JL: THE SNYDER CUT coming to HBO Max

[ScourgiousJinx]

Perhaps not using seemingly constant slow motion would decrease the 4 hour run time. Employing effects in moderation and when particular moments actually call for them helps them to feel less gimmicky and gives them more credence.

 

[Bloop]

It seems to be a leitmotif for the Amazon, as it would play (or variations of it) whenever the Amazons are on screen. I too thought it was reminiscent of the Troy soundtrack.

Yes, that cue in particular stood out. They also used WW's electric guitar-heavy theme, like they did in Batman v Superman. The whole soundtrack felt disjointed to me. Felt like they just cut-and-pasted scores from each of the separate heroes' movies each time one of them appeared onscreen. Maybe that's what Snyder wanted, to have each hero's story clearly identified, but it wasn't cohesive enough for me. No flow to the score.

 

[Bloop]

I only saw Whedon's Justice League once, in the theater, so I honestly can't compare the two that well at this point. I didn't care for Whedon's version, but this version had lots of problems too. I can't say whether it's "better," but at least it's Snyder's version, not some hybrid slapped together.

I'll just highlight a few things that stood out to me:

* I'm not sure this movie passes the "Bechdel test" - where two women have to have a conversation about something other than a man. The scene between Martha and Lois made me think of that in particular, especially since it ended up not even being a conversation between two woman (what purpose did it serve to have it be Martian Manhunter in disguise? Felt problematic to me). I don't recall if any of the Amazons' conversations would pass the Bechdel test - it's possible they did, but I feel like they didn't.

* While the CG wasn't bad in general, it felt like every scene, even those that were presumably actually shot outside, looked fake. I think that's intentional by Snyder, as he's tried to emulate the look of the source comics in other films like The 300 and Watchmen, but it tended to take me out of the movie.

* The writing and tone in general were flaws in both Snyder and Whedon's versions. Snyder goes for very bleak tone - even with the injected humor attempts from the Flash and Aquaman - versus Whedon's more playful overall tone, which is also reflected in the visual color palette of each film. Neither really works that well. It seems no amount of reshoots or editing could really fix the actual writing. The flaws are in the script. But I did enjoy some of the lighter elements in the Snyder cut - at least the Flash and Aquaman seemed to have a bit more character than others, particularly Superman.
Speaking of Superman, I just don't care for his characterization. He just seemed wasted in this movie. Even in the relatively little screen time he had, he felt very flat.

I didn't hate the movie (some parts, I definitely did), but I don't really have too strong of feelings about it. It just exists to me, nothing more.
I feel it's really hard to judge this solely on it's own merits, given that it's attempting to redo a film that someone else took over.

 

[Laspector]

I enjoyed it, although it took me two days to get through it all. Like some others, I think I only saw the original one time and barely remember it, so I can't really compare the two.

Could've done without all that mopey, whiney, moany music, tho. Leave that crap for the CW.

 

[cboath]

It was much better than whedon's, but as noted repeatedly above - that's a low bar. I felt the story worked so much better because things were explained. And while it is a whole lot better, it would have never worked if released that way originally. They'd have had to split it in to two parts (ala Infinity War and Endgame which Marvel was calling Infinity Crisis Pt 1 and 2 early on) to make it work. A 4 hour runtime isn't going to work in theaters as you either have to double the screens you'd show on initial or split it in half. Not sure this had a point where you'd break it in the middle and have a decent end point where people don't feel like it was just a super long trailer for Pt 2.

I think if you built your 'universe' better, and did the standalone aquaman and a stand alone Flash and Cyborg BEFORE doing this, you can whittle this down quite a bit then it works much better in general and for theaters. But, as they stated out the outset, their goal was to cash in, not do it right.

I can't say i missed any of Whedon's manufactured humor. Most of it seemed out of place to me anyhow, as if they just filmed a joke and then spliced it into an existing scene. None of it seemed really in the established characters being, just tacked on for effect.

As for effects, yeah, there were still some bad effects. They did fix some of the stuff that was very bad in the original thankfully, not all of it, but a fair amount. Steppenwolf looked much better and less cartoony, but still not at Thanos level. I'll agree with Bloop, too many things looked fake ala 300. If you're going to do a shot of a Greek temple, for example, go to the site or at least make me think you might have. Don't make it look like a soundstage with bad lighting with so-so blue screen work.

I think something Snyder unwittingly did, though, was beat marvel to the punch on their TV series. You cut this into the 6 parts it was portrayed as in this airing and air it over 6 weeks, then i think works exceedingly well. If they do his clearly wanted (by him) sequel, they should do it for TV/streaming this way and not a 4-5 hour single installment.

