Zack Snyder's JUSTICE LEAGUE on HBO Max (3/18/21) 4 4

[Buzzetta]

Spoiler: GQ Interview: Zack Snyder's Original Plan Revealed

I am linking that as it is important to my thoughts on this.  

I very much liked this film.  I have mentioned how much I enjoyed Man of Steel, and what an eyeroll Batman v Superman was.  I thought the Whedon version of Justice League was just... no words.  It was just bad.   Snyder's Justice League, while a bit long never disappoints.  It is one of those movies that not only lives up to the hype but thrives on it.  Anything I can say about how much I enjoyed it has already been said by others so I will offer something new. 

 

On the topic of Direction of the DCU

Warner Brothers' releasing of this film gains them tentpole level content during a content stricken era due to Covid.  The problem here for a Warner Brothers is now they have allowed Snyder to point out every flaw the studio is making with its direction of these iconic characters.  Snyder has the last laugh here as he is shown to be right.  The studio has no idea what to do with these characters.  When Snyder says that WB gave him some caveats not to shoot any additional footage, he decided to shoot additional footage anyway.   Snyder smartly puts his audition to continue helming the DCU right on screen for everyone to watch.  

The problem with that audition is that movie audiences will forever wonder what could have been.  When Snyder reveals the plans that he developed with Jim Lee for a trilogy of Justice League films ending with Superman's son becoming the new Batman, we are intrigued as to how this could have played out.  As much as I have said, that I found BvS to be a disappointment, I have always held Affleck as a very capable Batman.  I stand by my wait and see approach to Matt Reeves movie and Pattison's portrayal of the character but no matter what I see on screen, I will have the Snyder cut on my shoulder like a 800lb Gorilla.  What could have been?  Is DC correct in the direction that they are taking these characters.  Should they bring back Snyder and suck up their pride and let him do his thing?  Spend the money and get Affleck back?   It is obvious that Snyder had a vision as his version of Wonder Woman fit in smartly with Patty Jenkins's version.  

The biggest problem is that the non-canon movie is the movie that SHOULD be held as canon.   All future DCU movies may not have the gorilla on their shoulder but they may have a monkey there, whispering into their ear, "What might have been?"

 

On the topic of Ray Fisher

This movie helps to vindicate Fisher's complaints against Whedon and the studio.  There is a LOT of great material from Fisher's story arc.  At what point did Whedon make the decision that this was material that did not need to be included?  Was it before or after Fisher claims that Whedon started picking on him?  Because if it is after, then it opens up the door to many questions regarding the deletion of those scenes.  Fisher's story arc is integral to the overall story of Justice League.  It is about redemption; redemption of self, of family and as it turns out, for Zach Snyder.  Warner Brothers have boxed themselves into a corner because public sentiment will not be on their side when subsequent DCU films are released and Fisher is not part of those plans. 

 

What should they do? 

Let Snyder finish out his Trilogy.  Find a way to bring Cavill and Affleck back.  Mamoa sounds like he is game to follow Snyder around and I am sure Fisher would sign on as the public sees how Snyder treated his character.  #ReleaseTheSnyderTrilogy 

[▫️]

1 hour ago, fantastic_four said:

Also, will this disappear from HBO Max like all of the other theatre releases disappear after a month?

Since this is an HBOMAX exclusive in which they ponied up 70 million, I imagine ZSJL will be on the platform indefinitely much like Spectral and Polar have been exclusive to Netflix for years.

[Bosco685]

[Zonker]

I liked it.  Who doesn't love a redemption storyline?  In addition to Cyborg's arc, Superman's resurrection, and Batman's more hopeful turn, we viewers are rooting for the Snyder cut itself in order to redeem the 2017 mess of a theatrical release.  As others have said, it now is impossible to know how we would have felt about the Snyder Cut if we were seeing it for the first time as the original long-awaited JLA movie.  

But I'm fine to leave it here.  The Knightmare scenario and Snyder's follow up film plans leave me cold.  I don't need to see the Batman actually telling the Joker he's Going To Effing Kill him.  And we've already seen a zombie Superman briefly in his post-resurrection rampage in the Snyder Cut.  By the end of this movie, our characters have all arrived at a better place, let's leave them there.

And a final thought, could we now finally let Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" rest in peace along with its composer?  Great song, but relentlessly overexposed over the last 4 years.

