Justice League (DC 2017 film)

Starting a new thread for this due to the truly shock news that's now public:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/zack-snyder-leaves-justice-league-after-family-tragedy-1795446522

In one of the most heart-wrenching stories you’re likely to ever hear, director Zack Snyder has decided to step back from directing Justice League to be with his family after the tragic suicide of his 20-year-old daughter, Autumn. Joss Whedon will finish the film.

Autumn Snyder took her life in March but the family decided to keep the news private. However, with reshoots about to get started ahead of the film’s November release, the director felt it was time to make the news public instead of delaying the film.

“I’ve decided to take a step back from the movie to be with my family, be with my kids, who really need me,” Snyder told The Hollywood Reporter.

Snyder’s wife Deborah, who is a producer on the film, is similarly stepping back from her duties. The Snyders had recently screened a rough cut of the film and brought on Whedon to write some new scenes. But when they realized they couldn’t bring themselves to leave their family for London again, Whedon was asked to direct too.

I wish nothing but the best for Zack Snyder, his family, and all those suffering from the repercussions of serious mental illness.

I wish him all the best as long as that doesn't involve him making any more movies

ehhh. in the big picture i guess it doesn't matter too much if people snark on his movies after learning his daughter committed suicide- i mean, i know his movies, i don't know him or anybody in his family- but why the hell would i want to be the person who does that?

because this is a thread about a comic book superhero film, a blight on our culture which must be destroyed.

the grieving for celebrities thread is some other thread

she wasn't a celebrity

because this is a thread about a comic book superhero film, a blight on our culture which must be destroyed.

― Οὖτις

well as long as you have your priorities straight

All of my perpetual Snyder ribbing aside, that's completely awful news.

I guess this might finally explain Whedon's move to DC, though. Being a hired hand might be seemingly thankless compared to staying with Marvel, but if he's replacing Snyder as their Kevin Feige, I can see the appeal (to him and to those of us who had no previous interest in their movies).

I think this film and the godawful tragedy that befell its former director's family don't really deserve to be in a thread together. Whatever the Justice League movie becomes, it's inevitable that we're going to want to talk at least a certain amount of vulgar shit about it, and Zack Snyder and his kids aren't exactly the Trumps, or the Cheneys.

Can we have a thread re-naming and start a separate one for the movie that doesn't have this awful news as a first post? Ned? Or general consensus?

I concur

Whatever works. (I was mildly surprised there was no thread already, but I suppose the BvS one was working as a standin.)

It IS going to be an unusual hybrid of a film, I guess.

I say keep the thread.

this movie is probably going to be horrible. better to have the freedom to express that without tying it to this horrible thing

ffs

Warner Bros and DC are in the early stages of another Batman Universe spinoff movie, this one telling the origin story of the signature villain The Joker. The studio has set The Hangover's Todd Phillips to co-write a script with 8 Mile scribe Scott Silver. Phillips will direct the movie, and Martin Scorsese will produce it with Phillips. This will be the first film under a new banner that has yet to be named in which WB can expand the canon of DC properties and create unique storylines with different actors playing the iconic characters.

I’m told that the intention is to make an origin story that isn’t part of any other iteration. The Joker has memorably been part of two Batman movies in the form of Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, and was most recently played by Jared Leto in the first Suicide Squad film. He will reprise in the Suicide Squad sequel and the Harley Quinn spinoff, but this new film will launch the character with a different actor, possibly younger.

An intriguing part is the setting. The intention is to make a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film set in early-’80s Gotham City that isn’t meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese’s films from that era, like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or The King Of Comedy. I’m told that Phillips and Silver are writing already, but there is nothing firm on where this will fit into the DC schedule.

fucking hell, are warners using mad libs to assemble their pitches? joker + scorsese + phillips + silver is not an intuitive assemblage of property and talent

also, if this is set in the early 80s, presumably with the proto-joker as a young adult, that mean the joker in suicide squad is supposed to be in his mid-50s, right? hmmm

I feel like WB execs looked enviously at the success of the MCU and their takeaway was nothing more complex than 'making a bunch of movies featuring characters you own = $$$!'.

I just learned that WB is also planning a Hanna Barbera cinematic universe. Sigh.

there's already been a crossover between dc comics and hanna-barbera comics, right?

god i'd pay so much money to watch batfleck star in an onscreen teamup with the funky phantom

yeah these things just make money, film any shit, just put in some Batman cameos and comic references, you got a cool billion. BvS and SS proved they can make money in their sleep.

on some level i almost suspect the constant shake-ups are to purposefully stir the pot. keep fans bitching about reshoots and studio meddling, that way you can sell them the movie twice when the directors cut comes out.

Something really really weird is going on at DC: http://www.avclub.com/warner-bros-announces-a-second-joker-movie-with-jared-1798372980?rev=1503539056267&utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

'Something really really weird' has been SOP at DC/WB for nearly a decade now.

Still. Making three films about the Joker at once, after the latest depiction was widely panned. That takes a pretty large amount of delusion. Or cocaine.

their takeaway was nothing more complex than 'making a bunch of movies featuring characters you own = $$$!'

why would their takeaway be anything else

I'll stick with the DC TV shows, which are the best superhero material going imo

and even those are not really that great - Supergirl being top of the pile and gets by largely on the charm of the lead actress and the ability of the writers to tread a lot of fine lines re: balance of "relevant" topics, ridiculous Silver Age shenanigans, action sequences, and soap opera romance plots.

An attempt at state of play

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-current-state-of-dc-superhero-movies-1798376485

Come on, CW DC shows aren't the best superhero material out there. I watch them all but they're preeeeeetty trashy. Like, they're largely there for me and my gf to shout at (YES WE KNOW OLIVER, EVERYTHING EVER IS YOUR FAULT, WHY DON'T YOU QUIT SUPERHERO-ING FOR A WHOLE 24 HOURS AGAIN).

And as for this:

why would their takeaway be anything else

― Οὖτις, Thursday, August 24, 2017 11:06 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whether you enjoy or agree with the decision, the secret to the MCU's success is tying everything into one coherent whole (or at least paying lip service to the idea before the TV shows went their own way) AKA synergistic marketing.

And making the movies actually good doesn't hurt (and yes, I know you disagree with that part).

is the MCU outperforming DCU stuff at the box office by that much? because all the studio cares about is the fact that they're still making money hand over fist. quality is totally irrelevant.

also I haven't watched Green Arrow lol - just Supergirl and a bunch of Flash episodes (that League of Tomorrow or whatever it is looked p bad tho)

They all feel very much like the same show to me. Arrow being the 'darkest' inasmuch as it's basically a Batman show in everything but name.

is the MCU outperforming DCU stuff at the box office by that much?

Yes. Even allowing for the fact that there are 4 DC movies and a billion Marvel movies, if you cap it at the top four Marvel is winning handily:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=avengers.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=dc.htm

xpost But see, that's DC successfully taking a page from Marvel's book. If these shows were disconnected, I might only watch one or two of them, but going this route gets completist freaks like me on the hook.

The only one I watch is Flash, and to the extent it ever crosses over with the other DC shows I can mentally fill in the blanks pretty easily without having to watch the others. This isn't exactly Proust.

When Flash is good, it's the best of those DC shows; when it's bad it's STOP SPINNING YOUR WHEELS AND GET ON WITH IT.

DC's top movie would rank #5 if included in Marvel's list.

MCU is also stomping on the X-Men:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=xmen.htm

Yeah, Marvel easily making a profit on something like Doctor Strange is what DC would die for. I don't quite know what the equivalent would be, perhaps a Shazam film. But so far DC has had to use their big guns, Superman, Batman, the Joker. When, of course, it's Wonder Woman who has been the big hit. It's hard to say what they should do at this point to turn it around, but planning four Joker-films at once (yes, four, according to gizmodo it's Scorceses Joker, Suicide Squad 2, Joker & Harley Quinn, Gotham City Sirens, all planning to use the joker)

Also, I haven't seen Doctor Strange, but it's supposedly not great, but not bad. That sweet spot is something DC can't seem to hit.

The Marvel movies have an edge over the DC movies in that you see the heroes figuring out their powers/capabilities as the stories go along rather than coming straight out of the gate as masters of flight/combat/tactics/what have you. For every character like Thor or Scarlet Witch, who appear on screen in full command of their powers and just straight up wrecking shit, you have offsetting characters like Ant Man and Spider Man, who are clearly new to the superhero game and make tactical mistakes or have to figure out a new use for their powers in the middle of a fight. It brings a level of relatability into these movies that DC's general god-mode doesn't have and probably factors into the charisma bump the Marvel movies get over the DC movies.

^^ And when the DCU did try to do that with Man of Steel they absolutely FUBARed it.

Doctor Strange was bad fyi

xp

Like you think any of the films are good

For the record, I would go to a dog for advice on putting together a complimentary color palette before I went to Shakey for opinions on the quality of MCU movies.

http://img-aws.ehowcdn.com/640/ds-photo/getty/article/99/191/532221225_XS.jpg

"This is my latest phase."

