You do tend to start taking excellent special effects for granted these days until you see them done really, really badly. If you want to start appreciating technical achievements, you only need to watch the last Justice League trailer-

I’m completely behind that emo/gospel cover of “Heroes,” but god damn that looks bad. Not only from the understanding that Zack Snyder was the primary creative behind it and the context of the entire DCEU that’s come before, but also, just look at it.

After almost 10 years, we’ve learned to just take it as a given that Iron Man looks fantastic and completely realistic. Now we have Cyborg (Ray Fisher), who still looks like they haven’t put the finishing touches on him on the eve of the movie’s release.

Think the vehicles in Mad Max: Fury Road were only OK? You just sort of expected that level of verisimilitude and logic in their design? I hope you appreciate them a little more now — they could have looked like this version of the Batmobile.

The trailer’s climax is a huge battle under a red sky. It looks like essentially the same effect as Las Vegas in Blade Runner 2049 except so, so much worse.

Justice League will open tonight.

Leopold Knopp is a UNT graduate. If you liked this post, you can donate to Reel Entropy here. Like Reel Entropy on Facebook and reach out to me at reelentropy@gmail.com.