Justice League

Justice League
A film that doesn't do justice for like a league of a thousands of deaths in the editing room by the hands of executive meddling.
Genre: Superhero Action Directed By: Zack Snyder (credited) Joss Whedon (uncredited) Produced By: Charles Roven Deborah Snyder Jon Berg Geoff Johns Written By/Screenplay: Chris Terrio Joss Whedon Based On: Justice League by Gardner Fox Starring: Ben Affleck Henry Cavill Gal Gadot Ezra Miller Jason Momoa Ray Fisher Amy Adams Jeremy Irons Diane Lane Connie Nielsen J. K. Simmons Ciarán Hinds Photography: Color Cinematography: Fabian Wagner Distributed By: Warner Bros. Pictures Release Date: November 13, 2017 (Dolby Theatre) November 17, 2017 (United States) Runtime: 120 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $300 million Box Office: $657.9 million Franchise: DC Extended Universe Prequel: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (chronologically) Wonder Woman (by release) Sequel: Aquaman

"Let's get a team together. ✓ Let's go stop Steppenwolf from getting the last box. ✓ Let's revive Superman with that box because that's how stuff works. ✓ Let's go fight Steppenwolf again. ✓ (either laughs, coughs or cries)"

— Filmento

Justice League is a 2017 American superhero film, featuring the DC Comics superhero team of the same name. Produced by RatPac-Dune Entertainment, DC Films, Atlas Entertainment, and Cruel and Unusual Films and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the fifth installment in the DC Extended Universe and a follow-up to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It was co-directed by Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon, co-written by Chris Terrio and Whedon, and based on a story by Terrio and Snyder. It features an ensemble cast that includes Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen and J. K. Simmons. It premiered in Los Angeles at Dolby Theatre on November 13, 2017, and was released in the United States in 4DX, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D on November 17, 2017.

A director's cut of the film titled Zack Snyder's Justice League was released on HBO Max on March 18, 2021.

Plot

Thousands of years ago, Steppenwolf and his army of Parademons attempt to conquer Earth through the combined energies of the three Mother Boxes. They are foiled by a united army that included the Olympian Gods, Amazons, Atlanteans, mankind and the Green Lantern Corps. After repelling Steppenwolf's army, the Mother Boxes are separated and hidden in locations around the planet.

In the present day, the world is in mourning after Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday. This causes the Mother Boxes to reactivate and Steppenwolf to return to Earth in an effort to regain favor with his master, Darkseid. Steppenwolf manages to retrieve the Mother Box from Themyscira, prompting Queen Hippolyta to warn her daughter, Diana Prince/ Wonder Woman of Steppenwolf's return by lighting the invasion fire. Diana joins Bruce Wayne/Batman in his attempt to unite other metahumans to their cause, with Wayne going after other metahumans, Arthur Curry/ Aquaman and Barry Allen/The Flash, while Diana tries to locate Victor Stone/Cyborg. The two of them fail to persuade Arthur and Victor, but manage to recruit an enthusiastic Allen onto the team. Stone later joins the team after his father Silas is kidnapped, along with several other S.T.A.R. Labs employees, by Steppenwolf, who is seeking to acquire the Mother Box from them.

Meanwhile, Steppenwolf attacks Atlantis to retrieve the next Mother Box, forcing Arthur to take action. The team receives intel from Commissioner James Gordon that leads them to Steppenwolf's army, based in an abandoned facility under Gotham Harbor. Although the group manages to rescue the kidnapped employees, the facility is flooded during combat, which traps the team until Arthur Curry as Aquaman helps them escape. Cyborg retrieves the last Mother Box, which he had hidden, for the group to analyze. Victor reveals that his father used the Mother Box to rebuild his body after a car accident left him horribly maimed. Wayne decides to use the Mother Box to resurrect Superman, not only to help them fight off Steppenwolf's army, but also to restore hope to mankind. Diana and Arthur are hesitant about the idea, but Bruce forms a secret contingency plan in case Superman returns as a nemesis.

