Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Justice League

Despite today’s entry for 2017’s Justice League (trailer) happening nearly four years after its original theatrical release, it was imperative for me to revisit this film a month out from HBOMAX’s planned March 18th release of the director’s cut that has the added prefix, Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Where do I begin with the backstory on this one!? Glossing over the behind-the-scenes hoopla would be a disservice, especially for any of you readers checking this out many years after the fact who have no idea about how these two versions came to be. I will attempt to provide some degree of context before jumping into my take on Justice League, so please bear with me….or jump ahead a few paragraphs.

Director Zack Snyder caught a lot of flak from ardent comic book fans for his darker takes and artistic direction on Superman and Batman in his two previous films, Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. I reviewed both films here already and was part of the minority who was a fan of the polarizing films. Fast forward a couple years later and Snyder wraps shooting Justice League, which is the big finale to the current arc of DC Comics movie canon much like how Avengers: Endgame was for the Marvel films. However, early in post-production Snyder suffers a family tragedy with his daughter committing suicide and has no choice but to leave his post on the film, but not before handing off post-production duties to Joss Whedon, the director behind the first two, uber-successful Avengers films.

Amidst all this controversy, the executives at Warner Bros. are receiving a ton of criticism of not wanting another lengthy, dark tome of a superhero film like Snyder’s previous efforts. I praised The Avengers and other MCU films on here before, and I love their style of filmmaking too, but one common trait among Marvel films is that they are generally more lighthearted with more gags and feel more like “soft” PG-13 experiences. Which is a good thing for those films because that was how they were envisioned from the beginning, but speculation was running wild going into Justice League’s 2017 theatrical release that Joss Whedon was under intense pressure from Warner Bros. executives to reshoot scenes to add in more family friendly humor, and lighten up the length and tone of the movie in post-production to appeal to the criticism. The result was a two hour movie that was not a hit with much of anyone. Snyder critics were not satisfied with the changes, and fans like myself of Snyder’s past films felt like his work and vision for the movie was compromised.

Over the next few years, slow-but-steady support grew over social media to #releasethesnydercut of Justice League. I thought this social media movement was a pipe dream that would never seem like a possibility for Warner to dedicate those resources to allow Snyder to re-cut the movie. Eventually though, much of the original cast and crew, and more and more fans frequently kept that hashtag alive, which culminated several months ago when Warner Bros. announced that Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be releasing on its HBOMAX streaming service this coming March. Snyder’s version will be double in length at four hours, and HBOMAX was originally going to release it as four weekly episodic installments, but later switched it back to one whole film. I am grateful that Snyder is finally getting his chance to redeem himself and release the movie how he originally envisioned, and am hopeful he wins over fans and critics alike. Now with the director’s cut just over a month out, I wanted to make sure to watch 2017’s version of the film one more time before then so I can get a better grasp at what was switched up for the new cut. Are you still with me? Good, now let us proceed with breaking down Whedon’s take on Justice League.

This 2017 cut opens up with a flashback of kids doing a smartphone interview with Superman (Henry Cavill), fresh off the scene of duty which leads to an opening credits montage of the world still reeling from the death of Superman after his battle with Darkseid in Batman V Superman. This then jumps to Batman (Ben Affleck) failing at recruiting Aquaman (Jason Momoa) to join him for anticipating a new threat. That threat is the return of Steppenwolf (voiced by CiarĂ¡n Hinds), who is on a quest to regain his power by procuring three hidden “Mother Boxes.” Eventually Bats touches base with Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) to proselytize aid to combat Steppenwolf. That help comes in the form of Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller). Both heroes are introduced with having conflicts with their fathers, but eventually Wonder Woman convinces Cyborg to join up, and Batman has an entertaining scene with The Flash who fanboys out at Batman after he surprises Flash in his hideout.

