Zach Snyder's Justice League

[Shannon]

I'm a little surprised to be the first one posting about this. It's available on Sky here in NZ. I won't post spoilers yet, and I'll hide them if I do.

My wife, daughters and I watched it yesterday afternoon, with breaks. We weren't sure what to expect, although we'd heard favourable reviews. Our verdict: VASTLY better than the theatrical release. It actually doesn't feel stretched or over long. The story doesn't feel forced. I felt it grew organically. My older daughter (21) frequently raged about how much better it was than the theatrical version and how much she hated what Joss Whedon had done to it. The two movies have only the broadest of common outlines. You can see where Whedon kept some Snyder footage but the context or effect is sometimes changed. Whedon apparently only used about 10-20% of Snyder's footage. The soundtrack is completely different. It's clear where Whedon added or deleted scenes, particularly around team relationships, Cyborg and Flash, and his trademark 'jokes'. I know Whedon was told to cut it to two hours and make it funnier, but his version just looks like a bad joke next to this. There is humour in the Snyder cut, but it's more wry, not silly. Alfred is a gem. I had concerns that it might be too dark visually, but it wasn't, and my wife commented that it actually looks better, sharper, clearer.

It segues well into the Aquaman movie. I'm left wanting Cyborg and Flash movies.

I can't really say much more without spoilers. I'm happy to answer specific questions though.

[GuppyShark]

I almost want to watch them side by side and just pause everytime they go out of sync, just to bask in how awful the Whedon cut was by comparison.

[Shannon]

I don't think I want to watch the theatrical version ever again, except as a curiosity of how not to make a movie.

Apart from the dodgy attempts at humour, some of the other offensive things about the Whedon cut are the way it both sanitises and infantilises the original story.

Examples of sanitising: Spoiler

Ares sinking his axe into Darkseid. Cyborg: "Fuck the world!" Steppenwolf casually murdering his way across the world. Mera ripping the moisture and then blood out of Steppenwolf during their fight. Clark trying to murder Bruce. Clark utterly beating the crap out of Steppenwolf and cutting off one of his bone horns with heat vision. Arthur impaling Steppenwolf. Diana decapitating Steppenwolf (the EXACT same cut is shown in the Whedon version, but it's Diana smashing the axe instead). It got a 16 VL rating on Sky in NZ.

Examples of infantilising: Spoiler

The discussion around the nature and power of the Mother Box that leads to the plan to resurrect Clark. The history and motivation of Steppenwolf, which leads to the impression that Apokolips views him as a pathetic outcast (though a vicious one). Barry saving the day by going FTL, time dilation already having been shown.

[Crazedwraith]

I've no interest at all in Zack Snyder's Justice League. The theatrical cut wasn't good but I will cut it a hell of a lot of slack for trying to be a positive adaption that fixed the flaws in Snyder's characterisation and adaption so the characters aren't grimdark asshole and mutually supportive and upbeat.

After the mess of BVS a four hour cut with more knightmare and more Jared Leto Joker holds no appeal at all.

[chimericoncogene]

Very, very, very slow paced, with a grossly similar story, and an overall mediocre-fair movie...

...but a magnificent improvement over the quite-unwatchable Whedon cut. The movie is, at least, coherent, the visuals are much more impressive (the bad guy's MIMS spindlysuit is a wonder to behold and adds greatly to his stature, and the visual direction is cohesive), the action sequences are reasonably well-done, and Cyborg's story really ties the whole thing together.

[Shannon]

I've no interest at all in Zack Snyder's Justice League. The theatrical cut wasn't good but I will cut it a hell of a lot of slack for trying to be a positive adaption that fixed the flaws in Snyder's characterisation and adaption so the characters aren't grimdark asshole and mutually supportive and upbeat.

After the mess of BVS a four hour cut with more knightmare and more Jared Leto Joker holds no appeal at all.

Then I'd say you're making an erroneous judgment based on insufficient information. You don't realise just how bad the theatrical version was until you see this. The team building is handled positively and doesn't need the "humour" that Whedon shoehorned in. Thecharacters grow together into being mutually supportive. They aren't "grimdark assholes". Their reactions to the situations they find themselves in are quite natural. Diana is genuinely horrified by some of it. Barry is relentlessly upbeat. Cyborg is coming to terms with what he is. The only time I felt someone's characterisation was "off" was in Superman's beatdown of Steppenwolf, which was brutal, but richly deserved.

As for the Knightmare sequences, they're clearly there to set up Snyder's planned sequels. Bruce even tries to explain them to Diana. My daughter can't stand Jared Leto, but she felt his performance here was worthwhile and a huge improvement on Suicide Squad.

[GuppyShark]

The Knightmare sequences are all in the Epilogue, as an afterthought. Ignore them if you don't want to see them.

