Episode 72

full
Published on:

4th Feb 2025

Justice League (2017)

The third episode of our Snyder trilogy series delves into the much-maligned Joss Whedon version of Justice League, often referred to as JOSSTICE LEAGUE. This film, criticized for its lack of cohesive storytelling and character development, represents a stark departure from Zack Snyder's envisioned narrative. The hosts dissect the significant issues that arose during production, including the poor treatment of cast members and the noticeable tonal shifts that left audiences disengaged. With a focus on the cast's performance, they explore how the actors seemed exhausted and uninvested, reflecting the chaotic environment behind the scenes. Ultimately, the episode underscores the sentiment that Joss Whedon's approach diluted the potential of beloved characters and failed to deliver a satisfying cinematic experience.

Stoked to feature ads from our friend's Greatest Movie of All-Time Podcast and Shoot The Flick!

Takeaways:

  • The drastic difference between Snyder's and Whedon's versions highlights the impact of directorial vision.
  • Joss Whedon's changes to the script and characters led to a significant loss of quality.
  • The character development present in Snyder's cut makes the Justice League story more engaging.
  • The open discussion around the filmmaking process reveals the dysfunction within DC's creative team.
  • Superman and Cyborg's portrayals suffered under Whedon's direction, leading to a lack of depth.
  • The podcast emphasizes the importance of character continuity and emotional investment in superhero films.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Greatest Movie Of All-Time Podcast

Thankful for our friends over at The Greatest Movie Of All Time podcast. Brilliant, go check them out.

Shoot The Flick Podcast

Transcript
Kyle:

Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Movie wars podcast.

Seth:

Yeehaw.

Drew:

Here we are, rocking and rolling.

Kyle:

We're hitting dark times here in our Snyder trilogy coverage.

Seth:

Finally, we'll all agree that this was not a great movie.

Kyle:

Yes.

Drew:

I didn't mind it.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

And this is why we have him on for the dissenting opinions.

Kyle:

Yes.

Seth:

He is the dissenter in Snyderville.

Kyle:

Yes.

Drew:

Yeah, I mean, we'll talk about it more. I think both had areas to improve.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

But I mean, here's the thing. These are superhero movies, and I'm obsessed. I'm a nerd.

When they first came out, both times, I was so excited to see them in theaters, to watch them with friends. But now we're years removed and we're watching it. And part of me like the geekdoms faded.

And so I feel like in both movies I'm able to have a more real opinion other than just. I mean, because literally you could put dirt on a movie screen and give it a cape and tell superhero movie and. But yeah, it's pretty good.

Seth:

There we go.

Kyle:

Yeah. I'll tell you what, as the non superhero fan, it's weird kind of doing this stuff after it all happened.

Like now I'm like having to retroactively apply the drama myself, you know?

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And it's. It's hilarious doing that, you know, and this is a crazy jump. We came off. We already. So we had man of Steel.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Which less tumultuous, you know. And then we have Batman versus Superman Gets another cut. Right.

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And that was a very divisive film.

Drew:

You know, I feel like I was such a jerk in that, in that podcast. And even now I can say, I can still say, like, as positive as I am these two movies, I would take him over Batman versus Superman any day.

Kyle:

Yeah. It's kind of funny because I, like.

Seth:

I was telling you guys, Justice League over bvs.

Kyle:

Yes.

Seth:

Something's wrong with you.

Drew:

Yeah.

Seth:

Something is absolutely wrong with you.

Drew:

Yeah. I mean, and don't get me wrong, there are so many other superhero movies. I take over all of them.

But if, If I, if those are my three options, Batman versus Superman is going to be at the bottom. Only because they should have ended it before they brought Doomsday in Superman. Doomsday. That would have been a movie and it would have set the.

Anyway, if you guys want, I actually, after watching these movies, I've solved how to fix the justice universe. And I can tell you the.

Seth:

Talk about that while I turn my microphone out.

Kyle:

Okay.

Drew:

He's like, talk about that while I leave the room and have to hold my. No, no. Well, my biggest problem with this. Well, actually, I should say I enjoyed this movie more than the last time.

The Justice League, the shorter Justice League movie. And I realized I caught myself. The reason I enjoyed it was because I saw so many, you know, this is the future. So we've seen the two Aqua Men movies.

We saw one the two Wonder Woman. It was. Seen the Flash.

And so the biggest problem with Justice League was they're bringing in all these big characters, and because of their editing issues.

Kyle:

Right.

Drew:

You had no. No development of them. You could care less because. But now that I had seen multiple movies about each characters, I was more invested into them.

So I did enjoy Justice League a little bit, but I had to catch myself because I was kind of cheating, because I was like, well, I saw movies now that weren't around then. So I can understand how people watched that first Justice League and were like, that was just trash. Because. But if.

If I was in charge of the weed inverse. If they said, drew, what should we do to fix this problem?

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

I would have told them, well, thank you so much for calling. Let me tell you exactly.

Kyle:

Thank you.

Drew:

Figured it out. They should not have. They.

First of all, they should have done Batman versus Superman and then the maybe Wonder Woman movie after that, and then Superman doomsday ending with the death of Superman. Really digging deep into that comic because that's really, you know, iconic in comic book lore. That would have been a good movie.

And then they should have given us three individual films. The first two could be any order to give us the Aquaman film, they give us the Flash film. And this is all.

All these superheroes are dealing with how to be a superhero without Superman around. That's like the overarching theme is there's no more Superman, and they got to step up, but then they move it.

The movie they should have done before Justice League was Cyborg. And maybe we'll talk about this in next week's episode when we talk about the Snyder cut. Because there's that scene where he's doing the.

Where he's listening to his dad's message and he's talking about all the wisdom of the challenges and how he's gonna have to live with this new ability and stuff like that. And as I was listening to that, I was like, that's a movie.

Seth:

Oh, 100%.

Drew:

That. And would be a really easy make grid, which was like a malware inside Cyborg, make him the villain. And like, yeah, would have been A great movie.

And they end it sets up Justice League because of the mother boxes and how integral that is to Cyborg.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

And then you do that movie, and then by the time you get to Justice League, you've had three other superhero movies. Explaining the guys that were in the movies that got, like, no stage time.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And then that would have made this movie make a lot more sense because we would have been emotional. Just like in Avengers, you know, some of the characters didn't have as much time because. But, like, you had already seen their movie ahead of time.

Seth:

See, what I would have done is not told Zack Snyder, you have to catch up with Marvel right now, Right?

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, that was Warner Brothers biggest mistake was coming right off the popularity of the Dark Knight trilogy and being like, we gotta catch up to Marvel. I was like, no, you guys need to do your own thing. Take your time. Like you said last week, make sure every single movie is absolutely good.

But also let the people cook. Let the directors that you've hired to do their job. Do their job. Stop micromanaging. Cause for me, I actually had the opposite experience.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed this version of Justice League when it came out in theaters. But then as time went on, I realized I never went back to try to watch it again. Like, it just never made me want to come back and watch it.

And then once the Snyder cut came out, I've rewatched that five times by now.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

And that, to me is, like, has been. The biggest difference is. Sure, it's. It's. I mean, by all standards, Justice League is not a terrible movie, but it's not good.

And we'll get into it as we keep going, especially when we start talking about next week with the Snyder cut. It's.

It's crazy how much you can see just during Justice League, where Joss Whedon was clearly rewriting, reshooting, redoing things and where he was taking the stuff Snyder had already done.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

It's just such a drastic difference.

Kyle:

Yeah. And I think. I think interesting and kind of where I wanted to start, actually. It's a good, good segue because I actually think.

And because I caught up with all this retroactively in my research. One of the interesting things is it's not just like they were trying to catch up with Marvel and that was the pressure, but a lot of things happened.

They actually had, like, in:

Seth:

That actually would. At the. At the time, you know, before the cannibalism stuff. That would have been.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah. Everything's.

Drew:

Yeah, everything's cannibal.

Kyle:

Everything's better before cannibalism.

Seth:

It is true.

Kyle:

Especially when you get that tapeworm. You know, I have a lot of cannibal material in my. In my stand up. I don't know why I talk about cannibals all the time.

Drew:

Right. It's for this moment. Right now.

Kyle:

Finally, it's paying off. But a couple of things happened. First of all, they had the. There was a Writer's Guild strike.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And so that pretty much delayed it. And then Batman Begins came out.

Seth:

Well, I came out. No, five.

Kyle:

Oh, five.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Okay. So. Yeah, sorry. It came out on five. So that came out.

Then there was a Writers Guild strike, and there was all this pressure, and it was like Nolan was like redefining the genre.

Seth:

Yeah. Dark Knight. Like, once that.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

All bets were off.

Kyle:

And then it was like they delayed justice. Like, we had all the contracts signed.

They were gonna come out with it, but now it's like, not only do we have the pressure from the mcu, but then we have Nolan over here.

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And you're right. Like, you cannot. You cannot make this stuff from a position of, oh, we gotta catch up and catch the market.

I think what, if anything, the MCU's proven is that even though I'm personally annoyed with, like, the constant MCU movies, I don't think the market for superhero movies really dies anymore. I think there is a group of people that just are gonna go see it, and they're great popcorn movies.

They're typically not all of them, but a lot of them are rated and earn a range where it's actually available to younger folks. So, you know, unless it's a Snyder cut. So, like, there is. It's going to be a cash cow a lot of the time. It may not make as much as, like, in game.

It may not hit the billion dollar mark, but they are going to make money.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

So I think it's interesting that these executives felt so much pressure that they would put a pressure on a guy whose daughter just committed suicide, tell him his movie was unwatchable. Like, all this. All this stuff that took place here, it's like really like you needed your. You needed this movie to come out that bad and to produce.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

This what I called a made for tv. I'm sorry. I think this Justice League is. It's so vanilla.

Seth:

It's worse than CW level Quality.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

Well, the common. So, like, cw, when they eventually did all, like, the Arrowverse and the superhero shows, they had.

They had several crossovers and they did have one big, like, crisis on Infinite Earth.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

That was essentially the Justice League.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

And a common thing people say is, like, this was. I mean, it was just, you know, like four TV episodes from, you know.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And. But they were like, a lot of people would say that was better than the actual Justice League movie.

Seth:

Oh, yeah.

Kyle:

The actors are tired.

Seth:

Take much to get better than this one because.

Kyle:

So, Seth, you have all the knowledge in this. And I texted you when I was watching, it was like, why? Why is everyone not acting?

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Why does it feel like Ben Affleck is exhausted? Why does it feel like even Gal.

Drew:

Gadot, who I think feels like the old man Batman, that he's.

Kyle:

Yeah, because he's actually looking. He actually looks exhausted as an actor.

Seth:

Like, sad too. So the brief history behind Justice League. We'll get to the history behind the Snyder cut next episode.

ustice League, I think it was:

And he wasn't initially planning on putting out the four hour version. He was planning on putting out a theatrical length movie to probably two hours of 45 minutes.

Joss Whedon comes in because you can tell Warner Brothers had no fucking clue what they were doing. So they're like, oh, well, Avengers was popular. We'll bring in the guy who did the Avengers.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

So they bring him in and instead of finishing the movie, he says, fuck this movie. I'm going to make a different movie. But use the basic storyline that Zack Snyder is come up with. So he completely rewrote the script.

In fact, you see in the credits, he is listed as the top screenwriter. He completely removed, as far as, like, being the biggest screenwriter, he removed Chris Torero as the top screenwriter.

I was like, no, I'm gonna rewrite your entire script. Fuck you. Then he went in and reshot everything after they had literally shot the entirety of Snyder's version other than one scene.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

And so, yeah, you can tell every single actor is exhausted because they're all sitting there going, a, we've already shot this. Why are we doing this? And then B, I guarantee you, they were all reading the script going, what the fuck is this horseshit?

