Thank you; it was actually my mother, and to make it worse, we were estranged for quite some time so we weren't talking. I'm not really taking it very well...
4:3 (1.33:1) is actually closer to "true" IMAX aspect ratio, which is 1.43:1, as IMAX screens are tall. This article explains Snyder's rationale of wanting to preserve the IMAX ratio it was shot in. Snyder's decision was always to release the home video in 1.33:1, even before WB's decision to stream it on HBOmax.
4:3? Good by me!
collider.com
Yes -- I know precisely why he chose the ratio, the rationale behind it and what it is exposing in every frame. I have read all there is to read about his decision to shoot it this way and how it was intended for theaters. It's just that, on MY setup at home on a 65-inch screen, the pillarboxing made the whole thing feel "too small in scope" to really appreciate -- and this is aside from what Snyder WANTED, which I respect. I don't know what it was, but the pillarboxing didn't really engross me in the narrative too well....I was really distracted by the shape of the image and the way it felt "squeezed in," even if we were seeing more from top to bottom.
For whatever reason, my eyes never got comfortable with pillarboxing the way they did with letterboxing; even old films in a 4:3 ratio on DVD look very strange to me with the side bars. This is PRECISELY why I am pissed that my Panasonic UHD Blu-ray player doesn't offer a way to zoom or stretch any content the way you want it (like the Oppos did) -- the player is locked in a widescreen-only output, so even non-anamorphic DVDs won't play back correctly. Absolutely ridiculous.
I'll give the film another chance with the pillarboxing, and I'm glad I got it to see it, but my first impression is that I just couldn't get that immersed in the story.
As for the film, I think it's an improvement over the original theatrical cut, which was cartoonishly glib. The Snyder cut fleshes out more fully character motivations and the plot; the characters' actions and decisions just make more sense now. But is it on the level of the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy? No. It's also inferior to the whole Avengers/MCU storyline.
I definitely didn't hate it -- I see what he was going for and appreciated it. It definitely improved upon the Whedon variant that introduced way too much comedic relief at the wrong times, which just didn't feel like a DC film (for instance, I LOATHED the whole "Oh yeah....something's definitely bleeding...." line Affleck mutters after being tossed to the ground by Cavill's Superman). I'm glad all of that was pretty much gone from Snyder's cut. On the other hand, something STILL didn't feel right -- the first disc contained storylines that seemed all over the place and randomly sewn together. Getting the backstories on characters like The Flash and Cyborg was cool, but the way Snyder strung them together felt a little haphazard -- like, in one moment we're seeing Victor play football and the next we're back to Diana's home world where Steppenwolf is attacking (it didn't happen EXACTLY like that, but it's just an example of what I mean).
The extended Knightmare sequence at the end was cool, especially the dialogue between Bruce and Joker (many said Leto redeemed himself in this performance compared to the trash we got in
Suicide Squad, and I must agree...but he is STILL no Nicholson, Ledger or Phoenix). The references to Robin's death made sense, as we now see why Bruce kept his costume in his mansion that read "JOKE'S ON YOU, BATMAN" and now have closure in terms of why Leto's "pimped out" Joker possibly had all the gold teeth (the rumor was that after learning of Joker's killing of Robin -- which we never see in a film version -- Batman beat him so badly he lost all his choppers).
This scene also better explains why Barry looked very different in the dream sequence in
Batman v Superman when he reaches through Bruce's screens to scream "BRUCE!!!! IT'S LOIS LANE!!!! IT'S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT HER!!!" -- indeed, he almost looks Asian-esque in that scene! We also get to see Mera from
Aquaman play a role here.
I still don't understand, though, what this Knightmare scene was all about outside of Bruce dreaming about an attack on earth and Darkseid turning it into a hellscape -- what was with all the references to Bruce letting Lois die and Superman becoming evil for that? Why DID Barry look the way he did in that dream sequence, with the small mustache and all?
