The release of the Snyder Cut does not end calls to #ReleasetheSnyderCut

Earlier this week, something funny happened on HBO Max. Some viewers have claimed that they will stream the new Tom & Jerry film, they got something completely different: Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The goof was quickly resolved; a Twitter user said they only saw an hour of the film before the stream was cut off, and Tom & Jerry ceased to be a Snyder Cut speakeasy. The incident was a funny blip ten days before Zack Snyder’s Justice League was going to hit the streamer at the right point, a teasing tease for a fandom that has since been incessantly demanding to see this movie Justice League hit the theaters in a disastrous state four years ago. In about a week, Warner Bros. finally announcing what for all these years has been mostly theoretical, a hashtag and a dream. It might have been better for most of us online if it had stayed that way.

The Snyder Cut is hard to talk about without talking about the people who demanded it. For years, countless social media posts and forum threads have been effective wash the Snyder Cut: a fierce rejection of the play, and a fervent conviction that the real film – the ür-DC superhero film – was out there somewhere. A Change.org petition demanding access to Snyder’s version went viral, and with a canine audience that was demonstrably present, comic book blogs to the Ringer came together in fascination or outright support.

Any discussion about internet fandom is difficult. Online groups are often characterized by their loudest voices, and when a fandom is based on something as extreme as the rejection of a $ 300 million, widespread blockbuster while insisting on being denied access to the secret, it is hidden. well version, it’s hard to imagine the fans it is chill about it. What’s more, online movements are often thin and leaderless, although the vast majority of fans who want a Snyder Cut may very well be reasonable people interested in an outdoor camera online camaraderie (even raising money for charity), it affects not necessarily the more toxic members of their group, who turn the discourse into a crusade against alleged malicious intent on the part of DC and Warner Bros. against the true fans, who only understand Zack Snyder.

Even the phrase “Snyder Cut” is a misnomer, because while Zack Snyder said on record that he cut a meeting, he took it with him and tampered with it after he left Justice League, it was not a finished film. To turn the pieces into one, Warner Bros. reportedly cost $ 70 million, which according to Snyder and others goes almost entirely to production costs, such as dealing with visual effects, with very little new footage. None of that really matters; most importantly, a complete, unmanipulated version of him Justice League will be here, and fans will confirm bad and fair. And everyone is together for the ride, because extras in a strange, laden production for which no one has signed.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is an extremely loaded version. It’s a do-over on a movie that essentially killed Warner Brothers’ initial plans for its DC movie universe. The new version probably would not exist if Warner did not have a new streaming platform that he would like to succeed. On the one hand, it is the attempt of a filmmaker to complete a work he had to abandon after a terrible personal tragedy; on the other hand, some reports claim that the film would still not have gone smoothly if fate had been less cruel. The existence of the film is a supposed victory for toxic fans, and it legitimizes online harassment. It’s also a reward for fans of a more mundane streak who just want more of something they love.

The film is a cultural minefield, a Jurassic Park a situation in which a bunch of people decided to clone velociraptors without thinking about why we could be better off now that velociraptors are extinct. Toxic fandoms need oxygen to sustain themselves, and with it Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Warner Bros. is eagerly pumping the bellows in the hope that fans will sign up en masse on HBO Max to finally get something they feel is unfairly withheld from them. This is the kind of cynicism that will make Jurassic Park owner John Hammond feel proud.

If there is no face-to-face interaction, online life can reduce people to a collection of outspoken opinions. Whether the opinions are sincere or a complete trolling does not matter – everyone is just an avatar and some text that people are looking for to share opinions and build their online identity. It is, on a very basic level, what online fandom is: people wearing avatars of enthusiasm, superhero egos where they can forget work or school, and just people who really like, for example, Zack Snyder’s DC movies . So, what happens after an unimaginable success is presented?

Previously Zack Snyder’s Justice League announced, the vocal Snyder Cut fandom may have burned out on its own, as not all fires do. Now that there’s a real, concrete film, things may not end so neatly. Zack Snyder’s vision of Justice League was not limited to one film, or even the three DC films he has made so far; it was the definitive film interpretation of the DC universe, a source from which a dozen other films would flow. Over the past few years, Warner Bros. has carefully deviated from this vision with his subsequent films. All of them – Aquaman, Shazam!, Birds of prey, en Wonder Woman 1984 – have been complete tone deviations that also maintain a level of credible denial about the continuation of Snyder’s vision. Other movies – like 2019s joker and the coming The Batman – is located entirely in other universes. A year ago, it seemed like the DC universe of Zack Snyder was over. The release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League suggests that status is only temporary.

And the fans now like the proposal. Most fandom is a state of deliberate delusion about its own interest: it’s generally foolish to think that billion-dollar companies care about your opinion of a movie. When they look like they do, it feels intoxicating and empowering, even if the power is only an illusion. It’s like hearing your loved ones say they’ll go out with you ” When Waluigi is added Smash“And answer,” So you say there’s a chance. “A preview of power can turn the tiniest glimpse of the blue sky into a wide open universe of possibilities. The #ReleaseTheSnyderCut punch has the blue sky, and they respond with another hashtag: #RestoreTheSnyderVerse.

It does not have to be this way. Just before what became known as the DC Extended Universe, began to take shape Man of steel, there’s going to be another Justice League. Mad Max: Fury Road‘s George Miller was signed as director, with actors already in the cast. But the film fell apart just before filming began in 2008. Looking back, this is a project from another era, one where The Dark Knight was a monumental success, but also the only one for DC Comics on screen. There were no Arrowverse in 2008, and there was still hardly a Marvel Cinematic Universe. Miller has not made yet Furyweg, and did not have the feverish fandom he has now – his last film was Happy feet. Miller’s Justice League: Mortal, as it was called, might have been incredible. If it was a success, fans might now be looking for a MillerVerse. If it were not, they might have written to WB asking Christopher Nolan to take over. Either way, they would not have expected Snyder’s interpretation, and they would not have asked for it. Fandom exists in the tension between obsession with past joys and expecting new things, but it can only speak of the future in the language of the past.

At its most toxic, fandom is limiting. While people tear up creators to just concentrate on the things the fans used to love, they chase away the new visionaries who will make their favorite things livelier and longer. They also chase away the ideas that will expand the worlds they love. The zeal of the calls to work out a Snyder Cut has a required denial of what could eventually replace the failed Justice League at some point in the future. Maybe it’s something better, maybe something worse. Again: no one has the director of Babe: Pig in the city was a few years away from making one of the most award-winning action films of the decade. Fandom is great at boosting the things he loves. It’s pretty bad to predict the thing it will hold next for – or empower for the cause.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is ultimately just a movie. Its release is not a catastrophe, 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 messy to analyze and create a status quo that discussions can ruin. before they even started. It’s a wrench in the acceleration of pop cultural discourse, and a very cynical one at that. The only party that can really earn anything is Warner Brothers, the corporation with a streaming platform to promote, with a ready-made audience of easy points he can swing with the right project.

The problem is that a reactionary fanbase is easy to earn and hard to keep. Making a court runs the risk of giving up the long-term growth and diversification that is essential to maintaining superhero franchises, in exchange for the short-term gain by a crowd that will never be truly satisfied, visibly reward.

The best pop culture shows us where we are, and hints at what can be. It’s hard to see this movie as anything other than a four-hour refusal to continue, an indulgent invitation for Snyder fans to give HBO Max their money and then stay exactly where they are.