Front Burner - Fan culture and #ReleaseTheSnyderCut

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

After years of fervent campaigning from fans, director Zack Snyder’s cut of the 2017 Justice League movie has been greenlit for release in 2021. Culture critics John Semley and Tina Hassannia on why this campaign struck a cultural chord, and what it says about fandom today.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi there, I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. We have to be ready. You, me, the others. There's an attack coming from far away. Not coming, Bruce. It's already here.

So that is from the 2017 movie Justice League, starring Ben Affleck as Batman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Now, superhero movies usually break records at the box office, but this one fell way below expectations. Critics panned it, and so did a lot of DC Comics fans. They were unhappy with what happened to the movie in post-production, where director Zack Snyder had to step away from the project. That discontent unleashed a fan movement called hashtag release the Snyder cut.

So this week, after years of campaigning, Snyder announced that his cut of Justice League would finally be released. Let me tell you, the reaction on social media was polarizing, to say the least. So today, we're digging into this whole saga and what it says about fandom today with two culture critics. Tina, Hassania, and John Semley are here with me. This is FrontBurner. John and Tina, hi you two. Hi, Pia. Okay, I think the best place to start is frankly the beginning.

So, John, let me start with you. With the original Justice League film, which came out in 2017, you have seen this movie. So, in a nutshell, 30 seconds or so, review it for me. Wow. Okay. So I watched this movie in a basement cinema in a matinee in one of the darkest periods of my life. And let's just say it did not lift my spirits.

It is a sort of superhero crossover event movie in the style of The Avengers, but with DC Comics superheroes. So you've got Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, all your favorites, etc. And they're all teaming up to stop some sort of extraterrestrial interdimensional threat. That is the plot, Tracy. basement of a movie hall in the darkest periods of your life, but I will not go there because that's not what we're to talk about. I'm sorry you were going through a dark period at that time. However, you weren't the only one who panned it, right? Critics panned it and it didn't do well, like audiences basically hated this movie. It didn't do well at the box office. But then there's this other group of the audience. These are like hardcore DC comic fans. They really didn't like it, John. Specifically, what did they not like about it? So the original director attached to it was this fellow, Zack Snyder, who is a kind of meathead, gym rat, action cinema director. And he was sort of the architect behind the style and tone of the,

what they call the DC universe, because he directed Man of Steel and then Batman versus Superman. And he had to leave the project because of personal reasons. And they brought another director, Joss Whedon, who actually directed the Avengers films, but whose tone could not be more different than Zack Snyder's, I feel, to sort of finish the film. So that sort of created this sense that there was a lost Snyder cut of the film

that many of these hardcore Zack Snyder fans wanted released. It was almost a kind of mythical object that was a presumed to exist and then be presumed to be better than the theatrical version. So a big part of the complaint, as I understand it, is that this film was not Snyder like enough, whatever that means. Do you explain what that means? What is Zack Snyder known for? What does Snyder like mean? If you've ever seen 300, I feel like that's a I mean that was the movie that

basically like uh you know catapulted his career and the reason for that is because he he likes to adapt these comic books that are kind of gory kind of dark um you know there's usually a lot of violence a lot of like action sequences um and with 300, he did a really good job. I mean, that movie took off. This is blasphemy. This is madness. Madness. This is Sparta!

He sort of set this precedent for creating these dark, action-heavy films. Super serious, you know? And then he was able to take over DCEU. So that says to me, John, that he probably has a, I don't know, diehard fan base, too. Like, what are Zack Snyder fans like? Well, as Tina mentioned, I mean, the violence, the gruesomeness is certainly a big element of his filmmaking and something that people find appealing. The aestheticization of violence, very slow-mo, bones cracking, blood, sort of like you imagine the boxing scenes from Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, but with Batman and Superman punching each other. That's sort of the aesthetic of a Zack Snyder film. Also, no trace of irony whatsoever, right? I mean, one of the things that his movies are criticized for, Watchmen, for example, is not understanding

the subtext of the source that he's adapting at all. And I think his fans are very much I mean, look, I, I hesitate to paint fan bases with too broad a brush. I'm sure that there are some very sensitive Zack Snyder fans. I myself find his films interesting, if not at all entertaining. But I think that there is this sort of level of almost macho aggressiveness that feeds very easily into what's sometimes called toxic fandom these days. These are people who probably wear, you know, bro, do you even lift t shirts, even though I imagine they don't themselves. Okay, as you say, john, a lot of people like Snyder films, but that is a large portion of

