The Zack Snyder's Justice League *Respectful* Film Discussion

[Lightning Rider]

The more I see, the more I prefer this Steppenwolf

[Hulkout42]

Weird how people always always hold up Watchmen, the film was terrible and completely misrepresented the themes of the source material.

NOBODY gets Alan Moore right, it's not just an isolated incident with him.

[Hulkout42]

Let Snyder have his day, and then let's please move on!
I'm really eager to see what other directors can do with these characters outside of Snyder.

If you mean copy/paste the MCU formula then sure why not, let them have it.

[Castling]

If you mean copy/paste the MCU formula then sure why not, let them have it.

Why is it that anything outside of Snyder is a copy/paste of the MCU? DC heroes are naturally brighter than Marvel heroes, anyway.
Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Shazam, Wonder Woman, and Joker were good to great films, all handled by directors not Zack Snyder and all better reviewed than any Snyder DC film. The reason the "DCEU" can't move forward is because it's stuck looking back at Snyder and catering to a loud fandom instead of appealing to general audiences.

So, let's do it. Let's get through the Snyder Cut and move on to other creators and characters.

[Hulkout42]

Why is it that anything outside of Snyder is a copy/paste of the MCU? DC heroes are naturally brighter than Marvel heroes, anyway.
Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Shazam, Wonder Woman, and Joker were good to great films, all handled by directors not Zack Snyder and all better reviewed than any Snyder DC film. The reason the "DCEU" can't move forward is because it's stuck looking back at Snyder and catering to a loud fandom instead of appealing to general audiences.

So, let's do it. Let's get through the Snyder Cut and move on to other creators and characters.

Ok, let's recap:

Batman and Nightwing were both raped, Batgirl was paralyzed and her father psychologically tortured by the Joker, Superman was literally beaten to death by Doomsday, Wonder Woman snapped Maxwell Lords neck who was responsible for putting hole in Ted Kord's head, Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was stuffed into a fridge, Barry Allen's man was killed by Reverse Flash just because he could, Bart Allen was kneecapped by Deathstroke with a shotgun...bright is not the word i would use when it comes to DC. Grim, gritty and serious are though but i don't believe we will agree on that unfortunately and that's fine but still there is a distinction to be made.

Look at Aquaman and Shazam next to say Ant Man or Thor and you don't see a similar formula there? Yes they are good, but personally i see the MCU formula in action there. Wonder Woman (2017), is a great film DC film, no question about that...but how many people actually remembered that Snyder help write the story used for it? Patty Jenkins did a great job directing that no question about that she deserves to be praised there, but that is all everyone remembers and nobody seems to give Zack credit for his part in that because like it or not he was involved, it is part of the Snyderverse of DC films. I look at WW84 and i felt his absence in that which while i don't see it as a bad film, i do feel it falls behind the first one because of that change in tone.

Joker, you're right it isn't Snyder's, no issue with that. However the reason i like it? Because it doesn't follow the pattern of the MCU formula, it was better than Winter Soldier, Civil War or Infinity war which i consider the more serious/dramatic of the MCU films. Do you think Marvel/Disney will pull something like that off? Elevate one of their villains like the Joker was? I don't and they won't.

Birds of Prey, you lost me here when you labelled that between good and great...and its not the Birds of Prey movie, it was the Harley Quinn movie with the "Birds of Prey" and i say that in quotes because those were not the Birds of Prey, i don't know what they were but they were anything but that.

Yeah the DCEU sure is going to move forward what with a Superman reboot directed by the man who is reviled by many for dragging Star Trek and Star Wars into the mud and the Batman is going to be interesting to watch given how much the actor and director hate one another especially after he caught his two leads testing the shock absorbers on the Batmobile. Hell, the only DC film i have any faith in is Suicide Squad by James Gunn, and i know where his experience comes from but that's what we got now.

But i can agree with you on one thing, we are getting through the Snyder Cut on 03/18 and afterwards when the dust settles and we see if it was worth the wait and all the effort it took by the "loud" fandom and Snyder to make it happen, then we will move on...because we are not getting any more afterwards, some like you will walk away happy in that knowledge while others like myself will not but that's just the way the cookie crumbles and there is nothing we can do to change that outcome, no matter if this a massive success because we have no more say in this.

[Menacer]

Weird how people always always hold up Watchmen, the film was terrible and completely misrepresented the themes of the source material.

Plenty of adaptation misrepresents the source material.

The film is brilliant.

The book is great for very different reasons...

But its true they share a lot in common while being very different...

[Rev9]

Plenty of adaptation misrepresents the source material.

The film is brilliant.

The book is great for very different reasons...

But its true they share a lot in common while being very different...