Looooool, DJP OTM.

doctor strange was pretty bad tho

and my MCU stan cred is impeccable

tbf yeah p bad movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9-DM9uBtVI

why the 90s alt rock cover of "Heroes"? i would rather hear the Bowie original, this just reminds me of TV shows and commercials that go the low budget route and get some random band to cover a Beatles song. then again, didn't they just have another trailer for this with "Come Together"? Thor has the real Led Zeppelin, Guardians of the Galaxy has real 10cc. get your shit together DC. this is embarassing.

this goes for everything else about this trailer (bad cgi, lame mugging, where is this mars? Aquaman can fly now??? i guess there is water in the air...). feels cheap and expensive at the same time, like someone just shit out a bucket of money.

on the plus side we get to look forward to a team of heroes fighting yet another endless faceless army

I know It's some Fourth World shit or whatever but having them fight a loaf of manbees was not a good choice

Looks horrendous obv

god help poor amy adams, appearing for the third time in an utterly thankless supporting role

that's what the money's for

boy does this feel like some also-ran shit. I'm guessing another reprise of Wonder Woman will be the only draw.

So red and bro-tastic! YEAAHHHHH!

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/justice-league-review

stoked for the madness

is it just me or has there been less of a marketing juggernaut around this than usual? i’d pretty much forgotten this was out this week until i saw a billboard yesterday

Wait, it's out this week? Would never have guessed. Saw the trailer before Thor and that's the extent I've seen.

I'm partially expecting an embargoed 'secret' final third, like BVS was supposed to have and pulled off to a degree (the WW reveal and the big Doomsday fight), with a resurrected Superman and Darkseid.

Justice League more like Enabler League

afaict the Big Reveal is going to be that Superman isn't really dead which uh... wow guys, who could see that one coming?

Out this week?! I don't think I've even seen a trailer or commercial or ad for it. Like if asked, I would've guessed that it was coming next summer or something. Bravo, WB.

thrilled to see this movie starring a batman who groped a woman on tv and was tight with harvey weinstein, a wonder woman who’s only just been accused of horrible behaviour in the wake of a friend’s rape and a co-director who apparently preyed on the young, attractive stars of his popular tv shows

oh and an alfred who thinks gay marriage should be outlawed because it’ll encourage men to marry their sons for tax reasons

ok wow THAT is a take I had not heard before (re: Irons)

To be fair, if this were my son, the thought would enter my mind as well:

https://www.out.com/sites/out.com/files/2015/02/26/max-irons-teaser1.jpg

just remembered ilx’s ‘gay marriage to alfred: your thoughts’ thread and now i have some thoughts

thrilled to see this movie starring a batman who groped a woman on tv and was tight with harvey weinstein

and the opening to BvS has him saving women from a sex dungeon ffs. real hero right here

i saw one of these billboards yesterday

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BcUA-1jH1Eo/Wf4p-XLXEiI/AAAAAAACpns/E2TiJ1Fq55o9IrB2OYYr7ZvqgvSZPi5JwCLcBGAs/s800/justice%2Bleague%2Bmovie%2Bbillboard.jpg

how would anyone ever notice this gloomy ass lineup of a poster? they're lit about as well as harry lime in a vienna doorway.

my awareness of this film is pretty nil while w/Thor: Ragnarok i was aware of so much of the film: cast, basic premise, the look of the film, the good jokes, etc. and that's just from passively coming across it.

Wait, what's this about Gal Gadot? Hadn't heard about that and can't find any info elsewhere.

That poster is on the side of loads of London busses at the moment so I've studied it a fair bit. If they're going for bold and heroic then why is it so dull? If they're going for dark and serious why are they all wearing such stupid outfits? Isn't being good at mythic visuals supposed to be Snyder's 'thing'? Horendous.

it looks like they're trying for Alex Ross irl but it's just crowded & static

it looks like they're annoyed that it's taking so long for the elevator to get to the top floor.

And Aquaman's farted.

Re Gadot, there's this

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonwells/medium-post-gal-gadot?utm_term=.fvrA0V88n#.sypgoVrr9

Can we take this opportunity to bash Rotten Tomatoes some more? They're now holding off on revealing scores for selected movies. Also relevant is that Warner Bros. owns 30% of RT. O_o

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/11/14/16648850/justice-league-rotten-tomatoes-score

just one more reason to destroy RT

DCEU fanboys slay me

the Zune tattoo of fandoms

Three guesses as to who wrote this sentence, and the first two don't count: 'It’s one of those wondrous Zack Snyder extravaganzas that fulfill the aesthetic potential of comic-book graphics and achieves essential cinema kinetics."

Answer.

say what u like about armond, at least he’s consistent

please inscribe this on my headstone

Like Sternberg, Snyder can similarly shift into grave spirituality (profound metaphor), as he does in the expanded-time sequence where Batman loses his catapult gun and Wonder Woman loses her sword

Is it wrong of me to want to see another DC train wreck over a competent but generic Marvel movie?

Probably. Why watch either

I got Moviepass so now that money ain't a thang, I am seeing this movie solely so I can aggravate my butthurt DC friends by saying it sucks.

and also throw candy at people in the 2nd row and blame it on the person I'm with

This was fine, even good! My standards for this kind of stuff isn't very high. But you know, if you absolutely hated Batman vs. Superman you should probably stay home like you were going to anyway.

tbd if you didn't absolutely hate batman v superman your opinion is pretty suspect

tbf... fan autocorrect

whoever designed the coexist poster for this should be deeply embarrassed.

ppl who've seem this, is the Superman CGI moustache removal as distracting and creepy as some are making out?

I've seen a few clips and it looks pretty stupid yeah

in the theater i couldn't really tell which shots these were

Is it up there with this legendary DCU moustache removal?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cesar+romero+joker&client=firefox-b&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwih98PwhMvXAhXCGuwKHSaaA-sQ_AUICigB&biw=1136&bih=634#imgrc=6naWU1cTK2gBXM:

http://remezcla.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/the_joker_cesar_romero_film-1150x719.jpg?x16388

Lowest opening weekend of any DC "universe" movie. Lower than Wonder Woman, lower than Suicide Squad, less than half of the first Avengers movie's opening weekend. Can we just put the pillow over its face yet?

nope. I’m enjoying the spectacle. they’ve 100% done this to themselves, trying to be “different” from the thing everyone likes.

This wasn't terrible, a big step up from Batman v Supes, but not terribly interesting either. It's not worth hate-watching because it never reaches "so bad it must be seen to be believed" stature like BvS.

Unlike BvS, I actually found myself entertained at times, and the main baddy was actually fairly badass. Problem is, as has been stated time and again, DC made their major crossover piece without earning it. Half of the characters got less than 10 minutes in a previous film, so they all had to have their arcs crammed into a 2 hour movie.

The pacing is far better than BvS's too. Ironically though, the point where Superman returns is actually where the movie starts to flatline. I just think Henry Cavill is a terrible fit. He always has the wrong energy for the scenes he is in.

Also, weirdly, once again the whole planet is in peril and yet you never see the stakes played out beyond its impact to the superheroes. There's no catharsis as a result.

Woulda been a better movie if everybody died and Commissioner Gordon said "maybe having 10 ego driven superheroes band together was a bad idea" and retired to an underground bunker.

jesus god this movie sucked shit

is there anything I could do to make it watchable, outside of self-inflicted brain injury?

I mean, it's going to be streaming for free on HBO or something eventually and I'll be tempted

nah, it doesn't even have the so bad it's good aspect. It's just worthless

yeah it’s just really fuckin dull tbh

it doesn’t even have the ‘everything about this movie is wrong’ factor like man of steel or bvs

the only ‘fun’ to be had is paying attention to the ever-changing levels of alcoholic bloat in ben affleck’s face from scene to scene, sometimes even within scenes

best part is the flashback to steppenwolf’s first failed attempt to take control of earth, after which the amazons lock their mother box in a heavily-guarded fortress, the atlanteans banish theirs to a high-security facility at the bottom of the ocean, and the humans... bury theirs at most five feet underground in a forest somewhere and peace out

yes this film was entirely forgettable. at least with BvS it made an impression

nah, it doesn't even have the so bad it's good aspect. It's just worthless

― Number None, Monday, February 26, 2018

honestly i am entertained by the metaspectacle of warner/DC punching themselves in the face again and again

It's just crazy to me that I honestly keep forgetting that a Justice League movie exists. That should've been a big deal, a cause for celebration, not relegated to the status of a Dreamworks sequel. 'Oh, a third Croods movie came out last year? Huh. How about that.'

i also enjoyed that, in the proud tradition of dc movies being visibly embarrassed by the source material, at no point in this movie named justice league do any characters utter the the words 'justice league'

"is there anything I could do to make it watchable, outside of self-inflicted brain injury?"

haven't seen it, but you could try to pick out which parts are by snyder/whedon/toy companies.

also spot the bits where they CGI'd over Henry Cavill's moustache

i forgot this movie was even released

at this point DC Comics films are mostly the Gobots to Marvel's Transformers.

ha, otm

I forgot I saw this.

yeah it’s just really fuckin dull tbh

it doesn’t even have the ‘everything about this movie is wrong’ factor like man of steel or bvs

This is the real heart of the topic. Nothing happened, or at least nothing you cared about. The Steppenwolf 'three mother boxes' thing made no sense, especially why he never just went and got the human one which was hidden under some leaves in a wood and I can't even remember what happened in the end. Did Cyborg think the cubes apart?

