E.R. Torre's Blog, page 46

What a way to begin a year…

As I’ve said before, I try to be an optimistic guy. Realistic, but optimistic.

2019 was, to put it mildly, a very unpleasant year, though it was more of a function of world events. It seemed the nations of the world were engaged in some kind of major dumbing down.

Stepping away from the trees and looking at the forest, it occurs to me this may be in large part a result of what is coming rather quickly: A major generational shift.

The “boomers”, those born after World War II and up to roughly 1965, are getting older. They represent a very large group and they benefited from a unique set of circumstances, both good and bad, which allowed them to for the most part flourish.

However, they are getting older now and those born from 1966 on are beginning to assert their power. Some of the very younger generations, including the so-called millenials, have vastly different ideas as to what governments could and should do. They are concerned with wages and fairness, with climate change and pollution, while it seems the boomers could care less about any of those things.

Generational shifts are a historical trend, though and there is no stopping the passage of time.

Today’s elderly politicians have only so much more time left to their days in office and power before the new waves come in and inevitably make their marks on the halls of power and the general direction of humanity, even if it may be limited to their own locality.

I suppose what I’m saying is that I remain an optimist.

I don’t like much of what’s going on in Washington nowadays but it feels to me -and I freely admit I could be proven very wrong- that the outrageous actions we’re seeing today are the result of a generation’s death rattle.

It ain’t pretty and, frankly, its more than a little exasperating, but in time it will be over and others will step up to the proverbial plate.

Will the pendulum shift and things important to the younger generations finally come to the fore and be addressed?

I certainly hope so.

Let’s work toward that end, why don’t we?

Ad Astra (2019) a (mildly) belated review

Having finally reached our destination and spent nearly a week with family, it was time to fly back home. The flight to our destination was marked with a five hour delay in what amounted to a 2 and 1/2 hour flight and afforded me the opportunity to catch up on a couple of films (Starcrash and The Lighthouse).

As we usually do when flying, we arrived at the airport early and made it through security relatively quickly and got to our gate. Soon enough, the airplane was there, visible in its position awaiting our boarding. We still had a little time and had a light meal before returning to the terminal and wait for boarding.

…and wait…

…and wait…

The hour of departure was coming very close and while we saw the luggage placed within the aircraft, it didn’t seem like there was any movement toward letting passengers in.

Then we received the message: The Captain wanted to check something out with the engines and passengers weren’t allowed on the craft during the wait and yadda yadda. The ground crew moved away from the aircraft, the plane was left alone on the tarmac, and then the Captain revved up the engines a few times before shutting them down.

Then all was quiet.

…and we waited some more…

Finally, the bad news came, some hour after we were supposed to already be in the air: There was some mechanical problem so we were going to be using another aircraft that was en route to our location and we wouldn’t be boarding for another couple of hours until then.

We were, to say the least, livid.

We had so much free time that we decided to have an early supper (as I stated before, the previous food we had was more of a light snack).

We got back to the boarding area to see our airplane look like this…

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Yeah, the airport fun this time around, eh?

Another few hours pass and then we get the news that they fixed whatever was wrong with the engine and we’d be boarding soon.

Yeah, another five hour delay on a 2 and 1/2 hour flight.

The fun never stops, right?

Anyway, once on board the flight, we found that unlike the flight over, this one had a robust entertainment system and after checking out the various films available to be seen, I decided to see Ad Astra (you knew I’d get here eventually, no?).

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Featuring Brad Pitt in the role of Roy McBride, an astronaut who is the son of a very famous astronaut (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who went missing following an important mission some twenty years before.

McBride, we find, is a very unemotional man. This makes him a good astronaut as even in the most extreme emergencies he keeps his head and follows through on the mission. However, this unemotional facade hides deep cracks. His marriage is on the rocks and he doesn’t know how to deal with its break up. Part of his emotional vacuum is related to the loss of his father coupled with the complicated feelings he has for the man. He views him as a hero, yet the loss stings even to his adult age.

Odd electrical arcs descend upon Earth, causing considerable destruction and McBride is brought in for a top secret meeting. Turns out the electrical arcs are coming from further out in the Solar System, and the government fears their source is the scientific mission McBride’s father was on when he disappeared.

