#the lack of logic makes this saga underwhelming

[polskasroka]

EPIC thoughts after The Vengeance Saga aka my problems with how logic gets shattered in this saga

600 Strike depicts Odysseus as Athena wanted him to be at the very start. She wanted him to kill the cyclops, and he didn't do it because of his hubris and alleged mercy. Now he has no mercy.

Thereby, Athena's character arc stops making sense in regards to what is presented in The Venegance Saga. She's found the power of friendship with Telemachus, abandoning the "I'm not looking for a friend" mentality that led her in her anger. She uses said power of friendship and, in fact, asks Zeus for mercy for Odysseus. To win his game, she used her own wit and wisdom, the Goddess of Wisdom she is. However, "you rely on wit" stops being applicable to Odysseus. The wit, the trait he's best-known for, his most trusted weapon, is no longer of use against Poseidon. It's ruthlessness. It's the lack of mercy towards the other that he uses when arguments fail him. Poseidon has literally taught Odysseus a more important lesson than Athena.

And put your whole brain in it Remember every trick in your domain for this Odysseus' domain is mind, his wit. While he uses that with avoiding Charybdis, he doesn't do so during the confrontation with Poseidon. You'll need a mindset change for this I suppose he did change his mindset, as he says, I'm gonna use ruthlessness Every trick, every skill put to use for this I plan to put an end to all the foolishness I have to get home, put it all on the line I'll be dangerous

The second wind bag ex machina. One with Poseidon's storm. One that he gets defeated with. What. Then, Odysseus uses his trident against him. What x2. Why doesn't he defend himself? Why won't he try to fight back? Why would an immortal beg a mortal for mercy?

Also, it's said that Odysseus opened the wind bag to beat Poseidon. And then it's 600 Strike. So like. Odysseus has beaten him with the storm or with the power of his lost comraders OR both? Or am I not getting something?

OOC Poseidon asking Odysseus how he's gonna sleep at night. I'd rather expect Poseidon to laugh and tell Odysseus that he's finally learnt his lesson.

You can't tell me that Poseidon, being the pettiest bitch out there (love him for that), would NOT drown Ithaca after what Odysseus did to him. He'd damn make him watch and get in that damn water. He would get his revenge.

I generally think that what killed the logic was abandoning the source material too much, a problem that many modern media have. See, Charybdis being in the Vengeance saga fits well, it's just in the different part of Odysseus' journey. But there's no Odysseus beating up Poseidon's ass in The Odyssey. The Phaecians would've worked so well instead of the ordeal with Poseidon in The Vengeance Saga.

Also some nitpicking: 'Cause no mortal can pass Poseidon's storm Does this mean that whenever there's a storm at the sea, literally no ships can pass? It's not that every storm is inpenetrable. And if those inpenetrable ones are caused by Poseidon, who causes the penetrable ones?

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[wehavethoughts]

Zack Snyder's Justice League Review!

Zack Snyder's Justice League dir. Zack Snyder (2021) Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, Atlas Entertainment and The Stone Quarry Science Fiction, Action, Superhero Movie

Rating: 3.5 Waves

Summary: Tormented by visions of a dark future, Bruce Wayne aka The Batman attempts to gather a team of superheroes to defend the planet. When alien tyrant Steppenwolf arrives on Earth seeking a long forgotten technology, this group of heroes must do everything in their power to keep him from locating all three Mother Boxes and destroying the world.

Content warnings: Violence, Death, Body Horror, Gore

This review DOES NOT contain spoilers for Zack Snyder's Justice League

A bit of background for those of you thinking “Didn’t Justice League come out years ago?” You are exactly right! Justice League was released in theaters in 2017 and is the fifth movie in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). The same company that produced Justice League then funded Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which is a different version of the story that was released in 2017. Zack Snyder was actually the original director of Justice League (2017), but he stepped away from the project during post production and the film was handed over to director Joss Whedon. Whedon’s creative decisions led to rewrites, heavy editing and a notorious reshoot that required removal of Henry Cavill’s mustache via CGI. Therefore, Justice League as it premiered in theaters in 2017 was Joss Whedon’s vision of the story. As some of you might remember, Justice League (2017) was considered a “flop” as it lost the studio ~$60 million overall and was received by fans with mixed to negative reviews (6.2/10 IMDB, 40% Rotten Tomatoes). But since Zack Snyder had left so late in the project, there were rumors that his version of the film had been nearly finished and there was hope that the movie Snyder filmed was actually better than what Whedon had created. Fans took to social media to demand that Warner Bros release the “Snyder Cut'' of Justice League and in a move I personally find baffling, Warner Bros actually gave Zack Snyder another $70 million to finish his version. Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which was released on HBO Max is the final product.

While understanding the context of how this movie came about is neat and honestly pretty hilarious, I never got around to see Justice League (2017) so I cannot give any commentary on whether this new film is any better. For those who are curious, my fiancée who has seen both says that the movies are extremely similar in plot, but there are significant changes to characterization and pacing. This review will solely be on the merits and shortfalls of Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) in a spoiler free context since the movie was released just over a week ago (if you want to talk spoilers DM me I have So Many Thoughts).

