Rebel Moon final trailer

[Tyndmyr]

Having just watched both films more or less back to back, I can say that both include the exact same information regarding the mother boxes waking up (it's because superman died). In fact, the major plot points and beats were identical in both films. In both, the mother boxes wake up and call out to the bad guys due to superman dying. In both films Batman is trying to build a team and has the same sequence of events occur along the way. In both films Steppenwolf attacks the Amazons and takes their box.

That tracks with what I recall. That said, the mother box thing does seem oddly plotted in both. After all, the "death" had already occurred in a different movie, and if I am not mistaken, the mother boxes were not really explored prior to this film, and no good reason is given as to why Superman in particular is somehow linked to them. It's...all very mcguffiny.

[Dargaron]

That tracks with what I recall. That said, the mother box thing does seem oddly plotted in both. After all, the "death" had already occurred in a different movie, and if I am not mistaken, the mother boxes were not really explored prior to this film, and no good reason is given as to why Superman in particular is somehow linked to them. It's...all very mcguffiny.

TBH, (and having only seen the theatrical, not the Snyder Cut) the way I headcanoned it was:

-Darkseid and his commanders rampage around conquering planets eons ago.
-Earth repels Steppenwolf and the Mother Boxes get left behind (which are a fairly limited/valuable commodity, but not *irreplaceable*).
-At the same time, Darkseid tangles with Krypton and gets absolutely hammered, withdrawing from the general interstellar neighborhood (including Earth).
-Krypton blows up, but the Mother Boxes continue to detect a Kryptonian presence, so they assume Earth is still a no-go zone and remain hibernating.
-Superman dies, the Mother Boxes no longer detect Kryptonians, broadcast LET'S GOOOOO on all frequencies.

Basically swapping in Krypton as the historical version of New Genesis that kept Darkseid in check for much of the DCAU.

[Tyndmyr]

-Darkseid and his commanders rampage around conquering planets eons ago.
-Earth repels Steppenwolf

So, this part is absolutely true, and particularly in the Snyder cut, this is harped on.

However, they also take pains to say that this was an ancient invasion, long before Superman existed. They also say that Earth is the only planet to repel him, so the Krypton theory doesn't mesh well with this.

So, it's not really clear why Kryptonians would be something Steppenwulf or Mother Boxes care about at all. It makes sense on a really basic level for the audience to think 'sure, don't invade something that Superman is protecting' but it doesn't really fit for all the time prior to Superman even being on earth.

[gbaji]

That tracks with what I recall. That said, the mother box thing does seem oddly plotted in both. After all, the "death" had already occurred in a different movie, and if I am not mistaken, the mother boxes were not really explored prior to this film, and no good reason is given as to why Superman in particular is somehow linked to them. It's...all very mcguffiny.

There was a reference to this in the scene with Lex Luthor in Superman's ship in Batman vs Superman (where Supes died). I honestly only vaguely remember it though (seriouslyl? Do I have to go back and rewatch that one too?).

-At the same time, Darkseid tangles with Krypton and gets absolutely hammered, withdrawing from the general interstellar neighborhood (including Earth).
-Krypton blows up, but the Mother Boxes continue to detect a Kryptonian presence, so they assume Earth is still a no-go zone and remain hibernating.
-Superman dies, the Mother Boxes no longer detect Kryptonians, broadcast LET'S GOOOOO on all frequencies.

Reasonable headcannon, but yeah, not stated anywhere in the films (er... maybe suggested in that bit in BvS?).

So, this part is absolutely true, and particularly in the Snyder cut, this is harped on.

However, they also take pains to say that this was an ancient invasion, long before Superman existed. They also say that Earth is the only planet to repel him, so the Krypton theory doesn't mesh well with this.

So, it's not really clear why Kryptonians would be something Steppenwulf or Mother Boxes care about at all. It makes sense on a really basic level for the audience to think 'sure, don't invade something that Superman is protecting' but it doesn't really fit for all the time prior to Superman even being on earth.

Yeah. Hence why one would have to speculate some sort of previous kryptonian intervention at some point. Maybe...

It's actually interesting though that while the Synder Cut has a boat ton more of the villans talking about the mother boxes and their importance, it's actually only in the Whedon Cut that the focus is on the humans and discovering the motherboxes and their importance. The Snyder Cut more or less ignores the whole bit about Lex being exposed to the boxes and info in Superman's ship (or wherever he was, since my memory is hazy). Lex is completely ignored in the Snyder Cut until the end credit sequence. But in the Whedon Cut, Bruce is actively investigating the motherboxes (though he doesn't know what they are) based on the insane ramblings from Lex Luthor. This is stated in the film. He then notices a mural with three boxes on it on the back wall in the fishing village that Aquaman hangs out at, and that spurs his investigation more. There are other bits of information about them gathered throghout the Whedon cut that allows the heroes to learn what they are and their importance (including Cyborg and his dad filling in some info as well).

In the Snyder Cut, none of this is present. No mention of Lex's drawings of the boxes. No boxes drawn on murals. Just Hippolyta sending the arrow to warn Diana, and then a strange scene (which is not in the Whedon Cut) of Diana finding some chamber under the temple in Greece, which contains ancient drawings about the mother boxes. Diana apparently doesn't know what they are and has to learn about them, despite an entire contingent of Amazon soldiers (and an entire building on their island) dedicated to its defense. I guess she just didn't pay attention during history class? But anyway, that's how they learn about them in the Snyder Cut.

In the Whedon Cut, Diana already knows what the boxes are (at least the history of them, which actually makes far more sense). So when Bruce comes to her with his investigations and discoveries, she just fills him in, and then informs him that one box has already been lost (cause she just saw the signal arrow shortly before). The flow of information about the boxes actually works better in the Whedon cut than in the Snyder one, IMO. I suspect Snyder got so caught up in having his villains monologue about them and using that to inform the viewers about what they were, that he kinda left the whole "heroes have to figure this out" as an afterthought.

Again though, despite much more actual screen time spent involving the boxes, Snyder's cut was less coherent and paced than the Whedon cut. The audience gets the exact same info, but Whedon has it occur as the heroes learn and discuss things, so he's covering both sides of that requirement at the same time (more efficient use of screen time). It's little things like that which make a huge difference in the result.


BTW. I am in no way saying that the Whedon Cut of JL was a great film. It had some signifcant problems as well (as the box office numbers attest). But, IMO, it was a far better put together film than the Snyder Cut. it was certainly a far far more effcient use of my time from a "how much story did I get vesus how much time I spent getting it?" pov.

[Sapphire Guard]

Sure. It's why I don't spend time on fan sites, and don't put a lot of stock in anything on them. However... when the actions of the person in question match up with the stuff I do hear about from fans? That's a degree of confirmation that puts more weight on what was said than otherwise.

So yeah. If even I (who, again, do not spend time on fan sites, present site excepted I suppose) hear stuff like "Snyder is really upset about the Whedon cut, how it destroyed his vision, etc", and then a few years later Synder spends the time and effort to make his own Synder Cut of the same film, I'm going to tend to accept that the folks were probably right. At least, in the absence of any other data suggesting otherwise.

So the fact that he made a new cut when Warner asked him to 'matches up' with him being constantly wailing about his lost vision it without any indication that he actually was? Dubious. I mean, you'd think people would actually know rather than having to say 'I assume this is true', because, if he was wailing, you would expect some kind of evidence of wailing to be available.

Many people would want to release a project they spent years of their life into given the opportunity. It doesn't say anything much about Snyder that he took the chance when it was given to him, and it certainly doesn't indicate anything about what he was doing on social media.

Again though. I'm reasonably certain he would not have bothered if he personally didn't feel as though he could have done a better job with the material and story. There are a huge number of film projects with fans screaming that "if only it had been done this way, or that way, or <some other director/editor/whatever> was running things, it would be so much better". Yet, this is pretty much the only time I've *ever* seen someone actually follow through on it and release an alternate cut like this. Sure, there are often directors cuts, but those are usually just slightly longer versions released right along with the original, and merely include some additional content that had to be cut from the theatrical release. That's not the same thing here. Not even close.

Most people don't get the opportunity. It was a very unique circumstance where the DCEU had a big enough fanbase that they were able to make enough noise to get the studio's attention, together with 2017 JL's dire reception and reviews, and the bad press from Warner being perceived to have used his daughter's suicide against him, Whedon's allegd unprofessional behavious on set and the cast coming out in support of Zack.

But yeah. I've noticed that, as he's become a bigger director, and (presumably) had more creative control over the project he works on, the work has suffered as a result. And ironically, it's many of the things I really like about his earlier work (mostly the way he shoots scenes) that become detractors when that's so obviously being focused on at the cost of the story and plot working well. And yeah, I think at least part of it is also that he tends to really excel at dark and gritty scenes in his films, which is great if that's what the audience expects from the film. That's not typically what people are looking for in a Justice League film though.

What is that presumption based on? I mean, the biggest film he made was Justice League, and the massive behind the scenes wrangling on that is well documented. Bigger movie= more control is flawed logic.

He should stick to filming other people's screenplays. Might be a bit of Peter Principle going on here.

Like Chris Terrio, writer of Justice League?

I've also yet to see you give an example where a bad movie was forgiven because of a director's cut. Any movie that needs a director's cut to save it was, as originally released, a failure.

That would be because I never said anything like that to begin with. The director's cut isn't going to save a film if you don't like it.

JL is one of the few exceptions because the originally released version was two people's vision stitched together badly.

"Snyder has trouble keeping his projects in scope" is a very specific criticism, and a very actionable one. "Get it right on the first try" is not an unreasonable ask.

The thing that happened once, in very difficult and unique circumstances?

The extended cuts outside of JL don't fix or save the film.

Watchmen's just has bonus content like the two Bernies, it doesn't fix anything and was never intended to.

You could argue BVS, I do think the extended version was better, but there wasn't anything wrong with the Theatrical Cut to fix.

Rebel Moon's we haven't seen yet, obviously, but my bet would be that it's just bonus content extra character work and extra worldbuilding. If you didn't like Rebel Moon it's not going to fix it, it's bonus content.

There was ONE instance where the extended cut was perceived to 'fix' the film, and that was a nightmare scenario where basically everything went wrong during production. The rest of them are just bonus content like any other director cut.

[gbaji]

So the fact that he made a new cut when Warner asked him to 'matches up' with him being constantly wailing about his lost vision it without any indication that he actually was? Dubious. I mean, you'd think people would actually know rather than having to say 'I assume this is true', because, if he was wailing, you would expect some kind of evidence of wailing to be available.

Many people would want to release a project they spent years of their life into given the opportunity. It doesn't say anything much about Snyder that he took the chance when it was given to him, and it certainly doesn't indicate anything about what he was doing on social media.



Most people don't get the opportunity.

Yes. Maybe spend a tiny bit of time asking why that is, and what was different in this case. And no "Film did poorly at the box office" is not the reason.

Look. You are free to have your own version of events, but everything I heard about during the time period between when JL was released and Synder released his own cut was that Synder was actively stoking the fans on this. It's hard to image any studio doing what WB did in this case, if that wasn't what happened. Fans alone dont cause this to happen. Never have. Like... ever. Which suggests that not only was he pushing the fans on this, but also pushing internally in the industry as well (which we obviously can't know directly about).

Again. The evidence of this is the very fact that the Synder Cut exists in the first place. Studios just do not out of the blue ask directors to do this.

