R does not automatically = better.
Nothing about Man of Steel made me think, "This would be so much better if Pa Kent said 'fuck' exactly twice, and then got chopped in half by tornado debris". I am very interested to see how this film turns out, of course, but I think sometimes artists get this mentality that getting an R rating in the US is artistic fulfillment or something.
Something I'd like to note is that this gif is reflective of the really good rapport Snyder manages to have with his actors, and it's a factor in why they generally speak so highly of him. He keeps things friendly, professional, and he walks them through their roles. It might look goofy out of context, but a lot of directors just roll the camera and don't really give their actors direction on what to do. A lot of big superhero movies are shot mostly on greenscreen, and the actors have to do the best they can. Snyder supports these people as actors and works through the character with them, and tries to come to a common understanding of what is going to be onscreen.
This was a major sore spot with the final cut of Justice League. A lot of that shared understanding between actors and director got thrown out by Joss Whedon who had his own ideas about what JL should be, and didn't particularly care what the actors thought, and even bullied the actors when they wouldn't go along with what he wanted. There's that stink over him threatening Gal Godot if she wouldn't take part in the "flash falls on her boobs" scene, and he ended up using a stunt double for the scene when she continued to defy him. There's just a fundamental difference in work ethic between Snyder and a lot of these big comic book movie directors.
As an aside, CIA Guy said working with Christopher Nolan was like working on a high school film project that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It was a fiasco. He had no direction, no way to ground his performance, the IMAX cameras were deafening, and Nolan and his cameraman were just running around seemingly at random. People wonder why Talia's death scene in TDKR is so bad. That's Nolan for you.
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