Finding War & Peace with Zack Snyder (Patreon)

1. eleven to thirteen.

When Zack Snyder talks about comics, I think about when I was 11-13.

This was back in the 90’s heyday. That period where comics were still just in the afterglow of the late-80’s adult-ification of superheroes; cresting off of the popularity of books like Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and the dawn of Sandman. The landmark effect of these works was incontrovertible. Not just because they explored more thoughtful notions about the internal conflicts that lay just underneath the shiny exteriors of superheroes - but because they also acknowledged the distasteful and fascistic urges under them, too. And the best works of that era explored these ideas within compelling dramatic arcs that were politically, psychologically, and sociologically pointed. But like anything that is both successful and affecting, it opened the floodgates to pale imitation.

For so many writers and fans just focused on the tantalizing and dark parts of those stories. You know, the swearing, the gore, the wanton sexuality, the fucked-up shit and all that. And in focusing on those parts they also left a lot of the “complex thought” stuff on the table. Even if unintentional, these R-rated instincts just seeped into the texture of everything being sold. Whether it was the hyper muscle-ification of Liefeld’s work or the leathery fire and brimstone of Macfarlane’s Spawn. But perhaps the attitude reached its zenith with Lobo, whose entry from Wikipedia really says it all, “writers attempted to use Lobo as a parody of the 1990s trend towards ‘grim and gritty’ superhero stories, epitomized by such Marvel Comics characters as Cable, Wolverine, and Punisher, but he was instead enthusiastically accepted by fans of the trend.” It’s that “enthusiastic acceptance,” which makes us have to question what embracing darkness is really about in the first place - and whether the audience that was devouring this stuff could even recognize the instincts behind it if they wanted to.

I say this because when I was a budding teenager at this time (and perhaps because of that) none of this seemed particularly odd. Sure, these grim and gritty books were never really “my thing,” but there was still part of me that got a kick out of ‘em. The darkness just felt funny to me, while I spent most of my actual investment being more drawn to quieter characters of the X-Men like Colossus or Jean Grey, or certain versions of Peter Parker (but I feel like this was common with shy kids?). Either way, reading comics in those days usually meant being around people who reveled in the darkness of it all. The kinds of folks who seemed to want no end to the gritty-industrial complex, for there could never be enough toughness, fucks, boobs, butts, badassery, and exploding heads to meet their insatiable quota. Their motive? Basic titillation, of course. Because the very attraction to these things is that they’re “not for kids'' and thus your first experiences with them provide this little visceral thrill at that age. Which is okay in some ways! At its most innocuous, it reminds me of this now-archaic image of a handful of eleven year old boys in the treehouse, looking at dirty magazines, marveling at such provocation and giggling amongst themselves…

Where it gets tricky is when you deal with the kind of kids who never want to leave the treehouse. The kind of kids who get past 13 years and yet stay so firmly rooted in the titillating indulgence of boobs and badassery that it becomes all they want from art - and continue to want. It all becomes an ego-feeding power fantasy. And the longer this dynamic goes on, the more defensive they become to anyone who suggests this dynamic to be true, or anyone who even questions their motives. So they lash out.

Now, to be clear, this is NOT about wagging our fingers at teens or adults who like engaging with youthful art. In fact, I think it’s a critical component of both consumption and creation, especially given how many great storytellers work from that child-like treehouse mentality. It’s something captured in the spirit of filmmakers like Spielberg, Lucas, and Raimi, who had such instincts of crafting wonder, awe, adventure, along with these talents for visceral provocation. But this is true even when it comes to dark stuff! Because I honestly think the treehouse instinct works so great with horror filmmaking, too. It’s the ability to craft these perfect funhouses meant to play you like a piano, prodding you with shocks, surprises, or even reveling in your disgust. There’s a point to doing all this, of course. They’re providing you with cathartic releases of certain kinds of tension, only achievable by playing in the safe space of the story on screen. And personally speaking, the more the filmmaker is aware of the funhouse nature of their film, the more I tend to like it.

But where it tends to get interesting is push / pull between child-like instincts and the grown up ones. For what parts of mature understanding can you bring to the proceedings? What insights do you have about the instincts of the treehouse? What parts of childhood wonder do you keep? And what parts do you let go? Because again, where it always gets complicated is when people have trouble admitting that some part of them is still operating from the treehouse. When they don’t accept this reality, that’s when they start insisting they’re not stuck in adolescence at all, often telling everyone else “NO,YOU ARE!” And that the things they like are for aDuLtS aCtUaLlY… and blurgh.

This is just the failure to realize there’s a stark difference between something being “not for kids” and something being “grown up.” Not for kids just means it can have intense or dark content or whatever. But grown up things are often more understated in their devastation. They connect to more vulnerable feelings that are somber or just so impossibly sad. Things that come from the pain of living, embarrassment, failure, and just so much dire loss (which is why I’ve always fantasized about advertising the DARKEST, MOST ADULT COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER MAAAAADE but when the audience goes to watch it, it’s literally just two aging alter-egos acting out the entirety of Michael Haneke’s Amour beat for beat).

But most critically of all, part of being a grown up is the lack of insecurity about your media consumption. That means the abject willingness to engage in light and fun things because you don’t fear liking “childish” things at all. That you can like superhero things and still know they don’t define you. That treehouse forms of titillation and indulgence are okay, especially when they come with an acknowledging laugh. And most of all, taking comfort in the knowledge that you don’t have to be defensive about them - that you don’t need to justify and cover it up with darkness or whatever other “adult” signifiers you deem necessary to make it safe for your consumption. You can just like and engage the thing exactly as it is. But it’s easy to say all this… and much harder to get people to connect to it.

When the superhero boom finally came to Hollywood around 2000 there was a question that came front and center to the comics community: “what do we want to see from these films?”

And so, a burgeoning internet warred around these exact discussions. Sure, paramount was the notion of getting the essence of the characters right and not treating the subject matter itself as a joke (because there is a difference between levity and contempt). But all the while, there was this vocal group demanding that everything reflect the late-80’s adult-ification of comics. They insisted all these films should be HARD R and coupled the insistence with the familiar defensiveness. Because they didn’t want to watch movies FOR BABIES, thank you! (there were strong Angelica Pickles vibes on the whole). And watching all this continue to unfold over the last 20 years has been rather difficult. Specifically the way the gritty-grim instinct brought so many comics fans to the ugliest political corners of the internet (don’t worry, we’ll come back to that). Granted, many fans didn’t go to those places, but the instincts still left them in an odd place within the paradigm.

For what constitutes a mature, powerful comic book film? Films like The Dark Knight understandably became lightning rods for argumentation. Is that film grown up because it posits direct questions about the ethics of how we fight criminality and what it takes to hold a society together from nihilistic terror? Or is it grown up because Batman totally breaks a mobster’s legs? The film sure features both, but I’ll say this: for the ones who seemed to most appreciate the leg-breaking, the rousing success of that film was STILL NOT ENOUGH for what they really wanted. The gritty-industrial complex is what it is. And so Batman still needed to go full, brooding badass, damnit!

