You know I give Snyder a really hard time but I don't have an issue with the neck snap on principle. It's more akin to the "kills" in The Dark Knight Trilogy where it's a backed into a corner, no real other option scenario. That being said I don't think the scene adequately conveys a sense of desperation. Cavill's horrified reaction to having to kill someone is one of my favourite moments he's had as Supes.
Clark having to kill someone who is equally powerful in a desperate, no win situation really doesn't feel like a betrayal of the character for me. If Clark killed, I dunno, Toyman or Luthor that is ****ed no matter what because of the power disparity. If he killed Darkseid as a last resort? Isn't quite the same.
I would say the bigger issue is that the movie didn't do a good job "earning" that moment of horror. The reaction makes perfect sense, in the micro, for a Superman who is passionately dedicated to the preservation of all life, like in the comics. The problem is that the movie spent about two hours up to that point pushing the idea that this was *not* the Superman of the comics, that you couldn't rely upon a preestablished image of the iconic character. . . while also not otherwise establishing a passionate dedication to the preservation of all life. If anything, between the moral messages from Jonathan Kent, and the level of collateral damage in earlier scenes, you get the opposite impression, a Superman who has very mixed attitudes towards saving people.
Which brings me to last point which is the 1978 Superman. You don't need to make Superman like that. Lois and Clark while kind of a cheesy 90s show did the best and most accurate version of Superman/Clark in my opinion. That should be what your striving to do. The bottom line is if you want to do it and do it right you go to source material.
Posts like this are ironic to me. People complain about Donner being done over and over again, and their great alternative is...doing John Bryne style Superman over and over again.
You don't need to make Superman like the 1986 Comic book Superman either. It's not the only Source material for the character, and we've already seen that version in various TV shows and Cartoons.
I would say the bigger issue is that the movie didn't do a good job "earning" that moment of horror. The reaction makes perfect sense, in the micro, for a Superman who is passionately dedicated to the preservation of all life, like in the comics. The problem is that the movie spent about two hours up to that point pushing the idea that this was *not* the Superman of the comics, that you couldn't rely upon a preestablished image of the iconic character. . . while also not otherwise establishing a passionate dedication to the preservation of all life. If anything, between the moral messages from Jonathan Kent, and the level of collateral damage in earlier scenes, you get the opposite impression, a Superman who has very mixed attitudes towards saving people.
Well you do have the oil rig scene at the beginning, which is probably the most purely "Superman" scene Cavill ever got to play. But the problem with the neck snap still stands. Clark does not appear to care specifically about the collateral damage in Metropolis, the loss of life that Zod was reigning down - until he suddenly does when Zod has a single family in his crosshairs. The snap isn't the problem; it's the context surrounding it.
I've likened the neck snap to a scene in the first Captain America film where Steve was forced to burn the American flag to signal for help after rescuing the POWs. You could certainly write a scene where he had no other choice and flag desecration was his only option. But why would you do that to the character?
Well you do have the oil rig scene at the beginning, which is probably the most purely "Superman" scene Cavill ever got to play. But the problem with the neck snap still stands. Clark does not appear to care specifically about the collateral damage in Metropolis, the loss of life that Zod was reigning down - until he suddenly does when Zod has a single family in his crosshairs. The snap isn't the problem; it's the context surrounding it.
Weird, you'd think he would just...fly away or something. Since he doesn't care.
He wasn't shown to care in a specific way that you wanted him to care, IE stopping in the middle of the fight to save someone (which, btw, we saw in Smallville). He gets angry and calls Zod a monster when Zod says he's going to make people suffer and talks about stopping him. Of course he cares.
Well you do have the oil rig scene at the beginning, which is probably the most purely "Superman" scene Cavill ever got to play. But the problem with the neck snap still stands. Clark does not appear to care specifically about the collateral damage in Metropolis, the loss of life that Zod was reigning down - until he suddenly does when Zod has a single family in his crosshairs. The snap isn't the problem; it's the context surrounding it.
The oil rig rescue is certainly a good "saving people" scene, appropriate for Superman. The problem is that it ( and a few other similar scenes ) only show a Superman who ( at least sometimes ) wants to save people who are endangered. It doesn't really do anything for communicating this Superman's attitudes on deadly force. Pretty much *nothing* in the movie does, prior to the literal neck snap scene itself. Which, yes, in the comics, this distinction doesn't matter because Superman wants to save everyone, even his foes, but the *movie* sure doesn't communicate such an idea. And none of the moral exposition, whether from Jor-El, Jonathan, or Clark himself, ever really touches on it.
