Mmm, ZSJL is reconstruction, though. Its tropes are all fantastical like the comics mythos. So I would not say what Snyder does is not 100% deconstruction. The pendulum swings back to fantastical escapism in ZSJL. Something related to the subject that I posted today for any that are interested:
I have several issues with this. First being with Watchmen and with Zack Snyder’s adaptation. Moore’s Watchmen is unequivocally a deconstruction. That can’t be denied, but it is also scathing satire. Not only of comic books but of the inextricable link between the “might makes right” ideology of comic book superheroes and the jingoistic social and political identity of Reagan’s America. It’s dark and gritty and favors itself intellectual, but it’s also…
funny.
And that’s something Snyder didn’t get. He took the meat of Moore’s story; the part that lampooned our culture at the time and used these characters as a mirror for that deconstruction, and he reduced it to empty set dressing. That’s part of why I believe the book has always been seen as unadaptable…because the time to adapt it was 35+ years ago. Snyder tried to make all of those characters into larger-than-life archetypes trafficking in epic melodrama when that’s antithetical to Moore’s point: to strip bare the archetypes and expose them for what they are.
And that’s why Damon Lindelof’s adaptation/remixing/sequel worked where the film didn’t: he understood the point. Where Watchmen the comic satirized the Cold War paranoia that permeated American Culture in the 1980s, Watchmen the show satirized the racial tension that has been bubbling throughout the 2020s. It wasn’t about exactly matching the dialogue or creating slow motion action scenes that could really give a “wow” factor to the comics’ proceedings, it was about capturing the spirit of the book and creating something new with it. Not only did it succeed in that, but it forced audiences and critics alike to re-examine what could be achieved in a comic book show, much as it’s predecessor had 35 years prior.
Snyder lacked that vision. He lacked it with Watchmen and he lacked it in his DCEU. He didn’t have the sense of nuance to execute his vision and the result is a gaud over-complication; a self-indulgent, vainglorious exercise in trying to reinvent the wheel despite nobody asking him to. Nobody’s disputing his plan. He liked to name drop Joseph Campbell like his life depended on it, the problem is he couldn’t read the room and, to paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, “he was so preoccupied with whether or not he could do something, he never stopped to think if he should.”
Marvel revitalized the landscape of contemporary superhero films and they showed what was possible, but, more than that, they showed what could be achieved by trusting in the source material and capturing the spirit of the characters. Snyder’s always lacked that. He’s the antithesis of the Paul Dinis, Bruce Timms, Dwayne McDuffies and all of the architects of the DCAU who perfectly distilled 80+ years worth of history into concentrated, definitive versions of those characters: he mines the books for iconography and imagery without understanding why it worked in the first place.
When you factor in the general moviegoing public and a great many comic book fans, very few people want a Dark Knight Returns Batman as their main universe version of the character, it’d be the equivalent of Kevin Feige introducing his own version of the “Reign” Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War (the 70-year old, depressed Peter Parker who spends that entire story lamenting the death of Mary Jane from Cancer after she was exposed to his radioactive spider-cum [it’s a real story. Google it.]). It’s weird.
Same deal with Superman. To reduce the character to something he’s not, only so you can then “reconstruct” him in your own image, tells me that not only do you not understand why the character’s enduring, it shows you’re not a skilled enough artist to create a compelling story utilizing the character as he’s existed for (at that time) 75 years. If you’re hired to make a Superman movie, you shouldn’t need to reinvent Superman to make it work. Period.