Clark Kent's body is exhumed and placed in the incubation waters of the Kryptonian ship alongside the Mother Box, which in turn activates and successfully resurrects Superman. However, Superman's memories have not returned, and he viciously attacks the group after Stone accidentally launches a projectile at him. On the verge of being killed by Superman, Batman enacts his contingency plan: Lois Lane. Superman calms down and leaves with Lois to his family home in Smallville, where he reflects and tries to recover his memories. With the final Mother Box left unguarded, Steppenwolf retrieves it with ease.

Without Superman to aid them, the five heroes travel to a village in Russia where Steppenwolf plans to unite the boxes once again and reshape the world. The team fights their way through the Parademons to reach Steppenwolf, although they are unable to distract him long enough for Stone to separate the boxes. Superman arrives and assists Flash in evacuating the city, as well as Cyborg in separating the Mother Boxes. The group manages to defeat Steppenwolf, who, overcome with fear after his axe is destroyed by Wonder Woman, is torn to pieces by his own Parademons before they are all beamed away by Darkseid.

In the aftermath of the battle, Bruce and Diana agree to rebuild Wayne Manor as a base of operations for the team, with additional space for more potential heroes. Prince steps back into the public spotlight as a hero; Allen acquires a job in Central City's police department, impressing his father; Victor as Cyborg continues to explore and enhance his abilities with his father in S.T.A.R. Labs; Arthur returns to Atlantis; and Superman resumes his life as reporter Clark Kent. In a mid-credits scene, Superman and the Flash race to see who is the fastest. In the post-credits scene, Lex Luthor has escaped from Arkham Asylum and recruits a mercenary, Slade Wilson/Deathstroke who questions him if they should form a "league" of their own.