Enter Zack Snyder. Which is to say enter a movie career centering on the late-80’s comic darkness. But let me be clear from the top. I’m not bringing all this up because I think Snyder’s work singularly defines these instincts. Instead, I’m bringing them up because these instincts helplessly surround the conversation OF Snyder’s work. It permeates everything. But, really, the work itself isn’t any one thing. For there are moments where he shows that he can play the proverbial piano with the best of ‘em. That he can wink and nudge in all the most fun directions. And then there are moments that… well… they tap into all the problems I’ve talked about above. And this dichotomy exists because it seems there are hugely conflicting instincts at the center of his artistic leanings. But to really explain what they are, we have to open up the whole damn file of his oeuvre. Because we can’t talk about now…

… if we don’t talk about how we got here.

2. the new visionary.

“Is it me or is this really good?”

I remember saying something like this the first time I was watching 2004’s Dawn of Dead. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but taking on Romero’s classic sure was no easy task (and any comparisons will absolutely fall short). But this film still caught me completely off-guard. Yes, it felt modern and all that, but it was still playing by the rules. It was full of energy and tension and thoughtfulness about the interiority of some of the characters on screen. Most of all, there was this baseline functionality to every single damn shot, along with flourishes that didn’t provoke the audience (long before a lot of those flourishes would become his stylistic hallmarks). In one way, it’s still my favorite thing that Snyder’s ever made. But that’s mostly because I think the film is him at his “most funhouse” sensibility. A space where his impish predilections for shock and violence and even the moments of unexpected soulfulness worked best in the face of the coming terror. In short, I think it’s the film where his treehouse instincts shine in the most honest way.

Then in 2007 Snyder got an opportunity to tackle 300, based on the comic from Frank Miller. I.E. one of the big late 80’s dark comics heroes and, quite honestly, the one I like the least. Especially with this project. The source material is so xenophobic / homophobic / ableist and the film barely dulled the edge of a lot that. But what the film does do is portray an artistic (and woefully inaccurate) interpretation of the Battle of Thermopylae with an insane visual flair. You have to remember that at this time we were still knee-deep in shaky-cam action, aesthetically-speaking. And suddenly there was this filmmaker with an abject focus on composition, carefully-designed choreography, and also using this new much-ballyhooed “speed ramping” where he played in and out of slo-mo where it suited him. In pure action terms, it was a revelatory breath of fresh air. And most importantly of all, 300 made him an industry darling because it proved you could make a fuck ton of money in March. Really. You have no idea how much this singular movie changed the landscape of an industry that was over-stuffing summers out of pure fear. Turns out audiences were starved for flare in these winter months! And now, all weekends were fair game for the right kind of movie. And what happens when someone with a penchant for comics delivers an industry-changing hit and is hailed as a visionary new director?

Well, they ask for the holy grail.

Almost too much has been said about Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN at this point, so I’ll spare you the introduction. Suffice to say it’s pretty much the gold standard for “incredibly brilliant adult superhero fare.” It paints its dark portrait of fascism, turns its Captain America figure into the dark joke of “The Comedian,” and even acknowledges the horrible political intersections of having a Superman-type in the world, along with that figure’s impact on Vietnam / Nixon and so much more. But what’s really something is that for all the darkness, the graphic novel is so utterly disinterested in indulgence… which is sort of where we get into the most trouble with Snyder’s 2009 adaptation.

Please understand that going in, I was kind of hand waving the phobias / isms of 300 and blaming it on inherited source material of Miller. I was rooting for Snyder’s film and even now, I think it doesn’t get enough credit for what it does well. Granted, there are so many great moments in the source material that it’s almost hard to get wrong, but still. People love the opening credits, but I also really like Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan, along with the films ability to truly capture Gibbon’s visual aesthetic (though it’s utter success in this regard proves how hard it can be for certain books that so evoke their time and place to the present - something also proved by the success of Lindelof sequel series). But where it fails, and fails hard, is the way the film seems to take indulgent glee in the violence.

Moore and Gibbons had this deft hand with the violence in the book, this way of presenting something so stark, evocative, and yet truncated and laser-focused in its form (one which reminds me of the sort of the way that Alex Garland portrays violence cinematically). But Snyder keeps turning into the violence with this “more, more, MORE!” sentiment. He talked about it being a commentary on movies, but it’s this utter misunderstanding of satirization versus outright depiction. And in doing so, my mind races back to this telling moment that came in the press leading up to the film. Everyone kept asking him if the alien squid is in the movie (because it serves an important thematic point) and Snyder responded, “the fans, god love ‘em, they’re all up in arms about the squid… What they should be up in arms about are things like shooting the pregnant woman.” And I remembered thinking “wait, THAT’s the part you’re worried about not being in there???” There was just this unshakable feeling that some part of the instincts behind the adaptation were wrong. In that his primary goal in adapting WATCHMEN was to create one where the darkness was the point.

Instincts are important as a filmmaker. As much as we can talk about awareness and process, you still have certain drives and they become a part of you emphasize on screen. Sometimes they lead you to success. And sometimes they can lead you down the wrong paths, which certainly seems true for Snyder’s two “mid period” films. First there was Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (my word that title) which basically “what if Lord of the Rings, but owls?” I’ll be honest in that it’s a film I only remember watching the first 40 minutes of on HBO before moving onto something else. For a film that sure seemed to understand what it wanted to feel like (grand adventure in the LOTR tradition), I still had real trouble feeling it in turn. Mostly because of its abject seriousness that let it fall in this weird middle ground between “enjoyable animal adventure” a la How To Train Your Dragon and “dark Watership Down-esque parable.” Unless you can do some serious tone-hopping, you kinda got to be one or the other, lest both shall suffer. But this discussion of conflicting instinct is nothing compared to what would come with 2011’s Sucker Punch.

Understandably, I feel like it’s the kind of film that would be more critically pulled apart these days than it was just a decade ago (though there were people shouting even then). Because it’s precisely the kind of thing that positions itself as a girl power anthem, highlighting the plight of sexism, but it falls into every single imaginable trap in the process. That’s because virtually everything about the film is designed for men. And when looking for the “why” behind the film’s creation, I remember reading at the time that Snyder was inspired by the logo from his production company (then titled Cruel and Unusual Films), which featured a schoolgirl with the samurai sword (note: I’ve been looking everywhere for this interview and can’t find it, but I know it exists somewhere). Now, what did he think was the problem with this instinct? That it was clearly too pulpy and indulgent and possibly sexist! No, this has to be serious and about bigger IDEAS! And so that’s how you get a film about institutionalized young girls overcoming their trauma by escaping into worlds where they’re hyper-sexualized and going on insane action adventures before getting lobotomized. Because you’re sucker punched by that ending, get it?