Then, the shocker: They think McBride’s father is still alive and, worse yet, is responsible for these electric attacks.

The news that his father might still be alive is a terrific blow to the stoic McBride. He is asked to fly to Mars and send a message to his father in the attempt to get some kind of response.

The reality is that Mission Control on Earth wants to get a location where the elderly McBride is so that they can take him, and the ship he’s in which is sending out the deadly electrical bursts, out.

When Ad Astra was making its way to theaters, there was talk this movie was a sci-fi version of the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness, which itself was the basis for the movie Apocalypse Now.

The idea of a person going out to check on someone who has gone rogue/native is the heart (pardon the pun) of Ad Astra and Apocalypse Now so the similarity is not unmerited.

When the film was finally released, critics seemed to love it, giving the film a robust 84% positive on rottentomatoes.com. However, if you check out the reviews from audiences, they had a far more dim view of the film, giving it a pretty weak 40% positive score.

In fact, many of the commentary boards I frequent had people ripping the film, saying its terrifically boring or silly, that the whole “father issue” is played out too thickly and that the film simply was terrible.

Still, I was interested in seeing it and decided to do so during the very delayed flight.

Unfortunately, the viewed wasn’t optimal. The screen would freeze now and again for a few seconds which the movie played and there were interruptions from the Captain when we hit some turbulence (yeah, flight from hell, eh?) and later when multiple announcements were made that we were going to land.

Ad Astra is a long film, just over 2 hours in length, and as we were coming in for a landing I feared I’d miss the very ending. As it turned out, I just got to the credits when the wheels touched ground.

Lucky me!

Given all the irritants dealt with between the delay in the flight to the interruptions to the at times marred film presentation, what did I think of Ad Astra?

I liked it. Quite a bit, in fact!

Was the film perfect? No. At times they did lay the emotions -and lack thereof- on rather thick. There were several action sequences in the film which, while exciting on their own, were obviously put in place to keep the film’s forward momentum going. If you step back and think about it, several of those sequences could have been cut from the film itself without taking away from the central and main plot of the film.

Further, the whole electrical attacks on Earth (and later, Mars) were never explained to my satisfaction. How exactly does a scientific vessel create these electric waves and shoots them out at Earth?

For that matter, why would the elderly McBride do this exactly? I mean, like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, he’s lost his mind and engaged in some very horrific actions. However, the scientific vessel he was commanding didn’t seem to be engaged in experimenting with electrical waves… so how come he’s using them now? Why is he firing them off toward Earth and Mars?

Those are the film’s negatives.

If you can look past them, however, you have a hypnotic film that puts you in the younger McBride’s shoes. You long for the lost contact with McBride’s father. You feel the frustration of his inability to express his emotions and the (paradoxical) fear of what he will find when he eventually goes in search of his father.

Ad Astra isn’t a shallow space opera with laser beams and fighting ships. It isn’t Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers and it most certainly isn’t Star Wars and I think that was in part why so many reacted negatively to the film.

What Ad Astra is is a more cerebral, introspective film with a few action sequences which carry things along. It wants the audience to sit back and admire the wonder of space and the hurt of isolation and loss.

In that, it succeeds, and for that reason I recommend it.

The Lighthouse (2019) a (mildly) belated review

Continuing on with the films I saw while flying (part 1, Starcrash, is here), after a 4-5 hour delay in getting into our airplane for a 2 and 1/2 hour trip, once we settled in I pulled out my trusty iPad and considered the next film to see. I decided on The Lighthouse, the critically loved 2019 film directed by Robert Eggers and co-written with his brother Max. Here’s the movie’s trailer:

This is Robert Eggers’ second film following the also critically loved 2015 film The Witch, which (no pun intended) I haven’t seen yet.

How did I like The Lighthouse? So much so that I immediately purchased a digital copy of The Witch and, as time allows, I fully intend to watch it as well. It isn’t often I’m so blown away by a film that I wind up seeking out the director’s previous work to check it out as well!

The Lighthouse is a relatively “small” film. There are two actors/characters who take central stage: Robert Pattinson’s Thomas Howard and Willem Dafoe’s Thomas Wake. A third actor, Valeriia Karaman, also appears in the film but I won’t spoil her role for those who haven’t seen the film.

