanted to make. there were some really cool moments too that the comics nerd in me loved, like the flash saving the day by going into the speed force and turning back time or literally everything involving darkseid, the presence of this character alone makes this movie 1000x more interesting in my opinion as darkseid in my opinion is such an insanely fascinating character.

I'm curious to know what you guys think of this, do you think it's a win for film makers and creative freedom? do you plan on checking this out yourself? those who don't care about seeing it, do you think the release of something like this is a good thing? I'm eager to hear your opinions

[Mr Mong]

Sorry m8 I don't watch stuff with superheroes in it.

[Nixon]

Originally Posted by Ben Rice

I'm curious to know what you guys think of this, do you think it's a win for film makers and creative freedom?

considering its like the 20th superhero film to come out in the past years its deffo neither of them

it would be interesting to hear what extent this version differs from the other

[Ben Rice]

i think you're missing the point, the fact it's a superhero film has nothing to do with it. it's that a film maker had a vision, the studio intervened way too much because they were only thinking about money and the film majorly suffered as a result. yet rumours, speculation and support to see the cut more akin to the original directors vision eventually led to said cut actually being released

that's what i meant regarding "a win for film makers" as this is a very rare instance of a film maker getting such an opportunity, a second chance to release something they were clearly passionate about without the butchering by studio interference which is an incredibly common thing nowadays in film and television.

the differences though between the two cuts are pretty huge. the tone, pacing, story structure, dialogue, score, the villain, even the ending are completely different to the theatrical cut. like i said this isn't just a re-edit with a few additional scenes, it's practically an entirely new film.

[Kane]

Joss Whedon is a closet racist, Snyder's cut proves it

[I Am Your God]

I'll watch it eventually, but am currently not feeling pressured to do so

Definitely gonna have to be compelled by the opinions of those in which I have a high regard

[French Fry]

I've always had a fascination with "lost media", so I decided to give it a watch. I'm about half way through it, and so far, it's pretty alright!
As expected, the movie is like the original Justice League film, but with a more consistent tone. There's still humorous moments, just handled more responsibly. A lot more backstory, too. I was worried the 4 hour runtime was going to make it a slog, but considering it was originally planned as a mini-series, the pacing is just fine. And it's streaming, so you can pause and restart whenever.
The best comparison I could make is The Mandalorian to Rise of Skywalker. While the movie was a mess, the TV show is better paced. These large, fleshed-out worlds are more suited towards a more episodic format, where they can really dive deep into the lore of the world and the characters. With a movie, it's just rapid fire. No time to think, just move on to the next plot point or joke.

[I Am Your God]

The Rise of Skywalker was a blast. The only thing better is the tearful complaints made by its plethora of haters.

[Ben Rice]

along with the theatrical cut of justice league, rise of skywalker is one of the most pathetic movies I have ever seen in my life

[I Am Your God]

(Mayhap I can score some cyanide from Bown)

[Bown]

It was bad but less bad then the theatrical cut. I thought seeing a big-budget effects-heavy movie in 4:3 was really interesting.

[PizzaLuigi]

I don’t really care but I know a lot of people wanted to see it so it’s nice that they got it

[Lord Blazer]

This seems like a cultural event and I'd like to participate in the discourse

But that'd require me to watch the original 2hr cut followed by this 4hr behemoth and I simply don't have that kind of bandwidth

So I watched the 1hr RLM video on it and y'know I think it's overall pretty neat and I'd love to see some post-mort stuff from inside WB on the process of going from all of Snyder's footage down to the theatrical cut shook out

I'm also curious as to how this shakes out with studio involvement in the filmmaking process, streaming has proven a lot of things out, but there's too much money riding on big hollywood films for execs to really rethink anything out of the nomral process and you're just going to see things continue to tighten in on the formula while smaller ops are going to do more fun and experimental stuff and then the industry will absorb the wrong lessons from it. In this case the lesson is probably just "We can sell streaming services with a director's cut after we've already made our money"

[Gorosaurus]

The 'original' was a really, really terrible movie. I had no faith in Zack Snyder because, well, he already had dropped the ball with Man of Steel and Batman Versus Superman, both of which were really bad. He didn't understand either character, and there were so many bad decisions in BvS that I pretty much understand who he is as a filmmaker.

