So here I sit, having watched all 4 hours of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. I didn’t hate it. In fact, I liked it. I felt it told a story more engaging than the theatrical release… but is that saying much? My good friend and Geek Anything’s Editor-in-Chief Jordan DesJardins has his own thoughts about that.
Where do you even begin? I could talk about all the plot changes and editing choices. The film takes on a more personal tone, which might seem unusual considering how much Snyder added. It is not so much what’s been added (which is a lot considering the Whedon Cut clocked in at 120 minutes and this version is 242), but what he stripped away.
Gone are quipping for quip’s sake dialogue, the paint by numbers motivation, and the 16-bit color pallet. He took the time to show us what makes the characters more than just costumes. He helped make them feel more grounded, and in doing so, he actually made them inspiring.
Cyborg (Ray Fisher) comes across as a much more developed person. The restored material tells more of his backstory and shapes his journey in the film. Ezra Miller’s Flash also benefits from Snyder’s touch (which is something, considering he was one of the bright moments in the original). He is still the bright, optimist of the group but not so obtusely naïve anymore. He is a hero. They are all heroes.
The villains get a narrative upgrade as well. Steppenwolf, well, he’s still a big CGI mess but, now we know more about him. And we get to see the real evil behind it all with Darkseid, and his search for the Anti-Life formula which will give him control over everything.
The Snyder Cut is better-paced, but no one would expect an audience to sit through 4 hours in a theatre. Snyder made good use of the long-form narrative. He spent time world-building, adding little touches and characters to make the DCEU a larger world. He also broke the story into beats, creating chapters at natural stopping points. If you’re not a glutton like me, you can take breaks and spread out watching the film over a week. Or you can binge it like Season 4 of The Office.
2017’s Justice League felt like a Warner Brothers studio superhero movie. And by that I mean, Warner Brothers doesn’t know how to make a superhero movie. I always felt that WB executives don’t fundamentally understand what they have in DC Comics. To them, it’s a toy chest. To them, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest aren’t characters. They are action figures. DC’s pantheon of heroes, at their core, are the hopes and dreams of every person who ever was a child. We all wish we could fly like Superman, be brave like Batman, or had the determination of Wonder Woman.
Justice League was not just a movie. It was part of a company-wide synergistic marketing strategy. They made the movie to sell toys, lunch boxes, happy meals, cans of Dr. Pepper, and just about anything else they could think to put the movie’s name on. Snyder wanted to tell a real story first, and the fight he probably had to fight to tell that story back in 2017 was not in him. And who could blame him? It is amazing that he was given this chance to go back and tell his story. Sure WB wanted to use it to help sell HBO Max, but this time they got out of his way.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now streaming on HBO Max