What is that presumption based on? I mean, the biggest film he made was Justice League, and the massive behind the scenes wrangling on that is well documented. Bigger movie= more control is flawed logic.

Which is great. But also not what I said.

Bigger Director *does* equal "more control"

Like Chris Terrio, writer of Justice League?

Again: Bigger Director = "more control".

That would be because I never said anything like that to begin with. The director's cut isn't going to save a film if you don't like it.

Right. So why make it? It wont save a film, but it may just salve an ego. And if you have enough pull in the industry you might just get a studio to throw good money after bad to do just that.

JL is one of the few exceptions because the originally released version was two people's vision stitched together badly.

Fair enough. But there is a long list of film projects that were many many people's visions stitched together, many of which also did poorly, and in none of which did one of the people involved get to make their own cut after the fact. Yet, Snyder got to.

You need to think in terms of what is different here that isn't the same for other film projects. If your argument held water, we'd have awsome directors cuts of Highlander2, and Aliens3 out there. Um... we don't.

Rebel Moon's we haven't seen yet, obviously, but my bet would be that it's just bonus content extra character work and extra worldbuilding. If you didn't like Rebel Moon it's not going to fix it, it's bonus content.

That's the point though. Many viewers are seeing a pattern here.

[Sapphire Guard]

Yes. Maybe spend a tiny bit of time asking why that is, and what was different in this case. And no "Film did poorly at the box office" is not the reason.

It was something of a perfect storm, but if your argument is 'the director was on board', that happens all the time, it doesn't mean they get to realise their vision. if Snyder's influence was enough to get his version released then he wouldn't have had the film taken away from him in the first place.

Lots of things happened. The fan movement got traction (you don't need to assume Snyder is the evil mastermind behind it for this to be so), the released movie was widely criticised for being a two visions stitched together, news of Whedon's inappropriate behaviour on set broke, Snyder got a good deal of sympathy for his daughter's death (that particular circumstance seems pretty unique, and honestly it makes it pretty hard for me to believe that he had the time, energy or inclination to waste time stoking the fanbase), COVID hit and streaming services needed content, WB's management changed... 'What was different' is a long list, but 'director not on board with studio's vision' is hardly the unique part.

Bigger Director *does* equal "more control"

If that was true, how come he didn't have control of JL 2017? That was the peak of his power.

Right. So why make it? It wont save a film, but it may just salve an ego. And if you have enough pull in the industry you might just get a studio to throw good money after bad to do just that.

Why not make it? Some fans will be interested, some won't, but if some people aren't, fine, no one is making them watch it.

You need to think in terms of what is different here that isn't the same for other film projects. If your argument held water, we'd have awsome directors cuts of Highlander2, and Aliens3 out there. Um... we don't.

See above list.

That's the point though. Many viewers are seeing a pattern here.

Yeah, but it feels kind of like 'if you ignore the parts that don't fit the pattern then it fits the pattern.'

'Snyder can't make short films if you ignore the multiple short films he made'

'As Snyder gets more control, the movie runs into problems, evidenced by the the time that the studio took control away from him and it turned out a disaster. This was Snyder's fault as he had too much control of the movie he didn't have control of.'

'He should stick to directing screenplays directed by other people, as shown by the problems with the JL script someone else wrote.'

[gbaji]

Lots of things happened. The fan movement got traction (you don't need to assume Snyder is the evil mastermind behind it for this to be so), the released movie was widely criticised for being a two visions stitched together, news of Whedon's inappropriate behaviour on set broke, Snyder got a good deal of sympathy for his daughter's death (that particular circumstance seems pretty unique, and honestly it makes it pretty hard for me to believe that he had the time, energy or inclination to waste time stoking the fanbase), COVID hit and streaming services needed content, WB's management changed... 'What was different' is a long list, but 'director not on board with studio's vision' is hardly the unique part.

Lots of films have had massive negative fan reaction and demands for a redo. Lots of films (in fact, many in the previous list) are the result of multiple visions stitched together (I literally just mentioned two). Lots of film projects have had lead creators leave for various personal reasons, and have had lead creators engaged in some kind of scandal or allegations during or immediately after filming. And yeah, while you have a point about covid, that could apply to pretty much anything that someone might decide to do a re-cut for.

You are correct that all of these things were present. But let's remember the directionality here. I'm not at all saying that Snyder and Snyder alone caused this cut to exist. I am saying that the cut would not exist if Snyder didn't push for it. Those other factors existed *and* Snyder really really wanted to do his own cut (and had to have made that desire very clear to the studio). If Snyder had been ambivalent to the resulting theatrical release, and moved on (as most Directors do), we would not have a Snyder Cut. You seemed to be arguing earlier that Snyder was merely a passive particpant here, and had nothing at all to do with any of this, and then out of the blue the studio approached him, hat in hand, and asked him to please make a new/better cut of the film.

That's just not how the film industry works.

If that was true, how come he didn't have control of JL 2017? That was the peak of his power.

He did. That's how he was able to film the darn thing in the first place. There was a massive backlash to Snyders Man of Steel, and lots of calls for someone else to take the helm. Snyder (and his loyal fans) argued otherwise, so the studio gave him control of BvS. Which wasn't quite as terrible as Man of Steel, but still had some serious structural problems. I don't think you understand just how much of a conflict there was during this time period between "main stream DC fans" (who absolutely hated both films), and "Snyder fans" (who just kinda love everything Snyder does no matter how awful it may be), and the studio kinda stuck in the middle, in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. So they decided to give him another crack at it, and gave him control of JL, with him promising this would be some kind of epic masterpiece and everything that had come before would fit into place, it would challenge the stuff Marvel had done, be better than Marvel and the Avengers, etc, etc.

Then the film went long, because Snyder wanted a super long film. There was initial conflict right out of the gate over this. Snyder continued filming as though he was making a 4 hour film, despite the studio asking for a 2 hour film (this is pretty obvious just from reading the stuff linked earlier in this thread). It does appear that he had managed to cut it down to about 2.5 hours, when his daughter died, so he dropped out of the project.

Again. I don't spend time on DC fan sites, but I do have friends who were very active at the time, and (as fans tend to do) would talk endlessly about all of the drama going on with this project. The general response to Snyder dropping out seemed to be relief (obviously not over the cause), because maybe someone else would come in and be able to salvage something out of it. It's not an accident that WB brought in Whedon, who had just directed Avengers and Avengers2 (with massive success for both projects). You don't have to be a genius to read between the lines here. WB wanted something more like what Marvel was making, but had hitched their wagon to Snyder and that's just not the style of film he makes (not knocking his style, but it's just not what most people expect and want out of superhero films).

Of course, the problem Whedon had is that the main filming was complete, and he had to work with what he had. Changing the entire theme and feel of the film at that point was very difficult. It's hard to say what he might have done if handed the entire project from scratch, but as we well know the end result wasn't great (but honestly wasn't any worse then the previous two DC films IMO).

And that's when the Snyder fans started screaming. We can only speculate as to how much of this was driven by Snyder, but even one of the articles you linked to said that Snyder went on fan sites and stoked their anger and demands for a Snyder cut, so it's hard to imagine that this wasn't a factor. It's also hard to imagine that Snyder didn't apply some other pressures behind the scenes. There were contracts involved. It's possible he pressured them based on that (who knows what's in those contracts, right?). The point is that at the end of the day, despite a ridiculous path, we got what appears to be Snyder's original intention all along: a 4 hour JL opus.

And it was garbage. Sorry. I've watched it (twice now). Being long isn't a positive here. I literally just watched both cuts back to back, and by a long shot the one I'd rather watch again sometime is the Whedon cut. it tells the exact same story, in half the time, and doesn't add in extra extraneous stuff that not only doesn't add anything to the story, but in a couple cases, actively detracts from it. And no. it's not because I'm a "Snyder hater". I have pointed to a number of very very specific things in the films we are talking about that I did not like. Not because of who directed them, but because of the films themselves. I have not read anything from you disputing these flaws and problems, but instead just spinning off about Snyder himself. It's not about him. It's about the resulting films. I don't give a whit who makes a film. I don't tend to even pay attention to the directors. I didn't even realize RM was directed by Snyder until someone made the point somewhere in this thread. I had already posted about problems I saw in this film, not based on whether I like or dislike the director (cause I didn't know at the time), but based on... you know... just watching the film and assessing it.

It was only after someone pointed out that this was made by Snyder, and then mentioned a potential directors cut that might make things "better", that the connection was made in my head and I then began comparing this to previous Snyder projects and similar issues with them. I'm not basing my comments and opinions based on who directed the film, but it kinda feels like you are.

Why not make it? Some fans will be interested, some won't, but if some people aren't, fine, no one is making them watch it.

Uh... Cause it cost the studio money to make. It costs them money to put on the streaming service. And honestly? Outside of curiosity, I'm not sure I know a single person who has seen it. I certainly don't know anyone who was anxiously awaiting its release with baited breath (Could be because most of the DC folks I know are old school comic collectors, and pretty much despise everything Snyder has done with the DC projects). I'm sure there are rabid Snyder fans out there who just absolutely love the cut to death or something. But that's because they are Snyder fans, and not because they are DC fans.

At least, that's my impression. I watched it the first time, only because it was a new cut of the film, and I was curious. Heck, when I first watched it, I had forgotten about the DC drama years earlier (I honestly don't really pay attention to that stuff much, and don't commit director's names to memory either). I noticed right away that the style was more like the first two films (and vaguely recalled that it was initially made by the same person, but if you'd asked me to name him, I would not have been able to without literally reading it on the freaking title line). And yeah, noticed that it was really long and lumbering and cluttered compared to the original release (but had honestly forgotten so much of the details that I could not have told you any specific differences at the time). But yeah. Watching them both back to back, it's confirming my vague recollections and observations about Snyder's work over time. Again, not because I could even remember the guys name up until this thread started, but because I just watched RM, and then read this thread, and then decided to do some research.

Heck. I didn't even realize that Snyder did Sucker Punch and 300 (two films I really like), until someone mentioned it in this thead. I really, honestly, do not pay attention to directors and producers names. Ah heck. He made Watchmen too. Another film I really like. Sheesh!

'As Snyder gets more control, the movie runs into problems, evidenced by the the time that the studio took control away from him and it turned out a disaster. This was Snyder's fault as he had too much control of the movie he didn't have control of.'

And then gave him that control back to make his own cut of the film, using the stock he had filmed, with no restrictions from the studio at all (meaning, it should be more "his film" than the theatrical release would have been if he'd finished it).

And it sucked. So yeah. We've now seen exactly what we get when Snyder has absolute control, and it contains all of the problems I've been talking about in this thead (and some of the things relevant to Rebel Moon). It's just amplified by like 10 in his cut of JL.

'He should stick to directing screenplays directed by other people, as shown by the problems with the JL script someone else wrote.'

No. As shown by the very successful and wonderful films he made earlier in his career, when he didn't have the kind of exectutive control that he has now.

Also the word is "written", not "directed". Directors "direct". However, as directors gain more influence, they have more ability to demand re-writes of the screenplay, and often the script itself. It's the difference between a director coming into a project being handed a screenplay, and told figure out how to shoot the scenes in this document, and a director being brought on board at the beginning, handed a script and a team of writers (with one lead writer who gets the writing credit typically), and then proceeds to tell the writing team what to write, what the script should include, and what the story should be, and then repeats the process when the script is turned into a screenplay for filming. That's what's meant by a director having "full control" of a project. Sure, the writers write the actually words on the pages, but the director tells them what to write.

