Chris Fritz's Blog - Posts Tagged "cut"
The Snyder Cut Follow up
Last week HBO Max released the re-edited version of the movie Justice League that some people have just named the Snyder Cut. It's supposed to represent Zack Snyder's original vision of what the film was supposed to be. I talked about it on my blog earlier so I thought that I would do a follow up now that I've actually seen the movie. I didn't think it would happen but it actually came out. This movie definitely made me feel a lot of emotions. It made me think back to 2017 when I saw the theatrical cut of this movie and was ultimately disappointed. It made me think of all the things that have changed since then. It made me spend a lot of time thinking about the two previous films that lead up to this one. Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of justice. How a lot of people thought they were bad movies. How they thought the theatrical release of justice league wasn't that good. So I was very curious to see if the Snyder cut would turn all of that around. I'm not really sure if I went into seeing this with high expectations, low expectations, or no expectations at all. I just new something had to happen and that this movie is important. The Snyder Cut has the same basic plot as the theatrical cut almost everything happens the same there's just some notable additions and subtractions.
When I first heard it was four hours long I almost didn't believe it. But it is four hours long and it's divided into multiple chapters. Very reminiscent of Tarantino's longer films. The blanket differences are the whole movie is visually darker, it's paced really slow, and for some reason there's a lot of opera being sung in the background. On the whole this new cut does fix some problems that the original version had. It adds a lot of scenes that improve the story without changing the story. It makes me empathize with the characters more. I feel like I have a better understanding of almost every character in the movie. Almost all of the plot points are more flushed out and make more sense creating a stronger narrative as a whole. The villains are better. In the original Steppenwolf was just generic and bland. In the new one he's a disgraced warrior who has to regain his honor by conquering the planet. That's just a surface level and easy change that made him a whole lot better. It was nice to see Darkseid in this movie. He was truly a shadow that cast itself over the entire film. That really took the story to a new level.
For this last part I would like to talk about a video game called Injustice: Gods Among Us. The story of the video game is related to the Justice League. It takes place on an alternate earth where Superman has morphed into a despotic Tyrannical dictator who rules over the entire planet with an iron fist. The heroes of earth that are left standing have to stop him. Somehow this game has become a small source of inspiration for Zack Snyder and his overall vision for the three movies he made in the DCEU. The standard criticism I'm going to level at this man is this. He is the man who hates superman and then made three movies about superman. Now one of his previous films was the movie adaption of Watchmen. Now ever since he made that movie he internalized the themes of Watchmen that basically try to corrupt the golden age super hero and deconstruct the mythos of the super hero. It shows us a truly dark side of a superhero mythology. So with all that in his heart Zack Snyder made three movies that simultaneously build up super heroes and deconstruct super heroes all at once. I think in the future that will be the main highlights of the criticism against his three DC movies. I'm not going to lie to you there are parts of me that think Zack Snyder is the worst filmmaker of all time. Not for any of these movies I just really hate Sucker Punch.
My last thing I'm going to say is the Snyder cut does a lot of foreshadowing for a potential sequel. Now based on the foreshadowing it would seem this hypothetical sequel would be very much like the injustice game I talked about. Thus completing the ultimate cycle for his deconstruction of the DC super heroes. I don't know if we will ever see a sequel to this Snyder cut. I highly doubt that Henry Cavil wants to be Superman again and DC is going forward with a new Batman with Robert Pattinson. I could predict that a Synder cut sequel won't happen but then again I was thoroughly convinced that the Snyder cut didn't exist so who am I to say. So maybe that foreshadowing was just planting seeds in the ground and we don't get to see the garden. It's like a child that you wont get to see grow up. That reminds me I nearly had tears in my eyes when I saw the final slate of the film say "for Autumn." So overall this movie has a lot of heart, that heart was missing in 2017. It's been a long road but I think we finally have some closure. This movie is really good. It's way better than Wonder Woman 1984 that movie is weird.
I guess the lesson we should take away from this is if you make a piece of art and you don't think it was very good don't be afraid to try again.
When I first heard it was four hours long I almost didn't believe it. But it is four hours long and it's divided into multiple chapters. Very reminiscent of Tarantino's longer films. The blanket differences are the whole movie is visually darker, it's paced really slow, and for some reason there's a lot of opera being sung in the background. On the whole this new cut does fix some problems that the original version had. It adds a lot of scenes that improve the story without changing the story. It makes me empathize with the characters more. I feel like I have a better understanding of almost every character in the movie. Almost all of the plot points are more flushed out and make more sense creating a stronger narrative as a whole. The villains are better. In the original Steppenwolf was just generic and bland. In the new one he's a disgraced warrior who has to regain his honor by conquering the planet. That's just a surface level and easy change that made him a whole lot better. It was nice to see Darkseid in this movie. He was truly a shadow that cast itself over the entire film. That really took the story to a new level.
For this last part I would like to talk about a video game called Injustice: Gods Among Us. The story of the video game is related to the Justice League. It takes place on an alternate earth where Superman has morphed into a despotic Tyrannical dictator who rules over the entire planet with an iron fist. The heroes of earth that are left standing have to stop him. Somehow this game has become a small source of inspiration for Zack Snyder and his overall vision for the three movies he made in the DCEU. The standard criticism I'm going to level at this man is this. He is the man who hates superman and then made three movies about superman. Now one of his previous films was the movie adaption of Watchmen. Now ever since he made that movie he internalized the themes of Watchmen that basically try to corrupt the golden age super hero and deconstruct the mythos of the super hero. It shows us a truly dark side of a superhero mythology. So with all that in his heart Zack Snyder made three movies that simultaneously build up super heroes and deconstruct super heroes all at once. I think in the future that will be the main highlights of the criticism against his three DC movies. I'm not going to lie to you there are parts of me that think Zack Snyder is the worst filmmaker of all time. Not for any of these movies I just really hate Sucker Punch.
My last thing I'm going to say is the Snyder cut does a lot of foreshadowing for a potential sequel. Now based on the foreshadowing it would seem this hypothetical sequel would be very much like the injustice game I talked about. Thus completing the ultimate cycle for his deconstruction of the DC super heroes. I don't know if we will ever see a sequel to this Snyder cut. I highly doubt that Henry Cavil wants to be Superman again and DC is going forward with a new Batman with Robert Pattinson. I could predict that a Synder cut sequel won't happen but then again I was thoroughly convinced that the Snyder cut didn't exist so who am I to say. So maybe that foreshadowing was just planting seeds in the ground and we don't get to see the garden. It's like a child that you wont get to see grow up. That reminds me I nearly had tears in my eyes when I saw the final slate of the film say "for Autumn." So overall this movie has a lot of heart, that heart was missing in 2017. It's been a long road but I think we finally have some closure. This movie is really good. It's way better than Wonder Woman 1984 that movie is weird.
I guess the lesson we should take away from this is if you make a piece of art and you don't think it was very good don't be afraid to try again.
