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I've Always Been Influenced By The Human Form. I'm A Big Fan Of That Shakespeare Quote. I Tend To Leave Out The Bad Part Of The Paragon Of Animals Quote, Because I Have This Sort Of Ayn Rand Aesthetic. It Was Always One Of Those Quotes That Inspired Me.

-Zack Snyder

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I've Always Been Influenced

Zack Snyder

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I've Always Been Influenced By The Human Form. I'm A Big Fan Of That Shakespeare Quote. I Tend To Leave Out The Bad Part Of The Paragon Of Animals Quote, Because I Have This Sort Of Ayn Rand Aesthetic. It Was Always One Of Those Quotes That Inspired Me.

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I Used To Be A Huge Fan Of Heavy Metal Magazine Growing Up, And I Was Exposed To Cobalt There And Fell In Love With The Character And The World. I've Tried To Track It Down And Pursue It Myself To Make A Movie Out Of It. Also I Felt Like The Thing That's Cool About Cobalt Is It Does Have A Culty Kind Of Underground Quality To It That I Really Like.

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The Eyes Get Lost In 3-d. With 3-d, Your Eyes Are Looking For The Plane Of Focus, Right? And The Problem Is, When You Do Quick Cuts, Your Eyes Can't Find It.

In The Sense That Watchmen References Movies, Comic Books, Pop Culture In General. It Knows It's A Movie. I Really Do Like Movies That Ride That Fine Line, The Razor's Edge Between Parody And Supporting The Fake Movie Part Of The Movie.

I Always Say 300 Is A Sci-fi Movie As Much As Anything. It's Like That Could Be Another Planet. It Doesn't Have To Be Earth Necessarily. That's Like When People Get So Wrapped Up In The Politics Of 300 I Always Go, "by The Way, That's A Sci-fi Movie. It's Not Really A Historical Film."

You Can't Will Something Into Being. If You Follow That Philosophy All The Way, To Will Something Into Being, That's Animal Style. That's What Man Does. But If You're Looking At The Philosophy Correctly, And I Never Did - I Like To Think I Did Sometimes - You Have To Do It Without Ego, Without The I. You Have To Separate Yourself.

There's Very Few Dork Movies Made By Dorks.

Look, If You Have A Problem With Distilling The Battle Of Thermopylae Down To Freedom Versus Tyranny, You Need To Read Herodotus Because He's The One. It's His Fault, Not Modern Culture's Fault. He Did It.' [victor Davis Hanson] References A Lot Of Things Like That Because He Feels Like The Spirit Of The Book And Of The Movie ["300"] Are Very Close To The Spartan Aesthetic. That's Really Kind Of What He Feels."

We've Tried As Hard As We Can Into Keep The Ideas Intact In The Hail Storm That Is Hollywood, So, Whether He Is Or Not, I'm Personally Proud Of What I've Been Able To Jam Down Their Throats.

Yeah, I Mean, I Think I'm Obsessed With Tone In The Movies. Tone Has Always Been The Main Thing That I Go After With A Movie.

The Truth Is The Music Is Really An Incredible Personal Part Of The Movie. When I Was Drawing The Storyboards For Watchmen, I Had Just Gone To My Ipod And Was Grabbing Music. It Took Me About Two Weeks To Really Put My Playlist Together. But Once I Had It, I Kinda Just Put My Headsets On And Drew For Five Months. But That Music's The Music That's In The Movie.

Music Has That Ability To Be A Magical Thing, And I Was Like, Maybe Music Is The Vehicle That Transports Us To That Other World.

I Aim My Movies, As Much As I Can, At Myself. I Think That Those Movies Have An Interesting Quality. They're Very Movieish. They Are Movie Movies. Like I Think Watchmen Is A Very Self-aware Movie. 300. Dawn Of The Dead Definitely. That's Really Where I've Ended Up.

Anytime I've Ever Been Involved In A Non-linear Story, You See It In A Linear Manner First, Just To Make Sure It Makes Sense, And Then You Chop It Up And Move It Around.

I Think That, For Me, Superman Just Seemed To Make A Lot Of Sense To Me. After Doing 'watchmen,' It Was - You Know That Thing, You've Got To Know The Rules Before You Can Break Them? There Was Something About That In Making 'watchmen.'

I Understand The Rules Of Superman - Not Necessarily Better Than Anyone Else - But Better Than A Normal Filmmaker Would. After Doing 'watchmen' And Digging That Deep Into The Why Of Superheroes, When Superman Is Presented To You, I Felt Like I Was In A Unique Position To Say 'i Get This Guy. I Know What This Is.

I'd Say The Purest Experience For The Movie Is Not To Have Read The Book Because I Think When You've Read The Book You're Just Ticking Off Boxes. I Think That After You See The Movie, Reading The Book Is A Cool Thing. I Always Say The Movie's Not Meant To Replace The Book. That's Ridiculous. I'm A Huge Fan Of The Book.

He's This Amazing Ambassador For All Superheroes. What We've Made As A Film Not Only Examines That But Is Also An Amazing Adventure Story. It's Been An Honor To Work On. As A Comic Book Fan, Superman Is Like The Rosetta Stone Of All Superheroes.

The Truth Is These Characters [of Batman Story] Evolve, And There's A Lot Of Hands In The Supporting Of These Characters. It's Great When Everybody Can Know Where Everything Came From. It's Important For The Legacy Of Them.