The plot is simplicity itself: Howard and Wake arrive at a wind-strewn island to take over the lighthouse on it for a few weeks. Thomas Wake is a crusty man whose life is the lighthouse while Thomas Howard is a novice. This is his first shift at the lighthouse and, over time he, as well as the more experienced Wake, appear to lose their grip on reality.

Or do they?

I truly don’t want to get into too many SPOILERS because the film is incredibly surprising as it plays out. While on the surface it appears to be a “horror” film, it really is not. There are some uncomfortable scenes and eerie happenings, but the film’s primary goal isn’t to scare you.

Indeed, if anything there are more laugh out loud scenes in the film than those that will make you squirm in your seat as the two Thomases face off against each other. At times their relationship gives off homoerotic vibes, but they’re not overt. At other times they are fierce rivals, the young one who wants to supplant the older one, the older one who envies the young one’s energy. At times, there are hints of Lovecraftian horror, of weird things happening just outside our view and deep within the shadows.

As their time together extends, the two Thomases share -perhaps overshare- who exactly they are and what they’re up to. Wake is possessive of the lighthouse itself and will not allow Howard inside, while Howard longs to see what exactly lies up there… and whether he can take over.

Did I mention the film has several laugh out loud scenes?

Truly this is what amazes me even now about the film: It is incredibly funny at times. I read someone mention the film was like a homosexual rom-com and while I don’t think that’s totally true, the humor in the film is there and it is quite robust.

I’ve already noted that I loved the film so much I picked up the director’s first work and very much intend to watch it as soon as possible, so its obvious I highly recommend this film.

But going into it, I would urge anyone who does to check up on the mythology of both Proteus and Prometheus. The later’s myth, in particular, makes The Lighthouse’s ending make complete sense.

What are you waiting for? Go see The Lighthouse!

Starcrash (1978) a (wildly) belated review…

Part of my vacation involved flying and, as my incredible good luck would have it (extreme sarcasm…off!) I had plenty of time what with delayed flights to watch movies.

I had a few films I downloaded to my iPad (legitimately bought digital copies of films, by the way!) and chose as my first film to see the 1978 cheesy “classic” Starcrash. Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Right off the bat let me say: I seriously doubt many modern viewers are going to watch this film and give a crap about it. Those who do will likely hoot and holler and make fun of what they see.

The film, to be very clear, was made to cash in on the sci-fi craze that started with the release of the original Star Wars in 1977. Starcrash was clearly meant to evoke (or, if you’re less forgiving, completely rip off) Star Wars along with Barbarella, Jason and the Argonauts, and the general vibe of cliffhanger serials such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Only… the film had a super low budget, subsequent cheesy effects, and questionable acting.

The cast of the film is incredibly robust. You have Marjoe Gortner, who was a semi-big star in the 1970’s, smiling like a maniac throughout most of the film (He seems so genuinely happy throughout his time in the film that it feels wrong to accuse him of being stoned or worse). You have Christopher Plummer, yes, that Christopher Plummer, in what amounts to a semi-extended cameo role delivering his cheesy lines as if they were heavy Shakespearean drama. You also have David Hasselhoff (yes, that David Hasselhoff) in one of his earliest roles acting -believe it or not- the most naturally of everyone.

And then you have Caroline Munro as the movie’s protagonist.

Caroline Munro, for the uninitiated, was a popular star through the 1970’s and into the 1980’s. Perhaps her best known role was that of the deadly helicopter pilot in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

She was, in my humble opinion, incredibly beautiful and the movie wisely choose to show off her… uh… assets in bikini wear like this. Note, though, Ms. Munro, for her entire movie career to date, refused to do any nudity so despite the cheesiness and the cheesecake, the film is strictly a “PG” affair and clearly the movie’s makers spent a lot of time figuring out the proper attire for interplanetary travel…!

The movie’s plot goes something like this: The son of the Galactic Emperor goes off with his ship to explore some planet, said ship is destroyed but not before several lifeboats are released. Meanwhile intergalactic criminal Stella Star (the lovely Ms. Munro) and her assistant Akton (Marjoe Gortner, natch) are captured for some smuggling they were up to but are subsequently released to help find the Emperor’s lost son… and face off against a meglomaniac who intends to destroy the Empire.

