The Justice League: The Snyder Cut (2021)

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Sure, for a fraction of the budget of the others, they did it the hard way, but you're losing my point a little bit - are Miller and Mangold hacks too? That'd be a bit harsh.

Up until ZSJL, I probably associated Snyder with the death of the DC universe, in my eyes, and the huge missed/wasted opportunity in comparison to the MCU. I wasn't interested in anything else coming from DC.

So he's done some impressive work here, on several levels. Impressive auteur work too, which really is unprecedented at this scale. That might just make him the lesser of two weevils for some, but he's also the guy who pretty-much single-handedly rekindled interest in the DC Universe for many.

That's not nothing.

So I'm not sure why he's such a hack for that, or for doing what other directors (Miller and Mangold, to name just two) have done with respect to presenting odd 'noir' versions of their films, even if they're not for me.

But you really should watch ZSJL...


Agreed. His previous DC films have been below par but this JL showing is insanely good. Although thinking about it.. I'd say if we actually measure individual super hero film vs Marvel film, DC are about equal.

Iron Man vs Superman
Ant Man vs Shazam
Black Panther vs Wonder Woman

People seem to forget that the individual Marvel films aren't all that great IMO. Iron Man 3, Thor 2... What kept them tied together were the superb, phenomenal Avenger films. Otherwise some would describe the two films I mentioned before as near-failures.

This JL film (Snydercut) is right up there with an Avengers film IMO. Its a totally different tone but for the most part, is on the money. If I imagine and compare this to Avengers 1 or Avengers age of Ultron, I honestly think the Snydercut wins.

I can only imagine how good potentially a evil Superman in an Injustice-type era would be. Or even just the film leading to Lois, Robin and Harley going away and causing the events seen in Batman's dream. It would be on a different level potentially to even Endgame.

The issue is DC hasn't propped up Snyder's universe with films to develop these characters away from the big screen. e.g. a Batman and Robin film, a Harley Quinn film which doesn't suck and has continuity of characters used in JL.

And I still think Batman versus Superman was just not good enough for what is probably the two most popular heroes in the world going head to head.





Marvel have simply been consistent. They've released films, even for heroes which aren't that good, and even films which aren't that good. But what they've done is support the universe with money and plenty of films to flesh out what has become a really really solid universe with well developed and built characters with some fantastic hits (GOTG1, etc.). Couple this with amazing 3D support for every single title.. and you can tell, they just care.


DC universe is still a mess. They should have opened with an Affleck Batman film with Robin and Batgirl in a new universe skipped the introduction of Batman rather than Batman vs Superman. Then they should have done a Superman 2, and then a Batman vs Superman. Could have also done with a Catwoman film, a Flash film prior to JL dropping.

The JL film proves to me Snyder had what it takes to go head to head with the Avenger's franchise on a film by film basis; but the universe and quantity of characters and fleshed out dynamics is lacking and something DC haven't supported with quantity of films.

These comic book universes are GIGANTIC.
 
Seems mores coming out about the Whedon reshoots.


Anyone interested should checkout the full Hollywood Reporter source article. Nothing shatteringly new, but some much anticipated detail and context. Fisher for the most part gets more respect from sticking to his beliefs, in knowledge he was probably destroying any chance he had for a movie career. Not a Cryborg so much as a man done wrong who fought back with what he had at his disposal, especially as it seems clear his claims against the biased attempts Warner made to sweep it all away, and statements made to smear him, being untrue seem credible. Joss Whedon‘s reputation is irreparable still. Jon Berg and particularly Geoff Johns come out more sympathetic, business suits just caught up in the way Hollywood works, trying to serve their masters and protect their jobs. Geoff Johns actually responds to allegations well, and in this area, Fishers claims are more hyperbole, and Johns rational explanations seem plausible, particularly in context of who he is. The fact he’s written more Cyborg stories than anyone else, Cyborg his favourite character, his decision to put him front and centre in JL for the New 52 relaunch. Plus the details of his current and former partners. This also backs up Walter Hamada trying to telll Fisher he was being unfair dragging Johns into all this.

A fascinating read though. Can’t help but feel Fisher could have agreed to draw a line under it all, when he was still being courted to appear in The Flash, after the investigation had concluded and Warner’s taken ‘remedial action’.
 
I'll have a read of that tomorrow. Whedon has gone down in my estimations dramatically, and I don't think I'll ever be able to watch Buffy again after Michelle T's revelations.
 
Essentially, the whole thing is a complete mess. And it shows that these things (and the state of DC movies at Warners) are very often the result of a number of execs fudgeing up, not necessarily one voice at the top (although they're clearly responsible too). The comms dept releasing the statement about Fisher against specific instructions not to being a good example and one that arguably re-lit the fire under this whole thing.

