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Zack Snyder’s Justice League - Official Trailer
- Thread starter Spectromixer
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Well, supporting the Snyder Cut is still supporting Warner Bros and Hamada. This is being put out by them on their streaming service.
To piggyback off this, when you have an auteur like Snyder with such a unique style and such unique tropes and motifs it becomes impossible to separate his filmography from himself. Imagine trying to do the same for Christopher Nolan, or Edgar Wright, or Quentin Tarantino. It'd be a herculean task.
That isn't to say that any fucked-up lazy potshot is valid, it's more that the dividing line between Snyder and his art is incredibly blurred from the get-go because of his particular nature as an artist and creator.
The way I see it, the issue is how quickly BvS gets to its deconstruction and how much it skips. We go from in MoS seeing the Battle of Metropolis from Superman's perspective to the prologue of BvS seeing the 9/11-esque event from Bruce Wayne on the ground to the act 1 montage of Superman's godlike acts while voice samples question his good intentions. It's sort of taken for granted that he's a hero - the first time we see the statue in his honor it's about to be defaced with "FALSE GOD".
People shit on the Russian family in Whedon's JL but they're there because Whedon wants you to know that these regular people are in danger and that the heroes have to go out of their way to save them. He inundates Avengers and AoU with these contained intimate scenes of superheroes explicitly saving random civilians and generally doing superhero things. He forces you to really breathe it in that they're heroes, something that's only really entertained with Clark's random Good Samaritan acts in MoS. And it should be noted that both WWs, Shazam, and to a lesser extent Aquaman make sure to have these sorts of hammer-it-in-clear moments too.
Totally understand the complaint as it's an over-simplification of the material. But to illustrate, off the top of my head I can remember most of the scenes from the '78 Superman movie where he saves someone/does something characteristic of Superman, in costume from the moment he catches the helicopter and Lois to the moment he reverses time to save Lois again. I wouldn't be able to name a single such scene from BvS without Google. I took a minute to try and think of one.
Part of that has to do with how Zack treated Batman in that film. He clearly prefers him over Superman, though his version that doesn't have a problem killing, not the one we've grown used to. And part of that has to do with the incoherent presentation of the film itself, a problem with the theatrical version. It's not that Superman doesn't save anyone in the movie. It's that the way it's done it's not memorable/important/meaningful.
If you've made a Superman movie and it's difficult to remember how he saved people as Superman that's a problem.
With regard to Superman being a normal guy trying to deal with being Superman, that's the problem. Superman has in the past struggled momentarily with his limitations but has never struggled with the fact that he's Superman and that people don't like him for it. By the time he decides to put on the cape he's firmly grounded in who he is and what he has to do. Which is why he wouldn't have struggled with what to do with Zod or sulked or dealt with really anything the way Snyder's Superman dealt with things.
Superman from the comics is this guy:
not this guy:
He has moments of sadness but he isn't defined by them. I've deviated from your original point.
I can't remember Superman saving people in BvS. Not saying it didn't happen. Just saying I can't remember and that's a problem in a movie with Superman in it.
Is it the scene where he's lifting the rocket? 'Cause that took an internet search to jog my memory.
He leaves the Lex party and saves a girl from a burning building in Mexico, saves the woman on the roof of the flooded home, and the rocket sequence.
The Katrina-esque scene? Found it:
Just as a matter of comparison, this is a memorable scene with Superman saving people as Superman:
See also any [rescue] scene from a Superman film not directed by Zack Snyder. I don't mean that as a snarky aside. I'm dead serious.
Edited in [brackets].
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I think the directors cut is better than the watchmen ultimate cut. Both are good to me tho.
Why Snyder heroes are the way they are, outside of him slavishly following the fractured DC canon, and why some, of course not all, famous comic creators got behind Snyder. One of his fans is DC GOAT Grant Morrison.