Snyder's earlier films were all of the former kind. He was only directing the resulting screenplay. And they were fantastic films. I'll repeat what I said earlier (and several others have echoed). The more control Snyder has over a project, the worse it tends to be. It's a very clear pattern. This has nothing to do with my liking or disliking him as a person, but merely an observation based on the resulting films he's made. If you want to argue that his later films have been better and more successful than his earlier ones, by all means do so. I don't know if there's much validity there though. So, when looking for a reason we can either conclude that he was just handed bad projects and it's not his fault. Or we can look at the fact that he had a huge amount of control over those projects, more or less writing them himself, and conclude that maybe he's just not very good at that, and he should stick to directing other people's screenplays.

Which is precisely what I started out saying.

[Sapphire Guard]

You are correct that all of these things were present. But let's remember the directionality here. I'm not at all saying that Snyder and Snyder alone caused this cut to exist. I am saying that the cut would not exist if Snyder didn't push for it. Those other factors existed *and* Snyder really really wanted to do his own cut (and had to have made that desire very clear to the studio). If Snyder had been ambivalent to the resulting theatrical release, and moved on (as most Directors do), we would not have a Snyder Cut. You seemed to be arguing earlier that Snyder was merely a passive particpant here, and had nothing at all to do with any of this, and then out of the blue the studio approached him, hat in hand, and asked him to please make a new/better cut of the film.

Individually, a lot of those things have happened, but all of them together? The argument seems to be that the Director being onboard with a different cut is somehow rare or unusual, when it's extremely common (hence the term 'director's cut'. There were many unique things that happened in something of a perfect storm, the truly unique circumstance is having his daughter kill herself mid production, which I expect was pretty important.

And that's when the Snyder fans started screaming. We can only speculate as to how much of this was driven by Snyder, but even one of the articles you linked to said that Snyder went on fan sites and stoked their anger and demands for a Snyder cut, so it's hard to imagine that this wasn't a factor. It's also hard to imagine that Snyder didn't apply some other pressures behind the scenes. There were contracts involved. It's possible he pressured them based on that (who knows what's in those contracts, right?). The point is that at the end of the day, despite a ridiculous path, we got what appears to be Snyder's original intention all along: a 4 hour JL opus.

The thing is, if this was actually true, we wouldn't have to speculate, because there would be evidence. You'd be able to cite those fansites, journalists would put together his posts in a timeline, things like that. You can speculate that anything is true, doesn't mean it is. I can speculate that a man who has just lost his daughter has better things to do than stoke the fanbase. Which makes more sense, that he was taking the time to be with his family or that he was masterminding a fan campaign to get creative control of his movie back?

I have not read anything from you disputing these flaws and problems, but instead just spinning off about Snyder himself

This is because I didn't get around to watching them again yet.

Uh... Cause it cost the studio money to make. It costs them money to put on the streaming service. And honestly? Outside of curiosity, I'm not sure I know a single person who has seen it. I certainly don't know anyone who was anxiously awaiting its release with baited breath (Could be because most of the DC folks I know are old school comic collectors, and pretty much despise everything Snyder has done with the DC projects). I'm sure there are rabid Snyder fans out there who just absolutely love the cut to death or something. But that's because they are Snyder fans, and not because they are DC fans.

I mean, the Snyder cut sold pretty well, there was plenty of hype at the time, even if it wasn't among those people you personally know. It was critically well received, was streamed a good amount and sold plenty of home media.

It costs the studio less than making another film would have, especially during Covid. If you don't want to watch it, fine, but plenty of people did (see: sales). If they didn't want it, no one had to buy it.

With Rebel Moon it's even simpler, if you already have a Netflix subscription, it costs you literally nothing to choose to check it out or not. If you don't want to watch it, fine. If some people do, also fine. There's no reason to object to its existence in itself.

No. As shown by the very successful and wonderful films he made earlier in his career, when he didn't have the kind of exectutive control that he has now.

Also the word is "written", not "directed". Directors "direct". However, as directors gain more influence, they have more ability to demand re-writes of the screenplay, and often the script itself. It's the difference between a director coming into a project being handed a screenplay, and told figure out how to shoot the scenes in this document, and a director being brought on board at the beginning, handed a script and a team of writers (with one lead writer who gets the writing credit typically), and then proceeds to tell the writing team what to write, what the script should include, and what the story should be, and then repeats the process when the script is turned into a screenplay for filming. That's what's meant by a director having "full control" of a project. Sure, the writers write the actually words on the pages, but the director tells them what to write.

Snyder's earlier films were all of the former kind. He was only directing the resulting screenplay. And they were fantastic films. I'll repeat what I said earlier (and several others have echoed). The more control Snyder has over a project, the worse it tends to be. It's a very clear pattern. This has nothing to do with my liking or disliking him as a person, but merely an observation based on the resulting films he's made. If you want to argue that his later films have been better and more successful than his earlier ones, by all means do so. I don't know if there's much validity there though. So, when looking for a reason we can either conclude that he was just handed bad projects and it's not his fault. Or we can look at the fact that he had a huge amount of control over those projects, more or less writing them himself, and conclude that maybe he's just not very good at that, and he should stick to directing other people's screenplays.

You said you really liked Sucker Punch, right? Guess who was co-writer on that?

Fans love talking about how much control someone has on a project. The thing is, they very rarely actually know, so it's all too easy to say 'this person had control of this because I like it, this person had control of this because I don't like it' It's very convenient, because there's no way to prove it wrong. Whenever something comes up that contradicts it they can say 'I think this person didn't have control of this part', and credit it to someone else (see also: Star Wars)

[gbaji]

Individually, a lot of those things have happened, but all of them together? The argument seems to be that the Director being onboard with a different cut is somehow rare or unusual, when it's extremely common (hence the term 'director's cut'. There were many unique things that happened in something of a perfect storm, the truly unique circumstance is having his daughter kill herself mid production, which I expect was pretty important.

You're now bait and switching back to the standard definition and use of "directors cut" to justify the more or less once ever case of the "Snyder Cut". I thought we already agreed that Snyder's cut of JL is not at all like normal directors cuts. We're talking about a very different thing here.

And you keep circling back to his daughter's suicide as though that should somehow change my opinion of a film. It does not. His daughters death certainly affected his decision to leave the JL project when he did, but has no bearing on his overal directing style, which is what I'm talking about. It had no bearing on the contents of RM, and no bearing on the contents of his cut of JL. It had no bearing on MoS, nor BvS either, for that matter. I'm talking about the films he makes, not his personal life.

The thing is, if this was actually true, we wouldn't have to speculate, because there would be evidence. You'd be able to cite those fansites, journalists would put together his posts in a timeline, things like that. You can speculate that anything is true, doesn't mean it is. I can speculate that a man who has just lost his daughter has better things to do than stoke the fanbase. Which makes more sense, that he was taking the time to be with his family or that he was masterminding a fan campaign to get creative control of his movie back?

There have already been two links in this thread to articles that specifically referenced Snyder doing exactly what I'm claiming he did. One literally stated that he went to fan sites and "stoked the flames" of their anger. Both talked about him repeatedly showing images of film from his original "vision" of JL. If that's not evidence of him actively working to get his own vision put out for viewer consumption, I'm not sure what would qualify for you.

This is because I didn't get around to watching them again yet.

Again? Or ever? It's just that you don't seem to have any knowledge of the contents of the films we're discussing at all. You've made zero comments about the content of the films. Yet, you continue to make arguments about them anyway.

I'm not talking about Snyder personally. I'm looking at the films that Snyder has directed and seeing a trend and talking about that. To do that, it somewhat helps to have some degree of working memory about the films in question. It's why I went back and watched the two JL films. I realized that I was talking about them, but only had a somewhat hazy memory of the details in them. And as it happens, having rewatched them both back to back, not only were my original perceptions confirmed, I actually spotted a heck of a lot more details and differences between the two that strengthen the point I've been making in this thread.

I've made very specific and detailed posts about these differences. Examining the two versions of JL is actually very useful here (which is why I spent the time) because the differences are solely about the style and technique of the two directors involved (well, the Snyder Cut is, since he both filmed and directed and guided the editing for it). And yeah. Having done that, my original kinda broad perception of Snyder's work and tendencies over time are even more strongly reinforced (at least for me). I've already posted those observations previously in this thread. You're free to disagree with my conclusions about those differences, but so far you haven't actually addressed any of them.

I mean, the Snyder cut sold pretty well, there was plenty of hype at the time, even if it wasn't among those people you personally know. It was critically well received, was streamed a good amount and sold plenty of home media.

Per one of the previous links (can't remember which) it cost them $20M to do the Snyder Cut. Per 2 minutes on google, there was no box office, and total video sales look to be somewhere just south of $14M.

Or are you using a different definition of "sold very well"? (it's entirely possible there are more complete numbers out there maybe).

It costs the studio less than making another film would have, especially during Covid. If you don't want to watch it, fine, but plenty of people did (see: sales). If they didn't want it, no one had to buy it.

I'm not arguing about whether the Studio was right or wrong to produce this, nor whether some folks may enjoy it or not. I'm talking about my assessment of Snyder's directing style and how it relates to the degree of control he has over the projects he's directing.

With Rebel Moon it's even simpler, if you already have a Netflix subscription, it costs you literally nothing to choose to check it out or not. If you don't want to watch it, fine. If some people do, also fine. There's no reason to object to its existence in itself.

Sure... But I think we have a right to discuss the film, and what we liked and didn't like about it. Saying "if you don't like it don't watch it" kinda sidesteps the entire process.

[Sapphire Guard]

You're now bait and switching back to the standard definition and use of "directors cut" to justify the more or less once ever case of the "Snyder Cut". I thought we already agreed that Snyder's cut of JL is not at all like normal directors cuts. We're talking about a very different thing here.

And you keep circling back to his daughter's suicide as though that should somehow change my opinion of a film. It does not. His daughters death certainly affected his decision to leave the JL project when he did, but has no bearing on his overal directing style, which is what I'm talking about. It had no bearing on the contents of RM, and no bearing on the contents of his cut of JL. It had no bearing on MoS, nor BvS either, for that matter. I'm talking about the films he makes, not his personal life.

The Snyder cut of JL was a unique situation. But the director being on board with a different version than the studio released is not.

You raised the question of what was unique about the Snyder cut. Creative differences between the director and the studio is not rare at all. So if therre is something unique about the Snyder cut, that is not it.

I keep bringing up his daughter's suicide for two reasons. First, it's one of the actual unique things that happened to make the Snyder cut a unique situation.

It's unusual. It didn't happen on all his other films. And its rather a big thing to brush off if you're trying to determine the unique things that happened during JL' production, which was a question you raised earlier.

The other reason is that it makes it very hard to believe that he would care enough about fan perspectives in the wake of his daughter's suicide to go to fansites and stoke the flames.

There have already been two links in this thread to articles that specifically referenced Snyder doing exactly what I'm claiming he did. One literally stated that he went to fan sites and "stoked the flames" of their anger. Both talked about him repeatedly showing images of film from his original "vision" of JL. If that's not evidence of him actively working to get his own vision put out for viewer consumption, I'm not sure what would qualify for you.

