First, a disclaimer:
What you are about to read is the opinion of one person. Some of what you will read here are facts, such as names, dates, locations, and amounts, but aside from that, the rest of it is OPINION. I hope you keep that in mind before going any further.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.
For what seemed like an eternity, fans of "auteur" Zack Snyder, the "visionary" filmmaker responsible for the tone-deaf DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, the panel-by-panel adaptation of Frank Miller's 300, the tragic cinematic adaptation of WATCHMEN, the incomprehensible faux-feminist SUCKER PUNCH, the lackluster reimagining of the quintessential superhero in MAN OF STEEL, and the thoroughly unpleasant and almost unwatchable BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE had been clamoring with the same bombast and subtlety as one of Hans Zimmer's scores to have Warner Brothers to release what has come to be the Ark of the Covenant for DC uberfans: The "Snyder Cut" of what was supposed to be the magnum opus of the DC Extended Universe, 2017's JUSTICE LEAGUE.
These fans have bombarded social media with cries and howls of how Snyder's artistic vision was compromised by the studio after he left post-production due to the tragic suicide of his daughter Autumn. The film was then handed to a big part of the Marvel brain-trust in tragically gross Joss Whedon in the hopes that he could replicate what he did for the MCU with THE AVENGERS, which is a film that miraculously cracked the code of doing a massive budget ensemble superhero film, and Warner Brothers were clearly hoping for a similar result. Now there's some stuff in the theatrical cut of JUSTICE LEAGUE that I really like, but overall, it's a pretty sub-par film and that showed with the film's severe underperformance at the box office. But where I am very middling about that film, I also understand that there are people that are absolutely rabid about how much Whedon and the studio tainted the film, trying for a more light-hearted approach to the DCEU which is in direct opposition to Snyder's sturm und drang super-serious tone and for these fans, the film failed both critically and commercially because:
It wasn't Snyder's vision.
Although, if you look at the massive box office successes of WONDER WOMAN and AQUAMAN, both of which are much less serious and, at least in the case of AQUAMAN, flat-out goofy AF, both of them are great (or again, in the case of AQUAMAN, great fun) without all the monochromatic moments of dour, joyless grimdark mayhem that Snyder had committed to doing with both MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN V SUPERMAN.
But after three years of campaigning (that even included many of the stars of the film), creating online petitions and hashtagging, Warner finally announced a few months back that the new online premium streaming service HBO MAX would be releasing ZACK SNYDER'S JUSTICE LEAGUE on its service exclusively in 2021. According to Warner Media and Snyder himself, this cut will be extended from its exactly 120-minute theatrical runtime to an astounding four hours in length. It will also include finished visual effects that is apparently costing Warner an additional $20-40 million.
So a fan campaign for a major motion picture has finally worked! All the hard work, if one can call it that, has paid off for both the fans and Snyder.
This is a precedent that is both astounding and a little troubling, but I'll get to that a little later.
The real issue is: will this actually improve the film?
Now I don't necessarily like making this comparison, but Snyder fans are a lot like Trump supporters and let me explain what I mean: in the eyes of the MAGA crowd (which, ironically, has a pretty decent crossover on the Venn diagram of Snyder Cut obsessives if you look at their Twitter accounts), Trump can do no wrong. He is infallible. So in a lot of ways, Snyder fans will already declare absolute victory regardless of whether or not the film is any good. Just the mere fact that it exists is already a triumph for the biggest fans and they'll already declare it better than the original despite the quality. They did the same thing with the "Ultimate Cut" of BATMAN V SUPERMAN, which is both less interesting and less entertaining with bloating what was already a slogfest of a film with 31 minutes of additional footage. And now a film that was at least a tight 2 hours is being expanded to a whopping 4. It's literally doubling its runtime. So based on the trailer that was shown during the DC "FanDome" experience on August 22nd, what can we expect from this cut?
I can certainly understand Ray Fisher's push to get this released because it looks like we're going to be getting a lot more of Cyborg's backstory and B-plot. Personally, I like the addition of a person of color being added to the overwhelmingly white JL, but where that worked with the addition of John Stewart in the brilliant JUSTICE LEAGUE and JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cartoons, Cyborg has always been a walking Deus Ex Machina to me. And there will likely be more of the Frankenstein's Creature allegory as Vic continues to gain more powers. And apparently, we're going to get to see Miles Dyson die again because that is Joe Morton's lot in life. And this is really the only plus I see to this film. Black heroes have been sidelined again and again in superhero comics and cinema, and Fisher's experience during Whedon's work on the film seems to be beyond dismal, so I hope his added scenes will be far more pleasurable.