It´s like, Enough already. I get Spider-man. I get Superman. I get Batman, for that matter, but I am ready for them to do something real. ZS 2009
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en.wikipedia.org
It´s like, Enough already. I get Spider-man. I get Superman. I get Batman, for that matter, but I am ready for them to do something real. ZS 2009
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Seamus Blackley - Wikipedia
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Right, so he never wanted to make Superman or Batman. Do we even need to argue against this man's nonsense anymore?
EDIT: I've said enough I suppose, and people are allowed their opinions. I'm just trying to deal with the fact that there will never be another good Superman film in my lifetime. WB is in posession of a dangerous amount of cocaine and decision-making power and they've allowed a man who explicitly said he wanted to do something other than make Superman and Batman movies to make Superman and Batman movies. Yikes.
Um, why should anyone care what comic creators or whoever say about Snyder's faithfulness or whatever? What matters is the end result and the critics pretty much agree his end result is a goddamn mess.
I don't give a shit what his intentions are; I don't care what comic artists and writers think about his process; I don't care how many Ester Eggs are in his films. I only care about what is in the actual final film. I only care about the quality of the end product. And, that is where he has always fallen short. I think Watchmen is a perfect example of Snyderness. He adapts all the scenes correctly from a visual stand-point, the attention to detail is insane. But, he fails to actually understand what Watchmen was ultimately about.
1. He kills people that actively try to kill him or kill others directly, he doesn't kill anyone that is harmless or incapacitated.
2. "Not because someone told him to" he literally is told by a woman during his investigation that only strength can stop the bat because he is above the law, which is exacerbated by what Lex does and shows him.
3. I am done arguing with you, the intro with the ship/bar, Clark listening to Jor-El, the church sccene and Clark telling Lois about how his father died.
These are the only scenes in which Clark doesn't smile in Man of Steel (outside of battles and direct tense / confrontation moments with the other aliens obviously)
Just went back and checked all of them one by one.
The last shot of the film is literally this
"I didn't notice any diff in BvS" yeah my ass
1.Superman had major emotional breakdown at the end of man of steel over having to kill zod who was trying to burn a family. It was the climax to their big fight so why is it suddenly okay for batman to do it in the very next movie? Completely contradicts his own movies.
2. Yes I know what the woman said but she didnt take out a kryptonite gun and force superman to go fight batman that was still superman's own decision.
3.those scenes where he doesn't smile comprise most of a almost 2 and a half hour movie, like the beginning,the flashbacks and the 40 minute battle at the end. Plus you attribute his less smiling to him feeling bad about what happened at end of the last movie but again the movie never gives any indication of that, it's just flimsy justification for superman's indifference to his own carelessness.
I'd argue that instead of phrasing the concept as "fixing" Superman and Batman, I'd say Snyder was developing and transitioning those characters into the more familiar portrayals we all know and love. It just needed the full release of the films he had intended to direct and release, before we all decide to judge the treatment of them through the midway point. As Deborah Snyder said in an interview yesterday, she was just hoping that the audience could have been more patient. And I think 4+ years is a decent enough time to wait.
It shouldn't take three (or four, since he wanted JL to be two parts) movies for Superman to become the actual Superman.
Then I would say that's absolutely fair, in your opinion. In Man of Steel, the core of Superman's character is there, but it would take the events of BvS for him to establish a sense of trust with the world and general populace due to his sacrifice. If you're saying you wanted to have a Superman who was universally loved, then I'd say it's best to wait till we all get to see Zack Snyder's Justice League first, and then see if there is anything else we'd want him to be that could have been explored in a theoretical JL Part 2.
I mean, yeah that was Snyder's intent. It's not exactly a great intent since he's relying pop culture osmosis of the characters to start them at at a disparate point. But, it's hard to wrap around the idea that this version of Batman has "fallen" when we don't know what his regular good version looked like.
Regardless, its clear the general idea was to deconstruct these characters, asking questions about their general nature and worth. And then have them slowly transition into their familiar hero roles and in doing so hopefully answer those questions initially raised when deconstructing them about their worth and role in society.
But again, that was just the intent. His actual execution in his first phase were hardly great or even particularly coherent.
