Rebel Moon final trailer

[gbaji]

I'm not going to continue with an argument that is solely based on different perceptions and opinions about the same thing. We can certainly differ in our opinions with regard to how Snyder felt about the theatrical release of Justice League, and the degree to which he had a hand in making his own cut of the film a reality, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. There is a Synder Cut of the film. Done. I'm not sure why this one minor detail matters so much to you.

Huh? WW saving the people in the Bailey, Flash saving Iris, Aquaman supplying food to starving village, and saving the shipwrecked man, Cyborg helping evicted mom, stopping random cop from being hit by flying car, Batman stops to help a random soldier in the same scene... As for the rescue scene, Cyborg jumps the gun when his father is directly threatened, so the plan doesn't work, they tip their hand too early.

And which of those scenes were in both films, and which were just in the Synder cut? The actual heroic scenes are in Whedon's cut as well.


WW saving the folks is in both films. But with less siliness to the scene in the Whedon Cut, like why she can move faster than bullets, but can't stop the guy from reloading. Like literally, the Snyder cut has him pause and reload, while she sits there (striking a dramatic pose) and watches him, then has the dramatic "runs around blocking all the shots fired at the teens" bit. Whedon cuts out the initial shots, and the reload, and just shows us the one cool effects scene instead, making it more like she just barely arrived back in the room (after disposing of the bomb) in time to stop him from shooting the schoolkids, and then immediately takes the guy out.

In both Aquaman is helping out the village, but in the Snyder Cut it feels more like he's kinda lording it over them as a result (they don't like him, he acts like a bully towards them, but they have no choice but to tolerate him). In Whedon's cut, Aquaman comes off like a much nicer person. Not interested in what Bruce is selling, but not the absolute jerk he is like in Snyder's cut.

In both Cyborg rushes to save his dad. The difference (as I've pointed out several times) is that in the Snyder cut, they literally have a conversation about what to do, Cyborg sees his dad, and ignores the plan and jumps in. In the Whedon cut, he shows the same concern, but his action is seen less as "ignore my teammates and do my own thing" as "I'm concerned for my father, so I'm going in first" (Whedon cut out the bit with Batman making a plan, so there's no conflict). The Whedon cut makes a point of showcasing the heroes saving the Starr Labs folks though, while it's almost absent in the Snyder Cut. The Sndyer cut made it less about Cyborg being heroic, and more about the "team" being disfunctional (but that aspect is never followed up on in any way).

Only the Snyder cut has Flash save Iris. Er... But it's such a long and drawn out scene, that it's not really about saving her, but showing off the effects of him doing it. And... um... he doesn't save the driver of the truck, nor the likely numerous other people around who were almost certainly hurt or injured (Snyder has this amzing habit of putting in credibly violent scenes in the film but I guess because he didn't directly show us the bodies of the dead from it, I guess we just imagine that folks magically weren't hurt or something). That scene showcased the Flash being a self centered jerk, using his powers (and kinda showing off his powers) to impress a girl he liked (well, for the audience anyway, since she couldn't see him, which makes it even dumber). It was an awful scene, with pretty much zero redeeming features to it.

Cyborg and the evicted mom, wasn't about him being a hero, but showing off how powerful Cyborg was in terms of cyber capabilities. He can hack anything, and do anything he wants. Sure. He helps out this one woman, but in the process opens up a huge can of worms in terms of his capabilities, and the morality of using them in the first place. It was a set up to him later "hacking" the mother boxes (which was laughably poorly done in the Snyder Cut). Whedon dropped the later scene entirely, so this one served no purpose. Heck. Doom Patrol did a much better job examining Cyborg's abilities, and the morality of using them, than Snyder did, so... if you aren't going to actually address the morality issue you just raised, maybe don't raise it in the first place.

And both of the "save a cop/soldier" scenes only existed as a result of Sndyer including this incredibly violent scene of Superman shooting up the entire area after he is resurrected. Another scene that shows a really dark side of the characters, and yeah, we see a couple folks being saved, but, somewhat similar to the scenes in Man of Steel, it's hard to accept that much violence didn't have to result in a large number of fatalities. Snyder just doesn't show us the dead bodies in the aftermath. Once again, Whedon removed that scene (wisely IMO), so the connected scenes were not there either.

