Let It Die: The Snyderverse

https://lebeauleblog.com/2021/03/30/let-it-die-the-snyderverse/

The other thing that is unique to this movie is that it is being compared to a train wreck. “Josstice League” as clever Snyder fans have taken to referring to the theatrical release, was a cut and paste job thrown together at the 11th hour in a desperate attempt to save Warner Brothers the embarrassment of Batman v Superman on a larger scale. I am not about to defend Joss Whedon, but he was given an impossible task. Take a four hour Zack Snyder movie and cut it down to a two-hour Avengers clone that makes sense. It’s no wonder that it failed miserably.

What audiences saw in 2017 was a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie stitched together from the corpse of Snyder’s vision and whatever jokes Whedon could graft onto it to try to lighten the tone. All of this had to be done in time to meet the announced release date which resulted in rushed, unfinished CGI effects in a movie that absolutely needed good CGI. The moustache thing was just icing on the crappy cake.

Snyder was given a comparative sweetheart’s deal when it came to his do-over. Reportedly, he was handed $70 million dollars. That’s more than it cost to make the first Deadpool movie! He also wasn’t racing the clock to meet some arbitrary release date. If Zack had needed more time, HBO Max would have given it to him.

A lot of that $70 mill went towards filming the 20-minute epilogue/”knightmare”/dream sequence which serves no narrative purpose except to set up future movies set in Snyder’s version of the DC Universe. Movies that, according to Warner Brothers, will never be made. Movies that no reasonable person would ever expect to see. Movies that Snyder’s rabid fanbase are now demanding with a new hashtag #RestoreTheSnyderVerse.

Seriously? We endure four years of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut only to have to deal with a new hashtag once these fans finally got their way? It’s almost too much to bare. And yet it seems inevitable. I mean, I knew it would come to this. Synder’s fans were never going to be satisfied. Have you met them?

A quick aside about Snyder’s fans. They are not a monolith, obviously. Some are very reasonable people who just happen to enjoy grimdark takes on superheroes who have not been traditionally portrayed that way. Some of them are very passionate. Hey, they raised money for charity in an effort to get the Snyder cut released in the first place. Good on those people. Some, as you are probably aware, are toxic. Unfortunately these entitled jerks tend to have the loudest voices. Rumor has it that these fans are trying to tank Godzilla vs. Kong‘s Rotten Tomato ranking because it’s a Warner Brothers release that wasn’t directed by Zack Snyder.

I’m going to go just a bit further down this rabbit hole because I want to give Snyder some credit here. Snyder’s fanbase includes a group called Comicsgate. The core group of fans have actually splintered off into different subgroups, but I am not going to give them the attention they so desperately crave. The long and the short of it is that these fans loudly oppose any attempts at inclusion in movies, television or comics. They were the ones crying loudly over The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel. Their preference is for protagonists to be white and male.

These people have supported Snyder for years and seen him as an ally. Just before the release of the Snyder Cut, the director appeared on a YouTube video hosted by one of these groups. He was their to raise money for suicide prevention, a cause near and dear to Snyder’s heart. During the video, Snyder made it clear that while he supported the cause of suicide prevention, he did not want to be associated with the Comicsgate movement. Snyder explained his position by simply stating, “There’s no room for hate”.

So I have to do something that I don’t do very often. I’m going to tip my hat to Zack Snyder. Well played, sir. That contingent of Snyder’s fans turned on him quickly and vocally, but I don’t get the impression he cares. Honestly, I don’t think Snyder fully grasps the issues here or understands why his movies attract such devotion from people he would prefer not to associate with. I’m not sure Zack Snyder understands the messages he sends. But that’s another issue we can discuss some other time (or in the comments section).

Following the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Warner Brothers was quick to point out that they had no intention of continuing Snyder’s vision for the DC Universe. They have been clear all along that the four-hour cut was intended to complete Snyder’s trilogy. Going back to Batman v. Superman, there have been rumors that they weren’t pleased with his work. But they can’t seem to break free of him no matter how hard they try.