[Bosco685]

2 minutes ago, Zonker said:

And a final thought, could we now finally let Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" rest in peace along with its composer?  Great song, but relentlessly overexposed over the last 4 years.

It was Snyder's daughter and her favorite song. So a father recognizing his daughter's enjoyment with the song. And why he had the song and that closing credit to her.

[Zonker]

OK fair enough.  Did not know there was an Autumn connection to the song.

[Bosco685]

1 minute ago, Zonker said:

OK fair enough.  Did not know there was an Autumn connection to the song.

It came out later why he had the song in the trailer (which threw me off as it didn't seem to enhance the visuals). Then I got it. He was making it clear she was his key motivation.

Even all the fund drives for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is all done in her name. Over $500K to date.

[Bird]

15 hours ago, bpc3qh said:

I really didn't like his performance in the theatrical, but he was definitely better in this version. Not just as a result of having more to do, I think. Even basically the same scenes translated better, although I still would've liked a peppier, more Cartoon Network version (which just isn't Snyder's vision of the character, so whatever).

I thought that the later scenes, especially the end battle, he looked much better cgi-wise than the rest of the film. The cyborg often looked slightly wonky (I loved the helmet) but in the end battles the face looked great, or maybe I was just sucked in by then. I loved the Flash and Cyborg shining at the end in this version. I think we all see now why they were saying Cyborg is the heart of the movie.

[Bosco685]

Quote

As fandom prepares for the March 18 unveiling on HBO Max of Zack Snyder's Justice League, Snyder's first comic-book movie star, Gerard Butler, looks back fondly on his breakout role in 2007's 300.

 

"I met him for coffee in the valley," recalls Butler, now 51, of his first encounter with the director, now 55, to discuss playing King Leonidas, the musclebound alpha warrior who leads an army of 300 Spartans into battle with Xerxes. Says Butler, "I came in like a force of nature, but I was met with an equal force of nature, and the two of us came together like a whirlwind." Butler marched back and forth outside the Starbucks that day demonstrating what he thought "the Spartan walk" should look like. "And Zack's jumping up and down and going, 'Yeah! That's awesome!' We bonded from the start."

 

The film, which drew its plot and striking visual style from the 1998 Frank Miller/Lynn Varley comics of the same name, required its cast of manly men to wear very little. "That was the best shape I have ever been in in my life," says Butler, who worked out six hours a day — two hours of CrossFit-style training, two hours bodybuilding and two hours on fight choreography. "In some ways I was ruining my body, but I was looking amazing doing it."

 

The $60 million Warner Bros. feature began its two-month shoot in Montreal in October 2005; except for one exterior, it was all performed in front of bluescreens. "There were times you would walk around in your red cape and little leather underpants and someone would point at nothing and say, 'Look! A burning village!' And I remember going, 'Oh my God. This movie's going to suck,' " says Butler.

 

Of course, that was before CGI wizardry filled in the rest.

 

"When I first saw the final product, I was with 13 of my representatives and friends, and our jaws were dropping," Butler remembers. "It was like, 'Look at what Zack did!' I can't speak highly enough about him. As a director, as a creative, as a kind, excited, passionate guy."

 

300 set a box office record for a March opening and went on to gross $456 million worldwide.

 

[Old_Man_Adam]

I enjoyed this quite a bit - it righted a lot of the wrongs and felt more coherent and fluid . It’s a comic book fans movie . How the gross majority of this was cut , I’ll never understand ( and what was that whole poor Russian family side story that was thrown into the reworked version ) . I loved how the “ Man of Steel” storyline was tied in ( and the open pod , as well as the dusted one of a long dead Kryptonian )My true qualm - is the CGI . We as viewers know how much better visually this could’ve looked . This is more of a generalization , but I’m also not a fan of how CGI’d creatures look on modern films . First we had “Gollum “ and ever since then we’ve had a revised version of that , “ Doomsday” , “ Snoke “ and now “ DeSaad/ Steppenwolf” ( Darkseid looked better IMO)  

[fantastic_four]

1 hour ago, Bosco685 said:

1 hour ago, Zonker said:

And a final thought, could we now finally let Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" rest in peace along with its composer?  Great song, but relentlessly overexposed over the last 4 years.

