Zak and George

I wasn’t anxiously anticipating the Snyder cut, but there was always a fairly good chance of my watching it.

Why not? And I do like when creators can just completely put themselves into the work. When he’s allowed, Zak Snyder is certainly good at that. Sometimes that works for me. Sometimes it doesn’t. His output is comparable to Tim Burton’s in my mind. Neither of them like to compromise, and that turns out wonderfully when they’re creating their own material or the subject matter they’re working with is already suited to their tastes. I like it less when they impose their tastes on something that’s not very compatible.

It’s why I love things like “Sucker Punch”, “Watchmen”, “Alice in Wonderland”, and “The Corpse Bride”. All of those were either created by their directors or adapted from works that clearly resonated with their psyches. It’s also why I think that Snyder and Burton were not the people to make movies about Superman and Batman respectively. They weren’t necessarily bad movies in an abstract way, but they weren’t great at focusing on those characters’ essential natures.

And while “Justice League” falls more into the ill fitting category for Snyder, he nonetheless made a gorgeous movie that flowed well, and even if I hadn’t enjoyed it more than I expected to, which wasn’t at a nadir to begin with, I would have supported the realization of that vision anyway.

In another sense, I could compare him with George Lucas. I legitimately love how that dude is such a rarity because he maintains is auteur nature even when he’s a vastly powerful figure in the Hollywood machine. Snyder has a bit of that, and both of them have been praised for things like concepts and visuals even by people who derogate their writing. I don’t think either of them is really bad at that, but part of the reason for which Lucas dwells deep in my heart where Snyder barely ever approaches is because I personally like Lucas’s inclinations more. That’s on me. But I still appreciate when those two and others of similar vision can realize their ideas to their full satisfaction.