zslane

This is very true. However, there were a number of changes Jackson made to the story that can't be blamed on meddling executives and/or the people controlling the money. To the extent to which the movie is a less-than-perfect adaptation, much of the blame rests squarely on Jackson's shoulders and his mistaken (IMO) belief that he was improving on Tolkien's story, using justifications like "audiences expect certain movie clichés and I felt obligated to satisfy them". Cutting out the "extra endings" would not have improved the movie IMO, though perhaps transitioning between them more smoothly might have. Nor would making the movies shorter (I've already voiced my belief that the extended editions are superior to the theatrical versions). In my view, the one thing Jackson could have--and should have--done to make those movies "more perfect" was to not stray from the original story (at least those parts of it he chose to tell).

Counts for what? There is no semblance of a DC cinematic universe, where continuity is actually a thing, to make anything "count". I know what she thinks she means, but it doesn't really make any sense given the incoherent state of affairs over there.

Canon of what? I think Patty Jenkins (to say nothing of WB execs) is delusional if she believes WB has enough of a "cinematic universe" to even make canon a relevant notion.

I happen to be in the camp that feels the extended versions of all three LotR movies were improvements over the theatrical releases. Sometimes longer is better. However, due to their excessive running time, I don't think I would have wanted to sit and watch them in a theater. Originally Snyder intended to release this new version of JL as six ~45min episodes, not unlike what we're getting with Falcon and The Winter Soldier. But I guess that didn't fly with the suits at WB and so it was "trimmed down" to a single ~4hr movie. Given the chapter structure of the narrative, I think the six episode format could have worked very nicely, but WB wanted to release it all at once and then move on with other things (like Godzilla vs. Kong) and not have JL contending with newer content for people's attention for six weeks. Add to that the rather perfunctory manner in which Ann Sarnoff drove a proverbial stake in the heart of the prospect of continuing the "Snyderverse" in some form (even if only on HBO Max) and you can clearly see just how little ATT/WB wanted to continue breathing life into this mess.

The Guardians are a team of heroes, yes, but the Avengers are a dream team of superheroes (to borrow a sports analogy). That puts them both in very different categories, commercially speaking. You can release team movies without introducing each of the heroes in their own solo movies first, but you also can't expect the results to be cinematic events like the Avengers movies have been. For that you have to create commercially viable franchise movies for each of the "big name" heroes first, and then bring them together as a "dream team" later. That's how you build a cinematic empire rather than just a collection of hit-and-miss movies that are only loosely connected.

Given a complete lack of a Kevin Feige-equivalent in house and their unwillingness to lay the necessary groundwork for a shared cinematic universe, WB was wise to give up on trying to replicate Marvel's success. Unfortunately, they are incapable of putting together an alternate plan that yields consistent success. Every decision they make is countermanded by a new decision one or two years later. There is no continuity of creative leadership at WB/DC, and it shows. Having to answer to a corporate overlord that knows nothing about making a business out of an intrinsically artistic discipline hasn't helped much either.

Isn't it a bit difficult to experience nostalgia for something that bears no resemblance to the beloved thing from the past? Today's Harley Quinn incarnations share little with Dini's original character concept aside from her name and backstory. She went from being a cute, bubbly sidekick to the poster child for domestic abuse to a psychotic ninja turtle. And somewhere along the way, between the video games and the Ayre movie, she became spank bank material for teenage boys. How she ever became a positive symbol for Grrrl Power after all that I'll never understand. Quite true. In the case of his Watchmen movie, however, Snyder believed he was deconstructing superhero movies rather than superhero comics. He could reasonably assume that superhero movie audiences would grasp what he was doing. Extending that creative direction to his Superman and JL movies was perhaps too much of an ask, but he probably believed that he had a fan base that "got" him and would appreciate another deconstructionist journey.

There's this idea floating around that what little attention Gunn's movie is able to grab is because of Harley Quinn. If so, why is that? I mean, why is this character popular with mainstream audiences? And who exactly is Harley Quinn's primary demographic these days? I have a theory about why she is popular, but it isn't a theory that the fourth wave feminists who have adopted her as their spirit animal would want to hear.