Not saying this is the case, but what if that was always the intention and what Snyder wanted for this story?
Just feels like people who complained Joker, and how you don't see The Joker til the very end, even though that was the whole point.
I disagree.
I think its an interesting and bold creative choice. It's just that Snyder is absolutely the wrong person to do it. Like, there are large chunks of MoS I enjoy where Snyder gets close to successfully getting at what he's intending. And, there are bits of BvS that I enjoy where he's exploring these concepts.
However, the overall end products are just flawed. They are never able to successfully deconstruct these characters. So, you can't build these characters back up when you failed in tearing them down in the first place.
Then his intention is flawed. I don't have to agree with his intent just because it was his intent. You can tell a story wrong even if all the composite parts are technically there, and you can really really really want to tell a story only for it to turn out to be a bad story in execution.
Believe me, I've done both a lot of times in theatre.
No one is saying you have to agree with anything, I just don't follow with regard to how his intention is flawed. If his intention was for Superman to be on a path that requires a 3 movie arc for Superman to be at a place where he resembles a version of the character that most people are familiar with, what exactly is wrong about that intention?
I could understand how one could consider that less than ideal because they're eager to get in on some traditional Superman, but I don't understand how the intention here is wrong, especially when you consider that Snyder's Superman isn't very traditional.
Again, not saying you have to agree with any of Snyder's intention or interpretation of the characters, but him seeing his work through as he pleases, and with the studio backing him... how is what he's doing wrong? Sorry if I'm being hard headed.
Because the arc will be over before we actually get to see the character people actually like and care about in any real capacity. Spending (or in my opinion, wasting) three movies focusing on some grim asshole who vaguely resembles Superman and then getting 5 minutes of the real Superman at the end of the trilogy feels like the cinematic equivalent of the Lucy and the football gag.
It's like the reboot Tomb Raider trilogy. Every game in the series was billed as "the moment where Lara becomes the Tomb Raider" and featured a whiny, wimpy, weirdly psychotic Lara having emotional meltdowns and severing people's spinal chords with rock axes, when people just wanted to play as the Lara Croft they actually like.
Then it is a terrible idea.
Especially when you run through Doomsday and Death of Superman before Superman actually is Superman
Ok so it's not that his intention is wrong, it's just that you don't agree with his approach.
Fair enough if you don't agree with his approach, but you can't really say that what an artist intends for their own work is "wrong".
Fair enough if you don't agree with his approach, but you can't really say that what an artist intends for their own work is "wrong".
You're getting too sematic over the word 'wrong', as if it's a mathematical truth that one can prove. It's contextually dependent.
If we are looking at Snyder wanting to tell a story in isolation of a three movie arc for superman where he goes from asshole to classical superman, that's not wrong in any sense because Snyder wants what Snyder wants and that's all there is to it. It could be four hours of superman masturbating and it wouldn't be 'wrong' if we're just trying to satisfy what snyder wants.
But he doesn't just want to tell that story, he wants that story arc to be watched. By audiences. Even enjoyed by them. And that means there's more factors at play. If the audience doesn't want that three arc story, then they're probably not going to want to watch those three movies. In that case, it's obviously the wrong choice because now what Snyder wants is not the sole concern. It has to be what he wants and what the audience wants.
So the only way this would be right is if the story arc is told in such a way that the audience sees it as something they never knew they wanted, and for that it has to be really, really good. It doesn't seem to have worked out that way.
I can see how I would come off that way, but really I'm just trying to discuss what the rules of engagement are for an artist. As I understand it, people who are not fans are wrongfully critiquing Snyder's intentions for his work.
We can agree or disagree on the many ways BvS and MoS are flawed and broken, but I don't think it's fair to criticize an artist for having a vision, and wanting/trying to stay true to their vision, even if you don't like what they bring to the table.
The intent to have him die as part of his pre real Superman arc is a terrible intention
He's such a weird opposite of himself like from his work you think he would be a real jerk but he seems to be by all accounts a decent and really nice person.
