criterionforum.org

tenia wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:29 pmI guess we'll see, but it is also said the sound design is awful and the score full of temp track, so this seems consistent.

Junkie XL wrote 4.5 hours of new score for the film. I doubt it sounds like a "temp track". Not to one's liking? Sure. (Elfman's score for the theatrical version was rushed and thematically cut off from the previous films in the series, but calling that one a "temp track" would be just as dismissive).

Snyder's VFX can also be intentionally stylized / impressionistic at times. My favorite shot in BvS could be called out for looking fake from a photo-real viewpoint, but that's partly what I like about it - the "painted" aesthetic.

Spoiler

I've read for ZSJL VFX complaints that the biggest offender is the final

Spoiler

Knightmare sequence for the quality of comping the characters with the environment, but it's also a dream landscape, so not sure if it will truly bother me.

I don't have any issues with shots like the one you're showing. There are movies with obvious fantasy CGIs and bad CGIs (like, as you mentioned, bad compositing or poor digital doubles like in Black Panther), and I'm perfectly OK with the first ones. From what I recall, BvS was quite OK VFXs wise, like Man of Steel before. I certainly couldn't say the same about, more recently in the DCEU (though not from Snyder), Aquaman.

Aquaman does have some goofy CGI moments, but it's also loaded with crazy spectacle, so those moments don't bother me too much. I don't love that film, but as an underwater Flash Gordon it has its charm, and the occasional groaner one-liner (or that silly freeze frame final shot) stick out to me more than its worst VFX moments.

Sean Burns' twitter review of ZSJL:

ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017/2021, Snyder, **1/2) “Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

Why the Snyder Cut 4:3 again? It’s such a weird choice for a big action blockbuster.

While it was shot for 1.85, it was protected for the IMAX 1.43 ratio, which Snyder apparently liked so much that he insisted that it be in this aspect ratio. It's not a good choice, as, among other things, basically every dialogue scene has a massive amount of headroom now. (Also, many of the VFX shots in the Snyder Cut are just cropped versions of the original 1.85 shots - so much for this being the "definitive version").

Batman v Superman was shot mostly anamorphic, with select scenes shot with IMAX cameras, with their native AR of 1.43, much like the Nolan Batman films.

No parts of Justice League were shot with IMAX cameras but Snyder liked the IMAX footage of BvS so much he opted to shoot JL in Super35, to allow a fully 1.43 version (open matte, essentially) for IMAX cinemas.

That said, he is on record stating the film was composed and storyboarded at 1.85:1, its eventual theatrical ratio. But since returning to the film to finalise this new cut, he's decided to present it all open matte to imitate an IMAX showing (it was going to "just" be 1.66:1 at first, but he later decided to go the whole hog).

What I find bizarre about it all is the whole point of an IMAX screen is to fill your entire field of vision, which a 1.33:1 version in the home doesn't really allow on today's standard screen size. This is exactly why the IMAX scenes in Nolan's movies are presented in 1.78:1 instead of their native 1.43:1. Even the new UHD of BvS with switching ratios (the first release was entirely 2.39:1) is going to switch to 1.43:1 instead of 1.78:1, thereby reducing the "screen enlarging" effect of IMAX.

Mr Sausage wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 8:12 pm Why the Snyder Cut 4:3 again? It’s such a weird choice for a big action blockbuster.

Here's an entire article about it.

Zack Snyder wrote:“When we were working on Batman v Superman, we shot a ton of the sequences in IMAX,” Snyder said at a 2020 JusticeCon panel. “I was obsessed with the science center theaters where they show the 1.43 aspect ratio. IMAX, outside of that, is a bigger version of your TV, but in its gigantic, full-film, 10-story screen, it’s a different experience. And watching BvS and those sequences came on, I was like, This is fucking crazy! It got me obsessed with the big square.”

It got me obsessed with the big square.

Something that occurred to me in connection with First Reformed is that Academy ratio reaffirms the consciously cinematic nature of the experience, in contrast to home viewing which almost universally is done on a 16:9 screen. Widescreen, of course, used to perform this function by contrasting with 4:3 TVs, but now it's the opposite. To watch First Reformed or Justice League on a widescreen TV or monitor is to be subconsciously reminded that the film is out of it's proper setting and you need to try, as much as possible, to experience it as if you were in a theater.

