Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have a feeling that Snyder isn't the kind of guy to look deeply into the ethics of armed conflict when he makes a movie about a one man army of absolute ass-kickery (in slow motion), and instead relies on the convention that the good guys have some allowance for causing flimsily justifiable collateral damage.

Not that Kora necessarily qualifies as good. She's been raised as an unquestioningly obedient imperialist soldier and indoctrinated to fulfill the objective at any cost. If the plan is to blow up the dreadnought and kill everyone on board anyway, hurrying some deaths along in pursuit of that goal shouldn't provoke even a moment's doubt or even just reflection. It's what she does for a living.

I mean that’s fair, if the plan is blowing up the whole ship you’re killing them anyways and you don’t want them sounding the alarm early.

Ladies and gentlemen, the directors cut of both flicks are here.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, and I got a Sons of Behemat Spearhead to paint and want some mindless noise. Lets begin the near 7 hour journey…

Please don’t injure yourself in your “heroic” endeavour

I can’t possibly see how making them longer could improve them…

I'm sure you meant to say "I can't possibly see how Snyder making them longer could improve them": My mind immediately goes to the Lord of the Rings for long movies that were made better by being even longer. Or Windtalkers where only the shooty stabby kaboom action made it into the theatrical cut but the actual good movie is found in the director's cut because it engages with and develops the main characters.

Rebel Moon could do with world building and character development. Not saying that's what we'll get, but if we do, making the unduly long movies even longer might actually improve them.

Kind of bad timing to release them now, though. I don't expect to have that kind of time in the next few days. Curse these people for not scheduling their releases exclusively to my needs!

I have no express with Winftalkers, but Lord of the Rings was already amazing, and had a whole pre-build world to draw from.

Given how disjointed and naff the Rebel Moon setting is, I’m not sure it can really be salvaged at this point. And the characters are all terrible people, who only exist to continually make bad choices, so I do ‘t really want to know anything more about them thanks

I'm not even sure the extended editions of LOTR are better - most additions gum up the pacing bar some exceptions like the death of Saruman.

Well I promptly fell asleep once it got to the parts from the original release.



This is when I fell asleep. Its still trash, but trashier. Zack Snyder unfettered by moderation and decency I think. With that said, there are some great visual shots.

Finished what was left before I headed out to work, I double runspeed on the stuff that was already in the original :

Finished hatewatching the second one. I believe it was even worse than the first one

 tauist wrote:
Finished hatewatching the second one. I believe it was even worse than the first one

Yep, all the Directors Cut of the 2nd added was another gratuitous sex scene, boobs, gore, some Uruk-hai that got lost in the wrong movie and a scene with more of the god-furnace thing.

Pretty terrible stuff.

Your sacrifice will be remembered in the coming empire!

 nels1031 wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Finished hatewatching the second one. I believe it was even worse than the first one

Yep, all the Directors Cut of the 2nd added was another gratuitous sex scene, boobs, gore, some Uruk-hai that got lost in the wrong movie and a scene with more of the god-furnace thing.

Pretty terrible stuff.

Oh, I didnt even watch the booby edition. Perhaps I should have...

I watched the first movie now. It's an hour or so longer but aside from maybe two longer sequences doesn't feel like it added extra stuff. Rather it's expansion on existing story elements and a few small detail changes.

The standout addition is the opening sequence. The original opening narration that tells us that the bad guys are Space Nazis is dropped in favor of a lengthy sequence that shows the bad guys do Space Nazi things. I much prefer this version as it gives you time to take things in instead of just dumping the information on you to get on with the action.

This is a theme throughout the director's cut, really. Even though it's markedly longer, the time is used to expand scenes, add character interaction and world building, and generally improve the flow of the story that is pretty much unchanged from the butchered kiddie version but comes across far more coherently because of the changes and additions.

As an example of small changes that I like just because they give context, the priest dudes that pretty much just existed as WTF set dressing in the butchered cut don't have that much extra screen time, but we actually get to see them go around doing priesty stuff. They're now telling us something about the world. There are a few little things like that in the director's cut which flesh out the characters and setting.

Storytelling is similarly improved. For instance Kora's ship that was previously only introduced in the second movie is now set up in the first one, with the side benefit of showing that the villagers have their own parts to play and don't just get to do anything when the sevenish samurai are around. It makes the world richer and sets things up for later, which isn't something the butchered version did very well.