And they were like, all right, we're contractually obligated to say these lines. So we're gonna say them, but we're not gonna put any emotion into it whatsoever.

Like, I think the biggest one that I noticed, like you could just tell how exhausted they were, was after Gal Gadot dislocates his Ben Affleck's shoulder.

Kyle:

Yes.

Seth:

And he goes into his back room, which did not exist in the Snyder cut. Literally, Joss was like, ah, just make a shitty one room set that looks like it might be, you know, Batman's masturbate cave.

And we'll make that happen. And they go back in there and this whole interaction where she puts her.

His arm back in his shoulder, you could just tell neither of them gave a fuck. Especially with the overt sexism in all of the jokes that were added in.

Weirdly, the jokes that Joss Whedon put in made all of the jokes that were originally in the Snyder cut less funny.

Like, when I watched the two and then I walked because literally when I finished Justice League, I was so pissed that I just started the Snyder cut five minutes later, and there were jokes in there that I was like, this is significantly funnier than when it was in the other one. How. And it's literally because the shit, shittiness of the jokes that he put in there brought down the quality of everything else.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Also the way he edited things. And just because I. I watched a comparison video to prepare for this. The.

The best point this guy made was that when you watch the Justice League version versus the Snyder cut version, you can tell Joss Whedon's entire goal was just hit the only plot points that we need for this to make sense. Sense. Don't put any other background. Don't put any other emotional attributes. Don't put anything else that doesn't just get us to the next scene.

And you could just see that all the emotion was just sucked out of it.

Kyle:

I also. Go ahead.

Drew:

Well, I feel like when you watch this movie, and this is maybe this is a big issue with this movie and other version of their movies, in the DC movies, it's like just like when you're sitting in a car and you catch a couple having an awkward argument and you're like, in the back, like, I don't know what.

Like, you can see the dysfunction that DC was going through when you watch the justice, like, the Justice Justice League because you see everyone having to overwork. You see everything's thrown together. It was like the last minute. Like, it was like a school project. Oh, crap.

I have to have The Justice League movie out tomorrow. Well, I guess we better throw something together like you.

And that, that for me in a lot of ways with a lot of these DC movies ends up being a problem is like, like when I go into the movie, I hate that. I know, because you know, social media and TikTok, I hate that I already know all the dysfunction that went behind this movie and other movies.

I mean, there's probably just as much dysfunction.

Seth:

Oh always.

Drew:

You know, and all kinds of different networks like that. But you don't hear about it as much as you do with the dc. I just, I equate it to comedy shows. You know, I produce comedy shows and it's not uncommon.

This sounds mean. Don't ask me who, but it's not uncommon for me to book headliners who I don't like. But I know my crowd will. Yep, yeah, I know they'll do a good job.

I know they'll be funny. I know people will come to the shows and enjoy that person because that's their style of humor.

But like, I don't go out to, like, I don't invite them to my birthday parties. I don't like go out and hang out with them afterwards. And when I'm hosting, I still make them sound like a champion when I bring them on.

Seth:

Oh, yeah.

Drew:

It's because for the overall show, people don't need that kind of stuff.

But somehow with Justice League, especially with this version, you know, going into it, you knew all the dysfunction and you then you also watched it and you saw the dysfunction.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

So.

Seth:

And that's, I think why I kind of liked it when I first saw it was because none of that had come out yet. No one was talking about how horrible the working conditions were.

But literally, like this version of the movie is, is what is credited to turning Ben Affleck into a full on alcoholic, breaking up his relationship with Jennifer Garner.

Ray Fisher literally sued Joss Whedon and Warner Brothers and the CEO of Warner Brothers over the overt sexism and racism that was going on during this production. Literally, Joss Whedon apparently would just sit there and insult everyone, especially if they were people of color.

And then on top of that, would just sit there and rip apart Zack Snyder, basically calling him an idiot while he's literally grieving the suicidal death of his child.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like just a complete scumbag as far as I'm concerned.

Drew:

Is that like, even if those are your thoughts, when you come to work, you, you would think the person like, oh, that's an inside Thought. Yeah, that's not something I'm gonna say.

Kyle:

Inside voices.

Drew:

That's. That's not something I'm gonna say to somebody.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah, I love that. That's hilarious, dude.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

An inside thought. Like, inside voices when we were kids.

Drew:

Yeah. I'm just saying, like, I tr. I really. I really. With, like, racists and bigots. I really do try to put myself in their shoes.

And 99% of the time, I think to myself, okay, even if that's what I thought, I wouldn't say it out loud because I'm at work.

Seth:

Exactly.

Kyle:

Let's keep that on the dark web. Yeah.

Drew:

Let's post anonymously that statement. That doesn't need a hashtag Drew Davis next to it or they know.

Seth:

Yeah, I don't know.

Kyle:

One thing I read too, kind of just kind of tagging on is that when Whedon came on, Snyder did try to come back, and he did work on it a little bit, but just because of the strain from the executives that he just. He couldn't continue. I think he tried for, like, two months. He actually tried to come back.

And what he was under the impression of is that Whedon was only going to script polish. Yeah, that was the impression. And then Zach tried to come back again, and he's directing scenes, and Zach's like, why are they redirecting?

Yeah, like, these are. Scenes are done. Why is he redoing this? I thought he was just going to script polish, finish the movie.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Why is he redoing the stuff I've already done? And it was a. Just another insult to a guy, like you said, who's mourning the loss of his daughter.

Seth:

Yeah. Literally, when this version came out, because Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder are really good friends.

Chris and Emma Thomas went and saw it, and he immediately called Zack Snyder and said, do not watch this movie. It is not your movie. And it will just.

Kyle:

He still hasn't seen it last. I researched.

Seth:

Yeah, yeah, like. And there's no reason for him to.

Drew:

It's literally like something much. I feel like, you know, he was there for the chunk of the good stuff. He doesn't need to.

Seth:

And I think we've said this before, but I'll reiterate for the podcast, this movie was what, two and a half to two hours? 45 minutes. Snyder cut four hours. These movies share 45 minutes of footage.

And because I hadn't seen this one in a while, I didn't, you know, that registered with me, but it didn't truly register with me until I sat there and was like. Oh, like scenes that look the same and take place in the same room sometimes totally different.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

That's not something I picked up on. And then like when you said that even watching it, I still didn't pick up on it, but I was like, I knew it as I knew it was the case.

Even though watching it, I didn't notice.

Seth:

Yeah. It just, it's. Oh my God, this movie makes me so angry.

Kyle:

Yeah, I know. And one thing else I want to reiterate too is that, you know, we're going to. When we talk about this movie, Zach's name is all over it.

But when we're criticizing, we also are aware, like the tragedy that happened.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

It's not like we're going to talk about this movie, but obviously super mournful, horrible experience and.

Seth:

But also it's not his movie. Yes, he was credited as the director, but he directed 45 minutes of a two and a half hour movie, which.

Drew:

Is why he probably was totally okay with dropping that four hour one later. Because you want people to know this was what I was intending.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Even if that wasn't going to be the theatrical cut that he was going to put out. That was his everything version. And he was like, look, look at the story, the world that I was trying to build.

Look at the plan that I had and look at how they just shat all over it.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's.

Seth:

It to me, it's like the end of the, the Harry Potter movie with, with Edward. Not Edward, Robert Pattinson, where the, the dad's just like, look what they did to my boy. What did they do?

That's probably what it would have felt like if he, if he'd actually watch this movie.

Drew:

That's the, I mean, the reason this movie is hard to watch is one, the editing choices they made. Like, there's things that they should have put in there to make it make more sense. Yeah.

And then two, just, you know, like the injustice that was found in the Justice League, you know, the, the kind of issues and what, I mean, what a, what a kick in the nuts to Zack Snyder, you know?

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

And then all knowing that the actors had such a hard time dealing with their new director and like, it's just. And again, this is all stuff we shouldn't as viewers know.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

On one hand, but also like when, now that you know it, it's hard to like, it would be hard if someone was like, what's your favorite movie? Even if I enjoyed it, I would feel bad if I was like, Justice League. But the original.

Seth:

I love watching pain and suffering.

Drew:

That just feels like you're saying, like, oh, yeah, Nazis aren't that bad, E. Right.

Seth:

So, yeah, it's. There's so much. Unfortunately, we only have, like, an hour, an hour and a half to cover this stuff. And it's like, I can't say.

Yeah, everything that I want to say because this just makes me so angry.

Drew:

Were there any. Do we have any, like, pros, like, any perks of this movie? Is there anything nice about it?

Kyle:

No, no.

Seth:

Legitimately, like, the whole time I was watching it, I was trying to, like, pick out things that might have been better, but it's like, the jokes aren't funny. The jokes just already came across as discount Avengers. Like, you went to the Dollar General to buy the. The.

The superhero team instead of the Avengers. Like, that's what it felt like. The ending. Oh, my God, I forgot that the.

The whole reason Joss Whedon wrote that first scene with Batman where he's like, what do you want?

Drew:

Fear?

Seth:

The whole reason they put that in was simply so he could change the entirety of the ending and have all the parademons fly him through the portal as beating the bad guy because he's scared of the parademons.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, what the actual fuck were you thinking? Oh, my God.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's bad. And I'm already not a superhero guy, so I'm like. I hate to say it, but I come into these movies, I'm like, impress me.

Drew:

Yeah, I know it's going to be bad.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

And then you watch it. You're like, I want. Wasn't wrong.

Kyle:

So. And. And here's the thing. I. It's. And I. And we. I know we joke. I'm an old guy curmudgeon guy, but I hold Nolan's Batman movies in high esteem.

Like, those.

Seth:

Absolutely.

Kyle:

Those are incredible. And I do like. And I do like the Batman lore. In fact, update. I'm halfway through the first season of the Animated Series with my kids. They love it.

Seth:

So good.

Kyle:

All four of my kids.

Seth:

Hell yeah.

Kyle:

Love the Batman animated. And it's not that scary. Anyway, Side note, but love it. I. I can enjoy. And I even liked some of the Marvel movies. Didn't love, but, like, I loved. I.

It's funny. I liked Iron Man 2. Nobody else did. I actually liked Iron Man.

Seth:

Yeah. I hated Iron Man 2, but I'm. I'm on the. The team that I loved Edward Norton's Hulk.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, I think it's way better than anything Marlow did with the character.

Kyle:

I Agree with you there, too.

Drew:

It's a good Hulk. He had. They added issues working with him.

Kyle:

Oh, I know. Well, they saw him when he was angry. Offset.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

And when he decided to rewrite the script and basically directed the movie without being credited as the director. No, I get why they got rid of him. And it's unfortunate because I think what he did with the character was way better.

Drew:

But I know that was one of those. That was another one of those. When I watched the movies, I didn't know all the issues, and I was like, man, this is a good movie. And then you hear.

Learn the issues. You're like, well, it makes sense.

Seth:

Granted, I would be interested to know what the script was like before he rewrote it, because what he put out was fantastic. But I can. Yeah, again, I can understand, especially with someone like Kevin Feige, who had such a specific plan.

Even if, like, The Avengers wasn't 100% where he was initially going with it, he, like, still had that in the back of his head and he was like, I got to make sure it all fits together in case we do get to a point where we can do this.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

This, I think the biggest problem just in general with the dceu, they did not ever have the guy who wasn't directing movies to oversee the continuity.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Because as much as I do love the fact that Zack Snyder did have a full, fully thought out plan as far as, like, what he wanted to do, they needed someone who wasn't that close to the material to be able to come in and be like, we gotta. We gotta move things a little. This direction, that direction. And this is the problem I'm having with James Gunn is James Gunn is now the co.