It was Snyder's daughter and her favorite song. So a father recognizing his daughter's enjoyment with the song. And why he had the song and that closing credit to her.

Haven't seen the whole movie or this song, but this is the best spoiler ever--because without this I would have immediately harkened back to Nite Owl boning Silk Spectre II from Watchmen when he played Hallelujah and been like WTF, Snyder?    This explains what I'll eventually see.  

Edited March 21, 2021 by fantastic_four

[@therealsilvermane]

4 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

Let Snyder finish out his Trilogy.  Find a way to bring Cavill and Affleck back.  Mamoa sounds like he is game to follow Snyder around and I am sure Fisher would sign on as the public sees how Snyder treated his character.  #ReleaseTheSnyderTrilogy

I feel like Zack Snyder's Justice League could itself be the finale of a Snyder Trilogy begun in Man of Steel. Both Bruce Wayne and Kal El grew from the previous movies to be more positive characters, so there's a character arc there. I also feel Zack Snyder really pulled out all the stops for this version to the point that I'm not sure how much different Darkseid invading Earth would be different from Steppenwolf invading Earth. Maybe a Darkseid invasion would have Martian Manhunter join the fray? Anyway, I feel like Darkseid saying "we'll do it the old fashioned way" could just be an invite for another butt kicking from Kal El and DC Earth's other mightiest heroes. Maybe if a Darkseid movie involved heroes from the future joining the past like the Legion of Super-Heroes, to really expand the pallette and give us a reason to really have that Apopkalyps sequel. As is, I think Snyder gave us everything in this movie.

[Bosco685]

2 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Haven't seen the whole movie or this song, but this is the best spoiler ever--because without this I would have immediately harkened back to Nite Owl boning Silk Spectre II from Watchmen when he played Hallelujah and been like WTF, Snyder?    This explains what I'll eventually see.  

Hopefully it helps take the experience in more meaningfully

[Bosco685]

Interesting Variety article

Quote

The age of multiverse sequels has, in its way, camouflaged this reality. When a Marvel or a “Star Wars” movie is conceived as just one piece of Tinkertoy in a larger structure, it can seem, at the very least, to have a reason to exist. Good or bad, it’s another link in the storytelling chain. Yet that same dynamic can also rob a film of purpose. How much investment can we have in a piece of Tinkertoy? The end of it isn’t even an ending — it’s just a stop. In the age of comic-book cinema we now occupy (or maybe I should say: that now occupies us), only one thing can make a fantasy blockbuster come fully and thrillingly alive.

 

“Zack Snyder’s Justice League” has that thing. What is it? You could call it vision, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But it’s also something I would call voice. That’s not a quality we associate with comic-book movies, but the rare great ones have it. And in “Justice League,” Zack Snyder’s voice comes through in ways at once large and small. It’s there in the doomy Wagnerian grandeur, and in the puckish way the movie hones on a seed coming off a hot-dog bun in the bullet-time sequence that introduces the Flash’s superpowers. It’s there in the way the backstories don’t just set up the characters but intertwine their fates, and in the way that Snyder, leaving Joss Whedon’s genial jokiness on the cutting-room floor, replaces it with a sincerity so present it doesn’t have to speak its name. It’s there in the majestic symphonic rigor of the battle scenes, and in how the villains, the glittering-with-malice Steppenwolf and the dripping-with-molten-corruption Darkseid, comprise a threat at once relentless and remorseless.

 

In “Justice League,” Zack Snyder sits astride the pop moviemaking machine. He’s not just telling a story that’s greater than the sum of its parts. He’s speaking through that story, crafting a parable of camaraderie and faith. It should be said that my reaction to the film — loving every minute of it, to the point that I’m itching to see it again — isn’t universal. Some critics thumbed their noses; not every fan is onboard. Yet from what I’ve seen, the reaction to Snyder’s “Justice League” has gone beyond the “Well, it’s much better than the 2017 version” feeling that even the naysayers acknowledged. There’s a collective excitement about the movie. And for those of us who have fallen for it, part of the excitement is seeing a comic-book film that’s unabashedly conventional (it doesn’t have a character like, say, Heath Ledger’s Joker) yet one that serves up those conventions with such bravura that in some ineffable way, it feels like a personal movie. It’s not an art film, for God’s sake, but it’s a studio blockbuster made by someone who imprints his personality on every scene and means every scene.

