Tag: Joss Whedon

The Snyder Cut is Finally Here and It Delivers

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I originally intended to watch Zack Snyder’s definitive edition of Justice League in multiple viewings due to its ungodly 242 minute runtime. But I have to admit, once I got going it sucked me in and I ended up banging out the entire #SnyderCut in one sitting because it delivers big time.

The difference between the Joss Whedon theatrical release (which some people that are more clever than I have dubbed Josstice League) and the Snyder Cut is night and day. Granted it’s twice as long, but it’s broken up into six parts (not including the prologue and epilogue) which lend some credence to the rumors that HBO Max considered releasing it in weekly installments rather than all at once. Now if you’ve never seen the theatrical release you may just think this is a four hour masturbatory act from Snyder and I wouldn’t necessarily fault you for that assumption, but this just may replace Blade Runner’s Final Cut as the definitive example of a Director’s Cut.

So we all know by now that DC was trying to replicate the massive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which continues to run laps around DC with the also massive success of WandaVision on Disney+. However, this is 13 years in the making with the first Iron Man coming out all the way back in 2008 followed by The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America THEN the first Avengers movie.

The biggest misstep DC made was releasing a very strong Man of Steel movie, an OK Batman vs Superman movie (that I often forget Wonder Woman is actually in), and then immediately jumping into Justice League with the addition of Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg. With only two of the six characters fully developed it was kind of a tall task to jump straight into team movie, introduce a new villain, and then bang it all out in 2 hours. Now I’m not saying you need to painstakingly recreate every single character arc because we all know Bruce Wayne’s parents were gunned down in front of him as a kid, and Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben was killed because of Spider Man’s carelessness. We don’t need to see that explained all over again, but Batman, Superman, and Spider Man are the three biggest superheroes in the entire history of the comic book genre. Not everyone knows the back story of Aquaman (all my knowledge is from the Vinny Chase movie in Entourage), the Flash (unless you’re a big CW fan), or Cyborg (best known from the cartoon Teen Titans, IMO).

In the original theatrical version all three of those characters get put on the back burner so you never really have time to care about them. With the opportunity presented by a four hour movie, Snyder really dives into the back story of all three, particularly Cyborg, and gives you a reason to want to see these characters succeed. Plus it also does a much better job teasing the Aquaman and Flash standalone films.

It’s hard to get into too much detail as to why the Snyder Cut is so much better without spoiling a lot of what made the cut so enjoyable so I encourage you to watch it before Twitter spoils it. I can say that the quippy Joss Whedon dialogue got axed, the motivations of many characters have changed (for the better), Darkseid is actually, ya know, in this movie, and gone is the unsightly red sky plastering the final act in the original. The new cut is overall darker (both visually and thematically), more violent, more serious, and is even rated R (yay F bombs!). So it is much truer to Snyder’s original version. But to be fair even if he had finished the movie originally, Snyder would have never been allowed to release a four hour R-rated tentpole superhero flick. So while what he has accomplished here is huge, it’s important to keep in mind that he was able to move the goal posts a bit, a luxury which he or Whedon would not typically have had.

I cannot believe how different this movie is after Snyder allegedly filmed only four minutes of additional footage in his reshoots. Granted Snyder had a whole series of DC films planned for what was dubbed the Snyder Verse so there was a lot left on the cutting room floor that he was able to just pick back up. There are also tons of easter eggs and threads (like what actually happened to Robin) that are finally pulled on here just to tease viewers in the name of fan service. 

Now comes the inevitable question of “what if?” What if Joss Whedon never came on board and Snyder had been able to finish his original vision? Would the DCEU have never collapsed on itself and would we already be discussing Justice League 3, the Ben Affleck standalone Batman film, and a potential Jared Leto Joker spinoff? DC has to have known (hoped?) this would be the case and provide new life to an IP that was on ice after critical and commercial indifference. It is kind of a bummer because Snyder fully pulls back the curtain to show us what he was working on and we’re unlikely to ever see that vision realized. The new Knightmare dream scene that is towards the end of the movie (rather than earlier on in the original) is a perfect example of this. But hey, I never thought the internet would ever be able to bully a major studio into investing tens of millions of dollars into a reshot, recut version of a failed tentpole film, and here we are.

I really want to kick down the doors at DC right now and give them the Herb Brooks Miracle speech about great opportunity. That’s what you have here tonight, boys. I’m sick of hearing about what a great cinematic universe Marvel has.

Through their own failures DC has accidentally stumbled into an amazing opportunity here with the multiverse. They can finally stop trying to replicate the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It didn’t work, it happens. With the multiverse DC can simply make all of these random one off films and individual stories with different actors and just punt on a shared universe until they decide to bring everyone together again. It’s something DC has already test run on its various TV series with the Crisis on Infinite Earths event where they even brought back my dude Tom Welling for a brief Superman cameo. If rumors about the upcoming Flash standalone movie are to be believed then DC is really going to lean into that exact mindset with the multiverse as multiple Batmen are allegedly set to appear in the film.

Watching the Snyder Cut is a trippy experience because even the opening minutes are entirely different from the original version with previously unseen footage. I felt like I had Alzheimer’s because in my head I know I’ve seen Justice League multiple times but now it’s…different.

Admittedly, my viewing of the Snyder Cut may be seen through rose colored glasses after 3+ years of the internet lobbying for and then somehow actually getting a completely recut and reshot version of beloved IP. And it worked! Now do Game of Thrones.