I am conflicted with Miller’s performance as Flash. I cannot help but feel he is the one who received the bulk of the re-shoot orders to add in some extra doses of levity throughout the film, because he repeatedly chimes in with one star struck idolizing gag after another throughout. A few of the jokes actually hit, but they are a bit much and I could not help but think I would have appreciated his act more if his zany would have been dialed back by about 60%. My gut tells me that was how Snyder originally directed him, so I will have to wait to see what his cut has in store. I cannot lie and admit I was like plenty of fans online wanting Grant Gustin to bring his pristine TV version of The Flash to the silver screen instead, but I understand Warner Bros. in wanting to keep the CW-TV canon and movie canon separate….but then they did that brief Gustin/Miller crossover last year on the TV series….and well, I have no idea what to make of it other than I was cracking up throughout their bizarre exchange, so I will just link you to the clip here to decide for yourselves.

A huge mid-film clash with Steppenwolf leads to Aquaman joining the team and Batman deciding it for the best to exploit the tech used on Cyborg to resurrect Superman….it does not seem right to type that out so matter-of-factly, and the buildup for this miraculous endeavor is shockingly swift and to the point. They accomplish this feat by digging up ‘ol Supes and bringing him to the magical waters that were used to resurrect Zod in the last film, and then apply one of the mystical Mother Boxes in conjunction with electrical energy from Flash’s speed to bring Superman back from the grave. It works, and the resulting fallout from a shaken-and-rampant Superman dueling with his new Super-pals was a delightful debacle to watch playout before Lois Lane (Amy Adams) shows up to reignite Superman’s humanity. Seeing those two reunite for a couple special scenes in the film was heartwarming, but also felt rushed with their brief screen time they share together, and I am hoping to see their dynamic explored more in the new cut.

The final act sees the Justice League forming to take on Steppenwolf who now has the power of all three Mother Boxes on his side for an early advantage, until Superman shows up and instantly lays waste upon him and Steppenwolf instantly transforms from universal threat to a puny-putty-squad-esque-pushover. I am all for the Justice League prevailing, and I know Superman is invincible and all that, but I was stunned to see Steppenwolf instantly crumble to the ‘ol blue and red. I am hoping for a slightly more dramatic back-and-forth encounter in Snyder’s reimagining, but I will not hold out hope for the amount of CG work involved already in Whedon’s version and cannot imagine how much it would cost to completely alter the final battle for a more enticing experience. In the aftermath of Steppenwolf’s demise is the establishing of the building blocks of the Justice League’s headquarters in a charming hint of what is in store for this superhero team. Also make sure to stick around for both stingers, as the first has an awesome exchange between Flash and Superman to answer the long-debated fan question of which hero is faster, and then a stinger of the villains to come for the inevitable sequel.

There are eight extras totaling a little over an hour of bonus features to sift through. Of the eight pieces, there are three I recommend checking out the most: Road to Justice interviews many DC writers and artists who do an intriguing abridged history of key story arcs from the Justice League over the decades. Heart of Justice is a closer look at the historic core of the team in Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Justice League: New Heroes conversely goes in-depth on Cyborg, Aquaman and Flash. If you need to get caught back up to speed on the DC films, than those three extras are a recommended primer worth checking out.

Even with all my aforementioned qualms with Justice League above, I did not come out of it outright hating the film. If Flash’s humor would have been dialed back a couple degrees and just an extra 10-15 minutes added to some of the scenes that I felt were shortchanged, then I would have had a better outlook here instead. I know the average theater-goer despises 2+ hour films, and for the average theater-goer that is not a hardcore comic book fan, than this Whedon cut of the film should suit you just fine. However, I cannot get fully behind what feels like a sabotaged cut, and eagerly await to see what the four hour version from Zack Snyder has in store for me next month.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Endgame
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
The Clapper
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Nintendo Quest
Not for Resale
Payback (Director’s Cut)
Pulp Fiction
The Punisher (1989)
The Ref
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VIII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
The Wizard
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Six

-I am indefinitely grateful for your patience awaiting my semi-annual Star Trek: The Next Generation season recaps. Today I bestow upon you all my thoughts for the penultimate sixth season (trailer) of TNG. It is already a little jarring to realize I am down to one season left on this series I have gradually-yet-steadily been picking away at the past three years. Once again, all the screens here are courtesy of me pointing my outdated Samsung Galaxy S7 phone at the TV screen so you have my apologies for the questionable fidelity of the pics!

