Zach Snyder's Justice League (Spoilers) thread

[Beelzquill]

So I watched the Snydercut yesterday. I liked it more than Whedon's version, but it still has a lot of flaws.

First off, four hours just seems too long a runtime for one film. Maybe two two hour parts, or four one hour episodes of a miniseries? I had to watch it in phases myself and I happily rewatch the extended cuts of the Lord of the Rings films every year. The second thing that confused me was the timeline, it seems like the invasion happens minutes or so after Superman dies and couldn't possibly take more than a week to be stopped, yet it's treated like a whole lotta time has happened to where Lois not going to work is treated as a major sign of depression. Also why did the mother boxes not wake before Superman arrived on earth in all these years? It couldn't be because of Ares cause he was killed in 1917. Maybe it was the Atlanteans maintaining a ward or something until Aquaman's mom disappered which would roughly correspond with Superman's ship arriving to explain why Superman was the reason for no invasion but now I'm writing the movie for them. Flash's shoes burn off at super speed but not his regular clothes?
I guess the big question I have is what is Martian Manhunter's deal? I mean, in the comics so not necessarily true here, he is historically as strong as Superman and he seems to care about Earth, why doesn't he actually fight.

That being said, I think the movie is better overall than Whedon's because it's more tonally consistant, the action is better, and Steppenwolf is a much more compelling character in this version. The world building overall is much better and the characters seem more natural, at least to me anyway. The shining star of this movie is Ray Fisher as Cyborg, I really dig his backstory and kind of loved his arc throughout the film. I feel like had DC bothered to make a Cyborg film that set up this one, Justice League would have done a lot better.
But that's my thoughts what are yours?

[Winter]

This movie does NOT need to be 4 hours long. There is WAAAY to many slow-mo or scenes that just sorta linger for a good 1 or 2 minutes that are scattered throughout this film that just drag the whole thing to a screeching halt. Some ideas are good and I do think Cyborg's arc should have stayed but dear lord this did NOT need to be this long.

Lord of the Rings Return of the King Extended Edition is 3 hours and 48 minutes long and even with the various fake-out endings it STILL doesn't drag as much as this film does. This could have been a 3 hour film and it would have been much better IMO as 20 minutes in I was already getting tired how long some scenes were dragging.

I will say that it is an improvement from the Whedon version but in other ways I think Whedon's take is a bit better. Honestly, it's more of a pick your poison case and sadly neither one is really a film I'm going to be seeking out and would rather just watching something else made by either of these directors. I still enjoy Watchmen and Avengers along with 300 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I think Justice League, both versions, is just an okay movie. Not really that bad but not really that good either.

[clearspira]

This film would not have worked back in the day. Watching a four hour film at home is not the same as watching a four hour film in the cinema. And, lets cut the ''Lord of the Rings'' excuse, because this isn't Lord of the Rings. Superhero films are designed to be easily digestible chunks. No one is going to Justice League or Avengers expecting high art - they're going to watch some aliens or some robots get beaten up.

Its the same thing as those using the ''Titanic'' excuse as ''Titanic'' was a visual spectacle the likes of which no one had seen at the time and was targeted towards a different market. To compare three hours of that to four hours of this is a false equivalence.

I believe that this film would have ended the Snyderverse just as surely as Whedon's did. In terms of the quality of the film, its alright, but a good example of ''quality over quantity''. I would still rather watch any of the Avengers films over this - or as one critic put it - ''Marvel is already halfway down the highway whilst DC is still buying tyres for the car.''

[Rocketboy1313]

Originally the idea was to have two movies, like Infinity War and Endgame.
I guess they thought, "Why split it?" when they are just streaming it.

I have no interest in watching it. I would have prefered to watch a Justice League movie made entirely by Joss Whedon instead of him trying to lighten up and tighten up Snyder's bloated "vision". But then that was before I knew about Whedon being a dick... so now I would prefer James Gunn or Taika Waititi to make a Justice League as they seem to have a sense of fun to what they do.