his fan base. And then this, I don't know, is it fair to call it movement that develops around all this called hashtag release the Snyder cut? Tina, what is this movement? What does it get up to? Yeah. So, I mean, you know, this movie came out in 2017 and the campaign technically did start around there. But the actual campaign for the Snyder cut didn't really take off until two years later. Batman and Wonder Woman are joining forces again, in a way. Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot and Zack Snyder are calling on Warner Brothers to release Snyder's version of 2017's Justice League.

Gadot was the first big name to join the fan movement, posting a black and white behind the scenes photo from the movie with the hashtag release the Snyder Cut. And when that happened, this was November 2019, the internet, you know, it basically killed itself in that one day. It was insane how much passion people really brought to this campaign. I mean, it's kind of crazy some of the things that they did. Like? Well, I'm going to read a description from a website that was started by a fan. It's called 4snidercut.com. Just to give you a sense of how verbose and passionate people can be about these things. passionate people can be about these things for Snyder cuts mission is to share what we love about the vision we've seen and bring to light the vision on justice league that we didn't see

our goal is to see the time care deliberation preparation artistry and intentions that went into principle anyways I'm not going to read the whole thing the point is that these people really really really just get so passionate about this supposed, you know, better version of the movie. There was a funding for a billboard and a bus stop ad during the San Diego Comic Con, flyers, digital billboards at Times Square during the New York City Comic Con. They actually raised a ton of money, like over 30 grand for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. So I want to just say like, in the midst of all of this, like fan toxicity, which we'll get to, like in terms of what they did, there were some actual

good things that came out of it. At the same time, they started getting extremely paranoid and jealous and just extremely defensive anytime anyone said anything negative about Justice League or Snyder. They also troll Warner Brothers accounts as well. So like on any social media platform, on any Warner Brothers account, whether it's related to DC or not, it doesn't matter. They're demanding for the release of the Snyder Cut. And this has been going on for many, many, many months. Episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. John, we're talking about a movie, right?

This impassioned people so much to do the things that Tina just laid out there. It wasn't just, you know, oh, an online petition. There were public demonstrations at a Warner Brothers studio in Burbank and Times Square ads and all of that. And then all the online trolling, as Tina just mentioned. And I don't mean to diminish trolling in any way. But how bad did it get? Like, were things pretty vile? Yeah, I mean, these things, like I say, there's always people who, there are people who would genuinely be interested in seeing a zach snyder cut of this

film who like his films and have good reasons for liking his films again zach snyder is the kind of director who i would personally read a book about although i don't really take much pleasure out of his films if that makes sense uh but there's always people on the other side there's always sort of uh fans who are i don't even want to use the word passionate uh or the word toxic comes up a lot right i mean the idea that they're essentially harassing people the idea that they have this delusion that they have ownership over this thing that they're just fans of and it does take this kind of odd political dimension where people are almost using like political tactics to try to leverage their perceived power for something that they want um but i guess the recent news that this is coming out is proof that those tactics can work

so they got what they wanted as you say john on wednesday the news comes out that the snyder cut is going to be released hooray 2021 is when it's gonna come out i can't believe it i didn't think it was ever gonna happen i didn't think it was possible. But the Snyder Cut is being released. That's right. Release of Snyder Cut has worked. HBO Max. I guess the interesting thing about this is that this is not the first time that a fan campaign to get a movie made or a TV show to return has worked. And John, I know this area of, you know, of the world interests you a lot.

How much of a precedence is there for this that if you, you know, scream loud enough and get enough people out, you get your movie made, the movie made or the TV show back? Yeah, well, the biggest historical precedent would be the original Star Trek, which was canceled after two seasons, and then a fan letter writing campaign got the show renewed for a third season. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Now, the key there is that once it got into three seasons, it could go into syndication, which meant that Star Trek could nurture a fan base for decades.

