The Problem Isn’t Zack Snyder. The Problem Is You.

Honestly, what is wrong with you people? And by people, I’m talking to you movie  geeks and critics who chose this weekend’s tailor made geek film as your personal rallying cry for attempting to separate yourselves from… yourselves. As often as I count myself among you, I don’t always get you. But I always get Zack Snyder. What could be less confusing than a geek turned populist? Isn’t that what we’re so invested in? Shouting our opinions about things we care dearly about in the hopes that people will listen? What’s the difference between you and Mr. Snyder? Obviously, the vast majority of fans and critics this weekend couldn’t wait to have their opinions known. So here’s mine: get over yourselves, you hypocritical assholes.

The critics are one thing, exaggerated versions of the movie geek who think themselves better because they get paid for their opinions and can formulate sentences and thoughts (and even there I’m being gracious to the vast majority of them). They’re still obsessive movie fans, who sit in theaters wanting to be entertained from beginning to end by professional storytellers (who also get paid for their stories… except these messages are a bit riskier and more labor intensive to bring to fruition). The second a filmmaker, in this case, Zack Snyder, shows a little bit of slip, they’re ready with pens to pounce. And so are we. As geeks, we value our own opinions of niche (i.e. who really gives a fuck) stories and the intricacies of them to the point of socially crippling ourselves. And the second someone else doesn’t know ALL OF THE FACTS or their words DON’T RING TRUE WITH US we can’t WAIT to pounce on them out of our own need for self-aggrandizement. Have we really become that massively insecure as a social group (and I’m talking to both you geeks and film critics)?

A 20% on Rotten Tomatoes is what we quote to make ourselves feel better about our own negative opinions of a movie that actually got made. Earlier this weekend, the percentage was 26%. Witness for yourselves the snowballing effect of mass media review aggregation… or cowardice. It’s not even criticism anymore. It’s bullying. We find ourselves so completely insecure of our own voices that we throw in with the group and play a game of who can throw the biggest stone. It’s a joke. In the case of geeks, the majority of us daydream about life on other planets but can’t be bothered to leave our own bedrooms. We consume idiosyncratic niche storytelling to the point of it becoming popular and then suddenly puke it all up again, rarely ever having enough confidence to put your own stories on paper and subject them to public ridicule. Most internet film critics (and I’m not taking myself out of either group) are basically paid versions of the fans who call in to weekly sports radio shows: we’ve again reduced ourselves to sideline losers talking about big game winners.

And that’s what Zack Snyder is. A Hollywood winner. Is Sucker Punch a great movie? Probably not. Is it even a good movie? Is such a subjective medium ever that black and white? Don’t simplify yourselves to the point of being incapable of critical thought (yet again). Art forms cannot be quantified in terms of “sucks” and “epic” and they shouldn’t be. In my opinion, the movie does some things wrong right off the bat. Is there an easier way to distance an audience from a film than hitting them with two straight music videos to start things off? Probably not. It works against the personal investment that’s being asked of us. The heavy use of the soundtrack probably burdens the movie when we probably don’t need it to convey emotion or pacing but it’s okay. It’s there straight from a 15 year old girl’s iPod and we’ll live with it. Is the story clear and easy to follow? Absolutely. Zack Snyder doesn’t want to lose ANY of us. No, that kind of narrative isolationism is reserved for geek-lauded filmmakers like David Lynch. Are the characters too simplified? Maybe. But not any more so than Luke Skywalker stating pretty clearly that he wanted to get the fuck off of that farm on Tatooine. Are the visuals too stylistic? Is the action too ridiculous to be believable? Is there too much slo-mo superficiality? Honestly, who gives a shit? If you are reading this on a site called Geekscape, you definitely shouldn’t! I thought the movie was a fun, visually exhilarating and satisfying way to spend a 2-hour, $7 matinee with a lap full of popcorn. It had a cohesive narrative, some cool moments and attractive girls causing big explosions. If you’re asking much more from Zack Snyder, then too bad. Much more isn’t necessarily his job at that point. And if you can get over yourself long enough, you might just find it. In the 100 year plus history of cinema, when you put Sucker Punch on a shelf amidst the others, it is definitely not a 20% film.

