A movie should be as long as it needs to be to tell its story in a coherent, engaging fashion. Making it longer by throwing in bits and bobs of assorted backstory and side tales that don’t contribute to the overall narrative? That’s padding, and it’s annoying. Making it shorter by cutting out bits and bobs of assorted backstory and side tales that actually do contribute to the overall narrative? That’s cutting to the bone, and it’s annoying, too. [1]
For myself, I like seeing a fuller tapestry. It’s rare I walk out of a movie saying, “Wow, they could have cut all this stuff” vs “Gosh, I wish we’d seen more about Character X, but most of her scenes were cut.” [2]
Sure, there are extended-cut / Director’s Cut versions for when it’s released on disc / online. But if I’m paying double-digit costs to sit in a theater for 2 hours, I’m usually happy to make it 2½ or even 3, if the story needs that. Less is not always more. [3]
Regardless, whether it’s too short or too long in theatrical release, it’s only a movie, fergoshsakes. Issuing threats of violence and death over reporting about the film length is really, really stupid.
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[1] Especially when it’s done to keep the run time short enough to get an additional showing in at the theater, i.e., for the sake of profit, not storytelling.
[2] Similarly, in my writing group, I’m usually the guy going, “I want to know more about this character, this scene needs a bit more explanation, this came out of left field,” not the one suggesting that scenes or chapters could be easily lopped off. So bear in mind that this is my aesthetic, not necessarily an objective value statement.
[3] The exception here is when the length is added to allow for more Big Explosions, Slow Pans Across Virtual Settings, or other visual gimcrackery. I’m talking story here, not spectacle.
Does it really matter if Justice League isn’t insanely long?
News broke over the weekend that the next movie in the (unofficially named) DC Extended Universe, Justice League, has a running time of two hours and one minute.
My problem isn't that superhero movies are often too long but rather that they often have too many endings.
+Roy Hembree Some of that is just the interlocking sets of stories involved — there's the story in the movie, there's the storylines that crossed over from other movies, past and/or future. Same thing happens in books.
For that matter, the LotR movies had like four endings in RotK (more, depending on how you count), and that doesn't even include the endings that got cut from the book.
My favorite movies are the ones I leave wishing there were more.
Cool man
To long for in the theaters. Best to rent at home.
We're probably only going to see about 40 minutes of actual story. That's how these stupid movies go these days. We don't need elaborate friggin backstories on these characters that have been a part of pop culture for literally decades. We all know who Flash and Auquaman are even if most of us aren't comic geeks and the majority of movie-goers probably don't care how Aquaman is able to communicate with fish. I know I didn't care when I watched the Superfriends as a kid. Killing a movie or story with too much info is just a waste of my time and money.
Loading the movie with backstory and character origins just to please the comic geeks is as stupid and unnecessary as padding a every baseball movie with the history of baseball and the baseball stats of every character just to please the baseball geeks before actually getting into the story of the team you're focusing on. Who cares? Just tell the story and we'll discover these things as we go. Most of us just want to see a good story we can enjoy that doesn't take 4 hours to tell.
So please, studio, just give us an adventurous movie, put our heroes in danger, let them fight the bad guys, then resolve the story. Stop pandering to the fan boys by padding the movie with backstories that only they care about. If a comic geek knows the family tree of every character then good for them, if I cared about all of that I'd just buy the comics, too.
Is there an app for death threats?
You could devise an interesting parlour game on the theme of what might not be a cause for them. It's a hard question to answer. I've seen reports of people threatening to kill because of poor coverage of soccer competitions/because of too much coverage of soccer competitions. People have threatened the Bureau of Meteorology because the weather doesn't suit them. Is a movie an implausible provocation to such types? No, it's perfectly believable.
Death threats over this crap is just idiotic. Fanboys act as through they created and own these franchises which is pretty pathetic to the point of a mental illness. To them I'd say get over it, you didn't create it, you don't own it and if you want to whine and complain and issue death threats about the way a comic book is handled by a movie studio then shut up and create your own.
+J. Brian Can a story be bogged down through overextensive backstory or side plots put on display? Sure.
Can you tell a taut action-adventure tale in under three hours? Sure. Heck, you can do it in fifteen minutes. So is telling a three hour story a bad thing? Is telling a 15 minute story a bad thing? No — it all depends on the story you want to tell.
Is it necessary to go full origin-story on these character? I think we can skip Batman and Wonder Woman for the moment, but I'm not sure I want to assume that every movie-goer is going to know who the hell the Flash (this version), or Aquaman, or Cyborg are, what they can expect from those characters (either behaviorally or what abilities might suddenly get pulled from their asses), or, more importantly why they the audience should care about them. That's what those backstories should be driving, not trivia contests.
Can backstories be told more succinctly? Sure, and should be in an ensemble setting. Are they necessary to understand what a character is about? Not in every case, but when done right they provide context and a more-rounded protagonist (or antagonist), and I for one want more than just "Let's have a bunch of folk punching each other in the face for an hour and call it good."
+J. Brian I don't have a problem with a reasonable amount of whining and complaining, any more than over a reasonable amount of cheering and admiring. These works are public transactions ("We created this because we think you will like it and spend money on it, especially since it's based on characters you have previously spent money on and invested emotionally with"), so reactions if satisfied or dissatisfied are perfectly legit.
Death threats, or any sort of threat of violence, is seriously not.
+Dave Hill I agree with the issue of the death threats. Pretty sad.
It's one of the reasons I like to watch the deleted scenes on the DVD's, most of the time there are scenes that should have been included that would have made the movie better and the story stronger.
+Stan Pedzick Oh, I always make a point of watching them. It varies a lot, but I'd say the scenes there on average break out:
60% Oh, man, that would have been awesome in the original film, would have explained so much, was very very cool.
30% Okay, that was fun, but, yeah, that would have distracted, slowed the pace, taken away from the story.
10% OMG, what were they thinking?
It's impossible to tell at this point, with JL, if the reshot / deleted / edited out to 2 hours footage is genius or mind-destroying dreck. I tend to trust Whedon's film instincts, by and large, so that's encouraging. I have no doubt, though, there will be some stuff in the deleted scenes I wish had been left into the original.
One of my favorite things on deleted scene tracks is when one of the producers or the director explains why something was cut out. Even when I don't agree with the reasoning, it's interesting to see some of the thought that goes into it.