Yea, as the title says, there was never a Snyder Cut of Justice League was there? Remember when the Snyder Cut movement began? Every other week Zack Snyder was teasing fans that his seemingly superior version of Justice League was already there. We fans were led to believe that aside from a few finishing touches there was an almost complete Snyder Cut of Justice League. However, that’s not really true. In fact, it simply cannot be true because the the current re-shoots for the Snyder Cut tell us a different story.

This week saw news that Jared Leto would be appearing in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. There is no way Leto was lined up to appear in Justice League prior to Snyder leaving the project. Not to mention that with most of the main cast coming back for more filming, it is pretty clear parts of Snyder’s vision were never filmed. That tells me there was no Snyder Cut in reality, or at least not one that would work as a feature film.

Cheating is Cheating

So, Snyder, and WB are kinda cheating here are they not? The fans clamor for a cut of a movie that does not exist. WB don’t have that movie but the former director teases they do. The fans then build it up as the superhero equivalent of The Shawshank Redemption and it gets to the point where WB realize there’s money to be made here. Cue the big announcement that finally we will get to see the Snyder Cut of Justice League. Oh, but now it’s going to be a show in HBO and split across roughly 4 hour long episodes. There won’t be any re-shoots, they announced that too if you remember, though that was before they announced the 4 hour cut.

This is a lie people, we are being fed this lie, and we don’t care. No one cares that there was never a Snyder Cut, because this is going to be a better film than The Dark Knight apparently. Yeah, about that, this is where I think WB, and Snyder get to cheat a bit. Every discussion, criticism, fan theory, fan do-over that has ever come out since Justice League hit theaters is out there. So Snyder kinda has the opportunity to release half his film, see what fans thought of it all and then remake it.

To me, that means even if it’s a decent film, it still doesn’t prove the Snyder Cut was The Godafther in disguise.

Reception

I am interested to see the reception that Snyder’s Justice League gets. For one, I’m a fan of comic book movies and I like the Justice League. I will admit I was not a fan of Batman V Superman, nor the Whedon cut of Justice League. However, if Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a better story, then I’m all for it. I am also intrigued to see how the Snyder fans react to it though. Frankly I think Snyder could film an hour of Batfleck doing a Rocky style training montage and the Snyder bots would go ga ga for it. That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong (who are we kidding, I’m not wrong).

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I just don’t want the rhetoric following Justice League‘s release on HBO Max to be about how amazing Snyder is. My reasons are stated above, I feel like it’s cheating. If Zack Snyder’s Justice League is great, I’ll say it’s great. I won’t however claim that this is the version we should have seen in theaters. After all, even the third The Lord of the Rings movie wasn’t a four hour movie. Part of the skill in making a movie is trimming it down in the editing suite. Snyder almost does not have to do that here. In fact, what is clear is that Snyder is having to film additional scenes to fill out that four hour time-frame.

The Final Word

Look, I’m not saying Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a bad idea. It’s a great idea, it sells HBO Max to subscribers. If it works, it works. I’m happy Snyder is getting this opportunity, I really am. I just want to temper this momentous occasion by pointing out the obvious smoke and mirrors. There was never a Snyder Cut of Justice League. There might have been 75%, or even higher of a Snyder Cut, but there was no almost completed film sitting on the cutting room floor. So all I ask, is that we dispense with the smoke and mirrors. Call Zack Snyder’s Justice League what it is, a do-over.

After that, we can judge this new project for what it is, not what it was supposed be. Do you agree with my logic? There was never a Snyder Cut of Justice League, argue your case if you disagree in the usual spot below.

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