Yeezus, does that even count as a movie at that point?
RETURN OF THE KING Extended Edition is 4hrs38minutes.
I don't think the run time is an issue really, especially nowadays when people are used to binge watching shows.
Plus there's nothing better than a lazy day watching all 3 LotR extended back to back, a puny 4 hours is nothing!!
That's kind of how I look at it. People don't blink at a whole day watching STRANGER THINGS. I know people might quibble about the structure of a longer film not being the same as a multi-episode tv show...but as long as it's organized into Acts...I think it's fine.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
I'm leaning towards the side that it will have an hour and a half of unnecessary bloat.
And whooboy does Snyder like to placard his name over anything he is involved with. Pump the brakes on the ego there, Zacky boy. I'm expecting the next project he is attached to, to begin with - "Zack Snyder presents, Zack Snyder presenting a Zack Snyder film. Produced, written, directed and starring Zack Snyder."
You know what you get with a Snyder movie, so if you like that sort of stuff you'll probably enjoy this too I reckon. Whereas if you don't particularly like the way Snyder makes movies this seems very much to be more of that but turned up to 11.
Take good care to keep relations civil
It's decent in the first of gentlemen
To speak friendly, Even to the devil
So we made it to the half-way mark of the film last night (which is the end of Part 3; there are 6 parts total and an epilogue), and the first thing I'll note is that it's like night and day from Whedon's version (or Josstice League as it's called)...watching it and knowing which bits Joss took from Snyder's footage (not a lot) and how they seemed to hang in mid-air amongst all the stuff that Joss re-shot...gods it's so much better here. Everything makes sense.
Mild, mild spoilers:
Spoiler
FFS Steppenwolf gets a plot line and character arc...in Josstice League he's just a big clumsy CGI baddie who they fight in the third act....In Snyder's version you literally see and understand what he's doing on earth, why he's so hell bent in what he's doing, and what he's seeking to achieve. You also get a much better handle on the Mother Boxes, Apokalips, and all that in the opening section. The Flash...holy hell, The Flash....in Josstice League he's this goofy dude with rank, cringe dialogue...but here he gets an arc that includes Iris West (the wonderful Kiersey Clemons!) and who he is and what he's doing without the cringe. Bruce Wayne and Diana are not just plunked down into nothingness to lead like they seemed to be Josstice League...they both have arcs. Ben Affleck also looks great because when they original y shot JL he was in shape and healthy...but when Joss did the reshoots he was less healthy, drinking again, and a little chubbier...so this is really prime Affleck.
So far I'm more impressed than I even expected to be. This may very well be Snyder's best work to date...and it could be the best DC film of the lot.
Oh and the SCORE? Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) has done an amazing job of incorporating and aping Zimmer's MoS and BvS scores, while making it all his own. Gone are the petulant and goofy leitmotifs Danny Elfman thought he was making...and in their place an epic, and worthy score with notes of everyone's themes...including Superman's MoS theme (which was absent entirely in Elfman's score). It's just a stunning score of music.
There's also tiny details that really hammer homer the subtly on display. Like a short scene in the rain with Lois visiting Superman's "monument" and a cop letting her through the barrier and saying "Jeez Miss Lane, you don't miss a day, do you?". It's lovely little moment that shows that Lois is still in mourning and still dedicated to Clark.
Anyways. We will finish this tonight and I'll chime in with fun thoughts afterwards.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
I guess the aggregate approval percentage places it as the fourth best DCU movie now (above Aquaman, below Wonder Woman, Shazam and Birds of Prey). I watched Aquaman recently, I was sort of meh about it. Didn't hate it, but it wasn't great or anything either. Just sort of middling. Cheesy as all get out in parts, but also some things that were pretty cool (special effects mostly). Did they have to make the Sea Horses actually sound and neigh like regular horses? Really terrible acting throughout. Is it true Amber Heard is out of the sequel because of messiness with Pirate Boy? I think a major driver for any of these flicks is to generate interest in the new amusement ride that opens the following summer. Anyway, back on topic, as it is tracking above Aquaman, I'll watch it eventually. It'll never hold a candle to Shazam though, that shiznit was en fuego, fiya!
HA! Very much. Even in the first half you can see the stark differences.