I can almost guarantee you that Feige will not bother with any characters that appeared in Agents of Shield who didn't appear in one of his MCU movies first (ala Phil Coulson and Peggy Carter). They have the taint of "ruined by Jeff Loeb" on them. Besides, Feige doesn't need any of those characters. He has the entire stockpile of characters from the Marvel vault at his disposal, and he knows he can pretty much make any of them interesting/popular if he puts the effort in.

I believe an IMAX presentation is/was planned for it. That's why Snyder built in an intermission point after chapter 4.

Nor does Wakanda have anything to do with any real-world tribal tradition (nor is it a real-world African nation). But it would be a very bad idea to give some western European white dude the mantle of Black Panther just the same.

I suppose Feige is waiting to introduce the FF before giving us Galactus? I mean, Kang is fine and all, but as big bads go he's no Galactus. Just sayin'.

It might be if you're fan of fidelity to the comics. But it might also meet with a bit of controversy given the current social climate. The character is a white European dude who is given Middle Eastern magic artifacts and trained by a Middle Eastern god in the ways of Middle Eastern sorcery. Or some variation thereof, where the one constant is a white European dude wielding powers belonging to Middle Eastern culture.

A quality he shares with Zach Snyder. I'd say WB has a "type". Spoken like a true MMORPG tank. I'm curious when (what year was it?) Supes said that.

J.J. Abrams is heading up that project, and it is being developed as a series of solo movies, like the Zatana movie. I imagine that if those movies do well WB will greenlight a team movie at some point in the future.

It's a shame Amazon Prime didn't see it that way when they were pitched The Boys. Of course, I'm sure they feel mighty proud of themselves given how successful the show has been in connecting with viewers who have as much contempt for superheroes as Garth Ennis does.

I think it is a bit disingenuous for people to call the theatrical version of the movie "Joss-tice League", as if Whedon was the visionary mastermind behind what we got. The real culprits were WB execs who couldn't keep their meddling fingers out of the pie, even when Snyder was in charge. Whedon was merely the knife with which they butchered what Snyder had begun. Geoff Johns gleefully engineered Snyder's removal and convinced Whedon to take the reins for a nice, fat paycheck. Whedon was never going to have the time or resources to make what anyone would truly call "his Justice League". His greatest failure, in my view, was in agreeing to the job in the first place, and putting himself in a position to take all the blame for what ended up on screen. The fact that the "Snyder Cut" is, by many accounts, merely different--but not necessarily better--is testament to the fact that the movie was flawed at its foundations, and that no amount of re-working was ever going to save it and make it great. It seems to me that any glowing praise for it is coming primarily from DC fanboys who are desperate for a win here. I would not be surprised if the Snyder Cut fades from memory and is forgotten in a few years as WB moves on to the next series of disconnected movies of inconsistent quality.

Think of this new Justice League movie as two connected movies, like Infinity War and Endgame, rather than as one long four hour movie. Snyder even created space between two of the chapters for an intermission where you could split the viewing experience cleanly in two if you wanted to.

This is correct. "Cut" is just a synonym for "edit" (or "version"). There's the "working cut", the "first cut," the "final cut," the "studio cut," the "broadcast cut," the "director's cut," etc. It's just industry jargon for a particular edit (i.e., version) of a film or tv episode.

Not quite a fair comparison. The Earth's Mightiest Heroes Wasp was Janet. The MCU Wasp is Hope. All of the MCU's female superheroes are basically avatars of Fourth Wave Feminism, while Janet gets to be a retired superhero without any socio-political baggage.

For me, the best thing to emerge from Savage Worlds is their Plot Point Campaign architecture for campaigns and adventures. On the other hand, Savage Worlds is less crunchy (less of a superhero comic book simulation) and more "narrative" in style than Champions, and so it is much harder to calibrate the antagonists to the PCs, which leads to a lot more GM fudging during play than I am comfortable with.

Since this "parliament" ultimately answers to Feige, I think the MCU is in pretty safe hands.

Indeed. Hollywood writers are not known for their math or logic skills.

I don't think any Far From Home in-universe characters were shown undertaking such an analysis. Why is this relevant?

Okay, yeah, according to the Spider-Man: Far From Home writers, the Snap affected "All life forms. Even down to the bacteria in your digestive system." Of course, there are profound consequences of that which the writers chose to ignore because they didn't want to "get bogged down in the nitty-gritty". Hooray. Put another check in the "win" column for Lazy Writing.