Aquaman is courted yet again to take up arms against an invasion, while Diana learns more about The Mother Boxes, Steppenwolf, and his master, Darkseid.
Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Epilogue
The Plot
- Steppenwolf establishes a base in Russia and orders the Parademons to find the other two Mother Boxes for ‘The Unity.’ He communes with DeSaad, chief advisor to Darkseid, who chastises Steppenwolf for his past betrayal.
- To that end, a Parademon raids STAR Labs, worrying Silas Stone, who is hiding a Mother Box in his home.
- Vulko warns Aquaman of disappearances in Atlantis, fearing invaders are seeking their Mother Box. He hands Arthur his mother’s trident and implores him to help his people.
- The Amazons light a warning fire, signalling Diana that she should seek out the Temple of Artemis, where she learns of the legend of Darkseid’s failed invasion eons ago and the scattering of The Mother Boxes. She shares these findings with Bruce Wayne, who continues to prepare for war.
The Good
- Giving more time for the janitor to be murdered by a Parademon looking for the Mother Box. It builds them up as horror movie monsters, and makes it much clearer it’s there because the Box used to be, versus the almost blink and you’ll miss it equivalent 2017 scene. I don’t know if you necessarily gain anything by having such a prolonged investigation from the cops, but the witness sketch vaguely resembling Batman was fun.
- I’ll take all the Wonder Woman scenes I can get, and her learning about The Mother Boxes and Darkseid entirely from drawings in the temple is certainly more show than tell, which is good!
- Aquaman saving a sailor and then drinking amidst a heavy storm plays entirely into Snyder’s strengths, with the slow motion and the music making Arthur look like a godly badass. It wields Jason Mamoa’s steely gaze quite nicely, and it’s an impressive piece of technical filmmaking. Much better song choice than Icky Thump too.
- While I don’t care for the colour choices in general, and doubling down on them in Steppenwolf’s base, the way DeSaad appears as a sort of… holographic carving dripping with fire is cool. It’s a shame it vanishes into the background of a chamber of greys, browns and oranges, but hey. Ciaran Hands obviously benefits from longer scenes with humble pleading rather than the ‘oh he’s just crazy’ stuff from the theatrical cut. They do a good job of building up the legend of Darkseid in this scene too.
The Bad
- The relationship between Bruce and Alfred is a little colder. Why does the plane have to be so poorly lit too? It has a sky light and when was the last time you were on a plane that wasn’t oppressively bright? Maybe it’s a private jet thing.
- I seldom enjoy when new characters appear late in a movie. While this is obviously an exhaustingly long film, we still haven’t met The Flash after an hour. Cyborg has only made two very short appearances as well. Superman’s absence is understandable, but that does mean a third of the team are absent entirely, and only half have more than a couple of lines. You just have to get into this stuff faster, regardless of length. Also Steppenwolf’s name isn’t established for almost an hour!
- Aquaman’s second scene may look great at first, but the entire conversation with Vulko is a mess. It tries to cram a little too much exposition into Arthur’s backstory and his current relationship with Atlantis. For instance I wouldn’t dream of name-dropping Orm, let alone mentioning that he is Arthur’s half-brother given he isn’t even in this film. The phrasing of Vulko’s begging for help is clunky too, and Willem Dafoe is clinging on for dear life, desperately trying to make the material work.
- Darkseid’s failed invasion was one of the most hyped additions to the Snyder Cut, whipping fans of The God of Evil into a frenzy. Unfortunately, while I appreciate the fan-service aspect, I actually think this hugely undercuts Darkseid after they did a good job building him up before that. Argue that this is Uxas rather than Darkseid if you want (Diana explicitly calls him Darkseid), but him getting his ass handed to him by Ares doesn’t lead you to believe this is an unstoppable invader they stand no chance against. The scene looks solid at first, with Darkseid standing ominously and summoning his ships, but once the battle begins it mostly looks like ass. Diana’s narration is wobbly too.
The Theatrical
- Whedon added a short scene between Lois & Martha discussing the sale of the farm, and a joke about Lois being the “thirstiest young woman” Clark had ever met. It’s a better joke than the ridiculous talking head with a woman talking about her husband being kidnapped and probed by a Parademon. Still, the scene does little other than remind us Lois exists.
- In the theatrical cut Diana goes straight from seeing the signal fire to approaching Bruce to deliver exposition. Her narration is much simpler, which is for the better. Darkseid’s failed invasion was carried out by Steppenwolf in this version, complete with the same cool shot of him standing in front of the three ships, albeit more rushed. My theory is this was always meant to be Step, and Snyder re-did it with Darkseid to win favour/build hype. Either way, I know people prefer the idea Steppenwolf is in his nephew’s bad books because he betrayed him rather than simply failing to conquer Earth, but I’m personally into the idea of his first (EVER) defeat driving him insane. Heck, he even loses in a less chump-like fashion, succumbing more to distractions and a numbers disadvantage, dragged away by his own men while still trying to fight, rather than Darkseid’s half-dead body being dumped onto a ship. I’ll say again it was very dumb to have the guy they wanted to build everything around be the one to take an L, so I prefer the original to the remix.
Overall
This is a pretty strong section of The Snyder Cut as it finally gets around to providing exposition to the audience about the villain and his goals. I personally think both needed to come sooner, but it’s a four hour movie, and if we’re in for that much long haul, I guess Snyder can afford to put these elements off. Steppenwolf gets some depth, we learn what a Mother Box is and why they’re desirable, and while the aesthetic choices aren’t entirely to my liking, there are some particularly strong visuals in this portion, chiefly Aquaman’s mini music video.
The big sexy Darkseid flashback scene was everything a certain portion of fans wanted, but doesn’t actually achieve anything of real value. That’s the thing about ZSJL, it isn’t truly a director’s cut, it’s a fan-service-driven remix of the movie, adding entirely new content never intended in the original, and benefitting from years of discussion about the theatrical cut. People don’t like the jokes? Let’s remove ones that were in the original script too. People were disappointed that Darkseid didn’t appear? Let’s replace Steppenwolf with Darkseid in a sprawling battle scene designed entirely to use for trailer bait, and shove some cameos in for good measure.
I will say though that if the ultimate aim was to build Darkseid up as much as possible, the wall painting in the temple and conversation between Steppenwolf and DeSaad achieved those goals nicely, even if I feel the flashback undermines everything and makes him look like a dork.
Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Epilogue
The Reel World 