Batman v Superman: The Fundamental Flaw

youtube.com/watch?v=38Cy_Qlh7VM

Does Sup Forums agree with this assessment? Is Zack Snyder too obsessed with creating iconic moments, instead of scenes that serve the story?

Will Justice League suffer the same fate?

>Is Zack Snyder too obsessed with creating iconic moments, instead of scenes that serve the story?
Obviously. But this has been a reoccurring problem with recent Batman comics too so it's more of a problem with the perception of the character.

>Will Justice League suffer the same fate?
Definitely. We already saw a few in the trailer with Aquaman by the shore, Cyborg walking where ever, Barry's slowmo scene with the batarang, Atlantians burying a motherbox, etc.

>Judging by the trailer
All blockbuster trailers put 'hype' moments over explaining the story. It's too early to tell if plot will be an afterthought in JL.

He does both properly. He can make big scenes which also serve the plot, and I love it.

>Is Zack Snyder too obsessed with creating iconic moments, instead of scenes that serve the story?

I wholeheartedly agree, and I haven't even seen the video. It was my #1 beef with the movie when I was watching it.

Literally every line of dialog in the trailers, when you get to the part of the movie that line is included in, is stale and forced as fuck. They come off time and time again as lines pushed into the movie specifically because they would make great material for the trailer, rather than because they actually work in the script.

There are numerous other points in the movie that were not so trailer-worthy where you have characters speaking near each other, but not TO each other. Neither side actually reacts to what the other person is saying, they are just having their independent monologues in proximity to each other and agreeing to pretend that this is a conversation.

Or having a scene end with one of the characters dropping a big dramatic line... that doesn't follow in any way from the scene leading up to it. Snyder just included this big dramatic line for the sake of ending the scene on a big dramatic line, and whether or not that line actually works in context is a passing distraction for him.

Snyder makes great looking epic visuals, but he desperately needs to be kept on a firm leash. Otherwise he just turns the movie into a parade of visuals with the minimum amount of connective tissue to excuse moving from one dramatic set piece to the next.

>Does Sup Forums agree with this assessment? Is Zack Snyder too obsessed with creating iconic moments, instead of scenes that serve the story?

Yeah, I think he definitely is. To quote Lewis Black on Barack Obama, "He is so far inside his own head, he's forgotten that we're still here." Zack Snyder has a vision that he's executing in MoS, BvS, and JL Part 1 and it's his vision. But I feel like the problem is that at least for MoS and BvS, he gets so caught in his vision that he dismisses criticism and can't place himself in the audience's shoes.

I have a lot of criticisms about BvS and MoS, but the largest one is that I didn't feel for any of the characters, and Superman smiling wouldn't change that. I didn't really care about Superman or his relationship with Lois, I didn't identify at all with Batman or care about him or really Wonder Woman.

>Will Justice League suffer the same fate?

Hard to say. Zack Snyder is still directing it but he and more importantly, WB seem to really have taken the reception of BvS to heart.

Well yeah, Snyder is all about style and no substance.

This isnt a problem.

The problem is thinking EVERYTHING has to work for the STORY.

Just like comics wasting the potential of their art form and using the terrible "cinematic" style of ultimates and authority, with movies you can do much more than what is usually done and Snyder gets that.


Take the Russian rocker-flood-ship part of BvS, they do serve the story, but they have a distintic look, an "oniric" feeling. They are there to show us how Superman is beyond the words of the people talking about him, they look dreamy since that's what superman is, Those moments that seem to have no context let you explore superman in ways THIS story won't do, the stuff that people were calling "bad cgi" was pretty good CGI with a filter to make it look "unreal" not fake (and that worked pretty well until the last battle where the erratic nature of the action and the cam speed made it look like a videogame.

There's nothing wrong with building a movie around moments.
It's the same COMIC BOOKS do.

Is not the norm, it wasnt done well, snyder failed to do what he wanted, but this criticism is retarded and is only supported by people that want all movies to be a by the numbers piece of "art".

I didnt even like BvS, but Snyder is doing something the Industry really needs.

>It's the same COMIC BOOKS do.
Movies are not comic books, they're different mediums.

Just because it works for one medium doesn't mean it will work for the other.

>I didn't really care about Superman or his relationship with Lois
Then your a empathyless piece of human shit. This is one of the most sympathetic humanized versions of Superman we have ever gotten.
And the least slapsticky, least hysterical, least irrational, least bitchy versions of Lois we have ever gotten.

