Zack Snyder's Justice League

Batutta

Batutta

Major Contributor
The Joss Whedon movie was a giant turd. Incohesive, truncated and uneven in tone. This has a more cohesive tone and storytelling but I was bored and didn't finish it. It's four hours long but that's probably because every third shot is in slow-motion. I'm just not a fan of Snyder. The only film of his I like is 300 because it pushed the artificiality of his style to an extreme, and the historical event and comic book it's based on is interesting. His superhero stuff is like a soft peddled version of the 300 style but ends up kind of ugly, joyless and overstuffed with weightless, whiz bang CGI camera movement. The plot here is also the boilerplate 'get the world ending mystical thingies before the bad guy does' that was stale several Marvel movies ago. And why on earth DC changed the villain from this character, to the one in Joss Whedon's movie is kind of bewildering as they are basically the same in look and motive.
 
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Batutta said:
His superhero stuff is like a soft peddled version of the 300 style but ends up kind of ugly, joyless and overstuffed with weightless, whiz bang CGI camera movement. The plot here is also the boilerplate 'get the world ending mystical thingies before the bad guy does' that was stale several Marvel movies ago.
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This is one of the biggest reasons I'm not that interested in superhero movies.

But to be fair, I love Ghostbusters, which also has a save-the-world-from-evil-forces plot. But it's all the twists and turns and character development along the way that makes it fun.

My feeling is that superhero movies are constantly "cutting to the chase" and sort of drowning in their own action sequences. The original Ghostbusters only had two fight scenes: capturing Slimer in the hotel, and the showdown with Gozer at the end. As I recall, the sequel put much more emphasis on action and SFX and was much the worse for it.

Or in A New Hope - the wonderful part of escaping the Death Star was not the shooting and flashing lights and explosions, it was the sneaking around, hiding in their own ship, sliding into a garbage compactor, etc. All the plot devices and dialogue that happened around the fight scenes, which were comparatively brief.
 
Ghostbusters was made nearly 40 years ago though. At this point, for a superhero movie to resort to that plot device is just lazy, tiresome and unimaginative. CGI is what's ruining action sequences more than anything, especially in superhero films. Ruins any genuine suspense when the actors are fighting CGI phantoms, and their actions and camera movement is untethered to any solid reality. Action films used to be thrilling when there seemed to be some element of risk involved for the actors and stuntmen. That's why you gotta give it up to Nolan for at least insisting on doing things for real, whenever possible. Harrison Ford said the problem with CGI now is that it often puts scenes at a scale that the human mind can't process, so it ceases to be suspenseful or engaging, and that you're better off doing a scene with one very scary ant, than a thousand digital ants (which I guess is a slam on Crystal Skull). But once you give a filmmaker the power of CGI, where he can do anything, too many director's abuse it like a teenager that just discovered masturbation.
 
I largely agree, but is that timescale correct? Haven't saving-the-world stories been around for a really long time? Like, even in the comic books themselves? Isn't the difference now not that the basic storyline is old but that the rest of the storytelling besides action is neglected?

And isn't the criticism you have of CGI more broadly that it fails to convince you? Like, if you were looking at it and thought it was real and didn't think, "Oh, that's CGI," then it might be more impactful? All the stunts and effects in the past were fake but maybe did a better job of convincing us?

I'm trying to think of counterexamples of good CGI. I remember really liking the first Mummy with Brendan Frasier, which surely had some CGI much less developed than we have today. But it was funny and fun.

And for sure, I love the aesthetic of the little model spaceships in the original Star Wars with real physical texture and I had never questioned why they flew in perfect parallel or anything. But looking at what CGI can do for space battles in the newest Star Trek series, I'm all for the CGI:

 
Yes, Snyder's style is pretty artificial to begin with, and the way he uses CGI and abuses the freely moving camera makes it even more fake. It's basically a cartoon. Like anything it's in the way that you use it, and too many filmmakers abuse it. If the storytelling is good enough this shouldn't matter. The Lord of the Rings movies are a good example, although even there, the difference in verisimilitude between the LOTR movies, where they shot in real locations, and used a combination of models, sets and CGI, to the Hobbit movies, which were mostly green screen stages with CGI characters, is a good illustration of the perils of CGI filmmaking and how a good filmmaker can be spoiled by the tools. Space battles, you aren't dealing with human characters interacting so it's a different animal.
 
