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It takes a lot of work and talent to make Steppenwolf look even worse than he did in the theatrical release.

Quite enjoyed Justice League as it was but this is looking really good.

Improving Steppenwolf is what will make the difference here as his character was rather "been there, done that". But to be fair its hard for villians to stand out in such an overcrowded genre, and not every villian can be played by Jack Nicholson or Gene Hackman.

I can see giving it an honest chance.

Random Joker is random.

The theatrical version already had too much random stupid crap going on. Why not more?

Voss wrote:
Random Joker is random.

The theatrical version already had too much random stupid crap going on. Why not more?

Because Zack Snyder's many lackluster films are a solid basis for the belief that his version of a lackluster film would be less lackluster.

The announcement that this would be more of a miniseries did actually catch my eye, cause that would maybe be enough time to cover all the basis the first movie tried and failed to cover. But it looks like no real effort has gone into fixing any of the movie's other problems, and at least one of them seems far worse; an inflated sense of self-achievement that is completely unearned.

Many lackluster films?

I'll be checking it out, because I'm curious as to how it compares to the Whedon version... but I'm really not expecting much. Going by that trailer, it's a humourless explosion-fest with bad CGI.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Many lackluster films?

And almost all of them are comic adaptations to boot. So yeah. After the mediocre adaptations of Watchman, Batman, Superman, and Sucker Punch, I'm not sure what compele people to believe his special version of Justice League will be some master piece. The man has never put out anything passably better than 300 and 300 was almost a shot for shot adaptation of the comic book.

I enjoyed Watchmen and Sucker Punch. I've never understood the clamor for the JL Snyder Cut, though, given that Man of Steel and BvS were largely reviled by the fanbase.

I'm not confident the Snyder cut will be any better than the original movie, but am interested in seeing the differences.

Can't remember the last time a Director got a do-over. It's a very interesting concept for movies that had a lot of potential and seemed to miss the mark.

MCU - wraps up a staggering range of films with a two part epic, then dives into new ground with WandaVision.

DCEU - LeTs JuST wAsH oUt MoRe CoLoUr AnD bRiNg BaCk ThE wOrSt BiT oF sUiCiDe SqUaD.

I’ll pass, thanks. As the words of wisdom go, you cannot polish a turd.

I am intrigued to see how it all turns out..

.. but I'm not really sure that a 4 hour film is quite what as needed here TBH.

I think it will be better.

It's a movie with no interference from the production (that should close the narrative arcs of previous Snyder movies) vs a Frankenstein of a soon-to-be erased (ala Spacey) director that is doing the same story again and again since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Should not even be a match, at least in theory

I’m interested to see if they still plan to kill off Cyborg.

I hope they changed how The Flash runs.

Hmmm. Nah, Snyder is a hack who doesn't really understand the material he is trying to adapt in my opinion.

He doesn't get the characters of Superman or Batman at all. So they come across as completely unlikeable in his films.

Visually, he's quite good, and he can direct a sequence of events in an engaging way. Maybe with a script that wasn't written by some of the worst hacks in Hollywood he would put together a visually interesting film.

But Justice League was awful, BvS was awful, and Man of Steel was deeply mediocre. Watchmen was visually nice but it was fairly clear that Snyder didn't really get what it was supposed to be about. 300 was something where his visual style and the actual substance of the comic matched up pretty well, but I think he's not well suited to other comic book adaptations.

Y'know...this thing is going to be turned up to 11. Eleven out of 10 on the Snyder scale. Four solid hours of content, easter eggs every 10 seconds, tons of destruction, Batman dropping f-bombs, etc. It's going to be *him* without any guard rails...a budget/control combo unlike anything he'll ever have again for the rest of his career. Better buckle up, LOL.