Solitary highlight was the terrible CG of Cavell's top lip.

honestly the notion of some other production dickishly insisting that an actor can't shave his mustache just to fuck with this production is the most interesting thing about it

honestly i can’t remember exactly how it ended and i only saw it a few days ago!

steppenwolf was such a limp, tedious villain - he might has well have been transplanted straight from cutscenes from a c-list videogame

i did enjoy bruce wayne bopping around the world revealing his secret identity to everyone he met, he really dngaf

ok, that point almost sounds funny enough to watch it

I'm imagining a world where no one in Gotham City really travels and no one outside Gotham gives a shit about Batman and he just goes around introducing himself as "Bruce Wayne, the Batman of Gotham City" and no one even shrugs

the first time he does it, when he meets aquaman, he has a beard which he didn’t have in the previous scene and he immediately shaves off in the next

just real who-gives-a-fuck filmmaking

honestly the notion of some other production dickishly insisting that an actor can't shave his mustache just to fuck with this production is the most interesting thing about it

yeah I absolutely love the pettiness tbh

Should've just pulled a Romero and lazily pancaked some foundation over that fucker.

my wife didn't know anything about moustachegate and when cavill's cg upper lip showed up for the first time she was like 'oh my god what happened to his face?!?'

it's just egregiously bad - even though steppenwolf is a terrible all-cg character at least he doesn't have the deeply unheimlich mix of real and cg that cavill's face does

The second most expensive movie ever made, with probably one of the biggest CG budgets ever, all in the service of digitally shaving Henry Cavill.

and got outgrossed in a weekend by Black Panther

oh wait i just remembered one thing about the ending - the world-ending helltentacles of terror, the entire pre-production visualisation of which presumably involved zack snyder plonking a video of this down in front of his team and commanding 'do that'

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/ldqwb2evus6swbhc7lo0.gif

I have the suspicion that Snyder's method of scene creation is that he treats every set piece as no more linked than a music video, and he really doesn't give a shit about narrative flow or continuity

there may be an attempt at an emotional beat, but it's not at all linked to the preceding or following scenes, and he's really bad at even that

like he's a version of Michael Bay who has no short-term memory

what's funny is friends of mine who inexplicably called BvS a masterpiece hated Justice League.

it's like they preferred the movie where the director prayed diarrhea everywhere over the one where the director at least took Immodium

there may be an attempt at an emotional beat, but it's not at all linked to the preceding or following scenes, and he's really bad at even that

yeah, for sure - there's a scene where amy adams and diane lane have a heart-to-heart in the daily planet break room and while it was going on i was thinking 'this could really have been placed anywhere in the movie up until now and there's no reason to have it here either'

Lois is the biggest cipher in the whole series.

and got outgrossed in a weekend by Black Panther

i've been trying not to schadenfreudelol about this itt but it really is remarkable how all the things which make black panther good (deftly-drawn characteris, great performances, a compelling villain, atypical production design) are more or less entirely absent in this

amy adams deserves so much better for sure

Is Joss Whedon's nickname "Immodium"?

sing hallelujah, pray diarrhoea

Shit sandwich

generous tbh

I just saw Aquaman called a decent film somewhere this week. On the basis of Justice League and BvS I'd find that a bit difficult to believe but Wonder Woman was quite good.
Am i missing something that is actually worthwhile?

aquaman is the most fun dc movie by some distance - if you thought wonder woman was good you'll probably enjoy it

Yeah, Aquaman is decent, and also kinda batshit crazy. There were still moments where I just can't fathom they've wasted so much time and money to do so little - there's an incredibly shitty chase scene for instance - but it's probably the best DCEU has made. The green screen scenes in Justice League are so awful I can't believe they thought they would get away with it.

The "honest trailer" for Aquaman is kinda OTM, both in how closely it follows the arc of another big comic movie, and in how they threw in every single big Aquaman story arc like, ever, into one movie.

aquaman is terrible, but for longtime ILXors there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg establishing that his dad was the kind of doof who plays bass through a guitar amp

I really think we need different ways to describe films. Aquaman is not 'terrible', there's, like, several minutes of kinda okay visuals. It is, though, all in all, completely worthless, devoid of any accumulation of meaning.

Or perhaps we don't really 'need' any different ways to describe anything. It might not be worth it. I kinda liked the film, but it's not in any way 'good'. I was just watching DC films to prepare for watching Joker, and it's the only painless one.

I was just watching DC films to prepare for watching Joker

The decision to chop off your thumb doesn't really require a practice run on all of your other fingers, but go with god, my friend.

for the record:

https://medias.spotern.com/spots/w1280/189/189133-1553506380.jpg

L-R:
Puppy
Fender Precision BASS
Vox AC15 GUITAR AMP

this movie is terrible QED

Better way to prepare to watch Joker is to watch the Budd Dwyer video

I am not a prude when it comes to violence, but there were two scenes where it felt a little too 'real' for me.

Was curious about the recent #releasetheSnyderCut furor. Good Vulture summary to remind myself some folk like grim DC, and not everyone is tied to a Golden Age or Darwyn Cooke JL version.

Some people like putting cigarettes out on their genitals, too. That doesn't mean DC should cater to that audience.

...OR DOES IT?!?

Honestly they should put something out there if only just to shut these people up.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/11/05/arts/05NOVfilm-list1/05NOVfilm-list1-watch308.jpg

I love that not only does Batman create a bat outfit to put fear into the hearts of criminals, he also sculpts an angry facial expression onto his cowl as well https://t.co/DPQ2T6xx6x

— Mike Dawson 🕶 (@mike_daws) November 19, 2019

Trust me I have no desire in defending this movie or especially Snyder, but surely that's a set photo and not an actual snydercut still?

I assume the costume is the same in the footage as in the set photos

Right.. but I didn't get the sense that the original tweet was talking about the costume itself, just the retweeter. But now I've thought more about this movie than I've ever wanted to, so just as happy to have misconstrued and be wrong.

I found a postable version of the photo there bcz I don't know or care what the original tweet was talking about either, but I found his frowny-face mask hilarious too

(don't think I've seen any photos of the Snyder Batman before - I did see a billboard in 2017 but iirc it was cod-Alex Ross paintings)

How has someone as stupid as Snyder not yet got trapped in a bin and starved to death yet?

there's lots to eat in there

#ReleaseTheRaccoonCut

Yeah the costumes have been pretty silly since they added the nipples to the Batsuit. I thought the original tweet was laughing at the absurdity of Bats and the other superheros huddled around a clipboard for a mid-mission briefing.

No flowcharts no credibility

Batman needs a studded codpiece

If by 'studded codpiece' you mean 'floppy two-foot rubber phallus covered in rhinestones' then yes, of course he does.

Michael Bay Gives Fans Sneak Peek At Ninja Turtles’ Hyper-Realistic CGI Genitals http://t.co/UpFLHGK1Mm pic.twitter.com/YFHwQmBWGO

— The Onion (@TheOnion) July 25, 2014

I wouldn't have know there was anything wrong with that bat costume until someone said I was supposed to realize it was obviously terrible to the point I should be crying laughing. Either I have terrible taste or I'm extremely out of the loop? Is a scowling cowl (s-cowl) for batman wrong? Tell me how to feel.

If this on-set photograph is your first encounter with the character known as Batman, I can see where you might howl with laughter until your bladder emptied itself in great spasmic arcs. Otherwise the costume is a little silly-looking but nothing particularly OTT.

OK thanks... yeah the s-cowl did not seem particularly new or odd on batman at all.

After Bat-Nipples and Bale's totes hilar SCAWY BAT-GWOWL, I don't know what absurd heights a cinematic Bat-depiction would have to reach to catch me off guard.

BRING BACK THE BATUSI

Call me when a Bat-movie has the bravery to feature a scene as Bat-shit as Adam West hanging from a chopper and spraying the great white munching his leg with shark repellant only to have that fucker EXPLODE when it hits the water.