( Yes, there are the two "bully" scenes, but not only are both situations so radically distant from a circumstances that would plausibly justify deadly force that they can't really have any relevance, but all the moral theming surrounding them focuses entirely on secrecy, not force. )
I've likened the neck snap to a scene in the first Captain America film where Steve was forced to burn the American flag to signal for help after rescuing the POWs. You could certainly write a scene where he had no other choice and flag desecration was his only option. But why would you do that to the character?
You tangentially remind me of another useful contrast with Cap 1. While Steve Rogers is never portrayed in the movies as having some absolute prohibition on deadly force, the first movie actually did go out of its way to have one scene touching on the matter: his first conversation with Dr Irskine. The whole "So, you're eager to go out and fight Nazis?" conversation pretty clearly signposts that while Steve is *willing* to fight and kill, its not something that he actively wants to do absent need, and that he's actually given thought to the matter. Combine that with how the major plot beats all tend to focus specifically on rescues over battles, and you get an image of what Steve believes in without needing to spend ten minutes on a lecture about use of force standards.
Weird, you'd think he would just...fly away or something. Since he doesn't care.
He wasn't shown to care in a specific way that you wanted him to care, IE stopping in the middle of the fight to save someone (which, btw, we saw in Smallville). He gets angry and calls Zod a monster when Zod says he's going to make people suffer and talks about stopping him. Of course he cares.
There's a moment during the fight when Zod throws a gas tanker at Superman and instead of catching it he steps aside and lets it explode behind him. There is a cognitive dissonance between the ostensible stakes of the fight and Clark's disposition toward them. He and Lois share a lighthearted kiss atop the literal ashes of thousands. He does not try to move the fight out of the city, he does not plea with Zod prior to the neck snap. The scenario itself was not enough.
The oil rig rescue is certainly a good "saving people" scene, appropriate for Superman. The problem is that it ( and a few other similar scenes ) only show a Superman who ( at least sometimes ) wants to save people who are endangered. It doesn't really do anything for communicating this Superman's attitudes on deadly force. Pretty much *nothing* in the movie does, prior to the literal neck snap scene itself. Which, yes, in the comics, this distinction doesn't matter because Superman wants to save everyone, even his foes, but the *movie* sure doesn't communicate such an idea. And none of the moral exposition, whether from Jor-El, Jonathan, or Clark himself, ever really touches on it.
( Yes, there are the two "bully" scenes, but not only are both situations so radically distant from a circumstances that would plausibly justify deadly force that they can't really have any relevance, but all the moral theming surrounding them focuses entirely on secrecy, not force. )
I think It's ok that the movie wasn't a treatise on deadly force, because that's not Superman's central conflict in the film. Superman's central conflict was whether to reveal/involve himself, period. Saving people was never really in question. Faced with the choice to stop doing so or reveal himself, he chose to do so in secret.
And there's not a lot of conversation about what happened in the film, but the moment still works as a sort of denoument to the pitched battle horrible thing he just had to do. The real failure is not FOLLOWING UP on the killing, not that it didn't "set up" his moral absolutes prior to him doing so. Doing that would have, from a writing standpoint, essentially telegraphed what was going to happen long before the scene in question happened.
I don't know that Superman, who is pretty much invulnerable, has ever had to even CONSIDER killing someone before, even during the SMALLVILLE battle. He's focused on saving lives. That's what should have been explored, and what wasn't. Using the power that he's spent his life using to SAVE lives to TAKE one, and the destruction that can occur being symbolic of what he fights against. And Snyder certainly hinted that this is where the sequel was headed, in part, at least in terms of Clark's character arc. But people whined and whined and whined and whined about the neck snap and WB then swept it under the rug, and he killed Zod again but this time no one batted an eye because Zombie Zod.
There's a moment during the fight when Zod throws a gas tanker at Superman and instead of catching it he steps aside and lets it explode behind him. There is a cognitive dissonance between the ostensible stakes of the fight and Clark's disposition toward them. He and Lois share a lighthearted kiss atop the literal ashes of thousands. He does not try to move the fight out of the city, he does not plea with Zod prior to the neck snap. The scenario itself was not enough.
He literally begs and pleads for Zod to stop in the scene.
He tries to move the fight into the air. Where's he going to move it, into ANOTHER city?
Nevermind that for most of the fight, it's clearly shown that he CAN'T stop Zod. That's kind of the point.
He eventually tries to throw Zod into space when they're wrestling in mid air.
He's not thinking about collateral damage at first because he's never really had to. Battle on the scale that he and Zod engage in after he stops the World Engine is a new thing for him, even compared to the Smallville fight.
Most of the destruction at the outset of the fight is Zod having the upper hand and punching Superman through buildings and a parking garage.