>Does he focus on making moments instead of telling a story?
>FUCK YOU, A MOVIE COULD BE LIKE THAT IF IT WANTS TO
I don't think anybody said otherwise. The question is if he focuses on iconography instead of storytelling.

>Just like comics wasting the potential of their art form and using the terrible "cinematic" style of ultimates and authority
Fuck you!

But there is litterally nothing wrong with the storytelling in Man of Steel.
Between the end of Krypton sequence & the arrival of Zod, their aren't that many of these Iconic sequences, everything is worldly and humble.

I like how the ultimate edition has elevated BvS from overall hated to divisive like any other Snyder movie.

Imo, they have no chemistry and you don't really see their relationship grow. You see them kiss at the end of MoS, and you see that they've moved in together by the beginning of BvS, but how exactly Lois and Clark fell in love? Nothing for me I appreciate if your opinion differs.

To be fair, the only recent movie capeshit romance that I really felt was the one between Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter so it may just be a deficiency of the cape cinematic universe.

This video is interesting, but I somehow find myself really disliking these sort of channels. It tries to popularize art, but there is something very offputting about the presentation.

It's a comic book movie. It should mimic the style.

The kiss was nothing to do with Romance or love, they kissed after almost dying in a black hole seconds before.
Their relationship was built out of mutual trust. Her trusting him because he saved her and has spent many years saving people when needed. And he trust in her as she would not give him up even under threat of prison.

>Does Sup Forums agree with this assessment? Is Zack Snyder too obsessed with creating iconic moments, instead of scenes that serve the story?

That's ALWAYS been Snyder's weakness... It's just time we've opening admit it

That sounds like they owe each other favors, not that they're soul mates.

Not going to watch but I'll say the fundamental flaw is this:

Snyder is pulling scenes and moments from various disparate comics he enjoys and stitching them together with little to no regard if the final product makes any cohesive sense.

Ex. The death of superman is completely wasted in a world that remains torn on if he just blew up congress. The impact of Superman's death is wasted on teammates who were just trying to kill him 30 minutes earlier or who only met him 15 minutes earlier.

The world didn't lose its Christ figure, it lost a potential terrorist/despot. The proto-leaguers didn't lose a lifelong friend, they lost a casual acquaintance. And that dumbass Snyder, you know is he sitting back and going "i dont get why the audience isn't moved by the death of the world's greatest hero", because he isn't in the product you produced, he only is in the product you *stole from*.

The man should be directing 1990s quick-cut 3 minute music videos, make the next Losing My Religion. He is incapable of telling a movie-length story when using unrelated scenes.

>All blockbuster trailers put 'hype' moments over explaining the story.
Yeah but a Snyder movie is always entirely 'hype' moments. Except for his Dawn of the Dead remake, which feels like an actual movie.

I feel like Justice League isn't his movie anymore. Like, the trailer looked nothing like a Zack Snyder movie. I feel like the suits are making the movie and Zack is taking a back seat.
On one hand, less Zack in control is good. On the other hand, WB suits aren't too great at this either (remember Green Lantern). So it could go either way.

Except your fucking wrong becuase his death clarifies that his intent was noble the whole time and it inspires his future team maters.

I keep rewatching the movie just to try to figure out how much it went wrong, or how they could've made it work, in the end it just feels like a series of uncomfortable moments, then action scenes.
I wish they could get their shit together, and i hate the faggots claiming this movie is perfect as it is.

Not necessarily.

It should mimic the feeling, not necessarily the design, because the design was built for comic books, not for 2 hour films.

I feel the same. For me, it just comes off as self-indulgent. Channels like this push this false sense of definitive-ness ("guys, good movies are made like this and ONLY this. Trust me, I watch lots of obsure movies. Like Star Wars.") and then buries it in high production value so people thinks it's insightful or some shit. The video that OP posted is especially bad. The dude bases his entire thesis on HIS OWN definition and distinction of a "moment" and a "scene." A definition which, when you really think about it, is incredibly flawed.
Seeing so many people agreeing with him in this thread and in the comments of the video is kinda cringy, but to each his own I guess. Fuck this post was longer than I thought.

>weakness
Is not a fucking weakness for fucks sake, is a style choice

It's a self-indulgent style, and it does depend on whether you consider Snyder's choices good or bad, but he nails the fact that Snyder hinges on "moments". Strong lines, musical climaxes, iconic shots, powerful emotions.