Agreed - it's about how you use and/or abuse it. 300 worked because it was a fun cartoon, it was campy in a way that worked. Space battles have a different set of concerns (although I remember thinking the spaceships in the star wars prequels looked too smooth and shiny).

I wasn't a huge LOTR fan, although I see the appeal. But I don't think the CGI in the Hobbit is necessarily what holds it back. For example, in the barrel fight sequence, I find the general situation compelling even though I have a very hard time maintaining sense of direction and orientation (until they're floating down the river, at which point it becomes easy). Generally, knowing what is happening where is very important to me. But I think the scene works in spite of the fake-ness of some of the motion and compositing. But this clip loses my interest at about 2:50 because it just kind of goes on too long and starts going over the top. This could have worked for me if it had been wrapped up more tastefully. I have a relatively long attention span, but not for repetitive action.

 
Meh, I hated the barrel scene and to me it's a perfect example of the type of CGI enhanced action I hate, with the camera and people flying about in unnatural ways. I checked out about thirty seconds into the scene. The whole series is like that. The over-embellished expansion of a simple story didn't help either.
 
Clearly, they were milking a cash cow by turning the Hobbit into a trilogy. It could probably have been done tastefully when you consider how much more plot is in even a short novel relative to a feature film. But I only saw the first movie in full, so I can't really comment.

I agree the camera is flying around in a dizzying manner in the barrel scene. But here's an example from Beowulf where they take advantage of flying around a virtual camera and I think it works well. I still have a clear sense of orientation of action and I feel like the scene is dynamic rather than repetitive. The lighting is great, too. Granted, it's an animated film and not CGI incorporated into live-action.

But basically, I feel like using CGI well comes down to having good taste, a strong understanding of traditional film language, and a bit of self-restraint.


And here's a scene that probably wouldn't have been shot any differently if it were live-action, illustrating the filmmaker's restraint as well as cultivation of dialogue and drama.


It's definitely in the creepy valley, but that doesn't mean I can't get into it. Recognizing the actors helps.
 
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Beowulf though is completely CGI. It is a cartoon and I'm not expected to believe it's real. For me it's the disconnect when I see REAL people moving in ways and doing things that are unnatural and unmoored from physical reality, with the added lunacy of the camera swirling all over the place, in a movie that is purportedly live action. A great use of CGI in a live action movie to me is something like District 9, where the CGI blends in seamlessly and the camera technique remains grounded, which helps sell the reality of what's happening.
 
I basically agree with you about CGI. But, for the sake of arguing, I think that Gravity was both an amazing movie and a pretty convincing CGI environment:


I think they did a good job in Rogue One recreating a CGI Tarkin, although it doesn't look quite as human as the real person:


And here's a cool shot from the recent Trek that is mostly spaceshippy but also integrates with people walking around, plus there are surely many fake elements of the set they're on:

 
I was never arguing that CGI is inherently bad, only that some filmmakers abuse it in ways that pull me out of the reality of the film. They still haven't traversed the uncanny valley with human characters. Rogue One would have been better off casting an actor, and same with The Mandalorian (won't spoil the end of season two if you haven't watched it yet). Maybe they'll get there. I've seen stills of synthetic humans that are thoroughly convincing so I'm sure they will. I think it mostly has to do with recreating human movement correctly, which is part of my original complaint. CGI characters and stunt doubles move in ways that still look subtly false to the human eye and that breaks suspension of disbelief, adding an impossibly dynamic camera compounds that. I don't know enough about where CGI animation is at this point and I'm guessing but it might have something to do with still using keyframes and interpolating the movement in between that causes an unnatural fluidity.
 
Yeah, I have no idea why CGI movement looks fake. But as humans, we are certainly hyper-attuned to the movement and expression of other humans, and that will be the last thing to fool us. I looked at a compilation of the most convincing CGI in movies on youtube, and they were all cases of using real footage and compositing it into the frame, either in the background or to replace a stunt man's face with the real actor. I think the problem really arises when you're creating something new out of whole cloth.

The basic issue with overuse/abuse of CGI just comes down to good taste IMO. Directors can abuse any technique or device - guns/shooting, swearing, fast cutting... But CGI certainly creates a massive opportunity and temptation to go overboard.

The larger issue with how superhero movies are made, IMO, has a lot to do with the audience and having a director who thinks like that audience. They're primarily children's films, or at least have to be accessible to children. So does the Star Trek I watch, but I think that the way people watch movies has evolved.

