So "Justice League" came out in 2017 and much to my surprise and sorrow the film was completely underwhelming and forgettable. The tumultuous journey getting "Justice League" from production to the big screen was riddled with issues, rumors (at the time) of Ben Affleck wanting to step down from the role of Batman, numerous reshoots and finally the biggest red flag of all the firing of the director Zack Snyder. While the official story is that Snyder stepped down after the death of a loved one, numerous articles claim that Warner Bros. was already done with Snyder for a while and was looking for an out. Films can survive almost anything once they're well into production but losing a director is almost always a death nail. Luckily or unluckily DC/Warner Bros. managed to hire a one Joss Whedon to finish Snyder's project.
Whedon's time at the helm was interesting to say the least considering that Whedon retweeted a tweet about how Steppenwolf the main villain of "Justice League" was the least interesting villain (which is true) in movies ever. While hardly an issue in and of itself, Whedon having taken the project over from Snyder now essentially agreeing with a negative assessment of a film he wasn't involved with from the beginning shows just how much care Whedon had for the project if any at all. That and Whedon did not publicly promote the film. Basically Whedon tied a few bows on the package and left it at the doorstep. And fans could immediately spot where Snyder ended and where Whedon began in terms of the film's release. Needless to say, it was a schizophrenic mess and thus began the mythology of The Snyder Cut.
Fans held on to the idea that out in the ether was a collection of scenes that if complied together would create the film that Zack Snyder intended to make and they've held that belief up until now where we see that the Snyder Cut is indeed real and will be released. So here's my take, "Justice League" in and of its self, in my opinion, is already a massive burdened film, it boasts 3 completely new characters (Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg) who's motives and backstories haven't been fleshed out and boasts a resurrection of Superman, introduction to new mythology in introducing The New Gods and making all of this work within a 2 hour period, daunting to say the least. And somehow a few scenes adding a few more hours to the film is supposed to make it more coherent? A film this bloated? Running through what I recall of the film (and it's oddly a lot for such a forgettable movie) all of the necessary story beats are there, and without abusing the runtime there isn't much you can do to put meat on it.
What I'm saying is everything that needed to happen in "Justice League" to move the plot forward happened it just wasn't very impactful or memorable. Let's be honest we're not getting an entirely different movie we're getting a re-edit of the same movie, which can change things for the better, I've heard. I've heard from my good friend Larry Williams of OAW that the director's cut of "Daredevil" actually makes the film much better considering an entire subplot was removed from the film. But "Daredevil" is a much less bloated film than "Justice League". Actors such as Wilem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons were all but dropped from the final product but again how much of a difference could they have made? And now most recently Ray Parker has come out as the voice actor for Darkseid in "Justice League", you mean Darkseid was in this movie?
DC/Warner Bros. doesn't have much luck with extended cuts anyway. Anyone remember the extended cut of "Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice"? The famous Communion scene which showed Lex Luthor standing before Steppenwolf ultimately added nothing to the film, not even Lois' investigation into what happened in Africa added anything. So what will The Snyder Cut bring to the table? My contention is nothing. And the reason why I'm not going nuts for The Snyder Cut is for 2 reasons: the first being that the studio should have allowed Snyder to finish the movie or at the very least consulted with him and Whedon so that all Whedon had to do was sign off on takes, the 2nd is I already paid for "Justice League" and it sucked and now they're asking for me to pay again for the good version of "Justice League"? No, thank you. The sucky version is one you released to the public and the streaming service gets the good version?
This brings me back to "Daredevil" after seeing the theatrical release and not liking it what makes the studio believe that these same people are gonna go out and buy the DVD of a movie they didn't like? First impressions are everything and I'm not saying this is a good thing, that people shouldn't give movies a second chance but we're asking people to spend money and they did that already. Not only that you're telling them to spend money on something they should have got the first time they spent their money. DVDs and Blurays were meant for things like deleted scenes, scenes that were in the movie but cut for run time and essentially inconsequential to the overall film, they were not meant for completely different cuts of the film altogether.
And that is what they're saying in not so simple of terms. They're saying that The Snyder Cut is a better film than the version we all paid for. And this speaks to the overall lack of trust Warner Bros. had in the entire idea behind their shared universe concept. DC/Warner Bros. wanted to make creator-driven projects giving every director creative freedom to make the movie they wanted to make as opposed to Marvel Studios' top-down directive style. I'm not arguing which style is better, for something as ambitious as multiple movies telling one major story a central figure in charge makes sense, it's why books have editors but creator-driven projects only work in terms of indie films not big-budget blockbusters. I'm not saying it shouldn't work, but studios aren't going to pump millions of dollars on indie films which are largely creator-driven and big-budget blockbusters usually kept under careful watch by studios execs.
What I'm saying is if they wanted the DC/Warner Bros. projects to be creator-driven they shouldn't have gotten so involved in editing the movie to (what others perceive as) incoherency and should have made sure that Joss Whedon kept in line with Snyder's vision. There are clearly several tonal shifts in the movie that you can tell were Joss, and there are moments you can tell were clearly Snyder and the whole thing feels like no one had a handle on the kind of movie they were making. That said, I'm pretty sure both versions are gonna suck and I say that because "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice" is a complete Zack Snyder production, both versions and they both suck. They sucked in the theatre and they sucked on Bluray. And truth be told I had forgotten the theatrical cut, so I couldn't tell what was added and what was missing, I know the aforementioned Communion scene was absent from the theatrical release but aside from that your guess is as good as mine.
If The Snyder Cut proves to be superior to the original version than this will be the biggest indictment of DC/Warner Bros. in terms of how they treat their directors and how much faith they put behind their creator-driven shared universe...which is defunct now. I say indictment because they were never creator-driven projects from the beginning if the studio messed with it this much that now a completely different cut of the film needs to be released. And that's where I'm at with it. Will I see The Snyder Cut? Probably, but I won't go out of my way to do so. If it drops on Bluray or DVD I might pick it up because ultimately I'm a DC fan and I'm curious to see just how much of a difference it'll make but ultimately I'm not expecting to be blown away. Those are my thoughts, lemme know what you guys think! I'll catch you on the flip-flop! Latersville.
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