As much as I think a different filmmaker could take the vague conceit and find something more thematically coherent, the truth is the film has no idea what it’s ultimately saying. There are half a dozen inversions of meaning that pile up and it all seems like it’s coming from an evasive instinct, one where the film simultaneously punishes itself and indulges itself. But this is what happens when you are confused about the things you want from your own film. And that’s what Sucker Punch is really: a film at odds with what it really wants to be. Because Snyder clearly WANTED to make a movie an adorable kick-ass samurai girl, but felt like he had to dress it up in serious adult things (i.e. fucked up shit) to make it worthy of existence. It couldn’t just be a fun lark. Which is the most wrong instinct for that idea ever. I mean, that fun adorable kick ass samurai girl movie would be way more fun, no? At least it would be honest about its core instincts. But instead, it falls victim to everything I’ve talked about when you have the instinct to dress up the treehouse instincts. And because of the utter lack of admittance of this, even the most general reactions to the film came across like, “uh, this is confused.”

It also left Snyder in a bit of an odd place with Warner Brothers. After the relative failures of these last two films, they weren’t going to give carte blanche to make original films anymore. I mean, nothing since 300 had really hit. But yay for failing upward! Maybe it was still the abject belief in his pure filmmaking abilities, but they were looking to resurrect the Superman franchise in the tradition of The Dark Knight. And what better way to do that then pairing him with Warners’ other golden boy Mista Christafur Nolan, who would serve as producer and help him with the story, to boot? Which brings us to Man of Steel. And once again, to a real crisis of instincts…

Because Snyder has really confused feelings about Superman.

3. what it means to be super.

All these years later, I think about the Man of Steel trailers and all the anticipation building up to it. From that first “Malicky" teaser right through the final one, they honestly makes it look like this could have been the best Superman movies ever.  And look, I know trailers can just slap some of the right music with imagery together to evoke the tone of just about anything (regardless of what’s in the actual film), but they really, really did a great job at that. These trailers so beautifully capture the grandeur, the hope, and the full gravitas of power that comes with this oh so rarified a subject.

Meanwhile, the movie itself is fucking weirdo bananas. Sometimes in a good way! I have a friend who compared the Krypton opening to “the most Heavy Metal thing” in Snyder’s career. But it's a movie that gets lost in so much lore and plot convolution (the genetic codex??). It uses flash-backs that never pair up to a SINGLE point with what’s happening on screen. And it even features a positively batshit moment when Pa Kent insists that his super son let him die in a tornado? And don’t even get me started on the tone-deaf kiss in the rubble. But honestly, the most damning choice of all this was the withdrawn, internal focus of the main character; one who is so incredibly reticent to do *anything* Superman-like at any point. Instead, he simmers in this boiling resentment over questions like, “does the world even deserve my cool power?”

You can even feel the movie uncomfortably pushing and prodding against expression of the characters’ famous sense of decency. I’m not even talking about vengeful moments, like when he destroys the asshole dude’s truck. It’s actually something perhaps best embodied with the final choice where he *MUST* murder Zod because of this insanely specific and contrived ending scenario! Make no mistake, the movie made Superman kill because they wanted him to kill (but he was like FORCED to, ya know?). Blurgh. For a trailer that sold us on the idea of Superman as a hope symbol, and even played some lip-service in the process, it’s so obviously uncomfortable with the notion of Superman himself. In retrospect, there’s a reason that the third trailer ends with the “what does the “S” stand for?” joke where he gets comically interrupted. Because in the end, it’s a movie that can’t even say the words “Superman” with a straight face.

This is, of course, a crisis of competing instincts.

One that admittedly taps into a public confluence of what we want from Superman across the board. Most of us grew up with the original Donner film as the only thing that really gets close to the spirit of the character. I love how much it embraces the awkward bumbling of Clark Kent and its full-tilt love of Lois Lane’s forwardness (unsurprisingly, she’s one of my favorite characters ever). But, of course, a lot of the teenage grim dark fans hate this version of the character. They say he’s too perfect. Too powerful. That he’s “a boring eagle scout.” Which is just a complete inability to recognize what it means to engage with a character who represents “the best of us,” along with what it means to watch a character who operates like that. It is a failure to recognize the compelling nature of a character who does what’s right, no matter the cost. A character who is simultaneously the spirit Americana and yet an utter metaphor about immigration. None of these aspects are drab, nor dull to explore. The best Superman stories are full of wisdom, often about how incredibly hard it is to always do the right thing.

But what they ARE lacking in is a lot of the indulgence that comes with the grim dark fantasy, along with the reveling in violence. I mean, how are they supposed to feel like a badass when Superman stories are comfortable with him being a total dork?!?! But I can’t tell you how much of the public WANTS him to be a total dork. Which is part of the reason people were so happy when they saw this clip from the Superman & Lois pilot, where he responds to a compliment about his costume, “Thanks! My mom made it for me!” And quite frankly, it’s been so long since we’ve seen the earnest cinematic version. People wanted the grandeur and bombast that came with Man of Steel, but they also wanted the unmitigated heart of the dork. So for all its faults, I was still earnestly hoping that the hesitance with the character was out of Snyder’s system. Now that he told this particular origin story, I hoped he was ready to be the very SUPERMAN that could mean so much to all of us.

Instead, Snyder doubled down on the grim dark.

Actually, he quintuple-doubled down.

I’ll be honest. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (good granola that title) is a movie I couldn’t work up the courage to watch until a few weeks ago. I just heard enough discouraging things about it that I wanted to take some time before I would watch it. But please understand, even after all these years I was actually hoping the chatter was overblown and that it would surprise me. Because I never want a film to be troubling, sometimes we just fear the possibility. But in this case, a lot of those fears turned out to be valid. In watching the 3 hour ultimate edition, all of Snyder’s “lack of comfort” with Superman turned into outright fucking resentment.

I can’t mince words about the subtext of this film. From start to finish, everyone seems to really just fucking hate Superman. The film even constantly plays audio over the footage of him saving people’s lives, all of which is draped in people’s constant anger toward him, whether it is resentment of them NOT being the ones saved, or resentment of the idea that they even needed a savior in the first place, along with the abject fear of his innate power. By comparison, it never ONCE explores the ethical questions of Superman’s moral struggles to save everyone, while knowing he can’t. Nor does it try to give a real sense of empathy for what’s going on inside his head. All of these dilemmas are there just to FEED his resentment and utter disconnect with the people he is saving. What’s worse is the film is constantly trying to justify these sentiments as criticism, as if all part of this pseudo-philosophical gobbledegook about “god-dom.” But it does so in this very general, repetitive way where they keep saying the same things over and over, just worded slightly differently, as if hoping if they say it enough times it will stick. The truth is it doesn’t stick because it makes no sense with the events depicted on screen. So instead of being a valid conversation about the complexity of Superman, it is just part of this weird, thin-skinned, seething-jealousy from almost every character around him.

