The Snyder Cut: A Play in Seven Acts

Part 1: Something Lighter

I am almost disappointed by how tasteful the Snyder Cut of Justice League was. If you asked me to imagine what four hours of Zack Snyder superhero filmmaking would look like, with Snyder being given final cut, it would not have been this. I was bracing for something brutal and purposefully awful, the Lars von Trier of superhero movies. I turned on the radio bracing for 6ix9ine and instead heard Chicago.

Here we have Zack Snyder, the guy who brought us Sucker Punch, "Granny’s Peach Tea", and 9/11 times 1,000 melting down Metropolis. None of that awfulness is here. Instead, Zack Snyder made a restrained, actually simple Justice League movie. I am not repulsed on a moral or aesthetic level. Instead, Justice League is perfectly competent.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, "A Zack Snyder Film", opens with a short message telling us “This film is presented in a 4:3 format to preserve the integrity of Zack Snyder’s creative vision.” In 2021, very little is made for 4:3 anymore. Even Jeopardy is presented in widescreen. This is one of those idiosyncratic choices that seem to exist to prove the auteur credentials of what you’re watching. Think of Christopher Nolan deciding that audiences did not need to hear the dialog in Tenet. The 4:3 choice prepares you for something bold, something entirely unique. The visionary vision of "Visionary Director" Zack Snyder was so vision-ful that we had to sacrifice huge chunks of our TV set to see it.

Then that vision turned out to be remarkably ordinary. The Snyder Cut is a four-hour movie that feels like six hours, but should be half that. But beside that complaint, there is a perfectly normal action blockbuster in here. With a bit of trimming and a 16:9 frame this would not feel very auteur at all. The most Snyder-y of Snyder scene are hidden at tend end. It amounts to a post-credits scene set before the credits. Other than that Justice League feels like... the Justice League, as you imagined them. Superheros you recognize team up to fight a big dumbass alien guy. 

This is a huge win for HBO Max. But is it a huge win for film as an individual's art form?

Part 2: "Don't Count on It, Zack"

As messy productions go, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a treasure trove. If you love behind the scenes drama, this is an epic masterpiece. Arguably the story behind the movie is more interesting than the movie itself. To start, we need to go back five years.

The early Trump-era was a rough period for everybody but especially bad for Warner Bros’ very troubled DC film franchise. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016 was wildly despised for being horrendous and terrible. (I called the movie "Broodman v Supergrimdark: Dawn of Misery".) Meanwhile, the MCU had well-established itself as the new cornerstone of Western Civilization. Warner Bros as a company had to move away from BvS. They forced David Ayer’s Suicide Squad into being changed wildly in post-production. The studio wanted something more “fun” and more like Guardians of the Galaxy. So did audiences in 2016. Suicide Squad was a huge hit.

By 2017 the studio had already been fighting with Snyder to add more jokes and less psychopathy to his Justice League movie. There seems to have been a lot of regret in letting this director decide the future of their most profitable and important characters. The studio had figures like Geoff Johns babysitting Snyder every day on set to make sure nothing he did was too outrageous. Pairing up Lois Lane and Batman? That was too far for WB. 

We'll never know what movie would have come to theaters if Snyder had been allowed to finish, because he never did. He had to leave the project in the spring due to a family emergency. Warner Bros, wanting to repeat the success of Suicide Squad, passed directing duties onto the since-cancelled Joss Whedon. Whedon completely re-edited the movie to the his liking. This was going to be the movie that everybody wanted.

In theory, 2021's Justice League is the movie that would have been released in 2017 if Zack Snyder's life had not been tragically interrupted. (There's a credit at the end dedicating the movie to his daughter who died during filming.) Actually this project seems to have given him more leeway than he would had otherwise. I cannot imagine a studio releasing a 4:3 blockbuster to theaters. Or one that was four hours long. Maybe a four-hour version could have existed as a Director's Cut Special Edition. There's several extended cuts of Watchmen out there and a bigger director's cut of Batman v. Superman I don't even want to see. This four-hour Justice League is probably that, this would never have been a theatrical cut. Even in Snyder's wildest dreams, that was not happening.

