Worlds of DC Thread

[WorzelG]

I thought the film was transferred to Joss Whedon because of a family tragedy? It wasn’t like they said this film is shit, let’s hand it to Joss Whedon?

[ltrandazzo]

I thought the film was transferred to Joss Whedon because of a family tragedy? It wasn’t like they said this film is shit, let’s hand it to Joss Whedon?

Except that they did. Google is your friend, but here’s a wikipedia article about it all - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Produc..._League_(film)

[burnmotherfucker!]

Well i did use the line of beggars can't be choosers. If you and i were making decisions, pretty sure we would tell these stories in chronological order with as much depth as possible because we grew up reading these comics and watching the cartoon series, Marvel and DC.

But yeah, we don't get to call the shots on these things and yeah it is about making the most money possible and let's not kid ourselves, just cause Marvel is owned by "the mouse" doesn't mean WB doesn't make decisions on storytelling purely on making money. It's a business, sorry to ruin anyone's perception of what these companies are after. One just seems more put out more entertaining content than the other and truthfully, it's not even close.

Yeah, that why I said "like ALL studios" in my post. Of course it's about making money, that was kind of my point. But I do think censoring films to appease an oppressive government is going a bit to far. WB wants to make money as well, of course, but they have idiots running the show so they got neither a good story nor large profits. Those two things are more related than they knew. And, honestly, the MCU doesn't really do it for me. What's more entertaining is subjective. But most people love the MCU and it's because they knew the value of telling a story without interference.

WB found out the hard way you can't just hire the Marvel guy and get him to turn up the color contrast and have everyone smiling and making dumb jokes with inspirational music playing in the background and expect it to maintain value over time.

[burnmotherfucker!]

I thought the film was transferred to Joss Whedon because of a family tragedy? It wasn’t like they said this film is shit, let’s hand it to Joss Whedon?

That's how WB tried to spin it. But my basic understanding is they wanted to change direction without actually having to, you know, make a new film and so they used Snyder's footage and watered it down with the reshoots. What's worse is they paid millions to get Whedon to redo it and he reshot things that were completely unnecessary. It has to be one of the biggest wastes of millions I've ever seen.

But it's even worse than that because Snyder needed time away after the death of his daughter. A VERY reasonable request for any human. He was willing to come back on board to finish it up later but that studio wasn't willing to wait a while. Why? Because they wanted to get the film out by 2017 so that the executives could get their bonuses.

Worst of all is the film we got this week was there in 2017, all it needed was vfx and editing. They could have finished it with most of Snyder's team in place. The reshoots that were done for the new cut were really only for the bonus scenes at the end. Everything else was spent on post production. It's part of why this whole fiasco is so fascinating. We get to see exactly what decisions the studio was making. And anyone that made those decisions has a whole lot of egg on their face right now.

[sonic_discord]

I finished ZSJL on Tuesday night and watched the Half in the Bag on it immediately after (My opinions on the new cut are pretty aligned with that of the RLM guys). While I was watching the movie, I occasionally paused it and jotted down notes on my phone. As a disclaimer, I've only seen the theatrical cut of Justice League twice and it's been a couple of years since I've seen it (I wasn't willing to re-watch the two hour version before watching a 4-hour version, that sounded like a lot). So here's my thoughts:

• As I mentioned on the previous page, Wonder Woman is over-powered as fuck. She seems like she suddenly has the combined powers of The Flash and Superman.
• How many times do they need to show Aquaman taking his shirt off?
• The blonde woman smelling his shirt was a little weird
• SO MUCH excessive/over-the-top destruction during every fight scene (this applies to all of the Snyder DC movies). Example: Darkseid smacks the ground with his axe and it's like an Earthquake combined with a volcano eruption.
• Ares (villain from Wonder Woman) is fighting with the good guys?? Was he a good guy back then?
• Long battle scene flashback was pretty cool and epic in scope (why did they shorten that so drastically for theatrical??). One of the better scenes in the film.
• Atlanteans and Amazons (Amazonians?) go to great lengths to conceal & protect their Mother boxes, then the humans just bury theirs in the woods. LOL!!
• After seeing the movie, Steppenwolf is actually MUCH cooler and more convincingly threatening, also has a motive (pleasing his master, Darkseid) beyond world domination, which was nice. Still pales in comparison to the character development that Thanos received, but he's SO much better than his theatrical counterpart.
• Cyborg's backstory is much more fleshed out, making him more of a three-dimensional character, but he's still such a generic character.
• Why did Batman take so long to get to the area where they fight with Superman before Lois shows up?
• Flying is much less impressive when pretty much every character can fly.
• After Miles Dyson (Cyborg's dad) took the 3rd Mother box back to his lab, how did Steppenwolf know where to go to find it? Are we to assume he was he following the scent?
• As they're taking off in that giant ship after Cyborg fixed it, the ship's wing ALMOST decapitates Alfred (or at least it looked that way)
• I liked the scene where Superman walks through his Cryptonian ship (which kinda functions as his Fortress of Solitude in these movies) to put on his suit as they play voice-overs of Jor-El's and Jonathan Kent's advice/words of wisdom to him. This part very much felt like part of a Man of Steel sequel for a moment and it made me realize how much I'd like to see that.
• Speaking of the suit, the black suit is pretty cool, but I assumed he would don it briefly and when he showed up at the end to save the day, he'd have the blue & red suit on by then. But he wears the black suit for the ENTIRE movie. Then I thought to myself, OF COURSE Snyder loves the black suit! It's already dark and devoid of color!
• Batman with the goggles reminds me a lot of Nite Owl from Watchmen (who was supposed to be a reference to/parody of Batman, so we're full-circle)
• I really like Afleck as Bruce Wayne, but when he's in costume as Batman, he looks a little puffy and maybe not as threatening as he should.
• Based on appearance alone, this might be my 2nd favorite Batmobile (Burton Batmobile is #1), but the practical/tactical military background of The Tumbler gives it the win for 2nd place. Also, the scene in The Dark Knight where the Batpod emerges from the destroyed Tumbler was pretty fucking cool. This Batmobile doesn't have any awesome surprises like that or even the scene in Batman Returns where the Burton Batmobile sheds two thirds of itself, becoming the "Batmissile" in order to traverse a narrow alley.
• Once in a while, the techno music during a fight scene or a "suit-up" scene gets annoyingly distracting
• I'm sometimes annoyed by how invincible all of the characters are. For example, Aquaman (does he have super-strength? Do they ALL??) slams through every floor of an entire six-story building and surfs out the bottom completely unscathed and unphased. It would be more interesting if at least one of these characters got injured at some point.
• There are too many close calls where a hero saves or rescues someone (sometimes another hero) at the LAST possible millisecond. It would be more effective if they only did this once, maybe twice. But I feel like they did it 4 or 5 times.
• Superman showing up to stop Steppenwolf (again, at the LAST second) was nice and felt the way it should feel when Superman shows up to save the day. When he shows up during the final battle in the theatrical cut, it doesn't feel nearly as meaningful.
• DAMN! That Parademon was about to shoot The Flash and Batman blew his fucking brains out, even got some blood & chunks of brain matter on the camera lens!
• Darkseid looks like Thanos mixed with Apocalypse (the X-Men villain, not Apokolips)
• Wait, The Flash has the ability to heal himself?? Has that always been a thing?
• This is yet another movie containing Superman where the ending revolves around rewinding time (Superman: The Movie, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut)
• WHOA!! Wonder Woman just chopped Steppenwolf's fucking head off! She's not fucking around. And in case that wasn't enough, Darkseid squished the decapitated head like a grape.
• Feels like this is about to wrap up, where's that infamous Joker scene??
• No CGI upper lip scenes for Superman AT ALL is such a WIN!
• How can Cyborg reverse the destruction of the tape recorder like that? Robo-magic?? If they had shot it the way Dr. Manhattan assembles & disassembles things in Watchmen (the tank, for example), it might make sense, but this was more like Dr. Strange using the Time Stone, even down to the thing looking brand spankin' new with no visible cracks whatsoever. I know it's a superhero movie and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to a certain extent, but they're pushing it.
• Giant vehicle Batman is standing on looks right out of The Dark Knight Returns comic.
• It's too bad this is all we'll see of Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke... speaking of which, he's a good guy now? Hanging out with Batman, Wonder Woman & Flash (who I didn't recognize at first)
• Epilogue starts out nice, but the whole Knightmare scene is really confusing and feels very tacked on and disconnected from the rest of the movie.
• Joker looks MUCH better here than he did in Suicide Squad, but he's sounding a lot more like Ledger's Joker this time. Camerawork is kind of annoying in this scene, like so flashy it's getting in the way of the performances.
• Jared Leto's Joker laugh is still terrible. Just awful.
• Martian Manhunter is completely pointless in both of his scenes. His first appearance was straight up confusing and should have been explained IN the actual movie. Both of his scenes should have been cut, he appears to exist in this movie purely for fan service alone.

Overall, I do like the Snyder cut MUCH better than the theatrical version, mostly because it's more cohesive and feels like one director's vision, not two clashing styles forced together and a ton of studio interference. In the theatrical cut, characters would just suddenly arrive at a location (or it would just cut to them already being there), without any explaination of why they went there. It was clear a lot of scenes establishing this kind of thing were cut from Whedon's version (likely at the studio's request). Plus, as the RLM guys point out, all of the lame jokes from the theatrical release are gone from this cut, including some that undermined the serious threat of the situation they were in. Joss Whedon's style just worked better for Avengers (not a dig on the MCU movies at all! In fact, I very much prefer the MCU to the DCEU). Trying to force his style into a Zack Snyder movie was a bad idea and they only did it because Whedon had directed both Avengers movies, which were both extremely successful. It's just a square peg, round hole kind of situation. I'm surprised to say that this was a huge improvement over the theatrical cut. I am glad they finally released Snyder's cut of the movie, glad I watched it, and (much like the Watchmen director's cut or the Extended Editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy), this is the only version of Justice League I'll ever watch going forward. I might recommend splitting it into two or three sessions like I did, though. Luckily, they made that easy by dividing the film into 6 chapters and an epilogue.

