Zack Snyder's style really is Kubrick-esque level of genius
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
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That poster is awful, the Vanity Fair article is quite good.
Also it's insane that there are still studios directed by people who ask for films to be two hours, and not more.
Judging the potential of a film on his length always leads to terrible results.
Always love the story of Coppola sending an as-shitty-as-possible two hour version of the Godafather to Paramount to prove that he needed 170 minutes to tell the story.
(Not saying you can't make a film better by cutting scenes, but these studio executives are looking at the length of the film and not its pacing.)
Also it's insane that there are still studios directed by people who ask for films to be two hours, and not more.
Judging the potential of a film on his length always leads to terrible results.
Always love the story of Coppola sending an as-shitty-as-possible two hour version of the Godafather to Paramount to prove that he needed 170 minutes to tell the story.
(Not saying you can't make a film better by cutting scenes, but these studio executives are looking at the length of the film and not its pacing.)
I think I can point out as many examples of films that are too long as there are too short. In recent years there's a tendency of making "epic films" to be over two hours and it is kind of hurting some of them as they get too bloated and boring at long stretches at a time. BvS being a prime example but Marvel also had this issue. I don't see a reason why a lot of these superhero films couldn't be 90 minutes or even less. They're not the Godfather.
Guardian of the Galaxy, vol. 2 should’ve been like ~75 min lol.LelekPL wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 3:00 pmI think I can point out as many examples of films that are too long as there are too short. In recent years there's a tendency of making "epic films" to be over two hours and it is kind of hurting some of them as they get too bloated and boring at long stretches at a time. BvS being a prime example but Marvel also had this issue. I don't see a reason why a lot of these superhero films couldn't be 90 minutes or even less. They're not the Godfather.
Isn’t the longer cut of BvS better than the shorter cut?
It's better in terms of scenes flowing from one to another as some deleted scenes made others nonsensical in the theatrical cut but it still didn't make it a good movie and thus, making it longer only made it even more exruciating with terrible pacing.anikom15 wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 3:54 pmGuardian of the Galaxy, vol. 2 should’ve been like ~75 min lol.LelekPL wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 3:00 pmI think I can point out as many examples of films that are too long as there are too short. In recent years there's a tendency of making "epic films" to be over two hours and it is kind of hurting some of them as they get too bloated and boring at long stretches at a time. BvS being a prime example but Marvel also had this issue. I don't see a reason why a lot of these superhero films couldn't be 90 minutes or even less. They're not the Godfather.
Isn’t the longer cut of BvS better than the shorter cut?
The BvS extended edition had a more balanced narrative (Superman had more screentime) which imo helped the film.
Speaking of a, recent, too bloated film: IT Chapter Two comes to mind. I mean, the first film was pretty great. A good idea to focus fully on the past aspect of the story. The second half was structured like the entire book is actually structured (I read it in three or four weeks just before the first films release lol). While Muschietti still tackled the stuff that was left to tackle, it's a huge ass story I mean damn, but it became a situation of everything and the kitchen sink. Even Either way, I think besides that the film was sinking under its own weight, it's a good example of the studio giving the filmmaker the room to make it that way after the first film proved to be such a hit. To me it felt like WB let Muschietti do his thing with the second film and hardly, if any, had any leverage on it.
I mean sure, those two films combined are like the most complete adaptation IT could possibly ever get, but the second film just isn't as narratively strong as the first. IMO Muschietti should've trimmed some here and there and really go for the adults' POV but that's me.
Speaking of a, recent, too bloated film: IT Chapter Two comes to mind. I mean, the first film was pretty great. A good idea to focus fully on the past aspect of the story. The second half was structured like the entire book is actually structured (I read it in three or four weeks just before the first films release lol). While Muschietti still tackled the stuff that was left to tackle, it's a huge ass story I mean damn, but it became a situation of everything and the kitchen sink. Even
I mean sure, those two films combined are like the most complete adaptation IT could possibly ever get, but the second film just isn't as narratively strong as the first. IMO Muschietti should've trimmed some here and there and really go for the adults' POV but that's me.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/20 ... snyder-cutIn late 2017—months after the couple cut ties with the superhero epic amid an increasingly demoralizing battle with Warner Bros.—Deborah Snyder sat in a screening room on the studio lot alongside Christopher Nolan, one of the movie’s executive producers, as well as the director of the Dark Knight trilogy. She braced herself as the lights went down. “It was just…it’s a weird experience,” she says now. “I don’t know how many people have that experience. You’ve worked on something for a long time, and then you leave, and then you see what happened to it.”
After their private screening of the Whedon cut, Nolan and Deborah Snyder emerged into the light with a shared mission. “They came and they just said, ‘You can never see that movie,’” Zack Snyder says during lunch at his Pasadena office, a modernist series of cubes jutting from a hillside that overlooks the Rose Bowl.
“Because I knew it would break his heart,” his wife adds. That might seem overly dramatic. It’s just show business, after all. But the Snyders’ hearts had already been through a lot. The battle over Justice League was agonizing, but it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to their family that year. Not even close.
