Zack Snyder‘s career has been an interesting one. From the early 2000s to the 2010s, he was known for making stylistically unique and individual films. In the past decade, though, his image as a filmmaker has shifted into something completely different.
Snyder has always flourished with directors’ cuts, but his overreliance on these alternate versions of his films has turned him into a one-trick pony, proving to even the most die-hard fans that he might have nothing left in the tank except for big explosions, too much slow motion, and long run times.
The “Snyder Cut” Problem
Directors and extended cuts are not new concepts, but these titles run parallel to Zack Snyder because of his recent connection to them. Even before 2021’s Justice League debacle, he had Dawn of the Dead (2004) with nine extra minutes, Sucker Punch (2011) with 18 extra minutes, Watchmen (2009) with 24 extra minutes, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) with an extra 30 minutes. But none of these compare to his $70 million and 100% increase in run-time venture that was Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021).
Back in 2017, Justice League was the DCEU’s first team-up film, a movie that Synder started working on but had to leave due to personal reasons. Joss Whedon stepped in, completely changing Snyder’s original vision. Four years later, it was announced that we would be getting Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a four-hour-long cut of the movie released on (at the time) HBO Max. This was not necessarily Snyder’s fault, and many fans loved this version of the film – sadly, it indicated to both Snyder and studios that, with a nearly unlimited runtime, he could appease his fanbase. Which leads us to Rebel Moon.
The Rebel Moon Backstory
The new deal that Snyder has with Netflix with the Rebel Moon franchise is a complicated one. Rebel Moon was originally pitched as a Star Wars movie, but after Lucasfilm and Disney declined the movie, Snyder went on to work on different projects. In the early 2020s, he first partnered with Netflix to make Army of the Dead, a rated-R zombie-action movie that was later spun off into a movie and show. According to Snyder himself, although Netflix expanded his universe, the studio still prioritized focus groups and not necessarily “Zack Snyder’s true vision.”
Fast-forward a couple of years and Snyder pitches Rebel Moon to Netflix, securing a deal that promises an entire franchise of Rebel Moon films, animated series, and spinoffs. Snyder made sure to include the director’s cut clause.
The director’s cut aspect of the deal practically meant Netflix was purposefully delivering a movie that was not the true vision of the director. They are admitting that they are prioritizing corporate interests first and then letting Snyder do whatever he pleases after the fact.
On an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder said, “Know that by saying ‘Snyder sucks,’ you’re also saying ‘give me some more focus groups.’”
His claim is the main issue with his mindset towards director cuts. In the podcast he goes into more detail on the differences between his and “Netflix’s” versions of the movie, repeatedly stating that the newer cuts will be “funner, crazier, and stupider.” This implies there is no narrative difference of real substance between the director’s cut and the so-called “focus group film.”
One Trick Pony
After seeing both director’s cut versions of Rebel Moon Part One (2023) and Rebel Moon Part Two (2024), it is safe to say Synder has no further ideas to explore in the extended version. Whether it be visually, narratively, or with deeper character work, these films are extended in the sense that they are both about an hour longer than the original films. Aside from that, nothing stands out.
In Rebel Moon Part One: The Director’s Cut, the only difference to make out is more blood, more limbs, and more sex. This might be appealing to the teenagers who Snyder seems to cater to, but maybe catering towards the Netflix focus groups aren’t a negative for his work, actually keeping him in check and making films that are on par with others of this size and budget. Is it possible that he needs constraints to tell a solid story?
Yes, constraints would help him reach a wider audience as Netflix intended with his original cuts, but, unfortunately, these films simply are not good. Neither the original nor the director’s cut offers a deeper character motivation or reasoning for the extended amounts of sex and gore. These external elements are cool to see but add nothing of substance.
This flop — in addition to the critical failure of the initially released cuts — leads me to believe that the originally planned “four or six” movies Synder wanted will never come to fruition. He focuses far too much on the latter product with his stamp than the original, more consumer-friendly product.
The statement “consumer-friendly product” may sound harmful to the art form, but if Synder was able to properly execute films in a limited time frame as other directors have to, he wouldn’t be pumping out shallow style-over-substance films.
Directors’ Cuts Can Be Deserved
Snyder has used director’s cuts as an excuse to make edge lord-like films with no regard to how these over-the-top ideas will bring any impact to the film.
Referring back to the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, Snyder said, “In the R-rated versions, because the violence is so over the top, and the sex is so over the top, the tone changes….. And not to say those things don’t exist in PG-13, because they do, but they’re almost more over-the-top [in the R-cut] because it’s funner, it’s just crazier, everything’s stupider.”
The latter part of Synder’s argument proves that Snyder is only making these extended versions for surface-level reasons, but one might ask, “Who decides which directors get unlimited runtimes and green light to rated-R projects?”
Snyder was given $166 million for two parts, making the project not only Netflix’s most expensive movie of 2023 but Snyder’s most expensive non-DCEU film. Though there are technically four films coming out of $166 million, this quantity of films doesn’t excuse the very poor quality of the films that are Rebel Moon. Though Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the very best indicator of a good film, the two directors’ cuts are sitting at 33% each. The original cuts sit at 22% and 17% for parts one and two, respectively. Comparing this to two other big-budget and over-the-top spectacle films at 76% with James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and Christopher Nolan’s 93% Oppenheimer (2023) shows a stark difference. These filmmakers show that hundreds of millions of dollars should be used for one great project rather than four really bad ones.
Aside from the critical success of the films made by Cameron and Nolan in comparison to Snyder – the films by the latter director are much weaker in general. Character depth is the main flaw that Snyder has, he is known for unique characters/adaptations which already puts him a step behind other adaptation attempts. Nolan and Snyder are similar in that they have both tackled the Batman character, but Snyder’s flaws of character development really show in this comparison.
Thematically Snyder’s Batman may try to tackle more, just like the bombasity of Rebel Moon, but the difference can be seen in Nolan’s Batman who is more traditional and stoic, like the grand but personal films such as Oppenheimer, Inception (2010) and more. Thematically, Cameron is known for being ambitious in scope but still able to have sufficient story and thematic depth, Snyder has little to none of this going for him. Even as far back as 300 (2006), Snyder has always had scope and size but never a compelling study of characters.
Overall, Zack Snyder releasing four movies in the past year seems like him trying to cheat the system. It feels like he is hiding behind a bloated runtime and the “not my vision” excuse as a coping mechanism for half-baked characters and thematically hollow large-scale films.
Analysis Courtesy of Aryan Patel
Feature Image Credit to Clay Enos via Netflix