Some evidence that he actually was doing that? Those posts should exist, right? They should be findable if it was true. The best one people have is confirming the cut exists in 2019, but that's two years later, long after the Snyder cut movement began.

Again? Or ever? It's just that you don't seem to have any knowledge of the contents of the films we're discussing at all. You've made zero comments about the content of the films. Yet, you continue to make arguments about them anyway.

You think I'm lying about having seen them? Really?

Per one of the previous links (can't remember which) it cost them $20M to do the Snyder Cut. Per 2 minutes on google, there was no box office, and total video sales look to be somewhere just south of $14M.

Your own link is domestic sales of physical media in the US, counting only people who bought a physical DVD and Blu-ray in the US. It doesn't count anyone who streamed it, or anyone at all outside the US.

From Wikipedia

In Canada, the film became the most-streamed content of all time on Crave, with 1.1 million viewers in one week.[219] It also allegedly led to the service growing in subscribers by 12%.[220] In the United Kingdom, where it is streaming via Sky Cinema, the film was viewed by 954,000 households, with 458,000 (48%) watching it in its entirety.[221] In India, where it was released on BookMyShow Stream, about 100,000 homes watched the film in its first weekend.[222] The film went on to become the most rented film of 2021 on that service.[223] In Spain, the film became the 3rd most viewed release of 2021 on HBO Max España.[224] It also became the fourth-most viewed release of 2021 and the most-viewed film on HBO Max Nordic.[225] In Germany, it ranked first during its first full week of release on Netflix[226] and spent seven weeks in its weekly rankings for top 10 most-viewed films.[227]

At the 2021 WarnerMedia Upfront, Warner Media declared the film was "a hit" Max original.[228] Priya Dogra, president of WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific stated the film to be a "global phenomenon" during a presentation for HBO Max Europe.[229] According to Whip Media, who track viewership data for the 19 million worldwide users of their TV Time app, the film was the eighth most-streamed-film of 2021.[230] In January 2022, tech firm Akami reported that the film was the second most pirated film of 2021.[231] Variety stated that the film was the fourth most-streamed film of 2021.[232]

I'm not arguing about whether the Studio was right or wrong to produce this, nor whether some folks may enjoy it or not. I'm talking about my assessment of Snyder's directing style and how it relates to the degree of control he has over the projects he's directing.

Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
With Rebel Moon it's even simpler, if you already have a Netflix subscription, it costs you literally nothing to choose to check it out or not. If you don't want to watch it, fine. If some people do, also fine. There's no reason to object to its existence in itself.
Sure... But I think we have a right to discuss the film, and what we liked and didn't like about it. Saying "if you don't like it don't watch it" kinda sidesteps the entire process.

Everyone has a right to discuss any film, but the idea that an additonal director's cut is somehow bad or shouldn't exist is rather strange. Critiquing an extended cut of Rebel Moon that isn't out yet based on the fact that it exists seems like a weak critique to me.

How do you know how much control he does or doesn't have? You said you really liked Sucker Punch, which he directed, co -wrote with Steve Shibuya and co-produced with his wife.

These are big claims that don't seem to be based on anything true.

He was stoking the flames of the fanbase, although we don't know how, where, or when, but we can 'speculate' that it happened.

Zack can't make short films, if you ignore his short films.

When Zack has too much control, you don't tend to like it. It's very difficult to tell how much control someone has. You said you liked Sucker Punch, though how much control do you think he had over that? He directed, co -wrote with Steve Shibuya and co-produced it with his wife.

[BloodSquirrel]

TBH, (and having only seen the theatrical, not the Snyder Cut) the way I headcanoned it was:

-Darkseid and his commanders rampage around conquering planets eons ago.
-Earth repels Steppenwolf and the Mother Boxes get left behind (which are a fairly limited/valuable commodity, but not *irreplaceable*).
-At the same time, Darkseid tangles with Krypton and gets absolutely hammered, withdrawing from the general interstellar neighborhood (including Earth).
-Krypton blows up, but the Mother Boxes continue to detect a Kryptonian presence, so they assume Earth is still a no-go zone and remain hibernating.
-Superman dies, the Mother Boxes no longer detect Kryptonians, broadcast LET'S GOOOOO on all frequencies.

Basically swapping in Krypton as the historical version of New Genesis that kept Darkseid in check for much of the DCAU.

The movie explains what happened: It was Cyborg's father finding and screwing with the Motherbox that caused it to wake up, but by that time Superman was on Earth, so it remained dormant until he died.

[gbaji]

The Snyder cut of JL was a unique situation. But the director being on board with a different version than the studio released is not.

You raised the question of what was unique about the Snyder cut. Creative differences between the director and the studio is not rare at all. So if therre is something unique about the Snyder cut, that is not it.

Right. It's somewhat unique for a director, removed from the project 90% of the way through, with the theatrical release completed by a different director, to then get the green light to go back and re-edit a completely new and different cut of the film. I was speaking specifically about that very unique aspect of his cut, and arguing that more had to have happened behind the scenes to make it happen, and you countered with "but there are lots of directors cuts out there". Which is an irrelevant counter, since those other directors cuts aren't completely different cuts, by a completely different director than the original theatrical release was made by.

You seem to be completely discounting the idea that Snyder himself had anything at all to do with the fact that the Snyder Cut exists in the first place. As though he was just a passive participant and had no hand in all in getting the studio to let him make his own cut. I find that idea to be laughable. Studios simply do not do this. It only happens if they are under serious pressure to do so. And you are correct that there was signficant fan pressure, but, as the two links (which you provided not me) both showed, Snyder was active in getting his fans to push for his cut of the film. As I said above. I'm not sure how else you interpret him going on fan site, and "stoking the embers", and teasing out scenes and details about his cut, doesn't count as him actively pushing to get the studio to give him a crack at making his version of the film.

At the end of the day, it's a silly thing to argue about. It doesn't matter why it happened. It did happen. And, because it happened, we can look at what Snyder creates when he actually has full control over every part of the production. Which I have done and found to be lacking.

I keep bringing up his daughter's suicide for two reasons. First, it's one of the actual unique things that happened to make the Snyder cut a unique situation.

It's the reason for him dropping out of the project. It's not the reason for him creating his own cut later on. Lots of film projects have directors replaced during or even late in production. This is not actually unique.

It's unusual. It didn't happen on all his other films. And its rather a big thing to brush off if you're trying to determine the unique things that happened during JL' production, which was a question you raised earlier.

It may be unique to his films, but it's not unique to films in general. And I don't recall a single time when a director left (or was fired) from filming, and then came back later and managed to get the studio to allow them to make their own cut of the film after the fact.

The other reason is that it makes it very hard to believe that he would care enough about fan perspectives in the wake of his daughter's suicide to go to fansites and stoke the flames.

Huh? You literally lnked the article that says this

Snyder fed into the movement by occasionally teasing images from his movie or storyboards on social media, in some ways only stoking the hot embers.

You can find it "hard to believe", but apparently that's exactly what he did. I'm not sure how much more evidence you need for this.

You think I'm lying about having seen them? Really?

I'm not saying you are lying at all. You haven't actually stated in this thread that you have watched both Justice League films. So if I ask if you've watched them, it's not actually me accusing you of anything. I'm just curious because you seem oddly unable or unwilling to actually discuss the contents of the films themselves, and seem more interested in talking about what other people say about them instead. And there is this bit:

I didn't watch the JLs (meant to, but never got around to it), but I do remember liking Bruce's 'Save One' scene. It's not like everything was terrible, but for a two hour movie, it holds on to a lot of unnecessary scenes and cuts some more necessary ones (why the Mother boxes are waking up, it wouldn't have taken much time.), which makes me doubt that it was just cutting stuff (why change the composer, that doesn't affect the runtime). There was more at play than ' we need to cut this for time.'

I'm not even sure what you were meaning when you wrote that, but I don't think it's unreasonable of me to wonder if you watched the Justic League films, after reading you posting this. Maybe it was a typo, or you meant just that you never watched Whedon's cut? I'm not sure. I did note that you were completely wrong about the one thing you did comment on (the mother boxes waking up). So far, you have posted exactly zero statements in this thread which show any knowledge of the actual contents of either film, so I think it's reasonable for me to speculate here.

Again though, that's not the point. The point is that I'm looking at and assessing the film he released (the Sndyer cut) and comparing it to the theatrical release. I've done that, but in response I keep getting "but his daugher died!" and "there's just a bunch of Snyder haters out there". Um.... Ok. both of those may be true, but aren't relevant at all to what I'm posting.

Everyone has a right to discuss any film, but the idea that an additonal director's cut is somehow bad or shouldn't exist is rather strange. Critiquing an extended cut of Rebel Moon that isn't out yet based on the fact that it exists seems like a weak critique to me.

I never said there shouldn't be one, nor that it should not exist. I said that, since it exists, we have a really good idea of what kind of film Snyder makes when he's not fettered by things like studio restrictions on time and theme, look and feel, etc.

And I've given my critiques of that film. You're free to actually respond to any of them, if you wish to.

He was stoking the flames of the fanbase, although we don't know how, where, or when, but we can 'speculate' that it happened.

Again. Literally in one of the two articles that you linked to in this thread.

When Zack has too much control, you don't tend to like it. It's very difficult to tell how much control someone has. You said you liked Sucker Punch, though how much control do you think he had over that? He directed, co -wrote with Steve Shibuya and co-produced it with his wife.

Except it's reasonable to point at the Snyder cut of JL and say that he had a heck of a lot of control over that cut of that film. I've watched it (twice now). I've watched the Whedon cut (also twice now). I've given my comparison and critiques of both films. I'm trying to restrict myself to looking at the work and observing a pattern that I see there. That's it.

Sucker Punch was produced when he was a much younger director with a lot less power and influence in the industry. It's reasonable to assume he had very little ability to put pressure on the studio, and more reasonable to assume that the pressures went in the other direction. That's just how the film industry tends to work.

[Sapphire Guard]

Right. It's somewhat unique for a director, removed from the project 90% of the way through, with the theatrical release completed by a different director, to then get the green light to go back and re-edit a completely new and different cut of the film. I was speaking specifically about that very unique aspect of his cut, and arguing that more had to have happened behind the scenes to make it happen, and you countered with "but there are lots of directors cuts out there".

I mean, if your argument is that 'the director had creative differences with the studio' and that was the unique thing about the production, that seems unlikely, especially if you dismiss all the other unique things about this production. It was a very unique situation

"More happened behind the scenes". Well, yes, that's always true in every possible situation. So what you're saying amounts to 'I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I think this happened.' Anyone can assume anything they like happened behind the scenes, just because you think it might have happened doesn't mean it did.

Look. You are free to have your own version of events, but everything I heard about during the time period between when JL was released and Synder released his own cut was that Synder was actively stoking the fans on this. It's hard to image any studio doing what WB did in this case, if that wasn't what happened. Fans alone dont cause this to happen. Never have. Like... ever. Which suggests that not only was he pushing the fans on this, but also pushing internally in the industry as well (which we obviously can't know directly about).

And what makes Zack so incredibly powerful that he can make all this happen? Lots of directors push for different versions of their movies, and they get ignored all the time, what in this case was so unique? Not anything Zack did. The unique part was the fandom movement, the bad performance of JL, COVID meaning CG artists were short on work, bad behaviour coming to light from both Joss and Warner Execs, Senior Management changing, his daughter's death, among other things. All those things are far more unusual than anything Zack could possibly have done behind the scenes.