An acquaintance of mine is a huge MCU fan and every time I'm at his house, he has a superhero movie playing in the background. Every now and then, he'll interrupt our conversation to point out some action that's taking place. And of course, he's texting all the while. Sometimes, he'll be playing video games on a separate TV simultaneously. So, in that context, I think that a 4-hour hyperbolic Justice League makes perfect sense. If it's just kind of background music anyway, it benefits from being super-long and hyperactive. It's only going to occasionally get your attention, anyway. And if people are texting while they're driving, you can believe that they're doing it in movie theaters as well. I bet there are few viewers in the target audience who see every frame of the film.

And lastly, these movies seem to succeed financially more on the basis of what's advertised within than the actual viewing experience. Like JJ Abrams' star wars reboot - he gave audiences what they THOUGHT they wanted, bringing back Han and the Millennium Falcon, etc. But I think he twisted the story in a knot trying to fit all that in and set it at the appropriate time for how much Ford/Fisher had aged instead of giving himself a blank slate to continue the story however he saw fit. And the same with superhero movies - you can advertise the stars included, the characters featured, the battles represented, whatever exciting plot points happen. That's how you sell tickets/subscriptions, and the only tentpole productions that really need to succeed on a narrative level are original stories.
 
CGI works best when it is grounded by real objects / people in the camera.

Regarding the Snyder Cut... I watched it Thursday night and I enjoyed it a lot, though it has all of the same fundamental structural problems as the Theatrical Cut with some major improvements (better villains, more Flash personality, more Cyborg personality... though he is a little corny). What I find really odd is that the Snyder Cut is actually more funny & lighthearted than the Theatrical Cut, which is the opposite of what I was expecting. At times it seems more like a television series compressed down into a 4 hour movie than a theatrical movie. I can see why they were afraid of releasing it in theaters, even though I ultimately liked it more than the Theatrical Cut. The 1.33 aspect ratio is a mixed bag. At times it reminds you of classic films or comic-book style frames, but then at other times it reminds you of 90s era TV shows or full-frame VHS pan-&-scans of the Joel Schumacher Batman films...
 
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On a related note, MK is coming out this Friday.

Similar example of what a remake or a proper revision can do for a franchise (or the fans).

Not for everyone as the heavy violence - as it was always naturally intended - makes the John Wicks look mild, but it might be the first movie I'll see in a theater in 10 years (yeah, I know) because of my 90s obsession.

First 7 minutes...

Also a perfect example of the LF not looking that good! (IMO)

 
NorBro said:
On a related note, MK is coming out this Friday.

Similar example of what a remake or a proper revision can do for a franchise (or the fans).

Not for everyone as the heavy violence - as it was always naturally intended - makes the John Wicks look mild, but it might be the first movie I'll see in a theater in 10 years (yeah, I know) because of my 90s obsession.

First 7 minutes...

Also a perfect example of the LF not looking that good! (IMO)

Click to expand...

I streamed the original a few days ago(never saw all of it, before). Lord, it was the epitome of a cheesy, bad, "B" action/martial arts flick with poor(even for the time) SFX/VXF.

I will watch the new version(on HBOMax on my 120" screen at home) and have higher expectations.
 
NorBro said:
On a related note, MK is coming out this Friday.

Similar example of what a remake or a proper revision can do for a franchise (or the fans).

Not for everyone as the heavy violence - as it was always naturally intended - makes the John Wicks look mild, but it might be the first movie I'll see in a theater in 10 years (yeah, I know) because of my 90s obsession.

First 7 minutes...

Also a perfect example of the LF not looking that good! (IMO)

Click to expand...

I have fond memories of the original. But of course, everything looks different through a child's eyes.

Why do you think the LF doesn't look that good? The whole thing looks very pretty to me. and those lenses...

My big problem with it is the editing. The very beginning has all this unnecessary, awkward editing. But then once you get to the fight scene, the choices are much better motivated and feel more seamless. and, ironically, the tempo of montage is more subdued once the fighting starts for everything but the stabby shots. Fake ass looking blood though

The main guy there definitely has some toshiro mifune energy
 
I really don't like the subtle grading, and I think that bokeh is so distracting in the beginning (that's obviously not the camera).

I thought the editing was perfectly fine though. And some of the shots are really awesome (like the slow-motion water spilling out of the buckets as he runs away from the camera which is dollying backwards).

Two main guys there; Scorpion and Sub-Zero.
 
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