I Always Say, Thank God I Have This Job Or I Don't Know What I'd Be Doing. It'd Be Sad. I've Always Felt Like I Have Been Trying To Brand A World For A Quite A Long Time. You Know What Though, I Feel No Different. I Feel Like I'm Doing The Exact Same Thing I Did In High School. Only I Have More People Helping Me Out Now. And We Have To Take It All The Way.

It's Interesting Now That Basically A Cg Set Is The Same Cost As A Real Set. So Like If You're Going To Build A Cg House In The Suburbs, It Costs You $200,000. And If You Were Going To Build It In A Computer, It'll Cost You $200,000. It's The Same... The Relationship Is Exactly The Same.

Reality's Its Own Thing. And I'm Not Really Into Reality That Much. I'm Into This Cinematic Stylized Reality That Can Comment On Reality. It's Like The Most Beautiful Parts Of Reality And The Saddest Parts, But It's None Of This Middle Ground.

I Mean, Like, I Can Go In A Room And Say, Look, 'watchmen' Should Be At Least 15 Minutes Longer Than 'batman.' I Mean, That's, Like, Any Geek Will Tell You That.

The Challenge With 'watchmen' Is Making Sure That The Ideas That Were In The Book Got Into The Movie. That Was My Biggest Stretch. I Wanted People To Watch The Movie And Get It. It's One Of Those Things Where, Over Time, It Has Happened More.

People Always Come Up To Me Now And Say, 'watchmen' Is The Best Superhero Movie Ever Made.' I'm Always Saying 'that's Super Cool. That's Nice Of You To Say.' But It Happens Now, More And More And More Than It Did When It First Came Out.

People Have A Very Proprietary Relationship With Superman. It's Important To Respect The Iconography And The Canon, But At The Same Time, You Have To Tell A Story.

When Reality Is A Prison, Your Mind Can Set You Free.

Of Course It Would Depend On The Project, But I Don't Think I Could Ever Separate Myself From My Aesthetic.

I Love The Irony Of Movies. I Really Do. For Whatever Reason, I'm Incredibly Intrigued By The Irony Of Reality In A Motion Picture.

I Think I Just Have A Natural Operatic Aesthetic. I Can't Help It.

My Mom Always Encouraged Me, It Was Never Weird. She'd Look At 'heavy Metal' And Go 'woo-hoo!'

Who Honors Those We Love For The Very Life We Live? Who Sends Monsters To Kill Us...and At The Same Time Sings That We'll Never Die? Who Teaches Us What's Real...and How To Laugh At Lies? Who Decides Why We Live And What We'll Die To Defend? Who Chains Us...and Who Holds The Key That Can Set Us Free? It's You. You Have All The Weapons You Need. Now Fight!

I Always Say, I'm Certain I Changed 'watchmen' Less Than The Coen Brothers Changed 'no Country For Old Men.' I'm Certain Of It. But You Don't Hear The Cormac Mccarthy Fans, Like, Up In Arms About It. They Should Be. It's Like An Amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning Book.

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We Can't Just Go, Like, Oh That'd Be Cool Then Not Do It. So It's One Of Those Weird Things. You Gain All These Things On Your Journey. You Get Smarter. It's Interesting How You Are Who You Are In High School In A Lot Of Ways. When I Look At My Friends, I Feel No Different About Them Than I Did When I Was In High School. I Mean That In A Great Way. They've Taken On A Micro Scale What They Were Doing And Making It Bigger.

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You Can't Have A Superman That Is Battling Cultural Morality. You Need A Superman That Has Built In Sort Of Values.

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I Mean, It's Weird Because People Lately Have Been Coming Up To Me And Going, 'oh, My God. '300' Is Huge.' I'm Like, 'really? It's Not Done Yet!

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I Love Comic Books - Maybe To A Fault Sometimes.

Our Plans For 'superman?' I Can't Say. This Is The Most Super Secret Thing Ever. It's Like Working For The Government, Like I'm On A Covert Mission.

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Origin Stories Are Really Important To Me. I Just Like That Sort Of Stuff And I Feel Like It Makes A Lot Of Sense To The Guys, Who They Are. If You Don't Have That Stuff, It's Kind Of A One Dimensional Version Of It.

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Don't Mean To Sound Weird But I Get So Immersed In The Source Material When I'm Working On A Movie That I Kind Of Lose The Line Between What I Thought Of And What Was In The Book.

For Whatever Reason I Was Always Obsessed With The Potential Of Humanity's Physicality. Especially Since We Grew Up With Such A Non-physical Philosophy.

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Also I've Got To Say In The Movie ["300"] Gorgo, Who Is The Queen, She Has Also A Part That Is - I Think - I Don't Want To Say, 'oh Look, It's Multi-quadrant,' And All This. I Believe That It Is Because I Think My Dad Can See This Movie And Go, 'f**k Yeah!

I Write In A Pretty Straightforward Way. I Kind Of Sit Down At Page One And Start Writing.

I Think Sin City Is A Good Example. Nobody Would Accuse Sin City Of Being Historically Inaccurate Because It Takes Place In Modern Times.

Everyone Has An Angel, A Guardian Who Watches Over Us. We Can't Know What Form They'll Take. One Day Old Man, Next Day Little Girl. But Don't Let Appearances Fool You, They Can Be As Fierce As Any Dragon. Yet They Are Not Here To Fight Are Battles, But To Whisper From A Hearth. Reminding That It's Us... It's Everyone Of Us Who Holds The Power Of The Worlds We Create.

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