The Face of Evil. Or you’re all just jealous of Scott Glenn (as you should be)!

But this isn’t even about Sucker Punch (or really about Zack Snyder). This is about you. Why do you hate this guy? Is it because he’s good looking, successful and tells stories using a pop-culture language that you believe to be solely yours? How dare he! I’m beyond convinced that Zack Snyder is ONE OF US and these stories are as much his to celebrate and profit from than they are ours. Sucker Punch is his first film based on his own original concept, and you know what? The one Zack Snyder film that was the most narratively deficient, yet most financially celebrated by YOU, was the one where the FILMMAKER in him stuck TOO CLOSE to the FAN IN HIM, and followed Frank Miller’s plodding static narrative for 300 over a cliff! Watch that film again and tell me it isn’t paced like you’re watching some kid in an arcade play Mortal Kombat with its repetitive (yet barely complicating or rewarding) wave of enemies. And now you cry that Sucker Punch is too much like a video game? Go to hell! You LOVE video games! You’ll crucify a movie for being too much like a video game but when the Dead Island trailer comes out, with ZERO GAMEPLAY DISPLAYED IN IT AND IT BEING NOTHING MORE THAN A SLO MOTION FILM, you’ll spew your laudation all over the internet! Where do you idiots get off? So Zack Snyder can’t make a film look like a video game but the more a video game works like a film the more you love it? Are you morons for real? How will these mediums EVER be different if you keep sending the creators, who may have been a lot like you one day, these mixed messages?

Go ahead and blame yourselves for Sucker Punch because if you’re going to blame Zack Snyder, you’re the jerks who led him right to the front door. This guy made a film with dragons, nazi steampunk zombies, dancing women in school girl uniforms, samurai combat and Matrix-like aerial acrobatics. If you hate Sucker Punch, then go ahead and throw out your entire collection of D&D manuals, Bubblegum Crisis DVDs and Call of Duty games. These are the things we have loved for decades that we have brought to the commercial spotlight and now that it’s there we aren’t cool with them being celebrated? You sound like a bunch of asshole punks who are burning your Operation Ivy CDs because Rancid started sounding like Ska and Reggae! Do you think these messages are yours because they resonated with you when other people in your life misunderstood you (or even bullied you)? News flash: they were never yours. They were OURS, Zack Snyder included. Does he not get admission into our nerd club because Warner Brothers bought him a car for the box office of 300? Is it because he’s a good looking guy who is successful in our stead?

Let me get this straight before I completely start hating you for this level of continued hypocricy. Zack Snyder, with four adaptations under his belt, isn’t allowed in our club, even though he’s made a few successful films that probably introduced a wider audience into our club. Do we hate him out of our own projected exclusivity? That’s just delusional. Meanwhile, Guillermo del Toro (who I am a fan of by the way), can make two Hellboy movies that both have pacing issues, plot holes all around, disjointed third acts and lackluster box office results and we throw him on our shoulders? Why? Because he looks like us!?! The Hellboy movies were as good as adaptations go to the source material as Zack Snyder’s Watchmen was (with similarly scaled results) but we love them? I know it’s not because he made two spot on perfect Spanish-language films that the majority of non-geeks didn’t even see! He has never cracked $100 million at the box office. Is that why you love him? Because he is still ours? Do we boot Guillermo from the club the second one of his movies get too big? Patton Oswalt wants to tear it all down because jocks are wearing Boba Fett hoodies but barely stops to acknowledge how big of a role he’s played in the popularization of geek. What is that about? Don’t ask me! I formed Geekscape because I want EVERYONE to share in our excitement!

You got your wish twice, nerds. Good luck getting it a third time.

