I don’t like Zack Snyder, and I think he was a terrible choice to helm the DC Entertainment Universe for the big screen. Even more than presenting Superman as gritty or using the coincidence of having mothers with the same first name to broker peace between two superheroes, Snyder’s choice to make Batman a stone cold murderer upset a lot of fans.

Most of us didn’t share Snyder’s idea of fun being a Jimmy Olsen cameo where The Daily Planet’s photographer has his head blown off by terrorists while Lois Lane looked on in horrified shock. Luckily, we didn’t get that jolly bit of sport in Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice or Justice League. Instead, we got the only Batman movie I’ve never watched and an underwhelming superhero team movie that lost Snyder due to a family emergency, leaving Joss Whedon holding the bag when Justice League did poorly in theaters.

Ever since the reception of JL underwhelmed fans while highlighting the DCEU’s shortcomings in comparison to the MCU, some fans have been yelling for Warner Bros. to release the “Snyder Cut” of the film. It is rumored that much of the flick was edited heavily from Snyder’s initial vision and that is the reason the movie flopped. According to MovieWeb and Snyder himself, there is no “Snyder Cut” of JL because the script was re-written well before filming began.

Snyder told an audience member during a screening of his other “Snyder Cut” flicks that he and Chris Terrio wrote the JL script prior to the release of BvS. When what Snyder refers to as “a vocal minority” had a problem with BvS, Warner Bros. ordered a re-write of the script. This means the original Snyder version never made it into production.

That unfilmed original JL script relied heavily on the confusing Knightmare sequence in BvS:

“The truth is that the Knightmare sequence in this movie was always my idea that all of that would eventually be explained … and that we would end up in the distant future, where Darkseid has taken over Earth and where Superman has succumbed to the Anti-Life [Equation] … There were a few members of the Justice League that had survived in that world, that they were fighting. Batman broke a pact with Cyborg because something happened… They were working on an equation to jump Flash back to tell Bruce…”

Can you even imagine the dark, incoherent mess that would have been? Cripes.

Meanwhile, at another Q&A session, someone made the mistake of asking Snyder about the backlash from fans of The Dark Knight opposing his version purposely killing people in BvS. The Batman of the comics may beat people so badly that their future grandkids somehow have broken bones, but he has a code to never murder anyone since that would make him as despicable as the criminals he takes down. Snyder, ever willing to take criticisms with contemplation and poise, answered that fans should “grow the fuck up.”

“Once you’ve lost your virginity to this f—king movie and then you come and say to me something about like ‘my superhero wouldn’t do that.’ I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ I’m like down the f—king road on that.”

“It’s a cool point of view to be like ‘my heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t f—king lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corporations. My heroes didn’t commit any atrocities.’ That’s cool. But you’re living in a f—king dream world.”

Snyder, you’re an untenable jackass with no grasp of characterization, nuance, or scope when it comes to bringing a vision to life onscreen. Your ideas of feminism and superheroes manage to miss the mark so badly that one ponders the amount of sheer indolence and spite that goes into so thoroughly shitting on source material or ideals inspiring your work. I’m quite happy that the DCEU is moving in a new, less Snyder-filled direction and await the day that a “Snyder Cut” and the homicidal Superman/Batman team-up is a distant memory that no one looks upon fondly.

Jodi Smith is a Senior Reporter, Film & Television at Pajiba. You can email her or follow her on Twitter.

Image sources (in order of posting): Clay Enos © 2016 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Ratpac-Dune Entertainment LLC and Ratpac Entertainment, LLC, Warner Bros. Pictures

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