Honestly, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. My expectations were quite low considering what I heard about the original 2017 version and the fact that I’m more of a Marvel fan. The most surprising thing for me was that I sat through the entire 4 hr and 2 min runtime (for reference the runtime for Justice League (2017) is 2 hrs). Aside from Lord of the Rings (Return of the King runtime 4 hr 11min), I usually don’t indulge in movies that require me to block off an entire day, but I was curious and I love bandwagons.

The highlight of this movie are the characters. Each of our main characters had a deep, solid backstory that drew me in and made me invested in what was happening in this world. One thing lacking in a lot of ensemble superhero movies is balanced screen time between the main cast, but Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) uses its time wisely to give each character depth and critical purpose in the narrative. Even the villain had compelling motivation as to why he is on earth doing dastardly deeds, and while I wasn’t rooting for him, I respected his motivations. I also appreciated that the writers of this movie made the characters intelligent. Sure, some decisions were driven more by emotion than logic, but the way defenses are set up and how our heroes use their unique powers left me incredibly impressed.

The characters’ interactions with each other was also very enjoyable. Snyder took the time to include scenes centered around the team chilling with each other in ways that were refreshingly low stakes and mundane. The story was interspersed with scenes like Wonder Woman and Alfred making tea, Aquaman and Wonder Woman musing over cultural differences, and Cyborg and Flash digging up a body where you could really see the characters grow from strangers to teammates to friends. These scenes also peppered in some light humor that kept the movie from becoming too dark without distracting from the tone.

Since Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is technically an action movie and it is rated R, I feel like I should touch on the action sequences. Overall, the action was incredibly fun to watch! It was made for the big screen so watching the epic battles for the first time on my TV at home was a bit underwhelming, but the well choreographed, high stakes fights were still visually pleasing. For a rated R movie there was not as much gore as there could have been, which I appreciated and the level of violence was pretty much what I expected from a comic book movie.

The action scenes also do a fantastic job with power escalation. By that I mean the action illustrates the limits of one character’s power clearly in relation to other characters’ powers. This way you are aware of exactly how impressive the characters and their powers are on their own and so when someone or something stronger shows up we have context for how big of a threat we are dealing with. The clean way the story shows us everyone’s respective powers and their limits makes it so the stakes feel more tangible and it's not just unfathomably strong characters beating the shit out of each other with the winner decided by chance.

There are a few reasons the movie didn’t get a full five waves from me. First was that the Amazon’s outfits were very clearly made by horny men based on how much skin they were showing. I, a bisexual, personally love to see superheroes in less then full coverage, but when the Amazon warriors have their entire stomachs and cleavage out of their armor for no reason it exhausts me. What happened to the tasteful and stylish armor from Wonder Woman (2017)? This feels like a step in the wrong direction.

The next concern I have that has kept me from recommending this movie to people is the overall pacing and length. While there were some great uses of the extended run time like the action sequences and team bonding I mention above, there were so many scenes that were way too slow for me to stay engaged. I found myself editing the movie in my head, like did we really need 2 full minutes of Bruce Wayne and his horse climbing a dreary mountain? I don’t think so. This was a narrative where I needed to pay attention lest I miss critical pieces of the story, but the random scenes that dragged on too long had me going to get snacks and checking my phone throughout. If I could rate the movie by halves the first half would get 2.5 Waves because of how it dragged and the second half would get closer to 4.5 Waves since the story really picks up and fun things start to happen.

The final part of this movie that kept it from getting a higher rating was how closely it was tied to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In fact, the first scene of Zack Snyder's Justice League is the final scene of Batman v Superman. There were many plot critical tie-ins to previous movies that left me feeling confused until I googled my questions during the slow scenes. If you have never seen Batman v Superman or Man of Steel then you will miss a lot of this movie, which I thought was unfair because other DCEU movies came out before the first iteration of Justice League like Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad and while events in those movies are mentioned in passing they are not nearly as important as the Batman and Superman-centric films. If the DCEU is going to pick favorites, the least it can do is pick movies I actually like (Wonder Woman (2017) remains my favorite DCEU movie to date). In general, superhero movies seem to be trending toward sagas and I prefer movies that you can just watch and enjoy without needing to see a bunch of other movies first.

Overall, I did very much enjoy this movie, but based on the run time alone it is not going to be for everyone. Measuring movie success during the pandemic is trickier than looking at box office numbers and labeling it a success or a flop, but it does appear that Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is doing well as far as critical reception and viewership. I hope that this success will allow the DCEU to explore all of the fun nooks and crannies of the universe Snyder pulled together. In fact, half of the epilogue of this movie felt like set up for future movies. I hope they come to fruition because there were some pretty compelling teasers at the end that I would love to see played out on the big screen.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never seen the original cut of Justice League, but Snyder’s version left me fulfilled and satisfied with the narrative, so I am happy to have seen this newest cut first. This is a movie for people who love DC, love superhero movies or are just really invested in the hype.

~TideMod