The Ringer-Verse - 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' Spoilers Reaction

Episode Date: March 21, 2021

On this special bonus episode of the Ringer-Verse, Van Lathan and Charles Holmes share their spoiler-filled thoughts on the four-hour epic that the internet demanded. They discuss the biggest additions involving Cyborg, The Flash and the Joker, Ben Affleck's Batman, the return of Superman, villain motivations and more. Plus, will the Snyder Verse live on? You can follow 'The Ringer-Verse' on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Hosts: Van Lathan and Charles Holmes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ring Reverse. This is the instant reaction show where I Van Leithen will put out my impulsive and probably way too emotionally invested knee-jerk reactions to the latest new content

in the fandom space. Now, we are smack dab in the middle, well I guess at the beginning of our instant reaction show to Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but we have to do a special bonus episode because there is a huge huge, huge event happening right now

in the superhero movie genre and that is the release of Zach Snyders Justice League. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections

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Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investments. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at vandual.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Now, every Friday, we're coming at you with the Falcon and Aware Soldier, but this episode right here is just a bonus one for Zach Snyder's Justice League because we have to discuss it. As I said already, I am Van Lathen, one half of the higher learning podcast with Van Lathen and Richelindsay. And I'm joined by Charles Holmes, who is the host.

of the ring of music. So Charles, what up? Yo, man. I'm tired. Four hours, two days. Two days shift. Oh, my girlfriend was very mad. She kept coming in the room. She's like, are you done yet? She saw cybor. She's like, I'm not watching this with you. And I'm just like, my bad, my bad. Wow, she wouldn't watch the movie with you, huh? Did your fiance? Did your fiance watch the four hour cut with you?

Hell no. What am I talking about? No. Four hours? She actually was offended. She looked at the runtime of the movie and was like, what you? Four. hours. I didn't even say anything. She was like, she was really awesome. Zach Snyder must got me fucked up. If you think I'm going to watch four hours, she was very, no, hell no, I'm just joking with you. All right. So this is going to have spoilers in it. Guys, so if you're listening to it right now and you haven't seen the movie yet, I implore you to watch the film before you listen to this because we're going to talk about the movie in its entirety.

Now before we even get to Zach Snyder's Justice League and the movie itself, let's talk a little bit about what sort of precluded all of this, which is Zach Snyder's place in D.C. as the main creative driving force

to movies like Man of Steel, Justice League, and Batman versus Superman. If you have to rate Zach Snyder as a director, as the soul Artur, the Soul Autor. You have a couple other people, too, but the main driving force in these movies right now, what type of job do you think he's done thus far?

Ooh. You know what? I'm going to start with the positive, okay? Because I know the Snyder of the Snyder Cup fans are, you know, a little bit, a little bit. They're on a high. They're on a high. I think he is a great talent scout, if we're going to be honest. Like, he is like the top level talent scout when we talk about, like, I wouldn't have cast Jason Mamoa, but we see what Jason Mamoa did with Aquaman, Gal Gadot with Wonder Woman. Ben Affleck is one of the best Batman's ever. He is a great talent scout.

But when it comes to, like, the finished product, I got to give him out of five, I would give him a one and a half. A one and a half. A one and a half. Oh. I gave him a compliment. He's a great.

He doesn't have any championships. Let's put it that way. Like, he won the draft a bunch of years. He set up a team that can never get out of the first round. is like that's my feeling on Zach. Okay, well let's look at this. So then let's take the three movies that he's done up to this point. Forget about Zach Snyder's Justice League

because that's a different film that we're talking about right now. Let's take the Justice League that made it to the theaters in 2017 and let's take Batman versus Superman and let's take Man of Steel. Okay, so you got three movies. Did you like Man of Steel? No. You did not like Man of Stee? I thought it was fine.

I remember leaving it and being like, this is fine. I didn't detest it. But I don't think I've ever watched that movie. again since walking out of that theater, which I can't say about most superhero movies. Okay. Have you watched, have you rewatch Manisteele? It's just a harder to watch,

a harder movie to watch at home than it was in a theater. Yes. And what happens with movies like that is movies that don't have super strong narratives are always harder to watch at your crib, right? So if you go to the movies to see a film, right? And it's on the big screen and you're at the arc light or something like that, you can get lulled or hypnotized by the spectacle that's on the screen into thinking, hey, that was fucking amazing or even that was okay.

I remember being hyped for the last big scene with him and Zod and them like going through. Like, I remember that. But it didn't, it's not the type of thing like end game where I'm like, all right, let me go back to like my favorite scene in like end game. And then the same thing with Batman versus Superman. There were parts in that movie where I was like, this is cool. But anytime I've ever tried to restart Batman and Superman over, I'm just like, you know what? I'm good.

I'm good off this. The thing about that is story gets you invested into a film. Spectacle gets you to the movies, right? So the spectacle of something, they can put that in a trailer like, yo, I want to see that. But story is what invests you. Some of the biggest moments in endgame,

we've talked about some of them, don't have anything to do with cool things that happen on the screen. They have to do with our emotional connection to the characters. And that is the one thing that has been lacking in these Snyder movies. I left the movie, Man of Steel, being sort of happy with it because of the depiction of Superman that I was coming off of from Brian Singer-Superman, which I thought was a way too passive depiction of the character. So seeing Superman get busy in Man of Steel was a welcome departure for me.

At the same time, the one thing that I remember in leaving the theater was that I didn't care about anything that had happened. No. I didn't care about any of it. And that is the thing that has been missing in these films. And even when Batman versus Superman, you're supposed to believe, or as a human being, you're supposed to be so connected to Bruce Wayne, to Batman, wanting to protect the earth from this universal foe that he sees in Superman. but you just can't connect to the character. You just don't feel anything. No, and here's the thing.