Whedon left every single "heroic scene of them saving folks" in the film that Snyder shot (and that didn't more or less need to be removed to keep the plot on track and within the time limits). But there weren't a whole lot in there to begin with. Whedon then added more. Batman saving people from the parademon at the beginning. Superman and Flash saving the civilians in the area during the final fight. Which, I supose is a thing about Snyder's version. He just kinda ignores the possiblity that civilians might actually be in an area and need to be saved in the first place. If they aren't related to the direct story, characters, and/or action, they just kinda don't exist. Even though, realistically, they should. There should be thousands of people in those buildings being destroyed in Man of Steel. We'll just ignore them. There should be someone driving that truck, and dozens of people on the street, all of whom Flash could have saved with his speed. But we'll just ignore them.

Because that was already explained in BVS, Luther and Barry's premonition made him think something dangerous was coming (and he got the files about the others in that film too. BVS has him get information about potential league members, and then in the next film he is tracking down those people.)

But none of this is actually mentioned in the Snyder Cut. That's the problem. You have to make the film itself a complete story. Only the Whedon cut even references Luthor's experience in Superman's ship. Only the Whedon cut gives Batman a specific motivation to be looking for the parademons and hunting them down prior to Diana showing up and telling him about the boxes. Only the Whedon cut has a sequence of action and discovery that leads us to the end point. Sure. Batman is gathering heroes, and we can rationalize this from what he was doing in BvS. In both films Author shows up to help save them after the mother box is taken from Atlantis. But only in the Whedon cut is there a previous bit of dialogue with Bruce already asking about the boxes and if he knows what they are or mean. He's tracking down clues about them. This provides a much better reason for Aquaman to go to Bruce specifically after the mother box is stolen in Atlantis. He has some reason to believe that Bruce is already looking into these things, and knows there's something going on with them, so when the one in Atlantis is taken, it's logical for him to go to Bruce.

In the Snyder Cut? He just kinda shows up. And nothing is said about why. I can't remember the specific details about Cyborg either, but IIRC, there were some slight differences in the sequence of interactions which made more sense in the Whedon cut than in the Snyder cut. Oh. Now I remember. Cyborg actually followed Bruce and Diana around and was spying on them (cause they tried to contact him already), so he overheard them talking about the boxes, which is why he goes to them when his father goes missing, and a parademon shows up to try to take the box away from him (I think both had that last bit, but it was also slightly different in each, but can't recall the specifics now).


Whedon, despite being constrained by what had already been shot, actually did add in a lot more "ground work" to make the plot and specifically the actions and decisions of the heroes make more sense and flow more smoothly. Synder's cut was just jarring in spots, as the heroes just "did something", with a highly handwaved explanation, that just happened to move the plot forward. I'm struggling to remember some of the specifics (despite recently rewatching them back to back), but I distinctly recall on several occasions thinking "wait. Why did they do that?" and "how did they know to go there?" bits in the Snyder cut. It's not like the Snyder Cut was completely nonsensical, but it spent a bare bare bare minimum on laying said groundwork to make the plot work. And it put in so many unnecessary and unrelated scenes into the film, that what little groundwork was there was hard to keep track of when you finally got to the point where it paid off.

It also really didn't help that in the Snyder cut, a huge amount of the plot was revealed, not by the heroes discovering it, but by the villains talking amongst themselves. I suppose this reduced audience confusion, but it's a dangerous technique because it lends itself to that "minimal groundwork" problem I mentioned. The director thinks "I've told the audience why this is happening", and maybe doesn't spend the time showing the protagonists actually going through the steps to arrive at the same conclusions.


I mention these specifically because there are echoes to the same issues in Rebel Moon. Same deal with lack of time spent showing the character motivations, and more time spent showing gratuitous violence and "kitchen sink" style scenes. It does still support my initial assessment that he tends towards getting so caught up in highlighting "really cool scenes I filmed" that he sometimes seems to forget that he's also supposed to tell a story along the way.

That's just my opinion though. I will say one thing in favor of Rebel Moon. At least, it's already in a somewhat grimdark setting to begin with, so that part of his style at least works fine.