The movie makes little sense but if you’re willing to ride with it and have fun, you will find it, though again I caution everyone who is more used to modern fare that this film isn’t terribly quick moving and the effects are, even for their era, hardly revelatory.

Still, Starcrash is innocuous fun, a film not meant to be taken seriously and made by people who clearly were trying hard to evoke another era.

If you’re in the right frame of mind, Starcrash is a hoot.

If you’re not, then you best stay away.

And I’m back…!

It’s been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks, what with traveling to see family and spending nights on either blow up beds or couches, etc. I guess I could have rented hotel rooms but given the short times we had together, it was best we remain close to get all those fun trips done in/around the areas where they lived.

But it was exhausting! Worse, I spent most of the time with a cold that, even to this day, is somewhat lingering.

Yesterday we drove home, arriving in the evening, and feeling pretty wiped out but realizing the next day (today), we’d be out the door and off to work.

Yikes.

You know the saying about needing a vacation after your vacation? That applies here.

Still, glad to be back and ready to get to work!

Coming to the end…

…of 2019, anyway.

As I type this the afternoon of December the 30th, one day before this year’s final day, I can’t help but think of what a wild, crazy year its been.

For worse and far worse, IMHO, it seemed a day/hour/second couldn’t pass without hearing something about “President” Donald Trump. It’s been -pardon my French- fucking relentless. I know there are those who are fans of his but I can’t help but scratch my head. By all reasonable metrics, he’s a total disaster as President and, as we’re getting to know him all too well, a human being as well.

And he’s such a self-promoting machine that it seems he wakes up each day wondering what outrageous/stupid/idiotic thing he can do to once again get his name out in the news and… it’s exhausting.

Elections are coming up and, I fervently hope, we’ll have only one more year of dealing with this man (maybe less if the Impeachment trial is anything less than a whitewash in the Senate) before we can finally -perhaps- get on with our regular lives.

This was also the year I feel we could no longer ignore the dire reality of climate change. I recall living through the entire decade of the 1980’s and, if my memory isn’t off, there was a grand total of ONE Category 5 hurricane in all those seasons, Gilbert (again, if my memory is right), that appeared in the Caribbean. Each year it now seems far too many hurricanes build up to a Category 5, very quickly, and the resulting destruction is both heartbreaking and terrifying.

Then there’s Australia and the extreme heat waves they are going through coupled with all the fires they are experiencing.

I suppose one goes with the other but I hope the next election not only gets rid of Trump, but whomever the Democratic candidate is, I really hope they focus on Climate Change and the way to bring down the CO2 in the atmosphere and create a more sustainable power grid.

It’s also way past time we ended our dependence on oil and coal.

Not all things, though, were negative.

Despite all the bad news, this was easily the best year I’ve ever had with regard to sales of my novels. I continue to be deeply appreciative whenever I check up on my sales and “Kindle Unlimited” readings and find people zip through my novels. Not everyone takes the time to review my books once they read them, but when I see so many pages read through -often full novels in one day- I know that I must have done something right.

After all, who reads through some 500 pages of a book in one day if they don’t like what they’re reading, right?

At least that’s what I tell myself!

Further to that and as I mentioned a few days ago, I’m neck deep in the latest Corrosive Knights book and, while it is no longer the “Epilogue” I was originally planning to release, I think this book will delight those who have been reading the rest of the series, and will also provide a springboard to future novels set in this universe.

So we close out a year filled with way too many wild and crazy (and not in a good way) moments and I, for one, can’t help but look forward to the next year with a mix of both caution and optimism.

Here’s hoping 2020 will prove to be a wonderful year for everyone out there!

Keep safe and have a beautiful New Year’s!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)… any good?

Yeah I know, I know… I just stated I’d likely not do any new posts until the New Year and here I am, only two days later (but I tried to scratch out some time yesterday!) to add a new post.

The topic is pretty clear but I just thought it was too fascinating to ignore: Is the latest Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, any good?

Now, I haven’t seen it yet but I was somewhat shocked by the reviews that appeared yesterday/the day before that concerning the film. If you go over to rottentomatoes.com, the cumulative average of “professional” reviews is a rather anemic 58% positive while audience reaction is a far healthier 86%. Of course, this will likely change over time, particularly the audience reaction, as more and more people weigh in on their opinion.