Why this Version Didn't Do Justice

1. Executive meddling: The movie was a victim of massive amounts of this. Literally, this is one of the few movies that has an entire Wikipedia article about its troubled production, due to Zack Snyder left over, following her daughter died during the post-production. As a result of all the problems mentioned below, the movie is very rush for its very poorly-paced that is also way too fast and has a very inconsistent and unnatural tone.
   • A large number of scenes were cut from the final version released in theaters, causing a lot of plot and character development to be lost.
   • The runtime also seems rather too short and rushed compared to other DC Extended Universe films, as a result of this. The problem is that while a shorter run time would be appropriate for solo movies, this ended up hurting an ensemble film like Justice League since there is less time devoted to developing each member of the league. Being an ensemble film with no less than three characters to introduce is one of the reasons Zack Snyder's Justice League lasts almost four hours, and it proved that leaving their backstories on the cutting room floor was detrimental to the 2017 theatrical film.
   • There are many times where footage from the original cut and the re-shoots are used in the same scene... and it is very noticeable with some re-shotted footage looking very crisp as the backgrounds look fake.
   • Due to the executive meddling and trying to catch up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movie feels like a weaker inferior clone version of The Avengers, which is another film by Joss Whedon.
   • During filming, it was reported that the rewrites by Geoff Johns caused issues with Chris Terrio and Warner Bros. executives. Warner Bros. was unsatisfied with how the film was shaping up under Snyder due to the negative feedback that the theatrical version of Batman v Superman received. It was reported that Warner Bros. held a footage summit for writers that include Joss Whedon, Wonder Woman screenwriter Allan Heinberg, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Andrea Berloff. This caused numerous rewrites as Justice League was filming.
2. Terrible computer-generated imagery even by 2017's standards, with the most notable example being Superman's creepy CGI mouth (since because Henry Cavill refused to shave his mustache for no lazy reasons; even if it was rather somewhat justified since Paramount wouldn't let Cavill shave his mustache because they were filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout at the same time).
3. Zack Snyder's grim and gritty tone clashes very badly with Joss Whedon's lighthearted MCU-like tone, as this makes the re-shoots even more obvious.
4. Due to Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman not getting a proper movie to introduce them or their lore, their backstories are very rushed due to time constraints and Joss Whedon rewriting those.
   • However, Aquaman does get his own movie in 2018 alongside with Flash in 2023 and not Cyborg.
5. Weak cinematography from the reshoots which makes it look more like a TV show or a made for television film than a theatrical film, compared to the rest of DCEU movies.
6. Large parts of the movie attempt to outright retcon Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. For example; in said film, the world had a very polarized view of Superman with some comparing him to Jesus and others hating him as an alien invader. But in this movie, the whole world suddenly views Superman as a beacon of hope and everyone mourns his death, with zero mentioning of him being hated by anyone at all.
   • There is a scene in said film where Batman has a vision of the "Knightmare" world conquered by Darkseid, a Superman that is evil and Flash coming from the future to warn him about incoming events. The whole point of that scene was to set up future installments, yet none of it is mentioned in the actual movie and Darkseid was completely cut, thus he is only mentioned once in the entire movie.
7. The entire subplot with the Russian family is pointless blatant filler and just has no point in the story for this film.
8. The final poster is very misleading and dull, making it look more like either a 1970s or a 1980s film than a 2010s film.
9. Terrible writing and direction of Joss Whedon who's reshoots of the final film rely on trying to incorporate his own "light-hearted" tones for his films and use of humor. During the reshoots of the film, actor Ray Fisher often states that Whedon treated the cast poorly and was "gross, abusive, and unprofessional".
10. The 3 merged Mother Boxes are changed into like a Tritium inside from Doctor Octopus' Fusion Reactor from Spider-Man 2.
11. The characters' costumes were meant for dark, dimly-lit rooms but, because the color palette was brightened up in the reshoots, the costumes stick out badly.
12. Weak villains (including the bank robbers from Keystone City at least).
    • Steppenwolf is a very lame and generic villain, who is just your typical "generic doomsday villain" trope again, with his whole character literally being generic "I'm going to destroy the world because I'm evil!" goals. His defeat is also incredibly lame, as he's torn apart by his own Parademons after he's overcome with fear when his axe is destroyed by Wonder Woman.
      • He was also supposed to have some backstory and was the uncle of Darkseid, but that was all cut as part of the re-shoots by Joss Whedon along with studio-mandated edits.
    • The Parademons are now reduced into being like the Flying Monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, with the commandment of their actions from their masters' control.
13. The characters have drastic changes in their personalities and barely do anything in the movie because of said reshoots by Joss Whedon.
    • Batman is out-of-character since he is made considerably weaker compared to the rest of the team and is over-reliant on gadgets, as he's barely useful in combat unless he is using weapons or vehicles. He also makes many cringeworthy one-liners that don't fit the character as he was established in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and seems more like things Tony Stark would say. Examples are:
      • "I'm rich!", when Flash asks what Batman's superpowers are.
      • "I'm not the one who brought a pitchfork!" to Aquaman.
      • "Maybe temporary...", when asked about why he's making a team.
      • "Yep! Something's definitely bleeding!" after he got beaten up by Superman in a very embarrassing way.
    • Flash runs very awkward in a unnatural way and the actor often moves his eyes around very distractedly, he also acts more like a comic relief, rather than main character.
    • Aquaman barely used his water powers during the movie and relies on using his mother's trident.
