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.
As funny as it is, it's also really insightful about the problems with different scripts. George did an episode Sunday about the Snyder Cut, and it highlights some key issues with the film. For instance, each of the new characters either gets a Save the Cat vehicle-based accident or is in a vehicle-based accident themselves.
Also, Diana's Save the Cat with the Semi-Nihilists--We actually want to blow things up, but not yet--makes no sense whatsoever either as an effective form of villainy or in its resolution (Diana literally blows out the wall of the building she was supposedly trying to save).
There's another moment George highlights that I think is actually really interesting to consider. It's the scene between Lois and Martha Kent. Martha has lost her farm and moved to Metropolis. And she comes to Lois to try and help her to return to the world.
It's a lovely, quiet moment, which is part of what makes it so effective. In a film filled with costumes and punching, having two normal people just sit and have a heartfelt conversation about real things rises to the top.
But the scene ends with the reveal that Martha isn't Martha, but Martian Manhunter, a character who we've known in previous films as General Swanwick, U.S. Secretary of Defense. The scene is the first time we've met the real Martian Manhunter, which all in all is a really strange choice. The point that George rightly makes is that inserting MM here undermines the emotion and honesty of the prior scene.
But for me, what's equally strange is that while I agree that on the page this is a terrible idea, none of that translated to my actual viewing experience. The MM reveal had my eyes rolling for sure, but it didn't take away from the prior scene.
How is that contradiction possible?
In part, I wonder if it's as simple as that fact that after all superheroing we are hungry for a moment that is quiet and personal.
Also we're hungry for a moment with Lois, who after being initially so central to the Snyderverse, in some ways the emotional grounding point, has here been so absent.
And even if everything Martha says is in reality manipulative garbage concocted by MM--and rewatching it, there is a truly messed up quality to some of what he has to say--the moment that their conversation allows Lois, the space she gets to simply unwind in her grief, is absolutely real and authentic.
But maybe it's also true that because we have no sense this is a con job until it's over, there's absolutely no wink wink about it, that end reveal can't quite touch the effect of the scene. It doesn't matter, in a way; we've already felt all the feelings, ridden the ride and gotten the prize.
I wonder if there's not something to learn in that. If you take us on a journey and it's emotionally vulnerable and real, maybe you can ruin the landing without necessarily destroying what you've already given. It doesn't matter if Vegas sucks, in a way, if the road trip to get there through the desert in the middle of the night was meaningful.
Having said that, this moment is absolutely crazypants.