I actually liked Zack's tweak to skip the alien squid nvasion and making Manhattan the agent of conflict as Ozymandias saw it.It was brilliant .Some villains just don't fit the story aesthetically or thematically ,like the squid.It would be the same for me if Zack used Starro in a JL movie, it would be comic book accurate sure but the League fighting a giant starfish? I'll pass

[Coal Tiger]

I actually liked Zack's tweak to skip the alien squid nvasion and making Manhattan the agent of conflict as Ozymandias saw it.It was brilliant .Some villains just don't fit the story aesthetically or thematically ,like the squid.It would be the same for me if Zack used Starro in a JL movie, it would be comic book accurate sure but the League fighting a giant starfish? I'll pass

So you’re saying Alan Moore was wrong.

[Jewel Runner]

Plenty of adaptation misrepresents the source material.

That's whataboutism and it doesn't make Watchmen better.

The film is brilliant.

It really isn't, it'd be one thing if it tried to be a new story featuring the Watchmen characters, but it didn't it tries to be a 100% accurate page to screen adaptation and fails at presenting the story, and robs it of it's depth.

[Sutekh]

IMO, the absolute best Watchman gets is when it *beautifully* captures scenes from the comic and just brings them to vivid life. And while I 100% agree that the alien squid thing was a WTF of epic proportions, it kind of had to be, to sell the entire world on an *outside* threat of world-ending potential that they *had* to drop their differences and unite together to face.

A US asset like Dr. Manhattan going nuclear was not the same thing. If anything, it might have encouraged the rest of the world to band together and destroy the US *even faster* and had the exact opposite effect of 'stopping the doomsday clock' by accelerating it from '1 minute to midnight' to 'launch, launch, launch, before the big blue American freak kills us all!'

Still, the scenes with Silk Specter and Nite-Owl in the prison, freeing Rorshach? Just amazing. When he was faithfully adapting the comic to the big screen, he did work to cry for, it was so beautiful. And then he got his own clever idea about the ending, and it was kind of the opposite of what was needed to stop the cold war, a threat that was alien, and not associated with any of the cold war powers, and would require all the peoples of the world to band together...

Ozymandius needed an 'Other' that was not 'the people over there,' but something truly 'Other,' and, best of all, *something that didn't even exist.* He wasn't just kicking the can down the road and saying, 'no kids, let's not fight each other, let's band together and kill the neighbors!'

[Bored at 3:00AM]

None of Snyder's films are perfect, and Watchmen is no exception. It's a mixed bag, just like MoS, BvS, and, presumably, his cut of JL. However, when he nails something, he absolutely knocks it out of the park. Like this sequence right here.

[Rev9]

So you’re saying Alan Moore was wrong.

It's not about right or wrong, in hindsight storewise Alan Moore could have told the story ,Zack did using Dr.M in the film ,but he didn't, would it have made the story better? In my opinion it would have, but certainly for me it made the film better than pulling an alien monster from another dimension, it would seem contrived in the film storywise (Deus ex machina)at least Zack's take is believable because Manhattan has agency,and aesthetically it would be a problem at least for me, that would be some Mars Attacks level comedy visualising it

[I'm a Fish]

Ok, let's recap:

Batman and Nightwing were both raped, Batgirl was paralyzed and her father psychologically tortured by the Joker, Superman was literally beaten to death by Doomsday, Wonder Woman snapped Maxwell Lords neck who was responsible for putting hole in Ted Kord's head, Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was stuffed into a fridge, Barry Allen's man was killed by Reverse Flash just because he could, Bart Allen was kneecapped by Deathstroke with a shotgun...bright is not the word i would use when it comes to DC. Grim, gritty and serious are though but i don't believe we will agree on that unfortunately and that's fine but still there is a distinction to be made.

A lot of horrible things happen to Marvel characters in comics as well over the years, and I do mean in the main universe but the stuff that happened in the Ultimate universe is pretty horrendous too. I'd say the difference is Marvel has mostly managed to sweep that under the rug with the MCU, while the DCEU started out by embracing the nitty-gritty. And well, the public reception these franchises receive speaks for itself.

I'm not bashing on anyone for liking Snyder's movies, I'm just referring to the public reception that his movies are a very mixed bag, while the MCU leans towards positive reviews.

Look at Aquaman and Shazam next to say Ant Man or Thor and you don't see a similar formula there? Yes they are good, but personally i see the MCU formula in action there. Wonder Woman (2017), is a great film DC film, no question about that...but how many people actually remembered that Snyder help write the story used for it?Patty Jenkins did a great job directing that no question about that she deserves to be praised there, but that is all everyone remembers and nobody seems to give Zack credit for his part in that because like it or not he was involved, it is part of the Snyderverse of DC films. I look at WW84 and i felt his absence in that which while i don't see it as a bad film, i do feel it falls behind the first one because of that change in tone.

Aquaman and Shazam absolutely took inspiration from the MCU's formula, the comparisons was being made from the trailers of those movies alone.

I'm not sure how much Snyder had a hand in the final script for Wonder Woman. Snyder laid out his original plot for Wonder Woman that he had while writing BvS, and it was very different. Basically she was globetrotting since the Crimean War and going after Ares, and by the time she meets Steve in World War 2 (or it might have been WW 1 like in the final movie, I forget) she was more cynical and worn down from chasing Ares for almost 100 years until Steve gets her to believe in humanity again (sort of). She was going to be much more violent and battle hardened in his version, and you can see the end result is far different. In fact, Patty was heavily against Snyder's version of the movie (not Snyder himself, they are friends), but I think when all was said and done, he was only involved in plotting out some story beats to keep it consistent with his movies.

