ReWatch-ish: Rebel Moon: Director's Cuts: Pt 1 & Pt 2

2024, Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) -- Netflix

Also called:

Rebel Moon – Chapter One: Chalice of Blood
Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness

Full disclosure. It took me from the release date on Aug 2 to now (draft: Aug 16th) to watch all six hours and eleven minutes of these new versions. And I don't intend on doing any sort of recap; I just did those. 

So, this is the world we are in now? This is the new product of the #snydercut now? All Zack's movies will get re-presented in ever longer lengths? What I want now is the theatre release that combines both extended cuts plus some more stuff, but comes with a meal voucher and a proper intermission (with cartoon) so you can make a day of it.

Anywayz, I am not going to have as much fun ripping these apart as I did the previous MegaIndulgence of Zack. I just don't have the energy.

So, there are three themes to the extended versions: blood, splodey-heads, and sex. Lots of the first two, a wee bit of the latter. I was sort of surprised at the PG-13 level of sex in the initial releases, as Snyder is known for loving his sex scenes.

"Yeah, I don’t know. I’m a huge advocate. I like erotic content in motion pictures. I don’t understand, frankly, what would be the why of that. We’re sexual creatures, and that’s what we do."

That said, the scenes are rather toss-away which makes them more gratuitous than all the exploding head (music?) scenes.

Yeah, so blood and brains. In the universe of the Rebel Moon all of our bodies are more blood-filled sacks than bone & meat we traditionally think of ourselves as. Every punch, stab, magma-bullet shot and lazer-sword slice causes a massive burst/flow of digital blood, more akin to those horror movies where in one scene, the heroine is drenched from head to toe in blood, and in the next scene, she has a slight smudge on her cheek. The decks of the spaceships must have been deadly slip zones.

And brains. The movies open with an entire new scene where we are introduced to the Bad Guys invading a planet, the populace fighting back (and losing), and Admiral Atticus Noble convincing a young prince to cave in the head of his father in return for the lives of his mother & sisters. We are subjected to an incredibly detailed scene of the kid slamming that bone-cane thing into his father-king's skull, and then Noble reaching into the crushed bone & brain matter to make very very evil comments about memories. The young prince is then dragged off to become a soldier in the Motherworld forces. And then Noble kills the rest of the family, because we all, and the queen, knew he would. And then they raze the planet.

And teeth. A repeating small detail is that those weird masked priest guys that follow Noble around like to fish out a tooth from the ruined remains of a head and shove it into a molar-mosaic portrait of the Fallen Princess they are making. If anything, the Motherworld has an appreciation for fine art.

This prince turns out to be the young soldier Aris who protects pretty-young-thing Sam when his squad is left on the Rebel Moon at the beginning of Part One.

That sets the tone for people getting their heads destroyed. Sindri, the leader of the Rebel Moon village, is not just struck down by the bone-cane thing, but his head also caved-in. And when someone is shot with those magma-bullets from the Motherworld weaponry, either most-of or all-of the victim's head disappears. Or later, during the battle scenes, with bigger guns, entire upper torsos or entire bodies just explode. 

Now, beyond the gore indulgence, does the longer lengths add to the movie? Nope, not one bit. I did some research and it can take 120 days for a grain to grow. That's assuming standard Earth rotation. So, when Gunnar tells Noble how long it will be until the crop is ready (nine weeks I believe he says), let's assume their week is longer than ours. The original cuts made it out as if Gunnar and Kora had been flying around with Kai for a handful of days, but since we have no idea how space travel works in this universe, beyond a brief scene of the dreadnoughts using big lady-shaped generators to open rifts in space, we can assume there is lots of down time between the pickup of the space weirdoes. That more believably could add up to the nine weeks, this time.

Speaking of, the giant generator lady is show to be also an enslaved being... maybe? Its shown more as a vision than reality but "she" forgives Kora for blowing her up. I had just assumed it was just symbolic Motherworld design in using a female form as the centre of the ship.

There are also some additional scenes of Aris pretending to send in reports about what is happening on the rebel moon. What Aris doesn't know is that the Space Orcs, the mercenary aliens that Noble makes use, have been surveilling the village the whole time... that is until Jimmy the Space Robot Knight smooshes their heads.