Now what happened in those four years to radically change the story? Well, first off, Joss Whedon's "movie for everybody" was really a movie for nobody. From all reports, that Justice League is a compromised, unsatisfying movie. It sounds bad in uninteresting and un-fun ways. Whedon's Justice League is the movie that gave us Henry Cavill's hilarious mustache-less face and not much else. I haven't seen it and never will. (Let us not forget reports that Joss Whedon was abusive to one his stars, Ray Fisher, and fuck Joss Whedon.) 

Also, while I personally think Man of Steel and Batman v Superman are some of the worst movies I have ever seen, they do have fans. Somebody actually liked Sucker Punch and I'll never understand why. People loved them, maybe for the very reasons I hated them. It was not long before people were asking for an un-Whedoned version of Justice League.

Part 3: The Age of Streaming

#ReleasetheSnyderCut was the war. That is its own story, one I'm not particularly excited to talk about. This is toxic in the same way that everything is toxic today. The world is a Hell Hole. Most fan demands of studios result in terrible things. Online bullshit is why Kelly Marie Tran only has a minute of screentime in Rise of Skywalker. And to fall on my sword, I never thought there even could be a four-hour version of Justice League. This seemed childish and ridiculous, as impossible as asking for a four-hour cut of David Lynch's Dune. Releasing a four-hour movie to theaters is deranged, impossible. But the world doesn't need theaters anymore. The fanboys in 2021 finally have a way to win.

Zack Snyder did indeed give you 242 minutes of Justice League (well, more like 235 minutes considering credits). It’s all here, every minute, even minutes that really should have been cut. Feast on it. Consumers, consume. Streamers, stream.

Importantly, this version of Justice League feels like a completed film. It does not feel like those amateur re-cuts of the Star Wars Prequels. Often re-cuts feel distracting, you can see the tape holding the entire shoddy thing together. Snyder's Cut is more coherent than even other director's cuts I can think of. Francis Ford Coppola recently butchered The Godfather Part III to try to rebuild his original vision in "The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone". If you hated Godfather 3 before, it is much worse now, and no editing is fixing poor Sophia Coppola's acting. Meanwhile, I think Snyder succeeded. He took the pieces Whedon destroyed and restored them into something watchable.

In fact, the story behind this Snyder Cut is remarkably similar to that of The Other Side of the Wind, Orson Well's unfinished movie that took forty-eight years to be competed. It released on Netflix in 2018 decades after Wells himself passed away. And both projects have exactly the same goal: fill streaming time. I don't think either story is more artistically significant than the other.

To fill that time, Warner Bros needed to spend another seventy million dollars. Most of that, however, was in CG. Snyder only did three days of reshoots, adding mere minutes of extra footage. It seems that most of the budget went into fixing the armor on a space alien's body. Some footage looks very "digital" like the actors are not really standing on a street, but instead a green screen. But Joss Whedon has no credit on this version. That's what you wanted, right?

To get back to toxic a bit. I've already been called a “casual” for daring to doubt the divine inspiration of this canonical text. But fanboys and girls, Warner Bros is not doing this movie for you. This was not some grassroots victory for the Common Man. Nor is it a Randian triumph of a visionary overcoming looters and doubters to finish his masterpiece. Warner Bros has a streaming service that is now the future of their studio, and they need content. HBO Max needs the Snyder Cut more than you or me or Zack Snyder. Throwing a few million behind a high profile re-cut is a great way to get asses in the seats… or on their couch cushions as it were. 

The Snyder Cut is not yours; you own nothing. It belongs to AT&T who want to collect a monthly rent on it for the rest of time. You're not being fed, you're just licking a boot.

Part 4: All the King's Minutes

As I said back in my intro, this movie is surprisingly tame. Justice League is still four hours long, still 4:3, and still crushingly pompous in the way that only Snyder films can be. But it is a digestible kind of pompous. It starts slow but the movie finds the fun by its third hour. (Which in game terms, approximates to “Final Fantasy XIII gets good after the twentieth hour”.) 