CEO of DC Studios, but he's also directing half the movies. Like. Like, this is legitimately. I think he's gonna be too close to it, and he's not gonna let people tell him no.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

He needs a person to be like, we need to move this around to make this movie better.

Kyle:

And he's already pissed off a bunch of actors and a bunch of fans. Like, people were pissed about how he treated Henry Cavill and that whole thing. He, like, instantly wrote him up. We're gonna move on. Yeah.

Like, he instantly. He started off on a bad face and then he put the red trunks on.

Seth:

Yeah. And it's just absurd now.

Kyle:

Speaking of absurd, think of one person I want you to fan. Close your eyes, listener. Close your eyes.

Seth:

Only me. Only me and the Lord. All right. With our eyes open.

Kyle:

Think about that One person who needs Movie wars needs Jesus, needs Movie Wars.

Drew:

They need justice.

Kyle:

They need justice. And I want you to spam that person with links to our podcast. I want you to email, fax, call, mail, flyers, pigeon, whatever you got.

Drew:

Smoke, Snickles, I.

Kyle:

If you're not getting a restraining order from that front person that you thought was your friend because you have spammed them with so much Movie wars material, you're not doing your job.

Seth:

Yeah, do it and share them all. Spotify, YouTube.

Drew:

This will be a tough.

Seth:

Any of the others.

Drew:

Hey, I know you're a fan of Justice League, the first one. And we're somehow still friends.

Kyle:

You ever want to be. Just start off. This is a great way to start off a conversation. Hey, you know, you. That thing you love, you want to hear a bunch of people shit on it?

It's a great way to start. That's how I start every job interview.

Drew:

I'll say one positive thing about this movie.

Seth:

Okay.

Drew:

But it's not even about the movie particular. But, like, one thing I. I've realized as we've watched the Snyder Cuts and the Snyderverse, I don't prefer the darker version of superhero stories.

Sure. Like, I like. I like to pretend that we're in a happy world. I like to pretend that things are good and superheroes have good.

So, like, one thing that this movie did intentionally was. And you saw it was like the lighting scheme and everything. They just tried to give it more bright and they were going for the more Avengers.

You know, look. And me as a watcher, I. I gravitate to that more. It was. And I liked that. I liked that. I mean, I'm sure that if.

If Snyder's Cut actually made it to theatrical, it would have been the same. But I liked that there was a quicker pacing. I. Oh, definitely. Yeah. And so that was the one thing that I appreciated about this movie.

And the thing I didn't like when I first saw it was there was, like, no character development for, like, the Flash or Cyborg, Aquaman, anyone. And so in this movie, it was kind of misleading this time watching, because I'd already seen all the other movies.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah.

Drew:

So I was like, oh, I know all this stuff about Aquaman. Well, I didn't when that movie came out, because that stuff hadn't come out yet.

Kyle:

Right.

Seth:

he had a very clear plan from:

Both of those were gonna be in there. All three Justice League movies. The solo Batman movie, there were gonna be two Wonder Woman movies.

And then he was gonna end the whole thing with a Flashpoint movie so that within that 10 years, you were gonna have his entire universe. And then from then on, after the Flashpoint movie, that was gonna open up the multiverse, and DC could do whatever they wanted after that.

But he was very clearly saying, look, just give me this 10 years. Give me this 10 years. Let me do the thing that is completely different from what Marvel's doing. And then you can do anything.

You can literally, you could keep the same characters. You could take different characters, you could keep the same actors. Whatever. You can do whatever you want. Just let me tell this completed story.

And that's probably the biggest thing I'm sad about, was that we just weren't. Because I've read everything he was gonna do, and it was going to be such an epic story by the end.

By the time all was said and done, by the time it all got wrapped up, it was going to be such an epic story that I'm just. I'm sad we weren't able to see any of that come to fruition.

Kyle:

We were gonna get a lot of other entries that were gonna be. There was gonna be 10, right? 10 total.

Seth:

Yeah. Yeah. That were just him involved, obviously. We had, like, the Suicide Squad come in and a couple other movies that.

That were gonna be sprinkled throughout that he wasn't directly involved in. But, yeah, he had, like, his core 10 movies that he was gonna be deeply involved with.

And then, like I said, it was all gonna reset or open up in the multiverse and people could do whatever they wanted.

Drew:

I have thoughts on that that I wanna talk about at the next episode when we're talking about, like, Snyder. But I do want it to be known that in last week's episode, Seth gave me the homework assignment of going and reading and learning all about the.

All the upcoming movies that Snyder was gonna do.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And I did do that. I did. Immediately after recording, I went things and sat down on my phone.

Seth:

What a perfect time.

Drew:

It was so nice. It was so much fun. And I do have thoughts. But, like, you have to tune in next week because I don't want to.

I don't want to on Snyder when we're able to on Josh.

Seth:

Yeah, let's. On Joss Wheat in that.

Kyle:

Never interrupt your enemy. Never interrupt your enemy while they're making a mistake. Right.

Seth:

That. That needs to Be our next T shirt.

Kyle:

Yes. Movie Wars. Oh, the questions, the questions. Now, I realize that this is completely a falsehood, but when.

When I'm watching this, this Steppenwolf, my first thought was, what 94 year old man did they hire to write and voice Steppenwolf?

Seth:

Oh, my God.

Kyle:

I know he's primitive. I know he's thousands of years old, but why does he have to sound like a grumpy old man?

Seth:

And he just looks like a ball sack.

Kyle:

He does.

Drew:

He looks like he's been through so much. Like, in addition to, you know, losing his job with Darkseid, looks like he got broken up with.

It looks like he's, he's like, like sober, but not long enough where he's like overcoming. He's still feeling it really big, you know?

Kyle:

You know what he looks like? He looks like a lung that you see, and they're like, don't. Smoking. Yeah. With a helmet on.

Seth:

Absolutely.

Drew:

Like, at any point, at any point, he's gonna turn to you. He's like, don't do drugs.

Kyle:

He looks like a cancerous lung.

Seth:

No, no. He's gonna have the thing on his neck and be like, don't do drugs, kids.

Drew:

It's like the only thing harder than getting all the. You know, he's gonna say, do you know the only thing that's harder than getting all the motherbox getting off a crack?

Kyle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Seth:

I think my biggest criticism with this, as far as Steppenwolf is concerned, anyone.

And I know barely anything about Superman, especially in the Justice League, but anyone who knows anything about this set of characters that we're dealing with knows that, A, Steppenwolf has never been a big baddie. He's always been an underling, but B, he's always been kind of a bitch, like, compared, because.

Because the whole thing, he is dark sides, I think nephew or something like that. I don't think he's his son, but he's like, yeah, part of Darkseid's family. And. And the.

The one big episode he's in, in the Superman animated series, literally, Darkseid is just like, no, no, we're not gonna go attack Earth because Superman's there. We're not gonna deal with this. And Steppenwolf is just like, I'm approved to my uncle that I'm actually smart and I could do this.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

And he goes to Earth and gets his ass handed to him. And the fact that Joss Whedon, this whole thing literally looked like Joss Whedon.

Read the Spark Notes of what Zack Snyder did and looked at none of the other source material and was just like, oh, well, he's the guy, so we're just going to make him the guy. Everyone knows he's not the guy. He's barely a guy.

Drew:

So I like that he was the villain for Justice League one. Knowing that there. If there had been two more movies and we were getting bigger and better because you always want to give yourself somewhere to go.

They would. If they were to start off right off the bat with Darkseid being the. I mean, that would have been. That wouldn't rough.

Seth:

Oh, absolutely.

Drew:

So I actually, I liked his. I mean, obviously the Snyder cut gives Stefan looks, well, so much more characterization. We get to. We see why he's like, why he's so pathetic.

We see why he's so run down. But I actually like this look of him, the ball sack look of Zechariah.

Seth:

The ball sack dressed in ancient Egyptian.

Drew:

Garb versus, like the rock metal, like punk rock, you know, Dragon Force mascot that we get in the next one because in that one he does look more badass. But to me, part of his characterization that makes him a good villain for this movie is he is pathetic.

He is trying to redeem himself in his own eyes. Like he is the lowest of the low in the villain world, in his.

In his group, in his friend group, and he's doing his best, but he's also like, you know, like, he's a bit of a failure. And so like, so him looking like a 90,000 year old man while he's trying to, you know, get off my law.

Kyle:

Yeah, I kept waiting for him to say that. Yeah, like, these women need to get off my lawn.

Drew:

It worked for. It worked for me. And like, even like in the next movie, when.

Or excuse the next version, Snyder cut, when he's like, there's that scene where like, he's fighting them all and he like tells all this pair of demons to back off because he wants to fight Wonder Woman one on one. Yeah, that was like a great moment because it was like he was like, no, I need to prove to everyone and myself that I'm not like such a loser.

Seth:

Yeah, well, especially in, in that version, knowing that, like, you know, the Amazonians and the Atlanteans and the gods of Earth, like, are the ones who literally put Darkseid down and put him back in the ship. Like having that moment with him versus Wonder Woman was him trying to say, I'm gonna do something that dark side.

Drew:

His whole, like, I. I see and we talked about this maybe even last week, because we were talking about Lex Luthor. But I love this about villains.

When you can clearly point out their motivating factor, whether it's smart or not, you can say, so Stephan Wolf, he's just trying to prove himself to Darkseid. Like, that's his big thing. Lex Luthor is just trying to rid the world of aliens.

Now, they were both doing terrible things and maybe not going about this in the most healthy way.

Seth:

They're way harder to justify than Thanos was.

Drew:

You know, they have their own character flaws. Maybe don't, you know, try to exterminate the whole race to help with our resource problem.

You know, like, maybe don't, you know, try to destroy an entire planet and take, you know, thousands of heads to impress your God. You know, maybe don't try to kill an alien and bring a resurrected. A poop alien monster to save Earth. You know, like, they're villains.

They're not supposed to be. Correct. But, like, when you can point to why they're the way they are.

Seth:

Exactly.

Drew:

It makes it more captivating story.

Seth:

Exactly.

Kyle:

Without the backdrop of Darkseid, he's just pathetic.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Those interactions gave me because, again, I approach these as someone that doesn't read the comics, like, once. And I don't want to get too much into Snyder Kit, but once Darkseid starts to interact and make himself apparent, like, I couldn't believe.

I was like, oh, yeah, this makes sense. Yeah. Like, he's just like, again, grumpy old man here. Okay, so serious question. They were going to split this into two, right?

This one was intended to be split. No, they were never gonna split it. I read that they were gonna split this into two initially.

Seth:

No, no, no, no.

Kyle:

Okay.

Seth:

I thought part one of the three.

Kyle:

That's right.

Seth:

That Snyder had.

Kyle:

Okay.

Seth:

Part two was going to be injustice, where Batman and Superman are fully against each other.

Kyle:

Okay.

Seth:

Lois Lane was going to die. Darkseid was going to come in and convince him to join him, which is something that happens in the comics.

And Superman joining Darkseid is actually the series finale of the Superman Animated Series. So that is something that has plenty of canon behind it. It's also what was set up in Batman vs Superman when Flash shows up and says Lois is the key.

Drew:

It's actually like, okay, first of all, the only problem I have with that eventual storyline was the injustice storyline. And the Superman and Darkseid storyline are two completely different awesome storylines.

Seth:

Sure.

Drew:

So it kind of bothers me that they were like, let's take these two and combine them because, like, either one of those would have been amazing stories.

Seth:

Sure.

Drew:

For me, it is, like, the most. It is the coolest thing, though, when. Well, I mean, it sucks for Superman, but when Darkseid.

When Darkseid manipulates him, mind controls him, causes him to go destroy planets and do terrible things. And then when Superman recovers, he has a hatred for Darkseid that is unlike any other. Darkseid's the only villain that he would be okay with.

