Justice League

[The Cat]

To be honest, I don't expect much from this.

I am far more interested in it as a form of artistic research and film history -- how exactly did the film change as it was ported from one director to another in mid-stream? What did the studio think would work better? And so on.

It's not a 100% perfect contrast since Snyder's version was never finished, and it is now being finished after the death of the Whedon version, but hey I guess we'll take what we can get.

That's the modern film industry slogan.

 

[Totenkindly]

That's the modern film industry slogan.

Squeeze out those pennies from your audience!

 

[The Cat]

Squeeze out those pennies from your audience!

 

[Stigmata]

Zack Snyder Will #ReleaseTheSnyderCut of ‘Justice League’ on HBO Max – Variety

Next up: REDO THE LAST TWO SEASONS OF GAME OF THRONES

On paper this seems interesting enough, yet in actuality I have pretty low expectations. Zack Snyder has the unique talent of making movies with very long run times, yet also having very little character dialog or development -- his films always have this sort of atmospheric meandering quality where he invests so much into setting the most perfect encapsulation, only for scene itself to just be utterly lackluster.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

On paper this seems interesting enough, yet in actuality I have pretty low expectations. Zack Snyder has the unique talent of making movies with very long run times, yet also having very little character dialog or development -- his films always have this sort of atmospheric meandering quality where he invests so much into setting the most perfect encapsulation, only for scene itself to just be utterly lackluster.

Regarding Snyder movies, I'm just glad the screenwriter of Batman Vs. Superman was banned from writing any other tentpole pictures. I'm just glad I don't have to watch another nonsense scene where a major character changes their entire alignment because of something really dumb and irrelevant involving their mom.

Movie watchers of the world, you have dodged a bullet.

 

[The Cat]

On paper this seems interesting enough, yet in actuality I have pretty low expectations. Zack Snyder has the unique talent of making movies with very long run times, yet also having very little character dialog or development -- his films always have this sort of atmospheric meandering quality where he invests so much into setting the most perfect encapsulation, only for scene itself to just be utterly lackluster.

Zack Snyder presents: The Creepy Room. horror beyond imagination. You the audience are locked in a slightly creepy room. The atmosphere is spot on, you can practically feel the temperature of the room. Nothing happens really. Just some atmospheric pan shots and some on point movie trailers showcasing the aesthetics. The horror sets in when your realize you paid 20 bucks to watch it, and the theatre door is locked from the outside for the full 2&1/2 hours.

- - - Updated - - -

Regarding Snyder movies, I'm just glad the screenwriter of Batman Vs. Superman was banned from writing any other tentpole pictures. I'm just glad I don't have to watch another nonsense scene where a major character changes their entire alignment because of something really dumb and irrelevant involving their mom.

Movie watchers of the world, you have dodged a bullet.

Can you imagine if one of them hadnt been breast fed...theyd still be fighting.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Can you imagine if one of them hadnt been breast fed...theyd still be fighting.

Or even worse, what if they asked for hungry hungry hippos for the holidays and didn't get it?

 

[Totenkindly]

HBO Execs Convinced to Release Snyder Cut After Realizing All Their Mothers’ Names Are Martha

“When Katie Soo casually remarked, in regards to Justice League’s commercial failure, that her mother Martha would always say to let sleeping dogs lie, it sent shockwaves through the room,” said HBO Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly. “I had never seriously considered releasing Zack Snyder’s incomplete edit of the film, but after we one by one revealed that each of our mothers were also named Martha, I ordered post-production to begin immediately.”

Or even worse, what if they asked for hungry hungry hippos for the holidays and didn't get it?

Why are you wearing that stupid hippo suit?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

HBO Execs Convinced to Release Snyder Cut After Realizing All Their Mothers’ Names Are Martha






Why are you wearing that stupid hippo suit?

ITo hide my shame at my ruse of being caught at stealing from a movie. The alliteration of hungry hungry hippos is just too good to pass up.

 

[Totenkindly]

Not surprised this is now becoming a thing -- could have predicted this turn of events.