    • Superman, while likable, is extremely overpowered to the point where it feels like the rest of the Justice League is unneeded. Before Superman is revived, the League utterly fails to do anything to slow down Steppenwolf, but in the climax, Superman defeats Steppenwolf almost effortlessly and without needing the other heroes' help. Flash is also made near-redundant after Superman is revived because he is very clearly shown to be faster than Flash.
    • The Justice League is rather incompetent, most notoriously when the team gets the final Mother Box before leaving it completely unguarded, allowing Steppenwolf to effortlessly take it without a fight.
14. The movie overall has a very generic and unoriginal Avengers copycat-like feel, not doing anything new that hasn't been seen before in the dozens of superhero movies that have come out in the past decade.
    • In addition, Justice League is highly similar to Man of Steel in the fact that both films involve alien conquerors coming to Earth, with their ultimate goal being to forcibly terraform the planet to resemble their own homeworlds.
    • The plot is also a rehash of Avengers, as both films are about horned helmet-wearing beings who want to conquer the world with a cube shaped object on behalf of a superior evil being acting from behind the shadows, and heroes around the world team up to stop the invading army but must first learn to work together.
    • This is since Joss Whedon, the director of the first two Avengers films, was the writer for the film's rewrites and took over directing duties in post-production after Zack Snyder stepped down due to his daughter's suicide.
      • But Whedon goes as far as to copy scenes from his films (Avengers and it's sequel Age of Ultron, for example):
        • Flash saving Wonder Woman is copied from Bruce Banner/Hulk saving Black Widow from Age of Ultron.
          • In the behind the scenes info, Wonder Woman actress, Gal Gadot stated that she was not involved shooting that scene and is replaced with a body double.
        • Sequel-baiting: Lex Luthor and Deathstroke are seeking to form their own team just like the Justice League which never happens whatsoever and it rips off the post credit sequences of the first two Avengers films.
        • The mid-credit scene of Flash and Superman talking about going to eat for "brunch" rips off a scene where the Avengers are eating.
        • The Russian family being saved by the Flash rips off a deleted scene of an escaping family that Captain America rescued.
        • There is also some generic "confict between leaders" trope stolen from the first Avengers film.
        • The weird butt-shot of casual-wearing Wonder Woman when she arrives to meet with Bruce and Barry rips off the butt-shot of Black Widow in the back confronting an imprisoned Loki.
        • The epilogue from Lois Lane's narration and the Justice League's separate ways rips off that idea from the first Avengers film.
        • The romantic relationships with Batman and Wonder Woman is too similar to that of Black Widow and Hulk.
        • It often used generic "quips" from Age of Ultron for humor.
15. Major plotholes:
    • The Parademons are shown to have super strength (as, for example, they ripped off parts off of the Batmobile and easily caused severe damage), but they were attacking the Russian family's house (which has a very poor structure) for a long period of time and they couldn't even storm in.
    • If Superman defeated Steppenwolf almost effortlessly by himself, than why did the Justice League even needed in the first place?
    • At the end of the film, the Russian city's destruction somehow is turned into a flowery garden. Wait, WHAT?!
16. Unlike other DC movies, this movie has a very forgettable and uncharistically generic score by Danny Elfman, outside of theme songs that were lifted from previous movies like 1989's Batman and 1978's Superman.
17. Blatant product placements like UHaul, which is out-of-place for DCEU films.
18. Laughable dialogue such as:
    • "What is 'brunch'?"
    • "Ka'el, No!"
    • "Alfred, I need the big guns."
    • "Something's definitely bleeding".
    • "Did you ever fight a hippo?"
    • "WHERE IS MY MOTHER BOX?!"
    • "Mother is calling!"
19. To rub salt to the wound, this failure of that film forced Warner Bros. to reshuffled their film production staff and would scrapped plans for the planned sequels and connections in favor of erasing them in the infamous The Flash solo film, which later turned out to be a massive trainwreck as well.
20. Bad release date: It was released theatrically two weeks after another superhero film, Thor: Ragnarok, which was doing a lot better than this film, causing Justice League to flop at the box office.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The team's interactions with each other are fun to watch.
2. The action scenes are pretty cool for the most part.
3. Much less dark tone than previous DCEU movies, even if its inconsistent and unnatural.
4. The acting is decent, particularly Gal Gadot and Ezra Miller.
5. Superman became a more likable character with more personality.
   • The Jesus allegory that was shoved onto Superman in both Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman was completely dropped in favor of giving the character real development, despite his short screen-time.
   • Superman is more accurate to his comic book counterpart than in his previous appearances by a country mile. The mock interview he has with the kids in the beginning of the movie is a wonderful example of how Superman should be (despite him having the creepy CGI mouth in that scene) and just like the comics, he's kind and helpful rather than deadly and being the Gary-Stu.
6. There are some effective jokes, such as when Aquaman starts talking about his feelings, unaware that he's sitting on the Lasso of Truth. The scene where Flash fights Superman was also funny.
7. Steppenwolf and the Parademons have more menacing designs than their comic book counterparts, and they would be redesigned further in Zack Snyder's Justice League.
8. Even though Danny Elfman's score is very generic and forgettable, there are some good songs like Sigrid's cover of "Everybody Knows" and Gary Clark Jr.'s cover of the Beatles song, "Come Together".
9. Thanks to the support of millions of fans 5 years later, people got to see Snyder's vision truly come to life in the form of his own cut titled Zack Snyder's Justice League, available exclusively on HBO Max (and other streaming platforms depending in which country you live), and it is considered to be a huge improvement over the theatrical cut as it fixes lots of problems.
   • In fact, according to an interview with Jason Momoa promoting 2018's Aquaman, Zack Snyder's cut is indeed the canon version of Justice League's events despite the continuity issues of Aquaman.
   • Similarly, Wonder Woman (2017) director Patty Jenkins stated that no DC director considers Whedon's version to be canonical, and even worked with Zack Snyder to ensure that her film shared continuity with his cut.