 

Up until now, Warner Bros. has stated that it will continue to make films in the DC Extended Universe without Zack Snyder. Yet Warner now finds itself in a strange position. In 2017, the studio turned its back on Snyder and trashed his vision. Yet it also, in a way, then gave him a second chance. “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is the movie that shows us, at last, what the DCEU could be. I give props to the executives who, feeling the grassroots pressure of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, agreed to greenlight this project. If there was a trace of cynicism in that decision, I don’t see it. They made it possible for Snyder to make the film he wanted to make, and to make a movie that would be something greater than fan service. A movie that would inspire true fan love.

 

Now that that’s happened, to leave Snyder by the wayside seems not merely unjust; it strikes me as foolhardy. The Warner Bros. executives will, of course, look at the numbers — at how well the film performs on HBO Max. I suspect the news there will be good. But this can’t be a decision based simply on numbers. The mobilization of fans behind #ReleaseTheSnyderCut was kind of awesome; they were comic-book-movie geeks who moved a mountain. And now that we’ve seen the results, their passion to do it again may be even greater. Whatever plan Warner Bros. now has in place, the reality is that plans can change. Minds can change. After “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” on what planet would an executive have to be on not to want Snyder to make a “Justice League” sequel? Only on a planet where even the potential artistry of mainstream moviemaking must always take a back seat to corporate control.

 

[Bosco685]

 

[D84]

The more I look at this, I'm convinced this should be the 4k cover.

[media_junkie]

Ok, I was finally able to watch this movie this morning.  After having the day to reflect on it here is my opinion.

Any review that says this is not an improvement on the Whedon cut, or that it is just the same but longer is watching a different movie than I watched.  It is so far and away improved over what was released to theaters in 2017.  Now saying that I will say it was a good movie, an extremely good movie but I think it fell short of greatness.  I cannot put my finger on what held it back but still it was a really good movie, B+ material easily.

The scenes that were added in with both Cyborg and the Flash were game changers in my opinion.  I did not really care for either one of them in the 2017 Whedon cut, but watching the Snyder cut I was really pulled into their stories, especially Cyborg's, what a great performance he had as well as a great storyline.

In the 2017 Whedon cut I felt as if Ben Affleck was "phoning" it in as Bruce/Batman, which was a shame because he was excellent as both Bruce Wayne and Batman in BvS.  After seeing the Synder cut I realize that he obviously was phoning it in for the reshoots, because what Synder captured on film of Ben Affleck was again great, just as it was in BvS.

I enjoyed Wonder Woman's opening act at the bank, it felt much improved in the Snyder cut than it did in the 2017 Whedon cut.  Overall I like that Wonder Woman was treated as a warrior that on a good day could potentially take out Superman.  The whole Flash falls on Wonder Woman in the 2017 Whedon cut was such a disservice to the most recognizible woman in comics.

I enjoyed Aquaman more in this movie than I did in the 2017 Whedon cut.  The whole sitting on the Lasso of Truth gag was terrible in the Whedon cut.

The scenes that really got to me though were the ones with Superman.  When he was interacting with his Mom and Lois back on the farm, that was good stuff.  Then the voice overs of both Jor-El and Jonathan Kent while he was picking his new "super suit" was just great.

The score/soundtrack was so much better, the music in the Snyder cut really complimented the movie more so than what was used in the 2017 Whedon cut.

I would love to see WB let Zach have some more playtime with these characters, but if it doesn't happen then all I can say is good for Zach for getting to release his vision, uncompromised, good for the millions of fans that pushed for this to happen, and finally good for the AT&T execs that forced Warner to make this happen so that we could finally see this film.

 

[Hawkman]

Can you watch this anywhere else, even on bootleg sites? I don’t have HBO Max and I’m not subscribing either. 

[▫️]

2 hours ago, Hawkman said:

Can you watch this anywhere else, even on bootleg sites? I don’t have HBO Max and I’m not subscribing either. 

When I signed up I got a week for free. You can cancel anytime before they charge you. I planned to watch The Little Things, JL and Kong but decided to keep it longer as there’s several series I want to watch.

[Randall Dowling]

I just watched it and I went expecting to marginally enjoy it and was really surprised that it was as good as it was.  If you haven't seen it, I think it's worth the 4 hour investment.