The second movie ends up not as irritating to me as much as it did the first time round. Is that the additional footage? The additional "plot" ? I doubt it. I think I am just past it all now. There is a lot more confirmed death (exploding villagers) in this cut so it does have more weight to it -- the fight comes with losses beyond the symbolic loss of a few recognizable faces. But again, the movie pair is ending with a very open ending, as if all is a prelude to something more -- a greater battle against the Motherworld, the return of the young princess (is she Sam? is she? is she?), the Rise of the Jimmies. But will Snyder get anything more? Or will he just end up relegating it to spin-off novels and comic books? 

Answers will appear in slowmo.

31 Days of Halloween 2016: Ghostbusters

2016, Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) -- download

No, I am not stuttering. This is the other Ghostbusters, the new one.  And the extended one, to boot, which I didn't know as it was a pirate of the not yet actually released Bluray edition. The weird thing is that the extended bits (but the dance number) all fit in well and actually would make for some weird confusing scenes if they had been left out. So you cinematic viewers, I am not sure what you got.

So, right out with it. I was not one of the camp that was annoyed, upset or perturbed they were doing an all female version of the beloved 80s all-male movie. You see, I am not a disgusting Troll. I don't see any reason to be upset -- re-using old material is the motus operandi of Hollywood these days. The trouble is, the remakes are just not usually very good. Neither was this. It was, in true fashion, a very fun popcorn movie that I have already pretty much burped out, i.e. I don't recall much of it.

Also right out with hit, I am just not a fan of the Paul Feig movies of late. I saw Spy where I admit I was also not a fan of Melissa McCarthy movies and probably for the same reasons -- not my brand of humour. I am also not a big fan of the current cast of SNL, but at least Kristen Wiig can crack a smile on my usually sullen face. I don't like Leslie Jones's humour either, but I am a small man scared of large, loud women so there is that.

Now, that probably spun into me not really liking any of the characters in the core ghost-busting crew. Kristen Wiig was a jerk, Melissa McCarthy was a jerk and Kate MacKinnon was more weird, but also a bit of a jerk. But Leslie Jones are grreeeeeeat !!  Seriously, I loved the character she was playing who was simultaneously the audience's view into the weird ghost world these ladies were mixed up in and a stabilizing factor for the team. She was so much more than the add-on throw-away part Ernie Hudson was in the original. Spin off Patty coda please.

But yeah, I didn't go for the core gang very much. I also didn't buy into the rebootish nature; I agree with Kent that maybe a new sequel would have been a better choice. I get the need to smack on the nostalgia for the first movies but once the winks and nods were out of they way, there didn't seem to be any charm left in the movie. And the whole climax went way overboard and made for odd choices -- seriously, if you can punch the ghosts, then why the proton packs? You don't really need to do any capturing to begin with.

This is a movie where individual scenes are fun to watch. Kevin, the sweet but oh so dumb & pretty secretary, is hilarious but the dance number, made for a good credit closer, was just stupid inside the movie. The gearing up was fun, but mostly pointless to the plot. The ghosts were oh so pretty much nothing really scary nor innovative. Slimer was back, again not explained at all (only the cartoon ever attempted to do that) and literally seemed to have another movie off camera -- I wonder if they are doing a MCU style coda for him. But when you gather the movie all together, I cannot ever think of a reason to see the movie again. Nothing stands out, nothing excited me, nothing really made me laugh out loud. The movie really needed to be weeded out and much more focused. Less nostalgia, more innovation.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

2006, d. Richard Donner (Shomi)


For the better part of a decade (the 1980's specifically) there were no other choices for best comic book movie.  It was always a toss-up between Superman and Superman II because there was literally nothing else that could compete.

Condorman? Swamp Thing? Howard the Duck? Superman III or IV?

Prior to 1979's Superman, there was the Adam West-starring Batman:The Movie and the engaging-but-dated superhero serials of the 1940's. Then in 1989 Batman came along and created a whole surge of comic-related movies throughout the 1990's, most of which were not great.

Dick Tracy? The Shadow? The Phantom? Steel? Spawn? Barb Wire? Judge Dredd? Batman Forever? Batman and Robin??