[neorev]

Now available on HBO Max in black and white, because why not...

https://www.ign.com/articles/zack-sn...kCG60Q5WdFDYkU

[allegate]

I read an article that said the B&W version would have a different Joker scene, hopefully that's not true.

edit: IGN is blocked so that article may even say that!

[neorev]

I read an article that said the B&W version would have a different Joker scene, hopefully that's not true.

edit: IGN is blocked so that article may even say that!

In the B&W version, Snyder replaces the epilogue knightmare scene with a brand new, exclusive scene where the Joker actually gives Batman a reacharound while laughing like a seagul.

[burnmotherfucker!]

In the B&W version, Snyder replaces the epilogue knightmare scene with a brand new, exclusive scene where the Joker actually gives Batman a reacharound while laughing like a seagul.

Thank god! Now I'll never need pornhub again

[neorev]

Thank god! Now I'll never need pornhub again

Hey, everyone has their personal kinks. You do you.

[october_midnight]

[allegate]

Wait, Sly's in this? I'm guessing he's the voice of King Shark because "Hand" sounds like him.

[october_midnight]

Wait, Sly's in this? I'm guessing he's the voice of King Shark because "Hand" sounds like him.

Yep.

[Haysey_Draws]

I'm really looking forward to this! RED HOT TAKE...i think most of them are going to die, only 3-4 will actually make the end credits, and it'll be the characters we LEAST expect!

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

Definitely feels like a James Gunn film! I'm all in, and dude brought fucking Starro into reality.

[Wretchedest]

Wow that actually looks great

[MrLobster]

I didn't want to like it...

I liked it.

"Hand."

[marodi]

Uuuuuh-huh.

I love it. It looks like pure James Gunn.

I love it so much. Just give it to me.

[allegate]

I'll be honest: I said I wouldn't go to the theaters this year. After that trailer...well, there's a strong possibility that I pony up the $ for one of those private screenings, if they do them still.

[thelastdisciple]

Reminds me a bit of Mystery Men, just from the outlandishness of the characters. Where's the Shoveler or the Bowler? What about the Spleen? ��

Looks immensely superior to David Ayer's film.

[allegate]

Alright, finished ZSJL last night. wtf at that last line? "some people call me...the Martian Manhunter"

who? what people? the fuck are you doing you fucking weirdo. Bruce's reactions were on spot though. "WTF is this green fucko doing on my porch?"

also was martha always Jon, or was that scene 100% useless?

[neorev]

Alright, finished ZSJL last night. wtf at that last line? "some people call me...the Martian Manhunter"

who? what people? the fuck are you doing you fucking weirdo. Bruce's reactions were on spot though. "WTF is this green fucko doing on my porch?"

also was martha always Jon, or was that scene 100% useless?

Yea, the Martian Manhunter stuff was so forced and, in the end, pointless. Pretty much just shoved in there to be like, "Hey, we could've had a Martian Manhunter movie, wink wink." Plus it completely deflates the impact of the Martha and Lois scene. Snyder being Snyder, and that's not a positive thing. The more you sit back and dissect this movie, the worse it gets.

[allegate]

it wasn't until listening to "How Did This Get Made?" that I realized that Jon was in Man of Steel. You know, wink wink, as it was meant to be.

Additionally, Harry Lennix plays Lieutenant General Calvin Swanwick, a United States Army general officer and the deputy commander of United States Northern Command.

I was surprised they liked it as much as they did, though at the same time I also understood their reasoning very well. I think if there's a like - not love, not hate - version of how a person views this film that's it. They like it, they don't hate it. They did change my mind on a few things but I think that if I watched it again I'd still find those same things as faults so I don't know.

it was fine. there's going to be a fan edit that makes it five hours and there's going to be a non-fan edit that makes it 3 hours, maybe less. both of these things will happen and both are fine for those respective fans.

[dlb]

Suicide Squad looks absolutely amazing despite my initial scepticism. Can't wait to see it and they really nailed King Shark. (fun fact: they hired the same German voice-over for Sylvester Stallone, even for such a "small" role)

Still waiting for a chance to watch ZSJL without having to pay a fortune. Hated the initial movie, but I always thought that BvS was quite cool, messy but cool.

[MrLobster]

[allegate]

I dislike almost everything about the New Gods so it's no big deal to me. Trench and it's pseudo Lovecraftian look might have been interesting but maybe it would have been too much of a laser-focus on one aspect of the Aquaman movie?

[bobbie solo]

Good start. Now how about they just stop completely? Let The Batman come out, and stop every other project they have. Let things quiet down for a few years, and start fresh with all new sets of eyes on all these properties from the top down. Not happening of course.

[fillow]

Let things quiet down for a few years

[laughs in box office money]

[allegate]

Internet doing what the Internet does, there's speculation that the renewed interest in Zack Snyder's dark and colorless vision is the root of this.

[burnmotherfucker!]