We’re going to hear about the Snyder Cut of Justice League until the end of time or until it gets released, whichever comes first. The latest point being made about its differences from the theatrical version is a confirmation of the use of time travel.
Snyder has continually drip-fed morsels about his original vision for the superhero team-up, each one further convincing fans that it would have been infinitely superior to the garbled mess of a movie that was released in cinemas. An image declaring “Happy 214” (referring to the Snyder Cut’s purported runtime and celebrated on February 14th) that sees two versions of the Flash running across the scene as a bolt of speedster lightning streaks from the sky, got fans talking, and one asked about its significance to the final film.
Confirmed!#ReleaseTheSnyderCut https://t.co/ZCAbTuFfo7 pic.twitter.com/VOV066BndS
— Brandon Valenza (@The_Meatball_84) February 15, 2020
In the original climax of Justice League, the plan was to have the heroes initially fail to stop Steppenwolf’s goal of performing the Unity on the Mother Boxes and begin the terraforming of Earth into an imitation of Apokolips. Flash would have then used his newfound time travel capabilities to send Cyborg back in time and into one of the boxes, thereby able to better utilize his technopathy to interface with them and prevent their use for destruction.
The lack of time travel in the movie is an indication of some of the changes made from Snyder’s original vision for the film. An incongruous scene in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice sees the Flash appear from a Speed Force portal and provide a cryptic warning to Batman about Lois Lane’s importance and his obligation to locate “the others,” and was never given the expected payoff in the follow up movie.
To actually release the Justice League Snyder Cut, for which its advocates incessantly clamor, would require an estimated tens of millions of dollars to complete the CGI work that went unfinished, something Warner Bros. are evidently loath to do given how much the film has already cost them and without anything in the way of a guaranteed return. Until such a time, we can add this to the list of things to be imagined in the film forever being built up in people’s heads.