We're also going to get to see Superman in the fabled "black suit" aka his resurrection suit from the "Death of Superman" comic arc of the 90's. Will that be significant in the way people want it to be? It's unlikely, but at least it's there. Sadly, we are not getting the accompanying mullet.
We're also looking at getting additional stuff with Barry Allen. Yay. Obviously all this stuff was shot prior to Ezra Miller allegedly choking a woman at a bar in Iceland, but there still is a solo FLASH film in the works with Miller attached to star and Ben Affleck to reprise as Batman in that same film... young, goofy hero with father-figure older, wealthier, wiser hero who brought him into the fray the first time around? Why does that sound so familiar? For me, while he had most of the "funny" moments in JL, Miller's take on Barry Allen was just miserable and almost as annoying as Jesse Eisenberg's turn as Lex Luthor. Let's just say that casting was never Snyder's strongest suit. Yes, we've gotten Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach and Gerard Butler as Leonidas and J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Michael Shannon as General Zod and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, but those are outliers in a significant amount of miscasting. Whether or not Barry is supposed to be just a monumental space-case or someone on the spectrum is still unknown, but it looks like part of his extended arc will be saving Iris West.
There looks like there's some additional stuff with Aquaman, but we have an entire film of his already and we're getting more.
Also, we seem to be getting more with Diana. Again, one terrific solo film but WW84 was... not great. At all. In fact, it was pretty awful the more I think about it.
But the biggest takeaway is that it looks like we'll be getting more Fourth World mythology. There's a big cave drawing of Darkseid and a shot of him doing some curls with a giant axe and this looks like a NuMetal album cover but whatever.
There's more looks at the Mother Boxes. It looks like they might also be spending some of that 20 to 40 million on making Steppenwolf look less like a PS3 cutscene animatic, so that is probably going to take up the biggest chunk of the added footage, and we've seen more of his stuff as he brutally hacks Amazoians to pieces with his big ol' axe...
...unless they spend that time with Superman's return.
I fully predict that his return battle against the League will be extended because Snyder's obsessive need to make Superman more badass is apparent. I also predict that he will be a much bigger part of the final battle against Steppenwolf.
We're apparently also getting Batman saying "Fuck". What a fantastic addition to the character that will bring. So many dimensions! So much depth! I get shivers just imagining the possibilities of a Batman who says "Fuck."
And we're also... going to get... Jared Leto's Joker.
Let's see... what else do I predict? I predict that a lot of Joss' jokes will be gone. I predict that this extra footage will look a lot different than what was in the theatrical cut just from a color-grading standpoint. Zack is not a huge fan of bold colors in his films. He prefers more muted tones in case you couldn't tell. I also predict a lot more foreshadowing of the "Knightmare" or "Injustice" vibe inserting itself here. Gotta get that grimdark edgelord stuff in there.
I also predict a lot less joy to be had here. Despite its obvious and overwhelming flaws, the theatrical cut of this film has some pop every now and again. When Superman arrives near the end, he's suddenly sporting a much more... well, Superman-ish personality. He's able to crack a joke while still working hard to save the day. He's a lot more concerned with saving lives than defeating the bad guy. He seems like he's actively doing good, although I predict a scene when he's resurrected and either Lois or Martha (WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME???) to try to talk him out of doing anything more because he's already died for the world and therefore continuing to drive the Christ allegory into your head like a railroad spike. Maybe there will be another appearance by Pa Kent trying to convince him that Steppenwolf destroying the earth will be a good thing because of something that happened in Smallville. "You see, son... the whole town caught fire once, and most of the people died, but it ended up being a good thing because the survivors rebuilt everything and it mostly killed the people on welfare anyway. By the way, have you read Atlas Shrugged yet?"
There are a few more things that gall me about this latest teaser, though, and while some of them are mild, there's one that just pisses me off to no end, and that's the use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" playing over the trailer and that's because it's a totally inappropriate use of the song. It's a song about tragedy and loss. Leonard is not a happy songwriter and this song is one of his most beautiful, most haunting and most tragic. And since this is not a film about tragedy, I can only assume that Zack wanted it on the trailer so it will A: bring an unnecessary element of gravitas to the release and B: so that the only part most people will pay attention to will be the exclamations of the word hallelujah as if to say, "Hallelujah! This is an incredibly important film and you people made it happen and I finally get to put my vision of this film out there for the world to see!" It's just so fucking terrible that I wanted to reach through my TV and punch everyone involved.
