I love slo-mo. For me, he doesn't overuse it. People do seem to be very sensitive to it though.
Snyder does get accused of 'style over substance' and I think the only place that might fit is when he is chopping his movies down to fit in a shorter time frame.
IMHO, the opening sequence to Army Of The Dead shows where Zack Snyder, if he chooses to be, can be extremely effective. There's a lot of background and information being presented without any dialogue. You get a feel for the core characters, the conflict, the debt between them, the regret, the level of threat and the stakes.
The above scene in Aliens, the first Power Loader scene, look at how many things it's doing at once. ( It was something Cameron simply could not cut when he was told to trim the film down to reduce it's run time)
1) Foreshadows the end battle with the Power Loader and the Alien Queen
2) Gives a little more coverage of Apone, to further develop him to make his loss more realized / impactful
3) Create a gradual transition of Ripley from victim to competent to hero
4) Sustain, slightly, the potential attraction between Ripley and Hicks, where that subtext shows up later ( the rifle training/watch scene)
5) Explains why Hicks would grow to trust Ripley ( she's competent, she's willing to put in the work, she's showing she wants to be part of their team)
6) Highlights how the Colonial Marines operate - What works is paramount, function over form
7) Shows the detachment by everyone else "rank and file" from both Lt. Burke and Gorman
8 ) Pushes the "technology" theme, where Cameron went for a soft comparison to the Vietnam War ( technology, massed resources and "Western arrogance" against and underestimating a more organic seemingly primitive force to catastrophic results)
Snyder can tell the same story, have the same characters and carry the same themes, but the larger question is if he can do it more efficiently. That's it. It's that simple from a narrative and logistical standpoint. For example, instead of planet hopping to build the team, can you find a way to put them altogether at once? Most people are not fans of Shane Black's The Predator, but he put all the human fighters who would support the leads onto one bus. The Breakfast Club put the five teens ( They looked 35 years old...LOL) into one Saturday detention.
Admiral Noble wants the crops from the village. OK, so that's that. How can you arrange that so it's more efficient? The Motherworld is starving. Their "cloning" or whatever else is ruining their ability to grow food. Noble needs to find food further and further out and essentially rob people, going against basic common sense of cultivating a practical bargain, because he's desperate and the situation is desperate. Now he's not a cardboard cutout villain. He's just starving like everyone else. OK, so Snyder doesn't need to use exactly that, but now it would explain the anger at the rebels through the Bloodaxes getting the grain instead on the black market ( i.e. if your enemy is eating and your troops are not, you'll probably eventually lose that war)
Condense the characters. Make the logistics more friendly to arrange them in a practical way to develop them. Find a more practical overarching motive for everyone. Give the audience a real life concept that they can envision and relate to somehow in the day to day world.
Snyder shows he can be efficient. But Rebel Moon Part 1 is not it. Not even close. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that RM1 is highly "derivative" Just tell a fun clean simple story that entertains and pleases fans. Predators with the Pianist and Morpheus on too much Tasty Wheat is basically 75 percent fan service and homage. But it's nice compact solid film. It's not the best Predator film, but it's competent.
The length of a film is not correlated to it's efficiency. Braveheart is just shy of three hours in length for it's theatrical version, and it's incredibly efficient. The argument that Snyder needs a bigger film is complete and utter ********. Make a competent film at 90 minutes, if that's all you are given. Then, if given more opportunity, add to it. Aliens is a perfect example. The theatrical cut is still a great fundamentally sound film. But the Special Edition brings out the what's already good and makes it even better. If Snyder can cover so much ground in a 5 minute Army Of The Dead montage sequence, he can find a way to uplift a 90 minute version of RM1. But only if the narrative is structurally bullet proof to start.
Excuses only last so long before eventually the common denominators start to reveal themselves to the point of undeniability. More to point, you and Alatar are free to love whatever you want to love, but the perpetual moving of goalposts doesn't solve the efficiency problem.
I just got one this weekend. I'm badass now!
