Last Friday I finally got around to watching Zack Snyder's Justice League, or as it's more popularly known, "The Snyder Cut." At 4 hours long it is much, much too long for casual fans to watch. And really it showcases the problem of most Director's Cuts in general: most of the stuff added in is not really of value to the audience.
A lot of the stuff added to the Snyder Cut was not really stuff the audience needed to see. The "Knightmare" sequences could easily have been left out. Really the 4 different scenes that should have been cookie scenes in the credits could have been left out entirely. The Flash's creepy rescue of Iris could definitely have stayed on the cutting room floor.
As I mentioned on Facebook and Twitter the biggest winners of The Snyder Cut were Cyborg and Steppenwolf. Cyborg gets an expanded origin and much more screen time. Steppenwolf gets a CGI tweaking and also some added background. The other big winners were Darkseid and Martian Manhunter who had a combined 0 seconds of screen time in the theatrical version. While I didn't like the Flash's creepy rescue scene, he does get a much cooler role in the big finale. The biggest losers were Aquaman, who got most of his jokes cut, and Superman, who really after he returns doesn't do much besides punch Steppenwolf (a lot) and help pull the boxes apart.
As with other DC/Snyder offerings BvS and Watchmen, for the few minutes of added stuff that actually adds some value (ie building up Cyborg and Steppenwolf) there's a lot of bloat that really does nothing at all. The aforementioned endless should-be cookie scenes in large part. In BvS there was almost an hour of extra stuff but really the only stuff that mattered (explaining the bullet Lois finds when she's taken captive and explaining the wheelchair that blows up the Capitol was lead-lined) took up probably less than 5 minutes. In Watchmen the Director's Cut adds a scene where the original Nite Owl is killed and another of Nite Owl II's retaliation and some other stuff, but none of it really adds anything important to the main story, which is finding who killed the Comedian and stopping the end of the world. The Ultimate Cut adds another layer by including all the Director's Cut stuff plus the animated version of the pirate comic book.
For Watchmen that added stuff was cool for fans of the graphic novel but for casual fans it doesn't add anything. It just makes it a lot longer and probably more confusing too. If you ever listen to the director's commentary during deleted scenes of a movie the most common reason something gets cut is pacing. In a lot of cases though if you watch the deleted scenes there's like 4 minutes of extra footage and so it doesn't seem to matter. But in movies like Watchmen or Justice League there is a lot of extra stuff that really could have stayed cut for pacing. In the case of Justice League though DC/WB/HBO Max wanted to get the most out of all the extra money they were sinking in, so why not let Snyder make it as long as he wanted? Why bother editing it at all, right? Just throw out the kitchen sink. That's what people were paying (or not) to see.
In my experience there are very few alternate cuts of a movie that are actually better than the original. The top of my list is Halloween VI: The Producer's Cut because it makes a lot more sense than the theatrical version. Other ones like Blade Runner, Superman II, or the "Special Edition" original trilogy Star Wars movies were at best a lateral move. In those cases the issue like Justice League is really about adding extra value along with extra run time. When a director or producer or whoever is recutting a movie there's always that temptation to add in all the stuff that didn't make the first cut instead of trying to just add enough to make it a better movie. In part that might be because if a studio is going to release a new version they want it to be worth the audience's while; if only a couple of minutes are added, the audience is probably going to complain they got ripped off. If Justice League only had the extra 10-20 minutes that were actually helpful, people would probably have just shrugged after waiting about 3 1/2 years. Whereas if you say there was almost 2 hours of new footage, it seems like a much bigger deal, even if most of that 2 hours is just unimportant crap that isn't memorable and doesn't add anything to the overall plot.
So, Phantom Readers, any Director's Cuts (or whatever alternate editions) you like better than the original theatrical release? Do tell. I dare you. And if you want to give your opinion of The Snyder Cut, go right ahead.
1 comment:
Two come to my mind that add a little extra that have some value...T2 and Star Trek II. Both add a little extra explanation for things left somewhat nebulous in the regular versions. In T2 the scene where they open up the terminator's head to do something to the chip is cool and how they did it using Arnie's stunt double and Linda's twin sister is interesting to watch in a behind-the-scenes thing and there's some extra scenes added that show that the liquid guy is slowly taking damage...but all that stuff was cut, most likely pacing, and in the case of the T-1000, they wanted to keep this idea he was invincible. In Star Trek II, there is a quick scene where Kirk goes to engineering and Scotty introduces his nephew, which then makes the scene where Scott carries the guy's dead body to the bridge make more sense, plus there's a little extra with Scott grieving over him in sick bay with some additional exposition.
I haven't watched the Snyder thing yet...4 hours is Lord of the Rings extended edition territory...which are three other movies that the "director's cut" for might be considered worthwhile if only because poor ol Sean Bean gets a few extra minutes of screen time lol.
I'm one of the dozen or so people who enjoyed Justice League as it was. I thought they did a good job making Aquaman a cool character and Superman near the end felt the closest to the classic Reeve's Superman that we've had since the early 80s, so of course Snyder undoes those things. Can't have any fun or levity these DC movies...Games Workshop should hire him to make a Warhammer 40K movie since he likes everything to be all grimdark and moody.
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