I also thought the comment from the exec about doing whatever the person in charge of AT&T wanted to be quite telling and not a good sign at all.

There's definitely something highly dysfunctional in the way that Warner's is being run at the moment and I'm not sure that changing a couple of heads at the top is going to fix it. Would not be surprised to see more of a thorough shake-up there in the next year or so.
 
Once they shake up hopefully they will actually get the DCU in some kind of order. So much potential there that's being wasted. I'd have loved to have seen what Feige et al could have done. Even if a more light hearted approach, I'll bet we'd have had some cracking Batman and Superman films.
 
Essentially, the whole thing is a complete mess. And it shows that these things (and the state of DC movies at Warners) are very often the result of a number of execs fudgeing up, not necessarily one voice at the top (although they're clearly responsible too). The comms dept releasing the statement about Fisher against specific instructions not to being a good example and one that arguably re-lit the fire under this whole thing.

I also thought the comment from the exec about doing whatever the person in charge of AT&T wanted to be quite telling and not a good sign at all.

There's definitely something highly dysfunctional in the way that Warner's is being run at the moment and I'm not sure that changing a couple of heads at the top is going to fix it. Would not be surprised to see more of a thorough shake-up there in the next year or so.


Its clearly a mess. There is no continuity and no established universe.
They've already decided to re-launch Batman. I'm not sure where that leaves Affleck.

Addressing Snyder's universe, we have a fleshed out Superman, a standalone Aquaman film out of sync with JL films and an excellent first Wonder Woman film. We have no established universe for Flash, no advanced exposition of Batman, no attachment or development of the Joker, no emotional attachment to Robin/Bat Girl... its just awful.

The Snyder JL film is awesome DESPITE his and DC's failings in expanding and supporting the universe. I'm not sure where they go from here really. JL2 will be good for comic book fans who know who Harley Quinn, Robin etc. are but for the mainstream audiences, they're just not going to care or have any emotional attachment when something happens to a character.


If yo look at Marvel, they built characters up such as Iron Man over 6-7 films. We have an attachment to him. Even someone like Black Widow is more advanced in terms of character depth and familiarity than Batman currently is.



The only film I feel they somewhat nailed was Wonder Woman but they supposedley have fudged that up for the second film. Wonder Woman 1 and Wonder Woman in Snyder JL is the best female super hero I've seen IMO and beats Captain Marvel, Black Widow and probably even Scarlet Witch for charisma, that feeling of something epic and timeless etc.

Affleck's Batman is actually pretty good.. but we just don't know him. I don't know his past, I don't know what he's like, I can't predict his responses, I don't even know his dynamic with Alfred. We knew Keaton's batman was creepy, nerdy, had a father/uncle figure in Alfred. We knew Bale's batman was angry, withdrawn, was playing an act, had emotional attchment to a few people, was on a kamikaze mission, had a more fatherly relationship with alfred etc. This Batman.. we just don't know. Only so much Affleck can do.

Superman is wooden. He's a good Superman but we can't get away from the fact that he's just not properly knocked this out of the park. The first film had so much potential and the scene with his dad... doesn't evoke the emotions it should. Just wasn't delivered perfectly and IMO it shows because in theory, its pretty epic... in application, its above average.

DC have sooooooooo many good characters under utilised because we have an insistence of only casting a minute ammount of characters per film. Do a Batman film and cast batman, robin, batgirl, posion ivy, cat woman , joker etc. and let them interact within a 3 hour film.

Snyder's idea for JL2 with the batman flashback is an injustice rip off but is AWESOME... however, he has built NOTHING up. Who is harly quinn> who is robin ? who is batgirl? where even is she??? we just dont know them. similarly even with gordon. in the nolan trilogy, i liked gordon. i dont care for gordon in the JL film at all..



What's even more annoying is their casting is good... Momoa is a very iconic charismatic actor for Aquaman. Gal Gadot is very stunning and iconic similarly; albiet in her own way and a little far from what some people wanted in wonder woman. Affleck is solid, albiet hasn't had screent ime nor matches the introverted of Keaton or the rawness of Bale. but I put this down to lack of backstory. Give him some loss, give him some death, give him some reasons to be angry, show us flashbacks if means be... let him breathe and become a real character.

Shazam looks pretty epic casting wise and cinematography.. had an old school 90s vibe which felt timeless. Villain was weak and poorly done but otherwise its a VERY solid film.

Flash in the Znyder JL film seemed fine. I liked him. Wasn't a loser like the 2017 version. No real development but I took this as a cameo appearance similar to wonder woman in batman vs superman.


I'm assuming new batman film means they are dumping this universe ultimately because you can't have a JL without batman. Which is ashame for the momoa, gal gadot and the shazam guys because they had a LOT of potential if they were put into a second JL film. Unless we have two running Batman universes.. which is utterly confusing and mind boggling TBH.