There seemed to be a refusal to take comic properties seriously, so the results were a corny hash of 90's-style over-the-top actioneering with a sneering sense of superiority to the source material.  Costume designs, plot lines and characterizations were all changed by writers, directors and designers without much (if any) respect for the property and it's fans.  Hollywood had a "we know better" attitude about comic book properties that proved mildly successful with the masses and largely unsuccessful with fans.

Superman II, this whole time (from 1980 to the year 2000), was the gold standard of superhero movies (if not all comic book movies) primarily because it was the only film where a super-powered being fought other super-powered beings until 2000's X-Men effectively reinvented the superhero movie into something both fan and mass audience friendly.

But even during this 20 year period, Superman II wasn't in any way considered flawless.  It was clunky in parts, and featured more than its share of ridiculousness (the cellophane wrap "S" shield anyone)

The long-lived story about the film was that director Richard Donner was working on Superman and Superman II concurrently (from scripts by Mario Puzo) but was told to focus on the first film solely and inevitably replaced by Richard Lester as director, with script updates from David and Leslie Newman.  Lester wound up reshooting much of Donner's footage in order to receive director credit, fracturing what was to be a tight film duology.

Fans had long held out hope to see Donner and Puzo's vision for the film, eventually Donner and Warner Brothers came to an agreement.  The result is less campy than Lester's final product and certainly feels like a direct continuation of Superman, but it remains a painful movie to watch.  We've been treated to a wealth of comic book and superhero movies since 2000's X-Men, the best of which make Superman II look clumsy and silly in comparison, and the worst of which seem like its equal.

It's not just the effects of Superman II, or the goofy and awkwardly inserted stub footage created for the Donner Cut special edition, or the minimal-effort, terrible-even-by-2005-standards CGI added in...the film itself is fundamentally flawed.  Part of it has to do with being so dated, taking 1950's and 60's Superman comics as reference, the kind where Lois would put herself in mortal danger with the expectation that Superman would save her.  It makes her a reckless, stupid and unlikable character.  Here she figures out Clark is Superman by drawing a suit, hat and glasses over the Man of Steel's photo in the paper, and when Clark denies it, she jumps out a window, certain he's going to have to save her as Clark Kent.  Clark races to the street, super-breaths her from splatting on the ground (she bounces off an awning and onto a fruit cart), and races back up to the top floor of the Daily Planet.  This cartoon act of fate seems to be enough to quell her suspicion.

Barely five minutes later (in real viewing time), posing as a married couple in Niagara Falls (to get the big scoop on all those hotels scamming newlyweds across the border), Superman has to rescue a stupid kid from falling into the Falls.  Lois' suspicions return, and she pulls out a gun and shoots at Clark, who must admit defeat and reveals himself (the gun was loaded with blanks, she tells him after).  From there they go to his Fortress of Solitude and do it, after which Clark tells Jor-El (restoring scenes Marlon Brando had filmed for the sequel that were excised from Lester's movie) that he doesn't wanna be Superman anymore, that he's in love and he just wants to be a man.  It's a plot line that makes no sense at all.  Jor-El admonishes him for his selfishness but then shows him a red-sun chamber which will take his powers away.  Lois stands on, watching, and says nothing.  This film postulates here, and later on at its incredibly ridiculous finale, that Superman can only exist as protector of the people and cannot have love or a life of his own...ignoring the fact that Clark has already been effectively living a double life for some time.

In the end, powers restored, he acquiesces to his father and tells Lois they can't date anymore, and somehow she understands that their relationship is the sacrifice they both must make so that Superman can better the world.  Ridiculous.  But then Superman reverses the planet's spin and turns back time (again), to erase everyone's memories and also to effectively undo the entire film's story.  It makes no sense from either a scientific or storytelling standpoint.  (The reversing of time was also used in Donner's Superman,  but was originally intended for the sequel.  It's why we get a brief en media res bit at the beginning which is an aweful lot like the conclusion to Superman)

Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is pointless in this film, mostly in place for comic relief.  I'm not sure if Puzo's script had more for Luthor to do that Donner just didn't get to shoot, or if there were more story elements from the script missing from Donner's footage, thus not represented in this cut of the film.  His trip to the Fortress of Solitude with Miss Tessmacher seems to be an abrupt aside, that has little point to the overall plot of the film.  It's like there's some further of purpose for Luthor's visit beyond just telling the Phantom Zone villains about its existence, and mentioning Jor-El.  But perhaps not.  Miss Tessmacher is not seen again.

