Douban 9.0 points, “Justice League” re-screened four years later

After the "strongest Spring Festival file" officially came to an end, this month the film market ushered in a "blockbuster window period," and re-screening became a publicity theme that attracted people back to the film again.

The popularity of "Avatar", which was rescreened not long ago, has not passed, and there is news that "Lord of the Rings" will be rescreened next month.

However, the focus of the recent topic is still another "re-screening" superhero movie, that is, the Zach Schneider director-edited version of "Justice League" (hereinafter referred to as the Zha-cut version) that was launched on HBO Max.

It’s not Zach that saves "Justice League", but the fans who have persisted for four years.

Whether it is from the sluggish box office performance or mediocre work force of "Justice League", it is not eye-catching in the film market in 2017, and belongs to the kind of popcorn movie that is forgotten.

The 2017 theatrical version of "Justice League" (hereinafter referred to as the cinema version) was rated at 6.8 on Douban (the Zhajian version plummeted to 6.4 after the release), and some extreme fans commented on it: "Bad damn open the door. , It's terrible."

It was such an "ordinary" movie that ignited a four-year struggle between fans and the distribution company. All of this was due to Warner's plan to produce a movie against the "Avengers" (hereinafter referred to as "Avengers"). Speaking of the superhero platter movie that belongs to DC.

In 2012, Marvel Studios launched "Reunion" as a milestone in superhero genre movies. It brought together multiple popular superheroes on the same screen and promoted the American comics that were originally considered to be vulgar culture to fans around the world. before.

Looking at the old rivals winning two good harvests at the box office and word of mouth, DC can't sit still no matter how cold it is. In 2014, Warner officially announced that it would launch DC's comic film "Justice League", directed by the director Zach Schneider, who has served as the director of many DC comic films such as "Watchmen" and "Man of Steel".

Shooting of "Justice League" started in 2016. After Zach completed all the shots, he edited it into a rough cut version of nearly 5 hours and gave it to Warner executives. The long film length made the filming a problem, and Warner let Zach Ke needs to abandon more plot to control the film length to two hours.

At this time, a heartbreaking tragedy occurred in Zac’s family. Zac had to quit the post-production of the film. Warner handed over the follow-up production of "Justice League" to the director of "Reunion 1" and "Reunion 2". Jos Wedon took over, which was also the beginning of the disaster of the theater version of "Justice League".

In order to meet Warner’s needs, Weiden summoned the actors who had been killed off for reshoots and replaced the original shots. This made "Justice League" a spliced ​​work. Two completely different styles were toughened by Warner. The requirements are combined together.

Before the launch of "Justice League", audiences basically only watched the personal movies of Superman and Batman. Personal movies about other characters are vacant. It is almost impossible to introduce all the characters within 2 hours. Possible tasks.

The patchwork "Justice League" has a total of 680 million box office. The sluggish box office results are not only difficult to compare with "Reunion", together with the upcoming personal superhero movie "Thor 3: Ragnarok" ($854 million box office) Can crush the "Justice League" side, this carefully planned superhero movie for more than three years seems to have become a joke, which is unacceptable to the long-awaited fans.

In fact, what the film company cares about is not the fans who speak up on the rating sites, but the mass consumers who silently buy movie tickets to enter the venue. No one can figure out the taste of the "silent mass". Warner relies on the best-selling products in the market to analyze and cater to the preferences of the masses. From the perspective of business strategy, this approach is understandable.

However, fans believe that Warner's misjudgment made "Justice League" lose its due accomplishment, and Weiden's participation ruined the entire movie. After learning that Zac had retained the director's cut version, a four-year condemnation broke out.

Fans launched the #Release the Snyder Cut campaign on the Internet, and more than 100,000 people participated in the petition. Not only that, fans also bought bus signs and other publicity signs, and what's more The author drove the plane and hovered over the show for 2 hours during the show. The slogan hung on the plane was #Release the Snyder Cut.

This is not the first time that Warner Bros. has been criticized by fans for the release of a director's cut version. "Superman II", released in 1980, also suffered a major change in the style of the film due to a director change.

Decades later, fans discovered the existence of the original director's cut version, and collectively petitioned Warner to release this long-lost treasure movie.

Fortunately for every fan who has participated in the petition, this time they don't have to wait for decades. Today, when social media is popular, the petition has quickly received large-scale support.

Many leading actors including Zach himself, Gail Gado (playing Wonder Woman), Ben Affleck (playing Batman), etc. have all reposted on social media, and the petition has been further spread.

