Why the Snyder Cut? by Massimiliano Orione

In the last few months, the internet has witnessed a big movement of people that came together for a cause: the release of the original cut of Justice League, unfiltered, without reshoots directed by Joss Whedon and without the score wrote by Danny Elfman.

To the casual audience, this can sound weird, as both Whedon and Elfman left such iconic byline in the Superhero genre, but the reason is rooted in many deep problems, both technical and personal, that their work has brought to the movie.

First of all, I’d like to make some clarifications: I am a Zack Snyder fan.

Zack Snyder, to me, is a personal inspiration and his Art gave me and to many others like me the strength to express ourselves, dig deeper into ourselves and the world around us and explore/study narrative techniques that nowadays are fully represented: the visual narration.

Another clarification to make is that the release of the Snyder Cut should happen also to clear out the names of both Whedon and Elfman with Snyder’s, as the final product we got was not what any of the concerned parts wanted.

So: why the Snyder Cut? There are many reasons.

One is that without it the rest of the DC movies already out would lose both narrative and quality value. The Snyder DC trilogy (and Universe) was supposed to be a saga revolving around Superman and how this figure, both metaphorically and narratively, was the start of the DC Universe: we see him rise in Man of Steel, then we see him fall in Batman V Superman, in Suicide Squad he’s the reason for the birth of Task Force X and his sacrifice is the sole reason of Diana’s “rebirth” that lead her to narrate her story in Wonder Woman. Specifically, with Man of Steel and Batman V Superman, we have Superman as the main character and his mythology as a central fulcrum around which revolves the DC story: the destruction of Krypton literally leads to the birth of the Justice League.

We can see how his arrival on Earth and his discovery of his heritage are the sparks of the arrival of Zod and of the Kryptonian technology, biology, and geology: this leads the world in a state of fear of him, fear that finds his two wielders in the characters of Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. Those characters, utilizing the discoveries that Krypton (and, by extension, the arrival of Superman) fight Kal-El to a fight that ultimately leads to his death, a death that will inspire the greatest heroes of the DC universe to join forces and defend an undefended Earth.

The problem, here, stands on how the story here is stopped, shifted and is rewritten, filling itself of plot-holes as many themes, characters, and scenes teased in the two movies (and in the trailers of Justice League) are completely eliminated for the sake of jokes and a 2-hours length.

To speak of some: we have the Codex (introduced by Jor-El in Man of Steel) that is rooted in Clark’s DNA, containing all of Krypton’s genetic data, that was going to be used as the reason why Superman could be resurrected (or wasn’t even dead to start with) with the Motherbox; then we have the total elimination of characters such as Darkseid, the main threat to the DC Universe, deleted to spare Steppenwolf of an on-screen death.

But, most of all, Warner Bros decided to erase from the movie all links to the Knightmare scene shown in Batman V Superman: a scene that was supposed to show how Superman, tempted by Darkseid, could have decided to be a God to mankind but instead choosing to be their protector.

We have lost, with the Theatrical Cut of Justice League, the characters of Martha Kent and Lois Lane, reduced to a damsel in distress that spits “thirsty” jokes to each other; we have lost all the backstory about Cyborg’s mother, the most important character in his mythology.

We also lost the comic-book accurate Batman that we got in Batman V Superman: before he was a man capable of killing Doomsday, after he becomes a man that in some scenes is inspiring Flash, in others, he quips jokes or funny faces just for the sake of comedy.

We also have a depowered and less important Wonder Woman, with a longer screen time but less important moments than in Batman v Superman.

Flash lost many scenes and his Iris West, Aquaman lost many scenes and Vulko; the Green Lanterns we were supposed to see were cut, Steppenwolf lost most of his backstory and character development, Superman lost his seriousness for the sake of some jokes.

Now, this is the argument I make from a personal point of view: the problem is that there is another part of the problem, a technical one, that needs to be discussed: the movie is technically ruined by Whedon’s work, and Elfman’s score also does more harm than good.

