BvS Constructive Criticism of BvS, MoS, and Zack Snyder's Directorial Style

[Mandon Knight]

I'm not here to criticise, it's just dawned on me I've never actually asked the question before.

I was joking given you very 'spot on' point is the one area he does have and is critisiced for having very little else. I think there is emotion in his shots and story if you look for it, little moments that are not visually dependent.

He 'understands' comic book characters very well and to those who say he doesn't 'get' Superman, for me, are not looking hard enough.

 

[MrsKent26]

Yeah this is spot on

What I hate about it is it went from been skeptical about BvS to simply complaining about the same stuff people have been complaining about Man of Steel fro three years. There are numerous Man of Steel threads those criticsms should be reflected there unless it's in comparison to something that people fear about BvS but for many posts in there it's not.

I actually don't mind the MOS talk. I think it's relevant considering MOS is the first is a series that is continuing with BvS, many MOS team members are returning, and because MOS is the basis for much of the skepticism that surrounds BvS.

It's the lack of respect directed towards anyone who liked MOS that I feel from some posters that bothers me in that thread.

I'd actually like to know, aesthetics aside, what exactly is it people like from Snyder from a story telling perspective?

Snyder's prowess with visuals goes a bit deeper than aesthetics at times and that's why I like him. Sometimes he's actually able to tell a little story with visuals. For example:

These aren't just about "oooh...pretty." There's a power to these and a story. Snyder has little moments of greatness that don't even need dialogue to say something important about these characters.

He's also been involved in some pretty amazing castings. I know that he doesn't do that alone, but a director must have some say in that and he nails it quite often.

 

[BH/HHH]

Snyder's film making has layers to it,nthe attention to detail is amazing. I guess when it comes to storytelling I just like his films. Can't really explain why I like any filmmakers stories in all honesty. I like something or I don't, simple as that for me.

 

[jmc]

I actually don't mind the MOS talk. I think it's relevant considering MOS is the first is a series that is continuing with BvS, many MOS team members are returning, and because MOS is the basis for much of the skepticism that surrounds BvS.

It's the lack of respect directed towards anyone who liked MOS that I feel from some posters that bothers me in that thread.



Snyder's prowess with visuals goes a bit deeper than aesthetics at times and that's why I like him. Sometimes he's actually able to tell a little story with visuals. For example:

These aren't just about "oooh...pretty." There's a power to these and a story. Snyder has little moments of greatness that don't even need dialogue to say something important about these characters.

He's also been involved in some pretty amazing castings. I know that he doesn't do that alone, but a director must have some say in that and he nails it quite often.

Believe it or not, I kinda know where you are coming from. I guess the problem for me is that he leans too heavily on the imagery to convey part of the story, it just leaves a certain level of vagueness which I find unsatisfying, it's essentially placing the burden on me the viewer to work out what it is he's saying. The problem is I actually want to know what the director is saying, me having to guess makes the experience frustrating, especially if things throughout the film start to seemingly contradict each other.

 

[Tra-El]

I like Snyder's subtle approach to his loyalty to not only source material of what he usually works on, but his storytelling through individual moments and the visual that connects the dots in the messages he's trying to say without force feeding things to you. He also tends to touch upon certain aspects of challenging mythologies that integrates with current events and scenerio's that may be interpreted in different ways when it comes to individual viewpoints. I like that most about Snyder. He simply creates many angles that could only mean one thing to his audience. . It's not always clear and that allows for much debate.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

Believe it or not, I kinda know where you are coming from. I guess the problem for me is that he leans too heavily on the imagery to convey part of the story, it just leaves a certain level of vagueness which I find unsatisfying, it's essentially placing the burden on me the viewer to work out what it is he's saying. The problem is I actually want to know what the director is saying, me having to guess makes the experience frustrating, especially if things throughout the film start to seemingly contradict each other.

That...is a great problem to have

 

[jmc]

Please explain.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

^ The cinematic medium is its own explanation.

I really don't want to get an argument, but truly great cinema generally allows for the pictures to tell the story, rather than the dialog.

 

[MrsKent26]

Believe it or not, I kinda know where you are coming from. I guess the problem for me is that he leans too heavily on the imagery to convey part of the story, it just leaves a certain level of vagueness which I find unsatisfying, it's essentially placing the burden on me the viewer to work out what it is he's saying. The problem is I actually want to know what the director is saying, me having to guess makes the experience frustrating, especially if things throughout the film start to seemingly contradict each other.