But before I get to that, we need to talk about the elephant in the room, that being the elephantine girth on this monster.

Even with blockbusters growing longer and longer, Justice League is seventy-seven minutes longer than The Dark Knight Rises, sixty-one minutes longer than Avengers: Endgame, and more than a half hour longer than The Irishman. The difference is that those other movies are immense epics with huge complicated stories to tell. There are whole galaxies of plotlines in those films. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (the 251-minute Extended Edition) accomplishes vastly more with only an extra ten minutes. That movie built a war story around the just-introduced Kingdom of Gondor, settled Sam and Frodo's relationship, concluded Gollum's decent to darkness, had a whole other war scene outside Mordor, and resolved about fifty other subplots. People complain about all twelve endings Return of the King had. But that is what you want out of that movie. It's epic scale! We can bask in the excess and the grandeur. You'll cry when King Aragorn bows to the Hobbits, you'll cry again when Frodo sails out West and leaves Middle Earth behind. The runtime, as huge as it is, can be justified. Not so here.

What does the Snyder Cut of Justice League do with four hours two minutes? It has an alien invasion with a generic doomsday villain, Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). He collects three McGuffin boxes, builds a doom fortress outside Chernobyl, and wants to blow up the Earth. Meanwhile Batman (Ben Affleck) gathers the Justice League, brings Superman (Henry Cavill) back to life, and everybody teams up and they win, spoilers. Basically aliens vs Justice League, with shockingly little else going on. Very few subplots. Only four major set-piece action scenes. The big climax is even considerably shorter than Man of Steel, thank the New Gods.

We do have to introduce a few heroes, that takes time. That's a problem with the entire idea of making a Justice League movie before giving these heroes their own films. Nobody was solving that, not even Snyder. But otherwise, this Justice League does not need this length. Even compared to Snyder's other movies, there's not a lot here. Batman v Superman has a whole bizarre digression with Lex Luthor giving Holly Hunter a jar full of piss. There's nothing like that here. It's straight-forward. It's basic. It's bloated.

Let's rewind twenty years to the 90s/early 2000s DC cartoons I grew up on. They're on HBO Max right now, so if you want to watch them, they're there. (Only $14.99 per month?? What a bargain!) The creators Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and their many writers had to cram full story superhero arcs in often a single half hour episode - with commercials. Those guys were masters of narrative efficiency. Snyder's 2021 Justice League has four hours to tell its story. Compare that to the 2001 Justice League cartoon. That show had a short one-hour movie to introduce the premise, called Secret Origins. Secret Origins establishes all the heroes, has them team up, and fights an equally generic alien invasion, all in just three episodes. It does everything the Snyder Cut does in a quarter of the time.

How do you get to four hours then if there's so little meat on the bone? Well, you just do things slowly. Basic ideas that could be single short scenes turn into whole micro-episodes practically unrelated to the rest of the film. We have to introduce nearly every member of the Justice League in their own short films in case you forgot who they are or never knew in the first place. The movie checks in on a grieving Lois Lane (Amy Adams) about once an hour when she will not matter to the story until we're 160 minutes deep. You could have watched all of Tarkovsky's Stalker in the time it takes before Lois Lane matters in Justice League. This is simply a movie in no hurry to get anywhere.

A lot of the times I was left frustrated by how slow the movie was going. The Amazons early on are attacked by an army of evil Flying Monkeys called Parademons to get their Magic Doom Box. So, to warn the Lands of Men, they decide to light a beacon. It is straight out of Return of the King. Except lighting the beacon requires a short prayer. Then the women grandly pull out a special arrow out of a box with its own Capital Letter name. This is the “Arrow of Artemis”, which you'd think is important to the plot but is not. Then with a deliberate slow pace, the Amazons fire it over the ocean. It’s a three-minute event to just light a torch. Later Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) finds a painting in a Greek Temple showing an ancient alien invasion, which also takes minutes. We have to watch her slowly walk down the stairs, every step in no hurry. Maybe this is Stalker after all.