 

[JoeG]

I just got done watching it. Definitely not great, but far better than that other version. Way too long, though. Basically other than 300 and Dawn of the Dead, I just don't like Zack Snyder movies.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

 

[Bigdaddy]

I told my kid months ago "I'd have to be paid to sit through that!".
Saturday was an extremely slow day at work so I got paid hundreds of dollars to sit through this, easily worth it!
Better than the theatrical release but very far from a great film, 3 or 4 out of 10. Mostly enjoyable for the action but the slo mo was wayyyyy over played. The Flash was definitely the most entertaining character. Worth a look if you're a fan of DC.

 

[Kylash]

 

[AnubisGuard]

The RLM review convinced me to give it a go, and I didn't dislike it. It's probably Snyder's best since, I don't know, Watchman? Still not great, but I think there may be a genuinely very, very good movie under all the excess. If someone with more discipline cut it down to 3 hours, I think that would help a lot.

Like Rich said in the video, the first half I kind of loved. I didn't expect Batman-as-warm-father-figure, but it worked and I liked it. It was also effective to dramatize each team member joining by having them show up doing an action scene, to show what they add to the team. E.g. Aquaman (no spoilers).

It falls down once they bring Supes back; as in BvS and the theatrical cut, Snyder's Superman is a black box: situations go in and violence comes out but I have no idea why or what it means. For a movie obsessed with visions and dreams, the lack of anything similar for Superman is an odd choice. Showing the resurrection from his POV, letting us see it as scary and confusing, showing what he does or doesn't remember of his death, would really help convey his motivation for going all murder machine. As-is we're expected to buy that he kills, seemingly at random, without Lois's love to soothe him. That's Snyder's Superman: savage beast, sans love.

Also useless: Martian Manhunter, all the slowmo (outside of the Flash scenes), the needle drops, Lex Luthor, the Joker, most of the epilogue after Clark pulls open his shirt to reveal the S logo, which should have been the final shot, imo.

If you watch any material at all from this version, make it the Flash's introductory scene. It's genuinely great, a wonderful little mini-movie where all of Snyder's fetishes and hangups actually work. The slowmo and needle drop are motivated, it roots the fetishization of superpowers in a real human connection, and it manages more than one tone (comedy and drama!) with ease. A great, great scene that deserves a better movie around it. (Which I would embed, but there's no copy of the full scene on YouTube.)

 

[ghostryder]

 

[harrisonp]

I know the comparisons never stop, but this movie while better than the theatrical, feels to me like if you chopped the “Infinity Stone” content from each of the pre-Avengers movies of the MCU and cut them into one movie. These characters as presented lack the room to breathe or for the audience to really get to know them. It’s a shame because there’s a lot that I REALLY liked in this cut, but overall it’s still a mopey rush to a conclusion that they didn’t build up.

 

[cboath]

I know the comparisons never stop, but this movie while better than the theatrical, feels to me like if you chopped the “Infinity Stone” content from each of the pre-Avengers movies of the MCU and cut them into one movie. These characters as presented lack the room to breathe or for the audience to really get to know them. It’s a shame because there’s a lot that I REALLY liked in this cut, but overall it’s still a mopey rush to a conclusion that they didn’t build up.

Basically what I meant when i said there should have been a WW, flash, aquaman, flash, and cyborg flicks before any JL stuff. But, that's not on Snyder, it's on DC/WB who simply wanted to cash in, not build a world where these heroes come together.

 

[HMSwolfe]

I just think it’s kind of ironic to call this the “Snyder Cut”, considering it sounds like it wasn’t edited at all. It just has everything they shot slapped on a timeline.

 

[harrisonp]

I want to see the “editors cut” of this version

 

[Lord Boron]

#releasethe16:9cut

 

[harrisonp]

#releasethe16:9cut

Seriously it’s like this was made for watching on Instagram

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

Two things...

Snyder shot the movie in 4:3 because of the movement of the characters. Most films have travel going horizontally, right to left or vice versa. He felt that in this movie the movement is more vertical, with the flying & height of Steppenwolf.

As for the run time, Snyder said he was looking for a 2.5 hour movie, but the studio wanted no longer than 2. That was one of the sticking points between the two. When HBOMax got involved, they wanted EVERYTHING, & they got all but one scene...

Snyder shot a scene with the Jon Stewart iteration of Green Lantern. DC/WB said no way, so he leveraged that scene against the Bruce/MM & EPILOGUE scenes. They felt that would give false hope to any fans that there'd be any more to the story.

 

[harrisonp]

The studio was right about the false hope. I don’t relish in the idea of more Snyder at the helm of the mainstream DCU, but a tangent Knightmare/Injustice universe and I’m there

 

[Marv]

Really disliked the 4:3 ratio. If Marvel could pull it off with their oversized characters in 16:9 or whatever surely this director could have done the same.
But overall I enjoy the film