The problem with Snyder is that he is choosing to participate in a genre that requires excellence in two different approaches to film making and coming up short in one regard.

If you look at two kinds of affecting movies, Tree of Life by Malick vs The Dark Knight by Nolan, you can see each approach at work. The former wasn't a box office victory by any means, but it is captivating in the way it tells its story almost entirely through images. There is dialogue, but it's fairly sparse. It's not to everyone's taste though. In contrast, TDK features lots of snappy dialogue and thematic discussions, made better through amazing performances, but is more down-to-Earth with visuals for the most part (a choice made to support the thematic elements I'm sure). It helps that both of these directors are at the top of their game when it comes to their chosen approach.

Snyder has a visual eye like Malick, but he doesn't apply it to little art house films, he goes to big and flashy comic stuff. In some ways, it works because comics are a heavy visual medium. In other ways, it doesn't. A wider audience tends to want a cohesive movie over one with scenes that feel truncated, as if being turned like a page in a comic.

I think the ideal approach to a movie designed to appeal to a wide audience, such as CBMs these days, is to combine what I was talking about with visual story-telling and what you would prefer, in a sort of alternating manner. That way, people who like visual story-telling with all its associated guess work and people who like clearly and intelligently presented stories are captured. Snyder hasn't quite managed to do this, but seems to try.

In MOS especially, Snyder tended to use visuals only, with the dialogue being sparse or confined to speeches instead of presenting some more revealing dialogue between the striking images he's so adept at creating. He was better in this regard with Watchmen (his finest work, IMO).

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

^ Actually, a hybrid approach seems optimal. Verbal storytelling to configure audience expectations of visual elements, combined with pure visual technique.

Watchmen worked in that way. The words gave weight to the images, which told a story.

 

[MrsKent26]

^ That's what I was saying and why Watchmen is, IMO, Snyder's best work.

 

[TeeKay]

Film is a collaboration. I don't think Snyder was simply handed the script to MoS and just directed. He obviously worked with Goyer because even at this day, Snyder said he still stands with his decisions in MoS.

MoS's biggest fault was the writing. There was some good thematic stuff in there but it was weighed down by the writing.

 

[Jaxon]

I don't think there is a director capable of delivering what he has delivered. You can fault the scripts he has worked with or eth dialogue in them, but how can you possibly fault the direction.
His imagery tells a story.

I don't think there is a director on earth that would have pulled off that mind scene between Zod and Clark and not have it be tacky in some way. He made that intense, believable, and important to telling us where both Zod and Clark stood without making it expository.

 

[titansupes]

I don't think there is a director capable of delivering what he has delivered. You can fault the scripts he has worked with or eth dialogue in them, but how can you possibly fault the direction.
His imagery tells a story.

I don't think there is a director on earth that would have pulled off that mind scene between Zod and Clark and not have it be tacky in some way. He made that intense, believable, and important to telling us where both Zod and Clark stood without making it expository.

That was an exposition sequence. It was Zod outright verbalising what happened to him and the other prisoners in the time between Krypton's explosion and arriving on Earth, plus explaining the Codex etc.

Truthfully, as much as I enjoy the imagery in that scene, including Superman in the black suit and sinking into the skulls, the lines "Zod, I can't be a part of this" "Then what can you be a part of?"... I still don't know what Zod's gameplan was. He was trying to get Superman on side by saying we're going to destroy your adopted world of you join?

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

Honestly, I think Zack's the best comic director at capturing who characters are in one image.

Superman:

Batman:

Wonder Woman:

I think Snyder understands more than he's able to convey, but he needs to raise his standards for writing. I couldn't have made a movie better than MOS with that same script.

I DO think he works with the screenwriters, and I think that's part of the reason 300 and Watchmen worked as well as they did. I think with MOS he didn't question the script as much because he wasn't immune to the effect of "Nolan prestige."

If I were to grade Zack, I'd give him a 7.5 out of ten. He gets more right than he gets wrong, but what he allows to make it to screen is occasionally embarrassing (parts of MOS/the entireity of Sucker Punch)

I do think he'll do right in BvS and knock it out of the park for Justice League. Nobody does a comic spectacle like Zack.

 

[-Arya-]

I think Snyder is at his best when he's controlled and has good material to work with. Dawn of the Dead, despite the fact that it's a horror movie with blood and gore, is a character piece more than anything. The characters drive the story forward and you grow to care about them and even shed a tear when someone dies. Snyder has an ability to generate sincere emotions from me in most of his films, and I think people generally short change his ability as a director when they say "he's only good with visuals".