As I said above. I'm not sure how else you interpret him going on fan site, and "stoking the embers", and teasing out scenes and details about his cut, doesn't count as him actively pushing to get the studio to give him a crack at making his version of the film.

When did he go on fan sites? Where, when and how? The only things people actually mention are him occasionally teasing things on his own Vero account. If he was going on fansites, people would know and bring that up, but I've never seen anyone able to cite them. Presumably they could if that had actually happened. The only things I have heard of is either his own Vero account, or promotion of the new version after it had already been greenlit.

Snyder fed into the movement by occasionally teasing images from his movie or storyboards on social media, in some ways only stoking the hot embers.

This is a much less strong statement than you seem to think. It's mentioned only on his own social media, not fansites, which the journalist thinks in some ways might be stoking the flames. You keep talking about fansites. Which ones did he go on to stoke flames? If it was true you would think people would actually know.

I didn't watch the JLs (meant to, but never got around to it), but I do remember liking Bruce's 'Save One' scene. It's not like everything was terrible, but for a two hour movie, it holds on to a lot of unnecessary scenes and cuts some more necessary ones (why the Mother boxes are waking up, it wouldn't have taken much time.), which makes me doubt that it was just cutting stuff (why change the composer, that doesn't affect the runtime). There was more at play than ' we need to cut this for time.'

I meant 'recently'. I saw them both on release. Now, having watched them both again, I can say that I still think the Snyder version is my preferred film, the soundtrack, action, and story is more coherent (why does the Parademon explode into three boxes? You don't need that, just have Diana explain it)

Curiously, the two hour version has considerable dead time that could easily have been cut (Batman rooftop scene, Russian family scene, WW opening scene) that aren't needed for strictly cutting for time.

Except it's reasonable to point at the Snyder cut of JL and say that he had a heck of a lot of control over that cut of that film. I've watched it (twice now). I've watched the Whedon cut (also twice now). I've given my comparison and critiques of both films. I'm trying to restrict myself to looking at the work and observing a pattern that I see there. That's it.

Sucker Punch was produced when he was a much younger director with a lot less power and influence in the industry. It's reasonable to assume he had very little ability to put pressure on the studio, and more reasonable to assume that the pressures went in the other direction. That's just how the film industry tends to work.

You could just as easily argue that lower budget, lower stakes movies can have more creative freedom because the execs don't care about them as much as the big high stakes tentpole movies. The thing about this pattern is that involves ignoring things that don't fit the pattern and making huge assumptions about what might have happened behind the scenes (because we can't actually know.)

[gbaji]

When did he go on fan sites? Where, when and how? The only things people actually mention are him occasionally teasing things on his own Vero account. If he was going on fansites, people would know and bring that up, but I've never seen anyone able to cite them. Presumably they could if that had actually happened. The only things I have heard of is either his own Vero account, or promotion of the new version after it had already been greenlit.



This is a much less strong statement than you seem to think. It's mentioned only on his own social media, not fansites, which the journalist thinks in some ways might be stoking the flames. You keep talking about fansites. Which ones did he go on to stoke flames? If it was true you would think people would actually know.

Ooooh! Ok. I get it now. You're making an argument out of the difference between him creating an account on other people's fan sites about him and posting there, versus posting on his own social media where his fans can see it. Got it!

To me, that's a distinction without a difference, but... um... sure. Technically, the article didn't actually say he went onto other people's fan sites to do this.

Can we agree that he certainly was "egging his fans on", regardless of the specific method used?

I'll also point out (again), that this is all completely irrelevant to the starting point, which was about the trend for Snyder to make films filled with a lot of unnecessary fluff, which often detracts from the story/plot of the films, in direct proportion to the amount of creative control he has on the project. Why Snyder was able to make his cut of JL is really irrelevant to this point. Only the fact that he did, and that we can look at it and see how that film does follow the same pattern, and has many of the same aspects I (and others) noticed about Rebel Moon.

I meant 'recently'. I saw them both on release. Now, having watched them both again, I can say that I still think the Snyder version is my preferred film, the soundtrack, action, and story is more coherent (why does the Parademon explode into three boxes? You don't need that, just have Diana explain it)

I think you and I are going to have to completely disagree on the degree to which the Snyder Cut was "coherent". I found it to have a very very large amount of extra stuff, that served no purpose in the film at all, but were there, seemingly just because "it's an action sequence, and it's cool". I've already written about a number of things present in the Synder Cut that I felt were not only unnecessary, but actually detracted from the story:

The dialogue scenes between the villains, which served to tell the backstory to the audience, but then had to be told again when the heroes learn about that stuff, except that the sequence is actually off for that, since it doesn't really explain why Bruce is doing what he does for the first half of the film.

The entire anti-life sequence. Not only unnessary (the resolution for the heroes is exactly the same, so this and the other villains can be saved for a future film if there is one), but actually creates a continuity problem, since it only works if somethow they don't know this is the world where they lost the boxes in the past, despite that clearly being stated as "known information" in multiple scenes earlier in the film.

The strangely dropped character interactions between Batman and the rest of the team (twice when he says do one thing, everyone else does the opposite, and it's just never mentioned again in the film).

Heck. Didn't mention this before, the the long and drawn out "Flash saves his secret crush" scene. It's a neat scene. Utterly unnecessary, adds nothing to the story, and is never followed up on, so why have it? Save that for a flash film instead. We got more character development out of Flash in half the screen time in the Whedon Cut IMO.

Curiously, the two hour version has considerable dead time that could easily have been cut (Batman rooftop scene, Russian family scene, WW opening scene) that aren't needed for strictly cutting for time.

I"m not sure what WW opening scene you are talking about. But the other two scenes serve to show Batman actually investigating the whole parademon thing *before* it's just dropped in his lap by Diana like in the Snyder cut (and leads up to the whole "get them to follow me by tapping into their frequency" bit used later). The Russian family? It's about humanizing the conflict. It's one thing to say "the world is at stake". It works better to show the stakes for specific people.

Snyder just seems to have an aversion to heroes behaving like heroes. Showing them actually saving people, for the sake of saving them, is somewhat important for this (and almost entirely missing from the Snyder cut, except for the rescue scene, which is also somewhat less about saving people in Snyder's version).

To be fair, those are stylistic difference, so whatever. But there are some pretty glaring gaps in the plot of the Snyder Cut, that despite being twice as long are still there. It's almost like he thought if he just cluttered the film up with enough other stuff, we'd lose sight of the plot (or maybe he did while making it?). Hard to say. But while both are less than stellar films, if I had a friend who said "Hey. I've never seen Justice League, let's watch it for movie night", I'd 100% prefer to re-watch the Whedon cut instead of the Snyder cut.

[Dragonus45]

Can we agree that he certainly was "egging his fans on", regardless of the specific method used?

No, because he didn't make posts that deliberately "egged on" anyone he just commented on a film he worked on when people asked about it like many other film makers would have. It's unpleasant the way this narrative that he somehow stoked the flames and encouraged the more fringe Snyder cut jerks as a way to frame him as some villain in that whole process.

[gbaji]

No, because he didn't make posts that deliberately "egged on" anyone he just commented on a film he worked on when people asked about it like many other film makers would have. It's unpleasant the way this narrative that he somehow stoked the flames and encouraged the more fringe Snyder cut jerks as a way to frame him as some villain in that whole process.

Again though, and I'm not sure how many times I need to keep repeating this. I'm not the one generating this. It's coming from the media reports about what he did during the time period. I wasn't even the one who went out looking for said articles. They were linked by Sapphire, not me:

Snyder fed into the movement by occasionally teasing images from his movie or storyboards on social media, in some ways only stoking the hot embers.

I'm only responding to what others have posted. It's not at all my fault if these other things, that other people have posted, maybe burst someone's personal worldview bubble or something. That's literally not my responsibility here.


As I have repeatedly stated, my primary interest here is based on my initial observations about Rebel Moon, and how it appeared to be "kitchen sink" in nature. Having later learned that the same director that did RM also did JL, I commented on the same observation about that film (specifically Snyder's cut). I (and serveral other posters) then made the observation that this seems to be a trend with his films, and that it tends to get worse the more control he has over the project.

And yes. Regardless of how or why the Snyder Cut was created, can we agree that it's as much "fully under Snyder's creative control" as it could possibly be? And it's therefore the prime example of "what kind of film he makes when he has maximum control"? Because my observation is that it suffers horribly from the things that RM suffered from (but to a lesser extent). Which would seem to support the original hypothesis made earlier in the thread.

I've provided numerous examples of things that I found to be lumbering, or excessive, or just plain incoherent in Synder's cut of JL. What's odd is that no one has actually refuted (much less even commented on) any of those observations. Intead, I'm barraged with complains about a side comment I made like a month ago and over whether Snyder actually pushed for his cut or didn't. Er... Whatever. Doesn't matter. How about we look at what the result was instead? I'm not here to debate the man. I'm here to discuss his films. Can we stick to doing that?

Now, if you personally enjoy that style of filmmaking, that's great. Make that point. Take that position. Everyone has their own personal tastes and that's absolutely fine. But it just seems strange to me that folks seem more interested in defending Snyder than his work. Heck. As I stated earlier in this thread, I love his style of filmmaking when it's done in moderation, or is on a project that perhaps is more appropriate to it (300 and Sucker Punch specifically). I just personally don't find it to be a great style when applied to a space opera style film, or a super hero style film. Fans of those genres tend to be looking more for substance than style (well, we'd ideally like both if possible). I want plotlines that make sense (probably moreso in space opera than in superhero stuff, maybe). I want characters and actions/decisions by those characters that make sense. I want a story that moves smoothly from one scene to the next, and moves the story along in each scene. I want a minimum number of idiot balls, and dangling actions/plots in said story.

Rebel Moon had a boatload of things in it that were on the "list of things I don't like in that kind of film". I've already posted about these. The unnecessary individual character action sequences. Did nothing for the story. Took up a lot of time. Were effectively "abandoned" once completed (ie: had no lasting relevance to the plot or story). Lost in the midst of these scenes were key plot components (what exactly is their plan beyond "we're fighting the bad guys"?). It really felt like action sequences for the sake of action sequences, with little or no actual relevance to any of it. Even the final fight sequence didn't actually accomplish anything (other than the good guys surviving and the bad guys dying/losing). The whole film felt like that. So yeah... Those are my critiques of the film. And yeah, I do see a pattern of this in past Synder films as well. That's not about him personally, but about "well, if you like that style of film, you'll probably enjoy this, but if not, maybe don't bother".

Which, to me, seems like a fair critique of the film. And yeah. Someone mentioned a potential directors cut of the film. Let me go on record making a prediction (assuming such a cut does come out), that follows from my "kitchen sink" and "unnecessary individual character action sequences". I will bet like 1000 quatloos that, sitting on a cutting room floor, and waiting to potentially go into a directors cut, is a sequence showing the General guy fighting some random opponent(s) in the arena, beating them due to him being super great at fighting, then drinking himself into a stupor after the fight (which is where we find him in the actual release). And I'm sure that some folks would just love to see that scene. Just like they loved the pointless scene of sword woman killing the dryder thing. Or the slightly less pointless shootout in the tavern. Or the griffon taming scene. All cool scenes, but none of them actually necessary to move the story along. Er... And also scenes I would not mind having in a film, if the film also included enough other bits to allow me to follow the story (and reach a reasonable conclusion/accomplishment for said film). But RM didn't have that, so their inclusion is problematic (and indicates a choice to include such scenes while not including other more important story/plot carrrying scenes).

