After They #ReleaseTheSnyderCut ...

Most movies nowadays are filmed on digital cameras and the footage is stored on hard drives, which would be about the same size as the sought-after "Mother Box" that is a key plot device in the live-action Justice League movie.

It's a smartphone, it's a virtual assistant, it's a universal remote, it's a personal computer, it's a pocket calculator, it's an alarm clock, it's a portable dimensional portal generator...

 Snyder kept a separate hard drive containing his copy of the footage he shot - allegedly enough content for a 4 or 5-hours long film...a very different movie from the shortened, reshot film that was presented in theatres under his name by his replacement, Avengers director Joss Whedon, who had been brought in to...make it more like the films at Marvel Studios, effectively giving us The Whedon Cut...

That's not Gal Godat, by the way...that's her stunt double. Godat refused to do that scene. Ezra Miller on the other hand...

And then there's this abomination:

       "What the heck was that!?"

I don't blame Snyder for wanting to disown a cut of a film that he claims used only a quarter of the work he did. This upcoming "Director's Cut" is unfinished business. I remember liking the film we got, but I never rewatched it since. And I still haven't subscribed to any streaming services...I just figure that when "Zack Snyder's Justice League" debuts on HBOMax, it should be good enough to also be released on DVD/BLU-RAY.

         Hey, where's Daffy Duck?

What I find more tantalizing to me is the faint possibility of sequels. I don't dislike Darkseid, but aside from "Rock of Ages", a lot of the Justice League vs. Darkseid stories are pretty flat to me. If Snyder does a sequel to his final cut, it should incorporate elements of one of the few big, epic tales from DC Comics that managed to catch on..I already mentioned "Rock of Ages", but recent news about Marvel Studios having no plans for a "Deadpool 3" started rumors that Ryan Reynolds might come to Warner Brothers to give Green Lantern another try...obviously, it would be more his way than the first go-around, but that got me thinking about Zero Hour:

The CW television series' "Arrowverse" already adapted Crisis On Infinite Earths, so it's natural that Zero Hour gets a look. For one thing, this arc, unlike Crisis, features more of the A-list DC stable, with a lot of fun moments where they encounter different incarnations of each other. How fun would it be to have Robert Pattinson, Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck as different versions of Batman onscreen? Likewise, Henry Cavill, Brandon Routh, Tom Welling and Tyler Hoechin as different versions of Superman? Then there's Batgirl Barbara Gordon having a key role. You could also have Lynda Carter, Grant Gustin, Stephen Amell...it goes on..

  That's right..Lily Collins is Batgirl.

The plot of "Zero Hour" is Crisis in miniature - a villain named Extant appears to be screwing with timelines, resulting in characters from parallel worlds interacting with each other...then it's revealed that Extant was just a puppet for Hal Jordan, who had become drunk-with-power villain Parallax in the 1990's, in his scheme to rewrite history...which sounds like Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet..

I do find Hal as Parallax a more-interesting villain than Darkseid, plus, Reynolds has more of a beat to play than he did before - I wouldn't mind if the film adaptation of "Zero Hour" reveals that he is being used as a puppet by Darkseid, obviously ditching the character of Extant entirely and improvising this new arc that opens up things here and there. Extant was too sketchy to be interesting, despite Geoff Johns efforts to bring him back..

      Eh...the stuff that 'back issue'          boxes are full of...

Besides, Reynolds' experience filming "Green Lantern" had rewards of it's own..

            Blake Lively is a fox..

Justice League: Zero Hour...that's a sequel I want to see..ironically based on a quarter of the actual plot of the mini-series that it's based on, but there's a nice symmetry in that...Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame don't exactly resemble Jim Starlin's Infinity Gauntlet, either.

Coloring Fun - Batman & Batgirl by John Byrne

Black-and-White commissioned sketches are usually more fun to color than the coloring book pages found in official material. If you're following this blog, you may have noticed I stopped coloring pages from the Batman: Hush coloring book. Congratulations to anyone who did. I found that John Byrne drawing in a Google search, printed it, got the crayons out, then proceeded with the coloring.

The colors on the Batgirl costume are a nod to Yvonne Craig. The blue-green Batman costume is a nod to the cover color choices from Bronze Age Batman comics. The red night sky is a nod to later episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. The color of the Batmobile is a nod to how it appeared on the Superfriends cartoons:

Funny how the colors look brighter in that shot, but they're kinda muted in the later picture. I blame the camera. I miss the one I used to have.

The end result looked great to me - I framed it:

I find that the black frame & glass helps it "Pop" more..or in this case, "Biff!" "Bam!" "Ka-Pow!"

And Now...A Brief, Random Observation Related To Superman..

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace would've been a better film if it had the plot of Santa Claus: The Movie instead. 

Dudley Moore as Mr. Mxyzptlk, a merry-mischiefmaking imp from the 5th Dimension whose antics are always misunderstood, mistakenly identifies megalomaniacal toymaker Winslow "The Toyman" Schott - played by John Lithgow - as a beleaguered kindred spirit and offers his aid to provide Christmas toys to all the children of the world, not realizing Schott's true plans are for deadly toys stuffed in every stocking, along with exploding candy canes. Superman saves the day and saves Christmas by introducing Mxyzptlk to his annual Christmas tradition of answering children's letters to Santa Claus and delivering real gifts to everyone. 

I'm just thinking that would've been a jolly finale to Christopher Reeves stretch playing Superman..plus...this was more-or-less the plot that Alexander and Ilya Salkind had in mind for what would've been their 4th Superman, before opting to produce the Supergirl movie instead, followed by the big Santa Claus movie, which I like, but would've been potentially more interesting as a Superman film, I think. A Superman movie that focuses entirely on his acts of kindness, saving lives from spectacular disasters, advocacy for decency and good will...with flair.

Atypical from the other 3 films, but not ugly. Around the same time, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released and was a success, in spite of relatively few action scenes with no displays of onscreen violence. I'm not sure how good a sport Reeve would have been about it, but I can picture him in costume, tugging an enormous bag of toys up in the air, wearing a Santa hat, to the tune of Sheena Easton's "It's Christmas All Over The World Tonight"...

A Superman for Christmas. That would've been neat. Quite possibly the only time they could've pulled that off.