Then there's this tweet where Snyder attacks Forbes Magazine film critic Scott Mendelson for giving an opinion of what he saw in the same trailer that did debut on FanDome but was leaked prior to the actual release, which is something that's the fault of the studio and not Mendelson:
This is just fucking irksome to no end. First of all, why is Snyder even replying to a film critic? If you have to explain your work, that's on you and not the critics. Second of all, if you're a film critic in this day and age and someone leaks a trailer for an upcoming "event" film, you can bet your ass critics are going to look at it. You can't call someone out on that. Third, why does Snyder even care what a film critic has to say about the marketing of his film? This is your victory lap. You don't need to defend it to anyone. And fourth and most egregious of all, don't you fucking tell me or ANYONE ELSE EVER that your film is for "grown-ups", Zack. It's a fucking superhero movie based on some of the most popular superheroes ever created. If it's not made in some way for kids, you've completely missed the fucking point, man.
But that is Zack Snyder all over; he's a wannabe visionary who doesn't have any vision other than the almost complete desaturation of color like he's the Mirror Universe Wes Anderson; he's an moron who thinks he's a genius because he deals with "lofty" and dark subject matter, but who has entirely missed the point of all the characters of WATCHMEN, entirely missed the point of Superman, entirely missed the point of Batman, and despite his producing of the solo film, entirely missed the point of Wonder Woman. I just really find it hard to believe that this was the person that Warner/DC handed the keys to the kingdom to.
But whatever, Zack. You have this cult of personality following where thousands of fanboys and girls wait with bated breath for your next announcement so you're at least guaranteed to please those people when this "epic" finally gets released.
But will this do anything for non-superhero fans or fans of cinema? As an avid fan of films and superhero films, it's likely I will end up starting to watch it at one point. Whether or not I finish it is completely up to the film. I got 40 minutes into SUICIDE SQUAD and just said, "fuck this noise," and turned it off which I always try to make it a point to never do, but I had to because that's an awful, awful film. Fantastical big-budget work is not David Ayer's forte. As long as he sticks to L.A. cops doing horrific shit, he can remain in his wheelhouse. I don't think that most people outside the fans of the genre will care, but as people like Snyder and Ayer have stated, and I'm paraphrasing here, "this is a film for the fans; not the critics," which is the dumbest thing to say especially when you're working against the largest entertainment behemoth in the world in Disney. Not once has a director of a MCU film ever said that either "I made this for the fans and not the critics" or "this is a film for grown-ups". Also, no MCU film has ever scored as low on Metacritic as BATMAN V SUPERMAN, SUICIDE SQUAD or JUSTICE LEAGUE. Even with the exception of THOR: THE DARK WORLD, which is widely considered as the worst of the MCU, is at a score of 54, is just barely edged out by MAN OF STEEL, which sits at 55, two points lower than both the first THOR and IRON MAN 2 at 57. This is why the "we did it for the fans" defense is thrown out so often with films that underperform despite having popular IP.
But this is not a Marvel vs DC thing, despite some elements of fandom saying it is. This is about good entertainment. Hell, AQUAMAN still only scores a 52 on Metacritic, and I love that crazy movie. It might be over-long, it might be kind of nonsensical, and the performances might not be that great, but it's never boring, a sin committed by all of Snyder's DC work. There are interminable stretches of time in all three of his DCEU films where we have to sit through thoughtless brooding, half-hearted speechifying, and poorly paced character beats.
Another important question: will this calculate to new subscribers to HBO MAX? When I shake my magic 8-ball, the answer is: "outlook not so good". I do forecast some new subscribers when this is released, but after they've watched it, I would predict more than 75% will cancel before the month is up, and about half of the remaining 25% or lower will just have forgotten to cancel in time and the rest will stay around because of the good programming they have there. Because HBO MAX having its weird hybrid day-and-date theatrical and subscriber-alloted rollout of almost their entire release schedule for 2021 (which is basically a bunch of films that were slated for release in 2020 anyway) is kinda cool for those of us who just feel way WAY too unsafe going to a theater now but still want to see GODZILLA VS KONG in March. And HBO has most of the best shows, like, ever. Maybe some Snyder stans can watch THE WIRE or ROME or the first few seasons of THE SOPRANOS in order to see what good storytelling can be like and still get dark shit.
Obviously none of this matters as far as new subscribers to those who are already all-in on the Snyder Cut. They're already counting the days before it's released, and more power to them. I'm glad there are people out there who will enjoy this film. I'm not interested in cinematic schadenfreude; I want all films to be good or at least I want to enjoy them. But with Snyder, I just haven't for a long time now, and based on his continuing attitude about his work, it's not likely I will again.
Remember what I said about this film being the Ark of the Covenant? It might be really shiny on the outside, but once you look into it, your face just might melt off.
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