Official Justice League Movie

[Leo656]

So while the leak was apparently only online for about an hour, lots of people jumped around through the entire thing looking for clips and screengrabs to post online. Lots of them have been taken down but a lot are still available. I saw quite a few.

Most of the conversation is about as "mature" as you'd expect. The CGI is definitely a little rough, but for whatever reason I was expecting that? But that's all anyone is talking about, and BOY are they. Between the footage they had in the can without any opportunity to do "proper" reshoots on it in the first place, along with the fact that the CGI is going to be "budget"-quality anyway and made worse by the whole "work from home" thing, I don't really think it's entirely fair to get hung up on that. I feel like people should remember that they basically had to add music and SFX to a workprint under less-than-optimal conditions and adjust expectations accordingly.

But yeah, there's gonna be a lot of fodder for the "It looks like a video game!" people to cry and quip about, sure. The Joker stuff was noticeably shot separately from everything else and thus looks a bit too spliced-in, but again, we could have expected that.

Meanwhile, a few people spoiled the ending scene, including both the "mind-blowing cameo" and the "massive cliffhanger", both of which are a bit over-hyped. Not worth the hype - I mean, it's predictable to most folks but I acknowledge that they have to build hype for the on-the-fence people or those who don't keep up with the production and Spoiler-y stuff - but also not worth the massive gnashing of teeth from people upset that it ends on said cliffhanger. I saw it without any sound, but between what I saw and others' comments, the gist of it is this:

Spoiler:

After the League defeats Steppenwolf, at some point Bruce has another "Knightmare" dream. He's in the desert with Joker, Deathstroke, Mera, Flash (wearing his BvS armor) and Cyborg. Superman (under Darkseid's thrall, but wearing his regular blue and red costume, again a'la BvS) drops in and advances on them with glowing red eyes, at which point Bruce abruptly wakes up. He then sees Martian Manhunter standing outside, who basically tells him something like "It's not over, there's a war coming," or some variation of that, teasing the full-blown Darkseid invasion/Knightmare Future that was supposed to be the plot of JL2.

So that supposed "massive cliffhanger" that everyone has been so upset about is just a standard sequel hook, which is only annoying in that the sequel won't ever get made. Pretty much what I figured from the beginning, based on what we already knew.

I don't care about the rush job CGI and I long ago made peace with the fact that the sequel is never coming out, so none of this bothers me. I just want to see as close to "the real version" of the movie we were supposed to get originally, the one that the trailers back then promised but lied about. It's unfortunate that it will forever have a big asterisk next to it with regard to it still being kind of "not polished", but that couldn't be helped under the circumstances. If people can adjust their expectations and look at it like a modern-day equivalent of the Donner Cut of Superman II, that would be for the best - they won't, but that's the only fair thing to do.

Also like the Donner Cut, even with the lack of polish and "we did the best we could with what we had" nature of the project, I still feel like it will be superior to the theatrical version. Many will disagree, but it is what it is.

[Leo656]

[ZariusTwo]

For those in the UK and Ireland, Snyder Cut will stream on Sky Cinema and NOW TV. Not paywalled like WW 84 was.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/za...w-tv-in-the-uk

[AquaParade]

I think it's fair to complain if the digital effects look bad. The visuals are the highlight of Zack Snyder films. If this one doesn't look up to par, I'm going to be disappointed. Sure, there are circumstances surrounding the project, but this isn't "Zack Snyder's Justice League Rough Draft." People are expecting a completed film. Honestly, if you can't get the movie looking up to snuff with the others, pouring $80M into it seems pretty pointless. If you can't get the job done, just release the rough cut.

Anywho, I haven't seen enough leaked footage to make a judgement. What I have seen in trailers looks fine to me, and much better than Whedon's, but I'll know for sure when I see the official release.

[Chris]

Whedon got $25m and six months to reshoot half the movie & finish VFX. Snyder got a year and $70m to finish this. Whatever limitations are in place it should look better based on that alone.

On the cliffhanger

Spoiler:

It sounds like the cliffhanger is just another Knightmare vision (the reshoots) followed by the MM and Bruce scene. You could literally lop that off and presumably end in the same place as the theatrical cut. Do that and put Superman back in his classic colours and you could have a done in one film with no issues.

