The saga of the Justice League continues, with news breaking that a large number of the social accounts demanding #ReleaseTheSnyderCut turned out to be bots. But when you get past all the corporate politics, we still have two movies to compare. One made by Zack Snyder, and one by Joss Whedon. Everyone agrees that Whedon's version is the lesser work--but why? We have dissected ONE SCENE that shows why one movie works, and the other is a failure.

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Written and Hosted by Ryan Arey (  / ryanarey  )
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright

#JusticeLeague #SceneFights

It’s time for us to talk about the Justice Leagues. For years now we’ve been making these VS videos where we compare two similar movies, and point out one scene that expresses why one is way better than the other–usually a Marvel VS DC movie. I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing Zack Snyder’s choices for the DCEU–but I also made this really flattering portrait of his influences as an artist, check that out if you want.

But as much as I disagreed with Snyder’s take on Superman, his vision of the Justice League is far, far, better than what the studio slapped together in 2017. Now the behind the scenes problems with that movie are well documented and being litigated in some court somewhere, so I’m not going to rehash every detail of the production.

I do think that I can point to one scene, just one scene that shows why one movie was this [clip]. And the other was this [clip]

Here’s the brief TL;DR on the Justice League’s production. Warner Brothers hired Zack Snyder to oversee the new DC extended Universe, a counterpoint to the MCU. The studio wanted to match the dark tone of the Nolan Batman films, so Snyder was an ideal choice.

His first two movies in the series, Man of Steel and Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice had their very vocal supporters, but the movies also had problems [Martha].

Fans like me hated these new takes on the heroes, and the studio decided they wanted the Justice League movie to be fun and zippy, like the Marvel movies. The problem is, this is 2016, Snyder had already shot his Justice League movie, and was in post.

But then, he suffered a terrible family tragedy and stepped away. So the studio brought in the guy who set the tone for MCU team ups, Joss Whedon, to Marvel-ize the movie for them. Whedon was apparently an ass on set, he claims the cast were asses to him, Henry Cavill wouldn't shave his mustache–you know the whole thing.

I’m retelling all this because the way Whedon was hired greatly affected the end product: the 2017 Justice League. If he would have had full creative control for the start, I'm sure Justice League would have been a good movie. But, instead we got this weird hybrid of a movie, where there’s no artistic vision, no soul, and events only occur because they have to m so we can finish the movie.

As different as these two versions are, I think you can distill their differences into 3 categories: One, how they move the story along. Two, the tone of the movie, that’s the overall look and feel. And three, most important of all: how they introduce the characters and build the lore of these heroes. That last point is key.

So the one scene that defined these differences, that shows us why one movie is this [clip] and the other is [this].

That scene is the introduction of Aquaman.

Both scenes occur near the beginning of the movie, so first let’s go over how Snyder and Whedon chose to open their stories.

The Whedon version opens with this baffling cell phone cam of Superman, which right away showcases Henry Cavill's fat mustache lip. The scene is pointless, does nothing, and only accentuates the movie’s flaws. [clip, hope is a river, winds–]. People don’t talk that way. Congrats, you write dialogue worse than martha.

The next scene is another reshoot–not a surprise, since some reports say 75% of the movie was reshoots, though that seems a little high. This scene is Batman apprehending a crook in Gotham. It looks fake and cheesy. But in any other movie I would be fine with that. A fun, zippy comic book story that’s obviously filmed on set with the Denny Elfman score [clip]. Any other day, sign me up. But here, it’s misplaced and silly.

The big problem with this scene is that it’s unnecessary. He kills the parademon, and the encounter is supposed to motivate him to recruit more heroes. But all of the groundwork was laid down in Batman VS Superman. Lex tells him about an invasion [can;t unring a bell] And then he tells Diana he’s off to look for more people.