That said, I think that there's something nice in a director being able to (and having the funds to) ensure their vision is displayed. I haven't seen the new version yet because it's FOUR HOURS LONG and I didn't like the first version. I'll probably try and watch it because I have HBO max (yes, for Godzilla), but I think it's healthy to keep the following in mind:

• He had three years of feedback to wade through on what worked and didn't work with Justice League. It is completely unfair to say that this was "the original vision" when there's no way to determine if that is true. The fact of the matter is that it is a do-over, and we should identify it as such.
• This is now considered a financial boon. I have a feeling that this is the natural progression of the Star Wars re-releases. This gets the engaged audience to pay at least twice to see the same movie. The Russos are apparently "interested" in looking into a director's cut of Endgame. This is a cheaper way to pull in money than plain remakes.
• I am worried that this is the first step toward incomplete movies being released regularly. Sort of the micro-transaction and "edit it after release" mindset of apps and games. They'll get great feedback on how it was received, update the movie (OR NOT and just imply they did more than they did), and reap twice the profits.
• This is a great win for artistic merit. I am NOT at all a fan of Snyder, but if he truly had a vision that was this different from what ended up happening, then it's good that there are more avenues for directors/artists to go for showing what they intended
• I would definitely pay money to see new cuts of my favorite movies again, especially in the theatres. I just wish that Hollywood didn't know that.

[Ben Rice]

I think this was definitely as close as Snyder could get to his original vision without having to make an actual sequel, he's already kinda revealed what he had planned for the next film before walking away and without spoiling anything the ending of the film definitely matches up with what he talked about.

I was easily more curious to see this than in any way excited but after watching this it's simply baffling how so much was actually cut from the theatrical version, the climax of the third act (which many seem to agree was the best part of the entire film) was cut in favour of something way more anti-climactic, one of the most pivotal characters in the story had his character arc completely cut, the ending is pretty much entirely different. honestly whoever made these creative decisions should be actually ashamed of themselves.

in my honest opinion the film has gone from being frankenstein's turd to a rough diamond of a film that was actually pretty decent, despite the exhausting run time.

[French Fry]

Originally Posted by Gorosaurus

I am worried that this is the first step toward incomplete movies being released regularly. Sort of the micro-transaction and "edit it after release" mindset of apps and games. They'll get great feedback on how it was received, update the movie (OR NOT and just imply they did more than they did), and reap twice the profits.

You have to understand the development hell behind Justice League. Basically, Zack Snyder's daughter committed suicide during production, and Warner Bros was pestering him to cut down the movie. Zack left the movie because he couldn't deal with WB and the death of his daughter at the same time. Rather than scrap the movie, they gave it to Joss Whedon to piece together a coherent product. That failed. Hard.
The whole Snyder Cut movement came after Zack detailed his original plans for the movie. It wasn't actually finished, and according to people surrounding the production, it was just an outline for a bunch of films. To paraphrase - It was all "pre-vis stuff where you'd use your imagination and written outlines to fill in the blanks". It wasn't until the Zack agreed to not take any pay for the film that they decided to go for an original cut.

I don't think we're gonna see "early access" films, but we are gonna see a lot more cuts that are exclusive to streaming services.

[Gorosaurus]

I understand the context of the Snyder cut, I am simply saying that Snyder himself definitely believes his own hype. Of course the "finished movie" would've been the greatest thing anyone has ever seen, according to him.

My point is that we've seen his finished movies before, and they sucked. I haven't seen this version yet, but I'm willing to bet that it only works as well as it does because of hindsight. The world saw a version of it and lambasted what didn't work, and so some of the most egregious errors were cleaned up for this. That's not a bad thing, I just don't think it's fair to claim this was 100% the original intention when that's almost definitely a lie. It's another version, but one made with the benefit of critical response already applied before retooling.

[Jokyfoot]

This version was much better, but still not a good movie.

[Evan]

The dialogue is fucking terrible. I would cut as much dialogue from the film as possible. there is tons of expository shit that's just utterly fucking pointless. The "Evil" characters are barely fleshed out at all. I didn't care about anything except the visuals. which were great. Also, the actor who played cyborgs father was the best part. most of the dialogue and acting in all those scenes were good. I would have cut most of the batman knightmare crap. focused on cyborg. and ditch the entire superman being a big dumbass for his introduction and the black suit is dumb.
other than that. the movie was good looking. thats about it.

[French Fry]

Joss Whedon Reportedly Threatened to Harm Gal Gadot’s Career During ‘Justice League’ Clash

The theatrical cut was sabotage.

[Bown]

I can’t believe Whedon turned out to suck more than Snyder. Snyder makes shitty films but at least he seems like a decent guy in interviews and from what people say about him.

[Evan]

its not that surprising actually whedon is a good writer, not a very good director. whereas synder is a good director, but couldn't write a haiku