Rebel Moon final trailer

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Lots of things happened. The fan movement got traction (you don't need to assume Snyder is the evil mastermind behind it for this to be so), the released movie was widely criticised for being a two visions stitched together, news of Whedon's inappropriate behaviour on set broke, Snyder got a good deal of sympathy for his daughter's death (that particular circumstance seems pretty unique, and honestly it makes it pretty hard for me to believe that he had the time, energy or inclination to waste time stoking the fanbase), COVID hit and streaming services needed content, WB's management changed... 'What was different' is a long list, but 'director not on board with studio's vision' is hardly the unique part.

Lots of films have had massive negative fan reaction and demands for a redo. Lots of films (in fact, many in the previous list) are the result of multiple visions stitched together (I literally just mentioned two). Lots of film projects have had lead creators leave for various personal reasons, and have had lead creators engaged in some kind of scandal or allegations during or immediately after filming. And yeah, while you have a point about covid, that could apply to pretty much anything that someone might decide to do a re-cut for.

You are correct that all of these things were present. But let's remember the directionality here. I'm not at all saying that Snyder and Snyder alone caused this cut to exist. I am saying that the cut would not exist if Snyder didn't push for it. Those other factors existed *and* Snyder really really wanted to do his own cut (and had to have made that desire very clear to the studio). If Snyder had been ambivalent to the resulting theatrical release, and moved on (as most Directors do), we would not have a Snyder Cut. You seemed to be arguing earlier that Snyder was merely a passive particpant here, and had nothing at all to do with any of this, and then out of the blue the studio approached him, hat in hand, and asked him to please make a new/better cut of the film.

That's just not how the film industry works.

If that was true, how come he didn't have control of JL 2017? That was the peak of his power.

He did. That's how he was able to film the darn thing in the first place. There was a massive backlash to Snyders Man of Steel, and lots of calls for someone else to take the helm. Snyder (and his loyal fans) argued otherwise, so the studio gave him control of BvS. Which wasn't quite as terrible as Man of Steel, but still had some serious structural problems. I don't think you understand just how much of a conflict there was during this time period between "main stream DC fans" (who absolutely hated both films), and "Snyder fans" (who just kinda love everything Snyder does no matter how awful it may be), and the studio kinda stuck in the middle, in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. So they decided to give him another crack at it, and gave him control of JL, with him promising this would be some kind of epic masterpiece and everything that had come before would fit into place, it would challenge the stuff Marvel had done, be better than Marvel and the Avengers, etc, etc.

Then the film went long, because Snyder wanted a super long film. There was initial conflict right out of the gate over this. Snyder continued filming as though he was making a 4 hour film, despite the studio asking for a 2 hour film (this is pretty obvious just from reading the stuff linked earlier in this thread). It does appear that he had managed to cut it down to about 2.5 hours, when his daughter died, so he dropped out of the project.

Again. I don't spend time on DC fan sites, but I do have friends who were very active at the time, and (as fans tend to do) would talk endlessly about all of the drama going on with this project. The general response to Snyder dropping out seemed to be relief (obviously not over the cause), because maybe someone else would come in and be able to salvage something out of it. It's not an accident that WB brought in Whedon, who had just directed Avengers and Avengers2 (with massive success for both projects). You don't have to be a genius to read between the lines here. WB wanted something more like what Marvel was making, but had hitched their wagon to Snyder and that's just not the style of film he makes (not knocking his style, but it's just not what most people expect and want out of superhero films).

Of course, the problem Whedon had is that the main filming was complete, and he had to work with what he had. Changing the entire theme and feel of the film at that point was very difficult. It's hard to say what he might have done if handed the entire project from scratch, but as we well know the end result wasn't great (but honestly wasn't any worse then the previous two DC films IMO).

And that's when the Snyder fans started screaming. We can only speculate as to how much of this was driven by Snyder, but even one of the articles you linked to said that Snyder went on fan sites and stoked their anger and demands for a Snyder cut, so it's hard to imagine that this wasn't a factor. It's also hard to imagine that Snyder didn't apply some other pressures behind the scenes. There were contracts involved. It's possible he pressured them based on that (who knows what's in those contracts, right?). The point is that at the end of the day, despite a ridiculous path, we got what appears to be Snyder's original intention all along: a 4 hour JL opus.

