Zack Snyder’s Justice League 2021 Another Discussion

This was written several years ago for another site and has been reposted here with some updates to the writing.

I just finished watching the new cut of Justice League that came out yesterday. It’s very long, 4 hours in fact. Movies cut a lot of footage before it becomes what we see in the final release. They shoot a lot of scenes that get tweaked, trimmed or eliminated altogether to make for a more streamlined story. This feels like they filmed the movie and then cut almost nothing.

I discussed how we got the original cut of this movie in the previous essay with Snyder’s daughter dying, him stepping down and Joss Whedon coming in. This movie came about after fans of Snyder’s previous films were….. “extremely vocal” (or, if you prefer, utter jackasses) about their desire to see the ‘Snyder Cut’ of the film. Now, the Snyder Cut didn’t really exist, the film hadn’t been finished when he stepped down, there wasn’t a cut of the film sitting on a shelf they could slap on a DVD and send to stores.

However, there was a lot of material that was never used and eventually WB decided to bring back Snyder and some of the actors to complete another version of the film. This still isn’t really what the ‘Snyder Cut’ would have been because that would have at least been much shorter to be released in theaters but it’s definitely closer than the original.

What is added to make the film twice as long?

That’s the main question really. This film gives us more and shows us more is the quickest way to put it. We get to see the establishing details rather than skipping to the end result. I hadn’t realized how much had been cut out of the original film until seeing this. For example, in the original version after the Mother Box is taken from the Amazons they speak of lighting a signal fire to warn Diana. Then we cut to Diana seeing a news report of an old Greek temple burning. In this version we see the Amazons take a magic arrow of Artemis, light it and fire it into the temple. Then Diana goes to the site and explores the temple and finds murals warning of Darkseid. Another example is that in the original cut we see Aquaman show up with armor and a trident and here we see how he got them.

We’re given a lot more to establish the characters, we see Flash applying for a job, Cyborg exploring his powers and helping a single mother by hacking a bank to give her money. We see both interact with their fathers more. After his resurrection we see Superman explore the Kryptonian ship to choose a new black costume. Basically, we’re just shown more. I think this helps and hurts the film, as it does let us know more about the heroes that this film introduces and lets us see their journey more but yeah, it’s a four-hour film, some of this needed to be cut.

Then there’s the groundwork for future films, we’re given more background on Steppenwolf which is something I did want. We see is him communicating with Darkseid through his advisor Desaad. We learn that Darkseid has The Antilife Equation that Darkseid has been searching for thousands of years for. In the comics the Antilife Equation gives someone the ability to strip free will from individuals. Then after Steppenwolf’s defeat we see Darkseid plan to invade Earth. This is clearly setting up a future Justice League movie. We see more glimpses of the bad future where they failed and Darkseid took over Superman. One of the epilogue scenes is from that future where a team consisting of heroes and villains are attempting to go back in time and save Lois Lane.

They lay a lot of groundwork for the Aquaman movie that would have been coming out right after this had this been the theatrical cut.

I feel like Zack was like “this is my chance, I’m on a streaming service and being given full rein, I’m just gonna include everything” I’m not entirely sure I can blame him for it honestly.

What was changed/cut?

The big thing is the Russian family, just right out of the film as I expected. Then there’s the quips, this is something I pointed out in the previous article about how it felt like quips were inserted at different points in the movie and I feel like I was right but also didn’t realize how right. The lines like “something’s bleeding” are gone but so are others, like when Aquaman tells Batman that “a strong man is strongest alone, you ever hear that?” in the original cut he replies awkwardly that that’s not how that goes, but in this he skips that reply and keeps trying to convince Aquaman to join. There’s a lot of scenes like that were the dialogue is subtly different. I think some of them could have stayed, I missed “Dressed like a Bat? I dig it” but some scenes felt better. Especially the conversation between Martha and Lois, instead of a conversation at the Daily Planet where we listen to a woman talk about her husband being anal probed and Martha calling Lois thirsty, we get a heartfelt conversation between them at her apartment. That was definitely better delivered.