Honestly, given how much the Knightmare and anti-life Superman factor into his sequel plans I'd be happy for them never to see light of day even though I'm expecting I'll enjoy Snyder's JL far more than MoS or BvS.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Chris

Whedon got $25m and six months to reshoot half the movie & finish VFX. Snyder got a year and $70m to finish this. Whatever limitations are in place it should look better based on that alone.

This is actually a great point....
Still looking forward to this though...

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Chris

Whedon got $25m and six months to reshoot half the movie & finish VFX.

Which, considering Whedon reshot 90% of the movie, the finishing of VFX was no small feat. But likely is why we end up with stuff like the jarringly bad Superman lip movements and such.

Originally Posted by Chris

Spoiler:

Honestly, given how much the Knightmare and anti-life Superman factor into his sequel plans I'd be happy for them never to see light of day even though I'm expecting I'll enjoy Snyder's JL far more than MoS or BvS.

I suspect I will like Snyder's JL better than BvS but not as much as MoS. MoS was focused on an origin and this is going to be all over the map, literally. And I suspect a lot of what I'll end up liking in the Snyder Cut will be offset by the annoyance of seeing the setting up of things that will never pay off in anything.

[Turo602]

Originally Posted by Chris

Whedon got $25m and six months to reshoot half the movie & finish VFX. Snyder got a year and $70m to finish this. Whatever limitations are in place it should look better based on that alone.

His version was 2 hours long and still looked bad. You're setting the wrong expectations with that logic.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Which, considering Whedon reshot 90% of the movie, the finishing of VFX was no small feat. But likely is why we end up with stuff like the jarringly bad Superman lip movements and such.

Yeah. WB really needed to give more time/budget to get it done. Wouldn’t stop it being a Frankenstein job but could have at least looked decent.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I suspect I will like Snyder's JL better than BvS but not as much as MoS. MoS was focused on an origin and this is going to be all over the map, literally. And I suspect a lot of what I'll end up liking in the Snyder Cut will be offset by the annoyance of seeing the setting up of things that will never pay off in anything.

Yeah, bloat and dragging is definitely a big risk here. I do think a lot of the future set up is mostly going to be seeing Darkseid (rather than just mentioning him) and then that final epilogue chapter (chapter 7). Ignore that last chapter and I think it should end in a pretty similar place to the original.

Originally Posted by Turo602

His version was 2 hours long and still looked bad. You're setting the wrong expectations with that logic.

Not really. Whedon was given $25 million to reshoot half the film and complete VFX on a 2 hour cut in roughly 6 months. Snyder was given $70 million to shoot one extra scene (originally he said 5 minutes long but I think he said 10 more recently) and complete VFX on a 4 hour cut in roughly a year.

Even if you break that down (he’s getting roughly $35m per 2 hours of his movie) Snyder’s getting more money and time to complete his cut. And his reshoots were far less extensive leaving more budget for post production. It’s not setting unrealistic expectations to say the VFX should look better and be more polished based on this.

[Turo602]

Originally Posted by Chris

Not really. Whedon was given $25 million to reshoot half the film and complete VFX on a 2 hour cut in roughly 6 months. Snyder was given $70 to shoot one extra scene (originally he said 5 minutes long but I think he said 10 more recently) and complete VFX on a 4 hour cut in roughly a year.

Even if you break that down (he’s getting roughly $35m per 2 hours of his movie) Snyder’s getting more money and time to complete his cut. And his reshoots were far less extensive leaving more budget for post production. It’s not setting unrealistic expectations to say the VFX should look better and be more polished based on this.

It is, because you keep saying he shot half the film which is just an hour then. The other half was already filmed and completed and still looked awful because they already wasted so much money filming 3 extra hours of footage they had to axe. That leaves 3 hours left after even more money was wasted on meaningless reshoots to be finished from what? A smaller team? From home? Either way, it all sounds like the budget was stretched thin and therefore, was never gonna be what it should have been back in 2017.

[Leo656]

Waaaah waaaah waaaah. "I'd rather watch an unfinished workprint with NO SFX or musical score, if the SFX aren't IMAX-quality." Bad take. Terrible.