And it was garbage. Sorry. I've watched it (twice now). Being long isn't a positive here. I literally just watched both cuts back to back, and by a long shot the one I'd rather watch again sometime is the Whedon cut. it tells the exact same story, in half the time, and doesn't add in extra extraneous stuff that not only doesn't add anything to the story, but in a couple cases, actively detracts from it. And no. it's not because I'm a "Snyder hater". I have pointed to a number of very very specific things in the films we are talking about that I did not like. Not because of who directed them, but because of the films themselves. I have not read anything from you disputing these flaws and problems, but instead just spinning off about Snyder himself. It's not about him. It's about the resulting films. I don't give a whit who makes a film. I don't tend to even pay attention to the directors. I didn't even realize RM was directed by Snyder until someone made the point somewhere in this thread. I had already posted about problems I saw in this film, not based on whether I like or dislike the director (cause I didn't know at the time), but based on... you know... just watching the film and assessing it.

It was only after someone pointed out that this was made by Snyder, and then mentioned a potential directors cut that might make things "better", that the connection was made in my head and I then began comparing this to previous Snyder projects and similar issues with them. I'm not basing my comments and opinions based on who directed the film, but it kinda feels like you are.

Why not make it? Some fans will be interested, some won't, but if some people aren't, fine, no one is making them watch it.

Uh... Cause it cost the studio money to make. It costs them money to put on the streaming service. And honestly? Outside of curiosity, I'm not sure I know a single person who has seen it. I certainly don't know anyone who was anxiously awaiting its release with baited breath (Could be because most of the DC folks I know are old school comic collectors, and pretty much despise everything Snyder has done with the DC projects). I'm sure there are rabid Snyder fans out there who just absolutely love the cut to death or something. But that's because they are Snyder fans, and not because they are DC fans.

At least, that's my impression. I watched it the first time, only because it was a new cut of the film, and I was curious. Heck, when I first watched it, I had forgotten about the DC drama years earlier (I honestly don't really pay attention to that stuff much, and don't commit director's names to memory either). I noticed right away that the style was more like the first two films (and vaguely recalled that it was initially made by the same person, but if you'd asked me to name him, I would not have been able to without literally reading it on the freaking title line). And yeah, noticed that it was really long and lumbering and cluttered compared to the original release (but had honestly forgotten so much of the details that I could not have told you any specific differences at the time). But yeah. Watching them both back to back, it's confirming my vague recollections and observations about Snyder's work over time. Again, not because I could even remember the guys name up until this thread started, but because I just watched RM, and then read this thread, and then decided to do some research.

Heck. I didn't even realize that Snyder did Sucker Punch and 300 (two films I really like), until someone mentioned it in this thead. I really, honestly, do not pay attention to directors and producers names. Ah heck. He made Watchmen too. Another film I really like. Sheesh!

'As Snyder gets more control, the movie runs into problems, evidenced by the the time that the studio took control away from him and it turned out a disaster. This was Snyder's fault as he had too much control of the movie he didn't have control of.'

And then gave him that control back to make his own cut of the film, using the stock he had filmed, with no restrictions from the studio at all (meaning, it should be more "his film" than the theatrical release would have been if he'd finished it).

And it sucked. So yeah. We've now seen exactly what we get when Snyder has absolute control, and it contains all of the problems I've been talking about in this thead (and some of the things relevant to Rebel Moon). It's just amplified by like 10 in his cut of JL.

'He should stick to directing screenplays directed by other people, as shown by the problems with the JL script someone else wrote.'

No. As shown by the very successful and wonderful films he made earlier in his career, when he didn't have the kind of exectutive control that he has now.

Also the word is "written", not "directed". Directors "direct". However, as directors gain more influence, they have more ability to demand re-writes of the screenplay, and often the script itself. It's the difference between a director coming into a project being handed a screenplay, and told figure out how to shoot the scenes in this document, and a director being brought on board at the beginning, handed a script and a team of writers (with one lead writer who gets the writing credit typically), and then proceeds to tell the writing team what to write, what the script should include, and what the story should be, and then repeats the process when the script is turned into a screenplay for filming. That's what's meant by a director having "full control" of a project. Sure, the writers write the actually words on the pages, but the director tells them what to write.

Snyder's earlier films were all of the former kind. He was only directing the resulting screenplay. And they were fantastic films. I'll repeat what I said earlier (and several others have echoed). The more control Snyder has over a project, the worse it tends to be. It's a very clear pattern. This has nothing to do with my liking or disliking him as a person, but merely an observation based on the resulting films he's made. If you want to argue that his later films have been better and more successful than his earlier ones, by all means do so. I don't know if there's much validity there though. So, when looking for a reason we can either conclude that he was just handed bad projects and it's not his fault. Or we can look at the fact that he had a huge amount of control over those projects, more or less writing them himself, and conclude that maybe he's just not very good at that, and he should stick to directing other people's screenplays.

Which is precisely what I started out saying.