 

[Jaxon]

I actually liked cut from the ship to the fishing boat. Kind of a clever change of mind frame, IMO. But I did want them to include the Kents finding Clark's ship.

MoS was told from the point of either Jor-El or Kal-El so having the ship crashing is out of place.

 

[Jaxon]

That was an exposition sequence. It was Zod outright verbalising what happened to him and the other prisoners in the time between Krypton's explosion and arriving on Earth, plus explaining the Codex etc.

Truthfully, as much as I enjoy the imagery in that scene, including Superman in the black suit and sinking into the skulls, the lines "Zod, I can't be a part of this" "Then what can you be a part of?"... I still don't know what Zod's gameplan was. He was trying to get Superman on side by saying we're going to destroy your adopted world of you join?

Zod didn't know where the codex was at that point so he is still trying to get Kal to side with him to help him retrieve it. His line "so what can you be a part of" is still Zod asking Kal to reconsider staying with the humans. That's what I mean about expository story telling and really deep story telling.

 

[titansupes]

Zod didn't know where the codex was at that point so he is still trying to get Kal to side with him to help him retrieve it. His line "so what can you be a part of" is still Zod asking Kal to reconsider staying with the humans. That's what I mean about expository story telling and really deep story telling.

Yeah, I remembered that. What I don't get is how showing him Earth being destroyed is conducive to getting him on side.

 

[The Shape]

I think the issue with the skeptics thread (and certainly my issue with it) is that it has become the very thing it hates, at least on some days. It was originally made because skeptics were under fire in the collective threads. And it was a legit problem. Sometimes it was impossible to be skeptical even if the skepticism was voiced calmly and reasonably. I've experienced it myself.

But now...the reverse happens sometimes. It devolves into nothing more than back-slapping and kudos for posts that condemn (sometimes justifiably, sometimes not-so-much) the actions of so-called "MOS defenders" without acknowledgement (and sometimes heavy ridicule) of any reasonable rebuttal from the other side. There seems to be some people in that thread that have little respect for differing opinions, which is highly ironic given the reason for that thread's continuing existence.

Wow, well said. Very true. You expressed this more eloquently than I could have.

 

[rogbngp]

As I have said in other posts, I think MoS can be viewed as actually a surprisingly sophisticated film on the level of mythic symbolism. And I find the movie mesmerizing to watch in that way. The analysis video A Thesis on Man of Steel makes the credible argument about a recurring childbirth metaphor throughout the film; and while perhaps not everything that the author of that theory sees was intended by Snyder, amazingly, the analysis nevertheless works for me anyway.

Snyder has said in interviews that with MoS he is reinventing the Superman myth by bringing the character out of an idealized past type of cultural mythos that defined him, to enter into our modern real world--or something much more closely approximating our real world, at any rate.

I have come to feel that the film actually is a masterpiece for this approach. I hope Synder writes a book one day about all that he intended with MoS. I will be fascinated to see how much symbolism he intended, and how consciously this film is layered up as such.

If we look at the Superman myth in terms of what it would look like if it were really taking place in our actual world, the figure being from another planet would dominate our attention. In that respect I see MoS as a science fiction tale as much as the traditional Superman story. What is this alien with all this power going to do? is what the world would be wondering. This is a fundamental redefinition of the myth. And this reinvention shatters the old mold that we had for the character.

But anyway, with all that said, the things that I feel would have made MoS stronger are

1) more human emotional connection moments
2) a bit more warmth and relatability to the characters
3) natural light and colors or even slight color saturation (I don't feel the desaturation and gray/blue filtering worked well, even if I understand why it was used)
4) some of the dialogue could have been better written
5) a little more character development for Superman would have helped

Regarding the last point, I do understand why Snyder spent a lot of time on the whole Kryptonian backstory and alien invasion, though. All of that consumed time that would otherwise been spent getting to know Clark/Superman. But I can still live with that trade-off. Because I loved how the Kryptonian aspect of the story was portrayed in such an epic fashion.

And Superman killing Zod for me signifies the moment that Superman breaks from past versions of the character and is reborn into a new type of 'real' world that we can actually relate to. I think it was actually bold as hell that this happens.

 

[MrsKent26]

I hope Synder writes a book one day about all that he intended with MoS. I will be fascinated to see how much symbolism he intended, and how consciously this film is layered up as such.

He must have intended the Christian symbolism because it was heavy-handed and thus unmistakable.

