The Snyder Cut

[GloatingSwine]

Exactly - it's more than possible to take an established franchise and make something that is not just technically but also conceptually brilliant.

Especially if you're the original creator of that franchise and also a director with a good grasp of visual storytelling. Which George Miller is.

(George Lucas, by contrast, sort of isn't. His directorial style is much more akin to documentary filming than narrative filming).

[The Glyphstone]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

[Gallowglass]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

/exterior: the windswept duned of tatooine/

voice over: Today we are going to talk to the moisture farmers of Tattooine. These roughnecks of the sandwastes, these hidden heroes of the empire live isolated lives, far from the cities of Coruscant, and are responsible for almost .00000000000000000004% of the Empire's water reserves.

/camera sweeps over the Lars homestead. A series of igloo like adobe outbuildings in a small sea of moisture extractors.

/camera focuses in on Owen Lars, moisture farmer. In the background his adopted son Luke busily works on fixing a moisture tractor/

Owen: Yeah, its a hard life, for sure. But a good one. We have a purpose you know. The Empire needs this moisture and we are here to provide it. I just know that I'm building something today that my adopted son, Luke, will inherit and pass on to his sons.

Owen gets a far away look in his eyes. Hesitant. Conflicted.

Owen: Yep.... a real legacy of hope....

[Peelee]

Hell, Into the Spiderverse was a reboot/sequel/whatever of some sort, but most everyone here considered it a pretty decent film, despite the existence of quite a lot of other film takes on Spidey. Make a good story, and pretty much anything else is forgivable.

Exactly. That's why I dismiss claims that it's not possible to make a new Star Wars movie that will be liked as much as the originals as simply wrong. It's absolutely possible, they're just not doing it.

[Fyraltari]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

Matt the radar technician?

[Mechalich]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

Probably something like the Journals of Master Gnost-Dural that served as a previews for SWTOR. Those are a series of short videos shot in sequence in which the eponymous Jedi Master speaks in stentorian tones about historical events over a series of sequenced still images. Put together they're around 48 minutes, so that's basically a documentary episode.

However, I don't really think Lucas is a documentary style filmmaker, what he is an extremely archetypical filmmaker. He's not interested in complexity in characters or story, but in staging relatively simple events in a visually arresting fashion. He really doesn't do nuance, which can be seen in the case of something like Red Tails, which is basically 'black pilots awesome, protect bombers, beat Germans, everyone cheers' and that's the whole movie. I could actually see Lucas as very effective at a certain kind of superhero film, one that had a very simple get the gang together and then beat the dark lord kind of framework (admittedly someone would need to help him with the dialogue, but that's what god scriptwriters are for).

The interesting parallel there is that most superhero films are in fact incredibly simple, but because the archetypes they offer tend to be discomforting most filmmakers cover them in banter, jokes, quips, and general business to make sure the fridge horror stays buried. For example, in Aquaman Orm smashes every ship on the planet early in the film, an act that would kill millions and cause a massive disruption of the global economy triggering a worldwide depression that would kill tens of millions more in secondary effects. The movie very, very much doesn't want you to think about that at all and would rather you watch an octopus play the drums.

Zack Synder is interesting because he's the rare superhero filmmaker who doesn't hide from that, at least not as much. He embraces the superheroes = gods for the 21st century approach, including the trend toward horrible downer endings and the reduction of the entire human species to spectator status. Of course, this requires a different kind of deception, so it's probably a wash.

[Cikomyr2]

Probably something like the Journals of Master Gnost-Dural that served as a previews for SWTOR. Those are a series of short videos shot in sequence in which the eponymous Jedi Master speaks in stentorian tones about historical events over a series of sequenced still images. Put together they're around 48 minutes, so that's basically a documentary episode.

However, I don't really think Lucas is a documentary style filmmaker, what he is an extremely archetypical filmmaker. He's not interested in complexity in characters or story, but in staging relatively simple events in a visually arresting fashion. He really doesn't do nuance, which can be seen in the case of something like Red Tails, which is basically 'black pilots awesome, protect bombers, beat Germans, everyone cheers' and that's the whole movie. I could actually see Lucas as very effective at a certain kind of superhero film, one that had a very simple get the gang together and then beat the dark lord kind of framework (admittedly someone would need to help him with the dialogue, but that's what god scriptwriters are for).

The interesting parallel there is that most superhero films are in fact incredibly simple, but because the archetypes they offer tend to be discomforting most filmmakers cover them in banter, jokes, quips, and general business to make sure the fridge horror stays buried. For example, in Aquaman Orm smashes every ship on the planet early in the film, an act that would kill millions and cause a massive disruption of the global economy triggering a worldwide depression that would kill tens of millions more in secondary effects. The movie very, very much doesn't want you to think about that at all and would rather you watch an octopus play the drums.

Zack Synder is interesting because he's the rare superhero filmmaker who doesn't hide from that, at least not as much. He embraces the superheroes = gods for the 21st century approach, including the trend toward horrible downer endings and the reduction of the entire human species to spectator status. Of course, this requires a different kind of deception, so it's probably a wash.

This was discussed before. Snyder is extremely talented in depicting supercool ubermench archetypes. He frames the camera in love and in worship of the hero-savior.

Edit: Oh, and is it normal if I prefer the new Jumanji Movies to the original? Since we were talking about useless reboots

[Lord Raziere]

Hell, Into the Spiderverse was a reboot/sequel/whatever of some sort, but most everyone here considered it a pretty decent film, despite the existence of quite a lot of other film takes on Spidey. Make a good story, and pretty much anything else is forgivable.