Background

Plans for a Justice League movie began since 2007, when a script titled "Justice League: Mortal" was written by Michelle and Kieran Mulroney and green-lit for production. However, the movie was quickly cancelled due to multiple delays and problems before filming even started. The film would've been directed by George Miller along with starring D.J. Cotrana as Superman, Armie Hammer as Batman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Lonnie "Common" Lynn as John Stewart/Green Lantern, Adam Brody as Barry Allen/The Flash, Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman, Teresa Palmer as Talia Al-Ghul and Jay Baruchel as Justice League International/Wonder Woman villain Maxwell Lord being the main antagonist.

Shortly after the success of The Dark Knight trilogy of Batman, Warner Bros. had begun plans for a Superman trilogy beginning with Man of Steel. However, after the release of Marvel's The Avengers, the trilogy was dropped in favor of a DC movie universe, unofficially labeled the DC Extended Universe, with Man of Steel considered the first installment of the series. The intended Man of Steel sequel was reworked into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which would then be followed by a new Justice League, both of which would be directed by Zack Snyder, who also directed Man of Steel.

Director Zack Snyder's plan was to make a trilogy of Justice League movies following Batman v Superman, where Steppenwolf would be the main villain of the first movie, followed by Darkseid, as the true overarching villain of the second and third films.

The first Justice League movie would begin production immediately after Batman v Superman. However, when Batman v Superman was released, it was panned by both critics and audiences. Despite the movie being profitable, the negative reaction towards it led to Warner Bros. meddling with multiple DCEU films, primarily demanding that the dark tones of those movies were changed to be more lighthearted and comedic.

The meddling by Warner Bros. resulted in Justice League suffering large amount of production problems; the script was drastically altered, leading to Darkseid being completely cut, leaving Steppenwolf as the only villain in the movie. An early cut of the film was presented, but higher-ups described it as "unwatchable" and demanded more changes and rewrites, alongside rumors that Zack Snyder would be fired. Mid-production, Snyder's daughter tragically committed suicide, causing him to completely step down from the project. Joss Whedon, director of The Avengers and it's sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron, was brought in by Warner Bros'. execs to make extensive re-shoots and finish the project. However, by that time, the movie was dangerously close to release and yet Warner Bros. refused to delay it. More than an hour worth of footage was cut because Warner Bros. mandated that the movie couldn't be longer than two hours. As a result, many scenes shown in the trailers were nowhere to be found in the final product.

An additional problem came when Henry Cavill, Superman's actor, was called to do re-shoots but, at that time, he was already shooting for Mission: Impossible - Fallout and his role in that movie required him to grow a big mustache that he wasn't allowed to shave. Warner Bros. had to use CGI to hide Cavill's mustache during the re-shoots but, due to the movie being so close to release, the editors didn't have the time to properly apply the CGI.

Following the release of the movie, there was a large amount of speculation regarding the initial cut of the movie intended by Zack Snyder, dubbed the "Snyder Cut". Some sources indicated that said cut did indeed exist, but was a very rough cut without any major editing work nor any CGI applied, therefore it was too incomplete to be released and would cost too much money to complete. Warner Bros. later stated that there were no plans to make more crossover movies for a while. As such, the intended second and third Justice League movies as planned by Zack Snyder have been indefinitely delayed, if not outright cancelled.