Because the one thing that the film can’t properly hide is that its resentment of Superman actually has to do with the fear of being emasculated, often just by his very existence. You see that feeling gnawing right into Lex Luthor’s jealous little brain (quick note: I don’t like the overall choice with Luthor’s young character, but I do like how hard Eisenberg goes with that choice, if that makes sense). More revealing is the downright offensive portrayal of the Superman-hating wheelchair dude. I mean, is this a sensitive portrayal of disability or the struggles of injury? Nope! He literally shouts “my wife walked out on me! I can’t even piss!” which is codifying being in a wheelchair with destroying his boner / being a man and fuck that ableist shit on every level. The fact that this ableism so intersects with fragile masculinity and all the patriarchal bubllshit that comes with it is just jaw-dropping. But what else can we expect for a film where masculinity is the only real currency? Even for the female characters in Snyder’s DC films, it always seems about proving how masculine they are and that they can “give as good as they get” (which is exactly how Snyder said that Gadot got the Wonder Woman job in this film, btw).

You’ll notice I haven’t even mentioned Batman, but you can see the “fear of emasculation” positively dripping in every moment between them. Batman’s barely even trying to outsmart him in the big duel with the kryptonite spear. Instead, the big training montage is more about getting yoked and building a better tough boy suit. The motivation is so transparent. I mean, even though the movie starts with him witnessing the collateral damage of the Zod fight (which is a good move by the way! I genuinely thought, oh hey this film is going to dig into that!) but instead it abandons that throughline so quickly. Nor do any meaningful fears come out in Superman and Wayne’s interactions. Instead, Batfleck is just OBSESSED with the theoretical idea that Superman might one day be bad, actually. Is there anything actually founded to this? Nope. Mostly it’s weird fever dreams. And when sourcing the fear, the film literally acknowledges that “the feeling of powerlessness turns good men cruel,” without ever seeing how true that is for its title character, too.

Because this isn’t a pointed criticism, nor does Snyder actually engage the issue with any awareness of how to disarm it. The film instead just treats powerlessness as the de facto truth and motivation for how all humans behave. In short, it’s the fucking rooting interest. He might not admit it, but everything about this depiction tells us we are meant to buy into Batman’s  messaging that you “don’t have to depend on the kindness of monsters.” You can practically feel him yelling at Superman’s very existence, I DON’T HAVE TO BE SAVED, I'M THE TOUGHEST BOY, HOW DARE YOU. Which is probably why Snyder’s ideal version of Batman doesn’t really save anyone either. He’s just a grim dude who literally goes around branding criminals with Batarangs and stuff. He’s so clearly after the alpha dominance (and I use that word purposefully, as Snyder has even floated ideas about future installments where Batman sleeps with Lois and I just… the instinct to "cuck" Superman is just so stupidly obvious). And all of this resentment boils on and on and on FOR HOURS before coming to a head - a fight scene which actually has no narrative justification once it arrives. Superman is literally there to say “Luthor is behind this!” but instead they just punch for a while before he says the thing he was going to say at the beginning - all before the film fatalistically arrives at their necessary team up to fight “worse guy.”

The truth is all of these issues could have been forgiven if the last act actually disarmed these toxic feelings with any real insight. If this was about healing from emasculation, then that would totally be cool! But the real problem is that it doesn’t. Actually the other big problem is how much padded, sloppy writing permeates those catharsis moments too. I’m speaking of course about the now infamous “Martha!” moment, which fails to understand that, yes, it can be a moment where they realize their moms have the same names and this can be of worth! But y’all, it can’t be THE REASON they become friends. That’s some serious [robot voice] “this is how people are, right?” shit. And after all that genuine animosity, we truly can’t believe the team-up if we don’t have a good reason to….

But this reveals an uglier truth: there isn’t a good reason because Snyder seemingly can’t imagine one. The ending comes and Batman gets his moral victory, whereas Superman’s sacrifice feels like one of the most jaded “you haaaaaaaaate me and yet I died for yoooou!” resentment stories ever. We know how these final cathartic moments should feel, and yet they’re only going to play as cathartic to those who cherish the same resentment at the center of the story. It’s a Superman movie for people who hate Superman. Or in the very least, those who want to see him put in his place by humanity.

Clearly, I had a really hard time with it. It even felt so much sloppier, visually-speaking, than anything I’d seen from Snyder to date. Where Man of Steel had moments of genuine beauty and awe, everything here was caked in neon, sickly grime, bad CG particle effects, sweaty puddles, and disconnect. It’s the kind of movie that can’t even stop for romantic scene of Lois Lane naked in a bathtub without her talking about the ethics of political murder. It’s the kind of movie that needs to turn Jimmy Olsen into a CIA mole who gets murdered a few minutes later. On one level, I know it’s trying to prod and poke and shock us. It’s asking, “didn’t think I’d do that huh?! Isn’t it rad!!!” But it’s just one of the many ways the film drags us into dark, horror-laden instincts without ever giving us anything more meaningful than “the darkness is the point.”

Where the reaction to Man of Steel was more evenly divided (after all, it’s easier to buy into the lip service and imagery of that one) the tepid reaction to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was undeniable. And along with the rousing success of 2017’s wholesome and moving Wonder Woman, it’s what finally gave Warner Brothers cold feet about the direction Snyder was taking the entirety of DCEU. Problem is, they were already knee-deep into Justice League. And making matters more complicated, there was absolutely a vocal part of the fandom that loved the darkness of BvS and Snyder’s take on this world and characters. It was a recipe for a brewing storm… But it’s also one that didn’t end up mattering as much, at least not in the way I’ve built up to here…

Because tragedy hit.

4. loss beyond loss.

CW for this next paragraph: incredibly frank discussions of suicide.

If you’ve read me the last few years, you know how directly I engage the subject of suicide and how seriously I regard that conversation. I do this because it’s personal. For a long time, I honestly didn’t have the words to describe the state I was in for a few years. I knew what ideation was (and my ideation was constant). But I also knew what an attempt was. What I didn’t know was how to label the in-between of “aborted attempts,” but that’s exactly what was happening. I don’t think I’ve ever written this part before, but I’ve had ten aborted attempts (two of which crested into failed attempts). There are people who falsely think these events are “pleas for help.” They are not. They are extensions of the fact that you desperately want to die. Nor are they meant to invoke a “woe is me” sentiment from onlookers. I mean, I didn’t tell anyone other than my therapist and few close people who needed to be aware of what was happening. They are symptoms of the internal struggle with the fact that you absolutely want to be dead, but are still just struggling with the things that are keeping you here. And everyone who struggles with suicide has different reasons, often dealing with the seemingly endless levels of depression. Mine were stemming from guilt, having to uproot a toxic sense identity, and making peace with the past, along with older versions of myself in order to build a new, healthier one. But I know what it feels like to wish that you just didn’t have to “do life” anymore. I know what it feels like to go past “the view from halfway down” and terrifyingly not care all that much that it’s different. I know these things. Which means I also know how scary it is to talk about. I know how scared people are when they hear it. I know how many people are afraid to tell people, for fear of being a burden. I know how haunted people can feel if they didn’t feel like they did enough (even if they did everything). And because I know that, I’ll never stop talking about it.