Those just some of my problems with the film (just looking at the structural ones here). It was watchable. But just barely.

[Sapphire Guard]

Ooooh! Ok. I get it now. You're making an argument out of the difference between him creating an account on other people's fan sites about him and posting there, versus posting on his own social media where his fans can see it. Got it!

He didn't even confirm the cut existed until two years later, and posted about it on his own social media, a fairly obscure one at that. I'd never even heard of Vero and I don't know anyone who uses it. If he was trying to egg on the fanbase using that, he was doing a spectacularly bad job of it.

What the article said is that he 'occasionally' posting images or storyboards on his own social media. No mention of 'wailing about his lost vision' or going to fansites and egging on the movement. The article even says 'in some ways', this journalist isn't even sure.

Can we agree that he certainly was "egging his fans on", regardless of the specific method used?

Not unless you can find posts that do actually do that, no.

I'm not going to go scouring the internet. I don't tend to spend time on fan sites, so I can't speak directly to it. What I can base this on is my own perception based on friends of mine that I have that *do* spend time on fan sites, and are much more active in the "current gossip about <whatever>", than I am, and my own recollection of repeatedly hearing about Snyder being upset that the film was released with his name as director, when it wasn't "his vision", and repeatedly hearing about how Snyder had said that if they'd used his original plan for the film it would have been so much better, etc, etc, ad nausium. So yeah, any source showing that he spent effort "fanning the flames" of that position on the film, is (for me anyway) plenty suffient to support a perception of his actions and motivations that I've held all along. Call that confirmation bias if you want, but there is it.

There is a rather big difference between this and 'occasionally posts on his own social media'. You seemed to be of the belief that he was a large part of the driving force behind the campaign and spent spent time and effort on it, and also was campaigning behind the scenes, whereas what actually seemed to have happened is that he occasionally posted images from it on his own social media, the only one we know about being two whole years after release when he finally confirmed it existed.

There was a lot of conversation about how the 2017 version wasn't his vision, because that was obvious as soon as it was released (missing trailer scenes), but it was fan driven. There's no indication that Snyder put effort into driving the fan campaign or that he was doing some massive campaign behind the scenes. You can speculate that those things are true if you want, but that's all it is, speculation, (if it was more than that, those posts would be available.)

The other thing that is odd is the thing about how much control he has over his movies, which is also speculation. The thing about the 'control' argument is you can always assume that any specific person is in control of the things you like or don't like, so there is no way to prove anything one way or the other. It's so very easy to attribute control based solely on whether you like or dislike something, but it doesn't mean it's true.

Snyder just seems to have an aversion to heroes behaving like heroes. Showing them actually saving people, for the sake of saving them, is somewhat important for this (and almost entirely missing from the Snyder cut, except for the rescue scene, which is also somewhat less about saving people in Snyder's version).

Huh? WW saving the people in the Bailey, Flash saving Iris, Aquaman supplying food to starving village, and saving the shipwrecked man, Cyborg helping evicted mom, stopping random cop from being hit by flying car, Batman stops to help a random soldier in the same scene... As for the rescue scene, Cyborg jumps the gun when his father is directly threatened, so the plan doesn't work, they tip their hand too early.

The dialogue scenes between the villains, which served to tell the backstory to the audience, but then had to be told again when the heroes learn about that stuff, except that the sequence is actually off for that, since it doesn't really explain why Bruce is doing what he does for the first half of the film.

Because that was already explained in BVS, Luther and Barry's premonition made him think something dangerous was coming (and he got the files about the others in that film too. BVS has him get information about potential league members, and then in the next film he is tracking down those people.)

[gbaji]

I'm not going to continue with an argument that is solely based on different perceptions and opinions about the same thing. We can certainly differ in our opinions with regard to how Snyder felt about the theatrical release of Justice League, and the degree to which he had a hand in making his own cut of the film a reality, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. There is a Synder Cut of the film. Done. I'm not sure why this one minor detail matters so much to you.

Huh? WW saving the people in the Bailey, Flash saving Iris, Aquaman supplying food to starving village, and saving the shipwrecked man, Cyborg helping evicted mom, stopping random cop from being hit by flying car, Batman stops to help a random soldier in the same scene... As for the rescue scene, Cyborg jumps the gun when his father is directly threatened, so the plan doesn't work, they tip their hand too early.

And which of those scenes were in both films, and which were just in the Synder cut? The actual heroic scenes are in Whedon's cut as well.


WW saving the folks is in both films. But with less siliness to the scene in the Whedon Cut, like why she can move faster than bullets, but can't stop the guy from reloading. Like literally, the Snyder cut has him pause and reload, while she sits there (striking a dramatic pose) and watches him, then has the dramatic "runs around blocking all the shots fired at the teens" bit. Whedon cuts out the initial shots, and the reload, and just shows us the one cool effects scene instead, making it more like she just barely arrived back in the room (after disposing of the bomb) in time to stop him from shooting the schoolkids, and then immediately takes the guy out.

In both Aquaman is helping out the village, but in the Snyder Cut it feels more like he's kinda lording it over them as a result (they don't like him, he acts like a bully towards them, but they have no choice but to tolerate him). In Whedon's cut, Aquaman comes off like a much nicer person. Not interested in what Bruce is selling, but not the absolute jerk he is like in Snyder's cut.

In both Cyborg rushes to save his dad. The difference (as I've pointed out several times) is that in the Snyder cut, they literally have a conversation about what to do, Cyborg sees his dad, and ignores the plan and jumps in. In the Whedon cut, he shows the same concern, but his action is seen less as "ignore my teammates and do my own thing" as "I'm concerned for my father, so I'm going in first" (Whedon cut out the bit with Batman making a plan, so there's no conflict). The Whedon cut makes a point of showcasing the heroes saving the Starr Labs folks though, while it's almost absent in the Snyder Cut. The Sndyer cut made it less about Cyborg being heroic, and more about the "team" being disfunctional (but that aspect is never followed up on in any way).

Only the Snyder cut has Flash save Iris. Er... But it's such a long and drawn out scene, that it's not really about saving her, but showing off the effects of him doing it. And... um... he doesn't save the driver of the truck, nor the likely numerous other people around who were almost certainly hurt or injured (Snyder has this amzing habit of putting in credibly violent scenes in the film but I guess because he didn't directly show us the bodies of the dead from it, I guess we just imagine that folks magically weren't hurt or something). That scene showcased the Flash being a self centered jerk, using his powers (and kinda showing off his powers) to impress a girl he liked (well, for the audience anyway, since she couldn't see him, which makes it even dumber). It was an awful scene, with pretty much zero redeeming features to it.

Cyborg and the evicted mom, wasn't about him being a hero, but showing off how powerful Cyborg was in terms of cyber capabilities. He can hack anything, and do anything he wants. Sure. He helps out this one woman, but in the process opens up a huge can of worms in terms of his capabilities, and the morality of using them in the first place. It was a set up to him later "hacking" the mother boxes (which was laughably poorly done in the Snyder Cut). Whedon dropped the later scene entirely, so this one served no purpose. Heck. Doom Patrol did a much better job examining Cyborg's abilities, and the morality of using them, than Snyder did, so... if you aren't going to actually address the morality issue you just raised, maybe don't raise it in the first place.

And both of the "save a cop/soldier" scenes only existed as a result of Sndyer including this incredibly violent scene of Superman shooting up the entire area after he is resurrected. Another scene that shows a really dark side of the characters, and yeah, we see a couple folks being saved, but, somewhat similar to the scenes in Man of Steel, it's hard to accept that much violence didn't have to result in a large number of fatalities. Snyder just doesn't show us the dead bodies in the aftermath. Once again, Whedon removed that scene (wisely IMO), so the connected scenes were not there either.

Whedon left every single "heroic scene of them saving folks" in the film that Snyder shot (and that didn't more or less need to be removed to keep the plot on track and within the time limits). But there weren't a whole lot in there to begin with. Whedon then added more. Batman saving people from the parademon at the beginning. Superman and Flash saving the civilians in the area during the final fight. Which, I supose is a thing about Snyder's version. He just kinda ignores the possiblity that civilians might actually be in an area and need to be saved in the first place. If they aren't related to the direct story, characters, and/or action, they just kinda don't exist. Even though, realistically, they should. There should be thousands of people in those buildings being destroyed in Man of Steel. We'll just ignore them. There should be someone driving that truck, and dozens of people on the street, all of whom Flash could have saved with his speed. But we'll just ignore them.

Because that was already explained in BVS, Luther and Barry's premonition made him think something dangerous was coming (and he got the files about the others in that film too. BVS has him get information about potential league members, and then in the next film he is tracking down those people.)

But none of this is actually mentioned in the Snyder Cut. That's the problem. You have to make the film itself a complete story. Only the Whedon cut even references Luthor's experience in Superman's ship. Only the Whedon cut gives Batman a specific motivation to be looking for the parademons and hunting them down prior to Diana showing up and telling him about the boxes. Only the Whedon cut has a sequence of action and discovery that leads us to the end point. Sure. Batman is gathering heroes, and we can rationalize this from what he was doing in BvS. In both films Author shows up to help save them after the mother box is taken from Atlantis. But only in the Whedon cut is there a previous bit of dialogue with Bruce already asking about the boxes and if he knows what they are or mean. He's tracking down clues about them. This provides a much better reason for Aquaman to go to Bruce specifically after the mother box is stolen in Atlantis. He has some reason to believe that Bruce is already looking into these things, and knows there's something going on with them, so when the one in Atlantis is taken, it's logical for him to go to Bruce.

In the Snyder Cut? He just kinda shows up. And nothing is said about why. I can't remember the specific details about Cyborg either, but IIRC, there were some slight differences in the sequence of interactions which made more sense in the Whedon cut than in the Snyder cut. Oh. Now I remember. Cyborg actually followed Bruce and Diana around and was spying on them (cause they tried to contact him already), so he overheard them talking about the boxes, which is why he goes to them when his father goes missing, and a parademon shows up to try to take the box away from him (I think both had that last bit, but it was also slightly different in each, but can't recall the specifics now).


Whedon, despite being constrained by what had already been shot, actually did add in a lot more "ground work" to make the plot and specifically the actions and decisions of the heroes make more sense and flow more smoothly. Synder's cut was just jarring in spots, as the heroes just "did something", with a highly handwaved explanation, that just happened to move the plot forward. I'm struggling to remember some of the specifics (despite recently rewatching them back to back), but I distinctly recall on several occasions thinking "wait. Why did they do that?" and "how did they know to go there?" bits in the Snyder cut. It's not like the Snyder Cut was completely nonsensical, but it spent a bare bare bare minimum on laying said groundwork to make the plot work. And it put in so many unnecessary and unrelated scenes into the film, that what little groundwork was there was hard to keep track of when you finally got to the point where it paid off.

It also really didn't help that in the Snyder cut, a huge amount of the plot was revealed, not by the heroes discovering it, but by the villains talking amongst themselves. I suppose this reduced audience confusion, but it's a dangerous technique because it lends itself to that "minimal groundwork" problem I mentioned. The director thinks "I've told the audience why this is happening", and maybe doesn't spend the time showing the protagonists actually going through the steps to arrive at the same conclusions.