Like in the mangled Whedon version of the scene where Batman tries to recruit Aquaman sequence that was barely in JOSSTICE...the whole thing is SORT of dramatic, and then Joss (being Joss who does this shit ALL the time) undercuts the whole thing with a joke "I hear you can talk to fish"...whereas the Snyder version of this part is about 3 times as long (and not in a bad way, but in a character depth way), more in depth and plays it straight without jokes. As I said, it's night and day difference, and the almost parody of the Whedon film is so much starker when seeing the intended scene he butchered in 2017.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 19 March 2021 - 05:44 PM
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
So I watched this on saturday with a few friends on a zoom movie night. Now, I have never been much of a fan of Snyder. I don't like his lack of subtlety, I don't like his over dramatic choice of music, and I particularly don't like his in your face objectivist nonsense. Watchmen is the prime example of that last part, where Snyder showed he understood not at all the themes or the message of that story. Or 300, jesus christ, it's like some sort of weird squished together objectivist-facist manifesto made by someone whom read Atlas Shrugged at 15 and never developed beyond that point.
Still, there's not a lot of big blockbusters coming out, and we saw this thing in the cinema back when it originally cam out and were curious. I can say it's not his worst, though that might have something to do with the friends and the beer. It has all the stuff he always does. The blaring music, the over use of slow motion effects, drums drums everywhere. The complete lack of subtlety is still as present as always. Why imply something when Snyder can beat you over the head with repeatedly? And of course, his objectivist nonsense is there as it always is. In all fairness though I think it probably is better than the original Justice League, but that's hardly much of a metric. It's by no means a good movie I think, it's too long without having much to show for its added length. It's trying to be complex but failing miserably in its execution. It's very pretty, except when Snyder goes all Snyder with his light effects, then it just gets dumb. The music is just bad most of the time. Not the score itself as such, but the use of music throughout the film.
In the end, if you like Snyder's films: If you thought Watchmen and Batman vs Superman were great, you will likely enjoy Justice League too. If you find Snyder's movies to be boring, or just bad though, this is very much more of the same.
Take good care to keep relations civil
It's decent in the first of gentlemen
To speak friendly, Even to the devil
We finished it, and I'm comfortable saying that it's Snyder's best work to date, and is EASILY (easily easily) the Best DC comic book movie by a very long stretch. It's probably in my top 3 Comic Book movies of all time.
Also, Gen Z loves this movie? TikTok is ALL Snyder Cut love ALL the time now...I'm surprised how many people, Marvel nerds, people who hated BvS, and many others...they all seem to love it. Consider me surprised.
I'll spoiler tag the rest of my comments so as not to spoil things for people who have not watched it.
Spoiler
So let's get the nitty gritty out of the way first. Comparing Whedon's JL to this, it's hard not to come down and think to yourself "WHAT the fuck was he thinking? The stuff he removed, the stuff re-reshot, the stuff he rewrote entirely...some of it is so bizarrely removed that I can't fathom it.
Like in Joss's JL, in the 3rd act...instead of Flash rewinding time to help save Cyborg and get him into the Unity....Joss had him outside the main building and and action...and saving a Russian family in a truck trying to escape. Like What the ever-loving fuck? The best scene in the whole film....removed for what?
The same is true earlier in Star Labs portion. He removed the scene where Flash is saving everyone outside from falling debris (A cool as fuck comic-book-y scene)...and replaced it with nothing.
I don't get it. I don't get what Joss thought he was doing. I don't know if WB mandated him to do those things....but holy fuck they are bad.
Let's not quibble...Whedon was handed Snyder's film with complete principle photography, and 7 months of post-production work...and said "Nah, let's redo 90% of this"...
Just a shitshow. I'm so glad that I don't have to depend on articles and anecdotal info from the DOP and Snyder himself to make this case any longer. The Snyder Cut proves it all out in spades.
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The Snyder Cut is very much allowed to breathe and be the thing we wanted it to be from the beginning. The characters all get time. Ray Fisher's Cyborg is the heart and soul of this movie. His arc is what unites everyone for most of the runtime. His abilities are all on display in this one, and his story is well done start to finish. Barry's story is another one that gets fleshed out, and Barry's humour is not cringy in this one, but funny.
Snyder's Version of Batman gets the part of his arc we've been waiting for. Many MANY moments of Batman having learned his lesson in BvS and becoming someone with faith in the team, and especially faith in Superman.