Because I want the people who know these things to never feel alone.

I say all this because in the middle of filming Justice League, Zack Snyder experienced the heartbreaking loss of his daughter, Autumn, to suicide. When I heard about it later on, I was gutted. I think most people were. After all, it’s something unimaginable. And to be faced with that as a sudden reality is just so incredibly hard. I cannot imagine what it was like. I can only imagine the things she was feeling and I have so much incredible empathy for her, and everyone who was affected by this. Because it’s what is real. And it is what actually matters.

Yeah, I can write all this bullpoop about Batman v Superman, but in the end, it is just an abstract object. And my words, nothing but a series of semiotic conclusions that could very well be wrong. But Zack Snyder is not an abstract object. He is a person. And I want you to know how much I am thinking about the person as I write all this. How much I want to tell him that I am so, so sorry for his loss. Because he is a person who is all too real. A living, breathing human who I even almost met at a friend’s birthday party. All of which reminds me that as healthy as some boundaries are, in the end, you can’t just fire cannonballs from a safe distance and not care where they land. You have to be prepared for what it is like to sit down across from an artist and talk about their art, even if it is a frank conversation. You have to see them as human beings. You have to have humane terms of engagement. And sometimes?

You have to see the ways in which you are wrong.

5. what it means to be wrong.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think the “Snyder cut” even existed.

But it turns out it always did. Snyder says it outright here in this fantastic Vanity Fair profile on all that's happened: he had a four hour cut of the film that he took and packed up and that’s that. But the reason I didn’t think it existed was because it was part of a bigger, uglier narrative. For the last four years, many were under the impression that the Joss Whedon came in and took over the impossible job of a director who had to leave when tragedy struck. The end result was apparently a tonally confused, but seemingly well-meaning movie that couldn’t exactly weld its disparate parts together (I also don’t know, I never saw it). But even then, I remember people talking about the Snyder Cut’s existence. It felt like a small chirping, but soon it grew louder and then it never really stopped. And it grew in tandem with a series of revelations about what really happened on Whedon’s set, from Ray Fisher’s allegations of callousness and racism, to the “casual cruelty,” and so much worse - things that even went all the way back to Buffy. At the same time, we came to understand the more heartbreaking nature of Snyder’s exit, WB’s clear mishandling of all this, along with the cast’s enduring loyalty to him, and his upstanding character in the process of all of it.

Here is but a small example of this…

Picture a typical, exhausted dad after a long day of air travel with his many, many kids. You can practically feel the haggardness, no? The tireless organization needed, the pain of the long flight, the meeting of constant needs of all the kids around him… It practically feels like a tired vacation dad trope, right? Well, I hope this is okay to share as it was some years ago now, but I was once at LAX and who do I see at the baggage claim next to me, but this guy with a big family and all these kids around him. It’s a sparsely populated claim and they’re all, like me, waiting for luggage. This is the time when you’re often most exhausted and waiting on pins and needles to finally leave. But this father was Zack Snyder, and if he was exhausted he wasn’t showing it. Instead, he was talking enthusiastically, playing with his kids like he was on a soccer field or something. As I watched, he was an eleven year old with them in the best possible way. He was asking them questions and just seemed so darn invested - and this image falls in line with everything I’ve ever heard about him.

By all accounts, Zack Snyder is an extremely decent and optimistic person. Again, You read that Vanity Fair column and you can’t help but root for him. Everything comes off upbeat and excited. He seems like Ted Lasso, only sometimes wearing, like, an Ed Hardy shirt or something. Or maybe he’s Mr Peanutbutter if he was more of a gym bro (I say both of these things lovingly). I even heard one person say he actually embodies the kindly spirit of Superman himself. Which invites the obvious questions: if this is his temperament, why does he seem to have such trouble connecting to / creating characters who behave similarly? If this is his actual temperament, what is he really after in the darkness of his work? It all feels like such an obvious contradiction.

And it is one of many at the center of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

6. a crisis of infinite instincts.

In its first week of release, the main discussion around Snyder’s 4 hour, 7 part opus seemed to focus on the differences between his and the theatrical version, along with whether or not it is better. I never saw the other one so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But in all honesty, I liked being able to come in clean and just take it in as a first watch experience. And I can certainly tell you I liked it much better than Batman v Superman, though there are still some similar remnants of that film’s problems, especially at crucial junctures in the story.

But first, let’s start with the fun.

My favorite part of the film comes in the first hour. It’s when Aquaman walks along the jetty with all these towering waves crashing against him. He does this while he absolutely POUNDS a bottle of booze as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “There is a Kingdom” plays on the soundtrack. As we watched, we all started dying laughing. I don’t say this like we’re laughing “at” the movie, but in the spirit of it. Because it is about as bold, audacious, and overblown a choice as you can make. But one that also hits this very specific note. It’s not trying to be ironic or funny. It’s just showing this little bit of playfulness for once. And being straight-faced in your playfulness isn’t exactly easy. It’s the reason a few similar moments in the film don’t land in nearly the same way, There are just razor-thin walls of separation with this kind of stuff. And perhaps it just shows how good Jason Mamoa is at carrying Snyder’s sensibilities. He so effortlessly evokes that “gruff outward demeanor” thing, but does so in a more affable way (“My man!”). Which is why all his moments in the film tended to work best for me - if only because he so easily marries the competing instincts within Snyder himself.

But this love of Aquaman’s gruffness also speaks to the film’s most enduring quality: a love of its characters. This is not to say I think their storylines are well-executed. This is to say that when the film itself shows you a character on screen, you can feel its appreciation for this character in a palpable way. Everyone talked about how they were happy Cyborg got so much more screen time, but it’s not the mere increasing of minutes. You can see its empathy for this character in every framing. You can see how it has so much concern for his sadness and insular feelings. Heck, even Superman gets a few of these moments on the farm (though Wonder Woman gets so damn little to do by comparison and it’s crushing). For this and this alone, I appreciate ZSJL so much more than the preceding film. But the larger question remains: I know the film has empathy for its characters, but can it convince us to have that full-on empathy, too? This is where the execution matters more than ever… and it’s where the film results in an earnest mixed bag.

One of the most obvious issues is the story’s length. Much public discussion has centered around how much slow motion there is in the film, but I think that’s just one of those tangible details that is easy to lock onto. Because some of the slow motion, like the aforementioned jetty scene, is actually fun! And some of it just goes on a little too long! But the real reason Zack Snyder’s Justice League isn’t just long, but actually FEELS long, is a four-fold problem.