Then there are slow scenes that accomplish nothing at all and should have been cut. We have Jason Mamoa's Aquaman walking in slow-mo down a pier while sulky indie music plays. This scene runs for over a minute. It is technically impressive. It is well-shot. Aquaman looks cool. He sure has a sexy dirtbag vibe to him. But I have no idea what this scene is supposed to tell me. I guess we are being shown that Aquaman is unsatisfied in a nonspecific way? I don't know what emotion this song is supposed to inspire in me either. This scene gives us nothing. There's another scene earlier on where Icelandic women sing about Aquaman in their own language, and I don't know what that meant either.

At the very least the Icelandic women singing is a style choice so strange only Zack Snyder could have done it. Maybe he shot that while his studio babysitter, Geoff Johns, was in the bathroom.

Part 5: Beloved Size, Beloved Girth

Slow is not necessarily bad. A deliberate pace can evoke a kind of grandness. Think of the narrative patience that drives a Spaghetti Western, or the sweeping monument scale of old Hollywood epics. That's what you want in Justice League. A big movie like this should feel B I G. And it does, not just in length. Zack Snyder is very far from an incompetent director. He's a brilliant stylist and that's why he's still a big name despite critical bashing from so many (including me). There's a cult around this guy's movies for a reason more than just Culture War shit. Sometimes letting him take his time works very well.

The opening shots of Justice League are extremely impressive. This is maybe the most successful single moment of the movie selling its hugeness. We see Superman in his dying throes screaming so loud as to shake the entire planet. This is all done in traditional Snyder slow-mo, but that allows us to see the sound waves blasting off one by one. Meanwhile, super beings from all around the planet feel his pain. Zack Snyder mulligans his own failure in Batman v Superman. In that movie, Superman dying was a final insult to an abusive 2.5 hours. In Justice League, Superman's death feels like the greatest tragedy to ever befall our unworthy race.

And if I'm going to stay positive, everything works about the introduction of Cyborg (Ray Fisher, who does deserve more than what he got from all of Warner Bros). The happy-go-lucky goofball from the Teen Titans cartoons has now become, a God-like being trapped on a plane of reality beyond our understanding. He's the lone life form in a digital world, one where he apparently runs the entire world's stock market! There's hilarious CG bulls and bears fighting in his brain. Cyborg has an entire half hour of Justice League that is his own mini-movie, and it rules. Zack Snyder's greatest work as a director remains his introduction of Doctor Manhattan in his otherwise badly misguided Watchmen. And yeah, Cyborg as Doctor Manhattan is a fascinating choice for the character. Ray Fisher sells the alien-ness better than a certain Kryptonian. The Flash (Ezra Miller) also has a similar introduction scene that also very successfully sells his divine isolation.

Then when you get past those first two hours, Justice League is a solid movie. This is the most watchable Snyder has been in decades. Steppenwolf's metal fur that cost $70 million looks great. That effect is actually well-sold. Cyborg's armor looks fucking terrible, but oh well. I remember reviews from 2017 complaining that Ben Affleck seems bored as Batman. Instead I think he's a warm fatherly presence. It is a halfway pleasant version of Batman, which we have not seen in live-action in decades. To my infinite shock, Snyder's Superman even works now. Henry Cavill basically has an impossible task as an actor. He's playing a neoclassical fascist sculpture - you try bringing humanity to that role! Justice League does the best with this horrifying alien by just making him a horrifying alien. The reborn Superman is terrifying. There are several shots of Cavill floating in the distance with glowing red eyes. Brightburn wishes it could be this scary.

When there is a big action sequence, Snyder is proving his worth as a stylist. You have six superheroes doing their thing with their own unique ways. There is a ton of slow-motion, not just in The Flash's scenes. This all does give you that sense of big splashy comic book panels. The fight against a briefly Evil Superman is one of the best comic book fights ever put on screen. I am still not sold on 4:3 as a way to frame a blockbuster, or any modern movie. But Zack Snyder sure is getting the best out of that thin frame. 

Part 6: "...I-I Like... This?"