Let's be real. With Man of Steel, Batman versus Superman, Justice League, in the span of those three films, we've gotten so many condensed comic book storylines, and none of them were served that well. We got the origin of Superman. We got the Dark Night Returns. We got the death of Superman.

With Justice League, you got, I can point to at least three or four different comic book runs. And none of them have been served, well, all the stories were just like, like you said, the spectacle, but I never left caring about any of those characters, what happened to them, or even like why by Justice League, I should care that the earth is in peril, because I don't even care about this earth.

Right, it's true. When you're in Batman versus Superman, by the time we see Doomsday, that's supposed to be a moment where you're all like, oh, my God, it's Doomsday, and you just, it's just another thing that happens. And, you know, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the production of the Justice League version that we got in 2017. It had to do with the fact that Josh Whedon was brought in to shoot a bunch of reshoots and essentially changed the movie and put his stamp on it. Now, we're looking back on that now from the 2021 vision of Josh that we have and looking at that as a huge mistake or some sort of fuck up.

But the reality is that if I remember correctly, that was something that most comic book fans were lauding at that point. Oh, comic book fans were so excited because up to that point, Joss was the only director. Like, people don't really remember this. Josh was the only director who made good on like a very high budget superhero team up. Now, I'm not talking about the X-Men because the X-Men movies, they were the X-Men from the beginning.

With Avengers, he two times at least made a lot of, believe that the Avengers were cool. And I think what people were excited about back then was they were like, all right, he's coming on Justice League. We're going to get a less greaty film. We're going to get the less grim film. It'll be more funny. We get to see more quips.

And then the movie we got, we were like, oh, no, this was just all over the place. It was all, it was a mistake. It was all over the place. And it injured the eight-year-old inside of me, the kid that had been waiting to see the Justice League on screen since he was a kid and had waited and got all the way to be a 37-year-old man at the time that it came out for this movie. Sometimes these companies, be it Warner Brothers, be at D.C.,

be it Disney, be it Marvel, they don't understand the stakes. It's decades of emotion that we've poured into these characters and we're asking you to treat them right. And it's, I know that I'm not saying it's the easiest thing to do, but I will say, man, when you get it wrong, I mean, I remember I'll even the theater Kalika looks at me, she was like,

you're really down about that, huh? Because I was like that like that. But think about it. He did it three times. Like, like, Man of Steel, I liked the action, but he let me down. Seeing Batman and Superman on the screen for the first time, I was so hyped. And I left and I was like,

dog, that's the first time they did this and they dropped the ball that bad. And then Justice League, I wanted to see Flash race Superman. I want to see Aquaman and Wonder Woman go at it. And for them to drop the ball, We'd In & Co. and everybody dropped the ball so much,

I get, like, I get the emotional stakes of the Snyder cut. Like, I get why people felt robbed and why for years they campaigned. Because, like you said, if you're a kid growing up with these characters,

you want them to do right. Right. And it gives you a chance to still see what it is that you hoped you'd see in 2017. Now, look, this is the final sport. warning. We move it on now.

It's time to talk about the movie. Okay. It's time to talk about the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, all right, book a cross-country flight from like L.A. to New York and you'll be able to watch the film in this entirety and maybe have time to put your stuff up before your land because it's long. It's long. This is now going to be my airplane movie. My airplane movie before this was in game. I know that by the time we get up and we get to cruising altitude, I can go find end game and in game will

play all the way through and then by the time, wherever I'm going unless I'm going to damn Santorini or something like that, I'll be probably about to land by the time end game is over. By the time the whole thing is over. But now it's going to be this movie because it's going to just wipe out plane flights for me. Okay. So general

sort of recap of the film it follows a much the same narrative structure as the first movie except there's more character development throughout. Okay. So Steppenwolf is a universal alien, I guess conqueror who is coming here on behalf of Darkside, okay?

They want to take over the Earth. They're going to do this by uniting three mother boxes and opening up a portal for Darkside to step through and then turn the Earth basically into Darkseye's world which is called Apocalypse, all right? I'm getting deep into my going to the Darkside wants to take over everything. He wants to kill the Earth. I'm getting lost.

I've got lost in this explanation. Whatever. Listen, here's a deal. That's the thing. All right, Batman and Wonder Woman realized because Dark Side is coming, he tries to see. He steals a motherbox from the Amazon's. They're trying to put the Justice League together to stop him,

and they're going to combine their forces. Okay. The Justice League eventually comes over. Wonder Woman goes to get cyborg. Cyborg tells Wonder Woman to fuck off. Batman goes to get Flash. This all happened in the Josh Whed movie. He gets Flash.

they come together. Aquaman also comes after reluctantly talking to Batman, he then faces off with Steppenwolf, which makes him see the whole, the big problem that they're facing. Now, the Justice League is intact except for one member. That one member is Superman. Remember, Superman is dead. So the Justice League decides that they're going to use a mother box, which can turn, which can bring somebody back to life if it has sufficient enough power, to bring Superman back from the dead, which they are warned by the country. Tritonianship maybe not to do But

But because of the fact that They just fought They fought they fought They went up against Stepperwolf and they see That they probably need Superman to do it anyway Superman comes back At first he's not himself Trial to fight the Justice League

Then he understands who he is Because he sees Lois Lane Which is his true weakness It's not Cryptonite Lois Lane is Superman's true weakness And then it's true You need a sip of water. You are going on.

It's the movie's four hours long. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go, go, go. The Justice League comes back together. They fight Steppin' Wolf. They beat Steppenwolf. Cut one of his horns off.