I suspect the audience number will decrease -though who knows how much- in time, at least based on what I’m reading in various bulletin boards around the net.

Understand: I’m not saying a larger number of people hated the film, only that there does seem to be many people who, like The Last Jedi before it, aren’t fond of this new Star Wars offering.

Some of the more common reactions I’m find are that a) the film is too “rushed”, giving us a breakneck series of sequences that follow little -if any- logic, and b) the film seems to be going out of its way to eliminate The Last Jedi’s plot points.

There’s another underlying criticism that may be even more valid: That this “new” trilogy of films, starting with The Force Awakes, going through The Last Jedi and terminating with The Rise of Skywalker shows a fundamental error made by Disney/Lucasfilm, that they went into this new trilogy without a general story outline.

Thus, The Force Awakens has been (IMHO rightly) criticized as little more than a remake of the original Star Wars films (ie, A New Hope) but with new characters added to the old. That The Last Jedi attempted to subvert the “expected” Star Wars tropes but wound up being either too daring and/or dumb (there are many who have pointed to plot holes) and thus alienated too many fans. Now, Rise of Skywalker tries to clean up the whole thing by giving people more fan service and no controversial storylines/ideas.

Yeah, I’ve obviously read spoilers.

Regardless, I do believe this criticism is valid. I do believe the new trilogy began without any terribly strong ideas as to how the three films would play out.

This is NOT something new!

Those who are old enough -like me!- to recall going to see the original Star Wars (ie, A New Hope) in theaters remember that what got Luke Skywalker going on his mission was that he (avert your eyes, sensitive readers) totally fell in love with the holographic image of Princess Leia.

Yeah, it was about love/lust.

The whole movie -originally!- was about how this backwater boy was after this royal princess, someone far, far out of his league.

And then came the second movie, where we have Princess Leia passionately kiss Luke to instill jealousy in Han Solo. Then we get to Return of the Jedi where its revealed they’re brother and sister!

It’s no wonder the lust/love aspects were trampled down/cut out in the subsequent special editions because the storyline switched around and suddenly we couldn’t have brother lusting after his sister!

Ah well!

Still, if going into The Force Awakens the studio knew they were doing a third trilogy, perhaps they should have thought the overarching plot through a little more before committing to releasing them the way they were.

It is what it is and for those who are fans of Star Wars, I hope you find the movie to your liking!

It pains me to write this…

… but I think I’ll be laying off, for the most part, writing new posts here until the New Year.

Just too much going on, too many people to see, too many things to do. There’s plenty of stuff I’d love to spend time writing about -today, for example, the House of Representative (Oh yeah, BEWARE, POLITICS!) is voting on Impeaching “President” Trump- and I’d love to blab about that… (sure, my opinion is so very important!).

Today, also, we have the release of the latest Star Wars film, Rise of Skywalker, and it occurs to me I have yet to see The Last Jedi, Rogue One, and Solo. Hmmm…

So if this turns out to be my last post until the New Years, to everyone out there, have a terrific Holiday, an equally terrific New Years, and I’ll see you very, very soon.

Have yourselves a wonderful time!

Storytelling and Richard Jewell (2019)

I’m a big fan of Clint Eastwood.

I suspect if I were to do a detailed count of the many movies I have in my collection, either physical copies or digital, movies either featuring Clint Eastwood and/or were directed by him likely makes up a larger count than another other actor out there.

I loved him in the “Dollars/Man With No Name” Trilogy. I loved him in the Dirty Harry films (though the first one is clearly the best, with the others varying in quality). I loved him in quirky films like Play Misty For Me (the first film he actually directed. He was also the movie’s star). I loved him in High Plains Drifter, The Gauntlet, The Eiger Sanction, Unforgiven, etc. etc. etc.

Sure, he’s had his clunkers (Pink Cadillac was an absolute chore to sit through), but by and large I like his movies, whether he acts in them or serves only as director.

Released this past week, Richard Jewell is the latest of Clint Eastwood’s films. He served solely as director and the film, alas, looks to be a box office bomb (no pun intended!).

It would appear people aren’t terribly interested in seeing this film, which chronicles the real life Richard Jewell, who was a security guard who discovered a bomb planted in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and likely saved the lives of thousands of people with this discovery… only to become vilified when he it was revealed he was suspected of being the person who planted the bomb to begin with.