He had said he wanted the final battle to play out like a "mythological event" or something to that effect as well. I can't remember the rest of the interview, but I'm assumed he's talking pagan myths there. I appreciated this type of symbolism more because the idea that some catastrophic event begins a new age for humanity can be told and yet be void of any boring destiny talk. It can just be about a myth forming due to definable events, rather than something mystical and preordained. It happens in society all the time (the world, and most certainly the USA, is rather different post-9/ll) and will happen to Metropolis and the Earth depicted in this DCU.

Wow, well said. Very true. You expressed this more eloquently than I could have.

I'm glad a couple others notice the issue. I thought I was being paranoid at first.

 

[Verick808]

Personally I feel MoS attempted too much and suffered for it. Too many scenes were just thrown in one after another right after another with no real transition. It was like Either Snyder or Goyer or both had a checklist of scenes they wanted in the film and just concentrated on checking them off.

I felt the only flashback that I liked was the final one with young Clark pretending to be a hero of sorts as Pa Kent watched. You could see the hopes he had for his son in his eyes, the expectation. That was a well done scene by both the Costner and Snyder. All the others ran hollow to me. It was like they were trying to characterize the adult Clark using flashbacks of his youth. That could have been amazing if done right but it came at the expense of giving adult Clark any real development or character insight. I also don't think we needed to see his father die. Batman is the result of how his parents died. Superman was born from how his parents lived. I also felt the world engine fight was a waste of time.

Snapping Zod's neck was one of the best moments in the film in my opinion. Almost every other superhero franchises has heroes offing villains left and right and generally not really addressing it. But the final fight for MoS ends with Zod completely at Superman's mercy yet Superman is the one begging him to stop. Not for the family because saving that family is well within his power. He's was pleading for Zod's life and himself because taking a life, even Zod's would hurt him. Zod refused though and Superman was forced to take his life. And he wept.
As far as I am concerned that single scene did more to show us how much the character loved and revered life than any Superman scene from any movie or television show. Live action or animated. Ever.

 

[Marvin]

Montages are a good place to see what a director can do with visual story telling given the freedom afforded. I tend to really enjoy Snyder's, the watchmen opening seemed to add alot to that material and unlike people say about that adaptation, that was one thing that it wasn't all there in on the page. I also liked his birth of manhattan vision along with his rorschach(sp) montages.
I'd suggest he finds ways to do more of that with his work, it could be his thing even.

I'm hoping for a what superman has been upto montage, along with a future dystopia montage and of course the origin one. Hopefully one more with lex.

I'd also like more voice overs. His work is one of the few places to see the tool used, and to think you can hardly find a comic book without thought bubbles and the like, so it's really stands out to me that all these movies are kinda working under half power if you will. He managed to retain it in watchmen and 300 and I think it helped greatly. That batman and superman are doing their thing and I'm probably not going to get the thought bubbles is a potential flaw with this film...correction a flaw for me for I'd really enjoy that.

 

[rogbngp]

Personally I feel MoS attempted too much and suffered for it. Too many scenes were just thrown in one after another right after another with no real transition. It was like Either Snyder or Goyer or both had a checklist of scenes they wanted in the film and just concentrated on checking them off.

I felt the only flashback that I liked was the final one with young Clark pretending to be a hero of sorts as Pa Kent watched. You could see the hopes he had for his son in his eyes, the expectation. That was a well done scene by both the Costner and Snyder. All the others ran hollow to me. It was like they were trying to characterize the adult Clark using flashbacks of his youth. That could have been amazing if done right but it came at the expense of giving adult Clark any real development or character insight. I also don't think we needed to see his father die. Batman is the result of how his parents died. Superman was born from how his parents lived. I also felt the world engine fight was a waste of time.

Snapping Zod's neck was one of the best moments in the film in my opinion. Almost every other superhero franchises has heroes offing villains left and right and generally not really addressing it. But the final fight for MoS ends with Zod completely at Superman's mercy yet Superman is the one begging him to stop. Not for the family because saving that family is well within his power. He's was pleading for Zod's life and himself because taking a life, even Zod's would hurt him. Zod refused though and Superman was forced to take his life. And he wept.
As far as I am concerned that single scene did more to show us how much the character loved and revered life than any Superman scene from any movie or television show. Live action or animated. Ever.

Yeah, I think the film may just have tried to pack a little too much into one film. So much so that a number of scenes feel truncated. And not enough attention could be given to get to really know Clark as well as i would have liked.