Reception

Initially, audiences were very skeptical of Justice League, due to being soured by Batman v. Superman. Despite this, interest in the film was fairly high and was improved by the positive reception of Wonder Woman in earlier 2017. However, concerns for the movie became rampant after Zack Snyder left the production and reports emerged that Snyder's initial cut had been scrapped and that the movie would have a large number of rewrites directed by Joss Whedon.

Upon released, Justice League received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, audiences and DC fans alike, who praised the action sequences and performances (particularly of Gadot and Miller), but criticized the plot, writing, score, pacing, villain, humor, computer-generated imagery and Whedon's direction. Its tone was also met with a polarized reception, with some appreciating the lighter tone compared to previous DCEU films and others finding it inconsistent and unnatural. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film reported an approval rating of 39%, based on 408 reviews, with an average rating of 5.26/10. The website's critical consensus reads "Justice League leaps over a number of DC movies, but its single bound isn't enough to shed the murky aesthetic, thin characters and chaotic action that continue to dog the franchise". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". On Letterboxd, the movie has 2.1/5 score rating.

On the other hand, audience score was positive, with a 68% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 6.1 score on Metacritic.

Following Justice League's underwhelming performance and several DCEU movies being cancelled in favor of other DC movies not related to it, many fans are questioning the future of the DCEU. Warner Bros. announced that they'd continue the franchise, but will move away from the movies prior to Justice League. Warner Bros. later announced that the franchise would be soft-rebooted as Worlds of DC, in which some elements from the previous DCEU movies such as Aquaman and Wonder Woman will remain canon, but most other films will be ignored, if not outright retconned. Likewise, newer films in the franchise will not focus on crossovers.

Fans of the DCEU demanded that the "Snyder Cut" of the movie be released, but it was deemed unlikely to happen. On May 20, 2020, however, Warner Bros. finally announced that the "Snyder Cut" would indeed be released exclusively on HBO Max on March 18, 2021.

Box office

Justice League opened up at #1 on its opening weekend, making a domestic gross of $38,471,202. The total domestic gross was $229,024,295. In foreign territories, it made $428,900,000. Overall, Justice League grossed $657,924,295 against its $300 million budget, becoming a box office bomb, being the least profitable out of all the movies in the DCEU and causing Warner Bros. to lose an estimated $60 million. Audiences described the movie as "a Frankenstein's monster that is neither Snyder's movie nor Whedon's movie".

Trivia

• Superman was intentionally left out on all early Justice League marketing materials, including trailers, clips, and posters, which actor Cavill commented as "ridiculous". Despite his character being hidden from promotional materials, Cavill still joined the rest of the cast on the film's press tour. Clark Kent was revealed in a final trailer before the release of the film, but edited in a way that writers felt Lois Lane was dreaming about Clark.
• It spawned the "I'm rich!", "I know you", "Maybe temporary..." and "Yep! Something's definitely bleeding!" memes.
• This was one of four straight bombs for Warner Bros. Pictures, the others being The Lego Ninjago Movie, Blade Runner 2049 and Geostorm.

Template:DC Extended Universe

Zack Snyder

Movies: Dawn of the Dead (2004) - 300 - Watchmen (2009) - Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - Sucker Punch - Man of Steel - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition) - Justice League* - Zack Snyder's Justice League - Army of the Dead - Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire - Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver *: Snyder was the director of Justice League during principal photography, but was replaced by Joss Whedon during post-production. Snyder retained directorial credit for the finished film, though reports have indicated Whedon reshot a significant portion of the film. Snyder later edited a director's cut of the film, removing all of Whedon's footage and restoring his own footage that was deleted in the theatrical release. Snyder also shot four to five minutes of additional footage in late 2020 for his cut, released as Zack Snyder's Justice League.

External Links

• Justice League at the Internet Movie Database
• Justice League on Rotten Tomatoes

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