He's reacting with instinct when he dodges the tanker. The tanker blowing up the building essentially surprises him and distracts him, which is what Zod wanted, as he then attacks from a different direction. He wasn't expecting it to happen. He adjusts his tactics from that point on.
The most destructive thing Superman does is the shockwave from when he flies down to meet Zod.
The rest is essentially cosmetic damage, such as when he drags Zod along the outer side of a building, and flies through/destroys some girder work on an unfinished building. He even heat visions a girder so Zod can't use it to hit him into something else. He flies through some glass/ceilings later in the fight, but it's minimal compared to what Zod is doing. He even tries to keep Zod off balance in the air and to punch Zod AROUND buildings during the middle of the fight.
It is Zod who takes shortcuts through buildings (Superman flies around them), throws Superman through buildings (Superman keeps Zod in the air as he attacks him) and destroys buildings structurally with his heat vision. When Zod tosses a satellite at him, Superman catches it. It's Zod who destroys the satellite and creates the falling debris, and Zod who forces them back to Earth.
Same. Regardless of the Snyder Cut's potential quality, it doesn't negate my feelings that Man of Steel and BVS (even the Extended Cut) were mediocre to bad films in my opinion. On the flip side I'm sincerely open minded and looking forward to the Snyder Cut. Hopefully it sizzles.
Same. Regardless of the Snyder Cut's potential quality, it doesn't negate my feelings that Man of Steel and BVS (even the Extended Cut) were mediocre to bad films in my opinion. On the flip side I'm sincerely open minded and looking forward to the Snyder Cut. Hopefully it sizzles.
Actually no. I believe that Snyder might be able to improve JL as a film. I agree that the most likely outcome is that some elements of the film will be better while overall it will continue to be a disappointment, but I would be very happy to be wrong. Just a few seconds of Darkseid isnt likely to make him anywhere near the villain that Thanos was, who was built up over multiple films and pretty much headlined Infinity War- the Snyder cut Steppenwolf looks a bit scarier, but that isnt probably enough to make him any less generic and one dimensional that he was in the original version.
Superman, was one of the only characters who ( other than the CGI mouth issue , which didn't bother me much) who was improved by JL ( because he was ruined by B v S), a black costume isnt enough to turn that around, but his additional scenes might help.
I’m just finished with Part one of the Snyder Cut and it clarified what I have a problem with with regards to Snyder. Seeing the WW terrorist scene, which is the same scene from JL, only recut and with different emphases, you see that Snyder puts the emphasis on the might of the heroes as opposed to their restraint and morality. Did Diana kill the terrorists in the TC? Yeah. Most likely. Was that fact emphasized? No. But Snyder goes out of his way to squarely emphasize that Diana’s actions crush and mutilate the bad guys.
I just don’t think that is a wise thing to do when adapting these characters. I guess I can see this as a more realistic take on it all. But it feels like it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a deconstructuralist take like Watchmen, or a run-of-the-mill superhero team up.
But as a wiser man than I said earlier in this thread, good for those who enjoy this take. I guess I feel better knowing that I can approach this more as an elseworlds tale as opposed to something definitive.
Having finished the Snyder cut, it doesn’t negate my feelings toward MOS or BvS. I still hate those movies and always will. With that out of the way, I think Snyder did do good things with the team members interacting with one another in JL. You got to know them more and Miller’s Barry Allen won me over to the point where I’m really looking forward to his solo movie. Batman and Superman are still borderline awful, and I would prefer a future JL movie to omit these versions altogether.
Snyder is still the wrong person to helm the DC Universe judging by the epilogue sequence. He’s just too obsessed with this Injustice bull****. Id be down for another JL movie with WW, The Flash, Aquaman, Shazam, and Martian Manhunter under a different Director for sure. And that’s a positive thing considering id given up hope following the theatrical version.
Finished the Snyder Cut this morning, and I'll keep this brief. I've made my big issues with MOS and BVS known over the years and how I think they're poor movies. This is easily Snyders most enjoyable DCEU work so far and I found there to be some good stuff in the film. Cyborg in particular was the stand out, and I really enjoyed his character development. I was actually surprised at how well done his story was and it made me want to see more of him. Wonder Woman was great as always, really enjoyed Flash and Aquaman too. All of them together was fun and enjoyable. When the film centers on them, there's some real good stuff there. It actually made me more excited for The Flash movie.
also, I enjoyed the
amazon fighting steppenwolf scenes.
as for batfleck, I've never really cared for Snyders take on Batman at all. I think he comes across as bland, boring, forgettable, and even bloated at times. Here is not really much different, and i think it's clear Snyder doesn't really get what makes Batman so interesting. I mean, maybe some of that has to do with how limited Batman is when teaming up with super villains, but regardless my point stands. I do think Afflecks Batman is at his "best" here, if you can call it that. His banter with alfred and the team is enjoyable to an extent.