Basically the directors cut has coherent storytelling while the other version just strings scenes together with no regard for how they fit together as a whole. Granted, there's a little bit of exaggeration for effect in that observation, but while I had trouble with the original cut, I actually quite enjoyed the extended version. There's no question that it's the better cut, but I think it genuinely elevates the movie to another level.

So here we are. I now like Rebel Moon. Sue me.

Oh, and also, since the extra hour only adds random slow motion sequences very sparingly, which isn't very Snyderific of Snyder by the way, there is a relative decrease in random slow motion sequences in the movie, which is also an improvement.

 Flinty wrote:
Your sacrifice will be remembered in the coming empire!

Your name will be recorded in the Book of Martyrs.

But one question is unanswered, is there enough slo-mo wheat harvesting in the directors cut?

I would hate for any of that to be lost.

A large part of me thinks if they ever do 40k on screen, Imperial moon is what we are going to get :(

Could be worse. Imagine if we got a movie about a squad of Marines hiking in a foggy landscape. Audiences would die of excitement. That can't be good for GW's reputation.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
But one question is unanswered, is there enough slo-mo wheat harvesting in the directors cut?

I very much hope so! That's the best part!

 Geifer wrote:
Could be worse. Imagine if we got a movie about a squad of Marines hiking in a foggy landscape. Audiences would die of excitement. That can't be good for GW's reputation.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
But one question is unanswered, is there enough slo-mo wheat harvesting in the directors cut?

I very much hope so! That's the best part!

Lets split the difference, and have a squad of marines harvesting wheat in slow motion in a foggy landscape? What else are chainswords for, really?

 Geifer wrote:
Basically the directors cut has coherent storytelling while the other version just strings scenes together with no regard for how they fit together as a whole. Granted, there's a little bit of exaggeration for effect in that observation, but while I had trouble with the original cut, I actually quite enjoyed the extended version. There's no question that it's the better cut, but I think it genuinely elevates the movie to another level.

So basically...BvS and Justice League all over again.

IMO Snyder's biggest flaw as a creator isn't the "dial it up to 11 and rip the knob off" thing, but his inability to tell stories in the amount of time he's been given. Feels like everything he does gets a director's cut that's noticeably better but also overlong. A director at his level should know how much story he can tell in a given medium, but he shows zero sense for that.

Works like Man of Steel, Dawn of the Dead, and 300 didn't suffer from this (and not coincidentally are some of his best stuff), but in those cases he had other strong writers involved (the Nolans, James Gunn) or very tight source material. Left to his own devices it's like he intentionally writes 50 extra pages to every screenplay.

 Geifer wrote:

So here we are. I now like Rebel Moon. Sue me.

My lawyers will be in touch! See you in court.

I think I'd have liked it better if I never saw the original cuts of both movies.

Not the worst sci-fi that I've watched this year. Without naming names, its definitely better than a recent sci-fi series that recently ended.

It's definitely the worst sci-fi I've watched this year. I haven't been able to make it thru awake once and I've tried several times hoping I was just to tired when I tried or that the internet was wrong.

The internet is not wrong on this one. It's damn terrible. There is zero chance I add my numbers to the "directors cut" and encourage that bloated mass of trash. Nothing is going to change the horribly unengaging characters outside of the main villain.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Nothing is going to change the horribly unengaging characters outside of the main villain.

Yeah, Ed Skrein was the best part of both movies.

As a villain, I liked his 2nd in command as well. Cassius I think his name was. Unceremoniously killed for no reason lol.

I'd honestly say Ed Skrein was the only actual CHARACTER in both movies. If even one of the heroes managed to convey anything like Skrein, and you cut out all the damn slo-mo, you might actually have had a real movie.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
But one question is unanswered, is there enough slo-mo wheat harvesting in the directors cut?

I would hate for any of that to be lost.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I therefore feel all the more joyous for every rare instance in which I get to report happy news. Not only did the slow motion harvest survive unmolested, it even saw a modest expansion.

This is proof that Zack Snyder is too good for this world, blessing us with things we want and deserve but should not hope for.

There is still goodness in this world. Rejoice!