I don't like how he feels the material should go but I don't fault him personally. I think if he partnered with someone and let them write and him film cause he has an eye for setting a scene it would be so much better.
Eh, I disagree. In better hands I can see it work and completing the Jesus comparison. Clark, who questions his role as a savior and his duty to humanity, dies and is reborn as Superman, the hero we all know and love.
The intent makes perfect sense to me, the execution is just horrid.
Basically this. Solid example. Understands the ideas and themes being presented, sees how it could work, but also understands how the execution didn't stick the landing.
Discussing the execution and unpacking themes, ideas, questions, or failure to execute them is an awesome part of critiquing art. Whether or not you like, or agree with the artist intent is kind of besides the point.
Actually fine
But then it should have literally been his first fight
Where Doomsday a force no one can stop, forces Clark to finally stop trying to be a normal man, who doesn't intervene, as his Dad intended him to be
He doesn't wear the suit, he wears something else, something made on the fly.
And he saves and defeats/kills Doomsday but dies in the process
And in his resurrection he dons the outfit and takes on the name Superman... and no more will he refrain from intervening and we see him save as many as he can, always putting saving people first.
Yeah that works
Again, context. Is staying true to their vision a commendable feat? In some cases, sure, depending on what is being produced, why people are trying to change it, why the artists sticks to their vision. But there are millions of examples where artists creative vision is an inarguable detriment.
It's just not productive to argue from the perspective that an artists vision has intrinsic value. It's like saying all opinions have intrinsic value, even racist ones or ones that deny reality like flat earthers. Hell, you know who was an auteur who stopped at nothing to have their artistic vision realized? Tommy Wisaeu. And the only good things to come out of his movie are the hilarity he in no way intended.
That said, those are extreme examples. The point being argued here is mostly just a structural one. It's a poor choice to structure your story like this if all audiences want is a traditional superman story. And frankly, what is it about Superman that Snyder HAS to write his story like this? What justifies his vision being this besides "Snyder want!"
My take is that artists with a vision need to listen to feedback to understand how best to deliver their vision. There was a game director who wanted to create a zombie story where a man delivered a child with an immunity to the zombie virus to scientists in order to work out a cure. But in this story, he wrote it so that only women were affected by the zombie virus. This meant that his game functioned in a fundamentally misogynistic way - Players would spend their time doing nothing but performing violence on exclusively women, being suspicious of any unturned women and effectively have subtext of policing womens bodies. So when he got feedback realizing what his game was doing, he changed it so that anyone could be infected, and that game ended up being the Last of Us, one of the most acclaimed games of all time.
I think artists are far more likely to produce better work if they are dedicated to perfecting their vision, which will mean changing it where necessary, not staying true to it.
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User Warned: Antagonizing Fellow Member; Threadbanned (3 Days)
Don't quit your day job.
Intentions and visions can be bad, they're open to criticism. It's silly to argue they're sacrosanct
Disagree on the first fight bit. The problem is Doomsday. BvS, in true Snyder fashion, crams fifty million plots in the film but can't really finish any of them, especially those most important. BvS is centered around questioning power and the existence of morality that comes with such power. The film is constantly beating this point home. Yet, it never really has an answer, particularly for our main heroes. Instead, Doomsday is crammed in and Clark's death just seems random and pointless.
BvS spends WAY too much time setting up Luthor's plot, which is super convoluted, only to run out of time to answer the actual important questions it brings up. Doomsday was simply the wrong villain to end the film on, hell mecha Luthor would've been better than Doomsday.
It's hard to imagine a proper ending to BvS that ends with Superman's death, as it just seems rushed. And you can't have Superman resurrect without answering the question about power you raised. Otherwise, Superman should come back the same as he was, an asshole.
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Just to add, the "lesson" Clark learns in the film is how to essentially be a part of the world through connecting with another person, ie Lois. That's what his ghost memory dad states and what his momma was leading him to. Superman finds his "world" and is prepared to die for it. And thus, he realizes that micro-love is more important than worrying about macro-love.