Big Ben wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 8:29 pm

Zack Snyder wrote:IMAX, outside of that, is a bigger version of your TV, but in its gigantic, full-film, 10-story screen, it’s a different experience.

This is...this sentence really dates him in a weird way, doesn't it? I mean, I remember that era of square television screens also––as I'm sure many people here do––but this ratio isn't a bigger version of our TVs anymore.

I like watching movies in the academy ratio on my 16:9 screen. I don't know exactly why; I just like the way the composition looks, I guess. It's my preferred aspect ratio for On the Waterfront.

I don't know how much I'll appreciate it in a big budget CGI action blockbuster though.

It’s hard to get over the feeling it’s been pan and scanned, like you accidentally loaded the wrong side of an old Waner Brothers flipper DVD.

1. I Watched the Snyder Cut

So, that was stunningly boring, for about 3/4 of the time. About an hour from the end, when things that were very slowly seeded in the first 3 hours started to come together, I got a bit excited, and started to think maybe it would get good. At some point, pretty people lit well just kind of begin to move me, even if they're doing nothing. But then came the Return-of-the-King-style ending, and the new material with Jared Leto––possibly the worst ending-credits scene ever committed to film.

2. Spoilers

Spoiler

Endless fuzzy extreme closeups, while Leto drags––out––every––word...the pace is miserable, and there is no payoff for listening to the Joker ramble on. This part seems framed for the 4:3 ratio...but framed in the ugliest way possible. I was shocked by how long I was made to sit and listen to Leto, whose acting played a bit like a middle-range community theater audition. Then Affleck wakes up, and it was all a dream, and Martian Manhunter is waiting for him on the deck of his vacation house. Martian Manhunter says he'll need to help with Darkseid, and Affleck's like, "yeah, great." And then Manhunter says "I'll be in touch." And he disappears, without giving Batman any way to contact him. What a cocktease of a superhero. I would've given the movie 5 stars if Affleck and Martian Manhunter took out their phones right there and started figuring out how to exchange phone numbers like old guys playing with cellphones (read: me, trying to get someone's contact info entered on my cellphone). But it didn't happen.

3. I Laughed (The Acting)

I laughed to myself when I saw The Flash running, thinking that only Zack Snyder would ever think to display the power of super-speed by slowing down the footage to this insane degree (true, X-men does it, too, but those scenes have a lot more to look at and be interested in). It was cool at the end,

Spoiler

when he's running time backwards,

but every other time he does it, the power is also expressed in that super-slow-motion. Most of the actors seemed kind of acceptable, but I can't get with Ben Affleck as Batman. I just don't buy it, which is pretty much my reaction to any Affleck performance, but to me he's on the same level as George Clooney's Batman. In that movie, I don't see Batman, I only see Clooney, and it's the same here with Affleck. He is not a good actor. Now, I have heard that the visuals of the movie and the special effects were much improved upon how they looked in the theatrical cut, but, not having seen that, I thought this movie looked quite dark, and quite ugly. In spite of cranking the black levels as much as Snyder always does, or more, I found the special effects just refused to integrate with the relatively few live-action elements that appeared in most scenes.

4. A Father and a Son
...or, Two Fathers and Two Sons? Was I Supposed to Keep Track of the Fathers and Sons? Anyway, This is About the Pacing:

The worst bit for me, though, is the pacing. Scenes move so slowly. True, there is a lot of slow-motion, but also there are these long pauses for people to try and express their anguish, or their warmer movie feelings, and these scenes just dragged on and on, as well. I really felt like, if they'd just act through some of these scenes a bit faster, this could be 3 hours instead of 4. I think I might have kind of dug it if they'd done it at, say, a Tsui Hark pace, because a lot of the stuff with The Flash and Cyborg was pretty cool, especially towards the end. But there was way too much deliberate myth-making, and sententiousness, on the whole. The chapter markers really seemed to point to how seriously they wanted me to take this whole thing. But, come on; Batman vs. Superman directly precedes this. How seriously can you really expect me to take it? Well, obviously, they didn't make this for me. Although there was a part near the beginning where these Icelandic women all start delivering a dour serenade right to camera, addressed to Aquaman. In the 4:3 aspect ratio, I almost felt for a second like I was watching some lost Paradjanov film. But then they cut back to Justice League, and reality came flooding back.

feihong wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 8:34 am Most of the actors seemed kind of acceptable, but I can't get with Ben Affleck as Batman. I just don't buy it, which is pretty much my reaction to any Affleck performance, but to me he's on the same level as George Clooney's Batman. In that movie, I don't see Batman, I only see Clooney, and it's the same here with Affleck. He is not a good actor.