I mention these specifically because there are echoes to the same issues in Rebel Moon. Same deal with lack of time spent showing the character motivations, and more time spent showing gratuitous violence and "kitchen sink" style scenes. It does still support my initial assessment that he tends towards getting so caught up in highlighting "really cool scenes I filmed" that he sometimes seems to forget that he's also supposed to tell a story along the way.

That's just my opinion though. I will say one thing in favor of Rebel Moon. At least, it's already in a somewhat grimdark setting to begin with, so that part of his style at least works fine.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm not going to continue with an argument that is solely based on different perceptions and opinions about the same thing. We can certainly differ in our opinions with regard to how Snyder felt about the theatrical release of Justice League, and the degree to which he had a hand in making his own cut of the film a reality, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. There is a Synder Cut of the film. Done. I'm not sure why this one minor detail matters so much to you.

I feel like the assumption that he was hevaily involved in egging on the fanbase and heavily campaigning behind the scenes should be based on something concrete. If it's not, then we should consider the possibility that it isn't true. If it isn't true, then it is a very unpleasant thing to assume about a person without evidence.

And which of those scenes were in both films, and which were just in the Synder cut? The actual heroic scenes are in Whedon's cut as well.

They were in Whedon's cut because they were in existing footage. The distinction is in the emotional weight they had for you, but the idea that the heroes don't save people only works if you brush off many scenes of saving people.

Steppenwolf's base doesn't have people in the Snyder cut because it is a radioactive wasteland where nothing can live. That's why he picked it in the first place.

Cyborg's scene does establish the extent of his powers, and then shows him what he does with all of his godlike power, what is important to him is helping someone in need.

What gave that impression about Aquaman being hostile to the villagers?

Batman saved that burglar from the parademon after putting him in danger in the first place. It establishes the parademons as just attacking random people who are afraid (how many people are afraid in Gotham on any given day?), as opposed to specific people to do with the mother boxes. It results in odd questions like why the parademon explodes into a picture of motherboxes or why they are on that mural in iceland.

[gbaji]

I feel like the assumption that he was hevaily involved in egging on the fanbase and heavily campaigning behind the scenes should be based on something concrete. If it's not, then we should consider the possibility that it isn't true. If it isn't true, then it is a very unpleasant thing to assume about a person without evidence.

Unpleasant to whom? Snyder? He's not here. You? Why do you care?

I'm expressing an opinion based on my observations of events that happened. Whether that is "pleasant" or not is really not something I care about here. If that was the actual criteria at hand, then no one would ever be allowed to criticise anything anyone else has ever done. So... not a standard I hold myself to.

They were in Whedon's cut because they were in existing footage. The distinction is in the emotional weight they had for you, but the idea that the heroes don't save people only works if you brush off many scenes of saving people.

The ratio of "heroes saving people" to "heroes being jerks and showing callous disregard for the lives of mere mortals" is much much different in the two films.

I'm confused why you're arguing this point. The entire intent to Snyder's cut is that it's a darker version of the Justice League. I'm simply reporting that it was, in fact, a darker version of the Justice League, and that I'm not a huge fan of that. If you do like that, then own it. It's just a really strange thing to be basically arguing that it's a great vision because of <grimdark> but then arguing that it wasn't really <grimdark> at all, so people who don't like <grimdark> should like it too.

Steppenwolf's base doesn't have people in the Snyder cut because it is a radioactive wasteland where nothing can live. That's why he picked it in the first place.

Yes. And it does have people in it, because it isn't an abandoned radioactive wasteland in the Whedon cut. See how this is entirely about what the director decided was in the area around the base?

Whedon made the area around the base populated for two reasons:

1. It gave an additional and very direct "people to save" that he could show directly, highlighting the heroic nature of the characters.

2. It also gave him an alternative way to have our heroes find the base, rather than the one shown in Synder's cut (which is tied into the whole "maybe we don't want to kill off Cyborg's dad, so we'll do something different here).

Cyborg's scene does establish the extent of his powers, and then shows him what he does with all of his godlike power, what is important to him is helping someone in need.

Right. But from a filmmaking and storytelling point of view, that scene sets up the "hack the motherboxes" scene at the end of the film. Which was a cringeworthy fail of a scene. So... If you are cutting out that scene in the resolution, then you cut out the scene that sets it up.

What gave that impression about Aquaman being hostile to the villagers?

I didn't say he was hostile to them, but that he treats them like subjects, and they don't seem to really like him that much. He behaves like a drunken frat boy the whole time he is there, expecting them to provide him with booze and entertainment. Comes and goes when he wants, and on his schedule, but expects that they should all basically praise the ground he walks on because of who he is. He treated the villagers very much the same way a mob boss or gang leader treats the people on "his turf". Yeah. They're all on his side, and do what he says, but is that because they like hiim? Or they kinda don't have a whole lot of choice? There's a kind of toxic dependency relationship he's created with this village of people, if you really stop and think about it. They depend on him, and he kinda never lets them forget about it.


And honestly, this is somewhat of a trend in the Snyder Cut. It's about a different way of portraying heroes. Whedon tends to go with the "these are normal people, with extraodinary powers, trying to use them for good, and lets examine how that works". Snyder tends to take a more "these aren't really humans, but more than human, and they act and are treated as such". His heroes seem very uninterested in the effects their actions have on others, except to the degree that it affects them personally. Flash saves Iris, but is it because he's a good guy who saves people, or because he is creeping on her? He doesn't bother to save anyone else, and they matter so little to the scene that "other people" are not even shown to exist. Superman goes on a rampage, but we're only shown the effect this has on the heroes and their own actions and efforts. We must assume that in the massive explosions that occur there should have been dozens of fatalities, but... just like with the truck driver and pedestrians in the Flash scene, since those "other people" don't matter to the heroes, then we just don't show them or acknowledge their existence.

Heroes are like gods in Snyder's cut. They are above humans, and thus don't seem to really care much about them. Such as this:

Batman saved that burglar from the parademon after putting him in danger in the first place. It establishes the parademons as just attacking random people who are afraid (how many people are afraid in Gotham on any given day?), as opposed to specific people to do with the mother boxes. It results in odd questions like why the parademon explodes into a picture of motherboxes or why they are on that mural in iceland.

Sure. It's wedged in there. It's not a great scene. But... it establishes that Batman is actually tracking these things down, because they are attacking "ordinary people". It shows that he cares enough to do that, and along the way encounters a mystery. His efforts to track down a series of attacks against normal people, is what leads him to the mother boxes. In the Snyder Cut, he's just assembling a team. He cares only about the other heroes, and only takes actions in relation to them. Wonder Woman only comes to him with the info about the Amazonian mother box after discovering info about them, after the signal arrow scene. In the Snyder Cut, the actions of the heroes is entirely motivated by attacks on themselves (and Cyborg's dad) by Steppenwolf in pursuit of the boxes. Diana, Author, and Cyborg all only come to Batman after an attempt is made on each box, and there is no action by Bruce regarding the boxes prior to that point. He's only interested in gathering other heroes to make a team, apparently for the sake of gathering other heroes to make a team.

It's notable that the "rescue people" scenes that were left in Whedon's cut are all ones showing the heroes actually being heroic and saving lives for the sake of saving lives. This is really notable in the "rescue the captured Starr Labs folks" scene. In the Whedon cut, there's a huge focus on Batman having Flash go in and save them (he's teaching him how to be a hero, and in Whedon's cut that means "saving normal people"). In the Snyder Cut, Cyborg rescues his dad (so... some self interest), but the rest of the folks? Kinda forgotten after the intitial scene. We just go to a big fight sequence with the parademons and Steppenwolf instead. Once again, the "other people" are just kinda forgotten about once their jobs as props is done.


I'll also note that there's a massive difference in feel between the two films. Though, to be perfectly fair, it falls a bit flat in the Whedon cut (hence the poor ratings), there's a significant effort there to lighten things up. There are jokes and quips (some quite cringeworthy, but they are there). There is none of that in the Snyder Cut. Four hours of absolute deadly serious film going on there. Not one joke. Not one quip. Everyone and every thing is serious, dark, grim, forboding, etc... And just in case the actual action in the plot isn't serious and grim enoiugh, we'll toss in a couple of nightmare dream sequences of even more grim and horrific things that might happen. And then cap that with a longish grim future scene at the end as well. Cause there wasn't enough of that in the film you just saw.


Again. I don't say this to say "OMG! That's terrible filmmaking". I have other critiques in terms of the actual pacing and storytelling and whatnot (and have already posted some of those). This is about what kind of film people enjoy watching. Some folks may love this style. Heck. I like it in certain genres. Just not in a super hero genre. Just not my cup of tea. But I totally get that other people may love that style. That's entirely about personal preferrence though. Again though, if that's the kind of film you like, and the portrayal of super powered folks that you like, then own that opinion and position. I just find it strange for folks to praise the film, but then insist that it doesn't have these aspects at all. You like that? Own it. But don't try to conviince me that it's not really that style of film at all, so I should like it too. That's just strange and sillly.

And for the record. I actually do like The Boys, and have watched the entire series, animated stories, and the GodU thing on Prime. But I don't like them because of their portrayal of heroes, because it's not actually about heroes. I enjoy those shows because of the portrayal of the "government/corporate power gone amok" aspect of the story. It's about how far people will go to take advantage of other people, and how far they will go to cover up what they are doing, and how far others will go to fight against those things, and the horrific combination of things that happen when those all collide. But I like them because they examine this aspect of things. I guess why I'm not a huge fan of Snyder's portrayal of heroes is that he has them being these disconnected and uncaring (and extreme collatoral damage causing) beings, but then doesn't seem to examine that as a problem... at all. It's just ignored. It would be like we watched The Boys, but showed nothing about all of the damage and pain caused by their actions, or bothered with scenes of anyone having to figure out how to spin or cover that up, but just had a sequence of the various super powered folks fighting each other. Over and over and over. With massive casualties and destruction being caused, but we just never mention it. For me personally, big violent action sequences for the sake of having big violent action sequences, just gets boring really quick. But that's just me.

[Sapphire Guard]

I mean, spreading unfounded rumours about a person is generally not a nice thing to do 'Person X had control of this' is a particularly nasty one, because in the absence of any actual evidence people just assume that whoever they like had control over things they like, and whoever they don't like had control of the things they don't like, and no matter how unfounded it is it can't be proved wrong.

"This person is doing this behind the scenes" is similar, because you don't need to have any evidence, because it is behind the scenes. No evidence can prove it wrong, even if it was never true to begin with.

The ratio of "heroes saving people" to "heroes being jerks and showing callous disregard for the lives of mere mortals" is much much different in the two films.

The 'no saving people' criticism is very strange, because to do that you have to ignore a long list of saved people. And very very frequently this is accompanied by some variant of 'are you okay' (WW with hostages, Bruce with soldier, Flash with hostages (there is a scenes of theim being escorted away up the stairs, by the way.)

I didn't say he was hostile to them, but that he treats them like subjects, and they don't seem to really like him that much. He behaves like a drunken frat boy the whole time he is there, expecting them to provide him with booze and entertainment. Comes and goes when he wants, and on his schedule, but expects that they should all basically praise the ground he walks on because of who he is. He treated the villagers very much the same way a mob boss or gang leader treats the people on "his turf". Yeah. They're all on his side, and do what he says, but is that because they like hiim? Or they kinda don't have a whole lot of choice? There's a kind of toxic dependency relationship he's created with this village of people, if you really stop and think about it. They depend on him, and he kinda never lets them forget about it.