Counterpoint: Into the Spiderverse is one the least formulaic takes on spiderman, with all the alternate spideys running around some of them being real outlandish, the protagonist being Miles Morales, the changes to Doc Ock and The Prowler, Green Goblin being minor, and Aunt May somehow becoming awesome.

[Peelee]

Counterpoint: Into the Spiderverse is one the least formulaic takes on spiderman, with all the alternate spideys running around some of them being real outlandish, the protagonist being Miles Morales, the changes to Doc Ock and The Prowler, Green Goblin being minor, and Aunt May somehow becoming awesome.

Excuse me, Aunt May is always awesome. The spider may have given Peter his powers, but Aunt May and Uncle Ben are who made him Spider-Man.

[Saintheart]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like?

Look up the old Star Wars fan film Troops. Come on, click the link, you know you want to.

Zack Synder is interesting because he's the rare superhero filmmaker who doesn't hide from that, at least not as much. He embraces the superheroes = gods for the 21st century approach, including the trend toward horrible downer endings and the reduction of the entire human species to spectator status. Of course, this requires a different kind of deception, so it's probably a wash.

This. Love or hate Man of Steel, the fact it started generating memes about how many people died in Metropolis while Zod and Kal were duking it out was only reflecting precisely the way it was portrayed on film. And indeed that very element of the story is an essential component of what I think of as the best part of Batman vs Superman: Bruce Wayne's reaction to the destruction and the most heroic illustration of his character: when everyone else is running away from the building collapse, he's running headlong towards it.

[Rater202]

Excuse me, Aunt May is always awesome. The spider may have given Peter his powers, but Aunt May and Uncle Ben are who made him Spider-Man.

There was a period of time, prior to One More Day, where Aunt May new that Peter was Spider-Man.

For a period of time, PEter, MJ(this was after the wedding) and Aunt MAy had to move into Avengers tower.

Wolverine got kind of iffy when May took over the kitchen, he'd gotten used to Jarvis's cooking, and Logan is actually kind of picky about his breakfast.

He starts telling her that, no offense... And she ignores him, plucks the cigar our of his mouth, puts it out in his glass of whiskey, and informs him that as long as she is staying in the tower there will be no smoking or drinking until noon at the earliest.

Wolverine backs down.

Another examples: The Chamelon once impersonated Peter and red to get into his home. Aunt May realized something was up more or less immediately, and after quickly confirming her suspicions with a trick question... Let him think he'd fooled her, kept him talking, let him into her home, and talked with him while she baked almond-sugar cookies and knitted a scarf.

Then just as he's making his move he starts to feel sleepy, comments on it, and Aunt May casually tells him that she put cyanide in the cookies(the almonds being to cover up the bitter almond taste of cyanide.) and reveals that she knitted "Got Ya" into the sweater while explaining that she realized he was an imposter more or less immediately and that she honestly didn't care if he was Chameleon, Mysterio, or someone new.

(Note, she didn't actually feed him cyanide. It was her sleeping pills. she said it was cyanide to screw with him.)

More recently, upon learning that she had cancer, her first thought after getting the diagnosis was to use what might be her last few months to reopen the FEAST shelters and help as many people as she can.

She beat the cancer, but she's still helping people as the new head of FEAST. When she saw that a homeless young woman had a symbiote, this being right after New York was overrun by homeless people and mental patients possessed by Ofshoot's of Carnage as part of one of Kassady's murder sprees, May does not say "get out" but "are you okay?" Not the least bit afraid, despite the circumstances, she just wants to make sure the person with the Symbiote is okay.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Excuse me, Aunt May is always awesome. The spider may have given Peter his powers, but Aunt May and Uncle Ben are who made him Spider-Man.

Going to second this. Raimi!Aunt May whacked Doc Ock while he was trying to hold her hostage and MCU!Aunt May was ready to go all wrath-of-the-valkyries on one of the neighbors when she thought he’d hurt Peter at the end of Civil War.

My hope is that at some point we’ll get a Venom crossover into the MCU so she’ll get her own symbiote and become a super person in her own right because I would absolutely go see that.

[Rater202]

Going to second this. Raimi!Aunt May whacked Doc Ock while he was trying to hold her hostage and MCU!Aunt May was ready to go all wrath-of-the-valkyries on one of the neighbors when she thought he’d hurt Peter at the end of Civil War.

My hope is that at some point we’ll get a Venom crossover into the MCU so she’ll get her own symbiote and become a super person in her own right because I would absolutely go see that.

Well, there was that one reality where she became a Herald of Galactis.


Grnated, that story was more comical than serious, but still. There is canonically a version of Aunt May who became a Herald of Galactus.

[Lethologica]

Counterpoint: Into the Spiderverse is one the least formulaic takes on spiderman, with all the alternate spideys running around some of them being real outlandish, the protagonist being Miles Morales, the changes to Doc Ock and The Prowler, Green Goblin being minor, and Aunt May somehow becoming awesome.

Far from a counterpoint, that seems to be precisely the point: that whether something is a sequel/prequel/interquel/remake/reboot or plays on nostalgia or brand recognition does not determine whether it's taking risks or telling a good story or worth going to see. A new IP is taking one risk that established franchises aren't. That's all that can be said about it.