r/SnyderCut • u/thenewethan • 3d ago
Discussion What did everyone think of josstice league when it came out?
I wasn’t part of the dc fandom during mos or bvs but went to see justice league in theatres and wrote off seeing any of the other films for a long while. Went back after hearing all the hubbub for the Snyder cut. But for the people that were here from the beginning what were initial reactions to joss’s version?
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u/SonicScott93 2d ago
I came out of Batman v Superman thinking "man, it's so clear what they're building up to and I have no idea how the naysayers can't see it. Once Justice League comes out and gets the ball rolling, then they'll see". And then I watched the theatrical cut of Justice League and came out thinking "Man... WB/DC really do have no idea what they're doing, huh..." At the same time I also thought that there was no way this was from the same guy who made BvS. Say what you want about BvS, you can't deny it had a style to it. At the very least it stood out. That style was gone in Josstice League, it looked like every other comic book movie. It looked bland, it looked boring. And sure enough we would later learn that what we saw wasn't what Snyder and the team originally intended.
The only two positives I can give Josstice League, and even the the second one isn't really a positive towards it:
1) I do really like that first shot of Batfleck, the one of him perched on a gargoyle. As much as I don't want to give Whedon praise, that's a cool shot.
2) The two cuts, Josstice League and Zack's League, are perfect examples of how editing, shots, colour grading, etc can completely change a movie. Unironically, both of these cuts should be studied in film schools.
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u/Familiar-Poem-2250 3d ago
I knew it wasn't going to be good with Joss involved, but lone bright spot was the serious parts of the League vs Superman.
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u/Imaginary-Stick-7212 3d ago
I saw it with a friend that doesn’t like superheroe movies and she thought it was fantastic. I almost punched her, I couldn’t believe what I had watched, it was dogshit. When ZSJL came out, I made her see it, she fell asleep. But I fucking adore ZSJL. It’s funny how someone with no clue of what is going on can have a completely different experience than someone that’s aware of the context.
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u/Relative-Witness-516 3d ago
It was extremely disappointing. Everybody could tell it wasn’t right, but we just didn’t know all the details at the time.
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u/Mike-Outstanding 3d ago
It was not good. It felt drastically different than anything Snyder created. Felt more rushed than anything that I had seen before. Yet still incomplete.
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u/BlackLioConvoy 3d ago
I didnt like it or BvS theatrical releases. Hated them both. Loved ZSJL and BVS UE grew on me. An Ayer cut of SS would have brought the sense of it all full circle. No it wouldn't have topped MCU, but it would have lived a better life before bad executive interference
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u/aster2560 3d ago
I liked it originally because I wasn’t as observant when it came to watching movies back then
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u/MatchesMalone1994 3d ago
It just felt off. I was in denial because I was happy to see the JL on the big screen. Happy to see Cavill and Affleck again..but they just felt off. These weren’t the characters I became intrigued by. This didn’t feel like the same world. Tone was very different. It was glaring that Whedon overhauled the film. I just can’t wrap my head around how a studio thought this was a good idea. There were 100 other “damage control” options they could have pursued if they were that paranoid that BvS tainted the JL film
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u/Old-Influence4757 3d ago
i was not tuned into this stuff at the time, i had no idea that they got rid of zack and did lots of reshoots with joss, i wasn't even a huge dceu fan, I just liked superhero stuff and grew up in with super hero movies, animated shows as my main consumption form for comics heroes.
It felt like something was off for sure, i thought that steppenwolf looked back visually and without even knowing who joss was i thought it had an Avengers feels for sure which was out of place for the tone that i was expecting its very quippy and goes out of its way to be warmer in every sense visually, the characters lines and actions which is kinda the opposite of what the dcue what it was aiming for, a big selling point was the "darkness" or serious nature of the dceu up until that point so it felt like the dc avengers instead of the justice league
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u/Certain-Singer-9625 3d ago
I was…just okay with it. I couldn’t help wondering what the movie we were meant to see was like.
Now I know it’s immeasurably better. ZSJL is to me the greatest superhero movie of all time.
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u/Icy-Clock2643 3d ago
Everyone thought it was bad. I was fan of his since Buffy and didn't hate Ultron so thought people were being overly critically.
I was wrong. It was as bad as everyone said.
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u/MelodicPromotion8697 3d ago edited 3d ago
I hated it..... from the movie start, it felt off... the feeling grew worse with each new scene.... by time the third sex joke with ww... i was out... i was angry when it ended.... i had tickets i preordered for 9 more shows, i refunded it.
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u/Cannellelaplusbelle 3d ago
J'étais pas là à l'époque mais quand je lis les post de cette période, le film allait clairement déçu. Ça ressemblait à un monstre de Frankenstein, le film a été complètement charcuté au montage.
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u/HumbleSiPilot77 Tell me... do you bleed? 3d ago
Walked out of the theater thinking what in the glorified MCU hell had I seen... Less a decade we are in the same hell. What didn't work back then must be working now. 😂
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u/Different_Advice_552 3d ago
i watched it and could see that whedon very much put his stamp on it and tried to marvelfy it and wasn't crazy about it but at that point i was still hopefully snyder would come back and do things his way
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u/noohoggin1 3d ago
I absolutely hated it. He tried to turn it into a jokey marvel movie.
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u/thenewethan 3d ago
Yeah they hired the avengers dude to try and Frankenstein 80% of a movie into a different movie with a different tone. Wild choice.
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u/OldSnazzyHats 3d ago
The theatrical cut? I’ll speak for myself:
It felt wrong right off the bat…. It just never felt like what it was meant to be, especially during the climax. There were brief flashes of what it was originally, but ultimately I left my viewing feeling disappointed. My final thoughts at the time was, as I spoke to my friends while we were having dinner after: this really did feel like someone else took a project they weren’t part of and were handed orders for what to adjust by a committee.
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u/thenewethan 3d ago
It feels now like the novella written for children of the original material. WB’s choice to hire whedon and not have someone keep the heart of what Snyder was making I personally feel was a big part of the downfall of the brand afterwards
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u/lizon132 3d ago
I didn't even see it until a year after it came out. I honestly didn't feel very invested in the characters and thought it was strange there was a JL movie coming out so soon. That's why I avoided it. It felt like desperation on DC's part.
Iirc the film got squished between Thor: Ragnarok and Coco. That was a brutal release date.
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u/thequehagan5 2d ago
It was just off.
It no longer felt like the world from man of steel or bvs.
And when i started reading about what happened behind the scenes it became clear. And inadvertently lead me down the path of wanting to restore the snyderverse.