OK thanks... yeah the s-cowl did not seem particularly new or odd on batman at all.

imagining him running back to the car to change his entire costume into one where he has painstakingly moulded a kind and caring face, in between crushing the spine of a baddie and comforting the little orphan girl that the baddie was menacing

first I was like
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geek.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F06%2F17016624767_d0115ed353_b-625x351.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
but then I was like
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww1.pictures.zimbio.com%2Fmp%2F_01TMbx1qJrx.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

hey batman who stole yr neck

https://i.imgur.com/oQciHRD.jpg

so people are screaming with excitement about the Zak Snyder cut of this and I just wanna hurl

Didn't see the original but BvS was demented enough for me to check this out

this is much more pedestrian than the gonzo BvS. it was also a better movie. but a forgettable one.

i still don't understand who are these people that are diehard Synder supporters. who?? even his clearer successes are mixed at best.

someone I know and respect said he "cried" today at the news

tbf I guess that could go either way

Someone you know and used to respect, presumably.

he's a good dude, just has weird taste in movies.

You will believe that a turd can be polished!

in Snyder's version, Superman is a stroke victim who recovers through the power of Lex Luthor's pee

Wait, who stroked him

this movie fucking sucks idk why people think there's a way in which it doesn't. mother boxes? really?

one major step up is that Lex Luthor's pee didn't appear at all, I mean they clearly read the room and the room said "no pee from Lex Luthor"

does the Snyder version use mother boxes and the Whedon one didn't?

(I saw some webicles thrilling themselves that Darkseid is in the Snyder version but wasn't in Whedon, and it's hard to imagine a temperament less suited to cast Darkseid as a villain than that of a Randian)

Frankly it did seem kind of dumb to use Steppenwolf instead of Darkseid; or wishful thinking that they'd eventually get to a sequel to use him

we’re all going to feel very silly when this turns out to be a masterpiece

I'm curious about how big disasters get made and I will watch this to see one step in the process. But Justice League was far less memorable than BVS or Suicide Squad -- I remember Cavill's cg face, Aquaman sitting on the lasso of truth, and not much else.

I spent more years than were sensible reading DC superhero comics and I have never even heard of Steppenwolf as a character. I tried watching this piece of shit film once and didn't make it 15 minutes in. Colossally stupid and boring and idiotically staged.

like a true nature's child

Steppenwolf is an incredibly minor Fourth World character, with only maybe like two or three appearances throughout Kirby's tenure.

The Fourth World in general is something I just don't want to see adapted by anyone, let alone this particular nozzle. They did it relative justice in the DCAU but that was enough.

idk how y'all didn't see this as a overwhelmingly marked improvement from BvS.

I submit:

-No Luthor pee jar
-No Superman fucking Lois in the bathtub
-No "Martha"-gate

hmm I see to have instead made the argument that this is why this movie is so forgettable instead.

nevermind, nothing to see here.

Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNNNN...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6512XKKNkU

Someone on Twitter called the Snyder Cut QAnon for nerds and that sounds about right.

Fitting that the two times that director has used that song it's been a sex scene and a two-minute masturbation fantasy.

— Cori (@CoriMarie21) August 22, 2020

snyder, a guy who knows popular karaoke songs and no other music

I didn't see the theatrical version but I'll take Snyder's OTT self-serious juvenalia over Whedon's poisonous "witty" banter any fucking day

Good grief, the CGI on that flipped exploding car in that Flash bit is AWFUL.

over Whedon's poisonous "witty" banter any fucking day

OTM, p much everything Whedon's been involved with creatively for near if not more than a decade has been absolutely insufferable because of it. Been watching old Buffy during quarantine and even tho it is famously twee/witty/snarky itself, it's depressing how noxiously stupid and soulless his 2010s writing is in comparison. The guy who played Cyborg in this claims he was insufferable and abusive personally on set too so def fuck him if that's true

My pet theory is that as Whedon found himself supplanted by the Russos as the ultimate MCU golden boys he got even worse than he already did. And that's saying something.

this guy seems cool

You said you enjoyed the theatrical cut of Justice League like you enjoy your Saturday morning cartoons… Well this is made for grownups, so you’re not in the demographic. Also, cool of you to comment on a leaked teaser. @ScottMendelson https://t.co/Zsu2O2oixb

— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) August 22, 2020

groan-ups

I didn't see the theatrical version but I'll take Snyder's OTT self-serious juvenalia over Whedon's poisonous "witty" banter any fucking day

― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Saturday, August 22, 2020 3:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

i really loved the "ultimate cut" of batman v. superman

Guys, it's OK to hate both of them, they're both shit.

Oh, this was just on tv and I watched it for 2 minutes. It was people in costumes fighting with cartoon things.

forget that, i watched 2 minutes of avengers age of ultron, it turns out.

quelle est la différence!

Oh boy

Zack Snyder says his four-hour cut of 'Justice League' is likely coming to theaters — with an R rating and F-bomb-dropping Batman. Plus, the director weighs in on the Warner Bros. streaming controversy.​ https://t.co/0xekTaqgFa

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) December 14, 2020

now batman is so edgy he can kill people irl

This fucking arsehole.

Well this is made for grownups, so you’re not in the demographic.

— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) August 22, 2020

Zack Snyder says ...an F-bomb-dropping Batman.

— December 14, 2020

Does he also take his bat-dingus out and waggle it at some point

Zack, you will convince me that your bat-film is for grownups when I read the news that it's now largely about Bruce Wayne dealing with the fallout of his recent divorce while trying to figure out how he's going to pay for his daughter's college tuition.

Finally, an R-rated superman movie.
People in the street (all nude): Look up in the sky it's some shithead
Superman: sup fuckers

— vineyille (@vineyille) June 22, 2016

lol

I didn’t mind this movie (in fact, compared to most others here I absolutely loved it) but the Snyder cult is just neverending comedy

i'm gonna watch this but yeah kinda more baffled than anything this is all happening

Oh joy

Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League’ (2021) will now be officially released as a 4-hour film on HBO Max and not a 4-part miniseries.

The R-Rated film will also receive an IMAX release according to Snyder himself. pic.twitter.com/N5wwdlZVgE

— DR Movie News 📽 (@DRMovieNews1) January 17, 2021

how much are they going to pay people to watch it?

Not sure which will be worse, endlessly hearing about this stupid shitty thing coming up, or endlessly hearing dipshits raving about it once it comes out.

Thank goodness this movie will finally have the opportunity to be good just like all those other Zack Snyder movies.

at last, the video game cutscenes we were promised

psyched for the chance to literally risk my life to watch this in imax during a global pandemic

New trailer out for this today. I don't know what this says about me, but I've hated every one of Snyder's movies, the trailer looks exactly like the same old nonsense as before, and yet I'm kind of curious to see this, perhaps even feeling forgiving toward it. It's a vote against Whedon, too, I suppose, although no doubt there are dozens like him working at HBO/DC.

IM FUCKING CRYING JOKER ACTUALLY SAID "WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY" LMAOO pic.twitter.com/9sHizj6OkV

— Star @ P5S (@Star_Powerup) February 14, 2021

who's the villain in this movie? "SJWs"?

disney

note that the joker scene is from dream sequence #1 in BvS meaning it will have no impact on anything else in the movie

OK since now there's apparently a black-and-white version of Zack Snyder's JUSTICE LEAGUE here's a thread detailing the extremely weird changes to this extremely weird movie, with all the weird twists and contradictions along the way. This thread might be updated over time. https://t.co/4BYpLRjbk5

— Will Ross, Gerbil Father (@SadHillWill) November 17, 2020

this thread has been updated over time

note that the joker scene is from dream sequence #1 in BvS meaning it will have no impact on anything else in the movie

― wasdnuos (abanana), Monday, February 15, 2021 2:01 PM (thirty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like it already

I gotta be honest the "lol Snyder's process is nuts / he can't make up his mind" thing isn't all that funny or even weird when you remember he exited post-production when his daughter committed suicide

if he's too unstable to stick to a decision about the actual format of the film from week to week, maybe it's not a great idea to give him $70 million just to edit and reformat his film

especially when the streaming service which you're paying him to make it for has already flopped so hard that you've fired many senior executives at, nearly half the editorial staff of, the entire marketing department of multiple decades' experience in, and completely shut down the dedicated streaming service of, the division of the company that manages the IP that Snyder is polishing

and completely shut down the dedicated streaming service of, the division of the company that manages the IP that Snyder is polishing

What is this one?

cannot bring myself to care about aspect ratios but god bless you

I don't care about the content or form of this film at all, just the ways in which it functions as one node of a malign destructive influence on the consumer / art relationship in toto

What is this one?

DC Universe

I agree and yet remain curious to see it.

I think perhaps I'm more sympathetic to Snyder's humourlessness because the last year has made me more humourless.

Given his family tragedy, and the fact that he lost (or "lost") his film to one of 2021's most hated assholes, I guess I have warmed to him a bit

If it looks okay on fast forward I'll be happy

Don't make me think about Watchmen though

at one point i might champion him for going full Snyder.

The amount of time and effort and money that's been spent on this halfwitted farrago of bullshit.

The big ol' story today

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/02/the-true-story-of-justice-league-snyder-cut

Personally I come away with it thinking that Snyder -- in line with some other comments I've heard -- is indeed by all accounts a very decent fellow who absolutely adores his family and who along with his wife was understandably crushed at his daughter's passing. And, completely separately from that, has some absolutely 'the fuck?' storytelling choices.