Part of that storyline is when they go back to save the people and go to Darkseid's world. Superman is ready to destroy the world with Darkseid, and Batman has to stop him.

And then the ending line, he's like, Because Batman's like, I stopped you from doing something you regret. And then Superman's like, you're not always right. That was his, like, one or torrent. Yeah, but so it would have been. I like.

I like the injustice storyline, and I like the dark side storyline. I don't love that they tried to combine the two of them.

Seth:

I think it could have been interesting, and I think Snyder could have pulled it off just because, again, I like to view the movies as their own entity. It's their own comic. Like, you can't. The people who are like, this isn't canon. It is canon in one version of the comics.

And there's literally hundreds of different versions of Superman and of Batman just depending on which comic you choose to read. So I think he could have done it. It would have been interesting to see what would have. But I do understand what you're saying.

Drew:

I think I have. We'll talk about this next week. I think I have less faith in his storytelling ability than you do, and.

Seth:

We'Ll talk about that later. Yeah, I don't know, but I can't.

Kyle:

Wait to chip in on that conversation.

Drew:

I don't know if you guys are having a hard time with this, but, like, I think it's important that we like, because we know we're gonna be talking about the Snyderverse movie next week. We don't want to, you know, we don't want to drop all of our gems here and then be like, well, last week we said this.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't want to drop trou here. Yeah, that's weird.

Drew:

It's been a week, and I'm still not okay with that phrase.

Kyle:

Oh, that's stuck in your cr.

Drew:

Okay, well, that one sounds worse.

Kyle:

I left that intro in, by the way.

Drew:

Okay.

Seth:

It's hilarious.

Kyle:

He's got something in his crop. Last question. Aquaman. More like land guy. When is this guy ever in the water?

Seth:

For two scenes, he's rarely in the water.

Kyle:

And I. I realize that Again next week, different story. But in this one, yeah, I. I just. The whole time I'm thinking, when is he in the water?

When is Aquaman aquified? Like, he's never there.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Oh, my God, I found so much humor. And at the end when he was fighting and all the, like, the little war cries he was going for, I was like. I was just like, who brought the frat boy?

Who, like, does he think he's at a kegger right now? And he's like.

Kyle:

I've heard him compared to a biker. That's what a lot of people compared him to. He's got, like, a biker attitude.

Seth:

That was probably, again, just another huge problem I have with what Joss Whedon did, was he just completely neutered every character and tried to take a stereotype and apply it to the character versus taking what the character was and try to make it his own.

Drew:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, there was nothing original about any way that he directed anyone.

Drew:

There was nothing. I mean, really.

It was almost like, in especially the Justice League one, you could take out so many of those characters and just leave Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman and, like, the bad guys just fine.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And, like, I know, like, now when I watch Aquaman, I have all this, like, backstory from his two movies and stuff like that. And so, like, I don't notice as much of the fact that he's pretty useless in this movie. Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

Because I'm, like, reminded of, like, all the cool things he did in his other movies. But when you. If that's all you had was this movie, you'd easily look at, you know, Cyborg, Flash, and Aquaman and be like, why are they here?

Yeah, like, who?

Seth:

Yeah, why? Why do they need them? Like, why did they go to so many lengths to try to build this team together when these three people do absolutely nothing?

Kyle:

Yeah. Retroactively, too. I think it's a good tip for anyone that wants to create comic book characters. Don't create.

Don't name the character after the place they spend a lot of time, because then they'll be out of place because, like, thank God they didn't call Superman Airman.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Or Batman Cave Guy. You know, it's just like. Because when they're not there, it's like, what the are you doing out here? Go back to the water pimp. Right.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Clearly, clearly he wasn't doing his job in the water. They got the box from the water pretty early on in the.

Kyle:

The fish are dying. Yeah.

Drew:

I, I, I will, I will say this, and maybe it's more of a testament to the next movie, the, the Snyder version. I had so many issues with Superman's characterization in the last movie. Batman versus Superman.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

He redeemed himself in, in these movies. Like, I liked Superman better.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

His lines were. Again, I think my favorite line was when. When he's like, I have a thing to say about justice or truth. Right.

Seth:

Oh, my God. That was like, get it?

Drew:

Superman.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Yeah. The fact that he just comes in also, how the fuck did he know they were there? No one told him that they were there. And he just shows up and he's.

Drew:

Just like, I don't know.

Seth:

I'm here for justice and truth.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

I was like, just say the American way. Just say it.

Kyle:

Just say your prayers.

Drew:

That's a new thing now. They have, have, they have comic books have a hundred percent taken the American way out.

Seth:

Oh, yeah.

Drew:

Said Liberty and said, but they look at what's going on in America and, like, that doesn't seem very Superman.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Also, let's talk about the mouth.

Kyle:

Yeah. It's my first rando.

Seth:

Okay, cool. Well, let's just get there. Yeah.

Kyle:

Rando. Super randos. Super randos. Get back in the water. Oh, sorry. I'm so mad at Aquaman right now. I don't know why.

Drew:

It's just, just he has a punchable face. I, I think we love to hate Jason Momoa. Jason.

Seth:

Mimosa. Thank you.

Drew:

He just looked like. I'm sure I've never met him personally. He's probably a wonderful person, but, like, oh.

Seth:

Everyone I've talked to who has been up says he's the genuine.

Drew:

Right.

Kyle:

Yes.

Seth:

Guy.

Drew:

But doesn't he look like every high school bully?

Kyle:

He does.

Seth:

And also got against Polynesians. Bro.

Kyle:

Isn't that everybody's favorite girl Scout cookie? The Mamoan?

Seth:

Some of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't have them because they're covered in coconut.

Drew:

But he saved Fast X for me.

Kyle:

So, like, there you go.

Drew:

He is my superhero. Aquaman did save Fast X. There was no water, but he did just fine.

Kyle:

So. Because Mission Impossible Fallout was being filmed at the same time as this way better movie. Way better movie. Many are. Many are.

Drew:

That what I'm right to think? That was the Henry Cavill. Okay. Yeah.

Kyle:

Henry Cavill, though, has a mustache. And Paramount said, you cannot shave that off because you're committed to filming this. And so when he was doing cuts as Superman for Justice League.

Seth:

Justice League.

Kyle:

Justice League. Justice League, they. They had to CGI out his mustache. And so that's why. So this is funny. Seth, you're gonna laugh at this because my.

My wife watched this with me, which is funny. She rarely watches the movies we cover. But, yeah, we were watching it together, and she. She said something that really took me.

Took me off guard at first because I didn't know about this factoid.

Seth:

Oh.

Kyle:

At the very first scene. The cell phone thing.

Seth:

Yep.

Kyle:

She's like, why did they get a different actor to play Superman? And I'm like. At first I was like, they didn't get a different actor. I know that much.

But then I'm looking at him like, he does kind of look different. Yeah. And then I'm looking at the whole movie. I'm like, what. What is wrong with. Something is off. I knew it. And then I read this.

I'm like, dude, I thought the first scene was a different person.

Seth:

ing Orange videos from, like,:

I didn't know at the time and didn't really notice because it was just all new and happening and. But watching it this time, it's now even more obvious. When he was pulling from Snyder's.

Drew:

I'm gonna go. Because I do remember seeing scenes of Superman and assuming it was just, like, a filter. How was some.

Because I do remember thinking, like, something looks different. It was one of those back of the mind thoughts where.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

There are moments where literally his mouth is moving this way independently from his head. It's so bad.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's.

Seth:

Oh, my God, it's so bad. And you can tell because there's. There's the shots that were in the Snyder cut.

Like, best example is the scene where he's fighting them when he first is resurrected. All of those shots of him were completely from the Snyder cut. Then you shoot to him in the cornfield with Lois, which was all reshot.

In fact, I could even say that it looked like a set versus the actual cornfield where Zack's Snyder shot it.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

His mouth is moving independently of his head.

Kyle:

Like, it's bad.

Seth:

It's so bad.

Kyle:

In a movie where there's so much cgi.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And they've dedicated so much.

Drew:

I was gonna say someone. Someone should get, like, a pay cut for that. Like, how fun is it?

Seth:

Joss Whedon lost his entire career, so I think that's a pay cut.

Drew:

I Was like, that. That is a lot of. That is a lot of money to put into, like, that. Like. Like a YouTube video.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Also the fact that they just replaced the entire mouth instead of just trying to get rid of the mustache. Like, there's. We have so much technology, people. There's so much more. Better things you could have done.

Drew:

Superman does have chest hair. He could have grown a mustache in his time as dead. Yeah.

Seth:

Yeah. It probably would have been easier as a dead man to put a mustache on his face.

Drew:

And then we could have made this real. And tons of people would be like, well, he's an alien. He shouldn't have hair.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

Drew:

I'm still salty about that.

Kyle:

I love it. No. Next Rando. And this is. This is where studying these movies gets difficult because, like, earlier, with the, like, being split into, like, there's.

There's, like. They're cutting and pasting lore together from the comics. And then we got reshoots, and it's just hard to keep up with the details.

But this is an interesting story about that fear. Interesting. Holt McCallany, the actor who plays the burglar, apparently, originally that was filmed to be comedic. And I guess.

I guess Warner wanted it to be serious, and so they made him reshoot it as serious. And Joss, as much of a dick as he is, I guess he sent this guy a bottle of scotch as a kind gesture, saying to.

It literally said to battles lost because they made it serious. Now I'm like, apparently it was supposed to be comedic. And it. But this is what's funny.

I think this is more of a indict, even a further indictment of Josh. This is the kind of. He was thinking about. He's like, well, that one scene.

I'm gonna send a bottle to the guy because we didn't get our scene, but it's like, everything else is so bad. Yeah. And this was the thing you. I'm gonna send a bottle of whiskey, and you're being racist. Like, who is this person?

Seth:

Jesus.

Drew:

What a weird.

Kyle:

What a weird guy.

Drew:

Can you imagine someone talking to him like, man, your old Justice League movie sucked. He's like, I know that first scene. I'm so sorry about that.

Kyle:

That was supposed to be funny.

Seth:

Can you believe that Joss Whedon used to be considered the OG Hollywood male feminist?

Kyle:

No.

Seth:

Like, there's a famous interview. I think it was after.

Or like, during the press tour for Age of Ultron, where a reporter asks him, why do you keep writing these complex, strong female characters? And he goes, because, assholes. Like, you keep asking me that question.

Yeah, like that he was the standard for a point in time of like, being a good man.

Drew:

How did he. When did his villain arc Stark?

Seth:

Like, apparently it was all a cover. Apparently it was. He's always been a piece of shit. He just was like, usually is cover it up.

Kyle:

I hate to say it with these Hollywood folk, man. They always. Yeah. Will Smith punched Chris Rock. Joss is a dick.

Seth:

Yeah. Like the fact that he added that shot of Flash falling over and putting his head on Gal Gadot's tits and then standing up.

And that scene where Jason Momoa's just like, you're so hot. What the lasso of truth is around me. The fact that he added those things and just tried to make every character dumber.

Yeah, just like, what the were you thinking?

Kyle:

And I, I hate that. That thing you just said about that Flash scene too, because one thing I. I actually, I feel like.

And we can cover this more in the next one, but there are two very consistent characters. Well, no, the most consistent character that it's at least. Is at least likable in every entry is Wonder Woman.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Oh, absolutely.

Kyle:

And I hated that scene because I was like, for once I felt like she's independently feminist. Like there's no one propping her up.

Seth:

Yep.

Kyle:

She is this 5,000 year old entity and she is kicking ass and everywhere she goes and it's just like, dude, you took away that one scene. Just ruined this. This thing with her. Well, I'm like, oh, like, no, I wanted my girls to see it.