Perhaps Warner was impressed by the unremitting sincerity of the fans, or Warner saw the potential of free movie promotion. In May last year, Warner announced that it decided to introduce the "Justice League" director's cut version to the streaming media platform HBO Max. On issue.

Fans who have been denouncing for 4 years on the Internet finally got their wish, but there is a small episode before the happy ending. Warner, who is "stingy", originally planned to let Zack directly cut the hard drive (the special effects and soundtrack were not done) The video is released on streaming media, and there is no doubt that this is a very rude request.

For Zach, this operation by Warner will not only cause great damage to his reputation, but also an insult to his work. After many negotiations, Warner finally agreed to allocate another 70 million US dollars for the post-production of the cut version, and Zach gave up the director's compensation as a price in exchange for the final editing rights of "Justice League."

Zach gave up capital in exchange for the right not to be disturbed by capital. This kind of Hollywood-like storyline took place in the production of a Hollywood movie itself, adding some heroic touch to "Justice League."

This is not the best version, but this is what the fans want

The following content is a slight spoiler for the comparison between the theater version and the tie-cut version. If you have not seen the theater version or want to discover the surprise of the tie-cut version yourself, please skip to the third part!

Non-combatants please evacuate quickly

Non-combatants please evacuate quickly

Non-combatants please evacuate quickly

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Zach mentioned that at the beginning of the theater release, Nolan and Zach’s wife reminded Zach not to watch it after watching it, and said, “This will break your heart. "So he never knew what Weiden changed the movie to.

According to the story reported by others, Zach guessed that Weiden probably only used 25% of the original shots. This time, Zach fans are very excited, and they look forward to the release of the cut version of the film will bring an almost brand-new "Justice". alliance".

However, fans have not waited for such a "new" movie. If you watched the "Justice League" made by Gu Amo 4 years ago, it would be equally suitable for the cut version 4 years later. ——The Zha cut version did not make drastic changes to the main line of the story, but only supplemented the details.

The main storyline is still- ahem, I really want to spoil it, please make sure you have actually seen the theater version -the wild wolf of the dark forces is coming to the earth to gather three mother boxes to destroy the earth, Batman convenes the team Fight against it and finally resurrect Superman to save the world.

Telling the same story twice, why is the cut-out version worth seeing after four years?

DCEU's story background becomes more ambitious

The thinness of the theater version of the plot makes people unbelievable that this is a work benchmarking the Avengers: as the villain, Steppenwolf invades and invades the earth for the purpose of destroying the earth, nothing more. Even the evil queen in Snow White, the steppe wolves, who are always "innocent", are much more complicated.

This kind of almost lazy plot setting sets the tone of "not being particular about" for the theater version. Fortunately, in the cut version, the background of the story has been satisfactorily supplemented.

Steppenwolf is still the big villain, but there is another person behind the scenes. The purpose of fighting on the earth is to atone for Darkside, the real master of the dark forces, the most powerful villain in the DC world. Darkside is the reference prototype of Marvel Thanos. The introduction of powerful villains makes the story no longer like a child's play.

The character image becomes fuller

Zach complained when asked by Warner to reduce the story: "How can I show 6 characters in 2 hours?". In the theater version, we saw that after Weiden's streamlining, the six heroes lived up to the expectations of the high-levels and finally turned into "runners".

Due to the lack of character growth in the movie for heroes such as Steel Bone and The Flash, which are unfamiliar to the audience, it is difficult for the audience to resonate with them. As a result, "Justice League" looks like a one-man show of Wonder Woman. There is only justice, no alliance.

In the Zha cut version, more content supplements have made various characters (including supporting actors) full of images. This is really exciting. The 6 heroes are finally no longer the single cells that decided to save the world in the past. Creatures, especially the experience of Bone and the Flash are added, allowing them to play a greater role in the final battle.

The crappy comic has finally disappeared

Warner asked Weiden to add the "nonsensical" humor like Marvel is good at to "Justice League" to dilute the dark impression left by the DC series before.

Judging from the performance of the theater version, Weiden really did what he said, but the addition of "Man's Joker" is like making Batman put on Captain America's clothes. Because of the lack of fit, the back is pulled apart as funny as it is. .

For example, Batman will give a serious pre-war speech, and then lay on the ground chanting "I bleed." This weird splicing of bull's head to horse's mouth makes the style of the theater version look really lame.

In the cut version, the footage taken by Weiden was deleted cleanly, and the style of the film finally became uniform. While retaining the seriousness, there was also a bit of cold humor. The darkness was no longer a cliché, but formed a cliche. This is the serious and nonsensical style of DC.