The first is intention. Because even the most ideal theatrical cut of Snyder’s version of this movie would probably have ended up somewhere around three hours (that’s with WB giving a lot of leeway). That’s when you’re cutting the genuine fat, trimming some of the long action beats, and probably making a few tough choices about a few moments you like for overall pace. But this is just an inherent part of editing. But the current four hour version? Even with the new additions, we can admit that this was not how this narrative was designed. If Snyder knew this had four hours from the start, I can guarantee you so many things would have changed about this construction. But by keeping absolutely everything then adding scenes to blow it up to four hours proper? Then you’re just taking everything with you, including the kitchen sink.

Which brings us to the second problem: giving into the demand of the kitchen sink. But hey, in a world where this version of the film exists purely due to fans demanding all the footage they missed out on, then why not! You want everything? Okay, here’s everything! I’m telling you, the instinct to get to the four hour epic length just hurts so many little micro-moments in the story. Seriously, we could go through and just sharpen all these little beats and I swear you would only lose ten minutes, but it would FEEL like so much more to the viewer. Lots of little things can have a huge impact on rhythm and propulsion. And of course, medium things can have a much bigger impact, too…

Which brings us to the third problem: structural approach. Like the fact the film positions “the mother boxes” as some kind of driving mystery for the first hour, but it’s not actually constructed like one. We just watch different characters fighting over these things for an hour, then it finally tells the audience the story behind them. I get why people don’t want the big “LOTR style prologue” at the start, but there’s a reason movies do that. And it’s because they work. They provide an audience a crucial framework of understanding and make them care even when a character on screen might not get it yet (and this is so much more affecting than when a character knows, but the audience doesn’t yet).

There are structural issues abound, though. Someone draws one of the bad mothman dudes and we are meant to worry they’ll think it’s Batman, but the worry completely dissipates and it’s brought up like AN HOUR later (I literally said, “oh yeah!”). The film is just so bad at holding any kind of tension. Same goes for getting you from objective to objective with energy and aplomb. Largely because it never seems to know how to go from set-ups to pay-offs en route to catharsis. Say what you will about The Avengers, the characters come together in the final battle in a way that brings the house down. And does this through your basic set up / pay-off mechanics. But honestly, I’m beginning to worry that Snyder has just plain forgotten how that kind of catharsis works? Superman suddenly swooping in and blocking the axe should bring the fucking house down in similar fashion. But it doesn’t because it doesn’t get the crucial dramatic set-up of misdirection (like, Superman’s just kinda been fucking off in his own pity party for a bit?). To make heroic moments work, you have to play into vulnerability and worry and weakness beforehand, but these are all things that Snyder often avoids. Sure, he knows how to keep momentum of the image, but as a storyteller? I keep feeling like the only dramatic tactic he knows anymore is how to stop the drama.

Which brings us to the fourth problem: the endless pondering with a complete lack of internal shifting. So often while watching this film, I kept asking myself, “what’s actually happening with these characters’ interiority?” It’s an important question because we spend so much time WATCHING these characters be internal. Heck, there’s this outright fixation on their stoicism. (I mean, these are characters who are so deeply depressed, but will never, ever cry because it’s perceived as too wussy). And so we’ll see characters stare and stare and stare as they run through memories in their head. Even when I’m getting pertinent information via flashback, we still have trouble tracking why characters change their mind in the process. Especially when we see characters gruffly slinking away from helping the grander cause for reasons I guess? I mean, the film spends so much time setting up the inherent goodness of some of these people (like Aquaman or Cyborg helping locals), but so much of their reluctance gets motivated as a resenting version of “I don’t wanna!” (which is a painful BvS holdover). Sure, you feel the angst in turmoil in the actual performances, but without the meaningful justification, it just feels dramatically inert. A form of obtuse plot-blocking. Because there’s a difference between showing characters reflect and actual reflection. But the reason it doesn’t matter to the filmmaker is because the reluctance is, once again, meant to feed something else…

Because the slinking away / resentment of heroism is just part of the fantasy.

After three films of this, it is not a stretch to say Snyder can’t help but harp on the notion that “you don’t owe this world a thing” And yes, this feeds the badass impulse. Because it shows that you’re so tough, so independent, and so self-sustaining that you don’t NEED to do any of this. And the fact that you do so even in your reluctance is part of your cool stoic badassery. It means you should be endlessly THANKED that you dared to bless the world with your heroism. And they should be ever so grateful. No, nothing more highlights Snyder’s love / hate relationship with superheroes than these confused instincts. Because what is it? Should we empathize with them because they’re resented? Or should we resent them because they’re gods who are more capable than us? For Snyder, he seems to move the goal posts depending on which hero he thinks more indulges that resentment, which is why the whole problematic cycle starts again when we get to that dream sequence in the epilogue…

Look. There are almost too many uber-dark fantasies to point to within it. The return to the post-apocalyptic landscape. Lois Lane saying she wanted Batman to kill the Joker slowly. The weird gay panic reach around comment. And even Batman teaming up with Deathstroke to fight their “new enemy.” That’s right! After three whole movies about learning not to fear Superman, Snyder has to again tease… Dark Superman, who we should all be afraid of. He just COULDN’T let it go. But he can’t because he’s never been interested in regular Superman. He can’t because the character only makes sense to him as an OP’d figure to be hated and bested by Batman. From minute one of his DCEU, he couldn’t square the image of Superman with what he wants deep down. And from minute one, this conflict of interest has felt like the downfall of this entire series of films.

But unlike BvS, it at least has other feelings going on. It’s less gonzo in a pee bomb sort of way, and more gonzo in a fun space opera way. Like, I get that they inherited these proper nouns, but there something so bonkers Freudian about having Steppenwolf shout, “you have been near a motherbox! The scent is on you!” Same goes for Snyder literally calling the pregnancy test in Lois’ drawer “force majeure.” Even the Flash’s intro scene with the hot dog is more weird than it is playful? And heck, there’s something so amazing about Superman doing an entire shirtless fight scene in black yoga pants. And in the end, some of this weird is also weirdly sincere. Like the aforementioned Jason Mamoa jetty scene. Which embodies the film’s more willfully dorky moments.

I also remember thinking just that when I heard the “Hallelujah” cover during the end credits, but the Vanity Fair article provides a whole new level of insight: “The director is also layering in some deeply personal elements. The movie closes with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” performed by Allison Crowe, a friend who also sang it at Autumn’s funeral. It was Autumn’s favorite song. Now it’s an elegy to her. Justice League, however anyone else feels about it, is made of the things—and people—Snyder loves, too.” And say what you will, but there is a kind of lovely sincerity to the way this film embraces the way that it is overwrought.