Poor Steppin' Wolf. We get a chance to see a dark side, granted goodness, but we don't get them coming through and actually fighting the Justice League. Throughout this point, we learn more about the characters, movie ends, nightmare scenario,

and then we have a scene that we have to talk about where Marsha Manhunter is formally, formally introduced. He actually even says his name at the very end of the film. There are huge holes in my recap. All right, here's the thing, Ben, I heard on the East Streets that you enjoyed this movie, and there's no way you could have enjoyed this movie after explaining it.

Because even in your explanation, massively confused. I'm still massively confused about a lot of a movie, and I'm steep in comic book lore. There's no way you can convince me that what we got wasn't a little bit of a mess, a lot of a mess. So here's the thing. The plot of the movie isn't some big magic trick, right?

I tried to give as concise a plot recap as I could. But here's the thing, though. Here's what a superhero movie does, a superhero team-up movie. Big villain coming. Big force coming. Powerful people got to join together to fight Big Force. Something happens that makes them a team. They go fight Big Force.

They beat Big Force. That is what happened in Avengers, and that is what happened in Justice League. I would disagree with you heavily. Tell me why. Not to compare. I feel bad for comparing. But when we look at the big franchises, what they do in any of these team ups is the best of them take a genre. They take one genre and they blow it up.

So if we take Endgame, because a lot of people on the internet are explaining how Justice League is like Endgame. Endgame is a time heist movie. And like, there, two words, I can explain it to you. if we get something like Fast and Furious, Fast Five, that's a heist movie. If we get any of these movies, it'll be like a team up or a buddy cop movie or they're trying to do something, whatever, even if it's a big bads coming. There's always a genre. And what I realize in hearing you re-explain what Justice League is, is that there's like

three or four genres going in to this Justice League movie and none of them are done well. It's like a post-apocalyptic movie. It's a war movie. It's a Get the Team Together movie. Avengers is all of that, right? Avengers is a Get the Team Together movie and a war movie. The original Avengers, I mean. The original one is the worst one.

Like, the original Avengers is the worst Avengers? Yeah, like, if we're ranking them. So you think that Age of Ultron is better than the original Avengers movie? Yes, it's more entertaining. I would watch that over the original one. You're snorting coat. It's very, very true. But wait, why are we talking about the adventures?

Your snorting cocaine, Charles. You know what? We'll table this argument. I want to do, hold on. Charles is co-cat. Seriously, Charles is on coke. We need to start drug testers as a drinker. Here's the deal.

We're going to table this argument, and we're going to do a 20-minute, one-shot pod where we have that conversation. Oh, I'm ready. I'm not saying that Ultron is it. I like Ultron. It's not a good movie, but it's better than the original one. The original Avengers movie.

We're talking about Avengers, the Josh Williams Avengers, the original one that came out in 2012. I said it with my chest, man. I said it with my chest. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. It keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi,

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Let's talk about the Snyder Cut. All right, all right, cool. The movie, I don't think there's really anything genre busting about the movie. The movie follows to me a very typical structure that a team up would find. Okay. It introduces you to the characters, gives you their motivation for getting together, gives you a little bit of their history,

they get together, they fight the big evil, and now they have a bond that seemingly, seemingly, will exist on it to the future, something that wasn't, they were heroes alone before, and now they're heroes together.

Give us your general review of the Snyder Cut. Right now, it has a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 97% rating, audience score. Insanity. Both career highs for Zach Snyder. Insanity. Fixed.

You know what I'm saying? Like this guy. We need the recount. Okay. Because I will tell you, the Snyder cut was better than the We didn't cut. But that's not saying much because that's almost like he just had to trip over the bar to make it over. I just don't know like who could like watch this movie and not leave just being like,

what did I just like this was a mess. Like it was a, it felt almost like a car accident. that I was like, I wanted to watch and like, I wanted to see what would happen. But for large parts of the movie, I'm like, it just felt self-indulgent. It was like I got high and like somebody's like, you want to eat a tub of icing?

And I was just like, sure, that sounds great. Did you enjoy it? That's my question to you. You haven't told me whether you enjoyed it or not. What kind of icing? Damn, that sounds good. I did. I did enjoy it.

I actually enjoyed it. Well, you can't enjoy it all four hours. It's like being, in love. Now that's not my question. Well, here's the thing. It's like being in love. Like if you're in a relationship, some people think that once you're in a relationship that every single moment of every single day that you're super

in love with your partner, no, you fall in and out of love, but it's the overall experience that you enjoy. You're describing Stockholm syndrome. Whatever. I would say that I would say that with the Snyder cut, it's kind of the same thing. With a four-hour movie, there are going to be some things that should have been left

on the cutting room floor, without a doubt. But overall, I thought this was a much better, much more coherent, and despite its runtime, a much more entertaining film. Well, much more entertaining film than the one that came out in 2017. Oh, I'll agree. It was entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. Let me go over some of them, because I know we already disagree. Yeah. We got to talk about the glizzy scene with Iris and Barry, breathtaking. He's going to apply to get a job, walking puppies or something like that. Iris, they're flirting.

She's driving. She almost gets into a car accident. And then time stops. We see Barry's like powers for the first time. And there's just a bunch of hot dogs flying at the screen. You're telling me that this is the height of superhero cinema to you. That's what you're going to tell me. What are you talking about?

Yeah. Like you, the scene, do you remember the first time we saw Quicksilver? Yes. Okay. So the first time we saw Quicksilver, not in Days of Future Pass. Yes, and either the very comedic scene where time basically stops. He's moving all the food and the droplets. Well, time stops because Quicksilver is moving so fast.

And he's moving the droplets around. He's doing all of these things. It's showing the way he sees the world when he is using his power. To me, the reason why that scene was perfect is because so he comes in, he has this connection with this girl. And listen, listen to me. He comes in. He has this. connection with this girl.