 Flinty wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Could be worse. Imagine if we got a movie about a squad of Marines hiking in a foggy landscape. Audiences would die of excitement. That can't be good for GW's reputation.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
But one question is unanswered, is there enough slo-mo wheat harvesting in the directors cut?

I very much hope so! That's the best part!

Lets split the difference, and have a squad of marines harvesting wheat in slow motion in a foggy landscape? What else are chainswords for, really?

If I were a movie producer, I'd be hopelessly in love with this idea. Even if I had to note that obviously chainswords are for shaving.

Of course only clueless adolescents shave with chainswords. Real men shave with eviscerators. As it should be.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

So here we are. I now like Rebel Moon. Sue me.

My lawyers will be in touch! See you in court.

I think I'd have liked it better if I never saw the original cuts of both movies.

Not the worst sci-fi that I've watched this year. Without naming names, its definitely better than a recent sci-fi series that recently ended.

There is certainly something to be said for going into the director's cuts without the baggage of the, and I said it multiple times now, but let's call it the butchered kiddie version of the movies.

As Gorgon noted, Snyder seems to love his extensive mythology and has trouble cutting down his movies effectively. On the one hand I can understand the notion of reducing a story to its important points and finding the right balance between exposition and brevity. On the other hand, I'll note that Seven Samurai is like four hours long when Western epics of the time would struggle to exceed two hours and a half. There is something to be said for letting a story unfold for as long as it takes,. Especially when it involves an extensive cast of focal characters. It's dead easy to cut down a movie about two main characters or a character and his sidekick. Doing justice to seven samurai and, to give credit where it's due, an antagonist worth noting simply takes time. If you cut out too much, you run the risk of losing what defines the respective character. And in doing so, you make the story poorer.

There's a balance to be struck, but it's not an easy balance.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Nothing is going to change the horribly unengaging characters outside of the main villain.

Yeah, Ed Skrein was the best part of both movies.

As a villain, I liked his 2nd in command as well. Cassius I think his name was. Unceremoniously killed for no reason lol.

I had trouble with the admiral in the kiddie version, But when you see the director's cut, he's just a dude who is devoted to his creed and happy to get a little too friendly with a tentacle monster in his downtime, No judgment from me. If that's his kink. more power to him.

But yeah, Cassius is pretty effective as the immediate subordinate. I'd disagree with him dying for no reason. When he is the devoted subordinate, he makes all the right choices. When his own survival is at stake and overrules his sense of duty, he becomes a liability. I find that to be a reasonably strong point. A character who knows his place and knows the order of the world is savvy at navigating the world he is stuck in. But when it comes down to serving that order selflessly or saving his own skin, selfish instinct takes over., Noble making the hard choice (or the dead easy one, depending on your disposition) that sees Cassius die to serve immediate need tells you everything about the "Motherworld" and its servants that you need to know.

Given this was a Netflix release and not a cinema release, I struggle to see why Netflix would bother to force a "standard" movie length version on Snyder in the first place (a bit like some of the arbitrary pacing of the Marvel TV series).

You know who you've hired and how he works by now, just let him do his thing and see if it works out.

If they are worried about syndicating it later (have any exclusives ever done that yet?), they could always break it into 4 parts at a later date (and maybe get natural breaks built in for that possibility).

The straightforward explanation is because this way they can profit twice off the same amount of work.

Like, these director's cuts were clearly not really cuts at all.

They just released a shorter version of the movies with every intention of releasing another longer one before barely a year had passed (has it even been a year?).

Yeah, it feels like it was just an attempt to get everyone to watch them twice, that backfired after the first version was so badly received.

Honestly, it might have been conceived this way from the beginning. Can easily imagine the studio saying:

"Hey Zack, so you do those director cut things that are really popular...ZSJL did great on Max. Think you could cook another one of those up?"

Undoubtably. They announced the directors cut so early there's almost no way it wasn't already in the works before the film was shot.

It was absolutely conceived that way from the beginning. And since they announced the director's cut before the original version was even released, they were pretty much locked into releasing it and hoping it would do better.

The only mystery is why they actually thought it was a good idea in the first place.

 insaniak wrote:

The only mystery is why they actually thought it was a good idea in the first place.

SnyderCut was trending on socials.