Ranking Zack Snyder's Films

I haven't seen it yet, but from what I've heard it's main improvements are making the story far more coherent and giving Clark and Lois more to do. If you had problems with its tone, Eisenberg's acting, or specific story choices (Knightmare, "Martha", etc.), then nothing's changed. Which, honestly, should be expected.

I've only seen a couple but, of those:

• Watchmen
• Batman v Superman
• Dawn of the Dead
• Man of Steel

I read the Watchmen comic before seeing the film and nothing they took out bugged me - this scene, whatever criticism it might have gained, was really f'cking cool at the time.

I really wanted Batman v Superman to wow me, but someone had to throw Doomsday in there. All the quiet scenes, the first interaction between Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Diana were all pretty good.

Dawn of the Dead was pretty neat, I liked the ending. But having watched I Am Legend, six seasons of The Walking Dead, played almost every Resident Evil, and watched other zombie franchises - the 'magic' of the film was sort of lost on me.

I give zero f'cks about Man of Steel except for the fight scenes, those were delightful. Snyder's good at fight choreography - or whoever he hired as a stunt coordinator is. He just forgets that Superman's more commonly seen as a smiling, heroic figure, not some horrible god complex waiting to be unleashed.

edited 29th Jun '16 5:46:20 PM by Soble

I think the main lesson that we can take away of this thread is that Sucker Punch was a terrible mistake, and it's creation lessened Snyder, movies, and really existence itself.

Watchmen: Should have stayed a graphic novel/10

300: This is what self-hating closeted gay "bros" watch on a weekend night/10

Man of Steel: Superman Returns isn't the worst Superman movie anymore/10

Batman v Superman Martha!/10

Zack did something really ill-advised with Sucker Punch. He wanted to make a dark R-rated movie, but the studio was never gonna finance that, so he added action scenes and made it PG-13 to get it greenlit.

If you thought Returns was the worst Superman movie until Man of Steel... just lol.

edited 29th Jun '16 7:49:57 PM by Cruherrx

Somebody here is lucky to not have seen Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.

Ha, yeah okay. That's why it was crap. Snyders hands are clean.

edited 29th Jun '16 8:15:12 PM by SilentlyHonest

I've heard a lot of people say that Snyder's adaptation of Watchemn missed the themes of the novel, but I found it to have some very clear themes, with the main one being the ambiguity of heroism.

There's a scene where Nite Owl and Laurie, the two most basically decent people in the movie, save some people from muggers. On the one hand, it's portrayed as a good thing, one of the few unambiguously heroic acts in the movie, but on the other it's taking place in the context of a world on the brink of nuclear war, which they aren't doing anything to stop and can't do anything to stop. And on the other side Ozymandias, who's treated as someone with sincere, large-scale humanitarian motivations, is trying to prevent nuclear war, and is employing absolutely horrific means that are dreadful enough to cause breakdowns in the movie's two outright psychopaths (Comedian and Rorschach).

It asks (and refuses to answer) the question of what heroism is. Is it doing small acts of goodness even when they might not matter because everything might go up in flames tomorrow? Is it doing whatever is necessary to maximize the number of people who survive, even if it means killing millions of others? Is it sticking to your principles regardless of the consequences (and regardless of the actual merits of those principles)?

It struck me as being more thoughtful than the vast majority of the superhero movies out there. It's the only thing Synder's made that I thought was good.

edited 9th Jul '16 10:25:06 AM by Galadriel

All those things you listed can be found in the original graphic novel. The problem is not that the movie doesn't have good themes—it borrows them straight from the source work after all. The problem is that Snyder adds some other stuff in the movie (like the extended, visually flashy action scenes) that make the work less effective in how it conveys those themes.

edited 9th Jul '16 11:20:33 AM by Paradisesnake

I liked Sucker Punch. Fight me.

That's the thing, plenty of people claim that the movie doesn't retain the books themes, but the themes came through clearly when I watched the movie. The ideas are what stick with you, not the action sequences.