Like he comes and he has this connection with this girl. He has this connection with this girl. It's the connection that you have with the girl that's actually going to end up costing her, her life. Because because she's still staring at him when she drives away, still caught up in whatever little moment that is, she's not paying attention to the road. And all of a sudden, she's in a potential life ending event. She flies out of the car.

He runs out of his shoes. So the connection damned her, but the connection is also saving her life. because she just happened to be connected to the right guy, which is a perfect building block for their relationship. She happened to be connected to the guy that can save her life.

You don't think that's indulgent? Like it was points like that. It was when they introduced Aquaman and you get like these women singing like this seed shanty or anytime Wonder Woman comes on the screen is like, that's her theme.

Is it indulgent when they played Vader's death march? But here's the thing. the thing. When every single time it's almost like Zach Snyder is trying to hammer home, he's like, this isn't the MCU. These are modern day gods. And there were all of these like slow shots, these slow panning shots of Jason Mabo's hair flowing in the wind and Batman standing on a gargoyle. And I'm like, we get it, man. Can like, can you please just like move along the plot? Like, We don't have to have a five-minute sequence about how hot Jason Mamoa is as the, as the sea mist hits his face. I ain't going to lie.

That nigga is fine as hell, though. Excuse my language. Like, Jason Mamoa. You know, like, Jason Mamoa. Jason Mamoa. Jason Mamoa works out. That dude is, I just said that. And my fiance just looked at me like, what are you talking about?

Does she disagree? No, she's not, she's not disagree. She's like, why would I, why would, why would, why would he say that? Like, why would you say that about, anyway, whatever. I guess my thing is, I watched the scene, number one, it showed just how much time, how, how he perceives time when he's inside of the speed force. Which is cool. That was, that was like, so cool.

Which I loved. And in that instant, that split second, her life was just never in danger. Like he's a hero. Everything is going to be okay when Flash is there. You know what I mean? For a character that really for the majority of the film is used as the comic relief, that to me was a very heroic thing. I thought it was just shot beautifully.

I really thought it was a spectacular scene. I really did. I really thought, by the way, I thought that there was that that type of stuff was the stuff that the first film was missing. This is what the Justice League can do. Oh, if we're talking about what the other Justice. was missing, like, there was a scene where the Flash and Superman are fighting, and you just see how both of them not only perceive time, but perceive a fight that I was like, what is going

on? That was amazing. It was shot so. Like, this is what I will say about Snyder. He is not like a master craftsman when it comes to plot, when it comes to dialogue, but when it comes to like that nerd boy shit and shooting superheroes in a way that makes them seem other worldly, I have to give it up. There were so many scenes in this where I was like,

oh, you managed to make cyborgs seem cool, which I thought was impossible after the Weedin cut. Yeah, I mean, he's kind of, he's basically, Zach Sears basically like, he's almost like the Tim Burton of action movies, meaning everything will look super cool. It's hit or miss whether or not the story will be coherent. And I know that's going to fire up all the Tim Burton people,

because Tim Burton is a fantastic director, but sometimes the story is a little incoherent when you get it from it. It's aesthetics. It's aesthetics over, in my opinion, opinion plot. So let's say we take it out of here out of five. You said the first movie got a 1.5 if we're taking it out of 5. I think I remember you saying that you would rate the first movie. No, I would rate Zach's DC whole run as like a 1.5.

Okay, what do you give the Snyder cut specifically? I'm going to give it a 2.5. I'm going to give it a two. I think that's a strong score. That's half. That's 50%. If the plot is incoherent, but I was entertained,

you get it two and a half. And the reason I say that is because watching it over the course of four hours, I realize how much Zach Snyder is a vision guy. He's the guy that like he can see, what he wants, but he's not the type of person. He's not a Patty Jenkins. Like, Patty Jenkins can go and make a coherent movie

that's entertaining that will please everyone. James Wan can go take Aquaman and make an entertaining movie that will entertain everyone. There's nothing worse that has been offered to the DC universe than Wonder Woman 1984. It's the worst movie they've made by far. We just watched something worse. The Snyder cut.

You're out of your goddamn, mind if you think that the Snyder cut, Charles, you're trolling me, bro. Like, I'm older to you, bro. You're running my blupperser up. You think that that Wonder Woman 1984 was better than the Snyder cut. Yes, and you want to know why? Because it didn't waste an extra two hours in my life. Dog, would the Snyder could have been better at three hours?

Probably. Because there was a lot of stuff they could have left out, right? Yes. But as it stands right now, it's a good film. It's a solid film. It worked. It's too much of a mess for me. It's too, like the whole time I was watching it,

I was constantly just getting distracted at what he was trying to do. It was almost like Snyder, and we can talk about this later, he was planning so many other movies that sometimes it felt like I was watching a commercial for another movie instead of watching the Justice League. And the biggest way I saw it happening was Steppenwolf.

I think Steppenwolf as a villain is a very flawed villain. Because at no point in the movie did I really understand why, he wanted what he wanted. It was always he was going back. Well, he wanted it because he wanted it for Darkside. Yes, but that's not a strong, that's not a strong motivation for a villain. To say, if I ask you, what's Steppenwolf's motivation?

And you explained to me, he's like, well, he wanted to take over the world, not for him, but for Darkside. And then I asked in the movie, did they explain who Darkside was to Steppenwolf? No. Now, if you read comics, like, then you'll have a little bit more. But I still throughout the whole movie, I'm like, why does Steppenwolf want to, to conquer this world for Darkside. Like, what is that emotional?