I'm generally OK with Affleck (although I don't like him in Dazed and Confused, which I don't care for at all), but I'm 100% with you on this. He's incredibly stiff and lifeless in this part, and has struck as much since his first appearance in the role. He seems to deliver his lines while stifling a yawn.

A pet peeve I've got, and it's probably just me, is the way Alfred has been written since the Nolan films. I know he's changed significantly in the comics, but I've never warmed to the idea of him being Bruce Wayne's handler of sorts in these films. I've always seen him as a source of moral support to Wayne, not a Q-like figure. There's no need to cast an actor like Michael Caine or Jeremy Irons in the part. I loved Michael Gough in the part, a terrific character actor best known for Hammer films and Dennis Potter's Blackeyes.

beamish14 wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 2:14 pm I'm generally OK with Affleck (although I don't like him in Dazed and Confused, which I don't care for at all)

He plays such a good asshole though- the kind of douchey senior who doesn't allow themselves to be any deeper than the abrasive behaviors they project with no filter. Maybe it's because I've known and been around people just like this, but it's spot on and arguably my favorite performance of his.

It seems odd that to play the Flash they chose an actor in Ezra Miller who apparently has never run before. It's so weird to watch, like someone had to explain it verbally only and he went off that description.

I liked the bit where they revealed that Steppenwolf has an actual fleshy head structure and it’s not just some horned helmet because there’s the implication that since he protects it it is probably very sensitive.

Even though his reasons for doing it make no sense, I do like the idea of 4:3 gaining some mainstream traction again. Needless to say some of the most visually memorable films are in academy ratio; Stalker would not be the same film, Citizen Kane, The Shining (imo), etc. and I don’t think it’s simply a matter of being outmoded like some technology. A wider ratio benefits immersion by imitating the human FOV better, but there’s something extremely direct and classical about the square. It has been making a comeback, obviously with instagram and laptops. Who knows with theaters being in trouble maybe we’ll see square TVs again one day.

I’m surprised at how many jokey lines and moments I assumed were Whedon are actually Snyder. Like Batman’s “I’m rich” quip, which was dumb enough in the Whedon cut but now seems gross given it comes not long after a scene showing the ugly effects of poverty.

Mr Sausage wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:52 pm I’m surprised at how many jokey lines and moments I assumed were Whedon are actually Snyder. Like Batman’s “I’m rich” quip, which was dumb enough in the Whedon cut but now seems gross given it comes not long after a scene showing the ugly effects of poverty.

I love how clever and edgy this film thinks it is when Aquaman calls Gotham a "shithole". That quip you mentioned is just excruciating, and it was played up in the trailers.

Mr Sausage wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:52 pmI’m surprised at how many jokey lines and moments I assumed were Whedon are actually Snyder. Like Batman’s “I’m rich” quip, which was dumb enough in the Whedon cut but now seems gross given it comes not long after a scene showing the ugly effects of poverty.

I think it'll probably be the most interesting thing comparing the 2, because a lot has been attributed to either Snyder or Whedon in the 2017 cut based more on their respective aura and fanbase rather than the possibility that Snyder could be a bit more the culprit than some wanted to admit.
Now that we have a final product supposedly entirely endorsed by Snyder, we can finally properly attribute things to him and Whedon rather than doing at times a binary choice between who's the good guy and who's the bad one.

Also : I do think it's not a negligible thing that because of how things went, the Snyder Cut is only released now, 4 years after the Whedon one and after a lengthy backstory full of fan dreams about what it could contain. Considering the final movie and how it definitely doesn't seem fit at all for theaters (but weirdly chose an AR thought for IMAX theaters), I wonder how much of the "original vision" actually is restored, but also how such a sluggish cinder block of a movie would have been welcomed if released in a similar form. I'm not sure it would have fared that much better than what Whedon released back then and if the current slightly mixed but overall positive reception isn't a good exemple of anchor bias.

