Zack Snyder's Justice League Review - Part Two: The Age of Heroes

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Part Two is the history lesson for the movie and it is expanded upon and contains a lot of detail and information regarding the enemy and their motivations. But lucky for us, not only does it contain a lot of exposition, we also get to see a lot of action. As Diana narrates the history lesson to Bruce we are also shown the story so as to see it firsthand.

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Zack Snyder's Justice League Review - Part One: Don't Count On it Batman

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This Part is a series of introductions to our beloved heroes.

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Some Thoughts on Justice League and Dawn of Justice

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Spoilers for Justice League are in this post! Don't read if you haven't seen the film yet.

With the recent release of Justice League, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about Justice League and Batman vs Superman and how they can’t be dismissed lightly because of how layered the films and the overall story are:

First of all, we can’t take the plot of these films too lightly. If you think Justice League is about the Justice League defeating the alien threat of Steppenwolf and his parademons, then you should go rewatch the film again (I say rewatch it anyways, cause it’s such a great film), as this is the secondary plot of the movie. The primary plot of Justice League is really about the formation of the team and the individual team members having to learn how to come together and unite to form an unbeatable force (it’s all right in front of us in the marketing of the film). They all have a personal journey to make, and they have to overcome their fears and doubts before they can begin to trust each other and work together. This is illustrated to us very well in the beginnings of the film as Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince contact the different metahumans, Barry Allen, Arthur Curry, and Victor Stone. The names of these three and others were given to Bruce by Amanda Waller as shown to us in the Oscar winning film - Suicide Squad, which occurred in between Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

We are also shown how invincible Steppenwolf is as he is able to easily overcome the individual forces, the Amazonians, the Atlanteans, and Man to obtain the Motherboxes. It isn’t until the League is able to unite and work together that they are able to defeat him, and even then they need some “super” help (sorry, couldn’t help myself. lol). We see how, without Superman, Earth is doomed and the inhabitants of Earth would be unable to defeat Steppenwolf. The League has to learn how to work together to bring Superman back and they all played a part in bringing him back with the help of one of the Motherboxes. It isn’t until Superman is fully back and unites with the League that Steppenwolf can be defeated and sent packing.

Some have thought that Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice only showed us 15 mins (or whatever it ended up being) of Superman and Batman actually fighting, if so - then you need to rewatch the film. Batman versus Superman starts in the Prologue of the film when Batman witnesses firsthand the destruction of Metropolis and he sees Superman and Zod destroying Metropolis and he decides Superman is dangerous and he then starts his quest to destroy Superman. The whole movie is Batman/Bruce Wayne’s machinations to destroy Superman.

Having Lex Luthor behind the scenes pulling the strings to drag Batman further down into the darkness is icing on the cake for this film. While Batman is distracted by figuring out a way to defeat Superman, the real villain, who is Lex, ultimately unleashes a devil to destroy a god, in which he eventually succeeds. Lex is aware that in defeating Superman he can bring in true chaos to the world by way of the Motherboxes. The effects of Lex's plan is dealt with in Justice League, which in turn makes that last end credit scene in Justice League more meaningful and it isn't just eye candy.

Lex would’ve triumphed except for he forgot the one thing that trumps everything and can’t be quantified- Love. Especially the love a son has for his mother, and how some men would do anything to protect their mother. He was counting on Clark Kent's love for his mother to manipulate him into defeating Batman, but he overlooked Bruce's love for his long dead mother. Maybe he thought Bruce was too far down the dark path and couldn't be redeemed because of the crimes he had committed. Bruce Wayne became Batman because of the love he had for his mother and father. But he had lost sight of this over the past couple of years due to the darkness of Gotham. He was becoming the type of person he had initially set out to protect people from. Clark’s love for his mother broke through this darkness and reminded Bruce of why he became Batman in the first place. He became Batman to protect the Martha and Thomas Wayne’s of the world.

With Clark Kent speaking the name of “Martha” and to "save Martha" this snapped Bruce back to what he was all about in the first place and he also realized the being in front of him was more like him than he realized. He saw a chance to do what his pre-teen self couldn't do - "save Martha".  He saw that Clark cared just as much for his mother and that his last dying breath was for someone to save his mother regardless of what happened to him. This is why he was willing to spare Superman and go save Martha Kent while Clark went to deal with Lex. Thus the beginning of the Justice League and you can say the Dawn of Justice.

First Tracks from Danny Elfman's Justice League Soundtrack!

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Watertower Music has released the first tracks from the Justice League Motion Picture Soundtrack by Danny Elfman. The first track is titled "Hero's Theme" and the second is "Friends and Foes". While Hero's Theme is a new composition, Friends and Foes does contain hints from John Williams iconic Main Theme from 1978's Superman The Movie. Random Angst is hoping that Danny Elfman also includes themes from previous DC movies and is able to weave them into his original compositions. I think that having this musical continuity is key to tying in previous films and stories recently released by WB and DC. Rupert Gregson-Williams was able to do it with the Wonder Woman soundtrack in a satisfying way, so he was able to show that it can be done and be done well.

Stay tuned for more releases and the entire soundtrack can be pre-ordered now and will be available on November 10th, 2017 (per iTunes).

 

Watertower Music has also released the titles for the 2-Disc soundtrack.

Disc 1 01. Everybody Knows - Sigrid 02. The Justice League Theme - Logos 03. Hero’s Theme 04. Batman on the Roof 05. Enter Cyborg 06. Wonder Woman Rescue 07. Hippolyta's Arrow 08. The Story of Steppenwolf 09. The Amazon Mother Box 10. Cyborg Meets Diana 11. Aquaman in Atlantis 12. Then There Were Three 13. The Tunnel Fight 14. The World Needs Superman 15. Spark of The Flash 16. Friends and Foes 17. Justice League United 18. Home 19. Bruce and Diana 20. The Final Battle 21. A New Hope 22. Anti-Hero’s Theme 23. Come Together – Gary Clark Jr. and Junkie XL 24. Icky Thump – The White Stripes

Disc 2 01. The Tunnel Fight (Full Length Bonus Track) 02. The Final Battle (Full Length Bonus Track) 03. Mother Russia (Bonus Track)

You can currently stream or buy these two songs on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, and other digital music services.

 

UPDATE: As of today, Oct 30, 2017, Friends and Foes is no longer available to stream or buy (at least via iTunes).  My speculation is that it will be released as a single sometime over the couple of weeks prior to the film release in the theaters. Then it will be available once the album is fully released on November 10, 2017.

 

Justice League Footage!

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image One of the most exciting things to come out of San Diego Comic Con this past weekend was a trailer of sorts, of the upcoming Justice League movie. In this exclusive footage, we get to see Bruce Wayne visiting Arthur Curry (Aquaman) and Barry Allen (The Flash) and inviting them to join with him for an upcoming, unknown threat. We see Bruce and Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) planning out how to create a super team. We also see three of them (Bruce, Barry, and Diana)  together, along with Cyborg (Victor Stone) walking into an abandoned room.

Following on the heels of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where we saw very small glimpses of Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg, it was great to see them a little longer in this trailer and see more of their personalities as we watch them interact with Bruce. We also briefly see a Mother Box being buried in the ground. We saw two Mother Box's in Dawn of Justice, one that essentially combined with Victor Stone and presumably turned him into Cyborg. The other was in Ultimate Edition, when we see Lex Luthor communing with Steppenwolf (a DC villain and Darkseid follower) and a Mother Box is present.

Justice League is set to be released November 17th 2017.

 

https://youtu.be/gglkYMGRYlE