Darkside had failed, right? Like, Darkside had failed. They had failed. Steppenwolf wanted to come and conquer the world for Darkside because he had fallen out of favor with him. And this was going to be... But why does he want his favor?

Are they related? Does he... Is there some type of, like, interpersonal connection with them where it's like a father-son thing where he wants to impress his dad? Or, like, I needed a little bit more. and all I got was this CGI monster who's covered in knives. Like, Steppenwolf literally looks like

what I would draw as a five-year-old, what I thought a villain should look like. All right, so. You're so happy. Okay. Okay. Okay. So what did you feel like was the biggest change

from the Josh Whedon cut of the film to the Snyder cut the film? To you. To me, and I was surprised that Snyder pulled it off. So this is, kudos to him, was just the killer. character development, whether it was Flash, whether it was Cyborg, he just gave all of these characters that in the first film, we didn't know anything about. And he made me, like, even though I didn't like

some of the choices, like I got why Cyborg was doing what he was doing, whether it was grieving his mother or trying to avenge his dad with Flash, I got the reason why he was the Flash and why even he picked Ezra Miller to do that. So I think one thing I did enjoy about the four hours and I want to know what you think is that I did enjoy the smaller moments where we got to be with these characters a little bit. That's actually what I think was like

a saving grace of the movie. What do you think? I can't understand what happened with Cyborg the first time they made this movie. I don't understand it because Cyborg if we're talking about is a relatively new member of the Justice League

even in the comic books, right? They didn't come around until I think around the early 80s or something like that or maybe even... No, Jeff Johns' run which happened, I believe, in like the 2010s, was the first time Cyborg

was even a member of the Justice League. Right. So I guess my thing is they definitely needed more. They definitely needed more for Cyborg, right? Mm-hmm. And the movie, Cyborg grounded the film. Like, the erasure of

cyborg in the first movie is almost inexplicable. And it really makes you wonder about some of the claims that Ray Fisher is making against Wheaton and some of the other brass over at Warner Brothers because they ripped him out of the movie. And the movie is almost why the first movie didn't work. Because when you start to see Cyborg and the way he's looking at things and the way he can control things, you get a full grasp of his powers.

You get a full grasp of why he feels like he has to go out and do some of the things. he has to do. You get the entire thing. And it also makes a deeper connection between him and his father. The first film, it was like, oh, by the way, this is his dad. But in this movie, you understand why

his father felt like he had to do what he did, okay? I mean, if you're a film goer, you know this stuff if you read comment, but you say, you also understand the strained relationship they have and why these things exist the way that they do. And that even comes back at the

end of the movie. So I don't understand at all, at all, why they gutted this character from the first film. But even from a story structure perspective, say, like, and this is in no way me defending Joss Whedon because, like, I actually think most of the things he makes are garbage. But Joss Whedon, you can't take a way that he knows how to structure a story. And I don't even know how they saw the script. And they were like, we need to take the audience surrogate out, which that's what cyborg is. Like he's this kid with powers who's like, I can hang with these gods.

I can hang with Superman and Batman. I'm a hero too. And the movie does not make sense unless you have that character arc of this kid who's a football player realizing like his tragedy does not define him. He can still be a hero. And yeah, like that's, yeah,

probably why the Wheaton Cut is dog shit is because like they cut all of that out. Is there anything that you liked better about the Wheaton Cut? Oh, besides the runtime, no. I think the Whedon cut was just tonally a mess. No, no. Like, I don't think there was any saving grace of that cut.

No, not me neither. I mean, the lasso scene was kind of cool, you know, when he sits on the lasso, that's a well-written scene. When Aquaman sits on the lasso and he starts telling the truth because he doesn't know that he's sitting on it. You could tell that had Josh, that had Josh Wheddon all over it. But, but no, I think this movie was, to me, a better movie in almost every single sense of the word.

I said something on Twitter that kind of got people talking. People were talking about Ben Affleck in this movie as Batman, you know, and you get a lot more Batman in the film. You got a lot more of everything. What do you rank him as Batman after having watched this whole movie the way Snyder intended it to go? Number one, Batman, best Batman, by far. Ben Affleck is the best Batman.

Best Batman by far. There's no question. My man, I said this on Twitter. My man was shooting his shot at Wonder Woman during an apocalypse. Christian Bill could never. Michael Keaton could never, okay? The Bruce Wayne that we get in this movie is just effortless. I believe, like all of the jokes, the one-liners, I think it was awkward man.

How many satellites do you have? He's like six. Like I was like, man, like, talk. Like, I want like a whiskey drinking Bruce Wayne. Like, we want to be real. Ben Affleck carried this movie on his back. Carried it. Look, I love Batfleck.

And I think it would be a tragedy if we didn't get more after this. I love Batheleck. I don't think he's a better Batman than Michael Keith. I really enjoy Michael Key. Michael Key is the last bad man. Christian Bill's better than him. Well, not to me.

But like I, like, so here's my thing about Christian Bell. Christian Bell is dope in those movies. Those movies are brilliant, right? Okay. In all of those films, to me, Batman is consistently the least compelling part of them. Like, consistently the least compelling part of those movies. He gets out-acted in most of those movies.

And he, you know, as Bruce Wayne, he's pretty cool. As Batman, he's the least compelling part of those movies. But once again, the movies are so fucking amazing that that's really not even saying anything. Michael Keaton to me brought a different sort of, he almost had a Bruce Wayne sort of aura to him. A tortured sort of sullen yet confident, right on the edge of insanity type of meticulous. And it always struck me as the role he was sort of born to play.

Like to me, even though that's not really, you think Bruce Wayne is almost more of a handsome guy. of Bruce Wayne is almost more of an imposing guy, but he always just worked as Bruce Wayne to me. It was a lot of it. I always did. This is the age gap here. This is the age gap showing.