My girls are probably a little young to see these, but I'm like, I'm like, I want my girls to see. Because gals really kicking ass. Yeah, I want. I want them to see it because I think they would love it and be inspired by it.

But then that thing, I'm just like, why would you. Why did he. It's just an example of how Josh just had to water this down so bad.

Seth:

How old are your girls?

Kyle:

10 and 6.

Seth:

The 10 year old would definitely have a great time with the Wonder Woman movie.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Forget that 84 exists. Just watch the first one.

Drew:

Yeah, she would love it. I mean, yeah, she shines in that movie.

Kyle:

She's so consistently good.

Seth:

Just being Captain America, the first avenger. Done in a different World war with a different Steve or with a different Chris playing a different Steve.

Drew:

There's a lot of parallels.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Other than that, it would have been a good movie.

Drew:

Wars 1.0 episodes. Captain America versus Wonder Woman.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. This is.

We Kind of alluded to this a little bit, but one of the things that really got lost in translation when went from Zack Snyder to Joss is that Cyborg was going to be the heart of this movie. Oh, yeah, they wanted to be. And it was Joss who made it more towards Superman.

But what's funny is that even in that change, it still doesn't feel like Superman's that pro prominent. He's barely in the movie, but he wanted. But Joss wanted Superman to be the center.

The Cyborg storyline, I couldn't believe how baffled I was by it in the next one. I was just like, how did we. That is like, how did we miss all this?

Drew:

Cyborg needs his own movie and put it right before the Justice League and set up the Justice League.

Kyle:

Fisher is fantastic.

Drew:

Oh, my God.

Seth:

Yeah, it just. Again, it's one of those things, like, for whatever reason. And maybe it was just that Warner Brothers was like, we have to hit this runtime.

You cannot go over this runtime. And so everything was literally, just get to the next plot point. Get to the next plot point.

You can really tell during the first Wonder Woman scene where she's at the museum. Yeah, you could tell. And I'll compare it even more in the next episode.

But you watch this version, and it literally is just, she's up here and now she's inside, and now she's saving the day. Boom, the scene's over. They took a five minute scene and cut it down to a minute and a half for no reason.

Drew:

And then by doing that. Because I noticed this when I was watching the dude. By doing that, they made that scene completely useless. Other than, like, kind of.

Because I think it was like the opening scene. Like, I think it was like the start.

Seth:

I mean, it was close. It was her. It was her first introduction in the movie. Yeah.

Drew:

Aside from just reminding us that Wonder Woman existed, it did very little after that.

Seth:

Yeah. Like, legitimately, like, it took all of the emotion and all of the stakes out of the movie.

Drew:

As much as I liked Cyborg's character, I will choose to be petty. In one part, I hated how they included his trademark phrase, booyah. It was so bland. It was so not booyah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So did Cat.

It's like, either do it the way you're supposed to do it.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Or don't do it.

Seth:

Well, like, so I. I noticed this too, weirdly.

Drew:

I'm sorry.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Well, weirdly, some of the same takes are in both movies. Most specifically the shot of him catching Aquaman and Aquaman going, my man. And then he launches him in this one.

Somehow the way the tone of the movie is, even though his delivery is exactly the same, it feels ten times more cartoonish when he's just like, my man. And then he throws him and. Wow.

Drew:

Well, I think it's because in this movie, you have less other stuff of them.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

So, like, you haven't built the kind of relationship with the characters yet where you're like, no, that. That's Aquaman.

Seth:

Yeah. So, yeah, it just.

Drew:

That was my one. That was my one critique of Booyah. And I'm cool with. I'm cool. I'm okay dismissing that. That's one of those where I'm like, whatever.

Kyle:

Yeah. So you already alluded to this, but I was going to skip it. But then I realized there's a lot more to the lawsuit thing. Oh, yeah.

Some of the things that he also did, aside from being gross abuse, these are all just things that were documented. He was. Whedon was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable on set. They also lightened the color of Ray skin.

That was a big point of contention. They. Jaws. It was Joss's command to say, I want him to be basically less black.

Drew:

Wow.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

Who wakes up in the morning and says, this is a good idea for my career?

Seth:

Joss Whedon.

Kyle:

And if that was a problem, then why did you hire him?

Seth:

Yeah. Well, he didn't.

Kyle:

Right. Yeah, true.

Seth:

He didn't hire him.

Kyle:

So then. Yeah, I just. Unbelievable. And then apparently, and I don't. I couldn't find a lot of corroboration, although this was on screen. Rant that.

I found this. Again, I couldn't find a good commentary for this, but not that they would put this on the commentary anyway.

Oh, by the way, this racist piece of shit. Hi, I'm Joss Whedon. I'm doing this commentary. I'm a racist Shit.

Drew:

It's in the cyborg gut.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's in the cyborg. But apparently they. There was contentious meetings about all this, about the lawsuit in. John Berg was defending Whedon in any possible way.

I'm having to read this because it's very detailed. Despite the unrest of the crew. And Fisher then started a brawl with a Warner Brothers new chair executive, Walter Hermada.

And that's what's actually the cause of Fisher's solo cyborg film being indefinitely delayed. So even before all the.

Drew:

Did you hit the brawl?

Kyle:

It says that. That Fisher started a brawl with Walter Hamada.

Seth:

Okay, interesting. I would be very Curious to know if that's actually.

Kyle:

I know I couldn't corroborate it anywhere.

Drew:

Yeah, honestly, like, I'd like to see Foot.

Kyle:

I'd like to see him especially if he's dressed as Cyborg. Yeah, that would be awesome.

Drew:

That's the opening scene of the movie.

Seth:

Because at this point, Hamada is considered to be the downfall, the reason why everything fell apart. Because he's the one who was really trying to fight Zack Snyder on everything that happened in bvs.

He's the one who hired the trailer editing company to re edit and reshoot Suicide Squad to give it more of a Guardians of the Galaxy sexy kind of tone. Yeah, he's the one who, who nitpicked everything that happened after this version of Justice League. Like he.

Yeah, everyone basically says he is the reason why everything fell apart.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's just funny to me because I tend to think of this type of drama to exist with high creative movies because executives are so freaked out by like, you know, like a Von Trier or a Refn or one of those. But it's even existing in what I would call the pop realm. Yeah.

Seth:

Oh yeah.

Because they're trying to make billions of dollars and if they don't like how you're going about it, then they're gonna be like, no, no, no, you gotta. I mean, that's why Kevin Feige fired Edgar Wright. He fired Edgar Wright from Ant man because he was doing the Edgar Wright thing.

And for whatever reason, they didn't want Edgar Wright to do the thing that Edgar Wright does best.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

So it's, it's things like that. They, they wanted so much control, even though they started down a path that they ultimately didn't like.

Instead of just like, let's play it out, let's lightly course correct. They were like, no, we're just going to 180 it right now.

Drew:

It sounds like. I mean, it sounds like D.C. and Warner Brothers had the same issues as Snyder.

They hired a director with a particular style because they wanted to make Marvel esque movies. But in doing so they were like, let's pick the least Marvel esque person.

Seth:

Literally. I mean, he had done Watchmen, done 300. They knew his vibe for DC movies.

Drew:

Then when they needed a new director, they, they tried to really. Course correct.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And they got Josh Whedon, who could not have been further from what. So it, I mean, flaws aside, thinking like Whedon, it makes sense that he looked at Snyder's film and was like, this is trash.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Because that's like an apple looking at an orange and being like, I don't get the appeal of you. You know, like, it makes sense.

But my problem is, and it goes back to all the issues that the actor play was cyborg and all the things going on into like someone, someone higher up than the directors should have been noticing this stuff.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

And also it should have probably never gotten out as much as it did to like. Well, it should have been fixed correctly.

Kyle:

It's amazing that Nolan has had success with Warner Brothers.

Seth:

Like, oh no, they. They completely his tenant release and so that's why he's now working with Universal.

Kyle:

Interesting.

Seth:

He. He wouldn't even let anyone at Warner Brothers read the Odyssey script.

Kyle:

Wow. Thank God.

Seth:

He just, he was like, nope, I'm not even gonna go to them.

Drew:

I feel like just with like what little I hear from like podcasts and actors, like, it doesn't sound like Warner Brothers is a great company to work.

Seth:

Not anymore. They've really fucked over a lot of people and it mostly started with, with Batman versus Superman.

Like that's really when Warner Brothers as a company started getting less respect in, in the industry. I'm a little shocked.

And granted it might just be because they, they have the rights to it, but I'm a little shocked that like, like Barbie was made there because of how gross they have been to women over the last several years.

Kyle:

Yeah. Interesting.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Shall we seek justice?

Seth:

Let's do it.

Kyle:

Shall we assemble and attack the war card?

Seth:

Shall we fuck Joss Whedon in the ass?

Kyle:

Yes.

Drew:

Nope. Yes to all though. Except for the last one.

Kyle:

Yes.

Drew:

Ready?

Kyle:

Let's war.

Seth:

Let's go.

Kyle:

Also reminder positive. Affirmative. Yes. We love it. Snyder barely know her. And then super bad if it's bad, if we don't like if we don't dig it.

Seth:

All right.

Kyle:

By the way, this has been hilarious to edit. Hearing us say Snyder barely know where top bill Cass, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa are top pay banded folks here.

Seth:

I mean, no, that, that makes sense because Henry Cavill barely has any screen time in this one.

Drew:

He's dead.

Seth:

Jason Momoa was definitely one of the more famous ones in the movie and.

Kyle:

They had to reduce his part of the pay for this fate part of the face. He only gets paid for a full face.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Unfortunately, as much as I love every single one of these people, I am going to have to go super bad because you could tell how fucking over it they were by the time they did anything that Joss wanted them to do.

Like I said, earlier, it was literally like they all sat down and were like, all right, we're contractually obligated to say these lines, but, yeah, any emotion. So, yeah, super bad.

Drew:

I'm. I'm gonna go the opposite just because I feel like they did the best what they had. And with the stuff that actually they.

The good stuff that they kept, I felt like they were good. I wasn't distracted by their performance. Although, like, I do kind of agree with what you're saying now that we're talking about it.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

But I'm basing this off of when I watched it, was I bothered by their performance? And the answer is no. So Snyder, barely nowhere Snyder.

Kyle:

I also went super bad. And here's the thing. I don't blame the cast.

Seth:

I don't either.

Kyle:

But for me, I can't. I can't call this what is what. There's a saying for it. I don't know. But I can't sit here and call this good acting. It's not. And I.

Again, it's not their fault. And we'll. We'll see later that there were better takes. But I just. This is to me. And you guys know I'm a curmudgeon on this shit.

I can't let this type of shit pass. When we got amazing artisans like Eggers out. Eggers is out here getting ignored by the Oscars.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

We got all these amazing performances and all these lower budget movies and. And then we have this big Hollywood shit that just gets shoveled in our faces and I can't let it slide.

And I know each of these actors are gifted and have shown us more, and not just in other movies, but in other parts of this series.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

But I can't let this slide. This is super bad.

Seth:

Nope.

Kyle:

So, yeah.

Seth:

Booyah.

Kyle:

Booyah again. There's not a memorable line or besides that. I just, like. There were no moments, no lines. I can't. Yeah, I bought the bank.

Drew:

That's.

Seth:

Yeah, it's so weird because that's. That was Snyder's moment. And it still felt so cheap in this version. Like, what the fuck?

Kyle:

Continuity matters. Yeah, continuity matters. Like, and that's the same with the jokes. Like, I hated the flashes jokes in this one.

And then, like, in the next one, they were actually kind of refreshing because they were like, in context.

Drew:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a little bit better, actually. I don't. I don't like this take of the Flash in general. General.

Seth:

That's fair.

