Justice League Snyder Cut

I'd like to start off by saying that this is chockablock full if SPOILERS if you haven't seen the four hour Snyder Cut of Justice Legue.

On March 18, 2021 the long awaited Snyder Cut of Justice League was released on HBO Max and I sat down and watched all four hours of it.  The back ground of this is that in 2017 Zack Snyder was directing Justice League and in March of that year during post production his daughter's suicide caused him to withdraw from the film and Warner Bros hired Joss Whedon to complete the movie.  

Whedon went on the film additional scenes and although the general story stayed the same he did eliminated some characters and backstory releasing the flick.  You can go to the internet and read all about the fan outcry that they wanted Snyder's version of the film.  I absolutely hated Batman vs. Superman Dawn of Justice.  I liked some moments in it, I like the actors and the characters they play, except Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.  I hate the execution of the story and many elements of the film.

I went to the theaters in 2017, twice, to see Justice League because I really enjoyed it that much.  Because of how terrible, in my opinion, Batman vs. Superman is I had no interest in watching anything that Zack Snyder had to do with changing this movie.  At the same time, though, I felt I had to watch it because I couldn't judge it if I hadn't watched it. 

Thursday after my family went to bed, I popped a bowl of corn and sat down for what I thought was going to be a terrible movie night.  I was wrong.  I really enjoyed the film.  There were parts of the movie that I thought were really pretentious and dumb, there were parts of the movie that I thought dragged unnecessarily long.  The whole post apocalyptic epilogue dream segment seemed really out of place.  I later read that Snyder filmed that scene in October 2020 because he knew that his DC Universe was basically dead and not moving forward and he really wanted a scene where Affleck's Batman and Leto's Joker interact.

When talking to my friends vaguely about it Friday morning my statement was that I like both versions of the film, I thought they both had their faults but I didn't like one more than the other.  Then on Friday I watched the 2017 Justice League and changed my mind.  I like the Snyder Cut better, fucking hurts a little to say that.  

I'm not going to break down all the differences, there are plenty of websites all over the internet that are going to do that, what I am going to tell you is what made me change my mind.  Snyder does a deep dive into the backgrounds and mythos of the characters and the introduction of them.  When watching the 2017 with some of these scenes it made them seem like the were cut too short.  For instance the scene when Wonder Woman stops the domestic terrorist at the bank in the 2017 version it's 3 minutes long, in the Snyder Cut it's nearly seven and a half minutes.  After watching the Snyder version the 2017 scene just feels like it's extremely chopped up and incomplete.  This is the pattern several times through out the movie.

The main villain in both films is Steppenwolf, however he looks completely different in both movies, and in 2017 he's the big bad guy while in the 2021 flick he's doing to dirty work for his master Darkseid.  The scenes where he acquired the motherboxes is more impressive and the protectors put up a bigger fight in the Snyder Cut.

Superman is a bad ass in both plain and simple, as he should be. 

The argument could be made that if Whedon made a 4 hour cut of the film instead of two hours, that he would have dove deeper into the backstories and the mythos like Snyder did.  Also we have no way of knowing if had Snyder finished the film in 2017 if he would have made a this version of the film.  He had the hindsight to see what the critics and fans liked and disliked about the movie.  

When it comes to which film is the official cannon of the DC Cinematic Universe James Wan (director of Aquaman) and Patty Jenkins (director of Wonder Woman) say that it's Snyder's Version as they directed their films based on his planned cut of the film.    

However, from what I have read the Snyder's direction with Batman, Superman, and Justice League is over.  

Until Next Time!