BvS The Zack Snyder Validation Thread (big rant)

[DA_Champion]

I'll just add this in an attempt to calm things down a bit. Us folks who lean DC have an emotional attachment to the current film series. The simple fact fans are polarised with regards to MoS more or less indicates to me that the series is off to the worst possible start and that the creative team in place hasn't done a good enough job in doing justice to the characters involved. The shear fact we just continuously argue amongst ourselves speaks volumes to that no matter which side of the fence you sit. Every fan wanted to believe in MoS and the team behind it, there was no hate campaign towards this film because many wanted to believe that the film would live up to its potential. But for many of us it didn't do enough of what it promised, in some cases it didn't even do the fundamentals of movie making right. It gets heated because frankly many fans can't see the film others see, and it sucks, and sometimes things get said that are completely out of line in defence of either position (and I'll be the first to put my hand up for doing that every now and then). Whether you are for or against the people involved the fact is we have a creative team that's too divisive and that is not what a character like Superman should have driving him. The argument isn't so much whether Snyder is a good director, but rather whether it's good for the character to have someone so divisive controlling him.

As a general issue,

Is it the case that the best possible film is the film nobody hates? Is the greatest art that which makes nobody angry?

 

[DA_Champion]

^^ I totally agree with you Diabo. Zack is a great director nearing the top in terms of visuals and direction, he just needs a good script/screen writer and it could be the deadly one two punch that we have all been waiting for.

The fact he "needs" a great script is a limitation/weakness though.

His hands were tied for MoS, fine, but he had enough freedom with say, Legends of the Guardians, to do better. He also wrote the story for 300: Rise of an Empire and it was a mediocre story that lacked the glory of the previous story.

 

[LamboMan]

As a general issue,

Is it the case that the best possible film is the film nobody hates? Is the greatest art that which makes nobody angry?

I would say quite the opposite.

 

[DA_Champion]

- delete -

 

[LamboMan]

- delete -

I edited my response with your quote a bit late sorry.

 

[LamboMan]

The fact he "needs" a great script is a limitation/weakness though.

His hands were tied for MoS, fine, but he had enough freedom with say, Legends of the Guardians, to do better. He also wrote the story for 300: Rise of an Empire and it was a mediocre story that lacked the glory of the previous story.

I don't think there is any director who can do the directing, screenplay, story etc. etc. all perfectly or all by themselves. Zack has some strengths and some weaknesses like any director. It's just that his strengths when pushed in the right direction with a strong story (like in 300, Watchmen, heck even LOTG) result in astonishing movies. Heck I love DOTD and even Sucker Punch and I feel that even when left to his own devices and with complete control over the project, he is capable of doing wonders.

 

[jmc]

As a general issue,

Is it the case that the best possible film is the film nobody hates? Is the greatest art that which makes nobody angry?

The greatest art is whatever you want it to be.

 

[Diabo]

Yeah, someone like Bryan Singer would be way more appropriate...oh,wait...

When was the last time anyone did ANYTHING with Superman that wasn´t divisive?

MOS has a 3.9/5 audience average score on RT and 7.3 on IMDB. That´s really not that divisive, taking into account the data we can actually access.

And let´s not forget MOS was an origin story and a reboot. Reboots generally don´t have a very positive response, because they´re almost always just a repetition of something that has already been done. How many reboot/remakes are critically acclaimed? As a reboot, MOS actually did very well, if you compare it with most of other reboots. You can´t really expect a reboot to have the same kind of response than an original story. That almost never happens.

As far as the controversy between comic book fans, who cares? We´re in a forum where TWS is referred to as a masterpiece and TDKR is referred to as an average movie, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed comic book movies ever. People in this forum have very peculiar expectations about movies and their opinions don´t reflect the general perception.

 

[DA_Champion]

I don't think there is any director who can do the directing, screenplay, story etc. etc. all perfectly or all by themselves. Zack has some strengths and some weaknesses like any director. It's just that his strengths when pushed in the right direction with a strong story (like in 300, Watchmen, heck even LOTG) result in astonishing movies. Heck I love DOTD and even Sucker Punch and I feel that even when left to his own devices and with complete control over the project, he does wonders.

The story is the blueprint though. It's the most important part. He doesn't need to be able to generate the whole thing but he needs to be able to contribute significantly and to refine and to understand. If he's dependent on a great screenplay without the ability to fix it himself then that's a problem.