Kyle:

I agree with you, actually.

Seth:

I. I appreciate what Snyder was trying to do. With making him, like, ADHD and. And like, you know, a more teen version of the Flash. But yeah, not.

Not my favorite.

Kyle:

Yeah, I agree.

Seth:

Sucks that Ezra Miller just became such a shitty human being.

Kyle:

I know, I know.

Seth:

He was so good in Perks of being a Wallflower.

Kyle:

He's probably knocking back shots with Joss Whedon right now.

Drew:

Working on their next big.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah.

Seth:

Probably not after rehab.

Kyle:

Yeah. Working on some indie film about lightning. Black people's skin.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

God.

Drew:

In which Ezra Miller plays the black person.

Kyle:

Yes. Actually, we got to darken your skin. That's against our whole mission.

Seth:

Stay out of the sun, kid.

Kyle:

All right, this is crazy to list this supporting cast because it starts with Henry Cavill. Amy Adams. G. No, not Gal. Sorry. Scratching it out. Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons. Man, this goes down Diane Lane.

This is the one that makes me laugh the most. J.K. simmons with barely any screen time. Is Gordon here? Amber heard. Oh, go get a lawsuit going.

Seth:

I love that picture. I texted you guys.

Kyle:

Yes, I know. On all the beds.

Seth:

We should have had her on this so she could on the podcast like on John.

Drew:

Yeah, next time.

Kyle:

Yeah, as long as she doesn't bring her Mason jar of cocaine.

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

That her and Johnny Depp used to dip into and then sue each other.

Drew:

After cocaine at home. Leave all the other things at home too.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And I have to go deep on this one because I thought this is hilarious. Maybe you two picked up on it, but Joe Morton as Silas Stone.

He is the king of unleashing cyborgs on the world because he was also the science, the lead scientist in T2. He had the cyborg arm. He's the one that started the cyber cyborg research for Skynet.

Seth:

Oh, my God.

Drew:

He's also been in a few other superhero related things where he's like the scientist that screwed up and something.

Kyle:

Yeah. If we need to unleash a cyborg or a cyborg apocalypse in a movie, you call him.

Drew:

He's the guy.

Kyle:

Yeah, he's the guy. That's hilarious. Anyway, what do we think?

Seth:

Yeah, I'm. I'm going to have to go super bad. Once again, not their fault. But. But literally every single character just. Just became insanely neutered.

And I feel like every. I was texting him about this. Have you seen BoJack Horseman?

Kyle:

Yes.

Seth:

You know the season where he's making Secretariat and they fire the original director and bring in the catfish dude? And he's just like, yeah, we're not making Finith and Kane like we're not making a great movie here. And he's just, just shitting everything.

Like, that's what it felt like. This one was where everyone watched this fucking idiot come in and they were just like, okay, I guess I'll say.

Drew:

The words, I'm getting paid either way.

Seth:

So no one tried with anything that Joss Whedon wrote. Unfortunately, as much as I love every single one of these people, I am just gonna have to give it a super bad. It's terrible.

Kyle:

Super bad.

Drew:

You know, I'm, I'm gonna, I, I, I, I, I stuck. Stuck to my guns on the first one, but.

Kyle:

Stuck.

Drew:

But, but between what we're been talking about. I'll change my answer. I'll, I'll go super bad. You're right. Because when we look at.

It's hard to, for me, it's hard to separate the two movies, like the similar scenes and stuff like that. But when you look at this movie, you're right. They, I mean, no one tried.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

Yeah.

Seth:

No one cared.

Kyle:

Yep.

Drew:

I just clocked in.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I go super bad for the same reason as my first one. But the one that sticks out to me the most is like, did anyone else think that J.K. simmons, like, showed up to the wrong set?

Drew:

He's put, he plays Commissioner Gordon.

Seth:

He's Joss Whedon. Didn't reshoot anything with him. The mustache stuff was from.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Snyder cut.

Kyle:

It kind of feels like he was a last minute ad. He kind of showed up late. The mustache isn't great. I just felt like he didn't want to be there. He was the least Gordon Gordon I've ever seen, dude.

Seth:

That's the funny thing is he was so into it.

Kyle:

Really.

Seth:

He literally was just like, fuck it. I'm gonna get jacked for this. Really lost like 40 pounds. He worked out like crazy, Gordon. I mean, well, he, he, he wanted to in general.

And this just gave him a reason to. Yeah, but no, like, it's, it's funny you say that because literally he was probably. And again, he didn't, he wasn't involved in any of the reshoots.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

So for him, he was just like, now it. I'm coming. Because. Yeah, in his mind, he had the Ben Affleck solo movie coming right after. That was supposed to be his pipeline was right into that.

Drew:

Yeah.

Seth:

So he was like, no, I'm gonna get ready for this.

Kyle:

I just didn't get anything from him here. And he's one of my favorite actors. Oh, yeah. He is incredible.

Seth:

Again, you're not Supposed to. Because Joss Whedon's a.

Kyle:

He.

Drew:

He is a. He is a big actor. He's. That Commissioner Gordon is also a pretty significant Batman character.

Kyle:

Yeah, you're right.

Drew:

In. In both of these movies, he's very.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

I mean, he was in it as much as he needed to be.

Drew:

He was part of my least. One of my least favorite scenes of both movies, which is when they all run off, but Barry Allen's still running his mouth.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

I'm just like, just.

Kyle:

And of course, Gary Oldman's kind of ruined it for that role.

Seth:

I mean, so did Jeffrey Wright, though. Like, Jeffrey Wright killed it.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Commissioner Gordon, but.

Kyle:

Oh, he did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Drew:

Or there. If you want to really dip into Lord. The TV show Gotham in that version.

Seth:

I still haven't seen that one, actually.

Kyle:

He's.

Seth:

He's like.

Kyle:

And the.

Drew:

He's so badass. Yeah, he's like. He's like, basically Batman, but for the TV show Goth.

Seth:

Hell, yeah.

Kyle:

I also love him in the Animated Series. I love what they do with him there, too.

Drew:

Oh, he's got a hearty beer or hardy mustache in there.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

So basically, you guys just completely reversed my statement because basically, J.K. simmons is the only bad Commissioner Gordon there's ever been.

Seth:

But even then, can you really tell off the two scenes he was in?

Kyle:

Yeah, I just.

Drew:

You know, such a minor character in this.

Kyle:

He was. I just didn't. And maybe it's because you meet him later. I'm just like, I.

By that time, I probably was checked out, but I just didn't get the aura that I usually get from a Simmons performance.

Seth:

But, yeah, and again, like I said, he. He was expecting the pipeline of being way more involved.

Because, remember, the Batman took a lot from Affleck's the Batman script, and then Reeves changed it to. To hit his version where it was going to be Batman v. Deathstroke and became Batman v. Riddler. Oh, my God. It would have been incredible.

But so, yeah, he. He had a different attitude going into it than I think anyone else kind of did.

Drew:

Have we ever had a significant Commissioner Gordon in a Batman movie?

Kyle:

Oh, I would say Gary Oldman, I think. Old man.

Drew:

Which one was he from the Dark Knight trilogy?

Kyle:

But he was very involved. Like, he thinks. Think about how especially.

Drew:

Okay, yeah, I had a moment before getting.

Kyle:

But you're right, because he gets pulled in because usually in the movies, he acts. He's not. He doesn't get pulled in. In the movies. Into. But he gets.

Because of his daughter and all the stuff he gets pulled in at the end of Dark Knight. And he plays an intricate. And he does it great.

Seth:

And I thought he. I thought again. Jeffrey Wright did a great job in the Batman. Like, he made. Made that character something important.

And it'll be interesting to see what he looks like in. In the Batman 2.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

It's zero to two. Things are going just fine.

Seth:

I approve of that one.

Kyle:

That's a good one.

Drew:

I know.

Kyle:

I was editing the last one. I was like, God, I gotta get back on my game with the transitions. It's not always easy. This is hard work over here. I dare you to sit in this seat.

You too.

Drew:

Let's start a podcast. Anyone can do it. Seriously.

Kyle:

That's what they keep telling us in the comments.

Drew:

Literally every. Okay.

Kyle:

Anyone with a mic. Yes, anyone. Literally. You can do this too.

Drew:

That's literally the point of podcasting. Normal people talking about things they care about.

Kyle:

Yeah, exactly.

Drew:

Everyone can either this or go back.

Kyle:

To Roger Ebert's corpse, you sucker. Rest in peace. Yeah. Although he hated a lot of movies that I love.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

The rest in unrest.

Kyle:

Rest in mediocre taste.

Seth:

Ref. In peace.

Kyle:

Yeah. You didn't like drive writing, Chris. How do you say it? Terrio.

Seth:

Yeah. Yeah. One of those.

Kyle:

Joss Whedon.

Seth:

Here's the thing. There's only 45 minutes of. Of Torio Terrio. Of. Of Chris's work. Like, I'ma set him aside for this. This was not his movie. This was Joss Whedon's.

And it sucked. Every single joke just ruined everything that was in there. Every.

It's like, again, used to when he would write the sexist types jokes he would write, it was always put in a negative place. The jokes were always coming from assholes who would get put in their place.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

By the strong female characters he wrote. This time it literally was just to put sexist, shitty jokes in there.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, fuck you, Joss Whedon. This is super bad to the max.

I hate even, like, bringing in the name of such a good movie to talk about how bad Joss Whedon's writing is in this movie. You, Joss Wheaton.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

Well, actually, I think, oh, my God.

Seth:

He should have won an Oscar for this movie.

Kyle:

You do that, though. I noticed that sometimes when he goes real hard in. You go real. You kind of just subtly go the opposite. You kind of just go above.

Drew:

It's one of. I. I find great joy in having the opposite opinion, Seth.

Kyle:

I love that.

Drew:

And if. If there was any redeemable thing that I would totally. I would totally jump. Unfortunately. I mean, I just gotta be. I mean, this felt bad.

This felt like a high school class where you realized, oh my gosh, I have to have a Justice League movie tomorrow. Let me start writing script right now and turn it in in the next hour.

Seth:

Yeah, he's like, we're shooting today.

Drew:

Yeah. It just, it felt like he cut apart what was already a good script, but. And then like gave us like the worst cuts, like, of it.

Like, it's like you could have. There's. We'll talk about this next week.

But there were things that were not that big of scenes that they could have put in, just little ones that would have made this movie make a little bit more sense.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

His writing in this was so bad that anything good that they kept from Snyder just got worse because it was surrounded by this shit.

Kyle:

Yep.

Drew:

So if it's not clear, I also say super bad.

Kyle:

Yeah. I go super bad. I mean, you have an exhausted cast redelivering shitty lines that were rewritten. It's. I can't go much further than that.

I mean, it's just. It's just bad. And like you said, it's amazing how some of the stuff is a little more elevated. I'm not saying that the second one's perfect or when I.

The Snyder cuts perfect, but stuff is definitely elevated.

And some of the cuts that are shared between them, it's because they're sandwiched in between better filmmaking, better visuals, better everything, better writing and just complete malpractice on this writing. And it's really hard to not only hear shitty lines being delivered by actors who have stopped caring. Yeah.

Drew:

It's mind blowing. It's.

Whenever you get something like that this bad is like the script is mind blowing that this is like a successful person in this field at such a high up level.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And it's just total horse trash who's.

Seth:

Had a 25 year career.

Drew:

Meanwhile, you just know there's someone like on the streets of LA right now, homeless, like with an awesome script they're trying to pitch.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

And it'd be like so much better and they'll never have a shot. But this is what made it to the big screen.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. This makes. Sometimes I think about dying. Like, just.

Seth:

I would rather watch that movie four times than watch this one.

Kyle:

This was.