Details Emerge on What Ben Affleck’s Standalone Batman Script Was About Andddd I Want That Movie Instead

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Indiewire – In a new interview on MTV’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, cinematographer Robert Richardson reconfirmed Affleck’s Batman script was finished and not exactly beloved by everyone involved in the film’s development. Richardson was hired by Affleck to film his Batman standalone film…

As for what Affleck’s script entailed, Richardson revealed the Batman franchise was going to Arkham Asylum to dig into Bruce Wayne’s own insanity. The cinematographer said Affleck’s film would have showed “the darker side of Batman,” which is quite the statement given how brooding Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of the superhero was in his “Dark Knight” trilogy.

“Well, [Affleck] was going more into the insanity aspects,” Richardson said. “So I think you would’ve seen something a little darker than what we’ve seen in the past and more into the individual, who was inside Batman — what element may be sane and what element may actually not be sane. So he was entering into a little more of the Arkham, as you know, he’s going into where you keep everyone who was bad, everyone that shifted and Batman. And so that whole aspect was sort of, it was very fascinating to go to the darker side of Batman.”

Give me *that* movie. What the hell Warner Bros? Its like these studios and DC Comics just cannot get out of their own way. Now I don’t want to shit on the yet to be released Robert Pattinson Batman movie because who knows it could be awesome, but this Affleck script sounds way more interesting than rebooting Batman for the third time in a decade.

It’ll be hard to ever top The Dark Knight, which for my money is arguably the greatest superhero movie ever made because it doesn’t rely on CGI and dozens of characters.

At its core The Dark Knight is a crime thriller with a heavy focus on psychology and mental health. As much as I loved Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale’s version, I really enjoyed Ben Affleck’s take on the character. He was a much angrier, morally ambiguous, jaded, and more violent version of the Batman than we’d ever seen before.

Now who knows the real story behind why the Batfleck is no more, but there was always drama around his standalone film. Maybe starring, writing, and directing was too much for Affleck or maybe he said to hell with it when he realized he didn’t actually have the creative freedom he thought he would. Either way this movie was on life support for a long time before he officially retired as the caped crusader in January. This movie sounds like it could have been incredible though. Similar to The Dark Knight‘s exploration of psychology and mental health, but taken to the next level with the physical embodiment of Arkham Asylum. Theres just so much meat on the bones and so many directions they could have went with that entire idea. I literally own The Psychology of Batman book so I may be a bit biased in my opinion, but I know for a fact that we could have seen something seriously compelling with Affleck’s script. Not even just with the criminals, but with Bruce Wayne himself. You obviously have to be pretty fucked up to lurk around city rooftops at night fighting bad guys while dressed like a BAT. The Batman movies have never really explored that too much other than the typical backstory of Bruce’s parents being murdered in front of him. Batman Begins delves into that a bit, but its more of how he became Batman whereas this could have been why.

After the flame out that was Justice League, it seems DC has decided to explore individual stories in standalone flicks that aren’t actually connected. We’ve got the upcoming Joker coming out later this year, which is already getting some early Oscar buzz, and that movie reportedly will not be connected to the larger DCEU at all.

I don’t expect this Pattison Batman role to be teaming up with the Justice League any time soon either.

The problem DC always had was they were continuously rushing projects along despite poor vision/execution. They seemingly thought they could just slap together a couple of movies and catch up to Marvel despite the MCU’s painstaking, carefully laid plans. People forget that Marvel released five movies over the course of 4+ years before teaming everyone up in The Avengers. And to be honest, 3-4 of those movies kind of stunk. If The Avengers didn’t completely nail it we could have seen the MCU shuttered a LOT quicker than originally anticipated, which is why Thanos isn’t even referenced until Thor.

Whereas DC released Man of Steel in 2013, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016 and then Wonder Woman in 2017, immediately followed up by Justice League five months later. World building this was not. It didn’t help that Man of Steel never even made hint of a larger world of heroes and then 3 years later it turns out Batman has been running shit for years right across a literal bay of water from Clark Kent so that always came off as a shoddy retcon. Oh and that movie made the unforgivable decision to cast Mark Zuckerberg as Lex Luther and had one of the most ridiculous convoluted plots with the dumbest turning point (which Snyder still defends) that I can remember seeing in a movie.

Batman vs Superman could have been so so good. The trailer and the visuals taken out of context from that movie are still gorgeous. Just the perception of Bruce Wayne that Superman is actually evil and he needs to destroy this god-like figure to protect the world is so intriguing.

Especially after 40 years of Superman being portrayed as this Eagle Scout who flies in to save the day. Buttt the movie itself was a microcosm of the DCEU’s overarching issues and ended up being kind of a mess.

Wonder Woman was actually pretty good and was probably the only reason Justice League faired as well as it did. Except Justice League was another disaster in terms of vision and execution. In a vacuum its fine, I watched it on a flight and it kept me entertained, but it jumps around, its dark then its humorous, the villain was terrible and forgettable, and it seemed more like a comic book artist’s wet dream than a major movie studio’s tentpole franchise. Obviously a lot of that is likely due to the film having to switch directors midway through production after the death of Zack Snyder’s daughter. Ironically enough The Avengers mastermind Joss Whedon took over, but this movie was an amalgam of bad ideas thrown together skating by on IP alone.

So I’m holding out hope that DC has seen the error of its ways (Guys, not everything has to have a connected universe) and the casting of Pattinson has potential because he’s actually been grinding away as an indie character actor for the last decade. Who knows what direction Reeves will go in, but its tough not to wonder what could have been with Affleck giving it one more go.