Superman continues to be treated as dangerous, or potentially dangerous and it's grown tiresome. Someone else mentioned that
Supermans death seems to hold no weight and I feel a lot of that is due to Snyder killing him so early on. It's a mistake that unfortunately cant be fixed. Superman has 0 personality in this with barely any screen time too. Snyder, expectedly, doubles down on his take on Superman that I just don't care for.
All in all, as someone who doesn't care for Snyders DC films, this is easily his most enjoyable yet, though very very long. I'm happy the man got to see his vision through, and he had every right to. At this point though, I'm absolutely ready to move on. I don't have interest in seeing a knightmare movie.
Finished the Snyder Cut this morning, and I'll keep this brief. I've made my big issues with MOS and BVS known over the years and how I think they're poor movies. This is easily Snyders most enjoyable DCEU work so far and I found there to be some good stuff in the film. Cyborg in particular was the stand out, and I really enjoyed his character development. I was actually surprised at how well done his story was and it made me want to see more of him. Wonder Woman was great as always, really enjoyed Flash and Aquaman too. All of them together was fun and enjoyable. When the film centers on them, there's some real good stuff there. It actually made me more excited for The Flash movie.
also, I enjoyed the
amazon fighting steppenwolf scenes.
as for batfleck, I've never really cared for Snyders take on Batman at all. I think he comes across as bland, boring, forgettable, and even bloated at times. Here is not really much different, and i think it's clear Snyder doesn't really get what makes Batman so interesting. I mean, maybe some of that has to do with how limited Batman is when teaming up with super villains, but regardless my point stands. I do think Afflecks Batman is at his "best" here, if you can call it that. His banter with alfred and the team is enjoyable to an extent.
Superman continues to be treated as dangerous, or potentially dangerous and it's grown tiresome. Someone else mentioned that
Supermans death seems to hold no weight and I feel a lot of that is due to Snyder killing him so early on. It's a mistake that unfortunately cant be fixed. Superman has 0 personality in this with barely any screen time too. Snyder, expectedly, doubles down on his take on Superman that I just don't care for.
All in all, as someone who doesn't care for Snyders DC films, this is easily his most enjoyable yet, though very very long. I'm happy the man got to see his vision through, and he had every right to. At this point though, I'm absolutely ready to move on. I don't have interest in seeing a knightmare movie.
Yunno what I think it is with Snyder's Batman? BvS made him into a compelling character pretty early on in that movie because of the hate and darkness that filled him up against Superman.
Now in ZSJL, without that rage, Batman feels neutered a bit. He doesn't have that edge or is that unpredictable anymore... that's my feeling when watching the movie.
Superman, was one of the only characters who ( other than the CGI mouth issue , which didn't bother me much) who was improved by JL ( because he was ruined by B v S), a black costume isnt enough to turn that around, but his additional scenes might help.
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but I think that Joss Whedon's scene of the kids recording the Superman is really cool. I mean, to me that man is the essence of Superman.
Yunno what I think it is with Snyder's Batman? BvS made him into a compelling character pretty early on in that movie because of the hate and darkness that filled him up against Superman.
Now in ZSJL, without that rage, Batman feels neutered a bit. He doesn't have that edge or is that unpredictable anymore... that's my feeling when watching the movie.
I guess I don’t see where making him a closed minded jerk is compelling. I’m BvS it felt like Batman was played the fool by Lex, and that shouldn’t be the case.
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but I think that Joss Whedon's scene of the kids recording the Superman is really cool. I mean, to me that man is the essence of Superman.
On paper that scene is good, but the way it was executed was cringe as hell, and not just because of the mustache. The scene felt forced and in my opinion really set a bad tone for the theatrical cut.
Yunno what I think it is with Snyder's Batman? BvS made him into a compelling character pretty early on in that movie because of the hate and darkness that filled him up against Superman.
Now in ZSJL, without that rage, Batman feels neutered a bit. He doesn't have that edge or is that unpredictable anymore... that's my feeling when watching the movie.
I wouldnt really say he was a compelling character in BvS, but the rage and all worked for the character there.
And Snyder hung onto this like a drowning man, he pushed this so far into BvS so that not much else was there for Batman.
Take that away and your are left with a bland character since his whole arc in BvS was about the rage and stuff.
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but I think that Joss Whedon's scene of the kids recording the Superman is really cool. I mean, to me that man is the essence of Superman.
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