I had never seen a photo of Snyder before, that is not what I expected him to look like. (Bill Simmons meets Seth McFarlane tbh)

I feel for him, as he's definitely been through some terrible shit. And it's nice to hear that he's apparently a genuinely good guy. I just wish that he was, y'know, like a doctor or a car salesman or an alderman rather than the guy making these movies.

is indeed by all accounts a very decent fellow

Unfortunate that his own public statements tend to depict him as an aggressive, arrogant, bullying oaf with little comprehension of art or of opinions differing from his own. I'll read this story though.

^^^^

I mean all of those things can be true

I made it halfway through and got bored of his quotes about how brilliant he is, and how lame-ass losers who don't think he is always get shown up

Seriously. Most profiles are press releases, at least in part, but that read like it was written and edited by Snyder himself.

I think my favorite part is the thing where everyone has sheltered him from the Whedon cut because it was such a betrayal of Snyder's visionary genius.

Has he worked with the Sons of Anarchy guy? They seem like a match made in heaven.

the whedon cut does sound v dumb and bad.

the snyder cut will also be dumb and bad but maybe not as much?

maybe one day we can have the snyder uncut, 8 hours of justice league

Four hours long means dumb and bad. There has not been one of these superhero movies yet that could have used another hour.

'Anything without dialogue was considered for slow motion' pic.twitter.com/wCrdey9Evg

— iucounu (@iucounu) February 26, 2021

IMDB says Snyder is doing a Fountainhead movie

That’s years old, afaimomnrc

I love how the two types of superhero movie are "feels like grey slush" and "looks like grey slush"

https://media.aintitcool.com/media/uploads/legacy/ckeditor_assets/pictures/10059/original/diabolik2.jpg

current ones I mean, no offense intended mr diabolik

the Peyton Reeds are characteristically bright, Spider-Verse is a million colours, Ragnarok was mostly well-lit and colourful, Incredibles 2 was just two years ago, Fast Color has a clue in the title, haven't seen the Sharkboy & Lava Girl sequel that just came out but Rodriguez' kids movies are usually shiny. Only seen trailers for the Spidey: Home movies but they seem clear and colourful, might well feel like slush though. Lego Batman and Teen Titans Go! are each hella colours and fun as heck.

There are way more grey sludge movies, but other options are available. Snyder's new zombie movie is probably grey too.

the MCU movies are the ones that feel rather than look like grey slush, just to be 1000% clear

i like the grey sludge of bvs. movie looks like it's decaying from within

a nu-metal movie 15 years too late

as a fan of nu-metal horror you know what i'm talking about

though by and large nu-metal horror was pretty colorful. platinum dunes horror remakes of the late '00s are probably closer to bvs' color palette

this is an aside but was bride of chucky nu-metal horror

yes!!!!!

potentially the ur-text

Bride of Chucky was "A.D.I.D.A.S."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFibI_1ZPV4

OK, so I have a modest familiarity with the Marvel stuff, but only a passing familiarity with the DC stuff. That is, I've seen the first four or five Superman movies, both Wonder Woman movies, the Burton and Nolan Batmans. I've read the major Batman graphic novels, and while I've never otherwise read any DC comics outside of some hardcover book of first issues my dad had, I did watch the Justice League cartoon on occasion as a little kid, and I know who Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Flash are. I've not seen any of the Snyder films, nor have I wanted to, but I have followed this train wreck and in particular the Ray Fisher saga, and can I just confess: I have literally never heard of Cyborg (the character) before these films.

Cyborg wasn't created by Snyder, but god forbid any of these franchises actually dare to invent something new

JIC, he’s been around for 41 years and was the reason why Teen Titans was the only DC book I halfway paid attention to when I was a kid: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_(DC_Comics)

The Teen Titans comic was super-popular in the '80s, and the cartoon seems to have been pretty popular in the 2000s, but yeah, DC hasn't done a whole lot to popularize the individual characters with general audiences. I guess the Marvel equivalent is like Nightcrawler or Colossus. Yeah, they've shown up in movies and stuff but yr average person on the street probably isn't going to be familiar with them on the level of a Wolverine.

cyborg definitely initially benefited from coming out of wolfman/perez's megahit; i think not much was done with him after as white DC writers weren't quite sure what to do with a black supergenius post-human character that didn't involve him yelling CHRISTMAS and busting drug dealers
i'm kinda surprised you're not familiar with him via the Teen Titans cartoon though; that's been around and extremely popular on the web and irl for years, which is also why your average 15 year old might know who Raven is.

The Teen Titans Go! lineup is basically all of the Titans I actually have a shit about, maybe swapping out Robin with Wonder Girl

As someone who's read a good number of DC comics, I don't think I've ever read a non-Titans comic that had Cyborg (or any of the other Wolfman-created Titans) in it.

I can totally believe he's been around, and I've googled to see who he is, but that doesn't change that I hadn't heard of him before. But then, I don't know what the Teen Titans are, either. Are they like the Muppet babies?

Thinking about it now, it's kinda weird how underutilized they've been in the comics for such popular characters (and yes, I know Cyborg has been a Justice Leaguer for a number of years now but DC has been m/l dead to me since Flashpoint).

xpost lol, well I get that you may not know the individual characters but the Teen Titans as a team (originally a team of sidekicks, with Robin and Speedy et al) have been around since the '60s so the ground beneath you is getting a little thin now.

xxxp As of just under a decade ago, he's a Justice League founder!

damn even I know who Cyborg is, but I did see Justice League to kill time and watch Teen Titans Go.

both teen titans and teen titans go! were/are great shows, it's wild

i mean actually dc animation has a lot of quality shows, but teen titans' particular style and execution was totally distinct from their other stuff and it works so well

lol, I literally said I have only a passing familiarity with just the biggest name DC characters. Oh, I knew Shazam, too, from my dad's book. Shazam was DC, right? Never heard of Speedy (though I can imagine), or Raven (no clue), or Flashpoint or Wolfman.

Remember when Wolfman was implied to be a dangerous, world-warping villain within the DC universe for his actions - “Did the Wolfman send you?”

- at the same time that he was being stripped of his powers and forced to carry out a shadowy, unaccountable over-figure’s schemes?

Jump forward a few decades and I get to read something like this on ILX once a year -

As of just under a decade ago, he's a Justice League founder!

- and grit my teeth, shake my fist at the sky and yell “JOHNNNNNSS!”

Speedy = Green Arrow sidekick who eventually took his name too literally and dove headlong into teh drugs
Raven = member of popular '80s Teen Titans lineup who, if you aren't familiar with the Titans, you probably wouldn't know anything about
Flashpoint = that time ten years ago when DC was all 'hey, remember all of those comics stories we made that you loved? yeah, those never happened'
Wolfman = c'mon, man, Marv Wolfman, writer of the popular '80s Teen Titans title, also a prolific Marvel writer and one-time editor-in-chief

Way to step on my 100% accurate yes-and-ing re Wolfman

There is very little chance that Josh knows who Green Arrow is.

Correct

lol, well just for one example he's the dude whose show just ended after airing for the better part of a decade and spawning spin-off shows that comprise the bulk of the CW's prime time line-up. Celebrating his 80th anniversary this year alongside Captain America.

Also OL may have given the wrong impression of what sort of drugs Speedy got into.

https://i.imgur.com/9zzYcgD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/axwJCxx.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/5VMwuuB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/mfsJU4g.jpg

Shoulda renamed himself Dopey imo

Josh, I would suggest that there's no less obscure mainstream comics character than Green Arrow that you could possibly be unaware of but now I'm motivated to ferret one out.

Martian Manhunter?

Ohh, good one. Black Canary, too, obvs. Kinda thinking along the lines of old school and/or long-term JLA-ers that haven't been emblazoned on bedsheets for decades. Dr. Fate, probably.

Hawkman? Atom? Spectre? Thinking of ones that have been around as long as an average human lifespan.

Oh, I knew Shazam, too, from my dad's book.

also xp Phantom Stranger. Or Vixen!

xpost Josh mentioned upthread that he was largely familiar with DC heroes via a collection of first issues his dad had.

oh okay, that make more sense. I was wondering if your dad was CC Beck!

Oh: Nightwing

Green Arrow just finished its eighth consecutive year as a primetime television show!

Lol, yeah, I had a book of DC origins or something like that, which had a lot of the most obvious subjects in it. But no, Green Arrow, Atom, Spectre, Black Canary, Dr. Fate, Martian Manhunter ... never heard of them. If you told me those were made up characters in some contemporary superhero satire like "The Boys" I'd believe you. Oh, wait, I know Hawkman! But Hawkman might have been in that DC coffee table book.

DC as a comics company has been very bad at promoting any character individually aside from a handful of Batverse main characters for a while now.

