Releasing the Snyder Cut will not end calls to #ReleasetheSnyderCut

Earlier this week, something funny happened at HBO Max. Some viewers said that when they were broadcasting the new Tom Jerry film, they have something very different: Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The nonsense was resolved quickly; a Twitter user said they saw the movie just an hour before the flow stopped, and Tom Jerry is no longer a speakeasy from Snyder Cut. The incident was a funny blip 10 days before Zack Snyder’s Justice League was scheduled to go to the real streamer, a tempting tease for a fandom that has been relentlessly demanding to see this film more or less since then Justice League came to theaters in a disastrous state four years ago. In about a week, Warner Bros. finally it will launch what, for all these years, has been mostly theoretical, a hashtag and a dream. It would have been better for most of us online if it had stayed that way.

It is difficult to talk about the Snyder cut without talking about the people who demanded it. For years, countless social media posts and forum topics effectively they were the Snyder cut: a vehement rejection of the theatrical cut and a fervent belief that the real film – the superhero film ür-DC – was out there somewhere. A Change.org petition demanding access to Snyder’s version went viral and, with a rabid audience demonstrably present, comic book publications to Ringer came together in fascination or direct support.

Any discussion of fandom on the internet is difficult. Online groups are often characterized by their loudest voices, and when a fandom is founded on something as extreme as rejecting a widely criticized $ 300 million blockbuster, while insisting that access to the hidden, secret is being denied Good version, it’s hard to imagine fans being chill about this. Furthermore, online movements are often incipient and without leadership, so although the vast majority of fans who want a Snyder Cut may well be reasonable people interested in some extracurricular online camaraderie (even raising money for charity) , they are not necessarily influencing the most toxic members of their cohort, who turn the speech into a crusade against alleged malicious intentions from DC and Warner Bros’ part against the True Fans, which only Zack Snyder understands.

Even the phrase “Snyder’s cut” is a little incorrect, because although Zack Snyder officially said that he had a cut cut he took with him and fixed it after he left Justice League, it was not a finished film. Turning the pieces into a piece cost Warner Bros. $ 70 million, which Snyder and others say was almost entirely earmarked for post-production costs, such as finishing visual effects, with very few new films shot. None of this really matters; the important thing is that a complete and unmodified version of your Justice League I will be here, complaining about fans in a dirty and fair way. And everyone is together with the tour, as extras in a strange and loaded production that nobody signed for.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League it is an unusually loaded version. It is a reworking of a film that essentially killed Warner Brothers’ initial plans for its cinematic universe in DC. The new version would probably not exist if Warner did not have a new streaming platform that it desperately wants to succeed. On the one hand, it is the attempt of a filmmaker to finish a work that he had to abandon after a terrible personal tragedy; on the other hand, some reports claim that the film still would not have gone well if the fate had been less cruel. The existence of the film is a perceived victory for toxic fans and legitimizes online harassment. It is also a reward for fans of a more mundane track who want more than one thing they love.

The film is a cultural minefield, a Jurassic Park situation where a group of people decided to clone velociraptors without thinking too much about why we could be better now that the velociraptors are extinct. Toxic fandoms need oxygen to support themselves, and with Zack Snyder’s Justice LeagueWarner Bros. is pumping anxiously in the hope that fans will subscribe to HBO Max en masse in order to finally achieve something that they feel has been denied them unfairly. It is the kind of cynicism that would make Jurassic Park owner John Hammond proud.

In the absence of face-to-face interaction, online life has a way of reducing people to a collection of expressed opinions. Whether these opinions are sincere or totally trolling, it doesn’t matter – everyone is just an avatar and a text looking for people with whom to share opinions and build their identity online. That’s, on a very basic level, what online fandom is: people using enthusiastic avatars, superhero alter egos where they can forget about work or school, and just be people who really like, say, movies Zack Snyder’s DC. So, what happens after they have unimaginable success?