Joker, you're right it isn't Snyder's, no issue with that. However the reason i like it? Because it doesn't follow the pattern of the MCU formula, it was better than Winter Soldier, Civil War or Infinity war which i consider the more serious/dramatic of the MCU films. Do you think Marvel/Disney will pull something like that off? Elevate one of their villains like the Joker was? I don't and they won't.

What I like about DC movies is that they aren't afraid to take risks with their tone and characters, something which Marvel clearly is and is starting to get flack for now. I know some people were bothered by the tonal whiplash of WW84, which I understand, but I was alright with it because it was trying to be it's own thing.

Birds of Prey, you lost me here when you labelled that between good and great...and its not the Birds of Prey movie, it was the Harley Quinn movie with the "Birds of Prey" and i say that in quotes because those were not the Birds of Prey, i don't know what they were but they were anything but that.

Yeah the DCEU sure is going to move forward what with a Superman reboot directed by the man who is reviled by many for dragging Star Trek and Star Wars into the mud and the Batman is going to be interesting to watch given how much the actor and director hate one another especially after he caught his two leads testing the shock absorbers on the Batmobile. Hell, the only DC film i have any faith in is Suicide Squad by James Gunn, and i know where his experience comes from but that's what we got now.

But i can agree with you on one thing, we are getting through the Snyder Cut on 03/18 and afterwards when the dust settles and we see if it was worth the wait and all the effort it took by the "loud" fandom and Snyder to make it happen, then we will move on...because we are not getting any more afterwards, some like you will walk away happy in that knowledge while others like myself will not but that's just the way the cookie crumbles and there is nothing we can do to change that outcome, no matter if this a massive success because we have no more say in this.

I hope the super Snyder fans move on and leave Justice League 2 & 3 alone after the Snyder Cut is released. The plot for both movies wouldn't work anymore and would have to be heavily edited (which I know is common in movies) but I think the actors and Snyder himself are ready to move on.

[Menacer]

That's whataboutism and it doesn't make Watchmen better.

It really isn't, it'd be one thing if it tried to be a new story featuring the Watchmen characters, but it didn't it tries to be a 100% accurate page to screen adaptation and fails at presenting the story, and robs it of it's depth.

I saw the film before reading the book.

What depth do you feel the film fails to bring from the page out of curiosity?

[Hulkout42]

A lot of horrible things happen to Marvel characters in comics as well over the years, and I do mean in the main universe but the stuff that happened in the Ultimate universe is pretty horrendous too. I'd say the difference is Marvel has mostly managed to sweep that under the rug with the MCU, while the DCEU started out by embracing the nitty-gritty. And well, the public reception these franchises receive speaks for itself.

I'm not bashing on anyone for liking Snyder's movies, I'm just referring to the public reception that his movies are a very mixed bag, while the MCU leans towards positive reviews.



Aquaman and Shazam absolutely took inspiration from the MCU's formula, the comparisons was being made from the trailers of those movies alone.

I'm not sure how much Snyder had a hand in the final script for Wonder Woman. Snyder laid out his original plot for Wonder Woman that he had while writing BvS, and it was very different. Basically she was globetrotting since the Crimean War and going after Ares, and by the time she meets Steve in World War 2 (or it might have been WW 1 like in the final movie, I forget) she was more clinical and worn down from chasing Ares for almost 100 years until Steve gets her to believe in humanity again (sort of). She was going to be much more violent and battle hardened in his version, and you can see the end result is far different. In fact, Patty was heavily against Snyder's version of the movie (not Snyder himself, they are friends), but I think when all was said and done, he was only involved in plotting out some story beats to keep it consistent with his movies.



What I like about DC movies is that they aren't afraid to take risks with their tone and characters, something which Marvel clearly is and is starting to get flack for now. I know some people were bothered by the tonal whiplash of WW84, which I understand, but I was alright with it because it was trying to be it's own thing.



I hope the super Snyder fans move on and leave Justice League 2 & 3 alone after the Snyder Cut is released. The plot for both movies wouldn't work anymore and would have to be heavily edited (which I know is common in movies) but I think the actors and Snyder himself are ready to move on.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, i will move on, but only because WB/DC said that there is no more after this and i have to accept it, i'm not happy about it but i have no say in this so i have to move on.

Zack has earned his rest i do not question this, in fact i heavily support it, after all he went through personally and professionally he has earned his rest and i do hope his cut of JL not only is a success but also proves he was the right choice. However Henry Cavill wanted to do more Superman and people wanted him too as well but WB/DC said no and we are getting a reboot not many are happy for, so i question how many of the actors actually wanted to move on from Snyder's take but that doesn't matter in the end because WB/DC said no more Snyder, we are course correcting and doing more happy toned films...also known as ripping of MCU instead of being original