BUT, the problem is this really has nothing to do with the question asked in the film. It's like asking what is 2+2 and someone going "orange." That's an answer to the question asked.
BvS questions the nature of power, god, and objective morality. And in the end Superman's answer is "I love Lois." The fuck?
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I hate it lol
I was just trying to come up with something that might work lol
This is slightly tangential but I always have to question making Superman into a Jesus metaphor. From what I understand it was never really a thing in the comics and only kind of a thing in the Donner Superman movie. It's not necessary to the character and I don't really get what it adds. If anything, if Snyder's movies are meant to make Superman relatable to a modern audience then making him into a jesus metaphor makes him less human and less relatable.
Supermans original creators were two Jewish men who created him as him, if anything, a Moses metaphor. Imagine how pissed they be.
Now granted, you COULD argue that Moses was another messianic figure, but let's NOT open up that can of worms...
It makes Clark look like he has some massive character flaw and/or that the Kents did a shit job. If anything, Pa Kent's death in MoS is the only catalyst you need for his growth into the hero. Having the power to do something but holding back. Not something he's going to do again. The only real interesting struggle he should have after that imo is when he turns it all off for the night, when he sleeps, when he lives his life. The weight of that has always been powerful to me.
MoS basically character assassinated Pa Kent
I was just trying to work from that
I think what they did with Pa Kent is kinda interesting at least in the initial idea. It comes from a good place, ultimately he just wants to protect his son. But the execution becomes comical with the extreme they had to push it.
Oh absolutely to both of these! These are some really great points and 100% valid. And I also do think that the imagery and aesthetic matters a ton too, as that's the quickest way to communicate an idea to the audience. For example how most of Superman's scenes are dark and moody, it sort of sets the tone despite the content of said scenes. But there's a lot of material to build on with from the Snyder Trilogy now and it would be such a huge shame if we never get another Henry Cavil Superman film to show him now fully stepping into his role as the alien All-American Boyscout people know and love him for. And I think some of the stuff Whedon added to Justice League does have some value, even if a lot of it clashes visually and tonally with what Snyder already shot. But I really love showing more of Clark's "human" side to his character and doing the right thing no matter what, something that I think there would be more room for in a hypothetical MoS sequel now that we've established who this character is, where he sees his place in the world. Though I very much doubt we'll ever get a Justice League 2 unless this somehow is a MASSIVE hit on HBO max. Only time will tell, but it's a fascinating experiment no matter what happens.
I wasn't going to participate in this discussion, but I gotta say, I really don't understand why so many people straight-up hate Snyder. Based on what I've read about him, everyone on set really enjoys working with him, and he sounds pretty humble in his interviews as well. He says dumb shit from time to time, but I really don't think it comes from a bad place. He's obviously passionate about this stuff even if he doesn't always hit the mark, and treats the actors with respect and admiration I've not seen from many Hollywood people. I get not liking his work, but the amount of vitriol against him is unwarranted.
For someone who's been reading comics for years now, it really doesn't bother me if someone wants to do a different take on a character. I can dislike something, and not rant about it, for what is now YEARS after release. If you want to explore Superman media that isn't Snyder, there are tons of animated films, on-going comics, and graphic novels that are always available. It's not like Snyder "ruined" Superman forever, Superman is an idea that will keep showing up in different forms, forever, and you can still explore that by different authors, and takes.
For someone who's been reading comics for years now, it really doesn't bother me if someone wants to do a different take on a character. I can dislike something, and not rant about it, for what is now YEARS after release. If you want to explore Superman media that isn't Snyder, there are tons of animated films, on-going comics, and graphic novels that are always available. It's not like Snyder "ruined" Superman forever, Superman is an idea that will keep showing up in different forms, forever, and you can still explore that by different authors, and takes.
We are at almost forty pages, if this thread is "minor criticism" then I'd hate to see what's classified as major.
I'd love to see film threads this popular about something like Once Upon a Time In Hollywood or Parasite or even Borat 2 for that matter.