The trailers do look great. But some of the Cyborg and Martian Manhunter stuff is absolutely gonna raise eyebrows and I think people should set their expectations accordingly. I seriously don't think it's fair to sh*t on the ENTIRE movie based on that, though, given what we know about the circumstances. Obviously, if it were being done by standard procedure for a theatrical-release movie and not a straight-to-streaming curiosity piece, there would be more polish. But as usual, people are lighting their torches in preparation for judging a thing based on what it could never have been. And that's dumb.

Some of it is going to look great but it's going to be inconsistent, and if people know to expect that in advance then maybe it won't completely ruin their enjoyment of it. If they're gonna judge the entire movie by the CGI then that's their prerogative but it also shows misplaced priorities. The story and character elements are also important; for me, they're more important. I won't say that some of the CGI isn't video game quality, because some of it kinda looked like it - although to be fair the screen grabs I saw weren't the best quality source anyway - but is it really gonna bother me? No, not really.

I'm glad they even made the attempt. I knew it was never gonna look theater-ready. I'm glad they gave us anything. But I definitely would NOT have been satisfied with the workprint, that would have been terrible. I can't believe some people would seriously rather have had THAT. At least we're getting something that's ALMOST a finished product. A lot of work went into getting it to be as good as it is; people are spoiled rotten.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Turo602

It is, because you keep saying he shot half the film which is just an hour then. The other half was already filmed and completed and still looked awful because they already wasted so much money filming 3 extra hours of footage they had to axe. That leaves 3 hours left after even more money was wasted on meaningless reshoots to be finished from what? A smaller team? From home? Either way, it all sounds like the budget was stretched thin and therefore, was never gonna be what it should have been back in 2017.

Whedon reshot an hour (probably a bit more, some of his stuff was cut as well for that crazy 2 hour limit) but that doesn't mean the other hour was already finished with VFX and post-production complete.

Likewise the hour of Snyder footage that Whedon used is being redone by Snyder for this cut, he's basically picking up from where he left so any work that was done on his footage after he left is being redone.

He and Whedon are essentially starting from the same point.

I do agree there was a lot of waste here. Every film shoots more than they need (alternate takes, scenes that end up being deleted for whatever reason) but Snyder has essentially admitted he shot what he wanted and what the studio wanted and they were reworking the story during filming so there was a lot of extra footage.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Waaaah waaaah waaaah. "I'd rather watch an unfinished workprint with NO SFX or musical score, if the SFX aren't IMAX-quality." Bad take. Terrible.

Not remotely what I was saying. I never even said the SFX were bad, all I said was that, when you compare the time and money each cut had, it should look better than the theatrical cut (which isn't exactly a high bar). I never offered any judgement on how it looks because the effects in the trailers are still evolving (the Uxas shot is a great example of this) and what's leaked is low quality.

[Leo656]

I did not quote you. I was making a general statement to The Room.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Waaaah waaaah waaaah. "I'd rather watch an unfinished workprint with NO SFX or musical score, if the SFX aren't IMAX-quality." Bad take. Terrible.

The trailers do look great. But some of the Cyborg and Martian Manhunter stuff is absolutely gonna raise eyebrows and I think people should set their expectations accordingly. I seriously don't think it's fair to sh*t on the ENTIRE movie based on that, though, given what we know about the circumstances. Obviously, if it were being done by standard procedure for a theatrical-release movie and not a straight-to-streaming curiosity piece, there would be more polish. But as usual, people are lighting their torches in preparation for judging a thing based on what it could never have been. And that's dumb.

Some of it is going to look great but it's going to be inconsistent, and if people know to expect that in advance then maybe it won't completely ruin their enjoyment of it. If they're gonna judge the entire movie by the CGI then that's their prerogative but it also shows misplaced priorities. The story and character elements are also important; for me, they're more important. I won't say that some of the CGI isn't video game quality, because some of it kinda looked like it - although to be fair the screen grabs I saw weren't the best quality source anyway - but is it really gonna bother me? No, not really.

I'm glad they even made the attempt. I knew it was never gonna look theater-ready. I'm glad they gave us anything. But I definitely would NOT have been satisfied with the workprint, that would have been terrible. I can't believe some people would seriously rather have had THAT. At least we're getting something that's ALMOST a finished product. A lot of work went into getting it to be as good as it is; people are spoiled rotten.

That's not it. I just expect the movie to look finished.
Either you put out a workprint or you put out a finished product. You don't put $80M++ into a workprint and talk about how excited you are for everyone to see it in IMAX. They are advertising this as a Director's cut, not a behind the scene's peak.