Drew:

No, I mean, if only it was up to Wicked Prayer standards.

Seth:

It is. Yeah. I would. I would rather watch Shitty of Angels and Wicked Prayer back to back.

Kyle:

At least we got Dennis Hopper.

Drew:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Oh, she wasn't in. Oh, was. Never mind.

Kyle:

She was in Wicked Prayer.

Seth:

That's right. I get them confused at this point.

Drew:

It's okay. That was like 500 movies ago.

Kyle:

Yeah. Zero to three. Justice is being served here.

Drew:

Justice served.

Kyle:

And this is where I can't wait to serve justice. Directing. It says Zack Snyder, but I put Joss Whedon.

Seth:

Hold on. We'll start. We'll start with the 45 minutes. That was Zack Snyder. I give. I give that 45 minutes. A very solid Snyder. Barely knower.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

The rest of it, fuck off. Super bad. Because it was not. This is not a Zack Snyder movie. Fuck you for crediting him. Yeah, fuck it.

Kyle:

Yep.

Seth:

Super bad.

Drew:

I mean, super bad. His job as a dirt. He did not direct. Well, he did.

Seth:

He didn't direct it all in there.

Drew:

Like a wrecking ball. Like any CEO that has any new boss of a company would tell you, don't just go in there and on the old boss and change everything. And like. Like any.

You know it. Every pastor waits at least two years before they start doing big changes.

Kyle:

Right. Right.

Drew:

Saying like in any kind of position where you're in.

Kyle:

Before they bring.

Seth:

In comparison this to a mega church.

Kyle:

Before we bring in the animal sacrifices. Yeah.

Drew:

I was like, you know, I don't know. I'm not. I'm just saying. Super bad.

Kyle:

Yeah. I think what was interesting about Batman versus Superman, I didn't like it, obviously, but I. I liked a lot of things in it.

I didn't give it high ratings, but anything with Batman. But there was enough there. I did give it a high score for the good lore because I was like, you know, this kind of.

This, like the whole Mad Max Batman thing, like, it kind of. I could go back and read a comic. Like, it made me a little more interesting. This completely. Like, everything he did made me never want to watch.

In fact, I didn't. I had seen Snyder's cut when it came out, but I don't remember a lot of it. Right. It made me not want to watch that one either.

I was just like, so disengaged and disinterested by. By everything. It was so flat. It was so neutered. And I also.

Even though I've criticized Snyder's over stylization on occasion, I like it, but sometimes it's too much. I was missing it here.

Seth:

Oh, yeah.

Kyle:

The filters are gone. The coloration's gone. He literally took. Like, why couldn't you at least just leave in. Or.

Or at least have some of that Snyder coloration influence here to maintain the.

Seth:

Visuals, the continuity of it.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah.

Seth:

Even the first Wonder Woman movie looked very similar to the Snyder movie.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

And. And the Suicide Squad movie, the original tone of it was supposed to fit into The Snyderverse of BVs and the Snyder cut of Justice League. And.

And that's when every Hamada started coming in and changing everything. It was like, nope, we're. We're just gonna try to be shitty Marvel.

Drew:

Didn't they do, like, two Suicide Squad movies, but then also, like, a sequel to one of the Suicide Squad movies?

Seth:

So there was David Ayer's Suicide Squad, which did get an extended version that they had the gall to call the Director's Cut, because it's not. It's not even close. Literally, the day before it came out, he tweeted the movie, you see tomorrow is not my movie.

And then he deleted the tweet because I'm sure someone at Warner Brothers was like, we're going to take you to court. So apparently he says he does have a mostly finished version of his movie that he would love to get the Snyder cut treatment.

That's never going to happen, because fuck you, James Gunn. But, yeah, that's. Then James Gunn came in and made the Suicide Squad so original, and it.

It made even less movie than the original Suicide Squad movie did or made less money.

Kyle:

So, yeah, it's funny, even though I'm not a fan of these movies, I've become a big supporter of Zack Snyder, just as. At a personal level, I just want him to succeed now.

Drew:

Yeah, I agree with that. I don't even. I don't even. We'll talk about this next week. I don't even like his directing style that much.

Seth:

Sure.

Drew:

But, like.

Kyle:

I want him to win what he's doing.

Seth:

The respect is there whether or not you. You enjoy what he's done. There's respect for style.

Drew:

Not really my thing. Like, I don't. I don't like country music either, and I don't like nuts and desserts.

Seth:

But you. But you respect Chris Stapleton because he's the best of it, even though you don't like it.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

So. So that's what I feel like him.

Kyle:

I'm hoping Snyder's next one's a banger. I'm cheering for him.

Seth:

I did like the director's cuts of the Rebel Moon movies, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Kyle:

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Don't even take me down that rabbit hole.

Seth:

It's on the list. Eventually we'll get to it.

Kyle:

I've already been living in so much super, super. I'm gonna need a superhero reprieve after this. All right, so it's zero to four. It's going well for Mr. Whedon over here.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

I'm sure he listens to this podcast, and it's very sad right now.

Kyle:

He probably has time now. Yeah. He's going to be directing full house remakes.

Seth:

If Bill Burr can like one of our reels, then I'm sure Joss Whedon pays attention to every episode.

Kyle:

We've had a couple of celebrity endorsements recently. Mr. Bill Burr liked one of our posts. And then Bill Garrett. Or Garrett. What was his name? Sorry.

Bill Garrett, who played on the Brother and Everybody Loves Raymond. And he's in Seinfeld also.

Drew:

Very cool.

Kyle:

We're getting love, and you sit there and won't even share with your friends.

Drew:

Come on.

Seth:

Also, if either one of the two of you ever want to be on the podcast, just hit us up. We got you.

Kyle:

Yep. Yep. I interviewed one of Bill's best friends, Steve Byrne, so he's been on the podcast. So maybe I could work through Steve.

We could do it because Bill was in a movie that Steve made, directed. Pretty cool. Zero to four, Mr. Whedon, happy birthday. What's in front of a cinematography, production design, sound, costumes, editing.

Seth:

This is the craziest thing for me because obviously I've seen the Snyder cut significantly more times than I've seen this, but I did not realize until this second viewing of Justice League how starkly different. Like, I can physically tell when Joss shot something or reshot something, and then you go into a shot that was clearly done by Zack Snyder.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

It is absurd. Everything looked cheaper. Everything looked shittier. The animation was so much worse in the stuff that Joss Whedon was putting together.

All of it just horrible. So I am once again giving it a super bad. Because fuck you, Joss Whedon.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

I mean, that's the biggest complaint about this movie is you see that. It's like you're watching. It's just the things not mixing well.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

You know, and I think the biggest things were the editing cut choices where he decided to reshoot. And so if he used 45 minutes of the movie, that means he had access to the rest of the movie.

Seth:

Oh, yeah.

Drew:

So he could have added, you know, extra 15 minutes.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And he could have put some scenes in there just to make it all make a little bit more sense for context.

Seth:

The only thing that Zack Snyder shot after the fact for the Snyder Cut. Was the very last epilogue scene of the vision or the dream premonition. Yeah, yeah, the dream. And the Martian.

Martian Manhunter scene, which I can't wait.

Drew:

To talk about how that is so weird. The Martian Manhunter. But that's next week.

Seth:

That is how much access Joss Whedon had was he had had everything but that last five minutes.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

So I. I mean, the only thing I will say in positive before I say super bad. I mean, I do like that this had a more peppy, high energy, superhero feel to it.

And that's different than what Snyder wants to do with his movies, which is totally okay. But, like, so I. I did find that kind of relieving when watching. It was like. It felt like a regular super quote unquote, regular superhero movie.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

But there's too much other not good stuff. So super bad for me.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

So super bad. I just super worst.

Seth:

Again, super you.

Kyle:

I gotta give Zach's credit. I. Again, this is not my type of movie. These aren't my genre. But at least I can.

What the best thing I could say about Zach is even though I'm not a fan of this series, he gives me moments.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I can at least say I didn't like Batman vs Superman, but there were some moments where I was like, that's pretty cool. Especially with the Batman stuff. Stuff. I'm all that's gone here. I have. I'm not clinging to any of the writing. I'm not clinging to the visuals.

And again, curmudgeon old man. I don't like CGI villains. I don't like CGI characters that are on screen for long periods of time. Except for Lord of the Rings.

I'm fine with it there, but, I.

Drew:

Mean, we don't have any, like, orc actors that would ask to join, so it makes sense.

Kyle:

Exactly. Somehow. And again, Steppenwolf, he's a little too much CGI for I. No matter. No matter which movie I'm watching.

But here, somehow he made it even worse for me with the stepping. Well, like, I don't know why.

Drew:

I mean, he looks like a ball sack. Of a ball sack.

Kyle:

Yes.

Drew:

To be a real cancerous.

Kyle:

Yes. A cancerous lung with a helmet. And I'm just The choices. And it just reminds me, I'll go back to what I said earlier. It's Oscar season.

Who gives a shit about the Oscars? I. This is big Hollywood just falling flat on its face.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

It's just big cast, money, executives everywhere. And I am just seeing a flat, serviceable When I say serviceable. It's a movie. It came out. It probably appeased a small segment.

Seth:

A story.

Kyle:

It tells a story. But let me tell you, I've seen movies for a just a tiny tenth of this budget. Deliver.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Visually. And I just can't believe what I'm seeing. It's.

Seth:

It. Compare this to Upgrade. Upgrade had a 5 million dollar budget and was way more fun to watch.

Kyle:

Shorter. And it's got fewer name, no actors, and people that, you know. Yes. The upgrade is actually a perfect comparison.

Drew:

Yeah, absolutely. So I was thinking that.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I've. I'm just. I'm I'm at this point where I. This is. I can't tolerate this. Sorry. You had a rant last week. I'm going on a rant now.

Drew:

Oh, I call next week.

Kyle:

Okay. Please. Yep. We all get a rant. We need to have a rant section. Maybe we can do a whole side podcast with our rants. I. The Oscar.

It's Oscar season and I watched this at the wrong time because my boy Edgar's got the shaft. Yeah, he got a few side nominations, but he didn't get the ones that matters. None of the actors in. In Nosferatu got the nominations that matter. Not.

Not that this would have gotten nominations, but what I'm saying is big Hollywood is a big machine. And this kind of annoys me. I hate big casts that just like fall flat on their face. And again, we see better performances in the next one. Right.

Or in the last one. But here, the fact that this was passable and this was encouraged at the executive level. It's malpractice.

Shut up and stop ruining independent thinking. Filmmakers.

Seth:

Seriously.

Kyle:

Okay, sorry. That's my rant.

Drew:

It's good rant.

Kyle:

It's Oscar season and it just pisses me off. Sorry. I like ranting. It's nice.

Drew:

Well, and the reality is, is more people than not have the same opinions about this movie. Right. Like, and it's just ridiculous. I saw such a big, big scale.

I mean, I mean, all the ingredients were there for a good movie because, I mean, all those actors are. Yeah.

Kyle:

And we've seen them do well if.

Drew:

They were given good strips. I mean, and like, as these characters.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And we have the kind of technology to do all the things better than what we've critiqued. You know, like.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

It's just people and who are already, you know, already got the followers, already got the position, already got the money. They're gonna. They're gonna generate shit.

Seth:

Side note, I forgot to bring up how Mediocre Danny Elfman score for this was. Nothing about it stood out. Everything just felt like we were back in the 90s in a Tim Burton movie. It just felt so bad.

None of the tone matched anything that had been done before.

Drew:

That is it. That is. It's not something I noticed when I watched the movie. Maybe because I was noticing too many other things, but.

Yeah, but like we've said this before how, like when you hear a good track to go with a scene, I think man of Steel when he's flying for the first time. Like it makes such a difference. And we had none of those moments.