Suicide Squad director says the cut he wanted to release would be "easy to complete"

 

[Totenkindly]

Zack Snyder confirms that the Snyder Cut of 'Justice League' is locked, promises fans a 'giant amount of movie'

Four hours of film, on HBO Max. Since they still need to finish the special effects work, probably mid 2021?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Zack Snyder confirms that the Snyder Cut of 'Justice League' is locked, promises fans a 'giant amount of movie'

Four hours of film, on HBO Max. Since they still need to finish the special effects work, probably mid 2021?

I am so tired of hearing about this and all the related drama. gaaaah

It's not directed at you specifically, but rather all the clickbait articles I'm bombarded with on social media.

 

[Totenkindly]

I am so tired of hearing about this and all the related drama. gaaaah

It's not directed at you specifically, but rather all the clickbait articles I'm bombarded with on social media.

Understandable. I haven't seen any lately myself but haven't really been looking.

I'm now to just keeping track of when the release date is and I'll watch it when it's done.

 

[Totenkindly]

Zack Snyder’s so-called “Snyder Cut” of the 2017 DC superhero movie “Justice League” will hit HBO Max on Thursday, March 18, WarnerMedia said on Friday. Three new posters were also released promoting the highly anticipated four-hour-long re-release.

Boom

 

[Totenkindly]

So I rewatched the original Justice League by Whedon, to prep for comparison to the Snyder cut.

Basically it's an entirely forgettable movie, even if obvious they technically knew how to put together a film.

• the film caters far too much to older comic book history, without setting anything up in the actual DCU films. No one know anything about mother boxes, Steppenwolf, demon bugs, and all the old Kirby "new Gods" mythos unless they're been reading comics for some decades... and the films did not bother to set ANYTHING up. I mean, I hate to compare to Marvel, but they had a 22-film streak that set up the Infinity Stones *and* Thanos. I was considering over the weekend all the Infinity Stones references and/or encounters with the MCU heroverse and most of the films involve some aspect of an Infinity stone. The only stone we never saw until Infinity Wars was the Soul Stone, really. A number of the MCU heroes also either got their powers from a soul stone and/or were triggered by one. But the entire time, Thanos was also being talked about as a threat and we had glimpses of him as far back as The Avengers. DCU was half-assed. there is supposedly world-ending peril in Justice League, yet there was no history established for it. I remember when the Legion of Superheroes did their "Darkseid is coming" run and it lasted for issues, to build the drama.
  
• Steppenwolf is far less interesting than Thanos (he is a flat character), and again we don't know who he is, deeply what he wants, and what he seems to want is just generic bad-guy stuff. We also don't understand the rules around which his powers operate.
  
• Just like we don't understand Mother Boxes, we thus don't really understand Cyborg. We don't know him before he became Cyborg, we just see what happened to him after. In an ideal DCU world, we would have met his character (and his dad) a few movies back as secondary characters, and had his arc building until this tragedy, and then his dad does something crazy to save him -- turning him into this constantly upgrading machine. It's a cool character concept, but we don't even know what humanity this guy lost because we never met him as a human, really.
  
• Batman is cast as the mother hen who suddenly cares about having a team because he realizes he is inadequate. Flash is pretty much played for comic relief. The Wonder Woman arc doesn't mesh with her two movies anymore. Aquaman is fine because his character was always played for coolness / fun -- at least his semi-one-dimensional approach was established in his own film. The whole Superman arc isn't explained -- he's dead, but not really; he's awake but disoriented apparently (until he's not); then he's back to being himself in pretty short order; whatever. Frankly, it is half-assed.
  
• Stupid side plots. Like, Ma Kent loses her farm, but Bruce was not aware originally? (But then we never really follow up on her through-out the film?) You'd think he would have just paid off her mortgage, much cheaper than "buy the whole bank" at movie's end for a throwaway joke that seems cribbed from Inception where it actually made more sense. Or the russian family bit, which was obviously meant to raise the stakes and/or present a human connection -- but it is just time that could have spent fleshing out the backstories that needed it and still didn't contribute much. Like, who cares about some backwoods settlers in the middle of Russian tundra? There are no stakes.... but I guess it was easier than populating and destroying a city... and I guess the studio got grief for Supes trashing Metropolis?
  