Green Arrow's origin is "bought a bow and arrow," tbf, not hard to catch up

xpost It's true. It says something that all of these characters have been around long enough to have great grandchildren, are still utilized in the comics as well as other media, and hardly anyone outside of the nerdlinger elite has any idea they exist.

xp

also once he was super-rich but got radicalised when he lost it, and turned into Whatabout Man. which his simp white wealthy-middle-class pals would roll their eyes endlessly at, waiting for him to stfu so they could go back to brutalizing the poor

Must-read thread of old: THE FINGER: or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love Green Arrow

lol @ THE FINGER

I expected that to be a much longer recap: THE FINGER must have been an ILC meme for a while before Huk threaded

Yeah, it must've been. I recall many more instances of Oliver jamming THE FINGER in everyone's face.

MZS in praise of the Snyder Cut:

Let's take a moment and talk about the look of the movie, because it's key to what makes the project feel unified. "Zack Snyder's Justice League" is shot in the squarish, roughly 4x3 "academy" ratio, rather than the narrow-and-wide format preferred by most epics. Snyder chose it because the IMAX frame happens to be that shape, and then he decided to frame non-IMAX shots that way for consistency's sake. The result has the subtle psychological effect of making this new-ish work feel mysteriously "old." This perception is amplified by Fabian Wagner's cinematography, which emphasizes the vertical over the horizontal, leaves lots of negative space around the actors' faces and bodies, and isn't afraid to put gauzy filters over closeups and create smeary or halo-like lighting effects that make things feel dreamy or metaphorical rather than "real."

When Junkie XL's score is blasting and the members of the Justice League are doing heroic things and not blabbing amongst themselves, suddenly we're watching the superhero version of a symphonically grand, late-period silent epic in the vein of "Intolerance," "Sunrise," or "Metropolis"—just scene after scene of impeccably composed panoramas, like those mammoth oil paintings that depict tiny figures in the foreground dwarfed by mountains and sky. Except in this case, it's sometimes the heroes and villains who are dwarfed by landscapes and/or the cosmos, and other times mortals look up in awe at superheroes looming overhead (often silhouetted against sunlight, clouds, fire, or atmospheric haze).

Uncharacteristically for Snyder, the camera doesn't move unless it needs to, and the scene doesn't cut away until it has wrung out the last drop of whatever vibe it was cultivating. Throughout, the direction seems not merely unhurried, but meditative, to the point of pokiness. This the "Satantango" of superhero flicks: an arthouse tailbone-killer. The point is not to shovel plot information at the viewer. The point is to create a fantastic world where metaphors are real, and to give you time to roam around in it and savor all the details. Scenes often start before long before screenwriting manuals tell you they should (with characters approaching and/or entering regions, cities, or facilities) and continue way past the point when significant exposition has been communicated. This is a feature, not a bug. And it results in a good number of the scenes and sequences that make the film feel special, even as they eliminate any possibility that "Zack Snyder's Justice League" will tell a propulsive, coherent, orderly tale.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/zack-snyders-justice-league-movie-review-2021

interesting review for sure

even as they eliminate any possibility that "Zack Snyder's Justice League" will tell a propulsive, coherent, orderly tale

How to bury a lede.

sounds good imo

https://slate.com/culture/2021/03/justice-league-review-snyder-cut-excessive-ridiculous-great.html

I'm a littttle tempted

Any critic w/ MZS’s knowledge base can cite Tarr or Murnau to polish any old turd. The Junkie XL paragraphs in particular reads like Armond White-like trolling.

All I know is that the Junkie XL song with Gary Numan still bangs

suddenly we're watching the superhero version of a symphonically grand, late-period silent epic in the vein of "Intolerance," "Sunrise," or "Metropolis"

lol I don't even need to see this movie to know this is BS.

Though I am I guess intrigued it's 1.66. I had no idea (even though that info has been out there all along).

1.66, the number of the League

Or is it Academy ratio? Either way, the devil must be very pleased.

it's 1.33 from what I'm seeing

here's a dissenting review: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-03-15/justice-league-zack-snyder-cut-review-hbo-max

You mean a dissenting review that doesn't invoke Murnau, Lang and Tarr in the context of a glum Super Friends movie?

I confess I wrote off the MZS review after he called Speed Racer a "non-comic book" movie

I like MZS cause he's one of the few major ish critics who still talks in specific terms about technical aspects of filmmaking and doesn't just tell me Themes Good or Themes Bad

Any critic w/ MZS’s knowledge base can cite Tarr or Murnau to polish any old turd

I want a timestamp for the fun-sounding Flash scene MZS talks about, will check those three minutes out

So is anyone going to hatewatch and liveblog on this thread?

would rather go to a 6 hour theatrical production of Garbage Pail Kids as directed by Julie Taymor

1.66, the number of the League

― Red Nerussi (Neanderthal), Monday, March 15, 2021 3:19 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Heard Bruce Dickinson when I read this and truly LOL’ed. Thank you.

A lot of people were shocked by Justice League’s 4:3 aspect ratio so I rounded up a few really great widescreen alternatives instead for those who just can’t get past it https://t.co/1uaHQPfjWB

— Sean O'Kane (@sokane1) March 18, 2021

I watched the first 20 mins for fun this morning. I'm judging Nick Cave a little bit for letting one of the songs he wrote about the death of his son get used in this, but I get it, $$$

I’m about an hour in. This is hot garbage and I’m a lifelong comics reader/ Jack Kirby fan yadda yadda. This is just a big videogame,right?

Watching purely out of boredom and curiosity. And because Gal Gadot.

i know I said there are no bad actors but she is a truly terrible actor

and person!

She is awful but I don’t come to this stuff for the acting. Hell even DaFoe and Irons go HAM in this sludge.

Apokolips inhabited by grey burn victims.

thing is like, the O.G. Justice League cut was like a Kurosawa film compared to Batman v Supes anyway.

there's nothing remarkable about it, it's boring, there's no reason to watch it more than once, but....it was at least competent to a degree.

I couldn't see much beneath the surface that made me think "oh man, there's a great movie trying to come out of this shell!". who gaf about another cut of this shit.

kinda like the time they released the Schrader cut of Exorcist 4, called Dominion, and it was way better than Exorcist 4 but still sucked.

i’m so hyped

stoked for the Brad review of this, ngl

My God this Gadot voiceover narrating the history of Apokolips vs The Old Gods or some shit. And Darkseid is a claymation dudebro. I’m gonna watch something else. I feel guilt at wasting precious minutes of my life on this lol.

I liked BVS, a fascist movie about fascists. definitely preferable to candy colored quippy movies about fascists

the latest Harley Quinn cartoon is way better than this shit

This thing could use some color.

for anyone who was wondering which superhero Snyder sees himself as, the opening credits placement make clear that it's batfleck

who's gonna tell him that he's Stone Boy

Also, MZS review is trolling in that review. Has to be. Or he was completely baked.

why on earth would you watch this sober

Just want to start this over

lolmg

The Martian Manhunter Scene - Zack Snyder Justice League #ZackSnydersJusticeLeague #ZackSnyder #SnyderCut #JusticeLeagueSnyderCut pic.twitter.com/OiCNY1EaR8

— InfinityMcu (@infinity_mcu) March 18, 2021

Mirror (1975) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) dir. Zack Snyder pic.twitter.com/HgceoB6omY

— Martin Kessler (@MovieKessler) March 18, 2021

xpost did Harold Pinter direct that

Hahaha

I just wanted to hear him pronounce J’onn J’onnz

It's free to stream in the UK, it turns out

Costs even less not to watch it.

that'll do it for my watching of this movie i think

who's gonna tell him that he's Stone Boy

the Subs have a sense of humour

so far the funniest thing in the movie is the sequence where WW breaks up a very comics-y heist which she is only able to thwart because roose bolton insists on setting up a delay timer to go with the bomb. they all stand around and wait for her to show up while it ticks away. cool plan!

there are in fact TWO nick cave needle drops in the first hour, including one set to a slomo Aquaman taking off his shirt and staring down some bodacious waves

snyder stans plus everyone hate watching it ironically, I'm guessing this is going to set streaming records

not from meee

Snyder went on some zoom chat last night and called out organised toxic bros and hateful speech among his stans.

Comicsgate king and grifter supreme Eth4n V4n Sciv3r promptly responded by joking that not only can Snyder not stop him from killing Chinese folks, he now wants to line them up and mow them down with a tommy-gun, as Stan Lee wanted to (Stan probably did not want this).

jesus

I know the bar is low but it's nice that Snyder spoke up

EVS needs to be melted down. What a waste of human tissue he is.

I’m like 45 minutes in and I don’t hate it yet.

it’s basically a Tarsem joint is how I break it down to an extent.

3 more hours so I reserve the right to hate it at any time, but I at least get what he’s going for here, kinda epic “what would gods vs gods look like” vibe vs marvel’s “friendly neighborhood regular folks w/power + responsibility”

my friend said the movie went from mediocre and meh to outright insanely bad once the epilogue is reached

okay, I’m through the Flash/“song to the siren” bit and pausing here but so far I stand with MZS and Chaw. theatrical release was hot garbage. so far this is not.