-For notable cast changes, there are several I want to make sure to address. Transporter Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) departs midway through this season to be a regular cast member on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which started in January of 1993. I knew of Colm’s switching shows during this season for a while now and was anticipating some big episode or climactic scene explaining his departure from TNG. While there was a crossover episode introducing some of the new Deep Space Nine characters right before its debut, there was never a scene this addressing O’Brien leaving the Enterprise….unless it was a quick passing line of dialogue that went right over my head! Another notable change is halfway through the season Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) gets chastised by a new interim commander for her unorthodox uniform and makes her fall in line wearing matching Enterprise uniforms with the rest of the crew. In the bonus interviews on the BluRay, Marina states how she had to fight for a matching uniform for many years and it was one of the few things the higher ups finally granted her.

-I am glad TNG compensated for the lack of a Q (John de Lancie) episode last season and had him in two episodes in season six. The first episode is a middling affair where he steals a Starfleet prospect who discovers she is a long lost member of the Q Continuum. The second Q episode fares much better where Q helps a stuck-in-purgatory-Picard (Patrick Stewart) after Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden) has a return of poor doctoring and loses Picard on the operating table. The two travel back to pivotal moments in Picard’s younger days to see if he would change the past in order to get a second chance at the future in an investing episode. Speaking of Crusher’s poor doctoring, there is another episode this season where it feels like the writers are in on the joke and have an episode where Crusher is disbarred after some major bad doctoring again on her part….but of course Crusher manages to change that by the episode’s end.

If my notes are accurate (no promises!), than I believe this is the first season with no appearance from Troi’s mother, Lwaxana (Majel Barrett)! I would not be surprised if she has two episode next season. Season six also does not feature an appearance from Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), but I understand he will return in time for the series finale in season seven. A recurring character who does return is everyone’s favorite engineer, Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz), who is in a couple episodes this season, with him playing a key part in a holodeck episode with another long overdue returning character I will touch on soon.

Not only does Worf has some killer episodes this season, he also demonstrates his prowess at Yoga this season....while Crusher continues to demonstrate her prowess at poor doctoring.


-There are a pair of excellent holodeck episodes this season. The first one is easily the best named episode of the entire series in “Fistful of Datas.” It sees Troi, Data (Brent Spiner), Worf (Michael Dorn) and his son, Alexander go on a wild west adventure where problems with the holodeck causes Data to take over nearly all the AI personas in the simulation. Swashbuckling hilarity ensues! The other holodeck episode sees the return of Professor Moriarty (Daniel Davis). This was long anticipated since Moriarty’s last appearance in season two as the Sherlock Holmes antagonist who became self-aware and whose consciousness became trapped in the holodeck in the following four years. In “Ship in a Bottle,” Moriarty attempts a master plan to connive his way out of the holodeck as a program and as an actual living being. The twists and turns that lead up to the gratifying resolution for everyone was a memorable ride and sadly Davis’s last guest appearance on the show. Daniel Davis and Patrick Stewart have a natural chemistry with each other that shines whenever those two share the screen, so I highly recommend tracking down and viewing both of his episodes!

-The flute that Picard was gifted in the previous season once again returns for a couple of memorable scenes when Picard starts courting another crew member who plays keyboard. Naturally this leads to the two having an emotional duet together that starts off kind of hokey, but by the end the pair had me reeled in all the way! Just click or press here to see for yourself.

-Worf has a few notable dedicated episodes this season. A two episode arc sees him track down a long lost colony of Klingons imprisoned by Romulans that has Worf encouraging them to relearn and embrace Klingon customs. Another episode has Worf dealing with the fallout of seeing the return of the Klingon god, Kahless, and the fascinating drama that unravels with another satisfying conclusion for all conflicting parties involved.