Basically everyone gets more depth, and everyone has an arc.
The four hours fly by.
Oh, and people complain about the use of slo-mo...I have always liked it because Zack slows it down to show you what's happening and usually to show the person with powers POV and then it speeds up to show everyone else's POV. I think it's deftly done. Especially the opening Wonder Woman scene...it's stunning.
The CGI is mostly great (there's a few hinky moments, but nothing over the top) and in some cases (like with Steppenwolf's Armor) it's stunning.
The score is wonderful and brings in everyone's themes in interesting ways (the Superman MoS bit's are an extra special treat). The version of Hallelujah that plays over the credits is for Autumn (his daughter who died) who loved that song, and especially the version by the singer who covers it.
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Scenes I LOVED:
The Flash rewinding time, while injured, and kind of crying...breaking his own speed force rules JUST to give Victor a chance...really emotional and well done. Barry taking off sounded like an F1 car. Sound design was excellent.
Steppenwolf about to kill Victor...and then Superman is just there...axe stopped at his shoulder...."Not impressed" and ice breath to freeze the blade and smash it to pieces. A-MAZING.
The team shot of everyone as the batmobile is headed towards the main building. You know the shot. The comic cover freeze frame slowdown shot.
The team actually all doing their bits to take out Steppenwolf...it was nice to see them all lining up to coordinate their final attack...ending with WW slicing his head off and the body and head travelling through the portal to Apokalips and sliding to Darkseid's feet...only for him to crush it underfoot. Cold AF. In Whedon's Cut Wonder Woman only breaks his ax and Superman literally does everything else. This felt like a team effort, as it should.
The Martian Manthunter scene with Bruce was supposed to be Green Lanterns Killowog and Tomar-Re....but WB nixed it and Snyder replaced them with Martian Manhunter. It was cool, nonetheless.
The whole epilogue was an awesome look at the future that could be and makes me REALLY wish for more Snyderverse films.
Laslty, I'm SO glad that the thing everyone freaked out about with the Joker additional scenes from the Epilogue "The We live in a society" moment that trolled SO many people SO hard...was exactly that...a troll. Not in the film at all. I assume this was to hide the actual dialogue and not spoil the epilogue.
So will this result in a restored Snyderverse? Probably not (though that's what's trending now), and that's fine....I got what I wanted in this film. So did Zack and that makes me happy. He's got to be happy that the general consensus is very good on this...(critical and audience) and that he was not wrong (nor were we fans) to ask that he be allowed to show us what it was meant to be, which is without a doubt a GREAT JL movie.
That said, I HOPE that Cavill gets to remain as Superman for the DC stuff on the back of the success of this.
I also hope that FLASHPOINT, when it's rewriting things, accommodates some SnyderCut stuff going forward.
I also hope that Ray Fisher gets more work...he's EASILY he MVP of this whole endeavour and I'd love to see him in more films.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 22 March 2021 - 02:28 PM
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
Zack Snyder's best work is his version of Dawn of the Dead. Which can't really be compared to the original movie, which has influenced so many horror directors that followed. But Snyder's version of Dawn of the Dead was really good. And it introduced many to the musical stylings of Richard Cheese. Get down with the sickness, you cool cats.
I think this was massively better than the Whedon cut. The movie still isn't absolutely terrific, but it does a good to very good job of making one care about the characters and what's happening while setting the table for many different story lines.
Snyder is fantastic at making the characters feel mythic or very very strong. This has been a theme that I've liked from Man of Steel to BvS because by and large, I'm not paying attention to the superheroes because they're regular people. I'm paying attention to them because they have extraordinary abilities and they seem to have a self imposed responsibility to tackle gigantic problems and hugely powerful enemies. Clark struggling to be a god in BvS was rather empathetic to me because how in the hell does a libertarian farm boy deal with all of that with zero preparation and world adulation/animosity?
Cyborg getting a full storyline was terrific. Flash getting most of one was also great and his focus moving from being "Spiderman Lite" to super super strong and integral component of team success is exactly what the character needed.
