How silly of us to expect a drama-free Justice League release? It seems WB manages to top themselves with each film having more BTS-drama than the last (with the exception of the sacred Wonder Woman). Justice League's BTS being the most frustrating, but also more confusing than anything. This is because Justice League is the hybrid of not one party, or two parties, but three. This gives us more options of where to point fingers, but even harder to know where to point. Whereas with Suicide Squad and Batman v. Superman, you could either point at either the director for making a bad movie, or the studio for giving the director 6 weeks to write a script and chopping up the film, Justice League can be blamed on either the studio (or more accurately, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara), the director and.... the other director. Who "ruined" the film? Who is responsible for the "failure" of the film? These questions have become a topic of debate. Let's run through the for for each argument.
1. Warner Bros are responsible for how Justice League turned out.
For this argument:
- WB chopped up the film. Plenty of scenes and shots in the trailer are missing from the film.
- WB mandated a 2-hour runtime. They shouldn't interfere with the director's vision. Let him make his own movie.
- They sabotaged Snyder's vision.
2. Joss Whedon is responsible for how Justice League turned out.
For this argument:
- Sabotaged Snyder's vision.
- He lightened up the colour palette.
- He replaced Junkie XL.
- His version of Superman was a total 180. We'll never see Snyder's Superman.
- He sexualised Wonder Woman.
3. Zack Snyder is responsible for how Justice League turned out
For this argument:
- He isn't a good filmmaker. Plain and simple.
...
Although Whedon and Warner Bros are separate, it's easy to treat them like one entity. It's easy to blame both for sabotaging Snyder's vision, which we're seeing right now - for deleting scenes, brightening up the colour palette, hiring an outdated composer who hasn't made a good score in over a decade, rearranging the order of scenes, reshooting. Reshoots. Reshoots. Reshoots. The Snyder-fan argument is that Snyder had a great film in his hands, but WB and Joss Whedon got their greedy, grubby fingerprints all over it and ruined it. It's easy to hold this belief. After all, Snyder is the sympathetic figure in the situation. It's easy for us to sympathise with the guy who wasn't able to finish his own movie, and in part, I DO agree that Warner Bros and Joss Whedon are the biggest perpetrators in the way Justice League turned out. After all, Snyder filmed scenes that involved Victor Stone pre-Cyborg, as we would've seen him as a young, ambitious football player and witness the accident ourselves. I believe it is idiotic of WB to remove integral scenes of characterisation which would've strengthened our sympathy and pathos for Cyborg, because they believed a few additional extra minutes of running time would hurt their ticket sales. What about Aquaman? Aquaman's mentor Vulko was nowhere to be seen in the film. These scenes would have gone a long way in fleshing out Aquaman and given him more weight as a character. Even general, smaller scenes such as the "suiting up" shots of the League shown in the trailers would've gone a long way in making the movie better paced and flow much better, as opposed to the stop/start pacing we got in the finished product. I do believe without an inkling of doubt that Warner Bros did the movie a disservice in terms of artistry and storytelling (and maybe even sales, seeing as the underwhelming opening is a product of the audience and critics thinking it is not a good film).
However, it seems whenever this happens - whenever WB chops up Snyder's films - many are quick to treat Snyder as a director who can do no wrong, believing he would've turned in a great film if not for the suits interfering with his artistry, forgetting that Snyder himself has directed a myriad of bad/mediocre films that had nothing to do with studio meddling (Sucker Punch, Man of Steel, Legends of The Guardians, even the Ultimate Cut of BvS is a divisive, mixed and heavily flawed film). Do I believe Jl would've been a better movie than WB not removed his scenes? Of course. How much better though? I can't know for sure, but given Snyder's track-records, it would have been a flawed, divisive (if less so) film with a myriad of other issues. I too am frustrated by WB interfering with the film, but I do not believe JL would've gone from a 5 to a 9 if they didn't.
People often forget that Snyder asked of Whedon's help with adding additional scenes before it was even decided Snyder would production: he asked of Whedon to write some extra scenes he wanted to include in the film. Hate on Whedon all you want, hate on him for sexualising Wonder Woman - his speciality is smaller dialogue and character interactions. There was a list online from an "insider" who stated the save one person exchange between Flash & Batman was Whedon. Regardless of whether you believe the list or not, as these smaller dialogues/interactions between character that help build character are uncharacteristic of Snyder, but commonly found in Whedon's work. The family which Superman and Flash save are also supposedly Whedon (and were not shown in the trailers until Whedon took over directorial responsibilities). This is a small scene that goes a long way in showing us the small, but meaningful impact these superheroes had on this family. Again, very characteristic of Whedon (Supes's CGI-face pretty much confirms that it's a Whedon scene). What I'm trying to illustrate is that Whedon is likely not responsible for "ruining" the film. His added character interactions gave the film a sense of depth and humour that would've been amiss of not there. Maybe he did do things that hurt the film, maybe he did ruin Snyder's vision: but as for as I'm concerned, all of these are mere speculations instead of anything concrete, the only solid thing being that he fired Junkie XL (which although unfortunate, has more to do with Whedon wanting to hire someone he was familiar with and had worked before. Elfman even described it as a last minute call). Whedon was running out of time. He didn't do it to sabotage Snyder's vision) and the fact he gave us the Superman who looks like goro from Mortal Kombat (courtesy of @gazool).
In conclusion, I believe that there is blame to go around. Snyder has time and again made divisive movies that don't bode well with audiences and critics, and I doubt JL would've been a critical darling if not for WB. However, it is true that WB did the film a disservice by removing these scenes, and that maybe they should've prioritised pivotal moments of characterisation ei. Cyborg's scenes, over Amy Adams commenting on how good Henry Cavill smells. I do hope that in the future, it'll become clearer and more definitive what was Whedon, what was Snyder, and what was WB. And I do hope we'll get to know what was in store for Cavill's Superman before Snyder left. Share your own thoughts below, and thanks for reading the thoughts of a bored, frustrated fan like me. Peace out.
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