I disagree that a scene necessarily has to invoke Suspension of Disbelief, but I do agree that Snyder fails to make his moments work in and towards a cohesive whole.

It also nails how this really hurts the OST of his films. Songs repeating the same simple melody with little layering, little depth, and for the climax just does the same thing, but louder. The rest of the song is just filler, made to bridge the point between one climax, one chorus, and the next.

>how they could've made it work
I feel that this is the most frustrating part of the whole film. If you did some recasting, cut out some parts, and rewrite the script, it could've been something great.

>Like, the trailer looked nothing like a Zack Snyder movie.

The slo-mo Batarang sequence screamed Snyder, but regarding dialogue and tone, it comes off as awkward and uncomfortable.

> I'm not retarded, it's just my artistic inclinations

No. If it's a style choice it's a bad style choice, because it works against the medium of film. In comics, moments work because all they have are moments immortalized on paper.

In film, while we recognize individual moments and important shots, there's so much more going in the background between those moments and shots, shit that's honestly way more important than those moments.

You cannot build a film from moments anymore than you could build a video game from just scenes or a musical from catchy tunes.

What an empty "thesis".
Him trying to sound way smarter than he is made me cringe.

I think the problem with BvS is that Snyder decided to waste TWO HOURS for a shitty africa bullet mystery. Goddamn, kids don't want to watch that shit. They would rather just get to Supes and Bats fighting or the Doomsday fight. I know you need some build up but Jesus not that much. It's like Snyder is trying hard to be Nolan.

Snyder shouldn't write.
That's the basis of the entire problem.
From a technical stand point he's a good visual director. But all he really can do are prolonged music videos. He seems to shott scenes specifically because "This will look good in the trailer!" or "Wait till we set it to the Hans Zimmer score!". That's all his films boil down to.
What WB/DC need to invest in are good screenwriters and directors that see themselves as storytellers first and foremost.

As long as Snyder gets to have final say in how the movie is structured, the heroes characterized or the conflict approached, you'll end up with crap.
It really doesn't matter if it's crap with quips or without.

>muh narrative
We've been over this. Comics and films are visual mediums.
Anyone who says narrative should take precedent over visual storytelling is showing his "pleb and proud" card.

>as a former film student
guess he couldn't cut it in film school

His crap with quips and rock music is even worse

>Black Widow fighting Ultrons

His arguments boil down to how things are not EARNED, which is really just nonsense. He complains that there is a scene of mourning or desperation or heroics, but it doesn't MEAN anything, even though it's right there on the screen.

And then he claims that there are not scenes in BvS.

There are no scenes.

LOL

He didn't even say that, you moron

Defined earned.

>
I feel like Justice League isn't his movie anymore. Like, the trailer looked nothing like a Zack Snyder movie. I feel like the suits are making the movie and Zack is taking a back seat.


They've only shown stuff that's cleared for marketing purposes. There haven't been any of Snyder's trademark sequences because they haven't been either filmed or finished yet.

But his characterization has been great.

...

"What Batman v Superman lacks is scenes - actual scenes, not just fillers between moments".

Nerdwriter's confusion of course from the entirely arbitrary notion of a "moment". What he means by a "moment" is actually a scene.

A movie doesn't need to earn anything. All it does is right there on the screen. It's the viewer's duty to interpret the image and sound.

I know this sounds snobbish but the ease of presentation in these videos doesn't make the viewer and active thinker. I have the same issue with a lot of the clean cut design, intuitive applications we have - you can just live off your gut feeling, the world is a simple place.

Discussing Snyder's DCEU with DCfriends is like like having a good friend who's girlfriend is howlingly ugly, practices poor hygiene, and sports a nasty personality.

But by God, he loves her anyway, and will defend her to the death.
Even if the sight of her makes children cry, and her stench causes most people in the room to keep their distance, he'll continue insisting that she's an angel because he loves her.

Snyder is fucking trash with visual storytelling in film.

He's the reverse Bendis. While Bendis is an MCU whore who desperately wants to work in film/television and designs his comics with a cinematic flair, Snyder is obsessed with the powerful one-liners and cool shots of comic books.

Both fail to realize the advantages and limitations of their respective mediums, and both fail as artists as a result of that.

What was empty about it?

God damn I hope Ayer wakes these sheeple up, before they drink even more of the Snyder kool-aid.

>Even if the sight of her makes children cry
But that is bullshit.
Kids are fine with the darkness.
When Clark had Zod in the headlock my young cousin said out loud, why doesn't he just snap his neck?

