This is fascinating to me but probably quite boring for most people. To bring you up to speed: The movie Justice League came out in 2017, and it was bad. Like really, really bad. What happened was, Zack Snyder, who directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman started filming Justice League and had to leave the movie due to a family drama. Joss Wheadon (who directed some of the Avengers movies and many other things) came in to finish the movie. But for whatever reason, a lot got changed. The script got partly rewritten and many scenes got reshot, which is often quite visible in the final film. The complete tone of the film was changed, too. While Man of Steel and Batman v Superman took themselves very serious, JL had many Avenger-esque one liner jokes. The colour palette changed very noticeable from dark to bright and vibrant. The final battle in the trailers was dark and blue-ish, in the final film everything was bright red. There are great videos on YouTube with lots of in-depts comparisons.
Ok, so. Over the last couple of years, now and then, rumours came up that there is indeed a cut of the movie from the time Zack Snyder left, and fans wanted to see it. Zack Snyder himself kept posting hints and photos on his Vero profile (is he the only person left using Vero?).
In the last few months, the voices got louder and louder. Some of the actors itself posted the Hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, and it trended every now and then on Twitter.
In my opinion Man of Steel was an only-okay movie. Batman v Superman wasn’t very good either, but the directors cut actually was a bit better and explained a few plot holes. So why are people going crazy about Justice League? Will it be better than what we got in 2017? We will see! It’s now officially confirmed that it will be released in 2021, possibly as a mini series and not as a four hour long movie.
Yes, I want to see Justice League as Zack Snyder wanted to make it, but I don’t think it will be THE BEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD. So why am I so fascinated with it? Outcries happen all the time, but this time, the internet won. Crazy fandom won, and Warner Bros will spend $20m more on a movie that wasn’t financially successful.
We live in a world of polarities, and this ruckus* is no exception. There is no room for nuance. You can love Zack Snyder or you are a Marvel fanboy. You either love Tesla and Elon Musk or you hate electric vehicles. One wrong turn on twitter and you are in the middle of a fandom war.
* it took me 20 minutes on thesaurus.com to find the right word
To prove my fandom, here is a 25 year old photo of me as Batman.