Just as there is a way to see almost everything about this film innocuous light. Because there is something forever 11-13 years old about his work. And who else is making indulgent things for those kinds of boys? Okay, everyone is, but I’m talking about the kinds of titillating things where Batman says FUCK or something. Okay, there’s a million of those kinds of videos online, but the point is how many of us (myself included) are seemingly uncomfortable with letting these things exist in cinematic form? Is there an inherent problem with grim-n-gritty existing for teenagers and those who still get a kick out of it? Maybe they’re just like I was and know not to take it that seriously? Maybe power fantasies are safe? After all, this is the Superman Snyder clearly wants, right? And maybe it’s the Superman a lot of other fans want, too? As a critic, sometimes you just have to sit back and let something that isn’t for you simply exist. Sometimes you have to chalk it all up to a matter of different taste… But this only works if the thing in question is genuinely innocuous. This only works if there doesn’t have a really problematic intersection behind it, especially when it comes to the questions of who champions it and why.

This is where we come to the inescapable problem behind the Snyder-verse…

epilogue - what it means to reckon.

Yes, there is a painful intersection to this story that I’ve mostly been avoiding until now. And it’s an intersection that has recently come to a head….

Zack Snyder has been doing press rounds these last few weeks, especially for those in the hardcore fandom who have long supported the release of the Snyder Cut. To be clear from the jump, some of this is perfectly fine, because not everyone in that grouping is guilty of the following behavior… but there is no denying that there is loud and not insubstantial portion of that fanbase who were also people at the center of c*micsg*te. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically an evolution of g*merg*te and a lot of it has outright ties to the alt-right. While most fandoms have toxic subcultures, this one takes the proverbial cake (they also permeate into many different properties across nerd-dom). And it leads to two obvious questions: why are these groups enamored with Snyder’s work? And why do they think “he’s one of us?”

Some of it is political overlap. Snyder isn’t conservative in the traditional sense, but his interest in objectivism is well-established. He’s even talked about adapting Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Yes, that famous glowing ode that embodies the toxic offshoot of hyper-libertarianism. Through this lens, suddenly so much of the “hero reluctance” in his stories makes sense. It’s “you don't owe the world a thing” mentality. It’s the “I’M GREAT BECAUSE OF MY INHERENT GREATNESS!” mentality. And it’s the “you better shut and be grateful I exist, because my selfishness is good, actually!” mentality, too. Which is all part of why the traditional heroic beats never quite feel like they fit right. They’re just incompatible with his core ethos. And it’s not a 1:1, but this kind of thinking has an obvious overlap with angry power fantasies that are also at the center of this work. It features an amorality that inherently taps into so much “badass” behavior and the ugly, indulgent instincts that drive them. Take this comparison to a similar toxic undercurrent in Star Wars. I don’t think this person really even understands how much this indulgent instinct is driving their wanton misunderstanding. But that’s because it’s NOT a process of intellectual understanding. The end goal is vicariously feeling powerful, making others pay, and doing an “oops! all fascism” in the process.

People really do rally around these things because the toxicity feeds them. Which is part of why I write about it all the damn time. Even when it comes to its undercurrents in the MCU, whether it’s the overt relationship to the American military or how often the heroes’ lessons only apply as lip service and never the actual practice (AKA they aren’t dramatized). At their worst, it’s a series about how you’re often right and don’t really need to change! But Snyder’s work isn’t just “dark,” it goes full tilt into a lot of these problematic sensibilities. It will often try to dress up these instincts with pointed, philosophical questions, but those questions feel so much like they’re just trying to cerebrally mask the point of indulging in those darker instincts. And so, I have a couple of really important questions that go along with this: how responsible is a filmmaker for this toxic undercurrent? And perhaps more importantly, when you create art, do you understand what you are actually advocating?

Which brings us back to how this hit a head last week.

Snyder was going on a livestream to talk about the release of the Snyder cut with the groups who most supported it - all to try to raise money for suicide prevention. Clearly a noble goal on paper! But with a clear problem: the aforementioned groups in question had outright ties to c*micsg*te, hate speech, and the alt-right. I wont link to the clips because I don’t even want to tangentially give them attention, but all they do is post reaction videos criticizing the hiring of virtually every Black, queer, or “woke” creator, then claim it’s not because of racism, but because those creators are the racist ones because they “hate white people” or “hate men,” so they’re just defending themselves and the comics they love! Really, it’s just the far-left agenda just sneaking in! Basically, it’s all the obvious moves from the white supremacy playbook like calling BLM a domestic terror organization, and, of course, saying that Tom Hanks is a pedophile (wait what? Yeah, that one was even a barely-popular Q-Anon theory so it lets you know the waters they’re swimming in). Whatever you’re imagining from these posts, their hate could not be more plain-faced, stark, and horrifying (all while being dressed up as logic). And they’ve been an instrumental part of hate and harassment campaigns that form on twitter. Obviously, these groups are something to stay miles away from (which is also why I’m not mentioning them here).

But when word got out about these associations, Snyder was absolutely told by the brass not to go on a stream with these groups. Not wanting to back out of the charity, there was back and forth negotiation with the organizers over which sponsorship signs could go up. They said they would take down the names of those hateful sponsorships… But the groups obviously didn’t take the signs down. This was their victory lap, after all. For the release of the Snyder cut was proof that if they could yell and scream and hate enough, then they would win. Then these corporations would see the obvious folly of backing the woke agenda and they could get back to their white indulgence business as usual. But when they didn’t take them down, Snyder did something interesting instead…

He went on and spoke out (in a very general sense) against the hate of these groups. He said the following, “Just a quick thing before we get started, I know that on our donation page we still have the [groups name redacted] logo. I just want to say that, we talked about this, we’re really not affiliated with [redacted] as far as I’m concerned. I really just want to make that clear. I also just want to say, in light of recent events I think […] if Justice League teaches us anything it’s about coming together. There’s no room for hate. I just think it’s an important message. As a father of Asian children, it hits close to home.”

On the surface level, I acknowledge that this does serve as an important separation point. Because these groups have outright claimed that Snyder was “one of them.” And a huge part of their M.O. is who they claim as being on their side and who isn’t. Thus, this was a moment of separation between Snyder and the most hardcore who really believed he was on their side. But on many other levels with this statement, I’m, uh, left with a lot more questions…

Does the “as far as I’m concerned” comment read as a clear denial of the fact that they clearly were affiliated in the most official sense? Does Snyder really think Justice League is about coming together when it’s so interested in how they all fall apart? If so, why go with the dark Superman fantasy? Why is he so much more comfortable with gods selfishly fighting each other? And isn’t his version of Justice League more about resentful people coming together to punch their outsider enemies? Which is the kind of thing that can be used as rallying sentiment by any insular group? Or more importantly, if he was against hate, why would he even entertain these toxic folks in the first place? Why go on this stream at all? Why would it have been “ok” if they were taken down as sponsors, but he was still directly engaging with these personalities who support them? Isn’t that just hiding the problematic intent? Besides, only one channel was targeted in his words while others (who were just as guilty) were not. And did he really use the tired “as a father of…” verbiage when speaking about this?