One positive change I noticed was there was a lot less infighting in the team, especially after the battle with Superman. Speaking of the battle with Superman, in the original Batman brought in Lois to help get through to Superman, here she’d been visiting his shrine every day and happens to be there during the battle and that’s how she jumps in. This is a change where both versions actually work though I question why it was made.

What did I miss from the original?

There were a couple jokes but there are two main things. First is the scene at the very start where 2 kids interview Superman on their phone, it was a cute moment, and I think it should have stayed. Second was Batman’s speech to Flash. Flash is nervous and panicking and Batman tells him to just save one person and then he’ll know he can do it. This is cut, now to be fair before this we already saw him save someone from a traffic accident and the story flows a bit differently so it wouldn’t totally fit, but it was a good moment.

Overall?

I liked it, a lot. I like having more of the characters, I like seeing how things happened instead of just jumping to the result, I like the tone and dialogue better in a lot of places and I like that the groundwork for future films. However it is too long, I’m not sure what length would have worked for this, I think it wouldn’t be too hard to make a three hour version that still includes the vast majority of the beats and you could probably cut some things outright to shrink down to 2.5 hours but I think at that point we run the risk of getting another awkward BvS which while good didn’t 100% go together. I can understand why Zack decided to include everything and the kitchen sink, but it is too long.

Also, several parts of the epilogue felt like what would usually be after credit scenes, in fact one of them was a revamped after credit scene from the original cut. I kind of like just having them in the main film, I’ve grown tired of after credit scenes in general, at the point the movie is over in a theater I usually have to pee and I’m a little grateful that here we were just given the scenes.

Going forward?

Honestly, I would like to see us back on track for the Snyder plan, or something close too. I’d like to see the cast come back, I’d like to see a Darkseid movie with the expanded Justice League and I’d like to see WB do right by Ray Fisher. At this point it could either way, I’m seeing a lot of people surprised at how much they liked this vs the old film. WB clearly wants to move forward with something, we’ve still got multiple films in the works, and I doubt they decided to do this in a vacuum so who knows? I think finding a middle ground could work. However, it’s very up in the air right now and with the pandemic being a monkey wrench it’ll probably take years before we know what’s going on.

Couple quick comments on the dystopic future scene:

One, Jared Leto officially has the worst Joker Laugh. Two, aside from that he was actually decent in the role there taunting Batman. Three, the society line from that teaser is actually not in the film. Four, I think that we just need to get used to characters saying Fuck in media now, Picard, Titans and here, it’s a thing now.

Note from the present, while I do say he was decent in this one scene, he’s still a piece of trash and I wish he’d not been cast.

Editing to comment on a scene:

So we still have the scene where Wonder Woman arrives to save a bunch of school children from a bomb but in this version when she's taken out most of the bad guys and gotten rid of the bomb the head badguy unloads a machine gun on the kids. She deflects every single bullet saving them then she decides to use her bracer blast to kill him. That didn't make any sense, he's reloading, we've seen she's faster than bullets, she could just take him down but instead she does her bracer blast that kills him, blows out the entire wall of the building and should have injured all the children behind her. it was weird

Other Heroes

One final thing, the movie introduces a couple other leaguers that didn’t make it into the original. Silas Stone’s (Cyborg’s dad) assistant was Ryan Choi. In the comics he is the Atom, a superhero with the ability to shrink to microscopic size.

The other one, the one that made me go “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit” was that when Martha and Lois had that conversation and Martha left, we learned that it in fact was not Martha. It was my man, J’onn J’onzz the Martian Manhunter. He reappears at the end of the film where he meets Batman promising to help in the future. J’onn is a founding member of the Justice League and has been a member of many incarnations of the League with powers to rival Superman and then some. I first encountered him with the Justice League cartoon, but he’s been in Smallville and Supergirl as well but never on the big screen. This was just a teaser but man do I hope we get a movie in the future with him.

Present me adding a note at the end here: as I mentioned on the other Justice League essay I’ve left the original sentiment intact here but I’ve accepted that we’re moving on and a cleanish slate is probably better, especially given controversies surrounding some actors.