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Zack Snyder's amazing feat...

posted 6 years ago by ReelReviews14 (1176)
7 replies | jump to latest

We bash Hack Snyder a lot on this page, but I have to give him credit for pulling off something that is EXTREMELY rare in Hollywood: he directed a PURE CRAP TRILOGY.

A PURE CRAP TRILOGY is the opposite of an equally rare Hollywood phenomenon: THE PERFECT TRILOGY.

In a PERFECT TRILOGY, all three films of a continuing saga are considered to be EXCELLENT movies in their own right and all three were critically acclaimed with rave reviews and extremely popular when they were released. Very, very few film trilogies can pull this off – even stuff that’s considered iconic (like Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather Trilogy) has at least ONE film that wasn’t the amazing classic that the other two films were. There’s probably less than half a dozen examples of PERFECT TRILOGIES. Examples include Sergio Leone’s The Man With No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars/For a Few Dollars More/The Good, The Bad and The Ugly), The Toy Story Trilogy, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

A PURE CRAP TRILOGY, of course, is the opposite effect: ALL three films in the saga got theatrical releases, but opened to poor reviews, ended up being CERTIFIED ROTTEN on Rotten Tomatoes, and under-performed box office expectations and failed to live up to the hype. Again, less than half a dozen film trilogies probably meet these criteria. Usually they have at least ONE good movie in the trilogy (even if the overall trilogy is considered pretty lousy, for example: Meet the Parents got highly favorable reviews from critics and was a huge hit, even though the follow-up films Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers both got scathing reviews and under-performed). This is very rare because studios are unlikely to keep churning out big budget theatrical releases if the movies keep sucking and getting ridiculed.

Of course, Hack Snyder managed to pull off this feat, with his Henry Cavill “DCEU” trilogy: Man of Steel/Batman vs. Superman/Justice League ALL being CERTIFIED ROTTEN on Rotten Tomatoes, and being disappointments for Warner Bros. expectations.

This puts Hack Snyder’s trilogy in the same category as classics like Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma’s House Trilogy, the recent 3-film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (which abruptly changed casts every movie because they couldn’t keep their actors!) and the Troll trilogy (which is a Trilogy In Name Only, since all three films tell completely different stories, and Troll 2 and Troll 3 don’t even have trolls in them!)

Congrats Hack, you’ve earned it!

[–] Otter (24464) 6 years ago

That is an excellent point, and one I hadn't thought of. Sure, I hate all three of his movies, but now I can appreciate them as cinematic rarities!

And Snyder's DC films aren't just rarities but absolutely unique - never in the history film has a crap director been trusted with so much money and returned so little quality. This is probably the highest number of dollars per degree if crap ever! Some of the most expensive ever made, and all three are flat-out dreadful and almost universally despised. (a few people like MoS for some reason).

How did Snyder pull off such a feat? Most directors get fired after one expensive film turns out to be dreadful, but he managed to make two more - each one worse than the last.

[–] ReelReviews14 (1176) 6 years ago

>> Sure, I hate all three of his movies, but now I can appreciate them as cinematic rarities! And Snyder's DC films aren't just rarities but absolutely unique - never in the history film has a crap director been trusted with so much money and returned so little quality. This is probably the highest number of dollars per degree if crap ever! Some of the most expensive ever made, and all three are flat-out dreadful and almost universally despised. How did Snyder pull off such a feat? <<

Good point, the Hack Snyder Trilogy is definitely a unique cinematic phenomenon from that perspective.

Pure Crap Trilogies are extremely rare to begin with, but the circumstances behind the other Pure Crap Trilogies are pretty different. For example, the recent failure of the Atlas Shrugged trilogy resulted in the film's Producer having to slash the budget significantly more for each sequel, and hire increasingly obscure Z-level "talent" to continue making the movies. The Atlas Shrugged trilogy changed directors, casts, editors, etc. in an attempt to cut costs in order to continue the saga after the films kept failing. By the time of the third Atlas Shrugged turd, they were relying on a Kickstarter campaign, GoFundMe, and created their own "Atlas Shrugged Production Company" to complete the project and give it a limited theatrical release, since no major Hollywood studio in their right mind would pony up $$$ for a third turdfest after the first two sucked so much.

Warner Bros., on the other hand, not only rehired Hack Synder and his henchmen each time, but REWARDED them with failure by giving them a BIGGER budget to make an even BIGGER turd.

It begs the question -- who is more deranged, the "DCEU" fanboys, Hack Snyder himself, or the studio executives at Warner Bros. who keep inflicting him on audiences?

[–] Otter (24464) 6 years ago

"It begs the question -- who is more deranged, the "DCEU" fanboys, Hack Snyder himself, or the studio executives at Warner Bros. who keep inflicting him on audiences?"

Hoo boy, that's a difficult question! Of course the DC Fanboys could win almost any Most Deranged contest, but the studio executives who kept hiring Snyder are one of the few groups that could give them some competition.

Snyder couldn't even enter that contest. He's just untalented, not deranged. And if he kept accepting these high-profile huge-budget jobs, well, like Elizabeth Taylor said - "If they are dumb enough to offer me a million dollars, I am not dumb enough to turn it down.".

[–] k1l5l (10) 6 years ago

Soup.

[–] cyberbob (3488) 6 years ago

I knew since WAYYY back when Batman vs Superman was barely announced that Warner Bros. had fucked up big time. I hated Man of Steel and hate Zack Snyder's gimmicky movies, but I could accept him as a director for Man of Steel 2 since I don't care much for Superman.

But when they announced that Man of Steel 2 was being turned into BvS I knew this new franchise they were planning was going to suck, but it actually out sucked my expectations

Hack Snyder has made a couple of decent movies: Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead. As long as he sticks to R rated smut he is fine. But it was stupid to entrust him with the entire DC super franchise. They made this hack the DCEU equivalent of Kevin Feige, the captain and creative visionary.

It annoyed me that Snyder was going to have control of Batman. This was going to be the first time we saw Batman in the movies after the amazing Nolan films, and I knew the shift from a master like Nolan to a hack like Snyder would be jarring. Like eating steak and lobster for dinner and then eating a turd cake for dessert.

I know nothing about the movie industry and I saw this car wreck a mile away. and I'm not saying that I'm particularly smart, I just think it should have been as obvious to the idiots at WB as it was to the fans. If you'd looked at Snyder's past filmography then you would have known that his movies aren't really crowd pleasers. He was a terrible choice for the job. No knock on the guy, maybe he's really nice in real life, I dunno. Just saying that as an artist he isn't that talented

[–] Alex (1495) 6 years ago

WB should have carefully analyzed "Sucker Punch" before entrusting him with DCEU lol.
That was all him, full creative and writing control and that shit made no sense.

He's a fucking music videoclip maker, not a director.

[–] TMC-4 (19590) 5 years ago

Do you think Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut would have been good?

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-Zack-Snyder-s-Justice-League-cut-would-have-been-good