Much better made

Compared with the theater version, the re-made soundtrack is more grandiose, tragic, and more sophisticated. For example, every time Wonder Woman debuts, the recognizable Amazon war anthem is played instead of the same symphony orchestra from beginning to end. .

The special effects including the appearance of the enemy and the battle scene have also been more refined. For example, the wild wolf has been replaced with a more exquisite armor, and there are no traces of rushing to work.

The most worth seeing highlight should be Superman in black. In fact, in the original shooting of Zhonghuana, Superman would not let Superman wear a black uniform. During the shooting, Zach did make Superman wear classic red and blue. Uniform shooting, but this is a special red and blue color that can be easily adjusted to the black that Zach wants in post-production.

In the Zha cut version, the DC collapse and dark painting style that fans are most looking forward to are also shown. This may be the biggest gift that the Zha cut version brings to fans. I will not make more detailed spoilers here.

"Justice League" may not necessarily make Warner comeback, and Zach is no longer DC's antidote

As of press time, the cut-out version of "Justice League" has a Douban score of 9.0 points, which is second only to Nolan's "Dark Knight" (9.2 points) superhero movie, and the iMDb score is also as high as 8.7 points, "almost Yes," the name Chuiyingshi.

Does this mean that after Zhadao's revamping, DC has hoped to counterattack Marvel? Unfortunately, this hope is just as fragile as a soap bubble. It looks dreamy, but in fact it will be shattered at any time.

Behind the high score is actually an explosion of collective emotions in which emotion beats reason. Although the cut-out version of "Justice League" is more complete than the cinema version, it has many problems (such as flooding slow-motion shots). The distance to become a classic requires more audience inspections than core fans.

The evaluation of the cut-out version of "Justice League" showed serious polarization. In the media scores collected by Metacritic, the average score was only 55 points. "The New Yorker" critic Richard Brody gave the lowest media rating. He criticized the cut-out version of "Justice League" as "a torturing chore like a toothache. The movie ending 4 hours later is a kind of for the audience. relief."

In contrast, the fans’ high score evaluation is not so much that they are satisfied with the quality of the cut-out version of "Justice League", it is better to put a perfect end to the four-year confrontation with capital and declare their own. victory. From this perspective, the twists and turns of the birth story of the Zha-cut version should be more attractive by the movie itself.

The cut version is currently the best work of DCEU (DC Extended Universe), but DCEU wants to catch up with MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) by virtue of it. From the point of view of the difference in size between the two, it is almost an idiot shake the tree, and then crazy Fans also know that this is an unrealistic thing.

MCU will start the story of the fourth stage of the Marvel movie, and will launch personal movies including less popular heroes like "Rocky", "Black Widow" and "Eternal Race". And through the opening of movies and TV series, the story of Marvel World will begin in One line development.

Now MCU has formed a mature film production system. It can put every superhero movie into the core of Marvel. This producer-centric approach dilutes the role of the director and makes every movie The quality of the film can be stabilized on the qualified line.

However, stability is sometimes not an absolute good thing. This similarity led Martin Scorsese, the director of "The Irishman", to comment on Marvel movies as "seemingly closer to theme parks than movies."

The director-centric system chosen by Warner did not bring considerable returns to Warner. Directors with strong personal characteristics such as Zach and Wen Ziren can create unique DC-style movies, but the box office has always had a lot of rivals. difference.

Zach built the framework of the story for DCEU, but after this collaboration, Warner, who began to intervene in the creation, made the relationship between the two parties deteriorate. In the following DCEU stories, you may not see this "architect" again. Figure.

DCEU's next release of "Suicide Squad 2", "The Flash" and "Aquaman 2" will continue to unfold the story under the framework of Zach, refreshing higher box office scores and approaching opponents, all of this has become an unknown.

Warner agreed to release a cut-out version of "Justice League". Rather than rebuilding a DCEU that can compete with the MCU, the more important purpose should be to use the topic of "Justice League" to guide its own HBO Max and subscribe on Disney+ streaming media. When the number of people has exceeded 100 million, how to compete for streaming audiences is a greater challenge Warner will face.

Digression

If you are watching this 4-hour super feature film with a super high movie rating, then please be prepared to be disappointed. It is a classic superhero movie that is diametrically opposed to Marvel’s fast-paced style. There is a high probability that it will leave you with a long, boring, and boring bad impression.

And if you are a fan of Zhadao or Black Superman, then put aside all weekend parties and appointments, this will be the best audio-visual feast this weekend.

In this era when 15-second short videos are too long, it is really incredible to spend 4 hours watching a movie that has been fighting for 4 years.

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