RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 7, "JUSTICE LEAGUE": HOW TO SELL A DYSTOPIA

This week I'm looking at some of the techniques Chris Terrio, Will Beall and Zack Snyder use in the new "Snyder Cut" of JUSTICE LEAGUE.   

At the end of JUSTICE LEAGUE, the film suddenly leaps to some point in the future in which Darkseid has in fact finally arrived on Earth and basically destroyed it, with the help of his very own Robin, Kal El. This timeline gets alluded to a number of times in both JUSTICE LEAGUE and BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN. Bruce keeps having these crazy "Knightmares" about it and at the end it seems to have finally arrived. 

And what I find striking is that after a four hour movie and also a trilogy that struggles a considerable portion of the time to tell a story that is not overwhelmed by its own despair, here at the end when confronted with a universe that seemed borne of an even deeper despair realized -- Lois is dead; Harley is dead; who knows what happened to Arthur or Diana; oh and Clark is a mindless killing machine -- I found myself all in. 

To me, that Snyder could generate that reaction is an amazing magic trick.  And I want to know how he did it. 

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Let's breakdown that scene. It has three main parts: 

1. We introduce most of our team and our problem: Get to shelter before Superman comes to kill us. 

In a way this opening is a Jump Right to the Good Stuff version of what makes every super hero movie initially exciting--revealing the team. And in this case we add to the sweetness of that with all kinds of fun little reveals.  Alongside Batman and Cyborg we have not Diana or Arthur but villain Mohawk-Stroke and a very pissed off Mera, who alludes to bad things having happened to Arthur. Also, we've got Barry, but one with seemingly a lot less joy and a lot more years on the meter.  

The make up of the team begs all kinds of new questions and promises all-new relationships to watch develop. Mera especially immediately presents as a bad ass with fresh energy.  I want more.

2. Question: Who has Bruce Ever Loved? 

This line from Mera could have been just a thrown elbow on the way to trying to find shelter in their Terrible No Good Bad Day Universe. But instead it brings on the heart of the scene, which is Batman dealing with his history and the last member of the team, the Joker. 

The Joker reveal is of course a huge charge for the scene and the promise of this future. In large part the delight of it is just watching Bruce forced to interact with him. Again, who doesn't want more of that? 

Their interaction also sets up what is effectively the C-conflict of the Knightmare movie: How long will Bruce keep the truce that the Joker offers? The writers even give us the totem of the playing card and the ritual of tearing it up to embody the ticking clock on this peace.

But the thing I most love about that moment is the way that it draws into the story the key element of Bruce's story that has yet to be explored: the brutal death of Robin. BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN introduced the idea, but then neither of film dug into it. And yet it's this enormous part of his back story and also one would think his ongoing decision making.

Bringing it up here both serves as a promise that finally we're going to dig into this cool and dark part of Bruce's life, and as a kind of fulfillment on the promise of its mention in BvS. "We've haven't forgottten," the writers are telling us. "We've been waiting. And now finally we get to go there." 

3. "He's here." (And not in a good way.)

I said Batman vs. Joker is the C-Conflict of the Knightmareverse. The A-Conflict, aka the central quest of this timeline, is to pull an ENDGAME. We see references to it woven throughout the scene. To paraphrase a very famous 2000s-era TV tagline, "Save the journalist, save the world."

It's immediately interesting because How exactly do you do that? Fun questions, high degree of difficulty, Survey Says Count Us In. The scene doesn't need to do anything mroe than reference that impossible goal to create that hook. (And the fact that saving the universe is embodied in saving Lois also resonates deeply. Amy Adams's Lois is everything.)

Meanwhile, the scene began with the ticking clock of Bad Clark, who I'd call the B-Conflict of that universe. Surviving Clark looks to be the constant, ongoing threat and obstacle of their quest and their life in this terrible future. 

And so having set him up as the danger at the beginning, we end on him showing up. It's both a book end telling us the scene is over, and yet also constitutes a beginning. We literally leave the scene as it's effectively starting. Which is another great way to tease interest. 

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So, Ways to Make Me Desperately Want your Sequel Dystopia: Give me a team roster. Have some twists in it. Reference an impossible quest. Bring to the surface a relationship and story that we've been waiting to see. And end on a beginning (of a seemingly impossible fight).  

One other thought: Have the world we're entering into look totally different than anything we've seen before. Where much of the Snyderverse is dark, rainy and/or claustrophobic the Knightmareverse has a desert wideopen-ness to it that feels entirely fresh. Even if it is a wasteland, the fact that it's so open and the palette is so different draw me in.  

Wow, that's a lot of writing on the Snyderverse!

Next week I'm going to dig into the start of FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN WINTER SOLDIER and some other TV stuff. Then the week after we'll jump into some Oscar nominees.