Maybe the fact is that you’re afraid of success. Just like that screenplay you never wrote, or that song you never played for that girl you never asked out, you’d rather the safety of your own mediocre surroundings than losing something that was never yours to begin with to the success of popular acceptance. You hope that the Captain America movie is good for YOU but deep down you’d hate for your comic book store to be filled with people you’d be challenged to relate to. You’d hate for them to ask you if YOU have a story or if YOU have written a song or if YOU had anything like Sucker Punch that THEY could celebrate. It’s so much safer alone and without the disappointment of being challenged and failing. Are you worried about losing what’s yours? The one thing that you have confidence in? Your own limited authority? You’re loving your own precious mediums into the financially crippled ground to keep it yours? You assholes are already bankrupting comics as it is!

If Sucker Punch fails, you can still keep the safety of detachment so that strangers wearing normal clothes, with normal haircuts working in successful normal jobs won’t go into YOUR comic bookstore and say “hey, Sucker Punch showed me that I like dragons and samurai too. So, what are YOU about?” Or even worse: “Maybe I’ll make a movie about this kind of stuff.” Oh no! He’s going to make Superman! Wow! You care so much about your own Superman collection and personal memories of the character that you are already rooting for the film to suck? News flash: none of the Superman movies are that great! In part one, Superman spins the Earth backwards to turn back time and in number two erases Lois’ memory with a kiss? God forbid, Zack Snyder take a shot (editors note (that’s still me): just remember, Zack, that Superman gets his powers from our yellow sun so try and make the movie a little sunnier and brighter than your past films… thanks)!

So really, get over yourself. Stop bullying Zack Snyder for having been one of the few among us who risked telling a story and succeeded while you put the writing off one more day. Stop hating him for giving you a movie tailor made for showing you exactly how much fun it is to be into what you’re into. Has your own reflection truly grown so tough to bare? Have you grown that massively insecure? If you think that Sucker Punch objectifies women, have you stopped your suffrage movement long enough to notice how it treats it’s male characters? You know, the rapist step-dad and the criminally and violently corrupt warden? Oh, you didn’t notice them? Maybe it was because you were too busy looking at She-Hulk’s rack, playing through the masturbatory violence of Modern Warfare (but it’s so realistic!) and stealing cars in Grand Theft Auto. Each is just as real as Sucker Punch and just as reflective of the choices we’ve made to partake in them.

This is what pop-culture is and has always been. It is a giant mirror of our own creation and self-fulfillment that stands in place of any risk we’d ever ask of our own undeveloped personal expressions. It’s an enhancement of who we purport ourselves to be but shy away from when its glare strikes us directly (sometimes literally striking us in the form of a bully’s fists). So honestly, get off of it and get over yourself. If you want to hate on Sucker Punch, go for it, but do it on the grounds of what it is and not of who you are. Face it. The vast majority of the pop culture we love is sub-standard, dismissible filler which probably only makes it safer for us to love. 1986 is called one of the greatest years in comics, but beyond Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Maus, and Daredevil, how many of comic books from that year do you celebrate or remember today? If you hear a geek talk about it, you would think that those were the only ones published. So stop taking yourself so seriously and allow yourself to enjoy something that you believe to be yours when it’s been repackaged and given back to you. Recognize it for what it is, a celebration and personal reinterpretation of your own continued pop culture expression. You should be rooting for this film in the hopes that maybe its success will one day lead to you getting your Hellboy 3 (or even 4). Or root for it at the box office to succeed and become part of our collective language so that you CAN meet people who challenge you by being into other things. Quit being a snob and embrace those challenges as opportunities to find the confidence in yourself to finally write that screenplay or play that song out loud for that special girl. You might think I’m making a lot out of a movie called Sucker Punch or a guy like Zack Snyder, and maybe I am. But again, this isn’t about them. This is about you. Stop getting in your own way. I promise you that Zack Snyder once did.