This is like I wasn't there. I wasn't there for the, for the, you weren't outside. You weren't outside. We was outside, baby. I don't even think I was born. So you didn't, you didn't,

you didn't get the McDonald's commemorative cup. Stop. That was shaped like a bat. You know what I mean? You didn't get the, you didn't get the, you didn't get the, you weren't there when they announced that Michelle Pfeiffer was about to be Catwoman and everybody went, oh shit.

How old were you back then? How old were you for that first movie? I was eight for the first one, eight or nine for the first one. And then for Batman returns, I was, think I was like 11 or 12. Damn. So yeah, no wonder you like the Snyder cut. This must

be like seeing the Jetsons on screen for you, bro. Shut the fuck, man. Wait, I got a question for you. I got a question for you. What? Like, what did you think of some of the reshot stuff because we get Martian Manhunter officially in this

in one of like the post credits or epilogue scenes. We finally get the Joker in this. What did you think of all of these kind of Easter eggs that Snyder was like sprinkling throughout all of this? So there are two Martian Manhunter scenes. The first Martian Manhunter scene, of course,

is when he's talking to he's talking to Lois Laney. You think that he's Martha Kent, but he's actually Martian Manhunter. That scene, I legitimately spill my popcorn. Legitimately. Because I stayed off the internet for the spoilers.

I did not know that that was coming. I did not know that that was coming. And also, I saw it a little earlier because I had a screener. So I literally did not know that that was coming. I lost it. Did you like that part? Were you surprised or did you like it?

I liked it. I liked him. I liked that. But if we're being cool, because he's revealed in an interview since, that that was supposed to be, Stuart, John Stewart would have been way cooler than Martian Manhunt. Might have been. Sure.

Might have been. Might have been. Might have been. The two scenes that you're talking about at the end when we're talking about both the scene that involves the nightmare timeline when you have sort of this new rag tag group of Justice Leagueers with the Joker in there, Justice League, or maybe the suicide squad. You never know. that and the Martian Manhunter scene at the end were terrible. Like, terrible.

Ooh! Talk that shit. The ending Martian Manhunter scene is student film level filmmaking. Like, it's terrible. Wait, did you read the New York Times interview with Snyder, where he was like, the original plan was for me, like, he texted like Affleck. And Jared Letto, he's like, yo, like, let's just put a green screen in my backyard and let's just film this scene really, really quick. And we'll put it in the film.

And I could not get, like, that's not what they did, but I couldn't get that out of my mind. Because that was like the level of acting and direction in that scene where I was just like, get this man off the screen. Like, get this out of you. So there's a couple of things with that. Just staying on the Martian Manhunter thing, I thought the scene at the end was Hammy. They called me the Martian Manhunt. to. I just don't, like, that's, that was very hammy. It was, it was, it was, it was stupid, and it was more than anything, it was unnecessary. We had already seen

Martian Manhunter. We know that he's going to find his way to the Justice League in some sort of way. We'd already seen him. Like, it was hammy. That's the first thing. The nightmares thing is, is this. I know that they want more movies. I would love to explore the nightmare timeline. Love to. Stop. Love to explore the nightmare timeline. I think that's interesting. I want to see, look, in Superman 2, I think it was, maybe Superman 3, no, Superman 3, Superman, he goes

rogue, right? I'm pretty sure it's Superman 3, he goes rogue. And there's like a cool scene in Superman 3 where he goes rogue and he's in a bar, drinking. He's got a drinking problem now. Okay? Do you never seen this?

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is so great. Superman 3? Man, how old do you think I am? in Superman 3, he starts, he's in a bar. Superman's gone bad. It's really crazy. His suit's dirty.

He's got a 5 o'clock shadow. The whole nine. He's in a bar. And there's peanuts on the bar. And he's flicking the peanuts. And he's flicking the peanuts so strong that they're like bullets. You know what I mean? They're like,

Bing, Bing killing glasses and stuff like that. Just shattering glasses. And when I was a kid, I looked at that and was like, damn, what a Superman went bad. And so I have always been obsessed with that notion. Of course, you get that from time to time. You got that in injustice.

And to see this super hyperpowered version of Superman as an enemy and trying to see, and the scene, the most interesting thing about the scene was Batman kept saying that they needed the Joker. I'm like, well, why would they need the Joker? What possibly could the Joker have in his arsenal that could have pit him against, Halel of the planet crypto.

All of this confounded me. Like, Martian Manhunter seem confounded me because I'm just like Batman, Bruce Wayne would never do this. Bruce Wayne wouldn't just see an alien and just be like, oh yes, you know my secret identity, of course, join the team. Like, that's everything we know about Batman

from the comments to everything. He is distrusting of everyone. And him just seeing this alien he's never met and be like, yeah, sure, join the Justice League. Bullshit. The Joker seed, for the similar reason, they never explained why Joker was there. And it was written

in such a way where it was just like fans are going to eat this up. Snyder Cut fans are going to eat this up. But there was no, there was no rhyme or reason. Even like when they were talking back and forth, I'm like, the one scene that I did, the one line, when like Ben Affle was like, he was like, I'll fucking kill you.

I was like, oh, oh, yeah, okay. Well, the Joker was like the Joker was taunt to him. You know, he was taunting him over, I guess the death of Jason Todd. Or I guess it, or if it's Bruce or if they, if they have it being Dick Grayson, I don't know. But, you know, this is obviously something that has happened in this universe. We saw the costume in the Batcave in Batman versus Superman. So this is obviously something that's happened in this universe.