[GuppyShark]

The only time I felt someone's characterisation was "off" was in Superman's beatdown of Steppenwolf, which was brutal, but richly deserved.

Going to take a stab at a spoiler tab here, since this is a completely different ending than the theatrical cut:
Spoiler

Superman knew how dire the situation was, so he kept pounding away at the bad guy. He must have gotten only a brief rundown of the situation from Alfred, since time was of the essence, so he probably didn't get the full details of the plan. He says as much to Lois, they brought him back for a reason, but he needs to find out why. The actual plan was finalised on the airborne troop transport.

First time around: Supes pounded on Steppenwolf, who was essentially tanking him. No matter how much damage he took, as long as Unity occured, that meant Steppenwolf won. He even gloated about it as it happened.
Second time around: Cyborg gets the juice, asks Superman for help, and Superman immediately jumps in and helps prevent the Unity.

[Solauren]

I enjoyed it, even if if ran long.

Watching it, and having watched the Wheldon cut, makes me wonder if Wheldon is losing his touch, of if he just lucked out early in his career with Buffy/Angel and Firefly, and now has nothing to offer.

[GuppyShark]

There's two prongs here. Whedon would have been given marching orders from the WB execs as the time. ("Make it more like Marvel, make it funny, make it a two hour run time.")

He's also coasted on his faux feminist credentials for a long time which gave him a lot of slack.

For me, the nail in the coffin was when Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase from Buffy and Angel) tweeted what he did to her: https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/ ... 6843365381

[EnterpriseSovereign]

There's two prongs here. Whedon would have been given marching orders from the WB execs as the time. ("Make it more like Marvel, make it funny, make it a two hour run time.")

He's also coasted on his faux feminist credentials for a long time which gave him a lot of slack.

For me, the nail in the coffin was when Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase from Buffy and Angel) tweeted what he did to her: https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/ ... 6843365381

I'd heard about some of the asshole actions associated with Whedon so this doesn't surprise me one bit. I recently started watching Buffy/Angel once E4 acquired the rights and found that Carpenter (not SMG) was the only reason to watch either series and I lost interest in Buffy when she moved across.

I checked Amazon to see when the Snyder Cut comes to Blu-Ray and it gives a release date of Boxing Day 2024- screw that!

[Shannon]

Can you please post a link to that? I went looking on Amazon and couldn't find it at all.

I did see that the Ultimate Edition of BvS is available. I haven't seen it, but apparently it fills in plot holes and makes the movie more watchable. Has anyone seen it?

[Shannon]

Also, could a Mod please look at the Spoiler tags in this thread? My second one regarding infantilising doesn't work and GuppyShark's one doesn't seem to work either.

[Gandalf]

My wife and I caught this when it first dropped a few weeks ago. We loved every minute of it. We've watched it several times since.
Spoiler

One of the best things about it for me is the graphical storytelling. For example; Cyborg has a weird holographic UI for some reason. In this, without any explanation they show him immersed in a full representation of how he might see the data and systems to which he has access. It was a relatively small change, but made the scenes so much more compelling. It all comes to a head when he interfaces with the Unity, and stops seeing himself in the GCU jacket and starts seeing himself as Cyborg.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Can you please post a link to that? I went looking on Amazon and couldn't find it at all.

Here it is: Link. I had to report incorrect product information because that cannot possibly be right.
EDIT: Hilariously the 4K release is given as the end of 2027!

I did see that the Ultimate Edition of BvS is available. I haven't seen it, but apparently it fills in plot holes and makes the movie more watchable. Has anyone seen it?

I've got it and can confirm it does, it's half an hour longer than the theatrical version at three hours and it is a definite improvement. It's telling how several of the DCEU films are getting such home releases, Suicide Squad being another.

[GuppyShark]

Also, could a Mod please look at the Spoiler tags in this thread? My second one regarding infantilising doesn't work and GuppyShark's one doesn't seem to work either.

Spoilers tags are notoriously unreliable on this BBS software.

After all, it's a BBS, who even uses those anymore?

There's a workaround though - if you do a quote reply, you will see the spoiler text even if you don't intend to reply.

[GuppyShark]

My wife and I caught this when it first dropped a few weeks ago. We loved every minute of it. We've watched it several times since.

One of the best things about it for me is the graphical storytelling.

I stripped a little bit of the spoiler tag for the sake of this reply. One of my favourite scenes in this movie is the single mother scene that Cyborg intervenes in. The actress who played that role asked on Twitter if she was in the Snyder cut, since her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor in theatrical, and it was really validating seeing her finally get her heartwarming scene validated.

[Tsyroc]

I did see that the Ultimate Edition of BvS is available. I haven't seen it, but apparently it fills in plot holes and makes the movie more watchable. Has anyone seen it?