RIP Film wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:07 pmEven though his reasons for doing it make no sense, I do like the idea of 4:3 gaining some mainstream traction again. Needless to say some of the most visually memorable films are in academy ratio; Stalker would not be the same film, Citizen Kane, The Shining (imo), etc. and I don’t think it’s simply a matter of being outmoded like some technology. A wider ratio benefits immersion by imitating the human FOV better, but there’s something extremely direct and classical about the square.

The issue is that there's currently a range of formats one can choose to fit the story and visuals, and so far, what I saw tells me 1.33 doesn't work at all on JL. Maybe it goes better along the movie, but I doubt it (so I won't be unhappy the likely awful Aquaman CGI returning but not in a screen-filling fashion).

You’re on to something to say Snyder’s version has a lot of goodwill baked into it. Considering it doubles down on everything people were unenthusiastic about in Batman vs. Superman, I’d say the the reaction to it would be very different if that were the point of comparison and not a worse version of itself.

I'm not sure if really goodwill or just an anchor bias. I don't doubt the new cut, in the end, fixes lots of issues from the 2017 cut, but just because it does doesn't make it a good movie, nor does it prevent it to have its own issues.
As such, this biased comparison works in favor of the new cut, but ponderating more factually pros and cons most likely wouldn't explain how a disliked movie can turn into a masterpiece.
I also wonder how much of the Whedon vs Snyder, interventionism-incarnated vs auteurism, schtick plays again in favor of the new cut while it probably isn't really so different in the end.

I guess the differences in MC or RT scores show it's not that much of a clear cut between both versions : RT has a 6.7/6.0 (critics/top critics) score, while it was 5.3/4.7 for the 2017 cut (which, surprisingly, has a quite OK 71% user score). Not really a revolution. It's even tighter on MC critics, the 2021 cut currently is at 55, the 2017 one 45. User scores however are 9.0 vs 6.3, but the 2021 score seems to be moving downwards quite fast.

Well, not seeing the Whedon version, I'm left to evaluate the movie by itself, and I don't feel that it works at all. Drawing it out so long and slow just reminds me that Avengers was mstly fun at about half the length. I think the ponderous triumphalism of this new version is aimed very squarely at the #releasethesyndercut crowd, but it ends up making the movie this weird combination of pretentious and simplistic, and the filmmakers' clear expectation is that you should love that mix.

Mr Sausage wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:52 pm I’m surprised at how many jokey lines and moments I assumed were Whedon are actually Snyder. Like Batman’s “I’m rich” quip, which was dumb enough in the Whedon cut but now seems gross given it comes not long after a scene showing the ugly effects of poverty.

Apparently Whedon was on the movie doing studio-mandated rewrites before Snyder was off the movie, so some of those jokey lines could still be Whedon's. It's very striking, and I think very much a case of a studio note on the previous film that this one has none of the ponderous "man against god" monologues of Batman v. Superman. Snyder seems to have taken that note to heart, and here he delivers lengthy action and lengthy brooding with hardly a trace of philosophy.

There's even a point where Deathstroke seems to be expecting a monologue from Lex Luthor, and Luthor says he went into Arkham Asylum and they "straightened him out"––almost like a comic retcon, explaining away the awkward behavior of a character in the previous iteration. On screen it read as an apology for the previous version of the character.

One person I'm tempted to consider redeemed by this version of the film––though I probably shouldn't trust this instinct––is screenwriter Chris Terio. In this longer version, it's quite apparent that whole character arcs were written for the members of the Justice League, and that the action scenes had some level of suspense and payoff in their initial construction. To my mind, Argo is the least deserving best-picture winner since Crash (I haven't seen Green Book and can't factor it into my calculations), and I generally sort of wondered about Terio and how he got so criminally lucky to get so far with a movie career. But look at him go on this version of Justice League! Character arcs, motivation, themes articulated...of course, I think by this point it's clear he has a fetish in action scenes for cars with guns on them––the Iranian army in Argo, Batman in both of these DC movies, The amazons with their horses and arrows in this movie, and the skiff scene in Rise of Skywalker speaks to his ability to basically envision this one action scene again and again in movie after movie. But on the whole, I was stupidly impressed that this one screenplay of his ended up ultimately coherent. A very low bar, true, and everything else in his filmography speaks to his willingness to bear the brunt of criticism and take the check for being a "yes"-man for all these bleak studio movies, but it was strange to see him actually doing his job half-decently here. Of course, there were apparently a bunch of uncredited writers, too, so make of that what one will.