Where does any of this come from, the scenes are nearly the same in both cuts, and he doesn't drink in either of them or expect praise. His schedule is 'bring hungry people fish'

Superman goes on a rampage, but we're only shown the effect this has on the heroes and their own actions and efforts. We must assume that in the massive explosions that occur there should have been dozens of fatalities, but... just like with the truck driver and pedestrians in the Flash scene, since those "other people" don't matter to the heroes, then we just don't show them or acknowledge their existence.

Cyborg and Batman both save people.

[quote]Flash go in and save them (he's teaching him how to be a hero, and in Whedon's cut that means "saving normal people"). In the Snyder Cut, Cyborg rescues his dad (so... some self interest), but the rest of the folks? Kinda forgotten after the intitial scene. We just go to a big fight sequence with the parademons and Steppenwolf instead. Once again, the "other people" are just kinda forgotten about once their jobs as props is done. [/quote[]

Nope, there's a scene where they are escorted up the stairs to safety.

I'll also note that there's a massive difference in feel between the two films. Though, to be perfectly fair, it falls a bit flat in the Whedon cut (hence the poor ratings), there's a significant effort there to lighten things up. There are jokes and quips (some quite cringeworthy, but they are there). There is none of that in the Snyder Cut. Four hours of absolute deadly serious film going on there. Not one joke. Not one quip. Everyone and every thing is serious, dark, grim, forboding, etc... And just in case the actual action in the plot isn't serious and grim enoiugh, we'll toss in a couple of nightmare dream sequences of even more grim and horrific things that might happen.

Off the top of my head:

"What's your superpower again?"
"I'm rich."

"Everyone, this is Alfred. I work for him."

"What did you do last weekend, Diana?"
"Nothing very interesting."

Among many more.

I guess why I'm not a huge fan of Snyder's portrayal of heroes is that he has them being these disconnected and uncaring (and extreme collatoral damage causing) beings, but then doesn't seem to examine that as a problem

What do you mean exactly? All of them save people all the time, in a notably caring way. Very frequently, we see them not only save people but take the time to speak to them and check if they are okay. We're introduced to Bruce running into a disaster zone to save people in BVS. WW checks to see if the hostages are okay when she's done with the terrorists. Flash escorts the hostages up the stairs to safety. Aquaman brings a starving village fish, Cyborg helps random single moms, that's nowhere even close to all of the rescues

This criticism is very strange, you have to go through a long list of saved people and go 'this doesn't count, this doesn't count, this doesn't count'. The most jerkish act in either cut is Batman dangling that burglar off a roof purely to use him as parademon bait.

[Dragonus45]

I mean, spreading unfounded rumours about a person is generally not a nice thing to do 'Person X had control of this' is a particularly nasty one, because in the absence of any actual evidence people just assume that whoever they like had control over things they like, and whoever they don't like had control of the things they don't like, and no matter how unfounded it is it can't be proved wrong.

"This person is doing this behind the scenes" is similar, because you don't need to have any evidence, because it is behind the scenes. No evidence can prove it wrong, even if it was never true to begin with.

Yea there has been a lot of hate towards Snyder for supposedly stirring up the fandom and endorsing the most toxic elements of the Snyder Cut folks because he... let me check my notes here, commented a couple times about wishing he could finish it on twitter.

[Tyndmyr]

I mean, spreading unfounded rumours about a person is generally not a nice thing to do 'Person X had control of this' is a particularly nasty one, because in the absence of any actual evidence people just assume that whoever they like had control over things they like, and whoever they don't like had control of the things they don't like, and no matter how unfounded it is it can't be proved wrong.

"This person is doing this behind the scenes" is similar, because you don't need to have any evidence, because it is behind the scenes. No evidence can prove it wrong, even if it was never true to begin with.

If you can't assume that a super wealthy, famous director slapping out blockbusters has control of what he is doing, can we at least assume that when he literally slaps his name on a version, that it is his version?

[The Patterner]

If you can't assume that a super wealthy, famous director slapping out blockbusters has control of what he is doing, can we at least assume that when he literally slaps his name on a version, that it is his version?

It really feels like there is two camps here, we have camp the bigger a director gets the more control they have.

And camp, the bigger a director gets, the less control they have.

And personally I find myself in camp a little from column A and a little from column B. It's clear that studios will invest more money and are more likely to take a chance on a big directors more outlandish ideas. But it's also clear that when they have invested a lot of money they will want to keep an eye on the project.

I think this is the perfect time for bullet points:

• Due to unforeseen (and terrible) circumstances Snyder leaves the project and a new director takes over.
• The new director does reshoots but also has to stick to what has already been filmed/decided.
• After the movies release rumors about studio meddling surfaces.
• Fan campaign to release a directors cut starts taking off.
• Snyder confirms the existence of a Snyder cut.
• There is enough hype for the studio to think they can make money from releasing a Snyder cut.
• Snyder finalizes the Snyder cut.
• Snyder has not said anything about studio interference regarding the Snyder cut.

Are these points we can all agree on?

Because I'll agree with gbaji that this is the closest we will ever get to Snyders vision for justice league.

I also agree with Sapphire Guard regarding that that doesn't prove that this is the move that Snyder would have released to cinema. I do however consider that to be an irrelevant point, since the movie we did get when Snyder was given control is the Snyder cut.

[gbaji]

Because I'll agree with gbaji that this is the closest we will ever get to Snyders vision for justice league.

I also agree with Sapphire Guard regarding that that doesn't prove that this is the move that Snyder would have released to cinema. I do however consider that to be an irrelevant point, since the movie we did get when Snyder was given control is the Snyder cut.

And this is kinda the point. We've gone off into micro-examination of the trees, while not really making note of the forest we're standing in.

At the end of the day, regardless of how it came to be, the Snyder Cut of JL is as close as you can get to "exactly what the director wanted" as you're likely to ever get in a major studio released film project. And I do find that many of the elements that I found problematic in Rebel Moon are present in that cut of JL as well (extraneous scenes that weren't needed to tell the story; focus on action sequences in lieu of establishing dialogue; focus on "look and feel" over plot/story; overal film length bloat).

I don't think it's wrong at all to point out this pattern and say "this is the style of filmmaking that Snyder tends towards". If that's what you like, then you'll ike that. If that's not what you like, then you probably wont. And don't get me wrong, I like the stylistic stuff Snyder does. I'm just not a huge fan of the resulting film if/when those things seem to overtake other things I also want in a film. And, as I (and a few other posters) observed at the beginnnig of this thread, that trend towards the stylistic overtaking the other stuff seeme to correlate with the degree of control he has over the entire project.

I've already posted the various "other things" I'm talking about (plot holes, character inconsistencies, pacing problems, etc) that I see (in both films), so I'm not going to repeat them.

[The Patterner]

And this is kinda the point. We've gone off into micro-examination of the trees, while not really making note of the forest we're standing in.

At the end of the day, regardless of how it came to be, the Snyder Cut of JL is as close as you can get to "exactly what the director wanted" as you're likely to ever get in a major studio released film project. And I do find that many of the elements that I found problematic in Rebel Moon are present in that cut of JL as well (extraneous scenes that weren't needed to tell the story; focus on action sequences in lieu of establishing dialogue; focus on "look and feel" over plot/story; overal film length bloat).

I don't think it's wrong at all to point out this pattern and say "this is the style of filmmaking that Snyder tends towards". If that's what you like, then you'll ike that. If that's not what you like, then you probably wont. And don't get me wrong, I like the stylistic stuff Snyder does. I'm just not a huge fan of the resulting film if/when those things seem to overtake other things I also want in a film. And, as I (and a few other posters) observed at the beginnnig of this thread, that trend towards the stylistic overtaking the other stuff seeme to correlate with the degree of control he has over the entire project.

I've already posted the various "other things" I'm talking about (plot holes, character inconsistencies, pacing problems, etc) that I see (in both films), so I'm not going to repeat them.

Overall I agree with this, the movies I have really loved by Snyder has been either remakes (Dawn of the dead) or based on existing source martial (Watchmen and 300). What I remember from Sucker punch I loved it from an aesthetic point of view, but the story was almost non-existent.

The rest tend to feel as if they are to long, and have way to little substance. I kinda want to like Zack Snyders movies because they are so pleasing to the eye. But I'm just liking them less and less. I don't know, there are other directors with visually amazing styles that are better so I'll stick to them (Del Toro and Wes Anderson comes to mind).

[Sapphire Guard]

It really feels like there is two camps here, we have camp the bigger a director gets the more control they have.

And camp, the bigger a director gets, the less control they have.

Either can be true at any given time for any given production. My stance isn't one or the other, it's that it is difficult to tell for any given production. So when someone says 'this person is good/bad when they have control' without actually knowing what the have control of or waht they don't, it doesn't mean much.

The other problem is that it is all too easy just disregard anything that doesn't fit the preferred pattern with 'they musn't have had control of that' every time their work does something outside your expectations. So we end up at 'if you ignore everything that doesn't fit the pattern (on the basis that whatever doesn't fit the pattern must be because of someone else) then it fits the pattern.' So we end up in weird places like 'Snyder can't make short films if you ignore the short films he has made'

You can apply this logic at any person, with any piece of media, at any time, and it can't be proved wrong, whether it's true or not. Any time something doesn't fit your perception of how a creator operates, you can just assume it is the influence of someone else.

This can lead to very unfortunate outcomes, because if a creator was actually responsible for something good outside their normal style, they will never, ever be credited for it in any circumstances under this logic, it will always be attributed to someone else having control, whether that's true or not.

[The Patterner]

Either can be true at any given time for any given production. My stance isn't one or the other, it's that it is difficult to tell for any given production. So when someone says 'this person is good/bad when they have control' without actually knowing what the have control of or waht they don't, it doesn't mean much.

The other problem is that it is all too easy just disregard anything that doesn't fit the preferred pattern with 'they musn't have had control of that' every time their work does something outside your expectations. So we end up at 'if you ignore everything that doesn't fit the pattern (on the basis that whatever doesn't fit the pattern must be because of someone else) then it fits the pattern.' So we end up in weird places like 'Snyder can't make short films if you ignore the short films he has made'

You can apply this logic at any person, with any piece of media, at any time, and it can't be proved wrong, whether it's true or not. Any time something doesn't fit your perception of how a creator operates, you can just assume it is the influence of someone else.

Honestly, I don't really care either way if Snyder has control or not. Take Taika Waititi, I have really enjoyed his movies for their signature humor and goofiness, that is tempered by a lot of heart and love for the characters. Thor: Love and thunder is what happens when he forget to add heart to the movie. If his next movie have similar problems, and the one after that, and the one after that. I would begin to worry about this trend of his.

Snyder last five movies have all been over two hours long and all of them (except maybe Army of the dead, since I have not seen it) has felt very long. The first part of that statement is just objectively true, the second part is my opinion.

This is a trend, and it's completely irrelevant if that's because Snyder wants movies to be long or if the studios are forcing him to do it.

Edit: To clarify, I'm not counting Justice league at all when going trough Snyders moves since it was not finalized by him and we therefor can't know for sure how long it would have ended up being.

[KorvinStarmast]

Trailer is out for the second chapter/movie.

Looks a lot more like a video game than a movie.