Christopher Reeve made for an astounding, tonally perfect Superman.  Physically he's just the epitome of what Superman should look like; tall, broad shouldered, fit and charmingly handsome.  The vibrant, comics-accurate costume and the slicked-back, spit-curled hair are so spot on, but it's upon Reeve's frame and physicality that he brings the character to life off the page.  His Clark, however, borders so closely to buffoonery that the character is merely a mask.  In the comics of the 80's and 90's, Clark is who the character is, and Superman is the ideal Clark can manifest into.  The film here postulates that Clark is sort of a whim of Superman's, a way to relate to the human world, but still something he has to pretend at.  When he's depowered, Clark has the script flipped and has to pretend to be the hero, and gets the ever-loving crap beaten out of him by a bully trucker.  Clark's whimpering and sobbing, followed by his pathetic, lonely walk back to the Fortress of Solitude (why is nobody dressed for winter weather in this Rao-damn film?!?) where he pleads and begs the last remaining vestige of Jor-El to make him Superman again is just the most unflattering take on the character ever.  I'll take even the modern, brooding, pensive Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman Clark over this wimpy husk of a man any day.

There's story reversals here that occur so quickly they cause whiplash.  Like Clark's depowering, then repowering, and like Lois' belief that Clark is Superman, then loss in belief, then belief again.  They happen so fast that they become pointless asides that distract from having any real action or movement in the film.

Lois is an annoyance in the film.  She's a character whose sole purpose is as a foil for Clark as well as a love interest. This is very much in holding with the character in the comics for a very long time.  There's a cat and mouse game between Clark's secret identity and Lois' discovery of it to the point where it seems like she's the only one who seems interested in finding out and also that she's the only one who he needs to keep it secret from.  It was a comic trope right up until the 1990s, a superhero's secret identity was their most valuable commodity, to be kept safe and secret from everyone at all costs.  Given the prevalence of surveillance as well as the proliferation of social media and tabloid journalism, it's almost an impossibility that a superhero would be able to keep their identity secret for too long without help.  As such, alter egos are a relaxed secret, having a team to help make excuses or cover up helps keep a hero safe.

Margot Kidder's Lois is, controversially, a chain smoker, which is wholly unflattering for the character.  The actress looks healthy and radiant in the Donner footage, though, compared to the Lester reshoots which happened over a year and a half later Kidder looked noticeably different, her face hollow, further exacerbated by an oversized wig.  There seemed to be a noticeable difference in Kidder's performance as well, where her Donner footage she's softer and more playful, her Lester footage she seems more severe.

The Phantom Zone criminals are indeed the highlight of the film.  Terence Stamp's Zod has become iconic for a reason, even in spite of his disco outfit and poor wirework flight scenes, he commands the screen every time he speaks.  Likewise Sarah Douglas' Ursa is probably the most powerful feminist character put to screen up until that time.  She physically reduces men to puddles with ease and steals their badges as trophies, a metaphorical co-opting of their power and status symbols.  Though she serves Zod in a military hierarchy, she is his equal otherwise, perhaps even more intimidating.  Non, as played by the mammoth Jack O'Halloran is a mute brute whom Zod uses as a blunt force object.  In the flying sequences O'Halloran seemed to have the most difficulty with conforming his body and so it looks most painfully obvious that he's in a harness being yanked around.  Though some of these flying sequences are still Lester's in this cut, most are Donner's and they do not look good overall.  Where the first one truly made people believe a man could fly, this one has a much harder time with that suspension of disbelief.

There was a time where we had to be happy with what we got, and in that time Superman II  was what we had to be happy with.  The Donner Cut of Superman II is an improvement, removing so much of the campy slapstick Lester inserted, but still, compared to today's superhero epics, it's almost unbearable viewing.