DC in short are simply put lazy and dont understand the gold they sit on.

Marvel have been careful and calculated. They've churned out average film after average film with a few epics sprinkled in for good measure, whilst remainingly utterly consistent in sound effects, visuals and 4K/HDR/3D support.
 
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The problem is, they (kind of) want a connected universe, but the comics manage to achieve that through the role of the Editor in Chief. Feige is essentially the Ed in Chief of the MCU but there's no equivalent in charge of the DC movies. I think they were trying to give that to Geoff Johns, but clearly that's a non-starter now, after reading the article.

They just need someone who likes the comics, respects them - but is first and foremost a movie producer. Johns in the role showed the dangers of him being a creator first and producer second - that just causes problems. They also need to operate separate from Warner movies if they're to have any hope of bringing all this together. The Disney/Marvel/Star Wars template is clearly a successful way of operating huge franchises - they'd do well to mimic that.

But again - from that article, it sounds that there are structural elements in the business that are really preventing them from doing all that.

I also think it's time to abandon the shared universe angle - aim for a multiverse. That can be explained in The Flash and then everyone can do whatever they want - including Snyder.
 
The problem is, they (kind of) want a connected universe, but the comics manage to achieve that through the role of the Editor in Chief. Feige is essentially the Ed in Chief of the MCU but there's no equivalent in charge of the DC movies. I think they were trying to give that to Geoff Johns, but clearly that's a non-starter now, after reading the article.

They just need someone who likes the comics, respects them - but is first and foremost a movie producer. Johns in the role showed the dangers of him being a creator first and producer second - that just causes problems. They also need to operate separate from Warner movies if they're to have any hope of bringing all this together. The Disney/Marvel/Star Wars template is clearly a successful way of operating huge franchises - they'd do well to mimic that.

But again - from that article, it sounds that there are structural elements in the business that are really preventing them from doing all that.

I also think it's time to abandon the shared universe angle - aim for a multiverse. That can be explained in The Flash and then everyone can do whatever they want - including Snyder.
They need to stop mimicking Marvel and just respect their source material.

Also they're not pumping enough money or films out to respect the DC Universe. Ant-Man has more dedicated films than Superman and Batman (from this generation) .

Ant-Man.


Anyway, seeing what Snyder did with JL, it would have been truly phenomenal to see an Injustice storyline. However in all honesty I'm not sure how Snyder could have done this within theatrical runtimes. I think his best bet of truly realising is visions is via HBO and streaming. His films are pretty complex, both in terms of storyline and grittiness. The overarching plots he's created in the Snyder Cut JL in all honesty were going to be theatrical failures because the studio was going to butcher it anyway.

Hopefully HBO just let him do mini-series after mini-series but ship them as entire films. I'd love to see a Snyder-verse trilogy of 4 hour films (which we all know are basically TV series). I think its the only way to pace-well-enough the Injustice storyline he's clearly looking to rip off lol (not a bad decision).




DC IMO have Marvel beat in quality. I don't see any Marvel films coming close in quality to the Batman Nolan trilogy or Joker (yes, even Avengers; I think outside of Infinity War and End game (which used the crappy time travel mechanism), they don't stand out re: quality compared to the Nolan series).

Wonder Woman was solid and the first film easily better than 95% of Marvel's standalone character films outside of GOTG.


Honestly, DC are doomed as long as they don't support their universe with films. I've really thought about this hard now and its not even the quality of DC films thats the issue. Sure Aquman sucked foe what it was (great technically but lacking character and nothing amazing) and WW2 is supposedley a total flop.. but Marvel have had plenty of average films (Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, thor 2, hulk, ant-man, thor, captain marvel, i thought spiderman far from home felt like a TV-film, GOTG2 had mixed reviews).


Soo.. Marvel has 2x the ammount of average films than DC has films.. and we wonder why the DCU feels worse than Marvel :D
 
They need to stop mimicking Marvel and just respect their source material.
Thing is there not, Marvel had a long term plan DC seems corbeled together Justice League was rushed rather than introducing the charters only half the team was realy known by than, where as in Avengers Assembled all the big hitter had had there own films and Black Widow was support in Iron Man 2, although Hawkeye only had a brief appearance in Thor but you knew some of his background.
 
Thing is there not, Marvel had a long term plan DC seems corbeled together Justice League was rushed rather than introducing the charters only half the team was realy known by than, where as in Avengers Assembled all the big hitter had had there own films and Black Widow was support in Iron Man 2, although Hawkeye only had a brief appearance in Thor but you knew some of his background.


True. Its like Marvel had a map from the start. DC don't.

I think one of DC's issue was the Nolan trilogy. Its phenomenal success and the fact its not one of the best super hero trilogies of all time but one of the best trilogies of all time put the entire DC-universe in a difficult place.

