Zack Snyder Justice League cut

Cafe Society
101

@DSeid:

Keep in mind that Zack Snyder left the production before it finished filming. It was mostly done, but the actors were still around for re-shoots and filler scenes. Whedon was brought in to finish it up, and wound up completely re-shooting most of it. Some of the discontinuities may be because of scenes Snyder was planning to shoot, but didn’t have a chance to, and which Whedon abandoned when he revamped the whole thing. That being said,

Lois is a world-famous journalist. Her work makes a difference in peoples’ lives. Her investigations uncover and expose wrong-doing, and her writing bridges divides by providing understanding and hope. MM, an alien but deeply compassionate and perceptive observer of the human condition, realizes more than Lois herself does just how important she is to the world.

There may have been a bridging scene missing here. IIRC, in the Whedon version, she sees news coverage of Superman’s return, and the implication is she knows her son better than anyone and knows he’s going to head home, so she goes there as well. Or maybe Lois called her. Or maybe Bruce did.

This is a real hole in the Snyder cut. Martian Manhunter’s plan only really works if Lois and Martha never talk again. If they do, they’re going to figure out pretty quickly that something really weird happened. MM is practically gaslighting Lois.

102

How far away is the farm from Metropolis?

She must drive fast in that old beat up truck!

This movie in and of itself, and as part of a lack of a franchise with overarching cohesive vision, demonstrates why Marvel has dominated the comics cinematic universe leaving DC way behind.

103

I disagree. Besides the example of Brazil, I really liked the extra depth and material in Watchmen, Aliens, and Terminator 2. The Richard Donner cut of Superman II is a very different and better film from the released version*. And the first “Director’s Cut” edition of Bladerunner, without the monotone narration and “happy ending” is much better than the feature release. (I posted after seeing the original comment, and didn’t see Tamerlane’s endorsing of this until I’d posted)

*Why does DC keep screwing up their properties by handing them off to other directors after it’s pretty much completely shot?

104

If I recall correctly, in the Whedon cut, Martha visited Lois in Metropolis, but said her waitress job was at a diner in Smallville. In the Snyder cut, I don’t remember, did she say she had moved to Metropolis? If so, maybe she just happened to be visiting friends in Smallville when she heard the news?

I think this is one of those things where, as much as I disliked the Snyder cut, I don’t think it’s quite fair to criticize Snyder. He never got the chance to re-shoot or film bridging scenes to fill plot holes and discontinuities like that.

105

Script, director, cast. They’re rolling: The Flash (2023) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb

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I haven’t seen the Watchmen DC, but in the latter two cases I believe them to be extremely inferior. The added footage adds “depth,” but only in the sense there is more of it. (T2’s added scene where the T-1000 looks at the dog’s collar does a better job of explaining how the Terminator tricked him, I’ll give you that.) In neither case does the added footage add to story, and it makes the pacing inferior. Especially in T2, which honestly was a little too long to start with.

In the case of “Aliens,” the addition of quite a few minutes of Newt’s family going to check out the alien eggs and her dad getting attacked by a facehugger adds information, but in no way helps the story; in fact, I’d argue it makes the story much WORSE. It’s a better movie when the tension and anticipation builds up to the moment when the Marines are first attacked. Those extra scenes drag out the amount of time it takes to get to that moment and takes away from the suspense. It also doesn’t actually add anything; it’s irrelevant HOW the colonists got attacked by aliens, or who got attacked first.

107

Yes, the idea is that the replicants are as human as Deckard. Having him BE a replicant ruins this.

108

That doesn’t look like nearly enough cast to do Flashpoint. Where’s Cyborg? Wonder Woman? Aquaman? Who’s playing Reverse Flash? I am not optimistic.

109

And I disagree with your disagreement. I think the “fixing the memory chip in the T2 head” scene adds quite a bit to the film, and explains a lot. Besides, it’s a wonderfully set-up effect, using Linda Hamilton’s sister as a body double for the reflected image in the mirror and using interesting cues to “sell” the illusion.

There are good arguments I’ve read before in how the elimination of the Aliens pre-infestation scene ruins the scenes of the Marines exploring and finding things for the first time, but I think there’s value in depicting the colony as it appeared before it was devastated, driving home the tragedy of the event. Your mileage obviously varies.

110

Finished it up this morning. Random thoughts:

I give it a good, not great. It definitely helps watching it in chunks (while also working). I think if I had spent a weekend afternoon watching it I would’ve been pretty disappointed (which I what I did with the original cut). I’d like to see Snyder make an actual mini-series about something. I don’t think he knows how to make a normal length movie.

I only saw JL once, but from what I remember the plot was basically “Batman forms the Justice League to… resurrect Superman and have him do everything.” The Synder cut feels a bit more organic in that sense and the team actually holds their own.

While I appreciate the people trying to get WB to have Snyder finish his vision, a movie about superheros trying to time travel back to save the world after they’ve already lost is already out there. Sorry Snyder, you missed your chance.

DC has the lamest names for everything. “Steppenwolf needs the Mother Boxes to complete the Unity and find the Anti-Life Equation” really rolls off the tongue.

111

Blame Jack Kirby. Kirby came up with awesome, cosmic concepts, and his artwork is iconic and epic, but – especially near the end of his career, he couldn’t be bothered to come up with original names for things. At least when Stan Lee was writing scripts in the wake of Kirby;'s creative streaks he was able to remedy that.

Kirby’s Fourth World stuff for DC, upon which Justice League draws heavily, was from just this period. “Darkseid” is pretty cool as a character and a name, but I winced when I first saw “Desaad” as a character name.

And – “Boom Tube” for the teleporter (also used in Justice League)?