So, I mean, that was kind of interesting. But, you know, all of those three scenes, even the scene where Deathstroke comes to speak to, there's a scene at the end of the movie where Deathstroke comes to speak to, Jesse Eisenberg. And the one thing I really hoped more than anything would come out of the Snyder cut was no more Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Lerner. It just doesn't work. Jesse Eisenberg is a fine actor. He is a fine actor. But I think that we've seen something here. I think that we've

seen that portraying Lex Luthor on screen isn't as easy as you think it is. Kevin Spacey, who was everybody's dream to play Lex Luthor at the time that Superman Returns came out, He fumbled that, okay? And now you have Jesse Eisenberg, which when the casting was first announced, I was like, you know what? That seems to make sense. It's nothing but a sort of step forward from his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg,

the real life of Lex Luthor, in the social network. But it is completely not worked, totally not worked, and didn't really work in this scene. I take only good Lex Luthor on screen, my man from Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum. What? Out of your mind. What? Stop. You're such a child. Gene Hackman played Lex Luthor.

And Gene Hackman was fantastic. I can't. I can't mess with you right now. Hold on. Can you ask you a question? Have you seen Superman the movie? Yes. With the crystals? Huh?

With the crystals? Yeah. Superman the movie with Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman playing Lex Lx Luther. You don't think that Gene Hackman was fantastic as Lex Luthor? No, I can't, I can't mess with it. I can't move on. I'm not doing this with you. I'm like, well,

What about doing with you? All right. Let's talk about Darkside for a second. Okay. Darkside is, I guess, D.C.'s version of, like, Thanos, Apocalypse, whoever we want to be. These, more thanos. Thanos had a lot of gravitas to him as the huge villain for the Marvel universe,

for the MCU. And the first time we saw Thanos actually was in Avengers at the end, right? You saw Thanos at the very end. how did you feel because we didn't see Darkside at all in Whedon's cut of this movie? We do see Darkside in this film. How do you feel like the portrayal of Darkside was handled? Did they get this right? We're talking about the voice, how we looked, like I'm not that mad at it.

The thing I'm mad about, and it always comes back to character motivation, where we knew that Darkside wants the anti-life equation, but nobody ever explained like, well, why? The thing, if we're comparing him to Thanos and the snap or the blip or whatever you want to call it, we understand why Thanos wants to do that. We understand why he wants to get rid of half the sentient life forms in the universe. I don't under, like, could you explain to me why Darkside wants the anti-life equation besides like wanting to control everybody and evaporate free will? Like, I don't get, like, there's none of that backstory. So to me, once again, the thing that

Snyder keeps getting wrong is that he gets the visuals right or he gets like the cool character moments but the stuff that keeps you coming back or rooting for Thanos because I was rooting for Thanos by the end of it you know he dropped the ball we didn't get that Darth Vader like you feel

for him moment. The fact that you rooted for Thanos at the end of it is just wild but it's just fucking crazy. Stop! God want to kill half the galaxy and you're rooting for. Guy want to kill a guy I want to kill half the galaxy and you're like yeah

Thanos my dog was crazy you wait you're saying when thano said you should have gone for the head like you were like oh shit like come on man like I can't root for him like he can't want to tell you did you see the way Tom Holland like disintegrated I cried at the theater I like I teared up a little bit multiple times like he killed Spider-Man no I wasn't rooting for no but no you're right about Dark Side stepping wolf

I had less problems with because Steppenwolf in this movie Steppenwolf is the main villain of the last movie. Steppenwolf in this movie is more akin to Loki in Avengers. So more just a guy acting upon his behalf for a bigger guy. So I don't really care that much about Steppenwolf. I think to your point, though, good motivations make good villains. Good motivations make good characters, but good motivations especially make good villains. You understand Loki's insecurity with himself.

You get it. It's an understandable thing. You know what I mean? Throughout the rest of these situations, you understand Zemo. So you get it. You know, Steppenwolf has been trying to take over the earth because of the properties of the earth for a long time.

But because they don't give you very much about reason as to why that is, it's harder to be more familiar with the villain. He's just bad. Yeah. He's just bad. So, yeah, in this case, I don't think that the villains were as amazing as you would want for a movie of this caliber. However, I feel like Snyder sacrificed some of the development of the villains to really develop the heroes, which is something that other movies haven't had to do.

He had to, in one shot a lot of these times, develop his heroes. That's a big mistake of the movie, I think, though. Maybe. I mean, maybe if you're talking about it, starting character development at Ground Zero, right, at Ground Zero in the Team Up movie, it's rife with sort of storytelling pitfalls that you have to jump over, right? And maybe you jump over something better than you jump over the others. You know what I mean? No, I totally agree. And like before we go, I wanted to ask you, though.

You know, Snyder has been teasing what he had planned. So I'm going to fire out. He said that Lois and Clark's baby was going to be Batman because he was going to kill off Ben Affleck and maybe Justice League 3. Cool idea, dumb idea. And I saw that in the movie, by the way. I saw that there was a pregnancy test in there. And you guys, just do me a favor and stop.

with the dumb shit. Seriously, hold on for a second. Stop with the dumb shit. Okay? I don't know who's going to hear this. I doubt any of the big wigs up there here, but I'm telling you, I remember the moment that I'm in the theater watching Superman Returns and the boy pushes the piano across the thing, right? The piano, because the boy's got Kryptonian DNA. He's obviously

super vansky. I'm thinking to myself, like, where are they going to go? with that. Like, like, what happens now? What's the next thing? And that's not to say that there are not timelines and story arcs where Superman and Lois have had kids. It is. What I'm telling you is that that's putting the

cart way before the horse. Get fucking Superman right first. So forget about what you're going to do with Superman's kids and where we're going. Forget about doing Kingdom Come, where maybe it's Superman and Wonder Woman, maybe they have a kid.