DC universe is very Batman-orientated. But Nolan's Batman trilogy does not mix well with anything except itself. So one hand, its the the best super hero cinematic experience ever; but on the other hand its a waste of 3 films which can't be mixed and matched with the DCEU.

The Nolan Batman does not fit with the Snyder Superman. Nolan Batman is real, gritty, fully fleshed out. The Snyder Superman is sadly.. just no where near as developed nor realistic in tone. He's inbetween worlds and I'd say the Superman films a clear tier below.

Similar to the Joker film really. The Joker's quality is in a different class to every other DC super hero film and simply won't mix well with JL, Aquaman and Shazam. They are like good PC speakers whilst the Joker (and Nolan series) are like big passive speakers connected to a dedicated power amp and processor lol.

So on one hand, yes DC did a good Joker film. But that Joker film is simply not going to ever integrate into the JL universe. The Joker from the dedicated film would COMPLETELY steal the show in a JL film. Imagine having Phoenix's Joker in the final scene of the Snyder Cut. I'd be mesmerised.


DC really need to set out the tone they want for their films and follow through. The problem is its hard to argue with the cinematic quality of Joker and the Nolan trilogy, but it does lead to wasted time. The alternative is to.. you know.. create Wonder Woman, Aquaman et al. to the same quality.. but I think thats a VERY difficult task (Although they got quite close with Wonderwoman before the first film had severe drop in quality for the latter third).
 
Also apologies for keep bringing up Marvel and DC together.

I just find it sad that we bash DC whilst ignoring Joker, Batman trilogy which are really up there in the top-tier films.

And Wonder Woman, Shazam and Superman aren't really that far behind (if behind at all, I prefer Wonderwoman 1 to all of them) the standalone Marvel films (Iron Man, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America etc.)

One thing we can all agree on is DC has a personality disorder. They don't know what they want their universe to be and the branchine paths between dark realistic and gritty and a more comic-based universe has left us in a state of confusion. We've had... like 3 jokers to grace our screen in the last couple of years?? Its just plain weird. I get that sadly Ledger passed away but Ledger's Joker, much alike Bale's Batman, was never going to make an appearance in Justice League. He'd make all the other actors look like children.
 
Also apologies for keep bringing up Marvel and DC together.
But it is the only valid comparison to be made, apart from outliers like Hancock.

In reality I believe Marvel are successful because they manage to strike the right balance nearly every time between honoring the comicbook and translating to cinematic, and satisfying hardcore fans, without embracing general audiences. It really is Kevin Feige, who has built a 'smart' machine in terms of the MCU and its output.

An example is Falcon. How do you translate the comicbook to film. Feige knew. Ex-Military Paratrooper using top-secret wing tech. What about Redwing? Make it a drone?, of course you do. And fans don't care because you instantly appreciate those decisions and why they were made. In hindsight it's common-sense, but you just know that DC Films in the same position would F it up.
 
True. Its like Marvel had a map from the start. DC don't.

I think one of DC's issue was the Nolan trilogy. Its phenomenal success and the fact its not one of the best super hero trilogies of all time but one of the best trilogies of all time put the entire DC-universe in a difficult place.

DC universe is very Batman-orientated. But Nolan's Batman trilogy does not mix well with anything except itself. So one hand, its the the best super hero cinematic experience ever; but on the other hand its a waste of 3 films which can't be mixed and matched with the DCEU.

The Nolan Batman does not fit with the Snyder Superman. Nolan Batman is real, gritty, fully fleshed out. The Snyder Superman is sadly.. just no where near as developed nor realistic in tone. He's inbetween worlds and I'd say the Superman films a clear tier below.

Similar to the Joker film really. The Joker's quality is in a different class to every other DC super hero film and simply won't mix well with JL, Aquaman and Shazam. They are like good PC speakers whilst the Joker (and Nolan series) are like big passive speakers connected to a dedicated power amp and processor lol.

So on one hand, yes DC did a good Joker film. But that Joker film is simply not going to ever integrate into the JL universe. The Joker from the dedicated film would COMPLETELY steal the show in a JL film. Imagine having Phoenix's Joker in the final scene of the Snyder Cut. I'd be mesmerised.


DC really need to set out the tone they want for their films and follow through. The problem is its hard to argue with the cinematic quality of Joker and the Nolan trilogy, but it does lead to wasted time. The alternative is to.. you know.. create Wonder Woman, Aquaman et al. to the same quality.. but I think thats a VERY difficult task (Although they got quite close with Wonderwoman before the first film had severe drop in quality for the latter third).
When the originally did the Justice League in the comics Batman and Superman were not in it and then when they did were only part times although later became regulars.

Mind you a lot of what DC beyond me the Justice league cartoon series was brilliant and yet the simple thing casting of Lex Luthor defies all known logic.
 

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