But beyond style how auteur is Justice League? When you get right down to it, it is still superheroes fighting aliens in a big crowd-pleasing spectacle. There's no terrible Jesus metaphors. It isn't a backdoor way to worship Ayn Rand. There's simple good and evil, minus Superman turning Heel for a minute. Snyder even submitted to studio pressure and let in a quip or two. The quips are bad and aggressively unfunny. Ezra Miller is saddled with most of the humor and he's absolutely abyssal with the comedy he's given. But I am stunned to see Snyder even made that concession. All the dumb jokes from the 2017 trailers are still here. Those quips were not Whedon creations, they were all Snyder.

Where is the movie that is only for the most deranged of deranged film fans? This is a movie for a "casual". Sure you will probably need a 90 minute break halfway through. (I recommend a nice walk.) But it makes perfect sense to me why 75% of critics gave Justice League a positive review. It is a movie for the masses. I'm one of those masses too. Even after hating everything Zack Snyder made for years, I think... I like... this?

Yeah, Justice League, despite everything, is likable. This is a positive review. I don't know if you knew that. I don't know if even I knew that.

Even with final say in seemingly everything, right down to the shape of the picture, Snyder made the least Snyder of all his movies. There was no singular artistic statement to create even with the re-cut, because of the compromises Snyder made with the studio back in 2017. All this Auteur talk is marketing. Auteur theory is bullshit on the best day, but in Justice League it is absolute fantasy. Snyder's most tasteless instincts were already curtailed. I wonder if the Batman v Superman fans might even be disappointed. As a Hater, I'm pleasantly surprised.

That said, do I want more of this? A lot of this Snyder Cut feels like a trailer for future DC movies. Most of those movies look like they'll never be made. Ben Affleck isn't Batman anymore, now he's Robert Pattinson. There's a promise of Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) going to hunt Bruce Wayne in a movie that is not happening. However, is this a sign of things changing course yet again for DC. Are we going right back to grimdark? Is that what we want? With the chaos of Covid funneling everything to the small screen, now Zack Snyder has finally won?

Ultimately, the tone and style is still too serious and sour. I don't want this and have been happy with the post-Snyder DC over the last few years. More recent DC movies have since gone more gonzo and more Silver Age. Compare Wonder Woman's high-flying trapeze act in the mall in Wonder Woman 1984 to her introduction in this movie, fighting some nameless Irish(?) terrorists. Both scenes accomplish the same narrative beat. There's two different little girls both equally inspired by Wonder Woman's heroism. But one is lot more fun and it isn't Snyder's. In James Wan's Aquaman, Atlantis is this wonderful space opera fantasy world with a drummer octopus. Here it is a single ruins set. Amber Heard isn't wearing her bright red wig! My heart is broken! 

Ultimately, if I have to choose between Justice League 2 or more Shazam! and Birds of Prey, I'll take Shazam! and Birds of Prey.

Joss Whedon can stay cancelled forever, however.

 

Part 7: Joker's Trick

That said, we still do get one final defiant scream from the more extreme end of the Snyderverse. And it is making me wonder what I really want after all.

(Big Spoilers now.) Justice League ends with Batman dreaming of a dark future where Superman turned evil forever. Darkseid conquers the universe. Lois Lane is dead, Wonder Woman is dead, poor Harley Quinn died in Batman's arms. So Batman and a team of survivors wander a Mad Max wasteland searching for their last hope. And who would be there but the goddamned Jared Leto Joker, the most despised part of Suicide Squad and the entire DCEU. Snyder wants to sell us on a post-apocalypse desert warrior Batman teaming up with the Joker to kill Evil Superman. This is the craziest pitch I've ever heard!

You know what? Fuck it. That sounds utterly up its ass. That movie might never get made, but I want to see it. Zack Snyder, you have my permission to complete your utterly awful vision for superheroes. Be your worst self. Be an incomprehensible hateful asshole. I don't believe this Justice League is the real you. No, the real you is in this dream sequence. You're not tasteful and family-friendly, you're a jock jam hellscape.

Maybe Justice League isn't the superhero Lars von Trier. Not yet. But, I think we can get there.

I want to watch the world burn.