Snyder chose to shoot Justice League in a peculiar way: on film, with the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, with a particular palette (chosen with Fabian Wagner, Director of Photography) and with a distinct kind of music that was meant to continue the scores of Man of Steel and Batman V Superman (with Junkie XL).

With the principal photography completed, Junkie XL already had started to score the movie, effects had already been done and overall the movie was going to be completed without hurry, but with the tragedy that hit Snyder’s daughter, Autumn, and the pressure imposed by Warner Bros. to “lighten up” the movie, the only choice left for Snyder was to leave the Director’s chair for the reshoots wanted by WB to Joss Whedon, that had already spoken to WB.

Whedon was hired to complete the movie reshooting a large portion of it, lightening it up, shortening it down and making it more “family friendly”, and did so while bringing Danny Elfman for the score (effectively firing Junkie XL): Elfman chose to scrap all the work already done from Junkie XL with the old Superman and Batman themes and instead decided to use the classical themes of both heroes from “Superman: The Movie” and 1989’s “Batman”; not only he cut off all the ties with the previous scores (aside from the Wonder Woman theme and a 10 second use of a Zimmer theme) but he also had to score Justice League without actually having seen the movie that, because of the long reshoots, wasn’t finished and se he was only given storyboards to work with.

Whedon, on the other hand, had to face the issues of lightening up the movie with both reshoots and actual color correction, making night scenes day scenes (like the League V Superman scene): these reshoots were done in a really bad way, with actors having schedule issues, Whedon himself choosing not to shoot on film but on digital (and with the ratio of 2.39:1 that afterwards needed to be adapted to 1.85:1), using body-doubles for some scenes, green screen instead of actual sets and worse of all having to CGI out Henry Cavill’s moustache.

During the movie is very easy to discern which shots are Snyder’s and which are Whedon’s mainly for those reasons: it’s also noticeable that many scenes, shown in the trailers, were completely reshot with actors in a different body shape (mostly Affleck), with different clothes and with a completely different personality.

What is the most noticeable, though, is Cavill’s face. During most of his scenes you can see how his upper lip looks weird, moves without logic, has no deepness and most of all is rendered with a different texture than Cavill’s real skin.

The whole scene when the League asks themselves if they should revive Superman was reshot, many Leaguers scenes were reshot or simply deleted, most of the Kent farm scenes were reshot, nearly all of Amy Adam’s and Diane Lane’s scenes were reshot and the big majority of Superman’s scenes were reshot: this makes the movie feel like the monster of Frankenstein because, as I previously said, there are some scenes shot on film with a peculiar aspect ratio, others with a totally different aspect and in digital, others with Henry Cavill and his CGI’d out moustache, others with some blatant green screen, others with a serious tone and others with a 180° turn from that tone.

So, why the Snyder Cut?

To me, we need the Snyder Cut because the movie we got is an insult to what Cinema is: Cinema is Art, and the product we got only feels like a work not even amateurs would like to produce.

We have some shots looking in a way and telling a story and then we have some other shots completely different and narrating another story, we have a mandate for a shorter film to earn more money with more screenings, we have a tonal correction to appeal to critics (that still trashed this movie).

The Justice League Zack Snyder shot should see the light of day because the one we got is an insult to movies, to the respect Directors deserve and to their abilities.

And, personally, I want the Snyder Cut because, after two of the best comic-book movies ever made, I felt destroyed by seeing my favorite director being tied to a product that isn’t his in such a sad way that the movie doesn’t even acknowledge the memory of his daughter Autumn.

The Snyder Cut should be a signal, to all studios, that fans are the one that makes a movie live or die: not a group of people with accounts on websites like Rotten Tomatoes.

We want to see how the Last Son of Krypton, the Man of Steel, saved the world with the Justice League.

Not how WB chopped his story to pieces for fear of hate.

Zack Snyder deserves this.

Massimiliano Orione