But most importantly of all, is he ever really going to make the connection between what he thematically advocates in his work and the ugly mindsets at the heart of his hardcore fandom? Is he going to understand why these groups looked at his work and saw him as “their guy?” Is any of this ever going to be reckoned with? Or is it going to just keep sliding by like a series of endlessly moving goal posts? Because with the litany of problems in the world, I just have so little patience for the “oops I accidentally alt-right-ed” in twenty fucking twenty one.

And, once again, we got here because of conflicting instincts.

But this particular conflict even goes beyond Zack himself and into the corporate reasons the Snyder Cut exists in the first place. The truth is that Warner Brothers is in upheaval over the matter. To be clear, there were obvious problems with how Warners handled Snyder’s Justice League, which needed to be accounted for, but three years later the studio was trying to rebuild the the DCEU and more or less succeeding with films like Joker, Aquaman, Birds of Prey, the new Suicide Squad, etc. But as this was happening, AT&T swept in as corporate overlords and being pretty cash-strapped, they said “the future is streaming!” and basically destroyed all of Warners’ theatrical relationships in the process. Seriously, if you followed the Nolan fallout, it was that bad. What’s funny is how caught off guard AT&T was by the development. They genuinely had no idea how much they were destroying relationships with theaters, directors, they didn’t even understand the backend complications they created with the unions (and the lawsuits that come with them). They had pure tunnel vision when it came to driving people to HBO MAX during a pandemic year, which of course is driven by getting subscribers through the most passionate fandoms… Cue resurrecting Zack Snyder’s Justice League and all the complications that come with it.

To be clear, it’s not like the Warners’ and Snyder’s relationship had completely dissolved (it was undoubtedly a rough go there for a bit, but they’re still co-producing his new Netflix movie). The problem now is just the conflicting brand goals. I mean, Warners’ literally has a DIFFERENT Batman film coming out soon. And it’s one that the harcore Snyder fans don’t seem happy about, what with (legitimately great actor) Pattinson being the subject of tired “Twilight” references and them hating him for not working out enough (I remember seeing one angry tweet like “you have one job!” and I’m like, “you think the one job of playing Batman is being ripped?”). And now that the Snyder Cut been released and is seen as a genial make good - at least in the sense that most people were like “yeah, it’s way long, but at least makes more sense than the old short one,” along with the fact that they were genuinely happy for Zack Snyder after all the tragedy and everything that went wrong last time. But if this were something that we could put a bow in terms of his grand arc with the story, that would be one thing...

The problem is fandom has gone full tilt into “restore the Snyder-verse!” and AT&T never understood what they’ve actually damaged here with that short term attempt at a cash grab (BTW if they actually pull in 70 million in long term subs because of this I’ll eat my hat, but that likely wasn’t even the goal). This isn’t just a monkey wrench into the cohesion of their overall plan with DC properties, it outright branded Warners’ as the enemy to this fandom. I mean, they gave the Snyder-verse fans what they wanted, but now members are literally trying to user bomb and boycott their general releases like Godzilla Vs. Kong (btw the willingness of objectivists to take the side of megacorps will never not be hilarious to me, but also makes too much sense). The only thing that matters to them is more Snyder-verse. Everything else can burn in that pursuit. And now, this is a mess which cannot be unpacked in any clear way.

I genuinely have zero wish to fight with fans of the Snyder-verse. I genuinely think many are well-meaning. But it’s one thing to love a movie and love sharing it. It’s another to take a wrecking ball to everything else. This is so far beyond logic and the decency of common appeal. When you play to the darkest heart of indulgence without any of the responsibility for it, then you can’t just pull away without getting burned. And now it’s so hard to engage when so much of the fandom has this deep running narrative of victimhood (along with viable mistreatment of their director to point to as justification). Even when trying to have a nuanced argument, any criticism gets hit with this “nuh uh, you are!” sentiment. But what can you expect if the director will sometimes do the same thing? I know Snyder stands against “hate” in this abstract sense, but what happens when challenged on some of this most crucial thematic stuff? Can it just be endless denial? Even recently, he insisted the people who found Sucker Punch sexist were the sexist ones and I’m sorry, we have to get beyond this. In the end, Zack Snyder can be this endlessly upbeat and truly decent person, but there is something here that desperately needs to be unpacked at the center of these thematic instincts. Because these evasive responses are trying to split an impossibly thin hair. One stretched so thin it is but a string of atoms (and we all know what happens when we split an atom). But perhaps this was all unavoidable.

Because I cannot truly dig into “the why” with Zack Snyder because it’s really something he has to answer himself.

For at the heart of his instincts, there has always been this war of contradiction. And if Snyder is going to grow as an artist, as in grow past these contradictions and the problems they cause, then he needs to start squaring what these movies are and who they were actually for. He needs to realize “oh shit, I don’t stand for X, but I’m still advocating X” He needs to realize it’s not because of his malicious intent, but because he has all the competing instincts and defenses that hasn’t really quite reckoned with yet. And then he needs to realign… But I understand that this is a process. I look back on things I wrote 16 years ago and grimace. Heck, I do that with work far more recent. In some ways, we have to do this re-evaluation process every day of our lives.

But what’s most interesting is that I look back at Snyder’s work from 16 years ago and actually see the artist who is less conflicted about his instincts. One who seems most in tune with his 11-13 year old nature. Which is part of why I think he needs to come to grips with the lingering spirit of the treehouse and embrace the healthier ways for one to forever be 11-13 years old (and not the defensive ones). And I have a funny feeling that if he does that, he’ll also be able to apply all the genuinely mature lessons he has also learned in this time, too. Which is why I have zero disdain for him in all of this. He just has to heal the contradiction. And the truth is I’m always rooting for Snyder, which is the reason kind of excited for his return to zombie horror fare with Army of the Dead. But I hold that excitement alongside the worrying feelings with the direction of some of his latest work. For when I look at so much of what’s happened in these films, the thematic problems (along with their intersections of fandom) become un-ignorable. And thus, I can only implore that understanding “the ways in which you are wrong” is seen as a two-way street.

Still, I know none of these criticisms really matter. Not next to the power of action, so please join me in donating to suicide prevention. This is what is real. I know this. But in another way, we have to understand that the rest of this conversation is “real,” too. At least in the way that movies so clearly matter to us. As the article above said so perfectly of Justice League, “however anyone else feels about it, it is made of the things—and people—Snyder loves, too.”

We make things because they mean so much to us. We become fans to foster a relationship with these same things, all so it can continue to mean so much to us. And then we write about them, not just to make sense of them, but show the expansiveness of that love in a different form. Even now, I swear this is the only intent of all this writing. Because even when being critical, talking it all out is the only way forward…

Sometimes it is the way of finding peace.

<3HULK