-----------------------------------------
Whedon rewrote and reshot about three quarters of Justice League, from what Snyder can gather. When fans ask him about details of the movie that bears his name, he usually has no idea what they are talking about. Worst of all, for Warner Bros., Whedon didn’t exactly save the movie. “When we got to see what Joss actually did, it was stupefying,” says a studio executive, who requested anonymity. “The robber on the rooftop—so goofy and awful. The Russian family—so useless and pointless. Everyone knew it. It was so awkward because nobody wanted to admit what a piece of shit it was.”
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Superman's Jesus, the Joker's Jesus. Everybody's Jesus. Does Snyder have anything else to say? Maybe how Ayn Rand's Fountainhead needs to be a movie?
I understand why there are so many toxic fanboys of this guy: basically, Snyder's the only guy the right-wing accepts in Hollywood, given that they always say how Hollywood is liberal propaganda. He presents really buff dudes who don't care about social norms or laws and don't really waver in their convictions, no matter what everyone else says so they never have to seriously question themselves within the narrative. This is also partly why I can't stand Snyder: he's too simplistic to be subtle and too pretentious to be humble about his own limitations as a filmmaker and as a result he ends up validating terrible views of the world because he takes the dumbest things super seriously (which makes the grimdark edgelords flock to him). His superheroes are all Ayn Rand-like heroes who inhabit worlds where laws apply only to the ordinary plebs who aren't special and so his characters never get seriously called out for anything they do (Batman murdering criminals, Superman destroying an entire city fighting Zod, etc.), as even the instances that the films do focus on are forgotten by the time the film's over. To a lot of angry people that seems appealing because they want to reject having to consider other human beings in the real world and Snyder's films provide a space where they get to live out that fantasy: you don't need to change, the world's just not able to understand how awesome and righteous you are, man...even though his characters are dumb as bricks and behave like sociopaths at multiple points.
I understand why there are so many toxic fanboys of this guy: basically, Snyder's the only guy the right-wing accepts in Hollywood, given that they always say how Hollywood is liberal propaganda. He presents really buff dudes who don't care about social norms or laws and don't really waver in their convictions, no matter what everyone else says so they never have to seriously question themselves within the narrative. This is also partly why I can't stand Snyder: he's too simplistic to be subtle and too pretentious to be humble about his own limitations as a filmmaker and as a result he ends up validating terrible views of the world because he takes the dumbest things super seriously (which makes the grimdark edgelords flock to him). His superheroes are all Ayn Rand-like heroes who inhabit worlds where laws apply only to the ordinary plebs who aren't special and so his characters never get seriously called out for anything they do (Batman murdering criminals, Superman destroying an entire city fighting Zod, etc.), as even the instances that the films do focus on are forgotten by the time the film's over. To a lot of angry people that seems appealing because they want to reject having to consider other human beings in the real world and Snyder's films provide a space where they get to live out that fantasy: you don't need to change, the world's just not able to understand how awesome and righteous you are, man...even though his characters are dumb as bricks and behave like sociopaths at multiple points.
A film’s runtime is irrelevant if the pace is right. A shorter film will get more screenings initially but that won’t matter if the film’s quality isn’t that great.
I do sometimes think that filmmakers can be too indulgent and push the limit of what an average viewer can take but it’s all about intent. For example, Nolan wanted Dunkirk to be short so he designed it that from day one. The cancellation of JL being made over two parts didn’t help.
I don’t know if the mandated two hour length was imposed at script stage or later but it’s not a smart decision to suddenly compress a film to a specific length and ruin its quality just to be able to have more screenings in day to get maximum revenue out the opening weekend.
I do sometimes think that filmmakers can be too indulgent and push the limit of what an average viewer can take but it’s all about intent. For example, Nolan wanted Dunkirk to be short so he designed it that from day one. The cancellation of JL being made over two parts didn’t help.
I don’t know if the mandated two hour length was imposed at script stage or later but it’s not a smart decision to suddenly compress a film to a specific length and ruin its quality just to be able to have more screenings in day to get maximum revenue out the opening weekend.
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The comparison kind of make sense to some extent.Nomis wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 4:44 pmThe BvS extended edition had a more balanced narrative (Superman had more screentime) which imo helped the film.
Speaking of a, recent, too bloated film: IT Chapter Two comes to mind. I mean, the first film was pretty great. A good idea to focus fully on the past aspect of the story. The second half was structured like the entire book is actually structured (I read it in three or four weeks just before the first films release lol). While Muschietti still tackled the stuff that was left to tackle, it's a huge ass story I mean damn, but it became a situation of everything and the kitchen sink. EvenEither way, I think besides that the film was sinking under its own weight, it's a good example of the studio giving the filmmaker the room to make it that way after the first film proved to be such a hit. To me it felt like WB let Muschietti do his thing with the second film and hardly, if any, had any leverage on it.
I mean sure, those two films combined are like the most complete adaptation IT could possibly ever get, but the second film just isn't as narratively strong as the first. IMO Muschietti should've trimmed some here and there and really go for the adults' POV but that's me.
I agree with you about IT chapter two on how it had too much focus on the kids when it should’ve been mostly about the adults because we already had our time with them as kids. It was nice to see them again but it didn’t have to be that much.