I hate Snyder's vision of the Justice League. Hate it. Objectivist gods who see helping people as a pain in the ass obligation, who are full of angst and plot holes.
I have no idea how anyone could enjoy "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice". That movie is a boring mess that seems to hate its source material, the spirit of superheroism, and its target audience. Fuck that movie.

[Beelzquill]

Is there angst in the Snydercut? Yes. Are there plot holes? also yes. Objectivism and bitching about helping people isn't really in the movie though.

[Al-1701]

Whedon also apparently wanted a second crack at Age of Ultron because it wasn't as well received as the first Avengers. But the Snyder cut is only better in that it's coherent. Otherwise, it just continues his overly dour vision of superheroes which is not what the general movie goer is looking for.

Really, the DCEU was doomed from the start. The MCU was well established by the time DC even thought of getting started and tried to jump straight to their answer to Civil War despite Civil War being a crescendo of seven years of build up with these characters while Batman v. Superman just has Superman being uncharacteristically depressed and Batman hates him for reasons. Add Snyder's asinine vision, and there was no hope for it. It comes off as a pale imitation like the other "cinematic universes" trying to get started.

[Beelzquill]

Correction to my earlier post, Cyborg does say "fuck the world" at one point but he does get over it.

[BBally81]

Two opposing takes on the Snyder Cut's performance.

https://heroichollywood.com/justice-lea ... ier-views/

https://cosmicbook.news/snyder-cut-fail ... woman-1984

[McAvoy]

Definitely bloated and definitely probably could have been cut down by tightening the scenes. And cutting down the slo mo. Somewhere I saw someone timed those scenes and it came up to about 10% of the run time. Basically 24 minutes.

This is the sort of movie that would have been much better if there was a Flash and Cyborg movie before it.

[Winter]

This is the sort of movie that would have been much better if there was a Flash and Cyborg movie before it.

Even if there was a Flash and Cyborg movie before this film the problems with the story are still there. The reason the first Avengers film worked was because it was a fun movie with a simple plot, stop Loki and save the world while the heroes try to get along and because the characters were engaging. I honestly don't really care much for any of the characters in this film even though everyone is clearly giving it there all performance wise.

Prior to the first three part episode of Justice League only Batman and Superman had been established in their own series and within those episodes only The Flash had appeared in one episode before showing up in JL. John Stewart, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter were only introduced in JL. While the Green Lantern had been introduced it was Kyle that was introduced not John. And that was a roughly 1 hour run time and yet STILL did better job then the now FOUR HOURS of the Justice League movie did.

Zack Snyder has an amazing talent when it comes to visuals but his storytelling is still rather weak IMO. I LOVE visual storytelling but Snyder is more focused on the spectacle not the story. To go to Raya and the Last Dragon for a moment there's a scene in the film that's roughly 20 minutes into the film where Namaari, who was established to be a Dragon "fangirl", is returning to her home to speak with her mother. However, along the way she and her escort come across a Dragon Graveyard.

Instead of just running through it Namaari has everyone stop and walk through said Graveyard as a sign of respect for the Dragons and before leaving Namaari takes one last look at the graveyard and salutes the dragons before leaving. This tells us a number of important elements.

One: Namaari still has respect and admission for the Dragons which will be important when she sees Sisu in her true form.
Two: It shows that Namaari is not without honor as even though she is the one most chiefly responsible for the state of the world she still shows respect to those who saved it in the first place.
Three: It helps show the audience that Namaari was being truthful to Raya when she was talking about how much she loved Dragons at the start so we know that wasn't a lie.
Four: All this helps to set up her eventual redemption as we see she is not a one note villain like we've had before there is more to her and with that in mind it makes her eventual choice to do the right thing all the more believable.

And all this done without any dialogue no one says a world throughout this scene we can see what the characters are thinking through their expressions, body language and the music helps to put the finishing touch.

But with Snyder's JL, most of the visuals don't tell a story, they exist often for their own sake and could be cut from film and the fact that the Whedon version did so and was, IMO, the same level of quality really does show that these scenes don't really add that much.