Now, reading the above paragraph, I must say: That’s actually a pretty good hook for a film. A man who goes from hero to villain, only to be absolved when the real person behind the bomb was discovered and arrested.

However…

You know where I’m going, right?

The film came in on a wave of its own controversy, specifically in the way it depicted one of the real-life people involved in the entire affair: Journalist Kathy Scruggs. From what I’ve read, in “real life” she was dating at the time a member of the Atlanta Police Department. The man she was dating tipped her off that the FBI was suspicious of Mr. Jewell and she made inquiries to the FBI, verified this fact, and subsequently wrote an article about her findings. This article essentially made all the other news media outlets, and people in general, realize Mr. Jewell was a suspect which, in the end, made his life a living hell afterwards.

Only, in the movie director Clint Eastwood and writer Billy Ray change Ms. Scruggs’ story. She doesn’t receive a tip from a boyfriend in the police department, she meets up with Tom Shaw, the FBI agent played by John Hamm, who is investigating/suspecting Jewell of being the bomber. In a now very controversial scene in the film, Scruggs essentially trades sex with Shaw for information regarding Jewell.

That change in the real life story is odious, IMHO. I mean, wasn’t the whole point of the film to show how the media tarred an innocent person? So in clearing him they decide to tar another person as a slut who gets information by trading for sex. They tar a person who, if you step back and look at the facts, was simply doing her job as a journalist.

Think about it: Scruggs, in real life, got a tip and followed up on it. She corroborated the information that the FBI suspected Jewell was the bomber and then wrote an article about her findings.

The article certainly proved horrible for Mr. Jewell, but did she not do what a journalist should do? Did she not pursue a lead and verify it before writing about it?

And consider this: If Ms. Scruggs hadn’t written the article, if she hadn’t been given the tip from her boyfriend at the time and which she verified, how long do you think it would have taken before another journalist -perhaps several of them!- would have found out and written such an article?

I strongly suspect it wouldn’t have been very long at all.

I haven’t seen the film but many of the people who have -even those who very much like it- point out the portrayal of Ms. Scruggs and Mr. Hamm’s FBI agent are the film’s biggest liabilities, that they are portrayed as cliched bad guys who are only missing long mustaches they can twirl while they go about their bad guy business.

But it gets worse. Not only does the film incorrectly depict Ms. Scruggs as trading sex for information, Tom Shaw, the FBI agent played by Mr. Hamm, is a fictitious construct. There is NO Tom Shaw who worked in the FBI at the time of the Atlanta Bombing. So not only is the story of Ms. Scruggs trading sex for information bogus, so to is the person she supposedly slept with to get the information…!

The word comes back to me: Odious.

Yeah, what happened to Richard Jewell was absolutely terrible. He should not have gone through that scrutiny and the accusations.

But you know what? Making alternate -and also terrible- accusations about a real life person in Ms. Scruggs is just as bad.

Ms. Scruggs passed away at the very young age of 42 in 2001, the result of an accidental overdose. It was reported the Jewell article affected her deeply and she spent the rest of her years regretting what Mr. Jewell went through and her responsibility in the situation.

The sad thing is that it seems to me there is a legitimately good story here which could have been presented in film form without tarring this woman with a fictional affair with a fictional character, all in the name of getting a story.

It reeks of putting the thumbs on the scale, of kicking someone because you have to have villains in your story.

A shame.

If you want to read a good article concerning this controversy, check out Julie Miller’s article presented on VanityFair.com…

The Richard Jewell Controversy – and the complicated truth about Kathy Scruggs

A few more thoughts on the Snyder Cut of Justice League…

As I’ve mentioned far, FAR too many times now, I’m a big fan of director Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman, though I would quickly add that its the Director’s/Extended Cut of the film that is the one I’m referring to.

Full disclosure: While I liked the theatrical cut when I saw it -twice- upon its original release, I also gave that version of the film a bit of a pass as I knew there was the longer version out there and further I knew it would eventually be released to home video. Now, I can’t recommend anyone see the theatrical cut. Stick with the Director’s/Extended version.