• In the end, there's just not much that stands out in this film. It has no gravitas since we don't know who anyone is or what they really want. Everything is kept mostly in the realm of light-hearted banter. Plot points that should have been less obvious and much larger are rushed / tossed in (like Supes' rez) without proper ramifications. there are no real beats of potential sacrifice, the end is a foregone conclusion. (Compare to Whedon's two Avengers films, where at least there felt like there were stakes and character beats were established so we actually cared and actually thought the characters could lose their lives or things that mattered to them.)
  
• It's not entirely fair to judge an effort that jammed together two directors like mother boxes being jammed together, mostly via studio interference. (Snyder says the studio forced Whedon in before Snyder actually left, and that level of interference along with his daughter's death led him to just say it wasn't worth it and walk off, and then Whedon took over completely.) At the same time, the finished film is the film, and these are its problems.

I'm interested in seeing what the real difference is between this and Snyder's longer and more consistent version and how it all plays out. His films have legitimate criticisms, whether it's about the ending of Man of Steel or the "Martha" bit of Bat v Supes, but they typically at least felt like they had gravitas. We argue about them, we complain about the parts we disagree with, but people remember them. Which is better than having a film that no one can really remember much about because it did not matter.

 

[Totenkindly]

Note I still blame the studio and Snyder for a lack of long-term planning in the DCU. They also knew that Marvel was doing the Thanos thing by 2012 and before, so they had time to set up a different arc rather than doing the "OMG we can't use Darkseid, so let's substitute this guy no one knows who will just play the same role" trick which honestly was just far worse.

DCU just did not plan all this out. The Mother Boxes should have shown up in other films. There should have been intimations of "otherworldly baddies" who weren't Kryptonians but another power level altogether reverberating through the the DCU rather than just showing up in a minute or two of BvS. Characters should have been established in longer arcs. They even had it easier because one guy was doing a few films. But if they were not ready to roll out a Darkseid-style invasion, then they should have kept building until they were ready. They really did not have many films out before trying Justice League. Again, just too much too fast and too much dependent on Snyder, who is great at video style filmmaking (mood/ambiance + action sequences) but needs direction from writers with broader visions.

The one big continuity thing I did like was that BvS opened with the perspective of Bruce Wayne and other regular humans, revisiting the destruction of Metropolis, which was originally viewed from an angle more sympathetic to Superman but who appeared alien and threatening in terms of the impact to regular humanity, setting off a chain of events. Yay, character-driven plotting.

 

[Totenkindly]

‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Accidentally Leaks on HBO Max

...A Twitter user said he tried to access “Tom and Jerry” on the HBO Max home screen and instead got the eagerly awaited Snyder cut of the 2017 film “Justice League” — the subject of much speculation since Joss Whedon’s re-shot and re-edited version originally appeared in theaters after Snyder backed out toward the end of production.

@hbomax someone’s getting fired…Tom and Jerry this is not…#SnyderCut pic.twitter.com/B0ReNp2JR2

— Doug (@ThenDougSaid) March 8, 2021

The individual added, “They figured it out and cut the feed but I can say the first hour or so of the Snyder cut is the best DC film I’ve ever seen.”

Not that that would take a lot... but... interesting.

 

[Totenkindly]

‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Initial Reactions: ‘A Miracle of a Movie’

Welp, this is almost here, so [MENTION=4660]Julius_Van_Der_Beak[/MENTION] will no longer have to dodge articles or complain about all the pre-hype Thursday it is.

The initial buzz is pretty great, and it at least beats the crapazoid 2017 theatrical release hands down, as best as I can tell.

Apparently Snyder had another 2-3 films following this which will likely never get made now, so this ends more on a cliffhanger, but oh well. Those are the breaks.

 

[Stigmata]

‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Accidentally Leaks on HBO Max



Not that that would take a lot... but... interesting.

I'm calling shenanigans on this: First off, what sort of self-respecting patron would choose to watch Tom and Jerry on their own volition? This seems like marketing.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm calling shenanigans on this: First off, what sort of self-respecting patron would choose to watch Tom and Jerry on their own volition? This seems like marketing.

I have to admit it: I never much liked Tom & Jerry either. I was a Looney Toons fan.

It's hard to tell whether it was marketing or just incompetence, because of course there is a lot of both in streaming business.