-Even though by season six nearly the entire cast and writing team was firing away on all cylinders, I would be lying if there were not a couple clunker episodes. Riker (Jonathon Frakes) portrays a mental patient in a play he is rehearsing for, but the play starts going to his head and he starts losing it for real, but the way the plot unfolds is a mess and a half to follow along with. The other dud is TNG’s homage to The Thing which sounds promising on paper, but instead features lousy CG of its “Thing” and a groan-inducing twist that was not entertaining whatsoever.

-As much as I enjoyed Leonard Nimoy returning to play Spock last season, I was delighted even more with The Original Series star James Doohan dusting off his communicator to portray Scotty. Watching him overcome his differences and exchange engineer expertise with Geordi (LeVar Burton) was a treat. The scene with Scotty and Picard sharing a drink on a holodeck reimagining of the original Enterprise gave me nostalgic goosebumps throughout.

-Season six started off with the conclusion to “Time’s Arrow” that saw the TNG crew time travelling back to the 1890s where they first encountered Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and were forced to alter the timeline to rescue Data, and win over an aggressive Mark Twain. While not on the level of the “Best of Both Worlds” two-parter season finale, it was still a highly entertaining two-parter in its own right, and as I alluded to earlier, I am all for seeing the TNG crew in an old west setting. Season six ends with another cliffhanger that sees the Enterprise encounter the Borg again, and they manage to convince Data to flee the Enterprise to seemingly join the Borg as their new leader. Suffice it to say, I am intrigued to see how this pays off in season seven!

-I referenced a few times before here how I was keeping up with podcast reviews of every TNG episode with the show, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. It looks like I have finally caught up with where hosts Andrew Secunda and Matt Mira have recorded their latest shows just a couple episodes before the end of season six. It looks like they took a few extended breaks this season, and I cannot fault them for that at all when dealing with everything the pandemic has wreaked upon us all this past year. I still enjoyed their takes as usual, and plan on going back and listening to whenever they post new episodes to catch up with their remaining casts covering TNG. I understand they have a Patreon companion with exclusive podcasts dedicated with them marching through both Deep Space Nine and Voyager now, so who knows, I may have to start working my way through those series down the line.

-You know the drill by now, this BluRay is loaded with carried over DVD extra features and all new ones for the BluRay. Not including three commentary tracks for this season, there are just over three hours of behind-the-scenes interviews and documentaries. Almost all of them are informative, but I will only recommend a few of the must-see ones here. Mission Overview: Year Six has introspective reflections from Whoopi on “Time’s Arrow” and James Doohan on “Relics.” Bold New Directions has some fond insights on “Fistful of Datas” and fascinating memories from Stewart and Burton from getting their shot at directing episodes this season.

Beyond Five Year Mission – Evolution of Star Trek: The Next Generation is the headlining all-new bonus feature. It is an hour and a half, and split into three parts. Part one has plenty of love for being the cast and crew’s personal favorite season of the show, debuting Deep Space Nine concurrently during this season and trying their best to work within Gene Roddenberry’s “no conflict” framework of the series. Part two is themed around TNG being more serious when compared to TOS, and highlighting how several episodes were scored. Part three stands out the most with an awesome story from Whoopi on what lead to her becoming involved on the show, Sirtis dealing with a lot of pushback from studio executives and Spiner’s love/hate relationship with the cat that played Spot.

There may be many hours of bonus interviews to sift through, but most of it is worth it for endearing moments above like Burton and Frakes sharing a laugh, and Spiner sharing his disdain for a certain feline.


-Season six is a step up from the minor-yet-noticeable dip in quality from season five, and brings it back to the high bar established with seasons three and four of TNG. The highs were remarkably prominent this season with some standout holodeck episodes, memorable two-parters, and a scintillating season finale that has me anticipating the kickoff to the season seven. I cannot believe it, after a few years of starting this, I am finally down to just one season left of this legendary show. Please join me one last time here in a few months for my thoughts on the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
2018-19 TV Season Recap
2019-20 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld - Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5