I will say that the Wonder Woman bank scene, although being a superb piece of action, didn't need to be in the movie. We could have skipped that entirely. The Aquaman fisherman rescue/whiskey commercial was weird and unnecessary too. I wonder if Momoa knew he was signing up to be basically naked in glacial runoff for many years to come when he won the role. Brrrr.
The sweater sniff was weird, but I think that was the point. They're being treated like gods and people get horny for gods.
The whole Darkseid Mother Box thing didn't work fully. The interplanetary conquerer assembles 3 unique artifacts, discovers the anti life equation, gets beaten, loses the McGuffins, leaves and then fucks around for 5000 years before being reminded by an underling's underling that what he's been looking for is on Earth? Does he have raging ADHD? The sequencing of the story links doesn't work here and fortunately it doesn't matter too much because Darkseid gets to where he needs to be in the end - focused on conquering Earth.
The Martian Manhunter impersonating Martha was bizarre in how it was shown onscreen. There's no motivation given to him and so it becomes a weird push to get Lois in the right place in the right time to redirect Superman - but without much to explain or even hint at how Martian Manhunter has precognition or knows Lois is important.
The "Superman is evil" 5 minutes were fun and well executed. I do groan at the "buy coffee for the cops" thing that Lois did. Comes off as blue lives matter when that's definitely not the most socially connected thing to be committing hard to right now.
Luthor escaping is great. The alt future thing was good. The team definitely needs more women - Zatanna maybe? Black Canary?
Mera popped up in the alt future, but either a re-cast or a character cut is inbound because Amber Heard is a well documented abuser. I hope for a re-cast.
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
The whole Darkseid Mother Box thing didn't work fully. The interplanetary conquerer assembles 3 unique artifacts, discovers the anti life equation, gets beaten, loses the McGuffins, leaves and then fucks around for 5000 years before being reminded by an underling's underling that what he's been looking for is on Earth? Does he have raging ADHD? The sequencing of the story links doesn't work here and fortunately it doesn't matter too much because Darkseid gets to where he needs to be in the end - focused on conquering Earth.
So I could be wrong on this point but I THINK:
Spoiler
That only the Mother Boxes attack/Unity (terraforming earth) thing was happening with the Old Gods fight with Darkseid...the Anti-life equation was not found then, otherwise Darkseid would have already subjugated the universe under anti-life....instead I think that he abandoned earth as a planet to conquer/search for it when it appeared that out of all the places he'd already conquered, earth put up a good fight. He also lost the Mother Boxes in the attempt and they were hidden from him.
Steppenwolf discovering that earth holds the Anti-Life equation while he's searching for the last Mother Box is entirely coincidental since the only reason he was "summoned" back to earth was Superman's death cry awakening the boxes from their thousands years slumber.
Darkseid has looked for Anti-Life his entire existence and never found it until Steppenwolf stumbled across it.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 22 March 2021 - 07:19 PM
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
VASTLY superior to the Whedon version, and is actually a solid solid film. I'd have to agree that it's probably my favourite DC film now (previously was WW - the first one, not the god awful 1984), and yeah the lean into mythological aspects in terms of the characters powers is worth it.
Restoring the Snyderverse is probably asking too much, but I certainly wouldn't be averse to it.
Also, Amber Heards' accent is bloody awful, and unutterably pointless.
The anti life equation seems to be signified by the giant fire earth glyph that comes when Darkseid and Steppenwolf hit the ground real hard. The glyph is the thing that makes Steppenwolf say it's there - and somehow he and Darkseid seem to know that they should hit the ground real hard with their magic to get this result.
The mother box stuff is almost irrelevant if Darkseid knows the anti life equation is there and all he has to do to find it is hit the ground real hard again, then learn it, then conquer life everywhere.
The boxes waking up or being good to go once Superman was out of the way is such a BS thing. What were they doing for the 4965 years prior to Kal-El's arrival on Earth? Why does the box immediately next to Superman (the one Cybog had) not wake up the most and call out (the Amazons' box was the one that woke up)?
It's not movie breaking stuff, but this is just little sequences of dumb stuff that didn't need to happen this way.
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
Watched the original again in prep for ego boy cut. Totally forgot about that post credit scene. Is there going to eventually be a Legion of Doom in this stuff?
Also, heh, Deathstroke. Sounds like once last naughty wank before punching your card.
champ 
QuickTidal, on 18 March 2021 - 05:58 PM, said:
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