But I'm going to watch it for sure. If nothing else, the visuals look like a big improvement. Seemed like Whedon kinda washed out the theatrical cut in trying to visually brighten it up. I feel like stuff is popping better in these trailers. And while Snyder's vision definitely isn't to everyone's taste, at least we'll see a coherent vision instead of whatever the Frankenstein monster theatrical release was trying to be.

I certainly don't know if it'll be good. There are a lot of reasons to think it won't be. And four hours (it's back to being a 4-hour event instead of a miniseries)...um. But the whole enterprise and how it came to this is fascinating. So I have to watch (possibly in two installments).

I've ranted far too long about my concerns with the Snyder Cut (Sidenote, this is the first time I feel comfortable enough not *ing half the title out) and the concerning impact it's had on DC's landscape on twitter that, I'm not sure I have enough energy anymore...

But, as an example, DC made a few posts yesterday about Nightwing, a character that doesn't even exist in the 'Snyderverse' because Snyder killed Greyson, and every 3 replies was hashtag spam from people about the movie.

The day before, they did a big announcement about the return of Milestone Comics, again people and bots came out in force.

The whole situation is just worrying...


Anyways, I replied to say a positive thing... I agree, 300 was good, I think for reasons much like the previous poster said compared to the others. Even my mum liked 300.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I'm not confident the Snyder cut will be any better than the original movie, but am interested in seeing the differences.

Can't remember the last time a Director got a do-over. It's a very interesting concept for movies that had a lot of potential and seemed to miss the mark.

I think its terrible, to be honest. Most movies have 'potential,' that isn't a reason to redo them (especially not to immediately turn around and redo them).
This seems like purely a vehicle to squeeze more money out of a bizarre combination of hope and naivety, by serving the over-eager fans a plate of garbage twice.

If it works, it will only incentivize 'screwing up' a film, creating a demand and then producing the 'real film' a year or two later.

 Compel wrote:

Anyways, I replied to say a positive thing... I agree, 300 was good, I think for reasons much like the previous poster said compared to the others. Even my mum liked 300.

Ugh. 300 was one of the worst films I've ever seen. I was actively angry at my girlfriend at the time for insisting we see it. At least with Transformers, she bought a copy at Walmart and I did have to pay money or sit through the 'movie theatre' experience to deal with that tripe.

 Compel wrote:
But, as an example, DC made a few posts yesterday about Nightwing,

Ugh. That post was Horrible. They’re all like Nightwing’s bringing the Cake for Valentine’s Day and then it’s all shots of him in his bodysuit or shirtless or in the shower... And not a Single picture of his butt! Do they not know what cake means?! Amateurs...

My friends and I really enjoyed the first version so will have to see if its as good.

IMO JL was already better than Man of Steel - with the tedious endless fight at the end and Bats vs Sups was ruined by a single character in every scene he was in.

Not sure what will be in it it but someone killing off Loopy Lex in it would make it my film of the century.

300 is (again IMO) a fantastic adaption of the comic and although little if anything is historically accurate for me it works as the story the Spartans till - NOT the reality.

The second film was.... less good

 Da Boss wrote:
Hmmm. Nah, Snyder is a hack who doesn't really understand the material he is trying to adapt in my opinion.

He doesn't get the characters of Superman or Batman at all. So they come across as completely unlikeable in his films.

I agree that Snyder was a very poor choice person to launch what WB needed from a cinematic universe. But I'd say that he gets his preferred versions of those characters just fine. The problem is that he's very focused on them (*especially* with Batman), while audiences have their own faves or aren't up to speed with the references.

Man of Steel isn't the dark, depressing film that some claim it is. One big factor is it being conflated with BvS (which definitely is those things). Another is people not being familiar with more current versions of the character. It's not really their fault...Superman '78 is *the* iconic representation for many people, but it didn't match the character in the comics even at the time. Reeve's supremely confident, somewhat cornball Supergod boy scout troop leader has many more Silver Age sensibilities than Bronze Age, IMO. And Superman Returns helped didn't help audiences evolve by being a weird sequel-y thing to 25+ year old movies.