Warner Bros. Pictures

Before Zack Snyder’s Justice League has been announced, Snyder Cut’s vocal fandom may have burned out on its own, as with all fires without fuel to sustain them. Now that there is a real, concrete film, things may not end so well. Zack Snyder’s view of Justice League it was not limited to one film, or even the three DC films he has made so far; it was to be the definitive cinematic interpretation of the DC Universe, a source from which a dozen other films would flow. In recent years, Warner Bros. has carefully deviated from that view in its subsequent films. All of them – Aquaman, Shazam!, Birds of prey, and Wonder Woman 1984 – were complete tonal deviations that also maintain a plausible level of denial about the continuity of Snyder’s vision. Other movies – like 2019 Clown It is the next Batman – are situated in other universes entirely. A year ago, Zack Snyder’s DC universe seemed to be over. The launch of the Zack Snyder’s Justice League suggests that the status is only temporary.

And fans are now adhering to that suggestion. Most fandom is a state of deliberate delusion about its own importance: it is often foolish to think that billion-dollar companies care about your opinion of a movie. When it seems so, it seems intoxicating and empowering, even if the power is just an illusion. It’s like hearing your passion say it’s going to go out with you “When Waluigi is added to Smash“And answering,” So you are saying that there is a chance. ”A taste of power can transform the tiniest glimpse of the blue sky into an open universe of possibilities. The #ReleaseTheSnyderCut patterns have that blue sky and are responding with another hashtag: #RestoreTheSnyderVerse.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Just before what became known as DC Extended Universe began to take shape with Steel man, there was going to be another Justice League. Mad Max: Fury RoadGeorge Miller signed on to direct, with actors already cast. But the film collapsed just before filming began in 2008. Looking back, it is a project from a different time, where The dark Knight it was a monumental success, but also the only one from DC Comics on the screen. There was no Arrowverse in 2008, and there was barely a Marvel Cinematic Universe yet. Miller hadn’t done yet Fury Road, and it didn’t have the feverish level of fandom it has now – his last film was Happy Feet. Miller Justice League: Mortal, as it was called, would have been incredible, perhaps. If it had been a success, perhaps the fans would be clamoring for a MillerVerse now. If not, maybe they were writing to WB asking Christopher Nolan to take over. In any case, they would not have anticipated Snyder’s interpretation and would not be asking for it. Fandom exists in the tension between the obsession with previous joys and the anticipation of new ones, but it can only speak of the future in the language of the past.

Photo: Clay Enos / Warner Brothers

In its most toxic form, fandom is restrictive. While people urge creators to focus only on recreating the things that fans once loved, they chase away new visionaries who would make their favorite things more vibrant and lasting. They also chase away ideas that expand the worlds they love. The fervor that calls for a Snyder cut developed came with the necessary denial of what could eventually replace the Justice League at some point in the future. Maybe it was something better, maybe something worse. Once again: no one knew the director of Baby: pig in the city he was a few years away from making one of the most acclaimed action films of the decade. Fandom is great at pushing the things they love. It is very bad at predicting – or, by the way, empowering – what he will love next.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League ultimately, it’s just a movie. Its release is not a catastrophe of any kind, but it is disruptive to the way films are discussed and received, distorting the relationship between fandom and pop culture in a way that is too confusing to analyze cleanly and establish a status quo that can ruin the discussions before it even starts. It is a wrench in the gears of pop-cultural discourse, and extremely cynical. The only part that can really win something real is Warner Brothers, the corporation with a streaming platform to promote, with a ready audience of easy brands that could influence with just the right project.

The problem is that a reactionary fan base is easy to win and difficult to maintain. Courting someone is in danger of giving up the long-term growth and diversification that are vital to sustaining superhero franchises, in exchange for the short-term gain of visibly rewarding a crowd that will never be truly satisfied.

The best pop culture shows us where we are and suggests what it could be. It is difficult to see this film as anything other than a four-hour refusal to move on, an indulgent invitation for Snyder fans to give their money to HBO Max and then stay right where they are.