I at least get what he’s going for here, kinda epic “what would gods vs gods look like” vibe vs marvel’s “friendly neighborhood regular folks w/power + responsibility”

hmmm

This is hot garbage and I’m a lifelong ... Kirby fan yadda yadda. This is just a big videogame,right?

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Friday, March 19, 2021 6:35 AM (eight hours ago)

https://i.imgur.com/IHV2Rd5.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4T6im2y.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8n81G5h.jpg

i mean, Snyder is at his best when he’s avoiding any attempt at naturalism or dialogue or human character beats and just doing big comix panel cutscenes with some narration. the more this thing is like 300 the better! there’s a reason Owls of Ga’Hoole is his most accomplished work!

hence why I’m citing Tarsem here.

has he done any cutscenes that actually look like Kirby tho

not that I’ve seen yet

which tbf I have zero expectations for this thing kirbywise. but even darkseid truly has zero kirbyness.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HGcZdmSV6rw/Uww1ZXvZk8I/AAAAAAAAUUU/Km-QiOhOs6k/s1600/Steppenwolf-NewGods07.JPG

https://www.mandatory.com/assets/uploads/gallery/snyder-cut-trailer/justice_league_the_snyder_cut_-_official_trailer_2021___dc_fandome.gif

same energy

Yeah for me the first Thor flick and Ragnarok, Black Panther and Captain America: First Avenger had plenty of Kirbyness with CATFA almost feeling like a pure homage at times. I got no Kirby vibes from the hour I watched of this steaming pile. Also, you’d think Snyder would know that playing with scale, color and texture like Kirby did creates a sense of the sublime ( og meaning). A Mother Box is impressive because it’s tiny and not the size of a microwave. But dude adheres to the Bigger Is Better school of filmmaking.

the size of a microwave

!, lol

I mean tbf there has been a variety of different Mother Boxes but yeah the standard issue one is in fact palm-sized.

Maybe we hold out for some actual Kirby vibe from DuVernay's Fourth World/New Gods/whatever they're calling it? Not holding my breath but it seems at least somewhat more likely in that case.

The first Cap is just about the most faithful page-to-screen adaptation the MCU has produced, as much of the Cap origin stuff was lifted directly from the Lee & Kirby Cap origin flashback.

Lol the Martian Manhunter scene is so awkward.

Making me quite want to watch it actually.

The more I hear about this, the more interesting it becomes

I've still only watched the first hour but I can't imagine this tops the BVS director's cut for Peak Snyder tbh, just watch that, it's only 3 hours long

it also has the bonus of featuring very little Gal Gadot

kinda baffled by the Godot hate

her acting is shall we say not so good

Hating for Gadot

has it been widely remarked that the DC and Marvel gestalts have now switched places? Re: 50s/60s/70s, DC was sunny, friendly neighborhood, clear cut morality, whereas if there was any evidence of grimdark, it was associated with Marvel, alongside heroes with feet of clay,"there are life and death consequences in these comics…"

lol Neil

xp I'm not sure this will make me popular on this thread (or in my head), but the 70s were 50 years ago..

though Marvel's angst was its selling point from creation, i feel like Miller and Moore's work for DC kickstarted the grim and gritty era in the 80's

Gadot is an awful actress, and I massively disagree with her political opinion re: Palestine, and yet she seems like a nice person, has a lot of screen presence despite not being able to act, and she is really hot. A conundrum.

I would have argued against "Gadot is an awful actress" before WW84

I don't know that it's quite fair to judge an actor who has spent the last five years stuck in the morass of reshoots and reedits in the Snyder-verse. I think she has potential, once she breaks out the franchises she's been stuck in.

I don't think she's the greatest actress, but as Wonder Woman, she is magnificent. Not just her obvious hotness, but she just seems to embody the character really well - vibes, screen presence, what-have-you

Yeah, I think she's the easily the best casting of the DCEU main heroes, but I still don't think she's given enough to work with.

I would agree w "Gadot was well cast" if all she had to do was pose. unfortunately she has actual dialogue from time to time

My point is that the actual dialogue she has to work with in these DC movies is 75% trash, which I don't hold against her.

Alfred: "It's been a long time since Luther's warning. No attacks. No barbarians at the gate."

Batman: "Well, maybe the barbarians don't use... a gate."

I was kinda excited to see the clusterfucky weirdness of this but I could barely last ten minutes. It looks like shit and it's boring!

My point is that the actual dialogue she has to work with in these DC movies is 75% trash, which I don't hold against her.

has she ever been good in anything, though? she has lots of credits

fast and furious stans can weigh in here

Besides the DCEU and Fast & Furious movies, I think she's only been in a handful of action flicks, I haven't seen any of those. She's in the next Branagh Poirot remake and will be in yet another action flick with Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne Johnson for Netflix.

lots of people are capable of being good in action movies while delivering stock dialogue tbh

one of my many hot takes is that the best casting in the dceu is batfleck

couldn't find a more perfect bruce wayne if they tried

my possibly even hotter take is that middle aged wide sad man ben affleck is just a lot of fun to watch in almost anything

Cavill as Superman is pretty unimpeachable, it's just a shame that the movies around him are what they are.

Batfleck is... fine, for the older Bruce I suppose. But strong disagree on Cavill, I think he's absolutely terrible casting for Superman.

starting tonight i'm gonna watch man of steel -> bvs -> snyder's justice league

:D

Cavill is perfect for Snyder's version of Superman, just not for the one most normal people actually like

whose versions of Bruce Wayne do you like / use as a standard Brad?

I still hold Keaton as best Bruce Wayne.

uh keaton's the only one who mattered to me before batfleck. keaton still unsurpassed in being both a covincing bruce wayne and not looking completely fucking ridiculous in a batsuit

but i love what affleck brings to the role, he exudes that overgrown poor little rich boy stuff

oh i also really liked val kilmer as bruce but he's such a marginal focus in batman forever that it's harder for me to get a sense of the performance

George Clooney was an average George Clooney in his Batman movie

i actually think clooney is outrageously terrible in batman & robin, like there's barely a trace of the guy from out of sight or ocean's eleven in his performance

this is of course one of the things i find really fun about batman & robin

uma thurman and arnold schwarzenegger are perfectly aware of the kind of movie they're in. clooney either seems so contemptuous of it that he's stopped trying, or he is so confused that he has no idea which tone to strike. maybe both

Yes, hence "average Clooney" which I hoped would give the jokey inference of "terrible Batman"

Also, before his performance, I had no idea that I was so vehemently opposed to the idea of a smirking Bruce Wayne or rendered nipples on the Batsuit. I also submit that I never should have been placed in a position to form an opinion on whether the Batsuit should have nipples on it in the first place.

lmao rip joel schumacher you absolute king

the movie, as garbage as it is, is massively entertaining, and I 100% agree with your take on Thurman and Schwarzenegger; Thurman in particular almost singlehandedly saves the movie

Clooney seems like a good choice for a movie that actually has some Bruce in it - that Oceans / OoS charisma would fit well with an Englehart-style guy who likes both his jobs and enjoys charming babes.,Haven’t seen the Schumachers, though, and I know Clooney says that he personally sucks in the role.

current DC casting is FUCKING BORING which is in keeping with their approach 100%

I like Momoa and the dude who plays Flash. I'd probably like Cyborg if I remembered anything he did in the original cut of the movie.

I feel like this tweet perfectly captures how I feel about Zack Snyder:

I’ve gone from hating Zack Snyder and watching his movies to respecting Zack as an artist and not watching his movies. It’s called growth.

— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) March 18, 2021

A different version of Cyborg played by a completely different guy is a great character in the Doom Patrol series.

Yeah, I like that Cyborg a lot

I watched another hour. There's some absolutely wild stuff in the Cyborg scenes.

and seriously gadot is like chrystal bell level wooden in this, it's almost swinging around to becoming an oddball virtue

ezra miller sucks a lot in this (not his fault I don't think, just gets stuck with horrible, horrible banter)

steppenwolf looks a bit like xavier renegade angel

FWIW I’ve seen it all now. Ezra Miller weirdly almost saves it by being an enthusiastic goof because otherwise when everything is epic, nothing is epic. All the Flash sequences in general were lovely, really — the way he’s realized just feels right in a way that inspired some awe beyond ‘he run really fast.’ That said, Cyborg is the real throughline character now and it’s pretty clear why Ray Fisher has been as pissed off as he has been on multiple levels now with the earlier version and everything else to boot.

i'm around a half hour in

superman's dying scream travels around the world
when the scream hits magic boxes they start to hum
the box in wonder woman's homeland is guarded by a fortress full of scantily clad soldiers
the box stops humming then starts again
some aliens teleport into the temple, say that "defenders always fail", and fight the soldiers
the queen hookshots the box into her hands
a soldier says the queen must "seal the cage". the queen orders the exit to be sealed off while she is in it, barely making it under the last door while guards holding it up get crushed
the temple falls off a cliff
the aliens from inside the temple fly out of it and attack the queen and more soldiers
the lead alien takes the box and teleports away
what am i watching

Wait, the Mother Boxes hum?!