Movies came out, you know, whole other series, spinoffs and stuff like that. Star Trek is obviously a phenomenon because of that campaign. Now, the thing about that is those campaigns were undertaken with the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, who wanted his show brought back. Now, I think what's happening here, first of all, I will say that thinking about it now, within Zack Snyder's films, there's a sort of recurring theme of a small, determined band of people coming together to overwhelm an opposing force that's much larger, which might sort of inspire his fan base to undertake these activities, I suppose. But also, frankly, I think that studios don't know what to do now because of the pandemic. So that the pressure from fans,

the interest from Snyder himself, and the idea that, well, we've got all this footage laying around, we might as well spend 20 to $30 million to recut a four hour version of a movie no one liked in the first place. I think that that is a kind of unique combination of forces do i think that like studios and everyone will all of a sudden just start capitulating to fans no i don't because fans are ultimately powerless they have the perception of their own power but they don't actually have any leverage against these studios so this is one of those uh exception that proves the rule type things in my view i was gonna say this is um it's it's kind of interesting because uh there's a there's a great uh post on medium by someone named jm carter at with with the title would releasing the snyder cut just be rewarding bad

behavior which i think is a really interesting question because given just how toxic this fan base has been for the past several months, it is kind of strange to release it in the end. And I don't know really what that says, you know, on a larger scale about how studios are treating fans. I do think that at the end of the day, though, they don't really have as much power as we think. I think, you know, there's all these like behind the scenes machinations that we're just not really made aware of. It's quite likely that Snyder has been also championing for this cause on a much quieter level. I will say that, you know, despite all the toxicity, it's not like Snyder ever came out

and and you know decried his fans for for doing these things he's been quite quiet you know and content to be so during this entire time and if i finally say to to address two points there first of all this rewarding bad behavior stuff there's something so coddling in that language that i find i mean all blockbusters with bad behavior and poor taste of their fans who buy tickets to movies that are no good. The entire Hollywood system is built on rewarding people's bad behavior. As far as Snyder himself, I'm sure he was involved. But it's important to point out that like, he didn't get kicked off this project for ineptitude or something like that. He stopped making Justice League because his daughter committed suicide. And it

was a personal tragedy for him. And he had this vision of this film, whatever you think about him and his movies, that he wanted to pull off on screen. So I can understand him wanting to do it, especially now. Now, at the end of the day, I think that at the risk of being a cold-hearted pragmatist, the only thing that matters to Warner Brothers and these people is if this film will make money. Can we put $20 million into this and people will see it they've probably calculated that now they can because there's not a lot of other stuff in the pipe yeah i mean i i completely i completely agree with you john and i and i do think that um what's going to be a really interesting question is whether or not the new film is any good.

Is it going to be everything that these Snyder fans have wanted? That's what I wanted to ask. No, that's what I wanted to ask. John, you said at the beginning, look, I've seen this thing. It's garbage. It's a tire fire. And now there's all this hope by other people that Zack Snyder's return is going to put that tire fire out

and turn this into something good. Do you think it's going to be good? I think it'll be a Zack Snyder movie, which is what some people like, whether or not that's good or bad is a matter of taste. I actually find his films weirdly compelling because as Tina mentioned, they're so serious and so gruesome and so violent that they almost become funny, like a different form of almost like superhero camp movies. And, you know, with Zack Snyder, I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from the film, The Big Lebowski. To paraphrase it, it's, you know, say what you will, but at least it's an ethos. And that's how I feel about Zack Snyder. I mean, you can feel one way or the other

about his films, but they're very much distinctly his. They may be these sort of weird power fantasies and fascistic parables, but that's his weird Ayn Rand worldview. And I find the fact that he has a worldview oddly refreshing, because I think a filmmaker like Joss Whedon or most of the people who make these big blockbusters Zack Snyder cult, if you will. I think a lot of fans will get what they always wanted. Like, regardless of whether it's good or bad, doesn't matter. The fact is that it has its name on it and it's his version of the movie. That's what the fans really care about. Well, listen, you two, circle the calendar 2021.

Some of us are looking forward to that because hopefully there'll be a vaccine for coronavirus by then. But others are also looking forward to this movie. So circle the calendar. Thanks a lot, you both. Thanks, Pia. Thank you so much. That's all for today. Front Burner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts, and the show was produced this week by Imogen Burchard, Elaine Chow, Shannon Higgins, Ali Janes, and Nahayat Tizoush. Derek Vanderwyk does our sound design with help this week from Mac Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Shabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Nick McCabe-Locos.

I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.