We need to talk about that Snyder Cut trailer

So… I have tried to keep quiet about the Snyder Cut for a little bit until my gut told me Zack Snyder’s vision was the hill I wanted to die on again. I say again because I am a big fan of the Man of Steel because it brought out the most realistic elements of the big blue boy scout.

Batman Vs Surperman on the other hand left a strange taste in my mouth. As with any DC fanboy or girl, invoking Frank Miller’s classic Dark Knight Returns was sure to garner some sympathy. And boy I went so far left with this movie I could have been called an acolyte of the Church of Snyder.

I defended what the movie was for a very long time with the knowledge that it was a mess. It only made some sense if you spent hours in the source material, the animated movies and on forums delighting in the revelation of the litany of easter eggs.

To the average movie-goer who was looking for a plausible story, plot and quotable dialogue, BVS was an unadulterated mess.

Justice League

So when the final movie in the Snyderverse trilogy, Justice League, was in production hopes were low among many. For me, it was a chance for Snyder to link together all the things left unfinished in BVS. In this, I hoped BVS could be looked at in retrospect as the beginning of “something”.

As we are all aware WB pulled the plug on Snyder’s vision of the movie and got (at the time) Mr Superhero Ensemble Movie Maker Joss Whedon to patch together the movie into something that could sell like it was churned out by Marvel.

The final product was horribly disappointing and felt like a car that had been repaired by three different growth point mechanics who swore they were specialists. I mean it sort of worked but much like the car analogy, there was something not quite right. And even those who hailed Joss’ takeover were irked by the bland and flavourless end product.

Fan Power

The Release the Snyder Cut hashtag was (and I am not overstating this, and if you think I am you are wrong) the finest effort in the history geekdom. I thought WB would never let Snyder have his day but with one Snyder Vero post after another and the DC war machine churning we got what we wanted.

Snyder was going to get his moment in the sun and we would see what the movie should have looked like from the jump. In saying this there was someone on Twitter who said something along the lines of

“It’s strange that we got the parody of the movie before the actual movie came out”

And to this day that makes me laugh and it’s pretty true. With the stills we saw earlier on, and with the hours of footage Snyder said he had, the Whedon version wasn’t looking too good in theory. So how was WB/DC going to go about this? Another trilogy? One long movie that needed 7 intermissions and a whole Saturday to complete or a series?

The Snyder Cut

So when I heard that WB was shipping the Snyder Cut to HBO Max and it was going to be something of a series I was delighted. Mainly because a series offers creative teams more time to explore concepts than in the 2 hours and some change runtime of a movie.

Oh… I almost forgot, for anyone who by some chance hasn’t watched the trailer:

JUSTICE LEAGUE: The Snyder Cut Trailer 2 (2021)

So where was I… ah… Runtime. So yeah, a series is probably the best way to bring out the Snyder Cut in all it’s (and I am literally praying here) glory. And from what we saw of the official trailer and to quote Jim Ross:

“It’s going to be a slobber knocker”

So first of all, Steppenwolf looks absolutely gruesome in the best ways. And a comparison to the Whedon version was said quite aptly by Jeremy Jahns

“Steppenwolf in this movie makes the Joss Whedon Steppenwolf look like Steppenwolf cosplay”

The rest of it looks Zack Snyder-esque. It’s over the top, cool character design and crazy as hell. We have seen much of the stuff before in the stills I mentioned earlier. But the one thing that made this really stick for me was what looks like the continuation of Batman’s nightmare scene in BVS and the return of Jared Leto’s Joker.

Truth be told Jared Leto could be a really good Joker in his own right. Nothing like Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix but something else entirely. And I can’t wait to see what that portion of the series/film looks like.

Preliminary verdict

I would be quoting Jim Ross all over again but I am really excited to see this whenever or if ever it makes it’s way to these parts. It’s not like it’s anything totally new but to see something that wasn’t done well get the treatment intended, oh boy am I feverish.