You're fired, Snyder. Pack yr shit.

ok I admit I lost interest and bailed for good about halfway through

What, with just a few hours to go? Wimp.

Snyder's Fountainhead adap is set in the DC Universe:

Oh. pic.twitter.com/Rv7xw2zFBW

— Brian Hiatt (@hiattb) March 20, 2021

all right, it begins, i'm twenty minutes into man of steel. the hard sci-fi-ass krypton prologue was fuckin good

It is! I seriously love that whole part.

That was really the only part of the movie liked. It was a good alternative to the opening of Reeve's Superman, that 20 mins

i really liked the whole movie!!!! the heavy metal-esque kryptonian designs were definitely the high-point

also henry cavill.................. is very hot

after the prologue my favorite part of the movie was the dream sequence/hallucination where zod dumps a ton of exposition and kansas gradually turns into a field of skulls. think that scene alone explains why i like zack snyder

oh and the fortress of solitude with the morphing silver recreations of kryptonian history? amazing visual

i also love the opening of bats vs. supes, think it is very beautiful, down to young bruce levitating in a vortex of bats. my favorite live-action depiction of batman's origins

henry cavill is super hot but i find he’s hotter in everything BUT this superman stuff. it’s like Snyder deadens his hottness somehow >:(

Guys, it's not compulsory to watch this shit.

whew

I watched about 1 hour last night and went to bed. Partner stayed up, and I laughed when I opened this thread and learned it is 4 hrs long. They watched the whole thing and loved it.

I might have missed this chat earlier on, but did they add any more weird Kirby shit? My enjoyment of these movies now rests on how much weird Kirby shit they’re allowed to work in

we discussed that Snyder appears to not be trying, let alone allowed, to work weird Kirby shit in despite using the names of Kirby shit

The intro to Man of Steel is very funny for the image of Crowe insisting that he'll take the Marlon Brando role but only if he gets to punch stuff - his perfect role of a Zapp Brannigan live action movie must be getting closer.

But of course none of it is meant to be funny.

Notably Kirby gets a standalone creators credit at the end for the Fourth World specifically. (I say standalone because the other creator credits, Finger/Kane for Batman etc, are bunched together, so why Kirby's was on its own, who knows.)

after the prologue my favorite part of the movie was the dream sequence/hallucination where zod dumps a ton of exposition and kansas gradually turns into a field of skulls. think that scene alone explains why i like zack snyder

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, March 20, 2021 6:33 PM (yesterday)

oh and the fortress of solitude with the morphing silver recreations of kryptonian history? amazing visual

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, March 20, 2021 6:35 PM (yesterday)

And even though I'm not a Snyder fan-as-such, fully agreed with Brad here that these plus the opening sequence as mentioned are the best parts of this one.

But of course none of it is meant to be funny.

Snyder's humorlessness is an asset for the most part tbh, it means there's a minimum of insufferable self-aware quippy banter (at least until the flash shows up, sigh) and provides weird moments that are genuinely hilarious regardless of intention

with more distance i'm ready to call man of steel a fuckin good superhero movie

i already liked batman vs superman and i'm sure this is not an original observation, but it really is zack snyder's best adaptation of watchmen

no one stays good in this world

the oldest lie in america is that power can be innocent

etc.

for all the intended realism of the nolan films, this is the only movie that had the courage to depict batman straight up as a traumatized rich boy fascist

this is why asshole Batfleck works!!

fwiw re: rights and creators, Jim Starlin posted this back in '17, no idea if it holds true for their use of other characters

Just received a very big check from D.C. Entertainment for my participation in Batman V Superman, Dawn of Justice (Anatoli Knyyazev), much bigger than anything I've gotten for Thanos, Gamora and Drax showing up in any of the various Marvel movies they appeared in, combined. Guess I'll finally have to sit down and watch the movie.

i also think batman vs. superman is a really great sequel to man of steel, so many emotional beats from the former pay off in the latter, cf. pa kent's death by tornado eerily echoed by superman sacrificing himself in the center of the doomsday tornado

gal gadot's idea of acting seems to be taking a really deep breath before some of her lines

i will never accept that Pa Kent - portrayed by Kevin Costner, no less - gave up his life for a dog, which in turn made Superman go full emo neckbreaker Jesus

anecdotally, DC do seem to be better at paying creators for movie stuff

I remember Chuck Dixon saying he's made a decent amount from Bane's appearances

Apparently DC have been reeling back substantially on that since AT&T took over. (It's remarkable that it lasted until 2017, as it was a Levitz initiative.)

is dream pa kent's pile of rocks explained in this one

this movie fuckin rocks y'all

^^^ i posted that ten minutes in when the icelandic women were singing a tribute to aquaman

def the highlight of hour 1

they should pipe that tune into the cable knit sweater sections of j crews everywhere

i'm not an authority on the subject but for my money the lois and clark in kansas scenes are the most beautiful i've ever seen in a superhero movie

also, four hours later, i thought this was phenomenal. i was curious about watching the whedon version to see how much worse it is but... yeah, no thanks, i don't really want to know

xpost Sunset sure hung around a long time in that part, all I’m saying.

are we sure we are not being trolled
i mean, i am sitting here watching a four hour tone poem of a movie i dont care about AND its presented in square-o-vision because one day imax might be available again
surely snyder is somewhere laughing heartily

are we sure we are not being trolled

https://i.imgur.com/aYYrfPF.jpeg

lol fair

the flash sequences are all incredibly lovely, especially the big one toward the end, which is maybe the most colorful thing snyder's ever filmed

the 30-minute epilogue was the first time i felt the film was overextended but the batman dream sequence is totally worth it, it reminded me of dream sequences in like... the direct-to-video phantasm sequels. also rob zombie movies. hazy handheld digital sunset melting over the silhouetted figures in the foreground

also lmao that man of steel and bvs contained almost no speedramping whatsoever and this film has it in spades, snyder was just building up to it i guess lol

i also feel like a huge mark for these movies, for some reason, but watching them all in a row made superman being resurrected without any moral center feel DEVASTATING bc of his arc in the previous two films

Wait, Brad, you watched this monster but skipped the theatrical version?

yep!!!!

Same here.

the flash sequences are all incredibly lovely, especially the big one toward the end, which is maybe the most colorful thing snyder's ever filmed

True!

That's like the ultimate "this tastes terrible, and such small portions, too!"

i mean the color stands out for obvious reasons but it is truly psychedelically colorful

We decided to watch this in installments & so far I’m kinda...liking it?

I think getting to spend more time w the characters esp cyborg actually helps (well, as much as it can) so it isnt just all slam-bang action, aliums & superhero quips. I mean, normally this shit drives me crazy (with the exception of like, LOTR and Kubrick maybe) - tell your story in less than 2 hours or gtfo - but this might be a rare exception for me.

Oh and I stand corrected, Henry Cavill might be the hottest he’s ever been in this of all the Snyder movies. but also the extended shirtlessness where Supes goes ham on the J League maybe clouding my judgement bc omg O_O

Batman looks like an old beanbag compared to everyone else, like even his costume looks weirdly dusty lol

Non-buff Wonder Woman weirds me out. She looks like she’s going to ComicCon. I like buff movie WW.

Love Cyborg.

And I love Flash but only bc its Ezra Klein

Anyway. So far not terrible or even boring.

I truly still do not give af about Aquaman though. I thought the cartoon was dumb even as a kid.

vg i predict you will have no use for the epilogue but otherwise this movie seemed like your kind of thing to me

i don't know anything about aquaman other than jason momoa is hot, it's enough for me lol

I made it to the halfway mark. This was clearly never designed to be a single movie. It has more lore and prophecy bullshit that I'm glad Wheadon tore out, but also a more consistent tone.

i got to see a clip of a "joke" whedon inserted into the superman freakout and he should be given no credit whatsoever for what he did to this film

superman: "do you bleed?"

batman, in an obvious reshoot that has no connection to the feeling of the rest of the scene: "oh yeah something's definitely bleeding"

barf

I made it to the halfway mark. This was clearly never designed to be a single movie.

yeah, there was a long period when this was announced as a miniseries for HBO Max, but someone realised it would have required renegotiating contracts for the actors, so it suddenly became a four-hour movie with chapter headings

i think it’s better as a singular thing

the chapters are nice as natural break points but i found myself just rolling through it. the pacing.... is good

The pace stops dead to introduce a new character at least twice, with the Flash and Cyborg.

Doing this in sections is far more tolerable. Plenty of stuff early on is gloriously overdone

You all are masochists!

:D

Man, debating the relative merits of Whedon and Snyder is like debating the relative merits of shit and pus.