I watched that last night. IMO it still sucked. I'm thinking there were some better or more character interactions but the basic plot of the movie is still trash mostly because they had grimdark Superman in MoS and while I can see people somewhat thanking him for saving the Earth from Zod we never saw enough to warrant some of the "love" he was getting. Sure that's acceptable if you are talking the history of the Superman everyone grew up with but the movie does a poor job establishing that he's the over grown Boy Scout and he's been doing all of this wonderful stuff. I suppose it can be implied but I don't really think it works unless you've grown up to expect that in your Superman.

Anyway, I liked the Zach Snyder Cut of Justice League. I hadn't minded the original but now I'd say that movie definitely sucks in comparison to this one. HBO Max also has a black and white version of the Snyder Cut. I think it's Justice League: Justice is Grey or something along those lines. I accidently chose that one to watch first and I was a little ways in before I realized that it wasn't black and white because of flashbacks.

There are still some Whedon character moments in the theatrical cut that I liked but I didn't miss them not being in this film.

[Tsyroc]

I've got it and can confirm it does, it's half an hour longer than the theatrical version at three hours and it is a definite improvement. It's telling how several of the DCEU films are getting such home releases, Suicide Squad being another.

Is the Suicide Squad going to be the director's cut or just a longer cut?

I suppose they could be one in the same. I think there's supposed to be a lot of Jared Leto's Joker that was cut out of the theatrical movie. I actually like his version of Joker as something different and who I could believe would be a gangster, a crazy one, but still a gangster.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I've got it and can confirm it does, it's half an hour longer than the theatrical version at three hours and it is a definite improvement. It's telling how several of the DCEU films are getting such home releases, Suicide Squad being another.

Is the Suicide Squad going to be the director's cut or just a longer cut?

I suppose they could be one in the same. I think there's supposed to be a lot of Jared Leto's Joker that was cut out of the theatrical movie. I actually like his version of Joker as something different and who I could believe would be a gangster, a crazy one, but still a gangster.

Extended Cut, which according to what it says on the case is 11 minutes longer than the theatrical version and is the only version I've seen. Of all the DCEU films, BvS and Wonder Woman are the only two I've seen in the cinema, in contrast to the Marvel ones which is the opposite.

I found this handy side-by-side comparison between the two versions for one important scene in JL:
.

[Majin Gojira]

Honestly, I can't bring myself to even care about this given what I've been hearing.

Unless I'm hearing wrong, but one of the key problems with this film was, well, the Justice League itself doesn't matter. This isn't even a Justice League Plot, it's a Superman plot. The entire film revolves around Superman, even his absence is pivotal to the plot.

And the league is utterly useless without him. They can't stand up to Steppenwolf without him. They can't match him even working together. None of it.

I just keep thinking that every time Zack Snyder tries, he ends up being outdone by the goddamn DCAU. Zagging where they zigged, and ending up crashing each time.

[Jub]

The last DC movie I watched, period, was Wonderwoman, before that it was The Dark Knight (I never got around to the third movie); is there any reason for me to see this?

[Gandalf]

I watched that last night. IMO it still sucked. I'm thinking there were some better or more character interactions but the basic plot of the movie is still trash mostly because they had grimdark Superman in MoS and while I can see people somewhat thanking him for saving the Earth from Zod we never saw enough to warrant some of the "love" he was getting.

There was a montage of him saving people at some large scale events, and at Luthor's gathering, Bruce Wayne says that the Planet keeps writing puff pieces about him.

Even then, Superman's introduction to the world was saving it from Zod, so presumably people found out about that and put some of their own ideas of a saviour onto him. Hence the Day of the Dead sequence.

[GuppyShark]

Unless I'm hearing wrong, but one of the key problems with this film was, well, the Justice League itself doesn't matter. This isn't even a Justice League Plot, it's a Superman plot. The entire film revolves around Superman, even his absence is pivotal to the plot.

And the league is utterly useless without him. They can't stand up to Steppenwolf without him. They can't match him even working together. None of it.

You've heard wrong.

Every member of the League matters in this cut. They needed to work together to defeat Steppenwolf, whereas in the original Superman just kinda shows up and single handedly saves the day.

[Iroscato]

I often find Snyder's work to feel desperately self-important and melodramatic, but I really quite enjoyed this despite these traits threatening to overtake the movie at times. I never watched the stunted 2017 version since BvS all but killed my enthusiasm for the DCEU, but having watched a few clips for comparison this is embarrassingly better.
God help me, I now want to see a continuation of this universe. Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor still remains one of the most painfully wrongheaded casting decisions I've ever seen, however, and his scene did absolutely nothing to change my mind on this.