OG: In response to the point in the featured image, Rebel Moon is coming to theaters. I really think the way ahead is to connect Zack’s work to greater concepts, movements, and ideas and present what we have through his movies and his life and the life of the fandom and our brotherhood to broader audiences. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I see the spirit of divinity operating through the message of the trilogy, the life of the director, and the passion and the power of the fans. I think religious people would be interested in that. They might be challenged by it, that in many ways, we are a better church than they are. Like, we really and truly love our director and his art and message, more than most Christians love Jesus and his art and message. Which is why God made our director’s art like his own. The Christian church is so worthless these days, God had to use a Hollywood film director to tell the story of a self-sacrificing and resurrected superbeing redeeming a wayward hero turning him into a good shepherd, and then turning that director into a suffering Messiah to his fanbase, turning us into a parallel of an ecclesiastical organization. I know my director’s dog’s name. But I don’t know many Christians who know anything about the bible. I cried for Autumn when I was riding my bike through Italy. But I don’t know many Christians who cry for God’s lost children. Throw ideas like that out there, and the Snyderverse movement will appeal to a lot more people than just superhero movie fans. We don’t want to become like any kind of new religion or anything. Just fans. A fanbase that puts churches to shame. Like God made us into a weapon against useless religion. Firing full metal jackets of truth at hypocritical churches. Then maybe we can unify with them. Zack’s Vero post looks like he is unified with Warner. We can’t let our fandom be fueled by hate of Warner like churches fueled by hate. We have to do better than that. This is just one of many ideas for a documentary. If we make a documentary like that and send it to the religious right, we’ll go big time. They may hate us. It might get rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. Most people can’t handle the truth or criticism. But a few of them will love their enemy like Jesus told them to. And if we make the doc right and tell them we are saying this because we love them, maybe there will be healing.
RN: Exactly. I don’t share the Christian belief, I’m a Muslim, but I agree with everything you said. Despite not sharing Zack’s (or your) belief, I could still see it through that religion lens. It’s an interesting thing, and one that is near non-existent in Hollywood right now. Zack is an amazing man, too, like his movies. And one of the ideas in the back of my head as to why Hollywood hated him and he was given no chances is because he is a religious person, integrating parts of religion into these movies. They don’t want that (Hollywood). They apparently want more satanic stuff.
OG: Actually I don’t know Zack’s religious belief. I started having a lot of fan ideation about him and the movies and his story while riding a bicycle across Europe and Jordan by myself. I mean, I’d thought about him and the movies before. They’ve been on my heart since they came out. But the solo bike trip has made things take a special turn. So I may talk about him like I know him. But that’s just me reaching nutjob superfan status, I guess. I know ZSJL is a director’s cut. Zack had full creative control. The script was Zack, Terrio, and Johns. I think Terrio was probably lead or first writer, but ZSJL was highly evolved. That said, I know Bruce said “Six chairs, but with room for more, God help us.” I know Zack wanted that said. I’d put my money on him being a theist. Beyond that, I’m pretty sure he figured out at least by the end that he had made a movie that people have interpreted as being about the death and resurrection of a superbeing who died saving the world, and who healed Bruce’s heart by doing so, and that Bruce lead people to heroism. And that Cyborg was made whole by one of three great otherworldly powers. I’ve seen a lot of symbolism that fits biblical patterns in the films. Jesus has water that causes people to never thirst again. Whoever drinks the divine water never dies. Superman was resurrected from the water of Krypton. Lightning symbolizes divine power in scripture. Flash provided lightning. Ezra went to a mental hospital for telling people Flash was like Jesus. The press tried to call him a cult leader. I’d say Flash was more like a deliverer or messenger of divine power, like an angel. But theologians discuss allegories and types in scripture. “This bit is like Jesus in this way, that bit is like Jesus in that way,” etc. The motherbox that entered the water was the same one that made Cyborg. That motherbox represents the Spirit of God. Cyborg is the guy who has power over technology. Technology in the hands of the Godless is society’s number one problem at the moment. Cyborg is the guy who can beat that. He follows the redeemed Batman, the good shepherd. With Superman’s strength, Cyborg kept those three motherboxes, God, Word of God, Spirit of God, in their proper places so they didn’t turn into a confused mass that ruins worlds. I don’t think Zack had any idea about this. Maybe bits and pieces, more along the way. That trilogy contains plot and symbolism that the world’s finest theologians would struggle to put together with such perfection. Tolkien tried to do it with Lord of the Rings and came up with something similar, intentionally, but not with the same clarity. I look forward to meeting Zack at some point and asking him about some things if a time and place comes up. I went from Arizona to Jordan to try to get into Israel. I got the idea to do a documentary about Snyder as a first project in filmmaking on the bike trip. I wanted to do some research, but was stymied by technical problems (I guess I’m not Cyborg yet). I got frustrated at one point about not getting help from other Snyder fans and complained that we needed another Snydercon on Reddit. And poof, Zack is doing a Snydercon for AFSP on 28 April. I swear I never talked to the guy. I send him heartfelt comments on Vero like a teenager writing to Pamela Anderson. That’s seriously it. I promise. I love the guy in my fanboy way. But we are not religious buddies, nor am I giving you inside information about his understanding of the meeaning of the movies, nor am I his paid spokesman. I’m just blown away how this whole Snyderverse thing is rolling out in a spiritual and social sense. But I don’t think he really knew what he was doing with all the biblical and New testament aspects of his DC trilogy. I think that crew was inspired to make those movies. One might think that it’s just me being a theologian who read all the symbols into it, but the thing is, Zack’s fanbase turned into an inexplicably devoted group that insisted those movies get made. And they just don’t stop. And Zack’s life turned into the life of an Apostle, losing everything, and then getting the movie made by miracle, and becoming a boss at Netflix, with the haters now mocking him for being like….freaking Jesus… Carl Jung would go crazy over this stuff. Joseph Campbell too. The short of it is, I really don’t know Zack’s religious beliefs. I think the movies were put together by God. I think that whole crew accidentally made a New Testament theological masterpiece without knowing it. Tolkein was a Roman Catholic. He knew all this Saxon lore and was a trained Catholic catechist. He was very intently telling his Catholic spiritual understandings through Saxon mythological tropes. Zack, man, he isn’t stupid. But he was reading the Bhagavad Gita when Joss was finishing the theatrical cut, after we lost Autumn. Not the Bible. He was thinking about an Ayn Rand project. Being hated for being good at what he does. He is spiritual. But I seriously don’t think he is a Tolkein. I’m really curious to know. If Zack isn’t a Christian, or wasn’t when he made the movies, how on earth did they come out like that under those circumstances and have the effect they have had? I’m mystified. But I’m sure it isn’t that Zack is a secret evangelist.