Seth:

I'm going to see Hans Zimmer perform that next week. Hearing us by the time this podcast comes out a couple days before.

Drew:

My phone. Yeah, apparently my phone hears you say that all the time. Because every time I turn on YouTube now I get it.

Kyle:

Commercial on Zimmer.

Seth:

Oh, they're. They're pumping the out of it. I've seen it everywhere too. Even though I bought tickets already.

Kyle:

Zimmer. Barely know her. 020 to 5. It is going well for you, Mr. Weeden. How does it feel?

Seth:

You are not entertained?

Kyle:

You and Ezra Miller having drinks somewhere in Greenland?

Drew:

I like to think Amber heard singing.

Kyle:

Probably yeah. On the table.

Drew:

That's. That's the real Injustice League.

Kyle:

That's. Yeah, that's the.

Drew:

That's the.

Seth:

That is Walter Hamada in there too.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's the. What do they call the Warloot? What is it? The Mario the Dark World version. It's like that version of. Of the Justice League, which is also.

Drew:

Called the Injustice League. That was my joke.

Kyle:

This is the category I've been waiting for all day. How good are these bad guys? Huh?

Seth:

What? Bad guys?

Kyle:

Oh my God.

Seth:

Oh my God is correct. So I'm not even gonna compare him to the way he is in the Snyder cut. Just because when this came out, we didn't know.

We didn't have any conception of what he was supposed to look like. Just in this a. Why is he wearing ancient Egyptian garb? Why does he show up literally looking like a pharaoh? Apparently.

Drew:

What's the closet that he came out of?

Seth:

Like, like, what the fuck was he thinking? Like we've said he looks like a fucking ball sack that's got horns and is wearing some ancient Egyptian like dollar store costume of a pharaoh.

Drew:

Feels a little racist to whatever alien race he is, but okay. Who cares?

Seth:

Oh my God. It's so bad. Ugh. Super bad. Fuck it.

Drew:

I'll judge this based. Cause we can only look at this movie. That's the thing. Cause, like, I don't mind. I didn't mind him as a villain. Villain.

As if this was a one Justice League of three. He's like, in general, not a bad first villain, but with just what we saw of him in this.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

Without knowing the things, you know, from the other movies. Things, you know, just in general, gotta give him a super bad. Because very generic and underwhelming. Like, if the.

If you picked up this movie, you've never seen a Superman anything.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And you're just to have like. Well, this is the information I have of this guy. The Justice League just. Just didn't give us enough. It just was a bad dude up to no good.

Kyle:

Yeah, totally. Yeah. This is so super bad for me. It hits the. It hits the marker for me as hating CGI characters that are prominent on screen.

And it's just badly done. Also, you know, you may recall, but Dark Knight Rises, there was a lot of concern about Bane being the villain. They're initially like, Bane.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Like a lot of people. And I liked him in other iterations.

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

But Christopher Nolan hired the right actor and elevated that character. He changed him in a way that made him very interesting.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

That was an option here.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

If we had a. If we had someone at the helm that was worth a damn, this Steppenwolf could have. Could have been interesting.

Drew:

Yeah, that's a good point. Like, when they take these obscure villains, that's a. That is an opportunity to, like, do something noteworthy.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And Bane's the best example of that.

Seth:

Absolutely.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

First of all, Bane was a fantastic villain in Batman. He's created to be Batman's equal. Secondly, they neutered him in the Dark Knight Rises when they made Talia the mastermind behind it.

Seth:

And I disagree. But to each their own. I don't know. Like, in that universe, it made sense. But I get your complaint. I disagree.

Drew:

I feel like. I feel like I love everything about that trilogy except for that part. And it's like. It's a bit.

It's like an old baggage I have from an old breakup from years ago.

Kyle:

Are you missing all the tubes in his back and stuff? Is that what you're missing? The backpack with all of his venom stuff in it?

Drew:

That didn't bother me that much. It was that he started the movie. He was like. At first, he was like, such a bad guy, which was like.

I mean, he was originally created to be Batman's physical equal with the same intellect.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

And I liked that. I Mean, the old version of him in that Batman Forever movie or whatever was definitely that. That was. That was the worst version of him.

But this one, it switched so quickly when they made him not the main villain. And I know this isn't a. A movie review of the Dark Knight Rises, so it's okay if you edit that out, but.

Kyle:

No, it's good. No, we're. We're. It's. It's. It makes sense because we're talking about comparing to other villain universes.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And again, I keep saying this, but I'm speaking of Bane. My one gripe with every single one of these movies is I am just missing Batman villains.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

So much so that I even was so excited in the premonition to see Joker. I was like, whoa, at least Joker's here. Like, I just love those villains.

Drew:

Would have loved to see.

That is like, I would have loved to see more everything in these movies regarding the future sequence where you see, like, the post apocalyptic Justice League, or in that case, it's probably a combination of Justice League and Injustice League. But like, Jared Leto's Joker, I didn't love him in, like, Suicide Squad. I didn't.

Seth:

Which is fair because we only saw 15 minutes of the hour of scenes that he had in the original version.

Drew:

But I was intrigued by him. I wanted to see more of him. I. It was one of those. I was like, I. I feel like I probably won't like this version of the Joker, but it was different.

I don't mind different sometimes when it's unique.

Seth:

So that whole future scene stuff that was supposed to be Justice League 2, that was supposed to be the entirety of that movie was Lois dies near the beginning and the world goes into chaos. And then that's where all of those premonitions were leading to. That being the middle of the Justice League trilogy.

Drew:

That was probably the most intriguing part of the whole series to me is anytime they showed, like, the. That future stuff because, I don't know, it looks different enough.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. Well, I have a whole, whole thing dedicated to that premonition in the next episode because that was.

That was interesting for me as a non comic book person. Zero to six.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Good. This one's the one that we change our mind, Right?

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah, right, right.

Seth:

I know the Queen sweep here.

Kyle:

I'm trying to think this may be the first ever, if we do go07. I don't think that's ever happened before.

Seth:

I think shitty of Angels was because.

Drew:

I was like, we've been here before.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I think I Think a few of us voted positive on some things, but ultimately it ended up.

Drew:

This might be the first ever clean sweep.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Good lore, I mean, like you said, makes me not give a. Yeah. It makes me never care to look into anything else. Else.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

I mean, yeah. The movie ended, and I was.

When I first saw it, as much as I did enjoy it when it first came out, I didn't want to look into any of the other characters. Like, sure, Aquaman was gonna come out in a few months, but that was like, it. Like that's all I gave a shit about. But no, no, this is. It's so bad. He.

He took every possible good thing that he could have pulled out of Snyder's version and just said, fuck you.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

So no.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Super bad.

Drew:

The real question is what my answer will be for the next week on. Because I'm divided on that for right now, but for this week. No, because what little we had of everything.

I mean, you were saying as a not superhero fan, you don't want to go look into anything. I mean, these are all. There are so many captivating characters in this movie that are worth looking into.

But good Lord, if this was my first introduction to the Flash.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

There's no way I would. Again, he's one of my favorites. Like, I would have. There's no way.

Seth:

No.

Drew:

And. And you just. You just don't get enough of the other characters.

Seth:

Let's go get brunch after this, guys.

Kyle:

Yeah, let's.

Seth:

Let's go get brunch. Yeah. What the was with that joke?

Kyle:

I know. It doesn't make sense, even you saying it a lot. I'm like, I forgot that was even said.

Drew:

I was like, okay, that sounds good.

Seth:

They do the. Like that he does the race as the mid credit scene is like, if you. If I win, you're gonna get everyone brunch.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, fuck that.

Kyle:

Yeah. After you just got shat on.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

During a whole movie.

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. So super bad.

Drew:

Oh, yes. Super bad.

Kyle:

Yeah. I do too. And what sucks is, like, again, I keep going back to this. These aren't my favorite. I'm not really. These aren't my favorites.

But the thing that man of Steel and even Batman vs Superman did is like, they gave me enough to say I could keep going.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And this is interesting. There were interesting things.

Drew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And that. That at least propelled me to say I could keep going through this. This makes me want to disregard anything after.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. I'm lucky that I caught on to it years after all the happened because I At least know enough. Say I need to give Snyder cut a trilogy.

Had I been doing this in real time, I. I would have said, hell no, I'm not spending any money, any time with this series. That was this everything that I.

The few things I did love about the first two are completely gone here.

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Completely gone. Yeah. It's like, it's like I feel like Ben Affleck's not even acting. Yeah. Like, where is Batman? Where is.

Drew:

Where is it?

Kyle:

What is it?

Seth:

Because he literally wasn't.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Literally was in an alcoholic trance for the entirety of the reshoot.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like it. And he. He has said watching it, wishing that.

Drew:

Was in an alcoholic.

Seth:

I know. Yeah. Yeah. This is a bad month for me to decide to do dry January.

Kyle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Seth:

But literally he's. He's said multiple times, like, doing this is what turned him into a full blown out alcoholics.

Drew:

Well, I don't know if we can.

Seth:

Oh, no, I'm sure he was drinking plenty before that. But he said this shouldn't be.

Drew:

That, that shouldn't be any. Like, I don't know, like.

Seth:

Well, no, what I'm saying is, like, this is what made it bad. This is what went. Took it from fun drinking to drinking. Because he hates himself.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Seth:

Like, that's what happened during these reshoots.

Drew:

Side note, don't let your job become your identity where you fall into terrible places because of a bad work environment.

Seth:

Get help, people.

Kyle:

Yeah, but. But don't do movies with Joss Whedon.

Seth:

Yeah.

Drew:

Going back to what you're saying. So in the.

When we watch the Snyder movies and we'll see this again next week, you can see where he picks all the different things from comics and inspirations of the different characters and stuff like that. And then you as a viewer, you get to decide whether you like it or not.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Drew:

But you. It always starts with like, I see where he's coming from. But. Or, and you know, but with this. Because he just cut pieces of the.

The what was already there, very small pieces, and they just kind of threw his own stuff together with what seemed like no like knowledge or thought to like these characters in general. It. There was like. Whereas with Snyder, you could be like, I see what he did with the lore. And maybe I didn't like it. Maybe I liked it.

With this version, you're like, where's the Lord?

Seth:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yep. Well, zero to seven. Joss, how does it feel?

Seth:

Stuck a dick.

Kyle:

Yeah. Injustice is what it feels like. So we're gonna do the Snyder cut next week. Shares 45 minutes of footage and it has a lore all its own.

Yeah thanks to Reddit and fans.

Drew:

Yeah if it was an hour longer you would be legally obligated by Tennessee to take a 30 minute. Yeah it's God is so long. Yeah well it took three sit ins.

Seth:

Yeah for me I mean that's fair. We'll talk about it. We'll talk.

Kyle:

Yeah well but even though it's not my bag super thing I actually have enjoyed going through this so I'm excited we're going to cap it off and I would love for us to give us our like I'm not going to give a stack rank because it's so all over but last episode of the series we're going to give like just our own summary.

Drew:

Okay.

Kyle:

And thought of what happened so tune out or tune in. Thank you so much for chilling with us. Love you. I'm Kyle.

Seth:

Seth.

Drew:

I'm Drew.

Kyle:

Bye Joss.

Seth:

Movie wars it.

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

Listen for free

Show artwork for Movie Wars

About the Podcast

Movie Wars
A panel of standup comedians deliver deeply researched and thoughtful film analysis.
A panel of stand-up comedians blends humor with deep film analysis, using their unique ‘War Card’ system to grade movies across key categories. Each episode delivers thoughtful insights and spirited debate, offering a fresh, comedic take on film critique. New episode every Tuesday!
Support This Show

About your host

Profile picture for Kyle Castro

Kyle Castro