Forget about all of that. Get Superman right. There are all types of stories out there. All types of big arcs, all star Superman. There are all types of situations out there where you can read it and read amazing Superman stories. You can draw from that inspiration and get this character right on screen. Before you talk about what it is that you want to do, because let's be honest, Superman's barely in this movie.

No. That's also a bad part of this movie Where I was just like Superman needs to be in this movie So let's get on this real quick Because we kind of skipped over this When we're talking about Superman Because we talked about Superman on this pot As much as Superman is actually in the movie

Superman's barely in the film He comes back black suits Superman And you get him By the time he shows up to the battle He is the final big blow That Steppenwolf cannot overcome So Superman's barely in this film It seems to me

In a way that there are friends of writing Superman, that they don't know how to reconcile his powers and what he's capable of with what's happening on the screen as it relates to the rest of the Justice League. Now, the reality of that is they've got to figure out a way because the portrayal of Superman that exists in the DC universe is just not who the character is fundamentally. They did a better job in this movie as far of having them in his skin than they did in a prior Justice League film, but it's just not who he is. You can't reinvent the wheel. Superman's got to be a little bit corny. He's got to be a little bit boy scouting.

But also, my thing is, do you think they did a disservice in the film where it was like the power scaling of them was off, where it made it seem like Wonder Woman was so much weak, more like weaker than Superman, Aquaman, like seemed like a chump compared to Superman. And it was like... Aquaman is a chump compared to Superman. Nah, but Jason Momoa, what we know about him, Like it was a little bit like I felt like They made Superman such a du sex machina by the end I was just like Why am I watching the rest of these assholes?

Here's a deal That's something that's always existed Like what really is the gap in powers Between Wonder Woman and Superman It just depends on the story in and of itself Because But I thought at the end They let her get a kill shot on Steppenwolf

Which was good because she's you know Right there with him but Superman's the most powerful hero in the DC universe. Nobody's up there. I'm not trying to take that away from him. I'm just trying to say, you're trying to build up these characters for three and a half hours. If in the last half hour Superman comes and wipes the enemy,

I'm just like, we could have done it a little bit more nuanced. But hey, that's just one gripe. That's one gripe. Right. Okay, so here's a deal. Real quick, there's now a hashtag that says, hashtag, restore the Snyderverse. Do you think that Justice League,

Zach Sears Justice League will get us to a point to where Zach Snyder's vision for the entire DCEU is restored. Are they going to go back and hand the keys back off to Zach Snyder again? There's no way. I truly do not see financially how it makes sense, especially when you think about what Aquaman did, what the original Wonder Woman did. As much as like the Snyder fans are rejoicing, I can't give the Snyder cut. Like, I can't go home to my friends and be like, yo, you guys got four hours. Watch this. They'll be like, are you high?

You know what I'm saying? And I think Warner knows that. Aquaman Wonder Woman, these things are already doing well. Why would they give Snyder more money when he's already lost that money? Like, financially, it makes no sense. I think this was just an easy way for them to be like, hey, we can get a lot of people to sign up for HBO Max. And that's cool. I'm actually so excited for Snyder.

take your victory lap man. But like, dog, if I had the keys at Warner, hell no, there's no way. Okay, so here's the thing about that to me. I don't think they really know what they're doing, right? No, they're going to run multiple Batman storylines. Multiple jokers, I think. Multiple jokers.

So I'm not sure what they're doing. So since they're doing multiple of everything, why not let Zach Snyder cook? So, I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. Since there's a joker that, you know, Tauffill's and then did. And we don't know how that Joker is connected to Jared Lettow's Joker.

I'm assuming there exists in different universes. It's been sad that they exist in different universes. We have a Batman coming with Robert Pattinson. Although Batman, Ben Affleckx, Batman, very much exists in this universe and these two things don't seem to be interconnected. If you're going to do that, I personally think that D.C. is leaving money on the table if they don't let Zach Snyder do more movies because I think that this is a success

despite what you're saying that this is a success and being that this is a success that people are going to want to see more of this. I personally, even though that scene didn't make any sense, I want to see the nightmare timeline. I do.

But here's the thing, there's a difference between the original Justice League getting a budget of 300 million and then making 700 million at the box office versus Joker, which had a budget of like 50 to 70 million, and then ends up making one billion. If I'm like the accountants, I'm like,

this makes no sense. Like, we're not giving Snyder that much more money when we could give somebody $50-60, I mean, $50, $60 million, and they could go mix a billion. It makes no sense right now. Well, look, I'm looking at it like this. What I'm saying is that to me, I think that you'd have bigger box office numbers,

especially on the first week, if you let Zach Snyder get some more films. Because I think that there's been renewed. interest in his vision for the DC universe, like following this movie. Yeah, so that's, that's my take. I want to see more of Zach Snyder's universe. I'm into it. Okay, okay.

Well, look, that's a wrap up for this very, very special edition of the Instant Reaction show covering Zach Snyder's Justice League. Thanks for joining us. Charles, thanks for joining us. Thanks for doing this with us again, man. Oh, no, thanks for having me on for the first two episodes. Congrats on the Oscar nomination. You know what I'm saying?

I appreciate that. Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah, appreciate that. So up next on the Ringaverse is going to be Mallory's Tuesday show. She's going to kind of jump off deeper into a deeper dive into the Falcon of the Winter Soldier, not an instant reaction, a deep dive show, theories and answers and all of your questions. You're going to want to send those questions in to at Ringiverse on social. Send mailback questions.

Please pepper her with these questions. I want you guys to stunt Mallory. Please do them. I'm going to be back on Friday for instant reaction to the Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode two. So subscribe and follow the show. And we are out long. Live the Snyder Cut.

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