Now, I actually think all the cg I've seen looked fine or even great. Compared to the competition over at Marvel, I think it looks much better, actually. Zack is a visual director, which is what I love about him. That's what I expect from "Zack Snyder's Justice League" and that's what I think I'll get.

I just won't make excuses for the movie. It's not exempt from criticism. They've given Zack a hell of an opportunity, unlimited freedom, and a big chunk of cash to finish this up. It should look good.

[IMJ]

This movie is going to go down in history as some kind of "Blade Runner" experience.

And in a few years we will have some master release with like 20 versions of the movie to launch a new format war for home theater, lmao!

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I did not quote you. I was making a general statement to The Room.

Sorry, my error. All good.

[sdp]

I want the Whedon version with all his cut footage, and I definitely want a "Master Cut" version that includes all the Whedon footage and all the Snyder footage for a 6 hour film.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by sdp

I want the Whedon version with all his cut footage, and I definitely want a "Master Cut" version that includes all the Whedon footage and all the Snyder footage for a 6 hour film.

A lot of it won't be compatible, and some of it would require retooling (like recoloring the sky for anything around the ending of the Whedon cut), but I suspect there would be a number of scenes and beats you could transplant into the Snyder Cut.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

That's not it. I just expect the movie to look finished.
Either you put out a workprint or you put out a finished product. You don't put $80M++ into a workprint and talk about how excited you are for everyone to see it in IMAX. They are advertising this as a Director's cut, not a behind the scene's peak.

Now, I actually think all the cg I've seen looked fine or even great. Compared to the competition over at Marvel, I think it looks much better, actually. Zack is a visual director, which is what I love about him. That's what I expect from "Zack Snyder's Justice League" and that's what I think I'll get.

I just won't make excuses for the movie. It's not exempt from criticism. They've given Zack a hell of an opportunity, unlimited freedom, and a big chunk of cash to finish this up. It should look good.

It's only partly the CGI though. And to be fair, the most "spotty" thing I saw was the Martian Manhunter stuff. Everything else, to me, does look pretty much "finished" from what little we've seen so far. I never created a CGI character model from scratch on a shoestring budget, but I can't imagine that under these specific conditions that what we end up getting ever had any chance of looking theater-ready, with regard to Martian Manhunter.

The other stuff that might be "off" isn't even about CGI, it's about scenes that were only given a first pass at shooting and were almost certainly going to be reshot later on. There's a Batman fight scene, for example, where he's fighting Parademons and the choreography just looks kind of stilted and awkward, and his grapnel gun is about to fall off a ledge before he dives and grabs for it and the effect of the gun about to fall looks blatantly fake, like someone tugged on a string to jostle it and it just looks very awkward. It almost certainly was not meant to be the final, definitive take on that particular scene and would almost definitely have been "fixed" during reshoots, but this movie never had a traditional reshoot process so that scene (and possibly others like it) were never going to be brought completely up to snuff. It's just plain unavoidable. If they had gotten to do "real" reshoots, then little things like that would have most certainly been corrected or done better. But they didn't get to do "real" reshoots, so what they had to work with is what they have, and that's that.

It's not about "making excuses", it's about understanding and accepting the Real-World Why and not letting that "ruin" the entire experience of the larger movie. If 99% of the movie looks like it does in the trailers, then honestly I really don't care if Martian Manhunter looks a bit undercooked, or if one fight scene looks stiff because they only had one take to work from. Those are really minor things in the big picture. Some people, though, are shouting about those things as "proof" that the entire movie is "terrible" and I just can't agree with that. People should be able to compartmentalize things that weren't completely under the director's ability to control. 99% "done" is still good enough, in my opinion, under the specific set of circumstances this movie was produced under.

Maybe if they had another six months to a year, those things would look better. Probably. Almost certainly, even. For whatever reason, it's not coming out in 6 months to a year, it's coming out next week. Which was probably a WB decision. Will I ever defend WB for anything, ever? Absolutely not. I am not, and will never be in the business of defending or "making excuses" for WB, because I generally kinda f*cking hate them. I'm just saying, I'm willing to accept and understand the Why of things. And it's not going to "ruin" the movie for me, any more than the spliced-in screen test footage for the Donner Cut of "Superman II" did. Even in that rough state it was miles better than the "Pink Bear, Ice Cream and Roller Skates Cut".