And when I read the graphic novel afterwards, I was struck by how closely the movie matched it - to the point of scenes precisely reproducing the imagery of specific panels, and even using some of the same music that appeared in the book. Removing the squid pretty much the only substantive change. As far as sticking to the original material goes, it's probably the most faithful comic book adaptation I've seen. I had some issue with the movie's gender dynamics, but all those issues existed, to a similar or greater degree, in the graphic novel.

edited 9th Jul '16 12:29:09 PM by Galadriel

There's an additional layer in the graphic novel, though. In the mugger fight, Dan and Laurie feel oddly "sexually relieved" afterward, lampshaded by Laurie lighting a cigarette. Combined with the reveal earlier that Hooded Justice got turned on by beating up the Comedian after the latter's attempted rape, and it raises the question of if the heroes do their deeds because they genuinely want to help, or if they just like the excitement. But that's left out of the movie, and movie Laurie doesn't smoke.

I think there was this really over the top and stupidly laughable sex scene after they rescue some people from a fire, so I guess that idea was still there.

Also if the trope page is true the sex scen was there because the studio want it and Sydner give in a sort of mockery by turing the cheesiness up to eleven.never said zack dosent have sense of humor

Also there is some change that I can get beind, the squib would destroy all the seriosness of the situation and when nightowl beat Ozymandias and he just let him you can feel how bad the whole thing afect him, something I feel missing from the grafic novel

The sex scene was in the graphic novel too but way more subdued.

Supposedly the smoking was taken out because of a Hollywood-wide attempt to diminish smoking in movies.

There was also some small touches like Ozymandias having sculpted nipples on his costume, not just as a reference to Schumacher but the absurdity of Superhero costumes in general.

Watchmen I can't help feeling missed the point a little bit. Rorsach seemed played much more of a straight anti-hero than a broken mess of a man who beats up criminals. The fight scenes were filmed to look really cool and stylish when in the comic it was men and women with weird costumes beating people up and actually a very very unhealthy lifestyle choice.

300 on the other hand remains his best because it took the point of the comic pretty well. Cool manly badasses kicking butt with plenty of homoeroticism and casual xenophobia is pretty much exactly what the comic was about as well.

Sucker Punch is just... not what he says it is, or was meant to be. Pretty girls in fetish outfits having violent daydreams doesn't really say 'pro-feminism' as much as it does 'exploitation' in my book.

DOTD I have not seen.

His DCU stuff I will simply say I don't get on with. I can see reasons for most of the choices he made but they are not the choices I would have made nor ones I agree with but it's more an subjective view than objective mark of quality.

The Comedian still smokes in the movie.

For what I get, the actress didnt smoke and refute to do so at any point.

to be fair, violence in comic book movie have move to the point they punching people wont look out of ordinary, so moving out the violence will me more likey to get the point they are violent people.

with rosh..yeah they tone down so of his more unpleasent moment(which is weird consider they let comedian on) but it wont be the first time they look him as anti hero consider many fan of he comic think the same way.

edited 10th Jul '16 12:48:35 AM by unknowing

That's the point I am making though, the people who see him as anti-heroic or god forbid just straight up heroic are missing the point as envisaged by Moore. Unfortunately Snyder/the scriptwriters appear to be amongst those people.

Such is the great irony of Zack Snyder: he's fucking amazing when it comes to visual effects and directing, but all of his focus is on admirable-but-flawed attempts at philosophical themes.

To put it bluntly (and some might say harshly): He strives to be Christopher Nolan, but he's really damn excellent at being Michael Bay.

My own version was similar: if Michael Bay thought he was Christopher Nolan, he'd make Zack Snyder movies.

The difference being that Bay himself knows his strengths and limitations, Snyder either doesn't, or does but continues to strive manfully (but unsuccessfully) to overcome them. Give Snyder a Flash film to direct and he can let loose his slow-mo action chops to great effect. Give him something with philosophical themes to chew on... and he'll choke on them.

is not much that Zack dosent far better than Moore in manking the point on how much asshole Rosh is, not surprising considr that a) the other chararter are flawed in their own ways and b) from most part they are pretty pasive let him burder of the plot, Rosh is awsome but complete mess jerk, if Moore coudnt get the point, Zakc sure in hell cant ether.

And yeah.....Zack need someone else with the interaction, in their silence scene he is better since he manage to get the point of the scene, in Bv S bruce in metropolis or Batman in dugeon are with the BEST part of movie that manage to get across the point, but with dialogue and the rest is a little bit sloppy

Has anyone ever seen Sucker Punch's director's cut?

Because along with Watchmen and Bv S, that makes 3 films Snyder has done for WB that they butchered and he got the brunt of the shit for. Can't believe I'm saying it, but SP's DC is actually a pretty good flick