In a week full of short posts, this is going to be a longer one. It just happened that way. Those of you who just showed up, even I’m not usually this verbose but this is still a bit more typical of BW content. Also, thanks for the follow. I hope you enjoy what I normally do around here.
Let me state for the record that I have so little interest in the Suicide Squad in general, even in the comics, that this image from the “what were they thinking” team-up with the re-imagined Banana Splits comic (still a better idea than that childhood-hating horror movie I’m surprised WB allowed) is literally the only image I have from it. I never cared about the comic about supervillains being forced to do morally questionable missions for the US Government because nothing about that sentence matters to me outside of “comic” and “the US Government”, and that last part is only because I’m an American. I don’t care about supervillains, I don’t care about morally questionable missions, and I don’t care about the Suicide Squad. I only want to see supervillains losing to superheroes. So no matter who makes the movie or how good it is I don’t care.
Instead this is about statements made in an article for SlashFilm by BJ Colangeo entitled “Releasing The Ayer Cut Or, Why Giving The Fans What They Want Isn’t Actually A Good Idea“. There seems to be this war lately against fans actually expecting something they enjoy to resemble something they enjoy when adapted to other or updated media…usually by people who never enjoyed the original in the first place and the replacement is totally something they do. That or the idea that a “shill media” will kiss the butt of whomever will give them the best interview clicks for their ad revenue isn’t so farfetched. Well, my host is the only one making money off these ads so I don’t care about that either, and the only access I get is at conventions, if even that sometimes.
I’m a fan, and I approach stories as a fan, as a writer, and as a critic. If you don’t care about existing fans you should just make something new and find your own fans. The featured topic here is the supposed “Ayer Cut” of James Ayer’s Suicide Squad, something that only came up after Zack Snyder broke out his cut of Justice League, a movie that had been re-edited by Joss Whedon and unsurprisingly the contrasting tones made for a subpar film. Instead Snyder got the depressing, colorless, “my superheroes are totally realistic because they kill as they fly around punching genetically created monsters from another world”, overly long, totally anachronistic to what the DC Universe has always been that we classic DC Comics fans knew it would be. Still, the Snyder fan base wanted his cut and HBO Max wanted subscribers, so Zack won. Now James Ayer wants the same “redemption” with the version of his Suicide Squad he allegedly wanted to make. Colangeo doesn’t think that’s a good idea and on that we agree. It’s the reason why this is a bad idea where we part company.
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