Anyway, when Justice League was in the works, I was genuinely excited to see the film. Everyone who has any interest in the film knows what happened: Zack Snyder stepped down from making the film following the tragic suicide of his adopted daughter and Joss Whedon stepped in to supposedly complete some re-shoots and… well… as we’ve learned since, he essentially re-did the film in a way I suspect Warners/DC wanted it done, and some reports suggest as little as 10% of Zack Snyder’s original vision of the film remains in the theatrical cut, despite the fact that he is listed as the director of the film.

What followed was plenty of fans of BvS clamoring/demanding Warners/DC release the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League.

At first, there were questions as to whether such a cut even existed. This didn’t stop the speculation. Some insisted there was absolutely no “Snyder Cut”, that what existed were a bunch of unfinished scenes and nothing which could be salvaged into an actual, watchable work.

I never believed this to be the case.

The fact of the matter was that Mr. Snyder finished all principle photography and he left the film when he was brought back to do some re-shoots. I always suspected those re-shoots were studio demanded, perhaps sequences which featured more humor and less seriousness/darkness, something many fans viewed very negatively about Snyder’s previous DC works.

In time, it became obvious that a Snyder Cut of Justice League did indeed exist. This was made all the more obvious when Aquaman star Jason Momoa himself stated he was shown the Snyder Cut of the film and came away with very positive feelings about it.

Director Zack Snyder has played this whole thing most curiously, holding back on any strong statement regarding the film and his version of it but rather hinting -at times strongly- that such a thing existed and could be released. Not too terribly long ago and in early December, he finally issued that strong statement of the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League indeed existing. He did so with this posting:

[image error]

If you look closely at the film reel shipping containers on this photograph, they state Z.S. JL Director’s Cut Running Time 219.

This should put the whole “does it exist” question to rest, but it doesn’t answer the “how much is left to do on this film?” question.

For I strongly suspect there are still effects that need to be completed in the film, and these may be quite significant. By significant I mean: To get them done, Warners/DC will likely have to put down some serious $$$$ to finish up whatever work remains on this cut.

But let’s move beyond that and to the reason I’m writing about this.

Let’s assume that Warners/DC does fund the completion of the Snyder Cut of JL. Let’s assume the film is completed the way Mr. Snyder wanted it done. And then let’s further assume the film finally gets its release.

Frankly, I fear many fans are going to find themselves disappointed.

Understand: I really, really like BvS. I’m not a Snyder uber-fan, however. I’ve seen only two of his films, Dawn of the Dead and BvS. I don’t consider Justice League (the theatrical cut) “his” film, despite the credit given to him. I have not seen Man of Steel, Watchmen, 300, and Sucker Punch, though I own all but 300.

I’ve read the reviews and the opinions of people regarding his works. There are those who very much hate what he’s done. There are those who absolutely love what he’s done. There are those in the middle, who feel the works are middling at best, with one or two films standing out.

I love BvS and, yes, I’m curious to see Snyder’s Cut of Justice League but given all the hoopla/interest in this film, I can’t help but worry that in time there’s going to be a whole lot of people suffer from a bad case of let-down-itis. I worry many of those demanding the release of the film have blown its potential quality sky-high and when the film is eventually released, they’ll watch it expecting nothing short of something amazing. And when that might not materialize, they may feel really, really let down.

Don’t get me wrong: the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League could turn out to be a very good film, perhaps on the level of BvS to me. It could turn out to be a better film than that, again IMHO.

But for many it has become this magical unicorn, a film whose importance and quality is at this point subject to nothing more than one’s imagination. We -you and I- can do nothing more than suppose the quality of the film. We have some ideas, yes, and some beautiful stills and the stuff that appeared in the trailers of the film but weren’t shown in the theatrical cut of it to get some sense of what Mr. Snyder was up to.

But we really have no idea what the film will be in the end.

What I’m getting at is the old expression of “be careful what you wish for”. While it is totally appropriate to ask for/demand that Warners/DC release this film, perhaps we should temper our excitement/interest. We are, in the end, talking about a film. It could be damn good. It might wind up being average to some. It might wind up being crap to others, even some of those who most vocally demanded the film’s release.

What will it be?

We won’t know until it is eventually released.

While at first there was a question as to whether the film would eventually be released, I’ve come around to thinking its no longer a matter of “if” but of “when”.

We will get to see the Snyder Cut of Justice League. Perhaps very soon.

Let’s hope it was worth the wait.