As we've discussed here many times, Marvel actually turned its lack of A-list heroes into a big advantage by being able to define the B- and C-listers without baggage. Personally, I think they got Captain America fundamentally wrong at the core. The veneer is there. But you'd have to be a big and longtime Cap fan to really understand the points I'd make about that, and how many people are? Movie Cap worked great in the context of those movies. They could do what they needed to without people crying foul. Win for Marvel.

The versions Snyder likes are deconstructions of the real thing for the most part.

 Da Boss wrote:
The versions Snyder likes are deconstructions of the real thing for the most part.

Christopher Nolan probably had less interest in or care for Batman as a character and people like those movies.

Deconstructions are inherently tricky.

The goal of them is typically to see how much of the mythos and extraneous stuff around them can be peeled away until you get to the point where there's little enough left that the character is still recognisable and still feels like the character.

Of course, speaking objectively, each person may have different points where this feeling is lost and I think this is where mass market film adaptions can come into trouble a little.

I'd say for many, the deconstructions found in the Nolan trilogy worked. With, potentially, the exception of Bane. But I'm not entirely sure that's a deconstruction and more, just a completely different character with the same name.


Man of Steel, I think it's safe to say, mostly worked, EXCEPT I'd say for many people, I don't know if it's a statistically significant number of 'many' but anyways, I think for me at least, and several others, it was the necksnap that crossed that line. - For me, and others, at that point, the deconstruction no longer 'worked.'


You then get to Suicide Squad, BVS and Snyder Cut, which has no(?) Nolan involvement and it's still deconstructing and it's deconstructing FURTHER and then you have more people switching off because it IS like, "I don't recognise this character anymore as Batman, as Joker, as Superman" or whatever.

But for others, they could very well be fine with it.


The thing is, and this is where I think the cultists and Snyder especially fail, is that after the deconstruction, there's supposed to come the REconstruction and that's where you end up getting things like 'Man of Tomorrow' or 'All-Star Superman' or, I think, Hush.

So desperate.....

 Compel wrote:

I'd say for many, the deconstructions found in the Nolan trilogy worked. With, potentially, the exception of Bane. But I'm not entirely sure that's a deconstruction and more, just a completely different character with the same name.

Batman is difficult for live action, because so many of the circus freak characters that work so well in comics just look silly in real life. Nolan did a great job of grounding this characters and making them work on the screen. Even Bane, for me, was fine... Aside from that ridiculous voice.

Man of Steel, I think it's safe to say, mostly worked, EXCEPT I'd say for many people, I don't know if it's a statistically significant number of 'many' but anyways, I think for me at least, and several others, it was the necksnap that crossed that line. - For me, and others, at that point, the deconstruction no longer 'worked.'

Funnily enough, the ending of MoS was one of the few things that worked, for me. Zod forced his hand, and Cavill absolutely sold that scene, emotionally.

I had real issues though with the guy who can move so fast he's just a blur letting his dad die because someone might see him... I get why that scene happened, in relation to the story they were trying to tell, but it was just not believable.

The issue with deconstructions tend to be that especially these days that everyone wants to do such, just look at any of Tom Kings Work for the most part. Eventually you get to the point where there is nothing to deconstruct.

I had real issues though with the guy who can move so fast he's just a blur letting his dad die because someone might see him... I get why that scene happened, in relation to the story they were trying to tell, but it was just not believable.

That's kinda the issue with most of the first line DC roster in a nutshell. They're so powerful, Batman aside, that the stakes have to absurd in order to generate any jeopardy, or alternatively one has to willingly overlook how the hero seemingly forgot an element of their abilities for a minute.

I think that's probably why Batman, on balance, is probably the most consistently popular amongst non-comic folks. Ultimately, Bat Thermos aside, if he gets it wrong and takes a bullet from a random thug who gets lucky it's game over. Which, incidentally, is the vibe I get from the upcoming Pattinson effort.