If you really want to se late Jack Kirby at his tongue-tied worst, look at this:

112

Canon doesn’t matter any more. Omniverse.

113

Cyborg has been cut, I believe.

114

I believe they’re planning on casting a “Not An Angry Black Youth” Cyborg… Kenan Thompson is the front-runner.

…

…

(just kidding)

115

Seriously though. It was such a trope. I’d love to see more mixing it up and having the wisecracking young man superhero (Flash/Spider-Man thing) be Black, and a white kid in the Cyborg angry trope.

116

DC certainly has angry young white men superheroes - Damage, the other Damage, Atom Smasher, Robin [Jason Todd], and Robin [Damien Wayne], just off the top of my head - that could be introduced to the DCEU.

As to the wise cracking young black man supehero, here’s the thing - in the Cartoon Network Teen Titans animated series, Cyborg actually is a wisecracking teen hero. And that version of the character was and is hugely popular. But it was the fact that Joss Whedon and Warner studio execs wanted to include more of that version of Cyborg’s personality in the re-shoots that was apparently precisely one of the reasons Ray Fisher was so upset about those re-shoots. He apparently wanted to keep Cyborg as a serious hero, and was upset that Whedon and studio execs wanted him to lighten up his portrayal, smile more, and use the catch-phrase, “Booyah!”

Ray Fisher apparently wanted to keep Snyder’s version of Cyborg, that portrayed him as young black man that overcame horror and tragedy to become a hero, rather than the jokey side character that he thought Whedon and the studio execs wanted him to be.

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The other thing about that is on Teen Titans Go, Cyborg isn’t the only wisecracking, silly teen hero - all of the main characters have catchphrases, overly ridiculous personality quirks, &tc. Here, they slashed his story arc and wanted to turn him into Jar Jar, the wise-cracking, fast-talking, comic-relief superhero while the other (white) heroes still had serious storylines. I understand his pushback.

118

Sorry “angry Black youth” is pretty damn stereotype especially with a dumbass origin for his anger at dad. Dad worked hard so wasn’t at my football games? If Dad was there the accident wouldn’t have happened! It’s his fault! That’s no serious storyline.

Jar Jar was offensive. Serious storyline with a smart witty character would have been better. IMHO.

119

Teen Titans Go!, yes, that’s a straight up comedy. But the previous series with the same characters and voice actors, Teen Titans, was more serious. In that series, Cyborg and Beast Boy were both wise-cracking teens who played off Robin and Raven as the straight characters (and Starfire kind of in-between as a weird alien).

Another element I think worth pointing out is that in Whedon’s re-shoots, all the heroes had more comical elements introduced (except the Flash, who was already the comedy relief in the original Snyder cut). Aquaman’s soliloquy under the accidental influence of the Lasso of Truth, for example.

After reading the recent piece in The Hollywood Reporter, I understand Ray Fisher’s concerns. But the more I read about his experiences, even from his perspective, the more it seems to me, as an outsider, that there was a massive mismatch in expectations and understanding between Whedon and the studio execs on the one hand, and the actors on the other, particularly Ray Fisher.

And even in the Whedon cut, which did slash his screen time*, he didn’t come across to me as anything even vaguely like a wise-cracking, fast-talking, comic relief hero. That role was still very much the Flash (played by a white actor).

*The Snyder Cut was four hours long. Somebody was going to get a serious cut in screen time to fit that movie into anything resembling a theatrical runtime. Cyborg did suffer a lot more cuts than the other characters. Again, I understand why Ray Fisher was unhappy, and I’m not saying Whedon handled the situation well or did a good job communicating with the actors, but…

120

I finally watched this last night and I have thoughts:

My first thought was that the compassionate, caring, thoughtful WW we have been introduced to would NEVER have used that bracelet move on the final guy in the shootout. The tons of falling debris would have had endangered or killed dozens of people outside the building, not to mention the possibility of causing enough structural damage to it to cause parts of the inside to collapse. WW would not show off by endangering a bunch of people when she could have just speed-punched him in the nuts.

Second: Martian Manhunter is around. A hero on a similar power-level as superman, who cares about the Earth enough to visit Lois by shapeshifting into Martha and telling her to keep living, but who apparently doesn’t give enough of a shit about it to actually join the battle to keep Earth from turning into a hellhole dominated by a psychopath. And after it’s all over, nobody’s like “Where the F were you?” but instead they’re all “Hey, nice to see you, let’s work together in the future, have you seen our cool new HQ?.”

Third: Batman just didn’t seem very “prepared” in this movie, did he? This is the guy who usually has triple-contingency plans, who instead just heads into a swam full of flying robot ninja pirates with no real plan other than “I’ll distract them by nearly getting killed and requiring the other heroes to save my ass a bunch of times rather than actually getting into the bad guy’s lair and stopping him.” What exactly was the point of the distraction?

Fourth: Look, I know Superman is … well … super, but both he and Steppenwolf basically thrash all 4 of the other good guys without much effort, so I expected the battle to be less lop-sided. This giant, god-powered axe basically bounces off Superman, who says “I am not impressed” and proceeds to give him the kinda whuppin that a Hulk Hogan would deliver to the average 10 year-old. I have always been under the impression that Superman was stronger and more invulnerable than WW, but not in an exponential sense. WW did fight the LITERAL GOD OF WAR in her first movie (spolier alert: she won, at least against his bodily form). The power levels here were just very mixed up.

Fifth: That future ending, where Batman got to use the F-word, was just all sorts of WTF. People have speculated online that it was going to require Flash to reverse time AGAIN, which if you have to keep going back to that trick, feels like a cop-out solution. I get that this was supposed to help set up a series of future movies, but if they ever happen I hope Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon are nowhere near them, nor any of the other writers involved in this nonsense.