Exactly, you need only look like somebody like George Miller to see what Snyder wants to be and why he fails so fucking hard.
That man is a visual storyteller. That man knows how to pair powerful visuals with powerful emotions.

thats not the point.

The point is that the movie fucking sucks and DCfriends lap it up cause its all they got despite it being a garbage batman movie, a garbage superman movie, a garbage batman and superman movie, and a garbage movie as movies go

He quit to be a "successfull youtuber" clearly.

The big problem with Synder is that he wants to create myths and legends for the future to look back at, not a movie.

The problem with Snyder is how gay he is while refusing to come out of the closet

The problem with Snyder is that he makes great movies and people still complain about them.

George Miller's strength is in motion and editing, not in "pairing powerful visuals with powerful emotions".

You're wrong though.

>but he nails the fact that Snyder hinges on "moments". Strong lines, musical climaxes, iconic shots, powerful emotions.
And this isn't necessary a problem. Snyder simply thought the big, loud, and grand style was appropriate for his themes for BvS. As an example, No Country For Old Men was the exact opposite. It was full of quite, slow burn, nail pulling moments, but that doesn't mean that's all the Coens know how to do, and it doesn't detract from the quality of the movie (not for me at least) because that was the style.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't like this guy's definition for "moments." It just doesn't hold up when applied to movies outside of Snyder's filmography.
I agree with you on the music part though.

>Except your fucking wrong
>your

1. Self defined criteria for what classifies as a "scene" and what classifies as a "moment", but never explaining what the criteria is or why one is important than the other. Already on thin ice from the get go. Such autism will be laughed straight out of the film industry and/or film school.

2. Building his "No true Scotsman" argument. He is showing examples of famous films that use "moments" and "scenes" effectively, so when you mention one that doesn't use this technique, he would just shoot it down by saying "No true movie would do such a thing. Look at these famous movies."

3. Appeal to authority. "I'm a former film student (so I'm better than you and my argument is more valid than yours)." Notice how he does not say, "Graduate of film school" or "a current film maker", which makes me think he was a failure at school and dropped out or failure at life and never made a film after graduating. Also that shot from his student film was such a stereotypical student film shot, it was embarrassing.

Once again, like most BvS haters, the problem comes from the viewer not paying attention to the details and mistaking his own lack of attention to lack of execution on part of the film.

Another thing that annoyed me about the video was the fake Ted talk voice.

>Is Zack Snyder too obsessed with creating iconic moments, instead of scenes that serve the story?
I don't know how anyone could have watched Suckerpunch and had any doubt whatsoever that this was the case, OP.

>dat capekino wuz, like, totally 3deep5u!
Those were an awful lot of words to waste on saying, "A-bloo, a-bloo, a-bloo!"

>that language
proving my point for me

I can do it in less words. If you don't like BvS you're retarded and should kill yourself.

Videos like this are honestly worse than trash like Faraci or Jeremy Jhans.

I like Jeremy

The dawn of the dead remake, the one with Ving Rhymes, is a Synder film?

fucking gross

why?

thats correct. it was his first feature film actually

Don't know, just do.

That felt natural because it was showcasing how Flash perceives things instead of slow motion for no reason.

This is exactly how I felt about the movie. He cares more about fancy shots and "muh symbolism" than plot.

That said Marvel movies have pretty no style and that's lame since comics are highly stylized.

I like that he's trying to bring some style he just needs to get the balance right.

>moments have no scenes
>tries to make AoU farm scene look good
Yep, another pleb.

top kek

Yeah, pretty much.
Hell he goes the extra mile and transcribe panel to movie shot for shot, but ignoring what made said scene so iconic on the comics in the first place.

I've been lurking Sup Forums for about eight or nine years now and I have never seen this place so in denial as it is about the DC Murderverse. It blows my mind how many people are convinced it's good. Like they've tied it into their sense of self-identity or something.

ain't gonna watch this video if he didn't watch the ultimate edition.

but it was good.

He's right in that the context is absolutely different. You can't argue otherwise. Batman wasn't Bruce's friend for years before Clark's death here, like he was in the comics. Their relationship is at a different stage so the context of his death is different. You may LIKE that it's different, and you may explain its difference as "Clark's death inspires Bruce to be a better man" but that doesn't mean the context wasn't changed.

Which is all is saying. These moments that Snyder uses work in the context of their works but their meaning is changed and refined when you take those moments out of those contexts and put them in a new one.