Sucker Punch, there's also the excuse that he was forced to cut 20 minutes. OK. But either way, the action scenes were beautiful but kind of boring. They were dream sequences and it wasn't clear how they were metaphors for what was going on in the more interesting brothel world, what are the stakes of those scenes? What's the symbolism?

That's a major issue with action scenes in that a lot of them, with other movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Winter Soldier as well, are simply there to look cool, they have no actual meaning. Ideally every shot should have some meaning.

Within the Nolan Batman trilogy, the action scenes have tremendous tension in spite of the occasional editing error, because the stakes are high.

 

[Diabo]

Very few directors can write and direct really well. And most of those considered "the greatest directors ever" usually have great writers by their side. They don´t actually write their movies alone. Guys like Nolan and Tarantino are exceptions.

 

[jmc]

It's not about writing, it's about understanding.

 

[Diabo]

Well, since most of his movies made a profit and received mainly positive feedbacks, he must understand something.

 

[DA_Champion]

Well, since most of his movies made a profit and received mainly positive feedbacks, he must understand something.

Snyder has demonstrated above-average effective at entertaining the masses, there's no denying that.

 

[jmc]

Snyder has demonstrated above-average effective at entertaining the masses, there's no denying that.

With 2 films?

 

[DA_Champion]

With 2 films?

His films, on average, have strong audience ratings from Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB and do well at the box office.

 

[jmc]

His films, on average, have strong audience ratings from Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB and do well at the box office.

You might wanna have a look at his box office results.

 

[Diabo]

You might wanna have a look at his box office results.

What about it? Most of them did pretty well.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

Sucker Punch and Watchmen didn't do all that well at the box office, but were strong on home video.

 

[jmc]

What about it? Most of them did pretty well.

I'm not going to write the figures, you're more than able to look it up yourself. With the exception of MoS and 300 if you think they are even decent numbers I really don't know what to say.

 

[DA_Champion]

You might wanna have a look at his box office results.

I've looked at it before. His box office results are above average. Total gross is 1.6 billion on a total budget of 600 billion. All of his films have outgrossed their budget which means no disastrous bomb.

Recap:

Film -- year -- Budget -- Gross
Dawn of the Dead -- 2004 -- 28 -- 102
300 -- 2006 -- 65 -- 456
Watchmen -- 2009 -- 130 -- 185
Legends of the Guardians -- 2010 -- 80 -- 180
Sucker Punch -- 2011 -- 82 -- 90
Man of Steel -- 2013 -- 225 -- 668

That is an above-average track record.

 

[Diabo]

I'm not going to write the figures, you're more than able to look it up yourself. With the exception of MoS and 300 if you think they are even decent numbers I really don't know what to say.

Dawn of the dead made over 100 million dollars and cost around 20 million. What are you talking about, dude? And the other didn´t do that bad. He made a profit out of every movie.

 

[Diabo]

The guy just can´t swallow the fact that Snyder is a successful director both critically and financially.

 

[DA_Champion]

The guy just can´t swallow the fact that Snyder is a successful director both critically and financially.

JMC is a very good and respectful poster
The issue of financial performance is one technical issue and we all get those wrong form time to time.

 

[jmc]

You were talking about entertaining the masses though. Those figures hardly speak of the masses and not only that most of those films wouldn't have made any profit based on those figures, maybe even MoS depending on how much money went into advertising. And lets be honest, MoS inflates that average a bit.

 

[DA_Champion]

You were talking about entertaining the masses though. Those figures hardly speak of the masses and not only that most of those films wouldn't have made any profit based on those figures, maybe even MoS depending on how much money went into advertising. And lets be honest, MoS inflates that average a bit.

It's true that the numbers may be inaccurate but that is the case for all Hollywood movies, so I'm going to go by the standard rule that a movie should double its cost to be profitable, in which case 4 of his 6 movies are profitable. The other 2 lost money but not a huge amount. If you remove MoS, the total cost of his films is 405 million, with a gross of 1.013 billion.

Whatever metric we have to evaluate him as an entertainer that I'm aware of he does well in the entertainment department: IMDB scores, RT audience scores, DVD/Blu Ray sales, Box office, etc. Not great, but well.

Are you aware of some other metric by which Snyder's performance as a popular entertainer is subpar?