It's like, there's "criticism" that's Fair and there's criticism that's Unfair. "This bit here and there could certainly look better; too bad they didn't get more time to work on that" is fair. "This entire movie sucks ass because a couple, literally two or three CGI shots, are undercooked, and therefore this entire project is a waste of time", though - which IS what some people are insisting, elsewhere if not in here - is Unfair. For all we know, Martian Manhunter was the last thing they managed to work on and just plain ran out of time/money. I could believe that. Do I wish it looked better? Sure. But I can't understand why that should be such a Big Huge Deal when it's like two minutes out of a four-hour movie, for God's sake.

I just always read way too much about how movies in general are made, to ever be such a hardliner about "It's either Perfect or don't put it out at all" or whatever. Making movies is way harder than anyone who comments on them thinks it is, even when production is perfectly smooth and not a comparative clusterf*ck. When things aren't perfect, I just shrug and feel bad for the people making it, that it didn't turn out as they wanted or intended. I don't pitch a fit. Because it isn't all about Me. Could be I just have too much empathy, I don't know. Maybe.

And I'll never get behind the "They should have just released the unfinished workprint and let everyone fill in the blanks with their imaginations" opinion. I'm 100% with Zack that he would have been better off burning the footage and burying it than letting WB do that. That would have literally been the worst, laziest thing they could ever have done - which is exactly why that was their first idea. "Unpolished" or not, a TON of work went into the movie we're about to finally see, and I'll always take "Lots of Effort" over "Literally Zero Effort". It doesn't have to be "perfect"; I'm fine that there was even a sincere attempt.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I suspect there would be a number of scenes and beats you could transplant into the Snyder Cut.

What, pray tell, is even worth keeping? Flash falling on top of Wonder Woman? Aquaman's heartfelt "I think we're all gonna die" speech being turned into a "HAH! He sat on the lasso!" gag? "What is 'brunch'?" That stupid little girl with the bug spray? Like seriously, what even "needs" to be transplanted? Nothing Whedon put into it was "good", not even in and of itself. It wasn't "bad" because it clashed so jarringly with Zack's footage; it was "bad" because it was dumb. He wrote very, very dumb sh*t because he didn't care and the movie was only a fast paycheck for him, and it shows.

It blows my mind that some people think that some kind of "better" Frankenstein patchwork job of Zack and Joss's footage combined would actually work at all. It wouldn't. Because Joss didn't do anything worth keeping. It's like saying "I think if someone put some of Burton's and Schumacher's Batman footage together you'd get a really awesome Batman movie." That implies that Schumacher's Batman movies had any value, or anything worth keeping or being carried over. And they simply don't. Or like "Let's splice scenes from 'Secret of the Ooze' into the 1990 TMNT movie to make the ULTIMATE TMNT movie that pleases fans of both!" Like, how can a person not understand how awful that is even conceptually? The two things don't gel, period.

I think people are going to be rather surprised how little the two JL movies have in common outside of the broad strokes of having the same story beats. I doubt there's really anything at all from Whedon's cut that would "fit". That's the impression I get from Deborah Snyder's explanation of how horrible an experience it was for her and Nolan to watch Whedon's cut after seeing the rough cut of Snyder's original. She made it sound like the two movies really could not have been more different, aside from having the same basic story.

[Chris]

My suspicion is it will be the other way around. There's no point in adding the Whedon footage into Snyder's cut as it already covers everything. But there will be plenty of material here that you could add into Whedon's and say if the studio had let him make a longer film (say 2hrs30-2hrs45) this could have made it better.

Just an example but we know Clark picking the costume and meeting Alfred were both finished for the theatrical cut (they were the only deleted scenes on the blu-ray). All the world building stuff that was presumably cut for time rather than tone could most likely fit back in.

On defending WB - got to agree with Leo that they are pretty much indefensible, especially on their mishandling of DC properties. But I will defend their call to make Snyder ditch the Bruce/Lois romance in JL, and their position that changes were needed post-BvS as audiences weren't warming to Snyder's take on the material and they're in the business of making money which means they wanted crowd pleasing super heroes (that doesn't excuse the way they handled it in any way).