Zack Snyder's Justice League hits HBO Max two weeks from tomorrow, and excitement among those who have spent years hoping that Warner Bros. would #ReleaseTheSnyderCut is through the roof.
Now, we have a newly released still from the filmmaker's vision for the DC Extended Universe, and it features quite a bit of Steppenwolf. Something fans have immediately taken note of is the fact that the villain has two thumbs. That's certainly a good way to make him look alien, but it's also a little disconcerting (which might be the point, seeing as he hails from Apokolips).
Steppenwolf's appearance isn't the only thing that will be different in the "Snyder Cut," of course, as the tone won't be anything like what Joss Whedon delivered with his Justice League in 2017.
"[The original plan] was absolutely being twisted during production, but y'know, I was there to fight them," Snyder told Total Film in a recent interview. "Even though there was pressure on me to make it funnier and lighten it, I would persist as much as I could to keep the tone as much as I could. I added a bunch of things for them, and I was always careful to make sure I covered things both ways, so that it didn’t affect the movie story-wise. It was my hope that, in post-production, I'd be able to force my will upon them."
Check out this new look at Steppenwolf in Zack Snyder's Justice League below:
Click on the "Next" button below to check out some CGI
comic book movie characters we wish we could unsee!
10. The Hulk
The Jade Giant certainly didn't look perfect in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, but when you compare him to the version of the character that appeared in Ang Lee's movie five years prior, he was nothing short of a masterpiece.
This CGI creation was relatively impressive at the time, but looked really silly in action, and that wasn't helped by the hero's weird skin texture or the fact that it looked like Eric Bana's face had been superimposed on some sort of Hulk maquette (the bright green was certainly...something).
Throw in his fluctuating size (his height varied throughout the movie, leading to Green Goliath looking like a literal giant in places), and this version of the Marvel superhero didn't exactly have a lot of redeeming qualities. It's fair to say that the character wasn't perfected in live-action until The Avengers, so thank goodness ILM's stellar work.
9. Kilowog
Green Lantern's costume in his live-action debut looked terrible, but that paled in comparison to the other members of the Green Lantern Corps (who, aside from Sinestro, were brought to life solely with special effects).
Warner Bros. attracted some heavy-hitters to play these heroes, and while they all looked like extras from a video game cutscene, Kilowog was the biggest let down. Voiced by the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan, the fan-favourite hero not only received nowhere near enough screentime, but never felt like more than a walking, talking cartoon.
The CGI wasn't good a decade ago, but looks even worse now, and the effects are so poor that Duncan's voice doesn't even feel like it's coming from Kilowog. This was a crushing disappointment, so here's hoping the next iteration is better.
8. Cyborg
Cyborg could have very easily been brought to life with a mixture of visual and practical effects, but Zack Snyder instead chose to make him an almost entirely VFX creation.
It was an ambitious plan, but Warner Bros.' visual effects artists simply weren't up to scratch, and the robotic hero simply never looked real. While it was good to have Ray Fisher's face there to convey some human emotion, it looked like that was just floating on a CGI body, and there were some moments, in particular, which pulled us out of what was playing out on screen.
Justice League made worse mistakes than this (we'll get to those), but making Cyborg fully unfortunately robotic robs the character of a little too much of his humanity on screen.
7. The Thing
20th Century Fox's reasoning behind making a "grounded" Fantastic Four movie boiled down to them wanting to save money, but you have to give them credit for finally giving us a CGI Thing rather than going for a foam costume like the movies which preceded it in 2005 and 2007.
Unfortunately, this version of the iconic superhero ended up looking even worse than the one played by Michael Chiklis, something not helped by some baffling creative decisions.
The face design was particularly ugly, and while you might think that's the point, it was done in a way which meant that pretty much no emotion could be conveyed by The Thing. Throw in his bizarre lack of genitalia (was it really so hard to give him some pants and leave that up to the imagination?), and this character was one of many elements of the reboot which just plain sucked.
6. Doomsday
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice remains a divisive movie, but something we can all agree with is that Doomsday did not look good. In fact, this take on the iconic monster was beyond disappointing.
While he did evolve a little during the battle against Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, those were nowhere near significant enough to make him look anything other than awful. More akin to one of the trolls in The Lord of the Rings than the villain who killed the Man of Steel in the comic books, this was a complete misfire.
Warner Bros. failed to take note of the negative response to the Doomsday reveal in a trailer for the movie, and fan-art has shown has simple it would have been to improve on this design.
5. The Lizard
The Amazing Spider-Man was a disappointment, but most of the CGI looked pretty spectacular. The hallway fight scene between the wall-crawler and The Lizard was a good example of that, but as soon as you got up close with the movie's lead villain...well, it wasn't good.
Footage shown at Comic-Con reportedly included the villain's classic comic book appearance, but was replaced in the movie by a version which admittedly paid homage to The Lizard designed by Steve Ditko, but just did not work in live-action.
He ended up looking like Goomba from the Super Mario Bros. movie, and wasn't in the least bit terrifying. Those associated with The Amazing Spider-Man claimed that he took on this form because it would allow the villain to convey emotion, but some dodgy special effects meant that the reboot couldn't even pull that off. He looked like a joke.
4. Incubus
Suicide Squad had its fair share of problems, most of which were caused by reshoots inflicted upon director David Ayer by Warner Bros. We're not sure if Incubus was a result of those, but what a dumb choice of villain...who looked nothing short of appalling on screen.
Incubus may be an ancient demigod, but who knew that's how dreadful God-like beings looked thousands of years ago? Cartoonish, goofy, and worst of all, not remotely threatening, no one took this villain seriously, and he wasn't a fitting choice to square off with Task Force X.
The original plan was for Enchantress to report to Steppenwolf, but the plug was pulled on that idea, and that could help make sense of what Incubus ends up being so hard to look at here.
3. Seven Deadly Sins
Objectively speaking, the special effects used to bring the Seven Deadly Sins to life in 2019's Shazam! weren't bad, but these monstrous creatures were forgettable, boring, and completely uninspired. Those qualities mean they have all the makings of bad CGI creations.
There was so much Warner Bros. could have done with this personification of the Seven Deadly Sins, but instead, they were all brown, generic creatures impossible to tell apart.
We can only hope we see some improvement in the upcoming sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, as the heroes who make up the Shazam Family will benefit from taking on one big bad, and not a series of CGI baddies we have no reason to care about like the Seven Deadly Sins.
2. Steppenwolf
We've seen what Steppenwolf will look like in Zack Snyder's Justice League, and you have to believe much of that $70 million budget has gone towards bringing that complex design to life on screen.
In 2017, Warner Bros. were looking to finish off Geoff Johns and Joss Whedon's vision of the movie as cheaply as possible, so Steppenwolf being simplified does make sense. However, that doesn't excuse how horrendous the villain looked on screen, and he is one of the worst comic book movie bad guys we've ever seen (compare him to the level of detail on Thanos, for example).
We're not sure what Whedon was going for here, but he'd have looked pretty good...in 2003.
1. Henry Cavill's Superman Jaw
'Nuff said.